The Muse in the Machine

1

"You' re late," said Arnold. Or that's what Stella guessed he said. It was difficult to tell, his mouth full of burrito.

Amy looked up from her booth and made a face, like don't answer back, he's in a foul mood.

"Sorry," said Stella and slung her bag in a locker and squeezed into her booth. Her screen was already lit up and there were about five johns waiting, avatars flashing and winking. No wonder Arnold was pissed, they were busy tonight. There was no point telling Arnold how her car wouldn't start and she'd had to take a taxi here. She'd save it for Amy and their fifteen minute break.

She touched on the first john in the line, a megaload74. His avatar was an anatomically perverse wolf man.

"Hi there. This is Amber. I'll be your muse tonight. You all ready to go there sweetie?"

She slipped on her google-set as she spoke and took hold of the controllers on the desk and checked she could feel the peddles. She pulled up his data, scrolled through his kinks and peeves. The doll was registered out in Nevada. Two seasons old Romper Mi14 but with upgrades. She ran a virus check. All clean.

She clicked through. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes.

1000 miles away in Minnesota the eyes of the doll opened too. Stella looked out. She was in a container-home, no windows, air ducts. It looked like some kind of rig workers place. She was sitting on a double mattress that took up nearly all one end of the container. The sheets a dirty off-white. There were shelves made of pallet wood and a little kitchen area and table with two chairs. There was the john, sitting there with a beer staring at her. Big beard and little piggy eyes.

Stella knew the drill. She smiled, "Hi honey," she said. "God, I'm glad you're home. I've been so wet today thinking about you." She checked fluids, half full, and released some lube.

The John sucked on his moustache, twisted the neck of his beer in his fingers. Stella tilted the head, looked down, saw the cheap nylon lingerie she was wearing, saw the damage to the silicon on the wrists and ankles. She used the hand controllers and pedals, flicking the hip rotator; swivelling slightly in her chair back in the booth even though she didn't need to, like a kid playing a video game, rocking side to side. The doll slipped off the bed, still smiling, and got down on it's hands and knees and started crawling towards the john. Stella kept eye contact the whole time.

The man with the beard and piggy eyes used up his full half hour almost to the minute. You could tell he was proud of that, although he didn't spend much time talking, unless you counted 'Yeah, that's right bitch' and 'You want some more of that?' as conversation. The sex was rough, just to the edge of violent. The john didn't want to get flagged. Still, Stella knew the type. Up to his ass in credit for the doll and couldn't afford a high end service where they had the lawyers and cloaking tech to get away with the real violence and afraid of a virus if he went black. So this is what he got: Dippy Dolly hosting service. Real girls, Un-real prices.

As Stella braced the doll against the metal of the container wall and reminded the john again of how big and hard he was, she tried not to think how the rest of this evening was going to get swallowed up in just getting her car seen too. Forget about those cute Reebok runners she'd been looking at.

He finished like they all finish. She depressed the third button on the right hand controller and pulled back the lever retracting the tongue "Wow," she said. "Just wow."

She took a small pleasure at the look of self hate in his eyes, emptied out now as he was, soon to be alone again with a lifeless piece of plastic that he'd spend the next five years paying for. She guessed that was where the damage to the dolly came from. After she vacated he'd throw it around the room.

She jacked out as the timer beeped, timing her good-bye kiss to be cut off. She took off the googles, looked around. Arnold was talking to a new girl and only Amy was looking at her. Stella spat at the avatar on the screen then wiped it off with a tissue. Amy made a sympathetic face and glanced at the clock. Two and a half hours until break.