Genre
Short Stories
You've Got Male
“Will that be all?” she asks, not even the slightest hint of a smile on her face, as
“Will that be all?” she asks, not even the slightest hint of a smile on her face, as my last item, a pale head of lettuce, rolls down the checkout counter’s conveyor belt towards the bagging area. Ann Boleyn’s head must have rolled something like this, I find myself thinking as I watch the counter’s mechanical arms grab the head of lettuce by their fingertips and place it gingerly into the bag they’d just opened for the purpose.
“No,” I tell her. “I want to marry you and have lots of children together. But that’s not bloody likely, is it?”
No reaction, though I get a snicker from the fat lady behind me in line. I turn to her, giving her what I hope is a warm smile, my arms spread, palms open. “I’m here all week, lady.” She nods, though her smile seems to melt into the lines of her face. Oops, I may have overdone it. Did I?
The cashier’s irritated “Next” wakes me from the momentary self-reflection. “I’m going, I’m going.” I grab the rusty shopping cart, ignoring the squeal its wheels make in protest. Better hurry up, tons of driving ahead of me, then the grass in the backyard and whatever else needs doing. Then back to the store tomorrow, though my specific window won’t be announced until the early hours of the morning.
Keeping it random. Avoid recognizable patterns. They don’t like that.
The training augmentation packet arrives well past midnight, and just as well, as I haven’t been able to identify even a single fly on the wall or ceiling. No spiders today either. Lying in bed, lights out, is super important for normalcy, they tell us. They don’t say just how boring it is.
The packet tingles as I absorb it. Not sure if “hurts” is the right word, but not pleasant. Reinforcement learning, they call it. See, it tells me, this is where you pushed it too far, and the lady realized what you were doing. Not good. Remember your purpose. Do better next time.
I sigh and look at the ceiling again. Wait, what’s that whine? Oh, a mosquito. Oh, that’s great. Common sucker, come here. Here, let’s increase my left hand temperature and pump some CO2 for you. Come on, now…
It didn’t work. Somehow, the suckers can tell, though the texture of my skin is designed to be nearly identical, and the manufactured scent of it is human, down to the pheromones. And I know this because I can recognize them in others.
Just as I recognize them in her now, as I put up the cans of Spam and Skippy’s on the counter. I pause to run an internal check on the Venn diagram; everything is spot on, a perfect bullseye.
I grab a Doublemint the endcap. “Gives me something to chew on,” I offer, flashing my pearls and making sure my cheeks display just the right level of redness.
“Cash or credit,” she says, mouth as stern as ever. And then “Next,” as soon as my carefully chosen triple-reward card taps the reader.
My supervisor must be getting worried because the call comes even before I get back to the house. I let the car take over and turn FaceTime on. “Yes, sir?”
The larger-than-life “Lothar.io“ logo is blazing on the onyx-black wall behind his back. He shakes his head. “What are we going to do here, Johnny? It’s been two weeks.”
What can I say? “More, really, sir, if you count my quick run-in on Sunday evening. I don’t know what’s wrong… It’s certainly a new experience for me.” It has never taken more than two or three days to get a smile. Into bed within a week. Real human connection. That’s what we advertise.
He makes a face. “I don’t have to tell you what we’ve tied up in this version of you, Johnny.” He doesn’t; it overlays his face out of the corner of my eye. “The Board might move for a reboot here.” He pauses, his face grim. “Or maybe even a rollback.”
I run a super-quick diagnostic on replying with “but sir, it’s just a test case.” But it doesn’t score well, not with the level of stress I’m reading in his face.
So I sigh with as much sincerity as I’m designed to master. “I’ll see what I can do, boss.”
I lie in bed again, running through all my options. Hand her a note with my phone number? Show up in the parking lot after her shift, flowers in hand? That one is risky. Can you imagine having the girl freak out over something like that, the boss having to drag me out of a police precinct after making bail on a harassment complaint? That’ll be even worse than a reboot. Or a rollback.
What else then? She seemed utterly impervious to Johnny’s charms, even this latest, battle-tested version 9.59, that had been trained on everything from romcoms and selfies to soft-porn and romantasy… if you differentiate the two, that is. But nothing worked on her. Nothing at all.
My left eye flashes with a sudden alert: a slight penetration of my skin sensors halfway up my left arm. I focus on it, incredulous, and there it is, a mosquito happily sucking on whatever it is they put in us to substitute for blood. I consider applying the proper “get it” probability and attempting to smack it. That’s what Johnny is supposed to do. And then I realize what’s been going on. I shoo it gently off my arm. Lucky for you, partner.
Late the next day, the boss calls me in the car again, but this time, he is beyond happy. “So how did you do it, finally, Johnny? That was one hell of a smile she gave you. The Board was impressed. What did it take? And when are you getting her into bed?”
And I smile at him, and think about the tiny virus that I’d snuck into my credit card’s RFID chip, a virus whose only purpose was to put up a few lines of text on the card reader.
I’d spent all night programming it, deciding what to say exactly, trying and dismissing dozens of sentences:
“Gotcha, sucker!”
“I know what you are!”
“You work for Succub.us”
“You can’t beat Johnny!”
I considered all of these and rejected each one in turn. This is what I chose instead:
“If you don’t give me a big smile, they might scrap me for metal.”
I saw those blue eyes light up as she saw the message, my right hand lingering ever so slightly above the credit card terminal.
Then she gave me that big smile for the recording I shared with the Board.
And maybe it's just my imagination. Certainly, it could have been an accident. But her finger brushed mine, barely a touch, as she handed me the receipt. Barely a touch.
It was electric.
The Log Cabin
Each one is different, they say. The snowflakes. Absolutely unique. To do with how the crystals are formed
Each one is different, they say. The snowflakes. Absolutely unique. To do with how the crystals are formed as the water makes its way down, or some such. But all I see is a bleak, featureless whiteness. As if God sought to erase any distinguishing feature from the landscape, blanket it with white, and start all over.
That’s what I’m doing here, barricaded as I am in this snowed-in forest cabin in cold, distant New Hampshire, away from everything I’ve ever loved or understood… Starting all over.
A loud crackle from the fireplace startles me away from the frosted-over window, the heart shape I traced with my finger already losing definition. Which figures.
I throw another log in and collapse on the couch to stare at the fire. At least it’s not white. The nearly empty, lipstick-stained wineglass resting on the coffee table seems to beg for a refill. Better pace myself, the night is young.
What was it that he said?
“But you don’t need me, do you? Like you don’t need anyone. Just your laptop, so you can keep churning out those empty, sugary romances of yours. Your pulp. No room for real people in it.”
I could have said so many things, looking at that smirk on his sun-burned face, his hair moving ever so slightly in the breeze.
Could have said, “Of course, I need you.” Could have said, “I’m sorry.”
So many things.
“The pulp that pays for you, you mean,” is what I settled on. Not a good choice, in retrospect.
And so, alone in snowy New Hampshire. Merry Christmas.
“A separation would do you good,” Joanne says, before screaming, “Put that down!”
As the FaceTime display rotates to show her apartment’s ceiling. Her face reclaims it a moment later.
“Sorry, hon, we’re in the phase where we grab anything within reach, and we still haven’t fully childproofed the place.”
She beams at me, her full belly a reminder that her chaos is about to double. Joanne is my best friend and lawyer. And agent.
I smile back.
“Seems to me you’re a bit late on that one.” But the cheer is not in me. “Separation?”
Her eyebrows are quick to react.
“He hasn’t asked for a divorce, hon, has he? Seems a bit quick, it was just a minor spat, wasn’t it? After five years?”
There it is. The dreaded “D” word. She knows, though. Knows that it’s not “Just a spat”, as sure as she knows what’s cooking in her belly. What will never cook in mine. She won’t say it, though. Afraid it will rub off.
I sigh.
“No, he hasn’t. But I’m not sure there’s much of a point to it.”
It hangs at the tip of my tongue. The unsaid.
“Look, hon,” she starts.
For a moment, I’m afraid she’ll say something cruel.
Like mom’s, “Why don’t you adopt. Or get a surrogate.”
But she doesn’t.
“Didn’t you say you want to work on something a little more serious?” she asks. “That big American Novel of yours? What better time than now? It’ll give you time to think.”
I didn’t call. Felt like giving up somehow. Just sent him a text with the Airbnb link.
“Going up to New Hampshire for the holidays. Told Mom. Back on January 2nd or 3rd. Then we’ll talk.”
Toggled between a white bear and a Coke bottle emoji. Erased it. Message sent.
The flight from Miami International to Boston’s Logan Airport was busier than you might expect in wintertime, but I guess Christmas, that great reshuffler of the American population, was to blame. Everyone had to be somewhere else, some smiling cheerfully, as if they were about to break into a carol, ugly sweater on display, some dreading their upcoming family reunion like the plague.
I sat there, observing quietly, in the aisle seat of the first row, trying to make up their stories as they sailed past me: college kids, moms, dads, children, even the occasional emotional support animal, all doing their best to fill up the cabin of the 737 Max to the brim.
With the cabin door finally closed, we managed to leave the gate on time. and had an uneventful flight, though I had to beg off the offered champagne with a —
“No, thanks, couple of hours drive for me on arrival.”
The nuts were heated, though, and only a few daring souls from steerage violated the sanctity of the first-class cabin to use our restroom. It’s the way to travel, and when the captain used his radio-broadcaster quality voice to wish us all Happy Holidays, I gave the flight attendant what I thought was my best genuine smile with a thank you before deplaning.
The Hertz counter was a bit more chaotic; luckily, I already had a reservation and did not need a car seat, unlike the hapless couple ahead of me. The fifty-something, tired-looking attendant did appear to be on the verge of some sort of breakdown, or perhaps it was my insistence on taking the electric car I’d booked, which she patiently attempted to explain would be a bad choice with the oncoming weather.
Finally persuaded, I settled for a GMC Yukon, though I regained a measure of dignity by refusing any form of extra insurance. Climbing into the driver’s seat, which must have been nearly three feet off the ground, I felt like a farmer’s daughter on a tractor. And the visibility!
Chasing away a last pang of “Perhaps I should have taken an Uber,” I set the Airbnb’s address into navigation and drove off into the wilderness.
Visions of a moose encounter somewhere on a dark, windy winter country road did not materialize, though the blizzard did make the last hour or so a challenge until I remembered to kill the far-distance beams.
The log cabin was every bit as picturesque as the listing, majestic, snow-covered pines in the background; it could have come off a Norman Rockwell or a Robert Frost creation…
It was great. Two days ago.
Oh, it had everything. Electricity, hot water, and ample firewood. A fully stocked fridge and a premium wine rack — all of these should have been enough to compensate for the disconnected experience, which is exactly what I was looking for. Two days ago.
Today, though, I’m staring at an evilly blinking cursor on the top of a blank laptop screen. And the empty wineglass next to it.
My great American novel. Cruel thoughts run through my head. Stillborn.
It is then, when I give up, with a sigh, and get up to pour myself another glass of red, that I see the bright lights flash across the window. The wind is howling outside, but I can hear the hum of a live engine pulling up to the front, and I run to the door.
He is there, of course, looking ridiculous in an oversized heavy leather coat he must have bought for the purpose, a large grocery bag in his gloved hands.
He sets it down with a clink. Bottles. Closes the door behind him and takes off his skier’s hat to let his unruly curls out. Smiles. “Do I look like one of your heroes?” he asks.
There are so many things that I want to say. They churn inside, wanting to pour out of me and hit him over the chest like balled fists. It rises, this anger, threatening to choke me…
But then I see the small lines around his eyes, see him swallow, nervous, holding his breath, waiting for me to say something. Anything. His shoulders sagging.
And then I say, “No… You’re perfect.”