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and personalities, and then stuck with the one that received the most attention.”
    I was afraid to ask.
    Still seated at the dining table, I was glad Lil couldn’t see me, because I could feel my mouth hanging open like some slack-jawed dolt. I shut my trap when Lil poked her head around the corner into the dining room.
    “Did you ever want to be someone else, Odelia? Even for a day or an hour?”
    “I wouldn’t mind being that guy in Chino who won the lottery last Saturday.”
    Lil knitted her brows slightly. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
    When the tea kettle started to whistle, Lil disappeared back into the kitchen and came out a couple minutes later with a fresh pot of tea. After setting it on the table to steep, she continued. “I don’t mind getting older.” Again, she knitted her brows. “But I damn well mind feeling old.”
    “Boy, join the club.”
    Her serious look melted into a smile. “You have quite a ways to go, dear girl.” She fiddled with a thin lemon wedge, squeezing it gently before sliding it into her china cup.
    “The nice thing about meeting people on the computer is that they don’t have any idea who you really are, so you can be anyone you want. I’m sure a lot of the people I’ve met are nothing like who they claim to be. I just joined them in their little charade. And it was fun to pretend I was young, vibrant, and beautiful.” She paused to look down into her cup. “Even sexually provocative.”
    I squirmed more. It was bad enough to think of Lil and Brian meeting online, but once Lil took the sharp verbal turn to the sexual realm, I really had a difficult time repressing the ewww. I assumed, of course, when she used the word affair that something flirtatious had occurred, but Lil had used the S word openly. It made me wonder just how sexually provocative her online alter ego had been. And I knew I’d have to know. It was the proverbial elephant in the corner. We both knew it was there, but neither wanted to acknowledge it. Finally and reluctantly, I nudged it into the open.
    “Lil, this is difficult for me to ask, but ask I must.” I took a sip of tea to loosen my tongue. “Just how sexually provocative were you? Or specifically, how sexually involved did you become with Brian?”
    Lil turned her face towards me. Her eyes were wide with the frankness of confession. I braced my brain for the invasion of information and wished there were such a thing as an internal crash helmet.
    “To be blunt, I had many sexually explicit encounters over a period of about a year.”
    “A year? I thought you said six months.”
    “I have been involved with Brian for about six months, but I’ve been online under the name of Perfect4u for nearly eleven months now.”
    Perfect4u. Not as evocative as a lot of the screen names I’d seen online. Ladylike but inviting just the same. At least it wasn’t Naykid, Diddlefest, or some other equally ridiculous or more explicitly vulgar name.
    “You said you had many encounters. I assume all of them were online. None of these people asked to meet you? Or even to speak with you on the phone?”
    “Most of them did, including Brian, but I always declined, of course. If they became troublesome or too obsessed with meeting me, I’d stop chatting with them.” Lil paused. “There was one man who became quite a nuisance, but eventually I shook him off. That was about four months ago. I almost changed my screen name, he became so annoying. Then, there was another man—”
    I cut her off gently. “Let’s focus on Brian, shall we?” Lil blushed and nodded. “Did he tell you things that made you think he might be the Blond Bomber?”
    Lil took a long time to respond. I refilled my teacup and refreshed hers. With all the tea we were drinking, I might have to make several pit stops on my way back to Seal Beach.
    “He confessed to me that he had known the women who had been killed through the Internet. Said he even met one of them in