The Avatar Experiment (The Future of Sex Book 3) Page 6

  She slipped her panties down, bending at the waist and turning sideways to watch. Chloe stood when they were mostly down, stretched between her ankles. She let the finger slip inside with a gasp. She looked at her reflection, seeing just how blushed she’d become — from her cheeks to tits to throbbing bald pussy lips. She was so wet. A second finger joined the first. She pulled them out and drew a line to her belly button with her juices.

  Tired of acting for the mirror, Chloe stepped out of her panties without ceremony and lay back on the bed. She returned her fingers to her pussy, this time rubbing her clit and feeling the fullness of her lips. She closed her eyes. She increased her pressure and tempo. One hand wasn’t enough like it usually was; Chloe wanted something inside her, too, so she spread her legs wide, feeling herself open for an imagined lover, then combined three fingers on her right hand to create a cock.

  The cock (Andrew’s) slid inside her. Chloe gasped. She forgot her hand and arm, trying to fall into the adaptive trance she always found with clients. She waited and felt. Waited and felt. Her first orgasm began to crest, and fantasy snapped into place. Chloe could almost imagine herself with Andrew, rather than with herself, could feel the pressure of his body against her inner thighs, spreading them. She could imagine the sensation of his balls slapping against her pussy as he thrust inside her. She craned her neck sideways, almost feeling his breath on her neck, his gentle nibbles.

  “Oh,” she moaned. “Cum for me, baby. Cum inside me.”

  Saying the words made Chloe’s pussy twitch on her fingers. She rubbed her clit faster, then felt herself careening toward the edge. Her hips rose from the bed. She rubbed faster. Her hips were bucking, her head rolling side to side as she moaned into the empty room.

  But her man wasn’t done. She turned her attention back to Andrew, and the cock inside her. It thrust. Her hand thrust. He thrust, burying his dick deep in her sopping-wet hole. Chloe imagined Andrew’s moans and the way he’d collapse onto her chest as he came. She imagined feeling his warmth spill inside her. At the same time, Chloe rubbed her clit faster, faster. A small, helpless noise escaped. Then she was cumming again, and this time it was harder and more helpless. She rolled and writhed with it, clamping her legs together on both hands as she rolled to the side. Chloe kept her fingers moving and without descending rode her first big wave into the second. Only after five full minutes of lying still did Chloe open her eyes to find the room empty.

  “I love you, baby,” she told the room.

  The room was silent.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ALEXA PACED HER APARTMENT’S SMOOTH wood floor at the top of Cathedral, arguably one of District Zero’s most prestigious spires. The apartment was lush without being overly extravagant. It boasted two floors and sole access to a rooftop deck where she could see what felt like the entire city.

  It was a nice apartment for a girl who’d started scribbling the sex scenes she saw in her head because they made for excellent alone time material. She’d read other erotica in her late teens and 20s, of course, but it was so rare to find writing that tickled her in just the right way. The trash on the market at the time was clichéd and amateur; reading through it had depressed Alexa as much as it irritated her. Was this really what sold? Babysitter fantasies and fucking the pool boy? The scenes themselves were as clichéd as the setups, filled with bullshit dialogue and cardboard characters, goo-filled action that read like an autopsy. Either most of the erotica on the market was written by men, or by women who were nothing like her.

  Alexa loved a good, hard railing, of course, but the attention was all on pounding and beating and hammering, as if fucking was like forging a sword in a blacksmith’s kiln. She wasn’t surprised; everyone was publishing their own work at the time, and the entire market suffered from a stunning lack of talent. In most genres, it wasn’t a problem as cream rose to the top. Not the erotica market, though. In erotica, all it seemed to take was a big dick, a few cheesy lines, and probably some storyline about an asshole rich man and a woman too dumb to tell him to fuck off, and you could have yourself a bestseller.

  Alexa needed good erotica for herself, and felt she had something to prove. As a lifelong writer, Alexa knew she could do better while barely trying. She had, and saw her work go nowhere because it couldn’t swim high enough for its quality to gather the eyeballs. Until she finally put on her marketing hat and got creative. It was a fine line between “creative” and “ruthless,” but that unrelenting mindset was what helped Alexa Mathis claw to the top of the charts, then kept her there for long enough to amass the fortune and name that later allowed her to fund O’s startup — and seeing as her stuff was actually worth reading, the ends seemed to justify Alexa’s rather cutthroat means.

  The door buzzed. Alexa answered. Parker Barnes strode in alone. Predictably, he said, “We must stop meeting like this.”

  “You say that every time, Parker.”

  “I know.” He had a light raincoat slung over one arm, and tossed it onto one of Alexa’s chairs. The chair cost 1,400 universal credits. She decided not to yell at Parker, because he’d never learn anyway. “It’s my signature catchphrase. Like how Emeril used to say, ‘BAM!’”

  “Who’s Emeril?”

  Parker rolled his eyes. “My cousin. But seriously, we’re supposed to meet as six, and this is the second time in a month we’re meeting as two.”

  “I’m having you over for wine.”

  “Okay. Whatever.” He plunked himself into another 1,400-credit chair. “I opt to skip the wine. Instead, let’s allow our casual, non-O conversation to drift until we’re talking about why you’re on board with Benson and Charisma’s vidstream idea.”

  “It’s a good idea if it can be done right, Parker. I could have recorded Benson’s little marketing speech the other day and made a poster. All of that was true. Interactive porn? Requiring an interactive viewer to work? The potential is astonishing, with the side benefit that more of our devices in customers’ hands — instead of them watching on terminals — means more data for us. More data means better custom interactive products. Boom.”

  “It’s ‘Bam!’” said Parker.

  “What?”

  “Nevermind. But yes, it’s a good idea in concept. In execution, it sucks. What Chloe did on film with Vic was literally the hottest shit porn I never want to see again. Besides, even if we can record her … without her knowing … and get the right shots with the right lighting, in line with Eros’ usual quality standards … without her responding to shit-ass acting … with her doing her thing for the viewer rather than her partner … I’m still not convinced it’s the right idea.”

  “Why?”

  “For one, it’s just plain wrong. We snap a straightforward voyeur vid and release that, it’s a blurry line as to whether we’d have that right anyway, with her being an escort in our employ — our Directorate employ, no less. But the harder we work to keep her out of the loop, the more obvious it becomes that we’re simply manipulating and exploiting her.”

  “Really. Are you new to this, Parker? Didn’t you used to experiment on your patients with the Orion?”

  “Experiment is the wrong word. I encouraged them to try things that were borderline.”

  “And recorded them.”

  “Yes, but I never distributed the vids. Look, we’ve all done shit. I get it. But what’s the big deal about simply telling her? Chloe’s a pleaser. She fucked two guys without being paid before we even flinched toward hiring her, and she knocked both out of the park. Shaw didn’t so much as ask for payment or the likelihood of getting the job. She’d heard rumors about the Orion but hopped right on when asked. I’m sure if we asked Chloe to do a video — to do three versions of each scene, mimic whatever triggers Benson can give us from his girl Stolovia or whatever her name is — she’d do it in a second.”

  “Of course, she would,” said Alexa. “That’s not the point. The question is, what happens if the vid is a hit and too many people get to know Chloe Shaw?”


  “You’re afraid she’ll leave us for a better company? We’re the best. Or maybe that she’ll demand too much money to renew? So fucking what? That’s the argument Houston and Olivia never really understand: that we can pay all the money in the world for something that makes us even more. As long as we get more than one credit back for every credit put in, we’re at a win.”

  “It’s not just that, Parker. If Chloe becomes a star now, it’ll dilute our plans for later. She’ll no longer be fresh. People will say, ‘I know that girl from X.’ And they’ll never be able to get their minds out of the way enough to see her as Y.”

  “So, we bring her in, tell her what we want her to do, then scramble her identity in the vids. Instead of recording her in secret and scrambling her identity anyway.”

  “And when she sees the vid and holos come out and asks why we didn’t just show her face?”

  Parker shrugged. “Minor problem.”

  “So, you’re not against putting her in videos. You’re against doing it without her knowledge.”

  “Well,” said Parker, “don’t make me sound so noble. All in all, I’d rather not do it at all. But you seem so damned insistent.”

  Alexa finally sat, seeing that the conversation would continue for a while. “It’s a testing ground. That’s why I like it.”

  “Testing for what?”

  “You know what.”

  “Apples and oranges, Alexa.”

  She shrugged. “Look, it doesn’t hurt to try again. We have Andrew on her already, and they seem to be getting along. He’s not an actor, so he won’t overact. We selected him based on all of the psychographic criteria you pulled from our user data, so whatever she does in adapting to him should match at least a nice-sized group of viewers, too. They’re going to fuck eventually. So, we’ll film it. See how that goes, and if it fails again … ” She held up her hands as if to say, No biggie.

  “Fine,” said Parker. “Where’s my wine?”

  Alexa stood. “You seriously want some?”

  “Sure. I’m a connoisseur. Wine is the stuff with three X’s on the jug, right?”

  Alexa went into the kitchen and poured them both a glass of 2042 Etude Heirloom. When she returned, Parker hadn’t moved. He was still sitting in his chair as if expecting waitress service. Which, regrettably, Alexa realized she was providing.

  Alexa sat.

  “There’s another benefit to Benson and Charisma doing their project, too,” she said.

  “What?”

  “It’s a nice distraction. I want their attention looking the other way for a while so I can do something on the Q.T. Something that will help us all in the end, but that I know right now will mean too many bitchy discussions — mostly from Olivia — that I don’t feel like having until it’s done.”

  Parker sat up, interested.

  “I need your help,” Alexa added. “Chloe is special. And by ‘special,’ I also mean ‘strange.’ You joked about her being a kind of Chosen One. Obviously, I don’t believe that, but it’s true that she’s like no one — like nothing — any of us has ever seen. Do you disagree?”

  Parker shook his head. Chloe had intrigued him from the start, and then she’d flat-out confounded him with her Orion experience.

  “What do you have in mind?” he asked.

  “I want to go back to the beginning,” Alexa said, “and see if we can uncover who Chloe Shaw really is.”

  WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

  DO YOU WANT TO KNOW who Chloe Shaw really is? Find out when Chloe goes to the sex island Elysium in the next episode of Future of Sex: The Future of Love.

  >> Click here to get the next installment of The Future of Sex! <<<br />
  HOOK INTO THE BEAM

  THE FUTURE OF SEX TAKES place in the world of The Beam, but it’s not the series in which The Beam was born.

  If you enjoyed this book, you’ll want to read the book where it all began.

  The Beam: The Complete First Season

  by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant

  (Silent co-authors of the Future of Sex series, with Lexi Maxxwell)

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  In the future, the Beam network has taken over our lives -- but now, it's developing a life of its own.

  The year is 2097. North America has become the North American Union -- the only place on Earth not decimated by the environmental catastrophes of the 2020s. To protect citizens during the technological renaissance, the NAU erected the Lattice: an impervious net to keep the so-called "Wild East" at bay. That was when the NAU began to regrow as a cyperpunk utopia … or dystopia, depending on where you stand.

  Today, the NAU appears to be divided into two political parties: the socialist Directorate and the capitalist Enterprise. But within secret circles, the true division of NAU power and wealth is more apparent: there is the Lower 99 Percent, who rely on The Beam to entertain and connect the nationwide hive mind ... and there is the Beau Monde, who control it.

  Meet Micah and Isaac Ryan: Figureheads of power, pawns within a greater game

  For the Lower 99, the choice between Enterprise and Directorate is simple. They can choose the security of Directorate: fed, sheltered, and provided-for by the government … but unable to advance beyond their assigned (and modest) station. Or they can choose the potential and risk of Enterprise, where a few entrepreneurs and artists thrive, but many more die in the gutters without a safety net.

  Micah heads the Enterprise party, blessed with family wealth that grew from rumored unsavory practices during the dystopian years. Isaac heads the opposing Directorate -- just as wealthy, just as enhanced with restricted Beam-interfacing upgrades much better than those widely believed to exist.

  But both of the Ryan brothers ultimately serve an inner circle, with strings pulled from high above.

  Meet Kai Dreyfuss: A prostitute assassin with aspirations to join the Beau Monde, harboring a cortex full of dangerous secrets.

  Kai is eternally young, eternally beautiful, her add-ons suited to her dual careers in pleasure and espionage. Kai would do anything to ascend to the secret club she's learned is above her pay grade … and her connection to Nicolai Costa (the power behind Isaac Ryan) gives her an unfair advantage.

  Meet Leah: A girl with no last name, no past, and a hacker's mind in the body of a luddite.

  Not everyone loves the hyperconnectivity of The Beam, although few are immune to its influence. Leah (young, dreadlocked, with a penchant for disobedience) lives a pair of lives between the Organa settlement that eschews technology and plots to disrupt the network … and her prodigious ability to see behind The Beam's AI to the intelligence growing within it.

  And meet Doc Stahl: A biological upgrades dealer who knows too much.

  So far, the Beau Monde has kept its secrets under wraps and the true breadth of its power hidden. But Thomas "Doc" Stahl has stumbled into a place he shouldn't be and seen things he's forbidden to see. There are upgrades on the market far superior to those he's been allowed to sell -- and interests out there who are prepared to kill to protect their secrets.

  But Shift is coming …

  The Enterprise and Directorate parties have always given people an identity … and a "them" to resent so the true power balance can remain hidden. In the past, the chance for citizens to change their party (or stay in the same) for the next six years at Shift has been routine. But this year, the air is different. Riots are blooming. And this Shift promises to be anything but ordinary.

  The Beam is part hard science fiction, part political thriller, part heart-pounding cyperpunk adventure, part techno thriller. Science fiction in the footprints of Asimov, where nothing is quite what it seems.

  Choose your side. Select your destiny.

  Plug your mind into The Beam. It's been waiting for you.

  >> BEGIN READING THE BEAM FOR FREE by clicking or visiting the link below:

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  LEXI MAXXWELL ISN'T MY REAL name. It's a pen name I use when writing for YOU.

  Every sentence I write as Lexi is designed to arouse you.

  I dip my quill in anonymous ink so I can splatter the pages with the impure thoughts we all think, yet fewer have courage to ponder.

  If you’re reading this now, I already know that you and I are different. We embrace the human, vulgar side of our minds, so we can know ourselves better, and improve our lives through awareness. Sex isn’t something to hide, or be embarrassed of. You deserve to enjoy experimentation, even if only in your mind.