Chapter 8

Fifi looked down at him and her big eyes widened in surprise.

"You're still going?"

DaBigBoom could just about move his arms and legs. He wasn't sure that qualified as still going.

"How intriguing," Fifi said. Her lips turned up in a wicked smile.

DaBigBoom wasn't so sure he liked that smile. He pulled up his knees and started to get back to his feet. He was unsteady, like a punch-drunk boxer in the tenth round.

Fifi held her tail in her arms like a rifle again. DaBigBoom liked that even less. The bulbous end swelled up as if inhaling a deep breath and then puffed out a thick cloud of sparkling pink dust and shimmering red hearts. DaBigBoom was enveloped. He breathed in and inhaled a powerful, sultry perfume that smelt like something an expensive escort would wear when entertaining exclusive clientele. The scent set his heart racing and caused his brain to throb with sexual excitement.

It also made his arms and legs feel like sacks of wet cement.

"Don't get up," Fifi said with a smile.

Not that it was needed. DaBigBoom was already falling back to the floor. The cloud wrapped around him like a comfortable duvet. Ephemeral hearts collided with his skin and popped like wet kisses. The dust covered him and set pleasure receptors sparking all across his body.

"I surrender," DaBigBoom said. "I give in. You've beaten me." Even his dick had decided it'd had enough.

"I thought I had," Fifi said, "And yet you're still here on the game board. Most intriguing."

She grabbed his ankles and pulled his body off the rocky path and onto the softer dirt or ash making up the verge. DaBigBoom noticed he was now lying at the intersection of four board squares with Fifi lying on her elbow next to him.

"What about the game rules?" he asked. "Shouldn't we be staying within our own squares?"

"Rules, feh," Fifi said dismissively. "I'm more interested in you."

She tip-toed up his exposed chest on long fingernails and flicked the bottom of DaBigBoom's chin.

"You're clearly not a k'winny, but what are you? Even with the stat boost from these," she tugged one of the three jackets he was still wearing, "you still have far too many HP for any character class of your level."

"I'm DaBigBoom."

For once he was glad that stupid word fell out of his mouth rather than his real name. A cold calculating spark had appeared at the heart of her big bright eyes. DaBigBoom had a disconcerting feeling the over-sexed demonic ditz with a magical tail was just a costume and now he was glimpsing the actress beneath.

"That's the name Pihanga gave you. She behaves as though she's the main character, the player, but she's just another piece in this game. Her role is to attempt to usurp the starring role for comedic effect. That's all."

Fifi's long nails tickled lightly around his nipple. They looked a little too pointed and sharp for DaBigBoom to be entirely comfortable with them being where they were.

"You, however, are something entirely different."

DaBigBoom didn't need to be told that. He was human. Real. Everything apart from him was a collection of pixels--nothing more than 1s and 0s within the memory of a computer.

At least that's what he'd thought.

Fifi's hand, her fingers tipped with those wickedly sharp nails, tickled down to DaBigBoom's crotch.

"I'm DaBigBoom," he blurted out. Again getting the word wrong.