I wriggle and shift in my uncomfortable metal seat, the cool steel beneath me stinging at my sensitive skin through the oddly soft and squishy bodysuit encasing me. I try to sit still, to simply wait for the doctor to return patiently. However, with each passing moment I feel the overly tight and clingy latex suit grow more and more uncomfortable.
The suit beneath me shimmers in the harsh lights blaring down from above me in the confined little office, glistening almost like oil as the suit itself ripples and jiggles with even the most subtle movements. The suit itself appears layered, the tight innards being protected by a soft and supple layer of what had been warm goo when I had first put the damned thing one. Slender segmented bands run up and down the arms and legs, the flexible strands of metal running perpendicular to the bands running around my waist the chest.
A small hood hangs behind me, a rubbery mask that lacks much more than a hole for a mouth to breathe through.
Shifting slightly in the seat I inch to the desk across from my, fetching my phone with no small amount of fumbling with my rapidly numbing fingers. I'm forced to open the phone with just facial recognition, my fingers failing to so much as register as toughing the screen let alone activating the fingerprint reader.
Using my nose to navigate the screen I shiver in place, my feet and fingers growing number and less responsive by the second as I quickly try to select the right app. With a slight pause it finally opens up, Partnerz, the damned dating app that had brought me into the Swap Clinic today. After a moment the screen finally opens up to the landing page, revealing countdown until I could swipe again and a grand total of zero new messages.
Sighing a little I watch as the screen darkens, a now familiar message popping up with a series of blurred out pictures alongside a blurred out profile.
LIMITED TIME OFFER
'It's not them, it's you'
Based on our testing of your profile you could be receiving dozens more likes and matches a day
As a SPECIAL ONE TIME ONLY OFFER for our favorite subscriber thanks to our favorite partner
The Swap Clinic
We are offering you a one-time only upgrade GUARANTEED to improve your profile and matches
[Accepted]
Partnerz was a dating up much like any other, swiping on pictures of person after person in the hopes of finally getting the sweet rush that accompanied each and every match. As with every other of these apps Partnerz needed a gimmick, something to stand out and to keep people engaged. While many sought to look inwards, asking information about the person themselves, Partnerz sought to gather information about what their users thought other people should be like.
Quizzes and questionnaires were built based on other users profiles, finding common phrases or hobbies before asking other users who they thought would be behind those terms and what their ideal would be. Gamer's being paired up with glasses, tattoos and piercings with alternative fashion, or lack of a college education with those in their late teens and early twenties. Before long, Partnerz had a veritable catalogue of disambiguated data, the only real use being guiding what sort of profiles their users saw and not much else.
Before long the app soon met the same issues as many of their competitors, an overabundance of particular categories of users all vying for the attention of a far smaller pool. They tried to remedy this with a premium subscription, improving visibility with 'higher quality' users and adjusting the algorithm to more accurately match people with their preferences. While the fees were eye watering, especially for men, the results largely spoke for themselves with the many adverts claiming that people were multiple times more likely to get a match simply via using the service.
Even without the subscription however Partnerz seemed to always have a decent amount of new users, a full range that kept people moving through the system who were approachable by those even without that benefit of an algorithmic boost.
This constant flow of matches was not however due to clever marketing or simply being the best of the dating apps. The constant supply of both high quality users and even some of the lower quality ones was largely thanks to a partnership the company had with the Swap Clinic, affording them the chance to tailor 'new stock' when there was a lull in new users.
Born from a chance encounter between executives of the two companies, the Swap Clinic was soon using the data collected along with the user engagement team at Partners to design bodies for use with the app. Profiles were identified as 'high quality' yet without a the right body behind it before being sent to the Swap Clinic for 'testing'. Before long they would have a mock up body designed, something to gauge user's reactions before finalizing a design as a part of the mounting questionnaires.
After finalizing a design and 'acquiring the assets' a member of Partnerz user engagement team would soon find themselves wearing that body in order to construct a profile full of real pictures in order to create a sense that this person has a rich and full existence despite only having existed in the minds of some designer until mere days beforehand.
Lastly, the body needed a new home and wearer. Picked from those subscribers whose profiles had been used as the base to design the body in question an offer would be put out, a vague and rather ambiguous in its promise to help improve their matches with just a simply trip to the Swap Clinic.
Paid for via the massive fees paid by subscribers and from the sale of whatever 'quality parts' they could find from the user, the user would soon find themselves locked in a body designed by the community they had once been a part of with likely at least some part of their new self partially picked out of a hope to match with that exact type of person.
Aging divorcees soon twisting into fit young emotionally available men, or cute and domestic young women.
Gross and sweaty weebs shifting into the bright and bubbly Japanese girls they had fantasized about.
However, not everyone was afforded a 'high quality' body. Some were simply offered an 'upgrade' in order to not only pad the numbers for non-subscribers but also to remove their 'type' from the the paid subscribers in order to try and balance the numbers. Cheap and simple, largely funded via the parts they can sell off, these resulted in more so average people in an effort to simply balance the genders on their app and to hopefully make some matches for the unpaid customers or force them into a paid subscription.
I had only been on the app for a month or two before getting that remarkable and intrusive pop up. Each morning had been the same, swipe through the new profiles before exhausting them with only a single match to show for it and with the first message being a fifty-fifty chance on receiving a reply at all.
Life-long Learner but between jobs
Lover of books, wine, and all things warm and cozy
I had tried to fit as much as I could within the restrictive character limit, straining to fit as much about myself as I could into the little block of text beneath the myriad of admittedly dull pictures.
I had even subscribed to the premium service, taking advantage of getting the first week free before being charged over fifty dollars for the privilege of seeing more attractive people who wanted little to do with me.
When the offer had come in I had let it sit for a while, at least until the count down timer started to get worryingly low. It had seemed too good to be true, though it made sense that more engagement with the app might cause more spending from everyone involved. My mind had turned to the simple things, removing the bags from under my eyes or removing a little bit of flab from here and there. Before long I had accepted the offer, my app essentially bricking itself as it refused to function beyond showing me the pop-up whenever I logged in.
In a matter of hours they had set up my appointment, a trip to a smaller branch of the Swap Clinic outside of town and away from prying eyes.
"Hello Mr Hughes!" chirps a cheery voice from behind me, the door wheezing open as the sound of rapid clicking footfalls race up to me. "I do apologize for the wait" the young woman coos softly, placing her hand on my shoulder. "The donor got caught in traffic it seems, but they're ready now."
Tilting my head I glance up at the short and extremely slender blonde in her early thirties, her petite frame given some semblance of height thanks to a set of tall heavily scuffed glossy black heels. Her platinum blonde locks are pulled back into a tight ponytail, revealing the delicate features adorning her lightly tan and somewhat sweaty face. Piercing icy blue eyes look over me with a moment of confusion, her gaze snapping to the mask as she smirks a little.
Reaching out she grabs the stretchy rubbery material and in a painfully quick motion she begisn to tug it over my head.
"H...Hey..." I cry out, my world going dark as I feel hairs get ripped from my scalp by the clingy material The sound of the blood rushing in my ears soon builds, partially blocking the muffled voice of the blonde beside me.
"Just a... little..." she grumbles, squeaking slightly as she manages to maneuver the mask over my chin and jaw before letting it go with a snap. It clings to my face, tightly contouring and compressing every inch of skin and hair I had. Wiggling my mouth I soon find the one hole, a loud gasp escaping my lips as I feel them become parted in a perfect 'O' shape.
"There we are..." the blonde mutters as she walks ahead of me and towards the desk. I listen as she sits down, the padded office chair huffing as she drops down into it. The sound clicking an clacking at a keyboard fill the room, the noise sharply ringing out over the squeaking of my own shuffling within the suit.
"Itsh cold..." I wheeze, finding myself unable to close my lips. "Ish there heat..."
"That's just the anesthetic sweetie" the blonde mutters back, cutting off my struggling sentence. "Shouldn't be long now before we can get started, would have been sooner if you had put on the suit properly but..." she explains, pausing as she finishes typing with a loud smack of the enter key.
Suddenly, I feel my legs and legs snap to the arms and legs of the chair. A low hum comes from beneath me, an electrical whine that seems to power something beyond my sight. I strain weakly against my apparently bindings, my wrists and elbows appearing downright glued to the metal frame beneath me while my ankles and knees follow suit.
"Just need to make sure you don't move to much" the blonde mumbles, her typing starting up again as I feel my head lurch back into the headrest of the chair. "Now... let's see what we have in store for you...
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