Memories for Cash
This is for a writing challenge in a Telegram group I joined (link here if you're interested: https://t.me/joinchat/TXMB1RU1ETeKOakg)). At just over a thousand words, we would write a short story fitting a chosen theme. The new theme for this week is, "A world where memories can be traded as currency."
Anybody out there remember the video game "Remember Me", by Dontnod and Capcom? I immediately thought of that when this prompt came up but decided to go in a different direction because...let's face it, capitalism can make money off of anything. I hope you enjoy what I managed to write!
I walked up to the kiosk after waiting for what felt like hours. My legs were stiff. My tail felt sore from how it repeatedly curled in anticipation. The melancholic frown curving down my usually bright Labrador muzzle stayed permanent, even as the customer in front of me exited the M2Cash Transfer Center, allowing me access.
The door closed once I stepped inside. The sounds of perpetual rainfall, pedestrians, honking land traffic, and speeding drones were replaced by ambient silence. Not absolute quiet, but more like…the absence of loud noise. I imagined that those living in the countryside far beyond the megacities often heard such ambient bliss each day. Only dripping water on the floor from my poncho cut through the strange peace, followed by a robotic voice.
“Hello, and welcome to your local Memories-to-Cash Transfer Center Kiosk,” it reminded me. “To begin the process, please sit down on the chair, and select which memories you would like to trade for currency using specific words, phrases, stimuli, and subjects. You may proceed.”
I stared at the chair like I wanted to set it on fire. My generation did not grow up with these kiosks. They were introduced around the same time that I finished VR classes at the University of Western California. People talked about these devices like it was a dystopian joke: corporations using a person’s memories as the templates for A.I.-created commercials and ads. A struggling wolf father could visit one of these kiosks, then have unpleasant or useless memories be removed in exchange for actual money. The father could be given a half a year’s salary in exchange for letting the mega corporations use his own memories to create advertisements. It seemed like a fair trade. A few even sold their most explicit memories for higher prices, just so that holographic pornographic studios could save the costs of hiring actual actors. Most of them did so willingly, either to invest in their savings or to spread their brand around as freelance actors.
Me? I had no choice. Between losing my job to automation, my boyfriend’s restaurant was struggling to make ends meet, and most of our money going towards keeping the rent-controlled condo, we needed extra cash to spend. Like, we really, really needed it.
I sat down in the chair and waited for a user interface to pop up. Once it did, I made certain selections.
The process was strange. Rather than having me go through it from the beginning to the end, I witnessed sexual encounters from the end to the beginning, starting all the way from the previous time Alex and I did it. It happened a few days ago; we were back at the condo and had just finished doing the dishes. As I started drying a plate and muttering about how we needed to get a new automatic dishwashing unit, Alex sauntered up behind me to wrap his arms around my waist. He whispered something about a different kind of tool that needed polishing.
Next thing I knew, Alex was drying off the rest of the dishes with his pants and underwear around his ankles. I knelt between him and the sink, the tall otter’s tail thumping happily against our floor as I swallowed much of his shaft. The gag reflex barely registered. My lips kissed the base of his dick. I rolled my eyes and inhaled as much of his musky scent as a yearned for. I effortlessly drank as much of his spunk as I could without needing to cough. At least, until he pulled his flaccid cock out and pulled me up into another kiss. We’ve been excitedly sauntered to the bedroom, knowing that in a few days, I’d be forgetting our encounter.
“Hey, don’t be so sad about it,” he told me. “We’ll still be together once we get back. And we’ll get to do stuff like this again. Might as well make it memorable.”
Others similar moments of sex came and went in the blink of an eye; us doing it in my bedroom before our work shifts, Alex rimming me as I attended a VR University class (nobody suspected a thing), and the two of us having makeup sex after weeks of arguing. Boy, were there arguments! One of them had resulted in Alex feeling like he needed to stay in a cheap hotel room for a few days.
I visited one evening to try and mend things. Neither of us had noticed our muzzles were so close until our eyes fell in the mirror of the hotel room. I saw a Labrador and a slender otter so wound up about pointless differences that they didn’t realize how much they loved each other. Alex presumably saw the same thing, because he suddenly spoke in a soft and comforting voice, saying he was a terrible boyfriend. I disagreed, insisting that I was at fault for not considering his feelings about the future. After some talk, we both decided to no longer hide things. We’d be upfront and honest with each other.
“Agreed?” Alex asked.
I remembered nodding back. “Agreed.”
“Good, because I missed you,” he said.
We hungrily kissed, literally tore each other’s clothes off, then tumbled into his hotel room’s bed. Our raging boners slid against each other like leaky hoses, our arms fondling and molesting the other as our bruised lips traded oxygen for carnal lust. Our naked, sweating, musky bodies tumbled atop of the hovering mattress. I recalled cumming fiercely inside him, and then he came inside me. The two of us ended up being sore the next morning and could barely walk for a week. That doesn’t stop us from grinning like idiots as our relationship started anew.
The previous times we had sex before that night could be best described as mutual yet lacking in affection. Especially in the latter half, but not always. During one of our short vacations together, this time to a remote cabin somewhere in the heart of North America, we rekindled that romance for a week before the realities of adult life soured it. We spent the first two days doing nothing but fucking in our rustic bed. The only times we crawled out of the bedroom where to take a piss or craft a meal that wasn’t microwaved.
Other sessions came and went, disappearing from memory. Our sixth time doing it in a public park in a pitch-black area of forest. Our fifth and fourth time, doing it between shifts. Our third time was done at his apartment, a year or so before he decided to move in with me. Our second time, an impulsive moment, was done after we met up for instant coffee at a local café somewhere between our homes. And finally…our first time, occurring at a holographic concert in the city center on Halloween
I met Alex in the middle of a song. I wore a skimpy sailor’s uniform, and he dressed like an astronaut. Our eyes connected across the mosh pit. We danced and suede together before eventually drifting to a bathroom stall where the otter astronaut disrobed and bent over the toilet for me. He clenched tightly around my dick, moaning and squeaking as I thrusted inside him. I drooled all over his exposed neck. I relished how he clenched around my shaft. The minute my orgasm was drowned out by the shrieking music vibrating through the walls, I collapsed on top of him and kissed him as if we were lovers. We departed the bathroom stall together, but didn’t depart, striking up a conversation once the band decided to take a break. We ended up trading contact numbers before long.
Other sexual encounters entered my vision and then drained away. Random hookups on an app, a one-time blowjob from a bovine coworker questioning his sexuality, my first orgy with the football team back in high school, my very first time with a quick-firing neighbor when we both turned eighteen. What excellent memories. All of it drained away into an electronic server somewhere until finally, I emerged from the kiosk feeling like I had just taken an anti-hangover pill.
I returned it to my apartment an hour or so later. I recognized seeing Alex at the kitchen. He wore absolutely nothing. I triumphantly held up the check that would not only keep us afloat for the rest of the month, but for the rest of the year too. We exchanged relieved smiles. Our erections grew as I placed it down on the table and approached him. The excitement in my tail caused it to thrash in the air like a tree in a mega-hurricane. I smiled with newfound lust.
Alex chirped suggestively. “You ready to lose your virginity again?”
I whined needily, following him into the bedroom.
“Damn straight!”