I did sleep on the floor.

Very soundly, and untroubled by dreams.

When I awoke, and sat up, I found Kendris was sitting on the opposite side of the bed, facing away.

“Good morning,” I ventured.

Kendris sighed, still facing away.

“Cold shoulder, huh. Suppose I deserve it,” I said.

“How is only your shoulder cold?” Kendris asked.

“It’s an expression,” I said. “You’ve literally turned your back to me and refuse to meet my eyes. This indicates you are unhappy with me.”

“What? Oh, I thought you had slept badly,” he said, with no hint of attitude in his tone. “I was just going over reports.”

Sure enough, he gestured with a handful of papers filled with neat and graceful script.

“So you aren’t mad at me?”

“I’m annoyed with myself. Yesterday was rather trying, and I was exhausted when you returned. I acted petulantly, and for that I apologize.”

“No, Kendris, I was the one who slinked off to bang the quartermaster after we had decided on sharing a bed. I’m not sure how things work here, but at home a couple would ideally set up mutually agreed rules if they aren’t going to be fully monogamous.”

“Communication is considered important here, too. In our culture, we have perhaps a dozen different terms for our relationships. One of them roughly equates to ‘fondness with uncertain status’, which I believe is where we stand. You owed me no explanations. The wrong assumption was my own.”
 
“I don’t really know how to respond,” I said. “I’m more used to passive aggressiveness or awkwardness when it comes to relationship complications.”

“Then I am sad for you,” Kendris said. “But I didn’t want to burden you with my reaction.”

I sat pondering this for a bit while Kendris busied himself sorting the supplies. Was his bluntness a him thing, or an elf thing? Was it a side effect of longer lifespans and different attitudes toward sex in general?

Possibly, my copilot thought back. Perhaps it’s just cultural and amplified by Kendris’ tendency to be straightforward.

You dont’ know?

This is my first time in this world, too.

Interesting.

You may want to smooth things over before you lose access to a regular source of sustenance.

Ugh.

If you want to survive, you need to see to your basic needs.

I hate when you’re right.

I know.

***

Despite clearing the air between us, I still felt a little guilty for my sluttish behavior, and I could tell Kendris also blamed himself for his reaction. Things remained a little awkward, but not aggressively so.

Meider picked up on the tension immediately and gave both of us space for as long as he could, but eventually pragmatic concerns forced his hand. The three of us sat at one of his cluttered tables, working out signals we could use once our escorts from the human camp arrived.

And none too soon, for the guard announced their arrival sooner than we’d hoped.

***

As soon as I turned to look at them, I began to worry.

First, they were both extremely attractive — James, the older of the two, was stocky and sturdy, and well kept. My guess was he’d shaved that morning to look presentable. He had a pleasant baritone voice but wasn’t a big talker. He also had intelligent grey-blue eyes that seemed to take in his surroundings with clear focus.

The younger, Steven, was a gorgeous twink, all limber sinew and spikey brown hair. Lean and tight, with an eager and open face that suggested youth and energy. He had a puppyish quality to him, and I thought his gaze lingered on me a bit longer than the others.

Hmmm. Curiosity and sexual interest there. Watch your step with him.
 
Just read this whole story!!! So so so good! I’d wish for it to continue but it’s been awhile
Thanks! I’m not done with it. My life got really complex for a while and it’s finally becoming manageable again, so hopefully I’ll get back to hot elf boys and sex demons soon.

I know some of what happens next, but I’m kind of along for the ride too. It’s funny, I was just thinking about writing it the other day, but something else came out. I’ll work that one out of my system and hopefully that will clear the pipes to fill out this one.
 
Thanks! I’m not done with it. My life got really complex for a while and it’s finally becoming manageable again, so hopefully I’ll get back to hot elf boys and sex demons soon.

I know some of what happens next, but I’m kind of along for the ride too. It’s funny, I was just thinking about writing it the other day, but something else came out. I’ll work that one out of my system and hopefully that will clear the pipes to fill out this one.
All good! Happy you’re thinking bout it! Love your work!!!
 
I also imagined what would happen when Eric finally returned home, out of the game world, in his human form, with his memories and new knowledge and perhaps a vestigial shadow of the lust demon still within him.
That coupled with your brilliant story telling would be a treat to read as well!
 
Meanwhile, in a suburban condo…


[Vanquillon]

In hindsight it seems obvious: when I released some of myself into the dreams of that human, I went a little overboard. His keen mind saw more of my own than I’d intended. That in and of itself was intriguing; the analytical and logical scrutiny with which he’d itemized the specifics of my being placed him among the most intelligent and perceptive people I’d encountered. Not merely analysis, but also real creativity, artistry. And so a tiny fragment of myself had remained to watch him work.

What a remarkable advancement of the art of story he wove. There was adventure, danger, and sensuality on the canvas he painted. Though the medium was beyond my understanding at first, I could sense him weaving a tale – a story in which the audience did more than merely imagine themselves in it, but in which the tale responded to their actions.

For seven weeks I lurked in his mind, feeding off his dreams and learning about his world. Though he sat for days like a scrivener in a monastery, doing little more than prodding a clicking grid as he stared at a box of light, I saw him for what he was: a bard of sorts. And like wizards and tricksters, he used words to create something magical.

He was under such pressure, a pressure to conjure something incredible out of thin air to satisfy his overseers, that he wore himself to exhaustion. I soon came to understand that the grid he poked with nimble fingers was simply another way to write words, and that the words he wrote took many forms. Some were to consider the tale, or the options for others to interact with it. Others were written to carve illusions and magic into being.

Of course, he would not have recognized it as magic – to him it was somehow both a dreaded chore and a passionate endeavor, depending on whether he was…what’s the term he used? “In the zone.”

The longer I stayed, the more I fed, the more of me he sensed subconsciously. My very presence leeched memories and ideas into his mind, but I wasn’t aware of it at first, or at least I didn’t fully understand what that meant. Not at first. I only knew that he needed a release I could give, and in doing so provide me with the essence I craved.

And so for two full cycles of this world’s singular moon, I rode the man. Sergio was the name he used, but it didn’t matter. He was food, if interesting food. And so I satisfied my hunger nightly with this fellow, never realizing that he’d begun to recreate, in his illusions, a facsimile of the entity he unknowingly shared his mind and his bed with.

At some point, he’d etched enough of the complex spell into his mechanism that he seemed satisfied. And for the first time in a long time, I felt a sense of wonder at what he’d wrought: a convincing facsimile of a world – a world of dimly lit crypts and flickering torches. And then, to my shock, shimmering into that world was a facsimile of… of me.

At least, it was one of my preferred forms. And as I wondered what a “cut scene” was, I watched as my doppleganger became more and more accurate, and as the scen evolved, I realized that it had all the required components of a particularly dangerous, unpredictable, ritual of binding.

And then, suddenly, it was too late. I felt myself drawn into the thing, enmeshed in Sergio’s little box of wonders. I spent some time completely disoriented, barely able to subsist on moments of frustration or elation as he tweaked some parts of his spell.

When we fail to find sustenance, my kind goes dormant for a while. Strong emotion will awaken us.

And so it happened that suddenly thousands of echoes of myself shimmered into being at roughly the same time. The influx of emotions from so many sources, overlapping and echoing, left me reeling, but I steeled my resolve.

As I have since discovered, I was being fed by hundreds of thousands of peoples’ passions. It was like being plugged into a storm, and through that power, I gained an understanding of what Sergio had done to bind me here, in this plane and on this world, within a video game.

In short, his duplication was as accurate as his technology could achieve. So much so that his work was not too dissimilar to knowing one’s true name. He never had to speak the words; writing them down and carving them into crystal, while my image and my name lay ready in his mind, was enough – not much different, really, from the sorcerers who used runes or scrolls to weave spells. And those miniscule echos of me appeared in thousands of homes, where hordes of hormone-added pubescents and repressed adults greeted this game with passion and wonder. I waited.

And then, it happened: someone found the secret content, played it, and won. And as he did, I felt something tug and pull at me.

***

When I came to, I found myself in a human chair, blinking in surprise as thousands of echoes lost their connection. I felt so confined! Claustrophobic!

I sat up, and found myself in a body that limited my ability to move and sense and feel. Halfway through his allotted span of years, if I correctly divined, and average by the measure of his kind.

I’d never fully possessed anyone. I tried, and failed, to alter my form. I tried to leave.

I was stuck in this terrifying place, stuck alone, with no way home.

Not alone, at least. Mind telling me why I’m stuck watching you drive my body around?
 
[Vanquillon]

His name was Eric. And his world was tiny.

And I was trapped in his physical form, unable to extract myself from it. Limited. Confined.

And not, as it happened, alone. An echo of Eric remained, still somehow tethered to his body even if the bulk of his essence was simply not here.

Between us, we agreed on some basic facts about our situation, and he seemed to accept me at face value. Which left us with one huge practical concern among others.

To my surprise Eric had some rudimentary understanding of magical concepts – resonance, symbolic meaning, the power of names, and so forth. His mind was fairly analytical and open. We quickly deduced that it was fairly likely that Real Eric was wherever the missing part of me was. If he was on my world, he would likely go mad.

But there was a good chance that tug I’d felt shortly before I awoke was an attempt to summon or bind me, and if so, that’s likely where Eric was. With any luck, he had a piece of me to help guide him as well, because summons typically involved some sort of binding form, since I lacked a typical body. There were many variables, but the hope and theory was that if either side of this mess found a way to undo it, the essences would probably return where they belonged.

As for our dopplegangers, either they’d figured out at least as much as we did, together, or things might have gone terribly wrong.

Eric broke down our situation.

  1. Find a way to reverse it.
  2. Try to avoid arousing suspicion.
  3. Stay alive and retain our distinct selves.

In the end, I would need to keep up some pretense at Eric’s life, so he had a life to return to. That limited research time, but he was, as he put it, not in any hurry to resume playing his game. But there were hazards in that approach, and his default level of isolation was both a hindrance and an asset – there were few people who might be persuaded to help maintain the illusion, but that also meant fewer social situations that might reveal it as well.

I’m just saying, calling out is only an option for so long. If I stop working, they stop paying me, and I lose my house and my stuff. And what I do is so specific that you won’t be able to fake it. We need to find a way to share that knowledge. I’m going to hazard a guess you can’t type or read English, either.

I wanted to prioritize trying to find some learned sage to help extricate us from this distressing entanglement, but Eric’s arguments – namely that there were no such things because magic wasn’t really a thing in his world, and that he needed to keep up appearances or he risked being locked away – were persuasive.

We could try to reach out to the people behind the game, but it’s *just* released, or at least this expansion was. So probably half the developers are still on fixing bugs in the release and the leads are on vacation. I don’t think we’re going to find him.

Then we must pursue all options. Your computer has access to all this world’s knowledge, you say?

Kind of. Most of it’s available but there are a lot of dead ends, and too much bullshit.

By which you mean that the truth may be difficult to locate amongst the misinformation and distraction.

Heh, yeah, well, that’s the internet for you.


***
[Vanquillon]

Time doesn’t quite mean the same thing to beings like me as it does to mortals. Is mortals even the right word? It’s hard to describe what the passage of time means to me, but perhaps the easiest way is that it largely does not matter, except when it does. While I’m feeding, for example, I’m in the flow of time as much as those I feed upon. I share their sense of it. And now, I was stuck.

My frustration with the situation aside, Eric – or his echo, as he began thinking of himself – was handling things as well as might be hoped. In his mind, a lifetime of science and fantasy fiction and games had prepared him to accept the circumstances. Or perhaps it was because the Eric I felt was only part of the more complex real being whose form I wore.

Even so, I could sense his worry and almost panic over a situation he had even less control over than I did, which is to say practically none.

Stop doing that.

Doing what?

Grazing on the emotions in my head.

I can’t help it. I feel hungry, and that is my sustenance.

But you’re in *my* body. Did it occur to you that what you’re feeling is not *you*, but the needs of my stupid mortal flesh?

He was right, of course. And it wasn’t the first time I’d been confused by the needs of this flesh. The mundanity of eating, breathing, drinking, sleeping, relieving myself of waste… all of it was something rather unfamiliar, and certainly something I’d never experienced with the same urgency as I did now. I didn’t like it.

Me neither. Just wait until you get gassy, or get heartburn. Oh, and since you’re stuck with my “mortal flesh”, you also get to enjoy the middle-age aches and pains, the mild asthma, and all the other stuff.

I’m familiar with how your bodies work. I am rather good with certain parts of them. But being able to ride the wave of arousal is not the same as waking up from slumber and racing to the bathroom, or being shocked by a particularly sharp back spasm.

Luckily for us, once Eric and I figured out what he called “back seat driving” for certain mundane tasks, most of it was covered in muscle memory. His body was used to doing most of it, and required little direction once nudged toward the goal. Preparing a meal was a bit awkward, but the results were a fairly new concept to me. Taste and smell are incredibly strong senses, and I realized that I’d only ever really used them in conjunction with lust. And yet here I was, eating something called peanut butter and jelly, and finding it unexpectedly satisfying.

***
[Vanquillon]

As Eric predicted, his work demanded his attention. Numbers, apparently, were needed for Dave and Rebecca to finalize something. And once again, muscle memory helped considerably, and as I sat before his screen, he was suddenly in control, without any conscious choice. And so I simply watched and tried to learn.

I was experienced at this form of occupation. And on the surface, the gestures and routines were not too dissimilar to what the creator of the game had done. Something called “logging in”, tapping the symbol cubes with fingers in the correct patterns, and so forth.

I soon realized that Eric was wrangling with magic of a sort, too – he etched number-signs into a digital slab and used them to predict the future. For hours he did this, ignoring the needs his body raised. I began to appreciate his dedication.

Hardly dedication — it’s skill and a healthy dose of fear. I’m decent at what I do, but loads of younger people would do the same work for maybe two-thirds of what I bring home.


This obsession with currency…sometimes it’s just the money, sometimes it’s what the money represents.

Of course it is. I’m doing okay, but a few months without income would break me.

You don’t use it to care for yourself, only to sustain your whims, I thought. You buy toys and consume entertainment, and you eat far more than you should.

Welcome to America. We work really hard until we’re exhausted, then we do almost anything to restore the balance, and then we get sick because we don’t make time for real food or a little exercise. Do that for long enough and you look like me.


Eric had a pretty poor self-image. I could see in his mind’s eye the unflattering comparisons to athletes and entertainers; the regret and shame over his own form ironically kept him from working properly to improve it.

“Is that so bad? Would you fix the things that bring you shame, if you could?”

Of course it is, and of course I would.

“Then help me to sate my own hunger, and I will help you make some adjustments. That will help address your sense of self, and help me to attract more to feed on.”

…Seriously? I mean I won’t kill anyone or hurt them, he said.

“I can see we have had some…bad press? I do not need to kill to feed, but I do need energy to help you with your concerns. Merely being proximate to a large source of lust will fill me. You don’t even need to engage in anything yourself.”

Holy…Well we are in luck, V. Because this weekend is Pride…