“Really? I don’t think anyone has ever called me that,” I finally managed to say. Croak might be another description—my voice was suddenly very hoarse.
“Then you have not met the right man,” he answered, his breath fanning across my mouth as he spoke. “Because I think you have all the qualifications. Would you mind if I kissed you now?”
“Mind? Well . . .” I said slowly, pretending to think about it. My body knew better. It was all but throwing itself on him. I let my fingers wander up to his neck, tangling them in the short curls of his hair. “I have this policy against kissing murderers and kidnappers, and you’re both.”
“Says who?” he asked, his hands sliding up my arms to my shoulders, then down my ribcage. Even through the barrier of my clothing, little rivulets of molten pleasure followed his touch.
His mouth was hot. Hot and spicy and tasting of rum, his tongue flicking across my lips in a polite request for admission. I tried to tell my lips to stand firm, reminding them of my rules of sexual engagement (caution had hitherto been my byword), informing them that I wasn’t about to suck the tongue out of a man I’d just met a few days before, but my lips were traitors. They parted without the slightest display of modesty, allowing the kiss to deepen and change from an act that seemed pleasing to something much more profound.
I shivered a shiver of blatant excitement as his lips parted from mine, my thoughts so muddled I couldn’t seem to hold on to one for longer than a second or two. “Um? What were we talking—oh, the crew. They aren’t real people, are they? I mean, you know they’re not real. Before, when I thought you were one of them, that bothered me because from your point of view, that poor crew was real, but you’re not, and you know they’re not, and now that I know that you know they’re not, it’s all different.”
“Amy, I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
He didn’t want to discuss it. That was fine with me—I’d much rather pursue more entertaining avenues. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t despise you now, although I’m going to have to knock off a couple of points for the kidnapping.”
“It was the only way I thought you would listen to me,” he answered, his lips brushing against mine. The hands that had been counting my ribs slid around to meet on my belly, then started an upward climb. My breasts, not normally given to thinking for themselves, suddenly came to life and decided that more than anything in the world, they wanted out of the thin blouse and leather bodice, and into Corbin’s hands. “I knew you’d joined Bart’s crew, and with the bounty on my head, I half thought you might be after my blood.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, too distracted by the sudden throbbing in my breasts to do more than mentally flinch from his words about the bounty on his head. “I seem to be having some difficulty with my breasts.”
His brows pulled together as we both looked down to where my cleavage was front and center. His hands were just below them, poised to scale the linen-clad impudent mounds. “Difficulty? What sort of difficulty? They look perfectly fine to me. Positively tasty, in fact.”
“They’re unruly,” I admitted, then gasped when Corbin’s thumbs swept across my straining nipples. “Hoocheewawa! Don’t do that again, you’ll make them revolt or something!”
“No? They look like they need mouth-to- . . . er . . . breast resuscitation. Would it help if I did this?”
Before I could try to force air back into my lungs, Corbin’s head dipped to my cleavage, his tongue snaking out to caress the valley between my breasts.
My knees buckled.
“It’s not really helping, no,” I said, clutching his shoulders for support.
“Maybe I’m not resuscitating them well enough,” he murmured into my chest, tugging down the linen blouse until one (extremely happy) breast was exposed to his attention. “Maybe I should . . .”
A wave of undiluted pleasure rippled from my breast to all points on my body as his mouth closed over my aching nipple, setting my skin tingling, my bones melting, and my brain into shutdown mode. I couldn’t even form words; I just whimpered encouragement at him. Oh, the random thought popped into my head that I was not behaving in a discreet manner at all, that I had never been one for throwing myself into intimate acts with men I hardly knew, and that I really should be focused on getting out of the game rather than enjoying myself with the man who was currently making me mindless with the tongue swirlies that were laving my breast, but I pushed that thought down just as easily as I pushed the others.
Tara told me I needed to play more. Well, Corbin was here, I was here, and we were playing. End of story.
Only it wasn’t, of course. I knew that as Corbin raised his head, his eyes liquid silver with arousal. “I think it’s going to make it.”
“It might, but I may just die if you don’t do the other one.”
His lip, which I deemed from firsthand experience delectable, curved in a smile. “We wouldn’t want that, now, would we? Shall we continue this discussion somewhere more comfortable? Say . . . my bed over there?”
I looked from the dark cherry captain’s bed snuggled up against a wall in the cabin to Corbin. His words acted like a bucketful of seawater splashed in my face. “Whoa, now. You wouldn’t be hinting not so subtly that you’d like to have sex, would you?”
His eyes went even more molten. “You didn’t seem to me like the sort of woman who likes playing verbal games about natural desires, but yes, as a matter of fact, I would very much like to make love to you. I’m not ashamed to admit that I wanted you the minute I realized you weren’t a computer-generated player.”
“It was the fact that I don’t play—verbal games or anything else—that got me stuck here in the first place,” I said, tucking myself back into my blouse. “I like you, Corbin, I really do. I enjoyed kissing you, and while I admit that allowing you to . . . er . . . resuscitate my breast might be considered leading you on, sex, actual sex, is out of the question.” I paused for a moment, something he said striking a chord. “You wanted me the minute you knew I was real?”
“Yes.” His frown was back. He let go of me and crossed his arms over his chest.
I took a step closer to him. I couldn’t help myself, I seemed to be drawn to him by some strange, magnetic force.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
“When was that?”
“When you mentioned being willing to trade away your PDA. The computer characters lack contemporary references in their dialogue array. Only other players, real people, would know what a PDA was, let alone mention it. As soon as I heard you say it, I knew you were a real person.”
“Wow. I figured you, as the game master or whatever you call yourself, would be able to see that I was a real player.”
He shook his head. “The in-game admin panel was too buggy, so we removed it while it’s being recoded. The only way I can tell which players are real and which aren’t is to access the admin panel, and I can’t do that while I’m in the game.”
“Hmm. Back to the other thing . . . are you always instantly attracted to women?”
“No.” His frown deepened, the lovely melty look in his eyes turning cold.
“I see.” I didn’t really, but I wasn’t about to admit that he had me confused as well as bemused. “Always Be the One to Remain in Control”: that was my motto (I’m a firm believer in a motto for every situation), and it had served me well for many a year.
“Are you trying to say that you don’t feel an instant attraction?”
“No, of course not. I might have a physical response, but there’s much more I look for in a relationship than someone who chimes my bells,” I said, my eyebrows pulling a little frown of their own.
“As do I,” he answered, his hands on his hips now.
“Well, then, I guess we’re in agreement.” My eyes strayed to the bed as my brain decided to indulge in a little fantasizing about what it would be like to romp with him in it.
“If we were in agreement, you woul
d be naked at this moment, and I would be resuscitating your other breast.”
Another shiver of excitement zipped through me at the image his words drew. I squelched it down, reminding myself that there was more at stake here than a fling with a handsome computer genius. “Look, Corbin, I appreciate the offer, and I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong idea about me, but I prefer some sort of emotional commitment before I jump into bed with someone. That said, I’d like to see you. In person, I mean. In real life. Maybe you could come over for dinner one night?”
His frown cleared as if by magic. “I would like that.”
I smiled, happy that I had taken charge of the situation and turned it around to one that was more reasonable. “Good. Now, if you’ll just tell me how to get out of this game, I will give my calendar a look-see, and we can pick a night.”
The look he gave me was an odd one. “Amy, all you have to do to log out of the game is to turn the glasses off. There’s a button near the hinge. Just press that, and the game will be saved, and you’ll be logged out.”
A horrible chill ran through me. “I don’t have the glasses anymore. There’s got to be another way out!”
He shook his head, holding his hand up to stop me. “No, I mean the real-life glasses, not ones you might be wearing in game.”
“That’s what I’m talking about!” I said, the chill growing.
“If you didn’t have the glasses, you wouldn’t be here,” he pointed out.
“Well, I am! Look, no glasses!” I ran my fingers around the eye region of my face. “Feel for yourself—there’s nothing there.”
“I wouldn’t be able to feel them,” he said, his eyes puzzled. “Reach up to your temple. You should feel the arm of the glasses, and follow it back to the hinge.”
“All I have here are temples,” I said, panic joining the chill as I felt the sides of my head. “Don’t tell me there’s no other way out?”
He frowned. Again. “This is impossible. You can’t be here without having the glasses on. Look, I’ll show you. I’ll log out and log back on, so you can see. Now watch my hand. I follow the line of the arm to the hinge of the glasses . . .” He put his hand to his head, an odd, confused expression flitting across his face. He tried the other side, the expression turning to one of deep concern.
“Oh, my God! You don’t have them, either, do you? We’re stuck here! Forever! Aaaack!”
Chapter 8
The midnight hour is past,
And the chilly night-air is damp. . . .
—Ibid, Act II
“Amy, you’re being irrational.”
“I’m being irrational? I am? I’m not the one who failed to write a back door into the program. I’m not the one who wrote software so devious it traps innocent players in some sort of mental limbo. I’m not the one who created a world of murderous pirates so real that it was almost impossible to tell them from the real thing.”
Corbin glanced down to where I was holding his knife to his crotch. “No, but you are the one threatening to emasculate me if I don’t get you out. I’m doing my best, I assure you. And what do you mean almost impossible? Holder and I spent six months researching the history of piracy just so everything was accurate.”
“I don’t believe it,” I said straightening up from where I had been bent over Corbin in order to threaten him with the knife. “You trap us in a form of cyber-hell, and the only emotion you feel is to be insulted by the fact that I could tell reality from a virtual world?”
“If you didn’t know this was a VR game, you’d believe you were back in pirate days; it’s just that realistic,” Corbin argued.
“I’d also probably be insane.”
“Granted, but you’d still think it was real. You can’t imagine the countless man-hours that went into designing the environment and artistic renderings in this game.”
“It’s very nice, but—”
“We digitized videos of hundreds of actors and actresses,” he said. “We used the same technology movie studios use.”
“The people look very real—”
He stood up and spun the chair he’d been pinned to around so I could see it. “Every object in the game, every item of furniture, every building is authentic to the period.”
“Yes—”
“Everything right down to the smell of lime in the privies is realistic,” he all but shouted at me.
“Stop yelling at me,” I yelled. “I saw the privies! They’re disgusting!”
He stopped for a moment, glaring at me before speaking. “Aha! You wouldn’t find them disgusting unless they struck a realistic chord with you. I rest my case.”
I rolled my eyes, setting the knife down on the desk. I didn’t really need it, nor had I meant to threaten his noogies with it; I was just upset on finding my sole hope of getting out of the game turn into a pipe dream. “I’m not going to argue about this. Whether or not the game is realistic—”
“It is,” he said.
“—is of no matter. What does concern me is how you’re going to get us out of here.”
Corbin stopped looking annoyed at me and looked thoughtful instead, half sitting on the edge of the desk. I slumped into the chair upon which I’d formerly been held prisoner, and tried very, very hard not to cry. “What I want to know is how it happened in the first place.”
“Who cares how it happened. I just want out!” I wailed. “Wait—there was a storm when I logged on. Could lightning have something to do with it? I think it hit a power line near me. Maybe that zapped us into the game?”
“Lightning? Oh, the storm.” He looked slightly amused. I wanted to kick him. “I’m afraid you’ve been watching too many sci-fi movies. The lightning couldn’t have done anything to drag us into the game. It was just a coincidence.”
“Then what does it matter how the game trapped us? We’re stuck here. That’s the important thing.”
“If I knew how the fail-safes were corrupted, then I could get us back to reality,” he pointed out.
I sniffled pathetically.
“Aw, Amy, don’t cry.” Corbin dropped to his knees before me, resting his hands on my legs, his pretty gray eyes all clouded with concern. “Big pirates don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying. I already went through that. Crying is a waste of time. Corbin, what are we going to do? What’s going to happen to us? And what is happening to our bodies? Oh, dear God, I’ve been away from home for five days now. What happens when I have to go to the bathroom?” With each sentence my voice rose higher and higher. I hate being out of control, and the thought of my body sitting in a chair, brainless, alive but not cognizant, soaked in bodily effluences, filled me with a sharp, cutting sense of panic. “What about my daughter, Tara? She’s never been left alone longer than a weekend—oh, my God, she could be in any God-knows-what sort of trouble, not to mention probably panic-stricken over my catatonic body! You’ve got to get me out of here!”
“First of all, calm down,” he said, his hands warm on my legs.
“But I’ve been here for five days—”
“So have I. But it hasn’t really been five days,” he said in a soothing voice, his face filled with compassion. A rogue thought flitted through my mind that any other man would have told me to get a grip, but Corbin was a nice guy, and nice guys don’t like to see people in pain.
“I’ve slept four nights,” I pointed out, ignoring the rogue thought. I could think sweet, romantic things about him later, after I was out of the game.
“You only think you’ve slept,” he said in that same reassuring voice. I opened my mouth to tell him I knew the difference between sleeping and not sleeping, but he continued before I could get the words out. “The human mind is remarkably easy to trick, which is why virtual reality works so well.”
I forbore to point out that this program wasn’t what I would call “working well.”
“The VR glasses do more than just flash images at you. A transmitter is built into them that plays on sympathetic brain wave
s. That’s how you can taste and touch and smell things here—the transmitter sends the data to your brain, interrupts the signals that tell you what your current environment is, and instead tells you that right at this moment, you’re sitting on a ship docked at a tropical island.”
“You’re messing with my brain?” I asked, horrified. “Am I a vegetable now?”
“No, no, nothing like that. The program only interrupts signals that tell you things about your environment. Nothing more. As soon as you take the VR unit off, your brain will recognize the return to reality.”
“All right,” I said. It didn’t sound like it made much sense, but I couldn’t dispute the fact that the world I was in seemed remarkably real. “But what has that got to do with the fact that even now, my daughter is probably calling paramedics to come and revive my catatonic body?”
“The game would be unplayable if it were run in real time. People would lose interest. Ships would take weeks to sail from island to island. No one would have fun. So the software is written to give the appearance of taking place in real time, but in actuality, a day in Buckling Swashes takes about a quarter of an hour in real time, give or take a few minutes, depending on your activity level.”
“A day takes fifteen minutes?” I asked, astounded.
“Yes. It’s like when you dream, and you swear you’ve been dreaming for hours but it’s really just been a few minutes or less—your brain can actually function much faster than you know. We use that fact to condense a day’s activities down to a reasonable amount of time.”
“But . . . I slept,” I said, trying to understand how a day could be compressed down to fifteen minutes and still seem like a full day.
“You think you slept. The program plays on the fact that your brain learns certain truisms and expects them to apply until informed otherwise. You see nighttime fall, and your brain tells you that you feel sleepy, so you go to bed and sleep seven or eight hours. But in this world you don’t really—the program tells your brain that you’ve slept, and you wake up feeling refreshed and ready to tackle another adventurous day sailing the Seventh Sea.”