“You know how old Oliver is?” I guess he’s as good at math as I am.
“Since he won the Super Bowl, I think that everyone in the city not only knows how old he is, but how much he weighs, how tall he is, and what he bench-presses.”
“Good point. Are you a fan?” Maybe that’s it. Maybe he’s a huge Oliver Graham fan and he’s going to try to get to Oliver through me. He’d be disappointed to know that the most I can offer is a signed jersey, and I tell him so. “I don’t get free tickets to the game. Oliver’s given up on me attending so he gives them to other people. I could get you a signed jersey, though.”
I try hard to keep the disappointment out of my voice.
He’s quiet for a heartbeat, maybe two. “This may sound like I’m bragging, but I have a good friend who has a box at Cobras Stadium and I’ve got a freestanding invitation, and while I’m a fan, I think I’m a little old for a signed jersey. Besides, your cousin offered me one when we first met and I turned it down.”
“Oh.” There is a subtle rebuke in there, as if I should know better.
“Honey, are you trying to find something wrong with me?”
“No, I’m . . . oh Lord, this sounds pathetic and I know it’s going to sound worse when I say the words out loud, but I don’t understand why you’re even talking to me.”
“Tell me what flaws you’ve given me.” His voice warms me like a hot chocolate on a snowy day.
“No.” I’m not saying even one of them.
“I’m not going to be offended.” He’s having trouble hiding the amusement in his voice, I can tell.
“But I’ll be embarrassed. Or more embarrassed. If you could see me now, I’m rivaling a tomato in color.”
His voice drops at least a pitch. “I’d like to see how red you get. Do you blush all the way to your toes?”
If I wasn’t before, I am now. I’m hot, and not from shame, but from his suggestive tone and words.
“I, ah, I’m very red.” God, I suck at this phone-flirting thing but he . . . seems pretty adept at it. “Have you done this before? This, um, phone thing? You’re better at it than I am.”
He chuckles. “You’re doing just fine. But, yes, to answer your question, when I was deployed, I used Skype and emails to stay in contact with an old girlfriend.”
“How old?” I ask, instantaneously jealous over this nameless, faceless woman.
“In age or time since our separation? We broke up a few years into my deployment. I haven’t dated seriously since. How about you?”
“Not since Adam Masterson. He was a senior programmer for Saturnalia. I worked with him every day and after a couple of years, he seemed better than being celibate. We didn’t even date. We just kind of . . . fell into bed with each other. Neither of us were heartbroken when it ended.”
“My heart wasn’t broken either,” he says softly, as if to reassure me that he isn’t holding out for a rekindling of any lost love.
“Did you like it? The phone stuff? The Skyping?” I truly want to know. Can anyone be fulfilled by this? I suppose they must to some extent, or cam girls and 1-900 numbers wouldn’t exist. But with someone like Jake, I’d think he’d have a dozen better offers than sitting at home having a virtual relationship with a shut-in.
“It was better than nothing.”
I’m one step up from nothing at least, I reassure myself. Curious, I ask a question that has sat in the back of my mind since the first time we exchanged messages. “Why do you want to know what the girl is wearing?”
“It grounds you. Gives you a visual. Men are very visual.”
“But the person on the phone could be lying.”
His text message—which I’ve read repeatedly—comes back to me.
And if you’re fully clothed, please feel free to lie and say nothing.
“Doesn’t matter. If you tell me you have your hand down your panties and your shirt pulled up to show off your spectacular breasts, that’s what I’m seeing regardless of what you’re really doing or wearing.”
I lift the blanket and look at my breasts. They’ve flattened out a bit now that I’m on my back, but my nipples are hard. I wouldn’t categorize them as spectacular, but I haven’t had complaints. They’re just . . . breasts. Maybe if he was holding them they would feel spectacular. I tingle at the idea.
“I’m too honest. Like right now I’m wearing jogging pants and an old T-shirt.”
“And nothing else?”
“Well, underwear.”
“Hmmm.” His hum enters my ear from the cell phone and shoots straight between my legs. I squeeze my thighs together once as if to catch his touch and hold it there.
“You?”
“Jeans, T-shirt. Gray socks. Boots.”
I want to know more about this phone sex thing, yet what he’s wearing doesn’t interest me. I guess I want to know what he’s doing or rather what he would do with me.
“So you just say sexy things to each other and then hang up?”
“I had more involvement than that.”
“Like what? You had the phone-sex pillow? I saw that on the Internet once. You programmed it to shake or something when you wanted to alert your long-distance partner to some activity back home. I’m not entirely certain how a vibrating pillow does anything for anyone.”
“No.” He sounds a bit as if he’s strangling on a laugh he doesn’t want to release. He clears his throat and answers frankly, “I’d jack off.”
“Oh.”
The image of him sitting with his legs spread and his big hand around his big dick appears immediately. He’d handle himself with sure strokes and his chest would heave as he took big gulps of air. But his eyes would be pinned to mine as if we were magnetically pulled together.
“You still there, Natalie?”
“Yes.” I lick my dry lips. “Just, um, visualizing it. It’s been a long time.”
His voice gets lower, quieter. “Tell me what you’ve been missing.”
He must read the yearning in my voice, but he doesn’t ask if I’m lonely, because he knows I am. So instead he asks what I want.
“Everything. I miss just the cuddling, but I guess a lot of guys aren’t into that. Just lying around for hours, wrapped up in each other.”
“What else do you want?”
You.
“Touch. The warmth of a palm on my knee.” I breathe in, once and then another time, trying to regain some control. I’m breathless and anxious but not panicked. The need for reassurance is strong. I hate that I’m so vulnerable, but I need to accept my weaknesses. That’s one thing Dr. Terrance has impressed upon me and truthfully it works. Other, more experienced women might be able to play coy but I can’t. Uncertainty generates panic for me, and I’d rather ask a dumb question and be shot down than not know what is going on. Bluntly I ask, “What’s happening between us?”
“We’re getting to know each other better.”
“I wasn’t expecting this,” I admit. I rub my neck, imagining that it is his palm on my chest and his weight against my body, his flesh pushing into mine.
“True for me as well,” he says. “But not all surprises are bad. I’m a big believer in the whole concept of things happening for a reason.”
“What about your loss? What was the reason behind that?” I hope it doesn’t come across as snotty. I am genuinely curious.
“I saved a friend,” he answers immediately. “And just so you don’t think I’m bragging, I’ll tell you it was pure accident. If he’d have jumped out of the Humvee before me, he’d have been hit, and he didn’t have the resources like I did. I’m pretty fortunate that I’m alive. I have a great family and a healthy bank account that allowed me access to things other folks don’t have.”
I can’t respond right away because my throat is thick with emotion. Of course he views himself as blessed by his circumstances, but what he won’t ever acknowledge is how he’s embraced his losses and healed both in body and spirit. In reality, his good life is due to his hard work at achieving that spiritual equilibrium that has eluded me for so long. But his courage inspires me.