Virtually Dead

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Doobie’s home was located on a stretch of beach along an anonymous coastline, sea on one side, mountains rising on the other three to screen her from her neighbours. Wooden walkways criss-crossed the beach, leading to small, secluded areas — a tiny island below a waterfall, accessed by an arched bridge; a dead tree with a hanging swing seat surrounded by tall grasses and yellow flowers. Another waterfall was overlooked by a high platform with two chairs arranged for the view. And behind the house a two-tiered deck gave onto a private lagoon nestling between the hills.

The house itself was a two-storeyed mahogany beach house with a thatched roof, a plunge pool built into a wooden terrace. Palm trees leaned in from every angle.

Chas stood on the terrace and listened to the restful sound of bamboo windchimes stirring in the sea breeze, gazing out at a partially sunken sailing boat just offshore. The sound of the waves reached him on the same breeze.

Chas: This is wonderful. Why do you want a new house?

Doobie stood at the open door.

Doobie: When I bought this land, it was empty. Just the beach and the mountains. Everything here I bought or made. I created the little island, installed the waves, planted the trees and the grasses and the flowers, built the deck, created the waterfalls.

Chas: Wow! I wouldn’t have known where to begin. It must have taken you ages.

Doobie: A couple of weeks.

Chas: Is that all?

Doobie: Well, when I’m not dancing or having sex, or shooting griefers, what else is there to do? Two weeks is a long time in SL.

Chas: So why do you want to change it?

Doobie: Because I’m bored. I like to be doing things. You’ll find it’s like that in here. As soon as anyone finishes something, they start again. Sometimes from scratch. You see, SL is really an escape, Chas. From an unhappy life. You need a reason to be here, a justification for the escape. So you never stop. Making, remaking, changing. It’s the perfect excuse for wasting your life.

Chas turned to look at her. She stood in the doorway, arms folded, looking back at him. There was no change in her appearance, but suddenly her words filled her with bitterness and regret, and there seemed to him something sad in her expression. A reflection of those words.

She snapped out of her mood.

Doobie: Anyway, let’s make a man of you.

He followed her inside, up a short flight of steps, and beyond a mesh screen to her bedroom. It was a simple room, with a bed, a shower, and a window that gave out onto a stunning view over the lagoon. Pictures hung on the wall: the sun setting with the sunken boat in the foreground; Doobie seminaked showering beneath one of her waterfalls; a gathering of friends around the campfire; a portrait of Doobie in camouflage and armour, holding her gun up close to her head, pointing it at the sky. Her head was dipped, and she was looking up dangerously from below her brows.

She turned to face him.

Doobie: Right. Strip off.

Chas: What?

Doobie: Come on. Don’t be shy. I can’t see you blushing from here.

Reluctantly, Chas removed all of his clothing, until he stood completely naked in front of the appraising eyes of his sexual mentor. He glanced at the vacant space between his legs, and felt oddly incomplete.

Doobie: Okay. Now you need to attach the penis to yourself.

Chas found the Xcite folder in his inventory and dragged it to himself. Suddenly a huge box, with a photograph of a giant penis on the side, attached itself to his head, and moved around as he did.

Doobie: LOLOLOLOL! ROFL!!! A huge penis on your head is not going to do the trick, Chas.

Chas: What happened?

Doobie: When I can stop laughing I might be able to tell you. I keep forgetting what a newbie you are. You have to open it first, Chas. LOL!!

Chas’ embarrassment was acute, and he was glad that she couldn’t see him blushing on the far side of the screen. But even as he detached the box from his head, he was starting to see the funny side of it. A window appeared on his screen. Doobie was offering him something. He clicked to accept, and a photograph of himself with a giant penis on his head rezzed on his monitor.

Chas: Hahahaha. Okay. I made a fool of myself. Start again, Chas.

He followed Doobie’s instructions for rezzing his Xcite 3 Sculpted Cock, and an amazingly realistic penis appeared, hanging flaccid between his thighs. With Doobie’s guidance, he found a control panel that allowed him to change the skin tone to match his own and bring a control HUD up on his screen. Suddenly his penis started growing to full erection.

Chas: What happened?

Doobie: I touched it. Just clicked on it with my mouse, and bingo, you are a man ready for action. LOL. Follow me.

She led him to the bed, and two poseballs appeared.

Doobie: Click on the blue.

He did, and found himself propelled on to the bed, lying naked on his back with his erection pointing toward the heavens. Doobie was lying curled into his side, stroking his chest. And somehow, in the time it had taken them to arrive in this position, she had become naked too.

Doobie: Have you ever had cyber sex, Chas?

Chas: You know I haven’t.

Doobie: Then let me just take you through it. Slowly.

Suddenly they flipped positions and were sitting up on the bed, arms around each other, kissing.

Doobie: Feel my lips on yours, Chas. I open them a little, and you feel my tongue slipping into your mouth, searching for yours. Feel my hands on your back, pulling you closer to me, my breasts pressing into your chest.

Chas felt the shock of unexpected sexual excitement, and butterflies flew and battered about in his stomach.

Doobie: I can feel your excitement pushing against my thigh. Hot. Hard. Mmmmh. You taste good, Chas.

So this was how it worked. Chas tried his first line.

Chas: I open my mouth and feel your lips turn against mine. Warm and wet. And your tongue in my mouth sends a thrill right through me.

At first he felt strangely embarrassed, and then as his excitement grew, emboldened to the point where it didn’t seem to matter any more. His imagination took over, his eyes half-closed, picturing every movement, feeling every touch. His sense of the woman he was with seemed so real, that he could almost believe she was there with him in the flesh. This was the first sex of any kind he’d had since Mora’s death, and it was as if a floodgate had opened inside him. Feelings and emotions and desires that had been pent up for so long came flowing through him in an almost uncontrollable rush.

Step by step, Doobie somehow controlled their AVs through the physical stages of the sex act, to the point where he saw himself slipping inside her, and imagined it so powerfully that it seemed almost more than real. All the time her words provoked and inflamed him, his responses following almost involuntarily.

Until a ching broke his concentration and an IM appeared on his screen.

It was from Jamir Jones. The gecko. And Chas remembered with a start that he had taken Jamir and Roger’s money, 500 Lindens, and done nothing to earn it. His sexual arousal rapidly faded as the image of the two geckos on the floor of Twist’s office returned to him like a bad dream.

Chas was flustered now.

Chas: Doobie, I’m sorry. I’ve got incoming from the geckos.

Doobie: What?!

He detached himself from the poseball and stood up on the bed, his erection rapidly wilting from lack of continuous excitement.

Doobie: What is it?

Chas: I have to go to Sandbox Island, Doobs, to deal with a griefer.

Doobie stood up.

Doobie: Really! Well, I’d better come with you, then. It’s a damned dangerous place.