Sara:
Would you like to play a game tonight?
Thomas"
Sara felt a wave of excitement as she studied the words that appeared on her computer screen. A game? What sort of game did Thomas have in mind, she wondered?
She leaned back in her chair, her coffee now unnoticed on the desk next to the keyboard. Had things turned suddenly sexual between her and the man she knew only as Thomas? Or was this simply a joke that he was playing on her?
The words on the screen were a tantalizing tease, typed in the familiar Brush Script font that Thomas favored and used in all of their emails.
She leaned forward and clicked on the REPLY icon. Sara had met Thomas in the Room, the same online chat-room in which she had "met" a number of men, or at least creatures who claimed to be men. When playing on the Internet, one never knew who or what was on the other end of a computer conversation.
Sara was reasonably certain however, that Thomas was an actual adult human male. They had talked twice on the telephone since beginning their online chatting less than two weeks before. He had a great voice, low and calming, like a chocolate-flavored Valium. But while they had flirted in that strange innuendo-filled way that seemed to characterize so many semi-innocent online chats, there had never been any overt move toward the sexual by either of them.
She typed a reply.
What sort of game did you have in mind?
She smiled and clicked on SEND. And then she waited, her afternoon filled with other things, more coffee and the research on Modern Dance that she had promised for one of her favorite clients. The joy of working at home. Make money and play with strange men on the Internet, and still have time to nuke dinner for her and hubby.
This was not cheating, she had told herself many times. She had chatted with men, even talked with them on the phone, and had tried cyber-fucking--oddly exciting if ultimately unsatisfying. The image of a man jacking off while she typed to him turned her on--she whispering online about the delightful things that she wanted to do to him, sucking him and tasting his cum as he sprayed on her like the magnificently hung porn god he had claimed to be, he typing back barely audible quick phrases as he stroked for her.
She had only met one of these men in person. He had been so witty and charming in his online persona, and so dull and stupid as he sat close to her in the dark corner of the little neighborhood bar he had picked, crammed between a drugstore and a UPS Store at the end of a garishly lit strip mall two miles from her suburban home.
She had endured his self-pitying whining about his two divorces (gee, wonder why the two wives dumped him?) and ignored the little "accidental" touches that implied and demanded an intimacy that he would never return.
Two drinks (Stingers), too many brushes against her thighs, she finally went with him out to his car (a fucking station wagon, for God's sake!) and gave him the blowjob that he seemed to expect. A particularly unsatisfying bit of business, at least for her. When he came, mostly in her mouth, he made a braying sound, like a donkey, and gripped her hair so tightly, she thought she would scream and gag at the same time.
Was she cheating, she wondered, if only he had enjoyed it?
Then she had met Thomas while chatting with friends in the Room, one of the many chatrooms that provided an online haven for those who were looking for a place they could call their own. The Room was an electronic version of Cheers where everyone knows your name, or at least your screen name, a often ridiculously inaccurate representation of your online persona! In the Room, there was adventure, excitement, thrills and chills, and the ability to be anyone and say anything without fear of exposure and shame.
They had struck up a conversation, typing to each other with Instant Messages--perhaps the Internet's most important contribution to the breakdown of human communication. However, unlike most of the pathetic losers who cruised the Web looking for someone to fuck and who always seemed to think that Sara was the cyber-fuck goddess meant for them, Thomas had not gone for her crotch with his second sentence.
In fact, he had seemed gentle and kind. He was forty-five to her thirty-one; he claimed to be divorced with two teenaged sons who lived with him half the year. And he seemed to accept that she was married. She had told him that married people could still be friends with people to whom they were not married.
They had chatted a few times before he asked if he could call and talk to her on the telephone. This had scared her. A line was being crossed, and he was the one doing the crossing. But she had said yes and had given him her phone number. It was unlisted and she had told him to call only after they had first connected online and she knew that her husband would either be asleep or out late at one of his "meetings".
She knew that those meetings probably involved slipping dollar bills into gyrating panties or worse, but that was the direction in which her marriage had gone, and his activities helped her to justify her own actions. A loveless marriage, an almost sexless bed, her nights were currently being spent online jerking off stupid men with the delicate dance of her fingers across the keyboard.
But Thomas had seemed different, and she knew that his voice thrilled her. He had called and they had talked for hours about nothing and about everything. And when they had hung up that first time, his voice had stayed in her mind, like a TV jingle that was played over and over.
Later in the afternoon, she was finished with her research and she went online to check her mail. There was an e-mail from Thomas:
Sara:
I think that you will enjoy my game. Meet me online tonight as soon as you are able.
Thomas
Still, there was no mention of sex, but Sara knew--she just knew-- that her relationship with Thomas was about to shift somehow, and she also knew that if the shift was going to be toward the sexual that her own life was going to change even more dramatically. This man would never accept being just a parking lot blowjob, and she did not want that to be the climax of it all in any case. She had the feeling that if she played Thomas's game tonight, whatever game he had devised, that her world would be turned upside-down and she would be like Alice caught in the looking-glass, with no idea which world was real and which was not.
She hesitated for several minutes, studying his brief e-mail for clues like the thirty-something Nancy Drew she sometimes imagined herself to be, then she typed "ok" and sent her reply to Thomas.
* * * * *
Dinner was short and painless.
Conversation was held to the basic nothing that marked most meals these days and hubby went to bed early. A sure sign, she thought, that he was fucking someone else. His secretary perhaps, or a waitress, or the new girl in Accounting he had described to Sara as "the new blonde bimbo".
Doesn't matter, she told herself. Something had happened to push them apart, an inexorable process that had most likely propelled him toward the slippery grasp of a strange cunt and her into the Dark Side of the Web. Where this process would end, even if it would end, she did not know, but she said nothing as he left her alone in the living room. She watched him disappear upstairs into their bedroom and wondered if the man from the Web, Thomas, was about to become a major new factor in this equation.
Later, she went upstairs and enjoyed a hot bath, the tub filled with fragrant bubbles and surrounded by lit candles. It had been a long time since Sara had given in to the luxury of a candle bath.
Once upon a time, the scent of strawberry candle smoke would have been her signal to hubby that tonight would be a good night to splash on some cologne and wear only that to bed.
A wave of warmth surged suddenly through her as she saw her husband with her mind's eye: his belly hard and rippled, tiny nipples air-hardened, and the head of his cock jutting from his groin, a leering invitation to sweet delicious pleasure.
But now, he was asleep and the scented candles were an invitation of another sort. Sara splashed hot bathwater onto her breasts and watched the water flow smoothly back to her belly. Her nipples began to harden. She wanted to reach down into the sudsy water and touch herself, bring herself to orgasm here in the bath, feel herself cum in great waves while engulfed in warm water and soft candlelight, but she did not.
The candle bath was her signal, not to her husband, but to herself that tonight with Thomas was going to be a special night. She desperately hoped that Thomas would not disappoint and make this game just another stupid phone-fuck.
* * * * *
Dried and powdered, she sat in front of the computer screen. She wore a long silk robe tied loosely at the waist over tiny panties and nothing else. She played Solitaire on the computer until she could hear the slow steady breathing and occasional snore coming from the bedroom next door which meant that her husband was deeply lost in his own dreams.
The hands on the Mickey Mouse clock that adorned her spare room/office wall finally indicated ten o'clock. She exited from the Solitaire game and logged on to the Internet.
She inhaled quickly when she saw Thomas's screen name appear on her Buddy List. He was online and hopefully, waiting for her. She could have blown this off and played Solitaire all night, but she had made the choice to follow Thomas's lead, no matter where he was planning to take her.
An Instant Message appeared on her screen.
"Are you ready to play my game, Sara?"
Jesus Christ, she thought. No small talk, just cut right to the fucking chase. Bold and direct. She was nervous, but suddenly very excited. Obviously, he had been thinking about this and was feeling his own impatience. She knew that she could still say no. She could sign off now and flee to the safety of the bed she had shared with her husband for almost nine years. The husband who was now more stranger to her than was this electronic apparition that called itself Thomas.
"Yes," she typed in response. "What do you want me to do?"
"Go to someplace private", he typed. "Can I call you?"
She thought about that. Her husband was asleep, but the ringing of a phone could wake him. She heard a loud snore coming from the bedroom. Screw it, she thought. He could fuck his secretary; she could certainly talk on the phone with another man.
She typed her reply: "Yes, give me five minutes to go downstairs and get comfortable, please."
"Five minutes" he typed back and signed off. Parentheses appeared around his screen name and she knew that there was no going back now.
She signed off also and went down to the living room. She had her cellphone, which she could wedge between shoulder and ear in order to free her hands. With effort, she settled onto the couch, reclining against a soft pillow and baring her legs. The robe parted and the thin material revealed all but her breasts.
