Wrong Number

With toes and soles adjusting, and pirouetting on apartment-grade carpet, Vanessa posed. Chest forward. Ass out. Arms up. Arms down. Casual. Sexy. And all those looks in-between. Such a dance she did, for she had a photo to take, just as she did every night around this time. Not for her social media. No, it was for someone in particular. Someone she didn't even know, had never spoken to, and whose name was nothing more than an unlabeled number in her phone, one that had been there since her senior year of High School.

It just popped up on the night of Vanessa's 18th birthday, as sat at home in her bedroom alone. An image file, from a number she did not recognize. At first, the young black-haired girl thought it might be a dick pic from some creeper, or an invite to prom from a one of her less popular classmates, one she expected to have begged a friend for her number. But no. It wasn't either. In fact, it wasn't from a boy at all. It was instead a selfie of a girl, one dressed from head to toe in sexy black lingerie. With it came no words. No explanations. No identifying information at all. She wasn't someone Vanessa recognized from school or work - her social circle or online. She was just a stranger.

A mystery without clues or calling.

An enigma without indicia or evidence.

At first, the busty 18-year old put the picture and the girl out of mind, assuming it was nothing more than a wrong number. And yet, as the image sat there on her phone, pushed further and further down her list of texts, it began to eat at her. Who was she? Why did she send the picture? Was she trying to communicate something? A subtle comment about the comparative sexiness of their bodies? Was she competition? So many questions Vanessa asked herself on that night, and yet, she had no answers. Such a state began to drive her crazy with anger, frustration, and jealousy, even though Vanessa had no clue as to who she was even jealous of.

Despite the futility of it, there she sat, trying to find something, anything to give her the answers she wanted. In search, she stared at the girl and her lace-covered body. She was beautiful. Sexy. Rebellious, judging by her hair. And worst of all: thin. Each being aspects Vanessa found lacking in herself, silly as some of those doubts may have been.

Finally though, after what seemed like hours, Vanessa decided to respond. And having made that decision she wrote. Sentence after sentence - paragraph after paragraph, only to delete everything a moment later. Some of her messages were friendly and complimentary, others angry and accusatory. But none of what she had written worked to convey and elicit what she wanted. For in truth, she didn't just want to know the girl's name, or why she sent the photo. No, she wanted to know everything. Wanted everything. Not just knowledge, but touch, taste, and smell. Not because she was some pervy lesbian, but instead because ... well ... frankly ... she didn't quite know. It was that confusion that left her unable to respond, though she wanted to so badly she could taste it. That is until, she thought to herself, that words were not right - not enough. Perhaps a picture. One just like the one she received. That would at least be something. Something that would draw from the sender a response, putting the onus on her to explain herself. Letting her feel, just how Vanessa did, even if Vanessa could not properly explain that herself.

Those thoughts in mind, the busty teen took from her closet the sexiest white outfit she could find, one she had bought but never wore. An incredibly short skirt, and a matching white frilly top. It wasn't necessarily lingerie, but it was hot, and showed off the one asset she was confident in: her breasts. Breasts which she manuevered and positioned, until finally they looked right - looked ready for a selfie of this import and hoped-for impact. She tried to pose - tried to make a face that would match that of the mystery girl's, but quickly she found that she couldn't read the face of the girl in the picture, let alone match it. It was emotionless. Without smile or smirk. Not angry or glaring. It just was, and so she decided to be. Taking the photo with as unaffected a look as she could, trying her best to mirror the image she received.

Once the selfie was taken, Vanessa's finger hovered over the green send button, her mind filling with worries and doubts. But as her eyes drifted from the button up to the image above it, in their one message conversation, she knew that she had to. And so she did. Hitting send, and delivering her sexy selfie to the girl who had sent her own. Then she waited. And waited. And waited... Eventually falling asleep in her bed, with her phone resting gently on her chest, her hands still tightly gripping to it.

When she woke to daybreak beaming through her curtains, she found no reply. No response. Just the word 'Seen'. Oh how it drove her crazy! Through breakfast and lunch - the gym and dinner. Nothing. NOTHING! What the actual fuck!? She kept saying to herself, completely confused as to the silence her selfie received. But then, just as she began to move on, and decided to try and forget all that had transpired, a text message without a personalized ringtone came through. She grabbed at her phone wildly, pulling it into her grasp, and sliding it open with a touch. As she did, she saw it. Not words. Not answers. Just another picture of the girl, again wearing sexy lingerie, though a different set this time, her face again wearing no expression. This time she had posed herself differently, and wore a more revealing top, meant to show off her own bust, which though hidden in the first picture by the clothes chosen, was this time displayed in all its glory. The girl was busty, no doubt, her cleavage appearing to be almost an exact match of Vanessa's, a fact that caused her blood to boil and skin to crawl.

She posed like that just to show me how big her tits are! To show me they were as big as mine! BITCH! Vanessa cursed to herself, as she ran to her closet and dug out an outfit that was even skimpier than the last one, and posed herself as to best show off her thighs. The next night, as you might expect, the girl replied with another photo, again taken of a pose and an outfit meant to compare her own body with Vanessa's. From that night on, one girl would send a picture, and the other would respond. Never speaking. Never sending more than an image.

Three years ago that was, and still, the two girls continued to send each other pictures. Their bodies having matured. Their hair colors and styles having settled into cuts that looked near identical, a fact Vanessa knew was intentional on her part, and assumed no less of her text message rival.

As their nightly ritual persisted, their assets grew, and their fitness levels increased, as the pictures of the other drove them to both hit the gym religiously, sometimes twice in one day, never wanting to fall behind their mysterious polaroid partner. The gains from her most recent visit, Vanessa found herself admiring, as she posed for her newest picture. And yet, as she did, something about it felt dull and tired.

She and the girl had seen every inch of each others bodies, swaddled in silk and lace, covered in lingerie and tight-fitting clothing. That had always been enough, but not tonight. No tonight, Vanessa wanted more. NEEDED more. And so, despite the time she took picking out the sexy bra and panty set for tonight's image, she took such clothing off. All of it. Every inch. Until she stood before her full length mirror completely naked. Her once chubby parts had become hard, and the parts of her she was once ashamed of, became her most prized possessions. Leaving not a part of her body she wasn't willing to put up against the girl's, whoever she was. And so, she did. Taking a quick selfie of herself standing nude, for the first time letting herself have an expression, for the first time - one of an extremely confident smirk. It was then, that without a single hesitation, she hit send.

The next night, she received a reply image, as she always did. In it the girl too was naked, fit beyond reason, and wearing a confident smirk that matched her own. But unlike Vanessa in her photo, the girl posed with her breasts held together with her hands, as if she was presenting them, and challenging Vanessa with them. Both excitement and anger coursed through the black-haired girl's body. Excitement, because her gambit had succeeded, having the effect of escalating their wordless selfie-struggle to a new and more overtly sexual level. Anger because her rival had dared choose her tits as a point of comparison. Mixed feelings though they were, they were intense enough to make Vanessa light-headed and even dizzy, reactions that found themselves suddenly smothered, as her cell phone rang out with her mother's ringtone.

"Mom, now is not a great time..." Vanessa answered with a sigh, frustrated at the sudden interruption, her hand having already lowered so that she might quench the the lustful fury the mystery girl's picture had set off within her.

"I'm sorry, honey, I'm sure you're busy with college and all, but I wanted to invite you to dinner tomorrow night." Her mother's scratchy, cigarette-ruined voice came through the receiver soft and kind, immediately making Vanessa nervous.

"Mom, you haven't invited me to dinner in years. We don't have dinner. We just eat... Or at least some of us do..." Odd, the request was. Completely unlike her mother, and the way their family had operated for decades, especially given her mother's recent drug-aided weight loss. "Do we even have a dinner table anymore? Didn't you pawn it? And why are you being so nice to me? What do you want?" She asked, knowing that if her mother was calling, it was to yell at her because she was drunk or because she needed something.

"You know I've being seeing Jack, right?" The answer to the question was obvious, as Vanessa and her mother had argued on multiple occasions about 'Jack'. A man who was perhaps the only person with more character flaws, and recent failings, than her mother - one who found himself at the bottom of the same bottles, and the same gutters, and at times beneath them.

"Yeah, Jack, right... Wasn't he your AA sponsor?" Though irritated by the question, and the very mention of Jack's name, Vanessa tried to restrain her anger, though perhaps not her attitude.

"Well, he's moving in with me." The statement was quick. Simple. And left no room for discussion or argument.

"WHAT!? WHY!? Isn't he on probation or something!?" Outrage. Absolute outrage took to the college girl's heart, as she scrambled for answers.

"He just got off probation, actually, and we decided we could share a bed." Oh, well good for him, Vanessa mused to herself as her mother relayed Jack's current legal status.

"MOM! That's where dad slept! That's where DAD should be sleeping!" No subtlety. No spoon fulls of sugar. No, just right to the point. The same point Vanessa had been making for months, when speaking to her mother about Jack.

"Vanessa, we've talked about this, and I didn't call to argue with you. I just wanted you to come over so we can have a nice, quiet dinner tomorrow night. I know it's hard, your father and I getting a divorce, but the decision was mutual. He isn't coming back. We aren't going to be together again..." Margaret felt for her daughter, knowing how badly she wanted some sort of reconciliation between she and Doug, but it just wasn't possible. That being the case, the graying mother offered the only olive branch she could. "Look, if it makes it any easier, I think I found you a roommate, to help with those expenses you were telling me about. I'll tell you at dinner."

"Fine ... I'll be there, but don't expect me to be nice to him." Vanessa responded in a voice laced with the telltale pitch of a full-tilt pout.

"Ok, well, see you tomorrow night!" Margaret's ending cheer did nothing to calm or console her daughter, who immediately dropped her cell phone after the call, and began to cry. Why did she care so much? Why was it so important to her that her mother and father were together? She was in college now! She wasn't a child! Such questions of self-loathing flew through Vanessa's mind, as tears fell like rain from her eyes. She couldn't explain it, not to herself, her mother, or anyone who might ask. It being her most sensitive weakness, and most gnawing regret.

As the college girl's mind turned from one terrifying aspect of Jack and her mother, to another, the thought of the mystery brunette came back into her mind. One might assume that such a presence, through texted images alone, would have no connection to all the strife in Vanessa's family. In truth however, such an assumption could not be more wrong. For that girl, whoever she was, had been there through Vanessa's parents fighting, through their divorce, through both the end of the black-haired girl's time high school, and her start of college. She was, in a way, Vanessa's only reprieve from a life and a world she desperately wanted to escape from. And so she was again, as Vanessa wiped the tears away from her eyes, quickly corrected her mascara, and stripped, once again striking a challenging and smirking pose for the one person who she could count on to help her feel better and more excited about her life.

It seemed like only a blink passed after the picture was taken, and her well-manicured finger found itself applied to the button marked 'Send', that the time for the 'nice, quiet dinner came'. All day she had dreaded it. The very thought of having to not just see Jack, but to speak to him over the the dinner table was sickening. An illness Vanessa tried bravely to suppress as she sat in her driveway-parked car, trying to muster the courage to get out, and go in. As a last, desperate act, she checked her cell phone, hoping that she would receive a photo in response to the one she sent last night, so that she might have something to think about, and distract herself with through dinner. And yet, despite her hopes, no picture had come, leaving her with no choice but to open her driver's door, and after an elongated sigh, head to the front door.

Bing Bong. The familiar doorbell chimed, though pitched and warped by disrepair, announcing Vanessa's presence to those within the house. It was where she had grown up, the same address, same lot, but due to its state of disrepair, all such memories seemed discordant. For even as she rang, she found herself standing atop cigarette butts, and amongst empty, rusted Coors Light cans, and shattered Budweiser bottles. Despite the filth, and her anger about it, she waited awkwardly in her sundress, hoping against hope that it would be her mom who opened the door, and not Jack. Much to relief, when the door opened, it was indeed Margaret who greeted, wearing a big smile, and fancy dress (with tags still attached) unlike anything she had ever seen her wear before.

"Mom! That dress! It looks beautiful..." Vanessa praised, half-impressed and half-sure it was stolen.

"You like? Thank you! Jack's daughter helped me pick it out!" Who? Vanessa asked in panic to herself, having never even heard that Jack had a daughter. "Uh... How old is she?" The college girl asked as she walked in, waiting for a reply as she begrudgingly accepted a hug from her newly in-fashion mother.

"Your age. She was born exactly 1 day before you actually. Isn't that strange!? But let's get you to the table, dinner is ready and waiting!" No time to discuss the matter further, Margaret pulled Vanessa through the hall, and into the dining room, where the table was made up for four. There, whilst pretending to be happy to see Jack again, she did the math, coming quickly to the conclusion that there must be a dinner guest coming she did not know about. Rather than ask about the missing party, and possibly get into another fight with her mother, this time in front of her boyfriend, Vanessa simply sat, and began the awkward task of participating in small talk.

"So, how's school this semester?" Jack asked in a voice no less gravely than Vanessa's mother, as the latter dished out one plate of piping hot home cooked food after another.

"Uh, fine." Vanessa responded shortly, before triggering on the food being plated. "Mom, did you cook this?"

"I did! Spent all day on it." Never, ever, in her whole life had Vanessa's mother cooked dinner. Pizza, fast food, deli food, whatever was necessary was purchased to avoid Margaret having to cook, and now this!? The very thought of it began to break through Vanessa's thin layer of emotional defense, her anger about Jack once again beginning to stir within her. A stirring that could be seen by all, as her eyes began to narrow into an unblinking, 1000-yard stare. The dinner, and this night could not possibly get any worse, or at least that's what she thought to herself before it did.

"Sorry, I'm late! Hope y'all didn't wait for m..." A voice called out, as its speaker rushed into the room and came to a stand behind her still-empty seat. And though the person's greeting and apology had began light and airy, it ended violently with a sudden silence, mid-word, as their eyes set upon on those at the table, or more specifically: Vanessa. The cutoff, and the harshness of it, led Vanessa to avert her anger-forged glare from the brown-hued San Francisco 49er blanket and tinfoil taped to the brown-hued window, to the newly arrived fourth guest. Not unlike they, she too found herself wordless, as her eyes came to rest on the face of the young woman who had just entered. It was her! The mystery girl. Not nude, or in lingerie, but instead wearing a prim and proper sundress, just as she, and a look of absolute horror. That expression quickly found itself mirrored, as Vanessa shot up from her seat, accidentally banging her thighs forcefully against the table, knocking rust-bit silverware from their their places of rest, in the process causing quite the clatter.

There, Vanessa found herself standing exactly opposite from the mystery girl, one on either side of the table. Deadly silent each was, their faces etched in shock and rage, their fists clenched and eyes shooting daggers. Jack and Margaret, for their part, let their eyes shift from one of the young girls before them to the other, each trying and failing to deduce what exactly had happened, and why their two daughters seemed so off put by each other.

"Renee, do ... do you two know each other?" Margaret asked Jack's daughter, her voice noticeably shaking with concern over the growing tension in the room.

Neither answered, as neither had even heard the question, lost in their own obsession with each other. Their eyes only breaking from their mutual glare to run up and down the others bodies, picturing in their minds how it would look and feel to tear every thread of clothes off of the other.

"Vanessa, you two go to school together or sumthin?" Jack asked as he began to move towards the edge of his seat, feeling as if any minute the two might lunge at each other, and he may have to break whatever they got into up.

"No." Suddenly their answer came, not from one, but from both in unison. The response, and the two girls' mutual decision to both break their glare and take their seats, eased the unexpected and exhausting tension that had begun upon Renee's arrival. Once seated, the two daughters, both Jack's and Margaret's, did their best to act normal, though each refused to speak, or even look at one another. In that icy state, their respective parents spoke, and questioned, each trying subtly to draw out why each girl reacted that way to one another, though neither would answer with anything useful or even relevant. Finally, after all possible attempts had been exhausted, Margaret decided it was time.