My Android Stand-In Always Orders the Lobster by T. E. Poremba
Charlie decides to attend a first date in person rather than send his android stand-in.
Ten Fridays ago, my night went sideways when instead of sticking with the plan to lose a little money by playing Texas hold'em with some new guys from the gym, I called my android stand-in and told him to return before he reached my date with Eliana, that is, with her stand-in.
I hailed a separate car, donned a fresh designer T-shirt, and chose my blue Ultrasuede slip-ons. I messaged an apology to Eliana's stand-in. With all of that, I still arrived less than ten minutes late. Stand-ins dated stand-ins all the time among my peers. He - it, whatever - walked and talked just like me; everyone agreed. For security reasons, even androids can't identify another android. The practice gave me, I don't know, the benefits of first dates without the complications, but I missed the thrill of it, the mystery. I didn't know. I still don't know what I really felt I needed. Connection sounds too pat. Regardless, I went.
Rodeo 208's human host led me past tables with matcha martinis, the place's signature drink. It matched their upholstery. Apparently, some people found that enticing, or at least found it simpler to go with the crowd when ordering.
My tongue felt rough. I hadn't personally been on a date in nearly two years. I mean, my stand-in had been on plenty of dates. People don't usually meet in-person until date three, which had seemed ideal. I always knew enough after two android dates whether I didn't want a third. The last few women I'd dated called it notoriety. I like when people talk about me.
Eliana's stand-in sat in the matcha-green booth. Upon seeing me, she raised a highball glass half-full of a light brown, effervescent drink. When she lowered it, the strap of her yellow sundress fell from her shoulder, and she left it there. Not ashamed of her body, at least.
"You look fetching without the business attire," I said. The word 'fetching' came to me on the ride over. One of my characters from a few years back had used it. It sounded old-fashioned or British. I have to stand out.
Eliana and I had recently met at the studio. She had delivered the god-awful box office numbers of the second movie in the trilogy I'd been contracted to act in. The third would never start, so I agreed to review their development slate. After the meeting, my PA arranged a phone call through her PA, and I told Eliana that I'd like our stand-ins to spend some time together. I signed a contract for the date between our stand-ins, but here I am, going against social norms and the contract: dating improv.
"I'm glad you ordered." I felt I'd apologized for my lateness enough in writing. "What's your drink?" I had my c-glasses folded into my jacket pocket, so they recorded only audio.
Eliana unfurled her smile: Duchenne and dimpled. "Bourbon rickey."
I pretended I knew the drink, and ordered whiskey, neat for myself. Since the contract for this date had peculiarities, I remembered them: sex as a topic only - no actual sex, or simulated sex, depending on how you think of it. Stand-ins as a topic. Eliana had said our date would be her first since acquiring a stand-in - the latest model, she'd added - so I hadn't heeded these peculiarities as a warning.
I ordered the lobster spaghetti. Ostentatious, I know. I meant for it to be so.
She ordered pasta as well, bolognese, and she ignored the other diners who put on their c-glasses to look our way. I never play the lead, so people recognize me but they need their glasses to help them remember me. In this single act, they remind me that I've made it -and not.
We talked hometowns and our first big break in the industry. Her mother cast the weather for a local station. "She was always ready for cameras to be on her. Even in the rain at my soccer games," she added.
I told her my father headed communications for congresspersons and a governor once. I ventured, "We've both been groomed to be looked at."
She stared into me, like she witnessed something in my mind, like she couldn't quite judge if what she saw was grotesque or petty. I don't remember the last time I felt so uncomfortable. I thought she would stand and walk out. I wanted to stand and walk out. But then I remembered an android would never do that. Finally, she closed her eyes and shook her head 'no' strongly enough that the ends of her straight, brown hair brushed against her cheeks. When she stopped, she checked her image in her butter knife and fake-smiled. "I don't want to need to be so put together. Always following every rule."
She explained that her parents had set their marriage contract completion as the date she, their only child, turned eighteen. They hadn't told her about that of course. "Now that I can sign my own contracts, I don't need my parents together?" she said in half-joking irritation.
Before I could process how she felt about secrets and contracts, our food came. Hers looked better. I debated with myself about asking to try her bolognese. On the one hand, I would do it, so my android would too. On the other hand, android taste receptors lagged behind, so why bother. In my android's prior dates, I hadn't paid enough attention to his fork. My stand-in knows better than I do how to behave on a first date. He - it - is always my best self.
"Charlie, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to word this." She sprinkled Parmigiano Reggiano using a spoon and pretended such precision that she couldn't look at me. "What model are you?"
That felt like a slap. Eliana's stand-in had breached protocol. Our stand-ins are supposed to stay in character. Eliana and I would VR our androids' recordings and experience the date. The recordings were the point. Having her android drop the façade was a rookie mistake.
I assumed her question stemmed from all the hype about the latest hardware. It supposedly had improved taste and scent analysis and captured touch better. My stand-in recorded audio and VR video, obviously, and it also recorded a touch track that, through a complicated process, enabled a love bot to reproduce for me whatever my stand-in felt, at a few removes from Eliana, of course. Get to know preferences and hobbies on date one. Continue that and get to know each other physically, at a few removes, on date two. All of that detail cycled through my brain while I bought time over-chewing my pasta.
The model clarification, if she really wanted it - most didn't - should have been in the contract. It would normally not come up at all. I swallowed. "I'm one version behind."
She didn't react, didn't really acknowledge I'd said anything. Instead, she commented on how she could taste the nutmeg and offered me a bite. My android stand-in, I definitely remembered, had never commented on the presence of a spice. My only thought in response was that I might need to upgrade since the new hardware could detect nutmeg.
Anyway, sharing of tastes meant forks passing back and forth, an intentional brief caress of her wrist, her bare arch finding my calf. The surprise - yes, the improv - of it all exhilarated me.
When I got home, I talked the situation through with my companion bot, but he's too much like me, or rather he is too much like the 'wouldn't it be nicer if I did most of the things I didn't want to do' version of me. He told me it sounded like a story by Robert Sheckley. He told me I should call Eliana and tell her what I did, apologize, and ask her to meet me in person for a real date. He argued that if I admitted I'd acted out of genuine interest in her, she might accept everything. Like I said, things I didn't want to do.
Instead, I did an easier thing that I didn't want to do. I spoke to my stand-in. Like my companion, he had full access to my c-glasses, my email, my hospital records, you name it. My stand-in, like everyone's - or rather everyone wealthy enough to have one - had a body that sensed the world. Being around him felt like being a character in a horror film looking in an uncanny mirror. Utility drones and love bots extended our use of tech into new domains, but this tech demanded something more from us. I was no longer using a tool to perform an action for me; I was using a tool to represent me in entirety. I've been called a 'tool,' who hasn't, but this thing one might mistakenly think of as a tool out-performed me. Having him changed me. No one wants to think about that, especially not me.
I shoved those thoughts aside and went into my spare walk-in closet, brought him out of sleep mode, and gave him permission to move in front of me. Like most owners, I found him creepy.
"You heard my date," I said. "Tell me what you think."
My stand-in said, "It's not a big deal. No one needs to know."
He sounded cocky; he always did. The salesperson had said many people who buy androids end up seeking counseling. I didn't like the salesperson's laughter when he said it.
"Tell me what your internal governor, or whatever it's called, thinks," I said.
"My moral governor allowed me to leave the date so you could go on it," my stand-in said. He pursed his lips and breathed through his nose, my tell in poker games when what I should do isn't obvious.
"Speak," I said.
"You played me well enough," he said.
Before noon on Saturday, I messaged Eliana to thank her. After work on Tuesday, she messaged me for another date that coming Saturday. I told her that I'd planned on messaging her too. She sent a similar contract but removed the topic of androids and added the topics of vacations and of weekly schedules when I was on and off location. It listed sex as an option. She selected an upscale restaurant.
I admired her clarity: vacations together, time during the week and not just weekends. I'd dated industry execs in the past, or rather my stand-in did, and some never wanted to stop working. You can leave your internal meetings to your stand-in, but large companies didn't let stand-ins take external meetings on your behalf. Eliana wanted a relationship, and I didn't yet know what I wanted.
That Saturday, I arrived first at Providence and ordered two bourbon rickeys. Now that I knew the drink, I knew I would like it. When Eliana's stand-in arrived, I stood and adjusted my jacket to make sure the recording buttons I'd had tailored onto it got a clean view of her walking toward me. Last date, having those c-glasses on me could have led to some impossible to answer questions. With these clever buttons, I looked forward to having audio, VR quality video due to multiple camera angles, and an approximation of what the salesperson called her proprioception and equilibrioception. The possible underhanded part wasn't the recording - she assumed that my stand-in did that - it was to show up in person to my own date.
Eliana swayed toward me in a sleeveless midi sheath dress patterned with silver, zinc, and steel gray hexagonal mirrors. Jaws did what jaws do when confronted with a red-carpet dress on an ordinary Saturday night. As she closed the distance, the pattern clicked into abstract foliage. My new suit jacket and pants matched her zinc and my buttons matched her steel gray. We looked the image of the enviable Hollywood couple.
When she reached me, I went in slowly for a kiss on the cheek, and she adjusted so our lips connected, as I hoped she would do. Her lips lingered a couple of seconds and her right hand found my left and held it. I couldn't know if she did it for me or for all the eyes on us. I thought it didn't matter. I thought I didn't care.
In an outrageous dress, in an establishment restaurant, and in a city where at times I feel no one eats ever, she relished every course, not finishing any, but still. We discussed the agreed-upon topics, including the gym schedules.
"I go alone and I go with women friends, but I feel... a little jealous, I guess... when I see a woman there with the man she's dating." She didn't move after she said the last bit, just looked at me demanding some indication of an answer.
I nodded. She'd just implied that she didn't want something less from a man than more than I'd ever given, and I'd nodded.
I'd listened to our first date quite a few times. Everything had sounded right. By the end of dinner and the ride to her place, I actually thought once to myself that I was ready to sign longer-term with this woman. The thought went in and out, but it had gotten in.
Of course, the contract assumed that our androids would record, so when I took off my jacket, I folded it over a bedroom chair with full view of her bed. Her dress hung on a hook on the outside of her closet door. I won't go sordid. I hadn't had sex without prior proxy through my stand-in and love bot for nearly two years. It was like being a teenager again.
That Monday, I had a location shoot in Croatia for a month. I called Eliana and said, "No more androids. I want to spend time with you." I spoke the truth. Also, I didn't want to risk my android not knowing something it would have remembered from that first date where I had only recorded audio.
While I was gone, Eliana and I messaged at odd intervals throughout the day. I had to be careful; I had typed, Someone here uses your same shampoo before I realized that my android wouldn't be able to identify the fragrance. The second week, we spoke late my time, early her time. We kept that up through the third week, then she texted, "You lied."
I tried calling. She didn't answer. My messages remained unread. She must have somehow learned it was me not my android. It didn't make sense. How could she have learned? As more time passed, the more convinced I became, and the more sick I felt. I wanted more from her, wanted to give more to her, and she had rejected me over something as trivial as going on our date myself. But the unsettled feeling in my gut tried to tell me a different version. I took heartburn medicine and didn't listen.
The day I got back, my lawyer, Jacob, contacted me to say he'd received a request that we meet with Eliana's lawyer. I told him that I went on the first two dates in-person, and Jacob got upset with me. He mentioned 'false impersonation,' which seemed nuts to me since I played me. After we reviewed the recording of the first date and read the contract, he pointed out the problem. I'd claimed I was my android1.
We met in her lawyer's conference room with its picture windows full of sky. A screen loomed on the wall to her left.
"We're not trying to trick anyone," her lawyer, Ms. Reynolds said, and started the video with eye movements in her c-glasses. The screen showed the in-car clips of me going to the date, arriving in the parking lot, and driving away while another car brought another me.
My lawyer said, "Charlie went on the dates, and he later said he was an android."
"I told my client we could file a police report and charge your client with sexual assault." Reynolds watched my lawyer to see if he had connected the dots.
I jumped to my feet and felt the scraping sound of the chair up my spine. I had no idea what to say.
My lawyer pulled me down. "We listen."
"She requests child support with no visitation rights... if she gives birth."
It took me several seconds to catch up. On our second date, the real Eliana had sex with me. And, my mind quickly added, the Eliana I knew wouldn't begin a negotiation with her preferred end. I felt more lost than I have in my entire adult life. My stomach felt uneasy and my mind swirled until it caught on a detail. Eliana wanted to have my child2.
Directly in front of me, I stared at a vaguely blue sky. All human trappings sat implied within a thick, LA haze. "Can I have the room to call her?"
Reynolds concentrated on her c-glasses and finally said, "Sure."
I called Eliana, and left a message telling her where I was and that I wanted to talk. Out the window, a raptor soared past. I said, "I feel we can do this."
After fifteen minutes of vague delight marred by mild anxiety - like when I use someone else's marijuana - Eliana walked into the conference room. She wore a fitted, gray business suit with charcoal pinstripes. She strode to the seat opposite me and looked back at her lawyer who followed her with Jacob at the rear.
No one spoke.
"I have a proposal... of sorts," I said. I turned to Eliana who looked unlike herself, half-alive or somewhere else. "You're not through the first trimester, and you've decided to have the baby. I propose we let these two friends of ours," I said and pointed at our lawyers, "draft up multiple contracts. One with me all out, like your lawyer already described, and one with me all in."
Her face cringed into an emotion I didn't want to understand, so I looked past her toward the hazy blue sky.
"As well as... three points between those two extremes."
In my peripheral vision, her shoulders changed position and her mouth flattened.
"We spend time together. Gym time. Vacation time. Fine dining. Coffee with toast. What exactly... doesn't matter," I said. I felt confident, like I should play a lead role on the stage.
I could see plans in her eyes. The corners of her lips curled upward briefly.
"Say something," I said.
"You finish, I listen," she said, and willingly admitted that she'd heard the earlier meeting and what my lawyer had said to me; had likely communicated with her lawyer via c-glasses.
"How much of it was you?" I asked.
Eliana glanced at her lawyer who, to the room's surprise, nodded.
She said, "You never met my stand-in."
I don't know why, but my whole body relaxed. "You review the hypothetical five contracts. You wait until at least the end of your second trimester. After that, if you decide you want a contract in place, we either draft a new one, or you tell me which of the five to sign."
She crossed her arms. "Charlie, how many times have you shown up, not your stand-in?"
"Only with you, ever," I said.
The way she assessed me felt unnerving, like she could see multiple versions of me and which one of them would likely win. "How will I ever trust you? Or you me?"
"That gorgeously expensive dress you wore?" I said.
"Charlie -"
"It had cameras, didn't it?" I said. She started to swat her hand as if my words were flies. "My jacket did too."
She made that breathy laugh sound, and I felt it like warmth in my belly. She covered the lower half of her face as if to hold back a feeling.
"You and I," I said, but I didn't know how to continue. I stretched both hands out, my little fingers sliding against the table. With all of my fingers on each hand curled as one toward their thumb, my hands looked like claws, so I pulled one back and turned the remaining one palm up. "I'm sorry for my part. But... please. Let's try."
The hand that had covered her mouth now hovered over mine. She wrestled with an alien emotion, as if my fingers tugged at her in an unwelcome way. Her hand retreated to her lap, her head turned to her lawyer, and she said, "Show them the counseling contract."
Eliana looked at me. "We both behaved badly... desperately."
When she spoke, her tone lilted up, which made me think question, but I'd initially processed it as a challenge, an accusation even. I felt raw. All six eyes landed on me like punches. "I -"
It felt like a begin or end moment. I wanted to begin, but I didn't know how to. I spun through what I might normally say and rejected all of it. "I don't like you thinking of me as desperate." She uncurled her lower back slightly which pulled her face a fraction of an inch away. "But," I continued, "I see your point."
I witnessed a micro-smile. "I'm in counseling. For my part. If you agree to counseling," she said, "call me."
Eliana walked out of the room.
Her lawyer handed papers to my lawyer. She said something I couldn't comprehend.
That brings me to the present. I've entered counseling. If I get through three sessions and see a way in which I want to change, then I can call Eliana. I already know I have only superficial relationships. I think I knew all along. The process feels too personal, too real. It makes me feel that I'm not a real person at all.
1. He rightly assumed I had my c-glasses on me and had recorded. I sent them and looked myself. All four of us knew that I misrepresented myself as a stand-in when I spoke about my version and model. Eliana had never stated directly, either in the contract or in person, that her stand-in would be or was on the date. Regardless, Eliana seemed like a genuinely good person. As my lawyer said, however, good people act mean when wronged. ↩
2. My lawyer kicked me. He didn't like the melodramatic montage broadcasting on my face. Reynolds finally acknowledged my presence, and said, "She will allow a paternity test and will not file a restraining order. She wanted me to say to you, 'I did not intend this. I was enjoying getting to know you.'" ↩
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I hailed a separate car, donned a fresh designer T-shirt, and chose my blue Ultrasuede slip-ons. I messaged an apology to Eliana's stand-in. With all of that, I still arrived less than ten minutes late. Stand-ins dated stand-ins all the time among my peers. He - it, whatever - walked and talked just like me; everyone agreed. For security reasons, even androids can't identify another android. The practice gave me, I don't know, the benefits of first dates without the complications, but I missed the thrill of it, the mystery. I didn't know. I still don't know what I really felt I needed. Connection sounds too pat. Regardless, I went.
Rodeo 208's human host led me past tables with matcha martinis, the place's signature drink. It matched their upholstery. Apparently, some people found that enticing, or at least found it simpler to go with the crowd when ordering.
My tongue felt rough. I hadn't personally been on a date in nearly two years. I mean, my stand-in had been on plenty of dates. People don't usually meet in-person until date three, which had seemed ideal. I always knew enough after two android dates whether I didn't want a third. The last few women I'd dated called it notoriety. I like when people talk about me.
Eliana's stand-in sat in the matcha-green booth. Upon seeing me, she raised a highball glass half-full of a light brown, effervescent drink. When she lowered it, the strap of her yellow sundress fell from her shoulder, and she left it there. Not ashamed of her body, at least.
"You look fetching without the business attire," I said. The word 'fetching' came to me on the ride over. One of my characters from a few years back had used it. It sounded old-fashioned or British. I have to stand out.
Eliana and I had recently met at the studio. She had delivered the god-awful box office numbers of the second movie in the trilogy I'd been contracted to act in. The third would never start, so I agreed to review their development slate. After the meeting, my PA arranged a phone call through her PA, and I told Eliana that I'd like our stand-ins to spend some time together. I signed a contract for the date between our stand-ins, but here I am, going against social norms and the contract: dating improv.
"I'm glad you ordered." I felt I'd apologized for my lateness enough in writing. "What's your drink?" I had my c-glasses folded into my jacket pocket, so they recorded only audio.
Eliana unfurled her smile: Duchenne and dimpled. "Bourbon rickey."
I pretended I knew the drink, and ordered whiskey, neat for myself. Since the contract for this date had peculiarities, I remembered them: sex as a topic only - no actual sex, or simulated sex, depending on how you think of it. Stand-ins as a topic. Eliana had said our date would be her first since acquiring a stand-in - the latest model, she'd added - so I hadn't heeded these peculiarities as a warning.
I ordered the lobster spaghetti. Ostentatious, I know. I meant for it to be so.
She ordered pasta as well, bolognese, and she ignored the other diners who put on their c-glasses to look our way. I never play the lead, so people recognize me but they need their glasses to help them remember me. In this single act, they remind me that I've made it -and not.
We talked hometowns and our first big break in the industry. Her mother cast the weather for a local station. "She was always ready for cameras to be on her. Even in the rain at my soccer games," she added.
I told her my father headed communications for congresspersons and a governor once. I ventured, "We've both been groomed to be looked at."
She stared into me, like she witnessed something in my mind, like she couldn't quite judge if what she saw was grotesque or petty. I don't remember the last time I felt so uncomfortable. I thought she would stand and walk out. I wanted to stand and walk out. But then I remembered an android would never do that. Finally, she closed her eyes and shook her head 'no' strongly enough that the ends of her straight, brown hair brushed against her cheeks. When she stopped, she checked her image in her butter knife and fake-smiled. "I don't want to need to be so put together. Always following every rule."
She explained that her parents had set their marriage contract completion as the date she, their only child, turned eighteen. They hadn't told her about that of course. "Now that I can sign my own contracts, I don't need my parents together?" she said in half-joking irritation.
Before I could process how she felt about secrets and contracts, our food came. Hers looked better. I debated with myself about asking to try her bolognese. On the one hand, I would do it, so my android would too. On the other hand, android taste receptors lagged behind, so why bother. In my android's prior dates, I hadn't paid enough attention to his fork. My stand-in knows better than I do how to behave on a first date. He - it - is always my best self.
"Charlie, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to word this." She sprinkled Parmigiano Reggiano using a spoon and pretended such precision that she couldn't look at me. "What model are you?"
That felt like a slap. Eliana's stand-in had breached protocol. Our stand-ins are supposed to stay in character. Eliana and I would VR our androids' recordings and experience the date. The recordings were the point. Having her android drop the façade was a rookie mistake.
I assumed her question stemmed from all the hype about the latest hardware. It supposedly had improved taste and scent analysis and captured touch better. My stand-in recorded audio and VR video, obviously, and it also recorded a touch track that, through a complicated process, enabled a love bot to reproduce for me whatever my stand-in felt, at a few removes from Eliana, of course. Get to know preferences and hobbies on date one. Continue that and get to know each other physically, at a few removes, on date two. All of that detail cycled through my brain while I bought time over-chewing my pasta.
The model clarification, if she really wanted it - most didn't - should have been in the contract. It would normally not come up at all. I swallowed. "I'm one version behind."
She didn't react, didn't really acknowledge I'd said anything. Instead, she commented on how she could taste the nutmeg and offered me a bite. My android stand-in, I definitely remembered, had never commented on the presence of a spice. My only thought in response was that I might need to upgrade since the new hardware could detect nutmeg.
Anyway, sharing of tastes meant forks passing back and forth, an intentional brief caress of her wrist, her bare arch finding my calf. The surprise - yes, the improv - of it all exhilarated me.
When I got home, I talked the situation through with my companion bot, but he's too much like me, or rather he is too much like the 'wouldn't it be nicer if I did most of the things I didn't want to do' version of me. He told me it sounded like a story by Robert Sheckley. He told me I should call Eliana and tell her what I did, apologize, and ask her to meet me in person for a real date. He argued that if I admitted I'd acted out of genuine interest in her, she might accept everything. Like I said, things I didn't want to do.
Instead, I did an easier thing that I didn't want to do. I spoke to my stand-in. Like my companion, he had full access to my c-glasses, my email, my hospital records, you name it. My stand-in, like everyone's - or rather everyone wealthy enough to have one - had a body that sensed the world. Being around him felt like being a character in a horror film looking in an uncanny mirror. Utility drones and love bots extended our use of tech into new domains, but this tech demanded something more from us. I was no longer using a tool to perform an action for me; I was using a tool to represent me in entirety. I've been called a 'tool,' who hasn't, but this thing one might mistakenly think of as a tool out-performed me. Having him changed me. No one wants to think about that, especially not me.
I shoved those thoughts aside and went into my spare walk-in closet, brought him out of sleep mode, and gave him permission to move in front of me. Like most owners, I found him creepy.
"You heard my date," I said. "Tell me what you think."
My stand-in said, "It's not a big deal. No one needs to know."
He sounded cocky; he always did. The salesperson had said many people who buy androids end up seeking counseling. I didn't like the salesperson's laughter when he said it.
"Tell me what your internal governor, or whatever it's called, thinks," I said.
"My moral governor allowed me to leave the date so you could go on it," my stand-in said. He pursed his lips and breathed through his nose, my tell in poker games when what I should do isn't obvious.
"Speak," I said.
"You played me well enough," he said.
Before noon on Saturday, I messaged Eliana to thank her. After work on Tuesday, she messaged me for another date that coming Saturday. I told her that I'd planned on messaging her too. She sent a similar contract but removed the topic of androids and added the topics of vacations and of weekly schedules when I was on and off location. It listed sex as an option. She selected an upscale restaurant.
I admired her clarity: vacations together, time during the week and not just weekends. I'd dated industry execs in the past, or rather my stand-in did, and some never wanted to stop working. You can leave your internal meetings to your stand-in, but large companies didn't let stand-ins take external meetings on your behalf. Eliana wanted a relationship, and I didn't yet know what I wanted.
That Saturday, I arrived first at Providence and ordered two bourbon rickeys. Now that I knew the drink, I knew I would like it. When Eliana's stand-in arrived, I stood and adjusted my jacket to make sure the recording buttons I'd had tailored onto it got a clean view of her walking toward me. Last date, having those c-glasses on me could have led to some impossible to answer questions. With these clever buttons, I looked forward to having audio, VR quality video due to multiple camera angles, and an approximation of what the salesperson called her proprioception and equilibrioception. The possible underhanded part wasn't the recording - she assumed that my stand-in did that - it was to show up in person to my own date.
Eliana swayed toward me in a sleeveless midi sheath dress patterned with silver, zinc, and steel gray hexagonal mirrors. Jaws did what jaws do when confronted with a red-carpet dress on an ordinary Saturday night. As she closed the distance, the pattern clicked into abstract foliage. My new suit jacket and pants matched her zinc and my buttons matched her steel gray. We looked the image of the enviable Hollywood couple.
When she reached me, I went in slowly for a kiss on the cheek, and she adjusted so our lips connected, as I hoped she would do. Her lips lingered a couple of seconds and her right hand found my left and held it. I couldn't know if she did it for me or for all the eyes on us. I thought it didn't matter. I thought I didn't care.
In an outrageous dress, in an establishment restaurant, and in a city where at times I feel no one eats ever, she relished every course, not finishing any, but still. We discussed the agreed-upon topics, including the gym schedules.
"I go alone and I go with women friends, but I feel... a little jealous, I guess... when I see a woman there with the man she's dating." She didn't move after she said the last bit, just looked at me demanding some indication of an answer.
I nodded. She'd just implied that she didn't want something less from a man than more than I'd ever given, and I'd nodded.
I'd listened to our first date quite a few times. Everything had sounded right. By the end of dinner and the ride to her place, I actually thought once to myself that I was ready to sign longer-term with this woman. The thought went in and out, but it had gotten in.
Of course, the contract assumed that our androids would record, so when I took off my jacket, I folded it over a bedroom chair with full view of her bed. Her dress hung on a hook on the outside of her closet door. I won't go sordid. I hadn't had sex without prior proxy through my stand-in and love bot for nearly two years. It was like being a teenager again.
That Monday, I had a location shoot in Croatia for a month. I called Eliana and said, "No more androids. I want to spend time with you." I spoke the truth. Also, I didn't want to risk my android not knowing something it would have remembered from that first date where I had only recorded audio.
While I was gone, Eliana and I messaged at odd intervals throughout the day. I had to be careful; I had typed, Someone here uses your same shampoo before I realized that my android wouldn't be able to identify the fragrance. The second week, we spoke late my time, early her time. We kept that up through the third week, then she texted, "You lied."
I tried calling. She didn't answer. My messages remained unread. She must have somehow learned it was me not my android. It didn't make sense. How could she have learned? As more time passed, the more convinced I became, and the more sick I felt. I wanted more from her, wanted to give more to her, and she had rejected me over something as trivial as going on our date myself. But the unsettled feeling in my gut tried to tell me a different version. I took heartburn medicine and didn't listen.
The day I got back, my lawyer, Jacob, contacted me to say he'd received a request that we meet with Eliana's lawyer. I told him that I went on the first two dates in-person, and Jacob got upset with me. He mentioned 'false impersonation,' which seemed nuts to me since I played me. After we reviewed the recording of the first date and read the contract, he pointed out the problem. I'd claimed I was my android1.
We met in her lawyer's conference room with its picture windows full of sky. A screen loomed on the wall to her left.
"We're not trying to trick anyone," her lawyer, Ms. Reynolds said, and started the video with eye movements in her c-glasses. The screen showed the in-car clips of me going to the date, arriving in the parking lot, and driving away while another car brought another me.
My lawyer said, "Charlie went on the dates, and he later said he was an android."
"I told my client we could file a police report and charge your client with sexual assault." Reynolds watched my lawyer to see if he had connected the dots.
I jumped to my feet and felt the scraping sound of the chair up my spine. I had no idea what to say.
My lawyer pulled me down. "We listen."
"She requests child support with no visitation rights... if she gives birth."
It took me several seconds to catch up. On our second date, the real Eliana had sex with me. And, my mind quickly added, the Eliana I knew wouldn't begin a negotiation with her preferred end. I felt more lost than I have in my entire adult life. My stomach felt uneasy and my mind swirled until it caught on a detail. Eliana wanted to have my child2.
Directly in front of me, I stared at a vaguely blue sky. All human trappings sat implied within a thick, LA haze. "Can I have the room to call her?"
Reynolds concentrated on her c-glasses and finally said, "Sure."
I called Eliana, and left a message telling her where I was and that I wanted to talk. Out the window, a raptor soared past. I said, "I feel we can do this."
After fifteen minutes of vague delight marred by mild anxiety - like when I use someone else's marijuana - Eliana walked into the conference room. She wore a fitted, gray business suit with charcoal pinstripes. She strode to the seat opposite me and looked back at her lawyer who followed her with Jacob at the rear.
No one spoke.
"I have a proposal... of sorts," I said. I turned to Eliana who looked unlike herself, half-alive or somewhere else. "You're not through the first trimester, and you've decided to have the baby. I propose we let these two friends of ours," I said and pointed at our lawyers, "draft up multiple contracts. One with me all out, like your lawyer already described, and one with me all in."
Her face cringed into an emotion I didn't want to understand, so I looked past her toward the hazy blue sky.
"As well as... three points between those two extremes."
In my peripheral vision, her shoulders changed position and her mouth flattened.
"We spend time together. Gym time. Vacation time. Fine dining. Coffee with toast. What exactly... doesn't matter," I said. I felt confident, like I should play a lead role on the stage.
I could see plans in her eyes. The corners of her lips curled upward briefly.
"Say something," I said.
"You finish, I listen," she said, and willingly admitted that she'd heard the earlier meeting and what my lawyer had said to me; had likely communicated with her lawyer via c-glasses.
"How much of it was you?" I asked.
Eliana glanced at her lawyer who, to the room's surprise, nodded.
She said, "You never met my stand-in."
I don't know why, but my whole body relaxed. "You review the hypothetical five contracts. You wait until at least the end of your second trimester. After that, if you decide you want a contract in place, we either draft a new one, or you tell me which of the five to sign."
She crossed her arms. "Charlie, how many times have you shown up, not your stand-in?"
"Only with you, ever," I said.
The way she assessed me felt unnerving, like she could see multiple versions of me and which one of them would likely win. "How will I ever trust you? Or you me?"
"That gorgeously expensive dress you wore?" I said.
"Charlie -"
"It had cameras, didn't it?" I said. She started to swat her hand as if my words were flies. "My jacket did too."
She made that breathy laugh sound, and I felt it like warmth in my belly. She covered the lower half of her face as if to hold back a feeling.
"You and I," I said, but I didn't know how to continue. I stretched both hands out, my little fingers sliding against the table. With all of my fingers on each hand curled as one toward their thumb, my hands looked like claws, so I pulled one back and turned the remaining one palm up. "I'm sorry for my part. But... please. Let's try."
The hand that had covered her mouth now hovered over mine. She wrestled with an alien emotion, as if my fingers tugged at her in an unwelcome way. Her hand retreated to her lap, her head turned to her lawyer, and she said, "Show them the counseling contract."
Eliana looked at me. "We both behaved badly... desperately."
When she spoke, her tone lilted up, which made me think question, but I'd initially processed it as a challenge, an accusation even. I felt raw. All six eyes landed on me like punches. "I -"
It felt like a begin or end moment. I wanted to begin, but I didn't know how to. I spun through what I might normally say and rejected all of it. "I don't like you thinking of me as desperate." She uncurled her lower back slightly which pulled her face a fraction of an inch away. "But," I continued, "I see your point."
I witnessed a micro-smile. "I'm in counseling. For my part. If you agree to counseling," she said, "call me."
Eliana walked out of the room.
Her lawyer handed papers to my lawyer. She said something I couldn't comprehend.
That brings me to the present. I've entered counseling. If I get through three sessions and see a way in which I want to change, then I can call Eliana. I already know I have only superficial relationships. I think I knew all along. The process feels too personal, too real. It makes me feel that I'm not a real person at all.
1. He rightly assumed I had my c-glasses on me and had recorded. I sent them and looked myself. All four of us knew that I misrepresented myself as a stand-in when I spoke about my version and model. Eliana had never stated directly, either in the contract or in person, that her stand-in would be or was on the date. Regardless, Eliana seemed like a genuinely good person. As my lawyer said, however, good people act mean when wronged. ↩
2. My lawyer kicked me. He didn't like the melodramatic montage broadcasting on my face. Reynolds finally acknowledged my presence, and said, "She will allow a paternity test and will not file a restraining order. She wanted me to say to you, 'I did not intend this. I was enjoying getting to know you.'" ↩
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