The Voyeur Next Door (8 page)

He chuckled and that sound was just the epitome of raw sexuality.
“Do you have a webcam?”

I did. I had a laptop with one, but the quality was shit due to the fact that the thing was about three hundred years old. But at the time, it had been all I could afford. My mom had offered to get me one, but I would have sliced my own kidney out and sold it on the black market before ever letting that happen. I found mine at a pawn shop, being used as a doorstopper. But it had been sixty bucks and already loaded with all the programs I would need, like the internet and Word. I knew eventually I would buy a new one, I just never had a reason.

“Yes,” I said. “I have one.”

“I will give you a secure webchat service. You just need an email and a webcam.”

I wanted to ask how he knew of such a place and if he did this kind of thing often, more importantly, with how many other girls. While I wasn’t jealous, I did want to know which number I ranked in a man’s attentions.

“I’ve never done this with anyone else,”
he said, as though he could read my thoughts, or maybe he sensed it in my silence.
“But I have thought about it.”

“I’ve never been watched … until last night,” I told him truthfully.

“Now that you know you were, how do you feel?”

I knew all about voyeurism and its counterpart, exhibitionism. I knew what both were and what they entailed. But I was pretty sure what I was fell into a more shaded area of the spectrum. I liked watching people. I liked seeing them do normal things. I liked trying to decide who they were and what they did and what they were thinking. In a lot of ways, I liked analyzing them and their behavior. Yes, more times than not, that included me seeing my neighbors getting down and dirty, but I rarely felt sexually stimulated by the sight. Getting my rocks off wasn’t why I did what I did. Was it wrong? Yes, and I knew it. But it had become a routine I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to give up.

The night before, watching him had been something else. It had been unexpected and completely out of my norm. I honestly couldn’t even say what propelled me to do it. I hardly remembered unfastening my robes, or reaching under until I felt the slippery folds of my opening spread across my fingers. There had just been something about him, about the way his cock had speared straight up against his toned abdomen. His body from the little I could make out had been flawless and beautiful. But the white hot spear of desire hadn’t penetrated me until he had taken his erection in hand. That had sent me over, and I don’t mean in climax. I mean that line that separated me from right and wrong.

While I was a pervert, I never stayed to watch people screw each other. My eyes never lingered on naked flesh, not because I was modest, but because it just never really interested me. Sure I looked, but I didn’t stare.

With him, I couldn’t look away.

Yet that didn’t explain how I felt about being watched back. That was something new. Everything about me was so ordinary and dull. I was sure no one had ever noticed me. But knowing he had, that he had touched himself, made himself orgasm simply by watching me lit a new flame inside me I never knew existed.

“I liked it,” I confessed.

“Will you let me watch again?”

The cascading rush of arousal crashed down into the pit of my stomach in a waterfall of heat that hissed and frothed when it met the anxious twist of nerves already pooled there. My heart hammered a little faster.

“You promise you won’t peek?” I countered, needing his word that he would respect my privacy, because what we did online had to stay online.

“Only if you promise the same.”

I took a deep breath. “I won’t peek,” I promised. “Also, no names.”

“Agreed.”

While that had been his initial request, I had to make sure that rule never changed. I didn’t want to know what he looked like. The fantasy was always better and I didn’t want it to bleed together with my reality.

“Can I watch you back?” I asked.

“Do you want to?”

I wanted to say something pithy, like duh! Why else would I be asking? But his tone stopped me. It had dropped a full octave to a deep, sensual purr that made my clit throb for attention.

“Yes.”

There was several seconds of silence where all I could hear was the sound of his ragged breathing. I wondered if he was touching himself. I wondered if he was on his bed, too, naked and hard. The image rocketed through me, releasing another rush of liquid heat to soak my ruined panties.

I gingerly parted my thighs and reached for the flimsy fabric covering my mound. The heat was tangible. It burned my fingers before I even made contact.

I hissed with the first stroke. The cotton fabric clung to my core and rose slightly where my clit had become a hard little crest between my lips.

“Are you wet?”

God, how did he know what I was doing?

“Yes!” I couldn’t conceal my choked gasp even if I tried. “Are you?”

“Wet?”

I would have rolled my eyes if I could manage it. “Hard.”

He chuckled.
“I’ve been hard all day thinking about you.”

I eased aside the material covering me and parted my knees even further, exposing my wet center to the cool air. The pink little muscle on top protruded visibly between the slick folds surrounding it. I skimmed a finger lightly over it and jolted at the intense zap of electricity that snapped through me. My head flung back and I barely caught the moan that shot up my throat.

“What are you wearing?”

I stopped what I was doing, not wanting to come just yet.

“My robes and white panties.”

I didn’t mention they were the kind that covered your whole ass, because that was just not sexy.

“The robe from last night?”

“Yes.”

I only had the one robe. He didn’t need to know that either.

“Take it off.”

I did so without question. It was tossed carelessly to the foot of my bed. I reached for the waistband of my panties next.

“Leave the panties.”

I was beginning to wonder if the guy had cameras already set up in my apartment.

“Where are you? Which room?”
he clarified, like he knew I would make a sarcastic reply.

“Bedroom.”

“On the bed?”

“Yes.”

“Lie back and open your legs.”

The sheets felt incredibly cold and wonderful against the sensitive skin of my back. I positioned myself right in the middle, giving my legs the full width of the bed to spread.

“Does your phone have speaker phone?”

“Yes.”

“Put me on speaker phone. You’ll need both hands for what I want you to do next.”

It shocked me how badly my fingers trembled as I struggled to find the proper button. I hit it once and waited as the room was filled with the rush of air.

“Hello?”

“I’m still here. Are you ready?”

I set the phone down on the pillow next to my head and waited.

“Yes.”

“Touch yourself and tell me how it feels. Not your pussy,”
he added, once again, as though reading my mind.
“Don’t touch her until I say and I’ll know if you do.”

I wanted to snarl in frustration. That was the spot I wanted to touch more than anything. But I obeyed.

I started with my hips, lightly gliding my fingertips over the curve of the bone and inward towards my waist.

“You’re not telling me what you feel.”

It was ridiculous, but I felt myself blush.

“I don’t know how,” I said. “It’s skin.”

“It’s more than just skin. It’s your skin. Close your eyes and tell me how it feels.”

I wet my dry lips. “Soft,” I whispered at last. “Hot.”

“Good. Keep going. Where are you touching?”

If I were in my right state of mind, I would remind him he should know, since apparently he could see everything. But all I could feel was the puckered skin where goose pimples had risen and the inward slant of my stomach where it dipped into my belly button. I redirected the trail upward over each rib to the bottom curve of my breasts. I waited a heartbeat before taking them in my hands. The sharp points prodded into my palms, making me moan and shift. I dragged trembling fingers over them before rolling them under my thumbs. Beneath my touch, my heart slammed into my ribs.

“Do you like playing with your nipples?”

I had forgotten I was talking until he spoke, reminding me he was there … listening.

“Yes,” I hissed in pleasure.

“Keep playing with your breasts, but run one hand over your pussy.”

I did as he said. One hand stayed cupped over my left breast while my right hand followed the trail back down my quivering abdomen to slip between my thighs.

“Don’t come,”
he warned.
“What do you feel?”

“Wet!” I blurted in a shameless gasp that lifted my hips into my palm. “My panties are soaked.”

Next to my head, I heard him groan.

“Can I come?” I pleaded, fighting an impossible battle to keep from reaching under and putting an end to the suffering.

“No.”

I had never had anyone deny me the opportunity to orgasm. This was a new experience for me, one I wasn’t sure I liked.

“Oh my God!” I half sobbed, half whined.

“Keep stroking, but don’t come.”

“But I’m so close,” I panted, feeling myself hitting that cusp. “Shit…”

“Stop.”

I faltered. My mind and body slammed into each other in a two car pileup and I staggered to grasp the meaning of that single word.

“What?”

“Stop,”
he repeated in that calm tone of his.

I was breathing like I just finished a five thousand mile run and I was choking on the sobs that kept tangling in my chest.

“For how long?”

“Until tomorrow.”

“What?” I blurted again, unwilling to believe he would do this to me. “No! Please, don’t…”

“Don’t come,”
he ordered in a tone that forbade me to disobey.
“Not now, not later, not tomorrow. You will wait until I tell you.”

“But…”

“If you want this, you will do what I say.”

I knew he didn’t mean orgasming. He meant us, this thing, whatever it was, between us. If I wanted to hear from him again, if I wanted to continue on this path with him, I had to curb my temptation.

“What about you?” I shot back, struggling to sit up when every muscle in my body quivered like an overwound guitar string threatening to snap.

“The rules apply to me, too,”
he said evenly.
“I will wait until tomorrow with you.”

I still didn’t like it.

I wanted to cry.

“Trust me,”
he murmured with a hint of amusement.
“It will be worth it.”

“I feel like I’m going to die.”

He chuckled.
“You won’t.”

I glowered at the phone. “So that’s it? You’re going to get me hot and bothered and then make me wait?”

“Yup.”

“Asshole,” I muttered without any heat.

He was quiet. Too quiet. And I felt a flare of panic that I might have offended him.

“I’ve been getting called that a lot lately,”
he said at last.

Relieved he wasn’t angry, I felt my lips quirk. “Are you withholding orgasms for other women, too?”

He snorted.
“God, no.”

He seemed in no hurry to elaborate and I didn’t push. After all, that was the first rule in our arrangement, nothing personal.

“So what now?”

“Now, we go to bed. You will call me tomorrow at seven.”

What choice did I have but to agree?

Gabriel

Working in a business surrounded by other men while harboring the mother of all boners was a sure fire way to get your ass kicked, or at least teased until you wished you were dead. But there was just no helping it. No matter how I fought it, or how many disturbing images of my fourth grade teacher I conjured with her rat face and enormous hairy mole, I couldn’t block out the sweet sound of my new distraction moaning in my ears. The haunting melody kept me up most of the night, gripping my throbbing erection and wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself into. Even the blistering cold shower I’d taken didn’t save me from her low, erotic purrs as she described her body to me. It had taken every ounce of my control, plus some to restrain myself from finding her and taking what she so readily offered, even if I had to pound on every door on the sixth floor.

Somehow, I survived the night. I woke up the next morning with a pounding headache and an even more excruciating erection that refused to be swayed. Between the two, I was one cranky motherfucker. The crew at the shop had taken one look at the thundercloud I brought in with me and slinked off to do their own thing without bothering me.

That was what I loved about the boys. We had all worked together long enough to recognize when to approach and when to leave a guy alone. Some of them, I’d known since before I was even allowed under a car, like Mac and Lloyd. The three of us had once been as close as family. But there had been a moment in their past when things hadn’t looked so great and it had all been because of a woman. One specific woman—Regina.

The thought of her tightened my fingers around the wrench. My jerks became fierce and angry as I tightened the lug nuts on the wheels of a Camry. The welcoming grind of metal on metal shrieked in my ears and I let it drown out the other voices. It was working until the quick scuffle of approaching feet had me glancing up.

Ali sprinted through the bay doors, her enormous purse bumping against her hip. Her free hand lifted and she shoved her glasses up the bridge of her nose before turning her head in my direction.

“Crap.” I muttered under my breath. I had forgotten all about her. I shoved to my feet and made my way over to her. “Hey.”

She looked different. It took me a moment to notice her hair wasn’t a wild, frizzy mess. It had been straightened and combed back from her face and twisted in an elegant knot at the back of her head. The rest of her was the same, long, black skirt and a baggy, white blouse.

“Hi!” she said, sounding a tad breathless. “Am I late?”

I checked my watch. I didn’t need to. I knew she was.

“By ten minutes,” I told her. “Did your car break down?”

She rolled her eyes, still panting slightly. “Ha-Ha,” she muttered. “I walked and I miscalculated just how far this place actually was by foot. But I know for tomorrow to leave ten minutes earlier.” She puffed up her cheeks, looked around and then looked at me. “So, where do you want me?”

Those weren’t exactly the right words to use on a man battling down an erection. My penis took that as an invitation and quickly perked its head. It didn’t even care that she would just as soon chop it off with rusty hedge clippers before letting it anywhere near her virginal pussy. At least, I was assuming she was virginal. Her comment about taking men to her bed the previous day at the restaurant made me wonder just how freaky prim little Miss Eckrich actually was. My grandma always had a saying, something about the quiet ones always being the ones to surprise you. Truthfully, nothing about Ali would surprise me.

“The office is up there,” I said, pointing. “Make yourself at home.”

Ali blinked. “That’s it?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Were you hoping for a tour? I think you’ve pretty much seen most of the place.”

“No, I don’t need a tour,” she barked back. “But I would like someone to explain the system that is the colossal dung pile upstairs.”

“What system?” I replied evenly.

“There’s no system?” Her sound of absolute horror would have been highly entertaining if she wasn’t staring at me like I just confessed to being the cause of the Ebola outbreak. “Are you kidding me? Earl said this place has been open for four generations, are you telling me that no one has filed a single shred of paper in four freaking generations?”

“No!” I blurted, offended now. “I think there’s some papers in the cabinet.”

She simply gawked at me from behind those hideous glasses, her jaw hanging open in what my penis took as a hopeful invitation before I metaphorically slapped it out of that fantasy. She snapped it shut and her eyes narrowed.

“You’re testing me,” she decided. “You’re trying to scare me off.”

“Sweetheart, does it look like I’m the practical joker type?”

It must have shown on my face, because her features went from wary, to horrified all over again. I momentarily felt sorry for her, before the look of stunned vulnerability melted into the hellcat I was quickly becoming accustomed to.

“I want a raise!” she shot at me. “Like triple the amount you’re paying me now.”

I stared at her. “You’ve been here five minutes. You’re not getting a raise.”

“Then I want a donut!” She paused, considered her words, then added, “A box of donuts. Maybe two and a Frappuccino with whipped cream and chocolate syrup.” Whirling on her heels, she marched towards the stairs, paused, and then turned back with a deep scowl. “But we
will
renegotiate that raise at the end of the day.”

With that, she stalked off and I watched her, wondering, not for the first time, what the hell I’d gotten myself into.

Ali stayed locked in the office for the remainder of the day. It got to the point where I almost forgot she was there until I had walked up to the apartment and started in surprise to find her sitting cross legged on the concrete floor with a carpet of papers around her. She never acknowledged my presence. Maybe because she was too pissed, or maybe because she was so lost in her own organizing mind that she didn’t notice, but whatever the reason was, I was grateful for it if the venomous direction of her mumbling was anything to go by. Part of me was hoping all that anger was aimed at Earl for bringing her into that mess. If anything, she should be thanking me. I did try to save her.

At one, the crew and I closed shop for lunch and trumped through the office towards the apartment. Ali never glanced up, nor did she make any effort to join us. She was still there when we went back to work an hour later.

I paused on my way out and peered down at her, debating my chances of living if I disturbed her. I opted to risk it.

“You should go for lunch,” I hedged cautiously.

“Not hungry.” She never even looked my way.

I let it go. She was a grown woman and if she wasn’t hungry, I wasn’t going to force her. Besides, I was more preoccupied by the fact that I had exactly six hours before I needed to get home and shower. My excitement could barely be contained. I hadn’t felt like that in ages and it only delighted me all the more. I had no idea how I was going to survive the rest of that day.

Promptly at six, Ali grabbed her purse and hurried down the steps at an almost run.

“Leaving!” was all I got before she disappeared out the doors.

I peeked at my watch and cursed; there was still another ten minutes of work before I could leave. That left me just enough time to get home and do a quick scrub before
she
called me.

She
needed a name, I realized. I made a mental note of it, along with all the other things we needed to discuss before we went any further. That was what I had hoped our initial conversation would accomplish. I had wanted to lay down the ground works, to set it straight that, under no circumstances, would this turn into a relationship. That I didn’t want a relationship. That the only thing we would do is pleasure each other. I might have made that clear at some point the night before, but from the moment she had picked up and her soft, nervous little voice had filled my ear, all I could think about how much I wanted her. Then I’d heard it, the slight catch in her voice, the silky ribbon of desire that had woven through every word and protocol had evaded me. It was ludicrous. I knew nothing about her. But I literally thrummed throughout my entire body at the mere thought of her, at the anticipation of hearing her again.

But tonight couldn’t be like that. I couldn’t let myself get distracted by her breathy sighs and husky whimpers. If all went to plan, I would be hearing it a lot … often. I just needed to remember why it had to be that way. The game was always fun, but it could also turn destructive. I knew that first hand. I had seen how quick those tides could shift. Was it risky pulling in a girl who lived a hop away? Yes. But that too was the beauty. Everything about this was a fine line, only this time, I was determined to remain in control.

I made it home with twenty minutes to spare. I stripped quickly and rushed into the shower. I scrambled out ten minutes later and yanked on a pair of gray running sweats that hadn’t seen a day of running in its life and a white t-shirt. I rubbed hurried hands through my hair, spraying droplets of water in all directions and walked to the terrace doors.

I habitually kept my blind shut, not because I disliked the thought of people spying in, but because I just didn’t like the excess light. I was content in darkness. Now I kept them closed for another reason.

My fingers itched to pry the folds apart and see if I couldn’t steal one peek of her. I wondered if she was home, if she was anxiously pacing her bedroom, waiting for seven o’clock. I was dying to see. But I wouldn’t. The game didn’t work if I didn’t follow my own rules. Plus as much as I wanted my privacy, I had to respect hers as well. There were boundaries. Rules. You always had to follow the rules when another person’s physical, emotional, or mental wellbeing was at stake.

Behind me, the phone sprung to life.

It was exactly seven.

I had to respect that. People who didn’t abide to the minor things like being on time irritated me. I disliked the implication it brought forth, like my time was somehow less valuable than theirs. The fact that she was exactly on time made me all the more certain that this … that
she
was the right choice.

I picked up on the fifth ring.

“Hello.”

There was that second of silence before she answered,
“Hello.”

I wanted to ask how her day was, but that wasn’t what we agreed on. So I stuck to the basics.

“Did you come?”

“No!”
And I could hear the frustration in her response.
“Did you?”

I walked over to the sofa, shoved aside a few bags and discarded newspapers and dropped down on it.

“I told you I wouldn’t.” I palmed the rigid length of my cock. “But we’ll get to that soon enough. I want to make sure we clear everything up before we go any further.”

“Okay.”

Her eagerness only deepened my grin, while at the same time, I wondered if she knew exactly what she was agreeing to and that gave me a moment of pause.

While the idea of what we were doing was thrilling, it wasn’t something I took lightly and that was something I would really need to stress to her. She needed to really understand what I was asking. That too would be a slow process. Trust took time and patience to build, more of both considering this wouldn’t be done in person.

I decided to start somewhere simple.

“You need a name.”

“I thought you said no names,”
she pointed out.

I let my amusement color my reply. “I still need a name to call you, something just between us, something that belongs only to me.” I wasn’t ignorant to her sharp inhale. I continued in a quieter tone. “It will be a name you give only to me.”

“What kind of a name?”
she wondered.

“Whatever you like,” I said. “It can be anything, but it should be something that represents you. A name is a symbol of power, of identity.”

She didn’t speak. I assumed she was thinking. I let her while I let my own mind wander to what I would bring up next. Rushing into a long winded explanation topped with rules and demands could send her in the opposite direction.

“Can I think about it?”
she asked at last.
“I want it to be perfect.”