Sebastian was dying to initiate a conversation, to see what he could do now that he had control. But it was nearly four in the morning and Malcolm knew Mary had children she had to get off to school. She also worked, which meant she was rarely up this late.

“Don’t break the pattern,” he warned himself. But he couldn’t continue to nudge Malcolm along at a leisurely pace; he needed to draw him out, make him commit.

Ignoring caution, Sebastian clicked on the WhosYourDaddy screen name. Brandon just woke up with the flu. Poor kid, he typed.

No, kid should be baby. Baby would sound more feminine. Using the backspace key, he made the change. And now I can’t go back to sleep.

He sent it, but there was no response. “Come on,” he murmured. “Forget whatever porn site you’re on and take the bait. Don’t you care about poor little Brandon?”

Sebastian adjusted his chair so he could stretch his legs. He’d been sitting too long. “Of course you don’t care about Brandon,” he said, settling in again. “You don’t care about anyone but yourself.”

After another five minutes, he made a second attempt. I keep thinking about you. Maybe that’s the real reason I can’t sleep. I get so lonely at night.

He waited…and waited. No response.

With a curse, he turned to the transcripts and skimmed through the exchanges he hadn’t reread. A lot of these conversations had taken place last September before Mary realized she was dealing with someone other than WhosYourDaddy represented himself to be, but they offered insight to the man’s psyche.

WhosYourDaddy: Are you as hot as you were when you were sixteen?

BrownEyedGirl: You don’t know?

WhosYourDaddy: I haven’t seen you for years.

BrownEyedGirl: I’ve sent you pictures. You’re the one who hasn’t sent me any pics. Where are they, by the way?

WhosYourDaddy: I lost my camera. I’ll get one taken soon, though.

Sebastian paged through to find the Xeroxed picture Malcolm had eventually sent. It was of a man handsome enough to be appealing but regular enough to be believable-a smart choice, and probably no one Malcolm even knew. Sebastian’s guess was that Malcolm had taken a snapshot of some random guy and used the picture to satisfy Mary’s curiosity. Or he’d bought a stock photo.

Setting it aside, he went back to reading.

BrownEyedGirl: Do it tomorrow. I want to see who I’m talking to.

WhosYourDaddy: You know who you’re talking to.

BrownEyedGirl: No, I don’t. I still can’t remember meeting you at Joe’s party.

WhosYourDaddy: You really know how to hurt a guy’s ego. I guess I didn’t stand out.

BrownEyedGirl: There were, like…two hundred kids at Joe’s house that night. And I had a boyfriend, so I wasn’t paying much attention.

WhosYourDaddy: I remember your boyfriend. What was his name again?

BrownEyedGirl: Malcolm Turner.

WhosYourDaddy: That’s right. You were really into him.

BrownEyedGirl: No joke. I was head over heels.

WhosYourDaddy: Lucky guy.

BrownEyedGirl:

WhosYourDaddy: Have you seen him lately?

BrownEyedGirl: No. We lost touch when we graduated.

WhosYourDaddy: Do you know what became of him?

BrownEyedGirl: No idea.

WhosYourDaddy: You think about him sometimes, though, don’t you?

BrownEyedGirl: Sometimes.

WhosYourDaddy: If you’d married him, maybe you’d still be married. Maybe your kids would be his.

BrownEyedGirl: I doubt we would’ve made it. He cheated on me with Sherry Stewart. I caught them together in the bedroom at Dennis Marchant’s house. Broke my heart.

WhosYourDaddy: Only an idiot would cheat on someone as beautiful as you.

“Were you that idiot?” Sebastian asked and turned the page.

BrownEyedGirl: They got together after I broke up with him, but it didn’t last long.

WhosYourDaddy: I met her once. She wasn’t half as pretty as you.

BrownEyedGirl: Thanks. I never could understand what he saw in her.

WhosYourDaddy: She was a slut, and at that age, a guy thinks with his dick. He’s dealing with too many hormones to know when he’s got a good thing.

BrownEyedGirl: Does that ever really change? LOL

WhosYourDaddy: I’d never risk losing someone like you, that’s for sure. Were you giving it up to Malcolm?

“You already know, don’t you?” Sebastian said. “You just like thinking about it, talking about it.”

BrownEyedGirl: You can guess the answer to that question.

WhosYourDaddy: You did.

BrownEyedGirl: It’s not like I was easy. We were together for two years.

WhosYourDaddy: Would you make me wait that long before you let me touch you?

BrownEyedGirl: That depends.

WhosYourDaddy: On what?

BrownEyedGirl: On my level of trust.

WhosYourDaddy: You can trust me, babe.

BrownEyedGirl: I’d like to think so.

WhosYourDaddy: Do you ever talk to Sherry Stewart?

Sebastian checked his computer screen. Still no response from Malcolm.

BrownEyedGirl: Never. Not since that night.

WhosYourDaddy: What about your other friends from high school?

“Wondering what she’s heard about you?” Sebastian asked. WhosYourDaddy was always probing. Sometimes it was just more subtle than at other times.

BrownEyedGirl: Not really. My best friend died of cancer while we were in college. That’s when I realized I wanted something deeper than most of the people I’d hung out with in high school seemed to want. They were still partying on the weekends and screwing around. It was time for me to get serious about life. That’s when I met Jimmy.

WhosYourDaddy: At UC Berkeley?

BrownEyedGirl: Yep.

WhosYourDaddy: Did you go back to San Antonio after college?

BrownEyedGirl: No, we stayed in California to be near his family.

WhosYourDaddy: So you haven’t been to Texas in how long?

BrownEyedGirl: Years. My parents moved to Portland while I was at Berkeley, so there’s never been any reason to go back.