As he set foot in the café, Marc couldn't help but feel that there was a target painted on him; as if all the patrons were about to turn around and give him a disdainful look, a look that said, "We know what
you're
here for." It was a weekday morning, yet the place was packed for some reason. Quickening his step, he scanned the room in the desperate hope that she was here already, that he wasn't going to be sat at a table waiting forlornly for her to arrive.
Then suddenly the crowd thinned a little and he spotted her, sat by the window. She was bathed in sunlight, which gave her a strange kind of halo, and occasionally she turned round and shielded her eyes as she gazed out into the street. She was recognisable, and yet so very different from the blurred pictures she had emailed him at three o'clock in the morning, her dark hair tousled and her face unmade. Now her hair cascaded neatly down to her shoulders, waving slightly at the edges, and she was dressed casually in a black turtleneck and jeans. She had clearly made an effort, but there was still something very natural about her; an air of innocence which he hadn't been expecting.
As he made his way forward, she caught sight of him and her face lit up in recognition. She gave him an encouraging wave over to her table. Drawing nearer, he was able to take in her face in detail for the first time. She said she was twenty-eight but she looked at least five years younger, her dimples showing prominently. Her smile was warm and welcoming, and there was a sparkle of life in her brown eyes, but there was also a sharpness too. She was watching him keenly, evaluating him, even as she stood up with a welcoming grin and shook his hand. "Hi."
"Hi... Josie," he said in a staccato voice as he briefly forgot her name.
"Yeah, you got it. Marc," she added heavily, her face jutting forwards in a sudden moment of goofiness. He was reminded of the playful sense of humour she'd always shown during their long conversations in the small hours, and the weird faces she'd pulled in some of those photos, and realised that this was definitely the same girl.
They both sat down, and as Marc pulled his chair up to the table and watched Josie smooth her hair and sip her coffee, all he could suddenly think of were the many obscene things he had suggested he would do to her. Watching her now, the thought of actually doing them seemed so improbable that he lost faith for a moment. But then he remembered all the equally obscene things she had suggested in return, and the idea that even some of them were now going to happen was so thrilling that his heart leapt with excitement.
During the small talk that followed they established that Josie was indeed twenty-eight, and she took Marc's compliment that she looked much younger with the weary gratitude of someone who had heard it plenty of times before. They also established that Marc hadn't lied about his age either - he was fourteen years her senior, and looked it. Once that was out in the open he began to worry about how he was coming across to her. He was all too painfully aware of the user base on the site where they had met: mainly men his age or older, looking for jailbait who they could flatter long enough to get into their pants. He knew the type so well because he had been one of them, for longer than he wanted to admit.
That was what had kept him going long into the night, pursuing hook-ups that were never really there. The stakes of this game were a lot lower for him than for many of the other men on there, since he wasn't trying to find excitement outside of a stale marriage, with all the risks that entailed. He had no such burdens; at least, not any more. But he was after escapism just as much as they were. It had settled into a familiar pattern: chasing fantasies that were so much more than he really wanted, getting a reality that was so much less. He had been right on the verge of quitting the site, of finding a sensible lifestyle more befitting a forty-something, when Josie came along.
She had been witty and perceptive, with an affinity for smut that had surprised even him. During their first exchanges she posted in short, pithy sentences, revealing little about herself, but she would suddenly drop the filthiest suggestion into an otherwise innocent discussion. He would email back, expanding on it a little, then she would expand further. After a week or so it was as if they both dropped their defences; he could see she wasn't just an attention-seeker, she realised he wasn't a stalker in disguise. Then their conversations had become much longer, and dirtier, to the point where he prayed that all of this was going somewhere. Now, after a series of hesitant emails and even more hesitant phone calls on both sides, the moment had arrived.
"You nervous?" Josie asked him out of the blue, her hand resting on her chin.
"Well... yeah," Marc admitted with a little shrug, realising it was pointless to try and bluff her. "I haven't done this for so long... in fact, I've never really done this before. Like this, I mean."
"Yeah, I guess it's not the way you're supposed to meet someone!"
"Have you done this before then?"
"Um, yeah. A little bit," she admitted shyly. "But it doesn't always get this far."
"That's what I was worrying about, when we were up all night talking." Marc caught Josie's quizzical look, and tried to explain himself. "Y'know, that we were having a good time, but it might not be anything more than that. That it would all just be harmless flirting."
"Oh, c'mon!" she admonished him, patting his arm. "After all the effort we both put in? I would never have lead you on just for the hell of it."
"No, I'm not saying you would," he said hastily. "Just that you might have had second thoughts."
Josie shook her head and glanced away, down at her cup. A faint smile played over her face as she recalled a recent memory, summoning up the courage to describe it. "Do you remember one night, I told you how my pussy swells up when I'm really excited? Remember that?"
Marc swallowed heavily, and nodded. "Yeah."
"Yeah, well I don't mention that to every guy I flirt with." She looked at him again, her head tilted to one side and an indulgent smile on her face. "I lost a lot of sleep because of you. While we were chatting and... afterwards sometimes. And I know you did too."
"Yeah, I did," Marc laughed. "I was late for work a few times because you'd kept me up."
"Well, that's what I was trying to do," Josie murmured as she folded her arms on the table. "Keep you up." Marc felt the same surge of excitement in his guts that he had before. "I'm glad it worked, 'cos I only had your word to go on. Most guys start bombarding me with the cock pics after I've spoken to them once, so..."
