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rezingrave · 2 months ago

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The Love Machine (1920) by Charles S. Wolfe

Hi I'm Rez. I like mind control. I like weird old stories. Sometimes in my travels I encounter things that encompass both. Here's my little attempt to preserve some forgotten history.

And when it does you see the conventions hurled ruthlessly aside, and every man-made barrier scaled, be it as high as the mountains or as broad as the sea. Let me get the coldest, most haughty beauty of the upper class into this chair, and I can force her to lavish every attention on the dirtiest ash man you can find in the city.

"The Love Machine" is a bizarre little story about a millionaire who pays a mad scientist to put his floozy chorus girl gf into a machine that will turn her into an obedient and domesticated wife.

While most stories would take such a premise to say that, perhaps, love cannot be reduced to mere electrical signals, or that it is, in fact, bad to brainwash your girlfriend and make her love you by force, Wolfe comes out boldly and bravely to assert that love is just a four letter word, and the only thing worse than mind control is divorce.

Since its short, obscure, and public domain, I've put the full thing (typos and all) under the cut for you to decide what the fuck this guy was on about, along with some more of my thoughts and brief historical context. Content warning for some rancid genteel misogyny.

The Love Machine by Charles S. Wolfe

Fennimore ript out a surprised oath, and hurled the morning paper to the floor with such vehemence that the sad faced man who stood patiently behind his chair involuntarily bounded backwards a foot or two. Such outbreaks on his master's part were unusual.

Muttering unintelligibly, Fennimore addresst himself to his coffee and rolls vigorously. This farce lasted only a few minutes, however, for the young man was past the eating stage. In spite of himself he soon gave over, reluctantly picking up the paper and turning again to the advertisement that had engendered the outburst.

He found the "Personal" column again, and located the offending ad. He read and re-read it, carefully, moodily.

"I offer my personal services to any person who finds his or her love unrequited. Success of your suit is certain if I handle it. George Parsons, 1938 M – – Street."

The word stared mockingly up at him from the printed sheet. For be it known that Fennimore, scion of wealth, accustomed to having his desires speedily realized, no matter what bizarre turn they took, was head over heels in love. Very unfortunately, the object of his affections could not, by any stretch of the imagination, he said to be in the same condition.

Fennimore, paper in hand, rose slowly to his feet, leaving his neglected breakfast to the care of the servant.

"His personal services, eh?" he muttered, "Well, we'll see what they amount to."

So it was that a half hour later, while his chauffeur loafed in the car outside Fennimore sat in conversation with George Parsons and the M street house.

Parsons, a jovial faced, middle aged man of short stature, honestly privilege to prefix his name with "Professor" and suffixt with Heaven knows how many formidable combinations of letters, leaned back in his chair and regarded his fidgeting visitor genially.

"So you are in love?" he mused. Fennimore glared without replying, a fact which disturbed the placid professor not a jot.

"Does the lady not give you no encouragement whatsoever? Have you made no progress all on your own hook?

Fennimore's fists clenched and unclenched in the violence of his rage. Just enough to keep me hanging around the stage door like the rest the fools in this town," he flung out bitterly, "I'd give a million dollars to see one symptom of real affection in her whole body."

Parson looked pleased. "Oh, we won't be that steep," he said, assuringly. "Ten thousand will see you out easily."

If looks could kill, Parson's hour had struck then and there. "You're damned mercenary about it," snarled Fennimore, "That detail could've waited 'till later."

"Just enough to keep me coming thru with the supper parties after the show.

Parsons was quite unmoved. "It is best that we understand this part of the matter right from the start," he demurred, firmly, "I'm a scientist, young man, but I am not wedded to my studies. The Almighty Dollar is no revolting spectacle to me."

"And what do you propose to do to earn this sum?" Challenged Fennimore, sulkily.

"I propose to make this — er— actress of yours the most docile, obedient, adorable and loving young bride that you ever laid eyes on."

"Easily said," jeered the wrathful millionaire.

"Easier done," retorted Parsons, promptly.

"May I ask how you propose to accomplish this miracle?" queried Fennimore, sarcastically.

"I am not telling you what I expect to do, young man," rejoined Parsons, "I am telling you what I'm going to do. There is no question whether I am able to get the results I advertise. I know I can. I have the necessary apparatus and the knowledge required to use it."

"Apparatus?" gasped the startled lover, "do you use machinery?"

"Most certainly," snapt the professor, somewhat nettled, "Did you have an idea that I charmed them with the flute?"

Fennimore ignored the thrust. "When can we begin on the system of yours?" he queried, uncertainly, for the whole thing seemed quite unreal to this lad who had never been accustomed to think of love in terms of ergs or calories.

"We can begin and end just as soon as you can get the object of your affections into my laboratory for a period of two hours."

"Great Scott," gasped Fennimore, "Does one treatment suffice?"

"It does," Parsons replied grimly "Quite."

"Do you guarantee a permanent —er — cure?" Fennimore demanded, determined to go through with the business, bizarre as it looked.

"I do not," chuckled Parsons, "But I do guarantee it to last long enough to get you past the minister and back from Europe. Say two years. Then if you have any trouble, bring her around for another treatment."

"How am I to get her into your laboratory?" asked Fennimore, satisfied.

"Great Heavens, man," Parsons was exasperated, "If you haven't enough native wit for that task I don't wonder that you have been tagging around without getting anywhere.'

"I can't drag her in by the hair of the head, you know," Fennimore interpolated hastily, "It isn't being done at all."

"No, I suppose not," the professor sighed, sarcastically, "And what a pity the fine pointed needle is a taboo, too. Well, I suppose I must plan a course of action for you. Convince our young friend that she isn't looking as well as she has been. Tell her you have heard of some wonderful electric treatments that are getting remarkable results. Tell her that all your wealthy friends are having them. That's the bait she'll raise to. And then offer to pay for a course for her. I think that'll bring her here. Once inside my laboratory, I'll answer for all the rest."

Fennimore arose. "All right, Parsons," he said, "We'll try it. I'll telephone you as soon as I get a definitive decision from Violetta." Parsons smiled quaintly after the departing car. "Before that two year period expires, son," he soliloquised, "You'll be begging me for the antidote."

It took Fennimore a week to convince Violetta that she needed toning up. Finally, attracted by the price that the young millionaire would have to pay for her treatments, the fickle young beauty consented, agreeing to place herself in Parson's hands.

When the last curtain fell one evening she hastened to her dressing room and made ready for her first visit to the professor's laboratory. The impatient Fennimore was waiting for her with his big limousine, into which he piloted her as soon as she emerged from the stage door alley. Half an hour later she was shaking hands with Parsons.

"Rotten of us," she drawled, languidly, as the scientist dropt her limp hand, "Rotten of us to keep you working at this hour. But I just can't get up in the mornings. Habit I formed out in the sticks making night jumps. Nothing really the matter with me, is there, Doc?"

"Haven't had a chance to examine you yet, young lady, but off hand I should say there were several things the matter with you," said Parsons, dryly, as he led the way into his laboratory.

Fennimore shot him a sharp look, started to speak, then changed his mind. The girl, who had not caught the hidden meaning of the scientist’s remark, rattled on, waxing doubly garrulous as she caught sight of the formidable arraty of electrical apparatus and switchboards in the sanctum. Had either she or Fennimore been versed in such matters they would have been able to identify several familiar pieces of high frequency apparatus, the brass stripped oscillation transformers and burnished Leyden jars being quite conspicuous in the array.

Parsons wasted no time in useless preliminaries. “You first, Fennimore.” he said, curtly.

“I,” objected the amazed millionaire, “I'm not here for treatment.”

“Heavens, man,” interposed the professor, testily, “Don’t question my methods. I must have your rate.”

Fennimore’s teeth snapt shut on his unspoken retort, and submissively he took in each hand the peculiar metal electrodes the scientist proferred. He was finding Parsons a different man in the laboratory from what he had been in his consulting room.

The professor, his eyes watching intently the quivering pointer on a meter face, paid scant attention to his two companions. Finally he made some notes on a pad and relieved Fennimore of the electrodes.

“That will do, thank you,” he said, “Now I must figure out your rate.”

“My rate of what?” demanded the mystified youth.

“The rate at which you are vibrating per second,” replied Parsons, none too graciously, “Let’s see. The square root of---- . Ah! There we have it. You vibrate, Fennimore, between the twenty-fifth and twenty-seventh octaves. Thirty-seven million, five hundred and fifty thousand and some odd cycles a second, if figures interest you.”

“They don’t,” replied Fennimore, promptly, his eyes feasting on Violetta, “Not that kind, anyway.”

Parsons handed the girl the electrodes, and again studied the quivering needle. Again his pencil was busy. Then he faced the pair, a satisfied look on his face which told plainly that he had found what he sought.

“And you, my friend,” he said to Violetta, “Vibrate at the rate of thirty-seven million, five hundred and forty-nine thousand and a few odd hundred. There’s only about seven hundred cycles difference between you. You’re a fine pair of zincs.”

“Fine pair of zincs,” echoed Fennimore, “What the devil, Parsons, ”

“Ever see a dry cell, Fennimore?” Parsons asked, calmly, “Carbon and zinc poles, yon know? Well, you’re a pair of negatives. You couldn’t have succeeded in this case in a thousand years.”

“See here,” broke in the imperious Violetta, “What’s all this about a pair of negatives? When do I get those treatments?”

“Don’t worry,” Parsons assured her, “You’ll get them.”

Fennimore faced her doggedly. “Look here, Violetta,” he said, determinedly, arms folded, jaw squared, “You may as well know the truth. I've told you a thousand times how desperately I love jmu. Every time you’ve laughed in my face. Fve grown desperate. I had to do something. The professor here thinks he can arouse in you some love for me by means of these treatments. That’s why we’re here, and that’s why he has to take observations of the both of us.”

After one startled moment, the girl gave way to uncontrolled laughter. "Make me love you with a bunch of juice,” she gasped, “Oh, Lord. This is rich.”

Parsons regarded Fennimore with deep disgust. “Fennimore,” he said, icily, “You have, in the language of the street, spilled the beans. Now will you kindly keep your mouth shut before you scatter them so hopelessly that I can't pick them up.”

“She had to know sometime,” retorted Fennimore, stubbornly, “And it miglu as well be now.”

“She didn’t have to know before I got these electrodes on her arm,” Parsons shot at him, deftly clamping an arm electrode on each wrist of the unresisting girl, who was paying no attention at all to the busy professor. She was regarding Fennimore with contempt.

“Why, you poor simp,” she sneered, “I've told you a dozen times, and I tell you again, that if you had a hundred times the money you have, and if you were a hundred times better looking than you are, I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth. Or any other boob in trousers, either. I've got my work to think of. Do you think I'm going to quit being a chorus girl? Not on your life.”

Parsons snapt on a switch and grinned at the disheartened millionaire. “How’s that for a mouthful, son? he asked, “Think that will hold you for awhile?”

Then the girl turned on him. “And you, Mr. Smart Guy,” she demanded, “How do you expect to change my mind with your foolish old treatments?”

Parsons looked at his trembling meters and smiled. “Easily, my dear," he replied, “Oh, quite so. You see, life itself being of an electrical nature, it obeys the laws which govern electrical phenomena in general. To what extent and by just what means we are hardly in position to say as yet. My own researches have carried me beyond the frontiers in certain directions, and the treatment you are undergoing tonight is just one application of the facts that I have unearthed.

“You young people think that love is a question of good looks, circumstances, and mutual attraction. You have fallen into the common error of mistaking the effect for the cause. No two people will be attracted to each, other to any degree — far from sufficiently to love — if their natures aren’t timed properly for the occurrence of the phenomenon. Take your own case, for example. You told the truth when you said that you would not love Fennimore in a million years. Your rates of vibration were so nearly alike that you were, as I said, like poles of a battery.”

She regarded him thoughtfully. “Then how, Mr. Man,” she asked, “Do you account for the fact that this poor fish is gone on me? Seems to me the rule ought to work both ways to be any good.”

“Bravo, little reasoner,” exclaimed Parsons, admiringly, “You will be the brains of your household. Well, I account for that quite easily. The simple fact is that HE’S NOT IN LOVE WITH YOU AT ALL.”

Fennimore jumped about two feet. The girl looked at the calm scientist in open mouthed amazement. “Say, Parsons, what the— ” burst out the wrathy Fennimore.

“Calm yourself,” came the unperturbed reply, “I know what I’m talking about. Bluntly, you’ve mistaken lust for love. You think you’re in love.

“What I’m doing is just this. By a process which I do not choose to reveal, I am changing the rate, or call it natural period, if you like, at which this girl vibrates. When I have changed it sufficiently you will be as far apart as you were together before. In other words, you will be splendidly positive and negative. Then you will love. You won’t be able to help yourselves.”

Vaguely alarmed at the cool assurance of this man, the girl stirred uneasily in her chair and regarded the quivering meter needles with some apprehension.

Parsons leaned back comfortably against his instrument board and resumed.

“I find that the exact adjustment of these oppositions is quite critical. For maximum manifestation I should have to readjust you to the very cycle. Were I to do that, the attraction would be so violent that you would literally hurl yourselves into each other’s arms. That critical state quite frequently occurs naturally, and when it does you see the conventions hurled ruthlessly aside, and every man-made barrier scaled, be it as high as the mountains or as broad as the sea. Let me get the coldest, most haughty beauty of the upper class into this chair, and I can force her to lavish every attention on the dirtiest ash man you can find in the city.

“It is sufficient that we attain a degree of attraction necessary to arouse domestic instincts and impulses.” He broke off to study gravely the indication of a large meter. “That state we have about reached now,” he said, quietly.

Fennimore started, and regarded the girl intently. For a second she met his gaze. Then her eyes dropt, and she blushed.

Parsons smiled faintly. “I'm a few years ahead of my time, of course,” he said, “Within the next few years every couple that applies for a license to wed will have their vibratory rates taken and the corrections necessary to accomplish true affection made. The divorce evil will be wiped out as mis-mating is prevented.”

He snapt off the switch and deftly removed the electrodes from the girl’s arms. She arose, a trifle unsteadily. Fennimore regarded her anxiously. “How do you feel?” he asked, in some concern.

“A little queer,” she replied, dazed, “You’d better take me home, Roderick.”

Roderick! The young man’s heart pounded within him and a look of exultation came over his features. He faced her squarely. “For the thousand and first time, "Letta,” he said, “Will you marry me?”

Further Thoughts:

"The Love Machine" is an early example of science fiction, published in the regular-science magazine Science and Invention (previously called The Electrical Experimenter). I find it so remarkably similar to a fetish story that I kind of get lost in it; like greeting an old friend (the extremely amateurish overuse of adverbs helps). Wish fulfillment for the scientific man of 1920. What were men scared of in 1920? Flappers, mostly: scandalous, masculine "new women" who were still hot and sexy but eschewed husbands in favor of— le gasp— a career? Dancing? Having casual sex? The whole story I waited for the other shoe to drop, for the plan to go awry, but no. This is a story about lionizing science, about how cool and awesome it is, especially if it lets you bend women to your will!

(These are the same anxieties that would eventually lead to The Stepford Wives. It's very similar, excusing the fact that Stepford is a horror story that knows it's a horror story, unlike this one.)

Wolfe's story firmly reinforces the status quo. It's interesting that the protagonist is a millionaire, despite it having little bearing on the story. It clarifies the function of the story as power fantasy, sharpens its oddly juvenile edge. He's a special little guy and he gets everything he ever wants (which is exactly what the reader wants).

I can't square the tone. Stories like this were considered trash, mere filler or bait to get people to buy magazines. I doubt the author had much time to think about the meaning of his story. And that's what makes me rubber-neck. If I read a fetish story with the exact same tone and plot, I would understand it as implicit that the appeal comes from the taboo, the sheer violation of autonomy that leaves a woman helpless to refuse (an acceptance never written, we already know how it ends) but— is that what's happening here? Was this story, in 1920, taboo? Was it tucking away in the pages of a "masculine" interest magazine something that could not presented anywhere else? Or was this just the status quo— a fantasy akin to soulmate-ism, a world where science makes perfect pairs and there is no more conflict, no more strife, no more chorus girls? Was it supposed to be funny? Was it supposed to be cute?

#rez speaks #mind control #hypn0kink #hypnokink in old shit #<- my tag for this series until I get a better name #pulp

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