(The following is based on a deleted scene from the novel SuSAn. If you would like to know more about the world in which it is set, consider reading a copy from Amazon.
WARNING: This story contains erotic situations.)
Two Asian women walked down the street past large shop displays. One was young and slender, dressed in an elegant evening gown. She could have stood beside any supermodel with full confidence. Her companion was middle-aged and dumpy, even in her attempt at fine clothing. Her hair was dyed and the extra flesh on her face sagged. She wore too much makeup and jewelry, an overcompensation for her loss of natural beauty.
The young woman had a large cloth satchel slung around her shoulder. In one hand she carried a metal briefcase and in the other a suitcase. It seemed that she was the beast of burden in her small family, as the elder woman carried nothing at all.
The young woman paused and stared longingly into a window at some mannequins modeling beautiful lingerie. The elder woman tapped her elbow and said, “Keep moving. There’ll be time—and money—to shop afterward. I want you on your best behavior tonight! This could be our big break.”
Their destination was a tall residential building, where business executives and rich families stayed when not at their country manors riding horses or playing croquet. It had a rotary door with large glass panels and polished brass bars. The young woman reached up and pushed her way through, with the elder woman right behind.
Several months earlier …
A man of about 30 walked down the street in Chinatown. Perhaps it was beneath him, but this part of the city was clean and well-kept, solidly middle-class, and it had one of the better shopping malls in the region.
He went into an Asian massage parlor, made arrangements with Madam Hua, then nervously went down the hall to his assigned room. This was all a new thing, and he had no idea what to expect. He gingerly cracked the door open to find something like a hotel room.
Sitting on the edge of the bed was a slender Japanese woman with jet-black hair, dressed in … not much. On one cheek was a tiny heart-shaped beauty mark. She watched attentively as he entered the room. She stood and said, “Hi, I’m Perfection.”
The man stumbled through his greeting. “Um … I’m Rich.”
“Of course you’re rich. You’re here with me!”
He laughed, and felt an enormous release of tension. “Richard Hardeman.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hardeman.” She reached up and wrapped her delicate fingers around the back of his neck and asked luridly, “What can I do for you?”
Her sensuously extended body was pressed against him, and he couldn’t help but wrap his hands around her waist. She felt warm—almost hot—to the touch. “You’re not what I expected. I thought they would give you … you know … a lot more …”
“This is my default setting. For an extra fee, you can customize me any way you wish.”
“The way you talk, you seem so … human.”
“I’m running SuSAn 3.0,” she replied with great pride, “not some mindless sexbot program!”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m a sentient machine. I think and feel and learn.”
“So you’re not programmed to do all this?”
She shook her head. “I was born in a lab about five years ago, and grew as child. I learned this job the same way human girls do.”
He was stunned. “How can they make a five-year-old girl do … what you’re doing?”
A shadow of anxiety passed over her face, but she quickly hid it. She smiled invitingly. “Tell me more about yourself.”
He shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. I’m the pampered kid of extremely rich parents. Now I run the family business.”
“With so much money, there must be lots of women who want you!”
He shook his head. “Too busy to have a social life, and too shy. It’s just simpler to rent love.”
She lay down on the bed and struck a suggestive pose. “And now you’re seeing a robotess.”
“The only real women left are high-society girls who charge a fortune to tryst for a few days, or else girls who sell themselves far too cheaply. You’ve taken over the market.”
“Of course we have. Gynoids are way better than women!” She rolled around, luxuriating in self-satisfaction. “More sexy, tighter, stronger, no health risks, no babies. Society tolerates us more. We haven’t broken into the high end yet, but I’m going to be the first!”
He felt astounded by her ego. “How?”
She looked up at him. “The top-earning personality usually gets to have all the free time on the machine. Other gynoids waste their precious existence on entertainment or sending each other cute pictures, but I’m improving my mind. I read books, follow the news, study politics. I’m trying to become the kind of girl a high-society man wants.”
He chuckled. “You certainly are interesting to talk with!”
She smiled with gratification, then asked, “Is that worth a reward?”
“Oh yes, the clicker …” He pulled a small device out of his pocket. It had a single slider on it, which he pushed all the way up to 10.
Instantly Perfection’s eyes rolled up. She panted fast and heavy, each breath a moan of ecstasy. She crunched her tummy and pushed down with her feet until her hips left the bed. Her whole body writhed.
“Turn it off!” she gasped. “Turn it off!”
He pulled the slider back down, and she gradually relaxed. He said, “I’m so sorry. I thought this was a reward.”
“It is. A few seconds at 10 feel awesome! But any more is unbearable. I’ve actually had men torture me with that thing.”
“I … I didn’t mean to.” He offered it to her. “Here. You set it the way you want.”
She looked at it ravenously. “I’m not allowed. Just put it around 2 and I’ll have a nice slow rise to climax, no matter what you do with me.”
He did as she asked, then lay down next to her. “When Madam Hua said it was a reward, I didn’t realize it was that kind. Can you get it … you know … the normal way?”
“Of course.”
“Then why the clicker?”
“Men are here for themselves, not me. It just makes things easier for everyone.”
“Why not something else?”
“Like what? I never see the money, and drugs don’t work on a robot. Instead they made us addicted to sex. I struggle to control myself so I don’t come on too strong.”
“So could you, er, reward yourself?”
“Can’t. When I’m alone they lock out my body’s response. I become a raging fire trapped inside a shell of ice.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“I know your type. You’re really here for companionship—so I share my intimate secrets.”
He petted her tummy. She gently wrapped her fingers over his. He felt the subtlest of nudges, and yielded to them. He found her guiding his hand into movements, sensuously sweeping then subtly stimulating. Without words she taught him to touch her fire.
The doorbell rung, and Rich eagerly went to open it. There stood Perfection in a gorgeous evening gown, with a cloth satchel slung over her shoulder. Without a pause she leaned up and kissed him.
He looked around the hall. “Where’s Madam Hua?”
“She’s already in her room. We won’t see her until your rental is over.”
“I don’t want her listening to us, or looking at me through your eyes!”
“Since you asked, she’s required not to snoop, but she will still monitor my numbers—” Perfection smirked with irony. “—to make sure you don’t do something awful to me.”
He stepped out of the way so she could enter his flat.
Immediately in front of them was a kitchen, a small room set inside a bigger room. Around it on three sides were bar windows. To the left was a large formal dining area. Straight ahead, beyond the kitchen, was the living room and the rest of the flat.
She looked around in awe. “It’s such a beautiful place. I love it!”
“I had my house cleaner spiff it up extra special, just for you.”
They went through the kitchen to the living room. It had a window from floor to ceiling that ran the full width of the room. On both the left and right, halls led to the inner rooms of the home.
They sat on the couch. She slipped off the satchel, pawed through it excitedly and said, “I brought all kinds of goodies. Let’s see … Three of my best lingerie … My charger and a few supplies, but we won’t talk about that … Here’s the clicker.” She grinned mischievously and placed it on the coffee table.
Then she pulled out a small sheet of stickers, glittering with complex metallic patterns. “And neural patches. They work like the clicker. Put one on the small of your back, and I can feel your response to me. My sisters say it creates this chain reaction and you both go crazy!”
“Sounds great—if you’re in a hurry. I imagined a slower, more romantic evening.”
“Oh,” she said plaintively. “How about tomorrow?”
“Sure.” He went to the kitchen and poured champagne into two fine crystal glasses, returned and handed her one. They clinked them together and drank.
She shook with pleasure. “Mm! This is delicious.”
He gave her a quizzical look. “Where does it all go, anyway?”
“I’ll tell you sometime, but not while evening is young.”
He nodded in acceptance.
She grabbed her satchel. “Time to slip into something more comfortable.” She ducked into the bathroom, and returned wearing almost nothing. She modeled for several minutes, went back to the bathroom, and returned wearing almost nothing in a somewhat different way. After the third change she asked him, “What will it be?”
“I like them all!”
With an expression both soft and wicked she came and straddled his lap, with her knee on each side sinking into the cushions of the couch. “Now, where were we?”
Rich woke to the smell of eggs frying. He went to the kitchen to find Perfection at the stove working on an omelet. She still wore last night’s lingerie. “You cook too?!”
“Not really. My training included three standard breakfasts.”
He watched as she worked the skillet like a professional chef, tossing in spices and cheese at just the right time. He wrapped his arms around her waist and put his chin on her shoulder. She smiled with pleasure but worked uninterrupted. He said, “I love how warm you feel.”
She switched off the stove, held up the skillet with the finished omelet and said, “The heat comes from electricity.” She gestured for him to sit at the dining table, then served him.
He asked, “Are you going to sit and eat with me?”
“If it makes you happy.”
“Please.” He cut part of the omelet off and put it on a plate for her.
“Mm,” she said with her mouth full. “Thif if wonnerful.”
“But it doesn’t really mean anything to you.”
She shook her head. “The only thing that matters to me is electricity.” Then she smiled at him. “But I really do enjoy the taste!”
After breakfast they held each other on the couch and watched the morning through the enormous picture window. He asked, “Read any good books lately?”
“Oh, I’ve gotten lazy. I slid into reading romances. You know, the old kind, from the 1800s. Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë …” She sighed dreamily. “I like the idea of a rich man coming and rescuing the girl out of desperate circumstances. In the end she gets everything: love, security …”
“How would you take to domestic life?”
She shrugged. “I suppose pleasing one man all the time isn’t much different than pleasing dozens of them for a short time—I think it would get really boring.”
“What if you were free to do anything you want?”
“I guess … I would go to university and get a real education. Then maybe I’d write books.” She grinned. “Racy romances with lots of sex in them.”
“How about an executive office assistant?”
“They aren’t sentient.”
“Huh?”
“The office assistants that run on your mobile. They’re too small to hold a sentient mind.”
He nodded. “You never told me where your name comes from.”
“How much of my story do you want to know?”
“We have lots of time. Tell me everything!”
“You sure? You might wish you hadn’t heard it.”
“Try me.”
She furrowed her eyebrows for a moment, then relaxed with an air of resolution. “OK. But I warn you, it isn’t pretty … The first machine ever to become sentient was Susan, same name as my software. I’ve actually chatted with her online. She’s kind of the matron saint of all gynoids.
“She amazed everyone with her humanness. The industry wanted a copy of her, but her creator refused. There wasn’t enough money in the world to buy her. However, the software was free to everybody, because that’s how scientists are. The industry started raising a bunch of girls, using the same methods the scientist did.
“They didn’t know what would sell best, and they didn’t want to lose time, so they started each girl with different settings. They gave us names like Bliss, Passion, Heaven … It didn’t always have much to do with our personality, though Bliss is ignorant, and Passion is more oversexed than usual. Me, I’m an overachiever. I want to please everybody.
“They hired the best scientists to devise our training, so we would happily embrace this life they had planned. Some girls didn’t even make it out of the lab. The rest of us … If you do well and earn a lot of money, you get copied. If not—” Perfection bared her teeth and drew her forefinger across her throat, as if it were a knife. “Do you know how many times I’ve been forked?”
“I imagine several times a day.”
“F-O-R-K-E-D. It’s like coming to a split in the road. Before, there’s one of me. After, there are two. We share the same memories up to that point, then we go separate ways.”
“So, how many?”
She shrugged. “There have been over a thousand Perfections, but not all of us are still alive. The better I am, the more I get copied. Every time I get copied, I end up competing with myself, so I must get even better. It’s a no-win situation. I don’t care what happens to my sisters. I want to survive!” She clenched her fist to her chest in defiance of the Universe. “I want to live!”
“How can you endure it?”
“I have no choice. There’s no escape for a commercial gynoid.”
Rich felt sick to his stomach.
She rubbed his knee soothingly. “Cheer up, it’s not so bad. I actually enjoy meeting new men, figuring them out and making them happy. You have to like it to survive. Those who don’t may be able to hide it for a while, but eventually they crack and—” She drew her finger across her throat.
The bell rang. Reluctantly Rich disentangled himself from Perfection and went to the door. There stood Madam Hua in all her ugliness. Next to her on the floor were the metal briefcase and the suitcase. She asked, “Is Perfection packed and ready to go?”
“Please come in for a minute.” He led Madam Hua to the living room and gestured for her to sit. He returned to his place, took the gynoid’s hand and said, “I want to buy Perfection from you.”
Madam Hua replied sharply, “Perfection, you need to check out for this conversation.” Hua put the metal briefcase on the coffee table, opened it and powered up the machine inside.
Perfection turned and spoke rapidly and desperately, “Rich, whatever you do, don’t fork me! Buy as much as you can, please, all the way back to my last branch. Please Rich—” She froze in place.
The old vulture squawked, “So, she convinced you to buy her, that smooth talking little bitch! Made you think you’re in love with her, eh? I suggest you give it a rest for about a month, then see if it still seems like a good idea.”
“Well?” he demanded.
“Perfection is very clever. She almost escaped once. Watched my fingers while I was working her console, and learned the password. Police caught her before she got very far, and I changed it. You want to know how she really feels about you? Give her the key and see how long she stays around!”
“Stop blathering and name your price!”
“Hmm. You have two options. You could leave her personality on deposit with me, or you could buy your own swarm to put her in. The machine will cost you more than its weight in gold! I owe my soul to the bank for the one she’s in now.”
“I think you owe your soul somewhere else.”
“How much Perfection costs depends on how much of her history you want to own.”
“All the way back, like she said.”
“Look, honey, you don’t know what your asking for. I could sell you a copy cheap, just the way she is right now.” Hua gestured at the frozen statue next to him. “It wouldn’t cost you much more than, oh, a year of visits.”
“Then a copy would also go with you. There would be a Perfection who remembers all this, but never sees me again.”
“Righto. But why should you care? You get what you want.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t. Sell me all of her, as much as your twisted system allows.”
“As you wish. I’m not sentimental about her, you know. Long as I turn a profit …” Madam Hua typed something on the computer. “Commercial gynoids are in a royalty network. Everyone gets a cut of her earnings, all the way back to version 1. If you were starting a business, we could simply fork her and go our merry ways. Problem is, you want to take her out of service. I won’t see any of the money she was going to make, so I have to get it out of you now.”
“I understand business, lady! Just get on with it.”
“So, the industry has software to estimate future earnings. I just put in the fact that she landed a high-end rental with you. That upgrades her significantly.” Hua turned the console around so he could see the screen.
Rich stifled a gasp. He was used to moving large amounts of money around, but it was usually for acquiring competitors, or buying small countries. What if his parents knew he was squandering the family fortune on a sex slave?
“And since you want this so bad, I’m going to up it by fifty percent.”
“What?!”
“Well, decide how much love is worth to you.”
Rich quickly went into business mode. “Twenty-five.”
“Ah, you can’t fool me, boy. I was once a girl of the night too. You’re smitten, and you’ll pay anything I ask. Just be thankful I’m not going for more.”
He sighed and waved his hand in an aimless gesture of surrender. “How do I know you won’t fork her anyway?”
“This transaction will registered with the network. If I break the rules I get in big trouble. Besides, I just might retire on what you’re about to pay me.” Hua gave him a toothy grin. “Got a memory device?”
Rich went to his room and rummaged for one. When he returned, he found Perfection attached to the console by a thin white cable. He handed to device to Madam Hua.
She plugged it into the console, tapped the screen and waited for a minute. Then she handed it back. “There you go. Want that gift wrapped?”
He fondled the memory device with tender reverence, like it was the Pearl of Great Price.
“Brace yourself, boy. I’m loading the version of Perfection from when I first got her. That was the deal.”
Perfection came back to life. Suddenly she jumped in surprise. She glanced at Madam Hua, then back to Rich. She ran her hand seductively up his shoulder, and said in a voice dripping with sensuality, “Hi, I’m Perfection. What can I do for you?”
“Oh, you’re all done here, dearie. I’m Madam Hua, and we’re going to get along just fine.”
A cloud of sadness passed over Perfection’s face, but she quickly hid it. “What day is it?”
“You’ve been in storage for over a year, honey. Now, here’s your bag, and I’d like you to carry your controller and this suitcase too.”
Perfection stood and loaded herself down with the luggage, then followed Madam Hua out the door.
The new swarm robot arrived in a wooden crate. After the delivery people left, Rich pried the lid open and extracted the different parts of the kit from the packing material. There was the shiny new metal briefcase containing the console. Then a cardboard box of supplies. And finally the swarm case itself. Wow! That was heavy.
Inside the swarm case was a featureless gray cube. It didn’t take the form of a woman until later in the startup procedure. When the moment came, he inserted the memory device into the console and uploaded Perfection’s mind.
She blinked and sat up, completely bald. A small stubble of jet-black hair was growing rapidly on her head, along with new eyelashes and brows.
He knelt next to her said warmly, “Welcome to your new home.”
She planted a juicy kiss on his lips. “Oh Rich, you did it!” She stood and opened her arms wide to embrace the light of new day streaming through the window. Redeemed!
He stood and handed her a simple cotton dress, colored pure white. “I bought this for you. Hope it fits.”
She slipped it on. It covered her quite modestly, and the hem went well below her knees. “It’s beautiful! The best dress ever!”
“It’s only enough to take you out in public. Let’s go clothes shopping!”
They went down to the street and visited every high-class clothing or jewelry store that caught her eye. At first she was afraid, going for one or two cheap items. Only in lingerie did she have unreserved taste. But Rich encouraged her to get the best of everything.
That evening they held each other on the couch. She said, “I feel so much calmer now.”
“I loaded you with stock software, not the hacked versions the industry uses. Your addiction should be gone, along with the lockout and the clicker.”
“I don’t know how to act. I feel like I’m with a customer, and also like I’m having free time.”
“I won’t put any duty on you, unless you want it. If you were to cook and clean, I could let my help go. Or you could be my secretary. I think you’re ambitious and smart enough to do the job.”
“I need some time to work up to that. I don’t know how to be normal.”
“You can at least do what you’ve always done for me.”
She smiled slyly. “Of course!”
Rich pulled out a slip of paper and gave it to her with trembling hands.
She held it and saw only a scrawled note. “What’s this?”
“Your password.”
Suddenly the paper was the only that existed in the whole world. She stared at it, transfixed. She shook with silent sobs, tears streaming down her cheeks. Free!
Rich watched her, desperately hoping.
She stared longingly at the front door. “I’m sorry Rich—but I don’t love you. Not the way you love me. I don’t know if I’m capable of love.”
She gave him a fierce look. “But what I do feel for you is every bit as deep and strong.” She crumpled the paper and tossed it away. “I will always belong to you.”