A while back I asked the people on my mailing list to have a look at a rather more sensual story and the feedback was wow, yes, and I should do more. I like writing it, and it seems I’m good at writing it, but problem, I have a quiet life: just me, my computer, and my imaginary friends. How to jumpstart the imagination and expand my experience? Getting out there for real can take ages and carries a serious risk factor. And it turns out there really is a limit to the kind of questions you can ask people (what turns you on, what makes you hot) without setting up potentially embarrassing expectations. Oops.

Except, of course, on dating websites. Been there, done that, for Five Six, but I remembered the many approaches I had primly ignored and blocked while on the website. What if I responded? I signed up on a free website (not looking for quality, just quantity) and was honest about my age and said I was a writer who liked to talk about sex. I put up a photo that was me but also not very like me (in view of the conversations I hoped to be having, I really did not want to be recognized and hailed in public as Gloria*) and waited patiently in a corner of my web and the first juicy fly buzzed by in less than an hour. Increasingly steamy messages whizzed back and forth and it was even quite fun. I did eventually have to block him after two days as he kept wistfully kissing my cyber shoulders, and sending me cyber flowers, because he wasn’t very imaginative and an hour is an hour, time is money, been there, done that, so many men, so little time. Thanks for the memories but time to move on. (And he was fixated on panties, which is a word I happen to hate. Sorry, guy. Knickers or nothing. You are the weakest link, goodbye.)

Free websites are weird. There’s a woman who wants us to exchange photos of our boobs by email. Aye, that’ll be right. One retired bloke keeps messaging that he wants to MARRY ME (stop shouting!) and take me to his villa in Spain where I can WRITE to my heart’s content while he LOOKS AFTER ME. Anyone interested, let me know, he seems loud but genuine. A surprising number of younger blokes are desperate to learn from a mature woman who talks back. Their technique was all swearies and no-one under forty seems able to spell, so between spelling errors and the website’s auto censor (more st*rs than *ctual vow*ls) they were quite hard to read. They are learning, but it is older men who have the imagination and range.

I have had virtual flings with, gosh, a dozen men? (yes, website bicycle of note) (quiet pride) and some of them are pretty sick men, you know? Yes, Domdaddy, I’m looking at you. How you reached 60 years old without being locked up I have no idea. There’s nothing Gloria* won’t consider but she does draw the line at encouraging anyone to think their desires have any place in a normal world. Slut, yes, but a slut with standards. She has been sent more fervent cyber flowers and had more partners wanting repeats than seems possible, sometimes they are back in hours.

Reading erotica and porn is, of course, tingly, which is why people do it. I struck pay dirt, (hell, the mother lode) with Irish Paddy*, who is 50. He was on the website looking for a sensual partner for intimate encounters, and I messaged him on the off-chance. Paddy* has a lyrical imagination, is a fluent typist, and gets totally involved in the moment. He eventually switched me (as Gloria*) onto ooVoo as the st*rs were getting us down and as George Takei says, oh myyyyy. I am in writer heaven: an appreciative and interactive reader who is not only totally in synch but has suggestions and developments of his own. Talk about tingly. When ooVoo jumps to life, so do I. Who knew research could be such fun?

So that’s the word on messaging sex. Don’t ever start into anything on Skype or elsewhere under your own identity, no matter how harmless the first approach, because there are some sick puppies out there. But oh myyyyyy…

In the meantime, I—oops. There goes ooVoo—must go.

*not really. Names have been changed to protect the louche.