I forgot all my reservations about the One Night stand Bar when I tasted the ‘Real Beer’ that both women seemed quite crazy about. I wasn’t really The City’s most extreme beer drinker, but at least I had had the idea somehow that I knew what beer was supposed to taste like now that I had tasted the beer in the Ecstasy Nirvana. One sip from the liquid Vezlena had brought me had completely shattered that illusion. “Wow, what is this?” I looked at Evelith. “I said this was the good stuff, didn’t I? It’s real beer, you know, the stuff that made Enkidu a human being.” She winked again. “I see, he was right. Probably much more interesting than that stupid Shamhat woman of him anyway… Who would want to live in a world where women can’t even be friends and are only lust objects?” I glanced sideways at Vezlena who said nothing and just sipped from her own real beer. The bar wasn’t empty, but she seemed to have quite a lot of spare time in between the few drinks she had to serve. She mumbled something I could not understand, before she introduced another subject herself.

“So you really have a fundless kid in the bar at the moment?” She asked, and Evelith was the one to answer. “Yes, Little Vi is staying with us now. We’re currently trying to find what’s left of the Xando gang for her. Which might be only three people after the visit of the radical preachers.” Vezlena cursed clearly now, in an unknown language. “Would the people who sell you that beer be able to find them, Vez?” Evelith asked. She looked unsure. “I can ask, but I only see them in a week, I have no idea where they are now. But this isn’t good news. Not at all. Another religion of death infecting the fundless…”

A screenphone beep that indicated a message disturbed our conversation. Evelith took her phone and got up, looking grave. She handed me her own beer. “I have to go back for now. Bar business that you can’t help with. But it would be a waste to drink your beer too fast. And please finish mine for me. I might or might not come back later.” She nodded at Vezlena. “And don’t mind her. She’s not as dangerous as she looks actually and she can be quite interesting. Neo-feminists like her still hold to the principle of consent as if it were religious dogma. As long as you don’t agree on doing stupid things while still sober she won’t bother you. But don’t take more of this beer than these two if you want to live tomorrow.” She paused for a while, and seemed to think of something else. “And whatever she says, don’t ask for the specials. And make sure you do come home. Otherwise I’ll come back to get you and save Enkidu from Shamhat here… I don’t think you don’t need to have more Enkidu-experiences than you already had at the moment.” Vezlena smiled sarcastically. “Shamhat? Me? You’re flattering me, Ev… But please, flatter yourself too and don’t be so possessive with Mr. Asexual roboman here. We neo-feminists don’t only believe in consent, also believe men as well as women can do whatever they want, and they don’t need to be commanded by their not-even-girlfriends. He will be fine. He’s a grown-up human being. Come, go fix your bar! The world needs more Ecstasy Nirvana!”

Evelith left and there I sat with 2 unfinished beers and a possible free one night stand that I would decline in every possible universe, but that could still prove to be an interesting conversation partner after all. “So you and Evelith actually are friends after all?” I asked Vezlena. “Yeah, we might have different principles on certain things, but we humans need to stick together now in times like this, don’t we?” There was something unnatural about her hair which was almost purplish in this light in combination with the strange blue of her eyes. “I guess so. So all people here in the light district know each other?” She nodded. “Well, evidently there’s a lot of anonymous ghost people walking around that might be just game-created characters as Ev calls them, but apart from that, yes. Evelith and Les and all the rest of us fundslaves. Even Wandi and Tul and the other v-junks, though they might be lost to the physical world.”

“I’ve seen Tul. Does she come here too? She hated the Ecstasy Nirnana.” I remarked. “Oh no, she won’t enter here. Humans have hurt her too much. They said the had a virtual lover once, better than any human, but I think he disappeared with NeXt-SystenZ.”

“The Anapa guy was actually her lover?”

She stared at me, astonished at my question. “Why else would she like him so much and cross virtual worlds to get him back? Isn’t sex the most important pleasure in this and other worlds” And then she paused “Hmm. You asexual roboman probably wouldn’t know. What do you even live for?” There was an uncomfortable pause, in which she seemed to stare at me until I said something back and in which I finished my beer. “Most of my life I probably didn’t even live. Now I do. For hope and friendship and everything that makes one come alive.” She still looked a bit suspicious. “And you and Ev? What do you want from her? Isn’t she incredibly sexy?” I couldn’t negate nor affirm that, even though I knew for sure she was beautiful, especially in the dress she had worn tonight. “She probably is. But she’s just my best friend. She saved me from non-being. What else should there be? Do people need deeper motivations than that?” She stared at me, non-comprehensibly. The music went on, with a chorus ‘a day without sex is a wasted day, honey, so stay with me tonight’. It was an old song, from a commercial for hyperreal VR porn. It brought back very bad memories to me, but her eyes seemed to light up from it.

“The song is a lie, Vezlana. Don’t get excited. It’s all empty. It’s all fake. Like all of the rest.” “So you haven’t always been the asexual roboman?” Her eyes were teasing, and I could as well take the bait and confront my own dark past now. “Everyone in The City is bombarded with all that fucking empty porn from a young age. It only gives hyperrealistic emptiness and 4D loneliness. A good way to become impotent and disinterested before you can even think of a relationship.” She stared at me without meeting my eyes, and emptied her beer in one gulp. “Ah, well.” She finally said, still looking away from my eyes. “I won’t sway you over then tonight. I only hope for dear Ev that she’ll be able to do that when the time is there. She deserves it.”

She looked at her empty glass, and at mine, and the almost-empty glass that had been Evelith’s. “One more? From the house! I like talking to you.” I hesitated. “As long as it isn’t the specials Ev warned me about…” “No, just another squat-brew beer with real grains, but a dark one. Not heavier than this one but with much more taste.” She looked into my eyes again, and I gave in.

It was also the worst temptation that I faced that night.