1

Johnny Mercer stood in his kitchen, making dinner. It felt oddly rustic to make something by hand, to cut the vegetables with an actual knife. But this occasion felt like it deserved a home-cooked meal. Someone special was coming over.

Besides, he still didn’t do it all normally. Entoptic displays overlaid his vision, helping him line up each chop, letting him refer to the recipe with a glance. The streams even kept track of how long things had been in the oven, how long until he needed to put more water on the roast. He was no primitive. He was going to do this right.

Right when anticipated - that is, a few minutes after scheduled - he heard a buzz. Without hesitation, he pressed the button. “Come on up.” HE unset the locks before heading back.

A minute later, Lisa Mercer stepped into his apartment. Her medium height carried pleasantly plump curves, wrapped in a one-shouldered shirt and a miniskirt over full leggings and calf-high boots. Her hair fell in a neat, shoulder-length cut that framed her babyface-cute features. A dyed gradient wrapped around her head, from pale blue through to violet. She’d coloured both eyes purple tonight, while her vinework tattoo showed as dull black on her pale skin.

She stepped right up and gave him a tight, familial hug. “Hey, big brother,” she said, her tone chirpy. “You look well, and ooh, something smells good.”

After a good squeeze, he set her down. “That would be the roast. It’ll be ready in--” He glanced over his entoptics. “--two minutes and about forty seconds. In the meantime, take a seat, let’s catch up.”

They talked and, after those three minutes, they ate. They avoided work talk: he wouldn’t comprehend her art, and she’d be bored to death by his corporate consulting. Instead, they talked about life. He told her about his hiking and exploring, and she talked about K, the new boyfriend she’d met over the Matrix.

Around dessert, the conversation slowed down. Lisa just frowned, picking at her cheesecake without actually eating it.

He lay a hand on her shoulder. “Hey. What’s on your mind?”

She smiled, nerves showing in the flush of her cheeks. “Of course you’d notice. There’s something I’ve been meaning to bring up all night. Um, do you still have that Vicaria implant?”

Vicaria. Headware that recorded a full stream of sensory qualia, to be played back later. A user could relive those memories in perfect detail, or let others play them back and live vicariously through them. Hence the name.

“Of course,” he said. “Some memories, you want to keep.”

She smirked. “Like those ‘sprawling mountaintop vistas’?”

He poked her. “Yes, like those. Why do you ask? Is there something you want a recording of?”

“Yeah.” Her blush grew brighter. “Things are getting pretty heavy with K, you know? And he wants to...” She waggled her hands.

He choked on his mouthful. Was his sister seriously telling him about her sex life? “Can’t you do that on the Matrix?” And was he seriously talking about it with her? Why?

She shook her head. “No. He doesn’t want it with my avatar. He wants it with me. Or ... a real, skin-space memory, at least.”

The penny dropped. He couldn’t even choke. “Vicaria.”

She nodded, mute.

He couldn’t even look at her. It was his turn to stare into his plate. “You realise those recordings don’t just come out of nowhere, right? For me to record ... that, we’d have to do ... that.”

“You’re the only guy I know with the implant,” she said.

They stayed silent for a few minutes. The question hung there, not quite asked. Would he fuck her -- fuck his sister -- so her Matrix boyfriend could vicariously enjoy the experience? Vicaria porn was a thriving genre, sure, but not one he’d ever imagined contributing to. Let alone with his sister.

But ... he’d be doing her a favour, wouldn’t he? It wasn’t her idea, and it wasn’t his. It’s not like they just suddenly wanted to make each other scream. It was for her boyfriend. And better him, better someone who understood those boundaries, than if she had to go find some stranger, right? Taking that offer was practically a brotherly duty.

And had nothing to do with how nice she looked in that top, impressive cleavage decorated by currently-black ink.

He finally answered the not-quite-asked question. “Alright.”

She froze. He couldn’t read the expression on her face.

“What?” he asked.

She gave him a meek shrug. “I was half-hoping you’d say no. Then I could say I did my best, but not have to go through with it, you know?” She laughed.

“Oh.” It wasn’t too late to change his mind. But instead, he found himself rising to his feet, offering her his hand. “How do we get started?”

She followed him to his bedroom, each step making her blush brighter. “Start small, I think? Try kissing me.”

Try. As if there was some chance of failure. With a thought, Johnny started recording. The confirmation came in a flash, a burst of doubled experience that marked the recording’s first moment.

The memory would begin with them standing in his bedroom. The lights had come on when they’d stepped inside, illuminating everything plainly even with the curtains drawn across the window. His decor was plain, afterthought cream with brown carpeting. Hobbies lay scattered across his desk. His bed was considerably more lavish: a queen-sized thing, the mattress big and plush.

Yet, the focus of the ‘camera’ -- his senses -- stayed with Lisa. She stood with her hand in his. Her cheeks glowed pink, and nervous breath pumped her chest, but she didn’t back down either.

They moved in to meet each other: she stretched, and he bent. Forgetting who she was, it felt nice. Her thick lips caved, softly, under his. He focused on the kiss. The more he experienced that soft warmth, that taste of skin, the better it would show in the recording. She matched him, push for push, her body sinking in against his chest.

After a few minutes of shallow, simple kissing, they came up for air. She looked different. Guilt layered with exhilaration, both kinds of heat rising in her. It looked just like--

He flinched away.

She frowned, pursuing him, arms wrapped around his neck. “What’s wrong, Johnny? It was just starting to get good.”

“That look on your face,” he said. “It reminded me of that time I caught you painting all over my bedroom wall.”

“I was, like, eight years old!” she said. “And I’d run out of room on mine.” She gave him a sullen pout, identical to when she’d just got her license and he’d refused to lend his car.

“Nnh.” He groaned, backing away from her. “I don’t think I can do this.”

She sighed. “Alright. How about this. Lights.”

The voice command turned off the bedroom lights, and she closed the door to cut off the rest. The only light was her tattoo. It glowed with pale blue light, just enough to show the outline of her arm and the shape of her upper chest, before her top hid the ink.

“If we can’t see each other, maybe it’ll be easier? We can just, like, forget who we’re fucking. It’ll be just like that Halloween party I went to last year.”

“I did not need to know that,” he said. He smacked his lips together; he could still taste her on them. “But, alright.”

In the embrace of darkness, they kissed again. That soft woman offered her mouth with a quiet purr, and yielded to him, step by step, until they landed on the bed together. There, she flipped things around on him. She threw a leg over his lap and pushed, urging him backwards while she asserted herself.

Excitement made his heart race, and he let himself sink back, moving along the bed with his new lover on top of him. She kept herself stretched out, her chest pressed to his. Such a nice chest, too, so soft as it squashed against him. His hands roamed her back, feeling the shape of her bra’s strap under her top.

“Hold on,” she said, during a brief break in the kiss. She sat up -- weight pushing onto his lap -- and whisked off the top, soon followed by the big bra underneath. With them out of the way, he could see the whole tattoo, glowing vines crawling up her arm and then back down, over her chest and reaching as far down as her navel. They outlined the shape of her body, so even in the darkness he could see the full roundness of one breast and part of the other, the backlit shape of her bumpy nipple, and a glint of metal.

He wanted more than sight. His hands snapped up between them, and he grabbed hold. As soft as they felt under his hands, those breasts could only be natural, inviting his touch in deeper. As his grip firmed, she sighed with pleasure and her shoulders rolled back, pushing up into him above while her hips ground him down below. For contrast, he felt the firm poke of her nipples pressed to his palms, as well as the solidity of metal.

He’d seen the glint before, but now he became curious. “Piercings?” he asked. “This, I’ve got to see. Lights.”

The bedroom lights came back on, and illuminated his lover’s half-bare body. It put her pale, perfect skin on display. Though her arms were lean, her abdomen carried some extra softness, and her breasts sat heavy and generous on her chest. Pretty, pink nipples took centre stage, each one decorated by silver barbells as well as the vine tattoo, now again appearing as dull black.

The lights also showed her face, lips swollen from kissing, cheeks bright from lust and excitement ... and then a little something else, as she looked down along herself and into her brother’s face.

Her purple eyes flinched and closed. “Oh, fuck.” Her body’s raw need kept her in place for a moment longer, her miniskirt pressed to the growing bulge of his arousal. But then she climbed off him. “I’m ... I can’t. This is just too weird. I mean, it’s us. We...”

He groaned. That quick break gave room for his own doubts to come back into play, even with how his racing heart pumped him full of maddening lust. “Yeah. I mean, we tried, but...” He cut the recording, and sighed as he rubbed his temples. “I mean, we’re brother and sister. We can’t have been expected to go that far, right? We did what we could.”

She nodded, looking away from him as she found her shirt and pulled it back on. “Yeah. Still send that file to me, though? We’ll see if he likes it.”

He nodded, but didn’t say anything. He just stared at his hand, remembering the feeling of her warm, weighty breast.

The awkwardness extended for a long, silent moment. Lisa eventually broke it. “I’d better go.” With that and not another word, she did, leaving him alone again in his apartment.

Alone with the bra she’d forgotten, still just lying there on his bed. That sent those conflicted thoughts firing all over again. That night, Johnny jerked off twice before he could get to sleep.

2

A few days later, Johnny had an unexpected visitor. After his surprise, he buzzed her right up.

“Lisa,” he said, an awkward squeak added to his cheerful tone. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon. Are you, er, here for your bra?”

She gave him a quizzical look ... and then blushed. “Oh. So that’s where it ended up, huh. That, uh, makes sense. But no. I sent that video to K.”

He blanched, though he really should have expected it in the first place. “Oh. What’d he think?”

She paced back and forth, not looking at him as she moved. “He ... wasn’t happy with it. It didn’t go nearly far enough, it was all distracted.” She stopped short, her back still towards him. “But it has potential. He liked how far we did get.” She turned her blushing face to look over her shoulder at him. “He wants us to try again.”

“Try again?” he repeated, incredulous. “Does he realise we’re--”

She shook her head. “No. As far as he knows, you’re just an early-adopter friend of mine. One who’s really conflicted about being attracted to me.”

He scoffed. “I’m not...” But he wasn’t sure which part he wanted to deny. That he was conflicted? Or that he was attracted? He remembered her lips giving way under his, her body half-bare above his, and had to suppress a shudder. “Well, I’m not going to be any less ‘conflicted’ this time. How are we supposed to make a recording he likes?”

“I have an idea for that.” She dug down into her handbag, and came out with two plastic, disposable inhalers.

He coughed. “Wait, wait, is that... ?”

She nodded. “Hayroll.” A potent, recreational aphrodisiac, the kind to get passed around at the best college parties.

He just stared at the inhalers. “Where did you even get that?”

She gave him a hard stare. “Johnny, I’m an artist. Of course I know where to score the good drugs. Let’s just leave it at that.”

“Alright,” he said. “Alright. So we suck on these, and then we...”

“ ... make a good show for K, yeah,” she said. “Here, watch.” She put her lips around one pipe’s mouthpiece, held the button, and sucked in a deep breath. “See? Nothing to it.”

He lifted his own more cautiously. As he turned on Vicaria, the first recorded experience was the dull taste of plastic in his mouth. His thumb fumbled the button which she’d pressed so smoothly. How much experience did she have with those drugs?

More than he did. When he tried, he choked on the unfamiliar vapour going down his throat. He took a few ragged breaths, unsure if it would even work after that.

For Lisa, it worked just fine. “Ooh.” She grinned, slow and lazy. Languid, strutting steps carried her closer. “Are you okay there, K, you sexy thing?” One hand patted his back, helping him recover, while the other slid over his chest for very different reasons.

Hearing that other man’s name felt ... interesting. It felt like a role he could slide into. He wasn’t Johnny, Lisa’s brother. He was K, fucking his long-distance girlfriend.

“I feel much better now you’re here, you hot little beast.” He put on a voice, even though he had no idea what K would sound like. Hell, Lisa probably didn’t know either: they knew each other through the Matrix.

She giggled. “Aw, how sweet. But I want to make it even better.” She stretched, her braless breasts pillowing into his chest, and kissed him.

That was when the drugs hit. Colours became brighter. Her lips felt more heavenly. Fire burned through his veins, setting him alight, making him want to experience. He pressed in, devouring her mouth, consuming it with the furnace of his own. Heat begat heat. She didn’t just yield to him this time. Her tongue wrestled with his, her lips crammed in until it felt like he might bruise. All mixed with the vibration of their shared groaning, their muffled verbal delight.

Heat like that burned the candle from both ends. They both pulled away, gasping for breath. She wore a bright, energetic grin. “So, K.” She tried for a conversational tone, but couldn’t hide her eagerness. “Want to fuck?”

“Oh, God yes.” In that moment, he wanted it more than anything he’d ever known. It became so easy to give into those baser lusts. He pounced on her, hard enough that her back found the nearest wall.

Melted by passion, moments blurred into each other. They tore at each other’s clothes. He gloried in feeling the air on his bare skin, almost as much as he loved to finally get Lisa naked. He tasted her: not just her mouth, but heading down over her cinnamon-spiced skin. The crook of her neck became the delicate definition of her collarbone, the roundness of her breasts, the bumps of her nipples. Before he knew it, he was knelt on the floor with his face between her thighs. Her nectar tasted subtly sweet - some bio-treatment or other, to make him want to lick her deeper. It worked.

She moaned like an animal in heat. “Ohh, K.” That name spurred him onwards. Hands gripped his hair, pulling him in closer to her slit. “Oh, fuck yes, K!” She wrapped a leg around him. Her weight leaned into the wall. With that balance, her hips writhed, humping her boyfriend-representative’s face. “Yes, yes, yes!” Her voice rose higher as her body went tight, like an over-wound guitar string.

Finally, she snapped. Convulsions rocked her to her core while she screamed with bliss. She lost her footing, and fell to sit on the floor, still thrashing. He just watched her minute-long orgasm. She looked gorgeous. So gorgeous he ached.

As it passed, she locked eyes with him. Though she gasped, though she shone with sweat, she still looked eager for more.

“Oh, my dear K.” Her voice was still breathless. “That was awesome. But now it’s my turn to rock your world.”