The Evocation Series
by John Orne Green |
The unit I decided on was a Girl-19, self-cleaning. There are younger models available in the back-street shops, but I'm not into that sort of weirdness. Life is strange enough without adding perversion to the mix. The reason I even went that young was because nineteen was the age of my first real girlfriend, the one I finally went all the way with, as we used to say.
I held the little cantaloupe-shaped unit in my hands for quite a while before pressing the button. I thought the device was just going to be a physical thing, particular sensations and release. I wasn't prepared for how emotional it all is. They don't call these things the Evocation Series for nothing.
It definitely takes some getting used to: the sudden flood of intimacy radiating up from the groin soon after the unit secures itself to you. I already felt nervous--not a little because of what I'd read from the Times' technology critic. I know this guy is a professional worrier. He never met a psychetronic device he didn't hate. But with the Evocation Series he had particular worries about "permanent neural atrophy," which could be caused by the intracellular polymer microfilaments that the devices grow (painlessly) into a user's groin and right into the nerve clusters at the base of the spinal cord. He agonized that the devices might very possibly over time "permanently disable users for normal sexual relationships with humans." But I'd already made up my mind when I read this stuff. If the unit caused problems, I could get rid of it.
Given all it does, I was surprised at how low-profile the device really is. It snuggled up to my groin and fit itself to me smoothly and comfortably. In fact I've read that people are wearing them to work now, which may account for the return of baggy fashions.
No sooner had my Girl-19 attached itself than I was suffused with the novelty of first sexual feeling—not only the sweet new pleasures but also all the fears and quivering uncertainties, the lost-in-it, eaten-up feeling I'd all but forgotten. I was quickly back in that first night with Katy: hours of kissing, hugging, stroking, and rubbing. Ten minutes to get a bra undone, twenty minutes of caresses afterward to explore the new situation. God knows how long to begin and then finish sliding the panties off. And finally, after all that stimulation, mere seconds to enter and finish. Even then, I knew this was not quite adequate for intercourse. Hard to believe, but the true truth is that Katy and I de-virgined ourselves on Bastille Day night in a little hotel on the Left Bank of Paris, with fireworks over the city echoing colors and booms off the walls of our tiny room.
With all the preliminaries of that night (and the many long nights leading up to it), sex seemed to be a vast, heroic activity, a contest I might not be able to succeed in. And somehow the Girl-19 brought back all those feelings, too. Not only that, but after just a few short weeks, something seemed to be missing. There was some limit to my ability to achieve happiness with my Girl-19, just as there had been with my first girlfriend—as though we could only go so far together. And with limits came a certain irritation. I wanted to argue with the unit, explain her shortcomings, help her to become a better, more congenial unit. Disturb her smugness, make her discontented with herself.
Which was of course absurd. The 19 was just a device. She was what she was, and that was that.
So I bought myself a Woman-24. I got a little discount for turning in the 19 in good condition. Twenty-four happened to be the age of my first wife at the time of our prime together. In the end, though, there was as much sorrow as joy with this model (like the marriage.)
I'd forgotten how my first wife used to berate me—carrying on with tears and cruelties—if I came too quickly. She'd give me no peace until I could get it up again for her twenty or thirty minutes later. Strangely, the machine seemed to offer the same remonstrance—silently, of course. It always seemed to be waiting, not patiently, for me to become aroused again. So once more I had to remember how to restrain myself for a half hour, forty minutes, an hour, for God's sake.
It was ferocious, furious rutting with my first wife. That's the only way to describe it. At any moment of our day or night we might lock into it, rocking and plunging to a rugged tempo, murmuring and crying I-love-you's and other hypnotic endearments. Sometimes she rode me until my groin rubbed raw. Was part of the fury of our passion a way to overpower the simple fact that we didn't like each other very much, thought poorly of each other in certain respects? I didn't always move through the world then with easy manly confidence, quite the contrary, and she held me in some contempt for this. And I secretly thought she was slutty, an impression from freshman year, when the boys in my dorm were hounds full of dreams of her heat. Still, though, for a while we made love two and three times a day until the baby came.
Perhaps by dint of vigorous sex, my wife and I thought we could transform one another into someone more congenial: break them down with passion and build them up again with love. Of course, my Woman-24 was superior to me in this project. She could take anything I could give and double it. I considered trading up to a Wife-31, the age of my second wife. But Lord, I was glad when that marriage ended.
So I deferred a new purchase and began to do a little research. I joined a users' group and even got curious about the women's models: The Elvis-26 is a popular unit, but apparently it's not for everyone. Some women prefer Gigolo Seniors, more leisurely and subtle. Women can get breast and mouth attachments. (In fact, you can buy satellite attachments for about anywhere on or in the body.)
The specs for the Elvis were designed after extensive interviews with as many of the King's former consorts as could still be found and verified—many of them octogenarians. The units were even beta tested with some of these women to fine-tune the action for verisimilitude.
The Elvis, though, is not a particularly sensitive unit. He likes a lot of it, but on his schedule and without much in the way of preliminaries. Also the unit can produce in the user--as did the King in his fans--a certain intense, nearly ultrasonic shrieking that may alarm neighbors and cause dogs to howl.
The manufacturers are supposedly working on a model that would allow the user to slowly tame the Elvis and teach it--not without some difficulty--to be sensitive to her body and proclivities; in brief, to transform it from King to servant. Some old fans consider this to be a travesty and heresy.
I met Merrilyn at the first users' group meeting I attended. We've been together ever since. She's about the smartest, kindest soul a man could ever run across. And with all that black hair and those bright blue eyes, she's not hard to look at, either. I really feel I finally got it right this time. We've settled into a real nice bedtime routine.
When the lights go out, I watch the orange and red LED's winking softly on the sides of her satin-finish ebony unit rising and falling at her center. And sometimes late in the night, when I hear Merrilyn beside me sighing and sweetly whimpering, it gives me comfort, too; a secure feeling to know she's in the good hands of her Don Juan 33. This model whispers to her the most beautiful things in Spanish: Te quiero muchissimo (I love you so much). Amor de mi vida (Love of my life). Mi sola amor verdad. (My one true love). My soul's bright flame. Passion undying to the end of time. The Don murmurs these things and more, unceasingly, as he ministers to her in all the ways she loves. Who would not be moved by such devotion, such fixed attention to the object of desire?
The intoxicating sea scent of her liquefaction wafts my way. Hands behind my head, I smile beside her and the Don in the night and ponder what I've read about the new 3000 Series. The Aphrodite, Hera, and Artemis models sound intriguing, each in its own way. But I think for me, at this stage, the Athena will be the one. I'm ready for some wisdom entwined with my delight. Goddesses have very high standards, I know, but I'm ready, now, to give this one my best. And Athena, from all I've read, watches out for her own.
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