Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 66074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 330(@200wpm)___ 264(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 330(@200wpm)___ 264(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
“Hi, I’m your brand-new intimacy companion! I’ve been updated and much improved since the model before me, and I hope you enjoy my new features.” I swallow the lump that wants to form in my throat at the idea my wife felt she wasn’t good enough exactly as she’s always been. There’s no room for that here, in this moment, so I shove that part of me back down and give Seven extra strength to keep it at bay. “If you push the pink button on my remote, it will activate Test Mode One. This mode is a safety feature to make sure all my parts are in working order BEFORE you play with me. Please do not skip this step. Watch carefully but from a distance of at least four feet. If you notice any of my body parts not bending or moving in a natural way or if you see or smell something burning, the red button is the emergency stop. Contact the number on my box for troubleshooting help. Sorry, no refunds.”
I chuckle as I take my glasses back off and hook them in their usual spot at my throat when I’m not wearing them. As if I weren’t impressed enough, the thought and wit she put into the note brings my pride to a whole new level, and I find myself looking forward to not only what she’s going to do with each press of a different button, but also what the next index card will say.
“I don’t know how I feel about taking orders, especially from an inanimate object,” I speak coolly. “But I’m curious enough about what you’ll do once you’re no longer inanimate to put those unidentified feelings aside.”
I make a show of looking over the black remote, which is a simple thing, about the size and shape of our smart TV’s, only it has a single line of different-colored buttons down the center. I recognize it as a universal remote you can set up much like voice commands and routines on an Alexa, each button doing whatever you’ve programmed it to do.
So fucking brilliant, my girl is. The perfect tool to help keep up the sex-doll façade.
“Pink for Test Mode One,” I repeat the instructions, and without further ado, my finger presses the button at the top.
My head whips around toward the new stripper pole as a disco ball lowers from the ceiling near it, a bright light coming on to shine direct at it as the rest of the lights in the playroom dim. I’m taking everything in, the shimmers produced from reflecting off the mosaic of mirrors mesmerizing, so I miss her stepping out of the box, but I feel her nails through my shirt as she lightly drags her fingers from my right shoulder across my back to my left as she passes behind me.
I don’t move, frozen to the spot, the remote still lifted while I watch slack-jawed as this woman I hardly recognize sashays toward the pole. Her hips move in a way that’s nearly hypnotic as she takes long strides that had to have been practiced in those shoes. The skin between her thigh-high socks and the pleated skirt peeks out more with each step, and it’s the perfect level of tantalizing, making me crave to peep underneath.
She comes to a stop next to the new leather chair, her back still to me, one leg locking while the other snaps against it, slightly bent as the heel of the shoe hovers an inch off the floor. Her left hand props on her left hip, and suddenly her right arm lifts straight up in the air, her finger pointing skyward. And like magic… or impeccably planned timing on her part… music begins to thump around us, and I immediately recognize it as “Lick” by Joi featuring Sleepy Brown, a song off the XXX soundtrack Twyla added to her playlist when we had a Vin Diesel movie marathon a couple of years ago.
My eyebrow cocks when her position holds but her finger that had been pointing straight up suddenly snaps downward on beat with the bass. She turns just enough to peek at me over her shoulder, and I follow her silent command, but only because I’m allowing my wife to give me her gift. When I start to head toward the chair she pointed me to, she faces forward once again and continues on her way to the pole.
My eyes never leave her as I lower into the buttery leather seat, holding my breath as she steps from solid floor to the black mat surrounding the base of the pole like a tree skirt, but she manages it flawlessly. And the air then leaves my lungs in a long exhale through pursed lips as she grasps the golden apparatus in her right hand, hooks her right ankle at the bottom, leans all the way out from it, then seems to fall forward. But because the whole thing spins on its own, the movement is nothing but sensual grace as she swings around to the front, now facing me, before letting go and putting her back against the metal.