BY Jaime Serrato-Marks ILLUSTRATION Veronica Tucker DESIGN Ella Rosenblatt
creation story [2020-2024] VC flicked through four dating apps every night looking for someone to hold. He promised, in his bio and a copy-pasted message he sent to every prospect, that he would pay $100 to lay in bed with anyone for an hour. Not many people responded. The first to take him up on the offer was an acnescarred and terrified teenager from Grindr. “You really just wanna hold me?” “Mmhm. Shoes off please. Bed’s inside.” Those were the only words they shared. The boy kept his denim jacket and hat on the whole time. But when his shoulder-length hair brushed the tip of VC’s nose, VC found pure bliss. The candlelight trembled with the boy in beautiful fractal patterns all over his slender body. At the end of the hour, VC handed him $100 cash and rushed to the bathroom to change his pants. As VC shimmied his legs into an identical pair of blue chinos, he realized, not without shame, that although he felt a profound intimacy with the boy’s body, he could have found the same intimacy by hugging a pillow. Anyone, anything, could meet his needs. VC deleted the apps. He ordered a sex doll, a fleshlight, and a dildo on a Valentine’s Day sale. He had the money to burn. He had worked at Google for ten years now, and stocked his suspiciously cheap Silicon Valley apartment with nothing but frozen pizzas and a 3D printer. He carved into the sex doll’s PVC to install some robotic limbs he had lying around, plus all kinds of sensors. He spent a couple years coding an AI that could respond to stimulus (light, sound, spanking) and react appropriately. Another couple years to develop more natural conversation patterns, plus one week of
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LITERARY
cosmetic sculpting. The first PleasureBot looked like a cyborg flayed alive. But it was his. VC finished the prototype on New Year’s Eve. He stayed up until 2024 to kiss it. To hold it. It wasn’t as good as he expected. VC cried as a party roared to life above him. Fireworks illuminated the asbestos confetti that shook from his ceiling and accumulated on his bed. VC decided, that sleepless night, to redownload all the dating apps and found a startup. If nothing else, the PleasureBot could fund more hours with the acne kid. He earned two billion dollars in the first year alone.
failed thrice on her rubric: he had mentioned an ex, recommended a band’s earlier work, and referenced The Office. At this point, she would normally beg anyone in her group chat to call her feigning some non-life-threatening emergency. But as she hooked her mouth into that same fake smile, something snapped inside her. She said, in no uncertain terms, that she actually found their date rather boring, and she had no intention of sleeping with him or half-assing a friendship, so could they part ways? He jutted his lips forward in surprise, finally completing his Animorph-esque transformation into a rat-man, then smiled. They each drove home alone, laughing at their a very brief history of the PleasureBot years past selves for failing to embrace blunt honesty. They [2025—2030] barged into their rooms, leaving their doors wide open, and had the best sex of their lives with their Both looked better online. Younger, fitter, more self-as- PleasureBots. sured. They scraped back their chairs, then scraped them forward again when they remembered they had something new, something blue [2026] yet to order the obligatory caffeinated beverages. Her voice was surprisingly low and quiet, as if she had just It started as a joke. A gag gift for Toni’s bridal shower. woken up. Or as if she had spent much of her life trying “In case you ever want to spice things up,” Bianca to hide her voice. His speech accentuated the rodent- said. “Maybe it will ease the post-honeymoon blues.” like qualities of his face, which she didn’t notice until Toni tore the heart-laden packaging off the fivehe squeaked out his order. He offered to pay for her foot-tall box. A PleasureBot, mouth agape, stared half-sweet quinoa milk matcha latte but only, like, if back at her with bugging eyes. The factory default that would flatter her and not, like, disempower her or PleasureBot body was divided down the middle to erect a new tentacle-arm of the patriarchy in this very… demonstrate that it could shift anatomy on command. she rattled off her order to the smirking barista. On the left, olive skin, hourglass figure, thigh gap, They both longed for the ease of the previous night, big boobs, big ass. On the right, brown skin, six pack, when they had texted until 2 AM. Over the phone, she ten-inch dick, that V-shaped indent below the belly had more time to craft witticisms, and she could return button. The PleasureBot logo glowed purple beneath to Twitter or Instagram whenever she got bored of its collarbone. Still, it looked shockingly human. him. Between texts, he could scroll through her profile Toni’s friends cooed. pictures and masturbate lazily. “No more blue balls for the hubby,” Michael said. Seventeen minutes into the date, he had already “No more balls, period,” Neda said.
10 APR 2020
