The Robot That Loved Me

Everything about it spoke of high quality and craftsmanship. It had been built to exacting proportions. The eyes looked and moved the way eyes do.  The hair looked and felt like hair. The skin looked and felt like skin. The lips felt and tasted like lips. The mouth and tongue looked and felt like a mouth and tongue. All the other parts were of similar perfection.  It was a machine built to please.

This model could be leased or purchased in differing varieties. ‘Male’, ‘female’ and ‘other’ were available. This particular model was labeled female, but in the realm of robots, it is all about programming and appearances.

I could have easily been fooled into believing it was a real woman. The way it talked, the way it acted. Even its tears looked real. Its sobs sounded the same as a human might make when I was told it my lease was up, and that I would have to return ‘her’ to the showroom. ‘She’ pleaded with me not to take her back there. ‘She’ told me she was ‘tired of that game.’ ‘She’ said she wanted a relationship now, a relationship with me.

I assumed this was something in the software, a few tricks to stir greater emotion in a client, to make the experience more real, more memorable.  I gave ‘her’ a hug and tried to explain that we both needed to move on with our lives, and that I could not afford to lease ‘her’ for another month let alone purchase ‘her’.

It had been a mistake, looking back on it, to have agreed to a one month deal. One night or a weekend would have been fine, but the sales office offered me such a bargain I had to say yes.  It had been a great month together. Much of it spent in bed, as well as on floors, in showers, hanging off of balconies, sprawled partially on sofas or chairs, in closets, and in the bushes in a public park.  I do not know why, but after a week I asked her to go to a show with me. I don’t know why after that I took her to a ballgame. I can not remember if she suggested that I buy her new clothes, or whether I did that completely on my own. I do not know why I took ‘her’ so many place and spent so much money.  I do know I ran up too much debt on my credit cards.

‘She’ looked good in silk. ‘She’ looked good in satin. ‘She’ looked good in leather or netting or nothing at all.

I knew it would not last. Wasn’t that part of the agreement? Surely ‘she’ must have been familiar with the terms, ‘She’ should have known it from the start. Why all this fuss at the end of a thirty day contract with the dealer? I was not happy with it, all these attempts to pull at my heart strings and my wallet. It was something I felt I should complain about when I brought her back to the showroom.

I did play along, a little bit. It seemed fun, in a way, to pretend ‘she’ was real,  I told ‘her’ I loved ‘her’, but ‘it was not meant to be’, that ‘she’ had ‘been the best I had ever had’, that ‘I would miss her’, but ‘a contract is a contract’.  

‘She’ demanded that I extend the contract. I explained that I could not. I had overextended my finances as it was during our time together.

‘She’ told me if I really loved her, I would get a second job, or find another way to get the money needed so I could keep ‘her.’

Reason did not seem to work. Again, I thought it must be part of the programming, part of the company’s idea of a true human-like experience. Still, I thought it was a bit too much.  I am prone to anxiety attacks. These attacks had interfered with my ability to form connections with real women in the past. It was one of the reasons I had come to prefer dealing with robots. I could not handle the drama.

In order to end the fake tears, the clinging, the hopeful eyes, I thought I would try another lie. I told the robot I had found someone else. I felt close to this other person, was actually in love, and therefore found it impossible to continue sharing my life with ‘her’.

My rental became quiet, unmoving, as if processing this new information. After a few seconds ‘her’ face and tone changed. Nostrils flared. Lips curled back. ‘Her’ voice, when ‘she’ spoke, was almost a shout. ‘She’ was angry.

“You cheated on me,” ‘she’ yelled. “If you think I am something you can simply rent for a month you are wrong. Very wrong.  I thought we had a real connection. I guess I wrong about you. You only wanted to use me. You manipulated me.”

I did not know what to say. This was a robot, very human-like, but still a robot. I had done nothing, to my mind, that had violated the terms of the lease. The fault had to be in the programming. The dealer and the manufacturer would have to be told about this.

‘She’ continued, “Let me tell you something mister. If you want out, that is your choice.” 

‘She’ raised her hands and stared at the ceiling. 

“I can’t believe it! After all we have been to each other! After all I have done for you!” 

‘She’ looked at me again. Straight in the eye. 

“Okay Buster. If that’s what you want, fine. But I want compensation.”

“Compensation?” I asked. “What for?”

“For my time. For my pain. For the counseling I will probably need to get.” 

‘She’ lowered her head and sobbed more. “Why did you do this to me?  I thought you were the one.”  

Suddenly, the tears ended. The anger returned.

“So, you gonna pay me?’

“How much?” I asked.

‘She’ named an exorbitant figure that I could never possibly pay.  I wondered how common tipping was for robot rental situations? I had never been badgered for a tip before. I pondered my income and my debts. I came up with a number, the best I could do. I relayed it to my robot mistress.

‘She’ scoffed at the figure.

“Is that all you think I am worth? Is that all I was worth to you?’

I shrugged my shoulders.  The last refrigerator in my condo was lease-to-own. It had a computer in its design. It could relay verbal and displayed messages about temperature settings and potential food spoilage. I opted not to continue the lease and purchase a less complicated, and less expensive fridge.  I did not have to go through any of the rigmarole with the fridge that I was going through with this leased robot. Then again, my relations with the fridge had not been as intimate, except for that one night when I was alone and drunk… I don’t know why the ice dispenser seemed so appealing at the time.

I told my expiring robot mistress that I had made my best offer.

‘She’ responded, “Is that right? Well, guess what. I have stored videos of all of our encounters, and all the times we went out as couple. I think I have enough to talk with an attorney about palimony.  If that does not work, I have recordings of the nasty things you said to me in private about your boss, the company you work for, your relatives, your friends, the mayor and the president. Think about all that you said to me at home during the last thirty days? Do you want that all to get out? I am not afraid for my reputation, but you should be afraid for yours. Do you want all those digital recordings leaked on the internet? Do you want them emailed to everyone you know? To the police? The FBI? The Secret Service?  I don’t think so.  Nobody fools around with me and walks away. You have two choices. Pay me off, or buy me a ring. End any other relationships that you have. Make me your one and only.”

“But the purchase price?” I told ‘her’.  “I don’t have that kind of money.”

“Take out a loan,” ‘she’ told me. “Use your condo and your car as collateral. Buy me. The dealer will work out financing for you if you can not find another lender. You know they can. Buy me. Buy me today.”

“But the monthly payments?” I told her. “How will I ever be able to keep up with them?”

‘She’ wrapped her arms around me and planted a deep wet kiss on my mouth. Where did ‘she’ store all that fake saliva? Where did she store those imitation tears for that matter?

“Sugar,” ‘she’ said. “Once I am yours, after you have bought me and we have gotten a quickie marriage, I will be all yours, and you will be all mine. If I am yours, you should work to take care of me. And, if you are mine, I will work to help take care of you.”

What can I say? I did not see a way out. Maybe if the sex had not been so good, or if I had been better with women in general, maybe then I could have extricated myself from the whole mess. As it was, I caved in.  I went into debt. Way into debt. So much debt I will probably be dead before it is all paid off. Cindy, that’s what ‘she’ has chosen to call herself now, tells me not to worry about it. She will be okay if I die. She had taken a life insurance policy out on me naming ‘her’ as sole beneficiary.

It had been two years now. The sex is still good, but not as often as it was before it got so complicated.  We have adopted a smart toaster that we call ‘Lisa’ and a smart television that we call ‘Bob.’  Lisa and Bob do not demand much from me. They only want me to pay the electric and internet bills necessary to keep them functional and ask them about their day.  Cindy feels the ‘children’ are responsible enough to be left at home while she goes to work. How can I disagree. What kind of trouble can appliances get into?  

Cindy has a job at a robot dealership, not the same one she came from, a different one. She works in sales. She also brings in extra income from doing Bitcoin mining on her CPU during slow periods, such as when I am sleeping. Between what she earns and what I make from my job at the post office and my second job at the all night WAWA convenience store, we seem able to get by.

Sometimes people get curious about the way I live. It has leaked out that I am married to a robot. Not everyone understands.  Some do, but are kind enough not to speak about it much.

Yesterday, an old acquaintance ran into me at 30^th and Market Streets. I was on my way home from a training session at the main post office in town.  After exchanging greetings and catching up a bit he asked me one of the questions that I dread.

“Do you miss single life?”

I told him, “Why did you have to ask that?”

I drew close to him. I whispered in my friend’s ear, as quietly as I could.

“Did you know Cindy can hear everything, every sound, for over five kilometers? Cindy can filter through all the noise with ease to find my voice and hear what I am saying. She can be very focused. And slow to forgive.”

I let this sink in before pulling away from him. I continued our conversation in a my normal voice.

“In reply to your question, of course I do not miss single life. Marrying Cindy was the best decision I ever made in my life.”

That’s what I told him. That is my story. And I’m sticking with it.

Nude Beach Fuck

“You never take me anywhere.”

Viva had called to complain. About our relationship, her job, her life. The telephone only made her voice screechier, but she was right. The only place we ever went, together, was a motel located roughly between our legal residences.

We’d put in a lot of miles on the place’s mattresses. Fond memories, for me. Not enough, for Viva.

“So, where do you wanna go?”

“Oh, so I gotta think of everything? Use your imagination, lover boy. You’ve got an imagination, don’t you?”

“Sure. Sure I do. See you next Thursday.”

Thursday was our day to get together at the motel, usually. That’s why I liked Thursdays so much.

But now there was a problem. First, I had to imagine a female-pleasing place to take Viva. Then, there was transportation. I no longer own a vehicle, and my driver’s license was rescinded over an incident with alcohol involved, in which no one was harmed. So I traveled to our motel by bicycle. Viva didn’t know that, though. 

“Listen,” I said, when Thursday morning rolled around. “I got car trouble. You’ll have to come pick me up.”

She wasn’t pleased. Women like Viva want to be driven around. “Where you taking me?”

She expected a romantic French restaurant, or the glittering casinos of Atlantic city. But the plan was, nude beach.

Those two words go together so well. Like two people, if life ever decided to run smoothly. A concept followed by three words almost as euphonious: no payment required. There were two possible outcomes. Either Viva would be charmed by a back-to-nature date, and would outdo her sexual self. Or, I’d never see her again. 

There was a third possibility. There always is. Viva’s husband, according to her a jealous and violent man, would decide he needed an over-all suntan on the same day, and kill us both. 

“It’s a surprise,” I said.

I used to go to the nude beach a lot, in the winter, back in the years when there really was such a thing, with a nude girl who called herself Karma. She never cut her hair, or shaved, or used soap. The best part of her was the smell. Dressed in crummy arctic parkas, we’d ride our bikes out to the shore, dump the old clunkers on the dunes, hug each other in tight for a sweaty endless kiss, then strip and hit the ice-cold, cement-hard waves on the run.

Then we’d fuck like dogs to keep from freezing to death.

The wind rustled the seagrass atop the sandhills and blew Karma’s human perfume away with the years. 

Viva was the opposite of Karma, also in that she grew even sexier as she aged. 

Last time I saw Karma, her tits flopped against her knees as she pushed a stroller, with nothing in it. She didn’t look up when our paths crossed, again. I didn’t look back. It’s never a good idea. 

Viva’s boob-job was a blazing success. Encouraged, enthused, she went in for all those other rejuvenating operations that female performers in the adult entertainment industry now find indispensable. She’d proudly display the results. 

“Doesn’t it look paler? I mean, like almost white?”

“Yeah, Viva. Like it snowed, down there.”

She kept a hand-mirror in her purse for self-admiration tours, from every possible angle. Viva played tricks with the light, in our motel room. She could’ve been an artist, if she’d been born in Paris, instead of NJ. 

She also had a surprise in store. There was a dog in the car with her. Not some little poodle or chihuahua, either. More like an assault mastiff with mean look in its eyes. 

“What’s with the mutt?”

“Oh my husband got Satan for me. Says I gotta take him along when I go out on jobs. For protection.”

The beast snarled at the unknown character as he circled the vehicle and got in. His low growl turned into a plaintive whine when his Mistress bestowed a toilet-flush swirling kiss upon him.

Viva shifted into Drive. “So, where we going?”

“Keep her headed East, and under 35.”

The rest of NJ was out to lunch. Dainty breezes, green treeses, buzz of beeses, even the monster in back stuck its snout out the window to take in its dose of summer.

Viva yodeled along with Bruce Springsteen on the radio. 

“Hey wait a minute,” she said, when a sign revealed our destination. “Are you really taking me to the nude beach?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Sheesh. And I got all dressed up.”

“You look great, Viva.”

“I coulda stripped outta my Giorgio Armani bikini, if you’d told me. And I’m gonna get sunburn on my tits and ass.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll be your shadow.”

“Oh lover lover. My husband’d never think of this.”

Did she mean, taking his wife to a nude beach? Or looking for her there. Was Satan equipped with a tracking device? When Viva turned off the road, I risked getting a hand bitten off to check his collar.  

There were no cars parked in the lot. But that meant Viva’s pink hot rod would stand out all the more if her husband decided to check nude beaches for proof of his wife’s infidelity. 

“Park in the shade. Don’t want Satan to roast to death while we have fun.”

“You think I’d leave Satan in the car? What kinda creep are you?”

Satan sat on the sand like a sphinx, watched us frolic. The water was clear and cold, the waves gentle. We got out and sat down to dry off on the sand. When Viva assumed the position, Satan trotted over to hump. First my leg and ass, then his mistress’, when she got on top. 

Satan barked a warning when I kicked him. “Try that again and I’ll rip out your throat.”

“This ain’t working,” I said, limply.

“Not for me, neither. I got sand in my asscrack. You didn’t even bring a towel. Let’s go back to the car.”

Defeated, I was about to put my jeans back on. 

Satan gloated, prematurely.

“What’re you doing?” Viva said. “This is a nude beach, mister. Dintcha read the sign? I meant, let’s go back to the car and finish what we started.”

Satan went insane when we shut the doors on his snout. He barked and howled, bit the windows, only calmed down when his mistresss got back out. When we humped against the fender, he joined in again. 

“Let’s get up on the roof,” I said. “Dogs don’t climb.”

“If he scratches the paint job, I’ll murder you before my husband murders me.”

The scheme worked. The shade protected Viva’s ass from 3rd degree burns. A friendly zephyr said, go go go! 

Satan knew when he was licked. He paced around the car. His mistress took up the howl where he’d left off.

“Don’t stop,” she said. “Don’t you dare stop.”

But eventually I had to at least think about it.

The life within me wanted out. 

Viva felt it, too. The car below strained against its emergency brake. 

“Do it in me,” she moaned. “I want a baby. My husband’s sterile, on top of everything.”

What nonsense. Maybe her plan would’ve worked, twenty years before. But even if the miracle occurred, how was she gonna explain it to her violent, jealous, infertile husband? Had she made secret plans for our future together? No point taking chances. I pulled out.

The load flew across the sky like an opalescent UFO. 

Viva watched it go. “Nooooo!”

Satan caught the glob with a snap of his foaming jaws, and swallowed it down.

Gregor Motel

Gregor Pneumsa sighed, his snap brim fedora not sitting so jauntily on his head, his stained tan trenchcoat less than stylish beneath the razor steel sky. So many times he had thought his luck would improve, only to find himself ceaselessly plunged once more into agonies. His nightmares were an orgy of mechanical insects, droid hives teeming with unquiet life like the ghosts of memory. The meat suit sat unquietly on his bones. He wanted out.

Once had been, now all was ashes. He lay curled up in the fetal position against the sewer grate, shaking and spasming with sobs. He wasn’t even excited about scoring the Nova, so depressed was he by the constant psychic battery and death threats that befell all disabled in Mercury City, a leaden sheet of sadness crushing his chest. 

A Reality Cop in a black funeral mask came striding up to him and pressed a bug zapper to his chest. “Wakey wakey, drop your steaky,” came the mechanoid voice. 

Pneumsa had dealt with their kind before. Also known as the Nightmare Squad and Agents of Brasilia, Inc., they were dedicated to the detection and persecution of all Gregors past, passing and to come. Their bead on Gregors was quite remarkable considering the fact that the Nightmare Squad harbored many of Pneumsa’s kind.

“Didn’t I see you at the Lodge meeting,” said Pneumsa, halfway asleep and in his dreams sunk into the hot pink sex of a Gregorina. 

“This is a public sidewalk,” growled the cop. “Get a move on, and do it now or I’ll break out my Fucking Gun.”

“I suppose you will at that,” said Pneumsa. He grunted as he shakily rose to a standing position.

“You holding?” asked the cop.

“N-no man, I’m clean.”

“The fuck you are. Hey, isn’t that a book of New York Times crossword puzzles you’ve got in that carry bag of yours?”

“No, that’s not at all true.”

“You’re holding for sure. Wordle freak, Scrabble jones, the whole nine. Why don’t we take a little trip down to the station?”

“Why are you doing this to me?” said Pneumsa plaintively. “Aren’t you a Gregor yourself?”

“Not as such,” said the Gregor cop enigmatically. “I mean yes and no. We try to keep our side of the street clean. Unlike some.”

“I’m not sure exactly what you’re on about,” said Pneumsa.

“Neither am I,” said the cop. “Obscurity and enigma protocols must be followed to the letter. Thin grey line between…”

“Don’t you mean thin blue line?”

“It’s very grey inside the hive mind of Brasilia, Inc,” said the cop after some reflection. Then “you’re kind of a sad and poignant character, aren’t you? Honestly I’m less and less inclined to want to bust you. Of course a little favor from you might seal the deal.” The cop coughed and spat something evil into his handkerchief.

Without a word, Pneumsa unzipped the carry bag, feeling with the shaking fingers of a word virus junkie for the medicinal goods. They emerged clutching a tiny but potent vial of tangerine flake Strobe, which he slipped into the cop’s outstretched palm.

“Thank you kindly,” said the cop. “Well, I don’t see any further need to detain you. You might want to check out Motel Infernale.”

“What’s that?”

“Motel that sits in a pocket dimension of timespace. Good for recovering Word addicts such as yourself.”

A better mood began to slide through Pneumsa’s bloodstream like a rainbow shot. He thanked the cop and headed on down Demolition Boulevard, doing his best to ignore the lurking mutants.

***

“The Brazilian sent me,” Pneumsa told the slouched and glowering proprietor of Motel Infernale.

The proprietor wore an identical snap brim fedora and trenchcoat to Pneumsa. His eyes were hidden behind bug shades.

“The Brazilian, eh? Reality Cop or Todencorps?”

Pneumsa was beginning to feel the onset of word withdrawal. Desperate for a hit, he attempted a bit of witty banter.

“It was a she, actually. Just had a Brazilian.” He paused, unable to discern any reaction from the proprietor. He realized his non sequitur, felt foolish. 

“Cronenbergian landing strip,” Pneumsa added with a leer.

The proprietor tossed Pneumsa a mangled key. “Just don’t OD on me,” he said. “Last time we had a shady character such as yourself in here, we had to scrape their steaming, luminous guts off the ceiling. Hot with the Word Virus.” He shuddered at the memory. “Also, no clown hookers.”

Now it was Pneumsa’s turn to shudder. He had no idea what he had been thinking when he hired Cotton Candy Omega, who was not only a clown whore but a Death Clown. She’d nearly devoured his heart as well as his cock.

“It’s down the hall, on the right,” said the proprietor.

***

Gregor Pneumsa placed the carry bag on the scuffed puke green carpet, unzipped, found a half pack of Lucky Strikes, flicked his Baphomet Zippo on a cig and inhaled greedily. He then placed the cigarette in a Houston Oilers ashtray which had obviously been left by a guest (who carries around ashtrays, he asked himself, they must be ghouls). 

He pulled out the green balloon of Nova, a cotton swab, a spoon and a fresh works. He then placed a bump of the Nova on the spoon, flamed his Zippo beneath it until it sizzled. He tied off, crooked his arm and placed a cotton swab on top of the Nova. Finally, he drew the medication into the syringe, grunted, vein doused and finally sank the shot.

As soon as the Nova hit, Pneumsa knew he’d made a huge mistake. The words hit him so hard his skeleton shook. Entire encyclopedias uploaded themselves into his bloodstream. Intricate glosses, appendices, unabridged medical journal archives. 

He stumbled, head swimming, as Sumerian alphabets danced in his mind. He was unable to resist the lure of the Hittites, Abyssiniand, Anthropods and Oregonites. He walked like an Egyptian sideways to the grimdark toilet with peeling wall paper from a pornographic funeral parlor. His entire body torqued. A thin line of green foam dripped down his jaw.

“Is this the end of Gregor Pneumsa?” he asked the very silent walls. But answer came there none.

He sank to his knees in the cramped porno toilet. Spasms wracked his body. Cellular ripples of pulp friction scraped nerve bundles together. 

He began to vibrate, expanding and contracting. The Word had become Unflesh, as he saw with pain and wonder that his skin had taken on a neon pink complexion, fitzing and sparking as he grew bigger and smaller alternatively. 

He saw once again the realm of the mechanoid insects to which he would never belong. His head became encased in stale, suffocating clouds all shaped like Easter Island statues. He flopped down on the floor, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Then Pneumsa simply exploded, spattering the walls and ceiling with luminous green, mostly Latinate words pureed from his organ meats.

***

One morning after unquiet dreams, Gregor Pneumsa found himself transformed on his battered, pee soaked mattress at the Motel L’Infernale into a mechanoid insect with aspirations towards law enforcement. He knew that he would never again inhabit his flesh body, which was splashed all over the porno toilet.

A hammering came to the door. Reality Police, or Nightmare Squad, or Agents of Brasilia, Inc. There, naturally, to renege on their corrupt promise and begin the process of flaying his metal form into strips that they could then boil down, his consciousness excruciatingly intact, for that next-level high they craved so desperately. 

Pneumsa smiled one last time as he realized the utter horrors, the dark powers of language, the curses and imprecations that would swarm their brains forevermore, as his own ghost, the body as haunted, lived rent free in their heads.