"I will not have you running around behind my back while I'm carrying your little bastard child." her shrill voice, with the slightest accent coming through, pierced the calming silence of my office as she swung the delicate looking door open and started once again. This is what life has been like around my once quiet and calm home ever since I got back. The moment I walked through the door there she was, hurling insults and invasive questions at me. Questions I refused to acknowledge with any form of an answer and that only angered her more. The past week I've tried to play the part, the happy husband, the doting father to be, a part I felt I was more than willing, more than capable of playing before I made that trip, but things were different now. I'd seen how things could be between two people, how things are supposed to be. I'd felt the happiness, that contented cared for feeling I've always heard about, and I tried to lose myself in the memory of those feelings. My soul tried to hide deep in the comforting memory of those long lazy days in Sydney's world. Memories of quiet conversations and her soothing caresses along my body have become my anchor lately: my anchor to everything.
"You think you can keep me locked up here while you go running around the country like a man whore." Those words pierced through a part of me I didn't know she could reach. Her huff of annoyance rang through the room as she threw herself carelessly into one of the white rounded back chairs that was set up directly in front of my desk. Part of me wanted her to understand what she was doing to me, what this game she is playing is doing to me, but I know she doesn't care. I am a means to an ends for her. The child growing inside of her, mine or not, was being used as her checkbook. And that's the knowledge that was slowly breaking my spirit. The woman I was legally tied to, the woman living under my roof did not care even a little for my feelings or everything I was dealing with or even for the child she would be mother to. Instead, half way across the country in a little college town there was a woman I had left all alone who would do anything to see me smile. Sydney. My heart panged with guilt as her name came through my mind. Every time I had tried to contact her either the lawyers showed up with more documents for me to review or Mayte would show up to start another argument. The sound of Mayte popping her gum filled the office and brought me back to the task at hand. I tried to keep my head down, reading over the documents my attorney had left for me earlier in the day, the final documents that were going to break me free of the recording contract I no longer wanted to be a part of. the neat stack of papers was daunting, but I'd managed to make it half way through them before she found me. In my peripheral vision I caught the sight of her legs swinging up to rest over the arm of the chair, something she knew I hated. My eyes trying hard to stay focused on the white paper filled with little black letters, as my temper flared just underneath the surface. "Sticking your dick in any little whore that will bend over for you."
"Enough Mayte." My voice firm, but not loud by any means. My head was racing, a throbbing headache building quickly behind my eyes.
"Well that's all she was." my eyes closed as I heard the little annoying huff in her voice. "Just a dirty whore you were filling your time with until you got back to me." left hand coming up to my temple, as if a gentle rub would sate the agony of the oncoming migraine. "And just where the fuck is your wedding ring!?" A silent chuckle floated my head, filling the spots the migraine had yet to reach, until the mocking sound slipped over my lips. She just noticed.
"I left it with her." there was no malice in my voice, it was simply a fact. I had left that inconsequential gold band there in her small dish, buried amongst her spare change. That band was my discarded pocket change.
"What the fuck do you mean. . ."
"I'm leaving." coming to my feet her eyes widened as she watched me walk around the desk, past her, and to the door at the far end of the suddenly silent room.
"You going to find another fuck buddy to keep your dick wet?" sharp words cut through the room just as I reached the door, my head whipping around to find her standing, her arms crossed and a murderous expression painted across her face.
"You don't know anything about her, so I'd shut my fucking mouth if I were you." my voice raising by the end of my unexpected response. Taking a few steps back toward her, my eyes narrowing. "She hasn't forced my hand into anything. She isn't leeching off of me and my bank account. She isn't trying to build a name off being associated with me. She isn't fucking the men I employ. And she sure as hell ain't fucking strangers in my bed while claiming she's carrying my child." I watched intently, but there was no discernable change in her expression, even as I called her out on everything she'd been doing. "I'm going to the studio." Those were the last words I uttered to her before heading for my car and making the five minute drive over to Paisley Park.
Hours later I was sitting on the purple couch in the control room of the studio with my acoustic guitar cradled in my arms. My voice hummed over the chord progression as my exhausted and aching brain searched in a mad fury for the right words to finish the song I'd been working on since I walked in here. I needed to get everything just right with this song, I needed to get the feel of her voice, the feel of her body, everything about her had to be in this one. I wanted the lyrics to sound as though she wrote them, the rhythm of the track to resemble the sound I heard resting against her chest. I wanted her to be able to see herself in this song, to see how I see her and how I truly feel for her. Lost in the caressing sounds of the resonating strings I had no real idea of how much time had passed, but once I finally rested the honey colored instrument back on it's stand I silently made my way out of the studio. The entire building was empty save for myself roaming the halls like a ghost, the sound of my heals clicking along the different flooring throughout the building. My mind rushed with the idea of what it would be like to have her here. To be walking these halls with Sydney, her small hand wrapped in mine as I guided her from room to room. Before I knew what was happening I found myself seated in the large computer chair behind my desk, booting up my computer like it was second nature. I had no plan. I had no idea what to say to her or if she would even be online, but I needed to find out. clicking on the little desktop icon I waited as the program loaded, trying to remembered when I had last taken migraine medication. It had been shortly after arriving, and a quick glance out the window reminded me that the sun had long since gone down. Reaching into my top drawer I pulled out a bottle and quickly swallowed a few more pills with a mouthful of the port I'd been sipping on just as the program opened. My heart froze for a moment as I waited for her to yell at me, to be mad at me, for the barage of hurtful words I'd become accustom to, but what I was met with was far from what I was accustom to.
Grumpybluebear: Jamie? Are you ok? I've been worried about you
Involuntarily I sucked in a deep, shakey breath as an unexpected tear lept over my lower lashes and my trembling hands found the keyboard.
SixStringGuy: I'm so sorry Sydney. I'm so alone without you.
YOU ARE READING
The Online Experience
FanfictionIt's the mid 1990's and Sydney is a graduate student who spends her evenings exploring online chat rooms. What happens when she makes an online friend and tries to help him through one of the toughest times in his life. Inspired by the song My Compu...
