The Goddess Quest

by Lawrence Ambrose

  So fucking earnest, she thought. And so fucking sweet that she imagined his sweat tasting sugary...no, something healthy and organic...maybe raw honey? He oozed goodness and compassion like a punctured pustule of benevolence. At six-two, with long blond hair, broad shoulders, a flat stomach, cute dimples, and a little blond goatee that let you know he was sensitive intellectual concerned about the Earth, injustices to women, and politically correct terminology like "cis" – not just another handsome, dumb jock! And yes, he had inspired her modeling of Dionysus, though her Dionysus had green eyes instead of his soulful brown and was even more ridiculously beautiful and buff.

  "I didn't realize you'd become a world-renowned authority on the symptoms of Friedreich's ataxia, Brad," said Alex. "Are you adding another major onto your double major of physical therapy and computer science?"

  Brad affected a good-natured smile. He was not an aficionado of sarcasm, but he was tolerant and open-minded enough to accept it from others on a limited basis.

  "No," he laughed. "I'm running ragged enough on two."

  They moved to the lower back machine. Alex could feel her vertebrae cursing her before she even sat down. He helped her into position, unnecessarily, on the seat. But she didn't protest. He was a hands-on type and she liked it that way. It was her bi-weekly dose of real-life sensuality. The exercise was a tragic necessity: without it, her body would deteriorate more rapidly and be unable to tolerate her marathon sessions in the Verse.

  In her weaker moments, Alex fantasized about fucking him. She imagined it being like cozying up to a warm, cuddly teddy bear with a big cock (or so she imagined). But she found the notion of being in him far more appealing than him being in her.

  "See you at the lab tomorrow morning as usual?" Brad asked when the masochistic training marathon was over.

  "Yup," said Alex. "Thanks."

  Brad paused, frowning, squinching his big brown eyes as if screwing up his courage to say something. God, she hoped he wasn't about to ask her out. It would be just like him to think it was his civic duty – to prove his moral worth – to take her on a date and maybe even have pity sex with her. Her mousy little semi-cripple to his hunky justice warrior. So she stared at him coolly, not giving him any psychological wriggle-room. If he had the balls to ask her out when she was giving him that look, so be it. But Brad wasn't the kind of guy who thought being ballsy with a woman was disrespectful. Let him hang on his own petard.

  "So..." He tugged at his wispy goatee. "I'll, uh, see you later, Alexandra."

  He walked off, swinging a towel over one muscular shoulder, casting a sad-eyed look back at her before entering the male locker room. If only I could save the poor little gimp! he was probably thinking.

  Alex turned from him to the sour gaze of her friend, perched on a sit-up bench across from her. Brandon didn't approve of Brad or of their relationship, which consisted of her trading twice-weekly counseling/tutoring sessions on programming and computer-related studies in exchange for Brad's physical therapy. It seemed like a good match: Brad found it hard to juggle the two disciplines while she found it next-to-impossible to make herself work out. It was a match made, if not in heaven, in some virtual facsimile of purgatory.

  But Brandon, she knew, worried that she might abandon her tough-guy façade and fall in love with the politically correct man-stud just as any good little girl would. No matter how many times she assured Brandon it wasn't a façade, that she really preferred, really got off, on being a man – a transvirtualgender man, as she sometimes joked – Brandon just couldn't completely accept it. He figured just because she didn't to screw him – which he was capable of, with some minor assistance – she really hungered for some able-bodied Adonis.

  Brandon rolled over to her. She pushed to her feet with relative ease, body still warm and relatively compliant from the workout.

  "I thought for sure for a moment he was about to ask you out," he said, his mouth puckered as if he'd bitten into a rotten fruit.

  "And who could blame him? A babe like me."

  "If only he could see you in our world." A smile broke through his lip-puckering.

  "Maybe he has seen me or us. He's walked by us and we didn't know."

  "Oh, I think we would know, D. Because he'd be the knight in white armor riding a white steed."

  Alex laughed. "I don't doubt that's how he sees himself."

  "You realize he's gonna ask you out, right?"

  "How would you know that?"

  "Male intuition."

  Alex snorted. She grasped his chair's rear handles and started fake-pushing him toward the front doors.

  "You might be right, Bran," she said. "I'm guessing he wouldn't feel good about himself if he didn't make the noble gesture."

  "Right. No offense, but that's exactly what it would be about."

  "Don't rub it in. I know I'm no catch."

  "Not saying that. Too bad you don't have a thing for two-appendaged soul brothers, 'cause I think you're the bomb."

  "The F-bomb, anyway." She smiled at the back of his head. "You've got a 150 IQ and love Wagner. How much soul can you have?"

  "It's 157."

  "Sorry. Confused you with the dumb black guy in our class."

  Brandon's grunt was well short of a laugh. "What will you say when he does ask you, 'Alexandra'?"

  "No."

  "You could tell him you're a lesbian."

  "Or I could just be semi-honest and tell him I'm a transvirtualgender male. That would probably do the trick."

  Brandon chuckled. "You think you're going to see Athena again?"

  They rolled out through the front doors. They weren’t too far from the car – the Rec Center actually having a parking lot that rarely filled – so Alex elected to walk with him.

  "I don't know. She's v-texted me a few times about getting together and so far I've politely put her off."

  "Maybe I should step in. I sure wouldn't mind a piece of that – even if she's only half as good as you said."

  "You'd compete against the incomparable Dionysus?"

  "I'm bigger than you now."

  "You upgraded, you macho bastard!"

  "Man got a reputation to maintain."

  "It's not about size, you savage brute. It's about feelings, about being sensitive to the other person's needs, about listening and communication."

  They paused at Brandon's van. For an instant, she thought she saw something akin to fear in his eyes. Then she grinned and they both cracked up.

  "How about a threesome?" Bran asked.

  "What kind of man-girl do you think I am, you sick fuck."

  "Hold that thought."

  He backed onto his lift, which hoisted him into the van. Alex followed. They cruised out of the parking lot. She couldn't feel too sorry for Bran. In his van, he was in his element, the master of his domain – perhaps even more than the Verse, though he would never grant that.

  "But seriously, why not a threesome?" Brandon asked. "You're so liberated and evolved."

  "What?" Alex patted her less than ample chest. "Do I look liberated and evolved?"

  "You always told me you have only one rule," said Brandon. "No rules, right?"

  "Except that one rule, yeah, and also not screwing your friends."

  They drove out to the frontage road paralleling the highway and headed north toward the gated community that circumscribed their homes.

  "I agree with what you've said before," said Brandon. "Sex makes you needy, dependent. Makes you think you've got a bond with someone, even if you're don't. It creates false expectations."

  "You get an A for memorizing my sermon."

  "But I don't want to die a virgin, Alex. You could say that's a recurring nightmare of mine." He paused for a few deep breaths. "I have near-normal 'reproductive function.' Why not stop being virgins together?"

  "I kind of like the irony of being a virgin in the Real."

  Bran stopped talking. He clamped his jaw shut.

  "You've said you're near-fully fu
nctional." Alex gathered her courage, if not her good sense. "Does that mean you don't need any special preparations? You could do it on a moment's notice?"

  Brandon glanced at her, his eyes questioning. "Yes. No special preparations. I have retrograde ejaculation, so almost no risk of pregnancy..."

  "Almost? So there is a risk?"

  "Well, minimal to none." His Adam's apple bobbed. "And I, uh, do have, uh, protection."

  ''Uh protection.'" Alex stared at him. "Thinking you'd get lucky?"

  "I was hoping...uh...someday...with, you know, someone."

  Alex nodded. He was a guy, after all. She could relate.

  "Okay," she said. "Pull over. Those trees. The dirt road leading into them."

  His eyes went wide. "You're serious...?"

  "Let's do this thing. Now, before I change my mind."

  Brandon squeezed the brake handle. They lurched forward, the seatbelt digging into Alex's right shoulder. The van squealed and shimmied off the frontage road onto the dirt road.

  "Easy," Alex murmured.

  But Brandon was not about to lose control of his four-wheeled pride and joy. He reined the van in, spinning and holding the steering knob like a sea captain masterfully guiding his ship through rough waters into a clearing carved out of brush under some black walnut trees. Bran slapped it into park, killed the engine, vaulted on his hands into the wheelchair between them, popped a box of condoms from the glove compartment, and rolled back into the central lift area – all in one near-seamless motion.

  Alex couldn't help but be impressed. She was also having severe second thoughts. Pregnancy, for one. The worst thing she'd ever gotten from virtual sex was a slight headache. A baby was a lifetime of headaches. Not that her life would be that long, but she preferred it didn't involve changing diapers.

  Brandon, in a paroxysm of eagerness, had already slid out of his chair onto the floor and was unbuttoning his pants. Oh God. Fear reduced Alex's steps to even more of a waddle than usual. He had his pants down. His ebony tool – more a chocolate-brown, really – was on the rise. A plastic bag partly filled with urine clung with a plastic funnel to his right thigh. His tumescent cock and urine-bag warred for her attention. Bran tugged his pants back up to cover the bag.

  "Sorry," he said. "Not very sexy, I know."

  None of it is sexy, Alex thought. But it was interesting, in a disturbing, clinical, science-project way. She had the twisted sense that she was about to have gay sex, as if having sex as a female betrayed her true essence as a man. So strange that this felt far less real than fucking a girl in the Omniverse. Reality really could be stranger than fiction.

  "It's okay, Bran," she said.

  "You don't look okay."

  Alex bit her lower lip and pulled off her Spandex top. Brandon slipped his condom into place. She'd seen too much and made Brandon do too much to back out now. Cowardice was not an option. This was her best friend. Time to man-up.

  Alex dropped her jeans and kicked them to one side. Next, her panties. She didn't have much by way of pubic hair, and wasn't sure whether to be proud or ashamed. She chose indifferent. Alex was ogling her like a teenager watching his first porn, and she wasn't sure how she felt about that. Not turned on – but not repulsed, either. Something nice about being wanted even in this pathetic form.

  Alex kneeled beside him. She wasn't used to seeing her friend shirtless. His muscularity surprised her: defined pecs, veined biceps and forearms, softball-shaped shoulders. From the waist up he was a total jock. And his dick – if not vintage BBC, was well above average and more than adequate to cause her tight little maidenhead considerable pain.

  Good. Pain was an old frenemy.

  Alex straddled him. A long, drawn-out breath and she gripped his chocolate tool.

  "Be gentle," said Brandon. His tone was light but shaky. He wasn't joking.

  "Not a chance."

  Brave words. Grasping his cock, she inserted it where her sun didn't shine and wriggled her way downward. She might as well have been impaling herself on a baseball bat. The pain was a sharp burning wedge that just kept expanding. Hello torment, my old friend. I've come to talk with you again. Bran groaned, and she wasn't sure it was in pleasure or pain. He grabbed her breasts. She closed her eyes and bore down again and again.

  Minutes, hours, centuries later –

  "Jesus, Alex," Bran cried, his legs spasming. "I'm coming! I can't believe it!"

  Alex lifted off him in on shaky legs.

  "Holy crap." Brand stared at his throbbing cock in wonder. "That was incredible! I almost never come playing with myself or in VR!"

  "Great." Alex flopped to one side of him, trying not to grimace. Her pussy felt as if it had embraced a red-hot poker. Her eyes settled on a white mass inflating the end of his condom.

  "Wait a minute. What's that?"

  Alex followed her gaze.

  "Oh, shit," he said. "That's...never happened before, I swear, A."

  Alex turned away, reaching for her panties.

  "It's all contained – nothing leaked out!" He pointed a triumphant finger. "See!"

  "You must be a superhero able to see on the microscopic level." Alex shot him a scowl. "Retrograde ejaculation, my ass."

  "I told you, it never happened before." Bran pushed himself into a sitting position, pulling tissue paper from the side of his chair. "It felt so good it must've reversed itself." He attempted a grin. "What can I say? Your hotness cured me, Alex."

  Alex continued to dress. She had a sudden image of throwing him to the ground in the virtual world and taking him brutally up the ass.

  "Was it terrible for you?" Guilt was creeping into Brandon's voice. "Did I hurt you?"

  "It wasn't completely excruciating."

  "I'm sorry, Alex. I wish it hadn't hurt you."

  "Hey, I agreed to it. But trust me when I tell you there will be no repeat."

  Brandon's face fell. He turned from her to unsnap the plastic ramp on the underside of his chair and jockeyed his way back into his seat, avoiding Alex's eyes. She fought a pang of guilt for shutting him down so bluntly.

  "I've never seen your legs kicking and jerking around like that, by the way," she said.

  "It happens." He shrugged. "I've noticed it particularly while having one of my rare orgasms."

  "Too bad you can't harness the power of an orgasm to walk."

  "Yea, well, don't think I haven't thought about that. A lot of us have. But for now, I'm cursed with legs that move when I don't want them to and don't move when I want them to."

  They returned to their seats. A funereal mood set in. And so began, thought Alex, the archetypal period of regret for sleeping with a friend.

  Or she could simply shrug it off as a valuable life experience and regret nothing. The fact that Brandon had wanted to have sex with her had already altered their relationship. If she hadn't given in, he would've continued to pine after her. Resentments could build and push them apart. That could happen now. Bran might resent her for never agreeing to do it again. He might decide to think of her as a romantic partner instead of a friend. His choice. If he pursued those agendas, they would cease to be friends. But that could've happened without the sex.

  It was a coin-toss. So Alex was going with "valuable life experience."

  "UH, ALEXANDRA..."

  They were sitting in the Computer Science Building's study hall, and Brad had just closed up his C++ manual. Alex had done everything she could to place Brad on the path to programming righteousness, but for Brad, constructing code was like a drunk trying to play Pick-up sticks.

  "Yes, Bradley," she said. "What is it?"

  "Please – Brad. I prefer Brad, if you don't mind."

  "Just as I prefer Alex?"

  "Fair enough." He nodded and smiled. "I know you told me that, but I can't seem to make myself call you a guy's name."

  "I know." Alex fluffed a few strands of her hair. "It's kind of like calling Marilyn Monroe 'Marty' or something, right?"

  Brad's smile
stretched until it thinned out at the edges. His big brown eyes glistened with earnest intent.

  "I know you're being sarcastic," he said. "But I really wish you wouldn't put yourself down like that. You may not be a movie star – who of us is? – but you're an attractive person. You have so many things going for you."

  Alex stared at him through listing eyelids, waiting for the other shoe to fall.

  "I know you've been dealt a bad hand," he said. "But new research is happening all the time, isn't it? You could have a good life with someone if you opened yourself up to it."

  "You want to get married, Brad? Father kids with me? Be my full-time nurse?"

  "Maybe later." He let out a short laugh. "Right now, I was thinking more of going out for some coffee or lunch sometime."

  "Not dinner? I'm not even worth dinner?"

  "Drinks, dinner, a movie, whatever," he said, with another brief laugh. "I'm totally up for that. I'm just trying not to make you feel pressured or anything."

  "I don't."

  "Then what do you say? Whatever you want."

  "You know what I could go for? A cheeseburger. Make that a double-cheeseburger, triple-meat, a few strips of bacon, and an extra-large side of fries."

  "We can do that," he said, wrinkling his nose a little. "Though being serious I would suggest the Green Palace. Almost everything on the menu is organic and vegan and super-good tasting, too."

  "Oh, wow."

  He gave her a thin smile. "Or we can get cheeseburgers. One burger isn't going to kill you."

  "So that's what you want? To buy me food? You don't want to fuck me?"

  Brad's face colored. "Well, I, uh, ha..." He made a half-strangled-sounding cough. "I wouldn't presume. I want to be respectful. You're not an object, and I never would want to exploit you..."

  "I was afraid of that."

  "Not to say that I don't find you attractive. But there's more to people than just sex. You're probably the smartest and most honest person I know."

  "Aw..." Alex was chagrined to find she actually was touched. "Look, I get it. You're a GOOD GUY™. You're a sensitive, caring, compassionate person who worries about social injustice, sex-discrimination in the workplace, and holes in the ozone layer or wherever they are these days. You believe in communication, and you're not afraid to show your vulnerable side. When a girl talks, you really listen. And you probably don't just screw someone, right? You make sensitive, caring love to them. You make sure they come. I'll bet you're willing to go down all night on a girl even if she hasn't showered recently. Am I right?"