This puzzle was deeply unsettling.

From near the doorway of what Marisa knew, rationally, was their own living room, one could see everything. Two steps into the room, everything turned to impenetrable darkness.

Which meant that Harley was at the doorway, directing Marisa one step at a time, along a path on the floor that she couldn’t see, and through touching glowing symbols in the air that did a sort of reset, creating a new layout that she had to follow.

This was the third layout, and being blind and absolutely dependent on Harley’s calm instructions was making her nerves twang. Disoriented, she paused yet again to try to catch her balance and remind herself of which way was up. Her kitty-ears were flat, she knew that, and her tail kept swishing, which didn’t help her balance.

“You’re breathing fast,” Harley said. “Slow it down, hon, you’re okay. You’ve almost got it. Just take a sec to breathe.”

“This is... logic isn’t helping, Mistress. It feels way too real.”

“I know. Listen to me. You’re safe. It’s a game. Claudia and her crew did a ridiculously good job at messing up the line between fantasy and reality. Take a long slow deep breath. C’mon, in... out... there you go. I’m right here. You’re okay. All right?”

Marisa took a slow breath that felt rather shaky, then another that was steadier. “I... yeah. I really hope I’m close to the end, Mistress.”

“If it’s more than just this one and this isn’t the end, we’ll stop for the moment and think about continuing later, okay? Actually, that sounds like a good idea anyway—let’s finish this one and take a break and order some pizza.”

“Let’s see how I feel in a few minutes, Mistress.” Another deep breath. “Okay. Is it far?”

“It’s probably only... maybe five, six steps?”

“Okay, now I’m embarrassed, Mistress, making a fuss over that.”

“Don’t be. You’re walking around blindfolded and that can make anyone feel vulnerable and mess with your sense of distance and space. I know it would freak me out. Go slow. When you’re ready, keep going... turn a bit more to the left before your next step. That’s it, that’ll bring you down exactly on the line.”

It still felt like a long time before Harley said, “You’re there. Raise your hands... right hand farther to the right... not quite that far. And up... a little more. Hold that one there, and move the left one down about level with your hip. Out just slightly... exactly. Reach forward with both hands and you’ll nail it.”

Marisa obeyed, and scrunched her eyes closed tightly as light suddenly flashed around her.

“You got it! Awesome! The key is right in front of you.”

Cautiously, Marisa opened one eye, then the other, blinking as they adjusted to the presence of light again. In front of her, suspended weightlessly in a sort of column of light, was a glassy blue disc. She closed her hand around it, and the light faded away, leaving her standing in what looked like a windowless room with walls and floor of stone, and a few items of heavy wooden furniture—shelves where the TV and its stand should be, a workbench replacing the couch.

She could still see their respective phones, though, on a small wooden table with the Reverie device.

“Bring it here,” Harley said. “You don’t have any pockets, or any other way to comfortably carry it.”

Marisa sighed. This game seemed set up to put her at a constant disadvantage.

She surrendered, and gave Harley the blue disc, to slip into her skirt pocket with the red and purple ones.

“Good girl,” Harley said, with a grin, wrapping both scaled arms around her for a fierce hug. The wings that had looked so intimidating earlier folded around them, shutting out much of the world. Marisa leaned into it, waiting for her adrenaline levels to drop, wondering vaguely why she felt so safe now. Harley showed no sign of being in a hurry for her to move. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I think so, Mistress. Thanks. You’re good at knowing the right thing to say.”

“Anything that works. And I think this is a good time for a break.”

“It is, Mistress. I could use some food, and I’d like to hit the bathroom. Reverie, save and exit.”

Nothing happened.

Forehead furrowed, Harley repeated it.

Still nothing.

“So it doesn’t just want both users to confirm that,” Harley said. “Okay, that’s not good. Reverie, pause.”

There was no obvious change. Harley ran the tips of her golden claws lightly down Marisa’s bare arm, fingers not touching at all, and Marisa twitched, her body trying to move into it despite her current distraction. No need to confirm that they were still getting tactile sensory input.

“Claudia?” Marisa said, drawing away and heading for the phones.

“Oh, yeah. I think something glitched.”

Her phone simply flashed her a message that all resources were currently in use, and went dark again.

“It won’t let me in!” She pressed the power button and held it. “It won’t shut off, either!”

Harley joined her and tried her own, with the same result.

“Sudden shut-downs can mean losing data, but we’ll survive,” Harley said, and pressed the power button on the Reverie box. After a pause, she pressed it and held it.

Nothing happened.

“So much for safety features,” Harley sighed. “Although I don’t think we’re exactly in any danger, as such. The phone batteries are going to run down, or the box will. But I’d really rather not wait that long, as sorry as I’m going to be to lose this avatar.” She flipped her phone around and pulled out the dongle.

When nothing changed, Marisa did the same with her own.

Harley looked down at herself, looked at Marisa, and sighed. “Well, I think we’re outside the realm of normal technology, at this point, so I haven’t the foggiest what to do next.”

Marisa’s phone beeped and flashed once. She looked down.

Reverie has detected a need for a break. Auto-pause engaged.

“Okay, so it’s paused for me?” Marisa held out her arm, and they discovered that Harley’s golden claws made no contact. “It must have picked up that I need to hit the bathroom, I guess. So that’s a blessing, at least.”

“Perfect timing. While you’re upstairs, and before you use the bathroom, duck in my office and send Claudia a message to get her ass over here and fix this, hm? Send her a message by every means you can think of, if she doesn’t respond pretty much instantly on Discord. It shouldn’t be locked, but the password, in case you need it...” Harley retrieved her notebook, wrote something, tore out the page, and handed it to Marisa.

“She’ll sort it out. Hey, it’s not even making me say ‘Mistress’. Back in a minute.”

There was no illusion on the front hallway, or on her way up the stairs, other than the one that kept her calico and barely-dressed. How was that going to work in the bathroom, when she was actually wearing jeans she couldn’t feel? Well, she could get to that in a minute. For the moment, she ducked into Harley’s office and tapped the touchpad to wake up the laptop.

It didn’t take her long to find Discord on the neat, organized setup, and DM Claudia.

«This is Marisa, on Harley’s computer. We need you. Reverie is glitching badly. Won’t shut down.»

She watched, and in seconds saw the triple dots telling her that Claudia was replying.

She added details anyway.

«Phones are locked, won’t even turn off. Unplugged dongles, tried shutting off device. Nothing.»

Claudia replied with, «Won’t shut down? That’s new. You two okay?»

«Sure, except for not being able to stop. Needed the bathroom and it picked that up. Otherwise, stuck, but okay.»

«I’m on my way over to sort this out, and I am so sorry!»

«Bring pizza. We’re hungry. That’s why we were stopping.»

«I’ll order it now with the usual and get the cab to swing by so I can pick it up on my way there. Is your door locked?»

«Shit. Yes.»

«I can get through that, I assume I have permission.»

«You do. And, ah... come alone? It’s going to be embarrassing enough with just you here. I might die if anyone else sees what your game decided to give me for clothes.»

«Don’t sweat it, totally not judging. I’ll be there alone with pizza as fast as I can.»

«Thanks.»

Feeling much better, Marisa left the office and headed for the bathroom.

Inside, with the door closed, the avatar illusion faded out, returning her to her own skin and to her jeans and t-shirt.

That definitely helped, though her skin looked strange to her and she kept looking for her tail to keep it out of the way.

As soon as she opened the bathroom door, her catgirl self was back.

Downstairs, on the end table, Marisa’s phone beeped and flashed. She didn’t even bother to look, since it was virtually certain that it was just announcing that it was resuming.

Harley was leaning against the wall, her own phone in her hands, but she looked up when Marisa returned.

“Well, nothing I try on this is working. Any luck?” She set her phone back on the table beside Marisa’s. “Oh, look, yours says Reverie has resumed.”

“Claudia’s coming, Mistress.”

“Cool. So we just need to stay calm and wait for Claudia to come rescue us. I don’t think I feel like doing any more puzzles right now. There’s nowhere to just sit down here. I wonder whether, if we deliberately retrace our steps, the game will let us backtrack to what it originally made the living room look like. That would give us the couch to sit on, at least.”

“That sounds like it’s worth a try, Mistress.”

They followed the hallway back to the kitchen, which looked like an alchemy lab again. Marisa found her gaze stopping on the chains; Harley glanced at her, and grinned, which only widened and turned into a chuckle when Marisa blushed.

Back through the dining room, where they’d had to dismantle the spherical device one careful step at a time, following the instructions.

And back into the living room they’d just left, but now it was all blue luxury again.

“Oh, good,” Harley said, with a heartfelt sigh, sinking down on the couch. “As much as I like this avatar, I’m not exactly used to spending hours running around in high heels and a corset dress, even if the game does make it feel as comfortable as the sock feet and jeans that are really there. And there’s no way to remove any part of it, no lacing, clasps, zippers, nothing. Everything we’re wearing may be fun and striking as hell, but it’s as completely part of us as regular anatomy and about as easy to change.”

Marisa, on the way to join her on the couch, paused. “Sorry, Mistress? What about regular anatomy?”

“Actually, I don’t know what I mean. I’m not scared but I am a bit unsettled. I wouldn’t pay too much attention right now.”

“If you say so, Mistress. You mind if I lie down?”

Harley gestured invitingly.

Marisa curled up on the couch, her head on Harley’s leg. It wasn’t the first time—the living room had finite space for furniture, after all, only the couch and a single large comfy chair, but the chair was at a bad angle to allow watching the TV. Usually, there was a cushion between them, but Marisa didn’t bother to try to find it, and Harley didn’t seem to mind. The contact was reassuring, and so were Harley’s fingers combing delicately through her current loose curls with great care that the golden claws didn’t tangle or pull.

She did wish she had a fidget toy or her worry stone to play with. She made do with her own tail. Sensory feedback was limited, but her fingers were happily busy.

“You’re really good with those claws, Mistress,” Marisa murmured.

Harley chuckled. “I bought a set for a Hallowe’en costume, about, oh, three, four years ago? Unfortunately, they were less durable than I’d have liked, and they didn’t last long. I wore them a lot to get used to them before Hallowe’en. Costumes always look better if you can make it look like the most natural thing in the world, right?”

“Mmhmm. Did you get to use them on anyone, Mistress? That was the first thing you said about these ones.”

“Sadly, no. No sub to play with at the time. The last one had left a month before.”

“Why?”

“He knew he was submissive but didn’t have a lot of experience. At the risk of TMI, he finally decided that while he was having fun with the kinky side, there wasn’t enough sex as such happening—even though I did warn him that one, I’m a very specific kind of top and I’m first and foremost about lots of rope-play, and two, while I’m big on rewards and positive reinforcement, I tend to see sex as a tool rather than a goal. Intimacy and sensation and a hundred other things all woven together, with sex just one of them, not the crowning glory. Make any sense?”

“Um... maybe, if I think about it, Mistress. I’m absolutely not saying it’s all men, I know it isn’t, but... most of the ones I’ve been with have tended to be seriously focused not just on sex, but on actual intercourse as the ultimate goal, and anything else has just been lead-up to that, like it’s secondary or just something the script says they’re supposed to do in order to get me to say my lines and all. One treated it like an inconvenient delay, and I actually got up and got dressed and told him to leave.”

“Ugh. I’m glad you called him on it.”

“He tried the line about how I owed it to him because he bought dinner—I pointed out that he’d just called me a twenty-five-dollar prostitute and besides, I paid cab fare. So I guess, by extension, Mistress, yeah, it makes sense. If there’s more to sex than just one specific bit of insert-A-into-B, then it’s not a stretch if there’s more to intimacy and stuff than just sex for some people.”

“Exactly. Bodies have nerve endings practically everywhere, and the mind is incredibly powerful. Fantasies, associations, all kinds of amazing things that can make something straightforward much more complex and vivid. Orgasms feel good, no argument, but it’s a physiological response that lasts for a few seconds. Some things feel good in different but not necessarily inferior ways and last much longer. Everyone likes different things and everyone’s entitled to having that respected. But I suspect that most people have fantasies they’d have fun trying with someone they trust—not necessary sexual ones, directly.” She chuckled, and tapped Marisa’s collar bell so it jingled. “Like being a barely-dressed catgirl.”

“Hey!”

“I told you, you look absolutely adorable. I’m teasing you. Unfortunately, sometimes people try and get laughed at, or have a bad experience, or just never feel that safe, so they don’t get to try. Which is a shame, because for virtually any fantasy, I bet there’s someone out there who has the missing piece. Where there are submissive catgirls waiting to happen, there are catgirl owners waiting to happen, and vice versa. Anyway. Most people can do the hydraulics-and-squishy-sounds thing. I find everything around that much more interesting. But not everyone agrees, and you know as well as I do, building a relationship and the trust necessary is difficult when you’re busy trying to test and review and share and promote all the time.”

“Depressingly so, Mistress,” Marisa sighed. “Although I didn’t have much of a social life while I was at my next-to-last job, either, with all the mandatory overtime plus how long it took to get back and forth.”

“Well, that’s what we’re both aiming for, hm? Some control over our own lives? At the mercy and whims of our respective audiences, of course.”

“Of course. But if we can’t build something out of being the first beta-testers and reviewers of Reverie, we don’t deserve it, Mistress.”

“Agreed. Despite the glitch. Which actually gives us something important to talk about: how WyrdTech handles it. Knowing Claudia and the others, I’m not worried. They’ll unravel it and make sure it can’t happen again, and our hardest problem will be convincing everyone that a repaired bug doesn’t make the whole thing fundamentally unsafe.”

“Yes, Mistress. Not so much scary as weird. But... it does make me think we should talk. About us. Once we can focus better on that.”

“Yes.”

With nothing else really to say at the moment, they waited quietly.