Strange Flesh (20 page)

It feels
better
.

Olya’s sex devil seems sprung from a lubricious reverie, but it’s the thought of the real person behind her av that lends the scenario its blistering power. Far from the sterile repetition of porn, and yet still maintaining a pleasant buffer of fantasy, she’s an ideal balance between the virtual and the real. While my brain indulges itself, my skin just believes.

But I quickly lose this train of thought as she plunges into a rapid
full-stroke deep throat. No frightening snags on her hard palate. Superhuman muscle control, like she’s somehow able to use her very vocal cords to pleasure me. As she comes back up, I wiggle and notice the lack of teeth. She squeezes hard at the base, bares her fangs, and murmurs, “Hold still,
dorogoi
.”

She speeds up the rhythm, and my jaw drops. I suppress the urge to place my hands on her head.

Well, what would happen if I did?

I send out an exploratory finger. Incredibly, something’s there. Not exactly the silky black tresses I’m seeing, but there’s a soft surface exactly where her cranium should be.

As sometimes happens in real life, SuccubOlya stops, but she leers at me, saying, “You like that?”

“Yeah.”

“Why don’t you stand up and really fuck my mouth?”

That’s sufficient invitation for me. It’s not like I’m going to stimulate any unfortunate reflexes in a robot. Being able to put my hips into it really adds a dimension to the feeling. SuccubOlya even offers a few dirty words of encouragement that she couldn’t possibly say under the circumstances. Her av throws in some pornographic visual grace notes, but it feels so good that I actually close my eyes.

She allows me a few joyous moments of that before pressing me lightly back against the altar and then straddling me in a reverse cowgirl. The sensation is totally different, but I don’t have time to analyze the variation, since seconds later, I realize this episode is about to come to its unnatural conclusion. Olya must sense this, because right then she dials up the heat and pressure. I don’t want it to end, and I wonder if I can prolong things, or if I should just surrender to the inevitable. As usual, my genitals reach their own decision, and I’m helpless in the face of an all-consuming orgasm that feels like it’s never going to stop.

Then suddenly—pain. It shoots into me like a bear trap just snapped shut on my package. The vids go out, so I’m drowned in blackness. Total agony throbs up into my groin, and I try to slap this horrible thing off my cock. It seems dead now, but there’s still suction remaining. And
fuck!
It’s completely unbearable!

Finally I wrench it off, and the pain starts to abate. A burnt,
ozone-ish smell fills the air. I tear away my HMD to see what happened to James Jr.

This British twit is yelling, “Oh my God, what’s he done?”

I still can’t see my injury because the lights are inexplicably out, and Garriott is in my face with a flashlight.

I shout at him, “You people fried my dick!”

“You were supposed pull out!”

“You didn’t tell me that!”

“It’s a prototype. What did you think was going to happen?”

Xan comes over giggling. She grabs Garriott’s light, places a steadying hand on my shoulder, and bends low to inspect me.

“Your penis is intact, Mr. Pryce, I assure you. There may be a small blister here at the end, but a little unguent will have you back at it in no time.”

I take stock. The pain has lessened, and the stress hormones are slowly falling off. I get embarrassed about the spooge dripping down my tights. Garriott examines his gently smoking apparatus.

The overhead lights twinkle to life, and we see Olya over by the fuse box. She’s out of her mocap gear, in a demure bathrobe, but I can see a rosy flush creeping up around the hollow of her throat.

“So, Zhimbo, how was I?”

I pause for a second, assessing what I’ve just experienced. The word forces itself out of my mouth:

“Electrifying.”

W
e’re gathered around their usual table at Foo Bar. Xan twists the key to a magnum of Veuve Clicquot and says, “James will not be the only one popping a cork tonight.” She thumbs off the foil while caressing the bottle’s neck suggestively. Garriott begins moaning in falsetto. Xan is not afraid to hose down the table, and I become damp for the second time that evening.

When what’s left is poured, Olya raises her glass and says solemnly, “Team . . . To a great fucking day at the office.”

We all make the “2-I-T” sign, but Xan puts up a hand to stop the toast. “I guess we can tell James what ‘IT’ really stands for.”

“What?”

“Imminent Teledildonics, mate,” says Garriott.

“Teledildonics” is the fancy word for virtual sex coined by Theodor Nelson of “hypertext” fame. The term gained currency due to its fine blend of nerdy and naughty, though I think we’ll need a new one to describe what I just went through.

After a boisterous clink that leaves much of the remaining champagne on the table, a waitress appears with an armful of Guinness and Jameson.

Garriott takes his shot glass and says, “To Fred!”

Xan follows, holding up her stout: “To Ginger. May she rest in peace.” We drop our whiskey into the beer. Garriott is steeling himself for the race and says to me, “I can’t believe you killed my girlfriend.”

This causes a choking fit on Xan’s part. Olya finishes smoothly and
slams down her pint. She immediately waves to the waitress. I’m just behind her, and after a deep breath, I ask, “Why do y’all call the bots Fred and Ginger?”

Olya says, “This stupid obsession with scooters.”

Garriott finishes quickly to defend himself. “Right. Remember how we were talking about that infuriating Segway hype? So the first prototypes were named Fred and Ginger, because they glided around so gracefully. And yet . . . there’s something asexual about a scooter. So we took the names for our little darlings. Who
really
aspire to glide gracefully. They seem to move together well enough for you?”

“I guess the proof was in the pudding.”

Olya, ever the heavy, says, “Of course, like any good demo, maybe eighty percent of it was faked.”

“I’d say that’s about par for the course.”

Olya frowns. Xan clarifies. “He’s talking about real women, and has betrayed the fact that he’s never met one.”

Olya rolls her eyes, as if the idea of women faking orgasms were a childish fairy tale. “Maybe now you can fuck penguins if you don’t like women.”

I want to change the subject from my bedtime preferences, so I try, “What do you mean it was faked? If it’s virtual—”

Xan says, “No, she means the machines’ capabilities. They can’t really do everything you might think from your experience tonight. We preloaded most of that. It wasn’t all real-time.”

“You could have fooled me.”

“Yeah, we’re counting on the natural phenomenon that men don’t tend to ask a lot of questions when they’re getting blown,” Garriott says. “Which is why certain transsexual prostitutes—”

“The point is we have very much work still to do,” says Olya.

Xan and Garriott put on pouty faces. Olya throws her hands up. “But not tonight, not tonight. Now we celebrate the coming of Zhimbo.”

“Well then,” says Xan, “with apologies to Richard Powers and his beautiful, if rather chaste, book about our vocation, let me propose: to plowing the dark.”

Our glasses clink again. Xan winks at me over the rim of her whiskey, and I feel like I’m finally inside.

Hours later, we’re at an unlicensed club in a big loft in Greenpoint. Olya insisted we go due to the presence of some Polish DJ she knows, and she and Xan are out on the dance floor causing tension to flare between the male patrons and their dates. Garriott tries to train me in some of the simpler rituals of the iTeam, such as learning all the words (and grunts) to James Brown’s “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine.”

After quite a while of failing to meet his rigorous but rapidly deteriorating standards, Xan comes over to take her leave. Olya leans over to finish Garriott’s drink and bite him on the ear, which I suppose is what passes for affection with her.

She pours me a shot and says, “The little one always leaves early. She is delicate. Not like Andy here. But he is small too. He stays, but he can barely talk.”

Garriott primly downs a shot in silence. Olya continues. “Speaking of talking. James, you are a smart man. And not afraid of sex. We have to complete this very fast. Maybe you want to help us. It’s good work I think.”

“I think I’d like that.”

“Da. Good. Well, before you are officially on the team, you and I, we sit down. Have what they call the ‘Come into Jesus’ talk. Maybe eight
AM
?”

Only three hours from now. But I can’t keep myself from saying yes.

A
ll the champagne and stardust has fled from Olya’s demeanor when I roll into GAME very near the appointed hour. I meet Garriott in the hall, and he mumbles that he’s going to Bellevue to see about getting his stomach pumped, if not replaced. Olya seems completely fine. She’s wearing a conservative charcoal pantsuit, albeit with a see-through blouse and patent leather demi bra. Her head starts shaking before I can even sit down.

“Zhimbo, this is no condition for serious talk—”

“Olya, trust me. You have my undivided attention.”

A frustrated exhalation and pursed lips. Not much of a welcome, but what would someone raised under communism know about how to conduct a “Come to Jesus” meeting?

“So for background, you know I was at this Pervasive Media Program—where Xan teaches. A place for people who
love
computers. Webcams, online dating, social networking, all these things. So of course we
talk
of having sex with them all the time. But no one ever
thinks
about it. I have degree in materials engineering, so my knowledge of
surfaces
is very deep. But I spend my summers at boring design firm. Eventually I think,
Enough of this!
” A bona fide fist-thump on the desk. “Why not try to do this thing we all want? So at GAME I find the little ones—they are very bright, you know—and we start work. Now maybe we have you too.”

“You had
me
at ‘fuck my mouth.’” Olya squints quizzically. I realize
that paraphrasing
Jerry Maguire
to a recent Russian immigrant is silly. “But do you really think normal people are going to want this?”

“Who is normal? No, it’s not whether people want to do virtual sex. The question is, once you give it to them, will they want to do anything else?”

I chuckle and concede the point.

She continues. “Everybody in the world wants real VR. We know what it looks like, but we don’t know how to get there. In the science fiction it is always these jacks you plug into network with. Jacks in the neck, chips in the head. Like Billy, this foolish
artiste
you are so interested in.” She waves dismissively. “I think nature already has given us the right sort of jack.” She places a hand over the juncture of her legs. “And this is the channel that will give birth to the technology. VR will arrive when it
comes
.”