Available to Chat

by Sutton, Jacy

  Her right hand remained on her thigh. Her left moved more insistently now, and she shocked herself, feeling no modesty. His voice, his words, surrounded her, and her own touch was so intense, she felt he was there with her.

  “I bet you taste wickedly good.”

  She slid a second finger in, imagining his thickness.

  “You need me inside you, don’t you, sweetie? The weight of my body pressing down on you? My arms wrapped possessively around you? Demanding you. Filling you. That sweet breast needs attention too, doesn’t it?”

  She nodded in agreement.

  “Squeeze. Hard,” he commanded, and she followed his direction.

  “Oh Liv, that’s me,” he told her. “I’m touching you everywhere, filling you. Imagine my arms tight around you. Imagine my lips kissing you. My naked body pressed against yours. Demanding you.”

  His voice. His words. Her touch. All came together, lifting her to the edge.

  “I wouldn’t give you any rest, baby. I’d thrust deeper and deeper. Wouldn’t even let you take a breath.”

  “Ohhh.” She wanted to hold on one more exquisite moment before her release.

  “My Olivia,” he said, declaring that she belonged to him. Then he commanded, “Olivia, come for me. Now.”

  What choice did she have? She exploded in exquisite, sweet sensation, thrilling to the rush of heat and the dizzying release. She laughed joyously, lifting her hips off the floor as she rode the frenzied wave. She heard his voice, calling her name so clearly, it was as if his lips were pressed tightly against her ear, and it mixed with the spasms of pleasure, still filling her. She relished it, not wanting to let the feeling subside. Finally, she curled herself back onto the floor, her eyes still closed, waiting to hear him call her again. She wanted to stay lost in that feeling of him right there, beside her.

  “That was so sexy,” he told her.

  She opened her eyes and rolled to her side and smiled magnificently at him.

  “I loved watching you,” he said.

  She caught sight of herself in the small screen, and she repositioned her body, leaning on her elbows, so he could see the arc of her well-rounded breasts. She grinned as though she’d just been named Miss Congeniality.

  “And you?” she asked. “How do I take care of you?”

  For the briefest second, she imagined him saying, “Drive here tonight.” And she would have. And quickly. But instead he said, “I did as I watched you.”

  That it had happened off camera, that she had not witnessed it, felt a bit hollow. For all this intimacy, she had not really felt his touch or kissed his sweet lips. She longed desperately to feel his actual skin against hers, the heat it would radiate, the coarseness of his beard, the tenderness of his caress. Instead, he could only stroke her with his words.

  They continued to talk in that way lovers do, as if they lay next to each other, his arms around her, her cheek pressed to his chest. He smiled and reached his hand out. She lifted hers to the screen and their palms touched, virtually.

  “How do we end this for the night?” he asked. Olivia clicked on his image to minimize the screen. The clock read 2:12 a.m.

  She imagined suggesting they fall asleep with Skype on so she could hear him in the night. She wondered if he snored. And then, if she were to wake, she could look over and see him. But instead she said, “With a good night kiss?”

  He nodded tiredly, and she lifted her palm to her mouth, kissed it gently and blew it toward him.

  “Tomorrow?” she said.

  “Tomorrow morning,” he whispered back. It was a promise.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  LUXURIOUSLY, SHE AWOKE after eleven. Her first thought was simply his name: Jake. She walked to the kitchen, grabbing some coffee as she started up the computer and logged on to Facebook. Jake’s light was on.

  “Good morning,” she wrote.

  “Sleeping Beauty awakes.”

  “What time did you get up?”

  “Four hours ago. Let’s Skype.”

  “Now? Now!” she typed with emphasis. “I literally just woke up. My hair is everywhere. I don’t have any makeup on. This afternoon.”

  “Olivia, if you’d woke up beside me you wouldn’t have any makeup on. Your hair would be everywhere. Let me see you.” When she didn’t respond right away, he typed, “Please.”

  She sighed. And opened Skype.

  When they were both on-screen, he said, “You look perfect. You don’t need any makeup, you know.”

  She didn’t believe a word of it, but loved that he’d said it. He looked so domestic this morning, coffee cup in hand, loose T-shirt, reading glasses on.

  “Last night,” she said, meaning much more than the simple words conveyed.

  “Watching you,” he said, and he shook his head slightly. “Knowing that was just for me.”

  She looked directly into his eyes and nodded.

  “Your body is beautiful,” he told her.

  “You too,” she said, and her hand reached out as it had last night to touch the screen, wishing she could physically touch him.

  He set his coffee down and picked up a screwdriver.

  “What are you working on?” she asked.

  He held up a square of pink particle board. “Assembling a bookcase.”

  “You’re handy.”

  “Very.” He raised his eyebrow suggestively, before turning back to the oversized cardboard box next to him and reaching inside. “You know,” he said, pulling out a clear plastic bag filled with silver washers and small wooden dowels, “when I was a kid, I used to do projects like this with my dad. Maybe I should have waited till Dana brought the kids home to put this together.” He looked down at the hundred-odd pieces arrayed on the floor around him in a semicircle.

  “I wish there were more things Daniel and I did together. He and Mike share a lot of interests.”

  “What do you mean? You’re the swim team booster club president.” Jake teased her with an easy grin.

  “Yes,” she laughed. “And Daniel’s very impressed with that. I do it to stay close to him.”

  He plucked one of the dowels from the bag and stuck it in a small hole in the board.

  “Well, that and the power, of course,” she said. “I singlehandedly decide if we have cookies or bars at the meetings.”

  He smiled, still staring at the board.

  “Are you close with your mom?” Olivia asked.

  “Yes. The Christmas I was eleven,” Jake said, setting the screwdriver down, “there was a bike under the tree.” He reached once more for the shelf diagram, studied it briefly, then turned toward Olivia. “A Schwinn Le Tour ten-speed. Cherry red. I loved that bike. I couldn’t wait to take it out. I wanted to right then, but, of course my folks said no.”

  “Well, you did live in Minnesota.” Olivia topped off her coffee as she listened.

  “True. So a few days later when I was the only one home.…”

  “Yes?”

  “I snuck it out for a quick ride.”

  “Oh no,” she said, and she studied his face. When he grinned his right eye crinkled up just a tad more than his left, making that side of his smile a little higher. He looked so perfectly unique, Olivia had to bite down on her lower lip. “I’m afraid to ask what happened next.”

  “About what anyone smarter than an eleven-year-old would predict. I hit an ice patch. Spun out. Bent the front tire and lost a tooth.” He opened his mouth and pointed to the one beside his front right. “Cap.”

  “Jake,” she said. She wished she could kiss him gently, just softly on the cheek. Maybe a bit lower, near the corner of that crinkly smile. Possibly just on the top of his upper lip.

  “Olivia, were you going to say something?”

  “Oh,” she sighed. “Just that that wasn’t a very happy Christmas story.”

  “It has a good ending.” He reached for another piece of the bookcase, and inserted the other side of the dowel to make a half-square. “My mom bought me hockey skates.
She said as long as I looked like a pro hockey player, I might as well play the game. And she said skates fit the season better. So that made me feel better.”

  “That’s a kind mom.”

  “Yeah. Dad came around fairly quickly and forgave me, too. He loved to skate with me at the pond down the road from our house, so it all worked out.”

  “Billy liked to play hockey too, didn’t he?” Olivia asked. She picked up her laptop and walked to the family room to fold laundry.

  “Absolutely. He was out there with us every night.”

  Olivia still wore just the clingy, white cotton tank top she’d slept in, and a pair of fitted black leggings. She picked up one of Daniel’s shirts and began flattening the creases. “This is very domestic, isn’t it?” She watched him take a small metal L-shaped tool and screw a side of the bookcase together. She was struck by how natural it felt to keep each other company.

  “It is.” They each worked silently for a few minutes, seemingly absorbed in their respective tasks. And then Jake said, “He leaves you alone too much.”

  “He does,” she agreed. “But I don’t mind so much lately.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of you.”

  She watched his face, looking for the pleasure the compliment would bring, but instead he said coolly, “I’m just here for entertainment purposes, Liv.”

  She stumbled on an answer.

  He changed the subject before anything came to mind. “Any luck on the O issue?”

  She puckered her lips and made a funny cartoon face. “None at all. Still elusive.”

  And for the first time, his expression clouded over and his eyes looked suddenly drab.

  “It’s not a problem with you,” she said. “You saw last night.”

  He rubbed his eyebrow and shut his eyes for a moment, “But honestly, you still haven’t done it with a man.”

  “No one knows that better than I do.” Olivia studied Jake, searching for some reaction. Jake studied the upside-down pink bookcase he held. “I work hard to take care of myself,” she said, to his downward glance. “And it kills me that no one is enjoying this body. Least of all, me.”

  Jake looked at her now. She could see him take in her eyes, her expression, then glance at that figure that she’d just claimed pride in. Then he put another screw in, righted it, and asked, “How’s it looking?”

  “Great. Your daughter will love it.” Olivia held the towel she’d picked up from the laundry basket and looked directly at him. “Jake, I want us to make love. Just once.” She lifted her finger to the screen, touching the flat glass and wishing she could feel his warm skin, his taut muscles, his too-long hair.

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “You don’t think I want to go to bed with you?”

  “I don’t think you’d want to just once.”

  She laughed out loud. “No. Probably not.”

  “Neither of us would want just once.” He picked up a couple washers laying on the carpet and changed the subject again, “How’s your book?”

  “I’m sort of stuck,” she said, both relieved and disappointed to leave the topic of their lovemaking or lack thereof. “I’m reworking a scene that comes right after the chapters you read for me. It’s the first night after the boys meet Deborah. At this point, she’s still disguised as a man. The boys’ problem is they need to be inconspicuous so they’re not discovered. I’m trying to think how they would all get to know each other. How they’d entertain themselves in 1775?”

  “Well, they’d talk.”

  “They have to be careful not to say too much. Nothing about the future, of course. But also, not look too surprised by anything in the past.”

  “It’s night,” Jake said, getting into the spirit of the challenge.

  “They’re all sitting around a campfire,” Olivia added.

  “They’d be playing music. At least I would.”

  “Would they have played a guitar back then, do you think?”

  “There were some around. I’d guess a fiddle, though.”

  “Perfect,” Olivia said, standing abruptly to grab a notepad. She caught view of her silhouette in the camera, and Jake’s words came to her, your body is beautiful. She slid her hand down her hip as though smoothing a wrinkle in the fabric, and she heard him give an appreciative hiccup.

  She wandered off camera in search of a pad and paper. “I like the fiddle idea,” she said, lingering a half second, hoping he’d watch for her return. When she came back, she caught him staring at the screen, biting unconsciously at his lip. “Good idea,” she said, as much about the instrument as about his unspoken desire.

  “Thank you.”

  “Maybe I should make you a character in the book. The soldier who happens upon the group and joins in the impromptu jam session.”

  “I think we should make a deal. I’m never a character in any of your books.”

  “I’d disguise you.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You can have me play the accordion.”

  “Something like that.” She grinned at him. “My laundry’s all folded. I’d better go shower.”

  Jake suggested lewdly she bring the laptop in the bathroom and he would keep her company.

  “You know,” she reminded him, “we’re not even two hours apart. We could keep each other company.”

  He looked at her. His eyes stared into hers, and she wished she didn’t still look as though she’d just climbed out of bed.

  “I can’t cross that line, Olivia. I’m sorry.” And then, as a peace offering he said, “Let’s have dinner tonight. On Skype. What’s your favorite wine? I’ll buy the same.”

  She thought about trying to change his mind, but instead answered, “Gewurztraminer. In the blue bottle.”

  “How do you spell that?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Blow me a kiss,” he said. “I’ll see you at dinner, Liv.”

  And Olivia did as she was told.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  JAKE WASN’T ON MUCH the first few days after the long weekend, and a particularly busy week of Daniel activities kept Olivia from brooding over his absence. But each time she logged on, more often as the week progressed, the disappointment of not finding him felt sharper, like a missed opportunity. She knew the moments with Jake had had an unsustainable intensity, but by Thursday, she was forced to admit her evenings, even with all there was to do, stung from those moments of unoccupied time.

  At the end of an evening when she opened Facebook to no sign of him, her finger tapped in nervous frustration on the side arm of the couch, as though she could reach him by Morse code.

  Absentmindedly, she’d try to write a couple passable paragraphs for the book, but soon she’d click back to Facebook for another session of watching for Jake’s light to come on. But he held himself just out of her reach, randomly taking turns on Words With Friends without coming online to chat. It made her think of the phantom pains of an amputee.

  After a few moments of nothing, she walked to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, holding the door wide to survey its contents. Yogurt? Cheese? Leftover lasagna? She opened the freezer. Mocha Moose Caramel ice cream? Olivia wrinkled her nose. She couldn’t even decide if she was hungry or thirsty. Most likely, neither. Suddenly she wondered why she always chided Daniel for doing this. She banged the door shut and walked back to her computer empty-handed.

  Her message light was on. Her breath caught. It was Jake.

  “Hey,” he wrote.

  “Hi. How are you? How was Friday?”

  “Good. I can’t stay on long.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. I should probably go now.”

  She glared at the screen and tried to think of something to write beyond another oh.

  “Good night,” he typed.

  “Wait. Wait,” she wrote quickly. “Please, Jake.”

  “What.” She could literally feel his jaw muscles tighten.

  “It’s just we haven’t talked in
so long.”

  “I know. But I’m being called,” he wrote. “I’ve got to go.” And his chat status went to off.

  Olivia felt something steely and cold deep in her chest.

  She went to bed shortly after, lying alone in the near pitch-blackness, having left a small night-light on for Mike when he came to sleep. She tried to reconcile the two Jakes. The man who had flirted, wooed, and seduced her. And the man tonight. Cold, abrupt Jake who had neither the time, nor evidently the inclination, for her.

  How much later Mike came to bed she couldn’t tell, but she was still wide awake, her body anxious and taut. Mike moved about the room as silently as he could. She could make out his silhouette walking to the closet to fold his jeans and set them on the shelf. Then he walked, naked, to his nightstand to grab clean boxers to sleep in. She heard a soft, small thud followed by Mike’s muttered swearing. She could have let him know she wasn’t asleep. She could have asked what he’d done. Stubbed a toe? Rammed his shin into the nightstand? But she lay silently, angry with Jake, hurting and too convinced of her own suffering to reach out to her husband.

  Olivia remained awake through Mike’s continued mutterings, then as he climbed into bed, pitched about, and searched for just the right position. Finally, once he’d settled, she heard his rapid descent into sleep through his steady, even breaths. During it all, Olivia lay still and silent, but torturously awake.

  She glanced at the clock. 1:27 a.m. She quietly climbed out of bed and walked to the family room. Out of habit and hope, she pulled out the computer and logged on. Jake was on too.

  She opened up the chat pane and wondered what to do. To message him? To leave him alone? And before she could come to a conclusion, he wrote her. “Insomnia?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was abrupt before. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re just not usually like that.”

  “I know. But. Well. It turns out I’m married and I’ve been thinking lately my wife may not be interested in me making new friends.”

  “Understood,” she typed.

  “I am sorry, Olivia. You and I had a great weekend. But it wasn’t real life.”

  “Tell me about your real life. We talk about mine. Tell me about yours.”