Pretending Perfection

Melanie “It’s so, so nice to have you here,” said the dentist as she hugged Melanie goodbye for the day. “It’s nice to be here too, considering that there are a lot worse places I could be in the world right now if it weren’t for you.” With Teresa gone, Melanie had the place to herself for the rest of the day. And her writing. First, she would play around and goof off a bit on some social sites. She decided to see what anonymous questions might be waiting for her today. She loved the shit that some people came up with at times and grinned just thinking about it. She never knew what to expect each time she logged in. Some were repetitive questions about her life, her likes, and general experiences, while others were nosy and perverted. She scanned the list of questions. They were pretty much the usual stuff she expected—except for one question that stood out. “Can you guess who this is?” they asked. Melanie took a few minutes to think of a clever answer. Then she wrote, “If I could, then what would be the point of anonymous questions?” Then she checked her blog and found a few new comments. A couple just complimented her style of writing, while another had a little more to say. CuriousLady writes: Interesting blog you have here. Sounds like you have been through a lot over the last several months. So you were taken in by your own dentist? How romantic when you think about it. She any good-looking? Melanie writes: Wow, some people don’t hesitate to say what’s on their mind, do they? Eh, that’s okay. I’m used to it. She is actually kind of just there, if you must know. She has a great body for her age and nice straight hair, albeit its drab hair color, but her face is very ordinary. Each day, Melanie received contact from CuriousLady on various sites. She wasn’t sure what to make of her. She seemed strange and got a little annoying at times, but by the end of the week, she had come to make Melanie rather suspicious. Most of the questions and comments seemed to revolve around Teresa, as if somebody was fishing for information on the dentist, and this began to make her a bit nervous. She wondered if it was connected to Ennis. Melanie was in a bit of a dilemma. She knew she should alert Teresa to this person, but she also didn’t want to point out her blog and other sites to her, even if one didn’t have to be a genius to find them. She preferred not to offend the woman with her plain, lame Jane comments after all she had done for her. It wasn’t until the comments and questions turned threatening that Melanie began to feel any real alarm. It was a very subtle transition on CuriousLady’s part and not something that suddenly happened overnight. Despite all Internet trolls going crazy practically overnight, that wasn’t the case with CuriousLady. CuriousLady dropped hints and had a threatening undertone to what she said, but it wasn’t for yet another week before the threats became more obvious and more menacing. Even the threats seemed to revolve around Teresa, and they seemed to begin once the person had asked Melanie if she might be interested in going beyond just friendship with the dentist. She’s a great lady, Melanie had written, but I just can’t see that happening. It just doesn’t feel right to me when I think about it. There is also nothing to say that this woman has one bisexual bone in her body, to be honest with you. Furthermore, I don’t understand why it seems to matter so much to you. Is this important to you for some reason? Although CuriousLady insisted she was just curious and pointed out her username as if to emphasize this point, it really did seem to Melanie as if the person was disappointed—even angered—by the fact that Melanie had no desire for an intimate relationship with the dentist who had been kind enough to come to her rescue. The more she communicated with CuriousLady, however, the more she suspected that she was somehow connected to the dentist. I told you before, CuriousLady wrote, I just don’t see how you could be dumb enough to pass up such a golden opportunity. This opportunity only exists in your mind, Melanie replied. Again, why is it such a big deal to you? Are you still lacking in your own relationship that you feel the need to form relationships for others? I hope the dentist takes her drill and drills your eyeballs out in your sleep one night, CuriousLady told her. Gee, that’d make me really interested in her, Melanie hit back. Melanie decided it was time to block the psycho on whatever sites she could. Her frustration grew, however, as the nutjob simply turned around and created new accounts from which to harass her. The more time went on, the more deranged and angry she realized the sick twist truly was. She just had no idea that that woman was under the very same roof she was… …until it was too late.