Author Preamble: This story could go into the Romance category or the Erotic Couplings category equally well. It's probably a little more explicit than romance typically entails, so I've put it into Erotic Couplings. The story contains some "consensual nonconsent", but that's not the main focus of the story, which centers primarily on the path through which two people with shared fantasies connect with each other.
*****
I pretended to read my book, but I was far too distracted to make it look believable. The coffee shop was busier than I'd hoped, with a steady stream of people coming and going, and I looked up to observe each of them from my quiet spot in the corner. A man entered, a woman left, another arrived, and every time the small bell jingled over the door, my heart skipped a beat.
I shifted on the couch. This was stupid. It was ridiculous to think that it could happen. I was just going to sit with a cup of coffee and go back to my hotel room. And I hated coffee.
The bell jingled again. A mature woman entered, perhaps in her early forties, petite with black hair. She wore a long stylish coat that was heavier than the weather required, and its hem danced around her shapely calves as she walked. She briefly scanned the room, her mouth set in resolution, her face anxious. Behind her she pulled a small overnight bag, its wheels clacking on the tile floor.
I sat up straight on the couch.
She went to the counter and had a short discussion with the counter girl. As she settled up her order, then waited on its preparation, she again glanced quickly over her shoulder toward the sitting area.
I put down my book, my heart beating faster.
Maybe.
When I glanced up again a moment later, she was distracted, accepting her drink from the counter girl. This gave me a long moment to study her from the back. She had an attractive figure under the coat, her hips slim but curvy beneath a narrow waist. Her hair was cut short, a pixie cut that exposed the back of her neck.
Possibly.
Drink in hand, she turned toward the sitting area. Almost immediately we made eye contact. A brief bolt of lightning surged between us, an innate and intuitive realization of each that the other was real. She looked down at the floor for a moment, then took a deep breath as if she was making a decision. I pretended to look back down to my book, every fiber of my being concentrating on my peripheral vision.
Definitely.
Footsteps approached across the hardwood floor. There was an easy chair across the small table from my couch, firm and high in structure, and she chose it.
She set her cup of tea on the table, casually turning it. Per the custom, a name was scribbled across it.
Sparrow.
I smiled.
I reached to my own cup of coffee on the table, turning it so the name faced toward her.
Hunter.
Sitting six feet apart, the rest of the world went silent and motionless as we studied each other. We had never seen each other, did not know each other's names, and yet we knew each other intimately. She was just what she had told me, and what I had pieced together from her words over so many months - mature, attractive, graceful - and I hoped that I was what she had pictured. Her eyes met mine, her irises a dark Italian brown. She had a naturally wide-eyed look, the whites of her eyes as prominent as the irises, and the implied innocence both supported and refuted what I knew about her. Eternity elapsed in thirty seconds as we both pondered what would happen next.
I swallowed hard, then my mouth curled into a shallow smile. "Feel free to take your coat off," I said.
She smiled shakily back, her emotion seeming as sickly nervous as mine was. She looked at the two cups on the table for a moment, then back at me.
"Okay," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
She stood and unbuckled the belt that held her coat closed, then slid it over her shoulders and off. Underneath, she was wearing a snug cashmere sweater of powder blue, tucked into a pleated black mini-skirt that was bold but classy. I nodded my approval. Her curves, not evident under the coat, were quite impressive as the sweater molded itself over them.
She sat back down and picked up her tea. Taking a sip, she looked outside at the overcast day. She and I were just strangers, two strangers sitting in a coffee shop.
She spread her knees slightly.
Behind me, there was nothing but a bare corner. No one could see her. Surreptitiously checking for onlookers, her free hand grasped the mini skirt material, pulling it up ever so slightly.
Oh, my god. She was really going to do it. I could feel my cock beginning to swell.
Another drink, another glance, another slight pull of the material. It was now passing the point of modesty, and no one knew but me.
Without warning, her smile became more emboldened. Seeing that the coast was clear, her fingers quickly walked the fabric, gripping the hem. Up, up, up, and suddenly there was no more leg to be shown. She spread her knees wider.
I had never seen that pussy before, but I knew it intimately. I knew the sparse and neatly trimmed thatch of jet black pubic hair. I knew the graceful prominence of the mons veneris, and the delights that lay below. In my mind and my words, I had touched it, tasted it, explored it, and ravaged it. And now, at long last, I had finally seen it.
She sat still for several long moments, offering it to me for review and inspection and enjoyment. I took full advantage, shifting a bit to rearrange my now rock-hard cock inside my jeans. She noticed and found humor in it.
A man bought coffee and walked in our direction. Spooked by the footsteps behind her, she abruptly dropped her skirt, smoothing it back to respectability.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the key card to my hotel room. I set it between the cups, halfway between Hunter and Sparrow.
Now a decent and law-abiding woman again, she folded her arms across her breasts, studying it. We both knew the situation; this was her final decision in the dance we had concocted. She could leave now, and we would both walk away into the night, content that our little coffee shop fantasy had come to life. We would be done, and we would both smile at the memory.
If she picked it up, she was committing herself to a much deeper experience.
Our eyes met again. Her narrow eyebrows rose in question, and I nodded.
She picked up the key.
****
It had started so innocently.
We had met in a chat room, just two people who wanted to discuss movies amid a sea of late-night chatter. After a few minutes of typing back and forth, I clicked the small box next to her name, curious to learn more. She was in Portland versus my Chicago, she was in her early forties, a bit younger than me, and she was female. That was all I knew, and for the purpose of discussing movies, it was all I needed to know.
It was supposed to be a one-time thing. That's the way it works, two anonymous ghosts alone on a winter night, haunting each other's computer screens for a couple of hours before drifting away. But we liked each other. We connected quickly, having similar tastes and standards, and we each understood the other's jokes and references. We even flirted a little. After a long discussion deep into the night, we agreed to meet again a week later, and then again a week after that. The discussions began meandering beyond movies. It became like meeting a friend for coffee. We even traded photos, and I was pleasantly surprised. She had nice eyes and a cute mouth, topped off by a stylish pixie cut that swept over her head like a peacock plume. She had a mildly golden-complexion and claimed a half-Italian, half-Korean background, though I had trouble seeing which half of her came from where.
Common folklore is that men and women can't be friends, that at some point sex inevitably enters the minds of one or both if the relationship moves beyond hello. As a general rule, I scoff at that theory, believing that we are more refined as a species. Sure, she and I flirted a bit, but it was friendly banter. We were just typing. We wouldn't go over the line.
But then we went over the line.
We were talking about some forgettable trashy movie it happened. It wasn't intentional, or maybe it was. Maybe it was happenstance, or maybe such things are destined to happen when a man and a woman like each other. Regardless of the reason, it happened.
We were typing back and forth.
Me: It annoyed me that the woman stayed with the villain.
Her: Why?
Me: Are you kidding? He tied her over a bench and let his friends have sex with her. And then in the next scene she's going out to dinner with him. It's ridiculous.
Her: Maybe, but not necessarily.
Me: Not necessarily?
Her: Maybe she liked it.
Me: She liked being tied down and having sex forced on her by a bunch of henchmen?
There was a long pause before her text appeared on my screen. I wondered if I had crossed some feminist line.
Her: Some women like it.
I stared at the screen for a moment, pondering my response.
Me: They like it?
Her: Some woman like being taken. Being forced.
Me: How common is this?
Her: More common that you would think. It turns some women on.
This time it was my turn for a long pause. Don't do it, I told myself. Don't do it. Stop typing.
I typed anyway.
Me: Does it turn you on?
****
We left the coffee shop, with me pulling her overnight bag. My hotel was only a block away, and the first half block passed in silence.
She bit her lip as we waited at a crosswalk, her eyes focused on the past. "I can't believe I just did that."
I couldn't stop a smile. "Neither can I."
She shook her head slowly, looking into the street with a smile that was half disbelief, half pride. "That's not who I am. I've never done anything like that in my life."
The light changed and we continued our walk. "Isn't that the whole point of this?"
This time, the smile crept onto her face. "Apparently it is."
I was nine inches taller than her, so she was forced to look up at me. "I've got to tell you," she said. "This is kind of scary to me. My knees are shaking."
"Mine, too." I waited several more strides before saying the words that I didn't want to say, but knew I should. "It's not too late to call it off."
"Not in a million years."
With that, we both burst into laughter. This was the personality I knew from the chat room.
We entered the hotel, and I guided her onto the elevator, placing a hand gently at the small of her back. The touch tingled. I pressed the 9th floor button and we stood in an awkwardness that was thick even for an elevator. I wanted to kiss her, to pull her into my body and envelop her, but that's not why we were here.
