I’d just arrived back from visiting my sister in Germany, a relaxing break to get over a grim marriage. As it turned out it was far from relaxing, but just what I needed. Now I am packing my bags and moving there for good. Yet it might all so easily never have happened.

It started out normally, walks in the woods, biking in the hills and the odd day’s skiing just across the border in Austria. Then one afternoon, driving back from an exciting trip to watch a reindeer, my brother in law, Mathew, suggested we visit an old friend of his not far from here. He’s a bit like that – impulsive, pragmatic, spur of the moment sort of chap, whereas I’m a bit … well, boring. Anyway, all I wanted to do was get back and curl up with a girly magazine for a bit of self-induced stimulation. Obviously I didn’t say that, probably more like “work on some differential equations,” something like that. Amazingly, as it turned out, the two weren’t as different as I thought.

You see, I’m a mathematician, and let me say before you turn to the lovely Janine on center-spread, a mathematician with a bent for solving real world problems. My real world problem at the moment is no sex, and it’s hurting. I even having feelings for the curvy bovine rumps gently ambling across the lush Bavarian hills. Also I’m getting on, I have no job, no house or money (courtesy of the aforesaid marriage) and, I am sorry to say, I have lost faith in the fair sex. For me, the fair sex has played anything but fair. But I’m not a vindictive sort of bloke, I don’t hold a grudge. Most blokes don’t. But I do need regular raw sex to function. Most blokes do.

Not encouraged evidently by my lukewarm response, he was about to drive on when he let slip that his friend was working on a new project involving sex dolls. Naturally, I tried not to show too keen an interest. What guy likes to admit he’s forced to hump an inflatable? Clearly, one not getting anything else, like me. Still, a trace of enthusiasm must have betrayed my otherwise insouciant air, because even stonking along at 120 kph he hardly batted an eyelid and pulled off sharply onto a large forecourt. I was expecting a tacky little lean-to at the back of a cow shed or something, so I was amazed to see neat lines of shiny BMW’s and Mercedes in front of a very smart, very new factory. Things were definitely on the up.

We went in and after a few minutes, a fit looking woman in a pristine white coat came marching over towards us. Now maybe it was the Bavarian sunshine, or maybe just my overtaxed imagination slipping into overdrive, but from the way things were wobbling and dancing around, together with a darkish triangle further down, I’d say this woman had very little on underneath.

“Ja. Guten Tag. Isch bin Frauline Doctor Helluva Gripp. I am sorry about this … “ a slim, bronzed hand slowly processed down the front of her body, attempting to impart a vague sense of undress. “You catch me on an important test. Would you like to watch?”

There’s no chance of an answer from me, my insides are already slush, so I’m hoping Mathew is made of sterner stuff.

“Is that convenient, Helga?”

“But Mathew, of course! So, Gretchen, she is well? And die Kleinestes?” she asks, taking his arm and strolling off with him like she’d just bought a new pair of shoes.

Meanwhile, I’m stuck in a pool of invisible tar, struggling with the precise definition of “you” in her invitation to watch. My legs are doing a very good impression of ice cream left in the sunshine. But it doesn’t matter. Already in just two minutes I have enough material for a year’s worth of heavy duty self abuse. All I want to do now is run back and get started.

Mathew and Helga are miles away, deep in conversation, when Helga calls commandingly over her shoulder “Come, David”. I almost do, but manage to haul myself off after them. She is flirting outrageously with Mathew, as only German girls can with happily married men. I hope my legs get sorted soon, because now I’m having trouble with my breathing.

We pass down the side a large spotless assembly hall, heaving with overhead gantries, robotic assemblers, test rigs and driverless platforms, all going ten to the dozen. Great stacks of expensive looking crates are gliding out the hall at the far end. Suddenly, twenty yards ahead there is an entire row of naked women writhing fiercely around, heads slung back gazing wistfully at a row of naked men. The men all sport eye-watering erections and are doing bone crunching pelvic thrusts on their backs while gazing calmly at the ceiling. By now my self esteem is in shreds. I don’t know which way to look. At least walking along behind Helga I could leer covertly at her rear, ferociously cranking down the pupils till my eyes focussed on a spot just beneath the smooth material of her lovely rump. The problem gets a lot worse when we abruptly turn down the aisle of writhing humanity. I’m quite fearful for my safety now, anxious to make the far end before the column of men start their spring offensive.

So I’m wondering where we’re going and there’s a dull sense of anticlimax kicking in. Probably, Helga will change back into her business clothes and we’ll sit around her office drinking coffee and talking production figures all afternoon. For it turns out our Frauline Doctor Helluva Gripp, who looks twenty three and spectacularly fit, actually is the boss. Depressingly, we do indeed file into her office, where she sweetly enquires of Peter, the tall blond beef steak operating the word processor, whether he would kindly like to make us all some fresh coffee. We promptly motor on.

“This is our research unit,” says Helga. “We launch a very exciting product next month.”

“The inflatable dolls out there?” Even as I said it, I knew I was in trouble. And it wasn’t just the sudden eerie silence or the strange squeaky noise coming out of my mouth.

“Technically, they are known as Personal Sleeping Partners, or more affectionately Huggys” she informed me, curtly. “They do not inflate and, in this country at least, we do not hide them under the mattress”. She stared intensely at me, sensing the big flashing arrow just above my head pointing to all my sordid little English secrets. An ominous dark hue crept up her lean muscled neck, while her nipples trained themselves on me like angry gun sights. Out the corner of my eye I saw my erstwhile ally Mathew, who’s six foot three and circuit trains four times a week, edging nervously towards the door.

“I just go to fetch the coffee” he offered treacherously, leaving me alone with the blood spitting tigress.

“David. You have much to learn about our Huggys. Perhaps you care to try some?” she suggested slyly.

The idea of performing in front of this sharp fanged little vampire and her feminist technokrauts, did not bear thinking about.

“Please do not feel the embarrassment if you cannot get up anymore,” she added bitchingly.

I wasn’t sure I could take much more of this. Suddenly from nowhere, I had an overwhelming urge to take this woman, run my fingers through her silken provocative crop and kiss her violently on her cruel lips. I staggered back under the shock of this image and collided with the water dispenser. Dazed by my conflicting emotions I decided the safest course was to ignore her. A fatal error.

“Come Schatz, this we do all the time here. I stay to help you.” A self satisfied smile played about her delightful lips. I was doomed, trapped like a insect pinned to her slab. Either way she’d exact humiliating revenge. Better to back down now completely than suffer her searing deconstruction of my technique. Somehow in the mêlée, her top button had slipped its moorings. Two alluring summits loomed enticingly over the horizon and quietly joined the debate. Three against one. I was still trying to think straight when the bell went.

“So then it is decided,” she snapped. “I go now for my next test. In the meantime, I send Peter with our best models.” And with that the vicious little vampire was gone. As was Mathew, the louse, who never did come back.

I slumped against the wall in exhausted relief at my miraculous escape, taking in great lungfulls of the cool reviving air. As my heart rate eased back below the two hundred mark, it slowly dawned on me I wasn’t out of the woods yet. I looked around anxiously for a bolt hole.

Just then, Peter, six foot six and built like an Olympic shit house, crashed in backwards through the double swing doors, carrying three seriously large crates piled high against his cavernous chest. It suddenly occurred to me there might be worse things than being eaten alive by a pack of snarling vixens. Eighteen stone of rippling Aryan muscle towering over me while I undressed and fumbled with my equipment, for one.

“I think you upset the Doctor,” were his first reassuring words. My eyes began to water.

As it turned out, Peter was a damn good egg, and we hit it off right from the start. He patiently described the fine quality of German engineering, the carefully crafted joints and tissue-like layers laid down in exact replication of Gray’s anatomy and thoughtfully warmed to body temperature. He made me close my eyes and run my fingers experimentally across the silky smooth skin, challenging me to tell it from the real thing. Where the real thing might suddenly appear from, I thought best not to enquire. He sensitively explained the correct use of the hygienic disposable attachments, how all the accessories worked and the best way to operate the equipment. I had to admit I was very impressed. He was patient and professional and I began to relax. Obviously the whole Helga nightmare was just some high powered sales pitch. Probably, even Mathew was taking a cut. Well, I would promise to buy one and make my escape. No need to disturb again the lovely Helga. But yes, please do pass on my thanks.

Suddenly, he glanced nervously at his watch. “Now please do not once again upset the Helga,” he said, and left abruptly, with what seemed unnecessary haste for such a big bloke.

Almost immediately the Helga appeared out of thin air behind me, causing me to jump violently and drop a box of detachable testicles. A large quivering penis leapt out and made a dash for freedom. It didn’t get far. A sudden blur of motion and the great escape was over, the fugitive pinned pathetically to the floor by the tip of her shiny black shoe. She looked thoughtfully into my eyes as she gently massaged the still quivering creature, then skewered it ruthlessly through with her heel. It quivered no more. For a fleeting instant I saw her left eyebrow crank up a millimetre. A faint sadistic smile brushed over her lips.

“So. Now wish to try our men?” she asked with professional detachment, as she handed back the remains. She had changed back into her old business clothes thank god. Smart black suit, short black skirt, black stockings, black patent high heels and the sheerest white blouse. You know, the kind of kit any woman wears when explaining new technology. All the same, it sounded like a trick question.

“It all seems very impressive Helga” I said, keeping my answers bland and simple.

“Pah! Quasch! How you say … they are old hats now! The Huggys are very good, yes? We have months of backorders. But now we do something much better! Something very big. Something that changes the world. It will, how you English say … blow your cocks off!”

I was hoping she meant socks, but lacked the courage to press her. Besides, the whirling dervish had scooped up the fleeing testicles and was shooing me through another door like an errant schoolboy, viciously elbowing a large red button on the way. As she marched me in, a big angry sign with flashing red lights started up. Achtung! Privat! Kein Eingang! A cold sweat broke over my face as I heard the doors hiss shut and pneumatically lock behind us.

“Perhaps Mathew will come soon with the coffee?” I enquired, nodding thoughtfully at the bomb proof doors.

“Nein, mein Schatz. Mathew has gone home. Everyone has gone home! I am not a slave master!”

Her attempt at humour at this point seemed misplaced and the reference to slavery began to unnerve me. The laboratory was unusually warm and sweat was running down my face, starting to sting my eyes. Technically, I don’t think I was crying, but it was a sufficient display of weakness for the velociraptor to pounce.

“But, David, you are crying!” she snarled, slamming down the boxes and bounding murderously over towards me. I half expected her to slap me with contempt. I may even have flinched a little as her hand came up. Instead she curled her arms round my neck and gently kissed me, whispering sweet German somethings in my ear. And then of course, I did start crying, buckets of the stuff welling up with years of pain and frustration. She let me cry for a bit, then shut me up with a lung-collapsing kiss on my lips. I don’t know how long her offensive lasted. I’d like to think I was still hanging in there towards the end, kissing her back to some degree, but I’m not sure she noticed. When she finished she put me down and carried on unpacking. But I was a changed man. I would do anything for her. She had enslaved me with a single kiss. I began to wonder about Peter and all the other big blokes I’d seen walking round the place looking for something to do.

I listened while she explained her vision of internet Huggys. How all the technology was in place, had been for years, most of it. Proximity-pressure sensors, motion analysers, synthetic contractile muscle, powered limbs with feedback control, servo-slave actuators, voice control systems, low profile virtual reality visuals, ultra-broadband internet streaming. Now, she had put it all together, right here in rural Germany. Nobody else had dared. The Japanese were too imitative, the Americans too prudish, the British too proud. Internet mating would emancipate men, empower women and the solve the world’s population crisis at a stroke. She was going to change the world. Vague, disturbing images of cheering crowds and draped balconies drifted through my mind.

“You see, David? You need to be a woman in this world!”

I didn’t really see, and her offer to change my gender was ominous. It had all been so different a moment ago when she kissed me. But I just stood there drowning in her conviction, helplessly owned and knowing beyond a shadow of doubt she would do it. And I would be there serving under her, if she didn’t kill me first.

“So how does it all work?” I asked brightly, trying on some of her oozing confidence, but actually not knowing what else to say. She showed me. Simply, honestly, and without a trace of embarrassment.

She undressed right down to her little black knickers, tossing her clothes onto the table. I was relieved to see she kept something on, as my concentration was already wavering. She whipped back the covers and sat on the edge of the bed. “Come, Schatz. Strip off and I show you,” tapping a spot impossibly close beside her. It wasn’t at all what I meant but I obeyed more or less, after an awkward moment with a stroppy shirt sleeve. A sudden panic seized me as I wrestled with the delicate issue of my Y-fronts. The problem was solved by the discovery there weren’t any. Another casualty of my declining fortunes.

Brazenly, I stripped off completely and sat down beside to her. A vague sense of anticlimax flicked across her beautiful tanned features as her gaze fell with professional detachment on the spot between my legs. I tried to relax, wondering what might come next. Under normal circumstances, I’d like to think it was me. And on a really good day, my partner. But nothing today was normal, and things were getting less normal by the minute. If Helga hadn’t have been there, virtually naked herself, I don’t think I could have gone through with this. The thought that she was happy to undress and show solidarity as it were, boosted my morale immensely. Unfortunately, it also boosted the blood supply between my legs, causing me to sit awkwardly. I checked the eyebrow. Nothing. She busied herself with the equipment again, evidently concluding she had overestimated on some critical factor. Absently, my gaze fell on the naked Huggy, thankfully female, sprawling suggestively down the middle of the bed and wondered how it might feature in the experiment. I didn’t have to wonder long.

“Put this on,” she said, handing me a glove. At least, I’m hoping it was a glove. I slipped the gossamer object over my right hand.

“What is it?” I asked, with academic air.

“A glove,” she answered.

I checked sharply for the slightest hint of irony. Nothing. Life with Helga would certainly be a pretty surreal affair. I decided there and then never to marry such a woman. She leaned over and connected a small flying lead to the glove. One of her breasts brushed the tip of my erection, causing it to bob inanely from side to side.

“They’re completely wireless on the production models” she added mysteriously, peering closely at my erection. Right there and then I decided to marry her.

“Please now squeeze the breast,” she ordered. I did so, hoping I’d chosen the correct one. It was a heavenly feeling but I still wasn’t really getting the hang of things and Helga’s explanations had more or less petered out. Presumably now, she thought the rest was obvious. I decided on another confidence boost and gazed longingly into her eyes while I squeezed on. She smiled at me. My mouth edged closer to hers.

“Keep the squeezing please!” she snapped.

Well, if that’s what it took, I could keep this up all night. Realising I might have to, I glanced around for some light entertainment ahead of the next scheduled event. Absently, I followed Helga’s detached gaze across the room. On the far side was another bed, this time with a giant male Huggy flat on his back making eyes at the ceiling. To my amazement, he was squeezing something in his right hand. It seemed an odd thing for him to do, even in this place. The shock caused me to forget God’s gift in the palm of my own hand. Surprisingly, he stopped squeezing too, as if caught red handed amusing himself. I looked at Helga who smiled at me, nodding down impatiently at her breast. My hand started up again. So did his.

It was definitely impressive, but I was already too distracted. The evening was not going the way I imagined, but I squeezed doggedly on. Fritz would have to find a breast of his own to squeeze. I cupped my hand under Helga’s lovely tit, judiciously sensing its firm bobbing weight in my palm sending thrills through my body. I ran my finger over her mouth-watering nipple. I leant down and sucked it, rolling my tongue slowly around its hard central peak. I can’t speak for Fritz, but all this testing was sending me into orbit. I was still sucking when it vanished, its owner at the table unwrapping another package. I sat up sheepishly.

“Put this on,” she said, dangling a pair of ladies’ briefs made from the same sort of gossamer material. I didn’t ask why. The spirit of scientific enquiry was rapidly fading. Instead my body was a maelstrom of throbbing tension. She threw a paddy when I got the pants on back to front, making me take them off again. This time she put them on me herself, yanking down my rigidity with a churlish force and drilling it through an invisible opening. Then she curled one of her talons back through and hauled out my testicles. I stood there feeling like I’d been in a fight. My pole was flagging under her onslaught, slumping barely to horizontal now. I looked at her hopefully, though with little hope of explanation.

“They are not for you. They are for me,” she informed curiously. “But you should put them on before you make the erection.” They contain proximity-pressure sensors, just like the glove. She fitted me with another cable, plugging it in with a loud snap worryingly close to my rear exit.

I looked down at my long-tormented penis. It was wilting fast, the novel idea of harnessing science to seek gainful employment after years on the dole, now a shattered dream.

“Now Schatz. It is time to see what you can do.” She motioned me up onto the doll. “Remember to peel off the hygienic foil!”

“Oh Quatsch! Scheisse! Verdammt noch mal!”

I froze rigid under her verbal assaults, my left foot hovering timidly a few inches above the bed. She was bent stiffly at the waist, arms out rigid, minutely inspecting my tired pole and its attempt to locate Australia.

“Never mind. We have the technology! Her name is Kristall. Up schnell!”

I jerked back into action once more and was directed to kneel astride the impressive Kristall. Meanwhile Helga whirled around behind me, connecting me up. None of which helped in the least with my personal hydraulics. After powering up everything else, she returned to inspect my drive shaft.

“So!” she snorted, bounding up behind me. I was expecting a little light suggestive fondling, when an iron hand rammed up between my thighs on the blind side. At least, I think was her hand, it was quite difficult to say for certain, my neck being bent double in shock at the time. Whatever it was, it clamped around my tackle like a giant squid coming up from the deep and with a grip that could uproot an oak tree. And whatever it did seemed to involve two hundred pneumatically powered suckers. It made short work of my sulking susan.

With the experiment now back on the rails and a final downward tug for maximum compression, she forced me down onto the ever patient Kristall, nimbly whipping off her foil at the last moment and slotting me in before I got the strops again. A searing slap on my rump indicated I should light the fires and not let them go out. She jumped down and started tapping feverishly at her keyboard.

“Good David. Now I get things going.”