A Silly Little Thing

Iris fell in love with George because he didn’t let cybersex interfere with his punctuation or grammar. He always typed with two hands and kept every finger poised over the keyboard as he’d learned in the touch-typing course he took prior to his doctoral studies. He’d taken the course to aid rapid drafting and redrafting of his research work and since remained chained to the robotic accuracy of touch-typing, even during cybersex.

Iris, despite having a PhD in linguistics, was quite happy to assume the grammar and syntax of sex. She used either one hand or the other to stimulate the cybersex between them and when she couldn’t stand it anymore she’d type, “use 1 hand i want u 2 cum with me.” Sometimes it was all she could do, but George was rigid, “I will never sell my linguistic soul to the Dick God!” George’s belief in language was complete. Plus, he had humor. Iris loved him.

Theirs was a typical case of internet love. They met daily as a couple. Iris would wait by her inbox until she heard his familiar ring; George had recorded “Honey, I’m home” as a wave file. They saved their daily meetings in text files and printed them out to read over later. These files became a private record of a great truth: Iris and George had found their spiritual other halves. All that was left was to meet in real life and consummate their union in the traditional way.

When Iris finally traveled to George’s part of the world, George came to her hotel room and knocked on the door. Iris opened it and George stood there. He was a big, shy man and he just stood there like a boulder stuck in the frame. So Iris tip-toed into him and kissed him, kissed the side of his mouth, because he was already saying something. He was saying, “Let us have breakfast, you and I.”

They had breakfast. Then lunch. Then dinner. During each meal, George spoke in perfect sentences, as if he were contemplating them and then typing them. He used his hands to punctuate his speech. It looked as if he were typing in mid-air. After dinner, at the hotel entrance, he said, “It is quite a discovery for me, the fact that you are real, that you do exist. A part of me always doubted that there was a physical you. But. Here you are.” And then he left.

Iris never doubted the tangible George behind the intangible one. Cybersex had its fantastic elements, to be sure, and demanded a hefty imagination, but Iris was always certain that the virtual being indicated by the unraveling of precise language structures on her computer screen was directly linked to the man, to her George. Iris never doubted the heat of his fingertips as he touch-typed his part of the conversation. When he became excited about expressing an idea, she saw the text quicken across her screen and knew his heart was pounding. There were times when she could even smell the perspiration around his crown and under his arms. When he typed about sexual things, she knew that what was tucked into his pants would push up against the underwear there and stain a point on the cotton. For Iris, George was always real. A man in full working order. Even if he used both hands to type while she was having cybersex, she knew he used both to relieve himself later, once they’d logged off their internet chat. George was a man of principles, but a man nonetheless.

The next morning, George arrived at the hotel once more. Iris asked him to sit on the bed while she took a shower. When she walked out of the bathroom with a towel around her, George wriggled his fingers in the air and said, “Get dressed.” Iris bent forward to kiss him. The towel fell. She kissed him for a long time. George’s fingers tapped against her hips as if he were typing some phrase, then traced the outer curve of her body. Iris pulled them up to her breasts and then slipped them between her legs. They stopped typing. Iris pushed George back onto the bed, pulled down his pants and kissed his feet, his ankles, his calves, his knees, his thighs, his parts. He was soft. Iris put that part in her mouth. He was still soft. Iris moved up to his mouth, kissed his lips, his cheek, his ear, his neck, telling him the things she had typed at him only days before.

George was the perfect embodiment that Iris had, using the computer, fallen in love with. A great big body to match a great mind. She’d imagined the scene of their first encounter hundreds of times during their cybersex dates and now George was finally here before her and everything was perfect: the wide plateau of his chest, the tight mound of his behind and the dark area of the groin with its fleshy present. Almost perfect. Despite Iris’ enthusiasm, she sensed something was terribly wrong. George’s dick was still sleeping.

Iris bent down over him again and took his little soft member into her mouth. She executed all the little tricks she had learned from old boyfriends and porn videos until finally, “I’m hard,” George announced. “I’m hard.” George swiftly pushed Iris back onto the bed, pulled her legs up and wide and fell onto her. Iris felt something. And then, she felt nothing. It was gone.

George rolled off her and sat on the corner of the bed. “Silly thing,” he said and pounded his fist on the mattress. Iris crawled over to him and nuzzled into his groin, anxious to try again, but George wouldn’t have it. George tightened up into a big ball and sobbed. A little later, Iris caressed his back and said, “Come on, let us have breakfast, you and I.”