Forward: An Erotic Email Dare

By Ada Stone

The year is 2003. One of the thousands of chain emails circulated during that year dares committed couples to create their own erotic adventure. The purpose: to rock long-term relationships out of their stereotypical sensual ruts. The directive: to measure up to, if not exceed, the creativity of the email’s past recipients, who have added their stories to the message before forwarding. As the chain stretches through cyberspace, it inspires a series of adventures from handyperson roleplay to time-crunched workplace fun. Along the way, each participating couple discovers the power of their own ingenuity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Shorts
• Release date: Jul 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781094412436

Ada Stone

Ada Stone is a queer and trans book-obsessed human from the Pacific Northwest, where they live now. They love spending quiet time among trees and mountains, listening to their favorite albums on repeat, and receiving “your holds are ready for pickup” alerts from the library.

Book preview

Part One: Chosen 1’s

Anna peers over at her partner. You done with the sports section yet?

Almost, Dan murmurs, holding the page in front of their face so all Anna can see is a photo of Serena Williams hoisting a large silver trophy.

Look at us, fighting over the sports section! Who have we become?

Someday we aren’t going to have Serena and Venus to read about and then we can return to our regular ways, Dan says, finally closing the pages. But today is not that day. I’ve always been a Serena fan, but now that she’s beat her sister four times in a row … I don’t know. I might think about changing allegiance.

So you’re just a bad-weather fan? Like the opposite of a fair-weather fan? Anna teases.

Maybe you could say that, Dan answers. I just want both of them to get the recognition they deserve, you know?

Jeez, don’t I know they deserve it. Two black women making it in tennis of all sports. I remember the one time I went with my white friend to the tennis summer camp at a club in our neighborhood, Anna recalls, glancing over at Serena’s smiling face on the front page. I think I was like, twelve. We were both terrible because neither of us had ever played but I got placed with a bunch of younger kids who were way less coordinated. It was so embarrassing. I never went back.

I remember hearing that story, Dan sighs, sipping their coffee. It’s messed up. We couldn’t so much as sniff a tennis club from my neighborhood. And maybe that’s for the best.

Hey, you know what? We should drive over to the Racquet Club later, Anna suggests.

That had better be a joke, Dan retorts, hesitantly glancing over the Politics section front page. Anyway, I know you would never drive in this snow. They gesture out the window at the dense cascade of flakes. Anna ignores them, her eyes glued to the page.

A few minutes later, Anna sets the sports section aside and stands. Grabbing her empty mug, she walks to the kitchen and sets it in the dishwasher. I’m gonna go to the study and check our email, she calls out.

Let me know if you find any interesting spam. I’ll be thinking about what I’m going to make us for lunch Dan replies, stretching their arms above their head.

Anna sits down at the desk and switches on the floor lamp. She clicks through the prompts to cue the dial-up and sits back as the analog whir fills the room. She should ask Dan to make grilled cheese for lunch. Hopefully they have tomato soup in the pantry. The AOL homepage flashes onto the screen, bringing Anna’s attention back to the task at hand. She logs into [e-mail] and scans the inbox. A collection of random promotional messages fill most of the screen: everything from a request for plasma donors to a promise to help you find an exotic wife. Anna selects these messages and clicks delete.

There’s also something new from her college roommate, McKenzie, whom she hasn’t heard from since… maybe all the way back to last summer. The subject line is just hey. Anna opens the email. It starts with a few sentences about McKenzie’s new job at an advertising firm in downtown Toronto. Then the news that she and her partner adopted a Chihuahua. It’s only in the penultimate paragraph that she announces that she and her partner have gotten engaged. Wow, that’s some high level burying of the lead, Anna thinks.

Hey, Dan, Anna yells. Guess who got engaged?

Umm, McKenzie? they call back.

Wait, how did you know? she asks, suspicious.

Oh, wait, I was right? Dan’s voice is getting closer. Anna hears their familiar socked shuffle on the wood floor of the hall.

What should I say back? She asked how we are.

Hmm, Dan now stands in the doorway, arms crossed. Well, we did go to Niagara Falls in October for our anniversary. You could write about that.

But that’s pretty much next door to Toronto and we didn’t even ask about visiting her.

Good point, Dan admits. Maybe leave that out. We hosted your parents for the holidays. That’s something.

Oh yeah, the good ol’ holidays. I could come up with a cute little story about that. Start with a congratulatory paragraph gushing over her engagement, and I’ll be good to go. Anna’s expert fingers begin clacking across the keyboard and Dan heads back out into the kitchen. In just a few minutes, Anna has produced a succinct yet friendly message. Dan, come read this over for me!

Their shuffle whispers through the halls again. Dan enters the room and, placing a hand on Anna’s shoulder, peers at the screen. She can physically feel Dan’s focus, their professional editor gears turning. You need a comma here, and here, they point. And this would read better with em dashes instead of parentheses. But other than that, looks great, they deem, standing up straight. It’s almost like you write for a living or something.

Excellent, Anna says, making the changes. Now I can truly sign it from both of us. She types their names then clicks send. Backing out to the inbox, Anna finds only one final unread message. Oh, look, how kind of Josie to send us yet another chain email!