It was a very uncomfortable ride home from the store. I kept looking back and forth between Karen, who was still asleep on my shoulder, and the bag on the floor. I was nearly dumbfounded at what was going on in my life right now. I, who has never had a girlfriend, could possibly have sex with a beautiful woman I just met. It almost seemed unreal when I thought about it, but the prospect of seeing Karen’s naked body was causing me to drool a little bit.

I was awoken from my day dream by a very sweet and semi-sleepy voice, “Your drooling dear.” I shook my head real quick and then looked at Karen smiling up from my shoulder.

She had a mischievous smile on her face while she spoke, “Did I interrupt something good?”

I just smiled back at her and then looked out the window without answering.

She grinned even wider and laughed a little before speaking, “I guess I did, oh, what’s in the bag?”

She started to reach for the sack on the floorboard, which I promptly snatched up before she was able to get her paws on it.

I looked at her, my face burning red, while trying to hide the bag behind my back, “It’s nothing at all, no need to worry about it.”

Seeing that I was embarrassed she smiled real wide before getting a mischievous look in her eyes, “Let me see babe. I promise I won’t laugh or anything.”

I shook my head while speaking, “It’s okay there is absolutely nothing in the bag.”

Meanwhile Cindy is laughing her ass off in the front seat. I gave her a glare in the mirror which caused her to stop laughing out loud and try to silently giggle. Karen actually unbuckled her seat belt and straddled me while trying to get the bag from behind my back. I raised the bag and held it as far back behind my head as I could. This caused the situation to get a little awkward.

Not only was Karen straddling me, but she was leaning forward trying to grab the bag putting her massive chest directly into my face. This garnered a reaction from my lower half; Karen seemed to notice the reaction, because she leaned back and looked at me. I was about as red as a tomato can get and trying not to look her in the face.

Karen giggled and muttered something that sounded like “so cute” but I really couldn’t hear what she said. After muttering she ground her hips into my lower half causing the reaction to get even fiercer.

She leaned in real close to me before whispering in my ear, “If you don’t want your guardian to see your tool then let me see the bag, otherwise…”

She just left the sentence hanging as she reached her hand down to my crotch trying to unzip my pants slowly. I was as white as a sheet of paper thinking of what Cindy would say to this situation so I finally submitted and handed her the bag.

She pouted a little before speaking while going back to her seat, “Dang, I was hoping to see what you are packing. Oh well, maybe later.”

I looked at Karen in surprise at what she had said, jeez she wasn’t kidding when she said she was programmed to be my wife.

Karen just stared back at me with a perverted look on her face before turning her attention back to the bag in her hands. I shifted my position to try and hide myself from Cindy, who was thankfully paying attention to the road.

All of a sudden Karen laughed and then spoke in a low voice towards me, “Oh ho, I see what you were trying to hide now. You know you don’t really need these; I can turn off my reproductive capabilities with just a thought. I can also turn them back on at a later date if you so desire.”

I could feel my heartbeat speed up after she finished her sentence. How does that even work? Does it really matter how it works? Hell no it doesn’t! Does this mean that we can have sex as much as we want without the fear of her getting pregnant on accident?

A bunch of perverted and confused thoughts were running through my head at this moment, mostly just perverted. I could feel a little drool running out of my lips again; I quickly calmed myself before I turned to look at Karen again. Karen was sitting there smiling at me, but I could see the hint of laughter in her eyes.

I turned red in the face again causing her to melt a little again, “definitely too cute” she muttered  before leaning in to kiss me. I didn’t reject her kiss and accepted it completely.

Our passionate kiss was interrupted abruptly by the radio turning on and the song ‘Let’s get it on’ by Marvin Gaye starting to play. We both separated and looked at Cindy, who was retracting her hand from the radio knob and was trying not to laugh. We both glared at her, which just caused her to laugh out loud and almost run off the road.

After she pulled us back into our lane she looked back at us in the mirror with an embarrassed expression on her face. We looked back at her and after a few seconds of staring we all started to laugh out loud at the entire situation. After a few more minutes we arrived at the house, it wasn’t that big of a house if you ask me. It is a two bedroom two bath, with a two car garage and a privacy fence in the backyard. The thing I hate the most about it is the horrible puke green that it is painted. I kept telling myself that one of these days when I got money I would repaint it, or just move us somewhere else.

I continued to look at the house for a second and then looked at Karen before speaking, “Sorry, I know it isn’t much, but it is home.”

She looked at me and shook her head before speaking back, “No it's okay, it doesn’t matter where we live as long as I can stay by your side.”

Still getting used to this I became a little shocked, while Cindy just went “Aww so cute!” off to the side of us before walking in the house.

I looked at the door that she had just walked into and shook my head. All of a sudden my arm was grabbed and I was greeted with two very soft sensations on either side of my arm. I looked down towards my left arm and noticed that Karen had grabbed my arm and was hinting for us to go inside. I just laughed and shook my head while walking towards the door.

All of a sudden an idea hit me; I looked at Karen and then back at the door. I smiled quickly before I picked Karen up in a princess carry and walked through the door.

She snuggled into my chest and softly asked, “What was that for?”

I looked down at her and smiled, “It’s an earth thing, when a couple gets married and they are entering their home, as husband and wife, for the first time the husband will usually carry the wife across the threshold. I think it represents something along the line of the husband is going to support the wife and carry all her burdens from now on or something like that. I never have really looked it up, but it happens in movies a lot.”

She just laughed and snuggled back into my chest as I brought her into the living room. I sat her down on the couch gently before claiming my spot beside her. Cindy came back from changing out of her work clothes into something more comfortable. She was wearing some sweatpants and a tank-top, which was barely holding her chest in by the way. I must have been staring because Karen pinched me in the side.

I jumped a little and then looked at her, she was squinting her eyes at me. I could feel the death emanating from her stare, I gulped out loud.

She started to laugh before speaking, “You should have seen the look on your face. Jeez I wouldn’t mind if you slept with her or any other woman for that matter, I just have one condition.”

I was shocked and excited at the same time, “And what is that?”

She looked at me and said in the most serious tone ever, “I want to be your first time and the first wife.”

I nearly fell off the couch, she actually sounded completely serious over this matter. I looked at her with widened eyes, “Are you being serious right now?”

She just nodded her head before speaking again, “Completely serious, Earth is one of the few planets that actually has monogamous relationships. Ninety-five percent of the planets in the universe that hold life all have polygamous relationships. The stronger you are the more wives you usually have is how most of the universe thinks.”

I was a little dumbfounded and pissed at the same time. I was shocked at the amount of monogamous planets being so low and pissed at earth for being one. Now don’t get me wrong, if you want to be with that one person for the rest of your life more power to you, but if you can love and support multiple wives why shouldn’t you be able to? If a woman wanted to have multiple male lovers and everyone was fine with it then why not? Granted, I couldn’t bare to see my women with any other man. I may go to jail for murder.

I guess Karen could see the complex feelings going across my face because she grabbed it and looked deeply in my eyes, “You don’t have to think about it right now dear, just let nature run its course and if you are meant to be with other women as well then it was meant to happen. Good things don’t happen from anything forced.”

I smiled at the beautiful woman holding my face and laughed inside my head at the fact that she is a sheer contradiction to what she just said. Our little moment was interrupted by Cindy who sat down finally and spoke to us, “So how did you two meet?”

I went completely white and started to panic, but luckily I was rescued by Karen.

Karen spoke up and said something that I would have never thought to use, “The Internet.” 

I almost fell off the couch again when she said this. I turned towards her giving her a look that literally said ‘are you serious?’, she just looked back at me and winked. I facepalmed at the wink, which brought a small giggle from Karen, but what really caused me to mentally fall from the couch was Cindy’s response.

She didn’t even think about it all that much before answering, “Oh, was it Facebook or Tinder?”

I looked at Karen to see how she was going to answer. She didn’t even have to think about it for a split second before she answered, “Facebook, he was an admin on an anime group and I was one of the members. We started talking over the summer and I fell in love with his easy going attitude and his good looks.”

I looked at her thinking that Cindy couldn’t be that stupid, but she surprised me… “Oh okay that makes sense, he does love anime and his attitude is pretty easy going.” I mentally fell off the couch that I had just sat back down in again.

I looked at Cindy wondering if she was truly falling for this obvious lie. Karen spoke up again trying to cement the story, “Yes it is, we talked online for a while and then we met a few times in person and on our last meeting we got married.”

Seriously? The only time I have left the house is to use the computer at the library because it is peaceful there. I looked at Cindy who was thinking for a bit, it made me wonder if she realized it was all a lie.

After a few minutes she spoke again, but this time it was towards me, “Jeez Kira I didn’t know you worked so fast. Just a short three months and you got a babe to marry you.” I literally fell off the couch knocking myself out, on the coffee table, right then and there.

***

Shortly after knocking myself out I wound up in the game once more. I was happy that I couldn’t feel any pain on the back of my head. I shook my head a bit and looked around; I was still on the same sidewalk in front of the warehouse that I started in. I looked at my menu and selected friends list, Gunther wasn’t online so I was on my own I guess.

All of a sudden a familiar sweet voice sounded out in my head, “You’re not alone love, you still got me right now.”

I smiled when I recognized whose voice I was hearing and then I spoke back, “It’s good to know you are actually here Karen, how is Cindy dealing with me being knocked out?”

She answered after a few seconds, “She is handling it quite well actually, I was expecting a freak out and a hospital visit, but she is handling it calmly. She has already helped me get you into bed; she didn’t help me get you changed though.”

I immediately felt my face burn at what she just said and as if she could sense my emotions she laughed and commented, “I didn’t realize you would be packing so much, darling.”

I could almost fry an egg on my face right now. I was so embarrassed, but I guess it is a good thing. Now that she has seen me in all my glory I hopefully wouldn’t get that embarrassed around her anymore.

That thought was quickly washed away with her next comment, “Though it makes me wonder exactly how big it gets.”

I wanted to find a hole to crawl in; it may take me a while to get over the embarrassment phase of this relationship.

I sighed and tried to calm myself down before changing the subject, “So what am I supposed to do from here?” She didn’t answer me for a few minutes, I didn’t know if she was thinking or preoccupied elsewhere.

After around five minutes she finally spoke up, “Sorry dear, Cindy came up to check on you and we had a small chat. Anyways, Somnium Venatus is basically a second life type of game. It has everything you can think of to do in the game. You can work on being a cook if you want, you can be a professional athlete if you want, or even become a soldier. Somnium Venatus is actually played in real life. You start on a real planet with real people. Your character is actually a vessel made by the company to act as your avatar on the planet. In the future you could actually travel to the planet you are on right now. Once you enter the same star system as your avatar it will deactivate until you leave the system. So if your real body gets killed you will die for real. Your avatar on the other hand can be remade in the company’s labs.”

The game was getting more interesting to me; basically I could literally do whatever the hell I wanted in the game. Granted I had to follow the rules of whatever planet my avatar is on. Of course I could break the laws if I wanted, but that would make me a wanted person and inflict heavy penalties on my avatar if it was to be killed. One other thing that she told me was that even though I could break the law if I wanted to, mass genocide on planets not owned by me is not allowed by the game at all. If the game sees that I am causing random mass genocide it will kill my avatar and revoke my access to the game. This is mainly because the inhabitants of the planets in the universe will not respawn like our avatars can.

I also found out a piece of information that is a really good one, my avatar cannot access earth at all. Other player’s avatars may access Earth once they discover the planet. I am allowed to kill the player’s avatar if I deem them a threat and their avatar would be banned from entering Earth for a month if I successfully kill them. Granted a player’s real body can enter any planet in the universe at any time, the only downside to this is the risk of permanent death.

I didn’t know if I would ever send my real body to another planet, but there may be a reason to in the future, who knows. When Karen finished telling me a few more simple rules of the game she said she was going to do something for a bit and I was left in silence. I wondered what she was going to do, but I put it out of my head and went down the sidewalk in a random direction. I looked around and saw all kinds of people hiring other people for random jobs.

“Now hiring part-time cook! Pay is twenty-five system coins an hour.” Some short loli girl was hollering this along with a few other people in the market across the street.

I thought about the information that Karen told me and I remembered that the way the money was broken down in the space faring planets was the same. There were system coins, galaxy coins, cluster coins, and universe coins. They were further broken down into the amount needed to make the next level of coin. It took one hundred system coins to make one galaxy coin, one hundred galaxy coins to make one cluster coin, and then it took one thousand cluster coins to make a universe coin. Karen didn’t know why the universe coin took so much more to make, it just did is all she could tell me.

I found out that if I wanted to convert it into dollars then one hundred system coins would be one thousand dollars. If I put it that way though, then a part-time cook here was getting more money than a lot of professional full-time cooks on earth. I shook my head at the sheer amount of money that was; it must be some rich family needing a spare cook or something. I walked over to the market and looked around at all of the cool products and job offers lying around. I didn’t have any money for any of the products or equipment so I was mainly glancing at those and paying attention to the job offers. After about thirty minutes of searching I found something that sounded pretty fun.

I picked up the flyer, which read:

Now recruiting mercenary trainees! Pay is based on the job done and the amount of people in the job. No skills necessary, but you will start off at the bottom of the food chain. Living quarters are provided and the cost deducted from your pay until it is paid off, contact Deuce for more information.

The logo being used for the mercenary group was a hand of playing cards showing all of the face cards from ace to jack. There were only four cards because the hand was missing the joker card.

I saw the contact information for Deuce at the bottom of the flyer and when I looked at it the information automatically added itself to my contact list, which is different from the friends list by the way.

I used the built in communications feature to call Deuce and after a few rings I was greeted with a gruff voice, “Yeah? This is Deuce what you need?”

It took everything in me not to laugh at the unprofessional greeting before I answered, “Yes, I was calling about the flyer saying you guys were recruiting trainees.”

There was some scuffling on the other side of the line before he answered again, “Yes, we are indeed looking for trainees. Are you by chance interested in applying?”

I smiled to myself before responding, “Yeah I am interested.”

Deuce didn’t take very long to reply when I said that, “Great! Give me your contact information and I will contact you later with a time and place to meet.”

I gave him my contact information and then after a few more words we ended the call. I walked around the market a little longer looking at the products available before I left. It wasn’t but maybe another thirty minutes later before I saw a pop up in the corner of my vision. It showed that there was an incoming call from Deuce.

I quickly thought about answering and then I was connected with him. There was some talking in the background before some silence and then Deuce speaking to me, “Yes this is Jōkā right?”

I laughed before answering, “Yup that’s me.”

Deuce laughed a bit before speaking, “Good! Okay I have one of the higher ups with me and she wants to meet you before we decide on taking you in or not.”

I didn’t really have to think about anything at all before I answered, “Okay, so when and where are we meeting?”

Deuce thought about something for a minute before answering, “There is a really good diner on S. Dumond St. and E. Forge Rd. meet us there in about thirty minutes.”

He sent me the location through the communications network which placed a waypoint on the mini-map in the corner of my vision. The location wasn’t very far from where I was at right now. I told him that I would see them there and ended the call. I then proceeded to make my way to the diner while looking around and enjoying the view.

About fifteen minutes later I was sitting in the diner waiting on Deuce and one of his bosses to show up. I was drinking some water, which was free, while waiting. I was seated in the back corner of the diner with the wall to my back and a clear view of the front door. After about ten more minutes I saw two people walk in the front door. There was one female and one male, who I assumed was Deuce, both of them were wearing some classic military type clothing. They were wearing red camouflage pants and a white tank top with a red heart in the middle of their backs. Deuce had dark brown hair cut in the typical military style buzz cut while the female had blonde hair that was tied back into a ponytail.

They both looked around cautiously at their surroundings for a second before they noticed me sitting in the corner booth starting at them from around my water class. I gave them a small wave and Deuce smiled before making his way over to me. The female looked around for a few more seconds before following him.

Deuce walked up to my table and stuck his hand out towards me, “You must be Jōkā, I’m Deuce, please to meet ya!”

I stood up and grabbed his hand giving it a firm shake, “I am Jōkā, and it is good to meet you as well.”

I looked quickly at the woman who was standing behind him with a serious expression on her face before speaking again, “Who is your friend?” I directed this question to Deuce.

He looked back at the woman and then looked at me before motioning for us to sit down, “Let’s sit down and I will tell you what you need to know.”

I nodded my head and sat back down in the booth, Deuce sat down and the woman sat down next to him.I looked at Deuce and raised an eyebrow wanting him to speak again.

He cleared his throat before speaking, “Yes, as you already know I am Deuce, the lady beside me is one of my superiors and her code name is Queen of Hearts she is second in command over our Heart Squad in the mercenary group called the Playing Cards.”

Well that explains the cards on the flyer.

Deuce continued to speak, “She is in charge of screening new trainees and seeing if they have potential to become a Card Number or even a Face Card. Basically she is the one who will decide if you will be a permanent grunt in Playing Cards or if you will be able to advance and become someone great.”

I looked over at the woman who was just sitting there staring at me with a serious expression on her face and I instantly felt like this may or may not end well.