Virtually Perfect. Samantha Hunter

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      Not even bothering to change, she grabbed her laptop and plopped down on the sofa, a soft shiver of anticipation taking the edge off an otherwise miserable night. The screen glowed, and she tapped at the keyboard, hoping she hadn’t missed him.

      She hadn’t! He was there! He saw her logon immediately. She smiled wider, watching his words appear across the screen. He had been waiting. For her.

      “Hey, beautiful, I thought you might not be by tonight. Working late?”

      “No, was just out for a while.”

      “Hot date?”

      “No. Boring, boring night.”

      She lied, not knowing exactly why she didn’t want to tell him she had been out with someone.

      “Nilla, maybe it’s time to spice it up a little.”

      “I think we have been quite spicy enough lately.”

      Nilla—her pseudonym. She hadn’t been able to think of anything else when she had registered on the site, and had been eating vanilla cookies at the time. So much for her creativity.

      “Oh, I don’t know. Depends on your taste. I like things a little on the hot side.”

      She grinned, her fingers racing over the keyboard.

      “Hold on, tiger. Let me get a glass of wine and change into something more…comfortable. I’ll be right back.”

      Jumping up off the sofa, she headed into the bedroom to change. She had been talking with Rider—not his real name, of course—online for a little more than a month. They had met online at RomanceMUD, an interactive virtual world. She’d been researching Internet romances for her most recent column in Real Woman magazine, which was just hitting its stride as one of the leading women’s magazines in the U.S.

      Over the last decade, she had literally grown with the magazine, which had recently relocated to a bigger and more prestigious building overlooking Salem Harbor to house its ever-expanding staff, now topping two hundred. She’d started as a freelance writer right out of college. The job had really just fallen into her lap and she took it for some income while figuring out what to do next. Then as more and more magazine pieces came her way, she discovered a knack for writing; she loved the work. Eventually she was hired for a permanent position.

      She was the head writer for the Lifestyles beat, which covered everything from raising children to fashion. She provided editorial input and was deeply involved in planning each issue’s content. She hired freelancers for most of the articles, but the core element of the section was her relationships column. It had begun as an advice-type column and had blossomed into longer pieces of social commentary. She wrote about all kinds of relationship issues, including friends, siblings, marriage, sex, same-sex families, and working parents.

      Pouring herself a glass of merlot she thought about how some things never changed: jealously, passion, misunderstanding, loneliness.

      Since more and more readers were writing in with questions about Internet romance, she’d pitched a series of columns exploring love and sex on the Internet—and here she was right smack in the middle of it herself.

      She had started off the series by writing about Internet dating services that had emerged over the past two or three years. Plenty of people used the formal services, but since the majority of her readers had “just met” someone online, she’d been wandering through chat rooms and virtual erotic playgrounds to see what she found “out there.”

      Raine had joined the RomanceMUD site on impulse, and there she’d met Rider. They’d clicked immediately. With him, she felt that little hint of something special she had been missing with the men she’d dated.

      Padding back to the sofa, she sat, lugged her laptop up close to her and stared at the screen. What was he doing right now? What was he thinking?

      She was coming to understand more and more about what attracted women to men on the Net. She and Rider talked about everything. They shared intimate fantasies without the disappointments and expectations that often plagued relationships. He could be intense and romantic, and he was always amazingly sexy. It was a compelling combination.

      She was sure that in real life, Rider, like all men, probably left the toilet seat up and his beard shavings in the sink. He would make promises he didn’t keep and would glaze over when you talked about things that mattered to you. Online, she didn’t have to worry about any of that. If she wanted to, she could just hit the off button and he would be gone. The perfect man.

      He had started out being part of her research project. An experiment. But things had changed, and she felt that they were becoming, well, close. They talked every night, long discussions that kept her up into the morning hours. She was starting to feel as if she knew him, and he her.

      Their online talks were always varied. Sometimes it was casual conversation; sometimes it was very intimate conversation. At first it was awkward, writing out her innermost feelings on her laptop’s screen. But then it became more like they were weaving their own little world. As if she was the heroine in her own romance novel. She didn’t have the chance—or the nerve—to be as bold, funny or daring in real life as she could be online. But here, all inhibitions were lifted without risk. What could be better? She shook her head briskly, shaking herself out of her thoughts, and typed.

      “Hey, sorry I took so long. I’m back. So, have you thought about joining up with another game?”

      “No, I think I am done with that for now—this was just a whim to keep me amused while work was slow. I think I would rather take a dip into reality for a while. How about you?”

      Grunting in annoyance, she had hoped he would drop the issue, as she’d obviously ignored it several times before. Another infuriating male trait—if it wasn’t what they wanted to hear, they refused to get the message when it was offered loud and clear.

      Rider had been hinting about taking things to the next step, referring to real life a little too often, and she wasn’t big on that idea. However, she knew from her previous research and interviews that this was also the key moment that came about in every Internet romance: should we or shouldn’t we? Fish or cut bait. And she had no idea what to do.

      “Still there, Nilla?”

      She typed a smile into existence for him.

      “Yes, I’m still here. Just caught up in thought. Sorry.”

      She watched the words appear on the screen that glowed in the darkness of her room.

      “What are you thinking about?”

      “About being a ‘whim that has kept you amused while you have been at work.’ I think my ego just dropped a few notches.”

      “The game was a whim to keep me amused at work. You are something else entirely.”

      “Oh, and what would that be?”

      Nilla held her breath as she sat back, sorry she had asked that question, but it had just flown from her fingertips.

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