Cruel and Unusual (Somewhere In-Between)

by C. E. Wilson

  Or so his programming explained.

  When Chloe glanced at her Asist’s face, his eyebrows were still pinched together. “Why don’t you run down to the corner shop and get a coffee while I take a shower?” she suggested in an attempt to make him smile – or just not frown.

  “If that is what you want. I could also stay and accompany you in the shower.”

  For a moment, Chloe reconsidered sending him down to the café, but as usual, his green eyes were vacant and detached. He didn’t actually want to shower with her; it was only a part of his programming.

  “Chloe, if you are upset with me, I would be more than happy to help you get ready for work as an apology.”

  “I know you would, Rogan.” A sad smile crossed her features as she leaned in to kiss him again. “I still think I’ll shower by myself.” She trudged to the bathroom door as her Asist remained on the couch.

  Rogan made it difficult not to change her mind. She could imagine his warm, flawless body in the shower, pressing against hers and massaging her favorite peppermint-and-cherry-blossom-scented body wash into her skin. His finger twitched as it rested on his thigh.

  “You can go, Rogan,” she whispered. “I’ll be fine. I’m going to take a quick shower and get dressed.”

  Her Asist stood up, dusted his dark jeans off, and tucked his long, slender hands inside his pockets. “I can tell that you are upset with me,” he said softly, heading towards the front door of Chloe’s apartment. Sometimes, he wondered what could be cooler in the morning, Chloe before coffee or the apartment her parents paid for so she could live in a good neighborhood.

  Immaculate floors were accentuated with delicate furnishings that could have only been picked out by an interior decorator. Everything was feminine and pretty, but nothing was homey. It was a beautiful place, but it had been designed to be in a hip living teen magazine, not for an actual person.

  “I’m not upset—”

  “You wish that I could be more human,” he said, resting his hand on the knob. “I am sorry because it appears that I am failing at satisfying you.”

  “You aren’t… It’s complicated,” she said. “You know that.”

  “I will get your coffee,” he answered back with a curt nod. “A grande skinny vanilla latte with two extra shots of espresso and whipped cream.”

  “Wait!” Chloe shouted. “Rogan. We talked about this. I don’t need the whip, remember? The extra calories?”

  When he smiled at her a second time, for the briefest moment, warmth touched his emerald-green eyes. “I know what your order is. I am making a change.”

  “Why?”

  “Whip would make no difference. The calories in a single serving of whipped cream would have no negative effect on your physical shape, which you feel to be ideal. Plus”—he paused for a moment as though thinking his response through—“I am sure that you would look ideal no matter what.”

  Chloe blinked, dumfounded as she processed the words. “W-what…what did you say?”

  He opened and closed the door without another word, leaving her more clueless than ever. What had he meant when he’d said that he would make the change? He wasn’t supposed to make changes. He was logical. All Asists were supposed to be, but Rogan had disobeyed an order, albeit in a small way. She ruffled her messy red locks and made her way to the shower, slipping off her jeans and her loose tank before stepping inside.

  I don’t understand him, she thought as she set the water at the highest temperature before she stepped inside. As the scalding water poured down, she desperately tried to scrub the smell of smoke and alcohol from her hair so her students wouldn’t notice. Being the youngest teacher at Easton Prep School was hard enough, and substituting certainly didn’t make immediate acceptance any easier. Early on she had often been mistaken for a student and asked for her identification card, but for the most part that had died down after her continuous presence for two months. She was still adjusting to the difference between being a college student and being a teacher at an expensive private school in the city.

  She’d been the rich student before, but never the professor, and substituting at Easton Prep was the best job she could find in the place she needed to be in.

  Chloe wanted to be a performer. The idea of using her voice and her words to attract the attention of others was more appealing than teaching in a classroom, but her parents hated the idea of her living all alone in the city, going to various clubs and bars and participating in open-mic nights to get noticed. Never mind that her parents barely saw her anyway, but that was their reasoning. Her dream seemed to be on life support, and Chloe had started telling herself that she was going to end up teaching at the local school near her parents’ house when she’d found out she was going to graduate with a 3.97 GPA. A graduating GPA of anything higher than 3.95 meant that her parents would give her a gift for graduation.

  So then Rogan came into her life.

  An Asist was her secret hope of escaping her hometown and moving to the city. Many of her friends from school had them, either in the full-size model or the mini, and she was desperate to have one. Luckily, her parents were true to their word and she was able to pick out her model, and a custom one at that. It wasn’t that her parents couldn’t afford it. An Asist wasn’t much less expensive than a used car, so her parents didn’t bat an eye while signing the check. She couldn’t have thanked them enough. With a full-sized Asist by her side, she finally had their approval to move to the city.

  So long as Rogan was there to walk her to and from school and escort her around the city after dark, she could move to the city with her parents’ blessing. Chloe wholeheartedly agreed to the rules and immediately found a job in the city she needed to live in. She wasn’t the next Mary J. Blige, but at least now she wouldn’t have to give her dream up. Plus, she was doing something respectable. In the apartment her parents had picked out she could walk to and from the school without a problem, and as an added bonus, she was allowed to report to the school every day and the occasional Saturday. Almost every student there had at least an Asist-Mini and several had full-size models, but she never allowed Rogan to come into the school with her.

  After turning the shower off, Chloe stepped out and toweled herself off while thinking about how differently she saw Rogan now than when they had been “introduced.” She had been told that Asists were identical to humans in every physical capacity. They were anatomically correct, but at the time, Chloe couldn’t imagine such a thing. Who would want to kiss their machine? They were like coffee makers and toasters, but she would never think about kissing those appliances, so she had assumed Rogan would be no different.

  But he was.

  Everything about him reminded her of guys she used to date, wanted to date, or hoped to date one day. He was her ideal. Her perfect man who was always by her side and could do anything a human could do if she wanted it so. Immediately after moving to the city, she had taken him to shops and boutiques, bought him more clothes than she owned, and asked him to get piercings and tattoos that gave him a pretty foreboding look if not for his baby face. Rogan was like a life-size doll and a bodyguard all in one, and that was how she had treated him at first, never seeing him as anything more.

  Until things had started to change.

  “May I make a suggestion?” a male said after Chloe had walked back into her bedroom.

  Other people might have screamed at such a situation, but Chloe only smiled sheepishly as Rogan held a steaming cup out to her. He smiled as Chloe took the cup from him. The scent of vanilla and espresso immediately calmed her nerves.

  “Complete with whip.”

  “I see that,” Chloe said, taking the lid off and dipping her finger on top of the white foam. She pressed it between her lips. “I won’t lie, it tastes good, but you’re going to make me fat.”

  “Not possible.”

  “Why?”

  “You will easily burn off the whip in this coffee during our walk to and from the school today, Chloe,
” he said, remaining reasonable.

  “Right,” she said softly before taking a sip of her latte. “Thank you for picking this up for me, by the way.”

  “My pleasure,” he said, smiling and walking towards her closet. “Music classes today, correct?”

  “You tell me,” Chloe said, sitting on the bed and watching him carefully. “You’re the one who recorded the phone call.”

  “I was trying to be conversational.”

  She set the cup on the nightstand and located her blow dryer. “I know you were. So, what’s the suggestion?”

  “Do you require help with your hair?”

  “I can do it myself.” She maneuvered the heat through her wet tangles. “I think I’m in the mood for straight hair today.”

  Rogan’s eyes narrowed in her direction.

  “I know it takes a little extra time, but I think it helps me not look like I’m still in high-school.”

  “What human wants to look older?”

  “A human who’s sick of being carded as a student when she’s working as a teacher. Are you ever going to tell me your suggestion?”

  “Ahh, the suggestion,” Rogan said, tossing some clothes on the bed next to Chloe. “I think that since you are working with younger students in the building, you should not show too much of your body.”

  “Because I’m fat?” she asked.

  “You could never look fat,” he said offhandedly. He picked out a particular blouse and laid it on the bed. “The reason I say this is because hormone levels in puberty-state male humans are known to be quite high and many of the students view you as an attractive woman, do they not?”

  “I guess?”

  “Those pants are professional,” he said, pointing at the dark trouser jeans. “Plus, they will work when you go to your open mic after work.”

  “Another one?” she grumbled. “I had an open mic yesterday.”

  “You also have one tonight, and we will be cutting it close to get there after detention…which you volunteered to help out with today.”

  “So I won’t be done until—”

  “Four fifteen.”

  “Oh, geezus,” she grumbled, flopping back on the bed, still blow drying her hair. “Alright, so the trousers can play double duty for scaring off perverts.”

  “This shirt…” Rogan said suddenly. “I like the color against your skin.”

  Chloe turned down the blow dryer for a moment, and sat up. “You do?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It reminds me of the latte you drink every morning. Or at least the cream you don’t always desire.”

  “Oh.” She hated herself for blushing and tried to remind herself that his comment wasn’t coming from anywhere else besides his programming. He said things that made sense. Practical and logical. Nothing more. “Thank you, Rogan.”

  “It is the truth,” he said, checking through her shoes. “With music class, I am assuming that you will be sitting at the piano.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Then these,” he said triumphantly, holding out a pair of high, brown platform boots, “will look exquisite under the jeans. And, for an added effect, this”—he reached in and tossed a hot-pink tie at her—“will be your completer piece. Do you like it?”

  “I love it,” she said. “Let me get dressed, do my makeup, and we’ll head over.”

  “Are you sure that you do not want my help?”

  “Getting dressed? Rogan, you worry too much for your own good.”

  “If it makes you happy, I will do anything.”

  “You will?” she asked softly, teasing herself with his words.

  He would always say the right thing.

  After unplugging the blow dryer, she walked up to him with the towel still wrapped around her body. She shivered as his hands fell on each of her arms and rubbed warmth into them as he tilted his chin down to find her eyes.

  “Rogan, you like making me happy that much?”

  “More than anything,” he said, keeping his voice low. It almost sounded…human—husky and thick and as though he were embarrassed to say the words while she stared up at him openly.

  In fact, she could often pretend he was actually a human up until the moment she really focused on his brightly colored yet lifeless eyes. They never changed. They were always hollow and too reflective. They reminded her of the screen of her phone: vibrant yet artificial.

  One of his hands dipped under her chin. “Do you believe me?” he asked.

  She swallowed. “I do.”

  “You know that I cannot lie to you,” he said. “When I say that your happiness is the most important part of my life, I mean it.”

  “I believe you.”

  He smiled. “Good.” He kissed her on the forehead before he left the room. Before closing the door, he smiled at her. “If you need help with anything, Chloe, I will be right outside.”

  Another puzzled expression flashed, only this one belonged to Chloe.

  “Sure,” she said.

  Chapter Two

  “Nice weather,” Chloe said awkwardly after their unsettling conversation in her bedroom that morning.

  As usual, Rogan seemed unfazed as the two of them walked down the street towards her school. The weather still reminded her of summer. Sticky humidity clung to the air, and leaves were transitioning from green to orange and red. Some leaves had already fallen on the early October day. It was cool enough that a coat could be worn, but plenty of pedestrians were still out in hoodies and shorts. The air smelled like fall. Crisp. Like apples and cinnamon with a dash of clove.

  “The weather forecast looks positive.” He tilted his head towards the blue sky with only a few white clouds floating overhead. “There is only a ten percent chance of precipitation all day, although…there is a thirty percent chance after seven o’clock tonight.”

  “What about eleven?”

  “At eleven o’clock, there is still a thirty percent chance,” he mused. “I will bring an umbrella with us to the open mic in case there are any changes.”

  Chloe was silent for a few moments before she answered. “That’s good.”

  Hardly anyone was alone. Almost every person ambled with a friend or had an Asist by their side.

  Most people could tell the difference between the Asists and the humans because of their stunningly good looks and their too-shiny, empty eyes. As she watched other Asists go by, they looked more and more like they were performing a task instead of enjoying their Companion’s company. She wanted to believe that Rogan was special, but everyone probably thought that about their own Asist. As Rogan’s Companion, she desperately wanted to believe that Rogan treated her differently, despite his servility program.

  Such a thing was normal.

  “Are you nervous about the performance tonight?” Rogan asked after a few more moments of silence.

  “No.”

  “The children?”

  Several girls stuttered and ended their conversations as Rogan and Chloe moved past. He stood out in his attire, but she wanted him to look that way. He was hard to ignore.

  “No,” she said, “not the kids. They’re okay.”

  “You seem distant,” he said.

  “You’re always distant,” she said back to him. “Don’t you see how everyone looks at you?”

  Rogan shifted slightly as he lowered his head. “They stare because I am not human,” he said in a low voice.

  “They can’t tell—”

  “They know,” he said. “You did a good job trying to help me blend in, but I know what I am, Chloe, and so do they.”

  “Rogan—”

  “I have seen enough models and mini-models like myself to know I am not original.”

  “You’re original to me.”

  His eyes shifted towards his Converse sneakers. “Of course,” he said, quickening his pace slightly. “You are going to be late if we do not move a little faster. You took three minutes longer than usual eating breakfast.”

  “That’s because I don
’t usually eat breakfast,” she said, catching up to him. “I’m sorry.”

  “Do not be sorry to me,” he said, stopping in front of the aging stairway of the school building.

  Easton Preparatory School was a quaint little place that seemed to be more reminiscent of the Crunchem Hall Primary School from Matilda rather than the Constance Billard School for Girls from Gossip Girl. It was a pleasant place, and Chloe had no problems. The school certainly wasn’t a reflection of the students. They were, in fact, some of the brightest and the wealthiest the area had to offer. She wasn’t sure which one was more favored though: money or brains. She shook her head as Rogan continued to speak.

  “I am your Asist, programmed to serve.”

  “Rogan, stop,” she said. “Don’t say that. You’re not just an Asist.”

  “Go on,” he said, motioning towards the doors. “People are staring at me.”

  “Rogan—”

  “I will see you after class. I will be waiting here at four.” Before she could speak, he leaned down and kissed her on the temple. “Have a good day.”

  “Thanks.” Chloe brushed her fingertips over the spot where Rogan had kissed her as he gracefully walked away. Asist or not, she wanted to believe he was special. He had to be or his programming was better than most.

  “He’s a strange one,” a sultry female voice said behind her.

  Chloe stopped touching her face. “Oh,” she said. “Good morning, Ms. Steele.”

  A statuesque blonde in her midtwenties smiled back at her. “Monica. Chloe, when are you going to learn it’s okay to call me by my first name?”

  “I figured you wouldn’t want the students to find out—”

  “Good God. Do you think teenagers care what our first names are?” she asked with a laugh. “They’re so wrapped up in their phones and their music and their Asists that they couldn’t care less about what their wrinkled, old teachers are doing.”

  “Wrinkled? Monica, we’re not much older than they are.”

  “We’re slightly younger than dinosaurs in their eyes. Don’t worry about the students knowing your first name.”