Love Sick

         His breath stirred the short hairs on the nape of her neck as he slid his lips over her skin, his hands moving to cup her breasts as their bodies moved together, the sweat dripping from his brow onto her throat, making her quiver with desire...
 (I must warn, as you can probably tell this is a most titillating tale so read on only if you are of appropriate age and mindset
-the management)
Alyssa moaned in ecstasy and sank her teeth into the side of his neck as they built to climax, and finally when she orgasmed, her back arched so sharply that it almost hurt. She couldn’t help but let out a low, relieved laugh as she enjoyed the last pulsing echoes of her climax and he relaxed against her, a happy smile on his face.

She curled closer to him, and he shifted so that his weight was off of her and he could scoop her up in his powerful arms. Alyssa smiled at him, and she gazed deeply at the face she had already fully memorized: his high cheekbones and bright blue eyes, his thick russet hair that was always messy and wild around his face, and the tiny crescent-shaped scar above his left eye, the identically shaped mark on the back of his left hand. She leaned foreward and gently kissed his lips, and the world around her stuttered and froze.

She blinked wildly as her eyes opened and she found herself in the sarcophagus once again as the Love Cage’s program whirred to a stop and two technicians hurried over to her. She frowned slightly, because even though she’d been in the Love Cages more often than not for the last two months, she had only ever been greeted by one tech at a time when she emerged. The younger of the two she recognized as he helped pull her into a standing position, but the older one had a dark expression on his face as he cleared his throat, “Ms. Nately, the management wants to speak with you.”

Alyssa balked slightly, and slid her hands over her bare chest, feeling exposed for the first time since she’d started visiting the Green Serpent, “What do they want? Is there some sort of problem?”

“Please, come with me.” he turned without waiting for her to get dressed, and the younger tech passed her a robe with an apologetic half-smile.

Alyssa hurried after the tech, only too aware of how her large thighs slapped together noisily. They made their way up to a room that overlooked the machine galleries beneath them, and when the tech knocked on the door, a low, gravelly female voice behind it grumbled, “Come in.”

The tech slide the corrugated metal door aside and gestured that Alyssa should enter but made no move to follow. She hurried in and the door slammed shut behind her, leaving her in a medium sized room laden with a large, stained couch, silken rugs and an extremely feline woman in pleather pants and a white robe who lounged with a pipe between her lips.

Alyssa blushed as she became all-too-aware of how huge and blubbery she looked in conjunction to the woman before her, how her own swollen, droopy breasts looked like a sad parody of the tight, tiny cleavage before her. The woman on the couch coughed and gestured for Alyssa to sit on a stool near her that looked like it would buckle under her weight.

The large woman shook her head, “I’m okay standing, thanks.”

“I am Ng Xia, I am the owner and proprietor of all this.” Xia ignored Alyssa’s discomfort and gestured magnanimously around her, “And you are Alyssa Nately, the daughter of the local magistrate, is that right?”

She nodded, but looked at her toes, “I’m not going to report you to him, if that’s what you are worried about.”

“No.” Xia’s perfect lips curled into a smirk, “I figured you are too hooked on program X.11208 to be a danger to us. I brought you up here to discuss something much more personal and immediately impactful to your future.”

“What is that?”

“The fact that you do not have enough credits to pay for the past session you just finished enjoying.”

Alyssa paled, and she stammered, “What? I have enough…I paid before I got in the machine, like I always do!”

“Yes, well, unfortunately the cost has increased, effective immediately.”

“What? This is outrageous!”

“There is a reason for the cost increase that I must inform you of, and, since you were unaware of the change in policy, we will let this sessions slide.” Alyssa’s heart both lifted in relief and sank at the Xia’s tone. The madam lifted herself from the couch with the grace of a panther and stroked the bowl of her pipe thoughtfully, “You, Ms. Nately, have worn the program out.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You understand that these programs are based on the harvested memories of living human brains? They do in fact have finite life-spans and so the more they are used, the more frayed and unstable they become. This is why the price has increased: the program X.11208 has probably about four more sessions left in it before it is completely unusable.”

“But…” Alyssa’s eyes fogged over as she struggled not to cry, “That means I’ll never see him again after…”

“That is correct, yes. I mean, the man is out there somewhere, if you felt like actually going out and having a genuine human interaction,” Xia’s eyes moved up and down Alyssa’s body like a grocer looking at wares, “But that really isn’t your style… is it?”

Alyssa took a deep breath and hugged herself tightly. Her sessions at the Green Serpent had been on the fore-front of her mind for the past two months. She couldn’t sleep anymore, the desire for the man in the program was too intense. Her father had attempted to set her up with some of the cops on the force, but none of them measured up to the beauty and intensity of the man she had only ever really met vicariously, and whose vicarious penis was so much better and more fulfilling than any she’d ever actually encountered.

She cleared her throat, but her voice still sounded weak, even to her, “What can I do?”

“What I suggested before, or you could look at some of our other programs.”

“Did you get any other memories from that same donor?” Alyssa’s voice lilted with sudden hope, but she still couldn’t meet Xia’s eyes.

“Yes, but none like that one, and no others with that same man. Apparently, what you have been experiencing was a ‘One-Night-Stand.’” the old platitude sounded somehow obscene coming from Xia, but that could also have been helped by the crude smirk she still wore.

Alyssa abruptly stood up and managed, “I’m going now. I can’t…” she couldn’t get any more out, so she just stood helplessly with a trembling chin and clenched fists.

Xia nodded and sat back down fluidly, “Negan, the tech who brought you here, is waiting outside with your things. Feel free to schedule another session, if you so choose.” The madam looked out the window dismissively, and Alyssa instinctively knew that their conversation was over.

She hurried out the door and wordlessly accepted her things from Negan, who soundlessly glided next to her as she walked out like a smug ghost. It wasn’t until she’d walked a block that she realized that she was still wearing nothing but the robe and she had cut her bare feet on the gravel. She swore, and let some of the tears that had been building behind her eyes spill out onto her hot cheeks.

“Excuse me?” a man’s voice, deep and strangely familiar, sounded from over her left shoulder. She turned, and saw the outline of a tall man obscured by her tears. She sniffled, and vaguely wondered if the man was about to rape her and, if he did, if she could sell the memory to Ng Xia in exchange for exclusive rights to program X. 11208, “Miss, you dropped this.”

The man held out her shoe, and Alyssa’s heart stopped for a moment when she realized that the man had a crescent-shaped scar in the back of his hand. Her gaze snapped up and she blinked rapidly, clearing her tears out of the way so that she could focus on the man’s face.

She knew immediately that it was him, it was the man from the program. He had the same matching scar above his perfect blue eyes, and his reddish hair was just as tousled as she remembered it. She mutely stared at him and took her shoe as he smiled, just like she had seen so many times before, and began to walk away, the white technician’s coat he wore making everything so much more obvious. Ng Xia’s knowing smile meant so much more now that Alyssa realized how the madam knew that this man existed: it was obvious now that Alyssa could see that he worked for her.

Her heart leapt in her chest with joy, reveling in the knowledge that he existed, that once the program was over, he wouldn’t be gone forever. Alyssa watched him as he walked away for a few seconds before she began to hurry after him, a huge grin on her face. Her joy lasted almost four steps before she stopped dead, the horror of reality sinking in.

She was fat. She was ugly. She had nothing to offer him in the real world. Alyssa wilted, her tears springing back into her eyes as she watched him, her ultimate fantasy so close, and yet completely unattainable. She glanced down at the tangle of clothes in her arms and, clutched in her free hand, the shoe he had returned to her, and she was overwhelmed with despair. Like every other man she had ever pursued, he would find someone more beautiful, more elegant and lean and she would once more be alone without even the program at the Green Serpent to fall back on. She sighed and began to walk the short two blocks back to her house in silence, knowing that only rejection waited for her with him.

And then it occurred to her, as she stared down at the heavy shoe in her hands, that wasn’t her only alternative. A strange thought took shape in her brain, and she realized that not only could she have her fantasy, she could have as many as she wanted with him, whether he wanted to or not.  She started after him, but froze dead as she realized that another technician who stood only a short distance from her was silently watching. She realized that it was Negan, and that he had been standing there for some time.

He smiled and said, “Madam Ng wanted me to tell you that she won’t charge you for the use of her technician. Just submit five memories every two weeks, and enjoy.” he turned and walked away, and it wasn’t until he had disappeared into the darkness that Alyssa realized what he was saying.

She turned and hurried after her quarry, unable to wipe the broad, hungry smile from her face.