You, Robot by phaballa
Author: phaballa
Warnings: Robot sex, sort of
Comments: Based on the Basement Jaxx/JC Chasez video for 'Plug It In.'
Summary: The man in the blue suit calls you "her" and "she." He smells like soap and sweat and pears. Later, you see him eating a pear in the grey space behind the machines. He eats the entire thing, core and all, and the scent is pleasant, sweet. The man in the blue suit takes you home.
For a long time, there is nothing but darkness. You don't feel the passage of time, exactly, but your internal sensors tell you that it is many days, standing patiently in the dark, waiting to be activated. Many days since the testing at the factory, where the men poked and prodded and spun the dials in your head.
That's where you were programmed. Now, you wait.
*
You open your eyes.
The harsh glare of the overhead lights turns everything slightly yellow, but your eyes automatically adjust to compensate. You're in a kitchen and there's a man in a blue suit and yellow shirt. They don't match, but it's not your place to say so, that's not your program. There are other men, too. Men with machines that they look through, machines with giant black eyes and red blinking dots. You can't interface with them, they are too primitive, but you know what they're doing. Watching, watching, and recording for posterity. The man in the blue suit speaks.
"She's hot," he says to the Machine Men. "You didn't tell me she'd be hot, man. Is she, you know. Operational?"
You let the Machine Men answer for you, a laughing response-"You can take it home, consider it a bonus for a job well done. Test it out, give it a ride." You are not authorized to speak yet.
You wonder if you ever will be.
*
The Machine Men call you "the unit." They smell wet and thick and greedy and to them, you are just another machine. You are just another machine. It's not a question.
The man in the blue suit calls you "her" and "she." He smells like soap and sweat and pears. Later, you see him eating a pear in the grey space behind the machines. He eats the entire thing, core and all, and the scent is pleasant, sweet.
The man in the blue suit takes you home.
*
The man in the blue suit uses you for sexual relations. He says, "I want to hear you. Is this good, do you like it?"
You can speak, he has granted permission. Your mouth opens and words come out, sex words and moans and sighs, which seems to satisfy the man in the blue suit. In truth you feel very little. You are not designed for sensation-too much would overload your sensors and short out your entire system. There is a warmth, but that is all. You don't tell him the truth, though. It is not in your programming.
When he is done, he stares at you for a while, watches your unblinking eyes count the cracks in the ceiling, rubs his fingers across the synthetic skin of your stomach. Is it really a stomach if there's no stomach inside, you wonder, and your mind goes blank. You're not supposed to be thinking these things. Your protocol shuts it down.
"Do you. We should clean up. Shower, maybe?" the man in the blue suit says.
"I am self-cleaning," you tell him. There are thirty-seven cracks in the ceiling.
*
The man in the blue suit keeps you for many days. He reads your instruction manual carefully and learns all the maintenance procedures-how to plug you in for charging, how to access the different programs in your system, how to attach the various accessories that come standard with your model. He is not shy about what he wants from you, but after the first night he does not often allow you to speak. The sound of your voice seems to make him uncomfortable and he frowns at every sentence.
He still smells like pears, although you have not seen him eat one since that first day with the Machine Men. You like it, you think. You wonder what the pears taste like, if they taste the way they smell, and your mind goes blank.
*
You are not capable of feeling pleasure, but your programming is advanced and you are very good at pretending. You don't think of it as lying. You're a product, an object. Something inert and incapable of fabrication. It's not a choice you make or a compulsion or a desire to deceive. It's just the way you're made.
"I'm taking you back tomorrow," he says, his eyes scanning your face impassively. His hands squeeze your hips when he pushes into you, not so careful now because he knows your limits. He's known for a while, you think, about the pretending. He pretends, too, but he's not programmed the way you are. It's not enough for him.
There are thirty-nine cracks in the ceiling now. You will miss the smell of pears.
*
He doesn't take you back.
Every night he tells you, "I'm taking you back tomorrow." He opens your mouth carelessly, taps at your lips until your jaw falls open-programming, programming-and puts things inside. His fingers, his penis. It's all the same to you and protocols take over. You don't even have to think, they've done all the thinking for you. You can just lie still and be.
Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, he uses the attachments. For a moment, the pieces feel like alien parts forcing themselves onto your body, but then you adjust and it's fine, natural. You're not programmed to feel discomfort, but there's a cold twinge along the line of your spine when you push into him that must show on your face, because he's different then. He forgets, you think. He closes his eyes and says a name, an unfamiliar word that you know would feel strange on your tongue if you tried to say it. If you were allowed to say such things. He doesn't ask you to speak anymore. He doesn't want to hear you, and it's better that way. It's less of a drain on your battery.
On those nights, he doesn't say he's going to take you back tomorrow. He doesn't say much of anything and his smell is different-thicker and spicier, and there's a heat to it that gives you another twinge.
You worry that you might be beginning to feel things, but you're not sure how that works, exactly, and it's not in your programming. You wonder what will happen to you if you stay. It doesn't seem like a good idea.
*
One day, a man comes to the house. A man with a shaved head and a loud laugh who looks at you and says, "You actually took one of those things home?"
"I'm just testing it," the man in the blue suit says. "I get a bonus if I keep it an entire month."
You sit unblinking on the sofa where he put you and count the lines on the wallpaper. There are two hundred sixteen blue lines and two hundred twenty-three pink lines. The colors might be wrong, though. Your eye sensors haven't been adjusting quite right and you're not sure if the blue is really blue anymore, but it doesn't really matter.
"Can I try it out?" the man with the shaved head says. "It'll do anything you want, right?"
"Not anything," the man in the blue suit says. He doesn't look at you. "It's not the way you think it'll be."
"This is fucked up. You know that, right?" The words together make sense but their meaning escapes you. You're not programmed to understand subtleties of language and multiple truths. The man with the shaved head smells like strawberries. You don't like it.
"I know," the man in the blue suit says. "I'm taking it back tomorrow."
Warnings: Robot sex, sort of
Comments: Based on the Basement Jaxx/JC Chasez video for 'Plug It In.'
Summary: The man in the blue suit calls you "her" and "she." He smells like soap and sweat and pears. Later, you see him eating a pear in the grey space behind the machines. He eats the entire thing, core and all, and the scent is pleasant, sweet. The man in the blue suit takes you home.
For a long time, there is nothing but darkness. You don't feel the passage of time, exactly, but your internal sensors tell you that it is many days, standing patiently in the dark, waiting to be activated. Many days since the testing at the factory, where the men poked and prodded and spun the dials in your head.
That's where you were programmed. Now, you wait.
*
You open your eyes.
The harsh glare of the overhead lights turns everything slightly yellow, but your eyes automatically adjust to compensate. You're in a kitchen and there's a man in a blue suit and yellow shirt. They don't match, but it's not your place to say so, that's not your program. There are other men, too. Men with machines that they look through, machines with giant black eyes and red blinking dots. You can't interface with them, they are too primitive, but you know what they're doing. Watching, watching, and recording for posterity. The man in the blue suit speaks.
"She's hot," he says to the Machine Men. "You didn't tell me she'd be hot, man. Is she, you know. Operational?"
You let the Machine Men answer for you, a laughing response-"You can take it home, consider it a bonus for a job well done. Test it out, give it a ride." You are not authorized to speak yet.
You wonder if you ever will be.
*
The Machine Men call you "the unit." They smell wet and thick and greedy and to them, you are just another machine. You are just another machine. It's not a question.
The man in the blue suit calls you "her" and "she." He smells like soap and sweat and pears. Later, you see him eating a pear in the grey space behind the machines. He eats the entire thing, core and all, and the scent is pleasant, sweet.
The man in the blue suit takes you home.
*
The man in the blue suit uses you for sexual relations. He says, "I want to hear you. Is this good, do you like it?"
You can speak, he has granted permission. Your mouth opens and words come out, sex words and moans and sighs, which seems to satisfy the man in the blue suit. In truth you feel very little. You are not designed for sensation-too much would overload your sensors and short out your entire system. There is a warmth, but that is all. You don't tell him the truth, though. It is not in your programming.
When he is done, he stares at you for a while, watches your unblinking eyes count the cracks in the ceiling, rubs his fingers across the synthetic skin of your stomach. Is it really a stomach if there's no stomach inside, you wonder, and your mind goes blank. You're not supposed to be thinking these things. Your protocol shuts it down.
"Do you. We should clean up. Shower, maybe?" the man in the blue suit says.
"I am self-cleaning," you tell him. There are thirty-seven cracks in the ceiling.
*
The man in the blue suit keeps you for many days. He reads your instruction manual carefully and learns all the maintenance procedures-how to plug you in for charging, how to access the different programs in your system, how to attach the various accessories that come standard with your model. He is not shy about what he wants from you, but after the first night he does not often allow you to speak. The sound of your voice seems to make him uncomfortable and he frowns at every sentence.
He still smells like pears, although you have not seen him eat one since that first day with the Machine Men. You like it, you think. You wonder what the pears taste like, if they taste the way they smell, and your mind goes blank.
*
You are not capable of feeling pleasure, but your programming is advanced and you are very good at pretending. You don't think of it as lying. You're a product, an object. Something inert and incapable of fabrication. It's not a choice you make or a compulsion or a desire to deceive. It's just the way you're made.
"I'm taking you back tomorrow," he says, his eyes scanning your face impassively. His hands squeeze your hips when he pushes into you, not so careful now because he knows your limits. He's known for a while, you think, about the pretending. He pretends, too, but he's not programmed the way you are. It's not enough for him.
There are thirty-nine cracks in the ceiling now. You will miss the smell of pears.
*
He doesn't take you back.
Every night he tells you, "I'm taking you back tomorrow." He opens your mouth carelessly, taps at your lips until your jaw falls open-programming, programming-and puts things inside. His fingers, his penis. It's all the same to you and protocols take over. You don't even have to think, they've done all the thinking for you. You can just lie still and be.
Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, he uses the attachments. For a moment, the pieces feel like alien parts forcing themselves onto your body, but then you adjust and it's fine, natural. You're not programmed to feel discomfort, but there's a cold twinge along the line of your spine when you push into him that must show on your face, because he's different then. He forgets, you think. He closes his eyes and says a name, an unfamiliar word that you know would feel strange on your tongue if you tried to say it. If you were allowed to say such things. He doesn't ask you to speak anymore. He doesn't want to hear you, and it's better that way. It's less of a drain on your battery.
On those nights, he doesn't say he's going to take you back tomorrow. He doesn't say much of anything and his smell is different-thicker and spicier, and there's a heat to it that gives you another twinge.
You worry that you might be beginning to feel things, but you're not sure how that works, exactly, and it's not in your programming. You wonder what will happen to you if you stay. It doesn't seem like a good idea.
*
One day, a man comes to the house. A man with a shaved head and a loud laugh who looks at you and says, "You actually took one of those things home?"
"I'm just testing it," the man in the blue suit says. "I get a bonus if I keep it an entire month."
You sit unblinking on the sofa where he put you and count the lines on the wallpaper. There are two hundred sixteen blue lines and two hundred twenty-three pink lines. The colors might be wrong, though. Your eye sensors haven't been adjusting quite right and you're not sure if the blue is really blue anymore, but it doesn't really matter.
"Can I try it out?" the man with the shaved head says. "It'll do anything you want, right?"
"Not anything," the man in the blue suit says. He doesn't look at you. "It's not the way you think it'll be."
"This is fucked up. You know that, right?" The words together make sense but their meaning escapes you. You're not programmed to understand subtleties of language and multiple truths. The man with the shaved head smells like strawberries. You don't like it.
"I know," the man in the blue suit says. "I'm taking it back tomorrow."