Back in '97, at CKS Partners, I worked with some interesting people. It was the dotcom heyday, and uniqueness was embraced. Not to say that individuality is a back-seat commodity now but, well, there were just some strange people at CKS.

One of the strangest was J. J was a copywriter at CKS, a new mother, a nice person, and a real freak. I'm not talking about quirky-weird, like some of my coworkers. Sondra was '88 lines about 44 women' weird. J was Fairuza Balk in The Craft, fake-dead-sparrow-hanging-upside-down-from-her-office-ceiling kind of weird. J was Chicago Elements of Style and Strunk & White bookended by an alien-fetus-in-a-jar kind of weird. Though there was always a second desk in her office, it saw more temps than Murphey Brown had secrataries.

J was seeing an engineer in the Cupertino office (did I mention that she was married? Oops. Yeah she was) on the sly, while at the same time leading on a co-worker friend of mine, C, who was dissatisfied with her own live-in girlfriend because said partner was starting to date other people. Got it? No? Okay: J, married, with 6 month-old baby, is also seeing engineer-guy behind her husband's back (she later leaves her husband for engineer-guy, who leaves the company and changes his name). J is also having a tenuous relationship with my friend C, who is looking for something real to replace the uncertain attentions of her own girlfriend. J gives C just enough attention to give C hope that J might be the one for her, or at least the one to assuage the pain of her girlfriend's infidelities.

Meanwhile C and I became good friends on some levels, while remaining strangers on others. We have lunch often, talk about our problems, and share stories. She needed an ear and, like van Gogh, I had a spare. We all like to feel needed. Of course on other levels our lives were entirely separate. It's what I would call a 'fourth-wall friendship.' That is to say, We each got a full view of the others life, from one perspective, but there was no interaction with that life. We'd each know what was going in the others 'real' life, but that life was behind the scrim, for viewing purposes only.

The only part of each other's life we would actually touch was in the office. For many people that would mean a Dilbert-Venn intersection, almost a parody of real life with 'how are your projects going' and 'did you see last night's West Wing?' replacing 'what's your major' on the smalltalk punch list. But then there was J, a rust-crimson dot on the overlapping intersection that was CKS.

Like C and myself, J was looking for attention. While at first I rarely spoke with J, eventually C told J that she and I had been talking about their relationship, and J instantly started paying more attention to me. The three of us would go out for lunch together, and occasionally J would try to shock me by telling me about how she hears women masturbate in the ladies room, and she wonders if other people hear her.

J needed constant validation of self-worth, seeking it by trying to fill every nook of her life with physical intimacy. C was afraid of abandonment, and needed a safety-net, or possibly an escape ladder, in case her current relationship fell apart. Me? I fell into my usual role of Jiminey Cricket, acting as confidant to both, while not betraying either. It's not as bad as it sounds: both of them were fully aware. Looking back, they may have gotten off on it, feeling the excitement and fear of telling me what they were too timid or afraid to tell each other. It's a role I've played several times, and one I try hard not to fall into anymore.

Adding to the mix, C was a cutter, and that habit rubbed off onto J. I'm a fixer, and hadn't yet clued into the reality that a lot of people are self-destructive for attention's sake, acting out just so someone will come and try to fix them.

This weird menage-a-twisted relationship came to a head one day when I dropped by J's office for something and she kept wanting to see my hand. "Let me read your palm" as she splayed my fingers, tracing my life-line. For a moment I thought to correct her, giving her my left hand, as I'm left-handed. In palmistry, the right hand of a leftie depicts their 'forecast' at birth, while the dominant hand shows what the person's will has made of their life. I pulled back a fraction, and her grasp on my hand tightened a fraction. I realized I didn't really care so much what she would read in my future.

My hand in her hand, she opened her desk drawer with the other, plucking a pin from amongst its shiny sisters in the front of the drawer. Her fingers grasping my palm, she turned her head up and said, "let me" as she brought the pin toward my hand. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I took my hand back and watched as she slowly, deliberately, pricked her middle finger as I watched in surprise. She dropped her pin onto her desk and took my hand by the wrist once more, while squeezing her pricked fingertip between her thumb and ring-finger, summoning up a growing red drop of blood from the pinprick.

...

When I was seven years old, my sister and I had the same best friend, Linda. Three years earlier Linda and I met when we were in the same kindergarten. One day after school I found a scrap of paper on the playground near the classroom and, ever curious (even more so at that age), I picked it up. The scrap held a phone number. Ever the precocious four-year-old, I took the number home and called it that evening after school. Linda, a hitherto (no, I didn't use words like 'hitherto' back then) unnoticed classmate who had written the number down for another friend, became fast and close friends with me and my older sister, Susie. Linda had a younger brother and golden retriever. Her parents were both teachers and they had a VW van and two bugs, one of which they'd periodically repaint new colors. Our friendship was the stereotypical childhood friendship. We'd spend summers riding our bikes to the mall, camping out in the backyard, and making up games. When one of us would run away from home, it was a fair bet that we ran to the other's. Our parents became good friends.

One day, alone for the afternoon, the three of us decided to become blood brothers, Indian style. I'm sure that we had seen it on TV somewhere; to cement a friendship into a kinship, you each cut your hands and shake, letting the blood mingle and re-enter your system, each of you letting a little of the other's life-blood into yourself. This is a one-way function; irreversible. Forever.

We got the needle, sterilized it with a match, and each pricked our fingers in turn, drawing forth a drop of blood and mixing them in one palm.

It didn't really matter that our mixed blood would never get closer than the palm of my hand. The blood was there, intertwined, and that was enough.

...

My wrist in her clasp, J said she wanted to 'mark' me, to make us closer. I was certain that this was exactly the kind of situation that gave mankind the term 'ulterior.' I took my wrist from her grasp; not violently, but with determination. "No. I don't think that's a good idea." "Please? It's important." (reaching for my wrist again) "I don't think it's a good idea." (pulling out of reach) "Fine," she said, and looked around her desk. I was wondering what had her attention until she said "well I need to wipe it somewhere" and she smeared her finger on my jeans, front-mid thigh. "Wha" "Don't worry, it'll wash out." This awkward blood-power struggle over, I turned and left her office, the red spot on my pale blue jeans already weaving its way into the fabric, turning rusty as it went.

Days later, folding my laundry, I noted that the stain didn't come out; it only faded a bit.

A few weeks later, after a second washing, the stain was gone. To be specific, the spot where J's blood infused the fabric was gone, completely, inexplicably.

I'm glad it wasn't my hand or anything else.