Page 9 of Sexting the Pakhan

“No, it’s freeing.”

“It is humiliating and freeing.”

“Send something simple.”

I pick up my wine and take a long drink.

Karina waits.

I keep staring at the blank message field.

I could just not do it. I could lock my phone, change the subject, go home, put on soft pants, and read in bed like a sane person. That’s what Ishoulddo. That’s what any emotionally stable adult would do.

Instead, because there is apparently something rotten in me where self-preservation ought to be, I type:Hi. My friend says I need practice talking to strangers, so… hello.

I stare at the message.

Karina gasps like I’ve just made a major artistic breakthrough. “That’s perfect.”

“It’s awful.”

“It’s cute.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“That’s part of the charm.”

I look at the send arrow for a long second.

Then I hit it, and the message goes. Just like that. The world doesn’t end. No alarms go off. No one bursts through the front door to arrest me for being deeply weird in public. The text just sits there on the screen, sent, ordinary, irreversible.

“Oh my God,” I say.

Karina beams. “You did it.”

“I hate you.”

“You love me.”

I drop my phone face down on the table like distance might somehow lessen what I’ve done. “This was a mistake.”

“Maybe. But it was a brave mistake.”

“I don’t want brave mistakes. I want emotionally safe choices.”

“That’s not how character development works.”

I squint at her. “When did you become so annoying?”

“Birth, probably.”

The server brings our drinks, and for a few blessed minutes the conversation shifts to other things. One of the student assistants at the library who has a crush on a philosophy professor. Karina’s latest dating disaster. A woman who tried to returna cookbook from 2009 and insisted late fees were classist. My pulse settles. My humiliation becomes manageable.

Then my phone buzzes.

I freeze.

Karina sees my face immediately. “No.”