Geri On developed and sleeps with a Companion(A large device which contains multiple mechanical arms, designed to be heated and pressed against various portions of the human body during sleep)
I wasn't interested in women or men. I went to dinner with friends and thought they were boring, spending the entire meal trying not to offend them. Companies put the most attractive and charming people into movies. I would see ten movies a month and none of the people in them I ever found myself attracted to or charmed by. Food was all the same to me. Anything more than bland taste and texture was simply a novelty.
I could rely on one thing only, companionship. I don't mean this in a sexual way, the way most do when they speak about a companion or life partner. I simply needed people near me at all times. I've never been attractive and never cared enough about myself to convince another human being to come home and sleep in the same bed as me. But at night the lack of companionship would destroy me. I'd wake up in the morning struggling to open my eyes, convinced that the only thing left to do with my life would be to walk straight into the traffic of the boulevard. Staring straight, moving straight, and walking until I'm hit. Maybe my eyes would be closed. I would then get out of bed, take a shower and forget about these things until the next morning.
I thought of dog owners. People who sleep with their dogs in their beds. People I would see out around the neighborhood, carrying on entire conversations with animals the size of a boot. This level of comfort seemed, at the time, to come from their own seclusion from other humans. If you keep yourself from the world long enough, the idea of a companion becomes so distorted in ones mind that even an animal or inanimate object could serve as a partner.
I met a man, around this time, who worked as a cashier at the grocery store nearest my house. He was very short, maybe five feet tall, had a very round body and large hands. I couldn't help but think about this mans body, what the sensation would be like sleeping next to him. Would it solve the anxiety I felt at night or as I woke in the morning?
Thinking about the cashier's body made me think about the bodies of other women and men. I thought about the appearance of the men my female friends slept with; husbands or boyfriends somewhat tall, fairly thin, with a moderate amount of body hair. It occurred to me that I could take home various men and women, see which ones presented the most pleasant experience.
Its surprising, at my age, even a few years ago, to discover how easily others can be talked into sleeping over. I reached out to my friends telling them I wanted to go out more on the weekends, have dinner with them at restaurants and bars. We would have dinner parties where coworkers and family members were invited over, strange men and women of all types.
I began with larger humans, first a woman who was considerably overweight. She was extremely shy. It was the middle of the summer when she came with me to my apartment and she simply produced too much heat. It felt vaguely like suffocation sleeping next to this woman. Though I did not wake with suicidal thoughts, I became convinced she was in love with me. My intention was never to harm anyone and I moved on.
Large men were the same, more inclined to feel and grab at the body during the night, which disturbed my sleep. Thin, tall, black skin, long hair, dark tans, stretch marks, protruding belly buttons, small penises, pale torsos with sun-burnt arms and legs. Each slightly different, though, I'd still never slept with anyone resembling the cashier from the grocery store. I took to visiting the market every day, often twice a day. I learned his name. Phil or Phillip.
One morning a coworker called for him to clean up a large spill in one of the aisles. A child had held open one of the coffee dispensers and a thick layer of ground coffee had spilled across the cream tiling. I happened to be standing there as it happened, watching the child spill the coffee. Watching as Phillip's small body bent over the grounds with a dust pan and brush. White underwear rode up from behind the black work pants of his uniform, his navy polo coming untucked as he leaned forward and rose back up. I imagined his body fitting inside my own, my arms wrapped around him like a pillow, the white underwear tickling my stomach, his penis warm against my own privates.
That night, before sleep, I filled a few aluminum water bottles with boiling water and stuck them into a large pillow. I'd purchased the pillow for a king sized bed I no longer owned and it had been hidden away in one of the hall closets for a year or so. I placed the three bottles in various parts of the pillow, imagining Phillips body. One of the bottles was positioned lengthwise within the pillow, intended to distribute heat to my body were I to grab it tight or roll onto it during the middle of the night. Another, smaller water bottle, was positioned where I imagined Phillip's crotch. This bottle provided a constant release of heat throughout the night, I would have to struggle to escape it during the night. The third bottle I wrapped within a towel and shoved into the top of the pillow case. My face would nestle against it.
This was the beginning of my Companion. My life has greatly improved, just as my Companion has improved over the last few years. I'm finding myself happy for the first time in what seems like a decade, no longer depending on others for some sort of comfort at night. I'm too busy now, improving my Companion.
