TEXT ME
by
Jason Michael Hiaeshutter
SMASHWORDS EDITION
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Matchstick Entertainment on Smashwords
TEXT ME
Copyright © 2010 by Matchstick Entertainment
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. For information regarding permission, please visit www.matchstickentertainment.com.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Matchstick Entertainment, P.O. Box 274, Ada, MI 4930
www.matchstickentertainment.com
TEXT ME
It was that typical dank, musky smell. That’s what Clayton first noticed as he opened the door to the seedy no-tell motel. Stacey walked in behind him. At least that was what she called herself. Clayton knew these types of women never used their real names but he was willing to go with it. She was dressed in the usual uniform of her trade. Red tank-top, black leather mini-skirt with the fishnet stockings, and a black pair of leather thigh-high boots. Boots with the zipper running up the sides that Clayton couldn’t wait to pull down with his all too eager pearly whites.
His imagination wasn’t about to stop at the boots, but the all business tone from his lady of the evening quickly snapped the young junior college student back to reality. “So what did you have in mind, hun?” She asked. Her tone was less than romantic. Not that Clayton really noticed. He was so nervous that the simple act of keeping his hands from shaking took up most of his conscious thought.
So what was on his mind? He hadn’t really given it much thought. He was still shocked from the realization that he’d made it this far. Sure, there was the vision of her boots and other things limited only by his imagination but this was different. Purchased fantasy. Most girls in his life he could fantasize about all day but never have the physical opportunity to act them out. But this girl, this girl was going to let him do whatever he wanted to her.
That simple thought alone made him extremely nervous. Anything he wanted to do to her. He could feel his face heat up just thinking about it. Trying to keep his cool, he searched around the room for something to focus his eyes on; something to stare at while he collected himself. Soon enough, his eyes fell on a set of small, marble figurines sitting on the night stand near where he was standing. An elephant, and a mouse. His first thought was the striking beauty of the carvings. Slowly, he reached out his hand, and began stroking the mouse. As he did, Stacey spoke again.
“Are we gonna do something sweetie, or do you and that thing want to be alone?”
With a new found confidence, Clayton opened his mouth with the intention of making his first suggestion. A suggestion that involved binding her arms together with those stockings, when his cell phone chimed in and interrupted. It was a straight ring, not his usual ringtone of My Chemical Romance singing House of Wolves, meaning he had a text message waiting. Of course, a regular call he would have sent directly to voice mail. There wasn’t enough blood in his head at the moment for a full on conversation. But a text? Fine, he’d sacrifice some time to check his text. What was another second anyway?
He sighed an irritated sigh as he held up an index finger, signaling Stacey to hold on a sec. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and hit the receive button on the keypad. As the message popped up, the words immediately sent that aforementioned blood back to his head. The one he actually thinks with that is.
“Sorry,” he said in a nervous and shaky voice. “I have to go.” And without giving Stacey a chance to protest, Clayton turned and walked out the door.
He was off the motel’s property and back on the city sidewalk in record time. He opened his phone and read the message again. Get out of there, NOW! He had no idea who sent it. He didn’t recognize the number and when he tried to call it, he received that old style wailing sound that used to take place when you’d leave a corded phone off the receiver for too long.
As he walked, he couldn’t really understand why he chose to heed the warning of this mystery texter. If he would have simply ignored it, he’d be in the middle of his three minutes of heaven right now. He contemplated turning back but was pretty sure she was gone by now. And as far as finding a different girl, hell, it was hard enough building up the courage for Stacey, let alone starting again now. Instead, he thought it best to stop off at the trusty ole skin flick house, and then head home.
A year had passed, and over time, so did Clayton’s thoughts of that night with his would be purchased fantasy. He had graduated from junior college and landed a nice cushy job doing data entry for a small research company. Not the most glamorous job in the world but it paid the bills.
One late afternoon after a day at the office, Clayton came home to his usual routine. He grabbed his mail, entered his apartment, and set down his keys and phone on the lamp stand next to his front door. As he stood in the doorway sorting through his mail, his cell rang. Once again not his normal ringtone, Seether’s Breakdown these days, but the normal ring indicating a text. Turn on Channel 5, the message said.
A brisk chill went up Clayton’s spine as he recalled his phantom text buddy. Puzzled and certainly a bit spooked, he did what the text requested. It was one of those cop reality shows which, at first, Clayton couldn’t understand why he’d be told to watch it. He wasn’t much of a reality show fan. But then he noticed what it was he was obviously meant to see. It was the old no-tell motel where his would be tryst had occurred. And Stacey. By god it was Stacey, hauling in some Jon with his hands cuffed behind his back. “She was a damn cop,” he said out loud in a shocked, yet mildly amused tone.
What a stroke of luck, Clayton thought. He thought about how embarrassed he would have been if he’d gotten busted for soliciting prostitution. Not to mention the fact that he most likely wouldn’t have made it passed the background check of his current employer with an arrest like that on his record.
As he contemplated this revelation of good fortune, his cell rang again with another text. You owe us, it said.
True as that may be, it gave Clayton an extremely uneasy feeling. Uneasy hell, he was getting severely freaked out. He hit the reply button on his phone and attempted to respond. Owe who? Who is this? He hit send but his phone simply beeped loudly and the screen flashed the message, invalid number. He tried again, several times, with the same results. With his freaked out feeling rapidly evolving into all out fear, Clayton began yelling into his phone.
“WHO DO I OWE?” he screamed. “WHO ARE YOU?” He stared at the phone for a moment actually expecting it to answer back. But in the end, nothing. In complete frustration and fear, Clayton cocked his arm back and threw his phone against the wall, deep down hoping to shatter the damned thing in the process. It didn’t break. Instead, it simply bounced off the wall and landed on the floor with a thud leaving nothing but a small dent in the dry wall. And on the floor it lay, quietly.
Over the next several days, Clayton tried to go about his business. He even went to his service provider and bought a new phone. The old one, still lying silently on the floor. Many times he thought about throwing it out. Not just in the trash either, but really getting rid of it. Somewhere as far from him as possible. But every time he thought of the idea, fear kept him from going near it, so there it stayed. But ignoring the thing only made matters worse. Eventually, the phone stopped allowing him to ignore it.
“We watch you, Clayton,” he could hear the phone say. “Watch you every day.” It was taunting him, making him live in complete fear. He’d come home every day wishing the phone would stay quiet, but of course it never did. It just kept repeating its haunting words. “Watch you every day.”