Do You Really Want To Know?

I first saw it sticking out of his back pocket, just the edges of it. He got up from pizza when we heard a drip... I was watching him look under the sink for a leak, appreciating one round cheek under his worn out, pink showing through string-bare butt jeans- then noting the other side was dense,flat and hanging low. Not a wallet, I clocked it. And after that, each time I looked, it was always in there.

Feeling I was lucky to get him (picture random girl, medium brown hair- length and color, ten pounds of slightly shape-dulling weight, glare-y glasses) and feeling always that he was way above my league (how could I not with the way women turned, waitresses took long, deep, close orders), it took all I could muster each day in this early stage of my not quite cemented “relationship” (I quotation that because I didn’t really know him and he definitely didn’t know me) status to not look through his things while he showered or ran downstairs.

That first snapshot of the book, it’s worn black crown barely rising from above his back pocket, kept reappearing before my eyes in all my glazed over, spaced out moments I fell into throughout each day to drown out my co-workers or actually anybody, I’ve always been kind of a recluse within a crowd- it’s a miracle I would even land any boyfriend rather than just staring out a window not seeing while I imagined one.

He was, physically, exactly what I always configured in my mind with mixed model parts. It was stunning the first time I saw him and realized I was actually SEEING something in real life, something real I wanted. Tall, longish dark hair, stubble, blue eyes. So embarrassing how “normal” and typical I actually am deep down, just shallow I guess in admiring a “handsome” man and sort of reveling in how crazy I could get one. Since then, in my minds eyes, all I saw was bits of him all day, with occasional and unwelcome faces and voices breaking in to my hidden chamber.

But since I saw the book, the back of him stubbornly appeared to me, never the front. I tried to envision all his lines, his scent- stubble, dimples- his body- back muscles rising, perfect forearms and hands- but only that half-ass, half mystery snapshot would appear. Just like before, ha ha, I wanted to get into his pants, but it was that book I wanted. What was in it? Why was he always keeping it close - to hide something from me?

I started to plan how and when to get it.

Three weeks later, after timing his showers long enough to assuage my mission fear, I did it.

I think I hoped I would find his secret thoughts, that they would be of me, that I would find the words to cement the shaky foundation I always felt might fall beneath my feet. Of course, I can admit that a deeper part of me knew I was looking for the coming wound because he did hold those waitress gazes long himself- he did appear and disappear in holes of time as mysterious to me as what was inside him.

What I found were numbers. Phone numbers. With a single initial before each one. My heart started racing, actual pain in my chest. Girls, of course. Maybe not, yes duh, of course... my mind spun a wheel of possibilities that kept clicking to a stop on Girls.

I only had about six minutes- what to do? I grabbed a pen and an old cable bill and copied one down.

Immediately, a bell rung, like an oven timer or phone alert. I fell back and dropped the book, scrambling to grab it and replace it in his jeans as I heard the shower stop. Between the pages, I noticed a 20 dollar bill slipped out. Hearing the bathroom door open, I could only manage to shove the book back into its backside hidey hole and crumple the 20 into my bra.

I spent hours after he went to work dying to call that number. I was too scared so I just imagined doing it over and over with every possible result, imagining every possible agony that would come to me.

That night, he returned from work smelling of alcohol. I’d spent hours in imaginings of angry confrontations after imaginings of horrible discoveries that would come from my detective work. I’d also been gripped with fear I was nuts and would ruin everything when he noticed his 20 missing and realized I must have been the one who took it.

I was shaking, waiting for him to take a shower so I could replace it. He even asked me what was wrong... I said what I always say to keep people out of my weird world- nothing. He did tell me he grabbed a drink after work with the new bar back. And he did then pass out in his clothes... yay! I pushed him a few times, his intoxicating breath dizzying me, already drunk on adrenaline and schemes.

I carefully pinched the edges of the book and froze there- a bizarre tableau of a pathetic and insecure idiot and her unconscious prey. He didn’t stir so I slowly pulled it out. I already had a pen handy. I guess you can probably already tell it’s so me to steal a number I couldn’t bring myself to call, then follow up by stealing more numbers I probably wouldn’t call either.

I scribbled the next initial and number on the cable bill ($287. 56- are you serious?) right under the first one: E- 774- 3175, then M- 727- 1449.

And the bell rang again. He startled! His eyes opened! But they had that creepy look of eyes that somehow accidentally opened when someone was still asleep, unseeing. He rolled belly down, made some weird throat gurgling noise and that was it.

My heart must have been at 300 beats. But it drew back down to slow and strong steely secret agent quickly, my confidence and pleasure, yup, pleasure at actually living in one of my negative fantasies, taking hold.

“Fucking asshole!” I thought. “Piece of shit cheating prick! I knew it!” Obviously he had some kind of alarm on it! Some sort tech-y little Amazon device for cheaters. I put a pillow over the book and turned the flashlight on my phone. I stuck my head halfway under too, ready to scribble down every freaking number in there, or at least that page. L-774-1990... ding! S- 216-2200... ding! B- 216-5770... ding! Y- 886- 1157... ding. Each time, I smothered the fucking book with the pillow. Each time I popped my head up to check like a gopher on crack. Dumbass lying douchebag was still out. Who were these bitches... I saw a kaleidoscope of waitress faces and felt like punching each one- L, S, B,Y... Linda? Susan? Beth-y?” Yo-yo? What the fuck name starts with Y anyway?

Okay. Well now I felt like I would explode. Because the thrill was fading into black self-loathing faster than a line of cheap coke. I would not risk embarrassment and worse, losing him, over the brief satisfaction of using those numbers. So now what?!!!!

Well, now, my mind felt like it had only one directive- tear thar fucking black notebook apart and find his sneaky fucking spy ware and shove it up his nose. Or not... what would I do? I wanted him... not... well not not wanted him. Could I make him jealous? Could I stop and think and find the way the imaginary me who actually won something would do?

I went back under the pillow and aimed my phone light at it. A small pile of green bills lay beneath it... 4 20’s on counting. Something compelled me to snatch the bills and quickly hide the evidence. What kind of trick was this?!!! Clever! So when you activate it, it not only rings... it releases a 20 to tempt you to take it. What else? Had it photographed me? Taken my prints? How did this thing work?

I shoved him a little again, then carefully pushed the book back into his pocket. I rolled into my back and Googled “spy devices” and “money book guard” on my phone. I couldn’t find anything quite like this.

His phone! That was it... I could go through his history, his orders on Amazon.

I recalled seeing him put his phone down on the kitchen counter. I tiptoed out, then ran to grab it. Well, what do you think? You know by now I watched him do his code over his shoulder when I pretended to get up to close the shade. And I put it in now and opened that bitch up, bam!

So... literally, bam.

A light I cannot describe as “bright” because it was more like nuclear blast sort of, like, flew out! I felt my bones flash, I don’t know how to put it, kind of like when a human turns into a cartoon in movies. The next thing I saw was him shuffling into the living room, picking up his phone off the carpet and shaking his head. And that’s when I found out a few things- for one... irony! This spy was spying on an actual spy. That there are bigger mysteries than, say, what’s going on inside your stupid boyfriends head.

That there are actually other dimensions, huh! He was from one, and boom! I was in one.

I watched him disappear back into the bedroom and come back with the little black book. Of course- he knew I clocked his phone code. He knew I’d try the book- boobytraps!

He sat down, looking not the least bit sad I was gone and made a call.

“Y”, he said. “I’m heading home now.”

And then he vanished.

And that’s how I wound up disappointed and disincorporated with $100 bucks I’d never spend.