“You know what, Dromedary, old chap? It’s good to be here. To be here with you. To have you, my long lost brother, here, reclaiming your birthright, your heritage.”
“Thank you.”
“Okay, you’re a bastard…”
“Eh?”
“I mean, in the illegitimate sense, that is. But now you’re here where you belong, with the type of people you belong with! (How much did you get from the Old Man again?)”
“Er?”
“To be with one’s family! (Two or three? Not that it matters one bit to me.)”
“Ah.”
“Talkative, aren’t you? Anyway, and I’m telling you this as one Bactrian to another, that that’s the point, isn’t it? And I can see you already agree with me.”
“Er, I suppose…”
“Anyway, Dromedary, (and again, I’m telling you this as one Bactrian to another) let’s talk about issues. Real issues. Important issues. Are you married, Dromedary?”
“I was never fortunate enough to…”
“I thought not. I can tell by the way you walk. You’re tense. Like a coiled spring. That’s natural. Oh, don’t mind me! I’m a Bactrian. And you know us camels are well known for their fatty deposits – in this case, in the head! A hah!”
“Yes. Hah! [Cough]…Ahem.”
“Well, I say a gentleman has certain needs… the instincts and impulses that make him a man. [Belch] Since we don’t have to hunt mammoths anymore, I find that my natural desire for physical exertion often goes unsatisfied. I say a man needs to exert himself at least five times a day! And I’ll say that again. And I’ll also say that at least one of those times should be with company. But that’s the problem, see. It’s so difficult to get yourself a night of torrid passion these days. You blink and the next thing you know, there’s a picture of your todger in the tabloids. Usually superimposed onto a measuring stick. If you do find a nice place, where the girls are clean and discreet, then spending your wad costs one as well. I’m telling you, our climate’s too miserable for kerb crawling. What can one do?”
“I know what I do. And I know how ashamed of myself I feel afterwards.”
“…And sometimes you fall in love with them, these fallen angels, these daughters of the night. They’re so brazen and so earthy and so real, and it breaks your heart when your hour’s up and they shove you out the bathroom window and throw your trousers out after. There was this one girl but… oh, that was another world, another time…”
“What are women like?”
“Well, they’re soft and warm… and as soon as they’re vertical they’re causing trouble. Hah! But seriously, my dear chap, you mean you’ve never?”
“No. I’m fifty and I’ve never done it with anyone. Or anything. Women? Well, I never seem to meet any. I think they’re intimidated by my, er, gruff exterior.”
“Well! It comes to something when a sturdy fellow such as yourself can’t get a woman!”
“They do tend to run away from me.”
“And that’s my point, I suppose. I’m a decent, God-fearing, taxpaying man, (if it’s got an ‘ing’ on the end of it and it’s legal, I’m a man and I do it!) and I deserve a little comfort in my life. Don’t we all? Doesn’t everyone?! Someone who doesn’t demand an expensive love nest and, most importantly…isn’t going to run to the newspapers to tell them about what I happen to think is perfectly reasonable bedwear. And why should underwear be gender-specific? You tell me. Please!
“You’ve got the money now. You’ve got, well let’s just say, if you’re anything like me… urges. Do yourself a favour, man. Plough that money into research and reap the rewards of your own sexual repression.
“Are you suggesting I make a robot? A robot woman?”
“Well, let’s face it, man – you’re fifty and you’ve never said boo to a barmaid. The only way you’re going to make female friends is with a plastic kit and an instruction manual. So go on! Give mankind something to be proud of! Give the feminists something to complain about! Why not? They’re bored now they’ve got equality!”
And, by appealing directly to his twisted libido, Dromedary’s path is set. He launches his funds into an animatronics emporium producing furry costumes and inane robot animals for film and television and to encourage children to take part in various government initiatives. But kid-friendly crap’s just the start and deep in the basement a more lascivious form of entertainment takes shape. But your average bollock-scratching couch potato isn’t thinking about that as he sits, glued to his screen, laughing at the contrived blunderings of a stage school halfwit and a talking alien called Alfonse. He doesn’t know I made Alfonse from an old car seat cover and a box of artificial hip joints I snaffled from a hospital skip. And he certainly doesn’t know that Alfonse’s big sister is a six-foot mechanical whore. It just wouldn’t figure in your average mind.
So the months roll on. Dromedary sits back, counting the cash and, no doubt, rubbing his hands and licking his lips with glee. And me, Claire and Anja, we work underground in that bloody cellar, trying to make a fully articulated metal skeleton out of things we’ve found on scrapheaps and by begging for parts.
Before The Great Isolation we just ordered whatever we needed, but sanctions mean that you can’t import mechanical components here in case they get weaponised. So we make do with what we’ve got and, eventually, we’ve got something. I won’t say she’s pretty and we haven’t got any form of artificial skin – it’s back to the garage for more seat leather for yours truly – and she’s ripped the ends off a few courgettes along the way, but we’ve got a tangible thing to show for our efforts and that means we might even get paid. Hell, we might even get a weekend off.
Now, I can’t think of a delicate way of putting this other than to say that our creation needs road testing. I’m not doing it. That’s flat. Claire and Anja find the whole concept pretty morally repellent and haven’t got the necessary equipment anyway.
I tell Dromedary next time I see him. He goes into great detail about a woman he met who tested vibrators. He said she rated them on a number of criteria including “abrasion when wet” and “abrasion when dry”. I ask what criteria we should use here and he lists the possibles in such a way that I stick my fingers in my ears and go “La la lah!” And Claire and Anja do the same. And Claire goes “Urgh!” and Anja says she never wants to hear those words coming out of that mouth again. It’s too creepy. Well, I wouldn’t trust Ambler with a blunt pencil. So we’re a bit stuck.
But, luckily, our Glorious Leader intends to lead from the front. (And the back, once we’ve drilled a second orifice.) It doesn’t seem to matter that his mechanical sweetheart has the swarthy complexion of an old handbag. The old boy’s ready for the racetrack. After all, he’s gone fifty years without so much as starter flag. We retire as fast as our little legs will carry us.
Now, every new product requires an operations manual and this is no exception. They’re pretty basic instructions: you stick it in and work your way up through the gears. We list the various settings. We figure you can have quite a pleasant evening starting on ‘Vaguely Disinterested Housewife’, move things up a little to ‘Accommodating Hussy’ and work yourself to a resounding finish with a vigorous bout of ‘Earthshake’. And then, as an envelope-pushing experiment, and certainly not something we’d put on the commercial product, we added yet another level, codenamed: ‘Shy Librarian With The Truly Weird Kink’. We never figured anybody would be stupid enough to use it. Well, we underestimated human curiosity. We see a button, we press it.