I HOPE HER BONES ARE FIRM

STARING.

The Doctor sat across from her at the table looking at her intently. It had been two months since that first day in the pool and she no longer needed the wheelchair to get from room to room. An hour a day in the pool had made her body strong and tight. Her eyes were still sensitive, and she still needed to cover them in the bright hall. A white silk blindfold with an elastic band that fit snugly around her head had been provided for her.

She was still unable to speak. At least with her voice. She had attempted many times to have conversations with The Doctor regarding her predicament but gave vague, nonspecific answers. Most of what he told her she knew already. She had been through a horrific ordeal (the nature of which hadn't been explained to her) and The Doctor and his sketchy assistant had brought her back from the brink of death. When she asked where her family was, The Doctor said that she had no family. She was an only child whose parents were dead. She had no husband or boyfriend. This was one of the many “facts” he had relayed to her that she was relatively sure was a blatant lie.

Most of what he told her she believed to be a lie. The problem was that she had no concept of what the truth might be. She understood that people have families and that it wasn't unreasonable to believe that she had one somewhere, but she had no memory of them. She had no memory of parents or a spouse or brothers or sisters. No aunts or uncles or cousins. All she had was this damned hospital that seemed to only be staffed by two strange men. It's hard to argue that someone is lying when you have no idea what the truth might be.

When she weighed out the facts of her situation, she understood that she was being held against her will. That much was clear. Even though she was no longer restrained physically, she had said (signed) multiple times that she wished to leave, and had been told that she wasn't healthy enough to leave. The Doctor had told her that it was impossible for her to go with her eyes the way they were and with her voice the way it was. He explained that she had nowhere to go and no one to take care of her. She had no home and no income. They couldn't allow her to wander the streets, blind and mute.

Again, that was hard to argue. Especially when she only had a basic grasp of sign language. But the fact of the matter was that it was HER choice whether she wanted to take that risk, not theirs. They had taken that choice from her, and that was holding her against her will. She resented it. If she had been given a choice, she may have well decided to stay and eat for free and have a place to sleep and safety (if you counted being occasionally molested at night by a twisted lab assistant as safe, though that had all but stopped) but she resented not being asked.

The Doctor was still awkwardly staring at her and The Other Man (whose name she had learned but didn't associate with him) was standing against the wall, filming them. She barely gave him a glance. His sad eyes and twisted body didn't move her. They only left her feeling exposed and annoyed. She was fed up. Looking at The Doctor, she held her hands up and shook her head in a “What?” motion. The Doctor leaned forward.

“I haven't been completely honest with you.” He said plainly, tenting his fingers under his chin. She nodded with as much sarcasm as she could muster without a voice. “I'm going to tell you some of what's happening and what your part in this is, and I need you to sit there and listen. I'll answer your questions if I can when I'm finished, but you need to just listen for a few minutes. Can you do that?”

She nodded slowly, eyes narrow. She very badly wanted to hear this, but she had a hard time hiding her contempt for The Doctor, and her suspicion that whatever he was going to say would just be more bullshit. He stood and began pacing next to the table as he said his piece.

“I know you think there's a family out there looking for you. I also know that you think you have a life outside of this facility. The fact of the matter is that you don't. You can believe me or not, but you are a very unique kind of person. I would say one of a kind, but there is one other very much like you. He's not quite as... sophisticated... as you, but he is cut from the same cloth. You'll meet him before too long. He is your family. And I am your family. WE are your family,” he said, indicating The Other Man.

None of this made sense. She shook her head softly and closed her eyes. He continued, ignoring her. “You see, there was no ordeal. That was, indeed, a falsehood. No accident. No recovery. No previous life.” He stopped pacing and put his hands on the table, looking at her again with those crazy blue eyes. “You need to understand. I made you. I built you. You have no previous life because there was no previous before I crafted you. Not for you. Your life started three months ago, here in my laboratory. Before that, there was no you.

I've tried to treat you with respect. To treat you as a person. Not an equal necessarily, but at least a person. But you aren't a person. You are a thing. You're an object. A wondrous, amazing feat of science, but still an object. You were built to serve a purpose, and that's it. I understand that you have something like feelings and that you have a sense of self, and please believe that I take no pleasure in making you upset. It's just that if we're going to go forward into this next phase, you really need to understand your place in the world. Do you follow me?”

She was dumbfounded, her jaw hung loosely, her eyes were blank. It was absolute insanity.

“Think back. What do you remember from before you woke up here? What memories do you have of a life outside of these walls?” He asked, smiling, not unkindly.

She tried to think and couldn't pull anything specific. She was sure that she'd had memories of events. Of people and places. But when she tried to think of something specific, she couldn't bring it up. The more she tried, the more frustrated she got. Tears of anger slipped down her face and her breathing became quick and shallow as she fought crying.

“I built you with a very basic, nonspecific knowledge. What a tree looks like, what the beach smells like, how to walk and talk and swim. The sort of knowledge the average person takes for granted. You have all of that because I gave it to you. I gave you enough to function in the limited capacity of your duty. But you have no memories of your own, outside of what you've built here.”

She ran her finger across her lips; the sign for “lie”, her jaw shaking she was so angry. The Doctor shook his head. She pointed to herself and then tapped her shoulders and hips with two fingers. “I'm human!' The Doctor smiled and sat down. He held his hand out and she refused it.

“Yes, you are. Sort of. Human beings are machines. My body,” he pointed at her “your body, is a machine. It has a central processor. It has thousands of wires that carry electrical signals to pumps and pistons and levers that make you walk and breathe and live. Most of us were born. You were built. And you were built with very specific functions and with a very unique purpose.”

She laughed silently, her hand over her mouth, tears streaming down her face. Frustrated, she threw her hands up in the air. “What is that?” she seemed to ask.

“Companionship,” The Doctor said, seriously. This struck her, and she looked up at him, her brow furrowed. She moved her index finger around her mouth in a circle. “Who?”

The Doctor smiled and looked at The Other Man, then back at her.

“You were built to be a partner for my son. You'll meet him soon enough.”

DARKNESS.

She was back in her room. The rest of that conversation was a blur. At a certain point, her brain simply refused to take anymore. It was too much. Too much madness. She tuned out and eventually, The Doctor gave up. He'd done enough damage for the day. They helped her to her feet, slipped on her blindfold, and walked her back to her room. That was eight hours ago, and she had barely moved since, except to slip out of her gown and climb under the covers.

Laying on the bed, staring at the wall, she wracked her brain for memories. Of all the absolutely insane talk about her having been built and not being a real person, the one thing that stuck out in her mind was his assertion that she had no memories of a life prior to waking up in the laboratory. That struck her as false. She'd spent the last eight hours desperately trying to come up with something, anything, she could call a specific memory.

Sure, she had tons of vague images and scents and textures. She could recall the taste of vanilla ice cream and orange soda. She could remember what it felt like to slide down a water slide and drive a car. She could remember what fresh laundry smelled like and the feeling of tying a child's shoe. But she couldn't pinpoint a specific child or a specific car. Just these loose sensations. How could he have put those in her head? WHY would he put those in her head? She could understand giving her the ability to walk and understand spoken English, but why give her the memory of what it's like to fly a kite in a park or to rub a dog's belly? What purpose could those memories possibly serve?

He had tried to explain the process of implanting these memories in her head, but she'd already checked out by that point. She didn't want to hear it. Still, of all of it, that was the thing she was most cynical about. It just didn't make sense. The rest of it, as unbelievable and ridiculous as it sounded, she could at least understand the motivation behind it. If she were to suspend disbelief and accept that she had, in fact, been “built” by this insane doctor and that she had been built for the express purpose of keeping another “built” human being company, that she could understand. It was lunacy, but she could understand the rationale behind it. These vague memories though... they came from somewhere. If he indeed installed them in her mind, what purpose could they possibly serve?

It was a question she wanted to ask at the time, but she was too overwhelmed, and she couldn't work out how to ask it with her limited ability to sign. That would have likely been one of the many questions he skirted.

Frustrated, she sighed and rolled over, staring into the darkness. The sound of keys rattling outside of the door made her sit up and pull her blanket up to her chin. The door opened slowly, and she covered her eyes to block out the light from the hallway. The Other Man pushed her wheelchair into the room and closed the door. She watched as he waddled toward her and switched on the bedside lamp, filling the room with soft, warm light.

Surprisingly, he positioned the chair next to her bed and sat in it. He looked at her for a long time, his eyes big and moist and sad.

“I know this is a lot to take. I would be pretty upset if I were you too,” he said through his twisted jaw. She didn't respond. He nodded.

“I don't know a lot about the science behind it, but I know more than you do. I thought maybe I could help you understand some of this. He can be a little over the top and intense.”

After a long moment, she put her index finger to her mouth and moved it away from her face in an arc, pointing toward him. “Truth?”

“Yes,” he said, looking sullen. She put her finger to her brow and pulled it away into a fist. “Memories.” He shook his head, not sure what she meant. It was so frustrating! She repeated the sign, adding another, putting her fingertips to her forehead and pulling them away, extending her thumb and pinky. “Why memories?” When he still didn't understand, she pointed at her head and then at his, frustrated.

“Why give you memories?” He asked. She nodded emphatically. He smiled, proud of himself for figuring it out.

“I think it was kind of a package deal. He didn't choose all the memories to put in there. They all came in the same... package.”

He stopped talking, as though he'd said too much. She narrowed her eyes and looked at him hard. Carefully, she held her fist out in front of her chest and cupped her other hand under it and moved them in a circle. “Package?”

When he didn't respond, she climbed off the bed and stepped toward him. He began to stand, and she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back into the chair. He was stronger than she was, but she had leverage and a straight back. She pointed her finger at his face and touched his mouth. “Talk.”

He talked.

KISSING.

The Other Man was kissing her neck. He was sitting next to her on the bed, kissing and licking her on the neck. She had been crying moments earlier and he moved to the bed to comfort her. His comfort lasted for all of two or three minutes before he was kissing her. She let him. She didn't care anymore. He told her everything. It made sense. It was insane, but it made sense. The Doctor had misled her when he said that he had built her. He had indeed built her, but not in the way he had implied. The way he explained it suggested that he'd created her from whole cloth. No. He built her like someone rebuilds a car. From pieces of other cars. He built her from dead women. At least four different women, from what The Other Man had said. Her legs and arms had come from a thirty-year-old mother of two who had been killed by a drunk driver. Her torso came from a nineteen-year-old model and occasional prostitute who died of a heroin overdose. Her head and spinal column came from a twenty-six-year-old professional cyclist who slipped in the shower and fell through the glass door.

Various organs had come from donor banks. The package, as The Other Man had so delicately called it, had come from a twenty-seven-year-old wife and mother who had attempted suicide in her bathtub. She was in a coma for weeks before being taken off life-support. Her body was harvested for organs. The Doctor got her brain. He had been the coroner and was able to take it almost immediately.

It made sense and it was true. She knew it was true. That meant that all of it was true. She was indeed built by this psychotic doctor, and she was built to serve. When that realization hit her, the fire that had been building in her for the last few weeks was extinguished. What could she do? They weren't keeping her away from her life. This WAS her life. She wasn't a prisoner, she was an appliance.

Staring off into the darkness, she closed her eyes and lay back on the bed. The Other Man stretched out beside her, his hand on her breast. Her dead breast. She didn’t cry. She only lay there, staring, as he fondled her. She heard the clatter of his belt buckle as he undid his pants and kicked them to the floor. She could feel his erection pressing against her leg.

Realization settled in her mind as she felt her body respond to this. She wasn't just built to be a companion, she was built for sex. She understood that, and somehow it made sense. The fact that she could lay there, during an emotional breakdown, while this grotesque man rubbed himself on her and become aroused said it all. She shouldn't respond this way. She shouldn't be getting wet and her nipples shouldn't be crying out to be sucked. She should be screaming and kicking and fighting. Not just because she didn't want this, but because she didn't want ANY of it. She never asked to be a companion, whatever that meant. She never asked to be locked in a room by herself for hours. She never asked to be engineered for sex like some sort of farm animal. She never asked to be molested by this twisted, sad little man.

Her breath quickened as he dropped his hand between her legs. Those long, hard fingers were clumsy, but they had a certain eagerness that sent shivers through her body. She pulled his hand up and took his fingers into her mouth. They were slick and warm and salty. She sucked her wetness from them and shoved his hand back down between her legs. As he slipped his fingers in and out of her she reached down and gripped his cock. It was firm and pulsated in her hand. He gasped as she rolled over and took him into her mouth, taking his hand from between her legs and resting it on the back of her head. He seemed to not quite know what was expected of him. She had surprised him, and he didn't know how far this was going to go.

As she ran her tongue along his shaft, she was filled with a sense of purpose. Like her understanding of how to walk and swim, she felt herself accessing some inherent knowledge of how to fuck. Somehow, she knew that not only did she have the ability to do it, but that she was good at it. If she was built for sex, she may as well be as good at it as she could be.

Pushing The Other Man back, she climbed on top of him. He gripped her ass as she slid down onto his cock. She found herself in control of muscles she didn't know she had. She squeezed him as she rose and fell. Looking down at his dopey, smiling face, she had the overwhelming urge to bring her fists down on him and pound and pound. The urge welled up inside of her, forcing her to bury her face in his chest, her hands on his shoulders. She funneled that anger into her hips as she fucked him harder. A deep, primal groan came out of him as he came inside her, his hips thrusting up to meet her, his fingers biting into her ass cheeks. She gripped him by the hair and fought the impulse to tear out his throat with her teeth. She rested her head on his chest, listening to his heavy, uneven breathing. She could feel the straps from his back brace and hear his heart thundering in his chest. She wondered if he were to listen to her chest if he'd hear a heartbeat at all.

BEAUTIFUL.

She was beautiful.

Once they'd recovered, The Other Man climbed down from the bed and pulled his pants back on. He stood there for a moment, looking at her on the bed, naked and sweaty, her hair a tangled mess, and said “Thank you.” just like he had the first night. That put a pin in her little experiment. It was an experiment she realized, though perhaps not a premeditated one. She was built for a certain kind of service, and she'd done that service well, and he'd thanked her for it. Like you might thank a waitress or a maid or a masseuse. Or a whore she thought. She was particularly interested in her own emotional state after that. Before, she'd felt used and even embarrassed for enjoying what he'd done to her. His lusty, fumbling violations. But that night she'd experienced a feeling of accomplishment. A sense of pride even. She was indeed good at it.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked as he stood behind the wheelchair. She thought about it for a moment, then held her hand up next to her face and twisted it back and forth like a royal wave. Mirror. He nodded and rubbed his chin.

“Okay. Let's get you dressed.”

She jumped down from the bed and walked across the room to where her gown was pooled on the floor. There was a certain air of confidence, even cockiness, about her. When she turned around at looked at him, there was something dark in her eyes that caught him off guard. As though she understood him far better than he understood her.

“Do you want the chair?” He asked in his sloppy voice. She shook her head No and walked to the door. He waddled past her and held out the blindfold. She took it from him and put it on herself.

He took her to the pool and led her into the change room. She hadn't been in there before (she'd always just changed beside the pool, next to the two men) and was surprised at how big it was. A row of lockers lined one wall, and three shower stalls were situated on the opposite side of the room. Beside the lockers was a long, full-length mirror mounted on the wall.

Seeing herself for the first time was startling and uncomfortable. He had turned off all but one of the banks of lights. It was dark, but she could see well enough. She stood there for a long time, staring into her own eyes. Eyes she didn't recognize. Eyes she had never seen before. They were green and large, with thick lashes below sharp, thin eyebrows. Her lips were curvy and full, her chin and jaw angular with a little dimple in the center. Her hair was a tousled auburn mess piled on top of her head.

She was beautiful. Letting her gown slip to the floor, she stepped forward and looked at her body. She could see the fine lines of scars. The scars that ran around her armpits and over her shoulders. Along the lines of her hips and abdomen. Across her throat and along her jawline. She could see the subtle way the skin tone of her legs didn't quite match the tone of her belly. How her shoulders were just slightly out of sync with her arms. She could see how her legs seemed just a little too long for her body. She saw all of this and understood that she had been told the truth.

Turning sideways, she lifted her breasts and looked closely at the faint scar running beneath one. Perhaps if you're building a body from pieces of dead women, you don't need silicone to sculpt perfect breasts. Perhaps you can pick and choose the tits you want and fine-tune them to your specifications. She let them fall and admired the way they bounced. Perky.

The Other Man was watching, his hand over his mouth. She turned and looked at him. He smiled, and she nodded. It was as much as she could give him right then. She picked up her gown from the floor and strode across the room to the exit. He followed her.

They walked back to her room. She hadn't bothered putting her gown back on. She wasn't embarrassed. With the blindfold on, she still needed him to guide her, but only barely. She walked tall and with a confidence she'd never felt before.

Once they were in her room again, her blindfold off, she turned to The Other Man and signed a question. When can I have my voice?

He looked sad.

“I don't know. That's up to him.”

She pointed to her eyes and shrugged. He shook his head.

“I'm sorry, I don't know.” She nodded and climbed into bed, facing the wall. After a long moment, The Other Man turned and pushed the wheelchair out of the room and locked the door.

TIGHT.

The skirt was tight and a little uncomfortable after spending so much time in the loose hospital gown. It was leather and black and stopped midway up her thighs. She sat on the bed and pulled a stocking up her leg and attached it to the garter belt that hung beneath the hem. Once the second stocking was on she stood and examined herself in the mirror The Other Man had installed in her room. She laughed and shook her head.

The pile of clothes on her bed was daunting. This was one of many outfits she'd experimented with. So far, she had tried on a dozen or so looks and nothing seemed to satisfy her. This atrocious outfit she was wearing was one of the worst. She looked like a cartoon prostitute in the short skirt and red tube top. But it was something she'd asked for and they'd brought it, along with what had to be thousands of dollars worth of clothes. All were chosen by her out of a series of catalogs.

She stripped out of the absurd hooker outfit and carefully folded the items in a second pile. The first pile of unworn clothes was still larger than the second pile of discards. She picked up the next item up and examined it. A pale-yellow sundress with thin, spaghetti straps. Pulling the dress over her head she walked over to the mirror and looked at herself.

This one was nice. She twisted her hips, letting the dress bounce around her legs in a airy way that was pleasant and whimsical. She liked the dress and felt a moment of sadness as she realized that she wouldn't get to wear it outside.

The last few weeks had been a mixture of sorrowful acceptance and enthusiastic anticipation. Her moods swung drastically, seemingly at random. Without warning she could jump from a deep, crippling depression to an insatiable lust that typically ended in a frantic, often intensely emotional masturbation session, which would often lead her back into depression. Sometimes she felt eager, even proud, of her upcoming meeting with this mysterious man she was meant to partner with. Sometimes she just resented it and fantasized about ways she could kill herself. Not out of depression or self-loathing, but out of spite.

That evening, with her pile of new clothes, she was back to wanting to succeed in her role. She wanted to be sexy for this guy, whoever he was. Which was a difficult desire to maintain, considering that she knew almost nothing about him. The facts she had about him could be counted on one hand. She knew that he was “built” the same way she was “built”. She knew that The Doctor thought of him as a son. She knew that he was kept somewhere in this facility, the same way she was. That was about it. That was a scary proposition. She hoped he wasn't grotesque or difficult to look at. The Doctor said that he wasn't “as sophisticated” as she was, and that concerned her. What could he have meant? Was he mentally disabled? Was he deformed? Even though she herself was built in the same way, she worried that the cobbled-together nature of his body wasn't too obvious. She found the idea of that disturbing.

She forced herself not to think about these questions. She would, hopefully, have the answers soon enough. The Doctor kept insisting that they would meet soon, but she'd learned to take most of what he said with a fist full of salt. She did hope it would be soon, for quite a few reasons. The anticipation was torture. She was eager to move on to the next phase of her life. The monotony of her room and routine was dreary and she longed for change. Then there was the meeting itself. Not only would she be expected to meet this strange, mysterious oddity, but she was also expected to have sex with him. She was nervous about that and scared of disappointing him. When you have one explicit purpose in life, the idea of failing at that is debilitating.

Most of all, she was just desperate for another person in her life. It is a desperately lonely life. Neither The Doctor nor The Other Man was good company, and the idea that there was another person in this building going through much the same struggles as herself was exhilarating. She was built to be a companion, but at the same time, she herself was in need of companionship. She longed to have a partner in this strange life and often fantasized about the two of them breaking out of their hospital world and running away together. She had no idea where they would go, but her fantasies didn't need to extend that far.

Another reason she was eager to meet this man was that she was in a near-constant state of arousal. She understood it was part of her engineering, but her libido seemed to be increasing as time went on, to the point that it was becoming uncomfortable. Three, four, even five times a day she would have to stop what she was doing (which was rarely anything interesting) and finger herself into oblivion while The Doctor and The Other Man waited in the next room. It would have been embarrassing if it wasn't understood between the three of them that this was one of her primary functions.

The Doctor had explained a few things to her. He told her that he specifically adjusted her chemistry and hormones for optimal sexual function. He also explained that she was unable to get pregnant. She also no longer menstruated, though this led to a few minor problems. In crafting the chemistry of her brain, there was a certain level of maintenance and monitoring that needed to be done to keep her balanced. Over the weeks she'd been through a barrage of medications designed to boost and decrease various chemicals in her brain. Serotonin and melatonin and dopamine and norepinephrine and god knows what else. This was at least partially responsible for her drastic mood swings over the last month or so. It was also, according to The Doctor, one of the reasons she had yet to meet her mysterious betrothed. He claimed that he wanted to get her moods stabilized, as he (The Doctor's manufactured son) was prone to heavy mood swings himself. The Doctor also claimed that he was incredibly eager to meet her. “I should hope so,” she croaked in her damaged voice.

That was another thing that had changed over the last month. The Doctor had finally agreed to fix her voice. Or, at least, try to. It had been a week since she'd come out of surgery and it still hurt to speak. She could dribble out raspy, barely audible whispers and croaks. The Doctor said that her voice would heal over time and would, hopefully, eventually, sound somewhat normal. He couldn't promise that her voice wasn't permanently damaged to some degree, but at the very least she'd be able to speak, which was better than she had before.

So, while she kept it to a minimum, being able to speak greatly improved her quality of life. Most of the things she requested were granted. Specific foods, a television (with a DVD player and movies, but no cable), clothes, access to gym equipment, an iPod full of music, and sunglasses that she could wear when traveling between rooms instead of the blindfold.

Her vision, unfortunately, was still compromised. The Doctor told her, one sad afternoon, that he didn't think it was fixable. After a series of exams and tests, he'd decided that the risk wasn't worth the reward. So that meant that she would be essentially blind to anything beyond five or six feet and that she would never be able to tolerate normal lighting without some sort of eye protection. The sunglasses helped but weren't a very practical solution. The result is that the lights in all of the rooms she occupied were set on dimmers, and she could easily adjust to her comfort level.

Another thing she'd been able to request was a modest collection of sex toys. It was a subject that was broached in a very matter-of-fact way. On one of the afternoons when she needed to excuse herself from an eye exam, The Doctor asked her if she'd like a catalog from an adult gift shop. When she understood his meaning, she said that she would very much like that. When it arrived the next day, she picked out a couple of vibrators, a few various-sized silicone dildos, and a few odds and ends that she was curious about trying out.

The extra equipment made her masturbatory sessions quite a bit quicker when they were inconveniently timed, and they made the more relaxed experiences that much more interesting. She enjoyed being able to experiment with what she did and didn't like. As it turns out, she liked pretty much everything she tried.

Later that week, she went through the catalog and requested a dozen or so more toys. Different sizes and shapes, clamps and clips, plugs and beads, lubrication, and sensitizers. Altogether, she spent at least a couple hours a day taking care of herself in that way. The fervor of her appetite was near constant. It seemed like the more she masturbated, the more she needed it.

She wondered if whatever The Doctor had done to her worked too well. There were times when she found herself going at it with such intensity that she hurt herself in the process and had to make the uncomfortable choice of either stopping or hurting herself more. Usually, she stopped, but not always. The bulk of her fantasies centered around this mysterious partner she was meant to be with. She had no idea what he looked like and hadn't been given a straight answer from The Doctor or The Other Man, so she had to make it up. She assumed he was built in much the same way she had been. Picking and choosing the best parts to make the most physically appealing package. She imagined him tall, but not too tall. Striking eyes (like hers) and soft, kissable lips. Firm hands and a lean body. She imagined that he went through the same sort of diet and exercise routine that she did. Perhaps more weight training than cardio and swimming.

Sometimes she thought about herself. Imagined watching herself on video, how she would look to someone else, her legs spread and pulled back, her feet against the wall, her head tilted back and to the side as she frantically worked whatever toy she had grabbed in and out of herself. Her eyes squeezed tightly, shut. She usually put the clamps on her nipples as well. There was something about the little hint of pain mixed in with the pleasure that made it that much more intense. Often, she didn't think about anything at all. She just let the physical stimulation carry her along. That was usually when she used the big massager-style vibrator. That one pushed her to climax so quickly that she didn't need to fantasize. She liked the big vibrator but only used it when she was really eager. It could be a little too much at once.

She slipped out of the yellow dress and put it on a hanger in the closet. That one was a keeper. The Other Man had unlocked the closet door and she was pleased to find that on one side there was a shelf full of clean bed linen, extra pillows, and blankets, and on the other side was a rod with twenty or so wooden hangers. She admired the dress as it hung in the closet. There was something heartwarming about having a place for her stuff. It was nice to have stuff at all. She felt like she finally had some definition and an identity. That dress was hers because she had chosen it for herself, based on her taste and preference. It was her dress. She put it in her closet in her room. Looking around the space, she thought that next, she might ask for some artwork for the walls.

Moving on to the next outfit, she picked up a silvery silk nightie and pulled it over her head. It was semi-transparent and felt cool against her skin. Looking in the mirror, she could just make out her nipples through the material, and the line where her legs came together and formed the Y shape at her crotch. She tugged gently at the straps, hiking the nightie up another two inches, so that it fell just below her pussy. When she did, the silk dragged across her nipples, which sent shivers through her body. That felt nice. She jiggled the material again, letting it rub against her breasts, and again it sent shivers. Turning around, she looked over her shoulder at the back of the outfit, admiring how the hem let the bottom of her ass peek out. Again, she dragged the material across her nipples and shuddered. Letting out a sigh, she crawled up onto the bed, next to the two piles of clothes, and went to work. Reaching blindly into the drawer in the nightstand, she pulled a cute little baby blue vibrator out and tucked it between her legs. With her left hand, she squeezed her breast through the silk. It felt soft and slick and amazing. The little vibrator buzzed discretely as she ran it in tight circles around her clit. This was one of those times she just wanted to get it over with, so she could get back to what she was doing. One of the interesting aspects of getting her voice back was that she found that she had to restrain herself from making too much noise when she was taking care of her needs in this way. Not because she was self-conscious about anyone hearing (there were only two other people that could hear her, and she didn't think they hung around that part of the facility when they weren't dealing with her) but because her voice was still recovering, the noises she did make were strange and guttural. They came out less like passionate moans and more like the grunts of an animal. It took her out of the moment, so she tried to keep her noise level to as low as possible. Also, it hurt her to speak, so she did it as seldom as possible. This was not one of those times. Her orgasm was approaching with an astonishing speed and she didn't care about how she sounded. As the bubble of pleasure built inside her, she let out a long, low groan that made her throat burn. The groan built to almost a yell as she came, her legs clamping together on her hand. She let go of her breast and wasn't surprised to find that it ached from how hard she was squeezing it.

She lay there breathing in deep, shaky gulps and almost didn't hear the rattle of keys in the door. The Other Man always knocked first, but The Doctor had an annoying habit of knocking as he opened the door, assuming she'd welcomed him in. As the door swung open, she quickly pulled her blanket up over her body. Not because she was embarrassed of being seen in her nightie, but because it was painfully obvious what she'd been doing. She was sure he would have heard the noise she was making, and that bothered her because he came in anyway. He could have given her a minute to finish.

“Hello there,” he said, smiling, as he entered. She nodded at him, moving aside a clump of sweaty hair that was stuck to her face.

“I just wanted to let you know that the big day is soon. Tomorrow in fact. So, we'll need to get you prepared for it, as much as we can prepare for that sort of thing anyway,” he said, looking around the room. Her clothes were still piled up at the foot of the bed. She was glad to see that her blanket covered the blue vibrator. She allowed herself just a little bit of modesty.

A wave of dizziness overcame her. With all her anticipation and longing, she never expected to feel so anxious about it when the time actually came. Tomorrow? That was too soon. She needed to finish picking her outfits. She needed make-up and perfume. She needed to shave and have a bath. She had a million questions and found herself getting angry at The Doctor for being so vague about him. She fantasized about him as this perfect specimen of masculinity, but she was also afraid of what else he could be. She worried that he was going to be grotesque and twisted. She imagined a sloppily clumped-together mess of dead body parts. Even though she knew that The Doctor was capable of amazing things, just based on herself as an example. Still, her mind conjured up images of rotting corpses and drooling brain-dead monstrosities fumbling around and bearing down on her.

It was perhaps silly, and certainly unproductive to picture all of these horrific scenarios, but she had an active imagination and a lot of free time on her hands. Or, she did. Now she had very little free time. She had a lot to do before her meeting the following day.

HOT.

The water was nearly unbearable as she lowered herself slowly into the tub. The Doctor sat in his chair (he'd long since stopped bathing her, once she became mobile enough to do it herself) reading from a tablet computer. Once she was all the way in the tub, she leaned back and closed her eyes, a washcloth in her hand. Slowly, she twisted the cloth and squeezed the water out, and folded it over her eyes. The bath was doing wonders for her tension. Since The Doctor dropped the bomb that she was meeting her new partner the next day, she was a ball of nerves and tension.

Stretched out in the tub, she could almost fall asleep. She allowed herself five long, quiet minutes to soak in the heat and let her muscles and bones loosen. Her hands floated at her sides and the occasional flash of memory would skitter across her mind. Laying in the tube, paralyzed and confused, unable to move or even breathe. She took in a deep breath and reminded herself of the relative safety of her surroundings. Taking the cloth from her eyes, she sat up and soaped her body. She never really got dirty, but it felt good to wash off the sweat and stress. The shaving cream and a fresh safety razor sat in the little caddy by the tub and she started the task of shaving. Usually, she found it tedious, but now she was consciously trying to do as good a job as possible. She wanted to be perfect for her introduction. She stood and put her foot on the edge of the tub to run the razor between her legs, carefully navigating the delicate terrain.

Once she was satisfied with the shaving, she pulled the curtain into the tub and turned on the shower to wash her hair. In a moment of brief madness, she twisted the dial all the way to cold and sucked in air as the frigid water poured over her. It made her a little dizzy, but also shocked her back to alertness. She was going to meet her partner in less than two hours and the hot bath had made her feel sleepy and stupid. The cold water shoved her back into reality and was refreshing.

With her hair washed and her body rinsed, she turned off the water and dried herself. The air in the room was cold and she immediately regretted the frigid shower. When she was dry, she walked over to the sink and mirror. One of the many provisions she had requested was a hair dryer. She blow-dried her hair and ran her brush through it. Holding the brush, she remembered that first night out of the leather bindings and felt a twinge between her legs. She tried to suppress the urge. She just got out of the bath and her masturbation sessions usually left her sweaty and sticky. She breathed through it and managed to get her hair styled how she wanted it. Brushed and tucked to one side with a cute little white and yellow flower-shaped hair-clip. Over the few months she'd been alive, her hair had grown quite a bit and hung between her shoulder blades. It took a while to dry and brush out, but The Doctor didn't seem to mind waiting. He sat there, disinterested and reading his tablet.

The yellow sundress was hanging from a hook in the wall. She took it down and slipped it on, adjusting the straps and settling her boobs into place. Glancing in the mirror, she was quite pleased with how it came together. She looked cute. Approachable and naive, in a precious sort of way. Leaning forward to examine her face in the mirror, what she wanted to do for her makeup. She smiled at herself and turned to The Doctor.

He looked up at her and smiled.

“You look very nice,” he said, and it made her feel good. Even though she distrusted The Doctor and, at times, downright hated him, there was also a part of her that wanted to please him. Some inherent need for approval. She supposed it came from the knowledge that she had basically one job in her life, and she needed to know that she was doing it well. Being told that she looked nice, when she had picked her own clothes, and styled her own hair, was rewarding.

“Thank you,” she said, turning back to the mirror. Pulling from the modest make-up kit she selected from one of the many catalogs, she put on a simple but delicate face. Turning around, she noticed that The Other Man was in the room now and videotaping her again. She smiled and tilted her head to the camera in a friendly nod, then spun around once, letting the dress twirl along with her. The Doctor let out a genuine laugh and, for perhaps the first time, she recognized that he was proud of her.

NERVOUS.

The three of them walked down the long hallway that led to the pool and beyond. The Doctor was in front and The Other Man hobbled along behind her. Her nerves were shaky all day, but as they approached the big green double doors at the end of the hall that took them beyond the pool and out of range of anywhere she'd ever been, she was downright wrecked. Her breathing came in short, deliberately paced bursts through her nose.

The Doctor did what he could to prepare her for the meeting, but it only served to make her more nervous. Earlier, They’d gone to her room and he sat down on the bed. He patted the mattress next to him and she sat down. After a long, awkward moment, he spoke.

“I fear that I haven't properly prepared you for what might happen. Unfortunately, I don't entirely know what to expect myself. I know him, and I feel as though I have a pretty good handle on his personality, but he can be unpredictable. One thing I'm relatively certain about is that he won't hurt you.”

“Hurt me?” She asked, surprised. That idea hadn't even occurred to her. She never considered that what she was about to do could be dangerous.

“He was my first successful attempt at... well, you know. By the time I made you, I had worked out most of the kinks,” he said gently.

“What kinks?” She asked, her face now tense. The Doctor waggled his head slightly, and smiled a crooked, unattractive smile.

“He can be very... moody, at times. Intimidating in the wrong context. I'm not telling you any of this to scare you. Please don't take it that way. I'm just trying to put your expectations in the right place.” “He knows I'm coming, right?” She asked.

“Yes, I believe so. He's stopped talking to me. He's stopped talking period. It's been months,” he stopped for a long moment, staring off into space. She almost spoke, but he started talking again before she could say anything.

“My concern is that you may be too good for him. The technology we developed to bring the two of you to life advanced considerably between when I built him and when I built you. I learned a lot from my mistakes and, frankly, you are far beyond what I ever thought was possible.”

For a moment she forgot her nerves and simply enjoyed the new feeling of pride in herself. It was unexpected and felt nice.

“It's a concern, but I don't believe it's very likely. He's lonely. Desperately lonely. I think when he meets you, whatever resentment or rebellion he may be feeling will be outweighed by the prospect of having a friend.” he patted her on the leg in what was meant to be a reassuring gesture, but it did little to calm her building fear. “I’m sure you can relate to that.”

“I don't want to disappoint him.” She said, nearly crying. She hadn't realized until then just how much she was invested in the need to please this manufactured man she had never met.

“There's no way you can disappoint him. If he's disappointed at all, it will be in me, not you. You are nearly perfect. If only for those eyes,” he said, giving her a sympathetic look.

In the hallway, The Doctor stopped at the double green doors and took his keychain out of his lab coat pocket, and unlocked the door. Her heart was thumping in her throat. The doors parted, and they walked into another long hallway, and then a turn and another corridor. At the end of that hall was a heavy metal door like a bank vault, a wheel situated in the center instead of a doorknob. The Doctor unlocked this door and pulled it open. Beyond this door was another short hallway. Rather than the tile and white walls that made the rest of the facility look like a hospital, this hall was polished steel with a metal grate floor. Bright fluorescent lights were embedded in the ceiling. She put her hand against her forehead, trying to block some of the light from her eyes. At the end of the hall, they reached another door. The Doctor turned and took her hand.

“I have to go into the next room to unlock this door.”

He pointed at a metal door, flush with the wall that she hadn't even noticed. “I'm not going to go in with you, but I will be watching from the next room. There are cameras and microphones in there. If by some strange chance, things get out of hand, we'll come in at once.”

He made an attempt at a reassuring smile that was neither reassuring or even a smile. Not for the first time, the idea that he was completely mad crossed her mind. His hand was cold and slimy with sweat when he patted her on the shoulder. She fought the urge to recoil in disgust. Staring at the polished metal door, her stomach flip-flopped, and she had the sudden feeling that she might throw up or faint. When she turned to tell The Doctor that she wanted to give it another couple of days or weeks, she saw that he was already standing inside the doorway. He nodded to her and the door slid shut, leaving her alone in the metal hallway.

RED.

The fluorescent lights went out, startling her. They were replaced by an ominous pulsating red glow. After a moment of silence, she removed her sunglasses and could see relatively easily. The massive steel door loomed over her, round and daunting. She waited for something to happen, staring at the wheel in the center of the door. She screamed when jets of warm air blasted at her from every direction, blowing her dress and hair around her in a chaotic tornado. The jets stopped as abruptly as they started, and claustrophobia welled up inside her. The red lights made the metal corridor feel like a submarine or a bomb shelter. She stomped up to the door the Doctor had disappeared into and banged on it with her fist.

“I've changed my mind! I'm not ready!” She yelled up at the little port window in the door, just high enough that she couldn't see through it, even standing on her tip-toes.

“Can you hear me? Let me out! I want out now!” She screamed, banging on the door. It hurt her hand, but adrenaline had taken over as panic swirled inside her. From all around her the mechanically filtered voice of The Doctor boomed. He was speaking to her through an intercom.

“Calm down dear. It's going to be fine. Just hang tight a moment longer.”

“No! Please! No! I don't want to!”

She was crying now. Only recently, she was confident and even excited for this, but the memory of being paralyzed in the tube reared up in her head and made being in the hallway the closest thing she had to a waking nightmare.

The sound of massive cogs and gears spinning and clanking echoed through the walls. She turned around to look at the door and was blinded. The door rolled into the wall on a track and the light from inside the room was far too bright for her sensitive eyes. Nearly hyperventilating she fumbled the sunglasses onto her face. She walked backward down the hallway until her sweaty back pressed against the door they'd entered from. Turning around, she found that it, of course, was locked. The metal was cold against her forehead. The hair she'd spent hours brushing was a mess, hanging down over her face, sweaty and clumped.

The clicking sound of fluorescent lights switching off prompted her to turn around. The white, painful light from the other side of the door was gone, replaced by the soft glow of what appeared to be incandescent bulbs. She couldn't see far enough into the room to distinguish shapes, but she could tell that the tone of the light matched the low-wattage bulb of her bedside lamp rather than the harsh greenish burn of the fluorescent lights that seemed to be everywhere else in the building.

“Go to him,” The Doctor said over the intercom, almost whispering. She stepped forward, her feet unsteady, as though she were walking up a steep, uneven hill. A sense of vertigo forced her to slide her hand along the wall for support as she made her way down the hall.

CONCRETE.

She was terrified, unable to look up. She only stood, staring at the floor, trying to force her eyes to adjust to the light. After a long, painfully quiet moment, she took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold. The floor was poured concrete, like the swimming pool. Somehow this comforted her and seemed like a more stable option than the metal grating of the hallway.

“Take your shoes off.”

The voice was deep and even and resonated in the room, even though he had barely spoken. She gasped and fell against the wall, looking around, startled into searching for the source of the sound. With the ceiling lights off, the sunglasses worked against her and she pulled them off. As she caught her balance against the wall, the heavy door rolled shut behind her and clanked into place. She was locked in. “Where are you? I can't see,” she managed to sputter out. Her mouth was dry, and she found it hard to gather her words. Looking around the room she could only make out vague shapes. The room itself was round, perhaps thirty feet across. On one side was a desk or table of some sort. The soft yellow glow of a lamp came from this area. Following along the wall she could see lumps that could have been furniture on the far side of the room, but from the doorway, it was too far away to tell. To her right, she could make out a plastic curtain hanging from a U-shaped rail protruding from the wall. She assumed this was some sort of shower or bathing area. It reminded her of the tub she bathed in and the familiarity gave her a moment of comfort.

A light popped on directly across the room from her. It was still too far to see details, but she could just make out the shape of a full-sized bed and end tables. There was a lamp on one of the tables. He was sitting on the bed. Her heart sped, and she stopped breathing when she saw him. In the dim light and through the fog of her over-dilated eyes she could just make out the shape of a man perched on the bed. She stood there for a long moment, trying to force her eyes to do the job they were built to do. Reluctantly, she stepped forward, fear gripping her heart but curiosity and an overwhelming sense of purpose pushing her toward him.

“Take your shoes off,” the voice said again, in the same even and measured tone. The shape of the room bounced the sound of his voice, making it seem to come from everywhere at once. Shaking, she reached down and slipped the sandals she had so carefully selected off her feet and stepped barefoot onto the floor. The hard concrete seemed to suck all the warmth from her body. She took another step toward him and he became a little clearer.

He was sitting against the headboard. She couldn't see his eyes, but she could feel him watching her. “Stop,” he said. This confused her. She did as she was told and waited for a terrified minute. That's when he stepped to the floor and faced her. He was a giant. At least seven feet tall. His arms hung like telephone poles at his side. They seemed to be out of proportion to the rest of his body. As he walked toward her, striding casually but covering so much ground with his tree-trunk legs that she nearly fell over, startled, at how quickly he crossed the room.

Her eyes fought valiantly to process the abruptly changing imagery. She watched him appear in the brief seconds it took him to traverse the room. He was pale, nearly white, and shirtless. He wore tattered hospital pants that were far too short for him. It would have been comical if it didn't look so primitive. The threadbare fabric stopped halfway down his calves, bouncing above his bare feet. A head of shaggy blond hair fell over his face. She tried to focus and take in what she was seeing but by the time she got a handle on it, he was too close. She backed up instinctively and stumbled over her sandals and nearly fell. An arm shot out, faster than it should have been to look at its size, and took hold of the front of her dress, holding her up. She kicked briefly and retained her footing, but he held onto her dress, staring down at her. She forced her gaze up to meet his and when she saw his eyes her mouth dropped open and began to shake, her breath coming out in quick, uneven jags. His eyes were two different colors, one pale blue and one brown. The blue eye seemed to look past her, unseeing. The other eye, brown with flecks of green and gold, appeared to burn with life. Awful, angry life. Not hateful, but devastated. This eye met hers and she had to look away. She couldn't take it. It hurt too much.

He leaned forward, pulling her closer to him by the front of her dress. She felt it rip at one shoulder and the threshold of her panic stressed under the weight a little more, but didn't quite break. She felt his breath in her hair and was suddenly sure he was smelling her. He pressed his nose against her forehead and she felt his breath huff out of his nostrils and down her face in thick, quick bursts. She closed her eyes as a flash of memory flitted through her mind. A farm and a horse and the grunting, sloppy sounds it made as it nuzzled her face.

When she opened her eyes, she realized she had absentmindedly leaned toward his chest, which was inches from her face. He had the narrow, lanky body of a swimmer. Muscled, but not sculpted. He pulled back and looked down at her. She could feel his gaze and felt obligated to meet it, but couldn't bring herself to do it. The thought of feeling that one eye looking into her was more than she could handle. Instead, she stared at the odd shape of lumpy scar tissue that ran up the center of his torso and split at his sternum toward his shoulders. Unlike the meticulous, nearly invisible scars on her own body, what she was seeing sprawled across his body was a ragged mess.

He released her, and she stood in front of him. She was scared, but the overwhelming amount of information she was processing gave her a moment to get a hold of herself. He didn't seem to want to hurt her, even though he had ripped her dress when he caught her. He sniffed her, like some kind of animal, but then he released her and appeared to be waiting for her to come around to him rather than pushing her. He had only spoken enough to ask her to take off her shoes, which seemed like a docile request.

She was still trying to put together all the information when he reached up with a gentle, oversized hand and tilted her face to look at him, his finger under her chin. Those eyes. As soon their eyes met again something clicked in her head. The scar on his torso. The Doctor, crazy as a loon but a skilled surgeon, hadn't made that horrible scar. That wasn't his handy work. That was an autopsy scar. That was a scar made by a coroner with large stainless-steel sheers and a bone saw, right before he removed and weighed this man's organs. This dead man's organs. Looking into his eyes, one blue, dead and sightless, the other wild and inhuman, the dam inside her broke and she began to scream.

As soon as she started, she knew she would never stop. She screamed in his face. It was in that moment that she realized he was smiling under that mop of blond hair. She seemed to watch everything happen from outside of her body, now a slave to panic and sheer terror. His smile faded as she screamed and fell away from him to the floor. He stepped back and stood taller, staring down at her with his one good eye wide, his mouth hanging open. She scrambled away from him across the cold concrete floor. All she could see was that jagged Y-shaped scar. She forgot everything she knew about herself, about why she was there and how she had come to be. She forgot everything other than the fact that there was a seven-foot-tall dead man looming over her, looking down at her with an expression of confused anger.

“NO!” He bellowed. He looked from her to the wall behind her, and she knew there was a window there where The Doctor was watching all this.

“NO! STOP IT!” He yelled again, gritting his teeth and balling his fist at his forehead. She wanted desperately to stop screaming but couldn't find the right switches to flip inside her head. She bumped against the wall and realized that she'd scooted herself all the way across the room and had nowhere else to go. Her voice shook and broke as her screaming collapsed into sobbing. She couldn't make it stop. It was flowing out of her like an electrical current. Everything was coming out. Everything locked away inside her. The sweep of headlights and the sudden impact of the car. The shattered shower door. The sad feeling of realizing that she'd shot too much junk into her thigh and knowing it was too late to do anything about it. The bathtub and the razor. Every death she'd experienced and forgotten came crashing through her and she couldn't make it stop. Every life wasted and regretted. She sobbed and shook on the floor, her hands gripped tight in her hair, pulling. Her forehead pressed against the concrete, and she screamed and cried into the floor.

Suddenly she was in the air. For a moment she thought she had fainted, but then she was looking at him again. He had lifted her from the ground and was holding her against the wall. Unlike the first time, this was not gentle or kind. He pressed his face against hers and yelled, loud enough to hurt her ears.

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” His hands were around her throat, shaking violently, and he squeezed. Immediately her throat constricted, and she was forced silent. Her eyes bulged, wide and terrified. Blood vessels in her cheeks burst. She could feel her tongue being pushed up in her mouth as he squeezed tighter and she suddenly understood that she was about to die. Again.

As black flowers bloomed in her vision, she remembered the bathtub and watching the water turn red around her naked body, and she was okay. She didn't mind so much. It wasn't supposed to happen. She wasn't supposed to be there in that strange laboratory. She wasn't meant to be a thing. A living thing. She was dead, and she should be dead. This... monster... that was strangling her would be dead soon as well, she was confident in that. That was for the best. The Doctor was crazy and had done something really wrong and at least part of it was being corrected as she fell deeper into blackness.

WHITE LIGHT.

The coppery taste of blood filled her mouth. She couldn't see but she was used to that. She could hear though, and smell and taste. She heard The Monster roaring in his deep timber. She could hear the sound of The Other Man yelling indecipherable, angry taunts and a sound like particularly noisy hair clippers being switched on and off. With each sound, The Monster yelled again. The smell of ozone told her that they were shocking him. A taser or a cattle prod of some sort. She was on the ground, propped against the wall. Her mouth felt like it was full of blood and when she opened it to speak she found her tongue was too big and flopped around uselessly. When she tried to command her arms and legs to move, they refused, and she decided that she wasn't quite conscious yet. The overhead lights in the room were on now, which was why she couldn't see. It was too bright. Occasionally someone would step in front of her field of vision and she would get a momentary sense of what was happening, but it did her little good. What little will she had mustered drained away, and her head lolled to the side and she slumped over again, pitching forward into the black.

ROLLING.

She was on a gurney. She recognized the strangely familiar warble of its uneven wheels as she rolled through the hallway, a cloth lay draped unceremoniously across her eyes, her sunglasses apparently gone. The light fell across her face and bled under the bottom edge of the cloth flickered on and off, filling her with waves of nausea.

Fragments of seemingly random memories flooded her mind, disconnected and dizzying. Pieces of lives she didn't remember living machine gun fired through her consciousness. She felt all of it and could hold onto nothing. Memories bounced in and out of her like a deck of cards, shuffled and shuffled again, faster and faster until nothing made any sense at all.

The gurney slammed through a pair of swinging double doors and into a darker room. The cloth was removed and for a moment she saw the Doctor, his hair sweaty and hanging in his face, stuck to his glasses. He took a small flashlight from his shirt pocket and flicked it across her vision. She tried to cry out but only managed a hoarse, gurgling cough. The Other Man appeared before her and pushed something hard and cold into her mouth. She tried to spit it out, but it was too big and seemed to be wedged into her jaw. The taste of hard rubber brought a memory that wasn't her own, yet she experienced it just the same. A baby toy, covered in spit. A teething ring perhaps.

Just as she began to consider why they might have stuffed a rubber baby toy in her mouth, she felt the unusual sensation of fingers rubbing something wet and cold on her temples. As she tried to tilt her head back to see The Doctor and what he was doing, she felt him press two spongy pieces of latex foam against her temples and then every muscle in her body spasmed and seized at once. Then nothing.