Trixie or Treat
Trixie or Treat
1
Broken clouds whipped past the moon’s face like a tattered burial shroud. The suburban lanes were raked by occasional roaring gusts—last dregs of a mighty thunderstorm. The wind plucked red and orange leaves from the trees, who moaned and clawed after their stolen raiment with skeletal fingers.
The sidewalks channeled a steady trickle of trick-or-treaters who clutched at hats and capes and billowing robes to keep them safe from the cold blasts. Still, here and there a shrub found itself in fragmentary costume, and more than a few bags of candy lay drowned in puddles.
An evil clown, a ballerina, and a caped superhero broke from a quieter stretch of sidewalk to approach a house. The sedan parked crookedly in the driveway blocked the entrance to the walk, so they treaded damp, scruffy grass to reach the front steps. The only decorations on the porch were a few cheap plastic jack-‘o-lanterns, but the lights were on and a sign hung from the door said “Welcome Trick-or-Treaters.” The evil clown reached up and rang the doorbell.
An indistinct shadow passed the nearest window. The door swung inward, revealing a woman in a shiny tube-top and miniskirt colored the same garish red as her lipstick. A pair of satiny horns rose from her headband. She stared with a fixed smile as the wind toyed with her shoulder-length black hair. “Hey there!” she chirped.
“Trick or treat!” The trio presented their bags.
The woman turned with mincing steps to pick up a bowl of candy that sat on a table next to the door. She turned back and bent forward with a whirring noise. The motion revealed a chasm of cleavage between breasts that looked like close relatives of the plastic pumpkins.
“Ryan said you can each take two pieces.”
The superhero and clown both dug in, fishing for their favored treats. The ballerina stood behind them, waiting her turn. She shivered and pulled her un-ballerina-like windbreaker closer around herself. “Who’s Ryan?” she asked.
The woman in the doorway looked up from the bowl. The ballerina thought she saw a flash of light in her eyes. “Ryan is just the best, sexiest, most perfect man in the whole world. I always do what he says,” she said, drawing out the superlatives in the most syrupy way possible.
“Ewwww,” said the clown and superhero in unison as they made way for the ballerina.
She grabbed the first two pieces her fingers met and turned to run after her companions.
“Happy Halloween!” the woman called after them.
“What a weirdo,” the ballerina said when they reached the sidewalk. A glance back at the house showed the woman’s silhouette disappear as she closed the door.
The three hurried on into the night.
2
“Trixie,” Ryan’s voice called from the kitchen.
She spun away from her statue-like vigil before the door. “I’ll be there in just a second, honey!”
Trixie strode into the kitchen, servos whining between each clunk of platform heels on faux-wood. Ryan was bent over pawing through some empty cartons in the fridge. She batted her eyes at his behind, extra-long lashes fluttering like butterfly wings.
“Hey, sexy,” she said, planting her hands on her hips and thrusting out her bust, “what can I do for you?”
Ryan slammed the fridge door. “We’re out of beer. Victor’s gonna be here soon; probably too late for him to hit the store.” He scratched at his stubble and looked Trixie over.
She stared back with her painted-on smile as a humming noise started inside her. It faded and her pillowy lips twisted into a pout. “Aww. That’s no fun.” She stepped closer and put a hand on his upper arm. “Would you like me to cheer you up? I know a trick that always works.”
Ryan smirked. “I’m going out to pick up some beer—don’t feel like waiting for delivery. Victor will probably get here before I’m back. Take care of him, okay? Just give him whatever he wants. Oh, and keep giving candy to the trick-or-treaters. You got it?”
Trixie’s head tilted. Her eyes glazed over and the hum returned. “Give Victor whatever he wants… give candy to the trick-or-treaters… sure, I can do that!” She grinned proudly.
“You sure you’re alright?” Ryan asked.
“Alright? Uhh,” she put a finger to her chin as though thinking. “Uh.h.h.h.h—Trixie 390 is… 211 days past due for dermal seal replacement. Please replace Trixie 390’s seals at your nearest AutoMates-certified maintainer."
Ryan winced. “Ugh, not this again. It's not like they wear out every year! I meant are you good to do what I told you?”
“Uh-huh,” she nodded. “Give Victor whatever he wants. Give candy to the trick-or-treaters. I always do what you say, honey.”
“Much better. You just be a perfect little hostess until I get back.” Ryan tapped the tip of her button nose with his finger and grabbed his coat off the back of a kitchen chair.
Trixie followed him to the door. She stood motionless after it closed behind him.
3
The doorbell chimed only a few minutes after Ryan’s departure. Trixie sprang into motion. She opened the door and scanned the porch but found it deserted. Looking up, she saw the back of a dark green hoodie disappearing into shadow halfway across the lawn.
“Trick or treat!” a voice shouted from behind some bushes. A hand appeared over the top, whipping a swollen red shape toward the front door.
The missile burst just below Trixie’s collarbones, sluicing her in water and rocking her back a step. Another water balloon sailed towards her from closer to the street and drenched her bare midriff.
Sniggering broke out in the darkness, followed by the sound of quickly receding footsteps.
“Hey there!” Trixie said to the empty night. She retrieved the candy-bowl and held it out. Water trickled down her stomach as the motion emptied pockets that had been trapped by her tight top. “Ryan said you can each take two pieces.”
A minute passed. The beads of water on Trixie’s skin glittered in the glare of the porch light. “Happy Halloween!” she said, then completed her routine of replacing the bowl and closing the door.
As she stood idle, the well-ordered humming and chattering noises of Trixie’s internal mechanisms dominated the otherwise silent house. Had anyone been there, they still would have needed to lean in and listen carefully to detect the start of a quavering, inconstant buzz, not unlike the sound of a mosquito, inside her body.
The voluptuous AutoMate didn’t even blink as the buzz grew louder and multiplied. Several larger mosquitos seemed now to be wandering around different parts of her torso.
Discord crept into the perfect order of her inner functions. Hums wavered, stopped, and returned haltingly. A steady, low clicking burst suddenly into a harsh metallic clatter before dying just as abruptly. Some component buried in her chest made a few small, cheerful-seeming beeps, as though to reassure its fellows. The doorbell rang.
Trixie opened the door. The man outside was rubbing his arms against one of the wind’s sudden assaults.
“Hi Trixie.” He looked her over, then furrowed his brow when she just stood there smiling at him. “Can I come in? It’s cold out here.”
“Hey the-the-the-the—Hi Victor! Come right in.” She stepped aside for him.
“Hey, Ryan!” he called out after entering. When no one answered he checked the kitchen before returning to Trixie. “Where’d he get to?”
“Oh, he just—he just—he ju-ju-ju—” There was a muffled crackle that Victor failed to notice. “I’m sorry, Ryan’s out at the moment.” She grinned. “He told me to give you whatever you want.”
Victor swallowed. Between her skimpy clothes and the sexy way she’d said it, he had a hard time not taking the directive literally.
“We were going to hang out tonight and watch some horror movies. Why would he go somewhere without texting or anything… and why are you all wet?”
Victor had never thought Trixie’s skin was her most convincing asset. It was hairless and the same pale ivory color everywhere without variation or blemish—nothing too difficult to ignore. But the water had magnified its usual faint sheen to a plasticky gloss that seemed only slightly less shiny than her costume.
Trixie’s overstuffed lips parted. She blinked rapidly. “Uh.h.h.h.h—” There was a sharp crackle.
Victor raised an eyebrow at the sound before Trixie distracted him by leaning forwards to display her assets.
“Do you like my outfit?”
“I do.” He looked around, as though expecting Ryan to jump out from behind the sofa. “I think you look really hot. You must keep Ryan tired.” He laughed nervously.
Trixie looked blankly over his shoulder for a moment, then hugged herself, accentuating her bust even further. “Ryan is just the best, sexiest, most perfect man in the whole world.”
Victor snorted. “He has his good sides.”
“I always do what he says,” she added. “Ryan said to give you whatever you want.”
Victor laughed. “Yeah, and what if I want to know where that asshole disappeared to?”
The artificial vixen straightened up, standing almost at attention, and blinked rapidly. “Uh.h.h.h.h…”
Her insides were humming louder than Victor had ever heard and there was a ragged edge to the sound that he didn’t like. He caught a whiff of hot plastic. “You okay, Trixie?”
“I’m sorry. Ryan’s out at the moment—out at the moment.” She seemed to relax.
“Wow, you really don’t know where he is.”
Trixie rolled her eyes. “Uh, I am such an airhead!”
“That doesn’t make much sense unless… I guess he didn’t want you to be able to tell me.”
She sashayed closer to him. “I’m supposed to give you whatever you want.”
Victor cleared his throat. “I… Ryan does know I want a robot like you.”
A string of repetitive clunks came from Trixie’s chest followed by a harsh beep. Her gaze grew even glassier. “Trixie 390 is no mere robot…” The tempo and timbre of her speech seemed subtly different, surer somehow. “Trixie 390 is the perfect synthetic sweetheart. Her bubbly personality is programmed to be irresistible.”
“When he said anything, did he mean… anything? Like, your body?” Suddenly things seemed to click: Ryan’s absence, the vague way he’d pitched hanging out, how Trixie was still wet from being washed. His hands moved to touch her and he seemed to snatch them back only at the last moment. He cursed under his breath and muttered, “if this is what it seems like, I’m going to owe you big time, Ryan.”
“Do you like my body—do you like my body?” Her voice was back to normal.
Victor hardly noticed the stutter—or the crackling buzz that had triggered it—and he put down the strengthening plastic smell to never having been so near to her. “You’re crazy sexy, Trixie..”
“No real girl can compete with my perfect body,” she said, gesturing proudly at her exaggerated curves.
Victor had never realized that, up close, you could hear her motors with every little movement.. Distantly, he wondered if she was supposed to be making a fizzing noise, too. He cupped one of her breasts in his palm and squeezed slightly. It yielded softly at first, but underneath the surface he felt a firmer core of some kind.
“Oh Vi-Vi-Vi-Vi-Ryan, you make me so horny!”
Victor grabbed the front of her top and yanked it down, wincing at the rubbery squeaking her breasts made rubbing together. The heavy hemispheres jumbled free now, bouncing before him deliciously. He saw for the first time that her nipples were no more than pink rubber nubs molded in a state of full arousal.
Victor leaned forward to kiss the lips he’d fantasized about so many times. The doorbell rang.
Trixie turned from Victor and clacked to the door atop her heels.
Victor goggled at her back. “Trixie?”
She opened the door to a cluster of older teens. They managed to get out “Trick or—” before the phrase died in their throats. Jaws dropped.
“Ryan said you can each take two pieces—take two pieces—take two pieces.” The exposed AutoMate didn’t lean forward so much as lurch, the motion arrested with a whine of protest from her servos as candy sloshed out of the bowl.
A few were brave enough to take their due, but most backed away down the porch steps empty-handed.
Victor finally leaped forward, shoving Trixie back out of the door and slamming it shut. “Holy crap!” he yelled.
“Happy Halloween!” she replied, and blithely replaced the bowl on the table.
“You can’t do that, Trixie, somebody’s going to call the cops.”
“Give Victor whatever he wants. Give candy to the trick-or-treaters. I always do what Ryan says.” There was another crackle inside her, too loud to ignore, and a yellow flash showed through the skin of her chest. “I always do what Ryan says.”
“Something’s screwed up with you. Just… don’t open the door again. I want you to stay right where you are. I’m calling Ryan.”
“I’m supposed to give you whatever you want,” she breathed. “Stay right here.” Her torso buzzed, mosquitos seeming to have made way for angry wasps. Her serene smile twisted into a grimace. “Give c.a.a.a.andy to the trick-or-treaters.”
Victor’s eyes bulged as he realized there was actual smoke curling out of Trixie’s ears.
She toppled into his arms, knocking the phone from his hand. It skittered under the couch, robbing Victor of his chance to see a message from Ryan explaining that he was stuck in a traffic jam.
“Oh Ryan, you make me so horny—you make me so horny—you make me so hor.r.r.r.r—” A string of pops loud as firecrackers illuminated the faulty love-doll’s stomach like a paper lantern, showing Victor the vague outline of her plastic skeleton and its motivating servos.
He coughed on the smoke of Trixie’s burning circuitry and shoved her away. She rebounded off the end of the couch, caught her balance, and came towards him again. She persisted with the pre-programmed motions of her catwalk strut but froze between each step, reducing the seductive gait to a lurching self-parody.
There was a knock at the door and the bell rang.
“Give candy to the trick-or-treaters—Give candy to the trick-trick-trick-or-treaters—” Trixie repeated as she spun sharply towards the entrance. Her oversized rack dragged her further around, though. She overcorrected just as badly, and it took her several tries, huge tits jerking violently back and forth, before she managed to get tolerably on target.
She halted just before reaching for the knob and turned back towards Victor. “Give Victor whatever he wants… don’t open the door.” She took a step towards him. “Give candy to the trick-or-treaters.” She twisted to look back at the door, the motion so isolated to her waist that she looked like her upper body was on a turn-table. “Don’t open the door.” She turned back towards Victor. The pitch of her voice was rising with each cycle. So was the volume of a deep, grumbling buzz in her torso.
“Trixie, calm down, okay,” Victor patted the air with his hands. He wondered if she had some kind of emergency off-switch like the robots at the mill.
“Don’t open the door—give candy to the trick-or-treaters—don’topenthedoor— givecandytothetrick-or-treatersdon’topenthedoorgivecandytothetrickortreaters” her pitch was chipmunk shrill. She stood shuddering and cross-eyed, vacillating halfway through her turn between the door and Victor. Her hair jounced chaotically as servos fought to carry out conflicting commands.
Victor flinched back from a loud bang. A plastic panel flew through the air and knocked over the candy bowl, scattering brightly-wrapped treats across the floor. Smoke poured from the cavity that had been opened between Trixie’s shoulders. The charred, fraying ends of a bundle of wires poked out of one corner, sparking weakly.
“Uh.h.h.h.h.h.h.h…” Trixie’s mouth dropped open as the distorted stutter droned on, hardly audible over the steady crackling and sizzling from her self-destructing circuitry. Rings of dull red light blinked around her pupils. Just as Victor was about to try to sneak past her, a few fat, white sparks shot from her ear. She made a garbled electronic noise in her throat and jerked back a few inches, blinking frantically until her gaze fell on Victor.
“You make me so horny,” she said, sounding tinny and distant. “I’m always wet for you, Ry-Ry-Ry—” the clunking returned but instead of a beep it ended with metallic ting followed by the sound of an object jouncing it’s way down through Trixie’s body “—USER NAME.” A speaker inside her began beeping urgently.
Breaking through the wreath of smoke that had gathered around her head, Trixie began a stiff-legged march towards Victor. “Do you like my body?”
Victor tried to make his escape from the faltering sex-doll by sidling around her but he underestimated her speed. She grabbed hold of his shirt and his attempt to twist away instead pulled her into him. Her glistening plastic bust smushed against his chest.
“No real girl can compete with my perfect body-dy-dy.y.y.y.y—” a loud buzz-buzz-buzz ended with a bang as a narrow strip of skin between Trixie’s breasts burst outward onto Victor followed by a scalding shower of sparks. Smoking wires crowded the inside of the gap, lit by a flickering flame on the surface of a circuit board.
Smarting from his burns, Victor threw Trixie bodily across the room. The back of her head struck the edge of the wooden coffee table with a plastic crunch before she flopped down underneath it.
“I’msuchanairheadI’msuchanairhead…” she repeated. Her lolling head thudded repeatedly against the bottom of the table as the powerful motors in her waist tried to make her sit up. Finally, with another crunch, they succeeded.
Victor stared, immobilized by astonishment, as Trixie clumsily mounted to her feet. Her head dangled behind her from a collection of tubes and cables that sprouted from the ragged stump of her neck.
He jumped as the doorbell rang. Shaking off his shock, he ran to the door and jerked it open. Trixie had also noticed the sound, and to his horror Victor saw the smoldering AutoMate make her swaying, broken-toy-soldier way in his direction.
“Run!” he shouted at the bemused trick-or-treaters outside. He bolted past them, clearing the steps in one long bound on the way to his car.
Their puzzlement survived only a brief time. The group shortly followed Victor’s example and fled into the night as a headless, topless apparition trailing a cloud of smoke stalked onto the porch.
“Ir.r.r.resistable synthetic sweetheart-sweetheart—my perfect body-dy-dy,” Trixie said, her jaw rizzing up and down randomly while sparks played around the inside of her mouth.
She placed a narrow platform on the slick wrapper of an Airheads candy. On her next step she toppled forwards as the foot slid out from under her. Her head was flung forward as she fell, slamming into the cement pavers at the foot of the stairs with a hollow plastic thunk.
One slender leg whirred into the air and stopped. Her body, pillowed up by her bust, rolled slightly as her arm lazily chopped at the cement. The beeping sound grew slower and deeper until it ceased.
“Trrriiiick… orrrrr… trrre-re-re-re—” her voice cut out with a final snap! as the biggest circuit board inside her back spat long sparks. The unsteady hum of her systems spooled down to silence, leaving only the fizzing of the few damaged components still receiving current.
As the red glow of Victor’s tail lights receded, Trixie’s outline melted into the deep shadow beneath the porch stairs. It was like no one was there at all.