Bait

I’ve never been with a guy with tattoos before.

I’ve never been with a pierced guy, either. Never even seen a pierced guy.

But I want to.

Oh fuck, how I want to.

I push three fingers inside, and it’s tight. Regardless of the fact I’m soaking through my knickers, it’s still tight.

I’ll never take him. Not unless he…

Fuck.

He’d have to be so brutal.

So rough.

A shiver dances through me, because somewhere, somehow, I know he would be. Could be.

Will be.

Because I already know how this story ends.

I already know I’m riding this wave all the way until it crashes. I already know he’s the only thing I want. The only thing I need.

Everything else fades away into blissful ignorance, my mind closed off to anything other than the way he’ll feel inside me.

There’s nothing on my mind but the thought of his palm clamped over my mouth as he whispers filth into my ear.

I wonder how his voice sounds.

I wonder what kind of accent he has.

I minimise the photo long enough to click on his profile again. Malvern, it says. Maybe thirty minutes by car from here. Forty-five tops.

He’s close. Really close.

I do have a car, I just rarely use it. It’s been in my parking space for weeks, untouched.

I try to imagine driving into the night on my way over to meet him. I imagine parking up somewhere and knowing everything will be different by the time I make it back to the driver’s seat.

If I make it back.

The thought is just a whisper, but it’s there. It has to be there.

I know nothing about the man on the other side of the chat window. I have no assurances other than the words of a stranger in the ether.

It shouldn’t be worth the risk. Shouldn’t.

I imagine how bandy my legs will feel as the moment draws close.

My heart is pounding. Nerves tight.

My legs loll open as I fuck myself with three deep fingers.

Yes.

I know the answer I’ll be giving him already.

I’ve known the answer since he messaged me for the very first time. It’ll take more than one graphic picture to divert this collision.

The circle next to his profile picture is grey when I type out my response.

I don’t need to sleep on it.

I’m not impulsive enough to need time for the doubts to creep in.

They are already here. They’ve been dancing behind my eyes since the moment you messaged me. They are always here and always have been, but they make no difference.

Your picture is enough to scare me, but fear changes nothing. It never has.

If anything it only makes me want this more.

My answer is most definitely yes.

I pause.

I read it through with shallow breath.

And then I hit send.EightDon’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

Robert Louis StevensonPhoenixThe message is waiting for me in the morning, well ahead of schedule. It’s listed in my notifications, ready to greet me when my alarm goes off.

I feel an unfounded sense of acceptance as I power up the hill track and admire the rising sun. She saw, she feared, and still she wants.

This surreal sense of intimacy with a stranger is full of surprises. The spring in my step. The lightness in the air.

The beautiful promise of one wild night to dwarf all others, and the bittersweet inevitability that we’re destined to go our separate ways when we’re done.

Maybe it’s the impermanence that feels so beautiful. Maybe it’s the knowledge that our collision will be short which promises such a potent explosion.

I breathe in the view at the top and today my eyes are on the horizon, scanning the Herefordshire countryside.

She’s down there, somewhere. I wonder what she’s doing. I wonder where she is.

Sleeping, if she’s got any sense on a Sunday morning.

Training her pussy to take a decent girth if she has any sense at all.

Her profile is limited. A simple Hereford and nothing more listed as her location. As of yet I know so much but so little.

The shadowy promise of dawn breaking as I uncover all her broken pieces.

Dawn’s always been my favourite time of day with good reason.

I wave to the same couple as yesterday on my way across the top. I tip my head to the same guy and his dog on my way back down.

I shower quickly, then make my boy his breakfast and watch him choose his own TV channel.

I pull my sister tight to my chest and kiss her head, because gestures are easier than words sometimes.

And then, as another first of all the firsts these past few days, I sit down at the kitchen table and breathe. Just breathe.

My feet feel planted on solid earth for the first time in months. My place here feels real again.

I wonder if it feels the same for her, wherever she is. Whether the universe is looking a little brighter through her eyes this morning, just as it is through mine.