Setting Lottie Off

You can find Judy through her website, www.judyklass.com, and on Instagram @judykwrites

Study of a Woman by Ladislav Treskoň (1922)

Brandon Prince strode down the corridor of Prince Castle, and the sound of his firm steps echoed, each time his tall black boots connected with the floor. His stone-colored leggings emerged from the tops of the boots and disappeared under his amethyst-gray tunic. His cape, which whipped and swirled behind him, was a darker shade of gray. Brandon knew he cut a proud figure, but that was not enough to salve the hurt and humiliation he’d just received. His face still burned with shame and indignation.

He ignored the greetings of servants, both humans and bots, calling out to him. He took the elevator up to his space on the third floor – to the common room, between his room and Lottie’s cupboard, where he knew she’d be waiting for him. It was time they had this out.

Lottie sat where he thought she’d be, on her low stool. She was dressed in the kind of smock she’d worn since they’d hit their teens – the typical smock of an adolescent comforter. She wore it except when she was sleeping, during sex play, and cosplay. It was a rough cotton fabric, in a dirty-white shade of gray, but red appliqué circles rested over the breast areas – and there was a suggestive red triangle lower down on the smock. It used to give Brandon a thrill, seeing his comforter wearing those clothes, but the novelty had definitely worn off.

Lottie was sewing something by hand – some big, soft, lumpy blue comforter thing. She had said that she would make him a special duvet to sleep under when he complained about being cold at night, no matter how he adjusted the heating in his room. This must be that “special” duvet.

She beamed up at him as he entered. She held up the thing she was sewing on, proud, as she was always proud, of folksy, crafty creations. “Brandon! Look what I’m making you!”

He stood still and glared at her. For a full five seconds. At last, he spoke. “You don’t even ask. You don’t even care how the meeting went!” Her welcoming smile disappeared, and she looked concerned. Too little, too late. She let the duvet comforter thing drop, rose up off of her stool, and moved toward him. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me what happened.”

He wanted to tell her. But he also wanted to be strong, and he wasn’t sure he could get through telling her without his voice breaking. “They laughed at me, Lottie. Uncle Miles was questioning me about how our company will absorb a newly acquired subsidiary, getting me all snarled up in technical questions. He made me look like a fool! He asked about how we kill rebels who interfere with our product distribution, out in the Mess. And I couldn’t answer.”

He saw the scene in the boardroom again. It had happened less than an hour earlier, and it was seared into his memory. His uncle’s sharp questions about security measures, and about the petrochemical plastics the subsidiary marketed, as opposed to the ones the Prince Corporation made, stuff Brandon had studied but that fled from his mind as his uncle quizzed him … Brandon almost winced as he remembered his mumbled, halting responses, his father’s look of impatience and disgust – and the other men on the board looking away, mouths twitching with amusement. Almost seeming to smile behind their hands.

Lottie reached out to place a hand on his shoulder. “Brandon. Shhhh. I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as you –”

He knocked her hand away, roughly. “And I froze! I know about some of this stuff, but I couldn’t remember, I kept stammering and saying the same things, and I was sweating. I nearly started to cry.”

She was soothing him now. Of course. That was her job, that’s what comforters did, but that was the goddamned problem, and he hated her for it. “Brandon. We knew this might happen. Someone on the board might haze you and make this first meeting hard. Your Uncle Miles may resent you for taking on this new role –”

“Of course, he resents me! He wants Daddy to leave the company to him. The Prince Corporation has always gone to the oldest son of the oldest son, but Uncle Miles wants to throw out all of our history and traditions! He wants to replace me, as Daddy’s heir!”

“And I’m sure everyone at that meeting saw right through what your uncle was doing. And that’s why your father and the rest – they won’t hold it against you.” Lottie embraced him and cuddled close. She launched into the song she liked to sing, that she’d sung to him since they were little children, him six years old and her about a year younger. She sang it to the tune of “Hush Little Baby, Don’t Say a Word.” That was a lullaby she had told him she’d always liked. Her version helped him get to sleep sometimes: “My sweet and handsome Brandon Prince/No one as sweet, before or since/Each time he smiles –”

“Stop it!” He was definitely not in the mood for this crap right now. “Just stop. Uncle Miles made me look bad. In front of all those men. And I think it’s your fault.”

She looked startled. She froze, mid-cuddle. Like such an idea could never possibly occur to her. “My fault?”

“Yes. There are guys I go to school with. They say that … as a guy grows up, he has to learn to watch out for his comforter. And get some distance. He shouldn’t spend so much time with her. He shouldn’t let her shield him from the world, or he’ll become soft as a woman, just like her. And that’s what you’ve done to me!”

It was one guy, actually. Jeremy Endicott. Brandon had been bragging to him about Lottie, killing time after classes ended at the academy, as they waited for the line of car-bots to roll forward and their own car-bots to welcome them aboard and take them home. Brandon had been proudly babbling, boasting even, about how pretty Lottie was, how close they were, how she did what he told her, and liked the games he liked, from the time they were small, about how great the sex was, how much she loved him, how she was the ultimate comforter … And cold, cool Jeremy had smiled that superior smile. But Brandon kept talking about comforter training and sessions Lottie took online every year, to keep up with new techniques. He’d slowly realized that Jeremy was scornful, not just amused by his enthusiasm.

“You might as well have a sex-bot love you as rely on an in-house comforter, Brandon,” Jeremy had said with a knowing laugh. “It comes down to the same thing.”

Brandon had stared at Jeremy, stupefied. “So. You – don’t love your comforter?” Jeremy laughed again. “For years, I guess you could say I did. And hell, I thought she loved me. For years, I also believed in Santa Claus. When I was a child, I played as a child. It’s different, now that I’m a man. Seeing your comforter for what she is – that’s a pretty basic rite of passage, bro.”

The memory of that conversation still made Brandon feel ashamed of how young and eager he’d sounded. And he couldn’t really hide from Jeremy how much those answers upset and confused him. It had happened three days ago. He wasn’t going to mention it to Lottie … but now he had to. He owed it to himself. And if it hurt her, well, it served her right.

She was staring at him, perplexed. “But – but Brandon. I’m so sorry if I’ve failed you. I never want to fail you. I want you to succeed, always ... We did role-play. I asked you questions about the company’s business. I pretended to be someone on the board –”

“But I wasn’t scared of you,” he cut her off with what was meant as a growl, but it sounded more like a whine. He lowered his voice. Toughened it up. “I didn’t freeze up with you because you’re my comforter and I know you want me to do well. I’ll never grow up when I’m spending time around you – I’ll never become the strong, ruthless man I need to be. I’ll never be a leader of men. You’re so ‘gentle’ and ‘loving,’ you emasculate me. So, I made a fool of myself today. Thanks a lot.”

“Brandon ... I feel truly awful. I’m so sorry. Sweetie ...”

“Don’t call me sweetie!” Everything she said only made him angrier. “Don’t treat me like a child!”

She studied him. And he wondered if Jeremy had been right. Jeremy said that all comforters do is play their men, manipulate them, pretend to admire them, tell them what they want to hear … Jeremy’s words thundered in Brandon’s memory, and suddenly, Lottie wasn’t his best friend and lover. His trusted childhood playmate. Someone to kiss his ow-ies and understand him. Suddenly, he saw her as a cunning little minx who sought to control him. A feral animal who had learned how to pretend to be domesticated. His irritation and anger rose as she took a different approach, and her tone shifted.

“Do you – do you want me to admire what a strong, commanding, sexy man you’ve grown up to be?”

“No!” he practically shouted into her face, to keep her from getting too close. “Don’t use sex to make me feel better, either!” He made himself bring down the decibel level. It was important to sound calm. In control. “That’s just another way comforters wrap a guy up in comfort and make him soft. I need to be tough! Battle-tested.”

She studied him some more. Maybe she had run out of tricks to try. “Would you – would you like me to leave?”

“Leave? Leave where?” he asked harshly. “Leave this house? And go back to live in the Herdlands? With the messy masses?”

Lottie took a step backward. She looked scared now. Shocked. It gave him a certain satisfaction to make her lose her poise. “Brandon. No. I only meant – do you want me to leave the room?”

He advanced on her. He sensed his own power, unnerving her this way. It felt good. “I could send you away, you know. I could tell my daddy you did a bad job of prepping me for the board meeting. I could say I don’t need a comforter anymore. Or, I want a more sophisticated, cunning comforter. Don’t get too sure of me, Lottie – don’t ever take your position here for granted.”

“I would never do that –”

“There are a lot more girls out in the messy Herdlands than positions to fill in a house like this,” he reminded her.

“I know, and I feel so lucky …”

“I’m fond of you,” he told her, but his tone was measured. Aloof. “You’ve been here a long time. But I can’t get sentimental. That’s childish, and I need to put away childish things.”

She gazed at him with an irritating intensity. He stamped his foot. “Why don’t you say something?”

“I – don’t know what to say. I’m sorry if I let you down. My every thought is to please you, and to protect you from harsh –”

“Dammit, that’s the problem!” He stamped again. He couldn’t keep his voice from rising to a shout. She was pushing it. She was really pissing him off. “Are you deaf? Are you totally dense? That’s exactly how you make me weak! If I’m going to practice with you how to be a man, then maybe you have to act different.”

“Act … how?”

“Yell at me,” he commanded. “Tell me off. Try to scare me.”

She gave him a loving, indulgent look. “Oh, Brandon.”

He didn’t want to look at her anymore. She made him sick. He threw himself down into his black velvet chair and turned his face away from her. “If you really cared about me, you’d do it. I could practice here, where no one important can see me, and then, when I got out there, I’d be tougher.”

She knelt by him, but perhaps she sensed his mood enough not to get too close. She spoke softly. “Brandon, I’m very sorry, but I could never yell at you. I love you too much. And all of my training, as a comforter ... from the time I was little ... it was to be kind, and soft, and loving. To modulate my voice. To empathize and try to guess what you need. I’m your giving tree, remember?”

“Of course, I remember.” He sounded sulky – that’s the word several of his teachers would use for his tone of voice. Sullen. Pouty. He didn’t care if he sounded that way. His uncle had shot him down in flames, and she was to blame.

“I’m your loving mama comforter,” Lottie went on, in that voice that was supposed to make everything better, “here to cradle you in warmth and take care of you. Like a wet nurse, taking you to her breast.” A beat went by. She evidently saw that approach wasn’t working, and shifted gears. It was all so transparent, now that Jeremy had tipped him off. “And if you need a naughty girl, then I’m your sinful, dirty playmate.” A beat. A different tone: “And if you want, I can be a little baby girl, and look up to you because now you’re big and strong. Would you like that?”

Why hadn’t he seen it before? The predictable set of gambits she used. Over and over. Just as Jeremy had said. It was a con, and he’d grown up around it every day of his life, so it felt natural, and he fell for it. Well, not anymore.

“No!” he snapped. “It’s all too ... indulgent! You’re still indulging me.”

Lottie was out of ideas again. Out of poses to strike, it seemed like. Like a service bot that could not perform a command. “I wish I could give you ... whatever it is you want.”

Brandon embraced the hard, strong, manly approach that Jeremy had recommended. “I want you to yell at me! I want you to tell me off. My friend said he kept trying to provoke his comforter to say what she really thought. What was ‘held back.’ He said he finally had an honest conversation with her – for the first time in his life.” Jeremy hadn’t spelled all of that out, exactly … but he’d suggested something like that. Maybe. Brandon had filled in some gaps in the story.

Lottie was staring in a way that Brandon had not seen before. “And your friend. Did he – like that?”

“He wasn’t sure. He was thinking of sending her away. But at least it was honest! And he said it’s part of growing up. Finding out the truth about things. A man has to do that, sometimes.” “Maybe your friend’s comforter only said harsh things to him, in the end, because he insisted,” Lottie said. Typical female, covering for another scheming bitch of a comforter. “Maybe it wasn’t what she thought and felt at all.”

Brandon rose up out of his black velvet chair and stood over her. “Well, if she could do it, you can, too.”

Lottie actually seemed to lose her balance and fell backwards onto the floor. “Oh, no.”

It was cool, seeing her this freaked out. To look down on her from this height. It reminded him of when they were small and played Hide and Seek. She had hidden in a closet one time, and he had locked the closet door and made her beg to be let out. “Come on,” he commanded. “Tell me off. Tell me what you think of me. Deep down.”

She gave a nervous laugh while gazing up at him. “Brandon, I love you, you know that I –”

“Stop it!” He yanked her roughly by the arm, up, onto her feet. “You only say that because you’re trained to be a comforter. Because you want to keep on living in a great home, in a gated castle, with people of quality, eating good food, almost like our food, sleeping in a real bed, warm in the winter, and safe from marauders. You’re a liar and a whore, you’re just a pet turning tricks, you don’t love me at all. Do you. Do you?”

“Brandon, sweetheart, please –”

“And you think things are so good for your family, out in the Herdlands.” Here it came. This was what he had to do. He took a deep breath. There was no turning back. He was letting her have it. “You think that because you’re here, they get to live in a protected space. Your parents, your brother and sister. You think they get extra rations and perks.” He still had a grip on her arm, and he pulled her closer. “Well – what if that’s all a lie, huh? What if, when you have your birthday phone conference with them every year, we make them lie to you, to keep you docile? How much would you love me then, if you found out that was true? What if they live in the most wretched conditions of anybody out in the Mess, and they eat scraps, and work degrading jobs, exposed to toxic chemicals – and they lie to you about it, to protect you while you’re living here?”

Lottie’s face looked strange. She spoke in a rasp, with none of the usual coaxing, none of the usual charm. “Why are you saying this?”

“Well?” he challenged her. “What if it’s true? Would you still ‘love’ me?”

He knew that she loved him, but it was good to challenge her. It was good to let her know how all of this could disappear for her, with a snap of his fingers.

Now she sounded like she was pleading. Like she would cry: “I love you no matter what. You’re my sweet Brandon boy, I’m here to serve you and care for you, and I know you’re kind at heart, you wouldn’t lie to me –”

“Oh, but what if I would? What if your family was living in wretched misery until this afternoon – when I came out of the meeting, and I had them all killed?”

“What?” Her voice sounded dull and dead.

“I said. What if I was disgusted by how you’ve failed me? And weakened me. And I marched out of that board meeting disgraced and humiliated.” Brandon felt like he was becoming someone else. Growing in stature before her eyes. Fully realizing his father’s vision of a decisive, ruthless heir to the Prince Corporation. A man who kept his comforter and all inferiors in check. “And I realized, then and there, that I had to start acting tough. Like a captain of industry. A leader. And I gave the order to have underlings go and shoot the entire Scrim family. Out in the Herdland. And my father heard me give the order. He saw that I’m taking the right steps to grow up, after all.”

Lottie was shaking her head, back and forth, almost comically, like a broken toy. “You would never do that. You could not do that to me. To my family. They’re good people.”

It was easy to keep his tone level, now that he had the upper hand. “There are too many people in the Herdland. And not enough food.”

“Yes, but the people close to me, you would never –”

“I’m telling you I did. I’m telling you I gave the order –”

“No. No, you’re goading me, like your friend at school, when he talked to his comforter –”

“I didn’t say he lied to her.” Brandon smiled a cruel smile. As men have to do sometimes. To show who they are. He projected what he was doing now onto Jeremy: filling in more gaps. This must have been how it went for Jeremy also. “I didn’t say what steps he took that finally made her show him enough respect – to have an honest conversation. He had her family wiped out. He told her the truth about how they’d been living all those years, and how they were dead. And then, presto! The loving comforter mask came off. And he got to see the lying, selfish, filthy she-devil underneath –”

“You would never do that, Brandon!”

“I did it.” He got out his phone, and, with a touch, he called up the image he’d prepared twenty minutes earlier. He’d wondered if he’d have the nerve to go through with it. But now – it all felt easy. He shoved the screen into Lottie’s face. “You see this? I had them take a picture of the pile of bodies before they were dissolved in acid. You recognize them?” It was an unappetizing sight, that pile of Scrim family corpses. He glanced at it, then away. “Are you satisfied? Do you see what you get for making me weak and letting me down?”

Lottie stared at the picture, and then wrenched her arm free from his grip and stepped away. She looked around the room, not seeming to see it. She seemed rooted to the spot, a few feet away from him.

“Well?” he asked.

There was a kind of explosion. It happened quickly, as she wheeled around, and suddenly she was striking at him, pummeling him in fury, causing pain, it was unthinkable, she was snarling at him, screaming, grotesque, it wasn’t Lottie, his Lottie, his playmate, his bedmate who loved him, his comforter, it was some ferocious hell-cat stranger he didn’t know, and she was raging into this ear as she struck at him: “AAAAAUGH! AAAAAUGH! You monster! You monster! You vicious little monster!” It made no sense for her to call him little; he was older, he was half a head taller, he was far stronger, but some of her blows were bruising him, he crouched, he couldn’t shield himself from them, he did not want to hit her back, and it was terrifying. “You spoiled, monstrous brat! They were good. They were kind, they were loving, they never hurt anyone, and you’re nothing, your monstrous family is nothing! You’re all monsters, you steal, you kill good people, you’re garbage, and you think you’re kings! You and your poisonous Prince Corporation!”

It was a nightmare; he’d lost Lottie, she was attacking him, and Brandon found himself cowering under the hail of blows.

“You and your stupid, ugly ideas of what a man is! You’ll never be a man! There is nothing human about you, monster boy! Your touch makes my flesh crawl! Your voice sets my teeth on edge!” Her own voice was throaty, raw and strange. It was Lottie, and it was not Lottie. “I try to make myself love you, and soothe you, and half the time I’m nauseated. You bore me, you sicken me, and I keep going, I try to feel something for you, I played this role with you for my parents, for my brother and sister, so they’d have a better life, I couldn’t see them, I grew up here in captivity, but I could think of them, and focus on them when I was with you, it kept me going, I gave the love I wanted to give them … to you, I pretended you’re a human being.”

She breathed hard for a moment, then began flailing at him again, practically screeching: “But you’re filth! You look down on Herd people and Mess people – you are the mess, you’re garbage!”

He grabbed at her arms to stop the pummeling, but he couldn’t keep hold of her. Something inside of him tore loose, and he begged her: “Stop! Lottie, Lottie, please, stop, stop!”

She writhed free, she kept striking him with her open palms, and punching him with her fists: “Garbage! Monster boy! Garbage!”

“Lottie, they’re alive, they’re okay, I didn’t do it, stop!”

She was sobbing and furious, still. “You’re lying, you had them killed, I saw –”

“I had the AI take their images and create the picture, that’s all I did, you can see, it’s a cheesy job, you can see the distortions in it, look ...”

He offered her the phone again, and she slapped it out of his hand. She closed her eyes.

“No, I won’t look, you’re a liar!”

Brandon picked the phone up off the floor and spoke into it. He was badly rattled, but he trying to sound authoritative. Maybe the phone, at least, would respect him for who he was. “Phone! Show me footage of the Scrim family. Show me Lottie Scrim’s family in the Herdland. Activate the spy cam in the Scrim home.” The footage came up in the phone window from the shabby Mess dwelling, but only the mother seemed to be there, preparing some garbage Herd food. He held the phone out to Lottie, almost begging her: “Look! It’s your mother! I guess the others are out, but look!”

“I won’t look, you shot the footage before you killed them, it’s lies ...”

“No, Lottie, it’s real, look ...”

She glanced at the phone, but then fell to the floor, sobbing. “I don’t believe you.”

This had gone too far. The world had broken open. Brandon didn’t know how to pick up the pieces and put them back. His body shook. He saw that she was shaking also. He couldn’t command things here, in the common play space of his own bedroom suite. But he could still command the phone. “Phone, connect me by voice to the Scrim home.” He called over to her: “Did you hear me? I’m going to let you talk to her. Your birthday is months away, but you can talk to your mother.”

A hesitant voice came on the line. “Hello?”

He became more authoritative. “Mrs. Scrim? This is Brandon Prince.”

“Sir!” the woman cried out. She sounded alarmed. “Sir, is something wrong with –”

“Mrs. Scrim, I’m going to allow Lottie to speak with you.”

He held the phone close to Lottie’s ear. So that she could hear her mother.

“Lottie?”

For a moment, it seemed that Lottie could not form words. At last, she said, in an odd, high voice: “Mama. You can hear me? You’re alive?”

“Why, of course I’m alive. How are you?”

“I’m – I’m fine, Mama.” Lottie was trying to make her voice sound normal. “This is a – special treat. That Brandon Prince is giving to me. Because he’s so good.”

She had terrified him with her anger. But now that Lottie was trying to act like everything was normal again, he had to let her know it was not. Normal was gone. He pulled the phone away from her face and ended the call. “That’s enough. Now you know she’s alive, she’s fine. The picture I showed you was a lie.” He paced around the room. He felt angry at how scared he’d become in the face of her anger. Practically apologizing to her, as she lashed out at him. “But if you miss them so much – maybe it’s time you went back there. And all of you lose your special status. If you hate me so much. If you hit at me, and call me ‘monster boy.’ If you really think I’m lower than poor, dirty Mess dwellers. If I’m garbage. Huh?” It was way past time for the little hell-cat to taste his rage. Maybe he should start beating her. “Huh? If I nauseate you? And make your flesh crawl?”

Lottie had gotten very still and very quiet. He could not read her face.

“ANSWER ME!” he ordered her.

She answered, and her voice sounded calm. Like the old Lottie. “If you wish to send me away, then send me away. I only hope I’ve accomplished what you told me to do.”

“What?”

“You said I weakened you and made you soft. You wanted me to be fierce. Frightening. It was painful for me, but I did as you asked, as best as I could.”

Brandon snorted. He had seen who she was. He was not going to fall for her comforter tricks again. “You expect me to believe that?”

Lottie shrugged and smiled. “I tried to give a good performance ... like your friend’s comforter. I’m sorry – if I did it too well. Perhaps you won’t trust me for a while. Perhaps you’ll send me away. But if I’ve helped to make you a stronger man, then I’m happy.”

He didn’t know what to say or do. She faced him from a feet away. It was a stand-off. He thought of the cryptic things Jeremy had said about how it’s harder, everything’s harder, once you expose your comforter, but it’s necessary. Could Jeremy have wrecked his own relationship with his comforter, and then tricked Brandon into ruining his bond with Lottie, out of jealousy and spite?

Or could Lottie possibly mean what she was saying? About following his orders, and forcing herself to yell and lash out? Could it have been an act? Did she really love him, and did the universe still make sense?

At last, she moved toward him. She put her arm around his back, and laid her head on his shoulder. He did not stop her. She sang to him, softly: “My sweet and handsome Brandon Prince/ No one as sweet, before or since/ Each time he smiles, the sun can shine/ I love the Prince that I call mine ...”

It was a gentle sound. He did not push her away. He would let her be loving toward him. He would let her please him, and he would not get angry and beat her. For now.

About the author:

Judy’s fiction has appeared in Asimov’s Magazine, Space & Time, Albedo One, Bryant Literary Review, Ultramarine Literary Review, The Harpur Palate, Insurgence, Suffusion, Auslander, Phoebe, Satire, Muse & Stone, Synkroniciti and many other publications. Her stories have appeared in the anthologies Soundtrack Not Included, Quaternary Realms and You Don't Say. One is in press in a Killer Shorts anthology about Inanimate Objects. Eight of her full-length plays have been produced onstage. Three are published. Forty-three of her short plays have been produced onstage. Many of her plays, long and short, have been produced as podcasts.