Ten Thousand Steps

Ten Thousand Steps

They say that a journey of ten thousand miles begins with a single step. Well, I’m pretty sure that whomever “they” are, it was meant to be more metaphorical and less literal than I found it to be.

In my case, the single step was at a train station. The single step led to a single slip, which in turn led to a single fall, which struck a single rail. Specifically, the center rail of an electric train track. It took a single second for my heart to give a single beat, then never beat again.

And to think, at the time I was single.

In the all-encompassing whiteness that followed, the stillness and sudden lack of pain told me more than anything that I was about to face Judgement. Entirely too soon for my tastes, to be honest. Twenty-five years on Earth wasn’t nearly enough to experience everything I’d wanted to. There were vague voices, out in that whiteness.

“... again? So soon? What…”

“... only about a thousand left, he’s wasting…”

“... have to try something different. Maybe on this side of…”

“Oh! It looks like he is awake! Mr. Richard Johnson, we need to have a bit of a talk.”

Guess that meant it was my turn. “Uh, all good things, I hope?”

The voice that came back was very vaguely feminine, her accent indeterminate. “I’m afraid not. You present us with quite a problem, Mr. Johnson. You see, we are the ones responsible for making sure that every soul accomplishes certain things, and you… well, you are rather stubbornly refusing. Fifteen times through the wringer. This time you didn’t even have the courtesy to stay down there for very long.”

The words were clear enough. Heck, they even kind of made sense. That didn’t remotely help me in my current situation. “Can… can you explain whatever it is that’s going on? I don’t think I can help you help me, or whatever you’re doing, without knowing it.”

“That is another part of the problem. You won’t remember it when you go back. Every soul is supposed to accomplish certain things over the course of their many times on Earth. Most have managed it by now. Yours? Yours is nearly dead last on its checklist among those who haven’t. Nobody does the entire list in one shot, but you have so much catching up to do we need to take drastic measures. You just can’t ever seem to stick with anything.”

Another vague voice, this one male. “Maybe we can set up a Trial here? Slice out a demesne and set him to it?”

“Oh, that could work. The consequences could be catastrophic for him, though, and it’ll set us back a decade either way.”

I felt obligated to speak up. “You still haven’t told me what’s going on! What kind of trial, and what kind of consequences? Don’t I get a choice in this?”

“No, you really don’t. Choice is for the souls who are on track. So, here’s what is about to happen. You are going to go to sleep. Then, when you wake up, your Trial will begin. You will be on a Task that will take you ten years of single-minded dedication. We are adjacent to Heaven, there will be no suffering imposed there. No hunger, no thirst, no disease. The Task will even be enjoyable. There will be ten thousand women in the town you wake up in. You need to have sex with all of them before time runs out. Succeed, and you should have ground out the annoying tendency in your soul to flake out of everything so we can send you back down for a couple of good cycles.”

“And if I fail?”

“Your soul will probably be consigned to oblivion. I’d wish you good luck, but that is not a thing here. Fare well, and I hope you are the equal of this.”

—

My eyes opened to a sterile whiteness vastly different from the overwhelming glare I had come from. I was familiar with the machinery, the decor, the heavy feeling. A hospital. I thought she said there was no suffering? Then again, I wasn’t hurting any more than expected. I wasn’t sore, I didn’t seem to have any IVs in, my body moved better than I had any right to expect. But… things seemed off.

There weren’t any beeps, for one. If I was waking up in a hospital, I should have been hooked up to monitors, but there was none of that. Just an odd quiet and stillness. Actually, very odd. It took me a few minutes to realize exactly what was so different from the rest of my life so far. My heartbeat. Or, rather, the fact that I didn’t seem to have one. It was official. I was dead. The realization left me staring at the ceiling for a while. The clear sun streaming in from the wide window tracked slowly across the ground, but by the time it started to touch my bed the other half of the realization hit me. If I was dead, and the dream I just woke up from was true, then in ten years I could be facing the kinds of fates that writers and directors shuddered at. The biggest challenge of my life… well, “life,” I guess. In my experience?

The door creaked as I heard a woman’s voice mutter “I could have sworn I had no occupied rooms… oh!” I turned my head to see a rather pretty sight. She checked a lot of the boxes for hotness.Tall, leggy, blonde, busty, and in a nurse’s scrubs. “Well, I was beginning to doubt if we’d ever actually see you. Kind of glad I was wrong.”

“Uh…” smooth. Real smooth. With game like that your mission is virtually guaranteed to be done in half the time. “I kind of just got here. Not sure what you got told, but what I got was…”

“Wild? Unbelievable from all the limited Earth experience we got?”

“Yeah… something like that. Can you tell me your side of this?” Anything I could get could only help me here.

“The timer started running a bit ago, so that confirmed things. We all got here about a month back and got told a man would appear eventually who we had to help with his mission. Everyone who did would go back to Earth with a load of good karma, forgiven sins, placement to complete our own tasks, or whatever other spiritual gift we needed.”

“And you didn’t get told what my mission was going to be, I guess.”

“Nope, just that it wouldn’t be unpleasant for us.”

I saw where this was going pretty quick. No harm in checking one last thing. “And I’m guessing that every one of the ten thousand women here are as hot as you are?”

“Uh… now that you say it, you’re kind of right. Not everyone has got it like I do, of course,” she may have been a tad conceited, but I will admit it’s only hubris if you can’t back it up, “but nobody’s exactly ugly around here. How did you know?”

“I wasn’t sure if the mission I remembered getting was real, but that confirmed it. I’m supposed to have sex with every one of you before the clock’s up.”

She started laughing, instantly. I mean, I guess it wouldn’t be the best pickup line ever, but come on. Some moments later, though, she looked at me and realized something. The laughs died off. “You… you’re not joking, are you?”

“I wish I had half the audacity it would take to make that one up. No, that’s the actual mission.”

She sat down on the bed next to me, a thoughtful look on her face. I blame the fact that she had really nice boobs for the fact that I was looking as her tits tented the material of her scrubs. “I guess as missions go, there are worse ones if you have the stamina. I think you’re cute, anyway, let’s see what we’re working with… oh!”

I had been wearing sweatpants when I arrived, and she peeled them off of me with ease. Now, I’m not the biggest swinging dick in the world (er, maybe I was in this particular afterworld?), but I know I’m a good bit above average. My one sexual relationship on Earth frequently featured comments of porn star proportions and a lot of begging me to take it easy. The nurse’s startled exclamation came as I sprang free, her attention going from curious to rapt. I swear I tried to say something smooth, but what came out was “hopefully, you like my type.”

“I’ll say! I think I may be overdressed for this…” she stood back up and quickly started removing her outfit. There was nothing underneath, neither panties nor bra interfering with the view of her firm body, sizable breasts, and trimmed bush. “You like what you see, big guy?”

Words failed me. This woman was easily the hottest person I’d ever been in the vicinity of, much less nude. All I could do was nod fervently as she climbed back onto the bed with me, taking one delicate hand and lightly stroking me. I had to actively resist to keep from just cumming all over her on the spot. Quickly and deliberately, the nurse straddled me and sank onto me, taking me deep into her.

She couldn’t do it in one stroke, so she gradually worked her way down. Almost all the way before I bottomed out in her, a brief look of pain crossing her face as she readjusted herself. “Oh, yeah, that’s not just for show. Just lay there, honey, I got you.” Slowly, she started to pump herself up and down, pausing occasionally to catch her breath. At least once I felt the clench of an orgasm coming from her, and grinned as I felt it. No small amount of pride came knowing she was getting her pleasure as I got mine.

All too soon, I could feel myself rapidly approaching my own crest of pleasure. No amount of holding it back, no amount of wanting to keep going could stop it forever, and I let loose an absolute torrent of cum into her. My own orgasm seemed to go on and on, way longer and harder than I’d expected, back arching so hard I nearly pushed her upwards. With a sigh of pleasure, I eventually came to lay flat.

She seemed reluctant to get up, too, her face carrying an odd expression. “Don’t ask me how I know this, but I just succeeded in helping you. As soon as I get up, that’s it. I don’t think I’ll see you again. For what it’s worth, this was fun. Glad I got to be the first to finish. And… I’m the greatest at medicine here.”

“Uh, for what it’s worth, this part’s nice, too.”

She giggled a bit. “Oh, you really are cute. Wish I could stay. I’d have gotten you to ten thousand by myself.” With that, she resolutely lifted herself off of me, my dick flipping free, and as I watched her body slowly became transparent, then faded to nothingness. I was alone in the room once more.

—

About fifteen minutes later and I was exiting the front door of the hospital. Or… I should say “clinic,” since it turns out that the building was two floors with a grand total of seven patient rooms and one for exams. No lab, no serious equipment. I remembered what the voices said, vaguely. Something about no suffering. No hunger, thirst, or disease. If the women kept disappearing when I had sex with them, I wouldn’t need to worry about birth control, either. I could feel my breath coming fast after that encounter, though, so I had to assume that fatigue would still be a thing. Which… was awkward. I was not exactly an athletic man. Soccer, track, and basketball had all required a certain amount of dedication that I’d never found it in myself to give to them. Not for more than three or four months at a time.

As a result, I looked half-decent, but didn’t manage to reap any of the other benefits of it. Including social status. That wasn’t so important now, though. For a city of ten thousand souls… er, nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine… the street was really empty. It made a certain kind of sense, though. This place looked like a major metropolitan area. One like this could hold a half-million people or more. Ten thousand women would leave an enormous amount of empty space. It was entirely believable that not a single car or bicycle was in sight, there were no sounds of people walking around. Didn’t keep it from being slightly creepy.

To my left, the buildings seemed to thin out. To the right, they looked like they were getting denser. More buildings probably meant more people, so it seemed like a good place to start. I started at a jog, but thought better of it before I got too far. I had ten years, sure, but I had a lot to do in that time and needed to be able to take advantage of it.

Maybe a mile or two later, the city was definitely close. I started seeing signs and billboards in the distance, reminding me somewhat of New York City the one time I’d gone. Before I got close enough to see, though, there was a sound. A bicycle coming my way, and riding it was another woman. She got less than a block away, then stopped and got off. Compared to the nurse, she was cute. Not so overwhelmingly sexy. Modest curves, a fit body, pale skin and brown hair and eyes. She looked at me, and her eyes lit up. “Oh, good! I caught you before you went a full day! I’m Sarah, what’s your name?”

Honestly, just the fact that she came up to me that fast was still catching me off guard. I wasn’t the kind of guy that happened to. At least, not back on Earth. “Uh, I’m Richard. Just woke up in the clinic today.”

Sarah nodded. “That makes sense. Timer on the billboard in the middle of town started, and so did the main display. Look, I was supposed to catch you early, before too much happened. I know we have to help you with your mission, then we get to head back to Earth. What’s the mission you’re on?”

“The nurse didn’t believe me when I told her, but it’s sex. Once with every woman in this town.” I found myself feeling all kinds of feels at this. Sarah was cute, for sure, but she seemed… almost too pure for this kind of thing.

“Oh! Well, that makes it easy. Give me a sec to send out some messages.” She pulled a phone out of her pocket and started tapping away rapidly at it. Me? I was just relieved that modern technology was a thing here. I wouldn’t be stuck in an empty shell of a town. She looked back up after a few moments. “There. Sent out the info to everyone I’ve gotten on my contacts this month. Now, I happen to know that there’s a hotel up ahead and every door in it is unlocked. Care to come with me so that we can have some fun?”

Definitely don’t have to tell me THAT one twice. She walked her bike rather than riding it, but was still moving pretty quickly as I jogged to keep up. Sure enough, maybe a block or two later was a small hotel seemingly thrown in among the buildings as they got more and more dense, and within two minutes we were in a room on the first floor. She was showering, and I took the hint when she got out that I probably should as well. There might not be pain here, but I was definitely sweaty. I emerged to find that she was just finishing sending another message. “What did you send this time?”

“Oh, just an update on where you are then a goodbye. They told us when we got here that a lot of us would be able to cross paths back on Earth, but that we wouldn’t remember being here other than a couple of feelings.”

I had to wonder about something, even with a cute naked girl sitting on the bed waiting for me to join her. “Do you know who ‘they’ happen to be?”

“Nope. Not a clue. Felt like they were talking to me individually, but everyone I’ve talked to says the same thing. Now, are you going to come over here or not?”

No more hints were needed. I was naked, she was naked, we were clean, and we were horny. She laid back and spread her legs, and I was on top of her, trailing kisses up her modest breasts to her neck and lips. When I entered her, it was a comfortable kind of thing, slow and sweet, feeling like we belonged there as we moved together. It was less me trying to make her feel good and a lot more just enjoying her as she enjoyed me. When my orgasm came it was almost incidental, but as my seed struck home a rapturous smile suffused Sarah’s face, but as her body began to fade away a look of concern took its place. “Sarah! Are you alright?”

“Yes, but there’s no time! I am the most spiritually fulfilled woman here, you can use my bike and my phone while you’re here since I won’t need them. You might not want to do that for a a day or two, though, the easy part will come to you right here for now.”

“For what it’s worth, Sarah, I hope we cross paths again back on Earth.”

As I fell to the bed through the space she had occupied, I could have sworn I heard her voice whisper “me too.”

—

I had a few moments to lay there, and then to put my clothing back on. It finally gave me a chance to pay attention to what that clothing was. Sweatpants and a loose white tee shirt. Easy to get on and off, nothing fancy. It at least had pockets so that I could shove Sarah’s phone into it (despite its pink case, I’d take what I could get). Might be a bit obvious if I got an erection… but then again, that was probably the point. That erection was my key to getting out of here alive… bah, there goes that word again. My key to escaping with my soul intact. I had already had sex with two women, both of whom proceeded to disappear after telling me what they were the best at in this city. “Are there really ten thousand things that people can be the best at?” I wondered aloud, while wondering at the fact that that was the most sex I’d had in a day in my adult life… dangit.

I heard the door creak open, and in walked an incredible pair of boobs. They were enormous and firm, sagging only barely enough to prove their reality, and bouncing with joyful motion as they came towards me, barely contained behind a thin blue shirt and without any hint of a bra as evidenced by the headlights pointing at me. It took a second for me to register that they were not alone, but instead attached to a fairly cute woman with deeply tanned skin and dull brown hair. She had eyes, sure, but I will freely admit that what color they were eluded me given what else was in the vicinity. “I’m sure you can probably figure out what I’m best at here.”

My brain, which had reacted to her entering the room a lot like as if she had pulled the emergency break on its function, managed to get itself going again. “Uh, yeah. Not to sound rude, but…”

“Don’t worry, I’m used to it. Name’s Beth, and Sarah told me you’d be here. Where is she?”

I took a breath, refocusing my brain to be able to remember what had happened less than fifteen minutes prior. “We had sex, and she disappeared. So did the nurse who was in the building where I woke up, seems to be a theme.”

“I guess that means no need for you to worry about accidentally having a repeat customer.” She shrugged, which sent her glorious boobs bouncing again. The effort of will it would take to get my eyes off of her chest was beyond my abilities. Especially when she took her shirt off. It turns out that I was correct about her lack of bra. “I didn’t ask to be given these, but they’ve proven to be fun. And sensitive, too. Don’t worry there, I will be enjoying this just as much as you do.”

She reached out and lightly pushed me backwards. I fell onto the bed, she peeled my pants off, and I found her breasts engulfing my dick a moment later. The feel of them was, if anything, even better than how they looked. I didn’t think I was the kind of person to be able to get it up so fast after having sex, especially having done so one other time earlier in the day, but either this place was affecting my abilities there or those tits were that magical. Either way, significantly faster than I had for either of the others, I was exploding up through her monstrous cleavage. I came so hard that despite the happiest penis in the afterlife not being visible, I could see some of it spurt up through where it was encased. Even the woman… Beth, now that post-nut clarity let me think again… looked impressed. “Darned shame I can’t hang out. I’d love to get more of that. I have the best boobs of the ten thousand women here. Word of warning, once you get through the easy part, the last bunch are going to start being really hard to find unless you come up with something.”

“I… uh, thanks for the information.” She was gone, a smile on her lips as she faded out of sight. I sighed. “Now what do I do with that?”

“You don’t, yet.”

My head jerked upwards towards the door where three more women were standing. The voice that had spoken was almost impossibly smooth, low and sultry despite only being used for three words in my presence. It belonged to a larger woman, pale with bright red hair and green eyes. Behind her were a couple of nearly identical blondes, both of medium build with some significant curves to them. “Uh, hi?”

The leader smiled a bit. “I’m told that I have the opportunity to complete my mission here on day one. This place is nice, but let’s be real, I think it’s a bit boring. Name’s Siobhan.” Her voice was so buttery it was almost hypnotic, and it took me a moment to get past the effect and realize she’d finished her sentence.

“I’m Richard. Nice to meet you.”

One of the blondes snickered, the other looked over. “We’re here to get dick from Richard? Yup, if agents of the Lord put us here, then I can confirm He has a sense of humor. Good to know. That’s Mina, and I’m Tina. We arrived at the same time as the redhead here, probably the same mass text let us know.”

I smiled a bit nervously. Three more women showing up when I was already at a personal record? And heart still pounding from it? “And good to meet you two as well. I’ve been here less than a day, still trying to wrap my head around everything. I mean, what kind of a trial is this?”

Siobhan’s smile curled upwards. “I could be cynical about it being nice for you to meet us, knowing that orgasms are soon to follow, but I somehow doubt that you picked this. I know I didn’t.” She walked forward a few more steps, until she was chest to chest with me. She leaned in, until her lips were practically touching my ear, and said in that low and sultry voice “you think you’re ready for me, big guy? You gonna nail me and get ahead of your little challenge?”

I’d cum twice in rapid succession and once more earlier that day, but Siobhan’s voice was one that went right past the brain and directly to the balls. Gave them a bit of a pep talk. She kept speaking, my dick kept rising, and before long I was at a painfully full mast. Without stopping her litany of dirty talk, the redhead removed her panties, straddled me, and sank down. Her speech stopped for one blissful sigh before picking back up. To be honest, if it was just up to the feel of myself inside of her? I might not have been able to manage it. I was getting winded and worn out, the area not remotely used to doing anything like this. That voice of hers, though, might have gotten me there even without her needing to touch me. She sounded like she could outsing sirens. Like she could make a dictionary reading into something erotic. It took a while, but the combination of everything got me to fire off inside of her, the sensation three parts pleasure to one part pain.

Her face lit up with that same expression the others had gotten. “I have the best voice of any of the women here, Richard. You seem like a good person, I hope you get through this challenge.” Her smile stayed as she disappeared, fading away last.

One of the blonde twins, I think Tina, had a very strange expression on her face. “That’s… kind of creepy. Has the whole vanishing act happened every time you’ve had sex here?”

I nodded, suddenly much more tired than before. “It has. Maybe the whatever-they-were who set this task up wanted to make it easier? I know there won’t be any repeats, anyway.”

Mina nodded. “I don’t think that’s as much of a blessing as you think it’s going to be. No repeats, sure, but no companions unless they’re willing to abstain for a while. Which I’m not, for reference.”

“Me either” her sister chimed in. “Speaking of, when can we get started?”

I took stock of my body. For a place where literally transcendent entities told me that pain didn’t exist, my body was reporting PLENTY of soreness and fatigue. This stood in contrast to its reported amounts of motivation, arousal, and energy. I looked out the window, and saw that night had fallen. A street light was visible. I sighed. “Not right now, that’s for sure. I’ve cum four times in the last twelve hours, which is not exactly normal for me. Kind of spent. Out of ammo.”

Both of the twins laughed at that imagery. They both stepped forward at the same time, and they both told me “then rest” in concert. I found myself laying back down, head on the pillow and sandwiched between two gorgeous women. Combined with the exhaustion, I was asleep in seconds.

—

My eyes shot open despite the lack of an alarm. I didn’t need to use the bathroom either, which was odd. I wasn’t hungry, nor thirsty. What could cause me to wake up like that? Then a couple of things caught up with me. The first was that I was quite warm, with the kind of lovely pressure on both of my arms that indicated women were there… buxom ones, by the soft pressure on both sides of my chest. The other was the unreal set of events of the last day.

I focused inside for a second. Yep, still no heartbeat, and I could feel none from the women on my arms. I shifted a bit, wanting to look around, and this was apparently enough to wake both of them up. Made sense, both of my arms were trapped by their lovely weight and I couldn’t exactly leave those behind. Both sat up, stretching out and absolutely confirming my memory of their bodies. The one on my right… I think she was Mina, but I couldn’t be sure… looked me in the eye and simply said “you ready?”

I went from languid waking to fully energized with unbelievable speed, and the thin blanket did absolutely nothing to disguise the sudden erection that sprang up. Their smiles indicated that they saw it, too. Mina practically ripped the blanket off and dove face first onto my erection, Tina simultaneously tackled me down onto the pillow once more, kissing me deeply and touching all over my body. The two seemed to act as one mind, as soon as Mina had to take a break Tina was there. They swapped positions so smoothly it was easy to miss that it had happened.

Not many could last against that for very long. I certainly couldn’t. I had JUST become aware of my own impending orgasm when the twins shifted yet again, their boobs pressed against my dick and giving me a tandem boob job seemingly sent from on high. Perhaps literally. When I came, it was with incredible force, covering both of their faces. All three of us paused, breathing deeply, Then both smiled. They practically intoned in unison “we are the best at teamwork, two souls together.”

Swiftly, I found myself alone. Some small part of my brain noted that when they faded out they took my cum with them. Kind of glad for it, too, since there was a ton of it and I didn’t want to have to scrub it off. Just a regular shower to prepare for the day. Still not feeling hunger, still no thirst, and since I’d been around here for over 24 hours with neither food nor drink it was probably proof of more of what they’d told me. I could get sore, I could get tired, I could feel pain, but the basics were there.

“Okay,” I said into the air, “Sarah told me that she left me a bike and that I should use it to get to the city center. That’s a good place to start, I guess, most of the women will be there. Hopefully everyone will want to cooperate, but the more I do early the better I’ll be. Um.” I found a napkin and a pencil in a drawer in the room. “365 days times ten years, so 3,650. Ten thousand divided by that is… what, a bit under three? Okay. I’m ahead, then, but I need to get way further. If any of them, I dunno, if any of them are the best at hiding, or fighting, and don’t feel like being helpful, it could take a while.”

I shook my head. Talking to myself was probably not the best sign. Especially not one day into a trial that was supposed to take 3,650 of them. There was a knock at the door, though, which pulled me out of the reverie. “It’s open!” I yelled over by reflex, like I was back at my apartment. The door opened, and behind it were four more unreasonably attractive women. All of them looked ready to party. And by party, I mean a lot of sex.

—

I woke up sore the next morning. The best kisser in the city had shown my mouth what she could do, the best long-distance runner proved that it was solely my endurance that counted, the best with money had her fun, and then the best fellatrix made me cum with frankly embarrassing speed at the end of all of that. No more had shown up yet, so that probably meant the easiest part was done. Still, with ten done in two days, I was ahead of schedule by a solid margin. Keeping this up would mean I could be done in five and a half years, but I knew I’d never keep it up for that long.

I got ready for the day, stepped out front of the hotel, and spotted the bike rack packed with bicycles. Huh, made sense, if I counted right then one of the ladies had been within walking distance. I grabbed Sarah’s, hopped on, and got moving. Kind of rough with how sore I was right around where my body met the seat, but still way better than walking. Fairly rapidly, the suburban streets gave way to much larger buildings. It was a city, but an odd one. The transition was too clean, too sudden. It was like a video game, almost. Then again, if this was a home for a mere ten thousand people… or 9,990 now… something actually huge would be impractical. No cars were on the road, and though I thought I could hear other people in the distance I never quite caught sight of them. Not sure what I would have done if I had. I mean, riding up to someone with a “hi, I’m here to have sex with you” is kind of blunt. Even if it’s true. Honestly, even if it worked to get me laid ten times in the last two days.

About twenty minutes later I found myself at what felt like a small version of Times Square. Roads going in all directions, relatively tall buildings. The difference was that, instead of a million billboards, there were exactly two signs. On one side of the square was an enormous vertical rectangle showing an outline of a person, vaguely feminine. To its right was a list of names, looking tiny near the top of the enormous sign. Ten of them. Guessing those were the ones I’d already met. As I watched, though, lines extended from them to the figure. Many pointed to the head. One pointed to the figure’s chest, and as I watched it went from “vaguely feminine” to “boobs that would launch a thousand ships.” Another highlighted the whole body, and the figure got much more fit, the lungs larger. Then again as another name pointed out the lips, tongue, throat, and lungs. It took a few moments to get it. They were aspects of the people I’d had sex with. The best boobs, the best distance runner, the best fellatrix… all showed up on the body. The rest were mental or I guess soul. Did that mean that more and more would get compiled into that image as I went? Seemed likely, but what it meant I didn’t know.

The other sign was much more simple. It showed two numbers. 9,990 was the first one, the number of women still to find. The other was a countdown clock. 9 years, 362 days, 22 hours, then it trailed off into minutes and seconds. My time limit, On display for anyone here to see.

“Hey, don’t think I’ve met you before, I’m Emily!”

I glanced over my shoulder at the woman who spoke. She was short and on the thin side, with shoulder-length black hair and wire-frame glasses. She froze as she saw my face, realizing who I must be. “I’m Richard. Just got here and biked into town, this is my first time looking at the boards.”

“So the rumors were true, then. These really were for the whole mission thing.” She stepped up to him. “I know the evidence pointed to it, but I’m sure you understand how unbelievable it all is. What is your mission, anyway?”

“That’s going to be the hard part. I’m supposed to have sex. With everyone here. Every time I’ve done it so far, the woman has disappeared the moment their part of the mission was completed.”

She looked at the displays. “Well, if you’ve done ten in two days you’re ahead of schedule.” She shrugged. “Honestly, with ten thousand women, all at least somewhat attractive in an objective sense and with no strong lesbians that I’ve met in a month, and one man? What you told me isn’t all that surprising.”

I lost some of the tension in my shoulders. “I really hope you don’t mind it, then. This isn’t exactly the best pickup line I could have managed, but it’s really serious for me.”

“Oh, not at all. What I really hope you don’t mind is if I ask to stay around a bit. I’ll have sex with you when I’m ready or if I’m getting bored, but this place is fun otherwise.”

I shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to force you, anyway. Can I get your phone number, at least?”

“Sure!” She smiled in a chipper way. “I was kind of worried about that, but you seem cool.” As I pulled out the phone, though, she got a look on her face. “Wait, that’s Sarah’s phone. We were talking a couple of days ago.”

I nodded. “She was the second person I met out here, and why I’m so far ahead of the pace. As you can tell, I’m not exactly suave enough to be seducing that many people. She sent out a mass text and eight women answered.”

Emily glanced at her own phone. “Huh, that explains a lot. Tell you what, let me send out a few texts of my own. If you head down 4th Street,” she pointed towards a seemingly-random road, “you’ll find an empty restaurant with a loft bedroom. Wait there and I’ll see who I can get to come to you. Or cum, as it were.”

“Thank you! Seriously, my soul is on the line.”

“Don’t mention it. We get some benefits out of this, too. They say we will get some kind of insight or boost when we return to the world.”

“Huh. Wish I had more information for you about that, but I don’t. Will I see you at the loft?” I was already grabbing the bicycle to put it in the right direction.

“Probably in a couple of days. Send me a message if the stream dries up, alright?”

“Will do!” We said our goodbyes, and I got pedalling again. This time, I had a goal in mind. Found it, too. The place was pretty obviously modeled after some generic hole-in-the-wall restaurant, but given that there was no hunger here and I’d not seen food anywhere, it wasn’t in use. What there was, instead, was a small chalk sign board up front. It was blank, but there was chalk, so I did my best to write a sign that said “Richard Upstairs” with an arrow pointing in before I went in.

There was a small stairway up in the back, easy to find, and at the top was a door. Seemed simple enough. As I started to open it I heard a soft sound coming from inside. The door swung open at my touch, and inside was the bedroom Emily said would be there. The details of it escaped me, though, because on the large bed was a pile of women. At least four of them, naked and with limbs tangled together in a writhing, panting, moaning mass.

One must have heard the door creak. She looked over, saw me, and peeled herself from the mass. A tall woman, around six feet, with Japanese features and heavy breasts. She nodded. “So the message was true, then. Welcome, and it’s time to finish our piece of the mission.

—

I thankfully had enough presence of mind to ask them all to send messages out before we got started. The woman with the best skin led the blur of what my existence became, followed by the least jealous, then the most empathetic. I had to take a break just then until I was ready for the fastest learner and best planner that evening. The next morning began with more at my temporary door. The reader, the swimmer, and the one who knew the most languages were next, and my rest was only long enough to give me a brief breather before the next four showed up.

That was my life for the next few days. Every time one arrived, I’d ask them to send out a message to all of their contacts confirming what was going on and where I was. This couldn’t last forever, I knew it wouldn’t even get me most of the way to the goal, but it really was the easy part. When I needed a break, I could bike or walk to the city center to check my progress. I was WAY ahead of the pace I needed to maintain. A week in, and I was close to forty of these women. A week more, and I had hit 70. At this pace, I’d be done in half the time those Powers had given me. Not too many people could claim something like that.

And yet… in that third week, my pace dropped. Four a day for the first half, then down to three. Some of that was because fewer women were streaming to my door. The rest was because, really, it was getting old. Even something this fun starts getting repetitive, and I started taking more and more breaks to wander. A couple of times I told myself I was looking for women who may not have heard, but by the fifth time I did so I knew I was lying to myself. Barely 1% of the way there, and just thinking about that felt soul-crushing. Even with a woman waiting in the loft room who was six and a half feet of solid muscle with a nice rack added, it was a lot. I couldn’t even remember their names anymore, the ones who bothered giving them to me before jumping my spiritual bone. And that was 1% of the way through.

“Okay. Time to buck up.” I was talking to myself in front of the restaurant. Probably not the best sign, but I had to play the hand I had. “A sexy woman who can bench press you fifteen times without breaking a sweat is waiting, and no telling who’s next. If I get a day with only two women coming, I need to move on. That would be below pace, and whatever else is true I can’t have that.” I looked at my phone. There were still messages coming in asking if I was still there, but fewer and fewer. Not encouraging for what I saw.

I went upstairs. Olga nabbed me as I entered, pinned me to a wall upside-down, and sucked me off to complete her mission. And yes, she was in fact the strongest woman here. She faded out, I caught myself on my hands before I landed face-first on the ground, then I got an idea. Even if people weren’t coming to me as fast, maybe I could get a head start on the next steps.

In a mass text, I sent the same message to everyone who hadn’t gotten to me yet. “Where are the others at?”

As I settled down for sleep that evening, a couple of responses started rolling in. Good. I could work with that.

—

Spurred by the news that I would be moving along soon, the next two days saw a flood of those women who had been taking their time or hesitating. A couple stuck out. Leia the nerdiest told me that she’d gotten a legal name change to that. Angelique had the best butt, a detail she made absolutely sure to emphasize as I took her from behind. Still, after all of that, I had to move on.

Before long I passed back through the square. The sign was looking much more developed, even if the progress bar was on 1%. Wait, progress bar? It wasn’t there before. Either this showed me what I wanted to see from it, or the display components updated when they became relevant. Heck, Sarah’s name was pointing to an aura around the slowly-shifting figure. I felt a tap on my shoulder, and found the woman who’d greeted me at the sign over a week before. Emily, with a direct and determined look on her face. When I got back to the sign about fifteen minutes later, my counter had increased by one more. It was with a sense of relief that I hopped on the bike again, with the objective being a park a few miles away. It took me almost half of the bike ride to realize why this was.

Variety. It didn’t matter how awesome nonstop sex was, if I just went to a room and did that all day for a while (like I’d done twice now), it got stale. I was headed to an open park that I’d been told was a popular place to hang out. There would also be very different kinds of women there. Everyone had their own specialties that they were best at, after all. That meant ten thousand different life stories making ten thousand very different women. Maybe that was something that could be said about life? Something to ponder in the next few years, I guess.

The buildings suddenly gave way, and I was in a shockingly open green space. To my left were open rolling hills, with a few shady trees here and there along water features and bridges. Idyllic. To my right was something more direct, a skate park. And more than that, I could see at least two people there. One on a skateboard, one on roller blades. Looked like that was where I needed to go. They saw me coming well before I got there and rode out onto the road to come my way.

The one on the blades was a compact kind of girl. Not weak, even under the light protective gear I could tell the body was hard with smooth muscle, tanned, but her short brown hair and thin lips betrayed an excited grin. “I’m guessing you’re the guy everyone’s been hearing about?”

I pulled up to a stop. “Probably. I’m Richard, this place is kind of testing me.”

“Then you won’t mind another. I ain’t sleeping with someone who just thinks they deserve it. Race me to the first building of the city, we’ll see how serious you’re taking this!” With that, she rapidly took off skating straight past me.

Her friend on the skateboard started laughing riotously as I skewed my bike around and started pedaling as fast as I could. For a brief moment, I had some hope. Bicycles are better for speed than skates, I had determination on my side, and for that matter I’d been on an endurance exercise program recently. The problems became apparent quickly: I was a freaking nerd and she was probably uniquely talented in this field. The result of a lifetime of training and exercise and practice. She heard me starting to close the distance, glanced at me, grinned, then kicked it into a level I couldn’t hope to match.

Still tried, mind, but she beat me to the end of the half-mile or so distance by so much that she was already at a full idle stop by the time I crossed the mark, panting and sweating. “Nice push, there. Bit slower than I thought you’d be.”

I wobbled over to her, dismounting the bike and trying to get my legs to remember what it was like to be on the ground. “I’m guessing I have a lot of practice before I’m going to be able to earn sex with you.”

She grinned. “Nah, I just wanted to make sure you were willing to try. And because I get horny after a good race.”

Without bothering to take her skates off, she grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me into the building. I got the hint a bit more securely when she yanked her shorts down and leaned over a table. I had to admit, she was right. The adrenaline of the race really got the blood pumping, and despite being tired from it I finished inside of her in only a few minutes. She turned out to be the best at extreme sports.

Made me wonder what her friend on the skateboard was. As it turned out about thirty minutes later, the best balance. The next message I got was to come over to the park side of it, and three women were waiting there wanting to have sex under the open skies. The best cook seemed bored here, but the best at identifying plants and the best gardener both seemed disappointed to go. It was pretty comfy out here, really, especially with the blanket they laid down. No worries about sunburn, the temperature was pleasantly neutral, no bugs, nothing to bother me.

Which was good, since the next four who found me in the field were also into it and didn’t mind observers.

—

The days and weeks blurred into a pattern. Find a place with some of the local women in it, get established, ask people to send out messages to their friends, stay for a few days as long as those were working, send out updates whenever the pace slowed down enough that I noticed I was resting. From the park I biked to a waterfront where I enjoyed the kind of sex that made me glad I couldn’t drown. From there to the forest, back into the suburbs, through each section of the city. The best actress made me go through the play she had planned three times before she relented, though in my defense I was just stunned at the kind of transformation her attitude could give her.

There was a lot to find, and not everyone actively sought me out. A couple like the best at sneaking, made me VERY happy they weren’t actually trying to hide. The best libido turned out to have gone off on her own early without getting on people’s contact lists, and by the time she found me she was getting desperate. The BDSM club they’d somehow managed to create by the third time I finished my lap was a shock, though. Less shocking, once I got tied up by the best dominatrix (seriously, Heavenly Powers had some interesting ideas about who to bring here), was how enjoyable the experience ended up being as she guided me through the experience with a few (dozen?) others over the course of several days. Said it was a nice change of pace to not have to deal with hunger, thirst, or bathroom breaks.

Atop a skyscraper the next month I made love to the woman who loved astronomy, and from there I looked around and saw where the lights were on in the city at night. This led to another month of travelling around to those lights, two or three each day, to find the women hiding there. Eventually I realized that this led to whole other networks of phone and computer contacts (why I didn’t stop before then to think if this place had a normal internet when people were already texting each other by phone I’d never know). This led to a bit more of a quick paced week as I got the word out to that bunch of women, and suddenly the indoorsy crew (like, say, me before I died) were tracking me down whenever I visited their building. And somehow, I avoided sitting down at one of them and playing idle games for a week. That was its own miracle.

There are, for reference, a lot of buildings in a city. That ended up taking a while to work through.

Despite the time commitment, I found it worked out. Relatively few of the buildings were really the “same” on the inside, there were enough variations and enough effort in finding people that I stayed engaged. As I screwed, pounded, loved, and otherwise worked my way through my task, I occasionally passed through the central square. The vague woman’s figure continued to change as I went. The list of skills grew. The amazing breasts were joined by a sexy core, broad hips, athletic legs and arms, and devastating eyes. The progress bar filled. Five percent, then ten, then twenty. And the heck of it was? The further I went, the longer I held on to the task, the easier it got. I could do this. I could make it.

—

I’d thought I was doing incredibly well when I got to the halfway mark of my time there. Five years down, but well over 70% of my progress was completed. I’d done the math on it many, many times. The pace I’d needed in order to make it across the finish line was 2.7 times per day. If I’d wanted to have weekends off, it would have been 3.8, but I didn’t. I was way ahead… but then I figured out the actual hard part.

Each woman disappeared after completing their mission with me. We knew that. What I didn’t realize was what that meant. The city was already built like it could house a million people, at ten thousand inhabitants it felt sparsely populated. At three thousand? It got way worse. When I got through a cluster, it could be days before I saw another woman. I couldn’t just move on with a status message sent out if I only found two in a day. Now I had to be sure there was nobody waiting at all. There were no locks on the doors in this place, but even if she was not actively trying to avoid me that left a lot of places a random woman could hide.

And from their point of view? If they weren’t a hundred percent on board with the whole thing, this place probably felt like encroaching apocalyptic dread as all of their friends disappeared one by one (or five by five if I had a good day). It took me an hour to comfort one fashionista I found in a closet, who had lost track of time since her body’s usual signals weren’t there to tell her and her support group had disappeared. She asked me to come back when she was ready in a week.

In the end, the counter was stuck on 99.9% for over a week. One person remained besides me in this city. The quiet and solitude were getting to me, and every little twitch sent me scampering to see if I could find her. Was there time? Sure, I had a year left, but I didn’t think I could take being so alone for so long. Every writable sign I came across got the number to Sarah’s phone written on it, just in case. Every building I cleared got a table across its doors. I slept in the central square, hoping she’d stumble across me.

One day I came back after another fruitless search, and she was waiting in front of the sign. Small and thin, dressed warmly. “I wouldn’t have let you fail, you know. It’s too important.”

“I didn’t know. There were ten thousand of you, all of you unique. You were the one I couldn’t find. Like a ghost in a city where we didn’t start alive.”

“Then it’s a good thing that I was a good unknown.”

—

“We did not know how you would fare, but you succeeded where we thought you might not. Return now to the world, and may this journey go better than the last few.”

—

My girlfriend was amazing. Born two days before me, to my parents’ next door neighbors, in a peaceful little nook of suburbia. We were playing together from the time we encouraged each other to roll over, then crawl, then walk. As soon as we were old enough to know what boyfriends and girlfriends were, we both agreed that we were the only possibility for each other. Our parents thought it was cute and would pass. They didn’t count on how dedicated and determined we were.

It was a good thing, too. Sarah had the voice of an angel, and when we got old enough for it to show she turned out to have a body that would make a succubus green with envy. She took to literally everything she tried with incredible talent and capability, from debate to sports to singing to academics. Valedictorian, but so sweet and helpful to everyone around that nobody was jealous of it. Now, they were PLENTY jealous of me, asking how I managed to net someone like her, and I would always respond that it always felt like we were meant for each other. Certainly, I gave her my everything with the kind of stubborn determination only I could manage, and we got into the Ivy League on full scholarships together after pouring our combined efforts into it.

The night of my eighteenth birthday was certain to be one to remember, and exactly nobody was at all surprised when we went up to my bedroom to make good on our promise to give each other our virginities. Just that we’d waited that long. I closed the door and locked it, then we were out of our clothes and into each other’s arms with the kind of speed that only desperately horny teenagers could manage. Her enormous and impossibly perfect breasts were pressed into my chest, my hands around her trim and athletic waist right where it flared out into those wicked hips as we made out with hungry passion.

I lifted her up by her firm and plush rear to bring her to my bed, laid her down, and lay on top of her. We fumbled a bit, neither of us having any experience, but before long we could both feel my tip was in position, poised and ready to sink into her. I’d been told that my dick was well above average, but I had one fleeting regret about it as a look of pain passed briefly over her features. She was so wet, eager for me to join her, that just taking it a bit slow and working myself into her inch by inch was plenty. I felt the brief tension when I reached her hymen, a tension that suddenly released as her face combined lasting joy and brief pain. We moved there together, in tune like our souls were dancing together, taking delight in each other’s bodies like we had delighted in each other’s presence for all of our lives. When we came together, it seemed to go on forever, and as we lay together in the afterglow a veil seemed to be lifted from my mind. From both of our minds.

“Sarah… we were more than just meant for each other, weren’t we?”

“We really were, Richard. You earned me with your trial, and by sticking to what you learned in your soul. I got all of this by, what, good karma?”

I considered for a moment, still deep inside her. “I think it was a reward for being such a fulfilled soul. You get a fun victory lap while I’m catching up.”

“Well, I’m not leaving you behind. Not in this life or any more that it takes.”

“Good. You are more than I deserve but I’ll do my best to keep up. I love you.”

She smiled like the sun rising, a look that transformed her heart-stopping beauty into a vision unmatched on Earth or in the heavens. “I love you, too. Now, if memory serves me right, we have another nine thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-nine ways to try this. I say we work our way through the list, then again to decide which is our favorite, then work on from there. After all, we have all of our lives to do it.”