Real Fantasy

Chapter 3

I start the class with twelve attending and welcome a couple stragglers a few minutes into it. I don’t want to focus on the two men in my class, but I can’t help it. Grayson is an overweight man in his mid-seventies and Otis is dealing with the first symptoms of Parkinson’s in his late sixties. Neither one can possibly be my Romeo.

We do the opening stretches, I spend more time on them than I normally do, and I get the crowd going. We do downward dog, we do lunges, we do the sun salutations, and I go around the room, correcting people’s poses. Everybody is pooped after forty minutes.

“Shivasana. Let’s lie down on our mats, total relaxation. Great job, everybody.” I let the music play a few more minutes before I turn it off. People file out of the exercise room and one of the ladies helps me wipe and roll up the yoga mats and place them in the storage cabinets.

Then it’s time to go home. I thought I’d find out something about my mystery man during my class, but that was a washout. Home is the only place where I might find answers.

I’ve avoided my VR room all week because if I’d gone there, I would’ve ended up in the same game looking for the same guy. I haven’t wanted to admit to him he’d been right about me not taking the gaming computer in for repairs. I’d hoped I would spot him in my class and we could’ve had a nice, real conversation about what had happened during our gaming session and about who he was and about what his motives were.

He’d lied about being in my yoga class. He’d better be gaming tonight.

“Good first class,” Mike says when I’m on my way out. The classes run ten weeks with two weeks downtime before another session starts. I’ve been doing classes year-round for the past five years. Hardly any money, of course, but something steady that gets me out of the house every week.

“Yeah. See you next time.”

“I’ll be here.”

The evening is normal. Dinner, bedtime, busy, busy, busy. Finally the kids are in bed, the kitchen’s decent, and the VR room’s calling my name.

It’s time to face the mystery man. First I need encouragement. I strap on the helmet and wiggle into the suit.

“Game three seventy-eight.”

I am facing a rock wall that seems to go on forever. The sun is scorching my back, it’s completely silent, and I’m wearing climbing gear. The safety rope is attached to the top somewhere, which has to be a thousand feet up. I find little holes in the rock face, crags and crannies I stuff my fingers and toes into. It’s slow going, but it takes my mind off things.

“Hi,” says someone to my left. I almost lose my grip. The drop down is at least two hundred feet. I slowly turn my head to see who’s talking.

My lover, in all of his Asian-black gorgeousness, is regarding me with soft, brown eyes. He’s only a few feet away from me, wearing his own harness, dangling from his own safety rope.

“How the hell did you find me?”

“It’s easy to find someone like you who sticks out like a stiletto heel in the wilderness of the gaming universe.”

“This is not supposed to be an interactive game!”

“Neither is the fantasy game you played last time.”

“I want to know your name.”

“I can’t tell you anything or I’d be putting you in mortal danger.”

“Aren’t you the dramatic type,” I huff, but then I see the look in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “It was never my intention to compromise your safety. As long as you know nothing about how I do what I do or who I am, you should be okay. However, if I think there’s even a remote threat to you, I’ll leave you alone.”

I have no idea what he means by what he’s saying about my safety. Be that as it may, I want to scream at him to leave me alone already if he can’t tell me who he is, but memories from our previous encounter get in the way. I remember how he kissed me, touched me—I want to feel that again. My normal life is full of the mundane, taking the children to their activities, preparing meals, shopping for groceries and necessities, doing dishes, cleaning the house, and on and on. Dang it, I’ve missed this guy. I was too proud, though, to go back to the fantasy game to search for him.

“I know you’ve been trying to figure out how I’ve been spying on you,” he says. “Don’t worry, I never see you naked. I don’t breach your privacy or your children’s privacy too much. I’m not the monster you think I am.”

“I don’t think you’re a monster. You are a liar, though.”

“How so?”

“You are not in my yoga class.”

“You had fourteen people in your class. Two were men. Mrs. Hewlett brought her daughter. Florence Lewis helped you put away the mats.”

I stare at him.

“There’s no way you could have been either one of the men in there.”

“I wasn’t one of them.”

“You’re a woman?”

“Good one, but no.”

“Were you spying on me through the windows?”

“No.”

“Did you put a secret camera in the exercise room?”

“I never installed a camera.”

The way he says it makes me think.

“Are you hacking into the existing security cameras? Is that it?”

His face contorts and for a second I think he’s going to burst into tears. He doesn’t, though.

“You’ll figure out who I am eventually,” he says.

“How can I figure it out if you’re accessing the cameras remotely? You could be anywhere in the city. You could be anyone.”

“You’ll figure it out. I know how it is,” he says. “You’re checking out every person who passes you on the street. You’re watching your neighbors to see if they’re watching you. Every guy walking his dog past your house is under suspicion. You think about me before you fall asleep. You wonder who I am. You wonder how I know so much about you. You’re afraid of me and you’re intrigued by me. Isn’t that right?”

I don’t say anything. He’s hit the nail on the head, of course, and he sees it on my face.

“Don’t worry, my darling dear,” he continues and swings on his ropes to get close to me. He takes a hold of a piece of rock and stays there, inches from me. “I’m one of the good guys.”

“How do I know that?” I breathe. He’s looking me in the eye and he reaches over to brush strands of hair from my face. The wind is picking up.

“Have I ever harmed you?”

“No.”

“Then let me love you. Let’s go somewhere nicer. We can use some other game than the fantasy one. I know a great little bed-and-breakfast in one of the murder mystery games we could use. What do you say?”

I look into his warm eyes, see the concern in them, and wonder for the thousandth time who this man really is.

“Sounds great. How do we go there together?”

“Easy. Give me permission to move us. I need your five digit security code.”

Do I trust him enough to give him that? Wait a minute…

“Don’t play games with me. You know the code.”

He sighs.

“Of course I do. Will you let me move us? I’m asking for your permission. You don’t need to come with me or be with me. I can leave you alone if that’s what you want.”

“You’d still be spying on me. That wouldn’t change. And I do want to figure out who you are, your warnings about my safety notwithstanding.”

He smiles.

“Inputting security codes.” His fingers do a dance in the air. “Hallway transfer to game one six seven.”

“Transfer initiated,” the female computer voice tells us. “Transferring to hallway in three, two, one.” A heavy, white mist envelops us and we’re in a white space, no ropes, no harnesses, no helmets, the hallway transfer helping us reorient ourselves after the climbing game. We are both wearing jeans and T-shirts, the default clothing for the gaming system. Then there’s a whooshing sound and we are standing on a patch of grass in front of a white mansion. “Transfer complete.”

“Let’s go in,” he says and takes my hand. Such a small gesture with such big implications. It might be a decade since I’ve held hands with a man and I choke back a sob.

He rings the doorbell.

“Hi, come on in! We’ve been expecting you,” says a rotund lady in a floral summer dress. “Dinner is served in the dining room. Everybody else is here. You two are the last to arrive.” She retreats into the foyer and we go in. Glass doors to my right are open and I see a long table farther in with at least ten people sitting in high-backed chairs around it.

“We won’t be having dinner, Mrs. Engstrom,” my lover says. “No mystery game for us. Protocol forty-seven.”

“I understand. You are the only guests and you have the run of the house. Make yourselves at home.”

“Thank you,” he says and pulls me toward the staircase. I glance over my shoulder and the people are gone from the dining room. Mrs. Engstrom has also vanished.

“You know all the shortcuts, don’t you?” We climb up the stairs and he leads me into a huge bedroom.

“I know my way around.” He takes his sneakers off and sits on the edge of the king-size bed. He pats the mattress. “Sit beside me, would you?”

Resistance is futile. I sit by him and he begins to caress my thigh, up and down his hand travels, he’s taking off my sneakers, he’s pulling off my socks, unbuttoning my jeans, and he pulls them off somehow without me standing up. Virtual virtuosity.

“What should I call you?” I ask when he’s pulling up my shirt. He gets it off, then my bra, he pushes me onto my back, eases my panties off.

“You could call me Michael.”

He has made his clothes disappear and he’s naked beside me, kissing me on the lips, on my breasts, his hands exploring my inner thighs.

“That can’t be your real…name,” I pant. “Next you’re going to tell me your last name is Smith.”

“Oh, it’s not Smith, my darling dear.” He kisses my neck as one hand presses down on my lower stomach, goes down between my legs. “Game command, lubricate fellow player,” he says, and I feel a warm wetness.

“I didn’t know the VR suit could do that,” I gasp. The extra slickness makes the massage he is giving me that much more enjoyable.

“The game company doesn’t go all out to advertise the contents of its suits. I always read the fine print in the owners’ manuals, though.”

“You are a…fastidious man. How will I…ever discover who you are?”

I’m clutching the muscles of his back, wondering what the man himself would look like, feel like, taste like. He—Michael?—is above me on the bed, supporting himself on his elbows on either side of my chest, his knees on the inside of my knees, pushing my legs open wider, and my breath catches in my throat. I gulp air, my breathing gets more ragged because he’s backed himself down, his hands are parting my outer lips, and he’s sucking on my c******s.

“Oh, my God, what, what’re you doing?” The feeling is heavenly, the lubed suit is doing a great job, but I wonder what it would really feel like. Nobody’s done that for me before, ever.

“You like it?” he asks, taking a break to talk to me. “You want more?”

“Ah, yes,” I sigh.

He pushes himself up and brings his lips close to my right ear.

“Say ‘Please, Michael,’ ” he whispers.

“Please, Michael,” I moan.

He goes down again and I gasp for air. Little high-pitched noises come out of my mouth that I hardly recognize as my own. When he stops, he slides up beside me.

“Did you like that?” he whispers.

I can only watch him and try to even out my breathing. It’s as if I’m in a dream, and in a way I am, although the man beside me is a real man, underneath that milk chocolate perfection. He has a real body somewhere, a real job—a real family?

“Are you married?”

He leans in to kiss my cheek and one of his hands goes down my body.

“I’m as single as single can be. Does that make you feel better?”

“About what?”

“This situation.” He licks my breasts, one after the other. “I have no wife or girlfriend. I’m not cheating on anybody. And before you start blaming yourself, let me remind you how badly your husband has neglected you. It’s been going on for years.”

He’s right, even if there’s still a part of me that wants to tell him off for slandering my husband.

“He does pay the bills. I am grateful for that.”

“Everything you do is also important even if you don’t get paid for the work you do.”

I could hug him. Then I do. The strange thing is, I can smell something, like cologne or aftershave or some other manly fragrance when I pull him close.

It shouldn’t be possible.

I want to ask him about what I’m smelling but I don’t get a chance because he sticks a finger inside my v****a, he pumps it, adds another finger, and sucks on my n****e. I’m moaning again.

“That’s it, princess,” he says, his voice soft, intimate. “I love to see you enjoy yourself.” His lips move in right beside my ear. “Would you like me to do you hard tonight?”

“Sounds…wonderful,” I gasp.

He turns me on my stomach, slides a pillow under my abdomen. His hands go down my legs, up to my hips, caress my buttocks. He’s behind me and on top of me, his knees between my spread legs.

“Do you want me?” he breathes into my ear.

“Please, please,” I beg. I want him. Every cell of my body is screaming for him to take me.

He pushes into me and I sigh. A feeling of completeness and fullness comes over me. There’s a place inside me that needs to be filled and he’s filling me, pushing and drawing back, slower, quicker, his hands holding my hips, pulling me back toward him, releasing the pressure, pulling again. Doing it harder, quicker, then slowing down so I can catch my breath before he’s thrusting into me harder again.

“You like it?”

“Uhh…”

“Time for the grand finale.”

I wonder what that is, but then he shows me. His rhythm becomes consistent. On a hardness scale of one to ten, I’d give it a seven. He licks the back of my neck.

I can’t take it anymore. Nobody’s ever filled me, stimulated me, taken me like this before. I scream, I convulse, sobs rack my body. A few more quick thrusts and he’s doing the same.

I pick up the pieces of my mind and heart and body. I disengage from him and turn over to face him.

“You’re amazing,” he says.

I wipe a tear from his cheek and from my own.

“Who are you?”

He strokes my hair.

“You’ll find out.” He kisses me on the cheek. “I have to go. Sorry. See you soon! End game.”

“End game.”