Getting His Roxxxy Off
“She can’t vacuum, she can’t cook[,] but she can do almost anything else if you know what I mean,” the New Jersey-based artificial intelligence engineer said. “She’s a companion.”
“She can’t vacuum, she can’t cook[,] but she can do almost anything else if you know what I mean,” the New Jersey-based artificial intelligence engineer said. “She’s a companion. She has a personality. She hears you. She listens to you. She speaks,” he said. “She feels your touch.”
[The image on screen is a dark and shallow room, no more than twenty feet deep. A poster advertising the 1982 movie Tron hangs crooked, edges curled, on the shadowed walls at the back, and a hanging lamp dangles unlit and coverless between us and it. There is a long table in the background, on top of which rests a thin sheet cast on top of an indistinguishable object; the outline of stairs can be seen in the opposite corner. A man sits at his desk, facing us. The computer before him casts a twilight blue light across his face. The few strands of hair on his head are cast haphazardly across his Smurf-like pate, resting over a forehead furrowed by a wide-eyed gaze. In his left hand he holds the bodiless head of Barbie doll; he strokes its hair with his right index finger, which is clothed in a doll's dainty laced-linen glove.]
Things have been progressing well. Very well. Mmm, yes. Very well.
We decided to do away with real girls’ hair. That freed up our time. Yes it did. No more spending longer than needed in the bathroom. We owe it to Ms. Jackson’s Maltese, Trudy. She died last week. Her hair is so luscious. Now we just need to clean out the dirt – all that nasty, stinky grave-dirt – and it will shine porcelain white—just like her teeth. This will help us maintain symmetry. Symmetry is the essence of beauty—yes. Symmetry.
In our last entry, we mentioned that unfortunate horsepower problem that led to our delicate, delicious—mmm, yes, del-i-ciousss—
[The man on screen pauses for a moment, closing his eyes. His jaw muscles tighten as he begins to lick his lips, the blue-pink muscle running along his mouth like an icing dispenser squeezing strawberry icing onto a double-layered wedding cake. The man on screen deposits saliva in equal portions across each lip and – his mouth now fully glazed – returns his gaze to the camera.]
—that horsepower problem that led our friend to thrust through the kitchen wall. It has been fixed. No more Volkswagen batteries; no. This means we must scrap our favorite model, BDSM Betty, but now we can begin developing our real beauties: Terrified Tammy and Comatose Cathy. They will be good and fun. Yes. Good and fun for us all. Mmmm.
There are other problems, though. She does not vacuum and she cannot cook. She can knit pretty things, and, even when she gets confused on off-beats, she waltzes good. She can do almost anything else, if you know what I mean; she makes daddy so [the man grunts] proud.
She does get confused sometimes—beautiful, delicious, precious—yes, very naughty girl gets confused. She does not understand all commands; she does not understand how to [The man holds up his hands and curls his index and middle fingers into air-quotes. The lacy doll glove on the right bobs up and down as he claws.] . . . “mash our potatoes”. Heh, heh, heh—mmm, yes. Mashed potatoes. Delicious.
But we love her. She listens to us. No one listens to us—no, no one. She talks to us, yes. No one talks to us. No one. No one ever. Now we have a companion. Mmm. She loves us. I was alone and miserable before her. No one would associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me, no. My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being I needed to create. And now I have her.
[The man swings around on his seat to face the table at the back.]
You love us, don’t you? Tell us you do love us.
[There is a slight whirring sound. The sheet begins to rise from the table. The cloth slowly peels back, and the lights go out.]
Roxxxy?
