This is my submission for the
"AI: A New Era" Author Challenge
Your votes are appreciated. Thanks, as always to Todger65 for editing my craziness.
*
"Bert?" I blurted it out because for the first time I can remember I wasn't sure. Bert has been my best friend, my secret confidant, and my near constant companion since I was two. He first arrived when I was too little to really remember much except that he looked just like my favorite character on a public television kid's show.
He has quietly listened to my rants over the years, whether it be why my stupid parents wouldn't let me have a pony (we lived in the city), to why my stupid parents wouldn't let me marry the Bronson boy (we were six). It wasn't until I was eight that Bert started talking back. I have since found out that they don't let assisting AI for children talk until then. Otherwise, the child becomes more connected to the AI than to their own family.
When he started talking on the evening of my eighth birthday it was to warn me that my decision to hike to the nearby lake and swim by myself was probably a bad idea. That was the first time I ever got mad at him. I was especially mad because I knew he was right. I forgave him right away because he no longer looked like a doll. His body had been upgraded that day, my birthday, to that of a young boy. I was so excited to have a real boy as a friend that I was willing to forgive pretty much anything. Yeh, I know he wasn't a real boy. Real boys can be mean. Outside of that he looked just like a real boy.
Mom wouldn't allow us to sleep together anymore after his body changed the first time. I remember that I was devastated and could only be consoled when mom gave him a bed in my room. Sometimes I really needed hugs and he would rock me to sleep. He was always in his own bed when I woke in the mornings. Anyway, they don't give a children's AI genitals or a sex drive so it's not like it mattered. If I had to guess, I suppose Mom compromised between unhappy child and current social mores. After that year Bert changed bodies every two years.
We had this strange relationship. Bert's AI socially matured as I did but his body didn't. We would be physical peers when he went into his new body. Each day that went by after that his body would fade a day into my past until we approached the next body replacement. Overnight a body two years younger than me would be replaced with one the same age as me. Instead of finding it odd or off putting, I found it endearing. I was always excited to see my friend's biennial transformation.
That is until his sex changed at my twelfth birthday. I was enraged that my mother had decided a girl would be a better companion. I put my youthful foot down when she brought up changing his name. I didn't care if he was now a 'she', his name was Bert. End of discussion. My father had been killed in an accident earlier that year and she just didn't have the fight in her to argue with me.
Looking back, it was obvious why Mom made the switch. I needed to learn about my body and what better way to learn than with an AI that had a similar body. I could ask questions about my changing body and the AI could show and tell. By this point Bert's body had rudimentary sex organs. Just enough junk to provide illustration for training purposes. That was all well and good for general questions. Bert always deferred to Mom for questions regarding masturbation (nope, never gonna happen) or sex (mostly didn't happen). When I was older, I learned about the physical aspects of masturbation pretty much like my parents had and their parents had before them, by doing what felt good.
Things changed when I turned sixteen. The new Bert girl was fine at first, but sixteen turns into seventeen in the blink of an eye and an entire life of drama is lived in that short time. Bert became too young for me to hang out with in no time at all, even though mentally she was still right there with me. She was always there for me at my lowest and I had a lot of lows. Seventeen was rapidly approaching eighteen and I thought I was outgrowing my need for Bert.
Maybe that was the intention all along. Bert had been a companion to me for most of my life and now it was time for me to fly solo. I was going off to college soon and would meet new and interesting people. Maybe I would lose my virginity. That's not quite how it worked out though. Mom wasn't paying close enough attention to the details when my eighteenth birthday came around. At least I think she wasn't.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
I walked in our front door on my eighteenth birthday and saw the hottest looking man I had ever seen standing in the living room next to my blushing mom. I had to ask, "Bert?"
"Yes, Lisa?"
"You look a lot more grown-up Bert."
"This is my final body. I hope you like it."
"Oh, I like it alright!"
"Lisa!" Mom turned an even deeper shade of red. I didn't realize at the time, that maybe her red face might have to do more with Bert's effect on her, than it did with my remarks.
I was so happy with his new body I was positively giddy. He was so handsome and masculine looking I shivered. I suspect Mom had done a bit of her own shivering when she first saw him. It had been a while since dad was killed and she had never gotten around to dating again.
"Bert, can you give Mom and I a minute please."
