Meghan

Chapter One

Meghan

Every Thursday morning at eleven the quiet buzzer goes off in the small waiting room and I go through the second door into Stella's office. She's my shrink. For the next fifty minutes I sit in her comfortable leather armchair and talk into space, sometimes barely aware of her sitting in a similar chair to my left. I rarely cry, rarely get that upset really. I just talk. Sometimes she'll ask a question or prompt me with a comment of some sort but, most of the time, I just talk. Most of the time it seems to bounce from talking about my father, who fucked me up, to talking about John. Dear departed John, who fucked me up even more than my father. Sometimes I talk about Elizabeth.

The theme is pretty much always the same. I have low self-esteem, believe myself corrupt, have an anger directed against two dead men and am sexually very ambivalent. Your standard young woman about town.

At eleven fifty, Stella interrupts, murmurs some assuring words, and stands to lead me to the other door, which leads to the corridor outside her office. By twelve-fifteen I'm seated in the restaurant, drink in hand, waiting on Rebecca, 'Bec' as I call her. I always have to wait on Bec. At twelve thirty-five she breezes in, pecks my cheek, plumps down, grabs the Chardonnay I'd ordered for her, takes a deep swig and exhales her usual "ahhh". She's fourteen years older than me and probably my best friend.

"So what was it today" she asks, "being fucked in the ass, sucking some black cock in an alleyway or eating strange pussy?"

I give her the bird. "Actually, I was talking about frustration."

"Shug," (for 'Sugar') "last week you never wanted to fuck again for ever and a day and now you're friggin' frustrated. C'mon."

"Fuck you ... I was talking about the fact that I can't confront either John or my father... and how angry that makes me feel, how I want to get even, to punish them in some way, but can't. That kind of frustration." I end lamely.

"Oh. Yeah, well I can relate, Shug. You know I can"

Then the waitress showed up and we turned to ordering and so changed topics. Later on, as we were waiting on the credit card slips to come back, Bec said, quite out of nowhere: "You know, if it was me, I'd give up all this therapy shit, find me a nice innocent boy, who was set for an apple-pie life, fuck him up, like you got fucked up, and leave him good and rotten. At least you'd get even with someone"

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That evening I called her, bullshitted for a while and then said: "remember what you said at lunch?"

"Shug, I'm a yammerer, I said lots of things. What in particular?"

"About finding an innocent and fucking him up."

"Yeah" she giggled, "yeah I did say that didn't I?"

"Well would you?"

"Really do it?"

"Yes."

She was silent for a couple of seconds but then said: "yeah, in your shoes, yeah I think I would. Yeah, now I think about, I like the idea. Let one of them suffer for a change."

"So who would you use?"

"Well, let's see. You'd want some kind of pure young thing that has no idea. Someone you can totally 'corrupt' to use one of your favoured words."

"I want to do it."

"Go girl". She said, with that 'admiration' drawl that she affected so well.

"So where the hell do you find an innocent in this town? They're all perverted, monomaniac bastards from puberty on"

She giggled, "let me think on it Shug."

Three days later she called me. "Shug, I think I've found you your lamb. Not quite as young as I was hoping for, but definitely an innocent. He's one of our auditors, an accountant. Probably early twenties but reaaaaaly straitlaced. We're talking bible-belt virginal here."

Jeremy

My daily habit is to leave my apartment at seven fifteen and walk two blocks to the coffee bar. I always get a skim cappuccino and a blueberry muffin. I take my iPad and read the online version of The New York Times and a couple of articles in The Economist, just like Mr. Stevens said I should. At eight twenty I walk back to my apartment, get my car from the garage and drive to work to be at my desk by eight fifty. This is my routine, my habit. I like habits; they help regulate my life and keep me on the path of Christlikeness.

The coffee bar is not Starbucks slick but rather, I guess, latter-day hippy. Occupying the ground floor of an old house it leans to odd chairs and swaybacked sofas on uneven wooden floors with far-eastern looking rugs and cushions and many odd corners. One sees the same faces. Grad students in walking boots, working-men with real boots, women in sandals and the odd suit. That's me: the odd suit.

I always try to sit in one dim corner, somewhat tucked away, that puts my back to the wall and gives me a view of the main room, where the barista plies her trade. Sometimes, the other seat in that corner, which is about ten feet from my preferred perch, is taken and, sometimes, not. That day, it was.

I noticed her of course, as one does. Nothing particularly struck me, she was a woman, maybe ten years older than me, sitting with the local paper held up in front of her, which she briefly lowered to appraise me. We nodded at one another, which I managed to do without blushing, and she raised her paper and got on with her reading. I hit my New York Times app, crumbled my muffin, took a sip of my cappuccino and settled in.

After five or ten minutes, I heard her paper move and looked up as she crossed her legs, the paper still concealing most of her upper half. I saw how brief her skirt was and how tanned her legs. As I looked, she wriggled on her chair and her skirt rode up on the thighs. The skirt was too brief; one could now see the very top of her thighs but, as the leg nearest me was on top of the other, that was all one could see. I felt a slight frisson of excitement. As I looked, hoping she'd move again, she did. She lowered the paper to turn the page and looked right at me as she did so. Caught, I blushed and hastily looked back at the iPad. She raised the paper again and, after a second or two, crossed her legs again. This time I knew that I'd seen pubic hair.

I could feel my heart speeding up. This was the first time I'd seen pubic hair since I was a kid, when I saw one of my sisters changing at the beach. Seeing it like this, voyeuristically, created, for me, a huge erotic overtone. I had to cross my own legs to try and quell my growing erection even as I gazed at the tantalus and thus pumped even more blood into that independently-minded penis. All that stuff we'd had drummed into us about maintaining our character for Jesus Christ through self-control, just vanished.

We stayed like this for what seemed minutes, but was probably seconds, before she once again flounced her paper and, this time, folded it up and put it on the table next to her. I studiously avoided her eyes but could feel the heat in my face. She stood, gathered her bag, abandoned her paper and walked from her seat.

She stopped in front of me and waited for me to look up at her before saying, quietly: "were you looking at me?" My face got redder and my throat was too dry to speak so I looked at her for a couple of beats before, mutely, nodding my head.

"What did you see?" She said, even quieter. I swallowed, blushed more and, not looking at her, said: "your legs."

"That's all?"

"The top of your legs" I murmured, still avoiding her eyes.

"And what did you see at the top of my legs?" She whispered.

I couldn't answer her. I swallowed and tried to say something but just couldn't do it. I think I must have looked something like an out-of-water fish gulping for air.

"Did it excite you?" She whispered, even more quietly. I was able to nod again and, this time, to slowly raise my eyes to look at her.

She looked back, a slight smile on her lips. Her eyes were green and steady. "What's your name?"

"Jeremy," I said.

"And what do people call you? Jerry? Jer? What?"

"Jeremy. That's what they call me. It's what I like to be called, ma'am."

"Are you married Jeremy?"

"No, ma'am"

"Girlfriend?"

"No, not right now"

"Are you gay Jeremy? She whispered.

That startled me. "No, ma'am. I just don't have a girlfriend right now."

"Give me your phone number, Jeremy."

I looked at her, startled. She nodded and I told her my cell phone number.

"Don't be silly, write it down." I took out one of my cards and wrote my cell phone number on the back. She turned the card over. "Jeremy M. Stuart, CPA" She intoned softly. "An accountant; who'd have thunk it. And you so young." I blushed even more, but also felt a little thrill: I'd only passed my final exams six months ago and was still very impressed with the new letters after my name.

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She called me that evening about nine-thirty. "Hello Jeremy, remember me, from this morning?" She said, again using a gentle, quiet tone.

"Uh, yes ma'am."

She gave a small chuckle before saying: "I was thinking about you. Were you thinking about me?"

I had been. In fact I had done little else but think about her all day. I wanted to lie but, of course, but could not. "Yes, ma'am."

"Don't call me 'ma'am' Jeremy; it makes me feel ancient. Now, do you remember what you saw at the top of my legs, Jeremy?"

"Uh, yes ma'a.... Yes, I remember."

"And what was it you saw, Jeremy?"

"Uh, actually I think saw your, um, pubic hair. Just very briefly, of course. I really wasn't looking." I added hastily. That was not a lie, I don't think: I had just happened to glance over, hadn't I?

"Yes you were Jeremy, you were looking. Weren't you? You were looking at my pubic hair. It excited you, didn't it? You got excited looking at ..." And she paused and then very, very softly, said: ".... my pussy. You got aroused looking at my pussy, didn't you Jeremy? Or do you prefer to say 'cunt'?" And she hung up.

I was in shock. I'd never, ever, heard a girl say that 'c' word or even the 'p' word. But, in spite of that shock, I had a very painful erection. When I checked my cell phone hers was a 'number unavailable'.

She didn't call back for three days. When she did, it was a Friday. Those were three very long days. Again, it was about nine-thirty when she called.

"Have you been thinking about me Jeremy?" She asked without preamble. This time I didn't stumble, I simply said "yes, ma'a ... Sorry, er, yes."

"Do you get excited when you think about me, Jeremy?"

"Yes" I responded, quietly.

"How do you get excited?"

I was ready this time, I faintly understood what she was doing. Or, rather, I thought I understood. So, this time the jaw-dropped inclination to silence was much less evident and I responded: "I get an erection".

She was silent for a second or so, then just murmured: "Hmm" before asking: "and what do you do about your erection, Jeremy?"

"Do about it?"

"Yes, what do you do when you get an erection? Do you touch yourself? Do you masturbate, Jeremy?"

"Yes, yes I do. Sometimes".

"Do you masturbate a lot?"

"I have the last couple of days"

She giggled but said nothing. The silence went on for ten or fifteen seconds then she said: "do you have an erection now?"

"Yes".

"Do you want to masturbate now?"

"Yes".

"What would you think about when you masturbate?"

"You"

"Are you touching yourself now?"

"No. Well, sort of ... just on the outside of my pants"

"So, if you were to masturbate, and were to think about me, what, exactly would you be thinking, what you be fantasizing, Jeremy?'

"I'll think about you on the phone like this, talking softly, using words, seeing your legs and your, um .."

"Cunt" she whispered.

"Yes, your, er ..."

"And that's it? You'd masturbate just thinking about my furry little sex? You wouldn't think about putting your cock in me? Sliding it into my cunt? Fucking me? Taking my clothes off? Sucking my nipples? Playing with my breasts? Or maybe you'd like to be sucked off. Is that it Jeremy? You'd like to put your cock in my mouth and have me suck you off. Swallow your come, maybe? Or do you prefer to come on my face? Splash your warm come over my eyes and hair, watch it drip off my nose and my chin while you pant and pant and squeeze the last drop out onto me?" She paused and then said: "That may be what you'd like Jeremy and you can think about all that, dream about all that - but it won't happen. I won't fuck you and I won't suck your cock. Do you understand that?"

As she'd started talking, my erection became almost unbearable. I'd never dreamed that a woman could talk like that. Especially one who looked so lady-like as her. With her last words, however, the mad desire to masturbate ebbed a little. "I don't understand. Why are you calling me? Are you a tease?"

"No, Jeremy, I don't want to tease you. I want to do things with you. You just can't touch me that's all. But we can do things. Arousing things. If you want."

"Like what?" I somewhat panted, totally confused.

"Well, do you like porn movies?"

"Sure" I had to say that. It's not a lie, I'd seen one, or a part of one, once.

"Well, we can watch porn together. Or we could read erotica to each other."

"I'm not sure about that." I'm thinking this sounds, like, really immoral. After four years of almost continuous discussions about the biblical requirements for purity, I know what 'immoral' is. "What happens if I get, you know, um ... excited, you know ...?"

"We'll both get excited. We'll both get aroused Jeremy"

Ohmigosh. Is she kidding. I couldn't say anything. You don't do this kind of stuff, you don't talk this way. You just don't.

"Jeremy?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Don't call me ma'am, Jeremy."

"Yes, um, sorry."

"Are you worried about what might happen if we both get excited, aroused. Are you concerned about what might happen?"

"Yes, ma' ... Yes."

"What did you just tell me you do when you get excited, when you get an erection. What do you do, Jeremy?"

"I, um, I touch myself."

"You do, don't you Jeremy? You touch yourself. You masturbate. You jerk off. You make yourself come. Don't you Jeremy? You make yourself come."

Ohmigosh this is so unbelievable. I shouldn't be listening to this woman. She's crazy saying all these things. On the other hand, I have never, ever, felt this excited before - not even when Mary Jo put her tongue in my mouth that time.

She carried on, after a brief silence, "And what do you think I do when I get excited, Jeremy. What do I do when I am sexually aroused?"

"Um, I don't know."

"I masturbate, Jeremy. I make myself come."

I think I began to hyperventilate. Women don't talk like that. I mean they don't do that ... do they? While I was floundering around in my mind, she hung up.

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I didn't hear from her for four days this time. No unsuitable conversation this time. She was pleasant and warm as if we were old friends. She told me her name, Meghan Hughes, and asked me if I'd like to come over to her place this coming Saturday. What could I do? It would have been rude to say no, I'm sure. So, I said yes.

Her place was way better than mine. She was in one of the new high-rises near the park, tenth floor. Nice easy guest parking, doorman, who was expecting me, and a fast, smooth elevator up to her floor.

She was smaller than I remembered, but of course I'd only seen her that once and then I was too flustered to really check her out. I guess she's about 5'4'' and doesn't weigh a whole lot over a hundred pounds. About half my size. She was barefoot and wearing jeans and a white button-down shirt that looked just like my normal Brooks Brothers. No make-up that you could tell, but her dark brown hair looked squeaky clean as did she. It was hard to reconcile this clean-cut, attractive woman with the one whose telephone talk had made me masturbate over and over again.

After saying "hi" at the front door, no kiss, no handshake, but a fine smile that included the (remembered) green eyes, she showed me through the place. It was pretty neat. My Aunt Celia does interior design and I had spent many hours listening to her and looking through her magazines, so I have a reasonably good sense of what constitutes good quality. This condo had been done very tastefully. It was clearly expensively furnished with the steady hand of a good interior designer, using a sort of 'early Ralph Lauren touch', as Aunt Celia would have said, highlighted by some really good pictures - both abstract and old - together with a lot of books and the sort of eclectic knick knacks that the reading classes tend to acquire. There was a large living room with French doors leading to a small balcony with a table and two chairs, a high tech kitchen, all sage and stainless, a study with an en-suite bathroom and a master bedroom with a huge bathroom. A very desirable residence.

We ended up back in the lounge where she offered me a glass of wine. I don't drink alcohol, so I refused and asked if she had a coke She ignored me, poured out two glasses of red wine, gave me one of them and led the way out onto the balcony. We sat down and she raised her glass in a silent toast. What could I do? I took a sip. It was pretty heady stuff. I felt totally out of my depth. I was worried about taking the alcohol and confused over the way she ignored my request for a soda. She was clearly the alpha in this relationship, if, indeed, it was a 'relationship'. We looked out over the city lights for a while and then she started to talk.

"I was married. He was a lot older than me. But, when I met him, I was infatuated. A rather clichéd story of an older, wealthy, powerful partner dazzling a first year law student doing a summer intern job at his firm. Long story short, he dumped his wife, and got a new trophy bride: me. That was eight years ago. Two years ago he gets cancer and dies, at fifty-eight. Lymphatic. Leaves me plenty of money and a distaste for hetero sex."

She paused. I was trying to figure out what she meant by that last phrase. I said nothing. Actually I had no idea what one said to relatively new widow who calmly tells me that her dead husband had left her with some sort of sexual hang-up. I nodded sagely, to show interest and, hopefully, savoir faire. She continued: "but, I'm only thirty-two and I need sex. It's a healthy need - I just choose to satisfy that need in my own way." She looked at me as she said this and, of course, I blushed. "Do you always blush so easily?" she asked. "Yes". I admitted. She smiled and said: "lets go inside".

The living room, like the rest of the place, had dimmed table lamps that cast a soft light. Enough to see by but not so bright that one thought of operating theaters. In the middle of the room were two sofas, furnished in a subtle pink and green fabric that faced one another across a plate-glass coffee table. On the wall was a long line of bookcases, books above and cupboards below. She refilled our glasses and pointed for me to sit on a sofa, at the end farthest away from the books. She sat in the same position on the opposite sofa.

"Kick your shoes off, put your feet up. We're going to watch a movie." I slipped off my Bass Wejuns and put my feet up. She picked up a remote and put her feet up. We looked at the bookcase together for a second, me in a somewhat bemused frame of mind until the shelf on the top of the nearest cupboard opened and up slid a flat-screen tv. She pressed the remote again, and after a second or two, a movie started, a home-made movie. It was her, fully clothed on her bed. She was lying diagonally such that her head was at the foot of the bed, gazing into a camera that seemed to be about five feet away, and her body, sort of on its side, stretched to the top right. She was dressed exactly as she was that night, jeans and a white button-down shirt.

Looking directly into the camera, she did nothing for a second or two then she smiled and ran one of her hands over her chest. She repeated the action, stopping to fondle her breasts and making small, circular motions around the nipples. I looked away from the screen, across at her, eyes wide She sensed my movement, and looked at me, smiling the same smile she had made in the movie. I quickly looked back at the screen. Her eyes never left the camera, which meant she was looking directly at you, but her hands moved. After a minute or so touching her breasts she put a hand between her legs, raising one leg to allow access. She rubbed between her legs and up and down her thighs. After doing this for a while she unbuttoned her shirt, slowly. She was bra-less. You could see her breasts hanging firmly inside her shirt. She reached for them and started playing with them again, this time showing her erect nipples and the marks on her breasts as she squeezed them and played her hands around and around. My penis was hard and I wriggled a bit to get a more comfortable position.