Avatars at the Door

The first time she typed hello, I was wine-drunk and lonely, scrolling through the avatar app that swore no real names, no locations, no way to trace skin back to street addresses. My apartment was too quiet, the silence filled only by the hum of my laptop where I’d spent the evening editing copy for a client’s sustainable bamboo toothbrush campaign. My job was to make the mundane sound miraculous, but the words felt hollow, sticking in my throat. My friends had stopped calling months ago, tired of my excuses, my perpetual unavailability. The only person who ever really looked at me was Mrs. McCready next door, and her looks were always tinged with polite, Christian concern.

Her icon was a charcoal sketch of a woman’s mouth—lips closed, corners lifted like she already knew every filthy thing I wanted. I answered because the mouth looked like it could keep secrets.

Screen name: @Duchess. Status: “Married to someone who never looks at me.”

Same as mine, almost. I tapped the key that blurred my face, made my voice a half-octave lower. “Tell me what you’re wearing,” I said, because openers are awkward and desire doesn’t wait for perfect.

She answered, “A robe my mother-in-law gave me last Christmas. White terry cloth. Belt knotted like a chastity belt.”

I laughed so hard the wine burned my sinuses. “Untie it.”

“Already did. What’s under yours?”

I glanced down—ancient Northwestern T-shirt, boxer briefs I’d owned since college. “Black lace,” I lied. “The kind that leaves red lines on my hips.”

“Show me.”

The app let us send live Polaroids that dissolved after three seconds. I peeled off the tee, shoved my underwear down just far enough to fake lingerie, snapped the shot. My stomach muscles fluttered when her reply came: a close-up of two fingers slipping between pale folds, wedding ring glinting under bedroom light. No face, no sound, just that gold band telling me she really was somebody’s wife, maybe somebody’s mother, tasting herself in the dark while her husband snored.

We did that every night for weeks. Then months. Duchess learned how I liked to be told to wait, how the word good girl dripped down my spine like hot wax. I learned she lived somewhere in my time zone, that she grew up Baptist, that she’d never touched a woman before but fantasized about being forced to her knees by one. She typed the dirtiest things I’d ever read, paragraphs that made me grind against my own hand, biting the inside of my cheek to stay quiet because my apartment shared a wall with the unit next door.

The neighbor—Mrs. McCready—was a pew-regular, pearl-wearing widow who collected my mail when I traveled and always returned it with the edges aligned, as if even envelopes could be sinful if they slouched. She wore ankle-length denim skirts and smelled like chamomile lotion. I’d once dropped a bag of groceries; she’d picked up a rolling cucumber, eyes averted, as though the vegetable itself were pornographic. Definitely not the kind of woman who sexted strangers. Definitely not Duchess.

But the app knew our zip codes; it promised to “match kindling within five miles.” I told myself five miles held thirty thousand people. The odds felt safe.

Then the developers added voice memos. The first time I heard Duchess speak, my ribs turned to glass.

“Say something,” I begged after edging for an hour, vibrator held just far enough away to ache.

The message popped up: fifteen seconds. I pressed play.

“I think about you when I water the hydrangeas,” she whispered, Southern vowels curling like smoke. “I get so wet the neighbors must notice the dirt turning darker.”

I came instantly, thighs clamped around my hand, the phone slipping to the carpet. Later I replayed it twenty times, trying to place the soft rasp under the words. Familiar, but not enough to name.

We started leaving bedtime stories for each other—her describing the weight of my hair wrapped around her fist, me spelling out how I’d ruin her lipstick with three fingers and zero mercy. I slept with earbuds in, her recorded breath syncing my dreams. I began to crave her the way some people crave church: daily, devoted, guilty.

One Thursday in June she sent, “I want to meet. Real life. No masks.”

My pulse stuttered. “What about anonymity?”

“I need to know if your mouth tastes like the words you write,” she replied. “Coffee shop. Public. Safe word is still ‘pearl.’”

I stared at the screen until the backlight timed out. If we met, the fantasy could collapse—she could be anyone: the barista who called me ma’am, the trainer at the Y who corrected my squats, the librarian who slid romance novels across the counter like contraband. I told myself the risk was worth one hour. If the spark died, we’d ghost and keep the filthy archive for lonely nights. I had nothing to lose but the fantasy itself. My life was a series of quiet, unremarkable days. This was the only thing that made my blood sing.

We picked Bean & Basil, a plant-filled café ten blocks east of our neighborhood. Saturday, 11 a.m. She’d wear yellow. I’d wear navy. No blurred faces this time.

I arrived early, sat at a two-top near the window, heart thrashing. Every woman in yellow became a possible future: the teenage cashier counting quarters, the pregnant tourist rubbing her belly, the elderly artist pinning postcards to a corkboard. None moved like someone who owned me in 480-character segments.

Then the door chimed. Mrs. McCready stepped inside.

She wore butter-yellow cardigan over a white blouse, pearls at her throat, gray hair twisted into a bun so tight it had to hurt. Denim skirt grazing her sneakers. Conservative armor. My stomach fell through the floor.

She scanned the room, eyes landing on my navy blazer. Her lips parted. I saw the moment she recognized me—neighbor, apartment 2B, the one who received lingerie catalogs in opaque wrapping. Color drained from her cheeks, then flooded back crimson.

I couldn’t breathe. My phone buzzed.

Duchess: “Tell me you see me.”

Hands shaking, I typed: “You’re wearing pearls.”

She lifted her gaze. I saw it then—same hunger from the charcoal mouth, now pulsing inside a body I’d filed under off-limits. She walked toward me, each step crushing the distance we’d cultivated in pixels. When she reached the table, she didn’t speak, just laid her phone face-down beside mine. Lock screens identical: the mouth icon.

“Eleanor McCready,” she whispered, like confession.

“Rowan Vale,” I managed.

We stared until the barista called an oat-milk latte. The noise snapped her spine straighter. She sat.

“I should go,” she said, but her knuckles whitened around the phone.

“You came here to run?” I asked, voice low. “Doesn’t sound like the woman who begged me to make her swallow last night.”

Her eyes flared, scandalized or thrilled—maybe both. “That was…” She glanced around, her voice dropping to a thread. “That was a fantasy. A story I told myself in the dark. This is… I don’t know how to do this in daylight. I’ve never done anything like this. Ever.”

The tremor in her voice was real, a fissure in the poised facade. I saw the internal war: the devout neighbor versus the woman who’d sent me a photo of her fingers inside herself. “It’s still us,” I said, gentler. “Same words. Same skin.”

She inhaled, pearls lifting. “If I stay, I don’t know what happens next.”

“Then we start with coffee,” I said, pushing my untouched cup across. “And we breathe. The HOA hasn’t outlawed breathing yet.”

A tiny, choked laugh escaped her. Her fingers brushed mine as she took the cup—electric, illicit. She didn’t pull away.

For twenty minutes we spoke in suburban code: hydrangeas (hers were blooming early), parking permits (mine expired next week), the HOA’s vendetta against bird feeders. All the while her foot crept forward, nudging my ankle. When our calves touched she exhaled through her nose, the tiniest sound—half sigh, half whimper. I felt it between my legs. The conversation was a fragile bridge over a canyon of everything we weren’t saying.

At minute twenty-one, she set her cup down with a decisive click. “Bernard’s watching golf. He’ll be glued to the set until four.” Her husband. The man who never looked. “I can’t go home yet. I feel like I’m vibrating.”

“I paid already,” I said, standing before she could protest. The decision hung between us, heavy and ripe.

Outside, humidity wrapped us like steamed silk. I led her to my car, a dented Honda with back seats that folded flat. She hesitated at the passenger door, her hand on the handle. The yellow cardigan seemed to glow under the midday sun, a warning beacon.

“Yellow means caution,” she murmured, more to herself than to me.

“Navy means go,” I answered, opening the door. “But only if you’re sure.”

She looked at me, and for a second I saw the woman from the app—the one who commanded, who took. “The HOA president would faint if she knew what was under this denim,” she said, a defiant spark in her eyes. Then she climbed in.

We didn’t speak until I parked behind the abandoned strip mall where teens used to vape. Kudzu strangled the neon signs; the air smelled of wet asphalt and honeysuckle. I killed the engine. Silence swallowed us, thick and expectant.

Then her hand found my knee, firm through the fabric of my skirt. “Show me the black lace,” she said, voice steady now, almost amused. “The real thing this time.”

I lifted my skirt. The panties were real this time—midnight silk, already soaked. She traced the waistband with one finger, reverent, before slipping beneath. My hips jerked.

“Look at you,” she breathed. “All this hunger, right next door.”

“You’re the one baking in thigh-highs, Eleanor.” Using her real name felt like unlocking a door.

She laughed, a bright church-bell sound, then slid two fingers inside me. My head thumped against the window. She worked me slow, learning angles, curling just right until speech dissolved into vowels. When I came it sounded like sobbing, a release of months of pent-up, pixelated longing.

After, she brought her fingers to her mouth—tasted me the way she’d described in voicemails, eyes closing in prayer or gratitude. I lunged across the console, kissed her hard. Her lipstick tasted of rosewater and secrets. She opened, let me lick the evidence from her tongue.

We clawed seats, shoved seatbelts aside. I tugged her cardigan off; the blouse underneath was modest, buttons to throat. I popped them one by one, revealing a bra the color of communion wine—lace so delicate it could tear under whisper. Her breasts spilled out, heavy, nipples dark and already peaked. I bent, sucked one into my mouth, felt her gasp rumble through ribs.

“Rowan,” she moaned, using my name like a swear word.

I pushed her skirt high. Underneath: thigh-highs, garter, no panties. The woman who reprimanded my recycling habits wore lingerie that would scandalize the congregation. I groaned against her skin.

“Spread,” I ordered.

She obeyed, knees hitting the dash. I draped her leg over my shoulder, mouth descending. She smelled like soap and want and the faint, floral scent of her chamomile lotion. I licked slowly, memorizing folds, the way she shuddered when I circled her clit. Her hands fisted my hair—pain mixing with pleasure as she rocked. I slid one, then two fingers inside, crooking, finding the spot that made her chant oh Lord oh Lord in a voice that could recite scripture.

When she came, thighs clamping my ears, I felt the pulse against my tongue—proof that repression tastes exactly like freedom if you bite hard enough.

We lay there, windows fogged, heartbeat syncing through ribcages. The reality of what we’d done began to seep in, cold around the edges of the warmth. I felt a sudden, sharp fear. This wasn’t a stranger. This was my neighbor. The risk had a face, a name, a husband who lived ten feet from my bedroom wall.

Eventually she straightened, re-buttoned her blouse with trembling fingers. She looked out the fogged window, her profile etched with something like sorrow.

“I should feel ashamed,” she said, not looking at me.

“Do you?”

She considered for a long moment. “I feel awake. And terrified. Mostly awake.” She finally turned to me. “But this can’t be a one-time… incident in a parking lot.”

“I don’t want it to be,” I said, and realized I meant it. The fantasy had been a lifeline, but this—the smell of her sweat mixed with my own, the tremor in her hands—this was real. And I wanted it.

She leaned over, kissed me, slow and deep. “Tomorrow night,” she whispered against my lips. “My house. Bernard leaves at six for deacons’ meeting. Front door unlocked. Wear the navy again.”

I swallowed. “Eleanor, are you sure? This isn’t the app. He’s your husband. I’m your neighbor.”

She smiled—crooked, wicked, nothing like the neighbor who once advised me to use fabric softener on line-dried towels. “I’ve been sure for months. I just didn’t know it was you. Now I do. Six o’clock.” She exited, her denim skirt swaying like a hymn only I could hear.

I watched until her Buick disappeared, then let my forehead fall against the steering wheel. A scream built in my chest, but it died before it left my throat. Instead, a cold clarity washed over me. I had just crossed a line that couldn’t be uncrossed. My safe, solitary existence was over. The terror was real, but beneath it, thrumming like a live wire, was a triumph so profound it felt like coming up for air after years underwater.

Sunday dragged. I tried to work, but the words for the bamboo toothbrush campaign blurred on the screen. I called my oldest friend, Maya, and almost told her, but bit back the confession. How could I explain? I showered twice, shaved everything, my hands unsteady. I swapped the promised navy for a black leather skirt and nothing underneath, a small rebellion. At 5:58 I stood on her porch, potted petunias trembling in the breeze. The door clicked open before I could knock.

Inside smelled of lemon polish and yeast—bread cooling on a rack. She met me in the foyer, hair still in that severe bun, a floral apron tied around her waist. Flour streaked her cheek like absolution.

“Kitchen first,” she said, her voice honey-calm, but her eyes were dark storms. “On the table.”

I hopped up onto the polished oak, the cool surface a shock against my thighs, my skirt riding high. She stepped between my knees, untied the apron, lifted it over her head. Underneath: that same wine-colored bra, stockings, garter. She’d baked in lingerie. The domestic blasphemy of it made something feral ignite in my gut.

We kissed until our breath burned, her hands gripping my face like I was the only solid thing in a spinning world. She broke away, breathless, and produced a tube of icing from the counter—vanilla, store-bought, blessed. She squeezed a thick, sugary line between my breasts.

“Clean it,” she ordered, her voice dropping to that low, commanding register I knew so well from voice memos.

I glanced toward the doorway, imagined Bernard’s umbrella stand, the cross-stitched Bless This Home hanging in the hall. Then I bent my head, licked the frosting from my own skin, holding her stare the entire time. Her pupils dilated, swallowing the hazel of her irises.

She drew another line of icing down my torso, over the slope of my belly, stopping just above where I throbbed for her. Then she knelt on the kitchen tiles. She took her time, her tongue following the sweet trail, stopping agonizingly short each time I arched toward her mouth. By the fifth pass, I was clutching the table edge, whimpers tearing from my throat.

“Please, Duchess.”

“Eleanor,” she corrected, her mouth brushing a hot breath over where I ached. “Use my real name when you come in my dining room.”

Then she devoured me, her tongue and fingers working in a ruthless, perfect rhythm learned from months of detailed instructions. I came shouting Eleanor like a conversion, my cry echoing off the stainless-steel appliances.

We didn’t rush through the house like a checklist. We stayed there in the kitchen, in the aftermath, my back against the cool refrigerator door, her head on my shoulder. Her fingers traced idle patterns on my thigh.

“I host the book club here,” she said softly. “Next Tuesday. We’re reading a very tame historical romance.”

I snorted. “I bet your annotation skills are unparalleled.”

She smiled, but it faded. “This is real.”

“I know.”

She led me by the hand to the living room. Not for a frantic coupling, but to sit on the sofa, her head in my lap. I undid her tight bun, let the gray-streaked hair fall around her shoulders. She sighed, a sound of profound relief. “He likes it up,” she said. “Says it looks proper.”

My fingers massaged her scalp. We sat in silence for a long while, listening to the grandfather clock tick in the hall. The intimacy of it was more devastating than any explicit act. This was the theft: not of a quick thrill, but of quiet moments that belonged to a marriage.

Eventually, she turned, her gaze landing on the large King James Bible on the coffee table. A challenge lit her eyes. She grabbed it, the weight substantial in her hands, and bent over the arm of the sofa. “Read me a verse,” she said, her voice muffled by the upholstery.

I understood. I opened the book at random, my eyes skimming. “Song of Solomon, chapter four,” I said, my voice unsteady. “‘Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue…’” I brought the heavy book down in a swift, sharp spank against the denim covering her backside. She gasped. The pages fluttered like startled doves. I read another line, spanked her again. With each strike, she pushed back against me, her breath coming faster. It was a perverse liturgy, a profane sermon. When I finally dropped the book and replaced it with my hand, then my mouth on her from behind, she came with a choked cry, her fingers clawing at the floral fabric.

We made it to the bedroom last. The master bedroom. I hesitated at the threshold, my courage faltering. The room was a monument to a conventional life: matching oak furniture, a quilt with a interlocking wedding-ring pattern, a framed wedding photo on the dresser. A young, smiling Eleanor in a white dress, standing beside a man with a kind, forgettable face.

“Here?” I asked, my voice small.

She understood. She walked to the dresser, picked up the photo, and placed it face-down without a word. “He hasn’t touched me in this bed in three years,” she said, unclasping her bra, letting it fall. “He sleeps on his side, I sleep on mine. The space between us is a canyon. Make me dirty in God’s own sheets, Rowan. Please.”

We wrecked that bed. Sweat soaked the linen, the headboard knocked against the wall in a syncopated rhythm with our filthy litany: “Fuck me like I’m yours, like I’ve always been yours, like tomorrow we’ll repent.” I strapped on the silicone she produced from the nightstand drawer (purple, curved, obscene) and took her from behind, my hand fisted in her freed hair, watching her pearls sway and dig into the skin of her throat with each thrust. She came screaming into a pillow embroidered with Trust in the Lord.

After, we lay tangled in the wreckage, the air thick with the scent of icing, sex, and her lavender sachets. She traced the tiny compass tattoo on my ribcage.

“North is wherever you bite,” I told her, repeating the line I’d typed to her once.

She laughed softly, then grew quiet. The digital clock on the nightstand glowed 11:07. “Tomorrow he comes back,” she said. The words hung in the dark.

I swallowed. “I know.” The real world was a train approaching, and we were tied to the tracks.

She rolled onto her side to face me. In the dim light from the window, she looked both younger and older, stripped bare of all pretense. “I don’t want to pretend online again. I can’t go back to just being text on a screen.”

“Me either,” I whispered. The thought was desolate.

Silence stretched, fragile as a soap bubble. Then she said it, her voice clear and quiet. “I could leave him.”

My heart paused mid-beat. The magnitude of it filled the room. “Eleanor… could you?” It wasn’t just about leaving a man. It was about leaving a life, an identity, a whole community that saw her as Mrs. Bernard McCready, pillar of the church.

“I’ve been leaving for years,” she said, her fingers tracing my jaw. “I just didn’t know where to go. Or that there was a ‘where’ to go to.” She kissed my shoulder, a soft press of lips. “Now I do.”

I cupped her cheek, my thumb brushing her cheekbone. Hope, fierce and terrifying, bloomed in my chest. “We’ll take it slow. Figure it out. Real life is messier than chat.”

She smirked, a flash of the wicked Duchess. “We just defiled my kitchen, my living room, and my marital bed. I think we handle messy well.”

But the smirk faded. She looked past me, at the blank space on the dresser where the photo had been. “It will be hard. There will be… scenes. Letters from the pastor. My mother will weep. The HOA will probably find a way to fine me for moral turpitude.”

The reality of it, the sheer mundane cruelty of the aftermath, settled over us. My triumph curdled, mixed with a protective fear. “You don’t have to decide anything tonight.”

“I already have,” she said, but there was a tremor beneath the certainty. A flicker of the woman who’d hesitated at my car door. “It’s the doing that frightens me.”

We made love once more, as dawn began to bleed lavender at the edges of the blinds. This time there were no props, no roles, just mouths and hands learning the contours of a possible future. It was slower, sweeter, and somehow more desperate.

After, I dressed in the pale light. She pulled on a robe and walked me to the front door. As I stepped onto the porch, she slipped something into the pocket of my leather skirt: her pearl necklace, still warm from her skin.

“So you remember who I really am,” she said. “Not the avatar. Not just the neighbor. Me.”

I kissed her softly, tasting sugar and sleep and the salt of impending goodbye. “See you tomorrow, Eleanor.”

“Tomorrow,” she echoed, and closed the door softly.

Outside, the cul-de-sac was perfectly still. The sky was lavender-gray, birds beginning their morning chatter. I drove the short distance home wearing nothing but the pearls against my skin, the cool beads a constant reminder. My heart was a chaotic choir, singing hymns of hope we’d rewritten with our teeth, underscored by a deep, bass note of fear. The hard part wasn’t over. It was just beginning. But for the first time in a long, lonely year, I wasn’t facing it alone. I had a secret, and it had a name, and it lived ten feet away, behind a door that was now, and would forever be, unlocked.