Instant gratification. That’s what most people want these days. Thanks to instant communication with email, instant shopping online, instant pornography too, we all want exactly what we want, exactly when we want it.

That’s what made things so frustrating. Much as I don’t want to admit it, my middle-aged brain has been re-wired to operate in the modern era of instant gratification.

She made me wait.

I had clicked the “send” button and sent my video clip to my foreign correspondent. She was still just an avatar and a screen name, but she had written back to me “chances” – I took that as her message to me, that she would take a chance on receiving my video. And then she would take an even bigger chance by watching it.

But she made me wait. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Then Fifteen. All to watch a two or three minute video of me masturbating?

The fifteen minutes became thirty, and I wondered if perhaps I had offended her. Perhaps she wouldn’t respond, and she would forever remain just an avatar and a screen name.

I worried that I would never see her face. That was the bottom line for me. It’s one thing to exchange erotic stories, it’s still another thing to exchange emails and instant messages. All of these cross lines and venture from anonymity into intimacy But to see a face, that is the ultimate in intimacy. That’s what I wanted. I wanted her to become a real person, with a name, but more importantly, with a face.

Yet I feared that I had offended her sensibilities. I had crossed a line and presumed, and perhaps had shown her more than she needed or wanted to see.

Thirty minutes of silence. Of staring at the screen.

Thirty minutes of regret.

Then another fifteen minutes beyond that. Forty-five minutes in total.

A pop-up window. A new message.

More importantly, a message from her. From my foreign correspondent. I opened up the message and saw a symbol of a paper-clip. An attachment. Probably just her sending me back a reply, I thought, with my original video.

I read her words. Slowly and carefully, I read her reply.

“My funny friend. I hope you don’t mind me calling you that, but we have shared enough that I feel I must call you a friend. As for calling you funny, you make me laugh. Never at you…all right, maybe a little bit at you, but mostly at the things you say and do to try to bring a smile to my face. I am sending you two things – first, there is a video attached to this email. I’ll borrow from your own vocabulary and say “chances”. I won’t tell you what it shows, but you have a choice to watch it or not. To take a chance. The second thing I am sending is a separate email, which will follow in a few minutes, just long enough for you to decide about taking a chance or not, and just long enough for you to watch the video, if you so decide. That second email will explain a lot of things to you. Writing it just now explained a lot of things to me about myself. I want you to read it. No chances. No choices. It is important for me that you read it. As for the video…”chances” is the key word. Bye for now. Your friend.”

I knew what choice I would make. I double-clicked the attachment and at the prompt, I chose Windows Media Player to play the video.

I watched. No face. No torso. Just a close-up of a pussy. Completely bare and the skin so pale. A pussy with moist and pink labia, so close that I felt I could reach out and touch them. Maybe even lick them.

It must be her, I thought, and not some downloaded video she found. Otherwise there would be no chances to take.

Her body was still, and all I saw was the pussy in front of me. And then after about thirty seconds of silence, a voice came on with the video, and at the same time, two hands reached down and spread open her pussy, and I saw the pink, velvety folds and smooth moist flesh within. A voice, as her fingers began to slide along her lips, along the edges of her fleshy paradise…

“I loved your video. More than I have time to express in this short video. I wanted to show you, and not just tell you, what it did to me, watching you expose yourself so completely for me. At first I was shocked, and then I was titillated, and then intrigued, as I watched you bring yourself to a climax that looked so gratifying. And then I just go so hot. So fucking horny and hot. I became wet just watching you play with yourself. My cunt was soaking wet just from the images I watched. I had to do something. I had to do anything. I needed to be fucked, but I was all alone, although watching you stroke yourself, I really didn’t feel completely alone. Part of me felt like we were in the room together, me watching you jack off right next to me. Your words so far have been so vivid, that I could almost imagine the things you would be saying to me, while I watched you masturbate. I felt I was with you. I felt so vulnerable watching you too, like you knew exactly what I wanted to see, and like you were right there with me. Like I was naked with you. So here I am now, naked for you, finishing the dialogue that you started. Here I am for you, and just for you, showing you what you have done to me. I hope it does to you what your video did to me. If it does, my apologies for the mess you’re gonna make when you cum again.”

And then silence again, save for the sound of her breathing, as her hands caressed her sex, as she took her right hand and with her index finger and thumb, pinched her clit and pulled it out for me to see, stretching her silky pink flesh and then going back to rubbing herself along her labia.

Then one finger sliding into her deep pussy, inserting it all the way until her hand rested up against her body, nowhere to go since she was all the way in. Then another finger, and then her insertion became a withdrawal, and then the two motions combined into a back and forth, in and out of her dampness. Good microphone on that camera, I thought, as I heard her wetness become apparent as she fucked herself with her fingers. The squishy wetness of her deep opening, her juices flowing freely, as her hand increased its tempo.

She stopped. She pulled her fingers out of her pussy and then she leaned over so her face was front and center in the screen, and then her fingers were brought up to her mouth and she tasted herself.

First the one finger, then the next, sliding it into her mouth as her lips surrounded her fingers and as she savored her natural delicacies. She sucked on her fingers, her face clear as day in front of me, and then almost as soon as she had finished, she popped out of sight, leaving the view of her pussy once again filling my computer screen.

Her hands were not alone as they returned to the scene of the fingering of a moment before. Her hands brought a simple, flesh-colored dildo into view, and she quickly slid it inside of her pussy, and began to fuck herself with it. No subtlety. No gentle and prolonged insertion. No, just a swift thrust inside of her, and then a hurried plunging in and out. It was not a huge dildo, perhaps only six inches or so in length, and it looked like a real, circumcised cock. It looked a little bit like my cock, in fact. I wondered if she had noticed the similarities when she was watching my video.

She fucked herself fast with the dildo, and I could hear her breathing in the background, and occasionally she would moan and I thought I heard an occasional grunt as well. She alternated between using both hands and then just one or the other hand, and when she used only one hand, she would use the other to fiddle around with her clit. And then she slowed down and lowered her body so that in clear view was no longer a pussy, but a clear view of her breasts. Not overly large, but round and full, with pale pink nipples atop the pale white skin. It was clear she was still fucking herself below, as her breasts shook in rhythm with her masturbation. Her breasts shook and her nipples were a blur on the screen, but an absolutely magnificent blur of beauty and sensuality.

And then she moved back to her original position, and displayed her pussy again, the dildo flying in and out, in and out, with her wetness so apparent. The sounds of her arousal, of her liquid arousal, sloshing as the dildo plunged into her deep, pink canal, as the dildo spread her open and heightened her excitement.

As it heightened my excitement.

Then she came. She pulled the dildo out of her pussy, and in close-up I saw her pussy contract, I saw it pulse with an orgasmic rhythm, and I saw her juices dripping and glistening all around her gaping sex.

Seconds passed, and all I could see was a gaping and spent pussy filling my screen. The seconds passed and became a minute, just one of perhaps only five or six minutes of video footage, but then after that final minute of silence, she leaned over and showed her face again.

She spoke, her face showing the signs of some excitement, of sweating, and her breath still not calm.

She spoke to me directly, her face filling my view.

“We are thousands of miles apart, so I won’t lie and say I wish it was your cock fucking me. That would be a tease. It would be unrealistic. I like things to be real. The arousal you inspired in me was real. I hope you could tell from what you just saw. My desire is real too. Not to run off and meet you, but to continue to exchange intimacies with you. Some intimacies are direct and physical, like our video exchange. Some are more lasting yet more intangible. Ideas, fantasies, just plain old words. Anyone can fuck someone else, but words, these are different. These are intimacies which can only be shared when there is mutual respect and mutual curiosity. I think we have that. So as much as I loved watching your lovely cock and watching you masturbate for me, and as much as I loved what I just did for you, I want us never to stop exchanging the words. The words bridge the miles between us, and make me feel like I am right there with you. Thanks for taking a chance and watching. Now go and read my next email. And keep your cock in your pants while you do.”

It was going to be very hard to keep my cock in my pants. Watching that video made me hard. Very hard. I’m not usually a dripper (I’m not a big pre-cum producer), but I could feel a definite damp spot in my pants, and I wasn’t about to blame a weak bladder yet – there would be time for that in twenty or thirty years. No, this video definitely had me hot, and most definitely bothered, but I owed it to my new friend to respect her wishes. I didn’t even touch myself through my pants.

I reached forward and clicked on the screen with my mouse, closing the window with the video. I had another pop-up (beside the one in my pants), and it was dead center in my screen. Another new email. I opened it and saw that sure enough it was another email from my still un-named friend.

I clicked it open and began to read.

“I don’t know if you’ve taken a chance and watched the video. That was something entirely up to you. Your choice. But now, in this email, I am making a choice. I’m taking a chance. You know me only as an avatar so far, and some made-up screen name. You have written to me that you are intrigued by me, and by my words, and want to learn more about me. The feeling is mutual. So here goes…my name is Laura. I live in…”

I read on. Laura told me where she lived, how old she was, her marital status, details of her kids, education, work, family background, and more. A virtual autobiography. I began to feel tears welling up in my eyes. This was more intimate than any video. I wasn’t seeing her pussy. She was showing me her soul.

I read to the end. And the last words are the ones that I will always remember, and which moved me the most.

“I took one chance on you when I watched your video. Now I am taking a second chance. A third email will come to you later tonight. It is a picture. Of me. Not naked. Nothing special. Just a picture of me that a friend took last summer when we went to the beach together. Just my face. I am taking a chance that you will like what you see. That you will see something in me that makes you want to call me a friend too. Goodnight, my friend.”

Goodnight, my friend, I thought to myself. Open your email tomorrow and you will find I have taken a second chance with you too. I hope you will like my face as much as I like yours.

Goodnight.