And now she waits in the quiet of the room. How was she to know that only a few short years past, she would run into Him in a casual chatroom. And within those few intervening years they would fall in love and make a life together. At first he did not seem to be part of the conversation. Yet she noticed certain traits and patterns that he had. How he hovered at the margins of the conversation and only occasionally tossed in the odd pithy comment or double entendre. Some went unnoticed. Others were so damn funny, or at least they were to her. And yet he was not the same as other men. He did not move into the conversation hard and try to dominate it. Nor did he try to suggest getting to know her better with silly one- liners or even smooth ones for that matter.
At first she took as much notice of him as any other man. Hell, there were enough men around who could give her all the attention she needed. Besides, she enjoyed the conversation with her girlfriends. Sometimes, they were the highlight of her day. She came to find herself looking forward to breaking up her day by popping into the chat room and finding the regular crowd of friends. She loved being a mother, a wife and her own woman. Yet something was missing. And a little distraction was harmless was it not?
But through the weeks she came to enjoy and look forward to another presence within the room. He wasn't obvious. Oh, his timing of showing up there was predictable enough. In fact, it made it easy for her to arrange her time to be there also. And she started to play with him a bit. She responded to his humour; played off his double entendres. And frankly, enjoyed imagining what he was like. Was it an exercise in fantasy she thought? Lord knows how some of the online personas turned out to be completely different when you met the person behind them.
And somewhere along the way, she found herself drawn and challenged. From what she had talked to with her girlfriends, she found that he had not tried to pickup any of them in private messaging. This intrigued her. What was his pattern and motive? Did he simply like to chat with others within the chatroom or was his motivations deeper than that? So, against her own shy nature, she started to lay out subtle comments and innuendos to see if she would respond. She told herself she was simply being playful. But to her surprise, he responded to her hidden innuendos with grey and complex answers full of hidden meanings. Did this mean he wasn't interested? This she could handle. After all, she really wasn't looking for a iaison. Or was she? So time after time she laid out the bait; and found her own self at the end of the hook. Her emotions bounced between frustration and intrigue.
Yet in that too and fro something happened. She found herself learning from him. He offered her glimpses of him one day only to show her something else completely different the very next. Here was a man who could talk philosophically in one breath and be totally primal in the next in his conversation. Yet he did it a abstract way. Sometimes she found she had no idea of where he was going with what he said until hours after reading it, if at all. She felt as if she were a moon being drawn into a tighter and tighter orbit to a planet.
Then one day, something unexpected happened. She propositioned him in a offhand manner and to her surprise he accepted. Now she was caught in the trap of her own making. Or was it? Either she said yes, and that was something that she had convinced herself that she had not been looking for, or she pushed down her anxiety and said yes to him. And she made a decision that seemed as natural as breathing. She wanted to meet him. If anything, just to see who and what he was. And if anything came of it, fine. If not, she lost nothing. And in that moment, the first step on the path was set. Little did she realize it would turn out to be a path that would change her life completely.
So only after a few weeks of banter, he suggested that they meet someplace entertaining and neutral. And after some to and froing, it turned out to be a small jazz club fairly close to her house. It took some doing, but she was able to make excuses at home that she was out with girlfriends. She didn't know what exactly to wear, what was proper or what she would be comfortable in. It had been so long since she had been out on a proper date per say. In the end, she decided that casual was best but with a bit of something lacey and slinky underneath. When she arrived, he was already there sitting at a table in the club near the corner.
He didn't spot her at first; he seemed entranced by the Blues that was being played by the local cover band. She used the opportunity to take a close look at him before he noticed her. Lord knows that she could have turned away at that moment and he wouldn't have even noticed. But, she stayed. Why she really didn't know. He was really quite average looks-wise for a man his age: fairly short, brown hair and eyes, bearded, casually dressed also and with a certain presence about him. Some would call him dark and intense, however, the one word that came to her mind in that moment was *confidant*.
So she moved up behind him, weaving through the tables. What she really wanted to see was whether he would recognize her from the one photo he had seen. Of course, surprising him would be entertaining also. But just as she was about to come up behind him, she saw him smile softly in profile and heard his low voice for the first time. Without turning his head, he simply said hello to her by name and asked her to sit down as he pulled the chair out beside him.
At first she just stood there wondering how he knew it was her. Then he turned his head and stood up to her and leaned into her while putting a hand gently on her shoulder and whispered that he loved her perfume. He had remembered an offhand comment that she had made in the room about her perfume and had known it was her simply from that. So, in a bit of mild confusion, she sat down. And as soon as she did, he leaned into her and taking her chin with the tips of two fingers, raised his mouth to hers and kissed her fully yet gently. Then, he just as quickly released her.
The next thing she knew they were talking about everything and anything. This man seemed to know her. And of course, he did. They had been talking off and on for several months. But she never expected a man to listen, to *hear* her. Oh sure, he looked at her and complimented her on her appearance. But, he honestly held a conversation with her. And the time flew. The next thing she knew dinner was over and they were talking future plans over drinks while enjoying the music. The looked at her watch and realized 3 hours had flown by and she had to go home.
He saw the discrete glance at the watch and said he understood and would walk her out to the car. As he opened the door for her, he touched her shoulder and turned her to him again. As he did so, he clasped one hand in his and slipped an envelope in it as his mouth took hers. It was just a brief kiss, but one full of passion. And with a twinkle in his eye, he told her to get back to him.
A couple of weeks passed and at the time, she hadn't known what to make of the *date*. And lets be honest, that is what it was. At the time she ended up in the parking lot of the restaurant with her hand shaking as she tried to open the envelope after he left in his own vehicle. Inside, she found a piece of paper, with an address, time and date written on it. In addition was as short note that told her it was her choice. She recognized the address as being a quiet B&B fairly convenient to the both of them.
And then it ended up to be two weeks late. It was a difficult choice for her to make about a man who ended up being her husband. But she had made the decision. Afterwards, she had talked to him in the chatroom and had made sure she knew what he expected of her. And she wanted to give to him, had to give to him what he wanted. And after all was said and done, she ended up waiting for him in a romantic B&B waiting for his arrival shaking in anticipation. It could have been from the coolness of the dark room. After all she was wearing her favourite red teddy. There wasn't much to it. She had matching black thigh highs to go with it. She had looked in the mirror and liked what she saw. But, she was still nervous. Would he want her?