I remember the day like it was yesterday. It was a complete disaster, as in a royal F-U-C-K-UP catastrophe. You've heard of a 'life changing' event. Well, this was one. And it all started with a simple mistake, I just hit the wrong damn key on my computer, and the whole chain reaction was inevitable!

Now, I must remember my manners, it isn't good to just ramble on like this to a stranger without even introducing yourself. My name is Janice Johnston, I'm thirty-something (its not polite to ask a lady questions about some things, ) and I live in Dallas. I've always lived in Texas, but I spent some time in San Antonio, and some of my life, during college, in Austin.

I've never been married, but not because I was against marriage, or men or anything — I just never met 'Mr. Right'. I think that I am a reasonably attractive woman. I'm a brunette, with light brown eyes, not too heavy and with curves in all of the right places. I think that I could have been a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader, if I could dance worth a lick.

But to understand my little contretemps there are two things you need to know. First, ever since I graduated from college all those years ago, I've been in Real Estate here in the Lone Star State; second is my secret life. You see, I write what some people might call 'racy' stories (some, less tolerant folks might call them 'smut' or even 'porno', ) that I put up on the internet. The two factors combined led to my present situation.

Let me explain. Hope you got a minute.

You always hear folk talking about the three most important things in real estate: location, location, location. That's true, if you're talking about owning a piece of real estate. For a salesperson, the most important thing is that when the client decides to buy or sell, its your name that they remember. I think its true in most kinds of sales.

Anyone in sales will tell you stories about how some close friend or relative, who knows that you are in the business, is suddenly approached one day by a total stranger, who knocks on their door at the moment the idea of selling their home strikes them. So do they call you? Their friend of twenty-years, the person who has swapped recipes with them, baby sat their kids? No! They end up listing the home with some agent literally off the street!

Modern technology, though, has come to the rescue, in the form of the email! I realized early on what a powerful tool for keeping in touch with potential clients the email could be. Now hold on there, don't get the wrong idea — I'm not spamming people with some sort of mass mailing. I send out tasteful materials like recipes, information on the state of home prices, or new laws or regulations pending that people should know about. And it is all personalized — it is a sociable email from me to a friend.

I guess that over time, I've got about 2,000 friends, neighbors, fellow alumni, other real estate brokers, etcetera — you understand, on my email. Some people talk about their power Rolodex; I have my power email list. And it has worked well for me. I don't push it, but about once every month or six-weeks, I get my name out there, just in case anyone starts thinking about buying or selling a house.

To return to my tale; my secret, steamy, romantic stories were the second factor in the 'big change'.

In case you aren't aware of it, there are places on the internet where just ordinary folks can post stories about their sexual fantasies, (and, sometimes, I suspect, real life experiences, ) about all sorts of things that a person could hardy imagine! You know, things like men who want to watch their wives or girlfriends being pleasured by other men or women; folks who have group sex, and that BDSM — Busty Dames and Stiff Men, or some such nonsense. (I never actually read any of those!)

Then there's the really strange categories like 'incest.' I can't even imagine doing that sort of stuff with my Daddy, the deacon; I don't even think Mama would do some of those things with him! And even if I weren't still pissed off at my brother for some of the things him and his friends did to me and my girlfriends while we were in Junior and Senior High School, I certainly wouldn't be attracted to him now, him having gone bald on top, and developed a hellacious beer belly! Yuck!

No, I write about 'Romance', where two attractive people, full of emotions and feelings, overcome misunderstandings and obstacles and opposition from their families, only to find pure love with each other, and live happily ever afterwards. Then to add some spice to the recipe, and to attract the readers, I put in some really steamy sex! Sex sells, that's for sure!

Recently I've also been expanding my repertoire to include 'Erotic Couplings', where my characters know that for some reason or another, they can't be together on a long-term basis, or maybe they don't want to hurt their loved ones, but they still want to have the steamy sex.

Sometimes, as I read over my stories, they make me cry, they touch my heart so!

Writing those stories has been the outlet for my literary imagination, not to mention it has inspired more than one warm and satisfied evening for me, when I was otherwise not engaged. Better than just staring at a poster of Brad Pitt or Mel Gibson.

Online, my 'nom de plume' is 'IsellItInTX.' I think that is so cute, one of those double entendres where, although I know its real estate that I sell, my loyal readers may think that I'm selling something else!

Now anyone of a literary bent will tell you, most of us need an editor to help us with our stories. An editor can help you with all kinds of aspects of your writing. They can find spelling errors, or all of the little things like saying 'to' when it should have been 'too', or silly things like changing a character's name in the middle of a story. Its amazing the mistakes that someone else can find, that you just can't see in your own writing. Editors can be a big help, and I have one of the best!

My editor's name is Lorraine, but her online handle is 'AllmyLvn' — she is a big Beatles fan. She is really good, for one thing, because her college degree was in English, so she knows her stuff. I tell her all the time how much I admire her for her knowledge of literature as well as the technical aspects of writing. She tells me that she admires the fact that unlike most English Lit majors, when I talk to MY customers, I'm not asking, "Do you want french fries with that burger?" Yea, I know, its an old joke, but I still laugh when Lorraine says it.

Anyway, as I was saying, I had finished the rough draft of my newest Erotic Coupling story. In the story, two people had known each other and fallen in love when they were in Junior High, but the boy had moved away. Later, after they had grown up, the boy and girl, now a married man and married woman, had ended up living on the same street together. Even though they were married to other people, who they also loved and didn't want to hurt, they couldn't help themselves, they found themselves alone and finally had to make love with each other, even if only one time. The sex in my story was so hot, so explicit, that it was almost 'art'; it was my pièce de résistance.

I was so excited about the story, that my seat was almost wet as I sent off the draft to Lorraine for her editorial corrections and comments.

It was about 10:00 PM when I shut off my computer for the night and got ready for bed. I have a laptop that I can use both at my office and at home — its so convenient! But I was 'on the floor' at my office at 9:00 the next morning, so I needed to get my full eight hours!

I began to understand early the next morning that something strange was going on.

It started while I was having my breakfast, before I'd even put my makeup on, when the doorbell rang.

There at the door was my neighbor from three houses down, Martha Jean. Now I don't want to sound catty, but Martha Jean could stand to lose a few pounds, in fact, she was kind of chubby. But that made no never mind, because she was a sweetie. At least until then.

I answered the door.

"Martha Jean," I exclaimed, "How nice to see you! How are you this morning?"

Martha Jean was clearly out of sorts. Her face was anything but bright and cheery.

"Janice, if I ever, and I mean ever, catch you with my George, it will be the sorriest day of your life!"

Martha Jean then turned and walked away, while I stared at her back in shock! What was she talking about? George, her husband was a nice enough man, but he was not someone who I would be 'caught' with, if I understood her drift. I couldn't remember if George had tried to hit on me or something at the last neighborhood party. I know I never did anything to encourage him!

I sat back down to my toast and newspaper, when about ten minutes later, my neighbor across the street, Sarah, was tapping at the door.

I answered it again, hoping that whatever Martha had caught hadn't spread.

"Sarah. How are... ," I got out, before Sarah had come right into the house, and had me in the biggest hug I had ever gotten from any woman, except my Mom.

"Janice! I came over to thank you so much!" she said, "Last night, when Don came to bed, he started doing things that I never even considered he would ever try. You know, he had never licked my clitoris before, and there he was going at it like at madman! He really spent some time on my breasts too, licking and kissing and feeling them and playing with my nipples, which I have always liked, but Don has been a 'slam, bam, thank you ma'am' type, in too much of a rush for much foreplay. Then, when I felt his tongue licking back there, (you know where I mean, )" she whispered, "I thought I'd died and gone to heaven!" She grabbed me in another bear hug.

"You have been the best thing for my marriage since Viagra!" she concluded. Then she turned and left to walk back home. For the second time in one morning, I was staring at one of my neighbor's back in shock.

Almost as an after thought, at the bottom of the sidewalk, Sarah turned back to me and called,

"Make sure next time that you send me the story too!"

She waved and briskly continued back to her house.

I sat back down at the table and took a bite of my now cold toast. Then a sip of the tepid coffee. I spent a couple of minutes, staring into space, considering the two events of the previous half-hour.

A suspicion formed in my mind.

Then I walked back to my office and turned on my computer, and let it boot up.

I opened up my email, and went to the little folder thingy labeled 'sent' and clicked on it. There, atop my 'sent' list was the email to my editor, with my story attached. I opened it up and looked at the "Send to:" line.

It didn't say 'AllmyLvn", it said 'All'.

I stood there for a minute, speechless. Then it started coming out.

"Oh. I'm fucked, I'm fucked, I'm fucked, I'm fucked!"

All of my past clients were on that list.

"Shit, shit, shit, I don't believe it!"

Every Realtor I know was on that list.

"Damn, damn, damn."

All of my neighbors were on that list.

"Oh, my Gawd!"

The Pastor of my Church, and half the members of the congregation were on that list!

"Oh crap, oh crap, how could I!"

MY PARENTS WERE ON THAT LIST!

I sat down in my chair, to keep from fainting, put my head on my arms on top of the desk, and started crying.

My life, as I knew it, was over. I might as well go out and jump off a cliff.

There it was on my mailing list, clear as day: right above Lorraine's handle, 'AllmyLvn', was 'All'. One careless click, and a quick 'return', and whatever my 'secret' life had been before, it was NOT secret now. Fuck, shit, damn, crap!

I finally lifted my head from my arms, and what I saw then was just as bad.

There were at least a hundred replies in my inbox already, and more piling up each second.

I made it to the toilet before I got rid of my morning toast and coffee, but just barely.

I had just emailed my deepest darkest sexual fantasies and desires to about half of Texas!

The first thing I needed to do was to let my office know that I wasn't going to be in. I looked at the scheduling sheet to see who was supposed to be my back-up for the morning.

I called "Big Bill" Thompson at home to let him know that he would be on his own. The phone rang twice, before Bill picked it up.

"Bill," I started, "I'm not coming in to the..."

"Janice, I got your story," came Bill's rather excited sounding voice, "I'll tell you, it just goes to show its always the quiet ones."

"Bill, hold on a sec," I interrupted him, "I have to get this straightened out. I won't be in this morning. Can you hold the fort at the office for a couple of hours by yourself?"

"Oh sure. No problem. Maybe you could get someone else to come in too, just in case I need to take a client out." Bill seemed to be getting back to business.

"Thanks, Bill. I'll call up Mary Jo to come in. She's always happy for floor time." I said.

"Right. Now, listen, after Anne and I read your story, I have to tell you that we got pretty excited. We'd love to have you come over this weekend. We have been pretty discrete about it, but Anne and I have had a number of threesomes, sometimes with Anne, me and another guy; sometimes me, and Anne and one of her girlfriends. Now, I just know Anne would just love to demonstrate her oral skills to you, and play with those outstanding tits of yours; and to tell you the truth, they don't call me 'Big Bill' for nothing. My tool is about..." Bill was just winding up.

"Bill, Bill," I shouted into the phone, "Stop, just stop. Bill that story was fantasy, so as much as I appreciate your offer, I am not up for a threesome. And anyway, a person shouldn't be foolin' around with their co-workers! I'm ashamed of you for your lack of professionalism!"

Bill quickly apologized, although he asked me to let him know if I ever reconsidered my position.

Goodness!

My next task was to call Mary Jo about coming in to the office. I quickly dialed her number.

Mary Jo Chandler was single like me; a true professional. She always dressed to the nines, and her make-up was always perfect, and not a hair was out of place. Plus, she had a very nice figure, like she spent a lot of time at the gym, although she had never said anything that would suggest that she did.

The other girls in the office and I were completely envious about her wardrobe, too. She dressed in a way that was sexy without being overly revealing, or looking slutty. But when a fellow would see her, his eyes would bug out! She probably owned 50 pairs of shoes.

Mary Jo didn't pick up until, maybe, the fourth ring.

"Mary Jo, it's me, Janice..." I began,

"Oh, Janice," replied Mary Jo in a deep and sultry voice, that I'd never heard her use before, "I'm soooo glad you called. I am just too flattered that you used me as the model for the heroine in your story..."

Now THAT gave me a start. I sure as hell hadn't been thinking of Mary Jo when I developed my character.

"But, you know," she carried on, "I don't really like men very well. I mean, they're fine as friends, and for paying for dinner or carrying heavy boxes," she paused and laughed, "but I much prefer women as lovers. And I'd always wondered about you. Because you really are my type; brunette, mature, a feminine woman, and now that I know you might be open to..."

LORDY! This was TOO MUCH INFORMATION, as my teen-age nephews and nieces would say!

"Mary Jo," I practically shouted, confronted for the second time this morning with a horny co-worker who had massively misinterpreted my story, "What I really need is for you to go into the office for me, to back up Bob, because I'm not going in this morning."

"OH, floor time? Why didn't you say so. I'll get ready right now." she was breathless, "and we can talk about, you know — our little mutual interest — later. OK?"

By now I was so rattled that I just told her OK to get her off the phone.

I glanced back at my computer. The groan just emerged from my throat without any conscious thought.

According to my email software, there were now 478 new messages in my in-box. And more were still coming.

Just then, the phone rang. Instinctively I picked it up, without bothering to check out the caller ID.

"Hey, bitch, I can come over and take care of that itch of yours. When I shove my nine inches down your throat..." came a strange masculine voice.

I slammed down the phone, and my hand came off the handset like it was burning hot. I'm sure that I blushed.

I turned back to take a look at the emails.

At a glance, about half of the emails had titles that seemed to be pretty much telling me that there were some unhappy recipients out there in the eState of Texas. "How could you!" "What kind of slut!" "Complete Filth!" I think you can guess at some of the others.

The phone rang again, but this time I was mad.

"Just fuck off, you dirty pervert!" I shouted into the handset.

"Janice — its me, Lorraine. You know, Lorraine, your editor?" came the voice.

"Oh, Lorraine, I'm so sorry. I just had a really obscene phone call..." came my apologetic explanation.

"Don't worry about it, Janice. I can imagine. Just come to the door and let me in." she said.

Curious, I went to the window by the door, moved the curtain aside, and sure enough, there was Lorraine, standing there with her cell phone in her hand, waving at me as I looked at her.

I went right over and started to open the door. As soon as I had opened it a crack, Lorraine was already pushing it open, just far enough for her to slide in. She turned around, took a quick peek out, and closed the door and locked it behind her.

Lorraine was clearly rushed. She is a skinny little thing — maybe 5' tall, and 95 lbs. soaking wet. Her dirty-blond hair was back in a ponytail, under a baseball cap, she was wearing some worn jeans, with torn knees, and a large TCU sweatshirt over what looked like a sleeveless T-shirt. Her blue eyes looked at me through a pair of glasses with thick lenses.

"Don't dilly-dally girl, Go get yourself some clothes and a suitcase. Enough for at least four or five days," she instructed me.

"What are you talking about?" came my uncertain reply.

"Girl, just do it. We are getting you out of here. We need to get you to a hide out." she said to me as she pushed me towards my bedroom.

My emotions were already so numb, and my brain was definitely not in gear, so I just started doing what Lorraine had told me.

I asked, "What kind of clothes exactly should I be packing?"

"Oh, just casual — jeans, t-shirts, your cross-trainers. Comfortable wear. Maybe a scarf or two that you can wrap around your head with sun glasses to hide your face." Lorraine was looking worried as she mentioned that.

"Why do I need to get to a hide out?" I asked. Sometimes I must admit, I'm a little slow on the uptake.

"Janice, it may take an hour or two for them to get organized and track you down, but I suspect that any minute you will look out your window and see a mob coming down the street getting ready to crucify you!" she said.

"Sweet Jesus," I replied.

"Now you're getting the idea," Lorraine said as I was closing the locks on my packed suitcase.

I swept some of my necessities from the vanity and the bathroom into another small bag, and my laptop from the office into its case, while Lorraine opened up the garage and pulled her car in on the empty side. She put the door back down, and motioned me out with my bags. We shoved them into the open trunk, and grabbed the remote control for the garage door from my car.

I got into Lorraine's little white Toyota on the passenger side, and once the car door was closed, Lorraine hit the button to open the garage door at the same time that she started the car. When the door was open far enough, Lorraine was out of there, back down my drive, and heading down the street. She pushed the button on the remote for the second time, and my garage door came down again.

As we drove down the street, coming up the opposite direction from us was one of those television mobile vans, for the local station, XDTV. I slumped down as low as I could get in my seat when they passed us. I looked in the side view mirror, and could see them stop in front of my place, get out, and come running up to my door — one cute fellow in a suit with a microphone in hand, followed by a kind of chunky guy with a video camera on his shoulder.

Damn! We just beat the barbarians. We had successfully made our escape. Now, on the run, I had to get out of Dodge for awhile!

We made our way to Lorraine's condo, where we reversed the process, and pulled the car into the garage and closed the door so no one would see us. Lorraine went into the condo and made sure all of the curtains were pulled on the street side windows before I came in from the garage. You can't be too careful.

We brought my stuff in from the car, and I collapsed on one of Lorraine's lazy-boy chairs. In a matter of second, it seemed like, Lorraine had put a glass of liquid in my hand. She had another identical glass in hers.

"Janice, here's to 'Shit Happens'" and we clinked our glasses together.

"Shit happens!" I agreed, and took a sip. Jack Daniels and Coke, my favorite.

I looked at the clock — it was only 10 A.M. in the morning, and there I was with a drink in hand.

Lorraine saw my glance.

"If this isn't a morning when you are allowed a drink, I don't know when is." she said.

I nodded at that. Damn straight, I thought, then I leaned back and closed my eyes for a second. A few more sips of JD, just to empty the glass, and I drifted off for awhile, right there in the chair.

I woke up again with a start. I could hear Lorraine.

"Damn, this is bad." I heard her say.

"You're telling me," I croaked at her, "I'm the one who has got to deal with those emails..."

"No, not that silly, I'm talking about your STORY! Dangling participles, unclear antecedents, run-on sentences. Shoot, misspellings — how many times have I told you 'i before e, except after c, or when followed by gh as in neighbor or weigh.' And, Oh Gawd, you changed tense in the middle of the third paragraph. How could you have sent this out; this isn't up to your usual standards yet!"

Lorraine and I looked at each other eye-to-eye at that moment, and then started giggling like a couple of school girls. Then we started laughing. After a minute or so, we were rolling on the floor, until we finally couldn't breathe anymore. We just lay there for about five minutes, taking deep breathes.

We finally recovered, and lifted ourselves up and sat at the dining room table, where I'd sat my laptop.

"Ok," Lorraine said to me across the table, trying unsuccessfully to look serious, "I guess that the fact that the story was sent out to everyone on your email list is more important than how far along it was in the writing process."

I thought about my situation for a minute.

"How long are we going to hide out here?" I asked.

"My estimate is that by tomorrow they will have tracked us down, so we should be out of here at the crack of dawn," came her reply, "And you can't use your cell phone, either, because with the GPS thingies these days, they can find us in a heartbeat."

I nodded.

After thinking about it, I decided that the thing to do was work some damage control. I connected my laptop up to Lorraine's hi-speed cable modem and returned to my now infamous email program.

First, I sent out a short apology explaining that I had not intended for that email containing my story to be so widely distributed, and expressed my GREAT regret to anyone who was offended.

At least this time when it sent it to "All" I meant to do it.

Then I started going through the (over 600 by this time) emails, sorting them into categories.

I already mentioned the "What filthy Trash" category. About 200 emails went into that folder. Those were mostly from married women, who were a little older and who had children. The funny thing was, for a lot of those, a little later I got an email from their husbands too, giving me a second email address and asking me to send my stories to the new address and not let their wives know about it! I was shocked (for about the umpteenth time that day, ) that so many men were keeping secret email accounts hidden from their loving wives!

There were another about 100 or so emails that were basically propositions — did I want to meet for a little, what many so indelicately called, 'fuck and suck'. It was amazing at how many of those were from women, too! I had NO idea. Those I trashed.

To my surprise, there were emails from people and groups that I had never heard of before. The 'Dallas Swinging Stars' invited me to their next get-together, and told me that I didn't even need to bring a date with me. The Texas Lesbian Alliance seemed to have gotten my story from somewhere, I'm not sure where, but they had some idea that I was their new poster girl. And there was some kind of Ashram down Waco way that wanted me to come by and share some tantric sex with them, whatever that is. Those I trashed, too.

There were 22 proposals of marriage. Most were from men who were definitely NOT on my 'keeper' list, and a couple seemed even more interested in my money than my sexy story. I trashed most of those. There were about five, though, that I set aside for further consideration. Ron Smith, who worked in our Waco office, was unmarried, and he was a hunk. Hmmm ... definitely worth a call after things quieted down.

Then there were the would-be editors who were all correcting my story; some were actually pretty good and had constructive things to say, but then there were the ones who wanted to argue with me about the basic plot — like I don't get enough of that on-line!

I finally put my computer aside, and figured that I could do more follow up later. I thought that I would just kick back and relax for awhile.

But before I did anything else, I called home on Lorraine's phone to let my Mom and Dad know that I was alright. I got the answering machine, and left a message. I also asked them if they could meet us tonight for dinner at a chain restaurant not far from their house.

I turned on the TV, and was flipping through the channels, when I recognized the news reporter on the screen. It was the fellow from XDTV who had shown up at my door this morning while I was making my get away. I turned up the volume.

"And in other news: Local businesswoman, Janice Johnston, sells real estate during the day, but it turns out that she also writes torrid romance stories, under the pseudonym 'IsellItInTX', in her time off."

They put on my photo that they have up on the wall at the office. I had a very nice suit on for that photo, and my hair and makeup were just perfect. I looked pretty good on the TV!

He continued,

"Yesterday evening, in an apparent effort to promote her 'literary' endeavors, Ms. Johnston sent out a mass emailing containing her most recent effort. Her story, which has caused a great outpouring of anger among recipients offended with its X-rated contents, has not only been spread far beyond the original list, but has made its way onto several of the web's most popular sites. This morning,"

They showed a picture of the front of my house, and of the reporter knocking at my door.

"the XDTV news team arrived at Ms. Johnston's house to ask her a few questions regarding this incident. She did not answer the door, and no one appeared to be home. According to well placed sources, Early Runman, the well known District Attorney for Travis County, which includes Austin, is considering indicting Ms. Johnston for disseminating obscene materials over the internet. More at 10:00."

At that last bit, my mouth was hanging open. Indicted? I didn't mean to do it! I was horrified.

Then the anchorman looked at his blond female co-anchor and smiled as she said,

"I have to tell you, John, I read part of that story on-line, and if nothing else, Ms. Johnston needs to learn how to use a spell-checker. She's no Hemingway — run-on sentences all over. Talk about typos! And maybe she should look up 'dangling participles' so that she can avoid them in her writing!" at which they both laughed.

Ha, Ha. She ought to try writing a story herself sometime. It isn't as easy as people think. Bleached blond bitch.

The dinner of dread was upon me — I was going to go face-to-face with my parents. The only good news, as far as I was concerned, was that so far no one had recognized me. Due to my new found notoriety, I was wearing a baseball style hat, and dark sunglasses in a feeble attempt at going incognito. I was not, despite Lorraine's recommendation, going to wear one of my scarves, and look like an old lady on my way to church. I had a pair of jeans and my cross trainers on — if the media types were going to get me, they'd have to catch me, and I can run pretty fast.