When I wake the next morning, it’s not in my comfortable tent, cuddling my girlfriend close, in a body I love, with magic I can devote my life to - it’s back on damn shitting fuckass Earth.

Look, I had a pretty tenuous relationship with physical reality even before everyone I knew was someone I met online. My body never fit right, I could never think of the right thing to say in a face-to-face conversation, I was a whole-ass virgin with a raging sex drive, and for some reason even God himself refuses to reveal to me I was born in a male body instead of a woman’s. 

Sorry. Earth drives me to swearing. The point is, hormone treatment and hope only does so much, and VR is a hugely convenient escape. Basically the only reason I still stick around in physical reality is because it’s important that I live long enough to make it to full digital uploading, which is always around the corner, and because the food is much, much better than medievalesque fantasy country #2224 even on a welfare budget supplemented a little by my wonderful girlfriend’s day job. And before you ask, we only haven’t moved in together because we live in different countries and immigration - sucks. Let’s just say it sucks. 

But we’ve had a couple visits, now and then, over the years; and that gives me a little reason to stay. There’s a plushie of a purple dragon that Viv gave me that I keep in my VR pod, just to be there to wake up to when I can’t be with her - and I hug it every single time I wake. It helps. It helps a lot. 

I sleep in my pod - cheaper not to have a separate bed - so I have to open the canopy to get out and get to work making breakfast. The pod’s the one expensive thing I own, pretty much, from when Viv had a better tech job and AI wasn’t eating all the positions. C’est la vie. 

I haul myself out of bed. My body’s better these days than it used to be; hormone treatment does in fact do something, even if I can’t afford high end surgeries. I don’t look in mirrors often, but I’ve got enough breast now that I sometimes play with it just for fun. And there’s always the relief of wearing VR when it gets to be too much. 

I go pour myself a bowl of cereal, and check my Catcall messages from last night. All the best trans girls are on it these days; it’s where I get most of my side ERP partners from, even though most of them are too shy to try on VR with me. I try not to get on their cases about it, since I was once that shy too. 

Berrybliss: Good night love 
Berrybliss: Thanks so much for the scene, and I hope you had a nice night
Berrybliss: Kiss Jewel for me, alright?
Berrybliss: I know the next morning’s always hard.
Berrybliss: Love you so fucking much

I smile, and text her back. 

Silverine: Love you too. It’s cool. Jewel helps a lot
Silverine: Hope to see you when you get up 
Silverine: I miss you

The pain of distance hits me in my chest, and for a moment I can hardly breathe. Going from holding her close to being a thousand miles apart always aches. Some days are worse than others. This one… Well, I’m not going to get to see her for a few hours yet. Usually she’s able to make a little time in the morning before she has to start remote work, but with her keeping a different schedule from me it’s rare that I get more than an hour. 

I eat my cereal, and go out to the balcony. This apartment’s pretty crammed and tiny, but it does manage to have a little postage-stamp balcony. It’s late November in the real world, the winds of winter coming in to my doorstep, snow on the ground and the mornings are dark. I’m just in time to catch the dawn today; soft golds illuminate the little bit of park I can see out my window, and long shadows are cast across the picnic benches and stretch from the stand of birches. 

I’ve always loved this kind of light. I used to be a photographer in the real world, mostly of anime conventions, and the class that taught me that was when I was something like fourteen so it’s just become part of my personality over the last decade and a half. For all the things I hate about this world, I really can’t be mad about the sunrises and sunsets. Some things you just take. VR’s like that, too. 

I brush snow off a plastic chair, sit, and take in the morning. It’s cold, especially in my pajamas, but I can stand it for a minute or so. I’m Canadian; cold’s in my blood, and I know enough to come in before I risk hypothermia. 

My phone buzzes. Probably DealRipper informing me of a game sale. I check it anyway. You never know. 

Berrybliss: good morning Mistress <3

A smile instantly leaps to my face. I go in from the balcony, closing the door behind me, and flop onto the garish floral-patterned couch that came with the place. It’s been mended a half-dozen times, but it’s still perfectly good. Good enough to lie on and text, anyway. 

Silverine: !!!!
Silverine: What a surprise to see you up this early
Silverine: Isn’t it like five am for you 
Silverine: God I’m happy to see you though

There’s a brief pause, and then my phone vibrates again.

Berrybliss: I set a special alarm
Berrybliss: Wanted to make sure I got up early enough I could return the favor for you without rushing 
Berrybliss: and we both know you keep ending up texting me sad rambling on days after scenes 

I frown, and shake my head. 

Silverine: You get little enough sleep as it is though 
Silverine: but it’s your life 
Silverine: Seriously, though, thank you.
Silverine: I don’t really want to have sex right now though 
Silverine: Can we just cuddle? 

There’s a pause. I get the sense that Vivian would sigh if I could see her in person. 

Berrybliss: Alright, Mistress.
Berrybliss: You can lay your head in my lap if you want.

That’s Viv for you. Always good at being understanding. I guess you go for people who are like you. 

Silverine: I’ll come get in the pod. 
Silverine: Room or in-game? 

There’s a considering moment, then - 

Berrybliss: Room. 
Berrybliss: I don’t want anyone else interrupting us.

I smile at that, and get up off the couch. 

Silverine: Gotcha. 

The pod accepts me again easily, the pink glass of its enclosing canopy winging up to let me lay down inside. I put on the neural crown, lay my hands in the wrist cuffs, settle my head on the pillow, and key the hand controls to seal the canopy and start the system. 

Needles prick me, the briefest of pains, and the real world swims away, to be replaced by a floating field of stars. 

Here I drift, unembodied totally, a wisp of light, a spirit in pure form. It feels restful, sometimes, to be without a body. The starfield of my desktop is manipulable by pure thought, summoning matter at a moment’s concentration.

roomwise Heartsake.room

A custom-modelled space swims into view: a crystal spire hung above a fathomless blackness, the internal room laid heavily with blankets and pillows, the shape of a saint andrew’s cross standing against one wall, a dresser with a clever little lock sitting next to it unassumingly. There’s nothing except the playroom, lit by glowing crystal, circular, its glass walls surrounded on all sides by other hanging spires. 

I sit down cross-legged on the central bed, put back into my play body by the program; a silver-haired and blue-eyed creature of ample breast and thigh, with enough fat to feel plush and generous. I used to wear more supermodel-esque bodies, but I have enough problems remembering to eat in the real world without constantly comparing myself to a more idealized, rail-thin me. This is more comfortable for extended wear. 

I’m not wearing clothes. Why would I care? The only people who’ll ever see me here are people who love me. 

roomwise connect [email protected] 

There’s a moment’s pause, and then Vivian appears in the room next to me - her auburn braided ponytail, amber eyes and scattering of freckles so familiar to me that I’ve almost forgotten what her actual body looks like. In real life, she’s dark-haired and short for a trans girl, with a dark, smoky voice I can’t help but love. Both her avatar and her actual body have a medium brown skin-tone; in real life she’s a child of middle-eastern immigrants, while my family are Norwegian and Irish, depending on which side you’re going for. She doesn’t have her dragon horns in this body, though. A matter of practicality, since they tend to catch on things. 

She beckons to me, and I flop into her arms, and hug her hard, hard, hard. 

“Love you so much,” I murmur into Viv’s hair. 

“Love you too,” she says softly, and pulls me in close. “I can tell you needed that hug.” 

I pull myself off her, and take a moment to try to gather my composure. “Yeah,” I say. “How are you doing on your passport?” 

“Went through without a hitch,” Vivian says. “Had to say I was male on it, of course, but that’s bureaucracy in the you ess of eh. You’ll get to see me again in person this year.” 

I smile. “Great,” I say. “When?” 

“I was thinking Christmas,” Viv says, running a hand through my hair. “Does that work for you?” 

“Absolutely.” I force a smile. “Not like either of us have anyone else to visit over the holidays.” 

She taps her lip and nods. “Yeah.” 

“I’ve got the space for you,” I say. “You’ll have to take the couch though.” 

“I’ve lived through worse, believe me,” Vivan says. She doesn’t talk about her past too much, but I know she means it. It’s a story that’s unfortunately all too familiar to me. 

Still, we have each other; and for a few minutes, all the rest of the world is forgotten as I pull her close and squeeze her. “Love you,” I say again. 

“Love you too.” She squeezes me back, then kisses me, and my breath catches as the emotional moment suddenly sublimates into something else - 

God, I love this fucking girl and I want to make sure she knows just how deeply I do. 

My hand finds its way to her crotch, feeling up her pussy, and I kiss her again, hard - 

And she tumbles me over onto my back, and looks me deep in the eyes. 

“Mistress,” she says with a deep and serious tone to her voice. “You have to come. It’s very, very important for your sex drive that you come and enjoy it regularly. We have talked about this. So. I’m going to pin you down and ravish you. With your permission, of course.” 

I laugh, and beckon her. “Come take me, then.” 

And she brings her lips down, and starts to kiss. First at my ears, always my weak point even when I’m in human bodies; then lower, at my breasts, my skin, down the curve of my soft belly to nose in against my clitoris. 

I tense a little, and then tremble as her tongue rolls across my clitoral hood, dragging a bright line of pleasure across the tangled mess of my brain that makes all the troubles of the world suddenly not matter even slightly. Everything falls away, and there’s just pleasure and the sating of hunger. 

I take her by her braided ponytail and guide her in, pressing her against my pussy, and her tongue rolls in and bliss fills my head up, maddenly intense, making me feel like I’ll explode if she keeps going, so fucking good that it makes my breath tremble and my sex clench. 

“Vivian…” I groan and dig my fingers deeper into her hair, pressing her in harder, grinding against her, and she moves with me, grinding her nose into my clit as her tongue pushes deep into me - 

I hump her face like an animal, my thighs rolling in, my body begging for more, more, more of that incredible pleasure - 

And like the dawn slowly breaking, the orgasm builds, and builds, and builds, washing over me in waves of heat and need and aching craving to be filled, hollowness and the need to be fucked building in me, only partially sated by her plunging tongue - 

“Vivian,” I order with predatory intent. “Make me come.” 

She speeds her lapping, and drives me higher, higher, higher, sharper, brighter, the heat and electric bliss rolling through my whole body, the world seeming to blur as all my focus goes directly to my dripping-wet sex. 

“Viv, fuck, fuck yes, more - ah!” 

I gasp out my pleasure in a high breathy moan (god I love this body) and fall back against the pillows, utterly spent, utterly satisfied. I feel mended, whole, myself again. My other half is here, and she loves me, and she cares, and she thinks I’m hot, and all of that is more than enough to outweigh anything else. 

I kiss her, and taste myself on her lips. 

“Was it good, Mistress?” There’s a slight smile on Viv’s lips, the smug satisfaction of a sub who knows they’ve been very, very good. 

“Absolutely,” I say. “Now come here. I don’t want to spend a single second away from you between now and you leaving for work.” 

“Yes, Mistress.” Vivian grins, and curls up against me, and hugs me close as close. 

I exhale, and let the world run itself for a little while.