Fall 2011 Challenge Entry #4

From Whitney Zeigler (member, Westside Writers)

She just had to know.

No, she didn’t, she told herself. She couldn’t click on his profile because the temptation to contact him would be too great.

Her hand clutched the mouse in a death grip; her finger hovered over the right click button.

“Gah!” she groaned and rested her forehead against the cool LED screen. I’m an idiot for even considering it! What am I thinking? Her right index finger dipped ever so slightly toward the button, then jerked away as if seared.

She was dying to know what he looked like now and whether he was married. Paranoid, she wondered if he’d already checked out her profile and knew everything about her, even the name of her cat, Fluffers. She would just peek, she told herself.

No, you are happily married, she scolded herself. But it doesn’t hurt to look…see what you’re not missing out on. Her face turned fuchsia as she recalled their last night together. They’d eaten dinner at their favorite restaurant, a French bistro called The Swan. After imbibing a bottle of cheap wine, fortified with only appetizers because they couldn’t afford an entrée, they’d lurched around the corner to his apartment.

She closed her eyes and sighed, remembering his tickling touch that raised goose bumps on her arms. Their bodies illuminated by moonlight from the skylight above. The slow, awkward start to their love making spiraling into a desperate grab for flesh. The need to consume one another after years of tortured friendship.

Afterward, she had counted the number of stars in the Big Dipper to ease her feelings of giddiness. Crushing her fist to her mouth, she had smothered a giggle. And then with a few words, he had smashed her bliss to bits.

Her finger trembled over the mouse.