Never forget that our memories, whether natural or artificial, hold us together

I never knew Steve was so ‘substantial.’ But then again, how could I have when all our flirting had been circling-the-airport banter and sideways glances through the half-decade we had known one another. Maybe now that he and his self-titled “Meeky-Geeky Quad” had finished the grand experiment, we’d get time to explore our attraction.

That is if I could rise from my swishy stupor sitting across from him, my eyes and libido locked on my phone’s face.

“Well?”

“You were a lot skinnier then, huh?” I asked, trying to diffuse the sexual tension as I watched the downloaded scene unfold. 

I was being treated to Steve’s memory movie from his POV (which I assumed would be the case when viewing anything from anybody’s Dump) looking down at his naked body, then up to the door where he was (or ‘had been’) watching and waiting for a woman named Janine to enter his bedroom. That all this had occurred ten years ago, that I hadn’t ever met Janine, (or the fact that Steve’s bedroom décor had not changed in a decade) nor would I recognize her when she came through that door—and she’d be as naked as Steve, he assured me—that Steve’s tummy was indeed bigger now and that I had actually accessed this sexual snippet from out of his head, stored as it now was in The Dump’s cloud storage didn’t forgive the fact that I was basically playing voyeur and might just, in a few seconds, get so overwrought I might just squiggle myself off the front of my chair.

Scientific breakthrough of the century be damned; this was hot!

I have a friend, Anita, who has suffered from degenerative peripheral vision loss over the past two years. Anita uses a cane and ‘tracks’ any space she’s in by moving her head with painful slowness from left to right. It’s the only way she can digest surrounding details so as not to trip over something beyond her limited vision. On one recent particular August Saturday, the curly-haired redhead and I happened to get out and about and during our city romp we happened upon some chalk sidewalk art in a bohemian neighborhood on our way to our favorite Thai eatery. Later, while looking at a few of the pictures I took of that art while sitting at the restaurant Anita and I were pleasantly shocked, that from the snaps on my iPhone screen, she could see all that my picture captured, more of that street sketch than she would have ever seen unaided. It had been a poignant reminder of what our handheld world was allowing beyond human restrictions.

I thought of that moment then as the heat between my legs increased and I peeked further into Steve’s past dalliance. 

That Steve and his three buds had found a way to tap into memories, then download them for view, was an unprecedented strike, to be sure. But as he had reminded me again and again, electronic impulses, no matter their source or content, could, theoretically, always be digitized and, if digitized, downloaded. And although Steve’s bros might very well inherit the Earth, by tapping into our lusts first and foremost with their Earth-shattering invention, they were sure to score funding for The Dump all that much faster.

Adult content and technology; the best of bedfellows.

I lifted my eyes finally from my phone’s face just about when Steve’s bedroom door opened and a stunning (and very nude) Janine walked into the room. I wasn’t above wanting to stare long and hard at her metered approach or Steve and their long-ago lovemaking, but I thought it better to disengage (difficult as that was). It was one thing to be allowed access to my buddy’s mind spank-bank storage, but I felt it might be an intrusion on the privacy of someone who had no idea I was peeking in on her pink parts, even though Janine was long gone from Steve’s acquaintance. 

 Steve had reminded me, very much like the extinction of the bald eagle or the encroachment of AI singularity, The Dump could only have been invented because humans had evolved to this point, a point we very much wanted to be. And not to be even more distracted as I was already with all that was flying into my brain (don’t ever let it be said that I can’t multitask) I instantly thought of that speech Spencer Tracy gives in Inherit the Wind, playing lawyer Henry Drummond. “Madam, you may vote, but at a price,” he begins about what we get and gain with progress. “You lose the right to retreat behind the powder puff or your petticoat. Mr., you may conquer the air, but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline.”

Could I smell that gasoline now? Or more precisely…lube? 

“We definitely got to get you hooked up; the look on your face is priceless…and so hot,” Steve said.

I hadn’t even thought what it would be like downloading the good, the bad, and the fugly of my sexual encounters. But if Steve wanted my particular dump to continue his work to watch my sexual play from years ago (or watch me watch it?), who was I to deny him? 

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander when the goose is digital. 

Then again…

“You know, I think I’d rather the real thing, at least for right now,” I said, pushing my iPhone across my dining room table in front of me. 

Standing I turned to my buddy who, catching the gist of what I was onto, pushed his glasses up his long nose, a move I knew him to execute whenever he was suddenly surprised, and sat back even harder into his chair.

I dropped to my knees.

Staving off the smell of gasoline (lube), at least for now, I knew Anita would be proud.

Image Sources: Depositphotos

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The post “The Dump”—An Erotic Speculative Fiction Story appeared first on Future of Sex.

How a new, erotic renaissance may be right around the corner

Utopias—visions of a perfect society—have always been totally subjective.

Or, to put it simply: one person’s dream is another’s nightmare.

That being said, dreaming of utopias can still be entertaining and even therapeutic: in them often being the optimism that humanity can someday, somehow create a perfect world.

With both that playfulness—and acknowledging that this won’t be ideal for everyone—here is speculation on the technologies that could help create a sexual utopia.

What is a sexual utopia?

Before we go any further let’s have some clarification. To create a utopia you usually start with a negative and then work toward a positive: a problem and then a solution.

For our own negative, we’re beginning with the fact that right now sex is far from pleasurable for far too many. Bigotry, lack of sexual education, gender dysphoria, shame, rape, sexual harassment, loneliness—sadly, the list goes on from there.

And our positive will be how technology, much of it already in development, could work together to make a world not only free of these negatives but could also lead to a utopia where humanity will be able to experience sexual pleasure as never before.

Consent and safety

Without a doubt, sexual assault has one of the most detrimental effects on human society. For too many, it has turned an act of pleasure into a physical and emotional nightmare.

While there are no obvious immediate technological solutions to sexual assault, there is still the possibility that new levels of safety could be gained through the use of blockchains as a secure way of registering consent to sexual activity.

While there are clearly some hurdles to overcome, ideally parties involved would agree to sexual contact, and then confirm their willingness with a secure blockchain-based system.

Lastly, having a ubiquitous security system in place could also add an all-important layer of protection, being that the best deterrent isn’t the severity of punishment but the certainty of it.

Artificial intelligence could also be employed: programmed to detect sexual assault by keeping a digital eye out for certain phrases or actions—and so alert authorities.

Gender fluidity

In our sexual utopia gender is a spectrum of physical attributes that can be changed by anyone, at any time, for any reason. This means that if someone has gender dysphoria, they can easily become what feels natural to them, no matter their gender at birth.

This could be accomplished by either using genetic engineering techniques, like CRISPR, through advanced surgical procedures or even through the use of inorganic implants.

Then there’s the question of what happens when genitals can be whatever you wish—in style, size, color and whatever else—and secondary characteristics like breasts can be added or removed as easily as changing clothes?

In our sexual utopia, it would mean infinite possibilities for sexual identity and erotic exploration: let the adventures begin!

The end of STIs

This might sound obvious on the surface but that millions of people today still needlessly suffer from sexually transmitted infections means that this is a topic that needs to be brought up time and time again.

Until that is, we arrive at our sexual utopia: where every type of sexually transmitted illness has been eliminated.

This would come, again, from a combination of advanced medical procedures and/or genetic engineering. It’s possible that our future citizens would have their DNA gently tweaked in the womb to prevent infections—which would then lead to the diseases dying off.

And so, with no one ever catching anything, our utopia would be a place where worry and dread of infection would be as extinct as those diseases.

Birth Control

This leads to the last anxiety: unintended pregnancies.

In our perfect sexual world giving birth is always a choice, brought to you—yet again—by genetic engineering or advanced medical procedures.

If you take the genetic engineering route, citizens would be altered yet again so that sperm or eggs would only be viable when a certain gene is switched on. On the medical side, a solution would be an implant doing the same thing—but deactivated either electronically or chemically.

If anyone is concerned about future infertility, there would be an option to have sperm and eggs collected during periods of fertility and then stored until needed.

So we’d have a solution to overpopulation and the imminent depletion of natural resources, eliminating the idea of an unwanted child, giving people new levels of sexual liberation.

Bye bye loneliness

It’s a sad fact that, despite the billions of people on Earth and having access to a great many of them through digital technology, a large number of people are emotionally—and sexually—lonely.

In our perfect world, intelligent agents would match us with possible partners: knowing us better than we could ever know ourselves.

RECOMMENDED READ: Fun With a Future: Romantic Weekends for Humans and Their Digital Partners 

And, if a match couldn’t be found, then there’d be artificial intelligences that would fill our sexual needs. But instead of being parrots constantly telling us what we want to hear, they’d be highly skilled therapists helping us grow as human beings.

There’d also be a complete lack of stigma around them or the advanced sexbots they are part of. Preferring their company would simply be a sexual orientation—and no less respected than any other.

More than anything, this would mean that no one would ever suffer the pain of loneliness ever again.

The end of ignorance

The lack of education and exposure to other forms of human sexuality is the root cause of much of today’s intolerance and fear.

Our utopia, though, will include a wide range of ways to learn about, and even experience, every aspect of human life—especially when it comes to sex.

First, there’d be virtual reality and then eventually direct neural interface: these fully immersive experiences becoming an invaluable tool for creating empathetic bonds with other people.

Ignorance, after all, is hard to maintain when you can digitally walk in another person’s shoes and see through their eyes.

Augmented reality, meanwhile—as either glasses or again as a form of neural interface—would expand our vision, and knowledge, of the world around us.

Walking down the street we’d be able to read every sign, how to speak the language, the history of every structure, the ingredients of every meal and—if the person you are looking at wishes to share such things—a person’s the sexual interests.

All of this leading to seeing the world not as locked door and hidden terrors but as passages to new discoveries.

A world of possibilities

Blockchain technology, genetic engineering, advanced medicine, sexual robotics, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and augmented reality—they all play crucial roles in our playful sexual utopia.

But technology alone will not solve today’s problems with sex.

We will continue to live in a world of ignorance, bigotry, hate, and fear—no matter what devices we create—unless humanity moves forwards. Subjective or not, we can make the world a better place if we embrace knowledge, empathy, respect, and tolerance.

And, who knows, we may someday be able to bring this sexual utopia—or something very much like it—into reality.

Do you have something you’d like to see in a sexual utopia? Feel free to share in the comments below!

Image sources: Depositphotos

The post A Joyous Life: A Sexual Utopia in 7 Social and Technological Steps appeared first on Future of Sex.

Will we soon be able to buy his synthetic companions wholesale?

As far as franchises go, Blade Runner is remarkably diverse. From video games to authorized follow-up novels, comic books to clothing, and even toys, it has become a huge part of popular culture

At its core, though, there are just three key works behind it all: the original novel by Philip K. Dick, its 1982 movie adaption, and Denis Villeneuve’s follow up film.

The novel that started it all

And now, in 2017—only two years away from the original film’s timeline of 2019—we’re seeing that Blade Runner isn’t just entertainment but a possible glimpse into the future of human sexuality.

Written in 1968, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is considered by many to be a fine, if not brilliant, story of a science-fiction master at the height of his powers. The book takes place in a near future devastated by nuclear war, where animal life is nearly extinct—save for those owned by the wealthy. Everyone else, meanwhile, has to make do with robotic creatures designed to look and act exactly like the real thing.

Trying to preserve humanity, the government encourages people to emigrate off-world to Mars. To entice Earth residents to make they move they are promised a personal replicant: an android servant that, like the animals, is practically indistinguishable from organic beings.

Our protagonist is Rick Deckard, who accepts an assignment to hunt down six rogue replicants who have returned to Earth from Mars—all so he can afford to purchase an actual, biological pet.

A new life awaits you

If this is starting sound familiar it’s because Ridley’s Scott’s 1982 film, retitled Blade Runner, does have a lot in common with the original novel by Dick. Yet while the two also have many differences, their core plot is the same: Deckard pursues rogue replicants, and in the course of doing so, deals with questions of identity, memory, and what it means to be human.

In Electric Sheep, Dick plays with one of his favorite themes: androids so realistic they can pass for human beings. In both the novel and in Scott’s film adaptation, replicants are so lifelike the only way to tell them apart from people is by using a sophisticated test that measures their reaction to emotional stimuli. (Trivia time: the questions that Deckard asks in the 1982 film are almost identical to the ones Dick uses in his original novel.)

While we may be a century or more away from being able to create anything close to a replicant, there are researchers working on giving artificial intelligence something akin to emotion.

Robots that love

As we have already reported, National Taipei University Assistant Professor Hooman Samani has been studying what he calls lovotics: the way human beings develop emotional attachments to technology. Using devices like his Mini-Surrogate, he may be on the path to making it easier to us to desire robots—and for them to have feelings for us in return.

Part of this erotic connection would require ways for robots to accurately read our emotions, which would, in turn, enable our android lovers to perfect their sexual skills thanks to loads of stored data on past encounters.

Robots that can read us

This is far from far-fetched, in fact, we’ve already seen steps in this direction like how a team from the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT released its work on EQ-Radio: a system that uses WiFi to read a subject’s emotional state.

Right now it’s still pretty basic but give it a few more years and technology like this will be able to read not just your emotional state but maybe even your unconscious thoughts.  As mentioned, more data means a much more perfect android lover.

Coincidentally, we recently explored the idea of artificial intelligence as  lover in Blade Runner 2049, based on the relationship between the new Blade Runner, K (played by Ryan Gosling), and his hologram girlfriend (played Ana de Armas).

But what if you want to alter emotions, not simply have them read, perhaps as yet another way for your replicant to sexually arouse you?

The Penfield mood organ

It’s interesting that with all the iterations of Blade Runner, from comic books to toys, so few have noticed a bit of technological foresight on Dick’s part—the one that could have as much as an impact on sex as replicants.

In Electric Sheep there is something called a Penfield mood organ, a technology that Dick has used in quite a few of his books. The basic idea behind it is it is a machine that allows users to choose their emotional states. The apparatus is a way to dispel boredom and (wait for it) increase sexual desire.

It’s also an invention that’s closer than you think. Liminal VR, headed by Damian Moratti, is working on creating a device similar to Dick’s Penfield mood organ: a VR-based system that works to “combine neuroscience and design principles in virtual reality to induce a range of cognitive and emotional states, affording you the ability to control and augment your state of mind.”

We’re not sure how far Liminal VR has gone with its development but the science is certainly sound. Researchers have already established that emotions can be changed using either invasive techniques, such as with electrodes or through non-invasive means using electromagnetism.

There is even the possibility that we may be able to affect both emotion and memory, a key plot device in Electric Sheep, Ridley Scott’s 1982 Blade Runner, and even Denis Villeneuve’s sequel Blade Runner 2049.

More human than human

Putting these pieces together, it’s not hard to picture a near future where we will have android lovers that have been created to be sexually pleasurable. They may even display something very similar to human emotional reactions.

They’d know us perhaps even better than we know ourselves, being able to read our arousal and so meet our erotic needs before we can even voice them. And, if you’d like, you’ll also be able to adjust your own sexual arousal level: fine-tuning your excitement as much or as little as you want.

What this all means is what while replicants might be some years off, it looks very much like other elements in both the films as well as the original novel may arrive sooner than you think.

We can only hope that when they do, they’ll be part of a world that’s not as bleak and dystrophic as Blade Runner—in all its many forms.

Image sources: IMDB

The post Philip K. Dick’s Erotically Electric Dreams: Today’s Reality? appeared first on Future of Sex.

Wild, weird, wonderful, and undoubtedly thought-provoking

One of the best things about living in the age of the Internet is having access to books, music, and—what we are going to talk about here—movies that otherwise might be lost.

An added specialness to this is discovering works that aren’t just entertaining but also provide unique speculations on the future evolution of human sexuality.

Technotise: Edit & I

The creation of Serbian illustrator Aleksa Gajić—who wrote and directed this film based on his own graphic novel—Technotise: Edit & I (2009) is amazing not just for the staggering skill that went into its animation but also for its tight and thought-provoking script.

Briefly, it tells the story of Edit Stefanović: a student in 2074 Belgrave who, struggling to pass her University exams, resorts to implanting herself with a memory aid chip.

Things really get moving after she visits Abel Mustafov, a mathematical prodigy she has been caring for as part of her part-time job at a government facility. There Edit is exposed to a “theory of everything” program that Abel had previously been working on: one that no one had previously been able to run successfully.

Because of the combination of the chip, the program, and her own consciousness, Edit finds herself sharing her body with a self-aware cybernetic entity she names Edi.

Soon, though, she realizes that as Edi grows and expands her own health is deteriorating: meaning that only one of them will survive.

Technotise: Edit & I is on this list because of Edit’s relationship with Edi. Instead of being a stereotypical artificially intelligent villain, Edi actually cares for Edit and even feels remorse that its existence threatens her own.

In one scene, Edi demonstrates that he can even become an integrated lover to Edit by directly accessing her nervous system: the two of them making love within a shared digital mindscape.

Edit’s layered relationship with Edi gives Technotise: Edit & I a refreshingly unique perspective, especially with so many other films taking an alarmist approach to artificial intelligence.

The Year of the Sex Olympics

Nigel Kneale is a true science-fiction legend, especially in his native United Kingdom. Though already an established writer, in 1953 he practically leapt into universal acclaim with his BBC miniseries The Quatermass Experiment—which was made into a film in 1955.

His tragic rocket scientist protagonist, Bernard Quatermass, would return in three more celebrated series and subsequent feature films based on them: Quatermass II (1955), Quatermass And The Pitt (1959), and finally The Quatermass Conclusion (1979).

Kneale’s work in science fiction was always marked by a unique approach to the genre, evidenced particularly by his 1968 telefilm The Year of the Sex Olympics.

Set in a future when humanity has become separated into Low Drives (the working class) and High Drives (who control the state and the media), the film is both a boldly cynical view of humanity as well as disturbingly prescient.

In the film, the High Drives have begun to realize that their normal programming, such as the titular Sex Olympics, is having less and less of a pacifying effect on the Low Drives.

This changes when the accidental broadcast of a fatal accident, and the Low Drive’s positive reaction, leads them to create The Live Life Show: a brutal reality show where “contestants” are forced to survive on a remote island.

While not exactly a positive depiction of the future of human sexuality, The Year of the Sex Olympics is highly recommended for its cautionary tale of media control through sex, as well as what can happen when that control no longer has an effect.

The Year of the Sex Olympics, especially in light of the continuing popularity of reality television, still has the power to elicit both chills as well as critical examination of how things are—and where we, if we are not careful, could end up.

The Final Programme (Last Days of Man on Earth)

The last film on our list is a 70s science-fiction psychedelic romp based on the science-fiction master Michael Moorcock’s novel, The Final Programme.

Featuring Moorcock’s sexually fluid Jerry Cornelius (played by Jon Finch), the film version of The Final Programme (also called The Last Days of Man on Earth in the United States) practically defies description, though it is still thoroughly enjoyable, especially for fans of the strangeness that are 1960s and 70s science-fiction movies.

Giving it at least a shot, you could say that The Final Programme is about ultra-genius and fashion plate Jerry Cornelius as he at first seeks to rescue his sister, and implied lover, from his maniacal brother, Frank (Derrick O’Connor).

Pursuing Jerry is a gaggle of scientists led by another of Moorcock’s surreal characters, Miss Brunner (Jenny Runacre), who are searching for a microfilm hidden by the elder Cornelius that will allow them to create a “perfect self-replicating” human being.

After Catharine, Jerry and Frank’s sister, is killed, Jerry becomes involved in the project; eventually leading to he and Miss Brunner merging together to form this hybrid, ultra-evolved, being.

Why The Final Programme is here is because of it’s unexpected, to put it mildly, approach to sex—even for the decade in which it was made. It’s as if that period’s already experimental attitudes toward gender and eroticism were put into their own kaleidoscopic machine and bizarrely combined.

In one film, we have the less-than-subtle sexual relationship between Jerry and his sister but also Miss Brunner’s ability to sexually absorb other people, allowing her to gain their talents and intellects.

On top of this, there’s the appearance of the “perfect self-replicating” at the end: which is different in the film versus the book it was adopted from. The former being a neo-Troglodyte and the latter as a shimmering hermaphrodyte.

Treasures to be discovered

Hopefully this brief look at Technotise: Edit & I, The Year of the Sex Olympics, and The Final Programme will stimulate you to begin your own explorations in into obscure cinema—especially when they aren’t just lots of fun but also say, in their own unique way, something about the possible future of sex.

Do you have a film you really enjoy that also explores futuristic sex? Feel free to share in the comments below!

Image sources: IMDB

The post What A Tasty World: Three Cult Sci-fi Flicks With Fascinating Futuresex Twists appeared first on Future of Sex.

Now and again, finding yourself means losing who you were before

On a kaleidoscopically quilted, mountainous bed, painted dour red and soaring yellow from two of Asphodel’s three suns, the air redolent with simmering perrofish and fuming honeywine from the street below, Mia said, “You’re not Bojan.”

Head between their muscular thighs, their face glossed with moisture, lips tingling with their flavors, ears distantly aching from the strength of their spasmodic, clenching ecstasy, Bojan grinned up at them.

Meeting Mia’s puzzled, slightly alarmed expression with calm gentility laced with benign mischievousness, they answered, “What makes you think so?”

“Bojan, the real Bojan, was pleasant. Pleasant enough to be invited back into my bed after all these cycles, but they lived too much in their skull, barely peeking out at the rest of the world… least of all to me.”

The last few words were punctuated by a squeeze from their sculpted thighs. “You’re not Bojan.”

In response, they patiently forced their head between them, planting a tender kiss where they joined.

Mia sighed. “What did you do with them?” she half-said, half-whispered.

Tender became ardent, ardent became zealous, zealous became fervent—then the perrofish and honeywine sellers’ raucous ballyhoos vanished, overwhelmed by Mia’s keening moan of release.

Breath returning, Mia sweetly murmured, “Whatever it was… whoever you are… I don’t care.”

#

Like clockwork, the Falltown Station to Wasteaway Point late-afternoon Maglev express came between Hamistagan’s massive star and Daeva’s lifebox, its strobing light making the InfoArchivist think yet again of ancient, nearly forgotten cellulose nitrate Saturday matinees, title card expositions, and house organ accompaniments.

Rolling their head away from the flashing window and pushing it into a sofa cushion, Daeva mumbled, “I don’t miss them… I really don’t miss them.”

“Oh, and what makes you say that?”

Also muffled by fluff and stitching, Daeva said, “I shouldn’t say.”

“I don’t mind.” Hands tracing the lengths, cords, and periodic knots of Daeva’s muscles, teasing out the tightest of the latter with their palms and fingers, Bojan leaned down and kindly, sweetly kissed the hard rises of the InfoArchivist’s spine.

Twisting their head so they could look back as well as speak clearly, Daeva said, “I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“But you said I’m not them, so how could saying something hurt my feelings?” Same kisses to the same spine, each received with a subtle twitch of contented pleasure.

Straightening up, Bojan used their own muscles to pull Daeva up onto their knees, pressing against them with every tug.

Daeva hissed; silent movie memories supplanted by images of billowing steam locomotives entering tunnels. Their dark hands, fingers—sporting cosmically blue-sheened fingernails highlighted with neodiamond glitter—clawed between and into the couch’s sturdy fabric.

Hard, steady thrusts climbed up and over into vigorously pounding jolts, breaking Daeva’s words into jagged-edged fragments: “They… gave… they took… and never gave… back!”

Shudder ebbing, spasm fading, and—with a sweet, lip-curled grin on their face—Daeva drooled.

Retrieving the Van Gogh Starry Night holographically patterned blanket from where it had slid to the floor, Bojan tucked its bursting colors around Daeva’s deflated body, concluding with one more (but not last) kiss to the back of their neck.

#

A distant—very distant—descendant of what had been a Terran gecko skittered soundlessly up, across, and down the far wall before vanishing behind Roehel’s bioprinter.

“Are you trying to trick me?” they said, soft words edged with old wounds.

Stretched out next to them, close but not touching, Bojan shook their head. “May I touch your shoulder?”

“Please,” Roehel said, tilting their head, exposing more of it to them.

A finger to begin, a second to accompany it, concluding with four and a thumb: each delicately, sensually, appreciatively traced Roehel’s curves.

Dropping tenderly to a whimper, they cooed, “It felt like they didn’t… I mean, respect is so hard to come by; I shouldn’t have been disappointed they didn’t show me any.”

“Can I kiss the back of your neck?” Bojan asked reverently.

Roehel nodded, turning their body to reveal more of themselves. The kiss was hot, though not aggressive; sweet, yet not saccharine; affectionate, not cloying.

As Roehel’s voice descended to a throaty sigh, they said, “I almost blocked you, deleted you from my system entirely.”

“Would you like me to cup your left breast?” they said, feather-light words in Roehel’s ear.

A clearly confirming nod, preceded by a directly approving, “I’d like that.”

The same fingers, the same thumb went from appreciating the architecture of their shoulder to respectfully relishing the curve, weight, and heat of their breast—never grazing the faint scars running beneath them.

“I never knew if they were rude on purpose or didn’t care.” Roehel lifted a hand, fingers for fingers, thumb with thumb.

“Sorry,” Bojan purred into Roehel’s auburn curls. “I’m so sorry,” Bojan repeated, drawing them closer, melding their bodies together.

With a shake of their head, Roehel asked, “Whatever happened to him?”

#

Before reaching out to Mia, messaging Daeva, pinging Roehel, and the others (so many others), there had been that Jahannam winter: avenues slick with caustic ice, Servomats geysering plumes of brittle white while trying, and mostly failing, to keep the methane-laced crystals at bay.

Business over and done with sooner than expected, Bojan sat alone in an O’Malley’s—with all the fuzziness, indistinctness, and unremarkableness stemming from replicating the same Irish pub a billion times on a billion different worlds—before suddenly realizing they weren’t.

A cloud of dark hair overshadowing the plains and peaks of their face, wide glasses concealing the color of their eyes, Bojan had smiled that smile, employed their usual, crudely forged flirt, and purchased another of whatever they were drinking. After finishing it and two others, Bojan, while stroking the back of their hand, suggested they find somewhere more private.

Signaled by the closing door, it was they, not Bojan, who pounced. Eyes shut, ears deaf to everything they didn’t want to hear, they took, they used, and when they were finished with them, they threw Bojan away, leaving them as rough and cold as the bitter wind howling outside the hotel room’s window.

Lost, alone, abandoned, disposed of, Bojan had stood, staring at their mirrored self. Looking at first, but not seeing, then, as time unwound around and inside them, they saw what they had tried so long not to accept.

Collapsing into a jumbled pile of regret and shame, Bojan fell so low that the only place left was up.

#

After revisiting Mia, Raimond, Roehel, and the others (so many others), Bojan finally found what they had lost—themself.

Image Sources: M.Christian

The post “Found Among the Lost”—An Erotic Speculative Fiction Story appeared first on Future of Sex.

Life is the flower for which love is the honey

Dellingr’s pale, indigo eyes weren’t blurring from the painfully glaring wide-spectrum Simu-Sun aerostat that Noboru Taiyō Group’s Shōmei Division had meticulously positioned, rigorously anchored above Aogashima Island’s Maruyama crater the year previous. Nor were they blurring from the gently fuming Biotic-Fabricates, Organo-Congregates, or Meso-Formulates drip lines Dellingr was perhaps less meticulously, maybe not as rigorously attempting to maintain.

Pressing their right-hand heel into their right eye socket, streaking their dusty cheeks with stinging tears, repeating, with a grating inhalation, a raspy exhalation with the left hand, left eye, Dellingr checked the Biotic-Fabricates, Organo-Congregates, Meso-Formulates….

Gefjun had said, more times than Dellingr could remember, the key to Gefjun’s Bio-Artistry was “a little bit of this, a little bit of that—and lots and lots of dashes”

Wreathing-Willows delicately genuflecting, leaves, stems, branches, languidly coiling, uncoiling, conjuring an octopus’s orchard.

Kaleido-Chrysanthemums pulsing with spectrums real or imaginary, hypnotically spinning petals flaring, ebbing, invoking a cosmic mandala.

Metamo-Roses twirling in and out of themselves, a maddeningly variegated botanical Möbius loop, summoning a glistening-skinned djinn.

Eye-Irises looking everywhere, seeing everything with their voltage-sparking clusters of photoreceptive anthers, mischievously deceiving their watchers.

And-Orchids hut-one, hut-two, hut-three-ing in strict order, weaving breathtaking geometry, seeding, sprouting, growing, and as quickly dying like a watchmaker’s dream.

Eclect-Lotuses, Trans-Pines, Muli-Maples, Evo-Azaleas, Recast-Camellias … Dellingr heavily trudged the length of their rows, soullessly walking beside their beds, mindlessly checking holographic displays without thought or care adjusting when absolutely necessary their Fabricates, Congregates, or Formulates.

“Words,” Gefjun had said, “aren’t easy.  I guess it’s because I think I have a lot to give.  More than enough for you, always enough for you.”

Dellingr’s washed-out azure eyes flooded as the memory bit down, drew blood. Gefjun pleading, begging; Dellingr howling, demanding, “I should be enough for you!”  Over and over again, driving Gefjun away, forcing them out into that dying day, that furiously approaching night jammed with pounding rain, flaring lightning, and roaring winds.

The Recast-Camellias drooped, stems buckling under their semi-translucent bulbs; the Evo-Azaleas popped and sizzled, high-voltage stigma angrily shorting out, and the Muli-Maples thunderously groaned, seeds clumsy when they should have spun, descending like miniature ballerinas.

Dellingr tapped icon after icon, strolling then sprinting from planter to planter until the Recast-Camellias flawlessly played their black and white movies again, the Evo-Azaleas happily hummed their harmonic frequencies, and the Muli-Maples filled the air with pliés, relevés, and Chassés.

A hushed curtain pulled over Gefjun’s Kibō, their tsubo-niwa garden, a liminal space lying not between the public and the private but the made and the grown—and with the arrival of that suddenly ponderous quiet, Dellingr’s legs failed them, sending them crashing into the artificially ariated loam, the chemically enriched soil, the synthetically augmented ground.

Throat aching, lungs burning, Dellingr wailed as their hands dug deep, unearthing deep, dark, foul memories: the URGENT URGENT message, the shrieking alert sprayed in crimson laser light across the inside of the Kibō’s polyplastic tented primary workspace, the sound, the light, brutally slapping Dellingr awake, Shuyō dōro de no jūshō jiko—

“Main access road. Serious injury accident,” their mind instinctively translated, words looping, broken only by a name, the person who’d been driving the shuyō akusesu dōro, who was involved in the jūshō jiko, who died before Dellingr could get to Aogashima’s understaffed, undersized emergency clinic.

Dellinger’s pallid, aqua eyes neither blurred nor flooded but erupted with bitter tears, a cascade of steaming, brackish rain poking the artificial, chemical, augmented dirt beneath their scream-racked face.

A ghostly touch?  A faint caress?  A vague embrace? An indistinct stroke? An indefinite fondle?  

Dellingr’s sallow, cobalt eyes closed and opened, each blink bringing increasing clarity.  Yes, the Wreathing-Willows were tenderly touching their back. Yes, the Kaleido-Chrysanthemums were softly caressing their cheeks. Yes, the Metamo-Roses were daintily embracing them. Yes, the Eye-Irises were subtly stroking their hair. Yes, the And-Orchids were amiably fondling their chest.

No doubt, no uncertainty: the Eclect-Lotuses were kissing them, the Trans-Pines were snuggling them, the Muli-Maples were firmly holding them, the Evo-Azaleas were plucking away their clothes, and the Recast-Camellias were loving them.

“I’ve put so much into you and my garden; my passion, my life, my joy,” Gefjun had also said. “You and it, it and you; sharing one with the other. More than enough to go around.”

Below Noboru Taiyō Group’s Shōmei Division’s brilliantly shimmering Simu-Sun, Dellingr and Gefjun’s Kibō phytological magnum opus frolicked, cavorted, reveled, laughed, moaned, together—as Dellingr wept sparkling, gleeful, ecstatic, and overwhelmingly wide-eyed, blissful tears.

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Barely one hundred before nearly two hundred. Almost a thousand a month later, then slightly short of two thousand at the start of the next. Aogashima’s prefecture paid Dellingr an exceedingly formal, undoubtedly official visit to express the residents’ concerns over the rise in foreign tourists—whose yachts and massive cruise ships choking the island’s picturesque harbor.

Concerns Dellingr greeted with a seriously beaming grin, pledging to donate all the proceeds—sans necessities for Gefjun’s Kibō upkeep—to staffing Aogashima’s new, state-of-the-art-hospital.

And Dellingr was there as they came up from the docks, pointing out the Wreathing-Willows’ gracefully bowing shoots and leaves, showing off the Kaleido-Chrysanthemums’ mesmerizing bioluminescent firework displays, giggling at the Metamo-Roses’ endlessly captivating gyrations, applauding the Eye-Irises’ phantasmagoric soul-searching perceptions, and highlighting how expertly the And-Orchids’ resolutely marched to and fro.

Dellingr was there, among the Eclect-Lotuses, the Trans-Pines, the Muli-Maples, the Evo-Azaleas, and the Recast-Camellias—happier than Dellingr had been before the storm—for in every twinkling eye, euphoric expression, or admiring gasp was more than wonder, awe, or amazement, sharing Gefjun’s inexhaustible love.

Image Sources: M.Christian

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