When The Darkness Takes Us: Jess's Story

Trying to Monkey-Branch

"Did you get any sleep last night?"

I'm lying in the backseat of Linda's car. The intense throbbing in my ribs has faded to a dull, but persistent ache.

"Sure," I say. "I got some sleep."

That isn't true at all though. I stared and stared at that message and thoughts ricochet around, banging into the interior of my skull.

Making what might be the first good decision in weeks, I did not respond. I also didn't block the person. I only read and read that message.

Of course, I'm worried that it's Richard. He used a sock account once. And then he went and archived all of my posts. What's making me angriest is that, now that I've seen those messages he had with Amy, I know he'd paint it like I'm the one who won't stop. Like I'm the obsessed once and he isn't doing anything. The fact is, I am the obsessed one and my writer friend, Renee, is right. He likes it. He doesn't feel the things that I do, but he's interested in me for some reason, even if it's only that he likes a good train wreck. It makes me so angry, so angry, that he said to leave him alone and then he went and archived my posts. My so so sad posts. What better way for him to tell me he doesn't give a single fuck.

He's archiving the suicidal posts because he thinks you're going to do it. He wants you to do it. And then he'll have a really good wiki page. 'Emotionally-unstable socially-retarded post-wall roastie ropes when incel rejects her. Shouldn't have ridden the cock carousal and then went looking for something real. Lifefuel brocels.'

He did this to make me obsess more. Renee is right. Renee is right. He isn't a nice man and he never was. A nice man wouldn't do this. Even if my reactions aren't proportional, a nice man wouldn't go and archive my content, knowing that I'm having such a terrible time of it. A nice, decent man...the man I thought he was...he would have quietly gone away.

All the times I imagined how he would be in real life...I imagined him serious and quiet. But if something really needed to be said, he would say it. I imagined him with this strong internal moral compass; he was someone not easily swayed by the opinions of others. He knew exactly who he was and didn't care about others' expectations of him. He was kind. He was gentle. He was...none of that. He was never any of that. I made him up. I made this man up in my head. It's not real. The version of him I have such strong feelings for...he's not real. The real man is bad and mean and malicious and calculating, and I still think he's intelligent, but he uses that intelligence to hurt people. He has no integrity. He is cruel.

I blew up my marriage for a cruel man with no integrity.

No...no, no. I blew up my marriage because of the problems that Travis and I have had for years. Long before I ever knew who Richard was. I blew it up for that. Because I'm so sick of being in a platonic marriage. I want romance. I want love that isn't like the love of...an older brother or something.

I want to be held and kissed. I want someone to peel my clothes off and worship my body, kiss me everywhere...make me tremble. I want to make someone's cock hard.

You're too old and too ugly and your personality is too shit and you'll never make anyone's dick hard ever again.

I was only 23 when the problems started. I was young. I'm still not all that old. Travis started turning me down, turning me away. 'I'm not in the mood, Jess. I'm tired.'

And fucking hell, the times I caught him masturbating in the bathroom. Man would rather masturbate into the toilet than fuck me...

I blink back tears and force my attention back to whatever Linda is saying.

"-don't know what you're going through right now. Heard you crying up in your room 'till late. If you wanted to talk about it." She shrugs and meets my eyes in the rear view mirror.

I swallow. "I'm the problem. All of it is me."

She looks back to the road and clears her throat. "You could probably go back to your husband if you wanted to. He's paying your rent. He keeps coming by to check on you. Seems worried. Asked me to be patient with you. Said you can be a little much." She gives a dry laugh. "I told him I'd noticed."

Sighing, I watch the trees bleed past in a blur of green. "He's a good man. He should find someone else good like him." I suck on my bottom lip for a second, and then blurt out, "Maybe someone asexual."

Linda makes a little noise in the back of her throat. "Is that what the problem was then?"

"Women aren't supposed to beg their husbands for sex. And I mean...I look okay. I'm not the hottest, but not the ugliest. My ass is great."

Linda chuckles. "I hadn't noticed."

"I think it's my best feature. Every boyfriend I ever had was crazy about my ass. Every man I ever fucked paid more attention to my ass than any other feature. Then again, it's not like I have the ability to attract boob-men." I wave at my tiny b-cups, even though I know Linda can't see what I'm doing.

"You also have a cute face and beautiful green eyes."

"That's what Travis always said," I sigh. "He was really nice to me, you know. That's why I stayed so long. It's like, why blow up something so good if all that's missing is sex?"

"Sex is important," Linda says. "You want to feel connected to the person you're married to."

I shake my head. "I haven't felt connected to him in a really long time. He didn't even care when I started writing all this stuff about incels and the manosphere. He didn't even care that I was talking to a bunch of incels."

"What is an incel?"

I sigh again. "Men who struggle to get laid. Men who can't get women to pay attention to them."

"You...thought that was a good idea?"

"None of them caught feelings or anything. The people who told me to stop, that's what they said would happen. That one of them would get feelings for me. I'm the one who got feelings and I acted like an idiot over it. And I'm still acting like an idiot over it and I don't know how to stop."

"Why were you interested in them?"

I watch the stuffed Garfield stuck to the rear window with suction cups. It shakes as Linda hits a bump. I grunt and rub my aching ribcage.

"Jesus," Linda tsks. "Sorry about that, hun. I always forget that pothole."

"Don't worry about it."

"So why were you interested in them?"

"I...thought I felt bad for them, but now I think..."

"Hmm?"

"Now I think maybe I was trying to monkey-branch the whole time."

"To what?"

I shake my head. The fucking manosphere slang. I sound like a moron.

"I'm starting to think maybe I was looking for love the whole time. I guess I thought...I guess I thought, even though I'm not much, maybe one of them would settle for me, since they don't have any other options."

Linda is quiet for a long time. Long enough that I think she isn't going to answer. She waits until the car is parked across from the emergency room awning. Then she turns and gives me a pained expression.

She says, "That is very sad, Jessica." Her eyes crinkle and she runs a hand through her dyed blonde hair. "I don't think I've ever met anybody so lost."