Cootchy And The Human Robot

I encountered her in the kibbles aisle of the pet store. I don't think she noticed me, but I couldn't keep my eyes off her as she knelt on the floor perusing the heaps of forty-pound sacks, reading the labels, weighing all the factors that in the long run don't matter, as long as little Fifi eats the shit. The dog doesn't care if it takes like real chicken, or has extra vitamins in it, if it's organic or prepared by certified French chefs or is easy to digest. My dog Lingham will eat deer shit, dead possums, weeds, paper. I look for dog food that won't poison him, and is cheap. But this woman in her faded, snug jeans and close-fitting tank top was crouched in the aisle reading every line of fine print.

She did not seem aware of me, and the fact that I was staring into her cleavage simply wasn't an issue for her. She wanted her spoiled little Poofty to be happy, wanted to find something subtly delicious and medically nutritional for little La-La. She wanted to find something her beloved Boopsie would love, and some man leaning over her leering meant nothing. We did not speak, she did not glance up and our eyes never met.

I threw a bag of cheap shit over my shoulder, paid up and headed out for a cup of coffee and maybe find something new to read at Ollie's Books, a half mile from the pet store. I was sitting in the window people-watching with a muffin and cup of espresso, flipping through the pages of a possible purchase, minding my own business, and wouldn't you know, my lucky day, she appeared again. I watched her strolling to the door, and without turning around I followed the sound of her progress as she walked in behind me and ordered something at the cafe counter. I tracked the sound of her gathering her cup and a cookie, heard her footsteps approaching, and was delighted when she sat down two stools away from me. She did not look at me or seem to know I was there. I consider coincidences like these to be hints from the cosmos, not to be ignored. Fate obviously had something in mind here, and my job was to find out what it was.

What do you say to a chick like that? These days, I know, I am demographically presumed to be self-centered, privileged, biased, sexist, a toxic predator and so on. These preconceptions make it harder for a bozo like me to meet interesting women, of course, and I'm sorry but I'm just not always smart enough to figure out what to do.

"Hey, didn't I just see you over at Petco?" I said, taking the Gordian-knot approach to the navigation of the sociopolitical labyrinth.

Her irises were black as night, black as ink, with no contrast to indicate the pupil and no way to judge just how deep the deep end of her pool was. Her lips remained impassive, neither a smile nor any negative expression. Her head turned slowly, deliberately, toward me. "You were there?" she said.

"Yeah, I was buying some kibbles for my guy Lingham," I said. "He's a mutt with an appetite."

"I see," she said. "Yeah, it's hard to pick out something good. My Cootchy is very picky and hard to shop for."

"What breed is she? I assume a she."

She said some French-sounding thing I had never heard of, and I nodded appreciatively.

"She's a sweety," the woman said, "But very hard to please."

"I see, hard to please your Cootchy," I said.

"She needs a lot of special attention."

"My name is Doc, by the way," I said, probably proving myself to be a sexual predator and danger to society. She did not seem offended, yet.

"I'm Alexandria," she said. "Or Alex." She paused. "Or Al, whatever."

"Al," I repeated. "I kind of like that for you. It's incongruent in an interesting way."

"Incongruent?" This appeared to be someone who knew the meaning of the word, but did not know why a man's name would be incongruent for a woman.

"Yes," I said. "You don't look like an Al. Which makes it a good name."

"What name do you think I look like?"

"Hmm," I looked her over, head to toe. "I'd say, maybe, Blake."

She sputtered up a sip of coffee. "Blake? You think I look like a Blake?"

"Yeah, or Chuck. That would be better. Chuck."

"Do you think I look like a man or something?"

"No, not really," I said.

I was satisfied with how this was going. There was no way she could get up and walk away now.

"Well I'm not Blake or fucking Chuck," she said with a kind of smirk.

"Would there be something wrong with that?" I asked her. "What if you did look a little like a man, is that so bad?"

"Nobody has ever said I look like a man. Ever."

"Has anyone ever really looked at you?" Remember, I had nothing to lose here. I was just keeping myself entertained while I had a cup of coffee, doing errands, capitalizing on chance.

"Of course they've looked at me," she said.

"Well your hair is shorter than mine," I offered.

"What does that matter?" she began. My hair is pretty long.

"It doesn't matter at all," I said. "Really all that matters is keeping your Cootchy happy."

I could see her thoughts colliding painfully. "That's right," she said. "Cootchy doesn't care how long my hair is. Or short."

"Or what you're wearing," I added with no pause after her statement.

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" she demanded. "Do you think I'm dressed like a man, too?"

I looked her over again. "Here's what I think. I think you're the kind who likes to tell men what to do."

"I don't tell anybody what to do," she countered.

"But you'd like to."

She stopped herself from responding.

"To be fair, I'll ask you, what do I look like?" I asked. "Do I look like a man?"

"Of course," she said.

"I wonder what assumptions you make about me, based on that," I said.

"I don't make any assumptions," she insisted.

"Uh huh. Do you let strangers pet your Cootchy?" I asked her.

"Sometimes," she said. "Depends on whether she trusts them or not."

"Wouldn't it be interesting if our pets could give us commands, instead of the other way around?"

"Why?"

"Well you tell me, what would Cootchy say to a stranger who wanted to pet her?"

"She would tell him he had to pet her the right way. She hates it when people pet her wrong."

"Does your Cootchy like to lick people?"

"Sometimes."

"Wouldn't it be weird if people licked their pets?" I said, tossing her a curveball. "Like, just imagine that I was licking your Cootchy right now."

That actually got a smile out of her. "You're pretty weird, Doc. But yeah, I bet my Cootchy would like to be licked by a human. She'd think it was funny, I'll bet. Or she'd bite you, one or the other."

"I wonder how your Cootchy and my Lingham would get along."

"She's very particular about other dogs," Al said.

"Lingham, not so much. He loves everybody." My muffin was gone, and my coffee. I said, "I have an idea. It's a beautiful day out, how about you go get your Cootchy and I'll get my Lingham, and we can meet up at Morning Dew Park, where they have the dog park, and see if they can become friends?"

"Cootchy doesn't like to be around a bunch of other dogs."

"Well then we can put them on leashes and go for a walk in the park, just the two of them."

"I guess," she said. "I need to feed her and do some stuff."

"How about in two hours?" I said. "Three o'clock, we can meet at the Morning Dew parking lot."

"I guess we can do that," Al or Alexandria or Chuck said. I was feeling rather jocular and also optimistic.

I fed Lingham, too, then let him out to the back yard to shit. I hate to have to clean up after him, for instance when people see him do it. I personally think it's fine to leave it on the ground, if it's not where somebody's going to step. Like my back yard, which I usually only go into to mow now and then. Just let it decay, it's better than putting it in a plastic bag to let it rot and stink forever. The rain'll get it, or bugs. I miked myself a burrito and wolfed it down.

... Cootchy was just as spoiled and useless as you could imagine. She was some kind of fluffy thing with an expensive-looking haircut that made her ears look like golfballs and also the end of her tail. She was afraid of Lingham, who didn't care, but Cootchy for some reason came after me, jumping up on me and trying to lick my face. I pretended to lick her but she didn't actually think it was funny, though Alex got the joke. At least Cootchy didn't try to bite me.

Alex had lightened up a bit, or maybe she just felt more cheerful with her dog around. There was a crowd at the dog park so it was fine that we decided to go walking. I felt that Alex was suspicious of my motives, which were, I assure you, of the finest sort. Basically I wanted to fuck her, that's a good motive, isn't it?

Alexandria was the direct type. After some introductory conversational tests were passed, she said, "I have just about given up on dating."

Good piece of knowledge to have, I thought, and good interpersonal strategy. Shutting me down from the start. I said, "I'm not real big on the whole idea of 'dating,' either. I like it better like this, we hang out, and if something happens it happens. Hanging out is good, doing stuff together is good, sex is good, if that's the kind of relationship it is. Dating, what's that? I spend money so you will feel obligated to me?"

Turned out she couldn't walk a dog and talk at the same time. She stopped. "You're getting ahead of things there," she said. Then she started walking again, with Cootchy tugging at the leash, pulling her forward. "But since you mentioned it, to clear the air about that, it's actually sex that I am about to give up on."

"Is there a reason for that?" I asked.

"It's a little strange to talk about with somebody I don't really know," she said. "But for, I guess, the last year or two, sex is just doing nothing for me."

"And you've tried sex with women, I assume?"

Couldn't walk again. "That's a little personal, isn't it?"

"Actually, no, it's not very personal. I don't give a fuck if you have sex with women or not, I'm not judging you, I'm just rationally wondering if you are missing out because the guys you're seeing don't know what to do. And sometimes a woman knows."

Cootchy started yipping, so we resumed walking. "Yeah, okay," Al said. "Yes I have been with women and yeah, you're right. They know what to do. But it turns out I am not really a lesbian, or even strongly bisexual. I don't want a girlfriend, it just doesn't fit for me."

"Gotcha," I said. "Do you know what you want in bed?"

Stopped walking, "Okay, I guess this conversation just won't have guardrails, is that the deal? We're going everywhere here." She laughed.

"I don't mean to make you uncomfortable," I said, hoping that making her uncomfortable about being uncomfortable would be the same as making her comfortable. "What I was asking was, do you have clear fantasies about good sex with a male person, or do you just hope they'll stumble across something that works?"

"God, Doc, you are something else," she said. "And no, no guys have stumbled across anything." Cootchy yanked, Alex started walking again.

"First part of the question. Do you know what you want?"

"Specifically, you mean?" She paused. "Actually, yeah, I have some pretty clear ideas."

"And what happens when you tell a man what you want? Specifically, I mean."

"Uh, that never happens. They don't want to know. In case you haven't heard, men do not listen."

"I see. So you know what you want, but you don't tell anybody, and they don't guess it, and so now you and your energetic little Cootchy are going to join a convent."

Lingham was enjoying this walk. He would tear off toward some bushes, sniff them, pee on them, and run to the other side of the pathway for more of the same. We had to stop a few times to observe squirrels, and he barked at a dog walking about a hundred feet away one time. He played with Cootchy a little but it wasn't such fun when Cootchy was afraid of him.

"Yeah, I'm waiting for them to build those sex robots they keep promising," she said, with an attempted giggle. I think she was trying to shock me, but it also sounded like this was something that she had thought about.

"Yeah, that would be perfect," I said. "You just program it to do what you want, and voila. No need for men."

"You're reading my mind," she laughed. "I've been reading about some of this. Now they have something like real skin, and real muscle movements like a person, and facial expressions, and of course they can talk. They just haven't put it all together yet, but it's coming."

"Yeah, good point," I said. "So once they have realistic robots, of course the first thing they'll make is sex robots for women."

"They might make them for men, too," she said, kind of defensive sounding.

"Not to start an argument, but almost all the sex toys in the world so far are for women."

"And you think a robot is a 'sex toy?'" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "A sex robot. Yeah. Probably an expensive toy, but yeah."

"Well these will be almost like a person."

"I get it," I said, "A realistic robot that you can bring home. I wonder what they will be programmed to do."

"I imagine it waits to be told what to do, then does it, doesn't want anything in return, has, uh, skills and ways it can move, and uh, robustness. Then when you've had enough you just turn it off and put it away."

"So what would you tell it to do?" I asked her.

"Jeez, Doc, I could tell you a list of things but I don't even know you."

"Sure," I said. "That was probably going a little too far, sorry."

"Sure," she said. I think the apology surprised her.

"But you do know what you would want it to do."

"A sex robot?"

"Yeah."

"I have some ideas," she said.

"I'm not going to pry about the details," I said, "But I do have one question."

"Okay. One."

"Does the robot get to cum?"

She was not as surprised by my question as I would have expected. "I have thought about that a little," she said. "It depends. Does that mean it has to stop?"

"It seems to me that's the important thing about the male orgasm. It means the guy's all done. Energy gone, motivation gone, interest gone, erection gone."

"In that case, I would say that the robot could cum, so everything can build up to the end." She glanced sideways at me. "You might not know this, but for women that is kind of a nice part of sex. Except, like you say, it means the guy's all done."

"Okay, that was my one question."

"Interesting question, Doc."

"Well, honestly, I was thinking about applying for the job."

"What job?"

"Robot."

Stopped walking. Cootchy reached the end of her leash with a yank. "You're kind of a nut, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"So you want to be a sex robot."

"Not *a* sex robot. But I'd be your sex robot." I thought that was a nice touch. I mean, how could she not take that bait?

She stood there looking at me while Cootchy came back and jumped up on her leg to remind her we were supposed to be walking.

"You seem to have given it some thought, at least, it's not just a general I-hate-men thing. But there'd be a couple of things," I said. "Until the technology improves, I can't do erection-on-demand, and I only come with one attachment. One size fits all."

"You seem pretty confident," she said.

"Yeah, well the one size is Medium," I said. "But the erection thing is pretty reliable. No guarantees but, you know, it'd be a free trial."

"You are a fuckin' nut," she said, trying not to smile. "Cootchy, Doc's a nut, isn't he?" Cootchy jumped up and down barking. I think she wanted me to lick her now.

I continued. "This model has a few settings. There's a hot-cold dial, it can be like a sentimental lover who cares about you emotionally, all the way to an unfeeling slave that just physically does what you want, and all in between. Basically it's programmed to take verbal instruction. The developers learned early on that robots, like men, are not any good at guessing what the user wants. It works better if she gives explicit verbal orders. Sometimes it can make suggestions or offer an opinion if you ask it, but basically it just responds to inputs from the verbal user interface."

"I see," she said, on the brink of laughter.

"It's a little uncomfortable for some women at first," I said, "Because they are thinking of it as a person. But that's the beauty of it. You just tell it what you want and it will do it. It's just a machine. If you ever talked to one of those online chatbots, you know that can be a little strange but it's also kind of fun. You can say crazy shit to it and it takes you seriously. They don't question you or judge you, they aren't thinking sarcastic things about you. The chatbot just gives you what you want."

"Cootchy, is this guy a nut, or what? Is this a crazy idea, or what?" Cootchy began yipping and ran around in circles, wrapping her leash around Alexandria's legs.

I shrugged in my most lovable way.

"Okay," she said. "When?"

"When what?"

"When are we doing this?"

"When do you want?"

"Is eight okay?" she suggested.

"Tonight?"

"Yes."

She texted me her address and of course that meant I got her cell number, too. We finished our walk and I went home.

... She lived in a cute little red-brick house in a normal residential neighborhood, kids on bikes in the street, teenagers hanging out on the corner, old people walking in pairs. I knocked and she let me in.

She had changed into a kind of dress, like a sundress I guess, kind of short, kind of low-cut but not really "hot" or anything. It looked comfortable and also easy to take off later. Cootchy was sleeping in a little basket-bed in the corner of the living room. When I came in she looked up reluctantly and walked over to me and sniffed my shoes. I said, "Beep-beep, boop, beep-bip," and Cootchy looked at Alex or Chuck.

"Go to bed, sweetie," she said, picking up her French kind of dog and looking into her eyes. "Momma's gonna be busy for a while, okay?" Cootchy seemed happy and not in the mood to make trouble. I figured they had their routine, and this was past Cootchy's bedtime. She licked Alexandria once on the nose and went back to her bed and curled up.

I have not described Alex yet. She was about five foot six, I guess, which is fairly tall, and she had a slender, athletic-looking, no-nonsense body. She had respectable tits but was not especially curvy, more the long-and-lean body type. You did not picture her as a fashion model, because there was nothing glamorous or fashionable about her. She had a little makeup on, including little Amy-Winehouse-type wings at the edges of her eyes which, I'll tell you, that did it for me. That little touch transformed her from ordinary to mysterious and erotic. Her hair was dark, almost black, straight, and short. A no-nonsense hairdo. I've mentioned her dark eyes already. She was wearing sandals, and I noticed that her toenails and fingernails were carefully manicured and painted a pale pink color, not eye-catching but the effect was that of a woman who took care of things, including herself.

"You really want to do this?" I asked her, standing at the foot of the stairs.

"For fun, yes."

"Okay," I said. "This is technically going to be role-playing, and I would suggest we have a safeword. Do you know how that works?"

"I think so."

"It's a word that we'll only say when we seriously want the role-playing to stop, even temporarily. It should be a word we wouldn't accidentally use. Pick something."

"Okay," she said. "Football. No, we might talk about football. How about toothpaste?"

"Okay, toothpaste. If either one of us says toothpaste, we'll stop and be ourselves again. You ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be," she said.

"Okay, starting right now I am your robot." I stood where I was, watching her.

"Hmm, okay, robot, let's go upstairs," she said. "I'm gonna need a name for you, aren't I." We headed for the stairs. "I think Doc sounds kind of dumb. Ricardo, I think. Your name is Ricardo. That sounds nice and sexy, doesn't it?" I didn't reply. We got to the top of the stairs and I stopped.