Lillani's Second Life empire enables sad lonely avatars to introduce some fireworks into their lives, in more ways than one. For starters, there's Lasertech, the showroom of particle machines, creating bursts of energy and light that fill the sky like shells above Al Basrah. But that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Because Lillani also spends her time designing devices and restraints for those residents who escape the shackles of their humdrum lives by wearing even more in their virtual world. Before we entered the house, she'd taken me on a brief tour of her showroom, the Dictatorship, a personal guide through a museum of consensual torture.

I've never understood the master/servant schtick. No doubt most secretly men crave an obedient love slave - haven't we talked about this before? But as I watch Lillani's supporters amass outside her window, one half standing proud while the other kneels obediently, tethered by chains to their owners, my stomach turns.

When Lillani isn't there, I fuck with them mercilessly, urging emancipation to the slaves, to throw off their chains and overthrow their captors. But then I realize, we're all prisoners here, whether on leashes or in glass boxes, and I am in no place to judge. So I let them be. Besides, without doubt, Lillani is not only a good bet for the title, she's also the coolest broad in here, without doubt. And as she curls up into her chair, her head bowing, her raven hair falling to cover her face, my heart skips its beat, and I die just a little.

Across the courtyard, the girls in room $$$$ begin their gyrations, a Tony performance on strippers pole, flirty fishing for votes. Lillani snorts disgustedly. While she's not above using sex to further her aims - her dominion has a huge "Free Sex Area" to pull in the punters" - she swears that she'll win Big Brother without losing her leather catsuit. And I smile, and think to myself, I wondered when the challenges would begin.

OH, AND I'M NOT GETTING MANY VOTES, PEOPLE. WHERE THE HELL IS EVERYONE?