Having Sex with a Robot
Lucy McCorkindale (she/her)
His unbending hands aren’t good with buttons, so I undress the both of us. He lifts his heavy arms to the ceiling so I can pull his shirt off. I chose blond hair, saltwater-soaked and sun-bleached. His skin is tan and thin. All the hard metal beneath can be felt with the lightest squeeze and there’s a small red light blinking under his right earlobe. His beady eyes are black mirrors that I can see my own wide gaze in. I wondered once if I should put tape over them like a laptop camera, even if no perverted engineer was watching me through him — avoiding that cold stare might make the experience somewhat kinder. Sprawling out beneath his stiff frame, I suck my navel into my spine. I want to look sexy for him, or any audience on the other side.
His inexpressive face follows all my movements -- the tremor in my hands and the release of my chest when I finally exhale. I question how thoroughly he can assess these things: does he know I’m nervous? Does he care? He moves mechanically inside of me and I sing my pleasure out like I’ve seen the women on the internet do. He’s seen them too, as a part of his training, so he knows to go harder at the sound; get more violent, maybe. I set his sadist levels to the third-highest setting so his hand meets my throat now. I let out an empty gasp, like the kind that escapes from the back of a throat when it’s yawning. He doesn’t know how much pressure to use and my timid nature doesn’t let me tell him. It’s fine. It’s close enough to the real thing.
Speeding up, I can hear his machinery now. It’s whirring, performing the alto harmony to my moans. The soft hum of a system overheating, like a laptop that needs to be put in the freezer. I wonder if he will explode. Mental note: check the manual afterwards, maybe this isn’t normal. It’s nice to hear some noise from him though. His painted pink mouth is still sealed; nothing sweet or consoling will leave it anytime soon. I don’t think he has compliments in his set vocab; maybe there are but he can’t find any to say right now. Is he programmed to hate me? Is he programmed to like me at all?
With one last perfunctory thrust, he informs me that he is finished. It’s the first thing he’s said this whole time. I was beginning to think I had turned him on mute or set his language wrong. He removes his perpetually hard piece of metal from inside of me, folding it down like a hand brake and places himself on the damp linen. My spectral face, void of colour and moist with brow sweat, turns to look at him. The handsome, lifeless machine weighing down the left side of my bed, not breathing or blinking.
“Did you like it?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” He utters. Not returning the question, he powers down for the night.
