Reality
=======

Guinevere's penis throbbed and pulsed in her fist as she 
furiously pumped it up and down, the hardness and warmth 
of it as wholly tangible as the straining in her testicles as 
her semen readied itself for its ultimate release. 

If this wasn't real, what was? 

It certainly felt real to Guinevere, as it always did when she 
masturbated, something she did as often as she could and 
something for which, like all hermaphrodites in the world, 
she had a remarkable facility. The semen when it came 
spurting out, hot and creamy, had a viscous tangibility that 
surely could only be real. 

Except, as Guinevere reflected, an arc of semen spurting 
free and ascending into the air to fall silently onto the grass 
lawn ahead of her, this wasn't real at all. None of it was. 
Everything she knew, in the whole of the world, from the 
Republic of Excalibur to the Kingdom of Charm, from the 
great mountain of Everhard to the wide River Charon, from 
the city of Delight to her own small town of Emerald, none 
of it, not one atomic particle of it, not one scintilla, was 
real.

But it felt real, Guinevere agonised, her huge penis 
flopping deflated between her thighs, a finger worrying a 
nipple which remained aroused even after her penis had 
given forth. Surely everything she had known from when 
she had been born to now, all the people she had met, her 
memories, her thoughts, surely they were real.

Guinevere sighed. Her existentialist woes never left her for 
long. Why couldn't she accept it? Okay! There was a sense 
she wasn't real. That nothing was real. That the universe 
that she knew was just a virtual reality that existed inside 
some huge computer housed in some external universe she 
had come to know as the Real World. That she and 
everything else were avatars, no more real than those on 
her computer. And she was herself no more real than the 
characters in the computer games she played. 

But, on the other hand, as she, and all the others in her 
world were reassured, there was a sense that everything is 
real. Although it had been established, indubitably and 
conclusively, that everything was the creation of another 
world, that didn't invalidate the reality of what was in the 
universe. 

But Guinevere was dissatisfied. 

She knew well enough that no other explanation was 
possible. Hermaphrodites could not possibly have evolved 
to be in the numbers they existed. There was no imperative 
that explained the presence of centaurs, unicorns, fauns, 
dragons, trolls and all the other exotic inhabitants of the 
world, a classification to which she, by virtue of being a 
woman in all but one crucial feature, also belonged. But 
the inexplicableness of the lack of evolutionary purpose, let 
alone the bizarre details of biology which permitted not 
only herself to exist, but also such equally strange 
phenomena as fairies, sprites and cockatrices, wasn't all.

Guinevere stood up and surveyed the lawns ahead of her in 
the town park where she had been masturbating, not far 
from a family of picnickers, who not once expressed 
disapproval of her behaviour (and why might they do that?) 
and in the shadow of the statue of a prominent ex-citizen 
who had slain the Dragon of Gorgaroth before it was 
established that the dynamics of the world meant that as 
soon as one dragon was slain a new one would 
automatically take its place. 

She pulled a tee-shirt over her bare breasts and tugged her 
shorts up over her thighs, covering her penis but not able to 
wholly disguise its presence.

But there was no other explanation. Years of technological 
progress and exploration, banishing to the past those 
distant days of kings, queens, quests and knightly valour 
that had once distinguished the world, had brought with it 
the absolute certainty of an alarming and only recently 
explicable truth of the world. Nothing was real. And once 
you understood that, then the bizarreness of the world at 
last made sense.

Why was it that when you travelled as far North as you 
could, you found yourself proceeding from the South 
towards where you came from? And so too as you travelled 
East? Why was the sky as flat as the world itself? And the 
moon and stars nothing but bright lights suspended in 
revolving hemispheres? Why did all historical research 
reveal only a distant past of kingdoms and realms, 
governed by arcane principles that were universally held as 
if dictated from above?

And most of all, why did no one ever grow old? People 
were born. Or rather babies appeared, with no apparent 
cause, usually delivered by storks in baskets. And then 
grew up. And they lived until they died, either by 
misfortune or just by mysteriously vanishing. And as soon 
as one person expired, a new person was born. What 
peculiar law of nature could possibly explain such a 
divinely regulated ecology unless it were not nature at all? 
But what was real? And where was it?

"You worry far too much!" Guinevere's best friend, 
Eleanor, exclaimed when later that day the two of them 
met up at the cafe on the corner of King Arthur Esplanade. 

Guinevere nodded. She ran a finger around the mouth of 
her beer bottle and looked out over the sea whose waves 
crashed onto the rocks by the shore. Above the water was 
the sun, slowly dipping into the sea but still above the 
horizon, while a flock of seagulls noisily flew over the 
green waves towards them. She could smell the rich scent 
of seaweed. On the other side of the road, just beyond the 
steady stream of traffic, there was a group of young men, 
one of them a faun with hooves inside his trainers, who 
were trying to impress one of the local girls.

Guinevere was accustomed to the strange reaction some 
men had towards her, so it was fortunate for her that her 
own preference, unlike many hermaphrodites, was so 
utterly towards girls. And Eleanor was a real girl. No penis 
hidden under her skirt. No hairy legs and hooves. No 
mermaid's tail, like her other best friend, Dorothy. And 
who could ask for a better lover than Eleanor? Even if she 
had to share her with Lancelot, Percival and Agamemnon, 
the centaur who worked as a systems analyst. But not (and 
for this she was grateful) all at the same time.

"I know! I know!" said Guinevere, gripping the bottle in 
her hand and tilting it so that the liquid could sink down 
her throat, past the slice of lime that had been pushed into 
its mouth. "I just can't help wondering what the point of it 
all is."

"Well, don't we all!" laughed Eleanor, placing her hand on 
Guinevere's lap and gently squeezing her recumbent penis. 
"But as long as we can drink, smoke cigarettes and, best of 
all, fuck, why should we care?"

"I know! I know!" repeated Guinevere sadly, bending her 
head forward to kiss Eleanor on the lips. 

Of all her lovers, Eleanor was her favourite. 

At first, she'd thought that she might be best suited to a 
relationship with another hermaphrodite, but although she 
was still friends with Gloriana, it had never really worked 
out. It mightn't have bothered Gloriana where she was 
supposed to put her penis when it was fully aroused given 
that the anus was such an uncomfortable, if not painful, fit, 
but it somehow didn't seem right to Guinevere. 

But she had two or three other regular lovers. Not only 
Marina, the mermaid, but also Andromeda and Emmeline, 
both biologically normal women and both just as energetic 
and satisfying sexual partners as Eleanor. But somehow 
Eleanor was all that Guinevere really desired. And if she 
lived in a world where relationships were less complicated 
and restricted to just the one partner (although Guinevere 
couldn't imagine that such a world could ever exist) she'd 
have been quite content just to have Eleanor by her side.

The two of them eventually left the cafe and wandered 
together, hand-in-hand, along the beach, the sun's rays 
spread across the sea and reddening sky while seagulls 
swooped overhead. Every now and then, Eleanor would bend 
over to kiss Guinevere affectionately on the cheek and 
occasionally stroke the huge bulge inside the shorts, the 
glans of which was very nearly visible at its hem.

"It must be real," mused Guinevere. "The sand feels real on 
my toes. The sea feels damp and tastes salty. The sun feels 
so warm against my face."

Eleanor sighed. She put an arm around her lover's waist 
and swivelled round to face her, crotch hard against the 
bulge between Guinevere's legs.

"This feels real enough to me!" she announced gripping the 
penis through the blue cotton of Guinevere's shorts. "And 
that's all I need to know."

"But yesterday," Guinevere persisted unhappily, "when we 
had that rip across the sky, like torn fabric, wasn't that real 
as well?"

"That didn't last long though, did it?"

"And that time when I was walking down the high street 
and it suddenly caved apart like an earthquake, but with no 
noise and no rumbling. That occasion, you were with me, 
when we were in the shopping arcade and it crackled like 
static and my hand disintegrated for ten seconds. It's not 
right!"

"Well, these weird things have been happening more often 
recently," Eleanor admitted. "I must admit I really freaked 
when I saw that unicorn split down the middle and then zip 
up again."

"Not as much as the unicorn did, I bet!" laughed 
Guinevere.

"No. He was really shaken. He didn't know what to say! 
And when have you ever seen a unicorn at a loss for 
words?"

The two lovers reached a romantic stretch of beach, the 
sand fine and the waves crashing leisurely in front of them. 
Other people were sitting around as well. A couple of 
satyrs were strenuously fucking a centauress. Three men 
and two women were bundled together in a single mass of 
copulating flesh. 

And now, positioned apart from the rest of the evening 
coupling, Eleanor and Guinevere disrobed and the two 
once again became a hot, sweaty mass of grappling limbs. 
Guinevere's penis easily slipped into Eleanor's vagina, 
which like all vaginas in this world was able to stretch with 
tremendous elasticity to accommodate almost any penis 
there was.

Guinevere's penis was not a small model, although not of 
the monstrous proportions of a centaur or a satyr. Eleanor's 
anus was less obliging, but Guinevere was unconcerned. It 
was inside her vagina that she felt most at home. Even 
more so than inside those of Andromeda or Emmeline. Her 
penis was swollen to its full width and length, more than a 
third of a metre from base to tip. Emmeline's grip was hot, 
moist and squelchy.

The two made love passionately and energetically as the 
last of the sun's rays disappeared beneath the horizon, so 
they were lit only by the brilliant full moon and the many 
twinkling stars, their gasps and yells of passion louder even 
than the centauress's and alarming the occasional low-
flying bat. Guinevere more than once ejaculated: her sperm 
either inside Eleanor's vagina where it overflowed onto 
their sweaty thighs or straight into Eleanor's mouth held 
open to relish the apparently inexhaustible taste.

But soon it was over and the two lovers parted. Sand stuck 
to the perspiration that drenched them from the toes to the 
forehead. Guinevere knew that it would take ages to rake 
the fine granules free from her hair. They lay on their backs 
panting, while the trail of an aeroplane crossed over the 
sky, no doubt taking business executives and holiday 
makers to exotic destinations like the Republic of the 
Glistening Robe and the United States of Mordor.

Eleanor leaned over to her pile of clothes and lifted up the 
watch. The roman numerals glistened in the moonlight.

"Shit! Is that the time? I said I was gonna meet Lancelot at 
the pub. I'm gonna be late."

Lancelot! Guinevere felt that spasm of jealousy that always 
bedevilled her when Eleanor talked about her husband. He 
was a handsome man, that was sure, and she enjoyed the 
numerous occasions when they'd made love together, 
sometimes with Eleanor and sometimes not. But although 
there was nothing that might prevent her accompanying her 
lover to the Jolly Dragon, for a reason she couldn't explain 
she just wanted to be alone with her thoughts.

She watched Eleanor leave after the two of them bathed in the 
sea to wash off the sand and sweat. She sighed. And sighed so 
very deeply. Guinevere was truly in love. She wished sometimes 
she was Eleanor's husband, but it wasn't to be.

When Eleanor was just a dot in the distance, Guinevere 
stood up and walked along the beach carrying her clothes 
over her arm as she relished the slight chill of the evening 
air on her skin and flopping penis.

While she ambled, on one side the sea crashing on the 
shore and on the other the tall white cliffs, Guinevere 
contemplated, as she so often did, just what it was that 
might be in the real world beyond the virtual reality that 
was all she knew.

What kinds of beings were there who could create a world 
so beautiful, so complete and as coherent as the one she 
lived in? What world was there beyond? Was it one like 
the world in which she lived, with aeroplanes, cars and 
televisions? Were the people in the real world like her, or 
more likely like Lancelot and Eleanor? If there were no 
satyrs, unicorns or goblins in their world, as the scientists 
asserted, just what did live there? Did they have seagulls, 
horses, lions and manticores? 

She climbed up the steps off the beach up the cliff side, 
intending to sit at the top and look over the sea at the oil 
platforms and ships. She worried also that a kraken or other 
sea monster might burst out of the sea, as sometimes 
happened, to gobble up innocent sunbathers. And in the 
dark, how could she be sure that any shadowy figure 
approaching her might not be an ogre?

She was fatigued when she reached the top of the cliff and, 
despite remaining naked, somewhat hot from her exertions. 
She sat down on the grass in the field that reached to the 
cliff edge. Behind her some cows were grazing, their long 
shadows stretched behind them in the moonlight. She 
relished the brush of grass on her bare buttocks and 
testicles, her limp penis tickled by the sensation of small 
insects attracted by the smell of recent sex.

She gazed ahead of her, wondering whether she could 
somehow see a glimpse of the real world in the distance, 
even though she knew it was impossible. Indeed, she knew 
that were she able to see as far as the most powerful 
telescope, if she looked far enough ahead what she would 
eventually see would be her own back. Proof, as the 
scientists explained, of the basic unreality of her universe.

And then Guinevere sensed someone sit beside her.

She turned her head around to see a woman wearing a long 
white gown that reached to her toes, though pulled up by 
her arching knees. And this woman was the strangest thing 
that Guinevere had ever seen. And this was because her 
skin colour was black, her black hair was frizzled and 
curled, and her lips much fuller than she'd ever seen 
anyone's lips before. 

What was this strange sight?

"Hello, Guinevere," the woman announced. "My name's 
K'an Tui, but call me Candy."

"How do you know my name?"

"I know everyone's name," Candy smiled.

"Everyone?"

"Of course! I know who Eleanor is. I know of your 
profound love for her and also of your concerns about the 
reality of the world."

Guinevere shivered. This wasn't real. People just didn't 
appear announced and say things like that. What was 
happening? She felt peculiarly light-headed.

"Who are you?"

"I told you. I'm Candy."

Guinevere was disconcerted.

"How do you know??"

"Relax. I'm an avatar. I am a partial representation of the 
real me, the real K'an Tui, who lives in what you know as 
the 'real world', though believe you me it's no less unreal 
than the world you live in. I am, or my avatars are, at this 
moment conversing with every single person in this 
world."

"How can that be?"

"Have you noticed how very still the air is?"

"Yes, but?"

"Time has stopped in your universe. I have come from the 
world beyond to speak to everyone personally. I have taken 
the form of a black woman because you live in a Caucasian 
fantasy world where no other racial type is represented and 
partly because my ancestors were also black."

"And you're not like this in reality?"

"None of the people in the real world any longer resemble 
what you call 'human'. It is many millennia since we 
discarded our biological shells."

"But why are you here?"

"To make an announcement. To reveal ourselves to you."

"Is that because we've found out about the truth of our 
world."

"No. You aren't the only one of many such virtual worlds, 
in fact of many millions of such worlds created, devised 
and finally abandoned, scattered amongst the millions of 
computers in the known universe. Your world, for 
instance, is housed in a computer many kilometres wide 
and long, circling around a small planetoid in the Canopus 
system. And of these millions of worlds, there are many, 
but still a tiny minority of the whole, that have gained the 
degree of self-knowledge you have attained."

"But why are you here? Why are you telling us this?"

"Over time, systems fail. It's something called entropy. 
Your world will soon collapse into nothing. Already there 
are rents in your artificial reality. Soon, and not too long, 
your world will disappear. And to prevent that happening, 
we have taken the decision to intervene more actively in 
your world. You may not be 'real' in a corporeal sense, but 
you are 'real' in the senses that matter. But our intervention 
cannot remain mysterious and hidden any longer. And so, 
we have come to save you."

"To save us?" wondered Guinevere, who was always 
suspicious of those people who promised rewards in an 
afterlife and the existence of a God.

Guinevere and Candy chatted under the moonlight for what 
seemed hours. And in that time, there was no breeze, the 
moon didn't move and the cows in the field remained 
frozen exactly as they had been before. 

The world beyond seemed stranger and more mysterious 
than she'd ever imagined: a huge federation of planets and 
solar systems and artificial constructs scattered over many 
light years of space, inhabited by beings who by all 
accounts were actually less like the humans from which 
they were descended than Guinevere herself, despite her 
splendid penis. 

All this was very strange. And very disconcerting.

"After all those thousands of years since this world was 
created, everything has changed so much!" Guinevere 
exclaimed.

"But we have lost so much as well," Candy assured her.

"What have you lost?"

"Well, most of all, sex."

"Sex?"

"There is no need for sex anymore, so we are all virgins. I 
have never had sex in the real world. And indeed one thing 
I was especially looking forward to when I decided to come 
here was the opportunity to find out what it is like."

Candy put an arm around Guinevere's waist and gazed into 
her eyes.

"Please be gentle with me. But what I would like to do, 
what I would really like to do, is for you to make love to 
me, to have you fuck me."

Guinevere blanched. This was not what she expected.

"You want me to fuck you?"

"Only if you want to."

However, Guinevere was so programmed that this was an 
offer she really could not refuse. She leaned forward and 
put her lips on Candy's and placed her hand on her crotch 
underneath the white gown.

"Shall I first disrobe?" Candy asked.

"Well, yes. But it's not necessary."

"I'd like to. I'd like to feel what it's like to have a naked 
body."

Guinevere reluctantly removed her hands from Candy's body 
and watched as she stood and pulled off her gown 
revealing a perfectly formed black body underneath. In 
some ways it was as exaggerated as Candy's lips: large 
breasts and prominent buttocks, her skin dark in every 
particular, although slightly less black on the palms of her 
hands and on the soles of her feet.

It was strange making love to Candy. In fact, Guinevere 
wasn't sure whether, in all the many hundreds, if not 
thousands, of men and women she'd made love with in her 
long life, she had ever before relished the body of a virgin. 
But she could tell from Candy's awkwardness and even 
clumsiness that Candy was truly a virgin. 

Like all women, Candy had the facility to accommodate 
Guinevere's massive penis as she thrust it repeatedly into 
her vagina. But it was a curious struggle to penetrate, 
taking several long slow thrusts until it was fully buried 
inside her, a couple of times slipping out and plopping on 
Candy's black thighs. And soon it was fully embedded, as 
Guinevere crouched on her knees and supported Candy's 
weight in her arms, and thrust and thrust again and again 
into a vagina that was overflowing with juice. And every 
now and then she pulled Candy's face close to hers, and 
ran her tongue through the strong white teeth lined by the 
unusually thick lips.

After releasing some, but not all, of her semen inside 
Candy's vagina, her lover bent down on her knees in front 
of Guinevere and took the penis in her mouth, relishing the 
taste of her semen and the thick warmth of her still erect 
penis. And when Guinevere's penis subsided after releasing 
what was left of her semen into Guinevere's mouth and 
over her cheeks and chin, she stroked the penis as it 
shrivelled to its limp but still impressive state.

But Guinevere was not one for whom a single fuck was 
enough. In not too many more minutes, the penis regained 
its full splendour under Candy's ministrations and she was 
once more back inside Candy's vagina, thrusting in the now 
less resisting orifice with vigour, the two bodies burning 
off each other and a sheer film of sweat coating both 
bodies.

Eventually, but not before several hours had passed, the 
two bodies separated: breathless, hot and sticky. And then, 
for the first time for a long time, Guinevere felt the 
coolness of the evening breeze on her naked skin.

And where was Candy?

Guinevere hadn't seen her leave. In fact, she was sure she'd 
only taken her eyes off the black avatar for barely any time 
at all, and now she was nowhere in sight. As mysterious 
and silent in her leaving as she was in her arriving.

Guinevere wasn't ready to leave her station in the early 
evening moonlight high up above the sea crashing below. 
She had so much to think about. So much new and strange 
to take in and comprehend.

But despite the scale of her revelation and her new 
knowledge of the reality beyond the virtual world that was 
all she'd hitherto known, there was a sense in which 
Guinevere now felt truly at peace with the world. Despite 
her now knowing that it was many times larger and many 
times more complex than she'd ever imagined.

She smiled as a cow in the field raised its head from the 
grass. 

Although she may not be real in the sense that Candy was, 
at least she could still enjoy sex.








