Enhanced Performance

You never think it will happen to you, you are not going to become ‘that’ guy, you know the type, twisting himself in knots, going out of his mind reduced to a babbling drooling fool all because of some woman. Well my friends I am here to tell you it happened to me, and if it can happen to me, hell it can happen to anyone.

I’m young, healthy, fit, fairly attractive, I’m not that guy off the Quafe commercials all the women would kill to slurp the drink off his rock hard abs, but I do take care of myself. I’ve had my ups and downs when it comes to the dating scene which unfortunately includes getting pretty wasted and shall we say lowering one's standards significantly, however that is not the problem in this cautionary tale in fact quite the opposite. My latest conquest is a legitimate five star, 12 out of 10, total utter knock out. I don’t have a fixed type but I know what I like and man do I like her, for starters she has a body that has to be seen to be believed. These days with the clothing that's out there a woman can sucker you in by looking stunning but when you peel back the wrapping paper you find it’s all window dressing, bits of her are no longer in the place they were advertised previously and other parts seem to have grown in size dramatically at some point during the evening when you weren’t paying attention. Not this girl however, even completely, utterly, unashamedly naked she has a body that reduces me to animalistic noises in my attempts to describe it, just uuuuhhhhhh. Even better she has a devilishly naughty mind and brains to boot which seals the deal, after all I think we can all agree it's pointless having a shiny looking spaceship if you then scrimp on the fitting and it performs like shit.

Anyway back to wonder woman, and how she drove me crazy. Things were going great and I mean thought I’d died and found paradise great I’m not going into the details because I’d end up spending hours fixated on what she does with her tongue! Safe to say I had never had it so good. Problem is as I stated before she’s easily a 12 out of 10, even at my modest 7 that leaves a whole host of wiggle room and that makes a guy nervous. In a more shall we say balanced coupling by definition you don’t constantly feel you have anything to prove, there is no waiting for the inevitable moment she finds someone more in her own league. Feeling inferior in your intimate relationships is tiring work! You translate every communication as an ultimatum, finding problems that probably don’t even exist. She says she hasn’t seen enough of you, suddenly you’re clingier than a moist body glove, seeing too much of you and the next few nights you agonise into the small hours whether to message her if she hasn’t messaged you, will she message you? Is she messaging someone else? It is nerve shredding stuff. Luckily it became clear very quickly that there was only one area I had to focus scoring points in and that was the daunting arena of physical contact. Don’t get me wrong she appreciated swanky restaurants, flowers and romantic gestures, but I knew the real scoring occurred post sweaty, screaming session.

The points scoring system however that is a beast all unto itself, and most likely completely made up in my head with nothing to do with her whatsoever. Session time is a factor, but this isn’t a marathon or last man standing event, there needs to be substance, short sharp stabs of ecstasy that keeps both of you honest and not just going through the motions. Think sets at the gym, you want good intense reps but you are never satisfied with just the one go on the machine. Variation comes next, both of location and technique, the ability to surprise and to work in a confined space are definite bonus’ however do your homework you never want to come strutting into the room wearing just your smile or swinging your pants round your head to find she has invited her parents over for a chat! Finally never, ever talk about it, communication in relationship is healthy but asking after her sexual preferences is like using an autopilot system for you spaceship it is both lazy and indicates you don’t have a clue where you are going.

Back on track with the story, things seemed great, I was scoring major points in all areas, or at least that is what i told myself, but the effort of scoring all those points was taking it’s toll. She continued to be her awesome self, as naughty, noisy and amazing as ever but I felt my performance was slipping and if I continued to not perform I wouldn’t be able to keep her. I didn’t have a choice, I couldn’t tell her I wanted to slow down, what kind of man holds his hands up and says “sorry darling you're too much woman for me give the little man a rest before you ride it off!” That's how I found myself cold, scared and very much alone in a dark back alley trying to score some little pick me up pills for the main man. I had never done this before, never needed to, was an area I knew absolutely nothing about I’d just heard a rumour from a friend of mine I was to ask for blue pills. Turns out these things are apparently illegal, hence the dodgy locale and me feeling like I was going to be jumped and my organs sold for profit within the hour. I approached the first disreputable man I clapped eyes on but he didn’t have any, he pointed me in the general direction of where I might get some. The next guy along hooked me up. God! They were expensive, I pressed him for details and he looked at me like I was crazy. I told him I really needed them to make a difference and he offered me the strongest of the one’s he had to sell. Isk changed hands and he babbled something about a 30 minute duration, a sense of relaxation and euphoria and maybe something about possible side effects before he was off like a rocket.

Two hours later i’m naked in front of the mirror slapping myself across the chest working myself up and getting my game face on. She’d come over about an hour ago and something was up, I could just sense it, we normally just clicked, like two pieces of a gear that just fit together and rumble on. Tonight it was slow, slightly forced, just not in synch. Thus when the time came for us inevitably to get it on I got her worked up before stealing away to the bathroom to swipe the pills. For some reason I’m standing there shaking like a leaf in the wind, a palm full of these things in the flat of my hand, wondering how many to take. My first thought was literally, go big or go home, and being in the relatively unlucky position of already being at home, I downed the whole lot, relaxation and fucking euphoria here we come! Back into the bedroom, damn she looks amazing, the thin bed sheets while covering her modesty accentuate her nudity, defining her curves perfectly. Did I say she looked good? By the time I make it to the foot of the bed all 3 of her looked fantastic! The last thing I remember, to my infinite shame, is for some reason stopping at the foot of the bed looking down at my little guy and being confused at him still being definitely little. I slapped him, across the head informing him “come on big guy it’s game time.” Before I leaned forward, kept leaning forward and pitched unconscious down the side of the bed with a hard smack against the floor of my quarters.

Ouch! A fall of any length when you are unconscious is painful, especially if you are naked at any point during the falling. At the point you remember you were naked, and the fact you don’t remember getting yourself to the medical centre, you realise some stranger has likely seen the pale white of your ass. As my other set of cheeks reddened I cast a squinted eye around the room, My whole body ached but my soul soared when I saw her still unbelievably beautiful form curled up into a tiny ball trying to sleep in a chair next to the bed. Either the chair was uncomfortable or we had some secret sensory link I was unaware about because as I woke up she came around as well. She pounced on me, the tirade of being a stupid idiot and her leaving me was in fact her telling me she loved me ten times, TEN times, I know, I recount them frequently when I replay this moment. Each profession of love interspersed by a mash of her lips against mine. I must have looked as confused as I felt because when she finally calmed down and pulled back far enough to take in the slack, very relaxed, slightly euphoric picture of my whole face she asked me what was wrong. With a heaving sigh which hurt parts of me which definitely had no known attachment to my lungs I confessed I was worried we were not ok, that our usual flawless ability to click had begun to slip. She looked slightly embarrassed at that, head bowed she struggled to look at me as she began her own confession.

Turns out she was worried of admitting I was too much man for her, that our daily sessions were making her sore and I would look elsewhere to fulfill my ‘insatiable physical urges’. Well my jaw hit the floor for the second time that evening, I told her what I thought had been the problem and we laughed it off easily enough. Turns out it only took a booster overdose for me to realise that communication scores all the points, thus from now on I have vowed two things. Firstly I will never ever take another blue pill as long as I live and secondly I am inside my woman’s mind at least as often as I am in, well, any other part of her.            

The Blackheart

He kept his bowed head covered, avoiding the cacophony of humanity all about him. Luckily for them none crossed his path as he marched towards the confessional. Being empty the booths sensors automatically retracted the door for him as he approached, once inside the door slid back into place now locked for his privacy until he manually opened it from within. The light inside was artificial but the level was low a subdued dark place for the telling of secrets. He pulled back the cowl of his robe, letting his head rest back against the metal wall behind him. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, unclenched his fists trying but failing to let go.

“How can I help you my Child” The voice floated in the darkness, deep, aged, experienced. He nearly ran from that voice, the insignificance of his personal problem shaming him to silence. Then his anger flared, his fury at the injustice imposed upon him kept him in his seat and made him open his mouth.

“I have loved and lost, I have loved and am lost.” His  throat felt raw, used up, just saying the words a fresh anguish.

“I am listening my son” The deep voice responded and so with every word flaring pain through his soul he began to tell his story.

His name was Valentino Astrum, he was a capsuleer but only for the past two years. Before that he had been, it was strange to have to label it, now he was immortal was he still human? Either way he had definitely been human before, he had also been complete. Her name was Jade and from the moment they first saw each other they had filled each others lives with a light that made the stars look tarnished. They had discovered each other, grown content and happy, she had made him better. The only problem was time, they had met close to the end of the prime of their lives the youthful carefree enthusiasm of their love had an inevitable shelf life and it was far too close for either of them. They felt cheated, why could they have not met sooner, had longer. Driven by the need for more he had found a way, they would have eternity to be together once they were immortal.

He couldn’t remember how they had decided who would go first, it was painfully clear that they simply did not have the resources for them both to become capsuleers at the same time. He went first, devoting every moment to raising the isk required for her to join him. Amazing things had happened to him, his clone body was at it’s physical prime, his mind and abilities expanding at an incredible rate with the ability to inject new skills as he needed them, but he didn’t care. His quest to earn the required capital forced him further away from Jade for longer periods of time, mining, missioning, bounty contracts, a rotation in the Amarr Navy defending contested systems for money against the other factions of New Eden. It mattered not to him where or how he got the isk, all that ultimately mattered was  that he got it.

Before he became a capsuleer they had never been apart, yes they both worked but at some point in every day they had been together. As often as he could Valentino raced home to be with her. His soul burned with being apart and he struggled with the separation. Things were different, she seemed slower, more ordinary, he seemed colder, less human. It had taken her an infuriating amount of time to get past the physical changes, she swore his clone body was different even though he was certain it was simply a ‘perfect’ copy of his original form. She hated the input jacks, could not bring herself to touch him near them for the longest time let alone look at them. Perhaps the worst thing was she didn’t seem at all enthused by the prospect that she would soon be joining him, even though he told her they had never truly been apart, soon they would be together forever.

Then the day came, the greatest day of his life, it had taken him nigh on a year to raise the funds but he had them. He had not seen Jade in almost two months, so consumed by his zeal to finish the task and collect the isk. He rushed home to her and his world crumbled to dust at his feet. She had changed her mind, she had been looking at problems and side effects of the procedure, she didn’t want to die young. He called her a coward, unwilling to risk something so small and insignificant for a chance at eternity. He screamed at her for conning him, this had been their plan not just his, she had let him take the risk but now would not join him? She told him she was scared of him, he had changed, become a cold hearted, calculated, driven machine, she felt she had lost the man she loved. He reasoned, pleaded, they had everything before, they could have everything again, surely she could see that their bodies were nothing more than vessels to hold their personality, love and memories, replace them with clone bodies and they could love each other infinitely. He would never know if she simply agreed with him or she changed her mind because she felt guilty for making him go first, maybe despite her words she still loved him enough. Regardless of the reason, come morning she had agreed to go through with the procedure.

Maybe in his desire not to be different from her he had rushed her through the process, maybe she had not conquered her fear and reluctance but only hidden it away for his sake for it to doom her mind. Whatever the reason she never came out of the procedure. The medical staff told him the neural jacks had been fitted flawlessly but on testing the viability of the connections before releasing her from care she had become mind locked, trapped inside her own body, locked away from him forever.

At first he had raged  and cursed before his anger cooled, he then searched for institutions or procedures to free his love and return her to him from within her own body. Every attempt was fruitless, every isk he spent chasing his hopes wasted, he returned after every failed venture to cry endlessly at the foot of her bed her cold hand pressed between his own. Her body began to deteriorate, the unused muscles would atrophy and her prison would waste away with her locked inside it. He could have maintained her forever, they could have taken a mind print of her mind locked state and transported it into a fresh clone body as her original body died but he didn’t. The loss of her from his life had turned him bitter, cruel and dark but he was none of those things to her. He railed against the impossibility of his choice, if there was any part of her left inside her body then there was a chance one day he could save her, yet if there was any part of her left how could he torture her for eternity by keeping her ‘alive’ in her own internal prison.

Valentino drew a ragged breath, his head was lolled forward his hands clasped at the back of his head, he felt a twitch in his fingers an urge to claw the neural jack from the back of his skull. He licked his lips, ignoring the tears that fell between his knees to the metal floor below. Throughout the retelling of his tale the voice had not interrupted him and it still waited for him to finish.

“She died this morning, now I am alone for eternity in a universe without light. My heart is cold, black and lifeless.” He brought his hands off his head and punched the adjoining wall with his fist preferring to feel physical pain to contrast with the emotional torrent raging inside him. The voice was silent for what seemed like an age before in a level tone he began.

“Only through many hardships is a man stripped to his very foundations and in such a state devoid of distraction is his soul free to soar and in this he is closest to God.” A seconds pause before he added “There will be obstacles and difficulties. That’s his test. We must make his gift deserving.”

Valentino rolled his head back and laughed, his mind snapping to the sound. In coming here why had he expected anything other than the pointless rhetoric of scripture. He rose, drew the firearm from his side and left the booth. He indiscriminately executed the first person he saw, then the next and the next. He had loved, he had lost he had eternity alone, the universe would burn as he suffered.