He moved through the ballroom, a phantom among phantoms. Other users, their avatars shimmering with curated perfection, laughed and touched and merged in slow, algorithmic dances. They were chasing pleasure. Kaelen was chasing a ghost in the machine.
The Top was not a room. It was a wound.
Then he remembered the cold. The hollow click of an empty apartment. The price of a soul in the black market data-bazaars. He wasn't chasing desire. He was chasing a way out of it. eng renalith in desire v11 rj01138076 top