Everything Utterly Different

A business deadline looming and a lot of work to do, a decade ago it would have taken weeks and required endless travel, today it’s just a question of staying organized, using the internet. Comments on a document here, an email there, a spreadsheet here, and it all comes together.

Reaching a breakpoint, making a cup of tea, spring sunshine filling the kitchen. Checking my secret email account, seeing one from Carol.

Hi R, just to say thanks for a fun morning, thought I’d try the email address you gave me, I’ve just set up a secret one for myself, good idea, protects against curious eyes and ears, much better than a cellphone. Also, just wanted to let you know, forgot to mention it, I was too engrossed in our conversation, I’m actually away in Mexico for ten days or so, helping out with an archeological dig, maybe it’d be okay to contact you when I get back. Please reply – I want to be sure my new email address is working. Carol xxx.

Emailing her, hi Carol, got your email, have a great time in Mexico, sounds exciting, yes, email me when you get back, R xxx.

Sipping my tea, enjoying the kitchen’s sunshine warmth. Pondering the joys of technology. Carol will probably pick up my email somewhere in Mexico. Jane will email some time, let me know how things are going in Australia. Different secret worlds, each in its separate domain, kept effortlessly separate. A few years ago, a world of landline phones, no emails, no internet, and the secret worlds would have collided. Today, everything utterly different.

Firing up the escort website, just for the devil of it. The screen filling with profiles and photos, vistas of blowjobs and anal ecstasy and pussy delights. A rumbustious and unashamed purveyance of pleasure. Proved in my own experience to be highly effective in delivery. A few years ago, no such thing existed, if you wanted any of this you’d have to wade first through streetcorner sleaze and predatory pimps.

Switching to a porn website, again, just for the devil of it. Surveying the thousands of new videos, thinking of clicking one, not in the mood, maybe later.

Thinking, if all this didn’t exist, the pressures would just build and build, eventually explode, like my first marriage. Interesting, maybe I’d still be with her if I could have done what I can do now. I wonder how many marriages all this technology is saving today.