'I'll call her XWoman.' Darren types the name in the box. 'Not X as in past, over, divorced. But X as in extraordinary.' He chews the skin on the end of his thumb, the rough patch where the blood-blister has burst. 'Hair colour.'


'Red,' says Jules. Jules has red hair.

'No, black.' This isn't to be Jules. 'With green eyes.'

'Sounds like a cat.'

Darren can sense her disappointment. He puts an arm around her waist and pulls her into his lap; he stares unblinking, cat-like, into her eyes. 'Maybe,' he says, then kisses her moist mouth. 'She's my avatar,' he adds, giving the back of Jules' jeans a playful slap.

Jules drifts away, but Darren is aware of her presence ghost-like in his peripheral vision, hovering. He wishes she'd either join him and enter into the spirit of the thing or leave him to it. The sooner he has a home office, instead of a computer station in the living room, the better.

Darren knows his way around computers, but isn't a nerd. He has no interest in chat rooms and blogsites - real life offers both challenge and reward. But recently he saw an article about a virtual world in cyberspace, where people could enter and interact incognito, and he was curious. Supposedly, there is money to be made there, too, and they can do with that. They are saving for a house - or rather a mortgage.

The In-world turns out to be intriguing and complex. Darren wants to make a cool entry - or wants his avatar to do so on his behalf. But it takes longer than he expects to get started, properly started. The free basic membership doesn't allow him to enter into the community's activities, so after some days' internal debate he signs up for platinum membership - only $9.95 a month. Less than $2.50 a week; you can't even buy a beer for that.


XWoman makes quite a stir at the Starlight Club. First, with the doorman - he debates whether her tight black leather pants met the dress code - then, as she crosses to the bar. Darren has always admired the way certain women roll their hips, but he hasn't managed to capture the movement accurately yet. XWoman walks with a staccato swagger not a smooth roll; he must attend to that. In-world consultant help is available if he needs it - for a price; In-world Credits cost real dollars.

Male avatars turn to follow XWoman with their eyes. Darren's heart pounds and his throat makes a dry click - as if it were he walking across the tiled floor, hips swaying, breasts thrust forward, black hair swinging loose like a waterfall, the centre of attention. Is this what it is like to be a woman?

'I'm off to bed.' Jules taps the computer screen in passing. 'It's time she went, too.' Darren brushes her hand away.

'She's a big girl now. She can decide when she's ready for bed.' His attention remains fixed on the image before him. A tall broad-shouldered guy who smiles too much accosts XWoman. 'Then again, look at that creep. Yeah, time she was in bed.'

He swivels his chair to examine the back view of Jules sauntering towards the bedroom, her tight buttocks sliding inside the satin of her pyjama pants. No, that is not quite the motion he wants to reproduce. He'll have to do more research. But can a man get it right? Movies like Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Some Like It Hot come to mind, and trannies he's seen in a bar in Manchester Street. If a man can't do it, can a man compute it?

He trails after Jules; there's more to a relationship than the swing of the hips.

She is hot tonight. He wonders why.

Jules is the very best thing that has happened to Darren; he sometimes doubts himself, but never Jules.


They met at a wine tasting. Darren noticed Jules, bubbly as the Brut being passed around on a silver tray; the way she wrinkled her nose as the fizz burst in her face. He offered a handkerchief, folded, ironed. 'You don't see many of these today,' she said. 'Is there a little woman at home dashing away with a smoothing iron?' But there wasn't.

At the time, Darren was still working his butt off to put money in his boss's pocket, rather than his own; this was the longest he'd stayed in any job. It was Jules who persuaded him eventually to leave and go it alone - or, to be exact, to go it with James. She said he could make a success of it, and he believed her; because that's how he feels with Jules: successful.

Jules is hanging out for their own place. She wants kids, but not until then. Darren can't see the point of waiting, of marking time, but … He's been occupying himself building extra storage for Jules, a pointless activity in rented premises, but it keeps her happy.

The on-line business Darren started with James is going well. Really well. James and Darren work from a rented room in a second floor ex-warehouse. James is a nerd. They've been friends since high school. James has always kept him on track. Secretly Darren knows that James is the brains behind the business but tries not to admit it, even to himself. Jules would tear a strip off him if she knew thoughts like that even entered his head. Although the business is secure now, there were times early on when it was touch and go whether they'd have the rent each month. That was exciting. Now …


'Got time for a drink?' asks Darren as six o'clock approaches. The afternoon has crawled by. 'My shout,' he adds as James hesitates. 'Downstairs.' James raises his eyebrows. 'I know.' It is not a place they normally frequent; mainly drunks and working girls preparing for evening, but with luck it will serve his purpose. James lifts his thin shoulders to his ears and lets them drop. He nods.

'Just in time,' Jules calls as Darren pushes closed the door of their apartment. She presses sticky lips and a soft front against him as he stops beside her in the kitchen. Fresh esters of garlic enter his mouth. He slips a hand under one buttock and draws her to him. 'Dinner's ready,' she says lightly, wriggling from his grasp.


'I won't be a minute.' He drops his briefcase in the living room and wakes up his computer, his mind locked on every detail of the young prostitute he watched in the bar; she had the motion.

He ignores Jules' call. He wants to alter XWoman's walk while the vision is fresh in his mind. After making the programme changes, he runs a private trial. Perfect. A challenge successfully completed. He hasn't noticed evening become night.

A reflection falls across the computer screen. Jules is standing beside him. 'I assumed you weren't hungry and gave your dinner to the cat.' Her face scrunches up like a provoked sea anemone. His beautiful Jules. He feels his eyes tighten into a squint. What is she playing at? They size each other up. Darren is the first to break eye contact. Well, if that's the way she wants it … He turns back to the screen and his avatar.

XWoman is an intelligent being; she needs the opportunity to express herself, to prove herself, Darren decides. He must provide the means for her to do so. Enable her to go into business. Tonight she is back in the Starlight Club; she has become a regular. He watches her perched on a barstool, sipping a cocktail, and wonders what sort of business would be right for her. But even before a business, she needs clothes - she's been wearing the same gear for ever. And she needs a space to call her own.


First Darren clicks on “Fashion” and orders several outfits - not just top clothes, but underwear and sleepwear. And cosmetics. A strange sensation slithers through him. The purchase is substantial but he considers it unavoidable, a start-up cost. Next, he checks out accommodation: for sharing, for rent, for sale. The idea of Petra, as he starts to think of her - XWoman seems too … distant - the idea of Petra living in a mixed flat creates a flutter of soft wings in his chest; the feathers threaten to choke him. No, she should have her own place. And it should be smart, Manhattan-loft style. He scrolls through lists of properties for rent, “walks” through them, but can't visualise Petra in any. He is exhausted, and he hasn't done the work he brought home. 'Tomorrow,' he sighs, levering himself to his feet.

Jules is asleep when he slithers into bed. He slides against her back and drapes an arm over her, slipping a hand between satin-clad breasts. She does not stir. Or is that a slight check in her breathing?

Tired as he is, he cannot sleep and lies listening to the sounds of the night: the soft moist soporific hiss of air sliding in and out the mouth of the woman he loves; the creak of roof iron shrinking; a cat's yowl followed closely by a domino-fall of dog barks around the neighbourhood. A snippet of a domestic swells and fades as a couple passes in the street below; the walls and ceiling are swept by the lights of a rorty car - he can't wait to move to a house of their own in a peaceful suburb. And if that's what he wants for himself, maybe, he thinks, in a semi-dream state, maybe that's what he should want for Petra …

Darren wakes before dawn; it will hit him later. He wonders what sort of mood Jules will be in when she greets the day. Her mood will dictate his; he can't bear having her angry. It is unlike him to disregard her feelings the way he has lately. Guilt tears at him, a familiar feeling. He sees a young boy, head tipped forward in contrition, scanning the face of a petulant woman surreptitiously; he needs to gauge her mood, anticipate her reactions, decide what he can do or say to placate her. “I'm so disappointed in you” - the hurt in her voice is a knife slashing at Darren. “You're just like your father.” The injustice burns like indigestion; he knows now you can't make amends for someone else's shortcomings. No wonder he always failed.


Jules sighs and turns towards him, hot and delicious with sleep, tangling her limbs with his. He holds her against his chest, certain the pounding of his heart will wake her - how can it not? Maybe the beat will seep into her dreams, its rhythm soothing, making everything right.
But it doesn't.

Darren can't wait to get away from work. He shoves papers from his in-tray into his briefcase and tells James he needs to leave early but will catch up at home.


He is usually ahead of himself, but the weeks have whizzed passed and the end of the month has crept up on him. Will James notice? If he does, Darren decides, he'll take him out to dinner to make up for it. Darren is hyped up; his limbs feel tingly, as if they don't belong to him. He can't stay a moment longer; he has an idea.

He arrives home before Jules and goes straight to his computer. He can buy a piece of land for Petra and build business premises with an apartment above. It will give her independence - and be an asset. After all, she can start at the top of her field, not at the bottom, like him. He hasn't quite decided what her field is; something in design, he thinks, fashion or landscape architecture; he leans toward the second. There is a lot of development going on in the In-world; the services of a competent, innovative landscape designer must be sought after. She will earn herself - him - a small fortune. In real money. That's where the In-world and the real world overlap.

A piece of land on the fringe of town captures Darren's imagination: not too far to the CBD, surrounded on three sides by parkland - peace, quiet, inspiration. And privacy. A place to be herself. He gulps at the price, but he is committed; he has created Petra. Darren taps in his credit card details. Tomorrow he will transfer money from their savings account. He will need more later, of course, for the architect and builder and the set-up costs of her business: furniture, car, advertising, et cetera.

The transaction is completed by the time Jules comes in. Darren thinks she looks worn as she drops her satchel and lifts a supermarket bag onto the bench. Even her hair is lack-lustre: tarnished copper.

'You should buy some new clothes,' he says. 'Smarten yourself up a bit.'
'Can't,' says Jules. 'Not till we're in our house. It won't be much longer.' She smiles and kisses him, her sulks obviously over. 'You'll just have to take me as I am till then,' she adds, pressing herself against him. He feels himself rise against her. His beautiful “Jewels”.

That night, it is not Jules he dreams of. It is Petra. He is swept by a blue-black waterfall; he can feel every hair distinctly as it brushes his bare back, falls about his shoulders. It wraps him, grabbing his feet like kelp surging with the tide and tugging him out to sea. He is becoming submerged, gasping for air in the troughs between the waves, but being pulled down lower and lower, deeper and deeper, where light cannot penetrate. He wants to scream. As he opens his mouth a tearing sensation rends his body, as though some unknown creature is struggling to emerge. He fights his way to the surface, the surface of sleep, and opens his eyes wide in panic. There is enough light to silhouette the familiar. Jules is beside him; he places a hand on her hip and his heart rate gradually approaches normal.


Further sleep eludes him and at first light Darren slips into the shower. Fiery needles brand his skin and the room fills with steam. He steps out of the bath and towels himself vigorously in the tiny floor space. Glimpsing movement in the steamed mirror, he pauses to examine his reflection. But it is Petra's face that gazes back between the droplets gathering from the steam. Darren stops his mouth with a handful of towel. With the other hand, he wipes the mirror in long hard sweeps, only to find his own face staring terrified from the glass before it starts steaming over again.

It is hard to concentrate at work. Darren muddles quantities and dates and destinations. James wants to know what the hell he thinks he's up to; he's costing them money; he'll buy him out and get a new partner if he doesn't pull finger.


The walls start closing in; they seem to tip at extraordinary angles. Darren grabs his jacket and runs out into the street. He half walks, half jogs to the river. He has to think, but thoughts won't line themselves up in an orderly fashion. He watches the water-weed by the far bank combed by the flow and blackened by shadow, and his pulse quickens. He needs to see Jules. Jules can calm him; Jules can reassure him.

A vibration begins in his left chest. Breath strangles in his throat - a heart attack? The sensation stops as abruptly as it began. Darren reaches into his breast pocket. A text from Jules. He expels a slow hiss of relief. She needs to see him; can he do lunch? He looks at his watch. '1pm. Yr office,' he replies. The panic lessens. They are so attuned, he thinks.

When they meet, Darren is alarmed by the grim expression on Jules' face: the knit brows, the tight mouth. He doesn't register the accusing eyes. 'What's happened?' he asks. She's lost her job? Somebody died?


'We'll get food first - not that I feel like eating.' Jules is moving so fast Darren can hardly keep up. The tingling is back in his legs. 'I've got only half an hour,' she says. They pick up rolls from Subway and cross to a bench in the square opposite, the air between them as impenetrable as a concrete slab.

'Well?' he asks, when he has taken his first bite.

'I rang the bank at morning-tea time.' She is staring into the distance. Her roll is in her lap, still wrapped. Darren waits; he has nothing to say. 'Well?' she asks, turning her head sharply. He feels himself slipping, being dragged down. 'Where has it gone, Darren? The money?' His head tips forward.

Even out here, things are pressing in on him: the air, the sounds, the buildings.It is hard to breathe.A bolus of bread wedges in his dry throat and he coughs it into his hand.
'Our home, Darren? Our future?'
It will be all right; I'll get it back and more; have faith in me, he wants to tell her, but the words won't come out.

'Say something,' she hisses.

'Petra,' he says. He can see the disgust on her face and, now, the accusation in her eyes. How can he explain? He isn't sure he understands, himself. Not sure he wants to, or even cares.

Jules stands and faces him. 'You disappoint me, Darren.' She tosses her untouched roll into a bin.

But Darren is in the In-world. He is XWoman. He rises to his feet, shakes out long black tresses and saunters away, hips gently rolling.

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