The Girl in 6E

by A. R. Torre

  She beams at him and reaches up, checking her crown. Then she spins, and in a blur of pink and blond is gone, the screen door snapping shut behind her.

  Annie flies into the living room, running full force until she hits the waiting arms of Uncle Michael. He lifts her into the air, smiling up at her. She trills with laughter, and he sets her down gently, her kicking feet finding the ground early. Her aunt Becky holds out a perfect pink box tied with a thick white ribbon. “Here,” she says shortly. “We can’t stay long.”

  Annie grips it tightly, looking at her mother’s pinched face for approval. “Go ahead, honey. You can open it in the dining room.” Annie beams, grabbing Aunt Becky’s silky hand and tugging on it, skipping alongside her slow walk as they make their way the short distance into the next room.

  The gift turns out to be a paint-by-numbers set, the price sticker still attached, displaying $4.99 in bright fluorescent orange. She runs her hands excitedly over the plastic-wrapped display, her eyes big and smile wide. She gives them both hugs and returns immediately to the set, pulling off the plastic and touching the paint pads gently, feeling their texture. She doesn’t notice when they say their good-byes and leave, pulling the trailer door tightly shut.

  CHAPTER 16

  MIKE IS ONE of my few regulars that I know next to nothing about. Being a hacker, he makes sure that all of his personal information is locked behind impenetrable firewalls. I can’t get past a dinky normal firewall, but that is why I’ve cozied up to Mike. When I need research on clients, he’s my man.

  Mike falls in the same category as 80 percent of my clients. He likes to jack off while he watches me touch myself. While some clients mix it up, he has a regular fantasy, and it never varies. As soon as his name pops up, I quickly undress, putting on knee-high white stockings, a plaid skirt, and a white cropped sweater. Sometimes he wants me to wear glasses or put my hair in pigtails, but traditionally I change into my schoolgirl outfit, sit back in front of the camera, and spread my legs wide. Then I slide a hand under my skirt, lifting it up for his eyes, and wait for him to type something.

  HackOffMyBigCock: u want my cock?

  “God, I want it so bad. I was thinking about it earlier, when I was in the shower.” I tug on my ponytail with one hand and bite my lower lip, teasing my pussy with the fingers of my other hand.

  HackOffMyBigCock: ive been thinking about u 2. what do u want me to do 2 u

  “I want you to make me kneel in front of your chair. Then I want to rub the outside of your pants, feeling the outline of that hard cock. I’m going to touch myself, pull up my little skirt, and plunge my fingers in and out of myself while I unzip your pants.”

  HackOffMyBigCock: oh yeah baby

  “Oh, my God, I can’t wait to see it. I love how hard you get for me, how tight your skin gets around that shaft. Are you hard for me now?” I shut my eyes, tilt my head back, and slide two fingers inside my sex, moving them slowly in and out so he can see my lips open and shut around my slick fingers.

  HackOffMyBigCock: rock hard. i want 2 fuck you so bad.

  “You’re about to, baby. You’re about to fuck me so hard that I scream. But I want to suck your cock first. I want to taste your sweet pre-cum and gag on that big meat of yours.”

  HackOffMyBigCock: oh yeah. pull it out.

  I kneel, switching the input on my computer so that the overhead webcam, placed about five feet off the ground and affixed to the wall, is activated. Below the cam, also attached to the wall, is a female strap-on harness. It allows me to attach various RealSkin dildos and keep them in place. I grab a nude-colored seven-incher and clip it into place, then grab the shaft and look up into the cam.

  “Tell me how you want it, baby—hard and fast or slow and teasing?” I flick my tongue over the tip of the toy, the monitor above the webcam showing me the webcam feed and the chat message window. About 10 percent of my clients use a microphone; the rest type their responses. For that reason, I have five screens placed at different locations, allowing me to easily see their directives despite whatever position I might be in.

  HackOffMyBigCock: h and f

  I oblige, shoving the toy down my throat in one quick movement. Gagging on the depth, then pulling back off, keeping eye contact with the cam, I jack off the saliva-covered toy as I suck up and down on it, my eyes watering from the motion, my cheeks hollowing from the effort. I gag repeatedly, letting the reflex coat the toy with saliva, and occasionally spit on the toy and slap my face with it. While some men prefer a neat, clean blow job, the majority of my clients prefer a sloppy, wet blow job with lots of gagging and enthusiasm.

  HackOffMyBigCock: fuck. u give such good head bb. i want to paint your face right now.

  I glance at the timer, located in the top right corner of the video: 5min32sec. Not long enough. “Wait, baby, don’t come yet,” I beg. “I really need you inside of me. I’ve been waiting all day for your cock.”

  HackOffMyBigCock: ok

  HackOffMyBigCock: sit back and touch yourself. i need to cool off a min

  Good boy. I sit back, getting off of my knees so I can be spread-eagle on the floor. I change the input to the floor cam, located about three feet off the floor, and angle it so it focuses on my lower half. I have a total of seven cams, all top-of-the-line high-definition. My entire system is controlled by a home entertainment app that an Indian subcontractor reprogrammed for my purposes. I have an iTouch that runs the app and acts as my remote. The app allows me to choose and control the camera, adjust the lighting, and terminate chat sessions if I get uncomfortable. Under the floor cam is another strap-on fixture—the one I use for doggie-style fucking. I looked at purchasing a Sybian once, but my system works fine and a Sybian is a big investment.

  HackOffMyBigCock: how have u been?

  Typically, guys get chatty during the initial thirty seconds of a cam session and during a cool-off period. End-of-session chat is rare.

  “I’ve been good—with the exception of midterms, which are next week. I am so far behind in my studying…” I make a face and continue moving my hands, circling my nipples, which perk up from the contact, and trace a path down to my pussy, which is wet. Gagging seems to always make me wet.

  HackOffMyBigCock: been too busy partying? lol

  “I wish! There are no cute guys at my school.” I pout and spread open my shaved lips, showing him the pink wetness there.

  HackOffMyBigCock: damn ur wet. i need to come there and fuck u in person.

  Mike is the only guy I ever really worry about finding me. Initially, I paid a professional company to set up my website securely, promising me that I would be untraceable…but please. If hackers can crack the DOD’s internal site, they can get past the $249.99 security package I paid for.

  “God, if you were here right now, I’d fuck you so hard…” I press and hold a button on the remote, zooming the cam out until it shows my whole body, then close my eyes and lick my lips. I moan softly, my fingers dipping inside of me, then open my eyes and stare into the cam. “I need to fuck you,” I whisper urgently. “Please.”

  HackOffMyBigCock: im ready for u bb. bend over, i want to give it to u from behind.

  I reach up and forward to unsnap the nude toy and move it down to the lower connection, quickly clipping it into place. Then I flip over onto my knees, my back arched, and look over my shoulder at the cam, reaching one hand underneath me to spread my lips. “Please, please, I need it so bad.”

  HackOffMyBigCock: now. fuck me now.

  I scoot back, moving slowly as the nude dick presses on the opening of my pussy. Guys love to watch the moment when “they” enter me, and I play it for all it’s worth, gasping as my lips slide around the girth of it. I move, pushing back until it slides deeper, deeper, and then is buried inside of me. Full. I moan. “God, baby, you are so fucking deep in me. This is what I’ve needed.”

  HackOffMyBigCock: tell me to fuck u

  I hear the chime of his message and look over my shoulder at the screen. I zoom
the camera out a little, so that it displays my face in the background. I slide slowly off the dick and then push onto it again, gasping a little. “Please, Mike, I need it all. Please, Mike, fuck me! Fuck me with your big meaty cock!” My voice rises until I am almost screaming the words, and I rock back and forth on the dick with enthusiasm. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, Mike—God, that’s what I need!” I grunt, guttural, and look over my shoulder at the cam, my face a mess of want and pleasure. Then I close my eyes, fucking the toy harder, faster, my breath coming out in ragged gasps.

  HackOffMyBigCock: aww fuck bb im going to cum

  I look over, read his words, and continue my barrage on the toy. “Where, Mike—where do you want it?” I keep my eyes glued to the screen, waiting for his response.

  HackOffMyBigCock: swallow it

  I pull abruptly off the toy, spinning around and grabbing it in my hands. The low angle causes me to lie down and I devour it, plunging it down my throat and staring up at the cam, jacking the cock off with my hand as I suck it, hard and fast. I moan encouragingly as I suck and squeeze my breasts, pulling gently on my nipples with my fingers.

  There is silence for almost a minute, then a message.

  HackOffMyBigCock: fuck that was hot. thx jess

  ------PRIVATE CHAT ENDED BY HackOffMyBigCock. 13min24sec

  Thirteen minutes: $94.35, which, minus my personal website’s transaction fees, is $91.06 to my bank account. It pays the bills.

  I roll over and heave to my feet, walk naked across the floor, grab a glass, and fill it with water from the sink. From inside the cabinet I take out the Tylenol bottle, leaving the cabinet open as I pop two into my mouth and chase them down with tepid tap water. My eyes flicker over the cabinet and the racks of orange bottles that fill its shelves.

  Dr. Derek prescribes antipsychotics for me. They come like clockwork every thirty days in the mail. I don’t bother to tell him that I stopped taking them nine months ago. While they did take away my urge to kill, they also took away every intelligent thought in my head. When I watch old webcam videos from that time, I cringe. I was a zombie, moving through mechanical sexual motions, my face slack, words dead.

  So I stopped taking and started stockpiling them. On the upside, if I ever do decide to kill myself, I have more than seven hundred pills waiting for me in this cabinet.

  CHAPTER 17

  WHEN I WENT to my grandparents’ house that weekend—the weekend—when Mom went mad and killed everyone, they were surprised to see me. That should have alerted me that something was wrong.

  “Deanna?” My grandmother peered at me through the screen door, squinting as though she were having trouble seeing me. She pushed the screen door out, looking at me, then my suitcase, her expression confused. “Is everything okay?” I stepped forward, hugging her tightly, and planted a quick kiss on her soft, fragile cheek.

  “Hey, Nana.” I reached down, grabbed my suitcase handle, and dragged it forward, toward the front door. “Mom said I was spending the weekend with you guys.”

  Her face showed surprise, but she recovered quickly. “Oh! Well, come in, dear. Don’t worry about that suitcase. I’ll have your grandfather grab it.” She ushered me inside, pulling the farmhouse door shut behind us, the smell of mothballs and old books hitting my senses as I stood in the foyer and she scurried around me, turning on lights and adjusting the thermostat.

  My family lay dead in our home for almost an entire day before a next-door neighbor, while on a walk, saw blood splatter on the kitchen window. The neighbor looked in the window and saw my sister, Summer, slumped over the kitchen table, a congealed pool of blood around her head. My grandparents and I were at a church dinner when the police came to notify us. They waited at the house, and when we returned from church they sat, two uniformed officers, on the porch, a black-and-white car parked near the mailbox. Nana clutched her chest as soon as we pulled in.

  The men stood as our car came to a stop, and Papa put it in park. We opened the doors slowly, none of us wanting to know why they were here. As soon as I saw their faces, I knew they brought bad news. We all knew.

  Nana held on to my grandfather’s arm, and they approached the two uniforms. I could see the weight of uncertainty and fear on my grandparents’ shoulders. I moved past them up the steps, opened the unlocked front door, and headed up the wide stairs to change out of my church clothes. I wanted to put as much distance as possible between them and me. As I climbed the stairs, my head pounded, and I gingerly touched the side of my eardrum, feeling the crust of dried blood.

  My grandparents delivered the news to me after the policemen left, sitting me down in their formal living room, their voices shaking and eyes weeping. I had no reaction; I said nothing when they told me. My grandfather repeated the news, looking into my eyes to be sure I understood. I sat there in silence for a full minute, then a wail bubbled up in me, and once I started sobbing, I couldn’t get myself to stop.

  I stayed at my grandparents’ until I graduated from high school, then I moved out. That was when I enrolled in community college, using the small amount that remained from my parents’ life insurance. There wasn’t much left after paying for four burials.

  CHAPTER 18

  PODOPHILIA: Commonly called foot fetishism, “podophilia is a pronounced sexual interest in feet” or footwear.3 It is one of the more common fetishes, affecting at least 70 percent of men.4 For a foot fetishist, their attraction can focus on the shape and size of the foot and toes, jewelry, treatments, state of dress, and odor, as well as sensory interaction—such as smelling the foot, licking, kissing, tickling, etc.5 Even a preference for women with nice feet or who wear heels can be defined as podophilia.

  I HEAR A knock at my door at nine a.m. and pause my cam, interrupting a bald Asian man who is asking to see my feet. I jog across the linoleum till I can see through the peephole. It is UPS Jeremy, holding a big box. “Leave it. Thank you,” I call loudly, then watch him set down the package, scrawl something on his pad, wave to me, and walk away. I hold my ear to the door, waiting for the sound of the elevator, then jerk open the door, grab the huge cardboard box, and slam it shut again. I don’t lock it. I never lock my door. I figure if someone is stupid enough to come inside, they have ill motives and deserve to die at my hands. It’s one of my favorite fantasies, because it is one of the ones most likely to occur. I drop the heavy box on the floor and bound back to my pink bed, where the patient Asian waits. I apologize to him and hold up my feet close to the cam so he can see them better.

  Foot fetishists make up a large part of my clientele. My feet were ignored for the first eighteen years of my life—the ends of limbs that slid into fashionable shoes before leaving the house. But in the webcam world, my feet are my bread and butter. The fact that this client is Asian has nothing to do with his fetish: it is a worldwide turn-on and more common than I ever imagined. Most men have a slight fetish—like a leg man—they enjoy seeing nicely shaped feet, either bare or in four-inch heels. Other men focus solely on feet as their erotica; they do nothing but stare at my toes, soles, and arches and jack off while doing so. It is my favorite type of clientele, in that all I have to do is wiggle my toes and rub my feet together seductively. The feet that I had abused for years—carelessly stubbing on doorjambs and stuffing barefoot into old sneakers—possess a high arch, symmetrical toes, and narrow ankles. I rock bare feet like Pamela Anderson filled that red swimsuit two decades ago.

  The Asian is getting close, his face tight in concentration, his eyes glued to my feet. I lie back and slowly run my left arch over the top of my right foot, letting out a soft moan as my feet take him over the arc of ecstasy.

  I take a fifteen-minute break at noon, cutting open the box and unpacking its contents. It’s my food: two weeks’ worth of Jenny Craig meals. Jenny is my current meal plan. I use diet plans because they make my life easier—shipping me a complete breakfast-lunch-dinner combination, two weeks of tasteless meat at a time. The fact that these companies ship me the food saves me
from having to leave the apartment to get groceries. I’ve found I can typically tolerate a brand for about two months, but then I have to switch it up. This is my second shipment from Jenny Craig.

  Life as a recluse is harder than one might think. In the beginning, there were so many details I had to figure out. The Internet has been my salvation. Not just a source of income, it is my lifeline to the world, my source for necessities. I end up buying a lot of items in bulk. It is difficult to buy some items in single quantity. Take, for example, hand soap. I have four years’ worth stored underneath my kitchen counter. My diet of TV dinners eliminates the need for plates, but I do have normal silverware and an eight-piece set of glassware. Walmart.com now ships to personal addresses, but some idiot in corporate seems to have gone through their website and cherry-picked which items they will bless with home delivery. Something as important as tampons? Nope—you can choose only in-store pickup for that. Like anyone wants to trot down to their local Walmart and stand in line at customer service to pick up a reserved box of superabsorbency tampons.

  My personal side of the apartment is used mostly for storing all of my excess shit. That’s where I stack the lifetime supply of toilet paper, tampons, and bottled water. Think it sucks to pay for bottled water? Try paying to ship fucking bottled water. I physically cursed every digit of my credit card number when entering that order in. That was pre–Amazon Prime. Now, with their free two-day shipping, I’ve eliminated 90 percent of my shipping costs. I won’t be surprised if I single-handedly cause them to stop that entire program. They’ve covered at least two grand of shipping for me so far this year, well worth the eighty bucks I paid to join the program.