Chapters A Holsom Women's Social Chapter 3
“It’s easier to understand once you try it.” Madison told Cherry, and turned to the woman on her immediate left, who had not spoken yet. ‘Katherine’, her name read in Cherry’s vision. She seemed to still be locked in whatever trance had held the girls as Cherry first joined them, her eyes wandering and occasionally blinking at nothing. “Katie’s husband is stricter than most. Her implants censor everything she sees and hears, aside from a few scripted conversations and phrases. She’s totally isolated unless someone initiates a script. That’s why I’m always sure to talk with her. If I didn’t, she wouldn’t even know she was here.”
“Wow.” Cherry breathed. “So her contacts blur everything, all the time?” She looked at the other girl’s glaze-eyed expression and felt herself shiver. It would be like a never-ending Intermission!
Madison nodded. “And her ear implants are always on full blast, too. I…was like her, for a time. It was only a temporary arrangement in my case, thank the Fathers, but I remember what it was like. That’s why I can’t just leave poor Katie to suffer all alone. If you want to say hi, I’m sure it would mean the world to her. Even if she can’t show it.”
Cherry put on a perplexed face. Diane for example seemed to rely heavily on emotion and gesture when she couldn’t find a phrase that fit. Madison noticed her confusion.
“I said stricter than most: her script includes her expressions. Just ask her name to get her going. And make sure to read your lines exactly as they appear, or she won’t be able to hear you.”
“Ok…” Cherry moved into the open space facing Katie, and asked. “Hi, I’m Cherry. What’s your name?”
Katie’s glazed expression melted away, replaced first by surprise, and then a warm smile. “My name is Katherine Theriault, and I am an ungrateful cunt who does not deserve my wonderful husband. A pleasure to meet you!”
Cherry blinked, and looked from Katherine’s genial expression to Madison in confusion.
“Mr. Theriault…uh, wrote the script himself, I think.” Madison explained in an apologetic tone. “Don’t leave her hanging, keep going!”
Text had begun to stream past in the corner of her vision. After another moment of confusion, Cherry realized that she was meant to read the words aloud.
“Um…Please, tell me more about your husband. H-he sounds like a strong, handsome, rich man.”
Katie’s lines, too, appeared in Cherry’s vision. Scrolling ahead, she was dismayed to discover that an extended monologue on her own faults and the virtues of Mr. Theriault was all Katie would be allowed to offer the conversation.
“You can tag out now,” Madison said politely, noticing Cherry’s expression. “I’ll pick up your part from here. She won’t notice. Her contacts only show her a faint silhouette of whoever is saying the other lines, and it’ll swap to me when I take it up. I think she’s basically on autopilot by the second line anyway.” Indeed, Katie was now prattling on about her husband’s “majestic” cock to no one in particular. Cherry gave Madison a grateful smile and made way for her to take the position across from Katie, who didn’t even acknowledge the switch.
Cherry listened politely for as long as she could stomach. Madison had resumed her trance-like state, responding in time with Katie’s self-abasing tirade. She was currently elaborating on every use her tongue was better suited for than forming words. Some of these examples Cherry had never considered, and hoped Francis hadn’t either.
“How long does this go on?” She asked Sprinkles.
“Oh, Katie will repeat herself endlessly until someone tells her to stop, with just that one script path to play with! She’s a worse chatterbox than I am, once she gets going.” Sprinkles laughed at that. Cherry wasn’t sure she found it quite as amusing. With censors that strict, Katie was at least as isolated in her home life as Cherry herself, and the words that Mr. Theriault put in her mouth did more than hint that the other woman’s situation was actually far worse.
“Do other wives have more pleasant scripts?” Cherry ran her eyes across the rest of the women in the group who had not yet spoken. They were all angled towards Cherry and the others, watching, but none had said a word. She figured they must be strictly scripted, like Katie, even if they were at least able to see. Strangely, a group of four perfectly armless wives standing shoulder to shoulder seemed to all be named ‘Gabriella Kiltworth’. “Are they…sisters?” She asked, nodding towards the Gabriellas. They certainly didn’t look like siblings. In fact, each one was about as different in appearance from the rest as possible. There was a buxom brunette, a slim blonde, one with black hair and dark skin, and then a redhead pale as snow.
“That’s Gabby!” Sprinkles trotted over to the four women, pigtails bobbing, and Cherry followed. “Gabby, this is Cherry. She’s new, and not scripted.”
“Hello!” All four Gabriella’s said in perfect unison. “It’s nice to meet you…Cherry! I’m Gabriella, the loving wife of James Kiltworth.” All four faces, disparate in their features as they might be, nonetheless wore an identical expression as they smiled warmly at Cherry.
“You are…all married to Mr. Kiltworth?” Cherry balked. She had never heard of such a thing! In fact, she was quite sure the law forbade it. Her gaze traveled back and forth between the four smiling women, not knowing who to look to for an explanation.
“Despite my appearance,” the Gabriellas intoned together, their expressions serious, “I assure you that I am only one woman, and my marriage is strictly monogamous.”
“But how is that possible?” Cherry asked and Sprinkles laughed beside her.
“Oh Cherry, now you’ve done it! This is Gabby’s favorite script.” Indeed, the Gabriellas all now wore an eager expression, and they took a single step towards Cherry, as if in spontaneous enthusiasm but also somehow perfectly in sync.
“Holsom law defines marriage as between one man and his wife.” They said, and stared at her expectantly until she realized they were waiting for her to agree. She nodded. That was what she had been taught.
“It’s easier if you pick a face to look at.” Sprinkles whispered out of the side of her mouth and Cherry found herself locking eyes with the blonde Gabriella. The others quickly became part of the periphery. In a way it was like talking to someone who stood next to a mirror, or multiple mirrors in this case. Her brain seemed to naturally disregard the extra images and focus on the blonde Gabriella as she continued in perfect harmony.
“Pursuant to Holsom Marriage Code part 32C, a wife is defined as a female body vested with a female identity.” Gabby recited, and Cherry had to simply nod again. She assumed Mr. Kiltworth had written this script, and he was probably familiar with the relevant laws. The only parts of the Marriage Code she had been read were the bits that detailed her duties towards her husband. “It was determined in Kiltworth v. Holsom Marriage Board that so long as my individual body parts never act autonomously of each other, I should be considered my husband’s sole, legal, wife. My scripts ensure that I act at all times as a single body, with a single identity. Would you like to hear more?”
“No, thank you!” Sprinkles interrupted before Cherry could respond. She shot Cherry a serious look. “That’s the one chance she gives you before she reads the whole court transcript.”
“So they all follow the same script, all the time?” Cherry stared at all four of Gabby’s faces again. They all met her eyes, one by one, with an identical openness. It was different from Katie’s blank gaze. Gabby seemed aware, but distant. As if her thoughts were simply elsewhere. In fact, it struck Cherry as similar to the way Madison’s eyes changed when she sometimes seemed to stare at nothing.
As if Cherry’s thoughts had summoned her, Madison rejoined them, coming up from behind and startling Cherry when she spoke.
“I see you’ve met Gabby!” She said, and got a harmonious “Hello!” from Gabby herself. “She’s really something. New pieces train for months before they get a chance to join her body.”
“You mean there’s more of her than just these four?” Cherry gasped.
Gabby took on an admonishing tone. “Girls in training are not part of me.”
“As she says,” Madison nodded, “Gabby herself is always just four pieces. But Mr. Kiltworth retires a piece every couple years, so I’m sure he has at least one replacement girl in training right now. She’s not officially part of Gabby yet, but she’s somewhere else going through the exact same motions as these four. Or, trying to. She’s still in training, after all, so she’s probably not as smooth.”
“Three girls are currently competing for the next opening.” Gabby sang.
Cherry didn’t fully understand. “He replaces parts of you? One girl at a time?” Men replacing their wives with a newer, younger model was nothing new to her. Her own mother had been retired when she was just a little girl, and she herself had replaced Francis’ previous wife. Not every wife even earned the honor of a formal retirement, a few were sold secondhand or simply cut loose to fend for themselves (every girl’s worst fear!), but all of the faceless retirees which performed the myriad menial tasks to maintain Holsom’s population of armless wives had once been wives themselves. What was strange about Gabby was the idea that her identity apparently persisted beyond the retirement of her component “pieces”.
“It’s so romantic!” Sprinkles crooned. “This way, Gabby gets to be his wife forever and he never gets bored of her!”
Yes, that was a romantic idea. Cherry wished she could be with Francis for the rest of his life, but she knew it was foolish to hope for more than a few good years before her retirement. A decade, if she was very fortunate, but given how she was already failing to hold his interest that seemed unlikely. The rest of his lifetime was too optimistic even for a fantasy. That didn’t seem to be what was happening here, though. “But the women…her pieces, they still get replaced? So, eventually the original Gabriella wouldn’t even be part of her any more.”
Gabby flared four pairs of nostrils simultaneously as she huffed in frustration. “I am Gabriella!”
“We know that, Gabby. Cherry’s just a little confused.” Madison soothed, and Gabby took a deep breath to calm herself. “There is no original Gabriella, Cherry. Mr. Kiltworth created her whole identity when he wrote her script, and embodied her exactly as you see her. Well, not exactly. As I said, he changes the pieces occasionally. He had to fight the Marriage Board in court, but they eventually recognized her as his wife.”
“Would you like to hear the Board’s decision in full?” Gabby asked, eyes brightening. Cherry exclaimed “No!” just as Sprinkles and Madison did the same, the three of them accidentally mimicking Gabby’s harmonious method of speech.
“You see?” Madison laughed, “It’s not so difficult to act as one mind when you all have the same motivation. Especially if you have a script to do most of the thinking for you!”
Sprinkles was laughing too. “You’d know that better than us, Maddy! You do it all the time!” Her laughter cut short with a small gasp, her eyes widening as they darted back and forth from Madison to Gabby. “That is…I mean…”
Madison was no longer laughing. She narrowed her eyes at Sprinkles, who was very pointedly not meeting her gaze. “Thomas should have gagged her!” She grumbled under her breath so low that Cherry didn’t think Sprinkles could hear it. Strangely, Gabby was glaring at Madison just as hard. All four of her looked to be grinding her teeth.
“Madison, is…something wrong?” Cherry asked to break the tension, and Madison let out a heavy sigh.
“Not in front of Gabby, Cherry. Let’s go check on Diane. I left her listening to Katie and I’m sure she’s ready to be relieved.”
Find accompanying notes and illustrations on Slothargy’s DeviantArt and Pixiv