Coyoacan Mi Amor Ch. 02

Dafna stared at the Dell’s 17-inch screen. Its size accentuated the threat that rolled by. Already another man, from France, was knocking at the electronic door. Dafna switched off the chat function, hugging herself and saying, Dios mio, my God, what was that? I just wanted to talk. He was insane. This is how people find love?

Shaking, she checked the locks on the apartment door, then drew the balcony blinds tighter. Caller ID glowed on her phone. She eyed the speed-dial on the phone connecting her to building security, where one push brought Uzi-wielding guards within two minutes.

Calm down. Breathe. Remember the tai kwan do classes. Center yourself. He’s gone, forever. I’m safe.

Dafna had seen the world in her travels. Her street smarts kept her safe in Mexico City, Tel Aviv, Moscow, Paris, Johannesburg, rough places. Still, this was different. The freak poured his rage directly into her home, on the screen next to pictures of her parents, her sisters, her nieces and nephews, Dan and his daughter Shayna, a picture of her as a high school student bobbing like a grinning cork in the Dead Sea during a trip to Israel. The screen was still. The man from France was knocking on an empty building. Nobody, at the moment, was home. She had turned off the tap to the poison. Still, Dafna did not calm down until she had taken a long, soapy shower and wrapped herself in her fluffiest, most protective bathrobe.

Dafna waited several days before she dared to chat again. The experience was too horrible. She told Velma what happened.

“Hey, you find sickos everywhere,” she said over a taco salad in the lunch room at the Anglo-American School. “Sorry for the bad first experience. Did he get your real name or phone number?”

No, I would never give them to somebody I didn’t know very well,” said Dafna. “It happened so fast. In an instant he went from normal to nuts.”

“Men are loco. You never know what they’re hiding. You always know what they want,” mused Velma. “If something doesn’t look or sound right, decline the invitation. Or invite the guys that you think are decent to chat.”

Carefully, Dafna tried again. She declined many invitations and extended only a few. Gradually, she had better experiences. The weirdos usually revealed themselves quickly – their compulsions forced themselves to the surface despite the men’s best efforts at restraint and deceit. She encountered men from all over the world; who would imagine the many guises of loneliness? Management consultants so burned out on travel they could not tell her the city they were in; the newly divorced; the decent never-married men with hearts numbed for lack of a woman’s touch a word a single act of feminine kindness. The elderly pretending to be middle-aged; the teen-aged pretending to be 30-somethings; the middle-class pretending to be single and rich.

Rabbinical students in Brooklyn terrified of their momentary escape from study halls but frantic for a word with a woman, any woman. Scholars eager to discuss Mexican politics in the era of Vicente Fox. Married men who were almost, almost divorced. Teachers, soldiers, former Wall Street executives newly released from the terrors of prison. Men in deserts, men in snow, men into other men but doing a bit of slumming and might Dafna be agreeable to their fantasies?

Finally, Dafna recalled the very few men who touched her and drew her into their own unique worlds, especially Rafael Bocanegra with his snake-charmer magnetism and deceitful soul, and Dan Lissner, whose decency, humor, and intelligence simply made her feel warm and safe and liked for who she was, not to mention thoroughly aroused.

Dafna viewed the chats as an online cocktail party. She’d meet, say some words, and move on. In a few cases she settled on a couch with the man for more animated conversation. When she felt something especially appealing and urgent, well, she and the man would exchange Yahoo or Hotmail instant messaging addresses and duck into the electronic bedroom to strip for bracing electronic sex, sometimes once, sometimes for several sessions. Only with Rafael and Dan, however, did the virtual lead to the real.

The best of the chats she saved, as Velma had shown her. The files meandered over so many topics – music, books, Latin America, sex in public places, the fleeting nature of love, careers, lingering glances, teasing lines, passionate words and blinking smileys – that the print-outs could span 50 pages. Some conversations even came with illustrations, when men emailed pictures of themselves. Oh, what they sent! Shirtless, pantless, on horses, with guns, with the biggest damn fish they’d ever caught, with the President at a fundraiser, with their kids, with their wives (what would the wives think about this? Dafna wondered), soft cocks, hard cocks, cocks like batons, cocks in hands cocks on tables cocks springing out of unzipped tuxedo trousers. Oy vey, what would a man not do with his cock and a camera!

So that night, with Dan ailing and working, Dafna opened her treasured Libro de Mis Pasions and began to flip pages. The frustration of interruption faded into a warm glow of solo sexuality. Memories of sudden, tumultuous online quickies stirred her. The fever of a new lover, even one touched only with a keyboard, was thrilling. As Dafna turned the pages, the heat spread. Each page carried an image, and, hungry for pleasure, her hand drifted down to her cunt. The shorter pubic hair gave her fingering a new electricity. She was more naked, aggressive, unashamed. Finally she came to her favorite conversation of all, the one that never failed, in these moments when she lacked Dan online, to make her moan. She found their very first encounter, two kindred spirits stumbling across each other. Dan was so startled and so funny.

DAFNA: We only know each other a little time but I like U. Sweet and sincere. Sexy pictures.

DAN: Thanks. You seem really nice. I liked the picture you sent: que bonita. Very pretty. We’ve already talked two hours. That’s a good start for people who’ve never even seen each other.

DAFNA: Dan I ask you something. Be honest OK?

DAN: Sure. Ask away.

DAFNA: Don’t lie to me OK?

DAN: OK, OK, ask already. You’ve made me curious.

DAFNA: U are very sexy. I want to make love with you as we chat. Right now.

DAN: I’m flattered. I don’t know what to say. This is VERY surprising.

DAFNA: OK if we don’t. I just

DAFNA: have a good feeling about you. I’m sorry.

DAN: Dafna, why sorry? Nothing to be sorry about. I’m sliding around on my chair at the thought. I’m just, what, startled. Nobody’s wanted to do this, ‘til now. It’s been so long since I had ANY kind of sex with a woman, why, I don’t quite know what to do.

DAN: So, how do you have sex online? I’m serious. Educate me.

DAFNA: Is very sexy and easy. U just write what you want to do. I write back what I want to do. Read and write then cum. Like letters to Penthouse. You have lovers, you do sexy talk with them?

DAN: Well, I was married for 10 years, I don’t remember much sexy talk recently. I vaguely remember Rebecca and I did that before we started having silent angry sex.

DAFNA: I will not be silent and angry with U Dan. I like U a lot. That OK?

DAN: Very OK. Just a little hesitant. Rebecca and I slept together on our first date. Look at all the trouble THAT got me into. This is just fun for us? Two adults enjoying themselves, no tears, no demands?

DAFNA: Nothing but now Dan. I promise.

DAN: OOOOOkay. So, what do we do? You’ve got my total attention!

DAFNA: Mmm, a new lover make me verrrrry excited. I think of U there with Ur hard cock waiting to be in my pussy. I have my panties down I play with myself. U have clothes on?

DAN: PJ bottoms and a sweatshirt. It’s snowing here, you know. Your new lover, hmmm? Maybe we’ll be old lovers some fine day. You never know.

DAFNA: I reach my hand through the screen and touch Ur cock. It is so big and hard. I can tell.

DAN: Aren’t you the Lilith of my dreams.

DAFNA: Hahaha. Yes I tempt you like Lilith but all good, no evil.

DAN: I think I will reach through my laptop screen and rub your shoulder blade. I love women’s backs and shoulders. I swoon when I see a halter or sun dress.

DAFNA: I wear one for you someday, make your cock hard for me so I suck it. You like?

And so it began, hours of delirious, increasingly bold sucking and fucking and kissing and caressing and laughing and, when the conversation detoured to the aches of loves pursued and lost, sighs and tears. Re-reading the file, Dafna felt the surge of the new. Hope, so fragile and easily smashed in her life, had bloomed again, despite her fears that hope would never turn to love. Dan and Dafna had sustained their friendship and passions longer than she imagined they could last. Dan and Dafna had come so far, and now they were so close, a matter of miles. As a final orgasm ripped through her body, Dafna dreamily thought, “In a few days, we will know what is meant to happen.”