by A V Kern
“Better than getting crabs!” I replied, waving the dildo at him. “That’s for damn sure. But we’re just getting started. Go on, boys… she still has the dick, and it’s your turn to claim your dildos.”
Captain Minosexaur remained watching with an excited expression, surreptitiously pulling on his robe and wizard hat, as the guys dropped their pants and bent over the table to await their fucking so that they too could receive Shaw’s mysterious prize.
Meanwhile I turned and stared dramatically at the horizon while inspiring music played in the background and more crab-fetti explosions poofed into the air behind me.
“I’m coming for you, Roger Dodger,” I growled. “For you, on you, in you, around you, and behind you. And then I’m going to own this game and make sure you can never take away our freedom.”
Chapter 3
Overnight I was famous. Felicia McFly, the cunter everyone wanted a piece of—but my ass was too busy trying to figure out the location of the Ruby Dildo to take calls from any old scrub who wanted to talk my ear off about Captain Minosexaur, so I retreated to my Pleasure Cave of Solitude and turned off incoming calls from anyone but Sherman, who was doing his own research. That’s why I was surprised when my comm channel lit up with an inbound message from none other than Roger Dodger himself.
My eyes narrowed and my lips twisted into a quite unladylike sneer. I couldn’t believe Roger would call me, of all people, but of course he had no idea how much I despised him or his freedom-hating agenda. No matter how advanced our society had gotten, there were still people who were shocked and offended by the things some people did in the privacy of their own brains, and we called those people squareheads. Dodger’s notorious Church of Real Reality, AKA the Cult of Real Reality as most O-Facers referred to it, provided a safe haven and an alternative to the O-Face for those people who just couldn’t handle a virtual pleasure world.
It’d be fine if they just kept their dumb views to themselves, of course, or talked about them without trying to force other people to live up to them. But part of the CRR’s program was that nobody should be allowed to have fun by pushing the limits of human sensation, because it “detracted from man’s intended purpose” or some such nonsense they printed in their virtdocs. It wasn’t enough to ruin their own fun. They wanted to ruin everyone’s fun. I knew people like that. They never had enough control, and were never satisfied with the censors they imposed. You’d think the CRR would have been happy by limiting the spiny jack hardware to the orgasm limits they’d already set in law, but of course now that they had one small victory they wanted more, and I had no reason to believe they’d stop until no one ever masturbated or fucked for anything except procreation—and even then, they didn’t want you to have fun with it!
Yes, I hated Dodger, but the blinking midair light indicating that such a powerful politician wanted to talk to me directly was too interesting of an invitation to resist. I squared my feet, tossed my burgundy space-cape over my shoulder, and leveled my baleful gaze at the virt-screen hovering in front of me as I touched the light to accept the call.
A withered, sour face, familiar to me from the YouTube televangelist and political clips I’d seen floating around from the CRR propaganda viddies, appeared before me and weighed me with considering eyes.
“Roger Dodger,” I said coldly. “You old codger.”
“Miss McFly,” he replied without emotion. “If you are indeed a ‘miss.’ It’s hard to tell with you clue hunters.”
“We’re called cunters,” I corrected him.
His lips curled into a sneer. “Yes, I’m familiar with your… distasteful… terminology, Miss McFly. In any case, I haven’t contacted you to trade insults. On the contrary, I’m impressed by your skills. The first hunter to find the bronze obelisk. Amazing. I’d like to make you a proposition.”
“I don’t accept propositions from anyone who describes a dildo as an obelisk,” I replied.
“You haven’t even heard my proposal, Miss McFly. I can make you rich. Rich beyond your wildest dreams. Anything you want, the Church of Real Reality can provide for you. All you need do is come work for my Family Unit. Several of your fellow hunters have been quite happy in my service. I believe you’re quite familiar with one of them. LisaFrank90210? She’s been quite helpful to our efforts.”
“LisaFrank90210 is a sell-out and so are you! I took this call for one reason and one reason only: To tell you in person that I’m going to win the game, get the O-Face, and ensure that people can enjoy themselves as often and for as long as they want to with none of your repressed, restrictive bullshit!”
His calm demeanor darkened, and his look was so cold that the air seemed to crackle with frost. “I was very much hoping you would say that, Felicia. My sources told me of your attitude, but it would be inconvenient to deal with you without at least giving you the opportunity to do the right thing. I vastly prefer the alternative for sexual deviants like you, however.”
“Alternative? Deal with me? What are you talking about?” I demanded.
“Just this: I know your real name, Bowie Jackson. I know you’re a 22-year old man living in a trailer on top of a stack of other trailers by a river in rural Wisconsin, which I must say is an extremely weird and inconvenient living arrangement, but I suppose I expect no less from your ilk. Rather than use one of the many, many legal, political, or even underhanded intimidation tactics available to me as a powerful politician and wealthy businessman to bar you from the competition for the O-Face, I’ve decided it would just be more fun to arrange a spectacular explosion in your home without even checking whether you’re there first, which I could easily do using satellites or drones.”
“That’s moronic!” I cried. “And needlessly sloppy, risky, and expensive!”
“Perhaps, but it’s going to look really cool if they ever make a movie out of our wacky cat-and-mouse story, don’t you think?”
“You devious monster. And I suppose you’d even have the AI based on Michael Bay direct it, wouldn’t you? All explosions, no nuance or sense. You make me sick, Roger.”
“See you in hell, miss McFly.”
His virtscreen winked off and I quickly jacked out. How much time did I have? The thing Roger didn’t know was that I never bothered to jack into O-Face from home, preferring to hide in a run-down lean-to made of rusted metal in the middle of a nearby junkyard, but my beloved parakeet, Sparkledancer, was back in my thrice-stacked trailer home complex. I raced out of my hiding spot and sprinted toward the stack, preparing to climb the extension ladder that was the only way up to my trailer, when an appropriately Bayesian explosion threw me backwards, updating all my priors about the willingness of a crazy old politician to blow up a random nobody in rural Wisconsin just because it sounded more fun than dealing with me sensibly.
“Noooo!” I screamed, falling to my knees as the smoking embers and ash of my neighbors’ trailers floated down all around me. “Sparkledancer! Spark-le-dan-cer! I didn’t even give you your last meal of birdseed.” Two tears formed at the edges of my eyes and leaked slowly down my face, and I hung my head and silently mourned my exploded bird-friend.
That was the moment when I realized I was dealing with a true madman. I pulled out my iPhone 37 and quickly called Sherman, no matter how awkward and uncomfortable phone conversations were for the both of us.
“Sherm-worm,” I said to him. “Sorry for calling you, but it’s an emergency: Neither of us are safe anymore. We need to go to a secret cunter lair.”
“Are you sure, Felicia?” he asked me.
“Don’t call me that in meatspace!” I shouted. “Felicia is my O-Face name. I’m just Bowie here. Boring old Bowie. We’re being hunted by Roger Dodger, and I don’t even have an arm cannon IRL. I don’t even have an arm cannon, Sherm!”
“Oh man… okay. Look, I’ll call W33b and ask if we can come crash at his secret pad, but uh… Bowie… you know how weird W33b is. He’s probably going to ask you to do… some things. Some weird otaku things.
”
“As long as I can jack into Felicia, there’s nothing I won’t do to save my O-Face. Bring on the otaku, Sherm. It’s worth every moment if it leads us to the Ruby Dildo.”
“How are you going to get to Ohio?”
“Uh, bus. I guess.”
“Cool. See you there.”
“You too.”
“Bye, F—I mean, Bowie.”
“Bye, Sherm.”
I packed my VR rig into an over-sized suitcase and took a long bus ride to Ohio, curled up in my seat, sobbing softly about my dead parakeet on the shoulder of the strange passenger beside me who kept trying to talk me into helping him make soap and joining his weird, all-dude commune to fight against capitalism or something, and occasionally dozing off into troubled dreams of stern-faced politicians chopping my dick off and weeaboos chasing me while waving dildos in every color of the rainbow. Eventually I arrived in Cleveland and set out to find W33b’s secret cunter pad. You might think Cleveland in 2054 had had some kind of crazy, post-manufacturing era rebound over the last 40 years, but sadly, Cleveland is still just Cleveland. Everyone working on VR in the 2020s moved to San Francisco and joined weird, pansexual, polyamorous, transhumanist, rationalist cults that made some of the most interesting playgrounds in the early O-Face. Bartleby Shaw wasn’t cool enough to join weirdo nerd cults, but even he had the common sense to avoid the Midwest and instead did most of his early work out in California with all the other proto-deviants.
But those of us poor and desperate enough to do things like cunting for a living set up shop in the rundown ruins of the Rust Belt, which is how I found myself standing outside a broken-down factory in a bad part of Cleveland knocking on a rusted steel door that I really hoped was W33b’s latest roving cunter pad and not just another crackhouse like the prior three places had been.
A metal grate slid aside with a grinding clank and wide, blue Scandinavian eyes regarded me from inside with suspicion. “Felicia-san?” he asked. “Sherm-san told me you would be coming. But first, the password: Who is the coolest Final Fantasy hero?”
“Shh. Don’t call me Felicia here.” I squinted at W33b in suspicion. “And that’s a trick question, W33b. Everyone knows that real Japanophiles prefer the Dragon Warrior series.”
“Dragon Quest,” he corrected me. “We like them both. Also the best Final Fantasy character is Aerith-san.” His eyes shined. “My lost love…”
The grate slammed closed with a clanging snap and the door creaked open. Standing before me was a blue-eyed, overweight Norwegian guy wearing a pair of katanas strapped to his back and dressed in a kimono. His haircut was a messy, jagged floof that I think was supposed to resemble a Cloud Strife look, but he really couldn’t pull it off, and a leaf village Naruto headband was tied around his forehead. He bowed low to me in deference with his hands pressed together in front of him. “Senpai,” he uttered. “The Bronze Dildo holder. Well done, fellow cunter.”
“And the Ruby Dildo holder too soon, hopefully. Where can I set up?”
He gestured toward the back of the warehouse where a few dirty mats sat beside some electrical hookups. “Back there, Senpai. Just set the crusty waifu-pillows aside. Welcome to the secret cunter lair. You can stay as long as you like. Sherm-san is already jacked in.”
Sure enough, Sherman was curled up around one of W33b’s pillows, dead to the world with his spiny connected to a virtjack. He looked basically like he did in the O-Face, only a little less huge and green.
“Thanks, W33b.” I quickly unpacked my rig and hooked things up. There didn’t seem to be a place for clothes, food, or washing-up here, but since it had walls and a roof, the dirty, broken-down warehouse was a step up from my prior situation of a ramshackle, metal lean-to in the middle of a junkyard. The Midwest is cold as balls in the winter, and frostbite was an ever-present concern for a junk-rat like me! At least W33b had space heaters going. Yesiree, I figured I’d be happy as a clam here in the W33b-pad.
“Where’s your best friend Sug0i?” I asked him, as I double-checked my spiny connectors and prepared to jack into the O-Face.
“He has a fancy-shmancy apartment and doesn’t like hanging out here. Something about rats and liking to have a refrigerator and a working toilet.”
I shook my head. “Rookie move, Sug0i. Living in an apartment is how they get you. One day he’ll be smart enough to live off the grid like us. Hey, where do I take a whiz?”
W33b shrugged. “Wherever. I’ve been using that corner over there.” He pointed toward a smelly, disgusting looking corner. I nodded and went to relieve myself.
“So what am I supposed to call you if I can’t call you by your name, Senpai?” he asked me.
“You’re right. I need an alias.” I stroked my chin thoughtfully. What was a name that was super-cool, but also obscure enough that only the truly knowledgeable would see through my clever ruse? “Call me Larry Laffer,” I said decisively, pleased that no stodgy old dude in a suit would be smart enough to get my reference.
“And will you be joining me and Sug0i on the clue hunt now that you’re living at my place?”
“Hah!” I barked. “I don’t work with anyone. Just Sherm-worm. Clanning up is for newbs.”
“But—”
“Sorry dude. End of discussion. Now let’s get our leisure on!”
W33b sighed and I slammed my virtjack into my spiny, collapsing onto the dirty mat beside Sherman and blocking out the annoying sights and smells of the real world. Moments later, I was once again in the nubile and oh-so-hot avatar of Felicia McFly, rocking killer tits and packing my trusty blaster-morpher arm in the O-Face.
“I missed you ladies,” I whispered, gently grabbing my boobs. “Now let’s get that Ruby Dildo!”
I dialed Sherman right away to check in.
“Heya Felicia! Welcome back. You made it to the W33b-pad then?”
“Sure did. I’m jacked in right beside you.”
“Great. I have a lead on the location of the Ruby Dildo.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, and it was Ap0ll0 who had the idea. The FU Troopers aren’t far behind me, though. Why don’t you meet him on Planet Zork-Reference and try to help him find it while I shake them off our trail?”
“Planet Zork-Reference? Surely that can’t be a real place.”
“It is, and Ap0ll0 already found it. You have to tunnel through the belly of the great Grue in total darkness and show your appreciation to the shrine of Entharion the Wise before they let you in, on the planet-circling train of GUE.”
“Got it. That’s stupid, but whatever. On my way!”
I did as W33b had suggested and soon found myself hopping off the great train of GUE onto Planet Zork-Reference, where tiny baby grues frolicked among the flowers. It didn’t take long to find Ap0ll0’s trail, which led me to a place that my in-game HUD informed me was the Valley of Veedeeohohohgaymz. Strangely, there was no sign of Ap0ll0—Just a few ancient arcade consoles and a free-standing rack of vibrators. I scratched my head, wondering why anyone would bother to recreate boring 2D arcade games in a 3D VR landscape and leave them 2D, but decided to investigate anyway. I knew that Bartleby Shaw had had a thing for going to arcades and playing games in public while wearing a vibrating cock ring, but how did that apply here? Then my eyes widened as I saw the one console that stuck out from all the others.
It was a Battletoads arcade console, but not the actual arcade console released in 1994. To my trained eye, I realized that the game displayed was actually the much-harder 1991 Battletoads on the NES, the one game that Bartleby Shaw had never beaten in his lifetime because of the incredible difficulty. Any scrub with a few weeks of dedicated practice can beat something as easy and pattern-driven as Pac-Man, but Battletoads? That takes true skill.
I walked up to it, my nerve shaken, but still confident. I’d taken the time to master every single obscure game from 1975 through 1995, even the weird, boring, and very difficult ones, just in case I ever bumped into a situation where I might hav
e to play them to win a prize—an incredibly unlikely scenario, but who was laughing now, Roger Dodger? It was clever of Shaw to gate the Ruby Dildo behind such an impressive display of real skill and knowledge, and I knew I could beat it.
So I did. I played through all 13 insanely difficult levels and beat the Dark Queen at the end of it. I waited, but nothing happened. I scratched my head. Had I forgotten something? Had I missed something obvious?
But then I realized what the vibrators were for. “My god,” I whispered. “Surely Shaw can’t expect…”
But obviously he did. Shaw had played all these arcade games while wearing a vibrating cock ring. I didn’t just need to beat Battletoads. I needed to beat it while a vibrator was strapped inside of me. My face paled. Could I really do this?
Then I set my jaw. “You sure can,” I told myself. “You’re Felicia McFly, damn it, and if anyone can Mary Sue their way through this atrocity of stupid in-jokes, then you can!”
I grabbed a vibrator, lubed it up, turned it on, dropped my pants, and slipped it inside of myself. Immediately I moaned while a rush of ecstatic bliss flowed through me, and I almost fell to my knees and came right there. But I struggled through! No, I couldn’t allow myself to dissolve into a pile of moaning orgasms. I had to beat Battletoads!
I fired up the game again. This time, with half my reflexes present and a mind-numbing amount of pure bliss pouring out of my avatar’s pussy, I played once more through all 13 of the game’s insanely difficult levels, barely hanging on. My knees shook and my eyes crossed as Rash pulverized Big Blag, and when Major Slaughter showed up I almost lost it as a wave of orgasmic sensation drove me against the machine, my tits aching and pussy convulsing as I gasped. But I persevered, holding back my explosive orgasm by an amount of sheer stoicism comparable to a dead-eyed Wil Wheaton attending a Star Trek convention and not face-bashing every attendee that dropped an “ironic” Wesley quip.
Finally, when I’d beaten the Dark Queen once more, and the credits rolled with the Queen’s promise to “retreat into the shadowy margins of the galaxy to recoup her losses," I stood again waiting to receive my reward of the Ruby Dildo. But something very different happened.