Never Again?

At some point, had her appearance become her soul? Or was she still in there, waiting to escape - or perhaps to be liberated?

***

I squeezed one breast, and tugged hard on the nipple as my fingers played in my pussy, sliding in my wetness, and every once in a while, venturing high enough to bump my sensitive clit. My breathing was ragged as I lay on my back with my legs spread wide apart-fingering myself.

I hadn't done this in ages...years and years. Maybe not since I'd been married. At least not alone since I'd been married—back when Steven and I still had chemistry we'd watched each other or touched ourselves while talking on the phone if one of us was out of town. But that was a long, long time ago.

It was Will's fault. When I'd known him before, when I'd loved him so much my heart literally hurt every time I saw him, I'd touched myself almost every night. Laying in bed, resenting Emma-Louise and wishing he was laying there with me, I'd imagine my hands were his hands and for just a few minutes I could pretend that I had what I wanted and needed more than anything else in the world—Will, happiness, love... Reciprocated love. He was making me want those things again.

My head was swimming with tequila and painful memories. I knew I was drunk—and terribly, terribly horny, but in my head I could still articulate coherent thoughts. Spitting them out, verbally or via writing, was another story...

I grunted softly as I pushed two fingers inside myself, hard and deep. Then again, and again.

The computer chimed. Will. Damn it. I wanted to finish this... But I wanted to know what he said. I needed him to talk to me. He'd said in the last message that we should "once and for all" stop talking to each other. I'd felt so desperate when I read that. Every word from him hurt me to my core, but I needed it, I needed any connection I could have with him.

The room spun a little as I rolled over and wiped my sticky hand on the bedspread.

"Oh, god..." I moaned as I read his reply. MSN, webcams... "NO," some little part of me screamed, but the horny part had me gyrating my hips and restlessly moving my legs.

I hit reply and typed a response, trying extra hard this time to get the typing right. It took me forever to write it.

1st. You don't know what your talking about. You don't understand. You've always made me think things, want things I couldn't have. My thoughts have never been my own where your concerned.

2nd. I just didn't want you to stop talking to me, to walk away with a "hav a nice ducking life" and me never here form you again. I can't take that again. I just can't. I'm sorry.

3rd. I'm naked and wet and so horny it literally hurts... Theirs a f-ucking void, a emptyness in me, between my legs, and I just... I just need it filled...so bad.

4th Yes I want you to touch me. I always wanted you to touch me. Always.

I sent it. Then I stared long and hard at his email. MSN, webcam... I'd never done that sort of thing. Never.

But it was Will... And if he wanted to... If it would keep him in my pitiful, drunk life just a few minutes more, then maybe...

I copied and pasted the address into my Messenger and added him.

***

Her response was a long time coming. In the meantime, I'd put my apartment to bed, slipped out of my jeans and under the duvet, with a replenished glass of scotch by the bedside.

When her e-mail came, desperate thoughts began to cloud my mind. I read the first two points several times before even getting to the end of the message.

I manipulated her thoughts? Yes. Knowingly, on purpose? But of course. Did I enjoy the power? Oh yes. I liked that sort of thing. There was a subtly sadistic streak to my temperament, I already knew, and what I was evidently doing to Sheila was beginning to remind me of the times I'd pleaded with Em to be, say, less pessimistic, as if it would make us both so much happier - while knowing, on some level, that these "helpful" or "well-meant" comments were, in fact, disguised barbs. It is miserable, living with someone depressed. You hit out, albeit often in disguise. Then you hate yourself for being so petty in the face of their illness. She couldn't change how she acted, although I can kid myself retrospectively that I didn't know the full extent of her illness until it was too late -- well, maybe I honestly didn't -- but looking back, would it have changed the manner in which I'd taunted her? I'd love to think so.

And I also knew, of course, that -- for better, but probably worse -- Sheila was back in my life now, and for good. I'd felt more alive in these last few hours than I'd felt in ten years. I didn't want to die again. I'd been fishing for confirmation of her need in my last message, desperate not to seem weak. (Let's ignore for now that this fact, in itself, exposes my true weakness.) And she'd duly exposed herself, as I'd invited -- manipulated her -- to do.

Then I read the third message. My earlier erection had waned, understandably, as I considered Sheila's pain and my part in it, but as I moved on to point four, inside the taut fabric of my jockey shorts I was on the move again -- seeking due north, uncurling from my nest, slightly wrenching some of my tangled pubic hairs as I strained against them and the fabric. To relieve the pain, and out of old habit, one hand slid under the covers and lifted the band of my shorts, allowing my aching head free. I could feel it twitching slightly with each beat of my heart. It was beating a little faster than normal, too. My pulse was beginning to accelerate.

Suddenly, I felt a rush of shivering cold -- the adrenaline releasing. I'd had this experience many times before: the thrill of the chase, a sickening lurch into nausea before my prey committed herself to the act. To speed up the transition, I slid my shorts down -- leaving them just below the base of my stem, so the elastic could gather my balls into a bulging knot, slightly uncomfortable, but I liked the feeling of pressure, like a lover's firm embrace. I also gripped myself more firmly, feeling the heat within the tube of my encircling hand.

Now I began to tease my uncut skin up and down, exposing then covering my tip, pulling at its tautness, increasing the tension. I could smell the cum from earlier on that had gathered beneath the foreskin; it turned me on more. I began to imagine Sheila naked. I'd never seen her nude, but my knowledge of her form felt complete from all the times I'd studied her up close, and from the tactile memories of that one night together.

I closed my eyes: the gorgeous combination of her full, round breasts and their firmness; her full pink lips, sucking mine into her mouth and between her perfect white teeth; that mouth closing over my cock for the first time as I'd spurted what seemed like a lifetime of cum into the air, her eyes gleaming in the lamplight as they stared knowingly up into mine; the searing heat of her pussy as I'd slid into her; the firmness of her cold buttocks in my hands, as I'd lifted her up, and then allowed her to sink down, fully, onto my shaft...

A ping interrupted me. I opened my eyes. My God: she'd added me.

That cold rush again. I drank all the whiskey in one gulp.

I should do anything but this, anything but this, anything at all, but not this. She's broken; you can only hurt her. Back away, now. Log out. Shut down.

But her needs, and my own, were tangled with the whiskey, and moral judgment was slipping down the agenda. Those words ran through my addled mind:

...I'm naked and wet and so horny it literally hurts... a f-ucking void, a emptyness ... I just need it filled...so bad...

(Me too, Sheila. I need to be filled. With something other than this pain.)

...I want you to touch me. I always wanted you to touch me.

I took a deep breath, brought my hands back together at the keyboard, clicked to open a chat window, and then breathed out slowly. As if calmly. The tension inside my body did not dissipate, though, and I found myself rocking my hips beneath the heavy duvet as I awaited her response, imagining as I slid against the bedding the folds of her beautiful form into which I might slip. That form which, I suddenly realised (muting my own camera - she'd be reading, not seeing me... at least for now), I was probably about to see for the first time in a decade.

I'm here.

I typed again:

What do you need?

***

A chat request. I stared at it—the blinking little icon taunting me, maybe even judging me for what I was inevitably about to do.

I turned and looked at the bedroom door. Chances were if Steven came home, he'd just sleep downstairs. My eyes shifted from the laptop to the door and back again, like I was following a tennis match. Finally, I got up and turned the lock.

I locked my husband out of our bedroom. Somehow, that actually seemed minor considering the rest of my actions tonight. But that didn't mean I was going to stop. I couldn't stop. Not when it came to Will...

I made sure my camera was off—for now—and clicked into the chat.

He'd written to me: I'm here. What do you need?

Something. Anything. Everything. I didn't know. What a loaded question... And there were so many ways to answer it. And there was no answer for it. My brain was swimming and I was getting sentimental—something I tried to never do, not anymore.

I started typing:

I don't know. I don't feel like I know anything anymore. I need to feel wanted, to fell sexy, to feel like somebody gives a shit, to fele satisfied, to feel crammed full of a hard cock, to fell a orgasm that I don't give meself or fake, to feel happy, to feel content, to fell love for somebody else and to feel like they love me back, to stop living a lie every goddamn day. I need a bunch of stuff that nobody gets in reel life.

I paused, staring at the screen and waiting for his reply to my whiney tirade. Then I typed again:

What do you need Willy?

***

What do I want?

To save you. To rescue you. To do what I couldn't do with Em.

Well, I want to help you... I began typing.

Boy, that sounded lame. I deleted. I tried again. This time worked a little better.

I can read your pain. It's like a untended wound, angry and raw. I know you bear scars from our time together, but I can also tell you've changed, or been changed, profoundly during the last ten years. I want to make amends for the scar... but I also want to help you with the new wounds.

I want to dress them, caress their edges, help you heal them, make you whole. I hate reading that you do not feel loved, or that anybody gives a shit. How can that possibly be true? Sheila, I can tell you need a bunch of support and love, and you say we never achieve happiness in real life, but we do - fleetingly. It tears me inside that you've lost sight of that. We experienced one of those fleeting glimpses of joy once, together. It was the brightest spark in the darkest time of my life. I see that now. Have you read the final chapter of the book? "My character" revisits the events of the first, but tenderly, not sexually, and realises that none of it was his lover's fault, or his fault - his wife's death was beyond his control, his guilt was his grief, and he opens himself to the world again. We can all do that. With a little help. I want you to feel joy again.

I was rambling. And this was far from sexy, even taking into account that emotions are the centre of anything vaguely erotic for many women, and certainly for Sheila, as I remembered her. Rambling, however - no, probably not.

So I went for broke.

But you don't need to read the final chapter. I'll do it for you. I'm in your home town in a fortnight. Come to my reading. Afterwards, we can have dinner. I can try to be your friend again. I can help you. If you like.

Now, onto that other bunch of topics...

Meanwhile, there are some more urgent needs that, perhaps, we could consider addressing right now? I wish you could see what's under my duvet here. I mean, you could, if I turned on my webcam, couldn't you Do you remember how hard I get, how you can't bend my cock more than 90 degrees down from my body, how that feels when it hits you deep inside... But have you ever used a cam for this? I haven't. But if you want me to, I will.

I can't cram you full with it, of course... although, God, how I'd love to. I haven't been with a woman for over a year now. 402 days, to be precise. Before that, nothing but one-night nothings.

And, of course, if you have an orgasm - and boy, do you sound like you need one - then you'll have to do it mainly by yourself. But perhaps I could help? Perhaps then it wouldn't feel quite so lonely, so bleak? I know it wouldn't for me.

Then, after we've dealt with that, maybe we can move on to bigger things next time. Over dinner; we can email in between. So orgasm first, existentialism second. What do you say?

I positioned my laptop so it was lying on the pillow next to mine, as if it were a lover turning her head to face me. As if it were her. I tried not to feel silly, and lay down next to it, framing my face in close up, and then turned the camera to broadcast.

Now she could see me, hear me, as if I was lying right there with her. Hopefully, I didn't look too dreadful. Although it's probably just as well she couldn't smell me too... unless she'd gotten into the whole musk, whisky and curry cologne.

So, I said to her, on cam, so she could see and hear it: What do you say?

And then...

You know, you used to enjoy my stories, I remember... the ones we made up on the spur of the moment, lying in the grass by the river, over lunch, in the sun. I smiled... hopefully in a non-creepy way. Just thinking back made me smile.

So how about I tell you one now, and you lie back, relax, and enjoy yourself... um, in kinda anyway you see fit? Cam optional, although a signal you're alive and having fun, now and again, would be just great.

That was it. I'd given her my best shot. I was trying so hard to be good, to go against the dark torrents of emotion raging through me, it was killing me. I wanted to delete that last five minutes, to send a complete alternative, to make her do everything I needed to see her, someone do, right there and then. To show I could still have some impact on someone real, and not just empty cyphers on a page.

But her camera was not on. The chat dialogue box? Silent too.

She's gone, I told myself. You put yourself out there, but she's gone. Or maybe she's just powdering her nose? I smiled my Harrison Ford half-smile for the camera.

Sheila? How about it? Once upon a time?

***

I read every line of chat text as it popped up, feeling like a fool.

Will could "read my pain" and wanted to "make amends." I shook my head, getting angry again.

I typed: I'm drunk. The puthetic whining is the tequilla talking. Forget it.

But he was on a roll, sending lines of text as fast as my fuzzy brain could read them and I forgot to push send.

He wanted to "make me whole" and thought I needed "a bunch of love and support." Wasn't that just fucking fantastic? All of a sudden—after all these years, he could read a few drunken messages from me and psychoanalyze me and declare himself worthy of fixing me?

I realized I'd never sent my last message. I deleted it and typed: What is this? A internvention? I dont need help from you unless you want too com over here and fuck me. I didn't hit send for that one either though.

Will was still going. Didn't know when to shut up. Thought since he was a writer, he could just fill the chat box with all this crap and I'd think it was meaningful or something. Now I was tearing him up inside... So what? I was supposed to feel sorry for him?

We experienced one of those fleeting glimpses of joy once, together. It was the brightest spark in the darkest time of my life.

"Bastard," I muttered. Saying the words was so much easier than typing them. Typing was just way too hard. Reading was hard enough. I knew he couldn't hear me, but I verbally replied to his rapidly appearing text anyway. "You fucking walked away from me. You wouldn't return my calls the next day. You barely spoke to me in the office when you finally showed your face. You just walked in, resigned, said we'd made a mistake, and walked away."

Away from me and back to Emma-Louise. Always back to Emma-Louise.

"If I was such a fucking bright spark then why did you go back to the dark, Will? Explain that one. You took my bright spark with you when you left me standing there alone."

He wanted to help me feel joy again?! My hand shook with fury as I deleted my unsent line about the intervention. I typed: Who the fuck do you think you are Will Schumann? And let the cursor hover over the send button.

Jesus H. Christ. He was still typing in a steady stream. Didn't he know I was drunk? I was pretty sure I'd told him. How was I supposed to keep up with this?

I'm in your home town in a fortnight. Come to my reading.

My world tilted. And this time the tequila had nothing to do with it. Here. He was coming here. In two weeks. I didn't realize I was backing away from the computer until I nearly fell off the bed. Grabbing the bedspread to steady myself, I saw his next lines.

We can have dinner. I can try to be your friend again.

Will was coming here and he wanted to see me, to have dinner with me. He wanted to be my friend. No, to "try" to be my friend. Hadn't that always been our problem? "Trying" to be friends, when what we'd both wanted—at least what I'd wanted—was so much more than platonic friendship.

I got off the bed and stumbled to the bathroom. I needed to pee and scrub my face with ice cold water. What had I started with just one friend request? And had I known, somewhere in the back of my mind, when I sent that request, that I wasn't really asking for just friendship?

The cold water I doused my face with gave me shivers, and when I glanced at myself in the full length mirror mounted on the bathroom door, I stopped to stare. My nipples were hard with cold and arousal. My pale, freckle-splashed skin stood out in stark contrast to the rich red and brown décor in the room. I turned sideways and looked at my profile. I didn't have the tight twenty-something body I'd had when I knew Will before, but then, he'd never seen my naked body. I still looked pretty good. Slender. Toned. My breasts weren't quite as perky as they once were, and my ass wasn't quite as high...

Was I sexy? I didn't really know. Steven didn't seem to think so—at least not any more. I didn't necessarily feel sexy right now as much as I felt the need for sex. I cupped my breasts and pulled on the nipples. Damn tequila. I was going to have to masturbate in order to fall asleep.

I glanced in the bedroom where my laptop waited on the bed. Going back in there meant facing the fact that Will was coming here and had asked me to dinner. Last time, he was married. This time, I was married. What good could come from this? The heartache had ripped my soul apart all those years ago. Did I really want to set myself up to feel that pain again?

I heard something, words I couldn't make out. A man's voice. Steven. He was home. Would he know what I'd been doing? Would he try to get in the bedroom and realize I'd locked the door? Would he even care? Tentatively, I moved through the bedroom, heading toward the door. Wait. That wasn't Steven.