“Justin?... Justin Guillenot?”

I turned around at the sound of a distantly familiar voice calling my name to see...

“Holy shit! Jalissa Mendez? Is that you?”

It was.

“Oh my god! I can’t believe it!” she exclaimed, wrapping her arms around me. “How long has it been?”

“Not since college,” I admitted, returning her hug. It felt like finding an old pair of jeans in the back of a closet, discovering they still fit.

I finally pulled away, taking in her full figure wrapped in a form-fitting dark red sweater and thick pair of black leggings. She’d gained a little weight since I’d last seen her, but it only accentuated her natural curves rather than detracted from her appearance. A few faint lines were starting to develop around her mouth and eyes, but you had to look closely to notice them. Otherwise, she was just like I remembered her.

“You’re looking well,” I commented appreciatively.

“Yeah, you too,” she agreed with an excited smile. “Handsome.”

“Thanks,” I replied. I’d come a long way from the long hair, ripped jeans, and vintage punk t-shirts of my early twenties. I still wore jeans, but they were clean and free of holes. My shirt was an understated button down in a blue and white gingham pattern. I’d been wearing a navy pea-coat, but it was unbearably warm in the mall’s seventy-five degree climate, so I carried it with me.

It was the final weekend before Christmas. The Clinton City Mall was packed with the last-minute shopping rush. A former version of myself would have lamented that crass consumerism was turning us into mindless cattle. However, over the years I’d made my peace with capitalism and joined the herd. I didn’t trust it exactly, but I’d at least surrendered to it as the path of least resistance after I realized that all of the energy I’d spent fighting it in my youth was a wasted exercise in futility.

“Hey you wanna grab a cup of coffee?” I asked.

“Sure,” she agreed.

We crossed the corridor to a Starbucks I wouldn’t have been caught dead patronizing when I was younger. The bland sound of jazz interpretations of Christmas standards was almost drowned out by the noise of a two dozen or so conversations happening simultaneously. Jalissa snagged a crumb-strewn table from a departing pair of patrons while I got our drinks.

“So, what are you doing here?” I asked, sipping my coffee.

“What do you mean? My parents still live here, remember?” Jalissa responded.

“Yeah, I know.” I acknowledged. “But the last time I heard from you, you were moving to Lithuania to teach English to goat herders or something.”

“It was Latvia, and they’re children,” she corrected me. “They have real schools there, you know.”

“No goats?” I pressed my good-humored ribbing.

“No... Well... Not too many, anyway,” Jalissa admitted. We shared a small laugh.

“So... are you back now?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Jalissa said.

“For good or just for the holidays?” I asked.

“For good... I think,” she answered hesitantly. Seeing a puzzled expression cross my face, she added, “I’m kinda figuring things out right now.”

“Oh, what happened?”

“It’s a long story... But what about you? What have you been up to?”

I thought back to the last time I’d seen Jalissa - our graduation day from Clinton State University. That had been a little more than twelve years ago. Officially, we’d been broken up for a month by that point. Unofficially, Jalissa and I were the only two people in that eight-thousand seat arena aware that the final teaspoon of our love was running down the inside of her thigh beneath her graduation gown as she accepted her diploma.

Then she disappeared - as much as anyone does these days. Of course, we stayed connected on social media, and sent each other good vibes on birthdays, but it was a shadow of our former relationship. While my life progressed in real time, hers seemed to pass by in a series of curated photographs from exotic locations around Eastern Europe. Over time, seeing them became less and less a painful reminder of the love I’d lost. I wished her well, and moved on.

Now, here we were reunited, well on the other side of a decade later. I told Jalissa about everything that had happened to me in the intervening years: Staying in Clinton City after graduation; Working my way up the corporate ladder at a small but successful environmental consulting firm; Meeting the true love of my life, Tricia; Getting married; Becoming the sort of boring middle-class folks Jalissa and I used to despise in college. As I described my life, I felt a dim sense of shame as if all that I became was a betrayal of everything I used to be.

“Yeah, so I guess you can say I sold out,” I concluded with a self-deprecating grin. “But, it’s not so bad, you know. You get used to it.”

“Are you happy, at least?” Jalissa asked.

It was a question I’d been asking myself a lot recently, too. It wasn’t so much that I was unhappy, but I had this nagging feeling of losing some sort of spark. “Yeah,” I admitted after considering my response for a few seconds. “I mean, who’s ever really happy these days? But, I’d say I’m fairly satisfied. No major complaints. How about you?”

“Complaints, maybe, but no regrets,” Jalissa replied. “Life’s been kinda crazy for me lately.”

“So, you came home,” I deduced.

“When I left, I felt like my life’s purpose was somewhere out there waiting for me to discover it.” Jalissa explained. “You remember: We both grew up here. We went to the same high school, the same college, hung out with the same people, did all the same stuff, talked about all the same stuff. Everything was always the same. I couldn’t take it. I had this hunger for something different. ”

“Teaching in Latvia was definitely different,” I agreed.

“It was... and it wasn’t,” Jalissa responded. “One of the biggest tragedies of traveling is realizing all the little things that made your hometown special aren’t all that special. Eventually, I figured out that instead of searching the world for the life I wanted to live, I should be building it for myself... sorta like you did.”

“I don’t know how much actual building I did,” I countered. “A lot of it was just being in the right place at the right time, I guess... And learning to get out of the way of the good stuff.”

“Like your wife...” Jalissa suggested, eyeing my wedding ring.

“Yeah, like Tricia.”

“How’d you meet?” she asked.

“It’s not really all that interesting,” I said. “She was a software developer.”

“A computer nerd,” Jalissa interjected, playfully.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that. She contracted with my firm to develop a program for us to model ecological...” I could see Jalissa’s eyes begin to glaze over as I described my job. “Anyway, we hit it off. After the project was over, we dated for a couple of years. Then we got married. I wish there was more to say about it, because I really do love her. But no one’s going to write timeless stories about our romance.”

“I’ve seen her pictures on your social media,” Jalissa stated. Then she paused thoughtfully before continuing. “She’s pretty... Not exactly your type, though, is she?”

Tricia was very different from Jalissa, it was true. If I’d met Tricia in college, I probably wouldn’t have looked twice at her. Fortunately, I met her later, after I’d matured enough to truly appreciate a woman like her. Tricia, more than me, seemed naturally built for our life. She was completely at home in spin classes, home owner association meetings, and potluck dinners that ended before nine o’clock. I worked a little to adjust to life discussing football standings and mortgage interest rates with the other husbands, but I came to appreciate the relative comfort of their low-stakes conversational topics.

“I guess my type changed,” I said. “I used to think I wanted a partner that always challenged me, where we kept pushing each other to greater and greater heights. Now, I just want something easy and uncomplicated. Tricia is that for me. It’s really not bad.”

“That’s great, Justin. I’m glad to hear it,” Jalissa said, a slightly wounded expression flickering across her face. She reached across the table to touch my hands. I used to love feeling her hands in mine and all the communication we shared in the slightest squeeze of our fingers. I studied the contours of Jalissa’s face, and a sudden feeling of guilt came over me. I pulled my hands away and reached for my coffee.

“Sorry,” Jalissa said, sensing my anxiety. She retracted her hands and placed them in her lap.

“No, I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s nothing. I’m just being stupid.”

“You said it, not me,” Jalissa agreed with a warm teasing smile. “Anyway, where is... Tricia, was it? I’d love to meet her.”

“She’s hanging out with my parents, so I can buy their Christmas gifts without them watching over my shoulder,” I explained. “I should have done it earlier, but you know how it is...” I shrugged, knowing that Jalissa was well aware of my great capacity for procrastination.

“Too bad I don’t get to see her,” Jalissa said. “Maybe we could all get together some other time.”

“Yeah, that would be cool,” I said. “Um... how do I get in touch with you?”

“Gimme your phone,” Jalissa demanded. I handed it over. She entered her contact info, and then held it at arm’s length, staring into the screen. I watched her face transform from a cheerfully neutral expression into a fiercely seductive one. Her eyes glinted with desire, her lips slightly parted, her little finger playing between her teeth at the corner of her mouth. She clicked, tapped, tapped again, then handed the phone back to me.

“Jesus!” I whispered, examining the flirty image next to her contact info. “Are you trying to get me into trouble?”

“What?” Jalissa asked, feigning innocence. However, I could detect the familiar playful mischief behind her smile. It took me right back to college and the way we used to tease and provoke each other until the need to tear each other’s clothes off was too much to bear.

“You know what,” I admonished her. “What would my wife think if she found a picture like that in my phone?”

“Fine,” Jalissa relented. She grabbed my phone back from me again, pointed it at herself, fixed her hair, made her face look neutral again, and snapped another shot. “Better?”

“Much,” I said, taking my phone back. “Thanks.”

“You didn’t used to be so uptight before,” Jalissa complained.

“I didn’t used to be married before,” I returned.

“Relax,” Jalissa said, leaning back in her seat again. “I was just playing with you.”

“No, I know,” I said. “It’s fine.”

“So...” Jalissa began after a moment of silence drifted between us. “What are you doing now? Still shopping?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I still need to get something for Tricia. I was just wandering around hoping for inspiration to strike.” Jalissa looked at me with expectant eyes, almost pleading. I recognized that look from the time we were dating. “Do you want to join me?”

“If you want the company,” she said as if she were doing me a favor. “I guess I could.”

“Maybe you can help me figure out what to get Tricia,” I suggested. “You know, provide a female perspective.”

“You sound like my dad,” Jalissa accused with a teasing grin.

“Come on, let’s go,” I said, returning her smile.

We finished the last of our coffees, and headed back out into the Christmas crowds. Within minutes, it was like we'd fallen right back into our old ways of being with each other. The natural chemistry we had together was like a dim ember that rekindled our bond... As friends, I repeatedly reminded myself when the urge struck to put my arm around her and squeeze her into me. We’re just friends now. Old habits die hard.

I’d never enjoyed buying gifts, but getting a gift for Tricia was the worst. It wasn’t that she was ever ungrateful about them, but she took her gifting seriously. She’d pay close attention all year to any hints of what I’d like, and somehow always managed to come up with the perfect thing. In comparison, my gifts always seemed like I’d picked up something at the last minute... which, to be fair, was usually the case. I explained my predicament to Jalissa as we browsed clothing, jewelry, lotions, and perfumes. Nothing seemed to shout ‘Tricia’ to me.

“What about some sexy lingerie?” Jalissa suggested as we passed a Victoria’s Secret.

I looked at the bras and panties displayed on the mannequins and tried to imagine them transposed onto Tricia’s body.

“Do you know her measurements?” Jalissa asked.

“Um... C?” I replied uncertainly.

“C?” Jalissa repeated. “Anything else?”

I shrugged.

“You’re hopeless,” she mocked.

I shrugged again.

“What about that place?” she asked, pointing to a small independent tech store. We’d were reaching the end of the mall and our options. “You said she was into computers, right?”

The place was brightly lit and sparsely decorated. It stocked a token number of products from the well-known brands, but it seemed like their real bread and butter was in crafting bespoke systems for serious tech nerds. Several of them were hanging around the cash register, debating machine specs.

“Can I help you?” asked a reedy voice. We turned to find a short, skinny man with balding hair and a pair of round glasses looking at us. He was dressed indistinguishably from the other customers.

“You work here?” I asked.

“Yeah. I’m Nick,” he answered, looking like he had little patience for dumb questions. “What can I do you for?”

“I want to surprise my wife,” I said hopefully. “She’s really into computers and stuff.”

Nick’s eyes shifted back and forth between Jalissa and I.

“I’m not his wife,” Jalissa explained.

“Oh, I see,” Nick said with a conspiratorial grin.

“We used to date in college, but not any more,” I added nervously, wondering if we were giving off a ‘couple’ vibe.

“Hey, none of my business, man,” Nick said, raising his hands in a surrendering gesture.

“I’m not his mistress, either,” Jalissa defended, intuiting Nick’s next assumption about us.

“Like I said, none of my business,” Nick repeated, though his expression was skeptical.

“So, do you think you can help us?” I asked, trying to get the conversation back on track.

“Maybe... what are you looking for in particular?” Nick asked.

“Um... I’m not sure. I was hoping you could suggest something.”

“Okayyy...” The way he drew out the word made me feel stupid. “Well, maybe you can tell me what she’s working with currently.”

“She’s got a Lenovo,” I responded.

“Alright, that’s a start,” Nick said, continuing his condescending tone. “Got anything more to go on?”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Processor speed, memory, sound, graphics... you know, any information that’s actually relevant?”

“She’s really into gaming,” I said.

“Uh huh...” Nick said, rolling his eyes.

“Look, we don’t need your shitty attitude,” Jalissa broke in. “Either you can help us, or you can’t. If you don’t want to, we’ll go somewhere else.”

“I’ve got lots of stuff I can sell you,” Nick explained. “But one thing I don’t have is an idea of what you want. Maybe it would be better to get your wife to come in herself.”

“Well, do you do gift cards?” I tried again.

“Do we look like a fucking Best Buy?” Nick shot back.

“Come on, Justin,” Jalissa said loudly, tugging my arm. “Let’s go. This little prick can’t help us.”

We turned to leave when an older man with a mustache, a Simpson’s t-shirt, and long stringy hair beneath a Santa cap peeled off from the group by the cash register.

“Hey there, hang on” he called to us. “There a problem here?”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I’m Chet, the owner,” he replied.

“Yeah Chet. Your sales guy was being a real dick to us,” Jalissa complained.

“Really?” Chet asked. We nodded. “Nick? Nick, come over here.”

Nick had wandered several feet away, pretending to organize the shelves while he eavesdropped. He returned to us sheepishly.

“Were you being rude to these customers?” Chet asked directly.

“They don’t know what-” Nick began.

“Were you or weren’t you?” Chet demanded more firmly.

“I... um... maybe, but-” Nick stammered.

“No buts,” Chet said. “These are customers. We need them to stay in business, you moron. Now apologize.”

“I- I’m... sorry,” Nick said softly.

“For?” Chet prompted.

“For being rude to you,” Nick added.

“Go back over there,” Chet ordered, gesturing to the group of guys. “I’ll deal with you in a minute.”

Nick retreated to the front counter. The others welcomed him back with good-natured heckling and derision.

“I apologize about that,” Chet said amiably. “Some of these guys have been living in computer world for so long, they forgot how to relate to regular people. But let’s see if I can get you two sorted out.”

I took a minute to scan Chet’s face, and concluded he genuinely wanted to assist us. I repeated my situation to him. He asked me a lot of questions I didn’t know the answers to, but remained patient.

“Yeah,” Chet said, finally. “That’s a tough one. I mean, it’s not a big deal to put together a basic gaming machine. We do it all the time. But it sounds like you want something a little more than basic. That right?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Like, if you were to build a computer for yourself, what would you build?”

“Funny you say that,” Chet said. “There’s something I’ve been working on- Kind of a prototype, I guess you’d say. It’s not quite ready to go to market yet, but... I mean, I’d love to get some beta-testing feedback on the end-user experience. Do you want to check it out?”

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s a new hyper-immersive VR platform,” Chet answered.

“Virtual reality?” I asked.

“Uh huh,” Chet nodded.

“Do we need to know about computers?” Jalissa asked suspiciously.

“Not really. Actually, for my purposes, it’s better you don’t. I need to know what real people- not nerds like us-” he gestured to the group by the cash register. “How you’ll use it. It’ll help to uncover any bugs we still need to fix.”

“Bugs?” Jalissa asked. “Is it safe?”

“If you mean ‘will it hurt you?’ the answer is no. There might be some glitches, but its perfectly safe.” Chet replied. “So... what do you say? Want to give it a go?”

Jalissa and I looked at each other for a minute.

“Yeah, sure, why the hell not?” I finally agreed.

“Indeed,” Chet responded happily.

We followed Chet through a door at the back of his store. The light there was much dimmer, with only a few overhead lamps for illumination. It made the brutally bright, sparsely decorated customer-facing part of store look positively welcoming. There were teetering stacks of boxes and piles of loose electronic components everywhere. Chet chattered excitedly about electro-nano-pneumatics, adaptive algorithmic iterative recombination software, and all kinds of hi-tech stuff that sailed far above my head. I felt Jalissa’s hand reach for mine. Maybe it was the general murder-vibe of the space, or maybe it was just falling into old habits, but I gave it a reassuring squeeze.

Finally, we arrived at the back of the back of the store where the boxes and bits had been cleared away. Instead, there was a desk with multiple glowing monitors. Along the far wall, there were a couple of spherical mesh cages resting on pedestals.

“Tada,” Chet announced expectantly. Jalissa and I exchanged puzzled expressions.

“Amazing,” I said, hoping it was the response Chet wanted.

“What, exactly, are we looking at?” Jalissa asked.

“I told you,” Chet said. “It’s the hyper-immersive VR platform. It’s gonna make Zuckerberg’s Oculus bullshit look like child’s play.”

“Ah,” I said, still pretending I had some idea of what the fuck he was talking about.

“So, how does it work?” Jalissa asked.

“Well, first thing's first: We gotta get you suited up.” Chet left us by the machinery and returned a moment later with two large bundles. “So, first you’re gonna want the inner cover.” He held up what looked like a very thin, stretchy, adult onesie pajama the color of champagne. “It’s mostly for comfort and hygiene, but we had to specifically engineer the material so it didn’t interfere with the interface. By the way, make sure you take off everything before you put it on.”

“Everything?” I asked uncertainly.

“No clothes, underwear, or jewelry. They interfere with the signal and can damage the equipment. Like I said, we had to specifically design the material. On it’s own it’ll hardly feel like you’re wearing anything at all. Next, you’ll put on the nano-pneumatic exosuit.”

“It looks like rubber underwear,” Jalissa observed, giggling as Chet held up a bourbon-shaded piece of the outer outfit.

“So... where can we get changed?” I asked.

“Where?” Chet repeated, glancing around. “Uh... we don’t actually have any private changing rooms. There’s washrooms by the food court, but I’d prefer if the equipment didn’t leave the store. You understand.”

“We’re just supposed to change here?” I pressed.

“Yeah,” Chet affirmed. “I mean, I can come back in ten minutes if you need some privacy.”

“Yeah, maybe you could do that,” I said.

“Sure, sure, no problem,” Chet accepted. “If you need anything, I’m just out front.”

Chet left us alone; though not quite as alone as I would have preferred. I looked at Jalissa who looked back at me expectantly.

“Are we really going to do this?” I asked.

“Yeah, why not?” Jalissa returned. “It sounds like fun.”

“No, I know, but...”

“You’re not comfortable getting naked in front of me?” Jalissa guessed.

“I’m married,” I explained.

“I know,” Jalissa said. “But it’s just for a second. And it’s not like we haven’t seen each other naked before. Remember?”

“Uh huh,” I acknowledged skeptically. Jalissa’s was the only other body I knew as intimately as my wife’s, inside and out. Something still felt wrong, but I knew she was right: There were no surprises left between us.

“If we’re going to do this, we’d better do it,” Jalissa said encouragingly. “He’s going to be back in a few minutes.”

“Alright, fine,” I said. “But turn around.”

“Are you kidding me?” Jalissa asked.

“No, just do it,” I demanded. “It’ll help me feel better.”

“Fine,” Jalissa groaned, rolling her eyes. She turned her back to me. “Go ahead.”

I watched her for a second to make sure she wasn’t looking, then began to undress, periodically checking to be certain she was keeping her side of the bargain. Satisfied, I hooked my thumbs into the waist of my underwear. Just as I began to push the elastic down my hips, past my ass, I heard a sudden sharp wolfish whistle. I looked up to see Jalissa grinning and greedily checking me out.

“Whoo! Hot stuff!” she shouted.

“Hey! I trusted you!” I protested.

“You were taking too long,” Jalissa complained without taking her eyes off of me. While I wasn’t all washboard abs and bulging biceps, I had been making an effort to stay regular at the gym, even if Tricia seemed less and less interested in my efforts these days. I’d be lying, though, if I said I didn’t feel a swelling sense of pride in response to Jalissa’s openly admiring gaze.

“Okay, you’ve seen me,” I said, stepping out of my underwear. “Happy now?”

“Quite,” Jalissa replied.

“Now, your turn,” I said, making an exaggerated show of leering at her.

I’d intended to give her a dose of her own medicine, but instead of getting embarrassed, she began to sway her hips to a slow sexy rhythm only she could hear. Jalissa strutted towards me, running her hands through her hair, down her neck, and across her chest. They descended to the hem of her sweater, then reversed course, pulling the fabric up and over her head. Beneath, she was wearing a sexy black bra, barely restraining her perfectly proportioned breasts. Jalissa turned, and bent at the waist displaying the full curvature of her ass to me. Her hands went to her waistband and began to tug at her leggings. With an agonizingly glacial pace, she lowered them. They didn’t so much slide as peel off of her, revealing a thin black thong that disappeared between her beautiful ass cheeks and emerged below, barely covering her mound. I keenly recalled the warm feel of her ass, a perfect fit for my hand. It was all I could do to not reach out now, and give it a firm, satisfying smack.

“Cut it out,” I said, weakly.

“What?” Jalissa asked. She straightened herself, looking defiantly back over her shoulder at me as she stepped out of her leggings.

“You know what,” I said.

“I swear, I don’t have a clue,” Jalissa said with a coy smile.

She reached behind her back and undid the clasp of her bra. With a shrug of her shoulders the cups fell away from her breasts. They’d lost only a little of their shape since I’d last seen them, but remained exquisite.

“I’m serious,” I warned.

“I know you are,” Jalissa agreed without taking me seriously.

She swung her bra by the strap and let it fly in my direction. Then she strolled towards me again, swinging her hips in a hypnotic way. I watched her insert a hand teasingly inside her panties as if she were fingering herself. Then both hands gripped the waistband and pulled them down to the floor. I couldn’t keep my eyes from drinking in her full nakedness. Jalissa hooked her panties on one toe and kicked her leg, playfully sending them sailing through the air towards me. I caught them, and without realizing what I was doing, lifted them to my face and deeply inhaled her scent. It had been so long, but her smell took me right back to our time together in college - the hot days only getting out of bed for food and bathroom breaks, the steamy nights desperate to fuse our bodies into a single writhing entity - it all came flooding back to me.

“Shit. I told you, I’m married,” I protested as I caught myself. “We can’t be-”

“Relax,” Jalissa said, laughing and already slipping on the inner cover. “I’m just fucking with you. Don’t be so uptight. It’s not a big deal. We used to see each other naked almost every day when we were dating. Remember?”

How could I forget? The image of her naked body had been seared into my mind long ago. “I’m with Tricia now,” I said. “I can’t.”

“It looks like at least part of you still can,” Jalissa responded, staring pointedly at my hardening cock.

“Shit!” I swore again, cupping my hands around my junk like a shy teenager and turning my back to her.

“Glad to see marriage hasn’t totally neutered you,” Jalissa quipped appreciatively. “Anyway, you’d better hurry and get dressed. Chet’s going to be back any minute.”

I grabbed the onesie from the pile of equipment and stepped into it. The material stretched and slid smoothly over my body. I looked at Jalissa, and noticed that it had somehow molded itself snugly to her shape like a second skin, revealing every curve and crevice, leaving nothing to imagination. Experimentally, I reached down to feel myself. I was almost fully numb to external sensations. As Chet had promised, once I was wearing it, it felt like nothing at all.

Next, we donned the exosuit, starting with the ‘rubber underwear,’ followed by upper and lower leg pieces, and so on. The exosuit was heavier than the onesie, but I barely felt it, protected by the thinner fabric. I also found that even though the material was much thicker and firmer than whatever the inner cover was made from, the way the suit fit together still allowed for an unrestrained range of motion.

“Lookin’ good, Mendez,” I called to her sarcastically. After her sexy little strip tease, the exosuit made her look like a clumsy attempt at a home-made robot Halloween costume.

“You know it, Guillenot,” Jalissa said with a wink. She turned around and started shaking her ass in what might have been an attempt at twerking, but in the exosuit, it just amounted to looking like a toddler needing to take a shit. “I slay all day,” she bragged. I laughed.

“You two all set, here?” Chet called out as he rounded the corner of his boxes. He was carrying what looked like a couple of motorcycle helmets, except there was no cut-out for the faces.

“Yeah, we’re good,” Jalissa answered.

“Excellent,” Chet said. “Let’s get started.” He went to the computers on the desk and got busy booting everything up. Machinery whirred to life. Lights began to glow and blink. Chet tapped rapidly at the keyboards. “Alright, folks. I think we’re about ready to get this show on the road,” Chet said after a minute. “I’m gonna need you to go over get into the gyroscopic motion capture and control units...”

“Huh?” Jalissa and I responded in unison.

“The cages,” he clarified, gesturing to the large round metal balls perched on their pedestals, then handed us the faceless helmets.

Jalissa claimed the sphere on the left and I took the other one. There were a small set of steps in the back, leading to a little hatch, which we had to crawl through. Chet followed, and once we were inside, he released a safety brake on the balls allowing them to roll freely on their bases. Jalissa let out a small yelp of surprise and flailed her arms, thrown off balance by the sudden movement.

 “It’s centering itself. Try walking a little,” Chet advised.

I did and felt the cage rolling under my feet while I remained in place. I tried jogging a little quicker and the sphere moved with me.

“Okay,” Jalissa said. “I think I’m getting the hang of it.”

“It’ll get easier once we get you online,” Chet promised. “When you’re really in it, it should feel totally natural. We’ve got a couple more steps first, though. Go ahead and put your headpieces on. We’ll get you logged in, scanned, and rezzed in just a minute.”

I slipped the helmet over my head, blocking out pretty much all light and sound. After a moment, I heard a soft low ‘fwawhump’ sound followed by a bass tone steadily rising to a high whine before the pitch faded out of range of human hearing. Next, it felt as if two hands took hold of my toes and gave them a gentle squeeze. The hands began to move towards my heels, and then over my ankles and up my legs at a slow pace. They contoured to my body, and when they reached the point where my legs came together, the two became one larger hand.

The pressing ring continued up my body, over my balls, my cock, and even my asshole, applying a little pressure briefly to each area without lingering. It carried on up my stomach, my chest, my arms and shoulders. When the material constricted slightly around my throat, I felt a minuscule second of panic, but it passed and the fabric returned to being virtually undetectable. The hands finally reached the top of my head where they faded from perception.

“That was weird,” I commented. If anyone heard or responded, the helmet blocked it out.

After another minute of sensory deprivation, a thudding drum started pounding in four-four time for eight measures. Then there was a loud sliding distorted electric guitar and an electronically garbled voice announced, “I AM IRON MAN!” The familiar riff kicked into gear, and I began to notice a gradual illumination all around me, like someone turning up the brightness on a computer screen from zero. But rather than looking at a screen, the light was all around me.

The music faded, and was replaced by a voice seemingly coming from all around me. “We’ll probably have to change the boot up sound,” Chet explained with the voice of God. “But for the prototype, it works.”

“Whoa, okay! Where are you?” I said feeling more than a little disoriented as a free-floating consciousness in a uniformly blank white space. “Where am I?”

“Relax,” Chet said from everywhere. “You’re fine. I’ve got you. Just give me a couple more minutes to get you rezzed, and...” He trailed off. A naked thigh materialized in my field of vision. I tried lifting my leg, and watched the thigh raise and rotate in in mid-air. Next came my hand, then a foot. Piece by completely naked piece, I came into view. “There, you should be able to see yourself now,” Chet concluded.

“Yeah, but I can’t see anything else,” I complained. “Where’s Jalissa?... And why am I naked?”

“Because you’re naked in the suit,” Chet’s god-voice said, with the patient tone he might use with a child or an idiot. “But here, check this out.”

An expensive suit materialized over my naked form. I had a second to appreciate that I could actually feel the material on my skin. Then it was replaced by a furry, smelly cave-man outfit, then a woman’s bikini, then a suit of armor. I sprouted angel wings from my back, which turned into giant bat wings, and then into extra sets of arms like a Hindu god before they all disappeared. My skin became layered with hard scales, then feathers, then turned into some kind of green liquid, before I finally returned to my original human form.

“Holy shit,” I breathed in astonishment.

“You like that? How about this?” Chet asked, clearly proud and showing off. The muscles on my forearm seemed to inflate and deflate. I suddenly grew a pair of tits and watched them melt back into my chest. Then I looked further down, and noticed my cock shrink to nothing, then swell to twice its usual size.

“Hey, leave that alone!” I shouted.

“Thought you could use a little help in that department, bud,” Chet said with a chuckle. "No offense."

“Fuck off,” I retorted.

“Hey, look, it’s no big deal,” Chet said, returning my cock to its normal size. “You can customize your appearance by accessing the menu system.”

“How do I do that?” I asked.

“Touch the thumb of your left hand to your little finger,” Chet said.

I did as I was instructed and words materialized in front of my eyes. I found that I could scroll through the various menu items just by moving my eyes. I located “appearance” from the options, and then “proportions” from sub-menu. From there, I could select my entire body or specific parts and a virtual slider mechanism increased and decreased their size and definition. I selected my stomach and nudged the slider towards a more muscular abdominal section.

“Huh, cool,” I admitted.

“Feel free to play around with it,” Chet invited. “If you fuck things up too badly, you can always revert to default.”

The toned muscles I’d just given myself disappeared. I was impressed that even with all of this rapid body modification, none of it had been remotely painful. I was ready for more.

“So, what am I supposed to do now?” I asked.

“It’s your world, man,” Chet answered. “Explore it.”

“What about Jalissa?”

“She’s fine,” Chet said. “She’ll be joining you just as soon as she’s finished getting set up.”

As if on cue, Jalissa incorporated in front of me. Or at least, it was Jalissa’s face, but her hair had been replaced by what I can only describe as ‘braided flames.’ She’d also added a second pair of breasts below the first, and increased the size of them all far beyond what nature or physics would allow. Over these were criss-crossed four bullet-lined gun belts. There was another belt at her hips with two holsters holding a couple of gigantic ‘fuck-off’ revolvers out of a Dirty Harry movie. She’d changed her skin tone from a light caramel to a deep glittering shade of teal sparkling with gemstones. But the biggest modification she’d made was to her lower half, where she’d traded her legs for a dozen thick tentacles.

“How do I look?” Jalissa asked, grinning. “Like it?”

“Cute,” I replied sarcastically.

“Check this out, though,” Jalissa said proudly. She stood on a single tentacle, stretching the others out around her, perpendicular to her body. She began to spin, gradually picking up speed. Her tentacles flattened with a slight tilt to them. She continued spinning faster and faster until she lifted off the ground like a helicopter and floated about ten feet above my head. I could actually feel the breeze generated by her rotors blowing through my hair.

“Stop messing around,” I grumbled.

“Why don’t you come up here and make me?” Jalissa teased.

I touched my thumb to my little finger and opened the menu system. In a second, I found the setting I was looking for and turned my gravity down to zero. I jumped in Jalissa’s direction, but she zipped away and I shot right past her.

“Missed me,” she cried.

I returned to the dimensions menu. This time, instead of sending my entire body after her, I focused on just stretching my arm to cover the distance. When Jalissa tried to dart away this time I caught her dangling tentacle. I thought that my hand might just pass through her avatar, but what I gripped actually felt solid and real.

“Hey!” she shouted with surprise.

I extended the other hand to join the first. Grasping, hand over hand, I pulled Jalissa back to me until we were face to face. I had the sudden urge to lean in and kiss her. The expression on her face changed to waiting, expectant, wanting me to make my move. A silent second passed between us, and then, relying on every last reserve of my will power, I pulled back.

“Relax,” Jalissa said, sensing my nervous hesitation. “It’s not real. It’s just a game.”

“What else have you got for us?” I called out to the blank white space, desperate to change the topic.

“You want to see more?” asked Chet in God-voice mode.

“Yeah, bring it on, man,” Jalissa said eagerly.

“This is a training program I’ve been developing,” Chet said.

Wooden walls and a padded floor began to emerge from the whiteness as we reverted to our original forms, dressed in yellow jumpsuits with black stripes down the arms and legs. There were several racks full of all kinds of different weapons along the side. Spectators appeared around the perimeter depicted as a frozen two-dimensional image wrapped around the room.

“Sorry,” Chet apologized. “Like I said, there’s still more development to do. We haven’t fleshed out all the NPCs yet.”

“What are we supposed to do now?” Jalissa asked, following my gaze towards the ceiling.

“What do you think?” Chet’s voice came back to us dripping with condescension. “It’s a dojo, you’re standing on the mat, surrounded by weapons.”

“You want us to fight each other?” I asked.

“Like in the Matrix...” Jalissa wondered aloud.

“Yeah, it might not be the most original idea, but it’s effective.” Chet answered.

“Yeah, I don’t know,” I said uncertainly. Then I felt a tapping on my back. I turned just in time for Jalissa to drive a sharp rapier through my chest. “What the fuck?” I shouted. Blood gushed cartoonishly out of the wound she opened. However, the accompanying sensation was only a small pinch and a little pressure.

“En garde!” Jalissa exclaimed.

“You’re supposed to say that before you attack,” I said. The blood faded and the wound healed quickly.

“Whatever,” Jalissa countered. “Defend yourself.”

I leapt for the weapons rack and grabbed the first thing that came to hand: A giant spiked flail. I was surprised at the way it felt so natural in my hand as I began to swing it above my head. It brought back all the nights we’d spent getting incredibly stoned and playing Mortal Kombat. Jalissa poked at me menacingly with her sword, but the range of the flail ensured she kept her distance. The next time she moved in, I side-stepped her thrust and brought the flail around, smashing it into the side of her head. She went flying across the room leaving a gruesome trail of gore behind her. Alarmed at the carnage I’d caused, I ran to her.

“Oh shit! Are you okay?” I asked in a panic.

She looked up at me with a perfectly unmangled face and laughed. “Is that the best you’ve got?”

“Oh fuck, I thought I hurt you,” I said.

“You hit like a little girl,” she taunted. “But you know what else?”

“What?” I asked, feeling relieved until I felt another slight pinch, this time over my liver.

“You let your guard down again.” Jalissa withdrew her blade, and an exaggerated geyser of digital blood sprayed all over her face. She just laughed. “You suck at this, Guillenot.”

“Alright, Mendez, now you asked for it!” I crowed. I retreated to the rack and chose another weapon, a long pole with razor sharp curved blades on either end. Trusting my instinct, I began to twirl it around my body in an impressive display of martial artistry.

“Come at me, bro,” Jalissa invited brashly.

I charged, but she parried my attack. She took a swing at me, but I blocked it. I rushed her again as Jalissa’s rapier became a chainsaw. She spun around and brought it down in a vertical arc. I tried to dodge it, but I wasn’t quick enough and the blade tore through my shoulder and took my arm completely off. However, all I felt was a slight sting at skin level and no deeper. Even that faded after a second. Jalissa moved towards me and picked up my arm from the floor, slinging it over her shoulder.

“Hey! That’s mine!” I protested. “Leave it alone.”

“Make me,” she challenged.

To add insult to injury, she tucked my arm behind her back and started scratching her ass with it. I concentrated on my severed arm. Even though it was eight feet away, I could still feel it as a part of me. I flexed my fingers, clutching one of her buttocks and gave it a hard squeeze.

“Ow!” she yelped in surprise. She yanked my arm away from her ass and held it in front of her face to address it directly. “Stop that!”

“Make me,” I said, imitating her earlier bravado. I reached around to her face, flicked her nose with my finger, and slapped her lightly on the cheek.

“Oh, that’s it!” Jalissa warned with a devilish smile. She dropped her chainsaw sword. It disappeared into thin air before it hit the floor. She took hold of my severed appendage with both hands, gripping it tightly at the bloody stump and swung it at me. “I’m going to beat you to death with your own damned arm.”

“I’ve got more where that came from,” I retorted, tossing my own weapon aside. I summoned the menu and found the option I was looking for. A new arm grew to replace the one I’d lost.

The scene unexpectedly dissolved around us. The dojo faded out of view and we found ourselves high on a pinnacle overlooking what appeared to be the Scottish highlands. Our jumpsuits were replaced with blouses and kilts, though I noticed that Jalissa’s was far shorter than my own.

“There can be only one!” I quoted and charged at her while she seemed momentarily distracted by the sudden change of venue and costume. I dove for her legs to knock her off balance. She fell onto her back, and I pounced on her before she had a chance to recover. My severed arm was trapped between us as we wrestled on the ground. I found I was still in control of it, so I started moving my fingers in a tickling motion.

Jalissa shrieked with laughter, and kicked beneath me. “Stop! Stop!” she cried. “That’s not fair!”

“Okay,” I relented. “Had enough?”

I lifted myself off of her, thinking she was surrendering. Jalissa had other plans, though, and seized her chance. She brought my arm around in a heavy swing and connected with the side of my head, knocking me to the ground. The next thing I knew she was on me, straddling me. She leaned forward to grab my wrists and pin me to the ground. I looked down to where our bodies met, and noticed that with her legs spread apart, her kilt had ridden all the way up to her hips revealing a little trimmed patch of dark pubic hair above her naked pussy.

“Uh, Jalissa?” I said.

She followed my eyes and observed what I did. She looked back at me, and shrugged.

“Deal with it,” she said, refusing to move from her position on top of me. It was a position she’d been in many times before, but not since we’d graduated.

“But I’m-” I started, but she cut me off.

“If you remind me about your wife one more time, I’m going to rip your arm off again, and this time, I’ll shove it all the way up your ass,” Jalissa warned sternly. “Just relax and enjoy yourself. It’s not real. It doesn’t matter, so lighten up, okay?”

I nodded, knowing Jalissa was right. It was just a computer simulation, not that much different from the first-person-shooter games I played every once in a while to blow off steam. But I was aware that even though all of this was only make-believe, my body was responding in very real ways. There was an electric tension between my legs as my cock twitched and stiffened beneath my kilt.

The scene changed again, and we found ourselves in a soft patch of grass in the middle of a wild jungle garden out of Adam and Eve stories. Everything was luscious green and dappled with sunlight. Our kilts disappeared entirely, leaving us both as naked as the day we were born. I looked up into Jalissa’s beautiful face, and remembered all the times we’d been together in bed just like this. She stared back at me, searching my eyes. After a minute, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to mine, her bare breasts gently brushing against my chest. I returned her kiss, operating on instinct. Our lips parted, and then I felt her tongue in my mouth.

“You don’t know how much I’ve missed that,” Jalissa said, pausing and pulling away.

“Yeah,” I agreed catching my breath. My heart was pounding in my chest. “That was nice.”

Jalissa shifted her body backwards until my erection, fully hard now, poked between her ass cheeks.

“Oh!” Jalissa exclaimed. “So, you haven’t completely forgotten me, after all.”

“I could never forget you,” I said sincerely. “I loved you, you know. It almost killed me when you left the way you did.”

“I’m sorry,” Jalissa said. “I just needed... I don’t even really know what I needed. But I didn’t handle it well. I’m sorry I didn’t give us a chance to really say goodbye. I just moved on.”

“I know. I moved on, too... eventually,” I acknowledged.

“Did you?” Jalissa asked.

“Yeah, I built my life with Tricia,” I said.

“Then why does your cock still get so hard for me?” Jalissa asked, grinding against me. I opened my mouth to answer, but Jalissa quickly seized the opportunity to insert her tongue in place of my unformed words.

“Listen, Guillenot,” she said, breaking our kiss and staring into my eyes. “You might belong to your wife now, but I claimed you first.”

She let go of my hands and slid her body backwards further. I could feel the wet heat of her pussy on the underside of my shaft, coating it in her juices. She learned forward again, pressing her full body against mine and kissed me harder than before. Against all of my better judgment, I found myself passionately returning her kiss. I wrapped my arms around her lower back and squeezed her body even more firmly into my own. But Tricia’s face kept coming back to my mind. I rolled Jalissa over on to her back and stood up.

“I... I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I just can’t.”

Jalissa looked back at me from where she was still laying in the grass with a heartbreaking expression of frustration and disappointment. I steadied myself to receive a bitter tirade, but then her face softened into pity.

“Okay,” she relented. “I think I have an idea.”

“What?” I asked.

“Make me her.”

“What?”

Jalissa touched the thumb and little finger of her left hand together and her menu system flashed in the air. “Turn me into her,” she said.

“Can I even operate your menu?” I asked uncertainly.

“I think so,” Jalissa said. “If I let you. Just try it.”

I focused on her menu, and found that I could scroll through the listed options. I started with hair, lightening Jalissa’s dark color to a sandy brown, shortening the length a little, and adding waves. Next I went to skin tone, fading it from Jalissa’s Latina cinnamon shade to Tricia’s lighter Caucasian complexion. From there, I focused on her breasts, shrinking them a little and altering the way they hung from her chest. I went over the rest of her body making small adjustments here and there. I finally came to the details of her face. Tricia’s nose was thinner. Her mouth was a little wider, but her lips less full. I changed the shape of her eyes, her cheek bones, her jaw, molding them to look just like my wife.

“I think that should do it,” I said, stepping back and admiring my creation.

“How do I look?” Jalissa’s voice asked from Tricia’s face.

“Just like my wife, but...” I said, trailing off as I searched for one last group of settings. I increased the pitch and fine-tuned the accent giving her more of a Northeastern intonation. “Say something else.”

“Like what?” Jalissa asked, now both looking and sounding like Tricia.

“Perfect,” I said.

“I want to see,” Jalissa whined. Before I could find a mirror from my inventory menu, Jalissa (as Tricia) stepped out of herself and stood next to her replica examining her double. “Hmm. Not bad,” she admired. “She’s cute... Different... But cute.”

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“Easy; Copy and paste.” Jalissa answered.

“You can control them both?”

“Let’s see,” Jalissa said. Her original version took a step towards me, wrapped her arms around me and kissed me on the lips. “Whoa!”

“What?”

“It’s so weird,” the second Jalissa said. “It’s like I’m here and there at the same time. I can feel you, but also I’m watching you and me from over here, and... I don’t know how to explain it.”

“I’m so confused,” I said. “Which one is the real you?”

“They’re both me.”

“But...” I said, looking from Tricia-one to Tricia-two with a perplexed look.

“Okay, hang on,” Tricia-two said.

She paused for a second, her eyes scrolling through menu options. Suddenly, all the transformations reset back to defaults and Jalissa reappeared as herself. However, the other version, Tricia-one, remained unchanged, staring intently at me. Jalissa-as-Tricia dropped to her knees, maintaining her deep eye contact. It was hard to remember she wasn’t real. She took the shaft of my already rapidly engorging cock in her hands, squeezing it firmly as she guided the tip towards her lips. Jalissa-as-herself stood by, watching raptly. The expression on her face suggested that she was more than enjoying the show. As if to confirm my impression, I noticed her hand drift down to her chest, caressing her breast with its swollen nipple. Then the other hand moved further south, beginning to massage her vulva.

“Oh, fuck,” Tricia gasped, releasing my cock from her mouth. “I can feel everything all at once.”

The scene changed again. The trees retreated and were replaced by an ocean on one side and sandy dunes on the other. A canopy bed appeared a few feet away, its covers blowing gently in the breeze. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was distantly aware that Chet was still at the controls, but that all seemed worlds away and barely worth thinking about. I lifted Tricia off of her knees and guided her towards the bed.

“I want to feel you in me,” Tricia and Jalissa said simultaneously.

It was Tricia who lay on her back, her breasts falling to the sides, with her legs spread wide open for me. I positioned myself between them, letting the head of my cock press into her wet slit, coating it in her creamy slippery juices. But it was Jalissa who sucked her breath sharply between her teeth as I pushed past Tricia’s entrance and sunk my rock hard erection deep inside her.

Jalissa climbed up on the bed as I began to pick up steam, pumping into her life-like, wife-like avatar. The sensation was just like the real thing, even if my real wife would never agree to, much less initiate a threesome. Then Jalissa climbed over top of Tricia’s face, lowering her own dripping wet cunt to Tricia’s mouth. Tricia extended a curious tongue towards Jalissa’s expectant clit and began to lick.

“Holy shit!” both women exclaimed in unison.

“That feels so fucking good,” Jalissa concluded.

She began to rub her own clit while Tricia grabbed both hips, pulling her further down onto her face. Jalissa leaned forward, kissing me hard on the lips, her tongue swirling in my mouth. For a split second, I wondered at how the technology was able to reproduce such realistically intimate sensations. However, that thought was immediately jettisoned by the appearance of another replication of Jalissa and Tricia. The original Jalissa summoned these two new avatars to her sides and began to finger them both while they attended to breasts, licking and sucking at her nipples.

“Fuck!” Original Jalissa desperately shouted at the top of her lungs. I thought maybe she’d reached her limit, but I was wrong. “I want more! ”

I was already fucking Jalissa-as-Tricia about as hard as I could, but if Jalissa could replicate herself, so could I. I opened the menu system and located the copy and paste functions. Two copies of myself appeared to either side of me, and it was like suddenly I was seeing the world in triplicate from three distinctly different vantage points. Not only did my vision multiply, but I also found that I could sense three hard dicks in one. I made one of the new avatars try jerking off, and found that new sensation overlaid on top of the sensation of fucking Tricia. However, the Jalissas weren’t willing to wait for me to get used to being trinitized. Two of her avatars clutched the wrists of mine and drew me closer. Each of them bent over the mattress, presenting their needy pussies to me.

“Oh my fucking god!” I breathed, barely able to take the sensation of fucking three women at once. I probably would have blown my load in seconds if I didn’t find the sensitivity slider in my menu system and turn it down a few notches. Jalissa, on the other hand, seemed to be in a sustained state of ecstasy with no thought of slowing down.

“More!” she screamed, followed by an inarticulate and guttural growl.

She generated even more copies of herself. I did likewise, and after a few minutes, the beach was crowded with various combinations of myself, Tricia, and Jalissa, all fucking each others’ brains out. The feeling of Jalissa’s pussy changed, seeming to separate into a myriad of densely wrapped strands, each moving and rotating independently around my cock. The sensation was multiplied by some large number of copies that I’d lost the ability to count. In response, I added extra ridges and contours to my cock, set it to spinning like a drill, and then found the size adjuster. I toggled the slider back and forth rapidly, making my cocks grow and shrink rapidly in unison, pulsing as I continued pistoning inside every version of Jalissa. All of the sensations were starting to blur together in one giant, tangled ball of fuck.

“Oh my God, keep doing that,” a chorus of Jalissas and Tricias cried out together. “I’m going to cum so fucking hard if you... just... fucking... keep... it up.”

“Yes!” all of my avatars exclaimed together. “Fucking cum for me! I want to feel you cum all over all of these fucking cocks!”

Jalissa and I continued multiplying our avatars into legions of pairs and triads all on the verge of the greatest climax the world has ever know. I noticed the scenery surrounding us start to freeze and glitch, blinking in and out of existence. I knew it wasn’t a good sign but the intense need to cum wouldn’t allow us to stop.

“I- I- I’m...” Jalissa cried out, unable to complete her sentence.

“Cumming!” I finished for her, and then the orgasm washed over me- Not just one orgasm, but hundreds of them all simultaneously. I had the chance to look into Jalissa/Tricia’s faces as they climaxed hard with me, cumming over all the throbbing pulsing cocks of my own avatars, just as I sprayed my ample digital seed hundreds of times over inside all their devouring cunts. Then everything washed out in bright white flash of ecstasy, and faded to oblivion.

The first thing I became aware of when my consciousness came back online was the feeling of being shaken. I realized that I was back to being just a single person. All of the other incarnations had vanished. I also realized I was lying on the floor of the cage, apparently having collapsed. I noticed a sticky wet sensation cooling around my crotch. There was a muffled voice somewhere outside of the darkness.

“Huh?” I asked, removing the faceless helmet. The tinny sound of Christmas muzak played through a shitty mall PA system returned to torture my ears. Chet was kneeling beside me.

“You fucking crashed it, man!” he shouted.

“Where’s Jalissa?” I asked groggily. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine,” Chet announced. I looked in the direction the other cage to see Jalissa sitting up with a dazed expression.

“I can’t believe you fucking crashed it,” Chet repeated excitedly.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” I apologized, climbing out of the cage.

“No,” Chet corrected. “The data you provided was far more than I could have expected. Thank you both, so much.”

“Uh, thank you, I guess,” I said, still feeling disoriented.

“So, do you think your wife would like it?” Jalissa asked, returning to my side.

I considered the question for a moment. I knew Tricia would love it, but at the same time, I also knew that she’d hate the way we'd taken the equipment for a test drive. My orgasm had ebbed and flowed out, leaving my jagged feelings of guilt exposed.

“Maybe, we can go back to Macy’s and I’ll get her that pair of earrings,” I finally answered.