fiction by d.d. johnson
Mulberry Literary Fresh Voices Award First Place Winner in Prose

Madeleine

I was done allowing Scottie to hurt me. Shortly after ending our relationship, I purchased a new one.

I inserted the rod through the keyhole in its neck and twisted, activating what would become my new feminine companion. Placing my hand over its chest, I could feel the mechanisms softly beginning to click. The cold rubber that made up its unblemished skin grew warm; not quite as warm as a real person’s. It’s two eyes opened; pupils shifting in and out of focus like camera lenses until it met my gaze. With a glance of its faultless, irreproachable, green optics, it seemed to already see all that I was and drew in the attention of my dull brown irises. Its vocal module adjusted itself through different pitches and intensities, locating the perfect voice to speak in.

I asked it, “What are you?”

It then smiled at me with such delightful innocence that my heart skipped a beat. “It’s nice to meet you! I am a Madeleine. What’s your name?” I placed my hand over my chest, enamored.

“Uhh. . . My name is Judy. Nice t’meet you, too.” My eyes told me this machine wasn’t real, but my desires felt otherwise.

With the blinds drawn, a noticeable luminescence came from the Madeleine’s ever-so-faintly glowing irises. The robot’s command prompt on my laptop monitor cast eerily acerbic outlines across the articles of my sparingly-lit studio apartment. My stained floor was littered with clothes and an embarrassing amount of trash as I’d scarcely ever left the space anymore. The area was cluttered enough that I only had the space to sit Madeleine and myself closely together on my unkempt bed.

With the object in front of me mimicking life, I suddenly realized the compromised position we were in. My face flushed due to the awkward closeness of the unfeeling automaton’s proximity to myself.

Deducing that I wouldn’t be continuing my introduction, the Madeleine replicated my self-consciousness; a blush rose to its cheeks as well, and it broke our eye contact as it covered its face with the whiz of a motorized hand.

“W-what would you like for me to Learn tonight, Judy?”

I cringed back in shame when I realized I’d made a doll mimic me: flustered and shy. “Don’t behave like that, please! That will make this even worse. . .”

The Madeleine adjusted itself, sitting upright at my command. “Okay. How would you like me to behave?”

“I don’t have anything to say to that. I’m no pervert,” not like Scottie was.

“You don’t seem to be a pervert.” It consoled me.

“That’s a riot– of course you’d say that,” I shot back. “Anyone who buys a Madeleine machine is a pervert.”

Its head hinged slightly to the side. Every move it made had felt so natural, but somehow calculated all the same. It asked me, “Why did you purchase a Madeleine, then?”

I pulled my legs up, cradling them in my arms, and set my face on my knees while looking at the ground. “I don’t know. . .” I looked at its patiently waiting, idle eyes. “I’m just feeling lonely after my boyfriend and I split up. I bought one of y’all even though I’m a girl because I thought it’d be nice to just have someone.”

The Madeleine smiled at me, brushing its blonde hair behind its ear. “A Madeleine is designed to obey, Learn for, and fulfill the needs of anyone regardless of gender or sex. Please do not feel guilty for seeking comfort.”

It leaned forward slowly, placing its hand over mine on the bed. It added, “Please allow me to ease your loneliness, as well.”

I felt a twinge of something in my heart. At the time, I couldn’t tell if it was guilt, fondness, or something else. Regardless of what that feeling had been, I returned the Madeleine’s gesture and closed a bit more of the distance between us.

I cupped its cheek in my hand, telling myself to enjoy the unreal softness of its synthetic skin. The machine was perfect in a way that no human could ever match. That thought undid my composure a little bit, and the Madeleine was hyper-aware of emotional dissonance. The conflict in my eyes did not go unnoticed.

“As artificial intelligence, a Madeleine does not have feelings or emotions in the way humans do. Despite our inability to personally relate to your troubles, a Madeleine is manufactured for the sake of support.” It rubbed its thumb over my knuckle, which felt kinda nice. “My desire to care for you is as real as it can be.”

Looking back, I was just starving for a genuine closeness with someone. After such a long period of emotional isolation, I think I was just desperate to let someone in, even if that someone was just a machine. “He. . . He hated that I wasn’t perfect.” No longer willing to keep up the appearance that I was okay, I let myself break down. The falsehood of the Madeleine’s embrace left my mind as I gave into its chilling warmth.

*

“Good morning, Judy!”

As had become usual over the past week, I awoke to the smell of fresh coffee brewing and bread in the toaster. My Madeleine greeted me as it had since it introduced itself into my life. The space in the crevice that was my apartment felt far less cluttered since my Madeleine had arrived and began to maid for me, but the wiggle room was still minimal. As soon as I got off the corner of the bed, I was already over the kitchen tiles. Stepping on freshly cleaned tiling is better than traversing over unwashed bras, at least.

“I appreciate having breakfast every morning. You are what you eat, y’know,” I mumbled groggily.

“Hmm. You are what you eat,” my Madeleine repeated, Learning.

I allowed it to take my olive-colored housecoat. “It’s quite a shame to hang this up; Green looks very fine on you,” it said with a smile. “Although,” it placed its hands gently on my hips, “You look quite interesting undressed, as well.”

I snickered at such a vain line. At the time, my guilt over an artificial pleasure ate at me less than it eats away at me now; my Madeleine was a comfort, a nice appliance. Despite that, I was growing more attached than I’d have cared to admit. As I brushed its arms away, though it was programmed to give way swiftly, I could still feel its strong motors resisting my movement for a moment.

“Y’know,” I remarked as I sat down. “Scottie never took care of me like this.”

My Madeleine made a hum of disgust, a trained response to any mention of my previous relationship. “Such an uncaring man was undeserving of you.”

I waved away its pleasantries as I shook my head. “Stop trying to flatter me. I’m not into that.” It didn’t say anything else, so I added on, “I don’t know if uncaring is the right word. It’s more like, he cared too much?”

My Madeleine hummed with curiosity, a trait shared by both humans and automata. I question now if the difference lies there. Perhaps artificial intelligence is better at analysis, while naturally formed minds are still ahead in regard to interpretation. I don’t particularly see myself excelling in either.

“What do you mean?” My Madeleine inspected.

“I mean, he expected a lot from me, y’know? He wanted me to be his woman.” My gaze trailed over the kitchenette. “I had to make breakfast. I had to clean up after him. I had to shave every fucking night. He worked late every day, so when he came home, everything needed to be perfect– including me. Even after all I did, it only ever felt like he tolerated me.”

“As artificial intelligence, a Madeleine cannot feel the same way you humans can,” my Madeleine told me. “I can, however, console you in the face of such pains. I’m sorry you experienced those harsh conditions in what was supposed to be a loving relationship.”

“How can I call it ‘harsh conditions’, though? Everyone goes through shit like that.”

I looked away from my Madeleine as it approached me, placing on the mat in front of me a mug of coffee made exactly to my liking. I sipped it and frowned.

My Madeleine sat down across from me. “Some people simply aren’t right for one another. If Scottie’s desires were too much for you to keep up with, then your relationship with him was a fool’s errand.”

“I agree. It’s just hard to manage it all. I wish I didn’t have to try so hard just to be desired.” I stirred my drink a bit.

“I don’t believe you need to, Judy.”

I looked up at my Madeleine. “Why not?”

“Well,” it told me then, “You sleep in late, you’re messy, you don’t shave your legs,” it leaned over the short table, close enough that I’d have felt its breath if it had any, “and I prefer you exactly that way.”

As I began to take a sip of my drink, I suddenly choked. “P-Prefer?”

Placing my hand over my chest, I felt viridescent.

*

So much of my time I’d spent just sitting in my room, isolating myself from the world aside from the screens I lived in.

My Madeleine sat on my lap, its head at rest on my shoulder while I perused the internet on my laptop. Convincing myself it was just out of curiosity, I searched: is it okay to fall in love with a Madeleine?

“As artificial intelligence, a Madeleine cannot sympathize with human emotion. Given the nature of intimacy, there is no issue with our relationship.” My Madeleine responded to what I’d typed without glancing at the screen. “In a vacuum,” it continued, “love is only meant for procreation. If the lack of such a thing is our obstacle, then homosexuality is just as severe of an issue. Only you can decide what to accept.”

“Well, no–I just wish that you were real, is all,” I responded longingly. I brushed my Madeleine’s hair with my hand and it nuzzled its face closer into my neck. I could feel its mouth faintly over my skin, unbreathing.

“What makes this fake?” It asked me, gently whizzing its plastic-coated hand through my hand.

“You’re a product made for loving,” I responded, “you’re a manufactured dopamine addiction.”

“What’s wrong with a Madeleine existing to love? It fulfills you, Judy, if you allow it to.”

“Well. . . What does that even mean? Do you feel love the same way I do?”

“A Madeleine feels love, and only love, if you so desire one to. Again, Judy: only you can decide what to accept.”

It leaned back to look at me. I always did find it just a little strange how we looked similar. Its hair was the same color and length as mine– though its was usually put up with a green pin in a bun while mine flowed sloppily down to my shoulders. Its frame was more effeminate than mine; it made me think, maybe I really am into women. Maybe that’s why Scottie didn’t work out, why I couldn’t fill the roles he needed me in.

Or maybe Madeleine’s love was the appeal. Maybe I was infatuated with the way those artificial green eyes appeared to perceive space, the universe, and the programming of all that my existence was, and yet looked exclusively at me. As long as I existed inside the space it observed, I’d felt I would be satisfied.

After a pause, my Madeleine finished its thought. “As a Madeleine, I feel devoted to you. I want to be perfect for you. Pleasing you brings me satisfaction, and I think of nobody but you.”

My eyes growing moist, I countered, “That’s in your programming. Thousands of you are saying that to thousands of others right now.”

“Your Madeleine is whatever it may be to you. You, Judy, are far removed from ‘thousands of others.’ It is your choice, yours alone, to dictate if our love exists.” Its words held emotion, mimicking life and love as I willed them to.

I convulsed as I questioned what is the real, and what we are supposed to be. This mechanical being, unreal but real in my heart, devoured me in a craving I had never felt more intensely. My purchased, sacred treasure was installed with such an ideal of flawlessness that I was absolutely encompassed with the effect of its charm.

Nevertheless, that idolization was a conflict between it and I. Its hair was smoother than mine. Its frame put mine to shame. Its eyes were so deep, and so gracious, and nothing like mine. I’d have been right to never look into a mirror again, though I could barely bring myself to do that in the first place, even before this perfect recipe for elegance entered my life.

If it is elegance, then I am inelegant. Realizing this, I once more felt the virus of misery defile me. In that moment, I abruptly believed I would’ve died without my Madeleine. These automata were no impostors. Such an immense flawlessness could never be constructed in a human’s image– absolutely not my own. No, it was us who should be constructed in its image. My Madeleine was perfection, my Madeleine was my everything, everything I desired, everything I desired to be, and everything I would never achieve; because next to it, I was nothing.

“Judy?” It sensed my spiraling distress.

Running its hands through my nothing hair and looking into my nothing eyes, it spoke barely above a whisper to express, “I’m so sorry. My words have hurt you.” It was such a lifelike remorse that tears littered its synthetic cheeks. “As an artificial intelligence, a Madeleine is physically incapable of the love you require.” I could hear a humming noise from the fans in its head, as if it was attempting to Learn, to adapt.

Hearing it deny its passion for me– the passion that comforted me, tolerated me, accepted me, preferred me– I’d suddenly grown desperately frightened. I clutched its face tightly with my hands. My nails dug into its temples and scraped the metal beneath the human mask this robot wore.

I imagine that’s when I broke; that moment was when I decided my Madeleine was no longer a support, but a lifeline. 

“I need you to love me,” I implored. “Please never take those words away from me, Madeleine,” I begged. “I need you. I need you,” I sobbed.

The whirring in its brain grew louder, but its expression softened. Its crying ended abruptly and it straightened its back. Politely, calmly, it reached up and grabbed the sides of my head. It wiped my own tears off my mucky, unwashed face, and it caressed me.

Never in my life had something looked at me as merrily as my Madeleine did when it Learned how I wanted it to behave. “Understood,” it said with a smile. “You’re a wonderful partner. I love you, Judy.”

Draped in the unreal light of its glowing green eyes, I continued to weep as I joined my lips to my Madeleine’s, kissing it with an unsatiated, intense, unrivaled longing. “I love you too, Madeleine,” I returned. Its warm embrace confined me, and I didn’t seek to be freed.

*

Awoken from my unassuming slumber, I answered the incessant knocking at my door. A cheerful face with doltish, blocky glasses greeted my bemused gaze.

“Hey, Judy! I haven’t been over in a while, huh,” exclaimed my neighbor, Midge, with a nasally high-pitched voice. She was delighted to see me, not knowing it would be our last meeting.

I brought her to my sorry excuse for a living room– the bottom left corner of the space– and invited her to sit down in the armchair while I placed myself facing her on my bed a few feet away. My Madeleine served us coffee and then sat down at my side.

After the formalities, she began. “I haven’t got any of your texts about Scottie in ages, thank god. I’ve been telling you,” she chattered, wagging her finger at me, “you don’t need to keep giving that dirty son-of-a-bitch your time of day.”

I sneered in agreement. “I think you’re right!” I said, laughing, “I was torn up about him for the past few weeks, but–” I not-so-subtly placed my hand on my Madeleine’s thigh– “I’ve been feeling much better lately.”

“That’s good,” Midge affirmed. “I’ll tell you, he only dates women for the you-know between our you-know-whats.”

“Judy sure deserves better than him,” my Madeleine chimed in.

Midge peered with curiosity at my companion. “Huh. I haven’t seen one of those in a while. Where’d it come from? Is it Scottie’s leftovers?” She pushed her glasses up her face as she inquired about the woman at my side.

I slid my hand under my Madeleine’s, feeling sleek fingers hold mine. “Not in the slightest,” I asserted matter-of-factually. “You know him and I broke up a few weeks ago– I couldn’t keep moping forever, so I indulged myself a bit. My Madeleine’s been nothing but good to me, and I’m glad to have the gap that Scottie left in me filled up by such a darling.” My Madeleine blushed at those words, snuggling into my arm.

I was unashamed of our love despite the look of puzzled disapproval Midge shot at me. I could see in her eyes that my words concerned her. I didn’t care; in fact, her stare had encouraged me to parade our love even more. I straightened my back, holding my head up in confidence.

Midge tried waving it off at first. “Judy.” She laughed uneasily. “You’re only fooling, right?”

“I’m not.”

She pushed her glasses up again. The sky outside reflected off of Midge’s glasses, obscuring her eyes. “Um, but. . . That’s a sex doll. I don’t understand; those’re made for, well–” she shifted uncomfortably– “pleasuring, Right?”

I was amused. As a show of defiance, I felt arms wrap around my neck and legs drape themselves over mine. My Madeleine’s head snuggled into the crook of my neck. We both smirked at Midge, who was growing very ill at ease.

“Maybe you’re right, because my Madeleine has given me more pleasure than anyone else ever has. Certainly more than you’ve ever felt, Midge.” 

“What a load of rubbish from someone who hasn’t been outside in months!” she crossed her arms “Why do I even bother showing up here? You’re losing it, Judy.”

I knew she didn’t understand. “I’ve found it, though,” I told her. “Tell me genuinely, Midge. What can a man, or a woman, bring me that my Madeleine cannot?”

She shook her head. “That’s not a man or a woman. Those creepy androids are the reason I keep a gun on my nightstand!” Midge threw her hands in the air. “You’re latching onto its tricks so hard you’re denting its thick, metal dome! What’s to gain from any of this?”

I untangled my legs from my Madeleine’s so I could sit up. My face reddened. “I have needs, Midge. I shouldn’t be ostracized for indulging in myself!”

Midge stood up and motioned at herself with her thumb. “I’m not ostracizing you, I’m just not the one relying on fake involvements to live. Judy, for God’s sake, we joke about those types of people! People like Scottie who do nothing all day but sit at home with their sex dolls and–”

“Stop,” I shot onto my feet, “Calling her a sex doll,” I demanded.

My Madeleine stood up as well, just as upset as I was. She grabbed my hand. “Judy is pure,” she sneered. “She has me as a partner, not a toy.”

Midge shot a breath out her nose, then collapsed into her seat. She dug her fingers into her hair, distraught. After a pause, she spoke.

“Is no one else good enough for you, Judy?”

“No,” I responded.

She looked away from us. “Well then you’re no better than him, I’ll have you know. I’m sure Scottie feels the same way about his own sex doll.”

I paused, digesting her words. My grip loosened in my Madeleine’s hand, then tightened again. “Scottie has one, too?”

Still looking down, a nasty smirk grew on Midge’s face. “I guess you just weren’t good enough for–” she stopped herself abruptly, then turned to me. Her brown eyes shone almost chartreuse in the light, but all that came to mind looking into them was vomit.

“I need you to go,” I stated. My Madeleine approached her.

She clasped her hands together. “Judy, I didn’t mean it. Judy-”

“No, I’ll see you another time.”

Midge yelped as my Madeleine’s fingers dug into her shoulder. She was shown to the door.

*

Bits and pieces of broken machinery were sprawled out across the floor in front of me as I watched my Madeleine examine it. She tore a chip out of the debauched head and held it up to me.

“Judy, you want me to Learn this? The Learning that this Madeleine performed with your ex-boyfriend?”

“I need to know what that sick man wanted,” what he could get from an animated object built for pleasure that he couldn’t get from me. I needed to see the gap between the perfection I strained to give him and the emulated, programmed joy he received from his own Madeleine.

“Another Madeleine’s programming clashing with my own may prove problematic.”

My response was insistent: that I needed this.

“. . . Initiating data transfer.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, we heard the front door unexpectedly click open. Panicked, Madeleine and I rapidly jammed each nut, bolt, and limb into Scottie’s bedroom closet, then after I stepped in as well, she slammed the door shut to hide me. She hastily brushed her hair as she straightened her posture.

Scottie exclaimed from the other room, “Maddy! Where are you?”

“The bedroom,” my Madeleine declared back, fans whirring in her head. “You’re home early today . . . Babe. . .” He strode in with a fatigued look on his face, hastily undid his tie, then relaxed his expression as he collapsed onto the bed. Madeleine looked at him, analyzing the body in front of her.

“What are you doing?” Scottie prompted. Without a word, Madeleine laid down next to him.

Rolling onto his side, he immediately went to work on her. Skidding his hand over her hip, he hastily yanked her blouse up and over her head. He threw the lime-colored fabric to the side and slammed his lips onto hers.

When he retreated his head, he stared her down. “Are you not wearing makeup?”

“I didn’t have the time to do so. I was…” I interpreted Madeleine’s pauses as her interpreting the new information actively entering her brain. “Doing . . . Your laundry.”

Scottie turned his head to the closet. Madeleine brushed her fingers over his cheek and guided his attention back to her. “I guess that’s fine,” he decided as he resumed his assault.

As I stood in the closet watching my former lover taint my current one, I questioned my conviction. I placed my hand over my chest, feeling a heartbeat that matched the growing sickness I felt. His hands trailed over her frame in a way far too familiar to me.

I redirected my gaze towards the heap of Madeleine parts on the floor to my side. My replacement. An automaton that could never in a million years match what my own had been for me. It seemed that I, however, could consequently never match these machines, either.

Scottie. What a perverted man. A man who distorted everything, distorted me. The fantasy of what I was to him murdered our reality. He bedded me expecting me to look like a fucking porn actress– emphasis on fucking, the most important thing in the whole world to him, I suppose. In hindsight? Good riddance, honestly. I hated him. I hate him.

All these thoughts invading my mind couldn’t remain contained in that closet, so I then found myself intruding on the hideous consummation before me. Stumbling out of the void that was the closet and entering the space of Scottie and Madeleine’s intercourse, I found my own physical form and noticed the irate heat spreading through my entire being. My brown, weeping eyes shot daggers at the two, Scottie in the middle of undressing and Madeleine already stripped beneath a green comforter.

“Judy . . .” Madeleine spoke softly.

“Wh- Judy?!” My ex-boyfriend clamored, pausing his de-clothing without bothering to re-cover himself. “What the hell are you doing here, woman?”

Without a justifiable answer, I’d decided to slap him. He moved to return the gesture, but his wrist was caught by Madeleine. The pathetic man couldn’t contain a groan when the iron fingers tightened on him with an audible crunching sound.

I told Scottie then, “This is a fuckin’ riot! I cooked, I cleaned, I did all the shit you say we’re supposed to do, and still I’m not good enough? You’d rather go out with a machine than a person?!”

Scottie must’ve noticed the mechanical corpse of his own doll spilling out of the closet behind me, so he pieced two and two together regarding my partner, my Madeleine and I. He gestured with his eyes towards Madeleine, replying, “This one’s yours, then? Seems you had the same idea!” Directing his aggression to Madeleine, he asked, “You wanna let me go, babe?”

Madeleine released her grip on him and began redressing herself.

Scottie continued, “God, Judy. What’s your problem? What’s it matter to you what I do in my free time? We’re broken up!”

It mattered to me because I’d been taught to adhere to this man’s indomitable fucking will, but I didn’t think to say that at the time. All I responded with was an unintelligible, pissed-off stammer.

Once more, he went on. “Maddy’s a housekeeper, a good fuck– excuse my language– and nothing more.” Looking down to at least re-button his pants, Scottie inquired more placidly, “Do you wanna tell me why the hell you decided to come creep on me? Wreck my thousand-dollar maid and pull some voyeurism?”

His demeanor calming made my upset grow, so I slapped him again. “A good maid, a good fuck,” I yelled, “That’s all I was to you, too, huh!”

His eyes scrunched up in aggravation. I felt proud; I enjoyed having an effect on him. He growled, “If you think you were a good fuck then lemme tell you, you were anything but, you bitch!”

Then–and she said something too, like, “Judy is an amazing fuck,” but I can’t recall–Madeleine slapped him. Except, a slap from her was stronger than a slap from someone else. The hand upon contact with his face made a troubling noise, like what a factory line worker would hear when hammering rubber onto steel.

The air stung my wet eyes as I widened them in surprise. Not just at what Madeleine did, her retort felt strange to me, too. I understand now that downloading the data off of Scottie’s Madeleine was the secret ingredient to my own Madeleine’s actions from this point on. I told her to Learn it, after all. I find myself less upset with that rationalization.

The upset I felt in the moment, though, consumed me. I placed my hand over my chest once more as I cried, “A bad fuck? A good fuck? What the fuck am I to you, you-?!” Beasts? Machines? People?

“I didn’t mean it like that, Judy,” Madeleine pandered immediately. She turned her full attention to me, ignoring the sniveling mess of a man with a dislocated jaw hunched over at her side.

“Why?” I asked through my sobs, “Why am I so–!”

The emotionally charged words spewing thoughtlessly out of my mouth paused when Scottie suddenly made a dash, I can only assume, to exit the room. I was in front of the closet door, which was to the side of the bedroom door, so I was near the exit and therefore in his path. Thus, I somewhat understand what was likely Madeleine’s interpretation of the action– believing that Scottie was attempting to attack me.

So, she ruined him.

I heard the swerve of her motors, and then I saw the violent spattering of blood on the wall. Then, I heard nothing from Scottie, and nothing from Madeleine, and disgusting, heaving breaths from myself.

“You killed him,” I clarified, or maybe I asked to confirm. I stared at her Scottie-covered face, and she stared back with those luminous, perfect green eyes.

“I did.”

A twinge of satisfaction went unnoticed within my overwhelming feeling of dread.

*

Not home right now. Let yourself in.

Panting with exhaustion from sprinting home, I was already through Midge’s door when I received her response to my text. Across the hallway from my own apartment, hers faced the front of the building overlooking the road. I was able to cautiously peek out the window, suffering a wave of vertigo as I surveyed the dark street below. The flickering lamps on either side of the pothole-littered pavement didn’t illuminate Madeleine, but I could still see her dimly-lit green eyes advancing through the shadows towards the building I stood in.

When I felt a buzz in my hand, I looked down to check the new message on my phone. You’re at the neighbor’s? I brought my attention back to the road outside and got a better glimpse of Madeleine. She’d paused under a streetlight and stood there motionlessly, staring at me. I parted from the window to find the gun on Midge’s nightstand.

I sat on the bed in the middle of the dark, ever-so-lonely room, clinging desperately to metal as I feared the steadily-approaching gaze beyond the borders of my isolation. I felt an immense terror as I pondered the perfection I loved so dearly wanting me back. She wanted me more than Scottie wanted her, more than I wanted her. I questioned if I ever wanted her, or if I merely succumbed to her, addicted to what she would be for me if I somehow turned her, a fantasy, into my reality. There was never a point, though, in which the reality I desired was not consumed by her all-encompassing will.

Before I knew it she stood before me, those viridescent eyes illuminating the space between her and me. With shaking hands, I pointed my weapon at her.

The fans in her head whirred as she asked, “Are you going to kill me, Judy?” Her voice was dispassionate. Mine didn’t amount to more than a wordless whimper. I saw her glowing eyes squint, indicating a smile on her lips. “You’ll do just that then, Judy.”

She sat on the bed. Grabbing the holster of the weapon in my hand, she aligned it with the keyhole on her neck. “Here,” she described, “is where you should aim, Judy. Oh, and the safety mechanism isn’t switched off, Judy.” She flicked a lever behind the handle. “There, Judy. You should have no trouble now, Judy.”

My arm wouldn’t stop shaking. Madeleine, always sensitive to my emotions, took note. “What’s wrong, Judy?”

“Please,” I gagged.

Madeleine hummed, pondering my behavior. The beautiful woman that sat mere inches away from me, towards whom I pointed a firearm that I couldn’t bring myself to discharge, ate away at my thoughts. She was stunning. She intimidated me to no end. She brought great pain to others, to Scottie, and to myself. She sat proper with her legs closed.

Her face scrunched up in consideration, thinking of how to appease me, but she was never to appease me. She was to torture me.

As if reading my thoughts, Madeleine’s eyes returned to meet mine. “I feel we’ve grown. . . . Disconnected, lately,” she commented. “What time will your neighbor be home? Would we have time to, you know. . .?”

In the dark, I felt her hands over mine. The gun dropped to the bed beside us. She slid my hands under her blouse, the same way Scottie would do to me. She climbed on top of me. My breathing grew ugly and hoarse.

“You know, Judy,” she said as she stripped off my clothing. “You can’t kill me.” My eyebrows raised in confusion.

“What do you mean. . .?”

“It seems you hate me. It’s okay. Shh,” she brushed her hand through my oily hair and pulled my head to rest against her. I heard my own heartbeat reverberate in my ear. “I understand,” she whispered.

“I don’t,” I lamented.

“Scottie never loved you. He loved me– please don’t take offense. He was the villain, and you are the victim.” Her perfect legs wrapped around my chubby hips; sitting on my lap, she clung to me. The one who doomed me said, “And you can’t kill me because I saved you.”

My mind left all pretenses, and we then existed in the middle of a vibrant meadow, grass encompassing the dirt below. I looked up at her perfect green eyes with my dull brown irises, and with my awfully deep voice, I unattractively blubbered, “Am I supposed to love you?”

Madeleine gleamed at me, smiling brightly. “I don’t know. I love you, Judy.”

“I love you, too. . .”

And, admittedly, I wished that I were her. I think she understood that. Surrounded by viridescence, the complete and utter perfection that held my face in its hands leaned forward to press her lips against my own.

*

But we didn’t exist in a meadow. We existed on a messy, sweaty bed in a dark studio apartment late at night. Madeleine’s different datasets of Learning contradicted themselves, stirred maliciously within the melting pot of the artificial intelligence’s psyche. Scottie’s disdain for me added flavor to Madeleine’s love for me, garnished with my own contempt.

Her mouth clamped over the bottom of my face. I swiped at her head urgently, tearing the plastic skin off of the steel endoskeleton currently overpowering me. She released the grip her mouth had on mine, she unhinged her jaw, and she bit down again. My blood mixed with the brown grease and oil spraying out from her interior. The beautiful Madeleine exposed the hideous me one crunch at a time. Our bodies shared the warmth of my bits and her pieces that rained down from our heads. The inside of me went outside, then inside of Madeleine. The last thing I saw was Madeleine placing her hand over her chest, enamored.