“I missed you,” I said as I pulled away from his mouth no farther than an inch.
I needed his kiss again. He was the reason I was there in Erotic Mayberry. Without him around, it all felt fake. Seeing him again reminded me that it was real.
“Let’s go to the bedroom,” he said.
“I don’t want to go in there,” I said. “Ever again.”
He laughed.
“That’s not exactly something I like to hear,” he said. “You never want to go to our bedroom again?”
“There’s a camera in there,” I said. “I saw myself on TV. I saw everyone.”
He chuckled.
“Oh,” he said. “I see.”
He sat down next to me on the couch and put his hands on his thighs, rubbing at them as he seemed to be thinking of how to explain it. I felt like a child waiting to hear my father tell me about the birds and the bees. He was about to sugarcoat it. I could feel it.
“Bastian,” I said as I took his chin gently in my fingers and turned his face toward me. “People were fucking and arguing and masturbating. People were watching me do nothing at all but sit there with no top on. That’s not normal.”
He laughed.
“Stop fucking laughing at me,” I said and realized it came out much whinier than I’d intended.
“You only saw yourself because you had the TV on,” he said.
“Well no shit,” I shot back.
“I mean,” he said through his laughter. “The camera turns on with the TV. Not with the regular TV. I mean if you want to sit and cry your eyes out while watching Beaches, nobody will see you. Once you pass channel 200, the camera turns on. It’s kind of a watch and be watched system. If people want to be seen, they turn their TVs past channel 200, if not, they keep it off or on a regular channel.”
I wanted to call him a liar but knew it might sting. Was he lying? How would I ever know? If my TV was off I wouldn’t be able to tell if people were watching me anyway, right?
“You don’t believe me,” he said. “Come on.”
He took my hand and led me out the front door.
“I don’t even have any shoes on!” I squealed.
“We’re just going next door.”
By next door he meant the opposite side of the neighbors I’d watched screwing earlier that day. He knocked on the all-white door and a man in plaid pajama pants and no shirt answered the door. He had a hairy chest and a strong, stern look about him. He reminded me of Tom Selleck in the Magnum PI days.
“Emery,” Bastian said, “Have you met Sunshine yet?”
“Your new pet,” he said, as he held his hand out for me to shake.
He had an accent of some sort that I couldn’t quite figure out. Maybe French? Canadian? French Canadian? Hearing him call me a pet rubbed me the wrong way and the way he was checking out my tits rubbed even harder.
“Would you mind if we check out your TV real quick?” Bastian asked.
“My TV?” he said as he stepped aside and gestured with an open palm for us to enter. “I guess so. Go ahead. Don’t mind Nancy in there.”
Bastian led me by my hand past Emery who didn’t hide the fact he was checking me out. He passed me a smile and I gave him one in return. He was handsome in an older, dirty professor sort of way. Since entering the neighborhood I’d started looking at men, and women, in a whole different light. Everyone seemed like a potential sexual conquest.
Why am I thinking this way? I never checked men out this openly on the street back home. Here, sex is all I can think about.
The entryway led to a large living room, the exact opposite as ours, meaning the kitchen with dining room and the living room had swapped sides of the room. Nancy, a beautiful older woman with black hair and grey highlights, wore a man’s dress shirt, unbuttoned and open at the middle with her tits out in the open, only the nipples covered by the sateen fabric. She was watching a couple having sex and clapping her hands in excitement.