After sixteen hours on the bus, I arrived in Tulsa, Oklahoma just before noon on a hot July day. I had come all the way from Maine. I flew into Chicago and then took the long bus ride to Tulsa, wanting to experience Route 66. After almost a year of meeting Charlie, my on-line lover in cyber space, I wanted to surprise her—a daring act in itself as fear of what a disaster this might be swept over me. What would she think when she realized who I was? Would she be disappointed? Disillusioned? Alarmed? Would I? Would she be what I fantasized after months of visualizing her?
I found out that there were no buses from Tulsa to Jarvis, where she lived, so I decided to hitch a ride rather than rent a car. I stood out on the highway for about ten minutes, my small back pack on my shoulder and within ten minutes got a ride with an old geezer in a rusted old Dodge truck, wearing a cowboy hat. He had white stubble on his chin and looked to be about my age.
When I told him I just came from Maine and was heading for Jarvis, he looked at me, "Why that dinky town?"
"Don't laugh," I said. "But I'm looking for a woman I met on the internet."
"No shit," he said, looking at me. "She must pretty damn hot for you to come all this way," he said. "And I bet she's a lot younger than you-- ain't she?" he laughed.
"Yes, but so what? Age is just a number," I added.
"Guess so," he said, glancing at me, "but I hope your pecker holds up," he laughed.
We drove for quite awhile talking about this and that and then I must have dozed off. When I woke up and looked around I saw the road sign that said Jarvis five miles.
"Won't be long," the old guy said, smiling at me. "Hope you find her."
"Me, too," I answered.
I saw the sign, "Entering Jarvis." We drove past a gas station convenience store and into the middle of town.
"You can drop me off here in front of the hardware store," I said, pointing to it.
He pulled over to the curb and I grabbed my back pack and hopped out.
"Thanks for the lift," I said.
"No problem," he responded, saluting me with his hand at the edge of his cowboy hat. "Good luck with your lady," he said and smiled, then shook his head. "You're going to need it," and then he laughed.
When I got out of the truck, he took off and I looked around. I stood on the sidewalk in the glaring sun, not sure which way to go to find the community center where I knew she worked. I didn't even know if she would be there and whether I would recognize her. What would I do if she wasn't there since I didn't have her phone number and had no idea where she lived? I took a chance, but then, what is life if you don't take chances.
While standing there, uncertain which way to go, I saw two men sitting on a bench outside the hardware store, unshaven, smoking and looking out at the pick-up trucks and dusty cars driving by. One wore a cowboy hat, the other a green baseball cap pulled low over his eyes.
"Excuse me, can you tell me where the Community Center is?" I asked walking closer to the bench. The man with the cowboy hat looked up, the cigarette dangling from his lip and pointed down the street with his thumb, "Two blocks down—other side. Can't miss it." The other man glanced up at me then took a drag on his cigarette, looked away and sent a wad of spit to the curb.
"Thanks," I said, nodding and headed in that direction. I passed a drug store, a small coffee shop, the post office and then saw the sign of the community center on the other side. I crossed the street and stood in front of the building, looking at the door and suddenly felt my throat tighten. I saw a black pick up truck with oversized tires parked nearby and wondered if that was Charlie's. I remembered her telling me that's what she drove.
I gripped my back pack tighter as I stared at the door, feeling self-conscious. "Would she think I look like an old man?" I muttered to myself. I was thirty-some years older than Charlie, though inside I felt youthful. On-line, age didn't seem to matter, but now she would see my shaggy gray hair and beard, my wrinkles, my little belly. This was a different reality as opposed to the imagined.
I took a deep breath and walked up to the door. I put my hand on the knob, hesitating before entering. I glanced at myself in the glass of the door and saw my reflection. I took another deep breath and shook my head.
"What am I doing here?" I thought then opened the door. "Well, here goes--what ever will be, will be."
I had a mental picture of Charlie-- brownish blond hair, a pony tail, blue eyes, dimples when she smiled. I knew she always wore jeans and a tee shirt, remnants of her tom-boy days. In my imagination, she was beautiful with smooth fair skin, long legs, tight jeans, her tits—"a good hand full," she said. In bed she wore a white satin nightie that came halfway down her thighs.
When I entered, closing the door behind me, I stood in a large entrance way and looked around, hoping I would see someone that I thought resembled Charlie. I noticed a gym with a stage at one end, several small offices on the other side and a conference room with a large table and chairs around it.
And then I saw her coming out of an office with several folders in her hand. I knew it was Charlie when I saw the blond pony tail, the jeans and tee shirt. She looked exactly as I pictured her. My heart leaped and then I wondered again if I was insane to come all this way, unannounced to surprise her. Here was the "moment of decision and revision which a moment could reverse" as a line from T.S. Eliot went through my mind.
In our months of almost daily meetings, I felt I knew Charlie and she valued, I know, the time I took to know her, asking probing questions, letting her know that though we agreed initially to be on line "fuck buddies" I cared about her and our relationship gradually grew and evolved to a deeper level. We became on-line lovers who actually loved each other, at least to the degree that you can in a cyber relationship. Both of us accepted the limitations, the sense of it being real and unreal at the same time and we came to treasure it.
But now, we were about to enter the face to face reality. I swallowed and shook my head in disbelief that this meeting was actually happening. I watched her walk towards another office with several folders in her hand. She glanced over at me then turned away and disappeared into the other office. I was not surprised that she didn't continue looking at me, a stranger, because I knew how painfully shy she was. For whatever reason, she kept herself protected and private which prevented people from getting to know her. However, in the safety of the internet, she allowed her passionate sexuality to be unleashed in quick fucking sessions that were basically anonymous one night stands. She liked it rough and wild and that's what happened when we first met, except I wouldn't let her go and we began meeting frequently. Our relationship grew into what made me eventually want to come find her in real life.
I was uncertain how to approach her and have her realize who I was. It was going to be a challenge but I was eager to enter into this game of slowly revealing myself and hopefully seducing her at the same time.
As soon as she came out of the office to return to her own, I walked over to her. She looked at me and stiffened.
"Excuse me, miss," I said. "I just arrived in town and wondered if there was a motel around here."
"A motel?" she repeated and I could feel how tense she was as she looked at me."Well, there's a motel just outside of town about five miles from here."
That was the first time I heard her voice. Her Oklahoma twang made me chuckle to my self as the difference in this reality and the reality of reading her words on-line sunk in. She didn't write with an Oklahoma twang.
"Five miles," I repeated, "that far." I paused a moment. "Well, I just came here on the bus from Maine."
"Maine!" she repeated, "Wow! I know someone in Maine."
I had hoped mentioning Maine would trigger this response.
"You do!" I responded. "Do you know where in Maine?" I asked.
"I'm not sure but I know it's on the coast. He lives in a cabin in the woods and off the grid."
