- Hi Evi. How's it going? We are enjoying a fantastic time. And the valley is beautiful in autumn. How about you? I'm sending pictures.
Virginia was still so passionate about Nature, using it as a mechanism to replace her lack of a partner, whom she was incessantly looking for, with less and less success.
After several photos of colourful leaves, rivers, mountains and bridges, a personal photo of Eva in a bathing suit unexpectedly appeared.
- Cool, huh? I took it from you in Cadaqués. Remember? Well favoured you are, you jerk.
It was true. On that occasion, the combination of light and posture had given rise to an unreliable image. For those who did not know her, she represented a woman 20 years younger than herself.
She could not spend much time inactive, only contemplating the idealized photo on her mobile phone.
- Why don't I put this picture in the chat room? That way it will be easier to know that whoever is on the other side is a real person - she said unsure.
Even though she had not been an adventurous girl throughout her life, this time she was. It was a different vacation, and she had decided to indulge everything. Hidden from her usual environment of friends, she was now a single woman determined to open the door to the world of sex with lonely strangers locked in a rectangular space.
Soon she was able to see her enlightened profile of the beautiful young woman she appeared to be, with the chosen age assigned to that image.
It didn't take long. Insistent beeps began to come to her. Immediately she turned the volume down, frightened at the thought of her niece hearing them. To her surprise there were already calls from interlocutors on the other side of the dating page. Behind the hello that seemed to be the usual beginning, the messages were full-blown attacks.
-How beautiful you are! How I wish I could have taken that picture of you in the summer! Shall we meet to see each other? - said number 1, and next to the message there appeared a bald and smiling head, which wanted to preserve his youth in vain.
- I'm interested in your profile. Send a naked photo - said number 2, without any image that could help to glimpse who the nudist lover was.
-You eat prick? said number 3 without any modesty. The photo that accompanied such a violation of any intimacy was a muscular body showing its virile attributes with an obvious provocative message, but the shot had no head.
She felt the same nervousness again that she had experienced the night before. She was being the victim of a very dangerous addition. She was going to be a voyeur for strangers and at the same time she was going to be an object of voyeurism for them.
She heard music and screams in the street. She got up from her chair and went out to the terrace. As she watched the brass band pass by with the big head and the children who were running away and chasing them, she thought of 3 people who were sharing her autism.
- A rejuvenated bald man. A freak who doesn't even dare to show his face. A vicious man living by and for morbidity. What a future I have!
But the process of attraction had taken hold of her. For the next few days, her life would be based on looking anxiously at a screen where her privacy wanted to be violated, not safely kept at all, making her desire beat in an environment of such obvious insecurity.
- Where are you? - Eva wrote to her first suitor, the one who had seemed less determined, but who she saw as a match for her.
It took a while for the message to be heard, but in the end there it was.
- In Centrovía.
- In Centrovía? - she said strangely, trying to locate the place she had heard of but never been to.
- Where is Centrovía?
- Near Zgza. Next to Plaza Imperial.
- Arent you off duty? It's Pilar fiestas.
- No, I work. I'm a truck driver.
There was a moment of silence, necessary for her, because as a regular civil servant she had never dealt with a truck driver in her entire life. She thought of the crazy race she'd signed up for. She was forgetting all the years she had spent, meeting people before deciding to love them. But virtual allowed to share and expand desire through a fine human link. In it, personal reality, both economic and social, had no relevance.
- See you on Skype? - was the next message that came into the computer, with no first question mark, which seemed to be common in the chat.
- No, I can't right now. I have to go shopping. Tonight.
Eva was suddenly in a hurry to organize her flat where she had to play the aunt.
- This afternoon. I'll only be here eight hours. Then I have to go.
- This afternoon at 4:00.
- OK. A kiss beauty.
- Goodbye.
With the illusion of her new extrasensory date in her mind, she set out to do her usual glamorous work, beginning with the purchase of plenty of food for her niece and possible guests. She knew that she was still on the familiar rice-macaroni-burger-pizza-potato--coke-ice cream youth diet, so the next few days wouldn't be too demanding for her.
When she had finished her routine household tasks her niece and companion finally got up. It was past noon. Immediately they ate voraciously everything the aunt put in front of them.
- And you didn't go out last night, Aunt?
- No, I was tired. I went to bed early.
- How boring! It was all packed! You call someone today, okay?
- Don't organize my life, little one, I'm old enough to know what I have to do.
- But you're not staying home again today, okay?
- I'll call someone. Let's see what you can tell me about you last night. And don't let it just be about clubs, drinks and hot guys.
As I suspected, the explanation of the girls, told with all the adolescent intensity, was an endless one. They had embarked on a continuous wandering through night bars, drinking and talking, until the fumes of alcohol and sleep redirected them to auntie's home.
When they had finished eating, the two young women got caught up in the world of silence. They read and wrote on their cell phones, organizing their second day of fiestas. So as not to upset Eva, they picked up the table, put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and left again.
- But you're leaving? Don't you want some coffee?
- No, thank you, Auntie. We're leaving, the villagers are waiting for us at the fairs. Bye-bye.
- But you've got money?
- Yes, my father gave me. Bye-bye.
She was free and alone again. Her trucker fantasy had been going around in her head since she left the chat room. She poured herself a cup of coffee and watched the news. The wars of always organized by those of always and suffering those of ever. The gossip programs had dropped to low levels of quality. As she had not sat down to see them for days, she now didnt manage to recognize some of the little people who were walking around the screen proclaiming their mental vulnerability.
She couldn't stop thinking about the apparent human closeness that floated universally on the airwaves and in which she could so easily participate. Without even finishing her coffee, she sat back down on the computer and entered the chat room.
More messages awaited her, some brief, others explicit in their bodily desire, and she was even sent some old-fashioned, romantic lover's message, which admired in rapt fascination her unreal image.
Eva thought about how easy it was to establish a virtual polyandry which the new technologies allowed. But she still maintained the rule of fidelity to the word given. She looked for her first choice and wrote to him.
- I'm already connected.
For a moment there was no answer. She thought she might be playing polygamy and might be talking to another woman. She reviewed other personal profiles of the list of men on the show, waiting for their princess of that day to call them, and she was amazed at the richness of expressions, the abundance of situations, the variety of desires that the human sexual instinct encompassed. She finally got the message from the truck driver.
- Hi.
- Waiting for a while.
- Nap time
- What's your name?
- Ismael. And yours?
- Virginia - she lied.
- Enter Skype and call Ismaelca.
Without being very sure of what she was doing, she opened the program and the webcam. When the camera finally transmitted the images from the other side, before her was a naked, excited man who looked at her with the glow of immediate desire. She was very impressed by the image, but did not close the program.
That night Eva recalled her virtual odyssey. Following the instructions of an expert cyber-fucker, she had given herself over to the most daring language ever used by her. Bathed in the security of her absolute freedom, she had reached orgasm feeling her cyber-partner explode on the other side as well. Chat was definitely a very powerful drug.
On the next day, each moment she spent alone was a complete immersion in the new world she had discovered. She thought she couldn't let herself be carried away by a pseudo-accompanied loneliness. What she had done left her so dissatisfied that she thought of erasing everything from her computer. But she didn't do it. If there were so many men looking for a partner, she had to find someone to share her time, her pleasure and her need for mental communication. She finally saw him.
On the screen she now had the man she had dreamed of all her life. He was about her age, with short hair and blue eyes, a calm smile of someone who feels sure of himself. He seemed to be saying, "Call me".
Before moving on, she checked his profile. His name was Exter, though she knew that names were of little use here. A strange message full of personal passion filled everything:
"I'm here to love you forever. Don't be afraid. Don't be insecure. Forget about your past failures and the fear of failure that guides your present life. I need you as much as you need me. With me, with you, together we will live eternal life of absolute happiness. Call me
Never in her life, Eva had heard such melodious words that her heart beat with such impetuosity. It did not seem possible that a human being could say that in a vacuum, to anyone who read it.
- What is the trap behind this message? she asked herself.
After reading such a message, full of love and security, she could no longer discard that message as she had been doing with the others, full of hot chat procacities. And she wrote to him.
- I was impressed by your message. Who are you?
- Extra, your true lover.
- I don't know you. You don't know me either.
- I know you now, believe it or not. The lover's job is to love the beloved. When love is the only reason for life, all other problems disappear. And I love you. I'm going to love you forever. And you will love me forever.
- You overwhelm me, Extra. I'm not used to being talked to like that. It seems unreal. Are you a machine?
- No, kiss my lips and you'll see that I'm as alive as you are.
- Am I dreaming? Kissing a screen? This is crazy.
She backed off from her chair and started to think, why she didn't go out and meet real people, people who lived near her, who she could have adventures with sensibly, with the possibility that they would last. Exter was very attracted to her but she didn't want any more virtual sex. She thought about asking him out on a bar date. Then she heard it.
- Eva! Come on. I'm waiting for you.
- What? Where are you? How do you know my name? What do you want? Who are you?
With some fear she approached the screen. Extra's image glowed all over the monitor. It was a video image. It seemed to be seeing her, it seemed that his eyes were following her.... his smile was a magnet that directed her steps... she could not resist kissing him...
That kiss sucked up to the last of her cells, taking them to the other side of virtual reality, recomposing them into a new and astonished middle-aged woman who could not help but admire the world she had come to. It was in a silicon valley, dominated by its characteristic metallic grayish colour, where all the dreams that allowed to overcome human limitations had come true, to the point of forming a society of excellence generated by the most intelligent technologies, where the most stupid human generation that had created the planet lived pleasantly.
Eva disappeared forever from Zaragoza. No one else heard from her. In their family they were aware that she had spent a lot of time in a well-known hot date chat, but her friends were unable to provide any information. They didn't even know their friend was spending her time on it. No one was able to provide names of their last relationships. The dating company, under pressure from the police, pointed out that it had come into contact with their machine hook and contributed to the conversation it had started. It also pointed at the truck driver, married with two children, but, in addition to the conversation that was systematically recorded in the company, it gave them a story so clarifying that they had to discard him from the list of suspects.
The mystery remained unresolved and the matter has long since closed, in the face of the disbelief of Eva's office, police and environment.
But Eve lives her immense eternal happiness in the company of the alien she dared to kiss, in an unknown, trouble-free place. And she'll never come back.
TALE OF THE GYM SLAVE
La Ciotat (France)
November 2005
Carlos kept looking at Mediterranean Sea to relax his impulses, with the resemblance of existential nausea slipping down his lips. He was the only human being along the promenade of his small coastal town. Sunset had arrived, bringing to the trees of the walk successive waves of strong cold winds, which forced life inside the homes. Only some hasty car was passing through the street, getting lost in the distance. Then, silence.
The waves came to break on the shore, creating the relaxing daily rhythm of repeated noises over and over again. Each heartbeat of the sea was an impulse to his existential reflection.
- What am I doing here? - he said quietly.
He thought again of his mother, with whom he lived at the age of 36. She was a divorced teacher who had been laid out on a couch on retirement. There she was accompanied by an insistent talk of never-ending gossip programs that kept her in absolute silence and without provoking any reaction. Carlos had long since given up about accompanying her as a TV viewer. After fifteen minutes of listening to the gossip of empty characters, who were increasingly enriched by their insults and social nonsense, Carlos' sensitive state of mind was decaying to the point of absolute hatred for humanity. After his usual withdrawal to his room, which repeated day after day, he finally decided not to watch TV with his mother anymore. Their family life consisted of sharing an elegant but cold flat, where the voices from TV for the mother and the chill out music for the child coincided, although in separate rooms. Dinnertime, when they were both at home, was just over ten minutes to eat their usual pizza and ice cream accompanied by a couple of glasses of wine per head.