“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?”

“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