Private Eye

by Katrina Jackson

  She pulled up the ChatBot website and signed in. Her public chatroom was a little slow, but not slow enough to worry. Her Tuesday broadcasts didn’t make her the most money, but they were an integral part of her long-term business plan.

  In Maya’s research, there was very little logic to the kinds of ChatBot channels that hit the popularity charts. The streams ranged from hardcore sex to chatty rants to regular old day-in-the-life content, with models of all genders and presentations, of all races and in various languages. There was no clear path for a new model to follow, which she realized in the research phase of her early career. The one thing that seemed to be a general rule was that the best channels – those that saw steady growth – almost always had regular and consistent online presence, streams, chat shows, etc. It had taken a while to identify a schedule that worked, but Maya’s Tuesday/Sunday broadcasts seemed to fit for her viewers, especially those who couldn’t afford a private chat, but had a little bit of money to spend. She’d been on this schedule for at least eight months and according to her spreadsheet of broadcast stats, viewers and tips, her gross revenue had been increasing slowly but steadily month-to-month at first and, recently, week-to-week. So, even with the turmoil of finding out that her favorite client had been deceiving her still roiling in her stomach, she couldn’t let it interfere with her business.

  She typed quickly to say hi to her chatroom and smiled as the lagging conversation instantly picked up. Maya opened the broadcast box and checked the angle. It was perfect. Chanté really did have an eye for camera placement. Lying as she was on her stomach between Kenny’s legs, her viewers would get a great shot of her chest and the rise of her ass in the distance, all in focus. Just at the margins of the shot and slightly blurry, was the suggestion of Kenny. His legs bracketed her body, the expanse of his chest and just the strong point of his chin and lower jaw. It was kind of romantic.

  Maya moved onto her right side to clear his line of sight. “Is the angle okay?”

  She saw Kenny nod on her laptop screen. He pressed his lips shut.

  “We’re not broadcasting,” she said. “I’ll tell you before I start.”

  “Oh. Okay. The angle is fine. It’s good that I’m blurry.”

  “Yep. Chanté’s kind of a genius.”

  “Tell her that. She loves compliments.”

  “So do I,” she said enthusiastically, unsure why she felt the need to tell him that.

  She saw his right hand flex. His grin broadened into a smile. “I know.”

  She turned back to the camera and took a deep breath. And then another. “Okay, in 3…2…1.”

  ***

  Kenny had been trying desperately and in vain to send his brain anywhere else but here. He made a grocery list in his head, but he didn’t cook, so energy drinks, protein powders and bananas didn’t get him very far. He tried to think about tomorrow’s workout, but somehow the word workout kept leading him to the dirtiest places and that was literally what he was trying to avoid. Because Maya’s body barely clad in green lace was too much.

  The soft globes of her ass kept fighting – and winning – in the war for his attention. He’d already catalogued the mole somewhere between her butt and her left hip, the faint remnants of a tattoo she’d clearly had lasered away, and every soft, beautiful dimple of cellulite from her ass down her thighs, he committed them all to reverent memory. Kierra was the poet, but Kenny had a halfway decent limerick composed in his head about the way the delicate swirls of the lace disappeared between her cheeks. He’d swallowed so many groans tonight, his stomach was full of longing, frustration and self-pity.

  “Nope,” Maya giggled, the sound pulling him out of his reverie. She was responding to the scrolling chat.

  His head spun. Last Tuesday during this broadcast, Kenny had been at a safe house in Turkey, bleary-eyed from jet lag and stroking himself slowly back to sleep as he watched her. And now he was here, Maya between his legs. Still, they might as well have been thousands of miles apart.

  “You can’t see him and at least for tonight, he can’t touch me,” she said in a breathy whisper that was still loud enough for the microphone attached to her camera to pick up.

  He clenched his hands together.

  “Hey babe,” Maya said, over her shoulder. Kenny pressed his lips together. “They want to know if I can touch myself?”

  He furrowed his brow. Why they fuck were they asking him?

  And then she laughed and turned her torso toward him, her smile widened when she saw the confusion on his face. “Yep, I don’t know why they’re asking you either.” She turned back to her camera with a smile. He saw her face on her laptop and bit his lips together. If he were in the broadcast, he would have given her every coin in his ChatBot account. And by the light chime that indicated when one of her viewers tipped her, a few of her viewers agreed with his instinct.

  But he only had a second to smile at their accurate appreciation before her legs widened and her hand appeared between her thighs from under her body. Kenny gasped as he watched her fingers lightly stroke her sex. His eyes were glued to her hand as she moved the small strip of fabric to the side and the bright pink of her pussy peeked through her brown lips.

  She moaned.

  Kenny stuffed his hands underneath his thighs.

  She stroked herself slowly, up and down her sex, playing with herself the way he knew she liked.

  The bed moved as she shook her head. He could hear the wicked smile in her voice. “You don’t get to see,” she said. “You thought my boyfriend could tell me what to do. Haven’t I taught you all better than that?”

  There was too much for Kenny to process. The way his heart yawned pathetically when she called him her boyfriend, as if he wasn’t a fucking professional and this weren’t all pretend. The playful annoyance in her voice as she corrected her viewers for perpetuating patriarchal bullshit – which was actually expressly forbidden in her room rules – as he’d seen her do numerous times before. He liked it every time.

  But he couldn’t quite process any of that as she slipped her middle finger inside herself. He only noticed the emerald green nail polish that clashed beautifully with her medium brown skin just before that finger sank inside her pussy. All of the blood in his body was rushing south to his dick. He felt the kind of euphoria that was usually a pretty good indicator of danger.

  “I’ve got one finger inside myself right now,” Maya announced to her viewers. “Who’s going to make two fingers worth my while?” The chiming rang out.

  His dick felt constrained by his jeans. He wanted to touch her. To tip her. To get her off. He wanted Maya. He always wanted Maya.

  Her viewers tipped her to add a third and soon the room was quiet, save for the occasional chime of more money going into her account. Kenny and Maya’s labored breathing and the gentle squelch of her sex as she curled her fingers gently in and out of her wet pussy soon overtook even that faux metallic sound. Her hips began to move to the rhythm of her pumping fingers. His world shrank to her fingers, her sex, her moans. This was the most perfect night he’d had in longer than he could remember. Kenny marveled at how different it was to see her from this side of the world. He noted all of the details he’d missed because of the static angle of her camera; the smell of her perfume and her aroused sex and best of all, as she got close – her hips grinding her clit into the palm of her hand– the small tremors in her thighs as her orgasm built.

  Her left leg flexed and crashed into his shoulder, pulling the groan he had been holding in from his lips. It was pathetic how much that contact undid him, his dick hardened even further, straining against his zipper. She pushed the ball of her foot onto her headboard, trying to get enough leverage to fuck herself harder onto her trapped fingers. It worked. They both shuddered as her fingers slid into and out of her sex faster, slightly deeper, those wet sounds louder in Kenny’s ears. Her ankle and calf rubbed against his cheek as she rocked back and forth. His dick was pulsing and he knew that if this continued
much longer he’d come in his pants like a fucking teenager.

  Maya’s head drooped to the bed as her thighs began to shake violently. Kenny had a flash of a fantasy, him fucking her like this, her head listing to the bed until she was screaming into her comforter, his name on her lips. But that was a fantasy. This was her broadcast and he knew that she would be pissed if she didn’t lift her head to let her viewers watch her come. They loved to see that. He loved to see that. And it always raked in that last little bit of money they were holding in reserve.

  He cleared his throat to get her attention. She moaned in response. He cleared his throat again and her head popped up just as she yelled out her release. She raised her hips slightly to free her hand and circle her clit.

  And then she giggled. The giggle that he fucking loved. That he had been dreaming about for months. That followed him into every one of his fantasies. That sounded even fucking better – melodic and crisp – in person, undistorted by technology and distance.

  The chime of her tips sounded again.

  He wasn’t shocked that that giggle sent him over the edge, in truth she’d been training him for that over months and he’d happily allowed it. His back spasmed and his dick released in his underwear; untouched and unsatisfied. But it was a release nonetheless.

  He finally tore his eyes away from her pussy, raising to look into the camera screen and saw her familiar, satisfied smile, her head propped up by her free hand. She smiled into the camera and wiggled a few wet fingers in farewell before she ended the broadcast.

  Kenny’s head fell back to the headboard. He was panting, his pulse was racing. He knew that he couldn’t survive another broadcast like this. He couldn’t wait until Sunday.

  debrief #2

  Kierra’s room was silent but for the sound of all of their labored breaths. Her skin felt warm. The soft cotton of her bra was chafing against her nipples and Monica’s shirt felt oppressive. She was surrounded by the mingled smells of Monica and Lane’s cologne on the shirt and on their bodies. Her head was swimming.

  Not surprisingly Chanté was the first one to speak. “I think I should go home now,” she whispered. “I’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”

  She leaned over and brushed her lips along Kierra’s cheek. She stood from the bed on shaky legs.

  “You sure you don’t want to stay?” Monica asked, perched in a chair at the foot of Kierra’s bed. There was a clear invitation in her voice. Kierra turned to her, knowing that the other woman would notice her arousal.

  Chanté walked slowly toward the door. “No thanks. I like flirting with you all, but…”

  She didn’t finish the sentence, but Kierra knew that Asif’s name was probably right on the tip of her tongue. Kierra wondered if she thought it would be weird if she had sex with someone – or multiple someones – that she and Asif often worked with. And that made her wonder about her own feelings on the matter.

  Chanté opened and shut the door quietly as she left.

  “Well I am detecting a lot of sexual tension right now,” Lane said around a chuckle that Kierra knew was choked with need. “What do you say you lay back and ge-,” but she cut him off with a shake of her head. He sighed sadly.

  “I told you. No touching me until I’m not mad anymore,” she said, her eyes trained on Monica.

  “You can’t use this on us every time you’re angry,” Monica replied in a flat voice.

  Kierra smiled. They’d shown up at her apartment hell bent on repeating this afternoon’s seduction, but when she’d turned them down flat, she’d enjoyed watching Lane settle his head between Monica’s legs while she touched herself. As a reward, she’d crawled on the bed and let them cocoon her between their bodies while they all drifted off to sleep for a short nap. She’d woken up hornier than ever, but she felt safe and less angry.

  She probably could have let them have their way with her right then and there, but she loved how powerful she felt when they pined after her. She crawled across her bed toward Lane. He lifted his eyebrows in surprise and grinned. She reached out, grabbed his head and pulled his mouth to hers. She kissed him briefly, slow and gentle with a lot of tongue. Just the way Monica liked.

  He laughed against her retreating mouth.

  “We’ll see,” she said to Monica, and walked to her bathroom.

  “You’ve created a fucking monster,” Lane laughed. “A spoiled brat of a monster.”

  Just as Kierra closed the door she heard Monica’s restrained voice grind out, “That’s our girl.”

  ***

  Usually after a broadcast, Maya’s adrenaline was so high she sometimes had the shakes. On those nights she couldn’t do anything but grab her favorite vibrator and make herself come until she was just tired enough to wash off her makeup, shower and collapse into bed. Those were the good nights. But the bad nights were when nothing, not her toys or her fingers, gave her the kind of release she craved. On those nights she was forced to call to mind the fictional MasquerAsiaN in her head. She dreamt of using his hands and mouth and dick to get herself off. It got her there, but it wasn’t enough. But now she knew that there could be worse nights. Nights when her on-camera orgasm was mild, just enough to rev her engines. Nights when her adrenaline hadn’t even peaked and the real MasquerAsiaN was in her bed, between her legs. And she couldn’t have him. This was definitely the darkest timeline.

  After Maya closed her computer, she and Kenny were frozen, their ragged breath and the whir of her computer the only sounds filling the room. She lowered her left leg against his chest, he moaned. Who knows how long they might have stayed there just like that, but then they heard Kierra’s door open and close. Maya jumped up and grabbed the packet of wipes from the basket with all of the equipment she hadn’t used. Didn’t need. She began to clean her hands, trying to hide how they shook.

  Kenny’s head was pressed against the headboard, his eyes lifted to the ceiling. His cheeks and ears were a bright red, his chest heaving. She had the sudden urge to climb back on the bed between his legs just to press her ear against his chest and hear what his heart sounded like; wondering if it was hammering against his chest like hers. It made her want to weep.

  She cleared her throat.

  He tilted his head forward and blinked rapidly. When he turned to her, she turned away. She pretended to look at her equipment as if she was considering dismantling it. The reality was that she was so horny she could barely remember what everything she was staring at did.

  “Can I-” Kenny said and then stopped, swallowed. “Can I use your bathroom?”

  She nodded and opened her mouth. The sound that came out was unintelligible as a word, but he got the hint. He walked delicately toward her bathroom and she realized that he’d come in his pants. He hadn’t touched himself and they hadn’t touched one another, besides that place where her leg rubbed against his face, which was apparently just enough contact for both of them. The point on her leg where his soft facial hair had touched still felt warm and sent little bolts of electricity shooting up her body periodically. It was too much.

  As soon as the bathroom door closed, Maya grabbed the robe hanging on the back of her closet door and rushed out of her room. She needed space. She needed to be in an entirely different city, but she settled for the kitchen.

  Her hands were still shaking as she washed them in the kitchen sink. Her mouth was dry, but she didn’t trust herself enough to hold a glass. A door opened. Maya’s heart stopped and she held her breath, but then Kierra appeared, a smile on her face and a tray in her hands.

  It took a second for Maya to process what she was seeing. But when she did, “Did you have a fucking viewing party for my broadcast?”

  Kierra stopped just inside the kitchen, the smile frozen on her face. “Would that be a bad thing?”

  Maya threw up her hands and gestured oddly, spraying water on them both, still unable to string together a complex coherent thought. She settled her hands on her hips and trusted that Kierra would get the hint.

&nb
sp; She did. “You’re horny, huh?”

  Maya just nodded.

  “You like him, huh?”

  Maya felt tears spring to her eyes and she turned away. “Liked,” she replied.

  Kierra made a noncommittal hum that Maya knew she reserved for when she didn’t believe what someone told her. In that moment Maya hated Kierra for seeing her so clearly.

  “Maya,” she said in a gentle tone.

  But then a door opened and Lane’s loud voice preceded his and Monica’s entrance into the living room. Maya wiped furiously at her face and hoped that when she turned back around she looked normal, whatever that looked like.

  When she made eye contact with Lane he smiled. “Brava,” he said, leaning toward her over the breakfast bar and winking.

  Maya never could reject a compliment so she smirked and curtsied. He laughed.

  Monica moved to stand just behind Kierra and leaned down to whisper in her ear. The tray in Kierra’s hand began to shake, the glasses clinking together.

  “You all right there, sweet girl? Need a hand?” Lane asked. Kierra glared at him and put the tray on the counter in front of her. But she didn’t move away from Monica, in fact she might have leaned back into her. Maya tried not to dissect their behavior, hoping they wouldn’t dissect her own frazzled movements any more than Kierra already had.

  “Where’s Kenny?” Monica asked, snaking a hand around Kierra’s waist, her fingers slipping through the space between the shirt buttons.

  “He’s-”

  “Here,” Kenny finished, calling down the hall.

  Maya sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and began to gnaw on it frantically.

  When he stepped into view, Monica and Kierra shifted to allow him to join them in the overcrowded kitchen. They made eye contact for a brief minute and both looked away almost immediately. Maya’s gaze crashed into Lane’s. His smile was bright and he winked at her again. She wished he would stop doing that. She rolled her eyes and turned her head, focusing on the refrigerator, which didn’t even have a magnet for her to pretend to be staring at.