Bait

He asked and I told him. I told him my secrets and he answered right back.

I zoom in as much as I can on his profile image. I try raising my phone screen brightness, and that helps a little.

His features really are dark, but there’s more. His skin looks inked. A hint of shapes on his neck. So many shapes.

Maybe I’m imagining it.

Maybe.

I force myself to stop before I see too much. I shouldn’t see anything.

He’s just a monster in the darkness. He’s just a hand around my throat. Muscle against my back.

He’s a long, thick cock forcing its way inside me.

He’s filthy words in my ear as he makes me take him.

I put a hand on my belly, but there is no ache there today. I pull my knees to my chest and the stupid gesture doesn’t make me sob.

Two weeks.

Two weeks to prove I really want this.

Him.

A monster.

My monster.

I call up a fresh message on my laptop. The circle next to his profile picture is grey. Offline.

My fingers move so easily. My words are at odds with the summer sunlight beaming through the blinds.

It used to be a monster. Fur and fangs and claws. I never saw him, but he was big. He’d chase me through my dreams until I’d wake up screaming. Every night.

I tried everything to get rid of it. Early bed times. No TV. No stupid horror stories.

It didn’t make any difference.

Panic and excitement are two sides of the same coin, so they say. I don’t know when I started getting confused between the two. Puberty, I guess.

Have you seen Bram Stoker’s Dracula? That film with Gary Oldman where he turns into a big wolf creature and fucks the girl in red on a gravestone?

I saw that before I should. Not at my house, but at a friend’s. It was dark enough that I could hide my blushes. Dark enough that I could hide the way I was rocking in my seat and couldn’t stop.

I was lucky, because I don’t think I could have stopped if I’d wanted to.

That was the first thing I ever came over. Biting into a pillow with my heart racing, feeling so fucking disgusting at the thought of being taken by some evil half-beast.

Maybe that was the beginning of this whole thing, I dunno. Those years were pretty confusing.

I felt so guilty after that, that I’d make sure I screamed louder when I woke up, just to convince myself I still hated them. But I didn’t.

I don’t know when the monster stopped having fur and fangs and claws. I don’t know when I first knew he was a man.

I don’t know exactly when I started waking up in the morning with wet knickers and my fingers on my clit, but when it started it didn’t stop.

I’ve thought so much about what the man will do to me when he catches me, but in my dreams it’s never happened. Not yet.

I’m sick of fighting what I want. I’m sick of pretending I don’t crave the things I crave.

When these dreams came back a few months ago it was the greatest relief of my life. But they aren’t enough.

Not anymore.

I need this for real.

Even if it’s just once.

I take a breath. My insides feel exposed. Awkward.

Uncomfortable.

But I like it.

Please, I type and my belly flips.

Please give me what I need.

I sign out before I can obsess about him coming back online.

And then, for the first time in weeks, I call my mum.PhoenixWhen the alarm wakes me up on Saturday morning, I’m not sure what I’m most afraid of – whether she’ll message or whether she won’t.

Maybe she’ll come to her senses and bail on the reckless idea. Maybe it would be for the best if she did.

It’s only when I’m lying there pondering the outcome that I realise the sky is blue outside my window.

I don’t usually notice the sky is blue.

It’s a strange observation.

My dick is hard enough that it aches. I’ve wrapped my fingers around it without a second thought, and that’s a strange observation too.

A run.

I need a run.

My chest doesn’t feel constricted as I lace up my running boots. My strides don’t feel pained as I spring out from the porch and skirt the side of the pool. Today I even look at it on my way past.

Today I wonder what it would be like to get it serviced again for Cameron and me.

I hate the pool. It usually seems so… soulless. Just another painful reminder.

But not today.

For the first time in months I take my time at the top of the Malverns. I pause a little bit longer, breathe that little bit deeper. I watch a car weave its way through town below and out the other side. My eyes follow it all the way.

I nod at a couple on the footpath. I point a man in the direction of his runaway dog as he races on up to the Beacon.