“Then you’re just like the men I grew up around.”
“Were they bad like me?”
I laugh. “Yes, more so. I was promised to a man when I was seventeen. He wasn’t the first, though. He was my father’s second choice.”
“An arranged marriage?”
I nod.
“Tell me about the first choice. Why aren’t you with him?” he asks, and I think back to that day. I was ten. My birthday party was in full swing, and my father pulled me aside to introduce me to two men. One old and gray, and the other, he was like a prince from my fairytale books. But he wasn’t happy. He was so angry, and then he looked at me like I was annoying before he turned around and walked away. It was the first and last time I ever saw him.
“He didn’t want me.”
“Why?” the stranger asks, curiosity pinching the word, as if he’s pained for asking me such a question. My heart aches when I recall not being wanted. It only really sank in years later that even before I could understand the way the heart worked, a man who could’ve saved me didn’t want me at all.
“Because he thought I wasn’t good enough.” It’s not the whole truth, and it’s not a whole lie. I leave out the part that my father was selling me off at the age of ten. There’s more silence, but this time I know he’s still there because I hear him breathe.
“That can’t be true,” he tells me. “He would’ve been an idiot to not notice your beauty,” he continues as if I weren’t even here. As if he were trying to convince himself of this fact. “He lost out, and now you’re here.”
“With you,” I tack on, wondering if he’ll disagree, but he doesn’t. “Why can’t I see you?” My body is alert, needing to know what this man looks like, but I don’t turn. He asked me not to, so I obey, but my restraint is wearing thin.
“What is your name, Beauty?”
“You don’t need me to tell you my name,” I tell him. “Because you already have it, or you wouldn’t have found me.”
“Your IP address gave away your location, beautiful girl,” he chuckles, and I picture him shaking his head at my naivety. “Tell me your name?”
“Tell me yours,” I counter, and another laugh bounces through his chest, and I smile to myself as I shut my eyes. I decide I love the sound.
“You’re a feisty one.”
“Does it turn you on?” I question easily. This is like chatting to him online. I can’t see his reaction, and it makes me braver than I should be.
Once again, I feel the heat of his breath on my neck, and a small whimper escapes me. The soft whispering of his lips tingles along my ear before he responds, “Do you want to turn me on? You did a good job of doing that last night.”
I gasp, my eyes snapping open as I stare up at the sky, my head tipped to the side, giving him access to me. “What?”
“I was hard for you. Reading your words, I pictured you sleeping soundly in your bed as I made my way into your bedroom. I would tug at the sheet covering your lithe frame, and then I’d stare at how beautiful you look in those tight panties and your tank top. While I watched the rise and fall of your perfect tits, I’d stroke myself.”
Every dark whispered word falls from his mouth and trickles its way from my ear down to my nipples, hardening them, and then traveling to my core. I squirm on the seat, the image he’s painting vivid in my mind.
“I’d take my cock out, hard and needy, but I wouldn’t touch you because just the thought of your porcelain skin under my fingertips brings out a beast within me. And then I’d grip my shaft and slowly move my hand up and down, making the tip of me glisten with arousal. The image of me painting your soft parted lips with my precum dances in my mind, and I lean in to do just that. My sweet Sleeping Beauty.”
The moment his words halt, a cold shiver races down my spine, and I spin around, finding nobody there. Not a shadow, not even a noise of his shoes moving away. I’m on my feet in seconds, running down the hilltop, but I don’t see anyone who could be the man who just gave me my ultimate fantasy with mere words. I’m alone, my panties are wet, and all I can think about is him doing all those things he promised me.
I stand there in the dark, wrapping my arms around my middle, and I wonder if he’s watching me from the shadows. If he’s there, hiding and waiting. Would he steal me? Would he break into my bedroom and really do that?