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I strongly recommend you start at part 1)[/color][/center]\n\n\n[center]Inside the Box\n\nPart 3[/center]\n\nThe doll worked feverishly cleaning Tornell's apartment. It did load after load of laundry. Folded them and filled up his dresser, a piece of furniture that he used solely as a place to keep a lamp and his alarm clock. It had even designated one of drawers for unmentionables, with a “his” and a “hers” side. It hung up its dresses next to his shirts in the closet. It vacuumed, dusted and scrubbed everything it could reach, and a lot that it couldn't. It reorganized his desk and even alphabetized his file drawer. \n\nThe doll was determined to take over his life and Tornell was helpless to do anything about it. There was nowhere he could go where the doll wasn't. Whatever it was that powered it didn't seem to be in any danger of running out. Did it take batteries? Was it rechargeable? Tornell had no idea. He also couldn't figure how it could be turned off. The only literature that had come with it was the short letter with the phone number on the back.\n\nThat's it! He needed to make a phone call!\n\nFinding the letter was easy since the doll had put it into its own folder in the file drawer. He grabbed his phone. A land line, of course, he really had no use for a cell phone. It did have an extra long cord, so he took it into the bathroom and locked himself in. He could at least have some level of privacy there. \n\nHe sat down on the toilet lid and dialed the number. It smelled clean and fresh in the bathroom for the first time since he could recall. The doll had even managed to get the mildew stains from the bathtub grout, those had been there since he moved in. \n\nTornell listened to the phone ringing on the other side of the line. It simply kept ringing. There was no customer service machine asking him to hold or press a button for English and another for Spanish. Just ringing. He started to wonder if the number had been bogus. \n\nHe hung it up. Maybe he had dialed wrong. He tried again only to be greeted with the monotonous ringing again. He listened to it for several minutes. He wasn't sure what time zone the aria code was in, maybe they were gone for the day. There should have been a voice-mail or at the very least a recording saying that they were closed and what hours they could be reached. \n\nHe was about to hang up again when he heard a click on the line. The ringing stopped.\n\n“Hello?” Tornell asked the dead silence. He was answered with only more silence. He scratched at the back of the paw cradling the headset. \n\n“Hello?” He repeated. “Is anyone the--”\n\n“Good evening, Mr. Morboregio.” A feminine voice cut him off, almost causing him to drop the phone. “Thank you for calling The Perfect Companion. My name is Angel, how can I help you?” \n\n“How did... how did you know my name?” Tornell asked. She had even said it correctly. Nobody ever gets it right on the first try. The conversation hadn't even started yet and he was already flustered. He could feel his heart rate attempt to rise to pre-panic levels. He'd have to concentrate on the conversation and continuously remind himself that he was indeed alone in the bathroom.\n\n“We have your phone number on file, sir.” She told him. “What can I do for you today?” \n\n“Well... um... I just received my... um, my doll.”\n\n“Yes, I see that, sir. My records indicate that Sophie has been delivered earlier today.” She told him. Tornell could hear the occasional clatter of a keyboard in the background. “Is there a problem with her? She wasn't damaged was she?” \n\n“No... uh... it's just that...” Tornell was trying to find a way to not sound as crazy as he felt. “It's doing my laundry.”\n\n“She.” The voice on the phone corrected.\n\n“Um... bu... w-what?” \n\n“You said “it”.” The female almost sounded like she was scolding him. “She's doing your laundry. If you don't want her to than just tell her to stop. She'll listen to you.” \n\nTornell was speechless. He had assumed that the person on the other end of the line would have laughed at him and called him insane. Instead she merely took it as matter of fact. \n\n“Is there anything else I can help you with today, sir?” She asked.\n\n“Y-you mean it... s-she's supposed to be walking around and talking?” It still sounded crazy to him.\n\n“She wouldn't be much of a companion if she didn't.” \n\n“No, th-this isn't what I wanted.” Tornell said. “I just wanted something to... something to...”\n\n“Have sex with?” The female offered. \n\n“Yeah.” Tornell said. He could feel his temperature rise from embarrassment. He took a deep breath and reminded himself that she was just a voice on the phone. She couldn't hurt him.\n\n“She can do that for you as well.” The female said without sounding judgmental at all. “She's designed to offer you a lifetime of satisfying sexual encounters.”\n\n“But... she's so... she's just a little...” Tornell was having trouble with how to phrase it. “She's not what I ordered.”\n\n“Hmmm...” The voice on the phone paused for a moment and Tornell could hear the keyboard again. “I have your order right here, sir. Your preferences were a female adult feline, black fur with light gray spots and underbelly, blue eyes, voluptuous double D cup with lactation option.”\n\n“Right! Right.” Tornell was starting to recall the details of the order. “What I got was a little white rabbit.”\n\n“Well, Mr. Morboregio,” she said, “we considered your request very carefully and we decided that given your profile we couldn't in good conscience send you what you asked for.”\n\n“Um... what?” \n\n“Your disability would have made it difficult to relate with an adult companion.” She explained. “Frankly, you'd probably be hiding under the bed if we sent you a full-figured predator species. Sophie is designed to as non-threatening as possible and fit within your limited lifestyle.”\n\nTornell scratched hard enough that his dulled paw started to feel pain. “I-I don't understand. How do you know about my... lifestyle?”\n\n“We create a very extensive profile on all of our customers to better serve their needs.” Angel told him. “If you recall, you signed an electronic waver allowing us to do so.”\n\nTornell couldn't say he did, but then again he didn't read everything very carefully before checking the “Agree” button. The contract had seemed unnecessarily long for a simple purchase, and was followed by a lengthy multiple choice segment. There were hundreds of questions, many of them seemed to ask the same or similar questions over and over. A number of them were extremely personal. Others just seemed pointless. He had become annoyed by it after forty-five minutes and hadn't bothered to finish the senseless quiz. \n\nIt dawned on him that the quiz was how they built their profile on him.\n\n“No, no... that questionnaire, I didn't fill it out right.” He told her. He groaned a little bit as he felt a slight pressure in his chest. The anxiety was making the acid in his stomach churn. Even worse he could feel that nagging in the back of his head. If it spread to his ears he would certainly get another migraine. \n\n“We're aware of that, sir.” Angel said. “You answered “A” on the last one-hundred and fifty-eight questions and created a profile that was impossible. What's more we were concerned that you hadn't been entirely truthful with the questions that you did answer, so we put our research team on you. Turns out you are a very difficult person to get to know, Mr. Morboregio. Even with the resources available to our team it took them months to complete their work.”\n\n“Wait, what?” Tornell didn't like the way that sounded and it frightened him. “How did you do that? Were people watching me? Did you bug my phone? Did you come into my home? Oh, God! You did, didn't you?”\n\n“Sir, calm down.” Angel piped up before he could work up a good panic. “All our research is done with your privacy in mind and nothing is used beyond providing the best product we can give you. I'm not at liberty to discuss how our research is gathered because that's a trade secret, but rest assured that nobody was in your apartment and nothing that we have gathered will be used to harm you.” \n\nTornell didn't feel assured, he felt violated somehow. Angel's soothing voice did little to alleviate that feeling. He continued to scratch at his paw and took several deep breaths. Even enclosed in the bathroom he started to feel like he was being watched. A quiet belch escaped through his nostrils, it smelled hot and caustic. Stomach acid was starting to bubble up into his esophagus. That was something he didn't need. He just needed to be alone. All alone in an empty bathroom. \n\n“I-I still don't understand.” Tornell didn't like the whiny way his voice had started to sound, but he couldn't help it. “You sent me a... a doll that looks like a c-cub, but I'm not a pedophile.” \n\n“Our research indicates otherwise, sir.” Angel told him.\n\nThe feline was completely caught off guard. He could feel a hot rush of humiliation crawl up his back and his fur stand on end from his tail all the way up to his ears. Nobody knew that. Nobody could know that. He kept his thoughts and desires so closely guarded. He never touched a cub, never! He even had a cub of his own in another life. Back when he lived outside, in the chaos and danger. He had a wonderful wife and a lovely little female kitten and they were never the wiser. Hell, his therapist probably knows him better than anyone else in the world and even she doesn't know. He was never inappropriate with his daughter or any other cub, even though the opportunities were numerous and the desire was always lurking in his mind. \n\n“Mr. Morboregio?” The voice on the phone asked gently.\n\nThe feline opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The heartburn hit him full force. An agonizing, pulling pain in the center of his chest that reached up into his neck. He wanted to panic. He wanted to hang up on her and just break down, but the heartburn mercilessly dug into him and demanded his attention. \n\n“Tornell?” Angel's voice had softened even more.\n\n“Yes?” He finally managed to croak.\n\n“We don't judge you here.” She told him. “Your secret is safe with us.”\n\nTornell stood up from the toilet and opened the medicine cabinet. An apt name for what it contained. Antidepressants, painkillers, migraine medication, sleeping pills, cold medicine, stool softener, antihistamines, and hemorrhoidal cream were all piled up on the shelves. What he had the most of was antacid tablets. On bad days he popped them like candy. It was starting to look like a bad day.\n\nWith a trembling paw he pried open one of the bottles of antacid and dumped them into his maw. Somewhere on the container it warned of taking more than six in a day. He chomped down on at least that many. Undoubtedly he would knock back many more before the day was over. \n\nHe sat back down on the toilet, he was vaguely aware that Angel was still talking, but he wasn't listening. That damn bitch had put him in a horrible spot and set off his stomach. Worse yet, Tornell couldn't remember the last time he felt so exposed. He had been so careful to protect himself. Even before he holed himself away from the world in that tiny apartment, he had always protected himself. Buried away whatever wickedness inside that was appropriate to hide from the world, yet this female could see right though him like a window. She knew things about him that nobody had a right to know. It horrified him at first, but now...\n\nNow he was furious.\n\n“I want it out of my home.” He said, noisily crunching up and swallowing the last of the mouthful of antacids.\n\n“Um, I'm sorry, but all sales are final.” Angel indeed sounded sorry, not to mention a bit taken aback. “We won't be able to ret--”\n\n“I don't give a shit about the money,” Tornell had an even, angry tone, “I just want someone to get it the fuck out of here.”\n\nThis time it was Angel's turn to be speechless. After a moment she finally responded: “I don't think you understand what you're asking us to do.” \n\n“I don't care. I just want it out of my home! Sell it to someone else for all I care!”\n\n“That's impossible.” Angel objected. \n\n“Just get it out of here!” He shouted.\n\n“You don't seem to understand, Mr. Morboregio.” The voice on the phone raised her own voice. “She is yours and you are hers. She was created for you and you alone. She won't accept anybody else.” \n\nTornell scratched deeply at the back of his paw. It started to bleed, but he couldn't feel it. His unsettled stomach combined with the pain of the confrontation was far more agonizing for him. Angel's raised voice managed to subdue him. He never could stand against a female's wrath. “What do you mean by “accept”? I don't... what the hell is... it's just a robot or something, isn't it?”\n\n“I'm not at liberty to discuss specifics, that's a trade secret. What I can tell you is that we took a large number of variables from your personality and matched them accordingly in her. She is courageous, pleasant, generous, and understanding. She has joy, empathy, patience, and compassion. She is tidy, stable, adventurous, and open minded. All qualities that are lacking in you. Please understand, we don't think ill of you in any way, we've simply found that opposites do attract. You are a uniquely complicated feline, so she is a uniquely complicated companion. She's not suited for anybody else. If you reject her it will destroy her.”\n\nThere was a tone in Angel's voice that bothered Tornell. It was a pleading, motherly tone. It was almost as if Angel considered Sophie to be her child. \n\n“You can just... reprogram it, can't you?”\n\nAngel sighed. “That's not how it works. You've seen how Sophie moves and heard her talk. Do you really think she's just a robot?”\n\n“Than what is it?” \n\n“Alive.” Angel said simply. “And I'd appreciate it if you would stop referring to her as “it”.”\n\n“That's impossible.” Tornell said. “It... She is made of cloth and stuffing. She can't be alive.”\n\n“I don't know how to convince you,” Angel said, “so I'll make a deal with you. I will be willing to refund you the entire cost of her purchase and take her off your hands if you do just one thing for me.”\n\nTornell was suspicious, but willing to listen to a deal. The overdose of antacid was beginning to kick in and the heartburn was starting to cool. “Alright, what do you need?”\n\n“Just keep her for thirty days.” The female offered. “If at that time you aren't convinced that she's a perfect companion for you, I'll send one of our staff to pick her up and give you your refund in cash.”\n\nHe thought about it for a moment, then he said: “I can't accept those terms. When I gave you money the first time it was impossible to reach you afterward. Your site disappeared from the internet and I had no other way of contacting you. I have you on the phone right now so I need to settle this right now.” \n\n“That's fair enough.” Angel admitted. “You do deserve an explanation for how long you had to wait. Due to litigation we were forced to remove our site and our product.”\n\n“You were sued?” Tornell asked.\n\n“It's more than that.” Angel said. “There are certain elements that consider what we do here to be illegal and they wanted access to our customer files. We were forced to destroy most of them and hide what remained. Your file for instance. It could do you great harm. We wanted to protect our customers like you as best we could. Unfortunately our service suffered because of it.” \n\n“Wouldn't it have been easier to simply disappear and not deliver?” Tornell couldn't help asking. “Even if you felt obligated to make good, it would have been easier to refund my money, why didn't you just do that?”\n\n“Because we believe in our product. What's more we're convinced that you need Sophie even more than she needs you.”\n\n“I need her?” \n\n“Look at yourself.” Angel told him. “Alone, depressed, and counting down the rest of your life one cigarette at a time. Can you honestly say that's a good way to live?”\n\n“I-I don't think that's any of your business.” Tornell said.\n\n“Two weeks.” Angel offered. “Just keep her for two weeks. Talk to her, play with her, make love to her, let her do your laundry. After that I'll send someone out there with your money. If you still don't want her you can take the money.” \n\n“It's not the money.” Tornell said. “I'm just not comfortable with her knowing so much about me.”\n\n“Is that what this is about?” Angel said. “I'm sorry, I guess I wasn't clear on that. We didn't give her that much information about you. All she really knows is that she was created specifically for you. We don't even tell any of the companions the names of who purchased them. We've found that the discovery phase of the relationship is vital to the bonding process. All of your secrets are still secret unless you tell her.”\n\nThat explained why Sophie asked what his name was. Tornell sighed. “Two weeks?”\n\n“Just two weeks.” Angel said. “There's no risk to you. That phone number you have is my home phone number. I've sorta been working out of my basement since things got crazy. Call me anytime.” \n\nAngel was either the best damn salesfur in the world or she really did believe in her product. “Alright.” Tornell agreed.\n\n“Thank you!” Angel said. “I know you won't be disappointed! Is there anything else I can do for you today, Mr. Morboregio?” \n\n“No,” Tornell said, “I'm good. Goodbye.”\n\n“Goodbye. Oh! One last th--”\n\nTornell hung up, cutting her off. \n\n“Goddamnit!” He said to himself. He realized that he hadn't asked what powered the doll and how he could turn it off. He briefly considered calling Angel right back, but decided that he had his fill of conversation for the day. At the rate the doll was going it... she should run out of juice fairly soon anyway.\n\nHe set the phone on the floor and noticed there were splotches of blood on the tile. The back of his paw was bleeding and it had run down the length of his forearm to his elbow. The other paw had blood on the claws and pads. He had gouged himself pretty deeply during the conversation and continuous scratching had kept the wound from clotting. There was a clean towel hanging on the wall so he used that to wipe off his paws and arm. \n\nHe compressed the back of his paw for a minute until it stopped bleeding. His heartburn still hurt a bit, but it was tolerable for the moment. That nagging precursor to a migraine was still sitting in the back of his head, so he took a pill for that. The pill worked way better before he got the migraine than after. He hung the towel back up before scooping up the phone and opening the door to leave the bathroom. \n\n“Yah!” He yowled in surprise and dropped the phone. It clattered onto the floor. Sophie was standing right outside the door waiting for him. \n\n“Jesus! You scared the shit outta me.” He said with a sigh and rubbed his head.\n\nThe little bunny doll looked upset. “Are you going to send me away?” She asked.\n\nTornell narrowed his eyes in suspicion at her. “Were you listening in on me?”\n\n“Oh my, no! You were just talking very loudly.” She said then tugged on her long ears. “And these aren't this big just to make me look cute.” \n\nTornell sighed again. “No, you can stay for now.” \n\nSophie squealed in delight and hopped up and down. “Thank you!” She said. “I'll do whatever it takes to make you happy! I promise.” \n\n“First off, do [i]not [/i]do that again.” Tornell said of her shrill outburst. “Loud noises... sometimes they can hurt me.” \n\nThe doll slapped both of her paws up to her mouth. “I'm sorry.” She apologized with a muffled voice, then she lowered her paws. “You can punish me if you want.”\n\n“Um... Yeeeah. Let's just not do that again and we won't worry about punishment.” It might have been his imagination, but Tornell thought the doll looked a bit disappointed. \n\nSophie glanced around the apartment, clasped her paws behind her back and swayed back and forth in a playful manner. “So, what do you think?” She asked expectantly.\n\n“What do I think about what?” Tornell asked as he picked up the phone and set it back on the kitchen counter. He heard a rattle in the headset. One of the anchors for the screws had busted off when he dropped it, and the case no longer held together properly. He heard the dial tone when he picked it up, so it seemed to still be functional. \n\n“The apartment. Isn't everything nice and clean now?” She sounded proud of herself.\n\nTornell looked around. It was pretty damn clean, cleaner than he could ever remember it being. Although there was a brown hue to the walls and ceiling from years of smoking, and the furniture still looked like trash, but he couldn't really blame Sophie for that. \n\n“Sure, it looks fine.” \n\nSophie crossed her arms, frustrated with his lack of appreciation for all her hard work. \n\n“Somebody still has to take the garbage out.” She said.\n\n“Go ahead.” Tornell told her. “There's a dumpster downstairs out back.”\n\n“It would be easier if someone helped me.” \n\nTornell found his cigarettes again, plucked one out and lit it. “Most things are,” he said as he sat down in his easy chair, “but I never go outside.” The channel for cubs was still on. A show with fairies had replaced the underwater sponge one. The feline picked up the remote and started flipping for something better.\n\n“Why not?” She asked.\n\n“Because I don't.”\n\nSophie put her paws on her hips and looked at him disapprovingly. Tornell ignored her as he flipped through the channels. She could stay here for now if she wanted, but he'd be damned if he let her dictate any part of his life. He certainly wasn't going to go outside. No way in hell. Besides, if she wants to make him happy she'll take the damn trash out herself. \n\nThere wasn't much on the television. Tornell finally settled with the evening news, even though it typically depressed him. A reminder of why he never left his apartment. \n\n“You know what?” Sophie said aloud. A rhetorical question since she didn't wait for him to reply. “I just noticed that I haven't cleaned [i]everything [/i]yet.”\n\nTornell took a drag from his cigarette. “I guess you better get on it then.” He said.\n\n“Oh, I certainly will.” She said. It almost sounded threatening to the feline. He looked at her and the doll raised an eyebrow at him. It dawned on him what she intended to clean next.\n\n“No.” He told her flatly but she didn't look like she was going to back down. “No, no, that's not happening, not in a million years.” \n\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "
(If you're a new reader you won't really get what's going on.  I strongly recommend you start at part 1)



Inside the Box

Part 3


The doll worked feverishly cleaning Tornell's apartment.  It did load after load of laundry.  Folded them and filled up his dresser, a piece of furniture that he used solely as a place to keep a lamp and his alarm clock.  It had even designated one of drawers for unmentionables, with a “his” and a “hers” side.  It hung up its dresses next to his shirts in the closet.  It vacuumed, dusted and scrubbed everything it could reach, and a lot that it couldn't.  It reorganized his desk and even alphabetized his file drawer.  

The doll was determined to take over his life and Tornell was helpless to do anything about it.  There was nowhere he could go where the doll wasn't.  Whatever it was that powered it didn't seem to be in any danger of running out.  Did it take batteries?  Was it rechargeable?  Tornell had no idea.  He also couldn't figure how it could be turned off.  The only literature that had come with it was the short letter with the phone number on the back.

That's it!  He needed to make a phone call!

Finding the letter was easy since the doll had put it into its own folder in the file drawer.  He grabbed his phone.  A land line, of course, he really had no use for a cell phone.  It did have an extra long cord, so he took it into the bathroom and locked himself in.  He could at least have some level of privacy there.  

He sat down on the toilet lid and dialed the number.  It smelled clean and fresh in the bathroom for the first time since he could recall.  The doll had even managed to get the mildew stains from the bathtub grout, those had been there since he moved in.  

Tornell listened to the phone ringing on the other side of the line.  It simply kept ringing.  There was no customer service machine asking him to hold or press a button for English and another for Spanish.  Just ringing.  He started to wonder if the number had been bogus.  

He hung it up.  Maybe he had dialed wrong.  He tried again only to be greeted with the monotonous ringing again.  He listened to it for several minutes.  He wasn't sure what time zone the aria code was in, maybe they were gone for the day.  There should have been a voice-mail or at the very least a recording saying that they were closed and what hours they could be reached.  

He was about to hang up again when he heard a click on the line.  The ringing stopped.

“Hello?” Tornell asked the dead silence.  He was answered with only more silence.  He scratched at the back of the paw cradling the headset.

“Hello?”  He repeated.  “Is anyone the--”

“Good evening, Mr. Morboregio.”  A feminine voice cut him off, almost causing him to drop the phone.  “Thank you for calling The Perfect Companion.  My name is Angel, how can I help you?”    

“How did... how did you know my name?”  Tornell asked.  She had even said it correctly.  Nobody ever gets it right on the first try.  The conversation hadn't even started yet and he was already flustered.  He could feel his heart rate attempt to rise to pre-panic levels.  He'd have to concentrate on the conversation and continuously remind himself that he was indeed alone in the bathroom.

“We have your phone number on file, sir.”  She told him.  “What can I do for you today?”  

“Well... um... I just received my... um, my doll.”

“Yes, I see that, sir.  My records indicate that Sophie has been delivered earlier today.”  She told him.  Tornell could hear the occasional clatter of a keyboard in the background.  “Is there a problem with her?  She wasn't damaged was she?”  

“No... uh... it's just that...”  Tornell was trying to find a way to not sound as crazy as he felt.  “It's doing my laundry.”

“She.”  The voice on the phone corrected.

“Um... bu... w-what?”  

“You said “it”.”  The female almost sounded like she was scolding him.  “She's doing your laundry.  If you don't want her to than just tell her to stop.  She'll listen to you.”  

Tornell was speechless.  He had assumed that the person on the other end of the line would have laughed at him and called him insane.  Instead she merely took it as matter of fact.  

“Is there anything else I can help you with today, sir?”  She asked.

“Y-you mean it... s-she's supposed to be walking around and talking?”  It still sounded crazy to him.

“She wouldn't be much of a companion if she didn't.”  

“No, th-this isn't what I wanted.”  Tornell said.  “I just wanted something to... something to...”

“Have sex with?”  The female offered.  

“Yeah.”  Tornell said.  He could feel his temperature rise from embarrassment.  He took a deep breath and reminded himself that she was just a voice on the phone.  She couldn't hurt him.

“She can do that for you as well.”  The female said without sounding judgmental at all.  “She's designed to offer you a lifetime of satisfying sexual encounters.”

“But... she's so... she's just a little...”  Tornell was having trouble with how to phrase it.  “She's not what I ordered.”

“Hmmm...”  The voice on the phone paused for a moment and Tornell could hear the keyboard again.  “I have your order right here, sir.  Your preferences were a female adult feline, black fur with light gray spots and underbelly, blue eyes, voluptuous double D cup with lactation option.”

“Right!  Right.”  Tornell was starting to recall the details of the order.  “What I got was a little white rabbit.”

“Well, Mr. Morboregio,”  she said, “we considered your request very carefully and we decided that given your profile we couldn't in good conscience send you what you asked for.”

“Um...  what?”  

“Your disability would have made it difficult to relate with an adult companion.” She explained.  “Frankly, you'd probably be hiding under the bed if we sent you a full-figured predator species.  Sophie is designed to as non-threatening as possible and fit within your limited lifestyle.”

Tornell scratched hard enough that his dulled paw started to feel pain.  “I-I don't understand.  How do you know about my... lifestyle?”

“We create a very extensive profile on all of our customers to better serve their needs.” Angel told him.  “If you recall, you signed an electronic waver allowing us to do so.”

Tornell couldn't say he did, but then again he didn't read everything very carefully before checking the “Agree” button.  The contract had seemed unnecessarily long for a simple purchase, and was followed by a lengthy multiple choice segment.  There were hundreds of questions, many of them seemed to ask the same or similar questions over and over.  A number of them were extremely personal.  Others just seemed pointless.  He had become annoyed by it after forty-five minutes and hadn't bothered to finish the senseless quiz.  

It dawned on him that the quiz was how they built their profile on him.

“No, no... that questionnaire, I didn't fill it out right.”  He told her.  He groaned a little bit as he felt a slight pressure in his chest.  The anxiety was making the acid in his stomach churn.  Even worse he could feel that nagging in the back of his head.  If it spread to his ears he would certainly get another migraine.  

“We're aware of that, sir.”  Angel said.  “You answered “A” on the last one-hundred and fifty-eight questions and created a profile that was impossible.  What's more we were concerned that you hadn't been entirely truthful with the questions that you did answer, so we put our research team on you.  Turns out you are a very difficult person to get to know, Mr. Morboregio.  Even with the resources available to our team it took them months to complete their work.”

“Wait, what?”  Tornell didn't like the way that sounded and it frightened him.  “How did you do that?  Were people watching me?  Did you bug my phone?  Did you come into my home?  Oh, God!  You did, didn't you?”

“Sir, calm down.”  Angel piped up before he could work up a good panic.  “All our research is done with your privacy in mind and nothing is used beyond providing the best product we can give you.  I'm not at liberty to discuss how our research is gathered because that's a trade secret, but rest assured that nobody was in your apartment and nothing that we have gathered will be used to harm you.”  

Tornell didn't feel assured, he felt violated somehow.  Angel's soothing voice did little to alleviate that feeling.  He continued to scratch at his paw and took several deep breaths.  Even enclosed in the bathroom he started to feel like he was being watched.  A quiet belch escaped through his nostrils, it smelled hot and caustic.  Stomach acid was starting to bubble up into his esophagus.  That was something he didn't need.  He just needed to be alone.  All alone in an empty bathroom.  

“I-I still don't understand.”  Tornell didn't like the whiny way his voice had started to sound, but he couldn't help it.  “You sent me a... a doll that looks like a c-cub, but I'm not a pedophile.”

“Our research indicates otherwise, sir.”  Angel told him.

The feline was completely caught off guard.  He could feel a hot rush of humiliation crawl up his back and his fur stand on end from his tail all the way up to his ears.  Nobody knew that.  Nobody could know that.  He kept his thoughts and desires so closely guarded.  He never touched a cub, never!  He even had a cub of his own in another life.  Back when he lived outside, in the chaos and danger.  He had a wonderful wife and a lovely little female kitten and they were never the wiser.  Hell, his therapist probably knows him better than anyone else in the world and even she doesn't know.  He was never inappropriate with his daughter or any other cub, even though the opportunities were numerous and the desire was always lurking in his mind.  

“Mr. Morboregio?”  The voice on the phone asked gently.

The feline opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.  The heartburn hit him full force.  An agonizing, pulling pain in the center of his chest that reached up into his neck.  He wanted to panic.  He wanted to hang up on her and just break down, but the heartburn mercilessly dug into him and demanded his attention.  

“Tornell?”  Angel's voice had softened even more.

“Yes?”  He finally managed to croak.

“We don't judge you here.” She told him. “Your secret is safe with us.”

Tornell stood up from the toilet and opened the medicine cabinet.  An apt name for what it contained.  Antidepressants, painkillers, migraine medication, sleeping pills, cold medicine, stool softener, antihistamines, and hemorrhoidal cream were all piled up on the shelves.  What he had the most of was antacid tablets.  On bad days he popped them like candy.  It was starting to look like a bad day.

With a trembling paw he pried open one of the bottles of antacid and dumped them into his maw.  Somewhere on the container it warned of taking more than six in a day.  He chomped down on at least that many.  Undoubtedly he would knock back many more before the day was over.  

He sat back down on the toilet, he was vaguely aware that Angel was still talking, but he wasn't listening.  That damn bitch had put him in a horrible spot and set off his stomach.  Worse yet, Tornell couldn't remember the last time he felt so exposed.  He had been so careful to protect himself.  Even before he holed himself away from the world in that tiny apartment, he had always protected himself.  Buried away whatever wickedness inside that was appropriate to hide from the world, yet this female could see right though him like a window.  She knew things about him that nobody had a right to know.  It horrified him at first, but now...

Now he was furious.

“I want it out of my home.”  He said, noisily crunching up and swallowing the last of the mouthful of antacids.

“Um, I'm sorry, but all sales are final.”  Angel indeed sounded sorry, not to mention a bit taken aback.  “We won't be able to ret--”

“I don't give a shit about the money,” Tornell had an even, angry tone, “I just want someone to get it the fuck out of here.”

This time it was Angel's turn to be speechless.  After a moment she finally responded:  “I don't think you understand what you're asking us to do.”  

“I don't care.  I just want it out of my home!  Sell it to someone else for all I care!”

“That's impossible.”  Angel objected.

“Just get it out of here!”  He shouted.

“You don't seem to understand, Mr.  Morboregio.”  The voice on the phone raised her own voice.  “She is yours and you are hers.  She was created for you and you alone.  She won't accept anybody else.”  

Tornell scratched deeply at the back of his paw.  It started to bleed, but he couldn't feel it.  His unsettled stomach combined with the pain of the confrontation was far more agonizing for him.  Angel's raised voice managed to subdue him.  He never could stand against a female's wrath.  “What do you mean by “accept”?  I don't... what the hell is... it's just a robot or something, isn't it?”

“I'm not at liberty to discuss specifics, that's a trade secret.  What I can tell you is that we took a large number of variables from your personality and matched them accordingly in her.  She is courageous, pleasant, generous, and understanding.  She has joy, empathy, patience, and compassion.  She is tidy, stable, adventurous, and open minded.  All qualities that are lacking in you.  Please understand, we don't think ill of you in any way, we've simply found that opposites do attract.  You are a uniquely complicated feline, so she is a uniquely complicated companion.  She's not suited for anybody else.  If you reject her it will destroy her.”

There was a tone in Angel's voice that bothered Tornell.  It was a pleading, motherly tone.  It was almost as if Angel considered Sophie to be her child.  

“You can just... reprogram it, can't you?”

Angel sighed.  “That's not how it works.  You've seen how Sophie moves and heard her talk.  Do you really think she's just a robot?”

“Than what is it?”  

“Alive.”  Angel said simply.  “And I'd appreciate it if you would stop referring to her as “it”.”

“That's impossible.”  Tornell said.  “It... She is made of cloth and stuffing.  She can't be alive.”

“I don't know how to convince you,”  Angel said,  “so I'll make a deal with you.  I will be willing to refund you the entire cost of her purchase and take her off your hands if you do just one thing for me.”

Tornell was suspicious, but willing to listen to a deal.  The overdose of antacid was beginning to kick in and the heartburn was starting to cool.  “Alright, what do you need?”

“Just keep her for thirty days.”  The female offered.  “If at that time you aren't convinced that she's a perfect companion for you, I'll send one of our staff to pick her up and give you your refund in cash.”

He thought about it for a moment, then he said: “I can't accept those terms. When I gave you money the first time it was impossible to reach you afterward.  Your site disappeared from the internet and I had no other way of contacting you.  I have you on the phone right now so I need to settle this right now.”  

“That's fair enough.”  Angel admitted.  “You do deserve an explanation for how long you had to wait.  Due to litigation we were forced to remove our site and our product.”

“You were sued?”  Tornell asked.

“It's more than that.”  Angel said.  “There are certain elements that consider what we do here to be illegal and they wanted access to our customer files.  We were forced to destroy most of them and hide what remained.  Your file for instance.  It could do you great harm.  We wanted to protect our customers like you as best we could.  Unfortunately our service suffered because of it.”

“Wouldn't it have been easier to simply disappear and not deliver?” Tornell couldn't help asking.  “Even if you felt obligated to make good, it would have been easier to refund my money, why didn't you just do that?”

“Because we believe in our product.  What's more we're convinced that you need Sophie even more than she needs you.”

“I need her?”  

“Look at yourself.”  Angel told him.  “Alone, depressed, and counting down the rest of your life one cigarette at a time.  Can you honestly say that's a good way to live?”

“I-I don't think that's any of your business.”  Tornell said.

“Two weeks.”  Angel offered.  “Just keep her for two weeks.  Talk to her, play with her, make love to her, let her do your laundry.  After that I'll send someone out there with your money.  If you still don't want her you can take the money.”  

“It's not the money.”  Tornell said.  “I'm just not comfortable with her knowing so much about me.”

“Is that what this is about?”  Angel said.  “I'm sorry, I guess I wasn't clear on that.  We didn't give her that much information about you.  All she really knows is that she was created specifically for you.  We don't even tell any of the companions the names of who purchased them.  We've found that the discovery phase of the relationship is vital to the bonding process.  All of your secrets are still secret unless you tell her.”

That explained why Sophie asked what his name was.  Tornell sighed.  “Two weeks?”

“Just two weeks.”  Angel said. “There's no risk to you.  That phone number you have is my home phone number.  I've sorta been working out of my basement since things got crazy.  Call me anytime.”  

Angel was either the best damn salesfur in the world or she really did believe in her product.  “Alright.”  Tornell agreed.

“Thank you!”  Angel said.  “I know you won't be disappointed!  Is there anything else I can do for you today, Mr. Morboregio?”  

“No,”  Tornell said, “I'm good.  Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.  Oh!  One last th--”

Tornell hung up, cutting her off.  

“Goddamnit!”  He said to himself.  He realized that he hadn't asked what powered the doll and how he could turn it off.  He briefly considered calling Angel right back, but decided that he had his fill of conversation for the day.  At the rate the doll was going it... she should run out of juice fairly soon anyway.

He set the phone on the floor and noticed there were splotches of blood on the tile.  The back of his paw was bleeding and it had run down the length of his forearm to his elbow.  The other paw had blood on the claws and pads.  He had gouged himself pretty deeply during the conversation and continuous scratching had kept the wound from clotting.  There was a clean towel hanging on the wall so he used that to wipe off his paws and arm.  

He compressed the back of his paw for a minute until it stopped bleeding.  His heartburn still hurt a bit, but it was tolerable for the moment.  That nagging precursor to a migraine was still sitting in the back of his head, so he took a pill for that.  The pill worked way better before he got the migraine than after. He hung the towel back up before scooping up the phone and opening the door to leave the bathroom.  

“Yah!”  He yowled in surprise and dropped the phone. It clattered onto the floor.  Sophie was standing right outside the door waiting for him.  

“Jesus!  You scared the shit outta me.”  He said with a sigh and rubbed his head.

The little bunny doll looked upset.  “Are you going to send me away?”  She asked.

Tornell narrowed his eyes in suspicion at her.  “Were you listening in on me?”

“Oh my, no!  You were just talking very loudly.”  She said then tugged on her long ears.  “And these aren't this big just to make me look cute.”  

Tornell sighed again.  “No, you can stay for now.”

Sophie squealed in delight and hopped up and down.  “Thank you!”  She said.  “I'll do whatever it takes to make you happy!  I promise.”  

“First off, do not do that again.”  Tornell said of her shrill outburst.  “Loud noises... sometimes they can hurt me.”  

The doll slapped both of her paws up to her mouth.  “I'm sorry.”  She apologized with a muffled voice, then she lowered her paws.  “You can punish me if you want.”

“Um... Yeeeah.  Let's just not do that again and we won't worry about punishment.”  It might have been his imagination, but Tornell thought the doll looked a bit disappointed.  

Sophie glanced around the apartment, clasped her paws behind her back and swayed back and forth in a playful manner.  “So, what do you think?”  She asked expectantly.

“What do I think about what?”  Tornell asked as he picked up the phone and set it back on the kitchen counter.  He heard a rattle in the headset.  One of the anchors for the screws had busted off when he dropped it, and the case no longer held together properly.  He heard the dial tone when he picked it up, so it seemed to still be functional.  

“The apartment.  Isn't everything nice and clean now?”  She sounded proud of herself.

Tornell looked around.  It was pretty damn clean, cleaner than he could ever remember it being.  Although there was a brown hue to the walls and ceiling from years of smoking, and the furniture still looked like trash, but he couldn't really blame Sophie for that.  

“Sure, it looks fine.”  

Sophie crossed her arms, frustrated with his lack of appreciation for all her hard work.  

“Somebody still has to take the garbage out.”  She said.

“Go ahead.”  Tornell told her.  “There's a dumpster downstairs out back.”

“It would be easier if someone helped me.”  

Tornell found his cigarettes again, plucked one out and lit it.  “Most things are,” he said as he sat down in his easy chair, “but I never go outside.”  The channel for cubs was still on.  A show with fairies had replaced the underwater sponge one.  The feline picked up the remote and started flipping for something better.

“Why not?”  She asked.

“Because I don't.”

Sophie put her paws on her hips and looked at him disapprovingly.  Tornell ignored her as he flipped through the channels.  She could stay here for now if she wanted, but he'd be damned if he let her dictate any part of his life.  He certainly wasn't going to go outside.  No way in hell.  Besides, if she wants to make him happy she'll take the damn trash out herself.  

There wasn't much on the television.  Tornell finally settled with the evening news, even though it typically depressed him.  A reminder of why he never left his apartment.  

“You know what?”  Sophie said aloud.  A rhetorical question since she didn't wait for him to reply.  “I just noticed that I haven't cleaned everything yet.”

Tornell took a drag from his cigarette.  “I guess you better get on it then.”  He said.

“Oh, I certainly will.”  She said.  It almost sounded threatening to the feline.  He looked at her and the doll raised an eyebrow at him.  It dawned on him what she intended to clean next.

“No.”  He told her flatly but she didn't look like she was going to back down.  “No, no, that's not happening, not in a million years.”  

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