“Luca?” Cecily, the lady who worked the front desk at my little post office, yelled to me. Luckily, the building was empty today. I locked up my PO box, feeling a bit disappointed that I still hadn’t received a return letter from Griffin. It had been more than a week since my last letter to him, and I began to grow concerned that maybe I’d been too honest sharing my sexual escapades—namely my masturbating with a Furby—and scared him away. Walking into the main office adjoining the PO box room, Cecily held up a finger. “I have a package for you. It didn’t fit into your box. Let me go grab it.”
“Oh. Okay.” I’d been expecting my publisher to send advance review copies of my latest completed book, but when Cecily walked out carrying an enormous red box, my heart started to race. Did Griff send me something?
She set the package down on the counter. “Usually your boxes are fairly heavy; this one is pretty light for its size.”
I had to push up on my toes to see the return address. An ear-to-ear smile spread across my face seeing Griff’s familiar handwriting. Cecily noticed.
“Looks like it’s something you’re happy arrived safely.”
“Yeah. I wasn’t expecting a box, just a letter.”
She smiled warmly. “Well, I hope it’s something fun.”
I carried the package out to my car, barely able to stop myself from ripping it open right there in the parking lot. Normally, I waited until I got home to read Griff’s letters, but I was way too excited to do that with this package. So I put it on the front passenger seat, went around to the driver’s side, and got into the car, then proceeded to tear into the large box.
There was a red envelope with my name on top of red tissue paper. I took it out and debated reading it, but my curiosity got the best of me, and I did the rude thing and opened the gift before even reading the card.
Unfolding the tissue paper, my eyes grew wide.
Oh my God!
I started to crack up. There had to be more than a hundred vibrating Furby key chains inside. I couldn’t even imagine where the heck he’d gotten them, since they’d stopped putting them inside Happy Meals more than a decade ago. I picked one up, looked at the bottom, and slid the on-off switch to “On.” Sure enough, it started to vibrate in the palm of my hand. It made me squeal like I was thirteen again.
There was no way I could wait until I got home to read his letter now. I tore into the envelope like an addict needing her next fix.
Dear Luca,
If you’d asked me my darkest fantasy a month ago, I’d probably have told you I might have fantasized a time or two about a little BDSM action. Depriving a woman of all her senses—her eyes blindfolded and ears covered with headphones. She’d have on a pair of assless leather chaps and some spiky heels. Her hands would be tied behind her back while she was bent over a spanking horse, and her ass cheeks would flame red with my handprint. I’m sure you get the picture—considering your bacon and porn obsession and all.
But things have changed for me as of late. These days, my deepest, darkest fantasy borders on depraved. Depraved, Luca. I can’t stop thinking about a certain five-foot-six woman lying in my bed, legs spread-eagled, with a fucking Furby pressed to her pussy.
Sadly, I’m dead serious. I even thought about going to a self-help group—maybe one for furries? I think maybe they’d understand.
Luca, Luca, Luca. What have you done to me?
Love,
Mee-Mee
P.S. You know what to do with these. Think of me while you’re doing it.
P.P.S. Are you a screamer? A moaner? Ever done it in public?
P.P.P.S. They shut off my eBay account due to possible fraud activity because of multiple successive purchases. No sellers had heavy inventory of vibrating Mee-Mee—but seventy-seven people had a hundred combined!
Hortencia thought they were chew toys. I chased her around the house, trying to get the Furby out of her mouth, but that only made her think it was a game. By the time I wrestled it from her, she ran back into my office and grabbed another from the box. I needed to find a safer place to put my new little collection before Doc arrived for our session today. So I grabbed a plastic storage bin from the basement, one with a lid that latched closed, and started to transfer the little toys into it. Underneath all the Furbys, on the bottom of the box, sticking half under one of the cardboard flaps, was a piece of paper folded in half. I opened it, thinking maybe Griffin had written a second note. But instead it was an eBay receipt for one of the vibrating key chains. He must’ve accidentally tossed it in when he was packing up the toys. The top left-hand corner had the shipping information:
MARCHESE MUSIC
12 VIA CERRITOS
PALOS VERDES ESTATES, CA 00274
Wow. That must be where Griffin works. Marchese Music.
And I now had his address, or at least a place I could find him. My mind immediately started racing. Imagine if I showed up at the door of his work? He likely wouldn’t even recognize me. I could probably get to see him in person, and he would have no idea it was even me. That would be crazy.
I laughed at the thought and finished packing up the Furbys. But instead of throwing away the address, I tucked it into my desk drawer.
A few minutes later, Hortencia started to go nuts. She grunted and ran back and forth between my office and the front door. I’d always thought pigs made an oink sound, but mine made more of a groink sound. At least she did that whenever Doc pulled into the driveway.
“Change of plans for today, Luca,” he yelled as he opened my screen door.
I tugged on Hortencia’s collar to make her back away from the door. “Come on, girl, leave the doctor alone. He only wants to play with you if you grow wings.”
Doc bent and gave Hortencia a treat from his pocket. The man carried peanut butter crunch pig treats in one pocket and dog biscuits in the other—even though he didn’t have a dog. “Get ready, Luca, dear. We’re going to the pet store today.”
I froze. “No we’re not. You said we were walking today.”
“I said that because when I tell you we’re going to do any type of exposure therapy, you stress on the days leading up to the outing. This way, you have less time to stress in advance.”
“Except now five days’ worth of stress will get jammed into a fifteen-minute car ride to the store, and my head might explode.”
Doc frowned. “I don’t think it works that way.”
“Don’t you remember the last time we went to the pet store?” We’d tried some exposure therapy a few months back, the weekend before Easter. Unbeknownst to either Doc or me, it happened to be the same day the store had an Easter Bunny dressed up to take pictures with pets. We’d entered through a side door, so we didn’t see the packed parking lot. The place was a madhouse of people and their animals. Halfway down the first aisle, I’d gotten so dizzy and nauseous that I had to sit on the ground while I hyperventilated. Unfortunately, I’d accidentally sat in a small puddle of dog urine. When I finally got enough courage to get up and leave the store, every dog thought I was a fire hydrant and wanted to sniff me—or rather sniff my wet ass.
“We’re going to a smaller store this time. And I went by this morning on my way over here and made sure there are no events being held today.”
That didn’t make me feel any better. “Why don’t we go to the store in our next session, and today we can just take a nice walk. It’s beautiful out.”
He shook his head. “I need to get a new bird feeder. A squirrel knocked down my hummingbird one.”
“You have at least twenty different feeders in your yard. The hummingbirds can eat something else for a few days.”
Doc walked over and put both his hands on my shoulders. “Trust me, Luca. Our therapy visits are not about going to the store and not having panic attacks. Having a panic attack while we’re there is perfectly expected. Exposure is about entering a feared situation and dealing with the panic when it comes. We will get through this together.”
I shut my eyes. “Fine.”
“That’s my girl.”
“So tell me what’s new with your pen-pal friend.” Doc and I had parked in the pet-store parking lot, but I needed a few minutes to calm myself enough to walk in. So we took a walk around the block. I knew he was bringing up Griff to distract me, but honestly, if thoughts of Griff couldn’t bring my mind someplace else, I wasn’t sure anything could.
“He sent me a gift.”
“Oh?”
I wasn’t about to tell Doc my Furby masturbation story, so I sidestepped the truth. “Just some toys that I’d been sort of obsessed with back when we were kids. It wasn’t like he sent me diamonds or anything.”
“I’m sure him remembering something you liked meant more to you than a piece of jewelry anyway.”
I smiled. Doc really did know me well. “We’ve been exchanging letters once a week for a while now, and things have sort of . . . gotten personal. Like we talk openly about dating and our sex lives, or my lack of a sex life might be more like it.”
“And you two still haven’t exchanged current photos or spoken on the telephone?”
“I tried. But Griff said he liked the mystery of things the way they are.”
Doc was quiet for a moment. “Do you believe he’s telling you the truth?”
That was something I’d thought about a lot lately. I got the feeling that maybe Griff wasn’t as confident as he was when we were kids. He didn’t really want to talk about his job—other than saying things hadn’t worked out as planned. And he’d been dodgy on even his physical description. It made me think that maybe Griff was embarrassed about not having done as well as he’d liked in the music industry, and maybe that had shaken his confidence overall. It probably hadn’t helped that I’d gone and bragged that my debut novel hit the New York Times bestseller list.
“I’m not sure. But I do have a theory that maybe he’s a little ashamed of his job, and his confidence has deteriorated. It’s funny because neither of those things matters. I don’t care what he looks like or if he works in a grocery store stocking shelves. Whenever I’ve done online dating in the past, I didn’t give a man a chance if he wasn’t physically attractive to me. Yet I honestly don’t care if Griffin hasn’t aged well and has a huge scar running down his face. I like the guy he is inside and his sense of humor.”
“That’s very mature. It sounds like you’re really growing feelings for this man.”
I sighed. “I think I am. But I’m not sure how to let Griffin know that I like him for who he is and that it doesn’t matter what he looks like. It’s a hard subject to discuss via letters. But I think I’m going to try and push it a little more.”
“Good. I’m definitely curious to meet the man who has captured your interest.”
“You and me both, Doc. Funny enough, we could do that. I found a receipt in the bottom of the box he sent me, and it had an address where he’d had my gift shipped. I think it might be where he works. Technically, the two of us could show up there, and he wouldn’t even know who we were. I’ve changed a lot in the last decade, appearance-wise. It’s too bad he doesn’t live closer, or I might actually do it, because I’m so curious.”
We arrived back at the front of the pet store after our walk around the block. The parking lot had a few cars but nothing like the last time we’d done a pet-store outing. Doc looked at me. “Think of today as another step toward seeing Griffin. You never know—today we are visiting a pet store . . . next month you could be getting on a plane to California.”
If only it were that easy. I took a deep breath and tugged at the collar of my T-shirt. I felt a little warm and confined already, just looking at the door. “Let’s get this over with.”
“You did very well today, Luca,” Doc said as I pulled into my driveway. He reached down between his legs and grabbed his bag from the pet store from the floor of the car.
“I think very well might be a stretch.”
“You’re underestimating yourself. You stayed inside for almost a full ten minutes.”
“I stood at the door for nine and a half of that.”
“That’s okay. It doesn’t matter how far inside the building you were. What matters is that you felt panic and dealt with it. You could have very easily run out that door. But instead, you stood your ground and toughed it out. That’s progress.”
Doc might have felt like I’d made some headway today, but I just felt deflated. What did it matter what Griff even looked like? There was no way I’d ever be getting on a plane. I forced a sad smile. “Thanks, Doc. I appreciate what you tried to do today.”
“Progress takes time, Luca. Don’t feel down. You might not be where you want to be, but you’re also not where you were yesterday. Each day is a baby step. You just keep looking forward and taking them, and I promise one day you’re going to look back and be surprised how far those tiny little steps have taken you.”
“Wonder how many baby steps there are between here and California,” I joked. “At least I won’t have to worry what Griff will look like by the time I get there, because I won’t be able to see him with my cataracts by then anyway.”
Doc’s pep talk didn’t work to cheer me up too much. I was tired of longing to do normal-people things and frustrated that I couldn’t seem to conquer my fears. That night, I didn’t write back to Griff, not wanting him to feel the wrath of my foul mood. I couldn’t seem to fall asleep, either. I tossed and turned for hours until I finally got out of bed and took a sleeping pill—something I didn’t like to do too often. Those things really knocked me out.
So it wasn’t a surprise that I slept in the next day. I woke to the sound of a loud horn—not a car horn, more like a train or tractor-trailer horn. The first few times I heard it, I pulled the blanket over my head and attempted to ignore it. But after the third time, Hortencia was going crazy groinking, so I got out of bed to see what was going on.
What in the hell?
I rubbed my eyes and moved the blinds on the front window to get a better look. Sure enough, my eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on me. A giant seventies-era-looking RV with wood paneling was parked in front of my house. Seeing me, the driver rolled down his window.
Oh my God. I’m terrified.
It was Doc. He leaned half his body out the window, flailing his arms around as if I could miss him.
“Look what my sister, Louise, has! Bet we can see plenty of birds on our trip.”
I opened the front door and shielded my eyes from the sun with my hand. “Our trip where?” There was no way in the world I was getting in that damn thing with Doc driving.
“To California, silly girl!”
