It was three o'clock after midnight when a faded yellow lamp lit up in the dead of night.

A man's muted footsteps meandered through a silent bedroom, and they paused momentarily in front of a plush queen-sized bed. Tonight, it seemed as though a visitor was already sleeping in his bed, but the owner hardly seemed surprised. This was a regular occurrence for him on virtual reality. Dozing off with anonymous "friends with benefits" was the primary selling point of certain apps like 「 Lucid & Slumber」, and after six years on this bedtime server, there were close to a dozen different women that he slept with on a regular basis.

He knew none of their real names or true identities, but it didn't really matter when this app was intentionally designed to avoid serious relationships. It was human nature to desire physical contact, and many respectable adults satisfied their nighttime cravings through the safe and anonymous veil of virtual reality. This technology made it easy to disconnect and vanish within an instant, and you were a fool to expect anything more from a casual stranger on the Internet.

The man took care not to wake the sleeping occupant of his virtual mattress, but the anonymous stranger underneath his sheets was a light sleeper. He recognized the freckled girl with dirty-brown hair almost immediately as the side profile of her sleeping face came into the view. The faint glow of dim golden light was already enough to wake the girl, and within moments she was rubbing her eyes and sitting up groggily in bed.

"Clay?" Maya asked with a drowsy mumble.

"Go back to sleep. It's late."

"Wait— Huh. It's 3:00 AM."

Clay sat down on the edge of the bed and began to untie his shoes.

Maya was a nighttime companion that Clay had known for almost four years now. Given the sheer amount of time that they had been sharing a bed together on virtual reality, Clay considered her to be one of the most trustworthy 'friends with benefits' that he knew. She was polite, easygoing, and knew how to respect his boundaries. Critically, Maya never asked too many intrusive questions, which was precisely the way that Clay liked it.

Anonymous hookup servers like 「Lucid & Slumber」 could be a real mixed bag of worms, and good bed partners were rare to come by. Fortunately, Maya was one of the better lays, and Clay would never turn down a comfy evening with a longtime sleeping companion like her. She wasn't half bad at all, even if they were total strangers.

They were almost even friends.

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Maya's eyelashes fluttered, the weight of her drowsy eyelids threatening to sink shut. She shifted sideways in bed and leaned her head against Clay's midsection. It was a quasi-affectionate gesture, almost as if she was actually married and in love with him, but both of them knew that this play-acting was merely a benign aspect of Maya's typical behavior.

It didn't really mean anything.

Maya tended to be fairly affectionate in bed. She didn't even mind a little bit of fondling and other intimate activity, and there was even the occasional rare instance when she was willing to have intercourse with a long-time night partner.

Of course, she wasn't really here for the virtual hookup sex (there were better apps for that purpose), but a little bit of romantic roleplay could go a long way when Maya was 29 years old and (self-proclaimed) "forever alone". For whatever bizarre reason, the anonymous men on 「Lucid & Slumber」 seemed a whole lot better than anyone she had ever known in real life, especially with her complicated circumstances. Before she knew it, virtual reality had turned into the primary avenue of her nightly comfort and companionship.

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"I thought you weren't coming tonight," Maya mumbled sleepily to Clay.

"My flight was delayed. We didn't get to board my red-eye flight until just now."

"You're flying again?"

"Business trip."

Maya rolled over like a tangled stick in the sheets and reached gingerly for Clay's hand.

"You'll wake up with a sore neck if you use VR to sleep through the night on an airplane..."

"I know." The man responded. "I won't actually fall asleep here. Just taking advantage of the noise-cancelling feature in VR."

"Huh."

"Mind if I leave a reading light on, Maya?"

"Ah... Sure. Go right ahead."

Maya didn't ask him any further questions.

She curled her way into this anonymous "stranger's" side and listened to his heartbeat while he tapped at his tablet screen in the dim light. It was quiet and serene, and the man's simulated body temperature was like a hot radiator on a brisk midsummer night. Maya could easily fall asleep like this, and in fact she had drifted off to sleep in this exact position many times before.

This was precisely the way that she liked it.

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