As Shawnetta Jones rounded the hallway leading to her apartment, she saw, covering her welcome mat, the plain brown carton containing her White Man. She walked around the package, which was the size of a washing machine. I can’t believe it’s really here. Going to be a bitch getting him inside. Naturally Nordic Industries was stamped on one side of a box that was slightly darker than her skin. She waived her signature upon delivery because no one in her building would try to steal so heavy an item. Besides, there was little foot traffic outside her door.
Shawnetta slid her key in the lock and turned the knob. Pushing her purse up on her arm, she rocked the carton from side to side as she pulled it across the door sill. It’s actually not that heavy. Hollow squishy sounds met her ears. It was like dragging a sedated child over the threshold. She closed the door, pausing in the foyer to listen. Overhead, her neighbor’s bulldog scampered across the floor, nails clicking on the wood. In the kitchen, the refrigerator crackled as it made ice. The carton was still. She was anxious to open the package, but afraid of what she would unleash not only in her one bedroom apartment, but in her life. But the White Man wasn’t a threat. The sales rep at Naturally Nordic Industries had boasted that their clones were “100 percent docile and loving. They do whatever you want them to. Just give the order.”
Well, I have six months to find out. Shawnetta stepped out of her heels near the back of the leather couch and dropped her purse on a cushion. Once in the kitchen, she retrieved a pair of shears from the wooden storage block by the stove. She returned to the box and sliced the clear sealing tape with one quick motion. As she peeled back the flaps, an odor like rubbing alcohol and burnt eggs escaped from the opening, not the wet fur smell she had anticipated. Her order slip was placed face down on a mound of bubble wrap, and she was tempted to squeeze the air-filled ovals that resembled a mosaic of transparent eyes. Instead, she read her receipt:
Qty: 1 Naturally Nordic Adult Male Companion
Features: Blond hair, blue eyes. 75 inches. Chin cleft. Small scar on neck. Hair and skin are self-cleaning. DO NOT submerge in water!
Name: Answers to Rapsilico. If customer reprograms to different name, please restore to default upon return to NNI.
Rental charge: $3,350. Prepaid. Customer billed $100 late fee each day Companion is held past return date.
Although Shawnetta couldn’t see the clone’s face, she felt giddy. All that was visible through the plastic wrap was downy yellow hair. But he was hers. Her very own White Man. A companion to play with for the next six months. I can’t lift him out. Should have turned the box on the side before I opened it. She grabbed one of the flaps and tugged. The box fell to the floor with a dull thud. The bubble wrap popped as she hauled the sleeping form out of its resting place and across the hardwood flooring. She severed the plastic covering with the open blade, and the body sighed as she removed the wrapping. The Man lay on his side, knees pressed against his chest. He was barefoot, clad only in jeans. His hands were tied in front of his legs with a black ribbon.
Probably to prevent too much shifting during delivery. Shawnetta knelt before the clone and untied the ribbon. One hand fell free, the hairless knuckles brushing her leg. She was about to toss the band in the trash but thought she’d need it to tie his hands again when she shipped him back, so she tucked it in the pocket of her cardigan. She stretched the White Man out to his full length, wiping her hand on the leg of her pants when she was finished. It would take some time getting used to the feel of his skin. The flesh was life-like, but warm and greasy, as if they’d oiled him up with Vaseline and left him to bake in the sun for a few hours before packaging. Now he lay facing the ceiling. His milky blue eyes were open. That was one quirk in the duplication process, the NNI sales rep explained. The clone didn’t blink. “Makes him seem all the more human that way,” the man on the phone said. “Just think of it like this: you’ll always be the object of his gaze.”
Her White Man – Rapsilico – seemed as real as she did, and part of her expected the thin lips to part as he
poked out his tongue or spit in her face. But his mouth was still. He had arched light-brown eyebrows, separated by a few stray hairs. His nose was thin and slightly tilted to the right, as if a jealous sculptor had given it a final twist. His hair was of medium length, flattened by the bubble wrap. She reached out to fluff the golden locks, but paused midway to his head. She had never touched a white man’s hair before. Had never dated or been intimate with anyone but black men. Had never desired to. Now she stared down at the supine figure who would be her boyfriend for the next six months. She blushed, staring at his muscular chest and rippling abs.
“Why you want to rent a cracker?” Claudine asked a month ago when Shawnetta told her of the ad for NNI. They sat on the outdoor patio of a raw foods restaurant in Santa Monica. Shawnetta bit into a piece of flax seed bread laden with nut cheese and chewed slowly before answering. It was a hassle just getting Claudine to dine with her. Her friend was strictly steak and potatoes and turned up her nose at what she called “white people’s food.” But Shawnetta had to tell someone of her intentions. She hadn’t made many friends since moving to L.A. from Columbia, Maryland five years prior, and the woman sitting across from her with the fuchsia dreadlocks was the one she confided in most.
“Every time I go to dinner, or the movies or the museum, it’s with you, or I’m by myself,” Shawnetta said. “I’m tired of being alone. Let’s just say I’m investing in male companionship.”
“But why a cracker?” Claudine frowned at the vegetable wrap placed before her by a skinny redhead.
Shawnetta kept her eyes on her plate, hoping the server had not heard the slur. Claudine was the kind of black woman who said “nigga” in mixed company, who asked her white coworkers at the insurance company why their hair smelled like mayonnaise. She had about as much couth as the rolled-up veggie-filled collard green she was sniffing suspiciously, but Shawnetta loved her because she always spoke her mind.
"Me and black men are officially over. Done,” Shawnetta said. “They don’t look at me. They don’t like me. Fine. I’m thirty-one, and I’m not getting any younger. I don’t have time to sit around in my apartment waiting for Hakeem or Jamal to decide I’m worthy of their attention.”
As she spoke, a blonde woman in a convertible slowed for the stoplight, hip-hop blaring. She wore shades and a wide smile, and she said something to the black man sitting next to her. Shawnetta looked away. She always acted as if she never saw such couples, would stare at the sky or the ground if they walked toward her, as if the act of turning her head somehow caused them to disappear. She dreaded venturing to Santa Monica or Culver City because of the large number of black male/white female pairings. It was one of the reasons she fled Columbia, Maryland, which was an interracial Disneyland. It would be different if sisters dated outside our race as much as brothers do, to even things up. She sipped her carrot juice cocktail. But she passed so many single black women in L.A, their ring fingers as empty as their eyes.
"Oh, I see what’s up.” Claudine watched the couple in the convertible drive off. She was a cherry-brown woman with a smattering of black moles on her cheeks that she called freckles. “Trying to get even with Becky.”
“I’m not trying to get even with anyone. I’m just keeping my options open.”
“With a robot? And a white one at that.” The mother and daughter at the adjacent table glanced over at her loud chuckle.
"The NNI models are not robots, Claudine. They’re life-like Adult Companions. You’ve probably seen them around and didn’t know it,” Shawnetta said. “One hundred percent docile and loving – guaranteed.”
Claudine played with a lock of hot pink hair, amusement shining in her eyes. “If you wanna hook up with a
brain-dead somebody who gives you compliments, I can introduce you to a few Negros at the post office around the corner from my place,” she said. “They love redbones with hazel eyes like you.”
Now Shawnetta leaned over the White Man, recalling her friend’s words. She hadn’t been truthful with
Claudine. She selected the clone solely on the basis of his white skin. While skimming black women empowerment websites, she found the advertisement for Naturally Nordic Industries. The ad featured a dark-skinned woman with an afro smiling into the face of a pale suitor. It read: “Still Looking for Mr. Right? Let a Naturally Nordic Companion Sweep You off Your Feet until Your White Knight Comes Along!”
Mr. White Now.
Her face was a few inches from the clone’s, as if she would awaken him from his dreamless coma with a kiss. Instead, she whispered into his ear: “Rapsilico.”
The White Man sprang to life, yanked upright by an invisible cord. He stared straight ahead. Shawnetta fell
back with a cry, hitting her head against the couch. The clone turned at the sound, and she glimpsed the scar on his neck.
“I’m your new owner,” Shawnetta said when she finally found her voice. She stood and backed toward the door, just in case she needed to run...
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