Sex, Lies and Smartphones - 1

[Keiko Alvarez]

This is a new story I'm starting. It focuses on technology and, of course, sex.

I think it's odd that no one seemed to read the end of Die and Let Live except, as always, JME. If you missed the end, please find it.

George O’Hara, a 62 year old white male with closely cropped short hair, punched in his access code, passed through a turnstile into a gloomy, cavernous room with sound deadening tiles in the ceiling. The room always seemed gloomier on Mondays, George thought, than any other day of the week. Fortunately, there were a couple of things that he looked forward to, a couple of things that helped brighten his day.

He turned, waved to George Freeman, a 62 year old black man with a large paunch and said, “Hello George. When you gonna retire?”

“The day after you retire,” Freeman said.

“The day after never, you mean,” O’Hara laughed.

“You got that right,” Freeman said.

George O’Hara walked up to the guard’s desk and laid a paper bag on it. “Brownies,” he said. “Made them myself this weekend.”

George Freeman handed George O’Hara a paper bag. “Pickled pig’s feet,” he said. “Cooked them myself.”

O’Hara held the paper bag at arm’s length. “Are you serious?”

“Am I ever?”

“So, what is this?”

“Deviled eggs, soul style.”

“Damn,” O’Hara said. “Well, have a good day.” O’Hara smiled as he walked toward his work place, enjoying the back and forth he had with Freeman every Monday for the past six months. George knew, though, that the best part of his Monday morning was yet to come. His pace picked up a bit as he headed to his desk, one desk among a sea of desks in the basement of an innocuous looking building off a frontage road in Austin, Texas. Everyone in the surrounding neighborhood knew something weird happened in the building, what with the razor topped fences and guards with M-16 rifles, but no one who worked in the building breathed a word about their work. “Advertising,” they’d say.

O’Hara tried to be the first person who arrived every morning, but there were the twenty-four seven analysts, young military guys in fatigues mostly, who were always there. And, of course, on Mondays at least, there was Pedro Espinosa, or Bluto as O’Hara called him. Espinosa was at least a hundred pounds overweight and, in O’Hara’s opinion, a complete and total ass hole.

Espinosa, George decided, came in early on Mondays so he could remind everyone of his importance. Soon he would witness some Kabuki theater highlighted by Espinosa’s high-pitched caterwauling. He knew it would be no more than a few minutes until he heard Espinosa blowing up one of the military guys for some trivial reason, so he slipped on a pair of sound-deadening earphones and signed into his honeypot as Latisha, a twenty-eight black female who was a former crack addict prostitute on parole. Latisha, George decided, would be active on Internet dating sites looking to score some fun. With any luck some shit for brains would try to contact Latisha to help her score some smack. Within minutes of that happening, O’Hara would know everything there was to know about whomever that happened to be.

[JMac1949 Memories]

That's why I never sign into chat rooms...  R&L

[James Mark Emmerling]

yes well , I am delighted to receive the acknowledgement for my devotion  to your work.

The ghost story was genius.

This ,before you got it in yr head to do the ghost story, was my favorite of yrs. As I say, before the ghost story…

~

I greet George with much amiable familiarity.

A man of the world,with a tender crush on an utterly wacky gal, to be introduced soon.

Whom he will be called upon to do service to,like some  medieval  warrior type dude.

~

Dude with a hero complex, but also the ABILITY TO BACK IT UP.

~

Onward, Christian soldier,in yr writing!

I know a bit of how it is going,but  with you,not much.

Anticipation! What a lovely thing.

[Zanelle]

I have no patience with anticipation.  But your writing and characters suck me in....

[Inverted Interrobang]

with ghosts as you know

can't see us... but

we're here.

 

(and virtual ghosts... really hard to spot)