Lust and Metal

                                    Lust and Metal

                                    @2017 Linda Barrett

                                                I

                    From the first time he saw her, David Davidson’s lust went into overdrive.

                        “What are you looking at?” Michelle, his wife, asked over the incoming call app. She went to Bangkok for a business trip. He read it in an e-mail she sent to him. She sent it to him at nine in the morning, but he only read it about midnight. Whenever she wanted to tell him something important, he would e-mail him. He only read her e-mails when he grew bored of downloading porn on his laptop.

            David put down his coffee and leaned over the counter. He squinted through his kitchen window into the next-door neighbor’s window at their new family member. Making love to a robot always turned him on even as a Silicon Valley teen. His eyes probed every inch of the gilded robot’s sinuous Art Deco body from her room.

            “Ah, next door. The neighbors have a new robot. They gave the robot her own room.”

            His mind pondered the robot’s gyrating body, writhing like a well-oiled machine on her own bed. The robot resembled the one in the 1925 movie “Metropolis”. She shone under her pink nursery lamp like the lines like a finely polished gold sports car.

            “Are you spying on them again?” Michelle asked.

            “Mm mm,” He drank his coffee. “When are you coming home?”

            “David,” She warned. “Stick to your bull dung sculptures!”

            “When are you coming home?” He changed the subject.

            “Friday. If you’re caught with your pants down again…., We’re through!” She screamed.

            His I-Watch said Sunday. If he seduced the robot at the earliest, Michelle would never know. Cheating on her with this piece of metal looked easy. You couldn’t get a robot pregnant or wind up with a social disease. That was what attracted him to those metal maidens. They never got angry when you suggested spicing things up in a relationship. Or looked at other girls.

            “I’m sick and tired of covering your butt! You can’t keep your pants on! I don’t know why you wanted to marry me, but you talked me into it. I work my tail off for you and you quit your job to create sculptures out of animal feces. I don’t why I didn’t check you out before I agreed to that marriage arrangement. You always think about sex and your art. You bother our neighbors too much. Going in their backyard and stealing their dog’s poop! I always feel like I’m the only adult in the room with you.”

            “You want to invite the robot and have a three way?” David asked, raising his thick

uni-brow.

            “Argh!” Michelle said, hanging up on him.

                                    II.

            Walking next door to the two lesbians’ condo, he checked out his potential conquest. The neighbors left her there all alone. He guessed they trusted a machine’s behavior better than some stupid pet. Like that stupid dog, Fluffy Buttons. If they didn’t like men, he thought, why did they have a male dog? The Blonde and the Brunette let him lift his leg on everything, including David’s pants.

            “David Davids,” the neighbor’s front door guard system wearily sighed. “You’re back again, aren’t you?”

            He showed the note he e-mailed to the Blonde and the Brunette from his Tablet.

            “I’m doing a sculpture of her for your masters, HAL!” he derisively laughed.

            “Oh,” The door droned. “They laughed about it and decided on it, not to hurt your feelings. IF you have any. And my name’s Andy. Not HAL!”

It knew he pestered them too much. Whenever he wasn’t spying on the Blonde and Brunette on his I-Watch’s camera, he’d walk past their condo. He did it just to sneak a peek on them in case they didn’t have their clothes on. He forgot their names, but he never forgot their bodies.

            The door slid open, and the robot turned around.

            “Hi, my name’s David Davids,” he purred.

            She stared at him through her blank shining eyes. Her mouth slot opened.

            “I am Sheba. A Metropolis False Maria model,”

            He showed her a jar of metal polish.

            “Do you want me to give a little rub down before you pose for my sculpture?” he chortled.

            “What is a rub down?” she asked. “Mother one and Mother two had me polished a week ago last Sunday. They saved 50% at the Jenkintown store.”

            He cradled her upper arm, leading her into the bedroom.

            “I do a more professional job, baby.” he chuckled. “I used to polish cars as well as sculpting dung statues. The car dealership’s manager told me to leave after a day. He said I scratched up the cars. Jerk didn’t appreciate my work. He said I polished the cars like I was some artist. That’s why I make bull dung sculptures. He said I was full of it.”

            “Oh,” Sheba said. “Is that why you come over through the back yard and pick up Fluffy Button’s poop? For your statues?”

            David put his hands on her shoulders, looking her square in the eye. Her metal face wore a blank expression.

            “I want to get you in the right position,” he said.

            A gurgling noise came from behind him. It changed into a growl.

            He turned around to see the little gray and black toy poodle. Fluffy Buttons always chased after him whenever he tried to pick up the dog’s poop for his statues.

            “Get out of here, you four-legged flea bag!” David shouted.

            The little dog glared at him, but he was behind the sliding glass door. This time, he couldn’t annoy David at his work.

III.

            Sheba lay there on her back.

            “I do not like this position. It makes my spine uncomfortable. I prefer that you pose me in something less stressful. I sense you are taking advantage of me.”

            David twisted open the metal polish. Dipping the chamois rag, he reached out to rub it onto her sleek body. With his other hand, he undid his pants. Twisting away from him, she rolled off the bed, falling onto the floor with a musical clunk.

                        David fell face down on the bed, planting his face into the metal polish cream.

            “Let me show you all about how I can put you in a better position,” he panted.

            She pressed herself against the wall.

            “Please stop!” she cried, raising the volume control on her collar bone.

            “How can I capture your beauty if you’re not polished to a sparkling sheen?” he chuckled.

            “That metal polish should taste unappealing to your tongue. It is not designed for eating.”

            David realized the cream was in his mouth. He spat it out.

            “I don’t care if it tastes like manure! That designer knew what she was doing when she made you!”

            “I am not programmed for such functions!” Sheba sang.

            “Ahhhh,” David laughed, wrapping his arms around her. Together, they fell onto the carpet. He opened his mouth to kiss her.

            Sheba emitted sparks from her mouth. Her body jerked under him. David jumped up and looked down at her. He wailed at the burning sensation on his lips. Looking down at her twitching and sparking form, he realized he did a bad, bad thing.

            “I killed her!” he shrieked.

            He ransacked the apartment for the robot’s manual.

As he threw the drawers onto the floor, he heard a long, low growl behind him. Turning around, he stared at the little dog standing there.

Scooping up Sheba’s body, he ran out of the room. Fluffy Buttons chased after him. David squirmed his way through the dining room’s narrow path. The dog leaped up and bit the artist’s backside.

He screamed as the poodle sunk his teeth into his flesh.

“Michelle’ll leave me for this!” he moaned. “The Brunette and the Blonde will sue me! I’ll wind up having to sell my dung sculptures out of my mother’s house in Quakertown!”

Fluffy Buttons tore his pants into ribbons, revealing his Pokemon boxers. He stood there, watching as David fled to his car with Sheba’s body in his arms. He searched through the directory on his I-Watch.

            “At least she died happy.” he barked out a bitter laugh.

                                    IV

             He knew Michelle, the Brunette, and the Blonde would find out if he contacted the Jenkintown Robots Inc. store over his I-watch. Smearing the dog’s dung on his face as a hasty disguise, he wrapped the late Sheba up in the sheets, driving wildly to the Old York Road location.

            Rushing into the store, he whistled to the white uniformed clerk behind the counter. The clerk turned around and faced him.

            His eyes widened at the very familiar face.

            “Your disguise stinks and that’s our robot under our sheets!” The Brunette bared her teeth at him. “No wonder you’re a bull dung artist!” She pressed her I-watch.

            “Michelle! He killed our robot and your marriage!”

            Michelle stormed in from behind the counter.

“A threesome, huh?” His wife glared at him. “When you married me on-line, you told me you’d forsake all others. You’d give up all this for me!”

David nearly wet his boxers. Sheba’s body fell out of his arms and onto the tiled floor.

            “I thought you were in Bangkok until Friday!” he wailed.

            “You thought I was there!” Michelle’s eyes burned into his. “I set you up with her to see if you were cheating on me! Do you know what this means, don’t you?”

            David looked down at the robot’s limp form at his feet.

            “I’ll have to sell a lot of bull dung sculptures from Mom’s house! Now, I’m in deep doodoo!” he sobbed.