Ratal A. Ziemkiewicz was born in 1964. He is a writer, reviewer, columnist (also political) and journalist. He ca be frequently seen (or heard) on TV and radio. He is the author of numerous short stories and novels of near future fiction, describing the immediate futures of Poland and Europe. Among them ar the award winning "Jawnogrzesznica" (The Harlot), "Szosa na Zaleszczyki" (The Road to Zaleszczyki) and "£pia_ca krolewna" (Sleeping Beauty). He has published a number of novels, among them Pieprzony los kataryniarza (The Wretched Life of an Organ-Grinder) and Wale stulecia (The Waltz of the Century). He has won the Zajdel Award twice.

I wish you could see us recording a girl's avatar. An unforgettable view: those ruby needles of the scanning lasers, dancing in the dusk with fast, bristling stitches on her naked thighs and hips, climbing higher and higher, through over her buttocks and belly, toward her breasts... I have always imagined that the models must feel it, I have envied them this luminous caress, more delicate and tender than anything a man could offer. A girl stretches her limbs, making one programmed posture after another, offering the scanners the most intimate patches of her body and the laser beams transfer her shape to the memory of the Palace's computers, spot by spot. At first only a rough, coarse net appears on 3-D control screens, then its eyelets are filled inch by inch as the computer explores each fold of skin and each piece of hair, each feasible facial expression. But finally - voilal - in digital unreality another woman is born, identical, except for the fact that she seems to be woven of moonlight. This body, which finally stretches its numb arms and back, puts on its underwear with no charm and leaves the stage with its money earned, to get rotten and old, to become no longer important. In the same sense as my body is unimportant, that body you shall never see. Only the second one matters, remaining in Madame O's virtual Palace - ethereal, perfect and forever young.

But so far. after scanning, it resembles a dress expanded over an invisible hanger in a closet. Filling it with myself takes much time, laboriously connecting the receptors of virtual skin with my nerves, learning the new shape and new sources of delight. It takes me hours to learn them, slowly. The girl whose avatar I am going to use, when I meet you to make your dreams come true, was something like a forest nymph. You will like her. Very slender, with a light complexion, untamed bushy hair falling upon her shoulder blades - at first sight it seems unvarying blond, but on taking a closer look you will notice strands of all shades, from whitened straw to copper red. I spent much time choosing a proper setting for this body. Finally I decided for a Victorian lady's dress - delicate laces, my waist pulled tight with a corset, wide-winged hats with feather... And obviously a matching landscape. In my opinion these little things are extremely important. Please, do not take me for a pedant - for example, such underwear was not used at that time. I do not care for historical truth, but for a mood. It must be romantic. Because I am a romantic person, as you will see.

You will never learn why I chose you out of so many visitors to the Palace. I will tell you frankly: I am not sure myself. It must have been something about the way you moved between the main interface windows. Already over the stage fright, but not yet into the routine. The newcomers meditate upon each pleasure offered by the Palace, now and then reaching for the demo program. The routine guys, quite the opposite, go straight to girls they have already tested, to get it done without any subtlety. I am interested in neither of them. You just arrived at a very good moment - you have experienced this strange emptiness, this tiresome craving, but you did not realise yet what you really want. If you had not met me, you would never have learnt this. You would have run into searching for stronger and stronger excitements, sharper and sharper perversions. Believe, this would have led you nowhere - like putting more and more spices into a watery soup hoping to make it more nourishing.

Moreover, I like making dreams come true for men like yourself, decent boys, full of principles, hard-working, educated and appreciated at work. And totally subordinated to strict rules of your sphere, with its old-fashioned codes and stiff ruling-class morals at least just for show. The arduous climbing of your career ladder requires an unstained reputation - so you have been doing it as long as you can remember. But all of a sudden, one day you realised that you also need relaxation, refreshment, just like some lower class rough type, wasting half of his life in the virtual space, controlled by people like yourself.

I wonder how it started for you: you found our adverts, surfing the restricted net zone, out of pure curiosity? Maybe an older colleague, in a man-to-man conversation told you in private how everybody dealt with that problem? You thought that it was going to be your first rebellion, a small and safe one. A rebellion you had courage to make because it seemed so insignificant. No consequences. Nobody would be crying, nobody would get pregnant and nobody would pass on any disease to you, you would not even bother about your erection. The only thing you would have to remember to do is wear a condom. The only reason is that it is simply unpleasant to see a wet patch on your trousers as your comeback to reality.

It cannot be like that, believe me. So careless, easy and untrue. Reduced to the hasty consumption of further phantoms made of colourful light. The whole sense would be

lost.

Next day at breakfast you must have mentioned to your wife that it was time to buy some better hardware and you had to get a better, semi-professional implant. You put lots of effort into inventing this fable: about new duties, changes at work or something similar. By the way, you added, you would have to spend more time online now, even in the evenings. But you need not have done this. Your wife has her own worries, even you do not know what she is doing at her terminal when she closes the door to her room to do some work. As to implants - they are get-

ting cheaper every month, they are inserting them into everybody, all over the place. To be frank, this bothers me a bit. Despite our exclusive prices, more and more nasty clients find their way to Madame O - it has been taking me a lot of time to find somebody acceptable recently.

Anyway, I have set my mind on you and I am sure I will not have to wait long, till one day, for a change, instead of using some standard Palace services, you will connect by a hotline to a female user of our chambers, as anonymous and full of desire as yourself. The computer will ask for preferences and tell you to wait before it selects the connections.

We advertise this service with a slogan "see what fate will bring you", but this time I will help the fate. You still know nothing about me, hidden in the computer unreality and waiting patiently for this very moment. About my tracking all the entries to your network node and the fact that I know not only the hours of your visits at our place but also that I managed to go through your bank statements and your business correspondence, to learn about your habits and customs.

I am not tired of waiting, what else should I do? This is going to happen, sooner or later. A decision, several advertising video clips when the software loads - and to your surprise you discover that the landscape before your eyes in no way resembles a standard scenario in this blind date program. You will be standing in a misty, London street, between gas lanterns veiled with circles of wet shining, in front of a picturesque little mansion, hidden amongst rosy bushes. I prepared this program very carefully - beeches shimmering with dew, a gate of black iron railings, an old butler with a three-armed candlestick, who will tell you that the Lady has been waiting for a long time, whom you shall follow, up the dark, spiral steps, to my bedroom.

I even thought about the rustle of my dress when - still unconscious of the rules of the game - you will try to touch me for the first time. Obviously I shall not allow this. You will be furious. Nothing shall be allowed at this first meet-

ing. Perhaps several occasional kisses, if you are very nice. Maybe you will be able just to stroke my breasts, just to feel how much they desire and await your caress. But you will be led to expect something better. I will ask you to tell me how you want to do it. To describe in detail, step by step, how you will take me, how you would fondle me, what you want to do with me.

Later on you will be surprised that you have spent so much time just talking. This was the first of your hidden dreams. A dream about winning a woman. This easy, computerised sex, the invention of our age, deprived a man of his main, eternal pleasure: the pleasure of playing the role of his life in front of each victim. The pleasure of creating himself, to exude one's charm, to gather all powers just to appear as a witty, eloquent and charming person in her eyes.

I shall give this lost enjoyment to you - and you will fall in love with me for it.

Not at first will you realise this. I will have to give you some time to make you understand how much you want to meet me once again. I will give you time to make you realise that this is impossible and to make you feel the pain. Nobody can break the principle of the Palace connections' anonymity, this is the basic rule of its existence, You can only dream about me and the miracle, that the stochastic generator might make us meet again, sometime.

Again I will be waiting, tracking your movements in the net. For the first couple of days you will have a hectic time in the Palace, making several connections each evening. Then you will stop visiting us for weeks, alternating it with periods of rapid activity. You will also download professional software for avatar designing and start working with it for hours, using your private, restricted memory zones. You do not know - who could suspect that I can get even there - I stole your personal codes straight from Madame O's files. You will start working upon your image; something you have never had time for before, being quite happy with any standard visualisation

provided by the Palace. You will scan into memory your holographic photos: surely, as far as I know you, you will retouch them a bit, getting rid of your belly or adding several inches of height. Nonetheless, for me the most important thing is that you will have started creating yourself. The next dream come true.

One day I will see you - during your lunch break or in the evening, during hours marked as relaxation in your organiser - playing with transforming your computer reflection into an English lord, trying on top-hats and cloaks, choosing beard type... This is going to be the sign I am waiting for. A miracle you could only dream about it is going to happen. You will find yourself in my street, amongst gas lanterns and thick London fog. Again, my butler shall lead you up the narrow stairs and you, following candle flames, with a trembling movement, shall suddenly experience a heartbeat almost exploding from your breast, heat and trembling legs - feelings you have never experienced before.

This time I will let you seduce me -1 will make sure you will do it exactly as you told me when we first met. But, to your surprise and disbelief, this will not be the end. We shall lie down tired on white sheets, stiff from starch, fondling each other gently till you start talking. You cannot imagine what a perfect listener I am. You will love me even more for that. For letting you talk to me, from the depth of your heart. Perhaps this will be the first time somebody will listen to you so carefully and unselfishly.

I am not going to elicit any information from you. You will start talking about yourself sooner or later. About the imaginary self you would like to be. You will like the taste of it: retouching your life-history, overlaying a sentimental note over simple events, and finally - inventing them from scratch. This shall be the ritual of each successive visit to my boudoir upstairs: when we have satisfied our desires, when our breathing and heart rhythms get steady, you will start telling your tale, longer and longer, more and more vivid. If you are just like your predecessors, if I am not mistaken in your case, in these tales you will put

your wife and children to death, possibly in a nasty, bloody accident. And you will wallow in your sadness and yearning before me, you will expect consolation. Incredible how you love being pitied... Perhaps at least you will confess you are incurably sick? It happens more often you could imagine.

How much time this is going to take? I do not want to make any guesses. I used to meet this man who taught me to break codes and passwords for almost two years, but it was a long time ago and he was incapable of boring me. I do not expect you to be so unusual that I could have fun for more than a few weeks. One day you will start repeating yourself, or looking for a pretext to cut down on our meetings. This will be the sign that the time has come to make your last, hidden dream come true, so hidden that you have never revealed it to yourself. The dream of falling into a deep, soothing sleep.

In order to let you better appreciate such luck, I will have to lead you through fear and suffering beforehand, but do not be afraid - this will not take long. One day you will learn suddenly that what you used to tell about your family's horrible accident on a suburban highway came true. One day it will turn out that in your medical computer there appeared an entry on the incurable illness you told me about...

You will start looking for me, but the computer will keep persuading you that the address I gave you never existed in the net. I will try to do my best to make real everything you have ever mentioned to me. If you wanted to be poor -I will impoverish you. If you complained about loneliness - I will make you feel lonely. At first you will be frightened, you will struggle, cursing me and Madame O, you will try to find someone to rescue you... I will wait. In the end you will appreciate my efforts. You will understand that I offered you a treasure, more valuable than everything in our totally computerised world: a piece of life, undoubtedly real and unique.

Just when you understand it, I will let you die - oh, let us not go into details, there are so many methods. The

only thing shall be important: so that you could realise that you die of love. Tell me frankly: haven't you ever dreamt of such a death?

For I am waiting here for you to make your dreams come true. The most hidden and wild of your dreams, my love.

Translated by Jolanta Pers and David J. James