Deanna Madden #1 The Girl in 6E (2 page)

HIS FANTASIES ARE
getting stronger. It has been almost three years since the last girl, and his need has overtaken the rational part of his mind. The invitation didn’t help. The announcement, like a huge glowing sign, that she is turning six. It had come in the mail, pink construction paper with handwritten details in a childish script that could only be hers.

He had hoped that a scratch wouldn’t be needed, that the itch could be minimized and held at a level that was bearable, controllable. But he can feel himself weakening, feel a break in his streak coming. He hopes role-playing will be enough to satisfy his itch, his enjoyment of the sessions giving him hope.

But just in case, he needs to prepare. If he is going to stumble, if he is going to fall, things must be in place. This time he will keep the girl around longer. Create enough memories to tide him over for a longer period. His hands shake and he stuffs them in his pockets, moving through the grass to the front of the trailer, pulling out the creased envelope that holds the key. He glances around the empty yard, the wind rustling through quiet brush, isolation surrounding him. Ripping the paper, he ignores the landlord’s letter and palms the key.

Preparation. Just to be safe. Maybe he won’t need this place. But just in case, better make sure that everything is ready. Preparation has always paid off in the past.

I HAVE EXCEPTIONAL
hearing in my left ear and enjoy sitting against my sixth-floor apartment door, listening to the activities going on in the hall. It’s amazing how much people give away on their way from the elevator to their apartment. Sometimes people step out of their apartment for “privacy,” a fact I find hilarious. From my doorside seat, I hear the fights, the secret phone conversations, and the everyday normalcy that gives away so much about a person.

Simon was, for a long time, “the Redheaded Smoker.” I keep a notebook next to the door, in the cardboard box. In it, I have a page dedicated to every resident on our floor, including me. There are fifteen “Sixers,” as I like to refer to us, and when Simon moved in, “the Brown-Haired Smoker” is what I wrote on the top of the page.

He moved in with a girl who, as best I could tell from my peephole, was one step above trailer trash. They were arguing, carrying black trash bags full of crap, and her voice interrupted his twice between the elevator and their door. I started a page for her and titled it “Trailer Trash Tonya.” I later found out her name was Beth, and she worked at Applebee’s. Two weeks after moving in, they got in a fight, she moved out, and I threw away her page. From the words of their parting, she would not be coming back.

Simon’s current girlfriend is Vicodin. In return for my containment, I keep his girlfriend coming. From his level of dependence, Vicodin is one demanding bitch, reducing him to a sniveling, whiny submissive in the days leading to the first of the month, when his next order arrives. Simon understands that if he ever unlocks me, ever releases me before morning, his prescriptions will stop and his addiction will go hungry. He doesn’t realize he might die at my hand.

ANNIE SITS ON
one of the high stools in her kitchen, kicking the baseboard of the bar top, which causes her stool to slowly spin, right and then left. Her book bag, the edges frayed from three years of use, slumps against the bar, exhausted from a day of reading, writing, and riding the bus.

“Stop that,” her mother says—not turning—the sound from Annie’s kicks grating on her nerves. She lays out two pieces of bread, then spreads peanut butter onto one side. Letting out a deep breath, she screws on the lid, then opens the jelly jar and glances at Annie with a warning look.

Annie stops, using her hands instead to spin her stool, and looks at the digital display of the old microwave above the stove: 3:49 p.m. Only two more days till her party. She pushes off the stool, and the worn soles of her sneakers smack against the kitchen’s clean linoleum floor as she heads to the round table pushed into one corner of the kitchen. Rounding the table slowly, she runs her hands over the tops of the bright and sparkly packaged plastic bags, stuffed with candy, markers, and packets of stickers. Ten favors in all, for her ten best friends. Hearing her father’s call, she turns from the table and runs, following the sound of his voice until she reaches his chair, set up in the living room.

Her father wants company, so Annie sits in the living room with him, her feet tucked under her, curled into the corner of the couch. Their dog, a mutt that had scratched at the trailer door for two weeks before her mother finally relented and welcomed him in, jumps up beside her, circling twice before settling in, snug against her body. His wire-bristle black-and-gray hair scratches her bare leg, and she reaches out and pats his head. His tail thumps, slow and steady, and he opens one eye to look at her contentedly. He is a good dog, but what she really wants is a kitten—one with soft fur and big eyes, who will curl up in bed with her at night.

“How was school?” Her father’s voice creaks, roughened by too many years of cigarettes and coughing. He reaches for his tea, and drops of condensation drip down the side, landing with a soft splat on the worn surface of the table.

“It was good, Daddy.”

“You like first grade?”

A soda commercial comes on TV, and Annie watches a bejeweled pop star singing and dancing through a crowded street. “I guess.”

“How’s your teacher? Miss Parakeet, is that her name?”

She dissolves into giggles and reaches out and pinches his arm. “It’s Miss
Sparrow
, Daddy. I’ve told you that, like
eight
times.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I get confused.” He tousles the top of her blond head playfully. “Excited about your party?”

She nods enthusiastically. “Super excited, Daddy.”

A CLIENT’S USERNAME
can tell me a lot about the person. With descriptive usernames, like DoctorPat92 or 1HotLawyer, it is often who they are or who they wish they were. Numbers in a username typically stand for a child’s birth year, their graduation year, or their age. I have a lot of “doctors” that pass through my chat room, but DoctorPat is, for once, an actual doctor. And as you might guess, I occasionally have a need for one.

DoctorPat92’s real name is Dr. Patrick Henton. He is a fifty-five-year-old general practitioner in a little town in Maine called Buckfield. According to reviews on Google, he is well liked and competent, though I don’t know how competent the sole doctor in a town of nineteen hundred people needs to be. He is more than adequate for my basic needs. A sequestered individual, with no access to the outside world, has to work pretty hard to get sick or injured. My basic needs revolve around one thing—drugs. Not for me, but for Simon. I’m sure DoctorPat thinks
I
am the painkiller addict. I don’t really care what DoctorPat thinks. He writes me prescriptions, and I watch him take eight-inch dildos. It’s a win-win for both of us.

Our chat sessions started out normal enough, and in the way that most relationships do.

“Hi, Doc. My name is Jessica. What’s yours?”

I laughed, cross-legged on the bed, a wide grin on my face. “I’m not formal. So, Pat.
Are
you a doctor?”

“Wow! I always fantasized about being with a doctor.” I widened my eyes and moved to my knees. “And what are you interested in tonight?”

“Of course. All of them?”

I stopped physically typing my responses a long time ago. Most camgirls type and don’t speak. I don’t know if it’s because their English sucks or if it’s because they are in a camming sweatshop of sorts, where if all of the girls were talking, it’d sound like a Russian call center. Men don’t want to know that they are one of many. They want to imagine a girl in her bedroom, no one else around, wanting to talk only to them. I think the fact that I talk adds to my popularity. The fact that I am American, an oddity in itself, is also a big draw. So the client experience is one reason I don’t type. The other reason is that it’s really hard to type and masturbate at the same time, at least for me. The men don’t seem to have a problem with it.

We were eight chats in before DoctorPat hooked up a webcam. I like when I can see the clients. It’s funny how your mind will create an image of a person and how wrong your mind almost always is. My mind wasn’t too far off with DoctorPat. He was utterly nondescript, a typical adult male in his fifties, with a head of thick salt-and-pepper hair, average build, and average looks. What I found more surprising from DoctorPat’s streaming video was that he was dressed, wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, looking as innocent as if he were sitting down to Skype with his grandchildren. The second time he displayed his cam, I asked him about it.

“Yes. The video just came up. Hey!” I waved excitedly, as though I’d been waiting all day to see him.

“It’s okay. Is that why you are dressed?”

He seemed as if he were going to type more, so I waited.

“Why?”

I laughed. “I assure you, it’s not weird. And weird isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I like weird.”

“Do you normally…touch yourself when we chat?” I ran my hand slowly down my naked body. I was lying on my side, atop my pink bedspread, the pattern picked out specifically because it looked young, innocent. Virginal. Men like that.

“When you’re with your wife?”

“Have you ever been with a patient?”

His expression didn’t encourage that line of questioning, so I dropped it. “I know you aren’t ready to show me what you like, but will you tell me?”

He reached up and turned off the webcam. I waited, my expression relaxed. He was either about to end the chat or about to tell me more. For some reason, men feel more comfortable divulging their secrets when they are invisible.

I laughed. “I promise, I won’t think you’re weird. I swear.”

I lowered my voice and used my you-are-a-bad-boy-but-I-think-it’s-hot voice. “You mean you like to get fucked?”

A long pause. I bit my bottom lip and kept my eyes on the webcam.

“That’s not weird. I think it’s hot. I like it when a man is kinky.” I slid my hand lower, until it grazed my bikini line.

What’s so hard about reading typed words is not knowing how some questions are asked. I didn’t know if he was trying to figure out himself if he was gay, or if he wanted me to think he was gay, or if this was a test of my reaction.

I tilted my head. “I guess it would depend on what you think about when you are being penetrated. You like chatting with me, right?”

“You know this site has men, gay men, who wouldn’t blink twice at you being fucked. Why aren’t you chatting with them?”

I giggled. “Then let’s do it! Let’s set an appointment for some time when you will be alone…” I moved my hand farther, gently running my fingers along my sensitive lips. “
And
I can watch you. I want to watch you. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

“Yes!”

It was a lie. It’s actually quite common for men to ask me to watch them fuck themselves. I don’t understand it, but then again, I have a pussy that is perfect for a toy. If they had a pussy, they probably wouldn’t be sticking anything up that hole either. I also don’t have a prostate. If I did, maybe I would understand the draw to anal sex. According to my sex therapist, some of the men who want to fuck toys
are
homosexuals—they just refuse to admit it to themselves. They think that having a girl watch them take a ten-inch black cock makes it less gay. But, my therapist warned me, there is a flip side to it. Just because a guy wants to bend over and shove something up his ass doesn’t make him gay. There are straight men who get off on that form of stimulation yet have no interest in the touch of another man.

So I didn’t jump to conclusions, I didn’t assume that DoctorPat was gay, straight, or any combination of the two. To be utterly honest, I didn’t give a shit what he was. All I cared about was that the clock on the upper right-hand corner of my screen was ticking, turning over minute by minute, earning me dollar by dollar.

That was the beginning of our relationship. I waited for two months before I brought up the prescriptions, wanting to see if he would stick around as a regular first. He stuck around, I proposed an arrangement, and he accepted. We are now two years into that arrangement. An arrangement where I have watched this utterly average doctor ride thick plastic dildos, use anal beads, and once—on one random Thursday—make a Budweiser beer bottle his personal ass toy. One webchat every other week for one prescription a month. I think half the reason DoctorPat writes me illegal prescriptions is that he worries about me blackmailing him. He has a wife and three teenage kids, a fact easily discovered after four minutes on Google. He doesn’t need to worry. What turns him on is his business, not mine or anyone else’s.