prudishness.
Michael was right; it was a good job. There was an egregiousness to the breasts, and too much perfection; even so, I thought, mine were better. But if my legs had been that long, I’d have given up archaeology for the stage, and there was a slight awkwardness to the neck where the image of my head had been attached. I didn’t recognize the picture itself, but the hair was long, so it had to be from a while ago. Years, maybe. And why was my head back, eyes closed…I dislike having my picture taken, so I usually try to compose myself. This was a candid; I was laughing. But in this context, it looked like sexual ecstasy.
I put the picture aside and picked up the note, which Michael had been cautious enough to put in an acid-free document holder. I pulled it out, and read it. Again, he’d been correct; there were elements that one could argue were stylistically similar to mine—whoever had written this was familiar with my work—and there were certain quirks of punctuation and word use that were reminiscent of my writing. I seriously doubted, however, that if I’d written this note, I would have been quite so…rooted…in my academic persona.
And the porn wasn’t anything like my personal fantasy life.
That cheered me up. Whoever was doing this might know a lot about me, might know that I favored certain words, but didn’t know diddly about the real me, inside me. What was private—really private—was still safe.
I thought about giving Marty a call, telling her about this, and then realized that I couldn’t. I still hadn’t heard back from her. Ditto with Bucky. I actually thought about calling Michael back, but it wasn’t really the kind of thing I could talk about with him.
Brian came in from work and glanced at the pile of papers. “What’s that? Holy—!”
As his eyes widened, I resisted the urge to cover up the picture. After all, if several total or near strangers had already seen it, then who was I to hide it from Brian?
I handed him a pair of gloves. “This was sent to Michael Glasscock. You know, the guy from Shrewsbury a couple of years ago?”
He looked at the gloves, then shrugged and put them on. His eyes went straight back to the picture. “The one who came over, just as we got the news about Sophia being born? Yeah, I remember. We left him, he almost set fire to the house trying to cook a hotdog, and then he drank all the good bourbon. But why—?”
“The same reason someone would send flowers to your mother, meat to my father, and chocolates to my mother. Screw with me.”
Brian looked thoughtful. “Yeah, but…why couldn’t this all be from Michael?”
“Huh? Because it isn’t, that’s why.”
“Hell, Em, the guy’s a flake. Remember the first time I saw him? He was sleeping on the floor of the living room, in his raincoat. I mean, he’s not normal. And you’ve always said he was a bit of a pervert.”
“I said he was obsessed with women. Pervert is different.”
“Okay, tell me the difference.”
“Brian, will you stop peeing on my parade? It wasn’t Michael. He’s living with Sasha—”
“How do you know?”
“He told me.”
Brian let that hang between us for a while.
“He wouldn’t do something like this,” I repeated, but then I remembered what Michael’d said about stalking women years ago…he was the outlier in all these occurrences, after all. And what if he’d sent the image to himself as a matter of indirection?
Brian shrugged. “Why not? You told me he was spending all his time looking at nude images in the library. I wouldn’t cross him off your list so easily.”
I tried to find the reasons. “I’m not his type. I’m too…ordinary. And besides, he’d be way more obvious. He’s not the sort to do something…as coy as this.”
“I still think you’re giving him too much credit. It’s a possibility, isn’t it?
“Fine. I know Michael better than you, that should count for something. And I can call up and talk to Sasha. Find out if he’s actually with her.”
“Like living with someone would prevent him from doing this.” He picked up the cellophane envelope. “Why all the shrouds? Covers? A bit like a striptease, isn’t it?”
I looked at him; it was not the sort of thing he’d come up with on his own.
“Hey, I took English in college,” he said defensively. “I know how those guys think. All layers and revealing and stuff.”
“He put it in