Recipe for Failure

Sensitive Content Tags: Questionable porn mentioned

"You don't need to make a folder. Just share the document." Ashley rubbed her forehead, closing her eyes tightly.  The pressure sometimes helped with the headaches.

“How do I do that?”  Aidan asked, sounding annoyed and embarrassed.  Ashley had only one Bluetooth earpiece in so that she could hear her show.  Cowboy Bebop; the original anime, not the live-action remake. But she could still hear the slight whine in his typically cool, deep voice.

“There is a big blue button in the top right of your screen.  It says Share.  Do you see that?”  She had reverted back into her tech support voice.  It was the safest way when dealing with Luddites like Aidan.  He was nice and she was grateful to be paired with him for this lab, but she hadn’t anticipated the extra work needed to get him to a level where she could work with him.  His prowess as a chemistry wizard was quickly losing its luster.

"Oh yeah! There it is!"  It was cute that he was excited about finding something in plain sight. 

"Now click on it." 

"Ok. Done." 

"Type in my email." 

"What's your email?"

Her hand went back to her forehead.

"Oh wait, I have it written down here. Hollyhandgrenade34@gmail.com right? That's funny. Why the 34?"

"It was just the next one available." He had gotten the Monty Python reference. That both tickled and surprised her. But it probably shouldn't have. He was a science major after all, despite looking strikingly like a young, less bulky, Brendan Fraser. Total geek, like her. Except for this ineptitude when it came to technology.

"So now I can make a document?" 

"What?" She asked, coming back from replaying the Mummy in her head. At least all the scenes where Rick O'Connell throws Evelyn around like a sexy, complicit, ragdoll.  "I thought you already started your Journal."

She sighed loud enough for him to hear her. 

"Sorry. I can do that now. Can you walk me through it?"  His sorry had a hint of a W in it, sounding a little bit like 'sowry'. Was he Canadian? that was adorable, Ashley thought. He was actually just a big, burly, Canadian puppy that needed help with his computer. Because puppies don't know how to use computers. Especially Canadian ones. She smirked at the thought of a not-so-tiny Newfoundland puppy pouncing on a broken keyboard.  Her smirk turned into a genuine smile.

She walked him through making the document.  Then she had to walk him through how to share it again. Super simple, but it took them another 10 minutes. 

"Thanks, Ashley. I'm sorry that was so painful. I really appreciate it." 

"No problem. I still can't believe this is your first Google account. That's wild."

"Just never needed two email addresses before." 

"What's your other email?"

"Outlook.  I mean it was Hotmail when I got it, but now it's Outlook."

"Oh… well hope you like your new Gmail. I gotta go.  I'm about to eat and my food's getting cold." 

"Of course! Sowry for keeping you. Thanks again!  See you tomorrow."

She told him it was no problem and they hung up. 

Going back to her show she debated whether to get take out or heat up some Roman.  A few more episodes would be plenty of time for him to get his journal updated in Google. It still boggled her mind that his original plan was to email word documents back and forth. And from Outlook no less!  At least he hadn't suggested they swap notebooks and copy notes that way. He was the only one in class that took notes in a black, spiral-bound, Five Star. Charming, but a lab partner's nightmare. 

***

5 episodes and Chinese take-out later Ashley reluctantly put her food containers aside, got her laptop out, and prepared to get to work, leaving Cowboy Bebop on for background noise. 

Google docs came up as her home screen and she clicked on the "Shared with me" icon to see if Aidan had finished with his notes and formula calculations. She'd take his balanced equations and add them to - 

"Oh boy," she thought. 

It looked like he had only shared a folder labeled Journal that was full of random files and folders already. If he was freeing up space on his desktop he was going to find out pretty quickly there was a data limit to his Google Drive. Seeing a word document called Journal she opened it and jumped to the end by pressing Ctrl + End. 

It took her a second to realize it wasn't his lab journal. With a quick intake of breath and squeak of surprise, she closed the entire browser using another keyboard shortcut.

Three words had popped out at her like pokes to the eye. Her own name, Ashley, BBW, and porn. The BBW wouldn't have stood out if it hadn't been all caps and right before the word porn. What she had opened was not, in fact, Aidan's lab journal, but rather his actual journal.

Sitting there very still Ashley felt her skin go from hot to cold to hot again. Her name was in his journal. In the same paragraph as the word porn. She felt mostly fear. Why was this random guy writing about her in his journal? This was Taken level shit. It was like she could feel him looking at her right now. That made her shiver. This wasn't high school where glimpsing your name in a cute boy's binder was romantic. This was college. The place for higher education, over-budgeted sports, underage drinking, ambiguous and explicit rape, and dark corners for murder. Her dad would say she was being dramatic, but her mom wouldn't. Her mom had given her pepper spray and a taser in cute little holsters for easy access before giving her a frantically tight hug and kiss goodbye. Her mom was right to be overly cautious. Ashley would be too. 

She opened her computer again, not fully remembering closing it.  Facts and fears rushed through her at a speed only a woman planning for her own safety could make sense of.  Her plan of action was already made, she just needed to find a way to justify it to herself. If it was nothing she would do her best to forget it and probably distance herself from him as much as possible.  If there was a threat she needed evidence.  

She made quick work of opening the file, copying the text, and closing it again.  It was possible to see the history of a document (who had viewed it or edited it) but she was pretty sure he didn't know how to do that. At least she hoped he didn't.

After making a new document in her own, private, google docs she pasted the text in, then closed her computer again.  She didn’t feel comfortable reading this out here in the living room when her roommates could come home at any time.  Even though she felt justified in her actions she still didn’t want to explain it to them.  And she also didn’t want them reading it.  She knew they would ask to. Well, Kim would. Stacy probably wouldn't. 

Exercising an extraordinary amount of self-control she turned off her show, walked her laptop to her room, then came back out and took care of her dinner mess.  

She had to throw her trash out in the dumpster. It was Stacy's rules. You eat Chinese, you throw that stinky shit out in the dumpster. The dumpster was outside, down the stairs, and across the parking lot.  Her heart thumped in her ear and she was sweating despite it being a cool, May night.  Every shadow seemed to grow as she neared them and follow her as she passed.  She tried not to run.  If she ran, her fears were real.  She instead walked fast.  Comical, but an acceptable compromise.

Back in her room, under her covers, she opened her laptop.  The adrenaline pumping through her brain was giving her chills.  Fear and excitement made her a little dizzy.  She felt safer under her covers though.  A childhood comfort that still held strong.

Once in her version of Aidan’s Journal file, she did her best not to read the first page that came up.  Trying to maintain the façade of respect critical to the justification of this invasion of privacy. Instead, she pressed ctrl + H to bring up the find and replace option and quickly entered her own name.  Ashley.  Her heart was racing again as “1 of 104” appeared next to what she had just typed.  With a shaking hand, she moved the prompt box to one side so she could see the text where her name was mentioned first of a hundred and four times…

She let her tension out with a sigh as she read.

5/10/98

So saw my brother’s girlfriend today.  Her name's Ashley. She's hot, just not as hot as Dean went on about. College girls look like young moms to me. Which isn't bad, just, when he said hot, I was thinking of girls a little older than me. 12 or 13. There's this girl in my class who should be in the next grade up but she's in my class anyway for some reason. She's 13 and she's what I'd call hot. She wears these yoga pants and I can imagine it's her skin - 

Ashley stopped reading and let her breath out in a puff.  That was obviously not about her but she couldn't stop reading it. Not until it got too… something. Dark? Weird? This whole thing felt weird. It was like mind reading. Which sounded cool in a comic book, but this was weird, and not fun. She reminded herself of her noble goal and moved on. 

She skimmed through nearly a hundred more mentions of "Ashley". They were all about her brother's girlfriend, then fiancé, then wife. It seemed like Aidan got more attracted to her as the years went on, and then somewhat obsessed. It looked like it inspired some sort of incest porn fetish. That gave her chills, like him mentioning a 13-year-old girl's sexual appeal.

Finally, she came to something referencing her directly. 

8/12/09

Started Chem 101 today for the second time. I feel stupid taking this class again, especially seeing as how I'm simultaneously in 302.  I just need to not slack off on the homework and lab. Prof Holt showed a lot of faith in me when she let me move up based on my test scores alone. She knows I know it. I know I know it. I just need to do the work. I quit porn again yesterday. That should help. But there is a girl in this class named Ashley. Somehow that got to me. She looks nothing like Dean's Ashley. But still, all I could think about was this doe-eyed, dark-haired, bordering on BBW -

There it was again.  Ashley did a quick Google search and audibly scoffed and folded her arms defensively. She switched back to the Google doc with a quick ctrl + tab, feeling her face reddening, and angry tears well up in her eyes. But she didn't close the tab with the BBW on it. She continued reading. 

– girl as my step-sister, and accidentally walking in on her in the shower. –  

Ashley laughed once in surprise and disbelief. Is this really how guys think? Do they just put random girls in their own twisted fantasies?

– How fucked up is that!? –  

Pretty fucked up Aidan, she thought.

– I'm serious though, this time. No porn. Not during the semester at least. I have to pass this class. –

She skipped to the next instance of her name. There were only about 10 left, and some of those were referencing his sister-in-law. But about 6 other times he talked about her catching his eye with something she had worn or something as stupid as bending over to pick something up off the ground. She knew that happened, that guys noticed stuff like that, but it still gave her goosebumps to see it written. He would go into detail on her outfits and how her curvy body fit into them. That's what he called her. Curvy. He pointed out how she always had a decent amount of cleavage and that he would sit so he could bring his blood pressure back up with a glance when the lecture threatened to put him to sleep.

– Ashley's cleavage: Better than an espresso – 

The heat in her face was changing from the hard throbbing passion of fear and anger to the softer warmth of being the object of attention. Even if that attention was making her feel uncomfortable while at the same time desirable. Either way she was never wearing leggings again. Or V-necks for that matter. Which sucked because those were two of her favorite things to wear. One made her feel comfortable and the other made her feel pretty. Just not in the way he was describing. 

Ashley got up, suddenly thirsty, and went out to the living room.

"Oh Ash, you are home."

Her two roommates were back. They were on the couch watching Gilmore Girls and eating chips. Kim had to turn half way around on the couch to look at Ashley as she came out of her room. 

"Ha! What were you doing in there Ash?" Kim winked and smiled mischievously. 

"What do you mean?" Ashley asked as she went past the back of the couch and around the bar to get to the kitchen. 

"Your face silly. It's all red. Did you have your headphones on while watching hentai? Is that why you couldn't hear us?" Kim nudged Stacy with her elbow and Stacy grunted, uninterested. 

"No! What!? I don't do that!" Ashley exploded. And it was true. She'd never looked at porn in her life. She guessed that quick search of BBW (for research purposes only) was technically porn, but she'd only seen thumbnails and a descriptive sentence. Kim, on the other hand, was well versed in the subject. Without shame. Of course Kim would assume that. Maybe she should introduce her to Aidan. Ashley went back to her room with her cup of water, hearing Kim snickering the entire way. 

Back in her bed, trying to shake off Kim's comments, she concentrated on the task at hand. So he wasn't dangerous, she had decided. Or, at least, he wasn't a threat to her. Yet. But his obsession with porn and sexual fantasies made her nervous in a way that Kim's obsession with porn didn't. With Kim, it seemed freeing and empowering. She'd even done some porn before, or so she'd said. But Aidan's obsession struck her as dark and out of control. That could be dangerous given time. 

She did another find/replace search. This time for porn. 5,372 hits. Stunned and wide-eyed she started clicking through them. 

– found this new porn site. It's my new stop for water sport now that daddyless.com went to mostly scat. Still can't get into scat. –

What was water sport? Like nude water polo or diving maybe? Probably not, she thought. 

– I think when you fill up a 500GB hard drive with porn it's a sign to slow down. –

– I have to stop. I feel exhausted and haven't done anything all weekend except look at porn and jack off. This is stupid. I'm done –

– I just watched Transformers. I wonder if Megan Fox has done porn? –

– Porn isn't so bad. I just need to regulate it. I can't let it take over all my free time. Plus, I'm not as bad as other guys. They let it change how they treat women. I won't do that. –

– I'm done with porn, for real this time. –

– Porn is fine, so long as… –

It went on and on like that.  Quitting it. Picking it back up. Giving it up again. He always sounded desperate when quitting. Like he knew it was only a matter of time before he gave in again. He actually spelled it out pretty well at one point. 

– Porn is like a rubber band around my throat. A big rubber band. Like on a giant slingshot. When I quit it's like I'm walking backward while pulling on this constricting band. I can't breathe. The draw gets stronger and stronger the longer I go without it. Until something makes me lose traction (side boob in a bathing suit, camel toe in leggings, finding out your favorite prof has an OF) and SPROING! I get flung back into the depths of the internet where they keep the most unsavory things. And I'm lost there, dazed and confused, without time or shame, until I come stumbling out into the light of now and see what's passed me by. That is to say, I'm done with porn, for real this time. 

Dramatic, a little poetic, but mostly sad and pathetic. When he finally did "fall off the wagon", as he always seemed to, his justifications got weaker and weaker. Bargaining, anger, depression, denial. Everything except acceptance. Until it was just "welp, I guess I'm back at it again." She supposed that was some form of acceptance. Maybe. Either way, this was his burden. Not hers. She was in no danger so that was the end of it. 

She closed and deleted the document. It only took her a minute to send him an email explaining his mistake and how to fix it, implying she hadn't opened any files yet. A white lie, but she thought it was reasonable under the circumstances.  They both had their conflict of morals. His greater than hers she thought.  She did not envy his demons.