Hermes Online (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Rose Anderson

  I find examining myself this way has contributed to a darker crimson in my center as blood floods my sensitive tissues and my flesh begins to swell. In my excitement, my very core glistens with dew. Do you see me?

  I put my leg down, and my clit was throbbing. In fact my whole sex was pulsing. I reread it, feeling his green eyes searching out every detail as I did. With a trembling hand, I clicked send, willing him to be online at that moment, willing him to respond now.

  Ten minutes went by. I kept my initial heat by reading another erotic tale. The voice came through the speakers...“You’ve got mail.”

  V,

  Oh, yes, I see you gloriously splayed like an orchid. Very rich colors, V. Beautiful. Sensual. Your words have inspired my body’s response exactly as I knew they would. Allow me to show you how your description has affected me. My cock is a hard nine inches long from tip to base, the rim of the head now thick and firm from your words. I’d say your fingers would not touch were your small hand wrapped around me. Like the rest of my body, this blade too is darker than your creamy skin. I have been circumcised—the deed done so long ago has left me with a light band of color just below the head, the flesh there extremely sensitive.

  My balls, lightly furred with dark brown curls, hang like your luscious pouty lips, just a bit asymmetrically. I find them aching now. Why is that do you suppose? My hand curled around the length reveals a hard pulse, one very hot to the touch. Your lovely storm-cloud eyes would see raised veins that speak of the hot flow coursing there just under the skin. What’s this? I find a bead of excitement pooling at the tip like an alchemist’s quicksilver, a telling testament to your sensual nature, lovely one.

  And now that we see each other, before we go further, we must reward ourselves. I would like you to walk away from your screen, lay back on your bed with your lovely shapely legs spread wide, and with whatever method you employ, I want you to bring yourself to orgasm. I will do the same. And when you are sated, please look in the mirror again, and describe all you see for me in full vivid detail, including the blush I know will paint you from head to toe.

  Enjoy, my sweet erotic V. You created this for both of us.

  S

  Oh my god. I rose from my chair and went to my bed. The bedside table drawer had my electric wand. I tested the switch before I lay down. Buzzzzzzz, yes, it was working. My heart’s blood was pounding in my ears, reverberating in my clit and flooding my entire body with a sexual current not felt since...since…I shook a brief stab of grief aside. I had other things to see to.

  I lay back, with my body taking the shape of an inverted Y. My left hand pried my outer lips wide, exposing the pulsing center and my swollen clit to the whim of the vibrator I held in my right. Feeling hyper-sexed in that moment, the second I touched the switch my back arched off the bed. I’d been primed and ready. The verbal foreplay had taken my fancy, and my body rode it like a stallion. Wave after wave of relentless vibration brought me to a resounding explosion. I cried out to the silent house. It was a primal, animalistic sound, one I hadn’t heard in a long while. Lying there stunned and liquidly sated, I realized a total stranger had worked my mind to the point of climax. I was hooked. An instant later, my reply formed in my mind.

  Peeling off the rest of my clothes and shrugging into my robe, I headed back to the computer, still tingling from head to toe. Like a flasher in a trench coat, I stood before the full-length mirror assessing once more. My eyes appeared dilated, my bottom lip seemed swollen, and I wondered if I had bitten it when I came. It had been ages since I felt desire, any desire at all, ages since I even considered masturbating. Having been long forgotten, the wonderful sensation of coming had me feeling quite warm still, especially my cheeks. He was right. I did have a flush of dark pink coloring me across my breasts, up my neck, and over my face. Even my nipples appeared darker as the blood of excitement filled all erectile tissues. I turned one leg outward. The deeper color was painting my inner thighs too. The words came to me.

  S,

  I’ve just finished bringing myself to orgasm. My entire body feels flushed with spent heat. What remains is the tint of a wanton blush enhanced at the thought of you doing this too. I lay back on my bed as you suggested (a delightful suggestion btw), my thighs spread wide, my vibrating wand pressed against my sex with the switch set first to low then to high.

  I bid your green eyes come closer... My clit is still hard and much larger now having been tormented by the wand’s powerful oscillations. The nerves themselves feel exposed. My lips are thicker now, and they pout even more. And their velvet flesh is wetter than moments before. In fact, slippery wetness shines on the inside of my thighs. In a word... I glisten.

  V

  Sitting back, I stared at the computer screen, the flashing internet advertisements jockeying for attention on the right-hand side.

  “You’ve got mail.” Simultaneously the voice and the little closed envelope appeared. I drew a breath and clicked it open.

  Dearest V,

  I closed my eyes and reread your beautiful descriptions in my mind. As I did, the portrait of you came to life. My balls filled, my cock lengthened and thickened, and my hand glided over the full length of me from base to tip. With deliberate and measured stroking and with your erotic imagery dancing in my mind, yes, I found wonderful release. I thank you for sharing all the beautiful color of you with me.

  And now I suspect there is far more to you than you realize, dearest V. Your sensual nature filled in where your paints left off, but is there more color to be had, I wonder?

  Let’s take this further, shall we? For tomorrow… I enjoy kissing. Wield your pen. Describe a kiss from your luscious pink lips, and I shall do the same. Tell me, how do you sleep? Do your linens caress your bare skin? If not, allow yourself this treat tonight. For now, sweet dreams, lovely one.

  S

  I turned off the computer feeling that nature-driven lassitude that makes a woman drowsy after her climax. Smiling inside, I headed to bed. While I stood in my bathroom brushing my teeth, I eyed the hook that held my nightgown. I thought about his words. Never in my life did I recall deliberately sleeping nude. Yes, at various times after intimate exchanges in my past relationships, I fell asleep as naked as the body next to mine, but never did I set out to sleep without pajamas or nightgown at the end of the day. For some reason, the simple thought felt rather heady.

  Being one of those people who actually takes the two minutes each morning to make my bed, for no other reason than not wanting to sleep in a jumble of sheets and blankets at the end of the day, I left the nightgown on the hook and turned down the sheets. My skin felt very hyper-aware as I stripped from the robe and snuggled in. The fabric softener scent lingered on my cotton sheets still, and the smooth flat surface of the fitted sheet felt cool against the remnant of my earlier sexual fever. I rolled over on my belly, one leg bent, one arm hugging the spare pillow that gave the illusion I didn’t sleep alone. I laid there assessing. My whole being felt lighter. For the first time in a year, I didn’t give Dan power over my dreams.

  * * * *

  I woke the following morning realizing I didn’t wake in the middle of the night as was my habit. In fact, I slept like the proverbial rock. It had been months since I slept through the three o’clock grief hour, that subconscious middle of the night wake-up call experienced by the grieving. As I took a long languid stretch, I briefly contemplated revisiting last night’s date with the electric company. The corners of my mouth turned into a smile at the thought. Not now, I said to myself, tucking the option away and thinking I just might bring myself off later. The anticipation of another sensually charged email grabbed me. I found I relished the idea of writing...and reading...a kiss.

  Later in the day I received a call from the county board president. It seemed my thoughts on creative reuse of the old Hornsby mansion had stirred more than one imagination on the board. In fact, so intrigued were they by my proposal that the house coming down was on hold for the time being
. He wanted to let me know that my idea had become an agenda item on the special meeting he called this coming Thursday. Then to my ultimate surprise he paid me a compliment. “Honestly, Vivienne, I just have to tell you, I haven’t seen an idea come out of Planning and Development with this much potential in years. Your idea was inspired.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. For one, they’d suspended the tear-down, two, they’d called a special meeting, three, the board members I’d met with the other day had spoken favorably to their contemporaries, and four, I’d just gotten an extremely rare compliment from a guy who probably never even said “good boy” to the family dog. My idea was inspired!

  So, being filled with possibility as I was, the ride home from work had my lips tingling as scenes from the world’s best movie kisses played over my head. To me the best were desperate I’ll-die-if-I-don’t-kiss-you kisses. My mind played with the concept for a mile or so.

  Once in my life, and granted it had been nearly a half dozen years ago, I had been kissed just like that. The kind of kiss that throws your back to the wall and sends buttons flying from clothing in a fevered race to shed them just so your skin could make contact with his, to send that kiss to every nerve in your body.

  Yes, I’d felt that once. My chest constricted with the memory of the architectural study tour one magical autumn in Greece and the amazing man assigned to my class. Wincing, I remembered the circumstance that ended the budding transcontinental relationship begun with such wonderful potential. My sensually handsome teacher had proposed to a woman he had been in a long relationship with just prior to leaving for Greece.

  Neither of us planned to fall in love. It just happened when we found ourselves separated from the rest of the tour on the island of Delos. Waiting for the next ferry, we discovered a connection, one the entire pantheon of gods must have had a hand in, for it was incredibly beyond our control. But as blissful as that week had been, I knew from the onset there was no hope for anything else between us. His prior commitment was on the table. As surely as the seasons turn, my month-long class was over and with it came a return to cold reality. I felt his loss even now. As brief as our intense liaison had been, I had loved that man and he loved me and it was the kind of love you only got once in a lifetime. Broken-hearted, I left Greece without looking back and I didn’t leave my contact information for future study tours just in case I’d meet him again as a married man.

  My tenuous emotional state couldn’t bear lingering over. In self-defense, I shook the bittersweet thought away and flipped on a talk radio station with its topic on how to get raccoons out from under your porch. Ignoring the rush hour traffic under my forced emotional silence, I got off at my exit and let my mind open to the conversation the experts were sharing with listeners. Twenty minutes went by as I learned about the nocturnal habits of raccoons. Who knew? The uninvited raccoons were exactly the distraction I hoped for as my sad thoughts of lost love sunk back into the dusty scrapbook of my memory. Three miles later, raccoons and opening deer season cleared my mind enough to think about the present. I turned the radio off and got to work crafting my perfect kiss, attempting to borrow from Hollywood rather than personal experience.

  I settled on the fiddle-tempo kiss from Last of the Mohicans and combined it with the wave-crashing beach kiss between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity. That was nice, intensely hot. I then superimposed the kiss in the rain from The Notebook, and a bit of the library-shelf-climbing kiss from Atonement. “Wow,” I said, feeling electrified from the image I had woven.

  Taking only enough time to do all the odds and ends one must do, such as making dinner, changing into more comfortable clothing, seeing to a load of hand-wash-only laundry and other less pressing bits on my weekly to-do list, I kept my computer at arm’s length until I had enough of a kiss in mind to write about. Two hours later, my computer fired up and so did my mind. I had mail.

  Dearest V,

  Good morning. I found myself imagining you tangled in soft sheets, your naked body warm and sleepy, the red-gold silk of your long hair fanned across your pillow. The image still raises my pulse et al. I’m wondering if our shared climax still lingers there like ion-charged air after a thunderstorm. My imagination tells me yes.

  S

  I wondered how it was this unknown man made me feel like this. It was incredible really. He said exactly the words I craved, no, needed to hear. They were raindrops on my parched landscape.

  I could see him in my mind’s eye even though the pieces I had to create the image were sparse. His eyes were green, and how I loved green eyes. His hair was brown, chestnut brown. I could see it. The descriptive color revealed his hair as being rich and shining to my imagination. He was well endowed. His large hands stroked a large, thick cock while his mind was filled with thoughts of my colorful self-portrait. My brain extrapolated, and any way I saw this shadow, he was compelling. I replied.

  S,

  Yes, I slept nude on soft cotton sheets...and yes, twenty inches of red-gold silk fanned across two pillows. Your suggestion was a new one. I woke this morning deciding I’ll never sleep clothed again.

  I reread that last line, not exactly knowing where that random thought had come from. Yes. I would sleep nude from now on. The thought brought a languid smile, and my fingers clicked over the keys.

  I found myself searching for the best, most intense, most sweetly erotic kiss I could imagine today. It’s been a while for me in real life, but several movies come to mind. I think this time you should go first.

  V

  A moment later the telltale voice announced, “You’ve got mail.”

  My smile widened.

  Dearest most delectable V,

  No, my sweet, your sensual mind holds many images. How do I know this? The sensual story you posted several days ago. Anyone who could describe in vivid detail those intimacies and cerebral interactions between Lily and Jonathan certainly has ready images of heated kisses stowed away in their mind. Find one for me.

  Lily and Jonathan’s physical appearances speak to me. Please write with their imagery in mind. I shall set the stage. The kiss might begin as their two mouths draw close. They’re unsure, even hesitant at first, but eventually as their senses take over they come to full acknowledgment. I wish to feel the heat rising in the space between them. I know this woman exists. Let her use her lips and tongue. Show her to me, V.

  S

  Another challenge. He used my posted story to tell me he understood there was more to me than met the eye. That he saw this at a time when I desperately needed someone to see sent a thrill over me. The concept coined around my kitchen table by several women having a laugh inspired a story, one that was indeed homage to my creative side, a story written at a bold, vibrant time in my life when, despite the heartache of a love lost, everything was possible. It was also a creative side I’d completely forgotten I possessed and was only now remembering.

  I had lived in a one-dimensional drab world for so long I had forgotten the words that had come easily a half dozen years before. For the first time in at least six years, I felt understood. Six years ago I wasn’t dull. Six years ago I saw all those sensual scenes between my story characters and made them come alive with color. My color.

  My friends who knew me on several levels had no working knowledge of my intimate mind, but oddly this stranger with the compelling words did. Remembering who I was made me feel very good inside. It was as if he’d given me permission to give myself a hand up out of the pit of despair I’d been mired in for a full year.

  Sitting back in my desk chair with the description of a kiss simmering in the crucible of my brain, I reacquainted myself with myself. I am a romantic above everything else. No matter how bizarre the beginning of that phone sex tale, my mind had to make it work out in the end.

  I shuffled through my email trash bin. I couldn’t believe the responses I received regarding that tale. Nearly all were uplifting. It appeared that most readers were happy that Lily
and Jonathan fell in love. Unbelievably, one was irate because Lily went back to work at Baxter Entertainment where she and Jonathan initially met. So strong was their opinion they felt they needed to let me know they had a hard time believing the ending. I shook my head. That reader had missed the point and the complexity of the story. For Christ sake, it wasn’t real life. It was a work of fiction. If an author wanted to dangle an elephant off a daisy, they could. Still, my words had inspired responses, and that crazy one aside, the others were all good ones. I thought of the county board president’s call. Through casual albeit intimate emails with a stranger, I’d rediscovered an ability to inspire.

  The story was all about acceptance and, to a lesser degree, about the damage that could be incurred by pigeonholing, a serious condition people often have. Dan had done just that by ridiculing me and telling me I was dull over and over the day we broke up, so dull I’d forced him into an affair just to deal with me. A pigeonhole if there ever was one.

  This time I conjured no image of Dan getting run over by a bus or sitting on an inflatable doughnut with thrombosed hemorrhoids. This time the pigeon was out of the hole. And looking back, I wondered how it was the poor bird ever got locked up in there to begin with. How had I let another person dictate how I felt about myself? There was more to me than met the eye, just like the two characters in my story.

  I searched my document file, needing in that moment to reread my story in full. I needed to see what my pen pal saw. He was right. The story was me all over, snippets of my personality reflected there for all to see, and S knew this.

  I chuckled, remembering the impetus to the story—that night with my crazy wine-drinking, hysterically funny, chocolate-eating friends who I eventually immortalized in print. Being a naturally cautious person, I couldn’t help but think in this age of instant information what if the job of phone sex operator wasn’t as anonymous as we suppose? What if one of those phone clients figured out who they were talking to and thought everything that was said was exactly what the woman wanted? How could any sane person suppose that, I wondered. And voila, Jonathan was born, a lonely grieving man in the throes of a breakdown who, desiring to hear another living person one last time on the day he chooses to end his life, makes a call and finds Lily.