Jae Hwa was a good girl. She studied hard, went to cram school, did well in gymnastics and lyrical dance. She enjoyed her life. Now that nothing was forbidden, except touch, she could do whatever she wanted. Despite that, sometimes, when it was dark and her bed was cold, she misssed touch. Sometimes, she wondered what it would be like, to be lifted by human hands, instead of a hologram.

She remembered how her mother’s hand felt, holding hers when she was little. She remembered hugging her daddy before. She remembered piggy back rides and how her big brother’s morning beard felt, when he would lean down for her to kiss him in the mornings. She could close her eyes and imagine what it would feel like to touch someone again.

Now that she was old enough to jack into that part of the stream, she could even feel something like it. The stream would replicate her, in a hologram, and there would be another. Sometimes, it was a person that was your ideal type, sometimes it was a program. You never knew, unless you asked. She never asked. She didn’t want to know.

The jack would take over her nerve endings and replicate the feeling of touches preformed in the stream. It was almost like the real thing. Maybe if she didn’t remember, she could believe it was the same.

Some of the things they did, things she had never felt before, felt good, but not quite right. Her reactions were all the same as in the books she read. She gasped and quiver