Free Story Friday: The Request

Tanner was having a hard time focusing on the screen as he logged into Facebook, more out of habit then any true desire to know the extraneous events of his online community’s day. As he muddled through the different alerts, he caught his reflection on the monitor. At 21, he wasn’t bad looking, especially after the acne he had fought all his life began to recede, but he also wasn’t a Greek god made flesh. He was on the thin side, scrawny if he had to use a word, and there was a certain air that seemed to cling to him, one that pointed to his lack of experience. Not that he minded being a virgin at 21 but it made him feel like a sideshow attraction amongst his friends, who all seemed astounded that he would have waited so long. But then, who could blame them in this day and age.

Tanner tried to give more than apathetic interest in the screen in front of him as he scrolled through the different updates of his many “friends”. As he clicked on the upper right, moving from his newsfeed to his profile, he sighed to see that his profile was headed by an update that he didn’t post. He read the update indifferently, noting that, once again, it was a gay joke. For supposedly heterosexual men, he and his friends made an obscene number of gay implications amongst each other, he thought.

Tanner was just about to close down the window to get some much needed rest, when he noticed one of the icons light up red on the left hand side of the screen. It was the friend icon and he found his interest piqued for the first time in a while, so he forestalled his plans for sleep just a little bit until his curiosity was sated.

Tanner clicked the red icon, which immediately brought down nothing he noted sourly. Big surprise, Facebook’s lagging, he thought. As he waited, he ran through his head who might have sent him a friend request, trying to think of all the people he knew that might be sending him a friend request. A need for sleep severely limited his cognitive abilities but he was still able to put together a short list of suspected friend requesters, that is why he was taken by surprise when the name finally appeared on his screen.

Euterpe Praxia.

Tanner wracked his brain, but he was fairly certain that with a name as strange as Euterpe, that it would stand out. Curiouser and curiouser, he thought. He glanced down to the time: 11:45pm. Maybe he had a little time for a trip down the rabbit hole, he thought with a smile. He didn’t have to be at work until 3pm the next day, and even with his poor sleeping habits, that was plenty of time.

Clicking on the picture of Euterpe, he was immediately greeted with a personal message from her. It read:

You don’t know me; at least I’m pretty sure you don’t. I saw your name and immediately wanted to know you, though. Tanner is such a… sexy name. Anyways, I hope you take a chance on this friend request, I know how things are online these days. I promise I’m not a creepy old man and I’m not selling anything, just a lonely Greek girl reaching out across the Net. Anyways, I will understand if you can’t but I hope you will! <3 Euterpe

A look of captivation fell like a mask across Tanner’s face as he read the words. As he finished, he shook his head, feeling dazed, as if he just woke up. Tanner found this disconcerting, though a bit pleasurable, as he had never been one of those whose interest was captured by words. He found himself needing to know more about this mysterious girl. He used her picture to portal to her profile, then clicked on Photos and browsed. Tanner gave a low, involuntary whistle of appreciation. If these were actual pics of Euterpe then she was certainly a hottie, Tanner thought. Long, black hair that framed a perfectly oval face with sea foam blue-green eyes that seemed to capture him whenever he looked at them. She had an olive complexion, with a tight stomach and long legs that seemed to be twin stairways to heaven. The more Tanner saw, the more Tanner wanted, her beauty entrancing him. Tanner found himself consuming the pics that she had and finding himself hungering for more once he got to the end of her online collection.

Tanner felt ashamed as he began to rub the hardness at the front of his slacks, his face burning red in humiliation at how easily he was aroused by pictures of a woman he had never met that were only barely erotic; her most provacative were bikini pics. Feeling the stiffness in his pants, he decided that there was no reason not to accept this vixen’s friend request, if she made him feel this way from only a few lines and pictures, what would her status updates do to him?

No sooner had he accepted the friend request than a chat box opened at the bottom of the screen. He stared at it with barely restrained lust, the words not quite making it to the part of the brain that could translate them properly. When he finally realized that he should actually read what she wrote, he took a couple of deep calming breaths and read:

I thought you’d never accept my request, lover! I’ve been waiting all day for someone to talk to poor, lonely Euterpe… I’m sooooo alone and I find myself having to, how do you say, take care of myself?

Tanner groaned out loud as he read her words, swearing to himself he could hear her voice, husky and sultry, inside his head. How did this woman do this? Tanner had never felt so helpless against the opposite sex. Never having had a woman physically touch him, Tanner was for the most part immune to what a woman would do, never having experienced it himself, he didn’t know what he was missing so it really didn’t concern him. And yet, this woman, who was just words and pixels on a monitor, had somehow awakened a desire within him from a halfway across the world!

Tanner found his eyes once more drawn to the screen as words start appearing once more in the chat box:

Hey, Tanner, baby, you still there? I’m lonely and just want to chat with you! Please don’t make me beg!

Tanner took a deep breath, felt a chill run down his spine, and started typing:

Tanner: Uhm, yeah I’m here.

Euterpe: Are you scared, honey? No need, Euterpe is a nice girl! 

Tanner: I’ve just never done this before with anyone, its my 1st time doing anything like this.

Euterpe: Ahhhh! So sexy, a virgin! And what exactly are we doing, Virgin Tanner?

Tanner: I don’t know.

Euterpe: Well, if you want, Euterpe doesn’t mind making sexy with you… but only if you want to…

Tanner took a deep gulp of air, finding the situation becoming too intense for his liking. Without thinking, because thought would draw him back in, he shut down his computer with the power button and sat back, noticing for the first time how much he was sweating. Did that just happen, did a girl he didn’t even know almost turn him into some sort of sex slave? Shaking his head, he walked away from the computer, thinking now would be a good time for sleep. As he stripped to his night clothes, some sweat pants and a wife beater, he almost jumped out of his skin when his phone started ringing, playing Justin Beiber’s Kiss and Tell.

Tanner looked towards the clock and was dismayed to see that it was nearly 2:15am. Had that much time really passed? And who would be calling me this late? Tanner thought. Tanner flicked his gaze down at the phone, noting that all it said was Unknown Caller, not even a number. Despite his trepidation, Tanner flipped the phone open. “Hello,” he said hesitantly.

“You stopped talking to me, lover,” the husky and sultry voice, that had been confined to his head until now, said.

“Who is this?” Tanner said nervously, fearing he knew the answer. The very sound of her voice had him rehardened instantly, he noted with apprehension. He almost went crazy with lust when he talked to her online, what would happen in an actual conversation on the phone?

“Euterpe, silly, we got disconnected online… Luckily, you had your phone number as part of your profile or I would have had to wait to hear from you,” she purred into his ear via the phone. Tanner gasped and she giggled. Each intonation she made seemed a caress that caused him to shiver in anticipation of more.

“Why me?” he croaked out, his words hoarse with desire.

“Ohhhh, Tanner, baby, why not you? You are so cute and lovable and no one has ever tended to your needs! I just want to make you feel good, is that so bad?” Euterpe said, her voice enthralled Tanner, causing him to begin to bubble with unreleased sexual tension. “But there is no need to worry now, my little man. Euterpe knows where you are now, she can visit you, you can welcome her in your dreams. We can release you from all those many years of sexual oppression…”

Tanner didn’t know what else to do, didn’t know how else to fight it, so he did the only thing he could think of, he passed out.