Nerds Are Freaks Too (4 page)

She glided her thumb over her clit repeatedly. As the
sensitive bud stiffened, a frisson akin to static electricity shot through her
lower body and all the way up her arm.

“Ohh…now that’s more like it,” Roxanne purred. She moved her
fingers slowly. She’d suffered for eight long hours and she didn’t want to rush
this. With each measured stroke, Roxanne imagined Leo doing this to her, his
big, strong hands and fingers working and stretching her.

“Yes, yes,” she panted, her fervor increasing.

Roxanne pumped and rolled the sensitive button around and
around in a steady rhythm. Her clit swelled in gratitude, became slippery and
coated her thumb.

“Oh yeah,” Roxanne groaned, as pressure increased in the pit
of her belly. She knew she’d soon reach the peak. Her nipples were puckered and
her body buzzed, starting with her left butt cheek…

Roxanne frowned. The hand between her legs certainly wasn’t
vibrating her backside.

Her cell phone.

When will I catch a break?
Roxanne groped the rumpled
covers for her cell. Pulling it from under her, she glanced at the caller ID.
It was only her assistant Jessina—not Leo, as she’d secretly hoped.

Sighing loudly, Roxanne pressed the receiver button.

“
Buenos dias
!”

“Good morning, Jessina.”

“Are you coming in today?”

“Sure, why do you ask?” Sitting up, Roxanne’s gaze flew to
the digital clock on the nightstand. It was only seven o’clock. Her store,
Golden Years—one of Chicago’s hippest vintage boutiques—didn’t open for another
three hours.

“Well, I’m down here at Sunny Side waiting on you.”

Dammit!
It was Friday. One of the busiest days of the
week at the boutique. To get ready for the impending chaos, she and Jessina met
every Friday morning at their favorite mom-and-pop diner.

“I’m sorry, Jessina. I overslept,” Roxanne lied, throwing
back the covers and rolling out of bed. “Give me thirty minutes and I can meet
you.”

“No need to rush. Besides, I’m starving. By the time you got
here I’d be gnawing at my own foot. Go ahead and sleep in a little longer. I’ll
have breakfast then go open up the boutique.”

Roxanne experienced a twinge of guilt. As the owner, she
should be the one opening the store, not laying in bed masturbating. “Are you
sure?”

“You always look out for me, so it’s only right I return the
favor.”

“I appreciate it, Jessina. I had a rough night. While you’re
eating breakfast, I’ll get a jump on all the online stuff, so when I come in we
can get the storeroom in order. And I really want to change out the front
window.”

“Sounds good to me. See you later,
ciao
.”

Roxanne said goodbye. As she leaned over to place the phone
on the nightstand, she hesitated, her thumb hovering over the number one key.
All she needed to do was punch the number then hit send, and it would speed
dial Leo’s cell number.

“What the heck are you doing? There’s absolutely no way you
and Leo could be anything other than friends.” If things didn’t work out, she’d
lose a lover
and
a friend. And that wasn’t worth any amount of sex in
the world.

Shelving her moment of insanity, Roxanne reached for her
bathrobe, slipped her arms into its cloudlike softness and went into the
bathroom, where she washed her face and hands.

Determined to get back on track before she ended up a
lonely, old woman with a Rabbit vibrator and fifty cats, she left her bathroom
and walked the short distance down the hall to her home office.

With each step her determination grew, and by the time
Roxanne plopped down into her office chair, she no longer had thoughts of
taking Leo as a lover. Well…almost.

Loaded with extra RAM, complements of her sexual tormentor,
Roxanne’s laptop booted up in a matter of seconds. After logging in, she
tracked the delivery of the boutique’s resort collection, processed orders from
the online website and answered as many email messages as she could handle
without her brain frying.

An hour later, Roxanne found herself in a satisfying lull.
She’d made such good use of her time, she could play around a little before
hopping in the shower. She jumped up and ran downstairs. She’d left the
business card with her username and password on the coffee table in the living
room.

“I am
not
going to give in to you, Mr. Leonidas
Papadopoulos,” she muttered, once again sitting back down in front of her
laptop. “You might know what you’re doing, but there are plenty of kinky fish
in the sea. And I’m going to find one.”

Even if she only half-believed her self-affirmation, Roxanne
pressed ahead by typing in the URL address for WhipADate.com.

“Oh my,” Roxanne whispered as the website’s homepage popped
up in all its S&M-style glory.

The site must change its graphics regularly, because the
couple featured previously was now a threesome. Sans clothing, a woman stood
facing a giant X, while two men in full face masks and tiny black briefs
flanked her. One held a length of rope, the other a garden hose.

“Oh my,” Roxanne repeated. Was she really ready to explore
her kinky side with a complete stranger?

Of course not, but her stupid curiosity wouldn’t allow her
to run scared now. Especially not after last night.

After navigating through the welcome screen, she clicked
into her member profile. To her surprise, she already had several messages
waiting in her inbox.

Roxanne tapped her foot excitedly, weighing whether to open
her inbox or not. “Come on, big shot. It’s time to put out or shut up.”

Making up her mind, Roxanne weeded through the initial
welcome email then proceeded to open several others she’d received from various
members. Their emails were straight to the point and seemed torn out of
BDSM
Dating for Dummies
. Kink with a side of perversion was the order of the
day.

Every message was an open and unabashed invitation to
partake in a vice or fetish much too hardcore for Roxanne’s taste. She didn’t
have any interest in being a personal potty, a footstool or being kept.

Not finding anyone or anything of interest, Roxanne sent
each sender a polite “thanks, but no thanks”.

Already sexed out for the day, Roxanne decided to sign off.
Just as her finger moved toward the power button—a sex swing suddenly flew onto
the computer screen.

Amused and interest piqued, she clicked on the image. The
swing slowly dissolved to display a message.

Hello,

Thought I would never meet a woman under the age of
thirty who still plays charades while sipping on Tom & Jerrys. I love small
talk, dessert before dinner and playing tag football in the park on Sundays.
Think we should meet at Restoration Hardware so we can pick out China patterns?
Just kidding! Let your guard down and let me in.

ThePuppetMaster

Impressed by his ability to write something other than,
“Hey, you’re beautiful, I’d love to duct tape you to the bathroom door”,
Roxanne clicked through to his member page.

“Twenty-nine-year-old Caucasian male, six-foot-three with an
athletic build. College educated. Self-employed. No kids. Never Been Married.
Living with Pets.”

Needing to find some kind of hidden flaw, she kept reading
aloud.

“Your hobbies include—drinking overpriced coffee, trying to
decipher abstract art, working out, taking spontaneous road trips, renting old
black-and-white movies and watching the Chicago Bulls. On the freak scale of
one to five whips, you rate yourself at four and a half.”

Well, at least he was modest. Roxanne glanced over at the
website’s Whip-O-Matic scale. According to his personal rating, he liked
voyeurism and/or exhibitionism, mutual bondage, random role playing and some
fetishes with the right person.

Her excitement mounting, she searched his profile for a
photo. There wasn’t one, just an empty box where a photo might go.

Roxanne frowned. He was almost too good to be true. She
coveted her membership to Play It Again Video and her Java the Hut,
buy-seven-cups-of-coffee-get-one-free card. She also attended every exhibit at
the Museum of Contemporary Art. And she and Leo had held Chicago Bulls season
tickets since 2004.

Déjà vu tickled the back of her neck.

It couldn’t be Leo…could it? “He wouldn’t be that cruel or
that stupid,” Roxanne mumbled. “I would put my foot so far up his behind, he
wouldn’t be able to walk straight for a week.”

Roxanne’s doubts evaporated like smoke when a live-chat
request appeared in the upper-right-hand corner of her computer screen—from
ThePuppetMaster. A simple graphic containing an open field for running
dialogue, the message box also allowed for the exchange of pictures or images.

Unlike his profile, there was an image attached to the
request.

“Hello, gorgeous.” Roxanne wolf whistled. Her admirer’s
picture featured a hunk of a man in the process of removing a white t-shirt
over his head. The shirt covered most of his face, except for his chiseled jaw,
a pair of full lips and a nose.

Roxanne pulled the collar of her now too heavy bathrobe. His
tanned skin was roped with corded muscles only long hours in the gym and a
proper diet could produce. Eight-pack abs and chiseled v-cuts peeked over a
pair of low-slung jeans. His body was a lethal catalyst for any woman’s
late-night fantasy, or gay man’s wet dream.

Roxanne plopped her head in her hands. She’d always been a
sucker for a hard body. And
this
guy’s body hit her like a sucker punch
below the belt. Roxanne tried to stop the excited jump of her clit by shifting
in her desk chair, but it only accelerated the throbbing.

“Come on, get a grip, girl,” she chastised. “The sight of a
beautiful body and a few common interests shouldn’t have you panting in heat.”

Roxanne peeked at the computer screen again as he typed a
message—then immediately jumped up and started to pace. She wasn’t ready yet
for any kind of rapport, especially when she didn’t know the rules for internet
dating. Like, were you a slut if you talked to several guys at once? Or how
many messages needed to be exchanged before you pulled out the Hershey’s
chocolate and chilled pineapple rings?

Roxanne racked her brain for reasonable etiquette. Coming up
empty, she returned to the desk and reached for the power button. But while
she’d been wearing down her carpet, he’d left a brief message.

ThePuppetMaster
: Haven’t seen your profile before.
First time?

Roxanne leaned back, mentally relaxing. Somehow his
intuitiveness soothed her rattled nerves.

WantTheBIGOne
: Yes

Soon after pressing the enter button, Roxanne regretted her
monosyllabic reply. Holding a degree in Serial Dating, couldn’t she have come
up with something wittier and sexier than “yes”?

“Great, now he’s going to think I’m a social retard.”

ThePuppetMaster
: No problem. Never know what kind of
weirdoes or stalkers you might meet online.

“Ding, ding, ding…two points for ThePuppetMaster!” His
honesty was refreshing. Online dating wasn’t half bad.

WantTheBIGOne
: Speaking of weirdoes and stalkers…my
name’s Roxanne. And yours?

Roxanne didn’t supply her last name. She didn’t think that
wise just yet.

ThePuppetMaster
: I’m Constantine. I’m not a stalker,
but weirdo may be up for debate. So what’s a beautiful woman like you doing on
WhipADate.com?

Roxanne tugged at her earlobe. How could she explain to a
stranger she wanted to be freaked up and down and any which way but loose and
still be respected in the morning?

“Better to beat around the bush,” she said, deciding on her
game plan.

WantTheBIGOne
: I didn’t have any luck meeting the
right man in all the usual places. So, I ended my gym membership, stopped
hanging out in the produce department and stalking the youth pastor, and
decided to try my chances online.

ThePuppetMaster
: Don’t believe it. A good-looking
girl like you, with those brown eyes that make me melt, should have them lining
up around the block.

WantTheBIGOne
: I stand corrected. I couldn’t find
what I was looking for in any of the men I dated.

ThePuppetMaster
: What are you
looking for? A
husband? Or not quite ready for commitment and just looking to date around or
hook up on the occasional booty call? Yes, I went there. :)

WantTheBIGOne
: Straight to the point?

ThePuppetMaster
: I don’t want to waste my time or
yours if we’re not on the same page.

Roxanne stared down at the keyboard, struggling with how to
word her answer. She didn’t want to come off like a delusional
twenty-something.

WantTheBIGOne
: I’m here to explore my sexuality.

It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t entirely forthcoming.

ThePuppetMaster
: Looking to release the inner vixen?

WantTheBIGOne
: No problem in that area. I’m always
willing to try something three times before I’ve decided it isn’t for me.

ThePuppetMaster
: My kind of woman. So if you’re so
open-minded about sex, then your issue must lay someplace deeper.

Roxanne drummed her fingers on the keyboard, careful not to
depress any of the keys. Even if they were hiding behind computer screens, it
was still difficult to share something so personal with a complete stranger.

WantTheBIGOne
: Sex has always been just okay for me.
I’ve never experienced the mind-shattering, moving-mountains kind of orgasm.

ThePuppetMaster
: That explains your username. I was
under the assumption you were looking for a big cock. In case you’re interested,
I’m almost eight inches and as thick as a woman’s wrist.