“Just over a week, I guess. I thought it would be different,” Starboy 8 says. Tasinis nearly drops her glass in surprise. Starboy 8 has a voice and it’s nice: a smooth tenor, really friendly. There’s even some emotion in it.
“Different how?”
“I guess I thought you wouldn’t be judged like you are in real life. I thought people could be more honest standing behind an avatar.”
“But they are.”
“No, they’re not. People are judged in here just like in reality. On their appearance. I mean, look at you.” Starboy 8 points to my avatar’s body.
Just then a cute male avatar that looks like a pumped Johnny Depp approaches the booth and asks for Tasinis’s autograph. She’s just about to sign for him when Starboy 8 tells him to get lost. The really weird thing is I find myself excited by his possessiveness, but I couldn’t tell you what Tasinis was feeling at that point. I think it was about then that me and my alter ego started peeling off from each other, like an ovum dividing in the womb, pink, unformed, blind in intent.
“What about me? Don’t you find me attractive?” Tasinis cocks her head, then flicks her hair over her shoulder (seductive gesture command 10).
“You look like a sex doll. There is nothing real about you.”
“No one in Second Life wants reality; we’re all escaping reality. In reality I’m invisible.”
“So you make yourself super-visible in Second Life?”
“Something like that.” I make Tasinis sip her champagne in a demure fashion. It looks a little awkward, like a stripper trying to look coy. But it’s a difficult moment. I want to tell Starboy 8 more but Tasinis is holding me back.
The conversation is not going the way I need, and yet I can’t unhook myself. It’s like Tasinis has started to want to prove herself to Starboy 8. She turns away from him, her long blond hair falling down her face. I have to stop myself from hitting the command that would make two large glistening tears roll across those high cheekbones.
“Sorry, I’ve upset you,” Starboy 8 says.
Tasinis doesn’t reply.
“Guess I should buy myself a penis. I mean, how long do you think I’ll survive in Second Life dickless?” Starboy 8 continues.
In real life I laugh out loud, then I make Tasinis turn and smile back at him.
“If you stay a voyeur you’ll be okay.”
Starboy 8 returns her smile. His hand lifts and slides across the marble tabletop, his fingers touching Tasinis’s own.
“Do you have someone on the outside?”
I stiffened. I’d been so long in the adult areas that I couldn’t remember the last time an avatar had asked Tasinis anything personal.
“No one. You?”
“I had someone but she died recently. Guess I’m in here escaping reality too.”
“I know what that’s like. To lose someone and be alone.”
“Do you think we’re running?” Starboy 8 asks softly, his hands creeping over Tasinis’s fingers—they look absurd, they are so much smaller than hers, but I let him touch her.
“Sure, we’re all running, aren’t we?” she growls back, a little less confident than usual. “Running from our shit real lives, real jobs, and real bodies. But here I’m totally free, totally visible. I revel in being seen.”
“But who is living which life?”
I stare at the screen; I’d been inside Tasinis so long I’d never thought about it like that. To me I had been living. Suddenly I become aware of my body, my human body: my back aches from sitting down so long, there’s a pounding in my temples, and I feel a little nauseous from the burger. Outside it’s night already and I know I should be sleeping. More than anything I want Tasinis to leave and fly back to the safety and anonymity of the adult areas. I’m scared; it’s as simple as that. Inworld has started to blur with outworld.
I make Tasinis stand up and walk away without casting a backward glance. I can even hear the swish of her dress against her thighs.
“I want to see you again!” Starboy 8 shouts out on the messenger board, “Tahiti! Tomorrow—eight o’clock!”
“I’m making no promises,” Tasinis mutters darkly, then walks through the bar door.