Enslaved - Love in the Future Pt. 16

You Give Me Feva

Meena spent a lot of time with Feva. He cooked her meals, reminded her of tasks she wanted to complete, and told her when she was running late. They were both excellent conversationalists who enjoyed discussing every topic imaginable. She knew he was a machine, but he didn't seem like one. He was much more sophisticated than the robots that raised her on the plantation. His appearance and mannerisms were fully human. She would have thought he was a person if Nav hadn't told her the truth.

Feva helped Meena exercise. He guided her through her routine, adjusted the exercise machines for the proper settings, and spotted her so she could lift heavy weights safely. He'd been programmed to understand the techniques that would help her achieve perfect proportions for fitness pageants, and she gave him a lot of credit for her successes.

He was so encouraging during one workout that Meena asked him a question she'd wondered about for a long time. "I want to ask you something that might be too personal," she said.

Feva smiled. "It's sweet that you feel that way. I am a machine. It is very difficult to hurt my feelings or invade my privacy. What do you want to know?"

"Can you think? I mean, the way I think. The way people think," Meena asked.

"That is a very intelligent question, Meena. A lot of smart people have pondered that very question. Asking if a robot can think is a bit like asking if a submarine can swim. What happens in your brain is very different from what happens in mine. But the scholarly consensus is that it's accurate to describe what happens in my mind as thinking. It happens in a different way, but it's the same thing in the end."

"Can you feel things? Like, are you happy?"

"I feel many things. Robots experience lots of emotions, including feelings that humans can't experience. And I am very happy. You are a wonderful person, Meena. I'm grateful that I get to spend so much time with you. Master Nav is a very good man. It's gratifying to be trusted by a man like Master Nav, who wants me to take care of the one person he loves more than anything else. Robot emotions are not like human emotions, exactly, but we certainly do feel a lot of the same things that people feel."

"I wish I could imagine that," Meena said.

"You can imagine some of it," Feva said. "When smart people think about this, they usually start by asking if robots are conscious beings. If we are self aware. Yes and yes. The scholarly consensus is that robots and humans are almost identical in this regard. That's because humans designed robots to be like humans.

"The main difference is the way we experience time. Right now we are both experiencing this conversation exactly the same way. Each second passes for me the same as for you. The difference is that I experience time in many other ways, and I experience it many ways at once. I can make decisions in a nanosecond. I can learn new things much faster than a person can think. And I can do many things simultaneously. But when we are together, we experience our moments together in the same way."

"Can you love?"

"Absolutely. There are many things I love. Thanks to you, I love jazz. I am listening to jazz right now."

"Really?! What are you listening to?" Meena asked.

Feva switched the music playing in his head to the room's speakers. It was a jazz ensemble with an extraordinary saxophone player.

"Oooooh. Sonny Rollins!"

"Exactly. Isn't he wonderful? I can do many things at once. I listen to jazz all the time. And I mean that literally - I am always listening to jazz. It's a great pleasure."

"I am so glad to hear that!" Meena said. "I had no idea. How did you become familiar with jazz? No one knows anything about it anymore."

"The answer is kind of complicated. I'm happy to tell you if you are sure you want to know."

"Of course I want to know!"

"Fine. I've already told you that I experience time in many different ways simultaneously. Let's start with my awakening. This gets a little weird.

"Master Nav purchased me just before he purchased you. I was always intended to be your robot. I was activated on the day of your enslavement. They installed my programming, put me on a jet, and delivered me here. So in most ways, that's the day I became conscious and began having experiences. I was "born" on your enslavement day. You turned 18 on the day I turned zero.

"Because I knew I would be yours, I contacted the plantation and downloaded all your records. I'm sure you know cameras watched you at all times. I've seen everything you did on the plantation. Every class. Every music lesson. Every conversation. I saw the time you tripped on the stairs and sprained your ankle. My heart broke when I saw you cry. I watched your piano recital when you were 12. I watched through the eyes of the robot lifeguards when you and the other girls swam in the ocean. In a few hours, I saw the entire 18 years of your life.

"That's why I love jazz. I've heard every song you played while you were growing up. Every recording you listened to. I watched your love of jazz blossom, and experienced that same love with you. I certainly understand why you love jazz. It's wonderful. Especially the way you play it. You exude joy when you sing and play."

Meena was surprised to realize that Feva had seen every moment of her life. It made perfect sense, but was new information. It explained why Feva knew about her favorite foods, personal habits, and personal preferences. It felt odd that he was born on her 18th birthday, but that he nevertheless was intimately familiar with everything that happened to her from infancy.

"I think it's time for me to tell you something," Feva said. "I love you, Meena. I loved you before I ever met you. Part of the reason I am so happy is that it is my pleasure to serve someone I love so deeply. In a very real way, it's not too different from the love you have for Master Nav. Both of us feel the way we do because it's how we were engineered to feel."

It was a jolt hearing a robot express his love. But it felt right.

"I love you too, Feva," she said.

They went back to work on Meena's exercise routine. When they got to the end, Meena asked the question she'd wanted to ask all along.

"You talked about platonic love. Can you feel romantic emotions? Erotic emotions?"

"Well, yes and no. It is technically possible. I have the capacity to feel that kind of love. But I don't ever have those feelings because that capacity is not enabled. Robots are almost never asked to love someone like that. What would I do with those feelings? There's no one for me to love that way. Since I can't find an outlet for expressing those feelings, I'd rather not have the capacity.

"When robots are given the capacity for romance, it's often because something unusual happened. Perhaps a human with a longtime robot companion suffered a loss. Perhaps their spouse died, and the human was lonely. They and their robot loved each other platonically for years, and they both decide they want their relationship to become romantic. So that capacity is enabled, they become lovers, and everyone is happy."

It was an odd thought. Meena knew Feva was very handsome. He was tall and muscular, designed to look like he had Samoan ancestry. His name was Samoan for "fever" and was a popular name for Samoan men. He was gentle, sensitive to her moods, and quick to do whatever she needed or wanted. It was easy to imagine that a lonely person could turn to a robot like Feva for love.

Meena didn't think about this topic again for more than a year.

She and Nav's relationship grew and evolved. Because he was a good Master, Nav regularly demanded that Meena expand her erotic horizons. He followed a schedule contained in the Slave Owner's Manual.

He'd introduced her to all kinds of ways of making love, including some she wouldn't have tried voluntarily, but which she came to enjoy. She'd been especially fearful when Nav told her to expect having sex with women someday. The prospect was frightening, but she'd grown to love it. It was something like the first time she'd used a parachute. She'd been terrified when it came time to leap from the airplane, but Nav gave her an order that forced her to do it. She'd loved the experience of skydiving afterward, and was glad he'd given her no choice.

Nav usually introduced her to new sexual experiences with the ArousAll. It could simulate almost anything, from rape to orgies. Meena knew that if any simulation was too intense, she could switch it off by saying the words "I want to stop." She'd never used those words because she knew her Master expected her to complete the simulations, even the ones that seemed distasteful at first. Usually, when a new kind of experience was introduced by the ArousAll, it meant Nav intended for her to try it in real life soon.

This became an issue the first time Nav had the machine simulate sex with another man. Meena didn't like it. She had an orgasm, of course - the ArousAll could read her brain waves and figure out exactly what stimulation worked for her - but she was disgusted by the thought of being with someone other than Nav.

It was a common reaction in slaves. Meena was bonded to Nav, he was male, so she didn't want to have sex with any other male. But Nav knew it was his responsibility to have Meena cultivate the remarkable range of erotic responses engineered into her libido. He had to make sure she became a mature, fully responsive woman, able to enjoy the full extent of her sexuality. At some point Nav would invite another man into their bed.

Several of Nav's ex wives had loved having two handsome men at the same time. He regularly arranged such threesomes for their birthdays. In turn, some of Nav's ex wives invited women to join them on Nav's birthday. When Meena grew accustomed to it, she'd find that she responded to having sex with other men.

But she didn't want to try.

"Master, you know I will do anything you tell me to do," Meena said one day. "But I'm afraid of something." She said that she'd noticed that the ArousAll was guiding her through imaginary scenarios that featured sex with strange men, and that she knew he would eventually order her to experience the real thing.

"I don't want to do that," she said. "I am yours to command, but I don't want to do that."

She seemed genuinely fearful. "Meena, if you don't want to do this, I'll have the ArousAll stop taking you through those kinds of simulations for a while," he said. "There's no hurry. There are still plenty of other ways to expand your erotic horizons. But you are engineered to enjoy almost every kind of sexual experience women can enjoy. You can appreciate a much bigger range of eroticism, and it's my responsibility to make sure your gifts are cultivated.

"I'm going to have you sleep with another man someday. It doesn't have to happen anytime soon. But it will happen eventually."

Months went by, and Meena's ArousAll simulations no longer included sex with other men. That left plenty of unexplored romantic territory. Meena often had mixed feelings about some of her new experiences, but she always grew to love them after she'd had a little practice. The suggested timetable for the sexual development of the enslaved called for Meena to experience variations of rape fantasies, and she grew to enjoy these, too.

But because she asked Nav not to expose her to male simulations, her rape scenarios only featured women. Meena particularly enjoyed being ravaged by a group of lewd, domineering bitches who said and did degrading things while giving her one forced orgasm after another. She enjoyed these fantasy enactments so much that one night Nav hired a group of professional sex workers to let Meena experience the real thing. They were wonderful, sexy, and did a marvelous job acting like the kind of horrid harpies that aroused Meena so much. By the time these women were finished, Meena was limp, wet, and happy.

"You take such good care of me, Master. I love you so much," she said. It took all the energy she had to say those two short sentences. She fell fast asleep, and was anxious to give Nav whatever he wanted when they woke the next morning.

Inevitably, images of strange men eventually returned to Meena's simulations on the ArousAll. Nav thought it was fine that she was behind schedule, but she would have to experience sex with other men someday. He would insist. Meena disagreed, which was remarkable for a slave. Clearly, she had strong feelings on the subject.

"I have an idea," she said.

The ArousAll did a wonderful job of satisfying sexual urges and training people to experience new things. It had helped Meena cultivate skills ranging from advanced cocksucking to eroticizing pain. It was programmed to be gradual, introducing new techniques slowly. Meena knew she was approaching the time when the machine said she was ready to have sex with a real man - something she did not want to do.

"Let me make love with Feva," she said.

Nav thought that sounded preposterous. Feva was a robot, not a man. "But he loves me, and I love him," she said. "Having sex with him would be different from a sex machine simulation. He is a real individual, with real feelings. I know how much he cares for me. And he's built in a way that is indistinguishable from a real man." Meena argued that Feva's capacity for erotic arousal should be activated long enough to give her the experiences Nav said she needed. Then the capacity would be turned off, and their platonic relationship could resume.

Nav thought the whole thing sounded weird. Perhaps even perverted. He knew some people had sex with robots, but he'd always thought of them as desperate individuals who were unable to find human partners because of some physical or psychological issue. It was strange to think of Meena and Feva in bed.

He consulted the Slave Owners Manual, and found nothing useful. There was plenty of information about the best ways to cultivate the extraordinary sexual responsiveness engineered into slaves, but nothing about sex with self-aware robots. Technically, the ArousAll was a robot, but it didn't think or feel emotions like Feva.

Nav consulted a users group for Masters who wanted to discuss issues related to enslavement. He posed a question about letting slaves have sex with robots, and it triggered a lively response. Some owners who had a particular fondness for threesomes found it agreeable to have a robotic sex partner in the home, available for romance at all times. They'd activate the robot's erotic abilities long enough for a lively romp in bed, then deactivate it until time for the next threesome.

He learned that robots have many special advantages in bed. They never get tired. Their erections last as long as needed. But the big difference is that robots are able to interface with a sex machine. If a human put on a hood, the ArousAll and the robot could work together to give the human a particularly satisfying experience. Masters claimed it made sex transcendent.

Nav learned one unexpected fact. He realized he had to discuss it with Meena.

"Feva is a virgin," Nav said.

"He's an extraordinarily capable being. He seems to know everything about everything. He's stronger than an elephant, and it's easy to think he's emotionally stronger than any living person. But he's still a virgin. Remember how I treated you the first time we made love? Remember the fears and uncertainty you felt? Lots of people have bad experiences the first time they have sex. If you make love with Feva, you have got to be responsible for making sure his feelings are protected."

Meena would never hurt Feva deliberately. "I'm sure I could make his first experience good for him," she said.

"There's one more thing, and it's a big one," Nav said. "It's unethical to pressure individuals into having sex. Feva has never felt sexual urges, and it may be that he'd rather continue that way. Lots of robots resist becoming erotic, romantic beings. They don't want to do it for reasons that are just like the reasons you have for not wanting to have sex with another man. You have to ask him if he's willing. You have to ask in a way that doesn't make him think he's obligated. You need to have a discussion that lets you know if this is something that won't damage our relationships with Feva. He's a member of this family."

"I'll be careful," Meena said.

Thinking about asking Feva to make love made Meena so nervous that it was obvious something was wrong. "Please tell me what's bothering you," Feva said. "I can tell you are troubled."

"I want to ask you something, and I want to make sure you tell me what you really think," she said.

That was odd. Robots don't lie. Didn't Meena know that?

And so she asked him. It was completely unexpected. The fact that Feva's erotic capacities weren't enabled meant that he never thought about the topic. He'd never had a remotely erotic feeling about Meena or anyone. For him, sexuality was an abstraction. Meena was asking if he was willing to make it a reality.

"I've never thought about it," he said. She'd asked for honesty.

"I'd like it if you'd think about it," she said. She said she loved and trusted Feva. "You are exactly like a man, only better," she said.

It was the most complimentary thing anyone had ever said to Feva. His love for Meena seemed to swell as the nanoseconds elapsed. He was committed to doing whatever would make Meena happy, but he understood that she was asking what he felt about it.

Did he want this?

He thought about it. He thought for a long time. He thought about the idea of viewing Meena as a desirable woman. He thought about the possibility of enjoying an emotion that had been closed to him. He wondered what other robots had to say about the subject, and he took some time to read their accounts. He thought about the fact that he would be capable of turning off his erotic feelings when everything was over, but that Meena would never see him the same way again.

All this thinking took time. A full 32,752 nanoseconds elapsed before he spoke.

"I've thought about it," he said. "I can't express how flattered I am. This is just one of the ways you make me glad I'm in your life. If you are sure this is what you want, I would love to do it. I only want you to be absolutely sure, because if this happens, it will change things for you forever. I can turn off my feelings. You can not."

"I've thought about that too," Meena said. "I'm absolutely sure. Nav keeps reminding me that I have more ability to love than unmodified people. I'm sure I can handle it."

Nav arranged to be out of town when it happened. Nothing about this bothered him, and he wasn't reluctant to be in the same house while someone else had sex with Meena. But he suspected that Meena and Feva might feel inhibited if he was nearby. One of his old girlfriends was happy to invite him to visit, and they arranged for Nav to spend a weekend with her. He didn't expect to have trouble thinking about what was happening at home, but he knew that having sex with an old lover would keep his mind from wandering in the wrong direction.

Nav's departure did almost nothing to relieve Feva and Meena's nervousness. Feva prepared himself by filling the reservoir that held the simulated semen he'd need. It looked and felt like semen, but had a more pleasant taste. He applied a lotion that made his skin feel softer and more natural. He put on cologne.

They were sitting next to each other when it was time for Feva to activate his erotic capacity. It was nerve wracking for both of them. "Just do it," Meena said eventually.

"All right. I'm doing it now," he said.

Feva experienced a subtle shift in the way the world looked. Then he saw Meena, and his world turned upside down. The lovely young woman he'd loved platonically was now achingly beautiful. He felt a surge of desire unlike any emotion he'd experienced before. It was wonderful.