This routine continued for some time. No mention of money, troubles or any business whatsoever, just daily sessions where Olivia verbally beat Harold into shape, urging him onward with all of her considerable resources. Where a kind voice didn’t work, cam sex usually did. When that got old Olivia became mean and made Harold beg for forgiveness. Harold didn’t exactly like this but felt more and more powerless to change their relationship. It seemed that Olivia had taken control and she was just getting started.
Harold was particularly vulnerable to this type of thing because as mentioned he didn’t have a lot of irons in the fire. He didn’t have any irons in fact, and Olivia was his only fire. This fire warmed him at night and did not leave him completely during the day. He began to feel as though life were something he could finally handle. He began to feel as though he had a girlfriend or at least a girl who was a friend. Olivia did not discourage this.
Wake up. Food. Work. Home. Cam.
“Hello Olivia, you look lovely today.”
Her genteel charm had washed off on him and he was always very polite when he spoke to her now.
“Charmed Harold, I’m sure. You are looking lovely as well. Show me your body.”
As abrupt as this sounded Harold was conditioned to these words and quickly took off his shirt. He then began what most observers would recognize as a parody of an Arnold Swarzenegger pose-down, one done by a hilariously skinny man. His arms were less skinny than they had been before however, and he had mostly lost his belly and face fat to boot.
“Ooooh,” she cooed reassuringly, I think that you are almost ready to take me to the beach Harold. Do you have your rig now?”
He smiled and turned the camera towards the goggles which were plugged into his computer.
“Ok, put it on Harold, let’s go.”
He put on the goggles and clicked the switch. All of a sudden he was in her room. He craned his neck to look for her as the VR cam seemed to be lying on her desk. She was just coming back into the room wearing a bikini. She picked up the small black ball that was the VR camera and clipped it to her shoulder. It seemed almost as though he was standing beside her now, although her voice felt weirdly close in his ears. The ball was studded with tiny cameras and microphones and looked like the eye of an insect beneath an unbreakable transparent shield.
“Alright Harold, here we go, you can talk to me in my headphones but I won’t respond verbally. Just enjoy the ride.” She stepped out of the room and he recognized the beach apartment from the video she had showed him when they first met. The memory made Harold shudder and he did not wonder why they had never spoken of it further. He did not want to remember that.
It was a quick flight of stairs to the ground floor and after crossing over a walking path behind a stone retaining wall they were finally on the beach together. The sensation was overwhelming for Harold as he looked around wildly with his goggles straining to suck in every detail. If only he could smell the ocean and feel the breeze the experience would be complete. At least he could hear the seagulls and the breeze and see the waves crash on the shore. At least he could see, when he looked down, transcendent cleavage defined by goose bumps and flecked with beads of sweat. When he looked sideways he could see the side of her face as she walked towards the water.
“We can’t get you wet Harold. Although you can try to get me wet.” She laughed as she ran into the water.
They spent the day together like that. Her, a beautiful woman on a tropical beach. Him, a scared little man clipped to her swimsuit strap via the magic of VR. As time went on however he didn’t seem to notice that his body wasn’t there. She put the camera on the towel and he felt as if he was lying beside the most beautiful woman in the world. That was all that mattered, the feeling of it. What else was there?
“You know that this is a topless beach right Harold?” The words were mischievous and spoken softly.
He waited as she slowly undid her bikini top behind her back then let it hang loose over her front. At this point driven either by the winds of fate, or lowly perversion, a fat middle-aged man started waddling up the beach towards her. Harold followed her eyes in order to look fully upon the flesh avalanche that had set upon them.
“For you. I fuck. 50 dollars.”
The man was clearly from eastern Europe and the words were spoken without a hint of shame.
“Well, no thank you, I have a boyfriend”
Olivia spoke kindly and carefully as if she were an animal easing it’s way out of trap, her musical voice tinkling on tone-deaf ears.
“100 dollars. He not need know.”
“Well your persistence outshines your appearance certainly but I must bid you good day Sir.
Why don’t you look downtown for a girl? I am an honorable woman.”
Her archaic manner of speech floated over the man’s ignorant head, but he caught the gist.
“500 dollars. Right now,” the man said, stubbornly reaching for his wallet.
At this point her steely facade began to crumble. How polite did she have to be in this world? Why couldn’t men take no for an answer? Why couldn’t she kill them with kindness?
Harold wanted to kill this man, not with kindness, but with a blunt object or his own bare hands. Who was this walrus-looking fuck? What right did he have to breath the same air as Olivia much less talk to her? His rage was made more impotent and nerdy by the fact that his perception was located thousands of miles away from his corporeal form. He was only a black ball on a blanket in this place.
The man, meanwhile, began turning red as his bargaining session went south. When his final generous offer of 500 dollars was rebuffed, he turned around and appeared to be mumbling racist slurs as he skulked back down the beach. Olivia was relieved, and Harold could see that on her face. It could have been worse he thought. What if the man had gotten physical?
“You see what I have to deal with Harold? My world has no humanity in it.”
Harold was starting to wonder if there was any humanity left in him. Hadn’t he paid to see her naked body the second time they had spoken? Was he the fat man in the beach ball swimsuit in a slightly different form?
“I can’t believe how well you handle that” Harold said.
“What are my options Harold? I live in a country where these things are normal. I am trying to be different but still I look the same as all these other poor people.”
Trying to be different? Yes he felt that too. While stuck in the cam relationship he slowly started to want something different. He wanted to be more than he was. He was tired of being himself.
“Let’s get out of here,” Harold spoke quickly. He wanted to get away from the beach full of tourists. He imagined a scuttling army of sweaty, hairy men, attracted to his princess like moths to a flame.
She did up her top. They went to a food market, walked down the street into the sunset and then turned off the VR.
–
Harold sat and stared at the 1990s style dividing wall covered in powder blue fabric. It made up one of the three and a half walls that defined his existence. He often wondered when people would work in the spotless acrylic mausoleums made popular in old Sci Fi films. Of course the future did exist somewhere, just not at his company.
Myers & Brown computing was specifically low-bid. Underpinned by a few talented coders without the balls to work elsewhere, the company wore its 90s era office furniture like scars of old battles. It had made it through the dot com bubble burst and well into the 21st century through a mix of sheer apathy and dumb luck.
The company’s inability to change eventually played into it’s favour when long into the future they still had the tech and staff knowledge to work with ancient databases. Still, despite this niche market, Harry was overworked, underpaid, and thoroughly trapped in this mildly profitable shipwreck of a company.
Lately his life cube had seemed a bit less dreary though. Buoyed by visions of Caribbean sunsets and beautiful strange women, he passed the days as if in a dream. Willing his fingers to work while his mind played elsewhere, an analogy to the outside-of-body life he led at home.
This day was a little different however. The dreaded party at the boss’s house had arrived and he would be forced to interact with his fellow hominids. Or at least he assumed they were humans, they frequently acted more like reptiles in their mindless routines.
A ham was purchased. A collared shirt and leather shoes were worn. Websites were researched for sources of small talk. He trended away from Reddit and AlterNet for this search and went more towards the MSNBCs and CNNs of the world. Two heads of the same boring hydra. Towering trash heaps filled with only the most vile news from around the planet. Information guaranteed to get the monkeys chirping.
If Harold had a low view of his coworkers, and humans in general, it might be forgiven if one knew the lengths he had gone to while trying to connect in the past. The problem now was not that he did not know his colleagues, but that he knew them too well. They were narrow people, with narrow lives and narrow views. Anything outside of the popular news cycle would be ignored and the latest purchase would always be praised. There were no real nerds or artists among them, merely wannabe hot girls in oversized glasses and jeggings continuing onward to the limit of his vision. They read a comic book once, they saw Deadpool and liked it. Harold would have rather hung out with Furries. At least they were passionate about something.
He buried all of these thoughts beneath his crisply pressed fresh-from-The-Gap collar and rang the doorbell beside an oversized industrial door. Peter had bought the loft in a fit of real estate fever trying to lock down a valuable investment property downtown. This is what he had told his wife of course, in a bid to get her out of the suburbs, but the reality was that the location put him that much closer to his favourite strip clubs and massage parlours. The desires of the middle manager may have been boring but they were strong.
“Harold, how are you? Come in.”
Peter answered the door with his usual aplomb guiding Harold into the house via a hand on his back. Harold felt as though he were being pushed. He looked around and saw mass produced prints of wolves, snowy landscapes and the occasional Kinkaid painting. Not even this fancy loft could give Peter a semblance of artistic taste. He was ushered into a room which housed numerous mass produced sculptures that looked African but clearly came from China. Peter did not seem to care.
The room was filled with people in various stages of smart casual dress. From purple shirts, to popped collars, no man’s hair was left untusseled.
“Harold, come over here.”
His team leader was inviting him over to a corner nook. Harold went quickly glad to be free of the poisonous looks in the middle of the room. Bob was a pudgy man in his forties. He was Asian, balding, and a nice guy. Harold liked Bob because at least he had to put up with the same amount of bullshit as him, possibly more. He was the person who interacted with Peter, and the other higher-ups, and he always did well to protect his team from their onslaughts of incompetence.
“Harold, this is Vienna.” Harold shook the hand of the attractive woman by Bob’s side. Was Bob into escorts lately? She was a nine, and he was barely a six.
“Vienna is my niece” Bob said reading the confusion on Harold’s face.
“Oh of course, pleased to meet you.” Harold was ashamed by his initial thoughts. Not everyone paid for sex. Not everyone was lonely.
The evening proceeded in a mostly acceptable manner. Drinks were drunk, Jokes were told, feelings were hurt, the sales team got a bit rapy after 12pm so Peter kicked everyone out in order to avoid potential lawsuits.
As they were walking to the subway Bob asked Peter, “So you got a girl kid?”
Kid? Harold was 36, hardly deserving of the time or patience given out to a child.
“Yeah, yeah I do.” The words came out strangely as he was saying this to himself for the first time.
“Well, I would like to meet her. We should double date some time. Bowling, maybe?” The question trailed off. Bowling was indeed questionable, but a respectable pastime as any thought Harold.
“Sure bowling.”
What the fuck? No. No bowling. This can’t happen you idiot! Harold’s internal dialogue proceeded to degrade him for the next few seconds before he came up with a plan.
“But it can’t happen for a while, she’s out of town working.” Which was true.
“Oh alright sailor, just don’t let this mystery girl get away on you. You seem much happier lately.”
This was also true although Harold hadn’t admitted it to anyone else.
“Really, it shows? Well OK guess I better keep her then hey?” He said weakly.
“Sho nuff, bye bye lover boy.” He could tell that Bob was drunk, but he still appreciated the kind sentiment.
Bob walked towards his train and left Harold deep in thought near the ticket windows. Did he have a girlfriend? He “had” a girl that he talked to constantly and felt that he could trust completely. He had someone that turned him on physically and mentally. He had a person that was pushing him to be better. He guessed that he did in fact have a girlfriend, although they had never physically touched.
He spent the train ride back to the sticks thinking about the nature of reality and how it was that he could feel so strongly for someone he hadn’t met in person. Was this real? He then decided that he didn’t care. It felt real and made him feel better than he had in years.
It was real enough.
(to be finished in Pt. 4)
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticstories/comments/5ua8ty/the_cam_girl_pt_3