"What are you doing?" The question rings out loud but only I can hear it. Above the rush of blood in my ears, I realize the query is just inside my head. It's me questioning myself. I was far away, drifting in a waking dream. My mind had temporarily sought refuge from this surreal and strange reality, wanting to distract itself from what is happening. But now I'm jerked back into the present moment. I can't believe I going through with this. I'm nervous as hell.
"Six hundred nine Ocean Spray Drive." The car pulls up abruptly, as my Uber driver announces my stop.
"Thank you, have a good evening" I stammer, as I close the door and the car pulls away. I turn around and face the house. From the sidewalk where I'm standing a stone walkway cuts a neatly recessed path right through the middle of the emerald lawn and up to the front door. Solar lights flood the grass and enhance it's hue. It feels like the warm spring night beckons me to that door. But I hesitate for a moment.
Days earlier I would have never imagined what was due to transpire. I'm a loner. I've been alone a long time now. I generally stay away from people, and enjoy the pursuits of an introvert's life. The hurt and the pain are long gone now, and all the years of inner reflection and absorption of outer information are fully synthesized and integrated. At least I tell myself that. What I know is that I can survive and I am ok. The only thing that lingers from that earlier time, when I would come home and cry, and then masturbate in a hot bath, is these damn fantasies. I do wish that someday I could resolve them, perhaps fulfil at least one of them in my lifetime. But after all this time they've become merely that - just latent fantasies. So I was really surprised that morning, a few days earlier in the Starbucks.
"Hi!" I glanced up, irritated. My caramel macchiato is my only friend these days, and we enjoy our quiet solitude together.
"Um, hello?" I respond, hoping my icy retort will soon dispatch this unwelcome interruption. Above me stands a professionally dressed young man, fully more than a decade my junior. He's smiling and friendly, which just bugs me even more.
"What's he selling?" I snap back to my internal self. I know sales, I learnt all the tricks, so I'm ready for the pitch!
"I've seen you here a bit, but you're always on your own." I'm taken aback. This guy is disarming, but I'm still suspicious. Occasionally I'll meet people, but I never initiate it. People sometimes just seem to gravitate to me after awhile. They want to know what the mystery is. But there's no mystery. It's just a life lived from forced extremes. All these lessons that seep in, and for some reason people want to know. If they ask, then I'll inevitably have a huge conversation with them - and they'll come away impressed. Perhaps that's all this guy wants.
"Do you mind if I sit down?"
"Free country" I shoot back sharply. I always start out tart. Defensive is the best strategy. But even though I permit him to sit at my table, I still just want to be alone. He talks for awhile about himself, but then as usual the topic turns to my epic journey. I find myself, typically, giving more away than I should. Now he knows about my marriage, and all that pain and loss, and how I've been on my own for some time now.
"Never got with another girl?" he asks.
"Nope, don't need 'em!" I say.
"You don't get frustrated?" I find myself, surprisingly, opening up to this friendly younger man. He has a way of putting people at ease, that I just can't put my finger on. I tell him, in the rough and couched language of another generation how that, of course I masturbate. And then I relate the couple times I went to a nudist club, and how great that was. But it was just all friends. Well, at least until I met that girl that one time in the pool! His eyes widen. And then, relaxed, I let my guard down and throw in something spicy just for the heck of it.
"Yer, I've basically always been like that - since I was a kid. I've always wanted to get naked in the wild, and I even fucked a couple of my women like that. Even hoped that I'd get caught and someone would see." I'm enjoying the delight on his face, as I relate my exploits.
"So you're an exhibitionist?" he asks.
"Yes, I suppose. Closet one, I guess" I say.
"Ever done anything else?" he asks.
"Like what?"
"Anything wild?" he suggests, his eyes wicked. I halt for a second, reading his expression.
"Oh no, no, no!" I reply emphatically.
"Not even thought about it?"
"Well I have had fantasies." Oh my god. I can not believe I am telling a complete stranger this!
"You never like got naked with a guy and tried to jerk each other off?" I feign shock at his question, but my mind races with how to respond. This is a public situation, and he is a stranger, and I have to protect myself.
Yet strangely, in the back of my mind I find this stranger intriguing ... if not somewhat appealing. Wow, did I just think that!
"As I said ... I've had fantasies ... but I've never done anything" I manage to bumble out.
"What if you could? Would you? I have this other guy friend, and we do this little thing sometimes. We invite another man occasionally, to just play around. You said you were an exhibitionist, and you do fantasize. Would you like to try something for real?"
I can't believe the way the conversation is going, but I also can't deny the bulge in my jeans under the table. And I'm so glad he can't see that.
"You mean like one of those 'Circle Jerks' or something?" I ask him.
"Sure" he says. "But we get bored whacking off each other, so sometimes we find someone else we can trust to spice it up".
I'm floored! This stranger is asking me if I want to get naked with him and this other guy friend and jerk each other off! I've never done this in my life, and I'm terrified of putting it into action. But the blood in my body screams to not miss this opportunity, this chance to finally satiate a long time fantasy.
So it turns out that I accept Trane's, as he's called, invitation to meet with his friend Dram at their house. The conversation ends abruptly as Trane rises to leave, gives me a wink and hands me a piece of paper with an address and a day a time on it.
Now, days later, here I am, out in front of this house!
But my legs almost won't go. And my heart is jumping around a bit. So I force myself to walk up that stone walkway to that welcoming door. It's actually pretty cool. The trellises of ivy across the front patio are lit with soft purple down-lights that add a reassurance to the entryway. And the evening air adds to the sense of being spellbound.
There must have been a hidden security camera, because the wooden door opens before I can knock. There stands a tanned woman in an overly filled bikini top and a flowered dark wrap draped under her firm belly. Yet I'm looking directly in her green eyes and symmetrical face. My mouth is open, but I have nothing to say, except ...
"Hello, I'm ... um ... Grey."
"Hi, I'm Martha" she drawls. "Trane and Dram are waiting for you downstairs, but first we have a couple rules." She's so pretty and hot that I'm willing to do anything she says! The atrium is darkened, save for more purple down-lights that just barely light the space immediately around us from above.
"I have to take your clothes" she says firmly, as she gestures to a rack along the wall just inside the door. I gulp. "Don't worry", she says, "it's fine." But it's not fine, I think, as I glance involuntarily down to the bulge already formed in the front of my pants.