By POW

Unical date: 3752.563.21 (twenty days until scheduled arrival at Kappa Redulans)

Detaching from RS-98 went routinely, and the half-hour journey through normal space to put sufficient distance between his ship and the station before engaging the warp drive was equally uneventful.  The course was already laid in, so the moment the sensors reported that he was safely far enough away, all he had to do was say “Go”.  The mighty engines powered up with a muted hum and then, with barely a flicker, he was suddenly moving at a velocity that few others had ever experienced.  Well, “velocity” was an oversimplification of the situation.  His professors back at the university had tried to instill in him an appreciation for the underlying physics of subspace that made warp travel possible, the way that normal space was folded at a quantum level so that a ship using its warp drive wasn’t “really” moving (such pedantry!) but rather re-arranging space around itself, but Sam’s eyes had always glazed over at the discussions of manifold compression, multi-dimensional vector renormalization, and pseudo-velocity.  As a pilot, he just liked going really fast.

But the novelty of speed had already worn itself out on the first leg of the journey with Bareem.  The two of them had exulted over the pace at which they were traveling… for a few minutes.  Then the reality had set in that it was the AI doing virtually all of the flying, and from inside the ship there was no sensation of speed.  The engines ran so smoothly that the only indication they were on at all was a pervasive, low-frequency hum from the sheer power they were consuming.  It wasn’t like the two men could look out the windows and watch the stars passing by like trees alongside a highway.  No, they were little more than cargo in a grey box.

And so it was only minutes after engaging the engines, having assured himself that all systems were functioning normally and that he was on his way with all practical haste to his destination, that Sam found himself at the door to the simspace, heart thumping in his chest, feeling like a kid on Christmas morning eager to rip into the mountain of presents waiting to be opened.

“Pyrellia, show me a menu of porn simulations.  Male characters only.”

A virtual screen with thumbnail windows appeared in the air before him.  There were… a lot.  Considering that the yacht’s owner was almost certainly straight based on that glimpse he and Bareem had gotten, there was a surprisingly large amount of gay material in the ship’s library.  He dove in like a kid in a candy store.  Touching a thumbnail brought that window’s contents into shimmery half-life around him, hologram projections of semi-transparent men in various states of dress and undress, running through a few seconds of movement to give a sense of what that scene contained.  Bedrooms, forest glades, sandy beaches, starlit rooftops, massage tables, and more all flashed past in quick succession along with a steady stream of men of all shapes, sizes, and colors: light and dark, tall and short, smooth and hairy, thick and lean.  Each ghostly scene with its half-fleshed characters got its brief moment of Sam’s attention before the parade of bare skin moved on.

One at last grabbed his attention long enough to stick, and what caused him to take notice was, in fact, the absence of bare skin.  The scene was a sun-drenched coast and his point of view was moving along it at high speed.  Scenery whipped past him, water to his left, brown rock and golden grass and deep green scrub brush to his right.  It might have been California or Australia or somewhere near the Mediterranean.  In front of him two motorcyclists were riding in parallel along the winding road.  Each was dressed head to toe in leather, one in black, the other in white and red.  There were crosshair targets on the back of each indicating a role he could take on.  Yeah.  This’ll do nicely.  He opted for the white-clad man and tapped the crosshairs.

The scene froze and solidified, the semi-transparent characters and scenery losing their ghostly translucence and becoming real.  All except for the white-clad rider.  His bike stood empty on the road next to his black-leathered companion.  His suit, meanwhile, lay at Sam’s feet, waiting to be put on.  Sam quickly shucked out of his uniform and slid the leathers over his body.  The fit was perfect, snug but comfortable, embracing his arms and chest and thighs like a second skin.

He set the helmet in place on his head and climbed onto the bike and suddenly the frozen world leaped back into motion.  He was whipping along, trees and rocks passing by beside him as the black rider by his side kept pace with him.  They rode a while and the illusion was utterly convincing.  The engine throbbed with power between his legs, the vibrations buzzing at his crotch and causing his dick to stiffen inside its leather cocoon.  Now this was the reason he had become a pilot!  The ship itself might have been moving a thousand times faster than this virtual bike on a virtual road inside it – which wasn’t really moving at all but was merely tricking his senses into believing it was – and yet it was the bike that gave him the visceral thrill of speed that he craved.  The power of the beast beneath him, harnessed and his to control… the feel of the wind beating against his second skin… the rumbling roar that permeated his groin from knees to waist… he sank into the sensation, relishing the shivers of delight that coursed through his body as the two bikes hugged the curves of the winding road.

He glanced over at his neighbor, wondering if that man’s dick was as hard as his own.  His face was invisible under the smoked glass of the helmet, and that was fine.  Sam didn’t need to know what he looked like; in fact, the anonymity made the situation all the hotter.  They rode on a bit longer and, conveniently, just as Sam was starting to wonder how the scene was going to shift to the next phase that he knew was inevitably coming: a turnoff appeared.  His companion surged slightly ahead, taking the lead and guiding Sam into the turn.  They slowed, the engine’s rumble slowly abating between his legs.

They arrived at a spot where a picnic table waited in dappled shade beneath a tree.  With the engines off, Sam could hear breakers crashing off in the distance.  He dismounted, cock straining at the leather, and the man in black did the same.  The man approached and his hand went straight to Sam’s crotch where it probed and kneaded what it found there.  Sam returned the gesture, gazing into the smoky glass of the other’s helmet while squeezing the thick meat he could feel through the leather.  Then they embraced and ground their bodies together a while, helmets clonking awkwardly in a way that made Sam grin even as he groaned at the pressure of the other man’s thighs against his own.

At last the man in black broke away and inclined his helmet toward the table.  At first Sam thought he was being directed to lie down, then realized he was being offered the choice: did he want to drive or be the passenger on this next trip?  It was amazing how clearly that came through just from the body language.  The man in black, without saying a word and without Sam being able to see his face, was saying “I’m happy either way; you choose.”  Sam hesitated only a moment, then climbed up onto the table and lay down on his back, his face gazing up through the speckling of needles and leaves at the blue sky beyond.

He felt the man’s fingers deftly working the fastenings of his trousers and soon enough they were being inched down his thighs.  His boots came off, then the trousers and he was lying with his ass at the edge of the table, ankles propped up on leather-clad shoulders, watching the man opening up his own leather fly.  An absolutely splendid cock sprouted from the gap, large and thick but not terrifyingly so considering where it was about to be placed.  The man gave Sam half a minute to admire it, but neither wanted to wait for long.  A quick smear of lube on invader and target and both were primed and ready.

A bit of pressure, then a bit more, and more still.  Sam sought to find that combination of relaxation and tension that would let his hole open smoothly enough to accommodate his guest.  A little more… a little more… he felt the stretch as at last his sphincter dilated wide and granted admittance.  Sam gasped and sucked in a lungful of air as the sensation of fullness permeated his belly.  The man’s dick was thick, solid, adamant and Sam’s ass strained at first to accommodate it.  The man in black slid slowly but inexorably in, arms holding Sam’s legs in place on his shoulders, faceless helmet aimed down at Sam’s own.  He knew that eyes – jet-black coals or piercing blue windows or soft hazel gemstones or warm brown invitations – were gazing down at him, relishing the view just as he was savoring the sight in the opposite direction.  He yielded completely to the dick in his ass, gripping it with his guts and muscles, caressing it with his innards.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the man in black pulled out until only the tip remained to keep Sam’s hole from closing up again and Sam almost cried out at the emptiness that the cock’s absence left behind, but then just as slowly it returned and filled him again.  Then once more, just a hair faster, and then again, giving Sam time to adapt to the fullness and the friction and the pressure.  And Sam was able to relax and first accept the cock’s motion, then to enjoy it, and then at last to crave it.  The man in black gradually increased the pace as Sam hungered for more.  Two minutes later he was thrusting smoothly, relentlessly, forcing little moans of pleasure out of Sam’s mouth with each plunge.  Sam grabbed at the table to prevent his body from sliding away under the pressure of the hips that drove up against his ass cheeks, fingers scrabbling to find purchase.

Restraints! he thought.  That’s what’s missing here!  I completely forgot about any sort of bondage!  This was highly unusual for him – virtually all of his fantasies involved bondage in some way, even if only a token bit of cloth for a blindfold or a hand planted firmly against a wrist to wordlessly say “this stays right here”.  Restraints were just what this scene needed to keep his body from sliding away from the driving dick so that he could continue to feel it to its fullest extent.

It must have been the leather, that must have been what confused him.  He had seen the riding outfits and just assumed that leather = fetish = bondage.  But no, this scene was apparently just two bikers enjoying a ride… and then enjoying a different ride.

Well, he wasn’t about to stop it now, not with his ass so pleasantly stuffed, not with his dick so achingly hard and only minutes away from blowing.  He reached up to take hold of the man in black’s arms, hoping to guide them down to press his own arms down against the table, splayed out at his shoulders, but the man gently, kindly, politely refused to cooperate, giving Sam’s hands a squeeze and then returning his own hands to support and be supported by Sam’s calves.  Sam decided to make do with imaginary restraints, picturing cold steel locked around each wrist, securing his hands to the far end of the table above his head.  He was torn – surely this superb simspace could make actual chains effortlessly; he just didn’t know how to issue the instructions to make it happen without destroying the rhythm of this very-enjoyable scene, so best to make do with fantasy and just imagine the way the metal bracelets would feel against his hands as he tugged on the connecting chains while that magnificent dick continued to skewer his ass chute and then as he was thinking that, oh fuck, the man in black brought a hand down to touch Sam’s hair-trigger-sensitive cock!  He squeezed and pumped just half a dozen times but that was all it took.  Sam felt his sperm come bubbling up from deep inside his balls and then he was shooting and squirting and throbbing and spasming while the dick in his ass pulsed and jumped with a rhythm of its own, separate but overlapping so that it felt like the juice that was being squirted into his guts was making its way straight up and out of his cock, the two men fused into one chimeric body with complex interconnected plumbing, joined together in the throes of simultaneous orgasm.

And then, slowly, it wound down.  Sam came down from the peak.  The man in black stopped thrusting but held his dick in Sam’s ass while it slowly softened.  He felt used up, drained, spent, and yet he didn’t want the satisfying sensation of fullness to end, not just yet.  Inevitably, though, the cock in his ass gradually shrank until at last it slipped free of its moorings with a soft plop and Sam was left to catch his breath and gently ease his legs to the ground.  He stood, embraced the simulated character who had just delivered that very satisfying reaming, and then spoke.

“Pyrellia, end program”.  The man in black disappeared, along with the bikes, the table, the golden sunshine, the pounding surf.  All that was left were the bare grey walls of the simspace.  And the semen-smeared top half of the leather outfit that he was still wearing.  He stripped it off and stood, naked and sweaty, in the grey room.

“Damn,” he said aloud.  “That was over far too quickly.”  It was not surprising, really.  A quick wham-bam for a first scenario was practically inevitable, in hindsight.  His horniness level had been cranked up to about eleven ever since it became clear that the simspace would be his to command all on his own.  Shooting a load dropped it down to a two or a three, which had an upside: he could take some time to explore the instruction manual with an undistracted brain, to figure out how to get the device to really deliver a satisfying fantasy for him.  The horniness level would climb back up quickly enough and he’d be ready for the next go-around, this time better informed of his options.

For the time being, perhaps a bite to eat to go along with his instructional reading, and then after that he would figure out what he wanted to do next.  He still had oceans of time left to explore.

***

Meanwhile, deep in the internal processing core of the simspace’s controlling systems, Sam was being monitored.  His choices, his actions, his responses… all logged and analyzed and examined in minute detail.

 

Unical date: 3752.563.21 (later that evening)

Sam sat on the same beach that he and Bareem had enjoyed after brunch.  The puffy white clouds scudded by the same as before, the sun shone warmly down on the sugary sand, and the water lapped gently at the shore.  On a small table beside him sat a chicken sandwich, some potato chips, a small dish of cole slaw, and a glass of ice-cold lemonade.  Only the steel chains of the five-point restraints he wore stood out as not belonging in this tropical paradise.

The restraints were the first thing he had asked the simspace to replicate after dismissing the shaded bikers’ glen, still flushed and panting a bit from the recent workout.  He (prudently!) specified that the set should include a key, then proceeded to lock them on himself.  Sure, he had just shot a load and was not yet ready for another.  This was more an aesthetic choice than an erotic one.  Some men might choose to dress up in silk formalwear or a tight sleeveless shirt as a way of feeling sexy; for Sam, leather and steel did the trick.  The five-points were just his equivalent of some other man’s natty bow tie.

He then experimented a bit, picking up the uniform that he had discarded, leaving the simspace and venturing into the rest of the ship.  The chains did not vanish as he crossed the threshold, which was the purpose of his test: were objects created by the simspace “real” in the same sense that food created by the synthesizer was?  And the answer, clearly, was yes.  He walked around the ship a bit with slow, short steps that clanked loudly with every movement he made.  No problem, there’s no one to hear me!  He shuffled over to the cabin where he had spent his first night on board and eased his way down onto the hard mattress.  In this outfit, the prison-like surroundings were a perfect fit!  Maybe he should try spending another night here, this time with the five-points on.

Nah.  If he wanted to sleep like a prisoner, he could make himself an actual prison cell in the simspace.

He left the uniform lying on the bed in the cabin.  There was no reason he would need to use either for the remainder of the trip, after all.  Then he slowly clanked his way back to the simspace for the next experiment.  That episode with the maître d’ had gotten him wondering… would all characters disregard the participants’ attire the way the sneering maître d’ had ignored his Starmada uniform?  He didn’t feel like returning to the posh brunch place so instead he brought up a bustling Brooklyn sidewalk with a food truck parked alongside.  He went up to the truck’s window and ordered the sandwich, chips, and slaw.  The vendor didn’t bat an eye at Sam’s nakedness, nor at the chains around his neck, wrists, and ankles.  He just assembled the sandwich, handed it over, and turned his attention to the man in line behind Sam, who was similarly unconcerned with Sam’s unusual appearance.  Sam could barely suppress a chuckle as he clanked away.

Then he was off to a bistro in Rome for a lemonade.  Walking in through the door, Sam at first thought his appearance had drawn attention this time, but he quickly realized it was just the nature of the Italian language to sound dramatic to English-trained ears.  Even a simple request to pass the salt made the speaker sound like an aggrieved mezzo-soprano about to launch into an aria about the injustice of a world that could encompass such travesties as under-seasoned pasta.  And when Italians actually were in a dramatic mood?  Watch out.

He did encounter a difficulty in obtaining the lemonade, but it was not his chains or his nudity that were a problem for the other patrons or the waiter.  The problem, as it turned out, was the idea that Sam wanted a lemonade to go.  This baffled not just the waiter but all the staff at the bistro and they discussed the conundrum with great gusto, switching between their native language and beautifully-accented English as they went at it, the fervor of their words drawing in the other patrons, each of whom contributed their own opinion on the subject.  Was it true that Sam did not wish to sit at a table to enjoy his drink?  They could see that he had brought a sandwich in with him but they could overlook that monstrous insult to the reputation of their fine establishment because they were generous of spirit and wished only the best for Sam, but surely Sam could see that it was not in his best interest to consume a lemonade while standing or walking?  Let alone a sandwich?  Such actions were unhealthy for both body and soul, even downright dangerous!  Surely he must understand that they would be happy to provide him with a comfortable table to eat and drink at for his own well-being?

On it went, a comic opera.  Sam snickered at the incongruity of him standing there stark naked, heavy chains weighing down his limbs while passionate voices surged and swooped in vowel-filled attempts to persuade him to sit the fuck down already.  He recognized the absurdity of it all – if what he wanted was a lemonade, he could just ask the ship for a frickin’ lemonade and be done with it… but this was so much more fun!  He allowed himself to get swept up in the discussion, gesticulating in the Italian style as best he could with his hands hindered by short chains.  As the voices around him soared, everyone talking and no one listening, he added his own clumsy pseudo-Italian to the mix, babbling a combination of nonsense syllables and the few words he actually knew, most of which were food terms.  “Nella proscatone di trenta!” he shouted into the din, flapping his arm chains with gleeful passion.  “Parmigiano di sotto giorno alla guardo di locatelli!  Prego como linguini!”  Everyone around him ignored his nonsense just as they ignored his clanking chains and flopping penis.

Eventually he acquiesced and allowed them to persuade him to be seated with much fussing and blustering, and then he waited with the sandwich tucked discreetly out of sight in his lap, enjoying the ambience as the clamor subsided and the patrons returned to their previous conversations around him… all of which still sounded just as clamorous.  In a few minutes, the waiter came out and, with a flourish, presented Sam with a glass of lemonade, frosty with ice and with wisps of cold steam simmering at the top and flowing down the sides.  They had added the ice, the waiter explained, because they could tell he was a foreigner and knew that he would prefer it that way, even though this was still not ideal for his digestion but they could be accommodating in this regard now that he had accepted the wisdom of remaining seated and taking his time while enjoying it, see?  Sam thanked him profusely, expressing his appreciation for their thoughtfulness and generosity and understanding and, when the waiter at last turned his back and left, said “Pyrellia, take me to the beach.”

Once again the chair he was in came along and he had to swap it out for a more suitable one.  But at last he was ready with all his supplies held carefully in his chained hands.  Still snickering at the recent absurdity, he set the items down, arranged himself on the chair, and settled in to eat and read.  His chair was at the edge of the shade of a palm tree so he sat mostly in the shadow with just his bare shackled feet sticking out into the sunshine.  He couldn’t even begin to guess what sort of trickery was at work that managed to create such a convincing simulation of electromagnetic radiation generated by an inferno of hydrogen fusion at a distance of 150 million kilometers and moderated by its passage through varying layers of ozone, nitrogen, oxygen, and water vapor, to land as gentle warmth on the tops of his feet.  Whatever the magic was, it was flawless.  He felt the warmth not only on his feet but also on the synthesized steel around his ankles.  If they spent much time baking in that simulated light he was probably going to have to pull his feet into the shade to let the metal cool off.  Or else dip them in that oh-so-inviting turquoise water for a bit, that would work too.

And so, with sandwich, slaw, and frosty drink at (chained) hand, he settled in to read the manual for the system.  Not the whole thing, of course, just enough to know what it could do.  He had twenty days to play with this toy, after all; it would be a shame to miss out on some capability simply due to not knowing it existed.

The most noteworthy thing he found for what he had in mind was the safety protocol settings control panel.  The system had five levels of interactivity… well, four plus an additional not-really-a-sim level.  The manual described them in more technical language and great detail, but in summary the five levels were:

 

• Level 0: non-interactive.  Participants can only watch; the characters do not respond to the participants.
• Level 1: interactive for sight and sound only.  Characters can respond to participants’ words and actions, but there is no physical contact.
• Level 2: fully interactive.  Safety protocols are in place to ensure that participants cannot experience discomfort.
• Level 3: fully interactive.  Safety protocols ensure that participants cannot experience life-threatening harm.
• Level 4: fully interactive.  No safety protocols.

 

Both level 3 and level 4 required authentication to enable, and that explained the relatively tame behavior of his otherwise rough-looking motorcycle buddy: level 2 was the default for adult users of the system.  Levels 0 and 1 were not worth bothering with, not for his purposes.  They used mere hologram technology to create illusions, whereas levels 2 and up actually created the people and objects being simulated.  Which, as he had demonstrated, were just as real as anything else, capable of being carried (or worn) not only into other simulations but outside to the rest of the ship as well.

There was much more and he absorbed as much of it as he could.  After perhaps an hour of reading, with the sandwich and lemonade long gone, he decided to take the chains off and go for a quick soak in that purple-sky hot tub to clean up.  Then he had the simspace craft him a soft, comfortable bed in a dark, quiet room since the hour was getting late, and he read several more chapters of Captain Jack’s adventures (double-crossed while infiltrating a prison asteroid!  Then triple-crossed while escaping back out!) before turning the nightstand lamp off and rolling over to go to sleep.

Tomorrow, after a tasty but not-too-heavy breakfast, he’d be ready to resume.  This time with the interactivity level set to 3.  It was time to experience some “discomfort”.  Or perhaps… to inflict it.

 

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NOTE: You can read many other stories by this author at his own site, POW’s Fiction.