Virtually Feminine - Part 3 - Friends

The next day was a Friday, it was a very busy day at work but I can’t remember what I was doing, it all seemed quite unimportant compared with my new life on Second Life.

I had to pick up my kids from my ex-wife by 8pm, which meant a long journey from work, watching the clock all the way,
I made it with 15 minutes to spare.

My ex-wife had a shark instead of a lawyer, whereas I had a succession of idiots. She originally wanted me to have the kids every weekend and every day of annual leave and bank holiday that I wasn’t working. But her lawyer spotted that 3 nights every week plus 20 days annual leave and several days bank holidays put her dangerously close to parity on the number of nights we had the children. So, at the last minute, as we were preparing to go into the court, she insisted that she must have some time at the weekend with them. I agreed to let her have every other weekend, but she only wanted every fourth Saturday night. Her lawyer had done the maths and figured that would mean I would have to pay over 35% of the normal maintenance payments if she had the children all the time. The move was so cynical, it stunned even me. But I had no one else in my life who meant as much to me as my kids so I took every opportunity I could to be with them.
She also demanded £105,000 cash. It wasn’t a divorce so much as a state-sponsored mugging.

I’d told Fee I would have the kids at the weekend and that I would be in touch when I could.

I picked up the kids and got them home, we had all the normal rigmarole with school uniforms and homework and cuddles and dinner and I got them off to bed. The next morning I got them up and we watched T.V. until their mother came to pick them up at midday. As usual, she was late, and the kids were starting to fret about being held in a state of readiness to go.

As my ex drove off I was left with a feeling of emptiness. I looked around the house, trying to summon the enthusiasm to tidy up and clean and do all the jobs I’d been putting off during the week. It took me less than five minutes to give in and go back upstairs to my room to boot the laptop and login to SL.

As expected, Fee wasn’t online, so I went exploring. At first I went hunting for more free outfits and accessories. As I was looking, someone IMed me; a message popped up in my window saying “Hi there, gorgeous!”. I wondered who it was and I clicked on the user’s name to see their profile. It was some guy who’s English was appalling. Before I could think what to reply I got another message from him saying “Take a look at this!” and a message popped up saying that he had sent me an image. I opened the image out of curiosity and there was a close-up of a guy’s penis. I tried to process that a complete stranger had just sent me a picture of his willy, wtf?

“What do you think of that?!” he asked me. What _did_ I think of that? I asked myself.
“It’s like a penis, only smaller” I sent back.
“Stuck up b!**h!” he replied and vanished with a whoosh. It took me a moment to realise his reply had been in open chat, rather than an IM and everyone nearby could read it.

“Haha! I don’t know what you said to him, but I am _so_ glad you managed to get that creep to leave” came up in a message from ‘Lovely Angel’.
“He sent you pictures of himself too?”
“Ha! Yes, and the same picture to every other woman here too, I’d bet. Wtf? Does he think that’s going to get him a date or something?”
“I think he’d need a bigger worm as bait if that’s what he was fishing for!” I replied.
“ROFLMFAO - so, what are you looking for?”
“My boyfriend likes to take me dancing so I was looking for formal wear so I look pretty for him.” I explained.
“How much of a budget have you got?”
“Budget? What is this ‘budget’ thing of which you speak? Freebies or nothing, I’m afraid!”
“Ah well, that narrows it down some… you’ve tried Freebie Island of course?”
“That was the first place I found”
“Have you tried Free Dove, Gnubie and New Citizens Inc?”
“Not yet, I’ve only recently come on SL and I don’t know where everything is.”
“Oh, ok… well, follow me then!”
With that she vanished and I got an invitation to TP to her new location. Lovely showed me around all kinds of fabulous places that it would have taken me months to find on my own and I got so much stuff my inventory must have been groaning at the seams.
“Isn’t there anything you want to get?” I asked her after a while “I appreciate the help, but I don’t want to take up your day.”
“Hehe, don’t worry about it, I love to take little newbies under my wing. Maybe one day you’ll do the same for someone else who’s looking lost!”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“So what do you do in RL?” I asked her?
She told me how she worked for a software company in the South-West of the UK in the Sales and Marketing team. I asked her a few leading questions and as I built up a picture of her in my head I started to get a bit panicky, thinking she might be one of my colleagues.
“Err, are you Sarah?” I asked her, at last, feeling it was better to ‘bite the bullet’ before things got out of hand.
“Who?” Lovely asked.
“Sorry, I just thought you might be one of my colleagues at work…”
“I don’t work with anyone called ‘Sarah’” Lovely replied.
“Phew!” I said “that’s just as well, it would have been too freaky to bump into someone from the office in SL!”
“I know what you mean!” said Lovely “No one in RL knows that I’m a stripper in SL!”
“Huh?”
“I strip for cash in SL, it’s just pixels, right?”
“Er, right...How does that work?”
“Well, it’s just another camping spot really, you get paid for standing in the same spot for a few minutes - L$10 per minute. The only difference is… your avatar must be female and at least semi-naked. Do you want to come see me dance?”
I agreed, a little too stunned to know what else to do and that was how I ended up at Benny’s Bar and Strip Joint.

A guy shouted out “Hi Lovely, how’s it going?” when we arrived.
“Just showing some fresh meat the grinder we call home!” she replied as she led me backstage to the performers’ changing room where a bunch of pretty girls were wandering around in a state of undress.
Lovely changed into a sexy nurse’s costume.
“The trick is to put on one outfit before you take off the other” she told me “that way, you’re never actually naked in public!”
“But, it’s just pixels, right?”
“Well, yes - I guess. But I still feel uncomfortable showing more flesh than I want in public!”
“Says the woman who brought me backstage to a strippers’ changing room, no offence ladies.” I said the last hurriedly to the other avatars around us. There was a chorus of “None taken!” and one “Mutual, I’m sure!” from the rest.
“Snerk” Lovely replied by IM instead of in open chat. “If you’re going to make comments like that you need to learn to carry out your conversations in IM, so no one else can eavesdrop!”
“Sorry” I replied in IM.
“Hmm, ok - you probably need to try this to understand… most sex in SL is in people’s heads. The naked avatars help some people visualise it, but the fact that there is actually a real flesh and blood woman talking to them is enough to get some of these guys off.”
“Get them off? You mean they’re all wanking?!”
“If I’m doing my job right they’re cumming, not just wanking, and they tip me!”
“So… it’s a form of prostitution?”
“Grrr!”
“Sorry, I’m just trying to understand!”
“No, I guess it’s a fair question, you are a noob after all - it’s… well, I guess it’s more like those sex lines? Where a guy sees an advert for a scantily clad lovely but he actually gets through to a librarian with a headset and never knows it. She's fully clothed in a call centre, he chats for a moment and then pays and goes away. Or rather, she takes his payment details first, chats, and he goes as soon as he can to stop paying.”
“Er… ok, I don’t know anything about that stuff”
“Snerk, little miss virgin knickers. I don’t either, IRL, but I saw a film once, a romcom, and I’ve picked up the idea from the other girls here.”
“So… do you have to audition or anything?”
“Well, if one of the others vouches for you then you’re in, basically. We add your name to the list, then you can camp on a pole, a tip jar will rez and the punters will pay you via the tip jar, that way the club takes a cut.”
“So they automatically take something like an agents fee?”
“Lol - ‘agents fee’. You’re not performing Shakespeare out there, although, Lord knows, some of the lines you hear were old when Shakespeare was alive!”
“Can I watch what you do?”
“Sure! That’s what I brought you here for, I’m kind of proud of our little club and I felt like showing off for you, a bit.”

Ok, I thought that was a bit weird. How many girls try to show off to other girls by stripping in front of them? Nevertheless I followed Lovely out and took a seat in the audience. Lovely got up on stage and clicked on a stripper pole and soon she was whirling around and sticking out her butt while trading snarky comments with the other girls on stage.

Each time a new punter came through the door all the girls called out to greet him (sometimes her).
“Hi TurkishSexGod, how’s it hanging?”
“Georgie! I haven’t seen you in an age! Come take a seat by me, sweety!”

Lovely opened up a group chat in IM with me and two of the other girls. I didn’t know, at the time, how she did that but soon we had a private chat going.
LovelyAngel > This guy wants me to leave the bar and become his sex slave
JazzyJustine> And he’ll pay you for this? How many Lindens?
LovelyAngel> Pfft, as if - he expects me to do it fer lurv, ffs
JazzyJustine> What’s in it for you?
LovelyAngel> He’ll pay for my bondage gear… No wait, lol - he wants me to supply my own bondage gear!
JazzyJustine> Tell him you’re Benny’s bitch already!
LovelyAngel> I’ll tell him _you_ are _my_ bitch. At least that will get him to finish quickly and leave.
AshlynnDuprieve> Can you tell him to be your sex slave? There can be good money in being a domme.
LovelyAngel> Really? And how did you come by the snippet?
AshlynnDuprieve>
LovelyAngel> lol

This stuff went on for a little while - I tried to chip in with a comment from time to time, but I was so scared of being outed and a little freaked still that I had thought Lovely might be a colleague. Even if she wasn’t a colleague it was a little freaky to think that someone I walked past in the street could be a stripper in SL.

After about 30 minutes of listening in on the girls bitching about the punters, which gave me a fascinating insight into the relationship between strippers and marks - most were despised but a few, who gave tips when they could and were respectful when they couldn’t, were treated as friends, I got an IM from Fee. He invited me back to the garden. I made my excuses to the girls, said good night to Lovely and thanked her for her help and then TP’d to Fee. Lovely sent a parting IM after I TP’d - “Look who’s got a hot date tonight! I’ll try not to be _too_ jealous!” and sent me a ‘Friend request’. I didn’t have to think long to click on the ‘Accept’ button and Lovely was the second name in my Friends list after Fee.

When I appeared in front of Fee he had a new outfit and looked better than ever. He triggered some HUD thing he just got and I got a request to give permission for my Avatar to be animated. I clicked ‘Yes’ and Fee engulfed Jez in a hug as Jez melted against fee, Lucky girl.

Fee led me off into the garden and we made out for a while. I’m not going to recount everything we typed to each other because, looking back over some of the snippets of text I saved from them I realise that it is meaningless drivel, unless you were there. To Jez, and, I guess to me while I was playing Jez, they were the sweetest endearments. To read them again now they still make my heart flutter. To an outsider, someone who wasn’t us, it could seem like a couple of adults pretending they were teenagers and he was trying to get into her pants and she was trying to keep him out, but not too hard…

Fee always said, if women didn’t want men to try and get into their pants they shouldn’t keep such interesting things in there.

We finally gave up when I was starting to fall asleep, my responses were getting further and further apart as I was struggling to keep my eyes open. I’ve no idea where that came from, normally my insomnia would keep me awake into the small hours.
We said good night, and I crashed into a dreamless sleep.

*-*-*

The next day I slept in late and my kids were returned to me in the afternoon. My ex dropped them off early, as usual. I cooked a Sunday roast and my Mum came to join us for dinner and help me get them to bed.

Then I spent the evening making sure their school uniforms were ready for the morning and preparing what I could for their lunch.
I got them up in the morning, got them to eat breakfast, got them dressed and finished preparing their packed lunch. I did all the little things parents have to do for small children (have you got your books, have you got your homework, have you got your shoes, are you sure?) and dropped them off at school. I wouldn’t see them again until Friday.

At work I was getting that strange feeling like someone else was watching what I was doing from behind my eyeballs, and commenting. I started noticing what shoes and fashions my colleagues were wearing and wondering if I could put together a look in SL based on what I was seeing.

I started realising how sad my life at work was, how few friends I had there. I mentioned this to Anne, the PA of Chris, our development manager while I was sat outside his office waiting for him to finish a phone call so that we could review the latest cost model for a bit of development work.

“What do you mean?” she asked me.

“Well, it’s my birthday tomorrow, and I bet no one here knows or cares.” I said sadly.

“Ha! I think you may be wrong!”

“Why do you say that?”

“Wait and see, wait and see…”

Before I could ask her any more I got called in for the review.

*-*-*

That evening I got home at about 8pm after a long drive and I plugged in my laptop and started the bootup process before I got a microwave dinner and popped it in to cook. I was logging on to SL as my dinner cooked and I ate at the table with my laptop next to my plate as I went hunting for new outfits for Jez.

Fee came online at about 9pm and asked me what I was doing. I hadn’t realised how late it was getting and I wasn’t ready to present my new outfit to him. I’d figured out, with a few pointers from Lovely, how to save a folder as an outfit so I could quickly change and I swapped back to a simple jeans and tshirt outfit so I could hurry to meet Fee. He asked me about my day and I kind of fobbed him off with a general reply about my boring work and then I perked up as I told him about hunting for shoes. He laughed and told me that I should get a long dress and he would take me out dancing again. We chatted and explored for a while and then he had to go.

As I was about to log out Lovely came on line and asked me what I was doing. I explained that it was getting late and I needed to be at work in the morning. She said, “OK, but there’s something you might want to do before you sleep… let me TP you”

I appeared in front of Lovely and she was dressed as an angel. A slightly slutty angel in a short white dress, but the wings and the halo were a dead give-away.
“I know you aren’t ready to join me at Benny’s yet”
“Er, no… I guess I need to talk it through with Fee and see what he thinks of it all…”
“Does he _own_ you?!” Lovely asked sharply.
“Don’t be absurd! But if he started stripping and didn’t tell me I would be a bit upset!”
“Oh girl, you’ve got it bad! Don’t worry, it affects a lot of noobs this way at first.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Hmm, it’s kind of hard to explain, but I’ve seen it before. I can sort of remember it when I first came on but it wasn’t so bad in those days… It’s kind of intense, you know? You let down your guard, because you’re safe at home in your bedroom all alone. And then, before you know it, you’ve given your heart to some ‘playa’ who’ll just trample on it.”
“It’s not like that, Fee’s not like that!”
“Really? I hope you’re right, but what do you know about him, really?”
I was stumped, I knew next to nothing about him and, thank god, he knew exactly _nothing_ about me.
“Nothing” I typed back simply “But, he knows nothing about me either, I’m being careful.”
“Oh sweety, no one is that careful when they first start… before you know it you have real feelings for them and then things get messy. I’ve seen people come online for the first time, fall in love, partner in SL, meet IRL and end up with one of them stalking the other until the police get called in, and all this took place in 2 weeks!”
“But…” I thought about it for a moment, she was right, I guess. Jez was falling for Fee and taking me with her. Who knew how far down the rabbit hole things would go before I straightened the mess out in my head?
I started again “But, Lovely, I _lurv_ him (giggles)”
Lovely “Snerked”, “Yes, I’m sure you do, and that’s what worries me… promise me you won’t meetup in RL?”
“Lovely, I think he lives in Kent, and I can absolutely promise you he won’t want to see the real me in RL after he’s got used to seeing Jez’s skinny butt in SL! I’ll be careful, I’m really wary of meeting _anyone_ in RL, even you!”
“Good, not that I was going to offer - but you’re learning. Anyway, I found a camping spot for us, sit on the pole on the left and I’ll sit on the pole on the right…”
“My left or your left?”
“They’re the same left you doofus!”
“Oh, I must be blonde in SL!”
“:-P”
We both sat on the poles and our avatars started dancing. A message appeared over each of our heads with a countdown saying we would be paid $L10 in 10 minutes, 9mins and 50 seconds, and so on.
“Ok, so what are we being paid for?”
“Beats me, this place is deadsville, I never saw anybody else here. One of the girls at Benny’s told me about it. I just leave my AV here to get some free lindens.”
“Yeah, but it’s got to be coming out of someone’s inventory somewhere? What if they IM me and ask for it back?”
“Don’t give it to them?” Lovely suggested. “Look,” she continued “Don’t sweat it, this is how people buy ‘traffic’. SL records how many people spend how long in an area and the more ‘traffic’ they have the higher up the rankings their adverts appear.”
“Huh?”
“They’re just using you to push their advertising, honey, like guys have done with pretty girls for centuries. Shake your tush, take the dough, and smile - it’s that simple, don’t overthink it or make it more complicated than that. Now… leave your PC running, turn off the screen if you want, check in in the morning, accept the cash and have a good night’s sleep, you’re welcome.”
“Thanks, Lovely, I don’t know what to say, my first steps in stripping!”
“Don’t flatter yourself! This is just camping, now get to sleep girl, we’ll talk soon.”
“Good night, Lovely .”
“Good night, Jez .”
I left the laptop running and went to bed. That night I dreamt I was Jez, dancing round the strippers’ pole.

*-*-*

The next morning I woke up and hurried to get ready for work. I couldn’t remember why my laptop was still on when I saw it, at first. When I checked what was running I found that Jez had been booted off the pole for inactivity, but I had L$20 in my account. That and £2.80 would buy me a cup of coffee in Starbucks, as my friend John would say.

*-*-*

When I got into work I found a huge chocolate fudge cake on my desk and a card from Kathryn. Kathryn was a project manager, an American, who worked with Chris’s team. I guess that’s what Anne was trying to tell me. I rang her up and thanked her profusely and asked her to come round to my desk and have some cake. Once she and I had had a slice each, I offered it round to my other colleagues, I got a few knowing comments from some of them.

The rest of the day went by fairly uneventfully. I knew that Kathryn and I were normally two of the last people out of the building, we were both single, so I cleaned the plate and the knife she had left on my desk and I went looking for her.

I found her finishing up her work. I gave her back her stuff and, taking a tight rein on my courage, I asked if she would like to see a film that week. She grinned wryly and said that she always felt weird going to the movies by herself, but she really wanted to go see the latest Pixar movie.

“Won't that look a little weird, two grown adults going to see a kids film?” I asked.
“Not if we go to the evening show, all the kids should be in bed!”
“Ok, I'm up for that, let me pick you up on the way from work and drop you back home after”
“But you live miles away in the opposite direction, that makes no sense. I'll drive myself and meet you there, then I can drive myself home afterwards”
“Ok, I guess that makes sense. What day works for you?”
“It will have to be Thursday, because we have the ICCS proposal to get out on Wednesday evening.”
“Oh yeah, me too, ok Thursday it is, I'll buy the tickets on the way home tonight so we don't have to queue.” I said, with a slight question in my voice.
“Excellent idea! Ok, well… I'm packing up now… I'll see you tomorrow?”
“Sure, i need those numbers for the labour element.”
“Good night then!”
“Good night, Kathryn”

I left, with a smile on my face and a bounce in my step. I had a date in RL for the first time since the divorce, 2 years ago. Still, there was something… odd about the conversation. It felt like there was something I was missing.