Chapter 1: The Negotiation
The ache in her legs was a phantom, but the stickiness of the cheap sheets under her thighs was real. Her phone buzzed against the nightstand, a harsh vibration she felt in her teeth. Stu’s message glowed on the screen: so, u do sexting?
Maya exhaled, a slow release of breath that didn’t touch the tightness in her chest. Her thumbs moved over the screen, tapping out a clinical price list for fantasy, each digit a small act of surrender. She hit send, the message flying into the digital void to find the nervous kid on the other end.
Three dots appeared, pulsed, vanished. The phone buzzed again.
Stu: jesus. thats steep.
Maya: It’s specialized. Take it or leave it.
A long pause, then the screen lit up. Stu: fine. an hour. His next message was the blurry photo of a dated Visa gift card, the scratch-off PIN revealed. She studied it, the digital surrender complete, then typed the two words that started the clock. Maya: Go ahead.
Stu’s next message was a single, blunt question. What are you wearing?
Maya stared at the four words on the screen, her mouth a flat line. “I’m not wearing any pants,” she typed, the admission feeling both clinical and absurd. “Plain black cotton underwear, a faded gray Army PT shirt, and a sports bra.” The loose cotton of the shirt was rough against her skin, a texture she focused on to ground herself in the moment. This was just inventory, another thing to be catalogued and used.
Stu: what about your tattoos? describe one.
Her eyes went to the black ink swirling over her left bicep, the skin there puckered and strange. “The one on my shoulder is a geometric wolf,” she typed, which was true. “When I’m turned on, the skin over my pulse point on my neck gets hot and flushes,” she added, which was not.
Stu: i want to kiss you right there, feel that heat under my mouth.
Maya ignored the faint curl of nausea in her gut. “What are you wearing right now?” she typed, shifting the focus back onto him.
He took a long time to reply. “Uh. Just, like, boxer briefs. Gray ones. And a Patriots t-shirt from, like, high school. It’s kinda tight.”
She could almost hear him shuffling his feet. Her own response was a flat, calculated whisper into the digital space between them. “Take the shirt off.”
"Shit. Okay, I did."
His response came too fast, a practiced lie she could taste through the screen. The hum of the refrigerator in her kitchen seemed to grow louder in the silence.
"Prove it," she typed, the words a cold transaction. "Send a photo."
The phone buzzed, and the photo loaded: a pale, narrow slice of torso, the hem of a shirt still visibly tucked into the waistband of his boxer briefs.
Maya’s eyes tracked over the image, noting the softness of the stomach, the complete absence of definition, the poor lighting from what was clearly a dorm room ceiling fixture.
Kid couldn’t even commit to the lie. The ache in her legs flared, a dull throb of humiliation that this was her arena now.
“Not bad,” she typed, the lie effortless. “Now lose the briefs.”
She sent it, then let her head fall back against the pillow, staring at the water stain on the ceiling while she waited for his next performance.
The phone buzzed, the screen filling with the new image: his cock out, circumcised, standard length. She cataloged it dispassionately—the pale skin, the neat scar, the utterly unremarkable shape. A flash, brief and unwelcome: the mechanics of blowing him, the imagined pressure against her tongue, a ghost from a time when her body obeyed.
She swiped sway the photo, the action swift and silent. “Good,” she typed, the letters tapping out like rounds into a chamber. "How's about you stroke for me?"
The three dots pulsed for a full ten seconds. “fuck. okay. i’m hard."
"I can see that."
Another three dots pulsed for a full ten seconds. Faded. Pulsed again. "i really wanna to fuck you."
Maya’s mouth twitched. Very original. "Oh yeah? Got something in mind baby?"
Stu’s reply finally blinked up: "yeah. maybe pin your wrists down? fuck you missionary."
"That's hot," Maya typed, the words ash in her mouth.
He wrote back immediately: "whats your favorite position?"
She stared at the question, her thumbprint smearing the screen’s glass.
"Doggy," she finally replied, because it was the one that required no explanation.
He still wanted one. “Does that make you come?” he typed.
She amusedly imagined coming for him in a different way—a swift, practiced takedown, her knees driving into the mattress for leverage that would never come.
“Sometimes,” she typed back. The phone’s glow lit the hard line of her jaw. “If you know what you’re doing.”
The phone buzzed again, a jarring interruption in the quiet room. Stu’s next message appeared: "what else do you like to do?"
Maya’s fingers hovered over the screen, the ghost of a smirk touching her lips. "I like to shoot," she typed, the truth of it a solid weight in her chest. "At the range. It's quiet." She sent it, then waited, the ache in her legs a constant, dull reminder of everything she couldn't do.
The three dots blinked, then stopped. Shit. She felt like an idiot suddenly realising he meant sexually. Of course he did. “At the range, and other places,” she typed quickly, forcing a casual tone she didn’t feel. The silence from his end of the line stretched, thick and judgmental.
The silence from his end of the line stretched, thick and judgmental. Then his reply popped up, prefaced by a ‘haha’. Another three dot pulse. "Is it weird im a virgin?"
Maya’s thumb tightened on the phone, the plastic edge digging into her palm. Jesus Christ. She exhaled slowly, the scent of old garlic and whiskey faint in the air.
Doesn’t change the price, she thought, her gaze flat on the screen. Somewhere in the apartment, the refrigerator’s hum kicked on, a low, constant drone.
Maya watched the three dots pulse, her own breathing the only other sound in the dark room. She typed a simple reply, her thumbs moving with a detached efficiency. “Nah, you're good. Lots of people are. It doesn’t mean anything.”
The dots stopped, then immediately started up again, faster this time. "okay cool."
"Yeah." Her thumb swiped up, the screen’s glare cutting the dark. A notification glowed: 50 minutes remaining. It felt endless.
He typed again, the three dots blinking with a pathetic eagerness. "so what usually makes you come?"
Maya stared at the question, then typed her reply with brutal economy. "Missionary, doggy, cowgirl," she listed, the words like a sterile inventory.
"would you let me try head?"
Head is overrated, she thought, all that vulnerability for a payoff you can give yourself in half the time. She could almost feel the phantom pressure of a body that wasn't there, the ghost-weight that now meant nothing but a logistical problem.
Her thumbs moved, typing the question with a sniper’s cool precision. “On me, or on you?”
The three dots on the screen froze, then vanished completely. "both? haha"
That amused her. She decided to indulge him. "Sure, both," she typed, the words bland as field rations. "But you have to describe it. Paint me a picture, Stu." She sent it, then watched the three dots flicker with a predator's quiet patience.
The three dots pulsed for a long time. Then his reply came in stuttering fragments.
“ok so. i’d use my tongue. i’d start slow, like, circles. then maybe faster. i’d try to find your, you know, the spot. it would probably taste kinda like, skin? but like, salty. i’d use my hands to hold your hips down i guess.” The words stopped, the confession hanging in the digital space between them, naked and graceless.
Maya read it once, her expression not changing. The hum of the refrigerator in the next room was the only sound. "Sounds perfect." It was far from perfect.
His next message stammered onto the screen: "then maybe sucking my dick? like, i'd wanna see your lips around it and feel how warm your mouth is."
Maya didn't blink, the phone's glow etching lines into her face. She imagined the clinical mechanics—the angle of her neck, the useless weight of her legs—and typed a flat, "Go on."
Stu’s reply was a stumbling block of text. "ok fuck... your mouth so warm and tight..."
Maya watched the words form, her face illuminated only by the phone’s sterile glare. In her head, she calculated the remaining minutes against the diminishing returns of his desperation. She thought of cleaning a weapon, the systematic disassembly, each part known and inert. The phone buzzed again with a final, shuddering, "im close."
"oh yeah?"
"fuck. where?"
The question hung there, stupid and literal. Maya blinked. Where? Oh. Where.
A faint, dry amusement tightened her throat as she ran through the juvenile catalogue. She settled on the least dignified option, the one that would probably send him scrambling for a towel.
Her thumb moved, tapping out the verdict. "On my stomach," she typed.
The three dots on the screen pulsed, frantic. His next message was a single, breathless word: "fuck... keep going? please." The message he really meant was clear: just say anything keep going I’m so close.
She stared at the plea, her own breathing even and measured.
“Yeah,” she typed, her thumbs moving with methodical precision against the glass, “empty everything for me, right onto my skin.” She hit send, the message delivered into his silent dorm room as the timer slowly bled away.
The three dots convulsed, then his message hit her screen: "oh fuck maya im gonna come"
It amused her, this stringy warning reading as if she wasn’t acutely aware of the entire pathetic process. “Yeah, come for me,” she typed, the vanilla laziness of the words deliberate, a blunt instrument she knew was driving him wild precisely because it cost her nothing. “Do it.”
She pictured him, spine arching off a cheap dorm mattress, the silent gasp, the shudder.
Her own thumb tapped the screen’s edge, counting the phantom seconds until release. Her phone screen lit up with his final, gasped transmission: fuck im coming!
She pictured the shudder, the slackening, the stupid bliss on his face, and typed the three empty sounds she knew he needed: oh god yes.
A minute passed in total silence, the only light the phone’s dim glow on her expressionless face. The transaction was complete.
Her phone buzzed, a final tremor: "That was amazing." Maya typed "It was so hot," the words tasting of ash and duty. She dropped the phone onto the mattress, its screen facing down. The hum of the fridge was louder now, a constant white noise in her silent apartment. Her eyes drifted to the laptop on the counter, its screen still dark with unread messages.
She lifted her phone, thumb smearing the glass. She checked the time. Thirty five minutes remaining. She gave him a moment to clean up before returning.
“All good?” she typed.
“Yeah. Amazing.” Stu’s reply was sluggish, post-coital.
“Glad to hear it.” The cursor blinked on her laptop screen, a persistent, silent pulse in the dim room.
The cursor blinked on her laptop screen, a persistent, silent pulse in the dim room. Maya grabbed the computer, her thumb brushing the trackpad to wake it, and saw Stu’s final message in the chat window: thanks. i haven’t really done things like this before.
She let out a sharp breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. Of course he hadn’t. She closed the laptop, the soft click severing the connection, and the room swallowed the last of the light.