Posthuman Blues

I chanced upon an unpublished story on my hard-drive, which I just emailed to the "erotic" e-zine I mentioned not long ago. It's more satire than an authentic attempt to write something "sexy." Nevertheless, it asks not-insignificant questions: Assuming we eventually make convincing sex androids, what might the experience be like? And who, exactly, will be having these experiences?

Excerpt:

"Jason ran his fingers possessively through Trisha's lank, braided hair as she kissed at his groin and unrolled the hem of his beer-stained T-shirt with cool, thin fingers. When he removed his hands from her once-famous coif, some of Trisha's hair came away glued to the sweat on his palms. He frowned elaborately and clutched Trisha's shoulders, kneading her skin and relieved to find it warmly human-like, as advertised."





In my story, Jason is a loser living in the "apotheosis of mid-21st century suburbia." And "Trisha" -- a high-tech sex-doll based upon a has-been pop idol -- is decidedly less than state-of-the-art: her lips are disintegrating; her hair is falling out. And she's in urgent need of a sound-card.

"When he'd bought Trisha, she'd been pretty much indistinguishable from the original: slim, curvy, with braided black hair and eyes so soulfully large they resembled Japanese anime. Her flawless olive skin denied attempts to decipher ethnicity.

"Trisha had been expensive -- more than the Hyundai he'd bought when he was seventeen. Four years later, the sedan graced the apartment's lawn like a decrepit shrine, tires shredded, hubcaps stacked nearby like dirty dishes. Trisha was faring better than the car, but not [by] much."