Author: Ken Beck

He could barely believe what he’d seen on that blog, that “Amy Tells All.” It came to his attention via a search that led from one thing to the next like wildfire. Having arrived at it, he couldn’t retrace his steps. There was no need. Never mind how he found it, he bookmarked it. His eyes first fell on the title “Off Duty Professor,” which seemed to be a pun on ‘off duty policeman.’ He emitted a snort. His eye raced down the page, and there was his own name. John. Who is this woman? Does she know me? He read the page again. And then he read the page again. The little wisp of a poem seemed like nothing at first, but when he tried saying it out loud, it had a rather telling, mordant effect. The fact that she framed it in an imagined dialogue with an older man gave her the opportunity to try to regard her poem as an outsider might. Her imagined interlocutor is given much license to regard her as a woman. It is not, as she presents it, an appropriate teacher student relationship. Or is the line about her being a “lovely woman…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 6, 2012

Julian was futzing with his laptop when he heard Dana get home. Something was wrong with her car, and he could hear her coming from a mile away. He got up and went to greet her. He’d been blogging his ass off, and he needed a break. “Hey, Babe. What’s the news?” Dana hung up her coat, and started shedding her suit in the bathroom. “You’re the news. A blog? You sent your class to look at a blog?” “Sure. What’s wrong with that?” “They seem to think it an outrage over at school.” “Tough titties.” “Perky titties, apparently.” “Great writing. I think.” “She’s what? Twenty five or something?” “Wait a minute. This is too much info floating around. Who spilled the beans?” At this she sat down on the crapper and peed her usual river. “One of the students!” “Which one?” “That I don’t know. Confidentiality.” This word made him uneasy. “You mean there was a complaint.” “Apparently.” “Damn. I’ve got to show you this blog. It’s really well written and confessional.” “All right, show me the blog.” Dana scooched into her slippers and beat it for the booze locker in the kitchen. Julian didn’t always join her. This…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 7, 2012

By now the fire had fizzled, and Dana was swizzled. He looked at Dana Feminita, and discovered that she was weeping. The hoops were off her barrel and she was drunk. Usually, Julian would also be three sheets to the wind, in tandem with his wife. He had discovered that writing drunk was doable, even laudable. He preferred to do it sober, but could swing both ways. There was a tipping point, after which no work got done. On the other hand, sex while drunk was flat out impossible. So much for the received wisdom. Dealing with a drunk wife while drunk was easy; dealing with a drunk wife while sober required nerves of steel. She was weeping, curled up in a ball in her chair, her laptop fallen by the wayside beside the chair. These were things that were never a good sign. His entire survival strategy during these excruciating exchanges involved mostly biting his tongue, saying next to nothing, and not allowing the game to escalate. It was diametrically opposed to his nature, and he often failed at it. Sometimes he died a horrible death. He turned his attention to rebuilding the fire. He more or less knew…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 8, 2012

The next day Julian was over at Blue Ridge teaching Lit 2. He went back to his usual lesson plan and let Amy take the day off. He got an email from Susan Morgenthaler, the Division head, requesting a meeting. He scheduled it with her administrative assistant for the hour after his class ended. In that hour, he obliterated all traces of his old blog, and wrote few bleats on his anonymous new one. He then sauntered down to Susan’s office. Her door was open. He poked a head in. “Hi Susan, are you ready for me?” She shut her laptop and swiveled around in her chair. “Yes, Julian. Shut the door, will you?” Uh-oh. He shut the door. “You wanted to see me about something?” “I did. Thanks for taking the time. Have a seat.” He sat. “It’s come to my attention that you shared with your students a blog.” “I did. Are we not allowed to share blogs with students?” “I have to say, ‘it depends on the blog.’” She ‘had to say.’ “I shared a blog by a woman I thought was writing well, and in a way that might reach the students.” “One of the students…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 11, 2012

On her bed in her house trailer at the trailer park in Stephen City, VA, Monica opened her laptop and looked again at “Amy Tells All.” She read the latest installment about the ‘Book of Demons’ and liked it. She really felt for Amy. She could feel, with her female ear to the ground, and her instinct turned up full blast, the blade at Amy’s throat. She clicked her way, opening Facebook in a new tab, and pasted Amy’s link into status update. “I like this woman a lot. I think she’s amazing. I’m a bit worried for her, tho.” Monica was a Facebook lightweight at 191 friends, but she had several that took a look at “Amy Tells All.” One of these was Jim, her former boyfriend. He’d moved away and now lived in Nebraska. At his kitchen table, he opened his laptop and saw the post about “Amy.” He clicked. He read the one about masturbation. He laughed all the way through it. He thought she was dope. He messaged his friend about her. In her dorm room in Urbana, Linda was on Facebook when she saw a thing about “Amy.” She read some of it and liked…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 12, 2012

Lisa, Christine and Lana were having a fairly wicked conversation at the River City Tavern and Grill. They were dressed down and in a confessional mode. They had also had quite a bit to drink. “Well, girls, that’s about as frank as we’ve ever gotten,” said Lana. “You think? I seem to remember worse. Didn’t we tackle birth control strategies that one time?” Christine remembers these things. She might be the group’s super ego. She keeps some sort of track. “Oh, yeah. I remember that one too,” said Lisa. Lana here was freaking out about a failure of coitus interruptus. We advised her to stock up on condoms, get some sponges, get on the pill. Anything but that.” “Noted. I did it. I’m always packing something. But as we were just, um, beating around the bushes, as I say, Scottie’s gone again and I’m on my ownsome.” “Say, Lana…” “Yes, Lisa?” “I ran into a woman named Jill McCray who has been reading your blog. She asked me to ask you if you wanted to do some guest blogging. She thought you might like to branch out a bit.” “What’s her blog called?” “Oh, it’s sort of a syndicated thing.…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 13, 2012

Lana’s cell phone rang. It was Jill. “Hi, Jill. What up?” “Lana! So glad I caught you!” “Caught me.” “Yes… well, we got your copy, and uh…” “Spit it.” “It’s great, of course, but we think you should leave out the Biblical references. Our readership might be offended by that.” Lana giggled. “Oh, sure. No prob. I’ll do another draft and send it to you within the hour.” “Thank you so much!” “Thank you, so much!” She clambered onto the couch, surrounded by the Tory and Mea. She opened the laptop and typed out a new draft, sans Bible. She copied, pasted, and hit send. Done. Painless. She sat and petted Tory who purred. She reflected upon the fact that when Scott was away, as now, the cats were so much more present and relaxed. She wondered if, beyond merely ignoring them and tossing them off of things, he mistreated them in more blatant ways out of the range of her senses. The equally dark understanding that she herself relaxed and became more present when Scott was away followed this thought. She understood that her marriage was in trouble. She felt her love for her husband evaporating. It was if…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 14, 2012

Julian read the latest installment of “Amy Tells All” as he sat on his couch, drink in hand. He glanced over at Dana, on her couch; furiously typing away on Facebook, drink half finished. His wife’s furrowed brow soon un-creased into a smile. Then, in another beat, she burst out laughing. “What’s so funny, Dana?” “Oh. It’s just this stupid asshole in the gardener’s going on about stuff he does in the winter months to keep from going stir crazy…” Julian didn’t garden. He had a brown thumb, which was kind of a joke between them. He turned back to his laptop, and looked again at the last sentence of Amy’s post. He absentmindedly typed the name ‘Amy Lissa’ into that little Google window on the World Wide Web, and hit return. He had done this countless times before, caught in the web of a compulsion he thought was dubious, not only because it never bore fruit, but also because he questioned its ethics. This time, the search went differently. Now instead of the usual non-relevant Amys and Lissae, there was an entry for “Connections.” He clicked. Lo and behold, there was a familiar picture of the full throttle Amy,…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 17, 2012

Lana got home from shopping in town. She had two more days of Scott-free life. She put her bags down, and flopped on the couch to check her email. There were two, one from a person named Julian Gray, a stranger who’d commented on one of the “Connections” posts, and the other from Lisa, who she’d just seen at a café a few hours ago. She peeked at Lisa first: “Hey sweetness. Have you looked at Facebook lately? You might want to check it out. Amy’s getting quite the like volume. Also, it might be a good idea to get a stat counter on that blog.” Obeying instructions, she aimed her browser at Facebook. Nothing seemed amiss. There was nothing to see. A few messages from old friends and new, but other than that, she had no idea what Lisa was talking about. As luck would have it, nobody, except now for Lisa, had thought to share Amy with Lana. Lana emailed Lisa back, “Nothing out of the ordinary on Facebook. What are you seeing that I’m not seeing?” She then turned her attention to this Gray dude. Oh. My. God. Her god had blessed her with an intelligent, even…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 17, 2012

Lana was expecting Scott back at any moment. She had her computer beside her on the couch, and the cats were nowhere to be seen. They knew something she didn’t. She was testy and furtive about the computer. She yielded to temptation, and opened it. She rubbed its belly and brought it to life. Facebook was quiet, but there was a link from Lisa to a “Fans of Amy Tells All” page. Holy batshit! That seemed crazy to her. Her eyes were wide with a mixture of pride and alarm. She clicked open a new tab, and checked her email. There was a smattering of them, but the one that mattered was from Julian Gray. One of the others also made her heart leap. It was from “Harper’s Magazine.” She looked at that one first. “Dear Lana, We’re emailing to ask if you are the author of a blog called “Amy Tells All.” If so, we’d like to run your piece “The M Word,” edited of course, in the upcoming (March) issue of the magazine in the “Readings” section. We require email confirmation giving us permission to edit and publish. We will of course share our final copy with you…

• by Ken Beck
• Posted on February 18, 2012