Uncover Me
Someone knew where to find her.
She sat back in her chair and placed her hand over the mouse. Click here, click there, and she reached her account page.
The arrow hovered over the delete button.
Stupid.
She could hear herself talking to Frank that night he had pulled out his camera. ‘No, I’m serious. Once it’s out there, there’s no taking it back. Would you want the whole world seeing you sucking a dick?’ It had become a joke at the time, and in the end she’d agreed to let him take the video, but whenever she thought of it she wondered if he had deleted it when they’d called it quits, or if it was still on the memory card. Or maybe he had uploaded it. If his attempts at sexting after the break-up had been any indication, he probably still had it tucked away somewhere on his hard drive. When they had been together she had trusted he wouldn’t, but now, well, since she didn’t know Frank as well as she thought …
This picture, the one that told the world exactly where she had been when she took the picture, was out there. Even if she took it down, even if she deleted her account, it was out there, and whoever had contacted her would still know she had taken that picture in Keyes Tower.
She went to her private messages, scrolled through the junk she usually ignored and found the message with the header ‘Keyes Bldg’.
Carrie opened the message but didn’t read it, not at first. She needed a minute to brace herself for whatever the message contained, and so she dragged her groceries into the kitchen. She went to the bedroom and changed into a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt. She poured herself a glass of wine, gulped down half right there at the counter, and returned to the living room and to the message.
‘First of all, don’t freak out. I’m not some creepy pervert trying to stalk you, it read. I work in an office about two blocks from where the picture was taken and recognised the view. I’ve been reading your blog for about two months now and wondering who in the hell you were. I’d love to find out in person. It’s not every day I get a chance to meet my fantasy woman. Below is a little something for you to put us both on the same level. Message me – B.’
Her heart in her throat, she clicked the link.
A video came up, frozen for a moment before starting, and then Carrie was looking at a man’s torso. He was well built, lean and muscled, with a tattoo on his shoulder – she couldn’t make out what it was. The screen wobbled, and the next thing she saw was a tanned woman with large breasts. She was on her back, thighs parted to show off a plump mound with a landing strip leading up from dark pussy lips. The camera panned lower, and the man’s cock came into view.
The woman cooed as he worked the tip in. The camera went in and out of focus as he began to fuck her, his cock wetter with each withdrawal. His pace picking up quickly as breathy sounds came across metallic through Carrie’s shitty computer speakers. He pumped hard and deep. The woman’s moans escalated as he reached down to finger her clit.
The video lasted just under five minutes, culminating with the mouth of the woman’s sex throbbing around his dick. He didn’t come. Instead, the camera panned back and displayed his hard erection hovering over the woman’s flushed pussy.
Carrie closed the video and sat unmoving. She was as wet as the woman in the video had been. The heat between her legs was unbearably hot. As always, with the first hint of her arousal she had the compulsion to reach for the camera and perform, but this time she repressed the urge. Instead, she drank her wine and stood. She was so slippery, and a little ashamed that she could feel the wet evidence that what she had seen had turned her on.
Just like she turned her readers on.
She watched the video again, tongue pressed to the roof of her mouth as she gazed at the couple. When the video stopped for a second time, Carrie leaned over and clicked on the profile.
Nothing to indicate gender. Nothing at all, just a generic userpic. Not even a location. Aside from the video, ‘B’ didn’t exist.
Is he the messenger? Or is it her? Did it matter?
‘Unless it’s a crank,’ she said to herself as she returned to the kitchen. ‘Anyone familiar with the city would know the clock on sight.’
Another glass of wine. Another deep gulp. Then, a deflated moment of relief.
The clock, yes. Keyes Tower, specifically? No.
She sank back into her chair and went back to the private message.
The only way to know what she was dealing with was to message him or her back.
She hit reply and began to type.
‘Doesn’t put us on the same level. How do I know that’s you in the video. You could have gotten that anywhere.’
Sent.
She was on her third glass of wine when the reply peeped on her phone. She bypassed it and went for the computer.
‘It’s me. Here’s your proof.’
Attached to the message was a picture. Not the full picture, but enough. He stood before a window, naked from the waist up. The same build. The same-shaped tattoo on his shoulder – the mascot of a local university, she could see now. Behind him was a view of one of the harbour bridges.
She was still examining the photo when a second message came through.
‘Not nearly on a par with your cheesecake, but you get the picture. I almost missed the location when I first looked at your pictures. Was in the middle of jerking off when I noticed the clock. Turn your chat on.’
She stared at the screen. She didn’t even know that the website that hosted her blog had an option to chat. She clicked on every menu she could find without success, reaffirming her overall hatred for other forms of social media.
When she found the CHAT ON option hidden in a bar at the bottom of the screen, she hesitated. She knew she should just call the whole thing off, but he had piqued her curiosity. She wanted the bigger picture before she dismissed him. Having no idea how to actually initiate a conversation with him, and not entirely sure she wanted to, Carrie returned to her mailbox.
In the middle of composing her reply, a window popped up.
ACCEPT CHAT FROM BSANDMAN?
‘Eager, aren’t we?’ she muttered and accepted the request, then waited for his first words.
‘Your turn,’ he had typed.
‘Sorry.’
‘Your turn to prove this is really the girl in the pictures.’
Carrie snorted and took another sip of her wine before responding. ‘I don’t have to prove anything. You just want a private show.’
‘It was worth a try. Are you married?’
‘I really don’t think that’s any of your business.’
‘Wow. I just want to know you better. You know where I live. Exactly where I live. You could probably stand at the bottom of my building and see me sitting here at the computer.’
It was true, and a bit of a relief. If indeed he was true, he lived in the tallest condo in the North End, not even a five-minute drive from her apartment. She’d been in it a few times when friends rented there. They were old, but nice.
‘Are you married?’ he persisted.
‘No. Currently single.’
‘Any children?’
‘When did this become online dating? You called me out on my blog.’
‘I wouldn’t say I called you out. More like a friendly wave hello.’
‘With your dick.’
‘Did you like it? Not specifically my dick, but the video.’
‘Fantastic. Kudos on not including a cumshot.’
‘Testy testy testy. Sent you another picture. Go look at it.’
Carrie expected full frontal, but instead she found herself looking at a completely casual shot of him sitting fully dressed in front of his computer. Dark hair. Thick eyebrows and the beginnings of a beard. He had a straight mouth that was twisted into a playful smile. He looked comfortable in a black hoodie.
‘Nice,’ she typed
‘Your turn.’
‘Not a chance.’
‘Come on. I’m dying to see the face that goes with that amazing body.’
Carrie couldn’t help the little spark of pleasure at his words, but still typed NO.
‘All right. I’ll see it soon enough.’
‘You think so.’
‘I’ll wear you down. Speaking of your amazing body, when are you going to post more shots of you in fishnets?’
‘When I’m in the mood.’
‘You come harder when you wear them, don’t you?’
She paused, fingers over the keyboard. Were all her subscribers reading her so easily?
‘Gotcha,’ he typed. ‘It’s easy to tell. Your nipples get really hard and you get goose bumps. And you’re insanely wet.’
‘It’s a part of the fantasy. What do you want?’
‘To play with you. Literally.’
She glanced at the benign boy-next-door photo maximised behind the chat window. She mentally tried to pair that classically handsome face with the man in the video who’d played with his lover, and found herself out of breath. The slow heat between her legs burned as her imagination weaved a tapestry. She could see herself in those fishnets he loved, legs wrapped around his waist, lips painted red and parted with a gasp as he gave her one sinful inch at a time.
The chat window flashed as he sent another message. ‘You don’t seem like the type to scare off easily. Maybe I was wrong.’
‘Look, if you’re looking for a quick fuck, look elsewhere. Thanks for looking at my pictures and all that, but I’m not interested.’
‘Not looking for a quick fuck, but now that I’ve talked to you, you seem like a sweet girl in fuck-me heels. I’m more interested than ever. Just meet me once and we’ll see where things go from there. No expectation. No nothing. Just … coffee.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Why not?’
She got up and headed back to the kitchen. The room swayed a little, but that didn’t stop her pouring out the last of the wine.
Why not? She could think of a million reasons, all of which involved ending up as a Dateline Mystery. She didn’t know him. He was just one of her pet perverts, nameless and faceless. He could be anyone. He could be dangerous.
And besides, she liked what she had going on. She could come and go as she pleased, getting off when she wanted and how she wanted it. She didn’t need a man in her life right now, even for a fling. It had taken her a long time to feel comfortable alone, and she wasn’t ready to give it up even for a few hours of sweating between the sheets.
His message was waiting for her when she stumbled back to the desk. ‘You pick the time and place. Broad daylight. One cup of coffee. A quick chat. You pull the plug whenever you want.’
Her curiosity growing, Carrie looked at the photo and then, cringing at her own weakness as she did, went back to the video. This time, she paid particular attention to the sound of his voice: the primal grunts that escalated as he pumped the woman harder, and within the woman’s shrieks the muttered words ‘That’s it, baby. Come over my cock.’
I don’t need this, she thought, going back to the chat window. She said it over and over in her head to convince herself.
I like being alone.
I’m not into casual sex.
I’m still healing.
The chat window flashed. ‘Still with me, Maggie?’
This is nuts.
Temptation won out. She could be that woman for real, for just an hour in a crowded coffee shop. Even if it was a disaster, she could be Maggie even for a little bit. She didn’t have to fuck him. She didn’t have to do anything but let him adore her in person.
She pulled the keyboard closer and sucked in a deep breath.
‘One cup of coffee. One hour. Get a pen, I’ll tell you when and where.’
Chapter Three
Sitting at a corner table with a steaming cup of tea in front of her, Carrie couldn’t remember the last time she was so wound up.
She’d arrived early, because that’s who she was. She always had to be prepared. She had to scope things out, look for distractions, escape routes, and to plot scenarios.
Since she had taken her seat, she’d found herself stuck on the same terrifying scenario. The video wasn’t really him. The man with the tattoo on his shoulder, the man who was in front of his computer in a North End condo, wasn’t the man who was coming to meet her. The pretty face and hot body were just lures, and she was waiting for some disgusting little man who had gotten tired of being shot down for intimate encounters on online dating sites.
As she sat there, part of her wished she had never started that damned blog. Giving herself a little exhibitionist thrill several times a day was simply not worth the anxiety that was killing her now.
You did this to yourself, not the blog. You could have pushed him back. You could have closed Dirty Pictures and started a new blog, taken new pictures and been more careful next time.
She brought her tea up to her lips and blew on it. She had no desire whatsoever to drink it, but wanted to hide behind it. Lift and blow. Lift and blow. All the while peeking at the door to see what this nightmare would bring her.
Every time a man walked in, her heart jumped into her throat and her stomach rolled.
You should have just told him to fuck off. You didn’t show your face. He’d never be able to prove it was you in 605. It could have been a cleaning lady, or any other woman in the building.
Yet there was no pinning it on him, at least not entirely. He hadn’t threatened her or so much as hinted at blackmail. He’d even given her the opportunity to say no, but she hadn’t, because she was curious. Because she wanted to know what would happen.
You’re not Maggie.
The door jingled open.
Lift and blow, and the young man made a beeline for a crowded table by the window.
Carrie wished she had picked a different coffee shop. This one was riddled with university students, but it was the only one she could think of that guaranteed she wouldn’t run into anyone she knew. She didn’t want to have to suffer interruptions and introductions. She wanted to be able to run when she pleased.
Carrie practised her escape in her head. If he came in and it wasn’t the man in the pictures, he didn’t know her face and she could retreat in just a few steps. She’d look at her watch, slide her sunglasses off her face and hike her purse over her shoulder. Then she’d breeze past him without the slightest acknowledgement.
Just like that, she’d leave. She’d go home, delete her blog and pray she never heard from him again.
A group of students loaded with enormous backpacks headed for the door. One pushed it open, and suddenly they were all parting like the Red Sea for a man coming in from the outside.
Carrie raised her cup.
It was him, the man in the webcam shot. He wore a look of expectation on his face as he looked around, his gaze going from table to table.
Her stomach fluttered.
There was no way to tell that this was the man on the video, but he was as attractive as the picture. Tall, but not too tall, with an average build. When he looked in her direction Carrie glanced down, but not before she saw those soulful brown eyes.
She took a sip. She still hadn’t made up her mind what to do. He was good looking, but he was new and terrifying and had come into her life in the most cosmically fucked-up way she could imagine.
She glanced up and her heart stopped. He looked directly at her. Their gazes actually locked, like in a book or an old movie.
Fighting away the shakes, Carrie pushed away her tea.
You don’t have to speak to him. You don’t have to look at him. Just walk past him.
But she didn’t. She raised her chin and looked at him, and he walked towards her.
‘Maggie?’
Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and she felt silly nodding at him.
So much for playing the vamp when you meet him. See? Not Maggie.
A smile came across his wide mouth as he pulled out the chair opposite hers.
In the moments after he took his seat, they simply sat regarding one another. He looked perfectly comfortable in the silence while Carrie wanted to squirm.
Close up, she could see the lines around his mouth and a few flecks of grey in his hair. He was about her age, maybe a couple of years older, and definitely someone she would have given a second glance if they had passed one another on the street.
He didn’t look like someone who spent all day looking at naked pictures on the Internet.
Then again, she didn’t look like someone who took them.
‘I’m surprised you came,’ he said, his gaze sliding over her face.
‘So am I.’
He leaned forward and folded his arms in front of him on the table. ‘I knew it was you. As soon as I spotted you, I knew. You look like a woman who’s wearing dirty things under her clothes.’
‘Do I really?’ She was genuinely surprised, and suspicious. He seemed so … sly.
‘When I first contacted you, I was expecting someone a little wilder, someone who would scare me off,’ he said. ‘I never would have done it if I’d thought you would react the way you did. I almost cancelled. I didn’t want to be the asshole that made you do something you didn’t want to do.’
Once again, his gaze moved downwards.
Curious.
Interested.
A long-forgotten fluttery feeling came over her: the blossoming pleasure of being admired by a good-looking man.
By the time his attention turned to her face, she was hot all over and she knew her cheeks showed it. She looked at the table top and wrapped her hands around the paper cup in front of her. After a moment’s silence, she realised he was waiting for her to speak.
She took a sip to wet her mouth and then looked at him. ‘Do you have a name?’
‘Brendan, and … Maggie isn’t your real name, I take it?’
‘No, and I don’t want to tell you my real name yet.’ She looked him straight in the eye as she spoke. She couldn’t help how defensive she was getting. ‘Not yet. For now, you can call me Maggie.’
He leaned back and grinned. ‘Well, Maggie, I’m going to get a cup of coffee and hope you’re still here when I come back. And then I think we should get out of here.’
‘I don’t think we should,’ she said with a scowl. ‘I don’t know what you were expecting, but –’
‘No, you misunderstand me. I just meant we should take our coffees and get out of this noisy little hole in the wall, head down the street to the park and get to know one another.’
Brendan stood over her. Carrie hated to look up at anyone and so she didn’t. She simply took another sip.
He chuckled, a delightful rumbling sound that ran right through her. ‘Can I get you another one?’
She hugged her cup between her hands and shook her head. ‘No, thank you.’
After he’d moved away, she lifted her chin and took a second look. He looked so normal, like any other man, and so far he had been nothing but sweet to her. The very act of speaking to the barista and slipping his debit card into the machine seemed out of place as she thought of how he had come out of the masturbatory haze of her blog. Tingles sparked along her arms and down her back, and she felt ashamed of her shyness in the face of a man who had seen so much of her from afar.
His slight swagger as he moved down the counter to wait for his drink painted a more accurate picture of confidence. The video had proved that. He had filmed himself fucking the woman because he had wanted to be seen. Perhaps it had started off as a private thing, but somewhere along the way he had decided to give it to the world to get off to.
Just like me, she thought.
Curiosity burned through her anxiety as she watched him and, in spite of herself, she wanted to know more. So she rose from the table and collected her things and met him at the door as he took his cup filled with ice and red liquid.
‘You can relax,’ he said as soon as they were out in the daylight together. ‘I know you’ll take it with a grain of salt, but I just want to talk. No expectations.’
‘Good. I don’t want you thinking I’m some kind of prostitute.’
‘I was thinking the complete opposite, actually.’
He led the way along a sidewalk busy with students hobbling like hunchbacks between campuses for coffee and lunch. A step behind him, Carrie let her gaze move over him and wondered if the back was as nice as the front when he was stripped down.
‘It’s funny how all these months I’ve been visiting your blog, getting myself off two or three times a day, and you were just a few steps away all this time.’
‘I don’t find it funny.’
‘No, I don’t expect you would, hiding in plain sight like that.’ He peered at her as they trotted along. ‘You’re very skittish, aren’t you?’
‘I’m cautious.’
‘Are you a virgin?’
Carrie stopped dead. ‘Because I didn’t immediately invite you for a fuck, you assume I’m a virgin?’
‘That got a rise out of you.’ He turned, his mouth in a mischievous twist. ‘I know you’re not a virgin, at least not in the clinical sense. I’ve seen all of your pictures. Maybe not skittish. More …’
‘Cautious.’
‘I want to say repressed.’
‘I’m not repressed.’ She was so annoyed she could have thrown her tea in his face. Instead, she tilted her nose in the air and glared at him. ‘Let’s talk about you now. You’re so well put together, so chatty, but you’re still a man who sits in front of a computer and jerks off to a woman with her panties twisted around her knees.’
His smile unwavering, Brendan leaned forward. ‘And you’re the type of woman who would shove her panties down to her knees and take a picture of her wet pussy so a man like me can jerk off to it.’
As he drew back, Carrie caught a whiff of his aftershave, a subtle mixture of menthol and something earthy and green. He never broke eye contact as he stood away from her, triumph on his handsome face.
After a moment, he shook his head. ‘I’m really not going to get into a pissing match with you. If you want to part ways right here, I’ll let you go … but I really don’t want to, and I don’t think you do either. You’re just as curious about me as I am about you.’
‘I don’t want to be analysed like a thing in an aquarium.’
‘Then tell me something about you, Maggie. Tell me how you came to start your blog.’
She walked alongside him, her thoughts muddled as she not only processed the fact that she hadn’t walked away but delved into her memories for the moment when this all began.
After Frank? Yes, the blog started after Frank. But it was more than Frank, and somewhere along the way it had separated from him completely.
‘I had a boyfriend who worked as a teacher up north,’ she said. ‘Three months collecting the big money up there, three months back here. He didn’t have a good Internet connection, so instead of video chatting I sent him pictures. I didn’t want to, at first, but I loved him and it was horrible having him so far away.’
‘And then you came to like it.’
Carrie took a deep breath. ‘I did. I’d take pictures of the things I’d bought when he was away and model them for him. Back then I just used the camera on my computer. I worried that he’d show the pictures to someone else, but as far as I know he never did. He sent back his own, and there we were for about a year.’
‘Did you ever take pictures when he was in town?’
She hesitated, then sighed and relented. ‘Once. He filmed me. After it fell apart …’
She stopped, hating herself as she recalled sitting at her computer, tears streaming down her face as she deleted every single photo, video and email.