Page 33 of Off Limits

He nodded and blew out a breath. At least I wasn’t the only one who was nervous.

Getting verified by the cam site had been as easy as he’d said, and I’d gotten an in-depth look into the world of camming.

I hadn’t done much research on it before approaching Dex, which was unusual for me. I didn’t like surprises or not knowing things, but for some reason my usual anxiety around the unknown hadn’t kicked in.

Maybe it was because Dex knew what he was doing, and it was easier to just defer to him than it was to try and piece together the truth from the internet.

Either way, I now understood that camming wasn’t just getting naked and raking in the cash. There were rules that needed to be followed and a whole strategy for getting your room visible and boosting numbers.

Then there was the legal stuff surrounding getting paid, and, of course, claiming your cam income on your taxes.

I hadn’t paid too much attention to that part of the process because I was only listed as a guest in Dex’s room, so it was on him to do all the nitty gritty stuff.

The part that I hadn’t expected was how complicated the actual shows could be. I’d assumed he’d just set tip goals like he had on that one show I’d watched after finding out his secret, but that was only one way to get people to pay you.

He’d explained the different features on the site and methods he’d seen other cammers use, but the details blurred together after a while, and I just told him to come up with a script or formula or whatever, and we’d do that.

Now we were ten minutes from his usual start time, and I was nervous.

The idea of being naked on cam didn’t really bother me. I was used to people having strong opinions on how I looked, so some mean comments from randoms on the internet weren’t going to ruin my day.

Nope, I was nervous about being with Dex again.

Four years was a long time, and I didn’t have much more experience now than I did back then. I’d hooked up, but never let things go beyond using hands or mouths to get off.

Dex might not have a lot of experience with men if what he said during his show was true, but I knew for a fact that he had a ton with women.

I might not care what his viewers thought of me, but it would absolutely destroy my self-esteem if Dex had trouble getting hard or he didn’t enjoy it. I had no fucking clue why I cared, but I did, and having my shame be broadcast for the world to see would make it so much worse.

The only reason I wasn’t freaking out was because of Dex. I figured he wouldn’t be an asshole about things, but he made a point to constantly check in with me and reassure me that things would be okay.

He’d even come up with a code I could use like a safe word if I needed to stop for whatever reason, and he was meticulous when we went over our boundaries and discussed what we were willing to do and what was off the table.

I wasn’t sure how to react to this thoughtful version of Dex, but I was grateful for it. And it helped that he was into this. I knew him well enough to know when he was just going through the motions and when he was genuinely interested in something, and he was into this.

“You remember what we’re going to do?” he asked, getting his laptop off his desk and bringing it over to his bed.

I nodded, my eyes on his rumpled sheets.

Was it weird that I kinda liked that he hadn’t changed his sheets or even bothered to make his bed? It felt more intimate this way, which probably wasn’t a good thing. But I still liked it.

The format for the actual show was pretty simple. We’d chat with his viewers for a bit and give the algorithm a chance to work its magic. Once we had enough people in the room, Dex would set up what he called a tip menu.

That was essentially just a list of things people could ask for us to do and the amount of tokens they cost. There were small things like touching each other over the clothes or kissing necks and that sort of thing. Then there were the bigger things that cost a lot more, like taking off clothes and touching skin.

Once we were ready for the actual fucking part, he would switch to something called a ticket show and make the room private so only people who bought tickets would be able to see the good stuff.

I had no idea if anyone would tune in or tip, but Dex said his viewers had gone apeshit when he announced that we’d be camming together during his Wednesday show, so that had to be a good sign.

“I already told everyone that you’re not a big talker.” Dex handed me the laptop. “So they won’t expect you to keep up with the chat or anything. It takes a while to get used to it, so you don’t have to worry about trying to read every comment. I’ll let you know if there’s a question or something,” he rambled as he went to the corner of his room and pulled a tray table out from his closet. “Do you remember our code in case you need to stop or if you don’t want to do a request?”

I’d never seen Dex ramble like this. It helped calm some of my nerves to know he felt them too.

“I remember.”

He set the table up so it was in front of his bed and held out his hands for his laptop.

“Do you need to get some water or anything? I have a couple bottles in case we need some during the show, but we have a few minutes if you want to grab some now.”

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