Doobie: Grrrr!
Chas: Hahaha. It’s a long time since I beat anyone at chess.
Doobie: Who did you play, before you started playing against yourself?
Chas: Mora.
Doobie: Your wife?
Chas Chesnokov nods.
Chas: I think I beat her twice. But that was early on, just after I’d taught her.
Doobie: You taught her to play, and then let her beat you?
Chas: Oh, I didn’t let her beat me. She just did. Time after time.
Doobie: A mere reflection of the innate superiority of women over men. The only reason you beat me today was because I was not giving the game my full attention.
Chas: Yeh, yeh, yeh. You realise that you will now have to number me amongst your potential suitors.
Doobie: Oh, will I? And why’s that?
Chas: You told me, that last time, that you would never fall for a man who couldn’t beat you at chess.
Doobie: Yes, well, it’s a matter of respect, isn’t it? But that, of course, would only apply if I was actually looking for a man. Which I’m not.
Chas: You don’t need to. You have men all the time.
Doobie: For sex and money, yes. But anything else is strictly off limits. I’m not in the game for a relationship, Chas.
He felt himself unaccountably disappointed. Unaccountably, he reasoned, because how would it be possible to have a relationship in a world that only existed somewhere between the mind and a computer screen? Disappointed, because there was a big empty place inside of him that needed filled. And he liked her. Without rhyme or reason. He thought for a few moments.
Chas: Is it hard to buy a penis?
Doobie: LOL. Well, it’s not hard when you buy it. Only when your lover touches it.
Chas: Ha. Ha. Ha. You know what I mean.
Doobie Littlething looks at Chas inquisitively.
Doobie: You really want to buy a penis? What for?
Chas: Just curious.
Doobie: Uh-huh? Sit tight. I’ll send you a TP.
Chas dropped down from a night sky into a winter landscape. Snowflakes fell all around, accumulating on the roofs of wooden ski lodges gathered around an area of ice sculptures and snowmen. People stood around in groups chatting. An IM chinged on his screen.
Doobie: Inside.
Chas turned around to find himself facing the entrance to a sprawling stone-built store with a high, steeply pitched wooden roof. The doorway was flanked by giant posters. What’s Hot? THE X3 NIPPLES! ANAL TOYS. And beyond it, a photograph of a couple making love above the legend, Xcite! The Finest Sexual Equipment. He waded through the snow to make his way inside.
Arched entrances opened into different areas of the store. Nonhumans. Boys. Girls. Upgrades. Chas walked past a fire smouldering in an open hearth and through the arch into the boys’ store. The walls were lined with depictions of various versions of the Xcite penis, which advertised itself as The Sculpted X3 Cock. There were pierced penises and textured ones in different colours. Penises in cages and tied in ribbons. There were even penises that came ready-fitted with condoms and accompanying colour changes.
Doobie was idling impatiently beside a free-standing poster for a Male Starter Pack that boasted the inclusion of a Sculpted Cock, X3 nipples, a HUD Control Panel, and an “Xcite Me’ Club Shirt.
Doobie: For a mere 1200 Lindens, you too could be a real man. Actually this one’s pretty good.
Chas: How do you know?
Doobie Littlething tuts.
Doobie: Use your imagination. Are you going to buy it or not?
Chas: I don’t have any money.
He heard a cash register, and saw that Doobie had just paid him 1200 Lindens.
Doobie: You now owe me 2200, Chas. And since I have an investment to protect, I’m going to have to make sure we keep you safe from the mob. LOL.
Chas: Very funny.
Doobie: Go ahead and buy it.
She waited a moment.
Doobie: Done it?
Chas: Yes.
Doobie: Okay. I suppose I’d better show you how it works.
Chas: Here?
Doobie: LOL! No, of course not, you idiot. At my place. I’ll TP you.
Michael was suddenly transported from another world, another dimension, another persona, and found himself crashing back into RL with a start.
The phone was ringing.
He dragged his eyes away from the screen and the wall of sculpted cocks, to look at the info panel on the handset on his desk. It was Janey, calling from her cellphone. He had the sense that it had rung several times without impinging on his consciousness, so deep had he been in the character of Chas. He hesitated to answer it, drawn by a strange excitement and a curiosity about where this sexual interaction between Chas and Doobie was leading. But in the end, he decided that Janey wouldn’t be calling unless she had something to tell him. He picked up the phone, but was greeted only by the dialling tone. She had rung off.
“Damn!”
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.