They talked of lives and loves, of things funny and sad, they shared a kiss; tender and gentle, deepening quickly to an almost unmanageable passion. Neither were completely new, neither were completely experienced, but their passions deepened and they exchanged words of love - both knowing that a meeting in the real world could never happen, yet both knowing that this was not the first time they had met.
Each time they met, it started the same way, a casual conversation, a sweet word, a gentle affirmation. Then, without warning, a single spark flared in one or the other, the touches became real, they were felt as strongly as if they had been together. Their passions grew with each meeting, their knowledge of each others likes and dislikes became deeper than any real life lover. They talked and wrote, exchanging stories of erotic days and nights, because no fantasy was to small or menial.
Finally, they could hold back no longer and with shaking hands he typed his phone number into the computer. "When?" she typed back. "Now" he replied and she disappeared from his screen.
Panic set in... had he insulted her?
The phone rang, exploding in the quiet.
"Hello," he whispered, afraid to find it wasn't her. Laughter tinkled softly across the lines and he recognized her. She sounded exactly as I imagined when she typed. They talked slowly, each learning about the other, each wanting to continue and neither wanting to move. Their voices became soft, barely a whisper, both knew they were only a word away...
They met back online because they knew that they were unable to continue without crossing the bounds. Of course, they talked of it, and each knew that the next time, it would happen.
They made love many times over the next few months, sometimes online sometimes on the phone. They never knew exactly when it would happen, but a word or a sigh would often start it. Sometimes they openly stated it, or cloaked it in a vague innuendo, but as time progressed, what they shared became more and more intense.
He teased her about mailing him photographs of her - it became a game of wills each trying to guide the other into a corner. Upon exchanging photos, he gained knowledge of what she looked like, seeing her in her lingerie so often that he even had favourite pieces. He knew the colors and the designs. He could picture in his mind the way her fingers looked as they caressed her nipples or gently slipped inside the elastic of her bikini panties. Still he could only imagine. What he really craved was to know exactly what she looked like underneath her clothing.
One day, she called him. Excitement rang out in her laughter and her words pouring out, quick and staccato, like verbal IM's. She was coming to his city.
"Could we meet?" she asked, "After all, we are friends as well as lovers. We should be able to meet and speak face to face just one time..." They needed actually watch each others eyes move. No sex, they agreed, they were just going to look at each other and talk to each other once, in person, so that they could say they had done so.
He went to the registration desk at the hotel and asked for the envelope waiting for him, in it was the key card to her room. His powers of concentration were nonexistent. His mind wandered ahead of him, to the room upstairs. He felt the same familiar stirring that he got every time he signed on and saw her name. Trying to regain himself, he tried to concentrate on the events as they unfolded and not to think of what lay ahead. This was just a casual meeting between friends: no sex, not even kisses.
The elevator crept upwards gaining slowly on her floor. The room was a short walk down the hall. The key card slipped into the slot, and the door swung slowly open. He caught the first faint smells of vanilla, and he knew...
She was sitting on the bed, her arms outstretched behind her, her palms flat on the bed supporting her and revealing the curve of her breasts. Her legs were crossed, the deep purple dress pulled up enough to afford him a long look at her stocking'd legs, ending in high spiked purple heels. A powdery chalk line was drawn down the length of the room, splitting it in half and separating her from him. There was a chair on his side, facing the bed and next to it a night stand and phone. Another phone rested on the bed beside her next to a small cardboard box. This was not at all what he expected. She silently picked up the phone, her fingers flew quickly over the buttons and instantly the phone beside his chair jangled into life.
He jumped when his extension rang; and she laughed in the way he had heard her laugh so many times before. The same stirrings arised in him that he felt every time his phone rang, every time she signed on, every time her read her letters. Snatching the receiver from it's cradle, he put it to his ear, his mouth was dry, voice shaky with anticipation.
"Hello you," she smilingly breathed into the phone.
"Hello back," he replied. Mind racing, he looked her over and thought, 'god this is wonderful, she looks, she sounds, she smells just like I had pictured that would in real life.' He understood fully that the line was more than a chalk line, it was the "Line He Could Not Cross". The sound had been turned off on his receiver, so the voice was coming from her, not it. But she continued to talk into the receiver, just like she had so many times before with him, toying with the phone cord, wrapping it around her fingers and kind of stroking it across her breasts while staring intently at him.
