so different than us, Brooke. I mean, everything about how he views people and the world. Every conversation I have with him is so interesting.”
“Blah blah,” she says as she wags her hand. “Get to the part where these interesting, philosophical conversations turn into phone sex.”
“Well, obviously I met him through that fetish site, and I’ve been asking him a lot of questions about the things he’s into and stuff, and I don’t know, I’m not even sure how it happened, but before I knew it, we were . . . well . . . you know!”
“No. I don’t know. I’ve been sitting at home all day cleaning and being a mom while you’re over here having phone sex with some dude you met on a fetish site. I expect full details because apparently your life is way more interesting than mine.”
“What do you want to know?”
“First off, what does this guy look like? Have you even seen a picture of him?”
I grab my laptop, quickly log in to my account, and pull up his profile picture.
“He looks suspect, Tori. That guy looks way too normal.”
I laugh. “That’s exactly what I said too, but then he sent me this other photo when I questioned him.” I then open the picture of him holding the piece of paper with my name on it, and when Brooke looks at it, she bursts out laughing.
“You’re not into ass eating? I totally pegged you as an ass muncher.”
“That’s so gross.”
“So that’s the guy?”
I nod. “His name is Alec. He lives across the river from you.”
“He looks older,” she notes.
“He’s forty-one.”
“Yum!”
“I know, right? When did older guys with graying hair become so sexy?”
She closes the lid to the laptop and says, “When we started getting older.” Brooke folds her legs underneath her and then pulls one of the throw blankets over her lap, making herself comfortable before asking, “So, what’s this guy like?”
“Honestly . . . he’s addicting. Maybe it’s just because he’s someone new and it’s exciting to get to know him, but he’s also very blunt. He has no reservations when it comes to talking about sex. He speaks of it so casually and openly.”
I continue to tell her about his fetishes, his family, and the dirty things he says to me. We’re like two teenage girls, gossiping and giggling as I divulge all I can about Alec. She gets swept away in the allure just as easily as I do every time Alec is on my mind—which is often. She even opens the laptop back up just so she can drool over his photo. When I finish off my glass of wine, I add, “He’s seriously like nothing I’ve ever experienced in a person before.”
“But what about Landon?” she questions, her tone sobering.
“It’s not like I’m hanging out with him. I’ll never meet the guy. I’m just having a little fun,” I tell her. “I mean, guys turn to other women to get off when they watch porn, so . . .”
“So Alec is your version of porn?”
Shrugging my shoulders with a light smirk on my face, I say, “Men are visual, women are emotional. So yeah, he’s porn.”
“Well, I can see why he’s addicting. Maybe I should create an account on that site and get my own Alec.” And just as she says this, my phone chimes with an incoming text.
Alec: Miss you.
I smile and then hold the phone out so she can read the text. “All throughout the day, either I’m texting or he is.”
“‘Miss you’?” she questions suspiciously.
“It’s just something we say. It’s either ‘Miss you’ or ‘Thinking about you’ and stuff like that.”
“So basically you guys are like infatuated high schoolers on a hormone overload?”
“Pretty much,” I agree and then text him back.
Me: Miss you too.
Alec: What are you doing?
Me: Hanging out with my girlfriend, chitchatting, and drinking wine.
Alec: Any interesting topics?
“What’s he saying?” Brooke questions and then scoots against me so she can read the text exchange.
“Should I tell him he’s the topic?”
“Totally,” she eagerly encourages, and as I type my response, I tell her, “We’re acting like children, you know?”
Me: Nothing too interesting. You might have come up once.
“We act like kids because something exciting is finally happening in our predictable lives,” she responds when I send the text to Alec.
Alec: What did you tell her?
Me: That you’re an elderly, foul-mouthed sexual deviant. LOL!
Alec: This elderly man just might sit you on his lap and feed you a lollipop.