Virtually Reality

The first thing Luke realised was this was nothing like VR. He'd played around with that before and, as fun as it was, there was no confusing it with the real world. The headset always weighed heavy, the view was undeniably computer graphics even on the most high budget games. But this felt like the headset had vanished into thin air and he was now standing in a perfect and true to life living room - just not his own.

The door opened and a familiar figure stepped into the room. There was no chance that Aphrodite was any kind of generated image. This was a real life woman in the flesh, and a stunning one at that.

But how?

"It's so nice to finally meet you, Luke" she told him.

"Where are we?" he asked, not unreasonably.

"I'm afraid I couldn't make it to your place at such short notice, so I brought you to mine instead. I hope you don't mind."

"But how is this even real?" Luke wondered, knowing full well just how silly his question sounded "Are you actually there or just some kind of extremely clever illusion?"

"Why don't you come over here and feel for yourself?"

Luke walked over to Aphrodite, his heart racing. He tentatively reached out and cupped one of her breasts. It was wonderfully and undeniably real.

"Not one for shaking hands huh?" she deadpanned.

"I'm sorry.." Luke pulled his hand away.

"It's fine, I was only kidding" Aphrodite giggled as she wrapped her arms around Luke's neck "I've been looking forward to this too. It's started to feel a little disheartening helping you hook up with all these other pretty girls when all you and I ever do is talk"

"To be fair it hasn't exactly been easy for me to meet you. Right up until ten minutes ago I wasn't even sure you were a real person. Even now, I don't know how you're doing this."

"You're still talking to me Luke. In case you hadn't picked up on it before, I was hinting for you to kiss me instead."

Needing no further encouragement than that, Luke leaned in and locked lips with Aphrodite. It turned out she was very good at kissing, so he allowed himself to put all of his doubts to the back of his mind and get lost in the moment. As strange as everything about this situation was, he had never been more sure that he was interacting with a real human being.

"You're so beautiful" Luke told his seemingly more than virtual date as he pulled back and stroked her very real and velvety smooth hair.

"Why thank you, kind sir" she smiled back "As I said before, I was calculated to be exactly to your taste."

"Calculated? You make is sound like you were created in a laboratory" he only half joked "Like in that movie Weird Science"

"I've not seen it" Aphrodite shrugged "But I worded that poorly. I just meant they chose someone they thought you would enjoy working with and potentially dating."

"Well, they chose perfectly" Luke gushed as he started to lower the straps on Aphrodite's dress.

"Uh-uh, that's three hearts territory" she told him as she gently guided his hand away from there and instead placed it on her cheek.

Luke took the cue and leaned in to kiss her again.

"So let me get this straight" he smirked as he pulled back just a little, his lips still just inches from Aphrodite's as he gazed dreamily into her big brown eyes "Once I get you up to three hearts I can make you send me nudes whenever I want?"

"You can" she confirmed with a nod before adding dryly "And, for the record, it makes me super hot for you when you talk like a horny teenager."

"I can't help it, you make me feel like one" Luke laughed " I'm really just giving you fair warning I'm going to be taking serious advantage of that particular feature once it becomes available."

"Noted" Aphrodite raised her eyebrow and half smiled. Damn she was sexy in the flesh.

"But that's one thing I really don't get about you."

"What do you mean?"

"You chose to do this. All the other girls just ended up on my Love List. You literally put yourself on there. So you effectively signed up to be romanced by some random guy. What if I wasn't your type?"

"You weren't some random guy, Luke. They partnered me with someone they thought I would like too. I saw your photo before I agreed to do this. I was given a few details about your character that have turned out to be very accurate. So you can rest assured that you are my type. And from all of our interactions so far, I can genuinely say I'm really liking you. Even if you can be kind of a pain in the ass sometimes"

She winked and gave Luke's butt cheek a playful squeeze before leaning in for another kiss. Somewhat surprisingly given the circumstances, this probably felt like the most natural and authentic of any of his relationships right now. However, he still had some fairly major concerns that needed to be addressed before he even thought about allowing himself to fall for this girl.

"So let's say I want to introduce you to my parents one day, what do I do? Give them headsets? Fly them to America?"

"I love that you have such an enthusiastic outlook for our future Luke but no, you won't. You literally wanted to have a date with me while your other date was taking a shower. I didn't have time to get to you that quickly so I improvised and set something up."

"Okay, I get that. But you always seem to..."

"Luke, baby" Aphrodite placed her finger on his lips to delicately shush him "Trust is such an important part of any relationship. Can you just start believing what I tell you. Please? Have I ever steered you wrong so far?"

"You haven't" Luke had to admit "Of course I trust you. I just desperately want you in my life. Like, properly."

"Keep going the way you have been and I promise you'll get what you want" she reassured him with a seductive smile "But for now I have to go or, more accurately, you do. You'll see me again soon enough though, you don't have to worry about that."

Aphrodite looked like she was about to stroke Luke's hair while leaning in for yet another kiss, but evidently she instead hit a switch as he quickly found himself back in his armchair in his living room.

"Oh, you have VR! Cool!! Maybe we can play that later?"

Luke pulled his headset off to see that Stef had walked into the room in just a towel.

"You know, I think that shower really woke me up. I don't need a nap after all."

She walked over to Luke and climbed onto his lap, pulling off her towel as she straddled him.

"So, you have me all to yourself for the evening. What sort of fun things do you think we should get up to together?"

Before Luke had a chance to answer that extremely tantalising question, his phone buzzed. He checked it quickly and saw he had a message from Aphrodite. But this hadn't come through the app. It was a regular text.

"Who was that?" Stefanie was curious to know.

"Er, just boring work stuff" Luke quickly put his phone back into his pocket before there was any chance of her seeing that "I'm all yours too, gorgeous. So, what kind of fun things did you have in mind?"