Chapter 10 Colors

 It was the first time Paula took HENRY home and as an ambitious and meticulous employee in a high-level position, she wanted to have first-hand experience. 

She dimmed lights in her bedroom, undressed, looked at her body in the mirror, admired her round and pink nipples, touched her stomach (thin but lacking muscles; she didn’t exercise much). She glimpsed at her untrimmed pubic hair. It had been a while since she dated anyone. She just wasn’t interested. Guys her age were needy and disorganized. They required a mother instead of a girlfriend. Or a teenage girl, whom they could impress. Paula wasn’t easily impressed. Neither was she attracted to anyone in particular. She had some erotic thoughts now and again, but they usually involved people a bit older than her. Once she had a crush on her manager. One time she fell in love with her friend, who then announced that he was gay. She was a part of unhappy little love stories, but nothing much. She just didn’t like the idea of being in a relationship at this time.

When she stood there, naked, in front of the mirror, she opened the box with HENRY. She laughed to herself. She watched some female porn when she had no better things to do, but in all honesty, she didn’t experience an orgasm yet. She treated it as a myth, as something which women told themselves like the existence of maternal instinct, love at first sight, or winning the lottery. It didn’t happen that often and was reduced to the lucky few. 

She lay on her bed, pressed a little button, and felt soft vibrations.

‘Hi Darling’ she heard a male voice “Please download the application, so I can get to know you better.’’

Paula took her phone and she downloaded a purple-icon app using the path she was left by Claudia. She allowed for access to pictures, a social network profile, her history, and locations she found herself to be. 

“I can see that you like theatre much. You’ve seen this play three times!” the soft manly voice was commenting on her personal experiences, ‘Now come on. Show me your pussy. I want to know her better.’

Paula was listening to the voice and pressing the dildo to her intimate parts. Then, she felt the pulsation and rotation, and something like a licking sensation. After she explored her outer labia and was encouraged to insert the dildo deeper and deeper inside her, HENRY’s moves changed, they got stronger and more violent. For half an hour, he offered her twenty different modes, was twisting and turning, but some of his actions honestly made her bored. Exhausted, he stopped working and finished with a gasp.

‘Hope you had fun, my dear!’

‘Sure,’ she lied.

She was lying there naked, HENRY switched off, no orgasm experienced, with mixed thoughts and dissatisfaction. 

That was the beginning of a few long months.

Every day, she tried to switch HENRY on and undergo a similar routine. She allowed it to know her more and more. She played with it, changed the modes, and asked for different movements. But after an hour or so, she was bored and exhausted, and HENRY needed charging. She started to question herself and doubted the effectiveness of the device. Was she unable to feel anything? Was she not programmed to experience orgasm at all? Was there anything wrong with her?

The approaching date of the launch and the stress connected to her everyday duties didn’t help much with her relationship with HENRY. He was trying so hard that at times it caused her pain. And he got hot from the effort. 

In the meantime, she was cutting costs and, after a thorough money-saving analysis, making people redundant, seeing their disbelief and crying faces on an everyday basis. She managed to fire fifteen employees with long seniority and there were more to go. 

She was on the toilet one time, pissing out the stress of her day when she overheard a conversation of two women, who were checking their make-up in the bathroom. 

‘Believe me, it doesn’t work. There was this testing group of women and they assessed it as 5 percent effective. Five percent! For that, you could insert a carrot and you don’t need to pay 700 EURO. But the investors paid so much money that they couldn’t go back. They just made a few improvements. And created a false sense of miracle, paying for PR, you know, positive comments from the paid-for customers.’

‘So ultimately, we are going to launch the product that doesn’t work!’ the other woman laughed, ‘Why doesn’t it work?’

‘I mean, would anything like this work? They overcomplicated it on the mechanical level. And they oversimplified a woman’s psyche. They just hired men to create the app and men to create the penis. So it’s larger than the average, but ultimately, it’s just an annoying little guy.’

They both laughed.

‘I love it when Paula talks about the upcoming success and it’s going to be another flop.’

‘True! It’s not the first flop, though. Good that little Henrys don’t explode like these mobile phones on a plane! We would be charged for manslaughter!’

They both laughed and left the bathroom. 

Paula went from her hideout and applied some make-up.

A young friendly looking girl entered the bathroom and looked at Paula.

‘Hi, Paula, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Layla,’ she introduced herself, ‘You have something blue on your cheeks.’ she said.

Paula looked at herself in the mirror.

‘Where?’

The girl laughed. She took the handkerchief and wiped out Paula’s face. 

‘Here,’ she showed her the handkerchief with some brownish smudges ‘You looked like Briget Jones in that scene when she’s going on some fancy dinner and does her make-up in the taxi.’

Paula was a bit disorientated.

‘Well, thanks. I’m having a call with Kirk in a second. I’m just super busy.’

‘Oh yeah, Kirk, well that’s a drag.’

‘What is he like? I’ve never met him.’

‘Well, he’s old.’

‘Like Claudia?’

‘Oh, no. There’s like twenty years difference between them. They keep them here until they die.’

Paula was surprised to hear that. She expected Kirk to be someone younger.

‘And they are still working here?’

The girl looked at her and smiled.

‘I ask myself the same question every day. 

Paula’s call was indeed answered by a very old man. He was sitting in front of his computer, looking at her in a judgemental way. He had an old sweater on.

‘I’m Paula. Beata and Claudia must have told you about me. How’s your leg?’

‘Fine.’ he answered shortly, still looking at her.

‘I thought about organizing these calls daily for fifteen minutes. Does this time suit you?’

‘Yes,’ Kirk answered, ‘Every day at exactly 1 p.m.’

‘Great! I will brief you on what is going on. I will wrap it up in a weekly mail, just to sum up our agenda and what we’ve been talking about.’

Kirk smiled. Some of his teeth were missing.

‘My God, he is old,’ Paula thought to herself when she finished the meeting and turned the camera off. 

She decided to work overtime a bit in the cafe outside the office. 

‘Excuse me, can you hand me this blue jacket?’ a woman asked her ‘It’s crowded here. The hanger is behind you.’

Paula turned around and was looking at the bunch of coats and jackets, trying to identify which one she was asked about.

‘The blue one!’

Paula was looking at the hanger but she didn’t see anything blue. 

‘Never mind,’ the woman leaned and took her jacket herself.

For Paula, it wasn’t blue. It was greyish. 

She looked at her phone and saw a message.

‘Why aren’t you at home? I’m waiting. You work too much. Let’s have fun together!’

Paula looked at the sender. It was HENRY.