I should have seen it coming. Because it’s happened before.

When I picked up the signs, I chose to ignore them … but it’s easier to pretend things aren’t the way they are…

What follows is a different kind of Avenue Oh story. It’s more of a journal. Because it’s about part of the three-plus months since Ema’s last post. We’ll both try to explain. Ema and me.

This isn’t Ema writing this part, by the way, but Nicole. Usually, I’m Ema’s silent partner and sometimes muse (she claims I inspired the main character in her novel Hours Alone, but I’m not sure where that comes from). I’m the one who handles the business and editing end of things, the digital grunt work. In any good pair, someone is often more steady, the other more impulsive. I would be the steadier one.

Three months ago, I assumed Ema was working on the second half of her last post, The French Package, or one of our other jobs. Instead, Ema went missing on me. No texts. No emails. No calls. But not for the first time.

It didn’t worry me. She’d surface. But one week rolled into two, which rolled into three, which turned into a month. And still no Ema.

Just when I began to wonder if this would be different, a text came in the middle of the night. No, how’ve you been. No, sorry I went silent on you. No, sorry I’ve left half a dozen projects hanging. Instead, Ema sent this: I just watched a girl get fucked by three guys. Her follow up post added: Want to see pics?

What I wanted was to know where she was. When was she coming back? But I’ve known her long enough to understand she’d get to that. So what I texted in reply was, Sure. Because I’ll look at pictures of a girl fucking three guys.

Moments later, a single picture came through. I gave it a quick look, liked it, but texted back: Nice try. But that’s AI.

Sort of, Ema responded. Part real. Part AI. A pause, then her next text said: I’ve met someone. (She’s always meeting someone.) Her next text read: An artist. (Ema loves artists.) Who takes amazing photographs … because she talks people into doing amazing things. (By amazing things, I knew Ema meant sex things.)

She texted: Here comes a picture she took of me. Of me but altered. It’s what she says I look like writing out here. How she sees me in her head.

That’s not you, I said of the woman in the image she sent.

I know. But it’s how Elke sees me.

(Elke, I’ve since learned, is the artist/photographer. And here is her image of Ema):

I waited to see what Ema texted next. It took a few minutes before it came. She said she wanted to write about what’s been happening but wasn’t sure she should.

We went back and forth about that for a couple minutes. Me looking for clues about what she’d been doing, and her being dodgy about it. A few texts later, she decided she’d write about it, and we’d post it, but it won’t be true. We’ll include our usual preamble about it being fiction. Which made me wonder if she wasn’t planning to make it all up. I’m still not sure that’s not what she’s done. That this isn’t all made up. That she isn’t really in the southwest sharing a guest house with an older funky photographer woman, but a motel in … I don’t know … Boise, maybe.

Which means this is a work of fiction that contains explicit sex scenes and strong language. It is intended for mature readers aged 18 or older. By continuing beyond this point, you represent, warrant and agree that you are aged 18 or older and do not have any sensitivity to sexual material, and indemnify and hold harmless the author and publisher from any damages (including attorney’s fees) they may incur, at law or in equity, resulting from your breach of said representation.

Issues such as STD’s and other physical/emotional risks of sexual conduct are, for the most part, ignored, which means this story is fantasy in that it takes place in a world where such complications do not exist.

If you are not aged 18 or older or believe you may not enjoy material of this nature, or have any sensitivity to sexual material, do not read further.

Making a purchase via any links in this story may reward the publisher with a small commission from Amazon. Thank you for your support!

Ema

“I wonder if she knows they all want to fuck her,” is what the woman seated at the table alongside me said.

We were both alone and hadn’t said a word to one another, hadn’t even made eye contact, having lunch in a casual barbeque place where you can bring your own beer. She drank hers out of a long-neck bottle, getting the glass sticky from sauce on her fingers, while the assortment of wooden bracelets on her wrist jostled together like wind chimes each time she took a sip.

“She can’t be that naïve not to know,” the woman said … again, I assumed, talking about the girl in her early twenties (best guess) having lunch with what looked like four co-workers, all guys, three of them closer to her age, and a fourth, probably their boss, who might have been 40 (and was the only one with a wedding band and seemed to steer the conversation).

The girl in her twenties hadn’t said much that I’d seen. She wore a plain blouse and pants, an Apple watch, and a lanyarded ID. Her hair was long, brown, smooth, and didn’t look like a priority. She was cute because she was young, not stylish. She smiled or laughed at the appropriate times and ate politely: a sloppy meat sandwich of some sort. She hadn’t gone the salad option, maybe because it’s what she liked or maybe to fit in—be one of the guys.

The group looked smart and techy. They weren’t a drywall crew on their lunch break, wearing Carhartts covered in gypsum dust.

I still hadn’t responded to the woman at the next table—and wasn’t entirely sure she was talking to me and might not be earbudded to her phone—when she said, “I’m going to ask her.”

The tech girl had used a bunch of paper towels from the roll put on every table but still had messy hands. She was headed to the bathroom.

The older woman alongside me left her leather shoulder bag on the floor by her chair and followed the girl. She wore as many silver rings as bracelets, and had a take-no-shit stride, the heels of age-worn cowboy boots clicking the wood floor. Her blouse was flowy and loose, left unbuttoned to show cleavage. Her hair was cut and colored by someone who worked in an expensive salon, a spa maybe, because hair that good at her age didn’t come cheap. Which maybe her husband—assuming she had one—thought about her.

She had to be every day of 50. Could have been pushing 60. Hard to tell with people who had money, which I guessed she did—not from the way she dressed (although those were $100 jeans) but her confidence. The sort of western woman who if a bar fight broke out would pick someone to root for and not run out the door.

Five minutes later, the tech girl came back to the table of co-workers, who were standing up. Time to get back to the office. They were all out the door before the older woman returned.

“Well…?” I had to ask after she sat down and reached for what was left of her beer.

“She said … ‘I guess.’ Like there might be some question about it.” She shook her head as she swallowed.

“You said to her … did she think any of the guys she was having lunch with wanted to have sex with her?”

“No. I said, ‘You know all those guys you’re with want to fuck you.’”

I smiled, wondering if she was telling the truth. And played along. “Then she said back to you…?”

“‘I guess,’” she confirmed, changing her tone as if to mock the girl’s uncertainty, as if there could possibly be any doubt all four of those guys just spent lunch managing to sustain conversation while what they really wanted was to get in her pants.

“And then you said…?”

“I told her there was no guessing about it. And if she picked one, or all four, their cocks would be hard by the time they got back to the car. Then I told her, the hotel in the office park not far from here isn’t half bad. But if she wants it to feel sleazy, there’s some cheap places with peeling paint down on the Pike.”

“You didn’t say that.”

“Fifty bucks says I did.”

I thought about that—whether I believed her. “And then she said…?”

“Said she’d keep it in mind.” The woman finished her beer, set down the bottle, and turned sideways in her chair, looking directly at me for the first time. Her eyes held mine and it felt as if she was appraising me—not quite eyeing me up and down, but trying to peer inside me, work out who I was.

“I’m Ema,” I said, giving her that much.

She nodded. “Two E names. I’m Elke.”

We shook hands. Hers were strong, with long fingers and unpainted nails manicured short.

She went into her leather bag, which had multiple pouches, turquoise and silver adornments, and draping chains. She handed me a card. Imprinted on heavy glossy stock was her name, phone number, and in all caps: ARTIST. “Call me if you want to pose sometime. We’ll have fun.”

“You do portraits?”

“If you like.” She slung her bag’s long strap over her shoulder, readying to leave. “Text me your info and I’ll let you know if Lexi calls.”

“Lexi?”

“The one who guesses the guys she had lunch with want to fuck her.”

“She’s going to pose for you?”

“She said no but let me put my number in her phone. She asked if I did weddings. I told her three. Although I think she probably meant did I do wedding photography, not how many times I’d been married.”

“Are you married now?” I asked, unable to tell if any of the many rings she wore might have symbolized that.

She shook her head no, and seemed unhappy about that in a way that made me guess maybe her husband had died. She didn’t say.

“I’ll call you,” I said.

“Look forward to it.”

Nicole

Days later, Ema texted me the self-portrait Elke had done of herself, which made it easier to believe what Ema said about the woman was true. But I still wasn’t sold. Then again, what difference did it make?

By that time, Ema and I had gotten in sync about a few business items, including whether to change how and what we posted to Substack, but Ema put off decisions saying it could wait until she got back … although she didn’t give any indication when that might be.

Her text was almost a BTW when she let me know she’d moved out of her Vrbo and in with Elke. Specifics including locations and sleeping arrangements remained undisclosed, which wasn’t exactly a control thing on Ema’s part, it’s just that as much as she can write about other people, she tends to keep her private life private until one day, like a dam bursting, it will come out in a flood of—usually—pleasurable details.

I anticipated that day might be coming a week later when Ema—who still hadn’t finished the second half, or next installment, whatever it was going to be, of The French Package—texted that Lexi—the young woman from the restaurant—had gotten in touch with Elke and was coming over. Coming over for exactly what would be another of those details I’d have to wait for.

It didn’t take long…

Ema

Lexi arrived as the sun angled toward the rocky horizon. She carefully turned her newish Honda Civic onto the gravel driveway to avoid a pair of impressive saguaros that made for a good marker when giving directions to find the place.

She spotted Elke and I sitting on the side patio of the guest house with its smooth white stucco walls and red tile roof, and pulled alongside Elke’s old Mercedes convertible, the top to which I was yet to see Elke put up.

Elke waved, her bracelets clacking together on her slender wrists as her many silver rings reflected the burnt orange glow of the sky. Her 35mm Nikon with its nicked and scarred leather strap sat on the wrought iron table along with our glasses of water spritzed with fresh lime wedges.

“God she’s young,” Elke commented enviably of Lexi, who got out of her white car after what may have been a moment of hesitation.

Lexi did look younger than I remembered from the restaurant the other week. Maybe because her hair was loose, not tied back. Or perhaps wearing a plain blue t-shirt, ordinary jeans, and black slip-on loafers instead of drab work wear was what did it.

“Join us,” Elke called to her without getting up, her voice carrying across the quiet. “Get you anything to drink? Water. Tea. Wine. Beer. We’re pretty well stocked.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Lexi ambled toward us. “Water’s good.”

“Coming up.” Elke shifted into hostess mode, leaving her camera on the table as she headed across the stone patio for the back door.

I introduced myself, and Lexi asked if I was a photographer too. Writer, I told her.

“Cool.” She didn’t ask for details as she helped herself to the third chair with a definite confidence, although I sensed a reasonable hint of unease and wondered how many times she thought about turning around and heading back home before she got out here.

It was new to me, what was happening, or might happen. I sometimes wrote about situations inspired by people I’ve known or seen but what I do doesn’t involve them so directly. So intimately.

Lexi looked toward the main house farther along the driveway up the hill but didn’t ask about it. Maybe she assumed Elke lived there and the guesthouse was just her studio. Did she wonder if Elke and I were together? “Nice here,” was what she said, and maybe that’s all she was thinking. “Beautiful in that rugged way.” She made it sound as if this wasn’t terrain she grew up around.

“You like living here?” I asked.

“Summers’re hot as shit,” she remarked and slouched slightly as she crossed her legs, coming across differently than when she was the only girl at a table with four co-workers.

“Never been here in summer,” I said, “but I can imagine.” I found it exciting to look at her, to anticipate what she was anticipating. She was there to “pose” for Elke—whatever that meant. Maybe it was a fantasy, like Elke says, how people—especially women, she claims—have a part of them that wants to be admired through a lens, to be treated like the beautiful or notable people on the covers of magazines, though Elke claims that’s not so much of a thing any more, what with everyone able to self-create their own stardom online.

Elke returned with a tall, hammered drinking glass filled to within an inch of its rounded brim with icy water and a squeezed lime wedge. She set it in front of Lexi, then cocked her chair toward the young girl and sat with her legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, her cowboy boots rubbing together as she folded her hands over her waist.

Elke wore another blousy top, half the buttons undone, showing off a pink lace bra and cleavage made glorious by a very, very good surgeon half a decade ago. A gift to her then husband, she’d told me. Or maybe she’d said a gift from her then husband. Either way, she outshone Lexi and I in the chest department despite our age advantage.

“Tell me about the guys you work with,” Elke asked. “Besides that they want to fuck you?”

Her directness surprised me, and I half expected Lexi to set down the water glass and leave. But she didn’t and laughed easily.

“You know they want to fuck you,” Elke happily insisted. “I’m surprised any of you get anything done at work. You’re quite the distraction.”

Lexi shook her head. “Yeah … no … it’s not like that.”

“No?”

“It’s just work. I mean, yeah, maybe sometimes I guess maybe one of them might think about it… I don’t know.” The idea seemed to embarrass her a little.

Elke let that concept stir the warm air, then asked, “What about you? Do you ever think about it?”

“Not really.”

“They’re not your type?”

“I don’t know. No. Well, no,” she decided, “they’re not my type, I guess. I don’t know.” She took a drink of water, rested her glass back on the table.

“If you had to fuck one of them…?” Elke proposed, somehow making it seem like a harmless game.

“One of them…?” Lexi pulled in a breath, held it, rolled her head side to side, brown hair brushing across her shoulders. “Mitch…?” she answered uncertainly. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“The one with the short beard?” Elke imagined.

“Beard? No—that’s Stewart. He’s a bit of a jerk. Mitch is the—”

Elke snapped her fingers as though it just came to her. “The older one. The boss.”

“Yeah,” Lexi admitted with another embarrassed shake of her head. “The boss. So cliché, right?”

“He’s cute,” Elke said. “I’d’ve fucked him. But you haven’t?”

“Nooo. No-no-no. No sex at work.” As if the concept was locked away in a vault hundreds of feet underground.

“But don’t you wonder…?” Elke put out there. “… what it would look like? How it would feel?”

Lexi started to shake her head, but that turned into a shrug instead. “Not really.”

“I don’t know…” Elke contemplated. “…because I’d like to see what it looked like. Maybe with the right group of guys. Four different guys. Have you ever thought about that? Just for fun. What it would look like? To fuck four guys?”

Nicole

In the photo Ema sent me, it’s not four guys, but three. Standing there about to unzip their pants as Lexi watches. I assumed it was Lexi, only Ema explained, texting:

It’s mostly Lexi. The body is her. The face has been retouched so it looks less like her. So if someone ever saw it, they might think it looks like Lexi but isn’t.

And the grungy room? I wanted to know about the setting.

That’s all retouched.

AI you mean?

A little AI, then this incredible graphic artist friend of Elke added to it.

And the three guys? I asked.

All real but made a little more buff.

And after Elke took their picture, I wanted to know, Lexi fucked them?

Ema

In the picture, the three guys about to open their pants are standing in front of Lexi, who sits on the bed, watching and waiting with a judgmental expression that makes her seem in control. That the guys are doing her bidding.

In reality, Lexi wasn’t even there when that picture was taken. And Elke didn’t take the picture. I did. And it was Elke sitting on the bed, although she wasn’t naked, but wore a black lace thong.

Elke, it turns out, is 61 but has an incredible body. Yoga and surgery, she will freely tell you. She kept on her rings and bracelets as the guys took down their pants. First one of them, then the next, and the next, and they showed off different sizes and hardnesses, and got into bed with Elke as she laid back, and one by one, she got them off, and got herself off, then came again when one of them went down on her.

But she didn’t fuck any of them. She sucked off two and the third guy rubbed himself between her breasts, so turned on after watching her take care of his friends it was a matter of 30 seconds or so and he was done.

After the three of them left, Elke wiped herself off with a warm, wet wash cloth, and slipped her blouse back on over her head, and sat with me on the sofa in her thong that had stayed on the whole time she did those three guys.

We scrolled through the pictures I’d taken, reviewing them on the tiny screen of her camera. Elke deleted some, tagged others to send to Jacob to recraft (her term) to make it look like the three guys really were fucking her, which was the first picture I’d texted to Nicole a couple weeks ago, which Nicole spotted as being AI, which is no different from drawing something that’s in your head, is it? In terms of how real it is.

Elke said she doesn’t get into the politics of AI. The philosophical debate. The genie, she claimed, once out of the bottle is impossible to control. Like a wild horse that always wants to be wild. You may contain it for a time, but eventually it will get away from you and do what it wants.

“Maybe,” she told me, “it’s because my opinion of the world changed once I couldn’t fuck any more. I didn’t know that would happen. No one ever warned me. No one talked about that. I assumed something in a woman’s head changed as she got older and the desire would go. I didn’t understand how physical it would be. Like losing a limb. Without getting too graphic about it in a medical way … how your pussy just stops working. How it hurts to be penetrated. And there’s no blue pill for us… There are remedies,” she made sarcastic air quotes, “so they claim. Which maybe help some women, but they didn’t work for me. And just like that, it was gone. Being able to fuck was gone. But not the desire.

“I can still come. I’ve got that. And I can still get someone’s cock hard. And I can suck it off. I’ve always liked that – always liked the feel of stiff dick in my mouth. That connection is so intense. But I miss that hardness, that bulge inside me, moving in and out. With my legs wide open. Or wrapped around him. Fuck, I miss that.” She looked away and shook her head.

A few moments later, she said, “Which is why when I meet someone like Lexi, and she seems so blasé about sex—so take it or leave it—I want to shake her and tell her she’s wasting, wasting, wasting valuable youthful pussy.” Elke stresses the word. “And I think not having sex, not fucking, is something the world, something society, is telling her it approves of, and she doesn’t realize it’s a crock of political shit. Because it doesn’t seem—no, it just can’t be natural. It just can’t be.”

I thought about that, then suggested, “Maybe she’s more into it than she’s let you know. She came out here and let you take pictures of her. Knowing you’re going to use them in your art. That people are going to see. People are going to react. I think she enjoyed doing that. I think she connected with herself in a very positive way.”

Elke remained doubtful. “But it’s not fucking.”

Four days later, Elke was more hopeful. She showed me a different crafted photograph of Lexi, the one she said she was going to use instead of the image of the three guys about to unzip to fuck her. In this new picture, Lexi has been fucked. It’s a post-fuck moment. Elke said, “I’m titling it, At Least They Brought Champagne. I sent a proof to Lexi and she said, “‘That is fucking hot.’ And said she’d come to the show.” Elke seemed pleased about that. “And … she said she’d bring a friend. And when I said I looked forward to seeing her again and mentioned if she might want to pose again … maybe with her friend … she didn’t answer at first, but ended up saying, ‘Maybe we can do that.’ So I asked if she’d fuck him for me, her friend, and let me take pictures.”

“And what did she say?”

“She said: ‘I’ll have him bring champagne.’”

Ema & Nicole

We hope you liked this different sort of post. And want to let you know about some logistical changes were going to make for Avenue Oh here on Substack.

We expect to start showing more of Elke’s crafted photography. And while we will primarily post stories, they will mostly be previewed here, with the full version published on Amazon in Kindle format.

We plan to make each new story available in Kindle format free for five days after its release, so please make sure to open our emails right away to link to the free copy before it expires. (If you’re not currently a subscriber—IT’S FREE—please use the link below to sign up.) After the first five days, stories should remain free to read for 90 days for Kindle Unlimited members and be 99 cents for others.

You don’t need a Kindle to read what we publish on Amazon, but you will need the Kindle reading app. Information about the Kindle reading app can be found here. Or click here for information about a free trial of Kindle Unlimited.

The reason for this change to Kindle is to hopefully provide better control over who has access to what we publish and to overcome the file size restrictions of Substack email.

Hope to see you again soon.