(S)talking
by Ralph Greco

Dana pushed the button and asked:
"What did you forget now?"
"Hello, Dana," the voice said.
She stopped under the silver and green awning of "Carl's Hot Bodies" and leaned heavily against the brick wall. It wasn't Steve.
"Nice day for a walk," the male voice continued, after a half minute of Dana's clutched inhale.
"Yes," Dana choked. "Yes."
"Wearing the jogging outfit or the shorts today?" he asked.
'Bastard,' Dana screamed, only in her mind. 'Get right to it why don't you!?'
"You're so smart, why don't up tell me," Dana said, wincing as thewords left her thick, pale lips. She had paid dearly for less.
"Dana. Dana. Dana," he chided.
When he repeated words like this Dana was sure she could detect anaccent. But from what country she hadn't yet been able to determine.
"Sorry," Dana apologized and shifted her skinny butt.
"I'm wearing my blue shorts," she explained. "Sneakers, my 'Floyd' T-shirt."
"Bra?" he asked. Was that a chuckle she heard?
"What do you think?" Dana asked, a bit too quickly. That was the second transgression in only a minute!
"Of course," she added as softly as she could.
"So conservative," he taunted. "Where's the dirty Dana we all know and love?"
She didn't answer.
"Start walking," he added and Dana reluctantly did.
This was her neighborhood, she was safe here. A soft enclave of Tudorhouses and manicured lawns. Yes, the sight of a twenty-three year-old girl walking through the summer day, literally 'wearing' a portable phone to her ear was a bit indulgent to quiet, well-to-do, but-never-showing-it neighbors, but everyone in Rock Point knew Dana Armstrong well; there were only smiles for this tall girls' modern-day indulgence. If she wished to spend her day off walking around town gibbering away, then that was fine to Mrs. Tansen or Mr. Jonese, or the seven-kid brood of the Mady household. Of course Dana's smiling neighbors had no idea what kind of conversation she was engaged in as she passed them that Saturday afternoon.
"Just think what they would look like bouncin' right now without a bra," he continued as Dana passed Carl's third garage and crossed the street. She was up on the curb and walking down Brown street as he continued his diatribe:
"There's gonna come a time when I tell you to strip right there, right in front of everybody. In broad daylight everybody will see those great big melons of yours and that little white ass."
"N...ah," Dana said, a tight sigh releasing from her long throat and a drop of musky dew tickling between her legs.
"Don't worry," he continued. "I'd never tell you to do anything I didn't think you weren't ready for...You trust me," he added and this time Dana was sure she heardhim chuckle.
"Where are you now?" he asked as Dana crossed Third and continued into the tree-lined expanse of Brown. Good, he was off her body for a second, she thought, maybe this would be just one of his "call and tease" days.
"On Brown, crossing Third," Dana answered as perspiration fell down her back.
"Boy, you move fast," he said. "Those legs really are in shape."
'Sure are asshole!' Dana screamed in her head as the conversation turned back to her body.
"And that tight little behind," he continued, his breathing just a bit laboured.
'Here we go', Dana thought.
"You know what I like to do to that little behind," he added and the wetness in Dana's sex increased as she remembered...

...Thursday night, a week past.
Dana had taken the phone with her as she left of the house; she needed some air when she made her return call to Steve. As Dana walked up her short street and into the fenced-in park at the end of her block, her portable phone rang. She was supposed to call Steve, but Steve was calling her! This was a good sign!
"You hung-up on me Tuesday," the caller said after Dana pushed the "Talk" button and said, "Hello".
Dana stopped cold, facing the park's silent red swings.
"You have to be punished for hanging up," he persisted. Dana had only heard him say those words once before... the very first time he had called her those were the exact five words he had first spoken to her. To say the least, he had gotten her attention at the 'Quick Check' then as he did right here at the park.
"What?" she asked the empty park.
"Take off your pants," he continued.
"I'm in the park!" Dana pleaded.
"I known," he growled and a chill of terror splitup Dana's spine.
She knew he watched her, maybe not all the time, but he had to see her on occasion to know the details he did. More often then not, he askedDana to describe what she was wearing, where she was walking. In those moments Dana knew he hadn't watched, and she somehow felt more in control of a situation she knew was slipping far from her control. But at times like these she felt truly vulnerable and a bit more scared then she usually did when she heard his taunting voice. Almost scared enough to put an end to this...almost.
"Walk over behind the swings and take your pants off," he demanded. Dana cradled the phone to her ear and walked the ten feet around the back of the swings. Would she do this? Of course, he knew she would. Watching her or not, detecting the sounds of excitement in her breathing or not, he knew she would never betray him. And Dana knew he knew and she serectly ached for his control. Balancingbalanced her free hand on the slanted metal support of the swings, Dana slild the old pair of sweats down her smooth thighs, hard calfs and over her bare feet.
"Thong or regular?" he asked, as she stood there bottomless except for her underwear.
"Thong," Dana said.
"You're lucky," he said.
Dana tried to breath deep in the minute silence that followed. If she allowed herself the clarity of mind to realize what she as doing, what she was allowing, she knew her sanity would disappear from her head. Here she was, in this quiet park, her portable to her ear, standing in a corner by the swings with her sweat pants pooled at her bare feet . Her pale ass naked except for her thongpanties, Dana was exposed in the lone overhead hallogen light. Anyone walking their dog at this hour (and there were many in this little enclave of intersecting streets that did just that) would be able to see the girl standing with her ass exposed to the night.
Just what the hell she was doing?
Just why the hell was she doing it?
Dana hated this! She hated this man who called to punish her! She hated the fact that she was powerless to resist; powerless and loving every flushing second of his torture. She hated the fact, that when, and if, he allowed her to, Dana would nearly collapse from the orgasm she would coax from masturbating after this very scene.
"Spank yourself," he said and Dana involuntarily looked down at her right hand at the command.
"Go ahead," he coaxed. Dana adjusted the phone deeper into the crook of her neck, brought her
arm round the back of herself and lifted her open palm high.
"Harder," was the only word she had heard as the smacks sounded through the high trees...

Now, as she walked down the street, Dana said, "Please, let me get to..." There was Miss Jane, Dana's third grade teacher, watering her lawn.
"I know where you want to go," he said. "'Fruit Alley' is nice and quite, right?"
"Yes, please," Dana pleaded in a whisper as she increased her steps and faked not seeing Miss Jane.
Damn him, his little games, she thought. Damn the fact that he knows my neighborhood. And damn the fact that he probably lives here among us and I probably know him, or at the very least, have passed him during the course of my fucking life! But most of all, damn me for never hanging up and just calling Steve, like that first night...

..."In time you will come to welcome my calls," he said fifteen minutes after Dana had sprinted home from the "Quick Check."
"I'm hanging-up now," Dan said, leaning against her father's brand new Buick.
"You'll never hang-up," he continued. "Why do you think you followed my orders? I know just what you need Dana. I know just how to get you off and you know I know it."
"I know that you are wet right now," he added with a slight chuckle (the first time Dana had heard it). Dan shifted her butt against the car's bumper and listened. Shit, she was wet! A guy calls her portable phone when she's shopping for milk, tells her he's going to "punish her" and then orders her to race home and he'll call back...and she does it, this was sick! What the fuck was she thinking? 'Call Steve right now', Dana screamed to herself, 'End this'! But then he said: "Go into your backyard, it's time I punished you."

"Don't worry," he chided as Dana literally sprinted through her neighborhood now. "I'm not going to make you spank yourself again."
"Oh," Dana exclaimed as she finally turned down Fourth and could see the high brick house at the end of the street. Behind this ancient house (supposedly the oldest in the neighborhood) was a tight dark alley all the kids called "Fruit Alley". No one really knew why it was called this, but it was the place all the kids knew to go when hiding out from parents (although all the parents knew exactly where it was) or when a teen-age couple wished to attempt their first tentative steps of carnal experimentation. If Dana could make it there then she would gladly do anything he asked; she'd be free of prying eyes and embarrassment.
"I'm just going to talk to you today," he said and Dana nearly fell. She stopped dead in her tracksand listened.
"I realize I am being unfair," he explained. "All this time, I just call you and never really give you a choice. I mean, we all know you can just hang-up," he said. "But we really know you can't."
'Bastard,' Dana thought.
"I really haven't given you a choice," he continued. "If you want, today, I'll let you come and meet me. But I'll understand if you don't want to... However, I think in order for our relationship to grow, I must allow..."
'Relationship? RELATIONSHIP?! Who was he kidding?' Dana screamed in her mind. She and Steve had a relationship! Joan and she had a relationship! Mom and Dad and her had a ...But Dana knew he was right. As perverse as this was, he and she were two people engaged in a relationship...God knew it was more sexually fulfilling then hers` and Steve's had been lately. Shit, when the caller had forced her to lay on her backyard picnic table that first time and masturbate Dana had nearly passed out from the orgasm! Hell, yes, she wanted to see him!
"Where are you?" Dana asked as she repeated the question she had heard him ask so many times.
"Very close," he said. "Go down 'Fruit' and turn left on Green."
"What house number?" Dana asked, familiar with the tree-lined, dead-end Green street only a block away. It was a dark little street, seemingly added as an afterthought to the neighborhood. In grammar school Dana had had two friends who had lived on Green.
"You'll see me."
"You're just gonna wait in the street?" Dana asked, as she began walking again.
"I always do," he said and suddenly that familiar chill ran through Dana so quickly she had to stop walking yet again.
HE WAS ON A PORTABLE TOO!
"I like fresh air as much as you," he continued.
Dana turned in a complete three sixty circle and sat hard to the curb.
"Are you coming?" he asked the silence.
"Dana?"
"Dana?"
Dana just sat and let the hot Saturday afternoon sun bake her lean body. She knew that a block away stood a young man very much like herself, with desires, needs and a lust that was just this side of normal. A man who walked and talked to a woman who liked to walk and listen. "Can you call me later?" Dana softly asked, realizing this was the first time she was asking him to call her. There was a thirty second beat of deep breathing from both ends. Dana knew he'd understand, and she knew he would call her later.
"About seven-thirty," she added. "I'll be in front of my house."
"Eight o'clock," he said, attempting his very last bit of dominance over her...a dominance that would from this moment on, be exactly of Dana's choosing.
A miniscule bit of knowledge, regardless of how small and flittering, can still empower one so as she stood and began to walk home Dana heard herself chuckle, a little like the one she had just heard on the phone.

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