Coping Mechanism
“Do you really need to help out at the factory again today ? I-I thought we could talk today. There’s a lot I want to talk about, about Kendra, about us. I want to know everything is okay.” Cynthia watches me as I dress, grabbing clothes from my dresser in the room that had once belonged to three of us and not just two. The bed is king sized, and a little over two months ago the ceiling had been covered with mirrors.
Since Cynthia had wanted to sleep in this room, I’d taken the mirrors down. The memories had been too painful then, as hot as they were. Kendra had always looked so . . . so . . . sizzling when she was moaning and twisting in ways that didn’t seem like something a human spine should have been able to accommodate.
I’d teased her that her mother had been part cat. She countered that I should stop thinking of her mother while she was cumming. She had a point.
“I’m really sorry Cynth, you know I don’t want to leave you alone, I really don’t . . . But there’ve been a lot of orders lately, and even if no one’s been specifically asking for me that doesn’t mean I don’t have to help out. Getting over a month and a half of paid leave was good. I’d like to not jeopardize my return.” Cynthia winces, making me sigh. “But I’d rather stay curled up with you all day and starve warmly.”
“As opposed to starving coldly while you work on bot after bot and forget entirely about food? I know you work in private . . . You should let me come with you! I could bring you food from the vending machines.” Her voice dies off before she looks down to the covers, pulling them tighter around herself.
I really don’t want to hurt her. The whole point of this is to fix what we’re going through, not make it worse. Anything worth doing calls for a bit of sacrifice, that’s all. “Sweetie you . . . you know I can’t eat in the lab. Just imagine it if under a layer or two of doll-flesh, part of a crumb was submerged? At first, it wouldn’t be all that bad, but over time . . . Weight loss is an occupational hazard, but I promise that I’ll actually take a lunch today, all right? Promise.”
Her eyes brighten, or maybe that’s just me being hopeful. I want to leave knowing she’ll be all right. I don’t want to leave and come back to her crying miserably again, or worse. Building Kendra is hard enough. Building a Cynthia would be impossible.
“I’ll know if you don’t, Kend- . . .” Cynthia clasps her hands over her mouth in a very childlike way, and I snap the last button of my starch white top together before letting it fall over the waistband of my flowing black skirt for a vague moment thankful that my profession has evolved to accommodate for a wider choice of wardrobe. Our eyes lock and it takes everything in me not to sob.
I had been able to pause her tears, but it would take Kendra to stop them.
Without a word, I leave.
Her back takes hours. Making her able to move like she needs to be able to move, and yet still look like Kendra, is harder than it was earlier. The doll-flesh feels like it’s mocking me each time it doesn’t form just perfectly over her mechanical spine. When all is said and done there will be no way to caress her, hold her, or touch her that doesn’t feel human or just the way I remember her.
Taste may be right out, at least more intimate tastes, but her skin won’t taste like plastic. That takes a model not using doll-flesh, and those are a lot cheaper. I’m not cutting corners here. This isn’t going to be the modern equivalent of a blowup doll.
My eyes wander to her hands and I don’t try to resist the sigh. Those had been nearly impossible to perfect. I’d had trouble remembering her exact ring size, and that had almost set me back to tears. When I finally got them right, though, they looked it. They were her hands . . .
I kneel down beside her inanimate body and lavish each digit with quick tender kisses, thankful that doll-flesh doesn’t need time to dry. Her hands are a place I can kiss and just pretend she’s asleep when she doesn’t react. I want to stroke the curve of her ass and press my curves into hers, but there are only two reasons she wouldn’t react to that: death, or being an incomplete robot.
This is an illusion I don’t want to break until I can make it more than an illusion. I need it. It’s all that’s keeping me going.
Standing, I trail my eyes along her legs with a sigh. Her almost-too-long legs took work too, but mostly because it was hard not to get distracted by their familiar arches and curves. Thinking about her legs always makes me think of how I would follow their length up to glance between them and catch the sight of her cute pink sex nestled between. If she already weren’t flushed and damp by the time I’d glanced it never took that long to change. It always made me feel as if somehow she’d literally felt my eyes slide across her smooth lower lips, teasing just faintly across her slit . . .
So many memories of her playfully exhibiting her body for me flash in my mind. I’d always raised my hands over my eyes and never peeked through my fingers because I didn’t want her to realize that my eyes weren’t only hungry with lust. She’d had Cynthia, and it had always felt like her interest in me was purely playful.
Cynthia . . .
I’m doing this for Cynthia even more than I’m doing this for me. At least that’s what I’m telling myself. This makes it easier to focus and make sure that her clit looks just right.
We both spent enough time lavishing it with attention that the slightest imperfection might still register in our minds even if the taste won’t. We’ll both be sure it’s Kendra again. Kendra, with her long legs and her creamy skin. Kendra, with her bright brown eyes that almost looked sun-dyed. The color sometimes reminded me of Cynthia’s skin, and made me work harder to get the pattern in her irises just right. I know I will be spending hours staring into them.
Considering how little actual physical exertion is within the process of programming the doll-flesh and helping it settle, I’m surprised that around what seems like a decent lunch time I’m already covered in a thick layer of sweat. Even if I’m already lying to Cynthia, I don’t want to make it worse.
I leave Kendra alone with a kiss to her unliving lips, and try not to cry when I order a grilled cheese sandwich from the cafeteria.
The food is good, and my weak smiles keep everyone from coming over to sit with me in my favorite corner. Normally I love to be surrounded so I can brag about whatever electronic woman or man I’m working on that will make the company that much richer. Not that it’s ever really about the money, of course, not even with all the overly expensive parts I use that I’m not supposed to.
Is it my fault that just the right mixture of platinum in the usual solution is the only way to make eyes shine genuinely? I’ve had people tip in the thousands. The parts I’m using for Kendra are barely even enough to be noticeable.
They might be noticeable eventually, and if so I’ll claim I’ve used a few extra parts on every bot for the past three years. It has a chance of working, mainly because it’s true.
Once I’m done with the sandwich and the cheap knockoff cherry soda I swig like the hard liquor I wish it were, I go back to the lab. Kendra’s body is finished. It’s finally time to work on her voice, and her mind.
Kendra is right where I left her, laying on the cold metal slab in my personal lab. It isn’t really a lab, or at least the name doesn’t fit for me, but ‘lab’ is the best word that takes the least amount of time to say. It’s filled with all sorts of electronics, readouts, and tools that look like they were designed by someone in the late 1900s trying to be post-post-post-post modern.
It isn’t my fault that modern scientists have all grown up watching ancient science fiction.
It does, however, bring me a lot of business, so who am I to complain? Androids that look like androids, some that even have a metallic sheen, don’t need doll-flesh and are cheaper to make anyway. Easier too, but I always love a good challenge so that’s really a moot point.
Her eyes are open wide, and her mouth is closed in a crooked smile. I programmed that into her before everything else so she can smile to me on my way out. It was a sick thing to do in an almost macabre way, but all of this is sick. It’s morbid. It’s . . . wrong.
Knowing that only makes me work harder, and feel wetter. Knowing what I plan to do with this bot, knowing what I’m going to do to myself, and Cynthia . . .
I spare Kendra another kiss before moving back to my primary console and begin to activate the synthetic mind construction program. No visible wires will be going into her head, it’s all wireless. If not for the permanency of the programming—short of actually stabbing a wire into the back of her head—anyone could reprogram her at any time. I’m so thankful someone thought of making the wireless connection temporary.
No wires will ever be going into her head, but one will be going into mine.
My fingers dance over the familiar buttons, and the compartment holding the head jack opens up with its loud click. I tug out the cord enough for there to be some slack and stare at the end. It resembles the plug of an old electric guitar, but this isn’t going into an amp. It’s going into my head. I might stare longer if this wasn’t something I used to do every day.
Reaching up with my left hand I brush my bangs behind my ear and peel off the small seal of doll-skin that hides my shining silver access port. No one does programming by hand anymore. Typos had caused one too many robots to go rogue and kill their owners.
Even if it’s something I do every day, I don’t find the concept of impaling my brain any less strange. Some things you’re not supposed to desensitize yourself to. Then again, if I did what I was supposed to then I would be taking Cynthia to Kendra’s. If I did what I was supposed to I never would have fucked Kendra in the first place.
Taking a deep breath, I stab the plug into my head and close my eyes. Behind my eyelids colors float into my vision to block out reality. My internal OS takes a few moments to boot up and I’m almost worried it’ll crash before it successfully loads. I’ve been delaying updates for far too long, and this programming really isn’t safe without at least the new security protocols, but I don’t have the time and none of this is about playing it safe.
This isn’t about logic. This is about passion. This is about being driven. With a thought, I activate the neural scan. The computer in my head is an implant, not my actual brain. It doesn’t directly sync with my thoughts unless I tell it to.
Far too many poor girls had been controlled by palm computers before anyone had figured out that little safety measure.
Normally, people send in voice clips and I listen to them while building the body. That way I have the voice date saved in my mind with a quick upload via neural scan. Kendra’s voice is so much stronger in my memory. It will be the most expressive voice with which I’ve ever gifted an android.
Syncing my audio memories with Kendra’s sound processor doesn’t take long at all, though it feels like I’m hearing every sound Kendra has ever made all over again. Every loud “Yesss!” and every quiet “More . . .” she whispered out huskily. What feels even better is each “I love you, Lyssandra . . . With all of my heart . . .” Those words keep echoing over, and over, and over again deep inside of my mind.
In fact, they echo too long. They won’t stop. Over and over again, those words keep echoing, resonating, and shuddering through me. Kendra loves me, and I can feel it so deeply. When the nearby Kendra-bot starts reciting those words to calibrate the volume and hardware it feels like I’m hearing it in stereo.
Over and over again, every sweet thing that Kendra ever said echoes in my mind, and over and over again the bot chants it, over and over. “I love you, Lyssandra . . .With all of my heart . . .”
The warm feeling hearing those words inspires only grows warmer in their mindless repetition. Her moans mingle with her words, and words from our more innocent conversations somehow twine through much the same. Shining through everything else is the fact that Kendra loves me. I can hear it in her voice, and I can taste it in each memory as my head stings with a sensation that almost feels like burning, sounding like a loud whirring before both sensations fade away.
It could be hours or years when the prompt signaling the completion of her voice configuration fills my vision. The loss of Kendra’s voice feels worse than the return of a dull throb in my forehead. I can’t remember when it started, but I know I need to block it out. Headaches are often a sign of fatigue, but I need to finish this programming tonight. I’ll just need to be more careful and make sure none of the feeling gets into her head from mine.
A quick check of my internal chronometer tells me barely five minutes have passed since I started working on her voice, but every little memory of her voice still sizzles and burns into my mind as if it were fresh. I know the program is right, but it’s hard to believe.
I should cancel the rest of the procedure and pull out the cord. That whirring must have meant that I’m overloading my processor. Feelings of time loss akin to what I’ve felt are supposed to be warning signs as much as glitches, but for some reason that thought only spurs me on. The thought of losing my mind while giving one to Kendra makes my skin flush and the room feel hotter. Every time that whirring sound makes a circle my panties feel that much damper under my skirt.
It’s time to give Kendra her mind.
A few thoughts and the program asks me to start thinking of the memories the bot is supposed to come with. Normally, this process involves me watching a video the day before building the body or downloading the file into a protected sector of my hard drive. This helps with the voice too, but the voice and the memories don’t have to sync. Some of the movies are rentals.
Even though I won’t be able to duplicate this link after the programming is complete, there will be other ways for Cynthia to help fill her head with all of the right memories. After all, if she’s only the way I remember her, then Cynthia will be feeling pretty left out. I don’t want that at all. I want us to be happy again.
I start with my earliest memories of Kendra and slowly start to work my way up . . . The first time we’d met, we’d been in elementary school, and even then I’d been drawn to her. She glowed! She looked so beautiful, so wonderful, so perfect, and somehow her sweet personality matched and exceeded even her physical beauty. Everyone was drawn to her—it was impossible to resist the allure. I had never tried. I just let myself realize how grateful I was to be her friend more young lonely nights than my mother ever would have approved of.
There was nothing short of amazing about her. Memories of the way she’d walked to the way she didn’t care who knew how she felt about anything shine in my mind. I can hear the clicks of her footsteps matching up with the whirring as it grows so loud it’s almost hard to hear myself think. With how confident she was it always confused me that she was nervous to tell me she cared about me. Being with two women at once hadn’t seemed to be an issue, not to Kendra, but something was . . . Maybe she’d been afraid of rejection. I’d never gotten to ask, but I can’t think of things I don’t know—not now.
More memories than the ones I consciously remember filter into her databanks but they happen so fast I can’t remember them. Like dreams that keep being interrupted at just the right moment all I can remember are wisps of a young Kendra being the best friend I could have ever imagined.
The next memories I can feel solidly are from high school. Those times in Kendra’s room become my only reality as I watch her strip, flaunt herself, not enough to be crude or anything but cute and thigh-warming. I never watched once she moved past her underwear; I always held back . . . but just remembering these things makes my thighs burn just like they had before. A shaking hand slides up under my skirt and I gasp at how wet my panties are already.
All of the manuals will tell you how dangerous it is to multitask—especially when you’re taxing your hard drive—but the world those warnings come from feels like it’s a million memories away from the ones I’m living now. I’ll never get a chance to live the memories again quite like this, and maybe if I focus on the pleasure as I rub my panties against my slit, a part of it will become Kendra . . .
My fingers wiggle inside my soaked panties, tenderly sliding along the damp flesh beneath, and the feeling is so intense mingled with the memories that for a moment all I can think or see or feel is burning white pleasure. My whole body quakes at the feeling of rubbing myself while Kendra watches me in my memories. Kendra, with her bright brown eyes and her creamy skin, watching me be such a dirty girl, always makes me so wet and hot . . .
Did that actually happen then instead of only now? Had I masturbated when she’d stripped? Had she stripped just so I would . . .?
Whirring screams my doubts away and I cry out as the vibration sends my fingers careening into my clit. My head feels like it could explode from the sound and the shaking, but then it stops. I rub harder to try to get back some of that bliss, to more deeply relish the pleasure Kendra wants me to feel, craves me to feel, commands me to feel the way her eyes watch my hand.
She had! The more time passes, the more I’m sure that this is just what happened. Every whirr thrums the truth deeper into my hard drive, and deeper into my soul. Kendra stands in front of me, stripped down to nothing. Memories of her voice tangle and twist, words patched together from a thousand different experiences with her . . . it’s robotic, unnatural, but it feels so . . . “Want a taste, Lyssa? Don’t be shy . . . Come a little closer and kneel down, have a taste. You know you’ll like it. You’ve been thinking about it for so long, and I promise it won’t disappoint . . .”
A part of me knows this is some twisted up and tangled simulation, but my fingers feel so good and I can taste her musk on my tongue. It feels so good to touch myself like I was then, like I am now, like I will . . . Time feels so displaced, or maybe I feel displaced from time. I don’t have any baselines, and I can’t look right or left.
I can only look at Kendra.
Kendra, the woman who has always loved me, who has always said it over and over again, she wants me to taste her and melt over my fingers. I can’t tell if I’m with her as a teen or a grown woman, but it really doesn’t matter as the whirring grows and my fingers thrust faster to match. They’ve never moved so fast before. I’ve always been slower with myself, more tender, but now all I can do is let them work. It’s so hard to think, and the feeling, the memory . . . it’s so much more important than thinking.
My whole body writhes with the beat pounding between my legs and inside my mind as I watch Kendra start to touch herself right along with me. The image turns more into the older Kendra, but it’s hard to focus even on that perfection. Whether this is a memory or not, I’m not sure. I can’t be sure of anything when everything feels this good, like a warm wet dream soaking into my mind.
Had I first tasted Kendra in high school? All of my mind feels overwritten and copied over itself, directories misnamed and mismatched with the wrong self. Kendra’s rhythm starts to match the whirring too, and it gets harder to feel the confusion. Without the confusion it’s hard to know why I should be worried, or to remember if that vibrating in my head is good or bad. It makes everything just . . .
Perfect . . .
I lean forward and snake out my tongue to taste her. My tongue teases for as long as it can before it surrenders to the temptation to find her pearl and Kendra groans. “Oh . . . Lyssandra . . . I love you . . . Yesssss! With all of my heart! Fuck me! I love you!”
Words blur, voices that sounded like older and younger versions of the same woman, moans that I’d heard when I’d heard Cynthia and Kendra . . . Nnnnno, that wasn’t what those memories were at all, they’re not memories, they’re what’s happening now. Kendra tastes like bliss, like how sex is supposed to taste, hot, spicy, and fucking wonderful.
Her legs close around my head, and my world feels so much warmer. It feels so good to be so close to the woman of my dreams, dead and back alive here to . . . no . . . I remember . . . I know we’re going to graduate together, she can’t be dead, but she is, but she can’t ever die because I love her!
She screams, sliding her fingers through my hair as my lips latch and my tongue flicks as fast as it can. “Mmmmm Lyssa, Lyssa, my hot Lyssa, I love you! With all of my heart! Never want to let you go . . .!” Her body twists and arches, and my eyes manage to open long enough to watch her spasm and shudder in her perfect catlike way as she flows into my mouth.
I try not to let any of her go to waste, suckling, lapping, and licking in tune to a beat I can’t place but one that feels like I’ve known all of my life . . .
Kendra disappears from above me and a thousand other forms take her place. People I know, people I will know, people I’ve only imagined, and others I’ve built combine and multiply as the beat grows louder and something starts to smell like smoke. With a loud click I feel something tug at my head as I fall to the floor with a thud.