Читать книгу Frankissstein - Jeanette Winterson - Страница 9

Reality bends in the heat.

I’m looking through a shimmer of heat at buildings whose solid certainties vibrate like sound waves.

The plane is landing. There’s a billboard:

Welcome to Memphis, Tennessee.

I’m here for the global Tec-X-Po on Robotics.

Name?

Ry Shelley.

Exhibitor? Demonstrator? Purchaser?

Press.

Yes, I have you here, Mr Shelley.

It’s Dr Shelley. The Wellcome Trust.

You’re a doctor?

I am. I’m here to consider how robots will affect our mental and physical health.

That is a good question, Dr Shelley. And let’s not forget the Soul.

I’m not sure that’s my area …

We all have a Soul. Hallelujah. Now, who are you here to interview?

Ron Lord.

(Short pause while the database finds Ron Lord.)

Yes. Here he is. Exhibitor Class A. Mr Lord will be waiting for you at the Adult Futures Suite. Here is a map. My name is Claire. I am your point of contact today.

Claire was tall, black, beautiful, well-dressed in a tailored dark green skirt and pale green silk shirt. I felt glad that she was my point of contact today.

Claire wrote out my name-badge with a brisk, manicured hand. Handwriting – a strangely old-fashioned and touching method of identification at a futuristic tech expo.

Claire – excuse me – my name – not Ryan, just Ry.

I apologise, Dr Shelley, I am not familiar with English names – and you are English?

Yes, I am.

Cute accent. (I smile. She smiles.)

Is this your first time in Memphis?

Yes, it is.

You like BB King? Johnny Cash? And THE King?

Martin Luther King?

Well, sir, I was talking about Elvis – but now you bring it to my attention, we do seem to have a lotta Kings here – maybe something about calling this city Memphis – I guess if you name a place after the capital of Egypt, you gonna see some pharaohs – uh-huh?

Naming is power, I say to her.

It sure is. Adam’s task in the Garden of Eden.

Yes, indeed, to name everything after its kind. Sexbot …

Pardon me, sir?

Do you think Adam would have thought of that? Dog, cat, snake, fig tree, sexbot?

I am thankful he didn’t have to, Dr Shelley.

Yes, I am sure you are right. So tell me, Claire, why did they call this place Memphis?

You mean back in 1819? When it was founded?

As she speaks I see in my mind a young woman looking out of a sodden window across the lake.

I say to Claire, Yes. 1819. Frankenstein was a year old.

She frowns. I am not following you, sir.

The novel Frankenstein – it was published in 1818.

The guy with the bolt through his neck?

More or less …

I saw the TV show.

It’s why we are here today. (There was a look of confusion on Claire’s face as I said this, so I explained.) I don’t mean existentially Why We Are Here Today – I mean why the Tec-X-Po is here. In Memphis. It’s the kind of thing organisers like; a tie-in between a city and an idea. Memphis and Frankenstein are both two hundred years old.

Your point?

Tech. AI. Artificial Intelligence. Frankenstein was a vision of how life might be created – the first non-human intelligence.

What about angels? (Claire looks at me, serious and certain. I hesitate … What is she saying?)

Angels?

That’s right. Angels are non-human intelligence.

Oh, I see. I meant the first non-human intelligence created by a human.

I have been visited by an angel, Dr Shelley.

That’s wonderful, Claire.

I don’t hold with Man playing God.

I understand. I hope I haven’t offended you, Claire?

She shook her head of shiny hair and pointed to the map of the city. You asked me why they called it Memphis, back in 1819 – and the answer is because we are on a river – the Mississippi – and the old Memphis was on the River Nile – you seen Elizabeth Taylor playing Cleopatra?

Yes, I have.

You know, she wore her own jewels? Think of that.

(I thought of it.)

Yes, all her own jewels, and most of them bought by Richard Burton. He was English.

Welsh.

Where is Wales?

It is in Britain but it isn’t in England.

I find that confusing.

United Kingdom: the UK is made up of England, Scotland, a slice of Ireland, and Wales.

I see … OK. Well. I’m not visiting any time soon, so I don’t have to worry about directions. Now, here, see the map, here where we are now? This is a delta region also, like the region of the Nile around the first Memphis.

Have you been to Egypt?

No, but I have been to Vegas. Very lifelike. Very Egypt.

I hear they have an animatronic Sphinx in Vegas.

Yes, they do.

You could call that a robot.

You could. I don’t.

Do you know everything about this place? Your Memphis?

I like to think so, Dr Shelley. If you are interested in Martin Luther King, you should visit the National Civil Rights Museum right on the site of the Lorraine Motel, where he was shot dead. You been there yet?

Not yet.

You been to Graceland though?

Not yet.

Beale Street? Home of the Memphis Blues?

Not yet.

You got a lotta Not Yets in your life, Dr Shelley.

She’s right. I am liminal, cusping, in between, emerging, undecided, transitional, experimental, a start-up (or is it an upstart?) in my own life.

I said, One life is not enough …

She nodded at me. Uh-huh. Ain’t that the truth? That is the truth. But don’t despair. Way over yonder is life without end.

Claire looked into the middle distance, her eyes shining with certainty. She asked me if I would like to go with her to her church on Sunday. A real church, she said, not a white man’s whitewash.

A beep on her headset crackled an instruction I couldn’t hear. She turned away from me to make an announcement over the tannoy.

My mind idled around the difference between desire for life without end and desire for more than one life, that is, more than one life, but lived simultaneously.

I could be me and me too. If I could make copies of myself – upload my mind and 3D-print my body, then one Ry could be in Graceland, another Ry at the shrine of Martin Luther King, a third Ry busking the Blues in Beale Street. Later, all my selves could meet, share the day, and reassemble into the original self I like to believe is me.

What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend?

Claire turned back to me, smiling. I said, mostly to myself, I don’t want to live forever.

What’s that you say? She leaned forward, frowning.

I said, Life without end. I don’t want to live forever.

Claire nodded and raised her perfect eyebrow.

Uh-huh. I’m going to be with Jesus, but you can suit yourself.

Thank you, Claire. Have you taken a tour around the expo?

I am a venue expert, not a host, so I am not expected to have detailed knowledge of the events here.

Have you seen any of the robots?

Robots are serving in the cafeteria. It’s not a good experience.

Why not, Claire?

They bring your eggs, and when you say, Excuse me! Hey! I didn’t order tomatoes! They say, Thanks, Ma’am. Have A Nice Day! And glide away to the water fountain. They glide because they can’t walk yet.

No, they can’t walk yet. Walking is hard for bots. But be patient, Claire, and remember – bots find the unexpected difficult to process.

Claire looked at me like I’m in Special Needs.

You call a tomato The Unexpected?

Not the tomato – your response to the tomato.

Claire shook her head. Y’know, Doc, my mom worked in a late-nite diner all her life. 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. to feed her family. She could throw out the drunk guys with one hand and give the hungry kids an extra helping with the other hand. She wasn’t an educated woman, but there was nothing artificial about her intelligence.

That’s one view, I said. I respect it.

I am not even supposed to be here, said Claire. I’m emergency support. I am on release from the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest.

Wow! Champion Barbecue Person!

Yes, said Claire, in full flow. We get over 100,000 visitors a year here in Memphis for the championship – it’s a real big barbecue scene – didn’t you know?

No, I didn’t know.

I started in Sauce – I managed the Sauce Wrestling – that’s forty gallons of barbecue sauce in a giant vat and in you go. Yes! Right in! Fight it out! It’s messy but it’s fun.

Claire, have you personally fought in a vat of sauce?

Personally? Dr Shelley, no.

But you are the champion!

No! I organise the competition.

Oh. I see. (Pause.) Is it flavoured? The sauce?

Sure is! Takes weeks to get the taste off your skin and every dog in town follows you home. Four legs and two, know what I mean? I manage the entire event now – entirely. Sponsorship, demos, games, prizes.

That’s impressive, Claire.

Yes, it is. I am an expert in my own field.

You look like an expert. Maybe it’s the way you style your hair. Very professional hair.

Thank you, Dr Shelley. Anything you want to ask me?

Would you like to come around the show with me? Might make you feel better about it. I can explain a few things. I know a few things about – (not love) – robotics.

I am a Christian, Dr Shelley.

There is nothing in the Bible against robots.

It says in the Bible that thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image. That is one of the Ten Commandments.

Is a robot a graven image, Claire?

It’s a ballpark likeness of a God-given human.

A likeness that comes to life?

I wouldn’t call it life. We’re fooling ourselves if we call a robot alive. Only God can create life.

Claire, are you sure?

I don’t want to take any chances, Dr Shelley. I have to think of my eternity.

That’s certainly taking the long view …

Yes, it is.

A young woman wearing tight leather trousers and an oversize buckskin fringed jacket rushed up to the desk, interrupting without even noticing she was interrupting.

She said, I’m looking for Intelligent Vibrators. Where are they?

Claire took a breath before she answered. Ma’am, are you an exhibitor, a demonstrator or a purchaser?

I have an emergency!

What kinda emergency?

The woman shuddered inside her leather and buckskin as she said, I have accidentally posted pictures of myself, mostly naked, except for two tassels, using the Intelligent Vibrator, on my Facebook page.

That wasn’t very intelligent, I said.

The woman glared at me.

It’s a privacy infringement! I need to speak to the demonstrator at the stand. They showed me how to work the camera on the vibrator. I knew it had a remote control. They didn’t tell me it would remotely upload to my default app if I didn’t reset it.

Claire pursed her lips and went to her screen. I could see her manicured fingertips tapping out Intelligent Vibrator. I asked the woman – because I had to know –why would anyone want a vibrator featuring a camera and a remote control?

She looked at me with a mixture of anger and contempt. She said, Teledildonics.

Pardon me?

She said, Haven’t you heard of teledildonics?

Sadly, never. But I am British.

She raised the kind of eyebrow that says: What are you even doing here, dude?

She sighed. (Heavily.) She said, The idea, the idea, is sexplay with your partner, or partners, from separate locations. It feels like they are in the room – doing things to you. Does it?

Yes, it does. And you can share the photos.

With all your friends on Facebook?

Actually, this is none of your business, OK?

It’s a bit late to be asking for privacy.

I thought she was going to hit me. Fortunately Claire swung back into the zone.

Your name, miss?

Polly D. Just the initial D. I am on the list.

We don’t have a list, ma’am.

The VIP list. I work for Vanity Fair.

We don’t have a VIP list, Miss D. I have paged the company. A representative from IN-VIBE is coming right now.

Haha – good pun, Claire, I said.

Now Claire was glaring at me too. She folded her arms in a goodbye-and-get-lost kind of a way.

I have to do my job, Dr Shelley, and I guess you have to do yours. The Adult Futures Suite is to your left and signposted.

Is he in pornography? said Polly D. I mean, he’s obviously not a real doctor. What is he? Some kind of Dr Jackoff?

I ignored her. Thanks for your help, Claire. Good luck, Polly.

I turned away, hearing:

Asshole!

On the way to the Adult Futures Suite I pass the Singularity Suite. There’s a large screen showing an interview between Elon Musk and Ray Kurzweil talking about the Singularity – the moment when AI changes the way we live, forever. Some young guys are wearing T-shirts with the slogan ‘Give Up Meat’.

It’s not that the future will be vegetarian – just that they believe that soon enough the human mind – our minds – will no longer be tied to a body that is a substrate made of meat.

But for now we are still human, all too human (strange phrase, that, when you think about it), and eighty per cent of internet traffic is pornography. The first non-biological life forms sharing our homes won’t be waiters with tomato-recognition issues, or cute little ETs for the kids. Let’s start at the very beginning: a very good place to start. Sex.

The guy waving two cell phones and wearing a headset sweeps me inside the Adult Futures Suite. He’s got the body and build of a nightclub bouncer: broad chest, overweight, short legs, thick arms, sweaty in a crumpled suit. Coke cans line the coffee table in front of the couch. Ron Lord snaps open two more and hands one to me.

It’s a long way from Three Cocks, eh, Ryan?

I beg your pardon?

Three Cocks. The village in Wales where I started the future.

That’s a big claim, Ron.

I think big, Ryan. Google Maps. See for yourself. Three Cocks. My mum’s a bit psychic. She said it was a sign. Three Cocks is where I built my first sexbot. Mail-order doll. All her parts arrived in separate bags like a chainsaw massacre. I put her together with one screwdriver and the instruction video. Really, it’s Lego for adults.

I knew you’d started at the bottom, I said to Ron.

Yeah, it was her bottom where I started, said Ron.

Sitting on the couch was a human-scale doll with soft brown hair falling onto her shoulders. The doll was wearing double-denim, shorts and jacket, and underneath a pink top stretched across breasts the size of lifebuoys.

Is that her? Your first one?

Show some respect, Ryan! My first is retired. She wasn’t even a commercial variety. I still have her and I love her, but she’s archive now. This one here, she’s part of my franchise range.

Watch this! Ready? Film it on your phone! Go on!

Ron swings up the doll from the couch and points to a bright pink mat underneath her. The mat says PUSSY.

You see this mat? says Ron. This is a SmartMat. This mat powers her up while she sits next to you. You can have it in the car too – works on the cigarette-lighter socket. Electrodes in her bum.

Look at this – (swipes iPad with fat finger) – here’s the factory in China where the dolls are made. Torso comes through first, swinging on the overhead wires, complete with two holes, user-ready, and F-cup moulded tits. I am working on a model with detachable tits, for variety, but they don’t make that in China yet, too specialist. Anyway, torso, torso, another torso (he swipes impatiently). Here we are! See how they attach the arms? Lovely slim arms. Then the legs. Look at the length! The shape! Slightly longer than they would be if she was human. This is fantasy, not nature, so you can have what you want. Hair goes on last, after the eyelashes. See the eyes? Like Bambi for boys.

Ron put the doll back down on the couch, and swigged his Coke. He said, Lightweight too. Makes a man feel strong.

So how does a sex-doll franchise work? I said.

The way I see it, said Ron, there’s two ways to go with sexbots: buy her and own her – like I did – bring her in for a service once or twice a year, depending on wear and tear. Online you can order spare parts, if any of her gets damaged, or too messy. That’s one way to enjoy an XX-BOT. We also offer trade-ins and upgrades. Very flexible.

The other way to enjoy an XX-BOT, more modern, to my mind, is rental. And if you rent, you need somewhere to rent her from, right? That’s how I came up with the idea of the franchise that I’m selling here.

Your XX-BOTs?

Right, Ryan! Good name?

Good name, Ron.

You see, Ryan, renting gives you all the pleasure and none of the problems. Breakages, storage, updating – the technology is changing all the time.

And most people only buy one bot, for personal use, but what if you’re having a party? With your mates? They’ll all want a try.

Renting is popular with stag weekends; get half a dozen of the girls in for fun and frolics. Different models too, blonde and busty, brunette and sporty. Whatever. And what if you’re the kind of bloke that only wants a bot when the wife is away? Women aren’t at home all the time like they used to be. I don’t blame them; women aren’t goldfish. They’ve evolved. But, like my mum says, emancipation can be a problem for a man.

Renting a bot when you’re on your lonesome is safer and cheaper than the human alternative. No diseases, no revenge porn, no getting robbed of your Rolex at 2 a.m. One business lady I know personally, a high-powered lady, she books ahead quarterly.

What? Yes! That’s what I’m saying, Ryan. She books an XX-BOT for her man. He loves it. He never knows which model he’s going to get. It’s a bond between them. Quite touching, I think, something they do together.

With a rental, every girl gets hygiene-checked, bathed, perfumed, yeah, you can choose one of four scents – musky, floral, woody or lavender. When you pick her up she’ll be wearing either double-denim like this one – or a simple day dress. You can hire or buy other outfits.

What? Yeah, just like Barbie. Yeah, I suppose you’re right, it’s a joke, isn’t it, how boys don’t get to play with Barbie till they’re grown up? Haha, I hadn’t thought of that – it’s a thought. I hadn’t thought of it but it’s a thought. My mum will laugh when I tell her. Oh, yeah, my mum is a big part of the business. From day one.

Anyway, the girls we rent out get time off for education too – we’re always improving their circuit boards. They don’t have a big vocabulary, no; you watch porn, don’t you, so you know it’s not exactly a language-lab? But we’re on it – men do like to communicate. It’s not just ‘Hello, Big Boy’.

What did you say? At the airport? Funny you should say that because that’s what’s next. I’m looking to go in with some of the car-hire companies – yeah, like Avis – and your car can have your XX-BOT ready and waiting, fully charged, in the passenger seat.

XX-BOTs make a great travel choice. No nagging about stopping for lunch or needing the toilet. No sulking about the Holiday Inn you’ve booked. She’s next to you, long hair, long legs, you choose the music, beautiful woman in the passenger seat.

If you want to be a bit more discreet you can fold her up and strap her in the back, or stow her out of sight in the boot or trunk or whatever you call it. We’re not all extroverts.

Here, look, watch this! See it? Yeah! I’ll do it again. Are you filming this? Watch the movement. So smooth. Legs up and over. Now she’s in half. You’d need to date a bloody stuntwoman to manage that.

Amazing! Eh, Ryan? Like a Brompton bicycle!

When driverless cars really take off, the client could get in the back with his XX-BOT and have a much pleasanter journey. Takes all the stress out of travel.

I’m talking to Uber.

Yeah. I have based my franchise model on the rent-a-car business. Pick up in one city, drop off in another. And I’ve got five styles of XX-BOTs – including the Economy model here on the couch. She’s the cheapest.

She’s got nylon hair, so you can get a bit of static, and she whirrs a bit, but she’s a good, straightforward, no-frills, budget fuck.

See? Three holes all the same size. No! Not in the same place! You have slept with a woman, haven’t you, Ryan? Well, where do you think the holes are? Front. Back. Mouth. Not her nostrils! She’s not a fuckin’ yeti!

OK! You were making a joke. I get it. Now concentrate – put your finger in there!

Like it? And they all VI-BRATE! Any hole, any position. Vibrate!

Nice limb movement too. You can position her how you want. All the girls have an extra-wide splayed-leg position. It’s popular with our clients, especially the fat ones.

This one can talk too. Limited but adequate voice response – like meeting a girl abroad who doesn’t speak much English.

Does she have a name, Ron?

Ron nodded approvingly. That’s a good question, Ryan. And I’ve got a good answer. I made the decision not to give my girls names. No, it’s not like lambs you’ll be eating later, actually it’s like those very fancy paints you can buy – top-end paint – yes, we’ve just redecorated at home – I mean the paints that use numbers, because what a colour means to me won’t be what a colour means to you – and you might be colour-blind anyway. I mean, what the fuck is Moody Blue? Wimborne White? Does Wimborne White sound gay to you? It does to me. And Donkey Brown? Since when was all donkeys the same brown? My dad kept donkeys – yeah – it’s a long story. No need to go into that today. It’s not about me.

So with the girls, I can call them Volcano, or Autumn or Cheri or whatever, but the customer might want to call his night-bird Julie … So we leave it to the customer to name his bird.

You’re not meant to call women ‘birds’ nowadays, are you? I always liked it. Sums women up – not in a bad way, don’t get me wrong. Birds … always out of reach. Aren’t they? You think she’s on your arm and then she’s flown.

And they seem to like worms.

So, Ryan, back to my Economy model. In motor-vehicle parlance, she’s the cloth-seats and plastic-steering-wheel version. But she gets you from A to B.

This model only comes in white.

My sister-in-law’s a lovely black woman from Jamaica and she said to me, she said, Ron! Don’t you dare do an Economy black woman. And I love women, I do, and I thought, yeah, show respect. Also, Bridget would knock the shit out of me.

Shall we have a look at Cruiser? Over by the window. Right little motor boat, this one. Like the girl next door but dirty. Cruiser’s got the fuller figure. Nicely pneumatic. She’s padded to give a softer feel. Those breasts are like pillows. It was Mum’s idea. She said to me, Ron, some men want to curl up and fall asleep, like they did when they were little boys.

Feel these! Top-grade silicon nipples. No plastic – like fuckin’ thimbles, plastic nipples. Gotta have some give. That’s the key if you like breasts, and I’m a breast man myself.

Walk round the back. Go on! I’ll lift the dress. Yes! Thongs. Very popular. Lovely ass with a bit of movement – soft silicon. Bigger battery so we can warm up certain parts of her skin.

My girls can seem lower-temperature than born and bred girls. All right, they are colder than born and bred. Flesh is flesh. But my girls are not clammy underneath you, like the bloody blow-up things – it was like lying on seaweed. God, I hated blow-up dolls, did you? Might as well wrap your dick in cling film.

So, Ryan, moving swiftly on. This one here in the tennis outfit bending over to pick up a couple of balls. She’s our Racy model.

Very tight figure – little waist, double-G-cup – and I tell you what, her tits and her pussy are always warm. It’s the battery plus the thermal layer. Battery life is up to three hours. I mean, men come in about four minutes, so this is generous. You can have a party, pass her around, play a hand of cards in between without worrying about her going flat. In the beginning when they went flat they slurred their words, and you could hear them whirring as well. It didn’t put anyone off, but it didn’t feel professional to me.

Do you like her slingback tennis shoes? Economy doesn’t wear shoes. It’s cute, like that French musical, Les Misérables.

Speaking French, I don’t know if you’ve ever had sex with a bot – be my guest later – but I tell you there’s none of that Bonjour Tristesse afterwards, and none of that doubt about whether she’s had an orgasm or not. All my girls orgasm when you do.

Yeah, well spotted, Ryan. She certainly is. Racy is taller than the others. She’s about 5 foot 4 inches – the others are about 5 foot 2 inches. We make them smaller for the Chinese and Asian markets. These are the US and UK models.

I have thought about doing a supermodel size, but it’s not practical. The only point of a supermodel in real life is to show her off to your mates – I mean, she’s too anorexic for anything else. Won’t eat, won’t drink, won’t, well, you know – they are so picky. My girls are practical – they are built to work – so we keep ’em handy-sized.

Yeah, it’s true, there are some really small girls on the market – they look like children. I don’t get involved. I got standards.

You can buy some bots with Family Mode; they can talk about animals, and tell fairy stories, all that stuff, like Emmanuelle Does Disney. I’m strictly Adult. No blurred lines. So, as yet, we’ve got no plans for a travel doll.

Are you still recording? Good.

Just behind the screen here is a bed – for display purposes only, so don’t take your shoes off, Ryan. Imagine coming home to this beauty. In fact, I do come home to this beauty. I have a Deluxe for personal use.

She’s got everything you get with Racy, minus the muscles – I mean, they’re all firm, but smooth and curvy, no weightlifters. Anyway, Deluxe, like the name suggests, has better quality materials all round. And Real Hair.

Where? On her head, where d’you think? You have slept with women, haven’t you?

Jesus, no, I wouldn’t put real hair down there! Or any hair, as it happens. You’d have it sopping wet and rotten in no time.

We ask for double the deposit on this model because of the hair and you have to sign a waiver declaring that you won’t spill booze or smear food, piss, shit or cum in her hair.

Do they do that kind of thing? Sad but true. I wouldn’t, but some do.

With nylon hair it doesn’t matter much what you do – and it’s cheap to replace. We rip it right off and we start again. But the good stuff, the real stuff – I mean, I am on the side of the women, I am. Who wants some twat to cum in their real hair?

Yeah … Horrible.

Personally, as a woman, even though I’m not, I’d hate it if some random bloke wanted to cum anywhere except the usual place, but I’m a fussy eater. Don’t like yoghurt or custard, or that French one, crème brûlée, or tapioca or white sauce or suet. I don’t really like banana smoothies and I hate almond milk. God, almond milk. Why??? For fuck’s sake! My doctor tried to get me on it. Cholesterol. I said, mate, I’d rather have the heart attack.

Deluxe has a big vocabulary. About 200 words. Deluxe will listen to what you want to talk about – football, politics or whatever. She waits till you’re finished, of course, no interrupting, even if you waffle a bit, and then she’ll say something interesting.

What like? Oh, well, something like: Ryan, you’re so clever. Ryan, I hadn’t thought about it like that. Do you know anything about Real Madrid?

Yeah – that’s what I mean about education. Climate change. Brexit. Football. This model is a companion – and that’s how we’ll forward her career as the technology develops.

Some men want more than sex. I get that.

And over to Vintage. I love the two-piece suit and pillbox hat. I got this idea from the retro-porn sites. She’s late to the game but she brings plenty to the party.

We had a lot of older men asking us for something sexy and young – most old blokes aren’t rich enough to get a real-life version – you need a lotta money for young girl/old man in real life. And let’s face it; men prefer a box of strawberries to a plate of prunes and custard.

What we offer is fantasy life, not real life.

Vintage can be ready for you like she’s straight out of the 1950s. Like BBC Calling the World – you wouldn’t believe how well the voice works – we got a newsreader from BBC Radio 4 to do it. Anonymous. Paid her a fortune.

Or you can have Vintage in a 60s miniskirt and lovebeads, singing I Got You Babe. Her mouth doesn’t move, but if you’re fuckin’ her face off you wouldn’t want it to, would you?

There’s even a 70s feminist version with no bra, messy hair and a dildo for anal play. Yeah! Clever! She gets to fuck you! No, I haven’t tried it. I do try them all but I didn’t fancy that one. In the office we called her the Germaine. She’s the only one with a name. Have you read that book? My mum told me about it. I started it but it wasn’t what I thought.

Who rents her? Some masochists. And a few university professors.

All of these girls come in different skin tones: black, brown or white. Plus, you can have a muff on the Vintage model if that’s what you want. The old porn stars had beavers like candyfloss, and some men liked it. So we can supply with or without, but only for the Vintage model. If you’re not sure if you want fluff in your face, we can include a muff in the package with the correct glue. We do ask customers not to use their own glue. Glue on the wrong side means you get a stick-on beard.

Do I get mostly old men? Not at all. All ages and stages, Ryan; sex is a democracy. With the old blokes, I see it as a public service. You should write about that. We always offer ten per cent off to the over-sixty-fives, and there’s an extra ten per cent off on Mondays. Not many people want a shag on a Monday.

Tell you what, though – and this is a bit philosophical, but I am a thinking man – there’s no such thing as underage sex when it’s a bot. I mean, there’s no can’t do it till you’re sixteen or whatever, so we get some schoolkids wanting a try – yeah, boys, ’course it’s boys – and I reckon it’s better than sticking it up some girl who’s dry as sandpaper and doesn’t fancy you.

Yeah, you can be old, you can be ugly, you can be fat, smelly, you can have an STD, you can be broke. Whether you can’t get it up, or you can’t get it down, there’s an XX-BOT for you.

Public service. I tell you, it is. Do you think I might get an MBE? Mum would love that.

Women? What about women? Are you a feminist, Ryan? I’m not, but my mum is, so don’t think we haven’t heard about this back in Wales.

There are male bots but I don’t bother with them. Why not?

Anatomy, Ryan. Basic anatomy. You must have done that when you were training to be a doctor.

Basically a boy-bot is a vibrator with a body attached. He’s like a shop-window mannequin with a dick that doesn’t work. No thrust. He can’t shunt her from behind. She has to sit on him and bounce up and down, very tiring, or joggle him on top of her like she’s blending a milkshake. Also tiring. No fun when you’ve had the bath, the candles, all your favourite love songs on PLAY AGAIN. The things women like to get them in the mood.

Women prefer a hand-held vibrator. Better control, better delivery, and they can watch TV at the same time. I’ve done the market research. Well, not me personally, my mum does that side of the business. My mum? Oh, very much so. Like I said. Day one.

And with the boy-bots it’s a question of scale as much as anything. Female bots are petite – even the Swedes like ’em petite – but if you build a boy-bot small it’s a turnoff, like fucking your son, and women don’t get off on that, not many of ’em anyway. Women want a hunk, but if you make your bot hunky, women can’t lug him around. And in a small apartment, when he’s not in use, so to speak, he’s in the way – y’know? I mean, he can’t go out for a beer when you want some personal space.

Plus women tend to drive smaller cars, and she doesn’t want to draw attention to herself trying to squash some Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson into her Renault Twingo.

If we get into nightclubs – and we might, because I don’t know what to do with the money I’m making – then I might try hen-night specials where we supply some boy-bots to see how it goes – just for a laugh – like ride-my-pony sorta thing? Women might enjoy sitting on top if I can get the action right. I’ve got some ideas from when I used to repair pop-up toasters.

This market is global. This market is the future.

Let me tell you something about China, Ryan. That one-child policy? Thank God they’ve stopped it. All those strangled girl babies chucked in a paddy field somewhere. There’s millions and millions of Chinese men who’ll never have a female partner because there aren’t enough girls to go round. That’s right – what goes around comes around – like a sushi belt – you’d think they’d know that, wouldn’t you? The Chinese market will be mega. That’s why they’ve got the factories – and they love technology, and a lot of Chinese men will prefer a bot because they like the submissive type. Modern Chinese women are too independent. I went to the factory – I’ve seen it all.

Anyway, I’m opening my own factory in Wales. China can’t have it all their own way. Show some competition, I say, and if they’re in a trade war with bloody America who knows what will happen? Price of bots could go sky-high.

Mum said we should do a Karl Marx and control the means of production.

Also, I want to put something back into the community. There’s no jobs in Wales, Ryan, not since Brexit. They voted Wales for the Welsh, like everyone in the world was just killing themselves to get over the border and open a new coalmine.

All the money in Wales came from some euro-fund anyway, but there’s a lot of inbreeding in Wales. I think it would be good to have a bit of immigration – all that inbreeding affects the brain. Brexit! Jesus! Might as well have built a wall made out of leeks right round the place.

So I have to do my bit. I’m opening a big factory that will make the whole bot. Top to bottom. And I’m having a smaller workshop – got enterprise money for it – that just makes heads. Bit more artisan. They are quite good at handicrafts in Wales. Tea towels … pottery …

And there are a lot of out-of-work hairdressers as nobody can afford to get their hair done, not now it’s just Wales for the Welsh.

Why do I need extra heads?

A lot of the XX-BOTs get their faces bashed in. Get thrown at the wall or something. I seriously thought about a detachable nose at one time. You can change the face yourself on some of them, but it’s fiddly, and I think buying a spare head to start with is a better idea. Sex can get a bit rough, can’t it? I don’t judge.

Also, I’m thinking of manufacturing an Outdoor type. Tougher. Rugged. Sorta Lara Croft. We’ll need our own production line for that. It might be for the fetish market. Dominatrix. Spanking. That sorta thing. The Chinese won’t touch it. Brits will like it, I think. I’m in talks with Caterpillar and JCB.

This is the future, Ryan.

Are you coming to my live show? See the girls in action? Look, here’s a taster on the iPad. What do you think of the music?

Walking in Memphis. I love that song. My favourite line – There’s a pretty little thing waiting for the King …

They’re all pretty. We’re all kings.

What did you say? Does it make real life more difficult?

What is real life these days?