James Kelly - Rewired - The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology

“That’s exactly what I’m complaining about — ”

“You think he’s damaging the pocket universe you two built up. But he isn’t, not from his character’s point of view. It’s part of Lessingham’s thing, to be conscious that he’s in a fantasy world.”

She started, accusingly. “I don’t want to know his name.”

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t tell you. ‘Lessingham’ is the name of his virtuality persona. I’m surprised you don’t recognise it. He’s a character from a series of classic fantasy novels by E. R. Eddison…. In Eddison’s glorious cosmos ‘Lessingham’ is a splendidly endowed English gentleman, who visits fantastic realms of ultra-masculine adventure as a lucid dreamer: though an actor in the drama, he is partly conscious of another existence, while the characters around him are more or less explicitly puppets of the dream…”

He sounded as if he was quoting from a reference book. He probably was: reading from an autocue that had popped up in the lenses of those doctorish hornrims. She knew that the old-fashioned trappings were there to reassure her. She rather despised them: but it was like the virtuality itself. The buttons were pushed, the mechanism responded. She was reassured.

Of course she knew the Eddison stories. She recalled “Lessingham” perfectly: the tall, strong, handsome, cultured millionaire jock who has magic journeys to another world, where he is a tall, strong, handsome cultured jock in Elizabethan costume, with a big sword. The whole thing was an absolutely typical male power-fantasy, she thought, without rancour. Fantasy means never having to say you’re sorry . The women in those books, she remembered, were drenched in sex, but they had no part in the action. They stayed at home being princesses, occasionally allowing the millionaire jocks to get them into bed. She could understand why “Lessingham” would be interested in “Sonja”… for a change.

“You think he goosed you, psychically. What do you expect? You can’t dress the way ‘Sonja’ dresses, and hope to be treated like the Queen of the May.”

Dr Hamilton was only doing his job. He was supposed to be provocative, so they could react against him. That was his excuse, anyway… On the contrary, she thought. “Sonja” dresses the way she does because she can dress anyway she likes. “Sonja” doesn’t have to hope for respect, and she doesn’t have to demand it. She just gets it. “It’s dominance display,” she said, enjoying the theft of his jargon. “Females do that too, you know. The way ‘Sonja’ dresses is not an invitation. It’s a warning. Or a challenge, to anyone who can measure up.”

He laughed, but he sounded irritated. “Frankly, I’m amazed that you two work together. I’d have expected “Lessingham” to go for an ultrafeminine — ”

“I am …‘Sonja’ is ultrafeminine. Isn’t a tigress feminine?”

“Well, okay. But I guess you’ve found out his little weakness. He likes to be a teeny bit in control, even when he’s letting his hair down in dreamland.”

She remembered the secret mockery lurking in those blue eyes. “That’s the problem. That’s exactly what I don’t want. I don’t want either of us to be in control.”

“I can’t interfere with his persona. So, it’s up to you. Do you want to carry on?”

“Something works,” she muttered. She was unwilling to admit that there’d been no one else, in the text-interface phase of the group, that she found remotely attractive. It was “Lessingham,” or drop out and start again. “I just want him to stop spoiling things. ”

“You can’t expect your masturbation fantasies to mesh completely. This is about getting beyond solitary sex. Go with it: where’s the harm? One day you’ll want to face a sexual partner in the real, and then you’ll be well. Meanwhile, you could be passing ‘Lessingham’ in reception — he comes to his meat-sessions around your time — and not know it. That’s safety , and you never have to breach it. You two have proved that you can sustain an imaginary world together: it’s almost like being in love. I could argue that lucid-dreaming, being in the fantasy world but not of it , is the next big step. Think about that.”

The clinic room had mirrored walls: more deliberate provocation. How much reality can you take? the reflections asked. But she felt only a vague distaste for the woman she saw, at once hollow-cheeked and bloated, lying on the doctor’s foam couch. He was glancing over her records on his desk screen: which meant the session was almost up.

“Still no overt sexual contact?”

“I’m not ready…” She stirred restlessly. “Is it a man or a woman?”

“Ah!” smiled Dr Hamilton, waving a finger at her. “Naughty, naughty!”

He was the one who’d started taunting her, with his hints that the meat “Lessingham” might be near. She hated herself for asking a genuine question. It was her rule to give him no entry to her real thoughts. A flimsy reserve, Dr Jim knew everything, without being told: every change in her brain chemistry, every effect on her body: sweaty palms, racing heart, damp underwear… The telltales on his damned autocue left her little dignity. Why do I subject myself to this? she wondered, disgusted. But in the virtuality she forgot utterly about Dr Jim. She didn’t care who was watching. She had her brazen-hilted sword. She had the piercing intensity of dusk on the high plains, the snowlight on the mountains; the hard, warm silk of her own perfect limbs. She felt a brief complicity with “Lessingham.” She had a conviction that Dr Jim didn’t play favourites. He despised all his patients equally… You get your kicks, doctor. But we have the freedom of dreamland .

“Sonja” read cards stuck in phonebooths and store windows, in the tired little streets outside the building that housed the clinic. Relaxing Massage by clean shaven young man in Luxurious Surroundings …You can’t expect your fantasies to mesh exactly, the doctor said. But how can it work if two people disagree over something so vital as the difference between control and surrender? Her estranged husband used to say: “Why don’t you just do it for me , as a favour. It wouldn’t hurt. Like making someone a cup of coffee…” Offer the steaming cup, turn around and lift my skirts, pull down my underwear. I’m ready. He opens his pants and slides it in, while his thumb is round in front rubbing me…I could enjoy that, thought “Sonja,” remembering the blithe abandon of her dreams. That’s the damned shame. If there were no non-sex consequences, I don’t know that there’s any limit to what I could enjoy… But all her husband had achieved was to make her feel she never wanted to make anyone, man, woman or child, a cup of coffee ever again… In luxurious surroundings . That’s what I want. Sex without engagement, pleasure without consequences. It’s got to be possible.

She gazed at the cards, feeling uneasily that she’d have to give up this habit. She used to glance at them sidelong, now she’d pause and linger. She was getting desperate. She was lucky there was medically supervised virtuality-sex to be had. She would be helpless prey in the wild world of the nets, and she’d never, ever risk trying one of these meat-numbers. And she had no intention of returning to her husband. Let him make his own coffee. She wouldn’t call that getting well. She turned, and caught the eye of a nicely dressed young woman standing next to her. They walked away quickly in opposite directions.

Everybody’s having the same dreams…

In the foothills of the mountains the world became green and sweet. They followed the course of a little river that sometimes plunged far below their path, tumbling in white flurries in a narrow gorge; and sometimes ran beside them, racing smooth and clear over coloured pebbles. Flowers clustered on the banks, birds darted in the thickets of wild rose and honeysuckle. They lead their riding animals and walked at ease: not speaking much. Sometimes the warrior woman’s flank would brush the man’s side; or he would lean for a moment, as if by chance, his hand on her shoulder. Then they would move deliberately apart, but they would smile at each other. Soon. Not yet…