Roleplaying in An Idea

He looked like the type of man that could give me an orgasm. Sorry - that was just the first thing that went through my mind when I saw him. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me explain. Or, rather, let me start at the beginning. This isn’t a love story. It’s not a story at all. It’s just what has happened, is happening and will happen. And when it comes to an unfortunate end, though it hasn’t yet, I will then decide if it’s a story having been worthy of being told.

Anyway, the beginning. I fell in love with words. Words that didn’t belong to me. He wrote words on a screen to someone else and I read every one of them and wished they were mine. This is back in the infancy of the internet. My family had a very slow, not up to date computer which ran on dial up. We all had our separate AOL accounts. In our household I was the one that used the computer the most. I think that my parents worried about how much time I spent on the computer but I really couldn’t help myself. With this clunky, large box I could read about anything and search out everything. There were chat rooms where people from all over the world could talk to me. I won’t get into how my adult brain reels at all the dumb things I said and did on the internet with complete strangers. I guess that will be for another time.

Chatrooms were innocent to me, though in reality far from it. I loved talking to new people. I used to chat in AOL and through mIRC. I don’t have any way to tell you what mIRC is, or what it stood for. I do know that highly intelligent nerds, for lack of a better word, used the platform and spoke to each other in various rooms on different topics. That was where I watched my best friend have the weirdest bout of cyber sex ever. That sounds weird so let me back up.

I used to go over to my best friend’s shoddy apartment with her abusive ex husband all the time to watch her chat online. We’d take turns and talk to various people, them not believing that 2 -girls- were in the same room talking to them. There was some aura of mystery and allure that this gave us. We used this to our advantage and my best friend Dahlia being much more flirty than I, was able to cast lines to nab random men for salacious chatter. One man decided to push the line and do a sort of ‘roleplay’ of sex while they were chatting. Wide eyed I sat next to her, reading his various technical sexual pursuits. Nothing says sexy like ‘My large digit enters your woman area, throbbing with desire.” We laughed and laughed as she typed responses, carefully responding to make it seem that she was really into it. My brain couldn’t fathom why anyone would find that hot. But apparently it was, at least for the men she attracted.

In my own pursuits at home I’d do random searches online for other types of chatrooms and that is how I stumbled upon a place where people roleplayed. Up until this point I had only seen one type of roleplay and this didn’t appear to be that type of thing. On the landing page it explained the rules and I just thought, “This is it. I have been looking for something like this!” You see, I like to write. It was something I enjoyed in school and came easy to me. This place was offering to me a sanctuary and opportunity. Here I could write stories back and forth with like minded people! It was a fantasy setting, with promises of vampires, fairies and elves. What wasn’t to love about this? I created a name, “Ariella” and entered the room. At first, the first few days, I sat back and simply watched. I am not the person who just jumps in thinking they know what’s going on. I take a minute to see what people do, what the etiquette is and the gist of the environment. Oh boy was I let down.

Roleplayer type #1 - Hidden in the dark corner of the tavern, one with the shadows is the brooding and damaged handsome vampire. He’s misunderstood and lonely - but also a monster!

Roleplayer type #2 - It’s the elven maiden with flaming red hair and flashing green eyes that is so beautiful and yet… no one will love her. She’s also an empath. Also a cleric. She can wield swords, a bow and blow darts.

Roleplayer type #3 - Elven male who sexes everything. Also addicted to mead but doesn’t have a problem and can kill anyone in one blow.

Roleplayer type #4 - Half-vampire-half-elf-quarter-human with a voice that sounds like a song and is a victim to everything. Can’t go into the sun but needs the sun. Wants to take you to a room upstairs in the tavern.

All of these characters would enter the room, settle in and their posts would look something like this:

He looks around, eyes flashing from the darkness.
She dreams of days when she will see her love again. Sigh.

It wasn’t what I was expecting. Not even a little bit. I thought there would be more detail, more words. And then one day there he is. Wait. Not he. But there is his character and he wrote the most beautiful paragraph using every word in his lexicon with more than 2 syllables and I was hooked. I wanted to play to him. I hadn’t written a single word, I didn’t know what I was doing but I fell in love with his words and I wanted them all to be for me. And this is how our story starts.