“Flesh poppet. Nice job, too. Nothing rotting or dripping. Even color. Only a competent and advanced sorcerer would know you’re a made being. Sentient?” The crafter tucked their stylus behind an ear and inspected me with a faintly mocking smile.
“I am.” The crafter was an obstacle between me and my target, but so far, there were no signs of violence being required. “Independent thought, as well.” I lifted my chin slightly in a display of pride.
“Whoa, now! So you know what you are?” They faced me more square but remained seated.
“I do. My body is made up of parts from several different donors, chosen specifically for structure, flexibility, and aesthetics depending on which organ you are talking about. The smoothness of my skin is due to an amalgam of blended cells being grown together to create the covering I have now.”
The crafter spun around in their chair and asked politely to examine my hand. I extended it without fear. They donned a set of glasses with only one lens in the frame, gently cradled my hand, and peered closely as the enchanted glass cycled through different filters. Mutterings of “excellent”, “such layering”, and “vivacious” ended with a jealous exclamation of “if only I had the lab to play in”. They released my hand after patting it with approval.
“So are you anatomically correct for the gender you are presenting?” They reached for the hem of my short sundress but I smacked their hand away.
“Rude! As a human-born being, aren’t you supposed to have some damn manners? If not inbred, then at least taught by your culture?”
They sat upright and scooted away from me in a reaction that surprised us both. They rubbed their hand while blinking through my words. Their confusion ended with a big grin and an apologetic nod.
“Yea, that was an ass question to ask someone sentient, regardless of origin. So… now that you have indulged my curiosity, I take it you’re here to run an errand or a message?”
I nodded. “I’m here to speak with Key. What about is for Key to hear first, and Key to decide if to tell you after.”
The smile that slowly broke their stoic facade was unsettling. “Well, I’m Cee. Key is through that door, down the hallway to the end, and in the office marked “Do Not Enter”. Now that I know who you are here for, I know who made you, and why you were made so well. If Key asks my opinion of you, answer plain if you wish, but also remind Key that I told her that backstabbing her business partners would not end well. You may be her last chance to make amends.”
Technically, my path to my target was made clear. However, Cee’s words revealed they knew a lot more about my situation than I cared to speak of. Might as well get this all out in the open between us, then.
“So you know who sent me.”
“I know of them. I’ve never met them, and I had no agreement with them. I worked beside Key, but she never told me anything more than what was necessary for me to do my job.”
“Are you going to hinder me?”
Cee laughed. “Oh, hell no! The room I told you to go to is Key’s private suite. When you first go in, the front of the room will look like a forgotten storage room. Which it is. Key’s niche is in the rear. And I’m not going to hinder you, because I know enough of Key’s former business partners to know not to interfere when they are on the move.”
Cee laughed again, darker and with a chord of remorse. “I didn’t know she had entered into a contract with them. That was a terrible mistake. Not because of them, but because I know how Key treats others. What she can’t take for herself, she fouls.”
Cee looked up at me. “Flesh poppet. Humanoid and human-sized. Attractive and nicely adorned. If you were human-born, Key would think of you as the target for a one night stand at best, and as a money fount as a norm. But you’re not. You are obviously a flesh poppet and a sentient one at that. The perfect subject for her research. She’s not going to keep her hands off of you. Perfect bait custom tailored for getting Key on the hook.”
Cee turned back to their work. “No, dearie. I don’t fuck with… them. Key has earned whatever ire they have sent under your skin, and she’s doublecrossed me enough times that I’m not going to save her from herself. I have no contract with Key anymore, and what happens to her is hers to deal with.”
I interpreted Cee’s removal of the tucked stylus as an indication my audience with them had ended. I politely thanked them for the conversation and the assistance and left their office in the direction they had pointed. At the end of the hallway was the door marked “Do Not Enter”. The knob felt locked at first. A little coaxing and careful wiggling of the trick knob released the lock and the door opened smoothly.
The dust did not make me sneeze, but I was offended by it just the same. This was not the clean room that was my first memory of existence. Somehow I knew it wasn’t sanitary for born beings either. The great room appeared completely cluttered with old, forgotten, and broken gear, but a thin pathway was made by the teetering stacks. I could tell where feet had stepped carefully to not leave a marked footprint in passing.
Behind a false wall of servers permanently welded to fixed racks was a small clean area. Some papers were arranged on the table in an order that could only be perceived by whoever laid them there. I smelled salt. I smelled vinegar. I smelled heated steel and bitter rust. I stepped further into the trap.
“You’re not them.”
“No, ma’am.”
Key sighed with relief and stepped from behind the server wall. In her hand was a sharpened iron rod. “They’ve sent other poppets before. Terrible things that poison and foul. Almost got Cee one time but Cee’s lack of their mark made her immune. Bought me time to counter it, though.”
I realized this was the first I heard of Cee’s gender. “Her? Is that Cee’s preference?”
“It should be. She likes to think she’s enlightened or some shit and sometimes forgets how aggressively feminine she is.” Key used her iron rod to lift the hem of my sundress. “And what’s your gender, hmm? Does the wrapping match the package?”
I grabbed the rod and jerked it out of Key’s hand. Knowing the true test of the action, I held up my hand to show her my palm. There was only the expected redness that comes from handling an item. No burns, welts, or pustules that would have announced a fey debility.
“You’re a poppet. But you’re sentient. Oh my, just how much was spent to make you and why are you here? Something as…” Key smiled hungrily as she eyed me up and down. “As promising as you is usually kept behind lock and very expensive key. For the discerning client only. How breakable are you, I wonder.”
“Depends on what you want to break in me, and why. For someone legitimately worried about assassination attempts, you haven’t even asked me what the hell I’m doing here.”
Key pushed some fading papers and opened envelopes onto the floor to reveal a chair. Only one chair. That she quickly claimed. “If you got past Cee, then there’s nothing to worry about. For all her shittalking, she protects me still. Would do anything for me. Because she’s loyal like that. So. Why are you here?”
“To assist you.”
Key’s smile broke at the edges and I saw a hint of disgust on her face. “I don’t need assistance, and I’m not signing any new contracts. I’m free and clear. Do you understand? Free and fucking clear.”
“I do understand. I too, am free and clear.”
Key’s eyebrows pressed together as her brooding knitted new worry lines on her face. Her eyes examined me completely and noted how filthy my feet and ankles were compared to the rest of my enticing body holding time and patience under the folds of the sundress.
“You ran away.”
“I left under circumstances that will be described differently depending on who you asked.”
“You. Ran. Away.”
“That could be one of the descriptions, yes.”
“So… when you… departed… did you have an owner?”
“No, ma’am. I own myself and make decisions for myself.”
Key pressed her finger to her lips in a failed effort to muzzle her glee. “Why do you want to assist me?”
“I look too much like humankind and they abused me for it. They made me, but kept me hungry. I heard your name mentioned often as a human that caused them discomfort. I want to know how.”
Key stood up and gripped my sundress by the shoulder straps. “You want to know how? I will teach you. But the lessons will not be for free. You will pay me, by allowing me to do as I will to your body. Flesh poppets don’t feel pain, and I know how to vivisect you without causing permanent damage.” She jerked the straps down, scratching my arms in the process. Her nose flared as she caught the smell of something unexpected, but it wasn’t enough to alarm her. “But I want to know… do you feel pleasure?”
Key never noted the change in the room’s atmosphere as the drying scent of dust and old papers gave way to highlights of sticky flowers and a basenote of base desire. The more she jerked at my clothes to remove them, the more the mind-altering chemical was released into her breathing space. By the time she pulls my naked body to the floor, she is completely enthralled by the combination of her lust and their gift.
She pins me there with the weight of her body as she savagely rips off her own clothes. Finally as naked as I, she leans over me, drooling uncontrollably, with a prideful and predatory leer. “Time to pay up.” Her words slipped wetly from her mouth.
I grinned in response. “Yes. I agree. Time to pay up. Glad we could settle this on mutual terms.”
Her libido successfully fled from the room. The rest of her was stuck fast to me. Her body was bonded to mine where ever our skins touched. She struggled and attached more of herself to me. She quit only when our faces were nearly touching.
I was enjoying watching fear and panic alternate in her facial expressions. “If you destroy me, they’ll never get their due!” I realized then she was using her betrayal of confidence as a bargaining chip against anyone else wanting to collect from her. As long as they held a valid claim against her, no one else would harm her lest they be angered at the complete loss of their collateral.
“This would have been true. Tell me, did you ever open your mail?”
“What mail?”
“The official letter of notification informing you that your debt had been bought from them. They, are no longer your creditors. You no longer owe them.”
I heard the careful press of feet in the meandering pathway to Key’s hidden office. Though I had not heard Cee’s gait before, I recognized the way their body soaked up sound as they moved closer.
“But.. Wait… I did not consent to this! I DID NOT CONSENT! THE TRANSFER IS VOID!”
“You had thirty days from the opening of the letter to file an objection to the transfer. The letter was opened. No objection was received. It has been ninety days. So even allowing for the different rate of the passage of time between here and there, your silence has been taken as a sign of acceptance.”
Her eyes darted about in furious movements as she tried to think through the situation. “Cee. Cee got the mail. Cee always got the mail and hands me what’s mine. Cee! CEE! YOU BITCH! YOU HID THE LETTER! TELL HER, CEE! TELL HER I DIDN’T GET THE LETTER AND YOU OPENED IT INSTEAD!”
Cee said nothing, but crouched into a comfortable position hidden out of sight but well within earshot.
“Their records indicate it was your hands that opened the envelope. In fact, it is at the top of the stack you pushed to the floor just now. But that’s old history. They no longer hold a grudge against you. You own them nothing. You owe me, everything.”
Key’s eyes focused onto mine. “You said you ran away. Your feet are filthy from running.”
“No, you said I ran away with the implication I was escaping a captor. My feet are filthy because mud feels very nice to squish between one’s toes.”
“You said they starved you!”
“I said they kept me hungry. Because if I ate too much, I would be too sated to eat you now. Too many sweets ruin the dinner, don’t you know.”
“Whatever the debt is worth, I’ll pay double if you release me!”
I laughed and understood why it is a frequent gesture of humankind. It feels nice. “But you have already agreed to my terms. You are going to reveal to me how you have caused them discomfort… and you are going to pay the debt you owe to me! I will devour your mind and your body! See! Win-win!”
My flesh started to grow over and around her legs. She urinated on us both in her fear. Such a suddenly warm, then suddenly cool sensation. Such a terrible scent. “WAIT! You haven’t paid your part of the bargain we just struck!”
“You are correct. I have not paid that in full. I already allowed you to roughly strip me naked and push me onto the floor. Once you turned your attention to undressing yourself, that portion of the debt was completed. However, there is still one question of yours I do need to answer. Do I feel pleasure, even though I am a flesh poppet?”
Key thrashed one more time in panic, forcing her bottom lip against mine where it fused. My lip tickled as my skin started the process of assimilating hers. The sensation made other parts of my body warm and tingle.
“Yes.”
She took a breath to scream a shriek that never came as I forced the rest of my mouth over hers and allowed my tongue to chase her last breath into her throat. As my body dismantled and integrated hers, cell by cell, my mind unraveled her thoughts and identity.
Cee finally peeked around the last physical obstacle to peer at the undulating mass in the middle of the floor. “I kept telling her… One of these days she was going to doublecross the wrong folk and her life would be undone. She kept holding that last contract with them as if it were an immortality spell. No one would take what was theirs she said, and as long as she didn’t pay, they wouldn’t allow anyone else to have a greater claim. Oh well. When you’re done with dinner, flesh poppet, make yourself presentable for human public and come back to my office. I’d like to make a bargain with you.”
I heard Cee exit the office and firmly close the door. They rattled the knob to make sure it was truly locked, allowing me the luxury to digest my meal in peace. The physical assimilation of Key’s body happened quickly. I lingered over the unraveling of her mind, noting that insanity tends to tinge the memories with a gangrenous sweetness. With the onset of night, came a blanket of darkness. With the blanket of darkness, came sleep. With the onset of sleep, came lucidity. With the onset of lucidity, came the agreement that Key was an asshole and probably deserved her end, but I was no longer comfortable being the process there of. And so I left the dream.