RealisVere (Chapter 1)

Halim beamed with pride as he strode up the gated walkway of his family’s illustrious new home. The ornate abode was only recently afforded, courtesy of his wunderkind-level triumphs at Hyperion – the international tech corporation which had, within the last few years, made one of its central development hubs at home in the nation of Nsurri, of all places, gradually drawing wealth and innovation into the once-modest country through scientific advancements that would’ve sounded like crackpot fantasy only a decade sooner. Having grown up with the highest ambition of leaving the continent and getting regular work as some nameless coding drone overseas, Halim had blown all those prior goals out of the water and flourished exponentially as a result of Hyperion’s arrival.

Today, though he sometimes had to pinch himself to believe it, Halim was one of several high-priced superstars in the corporation’s ever-expanding division for future developments, at only twenty-nine years old. His latest and likely greatest brainchild was RealisVere, or rsVR as the internet had so crudely dubbed it. Every day he awoke more excited than the last to bring his creation closer to primetime-ready fruition; even in its beta testing phase, rsVR made all prior attempts at virtual reality simulation seem like the crayon scribbles of unimaginative children by comparison. The technology could so authentically immerse a subject in whatever version of the world they chose, with every layer of imitated existence adjustable down to the most picoscopic detail, that the “virtual” part almost no longer mattered. Halim hadn’t just invented the next century-skipping leap forward in VR tech; he’d essentially opened up the gateway to a whole new experiential realm. And while his family, his friends, his coworkers, and legions of followers online all believed he’d done this out of scientific ambition or even revelry in his rising fame, there was in fact another kind of inspiration which solely motivated him to succeed, greater than any globe-spanning glory ever could.

“Oh, welcome home, my Halim!” his mother Ghalia cheered as soon as he entered the kitchen. With wild tufts of dark hair escaping her headscarf and a rosy sheen on her dusky cheeks from the heat of the stove, the woman somehow managed to look well put-together despite her efforts at the housework, not to mention notably younger than her actual maturer years. While she’d obviously been hard at work cooking some elaborate feast, she immediately abandoned her toil, smiling as she wrapped her son into a tight hug, then planted sloppy kisses on his face. “Tell me, did you have a wonderful day of changing the world?”

“Now, now, Mama,” Halim humbly chuckled, though in his case, this wasn’t just maternal exaggeration. If rsVR took off the way he believed it might, ‘world-changer’ might be an accurate title for himself after all. “It was… a productive day, yes. And I actually still have more work to take care of upstairs, but it shouldn’t need too long. What about you?”

“It was a fulfilling day, as always, just knowing that my son – the light of my life – is out there somewhere, making something so grand of himself. Here, try this, please,” Ghalia swooned, then pressed a ghriba cookie to her boy’s mouth before he could even reply. “Please, be honest, if it’s not delicious? You will not hurt my feelings if you don’t like it. Normally I would have your Baba here to tell me, but you know his work in Oran just goes on and on, as if they intend to keep him there forever.”

“This tastes fantastic, and you know it,” Halim laughed with his mouth full of coconut pastry. Per usual, everything his mother baked was heavenly. And while he was aware that his father’s business had apparently extended longer than expected down in Algeria, a part of Halim couldn’t help but suspect that his prideful parent had made himself scarce recently, too stubborn to show his face after being so greatly bypassed by his son’s own behemoth success. Still, this was a subject everyone in the house knew not to address.

“Very well, but you are too kind as usual,” Ghalia said as she resumed cooking. “Oh, I believe your sister was hoping for a word with you, when you arrived home. She’s up in the loft.”

“Of course she is,” Halim muttered under his breath, and made his exit from the kitchen, knowing that Rayda would only put up more of a fuss if he delayed addressing whatever complaint she had today.

Sure enough, his twenty-five-year-old sister was right where Ghalia said she would be found, already in the middle of filming another dance-based exercise video for whatever influencer hivemind site she’d chosen to try leeching off this month. To her credit, Rayda had indeed achieved a certain moderate success of her own by sassily performing music-set cardio routines online for her fans, though these achievements had left her with a bratty ego of magnitude equivalent to renown a hundredfold what she actually could claim. As usual dressed in eye-popping colors and seductive figure-complimentary articles that would’ve looked far more at home in America rather than Nsurri, the athletic well-toned Rayda was already visibly sweaty from the enthusiasm of her filmed workout. When Halim entered her view, she instantly switched off the camera and booming music, still with her purple tights-clad leg balanced up on a tabletop and her bare size-10 mocha-hued foot propped on full display. The girl gave her black ponytail a toss, then planted her fists on her hips, glaring her brother down.

“Well, Hally?” Rayda dismissively snarked. “Is it finished yet, or isn’t it?”

“I doubt the app is ready,” Halim sighed, having already guessed what this is about. “But then again, you know that I have bigger things to occupy my time lately than new ways for you to make yourself fake-famous.”

“Yes, yes, I know. I’ve even been a model sister and advertised your silly rvSRTP-whatever-it’s-called for you to all my followers. It just seems like the least you could do is tell your underlings to hurry along, or at least take care of the problem yourself,” she groaned, meanwhile turning her unfinished dance move into a stretch, as she locked her leg and gripped that meaty effort-gleaming sole with both hands. “Or do you simply not care about me, since I’m only fake-famous, and not REAL-famous, like you?”

“I really don’t have time to deal with this now,” he mumbled, too annoyed to meet his sister’s gaze. Instead he absentmindedly let his attention settle over her bare foot, watching those fleshy pleats along her thick arch furrowing and smoothing on repeat as she stretched, flexing and scrunching her long juicy toes each time. Halim gulped, quickly shifting his focus away from there, too. “It will be ready when it’s ready. Unless you plan to educate yourself in a subject other than shaking your hips, so you can fix it yourself, you’ll just have to be patient.”

Halim made his escape then, before Rayda’s princessly scoffing could erupt into another argument. He was glad to be able to provide so well for his entire family, and did certainly care for his younger sister in spite of her attention-whoring greed, but her selfish attitude as their family’s net worth increased hadn’t made her any easier to live with. Past the loft, he entered the large penthouse-like master bedroom he’d claimed for himself and Chaima when they moved in. There he found his wife, expectedly, with her nose buried in a book. Reserved and timid as a wallflower, Chaima was objectively lovely, though she seemed to treat that gift of outer beauty more cautiously every day, as she chose increasingly conservative outfits for herself that covered up every contour and most of her skin. Her behavior also tended to match her appearance, and as a result, she and Halim had been stuck in something of an amorous rut lately, especially as his boundary-pushing work at Hyperion consumed ever-more of his time.

“Um… evening, Love,” Halim awkwardly stammered. He spent most of the day putting up a confident front to his coworkers, and even to most of his family, but tended to break down a little in front of the woman he’d married, as he felt their distance growing every day.

“Good evening, Halim,” Chaima said, offering him a Mona Lisa smile and fleeting eye contact before returning to her book. “You look well. Were your successes many today?”

“Yes. No. Well, they were… good enough, at least. Do you… need anything?”

“No, I am perfectly content. Thank you, though,” she replied with almost-professional stoicism. “And I suppose you still have more work to complete before the day is through?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Unfortunately. Maybe when I’m finished, though, maybe we could… take a stroll together?”

“Yes, maybe,” Chaima answered in a manner that didn’t inspire confidence. She shifted her skirt-draped legs, crossing one over the other, which suspended a brown-slippered foot off the floor, bobbing idly in the air. “Well, I won’t keep you from your work.”

“Right. No, I’ll… I’ll see you soon,” Halim trailed off, as he shuffled away toward his private office. As always, there was a lot on his mind already from work, and his return home did little to assuage that overload, but he knew he’d soon find catharsis. Technically, he didn’t “need” to work any longer tonight, as he’d told his mother and wife, by the ordinary definition of time-sensitive tasks to complete for Hyperion, but rather because he’d recently discovered that if he didn’t take this alone time “working” on the in-progress rsVR every night, his fragile composure would quickly erode. Taking a seat in his armchair and placing the marble-white helmet over his head, Halim whizzed through the usual calibrations via muscle memory, and within ten seconds, was sensorily submerged into his private testing mode construct: an idiosyncratic build of the current version that he’d taken special care to ensure couldn’t be used without his account, nor anywhere outside this room.

When Halim opened his eyes again, he was still seated in his office, only not wearing the rsVR rig. Then again, it wasn’t really “Halim” in the physical sense, nor was the world around him legitimate. He was back in the world he’d created, and it felt just as real as ever. Smirking, he exhaled with deep relief, already beginning to loosen up some of that work-related tension – even though the actual unwinding fun hadn’t even begun. Once centered, he stood from the chair and marched out of the room, already feeling a pre-emptive burst of thrill quickening his pulse. Back in the bedroom, he found “Chaima,” just as he’d left her in the real world, still studiously engrossed in her reading.

“I’m back, Love,” Halim said.

Only now, his digital wife looked at him with her full attention, setting aside her book and smiling ear-to-ear at him in a state of twinkly-eyed adoration. That expression alone was almost enough to make him go weak in the knees.

“I’m so glad. I missed you greatly while you were away,” Chaima declared. She rose from the chair, practically lunging at her husband, and pulled him in for a deep kiss before he could even gasp with satisfaction. After this passionate exchange, she pulled back, stroking his face with her fingertips and exuding a look of mischief the real Chaima would never show. “Now, aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Of course,” Halim said, woozy with libido already from that smoldering smooch, then made the adjustment. Normally shifts in the rsVR space required more direct tinkering, but after months of use, he’d customized all his preferences to activate with just a thought. As a result, Halim instantly shrank down toward the floor, while his smiling spouse calmly witnessed his descent. In moments, he’d shrunken down to only three inches tall – one of his favorite statures to simulate, but certainly not the only height he planned to play-act during his stay – then craned his neck back to savor the breathtaking visage of Chaima towering overhead of him. Halim never tired of this particular view, as he was instantly overtaken by a wave of goose bumps, core tingling, and aroused speechlessness just to be made into such a tiny helpless thing sprawled in the looming presence of an enchantingly gorgeous giantess, regardless of how uncharacteristically it represented his “real” wife. Then again, having been a closeted macrophile all his life, he’d been waiting for this fantasy to be made real for years, and so was unlikely to ever get sick of it, now that he’d invented the means to manifest his every fetishistic yearning.

“Yes. That’s much better, isn’t it?” Chaima warmly declared, cocking her head at him and bowing lower. “This is the way that I like you best, darling. In fact, this is the way that I love you best. Small and precious as could be.”