She was into craft in a modern way – mindfulness knitting and making crochet hoops
in groups with names like Feminists Who Sew, or The Upcycling Women Of Illinois.
I thought that was cute, that she had this hankering for the domestic, but had to put
a new spin on it, to be able to enjoy it, judgement-free. But America was like that.
Everything had to have the right packaging. Everything had to have a label. Even
our relationship had to be explained right - Entrepreneurial British Journalist Lyle
and Illinois Craft Enthusiast, Destiny. If we couldn’t think of ourselves like that - as
commodities to offer to each other - it might have been like we had no value at all.
Destiny was the realest thing I’d ever experienced. More real than Candice. Here
was a woman who loved me. Who let me in. Who didn’t fantasise about Fabien from
work. Everyday I’d distractedly swipe through Destiny’s photographs, admiring her
deep skin and her voluptuous curves, while trying to think of articles to pitch. Every
night I’d go to sleep with her face, her body, her voice rambling in my mind.
It was after three months of talking when things span out of control. Destiny
told me she wanted to meet, properly. I wanted to as well. I knew everything
about her. More than I knew about America. I knew what she did when she woke
up in the morning, (stretch, pray, turn on her phone), I knew what she smelled like
(DKNY, Apple), I knew what she wanted more than anything else in the world (to
be a YouTube sensation). I knew that she loved me. She had these big brown eyes
like a Disney Princess, the lashes curled so high they scraped her brows. And these
broad lips that drove me crazy. I wanted
to get inside them, I wanted to kiss them
for real. Night after night I was hard
and sore. Imagining. Bringing her into
my bed. Propping her on top of me and
surrendering to her womanly form.
I said yes, let’s do it, I want to meet you too.
The problem was getting out there. Illinois. Although I was in America I was
still miles away from her and we couldn’t agree on who would make the first trip.
I couldn’t tell her that the thought of getting in another plane would turn my body
cold, make my hands start to shake.
“Say you’ll come here,” she said. “I’d love to show you my hometown baby.”
She didn’t earn a lot of money but that was her problem, not mine. I told her to
come to New York, that it was the perfect place to fall in love. Look at Breakfast at
Tiffany’s I said. She said the place wasn’t important, that even if we were in a black
hole it would feel like the perfect place to fall in love. I said that if Illinois was a black
hole then I’d prefer to meet in New York. She said I wasn’t listening. The point was,
we’d already fallen in love, I said, and that if that had already happened, maybe we
didn’t need to meet, because the reality would be different. Maybe it wouldn’t match
up. She told me I was being an asshole and that Breakfast at Tiffany’s was the wrong
reference. She hung up.
I started thinking about meeting other girls. Blonde ones. Thin ones. Girls with
acrylic nails and tits like helium balloons. Ones that would delete Destiny and her
caramel voice, her drooping breasts, her nipples the colour of black tulips. Her
powerful love. I even met a couple, wondering if the whole thing with Destiny
was all in my head, but I didn’t feel the chemistry with anyone else. I realised with
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