Silver

Chapter 34 - then

My mother always encouraged my sister and I to speak up for ourselves. 'Say what you want,' she always insisted, 'people aren't mind readers.' Despite this, I let Alistair choose to have dinner at the sterile 5-star restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel, rather than trying to discover a more authentic eatery in town. I felt overwhelmed with disappointment at the lame décor; the plastic flowers in the vase on the table, the stainless steel chairs, the fake chandeliers. The food and the environment were tasteless and our conversation was stilted and unimaginative.

When we arrived back at our hotel room I was exhausted. I hadn't slept properly on the plane and now there were wifely expectations to be fulfilled. Couldn't I just say I had a headache? Isn't that what women through the ages have always said?

Yet it turned out Alistair wasn't that keen about hopping into bed either. He wanted to set up my avatar.

'What colour hair do you want?' he asked, scrolling through different hair colours on the busty, waif-thin character, 'blonde, brown, red, black ...'

'Black.'

'Long, medium, short?'

'Medium.'

'Curly, straight ...'

'Can I have pigtails?'

'Huh?'

'Pigtails.'

'I'll have a look ...'

My avatar was dressed in knee-high boots, a short black leather skirt and a red boob tube, 'Why do I have to look like such a whore?' I asked. But he was too busy looking for pigtails that he ignored the question. He kept scrolling through the hair choices with great determination. He started picking his eyebrow again.

'Don't worry about the pigtails,' I said eventually. 'Hair out is fine. Straight.' I didn't care. I just wanted to get the night over with.

'What about a new outfit?' he asked.

'Sure,' I said. He clicked through enough outfits for me to realise that the only options were varying degrees of sluttery. I chose one almost equally as whore-like as the first. Finally my avatar had black, medium straight hair, green eyes, pouty lips, bulging bosoms, a red dress and red boots.

Alistair introduced me to his avatar, Markus. He explained how to use the controls. 'We won't start from the beginning,' he said. 'You can just join me in my pack. We're in a world called Zanrya. Think of the future, in three hundred years' time. Everything has gone to shit. Civilisation has crumbled. I won't tell you too much, because it's cool to be surprised. You'll meet other real-life people from around the world in the game too. You can talk through this microphone on your control and you'll be able to hear everyone through the speaker. They're really nice. I've been playing with these people for months. Three of them are from the Ukraine. Can you believe it? It's crazy, isn't it?'

'Sure is.'

'Now we have to register you.' He began filling out an online questionnaire. Some of the questions were about the real me and some were about my character. Once we began playing, we landed in a post-apocalyptic world called Zanrya. We walked around with a pack of other people, looking in abandoned buildings. The characters looked as though they were all from an x-rated club, the girls with their revealing outfits and the boys with tank tops and muscle arms. Alistair explained the rules, but I was so tired by then. I just walked around with the pack, not grasping what was the purpose of the game.

I must've fallen asleep. When I woke up, I was lying on the couch with my head on a pillow. Alistair was sitting cross-legged on the floor, pressing his control with one hand. His other hand was inside his pants. I could hear him murmuring into his control and I heard a female voice whisper through the speaker. I looked at the projection. His character Markus was naked, he had sculpted muscles like a Ken doll, his skin was sweaty, and his body was pressed to a female avatar. Her back was against a tree in a dark forest. Her hair was blonde and long, her pale skinny legs were wrapped around his waist, and her head was dropped to the side in pleasure. I could see his avatar's hand on her bare breast.

Alistair was murmuring sound effects.

'What are you doing?' I asked.

He pressed an escape button quickly. The screen went black and his other hand re-emerged from his pants.

'Nothing,' he replied, 'It's just the game.'

'I've never seen a game like that.' I said. 'What the hell were you doing?'

'I told you. Nothing.'

'I'm going to bed,' I said.

'I'm coming too.'

We both got into bed, fully clothed. We didn't brush our teeth or say goodnight to each other. He didn't touch me. I lay there crying softly, until sleep finally rescued me from the alternate reality of married life.