"Feel-U-Feel-Me" Novel by Stewart and Rebecka Dickson

The ISEA exhibitions and Artist's Sketches demonstration sessions are being held in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Roman is there, making the rounds of the artists working there. He walks with Larry. "Larry," he says, "Why don't you show us your touch-pad? There are people at the Sketches room who can make a platform available for you."

Larry says, "Thank you. I wouldn't mind doing that. Theo wants me to get involved."

The technical support staff have interfaced Steve's tactile pad to a computer system. Larry is operating it. A small group of interested Conference Attendees have gathered.

Larry is speaking to Roman and the artists at the station, "This is very good as a Braille interface device. The ASCII characters from a Lynx Web Browser can be translated on-the-fly so that you can nearly have a tactile interface with a spatial sense -- like a more advanced Browser, such as Netscape."

Larry navigates the Internet to sites with which he is familiar -- mostly containing text and audio material. We can see screens containing mostly text.

Larry continues, "Also, the device is capable of some pretty good depth of representation. VRML objects can be resolved nearly in-the-round. This is particularly good for giving me access to Scientific Visualization in my work in High-Energy Particle Physics."

Larry now navigates to a site containing Scientific Visualizations. The tactile pad springs to life, showing beautiful, exotic forms from mathematics.

Roman gently interrupts, "Now, Larry, you told me you left one of these screens with Theo in Chicago."

"Yes, I did," Larry admits, "She has quite the multi-media installation at home."

Roman coaxes, gently, as always, "Why don't you call her?"

Larry says, "OK..." And on the computer, he calls Theodora. In half a minute, she has answered, and her face appears in an I-Talk window on the screen.

Theo says, "Hello?..." Then quickly is oriented in the situation, "Larry!"

"Hi, it's me," Larry says, "Surprise! You're on the air! Roman has set us up in an ISEA Artists' Sketch. Have you tried your tactile pad?"

Theo says, "Well, most of what's out there is pretty boring, If you don't know Braille."

"OK, then," Larry says, "Let's try the tele-tactile application Steve wrote."

They both initiate the program. On the desk in front of Larry, the Tele-Tactile pad gives a little jump.

Larrys hand touches the device, and again, blue-green swirls begin to creep out from his hand across the surface of the pad.

Theo has her hand on her own pad and reacts, her voice coming from the computer in front of Larry, "Ooh! There's your hand!" She laughs "Hi!"

Larry muses, "It's not cold and hard, it's warm and smooth."

Theo is making her own observations, "You can't really shake hands with this -- it's too flat."

Larry replies, "Steve has made a bigger one in which you COULD shake hands."

"Well, we can sure press fingers," Theo giggles, "Wait a second."

Through the computer screen, those watching the demonstration can see Theo lift her tactile pad and press her face into the device.

Larry is now touching an image of Theo's face in his pad.

Theo's voice is now emanating from the pad Larry is touching. She says, "I can feel your fingertips on my eyelids. It feels nice."

Larry's fingertips move down to her lips and she responds very sensually. She parts her lips and slightly extends her tongue....

The swirls of energy in the device have begun to change to orange.

More crowd has gathered, but neither Larry nor Theo are aware of it.

Gya Mon has arrived and is blending in with the crowd in the back. He is watching the exchange between Larry and Theo very carefully. The encounter becomes sensual to the point of eroticism and Gya Mon is becoming visibly aroused by what is happening. He blushes, and pats his brow with a corner of his robe.

Someone in the crowd giggles nervously.

Larry suddenly realizes where he is again and pulls back his hand.

Larry says nervously, "Um, I think that's all for now. Thank you."