For some reason she tapped on it. “Welcome to the Cyber Room.” Virginia did her best not to smile. A wave of excited desire washed over her and she took a deep breath before setting the phone down.
“Sorry your honor, it was unimportant.”
“Very well, the timing was unfortunate. Due to the discovery from opposing council court will be in recess until tomorrow at 9 am.” The bang of the gavel echoed in the courtroom. “Court dismissed.”
The once quiet room erupted into chatter and her second, Mary, tapped her on the shoulder and grinned. “I saw that text over your shoulder. I’m impressed Quark. I didn’t think you’d have it in you.”
She flushed and waited for the bailiffs to cuff and haul off their client before responding. “Shh. Please, please don’t tell anyone. The last thing I need is someone finding out the DA’s rookie defense attorney has a guilty pleasure.” Her voice was a hushed whisper and Mary laughed.
“Your secret is safe with me. Although if it works I may have to put Tim and I through it as a joke to see if we’re compatible.” She winked and Virginia couldn’t help but laugh.
And she needed a laugh. “We’re going to need to find some sort of plea bargain. You realize that?” The evidence introduced today inexplicably put their client as the gun holder in the armed robbery.
Mary sighed as they walked out the courtroom doors and filtered into the busy Atlanta court system hallway. “It’s not that I like letting the guilty ones walk. But damn do I hate not doing my job properly.”
They didn’t say anything as they walked the rest of the way out and down the stereotypical courthouse steps. The whole time all her brain had been able to focus on was being accepted into the only sexual dating website in the world. Or at least the only legit one.
“Why don’t you go get yourself all set up on that website, I’ll hit the gym and we can meet back in the office in two hours. We have no billables left on this so we may as well take a break before crafting one of the hardest plea bargains of your newbie career.” Mary was already walking the opposite way slowly.
“Thanks…I think.” She shook her head. “I’m going to blame you if this is horrible and blows up in my face.”
Mary laughed and waved a hand in the air before turning around and heading off, which left Virginia swimming in her own thoughts as she walked back to the office to grab her car.
It had been three years since her husband had been hit by a drunk driver and she hadn’t so much as dated, let alone had another man touch her.
They’d been high school sweethearts and without Nathan life had been unbearable. Their son, Nathan Junior, better known as Nate because she had trouble saying her husband’s name now, had been the only light in her life and he was old enough to be in school. Which meant it had been time for her to go back to work and stop living off Nathan’s life insurance policy.
About two months ago she’d passed an attractive lawyer in the hall, he’d brushed against her and she’d felt her first jolt of sexual intensity since she had lost Nathan. She’d uncomfortably brought it up to Mary while they’d been grabbing drinks after a successful case and in hushed tones Mary had described Cyber Room to her.
She’d written the URL on a napkin and the damn thing had stared at Virginia in the top of desk drawer at home. She’d pulled the site up half a dozen times and researched it over and over. It was a legitimate company working a new twist on the success of online dating. She hadn’t had the nerve to try it though. The idea of pretending to have sex with strangers online was one thing. But the idea that they were to cyber sex to see if they were a match and then meet up – that wasn’t her style. So in the desk drawer it had sat.
A few days ago she’d had a dream that the handsome CEO, Matthew Cobral, had taken her to bed. She woken up so needy she’d spent the better part of an hour touching herself and fantasizing it was the man with the thick dark hair and bulky glasses. She realized then that signing up for it was inevitable, simply because she needed to get laid.
So that left her walking quicker than normal back to her office, and her car, so she could go set up an official Cyber Room profile. Back at the office she went straight to the garage and then to her brownstone. Anticipation had been building and her body felt like tiny fire ants were walking all over her. All she wanted to do was race upstairs and do whatever the next step was. Nate was still in daycare for the next few hours and then he would be with her mother-in-law. Which meant she had the full two hours to start and she was ready.
She opened the door to her brownstone and kicked off her heels at the door. Virginia’s purse and briefcase dropped with a thud on the table in the hallway and she turned left, pushing open the sound proof doors to her office. Her whole body was on fire now with lust. The possibilities for what could come next were endless and terrifying. “Alarm.” She dug through her purse and set an alarm on her phone so that if she got sucked in, she wouldn’t miss the meeting with Mary. A part of her felt disgusted that she was doing this instead of better defending the guilty criminal she’d been stuck with. But she hated defending the guilty and hadn’t been thrilled to have received her first blatantly guilty client.
Virginia sat hurriedly and moved the mouse to wake her computer. She could feel her heart thumping in her chest. “Take a breather Virginia. Thousands of people have done this in the past two years. You’re in good hands.” It’s not good hands that I’m worried about; it’s the right hands.
She wasn’t certain just when her embarrassment had fully turned to need but when she pulled open her email client she groaned and shifted her legs together when she opened the welcome letter. A provocative photo danced across the letterhead, a man and a woman passionately engaged in dual oral sex.
Her eyes skimmed down the page, seeing trigger words only. Like, ‘your Paypal address is required’ and ‘in person meetings are not condoned unless you feel safe.’ The final thing to grab her eyes was the closing on the email. ‘Sit back in your favorite computer chair and be ready to touch yourself during a steamy encounter with a single who might be perfect for you. Xxx Matthew Cobral.’
She hovered over and clicked the hyperlink. It asked her to review her personal information and upload a photo. “Damnit. Of course they need a photo but I haven’t taken one without a drooling toddler kissing my cheek in years.”
She hated selfies. There was something incredibly obnoxious at the idea that someone thought they were so wonderfully good looking they had to share it with the world, nineteen times a day. But, that was the best she was going to be able to do. The cursor flicked back and forth on the screen as she fumbled trying to remember where the webcam on the Mac was.
After a few flickers she was looking back at herself on the screen. “The jacket comes off. Now.” she told her reflection and stood up to tug the navy blazer off and unbutton the top three on her periwinkle top. Her breasts spilled out and she tugged the lacy bra up a bit higher. She’d never lacked in the bosom department but that didn’t mean she needed to show the whole show in her photo. Shaking her hands out she sat down and ran them over her sleek blue-black hair and tucked it behind her ears. “It’s now or never.”
She pushed down on the mouse pad and heard the fake shutter sound on the computer.
The rest of the afternoon she spent setting up her profile in full. The questions were incredibly personal but she supposed she shouldn’t be shocked. Did she like food play? Hmm no. Did she enjoy being in control? A slight shudder went through her as she typed ‘no’. What was her ideal sexual encounter location? She tapped her fingers on the desk as she thought. Nathan and she had always been very safe, never too wild so it left a lot of unknown locations. Kitchen Table.
The alarm on her phone went off before she could finish and she cursed at it. She couldn’t be put into the full circuit of match making until she sent in her full information. It was so different than the online dating sites in that extent – all profiles were private unless connected by the moderator.
“Well you’ve waited three years, a few extra days or weeks won’t kill your libido anymore than you already have.” With a sigh she stood up from the computer and righted her outfit to go and meet Mary.
Chapter Three
“This has got jail time written all over it,” grumbled Matt as he added the hand drawn picture of a cobra to the profile he created for himself.
His own rules stated not using a real photo to identify in a chat room was grounds for dismissal from Cyber Room. So he was already breaking one but he doubted she’d know that. Plus, he’d been nicknamed “The Cobra” for his ability to strike and make matches. So he wasn’t really doing anything to misrepresent himself. There was no way he was putting his face as an avatar. There were so many questionable things about what he was doing the last thing he needed was for Virginia to know who he truly was. She’d likely run screaming, demand a refund and alert the media Matthew Cobral uses his site for personal gain.
Matt sighed exaggeratedly at Gallie. It had been almost a week since he’d come across Virginia’s picture and biography. Every single day she’d been on his mind. He’d never really thought of himself as a shallow person but he clearly was. Virginia’s violet eyes haunted him every moment of his day. They were like a siren’s temptation leading him to the rocks.
Sleep was no better, in fact, it was worse. He’d had some of the most erotic dreams of his life surrounding the beautiful Virginia L. Quark. Her mouth was made for pleasure and in his dreams she’d certainly lived up to it. His fantasy love sessions had taken them inside the shower, a public display outside the Cocoa Cola factory, a dark and closed Turner Field and enough positions to make him exhausted just thinking about the gambit his fantasies had been running.
Which was half of what lead him to creating a profile to interact with her and see if she was half as perfect for him as she seemed on paper. The other half was he had failed to see any clients that matched her on any level. The matching process was seventy-five percent based on sexual exploits and twenty-five percent external factors such as family life, career and hobbies.
Not one of his thirty-two available to match men had seemed right for her. He could just sense she was a credible, intelligent lawyer and all he had left were doctors and teachers. And there was the rub, both careers were perfectly suitable for someone with a love of learning and every one of them he had some how created the needed sixty-eight percent incompatibility rate he placed as standard to fail them.
So here he was, for the very first time, about to inject himself into his cyber world of lust and love. He’d scanned his company conduct code multiple times, looking for anything that would indicate what he was doing was actually illegal and aside from the personal gain he’d get, nothing seemed illegal.
“You’re still going to wind up in jail. There is a lawyer out there somewhere, fuck maybe even the one you’re chasing, that will find a way.”
His plan was simple. He was going to engage Virginia in one chat experience. He would find out both sexual and non-sexual things about her and determine if they were a match. If he did, he’d casually bump into her at the courthouse and strike up a way to ask her out. It ranked a little high on the stalker meter but in the non digital world men and women found ways to do the same thing if they liked someone or spotted someone attractive. He was just using a different route She’d never find out he was the guy behind the computer at any point in time and no one would know his dirty little secret.
Normally, Matthew would be the first one to suggest that determining a sexual match that could lead to a love match would take no less than six sessions. This wasn’t normal though. There was a huge chance it was nothing more than a lusty obsession, she could be brainless or shallow and that would change things.
“Yes because there are tons of ditzy lawyers in the world.”
Matthew scanned over his profile and made sure everything was in order, that the details were true and yet, didn’t give him away. Nothing about this was about making himself look good. He’d contemplated falsifying a profile entirely. That really would have been illegal though since he stood behind his claim that one hundred percent of the people behind the screen are vetted and who they say they are.
His finger hovered over the mouse button. “Once you click save you can’t back out.” Which was a lie. Simply having a profile on Cyber Room meant nothing because he made sure the database was locked and profiles could only be viewed once chat invitations were accepted. “Here we go Gallie.” The cat opened one eye and gave him a look as if telling him to just do it.
The screen flashed and when it reloaded his profile, minus the edit fields, was in front of him. Step on initiated. Now he simply needed to send the form letter with a link to his profile to Virginia letting her know she had a potential sexual match and how to communicate with him.
Matthew hit send and had an immediate feeling of terror creep up his spine. There were so many ways this could backfire on him. “There are also plenty of ways this can go right.”
“I know we had expected to lose, I’d even wanted to put the creep behind bars. So why does it feel like such a failure that Gerald has been sentenced?” Virginia paced the small space in her office.
Mr. Gerald’s case was officially closed. He’d been found guilty of first-degree murder and armed robbery charges. They’d made an attempt at a plea bargain but at such a late stage in the trail the prosecuting attorney didn’t even speak with his client before shooting them into the dust the other week.
“Honey, we lose more than win. Just keep that in mind and remember,” Mary leaned forward and looked around, “sometimes loosing is the right thing to do.”
“I know. Trust me, a huge part of me wanted to see him behind bars because of all the assault charges from his past. There’s just another part of me that wanted to do my job.” She dropped onto the chair behind her desk with a sigh. “I’m a walking contradiction aren’t I?”
Mary laughed. “That’s essentially the name of the game with defense attorney’s. I’d like to personally think we don’t really like getting the bad guys off. Just that we like doing our job and helping the wrongly accused find the freedom they deserve.”
She nodded. It didn’t help to hear that really but Mary was trying to be nice. Her phone vibrated on the desk before she could say anything else. Grabbing it she stared at the email notification showing across the top of the lock screen. Cyber Room – match found.
She bit her lower lip trying to hold back the excited smile. She’d sent her information in full the day she got it and had been worried she was too much of a prude to find a match. She’d been on pins and needles waiting to see if the site would be a way for her to meet someone. Sure cyber sex wasn’t the same thing as the actual act, but if the process didn’t lend itself to forming offline couples it wouldn’t be the media sensation that it is. So every day that had passed without hearing something she’d wondered if she wasn’t exclusive enough. Twice she’d almost canceled the monthly subscription but had stopped because she really wanted to see how finding a sexual match could lead to anything more.
“You look like someone who was just told they won a million dollars.” Mary remarked from across the room. “Who or what just contacted you?”
Virginia felt herself turn bright and passed the phone across the desk. “There’s a match.” She tried to tone down the excitement in her voice but couldn’t.
“Fantastic! What do you do next?” Mary asked as she passed the phone back.
“No idea. I guess I open the email and find out.” She tapped the notification and scanned the form until she saw the line she was looking for. “Apparently, all I do to indicate interest is accept a chat invitation scheduled for tomorrow at six pm.”
“Well are you going to accept it?” Mary asked eagerly.
“I don’t know. I mean, I want too. I really want too. But I didn’t even look this guy over.” Mary gave her a look that suggested she better do it right now. “OK, ok. Give me a se
cond.”
Virginia clicked on the second hyperlink in the email that took her to the profile for Mr. Matty. She scrunched her face in disappointment when all she saw as an avatar was a snake drawing. “Well, they say a picture is worth a thousand words….” She slid the phone back over to Mary.
“Well, if that isn’t disappointing I don’t know what it is.” She didn’t pass the phone back but kept scrolling and reading out loud. “Mr. Matty is a CEO of a company, checked between thirty and forty has dark hair and eyes.” Her voice trailed off but her lips kept moving until she found something she liked. “Likes to experiment with leather and lace. Sounds like a do-me kind of guy. I say go for it.”
Virginia took the phone back and looked over the profile for herself. “Even without the photo?” She had to admit; he seemed like someone she’d be interested in meeting if the match up was for a normal date.
“Well if the point of the activity is to find the hottest guy in the world then you’d probably just have to open a magazine. He sounds like a catch. Plus doesn’t the site guarantee the person is who they say they are?”
“Well yes.”
“Then go for it. It’s about playing in the cyber world and getting to know someone. Who knows, maybe you won’t hit it off at all and you can mark it down as experience. I personally find sexting to be the highlight of my day in a boring court case.” Mary smirked and Virginia felt her jaw drop.
“You’re not serious?” she asked laughing.
“A lady doesn’t kiss and tell.” They both burst out into laughter. “Seriously though, why take my suggestion for Cyber Room?”
“I wanted to see how a sexual match could be found via a chat room and used to turn into a real relationship.” It was the truth. She left out the part that she was ready to jump into bed the next man she dated, but overall she was intrigued by the concept of using sex to find love.
“So what you’re saying is you want a relationship but want to test drive at leas the ideas he’d have in bed?”
Virtuality Page 4