have produced a convincing blue bruise that disappeared only after deflation. Thelma had treated herself to the Wimp on an earlier birthday, her thirty-sixth to be precise, when she was faced with more and more expensive repair bills on her two other MALES. The Wimp, when inflated, was a thin, meek-faced, and very young man, definitely the least prepossessing of Thelma's robots. But he had been designed for Extreme Sadistic use, far beyond that which Thelma· put him to even in her worst whiskey tempers. She had saved the Wimp's purchase price several times over in repair bills. And his Groveling program and Pleading tapes gave her a unique and irreplaceable p!easure. Still,. she did.not want to celebrate Illustration by Shannon Mayfield CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY her birthday in the frame of mind that required the Wimp. It was Thelma's custom to save up her libidinous energy for several days before a birthday and engage in unusual lengths and indulgences with her robots. While these Bureau meetings occurred twice and sometimes three times a year, it was the first time Thelma could remember having to travel on her birthday. Thelma always took one of her MALES along on these trips, usually Lips or Bluto. She was far too fastidious to rent one of the robots provided in hotels. Cleanliness concerned her, but there was also a nervousness about what might happen with a robot that had not been programmed to her own specifications. There were , , / , : } ' . terrible stories, rumors mostly, and probably all lies, but still.... Thelma rearranged the Wimp on his hook so that he hung tidily, and reached up to rub her forearm across the mouth of the robot on the adjacent hook. Lips. Her first robot. She had saved for two years to buy him seventeen years ago. He was old now, outmoded, spectacularly primitive compared to the newer models. He had no variety, his voice tape was monotonous and repetitive. Even his body was relatively crude. The fingers were suggested by indentations in fin-like hands, the toes merely drawn, and his non-pow- . ered penis stayed hard, was in fact a solid rod of rubber like an antique dildo. Lips' attraction, of course, was his Vibrator mouth. His limbs moved stiffly, but his mouth was incredibly tender and voracious. She felt sentimental about Lips. She felt safe with him. She brought him out when she felt vulnerable and weepy. She liked to use him as a warm-up to Bluto. Bluto was the Muscle MALE, a sophisticated instrument that could pick her up and carry her to the shower or the bed or the kitchen table and make her feel (within carefully programmed limits) quite small and helpless. The throttle key on the nape of his neck was handy to her fingers and the power of Bluto's mechanism was such that Thelma had never dared to use his full range. Of course, this was Bluto II. Bluto I was the frequently damaged and finally irreparable cause of Thelma ,. 5
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