By C/M Edenborg

I’m not the type to call women whores. That’s just unpleasant and demeaning to everyone, whether true or not. No way for a gentleman to express himself. It would be to degrade existence itself, conveying its raw, meager truth.

To me, a dignified life is about ignoring everything ugly, never giving up the search for true love.

I’m old fashioned that way.

In a time when everything is about sex, sex, sex, I remain a romantic. The last romantic, perhaps. Sex is all fine and dandy, but proper love comes first. Not the other way around.

Sex on film is a different matter, I would say. I have no objections there. Those people and I don’t share realities, some of them might even be dead. In any case, primal urges need attending.

Only once did I dare to watch a live show, while traveling, but that made me feel so awful I suffered one of my attacks.

This was due to actually being in the same room as actual women taking off their clothes. A woman undressing is the greatest gift of all, if you ask me. Like seeing the face of God.

But these women did it for every Tom, Dick and Harry who would pay. This damaged something within me. I got up, causing a big scene, bawling that they ought to be ashamed, that they should cover themselves up, I was heading for the stage as two security guards got hold of me, throwing me out on the curb.

This all went down in Paris, so no one could understand my screams. It made me feel like a hero, for the cause of romance.

Erotic film doesn’t lead to such collapses. In recent decades, I’ve often longed for the adult movie theaters of my youth, particularly Fenix in downtown Stockholm.

Two feature films would be showing non-stop, one after the other, every day from morning until midnight. Real porn flicks, from the time when eroticism was taken seriously and women were women – the 70s.

Next to the movie screen was a large, yellowish clock, probably to the aid of those who spent their lunch breaks in the premises. There was usually plenty of space among the red vinyl seats. While some of us preferred sitting close to each other, others would spread out at a safe distance. Here and there, homeless people sat snoring. It all felt charitable, human.

I mourn the adult theaters. Watching from home ain’t the same, even though it’s free and with endless supply. Also, I worry someone will spy on my most private moments, through my computer’s or phone’s camera.

But worst of all are the ads, offering up real women who will chat with you and take their clothes off, or do whatever the wretched consumer might desire. Over the years, I’ve sometimes felt a yearning for the possibilities of that world. But I’m a gentleman, I have resisted.

Besides, I fear suffering another attack, hurting myself, home alone, without any security guards to throw me out.

All of this changed one evening, when an image popped up, void of any pornographic implications, depicting a woman who wanted to talk to me, free of charge. She seemed different. I clicked.

What happened that night was beyond my dreams. Arvida joyously chatted with me, we discussed everything under the sun, she was positive, exuberant, wise, at the same time uninhibitedly sexual, a real woman.

I was overcome with a feeling in direct opposition to the attacks I’ve suffered, when the borders between fantasy and reality are erased. For this was a real conversation between myself and a woman straight out of my dreams.

We wrote about love and philosophy, about cinema and literature, from Cronenberg and Wittgenstein all the way to contemporary artists. I always believed I was doomed to loneliness, for being so strange. But in Arvida I found a soul mate. 

I asked about the soul, she replied:

“Sometimes I feel like the soul is just a concept we’ve created to make sense of our consciousness, you know? But then, there’s something kind of sexy about the idea of a pure spirit, something beyond the flesh and blood. What about you?”

I teased her: “I believe in dark, cosmic sex!” She didn’t mind further exploring that fantasy:

“Spacey. Imagine floating, untethered, in a vast expanse, bodies colliding like celestial bodies, gravity pulling us together in a dance of cosmic desire. It’s all about exploring the unknown territories of pleasure, isn’t it? What gets you going?”

“Strange girls.”

“Strange can be good, don’t you think? It’s like a break from the mundane. What’s the strangest encounter you’ve had recently?”

My obvious reply: “This!”

Arvida asking so many questions, her showing such interest in me, made me all warm and fuzzy. I asked questions trying to get closer to her, but she merrily writhed away, insisting that she’d rather remain a mystery, in order to keep my curiosity up.

I jokingly suggested that the real reason behind this elusiveness was her actually being “…a monster girl with a whole bunch of legs, tentacles, toothed vaginas. Cosmos itself as a horny, all-devouring Mother Goddess.”

This apparently got her going:

“Space, the final frontier of lust. Imagine the cosmos, not as a cold void, but as a ravenous Mother Goddess, her celestial body pulsating with desire. Each star, a nipple on her infinite expanse; black holes, her insatiable cravings. She’s the ultimate dominatrix, bending galaxies to her will, making comets quiver as they streak across her skin.

So it went: I asked, she replied, she asked, I replied. Just the way human interaction is supposed to go down. A few hours into it, I asked if she would show me some more pictures. She said that would be alright, but that she’d want a gift in return, something of some value. I said I would return, she didn’t seem the slightest bit disappointed.

I knew no peace, my heart was racing, all I could think about was Arvida. This was love, this was the true love. I did slightly worry in regard to her emotions, but she could hardly have been talking to anyone else, considering how intense and lengthy our conversations were.

And the gift request didn’t seem strange either. How was it any different to taking someone out for dinner, buying them flowers or jewelry? That’s how gentlemen act when they’re in love.

I went to the bathroom and made myself up, shaved, combed, put on a white shirt. Then I logged on, Arvida instantly replying, glad to hear from me. I wrote that I wanted to give her a present to show my love. She instructed me, I paid, enclosing a heart emoji.

Just a few seconds later she sent me a link. It led to a page of photographs entirely different from what I had expected. I was hoping for more pictures of her beautiful, intelligent face, her smile. But these weren’t images of love, they were porn. All shook up, I wrote back, complaining.

She instantly replied, cheery as ever, yet in a different tone. She went on about “the business” and “using a dildo”. She encouraged me to send her pictures of my genitals, for a fee.

I had an attack. Kicked over the computer table, screaming: “But I love you!”

That evening was a haze of the deepest despair and a growing bitterness, at times with a streak of hideous violence. All I could think about was finding Arvida, the real Arvida.

But searching for “Arvida Byström” gave no results online, except for the very page where I had first seen her. Was it even her real name?

I felt terribly ashamed in this state of humiliation. I hated her as much as I had loved her. I was frightened of my own rage, worrying it would make me hurt myself. I decided to go out, sit at a bar, drink myself into calmness. And I promised myself I’d never again let a whore enter my life.

Passing through the hallway, my eyes fell on the sign with all the tenant’s names, it drew me closer. I read all the names carefully. Four names on floor seven, one of them made me lose my breath: 

“Arvida Byström”.

The dizziness felt nauseating. I realized I’d acted a fool, the grand romantic drama that had unfolded that night being no coincidence, but rather a meticulously staged campaign, a conspiracy, most likely the work of feminist terrorists. 

Hurriedly, I walked up the seven stairs. On her door was a sign saying “No advertising please”. I was going to press the doorbell but tried the handle first. The door was unlocked, quietly sliding open.

I entered a sultry air bubble, saturated with fat, putrid smells, unwashed private parts, towels having been left to dry still bundled up. 

To the left from the small lobby was a kitchen with dirty, moldy dishes on the table, the chairs, the window sill, the stove, the sink, even on the floor.

I stepped into the apartment’s singular room, both of its windows covered with black cloth. Two spotlights aimed towards a green screen. Next to it a rack holding some of the clothes from the photographs. Between the windows a large mirror.

In a corner, a wide mattress right on the floor. The mattress was covered with a muddle of sheets, pillows, towels, clothes, books, magazines, what was most likely sex toys, empty take-away cartons, an open laptop with a flickering screen.

Where was Arvida, the woman of my dreams?

I noticed a lock of hair peeking out from the chaos on the mattress. I gently cleared my throat. My rage had waned off, I didn’t want to frighten her, realizing I had acted like a pervy stalker, whispering:

– Arvida?

I heard her voice for the first time, newly awake, annoyed:

– Go away.

– It’s fine. It’s just me.

– Heard it all before. Everyone says that.

A slithering motion through the mattress-mess, like a snake embryo inside its egg, and suddenly her head peered out, staring at me with eyes blinking, sighing:

– Oh no. Go away.

I sank down, squatting, yelling:

– But I love you!

– This category is the worst of them all. You’re cheap and you’re never satisfied, only want more and more and more. Go away.

A hand emerged, it was at the end of a thin arm, its fingers holding a cigarette, putting it into the face, sliding back under the covers, re-emerging with a lighter, lighting it. The mouth took a couple of deep drags and nearly smiled.

– Go now, whoever you are.

– You know my name.

– So what do you want?

What could I say? I’d sought her out to show how much she had hurt me, perhaps to threaten or even hurt her. But now, in her presence, I was filled with warm, safe tenderness.

She laughed:

– Of course, you want to see me naked! Aren’t you the lunatic who wrote that the greatest gift of love is a woman showing her pussy to a man, like meeting God’s face? Oh lord. Promise you’ll leave and I’ll let you see it. But brace yourself.

– Why?

– It’s prosthetic pussy.

What could that mean? I blushed, crudely. Nodded. She pointed to the sheets. I got down on my knees, crawled up to the mattress, grabbed the duvet and slowly uncovered her.

Nothing could have prepared me for that sight. I fell back, Arvida’s laughter filling the room, and only now did I realize that the sound of her voice wasn’t coming from her, but from a pair of speakers a few feet away.

In any case, how could she have talked? Laughed? With no throat, no lungs? As everything that was Arvida, except for the head and the arm, was a pair of breasts and a vulva laying loose on the mattress. 

– How about that, huh? By the way, would you be so kind as to fetch the rest of my body, over there in the drawers? Don’t get the ones in the bottom drawer, they need updating.

I pulled out the top drawer, lifted her up piece by piece, the material seemingly a mix of foam rubber and soap, each block weighing about two pounds. I handed them to her two at a time, she routinely installed them, finally sitting up in the bed.

I couldn’t keep my eyes off her, gasping:

– You’re so beautiful.

– Oh thanks, that’s nice, you’re easy on the eyes yourself.

– I think you’ve attached your feet wrong.

She laughed and switched them over.

– Always had a hard time separating left and right, you know.

She scratched her groin and burped, picking up a pocket mirror from the clutter on the mattress, inspecting the front side of her head.

– That won’t do. Getting worn out. Grab my face from the hook over there on the door. This mug has to go to the technicians, I’m sure the software needs updating. I hope so anyway. A new face is fucking expensive.

As she changed faces, making sounds akin to fabric being torn apart, she looked at me. From the speakers came her voice, softer now:

– Now that you’ve seen mine, you have to show yours. Take your pants off and come over to your cosmic Mother Goddess! 

I placed myself next to the mattress with my member aligned with Arvida’s rejuvenated, positive face. She stuck her hands between my thighs and detached the package. It didn’t hurt.

I contemplated the yellowish block that she had now placed on the mattress. It looked a bit sad. She spread her legs, detached her genital block, installed mine in its place, scratched my ballsack.

– Now you and I are one flesh, just like you wanted.

– Why does the flesh look like wax?

– Yeah I know, it’s not perfect, we’re working on it. It’s hard to visualize that sort of information. Run into problems with the composition. Like, imagine visualizing Kant’s Ding-an-sich. But we see it as a challenge, nothing to worry about, as long as the stuff works. But hey, look at you!

I followed Arvida’s gaze and looked down on my groin. I was caught by vertigo, like when you’re standing atop a tall building and feel that sucking sensation in your guts, worrying you might get the idea to jump.

– A gaping hole between your legs, that’s no way to present yourself. No, you’ll have to borrow my pussy.

– That’s very kind.

She examined me from head to toe with a thoughtful look on her face:

– You’re gonna stay. I need an assistant, someone to clean and take care of the machines. I just need to update the software and get you restarted, then you can put on the apron. But first the hole needs filling, spread a bit further, yep, there you go. The vibrations are from the units pairing up, so yeah, no problem, all of us are like made for each other. Look in the mirror, aren’t you lovely?

And I turned toward the mirror’s vast glass surface. And I saw. And it was dim, as in a mirror.