5PM (5 page)

“I’m sorry. I haven’t had time to buy anything yet, but it’s been a crazy day, and I’ve only just switched on the computer,”
I type.

Her avatar finally loads, and she’s in a police uniform of a naughty type with a super short skirt and a tank top police-type shirt.
“About time you showed up. Do you like this?”
she types.

“This is getting all weird. I now work with a blonde who looked just like you did last night, and then tonight I’ve been harassed by a blonde cop, and here you are tonight dressed up like lady horny slut officer.”

“Are you serious? Was I nice to you in real life?”
Her avatar is laughing hysterically.

“So your name isn’t really Emily Philips, is it?”

“You don’t need to know my real name. You just need to know I’m in charge of this thing we have and you will do as I say or else there will be trouble. Now go buy me a new scene.”

“I’m tired and my daughter is sick. Can’t we just play at your mansion?”

Her avatar punches mine in the nose.
“Daughter? Are you telling me you’re married?”

“Does it matter? What we have is fun, but it’s not real and never can be.”

Her avatar kicks mine in the nuts. Then she grabs his hair and punches him in the nose with her other hand. She exits the chat and my character is sitting alone in the lobby.

I should just go to bed and get a good night’s sleep for a change. I could do with a nip of scotch first, and just as I go to turn around, I see a chat request from BluesGirl88 again.

My head tells me to ignore it, but another part of my anatomy tells me to accept. I shouldn’t, but for some reason this animated blonde keeps drawing me in.

The scene is loading slowly as if a team of turtles is in the case. Parts of it slowly appear. I can see a big dungeon, and my avatar is chained to a wall. She is still in the police uniform but has a baton in one hand and a whip in the other. The scene is dark and each wall has an old stone appearance, like from medieval times.

“What the hell is this?”
I type.

“I asked you to do something and you didn’t do it. Now you will be punished.”
She cracks the whip and hits me on the back with it.

“I told you what happened today and why I haven’t bought anything for us to play with tonight.”
Her avatar hits mine in the knee with the baton.
“What’s the point of all this?”

“You lied to me about being married as well as not buying a scene. I should just kill you.”

Now I think she’s actually deranged. I should go to bed, but I find myself walking to the booze shelf and grabbing a glass of scotch. I return to the computer and take a long sip of my drink. As I put the tumbler back down on the computer desk, I feel my head spin and vision blur. What the hell is going on?

“Where are you, Terry?” I hear a voice calling from another room.

Talissa! I turn the computer off and stumble from the chair. Just one sip of scotch, and I’ve lost my balance and comprehension. What the hell is wrong with me?

One foot in front of the other is all I need to do. I crash into the wall, steady myself and hit the opposite wall. My legs feel like they’re made of concrete.

I see a blur of dark blue and black. It’s making a noise and coming straight for me. My upper body battles through the fog… the fog my mind keeps trying to insist isn’t there. And then I feel her touch. No matter what state my body is in, her touch is my haven. She helps me walk and lets me collapse, and my world turns black.

Day 4

“Good morning, handsome.”
Talissa’s smiling face is the first thing I see.

I haven’t forgotten what today means. “Happy anniversary, my beautiful princess.” I smile back. Although my recollection of last night’s events is blurry, I know she had been the beacon of salvation who steered me to bed at some strange hour.

“You remembered.” She rolls over and lies on top of me. “I went and got a special present for you yesterday.”

“You shouldn’t have. I haven’t got you anything yet.” The realisation I also hadn’t called my parents last night to arrange for the kids to stay there over the weekend smacks me in the forehead. With the weekend fast approaching, I’ll have to get on it as soon as I get to work.

“You’ll have to search for it though. Maybe you might have to check under my nightgown first.” The brightness of her smile is on par with the sun as it beams through the blinds.

It’s at this point I realise I’m fully naked. Talissa must have stripped me off when she guided me to bed after I blacked out last night. I slide my hand up her leg, all the way to her thigh, and as usual, she’s wearing nothing underneath her blue silk nightgown. I find the heavenly place between her legs and something is very different. “Oh, my goodness,” I feel my heart skip a beat.

“I got it all waxed for you. Feels so smooth, doesn’t it?”

I can’t deny it—she’s delivered something I’ve always fantasised of and seems all the rage with the young women these days—if all the beauty salons advertising the service are to be believed. “I love it,” I say, and I can feel her getting wet already.

“I never thought I’d go from carpet to polished floorboards—if you know what I mean. We have time before the kids get up. Let’s celebrate our ten years.” She grabs my manhood and slowly caresses it with her soft hands. Her touch is always sublime, but as much as she treats the man downstairs with her massaging greatness, he doesn’t rise to the occasion.

This has never happened before, and her beautifully presented gift to me should be able to double my excitement. I could just disappear forever right now. All this built up tension, and now I have the chance to release it, I don’t see it happening.

“Terry?” she asks, “Have you been working too hard?”

I suppress a tear but nod. Lying might come easy when you get used to it, but it’s never easy to forgive yourself when you do it to those you love most.

She pulls the nightgown up over her head and throws it to the floor, her whole body caught in my captivated gaze. Her pear-shaped breasts sway as she sits herself on top of me and rubs herself against my non-working member.

Fuck it! Why the hell in fuck’s name am I looking at the most angelic sight and nothing’s working? “I’m sorry, honey, you know this never happens.”

She stops what she’s doing and lays down next to me, cuddling me in close. “Maybe we can finish this tonight,” she says as she gives me a big kiss.

“I promise we will after I take you out for dinner. I don’t think I need to say you’ll need to wear something really nice, although you’re doing just that now.”

“I love you, Terry.” She gives me another kiss, gets out of bed, and heads for the shower.

I put on a pair of boxers and head for my computer. As much as the chat girl is bad for me, she might be wondering what happened last night and why I vanished from the chat so rapidly.

I try to fire my computer up quickly and decide to check my emails during the wait, and there are five with the sender name of BluesGirl88 leaving me to wonder how the hell she got my email address?

I start from the oldest email.

Where the fuck are you? I don’t appreciate a man who takes off as soon as things start to get serious. Get back to the chat now.

The second oldest email gets worse.

There are consequences for those who think they can just do what they want to me, and abandon me when they think they need to take some responsibility. Come back NOW!

The third email isn’t as bad.

I’m so sorry, Terry. I need you, I want you, and I could never hurt you. It’s very late now so you’re probably in bed with your wife. Maybe you’re using all your sexual tension on her, and I wish it were me. PLEASE come back!

She’s crazy, she has to be. Damn myself for listening to Roger in the first place. I open the fourth email.

I tried to be nice, I tried to be fair, but you’ve really done it now, Terry. You think you’re safe? Think again. It might be you, or it might be someone you love.

What the hell. Should I be worried? I think I am a little worried in case these threats carry any substance, but unless this chat girl really is Emily, then how the hell can she do anything?

Then I come to the last email.

Someone once said, “If you’re not real, you can’t hurt me.” Do you ever wonder how they’re doing now?

Oh, shit.

I check back on the chat program and find there’s no sign of BluesGirl88. I do a search for a DancerGirl and check out the search results, picking the one I’m certain is the user I chatted to a couple nights ago. She, or should I say he, accepts the request.

“Are you sure you’re allowed to chat with me?”
DancerGirl types.

“I think you might be in danger, like, real life danger. The woman who threatened you the other night has somehow found my email address and has sent me a disturbing series of emails, one of them mentioning you.”

“Calm down, Terry. Anyone with a little bit of IT knowledge could find out your information if they knew where to look. I recommend you don’t reply, no matter how threatening she gets. She may have just had a wild guess at your email address and is fishing for you to reply. If she can confirm it’s you, she’s a step closer to finding you in real life.”

“So why do you masquerade as a woman?”

“I get attention, and when a male and female avatar gets down and dirty, it’s all the same, isn’t it? I even see a lot of girl on girl action. Ironic to think in real life they both could well be two blokes. Anyway, I got to go to work, stay safe, and maybe get out there and find some real action. It’s not that hard.”

“Now that would get me in trouble with the wife,”
I type, and then he exits the chat.

I look at the time. I’ve wasted half an hour on the computer, and I still haven’t had a shower yet. At this rate, Talissa will leave the house before I do. At least I can go to work knowing the man behind DancerGirl is okay.

* * * * *  

I get to
work ten minutes late, a fact quickly noticed by Phelps. He calls me into his office and asks why the hell I’m late.

“I’m sorry, but how often am I late, Phelps? Do you have some kind of bug up your arse about me or what?”

“If Emily proves her worth this month, she may well get something full time here, and as you know, things will get quiet very soon leading up to the holiday season. So you best make sure you don’t fuck anything up or else this bug up my arse will come out and bite your stupid head off. Now get out of here and sell something.”

He flicks through some papers and signs them, not even looking up as I leave the room. I pull the door closed a little harder than I should as I depart and see Roger standing outside his office.

“I need to talk to you.” I point at him and head straight in his direction.

“Of course, buddy.” He smiles and allows me to enter before him, then closing the door behind us, he asks, “Is there something wrong?”

“The new girl Emily—she’s messing with me. I guess you heard about her accident on the way home yesterday?”

“Yes, she mentioned she had a collision. Did Phelps tell you about it?” Roger frowns.

“No. I gave her a lift from the location of the crash to the fitness centre where she instructs classes. But the thing is, she changed from her work wear to her gym gear in my car. She was careful not to let me see anything good, but she took everything off in the process, and I mean everything.”

“Wow, you lucky man. I bet you let your imagination fill in the blanks of what you didn’t see.” He smirks like a cat who ate all the goldfish and didn’t get caught.

I don’t address his question. Of course, I was filling in the blanks and could think of very little else until I got home. But something else has me curious. “So she had these gym shorts with obviously nothing on underneath—seems a bit weird for fitness gear, all the sweating and all.”

Roger smiles. “There’s an entire line of gym shorts with a reinforced crotch to go with the tops with the built in bra. They’re a big hit with gym junkies, and especially instructors as they experience greater comfort.”

“Why does it not surprise me you know about this type of thing? There’s something else, too. There was this blonde lady cop at the accident making sure Emily got home safe. When she didn’t report in for a couple of hours, the lady cop made a visit to my house, making sure Talissa knew I had given Emily a ride in my car.”

“Well, Emily’s here today so I’m assuming you didn’t rape and kill her.” Roger has a laugh and I smile with him. “You know how widespread violence against women is these days; she’s just doing the whole over-protective sister looking after sister thing. She would probably be the same if I was giving a woman a lift home. So was she hot?”

“Roger, if she saw you giving Emily, or, in fact, any woman a lift home, she’d be calling in the Special Forces.”

We share another laugh, and then I remember I need to sort some things out for the anniversary. I leave Roger’s office and notice Emily walking towards her temporary office, and the sight of her reminds me of another matter I need to take care of.

I call out to her and she signals me to go into her office after her. She closes the door and the blinds before she sits on her side of the desk. “Sorry about the whole thing last night. I didn’t expect her to be all mother hen like and worry when I didn’t report in straight away.”

“It’s okay, Em, but something else is wrong.”

“You crashed down hard last night, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but I should have heeded your warning and gone to bed earlier. But there’s something else, and I was wondering if the pill you gave me has other effects—as in really bad man problems.”

She laughs. “I’m not following.”

How can I put this in a delicate way? “The general was ready to go into the field, but the soldier refused to march.”

She laughs harder, and I don’t know what I fear most. Is it because she’s laughing at my misfortune or laughing because I don’t make sense to her, and, therefore, I need to actually spell it out.

“Oh, dammit, Em. I couldn’t get an erection this morning.”

Her face freezes, and I hope to hell no one heard my raised voice. Please, Earth, swallow me up now.

“Okay, I guess being a female I wasn’t aware of such a side effect from coming down off the pill.”

“Well, it’s my anniversary tonight, and I want to be able to… perform.”

“I’m not a pharmacist, you know, but maybe I could help you test it out.” She pulls out her handbag again and sifts through, locating her secret stash of pills inside the coin purse. “Just take the whole thing, and I’ll try to get some answers from my supplier.”

“Considering what happened to me last night and this morning, I’d be an idiot to just say ‘okay’ and take another pill.”

“Well, why did you come to see me then? You want a solution, keep taking these pills. I suggest you take one now and another at four or five o’clock so you stay alert and erect. If she wakes up and wants some action then, find a way to pop another pill.”

“If I keep taking them, I’ll never be able to perform without them again.”

“You said it yourself, Terry. Tonight’s a special night for you. Just take it a day at a time. Were there any other side effects?”

“No.”

“Well take the fucking pills then and worry about it again tomorrow if popping pills upsets you that much.”

I look in her eyes and think it over for a few seconds. As much as this idea worries me, I need to be able to rise to the occasion tonight. I accept the offer and stare at the small round purse in my hand. I open it and pop one of the pills in my mouth. There are a few pills remaining inside so I put the coin purse in my pocket.