Thrill Seeker Read Online Free PDF Page B

streamlined form on display. Irarely chat to people who won’t show their face but, oh, I am evidently shallow and lecherous, too easily dazzled by a man captured in a twist of dance, his ripped body full of energy and masculine poise.
    I was immediately suspicious. Where was the holiday snap, the wedding-guest photo he’d cropped to hide his ex, the lop-shouldered self-portrait from a phone camera? Was he trying to impress me with a portfolio photo? Keep his distance? Was it even him?
    I’d scrutinised the picture for clues to the person depicted but found little. Against a grey backdrop, barefoot and dressed in black joggers, he was lunging sideways, one arm drawn back. I stared, loving what I saw. Elegant yet aggressive, he was a classical sculpture brought to life, a sheen of sweat suggesting a fluid quality as if alabaster were streaming over sub-structures of bone and muscle. Light and shadow played across his skin, joining in this monochrome dance. On his taut upper arm, a black tattoo of a circle sporting three horns or flames removed some of the image’s implicit anonymity.
    Most striking of all was his head, the shaved dome of his skull sweeping round into a beaked Venetian mask, brightly jewelled but ominous. He was a freakish bird from a malevolent carnival, the phallic threat of his hooked proboscis creating, in my mind, a cloaked creature who haunted alleyways at night, stalking his prey.
    The mask affected me. Without it, he might have been too clean and wholesome. But that grotesque edge gave him a darker charm, appealing to the side of me that thrills to a hint of threat.
    Of course, I kept this to myself. I wrote back, thanking him and hiding my attraction with a cheeky dismissal. ‘What is this? Eyes Wide Shut ?’
    Later, I wrote: ‘So do I get to see your face?’
    ‘All in good time,’ he replied.
    Like I say, I was wary. I can understand why someone might not want their picture on their profile. They might be shy, uncomfortable with online dating, or have a need to protect their privacy. But once you start chatting to someone, they send their picture. Den could be married, ugly or scarred. Or it might not be him at all and I was messaging an ageing, pot-bellied pervert tossing off in a bedsit in Birmingham. But something told me it was him, and if he removed his mask, he’d have a face I wanted to look at, eyes I wanted to swim in, lips I wanted to kiss. So I gave him the benefit of the doubt and kept writing to him, caught up with the magic and the mystery.
    I liked him, this man without a face.
    But now he’d entered my home, uninvited, and liking him seemed a stupid move.
    I needed more on him. I wanted to check his profile. I hadn’t looked at it much since we’d started chatting. When you check someone’s profile, they can see on their home page that you’ve visited. Check someone out too often, and you might look stalkerish. Plenty of times I’d resisted the urge to revisit Kagami’s profile. I couldn’t remember everything he’d written. How had he answered the questions everyone gets asked? What were his drinking habits, his star sign? I remembered he was 6'2" but his BMI? Did it matter?
    I toyed with the idea of not visiting his page, thinking my wisest option would be to cut all contact, don’t even hint at being interested or disturbed. Quit this nonsense before it’s too late. But I didn’t want to quit. I would rise to his challenge and show him I understood his game.
    My cursor hovered over his avatar, a cartoonish shadowof a man in a Stetson, the default for guys who don’t upload a photo. I decided to check his profile one last time. I’d take a screen grab for future reference. I was edgy again. I felt as if I was being watched. I hadn’t put the radio on, wanting instead to stay alert to unusual sounds.
    His profile took ages to load. Was this the right thing to do? When the page finally filled my screen, my blood ran cold.
    This user no longer has a