“The Dump”—An Erotic Speculative Fiction Story

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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