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Mia: Check it out! Just passed 1K sales!

Annie: Ahhhhh... Nice work my smug friend. Got my copy. I’ll leave a review in a few.

Mia: What! I’m not smug.

Annie: You are the smuggest of the smug, but I love you anyway.

That makes me laugh as I text her back. Annie’s my closest friend, and my fiancé’s sister.

Annie: You deserve it, friend. Enjoy the smug while it lasts. Kisses and hugs.

Congrats on the release. Let’s pop bubbly with the guys soon.

Mia: Done! Give those babies some kisses for me! Hugs!

I set my phone down and push around the clutter on my desk to give it at least the appearance of order. The diamond on my engagement ring flickers and I smile. Sigh.

It’s release day of my seventh book. By all reasonable projections, by day’s end I’ll be able to pay off my initial investment. That’s huge. I’m making money!

I have the first act of my current work in progress to upload to WritersWrite.com. I’m engaged to my best friend’s brother, Jeremy Dixon. I love his family. And he’s the perfect man—even if he works so much, we almost never see each other. Actually, that’s perfect too, because it means I spend most of my time writing. A solid two-karat solitaire sits on my ring finger, gleaming away—I’m still not used to it!—my parents are incredible, and my best friend had twin babies two weeks ago. They’ll call me Aunt Mia.

In a few months, I’ll walk down the aisle for the perfect winter-white, pine-tree-studded, glittery and perfect wedding, and become Mrs. Dixon.

I sip my coffee from my favorite monkey-shaped mug—complete with a big green palm frond and a silly yellow banana. Annie got it for me on her honeymoon. It always makes me laugh. I scroll through the writers’ forum. There’s a fight about adverbs, a discussion about the role of gender in media, a cat thread, another about fantasy wizards, one about cursing, one about how only snobs use semi-colons.

At the top of the screen is a red circle with a number 1 inside. There is a message from a writer named Stranger Lowe.

I’ve never heard of him which means he must be new. I’ve been on WritersWrite for a while now and we mostly know each other.

I lean back in my chair and tuck my feet under me, tap my nails on the desk’s pink surface.

Sometimes guys hit me up because they think the fact that I write about sex is an invitation. I could just ignore him. I usually do, but it’s a nice compliment, simple, open, non-creepy.

I click on his profile page. Not much to see. He’s standing in front of a mountain somewhere, wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses and a thick fleece, rolled up to his elbows, revealing brightly colored tattoos. I won’t lie, he’s pretty hot, not like the type who needs to harass women online.

He’s got only one chapter posted. I start to skim and get caught up reading it. It’s good. A little scary.

The opening scene is of an assassin preparing to kill a corrupt politician in Africa. Stalking his prey, learning his habits, covering his tracks. Something about the narrator scares me though. He seems dark, cold, inaccessible. I can’t help but wonder at the person who can create that character. Even though I don’t love horror or mystery, I can tell it’s good writing.

Stranger: I’m never nice. Just telling the truth. Where’s the rest?

Mia: Of Wrecked? So far, I only have the first half posted.

Stranger: I know. Do you have more?

Mia: Definitely. Sure. Yeah. Give me ten, and I’ll post a few more chapters. It’s a little weird though. Kinda kinky. Just warning you. Seriously, don’t judge me! I swear I’m not a sex freak.

I get busy uploading my new work, and when I’m done, that red circle is there at the top of my screen.

Stranger: Hmm... Do people call you a sex freak often?

Mia: No! It’s just... sometimes people get the wrong idea. They think I’m like my characters or something. And I’m not!

Stranger: Nothing wrong with sex. What kind of kinky are we talking about?

Mia: I mean, I write dark romance, so... you know.

Stranger: I do not know.

Mia: Have you ever read a dark romance?

Stranger: I’ve never read any romance at all.

Mia: It’s a little twisted.

Stranger: How so? Be specific.

I catch my lower lip between my teeth, and tell myself to be honest, not to be ashamed of what I write. It’s hard though. Only five people on earth know what I really do. My two closest friends, Annie and Erica, and their husbands. Plus Jeremy. Well, and a whole slew of internet people on WritersWrite.com. But my whole family, and all my other friends think I work in publishing.

I lie to them all the time. Jer helps me lie because he thinks my romances are embarrassing too. But right now, online, I don’t have to hide.

Mia: Ummm... Some pretty aggressive dub-con, rare but occasional anal play, random spankings, a few buckets of cum. You know... the usual.

There’s a pause. A long one. Long enough to make my cheeks get so hot all my smug just melts away like a snow cone in the summer sun and slides straight on down to the floor in a great big slushy puddle of shame.

I go get water from the fridge, replaying the words, hoping he'll know I was kidding—sort of. Ugh. Why can’t I write something nice? I hate talking about my work with non-romance writers. I should have gone for cozy mystery or fantasy or something normal. Not dark erotic shifters who have constant intense angry sex.

As I pass the dining table, headed back toward my desk, I bump into a chair which hits the table, shaking the candles in the candle-holder so hard a candle falls off, rolls into a pile of things I keep meaning to go through. The heart-shaped photo frame I made in grade school crashes to the carpet with a dull thud, and the splits in two right down the center.

I pick it up the broken heart and hold the two pieces together. A little glue should fix it? Maybe?

When I sit down, there’s that red circle winking at me at the top of my screen again.

Stranger: Buckets of cum? That’s “the usual.”

Mia: Yes. Buckets. And I refuse to be embarrassed. (butIstilltotallyam)

Stranger: Lol. Don’t be embarrassed. Sounds good.

Is he saying “sounds good” the way I say it when someone sends me a new chapter to critique? Just all normal. Sounds good. Or does he mean it like he likes the sound of cum buckets?

I click on his picture again. Green mountains, white misty sky. Northwest? Appalachia? South America? Take off those glasses, Stranger Lowe. What color are your eyes?

Stranger: Do you mean buckets literally? Like a pail? A whole pail full?

Mia: No! Of course not. Gross.

Stranger: It’s a thing. A porn thing. It would be okay if you did. What are cum buckets then?

Mia: Ohmygod. It’s just... it’s just a term I use because there’s a lot of it. It’s a trope of the genre. The guys are extra (ohmygodthisconversationisawful) ...productive.

Stranger: So this is what you meant when you said your characters like stuff but you don’t.

Mia: Exactly!

Stranger: Yeah. Okay.

I close the screen but something about the exchange keeps pulling at me. I keep opening the message’s window and staring at the black sans-serif typeface.

Mia: It’s just part of the genre. It’s what’s expected. Like how you write about killing people and stuff. You don’t actually kill people, I’m assuming.

I force my hands to get to work, my fingers to type, but the scene I build is weak. My heart’s not in it.

Stranger: Tons. My body count is deep.

Mia: Ha. I might almost believe it the way you write.

Stranger: It’s not the same thing. Writing sex and writing killing are different. Killing people is inherently wrong. A person like that...there’d have to be something wrong with them. There’s nothing inherently wrong about you being into weird sex shit.

Weird sex shit makes me picture handcuffs and whips, chains and hot wax, spankings and ball-gags, people putting food in their vaginas. None of that stuff even remotely turns me on.

Well, maybe spanking. A little, but I’m not going to tell him that. My last male lead spanked the female lead, but that wasn’t formalized or anything. He just did it, and she liked it.

I liked writing it so much I asked Jeremy to spank me the night after I wrote it, and he swatted at me awkwardly.

I toy with my ring. I never know when to share personal information online. It makes me uncomfortable for myself. Privacy on the internet is an issue, as is trust, so I don’t want to pry or push or overshare. And he’s a man and we’re talking about sex... But still, he seems so blasé, so non-threatening.

Mia: But I’m not! I don’t want to be whipped or tied up. Or treated like a pet. And I definitely don’t want to be strung up in a sex swing or pooped on. Ever!

Stranger: Poop? Who said you did?

I did. I said poop. I bury my face in my hands. What am I doing? Am I flirting with him? If so, I’m terrible at it. I shouldn’t be flirting with anyone.

Mia: You said I was into weird sex shit! Aaaaaand... it was ME. I said poop. Headdesk.

Stranger: I didn’t say you were into weird sex shit. Reread our convo. Aaaaand I said shit before you said poop. Relax.

Mia: Oh. That’s true. I guess it’s just awkward. People always think I’m a pervert.

Stranger: Who thinks you’re a pervert?

Mia: You should see my mom’s face whenever romance novels come up.

Stranger: I mean... did you tell her about the buckets of cum?

Mia: Ha! No. She doesn’t even know I write. Let alone romance. She thinks romance novels are for the recklessly stupid and the dangerously perverted. Anyway, the next act of Wrecked is up if you’re interested. But no pressure. And go away now. You’re distracting me, and I need to write.

I wait, but he doesn’t respond. Nothing. Because he’s letting me focus? Or because I offended him by telling him to go away? Ugh! I shouldn’t care. I don’t care. He’s a stranger named Stranger, and I’m engaged to the perfect man.

I shake my head, close the browser, open my document, finish my crappy scene, which will need to be gutted and reworked later, and go to meet with some lawyers to make the man I love sign a pre-nup he really doesn’t want to sign.

I can’t help myself though, I keep looking at the top of my screen, dreading and hoping for that blinking red circle to appear, and amassing a mental list of questions about this stranger that keep on growing.