Chat

Username: Jayce
Password: ****

Jason logged into the chat room, wondering if she was online. He
remembered the first time that he had decided to try the chat room.
Nervously he had registered with his nickname and password and typed in
'Hello.'

Almost immediately a reply had come back.

LF: 'Hi Jayce, I'm Liza. How are you?'

Jayce: 'Hi. Liza with a zee eh?'

LF: 'You'd better believe it. First time?'

The conversation had continued and before long a couple of hours had
gone by and Jason had a new friend. The following night he had logged
on again and been pleased to see that Liza was also online. Once again
they had spent a couple of hours talking in the chat room.

Since then he had been on almost every night. Liza had always been
there. She was so easy to talk to and seemed to know quite a lot about
him. Jason wondered if it was someone that he knew.

By now he felt that he knew her really well. Liza Flanders was her full
name and she lived in a town on the west coast of England. A well-known
seaside resort, she'd said.

'I'm not gonna tell you which one. A girl's got to have some mystery,'
he remembered her saying in one of the conversations.

'Are you on that bloody computer again?'

The voice belonged to Kay, Jason's fianc?e. They had known each other
since school and been engaged for a couple of years. They were getting
married in the summer. Despite some problems between them a while back,
Jason was now looking forward to the big day. It was all booked and
arranged and all of the invitations had been sent.

However, he still felt guilty when she caught him on the computer
chatting to Liza. He seemed to have developed a sixth sense as to when
Kay was coming close and could minimise the chat room window in a
second.

Kay came into the room.

'What are you up to?' she asked.

'Not much. Just checking my email.'

The computer beeped.

'What was that?'

'Oh probably just a message.'

'Budge up then, lets have a look,' said Kay giggling and squeezing into
the chair next to Jason. She grabbed the mouse.

'Who's LF?'

'Someone in the chatroom.'

'Male or female?'

'Er... female. Liza.' There was an awkwardness to his voice. He had no
reason to feel guilty, he knew that, but he couldn't help it. Luckily
Kay hadn't appeared to notice.

'Let's have a go then' said Kay pulling the keyboard towards her.

Kay began typing.

'Hello, I'm Kay, Jason's fianc?e.'

There was a pause. Then "LF has left the chat room" appeared on the
screen.

'That's not very friendly,' said Kay.

Jason shrugged.

'C'mon, lets go downstairs,' he said grabbing the mouse and shutting
down the computer. 'I'm tired.'

'You do look a little tired. In fact you've been tired quite a lot
lately.'

'Its all the stress at work at the moment. As soon as this new
acquisition is sorted out it'll be much better.'

There wasn't much on the television, but Jason was feeling too tired to
do anything else. He heard a pop from the kitchen and Kay wandered in
with a newly opened bottle of wine and a couple of glasses.

She sat down on the sofa, handed him a glass and snuggled up to
him.

'What are we watching?'

Jason flicked through a few of the available channels.

'Dunno, doesn't appear to be much on.'

'We could watch a video,' said Kay. 'Or go to bed early.'

She squeezed him and bit his earlobe lightly.

There was a beep from the hallway.

Kay stopped nibbling Jason's ear for a moment and asked, 'What was
that?'

'I don't know, maybe one of the phones needs charging.'

'It's probably mine. It's been a few days since I did it. You couldn't
go and plug it in for me, could you? I'll make it worth your while.'
Kay ran her hand up one of Jason's thighs, across his crotch, where it
lingered for a moment, and down his other thigh.

Jason smiled, got up and wandered into the hallway where their two
mobile phones sat side by side, like identical twins, on one of the
shelves in the small bookcase. He picked up the one in the leather
case, Kay's, and looked at the battery meter. It was almost full. He
picked up his phone, the uncased one, and looked at it. A tiny envelope
was flashing.

A message.

He pressed a couple of buttons to display it.

'You never told me you were engaged - LF' it said.

Jason stared at the message. How the hell did she get my mobile number,
he thought. He looked through the doorway into the lounge where Kay was
sitting watching the television.

'Won't be long' he called, and went upstairs.

He sat down on the toilet and tapped the phone's keypad.

'Where did you get my mobile number? - J' He pressed the button to send
it.

Almost immediately the phone beeped as a reply came back. Jason covered
the speaker up to try and deaden the noise. He hoped that Kay hadn't
heard anything. Then he switched the phone's ring and message tones
off.

'It's amazing what you can find on the internet. Why didn't you tell
me. I thought we were best friends.'

Jason suddenly felt a sharp pain in his chest. He leant back against
the cistern and took a deep breath.

'Indigestion,' he muttered quietly to himself. A sudden wave of
tiredness came over him and for a moment he thought he was going to
pass out. He leant over to the sink, ran the tap and gulped a couple of
mouthfuls of water.

He looked back at the message on the phone. He was a bit perturbed by
the fact that his mobile number was available on the internet for
anyone to find. He'd probably been stupid enough to put it on an order
form somewhere and it'd been sold on, he thought, although he was
usually pretty careful about that kind of thing.

He began to key in a reply to the message.

'Are you okay?' Kay shouted through the door.

'Yes, I'll be out in a minute.'

'We are. I'm sorry, we'll chat soon. I'll explain then.'

Almost at the same moment as Jason pressed the send button a reply came
back. How does she type so fast, he wondered.

'Okay. I'll be waiting, don't leave it too long.'

He switched the phone off, so that he wouldn't be disturbed by any more
messages arriving. Then he flushed the toilet, ran the tap for a while
and left the bathroom.

'Are you sure you're okay? You look really pale' said Kay when he
walked back into the lounge.

'I think so, just something I ate I expect.'

She put her arms around him and pulled him close.

'Is that a phone in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see
me?'

She was surprised to see a guilty look flash over his face.

'Oh, I meant to plug it in' he said pulling the phone from his pocket,
'I forgot.'

She watched as he wandered along the landing to where the phone charger
was permanently plugged in. He looked back at her as he attached the
phone to the charger. At that particular moment he reminded her of a
little boy who had been caught with his hand in the biscuit barrel. She
found herself wondering which biscuit barrel he'd had his hand
in.

Jason walked to the bedroom and sat on the bed. His breathing was hard
and heavy. Small droplets of sweat were beginning to form on his
forehead.

Kay sat on the bed beside him. She looked at him, concerned at the pale
colour of his skin, and the raspiness of his breathing.

'Are you sure you're okay?'

Jason nodded. He tried to speak, but his mouth was so dry and his
throat so tight that only a squeak came out.

'Come on,' said Kay. 'Let's get you into bed. You're sickening for
something.' She began to undress him.

At any other time, the prospect of Kay removing his clothes would have
excited him, but at the moment Jason wished she'd just leave him alone.
For some reason, the only thought that was going through his head was
that he'd feel okay if he could talk to Liza. He must get a message to
Liza, he thought, he must tell her that he's sorry.

'I hope whatever it is isn't catching' said Kay as she pulled the duvet
over him, 'do you want me to get you anything? Drink? Tablets?'

Jason shook his head. He wished she'd stop fussing. He just needed to
tell Liza he was sorry, then he'd be fine.

When he awoke the next morning, he wasn't feeling much better. He'd had
a restless night and the bedsheets were soaked with sweat.

He sat on the edge of the bed feeling sick as the room spun around him.
On the odd occasion when he managed to focus he would see two of
everything. Then the room would set off once again on its
journey.

He laid back down and groaned.

'No better?' asked Kay.

Jason thought for a moment that it was probably quite obvious that he
wasn't, but he shook his head anyway. He immediately wished that he
hadn't. Sharp pains made their way up his neck towards the dull ache
that had taken up residence on the very top of his head. Once they
reached it the ache became anything but dull and Jason grabbed at his
head wishing it would stop.

'Do you want me to call the doctor?'

'I'll be okay' said Jason. His voice was little more than a
whisper.

'Okay, but if its still like this at lunchtime, make an appointment to
see him.'

'Mmm.' It was the best reply he could manage.

Kay kissed him and left for work.

Jason listened to Kay's car start up and drive off. He pulled the duvet
over his head and shut his eyes, hoping that a decent sleep would clear
his headache.

After what seemed, to Jason, only a few minutes, he awoke. He turned
and looked at the clock. It was lunchtime, he'd slept through the whole
morning. He mentally checked his head looking for the pain he'd felt
earlier.

It wasn't there.

He turned his head to and fro waiting for the pains to begin moving up
the back of his head.

Nothing.

He sat up. No dizziness or nausea. The room stayed perfectly
still.

He stood up and walked to the bathroom. On the way he absentmindedly
walked into the study and switched the computer on.

When he returned the computer had booted and Jason logged on to the
internet.

Almost as soon as the modem stopped whistling its tune to the server,
signifying a successful connection, it was replaced by a beep notifying
him that he had a message waiting.

He opened the message.

'Hi, are you there? You never mentioned that you were engaged. I
thought there was something between us, we seem to get on so well.
Although we've never met I just feel that there's something bonding us
together, I seem to know you so well. You know where I'll be if you
want to chat. L xxx.'

Jason heaved a sigh of relief. He had been worried that he would lose
contact with Liza now, but it looked like she would give him a second
chance. He sat back from the keyboard and thought. What was all this
second chance business? There was nothing between him and Liza, she was
just someone to chat to over the internet, a faceless confidant. But,
he did find himself wondering what she looked like and some of their
conversations had been very deep and quite personal. There wasn't that
much that she didn't know about him. Except that he was getting
married. He'd never felt that it was that important to tell her.

As he thought more about it, he realised that he probably thought about
Liza more often than he thought about Kay.

Kay was always nagging him these days. He did love her, but he longed
for a bit more excitement. He supposed that maybe Liza gave him a sort
of 'safe affair' without any real unfaithfulness. He'd never had that
much truck in being faithful. Not that he'd actually had the guts to
have any real affairs, well, except for a short fling with that woman
at work just before Christmas, but that wasn't a real affair he
thought. If the opportunity arose, however, he just thought that he
probably would.

*

Kay put the phone down. She'd been trying for half an hour to phone
Jason to see how he was, but just kept getting the busy tone. Maybe he
had taken the phone off the hook so that it wouldn't disturb him while
he slept. She'd tried his mobile, but just kept getting the voicemail
service.

She found herself wondering that maybe he was on the internet, chatting
to this Liza she'd caught him sending messages to last night.

She thought back to about six months ago when she'd called off the
engagement because he'd been seeing one of the women he'd worked with.
She remembered his promises that he'd not do it again, that he'd get
another job and they could move away, and finally his threats of
suicide if she left him.

Finally she'd persuaded herself to believe him and until a couple of
weeks ago everything was going fine. Then he'd started spending a
couple of hours a night on the computer.

At first she didn't think much about it, the internet was a new toy,
and he'd grow out of it. But he hadn't. He'd been spending a couple of
hours every evening on the internet and every time she'd gone up to see
what he'd been up to she'd get the distinct impression that he was
hiding something.

He was also tired all the time. He kept blaming it on the situation at
work and the stress that he was under, but Kay thought it was more than
that. It wasn't just tiredness, she thought, it was though he was
drained of energy. He had become very pale and drawn and also very
short tempered. He was always worse after he'd spent some time on the
computer. She was sure that it was affecting him in some way.

*

Jason came to with a start as a loud click signalled that the computer
had disconnected itself from the phone system after sitting idle for so
long.

He shook his head. Had he been asleep? Maybe. He often felt tired these
days. He remembered Kay nagging him again. It'd serve her right if I
did go off with someone else he thought. She's probably out to lunch
with some fancy man herself at the moment. That last thought made him
sit up and think. He didn't like it.

With a determined air, he logged back onto the internet and made his
way to the chat room. He almost let out a yell of joy as he saw Liza's
name in the list of members.

LF: 'Hello, are you on your own? Did you get my message?'

Jayce: 'Hi, yes I'm on my own. I'm not at work, I'm not feeling too
good. I did get your message. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about her, I
thought it might spoil things. You're right, we do get on really well
and if I'm honest I probably think about you more than I do her. Please
forgive me.'

LF: 'Sorry you're not well, but its nice to think you've dragged
yourself from your deathbed to chat to me. As for you not telling me
about your engagement, I feel quite betrayed, some of our chats have
been very intimate, I've shared some really deep secrets.'

Jayce: 'I know and I'm really, really sorry. You're right, we have
shared some intimate moments.'

Jason took a deep breath and typed, 'I would love to meet you.'

He sat back and waited. For a moment he wondered whether he should have
done that. 'Oh well,' he muttered. 'Its too late now.'

The computer bleeped into life again.

LF: 'Why? You're engaged to be married. I don't intend to be the other
woman. There doesn't seem much point in taking our relationship any
further than it is - just chat room friends.'

Jayce: 'It'd be really nice to meet you and see if we get on as well as
we do online. We could become really good friends.'

LF: 'But I don't want to be just friends. I really thought we had
something and that we would eventually be together forever. If you want
to meet, then those are the only terms I'll accept. None of this 'I
don't believe in being faithful' stuff. If you want to meet me you'll
have to leave Kay.'

Jason sat back in the chair and thought about it. He was a bit
surprised about the 'being faithful' remark, he didn't remember ever
mentioning that before.

Jayce: 'That's a big decision.'

LF: 'I know. And I don't expect an answer straight away. Think about it
and let me know, but don't take too long.'

Could he really leave Kay, Jason thought to himself. He thought about
the both of them, Liza and Kay.

'I could tell Liza that I'd left Kay,' he said, thinking out loud.
'She'd never know.'

But he had the distinct impression that she probably would. Often Liza
seemed to know a lot more about him than he remembered telling
her.

He shut down the computer and went downstairs. It was almost time for
Kay to come home. More nagging, he thought. Maybe I should leave her.
At least Liza's never nagged me. Well, not yet, anyway.

A short time later he heard Kay's car draw up. A car door slammed and
soon after the front door opened.

'Hello. Feeling better?' asked Kay when she saw Jason.

'Yeah, not too bad now. Still a bit tired though.'

'That's good. I was really worried about you this morning. Have you
been in bed all day?'

'Mostly,' he said. 'I got up in the middle of the afternoon.'

'I was planning to go out with some of the girls from the office
tonight for a drink, but I can stay at home if you want me to.'

'No, I'll be okay. You go out if you want. Where are you going?'

'Just the wine bar, I think. They might go clubbing later, but I'll
probably come home.'

Jason shrugged.

'Go if you want,' he said. 'I'll probably be asleep anyway. Just don't
make too much noise when you get in.'

*

'Right, I'm off now,' called Kay as she came downstairs later on that
evening.

'Have a nice time. Don't drink too much,' returned Jason.

'Thanks, and you can chat to your new girlfriend while I'm out.'

'She's NOT my girlfriend,' shouted Jason. 'She's just someone to talk
to online. I don't even know that much about her.' He stormed out of
the room.

Kay was stunned. She had meant it as a joke, and certainly hadn't
expected a reaction like that. She remembered the busy phone earlier
and wondered if maybe there was something going on.

She followed Jason upstairs and found that he was in the bathroom. She
knocked lightly on the door.

'I was only joking,' she said. 'There was no need to bite my head
off.'

'I'm fed up with you being suspicious of everything I do,' came a voice
from behind the door. 'When are you going to trust me?'

'You don't make it that easy. Ever since Christmas?'

'Christmas!' The bathroom door almost seemed to shake with the force of
the word. 'Christmas, Christmas, Christmas! You always bring that up.
How many times do I have to say I'm sorry before you forget about
that.'

'Look?'

'I trust you. For all I know you might be seeing some fancy bloke from
the office tonight, but do I think about that? No. Why? Because I trust
you.'

'But I haven't had an affair during our engagement have I Jason?' Kay
was beginning to get angry. 'I haven't got the form that you
have.'

'It wasn't an affair. And besides, I've only got your word for that
anyway.'

'Yes you have. Well, I'm off out with the girls. Maybe if I'm lucky, I
can find a rugby team or two that want to shag me!'

Jason sat on the edge of the bath listening to the car door slam, and
the engine start. He winced as he heard the gears grind and the engine
roar as it reflected Kay's anger. I hate her, he thought. I hate
her.

He left the bathroom and switched on the computer.

LF: 'Well? Have you decided?'

Jayce: 'Yes. I think I've only stayed with Kay because I've never met
anyone that really seems to understand me. We don't seem to get on that
well any more, we seem to always be arguing. You seem to understand me
better than anyone I've ever met. I don't think that I've ever felt so
close to anyone before, so okay, I'll do what you want. I hope that I'm
not a disappointment to you.'

Jason sent the message back. At the moment, in his current state of
mind, he meant it. He also figured that he could always renege on the
promise later if he didn't like Liza when he met her.

LF: 'Oh, you won't disappoint me. Are you sure about this? It's a big
decision. There's no going back.'

Jayce: 'Yes, I'm sure. It seems like we've known each other forever
already.'

LF: 'And you want to spend the rest of forever together too? You're so
sweet.'

Jason suddenly realised how tired he was. His eyes were hurting and it
was a real effort to keep them open. His joints were aching too.

Jayce: 'I try. We'll sort out the details next time. I'm really not
feeling too good. I must get some sleep, I feel quite queasy.'

LF: 'Don't worry, it won't last. We'll be together very, very
soon.'

Jason felt his chest tightening. He was finding it difficult to
breathe. Sharp pains shot through his head. Beads of perspiration
appeared on his skin, which felt cold and clammy. He could hear his
heartbeats as they got louder and faster. Louder and faster. Each
breath rasped past his lips like that of an old man.

He grabbed the edge of the desk, his knuckles whitening as the pain got
more intense. A sudden pain, as if he'd been punched really hard, hit
him in the chest. He doubled up in agony, striking his chin on the
corner of the desk as he slipped from the chair. He was dead before he
hit the floor.

The computer screen flickered.

LF: 'Goodnight my love, it was fun while it lasted.'

The computer switched off.

*

Danny arrived home. The funeral had been quite good, as funerals go.
Kay had held up well. He still couldn't believe it. His friend Jason
was dead. The doctors said it had been some sort of heart attack. They
could offer no explanation as he appeared to have been a fit and
healthy young man and there was no history of heart problems in his
family. Jason was only a few weeks older than Danny, they'd known each
other since childhood, and Danny was going to be the best man at his
wedding.

Danny wandered into the lounge and threw his coat on the armchair. From
habit, more than anything else, he switched his computer on as he
passed it on the way to the kitchen.

As he returned from the kitchen with a beer in his hand, he saw the
little envelope flashing at the bottom of the screen.

'Ah, a message. Somebody loves me,' he said to no one in
particular.

He opened the message.

'Hi, I'm Liza, fancy a chat?'

THE END