Read Online Multireal by David Louis Edelman - Free Book Online Page A

withdraw.
    "So you get us a room?" grunted the youth, almost shattering the
illusion. "How 'bout one-a those leather ones?"

    The fiefcorp analyst winced. Jara didn't know whether this idiot
was really dissident, philosopher, or poet, but one thing was certainhe definitely was not Natch. She hid her disappointment behind a coy
smile. "Of course I got us a room. What, you think I'm some kind of
amateur?"
    Geronimo chuckled and brushed his knuckles across the side of her
breast, an act that didn't require the slightest apology or explanation
to the crowd. Not on this channel, at least. Jara could feel the knife
twisting inside her, uncontrollable, setting everything it touched
aflame. "Awright," mumbled Geronimo. "Let's get moving."
    Please shut up, she thought. Please, please, please.
    Jara and the boy walked arm in arm across the lounge, past
columns of wriggling goldfish and green cushions nestled on the backs
of porpoises. They saw twosomes and threesomes and moresomes of all
genders and orientations flirting away the time between encounters.
Jara noticed a trio of four-breasted mermaids rubbing fins. Geronimo
goggled appreciatively at a woman who must have been three meters
tall, locked in a passionate kiss with a man whose dangling equipment
looked equal to the task. There were no fewer than three Len Bordas in
the room. One of them had two heads.
    They followed the data beacon around a long curved corridor,
threading their way through gossiping bystanders. Geronimo was
humming one of his atonal Dregs of Nitro songs. Finally, they reached
a nondescript door and opened it to find an even more nondescript
room. A low queen bed, a nightstand. Mirrors.
    "What, you want this?" said the youth with a sneer.
    "I thought I'd let you pick," said Jara.
    "Oh," replied Geronimo, grinning goofily. "I get it. Well, lemme
think for a minute...."
    Don't think too hard, Jara glowered silently. You might damage something.
    Geronimo flipped through a number of exotic environments Amazonian jungle, Arabian harem, something called "The Twelve
Rings of Zarquatt"-and finally settled on a pleasure den whose every
surface was coated with black leather. Jara let out a small noise of exasperation. This was exactly the same motif Geronimo had selected for
their last two encounters. Jara could already tell that this afternoon's
tryst would solve nothing. That knife was wedged much too deep for
a neophyte like Geronimo to reach.

    The Natch look-alike was hopping on one foot, struggling to
remove his pants. Jara thought about cutting her connection to the
network right then and there, but decided to stay. She had paid good
Vault credits for this room.

    Jara had figured that three weeks away from Natch would cool her passion. She was wrong.
    It's the eternal paradox of love, the drudge Kristella Krodor had
written recently. When he's at arm's length he's too far, but when he's in your
arms he's too near. Jara was ashamed to admit she read such tripe.
    But the idea of using the Sigh as a therapeutic tool hadn't come
from Kristella Krodor. It had come from an unexpected source: Bonneth, companion to her fellow apprentice Merri.
    Jara had decided to open up to Merri a few nights after the demo at
Andra Pradesh. As the fiefcorp's channel manager and resident
truthteller, Merri spent hours every day in Natch's presence too, and
sexual orientation was no barrier to the entrepreneur's charms. She would
have to understand what Jara was going through, on some level. But Jara
never got the chance to find out. Moments after Jara multied to her
apartment, Merri rushed off to resolve some unexpected emergency with
her beloved Creed Objectivv, leaving Jara and Bonneth alone.
    The analyst felt as if she barely knew Merri, much less her quiet
companion. But suddenly Jara found everything spilling out in one long, torturous flood. The proctor who took advantage of her, the two
decades of professional frustration, the gullible