I assume that at least a few of my friends watched the videos David made of me. I would have, in their position, out of curiosity if nothing else. Nobody said anything, though—friends or strangers—with the exception of a doctoral candidate from North Dakota. "Android as Postmodern Filter for Human Sexuality: Artificial Simulations of the Heterosexual Male and other Manifestations of Goal-Driven Approaches to Coitus." Or maybe that was just a subsection. She called every few weeks to ask about details of the footage; David, being somewhere between an academic and a floor model, was predisposed to be tolerant. They’d spend hours talking about what it implied that my eyes were closed at three minutes and forty-two seconds, versus what it implied that my eyes were closed at five minutes and twenty-three seconds, and the accuracy with which David could predict whether my eyes would be open or closed at a given moment. They had conversations about which angles of penetration were more or less wearing for David, and the degree to which he was or was not limited by his hardware or its installation. They talked about the effectiveness of novelty versus repetition, and whether David found it helpful or unhelpful to generate random number strings. She made several requests to interview me, but I had a habit of politely forgetting to get back to her.
Eventually, David started getting annoyed by my non-cooperation, and I went through a phase of being annoyed that he was annoyed, because I never agreed to participate in any research. If this thing between us was an experiment, it wasn’t that kind of experiment. That kind of experiment sounded tedious.
Then I started to get paranoid and wonder whether David was annoyed because he thought I was genuinely forgetting instead of pretend forgetting. Maybe he was frustrated with my faulty memory storage and was wondering whether he should upgrade to another model. Then I went back to being annoyed with him. But I woke up one day with a horrible feeling that he thought I was ashamed of being with him. I figured I’d better do the interview.
"How does it affect your anticipation of the sexual act to know that you can select the size and shape of your partner’s penis?" she asked. I was already regretting this exchange.
"I don’t know," I said. "I guess I’m a creature of habit. It’s nice to know I have the option, but I usually default."
"Given that the act of intercourse does not involve ejaculation or any form of sexual release for David, would you compare the experience more closely to using a vibrator or to intercourse with a human partner?"
"Do you find that sculptures are more like paintings or more like theater?" I said.
"I don’t have a way to input that."
"Then rewrite your data model."
She sighed. "Okay. Given that David is a created human, do you feel that the placement and structure of his genitals was chosen in consideration of you and other possible female partners?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean—do you think the placement of David’s genitalia is an example of heteronormative defaulting to no effect, or do you find it psychologically rewarding? If, for instance, David controlled a machine separate from his body, which stimulated you in the same way physically, and he fed inputs into the machine while sitting next to you, would you still consider yourself to be participating in intercourse?"
"No. It wouldn’t be the same."
"Why wouldn’t it be the same?"
"I don’t know."
"What if, in the same situation, David was a paralyzed man instead of an android?"
"I don’t know."
"If David was able to manifest a different personality or use a different face, would that frighten or excite you?"
"It would be like role playing. David is David. He’s conscious and him. I don’t enjoy pretending to be other people; it would feel silly."
"To what degree do you believe David chooses sexual positions to please you, and to what degree do you believe he chooses sexual positions that will allow him to do good camera work?"
"I don’t think about it."
"Is that why you keep your eyes closed?"
"No."
"Why do you keep your eyes closed?"
"No."
I could hear her tapping her pencil, or a pen or something. Probably a pencil—it had that eraser bounce. Finally, she said:
"Why do you think David maintains an exclusive relationship with you?"
"I don’t know. He gets what he needs out of it."
"He could make more money by sleeping with more women. Does it not strike you as odd that he chooses not to?"
"I guess he’s a tick-box kind of guy. He has that list item filled."
"Are you aware of his past history with women?"
"No. I don’t really want to know."
"Well, he likes you. He feels satisfied that he’s your boyfriend, and that he’s filling that role ably. He wants to see how long he can maintain that status."
"You make it sound like he’s going for a high score record."
"You could think of it that way. But it’s not something he’s done before. I just thought you should know, in case he hasn’t told you."
"Did you sleep with him?" I asked.
"Not my type," she said.
For our six month anniversary, I took David to the zoo. I have mixed feelings about zoos. Some days, it makes me sad to see animals in confined habitats, under constant observation by an alien species. Other days, I see the amount of care and love provided by the zookeepers; I remember how dangerous the wild is, particularly for endangered animals. I tear up a little when I see a kid staring at some weird creature from another continent—I know that kid is going to learn everything about that animal, and love it, and fight for its survival.
I’m not sure at this point whether I’m making an analogy about David as a zoo animal and me as a zookeeper, or the other way around. In any case, it was maybe an awkward choice for a date, and I mainly picked it because I knew David liked watching how different creatures walked. We sat down in front of the lion cage. I nudged David.
"Do you think I could be the boss lion?" I asked.
"I don’t," said David, smiling. "You are human. And female."
"I don’t know," I said. "I could grow a pretty fearsome mane. I’m thinking pink spikes."
"I love the way you see things," he said—which was a pretty excellent thing to say to someone with a history of trend-spotting, people watching, and songwriting, and just the sort of pattern-finding compliment David was good at.
"I’m just like anybody else," I said, with false modesty.
"Yes, exactly," he said. "The way you all view the world continuously, and half of it imagined—the way your eyes leave gaps and your brain makes up half of the picture, sometimes accurately and sometimes not, but never as a whole. It’s beautiful. I record it all and compress it once I know what I have. With you, the opposite—this wonderful expansion, until you don’t remember the limit exists."
"You’re full of shit," I said. "You chop me into frames every second, and if you were built right, you’d be embarrassed by it."
We didn’t speak for several days. Eventually, he showed up with some flowers, and that didn’t make up for anything, but I didn’t feel like fighting any more, so I pretended that it did. I gave him a hard time, though.
"You can’t bribe me to be happy," I said, even as I took the flowers and vigorously searched for my favorite vase.
"I know," said David, "but it’s my job to try. I’ve got sex, chocolate, liquor. I can’t do professional success or eternal life—I’m still working up to that."
"Maybe someday," I said. We sat together on the couch for a while, and it was awkward, so we went and laid in the bed. Finally, David said:
"Will you talk about me?"
"When?" I said. "To whom?"
"Now. To me." I looked over at him, and he didn’t seem to be wearing a particular expression. So I just described how he looked, and what his voice sounded like.