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Prem Panicker

She is 39 and a self-employed professional. Two grown-up children, on the verge of divorce but living, for now, in the same house as her husband; he is 29, writes books and instructions manuals, recently separated from his wife and living on his own. They were cyber-married on April 20... and will be together, real time, very shortly after you read this...This is their story, in her own words...

In February, I had been in several chat rooms, and finally decided to play "bartender" to get some attention and more people to talk to me.

Basically, this involves entering "Bartender" as part of your handle. People, for fun, ask you to serve them their favourite drinks and this, in turn, gives you a chance to strike up conversations with people who interest you, or be very "professional" and aloof with people you don't want to have much to do with.

Much later, I found out that the relationship I entered into, and which I delight in, was a matter of a minute, here and there. I happened to be on-line at a time when he just logged in. At that point, I was on the verge of saying good-bye to the people I was talking to... and leaving the site for keeps as I found myself very bored.

This man and I, at that point in time, exchanged hellos. And struck up a conversation.

From our first posts to each other, I found him unlike anyone I had talked to prior to that. He was funny, charming, very well-mannered...unlike the many men who log in for only the one thing, cyber-sex. We talked for awhile, and he asked for my Email address. I was rather surprised when I promptly gave it to him - because till then, I had preferred to mask myself behind an illusion of fantasy and security. I had heard so much about the dangers of the Web, yet I had fallen into a sense of trust for this new person.

The next morning, when I checked my mail, I was delighted to find a letter from him. We gradually increased our talking and started to develop a friendship.

My first experience with cyber-sex was with him and, till then, I never knew how bonded and intimate you could become through this medium. It wasn't a mass of crude terms to achieve gratification, but a slow seduction of intimate illusions that the mind explored and welcomed.

Slowly we both of us shed the cloak of fantasy that covered our on-line personae, and began to reveal the real us to each other. And boy, we were in for some shocks. We both used the Net to role play, neither looking for anything from anyone but friendship of the penpal variety but, here, we found ourselves drawing ever close with each revealed secret.

Even then, we really weren't expecting to go any farther, but we increasingly felt the need to do so. With our first real phone call, we both felt the nervous excitement of the first date... we just talked about general things friends would talk about. Gradually we started to meet in the chat rooms more and increased our phone chats...

Each meeting drew us closer and we shared deeper thoughts and exposed deeper visions of who each of us were. We began writing each other and in all our early letters, fantasy sex was included with each letter -- it almost became a game, to create more interesting and wild places to be together. We noticed how close we were becoming and how much we willingly shared with each other.

When we first revealed to each other that we were both married, we both almost pulled back from any further contact. But that's also when we both realized how much we really cared for each other, and what good friends we had become. Both of were in dead-end marriages and I think that's partly what drew us to the Net, looking for a person to share ourselves with.

Over the next few weeks, we both started to really explore just how deep our feelings could go. We realised we were really feeling more than friendship alone, we were really feeling love, a deeper feeling than either of us imagined. It was wonderful and overwhelming at the same time. We became engrossed in taking this as far as it would go, both feeling an intense need to be with the other.

We exchanged pictures, intimate details of our lives, past and present... and none of the revelations made the other person stop caring.

Sometimes, we would get panicky feelings, but we developed a unique way to be so bonded that we seemed to know when the other was having problems and, all of a sudden, a phone call or a note would magically be there for the other, exactly when needed.

We found ourselves, at times, writing the same feelings for each other at the same time. We found when we compared notes that our likes and dislikes were eerily alike. And always, we would play this game of asking a question -- what is your favourite colour, say... and both emailing the other at the same time so there was no way we could match responses. And we were continually amazed at how exact, or extremely close, our tastes were.

Finally we had communicated with each other so much, and in such depth, that, like a real romance, we needed to explore the next step of a relationship. So we decided to risk everything to be together... forever, not just in the Net.

We made plans to meet physically for the first time five months from our first meeting, both of us remaining celibate for each other until then, causing great pressures on us both. Had we known the effect of the wait, we both agree we would have met earlier, but we have made the commitment to wait, spending countless hours talking and planning on that first encounter.

It is almost like being virgins again and waiting for our wedding night. The yo-yo effect, up one moment because we are together and down the next because one or the other of us is having server problems or has to leave for work or whatever, of dealing with all our emotions is harder because of the distance between us. But we spend so much time communicating with each other that nothing seems to matter.

These days, we talk of every step we take. We help each other through every obstacle that challenges us. And we never have a moment of doubt about our love and commitment and that we were meant to be together.

As far as we are concerned, the Net was merely a medium of introduction -- it could as easily have been a chance encounter in a shopping mall or a wrong number on the telephone -- this relationship has gone way beyond being a Net phenomenon and, today, we believe that if ever two people were meant to unite for life, it's us.

We're each others best friends, soul mates and soon-to-be lovers. We share a bond so deep and strong, we will make this happen, both of us know that. We are aware of all the problems that are yet to come and are ready and willing to do whatever it takes to finally be together. Less than a month to go now and we will be taking a new step in our lives, meeting for the first time in real life and that, for us, is merely one more step in the process of being together forever.

In fact, we are already working on plans for me to relocate, so I can live and work in his city, by late fall.

This short description couldn't possibly cover the depth of all we've shared together, only a superficial glimpse into the outline of two people falling in love in a way that most won't be able to grasp. The easiest comparison I can give would be like two physically challenged people... blind and paralysed, say, meeting, and exchanging all intimacies other than being able to see or physically touch. The other senses can compensate for those and love is a feeling of the mind, heart, and soul. Being able to feel it without actually experiencing physical intimacy is what this has been all about for us, thus far.

The next step we take together, the moment when we meet each other in real time, take each other in our arms, will only be an added blessing. For, at this point, we love each other truly, in our minds and hearts and souls.

And, knowing all that, it follows for us that the meeting to come is merely the wrapping paper -- we already have our gift!

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He is from South Africa. She, from Australia. Both of them are deeply, irrevocably in love.

Illustration: Pramod