This thing with you.

You are there once more. I come to like the picture that you have adopted. Most people put their own image on their facebook page but you have a piece of art. A house, balanced on a mountainous peak, a wash of a storm brewing. I have come to associate the picture that stands in for you with pleasure. I smile when I see it and when I am anxious I close my eyes and there is your house behind them like a talisman. I know that it is a silly thing, but I associate our chats with a feeling of contentment and your picture is enough to evoke this feeling. You chat to me about books and styles of writing.

I ask you to send me some of your work. I have heard that your writing is good but I am not sure that I have read any of it. We talk about Nicholson Baker as you gather things together to send as a file. You multi-task like a demon. This, more than anything marks you as a member of the next generation. I know that I am far too old for you. I am from a different era.

Vox is about us. I say. You and me.

Ah, but I never talk about sex.

But I do.

Therefore Vox is about you, but not about us, exactly.

You will talk about sex one day. I tell you. I will have an influence on you.

When you talk about sex, you say, you are not actually talking about sex.

And so I answer, When you talk about other things you are always talking about sex but in an oblique way.

And then the file comes down. I click over to my GMail and it is there, your stories. A little paperclip and beneath it three little files. I open them. A new message from you makes a little popping sound, but I ignore it. You know I will be reading. Your stories are good, clever. One of them is funny and it makes me smile. It is not until I open the third one that I feel my heart engaging. This story goes on too long. There is a moment when I feel my chest expanding, my heart opening up to you, my eyes pricking with tears, and then the story moves on a little, like a train that has overshot the station, leaving the passengers stranded with no platform to step down onto. I switch to chat and tell you this and you immediately start to fix the thing. You send me an amendment which seems better.

I can't believe you just went and changed it just like that.

But doesn't it make it better?

Yes.

Then why wouldn't I.

I don't know, because you are a young person. Young people are precious about their work.

I like to edit, you tell me. I like to make things better.

I like you is my reply, I like you very much. I like your stories. If you ever write a novel I might develop a crush on you.

I am not sure I will write a novel. I may be a short story writer. I like short stories.

Ah well, then you will never have my unwanted romantic attentions.

This is a risk I will have to take, you tell me, and I laugh. You make me smile and you make me laugh.

When you have signed off for the night I go back into your facebook page just to look at the little house perched precariously in the storm. It is a beautiful image, painted by a friend of yours. I like the painting on its own merit but I also now associate it with our conversations. Looking at it, I feel a liquid rush. I become unsettled. I know that I must masturbate or I will never find the joyous oblivion of sleep.

Oh, so now I have become sexually attracted to an image that stands in for a person that I can only vaguely remember in real life. The physical representation of you is that image, and I lie on the couch and watch it as I place my hand quietly between my legs and the release is quick and violent. When it is done there is still the picture on the screen and I really can't remember what you look like in real life. When I close my eyes there is a little house perched precariously on a hill and I must not concentrate on it too closely because I can already feel the warmth of desire rising up in me for a second time, and if I give in to this I will never get to bed.

My boy is sleeping on his side and the light on his face is a real and beautiful thing. Strange to be able to masturbate over someone elses profile picture and not feel my love and desire for my husband at all diminished.

I know better than to wake him with my caresses at this point. He will be tired and irritable. I lie beside him and I am wide awake and he smells like hot dough, baking and I want to take him into my mouth. My desire for it is difficult to ignore. I wonder vaguely if I should get up and relieve this pent up energy discreetly in the loungeroom, but I find that I am yawning and I turn over onto my side and leap desperately for a wave of sleep.