Chance Encounters

by Mia Jae

  He left, leaving the front door slightly ajar behind him.

  It’s all make believe, isn’t it? ~Marilyn Monroe

  Cyber-F*cked

  It was near the end of my twelve-year marriage to Charles, and I was close to reaching the end of my rope. I’d felt trapped inside a loveless marriage for way too long, and even though I wasn’t looking, Lance came along and snatched me right out of a chat room. I was thirty-eight years old; he was twenty-six. Everything about it was wrong, but for months it felt so, so right. Everything good and sweet and innocent about me was just tossed blindly and determinedly to the devil. I knew what I was doing, and for some odd reason, I didn’t care.

  But let me back up a bit so you can get the full effect of my situation.

  I’d married Charles on the rebound all those years earlier. My first husband David, my college boyfriend, decided while I was putting him through graduate school, that he liked blondes better than brunettes. Unfortunately, I was very much a brunette, so we divorced after two years. We had no children, thankfully, but I was left feeling pretty dejected and a bit depressed. All my college friends where having babies and buying houses, and here I was, getting a divorce and starting all over again.

  Six months after David left, I met Charles. Two months after that we married. Ten months later, I realized I’d made a big mistake, but by then, I was pregnant with baby number one, my son. A year later, my daughter was born. And I decided it was best to make every attempt to give this marriage a go, like all good girls are supposed to do. I had children, and they needed a home. I knew it would be difficult to support them on my meager teaching salary alone, especially since Charles was prone to wander through life from job to job. At least he brought in an income of some sort.

  Finally, after several years, he landed a good job working nights in a local warehouse. I rarely saw him because he worked twelve-hour shifts. My job was to teach all day and take care of the kids and their activities in the evenings, clean, cook, pay the bills, and so on. His was to work at the warehouse and sleep.

  I was the proverbial soccer mom. I ran with them all week long, nights and weekends, with no help. Charles had moved us to the country, twenty miles from everything, and slowly all my friends disappeared. My life was filled with nothing but work and children and their activities. There wasn’t anything just for me.

  Now, don’t get me wrong. I love my kids to death and had great fun taking them to Scouts and baseball games and gymnastics and so on. What would have been nice, however, would have been to have a husband to share all of that with, but he was either always working, or when he was off, too tired and wanted to sleep. When he was home, the children started to ignore him because he basically did the same to them. And when it was finally time for us to have alone time, the pattern was mostly the same. I yearned for a touch. A hug. To snuggle. For him to simply hold my hand. To have the passionate sex that we’d had initially in our dating and early year or so of our marriage.

  We would go months with no sex. I once counted up that we went forty-eight days and Charles never even touched me. Not once. I don’t mean sexually, I mean just an innocent touch.

  In hindsight, I realize that he was most likely depressed. At the time, however, I felt rejected, sad and was probably depressed. I yearned for him to pay some attention to me. I didn’t want attention from anyone else, I wanted it from him. But it never came, and then one day, Lance walked into my life and gave me what I’d been craving for way too long.

  Perhaps if I’d not been so innocent, I wouldn’t have fallen for him the way that I did, but inexperienced or not, I made some choices that some days I’m not so proud of. On other days, I sit back and consider how making those choices was probably a life-changing turning point—and even though they may have seemed so wrong then, my life moved forward for the better, in time.

  I’d been dabbling in considering a home-based business to help make ends meet, so when Charles finally consented to buying a new computer, I was ecstatic. Because our money was tight, and because we lived in a rural area, we got an inexpensive dial-up connection. When he was working and the children were in bed, I began to play around with the computer and on the Internet. This was a number of years ago, so the Internet was pretty much a novelty to me at that time. I’d heard of chat rooms and such and with our new Internet account, began to explore. I found one where other people who were talking about home-based businesses gathered, and before long, I’d hooked up with Lance.

  The chatting started as group chats, as people talked about their free-lance consulting businesses, Internet commerce sites, and so on. I’d been thinking about doing some educational training and writing on the side. Lance presented himself as a writer and copyeditor, doing mostly free-lance work. I’d listen to him chat with others in this one favorite chat room of mine where some of my new women online friends frequented. Lance liked to be in there with the women, and we’d all tease him. For once, I felt like I was getting a life back. Even though I didn’t know these people face-to-face, I counted them as my friends. I had a social life again.

  Finally, one day when the discussion turned to what everyone was doing for the weekend, Lance said something about not having had a date in a while, so I innocently teased back with something like, “Well, Lance, why do you need a date? You have all of us here.”

  Then something different happened. A white box appeared on my computer screen with a message just to me from Lance. An instant message. I’d never done that before, and I was fascinated. Now, rather than talk with the entire group, I was speaking only to him. And his message was, “What did you mean by that? I need to know.”

  “Just teasing,” I answered, but he was persistent.

  Over the course of a couple of days, he kept sending me instant messages and email.

  “I really like talking with you,” he said. “You have so much more personality than any of the other women in the chat group. You shine above the rest.” And then he added, “I am attracted to you, Caroline, and I want to get to know you better.”

  I was stunned.

  No one had told me I had personality in a long time. I’d been married for about twelve years by now to Charles, and he didn’t seem to care about my cute personality or much about me at all. Not to mention that no one, not even Charles, had indicated any sort of attraction to me lately in any way, shape or fashion. But this Lance…what could this mean? I pondered it. He didn’t even know me! How could he be attracted?

  I decided to stop chatting. I’d heard of those women who met men on-line, left their children and ran away only to be sad in the end. I’d read about the women and young girls who had hooked up with some psycho who raped and mutilated them, or even killed them. Not for me. No. After all, I was the good girl. My sister was the hell-raising rebel. I always did what I was told and never crossed over to the dark side.

  Until the dark side beckoned.

  Lance was that dark side, and I couldn’t resist.

  At first, we kept our conversations to chatting and email, and we eventually exchanged pictures. Of course, this was all after the children were fast asleep. Charles never touched the computer, so I didn’t worry about him getting online and catching me. Talking with Lance was fun and daring and decadent—like dessert at the end of a long day—and I never intended for it to go any further than just instant messages and email.

  I was in control, I thought, and could turn it off on a dime. I threw caution to the wind and justified to myself that it was innocent fun. After all, we were just talking.

  That’s when I learned that Lance was only twenty-six years old and that he lived several states away in Wisconsin. When I learned all that, part of me was relieved. I was glad that he was about fifteen hours away because secretly, the temptation to actually see him was getting stronger for me. I was just curious, I guess, to see him in person and learn what he was like in real life. I think the fact that he was twelve years younger also contributed to my sense of relief. Once he learne
d that I was a thirty-eight-year-old, slightly pudgy housewife, I was sure he would go away.

  He didn’t.

  In fact, he came on even stronger, and I, being both dumbfounded and flattered, found myself being sucked into Lance’s web.

  Slowly, he introduced me to cyber-sex, and I got so addicted to having it with him that even the sound of the computer turning on and the dial-up connection ringing through to the Internet gave me a sexual thrill. I mean, when I would hear that high-pitched screeching sound, it would almost bring me to orgasm in anticipation of what Lance and I would do in our private chats as the evening wore on. I couldn’t wait to connect with him, and found that in fact, I didn’t. I started sneaking into my home email from my classroom, started sending him sexy messages all day long and kept checking in constantly while my students were working to see if he’d sent anything back. I found myself fantasizing about being with him.

  I had a favorite fantasy. A very naughty favorite fantasy. One in which, while the children and I were out of the room, Lance would slip into my classroom and hide under my big oak teacher desk. Once the children were settled into their work, I’d sit at my desk and spread my legs, while Lance pushed my skirt up around my thighs (oops! no panties!), scooted me to the end of the chair, and played with my pussy.

  And oh, he would play. I’d have to keep my composure to the class, but I’d pretend I could feel his big fingers pushing inside me. I’d get hot, and wet, just holding the image in my head. I’d urge my pelvis closer to him, and after he’d had his fill of fingering me, he’d move closer and replace his fingers with tongue and lips, and eat my pussy until I could hardly stand it.

  I wouldn’t come, though. That was part of the fantasy. Because in my fantasy, Lance would always order me not to come.

  “Not yet,” he’d say. “Not until I’m ready for you to come.”

  By day’s end, I would be so horny I couldn’t wait to get home each evening, put the children to bed and talk dirty and sexy with him. I’d tell him about my fantasies, and we’d act them out over the computer. Lance soon became my purpose for getting up in the morning, and before I knew it, I’d lost about twenty pounds, was looking good, and my self-esteem was shooting sky-high.

  I liked that high. I wanted more and more of it. And a bonus—I was very good at cyber-sex, and I knew that I pleased Lance a lot. He told me so, and knowing that I could really, really please a man in that way was another kind of sexual thrill.

  Sex with Charles was what I would call average sex. We basically stuck with the missionary position and never did anything out of what he considered the norm. Once I’d tried to get him to fool around with me on the couch in our living room with the drapes open and he got extremely upset and stomped out of the house. Talk about frustration! With Lance, though, I could talk about having sex with the drapes open, in the back yard at night under the moon, or giving him a blowjob while he was driving down the interstate. It was fun making up all these scenarios, and it got us both excited. It was heady and addicting.

  But soon, sexy emails and cyber-sex chats weren’t enough. I needed more, and Lance was willing to give it to me. Phone sex.

  I remember, after weeks of cyber-sex on the computer, the first time I consented to letting Lance call me was pure heaven. I loved his deep, sexy voice and the way he whispered to me over the phone. I let him call me late at night while Charles was at work and the kids were asleep. I’d lie in bed, he’d tell me all the things he was doing to me, and I swear I could feel it! I would moan and talk back to him, giving him what he wanted. And I would touch myself, masturbating while he would get me all hot and bothered and talk dirty to me. I remember the first time I came while he was whispering in my ear. I literally came up off the bed, jerking forward, as I’d experienced one of the most powerful orgasms I’d ever felt.

  He would say things to me like no man had ever said before. He’d say, “Your pussy is mine. Mine. You understand that?” And then he’d make me say that back to him.

  “Yes,” I’d say. “My pussy belongs to you.”

  “Don’t forget that.”

  “Never.”

  The brainwashing went on like that for quite some time. I was thoroughly convinced that Lance owned not only my pussy, but me, body and soul. When he emailed or called, it was his expectation that I drop everything and cater to his needs. Give him what he wanted. Sex talk that made him groan in the phone and made me titillate with delight that I could please this young man so damned much.

  The phone sex became a very bad habit. So much so that I ran up both my cell phone and the land line bill to hundreds of dollars. Lance didn’t have a lot of money, so I began to call him most of the time. I would race to get the mail before Charles, because I knew I would never be able to explain off all those long distance calls to Wisconsin. For once, I was thankful that Charles never lifted a finger to pay the bills. Like most everything, he left the day-to-day household responsibilities to me.

  After Lance and I were engaged in cyber and phone sex for about four months, I finally got up the courage to tell Charles I wanted a divorce. I didn’t know how I would be able to make it on my own, but decided that I had to do it. If I could let myself get hooked up with Lance, I certainly didn’t love Charles, did I? I told him what I wanted. He went berserk.

  He started drinking and getting physically rough with me. I was really surprised because it was the first bit of emotion Charles had shown toward me in years. He threatened suicide on more than one occasion and told me he’d burn the house down before I’d get one cent from him for child support. He was convinced there was another man, but of course, I denied that. I couldn’t tell him about Lance, and with Lance being so far away, I knew there was no way that Charles could ever find out about him.

  All of Charles’ anger only stoked my fire for wanting to leave and be with Lance. When the going got too rough at home, I’d leave, go park my car somewhere, call Lance, and get my sex thrill. It was sad, but sometimes I’d provoke an argument just so I could get out of the house and call Lance. I sought the buzz of cyber-sex as my relief from the stress and even took that adventure further. I’d park in public places, with people walking by and cars moving up and down the street, and talk to Lance while I pleasured myself. Now that I look back on it, I was taking a lot of big risks, but I didn’t care. I needed Lance, however I could get him.

  I was living such a fantasy, but to me it was very real. Lance told me that he would take care of me and the kids. I actually was in a frame of mind that I would take the kids away from their home and their family and move to Wisconsin with Lance.

  “Leave him and come to me,” he’d say, breathless over the phone. “I’ll take care of you and the kids. I can teach your son how to do Karate.” I thought that would be exciting for my son. I never thought of the consequences. All I thought about was living out my fantasy life with Lance. I wanted it more than anything, and I wanted to be with him. I was sure he was the love of my life. I just needed to make the break from Charles and get on with things.

  Still, I had never met Lance face to face. I know, that sounds very strange. How could I want to leave my husband, snatch my children up and move away with a man that I’d never met in person? A man twelve years my junior!

  I think something changed in my brain. I really, really thought it would happen, and we’d all live happily-ever-after. Of course, that would never happen, but I had a lot more to go through before I realized that.

  Work soon became my solace simply because I was away from home. Away from Charles. His life was a mess. He’d taken another job a few months earlier—one that had him traveling during the week, which was ideal. I could do my decadence once the kids were in bed without worry of interruption. Besides making the mad dash for the mail to snatch the phone bill each month, I was free.

  That is, of course, until Charles went to the doctor claiming stress-induced illnesses, and he took a leave of absence from his job. That put him underfoot every day, which onl
y forced me to get creative.

  It was summer and the kids were home from school. I still wanted a divorce, and Charles was still balking. In the process, he was making my life miserable and turning the kids against me. I suppose in his small mind he was thinking that when we divorced, the kids would like him better if he made me look bad. Those summer weeks were hell, and I’d had just about all I could stand.

  My best friend had recently moved out of state, and I missed her. She was the only one who knew about Lance. A few days earlier, I’d spoken with her on the phone. She wanted me to come to visit, but I balked because I knew she was trying to talk me out of the Lance relationship. She didn’t think it was good for me, on one hand. But on another, she was living vicariously through me and wanted to know every detail.

  Still, I considered getting away to visit her, until after a particularly ugly weekend.

  Charles had been on a terror the entire weekend. He’d threatened to throw my computer out the window. He came home late Saturday night and had been drinking some. He was loaded for bear and wanted to talk about our marriage. The kids were asleep and we argued until the early morning. Finally, he fell asleep, and I was able to sleep some, too.

  He was somber most of the next day, holing himself up in the den watching television. The kids had some other neighborhood kids over to play and spend the night. I decided to get online and check my email. Lance was online, too.

  Within a second, an instant message popped up. “Come see me,” he said.

  He’d done this before, so his invites were nothing new. I’d always put him off, but today, being tired and vulnerable, I couldn’t resist. The temptation was too strong.