The Forbidden Gift Card

I was like a marionette with her strings cut when I left the office that afternoon. How I didn't get pulled over, into a wreck, or end up in the frozen lake is unclear. I would have almost welcomed a few of those things by that point. The endless circling to find a parking space. The walk back up a wet slushy sidewalk, the bundle of junk mail in the box. All so drudgedly a part of the same endless day that I have been living for so many years. The realization of this hit me as I dropped my keys into the dirty slush before the door.

Bending down, my mail of course shifted and I dropped a few letters, bills mostly. As I snagged the keys and picked up the scatter trash-destined mail I saw the plain envelope. The all-too-familiar size and look of it, with my name and no postage, caught my eye instantly.

"No." Shaking my head, I denied what my eyes were telling me I was holding. "No, this can't be this."

The distance from the door up to my apartment was a blur I had no memory of. The apartment door seemed to have magically appeared, behind me, leaving me standing in my living room. The bills and fast-food flyers fell unheeded to the floor at my feet as I slowly turned the envelope over. Same little gold squiggle of fancy gold ink...no, amber ink. The first time I saw it I had taken it for a company logo, now I looked closer and saw it was, in fact, a very artistically "suggested" butterfly.

My eyes went to my laptop, sitting on the low table by my pile of pillows. My hands shook. My head shook from side to side, as I whispered "No...don't do it." To myself, over and over, even as my feet began to take me to the computer. I leave my coat on the floor in a pile, my purse next to it. My shoes disappear from my feet, to be lost under a chair, forgotten till the next time I swept.

The website I had not been to since that night was still there. Why I thought it would not be I don't know, but that had been my fear as I waited for the pages to load. Those scant seconds, till the familiar images appeared, were agonizingly slow.

And then they were all there.

Sexy Emily, and the beautiful Corey that I had so longed to have use me as her personal play toy. Amy and Judy were still locked in that eternal kiss. A kiss that I so wished either of them were sharing with me.

Heather...

The oh-so-incredibly-wonderful Heather. My beloved Heather, the woman that had cared for me in ways no other had ever managed. A saint in a nurse's uniform, and such a sinner in the bedroom...or well, corner of my living room. I looked in those dark eyes and felt my whole body tingle.

And Amber...

"Amber!"

My mouth dropped open as I looked at the face of the woman I considered just a step away from being my Stalker. The woman who had invaded my privacy, and then my fantasies, and then my home, and then my...

When my eyes went to her bio I wanted to cry. No made up tangle of wish-fulfilling fantasies, but it was really her, as she was in real life. Specialized in Chinese food restaurants, computers, and digital art. Possesses a reasonable degree of knowledge in long, comfortably-silent walks together by the river, and hour long gazing...into a lover's eyes. Expert in both holding hands and listening. Loves cats. Coffee. Dry wine. Good books. Laughter.

Sitting back in my pillows, I just stared at her image. Half lost waif, half mischievous little girl, I shook my head and opened back up the page with all the pictures of the girls. I looked from beautiful image to beautiful image across the whole of the page, searching for and finally finding the clues in each face. I could not even begin to fathom the amount of time it must have taken her to put together this site. To take all of these beautifully-crafted images of herself, in so many different poses. She really didn't look the same in any of them. Not even close. My gaze flitted from bared breasts to smooth hips, long legs to delicate throats. That any of these images had been touched up was impossible to see.

Picking up the gift card, I looked at it seeing beyond the thin, plastic square with the amber butterfly logo to the real meaning of it. I could cash this in again. I could have any of these women. She would be any of them for me. The more I looked the more I realized just who those women were. They were every erotic thought I had ever put down in my blog, taken and given life by this woman. The effort of what she had done was staggering. And all this had been done so she could spend time with me. With me? A woman so trapped in layers of daily life I couldn't even tell the people around me what I am, for fear of losing my job due to their prejudices. Losing friends...the few and none. Losing family...the scattered and half-forgotten.

Of losing myself...the already lost.

Losing myself into the world of pleasure I really wanted to live in. That magical life that I had some often wrote about but knew, deep in my heart, I would never get to live in.

But...this card was the key to that life. I could use it to bring me Corey, or Emily, or Amy. I could try out those sexy smiling lips of Judy. I could let myself be cared for by Heather. My beloved Heather. I could, I could...I could...let myself take long walks by the river with Amber. Eat Chinese food. Sit sipping coffee, or wine. With this card, this wonderful card I could do all of those things. All of them and maybe, just maybe the one that I had never put down in my blog. The blog that I never thought would be read. A fantasy so off-the-wall, so impossible to ever happen that not even the shadow of a dream of it reached my fingertips to type it there.

That I could...fall in love.

When I looked back up and saw Amber, with her girl-next-door face, lost alone in the big city "innocence", but with that "I ate your last cookie" grin and those oh-so-easily-to-get-lost-in eyes, I knew. Truly knew, that even that fantasy could be possible.

I entered the redemption code without even bothering to read it off the card. I didn't need too, I knew it by heart. Then I made my selection without even looking, but knowing it was exactly what I needed. Sitting back on my pillows I settled in to wait.

It didn't take three hours this time. It barely took the twenty-one minutes and fifteen extremely rapid heartbeats. When my doorbell rang I went to it trembling even more than I had the last time. When it opened the trembling stopped but the butterflies doubled in my stomach. She was perfectly what I had wanted her to be.

Amber.

*

(Dedicated to my editor, mentor and friend the lovely, patientlee. Thank you, my dear, for all that you have helped me with since we met. And for all the work we have left to do. MST.)