Terence Lannard stared at her hips, at her flat stomach and thighs defined enough to showcase the outlines of her quads, and rubbed below his sweatpant drawstring in anticipation. He sat at his desk in his dorm room, his door locked, savoring this privacy as among the top benefits of having no roommates.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her. His webcam queen. Her live show hadn’t yet begun—the streaming indicator for her online status was still red—but her picture was to the side of the video interface, serving as an enticement to what would arrive soon on the video frame consuming most of the screen real estate. It currently featured only a still shot from the end of her previous streaming show, showing her room, where the magic happened.

It was carpeted in a light brown, containing only her bed with its white comforter and a dresser with a stand mirror atop it to the side, some lotion bottles on the dresser. The beige walls of the room were the backdrop for what had come to be Terence’s refuge.

The light was still red. I know I’m early, Terence thought, but where is she…

Of course, he had no doubt the three-thousand, two-hundred-and-growing viewer count was filled with men similarly looking to escape their lives for a short while. He wondered how many were married or had girlfriends, how many were lonely. How many were perfectly content with being single like he was. After all, he had her—and the countless others like her—showing up several nights each week to exhibit their pristine bodies for donations, of which he happily contributed to in the small amounts he could afford.

Still red. Come on, come on.

But, that wasn’t entirely true—there was no one else like her. True, she had never shown her face, and Terence held that as proof of brains complementing that unmatched body. When she was fully in view, she would wear a large masquerade-style mask, and her room was so intentionally plain that no cyber sleuths had yet doxxed her. And why would they? She was lovely and kind, her smile—the masks generally covered the full top-half of her face—always penetrating through and audible in her sharp, sexy high voice. And as much as Terence did watch a few other girls’ streams on the nights she didn’t perform, none elicited the excitement for him like she did.

The light went green.

Terence lowered his sweatpants to the floor, seated on a towel on his chair. He had his nitrile glove on his right hand, his box of tissues at the edge of the desk and his lotion beside it.

He was ready.

She stepped into view, wearing one of her masquerade masks, this one black with crimson lines in the pattern. Her golden hair was tied back in a high ponytail, sending shivers through Terence. He grew harder, his eyes caressing her from her neck down to her C-cup breasts and her smooth tummy and still further south to her shaved, mesmerizing middle, causing him to reach his full hardness.

This was something the outside world didn’t understand. This wasn’t the ridiculous idea of porn everyone had. She would dance, sway with camera angles emphasizing parts of her, oil herself up on a large towel on the floor beside her bed and run her hands across her body. All of it simple, all of it sensual; the way Terence liked it. He despised those full porn scenes with actors, sets, makeup artists, STD tests and all the other overproduced nonsense they involved. What did he need the mass produced products of an entire industry for when here he had this spectacular girl in her room, relaxed and interacting with the viewers. This girl that he could dream was his, if only for the typical hour or so her shows went for.

Not that he’d ever lasted for the hour.

He stroked himself softly, his gaze magnetized to her. She moved back and forth as if walking down a runway, giggling with exaggerated poses when she stopped at each end of her room, then hopping up to the camera, her body angled such that she was typing on her laptop while in view. He wished he could smell her, and imagined how marvellous her skin might feel. How many times had he finished to moments as pure and simple as her sitting cross-legged while naked on the edge of her bed? He’d started watching her only two weeks ago, and he must have pleasured himself to her at least every night she was on. Which was what, ten? Eleven times? He wanted her so bad he couldn’t fathom missing a single show and him not reaching his release to each and every one.

He continued to move his hand up and down, mindful of finishing too quickly as he’d done several times. And who could blame him? She was leaning forward on her bed now, her glistening ass facing the camera, teasing thousands of men with a jiggle. It was as firm as the rest of her athletic build; not overly muscular but the body of perhaps a swimmer.

A swimmer…

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Terence froze.

Her height, too.

His mind raced, panicking from the injection of images flashing through it.

No way. He sat back down, his passion waning, nerves racked. He cycled from denial to possibility on loop. I’ve never seen the dorm room, though.

Had she mentioned where she went to school—if she went to school? She looked—her body and voice, at least, couldn’t belong to a woman beyond her early twenties at most. But no, she wore the masks, talking only about pointless things like what she had bought from a recent shopping trip or something the viewer chat would bring up to keep the interaction between performer and audience going.

Terence’s messages to her scrolled through his mind. Only direct messages that she probably never saw, but were somewhere in the ether sitting in her account inbox. He’d confessed his wildest fantasies to her. Breathe, calm down, he told himself.

What had she bought last time she talked about shopping? Perhaps the items could reveal some clues about her location. No, she’s too careful for something like that. He couldn’t even run through her previous shows, as he didn’t pay for membership to her for access to the full archive of her streams; it was twenty bucks a month he couldn’t spare as a college student.

Amid the flurry of analyzing, he hadn’t noticed his palms sweating or the heat rushing through his back and neck, spurring sweat that had begun to chafe him all over as his clothes clung to his moistening skin. His heart rate was also rising, and for once it wasn’t because of how the milky-skinned, gorgeous woman on his screen looked.

Terence shook his head, shifting his focus away from his laptop to glance around his room, his desk facing the wall beside his window. What had she bought? What did she talk about the last few times? He needed to remember something, anything.

That body, she didn’t look like that underneath… did she?

The absurd thought that had needled its way into his mind couldn’t be held down. It was whispering to him, pushing itself up and up, ever closer to the surface where he couldn’t let it reach. If he was right…

No, it was insane. It couldn’t be. That was straight out of some bad short story or edgy movie, something that just didn’t happen in real life.

How many times had he finished to her…

He pulled his glove off and his sweatpants up—no problem now that he was flaccid. He paced his room, running his hands through his hair and up and down his face. The show was still proceeding in the background, and he stopped, staring at it, biting his index finger nail.

She now sat on a towel on the floor beside her bed with a finger between her legs, blowing kisses to the camera as donation alert sounds chimed with a furious repetition. Terence shook his head again, his lips curving down and quivering. He was almost in tears anticipating the flurry of what would follow if his fear became reality, but the idea had now taken root in him and there was no choice but to proceed. How could he live on not knowing? How could he walk to class, to the cafeteria, to hang out with his friends, carry on with everything as normal with this swimming through his mind? It would be torture. He had to find out.

Terence held his phone, swiping to get to the terrible final set of pixels he would tap to unveil the truth. She’d always had her phone on vibrate during shows, but had answered calls a few times to those ostensibly important or urgent enough, stepping off screen to another area of her apartment. Other times she would check her phone, make a disinterested face and return to the viewers. Which would it be now?

He brought the contact up and tapped the green phone icon to dial, watching the screen.

She picked her phone up as casually as ever, and Terence’s shirt clung to his back with sweat now, his forehead a moist mess of hair and saltiness. She looked at her phone screen, cleared her throat, took a drink from her water bottle and typed “BRB xoxo” in the chat. Then she stepped off screen.

“Hey, what’s up?” The voice in the phone said, speaking in a hushed tone.

Terence’s body could have been made of stone for how rigid he went. His eyes were wide one moment, closed the next. The shock of this voice in his phone tore down all defenses he had put up, and his posture slumped. He ran his hand down his face as if he could remove a sheen of horror and return to his life from before two weeks ago.

“Ter, you there?” the voice said. It was different from the screen persona, not high and excitable with every syllable dripping sensuousness. It was the mild, everyday voice he knew.

He coughed, patted his chest with a fist, and breathed in and out to calm his blistering heart rate. “Yeah,” he croaked, then cleared his throat with extra effort and continued, “sorry, I’m, I just, I wanted to ask if you were coming home on the weekend to, to do laundry or anything.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closed again while his scrunched face was to the ceiling in burning anticipation of her every word.

“Um, I don’t know yet,” she said, nearly whispering now. “But, look, can I call you back later? Or just text me, cuz I’m like, really busy right now.”

“Sure, yeah, that—that’s fine, I, that’s no prob—”

“Cool, okay, talk to you later little brother. Love ya.”

The call ended, and Terence fell back against the wall beside his desk, sinking down to the ground. He heard a voice on the screen.

“Sorry about that boys. Now get your lube out and let’s have some fun!” A vibrating sound began, followed by soft moans.

Terence reached out in a lightning-fast motion to close his laptop, then sat back to the wall and buried his head in his knees, sobbing.

Thanksgiving dinner at the Lannard home was only two days away.