She tilted her head for a better look at his package. As he eased his pajama pants over his hips into a puddle on the floor, she noticed he was much like Aaron in that respect as well.
The man … Min … looked majestic in the pale light of the room. His hardened shaft stood to attention, the tip of his cock tapping at his abdomen. It was nice to know Mins were anatomically correct, and Connie shifted her ass on the couch to better accommodate that particular anatomical part.
“Fackon nin,” she said, offering him a coy smile. Min Aaron nodded and rested one knee on the edge of sofa and maneuvered his body for entry. The Min pushed his cock in to the hilt, filling her tight pussy. Connie relished her new lover’s low grown and held fast to his bottom, guiding his hips up and down as he fucked her.
“This feels so good, I wish I could tell you how much I’ve missed this,” she said. If only she knew Minese for Don’t stop.
Min Aaron appeared too involved in pleasing her, and being pleased, to listen. Light kisses rained on her face, her neck, her breasts. He caught a nipple between his teeth and muffled his own gasping. Connie closed her eyes to focus on his cock throbbing against her vaginal walls, the ridges and curves creating a friction inside her that soon brought her lover to orgasm. A Mingasm, it surely was not. Min Aaron tore roughly away from her breast and cried out before collapsing on top of her.
They lay twined together, catching their breath. Connie slid her fingers lovingly over Min Aaron’s bare leg and rubbed the sheen of sweat between her fingers. It was real, just like everything here, just like everything that had happened.
Suddenly, going home to the real world wasn’t so much of a priority.
Chapter Four
Connie woke the next morning to the salty aroma of sizzling bacon and a high soprano. Correction: she woke oh so ungodly early to the salty aroma of sizzling bacon and the high soprano of a roommate who clearly had good reason to sing.
Roommate? She sang in English, too.
Connie bolted upright with a gasp, the rough, green blanket from the sofa tucked around her lap and outstretched legs. The Min love nest was gone, as were the Minet, the kitschy furniture, and Min Aaron. She had returned to Darla’s apartment, back in the clothes she was wearing when the computer sucked her into the fantasy world, and it appeared the only souvenir she managed to bring home was a throbbing headache.
How did it happen, that she just faded back here? Connie remembered feeling no pulsing sensation, no invisible fingers stroking her sensitive parts before they lifted her and launched her back to the world of the living. The last thing she recalled, felt, and sensed was the warmth of Min Aaron’s heaving body as he collapsed post-orgasm on top of her. She must have drifted off to sleep then.
She sighed. Only to wake up here, with no chance for morning sex. Connie’s pussy ached for such attention. Darla, unfortunately, didn’t swing that way. Maybe Roy came home with her.
Damn it. Maybe, too, it had all been a dream, a delicious, soaked dream. Connie could feel the crotch of her panties sticking to her, and she slid a hand underneath her sweatpants to adjust them. Amazing, a dream had never before affected her like this.
She peered over the high curve of the sofa and watched with bleary vision as her friend hummed around the kitchen. Darla practically bounced with every step. No sense asking how her night went.
“Well, hello, sleepyhead,” Darla chided as she arranged glasses and silverware on the cafe table off the galley kitchen. She looked positively chipper in her emerald satin robe, cinched at the waist to accentuate her full bosom and slender hips.
The bitch.
“Coffee or juice?”
Connie yawned as she stumbled forward and slumped in the first available chair. “Either one. They both mix well with vodka, right?”
A playful slap to the shoulder was Darla’s answer, and Connie glanced at the table. Only two places were set. “One of these is for me, right?”
“Yes,” Darla scowled at Connie from the stove. “Surely you know me better than that, Connie.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie.” Connie was contrite. By way of apology she took the liberty of pouring them orange juice. “I know you’ve had a thing for Roy for the longest time, and really I wouldn’t have blamed you if…”
Darla sighed as she laid out the cooked bacon on a wire rack covered with a paper towel. “Believe you me, girl, it took about ninety percent of my will power to walk back across that street to this condo.”
“You mean Gentlemen Roy didn’t escort you home?” Connie sipped her juice.
“He did.” Darla cracked two eggs into the puddle of bacon fat bubbling in the skillet.
Connie’s arteries hardened just at the sight of it—the low-carbohydrate revolution was going to kill her. She could only hope that when this breakfast did kill her, she would make a thin, attractive corpse worthy of an open-casket service.
“The remaining ten percent of my willpower was used to get inside alone,” Darla continued with a sigh. “Then I saw you zonked out on the couch, and you looked so peaceful I didn’t wake you.”
“You-you didn’t?” Connie’s heart sank.
“I could sense he didn’t want to leave, either, but in the end it’s better to move slowly. Oh, but that goodnight kiss!”
“Uh, Darla,” Connie said haltingly, “exactly when did you come home?”
“Hm?” Darla looked up from cooking breakfast. “Oh, about one or so.”
“One or so.” Connie idly tapped the tines of her fork against her chin. How long had she been in the Min world? It had to have been a while; assuming she was transferred around midnight, and she and Min Aaron had been together at least an hour—it had been nice to know the Min’s ability to go the distance matched his real-life counterpart’s. Still, it was doubtful she’d been zapped home the second she fell unconscious.
“You’re sure it was me?” Connie asked.
“Connie, you’re being ridiculous. You were zonked on the couch, and you left the computer on. I shut it off, put the blanket on you, and went to bed.”
“Ah.” So it had been a dream. Double damn. She had looked forward to another round of DoMINion, and finding out if Min Aaron’s stamina could exceed her husband’s as well.
Darla resumed her humming and scrambling, and Connie had to laugh at her friend’s dreamy expression. “Darla, I do declare, you’re swooning.”
“Swooning?” Darla laughed. “Do people still do that in this century?”
“Well, what would you call it?”
“Creaming my shorts.”
Connie grimaced at her friend’s bluntness. Ah, romance. But, who was she to judge, waking to such a state herself.
She then fell serious. “Darla, I hope you didn’t feel you had to turn him away on my account.” In the short time Connie had been staying with Darla, it never occurred to her that she and Darla had to establish rules for overnight guests. Though Darla was one of her closest friends, the two women normally did not discuss intimate matters; besides, Darla’s sex life was really not her business.
As for Connie, the thought of bringing home men never entered her mind. Aaron and Connie had been separated for only three months now, and in her mind they were still married, even if Aaron saw it differently. Perhaps that was what made the Min dream so vivid. There was indeed a small part of her that didn’t want to date other men, not with the slim chance of reconciliation coloring her hopes. A slim chance was still a chance, and she did still love Aaron.
And she had loved what Min Aaron did to her last night.
Correction, she reminded herself. She enjoyed what she dreamed Min Aaron did to her. Was that considered cheating? He was so much like her husband, though.
Darla finished scrambling the eggs and divided them between two bright orange Fiestaware dishes, which she set on the table. “Well, now that you mention it, Roy and I are going out for dinner at this place on the Oceanfront tonight. Raw oyster appetizers,” she sang. “But you needn’t worry. If a
nything happens, big if, Roy lives alone.”
“At the beach? On a teacher’s salary?”
“He’s down by Ocean View, not as expensive there as it is over here now. Come to think of it, it was possible once to live on this stretch of beach cheaply,” she countered wryly. “Good thing I bought before the real estate prices skyrocketed.”
“Don’t I know it?” Connie remembered how much, rather how little, she and Aaron had paid for their house. The place had since tripled in value. “I’ll be out of your hair sooner than you think,” Connie said. “You can enjoy this place by yourself again.” Or, maybe with Roy, as well as things were going between them.
Darla patted Connie’s hand. Scrambled egg flaked from her fork. “Oh, Connie. You don’t have to say things like that. You know you can stay as long as you need to.”
Connie did know, and she smiled. Darla’s companionship was the one thing preventing her from experiencing a total breakdown in the wake of her separation. Perhaps, in her subconscious, she acknowledged this change in Darla’s relationship with Roy as a sign to give her friend some space. It had been a while since Darla enjoyed a healthy, romantic relationship, and Roy was a nice guy. They didn’t need a third wheel crowding them.
The two women left the conversation on hold and enjoyed their breakfast. Darla had brought inside the paper before cooking, and they spent the rest of the meal trading sections. Connie read Dear Abby and her horoscope, found nothing in either that promised good fortune, then grabbed the front page for the lottery numbers in hopes of better news.
She found the Fortune Five numbers by the weather graphic and froze. She did not hear Darla’s voice at first.
“Connie, you okay?” she asked, concerned. “You just turned white as a sheet.”
Connie swallowed back her heart. She eyed the lottery ticket she bought the night before, now pinned to the refrigerator by a cow-shaped magnet. “I got four of the five numbers, Darla.” She knew it immediately without having to check; she played the same five numbers every week.
“You did? That’s great!” Darla cried. “This must be our lucky weekend. How much does four out of five pay this week?”
Payment on the Fortune Five varied week to week, depending on whether the pot rolled over and how many tickets were sold. Connie scanned the graph underneath the winning numbers. Her breath caught in her throat.
No way. This did not happen.
“I won a thousand dollars.”
“Connie, you’re being ridiculous,” Darla told her as she pouted to her vanity mirror and applied her lipstick. To Connie, leaning against her bedroom doorway, it sounded more like Cawhnie, you beeen weedicurus.
“Dar, I’m telling you, this is more than mere coincidence, winning that money. Every move I made on the computer screen corresponded to what went down with you and Roy last night, too.”
Darla cast her a sharp glance. “What?”
Connie could sense her friend’s sudden irritation.
“Well, you know.” Connie shrugged. “While you were on the phone I clicked the joke button and you laughed, then I had Min Roy ask Min Darla out, and next thing I know you’re ducking out to go to the Duck-In.”
“Coincidence,” Darla insisted. “It’s a video game I bought because a teacher recommended it. It’s not magic. I didn’t purchase it from some goth curio shop on the beach run by some bald, Oriental man with bad teeth and a milky eye.”
“Yeah.” Still, winning the thousand dollars, technically on the same night she had entered that cheat code to boost Min Connie’s bank account, spooked Connie. It lent credence, too, to the theory that perhaps her night of passion with Min Aaron was real. She sure as hell wasn’t going to tell Darla about that, though. If Darla thought she was crazy now…
She thought of Aaron and Suzy, and what they might be doing. Had the argument she created between the Mins happened for real? For that matter, had Aaron … No. Connie was a light sleeper, and if she had been home all night as Darla claimed, she’d have heard Aaron trying to get into the apartment.
Then why didn’t she hear Darla come home? Curiouser and curiouser.
Connie had no way of knowing how Suzy and Aaron’s night ended, and she certainly wasn’t going to call her soon-to-be-ex and ask. They probably enjoyed an incredible night of lovemaking in positions the most flexible yogi couldn’t perform. Damn it all.
“What’s that, sweetie?”
“Huh?” Connie glanced at Darla’s quizzical expression. She hadn’t realized she said that last part out loud, and Darla did not need to know that Mins in the guise of Aaron and Suzy had been created for sadistic purposes. “Nothing.”
“Don’t look so down.” Darla smoothed her lips together and smiled at the result. “You won a thousand bucks. Now,” she grabbed her purse, “let’s go spend it.”
Connie felt it only fair to split the money with Darla, seeing as how her rent was much less than what Darla could normally have gotten for the spare room in her condo. Darla bought a dynamite-looking black cocktail dress and strappy heels with a clutch purse, perfect for her date. Connie raided the bookstore, then the music shop to complete her catalogue of Beatles and Fleetwood Mac.
Last stop was Hot Bytes, a computer software boutique specializing in new and used games, where she found an upgrade program called Love’s DoMINion.
Connie read the description aloud to Darla as they waited in line to pay. “Basically it’s an expansion pack to the original DoMINion game. You can add more dating situations, there’s more people in Min City to meet…”
Love’s DoMINion. Connie could only imagine the possibilities with a new module like this. Would Min Aaron be equipped with the ability to perform longer, harder … more often?
More importantly, would she be able to find out for herself? Connie clutched the box to her chest. She couldn’t wait to get back to the computer.
“You need to be meeting real people,” Darla said sharply. “I’m sorry I brought that stupid game home. You’re going to end up turning into one of those people who lives on the computer. Your thighs are going to double in width from the lack of exercise.”
“I’ll be fine.” Connie tried to shake off the remark, yet the image of her thighs, pale and ballooned like swollen sausages, loomed large in her mind. “I’ll do extra yoga tonight. Besides,” Connie’s voice fell, “I don’t feel right going out to meet other men while I’m still married.” Men in the real world, anyway.
“Married.” Darla snorted. “Aaron doesn’t seem to have a problem with it, why should you? Your marriage isn’t worth the paper on which the license is printed.”
“It could be, again.” Connie’s voice was small. She really wanted to believe it.
“It’s not. Forget about him, forget about that damn game. Find a real man.”
The customer in front of them cleared away with her bags, and Connie pulled the last twenty remaining from her winnings, paper that was actually worth something. Darla was right; Aaron’s fidelity was paper thin, at least when it came to her.
“When I left Aaron, I wanted to do something destructive. I wondered how fast my marriage license would burn.” Connie held up the twenty before surrendering it to the cashier. “Probably not as quickly as we burned through these lottery winnings. This has to a be a world’s shopping record.”
“If only shopping for a new man could be this easy,” Darla said.
Connie laughed, but still, the thought of replacing him as quickly as he replaced her seemed overwhelming. Living in the fantasy of DoMINion, though, seemed harmless. She could enjoy the pleasure of great sex without enduring guilt…
Connie smiled to herself. Perhaps, too, she could explore a few fantasies Aaron had never allowed her, assuming she could return to the Min realm. It was worth a shot; she didn’t have any plans tonight.
Connie took her receipt from the teenaged cashier and watched him bag the video game. Of the thousand dollars won, only a few bills were left. She fanned them out for Darla to see be
fore stuffing them into her purse.
“Nice,” Darla said, “Just enough for a cigarette lighter.”
“I was thinking of ice cream.”
Darla shrugged. “That’ll work.”
Chapter Five
This time the real Roy was the gentleman, arriving at eight exactly with a modest yet lovely array of wildflowers. Darla used a plastic tumbler for a vase and scooted out the door behind him, blowing a kiss into the house as Connie loaded the new game program.
“Try not to get our little friends arrested,” she warned playfully.
“How about pregnant?” Connie called, her trigger finger on the mouse.
“Not funny.”
Now alone, Connie chuckled to herself as the Min neighborhood came into aerial view. The love nest of Min Aaron and Min Suzy looked none the worse for wear, though Min Aaron was still on the couch where she had left him before replacing Min Connie inside the game. Min Connie was snug in her bed, as well.
Odd, Connie thought. Did he go back there afterward? From the looks of things, it appeared the game had been paused at the point she was transferred home. The clocks all registered two in the morning, with everybody frozen in time.
So she’d been gone that long? Yet, Darla came home at one and saw her on the couch.
Min Connie?
Connie shook her head. It was too much to comprehend right now, but it made sense. Her character had to go somewhere when she was displaced in the game. Assuming Connie could get back into DoMINion, and assuming this was all true, she hoped her Min counterpart would behave in the real world.
Palms sweating, she took a deep breath and maneuvered the mouse to the options menu. Yet, no matter how many combinations she tried on the drop-down menu, the Go! command couldn’t be found. Surely, she hadn’t imagined it last night! It had been the first of two choices to pop up when she moved to quit.
What to Read After FSOG: The Gemstone Collection (WTRAFSOG Book 9) Page 141
