I met Joanne in an internet chat room in June of 2003. She was a regular visitor to that room, and had lots of friends there. Although I wasn't a newbie to chat, I hadn't been going to that room. The chat room was really good: lots of very intelligent people having deep discussions. I liked going there a lot.
The highlight of that room for me, though, was Joanne. She had been divorced the year before, and was using chat as a way of socializing and meeting new friends. She had also bought herself a webcam, which she liked to have on while she chatted.
She was 47 - thirteen years older than me - but I didn't care. I thought she was gorgeous. Long, dark hair; sloe eyes; a body that she had kept trim through the years; and a huge smile. She was also one of the sweetest people I had met on chat. Everybody loved her, because she was so kind and pleasant to everyone. She was a real gem.
That's what makes what her husband did so incomprehensible. He treated her badly throughout the marriage, always talking down about her and to her in front of the children, being generally abusive both emotionally and physically. He even once threw her out of the house during the middle of a hurricane, over a minor disagreement. And in the end, it wasn't she who left him; he was the one who filed for divorce. He most likely figured he could walk all over her in the divorce and get everything, but she chose that time to stop being a doormat, and got herself a good lawyer who got her half of everything. By the time the divorce was finalized she was able to buy her own house outright out of her share of the equity in his business. At least her two kids were adults by that time, so things were easier for her and her ex husband, but Joanne was still pretty messed up over the divorce.
Anyhow, when I met her online it was a year after her divorce, and she was really just starting to get her life back together. She had a seasonal job over the fall and winter months - if it can still be called "winter" down in Louisiana. The hours were very long, and there were no days off at all for months at a time, but it allowed her to take several months off work in the summer. She spent her summer months puttering around in her garden and relaxing in the internet chat room.
I got to be pretty good friends with her during that summer, and maintained contact with her through the occasional email during the winter. I was really happy to see her online again the next summer, and was glad to once again spend time with her in chat and looking at her webcam. She never did anything slutty on cam - she always presented herself as a lady, and as a result she was treated as such. By the end of that summer I was just dying to meet her.
As it happened, I was offered a job down in Florida that summer at a small aerospace company. All I had to do was get down there from Alberta. I didn't have a whole lot of money, but I did have a bicycle, which had been my main mode of transportation for years. I thought to myself "I'm 35 now, going to be 36 soon, how many more chances will I have to bicycle across North America?" I bought a bunch of lightweight camping equipment and gear for my bike, strapped it all on, and set out across the continent. After I had gone a couple hundred miles, I stopped at a rest stop, which just happened to have internet access. While I was there, I got in touch with Joanne and mentioned to her that I was going to Florida, and might stop by and visit with her on the way down; it would be only a few hundred miles out of my way. She agreed to meet me.
Well, I tried to anyhow; I made it about 600 miles before I ran out of money. Luckily for me, my mom sent me a bus ticket to come back to the small town where I had grown up. I went home. Shortly after I returned home, I had contacted Joanne and explained what happened. Just my luck, I had a chance to meet this incredible woman and I blew it over a silly dream of cycling across the continent. I got myself a job for six months, until I had enough money to go again, this time on the Greyhound. It might seem funny for a guy who works in aerospace, but I don't like planes. March of 2005 found me living in Florida.
It didn't take me long to start chatting with Joanne again. By this time I was 36 and she was 49. We spent a lot of time talking online, just the two of us. It turns out that she had found herself a boyfriend in the fall of 2004 and dated him for several months, until she found out that he was married. His wife had returned from Germany, and when Joanne found out she dumped him like a hot potato. When she told me this, I thought to myself: here's my chance.
I kept talking with Joanne online, several nights a week, when I could. My company got a big contract from the US Navy soon after I arrived, and I ended up putting in a lot of long hours at work, including a couple of hundred-hour weeks toward the end of the contract in July. After that, I deserved a break. I started talking more seriously with Joanne, trying to get her to agree to a date with me. I can be very charming when I want to be, and by mid-August she finally agreed to go out with me. She was very nervous, even afraid, about meeting me. Of course, being a lady, she told me that there was going to be no sex involved: "Don't go getting any funny ideas, mister!"
I didn't care. I just wanted to spend time with this woman. I think I was starting to fall in love with her.
She was very worried about this meeting. I remember that she told me "Please, please don't beat me or rob me or rape me." She had been through so much pain at the hands of men already. I assured her that I would not do anything untoward, that she would be safe with me. It was an easy promise to make, as I think of myself as a gentleman and act accordingly.
So, I agreed that I would get a hotel room in Lafayette and that she would come pick me up - and drop me off - there. I booked the room and my Greyhound tickets and got ready for my trip to finally - finally! - meet her at the end of August.
And then, all hell broke loose. Hell in this case was hurricane Katrina. With the I-10 washed out and New Orleans underwater, there was no way I could get to Lafayette. We decided to postpone my trip by a week, and I made the arrangements with the hotel and with Greyhound to do just that. By the middle of the next week, Greyhound had re-opened its route from Florida to central Louisiana, bypassing New Orleans. I told Joanne I was on my way and hopped on the first available bus.
Of course, Katrina wasn't done with messing up people's lives by then. The bus trip was kind of crazy, particularly once I got into Louisiana. The buses were all packed, people moving whatever they had managed to carry with them out of their doomed houses, spreading themselves out all over the state. The traffic in Baton Rouge was a nightmare. By some miracle, though, I managed to finally get to Lafayette. I only had a couple of carry-ons with me, and the hotel was only a couple of miles away, and it was a nice sunny afternoon, so I figured what the hell and I walked.
So, I got to the hotel and tried to claim my room. That is, I didn't succeed. It seems that while I was on the bus, the hotel had contacted the travel agency and told them they were canceling my room so that they could give it to someone that had been displaced by the hurricane. I stood there with a stupid look on my face for a few minutes, trying to figure out what to do. Finally, I called Joanne and told her what happened.
Did I mention that Joanne is a sweetheart? She figured that since I had come all this way and since my reservation at the hotel had been cancelled without my knowledge, well, she guessed it would be ok if I stayed in her spare bedroom for the couple of nights that I was in Louisiana. She came and picked me up.
God, she was even more beautiful in person. She was wearing a black dress with a print of pink flowers all over it, and it hugged her curves in all the right places. She had her hair tied back in a ponytail (which is, as far as I am concerned, the sexiest hairstyle a woman can have). She looked positively scrumptious. We got into her truck, and kind of jokingly shook each other's hands, still trying to treat each other formally, as strangers. I kissed her hand, and was rewarded with the cutest blush.
We headed back to her place, getting comfortable with the idea of actually seeing each other in person. Having known each other over the net for two years, it didn't take long for the nervousness to disappear, and we were soon laughing and chatting like two old friends, which I guess we kind of were. A half hour after she picked me up at the hotel we were walking into her house through the attached garage.
She showed me around the house a bit, and showed me the spare bedroom where I would be sleeping. I put my stuff down on the bed, and turned to talk to her. "Joanne, I was hoping to do this at the hotel before I met you in person, but I've got to do it now." She looked at me nervously, waiting for me to continue. "I just spent eighteen hours on the bus, and I stink. Where's the shower?"
She laughed, and looked relieved. She showed me where the bathroom was, and some towels, and said that she'd have some coffee on when I got out of the shower. I took a change of clothes and my shaving kit into the bathroom, and had a quick shower, shaved, and brushed my teeth. What a difference 20 minutes and hot water made; I felt like a new man. I got dressed and went to the kitchen.
There she was, with her back to me, standing at the sink washing a couple of cups while the coffee perked. "The coffee will be ready in just a few minutes," she said, smiling at me.