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CHAPTER 2: THERE WAS NO CAKE
Hair still dripping, a cup of instant coffee in her hand, and leaning against the wall, Mary watched, bemused, as five deliciously muscled men moved about her living room and finished assembling what she desperately tried not to think of as a giant space tampon.
Alejandro—pronounced “Ah-leh-HAN-droh” he’d told her—stood at her side, talking Mary through the installation process using a lexiconful of technical gibberish that went mostly over her head. She felt slightly ashamed as an English teacher, but she also found it hard to care while ogling Alejandro’s chiselled pecs and abs hugged enticingly by his tight, dorky shirt.
The young man was entirely the hunk his voice suggested, and the cartoon unicorn with sunglasses printed on his shirt only added a touch of adorableness. The cute contrast put him right in Mary’s strike zone. Admittedly, it was pretty broad, but the nerdy Hispanic beefcake was labelled premium meat.
She also found cute the way he tried not to stare at her tits—which threatened to burst out of her hastily put on scoop neck. For such a hot guy, he was refreshingly innocent, bringing out Mary’s most predatory instincts. Hiding her hungry fangs behind the rim of her cup, she wondered if she ought to ditch nightclubs and start hanging around game-ware stores instead. Obviously, she’d been neglecting an entire food group.
Teasing the coffee cup with her full lips, Mary draped an arm over her midsection, hugging herself and “accidentally” pushing up her significant bosom. She nearly burst out laughing seeing Alejandro turn the colour of a Honeycrisp, but she didn’t. Few men enjoyed being laughed at. And her t-shirt might not have survived.
“S-So, ju-just to make sure, you don’t suffer from claustrophobia or any kind of fear of ti-ti-ti-iiight spaaaces?!” His voice slipped into a squeal when one of Mary’s teats almost popped out of her low neckline. She swallowed a giggle, but nonetheless, she eased the pressure before the cute bloke had a stroke. She didn’t want to scare him away.
At that moment, however, Whiny Gay Black 7-inches Hard suddenly walked into the room—mercifully dressed, but with his shirt buttoned wrong and visibly missing a sock. His white shirt also sported several traces of bright red lipstick. He looked at everyone with a haggard expression before his eyes landed on Mary. “I can’t find my shoes.”
“…I saw one in the kitchen.”
He stumbled back into the hallway. A minute later, everyone present could hear the front door slamming loudly shut. Unfazed, Mary took a slow sip of her extra-black coffee, skilfully ignoring the six pairs of eyes staring at her awkwardly.
Afterwards, the team of movers-electro-technician-gameshop guys quickly completed their work and left. Alejandro all but shoved the user’s manual and a receipt with too many zeroes in Mary’s hands before following the others out the door as if running away—as if afraid she’d eat him or something.
Suddenly alone, surrounded by the mess of boxes they’d left behind, Mary frowned in the direction of the door. She felt a bit hurt. They hadn’t even seen anything that bad.
Irrationally, the blonde briefly wondered if Nick might be spreading weird rumours about her among the gamers’ population. She could easily picture him sitting cross-legged on the building roof, made-up in racially insensitive face paint and sending smoke signals to the neighbourhood to warn his gaming tribesmen.
That seemed like a Nick-thing to do.
She sighed and shook her head. That’s silly. Sipping the last of her coffee, she distractedly flipped through the thick user’s manual. Her headache was returning at the mere thought of reading through it, and she quickly gave up.
Circumspectly, she walked up to the UFO now parked in her living room. The slick surface of the pod was cold to the touch as her manicured fingernails tapped it ponderously. Again, she considered seeking her neighbour out to confirm his involvement, but quickly dismissed the idea out of embarrassment. Even if this was the prize for some contest and had not actually cost him anything, the virtual reality device should be worth five-to-seven months of her rent. She didn’t know how to face him after such an expensive gift.
It would have been easier if she thought he was trying to buy his way into her pants, but he’d made abundantly clear that he was not interested.
With a press of a button, the giant alien tampon split open, revealing a human-shaped recess. “Creeee~py,” she whispered. But it did look comfortable, and she was curious. One of the pages of the manual she’d skimmed through stated she could wear any outfit inside as long as nothing covered her neck area. However, light, comfortable clothes were recommended. After a brief hesitation, Mary quickly went to lock the front door then lost no time in stripping down to her undies and slipping into the pod.
Unexpected anxiety seized her when the lid above started closing, trapping her inside the pod. But it quickly passed when she discovered it was see-through from this side, like those one-way mirrors they always had in police TV-shows.
A blue panel suddenly appeared on the transparent lid, startling her. At the same time, a disembodied androgynous voice read the displayed message out loud.
No user is registered for this unit. Do you wish to register as a user for this unit? Press, say or look at [Yes] to register. Press, say or look at [No] to stop the registering process. Be aware that you won’t be able to use the W-69 Gaming Pod virtual reality functions until registration is complete. Yes No
Mary was puzzled. “What use would be this thing if not VR?”
The W-69 Gaming Pod can be used to access the internet, view movies, redact text documents, or any other function a conventional computer is capable of. Please note that all those functionalities are also available within your Virtual Home when you log in once registered.
“What’s a Virtual Home?”
Your Virtual Home is a customisable virtual space for your own use. Within your Virtual Home, you can access your games or engage in other activities at your leisure. You can alter the time compression inside your Virtual Home from real-time to a 1:4 ratio. You can also invite other users inside your Virtual Home on condition that they have access to a VR pod of model W-XP or more recent and a What Account.
Mary was very interested in this ‘engage other activities at your leisure’ and ‘invite other users’. But first, she had to do this registering thing. “Okay, then. I’d like to register.” She was actually starting to get a little excited now.
Another window appeared before her.
Starting registering process… Step one.
Login:
[ ]
Password:
[ ]
Password forgotten?
Create a new account.
Mary’s budding excitement was betrayed and crushed. The first step turned out dreadfully boring. To register with the pod, she needed to set up an account with the Whatever System. That account could then be used to connect to her games from other pods. She had to admit it was convenient, but Mary hated filling forms.
She quickly got fed up with the process. She exited the pod, and after a lot of frustration, she managed to link the smart ID on her phone to the damned penile sarcophagus to remotely transfer her data.
She re-entered the pod with some grumbling, having struggled far too much with establishing that link. She might be an English major, but it was almost criminal to be this technologically inept in this day and age.
In her defence, technology was expensive, and it progressed so fast someone broke like her had no hope to keep up. Mmh, maybe Alejandro would agree to some “private tutoring”. Mary caught herself licking her lips. For some reason, in her fantasy, she was the one dressed as a sexy teacher, and the buff geeky Hispanic was the eager student.
Another pop-up message broke her daydream.
First step completed. Do you wish to proceed with the full-body scan? You will be required to remove all articles of clothing except for underwear or to dress in a company-approved Whatever Bodysuit. You will be required to remain immobile during the duration of the scan. The scan may take several minutes.
Mary decided to quickly visit the washroom before proceeding.
She got out of the pod… again.
Maybe she should have read that manual after all.
* * *
Laying back inside the pod about ten minutes later, Mary asked a question that had occurred to her while relieving herself. “What if I need to pee while in VR?” Truly, this was important.
The W-69 Gaming Pod will monitor your body during the dive. Any imminent physiological need will be signalled to you. In case of emergency, forced ejection from VR may occur. You may adjust the level of emergency in the settings, but only to ignore non-critical issues.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“So basically I can set this thing to let me piss myself, but not to ignore a heart-attack.”
Affirmative.
“Always good to know. Okay, err... computer? I’m ready for that scan… or whatever.”
Do you wish to proceed with the full-body scan? You will be required to remove all articles of clothing except for underwear or to dress in a company-approved Whatever Bodysuit. You will be required to remain immobile during the duration of the scan. The scan may take several minutes.
“Yeah, yeah. That. Do it.”
Initialising full-body scan… Please close your eyes, relax and remain as still as possible for the duration of the scan. You will be notified when the scan is completed.
The inside of the pod lit up with a faint blue glow, accompanied by soft elevator music. Mary groaned but quickly closed her eyes. She didn’t believe the gaming company was dumb enough to make these lights harmful to her eyes—but better be safe than sorry.
After a small eternity of cringe-worthy “soothing” music, a chime and another message announced the end of the scan.
Second step completed. Do you wish to proceed with the preliminary neuronal calibration? You will be required to remain immobile during the duration of the calibration. The calibration may take several minutes. You may experience slight discomfort, itchiness, numbness in the extremities, or involuntarily movements during the calibration. Should you manifest any other side-effect, please contact company support immediately.
“Well, that’s not ominous at all.”
Please rest assured that side-effects such as a permanent loss of motion, coma, death and reincarnation into another plane of existence are extremely unlikely.
“…what?”
This was a joke.
Was it? The consistent monotone made it hard to tell. “You think you’re funny, uh, tin can?”
I do not. The designers of the W-69 Gaming Pod have programmed several “joke” responses to alleviate any perceived tension in the users.
“Eh. So they're the jokesters."
Affirmative.
“Okay. Let’s get this over with. I just need to stay still, right?”
Affirmative.
“Do your thing."
Initialising preliminary neuronal calibration... Please relax and remain as still as possible for the duration of the calibration. You will be notified when the calibration is completed.
Although it wasn’t asked of her, Mary closed her eyes again to make relaxing easier. Again, soft, pseudo-jazz music filled the capsule.
This process quickly became far less comfortable than the previous one. At first, nothing happened other than a slight feeling of itchiness; then small spasms started occurring in her fingers, then toes, and then randomly throughout her body. It felt as if someone was slowly prodding her with a painless electric rod—painless, but weird and freaky as fuck!
Several times, the prodding moved to Mary’s more sensitive regions, and she failed to repress a gasp. By the time the end notification came, Mary almost had too. Her breathing was rough, and she was suffering an entirely different type of “itch”.
However, before she could get out to take care of the issue, dizziness swept over her. The inside of the pod flashed white, and suddenly, Mary was standing in the middle of a white room filled with cubic blocks of various sizes, some smaller than her fist, others larger than a small house. She was clad in an orange jumpsuit.
She didn’t have time to panic, as another message popped up, this time floating before her in the air.
Initialising deep neuronal calibration… Please follow the instructions.
Let’s have some fun testing together.
“Wait, what? What instruct—” A large arrow appearing on the ground, pointing straight ahead, towards one of the smallest blocks. “Err... AI? Voice? Can’t you do something about the look of this place? It’s kind of sterile and creepy.” No sooner had the words left her mouth that the white floor turned into a field of short grass and the ceiling in a sunny sky with lazily drifting white clouds. The arrow was still there, an inch above the grass. The featureless blocks were replaced by grainy grey stone monolith dotted around the field.
Mary blinked in surprise. This was neat. “Hey, I don’t suppose you have the ‘male stripper all-you-can-stare buffet’ or ‘mindless orgy’ décors in the options?”
Strong emotions, including high levels of arousal, may disrupt the calibration. As part of a required test protocol, pornographic imagery has been disabled during the duration of the calibration.
“Bummer... Well, I tried.”
Please follow the instructions.
“Alright, alright! Geez. Ordered around by an authoritative clam-jamming space tampon… Now I’m sure Nick is behind this somehow.” Grumbling, she followed the arrow.
For the next long, long while, Mary was made to run, jump, roll, throw stuff, catch stuff, say stuff, climb stuff, dodge stuff, and do a lot, lot more stuff involving other stuff—until she was about to stuff the stuff in its stuff because she was so stuffing done with it all! And at no point was she stuffed!
Wasn’t that supposed to be calibrated too?
She’d asked for changes of background several times in a vain attempt to quell her boredom. But with every arousing, scary, stressful, hilarious, or in any way emotional imagery under lockdown, she was left with a wide array of postcard-worthy, zen-new-age landscapes that nearly put her to sleep. The only decor she found interesting had her walk atop a lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains. She ended up keeping that one until the end of her playground nightmare tutorial.
At last, salvation was granted upon her by her ruthless cyber overseer.
Congratulations. You have completed the registration successfully. Took you long enough.
“Hey! Fuck you! –No, never mind. Give me the strippers!!” Mary was panting and feeling more sexually frustrated than after a dinner with her alien of a neighbour.
Do you wish to access your Virtual Home or log out of VR?
“STRIPPERS!!” she snapped.
Immediately, the peaceful mountain lake scenery imploded into a dark and crowded nightclub. Numbing beats pounded through her ears. Stroboscopic lights and colourful lasers splintered the obscurity. Suddenly dressed in jeans and a featureless white shirt, Mary stood in the middle of the dancefloor, surrounded by blurry figures moving wildly to the music. Hanging from the ceiling like in some medieval sex dungeon, countless cages contained sexy men from every ethnicity imaginable. Everywhere she looked, caged men were sensually undressing, and not two looked the same.
“Oh, hell yes! That’s what I’m talking about! Whoever programmed this is a fucking genius!”
Do you wish to notify the creator of your positive feedback?
“Eh, why the hell not? Yes, do it.
Feedback sent to [JMouseFeetLicker]
“Great. Fantastic. And now, leave me the fuck alone. I’m busy!”
Notifications muted for four hours.
Forgetting all about her frustration from her calibration parkour, Mary let the club music soak into her body. Uninhibited by the knowledge this was all virtual, she ripped her clothes off and sank to the floor as her hands started playing D.J. downstairs.
* * *
After many consecutive orgasms and four environment changes, Mary was disappointed to discover she’d used up all the available kinky backgrounds of the free demo. “Evil corporate cash-grabbers,” she grumbled, laying spent on the floor. A quick perusing of her Virtual Home menu confirmed she’d have to pay cash for any of the other more “exotic” or interactive settings. She could also purchase the full [VR Home R+18 Package and Benefits] for an overall discount.
She was very tempted. Sadly, she was also broke as fuck. If she wanted to eat for the rest of the month—which she did—she couldn’t blow her money on some silly virtual decors—no matter how mouths-watering the [Fields of Temptation] DLC sounded.
Still, she couldn’t resist browsing the list of available adult games. Maybe expectedly, there were lots, overwhelmingly so. Maybe later… Mary reluctantly closed the menu. This pod wasn’t going anywhere—at least not until she got desperate enough to sell it.
Switching out of the Renaissance ballroom background where a decadent masquerade was in full swing, Mary returned to the mountain lake setting. She sat up on the water, soft ripples running away across the glassy mirror-like surface, and looked up at the passing clouds.
So peaceful... She sighed.
In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt quite so relaxed.
“It all feels so real,” she whispered, amazed. Making abstraction of the fact she sat on water, everything else felt so… so there. Now, Mary finally understood why Nick wouldn’t shut up about this VR thing. “What’s the game he keeps yapping about again? Unspoken Stories? Something like that.” She called back the menu to look it up.
She didn’t have to look for long. In fact, she didn’t even have to look at all. The title was at the very top of the list and circled in glaring garish gold with bright icons reading [BEST SALE] and [TOP REVIEWS]. The only reason she’d missed it before was that she’d filtered the results to view only the sexy adult games. Err… oops?
Driven by a morbid desire for self-pity, Mary decided to check just how far out of her budget this most popular game was. Her finger selected Untold Tales in the menu as she prepared to wallow for a while.
However, today seemed to have a few more surprises in store for her.
*TING*
UNTOLD TALES by Whatever Inc.
“Carve your own legend!”
PLAY
STORE
SETTINGS
CREDITS
License: 364 days remaining
Mary stared confusedly at the last line. “How do I have a license already?”
As per order specifications, this unit was delivered with the game [Untold Tales] pre-uploaded and a one-year license extension pre-paid.
“Order. Order by whom, dammit!?”
This unit does not have access to that information. Suggestion: consult delivery papers.
Mary felt a vein pulse in her forehead. “Are you taking me for an idiot?!”
This unit is not equipped to make a judgement on the intellectual capabilities of organic entities. Do you wish to download an IQ test?
“Ughhh. Shut up before I start really getting pissed off.”
Notifications muted for one hour.
“That’s right. You know who’s boss.” Mary returned to staring ponderously at the menu before her. "Oh. What the hell?”
She pressed [PLAY].
* * * * *