I. Ken

I could never tell old Mrs. Lindstom why I was in such a rush. But then, I was used to that – hiding my urges and desires, covering the excitable boy in me with the respectable exterior of a normal forty-year-old man. She waddled between the dahlias and the roses; I tapped my finger against the “CLOSED” sign on my lap. For ten years she’d been coming in, and not once had she bought a thing. Shouldn’t that be illegal in a capitalist country like this?

Unable to bear it any longer, I placed the sign on the counter where she could see it.

“Oh, I’m sorry, dear,” she said. “Are you trying to close?”

“Actually, yeah,” I said. “But there’s no rush.”

“Oh, no, but I should really be off now, anyway. My husband’s probably home from his carousing. Goodbye, now, hun.”

I watched her trudge away, then locked up the shop and headed back into the apartment portion of the building. Everything in there was dark and dirty – the empty dog crate, the candle stubs on the coffee table, the blender I hadn’t used in years – except my laptop, that silver beacon shining atop the couch cushions. I opened it, plugged it in so it wouldn’t die mid-session, and went to Onlyfans.com, the portal through which so much of my time and money had disappeared.

When I’d first found the site it seemed too good to be true. So here were real girls, “amateurs,” as the porn sites called them, and you couldactually talk to them? In real time? It was like being told you could participate in your favorite movie, walk right through the screen and tell Gandalf, Just ride the eagles into Mordor, already. It was fantasy made real, and it felt amazing.

Of course, the subscriptions got expensive. There were so many gorgeous girls on there, and from all over the world, too. For a while, it looked like things were getting bad. The florist shop wasn’t exactly expanding its customer base, and adding another income stream would have required a gumption I just didn’t have.

But then I met Loretta. And that’s when everything changed.

I canceled all my other subscriptions, partly because I couldn’t afford them, partly because I knew I wouldn’t need anyone else but her. She was pretty, of course, but then it wasn’t really her looks that attracted me. I mean, she didn’t have that porn star sexiness at all. There was just something about that rounded face and nutcracker chin, something that made my body flush with a feeling that was warm, tender, and good. It was a crush – which I hadn’t experienced in almost twelve years. Since Allie.

Allie’s my ex-wife.

She’s also the mother of my only child.

I haven’t seen either of them in a long, long time.

I’m not sure what attracted me to Loretta first – her lovable face or her sympathetic words, infused always with warmth and affection. She’d get inside me, like a loving pair of tweezers, and pry me open, letting me share everything I’d kept inside for ages. There was the pain of the divorce. My child, out there in the world without me. My loneliness – or, better put, the simple fact that I was always alone. I could talk to her about all that. And she’d listen.

I’d been so frustrated watching Mrs. Lindstrom stroll among the flowers because I was eager to talk to Loretta. This would be the most important conversation I’d ever had with her. After requesting a personalized video, for form’s sake, I’d ask her something I’d never had the courage to ask before: Why had my wife left me?

As always, Loretta was online.

That was the best thing about her. She was always online.  


II. Rodrigo

My mom had constantly repeated that learning English would take me far. Well, she was right. Kind of. Or maybe she was wrong. Being a “chatter” for internet models was the best-paying job I’d ever had – but I’d never felt worse about anything. Was this what God had intended for me?

The premise was simple. All these girls around the world posted naked pictures and sexy videos on OnlyFans, a website that acted like a subscription service. Lonely guys paid for the pictures, the videos, and the right to chat with the models. The more the model chatted with a guy, the more he’d be likely to spend. But these women didn’t have time for endless digital flirting – they were too busy taking pictures, recording videos, and otherwise living their lives. That’s where we came in – the chatters. We worked for an agency, got paid by the hour, and sat there at an office in Guatemala City, exchanging messages with lonely men. It was decent pay – especially for someone like me, whose English grammar is perfect but whose pronunciation isn’t good enough for a call center job. The problem was the guilt that never left you, the numbness that came from knowing you were doing something wrong.

Let me tell you something – these guys were sad, man. Some were divorced. Lots were aging virgins. I had a few tell me they were about to die. My job was just to keep talking dirty, drawing from the repertoire of sexy phrases pinned next to my screen, mixing in the occasional sample clip from the model I was impersonating. Not a good gig, man – not a good gig at all.

Sundays were the worst. It was my day off, and I would use the opportunity to go to mass. An hour and half of singing, praying, and listening to Father Ernesto preach, and every time I got down on my knees along with the rest of the congregation, I’d sit back down to find the pew a little bit colder. I’d say “peace” to my neighbors, then walk the three blocks home, wondering why I couldn’t just quit, why my greed was keeping me from being a good person.

Well, it wasn’t exactly greed, was it? I wasn’t getting rich off this. I was paying for my little sister’s school. I was keeping the lights on in the house. I was making things easier for my mom so she wouldn’t be angry all of the time. But still – there had to be another way. I knew there were other ways. But still I didn’t quit.

One Monday afternoon, when my shift was just about over, I started chatting with a man named Ken. At first he seemed a standard client – asked for a new video, sent an extra tip, went dark for a few minutes while cleaning up his mess – but then he asked one of those especially desperate questions that I’d only get about once a week.

“Why did my wife leave me?”

Man, I thought, why are you asking me? That’s something only your wife and God would know. Why don’t you ask Him?

We had pretty specific instructions for these types of situations – indulge the client with a serious answer, then get him back on the topic of sex. After all, the money was in the pictures and videos, not heartfelt advice. The one thing we weren’t to do under any circumstances was prolong the conversation with any personal questions — and yet, just this time, I couldn’t help myself.

“Why don’t you ask God that question? I think He would know better than me.”

I switched to other tabs, sending photos and videos across the internet like the digital pimp I was, until I saw Ken had messaged back.

“Do you really think that, Loretta?”

“Yes,” I typed. “You do believe in God, don’t you, Ken?”


III. Ken

Usually I’d respond to Loretta as soon as I’d received a message. I was under no illusions. I wasn’t that pathetic guy at the strip club thinking his favorite girl would fall in love with him. Loretta had other guys to talk to, and I could lose her attention if I dicked around — so I’d always typed back immediately. Until now.

Did I believe in God? Nobody had ever asked me before. I’d never even asked myself. Religion just seemed a subject beyond my life’s purview, something other people did, like opera or ballet. How could I believe in God? I’d never, not once, seen the inside of a church. My parents had played bingo on Sunday. Now I watched the news. God? God? Where would I even find him?

“I don’t know, Loretta,” I finally typed. “Do you?”

“Yes,” she responded immediately. “And you should, too.”

“But how? It’s not something you just do.”

Now it was Loretta’s turn to pause before answering.

“Just go outside and walk around,” she finally said. “Look at everything God has created. And then talk to people…yes, especially talk to people! God is love, Ken. He’s joy. And He’s all around us. You just have to go out there and feel it.”

My goodness, I thought, what a fantastic woman! Never had a person said something like that to me, something so beautiful, thoughtful, and pure, something crafted from a gorgeous soul, like a warm dinner for my own soul to feast on. You just have to go out there and feel it. She was right, she was right! My hands jittering with excitement, I typed out a response.

“Thank you for saying that, Loretta. Thank you!”


IV. Rodrigo

I was still chatting with Ken when the clock in the corner of the screen finally turned to 6:00. My shift was over, and, instinctively, I clicked on the tab that would send the chat to the “Open Pool” for another chatter to take over. But then I froze, my finger still pressing down on the mouse, keeping the chat box open on my screen. It seemed wrong to leave him there, in the midst of the first real conversation I’d ever had with a client. Then I remembered that my sister would be worried if I wasn’t home when she got back from her play rehearsal — so I released the mouse, shut down the computer, and headed out into the cool, moist air of the darkening city streets.

As I walked past the clothes sellers and legless beggars, ducking beneath taco-stand awnings and closing my nostrils to the tempting smell of grease, I regretted leaving the conversation unfinished. Maybe I had been making a difference in the guy’s life, helping him sort things out, guiding him toward the faith he needed among the Godless glamor of Gringolandia. But then I remembered something Padre Ernesto had once said, casually, to a seminarian while I happened to be standing nearby. We’re like carpenters on a ship in the middle of a storm. We can patch the holes. We can repair the masts. We can even build lifeboats. But we can’t stop the storm. That’s for God to handle — and we should be humble enough to know it.

No, man, I had no reason to feel guilty. I had done a good thing that day. I hadn’t built the guy a lifeboat, but I’d at least suggested he might need one. Pretty good for a twenty-year-old kid, right? I mean, I wasn’t a priest, was I?

But I could be. I could be a priest.

That was the first time — during my walk home from the office after chatting with Ken — that my true vocation occurred to me.


V. Ken

Loretta responded to my thank-you message with an offer for another free video — as long as I promised I would subscribe again next month. I said I would, but then something very strange happened. I received the video, and I could see her kneeling on her bed, in underwear, her hands already behind her back, ready to unclasp her bra. And I didn’t hit play. I sat for a long time, thinking about what she had said, about God, about finding Him outside, about love and joy and other people. I sat and I stared at the image until I hated it. The Loretta I’d just talked to wasn’t here, stripping off so I could masturbate to the image of her naked body. She was out in the world, trying to make enough money to survive, to partake in that joy and love that she’d just described so well. I was just watching her do her job. Thankfully, she’d stopped doing her job for a brief moment, breaking the fantasy and typing out the truth, injecting a bit of God, a bit of grace, into the pixelated tundra of modern American existence.

I closed my laptop and looked outside, out the window at all the people I could but wouldn’t talk to. There was that pretty yuppy lady, walking her massive dog. There was the neighbor kid, trying not to step on the cracks. And there was old Mrs. Lindstrom, hugging her sides to compensate for her shabby jacket, still without the husband who, I suddenly realized, might not even exist. No wonder she’d never bought anything. She was poor. Broke. Had absolutely nothing.

Next time she was in, I decided, I’d give her a free bouquet.

– Benjamin Clabault