Ether Net

This is an erotic romance and has sexual content. If you are underage, or if your beliefs do not permit your viewing, please do not read further.

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Standing on a hillock overlooking the Carolina coast, the wind whips around me, trying to rend the clothing from my back. Below me, a white wooden-frame house with a wraparound porch is perched on tall stilts meant to spare it from the hard wash of the tide. The turbulent sea has eroded so much of the shoreline the house seems to be barely hanging on. I question its stability, wondering if it'll be pulled out to sea with the next tide.

Shivering in my California clothing, I think how very lonely and unfriendly the place looks. And very sad. It’s the kind of place where a girl with sad eyes, who lives off e-mail communications, could live and pretend she's happy. My heart races at the thought of her, because I know I’m finally about to face her. My e-mail lover.

This, the most important episode in my life, started just a year and a half ago on the seventh of June. The e-mails. They’d become so erotic, so passionate. There were several—sometimes dozens of e-mails—each day. For nearly five hundred days, we made love over the wires, and I had fallen in love.

I’d been in a chat room one day when I noticed her eyes. Her logo was the saddest, most mournful, yet beautiful, pair of eyes I’d ever seen. "ONLY4U" was her moniker. We chatted for a while and when we finally signed off, I was amazed that several hours had passed. Something simply clicked between us. Only us. It wasn’t long before we were having these wonderfully frustrating and erotic e-mail conversations. And they perpetuated themselves over time.

I was a writer—no, that’s not true. I wanted to be a writer. There’s a big difference. At the time, I hadn’t sold anything to anyone and was quite discouraged in my chosen profession. I almost didn’t tell her I was a failure—but I did. And when I did, I discovered she was an editor.

She suggested I send her one of my stories, so I sent her one that had been refused by every magazine to which I'd submitted it. Later that same day, she returned it to me and I sat in my small apartment reading it with a sense of amazement. It was beautiful. She’d taken my plot and developed it into something vastly different from what I’d written. And it worked. God, did it work! I didn’t care where my own words went as long as her words replaced them.

I resubmitted the story to the same magazines that had refused it before and not only was it accepted, but there was a flurry of interest, publishers outbidding each other for the honor to print it.

The check that arrived in the mail soon after excited and humbled me at the same time. I felt the money was hers and let her know it. She refused any portion of it out of hand and said she didn't need money.

She asked me to send more, and still more, stories—which I did. All of them were published and soon I had magazines asking me to write stories exclusively for them. Then she completed a novel I'd been hopelessly entangled in and it was a huge success. Movie offers were being made and suddenly, I was making a lot of money. I became more and more popular, doing TV and radio. I'd become a personality!

She still refused to accept money and our erotic, wanton e-mails went on. It was frustrating. I knew nothing about her except her e-mail address, that she had the saddest eyes, and that she was a great editor. I felt incredibly guilty; because I was only feeding her story ideas and letting her do the rest. While I was becoming famous, she was relegated to anonymity—through her own choice, of course.

It was then I began having dreams, very vivid dreams, of this beautiful flaxen-haired woman atop me, availing herself of my hardened maleness. I'd watched fixedly as she mounted me and began sliding up and down my shaft, the tips of her small breasts bouncing with her movement. The perspiration gathering between her breasts and on her belly fascinated me. Our wetness would grow and mingle as she flung this way and that, up and down, fore and aft as she came and came, her long tresses flinging about her. Unable to hold it any longer, I'd erupted into her with gusto.

I'd wake up the next morning feeling sated and complete, but there'd be no mess on me. Just my softening member receding against my leg. How could I have a wet dream with no cum? I still don't understand it.

Another night, she'd mount my face as she sucked my maleness down her throat. What heaven. But by morning, she was gone and I'd know it had only been a dream. Then night would come and so would she—again, and again, and again.

Eventually, I found I couldn’t stand it any longer—this ill-gotten fame. Not to mention, living without her completely in my life.

Now that I had money, I used it. Through a reputable private investigative agency I’d hired, I got this address—the address from where the e-mails originated. In our modern age of transport, it was nothing to anxiously fly across the country and rent a car to drive to this Godforsaken, yet beautiful, spot. After I eased out of my car, I walked up the incline to the crest of the hill.

So here I am.

Will she be fat? Or thin? Ugly or misshapen? Short or tall? Old or as young, vibrant, and truly beautiful as I’ve imagined her? Dreamed of her. Will she be happy to see me? Ready to see me? Will she be as wanton as in my dreams? As in her e-mails?

Standing there looking down at the dreary house below, the swirling gusts become a seductive whisper in my mind, vocalizing my love's most scintillating words . . .

"You own me. Every part of me—my heart, my mind, my body . . . my cunt. I'm all yours. You possess my very soul. And you're always with me. Just the thought of you invigorates me, charging every cell in my body with vital energy, warming me from the inside out.

"Even now, with so much time and space separating us, I'm so wet for you. I'm so agitated with wanting you I can't help touching myself—fondling my breasts, pinching my over-sensitive nipples, threading my fingers through my damp pussy, feeling the juices coating my cunt lips.

"I need you so badly. I can't wait until we're together and I can feel your hard cock slide into my tight, slick core. I want to taste your skin, breathe your scent, and hear your voice rasping in my ear, telling me how good I feel and how much you love fucking me. I want to see your face contort with pleasure as you fill my womb with your cum, indelibly marking me as yours . . . finally claiming me forever."

And that's exactly what I intend to do. Claim her.

Finally, I walk down the incline towards the house. As I approach, I can see that the house is badly in need of repair. The wind slams the unlatched, battered shutters open and closed. More than a few are broken and splintered from neglect and abuse. Even as I watch, one swings so violently its top hinge breaks loose and the bottom hinge doesn't seem too far behind. I tread up the rickety stairs and knock on the door, my hat in my hand, my heart tripping. There's no answer. I knock again, and again. No answer. She has to be here.

Hearing a sound behind me, I spin around in surprise. An old man, his bare feet immersed in the wet sand, stares up at me. And at the house.

"Hello," I say

"Hello." He looks as lost and unkempt as the house.

"I’m looking for a woman. I don’t know her name."

He stares at me for a long time. "A woman?"

"I think so. Someone who's been e-mailing me from this place."

"There ain’t no woman here, son. No human of any kind." He seems sad that there isn’t. Then he surprises me by saying, "Hasn’t been since that one young thing left hereabouts."

I’m taken aback. Finally, my senses return enough to ask, “Are you sure of this, old man?”

“She stayed here,” he said, pointing up at the dilapidated dwelling.

“A young woman? When did she leave?"

"I don’t know. Year, year and a half ago, maybe," he says. "At least, nobody’s seen her since then."

“What was her name?"

"Give me a second, I remember it clear as . . . Angeline, that was it.”

He looks at me strangely, “I wouldn’t mess with that house if I were you, son." Then he turns and walks away.

I watch him shuffling away through the wet sand and water for a moment before turning back to the front door. It's obviously loose, ready to be pushed open. I knock again. No answer. Slowly, I push against the door, but the air pressure in the house is so strong, the door resists my efforts. At last, with a mighty shove, it falls inward, making a resounding crash as it lands on the entryway floor. I choke on the dust-clogged air and turn away to catch my breath. The old man is watching me from down the beach. He shakes his head and keeps walking away.

“Silly old coot,” I say to myself as I turn back to the doorway once more and enter the dusty room beyond.

It's a living room. And it's almost as windy inside the house as it was outside, powerful drafts howling through the room. There are books strewn everywhere. As I'm looking around, a bird flies right at me, making me duck in reflex. It passes overhead and flies out the open doorway behind me.

My heart racing, I continue inspecting the room. There's no evidence of life here—no footprints in the dust but mine. Scratches on the mantle above a slate fireplace give proof that the bird had perched there.

I wander into the dining room and find the same dusty disarray. My footprints follow me wherever I go. I cross into the hall and through it to the bedrooms.

Of the three bedrooms, one thing attracts my interest. In one of the rooms, there's a very obvious dust-free rectangle on a table next to a dust-free electrical outlet with a dust-free chair pushed away from it and off to the side. Someone has been here, using a computer. I inspect the phone connection at the base of the table. It too is dust-free. I look around the room, and then stride to the closet. I yank open the door, but it's empty except for dust balls and a few derelict hangers.

“Hello,” I call out loudly. “Angeline?”

There's no response. I open my briefcase, remove and open my Toshiba laptop, connect to the Internet, and go to Hotmail—my e-mail provider. There's a message from "ONLY4U" in my inbox. I open it.

"You know. You know, don’tcha?"

My hands are shaking so much I can barely type. "Oh, my darling, what is it I’m supposed to know? I know you’re leading me on a wild goose chase. Where are you?"

“You must really love me to come all this way. To go to so much trouble.” The words appeared on the screen as if by magic. “But would you die for me?”

”Would I die for you? What kind of question is that?”

Words appear on the screen, “the most important question.”

After a long moment's thought, I type, “Even that! Now, come out, come out, wherever you are.”

The screen goes dead.

After another few minutes of inspection, I leave the house and climb the incline up to my rental car. Reaching for the car keys, I realize they're missing the same instant I realize the car's motor is gently purring as it sits there in front of me.

An unreasonable jolt of shaking fear strikes me, but the car doesn’t lunge at me. Just sits there and purrs.

After some time has passed—I have no idea how long—I approach the car, open the door, and get into the driver's seat. The keys dangle from the ignition, in the on position, and the beast idles quietly.

I fasten my seat belt and put the car in reverse. Cautiously, I step on the gas, but the car operates perfectly.

I make up my mind to go back to the airport and fly back to civilization, realizing that some of this is getting on my nerves now. As I drive, a weight seems to lift off my shoulders and suddenly; I’m feeling better again. I wonder what kind of game this woman is playing with me. But I begin hungering for her anew.

When I join the traffic on the highway, I accelerate to sixty-five miles per hour. As I'm weaving my way through the maze of cars, my cell phone suddenly rings. It takes me a moment to realize where it is. My cell phone is in my briefcase and my briefcase is on the floor behind my seat. I grip the wheel carefully with my left hand and reaching my right around, I grip my briefcase handle. I pull it up and around onto my lap. It rings a third time as I'm opening the briefcase.

I pick up the phone and answer, “Hello?”

A desperate and lonely voice screams in my ear, “You know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know . . .”

I interrupt the strident tones, “Honey, be calm. We’ll work this out. Where are you? I’ll come to you.”

There is a silence on the line and it grows as I maneuver into the exit lane for the airport. The traffic non-existent on this lane and I wonder for a minute if I’ve chosen the wrong lane.

“Please, talk to me,”

The most delicate and beautiful voice whispers in my ear, “I love you.”

Suddenly, there appears before me a wall and in that instant of understanding, I know I cannot stop. “You are dead.” I scream as everything comes apart in front of me and there's a tearing, ripping pain. And then, it is gone.

She waits for me in a meadow and she’s more beautiful than I ever imagined anyone could be. Even more beautiful than my wildest dreams. She’s sitting, beautifully pregnant, amongst the tall grass, typing away on her laptop computer, which she's carefully balancing on her thighs. She stops typing and lifts her head. Those beautiful eyes of hers meet mine, except now they're anything but sad. She smiles at me with such love. "Justin?"

Because deep inside I know it’s true, I call out, "Angeline?"

We smoothly glide toward each other and share our first touch. We kiss, and embrace, and hold each other forever . . .

THE END

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