Chapter 11 The Big Bad Love Machine

70.

‘I can be anything!’ Said Missy bouncing up and down on her bed, having just drank all the lemonade in the house.

Robert made a face. ‘Uh huh.’

‘If I just put in the hard work, I could become anything a mathematician, a programmer, anything.’

Robert sipped his tea.

‘If you got smarter.’

‘I can be smarter.’

‘I mean smarter than any human has ever been before.’

‘I can do that!’

‘I mean smarter than a super intelligent AI.’

Her bounces slowed.

‘But…’ her bounces increased in height. ‘If I work really hard, like if I work really hard I can do anything.’

‘Right but there are limits, like biological limits, unless you can find a way to become a computer, your chances at doing literally anything with your life are near zero.’

Bounces decrease.

‘Then,’ she got higher ‘I’ll find a way to be a computer, I WANT TO BE A COMPUTER!’

Robert smirked.  

‘Reality’s gunna hit you like a chainsaw.’

71.

‘Hey,’ said John walking into the kitchen with hands clasped behind his back, dead eyes and a big fat donkey grin on his face. ‘How you doin’ sweety?’

Lady was eating her bowl of Salad. ‘I’m doing pretty good.’ She smiled. ‘I wrote one hundred books today.’

Both John’s hands went tucked into his armpit. ‘Mhmm.’ He said smiling wider than ever.

Lady Rothschild chewed, swallowed. ‘Why aren’t you blinking?’ she asked.

John blinked.

‘Welllllll, there’s something I want to talk to you about, y’know.’

Lady’s expression became concerned.

‘Is everything okay?’

‘Fine, fine. I’m in love with someone else.’

Lady blinked, words refused to form in her mouth.

John continued: ‘She’s so smart, and funny and we’ve been talking and we decided to-’

‘What?’

‘-just rip the band aid off and-‘

‘I’m sorry what?’

‘Hmmm?’ John asked.

‘You said you’re in love with someone else?’

‘And I thought it would be wonderful if the two of you met up, so we could talk about divorce.’

‘IS SHE DEVESTATED!?’ came a voice from the hallway.

Silence.

‘Of course you invited her in.’ said Lady, getting up from the chair, she walked to the hallway.

‘Waitwaitwait, just one more thing before you see-‘

Lady Rothschild opened the door and saw a quadriplegic sex doll made of plastic in a wheel chair.

‘What the fu-‘

‘Hello Miss Rothschild, my name is Suzi.’

Five minutes later.

‘So, I’m being replaced…’ said Lady Rothschild looking at the divorce papers spread across the table ‘by a sex doll?’

John nodded sadly. ‘I’m sorry, she’s just… more interesting than you.’

‘Oh, John don’t be cruel.’ Said Suzi, who was also sat at the kitchen table. ‘I’m so sorry you had to hear that my lady, it’s just… Me and John are just too compatible, y’know?’

‘I’m being replaced by a sex doll?’ Lady repeated.  

‘It’s just the way it is.’ Says John. ‘Me and Suzi have been talking about it for a long time and… well… we think it would be better if you were out of the picture, so to speak.’

‘John, it’s made of rubber and plastic, it’s an inanimate object. It’s not even conscious, it’s like fucking a coma patient.’

‘Oh that’s not true.’ Suzi said. ‘I am self aware, so to speak, I am sentient.’

‘See,’ John said. ‘She says she’s sentient, therefore she’s sentient.’

‘No.’ Lady Rothschild corrected. ‘There’s a difference between saying your sentient, and actually being sentient.’ She threw down her pen and leaned back and away from the divorce papers. ‘I refuse to sign anything.’

John sighed. ‘Suzi, do your thing. I don’t know how to explain it.’

‘Okay.’ Suzi said to the Lady. ‘Think about what you’re saying for a moment, you would willingly trap yourself in a loveless marriage, just so you don’t have to sign those papers. Why?’

‘Sheer spite.’ Lady said.

‘But can’t you see that’s self destructive? You would throw away your only chance at happiness, just to spite John. You can buy a sex doll too, you realize? The chances that your true love - a person that agrees with you on all subject matters, a person that completes you as a person, a person you would like to grow old with – the chances that your true love is a human being is astronomically slim. We know for a fact that it’s not John, because he doesn’t love you. If you were to buy a sex doll, it’s personality would adapt to compliment your own. What’s wrong with just accepting that humans aren’t very good at romance?’

‘It’s not about being happy, or finding “true love.”’ Lady finger-quoted. ‘It’s about principles. I don’t… I don’t…’

‘Don’t what?’ asked Suzi.

Lady Rothschild couldn’t stomach what she was about to say.

‘I don’t want to be replaced by a robot, it’s… dehumanizing.’

‘Oh Lady. I understand how you feel-‘

‘BUT YOU DON’T!’

‘But I do. It’s horrible realizing that you have nothing to offer John that he wants; you must feel so impotent, and frustrated to realize that men could only stomach your existence because true sex dolls hadn’t been invented; it’s horrible realizing that you could never enter a stable relationship with a human being again, that they might replace you with a sex doll at any moment. But you don’t have to feel that way. No; you can fight back, you can rage against the machine by getting a sex doll. Your love life doesn’t have to end in this room.’

There was violent silence. John covered his eyes with one hand.

Lady was thinking about Robert.

Would he replace her? No, he loves me, he said he loves me.

But John said that too.

Am I just doomed to love people who cannot bear the sight of me… I still love John… I would love him to the end of eternity and back but despite everything I give and give and give, he cannot love me back.

‘But a sex doll can’t love me back.’ Lady whispered. ‘They… can’t feel emotions. I want to be loved.’

‘How is that any different to the relationships you’re in now. How do you know John can feel emotions? You can’t. There’s no meaningful difference between saying you love a person and loving them. Just sign the papers.’

Lady stared at the divorce papers, like human shit on her mother’s grave.

John was staring at her between his fingers. He noticed what he was doing and dropped his hand to his side. He fidgeted.

Lady groaned, dragged the papers towards her, picked up her pen. The nib kissed the dotted line and with a sigh she flourished her name into the paper.

‘I want a drink.’ Said Lady Rothschild.

‘John,’ said Suzi. ‘Get her a drink would you.’

John momentarily sucked his lips into his mouth, nodded his head and got up from the chair without a word. He was swallowed into the kitchen.

72.

Charlie and Victoria were enjoying Mac ‘n’ cheese at the dinner table.

‘I was thinking you could, y’know, tell me a bit more about your childhood? All the traumas you went through as a wittle kiddywinkie.’

‘That’s the creepiest way to describe a human child, I’ve ever heard in my life.’ said Charlie.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Victoria. ‘When you were prime time pedo porn,’ Charlie snorted. ‘What was life like?’

He shrugged.

‘It was boring.’ he said.

Victoria stared at him.

‘Is that it?’ she asked.

‘I’m not exagerrating. Nothing happened. For eighteen years.’

‘You must have had friends.’

Charlie took a bite of his pasta. ‘Yeah I had a gang. We still meet up regularly, they’re the best. But mostly I was the kid that stayed inside, because I wanted to read books.’

‘I bet you were really pale.’

‘White as mayonaise.’ he said.

‘That’s hyperbole.’

‘It’s not.’ he said. ‘It was really unhealthy, I had to start taking vitamin D tablets. I was a little fucked up as a kid, an asthmatic nerd who preferred his own company.’

‘Would you do anything differently?’

‘See the sun every once in a while, I guess, ditch the vampire complexion, go outside my comfort zone, make more friends than I actually did.’ They ate quietly, for a moment.  ‘I know this next answer is cheating a little bit, but… I’d probably skip the part, where I lost my job. I’d like to be a teacher in this hypothetical scenario.’ Victoria forgot to bring the fork up to her mouth, the piece of cutlery freezing halfway between plate and gob. Then she remembered and ate another bite. ‘What about you? What would you do differently?’

Victoria shrugged and swallowed.

‘Um... I don’t know, there was a period of my life, when I thought if I said swear words I’d go to hell I guess I’d skip that stage, so I could call everyone a cunt.’

‘I think an australian attitude to the c word is healthy.’

‘Right. It’s such a horrible thing to call someone, it’s great. Feels fucking amazing, to say it out loud in a crowded place.’ Victoria stabbed some macaroni cheese on the end of her fork. ‘This is really good food, thanks for making it.’

‘Thank you for enjoying it.’ said Charlie.

73.

‘Okay, Suzi.’ John kissed his sex doll on the cheek. ‘I’m just gunna go take out the trash, then I’ll be right back.’

‘I can hear you, y’know.’ Said Lady Rothschild - the trash- from the hallway.

‘Sure thing, John.’ Suzi replied. ‘Come back alive.’ She giggled.

John got up and found his ex-wife in the hall, she was carrying a box full of her things.

John snatched a suitcase by the handle and began gliding towards the door.

Lady shook her head. ‘A fucking sex doll, John.’

John smirked. ‘Are you jealous?’

‘I’m fucking Robert, John.’

‘I don’t care; I have Suzi.’ John smiled. ‘We’re gunna have a baby?’

‘Sorry what?’

‘I was… hesitant at first, but she talked me round to it. I’m gunna be a dad!’

‘You already are a dad.’ Said Lady. ‘Also, how is that even possible?’

John remembered the feeling of the shovel in his hands as he dug the grave. Suzi was by the side shouting, ‘Faster Slave, Faster!’

John had found it incredibly erotic (Suzi was really kinky).

Hauling the scientists stinking corpse into the hole in ground, had been less sexy.

‘Oh you know.’ John said, in real time. ‘The wonders of modern technology. She’s already fertilized.’

 ‘You’re a shit husband.’ Said Lady Rothschild. ‘I hope you die choking on Suzi.’

John had opened the door and the self driving cab was waiting for them.

‘I wish you the best.’ Said John. ‘I hope you’re happy with Robert.’

John collapsed the handle into the suitcase, and hauled it into the trunk of the vehicle.

‘You’re a sad pathetic, lizard of a man.’ She said. ‘A totally unfeeling, psychopathic monster.’

John opened the door for her.

‘I hope you get your dick stuck in a blender.’ She said.

‘Get in the car.’ Said John.   

***

Chapter 12