i said to the man 'are you trying to tempt me?'

In an attempt to keep the pilot light of our passion blazing while he's traveling, I've been trying to teach my Tool Man the fine, fine art of dirty talk.

Because I have an associates degree in the carnally-infused chit chat, and there's nothing sexier than using it in the sterile world of instant messaging.

Sure.

My husband, bless his delightfully innocent soul, is one of those students who sits in the back of the room and hopes to blend in with the walls so as not to be called upon, so our lessons have been nothing short of challenging.

After a few interesting attempts and a random suggestion that I pretend to be his dominating tutor, I thought we made a breakthrough a couple weeks ago when, after getting settled into his room, my husband called and told me to open up my email because he had sent me a photo. There was glee in his voice when he told me how much I would love it.

"Six inches, honey! I sent you six inches," he exclaimed, waiting for me to fire up my laptop and open my email, which, I'll admit, was difficult because my fingers were literally shaking with glee that the Tool Man had finally jumped on board my lesson plans.

Just as I was beginning to show off my post-graduate dirty talk skills, telling my husband how he was so going to get it good when he got home, up on my email popped a photo of snow.

Six inches of snow.

That was my husband's way of tempering my heat. I gave him a C for effort, and suggested, through his uproarious laughter, that we try again the next evening. Twenty four hours later, a chat window pops up and Tool Man is all big talk with his "You want nasty, baby? Are you alone? Let's get nasty. Now!"

Well, let me just get settled here on the couch and pause this episode of Dirty Jobs I'm watching, baby!

I gave him a little verbal foreplay (Mike Rowe, how you thrill me...), then encouraged him to show me what he'd learned. Up on the screen popped photos of people with facial tumors. Lots and lots of facial tumors.

"Nasty, isn't it, baby?" Tool Man typed between photos. "I know how this kind of Discovery Channel porn gets you hot."

And while I can't deny that fact one little bit, my mad desire for my husband was being tempered with every clip he sent me and I had to finally tell him it was time for us to say goodnight.

"Tomorrow night, honey, be ready for penetration," he said.

"Promise?" I responded.

"It's gonna be hardcore," he taunted.

And it was. The following night he filled my inbox with photos of people who have been impaled by all forms of things OTHER than what I wanted him to be chatting with me about in the dirty talk.

Sexy. Super sexy.

Clearly, I'm looking into some remedial lessons for the man.