have to agree to remove their clothes on-screen to win roles. I know it’s sexist, but I always imagined women who had these jobs as airheaded blondes with exquisite bodies but common faces who spent their days at the spa working on their legs and abs or at their plastic surgeon’s getting their boobs reinflated. I have never seen Eleanor Markham’s face-her mystery novels carry no jacket photos-but everything I have learned about her confirms an opposite truth. When Eleanor is not exposing her derriere or breasts or whatever for the camera, she is sitting in her Santa Monica beach house writing very literate, wry whodunits or talking to anonymous friends via her computer.
Her explanation for these seemingly contradictory lifestyles is that she has a sister who is confined to a wheelchair for life by spinal injuries received in a traffic accident. Eleanor feels her sacred duty is to take care of this sister as her parents would have, were they still alive. I cannot fault her reasoning.
All that said, let me confess the obvious: Eleanor Rigby is my on-line lover. My digital squeeze. What do I know about her other than what I’ve already revealed? She is thirty years old. She has never had plastic surgery. She describes her face not as plain but as “real”-more Audrey Hepburn than Michelle Pfeiffer, but not as ethereal as Audrey. She has a wit like a razor and she is uniquely gifted at describing sex in words.
She is also generous. Eleanor knows that two-way conversations are fine for foreplay but that typing requires the use of at least one hand. Thus, when she is getting me off, she is quite willing to type endless lines of charged erotica until the moment that I signal her with a relieved and heartfelt banality such as:
I return the favor in a different way.
Eleanor does not usually stimulate herself while on-line. She prefers that I compose lengthy e-mail messages that she can print out and peruse free from any constraints on time or dexterity. I’m sure the proximity of her disabled sister has something to do with this. This is also why Eleanor is registered to EROS on a blind-draft account. She apparently reads many of my printed messages while locked in the bath.
Tonight I query her the moment I log on. Eleanor frequently lurks in silence, eavesdropping on the conversations of others (searching for material for her novels, she tells me) and so is often present when I send out my usual query. I type:
HARPER› Father MacKenzie calling.
Eleanor is the only EROS client with whom I use my real name. There is a delay of thirty seconds or so, then:
ELEANOR RIGBY› Hello, Harper dear. What are you in the mood for?
HARPER› I need to talk to you.
ELEANOR RIGBY› Talk as in _talk_? ‹g›
(The ‹g› symbol stands for “grin.” The lines preceding and following a word indicate emphasis, in place of italics.)
HARPER› Yes, just talk. Meet me in Room 64.
ELEANOR RIGBY› Hmm. I guess the little woman talked you into it this week, eh?
Yes, like a corporeal mistress, Eleanor knows my marital situation. Some of it, anyway. With a twinge of guilt I mouse into the private room designated Room 64 and type:
HARPER› No present erection, thank you.
ELEANOR RIGBY› Too bad. Should I sharpen up my pencil?
HARPER› No. This is serious.
ELEANOR RIGBY› How ominous. Is this a Dear John letter?
HARPER› No.
ELEANOR RIGBY› Well, then?
HARPER› You must keep what I am about to tell you absolutely between us.
ELEANOR RIGBY› My lips are sealed. And if you make a horrid male pun I shall disconnect.
HARPER› You’re in danger, Eleanor.
She doesn’t respond for several beats.
ELEANOR RIGBY› What kind of danger?
HARPER› Physical danger. There’s been
I am typing, but suddenly nothing is going through to Eleanor. I stare at the screen in puzzlement until this message appears in large block letters:
SHAME ON YOU, SNITCH
My puzzlement turns to fury. This message can only be from Miles, and its sudden insertion into my private chat with Eleanor tells me something that makes my blood boil.
SORRY TO INTRUDE
BUT WE CAN’T HAVE YOU
SCARING THE PAYING CUSTOMERS
LOOSE CANNON AND ALL THAT
PLEASE FIND SOME OTHER WAY TO GET
ELEANOR
OFF THE NET
IF YOU MUST
CIAO
The next words that appear are:
ELEANOR RIGBY› What just happened?
She must not have seen Miles’s message. I type:
HARPER› A glitch in my modem.
What now? Do I ignore Miles? Go ahead and warn Eleanor and a few others? My anger says yes. But what will be the result? A network-wide panic, probably. Eleanor and I are very close, but she has a writer’s imagination and love of drama. Could she really keep secret the possibility that there is a murderer stalking the female clients of EROS?
ELEANOR RIGBY› You said I was in danger. Physical danger. What were you talking about?
HARPER› You misunderstood. That was the start of a fantasy file I wrote for you this morning. It was sort of a Mata Hari thing, spies and sex, with you in the lead role.
ELEANOR RIGBY› Well if that’s the case, send it through!
HARPER› My modem’s on the blink. Pretty embarrassing for the sysop, isn’t it? I’ll have it fixed by tomorrow. I’ll put the file through then. Sorry to interrupt you for nothing.
ELEANOR RIGBY› Wait, Harper. I hate to confess this, but knowing you don’t need me right now makes me need you. Could you possibly conjure up some stimulating prose for a lonely 30-year-old spinster with an itch?
HARPER› You mean realtime?
ELEANOR RIGBY› Yes.
HARPER› Unusual for you. How stimulating?
ELEANOR RIGBY› My sister is at a film with her one friend. I have the house all to my selfish self. Please make it hot enough for an on-line conclusion; i.e. once we get to the good stuff, please don’t stop until I signal with a shriek of ecstasy.
I pause, trying to rein in my thoughts. I honestly don’t feel like this tonight. Especially after Drewe and I had our actual-reality interlude in the Explorer. But Eleanor has done me this favor many nights.
HARPER› Romantic or dangerous?
ELEANOR RIGBY› Romantic _and_ dangerous.
HARPER› All right. We are finally meeting face to face. Seeing each other for the first time.
ELEANOR RIGBY› Where?
HARPER› The Peabody Hotel. Memphis, Tennessee. We’re in the lobby, a huge open room with a bar and a grand piano and ducks and tons of atmosphere.
