What if...

How I started writing (and living) out my fantasies.

What if you’d never sent those messages?

“Good morning sexy legs hope all goes well in the new office today….”

Then…

“So very sorry about that text…. new phone and saved number wrong…..”

I smile. It’s cute. Not meant for me, but I appreciate it. No reply needed.

The third message catches me out.

“PS… only realised my mistake when your profile pic came up, but for what it’s worth Sexy was a very fitting compliment ……”

What? A flutter inside. No one has said anything like that to me in years. A wedding ring guaranteeing instant immunity from any sexual attention; within the conservative social circles I moved, anyway.

It scares me that I like it. Should I respond? I pretend to myself it doesn’t matter – I’ll be charming but let you down gently.

“Thanks, that’s kind of you. I’m actually a happily married, middle aged woman, so I don’t get told that very often. Hope you have a great day!”

But you didn’t take the hint. You carry on. What do I do? Why do I do it? Curiosity mixed with easy flattery and innuendo. Yes, I’m a psychotherapist. No, you can’t lie on my couch. I find myself smiling, but work beckons and I have to end the chat. Reluctantly. Putting something down that feels new and exciting.

My inner glow lasted the rest of the day.

When my husband got home, I told him, wanting him to share my energy. When he was scared and jealous, I was surprised - disappointed that he wasn’t more delighted for me. Why didn’t he understand my excitement? I reassured him it was nothing, just a lovely happenstance. A chance encounter that gave me a brief thrill.

You messaged again, two days later. Nothing too serious. Pretty innocuous to the untrained eye. You made it clear you fancied me, I feigned nonchalance. But I was getting hooked. Text by text by text. The dopamine spikes being reinforced by every message notification; my phone checked after every meeting.

Your story was plausible. A joiner in Galway, working with your Dad. Three sisters. Failed relationship but two teenage sons. A pillar of the community, organising a fundraiser even. Wholesome. Kind. I’m impressed, and curious.

The texts are fun, flirty, intimate. Pictures of your teenage sons. You with a baby. Safe. Reassuring. The frisson easy to ignore.

I get used to having you there.

And then you disappeared. Two days. Enough time to bed in my fixation. My nervous system stuttered. What had happened? I was confused at how bereft I felt. That I could be so unsettled by something that didn’t really matter.

Ah… A family emergency – your son had to go to hospital. I breathed again. You were just being a good dad. You were so sorry. You’d missed our chats, missed me.

The ember glowed again.

When you asked about my relationship it seemed fine – healthy even – to tell you about my husband and I. I didn’t have anything to hide. Were we happy? Well, I thought so. You seemed respectful, a family guy who genuinely cared.

And was I sexy? Well, I didn’t know about that! But your questions were playfully provocative. Had I ever thought about other people? Had I ever fancied my clients?

“I bet you’re secretly quite filthy… hide it well…”

God, I wanted to believe that too. Wanted to believe in the sexual goddess that had shown so much promise when I was younger, but had never quite turned out to be.

“Tell me what you’d imagine me doing to you.”

Your questions undid something - stirring old longings that I was barely aware of.

I started to write.

And it turned out that there I was… Hidden under years of responsibility and respectability. My words starting to illustrate the fantasies that had been lurking all this time. Starting to show me what I wanted. What I needed.

When I wrote them out for you, you had little truck for my over-excited epistles. My want laid bare for you in prose. There, there, very nice.

I was disappointed but the words kept coming undeterred. And the texts.

“Morning. x”

“I want you to feel so horny today.”

I already am. Stroking myself through my tights at my desk. Pussy clenching in a way I hadn’t experienced in years.

“Do you want to see what you do to me?”

NO! Hell no. I’d never had a dick pic in my life and I wasn’t about to start now. Curiosity wasn’t enough to make me go that far. Not yet, anyway.

But would I send you a picture of my legs in my tights and work skirt? A strategic hand on my thighs. Well yes, since you asked so nicely. I unfurled under your admiration. Restraint loosening.

I told my husband. He was alarmed, and then he succumbed to my newfound giddiness, my thawing libido. We laughed, enjoying the reprieve from the sexual desert we’d been in. An oasis of desire – I’d had no idea how thirsty I had been.

And so it continued. Weeks that felt like months, we messaged so much. You pushed me further each time. Please could I send you a photo of my ass in stockings. My ass! I’d never sent anything like that to my husband. Your response was disappointingly lukewarm.

I was gutted that you didn’t appreciate my daring. Although it turned me on, sending you that photo. An exhibitionist streak that had lain dormant. Another find.

And still I wrote. My fantasy of what it might be like to meet you at the airport. My fantasy of you with me in the bath. My fantasy of fucking outside. Looking back now they were so tame, so cute. But at the time? At the time they blew my mind. All that wanting.

We spoke on the phone. God, you even spoke to my husband… It seemed fun, playful, like something wonderful had just happened. Our excitement was off the charts and the sex had never been this good. I needed to fuck him every chance we got: whenever he was working from home, in the car, the restaurant toilets at my Dad’s 80th. He wasn’t complaining.

And my body. My body couldn’t stop ripening, expanding, glistening. I was perpetually on heat, feeling every sensation that I wrote. My whole core spasming as I struggled to capture what I imagined doing with you. Discovering that I could bring myself to near orgasm just by imaging what it would feel like.

A text from you and I would clench again. Masturbating between meetings. Pandora’s box had been well and truly opened and my nervous system was on fire, sensitised to everything. Even the feel of clothes against my skin a kind of erotic torture. Permanently feral. I could feel myself – smell myself – as wetness seeped through my underwear and I loved it. I existed in a near constant state of lust that my husband didn’t mind satisfying.

Until he did. He’d had enough. He was scared of this relationship I had with you. How much I was consumed by it. Furniture was broken.

I was furious and upset – my shiny toy snatched away. Terrified of losing myself again. He didn’t understand. But I loved him, so I had to stop. And I tried, I really did, but your Irish blarney lulled me back in. Before I knew it another day had passed.

“Ps … if you download viber app it’s totally secret on there .. can hide chat completely… just saying x”

“It’s for your safety and security and peace of mind I mentioned it x”

I crossed the line.

And once crossed, restraint flew out of the window. The pictures more graphic. Videos as you stroked your cock. My fingers as I made myself come through my underwear.

“Mmmmm rub that pussy like I would… make yourself cum…”

And I did.

I messaged you when I was walking the dog, when I was driving to pick up my son, when I was in the bathroom, in between clients. Whenever I wouldn’t get caught.

And then something slipped. Something you said didn’t quite add up. The picture wasn’t straight.

I asked if you’d done this before. You were coy at first but eventually couldn’t resist showing off. Yes, there were many, many others.

I was fascinated… How did you meet them? All by chance? Was it like with me? How did you manage it? Did you message more than one person at a time?

I honestly don’t know why, but you told me the truth.

It wasn’t by chance.

Those first texts? You’d actually found me online.

“Only lie I ever told you or anyone I text is the first text ‘that it’s a mistake”. After that every word is true.”

My brain couldn’t compute. What? Did I look easy?

“No …. You did not look easy but did have this smouldering sexy vibe plus your body looked fucking amazing. I did get erect before I text you”

And were you messaging other people at the same time as me?

“You’re the only person who I text that knows how I got your number… I actually fucking love that x such a turn on that you are so cool and feel I can talk more openly to you and want you fucking soaking soaking knowing it. Not just another woman. You’re UNIQUE. To me.”

This time the flattery fell dead to the ground. Not a flicker. I felt numb.

I blocked and deleted you and yet I still fucking cried. Not for you, but because it had been so real to me. Because I had lied to my husband. Because I was terrified of losing that part of me that had finally got to come out and play.

*****

It turns out there were hundreds of us.

All from counselling directories. Headshots with phone numbers.

I later discovered your number had been reported over 200 times in the last six years. And that’s just the ones who reported you.

All women. The same three messages. Most of us had been deceived, made to feel stupid. Cheap. Relationships damaged.

A collective sense of rage and impotence screaming on the screen. No recourse, no protection.

You knew how to dance around the law. Your carefully chosen dick pics, always a covering – jeans, a hand, tights even – which meant that I had nothing incriminating to show to the police, when I tried to get them involved. The two male officers pitied me, barely able to meet my eyes. Their time wasted by yet another silly woman…

So.

What if you’d never sent those messages?

Well, life then might have been easier, for sure. My husband and I might have skirted our issues for another few years.

And maybe it would have taken a little longer to discover my longings, my words, my desires. The parts of me that needed to emerge.

But that was always there, always mine. I’m still here.