Five

I opened the slider, did that fast pick up thing you do when you get zero notice someone is coming over, and resisted any urges to do a self check, not enough time for a face lift or a hair transplant so fuck it. I'm comfortable in my skin weathered and marred though it may be. I settled my account with rejection a long time ago. Not such a bad guy when you get to know him and understand he's more about honesty than cruelty. Cruelty takes effort, indifference comes surprisingly easy.

I heard the screen door slide open, looked up, and watched her slide it shut.

"Thinking about deactivating the security system or I could just give you a key" I jived to loosen her up.

"I guess I have barged the last couple of times but hey, I did call first."

"That you did, that you did, martini, really? I have other stuff."

"Depends, you have one of those silver shaker things and something other than jelly glasses."

I said nothing but gave her my you're downtown bout time you caught on baby look. In return I got her eyes saying I know where I am.

I deftly gave her my best let's get down to business throaty ahem. You can't really see it or hear it but you're paying attention you get it nonetheless. I did the busy thing, mixing and shaking, noisy, spoke over ice rattling, said......"so.........you expected one thing, got another?"

She steeled herself, looked and took a few steps away, and picked up where she left off on the phone.

"Yes, it was fast, I had no time to prepare. I gave, he took, which I expected, is why I gave I suppose, but.........I didn't think..........."

"That it would turn bad"

"Until it did, then I could hardly be surprised could I? I mean, bad behaviour has consequences right? At first I thought his comment, something about being able to get me to submit, was just a continued flirtation, especially since the tone of things had definitely turned more sexual. I mean, my God, what was I thinking, a swim suit shot is one thing, overtly sexual yes, given the context, but baring my breasts? "

"What were you thinking." I hit her with the question without hesitation, forcing her to turn and face me. As soon as I said it I wondered whether the answer was important or if I just wanted to know. Her expression grew thoughtful, I could see her go back in time, I was going to get no flippant response here.

"I suppose because it wasn't me. And I was sick of me. Bored with me. How trite is that? There was nothing contrived about it. I didn't set out seeking anything, didn't have some grand plan. Now that's me. I am truly tired of being me."

"That's not an uncommon condition you know", I said. She was watching me pour the icy clear vodka into two glasses as crystal clear as the liquid I was pouring. I grabbed them both by the narrow stems and took a couple of steps in her direction still talking "The old grass is greener and lives of quiet desperation thing you know. Most people aren't as stable as they might first appear in my humble opinion. I think a stable personality is overrated anyway."

I held her drink out to her and continued, "Why some of my very best friends are unstable as hell. I think that's why they amuse me so. Probably has something to do with why they're my friends."

I grasped my drink by circling thumb and two fingers where stem meets glass so as not to slosh and held it out saying, "Cheers". Anything gets sloshed it's gonna be me.

She cheered me back, we sipped, she made a face, a good one though, a visual sigh. I like those.

She sipped again and spoke. "You aren't as stable as you first appear? You seem stable to me, quite stable actually."

"It's all a ruse, house of cards. You see a chart of my personality it looks like a seismograph of a California earthquake. Your drink OK? I keep the vermouth in the same cabinet so I hope it's dry enough. Could just throw it out if not."

She smiled. I like those too. "It's fine. It's smooth when it's cold like this."

"Like a frozen kiss", I said. "Tell me about the first time he gave you directions or instructed you to do something. " Back to the subject at hand. She was distracting me, but then I'm easily distracted. I let myself take her in, did my mental inventory while she paused for thought. She was an easy woman to look at but difficult to see, almost like looking at your reflection in still water and straining to see below the surface. Knowing there is a whole world under there but you have to wade in to get to it.

She did not give the appearance of having prepared for this visit, not that I thought she would or should, besides, she really didn't need much in the way of preparation. Smooth , clear skin, clean shiny hair and a girlish body despite her recent introduction to gaunt. Jeans and a shirt the color men can't describe, worn outside her jeans, button down, and some kind of undeterminable athletic shoe. What were once sneakers and then tennis shoes, which was for the most part a misnomer, at least in my neighborhood, are now of some specialized intent. There are shoes for every possible method of foot transport. Off trail shoes? Then what do you wear on trail, I've never seen those. Next time I'm going to ask for them, see what they say. Whatever they are hopefully they are comfortable because I don't like them on women or myself for that matter. Too many athletic shoes for too few athletes I think. I hate the little baby socks too but that's just me. I liked her better barefoot but I doubt she cared.

No earrings, a diamond ring, when did women stop wearing a band and a diamond? A thumb ring, I like those, almost makes up for the athletic shoes but not quite, a nice thin small Movado with a black face with no numbers, just a couple gold dots and a black strap, no bracelet. Simple, understated, girl next door. Who sent a partially nude photo of herself to a stranger on the internet and who is now in deeper, much deeper. I didn't tell her but if she had stopped right then, right when he showed his true intention, she probably could have gotten out of it.

There would have been anger from her husband but he might have even gotten an unexpected charge out of seeing his prim predictable wife in a new light and I'm pissed off and going to take it out on you fucking can be quite enthralling when the damage is minimal, plus you get the make up sex afterwards. A double header with some good dialogue in between games. Nothing frightens and entices a man more than imagining his woman attracting the attention of others but he has to be the one making the rules. He'll love talking to her about it but she has to give the answers he wants, her own most likely will get her in trouble. A game fraught with danger but played well can have some interesting results. You don't play it right it can go bad fast and knowing that most likely adds to the excitement. Someone tells me they don't play games I lose interest rather quickly. We build a huge part of our lives around games and we should stop in bed? We have the uniforms, why not play? Plus it would get him up on his toes for awhile where he belongs. Too bad it's so hard to stay there but I guess your feet get tired. Maybe Nike needs to make a new shoe for it.

But she didn’t so here she is drinking in my home having slipped in the back door under the cover of darkness as secretive as the activity that prompted her visit in the first place. I was still somewhat uncomfortable about that, a good part of the reason being I like when a woman is someplace she shouldn’t be, especially when I’m at the someplace.

“He tried to engage me in sex on the computer and he didn’t like it at all that I was no good at it. I know it happens but I just can’t translate the read word into sexual action and I’m terrible at writing stuff like that. It comes across as a cheap romance novel cause I don’t even use the right words. I suppose I have a shy vocabulary.”

“That probably incited him to find other avenues of getting to you. He ask for more photographs?”

“He demanded more. I told him no and that further angered him. I got more reminders, threats actually, as to what he would do if I didn’t cooperate.”

“He ever threaten you physically? To do you bodily harm?”

“No. Always just exposing me to Craig, once he even threatened to send the photo to where I work.”

“He knows where you work?”

“I don’t know, he says he does and he knows where I live and my name and my phone number so why wouldn’t he?”

“He got all that from your ISP or from being in your computer. He may not know as much as you think but it doesn’t matter much because he knows enough. I have no idea how but I know it’s possible, rare, but possible. I certainly won’t be able to help with that, I know the basics, that’s it. You get past blogging and emailing and I get lost fast.”

“You have a blog?” she said with an interest that surprised me.

“Well, yeah, but whats that have to do with anything?”

“Can I see it?”

She gave me the look a woman gives you when she wants you to say yes to her. When they say please without speaking and it makes you think of promises they aren’t making but it’s so innocent and vulnerable I recognize it for what it is and then fall for it every time. While I was fighting falling for it she held her empty glass out and asked for another without saying that either. Chick was way too expressive without words. No wonder she sucked at electronic sex.

“No”

I dodged her lower lip and took her glass and grabbed mine on the way back and took a final swallow making note that she was out in front of me and trying to remember last time I came in second in martini drinking, smiling to myself when I remembered I had one before she came over. Lightweight. I made shaker noises again with a barely noticeable deterioration of finesse and even handled the pour without a plop or a splash. I watch my smooth and when it takes leave I take that as a sign. I hate sloppy anything but kisses. Some things I like messy but messy is different than sloppy. You understand that we would probably get along.

We were getting nowhere very fast and I knew we had to get somewhere before she got very far into this drink as I doubted she was accustomed to drinks without color. Clear and amber are serious and almost never have a need to be stirred or adorned.

I headed her drink her way and I’ll be damned if she hadn’t kicked those shoes I didn’t care much for off and just as I was thinking I like the cutesy little socks even less she peeled them off and, once again without speaking, said I hope you don’t mind I prefer being barefoot and it might be related to not giving up on reading the blog quite yet. As I was about to admire my control I realized I didn’t have as much as I wanted her to think I did. Or as much as I wanted to think I did. Fuck. At this pace maybe the asshole would die of natural causes and I wouldn’t have to do anything.

“So he’s mad now cause you can’t type fuck.” I saw the quickening of her expression at my crude return to the subject at hand, or at least the subject that was supposed to be at hand. Told you I was kind of in control here. “And he’s threatening you, to tell on you, which he wouldn’t have at that point by the way, but you didn’t know that so it’s a moot point” Every time I say moot point I think of how many people say mute point. Every time. “What came next?” See how I eased her into it?

She leaned on her drink for support, stalled for a few seconds, and wiped the I want to read your blog look off her face and then came right out with it. “He called me…on the phone. I was so freaked that he had the number that I gave him my cell number to keep him from calling the house. His voice, I hate it. It’s nothing like I expected. It’s tinny, loose or something, smarmy, awful.” She was refocused now and I could see the chill move up her spine. “And his laugh, I hate his laugh, and I hate how he laughs at me. But I hate it most of all……..when he…..directs me” She was faltering here. Actually now was probably a good time for another sip, one, not two, I might lose her at two.

“Directs you?” I said, giving her my best go on please look. “On the phone, he directs you?”

“Yes. He tells me what he wants me to wear, what not to wear, what to take off and when to take it off”. The words were a blurt and her face showed a calmness and resignation that didn’t match what was pouring out of her. Her gaze was down and I wondered if tears would come and if they would fall into her drink and I ridiculously thought that if they did you wouldn’t be able to see them, just the trail down her cheeks and that I’ve never seen tear trailed cheeks I didn’t want to kiss dry. Just when I thought they might begin to fall she looked up, at me, and in a voice that I didn’t want to think about later, with words I didn’t want to think about later but knew I would, one word at a time, slowly and still looking straight at me said

“He tells me when to cum”

Wordless, and with neither of us breaking eye contact and neither of us moving from where we sat, from across the room I put my arms around her and with my hand pressed and palmed at the back of her head felt the tears stream down my neck and inside my shirt.