Can You See Me Now?
by Lubrican
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Chapter Six
Riley
lay in
the back yard, staring up at the sky.
Pikes Peak made its own
weather, or at least seemed to.
From where she lay she could
see the clouds
rushing up the slopes, obscuring the top of the mountain.
She
was quite sure there were tourists up
there, disappointed that all those clouds were blocking the view they
had
anticipated after the arduous drive to get there. Riley
had taken Curtis up there not long
after they moved to Manitou Springs. She
had expected something grand and glorious.
What she had found was a big,
uneven, flat gravel parking lot, with a
cheesy souvenir shop.
The view had been
amazing, but the whole time she had looked out over what was probably a
hundred
miles of beautiful green, two teenagers had been bickering behind her.
Like
so many things in her life, she felt
like Pikes Peak had let her down.
She
smiled at
the clouds.
Even with a telescope,
nobody up there could see her now. And
that was good, because Riley Elaine Franklin was stark naked.
She
had decided to try that, on impulse, just
to see how it felt.
Bob wasn't up there,
and the clouds ensured that anybody else who was couldn't see her, so
she gave
in to her urge to be naughty.
She
was
surprised at how hard it had been to get naked in her back yard,
considering
the fact that Chuck had gotten her to strip naked in the car on the way
to the
cabin, the first time she'd seen it. His
plan had been to speed by a number of eighteen wheelers, showing her
off to the
drivers, and then find someplace to pull over and fuck her.
It
had all been a mind-boggling whirl of fun
and adventure back then.
She was amazed
at how stupid she'd been just a few short years gone past.
So
going
outside naked hadn't been fun, at first.
She'd walked around the
outside of the house first, still clothed,
looking for anyone who might be lurking in the neighborhood.
Nobody
was, of course.
Other than the mailman and
the UPS driver,
the only people who came up as far as her house were lost tourists, and
they
never stopped.
They just turned around
and went back down the dusty road. She
eyed that road critically.
There was no
haze of dust, meaning nobody had driven by her house in a while.
If
anybody did drive up the road, she'd hear
them anyway.
So
she had
stripped down to nothing, taken a towel (just in case) and laid down on
the
chaise lounge to see how that felt.
She
knew Bob
wasn't watching.
He was on his days
off.
But she was still amazed at
how
horny it made her to think of him peering down at her and finding her
this
way.
How surprised would he be? She
laughed, imagining the look on his face. She
had no idea what he looked like, other
than that one photo on his Facebook page.
And who knew how old that
was, or if it was even real?
Still, it was all she had to
work with.
She decided he would have a
silly grin on
that face if he saw her like this.
He
said he'd
gotten her a gift.
She hoped she liked
it, because if she did, she planned on giving him one too ... lying out
like
this for him.
It
was
cloudy.
Nobody could see her.
Her
fingers
reached to stroke bald pussy lips with a light, feather touch.
Quite
soon a
finger split her greasy labia to find and tease her clit.
Five
minutes
later, as an unusually strong orgasm washed over her body, she knew
she'd be
tempted to do this for Bob as well.
She
lay there
for another ten minutes, getting her strength back, but the clouds kept
the sun
from giving her all that delicious warmth on her naked body, so she got
up to
go inside.
She
saw her
phone lying beside the computer keyboard, and was surprised.
Normally
she didn't let the damned thing get
more than five feet away from her.
She'd
have
heard it ring, though, even outside. Her
ringtone was "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked," and it cut through most
household noises.
By
habit she
scanned the screen, and was surprised to see a missed call with a voice
mail
attached.
She peered closer to the
screen and saw that, somehow, the phone had been put on 'vibrate.'
She
looked at the number.
It was an area code that
wasn't familiar. Nor
was the number itself.
The caller ID
simply said "Private Caller." She had made them wait to leave a
message as long as possible, to screen out those who didn't really
want
to talk to her.
Most people, including
telemarketers, wouldn't wait past about ten rings.
She
gave her customers the code that, when
keyed or spoken, would send them directly to voice mail.
So
this wasn't a customer.
She
told the
phone to give up the mystery, her finger tapping the screen, and she
listened
as the voice mail delivered the message that had been left.
For
the first
time, she heard Bob's voice.
It was a
nice voice.
She
couldn't
believe her heart was pounding in her chest, and her pussy was getting
damp
again as her fingers again stroked the face of her phone, this time
pushing the
"redial" button.
The
ringing on
the other end made her want to scream. "Pick up!" she whispered
instead.
The
ringing was
cut off mid cycle.
"Hello?"
"Bob?"
"Riley?
Is
it you?
Is it really you?!"
His
voice had
been deep when he first picked up, but it had gotten into the higher,
more
tenor range as he expressed, unintentionally, his excitement.
"Hi,"
she said, her voice high as always. Many
people said she sounded like she was twelve or thirteen.
"You'll
never believe what I just
did."
"I
can't
believe it's really you," he said. "Hi! Wow!
This is so cool!"
She
laughed.
His excitement was
infectious.
She resisted the urge to
reach and stroke her clit.
What was
happening to her? This was crazy!
"It's
really me," she said.
She almost
said, "And guess what?
I'm
naked!" but resisted doing that too.
She had already decided that
she would surprise him by sunbathing fully
nude.
"Wow,"
he said again.
"How are
you?"
"I'm
great," she said. "How are your days off?"
"Fantastic,
now," he said. "Why do I feel like I'm sixteen, and talking to a girl
for the first time?"
"I
don't
know," she said.
"Probably
because when most people call and I answer the phone, they ask if my
mother is
home.
I'm told I sound a bit
young."
"That
isn't it," he said.
"I mean I
love how your voice sounds, but that's not what's making me nervous.
What's
making me nervous is that I don't want
to say something stupid, and I'm afraid I will."
She
smiled.
"What you're saying is that you don't do this much?"
"Yeah,"
he sighed.
"You could say
that."
"Don't
worry about it," she said.
"I've never known a man who
didn't say stupid things every once in
a while."
"Thanks,"
he said, and she was amazed to hear in his voice, that he really meant
that.
"So
..." she said, suddenly wondering what to say. "What
does a spy do on his days
off?"
"Well,
first
off, I'm not a spy.
I can't tell you
what I do, but I can tell
you I'm not a spy.
Not in the sense you mean."
Riley
thought
to herself that he couldn't have any idea of the sense she meant, but
she let
that go.
"Okay.
What
does someone like you do on his days
off?"
"Well,
I
go out to eat, for one thing.
That's
always a treat.
And today I went to the
mall.
Did you get my email?"
"I
did," she said.
"What is this
thing that reminded you of me?"
"I
can't
tell you that," he said.
"It's
supposed to be a surprise.
Besides, I
couldn't describe it to you well enough to do it justice."
"Does
it
involve slinky underwear?" she probed.
There
was a
pause that was longer than she expected.
Then he answered.
"That's
a
hard question to answer."
He was
thinking of how the figurine was dressed.
It was definitely slinky, but
it wasn't technically
"underwear."
"How
hard
could it be?" she asked.
"It
either does or doesn't."
"You're
slick," he said.
"But it's a
surprise.
So I'm not going to give you
any more clues."
"You
call
that a clue?" she said, but without any real unhappiness in her
voice.
"Fine! Be
mysterious.
I have a secret too." She was
thinking
that she was standing there, stark naked, talking to him.
"That's
fine," he said. "There should be parity in mysterious secrets between
people."
"You
don't
want to know mine?" she asked
"If
you
told me, it wouldn't be a secret," he said.
"But
you
want to know ... right?"
"I'm
normal," he said.
"Of course I
want to know.
But I'm patient too. I
hope this isn't the only phone call we'll
ever have.”
"It's
probably not," she said.
"Though, to be honest, I
can't believe I'm talking to a complete
stranger who is a peeping Tom.”
"Then
maybe we should get to know each other so I'm not a complete stranger
anymore," he suggested.
And
that was
what led to a chat that lasted almost two hours.
There
are many
emotions within the human experience that are incredibly powerful.
Anger
is one.
Sadness is a thing that can
overwhelm a person.
Despair can drive a human
being to take his
or her own life.
Boredom will cause some
people to do things they would never actually plan to become involved
in.
Passion is the same way. Sudden
passion is responsible for at least as
many babies as planned parenthood is, and more murders than are
pre-meditated
as well.
Elation and hope are emotions
that can drive a person to stay awake for days on end, and perform acts
most
people would think were impossible for a human being to accomplish.
All
of those
emotions are well known to mankind. For
the negative ones, there are coping mechanisms that have been devised,
so that
life can be managed when things aren't good.
The positive ones, of course,
are often sought out.
Counselors, either
professional or not, often
give advice and aid to help someone get through a bout of emotion.
And
the reason these advisors can help
others survive an emotional situation, is because they understand what
the
person is feeling.
They have experienced
that emotion themselves.
But
there is
another emotion that is less well known.
It happens so rarely, that
some people may not ever experience it. I'm
not even sure it has a name.
There is a ghostly version of
this emotion
called 'contentment.'
Perhaps it is a
mixture of several other emotions. Some
people who have been married for sixty or seventy years know this
emotion
well.
A woodcarver who finishes a
figurine and finds no fault in the completed project feels this emotion.
It
involves a kind of contentment that most
people feel only rarely because as humans in modern society, we rarely
stop
long enough to experience real bone-deep contentment.
I'm
not talking
about having a beer while you relax after a hard day's work.
That
might be contentment of a sort, but
usually the mind is still moving, planning what to do next, or worrying
about
what remains undone.
That married couple
has been through everything together.
They know each other so well
that they no longer need to worry about how
the other will react to a given situation.
They know
the love is real, and
unconditional, and that brings a
kind of deep, inner contentment that is this emotion of which I speak.
The
woodcarver knows that the beauty of his
art has the potential to endure long after his bones have turned to
dust.
He is content that he has
created something
precious and lasting.
Most
of us
can't even understand that kind of thing, because we haven't been
through what
that couple married seventy years has experienced.
We
literally cannot understand how they
feel.
Nor are most of us capable of
creating a work of art that rises to museum quality.
That's
why there are museums,
in fact,
to collect these rare and precious objects.
So we can't feel what the
artist feels as she completes a work of art.
But
we can experience
this emotion.
Not everyone, perhaps, but
it is possible
to find, and it happens every day. "Find"
is the wrong word, really,
because the situation that results in this emotion most often is almost
never
planned.
It
isn't the
right word, but for now, let us call this emotion "chemistry."
You
can't plan
for chemistry to happen when two people meet.
Usually, it requires a face
to face exposure.
It can be sought, that is to
say, you can go
looking for it, but that almost never meets with success.
The
very act of seeking chemistry between
yourself and someone else seems to inhibit the success of that endeavor.
For
most of us,
chemistry just happens.
We can't control
it, or train for it, or buy it.
We can't
even prepare ourselves for it.
Love at first
sight?
That's chemistry. Finding
your "one true love?"
That's chemistry. Still
being in love after seventy years of
trials and tribulations, and raising a family, and having countless
marital
fights?
That's chemistry. Having
an idea in your head, and making that idea
come to life from a piece of lifeless wood — seeing something
you created from
literally nothing and knowing it is perfect?
That's chemistry.
Imagine
two
people whose lives have been drab and basically listless for a long
time.
They've been lonely for a
long time, and hope
really hasn't had much of a role in their lives. Neither
has an outlet for passion, really,
other than the satisfaction of a job well done.
One has a little boy to love,
but that is a different kind of passion
that brings with it worries that do not relax one.
Basically,
their lives have consisted of getting
up, working, and going to bed.
There has
been little to be content about, and what there was consisted of
basically
shallow things.
Now
imagine
those two people talking on the phone for two hours, and being so
wrapped up in
what was being said that their eyes experienced a kind of blindness
that didn't
actually focus on anything.
No
multitasking went on, or at least nothing extended.
A
cup might be reached for, and a sip taken,
but it was automatic, rather than consciously thought of.
The
content of the conversation wasn't
anything momentous.
It involved where
people grew up, and little stories about their backgrounds.
Movies
were discussed.
What kind of pizza each liked
came up.
A thousand other minor
details of each
person's life were voiced and traded.
And
through it
all, neither person wanted to do anything except stay engaged in this
silly
exchange of information.
History would
not document those two hours.
No other
human beings on the face of the planet were aware that this
conversation was
even taking place.
The gods did not
mutter in the firmament, and fate took no notice whatsoever of this
telephonic
meeting.
But
there was
chemistry between Bob and Riley ... big time chemistry.
By
the time
that first conversation was over, both knew there would be more phone
calls ...
many more.
Both knew that life for them
had changed, somehow, though the extent of that change was still
nebulous and
unformed.
For just those two people,
the
moment was, in fact, momentous ... except they wouldn't have
characterized it
that way.
To
the
omniscient observer, it would have been noted that hope came rushing
into their
lives.
It was an unstated hope, to
be
sure, but the unexpected, satisfying experience of just talking to each
other
for two hours would create a hunger for more of that rare emotion.
And
it all came
from an analyst accidentally zooming in on a woman laying out in her
back yard,
a woman who had, on a lark, painted a sheet in protest that her
government
didn't respect her privacy.
Over
the next
thirty-six hours, Bob slept for sixteen of them, spent maybe two hours
cooking
and eating, had to waste (his opinion) six hours getting the oil
changed in his
car and doing some shopping.
He sat,
trying to watch a movie (but staring more at his phone than the computer screen) for
an hour
and a half.
He didn't time himself, but
he probably spent the equivalent of a full hour wishing he was back at
work so
he could center the camera on Colorado.
And not only around noon. He
took
two showers, and masturbated four times, which was double what he
normally
would have done.
But
that still
left him with seven and a half hours of time in which he tried to
resist
calling Riley back.
Basically,
he
resisted for a total of roughly five of those hours, depending on how
you want
to account for the time.
He called her
three times before he got back into his newly serviced car and went
back to the
agency.
The first time he confessed
that
he had nothing to talk about, but just wanted to hear her voice.
He
also said he was pathetic.
The second time, she answered
the phone and
said he was, indeed, pathetic, but then talked to him for almost an
hour.
The last time was only a five
minute conversation,
in which he said he was about to go back to work, and would not be able
to talk
to her for almost 80 hours.
She laughed,
called him pathetic again, and said she'd lay out longer the next day,
if she
could.
What
saddened
him the most, as he drove back to work, was that the package he'd sent
her
hadn't arrived during the time when they could have talked about it on
the
phone.
Riley
pulled
the earpiece out of her ear and dropped it on the desk beside her phone.
She
wiggled a fingertip in her ear,
scratching the itch caused by the extended use of the earpiece.
Whenever
Bob had called, she'd plugged that
in, because she could then talk, hands free, and keep working, or
cooking, or
whatever she was doing.
That was a
conscious decision, based on the fact that, after their first
conversation, she
had realized, with shock, that she was still
stark naked, and could not
remember having done a single thing while they talked.
She
didn't
really think he was pathetic.
She
thought he was sweet.
Most guys she had
known during her life would have wanted to have phone sex with her.
He
had, in fact, asked if she was going to
sunbathe when he got back to work. She
could hear the longing in his voice, and had giggled, telling him how
awful he
was.
He had admitted it. Her
drawn out "Maaaaybe" had caused
a silence that dragged out until he finally said, "I have no idea what
to
say now."
"If
I lay
out, will you spy on me?" she asked.
"Of
course
I will," he said, immediately.
"It's the highpoint of my
day."
"You
seriously need a woman in your life," she said, laughing.
"I
have
a woman in my life," he said.
"She's just fifteen hundred miles
away and I've never actually met her."
"Is
that
all?" She giggled again.
"Minor
issues," he scoffed.
Then
he had
asked her about her latest book, wanting to know what the plot line was
and how
far along she was with it, and when he'd be able to read it.
He
hadn't asked her to get undressed, or use
her vibrator while he listened, or any of that kind of thing.
She
was mildly
astonished to find that she wished he wasn't
so far away.
All
in all it
had been a lovely couple of days. Rather
than being disgusted at all his calls, she found that she liked having
a man so
interested in her that he couldn't resist calling for no reason other
than to
hear her voice.
It
wasn't until
he'd hung up and was probably on his way to work, that the solution to
the
problem reared up and looked her in the face.
She couldn't believe she
hadn't thought of it already.
And they'd wasted two whole
days because she
hadn't.
Bob's
first day
back at work was so busy that there was no way he could take time out
to turn
the camera on Colorado.
That was because
there were over a hundred and sixty wildfires threatening to destroy
the entire
west coast of the country.
At least that
was the mindset of the forest service, which had asked for
unprecedented access
to satellite images of the fires. And
they wanted close-ups too.
Using the
sats freed up valuable aircraft, and there was no refueling involved or
any of
the other detriments involved with using aircraft.
What
nobody had
thought about, and which was obvious to Bob immediately, was that it
was
child's play to visualize exactly where the fire was in relation to
fire
fighters, or other people on the ground, and the computer was easily
capable of
gathering wind speed, visual fire creep and other factors that allowed
him to
estimate exactly how much time would elapse before the fire he was
seeing would
reach the people he was also seeing.
His
images were
digital, and could be emailed within seconds of being taken.
The
fire managers suddenly had better and
more reliable data than they'd ever dreamed of.
It didn't make fighting the
fires any easier, really, but it helped
immensely in managing the safety of the people who might be killed by
those
fires.
He
was moving
all day, shifting the cameras from one fire to another, and back again.
He
spent almost an hour on one fire, talking
to managers on the phone and then sending them images to document what
he was
telling them. When Phil Stevens relieved him, he was too tired to eat.
But
he wasn't
too tired to check his email.
There were
two from Riley.
"Skype
me,
you fool!" was all the first one said.
The
second one
was more verbose, primarily because he hadn't responded to the first
one.
She asked all the normal
things.
How was his day going? Was
he busy?
Why hadn't they thought about
Skyping when he was home, and could talk
to her in his pajamas?
Did he wear
pajamas?
Had he seen her laying out at
noon?
Did he like her new bikini? She'd
gotten it just for him.
Then there was a paragraph in
which she
described her own day, and her hope that he had Skype on his computer
and would
use it to call her when he could.
He
opened his
laptop.
He didn't have Skype. Why
would he?
If he wanted to video
conference with someone, he had the best software
available and a room full of electronics to make it happen.
But
he couldn't use that with Riley, of
course. It was bad enough that he had already diverted sat time worth
probably
a million dollars, just to ogle her half naked body.
Ten
minutes
later he was frustrated.
He'd installed
the program, and he'd located her in the search protocol, but he
couldn't
contact her without her permission. He
sent her a request.
Then, having been
revived a bit by the hope he'd be able to see her in real time (without
misappropriating government equipment to do so) he ate something and
took a
shower.
He checked the computer, but
she
hadn't responded to his request yet.
Reluctantly,
he
shut the laptop.
He had to sleep. His
next shift was probably going to be a
repeat of his last.
Phil had grumbled
that all the routine surveillance jobs that hadn't gotten done on Bob's
shift
(because of the fires) were on his sheet for completing that night.
He
sent Riley a
short email, explaining that he'd had a rough day, and expected the
next one to
be just as rough.
He said he'd
downloaded Skype and would try to call her after his next shift.
He
told her his next shift wouldn't cover the
time she usually laid out, and that he was very sad about that.
He
stared at
the message, wondering how to sign off.
Swallowing,
he
typed: "Hugs and kisses."
It
wasn't until
after he'd punched the send button, that he decided he shouldn't have
done
that.
But
it was far
too late.
His hugs and kisses were
already in her inbox, and there was nothing he could do about it now.
END OF PREVIEW
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