“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
“That just means I have a lot to look forward to.”
I roll my eyes.
If you only knew
.
I think of Captain Jack and Horny Dude and Lonely Guy and Hot Rocket and all the various guys who enter my Headspace.
No, Jonas and I are never to be more than friends
. A creamy sensation slithers down my throat. “Uh, Jonas? My pulse-com’s going off. I gotta go. I told you, I’m working tonight.”
“At your mysterious job as some sort of counselor? The one where you get to show up buzzed?”
“One and the same.” I squirm.
“I thought you said you were done for the day?”
“Could be a client emergency. I serve a need for my clients and when the need arises…” I shrug.
“You heed the call,” he says, unfolding to his entire six-foot-four-inch height. For a snap second his eyes narrow at me.
My eyes sweep up his muscular body. I quickly turn away.
“I know when I’m not wanted.”
“It’s not that,” I protest, standing.
“I know, I’m kidding.” He reaches to give me a hug like he always does only this time he holds me a little longer than usual. “You feel good.”
“Thank you.” I push him away. “You do, too. But we’re still, and always, just good friends, and duty calls.”
“Got it. I’m not going to let this topic go, though.”
“Which one? Your horniness or…?”
“All of it.”
I shake my head. “Please let it go. It’s a tender topic.”
“I’ll be gentle,” he says, winking. He leans over and brushes my cheek with his lips and lets himself out into the sultry autumn evening.
My client has been waiting in the antechamber of the room—a virtual world Kaama helped me devise. It’s got a comfy couch, whatever virtual refreshment the client would like, food, and alcohol. There are no drugs in there—there are never any drugs, real, virtual, make-believe, or otherwise. I insist that my clients enter this space literally drug-free. Their energy is too chaotic otherwise and the game gets all weird. I slip into my Headspace and quickly affix the nodes to my jumpsuit. “Hey, big dog, who wants to come out and play?” I answer, in my typical greeting. This time I’m using the voice of Katiana.
“Hey, sugar, how’s about some love?”
I smile. Devon is one of my favorites. Devon is his real name, not just his avatar. He’s beautiful inside this room and out. In here, he likes to show up as a rock-solid, six-foot-six-inch linebacker just after the game. He’s got dimples and a smile like liquid sunshine. He’s a big, beefy guy who’s a personal trainer out there in the real world. Out there he’s a devoted husband and father. He just likes to come in here and get his masculine groove on from time to time. “Hey, Daddy, what’s your pleasure this time?”
“Oh, you know I like it rough, baby. Show me you know how a big man likes it.”
“Oh, you know I do, Daddy. I’ll be your little minx any time.” I know his wife is devoted to him. I know she treats him right. She just refuses to let go in bed when she’s with him. She likes hers vanilla. I like mine however they want it.
I settle onto the plush sheepskin. I’m tired tonight and the beer has gone to my head. This scene will only be conducted mind to mind, for me at least. I close my eyes and away we go. “How was the game tonight, big dog?”
“It was brutal. But we won the game. We’re heading for the championship.”
“Oh, I know you are. You’re a champion in here every day.”
“Oh, baby, you just say that because I know how to please you.”
“You do please me right, baby. I can’t get enough of you.”
“Show me. Show me what you mean.”
“Alright, darlin’.” My Katiana self slinks up next to Devon. I’ve dressed her in a form-hugging, low-cut, glittery gown and high heels. Her makeup has been applied to perfection. She looks pure diva delicious, worthy of a linebacker.
Devon slips the dress off of one shoulder. He caresses Katiana’s shoulder with his smooth fingers. “Damn, girl, how’d you get skin so soft?”
“I know you like your woman soft and smooth, baby. But a girl’s gotta keep her secrets, doesn’t she?” Saying the word “secret,” I think of the secret I’ve just spilled to Jonas. The Headspace sputters and darkens.
“Hey!” Devon calls. “Where’d you go?”
Shit! Don’t you go getting all vulnerable, V
!
I take a deep breath and bring myself back to control. The Headspace resumes in all its glorious detail. “Just a little techno glitch, sugar. I might need a man to look at it…a man like you,” I purr.
“Oh, baby, I’ll do anything for you, you know it.”
“Then, show a girl what you’ve got.”
“You mean this thing?” he says, unzipping his fly and releasing his generous length. “Is this what you’re wanting?”
“Oh, yeah, baby. Put that cock where it belongs.”
“It belongs inside of you, sugar, that’s where it belongs.”
“You got that right, Daddy. Give it to me.”
The game proceeds. He pushes my avatar against the wall. Yanks up her dress. Slides down her silky thong. Sticks his fingers into the dark, slick world of her secret garden. Pulls her brunette hair while he’s rocking his hips into her from the front, from behind, with her bent over. He’s experimental tonight. Trying out new positions. He pulls out, coaxes her back around to face him, takes his big, muscular arm and pins her to the wall. Makes her say his name over and over and over when she comes.
When she comes
…my mind interjects. I only imagine it when it happens. I’ve seen enough movies and virtual slut shops and techno-sex to be able to master the moves. I’ve just never known what it’s really like.
Once again the room starts to fade.
Damn, damn, and double damn! Zip it up, Vienna
! “Oh, baby,” I moan, pushing those thoughts away, and the Devon and Katiana Headspace returns. “Oh, Devon, oh, Devon, oh, Devon! You get me so hot, I lose control.”
“That’s right, baby. That’s how a man does it. A man knows how to get his girl off and good. Tell me how good it is.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe! This one was the best one yet!” In this Headspace, I scream and yell and moan and buck my avatar’s hips against Devon’s. He shoots into Katiana, gripping her ass. Only thing is, I’m lying on my little wooly rug, curled into a ball and he’s making love to a fantasy. When I’m in this Headspace, I can have whatever experience I like and I don’t have to move a muscle.
“Hello, Grammy,” I say to my elderly grandmother. She’s sitting in the corner of her room at the elder-care adult-living facility, high on a hill overlooking downtown Seattle.
“It’s just so sad,” she says. “Every day I look outside and every day I remember what it used to look like. Seattle used to be so pretty.”
“And it will be again.” I wander up and plant a kiss on top of her silvery hair. “Restoration teams are active everywhere.”
“Yes, but there just aren’t enough of them to go around.” She sighs and turns to me. “We lost so many from the illnesses in 2045. Entire cities were virtually destroyed.”
“I know. I know, Grammy.”
“That global purge of wilderness areas in favor of millionaire resorts really got my goat. Gaudy, opulent, over-the-top dwellings sprouting on top of Half Dome in Yosemite? The Alaskan wilderness turned into a hunting paradise and luxury lodge for bored, wealthy businessmen with time on their fat hands?” Grammy shakes her head. “And the oil spills and natural disasters of the early twenty-first century seemed like childish precursors to the devastation that followed. It’s a wonder any of us lived through those sorry years.” Grammy and I had been two of the “lucky” survivors. The rest of my family had been wiped out, leaving me and Grammy clinging to each other for family support.
Thank God I have Jonas. He’s always felt like family
.
All the turmoil left our political system in shattered ruination. The left blamed the right and the right blamed the left. Everywhere, politicians bickered while the people pulled up their bootstraps and got to work with restoration. The general public lost itself in debauchery and wild, crazy behavior—like my Headspace affords them. We endured so much tragedy for so long that we all seem to live as if there’s no tomorrow.
My thoughts drift back to Jonas. After the destruction of life as we knew it, Jonas’s work boomed. He’s good at what he does, honest and fair. And he’s always in demand.
“You look upset today, dear. What’s up?”
My Grammy always senses when something is up. “Oh, you know my friend Jonas.”
“Yes,” she says, looking over the top of her reading glasses. “Go on…”
“He came over yesterday and was all, ‘I want to leave my girlfriend,’ and ‘You and I should be together,’ and crap like that. You know how I feel about guys and gals hooking up when they’re already mid-flight.”
“Yes, dear. You have a good strong value about that. It’s admirable.”
“I do, but…” My voice trails off and I stare out the window. The Space Needle stands in the distance, dark and vacant. It’s like a ghost town in that part of the city.
“But Jonas is one fine piece of ass, isn’t he?”
I nearly fall out of my seat. “Grammy! I can’t believe you said that!”
“What, you think I don’t have eyes? Whenever you bring that boy over, I think to myself, ‘That’s the kind of boy my Vienna needs.’”
A red flush creeps up my face. “What makes you think I need a boy, Grammy?”
“I don’t mean it that way. I know you’re independent. I just meant that you rarely date these days.”
“I just haven’t found anyone date-worthy lately. The good ones are all taken.”
Plus, there’s that little issue of mine.
“You think I believe that for a second? Vienna Katrina Venetta, you could have any man you want. You’re gorgeous, you’re barely thirty, you’re fun, funny, creative—you are one catch of a girl.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. I’m just not in the mood to date.”
Not after experiencing all the kink I see at night.
Seriously, my various avatars have been flogged, whipped, and gagged. I’ve been made into a dinner plate laden with gourmet delights for my lover to choose from. Fantasy versions of me have been powdered, oiled, hung from chains, tortured, and shackled. I’ve been hoisted onto a pedestal and worshipped, then literally pushed from the pedestal and made to grovel at the guy’s feet. I’ve done three-ways, two-ways, six-ways. I’ve done it on the virtual beach, in the middle of a crowded fantasy baseball stand, on a train, at a carnival, in the middle of Times Square. People are strange. And when they’re safe behind the virtual wall, the sky’s the limit. And I know this is just fantasy, but since I’m so sensitive—I mean, I wouldn’t be this good if I weren’t—it takes a toll on me. Sometimes, after a particularly intense session, I have to lie low and sleep for days, only getting up to feed Nigel and relieve myself. Then, it’s back to my sanctuary boudoir I go to rest up for Headspace time.
“Let’s get you into your walker and scoot, Grammy. We don’t want to be late to your appointment.”
“Oh, my, no, we wouldn’t want that,” she scoffs. “Not that it matters. These parts have had their heyday.” She gestures to her body.
We’re going for her yearly checkup today. It doesn’t really matter when her appointment is. She knows as well as I that with the limited medical care we have in this city these days, it will take an act of God to get in and get out in less than four hours. People line up, try to bribe the staff. Some have even stabbed themselves to get seen for something else—blood-letting always gets to the front of the line. I help her to her feet and she shuffles along in her colorful walker. It’s got bells and all kinds of danglies hanging from it. She likes to make a grand appearance wherever she is.
A half hour later, I pull up to the medical facility, hop out, and race around to open the door for Grammy. “Now you just sit over there—right there, Grammy, on that bench. I’ll go park the car and be right back.” After circling the lot for ten minutes, I snag a spot, park, and race back to get my grandmother.
“There she is now,” Grammy’s saying to someone.
I’m looking right and left to find safe passage through the circling. When I make my way past the cars, I look up to see Jonas helping my Grammy to her feet. My heart does a pitter-pat and other parts of me do things they’re not supposed to do—like get all moist and slick and screaming, “In here, get in here now and show me what you mean by ‘I’m going to have an orgasm by Christmas.’”
I dash across the asphalt to Grammy’s side. “What are you doing here?” I ask Jonas.
He gives me a curious look as if he can see my thoughts. A smile flashes across his handsome face. “Wrist sprain.” He holds his right arm aloft. “This isn’t my week.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. It’s part of the job. We’re so short staffed, I have to oversee the projects and work the jobs sometimes. Can I assist you two ladies?”
“Nah, I’ve got this.” I move between Grammy and him possessively. I wish I’d never told him my secret. “Well, I’ll see you around. Good luck with your sprain.” I try to hustle my grandmother through the double doors.
“My legs don’t go that fast, Vienna. Slow down!”
“Sorry, Grammy.”
Jonas chuckles behind me. “You know as well as I do that this always takes time. Let me help.”
“You’ve already done enough,” I call over my shoulder, referring to his offer to help me with achieving an orgasm. “I’ve got this.”
“Really? You know where to find me if you change your mind.” He laughs and strides away.
“Gah! He’s everywhere now. We used to only see each other…oh, never mind, we always see each other. We just don’t usually bump into each other.”
“He’s in your radar, girlie. He’s done something to catch your attention.” She reaches for the elevator button.
The barely functional contraption shudders to a stop. The doors open and more people than should be allowed in there burst from the opening, like freed rats. They speed around my grandmother and me as if we’re boulders in a stream. Once the elevator has emptied, I help my grandmother into the lift, followed by a few other people.
“Hold up!” a male voice calls. Jonas joins us. “I’ve been redirected.”