Chapter 7
Cami crawled into bed to wallow. Her damp hair made her pillow cold, but she couldn’t muster the willpower to get out of bed and dry it.
Instead, she’d decided to let it dry all wonky and style it properly in the morning after she’d showered.
Tonight would be for huddling under her comforter and scrolling mindlessly through Reddit until she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore.
It would keep her from dwelling on how broken she was.
Maybe she’d splurge a little and order something gross for delivery. She wouldn’t even have to put on pants to accept the order if she told them to leave it on the landing. Then she might be broken, but she’d have an entire dessert pizza all to herself, so who cared?
Peeping out at her phone from under twelve pounds of duvet, she thumbed out of Reddit and into her contacts to find Joey’s Pizza where it was saved on her Favorites, but the screen looked different. It took her a moment to pinpoint why.
There was a new favorite contact. Next to Joey’s Pizza, there was a purple circle with a D in the middle, and underneath it said, “Des”.
She didn’t even have Des’s number.
Squinting suspiciously, she tapped on the D and held the phone up to her ear. After two rings, the line connected, and Des’s voice hit her ear, cursory and unimpressed.
“Hello?”
“Why is your number in my phone?”
There was a pause, and when he spoke again, his tone had become exponentially more congenial. “Cami?”
“Yes?”
His laugh filtered through to her, warming her from the inside. “I didn’t have your number. I thought you were calling to offer me duct cleaning services with a complimentary quote.”
She smiled. “Sadly, I have no idea how to clean ducts.”
“That is unfortunate, but I’m sure you’ll pick it up.”
The line went quiet, and Cami let it sit for a moment. It was ridiculous, and a little embarrassing, how much a few minutes of talking with Des could suck the melancholy right out of her.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said.
“What was it? I got distracted imagining you in coveralls.”
She rolled her eyes. It was easy to imagine him relaxing on some kind of expansive leather sofa, his feet kicked up as he nursed a glass of whiskey older than she was. Was that what he was doing right now? Or was he out somewhere, eating gourmet food on a date with a high-powered businesswoman?
The image stung for a second, before her rational brain kicked in and reminded her that he’d hardly be so impolite as to answer a scam call on a dinner date. He was better mannered than that.
“I asked how your number got into my phone. For that matter, how did you get saved to my favorites list?”
“I added myself as a contact when I was loading those videos for you.” He said it so casually, like he’d been saving adorable cat videos instead of well-produced pornography.
“As for your favorites list, I’m afraid I have no idea.
You must have added me yourself, probably because you find me so charming.
I would never be so presumptuous as to claim that designation myself. ”
“Of course not.” She dug herself out of her burrito a bit, freeing her arms and tucking the comforter under her armpits as she rolled onto her back. “Well, thanks for clearing that up for me. I’ll let you get back to your evening.”
“Wait,” he hurried. “How did it go?”
“How did what go?”
“The videos.” The reminder of how she’d spent her evening came crashing back with a hot wash of shame and she immediately reversed her comforter progress, grabbing the edge and pulling it up over her head.
“Did they work for you?” Des continued. “Did you like them?” As though he was asking her to review a Netflix recommendation.
“I liked the massage one,” she admitted. Normally such a statement would set her aflame with embarrassment, but it seemed like her disappointment overrode her sense of southern modesty.
“Did it get you off?”
God, she didn’t want to talk about this. Not with Des. Not with anyone. She wanted to grow old and shrivelled and die without anyone else knowing how fucked up she was.
A lump of emotion stung in her throat, and she willed herself not to cry again.
She didn’t know how she’d ever look Des in the eye again if she started bawling on the phone with him.
She was silent for longer than she should have been, long enough that she thought he might prompt her, but he didn’t.
She took a long, shaky inhale, and said, “No.”
He waited.
“It didn’t work,” she admitted finally. “I can’t make myself—come. I never have.”
The truth, but not the whole truth. It felt easier to swallow than admitting that she’d never come at all, that no man she’d been with had ever been able to get her there either.
Like if she couldn’t get the lid off of a jar herself, she could at least ask someone else to try.
But if no one else could get it off either, there was nothing to be done. The pickles inside would go uneaten.
A ridiculous metaphor, sure, but she liked pickles. At least she knew what pickles tasted like.
“I see,” Des said finally. There was a measured hesitation to his tone. “That must be very frustrating for you. I’m sorry if all my toy and porn suggestions this past week have made you feel pressured or—”
“They haven’t.” She freed herself from her duvet prison.
The air felt fresh and cool on her cheeks after the heat of her cocoon.
“I appreciate you trying to help, even if you didn’t realize you were.
You gave it your best shot, and I even got close thanks to you, but I don’t know.
I just can’t quite get there. It’s not your fault. ”
“Hey, wait. That wasn’t my best shot.”
Huh? Her brow screwed up in confusion. “It wasn’t?”
“No. Cami, I was barely trying with those recommendations. If I’d known you were having trouble, I would have picked a different toy, or, I don’t know, found some higher quality porn. I thought we were just having fun, I didn’t know there was a goal.”
“Des, it’s fine. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter! Orgasms are a basic human right!”
“I’m touched that you care that much, really.” She sighed. “But I’ve tried everything I can think of. At this point, I’ve exhausted all available options.”
“Wrong,” he said. She fell silent, certain that he was about to start raving about one of the toys he’d designed, something guaranteed to give her multiple orgasms. But he didn’t. Instead, his voice quiet and almost vibrating with intent, he said, “Where are you right now?”
She was too confused to do anything but answer. “In bed. Why?”
“Stop me if you feel uncomfortable, alright?”
“...Okay?”
“I want you to relax. Take a nice deep inhale and then let it out.” Des’s tone was even, soothing in its sincerity. “Close your eyes. Can you do that for me, Cami?”
She obeyed, letting her eyelids flutter closed and drawing in a slow, steady breath. With her exhale, some of the tension leaked out of her body. “Yes.”
“Good. Now, I don’t want you to think about coming.
” His words thrummed through her like he’d plucked a guitar string.
Having Des suggest ways for her to get off in theory was vastly different from having him give those suggestions real-time, when she was naked under a feather-filled duvet.
“Making yourself come should be the furthest thing from your mind. The goal is not to have an orgasm. The goal is just to feel good. Understand?”
“I understand, but—”
“What are you wearing?”
Her eyes snapped open, and her cheeks heated with embarrassment. “Um,” she stammered, “I just got out of the bath, so...”
There was a pregnant pause from the other end of the line. “Are you naked, Cami?”
Her tongue darted out to wet her lower lip. “Yes.”
Des cleared his throat. “Good. That’s—good.” She could hear him inhale, and couldn’t help but wonder if it was because he was affected. Did the idea of her naked intrigue him? Had he thought of it before? Then he continued, “Put your hand on your chest for me. On your ribcage.”
She passed her phone to her left hand to hold it against her ear, and then laid the other where he suggested. “Alright.”
“Can you feel your heartbeat there? Your breathing?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like having your breasts played with? Your nipples touched?”
Jesus. Desire stabbed through her body at some combination of his words and the image they evoked—one of Des himself carefully trailing a finger over the curve of her breast, circling her areola as her nipple beaded in response.
“Yes,” she said again. There was something needy and unfamiliar in her voice that she didn’t recognize.
“Do it now,” he urged.
She did. Her palm slid up over her breast, kneading gently, and she brushed her thumb over her nipple.
Her nerve endings sparked with pleasure.
Would he be gentle if he touched her? With her eyes closed, she could almost pretend he was there.
That he was whispering in her ear, kneeling between her legs, and trying to learn what she liked.
“Does it feel nice?”
“Yes.”
“Do you play with your nipples when you masturbate?”
She pinched her nipple lightly between her thumb and forefinger, gasping softly at the sensation.
“Not really. I—I don’t do it much. It’s too.
..” She trailed off, distracted now with her other nipple.
If she put him on speaker, she could play with both at once, but then the phone might slide off the pillow somewhere, and she’d have to go fumbling for it.
Des prompted her. “It’s upsetting when it doesn’t work?”
“Yes.”
“It’s okay, Cami. We aren’t trying to get you off tonight, alright? We’re just making you feel good.”
“Right,” she agreed. Distantly, it occurred to her that this was crazy. She saw him at work on a regular basis. If accepting sex toys from him crossed the line, letting him talk her through masturbation was so far past the line that the line was a speck. An inconsequential bit of dust.
And she didn’t care at all.
Fuck the line.
“Do you like having your nipples licked?” he asked.
She pulled on one, gasping and arching up off the bed. “Yes.”
“Imagine that. Imagine... someone you like, someone you want, there with you. Their mouth is hot on your skin. Their tongue is firm and playful.”
She wanted his mouth on her. She wanted him to suck at her skin, leave hickies on the undersides of her breasts.
“Are you wet, Cami?”
Her hand slid down between her legs. Her arousal had slicked the insides of her thighs. “Yes.”
“You can rub your clit if you want,” he said, like he was giving her permission, and she got her fingers wet with her own fluids, then moved up to give a generous rub. “Just remember, you’re not trying to come.”
“Just feeling good.”
“That’s right.” There was something faintly approving in his tone, like he was proud of her for doing this, for letting him talk to her while she played with herself.
“When you finger yourself, how many fingers do you like?”
She writhed on her mattress as her fingers delved back down to probe her entrance. The duvet was far too hot now and she kicked it off entirely. “One or two.” She was too far gone to be embarrassed now, and delved her middle finger into herself for the second time that night. “One right now.”
“You’re— you’re fingering yourself?”
“Mmhmm. It feels good. I want to come.”
“Ah—I know you do, Cami, but we aren’t going to push it.
Not tonight.” He took a breath so deep it was audible through the phone line, and she could almost feel it.
His warm breath ghosting over her skin as he fucked her with one thick finger.
“You keep fucking yourself as long as it feels good, okay? But don’t worry about coming. Be kind to yourself.”
“Des,” she breathed.
“I’ll stay on the line as long as you want me to, okay? Or until you fall asleep.”
Masturbating herself to sleep. It wasn’t something she’d ever tried before, but it didn’t sound like a bad way to spend an evening. Especially with Des on the phone.