The Miracle in July

Step right up you’re the next contestant
In this sweet charade
Take a number, wait while I twist your fate

[The Mating Game] by [Bitter:Sweet]

The late afternoon sky is the color of light turquoise streaked with arrows of dark brown starlings and cloud wisps. It is framed square in the ceiling above my bed where I lie swelling with a lazy longing under goose feather blankets and loose pages of erotica. I’ve spent the night and most of the morning recalling the stories Daniel and I wrote to each other until crumpling into unconsciousness. The words are just as I remembered them: picturesque.

I knew they would be. The specialness of the stories was not in the letters grouped and then scattered straight, left to right, between the white spaces and punctuation. It is not just the concentrated effort to perfect the art of the sexy story, or mastering the awkward beat in the digital dance of an instant message conversation. Our words became a secret lover’s language. Our words meant everything to us. But not at first. At first it was just about getting off, with no strings attached.

I marked the occasion with a red symbol in [my calendar], a big heart circling the eleven of a long-ago date in July. That’s what we called them: dates. We joked about our “imaginary” relationship,  and we called our synchronized masturbation “dating”.

I was soap cleaned, shaved and naked ten minutes before I was due to meet Daniel in a private instant message conversation. The nine-hour time difference made it nighttime for me and morning sex for Daniel. I spent my extra time making sure the computer program was working, and I updated my avatar to an image of [my lips] waiting for a kiss. I had no computer camera or speakers, or any expectations.

I was holed up in my bedroom, fidgeting on fresh sheets, the shower’s lingering steam like a [fever rising] out of my skin. I experiment with where to put my laptop and where I should lay on my bed. Should I lay down? Should I sit up? In my memories I am illuminated by both the blue light from my computer’s screen and the yellow light from paraffin candles. I am still too thin, and my breasts still droop, but my skin is very soft. Touchable. Fuckable.

A chime called my anxious, roaming thoughts to the computer screen, where a text-box had appeared. It was asking me to choose. Did I want to accept Daniel’s request for a chat? Yes or no? I said yes, unknowingly twisting my fate towards an impossible love.

“Ever been to [Venice]?” Daniel asked.

I promised to do whatever was asked of me and settled in for our sweet charade. Daniel controlled the pace of the story. He would stagger our imaginary lovemaking, heightening my anticipation for each expertly timed sentence-by-sentence spurt in the chat-window. I was obviously dealing with someone who’d done this plenty of times before. I relaxed immediately and gave up control of my fingers. I would soon be wrapped in Daniel’s [ecstasy].

The story takes place [on a train rumbling] from Verona to Venice, a long trip of three hours or so. The Italian countryside blurs green and yellow outside the window of the private coach we are in. There is Barolo to suck off our lips and a Conductor who ogles my nipples, which poke through my thin, sweat-soaked cotton shirt.

Daniel’s fantasy unfolded deliciously dirty, and almost immediately I was struck with the details in the story. I had read bits of his writing online before, and he wrote well for English being his second language, but these words were especially well written. I was impressed. I remember thinking that many other women may been impressed as well. I marveled at my good luck in spinning the [wheel of fortune] and winning such a beautiful distraction for my mending heart.

“Perfect,” I said. “Yes, I see it.”

“You can start touching yourself now,” said Daniel. “Picture it.”

Twenty minutes later, according to my printout, Daniel ends the story with “you fall on top of me exhausted, breathing hard.” I floated [into dust] the color of space blue and mixed into the light from the laptop beside me. It takes me five minutes to gather my atoms and punch out “great story, hold please” and another four before I can answer his question, “are you sweating?” I am: my upper lip and nipples are damp.

“How do you get cum off the keyboard?” Daniel asks.

“You can wait for it to dry, and then go buy a new one,” I quipped.

Small-talk follows. I mention that I enjoyed the taste of my sex on the lips and cock of my lover. He details, at my prodding, his personal cock-stroking technique, and I laugh at him when he uses the word “spittle”. I tell him that I love the part of the story where he rubs my pussy with my own fingers.

“Who’d have thought the possibilities of this relationship should result in this?” Daniel said. “You’re a bad girl — a very bad but hot girl, and those lips keep smooching me.” He is fascinated by the picture of my lips in the instant messenger chat box.

And then, for the second time that night, Daniel surprised me. “This story is to be continued. We’ll arrive at Venice the next time.”

“Of course, ” I replied. “Tuck me in, darling?”

“I want you to Google Venice for me, so you’re there when we continue — and then you’ll do the talking.”

Not only did Daniel want this sexy story exchange to continue, he also wanted me to write the next one. “Good lord! Pressure already?” I whined.

“Ha! Welcome to my world,” said Daniel. “Sleep tight and satisfied.”

I purred for him, typing each letter with kittenish strokes. I enjoyed teasing him. “Damn girl,” mused Daniel.

We set up another “date,” just three days from then, and I drifted off to sleep to the sound of trains clanging in the air of my industrial [St. Johns] neighborhood, so very far from the scenery in Italy which I dreamt of all night.

The next day I started writing my first dirty story. It was slow going, with many false starts, and I kept having to retreat to my bedroom or shower — wherever I could find privacy — to masturbate. My nipples were constantly erect, my online lover monopolizing all of my thoughts, as I plotted my story. I wanted to craft a scenario so hot that its heat would be felt 5,000 miles away. I wanted to write a story even more erotically visceral than Daniel. I was challenged and engaged.

The next time Daniel and I shared sex together — at 2pm my time and 11pm his — I upped the ante.

“Smooch,” I typed. “Are you ready for our date?”

“Hold, please. Phone.”

This annoyed me, I admit. My debut sex story is set to be unleashed and I’m waiting. Didn’t we agree to meet at a certain time? Did I waste my time creating a sex scene for an inconsiderate asshole? I wilted slightly, and pouted like a child.

“Sorry,” Daniel typed. “Mum.” Good enough excuse, but I punished Daniel anyway by making him wait a few of minutes before typing: “Ah, yes. Parental figures. No big deal.”

“I’ve been so fucking horny all day,” said Daniel.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“At the freeway,” he shot back. “I’m at home in a chair in front of the ‘puter, naked.”

“Very good. I have all my clothes on,” I said.

“WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?” moaned Daniel. I smiled. That’s right baby, I thought. You’re going to eat this up.

I described what I was wearing, and then the order in which I was taking my clothes off. When I was nude, I wrote that I had been in that state a lot since our first date, that I couldn’t stop touching myself, to again feel the tingle that makes my sexual skin swell.

Finally, after much teasing, I typed: “do you want me to tell you a story?”

“Yes, bring it on darling,” replied Daniel.

It was within minutes after shutting down my computer, as I was basking in the scent of my sexual gratification, that I received a text message from my mother:

Just letting you know Ruthie is in the hospital 4 at least a month. She starts kidney dialysis today. Liver is bad. Awaiting info on possible transplant listing.

What had I just typed to Daniel at the start of our date? “Ah, yes. Parental figures. No big deal.” I hurled back down to the Earth after my [walk on the moon]. Ruthie was dying.

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The Miracle in July is the work of author Michelle Anderson.