The Avatar Experiment (The Future of Sex Book 3) Read online

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

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  CHAPTER ONE

  “SO, YOU SEE,” SAID BENSON.

  Olivia squinted into the dark editing bay’s multiple monitors. The top screen showed a beautiful girl, thin and pale, with wide lips and black hair, as she rose up, used her hands to spread herself open, and slowly lower her pussy onto an erect cock. As it was with such videos, the cock and small patch of attached torso didn’t seem to be part of a person, but rather a kind of disembodied cock/crotch engineered for appearance. The woman slid the cock fully home, her slit mating against the disembodied dick and balls like an airlock sealing. Appropriate: balls below the cock were waxed hairless.

  Below the woman riding the dick was a complex set of rolling lines and bars, like an ancient sound equalizer showing a soundtrack’s relative volume, except there was no soundtrack other than the woman’s moans, occasionally counterpointed by a masculine grunt, as disembodied as the cock and crotch themselves.

  “No,” said Olivia.

  Benson shook his head, unbelieving. He looked to his wife, then to Parker Barnes. A psychologist had to get it. “You see, right, Parker?”

  “It’s peaking,” he said.

  Benson tapped the readout. “Exactly. It’s what made me think of something.” He pointed at the stunning black-haired woman on screen. “This is Slava. She’s Russian. Actually Russian, like one generation removed from the Wild East. Her parents got into the NAU juuuuust before the borders closed. They’re really close with their daughter and, despite being Old World themselves, have no issues with her work. Slava was raised here, of course, but her parents talk like criminals in an old spy vidstream. Slava speaks fluent Russian, which I didn’t even know they still used over there. Anyway. She’s one of our most popular actresses, and always does that thing she just did there, with kind of pulling her pussy open then sliding down on it. And her face? Did you catch her face when she did it?”

  The remaining Six shook their heads.

  Benson reached for the screen. For a moment, he seemed so absorbed with Slava’s performance that he wanted to touch her, but was actually scrubbing the video backward. On the lower screen, lines and graphs moved backward with the video. Benson stopped, and they all watched as the girl again spread herself open (the cock was kind enough to hold itself up with a fist at its base, though the shot didn’t make it clear whether the hand was in any way associated with the cock) and again slid down. This time, all eyes were on her face, visible above small breasts pierced with gold rings. The expression on her lips and in her green eyes was somehow wanton and playful, but not at all corny. By the time the Six finished watching her face, smooth pussy lips had again formed their airtight seal against equally smooth balls.

  “Right?” said Benson, excited. “And did you see the biometrics?”

  “Oh, those biometrics were so hot,” said Olivia.

  “The graphs, Olivia. Did you see the heart rates and skin temperatures?”

  Olivia stared at Benson.

  Benson rolled his eyes. He paused the video, pausing the graphs below as well. The camera had moved in for a close-up; now the cock was even more disembodied, as was the pussy. It wasn’t two people fucking so much as an anatomy lesson.

  “Who owns Eros, Olivia?”

  Instead of answering, Olivia turned to Alexa and whispered. “Oh, good. A quiz. I love being quizzed.”

  “We all do,” said Benson, once he saw his rhetorical strategy about to backfire. “This isn’t Charisma’s and my company anymore, and hasn’t been for years. This is O business, and O technology. But none of you understand it, do you?”

  “I understand it,” said Parker. He was the only one who said anything, and retreated back like a turtle into its shell when he did.

  Benson tapped the screen. Above the rolling graphs was a small triangle at the screen’s horizontal center, indicating the spot corresponding to Benson’s paused point.

  “Biometrics,” he said. “Measures of the vital stats from people watching this vidstream on any of our O devices.” He tapped the set’s top graph: a simple straight line. The line appeared to be slowly rising. Just past the arrow. A few moments further in the video the top graph peaked and started descent. “Heart rate up top. Skin temperature is this line below. This squiggly one indicates eye focus — i.e., where the viewer is looking — but I can never get much out of it. This is breath rate, and brainwaves … or some other complex way to explain things I’m sure Parker’s eager to show he understands while all of us do not.”

  “Ambient neural impulses,” said Parker.

  “Look,” Benson ignored Parker. “Don’t worry about the details. You’re used to seeing this data in on the R&D reports, and this is just what it looks like before the eggheads get it. We put the sensors on the viewers for a reason. We also have raw video, but you wouldn’t want to review decades of customer footage. It’s mostly people rubbing themselves, trust me. Does nobody really get it?”

  “He’s saying this is where most people cum.”

  Alexa had been mostly silent in the back of the dark editing room. Benson’s face as he looked up made it seem as if he’d forgotten she was there.

  “Exactly,” he said. “But here’s the thing. Check the time index. This scene is half over. Statistically, we see the biggest peak at the end, when goo goes flying. Both men and women, by the way.” Benson again reached for the screen. He pinched the still, dragged a minimized duplicate from behind it, pulled his fingers apart like taffy to show the timeline, then scanned the screen’s right side. He paused the second still on a shot of Slava with her mouth open and eyes wide, ringed in dark eyeliner. A frozen geyser of white spunk sprung from the end of the still-disembodied dick to hang suspended in the air. Alexa repressed the urge to ask if there was an actual man in Benson and Charisma’s scene or if they’d rented an anatomically correct CPR dummy.

  “You can see a second peak at the cumshot in this scene, too,” he said, “but look: It’s smaller. Statistically, most people are getting off at that earlier part.”

  Olivia shook her head. “So what?”

  “Slava is almost unique in her ability to split the graph like this. Oh, there are always people beating off throughout, but only her videos have a distinct peak somewhere other than the end. We got curious, and started testing.”

  “Testing,” said Houston. “So, you finally installed robotic arms in the viewers to reach out and diddle the people using them.” He laughed until Parker joined him.

  Charisma rolled her eyes, then answered for Benson. “We experimented with the scenes, he means. Interactive porn, almost. Like focus group testing, where the group doesn’t know it’s observed.”

  “We tried to figure out what makes Slava special,” he said. “She’s doing something at these points that so many people agree is hot enough to blow their loads in an inarguable peak. Was it the shot as we framed it? The audio — was she moaning just right at those times? I don’t suppose you heard that in the bit I showed you? Slava makes a signature little yip like she’s surprised. Super-hot.”

  Nobody responded. Benson started talking faster, apparently gathering that he’d blabbed too long and was losing interest.

  “Anyway, long story short, we had her try a bunch of
different things, shifted some of the ways we were shooting, then released all the videos. We found two things: We had to have a well-lit, well-framed insertion, clearly, because most of our viewers are men. But if, when that was happening and visible, Slava lowered her forehead and lifted her eyes with that little expression, it caused a peak.”

  Benson waited for the room to applaud his discovery. The room was silent. Four beats, then Olivia said, “Well, this was worth the trip across town.”

  “Oh, fuck you, Olivia,” said Charisma.

  Olivia turned to face her. “You’ve just told me that if a girl makes O faces while getting fucked, guys shoot their loads. Wow. Congratulations, you two. You’re really pioneering shit people didn’t know in caves.

  “Dammit, Olivia,” said Benson. “You’re not getting it at all. Only Slava videos show this pattern. It’s not just O faces. It’s her O face. And it’s not even an O face. Her orgasms are actually too over the top, and the stats are low when they happen. It’s a seductive face, if anything. Or kind of a ‘penetrating the surprised shy girl’ face.”

  “So what?”

  Benson tapped the lower screen. “You don’t think it’s interesting to learn about a stimulus so incredibly agreed-upon — right here in real data from real users of our Trojan horse viewers — that it causes a definitive spike in arousal? The entire scene is supposed to be hot, and everyone has different tastes. Do you seriously not see the tremendous value in knowing such a specific trigger?”

  Parker was nodding, staring at the screen. His face was front-lit by monitor glow, but like the rest of them, most of his head stayed in shadow. Alexa was amused to see that despite his constant exposure to sex, he’d pitched a tent while watching Slava make her signature look.

  “He’s right,” Parker said. “The stimuli that trigger certain states are often very specific. Making sex scenes is scattershot, because if you get two attractive people fucking and run them through enough positions and scenarios, you’re bound to get many people wet or hard. But that only happens because it’s enough action to hit specific cues. People don’t even know what turns them on. There’s a ton of examples outside our world of sex. They once did a study and determined that the sound of a turkey chick will make a mother care for it even if it’s a stuffed dummy, whereas the mother will kill a real chick if mute. There was a study that determined as long as the word ‘because’ was used when trying to cut in line, most people let it happen … even if whatever followed the ‘because’ was idiotic, selfish, or senseless.”

  Olivia said, “Imagine if Slava said ‘because’ while making that face.”

  “Why do we gather data if we’re not going to use it, Olivia?” Barnes snapped. “Do you really not see that selling sex is also psychology?”

  “Oh, that’s convenient,” said Houston. Then he added, “ … doctor.”

  “No, no, he’s right,” said Alexa. “I did the same thing when I bundled similar software into my books, back when I was writing. I didn’t have as much data as you have here, but I could tell where people paused for long periods, where they backtracked to read a page again, things like that. I spent tens of thousands of dollars having that data analyzed to see which specific acts, words, and phrases were common to the most popular pages, then used what I found to my advantage.”

  “Making her scenes hotter,” said Benson, looking at Olivia and gesturing toward Alexa.

  “Well, that,” said Alexa. “But the smarter thing to do was to hint near the cliffhanger, then fail to deliver.” She laughed. “Boy, did my conversion rates rocket once I started doing that.”

  Houston looked back at the screen. He wasn’t remotely attractive — and the big dumb cowboy hat he always wore didn’t help — but Alexa sneaked a look at his crotch anyway out of curiosity. Sure enough, he seemed to have popped a rod like Parker’s.

  “Well, that’s fascinating, Benson. But what exactly are we supposed to do with this information? Have girls make a half face right at the end, then make them buy up for the rest?” He chuckled. “Sounds like those peep show booths we found on the old Internet.”

  “That’s just it, though,” said Benson. “Other girls can’t ‘make a face’ and get the same reaction. Only Slava. It’s not just a ‘face,’ by the way. It’s something in her aura. She gives a full-body vibe when she does it that’s so hot, it’s hard to describe. And half the time she’ll be doing something totally hungry, like in that bit where she’s holding her pussy open like she just needs that rod up in her. But no matter how much we have our other girls try to mimic what Slava does, no one can pull it off. We’ve given them dark eyeliner and green contact lenses. We’ve pattern-matched and manipulated the girls’ faces in post-production. We’ve gotten them to move like Slava. Reverse-tanned them, to make them pale like she is. Taught them to moan like her. Everything. We can’t duplicate the response.”

  “So … what?” said Olivia. “Are you saying we have a second Chosen One? Because I’ve gotta tell you, putting all our eggs in Chloe Shaw’s basket has me exhausted.”

  Alexa said, “That’s a bit of an exaggeration for a company worth nearly a trillion credits, with 14 core services, don’t you think?”

  “Actually,” answered Charisma, “funny you mention Chloe, because this isn’t about Slava. Benson’s overstating a bit; Slava is our best responder by far, but we’ve seen small upswells with other actresses who are similar — not peaks, but … let’s say ‘potential.’ With a bit of massaging and some work by a master chameleon, it seems we could … ”

  Parker had leaned against a workbench. He stood, waving his hands in the dark air. “No way. No. Way. I see where this is going. If you think you’re going to take the most versatile, valuable asset we have and use her as a dime-a-dozen vidstream cum catcher, you’re … ”

  “She wouldn’t have any trouble at all mimicking these triggers!” Charisma blurted. “We have mountains of data. We know she can find the hot spots on any man, but that’s still one-to-one. Imagine if she could do the same for viewers? That’s scalable, unlike using her as an escort!”

  “Any hot girl can be in a vidstream or holos, Charisma,” Olivia said. “Hell, they don’t even really need to be that hot. I’ve seen how some of them look without makeup. Why would you need Chloe?”

  “She could be huge!”

  “Exactly,” Olivia retorted. “She could be. In fact, she would be, then we’d lose control. I hate to break it to you, but we’re a few decades past the time when porn actresses kept their fame in adult circles. Look at Nella. She has a fucking cereal. Kids eat it at breakfast, and it’s O’s. Every adult who sees those commercials catches the innuendo and knows the slogan should really be, ‘Pour out a bowl of Nella vaginas,’ but it’s so goddamn mainstream that people … ”

  “Why do we still have Eros, Olivia?” said Benson. “It’s an O company, same as Houston’s toy line or the spas. Why would you want to hamstring part of the company? Why not create big stars? They’re still our stars, under contract. Let her do a video, and all the shit that gets guys hard and girls wet. We know what those things are, and Chloe can do them all. She would bend to a viewer archetype rather than the guy she’s fucking. She’d be … ”

  “It’s not about hamstringing your company, Benson!”

  “O’s company,” Benson corrected.

  “Just stop taking everything so goddamned personally! Instead of us thinking about your vidstreams and holos, how about you start thinking like a member of this board, responsible for doing what’s best for the company as a whole?”

  “You don’t think blowing up our vidstream line is best for the company as a whole?”

  “Not at the expense of our biggest asset, NO!”

  “Jesus, Olivia! Not ‘expense.’ I’m not proposing we cut her up and sell off the pieces. I’m talking about using her as an asset, which as you said, she is, in a way she’d be excellent at — perhaps uniquely excellent at — and in a way that would lift the entire company, and … �
�

  “In a way that makes her like every other porn girl!”

  “She’s definitely not like every other porn girl,” Benson argued. “Let us use her in a film — not even a vidstream, but something that can be released on Crossbrace in the public sector, age-protected of course, then later on The Beam with a bunch of semi-immersive, interactive bonus material. We do that, and watch what happens.”

  “Then what, Benson?” Olivia railed. “What happens when the Big Five fight for her contract? She’ll be on vidboards, on every pop-over on Crossbrace, in magazines, advertising tampons, making guest appearances on sitcom streams — all things that are permitted by our standard contract, I’ll add. Sure, she’ll prop us up for a while, and vids will sell like crazy. We could do a line of Chloe dolls and toys and make some fuck avatars — for shitty VR now and for the slightly less-shitty VR on The Beam later — but then what? Her contract is only five years. What happens when it ends and she’s too goddamned big to need us … maybe even at a critical time, as The Beam goes live and we need her more than ever for the AI-driven avatar model we keep talking about? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m in O for the long term. I folded my clubs and spas into O, same as the rest of you added your wings, and I’m not planning to ever try pulling them out. Believe me: I want what’s best for the company. But this isn’t it. This is short-term thinking. Seriously, a film? That is the quickest, dirtiest, most flash-in-the-pan way I can possibly think of to use the most phenomenally talented girl we’ve ever found.”

  Olivia’s words were sinking into the room — Charisma and Benson weighing with resentment and at least Houston nodding in firm agreement — but Parker couldn’t resist a jab.

  “Coming around on Chloe Shaw then, are we?”

  Olivia snapped her head toward Parker. He never quite knew when to let things go, and had a knack for choosing moments poorly. Parker’s lips closed. All eyes turned to Alexa, who’d been strangely quiet. They already had their majority — Olivia, Houston, and Parker against putting Chloe into a movie and Benson and Charisma sticking together for it — but Alexa was their unofficial head.