“Hi, hon,” I answered, grabbing the open beer bottle from midair and taking a swig. “How was your day?”

“You know, same ol’ same ol’,” she answered as I plopped down on the couch. The TV remote floated to my hand and an unseen weight settled into my lap. I put my arms around her as she continued, “Hard to get any writing done when telemarketers are calling every fifteen minutes. I got tired of ignoring the phone so I went out and picked up some things we needed from the store. Oh, and the Con Ed guy came by to read the meter.”

“No problems?” I asked, visualizing the door swinging open by itself while Marla’s disembodied voice directed him to the meter. I knew it wouldn’t have happened that way, but I can dream…

“Why would there be?” she answered. But before she could say anything further, the doorbell rang.

“They couldn’t *wait* for me to get home, could they?” I groaned, putting the beer down on the coffee table. But before I could get up, she said, “No, you stay put. I’ll take care of it.” The closet door swung open by itself and a strikingly attractive brown-haired woman stepped out, dressed in a orange sleeveless top and tight jeans. The closet door closed behind her as she made her way to answer the front door.

*It’s good to have a sweetheart with connections,* I thought, looking at the shapely figure of the fembot rounding the corner on her way to the front door as I nuzzled Marla’s invisible neck. I heard the front door open, then my sweetheart whispered, “It’s Fred from across the street. He wants to know if he can borrow one of the garden hoses. His sprung a leak, he says.”

“Sure,” I said. “I told him he should have bought more than one.” As I saw the bot and Fred pass the side windows on their way to the garage, I couldn’t help but wonder how my neighbors would react if they knew that the “woman” they knew as my wife was actually a fembot being manipulated from outside by an invisible and usually intangible creature known as Marla. I couldn’t help but marvel at how she was able to manipulate the bot in totally natural-looking ways from afar, like she was doing right at that moment while she herself was temporarily solidified and occupying my lap.

“So, what do you wanna do tonight?” I whispered, assuming I was somewhere near her ear.

“Let’s go out tonight,” she said, sounding hopeful. “We haven’t really put the fembot to use since I, um, I mean, since *we* got it.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said. I would really have preferred to stay home, but she was right. We hadn’t really done much with the fembot except make a show for the neighbors that I had a visible, solid human wife. No dinners out or nights on the town, though I knew that Marla had wanted to go out and be seen, so to speak, ever since she had the fembot created and shipped to us.

As soon as I began shifting my weight to get up, Marla simply vacated my lap, not needing to physically get up. Her particular constitution didn’t require it. She just simply wasn’t in my lap anymore. So, I got up and made my way to the bathroom to shower and get myself ready. As I passed the bedroom, I saw the closet door open, and clothing moving around inside; Marla must have been getting clothes to dress the fembot in for our night out.

HOME

I felt the van begin moving, and then suddenly stop. The hands pinning my shoulders and holding onto my wrists let go, and my blindfold was removed. The back door swung open, and the leather gloves were floating there again, holding what appeared to be a wad of money. “Before you go, Kenneth -” the voice began, then stopped. “Excuse me, sir, I don’t believe we even got your proper name…”

“Bryan,” I corrected.

“Very well,” the voice said. “Bryan, I do believe you should be compensated for the mistaken identity.” Then the gloves began counting out hundred-dollar bills. After a few, they stopped, the voice saying, “Oh, what’s the point? Take it all.”

I gladly accepted the wad and counted. “But this is… ten thousand dollars,” I said.

“Not enough?” the hostess-voice asked. “I could always arrange -”

“No, this is fine,” I said. No need to get greedy, especially since I didn’t know what other “games” they’d have in mind while the other money was being arranged.

“Then I’ll let you be on your way,” the voice said. “And don’t worry about that blindfold. You won’t need it, since you can’t see anything outside the van anyway. In fact -” at this point an overhead light in the cargo compartment was switched on. “That might make your ride home a bit more interesting,” the voice said, sounding like the unseen speaker was smiling. The van door swung closed again, and the kissing resumed as the van pulled off. Invisible kisses rained all over my face and chest, and just like before, every few minutes a pair of invisible lips would engage mine, pushing an invisible tongue into my mouth.

The van came to a stop and again the doors swung open. All hands holding me let go, and the kissing stopped. It was dusk, and we appeared to be parked outside my job, right where I had been abducted hours earlier. I swung my legs out of the van and hopped out. The driver’s door of my own car swung open as I approached, and that’s when something rather crucial occurred to me.

“Um,” I started, not really knowing whether the drone(s) responsible for driving my car was/were even still there. Addressing my car and the van, I continued, “I can’t see any of you, so how do I know that when your van pulls off, you’ll really be gone?”

“You don’t,” was the whispered reply. I got an unseen peck on the lips, and a soft giggling voice retreated towards the van. The doors closed, and the van pulled off.

I just stood there, my car door hanging open, staring at the space the van had been parked in long after it had pulled off, letting those whispered words sink in. I won’t ever know if they’re tailing me, waiting for another opportunity to have their way with me?

HOME

“Yes, I’m sure you can,” said the voice in a conciliatory tone, “but as Kenneth is so fond of saying, ‘Every man has his price.’ Even if you wouldn’t choose to give out our location, someone could torture you or threaten a family member or something. We can’t take that chance.” The voice paused a moment, then continued, “Besides, from the report I received, you rather enjoyed your trip here. Is that correct?”

“Uhh… yes, ma’am, I did,” I said. “But -”

“It’s settled, then,” the voice said, cutting me off. “We will serve you a wonderful dinner, and then we will take you back where we first found you.”

The floating latex glove that had led me to the leathers now beckoned for me to follow it yet again. I did so, noting that the strong aroma of some kind of gravy grew stronger as I followed. After a few twists and turns, I came across what appeared to be another recreation room, though this one was more of a den than an exercise room. The glove motioned toward a chair that I figured Archie Bunker’s favorite must have looked like when it was brand new. I sat, opposite a huge fifty-inch television, which blinked on as soon as I hit the chair. The channels flew by, stopping at Jeopardy, which was just coming on.

After a moment or two, a handmade-looking wooden lap tray floated into the room, stopping a few inches away from where I sat. A cloth napkin rose from it, opening itself out, spreading itself out over my clothes, and tucking itself inside my shirt collar. The cover rose from the steaming hot serving dish to reveal… beef stroganoff, one of my favorites!

This was getting more and more freakish, even as the circumstances of my being here had cleared themselves up. My likes and those of this Kenneth person were so apparently similar that I began to wonder if maybe we were really the same person but from parallel universes and somehow I wound up in his (temporarily, I hoped), or something. Whatever the explanation, though, my favorite beef-and-noodle dish was smelling mighty good…

I reached for a fork, but as soon as I did so an unseen hand gently but firmly pushed my right arm back to my side… and held it there! Another hand, also unseen, then took hold of my left wrist and held that one still. The fork and other utensils then moved by themselves and began feeding me!

When the fork began to rise from the tray, I pulled gently against my unseen bonds, softly but feebly protesting against being catered to. Not because I didn’t like it, exactly, but more because I wasn’t used to it. As I tried to vocalize a protest, I felt a finger press against my lips, and a voice very softly shushing me. “Let us,” a voice breathed in my ear. So… I let ‘em.

The fork and knife fed me one of the few dishes that I could really and truly eat until I can’t move. When I finished the first serving, the tray floated out of the room as another took its place. When that one was done, I looked up hopefully, towards where the first tray had disappeared to. When the second tray floated away without a replacement, I said, “No more?”

“Enough,” came the whispered reply, as the hands released my arms. A finger hooked my shirt collar and led me to a washroom, where I washed my hands and face, and then I was beckoned again by the floating glove and led back to the first rec room. As soon as I entered the room, my feet broke contact with the floor beneath them as my body was shifted to a horizontal position. I didn’t feel any grips on me as I first left the ground, but as soon as I became horizontal, I felt soft hands caressing my chest once again. This time, they were caressing through my buttoned shirt, as though I weren’t wearing one. The same effect was applying fingertips to my ankles and the soles of my feet, though I was wearing pants, socks, and shoes.

I tried moving my leg, to shake off the unseen ticklers, only for hands with what felt like an iron grip to take firm hold of each ankle and each wrist. They weren’t causing any pain, but it was clear that their owners didn’t want me to interfere in the, uh, activities. Meanwhile, a lone fingertip was all it took to keep Mr. Johnson standing at attention. I kept expecting that particular movement to transform into a fondle or a squeeze, but all I got was a fingertip gently and S-L-O-W-L-Y stroking up and down, down and up, until it was plain that the feeling was too much, and I was about to go over the top, at which point the fingertip would withdraw for a while. Talk about your Postcards from the Edge…

Soft unseen lips planted invisible kisses all over my face. That was a fantasy I’d had practically since elementary school, and again, the idea that my captors were doing it because they initially thought I was someone else was mind-blowing. Of course, the kisses themselves, especially the ones sending a tongue to duel with mine, were mind-blowing enough on their own.

I’d closed my eyes as soon as the kissing started, but as soon as I realized I was being carried I opened my eyes to confirm. I was being carried, towards the front door of the house. I looked around for some sign of the woman… or voice, or whatever-she/it-was with the British accent that was in charge, but there was no sign.

As we approached the front door, it swung open, and I floated out and across the porch towards the van. The doors swung open, and I was placed gently on the floor, my arms and legs still securely held. I tried to sit up, but as soon as my shoulders broke contact with the van’s floor, I felt a couple of hands push me back down, pinning my shoulders. I lay there for what seemed like hours while the kisses continued, but eventually my captors stopped with the kissing as the van’s engine started. My head was raised, and the back door of the van was kept open just long enough for me to see my own car pulling into the driveway behind us with no one at the wheel. Then the van doors closed, and a blindfold was reapplied.

“I just want to say -,” I started, before a finger was placed against my lips and a voice softly shushed me. I only wanted to tell them that this was the oddest day I had ever experienced, odd because it was both scary and enjoyable, and both for the same reasons. But every time I tried to open my mouth, I’d feel a hand pressing against it. After a while I gave up and just lay there, taking in the sensations of these hands holding me down. Every so often I’d feel fingers drawing patterns on my chest, or on the soles of my feet. Remember, at this point I was fully dressed, but these fingers were manipulating my skin as if I were buck naked.

Page 7