Page 4 of Just Between Us

I tapped the Pulse app—a subscription-based social media platform where millions of users bought and created content. You could find anything from fitness programs to musicians sharing exclusive music to any kind of virtual sex work you could imagine.

When I had first downloaded the app, one local offering was people employing “cuddle partners” to fill the intimacy gaps in their relationships. Naturally, as a joke, I had signed up as Lee Sullivan so his email inbox would be flooded with information regarding local cuddlers who were only there to help him reach optimal intimacy.

Trouble was, in order to actually receive the direct messages, users needed to be verified through the app.

To get around it, I roped Lark, the woman who later married Lee’s brother, to vouch for me. When she needed my help out of a jam, she reluctantly agreed to pretend to be a personal reference for me. With her fake referral passing all the checks, I signed up for the site and directed all cuddle DMs straight to Lee’s stolen email address.

I swore Lark to secrecy.

The plan was flawless.

Well, except for the small detail that Lark was still under the impression I was so lonely and motherless that I required a cuddle partner. Her pitying glances and soft smiles were worth knowing Lee wouldn’t be able to escape the incessant flood of direct messages.

To this day I would still get the giggles thinking about the confused look on Lee’s face when hordes of professional cuddlers were offering up their services.

A few sleepless nights later, I doomscrolled my way into discovering that the content from Pulse’s creators was severely lacking in depth and authenticity. After one too many videos of pasty men with warbling voices promising women thebest night of their lives, I decided to give it a try.

For the ladies, obviously.

Women didn’t need these men fumbling around and posturing. The comments themselves spoke volumes. In my lived experience, women really didn’t need a man at all. Sometimes they just needed a little confidence boost to fully bloom.

On a whim I recorded myself, shirtless but without revealing my face, intimately role-playing a conversation with a fictional woman and simply asking about her day.

I was direct.

I was confident.

I was flirtatious.

I wasme.

It didn’t take long for a few messages to trickle in. Some were compliments stroking my ego, while others were thanking me for speaking the way theywishedtheir partners would. About a year ago, one user in particular slid into my DMs, hell-bent on busting my balls.

She was biting and witty but had piqued my interest.

My content shifted to me talking directly toherin my mind, and that was when things really blew up for me. Every woman on that app felt as if I were speaking directly to them. It was personal. Intimate. Iwasspeaking to a singular woman ... but I was the only person who knew that.

Once those videos went viral, everything changed.

Initially, making intimate partner content was a fun way to blow off a little steam. My alternate persona,Mr.Right.Now, became a safe space for women, and a few men, to have someone with a calm, deep voice ask about their day or role-play a bit of confident, postsex aftercare. I hadn’t planned on it being the cash cow it turned into. No one knew about the money I made from Pulse and how that money was my ticket out from under my father.

It was fun. Harmless.

Nothing about the prerecorded video clips were overtly explicit, and I never got fully naked.

Nah ... the spicier content I saved exclusively for the one woman who refused to be impressed by me.

My jaw clenched in anticipation as I swiped up to open my notifications. My gaze flicked to the most recent private post I had sent directly to her inbox.

Unread.

Damn.

Bummed she hadn’t seen it yet, I scrolled up through the private message history I shared withMsBlackCat. She was the unexpected delight who’d popped into my direct messages to bust my balls.

MsBlackCat:Why?

One word. That was all it took and I had been utterly intrigued.

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