In the living rooms, in the kitchens, in the bathtubs, in the unfurnished-except-for-an-exercise-ball yoga studios, everywhere there is shameless fucking. It appears to you through distant windows, the fucking. An endless array of windows seen from your dark, Incognito room. A Red Light District in Halloween orange.

You yourself have never taken part in such fucking, not like this, legs draped acrobatically across marble countertops or ballet barres, eyes burning with the fiendish craze of a new career in acting. You are not a virgin; except, when it comes to this kind of fucking, this carnal, desperate, bloodthirsty fucking, you are. And like any virgin, you wonder what you’re missing out on.

In the windows, the acrobats freeze mid-act. They hold themselves in limbo, waiting for your eyes to imbue their lives with meaning. You creep from one to another, silent as a museum-goer. When you pause at one, its inhabits come to life. The story commences in medias res. It’s no Homer, but your primitive limbic system doesn’t mind. Your hypothalamus revs its nervous engine, and you buzz into soft focus. Though you are alert, the low emotional stakes tell your amygdala not to record memories. In hindsight, this will all be a blur. “Skinny Teen Pussy Tastes Like Honey” says a sign above the window. You leave, and the acrobats freeze again.

You wish you could talk to them. About this place, their dreams, the sky, their doubts, their births—anything to break this crippling silence. But they are not here. You can see it in their eyes, two more dispassionate holes in which to imagine yourself. You don’t want to think this way, but you do. It’s this place, as amoral as the Internet itself, it makes you think this way. Groans and bodies contort to fit any implausible whim. Rule 34 of the Internet: an axiom. But when you have everything, you have nothing. Lusting after a window, you only see yourself.

One window in particular catches your eye. You hurry past a torrent of incest to reach it. “Young Girl Angel Does Very First Anal.” Angel, your Angel, you know her. Her real name is Milana, she was born in Estonia, and this is not her first anal. Her turn-offs are “disrespect and tactlessness,” two qualities that “do not adorn men.” She is 28, but she is a girl. Every woman here is a girl, because the world wants them to be. And whether you like it or not, you are part of the world. You want them to be girls.

Angel plays the role convincingly. With each new scene she is born again, a virgin. She has—you would say if ever asked—what Zen priests call “beginner’s mind.” The shock on her face is authentic. You feel the ecstasy in every thrust.

You like to watch Angel because she looks free, because she enjoys what she does, and because you are a good feminist. You only watch the girls who have an air of presence, the ones who appear to be choosing this life. That way, you feel a greater connection.

Now, Angel’s naked brown eyes lock with yours. For once, you wish you could be seen. You would ask her if it’s lonely being the object of so much lust. And you would ask her whether she reads your comments, the ones that compare her well-oiled skin to wet magnolia leaves and her tits to dormant volcanoes. Do the words of strangers touch her? Or do they bounce off her immaculate body like the water droplets in “Steamy Shower Sex with Teen Virgin”?

You will never know. You will never really ask her anything, since she does not respond to your comments, and since she will never sit across from you at your favorite cafe, taking slow sips as you explain yourself calmly, confidently, while the tall shadow of the sycamore outside the window stretches out to graze the edge of her shoulder and the baristas step away from their steamy work to watch your relationship bloom, smiling because you’re together at last, you and your Angel.

You would laugh. You would tell her you don’t do this often—go on dates—and a neighbor would back you up: “He’s usually hard at work on that computer of his!” By your laugh she would understand that all the anxiety and awkwardness in your life was an accident of the past, that now you are strong, resolute with your desire yet tender and earnest like new leaves and unlike the man in “Steamy Shower Sex with Teen Virgin,” whose rigidity was almost ruined the film—and that your comments, however cumbersome a romantic method, were simply necessary to bring two kindred spirits together—all other contact info being unknown—into this liberated closeness you were meant to share. No more windows, no more frozen days awaiting a stranger’s eyes—you’re free—can’t she hear you? Free!

On screen, a large, veiny forearm reaches around Angel to caress her breast. She glances back at the man, whose bald head faces away from you, and says, “Gryavshi grayev.” Though you have no clue what it means, the way she says it pleases you, the serene dispassion of it, like a cat that allows itself to be petted without gratitude.

You cum into a tissue, and your body relaxes. Almost immediately, your serenity is replaced by regret. You wanted something, but it isn’t this. It feels as if love—profound, mysterious, all-encompassing love—the kind that emanates from some infinite inner well that all great people seem to possess, will always elude you. You were robbed.

And what have all these hours—days—stolen by your Incognito habits cost you? You’re not quite sure. What you do know is that your loneliness has no center. It wasn’t porn, or for that matter, anything, that caused it. Yet somehow it is all around you, threatening to close in and snuff out the last few candles lit for meaning’s vigil.

But there is still time. And hope. And other temporalities. It is not too late to change your life.

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