Read Tell Me More for Free Online

morning I shut down, tidied up the console and reached for the phone to call a cab home.
    It rang. No data.
    I stared at the ringing phone. I had no obligation to answer—we were off air. After seven rings the caller would be transferred to the station’s voice mail.
    But I answered anyway.
    “I’ve missed you,” he said.
    “I’ve missed you, too.”
    “I’m sorry, Jo. I pushed you too hard.”
    “It’s okay.”
    He sighed. “I want honesty between us. It’s been two nights and I’ve had time to think and…”
    “And?”
    “We don’t need this sort of relationship. We have plenty of other things to talk about. We don’t have to continue in this way. Unless you want to.”
    “What do you want?”
    He laughed again. “Whatever you’re willing to give. Darling, it was plenty of fun for me but I love to talk to you. It’s up to you how we proceed now. By the way, you looked ravishing at the symphony tonight.”
    My voice shot up an octave. “Oh, my God. Please don’t tell me you’re that creepy Realtor. Or that you even know him. No, of course you’re not. Your voice is different…sorry, I’m rambling. You were there?”
    “I have my sources.” He paused. “What I’m saying, Jo, is that you should be in a real relationship. I’d be jealous, of course. But I don’t want you to feel…obligated to me in any way.”
    “You’re trying to drop me, aren’t you?”
    “In a way, yes. I don’t want to lose you. I hope I won’t. That we’ll be friends. I accept that you don’t want to meet. This is entirely on your terms.”
    I dropped my head into my free hand and groaned. “I don’t know that we can go back. I’m not really clear what we’re arguing about.”
    “I’m not sure we’re even arguing. I don’t want you to get hurt by our…affair.”
    “Affair. You’re so old school.”
    “Yes, I am. How would you define our relationship?”
    “I don’t know. Does it matter? It is what it is, whatever that might be.” I paused. “If I did fuck someone, what then?”
    “You mean, should you tell me?”
    “Yes.”
    “If you wanted to.”
    “Tell you or…describe it to you?”
    “Whatever you feel like doing.”
    He kept throwing the ball back into my court, giving me the control—or pretending to give me the control.
    “I might ask you to do the same. Tell me about an encounter you had. Would you do that?”
    “If you asked, yes. Gladly.”
    I stood, pushing my feet into my shoes and reaching for my shawl. “Let me think about it. I should go home. I’m glad you called.” I was a bit scared. We seemed to have moved very fast into kink territory and what alarmed me most was how it excited me. Kimberly had once said that even ordinary people have the most bizarre sex lives, that a huge amount of kinky stuff goes on in nice normal neighborhoods between nice normal people. I’d asked her what her preferences were, not really believing her, challenging her.
    She had leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “Woof. Woof.”
    Then we’d both collapsed in giggles. But ever since then, my mind had opened up to the possibilities. I’d wondered. I’d been curious.
    And now here was my chance to go on my own voyage of discovery and storytelling and while it was exhilarating I was scared by it. Would I regret not going on the kink voyage when I was old and gray (although Kimberly assured me the old hippies were the best—or the worst—depending on how you looked at it)? Would Sinbad have regretted never taking the voyage?
    “Before you go…” He cleared his throat. “Very high heels and stockings with seams, my source said. Real stockings?”
    “No. Thigh-highs.”
    “Ah. No garter belt, then. A pity.”
    I smiled at the regret in his voice. “But with no panties,” I lied, and pushed my ordinary white cotton pair down. Not quite a lie.
    “No panties at the symphony?” He laughed.
    “I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. The orchestra was pretty good tonight. I don’t know