“Oh? Did you hear me the night before last?”
“No.”
“It’s probably just as well.”
“Oh?”
“Can I tell you? I probably shouldn’t. But—”
“Oh, come on, Rita. Don’t be a tease.”
“Maybe if I have another glass of wine. Oh, the bottle’s empty. Do you think we could switch to the jug wine? It’ll be a disappointment after the Nooee — I don’t know how to pronounce it.”
“The French stuff.”
“That’s it, the French stuff.”
“And at this point it’ll taste fine, Rita. We’re past the point of being able to tell the difference.”
“I think you’re right. Well, here’s to the French, and the wonderful things they come up with.”
“God, I’ll drink to that.” She did, and said, “This tastes fine to me. And now you can tell me about the night before last.”
“Oh God. Well, okay. I was on the phone.”
“With—?”
“Someone I met on the Internet, except I didn’t ever actually meet him. I got his number, and I call him, and we give each other phone sex.”
“How does that work?”
“Well, you know.”
“Rita—”
“We talk dirty.”
“Like ‘I want to eat your pussy, I want to suck your cock’? Like that?”
“Some of that. More like telling stories.”
“Things you did.”
“Except they’re partly made up. Mine are, anyway, and I’m pretty sure his are, too. Not over the top, like pornography, because it’s more exciting if it’s realistic enough so that you can believe it.”
“And he’ll tell you a story while you—”
“Pleasure myself. Pretty pathetic, huh?”
“It sounds hot.”
“You think?”
“I’m getting hot thinking about it,” she said. “You’ve got his voice in your ear and your fingers in your pussy. You bet it’s hot.”
Rita giggled. “One problem,” she said. “Can you guess?”
“You can only use one hand.”
“That’s right! Omigod, how did you guess it so fast?”
“It just came to me. What’s the matter with Speakerphone?”
“I’ve only got it on the kitchen phone. Anyway, you wouldn’t want the whole room echoing with it, would you?”
“I see what you mean.”
“It’s nicer to have his voice right there in my ear.”
“And your finger right there in your cunt. Ooops, I said the C word, didn’t I?”
“I love the C word! It’s supposed to be disgusting and demeaning to women, but I just don’t get that at all. Cunt, cunt, cunt! Could anybody ever come up with a hotter word than that? Just saying it is getting me hot.”
“I may not be the only one who ends the evening jilling off.”
“Jilling — oh, like jacking off but for girls! God, I never heard that before. No, you won’t be the only one, Kimmie.”
Kimmie?
“In fact, I was trying to think of a way to offer you the use of my vibrator.”
“But you’re going to need it yourself.”
“I’m going to need something.”
“Will you call your friend?”
“My friend? Oh, Paul. If that’s his name, which I’m sure it isn’t, any more than mine is Justine. I wouldn’t dream of giving him my real name, so why should he give me his?”
“And you call him?”
“In other words, can’t he get my number and trace me that way? I bought one of those prepaid phones. Lots of luck tracing the number.”
“You bought it just for phone sex?”
“God, doesn’t that make me sound like a pervert.”
“More like a femme fatale.”
“A femme fatale! Much better. But no, I won’t call him tonight. You know what he wanted me to do? Call him on Skype. It’s like a phone call except you do it online, so you can see each other on your computers. No way I’m gonna do that.”
“You don’t want to see him?”
“On the phone,” Rita said, “he looks just the way I want him to look. And I look however he wants to picture me. But it’s more than that. I couldn’t possibly say the things I want to say if I’ve got him looking me in the eye. So I’ll stick to the phone, but not tonight, because I won’t need him. My cunt’s on fire already.”
“I see what you mean about the C word.”
“I know, isn’t it just the cuntiest word there is? I can’t believe it, we finished the wine.”
“I don’t feel drunk or anything.”
“No, neither do I. I just feel good.”
“Me too.”
“And hot.”
“Well, I told you what I’ve been like all day long. But then it just felt frustrating, and now it feels kind of nice.”
“I know what you mean, Kimmie.” A sigh. “So I guess we ought to go to our separate rooms and pretend we can’t hear each other moaning.”
“Unless—”
“Unless what?”
“We could give each other phone sex,” she said, “but without the phone.”
“How would that work?”
“It’s not something I’ve ever done, Rita, and I can’t imagine ever doing it with anybody else—”
“And?”
“Suppose instead of going into separate rooms,” she said, “we both sat in the living room. And we could tell each other stories, but real ones, you know? Things we did that were hot.”
“And touched ourselves.”
“Right.”
“Played with our cunts. Our own cunts, I mean. ’Cause I don’t think—”
“No, I wouldn’t be up for that myself.”
“Good, because neither would I. Did you ever—?”
“With another girl? No, never.”
“Neither did I.”
“Though I’ll admit there were times I thought about it.”
“Oh, how could you help it? But thinking and doing—”
“Two different things.”
“Exactly. But telling stories and getting each other off that way — Kimmie, we’ve just got to try it.”
“I know.”
“I can almost come just from the idea of it, you know? Kimmie — God, I should have asked, is it all right if I call you Kimmie?”
“Sure.”
“Do lots of people call you that?”
“You’re the first.”
“Honestly? And you’re sure you don’t mind?”
“I kind of like it.”
“Rhymes with gimme.”
“I was thinking that.”
“ ‘Gimme, Kimmie.’ You know what let’s do? Let’s put on nightgowns, because I wouldn’t want us to be naked, but we ought to have—”
“Access.”
“Exactly!”
“Except I don’t own a nightgown.”
“You don’t? So you’ll wear one of mine. It’ll be a little big on you, but that shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Not at all.”
“And borrowing one of my nightgowns isn’t quite like using my vibrator.”
“And sticking it up my cunt.”
“Oh, God, stop it! You’re just saying that word because you know what it does to me.”
“After working there for one hour, I knew two things for certain. One, I couldn’t stand the raw animal stink of that man. Every breath I took felt like I was putting something filthy in my lungs. And two, I was going to have sex with him. The smell might be making me sick to my stomach, but it was sending a message straight to my clit. Nothing on earth was going to keep me from fucking him.”
They were in the living room, curled up in armchairs on opposite sides of the marble-topped coffee table. Their shortie nightgowns were identical except for color; Rita’s was shell-pink, hers apricot. They’d sat there for a few minutes, lamenting that the wine was finished, agreeing that they didn’t really need any more of it, and anticipating the rest of the evening with edgy excitement.