Not Fantasy or Reality, just a Story
By ElSol
Dedicated to Megan
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I looked forward to her emails.
Her first had been a curious questing for connection with a character that struck a chord. I hope I am not the only Internet writer that looks for the feminine usernames. I imagine the fingers they type a quick note to me are moist with their release.
The women rarely sign their name, but Megan did.
Some emails say 'good story', 'fantastic', or even 'you really turned me on'. Others ask an impossible question; did it really happen?
I believe in the Crossroads, Scratch, the Devil's woman, but my fingers break no strings. Dacia is real; I never stalked her. I like female bodybuilders; they WOULD kick my ass though. I never made love on a bus.
I had never made love.
Megan asked how much of David was I. She hid the question, but what she really wanted to find was in her words.
Stereotypical Mexican men do not dominate Amazonian blondes with enough curves to test an Indy driver. The women I write about do not look at me, except maybe to look down at me.
I told her how much of David I wanted to be.
Megan's emails had laughter, as if behind a username she could be how she saw herself.
She asked more questions.
I asked questions. It was not something I did, questions when someone emailed me. I told them when the next chapter was coming out, what my next story was going to be, or thanked them for compliments. I did not do Google their username and service to find more of their words among the trillions. I found the voice and laughter she hid from people that could touch her face, but the words lacked mischief. I thought maybe she saved that for me.
I knew what time she usually sent email, midnight, so I sat at my machine fifteen minutes before and after waiting. I came to hate when the graduate students or faculty took our half-hour away from me.
I worked at the Graduate and Faculty Computer Lab at my University. If I had four hours of work on any non-payroll day, it was because I did absolutely nothing the day before. I graduated college in three years by taking full course loads during summer semesters and had collected two Masters degrees, Fine Arts and Computer Science. The masters were not something I planned, but not taking advantage of free tuition seemed silly. I was trying to decide between the MBA program and a doctorate when I received the first of Megan's emails.
People's email about my stories filled some of work's boredom and replying was certainly more entertaining than trying to teach a professor how to put their lecture notes online. I guess she did not expect so florid an email back, our first time.
I did not think about meeting Megan, even during the half-hour I waited for her email. She said she had a boyfriend but was 'anti-monogamy'. In the same email, she admitted the 'anti' was in word only, so far. She also told me she was shy, and no matter how vivid her emails became I believed it. Somewhere along the line, email made it safe to be honest and to believe we both were. She wrote me her fantasies and found out how many of mine she had read.
I wrote a story about her desires: bondage, force, and freaky-looking beasties. I crossed a line, and Megan asked to meet me. I was glad that particular email came before a day off.
I could think about it.
I could dream about it.
I was not the kind of man a woman traveled five hundred miles to see.
I emailed back, no.
It was a week before I heard from her. I thought whatever it had been was over.
There were two words to her reply.
"Why not?"
I had prepared my response.
"I like being your fantasy."
For the first time in my life, a woman pursued.
"I'd like to live the fantasy."
Her words set me back, but they were not unexpected.
"A fantasy is a thought Megan, not a person."
"You think meeting me would destroy your fantasy, Miguel?"
It was unfair and true.
"When you think about me, is it David you imagine pulling your hair when you orgasm, Megan?"
"You're David, Miguel. You're Jason, and I hope you're Michael too."
I was none of my characters, but in the first person I could not avoid being all of them.
"What about your boyfriend?"
"The best sex we have is after I read any of your stories."
"That doesn't answer the question."
"I've always been anti-monogamy."
"In word only."
"Sometimes a word has to be lived, Miguel. I want to live some of yours."
I did not like the instant messenger services. I preferred to hear my conversations. The email messages went back and forth for an hour and half. I liked having the time that writing my answers gave me.
"Okay."
"Really?"
"How do we do this?"
"I was thinking of living a fantasy in a fantasy."
"I don't understand?"
"Strangers in a hotel room."
"We're not strangers, Megan."
"It's not like we've met."
No, Megan and I had never met.
I agreed to a Saturday two weeks from that night. I thought the extra time was a good idea, in case she changed her mind. Her emails became funnier, more mischievous, and more intimately heated as our Saturday drew closer. I asked time and again if she was sure this was what she wanted.
She was adamant.
-----
My car was parked in front of the hotel room; I was thinking about leaving. The only word she spoke when she called was the room number.
I reached to start the car when the room door opened. The light above the door framed her.
She was short: long, dark auburn hair with the right amount of curl.
She was wearing a black leather trench coat and like fantasy, she opened it: black demi-cup bra, matching panties, garters, stockings, heels. The curves of a short woman, athletic when active rounder if life interfered with fun, displayed the lingerie to perfection. She put her hands as high as she could on either side of the doorframe.
Her chin went up in challenge. Megan knew I was in the car.
The challenge set my jaw like I wrote that David's did when he was angry. The challenge was not enough for her; her hands dropped to her sides and the coat pooled at her feet. She turned and strutted with her ass and hips swaying back into the room.
I was out of the car and slamming the door hard before I knew I had moved. I stopped and closed my eyes; I took a deep breath feeling almost high on her.
I reminded myself of the words I had written; the thick line between fantasy and reality is not knowing what is ONLY her fantasy. I walked into the room and closed the door. I turned and leaned a shoulder against it.
I looked at Megan.
She was sitting on the bed with one leg folded underneath her; the other was tapping the floor nervously. She had dark brown eyes, almost black, that swam in pools of shy mischief.