Now and again, finding yourself means losing who you were before

On a kaleidoscopically quilted, mountainous bed, painted dour red and soaring yellow from two of Asphodel’s three suns, the air redolent with simmering perrofish and fuming honeywine from the street below, Mia said, “You’re not Bojan.”

Head between their muscular thighs, their face glossed with moisture, lips tingling with their flavors, ears distantly aching from the strength of their spasmodic, clenching ecstasy, Bojan grinned up at them.

Meeting Mia’s puzzled, slightly alarmed expression with calm gentility laced with benign mischievousness, they answered, “What makes you think so?”

“Bojan, the real Bojan, was pleasant. Pleasant enough to be invited back into my bed after all these cycles, but they lived too much in their skull, barely peeking out at the rest of the world… least of all to me.”

The last few words were punctuated by a squeeze from their sculpted thighs. “You’re not Bojan.”

In response, they patiently forced their head between them, planting a tender kiss where they joined.

Mia sighed. “What did you do with them?” she half-said, half-whispered.

Tender became ardent, ardent became zealous, zealous became fervent—then the perrofish and honeywine sellers’ raucous ballyhoos vanished, overwhelmed by Mia’s keening moan of release.

Breath returning, Mia sweetly murmured, “Whatever it was… whoever you are… I don’t care.”

#

Like clockwork, the Falltown Station to Wasteaway Point late-afternoon Maglev express came between Hamistagan’s massive star and Daeva’s lifebox, its strobing light making the InfoArchivist think yet again of ancient, nearly forgotten cellulose nitrate Saturday matinees, title card expositions, and house organ accompaniments.

Rolling their head away from the flashing window and pushing it into a sofa cushion, Daeva mumbled, “I don’t miss them… I really don’t miss them.”

“Oh, and what makes you say that?”

Also muffled by fluff and stitching, Daeva said, “I shouldn’t say.”

“I don’t mind.” Hands tracing the lengths, cords, and periodic knots of Daeva’s muscles, teasing out the tightest of the latter with their palms and fingers, Bojan leaned down and kindly, sweetly kissed the hard rises of the InfoArchivist’s spine.

Twisting their head so they could look back as well as speak clearly, Daeva said, “I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“But you said I’m not them, so how could saying something hurt my feelings?” Same kisses to the same spine, each received with a subtle twitch of contented pleasure.

Straightening up, Bojan used their own muscles to pull Daeva up onto their knees, pressing against them with every tug.

Daeva hissed; silent movie memories supplanted by images of billowing steam locomotives entering tunnels. Their dark hands, fingers—sporting cosmically blue-sheened fingernails highlighted with neodiamond glitter—clawed between and into the couch’s sturdy fabric.

Hard, steady thrusts climbed up and over into vigorously pounding jolts, breaking Daeva’s words into jagged-edged fragments: “They… gave… they took… and never gave… back!”

Shudder ebbing, spasm fading, and—with a sweet, lip-curled grin on their face—Daeva drooled.

Retrieving the Van Gogh Starry Night holographically patterned blanket from where it had slid to the floor, Bojan tucked its bursting colors around Daeva’s deflated body, concluding with one more (but not last) kiss to the back of their neck.

#

A distant—very distant—descendant of what had been a Terran gecko skittered soundlessly up, across, and down the far wall before vanishing behind Roehel’s bioprinter.

“Are you trying to trick me?” they said, soft words edged with old wounds.

Stretched out next to them, close but not touching, Bojan shook their head. “May I touch your shoulder?”

“Please,” Roehel said, tilting their head, exposing more of it to them.

A finger to begin, a second to accompany it, concluding with four and a thumb: each delicately, sensually, appreciatively traced Roehel’s curves.

Dropping tenderly to a whimper, they cooed, “It felt like they didn’t… I mean, respect is so hard to come by; I shouldn’t have been disappointed they didn’t show me any.”

“Can I kiss the back of your neck?” Bojan asked reverently.

Roehel nodded, turning their body to reveal more of themselves. The kiss was hot, though not aggressive; sweet, yet not saccharine; affectionate, not cloying.

As Roehel’s voice descended to a throaty sigh, they said, “I almost blocked you, deleted you from my system entirely.”

“Would you like me to cup your left breast?” they said, feather-light words in Roehel’s ear.

A clearly confirming nod, preceded by a directly approving, “I’d like that.”

The same fingers, the same thumb went from appreciating the architecture of their shoulder to respectfully relishing the curve, weight, and heat of their breast—never grazing the faint scars running beneath them.

“I never knew if they were rude on purpose or didn’t care.” Roehel lifted a hand, fingers for fingers, thumb with thumb.

“Sorry,” Bojan purred into Roehel’s auburn curls. “I’m so sorry,” Bojan repeated, drawing them closer, melding their bodies together.

With a shake of their head, Roehel asked, “Whatever happened to him?”

#

Before reaching out to Mia, messaging Daeva, pinging Roehel, and the others (so many others), there had been that Jahannam winter: avenues slick with caustic ice, Servomats geysering plumes of brittle white while trying, and mostly failing, to keep the methane-laced crystals at bay.

Business over and done with sooner than expected, Bojan sat alone in an O’Malley’s—with all the fuzziness, indistinctness, and unremarkableness stemming from replicating the same Irish pub a billion times on a billion different worlds—before suddenly realizing they weren’t.

A cloud of dark hair overshadowing the plains and peaks of their face, wide glasses concealing the color of their eyes, Bojan had smiled that smile, employed their usual, crudely forged flirt, and purchased another of whatever they were drinking. After finishing it and two others, Bojan, while stroking the back of their hand, suggested they find somewhere more private.

Signaled by the closing door, it was they, not Bojan, who pounced. Eyes shut, ears deaf to everything they didn’t want to hear, they took, they used, and when they were finished with them, they threw Bojan away, leaving them as rough and cold as the bitter wind howling outside the hotel room’s window.

Lost, alone, abandoned, disposed of, Bojan had stood, staring at their mirrored self. Looking at first, but not seeing, then, as time unwound around and inside them, they saw what they had tried so long not to accept.

Collapsing into a jumbled pile of regret and shame, Bojan fell so low that the only place left was up.

#

After revisiting Mia, Raimond, Roehel, and the others (so many others), Bojan finally found what they had lost—themself.

Image Sources: M.Christian

The post “Found Among the Lost”—An Erotic Speculative Fiction Story appeared first on Future of Sex.

Escapism can take many interesting and frequently arousing forms

Content Warning: Dissociation from Physical Reality

The joint nests finger-thick on the ashtray, its smoke still warming your lungs, numbing your mind. You eye your dating accounts on the cellphone, no longer matching just scrolling through all the apps, the failed conversations. A celebration of your incompetence at finding a partner, even for one night.

Cannabis starts to take effect, numbing the part of your brain generating what you used to give.

#

Weed had always helped. When life got too much, the smoke carried your thoughts away into blissful detachment. But then you returned from that date—the Date—and weed could not help you. Weed gave you insomnia.

You first thought of it as a date, but they were already pitching it as the Date. A mysticism and uniqueness to it, because the girl was special. Not in any conventional way though. The Date was a service, and the girl a product of the new company, Build a Lover.

By the time the date was done, it was like a religion, and it was impossible for you not to capitalize the word in your head. The girl was divinity, because she had lived inside your mind, growing alongside you. The perfect partner, fine-tuned to your desires. Build a Lover bought your data, made the girl, and even though you knew you could never afford the subscription money, you went out with her, because they offered a free trial. Nice of them to do so, huh? Well, they did use your data after all.

But the trial was over with the Date, so you lost sleep, and the weed plunged you into a loop of intrusive thoughts. Because now you’d never see her again.

#

You tried bargaining with the tech lead, the project manager, but found no leeway. It made sense that such things were expensive. They had people to train the model of your perfect partner, but after the software was ready it had to sustain itself. 

Adaptive AI to process the immensity of information that clouds the real world, which needed stacks of graphic processing units that spanned a room larger than your apartment. Rent and electricity bills beyond your pay grade.

Instead they sold you on something more affordable, and that was when it hit you. They never meant for this corporeal robo-wife to be the product. The Date was the advertisement. They meant to sell you on a virtual version, a controlled environment where her personality would interact with you without having to filter the overwhelming noise of your analog world. 

Your life savings, for this VR version of a perfect waifu. But it was okay. They had an installment plan.

#

The joint, used up, drops into the ashtray. Surrounded by twelve screens, you lean back on the VR chair as electrodes from the armrest and back press against your skin. As the headset settles on your scalp, cold metal presses your temples and electric warmth hugs your brain—isolating thoughts, readying neurons for isekai download.

“Want me to massage your brain, master?” the anime girl says from the twelfth panel of your visor. Anime is simpler than 3D, less resources, lower cost. But that’s convenient, isn’t it? You prefer the anime, and more money was an excuse to buy extra girlfriends. Enough spare to get your own master class at coding romantic partners to perfection.

A massage would be more than welcome, sweetheart, you think (no need to speak, your waifus read your mind).

The rest of the panels are still loading, blinking spirals, then pixelated outlines, their contrast sharpening every moment, just as the real world fades away. Partners trained on your own data, nourished by neural networks fine-tuned to your soul.

Why communicate with humans, deal with rejection, heartbreak, disappointment, when digital surrogates fool your circuits to drug-like depths of divine delight?

Your awkward approach attempts are buried in the past. No more drinks spilled on your face, no giggles judging you for daring to punch up. You’ll never need to understand women, now that fem-algorithms have been refined to understand you. Harem-blessed, society isn’t relevant, only carnal desire.

Cannabis smoke licks out your palate, and then the sensation vanishes, your tongue neurons already synced and isekai’d. The warmth of vapors stolen with a wet kiss from your twelfth waifu.

In the VR setting of your visor, your keyboard appears at your command, replicating the world your body still resides in. You crack your knuckles, snap a nail you haven’t clipped in over four months. You hear the snap, but you don’t feel it—sex-digitized, implanted with circuits, your senses know no mortal pain.

As your fingers dance on the keyboard, programming your next wife, the pins digging your scalp tingle, sending pleasure down your spine.

It’s not just the twelfth, the others join her, but download isn’t enough. This world still clings to you, the life of struggle, disappointment. Of being unwanted by everyone. You’ve convinced yourself it is a lie, that the digital is all there is—but still it hurts. You want to let go.

In near-synchrony your waifus whisper: “Pressure will leave your shoulders, master. We’ll upload you entirely, when this massage is done.”

#

Have an erotic speculative fiction tale to tell?  If so, here’s what we’re looking for and how to send it our way: Call for Future of Sex Short Story Submissions

Image Sources: Depositphotos

The post “As You Log Into Isekai Heaven”—an Erotic Speculative Fiction Story appeared first on Future of Sex.

Celebrating the healing power of love, desire, and soaring above the clouds

Amanda Carlisle’s hand was gentle on the stick as the glider lofted soundlessly on thermals over the red cliffs to the north end of Bishop Valley. Gary had given her control a moment before and she was delighted to pilot the aircraft for a while as they made their long orbit after casting off from the tug.

Several times, they had flown over the warm spring countryside, their tandem glider a sleek, white confection of plastic, and she loved it all. Her job was a strange and varied one, and while not every client was such fun, Gary Maitland had been a new spice to life.

Afternoon sent warm air up the crags, lifted the glider thousands of feet, and the pilots cruised for an easy half-hour, swapping control, before Gary brought them back to a fast landing on the club’s grass strip. When the transparent hood hinged over, Amanda left her headset in the cockpit, climbed out with a stretch and smile, and threw her arms around the tall, rangy man who stepped out of the rear seat. “Thanks,” she whispered by his ear. “I’d really not done anything like this before we met.”

“Most things are more fun with the right company,” he said softly, hands on her waist, lips brushing her ear.

Time seemed to tumble forward then, past the clubhouse, past dinner and sunset, to their cabin on the slopes above the field—accommodation for air-ranch guests—then things moved in even-slower-than-normal time, and Amanda savored every moment.

This was always the way: the drive up by guest buggy, card-tap to access, the cool A/C interior, entertainment wall flipping on with multiple feeds, coffee maker on auto-standby… The news story of the day was about some new discovery on Europa, the deep exploration probe had been under the ice for weeks, sending back amazing images. But their eyes were only for each other, and Gary thumbed a remote to silence the auto-feeds as Amanda drew him into the bedroom, and in the light of rosy lamps they peeled out of jeans, cowboy boots, shirts…

Gary was a tough guy, good-looking, the sort in demand among women, both for his physical statistics and his success, and Amanda fitted the same bill in return, sleek, white-blond, a head shorter than Gary and ample in all the right places. In moments they were bare as babes, and she took the initiative, thrusting him back to the covers, to wrangle delightfully. She smothered him with kisses, worked down to his smooth chest, left a trail of love-bites and the warmth of massage down to his so-eager manhood, then went to work on him with all her skill.

Nothing was missing from her repertoire: she quickly had him groaning and perspiring, but before she could bring him too far along she eased off, lay back and offered him her own holy of holies to return the compliment. He went for it with delight, covered every inch of her most erogenous zone with kisses and licks, missing nothing, and she let herself go with a delicious climax. “One,” she said softly when she returned from she-space, then, with a grin, arranged him against pillows and came astride, to take him in to the roots and begin to ride. She knew he did not come easily in this position, which delayed the moment, the way they liked it best, and a few minutes later she gave a scream of fulfillment as she froze out, head flung back.

“Two,” she whispered, two fingers raised.. And so it went, every position and technique they knew, oral, manual, the works, over and over as the evening passed. They would pause for breath, take a quick shower together, have a drink and snack, then go back into another round of exquisite pleasure, until they were thoroughly exhausted. Eight, ten climaxes in a session were her norm, and she never left Gary with less than two, maybe three, for himself, as much as his physiology could deliver in the time.

A last shower, a nightcap, then they snuggled down under clean sheets, and in minutes she felt Gary’s breathing drop into sleep-pattern. With a long sigh, she reached to her right temple and felt for the warm patch which constituted the virtual disengage contact.

#

Amanda opened her eyes with a deep breath. She was an attractive woman, but not the one her partner had perceived. Her apartment was comfortable but nothing flashy. She stretched, tapping her headset pickup. The system screen, on an arm before her lie-back couch, showed a hospital room in which lay a withered body in white.

Gary Maitland had been left a quadriplegic in an air crash and his coma would last months yet, as synthetic enzymes worked their magic to re-anneal severed nerves. Feeding his mind, buried deep under electronically induced sleep, with good dreams buffered it against deterioration, and he was one of many in her charge.

A nurse appeared in the image, checking his brain function screen.

“Thank you, Miss Carlisle,” was the soft comment. “You always bring him the most wonderful dreams.”

“My pleasure,” she whispered. “’till next time.”

The link canceled and she pushed the screen aside, to stretch and head into her bathroom, drop her robe and take a quick shower, as cybersex had entirely real effects on the body.  It was the most unusual way for a psych PhD to make a living, but the life had its perks, and flying over that valley had become one of them.

Her next client was in another hospital on the other side of the country, a professional gambler before a bullet lodged in his neck sent him to a place from which medicine could not bring him back quickly. She settled into the couch and drew on the headset, loaded the “1925 Flapper” persona and phased with the feed from a digital speakeasy where a hot game awaited.

“Ready,” she whispered to the supervising nurse, and closed her eyes.

#

Have an erotic speculative fiction tale to tell?  If so, here’s what we’re looking for and how to send it our way: Call for Future of Sex Short Story Submissions

Image Sources: Depositphotos

The post “Dreams of Flying”—an Erotic Speculative Fiction Story appeared first on Future of Sex.

Love and desire are limitless-—and timeless

According to quantum entanglement, two particles can be connected even if they’re lightyears away from one another. Changing the state of one causes a predictable shift in the state of the other. This phenomenon is also known as “spooky action at a distance.”

#

It’s a year between 1990 and 2020, when two people meet online. One’s name is Alice, a trans woman, the other is Bob, a cis man. Alice lives on one side of the planet, and Bob on the exact opposite one.

“Hey Alice, does Tinder treat you well? Meeting fun people?” Bob asks after they match.

“It’s dreadful,” she replies with a smiley face.

And Bob agrees, it really is dreadful. Thus forms a first thread of connection between them, a shared hatred for the platform that allowed them to meet.

They go away from this dreadful app, to a slightly less dreadful one. And then agree again that all social media is dreadful. They exchange more smiley faces. The bond strengthens. 

“I wish I could cuddle with you,” Bob tells her one day. She wishes that, too, but because of the long distance they cannot embrace one another. They’re both financially limited. Bob works at a factory struggling to make do in the richest country of the world. Alice works in fashion, she’s in a developing country. The trip is too much for her own finances as well.

Time passes, and he doesn’t want to tell her that he loves her because he hasn’t met her in person, but he implies it frequently. They gather money to meet each other, but Alice’s laptop malfunctions, and she has to spend it on a replacement. It has to be a posh laptop, otherwise her job will kick her out. She spends all her money on it, and eats rice with salt for weeks.

They are both sad about this. They share their sadness.

Bob tells her he loves her.

They are limited to sharing their love verbally, through a screen interface. This action at a distance is limited, but for the first time in humanity’s history, people who never stepped on the same country form the beginnings of entanglement. The emotions of one directly shift those of the other.

#

In the future, there is a metaverse. It has brighter colors than reality and landscapes so refined by artistic eyes they amplify beauty. The year is between 2040 and 2100 when two people meet in this digital world. Alice is genderfluid, Bob is enby. They both like chocolates.

They view each other in all of the three dimensions. They take a stroll, then fly together among the clouds as they talk about the abhorrent ethics of the chocolate industry and how they both managed to find slave-free alternatives that are even more delicious. They start loving chocolate even more because it brings them closer.

They float down a coffee shop that nests on the branch of a sycamore. They pause to serve themselves coffee in the physical world, then enter the metaverse world again, still holding the cups that now look different: made of wood. A clothed bird nods at them, pretends to serve them, and they start sipping. Their minds register the taste differently. It’s not the same than the coffee each of them had on their own in their apartments.

They talk for hours. They meet again every day. They fall in love, sharing their affection verbally without restraint.

They touch but don’t feel each other. It’s a mirage.

But they pick on the mannerisms of one another. They understand each other’s body language. They reenact sex roleplay with vivid visions. Small gestures influence the emotional state of each other. Compared to the limitation of a screen interface, those two people are a whole dimension closer to entangled.

#

Two people meet. Alice and Bob, two shapeshifters with an affinity for human form, shifting their genders across a spectrum as they feel. The year is undefined. They spend time together in a vibrant world, a never-ending garden. They talk for hours. They fall in love.

Their hands touch. By machinations of biology, a sensation triggers the neurons of the palm and sends a message to each other’s brain that makes the touch real. By laws of physics their atoms never truly touch.

Lips enwrap lips, brush the skin, tongues trailing each other’s bodies from thigh to neck. They become two bodies so entangled they’re almost one. By law of physics their atoms never touch.

The two lovers no longer remember if this garden world is real. It’s full of lovers like them, and no one here is alone. People sometimes leave the garden and return. They are not allowed to share what happens beyond the garden. Their words turn to butterflies if they try.

Some say this world was designed so those sharing a powerful bond could be together. Some say it was a world meant to forget what happens beyond. Most agree it’s all a simulation.

According to the holographic principle, the world they come from is encoded in a two dimensional surface, projecting information on three dimensions. According to the holographic principle, that world is a simulation as well. People in the garden call it the “nested simulation theory.” They are a simulation within a simulation. Perhaps within another simulation, ever onward in a vast omniverse onion-shaped.

It makes no difference. The lovers know one thing, which is all that matters:

“If our souls are connected, and all our senses tell us our lover is really there, what makes it any less real?”

Image Sources: Depositphotos

The post “Sexy Action at a Distance”—an Erotic Speculative Fiction Story appeared first on Future of Sex.

Writers share their thoughts on what erotic pleasures the future may hold

Part of our ongoing Future of Sex Expert Series, we recently contacted seven of today’s highest-regarded erotica, science fiction, and—combining the two—erotic speculative fiction authors, asking them to give us their thoughts on the question, “What will we be surprised about by sex in 2040?”

Marilyn Jaye Lewis, writer of erotic fiction and nonfiction 

“A return to the awareness that sexual energy is the Supreme Creative Force, always yielding “something from nothing.” Whether by creating life, creating ecstasy and joy, or art in all its many forms. We’ll have a renewed conscious use of the mind and body’s blend of vibrational frequencies at the cellular level, creating limitless communication throughout the body, including the use of the body’s own vibrational frequency as a dependable form of personal birth control. We’ll see an increase in sexual well-being by removing any current dependencies we have on artificial interruptions of the mind/body’s sacred sexual energetic flow.”

Ralph Greco, Jr, professional writer/musician

“As I always do when it comes to matters of technology/future casting/human evolution, I’ll answer from two different perspectives:

“1) One, we will continue to make the most of our inventions: curing diseases, increasing chances of digital interaction, and fixing physical limitations leading to closer intimacies between people. The surprise will be how wonderful life grows every day in regard to our sex lives.

or—

“2) We will to spin out of control, decreasing the amount of human-to-human interactions, invent more virulent strains of diseases that by 2024, we will see a decrease in population from something we unleash (be it rampant overuse of AI, actual versus what we create, or the ennui gripping us now) making this question moot as there won’t be enough of us to care. The only surprise regarding sex will be how we lasted as long as we did before the planet simply shrugs our existence off like the little bug annoyance we have always been.

“I personally am betting on #2.” 

Nobilis Reed, creator, producer of Nobilis Erotica

“I think a lot of people will be surprised by how little has changed in twenty years.

“All sorts of things around sex are going to change. Advances in robots and AI will be monumental. There will be changes in society, from gender roles to media to laws and customs. In the end, though, what will surprise us most is the resilience of the basic human needs for touch, pleasure, and physical intimacy. There may be many changes to how we go about getting there, but once we’re skin-to-skin, things won’t change much at all.  Not as long as we’re human.”

Ernest Hogan, author of Guerrilla Mural Of A Siren’s Song: 15 Gonzo Science Fiction Stories

“The fact that there is a New Prudery among the young at the same time as an aversion to pubic hair and streaming services have commercials for newfangled gadgets for shaving vulva and testicles. Beyond the most far-out spec fic of the Seventies.” 

Dani Brown, author of erotica, bizarro, and horror fiction

“I think we’re going to see less relationships and less sex (even a one-night stand is a relationship if only for that one night). Hear me out, though. 

“While people aren’t looking, the technology is going to become more advanced and better. They’ll get curious. They’ll try it out and realize they can program their perfect partner and connect with the cyber world more so than now. Chatbots are still clunky, but so weren’t smartphones 16 years ago. 

“We’re going to start seeing and using more immersive technology, and it is going to get better. With a combination of immersive technology and real-world objects delivered straight to your door, everyone is going to spend more time in the virtual world than with real people. Maybe they’ll connect to real people that way, or maybe it’ll be all AI? But what it’ll amount to is less physical real-world sex. Why travel and leave the comfort of your own home when you can have all your sexual fantasies fulfilled in your front room?”

Sally Bend, author and editor of diverse, sex-positive romance and erotica

“By 2040, I suspect we’ll be bored with the pleasures of sex dolls, robots, and AI-fueled partners. We’ll be done with experimenting with artificial lovers to explore our darker, guiltier pleasures. What I think we’ll be surprised by is a rebound effect, one that propels us back into human intimacy and one-on-one relationships that are as much about emotional attachment as physical pleasure. Having had our outlets for experimentation, we’ll know what we like—and what everybody else likes—and in an era where nothing is truly private, there will no longer be any need to hide or hold back. 

“We’ll see relationships that cross genders, ages, races, body types, abilities, augmentations, and more. Having already explored (and shared) sexual hedonism as a society, with thoughts and feelings and emotions that are no longer secrets, our newfound appreciation for the emotional and intellectual aspects of sex will erase so many taboos and shift fetishes, fantasies, and lifestyles into visible relationships.”

M.Christian, sextech journalist and erotic speculative fiction author

“My opinion is we’re currently stuck in what seems like perpetual freefall; every technological breakthrough or societal/sexual change making us feel increasingly uncertain about, well, everything.

“Optimistically, I hope by 2040 we’ll have found some sense of cultural stability; a world where that today seems exotic or threatening is simply a regular, everyday part of life: artificial intelligences, artificial companions, augmented and virtual reality systems, and so forth but more importantly accepting gender is and has always been nothing but a social construct, and everyone has the right to engage in consensual sexual practices and have complete autonomy over our physical selves.  

“Realistic? Perhaps not, but the future is ours to create—so why not dream of a better one where we can be who we truly are, have the freedom to explore our desires and have the freedom to expand our sexual horizons?”

Image Sources: Depositphotos

The post Sci-Fi/Erotica Experts Weigh In on Sex in 2040 appeared first on Future of Sex.

Good things come to those who wait

The room filled with soft white light. A trick offered by the programmers and their artificial pain relief. Jeanie decided any extra comfort would make the upload easier as her body broke down one final time before the flames came. 

Vows were made to last forever. Jeanie wouldn’t fool herself and pretend that he meant it when he said he’d wait. That much coherence cut through her dwindling consciousness as the organic broke down and the digital became whole. But she’d still show up. She wasn’t about to break her end of the promise. 

She made the choice to dress in her wedding dress for the big day. Something borrowed. Something blue. Only no one wanted to lend her something and the varicose veins had to count for something blue. 

Vintage Dior gown lovingly restored and fitted from the charity shop that didn’t know what they were selling. It would be burnt with her body, but her upload wore it as Jeanie walked out of the soft white light. 

The haze created by the programmers lifted to pounding music circling around her pixel-generated body. She felt every beat. Dull at first until the upload was complete and the pain relief felt like it burned away with her earthly remains. 

Patrick promised he’d know when she was uploaded and wait for her in the digital version of the club where they first met. The floors were just as sticky as she remembered. 

The deejay added bottled fog to the dance floor. It was an old trick to conceal intoxicated drooling faces and make everyone that bit more attractive when the drugs wore off. 

Twenty-something once more with all the wisdom age bestowed upon her and having been here before, she knew the deejay and his old tricks. The song died but the artificial fog didn’t fade away. 

“Jeanie,” whispered from the speakers. 

Upgraded physical sensation cost extra, but the artificial fog caressing her neck made the price worth it. What was the point in eternity if it didn’t come wrapped in digital pleasure and pain to alternate forever? 

“Jeanie,” Patrick’s voice whispered inside her head. 

The artificial fog took on a chill as it brushed against her lips, making cutting into her descendant’s inheritance worth it. Pennies well spent, but they’d have to pay for the upkeep after so many centuries if her trust fund ran out. 

The dance floor cleared, leaving her alone in the fog. Buttons popped on the back of her wedding dress, landing on the sticky floor with a slight echo only to be swallowed by the artificial fog. The fog concealed her bare back from the revellers watching from the edge of the tiles. 

A softer song at lower volume came through on the speakers. Selected to be just the right length for the deejay to step out of his booth and walk to her. The strobe lights were automatic but had a gentler effect than when she first lost her pain relief haze. 

“I can control them with my mind,” Patrick said in her ear. 

His warm breath cut through the chill of the fog. Faint hints of honey twisted through, mingling with his sour sweat. Another added extra to cut into the inheritance. Only this time, Patrick was able to make a deliberate decision about what scents came from his pores and mouth. Jeanie would forget about perfume and soap once she learned how to programme her choices. 

He held out his arms as her knees went weak. It must have been half a century since she last felt his embrace. 

“No one else is here, except me and you.”

Pixels flickered on the edge of the dance floor as the revellers were swallowed by the fog. 

“I kept the party going all these years waiting for you.” 

A young person’s stickiness coursed through her new pixels starting from between her thighs, but soon she’d start thinking of them as her veins and forget what true breathing felt like. Soon she’d forget her advanced age, but not the wisdom that came with it or how to feel good. 

His lips felt as soft as the day they first met. This time, it was without the taste of cheap whisky watered-down with too much ice and hangover for what should have been the morning walk of shame. Would have been, with any other man. 

Those same lips were moistened with Vaseline on their wedding day. But now, they didn’t need Vaseline or even hydration. Drinking and eating were for pleasure only (at added expense to the family of the uploadee once the trust fund ran low on credits). 

Patrick’s tongue parted her teeth. They couldn’t really be real teeth only existing in digital form on the cloud, but they were more real than her dentures that had to be removed prior to cremation and therefore, prior to Jeanie’s upload. 

When he stepped away, the strobe light paused on blue. He held out cornflowers woven into a crown. 

“Something blue,” he said. 

The song changed to something faster and pixels flashed. The dance floor filled with people that didn’t really exist. 

“Patrick,” she asked, “are these real uploads, or figments you created?”

“A bit of both,” he winked, “look closer.” 

Jeanie turned around, Patrick squeezed her hand. Her own face stared back at her. But not from everyone. People entered the club after the dance floor had been cleared, lurking in the shadows until Patrick signalled that the party was never meant to end. 

“I told you I would wait, the vows are forever.” 

He pulled her backwards into his arms. 

“I missed you.” 

Pixels flickered on the faces that resembled her before they finally went dark.

“Together at last.” 

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