JoJo appears to have seen something you haven’t. As the rest of the group breaks apart to explore the vast room, you thread your way through the bushes, letting the soft leather tendrils of the floggers fall through your fingers and feeling the slick plasticky heft of the XXL dildos hanging low off the trees.

As you catch up to her, you see JoJo disappear into a wall of sunflowers, their faces bent upwards to drink in the pinkish light. You push through their plastic stems until you are completely enveloped in the forest.

“JoJo?” you call, trying to make out any movement through the flowers.

“Over here, Charli,” JoJo responds excitedly.

You follow her voice, pushing through until you reach a small clearing. A halo of orange light surrounds a large tree trunk in the middle, and JoJo stands in front of it, examining some sort of leather contraption.

“Isn’t this place amazing?” She turns and grins at you. “The solar panels are a nice touch,” she adds, pointing at the sunflowers. You notice now the grids on their mechanical faces.

“Yeah, it’s crazy. Why’d you run off so fast?”

“I saw this light shining up from the middle of the room,” she says, gesturing at the tree trunk. “I figured it would be something pretty cool.”

“What is it?” you ask, drawing closer.

At first glance it looks like some sort of complex halter top. But then you notice the classic Kisska dildo attached, this time in a sleek chrome. Long, thin cables with spindly lights running through them connect it to the tree trunk.

“I’m going to try it on,” JoJo says with a hungry look in her eye.

“Are you sure it's safe?” you ask as she slips out of her jeans, revealing her muscular thighs. You catch yourself staring at the curve of her ass as she slides the harness on, adjusting it so that the base of the dildo rests over her clit.

“Well, what do you think? How does it feel?”

JoJo is staring down at the dildo with wide eyes.

“It feels…” she trails off.

“Yes?”

“It feels fucking fantastic” she breathes. She reaches a hesitant hand out to touch the dildo’s tip, letting out a small gasp when she does.

“I can feel it, Charli,” she exclaims. Her chest is growing flushed and slightly damp with the heat as she takes slow, steady breaths, her eyes still on the dildo.

You move closer, as if in a daze, lulled by the pleasant jungle smell of the air and the sharp tang of JoJo’s sweat.

“I don’t know how to describe it but, oh,” she closes her eyes as she strokes the dildo and shudders slightly. “It’s like it’s part of my body. It’s my dick.”

You don’t remember how you got so close to her. You feel almost hypnotized. She leans back against the tree trunk, legs splayed, face tilted against the rosy light, her eyes still closed. When she opens them she seems surprised to find you so close, but then a warm smile washes over her face.

“You can feel it, if you like,” she whispers.

You nod slowly. Your heart is beating fast and a tendril of sweat is snaking down your back. You reach out to touch the dildo, expecting cold metal, but instead it feels warm, almost soft, like human skin.

“Oh Charli,” JoJo whispers. You’ve never heard this voice of hers before, low and sweet, gently pleading. You feel the blood coursing through you and you grip the dildo harder, giving it one slow stroke. JoJo moans, reaching out a hand to grab your arm. She pulls you close to her, her dark brown eyes locked on yours, when-

SPLASH!

You hear shouting and the sound of people running from beyond the sunflower forest. You and JoJo break apart. She has an almost guilty look on her face.

“We should see what’s happening,” she says quickly, unstrapping the harness and placing it gently back on the tree trunk before hurriedly pulling on her jeans.

You follow her through the forest, feeling confused. When you emerge you find the rest of the group standing at the edge of the Lube River, looking towards the hole in the wall where it drains off.

“What happened?” you ask.

“Terrible pity,” sniffs Viola, “my fifth husband perished in just the same way. Well, he wasn’t exactly one of my favourites, but still.”

Jessica sighs, looking bored, and pops their headphones over their ears once again.

“Not to worry!” Kisska trills from the sidelines. “Arnold should be fine, the SAMMs will be along any second to scoop him out and get him nice and dry and on his way.”

SAMMs? Before you have a chance to ask what she means, you notice shapes moving behind a tree canopy of anal beads on the other side of the river. Old-fashioned robots, looking like something from a 1950s film, start to emerge one by one. They chatter to each other in a nonsense language and point their stiff arms towards the hole in the wall where Arnold Slick has apparently just disappeared.

“Made right here in the UK! They were originally designed by a travel company to guide people around the city, but unfortunately the lubricant that keeps them running turned out to be a very powerful aphrodisiac. People were too turned on to pay attention to the city sights! As you can imagine, I was more than happy to take them off their hands.” She beams at the robots, who are now lowering a raft into the water to retrieve Arnold Slick. “I call them my SAMMs: Seriously Arousing Mechanical Men.”

Your group watches as a small group of SAMMs clambers awkwardly into the raft and begins to row downriver. As they disappear around the bend, Kisska claps her hands, looking just as chipper as before.

“Well, accidents happen, but we won’t let us keep that from our afternoon of eroticism! Climb aboard the S.S. Kisska and we’ll head to our next stop.”

You turn to find a large, electric blue vulva boat bobbing peacefully in the lube river. At the clit — or is the helm? — a SAMM idly spins the wheel while your fellow contestants pile into the soft velvet benches nestled in the folds of the labia. Kisska climbs aboard last, giving the boat a loving pat.

“Designed after my own, of course. Swedish shipmaker. I can give you the contact info if you’re in the market.”

Diega nudges Sugar Daddy, who hurries over to take down the details. You sail down the river, headed for a tunnel. JoJo sits beside you, her leg pressed ever so slightly to yours. You chance a look at her, only to find her smiling broadly at you. She squeezes your knee and you let yourself relax — it’s not going to be weird between you.

Suddenly, you’re plunged into darkness. You’ve reached the tunnel. The first few seconds are pure blackness before flickering lights start to appear on the walls, seemingly projected from nowhere. Snippets of porn scenes fade in and out, the pictures overlapping, moans and wet slurping and the smack of skin on skin layered in an erratic cacophony. You catch fragments, a soft kiss, a line of spit between an open mouth and a pierced nipple, a pair of balls being squeezed by a strong hand.

“Submissions from my fans to the Kisska Erotic Video Database,” Kisska shouts, the sound echoing through the chamber. You glance behind her to see the profile of a woman writhing and arching her back, a profile that seems suspiciously similar to JoJo’s - or maybe she’s still lingering in the back of your mind. Viola is quietly sipping a white wine spritzer she seems to have inexplicably produced from her enormous purse while Jessica beside her is staring, mouth agape, at the porn-covered walls. Sugar Daddy keeps trying to rest a hand on Diega’s knee, which she swats away reflexively every time.

As you round the corner out of the tunnel, a door appears on your right, where your group disembarks. Kisska is practically bouncing up and down with excitement. Behind her, you can hear faint mechanical sounds, whirring and grinding and the occasional screech of metal.

“We’re about to enter one of the most important rooms in the factory — the Inventing Room.” She pats the door affectionately. “I’ve had three of my top five best orgasms in this room,” she adds dreamily.

“Cumming on the job — very unprofessional,” whispers Viola, “At my company, cumming is strictly regulated to break times.”

“Will there be another trip through the porn tunnel?” Jessica asks desperately.

Kisska ignores them both and claps her hands together.

“Follow me!”

She pushes the door open to a dizzying array of sounds. The room behind her is packed with machines that clank and whir, emitting puffs of coloured smoke and filling the air with a strange mix of smells, hot metal and florals and something sharp and salty, like sea air.

“This is where it all happens!” Kisska says, spreading her arms wide, “I remember when I was molding my first butt plugs in my great aunt’s basement and now it’s turned into all this.”

You watch as SAMMs move between machines, turning dials and making notes on tablets. Kisska motions for your group to follow her and she leads you toward a small rainbow-striped machine, her tiara occasionally bumping against the thick metal tubes that run overhead.

As you approach, you see a conveyor belt carrying a line of colourful balls with straps on either side. Jessica looks curious. Kisska gives them a push towards the belt.

“Go ahead, you can taste one!”

“Taste one?” Jessica says, their brow furrowed.

“Yes, yes, don’t be shy!” Kisska shouts.

Jessica lifts up a purple ball and licks it tentatively. They give a confused smile.

“Unsanitary,” you hear Viola sniff under her breath.

“It’s candy,” Jessica says, continuing to lick the ball.

Kisska smiles.

“Ah, it’s not just candy, my sweet sugar plum! It’s a Multi-Flavoured Everlasting Ball Gag. It never gets smaller, no matter how much saliva gets on it.”

“Oh, so like an Everlasting Gobstopper. But with straps on,” Jessica points out helpfully.

Kisska’s face darkens. “No, this is something completely different that I invented. Let’s move on.”

As she rounds the corner, you see a striking brunette in a white lab coat standing at a distance, next to a corkboard wall with several dildos sticking out of it. She carefully measures some liquid into a vial, her eyes obscured by a pair of heavy protective goggles. As she turns to nod at your group, you could swear you see her wink at you.

“Over there, you can see my most trusted assistant, Helene Le Schneidere, working on our new prototype.”

Helene dips a thin rod into the vial, holds it to the light and blows on it gently. The bubble floats towards one of the dildos, then pops over it, leaving it coated in a superthin film.

“Prophylactic bubbles!” Kisska cries, grabbing Sugar Daddy’s arm in excitement, “It feels like practically nothing’s there.”

She hustles along towards the far end of the room, closest to another set of tall doors.

“One last thing to show you, I think you’ll really like this!” she calls over her shoulder.

“What’s over there?” Diega asks, pointing at a glass door to the right.

“Through that door are our new VR headsets. I’d invite you to try them but they’re not quite ready yet, they’re still in development. Eventually you’ll be able to put it on and it will show you your innate fantasies. You won’t even need to actively direct it to do anything, it will be able to read your subconscious desires and project them back to you, in a virtual reality. We’re experimenting with partner work right now too, so one person puts the headset on and the person with the other headset on also gets projected into their fantasy too.”

The crowd gasps with interest, and you love the idea of putting something on your head and being told what your fantasy is. You always feel so vanilla when someone asks you what your biggest sexual fantasy is and you have nothing to say.

You press your nose against the glass door, with your hands either side of your face flat against the glass, and gaze at the headsets. Kisska comes up behind you and puts her hands over yours. Breathing onto your neck she says ‘I wouldn’t sweetie.’ Then she cups her hand around your ear to feign secrecy, as if this is an intimate moment just between you and her and her cupped hand excludes the rest of the group from your conversation, although they’re all about a metre away, and listening intently. “We’re still ironing out the kinks babe. Good little girls like you should stay out of there until the technology is ready for you to…receive it.” With that she walks off in the other direction, gesturing for the rest of the group to follow her.

“Come along ducklings, next I have something you can really play with.” You are ready to follow obediently at the back of the group, like the vanilla little duckling you are, when you hear a psst from behind you, and turn around to see Viola Beverly shimmying the lock to the VR room open with her Centurion American Express Card.

“Hey kid,” she hisses. “Help me with this would you?”

You hesitate. Her large handbag is falling off her shoulder as she presses her perfectly pleated pant suit leg into the door, applying just the right amount of pressure while simultaneously frigging the door violently with her very expensive piece of metal. And just like that the door pops open, and Viola giggles with the thrill of her own excellence and lights a cigarette. Her signature move after any sort of satisfaction. Viola’s designer spectacles have transition lenses in them, and now they sit low on her nose as fully transitioned cat eye sunglasses. She stealthily sneaks inside the VR room with her cigarette slightly askew, and turns back to you one more time.

“Don’t be such a fucking wimp. My company basically invented this technology back in the dot-com bubble, it’s completely harmless. And they don’t call me Shelon Musk for nothing baby, trust me, I’m very experienced. I’ll show you the ropes kid. Come on!”