Strange Flesh

by Michael Olson

  Olya barges in, reaching for his ear. She stops when she sees me. “Ah . . . Maybe now we have a real man.”

  The way she assesses me as though I were a hound of questionable pedigree sets me on edge. “What’s going on?”

  “Olya needs a dick.”

  “Yes, and better now I do not have to chase around this . . . this child.”

  “I was going to finish up—”

  Olya shakes her head. “Mmm, but today we need to do the casting. We have new skin materials, new sensors. We need molds for anatomy. The pussy, it’s a bottleneck right now. And the cock—”

  “We’ve been using off-the-rack components,” says Garriott. “There’s no reason—”

  “Andrushka, we are spending all this time like hospital surgeons cutting up Cyber Cocks and Pocket Pets. And it still feels like you’re fucking the Cuisinart. If we have the molds, we cast silky silicone around your machines in twenty minutes. And the seams we have now—” She snarls with loathing.

  I say, “I have to agree with her, bud. Ginger gave me quite a blister in the last test.”

  “You were too vigorous! Plunging away at her like she’s a defective toilet!”

  Olya and I share a look.

  Garriott recovers. “Well, I won’t do it. Your blister is nothing compared to what happened the last time she tried this on me.”

  Olya has had enough. “Listen to me, infant—”

  “Okay, I’ll do it,” I say. “But what the hell are we talking about?”

  Ten minutes later I’m sobering up and regretting my bravado, as I’m strapped pantsless into one of the MetaChairs with Olya standing above me wielding what look like electric sheep shears.

  From behind me, Garriott whispers, “Don’t let her do it. Back in November she wanted a specimen off me. Five days later, it was like I had the worst case of genital herpes in the history of primate intercourse.” He pats my shoulder but shivers with abhorrence. “Ingrown hairs, mate. Thousands.”

  Olya shakes her head. “Maybe I was a bit rough with the razor. But you wiggle like hamster.” She kneels in front of me and places a cool hand on the inside of my thigh, pushing it gently to the side. “But for you, I am very gentle.”

  And she is. Maybe it’s her sly smile as she says this, or maybe it’s the heavy buzzing of the clipper as she drags it slowly down my groin, but an awkward turgidity takes root. Oddly, the thing that goes through my head is that this is somehow unprofessional.

  Olya picks up on my thoughts as though she’s an alien empath. She softly brushes my tumescence away from her line of attack with the back of her left hand but looks up directly into my eyes. “Zhimbotchka, this is very good. Necessary for casting. But it is maybe a little early.” She says this quietly, but I still get a glance from Xan, who’s at the main table mixing up tubs of exotic pastel-hued polymers. Garriott turns away with a stagy sigh. He busies himself with the electronics to be cast into the “anatomy.”

  I get through the initial clipping, but as Olya leisurely spreads fragrant shaving soap around my nether regions, I have to resort to small talk to keep myself together.

  “I take it you’ll be representing the better half of our species? So I can have my revenge if you butcher me.”

  Olya picks up a safety razor and playfully brandishes it at me. “Ah, you want a chance at me, do you? I am sorry to say it, Zhimbo, but already I have the laser.”

  “You mean . . .?”

  “Yes. It’s permanent. Very convenient.”

  Xan snorts. “Convenient for gratifying closet pedophiles.”

  Garriott adds, “Mate, she tried to make me do it too. But there’s no way I’m letting a technician—they don’t even have medical training, you know. No way I’m letting anyone near the wedding tackle with a high-powered laser.”

  Olya begins a long, careful downstroke, causing me to clench my teeth with pleasure. She says, “Little one, you seem very concerned about this body part that on you I think it’s, ah, ves—” She starts reaching for the word while making a frightening circular gesture with the razor. “Mmm . . . like the appendix?”

  “You mean it’s small and filled with poisonous bacteria?”

  Xan says, “She means ‘vestigial.’”

  “Ah, yes. You’re so careful with this thing, yet you do nothing with it. Maybe this is why you want virtual girl?”

  Garriott mumbles under his breath about the pounding he’d give any vodka-slurping whore mad enough to try him. I have to stifle a laugh at the image of the pair of them together. Like the mouse and the elephant.

  Olya takes her sweet time with the shaving. Eventually Xan asks, “So we about done there? We’re getting close with this silicone.”

  After a quick inspection, Olya’s satisfied with her handiwork. “Ya. You want me to put it on?”

  Xan bustles over, carrying a large vat of blue liquid rubber. She nudges Olya with her hip and says, “I suggest you get your knickers off. We don’t want Fred getting lonely.”

  Olya looks disappointed, but she shrugs and reaches into a shirt pocket and extracts a yellow ovoid pill. “James, I would never question your manhood, but . . . it’s very important that you, ah, maintain while the mold sets. Maybe twenty minutes.”

  I open my mouth and dry-swallow the tablet. Olya steps over to the other MetaChair and starts tugging off her suede pants. This sight combined with Xan slathering me with Vaseline is more than I can bear. But she expertly stops before anything disastrous occurs.

  Next she presses home a cardboard box, one end of which is cut to conform to my crotch. She then begins to pour, and I feel a refreshing bath of cold liquid. I close my eyes and give in to the moment, reflecting that a replica of my member may well end up in the Smithsonian. Or more likely somewhere in Amsterdam’s Rossebuurt.

  This reverie ends when I hear Xan say, “Andrew, I’m going to need your hands here. I’ve got to do Olya now.” I’m no kind of homophobe, but there’s something about this bait and switch that makes me uneasy.

  He winks at me, saying, “Believe me, mate, I don’t like it any better than you do.”

  I try to distract myself by observing the two ladies. Xan reaches for the jumbo-sized tub of Vaseline, but Olya waves her off and makes an adjustment between her legs. Xan then carefully positions a much more complicated casting apparatus than mine. She asks, “That angle seem about right?”

  Olya squirms slightly and giggles. “Ya, but this feels like I am examined by the space people.”

  Garriott asks, “So when we decide Fred is going to need an arsehole, will your rig serve for that as well?”

  Xan frowns. Garriott turns back to me. “I’m sure you’ll make a lovely model for that part too.” He blows me a kiss.

  Suddenly my body seems to realize the following: that Xan and Olya’s interest in each other is purely professional; that I’m not likely to receive any more Vaseline-related attention in the near future; and that I am in too intimate contact with a fey Englishman who probably attended years of public school and is making vague proctologic threats against my person. Aided by all the gin sloshing around my brain pan, my libido checks out completely.

  I guess Garriott can feel a drop in the upward pressure on the box. He says, “Guys, we’ve got a problem here.”

  Xan looks over and says in what I regard to be an overly severe tone, “James, dear, we need about fifteen more minutes.”

  Garriott says, “Xan, maybe . . .”

  “I can’t. We’ll lose Olya’s cast if I move.”

  The urgency of this exchange adds to my anxiety. Also making things worse is Garriott giving the box a tentative wiggle. I shake my head.

  But Olya saves the situation.

  With a luxuriant yawn, she says, “Aieee . . . little ones. Don’t worry. The Cialis kicks in soon. But maybe it would be better if it weren’t so hot in here.”

  The basement is almost freezing, but in homage to the time-honored stag film device, she slowly begins to unbutton her blouse.


  She’s got a diaphanous slip underneath, which exposes to remarkable effect her nipples’ response to the chilly air. As though trained to the elegant absurdities of glamour poses from birth, Olya fans herself and lets a fingertip trail against her breast. Xan’s eyes could not be rolled back farther in her head. Garriott has averted his gaze, embarrassed by the transparency of this display. I, happily, feel a twinge. Perhaps things are turning around.

  Olya purrs with satisfaction. “That is better I think . . . You know, having the pussy cast is a very unusual experience. Pleasant, but, you know, maybe strange. It reminds me very much of . . .”

  “What?”

  “Mmm . . . Of the first time I ever come. Have orgasm.”

  Olya closes her eyes and a faraway smile passes over her lips. What follows is a scorching set piece, told in her dark molasses voice. It concerns her uncle’s farm outside of Yekaterinburg, two albino lambs she saved from Easter dinner, a pail of spilled milk, and a subsequent vigorous spanking. During this I see Garriott miming a broad thumbs-up at Xan. I close my eyes to blot out his antics and focus on the alluring images flitting around in my head. Her story sounds like something out of 120 Days, but gloriously free of blood or defecation.

  As her account winds down, I’m brought back by Xan asking, “Garriott, can you throw me the paper towels?” I open my eyes, and she’s squinting at me. “You people are quite ridiculous, really.”

  Olya’s eyes are still closed. She stretches her arms slowly above her head, giving me a crowning view, before collapsing and starting to button up. She looks at Xan and says, “But the casts, they will be perfect, so what do you say? ‘The ends satisfy the means.’ James, you will be okay now, I am sure.”

  The Cialis has kicked in. My cock is painfully hard, and it feels unconnected to my normal arousal mechanisms, like it’s no longer really part of my body. I suppose, soon enough, it won’t be.

  “Um, how long is this going to last?”

  Olya grins. “The drug last for a couple days. It’s too bad our robot children are not ready; what are you going to do with yourself?”

  33

  Around midnight the next evening, I’m sitting with Adrian in a werewolf-themed bar in the West Village. He’s just screened on his laptop the final cut of his Sade short King of the Hill. I have to admit I’m impressed, and, despite the outré behavior being depicted, a little turned on. Something about his ivory-skinned princesses swanning about in giant Marie Antoinette wigs, but then gathering to viciously belabor the poor stuntman with knotted switches, tickles a previously unrevealed part of me. Its discovery is unsettling.

  He can tell I’m pleased. “The ladies are panting to do a sequel. They like the wigs. Maybe we’ll find a small role for the executive producer. Up for it?”

  “Tempting, but I’m pretty busy with something else. You guys ever do anything with ‘adult novelties’?”

  Adrian studies me. I’m just full of surprises these days. “Do we ever. Oh, but you mean selling them. Why? You getting into indecent inventions?”

  “You could say that.”

  “So spill it. I ain’t a cheap date. You might as well take off the trench coat.”

  “Let’s say I’m involved in a project that, ah, ups the ante in the sex toy business, well, pretty much all the way.”

  “The full teledildonic enchilada?”

  “Let’s say.”

  “The real virtual deal?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “No way.”

  “Just humor me.”

  “Okay, but this better not be true, because you know I would have to murder you and toss your apartment. You realize you’re talking about the Holy Grail?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Seriously. Men have been wanting this since boners were invented. I mean, it’s mythic: from Eve to Weird Science, for Christ’s sake! We’d be able to start getting rid of those infernal females.” Adrian frowns. “To be honest, I thought the Japanese would get there first.”

  “But let’s say you had this thing, and it, you know, worked. What would you do?”

  “You mean besides making calluses on my dick? Hmmm.” He plucks the straw out of his cocktail and sucks daiquiri from the bottom. “I guess I’d get insanely rich.”

  “How exactly? That’s my question.”

  “Right, so who, other than everybody, would want something like this?”

  “Yeah. So maybe we start upscale? An expensive, luxury personal-satisfaction appliance. Design it like an iPod. So it doesn’t have that adult bookstore stigma—”

  Adrian shakes his head. “Nope. First you make it as cheap as possible. Your early adopters are going to be ‘sexual progressives,’ otherwise known as perverts—like us, buddy! And we like that nasty aesthetic. Eventually, yeah, the crystal-and-lace crowd. But without a doubt, you will have knockoffs immediately. Since this thing is physical and maybe a bit of an investment, you’ve got a shot at locking people in. Then creating network effects. My advice would be to lose money on the machine early on. Maximize your user base. Which will be expensive.”

  “Yeah. That’s another—”

  “And don’t forget you’ll need a tongue farm in place on day one.”

  “Tongue farm?”

  “Yeah, a customer service center. You don’t want a new user to take his toy out of the package and have there be no one on the other end, right?”

  “I was thinking a social network.”

  “At some point, sure. But short-term you need to seed the clouds with a bunch of people who know how the thing works. And you’ll make an assload of dough. Charging by the minute. I mean, in this day and age, phone sex is still making billions every year.”

  “It just seems messy.”

  “Well the sex business ain’t a church picnic. That’s for sure. We can make all the Baudrillard references we want in our videos, but that doesn’t change the fact that we need an army of hot nonsense to sell our product. You have to be okay with that, or you’ll flub the money shot, and I’m telling you, someone else will be there to get it right.”

  “Yeah. I just didn’t really see myself as the Madam of the Metaverse.”

  “If you had one of these things, would you use it to fuck your wife? That’s ludicrous. Your customers will be lonely people sick of balancing a magazine on their lap. And now that I think about it, let’s not underestimate the lovely ladies.”

  “Right. They’re generally more comfortable with devices. My team-mate was telling me that one of the first uses of steam power was a vibrating massager for the treatment of ‘feminine hysteria.’”

  “It goes back way further than that. One of the many failings of our gender is that when man learned to brew”—he looks sternly at his cock-tail—“woman learned to whittle.” He shrugs and downs the rest. “So what are you thinking about in terms of front end?”

  “Ah, we’ve got a simulated penis—”

  “No, idiot. I mean—”

  “Oh . . . Right. I’m working with NOD right now.”

  He evaluates this. “Good choice. That LibIA cybering software’s coming in handy, isn’t it? And free too! Now you’ve got a small country’s worth of Cy’ Ber-geracs honing their skills.”

  “The stars are aligning. Who would you go to for the money?”

  Adrian assumes a martyred expression. “Any time you hook up with a player in this racket, someone’s going to get fucked. The Industry doesn’t attract Boy Scouts and choir girls. But you can both get your nut if you keep at it. So you really need to make sure your partner doesn’t have the Bug. Because it will kill your business.”

  “What’s the Bug?”

  “AIDS. But in the porn world it’s mostly fraud—well, and AIDS too. You just need to worry about someone running games on you. Organized crime connections are also bad. Not because they’re not lovely, upstanding people. Some of my closest friends and all that. But they’ll be laundering money, whether you know it or not, and that will bring down heat. Even if you�
��re innocent, heat is bad, because remember there are all these anti-porn laws still on the books, and the Man can shut you down pretty easy if you annoy him.”

  “What do you know about a company called Exotica?”

  “Perfect example. On the face of it, they might seem good. Big, diversified porn conglomerate. They’ve got a novelties division, so they know how to make and retail that stuff. But people think that the Mondanos are mobbed up. Now, maybe that’s bullshit. We get romantic about the old days, and an Italian last name is probably enough to set tongues wagging. But what’s not bullshit is that Exotica is practically insolvent because the IRS put a huge lien on all their accounts. God knows I hate the IRS worse than rubbers, but as a businessman, I can tell you that it’s pretty easy to keep them out of your hair. So what’s going on over there? One thing you do know is that you won’t have a fun time if you get in bed with someone whose testicles have been nailed to the headboard by Uncle Sam.”

  “Let’s say you created this great system, but you want to make sure your potential partners don’t have the Bug. What would you do?”

  “What would I do? Well, Jimmy, I guess I’d talk to me.”

  34

  I made sure to upload my submission from a computer at GAME that belongs to Don Lanier, an ARG enthusiast who doesn’t already appear to be playing Savant. If Billy’s watching to see who his serious players are, I don’t want him associating Jacques with James Pryce just yet.

  By the next morning, my offering is posted as the winner for that day in the Telling, and I have a message asking me to seek out Madame Desgranges.

  In 120 Days, Desgranges is the most senior of the storytelling whores, and by far the most bloodthirsty. Her avatar is, true to her description in the book, an ugly hag who is “vice and lust personified.” As I approach her, she doesn’t register my presence, so I assume she’s another NoBot. I right-click to get her “touch” menu.

  Just as my finger releases the mouse button, my cover cell starts ringing, causing me to catch my breath. I remember having surrendered a forwarding number when signing up, but I’m still amazed by the feeling of disjunctive anxiety produced by a game suddenly reaching into the real world.