by Jordan Burke
To: Catherine
From: Watts
Subj: Meet
I was surprised to see such a bold suggestion in your email. I thought we were past this.
I believe it might have been our tenth email exchange in which I told you I could never meet you because of my one-time rule. You responded that you had no problem with that, and that you were more than happy having a relationship that was confined to emails.
I have to confess: I am more than a little intrigued. Not only by what I already know about you, but also as to why you have changed your mind about this.
It would be an untruth to say that I haven’t fantasized about meeting you.
However, as the woman who came up with the term “Privacy Code” to describe my secretive nature, surely you are aware that if we meet, the rules apply to you as well.
We will never meet a second time. That much is definite. There’s even a chance that we will have to stop all further communication. I can make no promises either way on that matter.
After all we’ve established over the six months of emailing, do you really think a one-time meeting would be worth the risk of losing it all?
Guess what? I do. But when we meet, you will have to understand that it will be on my terms. And by “it” I mean everything. You want to experience the things I’ve hinted at in my emails, so you will get what you ask for.
Lastly, thank you for the information regarding your natural breasts. Unfortunately, I am unable to take words alone as proof in such instances. This will require a hands-on inspection.
Watts
Chapter Five – Catherine
I avoided checking my phone for new emails at work that day, not wanting to open the app and keep finding nothing from Watts. The temptation almost triumphed when I waited in the long line at the store, but I’d managed to resist the urge.
It wasn’t until I finished dinner and got in bed with another glass of wine, turned on my iPad and could no longer stop myself from checking.
I felt my pulse quicken in my temples when I saw an email with his name in the “From” field.
My heart had been pounding against my rib cage as I read his email. It was stern, negative in tone, almost chastising. And yet it ended with such a positive twist. He liked to play with me. Always had. But this was on a different level.
I read some of the lines over and over again.
After all we’ve established over the six months of emailing, do you really think a one-time meeting would be worth the risk of losing it all?
He was tempting me. Daring me to move close to the edge and see what would happen.
Surely you are aware that if we meet, the rules apply to you as well.
He was challenging me. Forcing me to think of all that we had, all that we could lose, all because of his one-time rule.
We will never meet a second time. That much is definite. There’s even a chance that we will have to stop all further communication. I can make no promises either way on that matter.
He was establishing the fact that he was in charge.
He’d never even hinted at the reasons behind the rule, and I hadn’t pried for an answer. Now, though, maybe I’d be in a position that would entitle me to one.
I got bold one afternoon several months ago, during a series of rapid fire back-and-forth emails that got out of hand quickly, and asked if he enjoyed one-night stands.
“Enjoy? No,” he’d written. “Well, obviously I enjoy it to some degree. I’d rather not go into my reasons for doing it.”
“Okay,” I’d written back, “so you just fuck women and leave them. Got it. Do you at least use a condom?”
“That depends. I do use a condom when I’m fucking a woman. I do not, however, wear a condom when I put my cock in her mouth. What would be the point of that?”
I’d hesitated before responding but finally wrote: “Tell me you pull out before you come. Unless you don’t warn her and you’re selfish and want to feel yourself coming in her mouth.”
“No. I know what it feels like,” he’d written. “I do it because I want HER to feel it, and I want to see her reaction.”
I had read my share of romance novels over the years. I’d read erotic romance, as well as the sweet and vanilla stuff. I’d read countless lines of dialogue where the alpha male is blunt and holds nothing back when talking about what he wants and what he likes. But this was the first time anything like that was happening to me in real life.
There was a commanding dominance to the idea conveyed by his words. He wanted the woman to feel him letting loose in her mouth. Enjoyed watching her reaction, too.
Part of me resented him for putting that thought into my mind. Not because there was anything bad about it, but because I was a little shaken by the fact that he had invaded my head so easily and planted an idea that I couldn’t forget.
I must have read that short response fifty times before coming up with my not-so-brilliant response: “Sorry, my phone rang and I had to answer it.” Yeah, he’d rattled me.
“No worries,” he’d responded. “And by the way, I do give her fair warning before it happens. Just so you know. Not that you’ll ever find out.”
That was several months ago, and it was when he explained that what we had was so different, and how much he enjoyed it, how much he actually needed it, and to take it any further would be a mistake because we would alter what we had or lose it entirely.
I had concurred at the time.
Now, that was all about to change. I was absolutely sure I wanted to do this, but totally unsure of whether I should.
Over the months of our correspondence, I had been growing more and more curious—and I hate to admit it, but I was almost jealous—of what the women he saw were experiencing while I was spending my Friday and Saturday nights watching movies and TV shows, or wrapped up in a blanket with a book.
I was secure doing those things. Taking no chances. Living risk-free. Which was all fine, until I started to wonder just what I was missing with Watts.
I had spent my entire life living by the old adage that you should hope for the best and prepare for the worst. I’d spent too much time doing that. It was only recently that I’d begun to look at it differently: Every day you don’t change direction is a wasted opportunity, another step closer to the day when you would wish you had taken more chances.
When I woke up Friday morning, I was sure how I was going to answer him, and later that afternoon I sent him my answer.
To: Watts
From: Catherine
Subj: Re: Meet
Let’s do it.
Catherine
Chapter Six – Watts
It was busier than usual in the bookshop for a Friday afternoon. A spring thunderstorm created a torrent on the streets, bent the trees, and brought lots of stragglers into the store.
It was never particularly busy, and I always enjoyed when someone came in and we ended up discussing books. But that afternoon, all the patrons were simply looking for shelter until the spring storm settled down. I didn’t expect to do much business.
It irked me. It threw the whole “rhythm” of the store off. I was accustomed to slow business, and using much of my free time to read.
I stayed behind the counter, sitting on the stool, gently thumbing through a copy of Nabokov’s Lolita that bore a signature I was unable to authenticate. It looked real, which would be important in deciding how much it was worth, even though I’d paid nothing for it.
Like many mornings, upon arriving to open the store that day, someone had left a box of books outside as if we were a Goodwill drop-off point.
It happened all the time and usually it was a box of old paperbacks that weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. Other times, people don’t know they have something valuable, and so they leave it outside the store and I’ll sell it for an amount that would have shocked them. It goes right into my “Go To Hell” fund, a stash of money I keep in a safe in my basement that I could grab i
f I had to flee the state or the country.
. . . . .
I had read Catherine’s response earlier, but I hadn’t yet written her back. I was deciding how to handle the situation.
I wasn’t backing out, I just needed to set this up properly. I’d told her about never taking women to my house, and how I usually got a room at a mid-range hotel, sometimes even a cheap one, depending upon the circumstances. But I wasn’t going to do it like that with Catherine.
Everything else would be the same, though. I’d never see her again. I couldn’t. Letting someone get too close to me meant danger. I had no way of explaining that to her without having her potentially freaking out, so early on I had planted the idea that I was simply a guy who avoided commitment for personal reasons.
True? No. Fair? Yes.
At least she knew up front.
By four o’clock, with the spring storm coming to an end, people had already made their way out onto the humid post-storm sidewalks, none of them having made a single purchase, which didn’t surprise me.
The day dragged on until it was time to close up and do my real work.
. . . . .
By 7 p.m. I was in position outside the house I was checking out in Laurel, Maryland. I sat in a rental car, listening to an Orioles game on the radio, watching the house.
The stakeouts were the most annoying part of any operation I went on. They rarely went quickly, usually lasting a few hours. Sometimes an entire night, if the people were home, and that meant I couldn’t go in and get my job done until morning, when they left.
As always, my car was packed for a long night. Charger for my phone. Binoculars. A small cooler bag with a sandwich and a six-pack of water. An empty bottle, if I drank too much of the water. Fake ID and registration for the car. And, of course, my gun, a Bersa Thunder 380 with backup cartridges, just in case.
It was dark by 8 p.m. and it was clear to me that, as I expected from previous surveillance, nobody was home. I got out of my car, tucking my pistol under the belt on the backside of my jeans.
As a precaution, I walked up the driveway, down the short walkway to the porch, up to the front door and rang the doorbell. I didn’t wear a disguise, but I did have a phony story ready. I always did. It changed with the seasons and the months, and this time I was going to say I was surveying the neighborhood, following up on the Census.
No answer. I rang it again, waited thirty seconds with no answer, and figured I had the all-clear.
I made my way around to the back of the house, climbed over the fence and approached the back door. With the help of a lock-pick set, I was inside within twenty seconds.
The house reeked of lamb and cabbage, two of my least favorite foods. I picked up a glass container from the counter, took the top off, and smelled it. Kalmyck tea. Disgusting.
The only thing in there I considered even halfway appetizing was polenta, but that was in a pot in the sink with dishwater mixed in. Considering who lived here, none of these items came as a surprise.
The den was sparsely furnished, with two futons on opposite walls. In the corner, an old style RCA television was perched on a plastic crate.
I looked in the bedrooms. More futons. These guys were really roughing it.
I wasn’t there to steal jewelry, TVs, or game consoles. I wasn’t there to do anything other than cloning their laptop hard-drives.
While in there, though, I took advantage of the opportunity to snoop around a little more. There was nothing of interest in the closet by the front door and nothing in the closet in the hallway that led to the bedrooms.
I checked each of them, and found nothing to make note of. Back in the hallway, I noticed the attic door, pulled it down and climbed up the stairs. The first thing I noticed was the mouse shit all over the place, and a quick sweep of my flashlight revealed the mice themselves, scattering into the corners of the attic.
Nice place.
I continued up, stepping on the thin wood planks that covered the insulation. I found boxes of different kinds of keyless entry car remotes, some with the capability of starting the car from a distance.
Beside those boxes sat three containers of black powder, several boxes of small nails, ball bearings, and I counted a dozen pressure cookers.
Any doubt about the intent of the occupants of the house was erased. Not that I had any to begin with.
After leaving the attic, I found two laptops, copied them to an external drive, and was out of the house minutes later, hoping the odor of lamb and cabbage hadn’t seeped into my clothes. I was going to throw them away anyway, but I didn’t want to smell that for the next half hour or so, and I didn’t want my car to stink like it, either.
On the way home, I used a cheap prepaid phone to send a text to my contact person: Soup is ready.
Moments later, he responded: I’ll pick up leftovers tomorrow.
When I turned on one of the back roads of Laurel, Maryland, where there was little traffic, I tossed the prepaid phone out the window, far enough into a ditch that it wouldn’t be immediately recognizable.
With my work for the evening done, I went home and responded to Catherine’s email.
To: Catherine
From: Watts
Subj: Re: Meet
I had a busy day. Just now relaxing at home.
I was happy to get your answer earlier and spent the afternoon planning our evening together. You’re going to love the place I have chosen. Since I already know that your nights are usually open, there’s no reason for delay. We should meet tomorrow night. I will email you tomorrow afternoon with a time and place.
Two final thoughts for now. One, you should dress up. Two, you should prepare yourself for the fucking of a lifetime.
Watts
Chapter Seven – Catherine
I woke up earlier than I do most Saturdays, anticipating an email from Watts. When I rolled over and grabbed my phone off the nightstand, there it was.
Coming from anyone else, that last line of his email might have sounded like a threat or more likely a guy who over-promises things. But with all that I’d learned about Watts over the last six months, I knew he meant it.
So at 6:50 on a Saturday morning when I would normally be sleeping, I instead found myself reading that line over and over. I had to get out of bed and do something instead of lying there wet, waiting, and eager, with almost twelve hours to go until we would meet.
I forced myself up, put on my running clothes and went for a jog. I came home, ate some fruit I had cut up and kept in the refrigerator, and read his email once more.
I spent most of the morning picking out what I was going to wear. Watts had said I should dress up, so I chose my best black dress and matching heels.
Just after 1 p.m., I got his second email.
To: Catherine
From: Watts
Subj: Re: Meet
6 p.m. Hotel Palomar, in the lounge. Wear the red dress that you told me about. I assume you still haven’t worn it. Tonight would be the perfect night, although it won’t be on for long.
Watts
I couldn’t believe he remembered that dress. I had bought it four months ago. It set me back quite a bit, but I loved it and had to have it. Why, I’m not sure. Just one of those things. I had told him about it in one of our email exchanges when we were talking about the merits of saving for the future versus spending and enjoying in the present.
I regretted buying that dress and had almost returned it. Now I was glad I’d kept it. He was right—it would be perfect for tonight.
As I got ready that afternoon, I considered just how big of a leap this was for me.
My past was riddled with episodes of harsh, cruel abandonment. I never knew my mother or my father. I didn’t even know if they were a married couple, or a young girlfriend and boyfriend unable to care for a child, or whether I was the product of a one-night stand.
It could have been any of those three, or some odd combination of them, or something entirely different, s
omething so dark and horrible I couldn’t even conjure up.
Whatever the reason, I had been handed off from foster home to foster home throughout my childhood. I once overheard someone from the Department of Family Services use the word “unadoptable” to describe me. That was due to the fact that I had a chronic illness that no doctor was able to diagnose.
Granted, I didn’t get the best medical care, so maybe if I’d been born into a family that was well-off or even just had a decent insurance policy, someone would have been able to help me.
There were times when I didn’t have the energy to walk up a flight of stairs, and then there were times I didn’t have the energy to lift my own arm to feed myself.
I had migraines that would lay me out for days on end, making me feel like my head was enveloped in a fog cloud that might never lift.
Probably the most humiliating part of all of this was my inability to use the restroom by myself sometimes. This applied to taking baths, as well. Thankfully, I never had to deal with the prospect of a creepy foster dad or brother. There was always a female in the house if I needed help. Still, sometimes I just wanted it all to end.
I missed a lot of school, but didn’t care because I was the target of much verbal abuse. I lost myself in the world of books and stories. I lived in fantasies because the nightmare of reality was too much to bear.
By the time I was fifteen, the symptoms began to gradually subside, but every once in a while they’d come back with a vengeance.
Now, at age 26, I was grateful to be seven years removed from my last debilitating physical…attack. That’s what I called them because that’s what they were. It was like being attacked by my own body.
No family wanted to deal with this. Some foster kids get lucky. I didn’t. I’ve come to accept the simple fact that sometimes things go your way, but sometimes they don’t. What really matters is how you respond.
