Whose Alimony?

Part 4

Roger was still snoring when Ochsianna left the apartment. Their living arrangements have taken a great deal of stress off her. He helps with the rent and groceries, which were her biggest bills. Now, Patton has made alimony payments on time with money to spare for the past 3 months. So, why am I getting up before the crack of dawn for extra money, she whines. She grins as she snaps on her helmet, obviously, more money can’t hurt.

As she winds her way through traffic, she thinks back to the conversation that got her here. Betsy was waiting for her on Thursday afternoon when she came back to the storage room that day. She had that usual “I’m so screwed” look on her face. Is it possible that someone could have that much bad luck?

Betsy starts, “So Ochs, have any weekend plans?”

Trying not to tease her too much, I reply, “I think I’m free Sunday night… your place or mine.”

Betsy blushes a bright red at that, “Uh, no, uh, not what I meant, I, uh, well, its for Saturday morning. Work related, of course.” I nod my head and mouth the letter “O”. She moves on with her original thought, “You see, there is a meeting of the board this Saturday morning for a demonstration of a new machine.” I look the other way, as if to walk past her.

She chimes in faster now, “It’s for humannequins. The latest in technology and they need someone like you there to show them the results.”

Still walking away, I reply, “I have no idea how to work it or even what it does.”

She matches my pace saying, “You just have to show up and stand there. The machine will do the rest.”

I was still skeptical, so I asked, “How many people turned you down before you asked me?”

I noticed she stopped walking to follow me. When I turned around, her head was down. As I walked up to her, I heard her whisper, “a bunch.”

I stood there looking at her. Patton would have a bad taste in his mouth over this “wet noodle.” But me, I feel sorry for her. She tries to make everybody happy, pleasing to a fault, but when she needs something, they all disappear. With a heavy sigh, I say, “How much and when.”

Swerving to avoid a parked car, Ochsianna is jolted back to the here and now. She pulls into the parking garage, which is mostly empty this morning. The store is cut in half on the weekends, as robots do most of the work. Statistically, most people do their shopping during the weekdays, leaving the weekends to other things. Ochsianna, like most of her co-workers, enjoys having the weekend off.

Stowing her helmet as usual and double checking her wig, she strides into the building. The quietness of it all seems eerie. No talking in the storage area today, just the sounds of wheeled bots moving items around. She turns her head side to side, but sees no sign of any human. Shrugging her shoulders, she moves to the conference room.

She opens the door to a room nearly full of board members and salesmen. She was not expecting so many people to be here. They all turn to face her, as Betsy says, “Ah, here she is. Welcome, Ochsianna.” She blushes slightly from the attention, looking around the room smiling.

Mr Baxter states, “Let’s get started then. ProGloss, you’re up!”

And with that, the men and woman of ProGloss begin their speech. The rather-tall man in the blue polo makes statements about ProGloss and their products and success in the past. As he continues, the only lady (also wearing a blue polo) in the group comes over to Ochs. Her face is more masculine, Ochs notices, but it might be the near crew-cut hairdo, too. Gesturing Ochs to follow, Crew-cut leads her to the machine. It looks a lot like the glosser we have now, Ochs thinks. It has sides and a top with no back or front.

Crew-cut motions for her to step into the machine. Without any instruction, she whispers as she steps in, “What do I do?”

Crew-cut looks at her and smiles, “Just hold still and let the machine do the rest.” Ochsianna did not really like the way she smiled, but then she just met her. Crew-cut says softly, “Go ahead and find a comfortable pose. Mr Long-winded there should be about ready.”

Ochsianna snickers and nods her head. Her latest pose this week was in the purse department. So, she bends one arm and places it lightly on her waist. She shifts her weight over both feet evenly and extends the other hand out, as if holding a bag. She smiles slightly, showing no teeth, but trying not to wrinkle her mouth either. She holds her pose, as she sees Betsy in the back of the room smiling proudly.

Mr Long-winded comes over about this time and gestures to the machine. “As you can see, the machine will fit any model, even our rather tall one today.” He exaggerates a wink to her and the audience. “Our product will assess each person individually, making the necessary adjustments, so you get the most economical transformation.” Wait, Ochs thinks, did he say transformation? “So without further ado,” he leans over and presses a button.

Ochsianna feels a wave of tingling all over her body. From her head to her toes, her skin is tingling. Oh wow, she thinks, that feels good. Within seconds, the tingling goes deeper into her muscles and bones. Mhmmm, that feels so good, like the best massage ev---. “Presto!” Mr Long-winded states.

Her thoughts are cut short as the machine finishes the product. With little fanfare, Mr Long-winded reaches into the machine and puts his hand around her waist. With what appears as little effort, he picks her up. But the part that gets the biggest rise out of Desmond and Betsy is that Ochs keeps her pose perfectly. With one smiling and the other frowning, they both whisper softly, “Too perfectly.”

Long-winded sets her down in front of the table. Her glossy skin reflects the track lighting in the room. Grabbing his stylus from his touch screen device, he reaches over and taps her cheek. With the sound of plastic hitting plastic, the quiet room becomes even more quiet. The salesman holds his pose dramatically, waiting for the “ah-ha” moment. Mr Baxter, ever the cool head, simply nods his head and mumbles “mhmmm.”

Desmond on the other hand smiles broadly. He attempts to get up and go closer, but his chair is boxed in from both sides of the small room. To save face, he starts clapping. Like sheep leading sheep, most of the others join in. As he sets back down, he says loudly, “Amazing! We have to have one.” His dad gives him a sideways glance of “be quiet”, but then asks to the blue polo team, “Tell me what you have done.”

Long-winded straightens himself even more and says, “What we have done is turn your humannequin into a mannequin.” Reaching over to Ochs, he supports her arm with one hand, and with the other, he quickly pops her extended hand off. The board room members cringe at first, but when nothing bad happens, they become more curious. “You see, we have taken human flesh and blood, and transformed it into extra-durable plastic.” With the mention of ‘extra-durable’, he takes Ochs’ plastic hand and bangs it against the table. The resounding thunks put the board members on edge again, but they relax much quicker this time.

Turning the hand around, Long-winded continues, “All limbs can be jointed or articulated for posing, or you can even have no lines and just a mannequin statue.” Pointing to the hidden part of the wrist, the audience can see the knobbed peg that ‘snaps’ into place with the forearm. Right next to the peg is a logo with the words PROGLOSS stamped expertly into the plastic. Beneath the logo is a serial number.

One of the board members raises his hand like in school, to which Long-winded states, “The serial number is unique to each mannequin.” The board member puts their hand down as he continues to explain, “Each part of her has this stamp to make sure there is no question how it goes back together.” Betsy cringed when he said ‘it’ and not ‘her.’ With little fanfare, he pulls off the wig that was her hair. He sets down her hand and shows the inside of the wig. “See?” Pointing to the inside of it, “there is a label with its serial number and our logo.”

Following suit, Crew-cut reaches over and pops off Ochs’ head. There is no pose to maintain, as she is just a mannequin now. Betsy almost jumps out of her seat at that, but cannot find a way to interject into the explanation from Long-winded. He just seems to keep going and going. Before she knows it, Ochs’ hand and head are being passed around. Each board member pokes, prods, and rubs the plastic with ooo-s and ah-s. Her stomach has done so many flips she cannot even keep track of it anymore. She wants to say something… anything… but she can’t.

The minutes seem like hours, before he retrieves all of Ochs’ parts and snaps them in place. The board members discuss it more and more, as the blue polos reply to their questions. Betsy finally gets up a enough nerve to stand and walk over to Crew-cut. She leans in and whispers, “Do you think you can transform her back soon? She has another appointment.” Betsy lied but wanted any excuse to get her and Ochs out of there. Crew-cut nods and leads her to the machine. As the discussion continues, Crew-cut pushes a few buttons and says softly, “If you can give me a hand getting her in, then we can do it right now.” Betsy breathes a sigh of relief.

“Follow me,” she says, as she steps through the machine to walk towards the mannequin. Betsy following suit steps right behind her to keep up. The tingling hit her like a shot, one moment she was walking, and the next she was standing still. “What just ha—“ Crew-cut turns around and picks Betsy up and places her next to Ochs. She was in a walking pose, serious faced, but stll attractive in glossy plastic. Mr Long-winded does not miss a beat, “As you can see, you can have more than one mannequin at a time. In fact,” he continues proudly, “this machine has the capacity for 10 mannequins.” Proving his point, he snaps Betsy’s head off without incident.

Desmond had been quiet since his scolding, but he had a question that could not wait. Pointing his finger at the mannequins, he asks, “So what if we switch parts, will they still be turned back to human?” The board stared at him, but just as quickly turned back to the blue polos, expecting an answer. “Ah,” Mr Long-winded states, “Let me show you.” Even Ochs was finally together, he snapped off her head and placed it on Betsy. Likewise, Crew-cut put Betsy on Och. The swapping of heads seemed comical at first, as neither really seemed to fit, but as they stared at the mannequins, it was hard to tell now if that was not the right way to begin with. “Amazing,” said one board member.

Picking up Ochs, Crew-cut places her with Betsy’s head back in the machine. Hitting the ‘restore’ button, the machine powers up and just as quickly powers down. A computer voice states: “Error. Mannequin pieces do not match. Remove and double check all parts.” The board room all nod at this. Betsy and Ochs would have breathed a sigh of relief if they could. The discussion goes on for another hour, before they get their heads on straight and turn them back to humans. Afterwards, Betsy and Ochs talk about their adventure.

“That has to be the weirdest thing ever,” Betsy says.

Ochs nods, “I agree, like some sort of crazy massage and hypnosis.”

“Yeah,” Betsy chimes in, “I felt like I have slept for hours and ready to go!”

Ochs giggles despite herself, “Me too!” Without thinking, they hug and say their goodbyes, knowing they have missed most of the day and are ready to get back to living.

Checking the time, she dons her helmet and pulls out quickly to get home. Roger and Patton are supposed to go out for a “Bro Night” but if Ochsianna does not get home soon, he will miss getting ready. The scooter ride is quick in the late afternoon weekend traffic. Walking in the door, she can hear Roger on the phone. He comes out and taps his wrist, like anybody ever wears a watch anymore. His look would be considered scolding, but as friends, it just made her wave her hand like “I know, I know.” As he walks past him, they hug, and again without thinking, she gives him a peck on the cheek. Realizing what she has done, she quickly steps away and into the bedroom. Roger seems to not notice as he continues his phone conversation.

Stripping done, she throws her clothes in the hamper. The room is dim, since she did not turn on the lights. The room is neat but for a few things on the dresser. Her Transgenderinator awaits her as she steps towards it. But before she gets there, she tries to pull off her wig. When it doesn’t move, she stops to try again. “Ow,” she exclaims. Running to the bathroom in a panic, she looks in the mirror. Reaching her hands into her scalp, she sees what she feels. “That blasted machine did not give me back my wig,” Ochs says angrily, “I now have a head of blonde hair half way down my back!”

From the other room, he hears Roger say, “Hey, is Patton about ready? We got to go, bro.” Banging the counter with her hand, she storms out of the bathroom, her real hair flowing behind her.