Yes, these are true events.

Thank you all for the messages.

So anyway.
Melissa.
If you've read "Chapter 1", then you might start to understand what I was talking about when I said "falling in love, hard."
A month after we met for the first time, I signed up for a cell phone with unlimited long distance, and sent it to her.
And from then on, we were never out of contact for more than a few hours.
On weekends, while her husband was at work, she would call me. We woke up together, drank coffee together, listened to the same radio station all day long (I streamed a station from her city).
And we planned our next meeting.
Once a month, we would meet in her hometown.
And every time was magical.
We spent our days together exploring her hometown; she showed me her first house in the country, took me to her favorite restaurants, her favorite park, the museum where she had first discovered her desire to draw. One time, I rented a fancy car, dressed in my best suit and tie which I had brought along without telling her, and I took her out to dinner at the best restaurant in a hundred miles. I even had reservations. And she looked stunning. I still have the card from the restaurant, and I still find myself looking at it, and remembering how happy we were.
And at night, we spent hours making love, and touching, kissing, massaging, exploring.
We fell asleep in each others arms, and woke up with our hands touching and caressing each other.
We gave each other gifts. Plants, music, small things we could hold onto to remember the way we felt.
And one time, she gave me her first full-size drawing from her art class. She had drawn it on a night when I had been there for her when she had had a very sad, depressing day. And after the class, she called me so full of laughter and smiles that I nearly cried tears of joy after wondering how she was for those long hours. She gave me that picture as a gift, and it is still hanging on my wall. And I still smile when I see it, because i remember how happy it had made her. And she knew that. That's why she gave it to me... to make me smile at the memory.

After a few months of our routine, she went with her family on vacation. I didn't speak to her for a week.

And that was also the first month we didn't meet.

And I missed her.
No, that's not quite right.
I *ached* for her.

When she called me after they returned, she could tell there was something in my voice... a longing, a loneliness.
"Oh, honey. I'm so sorry."
She asked me what was wrong, and what she could do to make it better.
And the week of despair and loneliness and aching overcame me, and I began to cry. "Come to me and never leave" I said through my sobs.
She cried with me and for my emptiness.

The following morning, she called me and was completely solemn. "I want you to find a nice girl. You need someone to be with you. Someone who can make you happy all the time."
"No, Melissa. You fill my life with so much; I could never invite another woman into my life."
That was the first of a long string of conversations we had on the subject. Melissa was feeling guilty because of our arrangement. She was going home every night to a family... her husband and three teenage children. And I was going home every night to a small, lonely apartment. And she felt responsible for what my life had become... an endless series of evenings spent waiting for her to call. An endless series of days spent waiting for her to be able to arrange to be away for a weekend so we could meet.
An endless series.

Melissa's desire for me to have a companion that could be with me every day, grew over the months. And even though we both had found a relationship that was perfect on every level, she wanted me to have something more. Something that she could not give me.
Permanence.
And it drove a blade into my heart when I started to realize that she was right.
If I was ever going to have a life that made me truly happy... it would have to be without Melissa.
And the thought of that made me sick.
I could not begin to imagine a life that did not include her, a life that would never have the kind of love that we had for each other.
And the thought of ever being without her consumed me, and I swore to her that I would never leave her for anyone else.

A friend's birthday arrived. Julia, the better half of a married couple I was friends with, was celebrating another year.
I got her a bottle of massage oil, and laughingly told her that her husband better use it so often that I would have to get her another bottle every month.
I didn't tell Melissa.
I didn't tell her, because the massage oil I got for Julia was the same oil I used on Melissa when we were together. Instead, I told her I had gotten Julia a set of wind chimes.

Julia called me the following day to thank me for the present, and said that she wanted to bring me a plant for my apartment.
I gave her directions, and gave her the grand tour. She took a taste of the Mahi-Mahi I had made myself for dinner, and made considerable yummy noises.
"Oh my GOD! That is really good! You have GOT to make me dinner some time!"
I laughed. Jokingly, I said "Sure, Julia. How about tomorrow?"
Julia stopped laughing, and in a serious voice, said "Then I'll see you tomorrow" and then she left without another word.

Melissa called moments later, and I told her what had happened.
She took a slow deep breath, and told me "Well that's good. I really think you will have a good time. I'm glad for you."

The following day was awkward for me. I had made up my mind to call Julia and tell her not to come over. It was just not something that I was comfortable with.
I told Melissa. "I don't want another woman in my apartment, and that's final."
"Dammit!" she shouted, "You listen to me right now. You are not going to do this to me. I feel so gad damned guilty when I think of you sitting there all alone night after night, waiting for me to call. You have put your life on hold for me, and I refuse to just sit here and watch you surround yourself with solitude. I love you too much to let you throw away your life for me. You are going to make dinner for her, and you are going to make her feel welcomed. If you tell her not to come over, then we are through!" She hung up on me.
By the time I got home, my hands were shaking and my lips were trembling. Melissa had refused to answer my calls the entire day. Once when I called, I reached a friend of hers that i had spoken with briefly over the year that Melissa and I had been together. "I don't know what you two fought about, but she doesn't want to talk to you. She's been crying all day."
I numbly went into my apartment and started dinner. I couldn't focus or concentrate, and I'm pretty sure I made the worst marinara sauce in the history of pasta.
My nerves were shot, my pulse was racing, and I had trouble keeping my hands steady.

Julia arrived right on schedule, with a bottle of wine and a smile. In the five years I had known her, I had never seen her smile like that. She tookk off her coat, and handed me the bottle of massage oil. "It was a nice thought, but he hasn't laid a hand on me in almost a year. It would just gather dust on a shelf. But thank you for the thought."

And then the phone rang.
The caller ID showed It was Melissa. Oh my God, she's trying to ruin the evening!
"Just a second, Julia. I'll be right back."
I took the phone into the bedroom.
I answered it on the third ring. "This is not a good time for you to be calling me!" I hissed.
Icy venom dripped from the receiver when Melissa spoke.
"Well fine. I called to tell you to have a good time. But I guess since you feel like barking at me like I'm just some obstacle in your day, then you can just FUCK OFF!" click.

That was the first time she had used that tone, and that language with me.
I had to call her back. Right then. I simply HAD to.
I had to make it right again. I simply could not suddenly be in a life where Melissa was upset with me.
As I walked out of the bedroom, the harshness of Melissa's words, the hurt and anger in her voice consumed me. My eyes filled with tears, and I could barely whisper as I said "Julia, I think I need to be alone right now. I'm sorry."
She looked at the tears in my eyes, and heard the trembling in my voice, and said "It looks like you really need a hug."
I dropped the phone when she put her arms around me, and started crying openly. "I just feel so alone" I whispered. And at that moment, I knew that Melissa was right, that I needed someone in my life who could be there for me all of the time.
Julia held me tight and rubbed my back, saying "shhhhhhhhh" over and over.
She leaned her head up slowly, and looked in my eyes and said it again, quietly, as she leaned very close to me.
"shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"
Our lips met, and what started out as a long slow kiss rapidly became a powerful hunger that drove us both into a hot, wet, sweaty make-out session in the middle of the kitchen.
Our hands were suddenly all over ourselves... touching, rubbing, caressing, squeezing...
"Oh Jesus" said Julia as I turned her toward the wall and began kissing the back of her neck. "I've always wanted to do it against the wall."
She turned to me and led me to the bedroom.
We fell onto the bed and began pulling at each other's clothes.
Withing minutes, we were almost completely nude in the dark.
I ran my hands and mouth all over her body, her nipple swelled in my mouth as she sucked my fingers.
For three hours we laid on that bed and invoked a passion and a hunger that had lain dormant for far too long.
We did not make love. We could not cross that line and we both knew it. But that line became very blurry with the things we did that night.
I went down on her, plunging my tongue deep inside her, then began rhythmically sucking her clit in and out of my mouth while I stroked her G-spot with my middle two fingers.
Three times, she climaxed with an explosion of pure release that xxxxxx a sound from her mouth that was unmistakably a cry of sheer pleasure.
And suddenly, when she realized she had been in bed with me for so long, Julia got up and began getting dressed. "I have to go right now. Oh my god he is going to be so mad."
She threw her clothes on and walked quickly to the door. "I'll call you tomorrow. Bye!"
And then she was gone.

I fell asleep that night with a roaring torrent of thoughts and emotions raging through my head.
And tomorrow morning, Saturday, I was getting up at six to spend the day on the phone or the webcam with Melissa, and I knew that I absolutely had to get her back at any cost. She had become my life, and suddenly I could think of nothing but how to get my life back.
And I had to tell her what had happened and beg for forgiveness.


...to be continued...

I
“Since the invention of the kiss, there had been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind.”
- The Princess Bride

The details of their meeting are not important; they are, in fact potentially embarrassing for either of them, for both of them. Those details will be left to the imagination of the reader.
This manuscript is not an exercise in embarrassment or in secrets so personal that they must be whispered. Rather, it is a story of how one man and one woman shared a brief time together, a time that was full of moments that seemed to last for a lifetime, yet a time that was over almost as soon as they realized it had begun. And in the time they had together, they made a memory that would stay with them both for the remainder of their lives.
When, then, to begin the story of a meeting, if not at the moment of the meeting itself? How can the telling of the events that took place over four days carry the full weight they deserve if the events leading up to the meeting cannot be reveled? I beg you who read this for your indulgence as you are told this story.

He drove down the highway, following the shores of the river, constantly checking the clock on the small, no-frills rental he drove. The setting sun in his rearview mirror reflected a palette of reds and oranges and violet onto his face, and he instinctively reached to adjust it. As his hand touched the plastic frame of the mirror, he stopped and looked at the majestic scene behind him.
This was a valley that had been carved out over countless centuries of water madly flowing to the ocean, not the slightly hilly area and constantly-distant horizon he called home. This was a land of sharp peaks and dense tree lines that obstructed the edge of the world at one moment, then yielded to offer a view of the never-ending valley in the next. This was a road carved into the angular land, revealing sheer rock walls on one side, frightening drops into the water below on the other.
The sunset lit the dense clouds overhead, and the constantly-changing landscape briefly revealed the glory of the sun as it touched a distant peak at a bend of the river several miles behind him. The reflection of the sun in the water was in stark contrast to the shadowed side of a rail bridge that spanned the river behind him.
He reached behind the passenger seat of the small Ford with his right hand, feeling around for the digital camera that lay in a small cardboard box full of miscellaneous items he had packed the night before. With his free hand, he thumbed the turn signal and began slowing down, looking for a place to pull over and take a few pictures for his own memories, and for Melissa. She, and she alone, would appreciate the shadows of the bridge, the distant ripples of the water refracting the light into a thousand stars on the face of the water, the explosion of color that lit the side of a nearby hill, yet left the next one in dark silhouette against the purple clouds that grew more and more sparse as they extended to the West.
Her world was one of light and dark, of white and black. There were no grey areas for her, only the binary view of right and wrong, of good and bad. Anything that failed to fall into these categories were something she ultimately took upon herself to correct, or to take responsibility for. Yet in her sketches and drawings, he had seen subtle details in shading, in textures that went unnoticed to the average person, in the blurred edges between objects and background in the things that she drew. She drew her feelings, her heart, her secret desires of a life that was full of color and beauty and freedom rather than of duty and responsibility and borders. And in those views through her eyes, he saw a world that was kept in check, that was only permitted to come to life for a few hours a week at the gallery, that was then rolled up and kept in a plastic bag with her charcoals and pencils and erasers. And in that small bag were her emotions and wishes, kept hidden from prying eyes that would never understand that she was drawing a world that she longed to explore, and that she was so weary from her travels through the life she was living.

He remembered the first time she was proud of her work.
“Honey, I did GOOD tonight! Oh, God… at first I just stood there with my pencil, I couldn’t even draw the first line, because I knew it was going to be terrible. But I finally just said ‘The hell with it’ and started drawing. And when she came over to see how I was doing, she told me that I was the only one there who got it!” She was almost giddy when she spoke, and he smiled, and breathed a large sigh of relief as he closed his eyes and put his hand over his heart.
“I didn’t even know for sure what I was supposed to do, so I just started drawing what I saw, and she liked it, and told me it was really good! I’m so proud of myself!”
“Thank God,” he thought. “She’s not shut down.”
“I mean – it’s not that good, and you can’t really tell what it’s supposed to be, and I really want to change the…”
“Baby” he interrupted, “Stop it. It’s not about making it perfect, it’s about putting what you see on paper. There is no ‘right’ way to do it, there is only your vision.”
She had had a really bad day; the last 2 times he talked with her, she was so sad that she could barely speak to him, to anyone. Her husband had been fighting with her son the entire day, and she had finally had to leave work to take care of a simple matter that should never have intruded into her life, let alone demand her personal attention. And she came back after a nasty fight that left her emotionally bruised and bleeding, tired from yet another battle. And for her troubles, she was rewarded with the privilege of groveling at her husband’s feet while apologizing for causing so much trouble.
The last conversation he had with her was when she was on the way to the gallery. She was still talking about how much easier it would be if she just pulled out in front of a garbage truck on the interstate, how it would finally make everyone happy. And in the middle of the ten-minute drive, he heard her sniffle away another day’s tears, and she finally said “Don’t worry, I’m better now. No, really I’m fine.” The sorrow had left her voice, and was replaced with something he had become familiar with: her plastic shell of a smiling woman who existed only to make life easy for everyone.
“OK, baby. You’re fine. I know better, though. You’re just shutting down, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah, but it’s better than thinking about it. Really. I’ll be fine. Call me when I get out, OK?”
“Melissa, I love you. Please promise me you’ll enjoy yourself tonight. Just leave all that shit outside the gallery, and have a few hours to enjoy doing something you enjoy. Promise me.” His eyes were misting over; she was so good at turning off her emotions, at shoving them down where they lay waiting to come back and drag her down into a day of sadness and despair. He hated that she could do it so easily, and he hated that she just accepted it without question.
“I promise. I’m fine. Really. Call me when I get out, OK? I gotta go.”
“OK” he murmured. “I’ll talk to you then. Have fun, honey.”

A blaring car horn jerked his eyes away from the reflection of the nearby star, and his mind from the past; he was holding up traffic behind him on the narrow road as he slowed. He accelerated back to the speed limit after verifying that there were no places to pull over. The picture would have to be just a memory. But he would be sure to tell her about it.
She would understand what he felt when he saw it, not just what he saw. It was one of the things about her that he had come to expect from her, yet that he was always amazed at. “You always get me” she had told him so many times. He experienced a moment of sorrow when he realized, possibly for the first time, that he had never told her that she got him as well.
The half-formed promise that he would tell her that she understood him more than he had ever said, vanished when he saw an approaching road sign that advertised an approaching interchange. He reached into the passenger’s seat for his map, and verified the highway number he wanted. He smiled as he had every time he looked at the map; he had the route memorized long before setting out on the journey. “35 to 23 to 52 to 64 to 60” he said aloud to the fly that he had picked up at the drive-through an hour ago.
Ahead, he saw the bridge he would be driving on to cross the river, and he put the signal on again to pull over into the exit lane. The five cars that had been following him down the curvy road sped past him, anxious to get up to speed and make it to their distant appointments.
He checked the clock, then his speed. He was at the speed limit, maybe a few over. “Gotta take my time”, he thought. “Can’t get there too early. That’s the new plan. No rush, no hurry. Just take my time and give her a chance to get there first.” She was stuck in construction and rain when he talked with her as he was loading the car. She would be at least thirty minutes late, and they had decided he would stop for food and kill time for at least that long before continuing on to her.
Instead, he had hurried through a drive-up window for food, and was now going to get there at the originally planned time. He could no more stop and wait for time to pass than he could move the setting sun back for just picture.
As he drove around the cloverleaf that took him to the interstate for the last leg of his journey, he started to get, surprisingly, nervous, excited, even a little worried. Surprisingly, because he had been coated in those feelings for the past several days, and it didn’t seem that he the emotions get even more intense than they already were.
An overpass crossed the interstate at an almost amazing height; he had to think for a moment to remember that the river-carved valley did not make it possible to have ‘regular’ highway crossings. The highway department engineers had to make the roads trace the unpredictable landscape, and they occasionally created some very picturesque spans over an errant gorge or valley. Again, he reached for the camera, but decided against it. It was too dark, and the destination would be approaching any minute. He looked again, and decided that the excuse that it was too dark was only a logical-sounding excuse, and not a reason at all. But he needed a logical excuse to keep driving, to get there at exactly the time that they had agreed would be far too early. He fought the urge to accelerate to the break-neck speed of the other motorists; driving the speed limit was another logical excuse, as he normally would cruise at a good ten to twelve miles per hour over the speed limit.
Another overpass approached, and he had just started to examine it when the hills before him parted to reveal a well-lit interchange, a McDonald’s sign, Taco Bell, convenience marts, hot coffee… and a motel sign. The motel sign.
“Oh my God, there it is.” He raised a hand to his mouth and breathed heavily into it several times.
He forgot to look at the time, the mileage, the map as he xxxxxx his mind to return to the task of slowing, signaling, and braking at the end of the ramp. The pretense of logical excuses vanished as he crossed several lanes of traffic to pull in to the McDonald’s that she had told him would be there, that he was to wait at for… “Shit. Forty-five minutes” as he glanced at the clock.
He pulled into the parking lot, and drove to the back of the lot, looking for a place to park and wait. At the back of the lot, he realized that it connected with an access road between the restaurant and the motel. The motel. The motel that was not just ‘up the road’ as she had said, but was, in fact, immediately next to it.
He took the turn and crossed over to the parking lot that surrounded the rows of identical doors that led to identical rooms, and began circling the building, looking for a specific car, his heart pounding in his chest. He looked for a car that matched her description, a car with a note that announced a room number, a note for him and him alone. His past stopped at that moment, and his future began. A future that would be forever shaped by the days ahead. His excitement, his longing, his fear reached a new height.
He circled the perimeter twice, and found no note, no car, nothing except for the fact that the motel’s office was on the opposite side of the building from the agreed-upon place that he was to wait at. That would not do at all.
He wanted to wait for her to arrive, to allow her time to check in and get her things unloaded, to have a few minutes to relax and maybe smoke a cigarette in an attempt to calm down from a level of near-panic that certainly rivaled his own. But he didn’t want to wait one moment longer than necessary, so he decided to wait across the highway in a parking lot that overlooked the entrance to the hotel. That way he could wait for her; he could see her pull in, and he could wait just the right amount of time before taking the steps that would, after a lifetime of searching, finally allow their worlds to come together.
As he drove the small car across the parking lot and around to the spaces that lay beyond the ATM kiosk in the middle of the parking lot, he saw a sheriff’s car pull into the lot through the same entrance he had used. “Great” he said to the fly. “Out of state plates on a rental car in an empty parking lot, and a man staring at the entrance to a motel. No, nothing suspicious about that at all.”
After a few moments’ thought, he killed the engine, and opened the door. “That’s right, officer. I’m just doing some late-night banking in your fine state. Nothing to see here.”
As his stockinged feet touched the asphalt, he cursed quietly, and reached onto the floor for his shoes, which he had discarded shortly after embarking. After putting them on, he decided that taking the time to tie them would be enough for the deputy to decide that something was going on that demanded his intervention, so he walked around to the door to the ATM with his laces dangling on the ground. He removed the card from his wallet, pausing for a moment to look at her picture, and at the red paperclip that she had sent to him. He smiled.
On his return to the car with his unplanned-for cash, he noticed that the deputy was facing up the highway, radar gun on full power, waiting to capture a speeder cresting the hill that rose in the East. There was no reason to hassle a traveler at an ATM tonight.
He started the car, passed the officer on his way out of the vantage point he was counting on, and crossed back to the McDonald’s for a healthy late-evening snack of chicken nuggets and Diet Coke.
After collecting his food, he exited the McDonald’s, and drove past the motel entrance, past the waiting police car, and up the hill to… somewhere temporary. The drive to the motel extended a hundred yards or so back, and was lined with a pair of idling semi trucks. “That is where I will wait” he decided. I’ll turn around when I can, and come back here, and just park in between those trucks. And then… His heart began it’s rhythmic pounding again as he thought of the thousands of possible finishes to “And then”.
He checked his rearview mirror to see if the Sheriff’s car had a clear line of sight to the end of the driveway. But instead of locating the police car, he caught a flash of white as a car had pulled in to the motel parking lot. A car. Her car. It had to be. He looked at the clock again, and decided that there was no way she was already here. He knew it couldn’t be her, yet he knew that it had to be her.
As he did the math to decide whether or not she could possible have arrived this early, he had driven half a mile up the road, and was suddenly running out of businesses that offered a good place to turn around. He opted instead to turn onto a cross road, and do a u-turn to get back onto the highway.
He struggled to keep his speed down, even though he knew there was a radar gun waiting for him over the hill. He wanted to test the upper limits of the little four cylinder engine to go back to the motel, but he knew that a speeding ticket would destroy his carefully-planned budget, and would possibly rob him of a few precious moments with his beloved woman. It was the latter that kept his speed in check.
As he finally, thankfully, pulled into the motel’s drive, he could see her car in the check-in space in front of the lobby doors. He steeled his mind to follow the plan, to pull around back and wait at least fifteen minutes for her to get settled. But as he passed the empty blue swimming pool, he could see a person in the lobby stepping away from the front desk and begin walking toward the door.
It was when he saw her hair that he pulled the car through a tight turn, and parked behind the white Buick. She would later tell him that he “squealed into the parking lot”, and he had no memory of whether that was the case, but he had no reason to doubt that that was exactly what he had done. He only remembered her hair. The hair he had longed to run his fingers through, the hair he had dreamed of, the hair he wanted, no, needed, to touch and feel and smell and stroke with his hand.
As he stepped out of the car, his past vanished, and his future became his present.

He steps out of the car and floats to her on unsteady, uncontrollable, legs. He doesn’t turn off the engine or even the headlights, neither does he close his door after moving to her.
“Hey! W-What are you doing?!” She was laughing while trying to speak quietly, and was having a little trouble breathing.
He smiled broadly as he absorbed the sound of her voice, scarcely able to believe that she he really called. His mind went suddenly blank. In an adrenaline-fuelled decision to avoid even the hint of a hesitation, he blurted out the first thought he could pull from the dream-like daze that was rapidly enveloping his thoughts.
“I’m talking to you.” His mouth strained to form the words despite the enormous smile it formed.
He squinted his eyes tightly shut and thought, “Oh God. Did I just say, ‘I’m talking to you? How stupid was that!’”
He did not then know that he would answer that same question with those same words at the start of every phone call they shared for the next week. He only became aware of it when, after the fear of inflated corporate phone bills became real, she called him one morning and asked “What are you doing?” He looked at the computer screen he had been staring at just a moment before, then at the pile of blueprints on his desk, and at the fluorescent yellow highlighter in his hand. At the sound of her voice, he had forgotten everything that he had been doing just a moment before. He marveled at the realization that the sound of her voice, purposely speaking to him, was suddenly, as always, the only thing his mind was able to focus on. “What am I doing?” he thought. “I am talking with the most wonderful woman I have ever known. That’s what I’m doing. That’s the only thing that I am doing right now that matters at all. I am talking to you.”
“Hi.”, he said, suddenly unable to think clearly at all. He found her voice, full of life and laughter, captivating. “It’s so good to finally hear your voice! How are you?!”
She was still laughing, and breathing fast, short breaths. A laughter that was full of nervousness and excitement, breathing that was driven by a level of near-panic that resulted from his sudden, unexpected, request for her to call him. Right now. Please. Just call me. The unexpected event had pulled her out of a comfort zone and into the spotlight of spontaneity. Her only defense was to laugh and giggle and panic.
“Well I know you’re talking to me,” she said. “Ah’m fine!” The nervous laughter returned, and xxxxxx a silence that he had to fill.
His mind had snapped into focus when he had heard a tremor in her voice, accented by a sudden ‘twang’ that had not been present in the first dozen words. “She sounds as nervous about talking to me as I feel about talking to her! My God! Could she really be that excited to talk to me?” He made a sudden decision to just say the first thing that he could think of. He was prepared to ask her if she could talk long from her work phone, if the weather was nice, and a whole script of what people say when they first meet. He was prepared to be polite and say things like “You don’t sound at all like I imagined” and “Can you hear me OK?” But he didn’t want to waste the time they had for the call making small talk. He wanted to talk to her. Really talk.
“Oh my God!” he said, “Your voice is quivering! Are you OK?”
“Yeah.” She replied. “I’m fine. I’m just so nervous about calling you!”
“And what’s with that hint of an accent?”
She stopped laughing; he heard her breath catch.
“Yeah, it comes out when I get nervous.”
They spent their first phone call talking about hometowns and childhood memories and places they had visited in the past. She tried to hide her accent, and he talked endlessly about anything he could think of, just so he could talk with her for a little while longer.
After they finally reached the point where they both had to stop and hang up simply to enjoy the feeling of a new level in their developing relationship, he simply sat and stared through the computer screen before him, the giant smile seemingly frozen in place.

“What are you doing?” She quickly steps out of the parking lot and back into the entranceway of the motel lobby, looking for the comfort zone that had been lost the moment she realized he was early, that the future she wanted to prepare for was now walking, rapidly, toward her on unsteady, uncontrollable, legs. She tries to hide from him for just a second, for just long enough to take a deep breath and figure out what to do next. But from her hiding place behind the glass entranceway, she can see that he is still coming to her, and that she will not have any time to prepare for… for next.
Rather than remain cornered, she steps into the doorway, and looks for an escape from the sudden uncertainty that is interrupting her logical, ordered, black-and-white world.
He walks to within a step of her, one hand over his wide smile, the other reaching for her. “Oh my God. Melissa? Honey! It’s really you.” His voice trails off; he is finding it hard to speak.
With no other choice available to her, she turns to him, her head down, her rapidly shaking hands trying to cover her face.
“Hi, honey.” She stammers in a quiet, shaking voice. She buries her face in his chest as he embraces her; pulls her tightly against him. She has clinched her hands into fists, trying to grasp her fading past for just another moment to prepare herself for the next.
“You’re early! Why are you so early! Nine forty-five. You said you wouldn’t be here till nine forty-five!”
He lowers his face to her, trying to see her face through her hands and her hair.
Finding no view, and not wishing to further intrude into her attempts at finding privacy, he lowers his face to the top of her head and lightly kisses her hair before pulling her head to him, to offer her the security of knowing he can’t see her face when it is buried in his shirt, and to allow him to feel her against him.
Twenty minutes later, in the room they share, she still has not been able to let him see her. She has not seen his face either – every time she tries to get a glimpse of him, she finds that he is staring at her with eyes that can see through to her thoughts, and she must look away before he sees…
“Don’t I get to see your face?” he asks her as she stands by the door of the room. He takes her had in his and strokes her long, dark hair.
“I don’t want you to see me.” She whispers.
“Can I at least have a hug?” he asks, feeling her fingers around his.
She quickly nods her head, and he moves his arms around her waist, around her back, taking her hand with his.
She lets go to lower her hand and reach for him; and in that motion, their hands hit the switch on the wall behind her, and the room is suddenly plunged into darkness.
He freezes, afraid of the results of unexpected darkness on a panic-filled mind. But his fears vanish when she laughs and says “Well, now you can look at me.”
In the light of far-off street lamps, he can make out the silhouette of the woman he loves as she turns her face to him for the first time. He reaches a hand to her face, gently brushes her hair aside, and forgets to breathe as he sees the reflection of the distant lights in her damp eyes. In that moment, he can see her as clearly as if it were day.
“I love you, Melissa.” He says softly, lightly tracing the contour of her jaw with his hand. He leans forward and kisses her lightly on the forehead, and deeply breathes in the scent of her hair.
“I know you do,” she whispers. “And I’m glad.”
“Can I kiss you now?” he asks in the silent, black room.
“Yes. Please.” She sighs, turning her head to offer her soft, trembling lips to him.
He kisses her again on her forehead, lightly and quickly, then lowers his lips to hers. And in that moment, every fear she has ever known in life vanishes and is replaced by a peacefulness that she never knew existed. And in that moment, although he does not know it, she surrenders her soul to him.

Did you ever fall in love, and *hard*?
And I don't mean the whole "We have a great time together" definition of "love", either.
I'm talking about that awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping, heart-wrenching kind of love that draws you so far into it's busom that you find yourself listening to Meat Loaf and wishing he would have made it even MORE angst-filled and passionate.
The kind of love that makes a man start noticing daisies and doodling pictures of a man and woman hugging while he's in a staff meeting.
The kind of love that makes a woman spend her day floating in a dreamy breeze of sunshine and warmth and music.
"Princess Bride" love. "As you wish."

I had that kind of love for the past two years, and today I ended it. And I hate myself for it.

Melissa.
My dear, sweet, beloved Melissa.

I met Melissa on here two years ago.

At the final chapter of my ten-year sexless marriage to a woman who used me as a piggy bank and led me into a bankruptcy, I had taken to spending my evenings looking at porn on here and fantasizing about the feel of a woman who wanted to show me, for the first time in a decade, affection and passion.
It had been six months since my wife had "let me screw her" (that was her little nickname for 'sex'. "I guess I could let you screw me tonight since you seem to think it's such a big deal." That kind of nickname.)
Sex with my wife was problematic. Seems she felt that sex was what you did when you allowed yourself be degraded by allowing a 185# man to jam his 'thing' into you, and oh my god he might even try to touch your boobs. ewwww.
And so after nine years, I was at a point in my life where I could count the number of times I had been intimate with my wife in the past year on one hand with a thumb and 3 fingers left over. But I couldn't begin to count the number of times I had been intimate with myself using that same hand.
This website let me look at women. Not models, not hookers... just real women. And once the pleasure of masturbating was being overshadowed by the depression I felt because of the *necessity* of the act, I just needed to stare at a picture of a real live woman who was here because she actually enjoys the act of having sex.

It also allowed me to write thousand-word blogs that were my fantasies and desires.
About a dream I have about a woman I worked with... a dream of desire and longing and passion... a dream of a dance in the moonlight, of soaring emotions and of found love. A dream that ends with the first kiss, and never goes beyond.
Or a story about a man who loses his life's savings and his house, his car, and his self-respect to a frigid, materialistic, lying woman. A man who is teetering on the edge of a bottomless black pit as he watches his life turning into a future of long hours at work, and joyless hours at home, and bleak nights of lonliness that can suck the soul out of your heart.
At 40, I had become the sort of person that defined the term 'Emo.'
Those blog entries were a place where I could exorcise my demons to people I would never know.

And that is how I came to meet Melissa.

Her husband had talked her into posting some very alluring R-rated pictures on here.
And my god.
She was beautiful.
That's the only word that fits. Anything else would cheapen it.
She was simply beautiful.

I sent her a private message almost immediately.
And the instant I began to type, every single word had vanished from my head. I had absolutely no idea what to say to her. I simply knew that I had to talk to her.
I think I fumbled around and said something nice about her eyes.
And then I held my breath.
And she replied, almost immediately.
It turns out she had been reading my blogs, and was pleasantly surprised when I emailed her.
We traded emails for almost four hours.
The first thing she asked me was if the things I wrote were true.
When I assured her that they were, she suddenly became very compassionate.
By the end of the night, I was captivated. She was warm and funny and intelligent.
We didn't really talk about sex. It was more about closeness and companionship and feelings. It was about all of the things I had been lacking for so very long.
The following evening, I found myself looking at the clock constantly, waiting until I knew she would be online again. And again, we talked all night.
My wife's desire to have 'alone time' in the evenings meant that my sudden interest in the computer went mostly unnoticed.
By the end of the first week, I had installed a messenger and a webcam on my computer at work so we could chat the entire day while we were at work. And then pick it up that evening at home.
After the second week, I had begun getting up at the crack of dawn just so we could talk with each other over morning coffee..
After the third week, we took a giant step. I called her at work.
And we laughed and giggled and said "oh my god" at least a dozen times in the first minute. We were school kids who had snuck out of study hall to go outside and sit on a blanket and watch the clouds drift by.
And we connected.
And I mean, on every level... sense of humor, our outlook on life, our desire to share a magical whirlwind of a romance. We talked so often after that first time that we had bought phone cards just so the corporate phone bills didn't start looking fishy.
We talked about how even though she lived three or four states away, that she had grown up in a small town just a few hours from where I had grown up.
We talked about the fundamental differences between 'fucking' and 'making love'. And we both agreed that the latter is a much more powerful experience than the former. And we both agreed that it is a sad day when a man can't find physical pleasure in his life, even when he tries to pleasure himself.
And one day at lunch, she told me that she wanted me to do her a favor.
She told me that she wanted me to take a shower that night, with the bathroom door locked. She told me to turn the water as hot as I could stand it, and to just let the water run down my head and over my entire body. She told me to run my hands over my entire body, slowly and sensually, and to imagine that they were her hands. And she wanted me to masturbate, only to envision her, opening up to me on a bed with black satin sheets, hungrily pulling myself into her. She wanted me to imagine her doing anything I wanted her to do to pleasure me. By the end of lunch, I had a hardon the size of Florida, and a grin that I couldn't contain.
And that night, I followed her instructions to the letter. And when my orgasm came... I almost began moaning out loud from the sheer force of it, and it lasted so long that my knees literally gave out, and I nearly collapsed in the tub.
The following morning, I called her first thing in the morning and thanked her. Thanked her for letting me remember what it feels like to have a woman who likes the feel of a man, of a partner.

Two months after we met, I had started to feel as though my life is supposed to be something that I should enjoy.
I moved out and stayed with friends. A week later, I had an apartment 20 miles away from her. That same week, I hired an attorney and started divorce proceedings.

I did this, not to be with Melissa, (who was married, you may recall. And four states away, too.) but to find the life that I had abandoned for the past decade.
And through all of it, there was Melissa. Encouraging me, comforting me, caring for me.

As I was in debt up to my eyeballs, every paycheck was going to past due bills that were in my name. The rest was going to *current* bills. And Melissa sent me care packages. Salt and pepper shakers. Tea bags. Baggies with spices, including some that she had grown. Magazines. A card with hearts on it.

I fell in love with Melissa.
And she fell in love with me.
We longed for each other.
3 weeks after I moved into my apartment, her husband went off on a hunting trip.
We stayed up on the cam, on the messenger, and on the phone until 4:00 in the morning every night that he was gone. And at first, some of the discussions revolved around things like "well if we were together right now, i would want you to run your tongue over my shoulder, up my neck, and around my ear." By the end of the week, she had devised a plan to visit her mother, who lives where she grew up, just two hours from here.
Three days later, we were together.
We met on a Friday night at a motel in her home town.
I arrived 45 minutes early, she arrived 5 minutes later.
The following three days were a time of such wonder and joy, that when it finally ended in tears and hugs and a deep sadness that it had to end, I wrote eleven chapters in the following week to describe in every detail the things we had shared with each other, the things we ment to each other. I will post them here eventually.

And tomorrow, I will post the story of how I ended here, without her, today.