She was a product of the Industrial Age; a spawn from the decades of women obtaining menial jobs in factories, getting their skirts caught in machines. She was probably infertile from the hours spent in front of a computer, her cooking plain and only necessary.

The standard of beauty was confusing- she fit in some ways, maybe not in others. Sometimes she felt free and other times it was as if a burlap sack had been forced over her head, her wrists bound and burned with rope.

She married young and sometimes got her way. She called her husband “my man”, but deep down knew he really wasn’t hers. He was enigmatic and always disappearing and lately they had sex once a week quickly and without preliminaries.

Maybe she wasn’t the most nurturing of women; she was often sure something was wrong with her. She really just liked to read and lie around and have sex and she was obsessed with technology and industry. What other two things have affected men (and women) so abruptly, dominating fates and forcing adaptation with an iron fist and such a rough glove? Nothing.

 If she were alive say, in 1903, she would be considered a failure. No babies, a bland cook, and full of wanderlust. She liked to get up and go. Leave when she wanted. Did you notice the looks on women’s faces during “those times”, there wasn’t any smiling. The only ones that were smiling were maybe some rich women and some whores who were liquored up and able to sleep in. Another thing she enjoyed doing. And those smiles ended after a night of being slapped around, a severely sore pussy, a hangover, and finding out you have syphilis and crabs (again). At least technology has provided prophylactics, which we don’t like to use.

•••

Even though Erica had never actually seen the man she was having a technological “affair” with, her sexual fantasies were more severe than ever. They held an intensity she hadn’t an explanation for.

You would think a personality, or a face, or a voice, or a soul would need to be attached to the words splayed across her screen, but the lust-laden images rolled within her mind without any of these now apparent accessories. There were only feelings produced and aching arousal. Her pussy throbbing and hoping to be pried apart.

She masturbated whenever she had the time, and this helped. Sort of. The sentences on her computer screen were simple and void of any lavish language or imaginative scenarios or plots. Sometimes there was only one: “I am going to fuck you,” or “I want to taste your asshole.” And that was it. Sometimes there would be no mail for a couple of days.  Once even a week went by and Erica became nervous, depressed even.

 She began again her age-old nervous habit of picking at her nails, biting at her cuticles, waking up in the middle of the night sweating, her heartbeat alluding to the taste of panic on her tongue. Is it over? The man didn’t want her anymore? How could anything like attachment have been created from this?

What was “this”? How could these roots begin wrapping themselves around and up in between her thighs, spreading her apart for an invisible man? She was humiliated—didn’t want to tell even her closest girlfriend. She had gone crazy. The failed wife was not making the slightest bitter tincture of sense. She was in her thirties welcoming random pornographic emails from a depraved and lonely phantom. Who else would play such a game? Make the time? Her computer screen was an arena of mystery and swollen wonder. . . . She was set on fire, and dying from the smoke. The man planted seeds in her head, which flourished into enticing, imaginary enactments.

One morning she was alone, being lazy as usual, sleeping in. She didn’t have to work until the afternoon. She made coffee and patiently waited for it to brew before opening her present. She thought of her inbox as a gift. Christmas without the fuss.

 Seeing one from him, she would become joyously nervous—a flash of lightning like excitement would pounce upon her chest, her eyes opening wider, waiting for a single or cluster of simple sentences, of wishes, of commands for her to eat, drink, digest.

She took a sip of her coffee, clicked on the email. It read: “I want you on your knees sucking on my cock, I will pull my cock out of your mouth, lay you down and piss on your pussy, then I’m going to come on you.”

      Erica sat at her computer, drinking her coffee. She reread the tiny paragraph wondering how it made her feel. She closed her eyes. This had been the most descriptive email he had sent. She had to think about it. She wasn’t exactly sure if she liked the idea of being pissed on. Was it disrespectful? How much of the sex act was actually respectful? Once again, she was off to the races.

•••

      One day when Erica was in high school, a boy she liked, who was also her friend was peeing in the bathroom, when she accidentally walked in on him. She saw his cock in his hand, a clear stream of piss escaping from its tip. She said “Sorry”, slightly embarrassed, but excited that she had stumbled upon the private act.

She turned around, and he said “Erica, come here.” She went to him, because she liked him. He still held his cock and it dripped. He took her hand and put it on his cock. It started to get hard and he kissed her. Some other kids were out in the living room drinking beer, hanging out. She gently kicked the door closed. She got down on her knees because she wanted to kiss that semi-hard piss-dripping cock. The boy was brown and beautiful. Erica started to lick the tip of his cock and he shook it into her mouth; she tasted his piss and she proceeded in giving him a blowjob. Her first blowjob. He came quickly, partly on his hand and partly on Erica’s lips. She licked a little off, somewhat shocked by the pungent and severely salty taste. She wiped it off her lips, ran her hand under the faucet. They smiled at each other and laughed, and went back to the party, both blushing.

      They stayed friends, but it never happened again. Sometimes in chemistry class she would look at him, at the back of his tanned neck, and think of how she had tasted his piss, just a little of it. She wondered if he ever thought about it, about her. Of course she would never ask. Erica was “timid” and rarely asked of anyone or anything.

•••

Erica got to work a few minutes late, checked her email and there was another one from him: “I am going to put my dripping cock onto your lips—your swollen lips. Swollen from sucking on my cock, from slapping you on the mouth when I fuck you . . .”

Erica’s eyes darted around her empty cubicle, her pussy instantaneously became wet—she sighed from frustration, but she also felt some sort of fear. These emails had suddenly become more complex; in their details hid a recognized aura of shame for her. What if this man were dangerous? She knew nothing about him, but she felt as if he could see her, knew her. Her stomach swam into a distant knot, only too near. And now she was horny, sitting at a cheap desk, behind a PC on an ergonomically-correct chair, alone.

 Hungry and too nervous to eat, she decided to drink more coffee, so she would become even more nervous, and still not be able to eat. It was a habit she had a hard time breaking, but then again she never tried that hard.

She closed her email, and drank her thick-like, growing-cold coffee. Her mood dropped from horny to depressed at the thought of this man exciting her, and her refusal to ignore him, to block him.

She was compulsive about checking her email; maybe 20-30 times a day, darting in and out of her office at home, it seemed harmless, but she was waiting for something. Erica realized that she was in a constant state of waiting. And this didn’t seem “good”, it didn’t seem healthy. She felt empty and out of control, but she wasn’t even trying to control herself. She felt like something bad was going to happen to her, and she didn’t know why. Why sometimes anything happened and sometimes nothing. She thought maybe she was paranoid because she felt guilty and insecure about her obscure actions; her approval at being the receiver of anonymously written pornography. She gritted her teeth, another bad habit.

She was full of them, she thought, twisting her hair, biting her nails, grinding her teeth, drinking too much caffeine, too much alcohol, eating too little, sleeping not enough. “I’m a fucking mess”, she said out loud. “I’m a fucking mess.” All right, she thought, “Get to work!” Erica worked diligently for the next eight hours with a one-hour lunch break, and she didn’t check her email even once.

•••

When Erica got home that night and her husband initiated sex, she realized she was nervous. They hadn’t had sex for over a week, and she felt awkward because of her shitty and confusing mood the few days past. She looked away from her husband as he started touching her, kissing her.

They were sitting on the couch with the TV on, though Erica hadn’t been paying the least amount of attention to what was happening on the screen; she was thinking of the other screen. She wasn’t in the mood to have sex, but thought she should. Her husband was so far away from her. It wasn’t his fault or her fault, but it seemed that’s how it was.

She let him touch her and he pulled his cock out and started to masturbate. Erica got nervous, and jumped up running to the bathroom. She was thinking of the emails sent earlier, and she thought of sin and dysfunction and the strangeness of it all. Her husband didn’t run after her. He was probably embarrassed and defeated, as she was. She, acting like a stage-frightened virgin or a nutty, skittish cat.

Erica sat in the bathroom and cried; her husband went to bed. The failed wife had done it again.

•••

      When Erica went to bed with puffy eyes and a stuffy nose, she lay at the edge, her breathing shallow and quiet. She felt the sleeping presence of her husband on the other side. She decided to take the plunge. She decided then and there that she loved her disappearing husband, that she loved his body and his soul, his mind and his faults, his attributes, and his suffering. They were in the same bed. There was no reason that she could think of for them to be apart.

Erica took off her panties and spread her legs. She touched her breasts, her nipples. She began to get wet and she felt her husband shifting in his sleep. She didn’t want to startle him by touching his cock too abruptly, so she lay on her side, softly scooting toward him, pressing her face and her lips into his bare back. She kissed him and began to gently move her body against him.

She started thinking about the emails, the ones from that morning, and she decided not to feel bad about them. She decided to use them, to control them, to guide and allow them to submit unto her will.

She thought of the pissing boy from her past. The different cocks throughout her life, how sensitive they were, how emotional, how some dropped in a split second, some seeming to never get soft. How some could go and go, and some had trouble even getting up. Some you had to work for, some would come in the bat of an eye. It mattered, the time, the place, the day, the night, the moment, the boy and his cock were to be protected and cared for. To be loved and soothed. Don’t cry little boy, you are king of the world. You literally rule the world. You are strong and you are brave, you are soft and you are hard. You are on display, you mustn’t be shy, you are forced to dominate. You are forced to pave the way. You are forced to be a man. You often enough control the man.

      She began rubbing his ass and thighs; he had the best ass, it was so fucking cute she wanted to eat it. She licked two of her fingers and made her way towards the back of his cock and balls. She lightly massaged the area with her wet fingers, playing with his ass, focusing on his balls. He lay there, letting her, enjoying his passivity.  She moved her body down so that her face was in between his legs and began to lick the back of that precious piece, she gently sucked on his balls and licked the tip and the shaft of his cock. She had to work, get her lips and mouth into the small crevice in between his thighs. He started to moan, his cock was hardening, the blood filling it up; a rosy masterpiece.

      Erica was afraid to say anything; she felt like having silent sex, no talking, not right now.  She let the soft skin of his cock sink into her memory; the baby-soft texture surrounding such power. It was ironic, a spectrum of color bled into one. An intricate color wheel breaking into chaotic tangents of expression. Something so simple, but ever so necessary. She was coercing with the gods.

      Erica thought of that cock pissing on her, the magical moment when his swollen, but not erect cock would release warmth upon her soft and submissive skin, her pussy opening up to the inebriating liquid. And then he would become hard and stick it in her, up to the hilt. She was ready for him to get rough.

She stopped playing with his cock, and rolled over, arching her back, sticking her tits up. She moaned as she spread her legs, rubbing the lips of her wet pussy. She was aching, and she was ready to speak. “Baby, I want you to piss on me. . . .please . . . fuck me.” She was begging.

He shoved his fingers into her mouth, she sucks them, biting them, and he gets up on his knees and calves, he gives her pussy a lick, sending an electric shock up her spine. Her body stiffens; he shoves his cock in, pulling her hair, exactly how she likes it, “I’m going to piss all over that little pussy. . . .”

He makes her come quick, she doesn’t want to come yet, but she can’t stop it. The color wheel spins, releasing her from her mess and neurosis, her female preoccupations with guilt and deception. The stress and order of the imposing Industrial Age are released, commanded into the bright white light.

Erica sleeps deep and hard that night. It’s as if she doesn’t have a care in the world. It doesn’t matter that she is a failed wife, it doesn’t matter that she likes porn, or that she likes to watch men piss, it just doesn’t matter.

  Melissa Hansen lives in San Francisco where she writes poetry and stories, works at public libraries with the intent of upholding free and equal access to information, and is a co-editor of poetry for The Guild of Outsider Writers. She has published and forthcoming work in various literary zines. You can visit Melissa at www.myspace.com/quicksecret.