Heller's Revenge (15 page)

Chapter 10

Following breakfast, Clarrie
dressed in his usual jeans and sneakers, choosing an A-Team t-shirt
this time. I didn’t know from where he sourced them. They could
have been original 1970s tees from a second hand shop or designer
retro t-shirts costing hundreds of dollars each. He sat at the desk
and logged into
Synonymy
.

I’d requested that a paper be
delivered each day, and spent the next hour sipping coffee and
slowly reading through every single word it contained. It helped to
pass the time and I became well versed in international and current
affairs, the latest local political intrigues, and the most recent
sporting scandals. And I could also tell you quite a lot about what
people wanted to buy and sell in this city, if you were at all
curious. God only knows I wasn’t normally, but these were
extraordinary times.

I could hear Clarrie muttering
to himself as he worked. More out of boredom than any real
interest, I inclined my head and eavesdropped.

“Oh, you like that, don’t you,
baby! Here it is again. And again. Yeah, that’s it! That’s how you
do it. You know he loves it. Give it to Clarrie, sugar,” he
mumbled, feverishly typing and clicking on his mouse.

Yuck!
It sounded as if he
was getting his rocks off in his dirty little porn world. I wanted
to see what he was up to, so quietly stood up and choosing a very
indirect route out of the line of his eyesight, crept up behind
him. He was so engrossed in what he was doing, he didn’t even
notice. I peered inquisitively over his shoulder at the screen. My
mouth dropped open in horror at what I saw.

“Clarence Cockburn! You creepy
little pervert!” I screeched in his ear, scaring the crap out of
him. He desperately tried to cover up the screen with his arms, but
I pushed him off his chair onto the floor and sat in front of the
screen myself. I could not believe my eyes. On the screen a
miniature Clarrie was enthusiastically shagging a tiny little Tilly
on the grass, his eyes shut in blissful ecstasy, his teeny arse
pumping up and down.

“Make them stop now!” I
insisted. “That’s disgusting! Get him off her!”

Clarrie stood up, brushing
himself off. “It’ll be over in a sec,” he said with a vindictive
smile. “He’s really going for it, isn’t he? She looks like she’s
enjoying it too.”

“You won’t enjoy living without
a knob, which is what is going to happen if you don’t make them
stop
right now
!” I shouted at him. But as he’d said, it was
soon over, the little characters standing and putting on their
clothes.

I examined the Little Tilly
character. It was unmistakably me – same wavy dark brown hair and
large, light brown eyes, same shaped face, nose and mouth, my pale
skin. She was quite slutty, with very heavy eye and lip makeup, her
hair done up in a loose chignon, tendrils escaping around her face.
She teetered around on high red stilettos, wearing a button-up red
business shirt that didn’t have many buttons done up, her enormous
boobs bulging out the top, and a tight, black skirt suit, so short
that it barely covered her butt. I hovered the mouse over her and
the name Tilly popped up.

I gaped at him. “You even
called
her Tilly? I should sue the arse off you! You are
breaching my privacy!”

“Can’t,” he said smugly.
“Doesn’t matter how much it looks like you or even has the same
name, it’s just an avatar. It’s not real. That’s advice straight
from my crack team of lawyers. I’ll give it to you in writing if
you like.”

“You’ve made me look like a
cheap hooker! Give me control of her. I don’t want you doing
anything else with her.”

He shot me a spiteful glance.
“No can do. She’s an NPC.”

“What the hell does that
mean?”

“NPC – a non-playable character.
No one can play her. She’s like an autobot. She’s programmed to
automatically respond to any approaches from other characters. I
have a few NPCs scattered around. They’re for characters that can’t
hook up with other characters, but still want to experience the
adult services.”

“Little Tilly has to make out
with losers who can’t even get laid in the virtual world? Is that
what you’re telling me?”

“Yes.”

“Well, fuck me!”

“I just did,” he gloated. “In
fact, we’ve been doing it like bunnies every day. You’re not trying
to break my dick in this world. You love to suck it instead.”

“You’re revolting,” I said
contemptuously.

“Little Tilly is a very popular
NPC. It’s that businesswoman look. Guys love it. She’s had over
four hundred clients today alone,” he sneered.

“You are
not
getting away
with this,” I promised and stalked off to my bedroom, grabbing my
phone. I angrily punched in Heller’s number. He answered
immediately.

“Matilda, you finally rang me.”
He sounded pleased to hear from me. “Is everything okay?”

“No, everything is
not
okay! I want you to teach that little prick of a client some
manners.”

“Calm down, my sweet. What’s the
matter?”

I explained it all to him and
could have sworn that I heard some muffled laughter from his end of
the line.

“Are you laughing at me,
Heller?” I asked, not in the mood to be taken lightly.

“Of course not. This is a very
serious situation, I can tell. What do you want me to do? Do you
want me to come over and talk to him?” And by ‘talk’ I hoped he
meant cause Clarrie a lot of physical pain.

“No. I want you to go and beat
the virtual crap out of him.”

“Anything for you, my sweet, but
this is a little strange. I just want you to know that.”

I told him exactly what I wanted
him to do. He baulked at first, complaining it was beneath him and
that he didn’t wish to upset an important client. But I insisted
and made him promise to ring me when he finished. I went back out
to Clarrie and stood behind him watching furiously as his character
did some very sordid things with Little Tilly, right out in the
open for everybody to see. He giggled to himself as he frantically
clicked on the mouse.

“I hate you, you little shit,” I
stated coldly, my arms crossed, face twisted with rage.

“Good, because I hate you too,
you bitch,” he spat back, his face contorted with enmity.

“You’re nothing but an
over-compensating, tiny-dicked troll. And I know because I’ve seen
your tiny dick!”

“Well, you’re a ball-breaking,
sour-faced, ugly dyke.”

“Just because I don’t want to
screw you doesn’t make me a lesbian. In fact, it makes me the most
sensible person in this room.”

The tiny animated characters
finished their depravity, and Little Tilly gave a creepy
Stepford-wife smile and asked,
Is there anything else I can do
for you?

“Hmm, let me just have a little
think about that, Little Tilly. What
haven’t
I done with you
yet?” taunted Clarrie, his head on his chin, pretending to be
thoughtful. My hands clenched into fists, ready to pop him one,
when my phone beeped with a text message. It was from Heller.

Watch
, was all it
said.

At that moment, both Clarrie and
I noticed the arrival of a new character in
Synful Synonymy
– a tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed, muscled character wearing a
black top, black pants and black boots.

Clarrie turned to me in
disbelief. “You didn’t?”

“I did.”

“What’s he going to do?”

“Kill you, I hope.”

“But I love my Clarrie
character. It took ages to perfect.”

“Well, you should have thought
about that before you messed around with me, princess.”

The Heller character went up to
the Clarrie character. I peered over Clarrie’s shoulder reading
their conversation on the bottom of the screen.

Matilda is very upset with your
behaviour

Clarrie typed furiously,
matilda can go fuck herself

She thinks you need to learn
some manners and now so do I

i think she needs to stop trying
to break mens dicks

She wants you to delete Little
Matilda now

no! little tillys my plaything.
i created her. i own her. and i will have as much fun with her as i
want!

Last warning

my last answer – NO!

Little Heller meant it about the
last warning. He grabbed Little Clarrie by the scruff of his shirt
and repeatedly punched him until he turned into a bloody pulpy mess
and dropped to the ground, where Little Heller commenced kicking
him. It was wonderfully horrible to witness and I grimaced and
cheered in equal amounts. Clarrie looked on with sullen resentment
as his character was slowly beaten to death. Little Clarrie
eventually stopped moving, and a miniature soul departed his body
and flew upwards, heaven-bound, the little body dissolving into a
skeleton on the screen before finally disappearing.

The character clarrie_sexgod
has died
, the computer informed us solemnly.

“Clarrie_sexgod?” I rolled my
eyes with scorn and made a wanking gesture with my hand.

“It’s just a name,” he said
sulkily.

“Delete Little Tilly, or I’ll
ask Heller to come here in person and give you the same
treatment.”

“All right. I’ll do it now.
You’re such a cow.” He turned back to the computer. “Hang on, he’s
doing something with Little Tilly.” I peered over his shoulder
again.

“What’s he doing? Is he chatting
her up?” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and rang him. “Heller,
what are you doing with Little Tilly?”

“She’s so cute, Matilda. She
looks just like you. I want to fool around with her a bit before
she’s deleted.”

“No!”

“But she wants to. She told me
she did.”

“She’s programmed to want to
fool around. She’s slutty. She’ll do it with anyone. It won’t be
special. She’s already had over four hundred clients today.”

“I don’t mind. It’s fun to
watch. I can see why people want to play this game.”

“Heller!”

“I think you should start
wearing your shirt unbuttoned a bit more, like Little Matilda. It’s
very attractive.”

“Heller!”

“I miss you, Matilda. Little
Matilda is a nice little substitute.”

“No! I’m getting Clarrie to
delete her now. Do you want me to get him to delete Little Heller
too?”

He sighed complainingly. “No.
I’m so bored here without you. I might play for a bit longer. I’ve
just paid for a month’s subscription, so I might as well use
it.”

I hung up and supervised closely
as Clarrie deleted Little Tilly from his virtual world and we
received that solemn message from the computer informing us of
Little Tilly’s passing. I felt as though I should say a prayer or
something.

I knew there was nothing
stopping him from creating another Little Tilly, but I didn’t think
he’d dare to until he’d left the country at least. Then I wouldn’t
care, because I wouldn’t know. I had absolutely no intention of
giving the little creep another cent to play his stupid game ever
again.

I had been so preoccupied with
Little Tilly that it wasn’t until much later I realised that I’d
forgotten to tell Heller about the threatening letters.

I retired to my room earlier
than normal that night. Clarrie was still bitter about the demise
of
clarrie_sexgod
and kept making loud and pointed comments
to Kitty about how sweet and submissive she was, and how appealing
that was in a woman. I gave him the finger when Kitty went to the
bathroom. He grabbed his crotch and thrust it lewdly in my
direction. I put my fingers in my mouth and pretended to vomit.
Kitty returned then and they started devouring each other’s tonsils
on the sofa, Clarrie’s hand up her top. I fled to my bedroom, my
stomach almost heaving in revulsion.

It was only two days until the
award ceremony and I was counting down every minute. I woke up
early the next morning and headed out the gym. There was another
letter in the entry.

CLARRIE COCKSUCKER!

THE TIME IS NYE!

TELL THE TRUTH AT THE CERMONY!

OR FACE THE CONSEKWENCES!

LOVE M.

You had to hand it to old M.
He/she was certainly on track with their message, although their
spelling still left something to be desired. I put the letter with
the others, thinking that I’d better ring Heller later in the day
to discuss them.

The gym was empty and I jogged
on the treadmill for quite a while, tuning out the world,
concentrating on my breathing and enjoying the exercise buzz. I did
some weights as well, before heading back upstairs. I had showered,
dressed, eaten my breakfast and was halfway through the paper when
Clarrie and Kitty woke up. I ordered them some breakfast and
returned my attention to the paper.

I showed Clarrie the latest
letter once Kitty had been affectionately farewelled. Again, he
professed complete ignorance about the truth that M wanted him to
tell.

“By the way,” he said in an
unfriendly voice, “speaking of the ceremony, I want to take Kitty,
not you.”

“Tough titties, sunshine. This M
person has now specifically mentioned the ceremony, so it’s going
to be me hanging off your arm, not Kitty.”

“You have to look like you’re in
love with me,” he demanded.

“Nobody’s got that much acting
ability,” I sneered.

“I want everyone to see how
successful I am, and that includes a beautiful woman on my arm in
public. But you’ll have to do instead, I suppose.”

“Bite me! I don’t have a gown
with me, so you’re going to buy me one today. And shoes and a
handbag.”

“Piss off! I’m not spending a
cent on you.”

“Fine! I’ll turn up on your arm
wearing my
Heller’s
uniform. How does that sound?”

“Bitch.”

“Thanks, Clarrie,” I simpered
sweetly, sweeping my hair behind my shoulder, my eyes fluttering at
him. “I look forward to spending your money.”