At this point in the evening, I was still pleasantly damp from my shower, a towel draped across my shoulders. Wandering back into the living room, I had my eyes fixed on the plain black box that sat within the cabinet. The glowing blue letters of Sony were emblazoned on the front, the red 'ready' light blinking away as it responded to it's connection to the main servers. On the arm rest of my chair lay the thin pseudo-headphones of the ANVR connection device.
It was a self conscious moment, as I took in the stark silence of the apartment, feeling perhaps a little foolish as I fingered the still wrapped condom I held in preparation. Here I was, alone, about to have sex with a video game character -again. Either I could accept this as a sign of being extremely pathetic and set myself straight, or, shit, I could just do it, enjoy myself, and to hell what anyone else thought. If I was going to be self conscious and timid every time I wanted to give myself an orgasm, then I'd be walking around with a severe case of blueballs for a very long time.
Easing myself into the chair, I closed my eyes and thought about my next target. I also wanted to get myself sufficiently aroused to slip on the condom before I entered the V.E. environment, so a bit of pre-fantasy was definitely in order. This time I wanted more clothes to unravel, a bit more fun before the final conquest. I also wanted someone a bit more fey, more delicate and feminine than even those lissome Beach Spikers babes had been. I think the sense of power that came with the Genie made we want to use it against an obviously frail creature, someone untouchable in any other context.
I immediately thought about the first game I'd considered testing the Genie on, and had rejected. It wasn't just that Legend Of Zelda was a hugely popular and very well crafted game. From fairly basic fantasy story elements, Nintendo managed to create a surprisingly enduring legacy of characters that have become very familiar. It has also managed to survive from the very first generation of gaming all the way to the present. As a series it had gone through a number of twists and turns in it's design, from cartoon to a certain hyper-realism and even abstraction. The character of Zelda herself had thus emerged from a collection of pixels that vaguely resembled a blonde woman, to one of the most exquisite and well rendered virtual characters of all time.
I thought about what it must be like to have and to hold a woman like that. I evoked her image in my mind, of her long pointed elfin ears and crystal blue eyes, of her straight blonde hair and delicate, refined features. Her character was never designed to be sexy or an object of obvious desire, but she was attractive, and always portrayed as wearing elegant and elaborate clothes. I let myself imagine what must lie under those clothes, my hand drifting towards my cock as I created the fantasy. Soon I would be able to live it in digital life (as opposed to real life), but I had to get hard to put on the condom first. I imagined throwing her forward over the back of a chair, roughly turning up her long skirt and running my hands up the length of her thighs. This quick flash or mental pornography, as well as my deft hand, soon had me rigid enough to retrieve the condom and quickly roll it over my hardened erection.
Ready now for the game, I put on the ANVR and quickly accessed my V.E. player. The entire living room disappeared from sight as I was switched into the virtual lobby room, and it's bookshelf of available games. To the opposite side was the billboard and vending machine from which new games could be seen and purchased, but that wasn't going to be necessary tonight. My copy of The Legend Of Zelda sat very obviously at the end of the shelf.
Now, in an instant, I was sent swooping over a wild verdant landscape; the game's opening title screen. I didn't have any need for the usual cinematic preamble, so I quickly moved my way through the initial options screen in order to access a save file and get into the game itself. This sent me into the heart of Kokiri Forest, in the guise of the eternally youthful Link.
The forest itself would be an impressive sight to anyone not used to the kind of artistry and detail found in many V.E. games. It wasn't simply that the trees were majestic and verdant with leaves, or the way the light filtered down through them to create exciting and unusual shadows on the ground. The magic lay in the depth of detail, where small twigs and stones littered the ground, where birds and insects could be heard and even seen with a keen eye, and the breath of wind that swept through it all.
It's been estimated that the total size of the virtual area inside this game was equal to Manhattan Island. There is no such a thing as fatigue in V.E. space, but even so, it would take ages to walk the distance. Fortunately, with the Genie, I could blip myself anywhere I wanted to go. That's fine, as long as one knows where one is going, but the exact distance and direction to Hyrule Castle wasn't something I was crystal clear on. So, instead I transported myself a ways up north, beyond the fringe of the forest; thus leaving Link behind. Standing there as an essentially brain dead zombie, I hoped nothing would wander close and attack him, ending the whole session prematurely. It wasn't likely, since the 'start points' are supposed to be relatively safe, but it was theoretically possible. I would just have to be quick.
From this point in the meadow, I could barely make out the curve of a river to my far right. Having been in this game many times before, I was able to take my bearings that way and make another blip. This time I was standing before a wooden fence, which encircles a not far off ranch house. But further in the horizon I could just make out the top spires of the castle I was looking for. That was all I needed. One more blip, and I was inside the front gates. The non-descript chain mail guards completely ignored me, which wasn't surprising since I was basically invisible and my character was actually miles away.
