Childminder

I stopped fiddling with my bow tie and took the ear-set that Helen thrust towards me from the bedroom door, “It’s Richard, for you…” She gave me a stern look, as she made urgent babysitting motions with her arms; still half dressed it made her breasts jiggle heavily behind the loose black satin of her evening dress. She turned and, with the ‘phone clamped to my lobe, I fastened her back slowly, hook by hook up her bare spine.

“Rich, hi! Hows it going?”

“Good thanks, I’ve just sent Verity off to your place, she should be there in five…” I jerked up a thumb to my lovely wife, looking back over her shoulder. She made a “phew” face while I finished hooking. Rich is a great friend but a born playboy, still a bachelor at forty and loving it. While I’d trust him with my life, relying on him to remember to supply his house-girl to baby-sit my kid is nerve wracking!

“Thought you’d call to bail on us there, mate!”

“Me? No way! I know Helen loves these Christmas charity dos you hate so much… No. Reason I’m calling is, well… I’d like a bit of a favour off you. When you get back could you have a look at Verity; the thing is she’s had some run-time errors on third tier purples or something and I’d hate to call the techs out for something trivial…”

Although Rich works for the same cybernetics firm as I do he’s got no clue about robots. He’s a kind of chief artist in residence; he captures the elusive quality of soft human beauty in drafted curves and lines from which the dermal designers can build the plastic and silicone reality. The days of stern Robo-Helgas has gone thanks to guys like Rich, and his success has got him onto the board with me, but he couldn’t re-program a toaster if he tried.

“Sure thing, I’ll send her back round about midnight, right as rain, that’s supposing its her peripherals that you’re trying to say! I ‘spect you forgot to press a button or something! Got go now, thanks for the loan, bye.”

Helen took the ‘phone from me as I hung up and placed it down on the bathroom counter. Pressing herself close, she pulled my fumbled tie apart and started from scratch. I could feel the complex fastenings of her suspenders dig through the dress and glimpsed a flash of black lace and white thigh through the high slit. She was stunning dressed up for these formal dos.

“What did he want?”

“Oh, no problem, just wants me to check out something with Verity later…”

“Is there a problem? Do you think we should leave Josh…?”

“Helen, don’t be silly. Verity’s model is as bombproof as they come, it’s a third tier cosmetic thing that you probably wouldn’t even notice. She’ll be fine. Anyway, Josh is in bed and at least he knows Verity, you wouldn’t want some stranger would you, even if we could get a babysitter in the next five minutes!”

“I’m just never comfortable leaving him with that robot…”

“Don’t be silly darling, she’s much more reliable than a person and I do know what I’m talking about.”

Helen is Josh’s stepmother but is fiercely protective of him since his mother died (we were separated long before then – Josh joined Helen and I at three, just a couple of years back.) My tie done I kissed her quickly and ushered her out, slipping my jacket on as we went downstairs. In the hall I helped her into a heavy winter coat over the flimsy dress and, just as we were ready to go, the door chimed.

Verity is a very cute girl of indeterminate age from sixteen to twenty. She’s quite bubbly and hangs around Rich’s place as somewhere between a housekeeper, au pair, daughter and I guess, girlfriend. She carries out all the chores but otherwise seems to be allowed to join in whatever’s going on. She comes over often, either with Rich or to baby-sit and I took the precaution in investing in the appropriate software package for that job, doubting if Rich had any need. She bounced in as I opened the door, shrugging off her coat to leave her in ordinary looking jeans and sweater.

“Hi, Mr Astor, Mrs Astor, good to see you!”

“Hi, Verity, right on time! Thanks for coming. You know where everything is and Josh is in bed so you should have a pretty easy time of it. We’ll be back at about half eleven, anything else you need?”

“No, I’ll be fine Mr Astor, you two have a great time!”

I motioned Helen out towards the car and turned back from the doorway behind her, “Verity, command word: childminder.”

She tilted her head in the classic android fashion for a tiny moment as she loaded the settings required then beamed a youthful smile, “childminder set, bye Mr A!”

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The snow was driving in flurries all the way back and we huddled from the car to the door and let ourselves in a rush. Helen was giggling after several glasses of Champaign and I had to half wrestle her out of her coat.

“Hi Mr and Mrs A, I hope you had a nice night? Josh is fine and slept through without even noticing you were away so no problems here.”

“Had a great time thanks Verity. Helen, why don’t you run on up, I promised to look over Verity for Richard.”

“Are you sure you don’t need a hand honey?” Helen placed her manicured fingers delicately on Verity’s shoulder and gave me a smouldering look. “Babe, I think we should have a little privacy. Verity, I’ll have to open you up briefly, would you come into my study please.” Helen pulled a face and went upstairs calling out for me not to be too long. She could fancy a pretty girl but had never shared my fascination with robots, the idea of removing panels to program and adjust the systems inside never failed to discomfort her.

Inside my shabby but well equipped study I sat at the workstation and pulled up schematics for the T Series domestic, Verity’s model.

“Verity, would you take off your jumper and jeans and sit over on the sofa please. I’ll open up your main panel in a moment, do you ever remember anyone doing that before?”

“Umm, no Mr Astor”, she pulled the top up to leave only a very thin pink camisole that left little to my imagination.

“Right, best keep it that way then. Verity, command word: maintenance. Retain all memory logs from now onwards in new file – maint1.”

I stood over her as she sat on my sofa, her head cocked for several moments as she re-directed her system logs. When she confirmed the change I gave the coded command to unseal her abdominal panel which drew itself in, seemingly from nowhere, as the internal sealer travelled around its rectangular course leaving a clear seam on her previously flawless skin. When the seam was complete I pressed gently to pop the top of the thick panel free and swung it aside on the bundle of cables to hang like an open door into Verity’s body.

The young woman’s eyes followed the seam forming in her body, then went wide as I opened her up. “Mr Astor, I can see right inside me! Oh God, I feel so weird!” I put a restraining hand on her chest and pushed her back, “Verity, try not to move. This is perfectly safe but your internals are very delicate, just sit still while I check you over.”

I hooked her up and ran some targeted diagnostics to track down the problem. Knowing Rich, it would be some off the shelf software not set up properly. As the programs ran I watched Verity sitting pertly on the sofa. She sat still as I told her, still staring wide eyed with wonder at her own robotics, hands resting gently on her smooth thighs, her arms framing the open panel, its cover swinging to one side. As my PC rummaged through her system she exhibited classic random movements, her human motions interrupted by momentary freeze ups, twitches and little jerks. Her speech also was glitchy as well as interrupted by the tiny beeps from inside her.

“I can feel th…i…i...ings happening Mr A… A… A… Astor. I feel strange, I don’t kn beep know what to… twitch …to feel.”

After examining the results so far, I knelt down and probed into Verity’s stomach, checking connections and components.

“I feel strange Mr Astor. I can feel you… you… you… twitch oh! Feel you inside me. I’m just a machine, you… twich …you can take me apart. Are you going to reprogram… freeze …me? Are you going to turn me off? I feel so… twitch bleep …so helpless, so… twitch …so in your control. I… beep …I feel so robotic, I normally feel… feel… feel… freeze …feel so human! What are you going to do to me?”

With each little twitch of her upper body she pushed against the sofa back and after a minute her top was stretched tight over her pert little tits, the straps falling aside. Finishing my inspection I put my hand on her shoulder to calm her down as the diagnostic tools finished off their job, admiring the hard little nipples that had risen since I opened her up.

“Relax Verity, you’re fine. Try and be calm and don’t talk.”

I checked out the final results. As I suspected there was a set of drivers that weren’t configured properly for her set-up: simple calibration job.

“Verity, move carefully and take off your knickers please.” She slipped them carefully down her legs then rested back to sit on her ankles, showing off a perfect little pink snatch below a close cropped patch of pubic hair. She was a beautiful little ‘bot!

I hit the calibration button on my machine and knelt down again, “Verity, try not to move at all.” I gently touched her pussy lips and slipped a single finger between their folds, noting a degree of warm wetness inside.

“Mr Astor, I’m sorry but I’m not programmed for sex.”

“Oh Verity, I rather think you are! Just not very well, that’s the problem.”

As I probed the folds with one finger I watched the sensor readings fed down the link to my workstation and used my free hand to enter the adjustments required manually into Verity’s internal controls. Her eyes grew wider and wider as each zone was calibrated until I eventually reached the little pink bud of her clitoris. I could feel her little body vibrating under my hands as I flicked my finger over its glistening wet surface.

“Mr Astor! I’m loading new software, do you want me to execute?”

“Go ahead Verity, looks like your sensor drivers are set up right now…”

“OH GOD! Mr Astor! Oh OHHH!! Grrrrrrr oh oh oh oh FUCK!! Fuck me, Mr Astor, please oh my God YES!”

The little android girl convulsed on my sofa gripped by her first orgasm, now that I had straightened out her settings so she could make sense of the signals from her sexual organs. From my viewpoint knelt in front of her I had an unrivalled view of the contractions of her artificial pink vagina, dripping with wet juices from her internal reservoirs. She flung her arms back, then pressed her hands against her pelvis as she stared at her groin and open abdomen, then turned her wide eyes to me.

---

“What happened?”

“You came, Verity. I suggest you get used to it, it’s supposed to be fun.”

“It was amazing, will you have sex with me please? I want to do it again”

I began closing the pretty blonde girl up again as we spoke. Petty though she was it had been a long day and I had a beautiful wife waiting upstairs. You can get used to fembots after enough time and, after all, she did belong to a friend. I contented myself with a lingering kiss and a good feel of those, still rock hard, nipples before I told her to get dressed.

“Verity, command word: maintenance. Delete file maint1 and restore factory log settings.”

This took her several frozen seconds to do, I guess ad-hoc servicing had degraded her system a little. She came to with a start.

“Oh Mr Astor, have you finished with me?”

“Yup, you’re all fixed Verity. You should get on home to Richard, I think he may have a surprise for you…”

“Ooo! Well, thank you very very much! Richard is rubbish with technology!”

“Verity, it was a pleasure; any time, really, any time.”

---

Helen was reading in bed when I went upstairs, she put the luminous panel down and killed the display, snuggling down under the covers.

“So you’ve fixed that robot of Richard’s then?”

“Yeah, no problem. Rich had her sex drivers set up all wrong, kinky bastard!”, I sat beside her on the big bed.

“So he’s shagging a robot then, just great! I just can’t understand why people can’t see the difference between an appliance and a person.”

“Give him some credit, he’s a smart guy…”, I pulled the covers down over my wife’s naked body, her full breasts were spread across her chest but firm enough to hold a good shape as she lay there on her back. A grown woman rather than the young girl I’d just worked on”

“It just gives me the creeps, people don’t seem to be able to tell the difference anymore; or even care,” her words slurred slightly after the evening’s drinks.

“Helen, command word: bedtime. I think you get a bit over excited about the whole thing dear, I mean what does it matter so long as he’s happy?”

A familiar rectangle below Helen’s ample bosom sank into her prostate body with a click and slid upwards, the opening mechanisms hidden deep behind the plastic ribs and soft silicone padded flesh. Her daily servicing panel sat underneath, deep inside her lower chest and glowing dully. As her body opened for me she straightened her natural posture to lie straight out on her back with her arms at her side, only her head remaining animated. She accepted the command without pause or acknowledgement of any kind.

“Oh honestly, how can he be happy? He needs to find a real person to be with, how can he have what we have when he’s with that fake teenager? You can’t have a relationship; you can’t have give and take; if the guy can program the girl to be whatever he wants, or just turn her off whenever? Its sick!” The slur had vanished from her voice as the simulated effect of alcohol was terminated. She didn’t appear to notice.

“Hmmm, perhaps he doesn’t want give and take.” I smiled wryly, thinking back to the stormy times with the mother of my child. Whilst Helen would never give me another she would be the perfect mother to the one I had, the perfect wife too. I studied her displayed stats: power – very low now, system check – okay, damage – nothing serious, error log – minor stuff. She had flushed out her food and drink reservoir before she went to bed and replenished her fluids, acts so like human ablutions that she was easily programmed to accept them into her routine. She was functioning fine; her next service would pick up this little stuff in good time. I reached under the bed and pulled up the power cord to plug into the socket inside her open panel, no need to re-program tonight, she was just as I like her.

“You’re just bitter, and your winding me up too, I know you… twitch …you agree with me really.” She jerked quite violently when I plugged her in, she really had been low on power, I should be more careful I suppose.

I pulled the covers back over her and went around the room, hanging up my dinner suit and putting away my shoes, tie, cufflinks and the like as we chatted some more, both of us steering the conversation away from robots onto the events at the party to avoid an argument. I never got tired of the way she could remain utterly oblivious to her nature whilst being fully aware of everything else. She simply ignored the evidence, a protocol that had taken years to develop to usable robustness. Once I had even removed her back and dismantled a servo assembly, chatting all the while. She had simply thought nothing of a three hour “massage” yet alone the forest of wires hanging by her sides.

I slid under the covers beside Helen as she lay out straight on her side of the bed.

“House: lights out. Good night Helen.” I slid my arm over the motionless robot and kissed her delicate lips as she turned her head towards me.

“Goodnight dear.”

My hand caressed her warm softness for a moment and I kissed her again as I slipped my fingers into her chest. By practiced touch I located the power button and pressed firmly.

Beep

I felt my wife’s lips tighten up as she froze in position, expression fixed for the night, her blank eyes glazed over in my direction. I rolled over and fell quickly to sleep.

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