Machine by Normandie Alleman
10
Bridger
The morningafter my “successful” solo sexual experience, I was sleeping hard when I received a FaceTime request from my mother. My mom was the only person I knew of her generation who opted for FaceTime over telephone calls. I often wished she had embraced the technology of texting, but I guess she had picked up the habit from messaging her grandchildren in Florida. She didn’t get out to visit my sister’s kids very often, so she kept up with them by phone, and she was always telling me about how my niece and nephew used iPads for everything, even though they were four and five.
“You look terrible.”
“Thanks. You do too,” I snapped, even though I hadn’t looked at her yet. I rolled over and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “What time is it? You know this is my only day off, don’t you?”
“Oh sweetie, I forgot. In fact, I didn’t really expect you to answer. I planned to leave a message.” Thankfully, she ignored my insult to her appearance. Wait, could you to leave a message on FaceTime? I didn’t even know. But she had me on the phone already, I might as well talk with her.
“What’s up?”
“Well, I haven’t talked to you in a while, and I was wondering how things were going? Any changes?”
My mother actually meant if there were any changes in my nerves awakening. In my penis.
Normally I would have seen this is an intrusion, but my mother had been the one to care for me after all of my surgeries. She had moved from the Atlanta area, where she had an established practice, all the way to California to take care of her baby boy. When I first realized I was going to need long-term care, I expected my fiancée Samantha to take care of things, help me out, but when we broke up, my mother stepped up to the plate and was by my side the whole way.
“Actually there has been some improvement.”
My mother squealed with glee. This was crazy embarrassing, but you see, my mother is a sex therapist. She’s a doctor of psychology with additional training in sex therapy. My whole life she’s talked more about sex than most parents. Basically, she’s been making me uncomfortable talking about penises and vaginas for as long as I can remember, so while her reaction was embarrassing, it was understandable.
“Oh my God, Bridger! That’s wonderful. So did you have an erection?”
“Mom, I don’t really want to talk about this. Can we just say that things are almost back to normal down there?”
“Oh, that’s wonderful. Is this a result of masturbation?”
“Mother, we are not going to discuss this. I’ve said more than enough already.”
“Okay. I’m just happy for you, that’s all. You know, I knew you would get back that ability. I always believed, and I’m so happy for you.”
“Thanks, Mom. It is good to feel like a man again, like I’m whole.”
“I’ll bet. Now if you can just meet a girl you like…”
“Well, that’s kind of how this happened.”
“Oh my goodness. You’re kidding. There’s a girl? So, are you actually able to have intercourse?”
“Mother, if you ask me that again, I’m hanging up.”
“Okay, okay. Sorry. When do I get to meet her?”
“I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you.”
“Why not?”
“Well, there aren’t a lot of women who are interested in a guy who runs a porn business.”
“Nonsense. Sexuality is a natural part of the human experience. Any girl who understands that will understand what you do. It’s not like you’re having sex with anyone. You’re simply creating entertainment for people to enjoy. It’s all about self-satisfaction. What’s wrong with that?”
I chuckled. “Yeah, Mom, I’m pretty sure most people don’t see it that way. This woman in particular.” Dynassy had confided in me how hard she was working to redeem her reputation with the public. How people thought of her directly affected her career and probably her bank account. I hated the idea of compromising that by simply being in her life.
“If she’s the right girl for you, she’ll be fine with it.”
“I wouldn’t count on it.” Sometimes my mother was completely out of touch with the world. Even the people who subscribed to our porn site wouldn’t want me going out with their daughter or their sister.
People generally think that porn takes advantage of women, that it objectifies them.
And I agree. It does, but that objectification is what is so hot to a lot of people—men and women included. I know there are guys who get addicted to porn, and it fucks them up in their relationships with women. They expect women to do all the crazy things they see in porn, to be one-dimensional, to beg for anal from five guys or something equally unrealistic, but I like to think that our little site shows a different side of it all.
Our website is all about pleasuring women. Sure, guys are the ones who usually like to watch the women getting off, but having women get off is generally a highly thought-of goal. And if people learned something about how to pleasure a woman by watching our videos, then it had some intrinsic value.
It was possible I was fooling myself, but that’s how I justified it so I could sleep at night and cash my checks.
“Well, honey, this is great news. We should celebrate!”
I laughed. “I think it’s, um, celebration enough just to have it working, Mom.”
“If you say so. I’d be ready to have a party.”
Being with Dynassy was all the party I needed. And I intended to do as much of that as possible before she found out about my adult video business. I wasn’t sure how long I could get away with keeping my secret, and I felt shitty about hiding it from her, but after all I’d sacrificed, all I’d been through, I justified my dishonesty by telling myself I deserved to have a little happiness, even if it was short-lived.
“We can get together for dinner next week. How does that sound?”
“Perfect. How’s Wednesday?”
Wednesday was the only night she didn’t see patients. “Fine. Arnold’s at seven?”
“It’s a date. Love you, sweetie.”
“Love you too. Bye.”
We hung up, and I decided to go for a run before calling Dynassy.
Not only did I think Dynassy was responsible for bringing back my sexual functioning (as limited as it might be; it was improving rapidly with her in my life), but lately I’d been feeling a hope for the future that I hadn’t had since my injury, and I attributed that to her as well.
Even though she was a big superstar, I didn’t see her that way. To me, she was an adorably sexy girl who made me laugh and who brought out all of my instincts as a man. Not only did I want to screw her brains out, I wanted to take care of her, protect her. Hell, after finding myself fantasizing about her chasing a toddler around, I realized I wanted to play house with her.
All of that was me just dreamin’, because I knew once the secret about the porn biz came out, she’d kick me to the curb. I knew that. But I still couldn’t help myself. I truly believed I needed Dynassy to make me whole again.
And since I was being less than forthcoming about my work, I felt the need to be honest with her about my injury. She’d have enough questions once she saw my scars.
I was going to have to tell her what happened to me, but I wanted to put off that conversation for as long as possible, because I was not looking forward to it.
