Devil in the Deep Blue Sea

by A. J. Markam

  And this chick could raise an army 50% bigger than both of their forces combined.

  Yeah, granted, the protestors would probably be a lot less powerful… but there would be thousands more of them.

  Basically a whole horde of trash mobs.

  And if they caught the Naga and the nymphs in the middle of sex, with their guard down…

  “How are you going to get that many people to show up at once?” I asked.

  “Oh, we have tens of thousands of people protesting all over the game,” she explained. “I’ll just post a message on the forum and tell everybody where to show up.”

  “Tens of thousands of people?!”

  “Of course. We’re being underwritten by the Catholic League of Decency, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Mormon Church.”

  “REALLY,” I said, shocked beyond belief.

  Partially at the fact that the Southern Baptists would agree to work together on anything at all with Mormons.

  The Mormons are a cult, don’tcha know.

  According to my Southern Baptist uncle, anyway.

  “Of course. This is important, Ian,” Carrie said gravely. “We’re in a fight for the souls of all those poor children being corrupted by the game. Imagine, a company that would push sex – much less perverted sex – on children.”

  “Children can’t play the Adult Expansion Pack.”

  “Oh yes they can,” she said with absolute certainty.

  “Uh, no, they can’t. Anybody who plays the Adult Expansion Pack has to provide three forms of – ”

  “I saw it on Facebook,” she said, brushing me off.

  “On Facebook?! That’s total bullshit, Carrie!”

  “Don’t curse,” she snapped.

  Oh MAN I wanted to let loose with a string of Jesus fuckin’ Christs.

  But I bit my tongue.

  My angry expression must have given her pause, though, because she backed off her high horse.

  Sort of.

  “It doesn’t matter – even if children aren’t playing today, they’ll be able to at some point. And we have to win their hearts and souls before they can start.”

  I’m pretty sure their genitals will win THAT argument.

  Suddenly Carrie put a hand on my thigh and stared into my eyes.

  Um… okay…

  “Tell me more about how we’re going to destroy Fathmos,” she whispered.

  “Uh… well… I’ll have your people rush in, and they’ll basically destroy all the perverted artwork.”

  “That sounds wonderful.” She started to breathe harder again. “All that perverted artwork… burned to ashes…”

  Like Harry Potter books?

  “You’re not going to be able to burn it since it’s underwater,” I said, “so they’ll have to destroy it by hand.”

  “Are you sure we can’t burn it?” she asked, disappointed.

  “Yeah, I’m sure. Are you going to be there?”

  “No, I don’t play inside the game. I’m strictly on the outside.”

  “Okay, well, just a warning, there will probably be some people having sex in the garden, so – ”

  “They’ll be having sex?!” she cried out.

  “Yeah, a bunch of them, so – ”

  “GROUP sex?!”

  Damn those bosoms were heaving.

  “Um… yeah… tell your people not to kill the ones having sex, not unless they attack you. Just go after the artwork.”

  “Are the people having gay sex?!” she asked as her brows furrowed and her nostrils flared.

  Part of me wanted to ask, What does THAT matter? but I knew better than to say it out loud.

  Plus, it would have been more than a little hypocritical. I certainly didn’t want to see any gay sex. To be honest, if there had been any incubi or Naga doing each other during the orgy, I’d completely blocked it out.

  “I don’t think they are.”

  “Oh… good.” She sounded almost disappointed, like she’d wanted to go all Armageddon on them.

  “So don’t kill them,” I reiterated. “Not unless they attack your friends.”

  “Right. Give them a chance to repent.”

  “Um… sure…”

  I doubted whether the Naga and nymphs would be repenting. The incubi and succubi most certainly wouldn’t.

  But I didn’t tell Carrie that.

  She gave me a sweet smile. “After all, ‘Love the sinner, hate the sin.’”

  “…yyyeah… right… so what are you going to tell your friends?” I asked, wanting to make sure she repeated it.

  “Not to kill any people having sex.”

  I thought of something. “Better tell them not to kill anybody having sex – after all, they’re not human.”

  Carrie’s eyes grew wide. “What do you mean, they’re not human?!”

  I decided to avoid mentioning the incubi and succubi. I didn’t think she would care too much about saving sex demons.

  “Well, a lot of them will be Nagas – ”

  “Nagas?”

  “Yeah, they’re like, half-snake guys – ”

  Her eyes bugged out even more. “There’s BESTIALITY going on the game?!”

  I sighed and closed my eyes. I could feel a headache coming on. “They’re not fucking goats, okay?”

  “Ian!” she gasped. “Language!”

  “Just leave the snake guys alone. And the nymphs.”

  “Nymphs?”

  “Yeah, they’re these women – ”

  “Nymphomaniacs?” Carrie whispered, and her hand crept further up my thigh.

  I heard Rory’s Irish lilt inside my head.

  I think she’s tryin’ ta tell me somethin’.

  “Um… sort of…”

  Carrie leaned in closer and asked breathlessly, “Women who want sex so much… that they can’t control themselves?”

  Ha. By that definition, I was dating a nymphomaniac –

  Alaria.

  As soon as I thought of her, my conscience reared its ugly head.

  This whole situation felt like cheating to me.

  But Alaria had given me the go-ahead – so what was I so freaked out about?

  Carrie’s lips were just inches away from my own, and she was staring at me with that look girls give you when they’re inviting you to go for it.

  Stop pussying out, Hertzfelder! my inner marine drill sergeant yelled, drowning out my conscience.

  I decided to go for it.

  I closed my eyes, leaned in –

  “I can’t have sex,” Carrie blurted out.

  I opened my eyes. “…what?”

  “I can’t have sex. I have to stay a virgin until marriage.”

  Wow.

  Talk about mixed signals.

  I backed up. “Okay… um, no problem…”

  “But I do other stuff,” she said sultrily.

  “…other… stuff?”

  “Yeah, you know.”

  And then she started making a motion like she was giving a handjob.

  And then the handjob moved up to her mouth, and she poked the inside of her cheek with her tongue like a cock was inside.

  “…oh…” I said, astounded beyond measure.

  She smiled. “Plus… you know…”

  And then she mouthed Anal.

  I stared at her in shock.

  Either this was real, or I was having a really fucked-up flashback to OtherWorld.

  “…what?”

  “You know,” she giggled. “Butt stuff.”

  “I… wasn’t aware that butt stuff was on the Approved List.”

  She frowned. “As long as I stay a virgin.”

  “So… as long as a penis never goes in your vagina… you stay a virgin?”

  “Obviously.”

  I kind of wanted to point out that by that standard, a lot of gay people – both male and female – remained virgins their entire life, so why was she so mad at them?

  But before I could bring it up, she went off on a whole n
ew tangent.

  “That’s why we have to destroy that sculpture garden,” she said, sounding turned on again.

  “Why?”

  “So it doesn’t tempt people into… fornication,” she whispered, like ‘fornication’ was the height of erotic dirty talk.

  “What about butt stuff?”

  “What about it?”

  “The sculpture garden has all sorts of butt stuff.”

  “Oh… well, as long as it’s not gay butt stuff,” she said breathily, and leaned in for a kiss.

  I backed up and put out my hands. “Hold on, hold on. So you’re saying a dick up your ass is okay, but a dick up a guy’s ass isn’t?”

  She made a face like I’d just shat the couch. “THAT’S GROSS!”

  I kind of agreed, actually, but I had a point to make.

  “Yeah, but you do see the problem, right?” I said.

  “Yes – one is gay, and the other isn’t!”

  What the fuck?!

  What kind of bizarro pocket dimension had I stumbled into here?

  “So that’s the problem with the sculpture garden – that it’s gay?”

  “Well… obviously we don’t want it corrupting normal people – ”

  “NORMAL people?!”

  “Yes. We don’t want it turning anybody gay.”

  “TURNING THEM GAY?! People don’t just turn gay.”

  Although, judging from my little episode with the LGBTQuesters, maybe they could turn bi…

  “Of course they do,” Carrie said with as much conviction as she’d informed me that kids were playing the Adult Expansion Pack. “It’s a choice. Homosexuals are choosing to go to Hell.”

  Now MY eyes bugged out of my head. “You think gay people are going to hell because they’re gay?”

  “Obviously. So are Jews, and Muslims, and Hindus, and Buddhists – everybody who hasn’t accepted Jesus Christ as their lord and savior.” Carrie looked enraged at first – and then in crept a diabolical smile. “They’ll all be punished on Judgment Day. They’ll all pay for their sins and spend the rest of eternity in suffering and torment, burning forever in the Lake of Fire…”

  WHOA.

  ‘Full-on Religious Crazy Chick’ sirens were going off in my head.

  Suddenly I didn’t feel so bad about manipulating her anymore.

  I patted her leg. “You know what? I think we should wait on the butt stuff.”

  Carrie looked very disappointed. “Why?”

  “I just think we should keep things… pure.”

  “Well, if you don’t want to do butt stuff, we could do – ”

  “No mouth stuff, either.”

  She looked even more disappointed. “Well, I could still – ”

  “Or hand stuff.”

  She looked absolutely crestfallen. “I don’t mind! Really,” she said, her bosom heaving again.

  “No… I think it’s best if we wait.”

  I couldn’t really say Jesus wants us to wait, since according to Carrie, anal was on his ‘Good To Go’ list. So I scrambled for the one other thing I knew about Evangelicals.

  “We should respect our… purity rings.”

  Carrie glanced down at my hands. “But… you’re not wearing one.”

  I had to think fast.

  “Not on my finger, I’m not.”

  She frowned. “Wha– ”

  And then she looked completely shocked. “OH.”

  And then she stared down at my crotch and purred, “Ohhhhhh.”

  Ha.

  ‘Cock rings for Christ.’

  Had a nice ring to it.

  She sighed with an odd combination of reverence, wistfulness, and pain. “I have to commend you, Ian… you’re very godly.”

  I smirked. “Which one?”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Just tell your people to meet me outside Fathmos tomorrow at noon Pacific time, okay?”

  “Okay.” She cuddled up next to me. “Are you sure you don’t want to – ”

  “Great,” I said as I stood up. “Well, I better be going.”

  She looked even more disappointed. “So soon?”

  “Early day tomorrow. You know how it is.”

  She stood and got up right next to me. “Maybe after it’s all over tomorrow, you and I can come back here… and get to know each other better.”

  “Sure. We can read the Bible or something.”

  She looked like she didn’t quite know what to make of that. “…um… okay…”

  “Goodnight, Carrie.”

  “Goodnight…”

  As I walked to the door to let myself out, I turned back. “Remember – tell your people noon tomorrow.”

  “Noon tomorrow,” Carrie repeated.

  “And remember – unless the Naga or nymph attack you and it’s self-defense, no killing anybody having sex.”

  I knew it was utterly ridiculous to keep insisting on not killing NPCs, but I had a soft spot for Zali’s demons, given everything I’d done since the mines of Abaddon.

  And the Naga had never hurt me – not even after I’d stomped on one of their buddies’ nads.

  And sparing hot naked women, whether succubi or nymphs, was always at the top of my list of priorities.

  “No killing people having sex,” Carrie agreed, then added hastily, “unless it’s gay sex.”

  “Noooo,” I said firmly, “love the sinner, hate the sin. Right?”

  She sighed. “…right.”

  “Soooo…?”

  “No killing anybody having sex,” she pouted.

  “Good.”

  “See you afterwards?” she asked hopefully. “Out in front of Westek?”

  “Sure,” I said with a smile, then closed the door behind me.

  Even though there was no way I was going to see her again.

  I’d initially felt bad about manipulating her into helping me kill Zali, but not anymore.

  Self-righteous, bigoted, butt-stuff-doing hypocrite…

  I might not have wanted to fuck her.

  But I certainly wouldn’t mind fucking her over.

  47

  “So, did you do her?” Alaria asked.

  Stig, Alaria, and I were walking through the deserted streets of Fathmos towards Zali’s villa. No one had been guarding the gates, and for very good reason. I could still hear orgasmic shrieks from the sculpture garden – hundreds of them in an undulating wave of sound.

  The Naga and nymphs were still at it, almost 20 hours later. They really took ‘make love, not war’ to heart.

  Good. It’ll make things that much easier.

  “So, did you?” Alaria asked eagerly. “Tell me, tell me!”

  “No,” I said, “I didn’t have sex with her.”

  “Why not?” Alaria asked, both surprised and a little indignant. “I told you you could. Was she ugly?”

  “No. She was actually kind of cute.”

  “Would I have hit her?”

  Alaria meant ‘hit that,’ but the literal meaning of her words was just too deliciously funny to pass up.

  “I would have loved to have seen that,” I said, even though I knew she didn’t get the joke.

  “So what was the problem?”

  I shrugged. “She just wasn’t my type.”

  “Was she a dwarf? Or a gnome?”

  Alaria knew my ‘thing’ about little people.

  “No, she was just too religious for me.”

  “Like ‘Jaiya religious’?” Alaria asked, name-checking the goddess of pleasure worshipped by the frost elves in the Northern Wastes. Alaria and I had had a wonderful time with them and their high priestess Eluun after we’d killed Saykir, the frost elves’ vicious dictator and one of Alaria’s evil ex-masters.

  “I wish she’d been Jaiya religious,” I said.

  “So more like ‘Vraxtor religious,’ then?”

  “Who’s Vraxtor?”

  “The god of flaying and self-flagellation.”

  “Ew!” I winced. “No.”

&nb
sp; “Then what was she?”

  “More like crazy religious.”

  “The crazy religious ones can be fun,” Alaria said. “The more repressed they are, the kinkier they are underneath. And when the dams finally break, watch out.”

  I thought about Meera, my angelic lover back in Exardus, and mentally conceded that Alaria had a point.

  Except that I’d liked Meera. She could be irritating at times, but at heart she was a really good person.

  Carrie?

  I had my doubts.

  I thought back to her comments on burning books… and how gay people, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists were all going to hell… and how diabolically happy she’d looked when she said everybody was going to suffer in the Lake of Fire forever.

  “I didn’t like her very much, to be honest,” I said. “In fact, I actively disliked her.”

  “Oh,” Alaria said matter-of-factly. “Well, you should have just hate-fucked her, then.”

  I looked at her in surprise.

  You should have just hate-fucked her isn’t something you normally hear your girlfriend say.

  “I don’t want to hate-fuck somebody I dislike so much.”

  “That’s the whole point of hate-fucking,” Alaria said, in a Duh tone of voice. “The other person is hot, but repellant… so you combine the two. It’s a whole different energy. It can really get you going.”

  “Yeah, but it would have been super awkward afterwards.”

  Alaria shrugged. “That’s when you kill them.”

  I had to remind myself that videogame morality was entirely different than real-world morality.

  Not to mention it was a sex demoness giving me the advice.

  “I don’t think that would have been a good idea,” I said.

  “Oh, please. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve killed after sex.”

  I raised one eyebrow. “And how many more are you planning on killing after sex, exactly?”

  “Oh, honey,” she said as she grabbed my arm and snuggled up next to me, “I would never kill you.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  Alaria kissed my cheek and whispered in my ear, “You’re too good a lay.”

  I couldn’t help but feel pretty great at hearing that.

  “Plus you love me,” I said mischievously, knowing she would hate it. Alaria had to be in a certain sentimental mood – like on the verge of impending death – before she’d get all mooshy-gooshy.

  “Eh, you’re not totally annoying,” she said playfully as she hung onto my arm.