Virtually Mine: a love story

To
every reader

who
looks beyond the eye-candy coating

to
the heart that beats underneath

♥

contents

one

two

three

four

five

six

seven

eight

nine

ten

eleven

twelve

About the Author

one

♥

H
er heart skipped a beat. She had thought
the troupe of thespians had left, that she’d been alone, retrieving plastic
prop apples on the darkened stage, but no. There he was, lingering.

She
glanced up with a quick smile, in a futile attempt at nonchalance. A small town
import to the big city, she could pull it off with other guys, but for some
reason, even a glimpse of this particular actor’s rakishly handsome face tipped
her off balance, a great deal more than she ever dared to admit.

She
reminded herself that there were protocols to observe. In the politics of the
theater, she knew that he was light years out of her league. He was the
headliner, the leading man, and she was just the lowly prop girl, and a
first-timer even at that.

It’s
not that she hadn’t given in to fantasy. She’d played this scene out in her
mind more times than she could count, ever since the first day he’d sashayed
into view. She’d rehearsed what she’d do, exactly how she’d respond in an
imagination rife with possibilities. But this was no dream, no flight of fancy.
What had seemed utter whimsy had suddenly burst into wide-awake life.

It
was her moment, alone with him.

Jauntily,
he moved in from the wings.

She
stashed another apple into the crook of her arm. “Oh, hi. I’d really... I
thought I was alone.”

“Would
you rather be?”

This
guy had a way of getting under her skin and tickling every cell inside of her.
From the mischievous sparkle in his eyes, she could tell it was his objective
to achieve precisely that. She resolved to mask the fact that he was
succeeding. “No...
I just thought I was. Alone.”

“Because I can go,” he offered, an
assured expression betraying his confidence that she wanted him there.

 
“It’s okay. Really. I’m practically—”

She
wasn’t normally a clumsy person. But being alone with him rocked the modicum of
balance she clung to completely off center.
Oh no
, she worried. She
could feel her grip loosening, but somehow she couldn’t stop it. Faux apples
avalanched out of her grasp.

They
bounced. They clunked. They rolled.

Instantly,
she could feel her face redden. Rampant blotching around her throat would come
next. It was one of those ways she was wired that was completely beyond her
control. She could only drop to her knees awkwardly and gather the fugitive
fruit.

She stopped, suddenly sensing his
nearness. She had never been so close as arm’s length from him before. But now,
even before she braved to tip her eyes up, she could tell he was there. Right
there.

So, this is what it’s like,
she thought.

Slowly, she lifted her head. She startled
to find herself nose to nose with him.
Swallow,
she reminded herself.

What exactly is his intent?
She couldn’t
help but wonder. It seemed impossible, but it was happening. Her breath short,
she bravely held her ground. She would not let the moment escape her. She would
not back down from this dream come true.

“Are
you going to help me?” she managed, not knowing what else to say.

“Do you want me to?”

“I’m not sure,” she whispered, dazed by
his proximity. There he was, his impossibly adorable face mere inches away,
those dancing green eyes looking deep into hers. His breath was warm. He
smelled of peanut butter, she realized. She liked peanut butter.

He closed his eyes and leaned toward her,
ever so slowly. She couldn’t believe it was happening, but then again, it was.
Her lids fluttered to a close, as they moved together for a sweetly uncertain,
tender first kiss.

Suddenly interrupting, scene study
teacher Antonio Spirelis rose to address a sizable class of on-looking
thespians. He clapped his hands sharply. “All right, that’s the scene.
Disengage, people.”

On stage, Kate Valentine and Dustin Hunt
obediently curtailed their scripted smooch. Kate gave Dustin’s hand a fond
squeeze. The acted kiss had come naturally, since he was her real-life beau.

Antonio turned to his class. “Let’s
dissect. What exactly is this about?”

♥ 
  ♥    ♥

“It’s
about commerce, Darling,” Samantha Raznick intoned as she toured Eric Bender
through a high-tech office pool. “No matter what anybody tells you, romance is
a commodity, a multi-billion dollar industry, ripe to be bought, packaged, and
sold.”

Eric scanned his surroundings. A sign
high on the wall announced that these were the headquarters of a burgeoning
business:
Virtually Mine
. Poster-sized photos of eye-candy models hung
on the walls, the faces of this flourishing enterprise.

An up-and-coming actor and model himself,
Eric noted the marked contrast between the company’s Imaginary Boyfriend
figureheads and the dozens of ordinary-looking guys who populated
Virtually
Mine’s
work force. All across the room, the ordinaries pecked relentlessly
at their computer keyboards, even more diligently as their distinctly sultry
supervisor approached.

Eric sized up his employer. Smoothly
domineering, Samantha Raznick was a man in a remarkably well-preserved,
decidedly female body. “So, Ms. Raznick—”

“It’s Sam to you. I insist,” she purred,
seemingly undaunted by their apparent age difference.

“So, these guys here, they’re actors,
too?”

Sam smiled coyly. “Let’s just say it
wasn’t in the genes for them. They simply facilitate behind the infinitely more
marketable facade that insanely good-looking men like you provide.”

Samantha glided to a stop at an
underling’s station. “Eric, meet Charlie Butters, master of my computer domain.
Charlie, meet
Virtually Mine’s
newest Imaginary Boyfriend, Eric Bender.
I need him set up in the system by day’s end.”

Eric watched as Charlie’s eyes
momentarily bugged. It seemed that Charlie’s merits were hidden under an
unremarkable face.

Charlie bit his lower lip skittishly
before a torrent of words burst forth. “Actually, the server has been
inexplicably testy; I’m replacing four hard drives, unless the whole network
crashes for the third time since lunch, which would pretty much splatter me
till at least midnight; but after that—”

“Today, Charlie,” Sam pressed, with a
don’t-trifle-with-me tone.
 

“Absolutely, Ms. Raznick,” Charlie
complied. “Today.”

As Charlie obediently scurried away, Sam
turned back to Eric smoothly. “Ready to rattle some hearts?”

Eric assessed the situation thoughtfully.
He was accustomed to being in control, particularly with women, and he wanted
to get off on the right foot. “Just so we’re completely clear: I’m just a face
here. No in-person dates, nothing off-color, no contact with me, nothing
whatsoever that bleeds into my actual living-breathing life?”

Sam presumed to take Eric’s arm, guiding
him toward her posh executive office. “Your ‘Virtual Girlfriends’ won’t even
know your real name. There’s the overall license for your face, plus per client
commissions, which you’re welcome to drop by and pick up daily. The Operators
out there—think of them as my worker bees. They make all the calls. They send
cards and gifts, all simulating the Imaginaries’ relationships from here.”

“And as far as the real love thing goes,
it’s just an act,” Eric confirmed.

“Isn’t it always?” Sam replied.

♥   
♥    ♥

As
Kate and Dustin sat cross-legged on the stage, Antonio swaggered before the
class. “All right, let’s break this down. What is the event of the scene?”

“The kiss?” Kate guessed.

“That’s there in the text,” Antonio
reminded. “What subtextural event brings about the kiss?”

Smolderingly savvy, twenty-five year-old
Wissy Frank piped up. “Change of relationship.”

Antonio nodded. “Very good, Ms. Frank.
Why did it change?
 
Dustin?”

“Because she’s hot,” Dustin observed,
clearly enjoying the laughs he elicited from his peers.

Antonio raised his hand, quieting the
class. “Was she hot before? Fifteen minutes ago? Why now? Kate?”

Kate glanced at Dustin for help, but he
just shrugged, stumped. Engagingly bright, but fairly new to the acting
process, answers sometimes evaded Kate. Charmingly, she grimaced. “Because,
well, the writer wrote it that way and—”

“And left you to discover what’s
underneath,” Antonio finished. “What made this particular encounter different
than any prior one? Not the words. What goes on inside of us, and then
manifests itself in radically altered behavior? What quietly happens when one
person looks at another, even a complete stranger, and the way they relate to
one another is forever changed?”

♥   
♥    ♥

Meter Maid, M.J. Poster, keyed in a parking ticket. Were her beat not in sunny
Santa Monica, California, the job would have seemed less tolerable. As it was,
she’d acclimated to the low-grade contempt most people automatically had for
anyone in her line of work.

As many cute guys as were regulars at the
bluffside Palisades Park, M.J. knew that citing them with tickets wasn’t
exactly the optimum kind of how-do-you-do. Besides, she reasoned, her uniform
made her look chunky. Not that she actually was chunky, she reassured herself.
It was an optical illusion. She was, in fact, just petite—and respectably
attractive—both attributes she knew her boring, standard-issue man-shoes did
nothing whatsoever to elevate.