The elevator doors chimed as they closed and I slumped back against the rear wall of the small room. I struggled to catch my breath as the the elevator descended to my floor.
"What the fuck just happened?" I spoke the words - actually spoke them out loud to myself.
As the numbers ticked down to the 7th floor, I realized that I was still holding my unbuttoned pants closed with my hands. I fumbled to get myself presentable as the the chime sounded letting me know I had arrived.
I hurried past the two people standing on the other side of the door who gave sidelong glances to my disheveled state. When the door finally clicked closed to my room a few moments later, I rushed to sit on the bed, knees shaking. The crumpled piece of paper I pulled from my pocket with a hastily scribbled time and location promised more than the short, intense elevator ride I'd just had - and that scared me. That brief minute or two had been the most intense, most erotic experience of my life.
I was afraid more might kill me. I rushed to get ready anyway.
Several hours later, I entered the dimly lit auditorium. I was attending a local area conference that explored some niche interests - writing, fiction, technology. I'd been coming to this particular conference since it had started near my home town. A few recurring faces had turned into acquaintances and those acquaintances had in turn evolved into friends.
As if on cue, one of those friends took the panel stage a few feet above the lines of chairs that had audience members slowly settling into them. Dark brown hair, sharp and piercing blue eyes, and a good figure, Elizabeth surveyed the room before she sat down at her panelist seat.
We'd met a few years before when we'd attended a get together for new media and communication hobbyists and had hit it off then. A few years of meeting up at the conference had turned us in to fairly good friends - or as good of friends as two people who live on opposite sides of the country can really be.
She gently tapped the microphone with a finger and when she found the level to her liking, she addressed the crowd.
"Everyone's here for the right panel, right? 'Eroticism in New Media'? And we're all over 18?" She nodded to a small murmur from the audience and began her presentation and began her talk.
"New media and new communication methods have given us an unprecedented avenue to connect with other people and truly remove the traditional barriers of distance from our relationships. But are we really taking advantage of all the sexy ways we can use it?"
She talked for nearly an hour about fun and sexy things we could do with technology and the internet. A lot of them were things we'd done through IM and text in the last year or so as our relationship had turned a little more sexual.
Every once in a while, we would lock eyes for a brief moment as she scanned the room talking and I could see the ghost of a smile touch her perfect lips, like she was struggling not to get caught up in the memory that had unconsciously surfaced.
When it came time for questions and answers, a dozen men rushed the microphones set up to ask questions. The last, "What are you doing later?" got a good laugh from the audience and from Elizabeth.
"Oh, I've got some plans already, sorry."
I shivered. I could tell most men in the audience were thinking the same thing as the last guy who'd asked the question, and I knew those plans were with me.
When the room had emptied of everyone except for the half dozen men who stood waiting around the stage, I got out of my seat and casually moved toward the front of the room. Elizabeth hadn't paused in her conversation, but I did see her eyes flick to me and then back to the man she was speaking with.
Gracefully, she excused herself from the group and made her way over to where I stood.
