It didn't take long. Insistent beeps began to come to her. Immediately she turned the volume down, frightened at the thought of her niece hearing them. To her surprise there were already calls from interlocutors on the other side of the dating page. Behind the hello that seemed to be the usual beginning, the messages were full-blown attacks.
-How beautiful you are! How I wish I could have taken that picture of you in the summer! Shall we meet to see each other? - said number 1, and next to the message there appeared a bald and smiling head, which wanted to preserve his youth in vain.
- I'm interested in your profile. Send a naked photo - said number 2, without any image that could help to glimpse who the nudist lover was.
-You eat prick? said number 3 without any modesty. The photo that accompanied such a violation of any intimacy was a muscular body showing its virile attributes with an obvious provocative message, but the shot had no head.
She felt the same nervousness again that she had experienced the night before. She was being the victim of a very dangerous addition. She was going to be a voyeur for strangers and at the same time she was going to be an object of voyeurism for them.
She heard music and screams in the street. She got up from her chair and went out to the terrace. As she watched the brass band pass by with the big head and the children who were running away and chasing them, she thought of 3 people who were sharing her autism.
- A rejuvenated bald man. A freak who doesn't even dare to show his face. A vicious man living by and for morbidity. What a future I have!
But the process of attraction had taken hold of her. For the next few days, her life would be based on looking anxiously at a screen where her privacy wanted to be violated, not safely kept at all, making her desire beat in an environment of such obvious insecurity.
- Where are you? - Eva wrote to her first suitor, the one who had seemed less determined, but who she saw as a match for her.
It took a while for the message to be heard, but in the end there it was.
- In Centrovía.
- In Centrovía? - she said strangely, trying to locate the place she had heard of but never been to.
- Where is Centrovía?
- Near Zgza. Next to Plaza Imperial.
- Aren’t you off duty? It's Pilar fiestas.
- No, I work. I'm a truck driver.
There was a moment of silence, necessary for her, because as a regular civil servant she had never dealt with a truck driver in her entire life. She thought of the crazy race she'd signed up for. She was forgetting all the years she had spent, meeting people before deciding to love them. But virtual allowed to share and expand desire through a fine human link. In it, personal reality, both economic and social, had no relevance.
- See you on Skype? - was the next message that came into the computer, with no first question mark, which seemed to be common in the chat.
- No, I can't right now. I have to go shopping. Tonight.
Eva was suddenly in a hurry to organize her flat where she had to play the aunt.
- This afternoon. I'll only be here eight hours. Then I have to go.
- This afternoon at 4:00.
- OK. A kiss beauty.
- Goodbye.
With the illusion of her new extrasensory date in her mind, she set out to do her usual glamorous work, beginning with the purchase of plenty of food for her niece and possible guests. She knew that she was still on the familiar rice-macaroni-burger-pizza-potato--coke-ice cream youth diet, so the next few days wouldn't be too demanding for her.
When she had finished her routine household tasks her niece and companion finally got up. It was past noon. Immediately they ate voraciously everything the aunt put in front of them.
- And you didn't go out last night, Aunt?
- No, I was tired. I went to bed early.
- How boring! It was all packed! You call someone today, okay?
- Don't organize my life, little one, I'm old enough to know what I have to do.
- But you're not staying home again today, okay?
- I'll call someone. Let's see what you can tell me about you last night. And don't let it just be about clubs, drinks and hot guys.
As I suspected, the explanation of the girls, told with all the adolescent intensity, was an endless one. They had embarked on a continuous wandering through night bars, drinking and talking, until the fumes of alcohol and sleep redirected them to auntie's home.
When they had finished eating, the two young women got caught up in the world of silence. They read and wrote on their cell phones, organizing their second day of fiestas. So as not to upset Eva, they picked up the table, put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and left again.
- But you're leaving? Don't you want some coffee?
- No, thank you, Auntie. We're leaving, the villagers are waiting for us at the fairs. Bye-bye.
- But you've got money?
- Yes, my father gave me. Bye-bye.
She was free and alone again. Her trucker fantasy had been going around in her head since she left the chat room. She poured herself a cup of coffee and watched the news. The wars of always organized by those of always and suffering those of ever. The gossip programs had dropped to low levels of quality. As she had not sat down to see them for days, she now didn’t manage to recognize some of the little people who were walking around the screen proclaiming their mental vulnerability.
She couldn't stop thinking about the apparent human closeness that floated universally on the airwaves and in which she could so easily participate. Without even finishing her coffee, she sat back down on the computer and entered the chat room.
More messages awaited her, some brief, others explicit in their bodily desire, and she was even sent some old-fashioned, romantic lover's message, which admired in rapt fascination her unreal image.
Eva thought about how easy it was to establish a virtual polyandry which the new technologies allowed. But she still maintained the rule of fidelity to the word given. She looked for her first choice and wrote to him.
- I'm already connected.
For a moment there was no answer. She thought she might be playing polygamy and might be talking to another woman. She reviewed other personal profiles of the list of men on the show, waiting for their princess of that day to call them, and she was amazed at the richness of expressions, the abundance of situations, the variety of desires that the human sexual instinct encompassed. She finally got the message from the truck driver.
- Hi.
- Waiting for a while.
- Nap time
- What's your name?
- Ismael. And yours?
- Virginia - she lied.
- Enter Skype and call Ismaelca.
Without being very sure of what she was doing, she opened the program and the webcam. When the camera finally transmitted the images from the other side, before her was a naked, excited man who looked at her with the glow of immediate desire. She was very impressed by the image, but did not close the program.
That night Eva recalled her virtual odyssey. Following the instructions of an expert cyber-fucker, she had given herself over to the most daring language ever used by her. Bathed in the security of her absolute freedom, she had reached orgasm feeling her cyber-partner explode on the other side as well. Chat was definitely a very powerful drug.