DOGGY STYLE! LITTER-ALLY!

And then I heard his mistress say, "Oooh, those are the loveliest napkins I've ever seen!"

I looked toward the half open bedroom door. There was Abby, in the living room, batting my keys around. Before I can even blink, she gives them a good hockey knock, and I watch them disappear under the couch, making a clunk-like noise as they bounce off the baseboard . . .

Fini!

* * * * * * Instead of doing that, I ended up doing this!

The phone rang, startling her. Linda Firestone typed in, The End, smiled, and picked up the phone before it had a chance to ring again. It was, as she had half expected, Roger Wake, her long time friend, and publisher.

"Linny, how's that last chapter coming? Do I make a reservation at an outrageously expensive restaurant, or should I just take an antacid for my outrageously expansive ulcer?"

"You don't have ulcers, Roger, you give them. But to answer your question, Rodge, why don't you," she paused, enjoying stretching out the suspense, "make it for eight. The Hunan Lion would be nice."

This, dear reader, was the opener to a novel I never finished, one tentatively called Death of a Dirty Writer!

I had fully fleshed the plot out, right enough: She was a writer of sexually explicit novels. Seven of them, to date. She made lots of money, lots of fans, and lots of enemies. When she suddenly turns up dead, she may be gone, but she's not forgotten. Especially by her lover, Detective So-And-So. I hadn't named him yet, but you get the idea. I had the meat, and all I needed was the potatoes. And some time.

My day job, however, kept getting in the way, along with various and sundry other silly ass things, so I put it on the old back burner. Relegating it to something to do in my dotage, perhaps, when I had all the time in the world. But, when I finally had all the time in the world, the "insteads" came marching in.

Instead of finishing this yarn of illicit sex and murder, I wrote an altogether different story, using her as the basis. My fleshing out notes, damn it, had been lost in the shuffle of the years. Along with my memory of them.

Instead of the other title, I called it, The Murder of Wendy Wilde! Instead of her real-life name being Linda Firestone, I chose the mouthful, Jennifer Penelope Deaux-Fontaine. Instead of a police detective, I used a failed private investigator, and turned him into a hotel dick. But at least he now had a name, Tag Bonewell. Instead of her publisher friend being called Roger Wake, I made him Hamilton Worthy.

Instead, instead, instead. All because I suffered from CRS in my time-generous dotage. CRS? Can't Remember Shit! And there was one last instead. Instead of making it a stand-alone book, I made it the second story of my Tag Bonewell, House Dick piece. Maybe you even read it.

After the new story was finished, and I had posted it, I found the lost fleshing out notes. For some unknown reason, they had decided to hibernate in the back pocket of an old art portfolio I rarely opened. And the twenty-five year snooze had made the paper they were typed on--from my pre-PC days--yellow and brittle. Almost like me.

I read them, and it felt as if I was reading words written by someone other than myself. I was time traveling, and meeting myself in the past, but not recognizing the old me. It was very weird, for sure. And it made me feel, for the first time in my life, older than fucking dirt.

After my time machine took me back to the present day, more insteads popped up! Instead of getting rich from my first novel, as the old young me had once dreamed, I was now giving the story to readers for free. And instead of the fame I had once thought I might enjoy, I was now unknown to everyone.

Except by a pseudonym, my Internet user name. Just like Wendy Wilde, my real name has to be hidden, or risk ending up just like her. Because, I don't have to remind you, the net is a dangerous place that one shares with every lunatic who can hit the Enter key. And sexually explicit stories are a magnet for weak-minded morons.

While it may be fitting, even ironic, for this older-than-dirt body of mine to end up taking a long time dirt nap, I'll settle for the somewhat dubious safety of anonymity. And the sweet thrill of remaining--unenviously--totally nonprofit.

I enjoy writing. It satisfies a creative need in me. And it fills, and kills, time. All that fucking free time I now have in my dotage! That all the time in the world time I once dreamed about having in the later years.

Linda now looked at the screen. The cursor was blinking at the end of The End. Her left hand's forefinger held down the Shift key, while her other forefinger stabbed at the exclamation mark key. She looked at the words, and had the giddy urge to add two more. No, she thought, one says it all . . .

The End!
"From my mind, to your mind!"