Summer of the Slow Burn

Some summers burn into our memory, crystal clear shards of perfection.

He got the first call from The Dragon Lady on a Wednesday night, just after midnight, on a balmy early June day. He'd come home from working the swing shift, let himself through the apartment complex gate, crossed the courtyard and climbed the steps to his small one-bedroom apartment. After he let himself into the dark living room he noticed the light on the answering machine, blinking in a slow, steady rhythm. He flipped the switch, lighting the room, set his briefcase down, took off his jacket, hung it on the back of the door and then headed for the kitchen. As he passed the answering machine, he hit the play button and then continued his quest for a midnight snack.

The machine beeped. There was a second or two of silence and then a woman's voice came on.

"Did you know that I was thinking about your cock today?"

Another couple of seconds passed as the voice seemed to hesitate.

"I've seen you down at the pool, in your black swim trunks. When you climbed out, they were wet and clinging to your body."

Another few seconds of silence.

"I could see the outline of your cock. I wanted to kneel in front of you and pull your trunks down."

There was a shift in her voice, it became a bit deeper, a bit huskier, a bit more confident.

"I wanted to take your cock into my mouth and suck on it. I wanted to feel it getting hard in my mouth. I wanted to run my tongue up and down the shaft. Just to lick it, slowly, from the base to the tip and back again and again."

She stopped for several long seconds, ten, maybe fifteen.

"I want you to think about that. Think about your cock in my mouth."

Then she hung up.

He'd frozen halfway to the kitchen, listening to the message. His cock had responded instantly, swelling with arousal inside his slacks. He didn't recognize her voice. Her accent was classic California, with the faintest hint of something else simmering in the undertones. He turned and walked back into the living room and hit the play button again.

The message repeated, her voice the only sound in the quiet of the apartment. He reached down and adjusted his cock, which had fully extended down the left leg of his slacks. He couldn't believe what he had just heard, twice. He hit play a third time and her voice came up again. He stood there with a hard cock and a racing mind, trying to place the voice. He suspected it was a practical joke. He suspected a wrong number.

Slowly rubbing his cock, he thought to check the Caller ID. The Caller ID said "Intercom 1". The apartment complex was gated, and entry was controlled by a card key or by being buzzed in. Just to the left of the front doors hung the intercom phone, where a visitor could pick it up, punch in the two-digit apartment number and be connected to whoever they were visiting. There were three intercoms in the building. The front entry was number 1. The back entry was number 2. In the pool area was number 3. The call had come from the front door.

As he listened to the message yet again, he leaned more toward a practical, albeit erotic, joke. Intercom 1 was accessible to anyone entering the complex or, for that matter, anyone walking down the street. Though her voice didn't sound particularly young, it could have been, probably was, just someone walking down the street with an erotic sense of humor, randomly dialing apartment numbers. On impulse he popped the microcassette out of the answering machine and inserted a new one.

Going back to the briefcase he'd dropped by the door; he opened it and took out the small microcassette recorder he used for work. He dropped the tape in, hit rewind to reach the beginning, and played the message again. That night, after his late-night snack, once he'd sprawled in bed, he played the tape several times and masturbated to climax, spattering cum across his stomach.

A seamless summer week passed, and he alternated between thinking it was a practical joke and trying to match the voice to one of his neighbors. The apartment complex was a quadrangle around a courtyard. There were six apartments on each of the short ends of the complex, three on the first floor and three on the second. There were eight apartments on the long side of the complex, four up and four down, for a total of total of 28 apartments. Slightly off the center of the courtyard was the swimming pool, medium sized, surrounded by a cast iron fence. At one end of the pool was the small exercise room, with a weight machine, two treadmills, and a stationary bicycle.

Though he'd been there for a little over a year, he only really knew three people. The couple in the apartment to his left and the single woman in the apartment below him. He easily ruled them out. Their voices were familiar to him. As for the other residents of the complex, most of them he only knew in passing. Probably half the residents he couldn't recall ever seeing.

In the second week, he came home, saw the blinking light, and automatically hit play as he passed. The first message was from a friend of his, coordinating their weekend plans to go to an Art and Wine festival. The second message was from his brother in Montana, just checking up on him. The rich tones of her voice came out of the third message. This time, her tone was already at the place where it was slightly deeper and slightly husky. It opened with silence and the sound of her breathing, slow and steady.

"Hello Apartment Three," she said, "I just got out of the pool. I am still dripping wet, still in my bikini, standing here with just a towel wrapped around me."

She paused for a long moment then laughed lightly.

"God, I am so turned on right now, and I had to stop to let someone go by me into the complex."

She took a deep, audible breath.

"I was swimming in the pool, and I thought of you."

Another pause.

"I had to touch myself. I leaned against the side of the pool and slipped my hand inside my bikini bottom and caressed my clit. I didn't dare masturbate, though I wanted to, it was still light outside and there were people at the pool. I want to touch myself again, but anyone on the street can see me.

I keep thinking of your cock in my mouth. Just the head of it. I want to suck it like a lollipop. I want to swirl my tongue around it, get it nice and wet, and then just gently and softly suck on it."

A longer silence, punctuated by heavy breathing.

"God, I love that thought. I hope you do too. When you go to sleep tonight, I want you to think of me, sucking just the head of your cock."

Then she hung up.

He was instantly hard. This time, there was no hesitation. He popped the microcassette out, grabbed his recorder, and stripped as he headed into the bedroom. Once he was on top the bed, naked, his cock in his hand, he pressed play and listened to her voice again. It only took him a few minutes to reach his climax, his imagination running wild.

As he lay there in the darkness, catching his breath, he realized he still thought there was a good chance someone was just playing an erotic joke on him, but it was obvious they were taking advantage of the intercom system in the apartment complex. That meant, whoever it was, stood at the front door, picked up the handset, punched in 03, and left the message.

He lay there in the darkness and thought about the messages and her voice, trying frantically to figure out who it was. He didn't have enough information. He drifted to sleep, briefly considering that he had a stalker, that he should be worried rather than turned on. But, so far, the messages had been nothing but simple sexual messages, both left in the evening while he was at work, both from Intercom 1.

The next morning, he was up early, so he replayed both messages, masturbated again, and then decided to take a dip in the pool before he went to work. He slipped into his black swimming trunks, wrapped himself in a towel, and headed down to the pool area. Mid-day, the pool was almost always empty, so he assumed that most of the apartment residents were at work. As he entered the pool area, he glanced around the courtyard, wondering if someone was peering at him from behind the curtains. The north half of the complex had an unrestricted view of the pool. From the apartments on the south end, the ppol was partially obstructed by the small exercise room.

He didn't see anyone, so he tossed his towel over one of the loungers and entered the cool water with a dive. He swam several laps of the pool lengthwise, just enjoying the sensation as he knifed cleanly through the water. After the laps, he swam over to the ladder and climbed out, then made his way back to the lounger where he'd left his towel. He toweled off, wondering if he was being watched. On impulse, he slowed down, carefully toweling off, stretching, wondering if he had an invisible audience.

Dried, he spread the wet towel back on the lounger and laid down on his back to catch a bit of sun before he had to go to work. Laying there, thinking about the messages, he felt his slow arousal. His first instinct was to adjust the towel, to wrap it around his waist to hide his arousal. That would have been his normal response, but instead, he glanced around and just stretched out.

His cock stretched out as well, filling the crotch of his swimming trunk, binding uncomfortably in the silk mesh lining. He took a slow breath and another glance around, then reached down and quickly adjusted himself, pulling the mesh aside and letting his hardening cock slide down the left leg of his trunks. He lay there for ten minutes or so, his cock slowly lengthening and expanding under his swim trunks, until the head of it was dangerously close to popping out alongside his thigh. He was very conscious and slightly nervous laying there with a full erection, ready to cover up at a moment's notice, if someone walked into the pool area.

No one did and eventually his nervousness overcame him. He stood up, aware that his cock was fully erect, thick, and long, he took a few short steps and dove back into the pool. He swam the length of the pool underwater and came up on the far side. Swimming with the erection was a strange combination of uncomfortable, as each kick under water caused his trunks to tighten, and erotic, as the sensation was like a hand gripping and releasing his cock.

He rolled over onto his back and floated briefly in the pool, then he lost his nerve. He felt exposed and slightly perverted, so he swam to the ladder and climbed out again. His cock, though covered by the trunks, was fully outlined in the wet and clinging swimsuit. He paused just for a second to tug the left side down slightly to keep his cock from popping out, then walked over to his towel, picked it up, wrapped it around his waist and headed back up to his apartment.

Fuck, he thought, that was crazy. What was I thinking? He shook his head, jumped in the shower, and then headed out to work.

That night, there was another message on his machine. Her voice was husky, and she was breathing heavily.

"God. You beautiful creature. I just want to lick the water from your body and then suck your cock through your swimsuit. I want to taste that combination of cool, wet cloth, and hot, hard, cock. I came, three times, just thinking about it. I fingered myself relentlessly, over and over, just dreaming of your cock in my mouth."

She paused again and he listened to her heavy breathing. The sound stretched on for at least a minute.

"Do you want to cum on me? On my face? Or in my mouth? I want you to. I want you to cum wherever you want. Splash it all over my body. Pump it down my throat. Fill my mouth with your cum, until it spills out and runs down my throat. Whatever you want, I want."

Then the call ended.

The next morning, when he woke, he started to think of her as the Dragon Lady. He'd remembered a book he'd read, years ago, a police procedural by Joseph Wambaugh. In the book, the police officers had pranked another of the officers by having a young Japanese dispatcher call him from a pay phone and leave explicit messages on his voicemail. They'd nicknamed her the Dragon Lady. She became the Dragon Lady, though he had no clues about her identity or her nationality.

"Hello, Apartment 3. Will you fuck me roughly? Will you lay me face down on the bed and pound me behind until I scream and cream all over your cock?"

She turned the hot days of summer into slow days of erotic torment. She was obviously there in the apartment complex, though he could not figure out her rhythms. Some days he swam in the pool, and she never called. Some days she left messages that night. Some days there was a delay of two or three days before the blinking light and the Caller ID 1 alerted him to another message from her.

"I dreamt of deep throating your cock. All of it. Sliding down my throat, making me gag. I want to gag on your cock until you erupt inside my throat and make me choke on your cum."

Through June and July, the messages stacked up. Always short. Sometimes erotic, sometimes explicit. He wondered at one point if he was going crazy, but no, he had the small growing collection of microcassettes with each message, so he could replay them as he masturbated, one sided phone sex.

"I want to sit on your cock. Can I ride it? Please? Can I just slide down it, inch by inch, until it fills me up?"

He thought of all kinds of schemes to determine her identity, most of them verging on the Walter Mitty as James Bond level of fantastic. He was pretty sure she was on the north side of the complex since she seemed to have a clear view of him at the pool. She obviously knew his rhythms, since she never called when he was home, only on those evenings when he was at work or out for the night. Sometimes when she called, he could hear faint music in the background, or distant voices like a television set with the volume on low.

"Are you dreaming of my pussy? I'm tight. I want to grip your cock with my pussy and milk it dry. When you've filled my pussy with your cum, I'll slide off it, and you can watch your cum dripping back out."

Then, toward the end of July, he'd been cleaning the drawers in his kitchen when he stumbled on the original packet of papers, they'd given to him when he moved it. As he thumbed through them, intending to refile them in his paperwork drawer, there was a potential breakthrough. "Instructions for Paley Intercom". He might have read it when he moved in, but if he did, he didn't remember anything beyond the basic entry instructions.

There were three features to the intercom system he didn't know about. First, he could configure it so the Intercom went to a digital message box, which he could access by dialing a message number and he could set up a custom voicemail response. Second, you could call any other apartment in the complex by dialing 00 followed by the apartment number. This would show up under the master Caller ID for the system, 1. Finally, the system stored the last thirty days of calls, not the call itself, but the date and time stamp, as well as the entry number or the apartment number it originated from.

He spent a sleepless night, with his mind racing with the possibilities. But, in that race, he carefully considered one negative outcome. If he reached out to her, would he scare her away? She obviously loved her anonymity. Would he risk losing that incredible erotic charge of the one-way phone sex with the Dragon Lady? The question churned inside of him for several days, twisting this way and that in his imagination, running through all the possible outcomes.

In the end, a fortune cookie decided for him.

"Hi, Apartment 3. I dreamed of you last night, except you were in a speedo. Oh my god, it was all I could think about all day. Your cock and balls, stuffed into a speedo, almost bursting out. I've been rubbing out orgasm after orgasm, all day, thinking about it. If you wear a speedo to the pool, I'll give you a fortune cookie."

The next day, he stopped at the sporting goods store and picked up a navy-blue speedo with white trim. He was self-conscious with the clerk as he paid for it, but she simply rang him up, handed him a receipt, and wished him a good day. Once he was back in his apartment, he stripped and tried it on.

It was small, skintight, and since he was aroused, almost an impossible fit. His cock, fully erect, kept popping out. Not just a part of it, but the elastic material would stretch until he'd reach its limit and then, almost without warning, his cock would pop out. The whole thing. He knew he would have to watch that carefully, otherwise he'd be flashing whoever happened to be in the pool area. He almost chickened out. He took a deep breath, wrapped a beach towel around his waist, and headed out to the pool.

As usual, in mid-afternoon, he had the pool to himself. He picked a lounger, took another deep breath, and unwrapped the towel. Then, slowly, he turned in a full circle as if he was looking for something. He walked to the edge of the pool, stopped for a minute or two, then dove in. He automatically lined up and started swimming slow laps, back and forth. After about the tenth lap, he rolled over and switched to the backstroke, moving steadily across the pool, another ten slow laps.

He floated for a while, leaning against the pool wall, next to the ladder. He could feel that he was pressing the limits of the speedo with his arousal. He took a deep breath and quickly climbed the ladder, pausing at the top to wipe the water from his face with his hands. He felt naked in the speedo, though he knew it was covering him from the tight grip it had on him. He resisted the temptation to look down and check and make sure he was still all inside. Trust the speedo, he told himself. Just trust the speedo.

He walked slowly back to the lounger, toweled off, being careful to turn in a full circle as he did. Then, he spread the towel out on the lounger and laid down on his back, stretching out under the sun. He closed his eyes and stilled his breath as best he could, focusing on a steady in and out. Christ, he thought, you'd think I was a teenager I'm so nervous. You're just a guy, in a speedo. Relax, he told himself, thousands of people wear them every day.

To his own surprise, he did relax, laying there, breathing steadily in and out. In the warmth of the sun, he nearly dozed off. A state of half arousal settled over him. He could feel himself filling the speedo, but not pushing its limits.

The "clink" of the pool area gate caught him by surprise. For a moment, he wasn't sure if he imagined it. His instinct was to cover up with the towel, but he knew that would only draw attention to the speedo, so he took a deep breath and then casually opened his eyes to look around.

He had seen her around the complex before. Apartment 22, second floor on the north end of the complex, a one bedroom. He'd seen her getting her mail a time or two, passed her coming and going a few times. She was about medium height, with dark brown hair, brown eyes, a rueful smile, and wearing a black one-piece swimming suit. Her body was curvy and fit. She was carrying a plate with a fortune cookie on it. She walked over to him and sat down on the lounger next to him, facing him.

"Hello, Apartment 3." She said. "I've brought you your fortune cookie." Her voice sounded slightly different than it did on the answering machine, richer, fuller. His cock immediately twitched and nearly popped out of the speedo. Startled, he quickly reached down and put his hand over it, holding it within the confines of the swimsuit. She laughed quietly and leaned forward to place her hand over his. She gave him a squeeze.

"Let's go to your apartment.", she said, taking his hand in hers and standing up, pulling him along with her. He reached for his towel.