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balloons to appear onscreen.
    “I didn’t expect to find you here tonight; I thought it might have taken a couple nights to spark your curiosity. But hey, you should step into my bachelor pad,” his avatar says. He sends an invite to join him in ‘Roger’s Heavenly Pad’ via an envelope appearing in the middle of the animated scene.
    I take a deep breath and think to myself, “Why the hell not,” and click on it. The software has a delay as I wait for it to load the graphics for the scene which Roger has invited me to. As it renders in front of me, I grin as I see his avatar shirtless and sitting in a hot tub with two female avatars, while another two topless females stand and kiss to the left of the tub. Not surprisingly, all four female avatars are beautifully crafted, and I can’t help but wonder how far removed they might be from the real life females who control them from their own computers. Or possibly males.
    “Hmm, you’ve brought some fresh meat for us,” a brunette with the screen name of Brandy4U says.
    “He looks delicious. You should come join us, Terry,” the blonde with the name of CupcakeMary breaks away from the embrace she shares with Brandy4U and walks towards my avatar.
    The animations are spectacular—the boobs of the topless woman sway and bounce in a natural manner. But I can’t be a part of this any longer. “Sorry ladies, I just came here to have a look at this chat program and say hi to Rog. I’m a married man.”
    “I’m married, too. Do you think it stops me from having fun,” one of the women in the hot tub says.
    This is all wrong. Surely, there must be something else to do in this program. The chat window with Roger is still open and I message him there, “Hey, sorry but I need to leave your orgy room. Without sounding like a party pooper, I can’t get into what’s going on in there. Have a great night.”
    “Oh, come on, Terry. None of this is real. Live a little, just like you did when we were younger.”
    “That was different. I had nothing to keep me grounded and I was out there experiencing all the flavours life had to offer. I have Talissa, someone I can hold physically, someone who is really what I see and has real feelings. You have fun running around pretending to fuck hotties who are probably two-headed trolls in real life.”
    “No need for that, Terry. Well, I’ll see you at work. I know you’re not getting any tonight anyway. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.”
    I giggle out loud. Talissa and I still have an active sex life, but it’s not like our life before kids when I had it on tap. However, I have never once entertained the idea of looking elsewhere for some action. I’m not blind, though. I notice a beautiful woman when I see one, but it ends there.
    I exit Roger’s bachelor pad scene and look at the program’s menu for some suggested rooms to look at. There’s a blues bar which grabs my attention, and as I enter it and the graphics load, I hear some music playing through the speakers—a sweet slide guitar and a deep voice singing about a train coming from another town, but not bringing the singer’s lover back. I turn down the volume on the speakers.
    There are a few tables with chairs and only five avatars in the room. One is a blonde lady calling herself BluesGirl88, who walks up to me, looking immaculate in a little black dress just covering her upper thighs. For the first time, I hear an avatar talk through the speakers of my PC, “Hello, mister. Welcome to my club.” Her voice is husky and I find myself wanting to hear more.
    I don’t have a microphone to use with the computer, so I continue typing, “Whoever you have playing in this club, I hope they have a CD I can buy.”
    She laughs. “CD? Who buys those things anymore? But, yes, you can buy their music online. Are you having a drink?”
    I assume she prefers just to talk out loud than type, and it is quicker. “I’ve just finished my third glass of red. I think that’ll