"The Key To Love"
by Richard E. Geis
from
Sir Knight
Paul Grennell took a slug of whiskey from his flask and carefully threw off his cape and tunic. A few seconds later he slipped into bed beside the waiting silent figure of a woman.
He threw down the covering and feasted his eyes on her perfect body. If anything she was too perfect, too lush and exciting.
He smiled wryly to himself. You get what you pay for.
Now she was cold and unresponsive, but he knew the moves and pressures that would galvanize her into exciting passionate embraces. He took a last disgusted look at the old 1975 President Carr decor of the room and waved his hand at the bed switch. As the walls faded into darkness he turned to her.
She responded to his kiss and expert caress. Her body seemed to come to life under his hands.
"Honey," she said," you're terrific. You're wonderful. What a man!"
"Yeah, yeah, I know," he said, more to himself than her. "I know what you'll say next, too."
"You're what every girl dreams about. Hold me tight! Squeeze me!"
"He gritted his teeth and did as she instructed. It was the only way to get what he wanted. He pressed and fondled with the excited half-boredom of long practice. In return her hand sought him blindly.
A minute later she said, "Now, honey. I'm ready now."
"You know it," he whispered. "Right on schedule."
They blended into a throbbing moving union. As he was approaching the end of his climb to the peak of sensation her groans deepened and sank into lower registers. Her body stopped moving.
Cursing, Paul sent his hands over the sensitive areas of her figure to re-awaken the passion. But it was fruitless. She was frigid again, unresponsive. Nothing he said or did could bring back those few golden moments.
"Of all the lousy, cheating--" Muttering oaths to himself he waved on the lights and pressed a button at the head of the bed. He did not look at the naked, silent figure besides him.
In a moment an older woman entered the room. She was dressed in the highest fashion of the new century. A large chain of outsized keys hung from her wide green belt. "Yes, Paul?"
Paul stood before her, naked and mad. "She stopped before I was finished!"
The woman clucked her tounge and smiled. "You know ten minutes is the limit for five credits. Do you want to pay for another session?"
He was caught between his own insistent desire and his disgust with this excessive commercialization of sex. "Profiteers, that's what you are! You're taking advantage of the plague that killed off half the women in the country. You've got us men in a vice and you're squeezing us for every credit. The session time gets shorter every month!"
"Yes, I suppose so!" He got his pouch from the pocket of his cape and paid her.
"You men!" she said. "You should be glad to get this much instead of complaining all the time." She took one of the keys from her collection and inserted it into a small black hole in the back of the nude figure. There was a clicking sound as she wound up the intricate spring operated mechanism. "If you don't like this why don't you save up three hundred credits and pay for an hour with a real girl?"
* * * * *
The Bachelor Scorecard:
1 cheap futuristic bachelor
fashions of the day=capes and tunics
1 wind-up, metered robot woman
frustration
1 robot woman's madame
future, global disaster
Commercialized, mechanical sex