METALHe’s in me, so deep that no matter how he moves he’ll hit my prostate and bring me over the edge. My body feels like it needs him, the pleasure pounds through my veins, but my mind...my mind feels disconnected. As if he’s doing this to someone else...almost. The ecstasy gets through, but it’s more like a dull throbbing against the back of my skull. Nothing permanent, nothing that would make me scream. I flutter my eyelids and act like I’m in supreme ecstasy, when in reality I’m just feeling him thrust into me over and over again. It’s not his fault.
He shifts a bit and I let out a moan. He’s not bad at this...quite the contrary. The first time was about the only time I didn’t enjoy it, and that was probably because the pain eclipsed everything else. This time, however, it’s like I’m numb, like I’m just waking up from a coma and all of my senses aren’t awake yet.
Thoughts come to me as he gets closer to orgasm. I know every movement that will bring him over the edge, every place to lick, every pore that turns him on. I can paint every color that his eyes turn when he’s angry, sad...tell you every kind of beer that he likes and keeps in his refrigerator. I can recite all of his favorite sayings, pick out all of his favorite foods...in short, I know him. I love him. It would be impossible to imagine ever living without him. He’s never beaten me, never made me feel like anything’s wrong, never hurt me at all. So why can’t I enjoy this, why am I just lying here and pretending? Why am I acting just like a vessel to hold his cum? No better than a blow-up doll..
He comes in me, moaning my name passionately. He pulls me to his chest, whispering how he loves me more than life itself, that if anything ever happened to me he’d die from loss. Normally I’d whisper the same things back or at least make a little embarrassed face to convey something. But since I didn’t feel anything, I couldn’t fake it.
“Jay...are you okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he whispers, running his hands through my hair, hair that has increasingly felt as dead as my soul.
“No...it’s nothing.” Hide my expressionless face against his sweaty chest. I can’t let him see that I’ve forgotten how to smile. I don’t think I ever could, actually. At least not on command. So many of the posed pictures are just me looking like some fucked up loser who’s never cracked a smile or opened his mouth in his entire life.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Kiss his nipple delicately to keep all the attention off of me.
“Okay. You know I love you though...I want to know if anything I do upsets you.”
This would be where I might tear up...but the tears have gone too. Have to fake the crack in my voice. “It never does Ryan.”
He’s sleeping, I’m staring at the ceiling. I’ve tried closing my eyes a thousand times, only to open them again. I can’t sleep. I feel run down, but sleep just doesn’t want to come. It is when I begin to trace over the bumps in the ceiling that it all comes together. I’m not real anymore...the Blue Monday video sort of came true. Someone came in during the night and replaced my body with a robot’s. That’s why I can’t feel anything, that’s why I’m cold, why my fingers are so stiff. I can’t sleep because I don’t need sleep anymore. My brain is still mine, but it clutters around with frantic calculations of probabilities and obscure facts. Emotions have totally gone. I can curl my lips into a facsimile of a smile, but that’s about it. And I don’t think that that would satisfy Ryan. Maybe I can keep him so drunk he doesn’t notice. But all of these thoughts were done in a calculating manner, I couldn’t put any emotion into it at all. I didn’t know if I could tell him how I felt, what I thought had happened.
I stopped eating. Why would a robot need to eat? My stomach gave up caring, I was always full anyhow. The pounds slid off and splattered to the floor. What need did a robot have for warmth? Spent my days encased in chill. Began to think that Ryan had done this to me.Listened to the same two songs over and over again, one about being emotionally detached, the other about trying to get back into the swing of things using drugs. I had tried drugs before...the numb feeling was similar.
Ryan got worried and started asking me what was wrong constantly. I had to stare at him, look him in the face and lie...pretend that I didn’t know what he had done. He just wanted a fuck toy who didn’t throw fits and knew how to suck and blow with the best of them. My legs spread for him almost automatically, it was only in sex that I could tell that my nerves still functioned, that to some extent I was capable of pleasure.
I wish I could say that it hurt how much I couldn’t relate with anything anymore. If Paige came to me with a problem, I’d be more concerned about the logistics, I couldn’t pat him on the back, touch him, act like I was concerned. He caught on relatively quickly and stopped asking me for advice. They all sort of shied away from me, knowing instinctively that I was not the old Jay, that I was just a copy.
One day the urge possessed me to see the wires that ran through my body. Without even really considering any of the ramifications, I just picked up a knife and plunged it into my forearm. Oil seeped out and spattered on the floor, I watched with disinterest as it started to spread. Black coated the floor, luckily I had spread out newspapers at first. Watched as the headlines were covered with my “blood”. There wasn’t any pain. I never expected any. How much oil could a robot my size hold? This stuff just poured out and dripped. Turned my attention to the other arm, ripped that one open as well. The oil gushed and strength left. I slumped to the floor and let it surround me. The circuits in my face twitched and a small smile emerged.Then Ryan came in. “Jay!” he screamed, slipping on the black patch that was slowly filling the room. “What the hell did you do?!!!” howling now, he’s holding my arms, trying to stop the flow.
“I’m leaking.” I said. “You should go and buy more oil.”
He stared at me long and hard for a few seconds. “You’re bleeding to death Jay...”
“I can’t die. I’m a robot.”
Crimson filled my eyes, my visual circuits must be failing. He shoved the paper in my face. “This isn’t fucking oil! It’s blood!”
Everything went black. The screens never fired up again.
Metal-Gary Numan Back to Storieswe're in the building where they make us grow
and i'm frightened by the liquid engineers
like youmy mallory heart is sure to fail
i could crawl around the floor just like i'm real
like youthe sound of metal i want to be you
i should learn to be a man
like youplug me in and turn me on
oh everything is movingi need my treatment it's tomorrow they send me
singing "i am an american"
do you?picture this if I should make the change
i'd love to pull the wires from the wall
did you?and who are you and how can i try
here inside i like the metal
don't youall i know is no one dies
i'm still confusing love with need