Stories A Holsom Women's Social
The first entry in the Holsom saga/series by Slothargy sets the stage of a community (and country) that is all at once like some fading image of 1950s New England, and something slick and shiny from the future, cast through the prism of Ira Levin’s Stepford, and a step beyond.
Take a read and see what you think, as the newly-wed Cherry is escorted to her neighborhood’s Women’s Social so she can mix and mingle with the other women of good standing. With each word, Slothargy (and myself as editor and sounding board) twists that classic idyllic image of male dominance into something new and original.
Chapter 1
Cherry tentatively sank the tips of her seven inch pleasers into the lush carpet of Mrs. Drestin’s sitting room floor. She secretly hoped that in the coming hours she would be permitted to remove the horrible things. They were too small, which made walking anywhere a painful chore, and she so longed to feel the soft teal fabric on her aching arches. Wishful thinking, of course. She hadn’t been more than a few minutes total without heels since she was a little girl. It would hardly do to remove the painful pleasers without a replacement pair at the ready. She was among sophisticated company, after all.
An invitation to the local “Women’s Social” had caught Cherry by complete surprise. Newly married, she’d spent the last few months chained to her marital bed. The adjoining rooms in her husband’s home were a mystery to her, the neighborhood beyond even more so. She had no idea how Mrs. Drestin had managed to learn of her existence, or what strange power the woman must wield that could compel Francis to release Cherry for the afternoon. Whatever the circumstances, she was glad of them. She loved Francis deeply, but the days had grown so lonely since he had returned to work. If nothing else, she hoped to find a group of other young women to chatter with as she had done in school.
Now was the time, as those happy school-time memories had begun to fade. In the short time since their first meeting, thoughts of Francis had already outgrown the available space in her mind. She could recall her past life if she cared to, of course, but even during long hours alone it rarely occurred to her to daydream of anything other than her husband. Again and again, she ran through every word he’d ever spoken to her, every possible hint he’d ever made as to how she might better please him. It had been just over four months since she first caught his eye and already her mind was stuffed full of Francis. There simply wasn’t much room for thinking about anything else. She had been quite satisfied with that, until recently.
At first, meditating on Francis’ desires had been more than enough to keep her occupied during the long days she spent alone in the bedroom. A short chain tethered her to the bedpost, allowing her only just enough slack to stand at the foot of the bed. There was a treadmill there, for exercise. She had passed the early days of her married life, once the honeymoon had ended and Francis’ work began to pull him away, trotting out the miles and imagining how she might please him when he returned. But his visits already grew more and more erratic. He still slept in their bed occasionally, holding her in the way she so relished, but he must have had another bed elsewhere which was unknown to her. Some nights, when he had finished, he left her again, breathless and eager for praise, without a word. Other nights she never saw him at all. Loneliness had been gnawing at Cherry, and Mrs. Drestin’s invitation was a welcome distraction from her husband’s worrisome disinterest.
The message had popped into her vision the previous morning, a little pink envelope hovering in the corner of her eye. At first, she’d been rather startled. Cooped up as she had been, the miniature displays embedded within her contact lenses had gone mostly unused. She’d had so much to get used to since the wedding, like the removal of her arms and modifications to her intimate areas, that she’d forgotten all about the lenses she’d worn since childhood. As such, she was woefully out of practice with their controls. It was only with great difficulty that she was able to focus her mind on the tiny envelope, but finally the signal was strong enough to register. It popped open with a spray of virtual confetti, before elegant pink script flowed out to fill her vision.
To the wife of Mr. Francis Crane,
You are formally invited to join myself, and several other Holsom ladies of good standing at this Sunday’s “Women’s Social”. The event will be hosted at the home of my husband, Dr. Harold Drestin. Further directions have been included in your invitation. I look forward to making your acquaintance.
Sincerely, Mrs. Julia Drestin, wife of Dr. Harold Drestin, MD.
The message winked out of existence as soon as Cherry had finished reading it, but a concentrated thought brought it back into view. The prospect of a Women’s Social was enough to get her buzzing with excitement. She’d had no contact with other women since before the wedding. Francis had maids, of course, but they were retirees, locked in a skin of black latex and not really women anymore. She’d long since abandoned any attempt to communicate with them. They applied her makeup and fixed her hair with a fine attention to detail, prosthetic hands moving with mechanical precision, but their smooth black shells totally obliterated any features or expression. There was no trace of the women they had been before retirement. Cherry didn’t even know how to tell one from another. Perhaps it was always the same retiree, or perhaps it was different from one day to the next. Hardly the makings of companionship.
Francis came to her late that night, and she made it a point to request his permission to attend the Social. At first, he had been in no mood to listen. Even as she spoke he was prodding at her lips with his cock, amusing himself by cutting off her words. Cherry finally had to relent, and accept his thrust into her throat. When the semen spewed a few minutes later she tried again to sputter out her request, but ended up in a coughing fit. She was worried he would leave her there before she had the chance to ask him clearly, but he was more patient with his passions sated. She had no hands of her own, so he helpfully wiped away the cum she coughed up and let her lick it from his finger. When she had gotten everything down smoothly, she was finally able to get the words out. He just told her he would consider it, that he loved her, and then he patted her head before leaving the room. He hadn’t spent the night in their bed for nearly a week.
He must have decided to allow it, though, because the next morning a maid unhooked her thin silver leash from his bed and led her into the closet to be dressed. That alone was thrilling, it had been so long since she’d worn clothes. The cocktail dress it selected fit snugly on her form, stretching to accommodate the curves of her breasts. Cherry couldn’t help but giggle. Her boobs had been free ever since her wedding dress and she had forgotten the familiar tightness of fabric trying to contain their enormity. They had been a gift from her prom date, the year before. Her giggles faded into a frown. She couldn’t remember the boy’s name.
The maid replaced her ‘sleeping shoes’, a relatively comfortable pair of four inch pumps, with the too-small seven inch plastic pleasers that would be torturing her feet just a few hours later. Her golden hair was woven into a towering beehive, which was a standard style for her on any normal day. What was definitely special were the jewels adorning the necklaces draped across her cleavage, as well as the dangling earrings threaded through her ears. Her bland silver collar was replaced by a diamond studded circlet. Even her tongue-studs were swapped for polished gemstones. Those could be seen when she spoke, Cherry figured. Her other intimate piercings, hidden by the dress, were left plain. It made her feel warm that Francis wanted to demonstrate his care for her by ornamenting her for others to see.
Her makeup was unchanged from the seductive ensemble that had long since started to feel like a second skin. Creamy foundation, contoured to accentuate her high cheek bones and shrink an already tiny nose into an unobtrusive button, sitting atop plush lips that had been lacquered with pale pink gloss. Her baby-blue colored contact lenses were slightly wider than her natural irises, combining with her fluttering, mascara-coated lashes to give Cherry the wide-eyed stare of a doll.
It had all been more than enough to drive Francis wild, not that long ago. She winced, realizing that she was about to make her first public appearance as his wife, with him in absentia. How did Mrs. Drestin know Cherry existed? The wedding had been a private affair, attended only by the necessary parties: her father, to give her away, Francis, to receive her, and an accountant to finalize the sale. Francis’ previous wife had not even been present to give Cherry her blessing with a kiss, much to her disappointment. And since then she’d seen no one but Francis. Perhaps the accountant was Mr. Drestin? she wondered. But no, the invitation had labeled him a doctor. She smiled. Francis must have spoken of her to his friends. It was the only explanation.
Leaving the bedroom promised a special thrill, but Cherry was ultimately disappointed. Her contacts sprung to life the moment the door was opened, rendering her world an amorphous blur. The lenses could selectively censor anything her owner decided was unfit for his girl to see, just as the tiny speakers implanted in her ears could blast her with muzak to drown out anything he considered vulgar. She was disheartened to discover that even the hallways of her husband’s home were too obscene for her fragile, feminine mind.
The maid’s insistent tugging on her leash led Cherry through the artificial fog, and soon she was outside the house. She knew because the muzak kicked in the moment they passed through the front door. It seemed there were too many disturbing noises which might unsettle her, out of doors, but even her censors couldn’t block the warmth of the sun on her skin.
A laugh bubbled up from deep within her. Somehow, she had not realized how much she missed the sun. Her giggling never reached her own ears though, blocked by the sound of an oppressively boring piano. Cherry felt herself frown. How was she supposed to socialize if she couldn’t see or hear?
Francis seemed to be unusually strict in this regard. As a child, she had been completely blocked many times when out and about. A young girl’s mind is even more delicate than a woman’s, and a simple stroll held many potentially traumatizing sights. But as she had gotten older her father had relaxed the restrictions. Before the wedding, the only time she would be censored this thoroughly was during Intermissions, when all the girls in a certain area were completely blocked at once for one reason or another. And everyone knew not to move an inch during an Intermission.
Which is why it felt so strange to be walking now, despite the total isolation. She knew they had already traveled quite a distance; far more short, mincing steps than Cherry knew how to count. She trusted that the maid would never lead her anywhere other than where Francis had instructed, but as time went on it slowly dawned on her that she really had no way of knowing for sure that the Drestin residence was her destination. Francis hadn’t given permission to her directly, and the maid obviously couldn’t speak, so no one had actually told her that she was going to the Social. The fancy outfit and all the jewelry had convinced her she was headed somewhere rather posh, but that left any number of possibilities. Of course, it seemed too much of a coincidence that the first time she left the bedroom in months would be to go somewhere other than an event she had been invited to on that very day. It would be cruel to get her hopes up like this if she was only going for a promenade. Francis wasn’t cruel. A little less affectionate lately than she wished, perhaps, but he wouldn’t dangle something special just to take it away.
Suddenly the sun was gone from her skin and even if she couldn’t hear the sound, she could feel the sharp clacking of her heels against a stone floor. Then the tugging on her leash was gone, too, and she was left standing still with nothing to occupy her mind but the pain in her feet.
Welcome!
Chapter 2
Welcome!
The message flashed across her vision, written in the same flowing script as the invitation. And then the muzak yielded to the sound of lilting feminine conversation, and the world slowly bloomed back into focus. Cherry was relieved to find that she was standing at the edge of a marble floored entrance, on the precipice of a majestically furnished sitting room. A sea of married women flowed gracefully around the elegant furniture, their bubbling voices drifting bits of conversation back to Cherry’s ears.
“…The crackers are compliant with most diets! I would add sugar if I made them for Roger, of course. He sometimes lets me direct the maids in the kitchen…”
“…Yes, they’re new! Henry can hardly keep his hands off them. He calls me ‘Titsy’ now, isn’t that cute? Oh, no it’s not a nickname, dear. All of my documents have been updated…”
“…The taste? It’s as awful as you’d expect, I’m afraid. But I’d do anything for George, and he finds it so convenient, not to mention delightfully entertaining…”
Cherry took a tentative step into the room, the heels of her pleasers sinking into the lush carpet. The pain in her feet distracted her momentarily, and she didn’t notice one woman spin herself out of the swirling crowd to approach the newcomer.
“Why, hello!” A gentle voice called to her, and Cherry found herself taken up by the woman’s glowing smile. “You must be the new Mrs. Crane. I’m Julia Drestin. So pleased to meet you.”
Cherry beamed at the use of her married name. “Yes, Cherry Crane. I’m pleased to meet you too, Mrs. Drestin.” She offered a curtsy, slightly awkward without any arms to guard her balance on the high shoes, and got a far more practiced one in return from the similarly armless Mrs. Drestin. All of the women in the room had been trimmed for their weddings, of course. The final semester of school, which Cherry had skipped to marry early, would have instructed her in performing various social gestures without the use of her arms. Armlessness was the fashion for wives across every town in Holsom, though the exact placement of the snip did vary from region to region. A full removal was in vogue in this part of the country, and Cherry had been glad to discover that her own bare shoulders were on trend. “I was so thrilled to receive your invitation!” She enthused after the exchange of curtsies. “I haven’t had much time to explore the neighborhood since my wedding.”
Her hostess’ smile grew even wider. “Of course, dear. I’m sure you’ll fit right in. And please, call me Julia.” The sincerity of her tone made Cherry feel all the more welcome. Julia was a beautiful woman, tall and with olive skin darkly tanned. Her face showed only the slightest hint of age, but it lent her an air of great experience amongst the crowd of young wives. “Please allow me to make a few introductions before you strike out on your own.”
“Of course!” Cherry replied, and fell in behind the older woman as she was led through the chattering throng. They paused at one group, near a table set with a wide assortment of refreshments.
“This is Clarissa Fritzgerald, who has provided such wonderful snacks for us all this afternoon.” Julia told her, singling out an otherwise tiny woman with cleavage even deeper than Cherry’s own. “Clarissa, this is Cherry Crane.” Clarissa raised her sculpted eyebrows at Julia, but quickly recovered into a thin smile for Cherry.
“Mrs. Crane…so nice to meet you. Again.”
Cherry frowned.
“I’m sorry, have we met before?”
Clarissa’s smile narrowed further, becoming a sneer.
“Oh, yes. An annual event, it seems.”
The other women who had been talking with Clarissa were huddled together, watching Cherry and sniggering. Cherry’s frown deepened, and she saw that Julia was frowning too.
“Pay Clarissa no mind, dear.” Julia said, loud enough for everyone nearby to hear. “She’s growing bitter in her old age.”
Clarissa’s face flushed beneath a mask of makeup. She couldn’t have been any older than Julia herself, but the subject was obviously a sore spot. Her massive breasts wobbled as she huffed loudly at Julia.
“It may be of no concern to you, Julie, but don’t expect me to ignore the danger she represents.”
Now it was Julia’s turn to huff in anger.
“Come along, Cherry.” She spun around to face away from Clarissa’s clique and after a moment Cherry followed suit. “That woman will take any excuse to be impolite. I hope she hasn’t frazzled you…”
“What did she mean, that we’ve met before?” Cherry strained her neck to peer back at Clarissa. The other woman fixed her with a glare. “I don’t think she likes me…” She turned back to Julia, feeling the stare like an itch.
“Oh, do pay her no mind, dear. Clarissa’s home situation has become rather precarious of late, and I believe she blames your husband for it. It’s nothing you need to worry about. If I’d known she would behave this way, I would have avoided her altogether.” Cherry wanted to object that it very much did seem like something she should worry about. How could Francis have caused Clarissa any domestic instability? But Julia cut her off before the words could form. “Oh, here’s Heidi Spencer! Come, Cherry. I’m sure Mrs. Spencer will find you a delight!” And Cherry was whisked away into the swirling crowd.
There followed a flurry of far more polite introductions, so many that Cherry would have found it impossible to remember all the names if her contacts didn’t have the helpful habit of displaying such information above each woman’s head. Mrs. Spencer’s husband was the headmaster at Rockport Finishing School, Mrs. Kelsey’s ran the ritziest restaurant in town, Mrs. Trammerlane designed lovely (expensive!) dresses for her husband’s shop on Main Street, and so on until Cherry’s feet were complaining again from all the running around.
Julia’s selections seemed to represent the cream of the neighborhood crop, and each one had a small circle of lesser women with whom she was engaged in conversation. These other women received no ceremony from Julia, although each of their names popped up the moment Cherry looked at them, too. Once again, she was forced to correct her opinion of the contacts. Despite her disappointment earlier that morning, they really were a convenient aid. When they weren’t blinding her for no good reason.
It seemed that for every woman with a name like ‘Vanessa’ or ‘Suzanne’ there were two or three wives with less modest monikers. Cherry saw women named ‘Cummsy’, ‘Pillows’, ‘Puffy’ and ‘Trollop’, among others on a similar theme. Cute, if a little crude, and certainly more creative than the rather blunt names like ‘Tits’, ‘Lips’, or ‘Nipples’ which were also scattered around. She was glad Francis had chosen something relatively innocuous for her, even if it did prove to be fairly cliché. She counted three other ‘Cherry’s at the Social, though none were of high enough status to get an individual introduction.
After a while, Julia paused and scanned the crowd.
“Well, that’s a proper ‘who’s who’, I think. I’ll leave you to mingle on your own for a bit.” She gestured with her neck towards a group of about a dozen stiff postured women gathered in a tight clump in one corner of the room. “If you’re nervous about making conversation, try those ladies first. They’re easy to talk to; you won’t have to struggle to find the words.”
Cherry thanked her, and then took her advice. The isolated corner seemed preferable to trying her luck in the larger swarm. She made her way over to the group and carefully slid amongst them, mimicking the other women’s rigid posture.
They seemed not to notice her, or perhaps they were too engrossed in their own conversations. Cherry politely waited for a lull in which to introduce herself, but there was never so much as a pause. She daintily cleared her throat, hoping to create an opening, but the chatter continued unabated. None of the women even glanced at her: they were all locked in eye contact with their respective conversation partners.
Just as Cherry was readying herself to leave all of the conversations concluded suddenly, at nearly the same moment all around. Cherry stumbled, stopping herself short of turning to go, worried she had somehow offended them by getting impatient. But still, no one was even looking at her. Although most of the ladies remained in their stiff posture, a few did appear to relax a bit. They blinked, and gazed around the room as if coming out of a trance.
“Oh!” One exclaimed upon noticing Cherry. “Hello!”
“H-hello…” Cherry murmured, mincing over to face the speaker.
“Good timing!” The woman continued, beaming at Cherry, who was taken aback by the sight of her. She was utterly gorgeous. Black-haired like Julia and with breasts almost as large as Cherry’s own, but seemingly larger for the way they overflowed her tight corseted bodice. Her skin was of olive complexion at its base, pale and delicate rather than tanned. Full lips seemed to caress each word she spoke, distracting Cherry from her dark eyes. Her husband must be very proud. “We just finished a group conversation. Do you have a script of your own, or will you follow along with one of ours?”
“Do I have a what?” Cherry asked, only half listening but also genuinely confused.
“A script of your own.” The woman said earnestly. “Or you can always follow along with one of ours.”
“I don’t understand…”
Realization dawned on the woman’s beautiful face. “Oh, my goodness! It seems I’ve made an error. Did Julia send you over to us?”
Cherry nodded. “Yes, she did. My name is Cherry Crane. I’m…” Her voice faltered. After four months she couldn’t exactly claim to be new in town, despite not having seen any of it. She wasn’t even sure where Francis lived, exactly. He had always visited her at home while they were courting. It was possible she was still in Camden, the town she’d grown up in, though that was unlikely. She hadn’t seen a single familiar woman at the Social, even among wives her own age. Faces and names could be altered to fit a husband’s taste, of course, but it seemed far more likely that she was simply in a new town altogether. Still, it had been four months. “This is my first Women’s Social.” she said, instead.
“I’m so happy to meet you! My name is Diane.” Cherry realized that she could have seen as much by simply looking above the woman’s head, but for some reason she was finding it difficult to look away from her face. Diane leaned forward, as if for a friendly hug, and Cherry mimicked her.
They were both married women, and so had no troublesome arms to wrap around each other, but Diane pressed her neck against Cherry’s own in something approximating the gesture. Cherry’s chest pushed against the other woman’s, breasts flattening until they nearly brushed her chin. It was the most contact she’d had with anyone other than Francis since before the wedding. She held herself there perhaps longer than was polite, feeling the warmth of Diane’s skin, her pulse, breathing the heady perfume that wafted from her cleavage. It felt…nice. Diane’s cheek brushed her own as she disengaged from the embrace, and Cherry felt her face heat in response to the touch.
“Julia is so thoughtful to send you over here.” Diane said, straightening. If she had noticed the momentary intimacy she gave no sign. Cherry reluctantly forced herself to ignore it, as well. “We love to welcome new girls!”
Diane was certainly a welcoming presence, but Cherry could hardly say the same for the rest of the women surrounding them. Most had still not even twitched. “Are they…all right?” She whispered to Diane.
“Everyone is thrilled to have you join us!” Diane enthused, as if there was nothing at all amiss.
“Diane…I don’t think she’s familiar with scripting at all.” said one of the nearby women who had begun to stir. She didn’t introduce herself before continuing, but Cherry’s contacts showed that her name was ‘Madison’. She was a brunette perhaps only a few years younger than Julia, which made her among the oldest women in the room. Her chest was not exactly small, but it did seem that way in comparison to Cherry and Diane. “You might want to let me take over the welcome.”
Diane paused, and gave Cherry a searching look. Her voice was a bit more hesitant, but the question didn’t really change. “Do you have a script of your own? You can always follow along with one of ours.”
Cherry just shook her head.
Diane opened her mouth, frowned, and then closed it again, her lips forming into a pretty pout. As if something so obvious had suddenly become a puzzle. She glanced at Madison, her expression clearly requesting the other woman to intercede.
“Diane’s welcome speech doesn’t bother to explain scripting to someone who’s not already familiar.” Madison said, and Diane nodded with relief. “But I can be more flexible. Didn’t your school have a scripted week?”
A woman standing between Madison and Diane, ‘Sprinkles’ according to the contacts, rushed to break in before Cherry had a chance to speak. “Mine did! I nearly flunked it, but thank goodness I had enough extra credit saved up from pageant days. One of my friends had to repeat the whole week twice, which is especially good practice, I suppose, but I don’t think she appreciated it! Anyway, I thought it was part of the standard curriculum?”
Again, Cherry just had to shake her head no. “Maybe it is, but I must have skipped it. My husband didn’t want to wait for me to graduate.”
“Oh, I understand that.” Sprinkles said knowingly. She was about Cherry’s own age, blonde like herself, but in pigtails and pretty enough that Cherry could see why she’d earned plenty of points on pageant days. Words poured out of her like a dam had just burst. “My Thomas was terribly impatient while we were courting. I’m his first wife, you see, and he was tired of waiting. He might not have let me finish school, too, if my father hadn’t started letting him keep me overnight. Still in my purity garments, of course, but that didn’t give him too much trouble, let me tell you—”
“Your father allowed that?!” Madison exclaimed, her eyes shifting from shock to horror as she spoke. Cherry and Diane wore similar expressions. Cherry’s own brief courtship had been fraught with terror that her father might discover what she and Francis did during their unsupervised moments. Purity garments blocked access to a girl’s lower holes, but it didn’t take a creative mind to imagine how they might be circumvented.
Sprinkles flushed, and her voice took on a defensive tone. “I hardly could have done it without his approval, could I? And not just Thomas! Most of my other suitors paid for overnights, too. It’s expected nowadays, when the bidding is competitive!” She raised a haughty eyebrow at Madison. “But I guess you wouldn’t know about that.”
Madison was blushing, too. She had been staring at the floor ever since interrupting Sprinkles. From her repeated winces it seemed more like she was suffering multiple insults throughout the other woman’s rebuttal than a single snide comment at the end. Perhaps she was just especially sensitive about her age. Madison was a good deal older than Sprinkles, and she probably didn’t appreciate reminders that she was out of touch with the latest trends in dating. Though Cherry herself had never heard of such a thing as men paying for ‘overnights’. Perhaps her father would have capitalized in the same way if Francis had not been her only suitor.
It suddenly seemed odd to her that Sprinkles had attracted so many, while she had had only one. Cherry had been quite successful on pageant days herself, after all. For a moment, she thought she could dimly recall a series of hazy male faces, but when she tried to focus on them they all resolved into Francis’ face instead. …What had made her picture Francis, again? It seemed she couldn’t trace her train of thought. She was probably just missing him, like always.
“We have strayed from the topic at hand, I think.” Madison said after an awkward silence. Her tone was chastised, again seeming more as though she had been shouted at rather than merely sassed. “I’m sorry if I offended you, Sprinkles. My tongue…has a mind of its own, sometimes. It often betrays me when I give it too much leniency.”
Sprinkles sighed and let the heat out of her voice. “It’s not your fault, Maddy. I invited your outburst by speaking too freely in the first place.” Something seemed to occur to her because her tone took on genuine concern. “You didn’t get in trouble, did you?”
Madison ignored that last comment and instead turned to Cherry with an apologetic smile. “You see? Conversation carries so many stresses and risks when you must choose the words yourself. We are fortunate that our husbands take that burden from us, most of the time.”
“Is that what scripting means?” Cherry asked, reasoning it out part way from what the women had said already. “That you…follow a script? How does that work?”
“Well,” Madison began, “in Diane’s case, she has a list of responses she can scroll through on her contacts and select whichever is most appropriate.”
“I’m so happy to meet you!” Diane burst in, clearly excited to have something to add. She beamed at Cherry again, and Cherry smiled back. Perhaps Diane had indeed felt something in their earlier connection, but had been unable to express it?
“Scripts can be quite sophisticated.” Madison further explained. “It’s common to have hundreds of possible responses to mix and match, so it can really feel like a regular conversation once you’ve practiced for a while and know your own lines by heart. Diane is a bit simplistic, all things considered.” That earned an indignant huff from Diane. “She’s locked in to welcoming you now, so she can only pick from that script until you leave or a new group conversation begins.”
“I love to welcome new girls!” Diane announced defiantly, as if demonstrating that she was perfectly capable of expressing what she needed to. She reached out with her leg and stroked Cherry’s calf. Cherry returned the affectionate gesture, once again relishing the feel of her own silky skin against Diane’s. What a strange friend she had made! Also like before, the contact continued longer than was strictly necessary, and this time it was not Diane pulling back but rather Madison clearing her throat that signalled the end of the moment.
But it was Sprinkles who spoke. “I’m the same as Diane, when I’m at home!” She offered, trampling whatever Madison had started to say. “Thomas likes me to tell him things, like how I’m feeling or if I need anything, but I’m such a chatterbox I don’t know when to stop talking! He’s a real sweetheart, so he felt super guilty about shutting me up even though apparently I can be annoying. But then he put me on a script and everything is so much better now! I can tell him everything he wants to know and he doesn’t have to worry about sending me off on a tangent! And it’s way better than a gag, because I can still—”
“He lets her go off-script for the Social,” Madison interrupted in a dry tone, and Sprinkles blushed, swallowing the rest of her torrent. “But she still joins in scripted conversations with the group. I—” She winced again, and stared at nothing for a few seconds before continuing with a slight smile. “I have a similar arrangement, myself.”
“That seems…” Cherry started, but drifted off. She was going to say limiting, but it occurred to her that she had had precious little in the way of conversation with Francis since the honeymoon. Even on nights when he stayed with her now the best she could hope for was an exchange of ‘I-love-you’s and maybe a murmured ‘sweet dreams’ before he fell asleep. Perhaps if she had all the right words, words he had chosen himself, he would speak with her more frequently. “…interesting.” She finished, instead. “And what is a scripted conversation like? Both women follow the same script?”
“Yes,” Madison said, and Diane nodded enthusiastically. “Usually one woman leads the conversation and the other receives her own lines to read via her contacts.”
“You can always follow along with one of ours!” Diane chimed, again, with a smile.
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.”
Chapter 4
Diane was indeed thrilled to see the three of them return, though her grateful smile seemed to become something more when it lingered on Cherry. Katie paid no mind to the fact that she had lost Diane’s attention. She was still on the nauseating subject of her tongue, or perhaps she had done a full cycle and was now repeating herself.
“…And once it’s clean, I should have a maid put the plunger back in its stand. Then—“
“That’s enough, Katie.” Madison cut in, her voice kind but firm. Diane nodded her agreement quite enthusiastically.
“Thank you for listening to my drivel!” Katie told her, still smiling that same warm smile. “I’ll shut my stupid face hole now.” And then the smile dropped in an instant, and her eyes glazed over completely. She was back in total isolation.
“Poor thing…” Madison murmured and Cherry had to agree. Retirement was an honor every wife hoped to achieve someday, but Katie was probably one of the only women in Holsom actually looking forward to it. If her husband even deigned to give her that kindness. Cherry fervently hoped he wouldn’t cut Katie loose after a life of dedicated service, whatever her faults. Loose women were no one’s property but their own, responsible for themselves in all ways. To be cut loose was to be adrift, vulnerable amongst the currents and the waves. It was the worst possible thing to be, usually reserved for women who had utterly failed to properly serve. No matter what sin Katie had committed to earn her current circumstances, surely she didn’t deserve that.
“You had something to tell me?” Cherry asked, eager to change the subject away from Katie’s miserable fate. “Something about what Sprinkles said, but you couldn’t talk about it with Gabby nearby?” Sprinkles flushed again at that, still embarrassed by whatever slip of the tongue had so annoyed Madison. In fact, Diane shot her an incredulous look, clearly picking up on the situation. Whatever it was, she knew it, too, and was not happy with Sprinkles for revealing as much as she had.
Madison let out another sigh. “I don’t like to talk about it with new girls. And Gabby has a hissy fit if I even mention it. She likes to think she’s unique, but she and I are actually quite similar. In fact, my husband used her court case to justify my situation to the Marriage Board.”
Cherry frowned in confusion. “What do you mean? You’re just one woman.”
Madison raised an eyebrow. “So is Gabby.”
“Ok,” Cherry conceded, “But you know what I mean.”
Madison gave her a friendly smile. “I do. But the truth is I’m not like the rest of you.”
“Yes, you are!” Sprinkles broke in. “If the Marriage Board says you are, and your husband says you are, then you are, Maddy!”
Diane’s determined huff showed that she agreed.
“Thank you, both.” Madison told them, and she received two encouraging smiles from her friends.
“Madison, it’s alright if you’d rather not tell me.” Cherry assured her, but the other woman hurried on.
“The truth is, Cherry, what you can see of me is not all there is. In fact, this body once belonged to another woman. A girl, at the time. I now control it from afar.” She paused to let that sink in, but Cherry found herself unable to absorb the information. How could a body belong to someone else? She supposed the bodies that comprised Gabriella could be considered to have once belonged to other women. Did Madison mean something similar? “I used to think of her as merely a puppet, and I still refer to her as such, but she has earned more fondness than that over the years. She is as much a part of me as I am of her, and together we embody an ideal ‘Madison’ to which my husband is married.”
“But Gabby said she had to act as one body at all times…” Cherry said, frowning once more. “How can you be one body if the other you isn’t here?”
Madison smiled at her. “You’re very smart, Cherry.” Cherry shot her an appreciative grin in return. That wasn’t a compliment she was used to hearing. “You’re right. Gabby’s court decision was quite clear. A wife must have a female body and a female identity. I am the identity only, and the puppet is my body. The box where the rest of me is kept sits on a shelf in our living room. I know I must still have eyes and ears, because I receive the signals directly from my puppet’s contacts and ear implants. And presumably my brain is intact, and whatever systems are absolutely necessary to keep me alive. But no one could look at a box that small and call whatever is inside it a ‘body’, not even the Marriage Board.”
Madison’s delivery was quite matter of fact, but Cherry couldn’t help emitting a small squeak when she realized what the other woman was saying.
“You live in a little box? Isn’t that scary?”
“That’s what I said, when she told me!” Sprinkles added. “But she says it’s not scary at all!”
“It isn’t.” Madison assured them both. “The worst part was the isolation in the weeks while the puppet was being trained to accept my guidance. But that was many years ago. The box is quite beautiful, actually. My husband designed it himself, and the love he put into it is clear. I imagine it might be a little scary to look inside, but I think anyone would be frightened by the sight of their own inner workings.”
“Yuck.” Sprinkles scrunched her nose at the thought. Cherry supposed it was true. She didn’t know very much about what went on inside her. She knew she had a heart, and a tummy, and lungs, and more or less where those things were. But there was a lot of extra room presumably filled with all sorts of squishy stuff. She didn’t like to think too hard about it, but it also rarely bothered her day to day.
“I guess that makes sense.” She said after thinking it over. “So you see and hear everything, and you tell the puppet what to do? Can she ever do things on her own?”
“Of course!” Madison seemed proud. As if in a beloved daughter, and also herself, all at once. “We are a team. She actually makes most of the decisions about what to do in the moment. She’s well trained, and there are some very sophisticated scripts to help her when she needs it. Nowadays I really only have to step in occasionally to remind her how I would behave in a certain situation.”
“Oooh!” The reality dawned on Cherry. All those times she had seen Madison stare at the air, as if listening to something no one else could hear, suddenly became moments when the puppet was receiving commands, or being corrected.
“So when you interrupted Sprinkles earlier… After she mentioned spending the night with her suitors?”
“Yes,” Madison sighed and shook her head. “That outburst was my puppet being too loose with her tongue. I allow her even more autonomy than usual at events like this, where no one present knew me as I was. But I cannot abide such a flagrant breach of character.” Madison’s expression was serious, as if she were truly delivering harsh words to an unruly girl. Or was this the puppet admonishing…herself? It all made Cherry’s head spin. She supposed it really was like Gabby, where it was easier to just imagine them as a single person.
“But why? Why live this way?” She asked, already anticipating the answer. It could only be the same reason Gabby’s husband had created a character to marry rather than a real woman. And indeed Madison’s next words confirmed her suspicions.
“To stave off retirement, of course.” Madison said, stating the obvious. “Neil absolutely adores me, and me, him.” That came with a satisfied sigh of affection for the mere mention of her husband. “He refused to replace me, even though I eventually begged him to. I had grown old, and despite his love I couldn’t live with knowing that my body didn’t spark his passion the way it once had. He’s a hopeless romantic, and I’m still sure he would have fallen just as deeply in love with my replacement. But he didn’t want that, especially not while our children were still at home. When Gabby’s case made the papers, it inspired him to attempt this solution.”
“Wow!” Cherry breathed and Sprinkles practically swooned. This really was way more romantic than even Gabby’s situation! Cherry could see why Gabby might be jealous of Madison. Cherry thought she might just be a little jealous herself! That made her wonder something though…
“Can you feel things?”
“Sometimes. The puppet reacts accordingly, of course, and occasionally I really believe I can feel what touched her. It’s a trick of the mind, mostly, not unlike how many wives sometimes feel a twinge in their arm even though it’s no longer there. Touch is the one true sacrifice I have made in this whole arrangement, and it’s more than worth the trade.”
“But what about…you know.”
“If you’re asking whether I can feel it when my husband and I are intimate together, I assure you that Neil included a very satisfying solution when he designed my enclosure.” She gave a playful wink. “And that’s as much as you’re going to get on that subject.” Then she sighed. “Now that we’ve explained why the genie is in the bottle, I’d appreciate it if we laid the ‘shes’ and ‘hers’ to rest. It’s confusing, otherwise. I am me, this is my body, and I’d appreciate it if you thought of me as such from this point on. Does that sound alright, Cherry?”
“Of course!” Cherry told her. She reached out to brush Madison’s calf in the way Diane had done with her, earlier. Madison smiled at her, and Cherry knew she’d made another friend. The loneliness that had weighed on her for so long was gradually dissipating. She hoped these Socials would be a regular part of her life, going forward.
“It’s almost two o’clock!” Diane suddenly announced. “A group conversation will start soon!”
“So it is.” Madison said, checking the clock on the far wall. “What is the topic, Diane?”
“The topic is the wonderful weather we’re having lately!” Diane beamed, and Sprinkles groaned.
“Oh, that’s one of the worst ones!”
“I might like that actually,” Cherry said, tentatively. “Except for today, I haven’t been outside since my wedding. And even today everything was totally censored. It might be nice to hear how the weather has been.”
“So that’s why I haven’t seen you before!” Sprinkles let out, as if this were something she had been puzzling over. “Thomas walks me every day, so I usually meet all the new girls around town.”
“Oh, really?” Cherry wished she could be taken out for a daily walk! “Francis keeps me in the bedroom. Even the hallway is censored, I discovered today.”
Diane’s lovely face was all concern, and Madison looked sympathetic as well.
“That seems awfully strict, considering how lax he is with your voice.” She said, but Sprinkles wasn’t done speaking and practically barreled over Madison’s words.
“My mommy was like that! Her boobies were so big I don’t think she could’ve left Daddy’s bed if she wanted to. I used to snuggle with her when I was really little, but when I got too old for that I barely saw her anymore. I didn’t even know he’d retired her until I went to show her my new boobies and there was a different girl in the bed!”
That was interesting to hear. Cherry’s own mother had been a fairly active presence in her life, while she lasted, and Cherry had been quite close with both of her father’s subsequent wives. The latest was only a few years older than herself, and she had treated Cherry more like a favorite sister than a daughter. Part of why her situation with Francis was so worrisome was because it didn’t fit the examples she’d had growing up. But if such practices were more common than she’d known, then perhaps there was nothing wrong at all.
“Thanks, Sprinkles, that’s nice to hear.” She said, honestly. “I was worried I had done something wrong, but maybe Francis just likes it this way.”
“Well, we’re glad you were allowed to attend the Social, Cherry.” Madison told her. Diane nodded emphatically, and Sprinkles clarified that of course that was what she had meant to say. “But I’m not sure you’d enjoy the group conversation. Despite what Diane’s script claims, it’s not really about the recent weather but rather whatever the weather was like at the time it was written. Sprinkles is right to say that it’s not one of the best, and it’s quite long. I’m afraid it will last until the end of the Social, and I’d hate for you to miss out on making friends with some of the other ladies in the room.”
“Oh,” Cherry said, a little disappointed. “I guess I’ll say goodbye to you all, then.”
“It was so nice to meet you!” Sprinkles hopped up to Cherry for a hug, in the same fashion as Diane had done when welcoming her. Madison followed suit, and then Diane herself. Strangely, the pleasant warmth of the other two women did not have quite the same effect as Diane’s touch had had earlier. Cherry was beginning to think she had imagined it after all until Diane’s body pressed against hers again.
She could feel Diane’s pulse against the side of her throat, and knew the other woman could feel hers as well. Could feel it quicken, just as her breath did the same, making her chest rise and fall in short bursts. She tried to steady herself, to take deep breaths, but each one carried an intoxicating draught of Diane’s perfume. And then, as Diane pulled back, Cherry felt soft lips kiss her cheek. It was only a quick peck, but it left a fiery imprint on her skin. Cherry gasped, wide eyes meeting Diane’s as their faces hovered inches apart.
Diane’s small smile proved that the kiss had not been an accident. Her expression was shy, and hopeful, as she searched Cherry’s eyes for a response. Cherry had to swallow a mouthful of fluid before she could speak. Her intimate modifications seemed to be malfunctioning. They were supposed to lubricate her for her husband, among other things, and often just thinking of him was enough to get the juices flowing. But Francis was the furthest thing from her mind at that moment.
“I hope—“ She started, and had to quickly pause to swallow again or else risk drooling. “I hope I will see you again soon, Diane.” she managed, and Diane’s smile broadened as she gave Cherry a small nod. And just like that, it was over. Diane’s whole expression changed, growing distant, and her torso shot back away from Cherry, suddenly standing upright and at attention.
“Have you seen the lovely weather we’re having lately?” She said to the air a little to Cherry’s right.
“Yes, what wonderful sunshiny days they have been.” Madison responded, stepping into Diane’s gaze. Sprinkles was similarly occupied with a woman Cherry had not met, and even Katie seemed to be in conversation. Though on second glance Cherry realized that Katie’s partner was the only one in that pair actually speaking her lines, and then pausing for an appropriate time before continuing as though Katie had done more than stare blankly.
Cherry spent a few minutes just watching them all. Her cheek was still so hot that she wasn’t sure Diane’s lips hadn’t made an indelible mark on her skin for all to see. Despite her best efforts to convince herself that simple curiosity motivated her remaining amongst the scripted ladies, her gaze mostly held to Diane. Her strict posture thrust her breasts prominently before her, jet black hair falling in waves across her shoulders and down her back. A rivulet of warm fluid oozed down Cherry’s inner thigh and the rest of her face suddenly blazed to match where Diane had kissed her. She forced herself to turn and mince away.
Chapter 5
Cherry stood in the open space that separated the scripted ladies from the larger group, thighs pressed firmly together to keep from dripping onto the carpet. Her eyes were closed and she took deep breaths, trying to will her body out of its misdirected arousal. She shifted her weight on her painful shoes. The conversation had distracted her from the way they squeezed her feet, but now she was actually trying to focus on the pain. Focus on that, and not the memory of Diane’s face, hovering just in front of hers. She had been so close. Cherry could have leaned just a little further forward and—
“Did the scripted ladies bother you?” A friendly voice asked, and Cherry’s eyes shot open. Two women had joined her, one standing right in front of her face and peering at her with concern. “They’re a weird bunch, huh?”
“No, they didn’t bother me.” Cherry assured her, and took a small step back so their tits weren’t so at risk of touching. “They were really nice, actually.”
“Oh that’s good!” The woman, ‘Elizabeth’ by the contacts, smiled at Cherry. She was maybe two or three years younger than Madison’s puppet, pretty but with imperfections that suggested her face had been left more or less as it had been before her wedding. “My sister saw you rush out of their group, all flustered, and she thought they might’ve spooked you.”
The other woman, ‘Jeanette’, who could only be the sister, had a face that was radically different from the speaker. In fact, Cherry doubted Jeanette could speak at all. Her mouth appeared to have been designed purely for her husband’s pleasure, with thick lips formed into a perfect circle around a small hole. It was a modification Cherry had seen before, and she knew that beyond the tight opening lay a soft, toothless channel that more closely resembled Cherry’s own vaginal canal than her mouth.
Peering inside confirmed her suspicions. The tube was currently about the diameter of a man’s finger, but when in use it could probably shrink down to the size of the truly tiny hole in the back. There was a pearl piercing back there, glinting just above the entrance to Jeanette’s throat. A speed bump to tell her husband that he was now blocking her airway, unless Cherry missed her guess. It might be difficult to tell, otherwise. She didn’t take more than a glance, not wanting to be rude. It felt like staring at another woman’s intimates, which she supposed it was.
“Thank you for your concern.” Cherry told them both. “I’m really alright.”
“Jeany says you’re welcome.” Elizabeth said, and then clarified with a nod towards her sister. “That’s Jeany. I’m Liza. Is it just Cherry for you? Or, like ‘Cher’ or…’Ri’…or…”
“Just Cherry.” She was still getting used to introducing herself with her new name, and could see no point in adding a nickname to the mix. Besides, a bestowed name was not to be played around with. To Francis she was Cherry so Cherry she was.
“Ok! Nice to meet you Cherry!” Liza thankfully did not lean in for a welcoming hug. Cherry was just getting a handle on her emotional state and was glad to avoid more potentially hazardous contact. “Jeany says it’s nice to meet you, too!”
“She does?” Cherry asked, looking at Jeany. The rest of her face appeared to be fixed in a permanent state of surprise, with wide eyes and high, arching brows that almost made the ‘o’ of her mouth seem a natural part of her expression rather than a molded pleasure portal. Almost. Those plush, rounded lips made their purpose clear.
“Uh huh!” Liza nodded, “She’s got little buttons under her palate that she can press with her tongue. The messages go right to my contacts!”
Looking closely, Cherry realized she could see Jeany’s tongue flicking around inside the slick tunnel. It was the only motion on her doll-ish face, her eyes lacking even the lazy wandering-through-fog motion of Katie’s as they stared straight ahead. Cherry had seen plenty of dolls before, women locked inside their own minds, utterly incapable of expressing themselves. Or, incapable of using the usual methods to do so, at least. She knew many dolls used some simple gestures and codes with taps of their feet or even patterns in their breathing.
In fact that was how one of her uncles preferred his wife, though as a Redeemer he had religious reasons for demanding female silence that went beyond a mere appreciation for the doll aesthetic. His beliefs mandated the same for his daughters, but thankfully they were otherwise unrestrained. Cherry had spent many wonderful, if quiet, hours with her cousins, using their doll mother as a mannequin for their dress up games. At that age, giggle fits had constantly threatened the girls’ vow of silence; especially Sharon, who managed to have a wicked sense of humor for someone without words. Hipsie could sharply tap her foot to remind her daughters to contain themselves, but not much more. Even if they failed to heed her, though, Hipsie still always gave a quick double tap of “no” later when Uncle Luke asked whether his girls had broken the rules. He always took her word on it, too, even when Cherry knew he must have been able to hear through the door. This was the first time Cherry had seen a doll with a speech capability more developed than that.
“Wow, I’m glad she can still communicate!” Cherry told Liza, not sure if she should instead be speaking directly to Jeany. She didn’t seem to be offended, but Cherry supposed that it might not be immediately apparent if she was. “I’m glad to meet you, Jeany. I really do appreciate you checking on me.”
“She was happy to do it!” Liza relayed after a brief pause and a patient look towards her sister, then she spoke more quickly, indicating that she was using her own words now rather than Jeany’s. “Julia used to put her over there with them before I started coming to the Social, even though she’s not on a script. So she’s kinda sensitive to how freaky they can be.”
Cherry felt an instinct to defend her new friends, but a moment’s thought made her reconsider. Unable to explain her own situation, or ask questions of the other women, Jeany must have had a very different experience with the scripted ladies. “I understand why you might have felt that way Jeany,” she said diplomatically, “but they really are rather lovely when you get to know them.”
“If you say so!” Liza shrugged her empty shoulders, sending a slight bounce through her chest, clearly doubtful. Cherry wasn’t sure if the words were her own, or Jeany’s.
“Isn’t what you’re doing similar to being on a script?” she asked, “You’re speaking the words Jeany sends you, after all.”
“I’m not, like, reading a script, though!” Liza rolled her eyes as though it was incredibly obvious. “I’m just telling you what she told me!”
“Can she only speak to you?” It seemed logical that if Katie could send the lines of her script to whoever spoke to her, then Jeany should be able to type her messages to Cherry directly. That was probably why Julia had assumed she belonged with the scripted ladies—Cherry hadn’t seen any other dolls among them, and there were at least a few more at the Social—but Liza disproved her theory.
“Just me!” she chimed. “Her husband likes her as a doll, so he prefers to leave her thoughts up to his imagination as much as possible. He knows how close we are, though, so he lets her send me messages to keep in touch.”
“He never speaks with her himself?” That seemed terribly lonely, even if she did have Liza to talk to. Hipsie had her daughters and plenty of Redemption rituals to keep her occupied, but Uncle Luke still spoke to her quite frequently as well. Still, Cherry knew that some dolls weren’t so lucky. Am I much better off? She wondered. Maybe Francis would have liked her better if he had made her a doll, instead. At least then she would have had a better idea of what to expect from her married life.
“Oh, he talks to her all the time!” Liza exclaimed, rolling her eyes again but this time clearly not at Cherry. “She’s always telling me jokes he just told her; he loves to make her laugh, and not just because of how it makes her boobs shake! Or sometimes she’ll ask my help if she’s confused and wants to understand why he’s feeling a certain way, but usually she’s pretty serious about his privacy, even with me. She’s his closest confidant!”
“How nice!” Cherry felt happy for Jeany that she could be so close with her husband despite her limitations, and again felt a pang of loss that she might never get the experience of Francis sharing his private thoughts, much less joking with her. He sometimes laughed when she said something amusing, usually by accident, but she couldn’t recall him ever going out of his way to put her in good spirits. Besides offering her the chance to perform her wifely duties, of course. She looked at Jeany’s transfixed face and followed a thick glob of drool as it rolled free of her pneumatic pout, tracing a slow descent to her cleavage. Yet another woman with an enviable life. “So she can talk to you even when you’re apart? And you can reply to her?”
“Yup! I have to dictate to a maid, usually, unless I want to use the suggested replies in my contacts—Jeany says she can always tell when I’m being lazy, as if!—but we can chat even when we’re both at our husbands’ homes. I always know what she’s up to.” Liza leaned towards Cherry, wearing a conspiratorial grin, “Sometimes she forgets to hit the mute button before he puts his you-know-what in her mouth and I end up getting long paragraphs of gibberish!” Cherry couldn’t help but join in Liza’s giggles, blushing all the while at hearing such an intimate detail. “Oh, she’s mad at me for telling you that!” Indeed, though Jeany’s face held its same fixed expression her tongue was working furiously behind her lips. “She says it’s not her fault! He doesn’t give her any warning!” Liza laughed even harder at that, and Cherry realized from Jeany‘s shuddering breath, inaudible but quite evident from the way her breasts rippled, that she was laughing, too. Feeling the humor much more now that she knew the joke was not at Jeany’s expense, Cherry let herself join the sisters for her first full throated laugh in months.
“Ah…” Liza sighed after a while, as the laughter was fading. With no fingers to wipe them from her eyes, she was trying to blink away tears of mirth before they had a chance to fall. “I haven’t laughed that hard since the kids used my makeup kit to draw faces on all the retirees in the house!”
“Oh! Your husband has children?” Cherry grinned, remembering her and her brothers’ antics with the retirees in her father’s home, growing up. They had been frequent participants in any number of games, stoically accepting even the most ridiculous commands, but she’d never thought of drawing faces on them. How silly!
Liza’s smile was radiant with pride. “David has four, with another one on the way! He bred two daughters from his previous wife, and the newer three are from me. All boys, if you can believe my luck! He’s so pleased he’s even letting me name the new one. I can choose between Jon or John, with an ‘h’! I know it’s a subtle difference, but it means so much that it’s up to me, you know?”
“Wow! That is really special, Liza.” Cherry told her, and Liza beamed ever brighter. David was certainly fighting strong traditions to give her even that small influence over the name of his son. A particularly well-loved wife might get to choose a childhood name for her daughter, those would likely be changed later anyway, but for a mother to leave any sort of lasting mark on a son was rare indeed. Jon, or John, would always have a tiny piece of Liza with him. What a wonderful gift David had given her!
“Are you carrying him now?” Cherry glanced at Liza’s flat tummy. If she was, he couldn’t be too far along. Girls were typically removed and placed inside a rented retiree at a breeding facility to develop. They arrived via post, once birthed, either to their father or a different buyer. Boys on the other hand would have a surrogate retiree from within the household, who would be locked in a stationary position and maintained by the rest of its peers until he could be delivered. Cherry had watched the younger of her two brothers grow within one of her father’s maids, it’s belly slowly expanding like a black balloon, as it stood locked in one corner of the family room.
Liza chuckled, noticing Cherry’s glance at her midriff. “Oh, I had him for a little while, before the sex could be determined, but he was transferred to a surrogate months ago. It looks about ready to pop—the tummy is so round the kids actually drew an extra face there, too! A puppy, to go with the doggy they drew up above.”
They all laughed again, Jeany included, at the image of a black, bloated belly with a child’s drawing of a puppy scrawled across it with lipstick. That retiree was actually very fortunate. Delivering a male child was probably the most intimate connection a retiree could have with a person. It was the only time one was ever unsealed, if only partially, and only when it was necessary. Serving as a surrogate for a baby boy was certainly the role most wives dreamed of when they imagined the ideal retirement. It would also nurse him, for a time, before returning to its usual schedule and total anonymity amongst the rest of the retirees in the house.
Young men had a different relationship with retirees in general than girls. Whereas girls were learning to be cared for, maintained, boys were learning to command. Retirees provided a safe target for boys to test their authority, and they could often be quite tyrannical with the household maids. Especially once they reached the age where an almost-womanly form could attend to all sorts of new needs. Cherry wasn’t exactly sure what those needs were, or when that age was, but she remembered her father joking that her brothers had clearly reached it when they each started secluding themselves in their rooms with a maid or two multiple times a day.
Liza suddenly turned to Jeany, looking genuinely touched by whatever message the doll had just sent her.
“Thank you, Jeany. That’s so nice of you to say. I’m sure that Ryan’s daughter would have loved you, too, if she’d had the chance to meet you.” Turning back to Cherry, she continued, “Jeany’s husband had a daughter around the same age as David’s girls, but he sold her on Promise to pay for Jeany. She lives with her betrothed’s family, when she isn’t away at school, so Jeany has never met her. Ryan plans to attend the wedding someday, though, so she’ll get to see her then, at least!”
This time Cherry actually spotted the doll’s flurry of movement behind her lips, and waited politely with Liza, looking at the frozen face that gave no indication of what Jeany was about to say. Cherry kind of wished she could see the messages herself, but at least it was entertaining to watch! Eventually Liza furrowed her brow.
“Oh, Jeany, stop it! The wedding is less than ten years away. Ryan won’t replace you before then and you know it! It doesn’t matter that you can’t give him any more children yourself. The way he dotes on you, I wouldn’t be surprised if you last longer than I do, and I’ve given David three boys back to back!”
Dolls did enjoy more longevity in general than other girls. Their bodies didn’t age the same way as women who hadn’t undergone whatever procedure it was that fixed their features in place. Hipsie was already in her thirties when Cherry had been little, so by now she must be the oldest woman Cherry knew of, if she was still around. And she probably was; Redeemers married for life, another of that group’s odd quirks. There wasn’t any reason a doll couldn’t carry children, though, as far as she knew. Cherry’s cousins had all been bred from Hipsie, after all.
“You can’t have children, Jeany?”
Liza shook her head, not waiting for Jeany’s slow response. “The Board didn’t approve her for breeding because Ryan is technically our uncle—he was only our mother’s brother, so not really related, but apparently the rules for breeding are different for some reason. He didn’t even know until after he’d bought her; how would he? It’s not like he and mommy kept in touch after she married our father. Jeany’s kinda self-conscious about it, you know the stigma around such things, but it’s not like there’s anything actually wrong with her and he doesn’t want more kids anyway, so I really don’t see the problem.”
Cherry could understand why it might bother Jeany to be rejected for breeding, even if her husband hadn’t planned on it to begin with. Francis had never indicated that he wanted children from Cherry, and she had decided not to get her hopes up by even entertaining the possibility. There was no reason he couldn’t, though: she had a breeding permit along with her marriage license, proving that she was of high pedigree. Girls without permits were typically assumed to possess some defect, but in rare cases like Jeany’s it was simply a result of there being too close a relation between herself and her husband. Still, Jeany couldn’t appreciate being lumped in with the lower stock.
Ryan being only so tenuously related probably helped him avoid the stigma that men attached to such marriages, at least. Cherry didn’t really understand why men were so averse to marrying female relatives. A girlhood crush on a father or brother was an almost universal part of growing up, but such feelings were almost never reciprocated as far as she knew. She supposed that the availability of Promised girls explained it, in part.
“Besides, Jeany,” Liza said encouragingly, “there’s benefits to not having kids around. You have so much more time for your poems, and those paintings you love to do!”
“She’s a real artist, you know,” she said to Cherry, “You might not believe it but she can use her brushes as well with her new mouth as she did before her wedding. It’s surprisingly dextrous, on the inside. She needs a maid to swap her colors, and hold the canvas, of course, but the final product is always something profound. According to Ryan, anyway; he’s super proud of her. He interprets her paintings, as like, a glimpse into her mind. Not that he asks her—that would ruin it—but Jeany tells me that he always gets it exactly right, even if she didn’t realize at the time that that’s what she had been thinking while she painted it!”
“I’d love to see one of your paintings someday, Jeany!” Cherry told the doll girl amiably. “I used to paint a little, too, before my wedding. I wasn’t any good, but it was one of my assigned hobbies so I did my best. My father used to put them on the fridge beside my brothers’ essays and exams.”
“Ah, you’re both so lucky!” Liza sighed. “David let me do a redraw for new hobbies when we married. I got birdwatching or whatever, but who has time for that with four kids? Soon to be five!” She hardly seemed too put out by her lack of free time. It was clearly difficult for her to mask the excitement at her son’s imminent arrival.
Still, though, Cherry was a bit concerned by how busy she apparently was. “You don’t… raise them do you?”
Liza looked at her confused, before batting her eyes and smiling pleasantly. “What? Of course not! No, I just tag along with their play and sometimes accompany them during their lessons. You’d be surprised how refreshing those early girlhood storybooks can be! I even go to Tommy’s classes at real school, though mostly because he still prefers to sit on my lap. I can hardly follow what they teach him, and Patrick is another story. I don’t go with him at all anymore, not since he moved up to the third grade. He’s an independent little man, now, or so he likes to think. The curriculum would fly right over my head anyway, and it’s not like I can take notes!” She giggled with an easy shrug that jostled her chest, twisting back and forth to show the surgeons’ work on her shoulders as if Cherry hadn’t picked up her meaning. “Plus the girls are positively bouncing off the walls! They’ve got me by the leash more often than the boys do. Those little rascals want to use me in all their games!”
Her eyes widened slightly and she gasped, remembering something. “Oh! Speaking of little rascals…that reminds me that we were actually on our way to greet our third sister when Jeany saw you, Cherry. We really should get over there before she throws a tantrum. You’re welcome to join us, if you want!”
“Oh of course!” Cherry accepted right away. She had nowhere else to be, and a third sister like Liza and Jeany sounded like someone she’d want to meet.
Chapter 6
“Fabulous!” Liza elated and Cherry noticed her shoulders twitch in what might once have been a clap of joy. “Jeany, follow!” she added before taking the lead as they weaved between the various groups of chatting wives.
Based on the direct command Liza had given, and the almost too-graceful strut which Jeany put on, it seemed that her face wasn’t the only thing the doll couldn’t control. Cherry found herself once again filled with appreciation toward the doll girl’s considerate husband for allowing her one outlet with the person she was closest with. Francis had never arranged so much as a playdate for Cherry, at least not yet. He let you come to the Social, didn’t he? she admonished herself. She had to be more careful not to let her worries over Francis turn into whining.
A crowd seemed to be gathering at the far end of the room, and by all indications that was exactly where Liza was leading them. Using her considerable chest to her advantage, Liza cut a path for the trio, and soon they emerged at the front of the small gathering. The other women were all fawning over the occupants of three pastel colored bassinets. Peering inside, Cherry could see the objects of their adoring coos. Not infants in truth, certainly not with breasts that threatened to overflow each bassinet’s lacy border, but three women modified and styled as babydolls. They were waking from a nap, stretching little stumps capped with lace that marked where their full grown limbs had once been. They yawned, showing toothless mouths and smacking fat, pouty lips. Big, curious eyes scanned the faces that surrounded them as they blinked away sleepiness.
“Your little sister?” Cherry asked, trying to pick out which of the three babydolls might in fact be the third sister Liza had brought her to meet.
“Oh, Babbles is the oldest of us, actually!” Liza explained. “Her husband had the doctors do a little plump here and a tuck there to make her look younger, to match what they did to her mind. I used to be the baby of the family, but not any more!”
One of the babydolls, Babbles, brightened at hearing Liza’s voice and when she found her sister among the crowd her cherubic face suddenly glowed with joy. “Byeba!” she squealed at Liza, and then, upon noticing Jeany was there as well, “Geegee!”
“Hello, Babbles!” Liza leaned her face down into the bassinet to kiss her sister right on her button of a nose. “Mmmwuh!” She pronounced deliberately and then giggled at Babbles’ exuberant laugh.
“Byeba~a, no! NO, Byeba!”
“Mwuh! Mwuh! Mwuh!” She pecked Babbles’ cheeks and forehead as the helpless girl shrieked with laughter and attempted to block her face with her useless stumps.
“Jeany, say hello!” Liza called, a little breathless and still giggling.
Jeany strode forward and bent at the waist to position her vacuous face above the expanse of Babbles’ boobs. The horizontal position caused strings of viscous drool to immediately pour from her ever-open mouth. “Geegee! Phhbbbtt! Geegee, phhhbbbt!!!” Babbles squealed, blowing spit through her puckered lips. Jeany pressed her own lips to the puddle already spreading across the bare skin of her sister’s tit, exposed nearly in its entirety despite her nightie, and blew a wet raspberry as commanded. Babbles screeched with glee, drumming her stumpies against her jiggling breasts.
Babbles kept demanding more raspberries and Jeany kept delivering them until both Cherry and Liza noticed that Babbles’ now-slick breasts featured some very-erect nipples tenting her lace frilled nightie. Liza cleared her throat to say, “You can stop whenever you like, Jeany.”
The doll girl gave her baby sister a few more before standing upright, her lower face dripping while her cheeks burned bright red. She turned to stand woodenly behind Liza like before, who uttered a quiet, “You’re welcome, dear.”
A retiree maid stepped forward from its position behind the bassinet. All of the babydolls seemed to have a maid accompanying them, though Cherry had at first not even noticed the latex clad forms. Like all Holsom citizens she was accustomed to ignoring retirees until they made themselves useful. This one had apparently decided to wipe the drool from Babbles’ breasts, one prosthetic arm swinging free to complete this approved task while the other remained locked in the usual folded position behind its back. Babbles evidently found the rubbing quite pleasurable, as she arched her back to offer her pert nipples for the maid’s attention as well. The maid did swab some drool from beneath the nightie, causing coincidental contact that made Babbles twitch and emit a squeaky moan, but it seemed diligently focused on the actual cleaning, whatever the wishes of its charge. Perhaps to distract Babbles from her playful escapades, Liza decided it was time to introduce their new friend.
“Babbles, this is Cherry.” She said, leaning over the side opposite the maid. Cherry followed suit, getting even closer so Babbles could get a good look at her face while Liza repeated deliberately, “Cherry. Can you say Cherry, Babbles?”
“Berry!” Babbles babbled. Close enough, Cherry thought.
“It’s nice to meet you, Babbles.” Cherry cooed in a slow, gentle lyricism like Liza and the others, and received a beaming, toothless smile in return.
But Babbles’ expression changed to a searching frown as she looked beyond the three of them, her attention as fleeting as her giggles. “Dada?”
“No Dada, Babbles.” Liza slowly shook her head to help the words get through. “Dada’s not here. You’re at the Women’s Social. You remember the Social, don’t you?”
“Is she looking for your father?” Cherry whispered out the side of her mouth.
“Maybe, since Jeany and I are here…” Liza said with a great deal of uncertainty. “But she probably wants her husband. She seems to think they’re the same person. She gets so confused when they’re in the same room!”
Babbles scrunched up her face and began to sniffle. “Dada…” and then suddenly let out a full volume cry. “DADA~A!!” The assembled crowd immediately erupted in comforting coos, many abandoning the other bassinets to push themselves closer to Babbles.
“Uh oh.” Cherry took a step back.
“Oh, I think she’s just hungry.” Liza said, unconcerned.
Cherry noticed that the other babydolls were now being fed their bottles by their own maids. Bottle feeding wasn’t uncommon even among women and girls without the other infantile stylings. Liquid ‘slurpees’ were the standard in school cafeterias, though they relied on a slightly different delivery method, and at home Cherry herself had taken a bottle until only recently. She had also enjoyed occasional scraps from the male members of her family; spoon-fed morsels from her father, or things her little brother would rather dispose of discretely. Most of those had gone to the current lady of the house, though. Even if both would eagerly take whatever was offered, it was just easier for him to slip bits of broccoli to the mommy crouched beneath the table than to the sister sitting at Father’s side. Cherry had mostly been content with some warm, nutritious milktm. Sure enough, Babbles’ maid fetched a bottle of the stuff from beneath the bassinet as soon as she was done mopping up Jeany’s drool.
“No!” Babbles pouted, turning her face away from the bottle’s plastic nipple. “Dada!” she spat at the maid with all the authority of a spoiled toddler. “Da. DA!” Her little voice repeated as if she couldn’t be any more clear, which Cherry supposed was true.
She briefly wondered if Babbles might be on a script of some sort, but she suspected more traditional methods of simplification had been employed here. There was a wide variety available for suitors to choose from for their brides. As far as she knew Francis had left her mind untouched in the end, but before the wedding she had expected anything from losing her letters and numbers, all the way to the kind of adjustment one of the other babydolls seemed to live with. The entirely-limbless girl looked upward, cross-eyed, brows furrowed in ecstasy as if perpetually in mid-coitus with her owner, entirely unresponsive to the doting of the wives leaning over her. Cherry wondered for a moment what it would be like not to even feel the passing of time, just endless simple pleasure and happiness, but then she wouldn’t have gotten to see Diane’s face. Wait, no— Francis was the person who made life worth living! Cherry thought of Francis and smiled, forcing her momentary lapse deep into her mind, before she looked back at Jeany and Liza’s elder sister.
The maid had returned the unwanted bottle to its place beneath the bassinet and instead retrieved what appeared to be a realistically-modeled phallus. At first glance Cherry thought it might be a slurpee dispenser, like she had used in school, but those were not nearly so well defined. Slurpees taught the proper skills, but bore only a vague resemblance to the appendage between a man’s legs. The thing the maid had produced seemed to be more directly inspired. Holding it before Babbles for approval, the girl’s eyes lit up with an even greater exuberance than she had shown for her sisters.
“Dada!” she cooed lovingly to what Cherry realized was almost certainly a detailed replica of her husband’s penis. Babbles made kissy faces at it and reached with all four stubby limbs until the maid lowered the tip to her lips. She controlled her excitement long enough to give it a soft, reverent kiss before pulling the whole head into her mouth and suckling determinedly. The rear of the soft silicone cylinder was connected via a clear tube to a bladder the maid now held suspended high above the tiny wife with its other prosthetic hand. Cherry watched as a thick white fluid flowed from the bladder down into the tube, the cock, and from the way she swallowed gulp after satisfied gulp, Babbles’ throat.
“She’s always had a way of bullying people until they give her what she wants…” Liza said, with a rueful shake of her head. “Allison could be downright mean, before the wedding, but even when Babbles is mad she’s still so adorable that it’s hard to take it personally.” She giggled, clacking her pleaser playfully against Jeany’s. “I like her better this way, too, Jeany!”
“She seems pleased with the circumstances, as well!” Cherry remarked brightly, watching the obsessive, yet ever-so-gentle way Babbles nursed from the cock in her mouth.
“Oh, you should have seen the fit Allie threw when she learned about the mods that Sean — that’s ‘Dada’ — had ordered for her!” Liza exclaimed with a serious expression that barely suppressed a smile. “She made a big show of ‘running away’, and Father actually let her go. She’d done it before, and never gotten more than a few blocks before her own cold feet carried her home. But this time she actually made it all the way to a group of Redeemers doing charity work out in the woods — you know, with the strays — and she tried to pass herself off as an orphan!”
“Oh my goodness!” Cherry gasped, stifling a giggle.
“I know!” Liza made no such effort to spare Babbles’ feelings, bursting into a laugh. Not that it made much difference: even if her attention hadn’t been elsewhere Babbles still probably wouldn’t recognize the humor. “I mean, she thought she was soooo smart, then does something as dumb as that? They brought her straight home, of course. Father was not impressed, but Sean actually said the whole thing was cute. Yes, ‘feisty’ — that was it. Thank you, Jeany.
“We were all worried Sean might break off the engagement — how embarrassing! — but fortunately all was well after she apologized and thanked him for her spanking. He led her straight to the clinic after that; no more chances to cause a scene. The next time we saw her was at the wedding, when Babbles made her debut, being led down the aisle in… no, not this carrier, it was her other one; the one that can drive itself! It delivered her right up to the altar, and held her head in the proper place for the ceremony. It might not be what she thought she wanted, but you could hardly say Allison had ever been as happy as Babbles was in that moment!”
Cherry loved stories with happy endings. Even though girls were well prepared to be perfected for their husbands someday, it was still common to be frightened of the reality when it came. Changes to the mind had an especially scary reputation. Many girls had experienced an off-putting first meeting with a former friend, now seemingly a completely different person behind the same pair of eyes. But Cherry always tried to see it as a chance to start fresh, a silver lining of sorts! Besides, Babbles’ husband was right to make her exactly as he wanted, that was the whole point of marriage, wasn’t it? Cherry doubted the adorable little girl ever felt neglected, and that was surely the worse fate!
“She really doesn’t like being away from her Dada.” Liza said, unknowingly echoing Cherry’s thoughts. “He has a home practice — he used to be her therapist, actually; she took it hard when mommy was retired — so she spends most days snuggled up right on his lap!”
“She seems to think he’s here now…or part of him is, at least.” Cherry observed, watching the delicate affection Babbles showed to the silicone facsimile of her husband’s member.
“I guess so!” Liza grinned. “Like I said before, she’s not so good at differentiating between her ‘Dada’ and anything that comes close, whether it’s that or even our real father. It sure made things easier when Sean used to drop her off to play with Jeany and me before our engagements, because Father’s presence always put her right at ease.” She gave an exaggerated eye roll towards Jeany and the dollgirl’s breasts jiggled from what Cherry imagined was a knowing chuckle. “It was almost impossible for us to get his attention when she was around. If you didn’t know she was just confused you’d probably think she was trying to seduce him, and honestly by our Father’s doting we were never sure if it might not be working!”
Her voice softened as she looked down at her eldest sister. “They have a much better relationship than they used to; I think we all do. She still visits him sometimes, even though she sees Jeany and I at the Socials now. Sean just drops her off, like before, so as not to confuse her too much. You really should see the look on her face when they’re both together — Sean and Father — she doesn’t know whether to be bewildered or overjoyed. It’s hard to believe she used to be the smartest of us three!”
Cherry laughed along with Liza and Jeany again, and even Babbles gurgled happily around her goopy mouthfuls. She was definitely responding to her sisters’ laughter rather than any understanding of what had been said, which somehow made the scene that much sweeter. Perhaps it would be easy for Cherry, too, with such a simple mind, to accept the attention she did receive without agonizing over whatever defect she must possess that had caused Francis to lose interest so quickly.
Life before marriage had been easier, certainly. The basic expectations for young girls weren’t much different than for wives: to idolize and obey the men in their life, and to follow what they decreed. A girl’s upbringing all depended on her father’s proclivities, unless she had been Promised to a husband already. Cherry’s father had been rather lax, but his brother had set out very strict curriculums and edicts for his own property. Sharon was the youngest, or whatever her name was now that Cherry had been in isolation and Sharon’s wedding had undoubtedly come and gone. In addition to the vow of silence demanded of all Redeemed girls, Sharon had also spent the first and last three hours of every day under the altar to Adam in the room she shared with her sisters. Cherry remembered plenty of times being turned away at the door because her best friend was engaged in Adoration, contributing to the indentations in the prayer kneelers alongside her doll mother and her sisters, much too busy to play.
And sure Cherry would be sad, but not for long, and then she, Sharon and the other girls would be free to race around the sprawling yard or fight over who got to play with their favorite toy, “The indoopitable little Mrs Layton”, which — come to think of it — didn’t look much different than Babbles, frilly stumpies and all! Sharon’s father was among the strictest Cherry knew, but even she had had plenty of time for carefree play in the years before preparation for womanhood began in earnest. Life would be so much simpler if Cherry could somehow live like that again, keeping the benefits of marriage intact while also ridding herself of any true worries. She could see why Sean had chosen such a life for Babbles, sparing her all of Allison’s woes.
When the bladder had emptied, the maid separated the phallus from Babbles’ lips with a distinct pop. Babbles gave a small burp while her maid wiped the excess that dribbled free from her fat, pink lips. Cherry noticed the outline of Babbles’ full belly against the fabric of the nightie and briefly wondered why none of the babydolls wore diapers before she realized that they must have the same valve inside that she did, making accidents impossible.
Babbles’ lashes began to flutter, and she stretched her toothless mouth in another long, high pitched yawn.
“Oh, it’s nap time again.” Liza announced, backing away from the bassinet. Cherry followed suit, noticing that the other babies were already sound asleep. “She basically hibernates if her Dada isn’t around. That’s why we try to be here when she wakes up for her feedings.”
Cherry watched as Babbles’ eyelids fell completely closed and her breathing almost immediately took on the peaceful rhythm of sleep. The crowd around the bassinets was already dissipating, the main event concluded. Some of the wives headed for the refreshment tables, and Cherry realized that she was a bit peckish herself. Watching Babbles slurp so enthusiastically had reminded her that she’d had no sustenance since early that morning. It seemed Francis had forgotten to make an accommodation for her afternoon meal without her usual maids to give it to her.
“I think I might try some of the snacks.” She told Liza, pointing her gaze towards the tables. “Will you join me?”
“Oh, shoot! I ate just before we met!” Liza pouted. “And they don’t have anything for Jeany anyway. She gets a nutrient flush with her enemas every morning and evening.”
That being the case, Cherry bid her new friends adieu, her hunger overpowering her desire to stay. They made plans to meet again the following week, assuming Cherry was allowed to attend, and she left Liza singing a soft lullaby to her slumbering sister, with Jeany standing stiffly at her side, staring at the wall.
Chapter 7
She hadn’t wanted to admit it to Liza, but like Jeany, Cherry had been fed-by-the-rear since her wedding. Three times a day a maid gently pushed her face against the sheets of the bed, her butt poised to accept the nozzle of an enema hose, perfectly designed to fit with a satisfying click, deep inside. That was no different from her routine prior to marriage, of course. Cleanliness is a virtue! In fact, she hadn’t noticed anything odd about the process except that it was particularly lengthy and quite thorough, but that had seemed only appropriate considering the use her ass was now regularly put to.
It wasn’t until her third day without a proper meal, and without the hunger pangs she might have expected under the circumstances, that she asked Francis whether the doctors had done something to remove her need for food altogether. It seemed plausible; she had little conception of anything surgeons could not do, and she’d never received a full account of everything that had been changed during her operations. The early days of her marriage had been full of similar surprises.
Francis had chuckled as though she’d made a joke, and Cherry joined him with embarrassed giggles. She knew from his reaction that she’d said something silly, but it was still their honeymoon then and he had indulged her long enough for her to reframe the question. As it turned out, it was indeed something the surgeons had done, though not quite what she’d imagined. Apparently her intestines —whatever those were— had been altered to accommodate a different sort of meal. A nutritious slurry could be blasted up inside her, given a short time to absorb into her body, before the excess was cleaned out during the rest of the enema process.
Now that she knew to expect it, Cherry noticed the distinct feel of her meals compared to the usual, slightly tingly, cleansing solutions that followed. Her mouth’s secondary use had been reassigned so that she could focus on its more important purpose. He had given her plenty of opportunities to demonstrate that purpose, which she thoroughly enjoyed, complete with a special treat at the end. Aside from occasional sips of vitamin-enriched water, those treats were the only thing she would be allowed to swallow from then on.
Or they would have been, if not for the refreshments on offer at the Women’s Social. Unlike Jeany she still had a functional mouth and an empty tummy, and the prospect of eating actual food was too tantalizing to pass up. The cucumber spears and thin grey crackers she could see as she approached the table looked designed to be unappetizing, but to her they appeared as delicacies. Like the feel of the sun on her skin, real food seemed to be another thing she had been desperately missing without even realizing it.
Just as she grew close enough to conceivably bend down and eat directly off the table, though, the entire spread was blurred from her vision. She ran her eyes along its whole length in dismay, finding nothing but a smear of fog from corner to corner, extending up the tiered dishes and lovely silverware to censor every last morsel. This of course posed a problem. It wouldn’t do to accidentally thrust her face into a blurry bowl of potato salad when she had been aiming for a cracker. But Cherry knew she was being silly. It wasn’t like she had really planned to eat by herself, anyway. That would be entirely undignified! In fact, if she behaved with enough confidence, the censor was hardly a deterrence at all.
“Maid,” she called politely to a retiree stationed by the table, “Would you please feed me one of those crackers?” She nodded at the blurry spot roughly where the crackers had been. The retiree immediately moved to obey, bending gracefully, one arm swinging around its shoulder socket in an almost unnatural fashion to retrieve a censored blob from the table. It lifted what Cherry assumed to be the cracker she’d requested towards her face, and she felt her mouth water. Actually water, not lubricate. She parted her lips, and leaned forward tentatively to take a nibble.
The ear splitting siren that erupted in that instant caught her completely off guard. She instinctively tried to slap her hands over her ears, producing little more than a twitch of her trimmed shoulders. The horrible claxon continued unmuffled, driving her down onto her knees by its sheer volume. Frantically looking around with wide, panicked eyes she saw that the rest of the Social continued undisturbed. A few women watched her with curiosity, but none seemed to be struggling under the oppressive noise. The maid still held the fuzzy cracker out above her. It was all Cherry could do not to scream, though if she had then the other women would have likely heard nothing but muzak. Best not to call any more attention to herself. The siren was coming from her ear implants, she knew now. It seemed there was a much more effective deterrent to breaking her diet after all. She squeezed her eyes closed to try and weather the noise.
The ringing stopped as suddenly as it had started. Cherry stayed crouched on her knees for a few seconds, not daring to open her eyes. She didn’t know whether the alarm might take up again if she so much as looked at the food table now that she had effectively announced her intention to circumvent the censor. A peek at the carpet produced no noise in her ears. She slowly rose to her unsteady heels and turned away from the table and the maid altogether before daring to raise her gaze.
Clarissa Fritzgerald was staring at her, bemused.
“Didn’t you know you’re on a diet, hun?” Clarissa raised a sardonic eyebrow. The gaggle of women who had surrounded her earlier were no longer present, leaving Cherry to deal with Clarissa’s snarky tone without a snickering chorus in the background. That said, Julia wasn’t there, either, which meant Cherry was on her own, too.
“I did know.” She said cooly, trying her best to look down on the smaller woman. “I thought perhaps I could…If the maid fed it to me, then maybe…” She trailed off, feeling her face heat in embarrassment. What exactly had her plan been? Of course having a maid feed it to her wouldn’t have worked. Trimmed as a good wife should be, she needed a maid to feed her, to do everything for her. If there was something she wasn’t supposed to have, the contacts would know to watch for a maid giving it to her. If she was honest with herself, she’d been so excited by the idea of eating something, of chewing and swallowing and most of all tasting, that she hadn’t really thought it through.
Clarissa seemed to struggle with her thoughts for a moment, but then she actually gave Cherry a grudging half-smile. “In that case I respect the attempt,” she said, clearly reluctant but also surprisingly sincere. “But if you want to skirt the rules, you need to learn when and how. Did you get a demerit?”
Cherry felt a sudden panic, but she found no red tally mark in the corner of her vision to tell her that a demerit had been registered. She’d had little chance to earn any demerits since marrying Francis, and she didn’t know how he might punish her if she did. The lack of a tally mark was no guarantee that her offense had not been registered, however. Her father had always let her see ahead of time when she’d earned herself a spanking, but for all she knew Francis might spring it on her unaware. A spanking could be the optimistic outcome, in fact. The immediate relief she had felt at finding no tally was replaced with nervous anticipation.
“I don’t see one, but I don’t know if he’d give me the warning.” She murmured, the thought of an angry Francis making her forget to keep her guard up with Clarissa. The questions she had been carrying for hours bubbled up now. “What did you mean about us having met before? And why don’t you like me? Julia said it has something to do with my husband.”
That got both eyebrows raised this time. “I’m surprised she told you that much. Julie usually prefers to ignore anything that might upset her perfect little world.” She sighed heavily. “I don’t have a problem with you personally, Cherry. You seem like a nice girl, and I was unfair to you earlier. As for the rest, if we’re going to have that conversation we’d better do it somewhere private.”
There was a powder room available to guests, Julia had shown it to Cherry in her earlier tour, and Clarissa led her to it now. Already a bit taken aback by the woman’s frankness, Cherry was excited to get real answers to her questions. Her mind raced to find possibilities that could make such secrecy necessary, but nothing she came up with seemed within the bounds of reason.
The swing door to the powder room opened with a tap from Clarissa’s pleaser. It was designed for wives to use and therefore had no knob, and certainly no lock. There was no one inside the small room except a maid waiting on commands to fix makeup or hair. Once they were both through the door Cherry watched, utterly aghast, as Clarissa deftly flipped off her pleaser and used her bare foot to shove the thin heel under the door crack. She tested the door with her other pleaser. It didn’t budge. With the shoe firmly in place, friction kept it from swinging in either direction.
“There.” She said, satisfied. “That should guarantee we aren’t disturbed by some ninny who needs her lips glossed.”
Cherry was amazed by Clarissa’s resourcefulness, and even more so by her casual barefootedness. She was standing totally cock-eyed, on the very tiptoes of her bare foot but still quite off balance. It looked inelegant, and uncomfortable. Nonetheless Cherry couldn’t help but admire Clarissa’s bravery, as well as appreciate the trust the other woman was showing her by committing such an act in her view. Cherry noticed an odd jingling sound as Clarissa limped to the vanity and actually hopped up on top of the counter surface, plopping her plump bottom onto it unceremoniously and lounging back against the mirror, her bare foot drawn up to rest on the counter’s edge. The pose was very revealing in her short cocktail dress, but she held it with such confidence that Cherry wondered if she actually intended it to be.
“You might wanna sit, too. This could all come as a bit of a shock.”
Cherry couldn’t bring herself to actually sit on the floor. At that angle she’d be right at eye level with Clarissa’s…well, she’d have a view that should be reserved for Mr. Fritzgerald, to put it politely. She did slouch against the wall in an attempted imitation of Clarissa’s casual posture. While the older woman somehow looked natural sprawled across the vanity, Cherry couldn’t help shuffling awkwardly every few seconds. She had to continually fight to balance the weight of her breasts, which threatened to pull her to the floor whenever she leaned too far to one side. Clarissa watched Cherry struggle for a while, and her amused expression caused Cherry to blush furiously when she noticed. She stood straight again, away from the wall, hoping her embarrassment didn’t show too clearly.
“I think I’ll stand, thank you.” She murmured, and her blush grew in proportion to Clarissa’s smirk.
“Suit yourself.” Was all Clarissa said, but her voice carried a heavy dose of sarcasm and —unless Cherry was mistaken— a note of affection as well. But it turned bitter as she continued on. “So Julia told you that I’ve got a problem with your husband? It’d be more accurate to say I’ve got a problem with mine, but yours is definitely involved.”
“How so?”
“Oh I don’t know exactly, but Roger is good friends with Francis. Better friends all the time, it seems. They spend most of their days together, and lately Roger hasn’t been coming home in the evenings, too. I’m alone more nights than not.”
“Me, too.” Cherry said with a quizzical frown. “Francis hardly ever sleeps with me anymore.”
“I figured as much.” Clarissa nodded knowingly, and then explained to Cherry’s confused expression. “Your predecessor had the same complaint. And so did the girl before her, and the girl before her. You asked why I said I’ve met you before? Well, I have, in a way. Your husband replaces his wives at a rate like I’ve never seen. It feels like every time I turn around I’m being introduced to the new Mrs. Crane. You’re at least the fifth since I started keeping track, and that was only a few years ago.”
“Oh.” Cherry felt like she’d been punched in the chest. She slumped back against the wall. That was a much higher turnover than usual. Maybe it wasn’t her fault after all that Francis seemed bored of her already. That hardly made her feel better. In fact she felt much worse. If he had been through so many wives in just a few years, there was almost no chance she would be able to convince him to keep her much longer.
“I’m…sorry to drop it on you like that.” Clarissa said, unsure of herself for the first time since entering the small powder room. “I forget what awful news it must be if you’re not expecting it.”
“It’s ok…” Cherry told her, turning her face towards the ceiling to try and hold in her tears long enough to blink them away. “I’m glad you told me. It’s better to know.” Her voice only quavered a little, managing to sound much more sure than she really was. A few tears fell anyway, but the setting spray the maid had applied to her face that morning should be enough to keep her makeup undisturbed. The retiree waiting in the corner could always fix it, if not. Cherry looked at the retiree, and her own reflection seemed to leap out from the shiny black latex. She stared back at herself from the blank ovoid form of the retiree’s face. Her makeup looked fine. “I feel terrible that Francis hasn’t found a wife that can make him happy.” She murmured weakly.
“If it makes you feel any better, I can’t imagine what his issue is.” Clarissa shook her head. “ If I had you waiting for me in my bed I don’t know what else could possibly keep me away.” Her meaningful look seemed to be expecting more reaction than merely cheering Cherry up.
“If you…?”
“If I was a man, yes, of course.” Clarissa rolled her eyes as if that particular detail was too obvious to mention…or perhaps it was too annoying? She rushed on before Cherry could further examine her meaning. “Anyway, Roger has been spending an enormous amount of time with your husband lately, and I’ve been keeping a careful watch for whether Francis’ habits might be rubbing off on him. It seems they are, and that has me worried that I’m likely to be replaced.”
“You think Roger is going to retire you?” Cherry asked, not voicing the silent “too?” at the end. Would Francis even keep her long enough to earn a proper retirement? She had barely had the chance to prove herself.
“It wouldn’t surprise me, with how he’s acting lately. I should have been expecting it, at my age.” Clarissa tapped her single pleaser against the vanity cupboard in absent irritation. “Not many wives make it too far into their thirties, as you know, but Roger always promised I’d be at our daughters’ weddings. Well, we’re one down, but the next oldest won’t even be courting for another year and Helen is still in training heels. At this point I think the odds of me lasting that long are slim.” She sighed heavily, and Cherry thought she heard that strange tinkling sound again. Bells? “Honestly if he’s going to do it I hope it’s soon, so the girls have some time to bond with their new mommy before they’re married. A wedding can be just as hard on a girl as it is wonderful, and I’d like them to have the support of a woman who knows them at least a little bit.
Her sigh was the heaviest yet, and she actually thudded her head back against the wall, speaking to the ceiling. “That is assuming Roger keeps my replacement longer than your husband does with his. At Francis’ pace, my little Helen could have three or four new mommies to get used to between my retirement and her wedding.” Her steely gaze came back down to Cherry. “And that is why I don’t care for your husband. I know how you probably feel about him, but he’s a bad influence. He tried courting my oldest, you know, but I held enough sway with Roger back then to put a stop to it. No woman familiar with his reputation wants her daughter married off to him, and most of the local men agree from what I hear. That’s why his recent wives have all been from out of town, yourself included I’m afraid.”
“Why didn’t anyone say anything to me?” Cherry was truly hurt to remember all the smiling, welcoming faces she’d seen that day. Not a hint of sympathy for her fate, not even pity. “I’ve met so many women today, and you’re the first to tell me the truth.”
“Not everyone knows.” Clarissa assured her. “The only time most of Francis’ wives are ever seen is at these Socials, and it’s easy to lose track of how often they change unless you’re paying attention.” But then her voice turned bitter again. “Julia knows, of course, and most of the women she personally introduced you to. Their husbands might not approve of Francis churning through girls, but that doesn’t mean he’s unpopular. Most of the wealthier men get together at Francis’ place at least once a week. Not nearly as often as Roger, but enough for concern. Or it should be.
“Julia and the rest would rather pretend nothing is happening, and that means leaving you in the dark. I bet Julia wanted to chaperone you with the higher class wives to make sure no one let anything slip. I’m actually surprised she introduced you to me, but I guess she knew I’d find you eventually.”
She was suddenly wistful. “I was… quite close with one of your predecessors, Kelly, even before Francis and Roger hit it off. That’s why I originally started keeping track of the new ‘Mrs. Cranes’. My…motivation has changed, though, since Francis seems to have taken Roger under his wing. Hence my tone this morning. Maybe that’s actually why Julia wanted to introduce you to me herself. She knew that’d set me off, and probably hoped it would sour us on each other.”
Cherry scrunched her face in uncertainty.
“But Julia seems so nice…”
“Oh she’s a perfectly pleasant woman. And she’ll do whatever she needs to in order to stay that way. Why do you think it’s taken her this long to invite you? I’d bet she wanted to wait until people had mostly forgotten the previous Mrs. Crane. Her name was Penny, by the way. Those are her shoes you’re wearing. I guess he’s not even bothering to replace the whole wardrobe between wives anymore.”
“Really?” Cherry once again shifted her weight on the uncomfortable pleasers. “They are too small…”
“Yeah, Penny had the cutest little feet.” Clarissa stared off wistfully again, “She was real cute all around, actually. Shy, though. Didn’t go in for the kind of talking I used to do with Kelly, even though I did my best to show her how it’s done. I think you’d like it, though, unless I miss my guess about you.”
“What do you talk about?” Cherry perked up a bit at that, eager to change the topic. Her questions had been answered, much to her dismay, and she was ready to do her best to forget what she’d learned.
“Oh, the content of the conversation doesn’t really matter so long as it’s…reciprocal.” Clarissa practically purred. “I’ll show you next week, in here. My pleaser under the door keeps everyone out but Julia, and she knows to allow us some privacy. Her reluctance to cause a fuss has its advantages. You can even bring a friend, if there’s someone you’d like to talk to…or have talk to you.”
Cherry put on a little pout. “The only girl I would want to bring doesn’t have much to say. She’s on a script.”
“Oh, you’ve got someone picked out already? I knew I was right about you.” Clarissa smiled at her, any hint of reservation gone for the first time. She really was rather friendly, under the gruff exterior. Cherry smiled back. “And don’t worry about your friend, even scripted girls like to give their tongues a little exercise now and then. Assuming she likes you, too?”
“I think she does…” Cherry couldn’t help but flush at the memory of Diane’s goodbye kiss. Probably best she not go into too much detail. Clarissa would likely be shocked to hear of such a thing!
“Well, that’s settled then. We’d better get out of here for now, or Julia will come by to politely tell me off through the door. I’m sure she assumes we’re in here talking.”
Cherry frowned. “Aren’t we?”
There was a sudden tap on the door, the sound of a pleaser making contact on the other side.
“What did I say?” Clarissa grinned and shook her head with a knowing huff. “I swear I’ve got her timing down to a tee…”
Then there was a hard thud. From a fist. Cherry’s eyes widened in shock, and Clarissa’s did the same. There was a man at the door.
Chapter 8
“We’re…indisposed, at the moment.” Clarissa called to whomever was beyond the powder room door. Julia’s voice came back in something like a hiss.
“Oh, tell whichever poor thing you have bullied into your perversions that the gentleman with me is only here for you, Clarissa.”
“Why would a man be here to see you?” Cherry asked in a whisper. Julia seemed to be upset with Clarissa for some reason and she didn’t want to accidentally get in the middle. Especially not if a man might be watching! She did another quick check of her makeup in the vanity mirror. This could be the first time any man other than Francis would see her in months. She wiggled a little in anticipation, trying not to be too excited.
“I…I don’t know.” Clarissa sat up away from the mirror, frowning at the door. She seemed even more nervous than Cherry. “Julia would have said if it’s Roger.” Her frown deepened. “The only other thing I can think of is…but, no!” Her eyes went wide, nerves giving way to fear. Cherry was a bit taken aback by the sudden shift as Clarissa turned towards her, voice growing panicked. “My girls…! Cherry, I have to say goodbye to Helen and Nadine!”
Clarissa was down off the countertop in an instant, backing up to the rear wall awkwardly on her single pleaser. She stared at the door in horror. There was another loud bang before a deep male voice boomed from the other side.
“Open up or I’m coming in anyway!”
The maid moved towards the door, presumably to remove Clarissa’s other pleaser from where it was wedged into the crack.
“No!” Clarissa shouted, and she kicked the maid’s legs out from under it, sending the retiree crashing to the floor faster than its arms could swing around to break the fall.
“Clarissa!” Cherry exclaimed, shocked at the display of violence from the other woman. She quickly knelt beside the fallen retiree, forgetting in her concern that she was unable to assist. “Are you alright?” She asked, but it obviously did not respond. Its arms had at least made it to a position where they were able to raise the maid back up onto its knees. It wobbled, struggling to stand the rest of the way.
Clarissa’s voice was frantic now.
“She was going to let them in, Cherry! They’re going to make me like her!”
“What?” Cherry asked but before Clarissa could respond the door burst inwards, narrowly missing Cherry and the maid as it swung around on its hinges with enough force to scrape the pleaser across the floor. Julia stood triumphantly in the doorway, beside the wide chested man who had just kicked the door in. He was broad, and strong, with short, curly hair framed by the light streaming in from the tall sitting room windows.
Cherry stared in shock. “Francis?! What a wonderful surprise!” She exclaimed as Francis strode into the powder room. It was very crowded with the three of them and the maid, but he didn’t say a word to Cherry as he brushed her aside. “Clarissa, don’t be afraid! It’s Francis!”
Clarissa managed to pull her terrified gaze from Francis for a moment, her expression mixing with confusion and concern as she looked at Cherry. “Cherry, that’s not—Ow!” Francis had grabbed a fistful of her hair, and was casually pulling her back towards the door. With no arms to resist his iron grip on her curls, she went easily even as her legs fought desperately to remain in place.
“Come on, let’s get you out in the open.” He said, his voice almost lazy now that his obstacles had been cleared. Cherry beamed at him as he passed, but again he failed to so much as acknowledge her. Frowning, she followed him and Clarissa out of the powder room.
“There must be some mistake!” Clarissa was pleading, “My husband wouldn’t do this without a ceremony, without a goodbye! Please…my daughters—”
“No mistake, and it’s not up to me.” Francis grumbled, cutting Clarissa off. He seemed to be only half listening anyway. “If it was, you’d have gotten the ceremony. Surprise pick ups like this never go as smoothly. We had a hell of a time finding you; searched the whole crowd and half the house before I decided to wake up the hostess and ask if she knew where you were hiding.”
Cherry looked out across the crowded sitting room. Every woman besides herself, Julia, and Clarissa stood stiffly, staring straight ahead. An Intermission! Francis said he’d woken Julia, a common term for removing the blocks on a woman’s vision and hearing, but how were she and Clarissa still aware? Had being in the powder room really been enough to exclude them entirely?
“I knew right where you’d be.” Julia said, her expression pleasant as always but her voice dripping with smug satisfaction. “And I have to say I feel a certain sense of justice at being given the chance to assist this gentleman with apprehending you in the middle of one of your…dalliances.” She looked at Cherry. “Honestly, Cherry, I thought better of you.”
Cherry blinked.
“But we were only talking!”
“Exactly.” Julia spat back.
“Oh lay off her you old sow!” Clarissa snarled. “Your time will be up eventually, and then we’ll see how long it takes every woman in town to pretend you never even existed. _You think I don’t know why you hold these little parties? You’re as transparent as my wedding dress. No one will remember you, Julie_. No one—Wait, what are you—?!“
Francis had pulled an aerosol canister from a holster on his belt, promptly raised the spray nozzle to Clarissa’s open mouth and let loose a quick burst.
Clarissa slammed her jaw shut, eyes bulging in shock. Her cheeks immediately began to puff out, and then a cream colored substance overflowed like a bubble bath through her pursed lips. Slowly her mouth was forced open as creamy foam expanded to fill the cavity. It was clear she was trying to scream, but if anything got through it was entirely inaudible to Cherry just a few feet away. Tears of frustration fell from her eyes, running down bulging cheeks reddened by her efforts to make a sound.
“That’s better.” Francis said. “Mrs. Drestin, will you please run and tell my partner that I’ve found our quarry? I think he went to search the garden. When you’ve done that, please let your husband know that we’ll be out of his home before four o’clock. And a lovely home it is, by the way. Pass on my compliments as well.”
“Y-yes…” Julia murmured, staring at Clarissa, clearly shaken, but whether by the other woman’s words or her rough treatment Cherry wasn’t sure. “I’ll go fetch the other gentleman. And I’ll tell Harold…what you said.” She hurried away, carefully threading between her blind, deaf guests, all blinking, staring into nothingness as the drama unfolded.
“Now,” Francis told Clarissa as he released his grip on her curls. Without him holding her up by the hair, Clarissa immediately dropped to her knees rather than stand on one pleaser. Her shoulders shook, the frustration faded but tears still falling as she stared at the floor. “You seem to know what’s happening so I’ll cut to the chase.” He raised the aerosol can. “I’m supposed to blast this into all your holes. Once I do that, you’re officially no longer a woman. The foam is temporary; they’ll seal you up properly when you get the fancy suit, but legally you’re retired the moment I fill you in. Got it?”
Clarissa nodded weakly.
She had known it was coming, if not right away, but that clearly didn’t make it any easier to accept that her life as a woman was over. Cherry had never seen this part of the process before. It wasn’t unheard of for a woman to simply disappear, and the assumption would be that she had been retired, but there was usually a more formal ceremony involved. Particularly if the new wife had already been chosen, in which case it was often incorporated into the wedding.
Cherry’s mother had greeted her replacement with a kiss on the marriage altar before a uniformed man led her back up the same aisle that the new woman had just been led down. There had been happy tears in her eyes — bittersweet, perhaps, but certainly not the angry, sorrowful ones Clarissa’s held now — when she murmured her final goodbye to a young Cherry as she passed. That was the last time Cherry had seen her mother, as far as she knew. She hoped that whatever had happened beyond the double doors at the end of the chapel had been more pleasant than what Clarissa was experiencing now. Retirement was an honor, after all. A way for a woman to continue a life of service beyond her usefulness as a wife.
None of that explained why Francis was the one who had come to retire Clarissa, though.
“Francis, what’s going on?” Cherry asked, taking a few steps towards him to stand at his side.
“Name’s not Francis, babe.” Francis said nonchalantly. He pointed at a spot further away than where Cherry had been just a moment ago, clearly indicating that was where he wanted her. “How ‘bout you be a good girl and keep quiet while I talk with your friend, alright?”
“Ok!” Cherry nodded and went to where he was pointing. She would have to hold her questions until Francis was done talking with Clarissa.
He returned his attention to the woman at his feet. “Anyway, like I was saying. I’ve got an Intermission order on this room for the next half hour or so. I have until then to seal you up and get you outta here. That’s plenty of time to give you one last memory of being used like a woman before you never get that chance again. So that is my offer to you, take it or leave it, but choose fast.”
Clarissa’s face shot up, and she glared at him around her filled mouth. But the heat in her expression faded quickly as fresh tears welled in her eyes. She slumped her shoulders and hung her head again. A long moment passed before she gave it a slow shake, declining whatever offer Francis had made. Cherry didn’t really follow the whole proceeding, but she felt sorry that her new friend seemed so sad. Francis wasn’t bothered though. He just shrugged.
“Your loss. Lower your face to the floor, please. We’ll do the ass first.”
Clarissa did as he commanded, more tears shaking loose as she bent forward to present her butt.
“Maid!” Francis barked. “Come here and hold her open for me. My partner’s still taking his time in the garden, it seems.”
Cherry noticed for the first time that the powder room maid had followed them all the way out into the main room. It moved with a surprising strut towards Clarissa, as if eager to comply. It seemed to use an unnecessary amount of force in spreading Clarissa’s cheeks, as well; digging its fingers into her soft skin and wrenching them apart to reveal the vulnerable hole. If Cherry hadn’t known better she might have said it seemed…vindictive. Perhaps whatever was responsible for regulating the retirees’ usual graceful movement had been damaged when Clarissa knocked this one down.
Clarissa had no undergarments, and the hem of her skin-tight dress had gone from mid-thigh to well above her hips by now, offering no protection in the slightest. Francis brought the nozzle of the aerosol can directly to meet the soft pink bud of her sphincter. Five long seconds passed with his finger depressing the trigger. With just a quick spurt being sufficient to stop up Clarissa’s throat, Cherry shuddered to think how much foam had just been blasted into the woman’s bum. Clarissa squirmed pitifully, trying to wriggle away, but the maid actually planted its knee on her back, pinning her torso to the carpet. The pressure caused her breasts to bulge out to either side, popping free of her dress, and revealing the source of the tinkling sound Cherry had noticed earlier: little bells pierced to each of Clarissa’s nipples, now with no fabric to keep them quiet.
Cherry watched as the spray expanded, a mushroom of the semi-solid foam blooming where there had once been a tight rosebud. Her butt completely filled, Francis moved the aerosol to Clarissa’s final hole, but delayed in firing.
“Offer still stands.” He said, “Last chance to change your mind.”
There was another long pause while Clarissa considered. Her eyes were closed, her expression pained. The foam was still growing a bit from what Cherry could see, and she imagined it hurt a lot. She had never taken something so large back there herself, not even during her standardized testing at school. The weight of the mysterious decision seemed to be bothering Clarissa more though. She opened her eyes and immediately closed them again with a small wince when she saw Cherry watching her. Oddly, it was only then that her tears started again.
Clarissa gave a feeble nod before she pressed her face down into the thick teal carpeting.
“Thaaaats what I like to see.” Francis rose, replacing the aerosol can on his belt before going to undo the buckle at the front. “Let go of her.” That was to the maid, who released her grip on Clarissa’s butt and stood up. Cherry watched Clarissa suck deep, shaky breaths through the carpet. The maid had probably been compressing her lungs, leaning its full weight on her back like that. From the way her body shook, ringing the nipple bells that had been freed of her confining dress, it seemed like she might be crying even harder than before. Cherry couldn’t see her face for the way she’d pressed it to the floor, though. Hopefully she was just catching her breath.
Francis’ pants were around his knees before Cherry realized what was about to happen.
“Francis, no!” She gasped, “You can’t!”
“Didn’t I tell you to be quiet?”
“But I—but—“ Cherry stammered, struggling to give voice to her objection.
“Woah, the party’s started already?”
That last came from a man only just now coming through the crowd, moving wives out of his way somewhat carelessly. He seemed unconcerned about shoving the women aside, but at least he didn’t send anyone toppling. Losing one’s balance was already a grave danger on high heels and with no arms to catch the fall, but it was especially so when blinded as well. The women he passed stumbled a bit, but Cherry imagined that was more so in shock at being touched during an Intermission than a necessary measure to keep their footing.
She was quite shocked herself, and not only because people were moving around when everyone should have been stock still. Men were free to move about during an Intermission, of course, but actually seeing it was something she’d never imagined. And this particular man was the last person she’d expected. He was young, not much older than herself, with a thin, lanky body matched by thin, scraggly facial hair. Cherry was so thrilled to see him!
“Francis!” She exclaimed, turning slightly to face her husband as he slipped between two women and came into the open space around the powder room door. “What a wonderful surprise!”
“Uh…yeah.” Francis said. He turned to a man closer to Cherry, who had his trousers down for some reason. “I see you’ve found who we were looking for, but who’s this?”
Cherry followed Francis’ gaze to keep up with the conversation, smiling.
The other man paused in the act of lowering his boxers. He was thickly muscled, and Cherry lovingly remembered the feel of those strong hands on her body. But what was her husband doing here, of all places? Whatever the reason, she was overjoyed!
“Francis!” She exclaimed, “What a wonderful surprise!”
“She was with this one,” Francis gave a small kick to the thigh of a woman who was prostrate at his feet, completely exposed. The impact made her butt jiggle. Cherry almost choked. How could that woman display herself so lewdly, and to Cherry’s own husband no less! “They were both just outside the Intermission range, in that powder room over there. I’d block her out individually, but the extra paperwork’d be a nightmare and I’m not sure she realizes what’s happening anyway.”
“She on some kind of script or something?” The other man asked, frowning at Cherry. Wait…it was Francis! Where had her husband come from all of a sudden? As she opened her mouth to welcome Francis, another man interrupted her, and she turned to him.
“Nah, I think it’s a brain mod.” Francis said to…Francis? Huh? Something…wasn’t quite right. “Spin her around so she can’t see us both at the same time, that’ll probably help.”
A man grabbed Cherry by the shoulders and spun her around to face him directly. She quickly forgot whatever had been worrying her. In fact she could hardly contain her excitement! It was Francis!
“Fran—“
“Yeah, Francis, got it.” He said, cutting her off abruptly. “Alright, I’ll bite. Who the fuck is Francis?”
Cherry blinked in confusion.
“…you are?”
Francis waved his hand in the air, brushing her response away. “Yeah, I know, but who am I to you?”
“You’re my husband, of course!” Cherry scoffed to herself, usually she was the one with the silly questions. Maybe he had decided to joke with her, after all?
“Oh, shit, Grady, did you hear that?” Francis called out, “I’m her husband!”
“Yeah, I heard.” Said a man somewhere behind Cherry. His voice sounded… familiar.
Francis’ beautiful grey eyes caught hers again before she could wonder. “How long have we been married, uh…” he glanced above her head for some reason. “…Cherry?”
“About four months…” Cherry murmured, suddenly insecure. Had he really forgotten already? The wedding had been a rather simplistic affair, but at least for her it was the most memorable day of her life! Maybe he’d just lost track of the intervening time. Cherry could have a hard time telling the days apart, too. Sometimes she had to think really hard to remember things that had happened between the wedding and now.
“Four months, Grady! When was the last time we had a girl this fresh, huh?”
“This one’s fresh enough for me.” The other voice replied from behind, again. Funny…it sounded like Francis. If he hadn’t been standing right in front of her, Cherry might have thought the other voice was Francis! Now that would be embarrassing. “She’s a bit old, sure,” the voice continued, “but with all that foam in her ass she’s probably as tight up front as she was on her wedding night.”
“Well…speaking of wedding nights,” Francis eyed her up and down, and Cherry glowed under his appreciative gaze. “…that just reminds me that my darling wife and I never consummated our marriage. We gotta fix that. Right, Cherry?”
“Fix…what?”
“I’m saying,” Francis drew close, twirling a ringlet of Cherry’s hair. His face was covered with those odd red splotches that sometimes afflicted young men, but she barely noticed at all. “Don’t you want me to fuck you?”
“Oh!” Cherry beamed, flooded with relief. “Yes, please!”
“Grady, she said please.” He threw up his hands. “C’mon, man, this is a golden opportunity!”
“Alright, alright. It should be fine as long as she thinks you’re this Francis guy.”
“Yessss!” He was eying her again, hungry. If it were anyone else she might have considered it a leer, but with him it made her proud. She wiggled for him, shaking her chest, and he chuckled. “Cherry when I’m done with you you’re gonna wish I really was your husband!”
“Huh?” She stopped wiggling.
“Nothin’, oh wife of mine. Here let me help you out of that dress…”
Chapter 9
Please note, this chapter features elements of rape and treats the psychological burden with realism.
The carpet smelled freshly laundered, as if Julia had it cleaned specifically for the Social. Cherry wasn’t sure anyone was likely to appreciate that, other than herself. Or maybe Julia expected more than one of her guests to have their noses pressed into the soft fabric while their husbands railed them from behind.
Cherry didn’t know where Francis had come from all of a sudden, or what had put him in such an amorous mood. After spending all day worrying over his lack of interest in her, she wasn’t going to complain when he turned up out of the blue to sweep her off her feet. Or, as the case had been, shove her down onto her knees.
He was certainly being more aggressive than she was used to, but she was glad to be desired so strongly, even if it hurt. She yelped into the carpet as he slapped her ass again. Both cheeks were already inflamed from more spanks than she could have possibly earned for her attempt at an illicit nibble from the snack table. At first she had thought he might be punishing her for that, but the slaps actually seemed to be born from an abundance of enthusiasm. If anything, they were intended to reward her; a swat on the butt usually followed whenever she performed a particularly successful pull along the length of his cock with the soft, constricting walls of her vaginal canal. At least the spanks were often accompanied with encouraging praise, like an eruption of “Good girl!” or a long, moaning “Fuuuuuck…”
Francis had never been so vocal in bed before, but then they weren’t really in bed at all. Perhaps a little extra flair was in order for such an unorthodox rendezvous. Still, Cherry felt slightly guilty over the praise. Her intimate modifications were doing most of the work, after all. She could feel her muscles spasming rhythmically down there, but they did so of their own accord, along patterns Francis himself had selected. There was a lot more pulsating vibration happening even deeper inside her, but Francis’ plunges seemed shallower than usual and he wasn’t quite reaching the really special bits. Cherry knew that she should help him by grinding herself against his body, pushing him a little deeper inside to enjoy what waited there, but for some reason she couldn’t summon the effort. A passive approach, aside from her mods, seemed much more appealing to her at that moment. And besides, Francis was enjoying himself to no end as it was.
“God damn, Grady, you should feel what I am feeling right now!” Francis called to his friend, who was somewhere nearby to where he and Cherry knelt together on the floor. Cherry had never met this ‘Grady’ before, and couldn’t exactly say that she’d met him even now, having only heard his voice, but if Francis was comfortable with having him in the room while they were being intimate then she had to be, too.
“So you keep saying!” Grady called back. His speech followed the same staccato pattern as Francis’, punctuated by each thrust. Cherry had gleaned enough from their conversation to know that Grady was similarly engaged with a girl of his own. She wondered if it might be someone she’d met earlier during the Social. “You’re going to make mine jealous, and she’s doing her best!”
“That old bitch can’t possibly compare to this. Francis must be fuckin’ loaded. You can’t get a girl like this from the catalogs. I can’t imagine what she must’ve cost!” Referring to himself by name was another odd quirk Francis had recently adopted. Cherry realized she wasn’t exactly sure how recently. Her recollection of the day’s events seemed to be rather jumbled. She had been at the Social, making friends with a whole bunch of lovely girls, and then suddenly she was on the floor, and Francis was fucking her, with all those lovely girls now standing silently, some shifting slightly from toe to toe in impatience. Try as she might, she couldn’t remember what had directly preceded Francis’ arrival, but he must have called in an Intermission just to use her right here in the middle of the day. Cherry had never heard of a husband doing such a thing! How romantic!
And yet that gap in her chain of events worried Cherry in a way she couldn’t shake. Frowning in consternation, she turned her head to the side, straining to peer behind her. Francis’ familiar, knobby legs led up to his skinny torso as he pumped vigorously. She couldn’t quite make out his face from her position, but she did her best to smile up at him. Everything was just as it should be. He spanked her, hard, and her smile briefly faltered before she could force it back into place.
Force it? Why was it so difficult to get her face to do what she wanted? It almost felt as if she didn’t want to smile, but that couldn’t be right. She turned her disobedient face back down into the carpet with a huff, and was surprised to find that it was a little damp, the near-seafoam green finding its way to true, deep teal under her cheek. Had she been drooling? Her lubrication mods sometimes got a little overzealous when Francis was involved. Strangely, though, her mouth felt dry. In fact, she had barely oozed onto her thighs at all, either. That hole was always slippery, but with Francis’ cock inside her she should have been gushing with the clear, gooey fluid. Like her mouth, she didn’t seem to be any wetter down there than she might have been without the mods altogether.
So why was the carpet damp? A stinging in her eyes that had somehow gone unrecognized gave her the answer. She was crying. She had been for a while, judging by the dark smudges on the carpet that she now realized were mascara stains. The setting spray on her face had been completely wiped away by the tear-damp carpet. Something was wrong. Everything was just as it should be. Something was very, very wrong.
“I’m telling you man it’s like she’s got a fucking piston in there.” Francis shouted, “I don’t even need to do anything! Watch this.” He paused in his thrusting, but Cherry could feel herself gripping him, pumping and sliding along his length with stroke after tight, twisting stroke. “Her cunt is literally jerking me off right now.” Francis announced smugly, delivering another painful, perfunctory swat to her butt that made Cherry emit a muffled squeak into the damp carpet. “And it feels amazing!”
It…didn’t feel amazing, actually. Her husband’s cock was supposed to be a girl’s ultimate source of fulfillment. Cherry just felt…filled. And also worryingly empty, in a way she couldn’t quite identify. Certainly not what she’d come to expect from Francis’ attentions, increasingly infrequent as they might be.
“That’s enough with the spanking, man.” Grady did not sound as amused with Cherry’s performance as Francis evidently was. “We don’t want her going home bruised.”
Maybe she was just being shy. She wasn’t used to having an audience like this, especially not someone she didn’t even know. The last time she’d been intimate with Francis in front of someone else had been when she took him into her mouth during their wedding ceremony, and the only other person in the room then had been her father, looking on with pride. And the accountant, finishing the paperwork on a lap desk in the corner, apparently uninterested in the scene across the room.
Cherry’s signature had been recorded weeks in advance of the ceremony, a kiss on the dotted line, before the doctors began preparing her for the wedding. Her consent was unnecessary at any stage of the process, though it held symbolic value. The final signature was supposed to acknowledge that the bride had been informed of the modifications her groom had selected, but in practice it often meant the exact opposite. It was a test of trust to kiss the final page without so much as a peek at the rest, and she had been eager to demonstrate her faith. Nevermind the fact that Francis had declined to tell her afterwards what to expect. It was his right to leave her with surprises to discover.
One such surprise had been the new way she took her meals. Another had been the extent of the modifications to her vagina. Her understanding of money was very vague, it being something that men constantly spoke of but never explained to her. Nonetheless, she knew that what the doctors had done to her down there was very expensive. She shouldn’t be malfunctioning like this. This was supposed to feel good. Instead, she was crying for no reason and fighting against a rising sense of panic that threatened to overwhelm her at any second. Maybe it would help if she saw Grady, and could put a face to the voice of the man watching her be fucked.
She turned her head the other way, towards where Grady’s voice came from. The scene was strangely familiar, almost as if she had looked before. Yes, she suddenly seemed to recall seeing this already, more than once. He was still right there, clearly occupied with whoever that woman was, and not paying Cherry as much attention as she’d feared. The woman had that funny thing puffing out her cheeks. It was all bubbly, but apparently solid enough to force her jaw wide. Little bells hanging from her nipples rang out as they were jostled around, solving the mystery of where that particular noise had been coming from. She stared back at Cherry, her eyes bleary and unfocused. Cherry wondered why she was crying. Maybe she didn’t like it when Francis fucked her, too. Francis was FUCKING THE OTHER WOM—
The carpet smelled freshly laundered, a pleasant scent even if it was very damp. Cherry lifted her face to stare straight ahead. Where was she? Oh yes, the Women’s Social. Someone was fucking her, and it was very important that she not think about who. Why might that be? There was only one person who could fuck her, and that was her husband. She swung her head around as far as she could, intending to smile at him like a good girl. Instead, her eyes went wide and she choked on a half-formed scream. NOT FRANCIS NOT FRANCIS NOT FRAN—
There was something wet under her face. Somewhere, bells were jingling. Cherry raised her watery eyes enough to peer out in front of her. There were some women out there, a lot of them in fact. She probably shouldn’t think about who they might be. She probably shouldn’t think about anything. All she wanted to do was lay there, and cry.
She glanced at the women again. Some were quite close to her, only a few feet away, their pleasers easier to see than who was on the other end of those tall, smooth legs. Then she noticed something new. It seemed like an important thing, but she had been too busy worrying about something else.
“Diane…” A voice said in a muffled croak, and Cherry realized it was her own. She felt as though she was far away, not in her body at all. Something terrible was happening to her body, but it couldn’t be happening to her, because she was not really there. She wanted to be somewhere else. She wanted to be with Diane.
She stretched herself towards Diane, pushing off of something solid behind her. The solid thing immediately slammed back into her, giving her an extra little boost towards her goal. She had to shuffle her knees forward, arching her back up a bit, before she could stretch out again, dragging her breasts across the carpet. The solid thing seemed happy to follow, and she got another boost as it caught up to her.
It took a long time to cover the distance that way. Or maybe it happened quickly. Cherry couldn’t seem to remember how long time usually took to pass. Eventually, though, Diane’s pleaser loomed directly in front of her, well-buckled to the smooth calf which had touched Cherry with such effortless heat just… some time ago. Diane would be able to help her somehow, Cherry was sure of it. She desperately wanted to feel warm now, to feel something.
She strained to get her cheek high enough to press against the bare skin of Diane’s foot. Almost…almost…Contact! An instant of that electric warmth flowed into her, and Cherry felt as though she might finally be safe from the terrible thing she should not think about. And then Diane recoiled from the touch, stumbling backwards away from Cherry and causing her face to plummet the few meager inches back to the carpet. The warmth shattered into a thousand tiny shards, exploding with a shockwave that shook Cherry loose from her hiding spot somewhere far away.
She hurdled towards full awareness of her body, snapping back with all the force of a leash suddenly yanked taught. A long, wailing sob erupted from deep inside as she collided with the reality of what was happening to her.
The man’s hands sprung away from where they had been clutching her hips, and he was quickly joined by the other man.
“Feldman, what the fuck did you do?!”
“Nothing! She was into it a second ago. She was bucking against me and everything! Her cunt’s still—”
“A second ago? Jesus Christ, look at her! Get your dick out!” Cherry heard a wet slurping sound as the cock pulled free of her grasp. Her performance continued automatically down below, waiting for the thrust that would return the occupant to its massage. But it did not come. Cherry collapsed onto her side, the rest of her shaking uncontrollably even as her hole finally shuddered to a stop. “Are you ok, sweetheart? Are you hurt?”
“Fr-Francis?” Her lip trembled as one of the men cupped her chin and peered at her. His eyes were a deep hazel color, just as they had been when he gazed down at her on the wedding altar. “What a wonderful…w-what a..” Cherry broke into another sob and the man let her face fall. Francis’ eyes were blue.
“See?” The other man said insistently, “The docs must’ve screwed her brain up good, but that’s not my fault! I didn’t hurt her, she liked it!”
“Ok, ok…” The hazel-eyed man was still looking down at her. Cherry shrank under his inspection, pulling her knees up to her breasts. She wished she still had arms to wrap around herself. “Shit, she’s a mess. Maid! Get over here and fix her.” A retiree that had been standing closeby, apparently watching, rushed to obey. It knelt in front of Cherry, placing its hands on the underside of the slight bumps where her shoulders had been in order to support her as she tentatively stood.
“Close your eyes, babe. I think that will help.” The hazel-eyed man said softly to Cherry when he noticed her gaze flicking back and forth between the two men, on the verge of more tears. She did as he told her, and instantly felt a little more secure. Not much, but at least she didn’t have to battle the belief that Francis had suddenly appeared, over and over. “Take her back into the powder room and get her all gussied up again. And be extra gentle, alright? I don’t need her having another fit.”
Cherry felt the maid place its arm around the curve of her hip, a thankfully light touch from arms she knew could be iron, guiding her away. The men continued talking to each other, but she had already forgotten which voice had gone with which face.
“Christ, Feldman. You’d better hope she’s too fucked up to even tell what happened. It’s your ass if we get a complaint.”
“My ass?! You said it would be fine! C’mon, Grady, she was literally asking for it!”
“She asked for it because she didn’t know any better! Next time you settle for the second round on the woman we’re actually there for. And you do the asking!”
“But it’s my turn to go first!”
“Not after this, it’s not! Now come and help me clean the other one out. We’re gonna have enough problems with the job report as it is without the docs finding ejaculate behind the seal again…”
The voices faded to grumbling, and then cut off completely as Cherry and the maid passed through a swinging door. She opened her eyes to find herself in a small powder room. There was a stray pleaser on the floor that Cherry stared at for a long moment before deciding it didn’t look familiar, after all. Odd though, to see a single pleaser, all scuffed up and left there on its own.
Her reflection in the vanity mirror was even stranger, and not just because she was even worse for wear than the discarded shoe. Mascara had run down her cheeks, then been smeared by the carpet until her face was covered in dark, sooty splotches. Her eyes were bloodshot, the tiny veins outlining her false irises through the way they disappeared along the edge of the contacts. Her hair had gone from beehive to bird’s nest, and she was missing an earring somehow. Oh, and she was completely naked. That was actually the most normal part of the image, aside from the redness and the streaks of makeup marking her breasts from when she’d dragged her body across the stained carpet. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been in public without immaculate makeup. Probably not since before her first pair of training heels.
She watched her lower lip begin to quiver, her eyes brimmed with water, and then she succumbed to fresh, shuddering sobs. The retiree suddenly wrapped an arm around her again, turning Cherry away from the mirror and into an awkward embrace. It carefully lowered them both to the floor together as the strength in her legs gave out. She buried her face against its rubbery chest, surprisingly soft despite only a faint indication of breasts visible on the exterior, and it cradled her head with its mechanical hand; rigid, yet somehow tender.
Cherry slowly brought her own breathing into rhythm with the steady rise and fall of the retiree’s chest. She could feel her tears pooling in the space where her cheek pressed against it before they slipped away down the slick surface. From deep within the soft shell, its heartbeat drummed in her ear. She could even hear a faint whirring sound as its other hand lowered to her feet. To her surprise, it unlatched the pleasers which had been hurting her all day and carefully removed them. Her feet felt naked, foreign, without her shoes, but she was glad that small pain at least was finally gone.
“Thank you,” she mumbled, and received no reply.
They sat together silently for what felt like a long time. The man had told the maid to gussy her up, so she knew eventually it would be time to face the vanity mirror again. But he had also told it to be extra gentle, and the retiree seemed to be prioritizing that part of the command. Cherry didn’t know what degree of liberty retirees had when it came to following orders, but she chose to believe that this one had decided on its own to comfort her.
Later, she didn’t remember falling asleep in its arms.
Chapter 10
Cherry opened her eyes to discover that she could not see. A censored fog totally obscured her vision, just as it had done the instant she left the bedroom earlier that day. If it was still the same day. How long had she been asleep? The blur let light through at least, and it seemed that she was bathed in the same orange glow of early evening that had only just begun to fill the sitting room when…when the bad thing had happened.
“Can you hear me, Cherry?”
The male voice thankfully broke her train of thought before it could go too far down a path she wanted to avoid. It was unfamiliar; different from either of the two voices she remembered from before the refuge of the powder room door had cut them off.
“Francis?” A desperate hope. The man’s voice had a slight quaver to it, a hint of a tremor. He sounded old.
“No, not Francis.” He said slowly, patiently. “Harold Drestin, actually. You’re a guest at my home, and… you’ve had a bit of an accident.”
Julia’s husband? Cherry shrank back away from his voice. She was seated on a cushion of some sort, legs dangling in open air, suddenly very conscious of her nakedness. Her dress was still gone, her face had been a wreck the last she’d seen and—oh no! Her shoes! She curled her bare toes, trying futilely to shrink her feet into nothingness, to hide them behind each other.
“I’m sorry—“ she blurted, hardly an appropriate greeting from a girl to a man. “I…I misspoke. I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Drestin.”
“Doctor, actually.” His tone was polite but Cherry winced anyway. That had been on the invitation. She should have remembered! “And there’s nothing to apologize for, dear. Not on your end, anyway. I have taken temporary control of your censors.”
Cherry frowned. “Is…Is that why I can’t see?” She hadn’t been aware that other men could do that.
“I thought it best to avoid any unnecessary stimulus, given your condition.” He dropped into an even softer tone. “Are you able to tell me what happened?”
“I can try…” She didn’t want to, but his question had the form of a gentle command. Without Francis there to assert himself as her owner she had no way around an order from another man. At least he had put it delicately.
With a little more gentle encouragement she eventually murmured all that she could remember. It wasn’t much—even if she tried to follow that path in her mind she kept getting lost, hitting dead ends, finding things that didn’t make sense. There had been two men, and another woman. The men had hurt Cherry, and they had hurt the other woman, too. And…she had thought they were her husband. Both of them, and she had really believed it.
Deep down she realized that she still did. Her memories of the men were tangled together, and that tangle itself was then wrapped into the image of Francis in her mind. She couldn’t seem to separate them without immense effort, and they snapped back together like a bra strap holding everything snug whenever she let her concentration slip. That scared her even worse than the memory of what the men had done to her.
“Don’t cry, pumpkin.” She felt a soft cloth press beneath her eyes, the blur of it darkening the bottom edge of her vision, catching tears before they could fall. “There, there. A maid has only just finished fixing your lovely face. Let’s not ruin it’s hard work, shall we? No more tears, now.”
She sniffled and bit her lip, nodding to show that she was trying to do what he told her. The cloth—his handkerchief she imagined—dabbed at her eyes until they were dry enough that the risk was past.
“There we are. You don’t need to continue, Cherry. The sequence of events sounds very much like what I had surmised from Julia’s description of how she found you. Doesn’t it, sweetheart?”
“Yes, darling,” Julia’s breathy voice enthused. “You had it all figured out!”
So Julia was there, too! Who else might be listening? Watching her? Cherry’s eyes darted around the featureless wash as a terrible thought formed of the whole Social staring at her with scorn. She wanted to pull her knees up to cover her breasts, at least, but that would require exposing her feet even more than they already were. And even if Dr. Drestin hadn’t yet scolded her for lacking proper pleasers, he surely wouldn’t appreciate bare feet on his furniture. Her breasts would have to remain thrusting out into the open air, as vulnerable as the rest of her. Exactly as she should be, for her husband, but being so exposed in front of yet another unfamiliar man made her wish again that she still had arms to shield herself.
Dr. Drestin seemed amused by Julia’s exuberance, chuckling goodnaturedly. When he spoke, it sounded as though he had turned away from Cherry; likely in his wife’s direction.
“You give me too much credit, my love, as always. I had a few more clues than that to work with.” There was a brief sound of lips smacking—a kiss! Cherry couldn’t help but picture it as perhaps more romantic than the reality, then blushed at witnessing such an intimate moment, if only in her imagination.
Maybe the three of them were somewhere more private. For all it was called a ‘sitting room’ there hadn’t actually been anything like this cushioned bench to sit on back in the main room of the Social. She rocked back and forth a bit. Her butt felt strangely numb, and her mods had left it considerably thicker than it had been when she last sat on anything other than her bed, but she was able to sense that the surface was hard, with only a thin layer of pleather cushion. Like the examination tables she had sat upon in any number of doctors’ offices over the years, and she was speaking to a doctor, after all. She liked that thought much better.
“Are you uncomfortable?” Cherry abruptly stopped fidgeting; he must have noticed!
“No, I’m fine!”
“I’m sorry not to have a softer seat for you. Didn’t have much time to prepare.”
“It’s very soft.” She assured him, and tried to relax her body. A woman should be poised, or inviting, but never tense. “Thank you.”
“That’s good,” he laughed, the same warm chuckle he had given Julia, “though I know you’re lying for my benefit. I’ve run a scan on your brain, Cherry. Am still running it, currently.”
“My brain?”
“Yes, just a simple scan.” He tapped Cherry on her temple. Or rather, he tapped something that was stuck there. She hadn’t noticed the sensation until he called attention to it. “No need to open you up—this should tell us the gist of what’s going on in there. We’ll be running a few more tests together, too, but your confusion with the two men makes a lot of sense from what I’ve determined thus far.”
“Is there something wrong with me?”
“Well, that’s the tricky part, honey. I took an oath when I became a doctor, you see. Promised not to tell little ladies like you anything your owner might not want you to hear.” He made an exaggerated sigh. “But I grow so forgetful in my old age. Small details like oaths can sometimes completely slip my mind, not to mention how I ramble nowadays. Besides, you’ve been through such an ordeal today, and under my roof, that I find myself wanting to tell you a few things you really have no right to know.”
“I don’t want to get you in trouble…”
He really laughed at that, wheezing slightly.
“That’s very presumptuous of you, young lady! I hardly see how you can claim responsibility for my being old and stubborn. No one is going to come after me, don’t you worry. They wouldn’t dare. And there are some things you should know, I think. The damage is already done.”
“So there is something wrong? Can you fix it?”
“Not likely, dear. Truth be told, my medical knowledge is a tad out of date. I ended my practice around the time your grandmother must have been getting her marital modifications. Perhaps even your great-grandmother.”
Cherry furrowed her brow, “I just had a normal mother…”
“Ah, yes, I suppose those words are gibberish to you. No matter. I mean to say that my methods were already old fashioned a long time ago. I’ll do what I can for you, but I doubt it will be more than assessing the extent of the damage.”
A clacking of keys began from somewhere down and to her right—presumably the controls of some sort of medical instrument. He really was old fashioned, if he preferred not to just wave his hands in the air the way most men did. She knew they were actually manipulating displays that only men could see—male contacts could show all sorts of things—but to Cherry it might as well have been magic. She had believed as much until her older brother explained it all to her, much to her father’s displeasure, and she knew plenty of women who still insisted that men’s hands held magic powers.
“By the by,” he said while typing, “I already took the liberty of rubbing you down with a pain relieving ointment. Your surgeons did a marvelous job on your curves. Firm—yet plenty of jiggle—and so soft! An amazing display of the recent advancements in thermoplastics, don’t you agree?”
“Um…” A simple yes or no would usually do when men said big words, but Cherry didn’t understand well enough to know which he wanted to hear. At least the ointment explained why she was so numb, and slightly tingly.
“Thermoplastics? Ah, nevermind. I can see you’re not familiar. My word, they barely teach you ladies how to tie your shoes these days.”
She blinked. “Tie them?”
“A figure of speech, sweetheart. Shoes used to have these things called laces, you see. Oh, and women used to wear normal shoes. Well, normal for the era.”
“You know such fascinating things!” Julia piped up from somewhere nearby. Cherry could hear how wide she was smiling.
“Thank you, my love.” Another quick kiss.
For herself, Cherry still didn’t understand how the women could have tied their own shoes even if they did have laces for the purpose. The very notion conjured a ridiculous image of a woman, her leg curled all the way up to her face, vainly attempting to catch the end of a lace with her teeth. A small giggle bubbled up through her melancholy.
“Now there’s a lovely sound!” He patted her thigh, a light touch, but it made Cherry flinch. For an instant, she had expected him to hurt her. Why would she think that? He was being so nice. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to notice. “It is a silly thought, isn’t it? Such things were before even my time, but I am a student of history.
“Anywho, Cherry, I applied the ointment to your naughty place as well. It seemed pretty battered, so I used a big glob of the stuff, and good thing, too! I think you might have pulled my finger off if I wasn’t all greased up. You’ve got quite a grip down there, young lady!”
Cherry shyly thanked him for the compliment, and the ointment.
“You’re quite welcome. You’re being a very good girl, Cherry—the scan is going well.” His typing paused suddenly. “Would you like a lollipop?”
Cherry perked up at that! She was about to tell him she would like one very much, when she remembered the debacle at the snack table.
“I’m on a diet…” She murmured instead.
“Nonsense.” A drawer opened somewhere nearby. “I have full root access to your censors, including your dietary restrictions, and I say that good girls get lollipops. Now, would you like one?”
Guilt at disobeying Francis’ orders washed through her, but it wasn’t enough to drown her excitement. Her nod managed to be both sheepish and enthusiastic.
“Oh, it’s even cherry-flavored; how perfect. Say ‘ahhh’, darling. There you are.”
Cherry didn’t know what she had expected. Part of her had been bracing for the ear splitting siren again, despite his assurances. Another part had hoped for something like the remembered taste of candies she’d enjoyed when she was little, before she switched to mostly slurpees. And it was like that, only better. So much better than she could have anticipated.
The flavor absolutely exploded on her tongue, curling toes she had only just begun to relax. It was almost the same as those cherished red lollipops of her childhood, but so much more vibrant, more specific. As if so much time without had somehow attuned her to better appreciate the subtleties of the sugariness. And yet at the same time it was overwhelming, totally obliterating her ability to focus on anything else. A shiver ran down her spine. It was good.
Julia Drestin keeps herself occupied.
“Thank you,” she mumbled around the stick.
“You’re welcome, dear.” Dr. Drestin said distractedly. The typing had resumed, even faster now. “Oh, your brain is lighting up! This should give us a good comparison for our tests, I think. Honestly, it’s making me want one as well. Julia, darling, how about you?”
Julia responded in the affirmative, though Cherry barely paid attention to the admiring words that passed between the husband and wife. She was too focused on rolling the lollipop around in her mouth, mixing her saliva with the sugar and swallowing the sweet results. Twirling the stick as she had done in girlhood required hands long since gone; trimmed only recently, but bound behind her back from her first day at finishing school. Her tongue proved more than capable of producing the desired effect on its own, however. It hadn’t yet been pierced when she’d last had anything so solid in her mouth, and the way her studs clacked and scraped against the hard candy surface added an additional sensation she found quite pleasant. Cherry didn’t know when she might get a chance like this again and she was intent on savoring every second.
“My, but you are enjoying that, aren’t you, pumpkin?” Dr. Drestin chuckled, at her side again, and Cherry grinned around her treat. She heard him make a swallowing sound and wondered if he might have really gotten himself a lollipop, too. “Julia is having hers in the corner. She’s graciously agreed to be censored for the time being, to give you a little privacy for the rest of your exam. I still need a minute before I’m ready to proceed. In the meantime, I’d like to offer my sincere apologies for what happened today. I don’t see much that could have been done to prevent it — retirement agents go where they please, after all — but I am sorry all the same.”
“Retirement…?”
What did retirement have to do with what had happened to her? Her memory was too fuzzy to figure it out. She chided herself for not responding to his apology immediately — it was so kind of him to offer one, and she was being incredibly rude by not replying properly — but he had begun speaking again. It would be even worse to interrupt.
“Quite callous of the husband, foregoing the ceremony like that, but the agency men should have had more tact as well. They made a poor job of it all around. Interrupted Julia’s little tea party, and I’m sure you noticed how important that is to her. Not to mention the mess they made of you! Yes, I’ll be on the horn to their supervisor first thing tomorrow.
“Ah, it’s a shame really. Men retire their wives willy nilly nowadays. That was never the intention of the program. It was meant as a reform, a place for women to go, a role for them to play, if — not when — their husbands no longer desired them as wives. No woman should have to bear her husband’s distaste, after all, and no man should stay with a wife out of guilt alone. It was hard on a man, when the only option was cutting her loose. You know where those women end up.”
Cherry must have looked sufficiently puzzled.
“You don’t? I won’t spoil your innocence further, then. Surely you’ve seen them in the streets, at least. Retirement seemed a better alternative. I joined the campaign myself, in my youth.
But replacing a woman has become perhaps too convenient. And the social pressure to do so is immense—why I can hardly sit at the country club for five minutes before someone cracks a joke about my Julia’s age. I have to keep her ears off whenever she joins me in the clubhouse; it would break her heart to hear the things they say. Not that she’d let it show, of course. She’s a strong woman, my wife. Resilient. Don’t make ‘em like that anymore. One of many reasons I’ll keep her till the end of my days. Assuming I don’t have too many of those left.”
He chuckled to himself, then gave a lighthearted sigh.
“Oh, but look at me ramble. I warned you, didn’t I? We need to move on with your exam. First, I’d like to fill you in on some of what I’ve already discovered inside your head.”
Cherry gulped, forgetting to appreciate the syrupy liquid as it slid down her throat. She hadn’t realized he would be so direct with her.
“Is there too much air?” She asked earnestly, trying to be helpful.
“What? Ah…I understand.” He chuckled again, “Who told you that you were ‘airheaded’? You are actually quite intelligent.”
“I am?”
“Yes, for a woman you are remarkably bright. Naive, of course, but very inquisitive. I’m surprised your husband didn’t choose to dim you down a bit. He clearly had no qualms about other changes to your mind.”
Cherry chewed the lollipop stick self-consciously. “I didn’t know he changed anything at all. He didn’t tell me.”
“Well, I imagine that was part of the point. You have a sophisticated modification to your brain, Cherry. In my day we might have called it an ‘imprint’, though the purpose seems different than what I would have used such a thing for. You will believe any man you see is your husband, and upon seeing him you temporarily lose some memories of your previous interaction together. Or rather, your previous interaction with whichever man you believed to be him at the time. Does that make sense?”
“Yes…” It did, based on her experience with the two men in the sitting room. What she didn’t understand was why Francis would want such a thing for her. She never left his bedroom, after all. He was the only man she ever saw…wasn’t he?
“I wouldn’t have told you that much, if not for what happened today. It’s clear that it was meant to be a secret from you. Unfortunately, my scans suggest that the imprint is no longer functioning as intended. Seeing two men at once sent you into something of a recursive loop—ah, I mean to say, it made you very confused. Normally the imprint should have been able to self-correct upon the next time you saw an individual man. But the trauma of that particular experience—and multiple subsequent traumatic exposures, in rapid succession—has left it permanently corrupted. Are you still following?”
She shook her head. The lollipop was dissolving so quickly, slipping away.
“Hmmm…how can I put this? I’m not in the habit of speaking on such subjects with female patients. The imprint relies on your love, and trust, for your husband to work. You were hurt very deeply today, by someone who you at times saw as him, and at times not. And because there were two men present, it felt to you as though it was happening afresh, over and over. If it had continued working as intended, the imprint might have trapped you in that moment for what would have felt like forever. Thankfully, it broke instead.”
“So it’s…gone, then?” She hoped it hadn’t been too expensive. Would Francis be angry with her for breaking it?
“Not entirely. It remains in place, but severely damaged. I’m not sure what the effect will be, now. That’s what I would like to determine, with your help. Have you finished your lollipop, dear? It’s time to move on with your test.”
She felt the stick being tugged from her lips. There was still a small sliver of lollipop left, but she let it go. Giving her only a single lick would have already been a wonderful kindness; she wouldn’t quibble over the last tiny bit.
“Let’s get you down here now…” There was the click of a leash attaching to the collar at her throat, then a gentle tug forward. She had to scooch her butt to the edge, and when the tugs did not stop she was forced to slide herself off of the surface. The drop was short—only a few inches before the balls of her bare feet hit a hardwood floor. She gasped at the sensation of standing directly on her own feet, and collapsed almost immediately onto her knees instead; a much more familiar feeling. He didn’t help her back up, nor provide her with the pleasers she had misplaced.
In the span of a single blink, her worry was overtaken by the return of her sight. The fog was gone.
She was in a well lit, nicely furnished office. Not a doctor’s office after all, but rather a private study. Julia stood facing into a corner between two windows, displaying the open back of her latex sundress. Beyond the window panes lay a stunning view of the rocky coastline, Cherry’s first glimpse of the outside since her wedding. But it was only a glimpse, because though the censors had lifted her vision was still mostly blocked by the erect penis dominating her view.
Cherry balked at being so suddenly confronted with Dr. Drestin’s manhood. It was only the second such specimen she had ever seen—well, she had seen plenty in school but the context there had been quite different. Oh, and she had briefly seen that man’s cock earlier, after he’d pulled it out of her and before he hastily shoved it back into his pants, but she didn’t want to think about that. And she supposed she had stolen curious glances at her brothers’ over the years, but that hardly counted.
Those exceptions aside, Francis was her primary reference for comparison. His cock was…it was… Funny, her memory of her husband’s penis seemed to be all jumbled up. She could remember it looking all sorts of different ways, almost like the series of examples from school. What kind of wife couldn’t summon a perfect image of her husband’s cock to her mind’s eye?
She was sure it looked nothing like this one, though. Julia’s husband was very old, she had already gathered that much from their conversation, and his penis reflected that. It wasn’t very large, though it stretched for her face with every inch, hard, and pulsing with an almost angry energy. He was uncircumcised, an extra flap of skin still covering the head, allowing only the very tip to peek out at her. There was plenty of extra skin elsewhere, too. His testicles sagged low, dangling against his spindly thighs in a pouch of wrinkled skin that was covered with wispy white hairs. Cherry couldn’t help but take a moment to drink in the sight—any penis was a marvel, something to be venerated— but she felt guilty appreciating it in front of Julia, even if the other woman was totally blocked.
“Dr. Drestin, I’m really sorry, but I don’t think I should—“ she started, darting her eyes up to his face. And that was when she saw him, really saw him, for the first time. An old man, maybe older than anyone she’d ever seen before. He was wearing the sort of funny spectacles men sometimes wore in paintings or statues, from a time before the contacts. They sat atop his gnarled nose, straddling his drooping, wrinkled cheeks.
“Francis…?” She murmured.
“Hmm…so it’s at least partially intact.” He reached over her head to clack a few keys on some sort of machine, bumping her cheek with his cock as he did so. “Localized to the face…regular trigger patterns disrupted…”
Cherry stared up at this strange, ancient man. Her husband? Surely not. That made no sense—she was still in Dr. Drestin’s office, not home in her bed where Francis usually came to her. Where had the good-hearted doctor gone? Julia was still standing stiffly, her face to the corner. He hadn’t seemed the type to leave his wife like that. Wait…
“Dr. Drestin, are you still…you?”
“Yes, I am still myself, honey. I had no intention of deceiving you for long, but I also needed to determine exactly what would trigger the imprint. What’s left of it, at least.”
“I thought you were Francis, for a moment. I still kinda think you might be. Maybe the…the imprint isn’t too broken, after all?”
“I’m afraid it’s quite badly damaged, dear. You shouldn’t have even noticed anything amiss.”
“Oh…” She glanced down at his cock, still prodding at her cheek. “What would you like me to do with…with this?”
“Whatever you are comfortable with. Though it would be most useful for the scan if you were to put it in your mouth.”
“Oh, can I?” The lollipop had been one thing, but this might truly be overstepping Francis’ authority. “Is that allowed? You’re not my husband.”
“If my suspicions are correct, I doubt it would be out of the ordinary for you.” He coughed, clearing his throat, and adjusted his spectacles in what appeared to be a self-conscious gesture. “Well, that is… ah… I mean to say…that I will be sure to note the medical necessity in my report. He should have no reason to be angry.”
“Ok,” Cherry smiled somewhat shyly, not wanting to appear overeager. “As long as Francis won’t be upset.”
She turned her head to grasp him with her lips, pulling him back into a straight on position towards her face. She spared a glance for Julia, still blissfully unaware, and felt a surge of guilt, but the thought evaporated as Dr. Drestin thrust himself against her lips. Her tongue caught the edge of his foreskin as his cock pushed into her mouth, and she rolled it around the bulbous head, feeling the tension from her frontmost piercing stretching his skin. She slowly peeled it back with her tongue, then rolled it forward again with her lips, playing with his head like she had the lollipop.
“That’s wonderful, dear. This is very good data, but you can always stop if you feel uncomfortable.”
She nodded, which had the effect of bobbing her onto his shaft. He tasted quite nice, though partly that was the residual flavor of the lollipop still coating her tongue. It was being washed with the silky fluid from her intimate mods now rather than her natural saliva, but still managed to add a delicious sweetness. If she closed her eyes, maybe she could imagine he really was Francis. It was already a struggle to keep the two of them separate in her head, anyway—
Not Francis.
Cherry suddenly coughed, spluttering around his cock, trying to breathe.
“Are you alright, Cherry? I saw a brief spike on your chart.”
She nodded again, breathlessly this time, holding him between her lips while she sucked in air around his shaft. Where had that sudden wave of fear come from? It was like before, when he had touched her thigh. A flash of panic, and two thoughts subsuming all the rest: He was not Francis, and he was going to hurt her.
That wasn’t true. Well, the first part was, but the surety that he would hurt her was clearly false. He had been tremendously tender towards her so far. She had no reason to expect that to change.
Not Francis.
I know that, Cherry replied to the strange presence in her head; not really a voice, just a…feeling. A frayed little knot of harried emotion that seemed isolated from the rest of her, nestled somewhere deep.
Not Francis!
I know, she told it again, but that didn’t seem to matter. It wanted her to get away, spit him out, hide.
Well that would be just plain rude. Not only because he was a man, and her host, but also because he had been so kind to her. Much kinder than Francis, if she was being honest with herself. He was the sort of man she had once hoped her husband would be, though she couldn’t quite bring herself to put it in those terms. She wanted to thank him the best way she knew how. Her lessons hadn’t covered this specific situation, but it seemed like the sort of thing a good girl would do. So long as her husband approved, of course, and he had assured her that Francis wouldn’t be mad.
Determined not to listen to the little voice, Cherry took him fully back inside. She made sure he slid along the length of her tongue, hitting the bumps of all three piercings, before she plunged him on into her throat. The walls constricted immediately upon his entrance, inflating, squeezing him tight inside the swollen tube. Welcoming him as she had been designed to do.
Dr. Drestin grunted, doubling forward to clutch the desk.
“Oh goodness. Cherry, dear, I—I’m not sure how long I can—I took a pill, you see—!”
Her swallowing reflex controlled the rhythm of her contracting muscle pulses, giving her much more command over her performance than with her other holes. Her throat would loosen enough for her to breathe whenever he exited back into the chamber of her mouth. With pull after practiced pull, she took his head from her lips, to her tongue, to the depths of her throat, his shaft following closely behind.
NOT FRANCIS!
I know! She shouted inside her head. It felt odd to raise her voice inside her own mind, and not just because she had been taught to maintain an attractively meek tone. She shouldn’t have to worry about being ladylike with herself, at least. It wasn’t as though the little voice could punish her.
NOT FRANCIS! NOT FRANCIS! NOT FRANCIS!
She tried to ignore the voice as it grew louder. Her pace accelerated until she was noisily propelling him in and out of her throat, faster and faster, sloshing her velvety drool over her lips and down her chin. She had to finish, to thank him. And then it would be done, and she would be safe. She was already safe! He wasn’t going to hurt her! But she was losing the battle now, the little voice filling her mind. The terror was seeping into the rest of her even as she tried to push it away.
“Cherry, stop! Your chart is spiking out of control, and I can’t—I can’t—Good Lord!”
NOTFRANCISNOTFRANCISNOTFRANCISNOTFRANCISNOTFRANCISNOTFRANCIS
The tiny knot suddenly overpowered her, wrestling control and forcing her back, ejecting him from her mouth in the same instant that he began to erupt. She watched wide-eyed as white globs pumped free of his pulsating shaft, warmly splattering onto her face while she gasped for air. He shuddered, bent completely over the desk, moaning, but she could barely hear over her own quite unladylike heaving noises, desperately fighting to regain command of her body, to breathe.
NOT FRANCIS!!!
It’s over! I’m ok!
NOT FRANCIS!
It’s OVER!
The struggle consumed her full attention, and she didn’t even notice him crouching down to her level until he spoke.
“It’s alright, Cherry. Just breathe.” He had a hand on her tiny shoulder bump, pressing on her in a slow rhythm. “With me, now. In…and out. That’s it. You’re alright. In….and out.” He was still panting himself, his deep breaths clearly as much for his own recovery as hers, but she let him lead her.
“What…what happened…to me?” She managed to get out. Her own panting was blowing the strands of cum that stretched across her lips, and she could feel even more dangling from her chin. Plenty had already fallen to the floor, and there were goopy trails slowly crawling down her cheeks as well.
“A malfunction. Your imprint triggered a panic attack. It’s going to be ok. You just need to breathe. In and out.”
“Why? Why would it…do that?”
He kept up the steady pressure, and gestured with his other hand how he wanted her to keep breathing, slowly opening and closing his fingers, but slipped from coaching her with his words to explaining, instead.
“It seems the self-correction protocols are overreacting to your trauma. The exact reasoning is unknowable—once these things shift from their usual parameters the results are more chaotic than logical. I’ve spent a lot of time mapping such malfunctions, however, and I believe I understand the nature of this one. It can’t repair itself, so it’s trying to prevent further damage. Meaning that it will act to avoid an experience like what happened earlier today. I’m afraid the panic will likely return whenever you try to have sex with a man who is not your husband.”
“Well that’s ok, then, right?” She asked, hopefully. Her breath was returning. “I’ll only be with Francis from now on, anyway.”
He paused before responding, looking at her with pity, apparently considering what to say.
“In…most cases, yes, that would be the solution. But I suspect that this might be more of an issue for you than you realize.” He adjusted his spectacles again, fidgeting with where the wire frame rested on his ear. “Ah, but I shouldn’t trouble you with speculation. What I do know is that it’s likely to get worse, especially if you are already averse to what is happening. You might…not always have the luxury of being with a man you want to, uh, satisfy.”
“But I do want to satisfy Francis! That’s all I want!” It was all she had ever wanted, since she was a little girl. To be a good wife for her husband, to make him happy, and proud of her, the way her father had been with his wives. The way Dr. Drestin was with Julia.
“I’m sure you do, pumpkin. It might be…difficult for you, is all. To serve him the way he wants, I mean. With the imprint in this state, his expectations of you will likely need to change. A little patience will be necessary.”
Cherry’s eyes fell, shoulders slumping.
“Francis isn’t very patient…”
“I…imagine not.”
They both sat there on the floor for a time, neither really sure what more to say. A large string of cum hanging from her chin finally sprang free, splashing down onto the hardwood. Dr. Drestin chuckled, a bit of his light humor returning.
“You really did do a number on me. This went further than I had intended.”
“I’m sorry.” Cherry grimaced. “I wanted to make you happy.” Apparently she couldn’t even do that right.
“Oh, I had a thrilling experience, darling, never fear.” He tapped her nose, smiling fondly. She tried to return the expression. For his benefit, at first, but even a forced smile really did make her feel a little better. A strand of cum had attached itself to his finger when he touched her, and he laughed, wiggling it around. “We’ve made a bit of a mess, haven’t we?”
“There’s so much,” Cherry said, bashfully glancing at the small puddle that had already dribbled onto the floor. She could only guess at how much was still plastered to her face.
“My pills. I take them to be ready for Julia, but there are, ah, additional effects.” He popped his finger into her mouth, letting her lick the cum off. She would have to swallow it all, of course. Her schooling had been very clear on that point. Not a drop to be wasted, it all had to be properly appreciated.
NOT FRANCIS!
She shot back away from his finger involuntarily, gasping. His wispy eyebrows drooped into a frown.
“I’m sorry!” Cherry could feel tears forming. Was she really this broken?
“It’s quite alright, Cherry. Though perhaps it would be best if you don’t clean this up yourself.”
“But I have to…” Her makeup was surely ruined again anyway—maybe this time it would be alright to cry.
“No, you don’t, darling.” He patted her head and stood, facing his wife. “Julia will be happy to help.”
“What?!” She shot her gaze towards Julia, feeling a very different sort of panic that she knew was all her own. He couldn’t mean…
But he was already releasing his wife’s censors with a quick wave of his hand. Julia’s posture suddenly relaxed—Cherry understood the relief of having a total block suddenly disappear— and she turned, her usual pleasant smile curling around the stick of her own lollipop. When her eyes fell on Cherry’s cum covered face, the empty stick fell from her lips along with the smile.
Chapter 11
“Do you mind, dear? I have to get the rest.”
Cherry blinked at Julia, her face hovering just a few inches away, approaching Cherry’s own. She had been trying to avert her eyes while the cum on the floor found its way to Julia’s mouth via her lapping tongue. A furtive glance told Cherry that the hardwood surface was now clean; all that remained were the strands still clinging to her face. She gulped, realizing what the other woman was asking permission for.
“I don’t mind,” Cherry murmured softly, blushing despite herself, and Julia gave a curt nod. Matter of fact. No change from how she had acted since regaining control of herself after that brief lapse, caused by her shock no doubt, upon discovering the state of affairs in the study. Cherry had watched the lollipop stick fall to the floor and braced for an explosion, but Julia had quickly recovered some semblance of her usual poise. She had even managed a tight smile for her husband when he told her what he wanted her to do. There was little warmth for Cherry though. Julia’s eyes were frostier than the semen that had grown cold on Cherry’s skin.
Her tongue, however, was hot. It rolled out from her open mouth, descending towards Cherry with only slight hesitation. The contact was indirect at first; cum forming a gelatinous barrier that slipped around with the tip, tracing a circular path down Cherry’s cheek, but as the full length of Julia’s tongue came sweeping around her chin, up the other side of her face, Cherry could feel the momentary friction where it ran over the scarce areas of her bare skin, leaving behind a slippery residue of Julia’s saliva and Harold’s semen. She shivered. Then it was off her, flipping a load back into Julia’s mouth.
Cherry found herself leaning forward, unconsciously mimicking the way Julia’s lips pursed, delicate neck muscles constricting as she swallowed audibly. What Cherry failed to notice, distracted by her focus on the maturely beautiful woman, was that swallowing was actually quite necessary for her, as well. She was too intent on Julia’s mouth, opening again now, tongue flopping out unceremoniously, to notice that her own mouth was rapidly lubricating itself as if preparing for a man.
The path back in the other direction went up over the bridge of Cherry’s nose. Julia’s soft lips slurping, her tongue still licking, following the trail of where the splatter had landed until she came to the strands that stretched across Cherry’s lips. Julia’s open mouth surrounded them totally, drawing Cherry in with a relentless suction. Her tongue rolled all around, hastily gathering the semen, snaking in between—inside!
Cherry shot back away from Julia, their lips parting with a pop, feeling her face flush even deeper than it had already been.
“What?” Julia said flatly, curling her tongue back inside her own mouth again. Her cool gaze fell on Cherry’s lips and she huffed. “Don’t be difficult, dear. There’s still some left.”
Cherry opened her mouth to respond — and out plopped a glob of silky saliva. Julia’s eyes narrowed, while Cherry’s went wide as saucers. She quickly gulped down her words along with multiple mouthfuls of her liquid-velvet lubricant. It was the same malfunction that had happened with Diane, earlier! Thankfully it seemed her mouth was not refilling now that Julia’s lips were no longer on her. She tried closing her knees to prevent any fluid from escaping her holes down below—and was horrified to discover her shins slipping on the already slick hardwood, her thighs coming together with a wet, audible squish.
“How curious…” Dr. Drestin had gone back to examining the screen of the mysterious machine on his desk. Cherry couldn’t see what it showed: there was only a large square composed of many smaller squares, seemingly at random. A code. Cherry’s world had once been full of them: on the pages of magazines, newspapers, even her own betrothal announcement. In male eyes, she knew they held much more information. Images, and even moving pictures too. For her it was easier to think of them as the symbol of something which men could see, and women could not. She wondered why Dr. Drestin was frowning at this one. Finally, he spoke out from amidst his thoughts. “Kiss her again, Julia.”
“I did not kiss her!” Julia scoffed, eyes suddenly blazing.
“That’s not what she felt.” He made a pinching motion with his fingers on the screen, and the pattern of squares changed slightly. It was the same motion men usually made in the air when they wanted more detail on whatever they were seeing. What that might signify was a mystery to Cherry, and she didn’t have much time to ponder, because he addressed her directly. “Isn’t that right, Cherry? Did you think she was kissing you?”
She glanced at Julia, watching as the other woman’s nostrils flared, icy expression darkening rapidly into a diamond-sharp gaze directed at the floor. Cherry silently thanked the Fathers that those eyes were not focused on her, until she realized Julia was looking at the minor puddle she had made. She shook her head, blushing as bright as her name.
“No! She didn’t—! I… I was just being silly!”
“You aren’t in trouble, Cherry.” He assured her, before noticing Julia’s expression, uncharacteristically steely. “And Julia is not angry with you. Are you, my love?”
“What?” Julia shivered, shaking all her various pearls, pulling her eyes away from the wet. “Of course not!” She assured Cherry, returning to a semblance of the woman who had greeted her so cheerily but a few hours before. “Cherry, I’m not angry. Not…not with you.”
She looked up pleadingly at her husband, “But I didn’t kiss her, Harold. Please, you know that I would never—”
“I know, darling. I know.” He rested a pale, gnarled hand on his wife’s head, gently patting her black-haired bouffant. “But you’re going to, and that’s alright. None of that silliness, now. We’ve talked about this.”
Julia pouted in a way that suited a woman half her age, but it dissolved soon into a determined and apprehensive smile, thinly painted.
Harold put a hand on Cherry’s head as well, and suddenly he was pushing their heads together, bringing Julia’s awkward smile right up to Cherry’s lips again.
“A real kiss. With tongue, if you please. We need to check something.”
“But, Harold…” Julia whined through clenched teeth, grinning even wider, with the effect of conspicuously peeling her lips away from Cherry’s.
“Kiss her, my love.” He said, patient as ever, but unrelenting in his grip on either woman’s hair. Even a man enfeebled by age could easily assert his will over girls like the two he was bringing together. “I know how you feel about such things—I shall spank you later, if your conscience demands it. As ruthlessly as you wish. Will that make you feel better?”
“I—I suppose…”
“Good. It’s a date then.” He winked. “Now lay one on her!”
“Um—?!” Cherry tried to add her own protests, but barely managed to get out a single noncommittal sound before he pushed their faces all the way together again.
The second “kiss” barely earned the title any more than the previous one had, with Julia rigidly pressing her lips to Cherry’s and shoving her tongue inside. Cherry didn’t want to close her eyes—it clearly wasn’t that sort of kiss—but Julia’s discomfited glare made her do so anyway, if only to avoid having to look at the other woman. It might help her not to malfunction so acutely, too. The sight of Julia’s severe expression, looking down on her with something near to disdain, seemed to be at least part of what was triggering it. Seeing that look in Julia’s eye made Cherry feel small, vulnerable. Like she sometimes felt with Francis, when he was in a mood.
But the feel of the other woman’s lips, her chest pressing Cherry’s more eagerly than her eyes implied; it was apparently still enough to confuse the intimate mods. Cherry could feel the small puddle growing underneath where she was kneeling, springing from the tight warm ball of energy between her legs, intimate fluid slowly pooling around her knees. Julia‘s tongue was sloshing it around inside her mouth, now, too. She tried frantically to swallow again before it would become too noticeable, hoping the other woman didn’t realize what it was.
Julia suddenly separated again, pulling strings of Cherry’s saliva with her, which she let fall rather than slurping them up like Cherry did with her ends of the drooping strands.
“Is that enough?“ Her voice was terse, and she was panting slightly, with strain rather than…passion? Is that what had Cherry herself panting so hard?
“Yes, darling, thank you.” Harold said, still without losing any of the genuine affection his voice always carried when addressing his wife. “I know how difficult that must have been for you. Blonde, and just the right age… Memories, I’m sure.” Julia suddenly blushed furiously, making a small choking sound in her throat as her eyes nearly bulged out of her head. But Harold wasn’t looking to catch her expression, or the implicit request not to say whatever he had been about to. His focus had already drifted elsewhere, and his hands left their heads, returning to the keys of the machine.
Addressing Cherry, he slipped back into his explanatory voice; the same soft, almost cautious tone he had used earlier when she was first waking up. “Cherry… it seems there’s more going on inside your head than I noticed at first.”
“Another modification?” She asked weakly, her mind still racing from the kiss (the kisses!), looking up at him, uncertain.
“No, I don’t think so.” He glanced at the screen again, studying it for a moment. “This seems to be a natural defect. Hmmm…Your father must have been aware; these things develop at a young age. The treatment can be invasive, however. Am I right in assuming that he had a light touch with you, growing up?”
“Yes,” Cherry said, gathering herself a little. If her father had been aware of it then it couldn’t be too bad, or else he would have fixed it, like he had fixed everything for her, once.
“It would have been easiest to nip this early, but I’m not questioning his judgment. Not your husband’s, either. Abnormal attractions would have shown on your bridal inspection as well, but he clearly chose not to have it corrected. Perhaps he worried the procedure would interfere with the imprint, or maybe he simply wanted to spare you the process. Interventions can be quite arduous at your age,” he glanced at Julia and she flinched slightly before recovering her deliberate, distant smile once again. “And every method has associated risks.”
“But what is it?” Cherry fidgeted her legs, feeling them slip on the wet floor, glancing at Julia. She lowered her plump bottom down to her heels, which felt odd without the hard plastic of pleasers to rest on, shrinking under the knowing eyes of both the husband and wife. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Well, darling, isn’t it obvious?” Dr. Drestin adjusted his spectacles again. “You’re attracted to women.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“You’re attracted to women.” He repeated, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to say. “In addition to men, rather than at the exclusion of. There would have been no choice about interventions in the latter case.”
“But—I’m a woman!” She objected, looking to Julia for support and finding only that smile which didn’t quite touch the other woman’s eyes the way it had when they’d first met earlier that morning.
“Yes, you are!” He barked, apparently caught off guard, and clearly amused, by the nature of her confusion. “And you happen to possess a keen eye for quality among your own sex! Is that really such a revelation to you?”
Her thoughts drifted unbidden to Diane, beautiful Diane, carrying so much silent fire inside that she was hot to the touch. There was, perhaps, maybe, something more there than Cherry had realized. “I—I just didn’t know that could happen! Is…is it bad?”
“Well that’s for your husband to say. Considering he didn’t bother removing it during your marital mods, I think we can extrapolate his feelings on the issue. I have to say that this is perhaps the first thing I agree with—in regard to his treatment of you, I mean. It really isn’t something to worry too much about, and the therapies can do more harm than good. Despite centuries of research, attraction is still an inexact science. Ironically, the more specific the target the better, from a medical perspective. Removing your attraction to an entire gender…well, it has a tendency to leave the subject…um, different. I’m glad you were spared that.”
“But I don’t understand. How can I be attracted to women if I’m not a man?”
He just shrugged. “You’d have to ask someone more versed in these matters than me. It is simply a fact, a defect for sure, but more common than you might expect. Perhaps Julia can explain it better, though I doubt she’d enjoy the telling.”
Julia shook her head tersely, aghast at even the suggestion.
“In any event, there are important implications to discuss. With your corrupted imprint affecting your perception of men so negatively, this attraction to women might actually prove useful.”
“It might?”
“Yes, I think so. Tell me, Cherry, did you notice anything odd when my wife put her tongue into your mouth?”
“Um…” She shifted her gaze to Julia again, noticing that the other woman kneeling across from her was distancing herself from the conversation, staring out the window instead. “No…I mean, aside from, um…the, uh, defect.”
“Exactly!” Dr. Drestin exclaimed, grinning at her as if that was sufficient explanation.
“Exactly what?”
“Well, Julia’s tongue undoubtedly still tasted of my seed when she pushed it into your mouth. How do I know? Because I could see your imprint reacting just as it did when I attempted to have you lick it from my finger, earlier. And yet, this time you swallowed it. You probably didn’t even notice! The aversion was drowned out, so to speak, by your attraction to Julia. Thus, panic was avoided!”
Cherry knew better than to contradict a man, especially when he seemed so certain of his conclusion, but she could say that there had certainly been at least some panic involved. He was right, though, as men tended to be. It was not the same terror that had momentarily consumed her when he had slipped his finger into her mouth.
“Based on what I’ve seen just now, I wouldn’t be surprised if the two emotions cancel each other out. Were you to be with a man and a woman simultaneously, your attraction to the woman might allow you to satisfy the man without succumbing to panic attacks. It would require further testing to be sure, and I’m afraid I’m spent for the time being. I will include this information in my report for your husband, however.”
Cherry grew morose. She had momentarily forgotten that the trials of today would all be recorded and relayed to Francis. It was of course important that he be made aware of all matters concerning his property, but the conclusions made today would likely tarnish what little affection he had left for her.
Sensing a lull in the conversation, Julia peered up again with a kind smile. “Harold, perhaps you should take a rest?”
“Yes, I fear I’ve over-exerted myself. I’m not as spry as I used to be. And I’ll need my strength if I’m to spank you properly this evening!”
“I wouldn’t mind the hand of a maid… if you don’t feel up to it.” Julia said demurely. The two obviously had a long marriage behind them, but a wife making suggestions still had to be done infrequently and with care.
“Bah! What kind of husband would I be, then? It’s never the same. Now, will you be able to see Cherry off without me?” Harold asked, caning his way back to the lounger amongst countless books, stacks and shelves, too many for Cherry to fathom, likely full of codes she couldn’t see and words she wouldn’t understand.
“Of course.” Julia replied. “Cherry, shall we go? You must gather your things before you can leave, and we really ought to do something about your face.” She sighed. “Again.”
After the heavy study door was closed by Harold’s attendant maid, Cherry found herself alone with Julia, facing a long hallway lined on one side by floor-to-ceiling windows. She imagined the view must be lovely. What she had glimpsed of the coast through the smaller windows in Dr. Drestin’s office had been an unexpected delight, but her censors were back in place now and the outside was once again obscured, the glass almost impeccably frosted. But Cherry could see the edges of the illusion now, wavering slightly where the panes met the wood, just enough to see that there was a hidden world beyond. She didn’t remember ever noticing that before.
Julia’s heels clacked against the marble tiled floor with each mincing step. She was setting about as fast a pace as she could while maintaining a ladylike demeanor, her chest huffing and swaying in such a way that Cherry averted her eyes in an abundance of caution. She no longer trusted herself to keep her inner thighs dry.
Cherry’s own footsteps were more tentative, and much quieter. Up on her tiptoes, she did her best to match Julia’s hurried, but cramped, gait. It felt so strange to be back on her bare feet again after so many years. As a little girl, she had loved running barefoot on the sprawling lawn in front of her father’s house, or down long white hallways not unlike this one in the basement of her uncle’s church. But now…
She was finding it incredibly difficult—impossible even—to put her feet flat to the floor. Heels had been a constant for so long, since before her legs had even fully grown, that her feet seemed to expect the shoes to make up the extra distance. Flex and twist and try as she might, she couldn’t convince them otherwise. She was stuck on her tiptoes.
Julia was even taller than she had been before, or rather, Cherry was shorter now that she had lost the extra inches from her platform shoes. Having fallen a little behind, Cherry couldn’t see her face.
“Julia…?” she murmured and was only somewhat surprised to see a pleasant smile when Julia swung her head around — but that was no guarantee of the other woman’s feelings.
“Yes, Cherry?”
“Are you sure you’re not mad at me?”
“No, honey, I’m not.” Julia said soothingly. There was far more of the warm hostess in her demeanor now than had been present in the study. “I hope that you aren’t upset with me. I never should’ve left you alone with those men. I have been kicking myself for it ever since I returned to find your dress abandoned on the floor. Hopefully Harold will be rested enough by this evening to give me a proper punishment before bed. He sometimes needs a while to recover after… ahem… after exerting himself.”
Cherry winced.
“I didn’t mean to upset you by getting too close to your husband, I—”
“Cherry,” Julia cut her off politely. “That’s not what upsets me about this whole tragic affair. Do not fret.”
The two began walking again, toward the Social. The air between them hung like it was stale, heavy.
“That said,” Julia kept on, breaking the tension, “if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not hear the details of what occured while I was under censors. It was right of Harold to assess you. He was — and is — the very best. Girls used to come from as far off as the Island, before he ended his practice. Since then, I’ll admit I grew quite comfortable having him all to myself for… oh dear… an unfashionable length of time. I know it’s quite unreasonable to be possessive, but you can allow me that, can’t you?”
“Yes, of course! I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry—” She winced, realizing that she was apologizing again. “What about the other thing? You seemed mad…”
Julia stopped dead, again, this time dropping into a hushed tone.
“That we need never discuss. Especially not in polite company.”
“But we’re alone right now,” Cherry said, frowning at the empty hallway, “and you seemed to know something about it. Please, Mrs. Drestin. I didn’t even know it was possible and I don’t know who else I’ll ever be able to ask.” There might be someone at the Social, if she was ever invited back. But how would she possibly go about bringing up such a subject? Julia was right that it didn’t seem a thing for polite company.
“You can ask your husband, dear. It’s ultimately up to him whether to have it corrected.”
“Francis doesn’t like to tell me things. He already knew about it, you heard that —defects would have shown up in my marital inspections— and he didn’t tell me! And he didn’t tell me about the stuff he did change in my mind either—I have something called an imprint, I don’t know if Dr Drestin told you before I woke up—“
“He did, in a manner of speaking. He likes to think out loud.”
“Well, that seems like a much bigger deal, and I probably never would have known about it if those men hadn’t…” She trailed off, drilling her eyes into the wallpaper and blinking fast to not make a mess of herself again.
“Eyes back here, young lady.” Julia said gently. “Focus, no need to think of such foulness yet. There you are.” She seemed on the verge of offering a comforting stroke of the leg, but hesitated. After a moment of consideration, she did it anyway, touching Cherry’s calf with her own. “I’m glad you’re ok, dear. When I saw your dress on the floor, and the mess on the carpet, I thought perhaps you were… Well, it was a relief to find you safely back in the powder room, even if a little worse for wear.”
“Thanks.” Cherry sniffled, unladylike. “I don’t know if I even want to know anything more about the imprint or why Francis wanted it in the first place. But the other thing…my ‘natural defect’…I think I want to know why I feel those things. When you kissed me, I—”
“SHHH!” Julia burst, stamping her foot back to the tiled floor and peering down the hall to confirm that they were still alone, as if a wandering guest might suddenly appear to overhear. The outlet into the foyer was visible at the far end, with the sitting room only a short distance beyond, but there was little chance of someone approaching unseen. “What did I tell you? We need not discuss it! Ever!”
“But whyyy?” Cherry pouted, stamping her own bare toes, her confused emotions threatening to boil into a tantrum worthy of the fact that she was likely less than half the other woman’s age. “Your husband said it wasn’t bad!”
“He did not say that.” Julia snapped. “He called it a defect didn’t he?”
“Yeah…” Cherry said glumly, her momentary spike of impetuousness deflating just as suddenly as it had risen. “So it is bad, then…”
“It’s… complicated, honey. Aside from his professional experience, Harold is among the majority of men who simply don’t give the matter much attention — just as you should not. A few…” She clicked her heel nervously, then huffed as if frustrated with herself for the pause. “A few men feel very negatively, and with good reason. Some men even find it entertaining, or so I understand, though I can’t imagine why. Like I said, ask your husband. He should be able to tell you what to think.”
“But you seem to mind it a lot more than your husband does…”
“My opinions of such perver—…” Julia glanced down at Cherry’s glum expression and reconsidered her words, “… such attractions were formed, rather irreversibly, while I was still in my father’s possession.” A deep breath, and a well-practiced smile. “Thankfully Harold allows me my own opinions on matters he considers of little import.”
“It feels important…”
“And it is. Though you will find that most men disagree. They are right, of course, in that it should never be treated with the importance of the bond between man and wife. A woman cannot love another woman. Think about it. Who would own who?”
“Right…” Cherry nodded slowly. “That’d be silly.”
“Exactly.” Julia smiled, “And that’s just how most men see it. Silly, and harmless. And perhaps that’s true, for simple attraction. Perhaps. But I happen to know that the lesser sex is even more vulnerable, and more treacherous, than our good-natured guardians suspect.
“It is possible for a very similar feeling to develop. Very similar. Why, it feels almost the same as what you should only feel for your husband. It is a terrible, awful thing to feel. Almost sinister in the way it creeps between the cracks of your every thought. If you ever start to think that something deeper may be taking root, I hope you will have the sense to ask your husband to rip those feelings out altogether. The procedure will be…” Julia looked down, as if at her feet but of course her breasts blocked the view, “…difficult, yes, but you will feel so much better afterwards.”
Cherry was a bit lost amongst such a cryptic speech, but the tone was clear. She reconsidered probing further. She didn’t doubt that Julia knew what she was talking about, but looking at the matronly woman’s uncertain expression — her hostess’ smile flickering in and out of its picture-perfect complexion while her eyes seemed to pore through memories long buried — it appeared there were things better left unsaid.
That polite veneer won out, eventually, as it always seemed to with Julia. “Shall we continue? I’d really like to see you off before everyone wakes up. There will be questions, after an Intermission this long, and I’m sure you’d prefer not to answer them yourself.”
“The Intermission is still going on?”
They had reached the end of the hall. Cherry could see the transition of stone floor to teal carpeting ahead, just beyond the corner. Julia’s expression suddenly regained all of its lost warmth, as if drawing energy from the waiting crowd.
“Oh, yes. Harold had it extended—not too difficult for him to do, in his own home. I wanted time to get everything tidy again, not to mention ensure that you were alright. He rarely balks at granting small favors. Follow me, dear.”
At an insistent glance from her perfect hostess, Cherry meekly stepped out into the open space again, glad to see that Julia had been right about the Intermission. She was immediately faced with dozens of blank stares and gently swaying bodies, each waiting, seemingly judging her, even though she knew they hadn’t seen nor heard anything, sensed nothing, save perhaps the smell of sharp, floral cleaning products suddenly filling Cherry’s own nostrils. She and Julia weren’t really any less private in the sitting room than they had been in the hallway, despite the crowd, and Cherry was glad for that. She had almost forgotten her nakedness till now, it being her usual state at home and entirely unremarked by Julia or the kind doctor, but the prospect of baring herself to the whole room, even blind as they were, still made her very uncomfortable.
“I’m sure everyone is getting terribly impatient,” Julia tsked, “but I just couldn’t bear for them to see the mess.”
“I’m sorry,” Cherry mumbled again, eyeing a wet, sudsy trail that surely followed the path she must have left while dragging herself across the floor. A pair of retirees, on all fours and determinedly scrubbing, would soon erase the only evidence. Without that to remind her, Cherry’s foggy memory might have allowed her to forget that particular detail of her harrowing experience. The effects would linger regardless, Dr. Drestin had said as much, but her memory remained hazy and jumbled.
“Oh don’t worry about that. We have the carpet washed after every Social anyway. So many girls drip from all sorts of places…” She cocked her head, bouffant bouncing, and raised one eyebrow for a slightly more confidential smile than usual. “I’ve heard that plugs might be coming back into fashion next season. Won’t that be nice?”
Cherry just smiled back politely. Stepping away, she followed the trail of lube, suds and tears, beginning beside another wet spot where the other girl had been, and carefully tiptoed toward its end, at Diane’s feet—the lack of pleasers exaggerating a natural disadvantage in height. Cherry could have rested her cheek on Diane’s breasts, pushed up as they were by her corset. She remembered how they had felt against her own, and so wished to lay her face on that soft cushion and be comforted by the sweet fragrance of Diane’s perfume. But a touch would confuse and disturb the other woman’s peaceful isolation.
The black-haired beauty still stood in the thunderous fog of Intermission, batting her pretty eyelashes, idly puckering her full lips. Cherry spent a long moment just staring at Diane’s delicate features, perhaps natural or perhaps not, but either way a masterpiece that played across her pale, olive skin. Julia had been right after all. There was nothing silly, or harmless, about the way Diane made Cherry feel.
She realized now that Diane’s rejection of her earlier had been an accident — a natural response to being touched during an Intermission — but it still hurt to remember. A lot of things hurt to remember.
She looked back at the other wet spot, sudsy from the maids scrubbing, and then to the powder room door as it swung open, revealing a maid carrying her shoes in one hand, her dress cradled in the crease of its elbow.
The other hand held a scuffed, red pleaser.
Cherry slowly recalled Clarissa shoving the heel into the door crack. A little privacy, for a difficult conversation. She had a strange feeling in her tummy that if not for that shoe, she wouldn’t have stumbled upon the memory in years, it was so deeply hidden and broken into bits, tangled in the terror of what else had happened just afterward. But she had it now.
Naked and feeling as if she were on a precipice of her own jumbled memories, Cherry walked back to her hostess. Julia was idly admiring her maids’ handiwork without even a twitch where her arms once were, the scrubbing motions entirely foreign. Cherry caught her attention, “Julia, will Clarissa be ok?”
Julia stiffened, her smile slipping again.
“I hope so…” She shook herself. “O-of course she will. Of course! She has been retired. An honor I long feared she might not earn, after her behavior these last few years.” Her lips pursed, eyes again lost in reminiscence. “Our relationship soured around the time of graduation from finishing school, but we were once the best of friends.” Her gaze swept across the crowd, almost forlorn compared to the energy it usually gave her. “She was the last who knew me from before… before my wedding. I wish her well in this new phase of her life. I really do.”
“But they were mean to her. The men.” Cherry noted, just as the maid returned the dress one of those men had torn off of her. Cherry shimmied her way back into the skin-tight slip of fabric with the help of the maid’s mechanical tugs. She wondered if it might be the same one who had taken her into the powder room after the men had released her. It seemed likely, but she really had no way of knowing.
“Yes, they were.” Julia frowned. “I…regret seeing that. We would both do well to forget it, I think. I can’t imagine it’s the norm. It can’t be. You’ve seen how it usually goes—we all have. Every wedding is an open and a close. Besides, Clarissa was up to no good, and she’s the one who frustrated them in the first place by not being where they expected.”
Cherry nodded in silent agreement with the wiser woman, as she stepped into her too-tight pleasers, finally presentable again. She was a little sad to trade the feeling of soft carpeting on her feet for the cramped platforms, but was still finding it impossible to put her feet flat to the floor anyway. The extra support from the shoes, limited as it was by the narrow spike of their heels, was its own relief.
“Thank you,” she whispered, quiet so as not to interrupt Julia, but genuine. She hoped her gratitude carried enough weight—if it was indeed the same maid. What a silly thing to worry about. Courtesy to retirees was a matter of habit, not a necessary gesture, but it felt important to her this time.
“Neither of us would have been exposed, either,” Julia continued with conviction, “if Clarissa hadn’t dragged you into the powder room for her kissing games. Though knowing what I do about you now, perhaps she didn’t need to bully you into it the way she has with others in the past. That’s exactly the sort of lustful behavior I hope you can avoid in the future, dear. You see how it has unintended consequences? None of this would have happened if you’d both been able to contain yourselves.”
“K-kissing games?” Cherry blurted, hung up on the phrase. She was suddenly unsteady on her feet again, not good considering the maid was now reapplying her makeup from a handheld compact. Thankfully it deftly adjusted for her every small, shaky motion. “We were just talking…”
“I think we’re beyond euphemisms, Cherry. I know all too well what she liked to call it.”
“But it’s true!” Cherry objected. She was sure there wasn’t anything like that hidden in the cracks of her memories. “She told me that Francis…That Francis is going to replace me already. That he always does.”
“How shameful of her!” Julia stamped her pleaser, a surprising display of emotion, though dampened by the carpet. “To manipulate you and take advantage while you were vulnerable—Ohhhhh, yes I should know to expect such tactics from her. She has been preying on insecure young women since we were in school. My father and hers nearly came to blows when… Well, he was much too lenient with her, and Roger was, too. It still could have been beaten out of her, even after the wedding. It’s never too late, Cherry. There’s hope for you, too.”
“Clarissa is…she’s like me?” Cherry gasped, accidentally pulling her lips away from the maid’s gloss coated brush.
“Well, what did you think you were doing in there, dear?” Julia took a step closer and lowered her voice, as if trying to be even more private amongst only blind and deaf company. “I’m sorry if you thought you had a unique connection—that’s just part of her manipulation, I’m afraid. As I said, I really do wish the best for her, but I’m also glad she is finally incapable of corrupting any more young wives with her honeyed tongue—and I don’t just mean her words. She made quite a habit of those little trips to the powder room, always with another wife in tow. Often reluctantly so, I might add.”
“And they…they would kiss in there?” Cherry gasped again, holding her own freshly glossed lips open in shock. Her eyes, already wide for the reapplication of mascara, went even wider.
Julia nodded severely. “Thankfully no man ever complained. She was very careful to pick girls with neglectful husbands. No doubt because they are easier to coerce, already starving for affection. But it also meant the girl’s owner was less likely to find out, or to care.”
“Why didn’t you stop her?”
“And cause a commotion? Taint the reputation of the Social? No, no, no. I have very carefully ignored the problem for years, and now it has finally resolved itself — as most problems eventually do. Ignorance and patience are among a woman’s greatest virtues, dear, and I practice both diligently.”
“So… it isn’t true, then?” Cherry grasped at a glimmer of hope. “Francis isn’t going to replace me so soon? She was just trying to get me to…to play kissing games?”
Julia’s fire dwindled. “I…I wouldn’t go so far as to say that she lied, Cherry. Not to you, anyway. Not this time. I’m so sorry, honey. Even if your husband did allow you to return to the Social next month, which I honestly doubt given how today has gone, if you follow the usual pattern then we wouldn’t see you more than a couple of times after that.”
“Oh… “
“Just another thing you should make an effort to forget, dear. No wife is ever secure in her position. That’s what drives us to be our very best!”
“I feel like I haven’t even had a chance to show Francis my best…”
“Cherry,” Julia scolded tenderly, “it is not your place to say what degree of use your husband puts you to. Find your happiness in the time you have, that’s the best advice I can give.”
“That’s easy for you to say.” Cherry countered, despondent. “Your husband is going to keep you for the rest of his life. He told me so!”
“What?!” Julia suddenly croaked, leaning forward so intently she was straining the ankle straps of her pleasers. “He really said that?”
“Y-yeah, while you were blocked…”
Julia burst into the biggest, most undignified grin Cherry had ever seen. All of her polite demurity gone—this was pure, relieved joy. A weight, privately carried, had suddenly lifted. She bit her lip, batted her lashes, and settled back onto her heels as if in a daze.
“Julia…?” Cherry asked after a moment.
“Oh, that is wonderful news.” Julia was murmuring to herself. “Wonderful… I thought surely it would be soon…Just wonderful… ” She seemed to have forgotten Cherry, the Social…everything.
Cherry huffed, irritated at being ignored. She could feel that tantrum rising again. It was just not fair. Not only did Julia get a perfect husband, who loved her and treated her with the utmost kindness, but she also got to live a long, happy life with him. Cherry got a husband who lost interest in a matter of months, who even before that had never shown her the kind of affection Dr. Drestin had for his wife, the kind her father had had for his wives, the kind men were supposed to have!
And now she learned that while Clarissa got to play kissing games for years before being retired, by the time Cherry had only barely begun to recognize her feelings in that direction she had already lost the opportunity forever. She was certain that she hadn’t even done anything with Clarissa herself, despite Julia’s accusations. It was not fair.
Suddenly she remembered what Clarissa had said about bringing a friend to the powder room next time. Cherry had unknowingly suggested Diane…Would she have accepted? Her cheek suddenly felt warm again, the remembered imprint of Diane’s lips. She would have. She would have come into the powder room and they would have kissed, and— and… It was useless now. Julia was right. After the disaster with those men, there was no way Francis would let her return. He would probably retire her on the spot when she got home — if he didn’t simply cut her loose. Even if he did let her come back, she would never have the courage to ask Diane by herself, without Clarissa. She wouldn’t even know what to do, what to say. There surely was no script for something like that.
It was too late. The chance had been there, and she hadn’t even realized it. And now it was gone. It was NOT fair!
She looked at Julia, still smiling her own private smile and lost in thought. At the other women, blind and deaf, at the maids, silent and anonymous. She was alone. She would always be alone.
Her pleasers seemed to move of their own accord, squishing the wet carpet beneath as they carried her along the still-damp trail, no concern for maintaining a ladylike gait, towards the only other person in the world.
Diane stumbled backwards as Cherry fell into her, but this time Cherry was expecting the surprised reaction and followed. Her momentum carried her forward, pressing their breasts together as she closed the gap between them.
She caught Diane’s lips with hers, and melted into that incredible heat.
It was nothing like before, with Julia. Even in her shock Diane was infinitely softer, more welcoming. Cherry realized suddenly that she was being kissed back. There was no way for Diane to know what was happening, lost in the Intermission for so long, her eyes still staring uselessly, straining to see anything more than the form of someone blocking the light. But she understood, somehow, she knew.
Her lips parted slightly and Cherry found the gap with her tongue, but Diane suddenly broke away. Cherry had expected this. In fact she had expected Diane to break away sooner, immediately, not after a long, wonderful moment of bliss. She realized that she was ready to follow those lips wherever they led. And then she heard it.
“Cherry…?”
It was less than a whisper, an inflection of breath, but it was there. Knowing that Diane would never hear any response, Cherry gave the only answer she could. She kissed her again.
Chapter 12
“Cherry…” Julia’s voice penetrated the moment; hushed, as if she might somehow wake the crowd. ”I think it’s time for you to leave.”
“Right.” Cherry panted, resting her forehead against Diane’s, relishing the final seconds of contact. Diane’s clouded eyes were closed, no longer searching for a shadow in the fog, and somehow they were closer now, here in this stolen, stupid moment. She hadn’t said anything more — Cherry wasn’t even sure how she had managed to say as little as she had — but Diane was practiced at communicating without words, even when she wasn’t totally blocked. Cherry just wished that Diane could see her own affectionate grin reflected back across the short space between them.
Even after Julia’s interruption, it still felt as though the two of them were private together, the small gap tented in by strands of black and blonde hair. But Julia was right. As much as she might want to, Cherry couldn’t stay in this moment forever. She was lucky — crazy! — to have gotten it in the first place. She left one last kiss on Diane’s cheek, a mirror of where the other woman’s lips had marked her earlier, and giggled as Diane’s eyes shot open again. One more — the other cheek. Ok. Now she was done!
Stepping back, turning to Julia, she couldn’t help the smile lighting up her face — even despite her hostess’ exasperated countenance.
“I guess it is.” Cherry said resolutely, drawing herself up in a gesture meant to convey a bit of her regained confidence but in actuality just jutting her breasts further out before her.
Julia sniffed, raising an eyebrow at Cherry’s proffered tits. “This maid will escort you home.” She nodded toward the maid who had retrieved Cherry’s dress, before a sharp turn of her heel began her march towards the door. As if it was necessary, she singsonged, “Come along now.”
The maid clicked a leash to her collar, but for the moment it hung limp across her cleavage, and Cherry’s eyes glued to it, feeling unfinished here.
“Julia…?” Cherry called, hesitating.
“Yes?” Julia sighed, rapidly approaching the open door and running out of patience.
Cherry looked back out over the crowd, finding Liza and Jeany, Madison, Sprinkles… all stuck in what must have seemed to them to be an endless Intermission. Waiting for Cherry to leave, though they wouldn’t know that. Sprinkles in particular was swaying and bouncing in place, apparently passing the time by subtly dancing to the muzak. The uniquely bubbly display of impatience fit so well with the personality Cherry had gotten to know in her short time with the scripted ladies, it made her feel even closer to her new — and likely lost — friend.
Cherry was painfully wistful. She felt as though she had peeked at a certain life here, crafted it like a playhouse, placed herself as a doll inside it, and now the fragile panels had all fallen apart. Yet she had lived here, just for a second. She eyed the persistent blush on Diane’s face, the impatience on everyone else’s. She had made an impression, at least.
Cherry pranced up to Julia, who turned to her with a look of surprised consternation. Before that expression had a chance to sour further, Cherry said earnestly, “Thank you for inviting me. Even after everything, this has still been the best day I’ve had since my wedding, and…and I’m not even sure that day was really as great as I thought it was.”
Julia’s face clearly weighed challenging such nonsense or hastening Cherry’s exit, yet her mouth betrayed her, responding to polite gratitude in kind. “You…are welcome. I am sorry that things turned out how they did.” Then she huffed, eyes scanning the huddled mass of her guests. “I’ll be lucky if this crowd is not halved by next Social, after an Intermission this long. It reflects poorly on a hostess, you know.”
Cherry looked back at the crowd again, noting to her growing embarrassment the way nearly everyone was shifting in agitation at least a little bit.
“What will you tell them?”
“None of the unsavory details, dear. If anyone asks after you specifically,” She said with a disapproving glance towards Diane, “I will say that you had an accident, and made an early exit. Even if I were to invite you again, I am not sure your husband would allow you to return.”
“That’s ok.” Cherry said, knowing full well that this was Julia’s way of politely informing her that she would not be invited again, regardless of Francis’ potential objections. “I don’t think I’ll be around much longer anyway.” She stared out into the empty landscape beyond the open door, a censored haze of nothing between her and her fate. Replacement, in one way or another, seemed the only thing she could expect for certain. “I just hope you’ll give the next Mrs. Crane a chance.” She tried not to let melancholy tinge the request. “I know how special it will be for her.”
“I….” Julia was momentarily, deliberately, speechless. She closed her eyes and let out a long breath. When she opened them, her ice blue gaze had once again thawed, her voice warmed. “I will send her the invitation. Now go, Cherry. And… good luck.”
Cherry nodded, giving a small smile by way of goodbye, and the maid led her into the fog.
Gentle muzak, the amber haze of the long summer sunset, and a steady pull on her leash.
The walk back home to Francis went much the same as her unwitting stroll had that morning. She idly wondered whether the streets would be bustling or quiet at this time of early evening, noting brief changes in the air as people passed, the occasional whiff of a wife’s perfume, or a man’s cologne. She understood now why she had to be kept so thoroughly censored out of doors. The faintest smell of a man was enough to set her wondering whether Francis might be there—and then where he had gone. Not enough to convince her entirely, not without the visual, but worrying all the same. She shuddered to think what the sight of a crowded street packed with men, all seemingly wearing the persona of her husband, would do to her. That morning it might have merely confused the stuffing out of her, but now…
What would the sight of the real Francis do to her, now? Was…was there even a real Francis at all? There must be. She pictured her wedding, that sweetest of moments she had replayed in her mind for weeks, pining for that golden day. Surely her father had given her away to someone on the altar.
The series of strange cocks she could attach to her image of him, each one unique, still frightened her terribly. Many men must have visited her in that little bedroom she had thought she shared with only her husband. That much she could put together on her own. What she didn’t understand was why. Francis’ permission seemed implicit in the arrangement — anything that happened between her and the other men must have been done with his knowledge, even if not with hers. It was different from the events with the men at the Social — that had been unplanned, and surely against his wishes. In his own home, at his permission, there was nothing to be violated. It seemed there was something more, something she had lost long ago without even realizing it, but the thought held less form than the mist that surrounded her whenever she tried to put it into words.
Slipping off that nebulous sense of wrongness, she again found herself puzzling over the much more approachable question: Why? She was determined to ask him, if she ever saw the real him again. If she would even know when she did.
There wasn’t even a hitch in the maid’s leisurely pace as they passed through what could only be the front door of Francis’ home. It must have been opened ahead of them—they were expected, awaited. The shift in light from the outside was her only sign. Even the muzak continued indoors, unlike that morning. She wondered why there would be sounds to keep from her in the evening that had not been present earlier. Another little puzzle to add on top of all the rest.
Cherry had enjoyed puzzles, when she’d had the fingers for them. She’d even done a few with her brothers, with the little squiggly shapes instead of the simple squares and rectangles hers had been made from. Remembering that was a sign of yet more damage that had been done to her today. She was being far too curious, unbecoming of a wife and something she had worked hard to bury in finishing school, or what parts she had attended before meeting Francis. Truly, Cherry would have rather been womanly as can be, following the tug on her collar without this ceaseless wondering. Yet after so much had been hidden just under her nose, she couldn’t help but pick at her little questions like a young girl with her irresponsible hands, picking at a scabby knee.
They turned a few corners along the route inside the house. Cherry tried in vain to imagine the path she had taken that morning but in reverse. It was impossible of course, with so much having transpired between now and then, all of it destabilizing. Keeping track of her lefts and rights was difficult enough even when not blinded, especially now that she couldn’t put her hands up in front of her to find which one made the right “L” shape. Or left. Right…. Was she being taken back to the little bedroom? Or somewhere else? She didn’t know which might bode worse for her. At least the bedroom would be familiar.
The gentle tug stopped abruptly, and so did her breath, catching in her throat as she stumbled to a halt on her high pleasers. Ungraceful. That’s what she got for being so distracted. She was in her husband’s home! She should always be moving as if his eyes were on her. Perhaps they were, she shuddered to imagine. Wait, she…shuddered? That was not at all the correct response to the thought of her husband watching her!
The muzak faded to a low whine, and then was gone. Her eyes remained uselessly obscured, yet she could just pick up the sound of a breath nearby, rumbly and deep.
“I hear you’ve had a rough day.” His gruff voice stabbed through a long moment of anxious silence.
“Francis?” Cherry flung her blurry gaze around, searching for some hint of his form in the fog. “What—what a wonder—!“ with significant effort she managed to bite back the automatic response and continue at a more cautious volume. “…Is it really you?”
“Yes, it’s me.” He sounded exasperated.
She took a hesitant step back and found herself halted by a mechanical hand on the small of her back—the maid, ensuring she remained where she was put. The hand wasn’t so steadfast as usual, far from the iron grip of impending punishment, but it still prevented any retreat. Cherry bit at herself, again. Why did she want to retreat?
All her carefully cultivated determination evaporated before the blow of his next words.
“So the old man was right after all. You’re broken.”
Before Cherry realized it she was blubbering apologies, tears welling. “I’m sorry—I—I didn’t mean to—I didn’t know—!“
“Stop.” He commanded and she snapped her lips closed. “I’m not going to police my tone for your sake, Cherry. I’m out a lot of money, I’m fucking pissed, and I am trying very hard not to direct that anger your way. I know this wasn’t your fault. I don’t want or need apologies from you, but I’m also not in the mood to sugarcoat a fucking disaster. Is that understood?”
Cherry nodded, sniffling, biting her plump lower lip, but keeping quiet. She found herself leaning into the maid’s hand for support as she did her best to show him she would listen carefully and speak when permitted. That nothing had changed.
“Good. Now how are you? Drestin said they roughed you up a bit, in addition to all the rest. Anything still hurting?”
“No, Francis.” She assured him, then waited for him to indicate whether he wanted more. When he didn’t respond, she cautiously ventured further details. “He…the younger one…he hit me. A little. But it doesn’t hurt anymore. Dr. Drestin made it better.”
“Idiot.” Francis cursed through clenched teeth. “I doubt I’ll get anything for property damage, but I can press to have him fired at the very least. Anyone else and I’d be compensated, but knowing the Retirement Bureau…well, I’m not holding my breath.”
Cherry, on the other hand, was. She was struggling with whether to tell more of what had happened—it appeared she had permission to speak, yet every detail seemed to make him more sour. Not at her — not so long as she didn’t stray into hysterics— but she didn’t want any men to get in trouble on her account, either. Still, she thought it was important to tell. “Clarissa—Mrs. Fitzgerald. She said she knew you…”
“She does. Did.”
Cherry swallowed, still uncertain she should be telling this at all. “Well…The other one was much nicer to me, but…he was mean to her, Francis. Really mean.” It started off well enough, but emotion crept into her voice before she could stop it. “I think…I think he hurt her a lot. H-He shouldn’t have done that…right? She was being retired—she was good!”
Francis grunted. “No, I suppose he shouldn’t have.” He let out another rumbling sigh. “I’ve got no love for that woman, for my own reasons, but retiring her was Roger’s decision and that should have been properly honored. Fucking idiots. They’ve probably been taking free rides every other day on some used up old beater. Get one chance at a more delicate model—and they fucking ruined you.”
Ruined.
There it was. The confirmation she had feared. Even before the events of the Social, his disposition towards her was already cause for grave concern. Knowing what she did now, she wasn’t even sure how to process what exactly his expectations had been, and how she had failed to meet them. But whatever her prior faults, at least she hadn’t been ruined.
“Will…” She gulped down the desire to put too much pleading into her voice. Begging could come later, and she was ready to if need be, but first she had to know what he planned. “Will you retire me now?” The preferable option, given the circumstances. The only other conclusion loomed like a threat, the price girls paid for failure. “Or…cut me loose?”
“I’d sell you before it came to that. If I could find a buyer who’ll put up with you freaking out every time he fucks you. I know some might enjoy it…”
Cherry felt another little quiver run through her at that thought. Not merely the idea of a cruel owner—that was just something you had to expect, as a girl, unless your father was the type to ensure otherwise. But Francis wasn’t her father, and that was the real reason such a sale put her on edge. It would be her second, and would surely lead to a third. Second-hand wives rarely made retirement, instead being sold again and again until they ended up on the street anyway. Everyone knew that being sold to a new husband after failing the first all but guaranteed being cut loose eventually…
“…but I’ve made a rule not to cater to that sort in my regular business,” Francis continued, heading off her spiraling thoughts before they had a chance to nestle anywhere truly dark, “And I’m not breaking it now. For the time being, I’m keeping you here.”
Cherry’s eyes wandered in the fog, looking for proof she had heard him right.
“You are? I thought you… I thought you didn’t love me, anymore.” She ground her pleaser self-consciously, a bad habit she might have been spanked for, growing up. Francis had never spanked her, not even for minor transgressions. That had made her proud once. Now it just added to the overall sense of neglect. “Even b-before what happened, you almost never visited me. And…” She steeled herself. She had to know. “And when you did…it wasn’t really you, was it?”
The air hung stale. Cherry knew she was being inspected, but couldn’t stand as proudly as she once had, couldn’t draw her shortened shoulders back and hold her chin high. Not when she knew the truth. The supportive hand on her back was the only thing keeping her from shaking in place.
“….Figured that out, huh?”
All she could do was quietly mumble an apology for even mentioning it.
“My own fault.” Francis mused. “Your father warned me, I shouldn’t have left you so smart. So, let’s hear it. What else have you pieced together? Might as well have it all out. I need to know what I’m working with, if I’m going to try and salvage my investment in you.”
More than once, as a girl, Cherry had suddenly found herself on a side street beyond her usual avenues, surrounded on all sides by floating patches of blur and haze; censored signs, people, and who-knows-what. She felt like that now—having to carefully navigate forbidden territory without even knowing where the real dangers lay.
“I…I know you replace your wives really fast. That you’re probably going to replace me, soon. Even if I wasn’t…ruined.” The word burned her tongue, but it was true. She had known it since she was face down on that carpet.
“Who told you that?” He growled and Cherry winced. She’d wandered too close after all. “Drestin’s woman knows to hold her tongue about my business, and she usually keeps the rest in line.”
“Clarissa.”
“Of fucking course.” Francis bit, cursing, “I can’t say I’m not happy to finally have that bitch out of my hair. Good riddance.” Cherry frowned a little before she caught herself. When Clarissa had explained her reasons for disliking Francis, Cherry would have never guessed the distaste was mutual— why would another man’s wife even be his concern?—but she was being overly curious again.
She heard the clink of a glass, and a long moment elapsed in silence before he continued. “No, Cherry I am not going to get rid of you so soon. You think I dump thousands into a new girl every six months and then just toss her aside? What kind of business model is that?”
“I don’t know. I—I don’t know what that means.”
“It means that your purpose is to make me money, Cherry.” His finger jabbed into her chest, punctuating the statement by skewering her tit and making her stumble, yet the mechanical hand on her back held her steady. When was the last time he had touched her? The real him? Cherry’s heartbeat kicked up—adding to the turbulence of her breasts as they resettled from his prodding. “And I’m not done with you until you’ve made me far more than I spent on you in the first place. So far, you’re not even close. So here you stay. I just have to figure out what the hell I’m going to do with you.”
“But how can I…make money?” She didn’t even know how men did that, not really.
“You do it the way any woman does.”
He must have seen the confusion painted across her hazy eyes.
“Come on, you’ve seen loosies soliciting on the streets. You’re a higher class than that, of course. But the principle is the same.”
Cherry had… and she hadn’t. Loose women were exactly the sort of thing the censors would regularly block, but she knew enough to differentiate their misty forms sidling up to male passersby, dipping in and out of alleyways, diving onto scraps of food tossed onto the street. They subsisted off of handouts—bread crusts, apple cores, and yes, occasionally coins or even paper money (which was worth more somehow, despite the coins being prettier)—and they rarely got anything just for asking nicely.
Is that what she was now?
”So I…w-with those men. The ones I thought were you?” Cherry gulped.
“And many more. The imprint takes a while to sink in properly, can’t overexpose you right away. Plus, I have to be careful while you are officially my wife—the Board frowns on such things and I get more than enough grief from them already. But just a few more weeks and you would have been ready for your big debut.”
“I don’t understand…”
Francis took a sip of something— men’s libations, she imagined. Maybe the amber brown kind, or the clear. “You aren’t meant to. This is all supposed to be behind the curtain, so to speak. As far as you were concerned, a year from now—two years, five—you’d still be my wife, and I’d be fucking you to your little heart’s content.”
“But Clarissa said that the others… Penny, she was the one before me. And now she’s gone. I’m even wearing her shoes.” She raised a foot to show him. Uncertain exactly where he was, she held it limply in front of her for a few moments.
“And where exactly do you think she went?” He paused. “You’re right, those are her shoes. How the fuck…? One of the maids must have screwed up. They’re normally so dependable it can be easy to forget they used to be women. But they still make mistakes sometimes—especially with your rooms being across from each other.”
“Our rooms…?”
Francis exhaled heavily, and Cherry held herself back from apologizing yet again for her lack of understanding. “Might as well give you a peek. I doubt it can do any more harm, and it might actually set you at ease.”
Her censors came down suddenly, without warning. Cherry was in their… her bedroom after all, facing Francis as he placed an empty glass on the nightstand by the bed. And it was him. She could pick out individual features and match them perfectly to the memory of Francis’ description. Blue eyes, a slightly rounded nose that might have seemed too large if not balanced by his strong, wide jaw. It all fit the way she remembered describing him to herself.
But that was no guarantee. She had learned better than to trust even her most cherished memories.
“Francis…?”
He paused, and frowned at her. “I thought we were past that. It’s me.”
“Sorry—,” she flinched.
He raked his fingers through his slicked back hair. “It’s alright, Cherry. Christ. It really is as bad as Drestin said. Whatever. I’ll deal with it somehow.” He walked around her, reaching for the door knob.
“You’re leaving?” Cherry suddenly panicked. She didn’t want to be left here all alone, again, like always. Even if he returned, would it really be him? If he left now, would she ever see the real him again?
“Relax.” he commanded with a mix of annoyance and worry. “I’m not leaving. I’m showing you something.”
He opened that impenetrable door simply, with a flick of the wrist, and Cherry blinked, her momentary confusion washed away by what lay outside. She could see out the door! She could see the other wall, across a wide hallway with a parquet floor!
“It’s… not censored?” she tried not to let her jaw hang in wonder at such a broadening of her tiny world.
Francis shrugged. “No point in that right now. Come on.”
Cherry waited for Francis to grab hold of her leash, to pull her close and along, yet he just strolled out into that interior unknown, and the maid gently pushed her forward, staying behind. Looking down at her cleavage, it seemed the tether had been detached at some point, when she was much too preoccupied to notice. Cherry treaded cautiously after him into the hall. It must be safe if he was there, and she was allowed.
Once past that threshold, her head swung from side to side in amazement, staring at the twin rows of doors that lined either wall, each just like the one to her own room behind her, each with a little brass plate on the front, each with a name embossed in a swirly script.
“Penny….?” Cherry frowned at the name on the door directly across from her own room. “That was Penny’s room?” She murmured, fumbling for the meaning. “Before…before she was retired?”
“That is Penny’s room, Cherry.” Francis swept his arm unceremoniously across the expanse of the parqueted hall. “And that is Blossom’s. And Muffy, Summer, Kelly, Tessy,” He said, pointing seemingly at random at a few of the near-identical doors lining the walls. There were more than a dozen on either side. “…Bonnie…and…” He paused on a door that was just a bit too far to easily make out the nameplate, snapping his fingers a couple times as if trying to summon the name to him—and maybe he could. Cherry didn’t know all the ways men could control the things they saw. But if he succeeded, he dropped the hand without saying it aloud. “Well, there’s a bunch of you now. It’s getting to be more than I can handle on my own, but I should have that sorted out soon.”
Francis noticed Cherry’s face, twisted in confusion. He pointed at the floor beside where he stood in front of the ‘Penny’ door. Cherry knew that gesture well, every girl did, and she moved to comply, coming to stand beside him as he reached for the knob.
With a simple twist he revealed a room just like the one Cherry had inhabited for the last four months. A small space dominated by a king sized bed with a wooden frame—this one painted white, whereas Cherry’s had been left with the rich mahogany as exposed as she was. In fact the rest of the space was brighter, too — the nightstands were similarly painted, and the bedspread was all in pastels. She suspected there was a treadmill tucked neatly beneath the bed—all the rest of the furniture was the same. Two windows framed the bed on either side. Blurred behind the blinds, just as the two in her own room always were. It seemed the lifting of her censors still did not extend to the outside, which was probably for the best, she had to admit.
The only real difference was the occupant—and even then it was barely more than a matter of color palette. The copper haired girl was arranged on the bed just as Cherry usually was — naked, chained to the headboard, but comfortable. She sat bolt upright the instant the door swung open, barely able to contain her excitement.
“Fwancy!” she squeaked in a voice that matched her tiny frame—that was another difference. This girl lacked a portion of the padding Cherry had gained from her surgeries, and couldn’t be much taller than Cherry’s chin—pleasers included. “What a wonduhful suhpwise!”
“Hello, Penny. I’m just checking on you.” He surveyed the room—easily accomplished in the small space— as if looking for something else to say. “Everything…uh, good?”
“Well, of couwse it is, silly-willy!” She seemed to bounce with every word. “You just weft!”
“Sure.” Francis sighed, in a very familiar way. “Well, Penny, I have someone here to introduce you to.”
Penny bounced out of bed, landing gracefully on pleasers which matched the pair Cherry had worn to the Social, sidling as close to the door as her chain would allow, yet not letting it go taut. She knew its bounds well. “Who izzit?” she beamed, peering around him eagerly. Francis stepped aside and waved Cherry forward, beyond the door frame—and into Penny’s vision.
“This is Cherry, Penny. She wanted to say hello.”
Francis nudged Cherry when her mouth failed to produce anything resembling a proper greeting, but she was reeling at the idea that this tiny woman, a girl in all but name, had been living just across the hall from her since her wedding. Indeed, this was the woman Cherry had hoped to meet on that altar. The wives’ ceremonial kiss had filled her with anticipation back then — for reasons she was now slightly more ashamed to reflect on — but that kiss had been meant to symbolize the passing of the wifely role, a blessing for the new woman and an acknowledgment that one’s life had to progress to the next stage.
Cherry hadn’t received that blessing from Penny, that altar had been conspicuously empty, and the reason now seemed painfully clear.
Francis nudged her again, impatient. His touch, however dismissive, brought her back to the here and now.
“It’s… n-nice to meet you, Penny.” Cherry said, trying not to swallow her tongue. “You, uhm— You are… Francis’ wife?”
“Of couwse!” Penny said with a loving smile toward Francis, before that smile twisted into something quizzical. “Hey, awe you ahwight? Wheah’d you go?”
Cherry realized she had backed all the way out of the room when her back thudded against the door on the opposite side of the hallway, the one to her own room. She spun around, and was faced with another golden nameplate. “Cherry.”
She turned, wide-eyed, back to Penny beyond the open doorway.
“I think that’s enough for now.” Francis said, “Penny, I’ll be back in…about half an hour, if I am remembering correctly. I’m sure it will be a more amorous visit.”
“Ok, Fwancy pants! I’ll be wight heah, wike ahways!” Penny beamed. She puckered for a kiss, but Francis strode out of the room without another delay. The last glimpse Cherry caught of her was a slightly confused pout, staring out through the door crack. At nothing, she realized. The hallway was just as censored for Penny as it had been for Cherry until only a few minutes ago. Those wandering eyes, wishing he would leave her with one parting peck, Cherry saw herself in them as the door closed with a thud and click that reverberated along all the other doors and nameplates.
“That went well.” Francis was dusting his hands as if he’d just finished a chore. “I need to show my face to you all every now and then anyway, to settle the imprint. Penny should be good for another week.”
Against her best intentions and manners, Cherry’s mouth was still open, eyes wide like saucers. “Y-you married these— you married us all, for real? How… how do I know—”
“You don’t,” he grunted, stepping around her to reopen the door to her room. “Just trust me.”
“But—but if Penny is still your wife then how can I be, too?” Cherry asked, following him back inside. “How can any of us be?”
“You are my wife, Cherry, for now. The rest aren’t anymore. Though each one still thinks she is. You couldn’t put that together on your own? I know you’re not dumb.”
Cherry tried to get her thoughts in order, “I just meant… I thought…Well, it’s against the rules, isn’t it? The Marriage Board—”
Francis abruptly changed his stance, not aggressive, but enough to make Cherry shut herself up. “I’m not married to the others. I don’t even own them, technically. The business does. I abide by all the Codes—this is a licensed establishment. It might take a little grease to get through the yearly inspection, but I’m liquid enough now that the expense is negligible”
“I don’t un—”
“It doesn’t matter,” he interjected “The details are out of your depth. The point is that every one of the girls has a happy little life, the same life I wanted for you.”
“I thought you wanted me to be your wife…”
He chuckled darkly as he retrieved his glass from the nightstand. “Sorry to break it to you, Cherry, but you’re not really my type.”
He might as well have slapped her.
“I’m…not? B-but…but I…” She staggered towards him, pleasers clipping on the hardwood, as if her swaying curves might remind him that he put them there, that she was supposed to be exactly what he wanted. At the same time she was just a girl, desperately reaching out to her owner for support, contact, affection… but he casually stepped aside like she was simply headed for the safety of her bed, totally oblivious to her intentions or the significance of what he had just said.
Wives were customized — perfected — for their husbands. Every woman knew that. Back at the Drestins’, each of those mingling ladies was a certain man’s desire made real, for all to see. To imagine the lengths some of them, like Madison, had gone to! If Cherry wasn’t Francis’ type, why hadn’t he simply made her that way? What did it mean to be a woman without a match, what purpose was there for her now? She thumped her soft behind onto the mattress — standing on her own felt too difficult just then, and the maid was busy refilling Francis’ glass.
Her mind spun, thinking of the preparations for her wedding, the improvements the doctors made and the recovery too. Cherry hadn’t been awake for most of it, but she still remembered the ache of so many changes. If all this wasn’t for him, then—
“Don’t take it personally.” Francis said, as if that were possible. He took a sip from the refilled glass. “None of you are—it’s all about appealing to the customers.”
“Who?”
“The customers. The men who pay to fuck you. There’s a lot of different tastes to satisfy—you saw Penny, for example. I’d been getting requests for something with a younger look for a while.”
“But… why?” she asked, full of genuine incredulity. “What about their own wives?” What about the women who were supposed to be just as perfect for them as Cherry herself was supposed to be for Francis? “I don’t understand.” There must be something. Her husband’s pleasure was a woman’s purpose, and failures were her fault. “Can’t they fix her? Or… Or get a new one if they don’t want her anymore?” All women failed eventually, were replaced eventually—but surely the problem would be identified, so the doctors could make the next one even better. That’s how it worked, wasn’t it?
Even knowing now that it all wasn’t true for her and Francis, Cherry couldn’t believe that such promises had been a total fairytale from the start. No…it was supposed to be the kind of fairytale that came true!
“Well see, that’s the whole issue.” Francis leaned against the wall, twirling the liquid in his glass. It was the amber brown kind, after all. Cherry remembered her brother sneaking a drink of that once and spewing it out immediately, complaining that it had burned his throat. Francis sipped casually, immune to the fire. “Men crave excitement, and one of the best ways to get that is with a little variety. Say a man loves his wife, loves fucking his wife, but he wants to try something else, just for a little while. What’s the solution? Retiring wives on a whim whenever he wants to switch things up? Or he can come to a place like this, to a girl like you, and let his own little lady keep her collar for another day. You get to make that happen. A valuable service, don’t you think?”
“I guess so…” Cherry murmured, considering.
“Loose women are available, of course, but there’s always a reason a loosie wasn’t wanted in the first place. Most are just old, which isn’t great for her looks, but also she’s not gonna have anything special or new going on with her body. A lot of guys want to try the latest mods without having to kit a girl out themselves—whether they can’t afford it or they just aren’t ready to upgrade. Best you can hope for is last year’s features, broken in… or just broken. Good luck finding a loosie with the kind of grafted muscle tissue you’ve got in your holes, for example.”
Cherry winced, reminded of the last man who had enjoyed her gra…giraffe’d?…her holes, and the feel of his hand spanking her… over, and over — but then, her pleasant memories of satisfying ‘Francis’ had to be weighed against that experience. Had she really been unhappy with her treatment before today? No, if anything she had wanted more. But she had wanted it from him.
“But that’s only half of the appeal here,” Francis kept on, impassioned by explaining his work, ignorant to Cherry’s growing discomfort. “There’re other brothels in town—some even have highly custom girls. But see, they all know precisely what they are. There’s a desperation there that makes a lot of guys uncomfortable. Every loosie wants to be owned—not by her self, and not by a brothel, by a man. They’re constantly selling themselves, in more ways than one. It’s nice to have a girl who’s as content and welcoming as a real wife would be, because that’s what she thinks she is!”
Cherry looked down at her pleasers, grasping for resolve.
“So… that’s what I do….” She mumbled, determined to like it. Turning a shaky smile up towards him, “Okay, I promise I’ll do my best.”
Francis exhaled heavily, and Cherry felt herself deflate, too. She had said something wrong again. “No, Cherry. Don’t you see? Your best isn’t good enough anymore. That’s what I had wanted you to do. Ironically, the imprint was supposed to make everything easier for you, as well as more fun for the customers — but as things are, you’re too unpredictable. There is a specific experience you were expected to deliver. You are no longer able to.”
Cherry winced and shrank away from him again, eyes feeling ready to burst. “I’m sorry…”
“I already told you it’s not your fault, and I meant it.” He said, more softly this time. It didn’t make her feel better, but she knew it was supposed to and that helped. He did still care about her, at least a little bit.
“There shouldn’t have been any men around Drestin’s place—I’ve been assured of that, numerous times. But Roger Fritzgerald called for a retirement team to pick up his wife while she was ‘out of the house.’ Ideally while on the walk over, but he didn’t specify on the order form. He…can be a bit dumbass about that sort of thing. I take some responsibility as well—I’ve been riding Roger for years about tossing that bitch, one way or another. Retirement wouldn’t have been my choice, but it shouldn’t have been a problem, if not for the team of fuckups they sent. Still, Roger should have informed me of the risk when he told me you’d asked to attend the Social. That’s on him, and I’ll make sure he knows it.”
“Mr. Fritzgerald was the one who… who told you that I wanted to go.” Her voice was so deflated it no longer even held the tone of a question.
“Yes, you asked him yesterday. He was me, of course.”
“I…I see.” Every interaction Cherry had ever had with Francis was now suspect, there was no guarantee he actually heard anything she said. He might not even know her at all.
“Why did you let me go to the Social in the first place?” She asked suddenly, “I would have been safe in my room…” What a reversal from how she had felt just that morning! It would have crushed her if he’d said no, but looking back now it really did seem the wiser choice.
Francis drew his gaze down upon her sharply. “I am being incredibly forthcoming with you right now, Cherry, but don’t get into the habit of questioning my decisions.”
“Sorry.” She really did wish he would spank her, sometimes. Of course she should have known better than to argue or dispute.
He dismissed the apology with a handwave. “The short answer is that I knew you were lonely. The other benefit of this whole arrangement is that the girls are content, with lots of company, and that’s important to me. But there’s only so many customers I trust with you right now, and I’m so busy with the rest of the business. Some of the others have really benefited from attending the Social in the past. Drestin’s wife is sharp, we’ve talked things through. She knows how to shepherd girls like you away from anyone who might have a bone to pick. Even if you did hear something… unsavory, you would have forgotten most of it just by seeing my face. That’s how it’s worked with the other girls I allowed to go.”
“…but obviously things were different this time.” he added for both of them.
Cherry bit her lip, grinding her pleaser into the floor, knocking her knees together; the silence hanging between them.
“So… what’ll happen to me, then?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet.” he answered plainly. He was being so straightforward, and yet it didn’t make any of it better. Cherry wanted it to be better.
She looked up at him from the bedside, the closest yet to pleading. “I really could be your real wife, you know. If you don’t like me, then… then… you can change me till you do!”
Cherry’s head was filled with all the women she had met at the Social today, scripted and sharp-tongued, dolls who followed every whispered command, girls who could hear nothing but, stumpy wives in baby carriages, boxes on a shelf somewhere out of sight, hyper little things, and esteemed women vying for respect and safety. She hadn’t envied them all, but Cherry knew in her heart, she would gladly be any of those things for Francis, for her husband. Anything at all. All he had to do was tell the doctors where to cut, what to give, and what to take.
Even as she poured her passion and soul into this shaky offer, this thread-bare hope, the eyes that met hers were anything but passionate. Not cold — honest.
“That’s not an option, Cherry. That’s never been an option for me.”
There was nothing left. He had finished the glass again, held it out to the side and let it drop neatly into the maid’s waiting hand with a delicate clink. Finished with Cherry too, he strode the few steps it took to cross the tiny room and reach for the doorknob.
“Then…” she called to him, searching for something to cling to, “Whatever it is, will I make you happy?”
“If you’re profitable,” he said simply, turning back, “and you will be profitable. I can promise you that.”
“Then I’ll be happy, too,” she told him… and herself.
He didn’t say anything to that. The door opened to a familiar bright hazy nothing which Francis’ shadow faded into, before it closed, and Cherry was alone.
“I’ll be happy.” She said to the empty room, determined to make it so.
The maid took the chain from her headboard and clipped it to her collar.
“I’ll be happy.”
END OF BOOK 1
Find accompanying notes and illustrations on Slothargy’s DeviantArt and Pixiv