Preface:
Renaissance
In Cyberspace

The Tip
of the Hook

WildCare

The Other,
Another
And I

The Prince,
As The King
His Father
Lies Dying

A Ghost
Among
The Ghosts

   He really wanted to meet me, even after I told him what I looked like.
   Sometimes in my dreams I walk, and even dance. I talk, and even sing. But I always wake up trapped inside this wretched body.
   I was born twisted, and I never straightened out. My nerves fire all at once, and my muscles all fight against each other, usually to a draw, so my limbs are generally rigid. When I manage to force one set of muscles to overcome its opposing set, I move like a herky-jerky puppet. I can barely work the joystick on my wheelchair, and have to keep the speed way down when I'm inside or in a crowd, or I crash into people and things.
   I am typing on an oversized keyboard with my lurching fist, pounding one painful letter at a time. But I'm patient, really. When nobody can understand a word you say, when "How are you" comes out a strangled "HNNNH HAHNNNNN OOOOH" and only your mother can even GUESS sometimes, you get patient or die. Well, you get mad and sad and bad, but finally you get patient. At least sometimes. I'm patient when I'm writing because it's, like, "At last!"
   Technology is liberating. There's a chatroom for everyone, even me. I posted a personal ad: "Tired of twisted minds in straight bodies? How about a straight mind in a twisted body? Or better yet, a twisted mind in a twisted body?"
   And that's how I met Gerald.
   There were two wonderful amazing things about him. One was that he lived just two towns away, where he was a grad student in the Psych Department at State, where I'm transfering next year from my community college.
   The other was that he didn't care about the CP or anything. He thought I was funny and smart and cute. Even after I emailed a jpeg attachment and he saw for himself. Well, maybe I'm not so bad. I've got naturally wild frizzy blonde hair, after all, and green eyes, and I might even be cute except for the grimace and the occasional teeth-grinding. And other than not working very well, my body's pretty good, lean but not scrawny. Great muscle tone, since I'm always doing involuntary isometrics. And since I started college a couple of years ago, I've convinced my mother to dress me in some pretty hot outfits -- casual, of course, elegantly understated, like low-slung faded jeans and tank tops with just enough belly showing to make a lot of guys squirm because they want to stare but they don't want to stare but they want to stare, because the wheelchair freaks them out and my head's at a funny angle and I'm making faces like an ugly idiot but I'm still sexy and I'm not really ugly. I think. Sometimes I think.
   Gerald didn't think I was ugly. He even said I was beautiful. That was a little too much for me to believe, but when he said he loved me, I guessed that maybe he'd been blinded by love. I've heard of that. But whatever. I figured it was just one of those Internet things, meaningless fantasy fun. Okay, I fantasized a little about it not being a fantasy, especially when we started telling each other what we'd like to do to each other. Not smutty, just, like, "I want to take you in my arms and drench you in a thousand kisses," and "I want to melt into your very being" -- well, maybe a little smutty, but poetic, not crude.
   And it was so sweet and exhilarating to feel loved and in love that I didn't dare to let him come see me, but he begged and begged for months and threatened to die or split up, so I finally gave him my address and said he could come on Saturday.
   I was crazy all week. I couldn't eat or sleep or shit, and I had a big fight with my mother because I wouldn't let her shave my armpits because Gerald has been to Europe and likes natural women. My mother always preached that I can do anything that anybody else can do, though, so I throw that back in her face when I have to.
   On Saturday I was just depressed because I knew it was hopeless. But he came and stayed for two hours and had tea and cookies and even charmed my mother. We joked and laughed, and he didn't mind how long it takes me to fist-type a message through my voice-synthesizer. And when he left he leaned over and brushed my ear with his lips and whispered "I love you."
   I was so dizzy it was a good thing I was sitting down.
   That's a joke.
   The emails got pretty steamy after that, and we planned a real date. More than a date. I told my mother we were going to a movie. A double feature. It was two movies that Gerald had already seen, and he told me all about them so I could tell my mother about them after, if she asked.
   We left my bulky power chair in the driveway and tossed a fold-up push chair into his trunk. He did a beautiful pivot transfer, just like I'd told him, to get me from my chair into his front seat: my feet pressed between his feet, so they couldn't slide out from under me; my knees pressed between his knees, so they couldn't buckle or spasm too badly; his hands under my arms, around my back; then one, two, three, rocking back like a teeter-totter and I was standing, almost as tall as him, nose to nose, then pivot 90 degrees in a daring dance, dip, and there I was in his car.
   He knelt and swung my legs in, fastened my seat belt -- oooh! -- unhooked my keyboard/voice-synthesizer from my chair and put it in my lap, closed my door like a gentleman, waved cheerfully to my mom and hopped into the driver's seat, and we were free.
   Then he got nervous, which was almost charming, as he told me about the motel room he had booked, right on the ground floor so we could park right next to the door and get in and out real easy. That wasn't actually what I had imagined, since he lived less than a half an hour away. I coolly thrashed at my keyboard for a minute or two, then thumped the yak button, and my hollow metallic expressionless voice said:
   "Why not your place?"
   "Because, uh, my roommates are such goons, I'd be embarrassed for you to have to meet them."
   Or I'd embarrass you in front of them, I realized in what I would call a moment of staggering clarity, if I could stand up long enough to stagger. And if I winced, nobody could tell, because my winces look just like my twitches. And I didn't cry a drop. Not yet. Plenty of time for that later. Did I mention that Iım a tough little bitch?
   And it only took me seven seconds to decide to go to the motel anyway. I wasn't going to let the bastard rob me of the first experience. Did I mention that I was a virgin?
   But afterward, when he took me home and transferred me from his car to my electric wheelchair, and leaned over to kiss me on the top of the head -- the top of the head, the son of a bitch! -- I clumsily poked my joystick and ran over his foot.