On-Line Affair
by Phil Temples
>SALLYSUE78:
I’m 25 y.o., 5’4” high, black hair
and chestnut eyes.
The woman
typed her vitals to “Pierre” who lived
just outside of Paris. Single and unattached,
Sally worked as a store clerk in Racine,
Wisconsin. She had met Pierre only last night on
an on-line chat room.
After a half-hour
of uninspired one-liners, Sally decided to get
more serious. She invited Pierre to a private
conversation the following afternoon. In the
short time that they had typed to one another,
Sally felt that she and Pierre could become best
friends and pen pals.
>CHIEN-DE-PARIS:
I bet you are beautiful American girl. I am small
for my age, early 20s, but I am very athletic. I
run along the River Seine every morning.
>SALLYSUE78:
The Seine must be beautiful in the morning :-)
Sally closed
her eyes and imagined the low-slung tourist boats
making their way against the slow, flowing
current of the majestic river--a river that had
inspired many romances over the centuries.
>CHIEN-DE-PARIS:
Maybe sometime you can visit me in Paris, no? I
will bring you the sights. We will dine in small
places that no tourist can visit because he does
not know of it.
>SALLYSUE78:
It sounds delightful. Yes, I’d love to see
your country some day!
Sally secretly
wished that it could be true, but she was a
realist. She tipped the scales at over 360 pounds
and possessed an overabundance of facial hair.
Sally would no doubt continue to confine her
romantic interests to on-line chat encounters.
>CHIEN-DE-PARIS:
Tell me, Sally. A beautiful girl like you must
already have a boyfriend, no?
>SALLYSUE78:
You didn’t tell me you were such a big flirt!!!
>CHIEN-DE-PARIS:
I am serious. Anyone who talks with you can see
that you are charming, intelligent and beautiful.
How do you say in English? A real _catch_! Pierre
added.
>CHIEN-DE-PARIS:
Maybe you have several boyfriends?!
>SALLYSUE78:
Really, Pierre. Stop it or you’re going to
embarrass me ;-0
>CHIEN-DE-PARIS:
No ;-#
Pierre was
insistent with the line of questioning about
Sally’s relationships. Sally hadn’t
meant to say it. After a few more exchanges, her
fingers literally blurted out the painful truth.
>SALLYSUE78:
I’m not attractive! I’m really, really
fat and I’m ugly. “On the internet no
one knows you’re a dog!!!”
Right there on
the keyboard. There! I said it, okay! She was
shaking from the last statement.
On
Pierre’s end of the connection, half a world
away, there was a stunned silence. Pierre reached
up and hit the power switch on the computer. He
leapt off the chair, scattering the telephone
directories onto the floor in the process.
Pierre’s
best friend and owner, Andrea, saw Pierre racing
out of the bedroom. As Pierre headed out the
apartment, Andrea quipped, “Rejeté par un
autre amoureuse?” “Jilted by another
lover?”
How could she
have known? How did I betray myself? Pierre asked
himself. Angry and upset, the four-year-old bull
terrier went outside with intentions of
terrorizing the neighbor’s cat.
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