“What sound!” exclaimed Mara.
I watched Mara’s, or rather the thing’s, mouth form the words and sing with human tonal quality. My stomach curdled like month-old milk. Every move of the mouth and twitch of the cheeks were exacting copies of Mara’s mannerisms and physical traits. Unbidden, my head was punctured by the thought of Mara’s disembodied head being crammed in that box and forced to sing by computer-controlled electronic pulses jolting down her nerves to the muscles in her cheeks, jaw and tongue. I didn’t even like the Tazers.
But apparently the sight and sound of the whole thing had gotten to Mara in a different way. I felt her soft arms clasp around my neck as she leaned forward and began to lightly kiss my neck. The artificial, fruity smell of her shampoo filled my sinuses. Her hot breath blew over my left ear. I looked down over her shoulder and eyed the smooth swell of her rear in those tight, exquisitely faded jeans. But for once I wasn’t in the mood.
“Mara, babe, let’s not start anything now. You’ve got to go to class tonight,” I could hardly believe my ears, but I just couldn’t start making out in front of that thing.
Mara, if anything, was more surprised than I. “Yeah,” she said with a small, shocked and nonplussed sniff. She sat back, straightened her clothing and arched her fine brown eyebrows at me. “Right-school. Sure.”
I felt guilty immediately, but relieved. I didn’t want that thing… watching us. I stood up and so did she. She eyed me strangely, as if I had grown a beard overnight or taken on some other odd characteristic. She glanced briefly at her watch and then straightened the sleeves on her white polyester-and-cotton blend blouse. Mara was unused to rejection in any form. For just a moment, a feeling of exhilaration passed over me as I realized I had denied her something. Then it was gone and, hating myself, I moved to kiss up to her, slipping my arms around her.
She softened immediately. It felt nice. “I do need to go to class,” she said in a quiet voice. Her eyes met mine, then dropped. I kissed her.
Mara’s duplicate mouth spat a split-second of static.
I glanced at it, my upper lip curling by itself. I decided not to let the monster ruin my date with Mara. I turned away from the thing and kissed Mara again. My girl melted in my arms. A rush of red heat passed over my forehead, making my skin burn.
“Happy birthday,” Mara whispered. Again the atrocity on my bed stand buzzed its lips. It sounded as if a lightning flash had interrupted the signal. I wondered if an electrical storm had started outside. I paused for a moment, but there was no thunder.
The Tazers began thumping and twanging again in earnest. I shrugged. Mara pulled me closer. I quickly lost interest in all else. Mara missed her class.
I awoke after midnight with a start. Mara had long since gone home to her parents’ apartment. There was a phone ringing, but I didn’t have a phone in my bedroom. Confused with sleep, I groped blindly for the lamp switch. Then, for the first time I touched it. My fingers pressed into its pseudo-skin. The flesh felt soft and smooth, just the way a young girl’s cheek should feel. My middle finger found the moving lips. I was grabbing a stranger’s face in the dark.
I gave a yell and rolled out of bed on the opposite side, thumping into the bedroom wall with my shoulder. I snapped on the light and there it was, on its sixth ring, mouth opening to expose those hard wet teeth that glistened between its red lips. As the ring died away, the lips relaxed, slipping down to cover the white teeth again. Shaking a bit and blinking the sleep from my dehydrated, sluggish eyes, I pressed the button to answer the call.
“Hello?” I asked tentatively.
“Hello,” replied a soft, sultry voice. I smiled and relaxed a notch or two. It was Mara. Then I stiffened again. Was it really Mara, or did the thing just use Mara’s voice for phone calls? No, that didn’t sound right, Koreans wouldn’t think like that. I rubbed my face and smoothed back my tousled hair. The rush of adrenalin was fading. I sank back down to sit on the bed.
“Hi Mara. What’s up?” I asked, feeling that strange ache you get when your mouth wants to yawn but you are trying to hold it back. I glanced at the digital clock on the thing’s front panel. It was 1:17 a.m.
“I want you to kiss me,” Mara said. She gave a girlish giggle.
“I want to kiss you too, babe. I’ll make a point of it tomorrow. Why are you calling so late?”
“I’m calling because I want you to kiss me,” here she gave another giggle, sounding like a fourteen year-old sharing secrets. “I want you to kiss me right now.”
I had been staring at those moving lips while she said this. The effect was mesmerizing. Those cheeks, the way they swelled up when she smiled and the way the teeth parted when she giggled. It was unsettling. How did they keep it so wet-looking in there? Was there really some form of moisture? It had felt wet when I had accidentally touched it a few minutes before. Automatically, I rubbed my forefinger against my thumb and wiped my hand on my pants.
“Come on… Kiss me.”
“What?” I asked a bit hazily, but already my heart had quickened a bit in alarm. Slowly, it dawned on me. She wanted me to kiss the thing.
“You mean…?”
“ Kiss me, William,” the thing said. It made horrid puckering motions that I would have thought cute and enticing, if Mara had been making them.
“I can’t do that!” I blurted. For the first time I let my real feelings of disgust creep into my voice. The puckering and giggling faded immediately.
“Don’t you like my gift, Will?” Mara asked.
“Ah… Of course I like it. No, I love it, babe. How could I-”
“You hate it.”
“No, no Mara. I think-”
“Then kiss me, dammit.”
So that was it then. I was stuck. It was like knowing that you were going to get your teeth pulled today. There weren’t going to be any more excuses or postponements. The surgeon had started gunning his drill to tooth- burning speeds and set his robot’s-paw lamp to shine directly on your mouth. This was it. I looked at the false female mouth on my bed stand. The sight of it brought weird thoughts to my mind, thoughts of (Phone Sex. Just have your Visa ready, and a voice called Candy will talk you into ecstasy) rubber dolls and kissing robots.
The thing needed to be locked up. I needed a bigger strongbox. My lips curled and my eyes squinted closed in disgust. I decided to get it over with.
I knelt in front of the thing and bent to kiss it. It was like sinking into the dentist’s chair and clipping on the bib. I kept telling myself that it was only plastic. The thing puckered horribly, and I kissed it. It was just like giving Mara a quick smack, except that the realism boys in Korea had forgotten one thing. It felt like flesh, it was smooth and soft and pressed in like flesh, but it was cold.
Mara’s, that is, the thing’s, lips were cold like those of a puckering corpse. I nearly screamed. Jerking back, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand repeatedly and quelled the urge to spit. Stomach acids burned the bottom of my esophagus.
“Ahh… That was nice, honey,” said Mara, sounding satisfied again.
“Sheez,” I exclaimed as it hit me. I cuffed myself in the forehead with my open palm. What an idiot. What I should have done was make some kissing sounds up close to the receiver. I hadn’t needed to really kiss the thing. Damn.
“Isn’t this great? Now we can kiss anytime, we never have to be apart.”
Dream on, woman.
“Yeah, right,” I answered. I scratched my head. Funny how your head always itches when you get out of bed. A jingle from a dandruff shampoo ad ran through my mind.
“Bye, bye babe. Go back to sleep now.”
“Goodnight babe.”
The phone clucked, the tongue hitting the roof of the mouth and making an unnatural sound. The connection was broken.
“Sheesh,” I repeated to myself. I got to my feet and headed for the bathroom. I could still feel the cold press of those dead lips on mine. I washed my face and dried it, rubbing hard with the towel. Then I brushed my teeth and washed my face a second time. I headed back to bed and just as I was switching the light out, I noticed that
