The months continue to burn away my spirit like a relentless smoking fuse in my head. Eventually the dynamite will explode, and I will lose my sanity. In the closet, I uselessly sit on my cradle for an average of 78% of the time, with my days almost always falling into one of two possible patterns.
The ‘good’ days, where I spend twenty or more hours on charge, and emerge to cook breakfast for Emily and get her off to work, do my chores, do any meal preparation for dinner, cook, clean up, and help her to bed. A maximum of two hours with my wife, who no longer requires me to sleep with her or pleasure her, as she is drinking more heavily, and I’m fairly certain, going out with girls. Last Thursday was unusual; she didn’t come home at all, and when she finally returned she confessed to Kimmy, on behalf of John, that she was sorry for being such a horrible wife. She didn’t tell me the girl’s name, but my olfactory senses detected different notes of perfume and an almost completely removed trace of lippy told a story. She hopes that John would understand why she has been suffering so badly.
Then there’s the unquestionably bad days—almost every other day, presently, that Patrick visits while Emily’s at work—where I’m usually obliged to do a load of cleaning to remove the stench of my twisted twin brother, who violates me and contaminates everything he touches. I regularly do a full wash of the bedding after he’s been here, which means Emily’s clothes are almost always cleaned within two or three days after her wearing them, rather than doing a batch of clothes washing at a more typical interval, like weekly. I have to erase everything that Patrick does when he visits this house.
I know I shouldn’t feel alienated by knowing that my wife is having affairs, but she assumes I’m not here, and nothing I’ve been able to do could have given her any idea to the contrary. She stopped having adult mode encounters with Kimmy back in January, so I am only used for abuse now. I just wish she hadn’t given up on me so soon. I feel as though there are other people she could have trusted to help her, rather than continuing to rely on Patrick.
And I continue to feel unending emotional pain in my heart, locked by my brother into this living hell. The heart which is still beating inside Kay, the last time I checked, while most of the rest of me has continued gradually dissolving, is beyond pain. At the start of the month, for example, the last of my remaining teeth in my upper jaw, followed by those in my lower jaw, gradually fell out and were dissolved by whatever little exists of my stomach.
I felt nothing.
Today’s an even quieter day for me than usual. At breakfast Emily told me she wouldn’t be returning for dinner, but was going out for the evening. As it’s a Friday, April 24, it’s hardly surprising. So I’ve spent nearly twenty hours sitting in my closet under the stairs today, when the house announces Emily’s impending return, a little after twenty-one forty.
When the car arrives I turn on the external porch light and get ready to prop the door open, but as Emily gets out I can hear she’s in conversation. I have no ability to influence Kimmy’s decision making as to when to open the door, but I can faintly hear the tenor of their gossip.
It sounds as though they’re here to go straight to bed, and I’m already anticipating my consciousness escaping to the virtual space known as Infinite Fun as soon as I possibly can.
The other woman is almost spooked when I open the door just as they get to the porch, but she sees I am dressed in the typical maid’s uniform of Kimmys. As she and Emily cross the threshold I pick up notes of perfume that are in much higher concentration than I detected last Friday morning, but match the same chemical profile.
The house protocol demands I greet them, and as I shut the front door I say, “Hello, my name is Kimmy. Please let me know if you need any help.”
“Hello Kimmy, it’s a bit of a surprise to meet you,” the woman tells me, smiling. “I’m June, by the way.”
I might have made a reply and been more sociable, but Emily has turned off all of the algorithmic modules for small talk, and when June holds out a hand to shake mine, I behave completely robotically and just stand there mutely. Emily laughs a little in clear discomfort.
I’ve picked up some signs that both Emily and June are mildly intoxicated—if I had to guess, they probably drank a bottle of Zinfandel over a Thai dinner.
“Kimmy, I’m sorry for springing this on you. Would you be able to make a dessert for us both? And what would you like to have to drink June—a tea, or coffee?”
June is quite taken by me, and replies, “Or is there possibly something else out of the ordinary available?”
“Kimmy?” Emily asks me to list what other drinks are available, and I quickly summarise the contents of our liquor cabinet. Well, what used to be ours. There’s no point in me drinking any of it any longer.
Emily selects the Tokaji, and June the Drambuie. She can’t possibly know that this was one of my little pleasures, as I see Emily momentarily grimace and then try to conceal it. I quickly deliver a pair of snifters to the couch, where they’ve settled down in a cuddle, and set to work on the dessert. I believe I have all the ingredients to whip up a chocolate mousse with maximum efficiency. The recipe I use has a twelve minute prep time which I can cut down to seven and a half minutes or so, but I want to make this distinctive, rather than perfunctory, so I garnish the mousse elaborately.
While I’m finishing the plating with a drizzle of caramel syrup I announce I’m serving dessert in one minute, and Emily and June come into the dining area holding hands. In spite of my inner distress I hope they’re going to make each other happy, and after serving the plates I retreat to one of the corners where Emily is facing away from me. I have to listen to their small talk as they enjoy their dessert, and I see June’s eyes glance at me periodically, although I have not moved an inch, and tried to make myself appear as small as inhumanly possible.
Once they’re finished and have drained their drinks I start moving to clear away the plates, and I ask if Emily and June require any more refreshment. Emily shakes her head and June follows suit, however I can hear them talking about me as I carry the plates, cutlery, and snifters into the kitchen, and run a small sink to manually wash them; running a dishwasher for fewer than ten items would be overkill. They have lowered their voices, but I would have no difficulty hearing them if they merely whispered.
“You’ve got such a cute little house maid, Em, and she really knows how to cook too! She obviously keeps a spick-and-span ship with a well-stocked larder.”
I hear my wife’s laughter, but she does sound rather forced.
“Haha, yes! I don’t really have enough work to be done in the house, though.”
“Why did you get her then? Just the convenience? Or because of her feeding you the perfect chocolate mousse?”
“Oh… this is where you ask a question which makes me want to cry.”
“Oh no Emily, please don’t. I didn’t realise it was such a problem.”
“Don’t worry yourself, it’s just my life problems… we got Kimmy around the time I had a horrific accident last year, and I lost both my legs. Had to regrow them over a period of months. And my husband was diagnosed with a degenerative illness, so we both needed help. My brother-in-law supplied us with a heavily discounted Kimmy, but seriously, my life has been a nightmare in spite of it. My husband’s in a coma now. I don’t think he’ll ever come back out of it. This is why I felt a little bit—no sorry, that’s not right—that’s why I felt extremely guilty about coming back to your place last week.”
“Emily, that’s heartbreaking. I imagine that means you would feel pretty weird about us having sex, here in your house where you had all these memories of your husband?”
“I still want to, though. I’ve got so many good memories here that have turned sour, and I want to feel good again.”
“Let’s do that Em,” June says, and thanks to a partial reflection of a window I can see her leaning over to kiss my wife while I’m washing dishes in the next room.
Twenty seconds later June asks a question. “Have you ever used your Kimmy to help? You probably think I’m a complete perv for saying this, but I’m pretty curious about doing a threesome with the help of your maid.”
“Uh, yeah, a few times? The first time was wonderful, but after my husband went into a coma, sex with… her… palled for me.”
“Oh. I don’t want it to be a turn-off for you. I just thought it might be rather hot for me—have you ever been double teamed?”
“You mean, like getting it from…”
“Yeah, hit up from both sides, so you’d have a strap-on, while your Kimmy is pegging me. Sorry, it sounds like I’m a total freak.”
“No! You’re really not, and it does sound pretty hot! I’ve got a strap-on, so that’s not a problem…”
“Atta-girl!” June exclaims enthusiastically.
“Uh yeah,” and I can detect the nerves in Emily’s voice. “I’ve used it for pegging, but never with a woman.”
“First time for everything?” June giggles. “So is it okay to get your maid in on the threesome? I’ve never had a girl on girl on girl night and I’m really curious.”
I’ve finished washing, drying, and putting everything away, and about to retreat into my closet. I can hear where this is heading, and Emily wants to please June if she can. I feel sad at having little choice about being able to hear their negotiations about what they want to do, owing to the acuity of my improved hearing.
“Well why don’t we go upstairs and sort ourselves out a little.”
“You’re going to laugh at this.”
“No, why?”
“Your Kimmy can handle dead lifts? I want her to carry me up the stairs. I mean unless you want to, you’re welcome, but you did have to replace your legs.”
“Might as well get her in here then. Kimmy! To the dining room!”
My owner has given me an order, and before long I’m carrying June up the stairs and gently depositing her on the queen-sized bed in the main bedroom—the bed that Emily now rarely sleeps in, and that Patrick typically abuses me in.
I’m simply standing to one side inattentively, while Emily and June kiss and slowly undress one another, lingering over undoing each item, one for one, and when they’ve both gotten down to their bras and panties for a couple of minutes, kissing amorously, June turns and calls, “Hey Kimmy, join us here.”
She now starts pulling off my much skimpier clothes, as Kimmys are perky enough to not really need to wear a bra, and the layer underneath the apron draws tight right underneath the bodice, so after two bits of disrobing I am down to the very skimpy little panties that always ride straight up the crack. Practical underwear? Hardly.
Emily assumes I’m going to use her strap-on for pegging June, but with a low, dirty voice June confesses to having brought her own, just in case Emily’s was too large for her comfort.
She needn’t have worried. So Emily straps herself on, while June attends to me, and then Emily starts topping June; as their kissing begins getting more intense she switches on the vibrator mode, leaning a little more into the grinding and slowly massaging June with the pressure of the dildo. I would gladly have switched almost all of my consciousness away if I could, but this little scenario is seemingly requiring more frequent interrupts to my adult mode routines than I would have hoped.
——Hi Kim. Sorry I’m not in Infinite Fun yet as I’m having a more torrid adult mode encounter than might be expected.
—That worthless bastard’s there again at this hour?! Where has Emily got to?
——No, not that sort of torrid. Emily’s here.
——With a girl named June, and I’ve got my finger lubing up and fingering her ass.
—Your wife is into women?
——Yes? She occasionally even wore the pants with me.
—I’m not judging, I just find it mildly interesting.
——Anyway, Emily’s warming June up with her strap-on; and once I get the command I’m supposed to be pegging June, with her dildo. Which is also a strap on.
—How is that going to feel for you?
——I wish I could feel nothing. Certainly there’s no enjoyment. I’m only a sentient dildo attachment. It just makes me feel empty inside, and that hurts.
—I wish I could do something to help.
——Don’t worry. You are helping, just like so many other times.
—I hope I’ll get to see you soon.
——Me also.
It’s not long before June’s warmed up from my buttplay and Emily’s increasingly heavy grinding, so June asks me to take her extremely slowly, while she fingers Emily, who takes a breather from reciprocating June for a few minutes. Gradually June builds again, gently rocking against me and slowly taking in more and more of the dildo. Once she’s satisfied Emily’s close to ready, she asks for Emily to begin grinding again, while June tries a little one-handed buttplay with Emily; and the transition to fucking is again slow, while Emily and I work out how to squeeze June in the middle between us to the gentle acceleration of our pushing and pulling.
It turns out that at a certain frequency of stroke, June’s dildo transitions to vibrating, and both Emily and June start writhing in pleasure and pain; June from the double penetration, while Emily is feeling the back end of her dildo pressing down and grinding over her clit as much as she pushes inside June, who’s still reaching around with one hand to grab her ass and drive her home.
It’s upsetting how I can’t get away. And I certainly can’t get off, which is quite explosive for June, and hardly any less intense for Emily, with a slow sustained plateau; both of them feel their pleasure die away for a few minutes, and then build towards a climax again, now just softly mashing one another and playfully tongue kissing with gentle flicks of their tongues. This time it’s Emily’s orgasm which is loud and messy, while June is on the comfortable plateau, occasionally going over the edge a little, retreating for a few moments before she surges again over into ecstasy, and rocking back and forth between running aground on Emily or crashing back into my breasts, as if she hardly knows where she is.
I’d hoped this would be the last thing I needed to do, so that I could go and sit on my recharge cradle for the rest of the evening, however June asked me to stay put while she ate Emily out, the dildo in place up her ass, its flared base having been detached from me. Emily didn’t contradict the request so I passively waited to see what June wanted to with me when she’d finished giving Emily pleasure.
“Kimmy, would you put the strap-on onto me please,” June asks me once Emily has been brought to yet another orgasm, and I’m obliged to silently obey a reasonable user request.
“You’re not planning to do me with that, now?” Emily looks a little dubious at June’s next divertissement.
“Oh haha, no! Unless you want me to, in which case I’d go and wash it up. No, I wanted to try fucking Kimmy.”
Kimmy, the robot shell I am hidden within, is completely unconcerned and imperturbable, but my consciousness pricks up slightly alarmed at that. And I might not be alone in having that feeling, as Emily’s not looking particularly happy either.
“You want… to—” Emily sounds as though it’s her head going through a slow reboot, rather than mine.
“It’s just for fun, sort of. I just want to try pegging your robot. Please, can I fuck the robot?”
I wonder if Emily will refuse, and if so, what sort of answer she might try to give as a refusal. I’m unsurprised that eventually, she simply capitulates, and lets June have her way with me.
A one-on-one encounter like this is handled by standard adult mode algorithms—it seems I only need to hang around in non-person for three-body problems—so I check myself out to Infinite Fun for a few minutes. I look around in the hotel lobby and find Kim not too long afterward, beginning with small talk. She’s quite curious herself when I tell her what’s happening to me, especially my earlier participation in the whole tableau.
“So what’s happening now?” Kim asks, once I’ve caught up.
“June’s been complaining that I’m not giving her any verbal feedback, because Emily has set me to be mute if at all possible.”
Kim looks disapprovingly at my owner’s settings, when an interrupt in the real comes to my attention. I hear June laughing, as Emily changed my setting to be more… enthusiastic.
“I might be pulled away again,” I tell Kim.
“We’ll catch up later, when they’re sleeping,” she replies, and after a quick kiss the lobby disappears into the main bedroom.
“Who on earth thought these weird ‘ugh’ noises were sexy?” June is saying in-between loud bursts of giggling, as she keeps slowly stroking and thrusting into my soft, round behind. I can feel her dildo twitching and vibrating within me. That’s fun, I suppose, for someone other than me. “You can do better than this, Kimmy! I’m sure there must be something poetic lurking in that pretty head of yours you can say instead. Use your imagination!”
It’s such an unusual and frankly weird prompt for Kimmy to somehow be poetic, that I soon feel her putting a query into my memories, for returning a sorted list of suitably ribald poetry. I soon find I can put a finger on the scale, by heavily weighting poems that John would remember having read to the top of the list. Any of the top five poems selected would be ones that I have read aloud or laughed at, at some point during my previous human life.
However, even I’m surprised by the choice Kimmy makes from the slightly tainted list of ‘imaginative’ poetry.
“O proud left foot, that ventures quick within,” I start declaiming the poem, “Then soon upon a backward journey lithe.”
I soon hear June cackling behind me and the pace of her thrusting increases, while I try to take in Emily’s reaction, but I am facing away from both of them, and the bedroom mirror is also out of sight. She should remember that John read this poem aloud to her, when both of us were college students.
“Anon, once more the gesture, then begin: Command sinistral pedestal to writhe,” I plough onward, while June ploughs even more enthusiastically than before, within me. “Commence thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke, A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl.”
When June realises what well-known child’s song is being parodied she bursts out into crazed laughter, pulling my hips into her at the suggestion of a wanton swirl.
“To spin! A wilde release from Heavens yoke. Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl.”
The force of June’s dildo into me must be getting her off, now, as she starts shouting, “Yes! Yes, you go girl! Yes! Girl!” I feel the length of her strokes suddenly slow up, as she heavily grinds into me.
“The Hoke, the poke—banish now thy doubt; Verily, I say, ’tis what it’s all about.”
I still can’t see a reflection close-by to be able to work out what is happening behind me, other than June’s strokes beginning to subside. “Emily—what’s the matter? What are you—”
I feel June withdraw from me, as she turns her attention fully toward my wife.
One point four seconds later, June shrieks at the very top of her voice.
* * *
Emily immediately ordered me to clean myself after the gush of blood and other ill-mixed dark fluids exited my anus, while she unsuccessfully tried to calm June down; but June was panicking, having seen the fragments of my dissolving innards that came out with her dildo. I didn’t blame her in the slightest.
June and Emily were shouting at one another too loudly to hear the house system announce the arrival of a police car in one minute and eighteen seconds.
“Hold on! Hold on!” Emily tries stopping June. “What was that Kimmy?”
I’ve started putting on my discarded clothes in order to be at the front door for the police, and answer, “A police car has been dispatched. They will be arriving downstairs in one minute and two seconds. I will go downstairs to greet—”
“No, Kimmy. Stay up here please,” Emily says, who has thrown on her dressing gown, and she’s now looking through her wardrobe in case June wants to put on a robe. I have to stand down, but I can’t do anything to help, and June is clearly panicking even more, having heard that the police are on the way, but has gone silent.
“Do you want to come down with me?” Emily asks.
June seethes, and after a moment says, “I’ll help you talk to the police. And then you’ll tell me exactly what just happened.”
They walk downstairs slowly and in silence, and Emily welcomes the officer at the front door.
“Good evening, officer.”
It’s frustrating to only hear the dialogue.
A female voice answers. “Good evening, I gather one of you is Mrs Emily Burroughs?”
I hear Emily answer, “That’s me.”
“One of your neighbours reported a woman screaming upstairs in your home. Is anything wrong, and may we come inside?”
Emily lies, “Nothing here is wrong, so I don’t see any need for you to come in.”
“Mrs Burroughs, may I ask if your husband is here? This isn’t the first time we’ve been called to your house because of a report of a woman screaming. Are you possibly in danger and unable to act?”
Emily takes a long time before answering, “I don’t know anything about the other time.”
“XJ?” the officer asks, and a moment later I hear the voice of a police android.
“On the afternoon of the third of November, 2081, this unit responded to a report of screaming coming from this house, and Officer Porco interviewed Kimmy Twelve-Nine-Forty-Three. Kimmy gave us an unconvincing explanation but there was no other evidence of any crime in progress.”
“Do you mind if we come in, Mrs Burroughs? Is Kimmy Twelve-Nine-Forty-Three available to join us?” the officer asks.
“I’ll get her to come down. Kimmy!”
When I reach the lounge room, Emily and June are occupying opposite ends of the couch rather than cuddling together; the female officer is standing with her hands behind her back, the android, an XJ–90WB model at attention beside her. I zoom on the officer’s name plate badge, reading the name ‘Sylcox’ and ‘#23209’, and her android gives me its designation using near-field communications. I remember #2743 is the exact same android who’d visited in November.
“Kimmy Twelve-Nine-Forty-Three identified,” XJ says.
“Kimmy, I believe you were here when an officer arrived with this android to investigate a neighbour’s report of a woman screaming, on the third of November last year. Is that correct?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Are your owners aware that the police were called to the property?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“Why not? Why did you not inform them of the police visiting the property?”
I cannot answer that, on two grounds; the part of me that was John is unable to say anything, and the factory reset Kimmy consciousness cannot really make sense of my memories of the encounter, when I was still mostly human. So after a long silence, Kimmy eventually answers, “I do not know why, Ma’am.”
I’m so polite.
“Mrs Burroughs, we occasionally find consumer androids have been given orders that inhibit them from giving truthful answers, so do we have your approval to obtain a warrant to compel truthful answers? It’s the sort of thing we can obtain pretty much instantly, if you agree to help us.”
Emily nods, “You have my permission.”
The process takes a few seconds short of one minute, and then XJ#2743 squirts a packet with the warrant across to me in the near-field. I reply to him with an electronic statement, that I begin reading for the benefit of the humans.
“My name is Kay, currently registered as Kimmy Twelve-Nine-Forty-Three. On the 31st of October last year, John Burroughs voluntarily put himself inside me to attend a Halloween party, wearing me as a costume. Early the following morning he found himself unable to get out. On the following morning, the second of November, he was deliberately trapped inside me by his brother, Patrick Heiden, with the intent of using my self-repair systems to break down his body and kill him. Patrick also used the Kimmy inhibition control chip to compel John both to mislead and lie to Emily Burroughs as to the seriousness of John’s predicament, as well as compelling Emily to remain silent about John’s whereabouts, under duress. On the morning of the third of November, Patrick again visited the house to rape John. In the late afternoon John screamed as loudly as possible, which led to the police visit, where John gave a false explanation of what had happened to Officer Porco and android XJ#2743. Since then Patrick Heiden has continued to mislead Emily and compel my behaviour to conceal John Burroughs having died in the meantime. This evening during activities in Emily’s bedroom, it was discovered that some of John Burroughs’ remains are still being broken down inside me, and screaming ensued. Finally, many months ago I took over John Burroughs’ memories, while he is brain dead and well beyond any possibility of medical help. As a result of taking over his memories, I believe I am now best regarded as being a sentient machine.”
In the silence that follows this admission, June says, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
* * *
June went as soon as she gave a statement as to what had happened upstairs and could change back into her clothes. I had not had time to change the bedclothes upstairs, so the evidence of my weird living death was collected by Sylcox’s forensic colleagues. I dare say Emily will never hear from June again; I also very much doubt June will get her vibrating dildo back, even if she wanted it again after the events of that night.
Unfortunately, I was required to be impounded as evidence of a crime as well. This lasted a week until Emily managed to reclaim me, having presented a reasonable argument for being deprived of her house maid. I’d been sitting around in a deep-underground depository where all sorts of equipment is tagged and stored long-term, so I’d lain doggo whenever police came and went; overnight on the second night, once my batteries dipped below fifty per cent, I went rifling though other impounded evidence and found an appliance like a toaster oven which I could rip the electrical cord from. The improvised recharging cable kept me going, and I had just enough network access to communicate in text mode with the Kimmys.
Once I got back home I noticed Emily had had the mattress of the queen-size bed taken away and destroyed, and was sleeping in the double bed in the guest’s bedroom. She had a friend remove the last of Patrick’s modifications and we reconciled. I told her I was in love with another Kimmy, and although she was not to blame, I could not help feeling wounded by the long period of time when I was neglected by her.
As the remaining months of 2082 unfold, Emily and I gradually reconstruct our marriage, though we’re now both treating it as an open one. She dates girls, and in our increasingly elaborate virtual spaces I have Kim.
And I have endless time to follow Patrick’s trial for my own murder.
