Chapter 3

It took Gabi about 20 minutes and one cup of coffee to find the nerve to punch in the address to stories-r-us.com.

She fumbled with the spelling, eventually tracking it down with a search engine. She gritted her teeth as the home page downloaded, fearing that her screen would suddenly be overflowing with pornographic images, but instead she found a very simple, no-frills site. She went to the site's search engine, adjusted it for an author search, and typed in "purpleprose1020."

Up popped another directory, listing 25 stories from PurpleProse1020 ... out of 143.

Gabi gulped, and then grinned. Tom had been a very busy, very naughty boy.

She nervously scrolled down the list, and realized she was a bit out of her depth. Next to each story link was a teasing description of what the story was about, and a wave of acronyms and pieces of words that looked to Gabi like hieroglyphics. She backtracked to the site's home page and found an explanation for the story codes, and some of them made her blanch, enough to wonder for a split second if it was a mistake to seek out the site, maybe even a mistake to be interested in Tom. But when she checked his story list, she found none of the codes that bothered her, and decided to venture in.

Gabi clicked on the link to the first story, and discovered a tale of two long-ago lovers, who had gone on to marry other people, but then by circumstance found themselves thrown together. She smiled as she read; she'd just known that anything that Tom wrote would be good, and this story was very good. It was romantic and sexy and even a little haunting.

Then suddenly, it was quite steamy.

Gabi realized she was beginning to breathe a little heavier, as the woman in the story became the aggressor and ruthlessly seduced her former lover. She shifted her bottom uncomfortably in her seat, bunching her panties, and when she reached down to straighten them, she discovered they were wet. She could barely believe it. She'd seen bits and pieces of pornographic movies; she was in college for goodness sake, and you could barely avoid it, but she'd just rolled her eyes at that. How could the simple written word be having such an effect?

And yet it was, and as the heroine in the story reclaimed her mate, Gabi almost unconsciously shoved her hand inside her panties. She slipped a finger between her slippery lips, working it in and out in a frantic manner. She heard an insistent whimper, realized it was herself, and abandoned the story to fall back into her chair and relentlessly drum her clit. She saw herself as the woman in the story, she saw Tom as the man, and then she saw stars, her body heaving in a silent but intense orgasm.

Gabi lay back in her chair for a few minutes, and then stared at her laptop with glazed eyes, before getting up and going to the kitchen for another cup of coffee. From the safety of the other room, she stared at the laptop, and then finally returned to her seat. She managed to make it through the end of the story without distracting herself, and smiled at the clever ending.

And she was now about to find out that a web site of free erotic stories was a lot like a bag of potato chips.

"That was good," she thought. "I think I'll read another..."

The next piece was a little different in style, but no less stimulating. She had to get up in the middle of it to calm herself with a drink of water, and a few minutes later ended up tossing the last of what was in the glass in her face to cool herself down.

One story led to another, and another. She came across one that was amazingly erotic in a psychological way, but had no actual sex. That was followed by another that involved an orgy scene so graphic it made her blush.

She looked up at the clock, which had just pushed past 3 a.m. Thank God there wasn't practice on Saturday, she thought, but she'd better close down her laptop and get to bed anyway. And she was just about to do that when a word on the screen jumped out at her.

It was very late, and she was tired, in the sense that her body realized that it was time to get some rest, even if her mind was stimulated and firing on all cylinders. Maybe her eyes had played tricks on her, or she'd caught sight out of the corner of her eye of a collection of familiar letters that told her brain she was seeing something that wasn't there.

But there it was. In a description of a story. A story called "Desire."

She looked at the posting date, only three days earlier. She read the description. Her mouth dropped open, and her face screwed up into an expression of disbelief.

It took her 10 minutes to decide that she would indeed read it, and even then, she realized her hand was trembling as she clicked the link.

She read. And read. Thirty minutes later, she realized she was nearing the end of the story and a frown creased her brow. And then she was finished.

She stared at the opposite wall. This wasn't the story she expected when she began reading. It wasn't the story she had feared, either. But none of that made her feel any better.

And with that, Gabi closed the laptop and went to bed. Her sleep wasn't particularly restful; her subconscious was dealing with a whole new collection of imagery. She knew that she'd dreamt of Tom, and she knew that some of her dreams had been sexual. But when she awoke late the next morning, she couldn't remember anything specific.

Gabi was determined to spend the day making a dent in a pile of homework, but by late afternoon she'd drifted back to the laptop and immersed herself again in Tom's prose. With the exception of having a pizza delivered, she spent the rest of the day reading, her hand twice acting as if it had a mind of its own, slipping inside the gym shorts she was wearing, to drive her to much-needed relief.

She was amazed at the variety of pieces he had written. How could someone so calm, with such comportment, write such passionate, graphic stories? But why would that same person have written "Desire?"

On Sunday, Gabi did catch up on her homework, following a morning volleyball team practice. She passed on having lunch with Chantelle, not feeling ready to talk about anything that had happened over the weekend. By mid-evening, however, she was back at her laptop.

She could have set her watch by the weekend habits of her roommate, who always got back from her trips home at about 10 p.m. Sunday. So at 9, Gabi chose her final story of the weekend.

She clicked on the link for "Desire."

It wasn't any different than it had been the first time. But rather than feeling unsettled, she just felt puzzled. She sat back and tried to make sense of everything she had learned about Tom in the last 50 hours. What were his demons? What were his insecurities? What were his passions?

She thought, and eventually a smile grew on her lips, a big, wide, devious smile. She'd been over-thinking things. Everything she needed to know, she'd been learning, all through the weekend. All she had to do was take a page from Tom's own female creations...

Gabi arrived for her study session Monday with that same smile on her face, one that Tom couldn't help but notice. He also noticed her long, muscular legs, stretching out from a pair of tiny denim shorts. He noticed the tight halter top she wore, that bared her toned tummy, and that she rather obviously had decided to forego the support of a bra. But mostly, he could feel her eyes bore into him as he sat down to face her and grabbed the economics text book.

"What's gotten into you?" he asked with a smile, looking down to find the chapter where they'd left off the previous time.

"I've read your stories."

He didn't look up.

"Oh?" The nervousness in his voice made her smile.

"Yeah, I did."

He still wouldn't meet her gaze. "Um, Gabrielle, how did..."

"I found them. That's all that matters, isn't it?"

"Ummmm ... uh huh." He turned his head away, unable to make eye contact.

"And they were wonderful, Tom. It was amazing. You're such a good writer. And such imagination..."

He hazarded a look at her, saw her smiling at him like the cat that just ate the canary, and cleared his throat.

"You know, Gabrielle, they might not have been mine. Maybe you just thought..."

"PurpleProse1020, right?"

He closed his eyes. "Yeah."

"I loved them! Some were so romantic, and some were sooooo nasty. It made me wonder how you thought of them. It was so exciting reading them, knowing who wrote them..."

"Gabrielle!" he said, staring at her. "I ... you know, that's part of the reason why everyone at the site has a pen name, it's ... it's a little embarrassing to have you know that I wrote them." He looked up at her, and she was still smiling that wide, unnerving smile. "It's like if someone sees you naked. It makes you feel vulnerable."

"But I'm sure you have other friends who know you wrote them. Why does it make a difference that I know?"

Tom opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He gave a small shrug and turned his head, staring at some invisible thing on the wall.

Gabi leaned forward. "But there's something I don't get. I know there are some stories on that site that aren't about sex. There's plenty of it in most of yours, but some of yours don't have any sex at all..."

"Well, sometimes it's more effective to just hint at things. Some are about relationships, some about feelings..."

"And some about loss, or being unable to connect. It's strange, not even a hint of sex in them..."

"Oh, God," he said. "You read it, didn't you?"

Her smile grew. He was always so unflappable, and she couldn't help the fact that watching him dissolve like this in front of her was making her wet between the thighs. "Oh, yes, I did."

He took a deep breath. "Look, Gabrielle, I'm really..."

"All about a college volleyball player and her tutor. A volleyball player who was, uh, let's see, a 'walking wet dream?' And with 'gorgeous, long legs that never seemed to end?' That was it, wasn't it?"

Tom sighed. "Okay, hardly my most sophisticated imagery..."

"And he had such longing for her..."

"Can I leave now?" Tom asked. "Maybe just long enough to drive down to Valu-Mart and buy a gun so I can blow my brains out?"

" ... and fantasized about her, needed her, and then, when he had his chance..."

"Gabi!" he cried, bringing her up short. It was the first time he had ever called her that.

"Look," he said, "none of those stories are specifically, 100 percent about any real ... I mean, some of them are sort of based on ... oh, hell, who am I kidding? Gabrielle, I'm just really so sorry..."

"You'd damned well better be!"

Tom stared at her, stunned by the abrupt response. Suddenly, she had launched herself out of her chair, and was hovering over him, fixing him with a glare.

"You'd better be sorry..."

"I am! I..."

"All those stories, Tom. All sorts of different people doing all of those things. Husbands and wives, bosses and secretaries, teachers and students, brothers and sister -- brothers and sisters, for God's sake! And all of them screwing like mad and having the time of their lives..."

"Well, yes..."

"And the best you could come up with for you and me was regret?!?"

He stared at her, too cautious to say anything.

"My God, Tom, even in your fantasies, that's the best you could come up with?"

"Ummm ... well ... I'm ... sorry?"

The smile was back on her face, but Tom could see there was something more powerful behind it. She walked back to her chair, but before sitting down, she slid her hands down her taut stomach to get to the button on her Daisy Dukes, then popped it.