I came home to the worst night of my life. There might be a few to rival it in the Curtian memory: my mother dying comes to mind first. But that night was pure. I was devastated and broken. That night was the most pain I felt, emotionally, maybe. But this night, this was worse because I not only felt pain, I was the cause of it. Pain for me and my wife. Got the pain wrapped up with the guilt. Yes, this night takes the belt for worst night ever. When I came in the door I saw Sharon & Miss Ella sitting in the kitchen. Sharon’s eyes were puffy and red; she had been crying. There were a box of tissues on the table and a batch of freshly made pecan cookies. Miss Ella waved me over to the kitchen table and a chair. I moved and sat like I was told. I don’t remember everything from that night- there are some CUTS- but I do remember Miss Ella looking at me right then and saying: “A northern fairytale starts with ‘Once Upon a Time.’ A southern fairytale begins with: ‘You ain't gonna believe this shit.”

She smiled ruefully and took a cookie. “You in a very southern fairy tale, Mr. Curt. And you got Sharon wrapped up in it too.” Sharon wasn’t looking at me. She had her face down, still sniffling a little. Miss Ella looked at her kindly and asked: “You want to tell him who called you tonight?” Sharon nodded but didn’t start to speak for almost a minute. “He called me Curt.” I couldn’t think of any “he” who would mean anything to me so I asked: “Who called you?” ‘Don’t!” Was all she said. I sat there stupefied. I was trying to engage in life here, with them, but I didn’t know what she was talking about. It was a strange feeling, being back in the world, with people, in my home. I liked it. I liked this normal, wondering and conversation. I think I must’ve smiled and that set Sharon off. “Your Boy called me! He told me he was ‘learning’ and that you two are going away!”

I got a sharp shock of guilt that she knew I was planning to go away. That was the first thing that registered. Sharon saw it and started crying again. Miss Ella held her hand. I sat there looking at Sharon. I was back in this world and my wife was crying. I made her cry. This is bad. I gotta fix this. “I…” was all that came out. I tried again, knowing I had to do something here; human interaction demanded that I say something to my crying wife. “I don’t want to leave you….” I hadn’t expected to say that and wasn’t sure I believed it, but I had said it so, we were here. I just told my wife I am leaving; even if I said I don’t want to go. Now what? I started to speak again just to try and make sense of what was going on. “Sharon, I…Sharon, I don’t know what you are talking about.” Miss Ella’s head shot up to look at me with disgust and some real aggression. Sharon stared at me for a moment through her tears, got up slowly and left the room. She was defeated by my honesty, then cowardice. She couldn’t stand to be in the same room with her husband who was such a sniveling, lying, unfaithful, cowardly man.

Miss Ella watched her go, then turned to look at me. Her eyes seemed bigger inside her round face. The pupils were browner and the white, tinged with some yellow, around them were like egg white around the frying hot yoke of her eye staring at me. I wilted, probably mumbled something and waited. If you want to damn me or say I got what I deserved, here’s your reason. I wouldn’t move to comfort my wife crying in the other room who I had betrayed and just sat there, like a fool, under the gaze of her best friend; I didn’t do anything. Just sat there, damned and waiting for the ax to drop. Maybe Sharon would come out of the bedroom with a bag packed and I would watch her go; maybe I would sit here until I starved to death while Mrs Ella looked at me like a piece of wood burning up in my grandma’s wood stove. Splitting, cracking, jumping in the flames consuming me but never moving, never trying to get out of the fires.

“The boy, Corey, called her today; said he was your student, you were having an affair and that you was taking him to New Orleans to start a new life with him.” The look of shock on my face prompted her to almost laugh. “I know,” Miss Ella said, “Boy said Sharon could come along too but couldn’t be part of the family in the big house. Told your wife, she would need to live in the quarters and be your slave. You plan to keep Sharon ass your slave?” Mrs Ella looked at me deeply here - she needed the answer to this question, I was not going to get away with shocked, cowardly silence. This was a dangerous look. If I answered wrong or tried to stay silent there were going to be rapid, probably physical, repercussions. I was scared into speaking: “I don’t want Sharon to be a slave.” Miss Ella kept staring with that right below the surface rage shooting out of her eyes. She needed more confirmation on this: “You are not planning to take Sharon? You best be very clear with me now Curt. Best tell me the truth now.” I believed her: “No, Miss Ella. I never planned to take Sharon.” She looked deeply, checking down through my eyes and into my guts to make sure I was telling all the truth I knew. She sat back, satisfied about this, at least. “Alright, Curt. I believe you. Good thing I do.”

She took a cookie off the plate and nibbled at one as she powered down from whatever she had planned to do to me if I had been planning to take Sharon away. “She like a little sister to me, you know. Can’t abide anything like that happening to her.” She kept nibbling, talking to herself more than me. “Woulda had to do something there and I don’t rightly know what it would be.” She smiled at this and looked up at me. “You know I was fixin’ to do you some serious hurt Curt; you know that right?” I must’ve nodded. Miss Ella kept that sharp smile on her face and went on: “You used to be a smart man. You know.” A few more nibbles of her cookie and she was back to business. “Now, this boy called Sharon and I heard. I heard...something... from the other room. You know why she screamed and dropped the phone? I heard it through the door, cause I come running when I heard that something on the other end of that Facetime call, Curt. I heard that thing making sucking sounds. Like when a man gets on your neck in the heat of it and starts to bite and suck too hard cause the rest of his body is stiffening up for the shoot. That’s the sound I heard comin through the other side of the call. And I ran when Sharon screamed. Burst in the door and saw her fallen on the floor, up against the wall, staring at the phone across the room. I looked at the screen, couldn't see clearly from so far away, but...coulda sworn I saw something that looked like a hornets nest. Brown, with that soft gauzy stuff they wrap round and round till it gets huge and hard. A hornets nest but with somethin’ wet dripping off it.”

“The image on the phone cut out. Your boy had done his business and left. He left Sharon sittin’ there trembling against the wall. I calmed her down; truth to tell I needed calming myself after what I’d seen on that screen but I had to be there for my girl so, I focused on her, got her settled and listened when she told me bout’ that call. And then at the end, after she told me what the boy said, your wife told me the worst part, Curt. That part I might’ve hurt you over if you was plannin’ to take her. She said she wasn't scared of what the boy said, Curt. She was scared of how it made her feel. See, it made her feel like she wanted to be his slave. “ Miss Ella took a moment here and looked deep in me again before she spoke: “But, you know all bout’ that don’t you? Wanting to be it’s slave. You been puttin’ the chains on, haven’t you? Putin’ them on and lockin’ them tight.” I nodded. There was nothing to hide now and Miss Ella was not going to let me lie so, what was the point? She nodded and went on: “Yea, this boy got you binding yourself up tight. Tell me bout him.”

I noticed for the first time, that she kept saying: “Boy.” Before I could correct her, Miss Ella went on: “This boy come to you and is doing things with you. But you gave him something to start, right? You gave him something the first time, didn’t you Curt?” I must’ve shook my head like: “no” because she got disgusted and sucked her teeth. “You gave him a token Curt, come on now, we know about it! You gave him a token before the first time or else he wouldn’t be able to keep coming. What did you give him?” My shocked silence made her even more disgusted and she stood up to stretch her back. I think she was also trying to move a pace away so she wouldn’t reach across the table and slap me senseless. “Curt, you are in the hands of something you don’t even know bout’ and it is important I know the whole story so I can try to get you out. What did you give the boy?” “She is not a boy. She is… Her.” After I said this, Miss Ella paused for a second then said: “Well, at least Sharon don’t got to worry that you were on the down low. Guess that’s something.”

“Came to Sharon as a man- yea, that makes sense too. Come to Sharon, looking like what she would be attracted to. Right? Makes perfect sense. We got to make the sense where we can, right?” She was talking more to herself than me, but I answered anyway: “I love Her.” Miss Ella turned to me and said: “I hope you talkin bout your wife, but I bet you aint..” A wave of sadness and fear washed over me. For a moment, I saw myself, sitting in my kitchen telling my wife’s best friend that I loved another woman. I was suddenly a small, scared man again. Back in my body and cold. How did it get so cold? I shivered. Miss Ella saw it. “Cold? Yea, I bet you are. Cold right down to the deepest part of you where that boy, or girl or whatever it is showin itself to you as- right down where it dug it’s claws into you. Opened up a hole in you and the cold is just rushing in, ain’t it? I bet it is Curt, I bet it is. And I want to feel sorry for you, but you hurt my girl. You understand?” Miss Ella paused and stretched again before she went on.

“You are being taken, Curt. Whatever you think you are laying with, it ain’t a girl. It was a long time ago, but the years have changed her. She’s a thing now. And this thing came to your wife today. You might’ve given up hope for your own soul, but you are damn sure gonna listen now, because I am not gonna let that thing take Sharon’s. Ya hear? We are not going to let this thing take your wife, Curt! I’m gonna tell you who she was and what she is now. I hope you believe me and will help us. But if you don’t….Anyway, let me tell you what you are layin’ with.

“She started as a girl, probably looked something like what you see today. I don’t know though; it seems she changes herself to look like whatever the person she is trying to seduce wants to see. For Sharon today it was ‘Corey’ cause’... well, that is the flavor she likes.” Miss Ella took another cookie and went on. “Your father saw it as ‘Carina’ cause that’s the flavor he liked. Did he tell you about her. Curt? Man to man, in a weak moment maybe? While ya’ll were in your cups comiseratin’ bout’ how hard it is bein’ a man in this world?” I must’ve shook my head because she went on. “Hmmm, I woulda thought he would try to explain himself; make his son know how he got took by a woman and it wasn’t his fault. That’s the way ain’t it? Can’t take responsibility… .” “I didn’t talk to my father much. After he left.” Miss Ella nodded. “Course you didn’t. Why would you? And why would he warn you- he didn’t know what was goin on; maybe he didn’t know at first. Bet he knew by the end when he went away with her. Bet he knew then. And didn’t care.” “He never cared about me or my brother.” Miss Ella looked at me with a note of sadness for the first time.

“I bet he did, Curt. I bet he cared before he met her. He mighta had all kinds of weakness, but she took him away from you- made him not care. I’m gettin’ off course, sorry. I’m talking about men in the normal world. This ain’t the normal world we are dealin’ with. I just thought he woulda tried to tell his son. ‘Carina’ met your father on that riverboat in Memphis. You you knew that right?” I nodded. “It came to him as a prostitute on that riverboat. She found it funny, that it was so easy to get him like that. A direct sale. Nothin hidden, cept’ the real cost for her charms. Didn’t know it when he first saw her comin up to him at the slot machines. Didn’t know why he couldn’t take his eyes off her as she came across the deck of that old boat towards him. When she sat down at the machine next to his and pulled out a coin and held it in the air. The light danced off that coin and drew his eyes away from her for a second as she spun it around in her fingers. Then she dropped it on the ground and it rolled under the machines into the dark. She pouted her little lips and looked soooo sad. Your father just had to make that sad look go away. He had to do anything he could right then and there, to make her happy again. So he took a coin out of his pocket and offered it to her. Gave her his token so she would smile again.”

Miss Ella had a site up on the computer. It was a blog with no ads or pictures of any kind. Just words, spilling out on the page in black over the harsh white glow of the screen. I don’t know how they found it, I mean how Miss Ella and Sharon- I don’t know how they found the site and since I can’t ask either of them, guess I never will. But there it was- Her diary. The only paragraph I read said: “But niggers are the same stupid, foul, lustful beasts they were when I knew them first and this one fell to me the same. He opened to me in a different way, but they are all the same! This one gave his money to women through their computer and made it easy for me to place myself before him, to tempt him and show for him; to make him wild with lust like all the niggers in his family before him, and come into him by his own invitation. He used the money from his day to buy tokens! And tokens are what he gave me so the deal with my master was satisfied.”

I’m going to rush through this and lay it out very clinically while I have the will. It’s obviously embarrassing but I need you to understand the process so you can see how I invited Her in. Online porn is vast and provides a bunch of different pleasures. I started out looking at the sites where you click on an image. Then I got into watching videos. I graduated to camgirls. You pay the company who manages the site and receive online tokens in exchange for real world money. You use these tokens to pay the girls to perform for you. The tokens in their accounts become real money for the cam girls when the company counts them up, takes it cut and pays out the girls. I sorted through a bunch of women of all different types; trying different things. Things I wanted to see. All the while giving out tokens to watch them do things with themselves or sometimes their partners. I mainly stuck with solo shows so I could feel they were performing for me. I gave tokens to many, many girls. I don’t know, to this day, which one was Her. She didn’t look like the young woman who transferred into my class and eventually met me in the basement but, one of them was Her. I gave Her a token somewhere over those five years of porn and invited her in.

Done. Now you know the particulars of how she got me. I’ll finish the worst night of my life and all that Miss Ella learned tomorrow. I’m tired and writing sucks. I’m going to bed. Just know that I may be a worthless, porn watching, weak man, but… I was going to say I never meant to hurt my wife. Yea, that’s true but it’s late and I’m too tired and angry to lie. I didn’t give a damn is the truth. I just wanted to get mine; didn’t care who got hurt.

***