How to Tell a Lie Page 4

  She clung to his voice, clenching her eyes tight, committing herself to the insanity of the whole episode. She registered the changes, his spoken words less formal, more coarse than his writing, but responded no less immediately. Her nipples were almost rough under her touch, distended to the point of being sore, every nerve there feeling directly linked to the pulse behind her clit.

  “Talk to me, Allison.”

  “I’m doing what you said. It feels good. What are you doing?”

  “I’m…okay, I see what you mean, this is weird. I feel like I’m going to sound too clinical. Okay, I’m holding my balls in my hand and playing with them. I really want to use my other hand on my dick, but I’m waiting. I don’t think I’ll last very long.”

  “Mmm. Sounds nice. You could picture me kneeling there instead of here.”

  “I already am. That’s the problem.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “We backtracked. You already had a hand between your legs too, before. Do that now. Run it down your stomach slowly and tease yourself. Just run your fingers along the edges of your pussy.”

  She followed his instructions and when her fingers reached the velvety outer lips, she sighed. She knew it was loud enough for him to hear. She heard an appreciative murmur through the speaker.

  “Are you wet?”

  “I don’t know yet, I’m just teasing, remember?”

  “Yes, you are teasing. I’m actually in pain. I feel pleasantly masochistic, just now. Run one finger down the middle of your pussy and slowly, slowly slide it inside.”

  “More teasing?” She was breathless, she was doing what he had described, and she could hear his approval when he answered.

  “Always. Are you wet, princess?”

  “God, yes.”

  He chuckled, a delicious sound. “Jesus. This is crazy. I’m about to destroy my keyboard if I’m not careful. What are you doing with your other hand?”

  She hadn’t been doing much of anything with her other hand. Now she brought it into play, and described the results as she did so. “I’m…moving it down to rub my clit. And now I’m switching hands, because I have to use my right hand to do that.”

  “What a coincidence, I’m right-handed for that too. How do you do it? Tapping, rubbing in circles, hard or soft?” She could tell he was trying to sound light, but his voice sounded jerky, breathless. It was exciting to listen to. Allison felt an oddly voyeuristic satisfaction in hearing him lose control. In the next moment she regretted not being able to see him. She was starting to crest, the rhythmic pressure of her fingers on her cunt sending answering shivers along her spine and down her legs. She would be at a point of no return soon, and wasn’t sure she wanted it to be over.

  “Little circles,” she replied, every bit as breathless now as Seth sounded. “Slow and soft at first, but then harder and faster. I wish it were your tongue. God, I can’t believe I just said that.”

  “Shit, you’re so…wait. No! Damn!”

  Allison could hear a soft slapping sound, even through the iffy sound connection of the voice chat.

  “No, wait!” She was too close herself to stop. Another few rapid strokes against her throbbing clit, another rough pump of two fingers into her channel and she came with a harsh cry, too shocked at herself to be shy. The climax whipped through her once and then crested again as her fingers worked harder. It was brilliant and shattering, and she was woozy and trembling when she heard another soft curse from Seth, and then an explosive and very male grunt as his own orgasm hit. Allison leaned down over the computer, closer to the speakers, her panting breaths and Seth’s forming a wordless duet as their heart rates slowly returned to normal.

  He spoke first, sounding as shaky as she felt. “Are you okay?”

  When she didn’t respond immediately—because, as she discovered, her mouth was too dry to speak—he cleared his throat and asked again. “Allison, are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she managed. And then, weakly, “Did you ruin your keyboard?” They laughed together and she closed her eyes again, wrapping herself only in the sound of his contentment.

  “No, I remembered at the last minute that I was using a dishtowel as a coaster for my beer. It came in handy.”

  “And I guess the beer was long since gone anyway, so it’s not like it would leave a ring anymore.”

  “Right.”

  “Are you okay?”

  He took a few seconds to think about it, a delay that terrified Allison until she heard his voice again. “I’m so much better than okay, I don’t have words for it. But I know, intellectually, I should already be regretting this. You know? Conventional wisdom says we should both be swimming in remorse already, and I’m totally not doing that.”

  “Me either.” She hadn’t known it until she said it. “Maybe it’s the endorphins.”

  “Maybe so. Will you have lunch with me tomorrow? Wait, no, I mean breakfast. Lunch is too far away. Have breakfast with me tomorrow. I’ll pick you up. Or meet you? Maybe at Booker’s on Old Brink?”

  “I love that place. I love their pancakes.” She bit her tongue before she could profess love for anything else. “But probably no. I mean, I think that would probably be a bad idea. Meeting. For food. I mean.”

  “No. Not a bad idea. Good idea.”

  “Bad idea.”

  “I have to see you.”

  “I can’t see anyone right now. I just got over a bad breakup. I’m in a really good place right now and I don’t want to screw it up.”

  But just as he had somehow convinced her, with such ease, that cyber sex was a good idea, Seth was already reasoning her into meeting for breakfast.

  “I just meant I want to see you. Literally see you. I want to reassure myself that this actually happened and you’re not just something I imagined. I’m not saying we have to do it again, or do it in person. In fact, let’s just take that as a given. But how can we have a secret cyber-sex life if we don’t have a public platonic relationship? What would be the thrill? And we have research that naturally intersects. It’s the most logical thing in the world for us to know each other.”

  “Professionally, you mean?”

  “Absolutely. After all, we met in a professional context. We can talk about work.”

  “We met playing an online game. I was a snow elf. You were…a human character who looks exactly like your actual human self, but with a robe and wizard hat.”

  “Exactly. It was all business.”

  “Seth…”

  “That’s Doctor Brantley to you.”

  She giggled, something she didn’t normally do but seemed to be making a habit of lately. Then she caught a whiff of sex on her hand and raised her fingers up, wrinkling her nose at the sharp smell. “Doctor Brantley, I don’t usually make a habit of working breakfasts with colleagues on Saturday mornings.”

  “But you’re going to make an exception this time, Doctor Moore. Because you know I can help you find more subjects for your evil psychological manipulations, since I know more kids in the game than you can shake a stick at.”

  “Academic blackmail?”

  “I’m too sleepy to pretend it’s anything else. And besides—”

  “You don’t lie. I remember.”

  “This is like getting right back on the horse, Doctor. If we don’t meet tomorrow, it’ll just get harder and harder until we’re so embarrassed we’ll likely give something away when the inevitable happens and we run into one another. It’s a small town.”

  She considered his words, debated whether to comment on his “harder and harder” remark, discarded the idea then returned to it for lack of anything better to say.

  “Having it get harder and harder is sort of what I’m trying to avoid. Sorry.”

  “Tomorrow,” he said firmly, pointedly ignoring her remark. “Or rather, later today, because I see it’s after midnight now. So meet me at Booker’s on Old Brink, at nine-thirty in the morning. I will buy, because that’s how I roll. You will eat pancakes and be very pr
ofessional. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Good. And now I’m going to get some sleep, which you should also do. This was not a dream. I will see you in the morning, Doctor.”

  “I look forward to it, Doctor.” She stifled the urge to salute, as he wouldn’t see it anyway.

  “Okay then. Hey, one more thing before I log off. Are you close to the speaker?”

  She leaned in, curious. “Yes. What?”

  “Amazing,” he whispered. “Goodnight, princess.”

  And then he was gone, logged off, the speaker silenced. Allison sat back against the couch and tugged her robe up around her shoulders, her emotions a dissonant blend of sated and depressed. But the wine and the sex—cyber though it might have been—contrived to make her too sleepy to think. The computer was barely shut down before she climbed up onto the sofa and closed her eyes, and there she slept without moving until morning.

  Chapter Three

  Lying in person is a tricky business, because the body supplies an acute watcher with an endless array of clues. Most communication has little to do with the spoken word, and a liar can usually be detected not only through words but through actions. Touching the face, especially the nose, too often while speaking. Looking away from the listener, particularly looking to the left, or down and to the right, were all potential cues that the speaker might be lying. Creating an answer, not relating a memory. Liars thought too much before speaking, and it showed.

  In written communication, however, lies were often easier to hide. Even in live chat, suspiciously long pauses could just be caused by slow typing. But some clues were as applicable to the written word as they were for spoken words. Many liars tended to use very careful sentence constructions aloud or in writing, to avoid contractions and to construct their answers using the same words that were used in the question. “Did you sleep with her?” might be answered, for example, with, “No, I did not sleep with her.” That would be the liar’s answer. Even more damning would be, “No, I did not sleep with that woman.” A truthful answer would more likely be an emphatic and indignant “No!”

  In many subjects who spent a great deal of time in online forums, Allison had learned, lies were remarkably easy to detect because of the otherwise casual tone of so many of their interactions. With a sudden increase in formality, and corresponding increase in average sentence length and use of clauses, the lie stood out from the netspeak like a sore thumb. The psychological aspect came into play in examining the content of the lies, of course. Lies about age, about employment and education, about hobbies, were all fairly common in online game chat and other internet venues frequented by teenagers and adults alike.

  The tricky part was deducing lies when the subject was prone to write in complete sentences anyway. The more formal the language in general, the harder it was to spot the changes that marked a lie. And the more educated the liar, the more believable he or she could make the written lie seem. A generality, but it was being supported by more and more research as Allison and her occasional research assistants explored a variety of online chat forums with a wide range of target demographics.

  Allison would be the first to admit she enjoyed the online aspect of her research so much because it allowed her to avoid actual contact with people most of the time. She loved psychology, but mostly loved it in the abstract. She had no interest in analyzing people face-to-face, and indeed suspected she wouldn’t be very good at it if she tried. But analyzing people at a distance was endlessly fascinating, and on the internet everybody was at a distance all the time.

  Except, of course, Seth Brantley. And here he was sitting across from her at Booker’s, calmly tucking into a pile of pancakes and acting as though they had not had mind-blowing chat sex the night before. He was being absolutely professional, as promised. It was maddening.

  “Well, what do you think of Adelston’s premise about internet interaction?”

  “He’s an alarmist.” She stabbed into her stack of buttermilk flapjacks and started carving bite-sized pieces from the mass. “But it sells. I don’t agree with him that we’re all going to end up clinically depressed and friendless. But I do think some people are affected that way. It can certainly be addictive. That’s already been shown many times.”

  “Agreed.” He watched her fork travel from her plate to her mouth with more interest than she had seen all morning. It flashed across his face then just as quickly disappeared. She noted with a certain satisfaction that his eyes flicked down and to his right, and he started fiddling with his fork rather than using it to eat. He was talking to himself, she could tell, and she wondered what he was telling himself, there in his mind.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked, knowing it was cruel. She regretted it only after she had the answer. He always told the truth, she reminded herself too late. Or at least he said he did.

  “I’m thinking about last night. And we agreed not to talk about that, although I would really love to talk about it, so I’m trying to think of another topic. Trying desperately to think of another topic.” He looked up with a boyish grin, completely unabashed. “Football? Baseball? Politics? Global warming?”

  “Uh…”

  “I know. See, none of them are really that interesting compared to the alternative. But we agreed, so we’re going to have to think of something. Because otherwise this will get awkward and we’ll want to leave. And I don’t want that.”

  “Are you always like this in the morning?”

  “No. I am never like this in the morning. I usually don’t speak until I’ve had two cups of coffee and read most of the paper.”

  “I see. Me either.”

  “That’s convenient. But again, probably not a safe topic if we’re supposed to avoid talking about last night.”

  “We are avoiding it if you want to keep eating breakfast with me this morning, Doctor Feelgood.”

  “Are subsequent mornings still open for negotiation?”

  “I’m not making any commitments for or against at this stage.”

  “I guess I’ll have to live with that for now. Thank you for keeping the possibility open.”

  Allison snuck another glance at his face, but his glasses were once again catching the light and masking his eyes. His body language, however, was open and inviting. He was taking another bite of pancake and seemed happy and relaxed, without a care in the world. All that changed in a moment as he spotted somebody across the room. His shoulders stiffened, and Allison could almost see his jaw clenching.

  “Damn it. Would you excuse…never mind, he’s coming over here.”

  “Who?”

  “Well, good morning, Doctor Brantley. And the lovely— I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met?”

  “You’ve sort of met. Drew, this is Doctor Allison Moore, from Psychology. Allison was one of our healers last night, her screen name is all the vowels. Doctor Moore, this is my brother Drew, also known as Knotmaster in the game. Drew works out in the real world, far from the ivy-covered halls…”

  “Ma’am.” Drew Brantley reached out a hand. When Allison took it, expecting a handshake, he raised it to his lips instead. “They sure didn’t make professors like you when I was in college, Doctor. I might have stayed even longer if they had.”

  Seth rolled his eyes and rescued Allison’s hand from his brother’s, squeezing her fingers almost imperceptibly before releasing them. “We were actually just discussing a research project, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  Drew grinned, his green eyes twinkling. He looked like a taller, beefier version of his brother, with darker, wavy hair and without glasses. “I wouldn’t mind at all. You know I’m all about research. Miss, could we get another cup of coffee here?” He had already pulled a free chair from the next table and swung it around, flagging down the waitress and sitting down as smoothly as if it had been choreographed.

  “So. What’s this research about?”

  * * * * *

  Allison had made her excuses quickly and escap
ed soon afterward, fleeing the restaurant and the unexpected company but laughing at herself even as she speed-walked down the street toward campus. Seth was persistent and she half expected him to come after her, but his brother seemed to have kept his attention long enough to allow her a sufficient head start. She had almost contemplated staying longer, in part to enjoy the lively exchange between Seth and his brother.

  Drew was full of energy and devilish humor. He flirted outrageously with Allison but she sensed it was for Seth’s benefit, meant to tease his brother rather than attract her. She didn’t mind, but she thought she would find him taxing to be around for too long at a stretch. Like Seth, she suspected, she needed a certain amount of quiet in order to think through the events of her day. Drew’s personality was slightly larger than life, and she wondered whether that had developed as a defense mechanism and, if so, what he was defending himself against.

  Allison only went as far as campus, where she liked how much she was able to accomplish on a Saturday morning, with hardly anybody else in the building and no distractions from her work.

  Still, as she sat in her office and worked the morning away, she found herself unaccountably longing to hear the phone ring, or her email alarm chime, or some other indication of attempted contact by the deliciously attentive economics professor. When no such sign came, she couldn’t help but be a bit peeved. She finally called her cousin Tess and made a lunch date, leaving her office with a swift and unsatisfying slam of the door. Tess would have advice, and although it would only come after a thorough grilling and heartless teasing, it would almost certainly be good advice. And after all, if she couldn’t whine about her love life to the best friend who happened to be her cousin, who could she whine to?

  * * * * *

  “Who the hell are you and what have you done with Allison?” Tess demanded. It was a cliché, but sometimes it was simply the only appropriate thing to say. This was such a time.

  “Tess, it’s not like he was a stranger. Not a real stranger, anyway. I mean, I knew who he was. He’s a professor, he works across the quad, we had a friendly dinner. It’s not like it was dangerous.”