The summer was over and I was, as the poets are wont to say, shit out of luck. Even my pot plants were dead.

After one full year at college in the north east I had repaired to a relaxing summer holiday at the home of my Uncle Archibald and Auntie Mildred near the beach, Somewheresville, south shore of Long Island, New York. This white clapboard with dark green trim colonial had been my home since I could remember.

It was the summer of hurricane Floyd and all over the news it was determined that the state of Florida was chewed up, and the entire country of Honduras would never be the same. What I knew empirically was that my feeble pubescent marijuana plants, outside on the porch, had perished in the storm and every time I saw ads for FEMA I contemplated petitioning for compensation on account of my crop failure.

I’d been home two weeks before I had gathered the courage to look the relatives square in the face and confess my decision. Rain had soaked the earth for two days solid and I remember it was a gloomy morning that found me and the relatives sitting in the blue and white themed breakfast nook. It was still early and a morning fog sat right outside the bay window, clouding things. We picked from a plate of fried sausages, which Auntie Mildred tenderly called ‘bangers’, as we did every Sunday; my aunt’s idea of doffing the ancestral hat to Mother England. Max, the house dog, an enormous handsome mutt of murky origins kept himself discreetly under the table, where he lay on his side and methodically slapped the tip of his tail across the arch of my feet, a mild furry whip.

Tapping a banger at the edge of the plate, so that the grease pooled into a coagulation, I coughed and said, “What I learned at college, unequivocally, is that I have zero intention of wasting one more minute there. College, like it or not, is just a cushy jail delaying the inevitable. I’m not going back”.

A monstrous battle ensued. Inexplicably my aunt held a sausage in each hand and was waving her arms around like a conductor at the opera, meanwhile murmuring, “…well I never! A person could have a heart attack!” a regular refrain from Auntie Mildred which generally preceded the ingestion of handfuls of ‘calming’ pills. Uncle Archibald bashed the table with clenched fists but said nothing as he inelegantly wriggled his bulky torso free from the round table. Just as he had himself standing upright somehow the plate of sausages began to wobble, as if possessed, and eerily slid to the floor. We all watched in horror, as if it were a portent of a bigger picture. The blue and white plate did not break when it hit the tiled floor, but instead sort of bounced and flipped over. The upshot of our fight was without a clear resolution on either side. All parties disbanded and the kitchen was soon vacant, except for Max, who set about scarfing the runaway sausages.

…TO BE CONTINUED

Radio Jockey: Today our show is honoring the English language. I invite all listeners to phone in and tell me obscure words. Hello caller you’re on the air.

Caller: I got a word for you.

Radio Jockey: Terrific. What’s your word, caller?

Caller: My word is ‘Gwon’.

Radio Jockey: Gwon. Excellent. I’ve never that word before. How do you spell it?

Caller: G W O N

Radio Jockey: Brilliant. And can you use it in a sentence for me caller?

Caller: Gwon fuck yourself. This is the worst radio program I’ve ever heard.

Radio Jockey: Sorry listeners. Our calls are not screened. We have another call. Hello caller, you’re on the air, what’s your word?

Caller: Shmee.

Radio Jockey: Shmee. That’s a good word. Please spell it.

Caller: S H M E E.

Radio Jockey: Thank you caller, and can you use the word in a sentence for me?

Caller: Shmee again, your radio show sucks balls. Gwon fuck yourself.

It was bound to happen, just a matter of time really, when I sent a raunchy story to the wrong email address. My dirty tale was delivered to the inbox of Rat, this guy I know.

Immediately Rat wrote back. He typed me about five messages in quick succession. I stared at the monitor and wondered what to do with this commotion I’d stirred up. From his tone it seemed Rat was a happy man. He sounded like he thought he had met his soul mate. Not only didn’t he know the story was not meant for him, he also didn’t know it was just a story, unadulterated fiction.

Ever since then, Rat phones and sends me electronic messages, often at four o’clock in the morning. He pleads with me to contact him. I’ll probably never call him. I’ll certainly never tell him I did a Cyrano de Bergerac to myself.

Rat thinks I’m the coolest chick who ever lived. I prefer to leave with him with that impression.

YESTERDAY, EARLY EVENING, I had an hour to fill. Like many of us when faced with down-time, I turned to the internet. In about a minute I was IM’ing a total stranger. He called himself “Feral Bard”.

“What are you wearing?” He typed.

“Nothing,” I lied.

We worked up a speedy volley, each out doing the other for points on wit and originality. Had it been a game show we’d both have won a million dollars. In moments we were naked, so to speak, speaking candidly of desire. The thrust was so direct. I fell in love. I worried the priggish site would evict us for our stripped bare vulgarities. I hurriedly eyed a clock, forty five minutes remained.

We threw compliments around and flirted like it was our last day on earth. He wanted the camera turned on. I typed, “No sir.” He told me to send him a photograph, I refused. His begging was thrilling. Perversely it made me feel high to hold out on him. He told me he was hard. I believed him. “I could feel it too,” I typed. He sent me his phone number, implored I call.

He wrote, “to hear your voice would be the ultimate eroticism.”

I replied, “No sir.” I knew it would be the end of things. Why return to reality any sooner than necessary?

“Call me now,” he beseeched.

“No!” I wrote, “Fantasy so much better.”

I found his insistence and his sternness massively sexy. Yet I was exploding laughing as I typed salacious snippets. The beauty of the chasm the internet provides is the time to think, to debate, right there in real time and yet utterly in private, all at once. I could type one thing, think another, and divulge nothing.

“Don’t you want to hear me when I come?” He wrote, “Phone me now!”

Suddenly there were only five minutes before I’d have to log off. I felt I was already deep down the rabbit hole so why bother with bourgeois convention? I phoned. I asked him if he had a name. He spoke not one word. All I heard was breath. I tried to coax him, I spoke softly at him, but all I got was labored breathing, heavy fast puffs of oxygen. I half expected to hear a death rattle, and then the line was cut. I checked my watch. I was late by 2 minutes.

“Didja?” I typed as I put on my coat.

“Was better as fantasy,” he responded.
Coat on, computer closed, I was in an excellent hyper-jazzed up mood. I would have written back, but I didn’t have the time.

I had to go, I had a date.

currently under construction. www.wooldomination.com coming soon!