Another Unromantic Love Story

"Long-story-short I never found him. For people who are good enough, the internet is anonymous. And he was just too good. Even though we still had our virtual connection I couldn't have him as totally as I wanted him and I could not live without the entire package. It's a woman thing. You wouldn't understand it.

"It was like he had died. I spent days just crying. Sometimes I was even weeping over our separation while we were online talking together.

"Finally I decided that our relationship was going to kill me if I didn't end it. It was just too heart wrenching. So I simply walked away. I stopped communicating with him."

THERE IT WAS! Now I knew EVERYTHING. It uplifted me and shattered my soul.

"I ran into Julian that very week. He is as opposite my mystery lover as anybody can be.

"He was like a sunny day, simple, and undemanding and he clearly loved me. He was yummy and he rocked my world in bed. He is funny, smart and successful and if I couldn't have the man I loved I decided that Julian was an acceptable alternate.

"It might have been a rebound and I might have settled for him. But in the three years since we have been married I have come to love him in my own way and we have had a happy life together.

"But then suddenly and for some inexplicable reason I have begun to have recurring thoughts about the real love of my life. I don't know why. It almost seems like you caused those when I met you on Thanksgiving Day.

"Kaizen81 is the only man I have ever truly given myself to. That is what Julian is sensing. But Julian has nothing to fear since Kaizen81 has always been an electronic ghost.

"And please don't tell Julian about any of this. My admitting a deep and abiding love for a virtual man is going to make him think that his wife is an out-and-out psycho.

"Please make sure that Julian understands that Kaizen81 will never come between Julian and me. That man never existed except in virtual space and my imagination." Then she abruptly lost control.

I just sat there gazing emptily into space. That was because my mind had blown up like the Death Star sometime around the point where she began to describe our last days together.

As usual I had it all wrong. She was not carrying on a flaming affair with some unattainable married man. She was carrying on an IMPOSSIBLE one with a virtual man, namely ME. I am Kaizen81.

Her anguish and eventual resolution of her problem made perfect sense. It was classic Biff.

Although I had never wanted to get with her physical self. I could see where a passionate woman like Hannah would want the whole enchilada. As she said, THAT was a woman thing.

But nonetheless, the fact was that all of the time that I had known Biff I had longed to totally join myself with her. She was the other part of my soul.

And my inability to do that had been as emotionally difficult and actually painful as anything I had ever experienced.

It is just that guys like me don't expect much.

The present situation was so complex that I had no right to feel as overjoyed as I did, "She loved ME and only me."

Of course there was the not insignificant problem that she was married to my best friend and I am sure that a lot of the romantic mystery would evaporate if she found out who Kaizen81 actually was.

I knew that the stark reality of William Hughes in the flesh would offset any of my virtual awesomeness.

Meantime, she was crying, shaking and sobbing on the couch. Making her revisit her feelings for Kaizen81 had brought all of her long repressed grief to the surface. And it was significant.

I am emotionally stunted but I am not totally hard-hearted. She was the one person I had ever loved in my life and she was in need of comforting.

I rose from my chair and sat down hesitantly next to her. I have no idea how to comfort a crying woman. So I awkwardly patted her shoulder.

She looked up for a second and then just threw herself on my chest and cried against it, arms around my body, hugging me like I was a life raft.

I was uncomfortably aware of those extraordinary tits pressing against my bony ribcage.

I continued to pat her on the back and make soothing noises. I didn't know what to say.

I held her for an interminable amount of time. It was upsetting and uncomfortable to be forced to deal with all of the ambient emotion, both hers and unfortunately mine. But she felt so good in my arms.

I had an inspiration. Be upbeat! I said comfortingly, "I'm sorry Biff. I never meant to upset you. Julian will be home soon and he can reassure you..."

OHHHHHH SHIT!!

She cried for another couple of seconds and then she stiffened and was totally still. It was an ecstasy of hesitation.

She put both of her hands on my chest and forcefully shoved herself upright. Her mascara had run down those magnificent cheekbones but those powerful eyes were burning.

She said, "What did you just call me??!!"

I said in a panic, "Nothing, I said don't be miffed."

She said with steel in her voice, "Nobody has used that word since the 1970s. Did you just call me BIFF?'

Trapped like a rat!!

I decided to be a man for the first time in my miserable life. I looked into those beautiful compelling blue eyes, so touchingly full of hope, and I said as gently and as lovingly as I could, "Yes, Biff it's me."

THAT sucked the air out of the room. Her face was frozen. Time stopped.

If you were expecting a tear-filled, passionate reunion you don't know Biff. Her face went from grief, to amazement, to all-consuming rage.

She said, her voice shaking with anger, "Why didn't you tell me. You knew who I was on Thanksgiving didn't you? That's why you acted so strangely."

I said, "Yes, the revelation that you were Persephone69 nearly killed me. I spent the past three years torturing myself because you left me. The last thing I expected was to run into you here in real-space.

"And you were in such an unattainable package."

She looked disgusted. Then she said with real fury in her voice, "I thought we were a little more in tune with each other than that? You now damn well that what we look like doesn't matter. You KNOW that!"

I continued. "In cyberspace yes, but this is the real world where you are married to my only friend and living happily ever after here in suburbia as his loving wife.

"The guy worships the ground that you walk on and you obviously love him. Those are facts that we can't change."

I pushed myself off the couch and returned to sitting pensively in my chair. She was sitting straight up on the couch glowering at me.

I said, hopelessness in my voice, "You are the only person I have ever loved in my entire miserable life. And you are the only person I ever wanted to have in it.

"But there is no way I will ever come between the two of you. It would be the ruination of both of our souls. You know as well as I do it wouldn't be right"

For the first time in our relationship she and I were together in one room. She gave me a look that nearly melted my socks.

It was a combination of complete loving trust and absolute spiritual mutuality mixed with raw animal lust.

She said quietly, "We'll work it out."

At that instant the sound of the garage door broke our reverie. Julian was home.

The pain that shot across her face was eloquent. She rose and smoothed her dress. Without a word she walked into the same bathroom that I had last seen her naked form disappear into the month before. I could hear the water running.

Julian crept into the room from the direction of the garage. He was almost chortling with boyish devilry.

He saw me sitting by myself and walked over all conspiratorial. I actually felt sorry for him. He had no idea. Not a single clue.

He said gleefully, "Well? Did you get it out of her? What's the story? I knew this would work he-he-he."

I tried to look at him as forthrightly as I could muster.

I said, "She's in the bathroom so this has to be quick. The person you are worried about is no threat.

"He was somebody she had a relationship with in the past. He could never threaten your marriage now because he is dead. She accepts that but she thinks about it once in a while."

The stark look of utter relief that passed over his face shattered my very core. But of course I am a nowhere man so it didn't show.

Hannah walked out of their bathroom looking fresh, perfect and without a shred of emotion on her face except the delight that her husband was home.

She was back to being Julian's irreproachably beautiful and loving wife.

She kissed him on the cheek and said, "How was the rest of the party? It turns out that Bill actually knows real adult words. We had a nice conversation. I learned a lot about him."

She said that without the slightest hint of insincerity, or sarcasm.

I said, grabbing my coat, "Well I have to go. Thank you for inviting me tonight. I had an interesting time." I hope she got MY sarcasm.

They were standing in the door as I got in the car. Julian with his arm around her waist pulling her close. She was leaning into him as they waved.

I knew that they were just in the bullpen warming up for their usual night of hot monkey sex. And I was far too aware that the first pitch would be thrown as soon as I got out of the driveway.

The following day was difficult. All I could think about was Julian and Hannah enthusiastically trying out various positions around the house. I worked a little bit but my heart wasn't in it.

I was trying as hard as I could to wrestle Biff in my past. She was Julian Appleby's wife and that was where she had to stay.

That was why I was both horrified and overjoyed when a message came in off the darkweb. It simply said, "We have to talk - love - Biff." So that was the purpose of her TOR account.

To Be Continued...