Girl Geek: A Gaming The System Prequel

by Brenna Aubrey

  She immediately messaged me.

  Persephone tells you, Hey babe! Turn on your voice chat!

  I clicked on my settings menu, since it had been a while since I’d turned on voice chat. Lately, it tended to make my game lag, so I hadn’t been using the feature as much as before.

  “Tell me! Was that Virgin Manifesto for real?”

  I fiddled with my headset, readjusting it so the speakers covered my ears. “Yeah…yeah,” I said, trying to hide the doubt in my voice.

  “Wow, you’re a baller, girlfriend. I’m impressed.”

  “Thanks. Glad someone approves.”

  “Oh? Did Heath say something? Guys are so weird about stuff like that.”

  “Yeah.” I sighed. “They aren’t taking it well.”

  “They? Who else? Fallen?”

  I squirmed in my seat, grabbing a Star Wars Happy Meal toy that I’d collected ages ago and fiddling with it. “Yeah, he sent a very terse reply. I answered, telling him it was for real, and he hasn’t replied since.”

  “It’s only been a few hours, right? I wouldn’t sweat it. He’s got a weird schedule, remember?”

  I tossed my completely inked-over envelope into the trash. “Yeah. I guess.”

  “And besides, he’s probably butthurt about it, since he’s got a thing for you.”

  I frowned. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Oh c’mon, don’t play coy. I know you’ve probably suspected it, too. Remember our application of the scientific method?”

  I scoffed. “We were messing around. He doesn’t have a ‘thing’ for me!” I shifted again and tried to ignore that same feeling I got when I was looking for him and he showed up. There’s no way a crush like that could go anywhere, so it was best to suppress it as soon as possible. “How could he? We’ve never seen each other in person… never even had a decent conversation on the phone.”

  “Love finds a way…” she said in a sing-songy voice.

  Love… now that was just crazy talk.

  I scoffed. “You’re insane.”

  “Lots of people find love online. And tons of people connect via online games like DE. It’s not impossible, Mia.”

  “But in order to be in love, it has to be reciprocal. And it’s not.”

  “Are you sure? I’ve long suspected you might have a little crush, too.”

  I was blushing furiously, now thankful this wasn’t video chat because of the heat radiating off my face and chest from embarrassment—and yeah, acknowledgement—of what she was saying.

  “I think you’re delusional and projecting,” I snapped.

  She heaved a long sigh. “If you say so. Let’s go kill stuff…maybe you’ll have everything figured out about your auction after you commit virtual slaughter.”

  “It is always good for loosening the creative mind.” I laughed.

  And so we did. Instead of doing quests, we parked ourselves in a populous corner of a dungeon and pulled respawns, killing them over and over again.

  Fallen never logged on that night, and this brought about a disappointed, edgy feeling underneath everything else. Katya’s suspicions both scared and thrilled me at the same time. But what did any of this mean, in the long run? And how could anything worthwhile arise between us when he constantly withheld everything from me? FallenOne could never be anything more to me than a good online friend. In a few years, we’d likely be strangers to one another.

  Nevertheless, after all that killing and banter with Katya, I was still no closer to deciding what I was really going to do about the manifesto.

  ***

  For the first time in a long time, I struggled with insomnia. And when I finally did drift off to sleep, I experienced dreams every minute, causing me to wake up exhausted. They popped up persistently, like respawns in the game, coming at me over and over again.

  In one dream, I was at the ranch in Anza…only it was deserted. I was entirely alone. My mom, all the ranch hands, even the horses were gone. It was like I was the last person on earth. I wandered the place, calling out for her—for anyone—with no reply. The wind and my calls echoed back to me without an answer.

  The next thing I knew, I was sitting at a desk in a brightly lit classroom, a blank test in front of me. But I couldn’t read it or understand a thing. The paper was covered with meaningless symbols—or perhaps a foreign language that I couldn’t recognize. I had a stack of pencils lined up perfectly on my desk, all with pristine, sharp points, ready to be used. But as each minute passed and I stared at that paper, it grew harder and harder to comprehend. This was my last chance at the MCAT and I was utterly lost.

  I woke up gasping for air.

  And with a new conviction. I hated this feeling of powerlessness. I was going to be proactive. It was time to take control.

  Not by finally retaking that goddamn test, though. I wasn’t quite ready for that.

  Later in the afternoon, Heath appeared in my doorway, a laptop bag slung crosswise over his massive chest and a solemn cast to his handsome features. Without a word, I stepped aside and let him in.

  He settled gingerly onto my creaky old couch, and I took the beanbag chair on the floor. Then I offered him a chilled water bottle, which he uncapped and promptly downed half.

  “I really really need to know you aren’t punking me with this BS,” was how he began.

  My eyebrows twitched upward and I chewed on my lip. “I’m not that cruel.”

  Heath reached over, unzipped his bag and pulled out his device, opening it with jerky, determined movements.

  “I thought up a list of alternatives to the fuckwit auction.”

  My ire rose and I folded my arms across my chest. “I’m a fuckwit, now?”

  “You aren’t. The auction, however, is. Just hear me out.” He gestured to the list. Whoa…he’d really thought things through, hadn’t he? “First off, you are done with your coursework, so you can get a better paying job than the one you have at the hospital.”

  I frowned. “But the one at the hospital is not just for pay. It’s to help me build my CV for medical school. I need the job for my résumé.”

  “Okay, then you can get a second job.”

  I nodded. “Fine. At a strip club, maybe? They pay well, I hear. I’m a shitty dancer, though.”

  “Then you could wait tables at Hooters.”

  I looked down at my less than ample chest. “Only a gay man would suggest that I had sufficient assets for a job at Hooters.”

  “Then a regular waitress job. Or a receptionist. Or just anything that doesn’t involve you lying on your back and spreading your legs.”

  I stared at him with baleful eyes. “Next?”

  “You could sell off your valuables.”

  I started to laugh so hard I couldn’t breathe. My beater car could maybe get me a thousand or two—that was about it. And he knew damn well I had no valuables. No jewelry, no expensive electronics. Nada.

  “Okay, okay. I was just hoping maybe you had an heirloom or something.”

  “Yes, I have the millions in T-bills from my deadbeat Biological Sperm Donor. But I was saving those for a special occasion.”

  Heath rolled his eyes and resumed reading from his laptop. “There are loans.”

  I held up my hands. “I owe thousands already. Please, stop. This isn’t helping. You don’t think I’ve gone through all of this already? How on earth could I earn enough in a short period of time to help with Mom’s mortgage issue?”

  He shook his head. “You don’t even know how much she owes.”

  “It’s thousands. Of that I’m certain. Now, please spare me the patronizing.”

  He flushed. “I wasn’t trying to…” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  “I know you mean well,” I began, and he gritted his teeth.

  “You can stop with the patronizing, too. I’m just trying to talk sense into your head and show you that this drastic and destructive course is not the only option.”

  I hugged myself
as if trying to summon strength from it, but I remained silent.

  Heath shook his head, shifting his weight while the couch groaned. “I can’t tell you how strongly I feel about this. It was all harmless discussion back when it was just about you losing your virginity. Now you want to monetize it? And for what reason? If your mother found out what you were doing in order to help her, she would freak.”

  I leaned forward, shooting fire from my eyes. “She’s not going to find out, now is she?”

  Heath grimaced. “Not from me. But Mia, this is madness. Truly, I have to say it’s madness. Please just think about this and—”

  I stomped my foot on the ground. “I have been thinking about it. Constantly. So don’t mansplain to me.”

  He laughed and rolled his eyes, throwing his head back on the couch in exasperation. “I’m not mansplaining. Jeezus. I just… I want the best for you. I want you to have a better experience for your first time than what you’re planning. I mean—some skeezy stranger somewhere in a hotel room or whatever?”

  “Well, you said the first time isn’t all that great anyway. Why not do it with a long list of rules and stipulations. It is my body, and I control what happens to it.”

  Heath went absolutely still and let out a long breath. He straightened his head, meeting my gaze. “So that’s what this is about? Having control over the situation? Because of what Zach did to you in high school?”

  I refolded my hands. “Control is very important to me. Especially after this year—almost losing Mom. Failing the MCAT. It’s not just about what happened in high school. It’s about everything.”

  Heath nodded, his mouth slightly agape. “But not just control over this one night. You want control over it all. How it happens. When it happens. What happens afterward…” His voice drifted off.

  I held his gaze and nodded slowly. This all seemed perfectly obvious to me, but he was coming to some lightbulb-moment realization.

  “I think I get it now…the control thing.” His fixed stare continued.

  I took a deep breath and let it go. “No need to psychoanalyze me. You aren’t my shrink.”

  “Maybe you should have a chat with yours.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe I will…when I go up there next.” I had no intention of doing it, mind you, but if it made Heath feel better to think that I might—why not add that to my argument? “Ultimately, it’s my body. My decision. And I’ll do it with or without your help, Heath.”

  “Riiiight…” He nodded. “But if you want my help, you have to convince me you are doing this for the right reasons.”

  I bit my lip. “And what are the right reasons, Heath? Whatever reasons I have for this should be the right reasons for me.”

  His features clouded. “I’m sorry. That sounded arrogant, didn’t it? Like I was in some position to determine what’s best for you. I just—I just don’t want to see you get hurt, Mia.”

  I stood up and slid onto the couch beside him—what little room there was with his big body and laptop bag. “I know you didn’t mean to sound arrogant. But yeah, you know I’m a big girl.”

  “Mia.” He shook his head as he leaned forward. “You have to be sure. And you have to be careful. This is some heavy shit we’re talking about here.”

  I laughed shakily. “I know. It scares the shit out of me, too.” And it was true… my heart was thrumming in my carotid artery, making it hard to swallow. This moment—this blink of an eye where I solidified the resolve to do this—was absolutely terrifying.

  And…liberating.

  “There is so little I can do for her. So little within my power to help her. But this I can do. Heath…please…”

  Heath’s eyes closed and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll help you, then. But only if you let me control it all.”

  And he thought I was having control issues? My eyebrows arched. “Only if that means you don’t call the whole thing off.”

  He shook his head. “No. I won’t do that. You’ll ultimately call the shots on whether or not this thing goes through. But…I want a say on the details. How you set this up. How you protect yourself. The legalese. I have a lawyer friend who can help, I think.”

  I nodded. “I can do that. I can…” My voice faded out, suddenly choked with emotion. “Heath…thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. We have no idea how this whole shitshow is going to turn out.” He leaned forward and pulled me into one of his massive bear hugs. “You know I’d do anything for you, and I’m going to do everything in my power to protect you.”

  “I know. Thank you. And I’m going to do everything in my power to not need that protection.”

  “Whatever skeeve out there who wins this auction and goes to bed with you—”

  “Let’s not think about it like that.” I spoke into his shoulder. “Maybe there’s a nice person out there who is interested in making sure my first time is a good one.”

  “And you think I’m an idealist.”

  “Well, whoever he is, I’ll think of him as a way of making my future secure and proving my new paradigm.” I tried to ignore the lump in my throat. “It’ll be okay, Heath,” I said and cut myself off abruptly when my voice shook. His hold on me tightened, but he said nothing. I closed my eyes and rested my head on his shoulder.

  I just hoped whoever this guy was, he’d leave a nondescript and bland mark on my past—enough to not make a lasting impression. It would be one night of my life, and nothing else would change but the size of my bank account and my status as a virgin.

  Simple as that.

  ***

  “Okay, turn the other way and, um, lean up against the rocks.” Heath held the camera out in front of him, peering at the viewfinder on the back while clicking away.

  A week had passed since our conversation in my apartment. To his credit, Heath hadn’t tried to change my mind again.

  I complied with his instructions, trying to ignore the curious onlookers who glanced at us as they walked past. I was in a yellow and black polka-dot bikini, the beach wind whipping my hair every which way. I pushed it out of my face and tilted my hips to the right, feeling simultaneously silly and daring.

  Ugh. I never wore bikinis. It wasn’t about disliking how my body looked. I’d always felt fine in my own skin—aside from the less than ample chest, anyway.

  But the irony. The sheer irony of posing in a real-life cloth bikini for the benefit of this auction when I’d spent so much of my time railing against the metallic bikinis so often clothing virtual female avatars…

  It felt hypocritical, to be honest.

  I was out of my depth. I’d already mentally accepted the fact that I would be going to bed with some stranger who had paid for the privilege of deflowering me. That I had accepted. But this final straw, posing sexily in this bikini, objectifying myself on the jetty of Corona Del Mar, seemed to be approaching the limit to this entire illicit scheme of mine.

  My throat was tight the entire time, and strangely, I felt detached from my surroundings as Heath ordered me to pout for the camera. Were I not operating in this weird fugue state outside my own reality, I would have laughed at him.

  Shit just got real.

  Later that same day, Heath sent the pics over to me. They were decent—cropped so as to hide my identity.

  I put the post together. First, I listed the Virgin Manifesto along with the photos and a link to the auction site. That link went to another server and site entirely located outside of the country, just as Heath had set up. I’d given myself three weeks to run the auction, and hopefully that would minimize any media frenzy that might crop up. With any luck, soon afterward, the deal would be carried out.

  I scheduled the post for early the next morning while I was still at work, hoping I’d put enough safeguards in place to protect my anonymity.

  Aaaaand I stayed away from social media that day. I went to work then study group and didn’t even open my browser when I got home.

  I avoided emails, too.

&nbs
p; Instead, I logged on to DE and checked my friends list. No one was on. I ran a few minor quests, and sure enough, a half hour later, my notification screen lit up.

  Your friend FallenOne is online.

  My screen immediately flashed with a new private message from Fallen.

  *FallenOne tells you, You’re actually going to let some stranger fuck you for cash?

  My jaw dropped and I drew back from the screen. Wow. He wasn’t going to mince words tonight, was he? He came out with gloves off. So very unlike him, actually. I clenched my jaw and put my hands back on the keyboard to type my response.

  *You tell FallenOne, That’s a rather crude way of putting it. It’s about my new paradigm. It’s a feminist statement.

  Him: It’s prostitution. You are willingly turning yourself into a common hooker.

  Me: One time. And it will all be done in a perfectly legal way.

  Him: Who gives a crap about the legalities? What you are doing is destructive. To YOURSELF. To your future.

  Me: It’s MY body.

  Him: So says every drug addict, every alcoholic, every anorexic out there.

  Me: Are you interested in having an adult conversation about this, or are you going to just insult me?

  Him: If I thought you’d listen, I’d chat your fingers off all night.

  Me: Okay. Well, I’m listening, then.

  Him: Mia, have you considered how this will affect your future? What about if you meet someone you fall in love with… will you tell your future husband that you were a whore for a night?

  Me: Will you tell your future wife about screwing that girl on the conference table at your uncle’s office? What difference does it make? How much do people really know or want to know about their partners’ previous lovers?

  Him: That’s not the same. At all.

  Me: And if you fell in love with a woman and were about to marry her, would it make a difference to you if she’d told you she sold sex for money in the past? You’d break up with her because of it?

  We went back and forth like that—for hours. My fingers ached and still he typed. Sometimes big paragraph-long treatises about the destructive nature of sex work and how these actions really were counter to the feminist message that I’d conveyed on my blog—no matter how much I’d couched them in that “silly manifesto.”