There's hardly any graphic sex here, so if that's your cuppa you should probably read something else. I'm not opposed to erotic scenes, mind you, I just can't write them worth a tinker's damn.
I know I could ask for help, but my first two experiences asking established authors for editing guidance were enormously frustrating. The first never answered and a year later the second agreed, but after two months of no further response I had to face reality—it wasn't going to happen. I feared I had succumbed to a malady once diagnosed by an aristocratic young lady from Nashville: gettin' above my raisin's.
Six months later, with no little trepidation I asked a third time for editorial assistance—not specifically in writing sex scenes, just a plain old story edit. To my great relief (and delight), this time my concerns proved to be misplaced; not only was the person agreeable, she was downright enthusiastic. It would be churlish, therefore, for me to neglect acknowledging my debt. Her passion, her knowledge and experience, her often gentle but always insistent guiding hand(s), all these and more enabled me to eliminate multifarious errors.
Her final words to me were "No turd polishing!"— whatever sparks of competence you might see are due to the skilled and caring massages of my editor, Pauline French. But I've never been able to let well enough alone; all remaining errors are solely my responsibility. I hope the experience was as good for her as it was for me.
Merci mille fois, Mme. French.
--§§§--
SHE ISN'T REALLY going to put that in her—holy shit! She did!
That was my first reaction seeing a cam girl trying to inspire her watchers to give money ( in the form of "tips") to encourage even more raunchy behavior. For those of you free of depravity and consequently unfamiliar with this particular corner of the interweb, cam girls are women who set up a webcam and do whatever they think will get men to give them money. The most common activity is masturbating until they reach a (usually faked) orgasm.
The money comes in the form of "tokens" that anyone can buy with a credit card for a dime apiece. Then they log in to the cam girl's "room"—usually a bedroom—and watch (occasionally also to listen; some girls talk, some don't). They can tip her as many tokens as often as they like, but it isn't required simply to watch. The rooms also include a chat window, and most cam girls encourage chatting because it seems to encourage tipping. She gets a nickel for each tip, the website keeps the other nickel.
It's a sweet business for the website, not so sweet for most of the girls. Well, "models" might be more accurate than "girls" because there are rooms for women, men, transgendered of every stripe, and couples—again, of all imaginable combinations—but most are females, known generically as cam girls. The "girls" range in age from 18 (the minimum) to the occasional septuagenarian (no, not kidding), all sizes (hardbodies to morbidly obese), and all colors. The average age appears to be mid-to-late twenties.
Thousands of women are doing this, on hundreds of websites. Because the websites make most of their money by raking their half of the tips, many let you hang out in a room and watch the goings-on without paying anything up front. Even though you can watch some pretty nasty stuff for free, most girls won't let you chat unless you tip; chatting makes it seem interactive, even personal, and is a big part of the appeal.
After the novelty wore off—believe it or not, pretty soon tits and asses and pussies with various dildos, vibrators, mechanical female penetration devices, and vegetables of all sizes, shapes, and colors, soon lose their power to arouse—I stopped trying to find the nastiest show and just started cruising out of curiosity.
So why is a 29-year-old high school math and computer programming teacher in Hollister, California, leering at naked women who masturbate for money? It could be a long story, but it's an embarrassing one so I'll try to keep it short.
-- § --
MY FIRST JOB out of college was teaching math in Gustine, a small farm town on the west edge of California's central valley about 100 miles south of Sacramento. Five years later I finally got tired of Gustine and took a teaching job in Hollister, a bigger farm town 50 miles closer to the ocean that was morphing into a bedroom community for Silicon Valley. Why would anybody want to commute that far? Take a look at the absurd Bay Area housing prices (I mean, come on! Somebody paid $2.1 million to scrape off a 970-square-foot 2br 1ba that listed for $1.4M? In San José?).
Confession time: I didn't really get tired of Gustine, I got divorced of Gustine. From the horror stories I've heard my divorce was relatively painless, but it sure hurt at the time. When I asked Anne to marry me, I thought we loved each other and were going to start making babies Real Soon Now. Turned out that we both loved Anne and we both liked sex, but we didn't last until Real Soon Now.
Early one May morning of our third year in Gustine, she sat me down at the kitchen table before she left for work in Merced, and with no preamble explained that she and another CPA at her company were leaving the next morning to start their own accountancy. They were going in to work today just to get their final paychecks. They'd signed a lease on office space in Fremont, a slurb just across the bay from Palo Alto, and already had their business license; they'd even signed a couple of clients.
It seems they were more than business partners: they also signed an apartment lease. "Jack and I discovered that we each have a strong entrepreneurial spirit, and there isn't much opportunity in the Boredom Capital of California. We aren't involved romantically, we just share many of the same values and goals." My bullshit meter bounced off the peg and I snorted, but she just gave me a dirty look and plowed on.
"We're sharing the apartment for now because rent's so high in the Bay Area. That'll probably change as soon as our income allows."
Yeah, right after the Bears beat the Pats again in the Super Bowl
. She said it as if she were describing a routine tax-reduction plan to a client. I was surprised she hadn't emailed it to me in a spreadsheet or gave a PowerPoint presentation.
"Are you listening to what you're saying, Anne?" I did a lousy job of hiding my bitterness. "You sound like you're telling me you tossed out a torn T-shirt, but you're actually telling me that you've tossed out me. What the hell's going on?" She stared at me for a couple of seconds as if she didn't understand my words, then continued as if I hadn't said anything.
"Union City isn't exactly exciting, but it's what we can afford right now and it gets us closer to Silicon Valley. I'm sorry, Ben, but this is best for us." She didn't look or sound very sorry, didn't define "us", and either didn't know or didn't care that she'd just reached in, yanked out my heart, and used it to beat my ego to death.
"There's no need to drag this out. Jack's brother is a lawyer in Sacramento and we told him to make it as fair as possible. I know you're never going to make big bucks, so I don't want to take any more than I'm entitled to; less, in fact." She pushed a sheaf of papers from her briefcase across the table. "I've already signed them.
"You keep the house and your teacher's retirement and car. I only want half our joint checking and investment accounts and my car. You shouldn't sign without getting an attorney to look it over. Why don't you call Tim and see if he can do it today? That way we can tie up most of the loose ends before Jack and I leave tomorrow." I was still trying to absorb her announcement that she was leaving, but she was looking at her watch. It was obvious she'd long since unhooked emotionally from me and was thinking down the road.
She stood, put the papers in her briefcase, grabbed her laptop, patted the back of my hand, and headed for the door. Just as she started to turn the doorknob, she delivered her parting line without turning around. "It's too bad it had to end this way, Ben, but better now than a few years down the road. We're both young enough to get on with our lives and achieve our goals."
Easy for her to say. Up until a few minutes ago, I thought we had shared goals, like raising a family and growing old together. I didn't have an alternative future planned. She did.
"What happened to the girl I married, Anne? The girl who promised to love me in good times and bad, forsaking all others? What happened to our plans to start a family?" I tried as hard as I could to sound calm and cool, but failed miserably. I looked down at the papers so she couldn't see my face, but she never turned around. She didn't respond for a minute or so, a long time to stand with your back to someone, gripping a doorknob with a briefcase in your other hand. When she did, she didn't sound like she was pitching a business plan, she sounded...unsure? Hesitant? I couldn't tell any more.
"We shouldn't have married, Ben. We were...too young, just two months out of college. We didn't know what life was all about, let alone marriage. Please don't make this any more difficult than it already is." Difficult? For whom? I felt like jumping up and shouting that she had no fucking idea what difficult feels like.
"We should have known then that we had different wants. I don't mean I want a big house or a fancy car or designer clothes, those are just things. But I want to matter, I want the chance to show what I can achieve even if it means I'll fail. I can't do that as just another CPA in Merced." Her shoulders sagged, she took a deep breath, but still didn't turn around.
"You're content with life here. I'm not." I thought I heard her voice break just a little on those last two words, but she opened the door and walked out, closing it quietly.
Tim Elliott was the lawyer who advised us when we bought the house a few years ago; we'd become pretty good friends with him and his wife. He worked me in during my lunch hour, read through the proposed settlement, and advised me to sign it.
"She's being more than fair, Ben, although I doubt that she's giving up much equity by letting you keep the house. There's no point in contesting, unless you want to hold out for counseling and think you've got a chance to change her mind." I told him I didn't think there was any chance, in fact I wasn't even sure that I
wanted
to change her mind. I signed.
"What the hell happened? I know she wasn't especially warm and fuzzy, but this just seems sort of...well, cold. Even for her." He and his wife had never been overly fond of Anne.
"Beats the shit out of me. I guess she just wanted more than being married to a high school teacher in Gustine and caught the first available flight out."
I didn't feel that calm or cynical, of course, but I had no idea what had gone wrong. Later, when I thought back over the last couple of years, hindsight showed me some signs of problems—with her, with our marriage—but I didn't see them at the time. Not sure I could have done anything about it even if I had. We simply had different goals in life.
I called Anne using Tim's desk phone and told her I'd signed; she said to leave the papers with Tim and she'd pick them up later that afternoon, then hung up without saying goodbye.
