"Nemesis Macana" by "Herman Schudspeer" The story genre is "Erotica". The story headline is "An Interactive Copulation". Use no scoring. Include Basic Screen Effects by Emily Short. Include Custom Library Messages by Ron Newcomb. Include Basic Help Menu by Emily Short. Include Numbered Disambiguation Choices by Aaron Reed. The story viewpoint is first person. When play begins: say "[bold type][if a random chance of 3 in 5 succeeds]PARENTAL[otherwise]PATERNAL[end if] ADVISORY[roman type][paragraph break]This game may contain[violence special]."; wait for any key; [say "[paragraph break]It certainly contains a knife[if a random chance of 1 in 50 succeeds]. Keep out of children[otherwise if a random chance of 1 in 8 succeeds], though a fictional one[end if]."; wait for any key;] clear the screen; say "[paragraph break][paragraph break]There is a mood, I know it well, in which sex seems nothing but a rhythmic pulsation of flesh, grotesque and void of intimacy. When this frame encloses my mind, the act of fucking becomes abhorred in my imagination; my gorge rises at the mere thought; and I make solemn vows of chastity and swear to henceforth forego all worldly pleasures.[paragraph break]But that is not the mood I'm in tonight.[paragraph break][paragraph break]". To say violence special: let n be a random number between 4 and 20; if n is less than 10: say " violence[run paragraph on]"; if n is 10 or n is 11 or n is 12: say " a certain amount of violence[run paragraph on]"; if n is 14 or n is 15 or n is 13: say " senseless violence[run paragraph on]"; if n is 17 or n is 18 or n is 16: say " tobacco references and violence[run paragraph on]"; if n is 19: say " literary references and violence[run paragraph on]"; if n is 20: say " sexually arousing violence (if that is your kink)[run paragraph on]". Chapter - London Street A London Street is a room. "Streets leading in all directions offer men the illusion of freedom. But what grace can I hope to receive from the darkling city? Better to find a single moment of bliss, here, where neon signs proclaim the [italic type]Nightly Nuns[roman type]." Instead of going in London Street: if noun is inside: try entering the Nightly Nuns; otherwise: say "Led by my throbbing manhood I scour the city for likely damsels, but to no avail: they seem to have all been swept up by some stag party of princes. Rubbing my aching codpiece I return to stare once more at the Nightly Nuns[apostrophe] facade. It is only there that I will find my release." The Nightly Nuns is scenery in London Street. The description of the Nightly Nuns is "Red lamps incarnadine the night and proudly proclaim the order of the nuns: these are the sisters of mercy, performing untold kindnesses upon mankind for what are really quite modest tithes.". Understand "red" and "lamps" and "brothel" and "facade" as the Nightly Nuns. The neon signs are scenery in London Street. The neon signs are plural-named. The description of the neon signs is "[bold type]THE NIGHTLY NUNS[roman type], the signs say, and [bold type]MAKE REAL YOUR DREAMS[roman type].". Understand "sign" as the neon signs. The streets are scenery in London Street. The description of the streets is "How often have I prowled these streets at night, searching for a way out? But the mind is its own place, and cannot be escaped.". Understand "darkling" and "city" as the streets. Instead of entering the Nightly Nuns: if the player encloses enough money: say "A sweet maid freely imparting of the bounteous largess given her to give -- such is the stuff that dreams are made of. But we, who are taxpayers as well as immortal souls, must oft content ourselves with compromise; and in a house of sale we bargain for affection. So be it. If money be the food of love, pay up.[paragraph break][paragraph break]"; move the player to Delightful hallway; otherwise: say "Money is the food of love; I cannot enter without it.". Does the player mean entering the Nightly Nuns: it is very likely. Chapter - Player Player-state is a number that varies. Player-state is 0. [0: beginning of the game 1: naked before sex 2: after sex] The player is in A London Street. The description of the player is "[if player-state is 0]Call me Ishmael. You can always count on a whaler for a fancy prose style[otherwise if player-state is 1]Call me Adonis. My manhood shows that I'm the risen god[otherwise if player-state is 2]Call me Ahab[end if].". Understand "Ishmael" and "Adonis" and "Ahab" and "you" as yourself. enough money is a thing. Enough money is carried by the player. Enough money is proper-named. The description of enough money is "The nuns cannot minister to a mind diseased without a small donation.". Understand "tithe" and "payment" and "price" as enough money. Instead of smelling enough money: say "It doesn't stink.". Instead of singing: say "'Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly[line break]Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly[line break]Then, heigh-ho! the holly![line break]This life is most jolly.'". The manhood is part of the player. Understand "throbbing" and "penis" and "codpiece" and "prick" and "dick" and "cock" as the manhood. The description of the manhood is "My manhood is nothing to be ashamed of. [if player-state is 0]It is aching for a lady[otherwise if player-state is 1]It proudly stands erect[otherwise if player-state is 2]But that I am enslaved to it shames me eternally[end if].". Understand "stroke [something]" as touching. Instead of touching or rubbing or squeezing or pulling the manhood: say "[if player-state is 2]I resists the urge[otherwise]Indeed, the urge cannot be resisted[end if].". Instead of showing manhood to maiden: say "'That's quite a piece you've got there, honey.' How very right she is! And it is entirely natural.". Instead of giving manhood to maiden: say "'That's quite a piece you've got there, honey.' How very right she is! And it is entirely natural.". Instead of dropping the manhood: say "What on Earth are you talking about? My penis is a part of me.". Instead of kissing the manhood: say "An anatomical impossibility, [if player-state is 2]which is an argument in favour of design[otherwise]unfortunately[end if].". The player wears a handsome suit. The description of the handsome suit is "As a successful bank teller, I only wear quality clothing.". Understand "clothes" and "clothing" as the handsome suit. Check taking off the handsome suit: if the location is London Street: say "If the bobbies were to see me naked, incarceration would follow. Think of my reputation!" instead; if location is Hallway: say "There are customs to be observed in these matters. First the donation, then the undressing." instead; if location is the nun's cell: move handsome suit to the location; now player-state is 1; say "Indeed! My hands are like magic, removing even the silk knots from my cuffs with remarkable speed and precision. One by one my garments fall down, and before one can say the Lord's Prayer, I am revealed in my glorious nakedness." instead. Check wearing the handsome suit: if the player wears the handsome suit: say "Don't be silly." instead; otherwise: say "Most certainly not!" instead. Check taking the handsome suit: if the player encloses the handsome suit: say "Don't be silly." instead; otherwise: say "I have a work of nobler note to do." instead. Understand "donate [something] to [someone]" as giving it to. Xyzzying is an action applying to nothing. Understand "xyzzy" as xyzzying. Carry out xyzzying: say "I conjure forth twenty naked women! Nope. Did you really think I never tried that before?". Chapter - Delightful hallway Delightful hallway is a room. "Romantic polypropylene chairs line the hallway, while closed doors whisper of forbidden delights. The whole scene bathes in the radiance of fluorescent tubes." The romantic polypropylene chairs are a supporter in Delightful hallway. The romantic polypropylene chairs are plural-named and scenery. The description of the romantic polypropylene chairs is "Cast in passionate red and orange, these chairs offer some measure of comfort to the nuns when they wait for their supplicants.". Instead of entering the romantic polypropylene chairs: say "No, I cannot rest from travel; I will drink life to the lees.". Instead of taking the romantic polypropylene chairs: say "The chairs are fine were they are, I would say.". Understand "chair" as the chairs. A thing called closed doors is a door in Delightful hallway. Closed doors is east of Hallway and west of Nun's cell. Closed doors is openable, closed, scenery and plural-named. Understand "door" and "whipsers" and "whispering" as closed doors. The description of closed doors is "Behind each door lies the holy of holies, the private cell of one of the nuns.". Instead of opening the closed doors: say "If the chambers behind it were occupied, this would be very rude. If they were empty, it would serve no purpose.". Understand "whisper" and "whispers" as the closed doors. Instead of listening to closed doors in delightful hallway: say "The doors do not actually whisper, of course. And listening too closely might prove to be embarrassing.". The wallpaper is scenery in delightful hallway. Instead of examining the wallpaper: say "It is quite as delightful as the hallway itself.". The fluorescent tubes are plural-named scenery in delightful hallway. The description of fluorescent tubes is "Their mild light lends the room an air of serenity.". A maiden is a female person in Delightful hallway. "Standing in a cloud of perfume, a lovely maiden has risen to bid me welcome." The description of the maiden is "[if legs-wide is false]As lovely as roses, as clean as the spring -- she is everything I could wish for[otherwise]She displays herself to such advantage! Her breasts are those of a goddess, and her vulva looks like that of Aphrodite herself[end if].". Understand "lady" and "lovely" and "fair" and "whore" and "maid" and "girl" and "virgin" and "nun" and "harlot" as the maiden. Instead of taking the maiden: say "To take, to possess, to deflower -- the verbs jumble around in my head.". The cloud of perfume is scenery in hallway. The description of cloud of perfume is "Strange synthetic perfumes, unguent, powdered, liquid -- they trouble, confuse and drown the sense in odours." Instead of smelling the cloud of perfume: try examining the cloud of perfume. Instead of smelling a room when the cloud of perfume is in the location: try examining the cloud of perfume. Instead of going in delightful hallway: say "I need to make an arrangement with the lovely lady before I go anywhere.". Talked-enough is a truth state that varies. Talked-enough is false. Instead of talking to the maiden for the first time: say "'Hey sweetie, what dream do you wanna make real tonight?' she asks me before I can open my mouth.[paragraph break]'Why, I would like to expend my spirit in your waist of shame, my gracious lady.'[paragraph break]'This is a reputable place, mister!'". Instead of talking to the maiden for the second time: say "'Forgive me if my words offended, for it was merely carnal knowledge I was hinting at. Like all the other worthy gentlemen that visit your establishment, I yearn to partake of the ancient and hallowed art of fornication.'[paragraph break]'That's much better, sweetie. I sure know fornication.'[paragraph break]'Indeed! How prophetic of me, for I was positive you would.'"; now talked-enough is true. Does the player mean giving enough money to the maiden: it is very likely. Instead of giving enough money to maiden: if talked-enough is false: say "I should treat the lady to my witty conversation first." instead; remove enough money from play; now paid-up is true; say "'Thank you, love. Let's get going, shall we?'[paragraph break]With rising anticipation, I follow her into a small room."; move player to nun's cell; move maiden to nun's cell; move cloud of perfume to nun's cell. Instead of fucking the maiden when in delightful hallway: say "That would be improper. First payment, then seclusion, then fucking.". Instead of kissing the maiden when in delightful hallway: say "'Not so fast, sweetheart,' the maiden objects.". Chapter - Talking Talking to is an action applying to one thing. Understand "talk to [person]" and "speak to [person]" and "talk [person]" and "speak [person]" as talking to. Instead of asking about: say "[italic type]Please use the syntax: 'talk to X'[roman type]." Instead of telling about: say "[italic type]Please use the syntax: 'talk to X'[roman type]." Instead of asking someone for something: say "[italic type]Please use the syntax: 'talk to X'[roman type]." Instead of answering that: say "[italic type]Please use the syntax: 'talk to X'[roman type]." Persuasion rule for asking someone to try doing something: say "[italic type]Please use the syntax: 'talk to X'[roman type]." instead. Chapter - Fucking Understand the command "fuck" as something new. Fucking is an action applying to one thing. Understand "fuck [thing]" and "make love to [person]" and "copulate with [person]" and "sleep with [person]" and "have sex with [person]" and "deflower [person]" and "possess [person]" and "mate with [person]" as fucking. Instead of fucking the player: say "That is not what I have come here for.". Report fucking: say "Perhaps not.". Chapter - Undressing Undressing is an action applying to nothing. Understand "undress" and "strip" and "disrobe" as undressing. Instead of undressing: if the player wears the handsome suit: try taking off the handsome suit; otherwise if the player wears the rumpled suit: try taking off the rumpled suit; otherwise: say "That doesn't make much sense right now.". Chapter - The nun's cell The nun's cell is a room. "A sumptuous bed is the only furniture in the room, but it is the only furniture we need[if legs-wide is true]. My girl lies on the bed, naked[otherwise]. The lovely maiden smiles at me[end if]." The sumptuous bed is scenery enterable supporter in nun's cell. The description of sumptuous bed is "Luxurious and soft, but not truly the object at the center of my attention.". Instead of entering the sumptuous bed: say "I would rather enter the maiden.". The describe what's on scenery supporters in room descriptions rule is not listed in any rulebook. Paid-up is a truth state that varies. Paid-up is false. Legs-wide is a truth state that varies. Legs-wide is false. Instead of talking to the maiden: if paid-up is false: say "'Let's talk inside my room, dear, after we have settled the payment.'[paragraph break]'Ah, yes. The tithe.'"; otherwise: if legs-wide is false: say "'So, honey, what do you want to do tonight?'[paragraph break]'I want to lie between your legs, lady, and taste Heaven!'[paragraph break]She smiles and starts taking off her clothes one by one. The colour of her skin excites me; the fullness of her breasts makes me pant; and when I see her vulva, hairless like that of a small girl or an actress, I almost succumb to premature ejaculation. She lies down on the bed, hands me a condom, and then parts her legs."; now legs-wide is true; move maiden to sumptuous bed; move condom to player; otherwise: say "'Won't you come and fuck me, honey?' she moans.". Instead of entering the maiden: try fucking the maiden. Instead of fucking the maiden when in the nun's cell: if the player wears the handsome suit: say "I must disrobe before I can deflower the virgin!"; otherwise: if legs-wide is false: try talking to the maiden instead; otherwise: if the player does not wear the condom: say "The condom. I must put on this condom first. Quickly, for I cannot wait!"; otherwise: say "Finally, I lie down between the maiden's legs and her sure hands guide my manhood into the cave of delight. Yes. This is what I have been dreaming of. This is what I want to make real.[paragraph break]In and out, in and out, in and out. My rhythmic movements and her whispered encouragements propel me upwards, ever upwards, through glorious spheres of sensation towards the zenith of bliss, towards that divine and mind-shattering zenith of bliss. Nothing exists for me except the marvelous feeling and the certainty that something even better is coming. Is coming, comes... is almost here... and yes!, my God!, [bold type]it has arrived![roman type][paragraph break][paragraph break]"; wait for any key; clear the screen; remove the condom from play; now player-state is 2; move the player to Hooker's room. The condom is a wearable thing. Understand "rubber" as the condom. The description of the condom is "It seems but an unassuming piece of rubber, but it is in fact one of the great liberators of mankind. No longer need a pleasurable night end with the French disease and thirty days of mercury and steam!". Check wearing the condom: if the player wears the handsome suit: say "The suit, the suit! I must take the suit off first.". Report wearing the condom: say "Luckily, I am no untutored youth unlearned in the condom's subtleties. I therefore easily pull it around my manhood."; rule succeeds. Instead of taking off the condom: say "What, art mad?". Instead of kissing or touching the condom: say "Don't keep fooling around! Let's get to the action!". Instead of waiting when in the nun's cell: say "Absolutely not!". Instead of going when in the nun's cell: say "Most certainly not!". Section - The AIF treatment Instead of kissing the maiden: if location is delightful hallway: say "Time, Strength, Cash and, above all, Patience!"; if location is nun's cell: say "I kiss the maiden tenderly, the elegant French way.". Instead of touching or rubbing or squeezing the maiden: if location is delightful hallway: say "Time, Strength, Cash and, above all, Patience!"; if location is nun's cell: say "Yes, but should I direct my hands to her breasts, or rather to her vulva? This is the question that haunts me, and like Buridan's ass I cannot choose.". Understand "lick [something]" as kissing. Understand "kiss [something]" as kissing. The maiden's breasts are part of the maiden. The maiden's breasts are plural-named. The description of the maiden's breasts is "[if legs-wide is false]Firm breasts that I would love to touch[otherwise]Beautiful naked breasts that I would love to touch[end if].". Understand "breast" and "boob" and "boobs" and "tit" and "tits" and "hooters" as the maiden's breasts. Instead of kissing the maiden's breasts: say "[if legs-wide is false]I certainly will, once she has undressed[otherwise]With wild abandon I kiss and lick the virgin's voluminous breasts, increasing her excitement even further[end if].". Instead of rubbing or touching or squeezing the maiden's breasts: say "[if legs-wide is false]I certainly will, once she has undressed[otherwise]I ardently caress her beautiful bosom. 'Please, come inside me,' she moans, overcome with passion for my body[end if].". Instead of fucking the maiden's breasts: say "[if legs-wide is false]Yes, but the time is not yes come[otherwise if the player wears the handsome suit]I must undress first[otherwise]It doesn't feel as good as it looks in the porn movies, but it certainly looks as good as it looks in the porn movies[end if].". The maiden's vulva is part of the maiden. The description of the maiden's vulva is "Many are the tender names men have thought up for these wondrous parts of the female anatomy, and especially for that dark hole to which our imagination is always attracted. How regal is the 'vagina' and yet how playful the 'pussy'! How ebullient we find the 'snatch', how secretive the 'slit', and then again how marvelously clamorous the 'cunt'!". Understand "vagina" and "clit" and "clitoris" and "pussy" and "snatch" and "cunt" and "private parts" and "labia" and "slit" as the maiden's vulva. Instead of entering the maiden's vulva: try fucking the maiden. Instead of eating the maiden: try kissing the maiden's vulva. Instead of kissing the maiden's vulva: say "[if legs-wide is false]How I wish I could! Every second of delay is purest agony[otherwise]I dive between my mistress's legs and taste her sweet nectar. She sighs in obvious elation[end if].". Instead of rubbing or touching or squeezing the maiden's vulva: say "[if legs-wide is false]How I wish I could! Every second of delay is purest agony[otherwise]My expert fingers stimulate her private parts, and bring her unimaginable pleasures. 'Come on, honey, let's fuck,' she whispers[end if].". The maiden's legs are part of the maiden. The maiden's legs are plural-named. The description of the maiden's legs is "Long, slender legs, leading upwards to her beautiful vulva.". Instead of kissing the maiden's legs: say "[if legs-wide is false]I certainly will, once she has undressed[otherwise]My lips and my tongue slowly work their way upwards, towards her beckoning labia[end if].". Instead of rubbing or touching or squeezing the maiden's legs: say "[if legs-wide is false]I certainly will, once she has undressed[otherwise]How beautiful they are! But my attention moves ineluctably upward[end if].". The maiden's mouth is part of the maiden. The description of the maiden's mouth is "[if legs-wide is false]Who could possibly want to do more than kiss her sweet lips[otherwise]Is it my imagination, or does her mouth look hungry for some cock[end if]?" Instead of kissing the maiden's mouth: try kissing the maiden. Instead of rubbing or touching or squeezing the maiden's mouth: if legs-wide is false: say "Yes, let us get on with the proceedings so I can finally do these things!"; otherwise: say "Gently I caress her lips, a powerful female erogenous zone. Nobody has to teach [italic type]me[roman type] what turns women on!". Instead of fucking the maiden's mouth: if legs-wide is false: say "The time has not yet come, but once it has - oh boy!"; otherwise: if the player does not wear the condom: say "The condom. I must put on this condom first. Quickly, for I cannot wait!"; otherwise: say "'That costs extra, honey,' the virgin objects. What is she talking about? Never mind -- I revel in her glorious beauty and erase the episode from my memory.". The maiden's ass is part of the maiden. The description of the maiden's ass is "Two firm round buttocks that I yearn to kiss.". Understand "arse" and "buttocks" and "bottom" and "butt" as the maiden's ass. Instead of kissing the maiden's ass: say "[if legs-wide is false]Yes, I will! But we must go through the formalities first[otherwise]Although she is lying on them, I manage to cover most of her buttocks with kisses and love bites. 'Please, fuck me?' she begs[end if].". Instead of rubbing or touching or squeezing the maiden's ass: say "[if legs-wide is false]How I wish I could! Every second of delay is purest agony[otherwise]How firm they feel beneath my hands! And nevertheless as tender as a lamb[end if].". Instead of fucking the maiden's ass: if legs-wide is false: say "Later, when she has surrendered her pure body to me."; otherwise: try fucking the maiden. Chapter - Hooker's room Hooker's room is a room. "An aged hooker lies on a semen-stained bed, smoking a cigarette. The door to the west leads out of the cramped room." After looking in hooker's room for the first time: say "Once again I have been seduced by the promise of Heaven, and once again I have only found Hell! When will I learn? When on Earth will I learn from my constant mistakes?" The filthy bed is enterable scenery supporter in hooker's room. Understand "stained" and "semen-stained" and "wet" and "patch" and "patches" as the filthy bed. The description of the filthy bed is "Wet patches prove where we have fucked like swine.". Instead of entering the filthy bed: say "Unimaginable!". The used condom is in hooker's room. "A used condom has been flung onto the ground." Understand "rubber" and "semen" as the used condom. The description of the used condom is "A piece of rubber filled with my semen.". Instead of taking or touching the used condom: say "I will not pick up such filth.". Instead of smelling the used condom: say "The thought makes me sick.". Instead of tasting the used condom: say "The thought makes me sick.". Instead of kissing the used condom: say "That would be disgusting!". The rumpled suit is a wearable thing in hooker's room. "My rumpled suit lies in a corner." The description of the rumpled suit is "Expensive yet uncomfortable: the prison clothes all office slaves must wear.". Understand "clothes" and "clothing" as the rumpled suit. After wearing the rumpled suit: say "I dress slowly. Have I degraded myself for this, this limp feeling in my lower abdomen? I could have been at home, reading Shakespeare! Listening to Bach! Sleeping the sleep of the virtuous! But no, I had to enter the pigsty and wallow in filth.". Instead of taking off the rumpled suit: say "And see my nakedness? I'd rather not.". The hooker is a woman. Understand "aged" and "whore" and "virgin" and "maid" and "maiden" and "girl" as the hooker. The hooker is on the filthy bed. The description of the hooker is "Did I just fuck this aged and unappealing whore? She painted an inch thick and yet she cannot hide the charnel-house within, the bleak white bones that mock our hopes and aspirations.". Understand "cunt" and "vulva" and "breasts" and "tits" and "hooters" and "boobs" and "boobies" and "legs" and "mouth" and "ass" and "arse" as the hooker. Instead of talking to the hooker: say "'Did you enjoy it, love?' she has the gall to ask.[paragraph break]I do not deign to answer.". Instead of kissing or touching or rubbing or squeezing the hooker: say "Touch [italic type]that[roman type]? Never!". Instead of fucking the hooker: say "No! The act of fucking is abhorred in my imagination; my gorge rises at the mere thought; and I hereby make a solemn vow of chastity! Nevermore will I be lured into such lurid pleasures. Never!" The hooker carries a cigarette. The description of the cigarette is "Together with fish and chips, the cigarette is the labourer's main instrument of class suicide. Its smell is repugnant to a finer constitution.". Instead of smelling the cigarette: say "Unfortunately, I cannot choose not to.". The hooker's door is a door. Hooker's door is west of Hooker's room and east of Ghastly hallway. Hooker's door is closed and openable and unlocked. Hooker's door is scenery. The description of the hooker's door is "It is just a piece of wood. Or hardboard, more likely.". Check opening the hooker's door in the hooker's room: if the player does not wear the rumpled suit: say "I know only too well that I am naked." instead. Check going west in the hooker's room: if the player does not wear the rumpled suit: say "I know only too well that I am naked." instead. Chapter - Ghastly hallway Ghastly hallway is a room. "Cheap plastic chairs line the walls of the hallway. A door to the south leads to -- well, not to salvation, but perhaps to a slightly less depraved circle of Hell." After looking in Ghastly hallway for the first time: say "It is not just my filthy behaviour, it is my spinelessness that enrages me. My weakness in the face of temptation! How did I ever fall so low? Why do I allow my penis to rule my rational spirit?". Cheap plastic chairs are a supporter in ghastly hallway. The cheap plastic chairs are plural-named and scenery. The description of the cheap plastic chairs is "Cast in garish red and orange, these chairs serve to support fat hooker bottoms.". Instead of entering the cheap plastic chairs: say "Nay, away, away from here. I will not tarry.". Instead of taking the cheap plastic chairs: say "I have no interest in these chairs.". Understand "chair" as the cheap plastic chairs. Unattainable outside is a room. The outside door is a scenery door. Outside door is south of Ghastly Hallway and north of unattainable outside. The description of the outside door is "All that stands between me and what cannot be called 'freedom'.". The northern door is a scenery door. Northern door is north of ghastly hallway and south of Other hooker's room. The description of the northern door is "It is just a piece of wood. Or hardboard, more likely.". Heard-noise is a truth state that varies. Heard-noise is false. Identified-stiffy is a truth state that varies. Identified-stiffy is false. Instead of going outside when in ghastly hallway: try going south. Instead of going south in ghastly hallway: if identified-stiffy is true: say "I will not flee. The time for my vengeance has come."; if identified-stiffy is false and heard-noise is true: say "I am sure I heard something. Something important."; if heard-noise is false: say "'You have seen the last of me! I forswear all carnal pleasures!' With those resolute words I open the door and --[paragraph break]-- and close it again. Wait. What was that noise I heard?"; now heard-noise is true. Check going north in ghastly hallway: if heard-noise is false: say "I have no desire to see the sins of others." instead; if heard-noise is true and identified-stiffy is false: say "Nay, I should find out what that noise was before I make a decision." instead; if identified-stiffy is true: now northern door is open; move switchblade to player; say "I throw open the door. There he is, a mass of sweating white flesh humping a cheap harlot.[paragraph break]'Stiffy.' The tip of the tongue slipping, with spit, on the teeth. I grab my switchblade and open it.[paragraph break]'What the fuck?' Stiffy jumps from the bed and raises his hands in a feeble gesture of innocence. His whore screams.". Instead of opening the northern door when in ghastly hallway: try going north. Instead of opening the outside door when in ghastly hallway: try going south. Instead of listening when in ghastly hallway: if identified-stiffy is true: say "I can hear them! I can hear them beyond that door to the north!"; if identified-stiffy is false and heard-noise is true: say "What did I hear? Yes, there it is again, a woman's voice behind the door to the north, gasping, moaning, and crying out the name of her lover: 'Stiffy! Stiffy!'[paragraph break]Stiffy? [bold type]Stiffy Makane?[roman type] Here?[paragraph break]I tremble with rage and I tremble with joy. Vengeance will be mine!"; now identified-stiffy is true; if heard-noise is false: say "I hear the sounds of sex. That is to be expected.". Chapter - Other hooker's room Other hooker's room is a room. "The screaming harlot on the bed can be safely ignored. This is between me and Stiffy." Instead of going in other hooker's room: say "There is only this room. Only Stiffy and I.". The switchblade is a thing. Understand "knife" as the switchblade. The description of the switchblade is "It was meant for Stiffy, and on Stiffy will it be used.". Instead of dropping the switchblade: say "I am not looking for a fair fight.". Instead of inserting the switchblade into something: say "I am not looking for a fair fight.". Instead of putting the switchblade on something: say "I am not looking for a fair fight.". The dirty bed is enterable scenery supporter in other hooker's room. The description of the dirty bed is "I pay no attention to it. I only have eyes for Stiffy.". Instead of entering the dirty bed: say "Unimaginable!". The screaming harlot is a woman. The screaming harlot is on dirty bed. Understand "whore" as the screaming harlot. Instead of doing anything with the screaming harlot: say "I pay no attention to her. This is my showdown with Stiffy.". Stiffy Makane is a man in other hooker's room. "Naked, white and unarmed, Stiffy stands before me." Stiffy's dick is part of Stiffy Makane. Understand "penis" and "manhood" and "moby" and "prick" and "cock" as Stiffy's dick. The description of Stiffy's dick is "His genitals are like those of donkeys and his emission is like that of horses." Instead of cutting or attacking Stiffy's dick: try attacking Stiffy Makane. Instead of kissing or fucking or touching or pulling or eating or squeezing or rubbing Stiffy's dick: try fucking Stiffy Makane. Stiffy's ass is part of Stiffy Makane. Understand "arse" and "butt" and "bottom" and "buttocks" as Stiffy's ass. The description of Stiffy's ass is "The fat-bottomed Stiffy lets it all hang out, in its perverse whiteness." Instead of cutting or attacking Stiffy's ass: try attacking Stiffy Makane. Instead of kissing or fucking or touching or pulling or eating or squeezing or rubbing Stiffy's ass: try fucking Stiffy Makane. The stiffy-counter is a number that varies. The stiffy-counter is 0. Instead of examining Stiffy Makane: if stiffy-counter is 0: do the first stiffy conversation; otherwise if stiffy-counter is 1: do the second stiffy conversation; otherwise: say "'I will cut up your white flesh and make candles of the blubber beneath it!'". Instead of talking to Stiffy Makane: if stiffy-counter is 0: do the first stiffy conversation; otherwise if stiffy-counter is 1: do the second stiffy conversation; otherwise: say "'Do you see this knife? It will be the instrument of your undoing.'". To do the first stiffy conversation: say "'Stiffy!' I hiss. 'For years you have haunted my dreams, as the horrendous symbol of our sexual bondage! All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to me, is visibly personified, and made practically assailable in [bold type]you[roman type].'[paragraph break]'But I haven't done nothing to you!'[paragraph break]'You exist! Upon your fat white hump have I piled the sum of all the rage and hate felt by my whole race from Adam down; and now, as if my chest were a mortar, I will burst my hot heart's shell upon you!'"; increase the stiffy-counter by 1. To do the second stiffy conversation: say "'It is your whiteness chiefly that I hate, Stiffy, the unnatural paleness of your skin. Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation? When I ponder you fucking a healthy maiden, when I think of your huge white cock entering her tanned vulva, the palsied universe lies before me a leper, and I feel its disease infecting my mind. Wonder ye then that ye must die?'[paragraph break]'What the fuck are you talking about, man?' Stiffy weeps, tears streaming down his face. 'Do you want money? My credit card? The girl? You can have her, man!'"; increase the stiffy-counter by 1. Instead of cutting Stiffy Makane: try attacking Stiffy Makane. Instead of throwing the switchblade at Stiffy Makane: try attacking Stiffy Makane. Instead of attacking Stiffy Makane: if stiffy-counter is 0: do the first stiffy conversation; otherwise if stiffy-counter is 1: do the second stiffy conversation; otherwise if stiffy-counter is 2: do the third stiffy conversation; otherwise if stiffy-counter is 3: do the fourth stiffy conversation; otherwise if stiffy-counter is 4: do the fifth stiffy conversation. To do the third stiffy conversation: say "I advance towards him with my knife raised. 'Your joy in sex, Stiffy, your insatiable appetite, your legendary libido -- each of them marks you as the devil's own. How mindlessly you enjoy yourself, unable to see how sinful and depraved you are!'[paragraph break]Makane backs away from the sharp steel.[paragraph break]'But as you have no conscience to torment you, [italic type]I[roman type] will make you pay. Your joyfulness, unpunished, cannot be endured.'"; increase the stiffy-counter by 1. To do the fourth stiffy conversation: say "'Look at me: a man harrowed by sexual demons that dominate his better will. I am imprisoned in this world of flesh, Stiffy, and I absolutely need to escape.'[paragraph break]'Really, man, anything you want! You can have it! Just let me go, OK?'[paragraph break]'Tell me, Makane, how can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, your white flesh is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But [apostrophe]tis enough. You task me; you heap me; in your libido I see outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be your white flesh agent, or be your white flesh principal, I will wreak that hate upon you.'[paragraph break]Stiffy takes a deep breath. 'Come on man, you don't need to do any of this. Lighten up! Let's just enjoy ourselves!' He wiggles his ass enticingly."; increase the stiffy-counter by 1. To do the fifth stiffy conversation: say "Stiffy Makane's diabolical words have no power over me. I step towards him. Seeing what I intend to do, he bolts for the door; but my hand strikes out, and my aim is true.[paragraph break]'Aah!' screams Stiffy, and grabs at his crotch -- but it is too late. In his hands he holds his penis, severed by my vengeful blade.[paragraph break]'Thy pitiless unmanning is most meet!' I shout, and advance once more. But Stiffy does not await my attack; he turns, he runs, and in running, he lets go of the organ that has tortured our imaginations for decades.[paragraph break]Stiffy Makane drops his penis."; end the game saying "I have freed us all from our nightmares of Stiffy!". Instead of fucking Stiffy: if stiffy-counter is less than 4: say "I feel the urge, yes. It is burning in my brain. But I can still withstand it. [italic type]I can still withstand it.[roman type] But for how long? A question better left unasked."; otherwise: say "'Stiffy, you are too strong for me! How can a man resist your magnificent buttocks? I want you, gorgeous boy!'[paragraph break]With a big grin on his face, Stiffy presents his white ass to me. The switchblade drops from my powerless hand as my cock once again takes control of my body. 'Stiffy!' I cry, with equal measures of lust and despair.[paragraph break]And I enter him, and I come, and then he enters me, and he comes, and then the two whores join in, just for fun, and for hours all of us boil in a cauldron of lust.[paragraph break]This was my one chance of salvation, and I have blown it."; end the game saying "Once again I succumbed to temptation.". Instead of cutting or attacking the manhood: say "I will not unman myself.". Section - Manifesto final question Table of Final Question Options (continued) final question wording only if victorious topic final response rule final response activity "read the MANIFESTO" false "manifesto" show manifesto rule -- This is the show manifesto rule: try asking for help. Chapter - Manifesto Understand "menu" and "manifesto" and "about" and "info" and "hint" and "hints" and "copyright" and "essay" and "insight" and "insights" and "pray" and "prayer" and "analysis" and "analyse" and "analyze" and "tract" and "sermon" and "credits" as asking for help. The help request rule is not listed in any rulebook. Help-asked is a truth state that varies. Help-asked is false. Every turn when help-asked is false: if a random chance of 1 in 5 succeeds: say "(SPECIAL MESSAGE: [manifesto advertisement] [manifesto command])[line break][paragraph break]" To say manifesto advertisement: let n be a random number between 1 and 5; if n is 1: say "Please, do not forget to read the accompanying essay![run paragraph on]"; if n is 2: say "The manifesto [italic type]Art Against Sex[roman type] is en essential part of this game![run paragraph on]"; if n is 3: say "To partake of the author's inmost thoughts, please read the enclosed tract.[run paragraph on]"; if n is 4: say "This game is only half of a torn page; the other half is the analysis of [italic type]Stiffy Makane[roman type] which I have provided for your edification.[run paragraph on]"; if n is 5: say "Sinner! Yes, I'm talking to you, dear player. You should absolutely go and read my uplifting sermon, because the angels tell me you haven't done so yet.[run paragraph on]";. To say manifesto command: say "You can access it by typing '[one of]manifesto[or]about[or]info[or]essay[or]insights[or]pray[or]menu[or]help[or]analysis[or]analyse[or]tract[or]sermon[at random]'.[run paragraph on]". Carry out asking for help: now help-asked is true; now the current menu is the Table of Kerkerkruip Help; now the current menu title is "NEMESIS MACANA: Art Against Sex"; carry out the displaying activity; clear the screen; try looking; stop the action. Table of Kerkerkruip Help title subtable description toggle "Introduction" -- "[introduction]" -- "The expense of spirit" -- "[expense of spirit]" "Art against sex" -- "[art against sex]" "The early history of interactive fiction" -- "[early history]" "Independent erotica" -- "[independent erotica]" "Digression on my girlfriend" -- "[digression]" "Longing for innocence: Stiffy Makane" -- "[longing]" "The further adventures of Stiffy" -- "[further adventures]" "Nemesis Macana" -- "[nemesis]" "Conclusion" -- "[conclusion]" "About the author" -- "[author]" "Credits" -- "[Testers]" To say introduction: say "[italic type]The Incredible Erotic Adventures of Stiffy Makane[roman type] (1997) is the best work of interactive fiction written to date. Many will be tempted to regard this claim as a bad joke, pointless and perhaps even wilfully perverse. But they are wrong, as the rest of my manifesto will prove.[paragraph break]I do not blame those who do not like [italic type]Stiffy Makane[roman type]. For many years my own opinion was identical to that of the masses. I too heaped contempt upon a game so cheaply pornographic, so shoddy in its implementation, so devoid of all the higher virtues of the spirit. I considered it utterly unworthy of my attention.[paragraph break]But then something happened that radically changed my views. In the spring of 2011, Adam Thornton released an unofficial sequel to [italic type]Stiffy Makane[roman type] called [italic type]Mentula Macanus: Apocolocyntosis[roman type]. This game was amusing, it was smart, and I enjoyed it greatly. But that wasn't what made it important (which can be seen from the fact that those claims are all true about my girlfriend as well, who is not, as far as I can see, important in the greater scheme of things). No, what made the release of [italic type]Apocolocyntosis[roman type] such a momentous event was that this game retained, behind all its amusing adventures and intellectual smartness, a glimmer of the splendour of the original; only a glimmer, but that could be seen by my eye, whereas [italic type]Stiffy[roman type]'s light was so bright that we were all blinded by it.[paragraph break]Is Adam Thornton just the result of the brute random swerving of atoms, or was he placed on this Earth by some benign cosmic force? We may never know (and who, this late in history, can still believe in divine intervention?), but for me his work was a revelation. After playing Thornton's game, I began to be able see [italic type]The Incredible Erotic Adventures of Stiffy Makane[roman type] the way they have to be seen.[paragraph break]Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror. Seeing [italic type]Stiffy Makane[roman type] was both beauty and terror, and my soul filled with gratitude and sorrow. Gratitude, for I had been shown Heaven. Sorrow, because I now know that I am not worthy to enter.[paragraph break]Let me show you what I have seen. The fate of your soul may depend on it." To say expense of spirit: say "The spirit is life, and the body is death. This simple truth the world well knows; it is the universal gnosticism, the common core of all religions, all philosophies, all spirituality. But does this knowledge make it any easier for us not to be seduced by carnal pleasures? Look around you, or look inside you, and you will know the answer. Every day of our lives we betray what is best in us and hurl ourselves headlong into the bottomless perdition that is the flesh.[paragraph break]Let me be blunt: sex is death. Who of us has not known the rush of erotic pleasure, alone or in company, that crescendo of feeling leading upwards and upwards and ever upwards until we feel that the doors into Heaven itself are within reach and are being opened for us? They are being opened, we step through, experience the divine bliss of orgasm -– and at that very moment of bliss, our soul plunges horribly downwards and crashes on a plain of despair. We lie back on the bed, sticky with our own semen or that of others. We are spent and wasted. Our spirit has not been rejuvenated; it is, on the contrary, completely exhausted.[paragraph break]And, alas, no second coming will help. Sex is death, sex remains death, sex will always be death, and yet we can never resist the promise of Heaven that leads us to this Hell. Even though we know it destroys all that is good in us, we remain the all-too-willing slaves of sex.". To say art against sex: say "We are the willing slaves of sex; but are we, by Cock, to blame? [bracket]1[close bracket] The sex drive lives in every cell of our being, in those of the new-born babe as surely as in those of the full-grown and horny adult. We have never been innocent, and so cannot be blamed for falling. But what comfort is that for those living in Hell? If anything, it increases our despair, for there is no Paradise that we can hope to return to.[paragraph break]And yet there is hope. There is a chance of salvation, and this chance comes in the form of art, as Schopenhauer and Nietzsche have taught us. The pure enjoyment of art can make us forget our burning desires. Art fortifies us in our desperate fight against the dark god of sex, and allows us to withstand the song of his sirens. Art can be the wax in our ears.[paragraph break]Which form of art is best suited to free us from our erotic bondage? It must be an art of the word: music, painting, theatre and film are all much too sensual to truly stimulate spiritual purity. Poetry, then? Its rhythmic meters are too reminiscent of the sexual act. Philosophy? It is the traditional candidate, but during the past century its attempts to penetrate Being have been unmasked as expressions of naked male lust. That leaves us with fiction, interactive and static. And it is of course interactive fiction that must be given the crown, since only IF can make us feel disgust not only at [italic type]witnessing[roman type] copulation, but at [italic type]enacting[roman type] it. IF, then, is our prime weapon in the fight against sex.[paragraph break]Thus, interactive fiction is the greatest and most important of art forms, a fact of which the world is sadly ignorant. Has the full potential of the medium already been reached? That is our next question.[paragraph break][bracket]1[close bracket] William Shakespeare, [italic type]Hamlet[roman type], IV.5.". To say early history: say "[early history part 1][early history part 2]". To say early history part 1: say "Nothing amazes me more than the early works of interactive fiction. One must think of the cultural context. Don Woods wrote [italic type]Adventure[roman type] (1977) in the year that also saw [italic type]Song of Solomon[roman type]'s birth and Nabokov's death; Scott Adams coded up [italic type]Adventureland[roman type] (1978) while Bergman filmed [italic type]Autumn Sonata[roman type] and Polanski inserted his dick into a small girl; [italic type]Zork[roman type] hit shelves that had been displaying [italic type]London Calling[roman type] and [italic type]The Wall[roman type] just a few months before. We would, therefore, expect to find these games filled with alienation, depression, sexual guilt and political anger –- the fitting expressions of a decade that had turned the summer of love into a winter of hate.[paragraph break]But no! One finds caves filled with fantasy characters straight from children's cartoons. There are neither politics nor history; relationships and emotions are absent. There is violence, but devoid of all real-world connotations. Most conspicuous by its absence is sex. Bizarrely, the protagonists of these games [italic type]are not even assigned a determinate gender[roman type], a truly revolutionary literary device. Never before had writers been so determined to ignore the erotic that they chose to dispense with the man/woman distinction![paragraph break]Woods, Adams, Micklus, Lebling, Blank – how did they [italic type]do[roman type] it? At night I lie awake pondering this question as my girlfriend lies snoring beside me. How did these authors get themselves into a mindset where they could sit behind their computers and design games as if Derrida had never written? [bracket]1[close bracket] How could they, and how could their early audiences, accept stories set in that pre-sexual childhood which even the most cursory reading of Freud and Lacan shows us to be nothing but bourgeois mythology? Surely they too must have understood, if only implicitly, that we cannot simply retrace our steps and find Paradise waiting? That we cannot return to Eden just by closing our eyes? [bracket]2[close bracket][paragraph break]" To say early history part 2: say "Indeed, these games prove the impossibility of such a project. Believing themselves to be free from the dark god of sex, the early implementers were in fact doing his work with every word that they wrote. For what is [italic type]Adventure[roman type] but the story of someone penetrating into the dark caves of mother Earth while waving a magic rod? And what is [italic type]Zork[roman type] but the same, except that the rod has been replaced by a sword?[paragraph break]But most blatant of all is Scott Adams's [italic type]Adventureland[roman type]. When this game starts up, it says 'I'm your puppet. Give me English commands.' Never have repressed sadistic lusts betrayed themselves more clearly. And why did Adams and his players continue to use the two word parser, even though better parsing was technically feasible? The answer is obvious: because the two word parser so closely modelled a conversation with a submissive Filipina au pair. 'I be your puppet, mister. Give me commands.' Who could possibly need more than two words?[paragraph break]To conclude. In its inability or unwillingness to confront sexuality, early interactive fiction did not become free of it. On the contrary, it was helplessly ensnared in its clutches. The immense artistic potential of IF could not come to fruition until authors dared to break the silence and face up to the horror of the erotic. With one or two exceptions -– [italic type]Softporn Adventure[roman type] (1981), [italic type]Leather Godesses of Phobos[roman type] (1986) -– this had to wait until the independent era. To which we now, reluctantly, turn.[paragraph break][bracket]1[close bracket] Jacques Derrida, [italic type]Of Grammatology[roman type] (original French published in 1967).[paragraph break][bracket]2[close bracket] Perhaps it was just the spirit of 1977, that bleak year in which Terry Brooks published [italic type]The Sword of Shannara[roman type] and 'fantasy' started to mean 'unimaginative Tolkien-derived black-and-white morality tale'. But the less said about that dreary subject, the better.". To say independent erotica: say "[independent erotica part 1][independent erotica part 2][independent erotica part 3]". To say independent erotica part 1: say "When independent interactive fiction rose in the mid-nineties, authors consciously started to use sex as a subject and a design tool. Nelson's seminal [italic type]Curses[roman type] (1993) was perhaps not entirely typical: indebted to T. S. Eliot, that enervate Origen, [italic type]Curses[roman type] hardly mentioned the mechanics of human procreation -– at least not explicitly. But it did not hide its sexual preoccupations from the more discerning reader. The story is about an attempt to penetrate the secrets of ancestors (every reader of Freud knows what that means) using a large assortment of rods (the meaning of which even the illiterate can decipher). Thus, while [italic type]Curses[roman type] is hardly rancid compared to games written even a few years later, few people will have played it with two hands on the keyboard; and it clearly paved the way for the overt pornography that was to become the standard of the decades to follow.[paragraph break]As is common in porn, the product was quickly diversified to cater to all tastes and kinks. Cadre's [italic type]I-0[roman type] (1997) was written for the barely-legal crowd, while also satisfying those yearning for a bit of spoiled-rich-girl-gets-what-is-coming-to-her quasi-rape fantasy. Gentry's [italic type]Anchorhead[roman type] (1998) supplied the masses with the ever-popular housewives and tentacles. Gays and lesbians had to wait surprisingly long: they got their satisfaction in Short's [italic type]Savoir-Faire[roman type] (2002), with its magic system that so symbolically 'links like to like'. For the British, culturally conditioned to dream about Eton boys in tight shorts, the community produced the early and somewhat tame [italic type]Christminster[roman type] (Rees, 1995) and the later and more daring [italic type]Rameses[roman type] (Bond, 2000).[paragraph break]" To say independent erotica part 2: say "In a few cases, the sexual content of a game was a little harder to discern. For instance, Plotkin's[italic type] Spider and Web[roman type] (1998) can be seen as an asexual spy tale. But the cognoscenti quickly recognised that the game's celebrated central puzzle culminates in an ejaculation that dissolves all restraints (the bonds holding back the protagonist are of course meant to be identified with the hymen stopping the male semen from reaching its goal). The vast majority of games, however, did not require an esoteric reading. All players of Short's [italic type]Galatea[roman type] (2000) will have understood their interactions with the eponymous heroine as an act of erotic seduction. The highly praised [italic type]Earth and Sky[roman type] series took most of its immediate sensual power from the incestuous relation between its protagonists. (A relation that we must necessarily assume to exist between a brother and sister totemically identified with Gaia and Ouranos, the gods whose carnal coupling started Creation. [bracket]1[close bracket]) And of course only the most naïve could read Plotkin's [italic type]Shade[roman type] (2000) as anything but an extended allegory of atrophic vaginitis and the sexual problems it causes.[paragraph break]". To say independent erotica part 3: say "These games, then, portrayed sex in all its aspects. But to what purpose? Was it to inspire horror of fornication in the player, and allow him to express this horror through a resounding rejection of bodily lusts? Alas, no! The message of these games was quite different. Fornicate! Breed! Penetrate or be penetrated; impregnate or conceive; give yourself over to absolute pleasure; and swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh! Instead of turning interactive fiction into a form of art that releases us from our mental imprisonment, the independent games turned every typed command into further bondage to the dark god. With every word on the screen, his erotic nightmares became a firmer part of our lives.[paragraph break]And we took it for granted. We believed that enslavement to sex was just part of being an adult, was, in fact, the essence of adulthood -– a belief now codified into the very meaning of the English word 'adult'. It seemed like we were doomed forever. But astonishingly, our saviour was already among us, only we knew him not.[paragraph break][bracket]1[close bracket] As far as I know, only the Hebrews devised a non-sexual origin for the world. It remains to be seen whether they were more pure than their neighbours, or only more misogynistic; the two are not always equivalent.". To say digression: say "At this point the reader may have thought that I advocate total sterility, that I want the ancient pulse of germ and birth to shrink and disappear. That, at least, is the line of argument my girlfriend usually takes when we lie in bed on Sunday morning, quietly reading and unwilling to get up and face life. 'It's not that the sex is so important to me,' she says, 'but this way we'll never get children!' I then explain to her that I am not opposed to children being born, although I consider the 'being born' aspect of it rather disgusting and an irrational way of going about it. It is only intercourse I object to, and since it has become technically possible to achieve fertilisation without having sex, there is no reason we cannot have children. I conclude by saying that if she really wants to, we will go to the hospital.[paragraph break]Most often that is when she starts to cry. I hug her tightly, for let it be known that I do not object to hugging, when practiced with moderation. Predictably, my manly hugs have a soothing effect on her. After a few minutes she embraces me, smooths her hair, and finally asks me to grab Mr. Shakespear from under the bed. We then both rejoice in the Bard, and harmony is restored.[paragraph break]It is harder for women. They are so physical." To say longing: say "[longing part 1][longing part 2]". To say longing part 1: say "Let us return to my story. While all of us IF authors were bowing to the sexual monolith, one brave soul stood up and sought for a way out, for a way to return to the innocence and the purity that pre-dated the Fall. He may not have understood his own intentions. It is conceivable, it is even probable, that Mark Ryan (for such was his name) never realised that he was writing anything but cheap pornography. But conscious intentions are perfectly irrelevant. Ryan's unconsciousness wrought a scene so astounding that it moves me to tears every time I think about it.[paragraph break]We start up and play [italic type]The Incredible Erotic Adventures of Stiffy Makane[roman type]. The protagonist is Stiffy, the sex-mad Stiffy, the Stiffy whose whole life has been spent in orgiastic revelry and (far more often) the frantic and desperate search for such revelry, the Stiffy who has been in spiritual (and not infrequently physical) bondage for longer than he can remember, for so long that he does not truly remember that any other existence is possible. What hope could there possibly be for a creature so depraved and benighted? Who would be less likely to be saved than he?[paragraph break]But one malefactor was saved, and the Lord comes as a thief in the night. In the middle of the dark night of his sins Stiffy suddenly realises his predicament. He decides, in the space of a heartbeat, to act on his one chance of salvation, and attempts to renounce sexuality through the first action that comes into his mind, an action as symbolic as it is passionate, as moving as it is naïve. Stiffy Makane drops his penis.[paragraph break]" To say longing part 2: say "I will not claim that this is the highest moment of Western art. But it partakes of that infinitely touching quality that we only find in art that expresses emotion without being artful -– the quality we find in the earliest plainchant, in the sculpture of Adam and Eve shrinking away from God on the doors of the Hildesheim cathedral, in that amazing picture of the man embracing two bulls on the lyre of Ur. Its naivety paradoxically conquers our cynicism, and for a moment we believe in the reality of universal love. A feeling stirs in our heart, a feeling which we had thought long dead; and the fact that it lives, that it still lives despite everything, despite all that the world has done to us and all that we have done to the world, that fact fills us with a hope we cannot call anything but divine.[paragraph break]Stiffy Makane drops his penis! And this highest moment of interactive fiction has been understood [italic type]as a programming error[roman type]? The masses have derided it as a failure of implementation? Surely the devil has never pulled a more successful trick, turning us around at the very moment that the door to salvation swung open![paragraph break]But the devil was not entirely successful. If he had had his way, [italic type]The Incredible Erotic Adventures of Stiffy Makane[roman type] would now be lost forever; failing that, it would sit in a dark corner of the IF Archive, forever unplayed. But one man saw that the game was special; one man felt his imagination drawn to it again and again; and that one man, by keeping the Stiffy saga alive, saved Mark Ryan's creation from oblivion. That man was Adam Thornton." To say further adventures: say "[further adventures part 1][further adventures part 2]". To say further adventures part 1: say "Only Adam Thornton, of all who played the original incredible erotic adventures, felt something stirring in his heart. He did not know what it was. He had no name for it. But he spent the next fifteen years trying to find out. In 1997, he released [italic type]Stiffy Makane: Mystery Science Theatre 3000[roman type] –- a trivial parody, but in drawing attention to the original game it was already a blow against the dark god. In 2001, Thornton followed this up with [italic type]Stiffy Makane: The Undiscovered Country[roman type]. Exposing the shallowness of sexuality and showing us the horror of antler jobs, this piece of faux-pornography did a serviceable job of exciting revulsion rather than delight, which was, is and will always be the aim of true art.[paragraph break]But Thornton's real contribution to the history of interactive fiction, and to history in general, is his 2011 game [italic type]Mentula Macanus: Apocolocyntosis[roman type]. His first stroke of genius was to draw on the ancient authors, on Petronius Arbiter's [italic type]Satyricon[roman type] in particular. The ancients should be our models, for while freely wrote about sex, they never extolled it. From the red-tipped leather phalli of Aristophanes to the leather phallus of –- but no, we should let Petronius speak for himself:[paragraph break][italic type]Oenothea took out a leather phallus, which she proceeded to coat with oil, ground pepper, and crushed nettle seeds. Gradually, she inserted it into my anus...[roman type][paragraph break]This ritual is performed to break the curse of the sex god Priapus, the curse which has made the protagonist of the [italic type]Satyricon[roman type] impotent. [bracket]1[close bracket] Oh, if only he could have cherished that impotence! But that was one step too far for Petronius, who was a better prose writer than Mark Ryan but had far less insight into the human condition. This, of course, dooms Thornton's work as well. Like Petronius, he has learned to laugh about sex, and he teaches us this essential skill. That is the value of his work. But he cannot take that final step, from laughing to hating, from trivialising the erotic to understanding it as the essence of death. That is the step taken only by Mark Ryan and, before him, by the divine William Shakespeare.[paragraph break]". To say further adventures part 2: say "But despite this failing, [italic type]Mentula Macanis[roman type] is brilliant. It forces us to look at sexuality with eyes that the modern world does not otherwise supply. It surely proves something that even jaded hedonist Sam Kabo Ashwell could not help but be moved by Thornton's game, and made a sequel of sorts with [italic type]The Cavity of Time[roman type]. Ashwell presumably did not understand the deeper meaning of his own motivations, but he did allude to Angela Carter's [italic type]The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman[roman type], a dark book that tricked its pro-sex author into making a beautiful statement against the erotic. This allusion is not without significance. Nothing is, for those who have learned to read the signs -- and in them shall we conquer.[paragraph break]Thornton's second stroke of genius: making literary influence his theme. Thornton intuitively grasped that the spiritual analogy to procreation is influence; he understood that our true sons and daughters are not those born of our flesh, but those born of our books. His hyper-sexual world is animated by the antithesis of sex, or better, by that of which sex is but the crude parody. Our relations to our literary, religious and philosophical parents form the ideal reality of which our up-and-down movements in the bedroom are the most imperfect copies that can be imagined. By contrasting sex and literary influence, Thornton laughed at death and showed us life in the same instant.[paragraph break]His work was not perfect. It did not contain anything as powerful as the penis-dropping scene of the original Stiffy. It did not explicitly warn us about sex, and it did not allow us to strike a blow at our enemy. But it opened my eyes, and set me on the path which I walk today. For that I am eternally grateful.[paragraph break][bracket]1[close bracket] Marian Mnemosyne, 'Roles of Priapus in the Pornography of Imperial Rome' (2006).". To say nemesis: say "[nemesis part 1][nemesis part 2]". To say nemesis part 1: say "We come into the world and find ourselves in a hissing cauldron of lust. We have not yet fallen in love, but we feel the urge to do so, and we cast around for something -– anything! -– that might become our love's object. If only we were better choosers! We could choose our own soul; we could choose the souls of our fellow men. Even the most wretched of them would be worthy of all the love we could give. But instead we choose our car, our bank account, sexual pleasure, a pair of big boobs. And thus we enter Hell, and don't even notice it; for the longer we abstain from spiritual food, the less savoury it comes to seem. We live in fire and yet we are denied the light... we are burning, always burning, and our only language is a cry: please, God, please, pluck me out! [paragraph break]But if God does not pluck, we must pluck ourselves. I have already stated the means: interactive fiction. I have stated the goal: to make people aware of the horror that is sex. And I have stated the inspiration: Stiffy Makane. All that was left was for me to put my words into action. Should I make art or make love? [bracket]1[close bracket] After a lifetime of the latter, I was finally strong enough to choose art.[paragraph break]And thus [italic type]Nemesis Macana[roman type] was born. This game exposes Eros, and allows us to attack Stiffy, who allegorically stands for sex itself. (But wasn't Stiffy saved? Well -- who knows? One malefactor was damned.) Our attack on Stiffy will not kill him –- none of us is strong enough to conquer the sexual urge. But even an unsuccessful attack is defiance. If the fires of lust strike back in response and consume us, we can then be ashes.[paragraph break]". To say nemesis part 2: say "I took my language from the greatest of writers. I took my title, if not from [italic type]the[roman type] Satyricon, at least from [italic type]a[roman type] Satyricon. I took the story from my own experiences in the brothels of London, my adoptive home, from all my misadventures in the shadows of the phallic Big Ben and Cleopatra's needle (stolen from the Egyptians in a fit of culture-wide penis envy). London -– a city I have traversed so many nights wondering when it all will start falling down...[paragraph break][italic type]Nemesis Macana[roman type] is a work doomed to failure. The love of sex that has been instilled in you cannot be removed by my words, not even where they were plagiarised from Shakespeare and Melville and the bishop of Hippo. I cannot save you. I cannot even save myself. Yes, as I write these words, these very words, my right hand attempts to get to my mouse, to open my browser, to click on the buttons that will take me to my favourite porn sites... to go to that hidden directory on my hard drive... to open a terminal and see whether the torrents have already finished... to unbutton my trousers... every second of my waking life the dark god whispers in my ear, and at the end of the day, after my good morning's hatred of Satan and my afternoon of evangelism, I will succumb once again to an evening of vice and a night of despair... when my girlfriend has gone to bed, I will kneel down before my master and take his huge cock deep into my throat, while I take my own in my fist... spiritual freedom is still so far away, and how certain can I be that I really do want it?[paragraph break][bracket]1[close bracket] As if fucking were a constructive activity! Ha ha ha!". To say conclusion: say "Let me use this conclusion to express the hope that my message has reached you. I know only too well how impotent words are even in the hands of a skilled writer. But perhaps some of you will have heard me, and perhaps one or two will be inspired to preach my message, and maybe your voices will reach farther than mine.[paragraph break]If at any point I have sounded critical or derogatory, if I seem to have expressed a low opinion of any of our fine authors and authoresses, I take it back with the sincerest apologies. Certainly, I have claimed that they failed at the only project that matters, and in failing have prolonged the reign of the dark god of sex. Yes. But I do not blame them for their failure. The task is difficult, and who of us has succeeded? Was success even a real possibility? One cannot, after all, [italic type]choose[roman type] to be among the elect.[paragraph break]I understand your plight perfectly, brothers and sisters, for I too am corruption and ashes. And I love each and every one of you. I love you from the depths of my heart, and if there is also lust in my love, and there is -- please do forgive me.". To say author: say "Herman Schudspeer (1975) studied English literature and theology at the University of Exeter. He embarked on a PhD project titled 'Shakespeare's Sex and Foucault's Phallus', but was forced to abandon it due to political opposition in the faculty. For fear of reprisals, no journal has dared to publish his revolutionary theories, but he does not despair, for Truth is great and will prevail. Herman Schudspeer currently lives with his girlfriend in London, where he has a well-paying position at an internationally renowned financial firm. He is active in the Church of England.". To say testers: say "[italic type]Nemesis Macana[roman type] was tested by Adam Thornton and Jimmy Maher. Do not hold this against them. If the game is savage, extreme, rude and cruel, they are not to blame; only I, Herman Schudspeer, deserve your censure; and the man who created me, Victor Gijsbers."