Her name was Ellen, and in her profile she described herself as being 37 years old, skinny, with brown hair and eyes, and an insatiable appetite for sex. Being a horny 20 year old male away at college, and desperate for female friends not of my own age, I began chatting with Ellen on an online chat room set up for "lonely hearts." What could be the harm, I thought to myself. Oh how wrong I was.
It all started innocently enough. The first few nights we exchanged pleasantries, and E-mail addresses, and eventually I revealed to her my name and where I lived. Ultimately, that proved to be a big mistake.
The chats starting getting more and more erotic, and eventually I became uncomfortable with Ellen's aggressiveness. Whereas I wanted to chat about my day, Ellen wanted to chat about how she wished she was there so she could "fuck my brains out." This lady is weirding me out, I thought to myself. So I did what most would do in that situation - I stopped chatting on that website and "cooled my heels" a bit until this female psycho moved on to her next subject. Little did I know, however, that by avoiding the situation only made Ellen more obsessed with me.
Then the E-mails started. At first they were cordial and were the standard "missing you in the chatroom" stuff. Then they became more aggressive, and the fact that I didn't reply to any of her messages only made her blood boil. It wasn't unusual to get home from a hard day at classes, log on and check my inbox, and see 20 messages - all from her! She accused me, among other things, of playing "hard to get" and being a "pussy tease." One particularly cryptic message read as follows:
"Listen up you little cocksucker. I know you're avoiding me, and Ellen doesn't like to be avoided. If you don't reply to this message, and soon, I'm going to show up at your door one day and gut you like the pig that you are."
As chilling as this message was, I still assumed Ellen would eventually tire of her game and get on with her life. She lived a good 2,000 miles away, I thought to myself. I was in no danger. But knowing that I lived alone in an off-campus apartment with few friends only added to my trepidation.
I then began receiving prank phone calls late at night. There would be heavy breathing, and then the line would go silent. I must admit that although the possibility I was being stalked frightened me to no end, the idea of that danger also added an element of eroticism. Each night after making sure my 2 windows were securely latched and my deadbolt was locked, I would masturbate under my sheets at the mere thought of a female sexual predator stalking me.
One night after returning from classes there was a knock on my door. Jeff, the only tenant in the building that I even remotely knew, told me there had been a woman looking for me earlier in the day.
"Who was it?" I asked, my breathing intensified.