by I. T. Lucas
"Give me more," she demanded.
He did, pushing in just another inch. "Good?"
She nodded, this time not faking it. It was good. Very good indeed.
"More?" he asked.
"More."
He surged inside her with one powerful thrust, sinking all the way until he hit the end of her channel.
Annabel cried out, more from the pain of him going so deep and bumping against her cervix than from the loss of her virginity.
He stilled inside her.
Joined. They were joined. His presence inside her a most welcome invasion.
She wrapped her arms around him. "I love you, Thorsten. You're mine forever. Now take me."
"I love you more than I thought was possible." He pulled out and surged back in again. Slow at first, then faster and harder, until she was hanging on for dear life, her hands clamped over his buttocks and urging him on.
His shaft getting even harder and thicker, he erupted with a roar, wresting another climax out of her. With her inner muscles convulsing around him, he filled her with jet after jet of his essence.
A few moments later, Thorsten pushed off her so she could suck in a breath and rolled to his side. Kissing her cheek, he pushed her damp hair off her forehead. "I think we’ve just made a baby."
"I think so too."
17
“Mr. Sorensen, you can open your eyes now."
Who is that guy talking to?
"Samuel, wake up. Your session is over."
With a gasp, Sam's eyes popped open, and he looked around him in stunned disbelief.
"I know, it's weird for the first couple of minutes. But it will all fall into place. What's real and what's virtual will sort itself out."
Holy crap. It was all a fucking simulation. None of it had been real. No, that wasn't true. Somewhere out there was a flesh and blood woman who'd spent those three hours with him.
His perfect Annabel.
Who in his right mind thought that this was fun? Waking from a perfect dream to a much less than perfect reality was like having a bucket of ice dropped on his head.
I’m going to strangle Gregg.
"Ms. Montgomery, wake up. Your session is over."
Session? What was she talking about?
Lisa opened her eyes and looked around the small room with all its sophisticated equipment.
The technician was busy peeling sticky pads off her body, together with the wires that were attached to them. "It's a little confusing for a few moments, but don't worry about it. Your brain will sort everything out. You'll know who you really are and remember who you were in the virtual world."
A virtual world. The man of her dreams, her husband, was a construct of her imagination.
Except, he wasn't.
Somewhere in the world, there was a man who'd played that part.
It had felt so real.
"Can I use the bathroom?" Lisa asked as soon as Sarah removed the last wire.
"Sure. It's over there." The technician pointed to the same bathroom Lisa had used before. The woman was right. Now that the initial confusion was gone, she had no problem distinguishing between the two worlds.
The problem was that she didn't want to.
Rushing to the bathroom on shaky legs, Lisa barely had time to close the door behind her when the tears came rolling down. And then came the sobs.
Such an overwhelming sense of loss. How would she ever get over that?
She felt as if she'd lived an entire other life, and she desperately wanted it back because it was so much better than her real one.
18
Ever since her virtual story had ended, Lisa kept checking her incoming emails obsessively. Maybe her Thorsten, whatever his real name was, would request a meeting.
If he'd been as deeply affected as she had, he would. True, she could've been the one to initiate, but she had a good reason for not doing so.
If the real Thorsten was as confident in this world as he was in their shared virtual experience, then he wouldn't hesitate to request a meeting. He wasn't the type of guy who would wait for her to take the first step. Unless he had no wish to find her.
But Sunday had come and gone, and then Monday, and by Tuesday she accepted that the email wasn't coming.
Her dream lover wasn't interested.
It was time she stopped moping around and grieving for a fake life and a fake relationship that existed only in her imagination and the virtual universe of the Perfect Match servers.
"You're scaring me, dude." Gregg walked into Sam's office with a cardboard tray holding two cups of Starbuck's coffee. He pulled one out and put it in front of Sam.
"What do you want?" The coffee was welcome. Gregg wasn't.
"It's seven-thirty in the morning, and you're already here, when I know you were here at least until ten last night because that was when I got an email from you about the Carlton job."
"That's right. You’d better start working on it because they are getting impatient. I promised them we would have their network secure in under a month."
"As soon as Roger's team finishes the Bank of Omaha job, they'll get on it."
"And when is that going to happen?"
"In a day or two. They are wrapping it up."
Sam pushed his fingers through his hair. "I can't keep bringing new jobs if you and your guys can't take care of them. Hire more people if you have to, but get it done."
Gregg removed the lid from his coffee to let it cool. "It's not about the jobs, and you know it. Stop being a stubborn son of a bitch and request a meeting."
His partner was a great guy and a genius at what he did. But humans were not computers, and the logic that made Gregg an outstanding programmer didn't apply to human interactions. Problem was, the guy thought he was great at it.
"It wasn't real. She might be married, or she might be as ugly as sin. I would rather keep the pleasant memory."
"Coward."
"Maybe I am. In either case, it's none of your business. Stop wasting my time and yours and get to work."
Shaking his head, Gregg palmed his coffee cup and walked out.
Good riddance.
19
The long day at the office hadn't helped improve Lisa's mood. And the two extra hours she'd stayed to untangle the mess one of the interns had made of a new client's file hadn't added cheer to her day either.
It was seven o'clock in the evening when she was finally done. Aside from her, the only one still in the office was one of the senior partners. Since his door was open, she felt obligated to say goodbye even though she wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone.
One of the perks of being an accountant was that she could get away with not interacting with people for days at a time. It was the perfect job for an introvert.
“Lisa, what are you still doing here?” Mr. Jacobson asked.
“Untangling some mess. I just wanted to say goodbye before I head out. Do you want me to lock the front door? You’re the last one here.”
“Thank you, but it won’t be necessary. I’m almost done myself. Have a good evening, Lisa.”
“You too.”
Mr. Jacobson, who was in his early sixties and recently divorced, seemed too happy to be left alone in the office. Rumors were that he had a fling with someone in the building.
Pressing the button for the elevator, Lisa sighed. Even a pudgy, nearly bald, sixty-something-year-old was having a romantic adventure. In the real world.
How pathetic was it that she was still moping about a virtual one?
The underground parking was going to be deserted this late in the evening, and Lisa wasn't looking forward to walking to her car without a soul around. Patting her purse, she was comforted by the familiar feel of the pepper spray canister she never left home without.
Better safe than sorry was a motto Lisa lived by.
Except, even the safest route, a fling in a virtual fantasy world, had proven to be dangerous and confirmed her belief that nothing and nowh
ere was really safe.
At least the pepper spray could fend off real-world muggers and rapists. Reaching into her purse to pull it out, she didn’t lift her head when the ping announced the elevator, and she was still fishing for it as she stepped inside.
A loud intake of breath alerted Lisa to the fact that she wasn't alone in there, and as she looked up to see who she was sharing the ride with, the purse dropped from her hand.
"I'm so sorry for startling you." Her mystery man crouched down and started collecting the items that had spilled out of her purse.
He looked so much like Thorsten that seeing him felt like a punch to her gut. But then it wasn't a big surprise that he did. When asked to describe her ideal man, she'd been thinking of him.
Straightening, he handed her the purse and offered his hand. "I'm Sam.”
"Lisa." She placed her hand in his, half expecting lightning to strike. But all she felt was warmth and an excited flutter in her tummy.
She finally had a name to put with the face.
Sam held on to her hand longer than what was considered polite, but she was loath to pull it away.
"Lisa," he repeated. "I don't know why, but you look more like an Annabel to me."
Epilogue
Six years later.
“Mommy, tell me the story about the princess who didn’t want to marry the prince.”
Lisa climbed in bed with her daughter and pulled her against her side. “Aren’t you tired of that story? How about I read you one about a different princess?” She reached for one of the books in the stack on top of Sarah’s nightstand.
They were all about one princess or another. Sarah refused to listen to any other stories.
“No. I want that one.” The five-year-old pouted.
With a smile, Lisa kissed her daughter’s warm cheek and decided to elaborate on the story, adding a beginning she’d skipped over before. “It all started one summer when a friend of Annabel’s brother came to stay with her family for a month. Thorsten was fifteen, the same age as her older brother, and the most handsome boy she’d ever seen.”
“How old was Annabel?”
“She was ten.”
“Did she like him?”
“Not at first. She thought he was too full of himself.”
“What does it mean?”
“It means that he thought that he was the best, the strongest and most handsome young prince.”
“That’s because he was.” Sam entered their daughter’s room and got in bed on her other side. “Continue the story, mommy.”
“Yes, Daddy.” Lisa winked at him over Sarah’s head. “So as I was saying before we were interrupted, Annabel thought that Thorsten was arrogant, which is another word for full of himself.”
Sam cleared his throat.
“But pretty soon she realized that he was indeed the best of all princes. The problem was that she wasn’t the only one who thought so. Other princesses thought so too. Especially the evil Rowenia.” She leaned to whisper in Sarah’s ear. “She was a witch, and she cast a spell on Thorsten.”
Sarah’s eyes widened. “What kind of a spell?”
“To make him choose her as his queen.”
“Did she also put a spell on Annabel? Was that why she didn’t want to marry him?”
“No. But the spell Rowenia put on Thorsten made him stay away from Annabel, and he didn’t come to visit her for many years. Annabel thought he’d forgotten about her. So when the summons to the ball went out to all the princesses, she ignored it and didn’t go.”
“Was she mad at Thorsten?”
“A little. But mostly she thought he didn’t care for her, and she also really didn’t want to become queen.”
“Why?”
“Because she didn’t want to leave her mommy and daddy whom she loved very much.”
“But even though Rowenia tried to put another spell on him, Thorsten had never forgotten Annabel,” Sam said. “When she didn’t come to the ball, he took a horse and rode all the way to her palace. He had to convince Annabel to marry him.”
Sarah pursed her lips. “Prince Thorsten wanted to marry Annabel. Was it because Rowenia was an ugly witch?”
“Rowenia was very beautiful,” Lisa said. “She was tall and slim and had all the best dresses. But she was mean, and Thorsten saw right through her. He knew she didn’t love him and only wanted him for his crown.”
“But Annabel really loved him.”
“With all her heart.” Lisa looked up at Sam and smiled.
“Annabel’s love helped break the spell,” Sam said. “All Thorsten had to do was to think of the lovely Annabel and no magic in the world could overpower the love he felt for her.”
Sarah lifted her eyes to her daddy. “And they lived happily ever after.”
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to him. “Not right away. Rowenia was so angry when she heard they got married that she cast a spell on Thorsten and Annabel, transporting them to the future where they didn’t know each other. They were different people in that new world. They didn’t look like they did before and they had different names.”
Lisa had never told Sarah that part of the story, but it seemed that Sam found a neat way of bringing the two parts together. The virtual and the real.
“So how did they find each other?” Sarah asked.
Sam kissed his daughter’s forehead. “Rowenia was so mean that she thought it would be a great joke to put them in the same office building. She thought that it would be funny if they met in the elevator almost every day and didn’t recognize each other.”
“Did it work?”
“Of course not,” Lisa said. “A love as powerful as theirs couldn’t be contained. The first time they met in that elevator, Annabel knew right away that the handsome man in the dark blue suit was her Thorsten.”
“And Thorsten knew right away that the pretty dark-haired young lady with glasses was his Annabel.”
Sarah turned to look at Lisa. “You have glasses, mommy, and daddy wears suits to work.”
“My smart little girl.” Sam kissed the top of Sarah’s head. “You solved the mystery. In the future, Annabel’s name was Lisa, and Thorsten’s name was Sam.”
Lifting her arms, Sarah wrapped one around Sam’s neck and the other around Lisa’s, pulling both of them to her cheeks for a sandwich kiss. When they had their fill of smooching their sweet little girl, she chimed happily, “And they all lived happily ever after.”
“She’s asleep,” Sam whispered.
With a soft kiss to their daughter’s forehead, he gently lifted her little hand off his chest. Careful not to shake the mattress, he quietly got up and tiptoed out of the room.
Sam didn’t go far though. Standing just outside the door, he waited for Lisa to join him. She turned the nightlight on and followed him out.
“Happy anniversary, my love,” he said as he pulled her into his arms. “I’ve planned something special for us this year.”
“A vacation?”
Since Sarah’s arrival, they hadn’t traveled anywhere without her. Both Lisa and Sam couldn’t bear the thought of spending more than one day away from their precious little girl. Lisa still wasn’t ready, but lately Sam had been talking about her being stressed out and needing time off.
It wasn’t easy to balance work with motherhood. Even though Lisa had the best possible babysitter for their child, Sam’s mother, and a crew of four came once a week to clean their house, she felt as if she wasn’t doing an adequate job on either front. When at work, she felt guilty for not being with Sarah, and when at home, she felt bad for not putting in the hours necessary to advance her career. Lisa was still only a junior partner in the accounting firm she worked for.
Perhaps that was the reason their attempts to get pregnant again weren’t working.
With a smirk, Sam pulled out two blue envelopes from his back pocket. “Since you don’t want to leave Sarah behind and go on a real vacation with me, how about a virtual
one? We can have several days of adventure crammed into three hours.”
Other than the first and only time that had jumpstarted their real-life relationship, they hadn’t gone back to Perfect Match. After guessing his virtual princess’s real identity, Sam had swept Lisa off her feet in the real world, and they’d been married less than two months later.
“Is Perfect Match doing vacations now? That’s brilliant. They can reach a much broader clientele than what they get with just the virtual hookups.”
Sam laughed. “I’ll suggest that to them, but no. Our vacation is back in our own fairytale land. What say you, princess Annabel?”
Sounded exciting, but also scary.
Now that she knew an entire lifetime could be crammed into three virtual hours, and her real life would be forgotten entirely, Lisa wasn’t sure she had the guts to do it again. Also, the thought of forgetting her daughter, even for a few hours, filled her with unease.
“I don’t want to forget Sarah.”
With a smile, Sam pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “Does our daughter star in all of your dreams?”
“Well, no. Not all of them.”
His point proven, Sam looked smug. “Think of it as taking a long afternoon nap and having a fun dream. Can you live with that?”
“I guess so. Do we get to fill out new questionnaires?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Why? Do you want to make changes to our fantasy land?”
“Not changes, but maybe a few little adjustments.”
In the real world, she and Samuel had been strictly vanilla, and Lisa was too shy to remind him that his wife was a little kinky. Perhaps Annabel could do that for her.
Extended Epilogue