Virtual Eternity (the Serialized Novel) Episode 15 -The Stormy Tournament: Golfing with the Executives

This is Episode 15 of the serialized version of the novel, Virtual Eternity: An Epic 90s Retro Florida Techo-Pro-Life Love Story and Conversion Journey. These 52 episodes are presented here free for you every Friday. You can buy the paperback version from Mike Church’s Crusade Channel Store (at a lower price than Amazon!).

Or you can start reading at the Table of Contents: here

The Stormy Tournament: Golfing with the Executives

Olson also was in the golf tournament in which I had agreed to play two months ago. Maybe here Olson might attempt his persuasion.

Today also was my opportunity to become visible in the corporate hierarchy, and maybe rouse Lana. The apathy for career that had gripped me when I used the games had hidden behind my desire for Lana and my fear of termination, humiliation, and debt. I again planned how to market the games to those who could enjoy them. Anyway, the games I had played were too disquieting. Surely Vincula could not release these experiments to the targeted masses.

On that Saturday morning, at the golf course, I inhaled the momentary peace between driving over the asphalt streets and driving over the green plains. The departing dusky skies left a brief coolness. The red arriving morning presaged its heat. Without abandoning my helmet, I would not have been able to enjoy those clouds lit by the new sun. In those weeks, I had even forgotten the movement of Lana’s tongue and her silhouette as she lay on her stomach: the smooth curves from her shoulders to her calves. But I often wondered: What would be my status in the games now? Would my television ratings for the Lucifer interview have improved? Could I have held command of the muddy university?

They teamed me with Olson, Farrell, and a long-nosed middle-aged man named Bill Billings.

We waited for the foursome ahead of us at our first tee. The first of them was inept. He had trouble placing his ball on the tee. His chosen club was inappropriately angled for the distance he needed to hit the ball. He looped the club back over his head and smacked the ball with a clunk. It flew high but traveled a mere twenty feet.

“C’mon you fairy, hit it,” Farrell said in a whisper. “Isn’t he a V.P.?”

Billings chuckled. “Yeah. They’re gonna take all day. We’ll be waiting at every damn hole.”

I directed my first shot well, thankfully, avoiding the jeering of the men waiting for us to finish. Our quartet left the tee, spinning off into the green rolling plains in the heart of the southeastern peninsula, the heart of greenness. Our carts hummed over the closely cropped grass into the wilderness far from the poor crowds. We faced the dangers of high weeds, trees, sandpits, and gator-filled lakes, all designed to endanger our scores.

But the purpose of the tourney was to conduct business in more sedate surroundings. On the seventh hole, it began.

“Of all the people in this tournament, how did I get stuck with marketing guys?” Billings said as we waited for some impatient men to pass us in play. He laughed, and his long nose shook back and forth.

“You need us,” Farrell said. “Someone has to persuade people to buy your developers’ trash. What’s going on up north in those wheat fields? We were expecting a boom in sales. Then again, we don’t have much to sell.”

“Whatever. They don’t wanna release anything without a well-targeted market plan,” Billings said. “They’re afraid they’ll need to change their software. The developers themselves even talk of trashing the initiative. I doubt he would like that very much.” Who was “he”?

“No, he wouldn’t,” Olson said. “We’re getting a little antsy. We do have a plan, for once. They have the main server, providers, and network ready, but the games are not even close to being finalized. And we have guys like Jonathan here killing themselves testing the trial games, getting advanced orders, and writing reports.”

“They working you hard?” Billings asked as he ripped the velcro of his glove.

“Too hard,” Farrell said. “He has no life. What’s the latest on the Phase 3 games, Jonathan?”

“The games? What about them?”

“You’ve been playing them non-stop for the past two months. Are they marketable? What are some of the game-changers?”

“I’m not allowed to discuss them.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Farrell said. “Why the hell do we have a lower-level

 He can’t even talk about the games, much less decide on a marketing strategy. I can’t wait until we get Phase 3 access for someone with decision authority.”

“I will admit one thing. Some of those games are not fit for mass consumption.”

Billings cursed. “Those idiot programmers are too creative. The researchers in Minnesota build terrific new devices for them, like the ones that sense your moods and choose your game for you. They made the full perceiver-suit to give you more of a sense of motion. But then those damn programmers want to spend too much money to make new games to fit the devices. The death scenario is a good example. They never finalize.”

Farrell continued a fine round, prevailing over the rest of us for nine holes. Following that, his skills abandoned him. On the first shot of the tenth hole, his ball sliced into a blue lake. He erupted with a series of curses and slammed his club down.

“We’re only out to have fun,” Billings said. “Don’t take it too seriously.” Billings was a cloddish golfer. We soon understood why the organizers teamed him with middle-rung marketers. He obviously never planned to become competent at the sport. That required seriousness and perfectionism, which were only suitable for meetings with certain people in one’s career.

Olson was neither a proficient nor a poor golfer. His only flaw was his frailty. His shots flew straight but short. Nearer to the holes, he was precise. 

On the twelfth hole, Billings laughed as Farrell’s first hit sailed into a dense forest.

“Have you guys reviewed the test market data yet?” Billings asked.

“We got the report from up north last week,” Olson said in his Georgia drawl. “As a matter of fact, I gave it to Jonathan here. Have you finished with it, Jonathan?” He smiled.

“No, not yet.”

“Don’t dilly-dally on this one,” Farrell said with a touch of castigation.

“We need that thing analyzed fast. It could change our whole plan.” He

flung away his broken tee.

Billings’ offering skipped off the short grass into the same woods.

Farrell and Billings drove over to the trees to search for their balls. Olson and I waited in our cart in the middle of the wide green path.

“I need a look at that report too, Jonathan,” Olson said as he marked a scorecard. “Supposedly it’s got some interesting stuff in it.”

“You’ve talked to the field guys? Has the network subscription concept been accepted?”

“Of course. An old college friend up there told me the developers got the report before we did. They may have altered it. Some strange things are going on.”

“The games themselves are strange enough.”

“I won’t press you for details, if you don’t want me to. But, in general, what are your feelings about them?”

“My marketing slant was in the plan I gave you last week.”

“Yes, I need to read that. But how do you feel about them personally?”

“It doesn’t matter much. Obviously, this product isn’t for everybody.”

“On the contrary,” Olson said. “It is for everybody. As Bill said, that’s how it’s designed. It reads your moods, your personality, your likes and dislikes. Then it decides what games you should play. Did you see that?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What did you see?” Olson’s voice fluttered.

“Several types of test games were put on there, so I doubt everyone will get the same impressions I did. It was addicting. I didn’t want to do anything else. It made me sick.”

“Wait until you read the other research reports. If you think it had such a bad effect on you, imagine what it would do to a teenager or someone without an education. Or a non-believer. This profoundly affects those who don’t have a direction in life. The influence it could wield scares me. And I’m trying to sell it.”

Olson recognized his abnormal enthusiasm. He exhaled.

“I’d never let my own children go near these games. And I’m selling them to other children.”

“Have you thought about finding another job, Daniel?”

“At my age, I can’t leave this company because no one else would hire me. And our company has no other activity. We always focused on training systems for the military, but the Cold War’s over. The government’s got budget cuts coming. So, the company is putting all its marketing budget into this one entertainment project.”

He looked past me to the jovial man and the irritable man as they trampled the underbrush of the forest. The sun broke in and out of clouds. The daily wall of gray gathered on the western horizon earlier than usual.

Olson’s family was helpless without his earnings. Decrees that rearing a family and providing enough necessities shaped him early. No rules existed about the distribution of depraved, narcotic images. He had difficulty thinking beyond his original commandments, which I had often thought were too simple and ancient.

“If only I had the energy to fight this thing,” Olson said. “I don’t feel right about this product.”

“Do you get any satisfaction from your work?” I asked.

“Very little. Most work is usually a sacrifice, by definition. But we are rewarded for it, someday, somewhere.” At this, of course, I thought of my passion for the eternal-ness within Lana. Maybe that was my reward.

Olson sighed. “In my entire career, there’ve been only a few good products that I helped get to more people.”

“Were you simply not made for this type of work?”

“When I was young, I had a gift for selling,” Olson said. “I could relate to people and help them. But after a while, they asked me to market repulsive products and create needs where none existed. The products were only repulsive to me, so maybe I’ve changed. But I believe the market did too.”

Olson smiled and winked. “I’ll tell you a secret. I used to put out failures deliberately.”

My eyes widened. Olson detailed a few examples. This ideal of Christian saintliness and honesty single-handedly eliminated products from the market. Thousands of hours of work were canceled by his whim.

“Remember the Panari home video games?” Olson asked.

“Yeah. They were industry leaders. They almost disappeared. Only now they’re making a comeback.”

“I was Vice-President of Marketing for their U.S. operations. I also led marketing for Soundista Records. I tried to lead-balloon the early Rap music, which of course went on to be a resounding success.”

“That’s fantastic. Did you ever get fired for this?”

“No, thank God. But when marketing failures do happen, they aren’t exactly career-enhancing. I felt horrible for putting my family at risk.”

“Have you thought about doing this for Magic Theater? Do you believe it’s that bad? The company has a lot at stake.”

“I’m not capable of weakening it,” he said. “These packages will sell, with or without us to peddle them, sooner or later. Jonathan, I hope your career fares better than mine did. I’ve worked hard, and I’ve got little to show for it. I’ve intentionally and unintentionally destroyed more products than I’ve sold.”

I redirected the topic away from the suffering self-deprecation Olson seemed to enjoy. “What’s this death scenario Bill mentioned?”

“If it’s what I think it is, it’ll make all these executives rich,” Olson said as he thumbed back to the four golfers waiting for us on the tee. “This can’t continue. This simply cannot continue.”

The other half of our foursome drove up the greenway. “C’mon, hurry, let’s go!” Farrell had given up his search after shouting a string of expletives.

The subsequent quartet yelled and threatened to hit their balls at us. They pounded their clubs into the ground.

After my group completed two more holes, the grasses became darker without the sun to brighten them. Fresher winds brought the smell of rain. Soon lightning bolts sparkled in the distance. They split the air with deafening delayed booms. As they moved closer, the cracks became louder and timelier. But we each refused to submit to nature sooner than anyone else did. A bolt flashed, banged, and killed a nearby palm tree instead of us. Billings blinked and laughed.

The downpour began on the fifteenth hole. Lightning fell down around us. We stopped our carts in the middle of the dark watery greenness as the next foursome lobbed shots at us.

***

Maureen would set aside an hour or so every day, often before sleeping, to read the poems that Lana fed to her. The ritual usually replaced her bedtime prayers, when she fell asleep before remembering to pray. But the time with the poems was the time she could cry safely. She must speak to the author, but he must not know she read him. She now understood the meaning of her compliance with Cyril Robert Klopp. “The young in bliss through joyous life careen.” Her youth, musical and free, would end. It would careen free nevermore. It would only ricochet among the walls of Klopp’s cave and eventually stop. He would mangle her ability to seek her happiness: love; that is, her giving of it. She could not grant him her greatest gift. She did not want to. Every night she vowed to break with him, but always failed to justify her distaste in loving him.

On the night after the middle of September, a few hours before the sun would awaken her, the bell of her door called out. She remembered it announced the arrival of her affianced. He again disdained the more distant drive to his house from Ft. Lauderdale. This nighttime arrival fresh from the Gentlemen’s Clubs had occurred at least a dozen times that summer. His urges always were quelled either by his fatigue or by her failure to match the bodies presented to him. He only slept on the sofa.

“It’s me, never fear!” Klopp entered with a freshly picked flower clenched in his smiling, hairy jaw.

Her stomach felt unsettled, most likely from the arrested sleep or from the timing of her ovaries. As she ambled across the apartment ahead of him, she felt him stare at her physique, which was hidden only by undies and a short t-shirt she should have supplemented with a robe. In the bedroom, she turned around. He had already stripped.

Maureen turned her head from that bizarre sight. “No, Robert. We’ve been through this before. I’m exhausted, and my stomach hurts.”

“Oh c’mon. I’ve been waiting for this for months. I’ ll be right back.”

He brushed past her to the toilet room. Her stomach churned. She remembered what he would release inside her. She must rest. Her mind was tired. It could not consider him correctly.

She covered herself on the bed. The bathroom door clicked and opened.

“C’mon, all you need to do is lie there.”

He crawled over the bed to her, tugging her sheet. His arms slithered under her shirt and enveloped her bare frame. He rolled the t-shirt up to her neck. She released her body. She allowed it to enjoy his fingers; at this time of the month, her body wanted to. But with the sensations came shame, then guilt, and fear of punishment. Then the pleasures of the talk at the Motley Cow three weeks ago returned to her in her sleepiness. Her mind opened to a peace. Her thoughts should focus on the love of the Savior, not on a punishment. “No,” she said.

In four weeks, submission would be her duty. Pleasures and shame rippled through her as he stretched her out on her back and pulled the bundled shirt and panties from around her. All she must do is “lie there.” He moved around to pierce her body. “No,” she said.

But it would be easy. Afterward she could ask forgiveness, and sleep. Allow the pleasures to gush within. Just lie there. He will do what he must. She also wondered if it would hurt.

“No.”

Her stomach ached. The smell. What is it? A perfume. A cheap perfume, but that’s not abnormal after his excursions. It was all over him, even below his waist. Someone had covered him with her scent. “No!” She shook her head.

His hold constricted on her wrists as he slinked down over her.

Did he let one of the curvy women embrace him? She gathered her consciousness and strength. No, he loves me. But she only had to “lie there,” like a piece of matter. He did not even need her to cherish him or return love. “No!”

His knees angled her legs apart.

Her emotions, her touches, and her efforts were unnecessary. She was matter, needing only to lie there. Lie there for his indulgence for him to do as he wants. He possessed her as he rubbed on her. His knife would spill its poison into her. She imagined the disease it might give her, perhaps from some perfumy, rounded body. He would leave his seed to grow in her. Her egg now waited, ready. “No!”

He scowled underneath his beard. His face and body, his soapy perfume, his knife and its poison to be discharged within her: She wanted to kill him. If she could turn him into mere lifeless matter, she would be free. Kill him. To steal life from him with her hands would be pure joy. “No!”

But she had let him in her bed. She had desired him, and others. She had hurt her Redeemer. Klopp was merely completing her sin, her promise-breaking, her sin. Her sin.

She freed her hand and spanked the blade away. He cursed. She sprang up and spun, but he shoved her face-first into the mattress. He rammed his knees on the back of her legs and pounded his palms on her arms. She writhed and yelled in a frenzy. He laughed as if it were play. He pushed against her again, but her wriggling foiled him. She broke loose her hand for an instant, and reached back and clamped him. “Let go!” Her nails dug into him. As he thrashed her back, her other hand secured it, too. He began to pry away her fingers one by one. He jumped away and fell to the floor. She leaped out of the room as he bounced up, holding himself. No time to cover up, but she grabbed a shirt from a pile.

“We did it! Right? Don’t think we didn’t! And we’ ll do it again!”

Outside she ran, pulling her shirt down, toward the apartment of an elderly lady she had once met.

Next week: Episode 16 - The Simulated Afterlife: Presenting the Marketing Plan

Copyright © 2022 Christopher Rogers.

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