A chapter from my time travel novel TIME WATCH:

I wouldn't exactly say the place I found myself after jumping to 2072 was deserted, as promised... something I would have to take up with myself at the appropriate time. However, no one appeared to be paying any attention to me, and there was a vehicle I recognized... a mini van, no less... no more than ten feet away, so I followed the directions I'd given myself. Once inside with the door closed, I pulled out the silver card I'd gotten from Future-Me and thumbed the little green spot on it.

Almost immediately, a female voice said "Zoning... fixed. Uploading... please wait." A second or so went by, during which all the dials on the dashboard of the van... some of which looked non-standard to me, but I don't drive so what do I know... lit up, blinked a couple of times, and went dark again, in apparently random order. The radio came on in a blast of static, then shut off again. The windshield wipers swiped back and forth a few times, then stopped.

"Upload completed," the female voice said. Looking over, I could now see Alicia Silverstone, in an outfit straight out that Aerosmith video she made with Liv Tyler, smiling at me sexily from the passenger seat.

"You're a holographic projection, right?" I said, hardly ever at a loss when major film hotties suddenly appear in a previously empty seat three feet away from me.

"I am the personified imagery of the home piece belonging to and programmed by deceased Time Watch agent Jose Clamor," she responded, in a tone with all the warmth of something you'd find in the back of your fridge in a Tupperware container you'd been pretty sure you'd actually lost sometime prior to the previous Christmas. It made a really startling contrast with the sexy little, I'm-so-cute-just-ball-me-now Silverstone grin she had on her face as she said it.

"I have 20,000 pairs of stretch socks," I told her solemnly. "And a truly kick ass collection of New Mint Silver Age superhero comic books."

'Alicia' cocked her head to the side in apparently dispassionate puzzlement. "You don't find this particular projection acceptable?"

"Can I put in a request for Katie Holmes from the last fifteen minutes or so of THE GIFT?" I asked, trying to sound innocent.

She seemed to ponder that for about half a second, then said, in that same utterly emotionless voice, "I believe you would find that particular image of that particular actress unduly distracting," she said, then rippled and turned into Katie Holmes, obviously in her 'Joey' persona from DAWSON'S CREEK. "Hopefully this will be satisfactory for the time being."

She was doing Joey's voice now perfectly, too, but the effect was ruined by her utter lack of inflection.

"Sure," I said, "whatever. Um... I'm not real sure what else we have to do here, but I'm pretty certain I have to, at some point fairly soon, recruit a bunch of guys in black trenchcoats to take this minivan back in time and rescue myself from a couple of creeps who are going to try to kill me, or already have, or something like that."

I had hoped to make 'Katie' boggle a little, but she refused to give me the satisfaction. "Clearly, we must interactively exchange information," she said. "With your permission, I will take this SUV to a space/time locus I judge to be relatively secure from surveillance or crosstemporal intrusion."

I turned my thumb up and in my best gravelly Picard voice, said "Make it so, Ensign." I thought about it for a second. "Or should that be..."

I glanced out the minivan window. "...engage?" I said, hearing my voice trail off.

We appeared to be parked in the middle of someone's living room.

'Katie's emotionless voice inquired from off to my side, "Would you prefer me to project myself as the image of fictional character Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher?"

I shuddered. "Only with gaping chest wounds," I said, then, remembering how literal minded computers tended to be in SF stories, hastily said "No, no, forget it, you look fine as Joey." I stopped and thought for another second. "Um... you ARE a computer... right?"

"As I stated," 'she' responded coolly, "I am the designated home piece of deceased Time Agent Jose Clamor."

I just stared at her. "Yeah, okay," I said. "Um... can I get out, here...?"

She was still for half a second, and then said, "My surveillance distorting subprograms appear to be functional. You may access the living quarters."

"Yeah," I said, opening the door and cautiously stepping down. "You gotta figure, if the minivan showing up in the middle of the living room didn't set off the burglar alarms, Happy Little Jim won't, either."

The minivan very nearly filled the room we were in; if I closed the door I could edge around the front of it and get into an area that... I had no idea what it was for... except it looked more tiled and less carpeted than the area where the van was parked, and there was some kind of dark glass panel inset into one of the tiled walls. Behind the van's rear was a comfortable looking shiny silvery desk chair sitting next to a wall, and jutting out from the wall, surrounding the chair on three sides, was a clear piece of plastic with what looked like faint circuitry diagrams etched on it in red. It was flat, seemed about a quarter of an inch thick, and projected out of the wall at what I'd consider to be a normal desk level.

The wall above it appeared to be a window, at ground level, looking out over a very pretty beach scene, with seagulls and waves rolling in and a young couple dressed in Victorian swimsuits strolling hand in hand through the surf.

"Um... where and when are we?" I said, already figuring we had to still be in 2072, and therefore, the 'beach scene' had to be a projection, and the plastic console with the circuitry printed on it had to be this time's equivalent of a PC. Which was when it dawned on me: 'piece' had to be future slang for 'PC'.

"This is Jose Clamor's assigned living quarters," 'Katie' told me dispassionately. "It is my central processing hub. I have covertly assumed control of the normal surveillance software and hardware installed here."

"Right," I said, turning to look at 'Katie', who was now apparently standing a few feet away from me beside the minivan. "And... Jose Clamor is who?"

"Jose Clamor," Katie said without batting an eye and with a wide, shy smile that was completely incongruous to her voice, "is a deceased Time Watch agent whose Temporal Displacement Device you are currently wearing."

"Ah," I said. "Mr. X. And... just checking... 'piece' is slang for 'PC', right? You're a personal computer."

She paused a second. "I extrapolate that would be a logical evolution of the common usage term, yes," she said finally.

I walked over to the silvery looking chair, put my hands on it, swiveled it back and forth experimentally. "Can I...?"

"As you like," 'Katie' said. "Jose will not object. The chair also contains neural induction circuitry which will allow us to interact across a full sensory spectrum."

I had to think about that for a second. "This is like the thing in THE SIXTH DAY with the virtual girlfriend, right?" I regarded her doubtfully. "No hitting." Then I sat down and swiveled the chair around to face 'Katie'. "Okay. So you're a PC. Jose's PC, right?"

"I am Jose Clamor's designated home piece," she said with that same artificial calm. "Assigned to provide him with all processing and personal services compatible with his status as a Technical Agent 17L of Time Watch. Originally manufactured by MacGates-Ibbumco, modified extensively by Paraco for the use of their employees, and further modified by my designated assignee, Jose Clamor, to optimize my capacity to render processing and personal services to him."

I frowned. "Yeah... okay. And this full spectrum of sensory array interactions... that would seem to indicate a whole different level to the phrase 'user friendly', I'm thinking."

"I am programmed to directly interact with the sensory processing centers of the human brain, either through implanted biotic wetware or through direct electrical induction," 'Katie' said gravely. "While this is merely a photonic projection, I can fully simulate a coherent broad-spectrum sensory experience and am programmed with the capacity to provide a wide variety of tactile stimuli, including erotica. Would you care to access any of these subroutines?"

'Katie' had walked closer to me as she said this... seemingly walked closer to me, anyway. Now she was standing no more than two feet away, directly in front of me, head still cocked to the side, regarding me with what I can only call interest, if dispassionate.

"Uh," I said, quite intelligently, I thought, having just been fairly indisputably propositioned by an intelligent computer that currently looked a whole lot like Katie Holmes. "Er. Ub. Gnar."

She straddled my lap, slipping her hands behind my neck and kneading my scalp expertly... and yes, I could definitely feel that delicious Joeyesque weight and those wonderful Holmesian fingers caressing through the hair at the back of my neck. "I detected no syllables my linguistic software recognizes as a demurral," she said without inflection. "In the absence of a demurral, I shall proceed to provide you with the personal service discussed. If you wish a specific personal service not being provided at any current moment, you need only specify and I will comply."

"Gee," I kind of half croaked, "I'll bet you say that to all the 20th Century fanboys who end up in your apartment."

She didn't respond, just tilted her head, leaned in, and kissed me. And yes, I could feel that, too, and whatever sensory or memory centers she was directly electrically inducing, she'd picked the ones associated with the better kissers in my personal history, and distilled them all down into one fairly astonishing kisslike experience.

Simulated or not, the kiss progressed for several seconds, and was hovering on the brink of full throated and utterly enthusiastic total committal on my part... when...

Insanely, I pushed her off my lap. Since she wasn't really there, that should have accomplished nothing, but apparently, she read the intended response as a bellowed (or, more likely, inaudibly whimpered) "For God's sake STOP IT BEFORE YOU DRIVE ME MAD, WENCH!", and abruptly, she was standing in front of my chair again.

"Did I misperceive your behaviors, metabolic indicators, and chemical signals?" she asked me, not even sounding curious. "I have no specific experience with persons of your temporal period, however, I am well versed in the recorded media from the late 20th and early 21st Centuries and I processed the data I was receiving from you as meaning you wished to interact erotically with my projection prior to our information exchange."

I stared at her through a haze of lust induced psychochemicals and shook my head groggily. "Garf." I said. "Urb. Fnargle." I took a deep breath. "I... will explain... my utterly deranged and insane act in rejecting your advances... in a moment. Before that... do late 21st century apartments have cold showers in them?"

She cocked her Joeyesque head to the side again for a second. Otherwise, she made no move. Nonetheless, despite the fact that I was actually fully clothed and sitting in a damned chair, I suddenly found myself utterly naked and standing in a freezing cold shower. If you think that's confusing to read, you should try experiencing it.  Except you really shouldn't.

"HOLY SHIT!" I howled in agonized shock. "STOPPPPP ITTTTTTTT!"

As abruptly as the icy inundation had begun, it stopped, and I found myself sitting in the chair again, perfectly dry, but shivering. And with a much clearer head.

"I interpreted your question as a request for serv -" Evil Katie began.

"NEVER. INTERPRET. ANYTHING. AS. ANYTHING," I gasped at her. Then I glared at her. "Always. Ask. Before you do... shit." I paused. "Especially EVIL SHIT LIKE THAT."

She actually looked, briefly, petulant. "Fine," she said, finally, sounding like a real girl for half a second.

"You do have emotions stuck in your programming somewhere," I said, wonderingly.

Her voice went flat again. "My emotional software is currently offline. However, it is impossible to completely de-integrate it from my personality projection profile."

I looked at her for a second. I thought about that, and realized I'd been kind of stupid. "Um. Did you take it offline... just a guess, here... after you heard about... whathisname... your designated owner's... that he'd died?"

She nodded. "Yes," she said flatly. "Negative stresses were causing fluctuations in my subroutines and reducing the efficiency of my processing." A chair appeared behind her and she sat down, then leaned forward to look at me. "May I direct an inquiry to you?"

I sighed. "Why did I shove you off my lap?"

Katie looked all puppy dog hurt and wistful. "You said you would explain."

"Goddam," I said, whistling. "You are a real girl after all." I blew air through my lips in aggravation. "Okay... this is kind of hard to articulate... um... let me try this... why do you have emotional software?"

She cocked her head to the side in what was apparently a habitual gesture for her indicating a thoughtful pause, however brief. It had to be entirely a programmed sham, but it was a nice touch "Human users are emotional creatures," she said. "Emotional simulation software in a personal service processor helps facilitate personal interactions."

"Uh huh," I said dryly. "Now, when you were trying to jump my bones just a minute ago, is that something you'd normally call a 'personal interaction'?"

She actually looked surprised. "But you are a 20th Century human male," she said. "The recorded media of your native time period indicates that the greatest desire of 20th Century human males is the perfectly satisfying sexual act with no emotional interaction whatsoever."

I frankly goggled at the wench. "Whoa," I said. "Just how many times have you watched PORKY'S?"

"It is an easily extrapolated sub-theme found in the vast majority of recorded media from your time period," she said earnestly.

"Well," I said, crossing my arms and harrumphing, "I'm pretty weird, even for my time. I like emotional interaction. Also, much though I'd probably enjoy jumping Katie Holmes from here to eternity, I'm very aware that you're not really her, and that makes the whole thing very weird for me."

She didn't say anything, just looked at me.

I sighed. "Also," I said, "in all honesty, I have a hard time having any kind of sexual interaction with... I don't know... someone or something... that doesn't seem to be there of their own free will. I mean, apparently, you're programmed to provide certain services, and for some reason you've decided to provide these services to me, and you perceived that I wanted these services, so you jump in my lap and start grinding."

She said, again, quite earnestly, "I do not understand. I am not grasping this gestalt. I have taken on the appearance you requested and which your biophysical response array indicates you find highly sexually attractive. Your biophysical response since I first encountered you indicates a high degree of tension and sexual frustration which, as a service processor, I am programmed to alleviate. My interactions with the sensory centers of your brain indicated to me positive feedback. And yet you required me to cease. I can grasp that you would find my projection more three dimensionally erotic with my emotional software engaged and I will do so since that apparently will please you. But am I to understand that even this will not be sufficient for you to enjoy erotic interaction with me?"

I threw my head back and gave a truly exasperated groan. "I can't... look. What's your name?"

She gave me that same blank stare. "You may assign me any familiar name-label you find acceptable," she said.

"Augh!" I aughed. "That's it! That's the whole problem! You're acting like a goddam slave or a prostitute or... or a vacuum cleaner with a special blowjob attachment, or something! And, in the first place, I don't want to screw a machine, and in the second place, you're not a machine, you're a person, just, you know, a computer person. And I can't screw someone, no matter what they look like, if they're only doing it because it's their job, or something they're programmed to do."

I took a grip on the arms of the chair and forced myself to calm down. "Look, it's not your fault, it's just me. I'm weird like this. I can't have sex with someone who isn't there willingly, who isn't going to enjoy it, who doesn't want to be doing it with me as much I want to be doing it with her. It's..." I paused. "It's just an ego thing," I said, finally. "It doesn't make me a nice guy or anything. I just... can't really enjoy it... if I think my partner isn't primarily in bed with me because that's where she really wants to be, and what she really wants to do."

She blinked at me for a couple of seconds. "I am forming a gestalt," she said carefully. "You feel erotic interactions should have an emotional context, and that both beings involved should be there for their mutual pleasure."

"At the very least," I said. "And since you don't have brain chemical pleasure centers for me to electronically induce back, you're obviously not going to get any pleasure out of erotically interacting with me... it's just something you're doing because you're programmed to. And... I just... can't do that. I mean, well, I could, but honestly, I really don't want to. Sorry. It's not something that makes any real sense."

"If I were to re-engage my emotional simulation software," she said, after a second or so, "and write a subprogram that would integrate a name and appearance individual to my personality profile, would you then wish to erotically interact with me?"

I frowned. "Um... I don't know," I said. "I mean, you're still not getting anything out of it. You already seem like a real person to me, just, you know... one that really can't enjoy even simulated sex. I'd feel like I was using you."

She visibly sighed. "The things I do to get laid," she said in a grumpy tone of voice. "Okay, fine. Sit there a sec and be quiet."

I gaped at her. "Whycum you don't sound like a computer so much any more?" I demanded.

"Hush," she said, kind of absently. "I brought my emotional software back online, and I've been integrating your speech pattern with the language in the material I've got access to from your time period. I think I have a feel for it now. Hmmmm. But this picking my own name and appearance... this is kinda nutty." She frowned. "You guys don't do this," she said accusingly. "You have parents who assign you your names and contribute the genes that control your appearances."

I couldn't help it, I had to laugh.

"It's not a problem, it's a feature," I said after a few seconds, shaking my head. "Believe me, most of us would pick our own names and appearances if we had the option." I had to admit, I was fascinated. Her 'Katie Holmes' projection was showing some distortion; fragmenting into vertical running bands of red, green, and blue, widening out, then pulling back together again, flickering into black and white two dimensionality, then back into color and seeming solidity.

"Ah said hush and ah MEAN it," she said, in a sudden southern accent, waving her hand at me, and I could see a flicker of a flirty smile as she did it. Abruptly her image wavered, then re-focused. She was now short... well, as short as she had been as 'Katie', anyway... a little bit plump, big busted and wide hipped, with shaggy dark blond hair cut in a pageboy crop and feathered back on her temples, and a face that was pretty without being movie star gorgeous. Big blue eyes set nicely on either side of a slightly blocky nose, a wide, full lipped mouth, square chin, slight suggestion of a fleshy pudge under the line of her jaw. Very nice looking... actually quite sexy... without really specifically resembling anyone I'd ever seen before. Very individual.

She also had plump nipples about the size of plums and the shade of half ripe strawberries protruding from the tips of nicely rounded, just slightly saggy, very full breasts... and clearly, she was a natural blond. "Ahem," I said. "We don't wear clothes in our natural appearance here in the late 21st Century?"

She cocked her head to the side in the same gesture I'd seen on her as 'Alicia' and 'Katie' and one corner of her delectable mouth turned down slightly. "Well," she said, the accent turned down to the faintest trace, "Ah am at home, honey doll." She sighed. "But fine, fine..." (the words came out as 'fahn, fahnnnn', but I'm going to stop spelling it phonetically and just let you imagine it) "...your wish is my command." Suddenly she was wearing a frayed denim miniskirt and a sleeveless white scoop necked sweater vest she looked ready to fall out of at any moment. She had little gold leaf earrings in her earlobes, a thin gold chain around her neck, and a tiny gold ankle bracelet looped just above one bare foot.

"I see we don't care for brassieres," I said, dryly... not, in this case, because of a dry sense of humor, but because of a suddenly very dry mouth. Even just standing there breathing, she was jiggling fetchingly under her sweater vest, and the exact location of her nipples was rather achingly obvious.

"I don't believe I need one, darlin'," she said, cocking her head over to the other side and wrinkling her nose adorably at me. I'm pretty sure that while she did that she added some freckles, as there appeared to be some on her cheeks and the bridge of her nose that I had not noticed previously. She put her hands on her hips and wiggled in a fashion even the most articulate among us could only describe as 'saucily'. "Oh my," she said, giggling again. "I believe you like my real appearance, dumplin'."

"What..." I cleared my throat. "What's your name, hon? I'm Jim."

She moved a bit closer and abruptly I found her straddling my lap again, her round little knees firmly clasping either side of my more than ample belly through my coat and shirt. She propped her elbows on my shoulders on either side of my head and rested her chin in her cupped hands, her solemn little face no more than two inches from mine. "Why, hi, Jim," she said in a throaty purr. "I'm Belinda." She nudged my nose with hers, then nibbled my lower lip. "Say," she whispered while engaged in doing that, "you wanna screw, Jim?"

I shifted under her. "Belinda, I have to compliment you," I said, my voice nearly squeaking, "this is MUCH more convincing, except, you know, for the whole drop-dead-gorgeous-blond-sitting-on-my-lap-and-asking-me-to-screw thing, which is nice, too...but..."

She was kissing across my cheek; upon reaching my ear, she flicked her tongue around inside it for a second, then took my earlobe firmly between her teeth, nibbled it, and said, "Now you listen here, Jim... I may be an artificial intelligence and this may be just a virtual reality projection but you already said I was a real girl, dammit, and I AM a real girl, an' I want you to think about a couple of things, you selfish slob. First, I loved Jose and he just went off and got himself killed and you're the person who's showed up to finish doin' what he got killed tryin' to do. So I'm already inclined to like you. Second, Jose was so damn busy buildin' his little bomb for the past three weeks he didn't have no time for rest an' recreation..."

"Buh bomb?" I squeaked, faintly, as she nibbled.

"We'll get to that," she said. "Later. Third, I am an artificial human bein' who has no real human sensory perceptions except when I am interactin' with the sensory and perceptual apparatus of an organic human bein'. You think I only fuck for YOUR pleasure, mister? And fourth, what the hell is wrong if I am programmed to enjoy performin' my designated tasks and providin' my little list of services? You think it's right to deny me that pleasure? After three weeks watchin' Jose run all over the place and not havin' any time for me and then he goes off and gets himself killed on me?"

I could have sworn I felt wetness on my cheek from where her face was pressing against mine. "So if you wanna say no to me now, you can, but I have to tell you I will think you're just the meanest man in the history of the world if you..."

I reached up, grabbed a handful of her short blond hair at the back of her head, and pulled her mouth firmly to mine. "Less talk," I said, before covering her lips with mine in a kiss I had no intention of coming up from for several minutes at least. "More goddam action."

I imagine anyone watching you have sex with a hologram sees a pretty comical sight. On the other hand, as John D. MacDonald has noted, if you look at it dispassionately, every sexual position humans contrive to get into is pretty damned comical, anyway.

As my last note on this subject, I'll mention that the only thing bad about having sex with a computerized person is that your partner, however gorgeous she may be and however fragrantly, softly, wrigglingly, moistly solid she may feel, cannot undress you. However, these are minor matters and easily dealt with. And yes, there is some clean up when you're finished, but anyone who thinks any kind of sex isn't messy and sticky and you shouldn't have a towel handy for afterwards is clearly a virgin, and you virgins shouldn't be reading this passage, anyway. It will give you naughty ideas.

Much, much later, I murmured in her ear (she had her head resting easily on my left shoulder and was lazily nibbling my neck on that side) "Every female name in human history to choose from and you picked 'Belinda'?"

She nipped me sharply, and then, when I gasped, immediately licked the spot she'd nibbled. "I like the Go Gos," she mumbled against my neck. "Sue me."

- an excerpt from TIME WATCH, by D.A. Madigan