I decide to wait until the next morning before I speak to Jack. I think I have an idea about what’s causing his reticence, but I need a little time to gather my thoughts before I bring up the subject. We really are great friends and have known each other since the start of middle school. We don’t talk much about personal stuff, but I know that we can.

Luckily, I do have the excuse of telling him about my job to justify the call and plenty of time because that’s all sorted out for me already.

<Nexima, voice call Jack please.>

<Yes, Nick. Call connecting now.>

“Morning Nick, how’s it going?”

“Really well actually. Have you a few minutes for a chat?”

“Sure, I’m supposed to be looking for a job, but please interrupt me.”

“Going that bad?”

“No, but I can’t decide between two different ones. I’ll work it out. How about you?”

“Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“You still undecided?”

“No, I’ve applied to be a History Teacher and I’ve been accepted.”

“What? How? Where?”

“The Employment counsellor’s AI recommended it. I realized it was just what I would be happy doing. I applied to the middle school here in Ramsey and was accepted right away. I suspect multiple AIs talking to each other.”

“No, Nick. AIs don’t really do that. AIs are just tools, not our overlords. So, you get the next four weeks to do nothing, apart from hanging out with Peter?”

“Not quite, I have to start before school returns. Peter’s working most of the time and we still only really get Saturday to hang out.”

“And is everything going well between you two?”

“Yes, Jack, it really is. He’s caring and considerate and prepared to go as slow as I need.”

“How slow?”

“Well, we kiss a bit and cuddle a little too. I really do need time. It’s nice having a boyfriend though.”

“Oh, labelled then?”

“Yes. I like the sound of it.”

“Good. I’m happy for you, about Peter and the job. I’d like to meet him sometime.”

“Sure, you and Tasha…”

“Me and Tasha what?”

“I was going to say should come on a double date, but after speaking to Tasha yesterday, I’m not sure if I should say that or not.”

“What did she say?”

“Jack, you’re my friend. Tasha’s my best friend. She tells me pretty much everything. She told me you’re being a bit more distant. Can we talk about this?”

“Nick, of course we can. You always seem so perceptive. Perhaps you can see a solution to the problems we have.”

“Okay, this is going to get blunt and frank at times. I’m glad it’s a Nexima call and not out loud.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Well, Tasha told me that she wants to have sex with you. I’m assuming that you want the same thing, you really like her, don’t you?”

“I do. Really, I do. She’s wonderful and I think I might even be in love with her, but it’s complicated.”

“Hmm… Well, from some things that she said, and I realize that she shouldn’t have said them to me, I think I can guess what the problem is. Are you afraid that you might hurt her?”

“What, how do you know that?”

“Well, she might have been really excited and forgot that I’m a guy. Understandable, I am gay. She told me how big you are. You know, what a big cock you have.”

“Oh, I thought you already knew that. You’ve seen me naked hundreds of times in the soccer locker room.”

“Well, erm… relaxed size really isn’t an indicator. I thought maybe you were bigger than me, but is what she told me true?”

“I don’t know, what did she tell you. It’s fine, I’m not embarrassed talking about this with you. You’ve measured yours, right?”

“Oh Jack, I think every boy gets a ruler out at some point. I’m about 18cm.”

“See, that’s bigger than what everyone always says is average. I’m just under 26cm. It feels like a curse sometimes.”

“Oh, really. I thought you’d love having a big cock. It’s every boy’s fantasy, to have a few more centimetres.”

“It’s more trouble than you might think. When you get a spontaneous hard-on, you can tuck it away. For me it’s like hiding two cans of soda in my pants – impossible. And, yes, you’re basically right. I am worried that I’ll hurt her. I’ll be so turned on for my first time that I…”

“Yeah, I get it. But she’s seen you, touched you. Doesn’t she seem cool with it.”

“Yes. Only the first time was obviously a bit of a shock. She had nothing to compare me to, just that same old statistic about 15cm. But yeah, we’ve done stuff and she’s fine with it. She sucked me even.”

“Well, I didn’t want to know the details, but since we’re here now, was that good?”

“Yeah. She couldn’t take much of me into her mouth, but it was enough. Erm… I embarrassed myself though.”

“Oh, yeah. In her mouth?”

“Yeah, it was such an intense feeling that it just happened so fast; I couldn’t warn her. She was even cool about that though. Maybe it was what my fingers were doing at the time?”

“Okay, now we’re going too far. You need to talk about this with a straight friend.”

“Or not talk about it at all. Anyway, what should I do. I really don’t want to break up over this. I’ll never be able to have sex with anybody if I do that.”

“Well, why don’t you just talk to her. Not in the heat of the moment, calmly when there’s no pressure or arousal. Call her and talk to her. Tell her about your fears and then you can decide together. This is the most obvious advice in the history of advice, but I can’t suggest anything else.”

“Thank you, Nick. You’re absolutely right though. We just need to talk about it and take things steadily. You really are a great friend. To the both of us. You should be a therapist.”

“Call her now.”

“I will. Thank you.”

I think I’m beginning to see why the employment AI decided that I might make a good teacher. All my favourite teachers were really quite empathic. I worked best with the ones that were patient, understanding and as willing to listen as they were to talk.

Maybe this is what draws me to history. There’s so much depth to the subject and not just because there are thousands of years of it to explore. Understanding history requires you to get into the minds of the sources and see the world the way they might have seen it so long ago.

Slowly, I am beginning to learn that this is the same with people in the here and now. No matter how much help we receive from our Nexima implants, we still have to communicate with real people. To be able to do that effectively, I’m finding that I need to put myself in their shoes and see the problem from their side.

I can understand the appeal of the Nexima, people like to feel connected. But I’m not sure that it’s all that different from the earlier half of the century, when we hand to make do with hand-held communication devices and that seemed to mostly work out.

Well, except for the children. Now, we are forced to use desktop communications devices until we graduate from school and can get an implant. In the early decades of this century mobile devices were ubiquitous and parents bought them for their children for birthdays and Christmas. An entire generation of children, particularly in the richer countries, were lost in a haze of mindless games, fake friends and insipid social media. They spent more time communicating than thinking.

Online crime was rampant and the deviant minority were free to ply their trade in images and even people and children with virtual impunity. Deep recessions finally brought this profligacy to an end, as the cheap Chinese electronics flood turned into an expensive trickle.

Lessons were learned, sometimes in the hardest of fashions, and the mistakes of the lost generation were not repeated when the Nexima became widespread. This, of course was helped greatly by the fact that it simply couldn’t be safely implanted in the brain of a child, but unscrupulous people did try, often with horrific results.

It truly has been a century of try and fail. We tried many things and they often didn’t work out very well at all. Human resiliency, even in the face of crisis and adversity seems to have finally prevailed. We are not living in a utopian ideal, but most of the time the world works and is at peace.