Mr Gideon’s Bit on the Side

Mr Gideon came home to find his secretary posed upright on the edge of his bed. He wondered who'd let the delivery man in. Probably the cook, who would have prepared his wife's lunch. Thank god his real secretary was at the office's bi-annual party.

Not that she would have seen anything. WIRED COMPANIONS prided themselves on discretion. She, like his wife and servants, would have assumed that it was just another car-assembly drone. A prototype dropped by for him to inspect.

He hung his coat on its peg and turned to meet the young woman's gaze. Her body rippled with constant movement as if blood irrigated its parts, as opposed to electricity. 'I thought I'd drop by on my way to the party' she said, winking. 'Figured we could show up together.'

He marvelled at her perfection. Just like the real thing, she was flirtatious, daringly so. And the designers had dressed and made her up just as he would have wished them to, in a silky black dress and with skyscraper heels, apple red lipstick, and brunette hair falling about her shoulders.

When he put his hands on her she asked what he was doing, expressed surprise and then disgust and finally fear. He made a mental note to send the designers a crate of champagne. After he was through with her she lay open-eyed, head between the pillows of the Gideons' martial bed. He stroked her cheek and admired the bruising on her throat. There was even a trickle of blood from the mouth where she'd bitten her lower lip.

He took the guide from the bedside table, sent several weeks earlier, and re-read the portions that were coded to let users like him know just what they could do with their new toy. If you prick me, do I not bleed? The Shakespeare paraphrase headed one section. Mr Gideon grinned.

The wall-mounted tele-phone buzzed and a servant's voice came through the speakers below the video screen, which was kept permanently off. 'Are you there, Mr Gideon?'

'Yes, what is it?'

'I'm terribly sorry to disturb you, sir, only you have a delivery. From WIRED COMPANIONS.' The servant kept speaking but Mr Gideon stopped listening. He was trying to process the import of what he had heard as he turned towards the figure on the bed, slowly.