The Artificial Wife

by Rachael Eyre

  I don't know what got into me. I'm not a violent man; whenever I read about the things other men do to women, I'm appalled. Those acts take place in alleyways, in parks. Not ordinary rooms in respectable houses.

  All I saw was that sweet disdainful smile. I had an overwhelming urge to wipe it off. I seized her wrist, bent it back. She cried out. I pushed my full weight against her, crushing her. My hand reached up her skirt, sought the virgin flesh beneath.

  All I wanted was for her to look at me in that one moment, to truly see me. Nothing more than that.

  A blow at the side of my head. After that - nothing.

  ***

  I opened my eyes. I was lying on the floor in the hall, the banisters like bars above me. A small black woman was leaning over me, her hair streaming down. I put my hand to my face and groaned.

  “You'll live,” she said tersely. “But there's a few things you need to know.”

  “Who are you?” I felt blood in my mouth, swallowed it.

  “Never you mind.” As my eyes darted back to the study, “I took her upstairs. It's best she rests.”

  “Tell her I’m sorry.”

  “Too late. This -” she gestured to my injuries - “will heal. Hers won't. But I don't suppose that matters to you.”

  I cringed. “This isn't who I am.”

  “That'll be a real consolation, that she caught you on an off day. But -” businesslike - “you'll still be seeing Robert, won't you? If you cut him, he'll wonder why.”

  Personally I never wanted to set foot in the house again. It had witnessed too much of my disintegration. I'd always believed I was better than Robbie, his voice of reason if not his conscience. Now I'd discovered I was worse. But she was making sense.

  “When you come round in future, you're not to speak to Summer, or even look at her if you can help it. And you must never be with her alone. Do you understand me?”

  I got wordlessly to my feet. Every part of me ached.

  “What's your name?” I asked, not expecting an answer.

  “As far as you're concerned, it's get the fuck out.” She opened the front door and shoved me into the street.

  ***

  I walked for an hour, trying to get my story straight. I had Summer’s scratches crisscrossing my face, a shiner of a black eye. On the way home I dropped my beebo down the grid.

  Thao ambushed me in the hall, only to draw back with a gasp. “Bloody hell, you look awful! What happened?”

  My teeth were still chattering from the cold. “A guy cornered me in an alley. Asked me for the time. I got out my beebo, he beat me up and took it.”

  Of course she was full of questions. Where did it happen, what did he look like, did anyone see? “We have to go to the police. This is too important to let lie.”

  “No!” As she stared, “Seriously, leave it. He was only a kid, a druggie. I needed a new beebo anyway.”

  She continued to fuss. “The least I can do is make you dinner. Sit down, rest up.” She kissed my unscarred cheek. “I love you, Viv.”

  She made it worse. A thousand times worse.

  “It's my own fault,” I muttered, holding a chilled glass of water against my face. “I was asking for trouble, walking that side of town.”

  “Babe,” she said into my neck, “the victim’s never to blame.”

  Summer: An Interrupted Date

  It seemed like just another day at first. Robert left the house - off for a conference, he wouldn't be back till late. This meant eight hours with Elle. I couldn't wait.

  I flew downstairs, let her out, made us both hot buttery toast. I'm getting quite good at it.

  Elle was sitting in front of the veebox, jumping channels. As I sang, “Breakfast’s ready!” she spilled a glass of orange juice across the carpet.

  A woman’s face filled the screen. She was middle aged, going grey, sharp profiled. Her accent was cut glass, overdone - it didn’t sound genuine.

  “It was madness,” she was saying. “I see that now. Fortunately I'm undergoing therapy, having treatment for my condition.”

  I still didn't understand. It was yet another obscenity trial, putting the fear of the Goddess into anyone who went with arties. What of it? But Elle was watching with her hands over her mouth, as though she was about to be sick.

  “Captain Lucy said you were having a relationship with one of your artificials.”

  She twitched, looked palpably dishonest. I realised who she must be.

  “Elle, I’m sorry,” I whispered, but she wasn't listening. Her eyes were fixed on her lover’s face.

  “I wouldn't call it that,” Juno replied. “I was lonely, she idolised me. It should never have gone that far.”

  Elle let out an impotent howl. “Off!” I doubt she noticed the juice spreading across the rug. She ran out of the room.

  I gave her half an hour’s privacy before following her into the garden with a mug of coffee. Not a scrap of green remained: it was yellows, oranges, sullen browns. Yet she stood out on the sodden grass, her feet bare.

  “You'll go rusty,” I said.

  “I don't care.” But she took the mug from me, blew on it.

  I had pulled on one of Robert's wax jackets, meaty with his body odour. Now I spread it over the ground so we could sit down. We weren't surprised to see our neighbour peeking between her upstairs curtains.

  “Doesn't she ever go out?” Elle asked, irritated.

  “Maybe she can't.”

  “Maybe she's a nosy bint.” Elle made the most indescribable face: her eyes stared up her nostrils, fingers waggled on her head like horns. The figure at the window vanished.

  “You've offended her.”

  “Who cares?” She watched the steam rise from her drink, bunched her shoulders. “I shouldn't even be surprised - of course she'll want a cushy sentence. If she says she’s tapped, she'll spend a few months in a loony bin, then be out before you know it.”

  Her face was ravaged with pain. “See?” she continued. “You were right all along. Just a creepy perv getting her kicks.”

  I shook my head adamantly. “I never said that -”

  “It was always my dream, you know. One day I was going to get out, find Juno - and we’d set up a place of our own.”

  “You still can,” I said, my hand resting against her foot.

  “Who with? You?” she snorted. “We can't leave the house, never mind run away. And who'd take in two arties?”

  Her words stung but I wouldn't let it show. “I always liked the sound of the Van Lauren Islands. You can buy land cheap, build your own house. You can be completely self sufficient.”

  “I'm a city girl. I don't know jack about farming.”

  “We’ll learn. You can do anything if you put your mind to it. Your own food, your own milk -”

  “What would we do about money?” She tried to sound casual but I'd interested her. “No way am I going back to hooking.”

  “We can get jobs. I used to want to work in an office. You must have transferable skills.”

  She frowned. “Pity there's not a bureau for arties, like humans have. One where they can get their own wages, their own living space -”

  “Their own lives.” Our eyes lit up with the same idea: why couldn't we start such a place? It would be tricky doing it in Lila, where robots are third class citizens, but there was no reason why our scheme shouldn't work in a newer, freer land.

  “I could run secretarial classes,” I said, growing excited.

  “I'll do the schmoozing,” she grinned. “Face it, sweetie, you'd be hopeless at that. And of course I’m in charge of the money.”

  “I wouldn't want it otherwise.”

  ***

  We spent the rest of the afternoon plotting our venture. It felt so daring mapping out diagrams on stolen stationery. We agreed to keep it in a folder under my bed. It's not like he ever went up there.

  Elle looked sad. “What's wrong?” I asked.

  She tugged at the shirt she was wearing. Another Vivaan sp
ecial, this time with red and green parrots. “I've felt hideous since I got here. Nothing but manky men’s shirts.”

  “Didn't you bring anything with you?”

  “Only my dressing gown and the red dress.”

  “Which red dress?”

  She tried to protest. “It's totally impractical for every day - I’ll look ridiculous -”

  “I insist on seeing it.”

  I dragged her up to Robert’s room and waited patiently. There was an oppressive reek of mould and what I can only assume was Robert himself. His clothes smelled of it too. I tried not to look at the bed, where she had to perform for him.

  I sat on the chair, kicked my heels. The only sounds were the rustle of fabric and a comb going through her hair.

  “I'm decent,” she said, sounding shy. I turned towards her and my jaw dropped.

  I've always known Elle is handsome, womanly in a way I never will be. But that dress brought out a whole new side to her. I'd only seen her in that bathrobe or the ghastly shirts. It accentuated her curves, kindled the glow of her skin, embraced her. And her nimbus of hair was glorious.

  “Hello,” I said stupidly.

  “Hey.”

  She cracked one of her stunning smiles. I went weak and silly.

  “I'm feeling very dressed up all of a sudden. Why don't you do it too? We can make it a date.”

  ***

  The word ‘date’ set my nerves jangling. That couldn't mean what I thought it did, could it? What I wanted it to mean.

  No, I was letting my imagination run away with me. She was still in love with Juno, however unworthy she had been. Goddess, I hated that woman.

  Yet still I planned, and hoped.

  There wasn't anything fancy in the cupboards. Pasta, garlic bread, white wine bought for the party. I prepared the meal, Elle laid the table and switched on the network. Every time she changed station she asked what I thought. After a series of talky, whiny and abysmal stations, we found one to our liking.

  When I came out with the food I suppressed a gasp. She had lit candles, found Robert's best crockery and cutlery. She had even brought in flowers in from the garden.

  “Are you magic?”

  “Maybe,” she teased. “C’mon, it’s the first proper dinner we've had here. And you don't need to worry, I know how to wash up.”

  It was so strange, sitting down to dinner with her as though we were ordinary people. I recalled Ms Adelaide’s lessons: don't gobble your food but don't pick at it either, don't gulp your wine, don't dominate the conversation but don't be monosyllabic.

  “I've never done this before,” Elle admitted. “We'd eat snacks to keep the humans company, but otherwise we glugged Formula 40.” She grimaced. “Vile stuff.”

  “We'd do rehearsals every now and then. We'd sit with a dummy opposite, to stand in for our owner -” Elle was already thumping the table in glee - “and scored on how well we'd done.”

  “Seriously? I don't know how you stood it. I would've been out of there.”

  “It didn't occur to me. I had a home, a future - it was better than nothing.”

  She shook her head. “I hate to think of you cloistered away like a nun, is all.”

  I remembered Vita’s articles, rubbing myself under the covers. “I wasn't a nun.”

  “Prove it.”

  Before I knew what was happening, she had whisked me onto my feet and into the living room. Music throbbed from all four speakers.

  “Let your hair down,” she said. “Dance with me.”

  For the first few minutes I might have fooled myself that we were simply two friends dancing together. That she was oblivious to my hints. She'd been with humans, had an actual lover - what could she possibly see in me? Her metal heart couldn't beat uncomfortably at the sight of me, she couldn't think of me like that. We were two jigsaw pieces forced to fit in Robert’s crazy experiment.

  “Summer, why aren't you looking at me? Am I doing something wrong?”

  I shook my head. “I wish -”

  Eyes huge, face full of sympathy, she kissed me. After a second’s stunned stupidity - It’s really happening, Elle’s actually kissing me - I returned them eagerly.

  “I haven't done this before,” I blurted.

  “I'm no expert -”

  And then someone tapped at the door.

  ***

  I don't want to tell this part. I don't understand how, in the space of half an hour, the world that seemed beautiful and promising could turn ugly. I don't understand how a man I liked and considered a friend could do that to me.

  I can still feel him on top of me, pinning me down. I can still feel his fingers forcing into my tight flesh.

  Elle punched him in the head, knocked him out cold before booting him into the street. She helped me to my feet, took me up to the attic.

  “How could I be so stupid?” I kept asking.

  The fourth time she stroked my hair and made me look at her. “Listen to me. This is not your fault. The only person to blame is Vivaan, the shithead.”

  She dressed me and put me to bed. She stayed with me for the next few hours, holding my hand and murmuring words of comfort. As evening drew in she had to leave.

  “Even Face Ache’s going to notice a candlelit dinner and blood on the carpet. See you.”

  I flinched when she kissed me. I pretended not to see the hurt in her eyes.

  ***

  The following morning I lay in bed, staring up at the skylight. I thought if I stayed there, if I never washed or dressed again, I would be safe. Robert would forget about me. I could gather dust, an artefact no one knew the purpose of.

  Feet racketed up the ladder. It couldn't be Elle - she was considerate, careful. The door swung open.

  “Your penance is over, Audra,” Robert said. “It's time you began your training.”

  At first I welcomed the change. It'd allow me to concentrate on something other than my misery, although cleaning the study would be difficult. I didn't want to see the green armchair or the underside of that table again.

  I went to pick up the smock he likes me to wear. He shook his head. “Wear this.”

  He was holding a long white nightdress, holes for the arms and neck. If I was Elle I'd wonder why he had all these women’s clothes, speculate about bodies in the garden, but I wasn't Elle. I slid into it without comment. He smiled tightly, liking what he saw.

  “I'm on sabbatical.” Seeing my confusion, he felt duty bound to elaborate. “I've booked the next few months off. We’ll be together morning, noon and night.”

  I struggled to hide my horror. What about Elle? When would I see her? Did she know? Was this another of his mad whims, decided in an instant?

  “Training me for what?” I asked.

  He took my hand and squeezed it - the most intimate touch I’d received from him. “Your true purpose. Being my wife.”

  This is not happening.

  ***

  It has been four days since Robert's programme began. I have barely slept, eaten or had a moment to myself. If it wasn't for Elle stealing up to me while he sleeps, I'd be done for.

  The first evening she rushed up to the attic and threw her arms around me. “I'm sorry. I had no idea.”

  “Didn't he tell you?”

  “No. But when he didn't go to work, I had to know what he was doing. So I sneaked out and had a look through the banisters ...”

  I gritted my teeth. “It's not as bad as it seems.” Lies.

  “He hasn't tried it on?” That's what worried her, so soon after Vivaan.

  “No. Thank gods.”

  I'd always thought a human taking you against your will was the worst thing they could do, but this steady erosion of all I am is the greater crime.

  He monitors what I eat. He only lets me wear the white gown. If I leave the room, he demands to know why. If I'm thinking, he has to know what about. I'm not allowed outside because the woman next door has started to talk. I can only do the chores if he supervises. It isn't even
to criticise like before, it's so not a single part of my day is mine.

  Outside his work he has no interests. He can't settle down with a book or watch something on veebox without growing bored. He is at his most dangerous in these moods, like a child torturing a pet.