The Automated Announcers

by Catfish

"Approaching...Catalpa Avenue. (Ding) Stop requested."

Two weeks now riding public transit to work, and Ted was already sick of the fact that the recorded voice that called out the stops always sounded a bit too cheerful for -- he checked his watch -- 7:43 in the morning.

"Approaching...Balmoral Avenue. The priority seating at the front of this bus is reserved for disabled passengers and seniors. Thank you for your cooperation."

He was lucky that he'd gotten a seat, at least for the bus portion of his ride to work today -- he'd had to glare at a guy who was letting a couple of shopping bags sit in the seat next to him, but eventually the glaring worked, and the guy got up and took his bags with him. Well, really, the glaring hadn't worked, and it was the guy's stop, but Ted enjoyed thinking he was the cause of the sudden vacancy of not one, but two seats. Ted scrambled in next to the window, and a Latina teenager quickly sat down next to him.

"Approaching...Berwyn Avenue. (Ding) Stop requested."

Ted thought he was lucky to get the job in downtown Chicago right out of college, but the reality didn't quite live up to his expectations: he now found himself living in a fleabag studio apartment in a not-so-good neighborhood and having to commute via the Chicago Transit Authority because there was no way he could afford parking at the building where he worked. He had to keep telling himself that with all the traffic headed downtown in the morning and back north at night, not to mention gas prices now continually flirting with $3.00 a gallon, he was in better shape not driving.

"Approaching...Foster Avenue. (Ding) Stop requested. In the interest of security, if you see a suspicious item or witness suspicious behavior, please notify the bus operator or use your cell phone to dial 911. Thank you for riding the CTA."

A man got off the bus through the rear door; the standees in the aisle were blocking Ted's view of the front door, so he couldn't quite see if anyone was getting on. The girl next to him had a pair of white iPod earbuds in and was presumably silently singing along to her favorite tunes, or at least he hoped that's why her lips were moving. Ted had thought about getting an iPod to make his commute easier, but he couldn't afford it at this point. Maybe after he'd gotten a couple of paychecks. He looked up at the advertising placards that lined the bus: Grant Park Air & Water Show, Dinero a México Rápidamente.

"Approaching...Winnemac Avenue. (Ding) Stop requested."

More ads: Suffering From Whiplash?, CTA Monthly Passes Available at Jewel-Osco and Dominick's, Northbrook Center for Cosmetic Enhancement. Ted glanced over at the girl next to him again -- cute face, but she could perhaps use a little enhancement up top.

"Approaching...Ainslie Street. This is...Route 36D, Broadway...southbound to the Loop...Clark Avenue and Polk Street."

36D? This was just plain number 36, Ted thought -- he didn't think there was any special service on this bus line, and so far the bus had been making all its usual stops. He looked around quickly and no one else seemed to have a confused look on their faces. Well, the automated announcements sometimes got a little screwed up -- he'd been on a bus last week that was two stops behind, and the driver had eventually turned off the P.A. system.

"Approaching...Lawrence Avenue."

The girl next to him reached out of her seat and leaned directly in front of Ted to pull the signal cord that ran above the windows. "Excuse me," she said as her chest briefly pressed against Ted.

"(Ding) Stop requested."

She hadn't leaned over far enough that she would have pressed against him, Ted thought, but as she stood up, he could clearly see the two mounds on her chest pushing her shirt forward -- why did he think she needed a boob job a couple of minutes ago? Well, he'd only taken a couple of quick glances at her, so maybe he just hadn't noticed. But as the connoisseur of the female form that he thought he was -- he gave up that line of thinking as the bus pulled over to the curb, and he lost sight of her as the rear door opened and she walked out. She couldn't be a high school student with breasts like those, he thought, but she looked pretty young -- well, maybe she was a college freshman. Ted was only a couple months out of college himself, but with an actual job in a skyscraper in downtown Chicago, he felt older than he was.

"Approaching...Wilson Avenue. Transfer at Wilson...to the Red Line. (Ding) Stop requested."

Of course a stop was requested; although this bus would continue all the way downtown, it was faster to get there by switching here to the elevated train. As the bus came to a stop at the curb in front of the station, Ted stood up and joined the throng exiting through the rear door.

"(Ding-dong) Doors closing. Sheridan...is next. In the direction of travel...doors open on the right...at Sheridan."

The trains had a different voice than the buses, but to Ted, they were equally chipper and annoying in the morning. He wasn't lucky enough to get a seat on this crowded train. He stood in the aisle holding onto a vertical railing, managing to see over the shoulder and around the head of a seated woman to read the Sun-Times she held in her lap. Unfortunately, she was doing the sudoku puzzle, and had the newspaper folded so that there wasn't much for him to read besides the instructions and the few numbers she had managed to place on the grid so far.

"This...is Sheridan. (Ding-dong) Doors closing. Addison...is next. Doors open on the left...at Addison. Standing passengers, please do not lean against the doors. Welcome aboard CTA Red Line run number...three...six...D...to 95th."

Ted wasn't 100% sure what the "run number" was supposed to mean, but in the last two weeks, he'd only heard the automated voice give run numbers in the 800-something range. But now there was that 36D again. Maybe some prankster had gotten into the central computer, assuming there was such a thing. The woman stopped tapping her pencil against the paper long enough to write in another couple of numbers.

Ted looked up at the advertising. They had more upscale ads on the trains than the buses, he'd noticed. The ad space in this car was completely devoted to an online brokerage. Ted wondered how much it cost be the sole advertiser like that. It didn't give him much to read, though, since it was the same ad repeated dozens of times.

"This...is Addison."

He looked back down at the woman, and noticed that the bottom half of the puzzle was now in shadow.

"(Ding-dong) Doors closing."

Slowly, the front of her green blouse was being stretched outward.

"Belmont...is next. Doors open on the right...at Belmont. Transfer to Brown...and Purple Line trains...at Belmont."

She had to move the newspaper a little further away from herself in order to write in a couple more numbers -- no, she turned her pencil over and used the eraser to rub them out. The train stopped between stations, and Ted realized the growth had stopped as well. How could she not have noticed what had happened to her?

"(Beep beep beep) Your attention please...we are being delayed...waiting for signals ahead. We expect to be changing wardrobe shortly."

Ted blinked as the buttons on the front of the woman's blouse suddenly just disappeared, the sleeves shortened drastically, and the neckline altered itself -- she was now wearing a V-neck short-sleeve cotton shirt, and Ted didn't have to lean forward very far at all to look down into the deepening valley of cleavage. He caught a glimpse of a lacy black bra -- just as her shirt lightened from medium green through mint green all the way to white, and it became very possible to see the outline of the bra through her shirt.

The train started moving again, and the woman put the newspaper and the pencil into a tote bag as she stood up. She wore a blue denim skirt that went only to mid-thigh and white strappy sandals with heels a couple of inches high. She had to make a U-turn to get to the door, and as she did, she met Ted's eyes and smiled at him.

"This...is Belmont. This is a Red Line train to 95th."

The doors opened, and she stepped off the train. Ted stared through the window after her, mesmerized by her ass in the tight skirt rocking back and forth as she crossed the platform to the train that was waiting on the other side.

"(Ding-dong) Doors closing."

Ted snapped out of his reverie once she got onto the other train, and he lost sight of her. He then realized that he'd missed out on his chance to grab a seat.

"Fullerton...is next. Doors open on the right...at Fullerton. Transfer to Brown...and Purple Line trains...at Fullerton. Soliciting on CTA trains is prohibited. Violators will be arrested."

By the time the train left Fullerton and started heading down the ramp into the underground portion of its route, Ted was convinced he was going insane, but by the time he headed up the stairs into daylight in downtown Chicago, he had changed his self-diagnosis to an overactive imagination, caused by having not had a significant other for quite some time, combined the stress of having moved to a new city where he didn't know anyone. He crossed the plaza to the lobby of the skyscraper where he worked and tried to think positive. The magnetic stripe on his ID badge unlocked the entry turnstile on the first try -- for the first time in the two weeks he'd been working there -- which helped. He gave a little friendly wave to a security guard as he joined the cluster of people waiting to head up to their offices.

"Elevator up...floors two through twenty-one."

"Elevator up...floors twenty-two through forty."

Since Ted worked on the 39th floor, he was doomed to be one of the last people off this crowded elevator.

"Twenty-four...elevator up."

A man in an expensive suit pushed his way through to exit the elevator. Ted was glad the insurance firm he worked for had adopted "business casual" dress, so he could get away with a polo shirt and khaki pants.

"Twenty-seven...elevator up."

"Twenty-nine...elevator up."

Slowly but surely, the elevator was gradually emptying as more people exited at each stop. Ted could breathe again.

"Thirty-one...elevator up."

"Thirty-two...elevator up."

It was just Ted and a short blond woman facing the front of the car, looking at the LED digits change as the floors counted up. 33, 34, 35...

"Thirty-six double-D...elevator up."

The woman didn't seem to be taken aback; she just stepped through the open doors. Ted was beginning to think, once again, that he was going insane. The doors closed about halfway, and then opened right back up. "Sorry, I forgot, I'm not on 36, I'm on 38," said the woman who walked back into the elevator, turned around to face away from Ted, and jabbed at the "38" button with a manicured nail. She couldn't have been the same woman, but there hadn't been enough time to make a switch, had there? She was noticeably taller, for one thing, and only part of that was because of the high-heeled pumps at the bottom end of her long, perfectly shaped legs, sheathed in dark nylon and leading up to a miniskirt revealing plenty of thigh. In the two seconds she had faced Ted as she got on the elevator, her image was seared into his brain -- the beautiful face with the high cheekbones and luscious ruby red lips, yes, but also the cantaloupe-sized breasts that were very obvious under the black tank-top she was wearing under a jacket.

"Thirty-eight...elevator up."

She turned around and smiled at Ted as the elevator doors opened. "Have a nice day."

She left the elevator, and as the doors were closing, Ted finally managed to croak out, "Y-you too!" She probably hadn't heard him.

"Thirty-nine...elevator down."

Ted walked briskly into the offices of Midwestern Mutual Insurance and quickly sat down in his cubicle, dragging himself in his rolling chair as close as possible to his desk to conceal the bulge in front of his pants. He turned on his computer and picked up the stack of reports that had been dumped into his inbox after he'd left yesterday. He heard music from the cubicle next to his -- it was U2, he realized. That was a little newer than what the heavyset 40-something Helen usually listened to.

"Ted, is that you?" she asked. "Hope you don't mind this -- my son's been switching the radio to Jack FM when we're in the car, and I kinda like it."

"Sounds good so far," said Ted.

"Yeah, they play some good stuff, and they don't have any DJs," Helen explained.

Ted double-clicked on the icon for the MMIData program, the proprietary software with which he entered the facts and figures from the reports he had been given. As it booted up, he ventured, "Hey, Helen, did you notice anything weird about the elevator when you came up here this morning?"

"Uh, not really," she said. The top of her head poked above the cubicle wall to Ted's left, and he turned to face her as much as he could without moving his chair out from under his desk.

"Did you stop on 36?" he asked. "Or 38?"

She frowned. "Jeez, I don't know. I don't even know what's there. I think there's some lawyers on 38. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, nothing," said Ted. "I think I'm just cracking up."

"Wow, and it only took you until your second Friday!" Helen laughed and sat back down. Ted shook his head as he started typing numbers into his computer.

"Jack FM, where we play what we want -- and we'll be back after these messages, and 150 pounds!"

Helen turned the radio down as a commercial came on, the volume low enough that Ted couldn't make out any of the words being said. He shook his head and he decided he was just going to concentrate intensely on his work, and ignore anything strange he heard. 150 pounds? That didn't even make sense.

His intense concentration lasted for about a minute until something he didn't know how to handle came up and he had to ask Helen a question. Noting that his erection had mercifully subsided, he pulled his chair out, stood up, and took the one step over to the cubicle wall. Standing next to the divider, he could see Helen sitting at her desk facing away from him, and it was almost like her back was deflating, and her dark blue dress with a red flowered pattern seemed to be shrinking with her. She was growing thinner, it was obvious, and Ted realized that the family photograph she had in a frame on her desk was changing as well -- Helen's image was losing weight at the same rate she was, but not only that, her teenage son and daughter seemed skinnier as well. Ted was surprised by how attractive her face had become now that she had lost the double chin and the overly puffy cheeks.

Helen was, of course, typing numbers into her computer as if nothing was happening. He cleared his throat, and she turned toward him slightly and looked over her shoulder. Yep, same face as in the photo. His voice squeaked a little. "I've got a report here where the agent marked it as 'whole life' but the policy is actually a term life policy --"

Helen interrupted, "It was probably written up by that Bill Miles in Peoria. He's an idiot. Go with what the policy is, so count it as term life, but make a note in the comments box."

"Uh, okay," said Ted, and Helen quickly said, "Ooh, end of the commercials," and leaned over to turn up the volume on her cheap little clock radio.

"Now back to Jack FM, where we play what we want -- and it's time for 36-double-D in a row!"

Ted heard the familiar opening notes of a Beatles tune and blurted, "Helen, did you hear that?" Helen was turned a little bit sideways, so he could see that her breasts were starting to slowly inflate.

"Hear what?" she asked as she turned back towards her computer. "You mean the announcer? I kind of tune him out. Why, what did he say?"

"Nothing," said Ted. He was again looking at the photograph, mesmerized by the gradually enlarging orbs on the chest of the image of Helen -- which suddenly got easier to see as the dress in the picture became a black short-sleeved scoop-neck, revealing a valley of cleavage. And then, as the growth continued, in the blink of an eye, the other members of Helen's family changed around her -- she now stood next to a ruggedly handsome man with sandy blond hair, and the boy and the girl in front of them now had the hair color of the man Ted assumed was their father. Ted thought he remembered Helen saying her son was older than her daughter, but now it was the daughter who looked older, taller, and well on her way to having a chest the size of her mother's.

Helen turned around halfway, noticing Ted was still standing there. Surprisingly, her flowered dress was pretty much the same as it had been, although it was obviously pushed out farther in the chest. "Did you need something else?" she asked Ted.

"Huh? Oh, sorry." Ted sighed, sat back down at his desk, and returned to work.

This time, entering numbers served to distract him for about a half hour, up until the moment he realized he'd been silently singing along to Helen's radio, so he probably looked like that girl with the iPod from the bus earlier.

"Jack FM, where we play what we want -- and we'll be back after these messages, and 25 years!"

Ted leaned forward and deliberately banged his forehead against his desk.

"What was that?" Helen called out. "Are you all right?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm screwing up your life."

She laughed. "My life's not that screwed up!"

As Ted slowly raised himself from his chair, he tried to explain. "See, things have been happening to me this morning, and you've gotten caught up in it because you're sitting next to me."

"I don't feel caught up in anything."

"No, that's just it," he said, and as he saw Helen over the cubicle wall, he gasped. She had turned her desk chair all the way around to face him, and now she had changed from an attractive 40-something to a gorgeous 20-something -- about his age, he guessed. Her dress still had a flower print, but it was yellow-and-black sunflowers; the neckline was lower, there were no sleeves to speak of, and the skirt was just above her knees, revealing the black stockings that covered her shapely legs. Her hair had lightened to nearly platinum blonde, and tied in a ponytail, it hung over the back of her chair a couple of inches.

Then he noticed that the photograph on her desk was now her, wearing a blue-and-gold cheerleading outfit, standing between two other cute girls who were dressed identically. "What happened to your kids?!" he said, a little louder than he'd intended.

"Kids?" she said. She followed his eyes to the picture. "That's Nikki and Stacey, my best friends from school. Are you sure you're all right?"

Ted's legs felt like rubber. He grabbed the top of the cubicle wall and managed to remain upright. He choked out, "I'm not. I think I better go home."

"Yeah, maybe you should," said Helen. "I mean, I think I'd know if I had kids."

Ted turned around and started slowly walking out of his cubicle, still not quite trusting his legs. The sound from Helen's cubicle got louder.

"...at all Chicagoland area banking centers. Member FDIC."

"Jack FM, where we pl--"

Ted clapped his hands over his ears, yelled, "Change the station!" and ran out at top speed in search of the elevator. He jabbed at the "down" button, but then thought better of it and looked around wildly for the stairs. Let's see, they'd showed him the fire exit on his first day, and it was -- around the corner, over there somewhere, right?

"Elevator up."

"Aargh!" Ted put his hands back over his ears, ran around the corner, hip-checked the horizontal metal bar on the exit door, and headed down the stairs. After a couple of floors, he dared to uncover his ears, and started almost pulling himself down as he held onto the handrails for dear life -- and he went down, and down, and down, and down, and finally emerged, sweaty and panting, onto the concrete plaza at ground level and scattering several dozen pigeons who were fighting over the remains of a pizza crust.

Now slowed considerably by his leaden legs, Ted hobbled along Dearborn Avenue gesticulating as wildly toward the street as his tired arms would allow. There was no way he was going near a train or a bus now, so his only option was a taxi; mercifully, it wasn't too long before a cab cut across two lanes of traffic and screeched to a halt at the curb.

Ted opened the back door, crawled in, gave the driver his address, and sank back into the vinyl seat, eyes closed. He heard and felt the "ka-chunk" of the transmission as the cab lunged forward and back into a traffic lane.

"Please fasten your seat belt and your girlfriend's seat belt."

Ted opened his eyes and sat up with a jolt, but the only other person in the cab was the driver, who was treating the cars and FedEx trucks on the downtown streets as if they were the gates of a slalom course. Ted gingerly reached behind himself for the seat belt, but unable to find it without sticking his hand in between seat cushions, he gave up.

Fortunately, for the rest of the ride north, there was no more talking, either from the driver or an automated voice, and the radio was faintly playing music Ted had never heard in a language he didn't recognize. As the taxi lurched to a stop in front of his apartment building, he shoved two $20 bills through the slot in the Plexiglas divider and pulled himself out of the back seat.

His legs ached, but Ted plodded up the stairs to apartment 2C. Once he had made sure the door was locked behind him and pulled the shade on his one window, he fell face-down on his bed, thoughts of the women he had seen today running through his head, and especially Helen's breasts expanding...

He was lying on top of a gigantic angel-food cake that smelled unusually sweet. He reached forward and tried to take a piece. He could take a hold of the cake -- it was warm and yielded to his touch just enough -- but he couldn't seem to tear it. A little frustrated, he leaned in, opened his mouth wide, and took a bite. The cake let out a high-pitched squeal.

Ted's eyes opened, and shocked to find that there was someone else in bed with him, he rolled out of bed and onto the floor. In the dim light that was seeping around the edges of the window shade, he saw that it was Helen who had been in bed with him. Freed from its ponytail, her hair hung halfway down her back. She was sitting up and reaching around behind her back to refasten her bra. "Oh, my God, I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed. "I didn't mean to startle you. You just -- I knew you like my tits, but I didn't know you wanted to eat them!"

"I was dreaming," Ted admitted.

"After you had your little breakdown at the office, I thought you shouldn't be alone," Helen explained, as she maneuvered the straps of her dress up over her shoulders. "I'm just glad you went straight home so I knew where to find you."

"I don't have anywhere else to go," said Ted.

"Poor baby. Come over here and sit down," suggested Helen.

Ted picked himself up off the floor and sat down on the bed next to Helen, putting one of the pillows against the wall, behind his back. Helen put an arm around him. He leaned against her shoulder and closed his eyes.

"I think you could use some fresh air," Helen said, "but it looked like it might rain while I was on the way over here. Let me check the weather on TV."

Ted started, "I think the remote is --"

She must have found it, because he heard the TV click on.

"Now here's your Local on the 8's, from The Weather Channel."

"The current conditions...mostly cloudy and 78 degrees at O'Hare...partly cloudy and 79 degrees at Midway...72 degrees inside your high-rise condo."

Ted sat up quickly and opened his eyes. In front of him, a widescreen flat-panel TV sat on top of a cabinet containing a plethora of shiny audio-video components. To his left, floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on the Chicago skyline and the bluish-gray water of Lake Michigan, at least 30 stories below. He stood up and faced Helen, looking down at her as she sat on the black leather couch, legs crossed, holding a giant, unfamiliar-looking remote control on her lap. His feet sank a bit into the plush carpet. He couldn't help glancing from Helen's face down to her cleavage.

Helen pressed a button on the remote. The reflection of the TV screen disappeared from the glass covering the framed abstract painting that hung behind the couch. "What's the matter?" asked Helen.

"I've got to get out of here," said Ted.

"Well, of course," said Helen. "I was just saying you could use some fresh air."

"No, I mean I've got to get out of Chicago," Ted moaned. "Somewhere far away."

"Oh," said Helen. "This is kind of last-minute to be going somewhere for the weekend, but I guess we could call the airlines and --"

"No airlines," Ted interrupted. "Too many announcements."

Helen looked puzzled. "Oooooh-kay. But I don't know how far away we could get driving, so --"

"The train," said Ted. "I usually took the train home while I was in college. Let me see if I can remember the phone number. Let me see if I can find the phone." He looked around and saw a cordless phone in its base, hanging from the wall near the kitchen. The kitchen was full of stainless-steel appliances and looked as big as his entire studio apartment. He picked up the phone, dialed the 800 number he thought he remembered, and walked back over near Helen on the couch. A woman's voice answered the call.

"Hi, I'm Julie, Amtrak's automated agent. Let's get started."

Oh, shoot -- was there a way to get to a live person?

"Just say the part of your girlfriend's body you would like to change, and --"

"Agent! Agent!" Ted exclaimed.

"Asian. Got it. If you would like to make more changes --"

Helen lifted herself up a couple of inches because she was sitting on top of the raven-black hair that hung down past her ass. She reached back and moved her hair out from under her, then sat back down and looked up at Ted with her dark brown eyes, their almond shape framed by long lashes. "Age-ent," Ted carefully pronounced.

"H cups. Got it. If you would like to make more changes --"

Helen yawned and stretched, thrusting her chest outward, and along with it, the volleyball-sized mounds under her dress. "Live person! Operator! " Ted smacked the cordless phone receiver with his palm. "Is this thing even working?"

"Working on your thing. Got it. If you would like to make more changes --"

Helen scooted forward to sit at the edge of the couch. She reached up, grabbed the zipper on Ted's pants, and yanked it down. Ted yelled into the phone, "Look, who are you doing this to me? I want you to stop!"

"Look of a whore. Got it. If you would like to make more changes --"

To get a better angle, Helen kneeled on the couch, tucking her black platform heels under herself. The garters attached to the bottom of her leather miniskirt held her fishnet stockings in place. She leaned forward, and the silver chandelier earrings that hung from her earlobes rocked back and forth. She held the fly of Ted's pants open with one hand as she fished inside with her other hand. Ted sighed and said, "Here, maybe you should deal with this phone call."

Helen stopped fishing and took the phone receiver. She listened, frowned, looked down at the magnificent spheroids that were being barely held in place by her halter top, looked up at Ted's crotch where a bulge had formed in his underwear, looked back down at herself...

She said, "Bigger," and then pressed the button to hang up.

The End