The Man Whose Eyes Never Tire

4...

    I was taken aback by his words. Answering my suspicion, he showed me his intentions. Did he really want me? Did he really want me enough to risk a world of trouble? Was I special? Does he do this to other girls at the restaurant all the time? That thought makes me frown. A world of questions dances around my head, but my only focus is the bliss of my fantasy falling around me as I twirl around on top of my bed. Before I formulate my response, I look for Jason’s contact. I tell him that the manager of the jazz club had found me somehow, learned my age, and then asked me if we could be friends. I had to tell someone; not out of fear, but as a joke. But, with this being my statement, I must admit to my reader: I did not need to tell someone at the chance of this being hilarious. It is a crippling, horrid feeling brewing within me instantly telling me I need to show that someone believes I am special. I need the world to know that this older man wants me; wants to risk it all for me. Why do I feel such a strong need to tell? Jason responded the way I had intended; he thought it was funny too. Priceless. I would not dare tell Jason about these desiring and lust-fueled feelings building up in my mind and body in regards to Mark; how could I tell this to Jason, the man I truly want to be with, and for good reason?
    I finally began to type back to Mark, unsure of what to say, still shadowed by my haze of imagining him meaning this all professionally, and that it was merely my romanticism taking his words out of context. Haha, I’m definitely pretty young… was the reply I formulated; it was not a guarantee of us being friends, but it most certainly was not a denial. How old are you, by the way?
     He told me he was thirty-eight and asked if that was okay. A perfect twenty-one years upon my own, just over twice my age. I imagine him, at twenty-one years old, already having lived life the day I was born. Being further in years and experiences than I am even in this very moment - as I write - the day I was born. I told him I did not mind.
    Following my message, Mark’s read Flirting? And just like that, my suspicion from two weeks ago when we first locked eyes had been confirmed; there was, in fact, a lustful haze hanging in the air between us like a ghost.  
    Haha, we’ll see:) I typed back to him, glowing to a shade echoing the likeness of a rose at the temptation brought on through his words.

   The night is warm. Here I lie, alone, in my bed, feeling anything but lonely. My bright red, chipped nails - painted the day before I visited the jazz club with Arabella - act as my pen, the screen of my phone being my pad of paper as Mark and I begin an event which I imagine would stay imprinted in my mind for a pivotal portion of time. Will I remember this forever? Will I define my adolescence as having spoken to an older man?
    Ever since I was little, I had been drawn to older men. I was always the ugly duckling of the crowd; convinced I would never in my life come across a boy - a man - who would genuinely want me. My skin was scarred due to my habits brought on from anxiety, I wore large, round glasses before my dull brown eyes; my attempt at looking like one of my greatest idols, John Lennon. My hair was incredibly long, plain and dull, a dark brown with a barely-noticeable balayage cascading down to my waist, my eyebrows unkempt, dark, in desperate need of shaping. My lips were small and down turned; I always looked like a pouting, sulking child when I glared at myself in the mirror, an act which caused a horrid sink in the middle of my stomach. My nose was my greatest fault; large, strong; a roman nose. I was incredibly skinny, but I was convinced that I was far too large to win the attention of a man. I remember when I was ten years old: I prepared a warm bubble bath for myself. I put on Girl by The Beatles - a song with far too much sex appeal for my parents to have let me obsess over at that age - and I dimmed the lights and studied the mirror. Tears stung my eyes, and I felt a dramatic ache in my chest and pit in my stomach as I observed who I was. If you’re really this tired of the way you look, you can just end your life. You don’t have to look like this forever, I told myself, as I reclined back into the tub, debating letting the water rise above my face, filling my lungs like a hug. I imagined the beauty of being found like that; the romanticism of the headlines: Ten-Year-Old Girl Found Dead In Bathtub With Dimmed Lights, The Beatles Serenading Her Death. The thought of being able to escape my ugliness permanently relaxed my aching heart.
  I was a misfit; my celebrity crushes were men that died ten, twenty, fifty years before I was born; I headbanged to old rock n roll while my peers grinded to the latest rap releases; I spoke non-stop about old, dead rockers, driving everyone around me into a craze of utter headache at the annoyance of my repetitive tales that no one truly paid any mind to; I was incredibly intelligent - arguably a nerd, scoring awards for my highest grades in English, science, and French; I was wise beyond my years, only interested in the deep elements of life - the romanticism, the tragedy, the doom of the world; I bonded with my teachers, ever so - my best friends were my teachers; I had only one friend my own age, and I spoke to endless amounts of older men on the internet from all around the world. My lack of attention from the male gender when I was younger led me to the absolute fascination and obsession at the moment a man paid even the slightest amount of attention to me. I sent nudes for the first time when I was twelve - I sent them to a nineteen-year-old, and his reaction made me addicted to it. I began showing my face on more and more platforms, attempting to gather the attention from older men again and again as my addiction grew. I would not even learn of their name and I would be sending them photos of myself in the shower; images of my tongue out, my feet, my high-heel collection, anything they wanted, just so I could hear them saying I was hot, or I was beautiful. It was never just about the age gap to me; in honesty, I used to lie and say I was sixteen when I spoke to these men, as I knew they would not want to speak to me if they knew I was truly twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Sixteen seemed like the perfect disguise in my mind - curiously the age of consent. It was old enough to allow these men to think I had a fair amount of intelligence - which I did have, but knew that would be disregarded at the reveal of my age - but also was not so far from my true age as to seem like I was playing a character. It was never about the age gap; I just got along with older men better than boys my age anyways; all they cared for was video games, rap music, and getting to bone a hot girl and move onto the next. I loved that these older men truly valued a girl for who she is; they saw the beauty in a woman that was not born through her sexy clothes; they savoured a woman. I loved that these older men thought deeply about the world. I loved that these older men were like me.
    When ninth grade landed upon my doorstep as the wind carries leaves, I was sick of being the girl I always was. I could not stand to look in the mirror and see the ugly duckling anymore. I had grown addicted to the attention of men, and desperately required more. I recognized that these men loved the sensuality to myself; the more my body was on display, the more they complimented me. I swapped my glasses for contact lenses, dyed my hair pitch black with voluminous layers shaping my face to a slimmer, more sculpted and womanly image, ditched my band tee-shirts for crop tops and black skinny jeans, destroyed all my flats and only wore high-heels, and of course, dumped my paychecks on makeup. My look became ‘signature’: My eyebrows were perfectly sculpted and shaped - dark, deep, and bold - taking me roughly twenty minutes per morning. My face was as white as a sheet of paper: idolising women such as Dita Von Teese and Morticia Addams, I ignored my naturally tanned, Spanish skin, and only bought the lightest shade of foundation I could find. My eyes were incredibly bold: strong, thick, black eyeliner, sharper than a knife, and false eyelashes long enough to act as a funeral veil as I glanced down. My truest signature, however, were two particular details; my nods to the old Hollywood I love so dearly: I always wore a bright red lip, and drew a little black beauty spot by my right eye. I looked much older than I was; always being mistaken for being in my twenties, being greeted by expressions of utter shock when I revealed I was just fourteen. The attention from men grew. It grew horribly, and I loved every element of it.
   I am ageing backwards now; I want to be young once more. This display of craving male attention caused me to destroy my childhood, and I fell victim to the sacrifice of becoming an adult when I was just twelve years old. I want to look young again now. I want to feel young again now. I want older men, just as I always had, but I now want them to adore me for being young. I want to tempt men. I want to make men risk the world for me; to show me how special I was, how I was worth the risk, just as Mark is doing for me now. My look is still relatively similar, but more toned down and classy so as to look younger once more: I only wear dresses and skirts, I only wear high heels, my hair is still long and dark (now curled and styled), my foundation is the proper shade, highlighting my natural tan, my lashes are long but more casual, as is my eyeliner, my eyebrows; now natural yet still bold, and my red lip and beauty mark still rests upon my face. I want to be viewed as a pretty little doll to men. I like to stare at men and smile as I pass them each day; locking eyes in a supermarket with them, I smile at them as I walk past them on the street. As I do this, I wonder how much they like me. I wonder how much they would risk for just a touch from me.