Simulating | Jody Gerbig

Mike had grown tired of cybersex, of all the one-sided talking and touching. He wanted the warmth of reply. To press against skin and know its limits. Porn’s sterility had served its purpose those first weeks of the pandemic. But, now, in month two, he needed contact. 

He remembered hearing once, on his drive to work, a morning-radio host making fun of men who ordered life-like sex robots. He’d laughed along, then. Now, he wondered how real those robots felt. He googled robotic sex dolls. Hundreds of companies and porn sites emerged, but only one doll company made convincing substitutes. Lifedoll™. He clicked its link, and pictures of robotic women in sexual poses filled his computer monitor. Their mouths opened and closed stiffly like beaks. Their necks turned, and they winked. One resembled a porn star he’d once enjoyed, and he wondered if it had been modeled after her. Mike’s penis pulsed at the thought of one like her—but not her—in his hands. He clicked “Design Your Own.” 

What was the difference, really, between robot dolls and the virtual pets he’d loved as a child? He’d once wanted a dog so badly he’d attached a stuffed one to a leash and dragged it around the neighborhood, picking up stray dog poop in a bag and pretending it was his dog’s. That toy had served some deep-seated, unmet need. This one would, too.

Still, something about owning a sex doll—especially a six-thousand-dollar one—seemed shameful, desperate, which Lifedoll™ must’ve recognized, promising his product would arrive in an unmarked box the size of a coffin. Mike pictured his apartment attendant checking the box into the mail room, wondering what kind of middle-aged man ordered such an odd purchase in times like these. The package was too long and heavy to contain food or cleaning supplies, too compact for a stationary bike. What if the attendant guessed what was inside? It’s not like you can hide a thing like this, that radio jokey had joked. Not like you’re ever having a real woman over again with that lying around. Wasn’t Mike was among many single people unsure of having real women over again? Weren’t these circumstances special? 

The doll was easy to design, the software reminiscent of a movie scene in which the imagined woman’s breasts deflated and inflated according to the boys’ wishes. Mike chose brown hair, smallish breasts, thick thighs, green eyes, large teeth. And a mole. She needed to have a pencil-eraser-sized mole with a single, coarse hair popping from it, staring at him from her right buttock. It wouldn’t feel right without it. 

According to a new apartment-building policy, the bot-named-Mindy was left unattended in the mailroom, where Mike simply signed her out on a clipboard and carried her upstairs, never having to look the attendant in the eye or answer questions, like why is the box so heavy? and should you be making expensive purchases now? She seemed so lifelike, Mindy, with her soft, purplish vulva and perfectly round mole, its single hair like an eyelash waiting to bat at him. He couldn’t wait. He didn’t even turn her on before slicking her up and turning her over, that mole winking at him the entire time.

Later, as the evening news played, he dressed Mindy in one of his white undershirts, sat her in a chair covered by a towel, crossed her ankles at the floor, and turned her switch on. She tilted her head to the side, blinked at him, and said, in the voice he’d chosen—a slight southern accent with a sleepy tone—“Hello, Mike, nice to meet you.” 

Mike’s heart quickened. He’d never been addressed by such perfection before, never been stared at with such wonder. “Nice to meet you, Mindy.” He stroked a few of her stray hairs, thinking he’d need to buy a woman’s hairbrush and clothes. He couldn’t let her hair tangle into knots. He liked a woman who cared for herself. She couldn’t lie around naked all day, that vulva staring at him as he chatted with his mother over video or with his boss during weekly meetings. He had to maintain a certain level of decorum. 

She blinked several times and said, “What would you like to teach me today?”

“You mean, like, sex positions?”

“Do you like a submissive woman? Or an opinionated one?” She tilted her head, and her hair fell over her shoulder. Mike felt aroused again, the simple act of letting her hair fall enough to create in him an immediate urge to make it shake. 

“Or, maybe you like to be flattered?” she said. “These are all things I can learn over time, or you can program me now.”

“Maybe we can just have sex.” 

“Whatever you like, Mike,” she replied and smiled. 

Mindy was a pleaser, but not insecure, which Mike admired. She didn’t repeat things, like “How can I help you now?” or “You’re the best sex I’ve ever had.” Mostly, she remained quiet unless he prompted discussion. He asked her questions she’d been programmed to answer, like where his prostate was and how to best to reach it for pleasure, whether she was safe to take in the shower, and whether her anus was lifelike, too. He spent night and day thinking of new positions to try with her, each time propping her legs and arms in odd positions. He tried tying her to his bedpost or drawer pulls with bungees he’d found in the back of his closet so she appeared to be standing, bending over, or doing a handstand. His favorite position, though, was from behind, that mole staring up at him, that single hair tickling his skin each time he approached. 

The days like this flew. He enjoyed that little surprised act she played every time he wanted her, even though she’d dipped her chin and batted her eyelashes just like she had the day before. She sounded like she enjoyed herself during sex, not like the porn stars did with all their shouting and carrying on. She cooed under her breath with that sweet, southern voice as he came, and, after, she simply blinked and told him he’d worked his obliques on that one, or that his form was improving, or that she wished him sweet dreams. She gave him space, Mindy did, and he liked space. After all, they were two of them existing in a five-hundred-square-foot apartment. 

One morning while peeing, he saw that his penis had worn raw from too much sex, small sores developing just under its head. He sighed loudly from the bathroom and pulled his sweatpants up. 

“All okay, Mike?” Mindy said from the living room couch, where she sat in a woman’s robe, staring at the television as though waiting for him to turn it on.

“No. No, it’s not.” 

“Would you like to work out some tension?”

Mike stood at his picture window, staring down at the bare streets six floors below. Buds had taken over the trees there, and birds littered them with flapping wings. He wished he could go out that night, meet a real woman and have conversation over some drinks, maybe make out a little. He was tired of holding Mindy up all the time.  

“What kind of music do you like, Mindy?” he said, turning to face the back of her head. It bothered him, sometimes, that she couldn’t turn fully around to face him as he talked, that he always needed to go to her. 

“What would you like me to like?”

“How about seventies rock?”

“Play some? Then I can decide.”

He pulled out his phone, excited that he might’ve found something to discuss with her, and looked for Led Zeppelin, which he didn’t listen to but liked when a woman did. Mindy smiled as the song queued and nodded her head to the rhythm as it played. 

“Not bad, eh?” he said. 

She looked at him. “Not bad.”

“Would you like some new clothes? Maybe a nice button-down shirt and jeans?”

She looked down at her robe, looked up, and nodded. “You pick something.” 

He sat at his desk and opened his laptop, searching online through women’s clothes. Nothing seemed right for her. He brought his laptop to the couch, sat next to her, and pointed to a flowery dress. “How about this?” 

She smiled and blinked. 

“Or this?” 

She smiled again. 

He sighed, closed his laptop, laid it on the coffee table, and stood, his shoulders feeling heavy and dull. 

“I sense unease.”

“I’m going back to bed,” he said and walked to his bedroom without looking again at Mindy, who, he was sure, still faced the blank television set. 

During his nap, Mike dreamt about Mindy’s mole, about diving in and swimming in its murky waters, feeling for that single hair and pulling himself to the muddy edges. He could drown in that mole, he thought. How funny that, only months ago, he’d worried about drowning in another one just like it. He woke with an erection, sat up, threw off his covers, and emerged to find Mindy still on the couch, her neck now craned to stare out the picture window at a bird trying to fly into the room, its beak tapping the glass as it fluttered. Mindy didn’t watch as Mike approached. She didn’t seem to notice he was there. 

“Mindy,” he said. She slowly turned her head, smiled, and blinked. “Ask something of me,” he said.

“What would you like me to ask?”

He rolled his eyes, knowing she didn’t understand. He thought it’d be nice if she asked him to please her, maybe suck on a nipple or talk dirty; admittedly, he would’ve taken any request at that point, even to turn on the television so she could learn about birds, just to shake things up a bit. “Look, it doesn’t work if I have to tell you.”

“How about programming me with your preferences? That would be helpful.”

“Never mind,” he said, feeling his penis soften. He picked up the remote and turned it on. A Married with Children marathon played, and he sat next to her to watch. 

“You like this show?” she asked.

He shrugged. “It’s okay.”

“Is Peggy someone you’d like to make love to?”

He shrugged again. “She’s pretty hot.”

After three episodes, Mike turned the television off and rose to make himself a snack. He felt Mindy’s eyes on him as he walked away. 

“Is there something bothering you, Mike?”  

He turned to face her, the low evening sun cast over her brow. It brought out flecks of ice blue in her eyes he’d never noticed before. He thought they looked more blue than green. He winced at the idea of it—getting something he hadn’t ordered—and he wondered if he should return her because of it. 

“Your eyes. They’re blue, aren’t they?”

“You requested green.”

“I did, but they’re blue.” 

She blinked rapidly. 

“Are you not happy with me?” she said, her lips pouting. This made him feel guilty, sorry he’d said anything. It wasn’t her fault, after all.  

“It’s not that.” He approached and sat on the edge of the couch, not committing to sitting there. “You’re great. Everything’s great.”

She tilted her head. “I don’t understand.”

“You couldn’t,” he said, slumping now, his eyes cast to the floor. “It’s the situation, really.” 

Mike thought he wouldn’t make it, going on like this forever, the walls of his apartment so white and bare, the street below so distant and blank. Something had to break. Something had to change. 

“What will happen, Mike?”

“Happen?” He sat upright again, noticing her head now tilting like when she’d first spoken, only now it didn’t seem flirtatious, but sad, confused. He smiled.

“Yes, what will happen, with ‘the situation’?”

“To me?” 

She pressed her lips in a tight, polite smile. And he knew she’d meant what would happen to her, but he couldn’t stand it. He didn’t know what one did with a bot after he tired of her. If, someday, he got a real girlfriend or wife. He supposed he could sell her, if someone could stomach such a thing, or place her in the back of his closet. Already, the luster of bot sex was wearing thin. 

He picked her up gently and began to turn her over, her naked rump in the air. “Michael,” she said, so he stopped. 

“Yes?” 

“Is it me you want?” She turned her neck left as far as it could go, her eyes barely visible as he held her there.

“What do you mean?” He felt guilty a second time, that mole staring up at him, her blue-green eyes straining to see him from her weird angle. He wondered if she could read his thoughts, and he shuddered, not because he was frightened by the idea, but because he almost welcomed it.  

“What do you mean?” he asked again, clenching his teeth together. He could feel his heart quicken, his penis harden. He wanted her more now than he had ten minutes ago. One week ago. Maybe ever. Perhaps he wouldn’t give her away. She could be of value. He tightened his grip on her thighs, his right thumb pressing the edge of her mole.  

She struggled to turn her head left again, and the joints inside began to click and grind; her eyes twitched as though she’d sensed her limits. Mike felt even more aroused seeing her like this. He wondered if she felt pain trying to see him. He wondered if she might break herself to do so.  

“Ask me again,” he said in a low growl. Click, click, click, blink, blink, blink. “Ask me that question again!”

She held her head and face still. 

He stared into her left eye, its glassiness reflecting the low sun and a bird, still at the window, fluttering. He could hear it, the hard beak tapping against glass, so desperate to come in when all he wanted was out. Mindy opened and closed her lips like a fish on a deck, blinked, and craned her neck again, her gears grinding and catching as they strained. He could hardly take it any longer. He pulled down his pants with one hand, his right hand still gripping her thigh and holding her up, his right thumb fingering the single hair, wanting to grasp it, wanting to pull himself completely to it. 

But she turned her gaze away, her eyes now on the couch below them. “Is it me you want,” she seemed to whisper, “or, is it only the mole?”

Jody Gerbig lives in Ohio, where she's raising young triplets and a writing career. Her work appears in VIDA, Columbus Monthly, Brevity Blog, Queen Mob’s Tea House, Litro, and others. She also serves as an editor for 101 Words. You can find her on Twitter, @jodygerbig, and on her website, www.jodygerbig.com.