My parents connected our family computer to the Internet in the late fall of 1997. Lucky for me, my Father finally felt the pressure to stay connected to the world even after he had come home from work. Of course, not having the Internet wasn't the only reason I wasn't cool in junior high, but it didn't help either. 

My stamp collection, which had been almost entirely made up of my Father's mail from the State University where he taught physics, inversely depleted as his letters were replaced by e-mails. But instead of foregoing my hobby, I forked over a part of my allowance to the local stamp store. My collection slowed only after I went away to college when I wasn't as compelled to put in the effort.

I had picked out my screen name a few months before I actually got Instant Messenger —  but by then the prospects were high enough for me to host an official name picking ceremony without fear of later disappointment. It happened during the High Holy Day services of Yom Kippur, while my Hebrew school buddies and I waited hungrily in the lobby until our parents were done being Jewish.

AxelA101. That was what we decided on. The reason AxelA101 was so perfect? I was in love with figure skating, and Axel stood for The Axel ? the milestone jump I was working up to in my lessons: 1 and 1/2 revolutions (the 1/2 was the killer) of free-flying, gravity-defying,awesomeness. (The A after Axel stood for, take a wild guess, the first letter of my name, and 101 just had a good ring to it. I didn't make the connection to the infamous college classes 101, and it was only later that I realized the famous musician, Axel Rose and I now almost shared something special.)

When AxelA101 was already taken as a screen name I became AxelA102. Second Best, but I was OK with that.

Sports Plus ice rink where I figure skated, boasted the slogan, The Ultimate Entertainment Center. The ice rink by itself was not "ultimate", but the connected arcade games, indoor rides, bowling alley and golf course made up the definition. Even my Mother and I were in agreement that the manicured golf course was much nicer across the street from our mall, than the tangled swampland that preceded it. Years later the golf course was the first to go. It became an old folks home.

I landed the jump, the axel, for the first time before I turned 16. But it was inconsistent. I only landed it a few more times until I fell into sloppier skating habits when I got my first after-school job.

As a rink guard, I quickly learned that Sports Plus skating rink's perpetual iciness made time slow. Two hour skating sessions were easily four hours, and my main responsibility — in a blindingly, bright orange winter jacket  — was skating around and around in circles for an hour straight, making sure no one got hurt. When I bowed my head as I skated, pretending to have blinders, it became automatic. It threw off my center of balance, and when I figure skated I would "break" in the air, mid-axel, dropping my chin, eyes on the ice.

But I enjoyed my hunched, circular time, skating silently to self-therapy. Gliding along soothed my thoughts to a rhythm, while the ice made them numb and permeable. I thought mostly about boys.

Gregg was a hockey player first, later becoming a co-manager at the rink. He witnessed the more embarrassing years of my maturity after first meeting me as a 12 year-old learning to spin on one foot. Gregg then was a whopping 16. I felt my first pangs of attraction when he gave me a warm "hi!" on a night when I actually felt pretty because I had recently learned how to tweeze my bushy eyebrows thin.

I eventually went away to college and stopped working at Sports Plus. But Instant Messenger connected Gregg and me. When my screen name remained the same, Gregg believed my feelings for him had not changed either.

Gregg was a tickler. I got good fast at faking the hysterics of someone who was ticklish because I was jealous of my co-workers who could laugh uncontrollably to the point of tears. As long as I pretended, I got my share of his attention. When Gregg saw through my act he re-focused his:

"I know I can get you to laugh if I tickle your feet. No feet can withstand the power of these." He wiggled his wingers, staring into my eyes; then glancing down, into my soles.

As we chatted more online Gregg became explicit. "I'm going to pull off your skates, rip off your socks and tickle you until you're begging for mercy." It was an odd joke, I thought, but I rationalized: As a rink guard our time was split between protecting customers' from injury on the ice, and handing out the dirty skates that caused their injuries. Gregg's foot fetish was acceptable in the ice rink's context. Who was I to judge when I had my own secret fantasies?

It would take me about five minutes to get used to the putrid smell of cold sweat in the hockey locker rooms. After that, mopping became my favorite time to think. There, my still hunched daydreams were not interrupted. There Gregg and I had a very passionate and very secret romance after he surprised me and bolted the locker-room door from within. And there, when Gregg was so blown away by my arched back as I did my layback spin on the ice, he wasn't able to contain his feelings for me any longer.

But Gregg rarely tickled me anymore as our confidence became more intimate online. So I broke down, and provoked his inaction. Gregg hesitantly revealed he didn't touch my feet because he was afraid he wouldn't be able to stop touching me.

I wore flip-flops on the night Gregg and I hung out. I was too nervous to pull straight into his driveway and instead I drove to the end of his road and turned down a broken path for no good reason other than exploration. My car crunched over-grown weeds that lead to an expansive power-line system that connected Gregg's neighborhood to mine. The satellite that connected us must have been hovering somewhere over-head, lonely from our missing company.

That night I would have been too nervous to pretend to laugh if Gregg tickled my feet because talk of tickling them had turned north. Gregg had boasted online that he was going to give me an orgasm. But my erotic expectations were let down when Gregg greeted me at the door and offered, "Let's watch a movie," while I had imagined him slamming me up against the wall with a passionate kiss, not even giving me the chance to take off my coat.

We settled down on his couch and turned on a flick, but only for ceremony. Soon enough we were rolling around his parent's living room floor, enjoying the small talk and intimacy, stripping off our clothes, and allowing our closely paralleled histories the chance to intertwine. Everything was going so well! — Until Gregg's lips curled from a joke in the movie while his tongue was still down my throat. Gregg burst out laughing. I racked my brains but I didn't get it. What was a Pearl Necklace?

Gregg laughed out loud again, "Oh no, you don't know what it means? Aww that's so cute."

"So tell me. I love dirty expressions." I kissed Gregg's neck, coaxing him. But Gregg wouldn't budge, telling me I was too young and innocent to be told. So I let it drop. I was pissed but re-focused. I gave Gregg an orgasm first, and after, he was too tired to give me my own.

The morning after -online- Gregg told me, outright, the definition of a Pearl Necklace. The ease with which Gregg's fingers typed those unspoken words sickened me. And when he asked if I wanted to come over for more tickling, I signed off line and refused to answer his calls.

It was only after Sports Plus went out of business that I could let real distance separate us, I stopped daydreaming about Gregg. And when my new rink wouldn't hire me, I stopped skating circles. In my lessons I now concentrated on looking up.

I never again initiated Gregg's conversation. I could never ignore his persistent IM's either. I wanted to, I just couldn't. Instead, I eventually gave up my screen name, AxelA102 and let Gregg disappear.

Adrienne Sterman is a freelance writer living in New York City. When not busy working her day job and writing her night job, Adrienne enjoys figure skating at Chelsea Piers Sports Center in the early morning.