In The Beginning...

I remember how it started.

First there were enormous boxes that were glorified typewriters, handling "word processing." Along came spreadsheets, and then games on CD-ROMs, like primitive DVDs. Dial-up modems that hissed and chirped in the night. Each little advance led to another, like a natural evolution, and then one day we found ourselves in chat rooms, where we could all be alone together, and things got much more interesting.

At the time it was revolutionary. People from all across the country, all around the world, typing messages to each other, discussing sports, politics, their health, the weather – and sex.

I had just moved to New York City, divorced after a long, long, long marriage. 3,752 years, to be precise. Give or take, I may have lost count. I left behind so much – a workshop full of tools, collections of books, things hanging on walls, friends – and told myself that a new, expensive, fancy computer would make up for it.

My early days in New York were long, and so I'd get home late, order take-out, pour a glass of wine, and "talk" to people – chat, as the evening grew long.

Most of the conversations were idle chit-chat – somehow appropriate for virtual chat rooms populated by people with silly screen names – but every now and then I'd meet somebody interesting – someone in my field. Someone who could punctuate and spell really well. Someone who was well read, or from a city I'd been to – or a city that I hadn't been to, and wanted to learn about.

And that's how I met her. She was about my age, separated, and working for a large company outside of Atlanta. She was smart, had a good sense of humor, and knew something about art, a subject I was wholly ignorant of.

After a couple of accidental conversations we started to look for each other in the same chat room, connecting now and then depending upon who-knows-what – schedules, work obligations. I'd tease her sometimes about the South, and she not only took it well, but gave it back to me, the "New York Yankee" who was ignorant of the more genteel traditions.

I couldn't tell you exactly when or how our conversations grew more intimate, but it was clear that the anonymity and distance made us both feel safe. I seem to recall that the next step, no pun intended, started with her feet - one night she wrote that she'd been at meetings all day, formal corporate things, and her feet hurt from wearing heels for ten hours. I suggested that she needed a foot rub...she asked if I'd do the honors...and it seemed natural.

One night I asked her for an email address. She hesitated, and I worried that I had gone too far – but the next night she sent me one, something she had set up on AOL. It was a new address "to protect her privacy," she said, "Just like any respectable lady in the South would."

Our emails and chats grew longer, more intimate, slowly, as she guided me. She'd tell me what she liked – what she wanted. And, perhaps without meaning too, she told me about her needs. She wanted to be loved, but she needed to be desired. The years were ticking by, and more than anything else she needed to still feel sexy, feminine. Her ultimate fantasy – that she revealed over many months – was to be watched. To make love to her partner while another man watched, to imagine that she had the power to attract anyone she wanted, and more than one man, to turn all the heads in a room.

Despite her worries and insecurities, what she didn't know was that, even though I had never seen her, she was the sexiest woman I had ever met.

One night, deep in a chat, I told her I wanted to hear her voice – I wanted to hear her drawl. I had a land line back then, and when I typed out the message – "would you like my phone number?" – I didn't really expect her to say yes – but she did.

Our first telephone conversation was like an awkward date – tentative bits about the weather, our days at the office – but once we were over the initial awkwardness the conversation flowed easily, because in fact we had come to know each other well.

Our second call was different. I narrated her fantasy of being watched...I placed us in it, together, making love as we were watched, and when her crashing, gasping orgasm washed over her it sizzled though the phone into my head, and I was so hard for her that I ached and throbbed.

About a month later I had to leave on a long business trip – around the world, sketchy places with bad phone lines, and I'd be gone for two weeks, maybe three if things didn't go smoothly.

When I told her I'd be away, she purred into my ear, that sweet Southern breeze that was her voice, "Whatever will ah do while you are gone?" Of course, her question might have been simple courtesy – but it wasn't. We were hooked on each other. Her very words excited me, conjuring images of her at home, alone, in bed, and waiting for my call. I kept hearing her voice over the next several days as I prepared for my trip. "Whatever will ah do?"

And so one night, just before I left, I wrote her a story. I thought about her fantasy, and what she had told me, about her height, her curves, and the perfume she wore. I closed my eyes and remembered the phone calls we had shared, and what she most liked to hear. I wrote it down, and then rewrote it, and rewrote it again. I didn't sleep that night, bothered by the need to get it just right – and bothered by a constant, needy erection that didn't subside until I took care of it right before dawn. I emailed her the story, packed my suitcase, and went off to catch a plane.

When I finally returned late one night, nearly a month later, there was a single email from her waiting for me. It simply said "we need to talk." I was worried that I had overdone it, and called her right away.

She answered the phone, and I thought I heard a tremor in her voice. "Did you write that just for me?" I told her I had, as I hoped she could tell.

As I waited for her response I could hear her breathing, and then it came out, a Magnolia whisper. "Why I have never been more turned on in mah entire life. Read it to me right this very minute."

I fumbled with my computer, and in a few moments pulled up the text. I could hear her breathing quicken as I read, I heard a small sigh, then another, more urgent, and then she let herself go, a series of southern "Oh mah, oh mah goodness" exclamations that rose with her orgasm and went right to my toes.

This became our new routine. We'd chat, and then as it grew late she would ask me to call and read her a bedtime story. The same one – hers.

Then one day, with no warning, I got an email from her. It seemed to break all of the rules that governed our secret world. Short but simple, it just said "I'm coming to NY. A business trip. Would you be so kind as to meet me for a drink Tuesday night at my hotel?" My mind began to race at the thought of meeting her.

That night I arrived early at the hotel restaurant, sat down, and ordered us both drinks - she had long ago told me the kind of wine she preferred. Although I had still never seen her face, I recognized her instantly when she walked up to the hostess. Her brown hair framed her face and caught the light, and her dress - a perfect shade of blue - stopped several inches below her knees. She always worried about her weight, but I just saw voluptuous curves. I stood up from my chair and waved to catch her eye.

I watched her walk to the table, looking at her in the eye, but watching all of her, the slight sway of her hips, the tiny shake of her ample chest, listening to the click of her heels on the marble floor. She offered me her hand, perhaps a Southern ritual, and said simply, quietly, "It is so nice to finally meet you, Mr. Storyteller."

We sat and sipped at our drinks as we talked. Her trip had been unexpected - a first for her, some type of work-related conference. I'd like to tell you every word of our first in-person conversation, but the only thing I remember now is that I could not stop looking into her eyes, this woman who had enchanted me for so long.

I asked her if she'd like to have another drink, and to my surprise she looked at her watch. "I have to join my colleagues for dinner tonight, I'm afraid."

I was crushed. I wanted more, I wanted all of her.

And then she reached across the table, put her hand on mine, and softly, so nobody else could hear, said "But I did want you to read me a story. Would you be so kind?"

I didn't know what to say – she had me confused. "Here? Right now?"

"No silly, of course naht. In mah room – I have a copy of my story there."

I followed her from the bar onto the elevator, unsure where this was going, my mind bouncing around as she opened the door to her room with her key card. The hotel had given her a suite, and in the sitting area there were chairs and a couch around a cocktail table - upon which sat several sheets of paper. "I've got it all here for us. Get settled, and ah'll be right back." With that she turned and headed for the bathroom.

I sat down and picked up the story, smiling when I recognized it, and quickly thumbed thru the pages, which looked a little dog eared. She returned from the bathroom and sat down across from me.

"Should I start?" She nodded and closed her eyes.

I started to read, letting the story unfold as it established the setting, the characters, and the back story.

As I turned to the second page I heard her sigh; I looked up and lost my place. Her eyes were still closed, she was cupping her breast, and her dress had ridden up her thighs - so that I could see the tops of her stockings, and the garters holding them up. I immediately lost my place in the story, and when I paused she seemed to lose her reverie. She opened her eyes - simply to say "Is something wrong?"

"No, not at all..."

"Well, please by all means continue."

I looked back down to the page and started to read again. I described the main character - her – her body, her sensuality, her lips, her hair, but it was becoming harder to concentrate on reading.

As I continued reading she slipped off her heels, using each foot on the other, and placed her feet on the cocktail table, apart, in front of me. She had pushed her dress up higher, and I could clearly see that she had left her panties in the bathroom. She was wearing bright red fingernail polish, and it was as if the tips of her fingers had lights on them to attract my attention.

As I struggled to read and watch her at the same time, she pulled down the front of her dress to expose a lacy bra cup, which she then slowly pulled down over her breast, her bright red fingertips drawing circles around her stiff nipple, which she pinched as she squirmed ever so slightly in the chair. I could feel my growing erection in my pants, against my thigh, and knew that she needed me to finish her story.

I turned to the third page and continued, even as I saw her hand start to move up and down between her legs. I read more, describing the story's setting further – it was a work setting, a large conference room, one built for formal presentations with an audiovisual booth at the rear, a booth with a glass window for technicians to manage sound levels, the lights, the equipment.

I continued reading: in the story I had written, she was pressed against the conference room table, the polished wood smooth and cool on her bare ass as her skirt hiked up. As her lover buried his face between her thighs she turned her head to see herself in the reflection of the glass window, even as, thru the glass window, she caught a glimpse of someone watching her, her fantasy coming true as she grabbed her lover's head by the ears and pulled him more tightly against her sopping wet sex.

I read on for her - the part of her story where her lover licked her to orgasm on the conference room table as she saw herself being watched - and, as I read her more of her fantasy story I could barely see the words I had written.

As she sat here before me, inches away, her dress was now up around her waist, and she was moving her hips as her hand fluttered back and forth, the sounds of her wetness tickling my ears as her fingers danced. I could hear her whimpers and soft moans, and then saw her red fingernails disappear as she fucked herself to finish what she had started – what we had done together. I watched her hips rise up off the chair as she cried out, her body shook as she came over and over, and she squeezed her legs together rapidly on her sticky hand, slapping her thighs together as if she were trying to pound back against the waves of her orgasm.

I stopped reading and just looked at her. I watched her chest rise and fall as her breath came in long pulls, and watched her as she opened her eyes and looked around the room, as if she had never seen it before, as if she expected the hotel to have disappeared. She had a beautiful relaxed smile on her face, and giggled softly, with just a hint of that Southern drawl I'd hear sometimes on the phone.

"That's what I needed" she said - or at least that's what I remembered, but I wasn't thinking too clearly - my cock was so hard it was a painful distraction, throbbing in my pants, and I could only think at all with great concentration.

"I've wanted you to read me that story in person ever since you first sent it to me." She got up, and pushed the coffee table aside. I watched her, still mesmerized. She walked over to me, leaned forward, her gorgeous pointed breasts hanging down, and kissed me. "Now be a gentleman." I had no idea what that meant – we New Yorkers weren't known for being gentlemen. I wanted to grab her, to suck her hardened nipples, to drive myself between her legs – but I got the strong sense she didn't want that – the "gentleman" thing clearly meant something, but I wasn't sure what.

She slowly lowered herself to her knees, and began to tug at my belt. She pulled my belt from the buckle, and I raised my ass off the chair so she could pull down my pants, then my shorts. She wrapped her hand around my cock, a warm, soft, and perfect hand, looked up at me, and swallowed me into her mouth, her red lipstick leaving a smear on my skin. I grabbed the chair and held on as she slid her hand up and down, as she bobbed her head, and as her soft breasts rubbed against my thighs, and when I came, in a burst that made my head spin, I could hear my voice, like it was someone else's, filling the room with groans.

I sat sprawled in the chair afterwards, as if my brains had left the building. I watched her as she put herself back together. "Sweethaaart" she said, "I have to go to a meeting. Will you be a deah and see yourself out?"

I nodded, still in a stupor.

And then she walked up to my chair and leaned in, her eyes locked on mine. "And would you do me the honor of writing me another story? I do believe that you now have some new material to work with."

I had to laugh. "Indeed I will."

I wrote her a story, and another - but I never saw her again.

Six months later she met someone in Atlanta. I'm not sure I understood it all, but apparently she was from an "old" Southern family. Having a Northerner as a partner, husband, friend, lover - whatever we might have called it, whatever it might have become – simply wasn't done in her circles. Her new "beau," as she put it, was socially acceptable. "I know you'll understand" was the essence of her explanation.

I told myself that I did understand, that it made perfect sense. Hell, I could never live in Atlanta anyway. Right? That humidity, that crushing summer heat, all that Southern stuff. Yes, deep inside I wanted her, but I also wanted her to be happy, and I was happy for what we had shared.

Then, a couple of months after her wedding, she sent me an email. I could hear her voice, that beautiful lilt, when I read it to myself. "For safekeeping, I have securely tucked away your stories with a password, and I still enjoy them often. Unfortunately, though, I must deactivate this email, and change my phone number. We must now part ways. Thank you, and farewell my dear."

I never heard from her again. But every now and then I pull up the first story I wrote her, and imagine that she too is enjoying it, on a sultry Southern day in a big white house on a broad green lawn somewhere in Georgia.