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ramblingpillager-blog · 7 years

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VRC: Brandon

Brandon swaggered, as only a VR avatar could swagger, through the crowded bar. How stupid that VR bars were nearly impenetrable. It’s not like you could drink real alcohol in a VR bar.

His ID twinkled above his head, RecklessABrandon. That made him swagger too. He was proud of that one. Took him three days to think of it, and then he had to totally redesign his avatar to match. His avatar, like Brandon in the flesh, was muscular, fit, and attractive. He spent as much time running at the gym as he did in his VR headset.

Unlike many, VR didn’t suck Brandon in for days at a time. He liked being outdoors in the Minneapolis sun. Climate change had made the central US weather pretty erratic, but Minnesota had lucked out. The winters were milder, and the lakes and parks helped make the summers a little more bearable. Plus he had hockey practice three nights a week most of the year. His VR time had to pack a lot of entertainment for each minute, since he had so little.

The hot chick at the bar watched him cross the dance floor and worm his way through a crowd of cheering sorority sisters who’d gotten wasted and come to the VR bar to fuck shit up. But this girl wasn’t into that shit, and Brandon nodded approvingly.

Of course, everybody in VR looked great. It was the risk you took, building relationships with these projections of people’s illusions rather than their physical beings. “Outing” avatars had become a pastime for a whole sector of Internet trolls, members of the jealous class who hacked into less-secure VR networks and stalked social media for any clues that might link an avatar to its owner. The fact that RecklessABrandon wasn’t afraid to have his name in his handle meant he was either too solid in real life to care what people knew about him, or he was part of the troll gangs who loved to out their victims.

Of course, it was easy to dump one avatar identity and pick up another, so almost no one knew Brandon led the r/outage board for “kills,” as they liked to call them. It was all meant to be base human cruelty, but sometimes the cruelty hit its mark too hard and victims took themselves out of VR permanently, usually via suicide. If you couldn’t VR, you struggled to get anywhere in life. Unless you were Amish. Some of the outed people moved to Amish country, no joke.

Trolling had gotten so bad, Congress haggled over two bills, one banning the use of anything but real names (it got shot down immediately by privacy advocates and domestic abuse victims groups) and another to apply a 5 year Internet and VR ban to anyone caught outing someone else. The second bill almost passed, but some of the Internet freedom groups drummed up enough fear that the government couldn’t be trusted to identify trolls unless it also had access to everyone’s usernames, profile information, and location data, something the Privacy Act of 2027 had banned outright thanks to Senator Snowden’s efforts to reform the US’s privacy laws.

Brandon loved Senator Snowden. In fact, he donated money to his re-election campaign every six years as a quiet token of gratitude. Privacy laws had bolstered security around everyone’s account information. As someone who understood those systems too well, RecklessABrandon felt little fear that his side hobby would get him busted.

The girl at the bar was still watching him. Hm. Was that an invitation? Might as well knock on this door while it was available. Maybe she had one of the new suits that let people experience in the flesh what they were doing in VR. Because he sure did, and VR sex was way better than the original. If you had the right person. And a little daring.

Brandon nestled himself into his VR rig, moving gracefully in real space within a full 360° harness that allowed him to act out every motion he was performing within the virtual environment. His swagger may have been exaggerated a bit in virtual reality - a man’s got to represent, after all - but anyone who really knew him in VR could pick out his gait as he strolled IRL.

“Hey. What are you doing in a dive like this?” he opened, hoping a slight nod to film noire might score him some points with this woman who radiated confidence and allure. Mmmmm. He didn’t need his mesh suit to tell his body parts what to feel. She generated everything he needed.

She tipped up her chin in a manner of greeting. Too chill to be bothered to speak, he noted. “Want to join me in some whiskey and then some sex?” Brandon didn’t beat around. He’d learned that people in VR tended to be more upfront about their goals, since they had a level of anonymity to protect them. And he had to consider that this gorgeous model might be piloted by some dude in a half-assed piece of shit rig in a slum in Oklahoma City. You had to take risks, if you wanted to gain any glory. Besides, he loved outing the cross-gender VR avatars. Absolutely made his day.

“Hello, Brandon.” Her voice came through his headset as an alto, smoky with an undercurrent of bourbon and danger. She stood up and slid over a seat so he could have the stool. He noticed her incredible figure, her size D breasts, her dress slit up the thigh allowing him a glimpse of black lace panties. If she wasn’t here for sex, she sure was hanging out the wrong shingle.

“You mean RecklessABrandon,” he responded with a wink. Gotta make sure the bitches are clear about his self-confidence. Plus the wise ones would heed the warning: This guy is fine with you knowing his real name. Don’t fuck him over, or he’ll destroy you IRL.

“Fine. Then I guess you’ll have to call me PollyM0th, if we’re going to be all formal about it.” She swigged the last of her bourbon and set the glass aside. “I’ve got a room booked upstairs, and I’ve been itching to try it out. Are you wearing a suit?”

“Yeah. Top of the line Nike 2689, just came out a month ago. If you so much as brush a fingertip across my arm, I’d feel it.”

“Excellent. Let’s see how much it can take.”

***** One benefit of virtual sex was the avoidance of pounding and shouting in the flesh, which always had the risk of generating threats from the people next door or below. Brandon followed PollyM0th up the stairs to a room at the end of the 3rd virtual floor. VR had spawned an entire industry of virtual real estate, where brokers bought and sold virtual apartments and houses for real money. It made little sense to the aging Millennials but nobody gave a shit about them anyway. Whoever hadn’t made the jump to VR got left behind, as far as most VR residents were concerned. If you were the type to spend most of your time online, what did it matter how shitty your apartment was in real life?

This woman clearly loved her space. The oak door opened at a touch - virtual fingerprint lock technology, he noted. It wasn’t enough that the door probably recognized her ID; this was an additional security measure meant to ensure no one could hack their way into her VR space. Wise move.

The interior, as was common in VR apartments, vastly overflowed the physical “exterior” of the apartment. In virtual space, rules of geometry were irrelevant. Renters could pay for as much interior storage as they wanted. PollyM0th clearly paid for a lot.

She grabbed him by the tie (Brandon always dressed up to go clubbing; only slobs didn’t) and pulled him toward her for a kiss that was shockingly passionate. His Nike suit did not disappoint him; these models included a comfortable lightweight face mesh that enabled the wearer to experience exactly something like this, a kiss. He mentally praised his foresight in refusing to skimp on quality where it mattered.

A small file chimed in his vision. His hands were occupied though with this vixen chewing on his lip while she groped for his trousers. He put his hands to better use, feeling around her shoulders to unzip the back of her dress. It fell away revealing her naked torso. God, she was beautiful. He didn’t even care that she was probably a 250 pound middle-aged woman from some godforsaken corn town in Iowa. He’d hack her tomorrow to find out for sure; right now he wanted the sex.

PollyM0th maneuvered them both toward a spacious bedroom appointed with a variety of chains, hooks, and posts. Ah. A BDSM junkie. Of course. He’d been a little lax lately in checking out the women he banged in VR; and as a general rule, he avoided the kinky ones unless he had some reason to believe they were good at it. Hopefully, this one would let him handcuff her, bang her, and then leave her till the cuffs expired in an hour or two. Virtual BDSM was actually pretty dull even with a good flesh suit.

As if she’d read his thoughts, PollyM0th stopped kissing and groping and looked him over. “You probably think this is dumb, don’t you, my lair of sexual fantasy and bondage. Most men do. They just want to handcuff me to the bed, and walk out once they’re done. I hope you’re not so dull.”

He eyed her, letting his eyes wander over her gorgeous form. “For you, madam, I would do anything tonight.”

“Anything?”

“Absolutely. Do your worst. I can’t wait.” He pulled off his tie and threw it on a chair. Arms spread wide, Brandon dared her to make it worth it.

Oh, she did. Brandon lost track of time as they tumbled, groped, banged, sucked, whipped, tied, and teased their way through a pair of orgasms each. She showed little signs of slowing down, though he was getting pretty tired. His Nike suit transmitted every experience perfectly, though now he understood why the salesman had emphasized repeatedly that his suit was machine washable.

PollyM0th eyed Brandon up and down, his naked avatar reclining lazily on the bed. “I bet you’ve never actually done anything really interesting in VR,” she challenged, narrowing her eyes at his virtual penis with a questioning look.

“What? God, woman, you don’t even know me. I’ve done everything with this penis, both in the flesh and in pixels.” Brandon found himself genuinely offended.

“Are you willing to put that Nike 2689 through its paces one more time? Or are you done for the night?” She got up, turning her lucious rear view toward his appreciative gaze.

“I can take anything you can dish out. Tie me up, do what you will. I’m ready.”

“Did you notice I sent you a file awhile back?”

No, he hadn’t. His hands and brain and penis had all been busy when it’d arrived, and he’d completely forgotten to see what she’d sent. He flipped the file onto his virus checker and frowned. Yellow bar. That meant the file would execute a program. “What is this? I don’t run programs from strangers.”

She turned around, holding a metal bar and a pair of handcuffs. “If you want to put me in these, you’re gonna have to open the file. Look, my dad runs a company that writes VRware for suits like yours. That’s why I have such a great suit myself. My dad programmed the software to perfectly fit my body. And he wrote an enhancer that works with any top-line suit. You’ll feel things you’ve never experienced before, I promise.”

He flipped the file open without a pause.

***** Oh god, oh god. This is horrible. He couldn’t say it, but it was all he’d been thinking for the past ... how long had it been? He had no idea.

If anyone had walked into Brandon’s actual apartment at that moment, they would have seen him frozen motionless in his $2500 VR rig, his ankles and knees and wrists suspended in front of him, in alignment with his head. On his screen, they would have seen the whole picture: his virtual body was locked in a steel frame, ankles and knees and wrists handcuffed to a bar that ran all the way to a metal collar around his neck.

He’d discovered some things about his Nike 2689 that the salesman hadn’t mentioned, or perhaps the girl was telling the truth about her dad’s programming abilities. Either way, once she’d locked him in place with what he thought were self-timed handcuffs, his face mesh had hardened into a mouth piece that blocked his ability to speak. The material covering his eyes went opaque, blocking his vision. And the suit otherwise responded realistically to being handcuffed to a metal bar and suspended from the ceiling.

But it wasn’t the physical pain that tore at him right now, though if the bitch was to be believed, she’d kept him cuffed for two hours already. His body suggested she was telling the truth, and his full bladder was beginning to force its way into his consciousness with urgent warnings. If I piss myself, and my girlfriend finds me in here in what looks like a whorehouse covered in my own urine, she’s going to walk out and never come back.

No, it’s what she’s saying.

“Well, Brandon, I’m glad you dropped by tonight. You know, I’ve been waiting in that hell-hole of a bar every night for four weeks hoping to find you. You’re a real piece of shit, you know that? How many people have you outed? One hundred? Two hundred? Your profile on r/outed suggests it might be closer to two-fifty.”

This is when he realized she wasn’t role playing anymore.

The virtual cuffs were made only of pixels, but his Nike suit squeezed even harder around his body, stifling his breathing and holding him rigid in places that weren’t meant to be immobile at this angle. His back ached, his neck muscles burned, his tongue felt wooly since it’d been probably 4 or 5 hours since he’d had a chance to drink any water.

“Two hundred and fifty people, lives opened up and smeared all over the Internet, for your pleasure. Dick move, Brandon. Brandon Lewis. Brandon Lewis of 365 Sycamore Street, Minneapolis.”

Underneath the mesh suit, beads of sweat formed on Brandon’s face as he blanched. If she outed him....

“Oh yes, you’re fucked. The only question is whether I’m going to fuck you and crush you, or just humiliate you. What’ll it be? Oh, right, you can’t say anything.” She waved a finger toward a menu and Brandon felt the mesh around his mouth loosen.

He panted and tried to lick his lips. “Please, I don’t know what you want, but this is genuinely painful. Please let me go.”

“Of course it’s painful, asshole. Why do you think I did it?”

“These cuffs are going to expire soon, right? Like, I get your point, ok? You think I’m a total dick because I outed people. Yes, I did it. I’m Brandon Lewis. Con-fucking-gratulations on your google skills, bitch--” A sharp pain shot through his back as she grabbed his virtual ankles and twisted them one way while turning his wrists and the bar in the opposite direction

“Look, Brandon, here’s the situation. These aren’t timed cuffs. I have total control of your suit. Also, while you’ve been hanging there, I’ve dumped your hard drive data and located your complete activity log for the past four years. One, I can’t believe you’re still using the same crappy hardware. Guess you put all your money into your fancy experience suit. Two, I’m about to doxx you into no tomorrow on r/outed. I know your troll buddies won’t care that you’ve been outing, but the FBI watches that board daily for clues, and I’m about to make sure they find you.

“Hopefully the FBI will figure it out soon, because I have no intention of releasing a piece of shit like you back into the wild. I’ve locked your door -- thanks for installing smart locks, by the way -- and posted the code along with your address and list of outings on the r/outed board. It’s currently 5am. Assuming the FBI checks the board first thing in the morning, you can expect someone to show up and release you by noon today. I’ve also texted your girlfriend that you were with me all night having hot sex, and she’s pretty angry with you. I think I watched her storm out the door via your security cameras. So I’d say you’ll be all alone until the feds come to lock you up.”

Brandon swallowed. He was numb all over, unrelated to his uncomfortable position. He raced for ideas, hoping to hit on something he could say that might work as a bargaining chip.

He didn’t even get to take a full breath to speak before the facial mesh tightened across his mouth, mirroring the gag PollyM0th crammed into his mouth in her virtual dungeon. She smiled. “I don’t want to hear it, Brandon. Save it for your lawyer.” She waved her left hand in the farewell menu gesture, but instead of disappearing from the frame, Brandon watched as her bedroom faded from his view. He was left looking at the grey grid of a blank program in his own developer software, watching the clock in the corner blink slowly toward sunrise.

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