Pleasure Bot
by Daniel Guy Zara and Cecile sit on the terrace of a small French chateau, looking out onto an olive grove basking in late afternoon sunset. Zara’s husband is away so Cecile, her good friend from university, has been invited to stay. Zara has opened champagne and they’ve enjoyed a delightful afternoon, catching up on news. Now, as she fills the glasses once again, she says, ‘My dear Cecile, I have something rather extraordinary to tell you. I have a good friend called Rosa and she’s a scientist. She’s very clever and she’s been working for a company in Lyon that has been trying to produce a robotic male sex doll. Well, after many years of research, it seems they’ve just come up with a prototype. Rosa asked me if I want to take part in some sort of testing and market research and I said yes. Basically that means spending a weekend alone with this sexbot and then filling in a consumer questionnaire afterwards. I had arranged to do this next weekend. However, it was delivered