But then if Robin really wanted to win me over to her side, she wouldn’t hurt me. Not too badly, anyway. So it couldn’t really hurt anything to follow this AFF lead, whether it was legit or not. I’d just have to be on guard against anything that seemed fishy.

The fishiness, though, started as soon as I walked into the apartment.

After I walked in, the door closed and locked behind me. It seemed strange that “freedom fighters” would use such features of the very system they were trying to free themselves of, but no matter. I turned to see that there was no one behind me, shrugged, and continued walking in.

An ornate metal tray floated into the room, carrying a glass of iced tea and a pitcher. I started to say aloud that I hoped the tea wasn’t poisoned, then thought better of it. I was thirsty, anyway… I took the glass and drank the tea in two gulps. It was still a bit warm, which means it had just been made, or at least that whoever was behind this wanted me to get that impression.

I really wanted to sit down, but I figured that in such a formal-looking setting, it would be better to wait for a host or hostess to greet me. Besides, where would I sit? I didn’t see a chair anywhere, which was fitting, since I was still in the lobby of this impressive mansion.

It was only then that I realized that the room was full of artwork. The wall itself was painted with artistic patterns, and in unpainted areas there were framed paintings and pencil sketches on display. I was busy noticing the detail in one particular sketch when I heard the sound of someone clearing their throat. The voice was female.

I turned around and didn’t know whether to laugh or bolt for the door.

Descending the stairs was what appeared to be, based on her size, a young girl in her mid-to-late teens. Olive skinned, in a white tube top and matching white capri pants. But — but she was missing her head!

This shapely… headless female body?! was descending the stairs, and I couldn’t help but stare at something that wasn’t there, hoping that my eyes were playing tricks on me. Or something.

I was a few steps away from the door, so I wasn’t exactly right next to the stairs, but it was plain to see that the body’s (girl’s?) neck did not appear to have been chopped — her neck stump was rounded. Which means that either whatever process had removed her head happened a long time before this, or… or she was born without it?

*Game, Bryan,* I reminded myself. *You’re inside a game. Whatever is going on here, this isn’t real.* But it also occurred to me that if I did what Robin probably expected me to do — assume that this was just some mindless body that would happily get freaky with any other warm bodies that crossed its path — she could use that against me later. How she might do that, I didn’t have any idea, and I didn’t want to find out.

The girl was now at the bottom of the stairs, and I was now staring at her tube top, which was now stretched out quite a bit more than when she started down the stairs. Not only was the top itself stretched out more by breasts that had clearly grown a bit on the way down the stairs, but they also spilled out over the top of the tube, giving the impression that they might pop out at any moment.

As she began walking slowly towards me, making little side-to-side movements that resulted in much jiggling, I began backing up towards where I thought the door was. When I got there, it was actually open, though I know for a fact it had closed and locked itself behind me when I came in. I grabbed the doorknob, only for the door to yank itself out of my grasp and slam shut again! When I tried to open it a second time, the doorknob came off in my hand.

By this time the headless girl was still about halfway across the room. I still wanted to leave rather than participate in what might be a trap, but I had no idea how else to get out of there. So when the girl began beckoning to me, I didn’t see how I had any choice but to play along, at least for awhile. Not that I was given one, because when I didn’t immediately begin moving over towards her,  I was shoved roughly in her direction. I turned around to see that, again, there was no one there. And again, as soon as I was facing the girl, I was shoved her way again.

This time she began walking towards a side room, and I followed, hoping the unseen hands would not keep shoving me. When I entered the side room, the young lady was standing a few feet away, facing me. She motioned towards a couch along the far wall, then ducked into what had appeared to be a walk-in closet in the few seconds I’d been able to see inside it before the door closed behind her.

When she emerged from the closet, she had changed from capri pants to a pair of white shorts. And of course that drew my attention to what was now visible — her shapely legs. She walked a few steps towards me, then turned back towards the closet to pull the door closed. I wondered briefly why the door hadn’t closed on its own, like the outside door had done when I came in (and when I tried to leave). But when she made a show of closing the door, at one point bending at the waist as if inspecting the doorknob, it was obvious she — or someone – wanted me to check out her butt.

*Game, it’s a game,* the warning voice in my head said again, but I was barely paying attention. When she turned around, I had to stifle a grunt of disappointment — it was a nice booty — but of course I was treated to a view of her boobs still sheathed tightly in a tube top, jiggling slightly as  she made her way towards me. When she was in front of me, she leaned towards me a bit, no doubt confident of where my eyes would wander to as she drew nearer. I didn’t get a chance to gawk too long, though, because she actually turned around and sat in my lap, leaning into me as she began to let out what sounded very much like a contented purr. For half a second I wondered, *Is there actually enough of anything inside her throat to make that sound?* and then I remembered the throat-clearing earlier. A game, it’s a game.

I looked down at the well-endowed impossibility sitting in my lap and leaning back against me, noticing that her neck stump was so well rounded that there was no hint that there had ever been a head there. There was also no way she could breathe, at least not through conventional means. This was looking more and more like Robin had set a trap to gather ammunition against me should I ever get free from the game. It was possible that I was wrong, though I couldn’t see how. I could also see only one way, at that moment, to find out.

“Nice rack,” I said, more-or-less directly to it, since I was staring down at her boobs when I said it. “And nice butt, for that matter. Too bad there’s no way to know which side you’re on.”

She shrugged, which in my mind sealed it. She was on Robin’s side. A real AFF agent or proxy would have tried to reassure me in some way that they were on my side. Yet, again, this was Robin’s game, and I was stuck in it at the moment. I had to play along.

My hands had been around her waist almost from the moment she sat down but now I began to rub my fingers up and down her sides and around her navel. At the same time I began to nuzzle against the crook of her headless neck. She let out a contented moan and I had to wonder how was that getting out when she had no apparent breathing orifice?

A passing thought caught my attention — in stories by guys who get turned on by the idea of living headless women, the neck stump is portrayed as some kind of erogenous zone. This might have been just a game, but no doubt this headless girl was there in the first place because Robin knew that I had followed such stories and had even attempted to write one. I was pretty sure I’d never get another chance like this one, game or not, so…

I began to flick the tip of my tongue against the rounded end of her neck stump. At first contact her whole body tensed up so much I thought I had done something wrong, but then she went through the motions of sighing deeply, and the accompanying movement of her boobs of course grabbed my attention. I had to wonder how she was able to breathe, and audibly at that, when there was no visible breathing aperture — and when such opening, had it existed, would have been completely engulfed by my mouth?

I kept staring at those heaving boobs as their movement increased in time with her breathing, which itself had sped up as my tongue played with her neck stump. I wanted to get at them but I didn’t want either of us to have to shift our positions even an iota. I pulled away from her neck just long enough to whisper a quick, “If you want to you could take off your top,” before returning to the task at hand. I got a surprising response.

“Nn-nnn.”

Although I wanted her to comply, I actually felt a slight tinge of relief at her response. Sometimes it’s funny how the human mind works — as unreal as this situation was, a part of my mind had been crying out, Underage forbidden trap no get-out, practically since I first laid eyes on her.  I knew I was stick inside a game, and thus a headless woman was probably just a character in the game, but yet my eyes were telling me this was a situation I didn’t want to get into. With no facial, vocal, or verbal cues  all I had to go on to estimate who I was dealing with was, well, measurements, and the dimensions I had seen when she was at the top of the stairs suggested that she might have been underage. And of course it was the part that first noticed those dimensions that was relieved at her negative response to my request.

Only that part. The rest of me, including the little soldier who had been standing at attention practically since the girl first cleared her throat, was extremely disappointed. I was gonna say let down, but, well, let’s say that hadn’t quite been let down just yet.

I had to know why, though. It was plain to me that her whole purpose was to turn me on. It was equally plain that she herself had been turned on, or at least had been working hard to give that impression, ever since the little soldier had snapped to attention.

“Why?” I asked. She responded by reaching for the top of her tube top and attempting to roll the top downwards. She had moved the top edge down maybe a half-inch before I saw the problem — the seam that attached the tube top to her body. I was caught so off-guard that I flinched, pulling my mouth from her neck stump and causing her to start to raise herself from my lap.

She was not a woman, not even a headless one at that. She was — what was she? A balloon? A mannequin come to life? Some kind of doll? In retrospect I can remember the Unreal! warnings, but at that moment I was totally oblivious to them.

My arms were still wrapped around her, though, and provided just enough resistance as she tried to raise herself from my lap. “Wait a minute,” I said. She may have been some weird something-or-other but she was close enough to female that enough… parts of me didn’t want her to move. My rational mind scrambled for something to say.

“Are you…  like that all over?” I said. She motioned towards her crotch with both hands. See for yourself, more or less.

I undid the crotch button to her shorts and unzipped. She was wearing white  panties that were more there than a thong, but not nearly as much so as “granny” panties. Rather than simply pull them away from the skin, I tried to ease my fingers below the waistband and found the same result as with the tube top — a hidden seam that corresponded to the visible seam just below the panties’ waistline. Basically, the outwardly visible seam was the seam that held her panties to her body.

I heaved a sigh. I searched for words and wound up sighing again.

“OK,” I finally managed to say. “OK,” I repeated. “So… you’re not really a woman. What are you, a mannequin? Some kind of balloon? A doll? What?”

Obviously I wasn’t gonna get a concise answer to that, since there were too many options, and she wasn’t exactly able to verbalize an answer. At least I hadn’t expected a concise answer, so I was a bit surprised when she raised one hand, holding up three fingers.

Three? What does that mean? Three… third… wait, the third option — a doll?!

“You’re a doll?” I asked for confirmation.

She replied with a “mm-hmm” and a thumbs-up. Figures. Robin probably figured I’d get all hot and bothered only to find out I wouldn’t be doing any thumbs-upping. But I already knew that if I wanted to keep from agreeing to her plan out of desperation, I’d have to keep my wits about me  — however tempted I was to do otherwise…

MORE TO COME

“You’ll see when we get there,” she said with a giggle. “Stop worrying — you know I won’t let anything happen to you.”

He tried to sit back and relax, but the situation was just too weird. Nothing in his normal daily experience could have prepared him for this — he was in the driver’s seat of his van, but he wasn’t driving. His wrists were cuffed, and the cuffs were secured to the steering column. He couldn’t see the hands driving the car, or the ones massaging his shoulders. Or, for that matter, the owner of the feminine voice trying to get him to relax.

Whoever she is — whatever “she” is — she had taken up residence in his house. Had taken charge, in fact — she now decided what he wore, what and when he ate, everything; but she did it so amicably that he had little trouble following her directions.

Lately, though, she had been asserting herself a bit more forcefully, using restraints where she had previously used persuasion.

(some time later)

The van stopped at a rocky cliff. The door swung open as Jeff’s cuffs came undone, and he floated out, with unseen hands grasping his upper arms, wrists, and ankles.

“What are you about to do to me?” he asked nervously, as he floated just beyond the edge of the cliff.

“Don’t you trust me?” she asked, in a coy tone.

In a shaky voice he replied, “Until recently I only had to trust you not to poison my dinner, or clean out my bank accounts. This is different.”

“How is this different?” she said, genuinely baffled. “I’m not gonna do you any kind of harm, but I need to know you trust me.”

“Why do you have to scare me to death to see if I trust you?”

Day after day he sees the same thing, and longs for something different. A lost movie star, a camera crew from one of those “slife-of-life” TV shows, an explosion — anything.

One nondescript spring day, just after sunrise, he lazily looks up from his sci-fi novel to see a black car kicking up a cloud of dust and heading his way. He notices as it draws near that it’s a jet-black Buick Regal Grand National. He watches as it passes the station, wondering at its tinted — no, at its *black* windows. “Been ages since I’ve seen one of those,” he muses, before returning to his book.

A few moments later, Bud looks up to see the same car returning to the station from the other direction. *Must have seen that “Check Your Gauge” sign the boss put up,* he muses, and returns to his book yet again, figuring that the driver will pay at the pump with a debit card like just about everybody else.

A few moments later, he hears tapping at the window of his booth. He looks up from his book, and his mouth falls open in shock at what he sees. Or, that is, at what he *doesn’t* see.

In front of him, just outside his window, he sees assembled an assortment of accessories he would expect to see on or around a female face, but without the face. First is a floating baseball cap. Below the bill of the cap hovers a pair of Ray-Ban shades. A little further down is what appears to be floating lipstick. And just below the shades’ earpieces are two stud earrings, floating as if attached to something, but there is nothing there.

Then, while Bud continues to stare, a voice comes from the air, apparently from between the vicinity of the lipstick. A voice that sounds like it could be attached to a cute girl.

“Excuse me,” the voice says, “but pump number 5 won’t accept my card.”

Bud stares without registering that someone is speaking to him.

“Hello?” the voice says, as something unseen taps against the booth’s plexiglas windows.

“Huh? — Oh, I’m sorry,” Bud sputters, snapping out of it, or trying to.

“Pump number 5 won’t accept my card,” the voice repeats.

“Um, yeah, something’s wrong with the card reader,” he says. “How much gas do you want?”

“Fill it up, I guess,” the voice says.

“I’ll need the card,” Budsays. “When you finish pumping the gas, you’ll have to come back here and sign the charge slip, is all.”

The floating accessories turn to face the car, and as they recede he sees, below them, tube socks and white sneakers. Between the accessories and the footwear, a nicely-filled pair of white shorts. 

Bud watches in rapt attention as the hatch over the Regal’s gas cap swings open. The gas cap floats out and comes to rest on the trunk lid. The nozzle at pump number 5 floats from its hook, and inserts itself into the gas tank nozzle. Bud’s imagination, though, is racing to fill in the blanks, so much so that he forgets to release the pump so his unseen customer can pump her gas.

“Hey!” the voice calls out. “I’m not getting any gas here.”

“Sorry,” Bud calls out, and releases the pump. His attention wanders again, as he wonders what his unseen customer would look like, if he could actually see her.

The tank stops when the tab hits $20, and the nozzle removes itself from the Regal and returns to its hook on the gas pump. Then the gas cap returns to *its* rightful place, and the walking, talking accessories return to Bud’s booth.

Bud can’t believe what he sees, or doesn’t see. He knows he wanted something *different*, but this is just too different to believe. He decides to improvise a little, just to make sure he’s not dreaming the whole thing.

“Well?” the voice says. “Aren’t you gonna give me the charge slip to sign?”

Thinking quickly, Bud fibs, “Uh, there’s a problem with that drawer. You’ll have to come around to the door over here.”

Bud stares as the accessories move over toward the door on the side of his booth. He grabs a clipboard and a pen and swings the door open, staring down into the shorts as the entire assemblage approaches. Holding out the clipboard, he says, “Just sign by the X at the bottom,” letting out an unintended gasp when the clipboard floats out of his grasp. The pen does likewise, holding itself against the charge slip and signing the name “Charlotte Hill.”

“Charlotte,” Bud repeats, hoping for some reaction. “That’s a pretty name.”

There is no reaction. After signing the name, the pen and clipboard position themselves as if being handed back to him, so he nervously takes them and starts back into the booth.

“Hey!” the voice says. “What about my copy, and my card?!”

“Sorry,” Bud says sheepishly, holding the card and bottom copy of the charge slip out towards… empty space. Both are taken from his hand, upon which the charge copy wraps itself around the credit card and they slip themselves into a front pocket on the shorts.

The shorts and accessories walk a few steps away from the booth, stop, and turn back toward Bud. But now Bud is back in the booth, watching his unseen customer.

“Excuse me,” the voice says, “but do you have change for a dollar?”

“Uh-huh,” Bud replies, dropping four quarters onto the tray on the front of the cashier’s booth and sliding it outward.

“Thought you said that was broken?” the voice says, in a slightly accusatory tone.

Bud is quiet for what seems like ages, trying to come up with an excuse to cover his lie. Finally, he decides to just tell her the truth. “I’m sorry, miss,” he says, “but, um, we don’t get many, uh, invisible customers out this way. I guess I just wanted to see if my eyes were playing tricks on me.”

The unseen customer is silent for a few seconds. Bud hopes she’s only letting this all sink in and deciding what to say next. He begins to realize that since he can’t see her face, or any other part of her for that matter, she could be doing just about anything.

He imagines her turning around and walking over to his booth, where he’d meet her outside the door and she’d kiss him, poking her tongue into his mouth, and he’d stand there, wrapping his arms aroud this unseen woman and emptying his soul into her through a kiss.

Instead, the accessories went over to the soda machine, where the floating quarters deposited themselves into the vending machine. Seconds later, a Pepsi floated out of the machine and proceed to empty itself into… thin air. The clear plastic bottle was open, but the soda was disappearing.

Finally, the bottle launched itself into a recycling bin. Then the accessories and footwear drew near to the car. The Grand National’s driver door flew open but, before the unseen driver climbed in, her voice called out, “Excuse me, what time do you have?”

Bud checked the clock over his head. “Ten minutes to six,” he replied.

“Omigod! I only have ten minutes before –” The voice stopped as the accessories moved as if leaning into the car. When the unseen wearer straightened again, the cap and shades were missing, as a wad of black-and-white cloth tumbled about in the air above the white shorts. The cloth was pulled down over nothing, resolving itself into a tube top over ample breasts. Bud silently wondered why she didn’t do this closer to the booth, where he could have gotten a better look. 

The outfit then darted into the car, after which the engine started loudly, as Grand Nationals do, and with much spinning of tires it was off.

Bud watched as the Regal quickly became a black speck in a receding cloud of dust, wishing that he had somehow been able to work his way into that car, speeding down the road of life with an invisible woman at the wheel. Anything had to be better than the graveyard shift at a gas station at the edge of the desert.

In all Bud’s daydreaming and staring, he never notices until much later that, along with the charge slip, there’s a card. With a phone number, and a name. Charlotte Hill.

Comment reposted from my old blog:

Cor said…

Another strong little episode…

“…wishing that he had somehow been able to work his way into that car…”

Interesting premise for the beginning of a relationship with an FI (that info he notices on the charge card slip).

I wondered if this is the same gas station where “Full Service” is set…?

If there was any justice, this would be the opening scene of a movie.

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Bryan said…Yeah, I’d love to see something like that as the opening scene of a movie. But if it happened it would probably be a big letdown once the story proper actually begins.

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Bryan said…I should probably use the main comment box, since I’m posting this to Wordpress in 2009, but since the comment being replied to was not ported… Anyway, this could conceivably be the same station as the one in Full Service, but if they are the same, Bud’s story would take place earlier than Full Service.

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