TOUGH LESSONS

They met in a chat room and quickly became friends. There was an immediate connection, a certain cadence that was hard to describe. They were interested in the same things, the same fantasies too, but it was more than just that. They could talk with ease on a humorous and intellectual level yet still be flirtatious and playful. Their time spent together was intermittent at best, with a brief period when she had left and they had lost contact with each other. But she was back now, and it was almost as if they had never missed a beat.

Things moved quickly and they returned to their familiar ways. It was exciting, fresh and somehow new again. He had been asking her, as others had, for private pictures and webcams. Yet she had always been reluctant to break off that little piece of herself and offer it up. At times she would think, I walk around every day and hundreds of people see my face… what’s the harm in showing a picture to someone who I actually talk to and like? So she did.

She emailed him one of her favorite photos. And while she was in a different type of moment, not weak, but more sensual, she sent him an erotic picture of herself. He went wild with surprise and pleasure, and she could feel a special closeness growing between them. She loved how it made her feel and wanted to connect with him again.

A few days later, she went on line and he was there, but he was different. He was distant when responding to her questions, and even denied being preoccupied or evasive when she asked him about it. Then he said that he had to leave and he signed out. She was puzzled by his response to her; but she knew that she needed to let it go. There could be so many extraneous things going on in his life, she thought, she shouldn’t assume that he didn’t want to talk with her. She left him an offline message a few days later, asking if he was OK, hoping that they could talk soon…and she waited.

Soon they were back on track and everything appeared fine. She told him how she felt that night when it seemed like he was avoiding her, and he told her that it had been a bad time for him to talk. She said that they needed to communicate more openly about things like that, and he agreed and promised that he would. Then he asked her to have a naked webcam, but she said no.

While talking with him the following night, and feeling a special closeness, she told him what it felt like when she sent him the pictures of herself. It was something she had never done before, for anyone, and she still couldn’t believe that she did it. She had put herself out there; it was a new level of intimacy for her. Then she told him that she had a surprise for him. Sitting on her bed, topless, she turned on her webcam and reached for a can of shaving cream. It was a wonderful feeling, exciting and sexual…a new experience for her! She sprayed it all over her face and breasts and rubbed it around as he watched with enjoyment!

The next morning, she found him on line and he invited her to view his webcam, but suddenly, he shut it down and signed out. Then it started all over again. She left him an offline message asking what had happened. No response. She sent him another stating that she hoped that they could soon talk. No response. Finally she left him another message saying that she had some special pictures just for him, if he ever decided to contact her! And he finally replied, “OK…email em.” So she shot back a message and blasted him by suggesting that his response was less than acceptable. At least he could have said “Hey, how you doing?” or “Sorry I didn’t respond to your offline messages...had a bad week.” She would never treat anyone the way that he was treating her. What had she done wrong?

She was hurt and confused, so she wrote back and told him so. And she kept thinking about the webcam. She wasn’t regretting her decision to do it, and she didn’t feel used, just disappointed in herself for opening up her heart like that. It’s always been easy to reveal my feelings, she thought, but my heart…

He finally contacted her a week later. She apologized for shooting straight from the hip, but that was her, always her. She said that too many people try to hide their emotions and their lives move on without others really knowing how they feel…and that she never wanted to be that way. He told her that maybe they needed to learn to read each other’s moods better. Then she asked him what else was wrong. So he told her. She was coming on too strong…that it seemed like she was ‘going for broke’. She was confused. Hadn’t he been the one who asked her to send pictures, to join him in a webcam, and in the past, expressed an interest in meeting her in person for some messy role play?

Hadn’t they always talked about that special something between them? And then he said it…that he talked with a lot of people online, but to no one exclusively. She reeled from the blow as if she had been punched in the stomach. Righting herself and her thoughts, she apologized for spending so much time trying to sort it all out. Then he told her that the conversation was getting tedious. She became quiet, reflective and sad. I don’t understand, she thought, but if that’s how he feels, then there is nothing I can do. It’s his loss, it really is. And someday, when he finally realizes it, it will be too late. He will miss me, she said to herself, and I will miss him. So she told him that she would leave it all up to him…that the next move would be his…whenever he was ready. And he said OK. Then she said goodbye.

Slowly she took off her high heels, first one, then the other, then walked to the closet and placed them in the shoebox. She pulled down the straps of her lace body stocking and rolled the rest of it down towards the floor, gently kicking it into the corner. Grabbing her familiar soft t-shirt and a pair of clean panties, she returned to the bed and put them on. She unclipped the webcam from the top of the laptop and slowly wrapped the cord around her hand, then placed it back in the box, still lying in the bottom of the shopping bag. She shut down the computer and closed the lid.

Carefully she reached with her right hand and gently tugged at her left sleeve, removing her heart from its recent dwelling place. She looked at it, as it lay quietly in her hand, and squeezed it ever so gently, hoping to awaken it. It was alive, but would not stir. Slowly she placed it back inside her, in a place that it had never been before…a box, with a hinged lid, with tiny holes on top to allow it to breathe, but never to gulp fresh air…and a lock, to prevent it from ever going out into the sunlight to get burned.