In the not-so-brave new world, cinemas are now virtual reality centers for sex. 1,876 words. Part Two. Illustration by Thomas Warming.
Hollywood – 2030
Nine billion human beings on the Earth. People felt squeezed in a hundred different ways. Living with economic deflation. Climate change. Failed crops. Government surveillance. Strange new diseases. Like antibiotic resistant super-gonorrhea. Superum neisseria gonorrhoeae. A fastidious gram negative diplococci bacteria that evolved over centuries and caused joint problems, blindness, pelvic disease, testicular cancer, ovarian cancer, severe dementia. And usually proved fatal.
SNG was especially prevalent among teenagers, most of whom were highly promiscuous. Sex was one of the few pleasures which life had to offer them in a world gone crazy. But there was a dark side to all this sexual activity. Hospitals filled up with young people. World governments tried praising the value of abstention. But the kids were horny. They wanted sex. Propaganda praising the value of masturbation didn’t work either.
Of course adults wanted to have sex, too, but they had better self-control than teenagers and often took the time to use condoms. But they were getting SNG, too.
And so antibiotic resistant super-gonorrhea continued to spread.
Until the full-body sensory suit was developed.
The development of the suit was the natural extension of high tech virtual reality. You put the suit on and you were instantly living in a brave new world. A VR world. A world beyond all human comprehension. Beyond all normal human sensation. Beyond any previous sensory stimulation.
Just how it worked was a trade secret, proprietary information owned by Sensorsex, a Palo Alto corporation. But instead of selling the sensory suits directly to consumers, Sensorsex decided to open up a retail chain of VR Cinemas.
They were really cinemas. Very modern cinemas. And, once inside, each customer donned a full sensory suit, tight fitting, with built-in goggles and earphones, and colored white for purposes of sanitation. But people had to be naked, all hair shaved from the body, or else the suit wouldn’t work. And so, everyone throughout the world who wanted to use the suits were hairless.
The suit worked by stimulating the major nerves of the body, especially nerves in the erogenous zones of the male and female anatomy. The pudendal nerve. The perineal nerve. The posterior scrotal nerves. The dorsal nerve of the penis. The dorsal nerve of the clitoris. Everything you felt was intensified. Everything. There were two types of suits. One for males. One for females. Male genitalia. Female genitalia.
The public didn’t care how the suits worked. They only cared that they worked. And they worked very well.
Sensorsex made a very smart move. They kept prices low because it was a volume business. Customers were in and out quickly. The average teenage boy came in less than two minutes. Girls about the same. Older adults took a little longer. But at twenty dollars a pop, visits to the VR Cinemas were a bargain.
People lined up around the block. So Sensorsex kept building more VR Cinemas. By 2030, Los Angeles alone had three hundred cinemas spread throughout the city. London, four hundred-fifty. Paris had more than five hundred. China, six thousand cinemas, welcomed by the government to control the population growth.
With so many VR Cinemas up and running, Sensorsex was making a net profit of about two billion dollars a day on sales of roughly six billion. The suits cost about eighty thousand dollars each to manufacture. A second generation suit was made even better.
—
Aidan Seymour checked his wallet for the second time, making sure he had his debit card. The senior at Hollywood High School had been waiting in line for an hour before finally reaching the entrance to the Sensorsex center on Wilshire Boulevard just down the street from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles.
When Aidan eventually reached the front counter, a young woman had him sign a general liability release of claims on a tablet. He sat in a large lobby with about three dozen other people also filling out forms requiring him to give his measurements. Including length of penis when erect. Also his sex partner preference and age. When he finished providing the information, the clerk swiped his debit card then gave him a locker code and waved him toward a door to the left.
“Through there,” she said, smiling. “And enjoy your experience.”
Aidan smiled back and passed through the door, already beginning to feel an adrenaline rush. Because this was his first time at one of the Sensorsex cinemas. He removed his clothes, quickly took a mandatory shower, then waited for the attendant.
A young man named Matt studied the screen of a tablet as he located Aidan’s data. “If you’ll follow me,” Matt said politely, “we’ll get you ready. You’re going to love this new next generation Sensorsex suit. It should fit you like a glove.”
Matt led Aidan into a small room with padded walls and a solitary bed and helped him into the suit and headgear. “Everything is automatic,” Matt explained. “The suit will recognize when you’ve orgasmed. At that point, it shuts off and notifies me. And then I’ll come in and help you out of it. Okay?”
“Okay,” Aidan said nervously.
“Well then, enjoy your experience. It will start five seconds after I close this door.” Matt left the room. The door clicked shut.
Five seconds later. Aidan heard waves. The sound of the ocean filled his head. The room suddenly grew larger and into a patio and clearly visible beyond that was the Pacific Ocean and blue sky.
Now Aidan was in a luxurious bedroom looking out on the patio, the sea and sky. The walls were a soft beige. The bed looked comfortable. The room filled with soft sunlight as a beautiful woman entered.
She smiled at Aidan and walked over to him. “Hello, Aidan. My name is Priscilla.”
Priscilla seemed real. Real skin, real breasts, real teeth, real black hair which was long and falling over the front of her shoulders, partially covering the upper portion of her breasts.
She reached out and hugged him. A real hug. Aidan felt her arms around him, sensed her strength, even smelled her perfume.
“Do you like me?” she asked him.
“Yes. You’re beautiful.”
“Thank you, Aidan. I think you’re very handsome. Do you want to fuck me?”
“Yes.” Aidan said, breathless.
She took his hand and led him to the bed. She undressed, revealing a slender body of extraordinary curves.
“Lie down with me.”
Aidan lay next to her on the bed, his heart racing. She kissed him. He became erect.
“Fuck me, Aidan. I want you to fuck me right now.”
Aidan climbed on top of her and penetrated her. She was wet and warm. She kissed him again, and he kissed her back. As he fucked her, she kept kissing him. She moaned. It all seemed so real.
“Oh, you’re so good, Aidan. Fuck me hard, Aidan. I like to be fucked.”
Aidan was powerless to resist. He was fucking her with all his might. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Unable to stop, he came. It was the most intense orgasm he’d ever experienced.
Out of breath, Aidan lay there. Seconds later, the suit turned off.
Aidan realized then he was lying on the bed face down. He looked around. He was back in the same small room with the solitary bed. It was over too quickly. Aidan felt momentary sadness.
Matt came in, no longer smiling. His voice was filled with condescension. “I hope you enjoyed your experience. Let me help you out of the suit. We need to get the room ready for our next customer.”
As Aidan put his clothes back on, he felt a deep satisfaction and tremendous sense of well-being. He left the VR Cinema and took a deep breath in the streaming sunshine. His first thought as he boarded the subway to Hollywood was: I’m coming back here tomorrow. The suit performed beyond all his expectations. It was the best twenty dollars he’d ever spent.
The next day, Aidan told his friends how he went to the VR Cinema on Wilshire and was the first person in his school to try out the second generation sensory suit. For awhile, Aidan was the big man on campus. Word of his experience spread fast.
At lunch, his best friends listened as he recalled his encounter with the VR woman in graphic detail. What it was like to fuck her. How his orgasm was the best ever. “I felt her hugging me,” he said. “I mean, she was pulling me right into her. She was so real but better. The old suits don’t have that kind of feeling. I don’t know how they did it, but these new suits are the ultimate experience.”
His friends said they couldn’t wait to try it.
“The only bad thing is the line.” Aidan frowns. “I had to wait over an hour. And word is getting out fast that the Wilshire location has the new suits. Today the line will probably be even longer.”
Jennifer set her combination lunch-fork-knife utensil down. “Why don’t we all ditch school and go right now?” she said with a conspiratorial smile. “That way we won’t have to wait in line.”
But one teen was already in trouble because of truancy. Another had a test in physics. “Be cool,” Aidan reassured them. “The VR Cinemas will always be there.”
The bell rang. Lunch was over. The students had six minutes to get to class. But Jennifer nudged Aidan with her elbow.
“What about it?” she whispered.
“What about what?”
“My attendance is perfect. No tests either. I can blow off this afternoon. Let’s go.”
Aidan sounded doubtful. “What if we get caught?.”
“It might be worth it.” Jennifer flashed a smile. Even with a shaved head, she was very sexy. Blue eyes. Girlish curves. Long legs. “We’ll tell them I felt ill and you took me home.” She shrugged.
“All right,” Aidan relented. “Let’s go before the next bell. While the security guards are still in the main hall.”
Jennifer and Aidan hurried to the exit door. Above them, surveillance cameras recorded their every move.
Soon they walked toward the street and the subway station just in front of the school. It was perfect timing. They both jumped aboard. “Aidan, don’t worry,” Jennifer reassured. “Last night, my mom told me that she and my dad want me to go to the VR Cinemas every day. They don’t want me to get SNG. Or pregnant.”
Aidan nodded seriously. The law in the United States was quite clear. Anyone who contracted SNG must be quarantined.Since the disease was still incurable, the period was indefinite. Like some kind of final solution. Each state had at least two quarantine camps. California had eight. And they were all overcrowded. And everyone inside the camps, all infected, were subjected to experimentation as the government searched nonstop for a cure.
“I know,” Aidan said. “I told my dad I tried the new suit and he said he was proud of me. That I could exhibit such self-control.”
“Have you ever fucked anyone in real life?” Jennifer asked Aidan.
“No,” he answered. “Have you?”
Jennifer shook her head. “No.”
Great story – can’t wait for part two!