Ahh. The pleasures of technology. We talk to text. The Bluetooth connects your phone to your car so that, at some point, someone inevitably will hear the Carrie Underwood you “accidentally” downloaded. Apparently, if you have a Samsung and you’re Lil Wayne, you can go virtual surfing in Thailand with please-give-me-a-job Wesley Snipes.

Alexander Graham Bell once said, Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. Done. I text and walk, wake to text, text asleep. Right now, I’ve got a texting thing going on with a guy. Not a relationship. No talk. Just text. When you have a thing going on with a guy that only involves texting, you’re only texting about one thing.

But, there are rules.

Constantly remind each other that you’re friends having fun.

No pretense allowed beyond the initial How’s your day? and cursory Have a good night.

Everything in between is Yeah you like it. Want it? Yeah you want it. It’s all about quick rhythm, quick turns of phrase: You’ll be begging me for mercy. [Wait for it.] You’ll be begging my dick to keep working. [Boom.]

I send the shower selfie, floor selfie, mirror selfie, half naked selfie, naked selfie. He sends selfies showing only new Nikes. That’s the arrangement. The arrangement works.
Sometimes the occasional winky face.

A week ago I sent the winky kissy face with the heart. We don’t do hearts. Hearts: direct defiance of the Friends Having Fun Rule. He was going to run off, for sure.

He didn’t. He was like, girl, let me school you on the proper use of emojis. He sent the peace sign and tongue. Took me a minute. I first read the peace sign as devil horns and thought the whole thing an homage to adolescent-onset rock stardom. Not what he meant.

So I sent back the jeans, the down arrow, and the pink-lipped open mouth.

I hoped he would send the fist, to which I would respond thumbs up.

What can I do with the rocket? The lollipop? The eggplant? Rain drops?

Oh my god, the joystick.

I used to hate dirty talk in any medium. All talk, really. You taste like a peach. No, I don’t. How do you know? Legs closed. I blame it on too many late-night 1-900-YES-BONE ads in the ’90s. That breathy voice. Come on. If you’re that winded, you may need to see a doctor.

Now I’m a renaissance woman. Have you ever read any Renaissance poetry? I highly recommend Sir John Suckling:

For still the flowers ready stand:
One buzzes round about,
One lights, one tastes, gets in, gets out…

As a writer, there’s so much permanence in words preserved on a page or screen. You just want to fill that line, lay it down, get it down, call it done.

Reading is fundamental, of course. But, despite my allegiance to not being in a relationship, sometimes I do miss the vibrations of another voice.

Bring on some sexy Morse code.

This article appears in Mar 24-30, 2016.