Julianne lay on one side in her futon bed staring at the digital alarm clock while it clicked off another minute. Across the room, the computer sat on a desk in the corner, beckoning. She shivered and blamed it on air conditioning. All she had to do was sign onto the program. She knew he'd be there - on the other end of the Internet connection.

It was a losing battle. She hadn't anticipated this obsession. Online afforded a false sense of intimacy; she recognized the feeling and consciously made an effort to avoid falling into that trap. Jack had become a lifeline. And he never asked to breach the faceless void between them.

She flung back her covers, kicked her feet over the side of the bed and tip-toed to the door, peaking into the other bedroom. Steve's back was to her, a shapeless blob on the far side of the bed making irritating half-snores.

Julianne pulled her door closed and turned on the lamp over her computer desk. The light reflected in the eyes of the gargoyle hanging over the shelf, watching her approach.

She sat down in front of the computer as she had done more and more frequently since Steve moved in, and it occurred to her for the first time in the six months they'd been living together that she actually preferred the time spent with her online community to the man sleeping in the next room.

The computer purred to life, following its programming to take her where she wanted to go. All she had to supply was one mouse click to accept her destination. Minutes later, she stared at black words scrolling across the gray background on the monitor like ants marching to a picnic.

A quiet ding welcomed her into the advertising forum and Julianne felt the fellowship of friends.

When his screen name, JGGuilder, stood out blue in the message box he sent out to greet her, Julianne smiled. She guided the mouse across her desk, pulling down his profile once more to personify the statuette hanging over her computer. There was his name: John Gryphon Guilder. Julianne nodded an acknowledgement to the gryphon over her desk and then returned to the waiting screen.

Outside, a police car sped down the highway with its siren blaring. Julianne cringed like a hiding criminal. Was her online relationship with John Guilder disloyal to the man she was engaged to? She heard Steve roll over in the next room and considered exiting the forum until another instant message invited her back into her cyber world.

"Not even a graduate yet and your ideas are making me money," his message read. And then a second later, "I got the Preston account. Don't be surprised if you recognize part of the slogan."

She smiled, laying her fingers to the keyboard. "Too bad it won't go toward my final grade. I need you to come back to the class so I can be sure to get that 'A'."

"They'd only call you teacher's pet. And I doubt that you need my help," came his answer moments later. "One more big fish to fry. Any ideas for selling sweats?"

"I'll work on it."

"I can't wait to get back to Chicago. L.A.'s like another planet."

She looked over her shoulder at the moon hanging in the sky outside her window. "Weather's lousy here, rain predicted and getting colder. You might want to reconsider and stay in California." Julianne shivered again, irritated at the air conditioning. If she still lived alone, it wouldn't be on.

"It must be like 2:20 there, isn't it?"

Julianne checked the clock on her computer and mentally subtracted two hours to get to his time zone before he drew her back with his next line of type. "What's keeping you up?"

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. Where to start? Her doubts about the man in the next room? She'd made her choices: right or wrong. "Just restless," she finally spelled out.

"I'd pick you up for coffee if I weren't halfway across the country."

Julianne laughed. He always made the offer when he was out of town. "Maybe when you get back," she typed out of habit.

How easy it was to romanticize the online relationship. She scarcely remembered what he looked like. All she could make out of his face from the photo on the Perkins & Stone website were his large, round eyes and a face covered with hair. Although neatly trimmed, his beard covered most of his features like the picture on the old Dan Fogelberg record she'd seen at her mother's house.

"Doing your homework?" she read as it came across the screen.

"I do my best work at night."

"Ambiguous," came the next line, and then below it: "When do you sleep?"

Her lips curled into a smile, caught up in the innuendo.

"Between 'Johns'," she typed, referring to John Thomas, the employer that occupied her days, and John Guilder, the man she spent most of her nights conversing with online.

"So long as you're not under one of them. LOL."

She "laughed out loud" along with his acronym. Allowing her arms an exaggerated stretch, she reached for the grotesque statuette above her and then pulled back, suddenly afraid to touch what it represented.

Steve's radio alarm began playing in the next room, waking him for his 3-11 shift. It was as if Jack heard the alarm halfway across the country. "Don't suppose Steve would let you slip out anyway."

"Not sure he'd notice," she replied with a sigh.

"How long before the wedding?"

"Six weeks." It was like a noose tightening around her neck every time she thought about it, but she couldn't pass that along across a computer screen. Jack Guilder probably didn't care any more about her wedding than he did about the class he taught at the college. Still, she had to wonder why he spent his nights in front of a computer screen chatting with her, or why she sat answering him at 2:30 in the morning instead of getting much-needed sleep. She needed to kick the habit.

"Let's go to bed," she typed and watched it scroll across the screen.

"I'll turn back the sheets."

"Good night. . . " she sent her final message and then disconnected.

Julianne fell into bed, unable to shake Jack Guilder from her thoughts. When he had invited the students in her class to join in the Perkins & Stone forum online, she never imagined he would be there as well. She had been so intent on her studies that she didn't take much notice of when he was the substitute teacher in her classroom, but since joining the forums, he had become a part of her daily life. A much bigger part than she had anticipated.

A wave of guilt drove the smile from her face. Her nightly discourses with him were no better than Steve's trips to the arcade every day. If he was meeting other women there, was she any better, meeting another man every night in the privacy of her bedroom?

Julianne fought back her doubts one more time. People didn't marry people they didn't love, and everyone had their lover's quarrels, especially this close to the wedding. In a few more months she would have her degree. She would have no more use for an advertising teacher/ mentor.

But she had come to look forward to their nocturnal meetings of the mind. She sparked more than a few creative ideas. Hadn't Jack given her credit for helping him land the Preston account? It was her slogan, after all, that he claimed won over the client.

"Don't kid yourself," Julianne muttered to herself. She grabbed her covers tight around her neck and rolled away from the glare of the alarm clock. Jack Guilder was handsome and successful. What practical use could he have for a struggling student? Her vivid imagination would be her downfall. It had to be pre-marriage jitters. Why else would she feel closer to a man she had met in person only twice? With one last glance over her shoulder, Julianne looked at the gryphon hanging over her computer. "Good night," she whispered in the dark.