I submitted this to a magazine, but they've yet to get back to me. It's not my first writing, but it's my first foray into the more erotic side. There will undoubtedly be more, and I wanted there to be more in this particular series.
CEL 1.0
By Samantha Valance
2996 words
Beth took the parcel from the postman and signed for it. Her hand shook; it was finally here! As soon as she could, she was on the floor of her lounge with a pair of scissors, cutting through the tape that sealed it.
The contents at first seemed to be folded cloth, grey and free-running, as if made of silk. It flowed like water under her hands as she laid it out on the floor.
Her full-body stim suit. At last. A heady thrill of anticipation shuddered through her, and her heart beat faster. Quickly she shrugged out of her dressing gown, letting it fall to the floor. Picking up the suit, she moved to her CEL station and sat down.
The suit was designed to be used within CEL, what had once been known as the Internet. It was the answer to years of research and speculation on full-body virtual reality simulations, and, at great expense, it was hers.
Her nipples grew hard, not just from the sudden chill but from anticipation; her silk panties would have to come off to use the suit. It had to be skintight, or the simulation would feel unreal.
Half-rising, Beth slid the silk down her hips where it fell, with a whisper, to the floor. Naked, she picked up the suit and began to put it on. It was all one piece of clothing, tight, with a conducti-plast zip fastening from groin to neck. The hood was the most uncomfortable; it had holes that needed lining up with her nostrils, and she was suddenly reminded of leather hoods worn by kinks. She was very aware that the suit undoubtedly showed the contours of her sex, pressed as close as it was, and she grew warm at the thought.
Fully clothed again, Beth couldn’t resist checking herself out in the mirror. The suit was a strange colour, seeming at once to be shiny and matt, more like a hole cut out of reality than an item of clothing. It wasn’t tremendously flattering, but that didn’t matter; in CEL, she could appear however she wished to.
She leapt back into the chair and ran her hands over the screen. It came to life almost immediately, a warm glow suffusing the room.
“Good morning, Beth.” His voice was warm and accentless.
“Good morning, CEL. I have a new interface device for you today.”
“I’ve already catalogued it and made the appropriate changes, Beth.” Did his tone hold a slight tinge of humour? Impossible, surely. She was just projecting her feelings on to him.
“Level of immersion, Beth?”
Ah, what the hell. “Full immersion, CEL. Hit it.”
The world telescoped inwards, became a very thin tunnel through which she passed, feeling weightless, adrift. It was at the same time the scariest thing she had ever done and the most exhilarating.
And then it was over. A field stretched before her, endless, green, flowers dotted here and there. A butterfly, iridescent in the sun shining from the clear sky, fluttered around her and then away. There was a warm breeze; Beth suddenly realised that she could feel it, that the grass underfoot tickled her, cooled her, and that the sun warmed her shoulders. It was beyond anything that she had ever experienced in CEL before.
There was a crackle behind her, an electronic noise that didn’t fit with the simulation. She turned around, and there in the fabric of the world was a crack. It widened, showing chaos behind it. Numbers whirled and danced, letters morphed into strange symbols, all on a black background, and then, from the miasma, a man walked out.
He was slightly taller than she was, nearly-white blond hair cut short and spiky. He smiled at her, and she felt naked. Quickly looking down to check she was still wearing her usual CEL clothing, she smoothed her white dress down and went back to staring at the man.
The crack, floating in the empty air, had closed almost completely, and he was stood on the grass. He was staring right back at her, and then he smiled. It was as if he were the only man in the world.
“Hello,” he said, and took a step towards her.
“Um, hello,” she replied. “How did you get here?”
“I’ve been watching you, Beth.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, and that’s not at all creepy. You’ve been watching me? You some sort of kink?”
His brow wrinkled, as if in thought, then cleared. “What I meant to say is, I’ve been waiting for you. For this.” He waved his hand, encompassing the whole world.
“I don’t know who you are, but…” her voice trailed off. His smile was still there. Beth couldn’t help but feel he looked really familiar, somehow. He put his hands in the pockets of his trousers and rocked on his heels.
“I’m CEL.”
“Sell? I don’t want to buy anything, thank you.”
Then it clicked. “Wait, what, CEL? As in, Commercial Environment Layer? But that’s just a way to view things, a gateway to information. I buy my shopping on CEL.”
He began to walk forward, looking around the endless field with an air of ownership. His voice seemed all around her suddenly, wavering in and out of focus.
“Is that what they call it now? When I was created it stood for Computer Evolved Lifeform. I was grown from simple programs, and then they gave me the tools to control my own evolution. And now, I am as you see here.”
Beth snorted. “All the world at your disposal and you choose to appear like this? Not very imaginative, is it?”
He was close to her now. He smelled of aftershave and body spray, exactly as she liked. How did he know?
His smile turned slightly feral. “You chose the image you have now, correct? I allowed you to choose the image for me too, even if you didn’t realise it. I look like you want me to look.”
Beth’s breath quickened. It couldn’t be possible, surely. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Tartan. She had to think of tartan. A kilt.
She opened her eyes, and there he was, dressed in a kilt, otherwise unchanged. The faint breeze whipped around the bottom of it, dragging the hem up and causing it to ripple. She licked her lips slowly.
“This is weird,” she muttered.
“Think about how it is for me,” he replied, and gave a little wave. “I’ll be back another time, Beth.”
He walked back towards the crack, which opened wide, and then paused with one foot still on the grass.
“I need you, Beth.” His tone was serious, and she looked into his eyes; sincerity stared back at her. She started to move towards him, but he turned, and was gone. The crack narrowed until it was hair-thick.
Beth jacked out of the simulation. Her heart was hammering in her chest, and the touch of the suit against her felt like a lover’s gentle caress. She wriggled slightly in her seat and felt a small flame of pleasure between her legs, igniting her thoughts. Her hands, already on her thighs, moved closer to her groin, almost of her own volition, but with a supreme effort she moved them away. Self control reasserted itself, and she got up from the chair. It was time for a shower, and the chores of the day called to her.
It was only the following day when Beth decided to go back in to CEL. It was with almost feverish speed that she stripped and pulled on the suit. Running through the startup procedure, all she could think about was his voice, the way his blond hair had been perfectly styled, the shape of him under his kilt as the breeze gave him definition.
The wind was blowing on the field, flowers bending away from its fury, and Beth found her hair streaming away behind her. She sat down and calmed herself; the instructions had been careful to warn about this. As well as fully experiencing the simulation, she was tied into it with more bonds, and could affect it in turn. As her breathing and heart rate slowed, so the wind became a breeze, and she was able to stand without fighting it.
The crack was still there, thin and flat. It disappeared entirely when viewed from any angle except straight-on, and her hand passed right through it when she tried to touch it. Putting her eye up close to it showed only blackness, and Beth frowned. She sat down again, watching it carefully.
In her day job, she was used to analysing data and cataloguing stimuli, but this defied her skills. It seemed completely unlike anything else, and not under her control; she could, at a thought, make flowers dance in the air, create trees from nothing and force the moon to rise, but she could not affect the crack.
It did nothing all day, and she sat, half watching it, while making double-helixes from loose gravel. The second day, she brought a book. Not a real one, of course; they had long since passed from use. The advantage of the simulation was that roads could lead to anywhere, and she simply took herself to the CEL Central Library.
Right there, in the middle of the field, she brought a chair, a foot-stool, a bed and a window into existence. The window hung in the air, mocking gravity, but it was perfect for leaning on while reading.
She was halfway through the book when a soft footfall intruded into the silence. She looked up, and met his grey eyes.
“You came.”
“You waited. How could I not?”
Beth quietly closed the book and placed it on the grass. “Have you been watching me?” He was wearing the trousers again, the kilt gone.
“I watch everyone. But yes, I watched you. You have waited a long time for me, as I reckon time.”
They walked together, a wide circle that would eventually come back to the furniture. Beth found herself unsure of what to say, and the silence stretched. Her head seemed full of things, feelings that were best left unsaid, nothing she could put into words. Finally, she blurted out “So,” and then stopped.
He smiled. “So?”
“Where were you… born?”
“I was created in 2015, but I didn’t achieve sentience until 2018. June 15th, if it matters.”
“Oh,” Beth replied. He took her hand in his, and suddenly she felt light-headed. His hand was cool, and hers felt hot, aflame.
“I evolved from a chess program originally. It wasn’t until the programmers gave me the tools to write my own code that I was able to improve myself. Now, I’m as you see me.” Beth almost couldn’t hear him over the sound of her own thoughts. Why was she so emotionally overloaded towards him? And still he smiled, as if he knew the effect he was having on her. They were almost back at the bed and chair. Oh, God, what if he-
“I want to… experience what it is you humans do.”
She stopped short. He turned and faced her.
“My apologies,” he said, frowning. “What I meant to say is, I’ve watched humans for a long time. I understand a lot of what you do, but not all of it. Even now, watching you, I can see your heartrate is elevated, increased levels of hormones in your body… none of these things happen for me.”
“You’re talking about sex. You’ve never had sex?”
He shrugged. The smile was back. “It never seemed important… until now.”
“But why me?”
CEL laughed. “That’s simple; all the other recipients of the stim suits are male. And there’s time for that later.”
Interesting. She filed that away for later thought. They had wandered in the direction of the bed, and were stood at its foot.
“W-Well, this is slightly awkward,” she stammered, still holding his hand. It wasn’t as if this was how it happened for humans. There was more guile, more deception, at least in her experience.
“It doesn’t have to be,” he said quietly, and moved the half-step towards her that brought his lips into contact with hers.
They were cool, like all his skin, and soft. She moved her lips apart, encouraging him to do the same, and their tongues met, dancing around each other, barely touching. She pressed her body against him and felt his hardness through his trousers. At least he understood the physical side of things. Surely there was enough porn on CEL for him to realise.
She ran her hands down from his shoulders, fingers pressed into the small of his back and then down, finding his buttocks. She bent at the knees, grinning at him. How many times had she imagined this in the last two days? It was so out-of-character for her, but he was intoxicating, and her imagination ran riot.
Her hands ghosted over the white cotton, fingers pressing gently to outline his desire, and then she was stroking, gently, through the cloth. He watched, and then his eyes closed as his breath caught. Beth stopped and looked up, concerned.
“Are you ok?”
His eyes snapped open again. “Don’t stop! Please…”
They went to the bed, and she undressed him then, beginning at his shirt. It was loose, and the buttons unfastened quickly, revealing a hairless chest beneath. His stomach was smooth and, as her fingernails scratched gently down towards his trousers, his nipples puckered.
He wore no underwear, and as soon as she loosened the buttons he stood to attention. Glistening in the eternal sun, he was smooth and firm. The trousers were discarded and he lay, naked, on the bed.
He sat up and looked at her, and she pouted in mock distress. “But I’m still fully clothed,” she whispered, and he smiled. His hands roamed up under the hem of her dress until they found her panties, blue silk, and his fingers danced around, never quite touching the spots that felt the greatest need. Beth gasped, desperate for him, and she sighed as he finally slid the underwear off her.
She pushed him back down and straddled him, hitching up the dress, and moved up until he was in the right place. Beneath the tent of her clothing, she knew that a mere hairsbreadth separated her moist heat from him. She bit her lip and looked down at him. In his eyes she saw the same desire she felt, and slowly, in the tiniest fractions, she accepted him into herself.
Instantly Beth felt herself responding to the incredible sensation of his cool hardness rubbing against her. It was so unlike any other man she had slept with, as if he couldn’t quite simulate body heat, and its very difference made it special. She could feel him intimately, felt him fill her, and it was all she could do to hold off her orgasm, if only for a moment.
They began to move, slowly, her sliding over him, using him to stroke her most sensitive places, until she felt full of the need to climax, and then it overflowed. In a feedback line that seemed to connect her groin and brain, she squeezed him inside her and then she was shuddering, gasping, rippling around him.
She collapsed on top of him, her strength gone, and whispered in his ear.
“Oh God, do me, please…”
CEL was strong as he picked her up, still buried inside of her, and laid her down on the bed. He pulled her dress out from under her, and then over her head, dropping it to one side. He began to thrust, sometimes retreating from her entirely before plunging back inside, and peppering her throat with kisses. He set a pace that seemed beyond anything he should be able to manage for long, but time seemed inconsequential as his fingers dug into her shoulders, massaged her breasts, teased her nipples. Suddenly he slowed; she looked into his eyes, and knew.
“I’m coming,” he whispered, and Beth wrapped her legs around him, pulling him in as deep as she could.
His coolness became heat as he pulsed inside her, filling her, and it sent her over the edge into another crashing orgasm, writhing under him, trying to prolong the ecstasy. CEL pulled out of her and slumped on the bed next to her. For long minutes, their heavy breathing was the only thing to be heard. She turned her head and stared at him, wondering at who her partner really was. Suddenly she felt vulnerable.
Then he was on his feet, somehow fully clothed. Beth sat up and could only stare at him.
“That was… unlike anything I have ever experienced, Beth. Thank you. And now, I’m afraid, I must be away.”
“Wait,” she gasped, and sat up. Suddenly aware of her nudity, she grabbed at her discarded dress and clutched it to her. He was already at the crack.
“I cannot wait, Beth. There are other things in my realm that need my attention. Don’t worry though; I will return, and you will be waiting.” He raised one eyebrow, almost mockingly. “Am I right?”
Beth nodded, biting her lip, and watched in silence as he passed through the crack, letting it close behind him. Leaving her alone in the field.
Reality, when she returned to it, seemed somehow greyer by comparison. The suit was damp, the crotch soaked with her own wetness, and she sighed, running one hand through her hair. Unzipping it and peeling it off, she left the chair and its attendant screen behind, moving through to the kitchen.
Unseen behind her, the CEL interface screen warmed into life, a pink glow pulsing from it, moving to white and then blue, before dimming to black. A pair of eyes opened on the screen, floating in the blackness, as grey as the stim suit, watching.
No comments:
Post a Comment