Author Anonymous: A True Story

  “You never take an afternoon off to relax?”

  He asks this question assuming my lies as truth, that I’m single and free of children. I honestly can’t remember the last time I took an afternoon nap.

  “Take a break from writing,” he says on a laid-back sigh, and I imagine him settling into his bed.

  I hesitate but then decide to set work aside for once and do something out of my norm. “Okay. I guess I’ll be lazy too.”

  I set the phone down on the bed and take off my shoes, socks, and running pants, and when I slip under the covers and lie down, I grab the phone and exaggerate my words as I stretch out my legs, saying, “It feels so good to lie down.”

  His laugh is throaty, and I join in when I note the awkwardness of the situation.

  “This is a bit strange.”

  “It wouldn’t have to be, but you seem to have something against meeting me for coffee,” he says, his voice growing lighter as he relaxes more. “Why are you so hesitant to meet me?”

  Because I’ve lied to you about who I am.

  I dodge his question entirely, tuck myself deeper under the sheets, and ask, “You do this often?”

  “What? Lie in bed with a woman over the phone? No. But you’re a peculiar one, so I’ll take what I can get.”

  “Hmmm,” I breathe into the phone as I close my eyes, sinking into the mattress and enjoying the reprieve.

  Neither one of us speaks as time passes. His breaths begin to lull me into placidity as I rest on each of his inhales and exhales.

  “Victoria.”

  My only response is a gentle hum.

  “Touch yourself.”

  My eyes pop open and the stillness in the air disappears.

  “What?”

  “Touch yourself,” he repeats.

  His request throws me for a spin and a nervous giggle slips out before I tell him, “No.”

  I can hear the smile on his lips when he questions, “Why not?”

  “Because that’s weird.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it just is.” I push myself up and lean against the headboard. “I don’t even know you.”

  “That excuse no longer works. We spend hours on the phone every day talking to each other. You know a lot more about me than most, and I’ll bet that I know more about you than most.”

  He makes a point in that I have shared with him parts of myself and my past that I normally keep private.

  “Put your hand between your legs,” he pushes, and I resist again. “Tell me what you’re wearing.”

  “Alec.”

  “You touch yourself anyway. Why not do it with me?”

  Closing my eyes, I fight the urge to laugh him off and change the subject. The idea of doing something that’s outside of my comfort zone is a titillating thought, but it isn’t me. Sure, I used to dirty text Landon when we first started dating, but we never had phone sex.

  “I’m looking at the photo you sent me,” he says, but I don’t respond as I contemplate my next move.

  It’s not like I even know this man. Yes, we’ve been talking a lot, but I don’t know him in the flesh, and I never will. I’m nothing more than a lie to him. As real as it may feel, it simply isn’t. It’s a game. It’s fun. It’s anything but real.

  “The thought of you lying next to me has me hard right now.”

  His voice breaks my reluctance for a moment, and I do what I can to push myself to do something I would never do in real life. Because this isn’t real. It’s simply a false perception of reality I’ve created for my entertainment.

  I shift back down under the sheets, and when I glide my hand down the length of my body, I silently repeat to myself that this isn’t real.

  This isn’t real, Tori.

  This isn’t real.

  This isn’t real.

  This isn’t . . .

  “Are you touching yourself?”

  “Yes,” I breathe, when my hand finds itself over the top of my panties.

  Alec releases a heady moan that ignites a spark of arousal as visions of him stroking himself play in my head.

  “Take your finger and roll it over your clit.”

  I shift my panties to the side and emit little ragged gasps as I follow his instruction. Every touch has my whole body tingling in excitement as I ride on this fantasy come to life.

  “Tell me how it feels, Victoria.”

  “Please. Don’t make me talk,” I plead, because I’m not sure I can even conjure up anything that would sound remotely sexy in this moment.

  “Fuck, you have me so hard right now.”

  His voice pushes me even more, intensifying my pleasure. “Oh, God.” I lift my hips and shove my panties down my legs, slipping one foot out and letting them dangle on the ankle of my other. When I hear Alec’s breathing falter, I slip a finger inside and use my arousal to continue stroking my clit. Without much thought, I voice aloud, “I’m so wet,” as I writhe under my own touch.

  “If I were there, I’d have my tongue buried so deep inside that sweet pussy of yours.”

  “Shit,” my voice pitches. Never in my life have words spoken gotten me off. Every time he talks, my body reacts instinctively, amplifying the noise in the room as I breathe louder.

  Alec’s words crack as he continues to talk, and we both lose ourselves. “I’d spread your legs open and fuck your wet pussy with my cock.”

  “Alec,” I pant.

  “Say it again.”

  “Alec,” I nearly whimper.

  “Let me hear you cum, baby,” he urges on a strained voice.

  I take my fingers from my swollen clit and shove them inside me, pumping hard as I throw myself over the edge. My orgasm ruptures from the inside out, literally curling my toes as I mewl in pure ecstasy along with Alec. His strong groans fill my ear as I ride out the pleasure for as long as I can, not wanting it to subside any time soon.

  My hand slows as I drift back down, still hanging on to each one of Alec’s heavy breaths.

  “Can you go again?” he asks, feeding into the greed that has taken over me.

  Unable to speak, I moan to suggest I’m not ready to stop just yet.

  “That’s it. Keep touching yourself. Don’t stop.”

  With my eyes still closed, I fade into the haze of ravishment as I work my body to another climax. Every filthy word Alec speaks drives me harder and faster. Sweat builds in the creases behind my knees and along my neck.

  “Think about my hard cock pounding into you, coating my dick in your cum. My mouth sucking on your nipples as I thrust harder and harder. Massaging your clit with my thumb—”

  “I’m cumming again,” I belt out as a second wave crashes down over me, splitting me wide open.

  “That’s it. Let me hear you,” Alec encourages, and I completely let go of all restraint and moan loudly into the phone as I slip off the edge and drown in the crashing waves of pleasure.

  No longer do I identify with Tori, but rather, Victoria. Alec has always referred to me as the latter, and the distinction helps to separate the two identities. I never thought I was the phone sex type, but suddenly, I’m acutely aware of the nefarious greed inside of me that has just been unlocked, and I want to keep going.

  Instead of feeding the hunger within, I refrain from touching myself to allow my body to come down from this unimaginable high. When the cloud of delirium evaporates and clarity sets in, embarrassment finds me.

  Oh, my God! I just got myself off with this random person.

  Heat of another nature creeps up my neck, and I hold my breath as I cover my face, but the scent on my hand mortifies me even more.

  “You sound so hot when you cum.”

  As soon as he speaks, I want to hang up, crawl under the bed entirely, and pretend none of this ever happened.

  What the fuck do I even say?

  I’m a stone statue, unable to move, as if he’d be able to detect my presence if I do. Like a child who hides under a blanket and believes themselves to be invi
sible. But I know better, which makes it all the worse.

  “Say something, Victoria.”

  Scooting back to sit up, I respond coyly, “I don’t know what to say right now.”

  “Did you like that?” he questions in a way that feels as if he’s holding my hand to guide me to talk.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve never done that before, have you?”

  “No.” My answers are pathetically short.

  “Are you embarrassed?”

  “A little . . .” I lie and then admit, “a lot.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “Because, I’ve never met you, but you now know how I sound when . . .”

  “When you cum?” he finishes for me.

  “Yes.”

  “And to you, that should be private? More private than my hearing how you sound when you cry?”

  “Well . . . yeah.”

  “I don’t understand your reasoning. In order to cry, you have to expose the wounds in your heart. But sex, it’s just an act that doesn’t require such depth of vulnerability. What we just did was entirely free of emotion. Just two people who wanted to get off. But when you cried and told me about your mother, that was nothing but blood-filled pain and sadness.”

  He makes a point and skews my perception of what constitutes intimacy. And he’s right, I was more unveiled to him the other day than what I am right now, and yet, it’s right now that I feel too exposed.

  “This is what I mean about you being conditioned by society telling you how to think, act, and feel. Maybe there’s a possibility you’re more like me than you think.”

  “Maybe.” I think about his words and allow them to idle for a while. This man is nothing like Landon. Everything about him is a contradiction to everything I know and am used to. The allure that draws me to talk to him day after day is this idea of what I could be because of him. That maybe the areas in my life I’m unsatisfied with are the result of my thinking and behaving the way he suggests society has ingrained in me.

  “Have you ever tried letting go of your ideas of what’s normal and acceptable?”

  “No. I mean, I feel like I make decisions for me, but I also take into consideration how others will think and feel.”

  “When I asked you to touch yourself, you said no. But then you went against what you considered weird, and now how do you feel?”

  Without thinking, I tell him honestly, “I feel good. I mean, afterward I felt embarrassed, but now—”

  “Now you’re ready for round three?” he teases.

  “More like a shower. I was a mess after my run, and now I’m just disgusting.”

  “You also need to get back to work. I’ll talk to you later.”

  After we hang up, my phone displays five notifications of missed messages from Brooke. I look at the time and can’t believe I was on the phone with him for over two hours.

  When I open up the messaging app, I tell Brooke, “Hey, sorry I missed your messages. I’m about to hop in the shower, but I was wondering if you could come over tonight around eight thirty, after I put the girls down. Landon has the food critic coming tonight so he will be working really late, and there’s something I need to tell you.”

  “So what is so important that you couldn’t just tell me over the phone?” Brooke asks when I walk down the stairs after putting the girls down to bed.

  “This calls for wine.” I go straight to the kitchen and pull a bottle of white out of the fridge. I walk back into the living room and hand Brooke a glass before sitting next to her and taking a big gulp of my chardonnay. She watches me with curiosity, and when I swallow down the alcohol, I make my confession. “I had phone sex today.”

  She looks at me like I’m an idiot, and her brows cinch together as she mocks me, saying, “Wow. Good for you. You finally got to first base with your husband.”

  “Cute,” I snark. “But it wasn’t with Landon.”

  Her eyes shoot open. “What?”

  I take another drink.

  “Hold up. Rewind,” she says. “Who the hell did you have phone sex with?”

  “Remember in Vegas when we were all hanging out and Kristen mentioned that website she uses for research? The fetish one?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well . . . I’ve been talking to a guy I met on there. We’ve actually been talking a lot . . . like every day for hours. And when we aren’t talking, we’re texting.” I watch her as she takes a sip of her wine, her eyes never leaving mine, and then continue. “He’s so different than us, Brooke. I mean, everything about how he views people and the world. Every conversation I have with him is so interesting.”

  “Blah blah,” she says as she wags her hand. “Get to the part where these interesting, philosophical conversations turn into phone sex.”

  “Well, obviously I met him through that fetish site, and I’ve been asking him a lot of questions about the things he’s into and stuff, and I don’t know, I’m not even sure how it happened, but before I knew it, we were . . . well . . . you know!”

  “No. I don’t know. I’ve been sitting at home all day cleaning and being a mom while you’re over here having phone sex with some dude you met on a fetish site. I expect full details because apparently your life is way more interesting than mine.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “First off, what does this guy look like? Have you even seen a picture of him?”

  I grab my laptop, quickly log in to my account, and pull up his profile picture.

  “He looks suspect, Tori. That guy looks way too normal.”

  I laugh. “That’s exactly what I said too, but then he sent me this other photo when I questioned him.” I then open the picture of him holding the piece of paper with my name on it, and when Brooke looks at it, she bursts out laughing.

  “You’re not into ass eating? I totally pegged you as an ass muncher.”

  “That’s so gross.”

  “So that’s the guy?”

  I nod. “His name is Alec. He lives across the river from you.”

  “He looks older,” she notes.

  “He’s forty-one.”

  “Yum!”

  “I know, right? When did older guys with graying hair become so sexy?”

  She closes the lid to the laptop and says, “When we started getting older.” Brooke folds her legs underneath her and then pulls one of the throw blankets over her lap, making herself comfortable before asking, “So, what’s this guy like?”

  “Honestly . . . he’s addicting. Maybe it’s just because he’s someone new and it’s exciting to get to know him, but he’s also very blunt. He has no reservations when it comes to talking about sex. He speaks of it so casually and openly.”

  I continue to tell her about his fetishes, his family, and the dirty things he says to me. We’re like two teenage girls, gossiping and giggling as I divulge all I can about Alec. She gets swept away in the allure just as easily as I do every time Alec is on my mind—which is often. She even opens the laptop back up just so she can drool over his photo. When I finish off my glass of wine, I add, “He’s seriously like nothing I’ve ever experienced in a person before.”

  “But what about Landon?” she questions, her tone sobering.

  “It’s not like I’m hanging out with him. I’ll never meet the guy. I’m just having a little fun,” I tell her. “I mean, guys turn to other women to get off when they watch porn, so . . .”

  “So Alec is your version of porn?”

  Shrugging my shoulders with a light smirk on my face, I say, “Men are visual, women are emotional. So yeah, he’s porn.”

  “Well, I can see why he’s addicting. Maybe I should create an account on that site and get my own Alec.” And just as she says this, my phone chimes with an incoming text.

  Alec: Miss you.

  I smile and then hold the phone out so she can read the text. “All throughout the day, either I’m texting or he is.”

  “‘Miss you’?” she questions suspiciou
sly.

  “It’s just something we say. It’s either ‘Miss you’ or ‘Thinking about you’ and stuff like that.”

  “So basically you guys are like infatuated high schoolers on a hormone overload?”

  “Pretty much,” I agree and then text him back.

  Me: Miss you too.

  Alec: What are you doing?

  Me: Hanging out with my girlfriend, chitchatting, and drinking wine.

  Alec: Any interesting topics?

  “What’s he saying?” Brooke questions and then scoots against me so she can read the text exchange.

  “Should I tell him he’s the topic?”

  “Totally,” she eagerly encourages, and as I type my response, I tell her, “We’re acting like children, you know?”

  Me: Nothing too interesting. You might have come up once.

  “We act like kids because something exciting is finally happening in our predictable lives,” she responds when I send the text to Alec.

  Alec: What did you tell her?

  Me: That you’re an elderly, foul-mouthed sexual deviant. LOL!

  Alec: This elderly man just might sit you on his lap and feed you a lollipop.

  Brooke and I nearly belly-over with laughter.

  “Why does something so perverted come across as sexy?” she questions.

  “I don’t know. Half the shit he says to me should be icky, but coming from him, it never feels that way.”

  Me: Brooke thinks you’re sexy.

  “Oh, my God! You did not just send that?”

  I continue to laugh. “Relax, he has no idea who I am. He doesn’t even know my last name. Plus, he thinks I’m single with no kids.”

  “What? Does he know what you do for a living?”

  “Yes, but I haven’t told him my pen name.” She looks at me with her mouth ajar, and I attest, “I’m just having fun.”

  Alec: Sexy, huh? Way to stroke my ego. I’ll just have to tuck her into my back pocket.

  “He can tuck me in other places as well,” she quips with a wink.

  Me: If she’s in your back pocket, where am I?

  Alec: Where do you want to be?

  “Yeah, Tori. Tell him where you want to be.”

  “You’re worse than he is,” I jokingly chastise.

  Brooke and I continue to goof around while texting Alec. We are just two girls teasing around with a boy, the way young adolescents would do. We may be women in our thirties, but girls will be girls no matter what age they are. At least that’s how we function, which is why we have always been such good friends. Brooke totally gets me where others might look down their noses at me for acting immature.