The Artificial Wife

by Rachael Eyre

  We were sitting on the stairs, admiring our handiwork. Summer ran a finger over one of the rods. “Try putting a glove on that,” she muttered.

  Put on the spot, she said, “Ms Adelaide believed women should be useful as well as beautiful.”

  “What about interesting?” I teased.

  “An added bonus,” she mocked. “We were expected to cook, clean and perform chores, to assist our owner where we could.”

  I made a fart noise of disbelief. “What about His Majesty? Was he expected to lift a finger around the house?”

  “Leda asked once. Everybody thought it, but only she came out and said it. Ms Adelaide stared at her - she had the frostiest eyes - and said, ‘No one with any standards is going to want you, dear.’”

  “Ouch! She sounds like a tough customer.”

  Summer winced. I'd forgotten this was a sensitive subject - was I destined to put my foot in it?

  “Did you wonder what sort of owner you'd have?” I asked in way of apology.

  “We were supposed to. The other girls did nothing else. But -” She looked away, her cheeks pink. “No. It's silly.”

  “C’mon, now you've got me interested.”

  “Sometimes there were female owners, and -” She couldn't go on, only clasped her elbows for warmth.

  It might seem funny, seeing how I feel about her, but I'd never considered she might like women herself. How could she, programmed to be some man’s possession? I'd assumed it was outside her frame of reference. The girls at Juno’s dismissed it as a human vice, not worth wasting your time on. “How can it work without a cock?” Krystle demanded. It was different for men, of course. A pretty boy’s arsehole was a welcome antidote to marriage.

  “Shall I put the network on?”

  The conversation was over, for now.

  ***

  Robert was drunk again. I don’t need to hear him speak or smell his breath. You can tell by the way he lurches into the room, the clumsiness of his movements. I did some quick arithmetic. He was past poetry spouting, which hopefully meant sex was off the menu. Something Summer had said earlier made me realise she could hear every creak and groan. I couldn't stand the thought of her listening to that.

  “Giselle.” He fondled my hair as though I was an animal in a petting zoo. “You're -”

  Good thing there was a plant in the corner. I thrust it forward just in time.

  “Thank you,” he said blearily, once he had finished barfing. “You're good to me.” He flopped down onto the bed.

  I unlaced his shoes and waited. What I’d taken for snores were self pitying moans. “Hate my bloody awful life. Hate -” He crawled up the covers, spat at the family portrait. “This is your fault.”

  I noticed with a shock how much his mother resembled Summer. Maybe this shouldn't come as a surprise - they say most men are secretly in love with their mothers. Bibi had a client who liked to be bent over her knee and spanked, while he writhed and sobbed, “Punish me, Mummy!” She always needed a wash after that guy.

  But if that's the case here, why is his relationship with Summer so warped?

  If he hadn't been in such a state, I would have left it. But I might never have this opportunity again - and going by how soused he was, he wouldn't even remember.

  “Do you ever see your parents, Robert?”

  A nasty, caustic laugh. “Oh, yes. I visit my father once a year. He's in a nursing home - I'd never have the evil old cunt here. Let the taxpayers keep him.”

  “Don't you get on?”

  A little kid stared out of his thirty something year old body. It was eerie. “He despises me. He always despised me. I could see through him, you see. Meant to be a police inspector, but couldn't detect the rot in his own life. His own marriage -”

  I had to pass the plant pot over again. He wiped the sour sick from his lips and carried on.“‘Philosophy!’ he used to jeer. ‘That's being paid to jizz into books for a living! That's not a real career. How does that benefit the race?’”

  “I'm sure he didn't -”

  “You know nothing, Giselle. You weren't there. Never once has he told me he loved me.” He was a bag of trite misery. “When he finally goes, I'll dance on his grave.”

  “You don't mean that.”

  “Watch me!” he roared. “I'll dig him up, piss on him and dance some more.”

  I struggled to hide my revulsion. “What about your mum?”

  At least when he talked about his father there was bravado, however ugly. When he thought about his mother, his eyes were dead.

  “She was the centre of my world. We were inseparable.” He clung to his pillow, buried his face in it.

  “But?”

  Half mumbled into the fabric, “I came home from school one day. She was on the living room carpet, getting her brains screwed out -”

  “Robert, I'm so sorry -”

  “By a woman! Some rug muncher who lived down the street.” He spat again. A fleck of vomit landed on my cheek. “My darling mother, the perfect wife - and she wasn't even normal.”

  I clenched my fists. “What happened?”

  “I told Father, of course. He had connections - he made it so she never saw me again.” A hideous smile. “The one good deed he's done me.”

  “She was your mum - she loved you -”

  He pushed his face into mine, feverish and foul smelling. “Don't talk to me about love! She wasn't thinking about me when that dyke was licking her out. She only cared about her selfish, unnatural self.”

  Thank goddess he was hit with one of his hangovers. He bellowed with pain and fell back onto the bed, the pillow over his face. I sat there - I couldn't go anywhere without arousing suspicion - but I wasn't watching him.

  This was a man who hated women. More specifically, women like me and Summer.

  We had to get out, even if it was the last thing we did.

  Vivaan: Disclosure

  I haven't been entirely honest with you. Or, rather, I haven't been honest with myself.

  All this time I've said I was helping Robbie in a spirit of scientific enquiry. I might even have believed it. But the past few weeks, particularly the night of the party, have forced me to confront my true feelings.

  I think I'm in love with Summer.

  It's insane, I know. She's an artificial; she can never love me back. The most she can do is give me a performance of love: synthetic orgasms, fake empathy. Though who's to say you don't get that with human women? I've long wondered why Thao keeps me around. Robbie once got to the heart of the matter, in his usual tactless fashion: “She's settling until someone better comes along - and believe me, they will.”

  I wake up most nights sweaty and wild, fresh from a dream of Summer. I imagine that divine body arranged in every position, wet to my touch. Thao spoons against me, snoring softly. I finish myself off without disturbing her.

  This isn't me. I've never cheated, never been tempted. Women have shown interest over the years but I've let them down gently. Why get a crappy takeaway when you've a banquet on the table?

  Yet something about the artie moves me. Her eagerness to please, her innocence. Human women always have to outdo you, show you who's boss. Thao never ceases to remind me she's the smart one, the breadwinner. “My boytoy,” she teases, mussing my hair. Summer would never do that. She waits till she's spoken to, gives Robbie the respect he's due. Even though he doesn't deserve it.

  The party was torture. Watching Robbie weave lies about their relationship, Summer playing along, the men's envy their gawky colleague had pulled this beautiful siren from the deep. When the soup poured into Sanjay’s lap, it must have been agony - yet he had the ecstasy of that small pink tongue flickering between his thighs. I grew hard just watching it, substituted myself in imagination.

  I assumed she knew what she was. But when Crawley broke the news so brutally, and she screamed - I wanted to hold her, kiss her better, reassure her. Of course that's impossible.

  I've called on Robbie once since then. H
e slouched to the door, toes sticking out of his socks. I've never seen the place look so dingy. Stepping into the hall, I tried not to sneeze.

  “Where's Audra?” I blurted.

  He gave me a long, calculating look, as though he'd had my number from the day he was born. “She's grounded until she sees the error of her ways.”

  “Oh. And that will be?”

  “Are you here to see me or not?” he huffed. “When I decide. Can we talk about something else?”

  It was a horrible visit. I developed a crick in my neck from peering down the hallway, convinced I'd heard footsteps. Robbie was well aware of this. He deliberately plied me with drinks; I was bursting for the toilet, but I could hardly go upstairs either. He knew me too well. The temptation would have been too great.

  “I've got to go,” I said at last. “There's lots to do in the workshop.”

  “There always is in a menial role,” he sneered. “Well, I won't keep you from your bots. Be seeing you, Khatri.”

  He's the only person who still calls me that. Bowing to convention, I took Thao’s name when we married: Huynh. As far as Robbie’s concerned, our wedding never happened.

  ***

  I wasn't lying about work. There had been floods across the country; while Lux had been protected by its emergency shield, the provinces had to shift for themselves. We were swamped with storm damaged bots, brought to us as a last resort. Now they lay around the back room, some in rice, some blasted with driers. We poked, prodded and prayed, but half were past any hope of recovery. A sad little cemetery formed on the landing - machines without ghosts.

  The lads swore and thumped the desks in frustration. I couldn't share their chagrin. As I opened up my tenth TalkieBot of the day and looked inside, I imagined doing the same to Summer. Would that peach of a body split in my hands? What secrets would I find?

  “Mate,” Amro said, “you're drooling.”

  It had been nearly three weeks since my call on Robbie. I hated to think of her exiled to the attic, gathering dust. And if I knew him, no explanation would be forthcoming. She would be sitting there wondering how she had offended him.

  I knew he was out, he was speaking at some conference or other. It wouldn't be breaking any code. I was her friend as well as his.

  I only want to talk to her, I told myself.

  Coat on, hood up, I braved the sleet and walked the two miles to Brotherton Row. It's always a jolt to pass from the grotty warehouses and boggy wasteland to Robbie’s genteel suburb, where you'd swear everyone farts air conditioner.

  An elderly woman was trimming the hedges next door, impervious to the cold. I nodded and went to move on. She blocked my path with her shears. “I know what you're up to,” she said.

  “Excuse me?” I tried to laugh it off, but she glared with such ferocity, it came very feebly. Despite an unfortunate taste in blue rinses and cardigans, she had all her chairs at home.

  “I see the likes of you coming and going. Calling on him.” She was small and crooked but fleetingly did an uncanny impression of Robbie, down to the flared nostrils. “I know what goes on in that house. I know about the women.”

  I backed away. “You're mistaken.”

  “I know I'm not. And when I've got proof -” she bared her false teeth in a rictus grin - “I hope they lock you up and throw away the key. This is a good area.”

  Now she'd had her say, she trudged away to her back garden. Shaken, I watched her go.

  The hail wasn't letting up. Teeth chattering, alarmed by what I'd heard, I crunched up to the front door. I knocked. No answer. The downstairs lights were on, so I went to the lounge window for a closer look.

  The pale curtains had been drawn across, but they were lit up from behind like a shadow puppet show. I could hear the network, women talking. I couldn't help but play back what the neighbour had said. Was it true? Was he running some kind of bordello on the premises?

  Music was playing. It had been in the charts for weeks, Cora someone or other. A typical slushy ballad, the sort you cop off to at school parties but look down on as an adult. As I watched, two silhouettes came swaying into view. One I identified immediately from her height, figure, a thousand guilty fantasies - Summer. The other, shorter with a fantastic bush of hair, I couldn't place. The smaller one leaned forward and gave Summer a long, sensuous kiss.

  What was going on? Was Robbie making them put on a show for customers? His own pleasure? Incredible, going by his past behaviour, but then you never know. I ran back to the front door and knocked again.

  There was a delay of a few minutes. I put my ear to the wood but it was hopeless - I couldn't hear a thing. Fortunately I'd stepped back before it opened.

  “Vivaan!” Summer exclaimed. “What a lovely surprise. Come in.”

  Frustratingly, she led me through to the study, not where she and her friend had been. And as I watched her, listened to her, my heart sank. I'd been mistaken, thinking she was different from other women. My appearance was not a lovely surprise. It was clear from the way she fidgeted, how her glance kept skittering to the door, I was nothing but an inconvenience. She wanted to be back in there, in whatever degrading spectacle Robbie had devised.

  “Would you like some tea?” she asked. Ever the attentive host.

  I considered asking, so I could slip out and investigate, but changed my mind. “No. I won't be staying long.”

  “Oh.” She didn't bother to hide her relief. A sick anger rose inside me. “Robert’s out, you know. He won't be back for hours.”

  “That's not a problem. It wasn't him I wanted to see.”

  She sat in the chair opposite, a woman from an etiquette guide. “Oh.” Didn't she know any other words? “What can I do for you?”

  “I wanted to talk about the other night. About … what you learned.”

  This wasn't panning out how I'd imagined it. I'd envisaged a broken Summer desperate for my help, clutching my hand and gazing at me imploringly. Instead she was happier and livelier than I'd seen her, as though the days in the attic were meaningless.

  “I was upset at the time,” she said, as though recalling a dim memory, “but I've come to terms with it. It explains a lot.” Irrelevantly, reading from an invisible script, “Was Sanjay alright? I liked him. He's the nicest of Robert’s friends - apart from you, of course.”

  I wasn't there to chat about Sanjay. I'd come - I now realised - to rescue her from Robbie. I'd expected a terrified maiden, chained to a dragon. Instead I found a woman who was perfectly content with her lot. Her hair was tousled, her lips gleamed. With a growing sense of unreality, I noticed she was wearing her dress from the party. The same gauzy material, the jewelled sandals.

  “He's fine,” I mumbled.

  We were wasting valuable time, talking about someone I'd forgotten. It was time to get the conversation back on track. “Summer, you can't stay here. You must know that.”

  She didn't pretend ignorance, for which I was grateful. “What else can I do?” she asked, spreading her hands. “Robert owns me. It's legally binding.”

  “Robbie is my friend, but -” I don't trust him? I think he's crazy? “I don't like how he treats you,” I said at last.

  “I don't particularly like it either, but a contract is a contract. Ms Adelaide said that sometimes our owner’s whims would seem mysterious, but it wasn't our place to wonder why.”

  I wanted to shake her, knock sense into her. “He keeps you in the attic. How can that be right?”

  “It's better than being in the house with him. And it's only a temporary measure. That's what he told me.”

  “You hear a lot about robots in my wife’s circles. Not all of them are treated well. Some are forced to turn tricks in brothels; others are abused and degraded. There's nothing wrong with seeking help if you need it. There's people you can see.”

  Part of the message was filtering through, but she was still stubborn. “You say you want to help me, Mr Khatri -” she was being deliberately formal - “but what can you do, reali
stically speaking? Could your wife take me in?”

  My face must have expressed all too plainly what I thought of this.

  “I thought as much. You can't do anything without admitting your share in Robert’s guilt. There's nobody else I know outside these four walls, so -” she shrugged - “stalemate. No one will believe my word against his. I'll be a malfunctioning robot, making trouble.”

  She was looking at me with such contempt, it was as though she had witnessed every one of my tawdry daydreams, knew the real reason I was there. “I think you should go -” like a monarch dismissing her subjects.