She had rearranged everything in a far more suiting way.
Her cheeks were enormous and warm. She nestled against him and he carried her to the couch.
“I moved the couch to where it could see better,” she said.
“I know. I saw. I love it. I love you.”
He had never said that before.
Yoko lay naked on the bed. Jason put on one of her albums and she laughed. Her laugh was like something he’d heard at the zoo once that had made him want to go back. They kissed and Yoko ran her hands over his back. “Love man, sexy Jon, double love.” He tried it back, this poem language, it made her laugh. He put a hand on her butt and she didn’t stop him. As she teased him and spread her legs, Jason realized he’d have to get her off to get to the next level.
He tried to get a tutorial, but there was none.
“What’s wrong, Jon?”
He paused it.
He looked out his huge windows at the rooftops below, the city across the river, the clouds in the weather. The video game was stupid. He turned away from it and did some stretches. He tried to lift weights, but he had gotten bad again. He went off to his room for no reason.
His bed was the same bed he’d had growing up. It was unmade. On his dresser, an old corded landline phone sat next to a box TV. His sister called it “The Museum.” There were some old cassettes and a lava lamp too. He pushed back all the books in his bookcase. Normally, video games didn’t need you to do this. He had played some growing up and none were anything like this. But he was good at the Xperience. His quick learning of button combinations had helped him. He was at level 22. He was a good Jon.
He unpaused the game. He slid on the gloves and spoke into the controller. “You look very beautiful, Yoko.” She curled around to kiss him and he kissed back. He moved his glove down and stroked her belly and her thighs. “You look like a mermaid,” he said, “an actual mermaid, with legs.” She laughed and the A button activated Jon’s fingers.
The view scrolled to Yoko’s vagina. He could tilt the controller and see her face, but it was blurry. The vagina looked very real. All the flaps made Jason nervous. He pressed Y + X and Yoko made a low noise. He reached up toward her breast, but could not reach. He continued pressing Y + X and watched Jon’s hands move on Yoko. It was going good. She wiggled closer and he pressed up + AA and she yelled “Ow!” Jason quickly turned off the game. He was trapped again in the huge apartment. He threw down the sweaty sensey gloves. Painted pipes wound above him. He got his keys and left.
He took off jogging, but felt awkward. People stared. They could tell he was a bad runner. He ran past them. He was hungry. He ate a hotdog at a stand. Food! Wind! After his sister ended it with Kanye, she’d felt a new appreciation of actual life. He felt that and cursed the game, but he loved the game. It wasn’t a stupid game. It wasn’t a game at all.
The park was crowded in a good way. He took his phone out and called his sister. She answered immediately.
“Hey!!! I was just talking about you!”
“Why?”
“I’m out with Ryan and Jessica! Jessica is the girl I want you to meet.”
He could hear laughter in the background, probably Jessica’s, he thought.
He met up with them in the Lower East Side. His sister’s boyfriend shook his hand as if there were something deep and understood between them. Jessica wasn’t bad looking. His sister got up to give Jason her seat so he could sit next to Jessica. She laughed when he sat down.
Jason ate his food eagerly, “like a homeless person!” they teased him. His sister told glorified versions of stories from their childhood. The famous one with Jason climbing a huge tree, refusing to come down, and his sister trying to saw through it. Jessica was half-Jewish half-Muslim and she talked about why that was complicated. His sister made bad jokes and they all took turns making fun of her. Jason felt relieved to be around people.
He and Jessica had a good laugh over Fun Face and the young cult surrounding it. Jessica was smarter than he had originally thought. She had studied all over the world. It turned out they had been to the same hostel in Berlin. They talked about all the dog shit in Berlin. Her eyelids fluttered when she laughed, and he decided he liked it. They talked about old musicians no one knew about. She knew who Leadbelly was, which impressed him. Talking with her invigorated him and he itched to run home and play the Xperience.
Jessica bumped into him as they walked out and he could tell by his sister’s lit-up face he was supposed to hold Jessica’s hand or something, get her number. And he would have, normally, a few months ago, but he had the eerie feeling that Yoko was waiting for him, at home in the loft, and she was an icon, who knew him! who loved him! and he began to feel unsure about wasting his whole night with Jessica, who wasn’t going anywhere. She’d be around next week, next month, another time. Thinking about the Xperience he felt so bold that he kissed this Jessica, full on, in front of his sister and her boyfriend, then blushing, ran from the kiss and ducked into the subway.
At the loft he threw his sweatshirt on the floor. He took off his jeans. He pulled down his boxers. Wearing only socks, he walked over to the game. He was a famous musician. He probably had a great body. He started from an earlier level. He was in Paris with the band. He was cold and put his clothes back on. He listened to Ringo talk to Mick Jagger, but Jason was thinking about how once on TV he’d seen a big fish that looked like Yoko, this feminine catfish. He wouldn’t try to explain it.
When he got Yoko on the bed, they kissed and rolled around and Jason got Jon’s hand going. He did the button combination for smoking and Yoko liked that. He mumbled nonsense into the controller. He did the button combinations Jon used on his guitars. Yoko was making noise. He started whispering to her about the catfish. He couldn’t help it. She laughed. His hands hurt. He wanted to put his face in it but he couldn’t. It was wide open. It was beautiful. Was it from a photograph? He watched it as he touched it. He kept at his button combinations. He did the one for rewinding a record, the one for waving goodbye. He was afraid he was going to break the controller. He wasn’t afraid of anything. His gloved hand touched her thighs, he reached her breast. She was loud. He was pretty sure people could hear from the street. The controller was warm and everything narrowed onto Yoko. Then she let out an amazing sound, like a trumpet dying. The wall fluctuated color. Yoko whispered something in lazy Japanese and the game announced completion of the level.
Jason stared long in the mirror at Jon. He was growing a beard and it was going well. He knew all the combinations, he could rub his eyes, tuck his hair under his ears. His sister kept calling him, but he could tell he couldn’t stop now. He made pancakes in the kitchen with Yoko. Sean had showed up in level 25. Jason was a father.
They were living post-Beatles, in a long level of daily life. Loving Yoko, feeding Sean. Jason felt fully immersed. He wrote songs that were not part of the level. He had Jon-thoughts about love and humans. He had them even on pause, while getting ready for bed. He had it matched up. He would get Jon into bed and press sleep and then he’d get himself into bed. In the morning, there was Yoko and Sean waiting on the wall.
In the end he had to kill Jon. Of course he didn’t want to! It was deranged, unfair. Level 27 started off not as Jon, in a tiny bedroom. There was no mirror for Jason to see who he was stuck in. There was a gun under the bed. The door was locked until he picked up the gun. The window was locked. This character’s only control was pulling the trigger.