You know, I finally realized what's really going on in this game: it takes place in Hell. Evidence:
1) Tony and Anne eat the same thing during every meal timeframe. Steak, "mashed potatoes" with "gravy," and a salad if he's alone, pizza if he's not. He will comment on it every time, and be forced to examine both his full plate and his empty plate. Anne will explain how much she loves waffles every time she eats them for breakfast, even if it's only been twenty-four hours since she said the same thing. Tony can sometimes visit a diner, which would typically feature an expansive menu, but he'll order the same thing every single time. Whether or not he's receiving a blowjob while he eats.
2) No matter what time of the day he works, no matter how many days or weeks have passed since the beginning of the game, according to his computer it's always Friday, 10 July at 10:29 (one presumes a.m., since this is set in Vancouver). He is shown that screen, unless he's on "vacation" (which comes with its own relentless repetition) as a grim reminder that he cannot escape his eternal damnation. Often, he is "getting a little more work done before supper," which he apparently begins preparing at 10:30 a.m. He will eat his supper, wait for Anne's text or call if she's away, usually fail to receive that communication, and fall asleep for the night, which in Hellcouver appears to begin before noon. I mean, it is somewhat northerly, but c'mon...
3) Both of them, but especially Tony, are relentlessly confronted by hovering white text against a black background telling them exactly how many minutes, or hours, have passed since their last physical or verbal activity, no matter how inane that activity was. Even if that's staring at a computer monitor that never changes, or a plate that never changes...or a drowsy wife who is too tired for sex, whether or not she's had it that day, and whether or not it's technically not yet noon. Time has passed...so much time has passed...and yet, it's still Friday, 10 July at 10:29 a.m. It's always Friday, 10 July at 10:29 a.m. And it always will be. The floaty numbers not only lie, they're deliberate cruelty.
4) Any time a character says "we should do this again tomorrow," they will be unable to meet that expectation. This is a world of unfulfilled promises and empty hopes. In other words, Hell.
5) Anne has to go. I don't mean to the bathroom, or that she must exit the narrative, I mean that she has to leave the apartment and be somewhere, anywhere, else. Thus leaving Tony alone in his Luciferian nightmare, contemplating the emptiness of his existence and the pointlessness of his choices. Sure, he can perv on the ladies at the gym/beach, call Nicole over for a "no, really, this is the absolute last time" booty call, or even go bang Elena...whose very existence seems unlikely, given that most people who meet in line at a coffee shop don't fly across half a continent for an uncertain chance to fuck that person. (Again witness Tony's fervent but fruitless hopes, manifesting in the realm of the impossible, yet shattering against the cold impenetrability of reality.) But Nicole's over (for now), Elena's got an emergency at home, and the girls at the gym/beach only respond to his perving if they have blue hair, after which they promptly forget about his existence, and he about theirs. He no longer has the self-will (or perhaps the money) to hire masseuses, despite his early success rate. He should hire some equally imaginary hot programmers, just to see what happens.
6) Time has no meaning, for either of them. "Let's try again tomorrow" could mean next week, next month, or never, but it most definitely does not, and never will, mean tomorrow.
7) Sex will never take precedence over the need for a shower or breakfast. If the couple intends to watch TV, or a movie, and that experience does not manifest, they will never replace that activity or fill that time with intimacy. Anne will be "too tired to have sex" after having sex, but she will be just as "too tired to have sex" after not having sex. I'm sure there's some sort of Greek paradox that explains this. Or maybe a very horny Werner Heisenberg could manage a theory. Tony will grow increasingly frustrated about it, but he will never be given an opportunity to share this frustration with his wife, because (ref. point 5): Anne Has To Go.
8) Tony will always announce his imminent intention to do something banal. Since he's almost always by himself, he's obviously talking to himself. Tony talks to himself a lot. More, I think, than seems healthy. One wonders if anyone else in the game actually exists, or if they're only figments of a repetitive erotic imagination in which there's not actually a real person named Anne. Perhaps she's a cam model to whom he pays enormous sums to act out his fantasies, but then again not that many cam models are always online at 10:29 a.m. on Friday, 10 July.
9) Tony has a very large cock, by any reasonable standard, yet unless the "no of course they're not shotas, why do you ask?" reappear, everyone in his Hellscape is bigger than him, often notably so. Moreover, they all have more stamina than him; old men can go five, six times over the course of an evening, whereas Tony is strictly one-and-done, no matter who he's with. His entire life is a statistical impossibility.
I believe I've proved my point. Tony is in Hell. Maybe Anne's in there with him, maybe she's not. But as Georgina Spelvin proved so many years ago (probably at 10:29 a.m. on Friday, 10 July, 1973), she's going to be given a much more enthusiastic welcome than he will.
