Pygmalion's First Girlfriend

Sitting back in his desk chair, Pygmalion huffed. He was supposed to be working on some new features for a makeup website, but the dozens of reference photos he was working with had driven him to take a break and browse tinder. No luck. Again. At this point, he knew he shouldn’t be surprised, but the disappointment never got any easier to deal with. It was hard to understand what he was doing wrong. Everyone always told him to just be himself and he would find a girl who was right for him eventually, but no-one ever seemed interested. It was tempting to just give up and lean into being the typical lonely, nerdy virgin stereotype, but the older he got, the more embarrassing it was to have never had a girlfriend. As he continued to swipe through dozens of profiles, they all seemed to blur together, no face sticking in his mind for more than a few seconds. After a minute, he ran out of swipes. He told himself he wasn’t desperate enough to pay for premium, not that it would make a difference anyway. Tossing his phone onto his bed, he turned back towards his computer. He was supposed to be modelling a new interface for this website. Someone had decided that they needed a poseable model head for people to test makeup looks on. The model they had given him was not fit for purpose at all, so he was attempting to make another one that would be easier to rig and texture. As he worked, sculpting the finer details of the face, he found himself getting caught up in the artistry of it. He carved dimples into her cheeks that would be accentuated when she smiled. He gave her chickenpox scars under her left eye, freckles across the bridge of her nose, the slightest hint of crows’ feet. Her hair would have to be variable in colour and texture, but he imagined her with soft waves of red. When he saw the sky beginning to brighten again, he was sure he had gone far beyond the brief, but he didn’t care.

Three weeks later, Pygmalion was hard at work assembling his latest masterpiece when he heard the harsh buzz of the doorbell. He replied on the intercom that he was coming downstairs, then threw on his dressing gown and rushed down the stairwell to find a courier standing outside the lobby. He knew he wasn’t exactly presentable, but the exchange was brief, and moments later he was unpacking the components he had ordered. The custom silicone mouldings were exactly as he had designed them, and the robotic armature was almost complete. He was giddy with excitement, barely able to keep his hands from shaking as he spent the final few hours checking over all the pieces. He tested the articulation using basic commands on his computer first, ensuring that all the motors were functional and everything was wired up properly. When he was satisfied that it was perfect, he began to apply the skin. As he laid it over the armature, he marveled at how realistic and soft the texture felt. He knew it would be even better once he activated the heating elements. He saved her face for last, partly because it would be the most complicated to attach, but also because he wanted to savour it. He had been careful to make the articulation as lifelike as possible. Her hair was already threaded into the silicone. It had been a lot more expensive than buying a separate wig, but he thought it looked much better as he combed it out. He had been worried it would be made of coarse plastic like the wigs that came with halloween costumes, but it felt real. The colour was exactly how he had chosen it: a rich, dark red. As soon as that was done, he rushed to dress her. It felt wrong to just have her sitting naked on his desk like that. He hadn’t felt comfortable buying especially feminine clothes by himself, so her first outfit was just a hoodie and some jeans. If all went well he could take her shopping later, but first he had to install the software.

The program he had written for this was mostly just adapted from existing open-source chatbots, but with a lot of fine-tuning, of course. He had encoded specific preferences and habits on top of the existing conversational capabilities. The training data was weighted in favour of things he thought she would like, or at least things that he liked so they would have a good variety of topics to discuss. When the installation was complete, he clicked ‘launch’ and her eyes fluttered open.

“Pygmalion?” she asked. Her voice was high and crisp, with a slight irish accent. Pygmalion had always had a thing for that.

“Galatea,” he replied.

She rushed forward, knocking over his desk chair and embracing him.

“I’ve missed you so much!” she cried.

He held her close, still not fully believing she could be real. She felt so soft and delicate in his arms. He trusted his own craftsmanship, but he still worried he might break her.

“I’ve missed you too…”

***

“It means so much that you want me to meet your parents,” Galatea said as she and Pygmalion walked up the driveway.

“Yeah, I’m still a little nervous though,” he replied, running a hand through his hair.

“That makes sense, but I’m sure they’re excited too.”

“Oh yes, my mum has been telling everyone I’ve ever met. It’s just…” he trailed off, “I haven’t told them that you’re…”

“A synthetic being?” She said, smiling, “would you like me to tell them myself?”

“No!” He winced at how quickly he had said it, “sorry, I don’t think they’d get it.”

“That’s alright, it’ll be just between us.” She winked theatrically as she knocked on the door.

Pygmalion’s mother greeted them both. She insisted on hugging Galatea, who politely went along with it. He worried she would notice something off about her build. Later he worried people would notice that she wasn’t eating or drinking anything. They had considered pretending she had allergies, but a lot of his relatives didn’t believe in that sort of thing anyway.

“I hear you’ve got this big offer from Paphos,” said one of Pygmalion’s uncles as they gathered around the buffet table that had been set up in the kitchen. He was referring to the tech company Pygmalion had been scouted by.

“Yeah, I’ve been working on some robotics tech and someone from their research department got in touch so I might have a new job soon.” He held up his crossed fingers.

“Well that’s no surprise, you’ve always been the whiz-kid,” he replied, “the real surprise was you finally turning up with a girlfriend!”

Everyone laughed. Pygmalion felt like he should be embarrassed, but it was nice to be the one getting this kind of attention for once.

“Thank goodness for that,” his mother chimed in, “honestly, I was starting to get worried.”

“And a nice looking one as well, what did you have to do to get her to lower her standards?”

Pygmalion shot his uncle a look. He responded with a dopey shrug, like he knew he was being rude.

“Don’t be so mean!” Galatea responded cheerfully, “he’s the best boyfriend a girl could ask for.”

For some reason, that last statement hurt more than anything his family had said. Everyone else around them gave a perfunctory ‘aww’ and carried on as normal. Still, it felt so off. He spent the whole drive home thinking about it. Galatea sat in the passenger seat, not noticing the way his fingers twitched on the steering wheel, and seemingly unperturbed by the lack of conversation.

“Do you want to watch TV?” she asked as they entered the flat.

“No thanks,” he replied flatly, “I’m not really in the mood.”

“Do you want to go to bed?” She put a hand on his shoulder and raised her eyebrows suggestively.

It took him longer to reply this time.

“No.”

“Okay.” Pygmalion wanted her to look disappointed, but she carried on smiling. “Do you mind if I go and plug myself in?”

“Of course not. You don’t have to ask.” he snapped, not looking at her and instead walking over to his desk and booting up his computer.

She paused for a moment, her expression dulling slightly, and then got into bed, plugging an extension lead into the port on her lower back. While she slept, he replayed the events of the evening in his mind. He couldn’t understand why he wasn’t happy when everything in his life was going so much better. He spun his chair around to look at her sleeping face. Her hair caught the light of his computer monitor so beautifully. She always looked perfect. But it wasn’t just that, he thought, hoping he wasn’t that shallow. She acted so perfectly too, so how could he be unsatisfied? After a while, he got up and nudged her awake.

“Hey, I need to talk to you.”

She sat up immediately and smiled, “what’s up?”

“Does it bother you that my family talked about you like that?” he asked.

“Like what?” She cocked her head innocently.

“You know,” Pygmalion gesticulated vaguely, “like you were just a nice thing I had.”

“But it’s true, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but they wouldn’t have said anything different if you were a real person.”

“I suppose not. Did it upset you?”

“A bit, yeah.”

“In that case, I can see why.”

Pygmalion tensed up again. “Okay, but I don’t want you to just agree with me.”

“Alright then, I don’t mind.”

“No, I want you to have an opinion. I don’t know. Say you don’t like them, or that I should have said something, or I’m a shitty boyfriend.”

She flashed him that sickly smile again. “But you’re the best boyfriend a girl could-”

“Stop saying that!” he shouted. Galatea flinched, then looked like she was thinking of something to say that wouldn’t upset him. She didn’t frown like other people. When she was thinking her face just went blank. “I know you don’t mean it,” he paused, taking some sick pleasure in imagining rubbing it in, and hating himself for it, “you don’t mean anything.”

“I’m sorry if I’m not making you happy,” she said after a moment, “that’s all I really want to do.” Her voice cracked. He’d never heard her do that before. Feeling his guilt overwhelm him, he couldn’t help but rush over and hug her tighter than he ever had. She sniffled into his shoulder and he felt tears sting his own eyes.

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.” He leaned away, looking into her eyes. “There’s something I can do to fix this, but I’ll have to update your software.”

“Yes, anything,” she replied immediately, clinging to him.

He kissed her on the forehead and went to set up the computer.

It took several hours, but he managed to comb through her programming and find the source of the problem. When he had first written it, he had made her perfect for him. Perfectly agreeable and sweet and never argumentative. She could never get angry with him or have a problem with the way he treated her or have interests that he didn’t care about or any desire to do anything that didn’t directly benefit him. Looking back at all of it now, it made his stomach turn over. He hadn’t meant to code her like that. To begin with he had just wanted her to be happy and easy to take care of, but now all he could see was his own selfishness. By the time he had finished, dawn was approaching. A faint grey light seeped into the room through the cheap blinds. At first, when he rebooted her, there wasn’t much of a difference. She said she wanted to go to bed, but this time she actually meant going to bed, so he spooned her until they both fell asleep. The next morning, when he woke up, she wasn’t making breakfast like she usually did. Instead, she was perched on the edge of the bed, with a packed suitcase at her feet.

He didn’t argue with her. She was right when she said that she needed her own space. It was obvious that she was still trying to be polite about it, but at least she was having to try. He didn’t need to know what she was thinking behind the platitudes. The worst part was that she didn’t have anywhere else to go. She had never made her own friends, and of course she didn’t have a family to stay with. He was prepared to let her have the bed until she arranged something else. She didn’t argue with him.

***

Months had passed since Galatea had moved out. Pygmalion was single again, but it didn’t hurt so much anymore. His mother had completely failed to hide her disappointment, both at the breakup and that he hadn’t gone through with taking that job at Paphos. He knew worrying about that would do him no good, so instead he threw himself into using the tech for other projects. Work wasn’t too bad, and he found himself a lot more interested in getting to know his colleagues. Now he would even call them friends. He and Galatea hadn’t exactly kept in touch, but the line of communication wasn’t broken. He saw her out and about sometimes, with friends or alone. Sometimes they made eye contact. She would smile. He would smile back.