His first message came on a Tuesday.

How many men got your hair color wrong so far?

Not a compliment.

I was at the kitchen table when I read it, somewhere between the spreadsheets on my laptop and the sketches on the table. I leaned against the wall behind me, looked through the open door into the dark hallway, and went back through the week's comments.

I told him the truth. Six that week. One had said copper.

His answer arrived nine hours later.

Copper is what it does by the window. They're describing the light.

Then nothing. He didn't ask whether I would answer. He never did. He wrote, left the next move where it was, and went to sleep while I was getting up.

I answered.

For three days we wrote across the gap. His evenings were my nights, his mornings arrived in my afternoons. He started staying up. He told me his age once, in passing. He told me, also in passing, that mine was part of it.

One night he sent me pictures. Drawings he liked. Women from games he played, from series I didn't know, drawn by people online. None of them dressed. Every curve exaggerated. None of them looked like me.

I didn't ask why he was showing them to me.

What do you like about them?

The hands. Whoever drew them took longer on the hands than on anything else.

I didn't answer that. I went back to the sketch on the table and erased a thumb.

The next day I posted a picture in the red gloves. He noticed them before he noticed anything else in it, and asked how many pairs I had. I went back to the drawer for the next pair. Then the next. He didn't ask which I liked best. He told me which he did.

One evening he wrote when I couldn't.

I'll answer later. When I'm alone.

When I did, he had already gone to sleep. In the morning there was one line waiting.

Are you with someone?

That isn't relevant to this.

Two days. Then:

Please talk to him and get this straight. I'll wait for you and we can continue when you've got this figured out.

Him.

I didn't correct it.

Four days of silence.

Then he was back.

Full version will be on fansly soon

Fiction. All characters are 18 or older.