LIPS

This was my way of slowly moving toward needing to stand on my own two feet. However, I had no clue at the time where the universe was taking me, and life was shifting quickly.

It was only a couple of days after this conversation when the word “Hi” came through the chat of the word game. This mysterious man I only knew through a photo and the games we continued to play. Bowie could be fake, for all I knew. I mean, was Bowie even his real name? The usual paranoia I have was surfacing, but not enough to stop me from talking to him.

He asked to move to another messenger off the game. I knew, from the masses of men I had heard about from my girlfriends, this was the next move. I wasn’t ready.

“You could be a serial killer,” I said to him one night.

“I could be, but it hasn’t stopped you talking to me.”

Cheeky, I thought of him to say. This response put me off for a couple of days before saying yes.

“I am going to wait a bit. I don’t know you well enough,” I said.

My body and heart were saying something completely different. Bowie had me curious, the kind of curious where you look at your phone several times a day to see if he had sent a message.

“That’s the whole point in moving to a messenger. We can send pics and such,” he texted.

“I will think about it :)” I texted back, waiting for his response.

“I can wait. However long you need.”

And just then, two game invites popped onto my screen.

“Two?” I asked.

“Yeh, let’s make it interesting. I win both, you move to messenger,” he sent followed with a playful emoji. I could tell he felt a bit proud of himself for suggesting this idea.

I looked at his photo while reading his text. Oh dear. He knew how to get to me. I liked a good challenge. His crooked smile and the little devious sparkle in his eyes—I knew I was in for it. This man spoke my language and challenged me. I paused, smiling.

“Deal. You win both, I move to messenger. You lose, you wait.”

I figured, how hard could it be to win, as I had already been winning so far.

I threw down a word, and not thirty seconds later, he put down “SEX” on a triple word score.

Geezus. He was in it to win it.

“Um, were you holding onto that before you made the bet?” I asked, laughing a bit.

“Won’t say. Just that I have a bet to win,” he said, followed by a wink emoji. Fine. He’s playing hardball.

I looked at my letters, not too fabulous: C-A-R-O-O-M-L. Ugh. Moo? No. Rooms? Not enough points. I could try “carol” going down. I threw down “carol” and hit submit. Again, not even 30 seconds went by, and this time he built off my word with “labia.” What the actual?! “Labia?!?! Are you kidding me?” Not only was he beating me by over 70 points, he was relishing in it by sticking to his sexual theme. I was frustrated and oddly feeling more of a pull toward this stranger. I put down another word, and he quickly responded with “rim.” Okay… he’s losing some ground. This is my chance.

He texted back, “😈.”

I put down a 36-point word. All I needed to do was slowly catch him. The next game popped up. We were playing two at once. He opened the new game with “Crush.” How does he do this? I had tried, it was not easy. He probably uses this tactic with a bunch of women. This is a man who knows what he is doing, and I am completely falling for it. Great. He probably is a crazy person. He texted again when he hadn’t heard back:
“You’re way cooler than I thought you’d be. I saw your black-and-white striped top hat with long red hair and thought this girl is cool, but nope, much cooler.”

I smiled widely. He was slowly making his way into my mind, and his photo was urging me to know more.

“Thank you. As are you… I think.” I wasn’t putting full commitment in yet.

“You think?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet. Again, serial killer, rapist…” I repeated.

“If I was any of those things, I wouldn’t have the patience. I don’t even know where you live. You could be on the other side of the world.” He did make a point.

“I live in North America,” I responded. No way was I telling him where yet. “What time zone are you in?”

“Are you trying to figure out where I live?” he asked.

“Maybe. Just in case, ya know for safety reasons.”

“In case of?”

“In case you are a crazy person.”

“Right, okay. I am on CST time. What does that tell you?”

I searched the map as he continued bouncing the games back to me. I was losing and I knew it was just a matter of time before I had to surrender to the messenger app.

“Midwest?”

“Texas,” he said.

“I have family from Texas.” I immediately felt silly. Why am I saying that?

“So, where are you?”

I had fallen into that. Now there was no way out but telling him. Fair play.

“I am in the Pacific Northwest.” That was as specific as I was going to get.

“Seattle?” he immediately texted.

“I used to live there,” I said.

“I was born there,” he replied. Okay… he is opening up more. “I think you need to look at the one game,” he sent a smile emoji. The man had a thing for emoji’s.

“Fuck me,” I said aloud, staring at my phone and quickly apologizing to the older lady next to me. “Sorry,” I said, pretending I was talking to a friend on the phone. She nodded, looking at me disapprovingly. He had just wiped me out, no way to catch up on the first game. “LIPS,” using multiple words down for extra points. Ugh. I think he had let me win prior to these games. 

“Lost for words?” he texted, not hearing back from me. I was too engrossed in the fact I had lost the deal.

“No, no. I agreed,” I said reluctantly with my tail between my legs. “Sigh, I will go on messenger.”

“I don’t want to push you to do something you don’t want to do,” he said suddenly looking all gentlemanly.

“I agreed, so we’re doing it,” and I sent him my profile info. Not a minute later, I received “Hi” again on what would be the only place we would text for the next several months.