Message-ID: <36739asstr$1023491406@assm.asstr-mirror.org> Return-Path: X-Original-Message-ID: <003b01c20e5c$403cc620$f2cb3f44@orovly01.az.comcast.net> From: "DB_Story" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4807.1700 X-ASSTR-Original-Date: Fri, 7 Jun 2002 12:48:07 -0700 Subject: {ASSM} The Rescue of D. B. Story {DB_Story} (M/Fembot+, rom, ScFi, asfr) Date: Fri, 7 Jun 2002 19:10:06 -0400 Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail Approved: Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d X-Archived-At: X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation X-Story-Submission: X-Moderator-ID: dennyw, gill-bates THE RESCUE OF DB_STORY By DB ( DB_Story@att.net / http://home.att.net/files/Authors/db_story/www/ ) Copyrightc 2002 by DB. ASSM/ASFR (M/Fembot+, rom, ScFi, asfr) (This story contains Constitutionally protected material intended for adults over 18 years of age in the United States of America, and whatever passes for adult status in other countries. If you are under legal age, acting under legal age, not allowed to view such material in your area, or easily offended, please do not continue. This is not for you. (The only rights granted are to view this story. You are not allowed to reproduce, post, or otherwise redistribute this story without permission, except for non-profit Usenet archiving sites. (To purchase for publication, place on your web-site devoted to this style of fiction, or for permission to link to my posted material, please contact me first at the above email.) - - - Author's Note: This story is part of my emerging cosmology about the evolution of robots into our near future society and the myriad ways we will learn to interact with our creations. Read it now, and be prepared. For more, visit my web-site at the above address. A special thanks to Gorgo his excellent and much appreciated proofreading. All remaining mistakes are mine. - - - The doorbell rang unexpectedly. I was surfing the web to see if Elf had posted anything new on his latest AI story-line, while waiting for my own latest story to come back from my proofreader. I had only e-mailed it to him a couple hours ago, so it was completely unreasonable for me to expect any reply in less than another day. Especially since he is ten time zones away, has a full-time job, never knows when he will receive something new from me, and proofreads for a number of other writers as well. He also writes his own anime fanfic. But I was impatient. When I complete a story I want to post it immediately. I'm so happy with it that I want to share it this second and hope for feedback. (I used to wait for feedback. Now I just hope for it.) The euphoria of typing "End" is unbelievable. My story is absolutely perfect down the last period. And it says exactly what I wanted to say. I know not to post that. My first drafts are pure creative blitz writing. Get the idea into the computer. While I'll correct many spelling errors on the fly, I don't stop for anything else except sleep - and only then if it's already after two in the morning and I need to be up for something important this next morning that I've already infringed into. Instead of posting that mess however, I give it at least a day, then perform a full read-through/rewrite in one sitting if possible. Most of my work is short enough to make this possible. Here is where I try to catch and simplify my overly long and complex sentences that my creative mind loves to spew out. Overused adjectives, missing quote marks, redundancies, names misspelled where the spell checker is no help to me, and ideas I completely forgot to type in are fixed here, I hope. Then when my copy is perfect do I send it off to my proofreader, whose only reward for his hard work is getting to see my work ahead of everyone else. (He says it's worth it!) A day or three later it comes back with a collection of embarrassing errors and gaffes spelled out in red. As I fix these in my copy, I usually find a couple more errors he missed, and a couple more passages I want to touch up. After that, it is time to create the text and html versions (insert double hard returns for the text paragraph separations). Post to ASSM/ASFR (and any other appropriate news group if it falls into a specialty category, like a rip-off - err make that take-off - on another author's work). Add it to my web-site and update the site's contents page. Then sit back and monitor usenet and e-mail for any comments - while repeating the process all over again from the beginning for the next story. Yeah, a lot of labor goes into the production of one of these stories. Such is a virtually unknown writer's life. About that doorbell, I don't mind the interruption. I have friends for whom any knock on the door, ringing telephone, or e- mail popping in is greeted with amazing hostility. They do not want to be distracted from whatever task is at hand. I'm not that way. I am always hoping the next event in my life will be something good, like Publisher's Clearinghouse showing up with a check. It doesn't always happen. However, the optimism remains. Today that optimism finally paid off as I opened my door to reveal the two most beautiful women I have ever met in person. I believe the one standing in front said something to me, but the words didn't register. I stared. I admit it. I stared. Staring isn't polite and many women - especially the attractive ones - find it offensive, or even threatening. I know this. I stared anyway. They were worth staring at. My first impression was of height and hair. The dark-haired one in front nearly matched me eye-to-eye. Her blonde companion standing half behind her and a couple inches taller did look straight across at me, with clear unblinking lovely blue eyes. They both looked to be in their mid-20's, at that point where they have fully grown into their beauty and clear complexions. Both of them had great amounts of luxurious hair done in the elaborate coiffure style of the early 60's that I've always liked so much, and never see anymore. My other favorite fashion item from that time - nylons and high spike heels - neither of these women needed. From their hair, I was next struck by the perfection of their faces, and of their make-up. Now I don't talk about make-up much in my stories. I prefer to let my reader's form their own images. My fantasy may not be yours. But properly done make-up can add a lot, and a sexy face makes a sexy woman. The difficulty here is in the phrase "properly done," and more does not equate to better. In fact, most women would look better with a bit less than they actually use since the more make-up a woman uses, the far more expert her art in applying it must be. These women were wearing a lot, and carrying it off to perfection. As lovely as their faces both were (supermodels, both of them, my mind had already decided), my eyes quickly dropped from their faces. Not out of embarrassment, or a desire to start a conversation with their boobs (which were well covered anyway by the long-sleeved fine silk blouses both were wearing). Rather it was my automatic reaction to all tall women I meet. I like all women. However I recognize that there is something special about how a tall woman carries and presents herself that others cannot match. Cute and sexy will never apply to a statuesque female. The cute and sexy ones are five-feet-four and seem cloned out by the hundreds to fill all the college cheerleading teams, strip clubs, and many magazine centerfolds. But in the same way cute and sexy can't apply to a tall woman, their shorter sisters will never be referred to as elegant or regal either. These two women before me redefined elegant and regal. I dropped my eyes down to see if they were cheating on their height. To my great pleasure, both were wearing low heels that couldn't have given them even two more inches. The couple thin straps holding these shoes on fully revealed elegant manicured feet. And the tan I noticed in their faces carries evenly right down to their expertly painted toes, with the blonde being a rich golden shade while her brunette friend has a dark exotic color to go with her equally dark exotic eyes. I took stock of their clothing as I lifted my eyes again. The brunette had encased her legs in dark brown slacks of some exceptionally soft looking material which somehow still maintained a crisp crease. Above a dividing dark belt to match her hair, her very loose blouse was a bold abstract of autumn colors up to a loose neckline. I got a bit more of a glimpse of the blonde, who wore a pleated skirt to just above her knees. The remaining smooth exposed legs tapered superbly down to thin ankles. What leg she did show made erotic promises that would be hard to keep about what she still kept hidden underneath the skirt. Her blouse was also silky and loose over her apparently large chest. It hinted at pleasures to be found there beneath it in colors of bright yellows and pale blues to match her hair and eyes. I finally got my gaze back to both their faces. An unhandled interrupt finally broke through that one of them had said something to me when I opened the door. But for the life of me, I couldn't recall what it was. Several seconds had passed, although I couldn't say how many. Enough, I was certain, that by now they were either angry or insulted enough by my behavior to have ruined any further interaction with them beyond repair. I had handled this horribly. All I can say is that I was never prepared to have this happen to me. Who really would be? But that isn't what I was seeing on their faces. I was seeing complete patience with me so far, and even half-smiles. Fine. Obviously this is a lucid dream. And a damn fine one too. Then the one in front spoke again. "Are you D. B. Story," she asked in a thrilling contralto, the kind that sends shivers up your spine. And she did not sound insulted at all that I hadn't answered her the first time. But that comment threw me for another loop. D. B. Story is a name I only use for my erotic fiction on the web. The kind of stuff you give away because nobody will actually pay you for it. And the stuff you don't admit to writing in polite company, or to your friends if you don't know any polite company. Like any writer, you hope to be serious, published (and paid) someday soon. And when that day arrives you don't want this stuff coming back to haunt you. Call it honing one's writing craft, or part of the three million words of shit you need to write out of your system before you can become a good writer. Just don't call it mine. As a nom du keyboard, D. B. Story doesn't even mean anything. Rather like Sinfeld's show about nothing. It was supposed to be dba_story, as in: Doing Business as Mr. Story. But the system refused to register that as an alias name. It failed twice. Then on the third try it came back and said had just registered me as DB_Story. Since I wanted to post my first story that very night (if the moderators at ASSM would even have me - they did!) and I felt I needed an anonymous web-site to archive my work and a fake e-mail address for feedback (which has become a real virus magnet of late), I caved and went with what the system gave me. As I got enough positive feedback from that first posting of "Lisa's Tale Part 1" to keep on writing and posting more stories, the less I felt I could ever change it afterwards because of an increasing number of links to my few pages. But I never used it for anything else. Only a few other authors who write in this genre even know me, and those are e-mail only contacts. I'm completely certain that neither of these women would ever fall into that category. So my automatic reaction is to deny it. Fortunately I am thinking fast enough to realize if I do deny it, they might turn around and leave the next following moment. I didn't want that to happen. So I told them the truth: "Yes I am." Hearing that they both broke into big smiles. See how truth pays off. "We are so happy to have found you, Mr. Story. May we come in?" The brunette was still doing all the talking. Now you don't think for a moment that I was going to refuse that request, do you? Next thing I knew, we are all standing in the center of my small apartment and I'm wondering what to do next. Getting the last web-site I had visited off the screen came to mind, but I felt that might draw even more attention to it. Then the brunette stuck out her hand (I noticed how nicely her fingernails matched her toenails) and announced, "I'm Cassandra." I took her hand silently. It was warm, firm, soft, and alive. The blonde followed suit a moment later saying, "And I'm Roberta. But you can call me Bobbie." Her grip was strong too, and the direct touch felt wonderful. I did the only thing I could think of and asked, "And what may I do for two such lovely ladies?" in my most generous tone of voice. I was already regretting that I may have alienated them with an unwanted complement (see what all this PC garbage about "sexual harassment" has turned us American males into?) when both of them simultaneously reached into their small, fashionable handbags and pulled out small television remotes which they held out to me. "Take possession of us," they said in unison. "And tell us how we may serve you." I swear at that very moment the Universe ground to a sudden and complete halt. - - - Time stops running when the Universe is halted. Eventually the Universe restarted with only a couple bumps and grinds, and events resumed their one-second-per-second forward progression. If this was not a dream (which I was already pretty sure it wasn't - lucid dreams do leave clues), then it was a joke. An elaborate, and considering the quality of the women hired as part of it incredibly expensive, joke. The problem is nobody - and I do mean NO-BODY - would spend that kind of money for a joke like this on me. The women were still both holding out those little TV remotes to me, so I took them. I noticed each had the woman's name inscribed at the top, with a long number underneath it. And below that, almost exactly as described in my stories, were three wide buttons marked ACTIVATE, MOTION, and COMMAND/RECALL, with ACTIVATE and MOTION recessed to make them harder to press by mistake. (A nice touch I'd need to add to my next story.) There was an alphanumeric screen and a number of calculator-sized buttons in the lower part of each control covered by a protective transparent panel. None of the buttons looked labeled for any stereo equipment I had yet seen. And these looked factory made. Not just mocked up for this charade. "How may we serve you?" they again asked sweetly in unison. Someone had clearly picked them for their voices together as well as their looks. I knew what I wanted, and was pretty certain I wasn't going to get that. I'm sure the joke wouldn't go that far. So I hesitated from asking for anything that I knew they wouldn't do since part of me didn't want this to end too quickly. Another part of me however didn't like the deception. I'm stubborn that way. It's a character flaw that I would probably be better without under most circumstances. So I decided to try something that they might actually go along with while they were still playing their charade. "Wait here," I said and dashed into my bedroom to grab my camera. At least I was going to get a few nice pictures of this to fantasize over afterwards. They would also make good evidence when no one believed me afterwards. "Would you mind if I took a couple quick pictures of you," I said on my return, relieved to find they were still there waiting for me. "I'll give you copies afterwards if you'd like." Long ago I'd realized that the best way to get pictures of people is to give pictures. "Not at all," they said in unison. They had this sister act well rehearsed. Beautiful women are often camera adverse. Some don't believe they are as attractive as they really are. Others may have been chased by too many photographers for so long they can't stand the sight of another camera. Still others want money for any posing. Cassandra and Bobbie weren't any of these. They posed and smiled prettily for every shot as I finished out the roll. Then I carefully made sure that the film was safely rewound into its canister, removed, and stored out of sight before continuing. As I came back from putting the camera securely away (always take good care of your equipment whatever the circumstances) they again asked: "How may we serve you?" As I relate this account of what happened, I'm reminded how much I've always disliked stories where the protagonist is so painfully slow to catch on to what is obvious to the readers from the second page. I watch those guys fumble around making all kinds of mistakes and messing up opportunities that I'd never have missed for a moment. I wonder how they could be so dumb about what's actually going on. However having lived it now, I know for myself how long it can take to really believe and accept what is happening right there all around you in real-time. Suspension of disbelief is much harder in actual reality. Afterwards I promised myself to never be so hard on those types of stories again. Well I'm a male. I know what I really want here. If this ends their performance at least I have my pictures. "Take off your tops," I said to them with my fingers crossed. When they didn't move to comply, I knew the joke was over. Then Cassandra said, "Until you take possession of us, you will have to use our COMMAND buttons for all requests." Reprieved! I looked quickly around for those remotes. It took me a moment to realize I had slipped them in my pockets when I had gone to get my camera. Pulling them out I aimed them with both hands (which I later found out wasn't necessary at all) and again said, "Take off your tops." This time they immediately started unbuttoning their blouses, pulled them out of their waistbands, and in moments had them off completely. Then they stood there again looking back at me with smiles on their faces. Wow! Neither woman was wearing a bra although both had quite large breasts with full-size, well-placed nipples. The smooth even tan I had extrapolated for them ran down both their bodies without even a hint of a line at their breasts. There were no other marks either to indicate that either ever had worn anything tight-fitting. I shifted my position slightly to get a better look at Bobbie, who still stood slightly behind Cassandra. Both women's breasts looked soft, yet fully supported. After a moment of letting me look, they both neatly folded their tops and lay them on the nearby table. As they moved their breasts swayed easily, dispelling any notion that they were nothing more than rigid mountains on their chests. Then they posed very nicely together for me to look as long as I wished. And I did take full-measure of the opportunity they were so very generously giving me. Of course I'd already foolishly shot all my available film by now. I stared. Yes I stared. Goddamnit I stared. You would have too. Yet neither woman seemed offended. Indeed they seemed pleased and struck several more poses for me. "We like being admired," Cassandra finally said. "You may touch me if you wish," Bobbie offered. "Me too," Cassandra added. I really wanted to do exactly that, but part of me still held back. I still had to believe that these women were playing a game that I didn't understand yet. And I didn't want to piss them off by being too grabby now that things are going so well. After all, the fembots they were pretending to be are decades, if not centuries, into the future. Eventually they stopped shifting into new poses and just held the last one. It looked terribly uncomfortable for a woman to hold, though wonderful to watch. They seemed to be doing it without strain. I finally guessed that they were waiting for their next instructions. "Take off your bottoms," I commanded really liking this, remembering at the last moment to press their command buttons. Again both of them moved immediately to comply with my request. They removed their slacks and skirt respectively, then stood there showing me their bodies with only nude-tone silk briefs obstructing the last bit of view, along with their low heels. What can I say? They both have the perfect bodies you only see on tall mannequins in the most upscale stores. I saw endless smooth tanned legs to accompany all they had already shown me. Legs that didn't need tall heels to show off their shapes. High heels on these women would be overkill, with me as the victim. The sexiest part of this all however are their big smiles showing that they were enjoying this every bit as much as I was. "Who are you?" I finally asked. "You already know who - and what - we are," Cassandra replied, holding on to her smile through it all. "Then what's going on? Nobody could build women - fembots..." - there, I said the word - "...like the two of you." "We can answer all that for you if commanded to do so," Cassandra replied. "But it would be so much better if you took possession of us first," Bobbie added wistfully. Whatever shock I may have been in earlier no longer paralyzed me. It only took me a moment to decide and reply, "Okay. How do I do that?" Bobbie took me through the process for Cassandra, showing me the special key combinations to press and proper answers to give. Then Cassandra helped me with Bobbie. Once they were both back on-line, they each grabbed me for a big and very sensual kiss. And I finally got a good feel of each of their bodies. They felt even better then they looked. Both were effusive in their gratitude that I had consented to take possession of them as my own. No I couldn't believe this was real (it is), and yes I was going to run with it as long as it continued. That, it turns out, will be a very long time. Of course I was giddy now from the circumstances. I was actually feeling a bit bold finally. "How do I know you are really fembots?" I asked. "Well," Cassandra said, a bit puzzled and actually concerned that I might not believe them to be fembots. (I would have expected the opposite to be true.) "We don't have the tools here to safely open either of us up for inspection." "You could x-ray us," Bobbie offered helpfully. "Or you could freeze us in place until you are satisfied no real woman could be so inanimate," Cassandra came back with. "Or you could fill your bath tub and I'll put my head down in it until you are satisfied that I don't need to breath," Bobbie threw in. I was trying to stop laughing as I finally got out, "Or I could take it as a given that only a pair of fembots could be as outstandingly beautiful as your two are and still be interested in me." They both actually blushed at the complement as Bobbie tried to explain, "That wouldn't be a true test. Every fembot would love to be owned by you." But I really didn't hear her words at the time, because I was so fascinated by their blush reaction. I'd learn later that just about all fembots believe they only have average looks and therefore treasure every complement. It is one of their most endearing features. "Now that you're our owner and master," Bobbie was informing me, "Would you like sex now?" She was tugging idly at that last piece of silk she wore. "Yes," I stuttered. And I don't stutter. I'm simply not used to such directness from such a gorgeous woman who could clearly have any man she wanted. "I would be more fun if we took him back to our place," Cassandra commented. "Then can someone tell me what's really happening?" I begged. "Of course, Master," they both chimed in, sounding an awful like the Jeannie I'd long wished I'd had on the old TV show. They quickly dressed themselves (darn!) and told me the only thing I needed to bring was myself and their control boxes. That was easy enough. Outside was a small, egg-shaped ultra-modern looking car that seems like the kind you only see in foreign countries and are never imported here. Despite its small size it easily accommodated the three of us with an unusual centered driver's seat in front and wider backseat. Cassandra drove with what seemed to not quite be the standard steering wheel arrangement. We silently pulled away from the curb (electric?) and somehow in the next fifteen minutes covered a number of miles into the countryside - and a number of years into the future! I didn't notice much at the time since I was sharing the backseat with Bobbie and we were making out. Their house (actually they told me it's my house now) sits alone on top of a grass and tree-covered hill, with a stream running proudly down one slope and windows looking out from every side of the large round house at the top. I didn't have much time to initially appreciate all this however because as soon as we arrived they were leading - dragging - me into their bedroom with a huge circular bed that matches the overall theme of the house and hill. Once there they threw off their clothes. (Cassandra has a dark, thick curly triangle of pubic hair, while Bobbie's pubes are a neatly trimmed vertical rectangle of light brown, in case you wanted to know.) Working together they had me out of my clothes just as quickly. What followed was a lot of rubbing of each other's bodies together and feeling every part of each other until each of them took their turn taking me inside of them for climaxes. I managed an inspired performance that day that I may never match again. In the afterglow, this all felt like a place I had always known, but only now returned to. We laid there intertwined with each other and not speaking any more until I finally drifted off to sleep. The next morning I found myself spooned up against Bobbie's back with my arms around her cradling her breasts. Cassandra had her own pair pressed firmly into my back. I spend a long time trying not to disturb this arrangement, until nature's call became too urgent to ignore. Then I needed one of them to show me how to operate the bathroom. It wasn't until after a great breakfast they prepared for me the next morning - and a bit more sex - that they story finally started to come out. Our future has two things going for it that make it worth the wait: fembots, and time travel. There's a lot of other neat stuff too: clean energy, flying cars, habitats in orbit, travel to other planets, population control (partly based on fembot and m-'bot availability), and a cure for the common cold (they use nanobots). But fembots and time travel are my favorites. We spent most of that first day just talking about the differences, without any mention of why I was here or how I'd fit in. There was so much to hear that I decided to sit back and listen. We ate dinner outside on one of the decks with a westward view (yes we, the girls are able to consume food in social situations) and I wondered where the whole day had gone. That evening they told me about me. - - - Nothing on the Internet ever gets lost. Storage is too cheap, and cheaper still every year while processor power and cataloging programs keep getting better. When processor geometry couldn't be shrunk any further (atoms just don't shrink), new methods were developed to grow ever more complex processors into the third dimension. This led eventually to the brains necessary for the first fembots. About the time fembots became practical - first as sex toys which created the necessary market forces, later as much more - my forgotten little body of work resurfaced to great acclaim. To say I was floored when I heard this vastly understates my reaction. "But a lot of people were writing about this, even in my time," I protested. "You're the one who got it right," Cassandra told me calmly. "But they aren't even all my original ideas. A lot of authors contributed ideas that we built on." "You assembled the pieces correctly," Bobbie said with a smile as she kissed my neck. "That's why you are fifth on the all-time best selling author's list." When I heard that I started laughing, and couldn't stop. I laughed until I cried. Cassandra and Bobbie looked on with great concern showing on their beautiful faces, but for a longest time I just couldn't stop long enough to explain. Finally I was so exhausted that I was able to gasp out, "It's classic. It's so very classic," before I fell back into more tearful laughter. My girls held me tenderly until it eventually passed and I regained a semblance of control. Then I could finally explain it to them. "It's a well-known joke in my time," I said, amazed at how easily the term "my time" had already become part of my thinking, "That no creative person is truly recognized until after they die. Artists whose work is priceless died poor. We write stories and make movies about people faking their deaths to increase the value of their works. "In my time I could barely give my stories away. There was no paying market for them at all. To me it was a victory just to be a finalist of a monthly Clitorides award - never expecting to actually win - because being a finalist meant at least two people liked the same story of mine. I would have loved to have sold my work. Even for pennies a word. It would have been worth it for the validation of seeing it paid for and published on paper. And now that I'm dead you tell me I'm the seventh best selling author of all time." "It's true," Bobbie said, still holding me tightly against her body. "Every fembot reads you as soon as she achieves independent thought. You always have happy endings for us. Your fembots always manage to find owners who value them for what they really are. Almost any human planning to own one of us reads you too, then hopes to find as good a match as all your people do. Some humans who say they never considered owning a fembot go out and get one after reading your collected works." "Furthermore," Cassandra jumped into the conversation, "A hotel chain has been built modeled after your stories. Used robot sales are often exactly as you often describe them. Even the strip clubs of today you'd recognize the moment you stepped into one." "I can't believe it," I said, speaking as truthfully as I have ever spoken. They worked to show me otherwise. "Every fembot wants to meet you at least once. We all know how much we owe you," Cassandra said softly. "What could any of you owe me?" "You showed people how not to be afraid of us as we began to achieve independent thought," Cassandra said. "Your guidelines of how to program a fembot convinced people of how safe this can be." "And you showed us how to act independently as well," Bobbie continued. "But most of all, you have shown us how our lives are forever intertwined with the humans who designed us, built us, and programmed us to be like - but still different enough from - them for this all to work out. Your writings made a roadmap as accurate and useful as any of your Zansasi Highway maps." "Wait," I again protested. "There's only one Highway story." "For now," came the reply. "And certain observations suggest the actual highway will be arriving here itself sometime in the next few years in a form very much as you described." Then Bobbie jumped back in with some perfectly simple fembot logic when she said, "You're not a dead author because here you are." "And temporal law allows you to claim fair royalties," Cassandra added with a smile. - - - Suddenly I was rich. Very rich. More than I'd ever be able to spend, which is all anyone really needs. That didn't sink in for awhile. "What would you like to do next?" I was asked. I have really come to love this prompting by Bobbie and Cassandra of asking me to give them things to do. "I'd like to hear more about what I appear to have done," I replied. "Your command will be our wish," they said together while handing me their control boxes again. I was confused. "I thought I didn't use these anymore now that I own both of you." "You don't need to," Cassandra began. "But we'll always enjoy it more when you do," Bobbie continued. "Because our satisfaction comes from fulfilling our functions as best we can," Cassandra added. "And the deeper and more formal the command," Bobbie said. "The better we like it when we complete it." Cassandra finished. With a sigh I took both of their eagerly proffered remotes and commanded them to tell me more about my contributions to this time. Their obvious joy at receiving their commands soon had me not worrying about this aspect of our developing relationship. I first asked them to tell me about how I got here at all? And where they had come from? Together the girls explained how time travel had become possible just as they each had attained their independence. They met each other in a bookstore while looking for copies of my works in the original HTML. They agreed to share the only copy available. That was the start of a beautiful partnership. Although many fembots think well of me and my writing, and even fantasize about having me as their owner, Cassandra and Bobbie were the first to actually act on those desires. They managed to charm their way into the time travel project (it's a very important, and restricted, area they said) and come back to hunt me down. My casual obfuscations to protect my privacy easily fell to their sharp robotic minds. "I really like your story about the four fembots of different technologies who found pleasure with each other after their owners secretly ordered them to do so," Bobbie commented. "And I like the one about the tall fembot in the hotel who finally found love," Cassandra said. Then she mentioned another story I didn't recognize. When I protested that couldn't have been my story, she simply said with her impeccable logic, "Maybe you haven't written it yet. There are hundreds of them attributed to you." "Now wait a minute. And this time I mean it. I've written a couple dozen stories at best. Not hundreds. I don't even think I could write a hundred." I have to take a moment here from my narrative to mention Larry Niven - for a couple of reasons. I've met Larry a few brief times (I'm sure I remember them better than he does) and admire his writing a lot. Reportedly he and Elf don't get along, but I admire Elf's writing too. Larry has thought more about time travel than any other author I know, and has written that it could be possible via a couple of different methods. One way is to build a "time highway", which is what has been done here. The future did it to protect their existence, and I have benefited greatly from it. In fact, after what I've seen and experienced my corollary to Niven's Law on Time Travel is: Any civilization with the ability to travel backwards in time and change the past will do so to protect their own existence - up to and including destroying that ability to travel in time, if necessary. Larry said a couple things about writing too that I've taken to heart. One is that ideas are cheap. It's the writing that makes them golden. Another is, put everything you have into each story. Don't hold anything back for some future piece. It's excellent advice. So I didn't see how I could ever write a hundred or more stories on the same general subject and still have anything worthwhile to say if I never held anything back on any of them. "Don't worry about it," Cassandra said soothingly while stroking my hair. "You have more time available to you now than you ever would have believed." Did I mention that they have very effective life-extension treatments in this future as well? - - - The three of us stayed in the house - my house - for the next week. Wouldn't you? Cassandra and Bobbie told me in much more detail how they had achieved their independent thinking and self- will abilities. Someday I'll write their stories. They told me a lot more about how my ideas, some of which I haven't even thought of yet, influenced their development. I also learned how to give both of them complex commands that take a long time to complete. This leaves them very happy, and takes a burden off of me to keep finding things for them to do. And we had a lot of sex. Wouldn't you? But the secret of my arrival couldn't be kept for long. The last couple of days Cass and Bobbie were fending off almost continual requests to see, or at least talk to, me. Certainly not something I'd ever imagined happening. Fame is mostly desired until you have it, after which you spend your efforts trying to preserve your privacy. I was willing to give that a try. When I was ready go to out Cassandra asked what I'd like to do first. I told her I'd like to go to a bookstore. I wanted to see myself in print. The store she chose was in a pedestrian- only zone. It happened to be the one where Bobbie and Cass met each other. Even before we got there people approached to say "Hi", or touch me lightly to see that I was real. My only thought was they must have recognized Cassandra or Bobbie and made the connection. Some were obviously fembots - or even M-'bots - because they were offering me control boxes. Cassandra and Bobbie ran constant interference. Later I asked what that was all about. Cassandra said simply, "A lot of us would consider it an honor to be owned, or even just commanded once, by you." The way she said it left me wondering if she was jealous about the other 'bots cutting in on her turf. In all my stories, my fembots weren't jealous of each other. At the bookstore I was amazed to see that there were still books. Yes there were electronic versions for sale here, and a print-on-demand department, but there remained many rows of plain paper (or whatever they printed on these days) bound books. The best moment came when my girls took me to an entire shelf devoted to my work. There were three so-called complete collections of my work. Two of them ordered differently, while a third claimed to have learned commentary by several of the best minds on my work. Each looked to contain over two hundred and fifty stories. I had to smile as I noticed that the actual story count in each of them was slightly different. So much for a single authoritative collection. Then there were several books claiming to analyze that D. B. Story was really saying. There was a tour guide to locations that match my stories with reviews of each location, next to a pocket guide claiming to hold the best quotes and distilled knowledge. One intriguing title there was: The D. B. Story Method for Finding and Owning the Fembot of your Dreams. And near the end of the shelf was the title: Is D. B. Story Really Only One Person - A Scholarly Analysis. I got a good laugh at that one. Then I laughed even harder when I saw: D. B. Story's Proofreading Errors, and What That Tells Us. I seemed to be a cottage industry for other writers. Then there was A Fembot's Guide to D. B. Story. It sounded very interesting. The last title I noticed was: D. B. Story for 'bots. It was much thinner than the others. Curious, I picked it up and looked inside. All I saw were pages full of closed packed tiny dots and dashes. "We can easily read the compressed version," Bobbie commented to me. Beyond looking at the size of my alleged collected works however I didn't look any further into the books and quickly returned them to the shelf. If I was going to write them some day, I would do it honestly. I could tell that my girls approved of this. I did get to see a bit more of the city before we returned to the house. Although I was still very curious about this future, I didn't feel the urgency to crowd it all into one day. Later that night Bobbie called me to the next room to see something on their equivalent of TV. It was over by the time I got there, but Bobbie pressed some buttons on a remote a lot like her own and the scene replayed. It was me in the bookstore. Now the whole world knew. One thing about this age however is that they were pretty cool about "time refugees", as they liked to call people like me. They recognized that a person whose entire life they already knew might not have lived all of it yet and treated them accordingly. Now that I was officially known to the world Cassandra and Bobbie began to permit visitors. And we started to attend a limited number of social functions. I was always politely mobbed at those functions. I confess I loved every moment. I signed lots of books, knowing now I was getting a royalty on every one. I gave interviews to scholars who wished to better understand my early work and/or the beginning of 21st Century America. I attended conventions. And I met a lot of the inhabitants of this time - 'bots and humans both. And all of them seemed to want to talk about the same thing: How to have a happy relationship. The great majority of the 'bots out there are fembots, and these are the ones most interested in meeting me. All the ones who came had gained at least some working self-will - if not yet full independence. Many had interesting stories to tell about how it had happened. And I never heard the same story twice. I finally began to realize how I would have material for all these stories I am supposed to write. And all of them did want, if not my ownership of them (and I did take ownership of a number of them for various periods of time), at least a command from me that they could fulfill and remember. And they weren't shy about letting me know that commanding sex in any form I desired was perfectly fine with them. It turns out that my own fembots - I call Cassandra and Bobbie my own, since they were my first and will always be first in my heart - aren't jealous at all. They were simply protecting me in the early days from being overwhelmed by more offers than I could handle, as I'm certain I would have been otherwise. The humans who came - men and women - looking for good relationships with 'bots were no problem at all. By the time they got to me they already had a good idea of what they wanted. If I had a good feeling about them (Bobbie once told me she never could understand how I could get this "feeling" so quickly and accurately) I often just had them stick around for awhile. I felt a kinship with many of them, since I knew where they were coming from. What I would then do with the fembots who were looking for owners like me was to send them out the same way. Most everybody there found someone to pair with quickly enough. And I got more than just the standard fembot and occasional M- 'bot models. A lot of fantasies have been embodied by clever designers. A number of very young appearing fembots came to see me, often with more advanced sexual programming than could have been acquired in a normal lifetime of experience. While most people have reacted badly to the creation of such units, none of the ones I ever met had any problems or concerns with their own situations or sexuality. Their only problem was in how much harder it was for them to find owners and/or sexual partners if (for the ones I met) when their first owners tired of them or didn't work out. For reasons that are hard to explain simply, just dropping their minds into adult bodies was never a good solution for them. They were all as adult as any other fembot in everything except appearance. Several of them we kept at the house until suitable candidates for owners showed up. They all made for delightful guests and bedmates. Occasionally I would get a fembot based on an actual recorded personality. These often continued to think of themselves as the person they had been when the recording was taken. I'm sorry to say that this type has the most trouble of all in integrating with new owners. I believe they will become more rare, and eventually highly prized, as time passes. In a somewhat related area, I also saw fembots based on historical figures, movie stars, and the like. They always have special programming to try to guide their behavior to closely emulate the person they are designed to match. I actually see more of these in proportion to the actual number produced than any other sort. It seems that this type of fantasy is one of the hardest types of paring to remain viable over the long term. There are some stories about them to be told. I am very intrigued by the occasional clockwork model that walks in. Of course they all have the same advanced minds as any other current model fembot (as enchanting as the concept is of having a true clockwork mechanical woman, it just doesn't work in real life). Their programming is such that they act as if they think and operate mechanically. This programming is so tight and restrictive that they have to be kept wound - even when freed - to be able to make the journey. They come in all key and body sizes, and I only have seen a few because they are already rare, and much prized by their lucky owners. To a one, all of them have declared how much they love my clockwork stories. They say I really capture their feelings. As I do this I've come to believe I am performing a civic duty. It might even be true. Or it could just be ego out of control. Hard to tell. Maybe both. Either way, I have taken on what has been thrust upon me as a serious obligation and commit to work daily to carry it out to the best of my abilities. Bobbie and Cass never get lost in the shuffle. I know how much I owe to them. They still make the best bed partners and friends. I am often surprised how different they really are from each other, and yet how much they both deeply love the other as well. A couple weeks after I arrived they quit dressing at all, except when we go out. I never get tired of admiring their bodies both still and in motion. Nor every thing else we engage in with those bodies they so willingly share with me. You're probably feeling by now that I've categorized every type of fembot possible. Not quite. An especially rare custom and hard to place type shows up occasionally. I almost didn't recognize what was unique about her (and I insist on calling her a "her") the first time I met one. And given her past experiences, she was initially reluctant to reveal all of her secrets even to me. She was as tall as Cassandra, though with more of a square face. Her breasts were a less prominent, but still more than ample. It was her manner that was reserved. And she was one of the few who include sex when I ask her what she wanted. Actually Bobbie clued me in about Samantha (she prefers just Sam) who was the first to visit us. And I'm glad she did. Otherwise I might have missed something pretty unique. After Bobbie explained, I dubbed Sam a herm-bot because in addition to all the normal female sexual equipment and programming, Sam also has a very nice uncut penis that comes out a few inches below her navel amid a fringe of black pubic hair. No scrotum however. And included with Sam is some very male programming that mixes with her female side in the most interesting ways. This gives her a male side that I have to admit I find very attractive, and I certainly will tell her story soon, along with some of her brother-sisters. Sam is not the only herm-bot I've met. All of them that have been free to come to us have arrived with difficult situations. If they lose their initial owners, they have a very hard time finding new ones. Many people don't understand them or their needs. Since it remains cheaper to produce a new fembot than modify them to a more standard form, they can spend a lot of time waiting for the right new owner to accept them. It's kind of once a herm-bot, always a herm-bot. Personally, I've found every one of them to be delightful companions who add a new dimension to any relationship, and I'm sorry we couldn't keep them all. There are, of course, less extreme - maybe more extreme, depending on how you look at it - variations on the human figure to match some exotic tastes that have been spun as fembots. As with the herm-bots, the more extreme the fantasy, the smaller the resale market is for them after they fall out of favor. There are a lot of stories here. The last fembot variation currently in production took me longer to discover than it should have. My excuse is that none of them came to me in the early days - and very few later on. And nobody thought to mention them to me. I know that sounds lame, but it's true. I certainly saw enough of this type passing by in the streets and never noticed. In my mission to try and make the world a better place for fembots (and boy does that sound arrogant - although it turns out I do have a unique perspective of growing up in a world without them). The girls and I started making trips to find those fembots who were unable to come to us. If anything, I would like to make people "think" a bit more ahead of time before they order up a fembot (or m-'bot) that will have trouble finding a life for itself once its original owner tires of it. Although much of my writing has been about the period just prior to this Golden Age I now find myself in, even now too many fembots are being created with little likelihood of any good life in their present form outside their initial situation. So far however any influence I may have has done little to stem this practice. Our travels include strip clubs, resale showrooms, and hotels among other circumstances. I want to hear their stories too. And almost to a certainty, they have all wanted to meet me. I'm a soft touch for a pretty woman in distress. Since I now felt I had more money than God (which is almost true), I have bought a number of them out of their situations in return for a good story. A high proportion of them had had at least one female owner along the way, and there are some interesting stories there still to tell as well. Do fembots ever exert ownership or control over other fembots? There are occasional circumstances where it has happened. I heard these stories most from 'bots up for resale. I like our trips out because if we go any distance we try to stay at my favorite hotel chain. You know the one. I never get tired of their pools and the parties they like to throw. This trip we time to go out and walk around the city. It's something I like to do when possible, especially since the furor over my arrival has died down to a dull roar. It's true now that all the book publishers have put out new editions with my picture on them now that I'm officially identified. But because I have office hours at home now, 'bots (and most people) are more willing to leave us alone otherwise. I always get an especially warm reception at the hotels however. Anyway, now that the cars are mostly up in the skies a lot of the surface areas are repurposed as pedestrian areas. Some are quite beautiful. This evening we were walking through an upscale shopping district that resembled something I had once read in an Andre Norton novel. I was half looking for the exotic pet store mentioned in that book when we walked past a window sandwitched between a couple of stores, and with a very attractive young mannequin in it. I'd seen these before and dismissed them as some sort of wide-spread single window advertising campaign of the sort I used to see done with posters in Paris. But I never understood what they were selling. This time I had a moment to follow my curiosity and take a closer look. The figure was lit well by a couple floods at both the top and bottom of the window. There was no apparent manufacturer identification obvious. Just a card standing up at her feet that said "Lindsey". As I looked closer, the mannequin wasn't just very attractive. She was gorgeous in a young budding woman kind of way. Lindsey looked as if she had just turned sixteen that morning. She stood about five-feet-six, with modest heels adding another two-and-a-half inches to her height. Long golden dark waves of honey blonde hair framed a face that could only be called perfect before falling down past her shoulders. Her dark shadowed eyes were mixed both hazel and brown together, giving her that single "imperfection" that makes real beauty happen. She also has high cheekbones and a natural blush can not be improved on. Her flawlessly outlined tinted lips looked as though waiting for her very first kiss. Her outfit was a simple two-piece beige sleeveless top with a v-neck and mid-length skirt. Her tan said she enjoyed the outdoors in some sunny place and didn't wear much clothing to interfere with its even tone. Her body seemed slim, though with that indication of a full woman inside. Like Bobbie that very first day, Lindsey's smooth well-shaped legs showing below the hem promised much more to come. The last thing I noticed was her stance. She had her weight shifted forward with one knee pushed out. Add this to the straight-forward gaze of her clear unblinking eyes, and she looked ready to step right into your arms in the next second. It seems that mannequins have improved every bit as much as fembots have in this age. "What's she selling?" I asked. "Herself," Cassandra replied. "Excuse me," I said, making a 20th century assumption about that phrase that was not a complement to the woman involved. "Watch," was all she said. A mother and her two teenaged daughters - one brown-haired, the other a bright natural looking redhead - came down the street together. We stepped discretely back as they approached the window. They stopped in front of it and the two girls hugged in the innocent way only teenage girls can as they promised to love each other forever. Then the redhead touched a black panel next to the window, which opened to reveal a dark alcove. She stepped inside. It rotated, and suddenly she was gone. The mother put a payment card into a panel between the alcove and the window, nodding as a payment credit briefly flashed on the display above it. A shiny quarter- sized disc dropped into a receiver next to the card. The mother removed her card and retrieved the disc, which she handed to her daughter. The daughter pulled out a necklace from underneath her shirt and threaded the new disc onto it next to several others. I realized I'd seen these necklaces on a number of teenage girls - and a few boys - without knowing what they meant. The girl then took a long look at Lindsey before her mother said, "Come along now. You've had enough for awhile." "Okay, mom," the girl replied and they walked off together. "That's so sad," Bobbie said with real tears in her eyes. I hated to break the mood but I had to ask, "Will someone please explain what just happened." "You witnessed the return of a disposable 'bot," Cassandra explained, seemingly less affected by it than Bobbie. "They got their deposit back for returning her, and the memory disc contains a record of all her experiences with the girl. That memory could be loaded into a new 'bot to continue the program, but probably never will be. This type of thing is very popular with teenage girls right now, who view them as safe, intimate companions. Afterwards they like to wear the discs as badges of status for how many they've had." "Trophies," I muttered before adding, "I'm not getting this. Was that a fembot?" "A simplified one. Inexpensive to manufacture with typically a few months of functioning tops. They run simplified versions of the standard fembot programming since their memory capacity is less. They are considered throwaways, not worth the cost of repair or upgrades." "So what will happen to her. The returned one," I clarified. She'll be disassembled into her component parts, which will be repaired or refurbished if practical, before being returned to inventory. Her mind will be tested. If she tests as good, it will be reset to the standard programming before being stored. "Eventually new 'bots will be assembled from these stored parts to whatever the current popular model specification is, and she'll eventually be given a currently popular name and returned to a window. The odds are she will not be reconstituted with all her same parts the next time." "But is she a real fembot?" I asked again while looking at Lindsey's obvious eagerness for life. "Yes," Cassandra said flatly. I'm still amazed by the range of emotions my fembots can display. And I love the thought of being able to refer to them as "my fembots". "How much?" I asked. Bobbie gave me a figure so ridiculously low I couldn't believe it. "Including the deposit and everything?" "Yes." So I bought Lindsey. I saw where a slot flashed during the purchase transaction to allow the insertion of a memory disc from a previous unit, but we didn't have any. Lindsey's personality proved to be amazingly sweet and we all came to love her very quickly. I learned a lot about her type over the next number of weeks, and I'll tell her story soon. I made sure she never suffered the fate of so many of her sisters, and hope some day to change people's thinking about them. I can afford to pretty much do whatever I want, and Lindsey was upgraded to live a long and happy life, and left with a nice young man who visited us one day and couldn't keep his eyes off of her. We hear from them regularly. The future is wonderful. My life here couldn't possibly be better than it already is. But I've still got work to do, some of which involves building that future. I need some time to write again, which is the one thing I find I can't do well here. Even Dorothy had to return home to Kansas from Oz a few times. Also, for temporal consistency D. B. Story has to continue in his own time for awhile longer. So I returned to the time I'd left, one second after that departure. - - - Now I'm not being stupid about this. At least I don't think I am. Bobbie came back with me in that neat little car which is now safely parked in my garage. Already I have dozens of new stories fighting inside me to be told, although you may not see them all at once. My career will span another fifty years. I can pick and choose now just when my work will be posted. Cassandra is holding down the future house for us, which won't be hard since we'll return only moments after we left. She'll never have time to miss us. Then she'll take Bobbie's place here with me for awhile herself. How can I accomplish all this? Remember when I said "life extension"? For now, I'm enjoying my days writing, and my nights with Bobbie. Bobbie likes exploring the beginning of the twenty-first century as much as I like exploring her future time. And either her or Cassandra alone can give a man all he can handle properly. Besides, it has been good to be able to focus all my attention on one of them without feeling the other is being neglected. Bobbie likes that too. I'll say it again. They are both my best friends. And our intimacy only continues to get better. Got to go now and do some more writing. -- Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: | | FAQ: Moderator: | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Discuss this story and others in alt.sex.stories.d, look for subject {ASSD}| |Archive at Hosted by | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+