Steve Mosby - The Third Person

Amy17: I’m a little frightened

Amy17: It’s dark

Amy17: I hitch my bag up slightly

Amy17: adjust my skirt

There are probably a few facts you should know about me, too. I didn’t know what Kareem was imagining, sitting at his computer, talking to me. I didn’t know if he figured that Amy had told him the truth on the first night we met, but she really hadn’t.

‹~KaREEM~›: i can see u. i’m walking closer. catching u

‹~KaREEM~›: a stick cracks

I wasn’t five foot three; I was six foot two. My hair was blond – true – but it was cut short, shaved at the sides and back. I never used to wear it that way. In the old days, before Amy disappeared, I’d had it longer, and in a far more friendly style. These days, I looked like a thug, but that was no bad thing and, more to the point, it was an efficient cut. Reality over appearance. I shaved it once every fortnight, and didn’t have to think about it again, which suited me just fine. One less thing to worry about.

Amy17: I turn around and see you. I’m very scared

Amy17: I cry out HELP!

Amy17: start to run as fast as I can

I weighed fourteen stone. At the other end of the study, which had housed our main computer suite ever since we moved in, two years before, I kept a bench and some weights and a punchbag. Generally, I did a few hours a day on both, listening to music so loud it almost made my head bleed. Unlike Amy17, if Kareem had ever started to chase me through a dark forest, I wouldn’t have been running away from him.

‹~KaREEM~›: i’m gaining on u. my cock is so hard

‹~KaREEM~›: i’m gonna stick it in u until u scream

Amy17: I can tell. I’m running so fast, but know it’s not enough. no-one around!

‹~KaREEM~›: i’ve almost caught u

Amy17: I’m falling over. I scream for help

‹~KaREEM~›: i’ve got u fuckin bitch

Amy17: HELP! HELP!

‹~KaREEM~›: (slaps AMY17 hard)

I could never know for sure what Kareem imagined Amy’s motivation was for coming here and subjecting herself to this. I’d never known any woman who really wanted to be raped, although I knew there was a male myth that they existed. I guess Kareem knew that, too – or wanted to believe it, anyway. I mean, maybe he figured I was just another bloke, like him, doing the decent thing and enjoying the fantasy in my own way, even as I helped to create it – but I doubted that. I’d sent him a picture of Amy; we’d chatted at length. I’d invested time and effort in making her seem real, giving her a credible background, getting her name posted at websites, generally making her presence felt in places I knew he could check. After all this time, she seemed real to me, and I was hoping that she would to him, too.

My guess? Kareem thought he’d struck lucky. He’d found a beautiful, young girl who got off on the idea of being raped. Risk-free, trouble-free: his dream come true.

That was what I was counting on, anyway.

I sipped my beer and continued to type. On screen, Kareem was describing how he was raping Amy. Like a good little girl, I made sure I (SCREAM)ed in all the right places.

Cybersex takes place in every Chat room on the internet. Due to the ephemeral nature of the web, most of these Chat rooms are open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. They never close. Members vary, of course, but a good Chat room could expect to have an average of at least one hundred people logged in and talking at any hour of the day, and some of those people will be having sex in private rooms. There are thousands of Chat rooms on the internet. What this means is that there might well be as many people fucking on-line at any given moment as there are people dying, or being born.

You meet someone in a Chat room – usually by a random message inviting you to go private, and you chat for a while, sizing each other up. It works best if you’re both fast typists, and there’s no point at all unless there’s a chemistry there. In that sense, it’s the same as a physical meeting. Think it’s boring and clinical? You’re wrong: it’s not. It’s amazing how much personality shines through in the way you type. People fall in love on-line. It’s exactly as real as any other conversation, and often more telling: you can always scan back through what you’ve said to clarify meaning. It’s not like spoken words, which just drift away. Nothing on-line can ever be properly forgotten.

The act itself, then.

Some people cyber with strangers: others prefer to be in a relationship. And there are as many ways to do it as there are with physical sex. Some people talk through an actual, imagined sexual encounter, complete with (bracketed physical instructions) and hyperlinksto on-line pictures, while others just talk about what they’re physically doing at the time: undressing; masturbating; being masturbated. Maybe it’s real and maybe it isn’t. The cybersex ends when it ends – usually with both partners having reached orgasm, however many miles apart from each other. Sometimes, the whole procedure will progress to phone sex; more often, though, the two people involved will never encounter each other again. Such is life. At least on the internet it’s nice and clean, you can break it off at any time, and there’s no risk of disease. No shrieking, unwanted kids for the state to support afterwards.

That’s how it usually is, anyway.

But sometimes, on-line lovers will actually meet.

Kareem had taken a break, presumably to clean up. He’d fucked Amy hard, before turning her over and – eventually – coming in her backside, with her neck locked in the crook of his elbow, half-choking her. His mother would no doubt have been proud.

I took down the dregs of my beer and immediately wanted another one, but knew it would ruin me. I wanted ten three-minute rounds on the punchbag before turning in that night, and so a second beer would just have to wait. I played absently with the neck of the bottle, waiting for Kareem to return to the keyboard.

After a couple of minutes:

‹~KaREEM~›: back

Conversation was usually thin on the ground before we cybered, but he tended to be far more prolific afterwards. It was as though he’d released the tension and could relate to me as a human being again. I suppose that made sense. Talking to me beforehand would have killed his fantasy dead, whereas now he could light up a cigarette and kick back a little.

‹~KaREEM~›: u like that?

Amy17: not so much tonight

A little disappointment for him, there. I could almost smell the palpably wounded male pride in the next message, which arrived on-screen quickly.

‹~KaREEM~›: why?

I guess no man likes to leave his woman unsatisfied. Kareem was probably worried that his dream girl was about to bale on him, and I figured he’d do just about anything to stop that from happening.

A few quick messages, punctuated by the [RETURN] key.

Amy17: not enough anymore

Amy17: need more than that

Amy17: need more than just words on a screen

Amy17::-(x 1000

I was surprised by how excited I felt. There was a fluttering in my guts: the thrill of the hunt. Anything could happen in the next few minutes, and it would all be played out in a handful of sentences dropped onto a screen: black on white in neat, meaningful little scars.

Amy17::-(x 10000000000000000

‹~KaREEM~›: sorry.

‹~KaREEM~›: sorry not enough 4 u.

Amy17: not ur fault

‹~KaREEM~›: (pauses) so what do u want?

Amy17: (pauses) brb

Be right back .

Amy17 was going away to think about something. I leaned forwards in my chair again, bringing my face closer to the screen. Watched the blank space for a second or two, and then turned my attention towards the last frowning emoticon that Kareem had left me.