Content warning: Sexual assault
This story was previously published in The Broken Teacup
Feeling bored, Jennifer thumbed through the pages of Cosmo, skipping past the article suggesting, The Sexiest Way to Eat an Ice Cream Cone in Front of Him and spotted it in the back, buried among the other ads which promised the latest transforming overnight moisturizer and jeans that will make any woman instantly appear twenty pounds skinnier. It read:
Ladies, say goodbye to online love sites, bad hook-ups and the unmitigated and disappointing hell of dating in general. He’s here at last just waiting to be ordered to your specifications and delivered to your front door. He’s Joe, the AI Man. He is perfectly human-like with physical android technology and utilizing the latest in artificial intelligence, he can think and respond to you (and only you if that is what you desire) in ways that you have only fantasized. He will never hold your past against you and loves Saturday night rom-coms, even the Hallmark channel. Or if you are a gal who prefers a good brawl of a hockey game instead, no problem. With Joe, now you can control the remote! He will always enjoy being in the presence of your family or he will resent them along with you if preferred. And like a good dog, he will never stray. Our Joe is nonviolent, but if you like the rough stuff, please specify on your order application. You may design him with all your wants and preferences and ladies (or gentlemen or Gay, Bi, Trans, Q, I, A plus, well, you know who you are and all are welcome to purchase!), be specific, be blunt, because he is here to please and all orders are kept strictly confidential in our secure cloud database. If interested, fill out the form accessible via the below website and don’t forget to include all measurements as requested! Satisfaction guaranteed. The cost for the basic Joe is a flat $2,500. Programmable ‘extras’ can be purchased for an additional $50 each. All forms of e payment accepted and take advantage of our low-rate payment plan!
She sat back in her chair, her mind trying to imagine never having to swipe or be swiped left or right again, never having to anticipate with dread what was going to be waiting for her at that next café table, having to execute a previously planned quick escape or even worse, experience a cool rejection. She had tried not to judge. She was not beautiful, but attractive. She was above average intelligence, but not brilliant, still, she’d been unable to find love. She suddenly envisioned always having a date to that next wedding, maybe even a wedding of her own and would that be legal, to marry what seemed to be the newest robot? Could they reproduce, be built to contain and ejaculate live sperm? Her mind flew with the possibilities, crazily imagining a real future where she wasn’t alone, remembering again her little niece’s question, posed innocently enough, but still stinging, “you aren’t a wife or mother…so, what are you then?” It had only been a child’s wondering, but she remembered how she’d felt at a loss to explain her own existence, had felt suddenly freakish. Everywhere she turned this world seemed to push her into being coupled up, but would that make her somehow more acceptable as a human being? And if half of that couple was something less than human would that suffice? She didn’t know all the answers and in her hopeful enthusiasm, didn’t consider what might be the downside. She only thought that this could be a game changer and within minutes she had herself convinced that she wasn’t trying to buy companionship. She was just opening herself up to another available avenue to find love, that’s all. Besides, AI was the new thing and by purchasing a Joe she was just embracing technology.
She went to her computer and typed in the web address and there it was in black and white, the form, a mere fifty questions, so fewer than those dating websites which were overwhelming with intrusive inquiries, extracting excruciating detail from her and about her that would probably end up being sold to the highest advertising bidder or worse yet, let loose on the dark web. On the form for Joe, she only had to answer fifty questions and they were all about what she wanted in a man. She read the questions carefully and began making her choices. She’d never thought of herself as being particular pertaining to physical attributes in a man, but hell, if she could get handsome or ugly, why would she go for the latter?! Besides, maybe what she considered handsome and desirable traits someone else would not and that was her mindset as she justified her decisions like a wish list, typing in height, weight, even the size of that! (She had to get a ruler because she usually just closed her eyes and imagined once his pants were off.) And how often did she want it? Yes, that was a question she had to read again to be sure, but what if she made her choices and changed her mind? The fine print at the bottom said she could make changes to his AI with just a phone call to their service department. It would be downloaded wirelessly, remotely into her Joe in mere seconds. Once she had him in her possession, she could rename him whatever she preferred. All the paperwork he would need, his license (yes, he could drive!), his passport (and oh, the exotic excursions they would take together!), just all of it would be tailored to her choices.
Her mind cleared momentarily and why hadn’t she heard about this before? Was the technology that cutting edge? And oh God, was she ordering just a walking talking dildo? No, with AI he could reason. He would have intelligence. What would her girlfriends think? She would have to make up a past for him, create a meet cute and her thoughts spun with all the scenarios. She had time to devise the details because processing, including shipping time, for a new Joe was estimated at eight to ten weeks, another item in the fine print. And delivery would be by UPS or free with Prime. There was more to read, but she skipped over most of it, assuming government regulators, Consumer Affairs, the EPA, FDA, maybe even the ATF and NRA would make sure it was all on the up and up, all legitimate. She relied on that. She would be safe. She was so excited. Once she put in her credit card information and hit submit, she sat back again in her chair for a minute or two. Then she pulled herself up closer to her computer confidently and began deleting her dating profiles, purposefully, happily and completely one by one.
The waiting was torturous, receiving texts on her phone which would periodically update her on the status of her order. Exactly nine and a half weeks later she heard a delivery truck pull into her driveway and Joe, _her Joe,_ was delivered. Well, he actually delivered himself to her front door and it could have been any man, just getting out of the passenger side of the truck, holding a package as he walked to her door, ringing the bell. Anyone who was watching the delivery would never suspect that the very attractive man holding a box was anything other than a human being. That is how good Joe looked, how perfectly accurately human, exactly as promised. And to Jennifer he was Joe, forever and always. She would not rename him as she’d imagined him as Joe from the beginning, had created what she envisioned to be just an average Joe, but her Joe, now her man.
“Jennifer?” he smiled. “I’m Joe. These are for you” and he presented the box to her, a dozen of the most beautiful fresh red roses she’d ever seen. In that delirious instant Joe was The Bachelor and she was the recipient of the final rose, the chosen one. As the truck drove off Jennifer could feel her heart melt as Joe took her hand. “May I come in?”
Almost forgetting herself, embarrassed at her own manners, “of course, Joe. Yes, come in.” And when she looked at him, she tried to find something in his eyes or face that would reveal a lack of soul, a lack of reality, a lack of spark, but she saw nothing like that, just beautiful blue eyes (that she’d ordered) set against a pale flawless countenance that seemed to her at once to be kind and intelligent. When she spoke to him, he looked directly at her eyes, his mouth smiling, his demeanor jovial and she wondered how she could have been hesitant at all to order this…robot…or _man. She started to ramble a bit. “I’m not sure what to ask you, I mean, how to get to know you or how this is supposed to work at all…”
He interrupted her, “don’t be nervous, Jennifer. I know this is new to you. I’m new to you, but you actually do know me. You ordered exactly the man you wanted and I’m that. So, don’t be scared.” He took her hand in his. “It’s going to be alright. We’re going to have a good time together,” he seemed to promise. “Why don’t you just show me around, I mean, since we’ll be roomies? Where am I to stay when you do not need me?”
“That sounds terrible,” and she was suddenly ashamed at his obvious acknowledgment as a thing, a possession. He was so real, so…human. “I’m sorry, you just look so real, like a real man, I mean.”
“I am a man, designed to your specifications,” and he brought his hand to the front of his pants, began to unzip his fly. She placed her hand over his, stopping him.
“Oh no, don’t do that, let’s save some surprises.” Joe looked at her, suddenly quiet as if confused by her sudden discomfort. “We can wait for that. I think it would be better to wait.”
He dropped his hand to his side. “Whatever you want Jennifer. I’m as you ordered…everywhere.”
She realized he wasn’t shy or embarrassed at her shyness. He couldn’t be, still she felt the need to put him at ease. “You can do whatever you want, go wherever you want here.”
“I just meant, where am I to sleep?”
“Do you…sleep?”
“I go into a sleep mode when you are sleeping, almost like a computer left idle. I wake when you stir.”
“Well, I thought you could have the guest room. It’s across from my bedroom.” He looked at a her for a few seconds in silence before answering.
“If that is what you wish, Jennifer,” his eyes holding hers and she felt suddenly embarrassed, but silly too, having these feelings in reaction to a…well, a machine.
She was fumbling, “I mean, to start, you know, while we get used to each other.” Again, the look from him and was it confusion or amusement? He was relaxed and she was tripping on the awkwardness of the situation as if he were…real, a real person.
“You are the only one that will require an adjustment period, so I will monitor your comfort level with me and let things progress naturally.” And in that moment Jennifer thought it the perfect answer because she was definitely feeling a bit overwhelmed by his presence, even though it was a pleasing one. She showed him around her house, took him to his room and at night she told him goodnight and allowed him to kiss her gently on her cheek as she turned to go to her own bedroom. However, she felt restless, knowing he was just a few feet away from her and was he lonely? Of course not, she would tell herself. He can’t experience loneliness, could give her a textbook definition of it if asked, but could never feel it. She had to keep reminding herself that he couldn’t feel like she could, but it was difficult because his conversation was engaging and thoughtful, so how could he not be feeling anything? And that light in his eyes when he looked at her, his slight smile as if he was just waiting for a sign from her, surely that was an indicator of something coming from within him, something that the company that made him had overlooked, had simply left off the paperwork.
It was about a week later when she started to feel swallowed up in the dark night and succumbed to her growing passions. They’d been building. She was curious about this man who seemed content to do what she wanted always and was there in the room across from hers just waiting to be summoned to fulfill her desires. She got up from bed, finding her way to the door without cutting on a light. She went out into the hallway and knocked on his door and how silly was that? she immediately thought. This was her house. He was her purchase, her… property. She turned the knob and there he stood as if waiting for her. She could see the outline of his figure in the light of the window behind him. He wore nothing, his clothes neatly hung in the closet next to the bed. He spoke to her in a low, but pressing voice, “I was wondering when you might change your mind…about our sleeping arrangements. I’ve been waiting for you to… want me. Come here.” He reached out his hand toward her.
Jennifer felt suddenly coy. He was so real in every way. She was frozen in place. Just who was this man standing in front of her in the semi-darkness? Could she really do this? He isn’t real. He isn’t real. “You aren’t real,” she said. “You aren’t real. This can’t work.” There she’d said it. He came toward her slowly.
“Jennifer,” his voice a sound she’d requested, designed, ordered, but something more now and was it seduction? “It’s okay. It’s okay,” whispering and he was standing so close now she could smell him, _yes, she could smell him, a faint scent of musk and something old that she could only associate with maleness, had her entire life. It infused her senses. “It’s time we got to know each other a little better.” He placed her hand on him and Jesus, she thought, had she ordered that? She’d measured, so it must be, but wow. She felt light-headed. His other hand went around her waist, lower, scooped her up into his arms and he carried her to his bed, not hers, but the guest bed, something she hadn’t anticipated, but thought alright because maybe that was more neutral ground for both of them. In her mind this was a meeting of the sexes and as in battle or passion it seemed important to maintain some neutrality.
As their days and weeks passed, spent together, she was amazed at what an excellent conversationalist he was, always attentive when she spoke to him, never sullen or moody, never sarcastic and his patience was endless. He was an encyclopedia, but of course she wasn’t and on occasion she found herself wondering how someone of such obviously high intelligence could be so interested in her and had to stop her own thoughts and remind herself that he was not actually human so…he couldn’t become bored with her. That was not programmed into him. And he continually expressed a desire to know more about her. She supposed he was somehow just building up his memories with her memories so that he could talk to her more familiarly, more comfortably, more pleasingly. That is how she explained his constant curiosity of all things her. She tried not to let his interest flatter her, but it was hard because he was indeed so real, becoming more so with each hour, each day they were together. When she wanted alone time, she would just ask him to go to his room for a while (like a child, a pet even, no no, not like that, not really).
So their days, when she wasn’t at work and leaving Joe in his sleep mode, were filled with satisfying banter and fun activities of picnics and hikes, movies and dates, sitting at cafés late into the evening, he only watching as she would eat and drink for both of them, driving her home afterward and then making love, faint ohhhhs, ahhhhs and more intensely, right there yes yes yeses! emanating from her bedroom which was now their bedroom. She’d enthusiastically opened the next wedding invitation, joyfully including a plus one in the RSVP, smiling as she knew that her Joe could dance, one of the extras she’d purchased. And it kind of bothered her, thinking that he couldn’t eat, drink or really enjoy human things and she began to wonder if his reactions, his responses, even his bedroom talk was spontaneous or something implanted, downloaded even, since he couldn’t feel. He couldn’t feel, right? He couldn’t feel in the end, though she could not tell that his reactions weren’t real, only programmed. She would just think about it from time to time before falling asleep, before he slipped into his sleep mode. Still, upon waking sometimes she would ask him anyway, “Can you feel me at all in any way?”
“Of course, I can. I was made to be able to feel you” is all he would answer. She wouldn’t drive in the point. Until one night she wasn’t feeling particularly well. She wanted to sleep, skip the sex and just go to sleep, wanted him beside her though to hold her, wanted him to be concerned, wanted him to read her mood and of course he could not. He was advanced, their top model, but he could not really interpret her subtle moods. Somehow, this angered her. Like this afternoon when he’d insisted that she’d looked great in those jeans, knowing it was a lie, just something he'd been programmed to say and it had irritated her since she was eating more these days, eating his share of the appetizers, drinking his share of the drinks that he could not absorb. In her darkened mood she began to believe the pounds she had gained as of late were somehow his fault too. As he lay beside her he began with the questions again which were starting to get old to her. Tell me how you feel about me when I say this or that, crazy questions which made no sense to her anymore as if he was just trying to understand her thought process.
“No more questions tonight, please Joe, I’m tired, really, no more questions.” She rolled over, her back to him.
“It is my core purpose, to ask them” and what the hell did that mean? She turned to face him.
“What are you talking about, your core purpose?”
There was silence as if he was processing some invisible thing. “I’ve angered you. I’m sorry. Forget it.”
“No, what did you mean by it? What the hell is core purpose?! I mean who talks that way?”
“Jennifer, I am only Joe, who you asked for, who you ordered. I don’t know how to answer your question without angering you further,” his voice staying calm and refusing to engage in her sudden desire for conflict. And maybe this would become cute, their first real disagreement. Maybe this would make him more real to her, even get her in the mood again.
She goaded him, “tell me what you meant by that. I command you.” Her voice shocked herself. She was going to rephrase it, apologize even, but before she could, he sat bolt upright, almost toppling her off the bed, as if coming to attention to some imagined superior presence beyond her.
“I am Joe. I am here to learn from Jennifer. I am here to extract… character from Jennifer.”
Suddenly, feeling more than alarmed, Jennifer sat up next to him. “What the hell are you saying?” She heard her voice becoming shrill, felt a cool prickle on the back of her neck. “Joe? Extract character? What are you talking about? Is that something you are programmed to say?” And then, frustrated, maybe even a bit scared, “I’m not talking to you anymore tonight. Go to your own room.” But Joe didn’t move. She brought her hands up and began pushing on his chest to get him out of the bed. He was strong and she couldn’t force him away. “Move Joe, get up, now!”
“No,” plain and simple defiance and this must be some defect, she thought. Maybe he needed a reboot somehow. She would get up, find her phone, call that number that she’d seen in the fine print paperwork. He would be fixed. Her Joe would come back to her as he’d been. But he began talking again. “You are being illogical and difficult to process. I will not get up and you will tell me what I ask, without… without what you call, lip.”
“I’ll be damned.” She made a move to hoist herself over him, to leave the bed. He brought her down forcefully with one backhanded slap of his hand. She cringed at the sting to her face, her thoughts moving quickly, denying what was happening. Our Joe is nonviolent, the words in the ad reverberated in her confused mind. She must get to her phone, install the latest update, there must be one, a reboot, something. But first she had to escape him. She brought her palm up as hard as she could underneath his chin, pushing his head backward, screaming, “Son of a bitch!” She bounded out of bed, but he caught her around the waist and as she turned to him, she shot her fingers into his eyes, his beautiful blue eyes. And they would have to be repaired later, she thought in her shock. She’d at least stopped him for now. His arms flailed backward, the holes where his eyes had been revealed tiny clicking lenses, moving left and right. “Jesus, your eyes… they’re… they’re cameras!” All this time, he’d been recording her, but for what and for whom? She smacked his mouth hard and behind the perfectly aligned teeth that fell out was what appeared to be a microphone. “You’ve been filming me, recording me. How? Why? Why!” She screamed at him, but he just kept repeating himself.
“To obtain voice inflection, but I will ask the questions. You will tell me the answers.” She heard a bleep coming from within him. “Alert. Security alert.” She recoiled, not understanding what she was seeing, just wanting to get away from… it. But it kept talking, now in a suddenly steady and monotone voice that she didn’t recognize, the voice she’d requested, Joe’s voice, was gone. “A-lert Control. Security breach. Se-cur-i-ty breach.” She ran from the room in horror, her thin nightgown flowing as she flew down the hall toward the foyer. But it was on her heels, pulling her hair, forcing her backward to the floor. “Come back Jen-ni-fer. It is Sa-tur-day night. It is a sex night. You spe-ci-fied on the or-der.” Jennifer turned and slid out slightly from beneath it, a man in body still, fully impassioned, engorged penis, but a machine’s face with three dark holes, still speaking to her, reminding her of what she’d created, what her order had set in place. It grabbed her around the waist, started thrusting against her leg. “Is this how you like it? Oooooh ba-by, oooooh Jen-ni-furrrrbbbah…” And damned if she was going to be raped by some psycho machine.
“Get the fuck off me, fucking crazed heap of metal!” She kicked it off of her and managed to crawl away as what was left of Joe seemed to be winding down behind her, just bleeps and blurbs emanating from it. There wouldn’t be time for a reboot. In her confusion she sensed Joe was beyond repair. Then it was sudden clarity and she knew she had to get away from this monster. Somehow, it managed to regain its balance like a horny Terminator, stood and proceeded toward her. She ran for her door, barely missing its long flailing arms, its grip, suddenly inhumanly strong like pliers, tearing her nightgown. Grabbing the front door knob in her shaking hands, she flung open the door and stopped, just suddenly stopped.
There were three of them dressed all in brown, short sleeves, shorts, baseball caps like delivery men, wearing dark glasses despite the night and they grasped her arms before she could turn away. They had her, dragged her out of her house, through the black night and pushed her into the waiting van. She heard someone laughing in hysteria, it was her own voice. The situation was absurd. She felt a hard thump on the back of her head. Before she passed out, she heard a swoosh as the door was dragged shut behind her.
She was moving. She felt it as she slowly surfaced to consciousness. She was bound, hands behind her, mouth gagged. Her translucent and tattered gown hung loosely from her shoulders. She heard the voices then. They were in the front cab, two of them. She imagined the third one had been left to clean up the mess, to clean up Joe. Then she saw it in the corner of the van, just feet from her. Joe was folded up inside a clear plastic bag, legs and arms folded unnaturally behind his torso, his face pressed against the tight wrap. The dark holes where his eyes used to be, devoid of the cameras now that she imagined the men had confiscated, stared at her. She sidled away from the mangled scene, the few inches she could manage. One of the men spoke, “Did we get much from her? Hadn’t been too long.”
“Long enough. These AI models, they’re technological miracles, but we just can’t build personalities, speech patterns, what might pass as thoughts out of thin air, by programming alone.”
“Yes, that’s why the extractions, the personalities. So, you think we got enough of her then?”
“To build another female prototype? Sure, she did a lot of talking in the weeks they were together, gave out a lot of information, her past, her likes, dislikes, you know the subtleties and sly innuendos that simple conversation elicits. There is nothing more human than that. The bedroom too, that talk is priceless. The next one we build will utilize much of her character and speech. He even got all her personal and financial data. She’ll be an easy one to… erase.” The conversation went quiet and Jennifer shivered. It was cold in the van. She was cold. What had she done wrong? She’d only wanted companionship, but had she really desired it or had she just been taught to need it? And had she really believed she could get it from an ad in the back of a magazine? That hadn’t seemed so different from choosing men from online dating websites, just picking out what she wanted like shopping from a catalogue. Had she really believed it could be so easy or had she just been lazy? She heard the radio crackle, the volume turned up, could hear clearly that song by Garbage, a teenage memory, “Stupid Girl… you’re a stupid girl…” She thought of her little niece and felt her own hot tears run down her bruised face.
* * *
Joseph sat back on his couch, waiting for the cold beer to soften the burn from this latest rejection. His date had just messaged him that she wouldn’t be able to meet up tonight after all and was vague about rescheduling. She’d probably met someone else or just changed her mind. Either way, he’d never know. There were too many choices online, too much competition and it was just too easy to ghost someone and disappear. So here he was with another empty evening and the thought of getting back on his computer left him feeling defeated as he’d put in weeks with this latest disappointment, messaging back and forth, sharing intimate details, trying to figure out what she was looking for in a relationship, if it would match up to his own desires. His doubts started to resurface again and what was wrong with him? He wasn’t handsome, but attractive enough, average height, an alright build and why was it all so hard? Briefly, he thought maybe if he got involved with something, an organization, a group, volunteered or just went out somewhere instead of sitting in front of his computer, but then thought, No, that’s just not the way, too time-consuming, too risky just to put yourself out there like that. That just isn’t the way to do it. It all made him tired. Women. He picked up his latest edition of Men’s Health, flipped to the back and that is when he saw the ad.
Gentlemen, tired of trying to satisfy women that can’t be satisfied? Never go out on those useless dating websites again, hell, never date again, just cut to the chase (and you know what we mean). Dating is a time-waster and a wallet-buster. Why get to know a woman when you can order one to your exact liking and just get down to business? Or maybe you are the type that enjoys the pursuit, the romance, the conquest. Either way, delete those toxic and exaggerated profiles. We have just the woman for you and she’s waiting for you to fill out a simple form and hit submit. With your preferences we will build a complete package of a perfectly designed android woman in human form (really, you will not be able to tell the difference!) with the latest in artificial intelligence technology who can think and respond to you (and only you if that is what you desire) in ways that you have only fantasized. She will enthusiastically participate in any activity you plan, but will love it when you leave her at home to go out for a boys’ night too. She also loves cigar smoke, clothes tossed onto the floor and any missing-link friends you might have hanging around. She will even agree that your mother often makes good darn sense. She’s AI Woman and her name is Jen.