There is no line

Thank you for telling me about the chat windows on AOL. Thank you for encouraging me to go to room NSR - where you would be playing a dwarf or a vampire. Thank you for letting me know the screen names you would be using. You said it was like improv. People playing characters and acting out stories through chat text. You were so friendly on the phone, so encouraging. I went right online and suddenly found myself being im'd by a lawyer in LA who said he was gorgeous and it was so hot all he was wearing was a pair of khaki shorts and asked me "what are you wearing?"

I assumed you told me who you were online so I would find you.

In person you seemed not to notice me. I was in your class. You were teaching us to create improv stories that would span an hour or two in one performance. We were to become characters with depth and history. Each of us was to be a part of the larger story. You would have us start a story, and it seemed everyone else would get into the story and play their parts but moments after I entered the scene, you would stop the story. This happened every exercise, over and over. I took it personally.

I came to class thinking you'd shared a secret with me.
I left thinking you hated me. No one wants to be judged so randomly.
You did not even know what I was capable of. I left determined to show you.

I created a story. In it I was a teenage girl left behind in a sprawling mansion while my father traveled. I wrote the story in the form of diary pages that the character sent as "blind" emails to your vampire character and to a number of other improvisers I thought might like to play along. It took a week of diary entries before you contacted my character. You came online and we improvised a scene. The dialog was intoxicating. It was just words typed in a chat room, but it felt like it was really happening. The scene ended with whispers as you took blood from my neck. "It may seem like I am leaving you to die, but you'll live."

It was hyper real. It was exhilarating. It left me weak and I wanted more.

It took another week of diary pages to get you to play another scene with me. In the midst of it, AOL went down. I could not let the scene end. I was distraught. I had your number. You'd called me before about the class. You did not seem surprised when it was my character calling - it was as if you knew I'd call. I told you I was freaking out. I told you it was too real. I told you I was losing the line between reality and fantasy.

You said, "there is no line."

You invited me, as my character, to come to an improv performance. Others who played major characters in NSR would be there. You said I could meet them. Once you saw the character was me it became clear.

In your fantasy, you believed I was someone else.