"Once You've Had Mecha…"
by "Matrix Refugee"
Author's Note: Enough already! This is going too far! No more! No more! Quit! Stop! Cease! Desist! I mean it! (No, this is not me talking to a very ardent Joe, it's me talking to myself.)
Chapter 3
…You Won't Be Able to Quit (You Don't Want to, Either)!
What's the worst part of being an author of "A.I." fanfics, especially Joe fics?
Once you've read one, you can't stop reading 'em. Or writing 'em. You read all the Joe fictions there are (even the NC-17 ones. I'm usually a little leery of those even if I am overage: my fertile imagination does not need encouragement) and you go into withdrawal when you can't find more, which only encourages and inspires you to write more. It's a disease with me, but I couldn't be more happily infected.
I've found that the "A.I." crowd tends to be a kindler, gentler crowd than most fandoms I've dealt with. I tried hanging with the "Matrix" crowd, but my first effort, "Priorities", got some rather mean-spirited reviews. The "Touched by an Angel" flock can be at times a little too mushy for my tastes, and there isn't a heck of a lot of a fanfic following for "Law and Order", unfortunately.
I suppose there is no such thing as a "typical" fan of "A.I.", just as there really isn't a typical anything, but from the pattern I've seen from the folks who hang around on the "A.I." fanfiction mailing list (Hi, folks!), they seem to be a highly creative lot with at times sensitively cynical or cynically sensitive natures. They're often somewhat different from the "typical" quote-unquote normal people out there (who'd wanna be like them any way??), probably because the film has a lot to do with accepting your own differences. If I had to create "categories" of "A.I." fans, I'd have to class the majority as "David's Mommy (or Daddy) Wannabes" [Haley Joel fans] or "members of Joe's Coterie of Happy Customers" [Jude Law fans]. I have yet to determine which is the larger category; it's a little hard when you're in the thick of one class.
But I created the catchall phrase "Mecha-hugger" to define more precisely what we are; "'A.I' fan" has always struck me as being too bland, and for that matter, the "Star Trek" nuts have claimed the term "Trekkies", so what were we to call ourselves? "Mechies"? The film is really all about the saving power of love: family love, friendship, altruism, eros. David, Teddy and Joe each signify three of the different kinds of love C.S. Lewis defined in his book "The Four Loves" respectively: "Storge" (Love of the familiar and familial—"I just wanted Mommy to love me!"), "Philia" (friendship—"I'm sure you'll be good friends."), and Eros ('nuff said—"No two women are ever alike and after they've met me, no two women are ever the same!"). Even the Specialists, the super-evolved Mechas in the third act, discover "Agape" (charity) through discovering David. And the simplest gesture of love is the hug: I mean, who wouldn't want to give David a huge, comforting hug after Monica dumps him in the woods ("If you just love me, I'll be sooo real for you!")? And Teddy was built for nice little fuzzy hugs (I've never been too keen on teddy bears, but when Martin lugs the poor little fuzzball around by the ear, I wanted to whack Martin over the head and hug Teddy—"Are they torturing you, Teddy?"). And…and…and…ooh, we won't start about hugging Joe or one thing'll lead to another…("You deserve much better…you deserve…me.").
I've noticed Mecha-huggers tend toward a certain amount of sensitivity, not the mushy variety, but more of a sensitivity to suffering, which strikes me as delightfully odd. It is a Stanley Kubrick film, after all, and Kubrick was noted for his cerebralness. Spielberg really made this film his own that way, by injecting his sensitivity into the very fabric, the fiber of the story. As a for instance, Joe originally seems to have been intended to be a much nastier, more macho type; I ran across online what appears to be one of the early sketches for the storyboards of the Rouge City sequence: the original Joe looks a little too much like a tall version of Joel Grey as the saturnine Emcee in Cabaret for my tastes. Thanks for re-optimizing our silicon hottie, Steve, or it might have been unbearable for those of us who like their men (and Mechas) sensitive. I discussed this with "fom4life", who somewhat teasingly shot back, "Well, I guess you have to be sensitive if you're in love with an inanimate object."
"Ow."
This little jab stayed with me the rest of the week. It rankled there, just under my skin, still twinging me when Saturday night came, bringing my standing order.
I told him about the inanimate object remark. Joe listened with smoldering sympathy as he sat across form me on the foot of the bed, not the first time he's had to listen to some woman spilling her heart out, but this was one of the few times he'd heard anyone talk about suffering (however mildly) on account of him.
"So he deems my species inanimate objects?" he said coldly. He drew close to me and turned my face to his. "If that is so, then ask your friend if an inanimate object can do this?" he kissed me behind one ear. "Or this?" behind the other ear. "Ask him, and tell him that I said as much, to show me an inanimate object that can do…this?" on the mouth, wide open and leaning his weight against me until I tipped over across the mattress, half-smothered by his ardor, letting out stifled yelps of delight, objection and mirth, deep in my throat.
He released my face and started in on my neck.
"Hey, watch it! I'm not—ooh!—I'm not finished with the research," I objected.
"It seems milady doth protest too much," he countered, raising his lips far enough from my skin to speak. "What mean you by research? Is this not the research you sought?" all the while he gave me a look which by turns seemed to say, 'Are you daft, woman?' and 'I may be more intelligent than you.'
Maybe I was wrong about the sensitivity…
More shameless fantasizing to come…