MY AVATARS AND I

Ten conversations in Second Life®

By Huckleberry Hax

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2009 by Huckleberry Hax

Huckleberry Hax is hereby identified as author of this work in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Cover design by Huckleberry Hax

The terms 'Second Life,' and 'Linden' are copyright © Linden Research Inc.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

For K and S and all the others.

Chapter 9.

The dancer

Primary colours in black, skating across polished wood in pixels.  The guys look up at me, their blank faces say nothing, but the words they use paint horny creases round the edges of their mouths.  It turns my stomach to think of the possibilities I'm playing with here, which is why I try so hard not to think about it. Every now and again, however, that thought pops into my mind just the same.  Any one of those empty faces could be a minor, I think to myself.  "Or an old age pensioner or the vicar from my church or the teacher I had when I was nine or the woman at the checkout who always touches the palm of my hand more than she needs to when she gives me back my change.  More to the point, of course, any one of those empty faces could be him..."  I stamp down on that thought just as quickly as I know how.  I repress it.  I push it quickly, urgently, haphazardly back into the cupboard and slam shut the door before it has a chance to tumble back upon me.  It only means the next time I chance upon that door without due diligence it'll all take me by surprise once again, but it does the trick; it allows me to cope.  And I'm pretty certain anyway I'll be just as fast next time.  Of course, it isn't just that awkward possibility that distresses me, you understand; it's more the admissions, the assumptions behind it.  What, after all that I have been though, has brought me here?  I tell myself it's money.  I tell myself it's the thrill.  I tell myself it's nothing more than simply wanting to feel desired and nothing to do with that other thing.  I came to this world looking for X and here – in this specific place – I'm spending a little 'me time' doing Y and only Y.  That's what I tell myself.  That's what I try to believe.  You probably think that makes me sound quite astonishingly shallow: people are people are people, after all; why should I expect him to be any different from anyone else?  At one level, I suppose, I really don't care any more than you would.  But it's nearly two years now since I started this thing, and only now do I find myself here, telling myself a bunch of lies because it enables me to stand on this table and lick the ears of strangers and look.  I'm not here for titillation.  Maybe it's the fact it took me so long to get here that most bothers me.  I let looking in the nice sounding places distract me from coming to – let's face it – the most popular type of destination, and then I let enough time pass that coming to this kind of place would have felt like some sort of a political U-turn.  Why would I bother about strategies that no-one can actually see?!  In the end I learned to lust and that was how I got here.  It's not about the means so much as it's about the mechanism.  I actually do like the thrill of it now, you see.  I imagine their tongues and their fumbling and their pale, greasy faces.  When my head leans back in text and I smile at the touch of a kiss upon my neck, the smile is not put on for show.  This is what I recoil from: not so much the thing that I've become, but the thing I used to be: that I could only sneak her in through the doors to this place by convincing her that it was in some way somehow 'wholesome'.

Tickle Gently: Hey there, Affable.

Affable Chap: Hello Tickle.

Tickle Gently: How are you this evening?

Affable Chap: I'm good, thanks.

Affable Chap: How are you?

Tickle Gently: Why I'm just peachy, my dear!

Tickle Gently: What brings you to Tabletops and, in particular...

Tickle Gently: what brings you to *my* tabletop?

Affable Chap: Why, you are what brought me, Tickle!

Affable Chap: At least, to the latter.

Tickle Gently: Good.

Tickle Gently: I'm glad.

Affable Chap: That's a mighty fine avatar you have there!

Tickle Gently: Why thank you.

Tickle Gently: You're not so bad looking yourself!

Affable Chap: Really?  You think so?

Affable Chap: I think I look sort of freakish.

Affable Chap: I mean, all this bulging muscle...

Tickle Gently: Yeah, you're right.  You do.

Affable Chap: Ha!

Tickle Gently: But it's pretty much the norm around here, to be honest.

Tickle Gently: You learn to filter it out, after a fashion.

Affable Chap: You look for the personality instead, you mean?

Tickle Gently: Sure, Affable.

Tickle Gently: Suuuuuuuure.

Affable Chap: Ha!

Affable Chap: You're cruel.

Affable Chap: The guy in the picture that had this shape on looked so much better than I do.

Affable Chap: I really don't know where I went wrong.

Tickle Gently: It's all about shape-skin co-ordination, honey.

Tickle Gently: You're still on the default skin there, aren't you?

Affable Chap: Is it obvious?

Tickle Gently: Oh, it's obvious, sweetie.

Tickle Gently: It's obvious.

Tickle Gently: You need an animation over-rider too.

Tickle Gently: The way you're sitting there like that it makes you look like you're holding in your pee.

Tickle Gently: And, whilst we're on the subject of appearance, if I'm honest, you could do with some new clothes too.

Affable Chap: I see.  So when you said I was not bad looking...

Tickle Gently: Yeah, that was a lie.

Tickle Gently: You got me.

Affable Chap: I don't know whether to feel insulted or ashamed.

Tickle Gently: Oh insulted, of course!

Tickle Gently: Always go for insulted.

Tickle Gently: Where there's drama to be had, seize it!

Tickle Gently: Why would one have it any other way?

Affable Chap: Well, in that case then, I've never been so insulted in my life!

Tickle Gently: Good!

Affable Chap: I shall just have to take my custom elsewhere!

Tickle Gently: Do so!

Affable Chap: You really hate my clothes?

Tickle Gently: In fairness, I didn't actually use the word 'hate'.

Affable Chap: Reading between the lines, though, 'hate' is pretty much the ballpark, yes?

Tickle Gently: You're right; I'm not going to upgrade you *that* much from there.

Affable Chap: You really don't like this suit?

Tickle Gently: Affable, it looks like you painted it on yourself.  With your eyes shut.

Affable Chap: Admittedly.

Tickle Gently: How many suit shops did you visit before you bought it?

Affable Chap: 'Bought'?

Tickle Gently: Right.  You see, therein lies our problem.

Affable Chap: I don't want Second Life to cost me any money.

Tickle Gently: Ah, I see.

Tickle Gently: Still in *that* stage are you?

Affable Chap: And intend to stay there!

Tickle Gently: Good for you!

Tickle Gently: So I can rule out the possibility of any tips from you this evening then, can I?

Tickle Gently: I mean, you wouldn't want to go getting a girl's hopes up now, would you?

Affable Chap: Ah, right.

Tickle Gently: Or did you think I was up here wiggling myself out of a predilection for guileless banter?

Affable Chap: 'Guileless'?  Gosh!

Tickle Gently: If I had a Linden for every banal chat-up line I've received from a guy wearing that exact same haircut you have on...

Affable Chap: Really?  That many?

Tickle Gently: Come to think of it, a couple of hundred Lindens isn't all that much, when you get down to it.

Tickle Gently: Bad currency choice.

Affable Chap: In fairness, I haven't actually offered up any chat-up lines.

Affable Chap: Not yet, at least.

Tickle Gently: Right.

Tickle Gently: That whole *you're* what brought me to this table, Tickle! wasn't even intended to ingratiate me?

Affable Chap: Ha!

Affable Chap: I must say, you're very articulate.

Tickle Gently: For a stripper, you mean?

Affable Chap: Well...

Tickle Gently: Go on.  You can say it.

Tickle Gently: It's what you're thinking.

Tickle Gently: I suppose it's something that you did at least notice.

Tickle Gently: Not everyone does.

Affable Chap: Gosh.  Now I feel bad for offering the compliment.

Tickle Gently: Compliments are complex things, my boy.

Tickle Gently: The fault of society is that it seems to forget the context of power relationships when it offers its pats on the head and then gets offended when the head offers back its teeth.

Affable Chap: Crikey.

Affable Chap: Do we have a power relationship?

Tickle Gently: I'm the one on the table removing fabric for money, honey.

Affable Chap: But actually, you're not, are you?

Affable Chap: Neither are you actually taking clothes off in real life...

Affable Chap: Nor, in fact, are you taking them off in cyberspace (since I don't have any money).

Tickle Gently: You're confusing small and big pictures, Affable.

Tickle Gently: Barking doesn't make you any less on a leash.

Affable Chap: Barking?  Leash?

Tickle Gently: It was all I could come up with.

Affable Chap: But you choose to come here, right?

Tickle Gently: As it happens, I do.

Tickle Gently: But that only means the power relationship is one voluntarily entered into.

Tickle Gently: Not that it doesn't exist.

Affable Chap: If you say so.

Tickle Gently: I do.

Tickle Gently: And you chose to come here too, Affable Chap.

Tickle Gently: To sit at my table and engage in conversation with me for no money?

Affable Chap: Does conversation cost?

Tickle Gently: *sigh*

Tickle Gently: It's my *time* you're paying for, honey.  Isn't that obvious?

Affable Chap: I could have just sat here in silence, saying nothing.

Tickle Gently: And what would have been the point in that?

Affable Chap: I would have listened to the conversations of others.

Tickle Gently: You could have done that from an empty table, darlin'.

Affable Chap: That is true.

Affable Chap: But, somehow, it would have been more conspicuous.

Tickle Gently: Not really.

Tickle Gently: There's plenty of shy folk to be found in places like this.

Tickle Gently: Sitting at an empty table is just playing it safe, we know that here.

Tickle Gently: Someone would probably have paid you a visit after a minute or so, reached down and stroked your timid face and made you feel good for coming.

Tickle Gently: 'Conspicuous', eh?  Now there's an interesting disposition.

Affable Chap: It is?

Tickle Gently: It is.

Tickle Gently: Kind of suggests you're up to something.

Tickle Gently: I mean, shyness is shyness, but shy guys don't exactly go out of their way to 'blend in'.

Affable Chap: Heh.

Tickle Gently: You 'heh' away, Affable.  You're up to something.

Tickle Gently: I'm on to you.

Affable Chap: Well well.

Affable Chap: You're very perceptive.

Tickle Gently: For a stripper, you mean?

Affable Chap: Start actually removing some of your clothes and I might just put you in that category.

Tickle Gently: Oh!  That was actually quite witty!

Affable Chap: For a customer, you mean?

Tickle Gently: Yes.  That's exactly what I mean.

Affable Chap: So long as we understand each other.

Tickle Gently: Oh, you'll get no muddiness from me.

Affable Chap: No muddiness?  I approve.

Tickle Gently: Muddy people, after all, are such a bore.

Affable Chap: Not to mention the mess they make.

Tickle Gently: Indeed!

Tickle Gently: Muddy, messy people!  So anyway...

Tickle Gently: ...what are you up to, Affable Fellow?

Tickle Gently: What are you in here to see?

Affable Chap: I'm not a detective, if that's what you're thinking.

Tickle Gently: Of course you're not, or you'd be a rubbish one if you were.

Tickle Gently: But this is an alternative account you're using.

Tickle Gently: Isn't it?

Affable Chap: *sigh*

Affable Chap: You *are* very perceptive.

Tickle Gently: Simple deduction, my good fellow.

Tickle Gently: You're far too quick on the verbals for an avatar of your apparent age.

Tickle Gently: And that detective comment sinched it.

Affable Chap: It's not exactly a massive secret, you know.

Affable Chap: I might well have told you in time.

Tickle Gently: Oh really?

Tickle Gently: And would you have mentioned the Lindens you've no doubt transferred from your main account when you told me that?

Affable Chap: Actually, it was the tip I intend to give you that I had planned as my way into that conversation.

Tickle Gently: 'Tip' singular?  wow.  You really know how to jangle a girl's jinglies, Affable.

Affable Chap: I can break it down into smaller payments, if you like.

Tickle Gently: Do so.

Tickle Gently: But at least spare me the sheer dullness of knowing how many you intend to make.

Tickle Gently's tip pot: Thanks for the generous tip of 100$L, Affable Chap!

Affable Chap: Your tip pot publicly announces tip quantity?

Tickle Gently: Of course it does.

Affable Chap: Ok.  Fair enough.

Tickle Gently: You might start getting IMs from the other dancers, mind; that is a downside.

Affable Chap: Even though I'm at your table?

Tickle Gently: Well, Slap over there will respect that you're mine – she and I sometimes do a double act, by the way – and Purple's a friend as well...

Tickle Gently: But the others are new in the last week.  They won't care.

Affable Chap: Nothing so far.

Tickle Gently: Tip me again; that ought to do it.

Affable Chap: How presumptuous!

Tickle Gently: That you're going to tip me?  You're the one who offered me the schedule of payments, darlin'.

Tickle Gently: All I'm doing is speeding it up a little.

Affable Chap: Maybe I changed my mind and gave you the whole tip at once.

Tickle Gently: That would be an odd thing to do though, wouldn't it?

Affable Chap: I suppose.

Affable Chap: I seem to recall reading something somewhere once about tips to strippers resulting in some clothing being removed.

Tickle Gently: *sigh*

Tickle Gently: Nothing comes off for less than 200.

Tickle Gently: Tip me again and I'll take off this shirt, ok?

Affable Chap: Only the shirt?

Tickle Gently: Only the shirt.

Tickle Gently's tip pot: Thanks for the generous tip of 100$L, Affable