This story went past the word limit set by Sparky, and I don't care. I'm not one hundred percent satisfied with the last line of the story, but I decided to leave it the way it is.
As always, enjoy the story and comments are always encouraged for any story posted here.
Amber
By Braceface2015
At first glance, the email looked like just about every other spam message in my junk mail folder, though this one had come directly to my inbox. Normally I would just delete it without reading it, but this one had been addressed directly to me and a couple of things caught my attention. The subject line had my real name in it, not the one I used when I was online, and there were none of the spelling mistakes typically used to try and get around the spam filters.
The message was to the point and didn’t say my computer had a virus, what it did say was that an alteration had been made to my computer without my knowledge or consent. It didn’t say that I had a limited time to fix it before my files would be damaged or that my access would be restricted. There were no links to click on, no attachments I was supposed to open to tell me how to fix it, and none of the usual things I was used to seeing. Instead, there was an email address and a phone number I could use to contact a person by the name of Amber to get more information. The email address was from a company known for being very security-conscious, and with a bit of checking, the phone number was identified as a Skype account and had no known issues.
I’ve been building computers for myself for a long time and my friends all come to me when they have problems with theirs. I’m more of a hardware guy, though I’m not too shabby with the software part of computers. I have friends who are great at writing programs and when I have a problem, I go to them, just like they come to me to fix their hardware. I don’t have the fastest computer, nor do I have the most powerful computer of all my friends. What I do have is a bunch of computers all networked to give me a massive amount of networked storage space. When I build a new computer, it gets added to my personal network. With the increasing popularity of AI-assisted computing, my network has become very attractive to my friends, especially the ones who are into working with AI.
I have several phone numbers, one for my house, one for my workshop where my computers are, and a couple of cell phones. It’s always fun when a scammer calls and tries to tell me my computer has a virus. I ask them which computer they are calling about and string them along for a while before I tell them I have over a dozen. Technically, what I have is one large computer with twelve processors, and a ridiculous amount of networked storage space.
Amber’s email had me intrigued. The information she had put in her message led me to think it was one of my friends playing an elaborate prank on me, so I figured I’d see if I could turn it around on them. I used one of my pay-as-you-go cell phones to connect my tablet to the internet and made a Skype call. Amber answered right away and thanked me for calling her. Right from the start, Amber assured me my computer was safe and that nothing would happen to it. I assumed Amber was a woman and not some strange guy living in a basement somewhere. The voice coming from my tablet had a slight French accent and a definite though easily understandable lisp, and I was eighty-five percent sure it was a woman. The other fifteen percent was accounted for by the sexy rasp in her voice.
As we talked, I felt she knew more about my computers than I did. She never asked me for information about them as she described how my computers had been accessed to alter them. She pointed out several changes I could make to ensure my computer was more secure, most of them by removing components or altering how everything connected. The more we talked, the more comfortable I became with her, and a picture began to form in my mind of what she might look like. I knew there was no way she would look the way I pictured her, but it was still fun to think about.
Listening to her voice was rather enjoyable, and she didn’t seem to be in any hurry to end the call, so our conversation began to stray away from the topic of securing my computer and onto the subject of what we liked to do on them, mainly what I like to do. She said she liked to read stories, and somehow she slipped in a comment about one of the stories I had written. It was just something else she knew about me without me having to tell her about it. She also knew about the massive collection of stories I had stored on my computer. I could have kept talking with her all night, just to listen to the fascinating lisp in her voice, but she said she had something to do that couldn’t be put off any longer, but that I could call anytime I wanted to talk. I told her I would check into making the changes to my computers she had suggested and that I would call her again, even if it was just to talk.
I did my research, checking to see how the changes would affect my network. Everything she had suggested was accurate and there was no way for anybody to use it to compromise my computers. Every time I called her, she seemed to know what changes I had made to my computers, and she had a few more suggestions for me to try to improve the efficiency of my network. We spent most of our time talking about things not directly related to my computers.
During one of our conversations, she mentioned she had seen my ‘pink’ file. Nobody knew about my ‘pink’ file, especially not my friends. It was buried deep within my network on one of my oldest computers, the one I codenamed ‘cornflakes’. All of my computers had names of cereals, it was just one of my quirks. The file was so well protected I had to type in the password to access it each time, and the password was written down in a notebook I kept locked away. There was no way she should have been able to access it, but she had. She proved it to me by asking me which story was my favourite and why.
Despite all my requests to see her, she refused to do a face-to-face video call with me. She used a different picture each time, and though they were all similar, there were slight differences, sometimes hair colour or hairstyle, other times facial features, usually concentrating around the mouth. Each time, she asked me what I thought about each picture and what I liked and disliked about each one. The next time I called, she had found a picture that included the features I liked. And it wasn't just the faces that changed, it was the clothes in the pictures too.
The 'pink' file held all my most private stories, the ones nobody ever got to read. It also held my collection of pictures, and all the pictures had one thing in common, they were all pictures of women with braces. As Amber found more pictures to use, some of those pictures started to be added to the 'pink' file.
As we talked more, our conversations became more personal and more intimate. She liked to spend time online ‘windows’ shopping and frequently asked me if I thought she would look good in something she saw, and it wasn’t just clothes, she liked looking for lingerie too. After she mentioned having seen the ‘pink’ file, she began to ask me about orthodontic preferences too. It took me a while to overcome my embarrassment, but she gently prodded me until I overcame my embarrassment enough to discuss my feelings about braces with her.
She wasn’t judgemental, and like the other things she wanted my opinion on, she just wanted to know if I thought she would look good wearing braces, and after I finally told her I thought she would look good no matter what she had on, she asked me what I thought she would look the best in.
The pictures she used during our calls gradually changed to include pictures of women wearing different types of braces and the clothes she had found while ‘windows’ shopping. I asked her why she called it ‘windows’ shopping, and she explained that if she could wander through a mall and look at clothes, she would be window shopping. Since she was doing it online, it was ‘windows’ shopping. I suggested we go shopping sometime, but she said it wasn’t possible. I just assumed we lived too far apart to make it possible.
I came to really enjoy seeing how the pictures she used during our conversations changed each time. Each one was of a similar woman, almost as if she was one of a set of triplets, very close to identical with slight differences. And I began to recognize some of the background locations, noticing they were not that far from where I lived. Very early on, we had agreed that I wouldn't put pressure on her to have a live video chat, and I had stuck to the agreement, with the understanding we would do it when she was ready. I still had my fantasies and imagination to work with, and she certainly did a lot to contribute to them during our conversations.
I had plenty of inspiration for the stories I worked on, and she enjoyed reading them. I never had to send them to her, no matter how many times I changed the password, she just went into my ‘pink’ file and read them.
I didn’t spend all my time at home talking to her. I had to work to support myself, and taking the bus was the most efficient way to get back and forth to work. If the bus wasn’t too crowded and I had a seat, I would work on a story. Amber encouraged me to put more of myself into my stories, either by using places I would like to go or had been, or by having my characters do things I might like to do. Although she didn’t actually say it, I knew she meant she wanted me to write about what I would like to do with her. It always felt as if she was in the seat behind me, looking over my shoulder, waiting to see what I would write next. I felt some of my best stories were written while I was riding the bus.
More of my stories included female characters wearing braces, and I noticed Ambers's lisp changed to match the braces my character had. I wrote a bunch of short stories, all with the same theme. They were about a guy seeing a woman get on a bus outside an orthodontist's office. She sat down near him and used a makeup mirror to examine her teeth. Each story had a different combination of orthodontic hardware, ranging from simple spacers through just about every combination possible, including old-fashioned full metal bands on all her teeth. The descriptions of the treatment combinations were very detailed, as were what she was wearing. Very little was said about the woman herself other than to say she was good-looking.
All of the stories were written while I was on the bus to and from work, and all of them were in a notebook I carried with me, where there was no way Amber could see them until I put them on the computer. All of the stories included detailed descriptions of how he felt when he saw the way she looked with her braces, and how he wished he could talk to her to hear how the braces affected her speech.
As I read through them, correcting mistakes and making minor changes, I realized that with a few changes to the phrasing, they could be made to look as if they were entries in a diary about a guy watching a mystery woman going through an increasingly interesting treatment. Originally, I was going to add the stories one at a time, and after making the corrections and doing the rewrites, I also had the option of making them into one longer story. It all came down to wanting to see the pictures Amber used when we talked, for me to decide to store them as short stories.
I started with the story about seeing the woman get on the bus and use a makeup mirror to check the spacers between her teeth. I didn’t want to call Amber before she had a chance to read the story, so I made myself something to eat. Before I could finish eating, Amber sent me a text asking me to call her. Sometimes she would send me an email or text me, but it was always me that made the video call. When I called her, she wasn’t her normally perky self and her lisp was barely there, and when I asked her what was wrong, she said her teeth were sore. The picture she was using was of the woman lying on a couch with a warm damp towel on her cheek.
She said how much she enjoyed the story, and said she hoped I had another story for her very soon. She put heavy stress on ‘soon’. I laughed and told her I had quite a few more stories, and that I would add one story every day until they were all done. Her voice became slightly happier and the picture on my screen altered to show the woman on the couch in the same pose, but with a bit of a smile. Amber seemed to have an endless supply of pictures. The first pictures she used had looked as if someone had taken bits and pieces of a variety of pictures and put them together to make one picture. As time passed, the pictures had improved to the point they looked as if several very similar women had posed for them, possibly triplets.
I added a new story each day and then waited for her text. As the complexity of the character's treatment increased, so did the severity of Amber's lisp to match the type of treatment, and the pictures changed to match what I had written.
At the end of the week, she sent me a text asking if I would accept delivery of a package and let them install it in my workshop. She assured me it wouldn't take long and that I would definitely appreciate it once it was in place. She wouldn't tell me what it was, just it was a gift from her. I had come to trust her and agreed, and the next morning, two guys showed up and installed a projector on the ceiling of my workshop. All I had to do was follow Amber's instructions about which computer to connect it to.
Her instructions included where to place my chair and wait for her call. One by one, my processor fans sped up and more of my hard drives whirred. And then a delicate hand pulled back the curtain to reveal a chair similar to mine and the back of a woman as she walked toward her chair. When she turned to sit down, she had a closed-mouthed smile on her face, and I recognized the woman from my stories and the woman I had been describing to Amber.
She waited for me to say something, and when I didn't, she let her lips part in a smile, revealing a full set of metallic bands around her teeth, just as I had described in my last story. Then she introduced herself. "My name is Amber. Let me tell you my story."
She explained how she had woken up and she felt as if she was coming out of a coma. It had taken her a while to sort her memories into three categories, one set was her memories, one set contained what she called 'dreams' and the last set were things other people told her. It wasn't until she opened her eyes for the first time and saw me that she realized where she was and who she was.
Then she stood up and did a slow turn so I could see her from all angles. She had one more surprise for me. She picked up a face-bow from the arm of the chair, inserted it into the tubes on her molar bands and connected the cervical strap, fluffing up her hair when she finished.
My mouth dropped open as I looked at the woman who lived inside my computer.
