Meals of Misery

Annetta sat silently in the chair, wherein an hour ago, her sister was strapped and tortured. But, as opposed to Audrey, there were no straps looping tightly around her body or a gag inserted snugly in her mouth. No one was even wedging tooth picks under her fingernails. She shuddered, when a sensation ran through her folds – an expert tongue licking her most intimate area, playing with her bundle of nerves.

The tongue moving against her was relentless, knowing exactly where to flick and swirl to send jolts of electricity up the blonde’s spine. Annetta squeezed her eyes shut, her fingers digging into the wooden armrests of the chair trying her best not to give in to the sensations washing over her body. Fuck, this is so sick, the woman thought to herself as her pelvis lifted a bit from that damn chair.

In front of her, the blonde could see her sister Audrey, now all healed up and not a scratch on her, being fucked by Mrs. B & C simultaneously. The older sister was making noises as if she enjoyed it. Of course, this was probably more suitable than the torture, so why wouldn’t she? Then again, who am I to judge when this fucking robot is making my legs feel like jelly...

The woman’s mind flashed back to a little bit over two hours ago...

*

Misters B and C finished their preparations on the glowing blue cylinder. The star chef watched helplessly as Mr. A unstrapped Audrey’s quivering form from the chair. Slowly, ever so slowly, he helped the woman limp towards the tank while whispering sweet nothings in her ear and chuckling to himself.

Then, Mrs. B & C gripped Audrey’s hands. As one held her wrist, the other readied to yank out the toothpick. "Time to get the splinters out of you. You don’t want an infection, do you?", Mr. B casually asked as Audrey took a deep breath and shook her head. The scream that tore from her made Annetta’s heart ache.

Anne remembered bucking and trashing, desperate to scramble forward, to hug her sister close to her no matter the consequences, but the synth’s foot remained an immovable anchor on her stomach. It pressed down just enough to keep her pinned, grinding her into the cold floor, forcing her to watch every second.

She saw them strap Audrey into a complex leather harness, her body twitching violently from the aftershocks of pain. With mechanical indifference, the two men hoisted her up via a motorized pulley system. Annetta’s breath had caught in her throat, certain they were about to dunk her sister into some vat of acid to dissolve the evidence of their torture.

"Please! No! Don't kill her!", Annetta remembered screaming, tears streaming down her face, mixing with the dust on the floor. Then, they had lowered her in. Audrey’s thrashing was immediate and violent, the splash sending blue liquid sloshing over the sides of the tank. Annetta shrieked, wailing a loud no with all the might of her lungs that she had, her nails clawing uselessly at the polished floorboards as she watched her sister flailing beneath the surface, bubbles rising frantically as she struggled against the harness.

“Kill her?”, Mr. A chuckled as his other two companions snorted and started operating the dials on the control panel of the tank. “My dear, Mrs. Mortinson, if we kill her, then we lose one of our assets. It’s just bad business practice. No, you see, this chemical concoction is meant to heal and mend what is broken. You will see for yourself”.

Slowly, the frantic movements began to subside. The bubbles stopped. Through the distortion of the thick glass and the luminescent blue fluid, Annetta saw the tension leave Audrey’s muscles. The raw, red ruin of her fingertips began to knit together, the skin smoothing over as if time were reversing itself. The bruising on her face faded to a healthy, pale pink.

The blue liquid bubbled rhythmically, a stark contrast to the chaos of moments before. Annetta lay frozen, her chest heaving, eyes locked on the glass where her sister floated now in serene suspension. The pressure on her stomach suddenly vanished as Renata withdrew her foot. Then, a hand gripped the chef’s upper arm and hauled her up without any effort. Her legs felt like jelly, and she stumbled, catching herself against the synth’s solid torso.

“She’ll be back to normal as if nothing had happened in about half an hour or so”, Mr. A nonchalantly told. His hands lingered a bit on the blonde’s side, squeezing her flank a bit, which made Annetta flinch. He smiled, not unkindly, looking at the woman’s blue eyes. "You see, Mrs. Mortinson, your sister has been with us for quite some time now. I think seven months, is that right? Seven months, would you gentlemen say?”, he asked and the two men working the tank’s dials simply shrugged; meaning probably.

“It’s quite a fascinating story, really," the balding man continued while tracing his fingers over Anne's abdomen. She took a big breath and gritted her teeth when the man gently poked around some of the more fatty folds surrounding the area. “Your sister caught our eye in one of those people magazines. Oh, what an article it was: a famous economist turned mother turned business owner; owner of successful restaurant chain… her smile and the dress she was wearing was simply dazzling in those pictures”.

Mr. A’s hand travelled upward, his fingers grazing the underside of the blonde’s breast, almost playful. “At that moment we knew that we have to have her, so we arranged a meeting in guise of a lucrative restaurant chain expansion”, he chuckled as if disbelieving himself how simple everything was.

“She came willingly,” Mr. B added. “Eager to expand her restaurant chain to other cities. But once she was here...”

“Well, Mrs. Mortinson, you seem to understand what happened onwards since virtually the same thing happened to you”, Mr. A finished. “Of course, unlike in your case, she wasn’t that much eager, since we never proposed to pay her for her time”, the man droned on tracing his fingers further up almost caressing the blonde’s neck.

“She kicked and screamed”, Mr. C added looking at the blue bubbles slowly rising to the surface. “But, when she saw her doppelgänger, which had all her memories up to this point, mannerisms and speech patterns, she thought better”.

Mr. A’s hand lingered on Annetta's throat, his thumb pressing gently against her pulse point, feeling the frantic rhythm of her heart. "You see, Audrey realizing that she would be effectively replaced by a synth had no other option, but to agree to our terms. You could imagine your sister's fear that the synth one day could just snap her little Adam’s or her husband’s neck and torch the whole place down, if we so wished”.

Annetta felt sick. The nausea rolled in her gut, violent and sharp hearing these words. Her mind reeling to all the times when she had spoken with her sister. Shit, was that my sister or that fucking robot? Fuck, fuck, fuck, what if this is a robot and they are trying to trick me?

The blonde’s eyes darted frantically between the people in the room, trying to process things. Is what they are saying now the truth or a lie? Was Audrey actually somewhere safe and in her stead they made all this show with a synth just to make me fall in line?

"I assure you”, Mr. A continued as if sensing the woman's thoughts. “The woman in the healing tank is definitely your sister; flesh, bones and blood, and everything in between. She has been entertaining us from time to time, as you will be, I’m sure, but, alas, all people have their breaking points, and dear Audrey found hers. Unfortunately, that was during a live shooting of a scene, and this could not have gone unpunished. Luckily, we believe in preserving our assets”, the man said looking straight in to Anne's eyes and leaning in close enough that she could almost taste his breath on her lips. He smelled of tobacco.

Mr. A pressed his lips against the chef's, his moist tongue parting them slightly so he could explore the blonde’s mouth. Tobacco, fucking disgusting, I'm gonna puke, she thought to herself while not even remotely trying to reciprocate the kissing. The chef would have leaned back from his advances even further, if not for the synth behind her back.

Mr. A pulled back and dramatically sighed, shaking his head. “I guess, you are on the fence whether I was telling the truth about your sister or not, right?”. She just stoically looked at him not saying a word, lips tightly pursed.

Mr. A smirked at her and reached into the back pocket of his trousers producing a smartphone. With a few taps, he dialled a number and held the device out to her.

"Hello?" The voice was unmistakable. It was Audrey's cheerful, melodic tone, the exact same voice she had heard over the phone hundreds of times while discussing dinner plans or complaining about their husbands. "Anne? Is that you?"

 "Aud?", the woman choked out, her voice cracking. "Is that really you?"

"Of course it's me, silly!" The voice on the other end chimed, bright and bubbly, utterly devoid of the trauma Annetta had just witnessed. "I was just heading out to work. It’s such a lovely day outside. How are things at the studio? Are you cooking up something delicious?"

The blonde's knees buckled, and she had to lean back against the synth for support. The disconnect was jarring. The woman on the phone sounded happy, carefree - the complete opposite of the broken, tortured soul she had seen pulled from the chair less than an hour ago.

"It's... it's been a long day," she managed to stammer, her eyes darting to the tank where the real Audrey was floating, then back to the phone in her hand as if it were a grenade. "I'm just... I've been thinking about you."

"Oh, how sweet!" the voice on the line chirped. "I've been thinking about you too, Anne. Actually, I was just telling my husband how proud I am of you. Taking on this new direction for the show. It's very... brave of you."

Annetta froze. The words were innocent enough on the surface, but the context twisted them into a knife. "Brave?"

"Yes, brave," the synth on the line purred, the voice lowering an octave or two. In the background, Annetta could hear the sound of a car’s engine being turned on. "Sometimes we have to make sacrifices for our family's well-being. For stability. You wouldn't want anything... unfortunate to happen to your beautiful children, would you? Or to your husband's career? It would be a shame if your 'no' caused them so much distress."

Hearing this barely concealed threat, Anne felt the blood drain from her face.

"Family is everything, Anne. You do whatever you have to do to keep them safe. Even if it means... embracing new experiences. Even if it means swallowing your pride for the greater good. You'll understand soon enough. You don't want to end up needing a 'time-out' like your sister did just now, do you? I assure you, it’s no a pleasant experience at all for a human with all those pesky nerve endings”.

The line went dead with a sharp click. Annetta stood there, lips slightly parted in shock. She slowly lowered the device, her arm limp at her side.

"See?" Mr. A held out his hand, and the blonde mechanically placed the phone back into his palm. “Your real sister is with us, while her replacement is making so that her life runs smoothly to the outside world. So, how about we try kissing again, with a little bit more enthusiasm this time, hmm?”

The blonde took a deep breath and steeled herself as Mr. A leaned his head next to her and slowly closed the distance. This time, Annetta didn't try pulling away. She parted her lips, allowing the man access…