**Authors Note: Thanks to the many who've voted on my other stories, and to those who've offered feedback.
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She had lips I could kiss for about a year solid. I stared at her mouth on the screen, watched her shout, scream, and scowl at the enemies around her. Her name was Sarise, and the game was Kiss of the Red Blade. It was a game developed by a British studio and based on Japanese history. Sort of. Sarise had an English accent, lilting but not Irish, succulent but not Welsh. Her voice was lavender velvet except when she yelled, when it cracked, turned rough, hoarse, almost like a boy in puberty.
Her shouts, though made in anger during a fight, had for me become erotic. I imagined her making those shouts while writhing beneath my lips. I dreamed of our bodies locked together, her skin sweating against mine, with my mouth locked to her nipple. That nipple would be small, dark, a succulent cinnamon brown against her honey-glaze tan. I could see it in my mind, feel her beneath my tongue, the tiny nipple of a teenage girl on the modest breasts of an athletic warrior woman I could not stop fantasizing about.
It didn't help that I played the game at least an hour a day, and had for several weeks now. I had watched the game's screenshots evolve online during development, when Sarise went from a busty, blonde, Viking-chick to the exotic, red-haired, tanned vixen she was now. I watched her powerful, two-handed sword combat grow into the sleek, elegant kenjutsu I saw when I played her. I had drooled over the pictures before her arrival, and now that she was in my life, I was obsessed.
Sarise. Let me find you, make love to you, worship you. Let me taste you, inside and out, let me, humble, entry-level data processor me, tease you into wanton ecstasy.
I dreamed of her at night. I daydreamed at work. I lusted after her on the bus-ride to and from the offices. I sang love-songs to her in the shower. I whispered to her on my pillow as I rocked myself into silent orgasms each night. God, I couldn't stop thinking about her. I guess it's good for her she was fictional. No, good for me. Getting arrested as a stalker would definitely blow my next raise, and might even get me fired.
I first saw the real Sarise when I left my offices one evening. I had worked later than usual to meet the next morning's deadline. I was brain-dead, exhausted from sitting in that useless chair all day. My ass hurt. My back hurt. My head throbbed from the dual white glare of monitor screen and the obscene fluorescent blaze from the office lights filling every other panel in the ceiling. I slumped in my walk on my way to the elevators, and leaned against the opposite wall while the car made its way up fifty floors to me.
The gentle swish of long skirts alerted me that someone had approached. I glanced over towards the woman, then looked quickly back at the floor. Her hair was honey-blonde, not the rich mahogany of Sarise. Instead of a luscious, honey tan, her skin was pale, like mine. Yet, her face was Sarise. Her full lips gleamed as she sipped at a straw in a bottle of water. Her eyes were the same dazzling blue. She had that identical, long, narrow, Greek nose. Her hair, nearly long enough to reach her ass, hung in a multitude of tiny braids. Each braid was tipped with a wooden bead, some light, some dark, and the beads clicked together when she walked.
"Hi," she murmured as she took up a position a few feet away, her back to the wall and her other arm loaded with several thick binders. Her skirt was thin cotton, knitted along the bottom for texture, and slightly pleated beneath the waist. It rolled like an accordion around her legs, in deep, chocolate, tie-died hues. Her top was also crinkle-textured cotton, with a low, square, crochet neckline. The rich cream color contrasted with the brown skirt. Her pale chest showed almost no cleavage; her breasts were small. Modest. Like Sarise.
I looked into her eyes. It was Sarise. I couldn't look away. Her eyes narrowed, and suddenly she signed something to me. What depth of sensitivity had led her to the conclusion that I was deaf? What level of staring had I exhibited to force her down that path? I'm an idiot. I admit it. But I couldn't look anywhere but her wondrous visage.
"I'm not deaf," I stammered.
Her eyes narrowed again. My staring had to be annoying. I looked away. God, she was so beautiful. Those lips. I could kiss her a thousand times, then do it all again.
"I'm Alexia," she told me. Her voice was like Sarise's too. Pure velvet, dark, throaty, with a bit of an accent. I couldn't place it. Not English. Not European. It tickled my ears, made my spine itch most pleasantly.
What would that luscious mouth feel like on the back of my neck, just beneath my hair?
"Camille," I said back. I should have said something funny. I'm good at playful self-mockery. I stared at her face again.
With a shocking abruptness, I realized she was returning my gaze, unabashed, unashamed, and decidedly not offended. I looked away quickly and thought I had gotten what I deserved.
The elevator was only half of its long, extra-orbital transit to our floor.
"What do you do here, Camille?"
She was baiting me. Tomorrow I would find a sexual harassment charge on my desk.
Trying to speak while staring into her eyes brought a stupid stammer to my words. "Data processing for Spinkle." I gulped. Why had it taken me three tries to say it?
"Really?" Her grin was infectious, but I was getting nervous. But even unhindered trepidation could not keep my eyes from her face when she spoke. "I work up in accounting. How's the office life on your floor?"
A deep breath reconnected my brain to my lips and vocal-cords. Why did I have to think about what her lips would feel like against mine? "Oh, you know - fifty men, one woman, and I'm an outsider. I'm not related to anyone, I don't go to church or bowl with anyone. Quiet little me. Oh, they're nice enough, I suppose."
Alexia grinned. "If you watch them the way you're watching me, they might simply be afraid."
Afraid? I was so busted. The only question was which particular flavor of busted. The best I could hope for was a simple accusation of rudeness. "Afraid?" I asked aloud.
Alexia slid closer on the wall. "Yes. You look starved, Camille." I loved hearing my name on her lips. Her soft voice rolled along the wall between us, caressed my ears, hinted at the brush of her lips across my cheek. "I'd imagine they take you for a cannibal."
I must have turned pale. I looked at the floor. Such an idiot.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."
She laughed softly. "No, I like it. You're forward with your feelings, when you dare to talk. I can see your shy nature like a pop-up banner from AOL."
She was so close. Sarise in mortal form. I could touch her, if I just stretched out my arm.