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Big Guy

The author, James Patrick Kelly.

Big Guy is a 1994 science fiction short story written by James Patrick Kelley, originally published in the June 1994 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction. It is about a man, Murph, who engages in fetish activity on a virtual reality server.

Setting

The story takes place in a futuristic Kansas. Within the story, people spend vast amounts of money connecting to online servers, called haunts, using customizable avatars, called heroes.

Plot

Murph is a security operative on a large ship, watching security cameras located in all of the ship's rooms to prevent incursions and suicides. He boasts the lowest incursion rate and the only suicide rate of 0%. As he watches the cameras, he collects money, allowing him to spend a few hours connecting to a virtual server run by "Way Out." On this server, he frequently engages in virtual sex with a person named Cat, whom he believes to be a woman living on his ship. He does so through his avatar, Big Guy.

The story begins with him finishing his security shift. He orders a potato, which is brought to him by a 13-year-old girl. When the girl sticks her hand through a door flap to hand it to him, he examines her hand, noticing how elegant it is. He reminisces about his childhood, noting the fact that children still sleep 7 hours a night and attend school for most of the day, while he only sleeps 14 hours a week, with very scattered amounts of "free time."

He decides that he wants to have sex with Cat in person and erases the penis from Big Guy's character model. He then joins the server which includes a series of portals within Way Out's avatar's mouth. Cat calls him through her portal and he realizes that there is another man with her, an avatar named Shiva, owned by a doctor living in the city proper (rather than the boat). Shiva is frightened and logs off when Cat asks him what the patients' bodies smell like when they're cut open. Cat and Big Guy then begin engaging sexually. Cat realizes that his penis has been erased, at which point Murph tells her his intentions. Cat agrees to the plan, but says she needs to know what he tastes like first; Cat's avatar then begins eating Big Guy, which pleasures Murph masochistically. The avatar then dies and Murph awakes into reality. Realizing that Cat will show up at his door, he calls his colleague and tells him to watch over his room as he opens his door blindly, without checking his cameras to see what Cat's real-life counterpart looks like first. The story then ends abruptly.

Nominations

"Big Guy" was nominated for three awards: The 1994 Tiptree/Otherwise award for "Genre-Bending SF," and the "Best Short Story" category in both the 1995 Locus and Hugo awards.