“You saw a what?” Lisa looked at me in disbelief.
“A cell phone activated personal vibrator.”
Steffi looked at me openmouthed, “You are kidding, Sacha, I can’t believe it.”
“Oh yea, the inventiveness of the human brain accepts no limits in its quest for erotic pleasure.”
We were spilling out of my upstairs bathroom into the master bedroom, Lisa, Steffi and me with more to come, playing with my new epilator. Being blonde and fair I have a ton of hair on my head but not very much elsewhere. Nevertheless I loved having my arms completely silk smooth. The smoother I am the sexier I feel. Waxing is a sticky pain so I had plonked down 7000 yen at Sony Plaza Store on a mechanized device that looked like a slightly bulky automatic razor. It worked as promised on silky short hair baby fine hair. Useless, however, on bikini lines. The thing was waterproof and finally puzzling out the directions I discovered it was supposed to be used with soap and water just like shaving in the shower with a regular razor.
I was the innovator of my gal pal group and when I told Lisa about it in my usual enthusiastic fashion, word spread and soon there were rallying cries of ‘Me too! Me too!”
An epilator party was swiftly scheduled. I made a fruit salad and pitcher of ice tea and now my friends were taking turns, somewhat impatiently, buzzing their way to smoothness. We were also supposed to be talking about Miriam’s party before she arrived. She had been summoned to summer school as her youngest had pushed another girl off the swing and broken her collar bone.
Poor Miriam. I couldn’t understand how a nice person could have such horrible children.
While the girls buzzed I told them about my discovery. Actually it wasn’t mine, two boys I met at the Expos introduced me to it.
Jake was pretty shaken up by his encounter with virtual sex. Thank god the world still had hands on men like him, even if they were wandering hands at least he wanted full frontal contact. Walking into the food area –you couldn’t call it a food court. Makuhari expo food offerings were one step above squatting on the street and cooking over a fire in a bucket. Unfailingly dismal. The Styrofoam bowls they dished up the slop in probably had more nutrition. There was, however, beer.
A sign board at the entrance stated boldly “One Hand Food”. Yes I did not misread it. ‘One Hand Food’. Given all the masturbation toys we had seen this seemed prophetic phrasing. Jake started to laugh and snapped several pictures.
“I have to ask you Jake, do guys like to eat and masturbate at the same time?”
“Bite your tongue Sacha!” He said in mock seriousness, “both are manly pursuits that take full concentration!”
With an ice coffee for me – I was driving — and beer for him we sat and ran through some of the moving and still images he had shot.
My feet hurt and after agreeing to meet later he skipped off to shoot thin girls in compromising positions at the Sex Chair booth. I could not understand the value of the sex chair unless you were of course handicapped in some way. Basically two bodies sat plugged into each other, you know what I mean, and the chair (it’s a two-seater) did all the humping, jiggling, and up and down movement that the human body could, I would have thought, accomplish on its own. My erotic buttons were obviously biological rather than digital because I thought it had the sex appeal of a dentist chair. No drilling jokes, okay?
Watching all the different sorts of men at the Expo was fun. A few more members of the foreign press had drifted in, large burly men in black T-shirts and backpacks who were probably covering the Expo for glossy magazines like ‘Monster Trucks and Jugs’ or ‘Spank Me Weekly’.
Two fellows sitting at the table next to mine were different. To someone like me from Silicon Valley they had a clearly defined IT look. Starched, pressed and pleated Khakis the both of them. I hate pleated Khakis. Don’t you just hate them, too? Men become mashed potato analog shapes in them and then wonder why they have trouble getting girls.
The guys – one brown haired, the other pale and shiny with his head shaved — were giggling and whispering to each other, glancing in my direction, obviously enjoying themselves.
“Now Boys,” I said moving, turning my chair to face their’s, “Did you bring enough mirth to share with the whole class?”
Taken aback but just for a moment one of them said “We like your bag.”
I was carrying a white and pink Victoria’s Secret’s tote bag from their signature ‘Pink’ line intending to pile all the pamphlets, DVDs and, currently, vaginal creams and condom giveaways from the vendors. Very un-naughty, it said ‘Think Pink’ alongside a picture of the Pink line’s doggy symbol. I was wearing my sleeveless cotton pink and white Courreges dress on this very hot day with white strappy sandals and I thought it coordinated nicely.
“And?” I queried.
They looked at each other, they must be around 25 or 27, which meant, if they were IT guys, their emotional age would be like 15 at the most.
“Do you know what a ‘pink’ is in Ireland?”
“You’re Irish?”
The brown haired one nodded.
“It’s a Dick,” I said
Shiny one flushed.
“Think Pink” I continued pointing to the large letters across the bag, “Is therefore very appropriate because I like to think about Dicks. Dicks are nice things. Though that is in direct contrast to Dick Heads, you understand. Dick Heads are not nice things and I do not like to think about them. You two,” I pointed at them, “are perhaps in danger of slipping on your Khaki clad bottoms towards the latter.”
There was a pause then the Irish one said, “So perhaps you could clarify next where it is you stand on giving head to Dicks?”
Cocking my head to one side as if considering the question I asked, “Who are not Dick Heads?”
“Yea.”
I laughed picked up my ice coffee and scooting the chair closer demanded to know who they were and what they were doing at the Porn convention.
Of course they were in IT. The Khaki Twins were here not with the Porn Convention but the Convention Center. Their firm specialized in securing corporate networks, particularly wireless networks against infiltration and the Center had hired their employer to add extra security online.
“Cool,” I said. “Do you guys work in the War Room back at HQ?”
Big security agencies had war rooms with giant digital maps tracking incidents – hacking, attacks — on the World Wide Web with whole phalanxes of sub screens in various sizes monitoring individual client sites. They looked like something out of the Pentagon. Back when WiFi began going mainstream I researched and wrote a number of articles about security issues.
“So why, besides the obvious, are you at the Porn Convention?”
“Looking for clients like,” said the Irish one. “We thought there might be more wireless stuff but it’s few and far between and besides the legitimate websites, if you pardon me for callin’ them that, have tied up with the major providers like NTT. Telecom’s have their own in-house network protection.”
“We did find one thing though,” the American looked for confirmation to his pal.
“Oh that!” said the Irish lad.
“Is it a telecom application that is not just a soft core porn photo site?”
“I think I could say that with absolutely no fear of contradiction it is something very different.”
Scooting back from the table I demanded, “Show me.”
And show me they did.
The MobibeQ, is a cell phone activated personal – very personal — vibrator. http://www.xenkyo-han.co.jp/pc_index.html
A cord snakes out from the flat hand-sized unit connecting it via the cell phone sound jack—just like headphones. The body slides next to your body, external, not internal. Incoming calls trigger the vibrator to start buzzing. It has no self activation switch, the vibrator supposedly only switches on when the Cell phone is in use. The company is pushing it, pardon the pun, as something .your boyfriend can call and give you a surprise anytime.
“It’s not so much the wackiness of cell phone masturbation I mean, Japanese are obsessed with their mobile phones, but its bulkiness!” I told my friends.
“Speak louder,” Steffi boomed from the bathroom. “I couldn’t hear the last part over the buzzing.”
The rest of us were on my king sized bed. I repeated what Lisa had missed. “The thing is the size of an old fashioned Tampax pad, you know the thick ones like our moms’ had? It’s a hard, unyielding plastic rectangle. The little raised um,” I searched for the right phrasing, enhancement tip? “The raised enhancement tip goes, presumably next to your clitoris still you would have to wear a girdle to keep it in place, you could not cross your legs. It would be like carrying a portable flashlight in your panties”
Imagine the scenario;
Gee Janie, why the long face?
Oｈ, Sara I can’t go on the picnic.
Gosh, is it your period?
No my boyfriend promised to call and I have this dang vibrator in my pants and can’t walk.
“Good God” said Lisa, stroking her now extraordinarily smooth arm, “they are trying to, I mean men, you know. Men are trying to get us to go back to waiting by the phone for them to call!.” She shook her head. “I mean really!”
“Bastards!” I shouted good naturedly, knowing she wouldn’t say it. Lisa never swore. She hardly even said a harsh word.
There was a cry from the bathroom
Jumping off the bed I rushed in, “What happened? Are you okay?”
Steffi was staring at herself in the mirror, one hand over her left eye, “My hand slipped, I was trying to do my eyebrows!”
“Oh god, are you okay, did you cut yourself?”
She pulled her hand down revealing half an eyebrow gone.
“Jeezus you’re not supposed to use it on eyebrows!”
We all started laughing Steffi loudest of all, “That is why God gave us eyebrow pencils!”
And we laughed harder.
“Sacha, Sacha!”
I heard someone shouting my name.
From my garden.
Whipping aside the sheer curtains I opened one of the wide windows to see: Tricia and Mutti, her baby in canine form standing down below.
“I’ve been ringing your doorbell!” She shouted up from the Hydrangeas drooping in the mid afternoon heat and humidity..
“Sorry, we were making too much noise.”
“No shit! What were you guys laughing about?”
“Cell phone-based self fulfillment.”
“What?”
“Wait, I’ll let you in.”
I padded down the stairs, through the living room contemplating tickle me telecom. I had to agree with Jake, a little masturbation is fine but innovations that pushed men and women farther apart rather than closer together was not something I could be sanguine about.
