Corridor & Cereals Part 6: Love and Lust

Regular readers know that I occasionally do a column with stories that share titles with the songs of various recording artists. Here is part six 7 of a seven-part theme honoring one of my favorite musical duos: Hall & Oates. As of this writing, Daryl Hall and John Oates have recorded 18 studio albums, but they have 28 compilation “best of” albums. It’s nice when labels shamelessly try to make as much money as they can, no matter how silly it looks.

I also typically do a February theme of Love & Lust, so these stories are along those lines. This is just one story: titled with one Hall & Oates song, and with four chapters titled with four other songs. Next month, we’ll wrap up this seven-part series in March with more Love & Lust stories.

“Sara Smile”
Science fiction
By David M. Fitzpatrick

Chapter 1: Your Imagination

Sara walked into the living room. “Watching the game?” she asked. She was wearing her favorite everyday outfit—purple yoga pants and a T-shirt with “HEAR ME ROAR” across her breasts. She was beautiful enough, but that it highlighted her physical assets just made it all the better.

The Red Sox were beating the Yankees 37 to 3, so it was the best baseball game ever, but Nick smiled to her and used the remote to power it off. “Games don’t matter. I’d rather spend time with you.” He patted the couch next to him.

She smiled that perfect, beautiful smile of hers—white teeth and full red lips, accentuated by her sparkling eyes and those high cheekbones. “I don’t mind watching with you,” she said as she plopped down next to him and cuddled up as he wrapped his arm around her.

Nick loved the feel of her against him—the warmth of her body, the softness of her flesh. It was a feeling that had long ago been imprinted on him, since they had begun dating fifteen years before. They’d been married for thirteen of them. She adjusted her position, snuggling closer, as it trying to merge with him, and she reached into his lap to grab the remote. The game came back on. Someone had hit a grand slam, so the Red Sox were now leading 41 to 3. It was only the fourth inning.

“I love you so much,” he said.

Sara turned to tip her head up to look at him, a look of amused surprise on her face. “Well, I love you too. Where’s that coming from?”

“I know I’ve never told you that enough. I always should have.”

“It’s okay. I’ve always known that you’re not a guy who broadcasts his emotions all the time.”

“I should be. And I just wanted you to know.”

“Of course I know.”

On screen, the Red Sox had gotten three consecutive hits on three consecutive pitches, and another slugger was at the plate. The Yankees pitcher was already the fifth one they’d used. They couldn’t deplete their bullpen, so they were bringing in a position player to pitch the rest of the nightmarish game against the super-powered Sox. The utility guy had pitched a bit in college, but the first breaking ball he delivered was launched over the Green Monster—the second grand slam that inning. There was nobody out.

Sara laughed out loud. “I love watching the Yankees get clobbered, but this is ridiculous. At what point do they just forfeit? Or is there a mercy rule in Major League Baseball?”

“No mercy rule. And I doubt the Yankees will forfeit.”

“Hey, I was thinking about doing your favorite dinner tonight.”

Nick raised his brow. “I have a few. Which one?”

“That’s the best part—all of them!” She sat up, pulling away to turn and face him in her pretty blue sundress. It was cut low in the front and rose high on her thighs, so sitting like that gave him a free show. She knew it; she was such a funny tease!

“First, steaks and baked potatoes on the grill,” she said with that gorgeous smile. “Then a Hawaiian pizza with double ham and double pineapple. After that, the roast turkey will be done, and we can do Thanksgiving in May.”

They were indeed all his favorite things. “I don’t think I’ll have room!”

“You will, and then we’ll wait a bit before two desserts.”

He scrunched his face up. “Two?”

“Yes—your favorite chocolate cream pie, of course, for the first.”

“And the second?”

Sher smiled, sly and sexy. “Me, of course.”

She now wore her favorite teddy—the fire-red one with the lacy black trim. She loved to tease him with it, and delay his access to removing it. Nick smiled. “You know just how to make me happy.”

“It’s because I love you.”

On TV, he heard the Red Sox hitting another grand slam with nobody out. It was 45 to 3.

The silliness of it all finally overwhelmed him, and he sighed. “I love you too,” he said, “but none of this is real.”

She was gone. On TV, the Red Sox were edging out the Yankees 3 to 2 in the fourth. On top of the TV was the framed photo that he knew so well, turned down on its face.

He lay down on the couch and cried. All the daydreaming in the world wouldn’t bring her back. There had to be a better way.

Chapter 2: You Make My Dreams

The Red Sox weren’t destroying the Yankees in some completely fictitious mental desire. There wasn’t even a game on. But Sara was there, sitting with him on their couch, just as he had imagined her the day before. Only now she really was there; he didn’t have to pretend that he felt her body heat or her soft skin against him.

And there were new things that he hadn’t even considered during his daydream fantasy. Her hair smelled of the shampoo that she had always used, and there was the light scent of her perfume. He even picked up the hint of her underarm deodorant. As she cuddled against him, he could feel the strong, steady beating of her heart. On TV, there was a tennis match—not that he cared about tennis; he only cared about being with her.

“Red Sox play today, babe?” she asked.

“Late tonight—ten o’clock; they’re in Seattle.” He moved his hand up to stroke her hair. He could feel its silky smoothness.

Sara looked up at him and locked eyes. “We should go for a ride on the motorcycle. Maybe hit that burger stand on Route 125. What’s that one we like so much? The place in the middle of nowhere? Big Top? Big Stop?”

“Top Stop,” Nick said with a grin. She never could remember the name of the place, and it was always entertaining to hear her mangle it. “What a bizarre place for a burger stand. Miles from anything.”

“Yeah, but it’s a tourist route. That’s why it’s only open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Best burgers anywhere.”

Soon they were hurrying out the door, helmets in hand, and climbing on the bike. He loved the feel of her arms wrapped around him as he revved it to life and took off. Top Stop was forty miles out of town, and he savored every moment of the ride. The weather couldn’t have been better: sunny, high 70s, nice breeze, just right. Traffic was light, and they enjoyed chatting nonstop over the helmet two-way communicators throughout the ride. Just over an hour later they pulled into the little mom-and-pop restaurant. It had once been a very small house but had been converted into a diner.

The burgers were indeed the best. They ate their favorites—his full of jalapeños and hot sauce, hers with double extra pickles and cheddar cheese. He got Frech fries and she got onion rings, but, as usual, they stole off each other’s plates as they laughed and talked about their many trips there.

From there, they rode down to the coast until he found their favorite hideaway. There was a rest stop right next to the ocean, and they left the picnic area, hand in hand, and found an old path through the trees. Soon they were sitting atop a cliff, thirty feet above the crashing waves of the Atlantic, his arm around her.

Sara tilted her face up and stretched to kiss him. Nick thought she wanted just a peck, but her hand found the back of his head and pulled him closer. They locked lips and kissed, long and passionately, before she pulled only slightly away.

“There’s no one in the picnic area,” she breathed. “Make love to me, right here, before there is.”

His eyes widened in astonishment, and she smiled in response—that beautiful smile, that broad, white-toothed smile that told him she was with him forever, and that he made her as happy as she made him.

They kissed again, and they tumbled over in slow motion...

…and then the scene dissolved around him, like a picture fading, and Nick was looking at the ceiling in the lab.

“Whoa,” he whispered.

The lab tech leaned over him. “You okay, Mr. Franklin?”

“That was incredible,” he said. “It was the most realistic dream I’ve ever had.”

“We induce the dream, but we stimulate consciousness,” the tech said. “Our subjects become incredibly lucid dreamers. We also amp up the parts of your brain that process sensory input. It’s like a dream, but it looks, sounds, smells, and feels like real life.”

Nick struggled to sit up, and the tech helped him. “You were right. That was worth the money. I just… I want do this every day, and be with my wife. But I can’t afford it.”

“Well, dream control has its benefits. You can do anything that you can imagine in dreams, obviously—fly, go to Mars, be a god, battle dragons, whatever. But if you want to have your wife back, there is a better way. It’s more expensive up front, but in the long run it’s cheaper than constant sessions of stimulated dreaming—and she’d be with you all the time, in the real world.”

Nick leaned forward on the table, eagerly anticipating. “Tell me more.”

Chapter 3: Back Together Again

The Red Sox lost the first game that he and Sara watched together. That was a lot more real life than his daydream had been.

Their first motorcycle trip, though—that was very much like his stimulated dream. They rode to Top Stop and had their favorite burgers, and they reminisced about the times that they’d been there while stealing fries and rings off each other’s plates. Then they rode to their favorite hideaway, where they sneaked off through the woods to their cliff and made love like they had when they were younger.

He had his wife back. It had taken so long, and cost so much, but it was so worth it. Every moment with her was like… like every moment with her.

They watched their favorite movies and TV shows. He left her alone when she was intent on knitting or crocheting. She left him alone when he was watching the Red Sox playing the Angels. But the alone time wasn’t often, and he didn’t want it to be.

They cuddled and snuggled, held hands and hugged, made passionate love and played lusty games. It was perfect. Ten days after her return home, they were playing their favorite card game—Fill or Bust; Sara was clobbering him, as usual—when suddenly she set her cards down and looked at him with a serious expression.

“We have to talk,” she said.

“Is something wrong?”

She smiled that marvelous smile—a movie-star smile, one that seemed impossible unless it were faked, and Sara never faked her happiness when she gave him that smile. “No, sweetie—well, not really. But we’re about to hit the ten-day mark.”

He felt a pit form in his stomach. “Yeah.”

“That ends the trial period. Nick, you put so much into preparing me. You spent hours answering the questionnaires, and you provided over thousand of photos of Sara and hundreds of hours of video. We scoured her lifetime of social-media posts and online activities to help gauge who she was. You submitted the memories list—everything you could think of that she knew, and that the two of you had experienced, so that I could know… so that I could be her. And as time goes on, we’d fill in the gaps and make me even more like her.”

He swallowed hard. “I know.”

“But the trial period means I’ll shut down unless you proceed with purchase. If you’re ready, just tell me that, and we can initiate payment. Once that happens, I’ll forget what I am; I won’t be a version of Sara any longer, but I will be here and believe that I am her. I’ll be your Sara for the rest of your life. Isn’t that what you want?”

It was a sales pitch from the company that had manufactured the android that looked like his dead wife; he knew it, and it was very convincing. He could afford it, and he wanted to say yes, but…

“You’re not her,” he said.

She smiled—this time a closed-lipped, somewhat rueful smile. “No, I’m not. I can never truly be her. But she’s dead and gone, and I’m the closest that anything will ever come to being her. When it comes down to it, am I really any different in the ways that matter? Her mannerisms, her personality, her memories—those are all the essence of who Sara was and is. You do want to have Sara here, don’t you?”

“I want her to be here, more than anything,” he whispered. “But you’re not her. You’re the next-best thing, but… I guess you’re no different than the dreams, or the daydreams. I can pretend you’re Sara, but you never will be. And I’ll always know that.”

The Sara android smiled ever wider—that patented white smile with perfect teeth and red lips that he knew so well. “All right. I’ll be available from the company if you ever change your mind. How about one last kiss?”

He leaned forward, taking her hands in his, and her heart-shaped face tilted to the right as she prepared to kiss him—but just before their lips touched, she yanked her hands away, sat bolt upright, and lost all emotion from her face. Her smile snapped away like a rubber band.

“This unit has been deactivated,” it said in a dull version of Sara’s voice. “Thank you for trying our product.”

She got up and walked out of the house forever. Nick went to bed and cried for hours.

Chapter 4: She’s Gone

Sara was gone. He had to accept it. He had to move on.

The first thing he did when he got up was go to the TV and grab the face-down photo frame. He hesitated for a moment. This would be tough.

He stood it up, stepped back, and regarded it. It was their wedding picture, from thirteen years before. She wore her white dress and her big smile; he wore his tuxedo and a smile to match. She was so beautiful, and so young, years before she’d be killed by a senseless accident. Drunk driver—in a parking lot, of all places. She was pushing her shopping cart and he crushed her between it and a parked car.

He cried as he looked at the photo. He’d turned it down because he’d been unable to bear looking at the woman he’d lost. But he knew that the memories were all that he would ever have of her.

The doorbell rang. For no sane reason, the thought flew through his mind that it was Sara, back from the dead. Maybe there was some time travel going on, or some magic talisman had resurrected her. Maybe it was a government conspiracy and she’d never been dead at all.

Of course, it was all ridiculous. There was no miracle waiting at his front door—no way to replace Sara. No way to move on.

He slogged to the door as the doorbell sounded again, and he opened it a crack

It was Sara.

He blinked in surprise. “Sara?”

She smiled, bright and wide. “Hey, baby.”

But there was someone else with her. A blond woman, perhaps a few years younger than Sara, stepped into his field of view. “Mr. Franklin, I’m Janna Camellia, from Custom Droids. I understand that you gave Sara a ten-day trial but opted not to purchase. I just wanted to give you one more chance before we disassemble her.”

Nick stood, mouth agape. “This is to play on my emotions,” he said. “First you get the buyer wrapped up in a facsimile of his dead wife, then you tease a last kiss before shutting her off, and now you bring her back with emotionally charged words like how you’ll disassemble her.”

Janna stood, wide-eyed, and wavered for a moment. Then she sighed and threw up her hands.

“You’re right,” she said. “I’ve been doing this ridiculous sales job and I hate every moment of it. This company sells cheap hopes and weak dreams, and they train us to play on people’s weaknesses to get them to sell. I hate it, but I… just needed a job, you know?”

She turned to the android of Sara. “Take the car back to the shop without me.”

The android turned and headed down the walkway as Jessica pulled out her phone, dialed, and waited.

“Brad? Janna here,” she said. “I can’t do it anymore. I quit. Sara is bringing the company car back, but I’m done.”

Nick could hear the frantic voice on the other end pleading, but Janna hung up. She turned and held her hands up as if in surrender.

“I’m really sorry I was part of this,” she said. “But thank you for giving me the kick in the pants I’ve needed. So it’s back home to hunt for a new job—maybe get some knitting done, and catch a Red Sox game for a change.”

She turned and walked away, dialing her phone again, and Nick could hear her calling for a ride.

“Miss Camellia,” he called back as she hung up.

She turned back. “Sir?”

“Can I give you a ride? It would be nice to talk to a real woman for a change.”

She thought about it, and then smiled. “No funny stuff?”

“Wouldn’t think of it.”

And when she smiled at him, it was the most beautiful smile he’d seen in a very long time.The Red Sox were on the radio in his car. Before he got her home they’d agreed to find dinner together.

David M. Fitzpatrick is a fiction writer in Maine, USA. His many short stories have appeared in print magazines and anthologies around the world. He writes for a newspaper, writes fiction, edits anthologies, and teaches creative writing. Visit him at www.fitz42.net/writer to learn more.