The Phone Conquistador

"You want me to touch where?" I giggled. After a long morning of wiping my children's buts, noses, and the kitchen counters, besides, I was brain-dead. Catching a few minutes in my cramped bedroom to check voice-mail, I felt the color flush to my cheeks.

Camden Collins was the high school dreamer who ended up creating his own software empire. After asking my childhood best friend for my contact information, he had "reconnected" with me. Expressing an unrequited crush, he proceeded to show great interest in me and enthusiasm for whatever I was doing on any given day.

"Right on!" he would remark on my social media page. I could be cleaning the toilet, and he would say, "Wow, it looks like you didn't miss a spot!" Well, I am exaggerating there, but he did once text that he wanted to lick the sweat off of me after I took a Dancing for Klutzy Housewives class at the gym and emailed a pic to him.

Currently, through the magic of phone sex, he was creating miracles with his tongue on my clitoris, a part of the body that my husband of 16 years had forgotten about.

Camden Collins, however, now described his decades-long imaginings of this part of my body. He asked about my "ladyscaping."

"Huh?" I asked, all through text, of course. "That's what is in the garden next to the foundation of the house, right?" At this point I was touching myself as Camden had practically commanded. He was commandeering this conversation and I was flummoxed and curious and out of breath.

When he explained that it was my "hair...there" I couldn't believe that the issue of whether or not I was a Brazil waxing aficionado was a topic of conversation. "Ah, I guess I am an all-natural, all organic type of girl." I stammered.

I have long legs with shapely ankles...In my dreams. The rest of the time, I just have great ankles and feet with high arches, and embarrassingly large thighs. And, while we never made out, never dated, Cam remembered my larger-than-decent-in-shorts thighs with delight rather than disgust.

And, in a fit of creativity, Camden decided to throw those high arched feet into the mix of stimulating body parts. Well, in this case, leading to his own flexible fulfillment. "Flexible Fulfillment" is a term that I've seen the large stores use for people who chose to make purchases on-line and pick up their selection at the store. Of course, Camden probably could buy and sell the whole chain of stores, and then some.

There's something about being pursued by a billionaire who is also a household name that made me lose my inhibitions. I trusted him with my secrets. Not that there were that many, and all of them were in my "girls gone on academic probation because they went to more keggers than classes" college times. During the fluky times between serious boyfriends and serious studying, I managed to squeeze in a lot of high-jinx and mayhem. And not that any of my crazy times were all that kinky or unusual.

In high school, Camden had been a handsome nebbish, and someone who had blended into the woodwork. We had gone to college on different coasts, and I had lost touch with him until I saw articles after articles about his empire.

I am by no means a slouch, but my body has been stretched as much with these 4 kids and subsequent pregnancies. While my husband is a great dad, and a very good looking man, he was usually so busy with work, the kids, and yard work that actually having a 5-minute conversation was a rarity. Getting my husband's undivided attention in the way that Camden was granting me was a statistical improbability.

"You probably wouldn't want to actually be with me in real life, I've been so...altered...by the 4 vaginal deliveries." I confessed.

"Having kids doesn't change your lady parts. Nah," Camden said, "All that goes back the way it was before." Of course, how could he know that on a bad day I felt like all that was hanging out of me with the rest of the effects of gravity on ones physique? But, I suppose Camden knew better, as he seemed to have had experiences with all sorts of women. After an awkward start, he had made up for lost time in his early 30s, but was now living a very quiet, low-key personal life.

Cam reassured me of my looks, my womanliness, and my worth as a person. It was grand to have someone who knew me back when I was just plain old "me" and who believed that that person was special and important, and deserved, well. However, in the way that he always seemed to know how to help me escape the dull-drudgery of my daily routine, and develop positive vibes in the process.

I asked him, in the thick of the passionate phone discourse, if he had ever read a book on how to seduce a housewife, as he seemed to know all the right things to say. He seemed to pause for a minute, and that should have been a clue. I just didn't pick up on it at the time. He answered, "No."

Instead of picking up on the subtle clue that perhaps he WAS quite well practiced at the art of long-distance seduction of lonely hearts, I developed feelings for Cam. I started to develop more than a physical attraction for Camden. In spare moments I would Google article after article about his software empire. He wasn't philanthropic like some of his contemporaries, but he did have a strong history of buying out smaller software companies to consolidate his powerful holdings. It was exciting to read about his business conquests, and to feel, somehow, tangentially connected to that "greatness." I felt special knowing that I was Camden Collins high school crush, the girl he saw from afar and never felt emboldened enough to ask out.

That was, I felt that kind of connection until I called my high school friend Tina. She gave me the 411 on Camden Collins and his conquests. All because I needed a fancy cupcake platter for my daughter's birthday party and Tina sells those high-end kitchen gadgets from her home. If it wasn't for the cupcakes, I would have continued thinking that I was this special girl from a special, tender, time in a young man's life. Instead, I just had some special cupcakes, which go well with my broken heart.

"Yeah, I see that Camden is putting the moves on you these days, seems he can't get enough of 'liking' of your photos on social meda," Tina said, with a tart expression. "Well, let's just say he had an unrequited crush on me, too. And, from what I heard at the last reunion, it was with about half of the girls in our class, and most of them are girls like us with lots of kids and distracted husbands. He knows how to put on the moves, and he is GOOD."

I blanched, although not stricken enough to refrain from gobbling down a chocolate cupcake slated for the party. Oh well. Reunion? I had missed it because my husband didn't want to cough up the $95 each for overpriced dinner and drinks with people he didn't know, and then the cost of a babysitter, besides. And I was feeling too fat from just having had my youngest to bother to push the issue that it was my friends and my glorious past that needed celebrating.

"What?" I asked. "He put the same moves on tons of other girls, too? What a cad! I feel so...Played." I said. It was true that Camden always seemed to know the right thing to say, he had not just read a book on how to seduce a bored, lonely housewife. He had invented the genre!

"Your Camden was in Fiji on business, and missed the reunion this time. He was a big topic of conversation, though." Tina went on to tell me about a particular classmate of ours, Mellissa, who got so carried away by Camden's attentions that she left her husband and children to go after him, only to find out that she was just one of hundreds of his on-line conquests, and that he was too busy with his work to even have meals with her. This is after they screwed, of course. She was devastated, and was fortunate that her husband took her back after this indiscretion, but their relationship has never been the same.

I was not happy to hear about Melissa's misfortune. She was a sweet girl and deserved better. We all did. Needless to say it proved to me that there was nothing to be gained by prolonging my on-line, on-phone relationship with the famous-billionaire-what's-his-name-no-good-telephone-conquistador. However, he would be a tough habit to break. I could still remain close friends, I assumed, and try to keep things platonic.

-

"Not even a Christmas card, Father?" I asked the parish priest in the sacristy, after he had assigned my penance of 6 of the Hail Mary prayer while thinking about the Resurrection, and also the provision that I was to have no contact with this person in which I had engaged in emotional infidelity over the phone and the internet. Camden Collins.

I had made special arrangements for this confession before the noon Mass, as my children were still in summer camp at this time of the day. I didn't want to go to the confession on the weekend with my whole family waiting in line with me. I needed this spiritual cleanse. I wanted to rid myself of guilt, but, also, to empower myself to get past all of the drama. However, I was unprepared for the "no contact" with Camden Collins part. That was going to be tough.

I do miss the way he would call and say, "Hello, Sexy!" but, maybe that is something I could teach my husband to do? After all, how hard can that be? And, I guess there are scores of other women who are getting to experience the Camden miracle. But...No Christmas card? Jesus. Give a girl a break.