He's sulking. Tells me that he'll mail me, if he has the time. Now it is my turn to get annoyed. 'Listen, dear,' I tell him, 'it's a big risk. You know what's at stake.' He sighs and takes me in his arms. 'But I'm crazy about you,' he whispers. 'I dream about you every night. I want to touch you.' 'We don't know each other,' I say. 'If things don't work out, it'll all be over.' He looks at me. 'But you are in love with me, aren't you?'

Of course I am. For three months now, I have had butterflies in my stomach, troubling my intestines with their digital fluttering. His mail makes me shiver - what luck that email never gets dog-eared;-) - and when we're online I forget the world around me. But although I am as curious about him as he is about me, I don't want to spoil this virtual liaison by a disappointing meeting with a complete stranger.

My lover is a virtual lover. No, we don't caress each other with the help of grotesque gloves, strangely shaped glasses, aids around our genitals or other inventions that are supposed to be a neccesity to get access to virtual reality.Our game of love is simpler than that and based on the old principle of the novel and the love-letter; we caress with words. But different than in the novel, when it is only the voice of the writer speaking to the reader, and different than in the letter, when the intervals within the dialogue may be endless, I read his words from my screen the moment that he types 'enter' after his sentence.

The benefits of a virtual lover over a real one are many. Not only is the sex free of risks and problems (in digital sex one doesn't have to consider troublesome consequenses as illnesses or offspring, and of course the performances are allways of a breathtakingly high level). In a moral sense a virtual affair is surprisingly comfortable as well. Virtual adultery isn't real, after all, my digital girlfriends and I decided in endless online teaparties. We allow ourselves to pursue it with anyone anytime - and confessing the Real Life Lover isn't necessary.

Apart from that, virtual space offers all sorts of advantages of a practical kind. You don't have to leave the house to meet your lover,and you don't have to invite the lover over to your own home, running the risk of getting caught. The body doesn't show any signs, lost hours do not need to be explained, and the risk of coming across curious and talkative acquintences is out of the question.

My lover is a virtual one, but there is no doubt that he really exists. On the other end of a fibreglass cable there is a man who reacts to my words. A man who, much to my alarm, has decided that our digital affair has been nothing but a preparation for reality. 'I do know you,' he says. 'I know your words, don't I? And words come from your head.' What can I say? He is right. He might be the only person who ever really fell in love with me - the real me, unaware of outward appearances. In a physic sense we are complete strangers. He might be the hairy guy with the angry eyes who walks in the street, or the pale creep that tries to catch my eye in the supermarket. He could be the handsome professor with the boyish glimpse in his eyes, or the buff rollerblader that is riding by. But how can I convince him that by meeting me we will loose the most precious thing: the fact that by onlyconsisting out of words he offers me something new. And that is the only thing I desire...