The news was unexpected. I can't say it was devastating. In fact, it elicited no truly emotional response from me whatsoever. But just a few months ago I was scrolling through my Twitter feed and a headline jumped out: "Yahoo Chat to shut down permanently."
I paused for a moment when I read that headline. Yahoo Chat. It had been probably ten years since I, now a 33 year old married man living the suburban American dream, had even logged in. Many of you reading this might remember the old chat application. If AOL Instant Messenger was the place for teenagers to awkwardly flirt with classmates in a way they could never muster up the courage to do so in person, Yahoo Chat was the seedy underbelly of the early internet chat world. It was anonymous. It could be local. Or it could fit pretty much any fetish you could imagine.
Growing up my very good, loving parents were a little naive. They left a young, curious and horny son alone in a house with the internet and no blocks whatsoever. I was caught looking at porn a couple of times and because my father had run into some trouble with my mother over the same issue a few years before, it was a tense subject that the family didn't feel comfortable discussing. They sent me, a young teenager, to a Christian sexual therapist to talk about my "porn addiction". I said all the right things and was deemed cured.
Within a few months - or if I'm being honest, probably a few days - I was back at it. I was cruising through chat rooms roleplaying and talking dirty, exploring my curiosity and pushing my boundaries with people I would never meet.
Then Yahoo Chat became a lot more real. It became something other than an imagination land.
I was 18 years old and a senior in high school. And the night before I had a little too much to drink (yes, even on a school night. Stop that judging, you!). So much, in fact, that I woke up vomiting. My parents, oblivious and perhaps in denial, called me in sick for school. So there I was alone at home, blurry vision and blurry thoughts with a little booze still on my breath.
What did I do, of course, but fire up the computer, pull out my cock and start to alternate between wanking, flipping through porn browsers and steamy roleplay chat rooms.
As I was searching the Yahoo Chat rooms I found the one for my location: North Carolina. I had never spent much time there because "North Carolina" is a big state and the rooms only held about 50 people, so even if I wanted to break my anonymity and dream world, the chances of finding a woman near me were next to none.
My user name at the time had my city as part of it. After watching some porn and beating off I noticed a blinking message from a user named "naafar". Naafar? Sounded weird.
I opened the chat box and fortunately for our purposes here I remember the conversation fairly vividly.
Here I was, a horny 18 year old into MILFs, busty teens and gangbangs, and here was "naafar," who turned out to be a 30-something year old black man from Africa who lived one city and 15 miles over. I could tell even through chat that he didn't speak the best English but he managed to get the basics of who he was across. Seemed harmless, but I wasn't gay so who cared?
But that's not the whole story. I was and am straight. Or mostly. Now we know there's a spectrum and it's never as simple as we think. I was also hung over. And I was probably still a little tipsy. I also had a raging boner and an empty house. So my decision was to humor this local African man and see what he had to say.
As we chatted I continued looking at porn. That means my hard-on was doing most of my thinking for me. When he found out I really was local, at home alone and so young he told me that he would love to come over. Instantly that raised red flags. For one, I WASN'T GAY! (But why did the idea have some appeal?). Also, what if my parents came home unexpectedly? And why would I let a potentially dangerous stranger into this house?
Here's where the story takes an even more twisted turn. "Naafar" started to become very explicit in his messages. He realized I was young, horny and impressionable and he told me exactly what he wanted. He said he liked that I was an overweight kid because that meant curves and a lot to love on and feel up. He also said he was wondering what I would look like dressed up in women's clothing. WOMEN'S CLOTHING!? At that point in my life I had never even thought about crossdressing except as it might have come up in jokes with friends.
Well, my hard-on and the booze won out over my inhibitions and normal preferences. "Naafar" told me to go into my parents room and pick out one of my mother's outfits. Lo and behold, I found myself doing it. Gosh, I felt so dirty but my dick stayed so hard.
I remember it clearly. I picked out a pair of shorter green pants that hugged my thighs and ass (my mother is in good shape so they were very tight on me). I also picked out a frizzy purple sweater with a V-Neck and built in cushioning in the chest that made my bust look something like a B or C cup. But I didn't stop there. I got into my own mother's makeup cabinet and picked out the deepest red lipstick I could find and put on some blush and mascara, just to satisfy my own growing curiosity.
Away from the chat browser but hearing the "ting" of his messages still coming across, I looked in my parent's bathroom mirror. I looked like a horny teenage sissy who wanted to come across as a hooker. I watched as I masturbated myself and felt my chest through the sweater.
Still tipsy and slightly hung over but more aroused than anything, I hurried back to the computer and without pausing to exercise any judgment ... I gave him my address. He quickly told me he would hurry over.
Those next 20 minutes were the slowest of my life.
I was terrified. What had I done? Who is coming here? Is he actually coming? Will we be caught? Should I change back to my normal clothes and tell him he has the wrong place? Are we going to mess around? Am I actually fucking gay? What would my friends say? What would my PARENTS say? Would I be disowned? No, my parents are loving people. But I would never have the same relationship with them, ever again, if they found out. What would the neighbors think seeing a dark African man, I assumed, slipping into our front door?