Chapter One
Edwin waved goodbye to his wife from the front porch. Then he went back inside, down the stairs into the office, and over to the ferret cage in the back corner. He unlatched the door and placed his hands inside. “It’s okay buddy; it’s just you and me now. Want to come upstairs?” The small bundle of fur crawled up Edwin’s arm and onto his shoulder. “Good boy Sophocles,” he said, stroking the creature’s tail that was slung across his shoulder. He walked back upstairs to the living room. He made his way to the kitchen, and, as he turned the corner, he ran into his wife, who shrieked once for being startled and once more as Sophocles bounded off of Edwin’s shoulders onto hers in his search for a suitable hiding place in the midst of the chaos.
For a split second, Edwin hoped against hope that Claire hadn’t noticed Sophocles, and jumped to speak first to provide an alternate direction for their dialogue. “I’m so sorry, Sweetie; I didn’t see you there. Are you okay? I thought you’d left. Did you forget something?”
“What the hell is that thing doing out?” she snapped.
“I’m sorry; he just needs to run around for a bit.”
“Edwin,” she said exacerbated, “how are we ever going to parent a child if we can’t even trust each other to follow the rules when one of us is away?”
“I know; I’m sorry,” he said looking under the table and on the chairs for Sophocles, “he’s just been cooped up all day.”
“Then let him run around the basement!”
“I know, but it gets lonely down there.”
“Then stay down there with him!” she returned to her high volume. “Edwin, I don’t want a weasel running around our house. But you can’t seem to take that seriously. You know, now’s as good a time as any to tell you that when we do have a baby, that thing has to go!”
Edwin felt a tug on his heart that he had not felt since watching Old Yeller as a child. “Sweetie, I know I messed up, and I’m sorry, but it doesn’t have to come to that. I’ll keep him downstairs. Everything will be okay.”
Claire shook her head as she leaned on the counter and looked at him. He tried not to look her in the eye, but he could see the impeccably pressed business suit and perfectly pinned hair in his periphery.
“We’ll talk about this later,” she said. “I need to get a folder from my other briefcase. Please find him and put him back downstairs!”
“I will,” he said resuming his search.
Claire left the room for a moment and reappeared again with a manila folder. She kept meticulous files on each of her marketing accounts, and she had been stressing over this client all month. It was some pop star whose name Edwin kept forgetting. Claire was managing his new cologne or something. My first real client of consequence, she called him.
“Okay, give me a kiss,” she said. “Let’s not be angry at each other right before I go.”
Edwin had long ago seen the futility in pointing out that she was the only one who ever got angry; he was not allowed. She was slightly taller than him in heels, so Edwin had to reach up to give her the quick kiss.
“That’s better, Lovey. I’ll be back to wake you up bright and early Monday morning. And don’t forget,” she said, “make sure you don’t make any plans that afternoon! I should be ovulating. We don’t want to miss this chance again.”
“I will sweetie. Have a nice trip.”
She walked out of the door and got into her car. Edwin walked over to the corner shelves where he knew Sophocles would be hiding. He was between the jar of gluten-free cookies and the unsalted crackers. “It’s okay, buddy,” he said extending his arm, which was once again eagerly accepted, “everything’s going to be okay now.”
He walked with Sophocles into the living room. The ferret was eager to be on his own feet and explore the room, but Edwin wanted to make sure that Clair wasn’t testing him. He watched the road from the window, until he was certain, and then let Sophocles down on the couch. Edwin sat beside him and, for the first time in weeks, Edwin exhaled relaxed.
***
That night, he ordered pizza, with extra cheese and pepperoni, and he and Sophocles watched a back to back marathon of Hercules and Zena. When it was over, and he had eaten his fill of pizza, he carefully wrapped up the remaining slices and hid them in the fridge. Claire was monitoring his diet since he had been diagnosed with high blood pressure. “It’s not normal at thirty-five,” was her mantra. He shut Sophocles up in the bathroom for a moment, and took the pizza box out to the trash can.
Of course he loved his wife; at least, he had felt more strongly for her than anyone else he had ever been with. How people so readily laid claim to the abstract experience of love was beyond him. It was just that Claire ran a high stress life, and it tended to bleed into those around her. Before they had gotten married, she prompted them to make a list of rules, little quirks and boundaries that they both had and would respect to make their life together run smoothly. Edwin couldn’t remember any of the things he put down on the list. He had really only made some things up so she would not be angry at him for not “taking it seriously.” But she picked up the slack for him. Most of their rules, it seemed, where just prohibitions for him. He felt bad that he enjoyed her frequent business trips so much. But he would never dare tell her how he felt and why. Each wave of her anger was an insurmountable force that would not let up until he was broken on the shore. And he felt that he lost a part of himself each time to the storm.
He retrieved Sophocles from the bathroom sink, and enjoyed the quiet house from the living room couch. He knew he should really be grading midterms, but they could wait until tomorrow. He would have to finish them before Claire returned though, or else they would prompt her to give a lecture on how ridiculous it was for a Classics professor who graduated at the top of his class to be teaching Art History at a community college. And then it would lead to a casual “did you know” about how many jobs there are in New York or Chicago or some big city that fit the bill of the metropolis that Claire felt most comfortable in. But big cities scared Edwin. He thought the suburb of D.C. where they lived was a perfect compromise. She could go into the city everyday if she liked, and their town was self sufficient enough to prevent him from ever leaving. But, nevertheless, the lectures persisted.
He stretched his arms above his head, and Sophocles took advantage of the gesture and scrambled up onto his lap. Edwin looked down at his best friend, curled happily on his stomach, and did not have the heart to remove him. Luckily, the television remote was within his reach, and he began the comfortable tedium of late night channel surfing. He finally settled on an old episode of Mr. Ed and let the otherworldly black and white charm take him away, so much so that the harsh volume boost at the commercial break made him jump! Sophocles was ruffled, but not enough to move, so Edwin was stuck watching ads for car insurance and weed whackers and the late Friday night phone sex ads designed for lonely insomniacs.
Towards the end of the break, however, a commercial came on the screen that Edwin immediately recognized as different. The woman on the screen was not real, but not animated either, at least not any kind of animation he had ever seen. He paused the DVR box and looked at the woman and the people and scene around her. It was definitely some kind of computer generated image, but it was uncannily lifelike. Not that it took much to impress Edwin, he preferred a good book to a computer any day and hardly kept up with technology, but he was very impressed nonetheless. He backed up the picture to the beginning of the commercial and turned the volume up.
“Ever wanted to break out of the everyday slump and be a completely different person?” the lady asked as she zipped up her boot. “Well now’s your chance to try it in the extreme.” She walked out of the dark room she had been sitting in, and into a crowded city street. “Unlike those other, simpler, virtual realities, Night Life adheres to a higher standard of entertainment. Whether it’s a quiet read in a café,” she says as she passes a café, “a stroll through the park,” she said as she pointed to scene meant to mimic Central Park in New York, “or you just want to dance the night away,” she entered into a night club and raised her arms as she began to dance, “Night Life is the only place to interact with unique souls like yourself who want to break free.” Her surroundings faded into white and she walked toward the camera to a computer desk. “But don’t take too long to decide. Night Life is by invitation only, and now is your chance. Log on to EnterTheNightLife.com in the next fifteen minutes to RSVP.” The camera zoomed in on her face. “Don’t miss us,” she said seductively as she winked. Then the television cut awkwardly to the middle of Mr. Ed., with Wilbur trying unsuccessfully to explain to someone in his office the deep voice coming from the stable behind them.
It was weird, but one saw all kinds of crazy commercials on late night television. He thought it was ridiculous that commercials with “special offers” pretended that people were waiting by the phones and counting the minutes until the window of that special offer had closed. Still, he was intrigued. The idea of going places and meeting people in situations that would otherwise intimidate him, all from the safety of his room, appealed to him greatly. But he realized that there was probably some catch, and that it would be well beyond his computer know-how anyway. He settled back into the couch, a little reluctantly, and tried to figure out what he had missed in the cable company’s late return from the commercial break.
He could not completely shake the idea of the virtual reality offer, though, and he was shocked to see, farther into Mr. Ed, scrolling words at the bottom of the screen: “Only ten minutes left to RSVP for Night Life!” He sat up again; Sophocles was agitated, but settled back down. Were they really serious about the fifteen minutes? He began to toy with the idea more seriously. He could easily make it down to the office and onto the website in 10 minutes. He decided to go for it. It would be an interesting way to pass the night, at least.
He scooped up Sophocles, who lightly protested, in one arm and made a path for the basement. He trotted a little faster down the stairs as he remembered that he had been watching the commercial on a little bit of bank time on the DVR. When he reached the office, he shut the door, and sat Sophocles down on the small cot he kept there for quiet daily naps. He felt a nervous rush though when he looked at the computer monitor; it was rebooting after an automatic update!
He almost resorted to biting his nails as the desktop slowly loaded, and he cursed himself for setting programs to automatically load on start up. Finally, the low gurgling of the machine stopped, and the computer was loaded. He clicked for a browser window, and as soon as the cursor appeared in the field, he typed” www.EnterTheNightLife.com.” The page took an agonizing minute to load. But at long last, it finished, and a black screen with Night Life written in silver lettering appeared, and beneath it, in smaller script, the words: Congratulations, you made it…click here.
Edwin clicked, fell back into his chair relieved, and then felt a little silly about the whole ordeal. But before he could chastise himself too much, the computer screen changed. A white screen appeared with the words: To RSVP, enter your name and email address. And there were appropriate fields to do so. Edwin hesitated for a moment. Was this all a scam? There was always a catch to these things, and his inbox would most likely fill up with junk mail. He decided to enter a false name and his brother in law’s email address. He clicked the button to submit, but a grey box popped up which read: Error! Night Life is by invitation only. It was odd; he had made it in time; even the welcome page had said so. He was about to write it off to a poorly organized promotion when he had another idea. He hesitantly typed his own name and email address in, and he clicked submit. The page changed once more to black and read: Welcome Edwin Tamus!
Edwin rolled his chair back from the computer. Why did it accept his name but not his brother in law’s? He was a little creeped out until he realized that they must have only shown the commercial in different cities at different times. And he remembered providing his city and state when he signed up for his email account. Maybe they could read where he was from through his email or something. It sounded plausible enough.
The website then told him he had to create his avatar to move about in Night Life. It provided him a basic template, custom created for him, it claimed. He had to admit, there was a basic likeness, which is why he spent a good twenty minutes learning how to work the edit menu. He made his avatar slimmer, taller, darker and gave it that rough, unshaven biker look that Claire always dropped hints about liking, but that he could never, ever, pull off. As he nearly completed his alterations, he had to admit, he was having fun, and the time was flying by. At 1am, he realized that he had already been at it for 45 minutes. Finally, he was finished. He looked at his creation. It was no masterpiece, but it resembled the person he knew he would never be, the one he sometimes dreamed of being. He clicked “next.”
The screen around his avatar faded, and outlines of buildings began to form around it. A box appeared on the screen which read, “Please wait while we preload your surroundings for minimal lag time.” He didn’t quite understand what that meant, but he could be patient. He watched the city from the commercial slowly form around him, like something from a Batman cartoon, only not as menacing. Once the buildings had formed, walls were built up around him, and he found himself, or his avatar, inside a small room. His Avatar settled onto the floor and another box popped up telling him that this was his home in Night Life: 1437 Paksos Street. He could return at anytime by clicking the home button at the bottom of the screen. He was very eager to begin moving around and interacting in this new world, this new skin. His breath quickened as he clicked the door; it opened, and he directed his avatar out of the building.
He walked a little awkwardly, swaying from side to side, trying to get the feel for the controls. But he eventually managed to stay on the sidewalk. As other people’s avatar’s approached his, he could see a small chat window open up, where people spoke to each other. They sometimes got angry with him for bumping into them, and he was continuously writing “sorry.”
Finally, he stood against a wall and watched the different people around him. The avatars were as diverse as any group of people walking down a city street and more so, for there were even avatars that looked like animals and creatures that morphed man and animal. Another box popped up that read “Tip: adjust volume controls for speaker and mic to better interact.” Edwin looked at the bottom of his screen, and there was a volume control. He clicked it and turned up the volume. A menagerie of sounds poured through his speakers. There was the sound of cars driving by, distant music from a club down the street, and so many people’s voices, all a distant buzz until they approached. He heard people’s conversations just as would if they passed him on a street. He was now completely immersed in Night Life, but he was careful to keep the mic on mute. He didn’t like the sound of his voice, and not having to use it to communicate made his escape complete.
A group of people approached. He wrote “hello” in the chat box. They passed by without acknowledging him. A minute later, a young girl avatar came and stood next to him. She looked down at the ground and waited. He thought his time for company might finally have come. He typed “Hello, how are you?” But the girl suddenly disappeared in a swirl of simulated fairy dust. He began walking the street again. Was he doomed to be awkward in social situations, even in his escapism? He hoped not.
Eventually, he passed what looked like the same dance club from the TV commercial. Edwin never danced in public. A formal sit down reception was the one thing he adamantly stood firm on when he and Claire planned their wedding. He was extremely uncomfortable in his own skin, but he was in a different skin now. He entered into the club. It was dark, but there were different colored flashing lights, swirling around, illuminating a room full of suave male avatars and beautiful young women avatars, all so life like, like the commercial, but slightly other worldly, strangely adding to their beauty. All were dancing in various styles to the pumping music coming from Edwin’s speakers. He longed to join them, but he was not sure how to make his avatar dance. He walked around awkwardly, looking for a way, but eventually began to feel stupid. He passed a chair at a table in the corner and a transparent prompt box popped up reading “click to sit.” He did so, and his avatar sat at the table, leaning on one elbow.
He sat there for a while; he learned how to focus his view on different places from different angles. But eventually, the thrill wore off. He was even a wallflower in virtual reality. He was about to click the “x” at the top of the window to close it all out, when a girl walked by him and stood next to the table. His screen froze for a few seconds, but when it caught back up, the girl was sitting at the table with him. She was thin but curvy and wore long black boots that reached her thighs. She wore a tiny black and red skirt and a red bustier. Her hair was red, punk red, like he might see on one of his young students. He allowed his avatar to sit there a moment, not sure what to do. Then a chat box opened up.
“Wow! You’re not very good at this, huh?” appeared in the corner of the screen. The box identified the chatter, the girl, as “Sara Nix.”
Edwin quickly typed, “What do you mean?”
“When a girl sits down with you, you could at least say hello.”
Edwin blushed and then blushed harder for blushing. “Sorry,” he typed. I didn’t know if you meant to sit with me or not.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Edwin felt a little stupid, but was enjoying interacting with someone. “I haven’t had much luck meeting people yet.”
“Well, I’m Sara Nix. You haven’t placed a name in your profile.”
“Oh, sorry, I’m Edwin.” As soon as he clicked the send button, he felt stupid for using his real name. What kind of name was Edwin anyway? It certainly did not match his avatar. He quickly added, “I guess I could have come up with a better name.”
“Not at all ;)” she typed, “I prefer real names. It’s a pleasure to meet you Edwin.”
“How do know that’s my real name?” Was he actually flirting?
“Because no one would make that up lol!”
Edwin was glad he had humored his 14 year old niece by listening to her lecture on text abbreviations. The idea that he had made a girl “laugh out loud,” pleased him. “Now you’re just being cruel :(” he prided himself on the use of his first emoticon, and he was very pleased with the boldness a virtual environment allowed him.
“Awww, don’t be sad,” she typed. “I think it’s a fine name. I wouldn’t want to call you by any other.”
“Is Sara your real name?”
“Yep. I used to go by Echo, but I hated the first syllable of my name sounding like someone retching.”
“Echo is a lovely name! You know, there is a beautifully tragic story about a wood nymph named Echo in Greek mythology.” He regretted it as soon as he clicked send. He was at a night club for crying out loud! No one wanted to hear his stories.
“Really? Tell it to me ;)” she replied.
Did she really want to hear it, or was she just being nice? Well, it was too late now anyway. He decided to give her the short version just in case. He told her of the wood nymph named Echo who fell in love with the beautiful youth Narcissus. He told her of Hera’s jealous curse on Echo, because of Zeus’ roaming eye, and how she could only repeat what she heard spoken. He allowed himself to slow down, however, when he came to the part about Echo hopelessly following Narcissus, unable to proclaim her love for him, until one day he heard her as she watched him in a grove. He called, “Is anyone here?”
Echo answered eagerly, “Here, here!” Narcissus replied, “Then show yourself; come!”
Echo revealed herself with open arms, saying repeating cheerfully, “Come, Come!”
But Narcissus, wary of the loss of his freedom to love, declared, “I will die before I give you power over me!”
Echo replied feebly, “I give you power over me…” but it was too late; the youth had vanished. Edwin then told Sara of how Echo was believed to have wasted away from a broken heart, until only her voice remained, sending back peoples’ words in the forest.
Sara took a while to respond, and Edwin worried that he had bored her. At last, her text appeared in the chat box. “You tell that story so beautifully.”
He didn’t know how to respond. “Thank you,” he finally typed.
“May I ask you a question?” Her avatar cocked its head to the side while looking at him.
“Sure,” Edwin did not really know how else to respond.
“Why did you design your avatar the way you did? I don’t mean to pry, but that’s not really you, is it?”
He was taken aback. “You don’t like it?”
“Oh no; it’s very handsome. It’s just that, you’re much too sweet for the bad boy look.”
Story of my life, thought Edwin. “It’s just something I threw together,” he typed, lying about the time he spent agonizing over it. “I’m new to all of this.”
“Do you mind if I try something?” she asked.
“Okay, what?” Edwin was a little worried again.
A prompt box popped up on the screen reading, “Sara Nix has requested control over your avatar. Do you grant it?”
Edwin hesitantly clicked yes. His avatar went grey.
“Just give me one sec,” Sara typed.
After about a minute, his avatar began to return to focus. Gone was the rugged, unkempt hair, and in its place was the receding hair line Edwin knew too well. The muscle-man physique faded as well, into a soft form, with the hint of a bulge around the middle, and his clothes went from prime time TV sheik to the familiar sweater vest and slacks that he wore to all of his classes, that he was wearing right now. He was eerily shocked.
“How did you do that?” he typed.
“Tee hee, your webcam is up!”
Edwin jumped to cover the small camera built in at the top of his monitor, while looking desperately for the controls to turn it off on his screen. A strong wave of humiliation rushed over him, soaking him to the bone. He felt his face become blood red, and tears welled up in his eyes. For once he had tried to break out of his tight skin, and was still foiled by his ignorance. At a loss for how to shut the cam down, he grabbed a post it pad, and covered the small lens with two sheets. He collapsed back down into his chair and was about to exit from the Night Life window, when the words Sara had typed during his frenzy stopped him.
“Please don’t be mad at me Edwin. I’m sorry if I upset you, I was only trying to flirt a little.”
She was flirting with him? No one ever flirted with him, unless it was a girl failing one of his classes, who he immediately gave the cold shoulder to, as he had been terrified by the sexual harassment classes at professor orientations.
“Edwin? Are you still there?”
He didn’t know what to type. His shame was kept fresh by the image of himself sitting at a table in a night club. Even the metaphor, a fish out of water, fell horribly short. He hadn’t felt mad at first, but staring at himself on the screen, he was beginning to. Sara was waiting patiently at the table with him, and at length, he typed: “I don’t like being made fun of.”
“Please Edwin, don’t go. I’m not making fun of you. I saw you through your webcam and was very taken with you. I would like to spend some more time with you, if that’s okay.”
For a second, he didn’t know what to believe, but he decided that if she was really just making fun of him, she would have left him after her laugh. He wanted to change his avatar back, but was too ashamed to in front of her. He didn’t really know how anyway. He decided the next best thing would be to get out of the club, to go somewhere he didn’t feel quite so awkward.
“Is there some place else we can go?” he typed.
“Sure, we can go anywhere you’d like to.”
“I don’t know. I’m new here. Take me to one of your favorite places.”
A second or two after his words appeared on the screen, Sara’s avatar vanished. He thought she had finally left him with one final laugh until another prompt box opened on his screen. It read: “Sara Nix has offered to transport you to her location. Do you accept?” Edwin clicked yes and his surroundings once again faded and were slowly brought back into focus. He found his avatar in a library. The shelves of books seemed to go on forever. There were ladders on rollers and opened books on tables with little lamps. As the scene came into full focus, he saw Sara sitting on the edge of one of the tables.
“I didn’t expect this.” Edwin typed, still leery of jokes.
“I love it here. They have so many books. I never get bored.”
“You can actually read here?”
“Well…I can.”
“I’m sure I have a lot to learn.” He was tired of being on guard, and he could never maintain anger. He decided to take it all at face value. Then she really threw him for a loop.
“I think you’re really cute, Edwin.”
He was flustered.
“Don’t be so shocked! Not every girl wants GQ. You’ve been very sweet, and I can tell that you’re sensitive. And I think you’re cute.”
He was trying to fight the smile that was creeping across his face. “Well, thanks.” He wanted to type more, but couldn’t find the words. He wanted to say that she was cute as well, but he had only seen her avatar. He decided to risk boldness one more time. “Your avatar is very cute, but I think it’s only fair that if you’ve seen me, I should see you.”
She took a moment to respond, and he vehemently regretted making the proposition.
“I don’t have a webcam,” she typed, at length. “But you like my avatar?”
“I really do.”
“Well, I look just like it. Exactly like it ;)”
He decided not to push the issue. “Then you are truly stunning,” he typed.
“See?” she replied quickly. “Who needs a Narcissus? I’ll take Edwin ;)”
They remained in the library for the rest of the night, talking. Sara seemed immensely interested in Edwin. She wanted to hear his stories, his favorite things in life, about places he had been… He was careful to leave Claire out of it. He wondered if what he was doing was cheating. It was online with avatars after all. But the deeper question, that he would not quite allow himself to confront, was did he even care? He was not used to such attention, real genuine attention at that, for she would ask him specific questions about the myths he told her, and she gloried in the details of the places in Greece that he had been to study while working on his degree. Eventually, when Edwin could no longer keep his eyes open, he told her that he should really get to bed.
She protested, “Please stay, just a little longer?”
“Dear Sara, there’s nothing more I’d rather do than sit and chat with you for hours more, but if I don’t get to bed, I’m going to fall asleep at the computer.”
“Okay :( But will you come back tomorrow night?”
“I certainly will!”
“*Gives Edwin a goodnight kiss*,” she typed, and her avatar walked over to Edwin’s and did just that. Edwin felt a little dizzy, as though he really had been kissed, but he decided it was mere exhaustion. He typed one final “sweet dreams” then logged out of Night Life. He stood up, but saw the cot in the corner. It won the debate with his bed by virtue of being there. He nudged over Sophocles, and curled himself into sleep.
***
He awoke at 2pm. He was shocked when he walked out of his tightly sealed basement office and upstairs to see the sunlight pouring in through the windows on the house’s western exposure. He couldn’t remember ever sleeping so late in his life. He fed Sophocles, but had to brush the nasty taste out of his mouth before thinking about food for himself. As he stood there, foaming at the mouth before the bathroom mirror, the events of the last night were replayed in his mind. But now they were through the tint of the joy he felt at Sara’s attentions.
The thought that he was somehow being unfaithful to Claire came back, but he quickly dismissed it by telling himself that it was virtual reality; nobody was sincere. But this thought stuck in mind and dampened his mood. As he rinsed his mouth out, he realized that Sara could be some perverted old man, for all he knew, or a perhaps even a minor! He had not thought of asking her how old she was. She could even be someone he knew. She had the advantage over him, for she had seen him. There could be no doubt in either of their minds that he had been himself, and not playing the game of Night Life.
This line of thought hung like a cloud over his cereal bowl and stuck with him for the rest of the afternoon. It was in a struggle, however, with how good Sara’s company felt, and how Edwin had not experienced such genuine companionship in a long time. He spent the bulk of the Saturday afternoon fighting with the decision of whether or not to sign on to Night Life again that evening. He knew he would, in the end, but he also felt he shouldn’t. It reminded him of the feeling he got while sneaking into his father’s box of magazines in the attic of his childhood home.
At 9 he went out to the Taco Hut and got dinner and munchies for the night. At 10, just half an hour before Night Life came online, he shut himself in the office with Sophocles and passed the time in a game of tag with the ferret, who could never get enough of the game. Finally, the clock on the computer read 10:30. He waited just a few more minutes. Give it until 10:45 he thought. Don’t want to seem too eager. He made it to 10:35, then logged in.
He loaded up in his virtual home again, 1437 Paksos Street. As he clicked the door to open it, he realized, for the first time, that he had no way of contacting Sara. This was an enormous oversight, and he couldn’t bring himself to believe that he would not, after all, be spending another night with her. He searched the control panel, his interface with the virtual reality of Night Life. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he hoped to find something. He came across a menu that read “Recent Locations.” He clicked on it, and saw the Gaya Branch Library at the top of the short list. He clicked on the name and held his breath.
His surroundings faded again, and slowly reformed into the library. When the scene had completely loaded, he found himself where he had stood the last night, looking at the table where Sara had sat, from which she had gotten up to give him his goodnight kiss. But she was not at the table. He hoped she might show up, or that perhaps she was already here. He no longer cared that he knew absolutely nothing about the person who claimed to be Sara Nix. He just wanted to escape again into the virtual fantasy. He still did not like the true to life look of his avatar, but for some reason she did, and he wanted to make her happy.
He began to walk around the library, exploring the different rows. The library was empty; no sounds or music, or anything. He found it to be two stories, so after exhausting his search of the first level, he awkwardly moved his avatar up to the second. As he turned the corner at the end of one of the rows, he jumped in his seat by a voice that came through his computer’s speakers.
“Hi there!” It was a woman’s voice, very sweet, youthful but not young, and very excited.
Edwin moved his avatar around looking for the source of the voice.
“Up here silly,” it giggled.
He moved the focus of the screen upward and saw Sara perched on top of one of the book shelves with an open book in her lap.
“Hello,” Edwin typed. “It’s nice to see you again.”
Sara laughed through his speakers. It was a bewitching laugh, and he felt relieved to at least know she was really a woman. “Why don’t you talk to me silly? You have a mic…right?”
“Well,” he typed, “you typed to me all night last night.”
“I know,” she said with a slight, sultry whine, “but that’s before I knew if I could trust you.”
“Trust me? To hear your voice?” he still typed.
“Never mind,” she said. “But will you use your mic?”
“I’m afraid my voice is not very…attractive”

“I don’t believe you!” she repeated it a few times in a chorus and then said, “that’s what you thought about your looks, but I think you’re absolutely perfect! Now talk to me. Please?” Her voice became almost pouty, and Edwin found himself being completely played by the charm; he was enjoying it immensely.
Just as he was about to click his mic on, Sara’s voice clipped through the speakers, “Oh!” and then her avatar vanished from the screen. Was she upset? Edwin cursed himself for his stubbornness, but he thought he had been flirting. Then, just as suddenly as Sara had vanished, another avatar appeared on the floor beneath the bookshelf on which she had perched.
It was a Minotaur. Edwin recognized it from mythology and was admiring the virtual design of it, the man’s body, all black and bordering on gigantism, in a loin cloth, with the tail and fierce head of an angry bull. The avatar turned and seemed to look at Edwin. It walked quickly and hunched over to Edwin, who was taken aback, even in his computer chair. He focused on the monstrous avatar, and saw the red eyes flaming as the quivering, smoking nostrils descended upon him and sniffed vigorously. Edwin felt a little violated until he snapped out of the trance the screen often put him in, and looked around the small room that was his office. When he looked back at the screen, the Minotaur had apparently finished. It backed up a step or two, and then disappeared just like Sara.
His puzzlement over the incident was fading back into disappointment at Sara’s absence when a prompt box opened on her screen. “Sara Nix has offered to transport you to her location. Do you accept?” Of course he clicked yes, and this time the scene that materialized around him was vastly different than any other he had seen in Night Life. For one thing, it was not night. It was a forest scene, set by a babbling stream which he could hear. The woods were deep, but bright in a midday sun, and flowers of every sort lined the bank. Sara was sitting on the ground, leaning up against a tree that had wandered from the pack. She was no longer wearing her red and black club outfit; now she was in a white swim suit, or short robe, or some combination of the two. But her tanned skin and deep red hair contrasted greatly, and Edwin felt a little silly being so aroused by an avatar.
“Sorry about that,” she said through his speakers again. “I have a stalker.”
“He did look rather menacing.” Edwin had typed out of habit, and kicked himself for not surprising her with the microphone.
“He didn’t do anything to you, did he?”
Edwin was trying to open the proper control for the mic, but her question was so worried and urgent, that he resigned to typing one more quick answer. “No; he sniffed me oddly enough, but that was all.”
Sara burst into the musical laughter once again. “He thought you were real!”
“Real?” Edwin cringed at the sound of his nasal voice amplified back through his own speakers as he talked into the mic.
“Hey, there you are! Say something else.”
“Ah, what do you want me to say?”
“I love your voice!”
“Well, only for you,” he said. And then, feeling silly at actually hearing himself trying to flirt, added, “Why don’t you report that guy to the Night Life moderators?”
“Eh, he’d just get around it.”
Edwin decided not to push the issue. “This place is lovely,” he said. “I didn’t know Night Life had places like this.”
“It doesn’t. I built this place.”
“Oh are you a programmer?”
“Something like that,” she giggled.
“Well, it’s very nice. The sounds of the forest are very real as well.”
“Thanks, I used to love the woods.”
“Used to?”
“I don’t get out much anymore.”
Something in her tone told Edwin not to push that issue either.
He tried to move the conversation to focus on her this time. He was curious about her. What things in her life or background made it so easy to be infatuated with her? He could not get many details out of her, only that she had been hurt in an abusive relationship, and was just recently able to move on to further chapters in her life.
“I don’t want you to feel sorry for me or anything,” she said after Edwin had not known what to say except that he was sorry. “It’s in the past, and I’ve put myself together again. But never again will I allow myself to get into such a situation. It wasn’t just the violence, but the mind games and all of the rules. Oh, all of the damned rules! They kept changing and never had any logic to them.”
“I know what you mean. . .” Edwin wanted to tell her about Claire, about the frustrations and hurt he kept deep inside. He felt that close to her, but he was terrified that she would think he was a creep and leave him if she found out that he was married. But he hated to lie to her.
“You’ve been hurt to?” she asked.
Edwin hesitated and chose his words carefully. “Yes. I know what it’s like to be in that kind of relationship. I mean, not the physical, but. . .”
“Well, I’ve put it all behind me now. Sorry to be a downer.” She laughed, and it lifted Edwin’s mood. “As I said, who needs those guys when you can have an Edwin.”
Edwin blushed again and pressed the post it notes down firmly over the webcam.
The conversation moved on. He asked her to tell him one of her favorite things. “This,” she said as she stood up and began to dance. He admitted that he was not much of a dancer, it actually terrified him. But she said, “That’s perfect! Because, more than anything I like to be watched.”
“I do enjoy watching you,” Edwin blurted out, then felt awkward at the overtones that had just revealed themselves to him. He did enjoy watching her dance though, even if it was only her avatar. She moved with fluidity that he had never seen on a computer screen before. It looked so much like he was simply watching a video of a person, and not a simulation. The white cloth she wore about her teased him by revealing just so much of her body, as she weaved between trees.
“Do you like my body?” she asked.
“Very much so,” his pulse quickened.
She stopped dancing, and walked over to him. “Would you like to see more of it?”
He felt light headed, as though he was going to pass out. “Yes,” was the last thing he heard himself say, before he opened his eyes in a dream. He was standing on the bank of the stream in Sara’s forest. He was conscious enough to know that it must be a dream, but not enough to be worried about having fallen asleep in the middle of his conversation. He heard Sara calling his name. He looked around. She was leaning against a tree with her arms wrapped around the trunk behind her. “Edwiiiin,” she cooed softly, “you’ve captured your wood nymph. What will you do with her?”
“Love her,” he replied, walking up to her in the boldness of dream logic. “If she’ll have me.”
She smiled and leaned her head to the side. “Good answer. . .Come and take me.”
It all seemed so real. She allowed his hands to travel across her body, discovering what she liked, before she raised her arms to caress his neck. A few strategic tugs at the white garment she wore rendered it loose, and it fell to the ground. They reclined on the bank, and made love to the sound of the stream.
It seemed then that he slept a while without dreaming, but he awoke suddenly. He wiped the drool from his face and the keyboard and looked up on the screen. His avatar was nowhere to be seen, but Sara’s was reclined on the bank with her garment thrown loosely over her. She was smiling at him.
“That was even better than I thought it would be,” she said.
He didn’t know what had happened and much less what to say. Had he fallen asleep on her or perhaps talked in his sleep - some odd form of somnambulant cyber sex? He was about to click his mic on, when Sara stopped him.
“Don’t speak, sweet Edwin,” she said, still beaming. Sleep now, you’ll need it. I will await you tomorrow my love.”
Love? What the hell just happened? Edwin thought. Still, the sound of her voice calling him that made him giddy.
“Sweet dreams,” she cooed, and then his screen went dark, and his desktop reappeared.
He shifted in his chair and felt ridiculous. But he still felt elated from Sara’s parting words. His mind was jumbled with too many questions to talk himself out it. He stood up to see Sophocles, curled once again on the cot. Edwin joined him and fell immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep.
***
He woke in the afternoon again of the next day, but he remained exhausted nonetheless. He decided that he really should grade the midterms, and it would be something to pass the evening with. He plodded through them monotonously though. He spent the rest of the evening finishing off the Taco Hut leftovers and playing with Sophocles until they both collapsed on the couch in front of the TV. It was Sunday, the end of his weekend, but all he could think about was being with Sara again that night. He was still completely baffled as to what exactly happened the previous night, but he consoled himself with Sara’s reaction. Whatever he had done, it could not have been too horrible.
As the time approached, he carried Sophocles back down into the basement. He shut the office door and waited the few final moments. He was on Night Life at 10:30 sharp. He appeared in his apartment again and quickly checked his recent locations folder. Sara’s forest was not there. He went to the library. He appeared on the second level, just where the minotaur had accosted him, but no one was in sight. Then he heard the sound of a woman laughing. He searched for the source, and even called into the mic, “Sara?”
But just as he moved down the stairs and around a corner to find the source of the laughter, there were two avatars, one male and one female, in a compromising position on one of the study tables. “Get lost gramps!” said a male voice through his speakers. “This is a private party.”
Edwin lingered just long enough to make sure the female avatar was not Sara, and then he went back to the second level of the library. He waited there for fifteen minutes, listening to the moans of the virtual lovers, then thirty minutes, then an hour, until he started to fear that Sara would not show up. Maybe she was just being polite at the end of last night. Maybe she really did not want to see him again. He began to doze in the chair, waking up periodically to check. Finally, at 2am, he could no longer keep his head up. He was about to curl up with Sophocles again on the cot, but he remembered that Claire was due home in the morning. He reluctantly placed Sophocles in the bed inside his cage, and kissed him goodnight.
He felt stupid for the emptiness he felt inside. He tried to shake it off as he walked upstairs. After all, it was only some stranger he had met online, and they had only talked for two nights, but he could not help feeling that she meant much more than that. As soon as he lay in his own bed, he felt the urge to get up and check Night Life one more time. What if she was just late? He was about to get up, when he had another thought. What if she was avoiding him? What if he was keeping her from one of her favorite places because he simply would not leave? He felt miserable at this and collapsed back onto the bed. He fell into a troubled sleep.
He remained asleep until Claire’s shrill, scolding voice pierced the fog in his head.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” she was saying. “I can’t believe you would do this to me!”

Virtual Mythology
by James Alfred