Barstool Tale

A bikini strap crept from beneath her terrycloth robe sometimes at lunch. 10:30, every day. We’d eat sandwiches, she’d put the dishes in the sink, kiss me, then shut herself in her office until 3:00. A lot of her regulars popped on during lunch breaks.

She had told me she was a cam girl long before, and when I told her I didn’t care, I meant it—yeah, that’d be great, IPA—I meant it, mostly. But day after day, sitting just on the other side of the wall—no, fresh glass, thanks—I thought about it more and more. Wouldn't you?

After I moved in four months back, I asked if I could sit in the corner while she cammed. She giggled sweetly and said, “no.” She didn’t giggle when I asked the second time or the third.

I brought up the popping sounds, in a cute jokey way. She smiled but said nothing. Then she bought me a pair of Beats. Noise cancelling.

I kept thinking about it, more near the end. Reading sleep study data is a boring fucking job, in case you didn’t know, even if your girlfriend isn’t undressing next door. I thought she had to be lying about something, if I couldn’t watch. This morning I finally did it: I logged in. Don’t fucking look at me like that, I know I shouldn’t have, but I did. I changed my screen name to “Looner666” to fit in.

And there she was, on my screen, just like she’d said. And there was her bikini, small, but fully on and not crazy small; it was the one she wore to the beach when she rented a house for my birthday.

And there were the balloons.

She was grinding on a huge purple one. It popped, and as she tumbled onto the bed and laughed the chat went wild, I mean, she was getting tips left and right. She got a small green one, I think left over from my nephew’s birthday. She knelt and stuck her butt toward the camera and laid the green balloon on her calves. “I don’t know, boys,” she said into my noise-cancelling Beats, “I might be too much for this one.”

I shut my laptop and eyes. I couldn’t stop seeing it, though, her ass descending toward the balloon. Yeah, go ahead, laugh, but I wasn’t laughing, and I no longer gave a damn if Patient 10347 had sleep apnea, so I went for a walk. I ended up at the liquor store. Then I ended up at Dick’s Sporting Goods.

I had martini in hand when her terrycloth robe stepped out of her office. She saw me in the jacket and tie first, I think, and the new exercise ball beside the sofa second. “Bounce for me,” I told her.

She clammed up. She came back five minutes later in a sweatshirt to tell me she didn’t like my tone. She said to leave the key on the counter by Monday.

Women.