The End of FUN (33 page)

It was decided that Evie and Isaac would take their car and Shiloh would give me a ride to my grandpa's. When we got there I gave her the tour—living room, kitchen, bathroom, spare bedroom, and then my grandpa's bedroom where Katie's stuff was stacked in boxes.
Katie's stuff!
What was I doing?

Back in the spare bedroom we sat on the bed and made out. Mashed faces. Smooched in mutual duration. My hands were shaking—my whole
body
was shaking—but not from the twitches.

Shiloh drew back and touched her hand to my leg. “Hey,” she whispered. “Wanna doink?”

“What?”

“Doink.”

“Doink?”

“Don't tell me you haven't
doinked
before.”

Wow. Here I'd thought she was this goody-goody Mormon girl. But this was really direct.
Doink?
I'd never heard anyone call it
that
before. It made it sound like a brief collision or something.

“Yeah, I haven't ever really…”

She smiled. “So you're a doink virgin!”

“Um, pretty much.”

“This is going to be fun! Wanna give it a try?”

God, she didn't beat around the bush.

“Oh, and don't tell my brother. Sam teases me about being a black sheep, but really he's got this, like, way-too-perfect image of me. Are you OK? You've got this look on your face.”

“Um, there's one thing….I don't really have any protection.”

“Protection?” said Shiloh. “Like
condoms
? Hold your horses, pal! I said
doink
—not
do it
.”

“What?”

“You know—
doink
. With our
ARSE
s.”

“Doink with our arses?”

“ARtificial Sex Emulations—an avatar of yourself. You can get them from the FUN
®
Shop.”

YAY! for
ARSE
s, but when I logged in to the Shop and tried to download one, I was denied.

“That's OK,” she said. “I'll just scan you. You won't be able to do any upgrades—a lot of guys, you know,
upgrade
—but it's OK with me if it's OK with you.”

“Um, OK.”

“Good,” said Shiloh. “Take off your clothes.”

“My clothes?”

“I have to scan you, right?”

So there I was, butt-naked with my arms outstretched like a T as she ran her gaze over me—and I mean
all
of me—and my mind kept jumping back and forth between these two thoughts, and the first was,
Wow, this is like kind of clinically erotic
. And the second thought was,
No, buddy. This is two steps beyond weird.

My only consolation was that when she was done I would get to scan her—but when I asked her about that, Shiloh just laughed again.

“I'm already scanned, silly. Look. There I am.”

And there she was, standing in the corner of the room. Shiloh's
ARSE
. The resolution was actually pretty good. It looked the same as her—same face, same body, same star tattoos—only with blue hair, bigger boobs, and a raccoon tail.

“I'm sending you your
ARSE
,” she said. “Load it when you get it.”

I loaded my
ARSE
, and there I was. Me, Aaron O'Faolain, naked and pale, no upgrades or enhancements. I raised my hand—my
ARSE
raised his hand. I touched my lip—so did the
ARSE
of me. I examined this strange mirror of myself, and it examined me, both of us thinking the same thing:
Do my balls really look like that?

And then Shiloh's
ARSE
was in my arms, boobs and hair and raccoon tail and all—just like I'd imagined it might be, except completely different, and crazy weird. We sat down on the bed—me and Shiloh's
ARSE
on one side, Shiloh and my
ARSE
on the other—two couples facing different directions. As the four of us were making out or whatever I kept catching glimpses of her, the actual Shiloh, and I longed for something real. Real skin. Real hair. The worst part was the eyes of the
ARSE
—all big and brown and dead in the middle. Like looking into the eyes of a fish. They never quite manage to get the eyes right.

So we did the thing, the four or us, two real and two not, and it was crazy weird but also better than anything I'd ever done before—sort of—and after it was over I heard the lonely cry of the train whistle way out by town. Our
ARSE
s faded into the walls.

Shiloh lay on the bed, typing something in the air. She finished it up and smiled. “I rated you nine point eight stars.”

“Rated me?”

“Yeah. I took off a little because you're a noob and you seemed kinda, um, distracted. I expect you'll do the same or better when you rate me.”

“Yeah, OK.”

She rolled lazily on the bed. “You should probably do it now before you forget.”

“Do what?”

“Rate me.”

“Right. Of course.”

So I gave her 10 out of 10. I wasn't going to be the one to mess up her perfect score. I left the comments blank, though, because what was there to say? I couldn't think of anything. The right words just didn't exist. The silence pooled around us.

Someone had to say
some
thing, so I asked her about the stars on her hip.

“What's the story behind those?”

“What? The stars?”

“Yeah, the stars.”

“There isn't really a story.”

“No? It's not like a constellation or anything?”

“Not really.”

“Oh.”

“I just like stars.”

Huh.
I just like stars
. From the tone of her voice it sounded like she'd heard the question before. Maybe she had. Maybe more than once. Maybe all the guys who made it this far asked about the stars.

Shiloh came over again the next day, and we doinked again, and then she came over the next day, too. And the next. Every time I almost ended it, but a little voice inside my weiner was like,
No, you idiot!

Crazy. Here I was, finally, after all these years, after all the false starts, having real, actual,
almost
intercourse. I should've been stoked. But I wasn't. So why'd I do it? Why'd I
keep
doing it? Maybe because it was like a game, and this was the crazy part of the game, and maybe I could make it out alive. Maybe everything would be OK.

But in the back of my mind I knew it wouldn't. Every time we were done with doinking, in the clarity that followed, a little voice shouted from inside my skull—
End this!
And I almost did, I really almost did, but then one day when we were done and our
ARSE
s were fading into the light and Homie
™
was asking me to YAY! new ♥less
™
face accessories, she turned and sort of snuggled up to me.

“You're getting better,” she said. “I'd say you're almost ready for the next level.”

My ears perked right up.

“Next level?”

Shiloh sat up on her elbows. “We've been spending a lot of time together, haven't we?”

“Yeah.”

“And it's been—
fun
, right?”

“Yeah, it has.”

“So, OK.” She tilted her head. “Does this mean we're kind of a thing?”

“A what?”

“You know—a
thing
. You and me.”

“I don't know—does it?”

“I'm asking
you
,” she said.

And I couldn't stop myself, the words just came out: “Sure. Yeah, I guess it does.”

And then we kissed, only it was a different kind of kiss, a deeper kiss, and when we were done, Shiloh put her lips to my ear. “I've got protection.”

And my whole being instantly snapped into a single exclamation point like:
!

And then we were kissing again.

And then we did it.

Only, we didn't
really
do it. We
almost
did it. We almost really actually did it.

I think.

The whole thing was crazy. I was so amped up I was practically floating outside of my body, looking down on myself and Shiloh, thinking,
Holy shit! I can't believe this! This is a thing that is happening!

And then just at the crucial moment, something else happened.

There was a flash, and the audio dropped out and the visuals dropped out and everything went black. And it took me a moment in the nothingness to realize what was going on: full-on TSD glitch-out! I couldn't believe it! Robbed of my shining moment by FUN
®
!

And then I was back, and it was over, whatever had happened was over, and Shiloh was sitting up looking at me all kind of like she was embarrassed for me, because it had clearly ended before it had even really begun.

In the moments after, with the excitement all gone, the terrible feeling crept in again. What was I
doing
here? I liked someone else. I liked Katie. I just couldn't help it. I think that's how you know if you really like someone, if you can do it—or almost do it—with another person and not be happy about it. Shiloh was hot, but all I could think about was Katie. But when Shiloh snuggled against me and told me we could maybe try again tomorrow, I put my arms around her and was like, “Yeah, sure.” And that sounds kind of ♥less
™
of me, and the truth is, it was.