Before this moment, she was an avatar on the laptop screen, racy pictures in our text chat, the smell of her perfume on Darren’s clothes, a name he whispered into my ear as he fucked into me from the back, his fingers ghosting over my clit. But now, she’s real.

She’s soft skin and smiles, bright eyes, an animated face when she talks, a pink tongue swiping across her lips as she listens intently to me explaining my job even though I’m certain she doesn’t care. In just over an hour, Jourdan has become real for me in a way she wasn’t before, and I reach forward, wrapping my hand around her wrist, wanting to hold her as surely as she was holding me.

I want to kiss her, and I know that as sure as I knew that I wanted to be more than friends with Darren all those years ago.

Jourdan pushes the bathroom door open, and the muffled haze we’d been in breaks.

“Oh my god, do you think he’s cheating on me?” some woman shrieks.

Jourdan and I pull back. I have to lean around her to see the clump of women at the sinks, nursing another crying, red-faced woman.

I’m tipsy. That girl is drunk.

One of the woman’s attendants turns to us. “Sorry,” she says. “No one’s in the stalls.”

“Um…thanks,” I say.

Jourdan lets go of my hand, and we duck into the two stalls and handle our business. When we’re done, the women have moved their things and freed one of the sinks for us, which is surprisingly considerate. I step aside to wait for Jourdan to wash her hands first, but she grabs mine again. I make eye contact with her in the mirror. That smile is back on her face, the one that I know drives Darren wild, especially when he’s telling me about that perfect curve of her bottom lip when he’s inside of me.

I let her lead my hands under the automatic soap dispenser and then into the bowl of the sink. We rub our hands together. Our wet, slippery skin sliding across each other under warm water is the filthiest suggestion I’ve ever experienced, and neither of us says a single word. Our eyes lock together in the reflection, and now, my smile mirrors hers.

“Maybe I should become a lesbian,” the crying girl whines after we leave the bathroom. Jourdan and I giggle, our now-dry hands still clasped.

She takes me to an abandoned parking lot two blocks away. It’s been converted into an outdoor market with different food trucks lining the perimeter.

“This is amazing. How did I not know this was here?”