"Hehe, I like your words about paranoia and alt"
Those were Wolfgang's first words to me on 2012 March 6 at 14:50:11 SLT.
In the early months of 2012, I was
getting ready to publish my book "Love, Like Dim Sum". Then I realized that I
actually didn't have enough experience with BDSM, which was and still is
widespread in SL. So I joined a capture roleplaying group. With a new alt, of
course.
A few days before I met Wolfgang, I met someone else in that group who
wanted to meet my main alt before he would interact with me. Right off the bat.
Hell, no! So I wrote about that experience in my alt's profile. And that was
what Wolfgang was commented about.
In the capture roleplay, the males were the
predators who were hunting the females. (Yes, sexist, I know.) The predators
used a bow-and-arrow weapons system that reduced the female's "health" whenever
she was hit by an arrow. When it gets down to 0% or close to it, she is
considered captured. Wolfgang claimed that he wasn't really good with the
weapons system that the sim was using. But he claimed he was very good with
roleplaying. Okay, I said, I could do roleplay too. I already knew that
roleplayers made better lovers because of their creativity and language skills.
But could this non-native speaker of English be a decent roleplayer?
Surprisingly, he is.
We had to roleplay by email because my father had a health
scare and I had to drive from Seattle to San Francisco. During my drive, the
world seemed very different; everything felt magical. Many times, I thought that
something I passed looked like a forest in our imaginary roleplay world. My
imaginary world and my real world were blending into each other like they never
had before.
In the capture sim, if the prey (female) is caught, she must have
sex with the predator (male) who caught her. So, after a week, I decided that it
was time to let him "catch" me. The moment that he tied the leash after my
capture, it felt like the most sacred part of a church wedding ceremony,
ironically as profane as the roleplay was. I felt a very unusual tenderness and
care from him that day and the next.
After that RP, I thought we would move on
to play with others. Our chase was done after all. But he proposed that we
continue meeting out-of-character.
At that time, we were both polyamorous. He
had five lovers, including me; I had four lovers, including him. Slowly, through
the following years, his four other lovers and my three other lovers faded away.
The past ten years were not easy, especially the early years. We argued a lot.
He broke my heart many times; I broke up with him twice.
Third time's a charm,
they say. But I think, by the third time, you give up all your hopes and
expectations and just let the relationship be what it is. That's when you
realize there are diamonds in the relationship that you never expected, because
you were expecting something else.
Through private roleplays with each other,
we've explored many types of pairings. I get bored easily and he enjoys the
variety that we come up with. Although he initially pushes back on my ideas, he
eventually agrees I was right. (My response: I'm always right! ;) ) And when he
expresses a wish, it becomes my command, even if he says I don't have to do it.
Once, he promised that he would never abandon me, no matter what happens between
us. And he kept his word through our break-ups.
He said he cherishes me. He
never said he loved me.
I know many things about him, his family, his friends,
his work, his life. I still don't know his last name. I could easily find him,
but I choose to respect his wish.
Two of my past SL relationships lasted almost
a year. I was amazed when my relationship with Wolfgang lasted two. Then five.
Then ten. There's still no guarantee that there'll be an 11th anniversary.
Last
December, in real life, I met up with some cousins, one of whom stayed with me
in my hotel. In the middle of the night, she woke up to a vision. She said that
she saw a man at the edge of my bed and I was caring for him, wiping and
caressing his face. She remembered his face from the vision vividly. She thought
that I couldn't possibly have a man in the room with us, so she went back to
sleep.
The next morning, she told me about her vision.
I hardly talk about my SL
relationships with my family, because the concept of SL is already foreign to
them. But, after she told me about her vision, I peppered her with questions
about what the man looked like. Then I showed her Wolfgang's RL pic. Her
reaction was priceless. She recognized him right away as the man on my bed in
her vision.
There is something magical here. In more ways than one.
