A Case Study of the Structure and Function of the Boytoy
Bandom, R, ~10,300 words. Amanda Fucking Palmer/Mikey Fuckin' Way (+ Mikey/Alicia). Warnings: hardcore consensual objectification, domestic service, sub-sharing, accidental (non-sex-related) injury. Written for bandgirlsbang. Thanks to dear_monday for the beta.
Please check out iamsupernova's art and halfeatenmoon's mix for this fic!
***
Amanda has gone through three stress balls in the last five days, not because she's been wearing them out with her mighty muscled fingers, but because they're so comprehensively useless that she has no compunctions about taking out her stress on them in other ways. Like tearing them to pieces with her teeth, or setting them on fire.
People think it's funny to buy them for her as gifts, people like her parents and her high school best friend Brian who know nothing about grad school except that it's a lot of work. She gets them in the mail along with little notes saying stupid shit like "Take It Squeezy!" It helps a little to know that she has people out there rooting for her, but only a little. There's not much anyone can do to make her life less hellacious right now.
She's taking four classes, including econometrics, which is fun but also a raving bitch. Her research work is behind schedule, and she's been having some disagreements with her thesis committee about methods, which means she might have to rework her dissertation plan entirely. Quals are only a semester away, and she hasn't even started studying.
The real problem, though, is the undergrads. The two biggest time sucks in her life right now are the intro econ class she's TAing and the process of digging up and testing research participants, and both of those involve prolonged and unpleasant contact with the giggling, sulking, boneheaded gang of academic cash cows that comprise the university's undergraduate student body.
Amanda doesn't hate every single one of them. Once in a while, she meets one who's honestly curious, who asks questions that aren't going to be on the test, who actually checks out some of the books on the "recommended reading" list. It happens so rarely that it always takes Amanda by surprise. She tries to be aware of her attitude and suppress reactions that will discourage them from giving a shit, but really, heuristic thought patterns exist for a reason. Most of them don't give a shit. It's easier not to care in class, when she can tell herself that they're only biting themselves in the ass, but when they flake out on research trial appointments, she gets irritated.
Fortunately, today's appointment is with one of the few shit-givers. Alicia Simmons is the only student in the entire class with a perfect attendance record, and when she's stayed after class to ask Amanda about the material, she's always seemed pretty together. The chances of her skipping out are refreshingly low.
Sure enough, she's already sitting in the hallway when Amanda arrives, buried in a business management textbook. "Hey," says Amanda. Alicia glances up, and Amanda smiles apologetically. "Give me two minutes? Just gotta set things up."
"Sure, no problem. I'm early anyway."
The room Amanda is using for data collection is slightly smaller than a handicapped restroom stall, and approximately as conducive to a relaxed music-listening environment. This research is independent, not directly related to the lab Amanda is ostensibly working in, and it turns out grad students striking out on their own don't exactly get the same laboratory facilities as tenured faculty. Jason, another grad student in the same lab who Amanda hangs out with sometimes, is doing his thesis research under their advisor's governmental grant, and his testing rooms are huge. Amanda bitches at him about it, but she's really just grateful that she gets to do her own work at all.
She turns on the computer and sets up the program, checking the speakers to make sure the sound is working. Then she fishes the folder of consent forms out of her backpack and opens the door. "Come on in," she says.
Alicia pokes her head into the room. "Are you sure I'll fit?" she asks dubiously.
"I know, right?" Amanda rolls her eyes. "Hold your breath to get by the chair, there'll be more room after you close the door."
Alicia manages to get the door shut and herself situated in the chair in front of the computer. "Okay, bring it on," she says. "You said I get to listen to music, right?"
"Yep." Amanda pushes the consent form across the desk and scoots her chair back behind Alicia's. "Read this, sign it, then listen away. There's ten stations for you to choose from, flip through them as much as you want. Twenty minutes, then I give you five bucks and we're done."
"Huh," says Alicia. "Okay."
Amanda can tell she's trying to identify the independent variable of the study. Hopefully she won't figure it out. Amanda needs as much valid data as she can get before the exodus of the undergrads next week for winter break, and she has to exclude any participants who know what she's studying.
Alicia sticks mostly to the indie music channels. That's what Amanda was predicting for this condition, although she's pretty sure Alicia's taste in music would be the same regardless. But hey, that's what randomization is for.
At the twenty-minute mark, Amanda shifts her chair back to the desk, stops the music, and hands Alicia a five-dollar bill. Most of them take off at that point, but Amanda suspects that Alicia will be curious. Sure enough, as she accepts the money, Alicia asks, "So what was this about?"
"It's about hipsters, basically," says Amanda. "I'm interested in how social interaction ties into attention allocation, so I'm looking at the difference between what people listen to when someone else is in the room and what they listen to when they're alone. Some people I leave here by themselves, some people I stay with. I sit behind you so you can't see my reactions to your music choices."
"Oh, cool!" says Alicia. "So you expect the people who are alone to listen to more top-40 pop type guilty pleasure stuff?"
"Bingo," says Amanda. She starts shutting down the computer. "I think having someone else there should make people feel more self-conscious about their taste."
"How many people are you doing this with?"
Amanda groans. "Thirty per condition, so sixty total. I got twenty-four done this semester, and I'm supposed to have this finished by the end of spring, including data analysis. I'm gonna have to whore myself out for participants at this rate."
"And you're doing this by yourself?" Alicia asks. "Wow. That must be stressful, with your TA work and everything."
Amanda grins, thinking of the scorch mark on the sidewalk outside her apartment building, the only remaining evidence that the Take It Squeezy stress ball ever existed. "Yeah, well, that's grad school."
She stuffs the completed consent form in her backpack, to be filed in a cabinet in her advisor's office at some vague point in the future, and wrangles the furniture to get the door open. Alicia waits while she locks up the room and then heads in the same direction as Amanda.
"You're studying business?" Amanda asks, mostly just to be polite.
Alicia nods. "Double major with sound engineering. I'm headed for the music industry, graduating next December."
"Whoa, sweet," says Amanda sincerely. "I love music. I guess that's obvious, since I'm using it in my doctoral research. Man, senior year with a double major? That must be pretty stressful too."
"It's okay," says Alicia. "I've got a secret weapon against stress."
"What, like a standing massage appointment or something?" Amanda would love to get professional massages every week, but sadly she's a destitute student and that shit is expensive.
"Not... exactly."
Alicia looks speculative, like she's deciding whether or not to say something, and that just piques Amanda's interest. Nobody sticks with grad school this long without a strong urge to stick their nose everywhere it will fit. "C'mon, share," she coaxes. "I need all the suggestions I can get."
Alicia pushes open the door of the building and pauses on the asphalt at the edge of the quad. "I have a boy," she says finally.
"Oh," says Amanda, a little disappointed. "I don't really have time for a relationship right now."
"It's not exactly a relationship," says Alicia. "I mean, it is, but it's more like... consensual ownership. I use him for housework and stuff."
"Gotcha," says Amanda, who knows what "stuff" means. She's not really in the BDSM scene herself, but she has some friends who are, and she knows a fair amount about it. She's been to parties, she's seen people quietly waiting on their knees to be told what to do. "That sounds kind of awesome, actually. If I found someone who got off on doing my laundry, I'd be up for that."
"Yeah, it's working out pretty well for me," says Alicia. She holds up a hand. "I'm headed thataway."
"Thanks for being a lab rat for me," says Amanda. "Especially with your econ final in two days."
"It's all good, I needed the study break. Thanks for the five bucks and the new music. I'm gonna have to find that one song, the one that ended take your foot off of the brake, for Christ's sake?"
Amanda nods. "The Mountain Goats. I have no idea how to pronounce the name of that song, but you should definitely check out their stuff. They're great."
"I will." Alicia turns and heads toward the dorms.
Amanda's apartment is normally a ten-minute walk from campus. It takes her fifteen to get there, because as badly as she wants to be home, she's too tired to move quickly. Just inside the door, she's greeted by the sight of a pile of dishes that's been building in her sink for almost a week. It's utterly disgusting. She stares at it for a moment, then walks past it into her bedroom and crawls under the sheets.
***
Proctoring exams is the most boring pastime Amanda can imagine. She tries to use the time for homework or reading, but the concern of students possibly cheating on her watch keeps distracting her. Eventually she gives up and just stares creepily at the class for two hours.
Alicia was one of the first ones out the door for all the other tests this semester, so Amanda is surprised when she's still in her seat a few minutes from the end of exam time. The only other students in the room are the ones who always stay to the end, re-checking their work and making last-minute changes. On closer examination, Alicia isn't even looking at her test booklet--she's zoned out, scanning the room blankly like Amanda is.
"Time's up," Amanda says, and the five people scattered around the room pack up and deliver their booklets to her desk. Alicia is the last one to approach, and she hangs around until everyone else has left the room.
"I want to talk to you about something," she says when they're alone. "It should probably wait until you've graded me for the semester, though."
Because Amanda is curious like George, she says, "I can do that right now. Can't tell you what it is until grades are posted, but I can put it into the system."
"Awesome," says Alicia, and follows Amanda to the office she shares with Jason. Alicia waits while Amanda checks her final for wrong answers (there are two, and one of them is a question Amanda frankly finds unfair) and inputs the score. The course grade she comes up with, unsurprisingly, is an A. Alicia looks away until Amanda's done, not even trying to peek at the scored exam paper.
"Okay, done," says Amanda. "Shoot."
Alicia steals Jason's office chair. "So, I'm wondering how serious you were when you said you'd like to find someone who would get off on doing your laundry."
Amanda raises an eyebrow. When she doesn't say anything, Alicia continues, "Usually Mikey and I both go home for breaks, but his parents are going to be on vacation, and you seem like you could use him. Do you want to borrow him while I'm gone?"
The way Alicia says "use him" sends shivers down Amanda's back. "You're offering me a free full-time maid for three weeks?"
"If that's what you want to do with him."
It's probably for the best that Alicia's grade got entered into the system before this. The university only uses whole grades, but Amanda might have tried to hack the system to make it accept an A+.
"Sign me the fuck up," she says.
***
Despite having gone to school here for two years, Amanda has never been in the dorms. She's been invited a few times by students hoping to cross "fuck a TA" off their college bucket lists, but none of them have been successful.
The building isn't terribly attractive. Few dorms are, in Amanda's experience. As they climb the beer-spattered stairs to the fourth floor, Alicia says, "This arrangement isn't really traditional."
Amanda can't help it; she bursts out laughing. "Really? Now you tell me? That's it, I'm calling it all off."
Alicia grins sheepishly. "I mean, yeah, but even for this sort of thing. It's not about obedience so much as... property, I guess? He's not a slave, he's more of an appliance."
They step out of the stairwell into a hallway lined with obnoxiously decorated doors. Alicia looks like she's expecting Amanda to change her mind or something. Amanda shrugs. "Okay," she says. She doesn't really care what play-pretend hoops she has to jump through, as long as she doesn't have to face that mass of dirty dishes herself.
Alicia unlocks the only door in sight that isn't covered in bright colors and dangling whiteboard markers. The room is a bit larger than Amanda expected, with one bed made up and one bare mattress. The walls are covered with obscure band posters--yeah, Alicia would have picked the indie channels regardless of who was listening--and there's an electric guitar propped up in a corner.
"He's under here," Alicia says, crouching by the bed. Amanda startles a little when she sees a hand in the shadows. Alicia squeezes the wrist it's attached to, and the boy seems to wake up.
He slips out from under the bed more gracefully than Amanda would have thought possible--he's clearly had a lot of practice. He's thin, not very tall, wearing glasses and tight plain black clothes. His face is unnervingly blank.
Alicia perches on the edge of the bed, gesturing for Amanda to sit next to her. Mikey stays standing, very still.
"He can do laundry, dishes, vacuuming, filing, whatever," says Alicia. "Cooking isn't one of his main functions, but he can microwave stuff for you. He responds to vocal commands, but you can also physically put him where you want him." She pauses for a moment. "You can fuck him if you want, too. He takes directions well."
Amanda's pretty sure that won't happen. "Cool. What about, like, bodily functions and eating? Does he need to be told to do everything?"
"He usually deals with self-maintenance stuff while I'm out for the day," says Alicia.
"I can just stay in my room for a while," Amanda suggests.
Alicia nods. "That'll work. Give him maybe an hour twice a day. I'll pack up some energy bars and stuff for him. I'm leaving for home day after tomorrow. Do you want to take him now, so I'll be around if you need to iron out any kinks?"
Kinks is right, thinks Amanda. "Sure."
"Hey." Alicia's expression turns serious. "I'm trusting you with one of my favorite things. Take good care of it for me, okay?"
Amanda nods. She doesn't miss the bulge that appears in Mikey's skin-tight pants at the words.
***
Amanda doesn't set an alarm. Vacation is a wistful myth among grad students--breaks are the time they use to get work done without tripping over the undergrads or grading papers on the weekends--but Amanda doesn't have a specific reason to get up early, and she's fucking tired. So tired, in fact, that she sleeps until noon. When she finally wakes up, it takes her a moment to remember about the guy in her pantry.
She hops out of bed and pads across the kitchen to check on him. He probably has to piss like crazy. He's still there, right where she left him, stretched out on the bottom shelf with his eyes closed and his glasses still on. Amanda watches him for a minute. She's pretty sure he's not asleep, but he doesn't react to her presence until she squeezes his wrist like Alicia did.
He tumbles upright, ducking the shelf above him. Amanda considered having him sleep on the couch, but the pantry shelves are the perfect length for him, and it's not like he sleeps on cushions in Alicia's room. Besides, if Amanda's perfectly honest with herself, she sort of likes the idea of storing him when she's not using him. She would feel guilty about that if he didn't seem so thoroughly down with this plan.
She's not a hundred percent sure about that, though, which is why she says, "I'm gonna go hang out in my room for a while so you can deal with--" what was the term Alicia used? "--maintenance. You're welcome to anything in the bathroom or the fridge. While you're at it, if you could give me some kind of indication that you're on board with this whole situation, that would make me a little more comfortable."
Mikey doesn't respond. Amanda retreats into her room and tries not to listen to the sounds of the shower running and the toilet flushing. It seems rude, somehow, to eavesdrop on evidence of his humanity. She opens her laptop and turns on iTunes on shuffle while she hunts down an ancient Kahneman reference her advisor wants her to include in her thesis.
She emerges cautiously from her room after a while. The bathroom light is on. Amanda sticks her head in to turn it off and spots a giant smiley face drawn in the fog on the mirror. She snorts. It's impossible to imagine any smile at all on Mikey's face, much less one that enthusiastic, but the message is clear.
Mikey is standing by the pantry where she left him, hair damp, dressed in a second set of tight black clothes. Alicia only sent a few outfits with him, but as long as he's the one doing the laundry, Amanda thinks he'll be fine. If she were in charge of washing his clothes, he'd spend the last two and a half weeks of his visit nude.
Not that he'd mind. If she wanted, she could undress him, or tell him to undress himself, and she could keep him naked as long as she wanted. She feels a weird frisson of power at the thought. She's not going to do it, but she likes the thought that she could.
Laundry sounds like a good place to start. She takes Mikey by the arm and brings him into her bedroom, pointing at the piles of clothes on the floor. "Sort those into darks and lights," she tells him. "Strip the bed, too." She can't actually remember the last time she washed her sheets.
Mikey immediately sets to work. Amanda leans against the doorway to watch. His movements are a little odd--not exaggeratedly jerky like a robot, but less fluid than a normal person's. He's hard again, easily visible in his tight pants, and Amanda tries not to laugh, because here is someone actually getting off on doing her laundry. It's ridiculous, and a little bit awesome, and undeniably kind of hot.
Her apartment has a washer and dryer, fortunately. Amanda's not sure it would be a good idea to send Mikey out to a laundromat on his own. She doesn't know how he would handle it if anyone talked to him in public.
She watches him start the first load, just to be sure he knows how much detergent and what settings to use. Then she sics him on the huge mound of dishes in the sink and curls up on the living room couch with a stack of intro econ finals booklets. It's a good hour and a half before the sound of the water shuts off.
"Change over the laundry," Amanda calls without looking up from the exam she's grading, and smiles to herself when she hears him doing it.
So far, this is working out a lot better than stress ball immolation.
***
Amanda didn't plan on fucking Mikey when she accepted Alicia's offer of a loan. The point was to have someone around to do the shit Amanda doesn't want to deal with. She knows it turns him on, and that's okay with her, but she didn't expect it to turn her on too. She's not sure what to do with that.
She has him sort her music collection, which is a giant mess. Music helps her cope, so she gets a lot of use out of the five hundred or so CDs she owns. She has a gorgeous stereo system with tower speakers that she scored off Craigslist for twenty bucks from someone who was in a hurry to move. There are discs and jewel cases stacked perilously high on top of the stereo and scattered across the coffee table and part of the floor, while her media shelves are half-empty and in no order whatsoever.
Amanda sits on the couch, intending to get some work done on her laptop, but she keeps catching herself watching Mikey instead. She's fascinated by the way he moves. He's quick and efficient, never lingering or wasting a motion, but it doesn't look quite natural. It's like he swings his limbs from the joints, letting inertia and gravity propel them more than fine motor control. It makes him seem less real and more designed, like Amanda has an android optimized for her personal needs. There's a person in there doing this on purpose, optimizing himself for her, but the more she watches him, the easier it is to forget that.
He's hard again. He seems to get hard every time Amanda takes him off his shelf, and sometimes even before, maybe when he can hear her footsteps coming. There shouldn't be anything hot about alphabetizing CDs, but he sure as hell seems to be enjoying it, and Amanda has to admit the appeal in watching him stand there intently arranging U2's discography by title just because she told him to. She can't exactly deny it, given that she can't seem to keep her eyes away from him.
She wants to fuck him. And she could. Alicia said it was okay. But there's just something about overtly sexual slavery that makes Amanda wary in a way that commanding someone to do her chores doesn't. She's dealt with enough interpersonal drama to know that shit gets complicated when orgasms get involved, and this situation is already complicated enough.
So she keeps her pants on, and ignores the tightness in Mikey's, and focuses on how nice it is to have clear surface space for the first time in months.
***
Amanda is running late for a meeting with her advisor. She's normally pretty good about being on time, but Dr. Powell only deigns to talk to her face-to-face approximately twice a year, and of course the only other time this year Amanda has showed up late for an appointment was the last time they met. Of course. It's not like her academic success depends on what this person thinks of her, or anything.
"Slice me a bagel," she calls to Mikey as she scurries shirtless across the apartment, trying to find the folder with all the research-related information she printed out yesterday. She doesn't have time to sit down for breakfast, she'll just have to eat on the way.
At least she doesn't have to scrounge for a clean shirt, thanks to Mikey. She pulls on a semi-respectable-looking blouse from a hanger in the closet and hops into the kitchen on one foot, tugging on her shoe.
Mikey drops the bread knife on the counter with a clatter and raises his hand. There's a smear of red on it.
"Fuck," says Amanda. She drops her other shoe and hurries to look. There's a cut on Mikey's hand. The damage isn't bad, and it's only leaking a little, but Amanda is feeling a disproportionate amount of panic about it. Alicia told her cooking wasn't one of Mikey's features, and she asked Amanda to take good care of him, and Amanda just went and gave him a knife he's not designed to be able to use, and now he's broken.
Amanda takes a deep breath. Mikey looks as impassive as ever, just letting his hand drip on the bagel. Amanda takes his wrist and holds it over the sink, grabbing a paper towel from the roll on the counter to sop up the spill. She doesn't have any band-aids. If a cut isn't bad enough for an actual bandage, she tends to ignore it. But she feels like she needs to do something more now, something to fix Mikey.
"Hold," she says, and Mikey takes the paper towel she's pressing against his hand. She opens a drawer at the other end of the kitchen, taking out a bottle of glue. She carefully removes the paper towel and examines the break in Mikey's skin. It's still oozing a little, so she puts the towel back, with a clean part over the mess.
She gets out her cell phone and calls the department secretary to cancel. There's no way she'll get there early enough for the meeting to be worth having. She thinks of saying that a friend got hurt and she has to stay to help--it would be almost true--but the thought of calling Mikey a friend while he's right there listening feels wrong. In the end, she doesn't give an excuse, just apologizes and reschedules.
By the time she's done, Mikey has stopped bleeding. Amanda takes him to the living room, sits him next to her on the couch, props his hand on her knee, and opens the bottle. He doesn't react, because he never reacts. Amanda is starting to get used to it, to think of him as an object like Alicia does. She likes it more than she expected to.
She drizzles a line of glue along the cut, carefully sealing the break, then looks at it for a long moment. It looks like caulk, like mortar before it's smoothed down. Amanda can imagine for one glimmering second that all Mikey's edges look like this, plastic put together along shiny seams.
She touches the glue. It's mostly hardened, but still gives a little under her finger. The skin beneath it is warmer than it looks.
Amanda puts Mikey away on his shelf, arranging him with the glue on top so it won't smear. Then she goes to her room and jerks off, not even trying to think about anything but Mikey and his functions.
***
"You really should be finished with data collection for this experiment by now," Dr. Powell says reproachfully.
Amanda fights the urge to cringe. "I know, I'm sorry. I got started late, because Dr. Layton had some concerns about my methods that she wanted to discuss with me." Concerns that for some reason she couldn't outline in an e-mail, but had to describe in person, pushing testing back two weeks while she tried to find time in her schedule for the meeting. Amanda's still a little bitter about that.
(There was also the month during which Amanda played Bejeweled nine hours a day instead of doing any work. She's made the executive decision that Dr. Powell doesn't need to know about that.)
"What were the concerns?"
Dr. Layton objected to the presence of a researcher in the experimental condition, despite Amanda's attempts to explain that the presence of a researcher was the experimental condition. Yes, she told Dr. Layton, using a researcher as the additional person in the room does introduce potential third variables, but using someone with a different relationship to the subject would also introduce potential third variables. This (she explained to Dr. Layton) is because social psychology is nothing but one giant clusterfucked Katamari of third variables getting cuddly all over everybody's hypotheses, and that isn't going to change no matter how long they spend arguing about it.
Amanda rephrases this now in slightly less vulgar terms. Dr. Powell listens, then says, "Hm. She has a point."
Nooooooooooo, screams Amanda inside her head.
"What I'm wondering," he continues, "is whether your subjects might actually be adjusting their choices to accommodate their impressions of your taste, rather than trying to affect your impressions of their taste. They might be thinking that since you're stuck listening to whatever they choose, they should choose music they think you'll like."
"Um," says Amanda.
He checks his watch. "I've got another appointment. Think about it, okay? And draw me up a graph of the data you've got this weekend, if you would. I want to see where you're at."
***
Amanda collapses on her couch for exactly as long as it takes to realize that she really, really does not want to be on her couch. Where she really wants to be is a mosh pit at a hardcore show, where she can replace everything in her working memory with elbows and eardrum pain. But it's Tuesday, and there aren't any shows happening tonight that will have a real pit.
She goes with the next best option and dresses up for the goth dance club. Halfway through struggling into her corset, she remembers that she doesn't have to struggle. She gets Mikey from the closet and has him tighten the laces for her. Then she turns to look at him and thinks, huh. Why not?
He's already basically dressed for the scene in his plain black outfit. She finds an extra pair of combat boots that will fit him and lines his eyes with makeup. Finally, she digs through her accessories until she finds a studded collar, left over from the extravagant getups she used to craft for herself in high school. At a club like this, people will accept the collar as a reason for Mikey's silence. Amanda's not the sort of person who makes a big deal about collaring, but she doesn't know how Alicia feels about it, so she gives Mikey the collar to put on instead of doing it herself.
As they leave, she checks to make sure she has enough cash for drinks and a cab home. The club is close enough to be a reasonable distance on foot when she's sober, but she does not plan to be sober by the end of the night.
She's sober now, though, and the walk is pleasant enough to dispel some of the tension from her meeting. She leads Mikey by his wrist, and that helps a little too, the confidence that whatever else happens, Mikey will follow her instructions. She knows what they look like to people passing by, what assumptions people are making about their relationship based on her corset and his collar. It's interesting to think about the ways those assumptions are right and the ways that they're wrong.
This is the first time Mikey's been out of the apartment in over a week, Amanda realizes suddenly. She wonders if she should be taking him out more. Alicia didn't say anything about that.
The club is just starting to get busy when they arrive. Amanda pays the cover for both of them at the door, then stops by the bar to get started on the evening's substance abuse. She orders a shot of Bacardi to toss back on the spot and a gin and tonic to take with her onto the dance floor.
She hasn't let go of Mikey's wrist. She keeps her grip on it as she navigates the gathering crowd. They get a few looks, but they're more admiring or jealous than curious. No one here is going to ask questions. They wouldn't ask questions if Mikey were on his knees, or if he were on a leash. Amanda likes the thought of Mikey on a leash, but she doesn't seriously consider it. He's not a slave, and he's not a pet. He's just hers.
Well, he's Alicia's. But he's hers right now.
Amanda stays on the edges of the floor until she's about halfway through her drink, then sticks the glass in Mikey's hand, sticks Mikey in a corner, and heads out into the crowd. Not too far, because she needs to be able to see if anyone bothers him, but far enough to find a few people to rub up against, to share sweat and heat and rhythm.
No one tries to talk to Mikey. The slightly stiff posture he uses when he's waiting for her instructions makes him look standoffish in this context, and the collar warns off most people who are looking to score. Amanda keeps an eye on him anyway, just in case, because he's her responsibility.
She comes back to drain her glass after a few songs. She thinks about sending him up to the bar to get a refill, but that would involve interacting with the bartender, and she doesn't want to make him do that. She goes herself instead, holding his wrist over her shoulder like a knapsack.
After her third drink, she takes him out on the dance floor. He stays where she puts him, unmoving, while she undulates up and down his body like he's a stripper pole. Amanda could tell him to dance, make him move, but she kind of likes molesting him like this.
She turns around, dragging Mikey's hands over her hips as she dances, and spots a girl hurriedly averting her eyes. She's dressed head-to-toe in Hot Topic merchandise, but she's cute, and after Amanda stares at her long enough, she makes eye contact again and slowly moves toward them. When she gets close enough, Amanda grabs her by her overpriced, diagonally-striped Avril Lavigne tie and hauls her in for a kiss.
The girl seems startled at first, but goes with it willingly enough. Amanda hasn't had as much alcohol as she planned to before this part of the night, but if the opportunity wants to present itself early, she isn't going to complain. She works her way across the girl's cheek to her ear and says, "Want to come to mine?"
"Is he coming too?" the girl asks, gesturing over Amanda's shoulder.
Amanda grins. "Yeah, but he won't bother us. He'll stay in the closet where he belongs."
***
The girl is gone when Amanda wakes up, fortunately. Amanda always feels obligated to feed them if they stick around, and there's nothing worth eating in the kitchen. Besides, this chick wasn't really worth the Pop-Tart.
She gets Mikey out and takes him into the bathroom with her so she can take off his makeup while she's cleaning her own face. His eyeliner is barely smeared. She's kind of tempted to leave it on, because it's fucking hot on him, but she resists the urge. It's only after Amanda's done wiping both of them down that she realizes she's naked. It's a testament to how comfortable she's gotten with having Mikey around, she supposes.
She needs a shower pretty desperately after last night, so she steps in, leaving him standing in the middle of the bathroom. On second thought, she leans out of the shower and moves her towel from the rod to Mikey's forearm. He might as well be useful.
She takes her time, filling her sinuses with steam to help her recover from last night. She shampoos her hair, and soaps her feet, and scrubs the random's saliva off her crotch. Mikey is still there when she steps out, like she knew he would be. It's comforting, when he does what he's supposed to do. She's beginning to understand what Alicia meant about her secret weapon against stress. It's not just the tasks he does; it's the cushion of certainty that he'll do them. It's nice to be able to rely on something for once.
Amanda takes the towel from his arm and rubs herself dry. Mikey has a hard-on again. It's good to know that he doesn't only get off on dish soap and vacuum cleaners, she thinks, and ignores it.
***
Halfway through the third draft of an e-mail attempting to explain to Dr. Powell exactly why his criticism does not invalidate her methods, Amanda slams her laptop closed and rolls off the couch onto the floor. The jolt startles some of the frustration out of her, but not nearly enough for her to be able to finish the e-mail. She stares at the ceiling, trying to breathe deeply.
Jason told her once about a problem-solving method his programmer friends used involving a rubber duck. You keep the duck by your computer, he said, and if you come across a problem you can't solve, you explain the problem to the duck. Most of the time, according to Jason's friends, just organizing and expressing the problem is enough to solve it.
Amanda doesn't have a duck, but she does have a Mikey. What the hell, she thinks, it can't hurt. She heaves herself to her feet and fetches him from the closet. "You're a duck," she tells him as she sits him down. She flops down on the floor again, shoving the coffee table out of the way and propping her legs up on the couch next to his thighs.
"So," she starts, digging her feet in between the cushions, "I'm studying social attention microeconomics. That means I'm trying to figure out how people make decisions about what to pay attention to, and how they affect other people's decisions."
She pauses and looks at Mikey. "I wonder if I could make you quack," she muses. It would probably be a bad idea to command him to produce duck noises, although she sort of wants to try it and find out what would happen.
"Anyway, so I've got a few different experiments planned to pick apart this phenomenon, and the one I'm working on right now uses music as the object of attention. Half the subjects listen to music without me in the room, and I look at the tracking log later, and the other half listen with me in the room to see how my presence affects their choices. My prediction is that they'll listen to the less mainstream, more obscure music when someone else is sitting there potentially judging them."
Amanda pokes the back of the couch viciously with her toe. "The problem is... well, I'm not sure what you know about experimental design. I don't think most ducks have much of an elementary grounding in the scientific method. But one of the most important parts of designing a study is controls, making sure there's no difference between the conditions except the one you're putting there on purpose. And my advisor thinks that my subjects might be changing their decisions to make the listening experience better for me, rather than to affect what I think of their musical taste, because using the experimenter means there's a power imbalance."
She sits up, pulling her legs off the couch and crossing them under her. "But here's the thing about that. I'm testing whether my presence makes a difference in the subjects' choices. Powell is right, there are a few different possible explanations for that effect, if it's there, but first I need to find out whether it's there. If it is, then this shit goes in the fucking discussion section and I design more studies."
Amanda grabs her laptop. She'll have to remember to thank Jason for the duck tip.
***
There's really no point whatsoever in making this histogram right now, with only eleven subjects in one condition and thirteen in the other. Amanda runs the analysis just for shits and giggles--maniacal, stab-inducing giggles--and of course it's not significant. The graph is going to be utterly useless.
Obviously she spends three hours making it pretty anyway, because she's an academic masochist and can't stand the idea of handing in subpar work. Even utterly useless subpar work.
She finally finishes adjusting the font size on the axis labels to her satisfaction and sends off the image to Dr. Powell. She's been sitting staring at her computer screen all afternoon, so she runs a victory lap around the apartment to stretch her muscles.
Except then she turns a corner and there's a laundry basket where there isn't usually a laundry basket, and she trips and hits the floor hard. She manages to break her fall with her hands, but then the rest of her lands on her elbow and something cracks in her wrist.
"Fuck," Amanda says, and then, "fuck fuck fuck oh fuck, oh fuck that hurts." Her foot is still tangled in the laundry basket, and she should probably try to get her weight off her arm, but any amount of movement causes even worse pain. She's never broken a bone before, but she's pretty sure that's what just happened.
She closes her eyes, tries to stop cussing long enough to take in a breath, and hollers, "Mikey! I need you to call 911!"
He appears in an instant, and even through the pain, Amanda can tell that something is different about him. She knows for sure when he says, "What happened? Where's your phone?" His voice sounds exactly right, just like she would have expected, but it's still weird to hear. She's thought about his lips doing a lot of things, but talking isn't one of them.
Amanda tries to get the phone out, then flinches and stops trying. "Left pocket," she grits out. She doesn't have a landline, or she'd have him use that. "Tell them my wrist is probably broken."
Mikey deftly plucks the phone out of her pocket and dials. "Broken wrist," he says into it. "We don't have a car. Hang on." He picks up an electric bill from the kitchen counter and reads off Amanda's address. "Okay, thanks. They're on their way," he tells Amanda. "Can you try to stop leaning on it? Roll over a little?"
She tries, and manages it after an excruciating few seconds during which she coins a few new compound words.
"Wow," says Mikey. "I don't think I ever want to encounter a cockfucking shitmuffin, but I appreciate the imagery. Hang tight, they'll be here soon."
***
Amanda gets a black cast, which she plans to decorate with glow-in-the-dark paint, and some painkillers. Mikey stays quiet the whole time they're in the emergency room, but he hasn't gone back to his objectified state. He winces in sympathy when Amanda winces in pain; he shifts in his seat to get more comfortable while they're waiting; he's still there, still human.
The nurse asks if Amanda has someone to take her home. She calls Jason. She probably should have done that in the first place and saved herself the ambulance fee, but she thinks she can excuse herself for not being at her peak mental capacity.
While they're waiting by the parking lot for Jason to show up, Mikey says, "Your research sounds really cool."
It's the first time either of them have referenced their previous interactions out loud. Amanda wasn't sure if he wanted to pretend nothing ever happened, so as not to ruin things, but apparently not.
"Thanks," she says. "Damn, I've spoiled you. Now you can't be a participant." He snorts, and she hesitates before saying, "So hey, while you're being a person, can I just ask... am I doing this right?"
He smiles. It's a little smile, not the huge grin on his mirror-fog face, but it's sincere. "Yeah," he says. "As long as you're using me how you want to use me, you're doing it right."
Silence falls between them. Mikey doesn't seem to be a big talker, and Amanda is a little preoccupied by the unexpectedly enthusiastic reaction her body is having to the way he said use me. There is significant tingling going on in her abdominal area. It's distracting.
Jason pulls up after a few more minutes in his beat-up Volvo. Amanda opens the passenger-side door. "You okay, Amanda?" Jason asks, leaning over from the driver's seat.
She gets in, brandishing her cast. "Good as new in another six weeks, I'm told." The back door slams shut. "This is Mikey. Mikey, Jason."
"Hey," says Jason. "I'm glad you were around to help Amanda out."
"Me too," says Mikey.
Thankfully, Jason doesn't ask any more questions about how they know each other, just strikes up a conversation with Amanda about the ongoing battle between the econ building's custodial staff and the resident dirt-poor grad students over the removal of toilet paper from university bathrooms. The janitors' latest tactic is a kind of toilet paper holder that requires an array of tools akin to a lockpicking set to remove. Amanda, of course, has already figured out how to operate it with two ballpoint pens, and promises to teach Jason as a token of her gratitude for the E.R. pickup.
He drops them off at Amanda's place. She turns to Mikey. "Thanks," she says.
"Least I can do," he answers, and waits for her to take his wrist.
***
Amanda can't masturbate properly. The hand she usually uses is out of commission, and the other one just isn't cutting it. She twists and experiments and flips over, and nothing feels right. The cast doesn't cover her entire hand, but she's not supposed to use it for anything yet, and she doesn't want the fabric at the edge of the cast to smell like sex anyway. That could make handshakes with university faculty a little weird.
She tries for twenty minutes, which is a hell of a lot longer than it usually takes her to come, before giving up and staring grumpily at the ceiling. She wishes she had a vibrator. She's never needed one before, but if this is how things are going to be for six weeks, she might just have to buy one.
Then she thinks about Mikey saying use me and decides, fuck it.
She gets up, not bothering to zip up her jeans, and goes to get him from the kitchen. He'll come if she calls, but she prefers taking him and putting him where she wants him. And where she wants him right now is on her bed, folded up at the end, with his face between her legs.
Mikey bends easily, flexible like a rag doll. Amanda hasn't manhandled him much before, hasn't needed him in very many positions, but she can tell right away that he'll stay where she puts him as long as she wants him there. Good at taking instructions, Alicia said, and Amanda will just have to see about that.
She wriggles one leg out of her jeans and underwear and leaves them hanging off her other knee, not bothering to extract herself all the way. She sprawls on her back, legs spread, and grabs Mikey by the hair. "Tongue out," she says, and drags his head down.
He could eat her out himself if she told him to, she's sure, but that's not what she wants. Right now, all she wants is something to fucking hump, and he can be that.
She holds his hair tightly with her good hand, using it to move his head forward and back, stroking her clit with his tongue. He's limp and docile, keeping his tongue still and letting her do what she wants with it, and Amanda suddenly gets it, what Mikey meant when he said she should use him however she wants. He doesn't just want the depersonalization of being seen as an object, he wants the functionality. It turns him on not only to be used, but to be used for a purpose. He wants to improve her lifestyle like a shiny new dishwasher.
She comes, and puts him back on the shelf, and leaves the closet door open. Later in the afternoon, she calls Brian to catch up. They haven't seen each other much since high school, but they try to stay in touch, and it's been a while.
"I've been busy with school," Amanda tells him. "Broke my arm the other day. Tripped and fell on it at a funny angle, it was stupid of me. The worst part is I can't fucking jerk off. I know, it's annoying as hell. I got a toy, though, so I can at least get off. I don't know what I'd do without it."
She wanders by the closet and peeks in. Mikey's pants are having trouble containing the boner he's popping. Amanda grins to herself and says into the phone, "So what's been going on with you?"
***
I appreciate your point about the progression of theory formation based on results, but I'm still concerned about the applicability of those results if the measures don't sufficiently correspond to the intended phenomena. Perhaps after you're finished with this experiment, if you get the expected results, your next project could be an attempt to nail down the cause of this effect. For example, you could see if it still occurs in a situation where the additional presence is seen as incidental by the subject, maybe by using an accomplice as an ostensible second participant.
Amanda loves the independence of her work. She came up with the idea for her current project herself, and she's conducted all of the data collection so far. Her professors are usually pretty good about leaving her alone, as long as they still get to take the credit for everything she does right. But once in a while they like to stick their noses in and decide the course of her research for her with a casual direction phrased like a suggestion. Amanda seethes, choosing to ignore for the moment the question of whether or not Powell's idea makes sense.
Winter break is almost over. Alicia's going to be back soon, and she's going to take Mikey away. Amanda is surprisingly unhappy about this, considering that she has no claim whatsoever to him or his services. She should be feeling overwhelming gratitude for the time she's gotten, for the sparkling-clean apartment and the spectacular orgasms, but she's just cranky about having to give him back.
She lets herself imagine what it would be like to own Mikey for good, to take him out of the pantry every day and put him back when she's done. It's easy to think of him as hers, so easy that she already does it, even if she has to mentally correct herself every once in a while--hers for now, hers functionally.
Mikey has a fetish for functionality, after all. She wonders what he would do if she kept him, moved somewhere else with him or just refused to let Alicia in. She knows now that he can stop being a possession in an emergency, but she doesn't know whether being stolen would trip that alarm. She wouldn't do it, not after Alicia's been so incredibly generous with her toy, but she can't stop thinking about it.
***
The day Alicia comes to get Mikey, Amanda doesn't get off with him. She sets him to work on her breakfast dishes while she packs up the energy bars and spare black outfits that share his shelf in the pantry. She puts them back into the same paper bag Alicia sent them in. She could just have him do it, but she doesn't. She's not sure why.
Mikey is back on his shelf when the knock comes. Alicia is standing in the hallway when Amanda opens the door. She's wearing a puffy jacket and a hat. It must be cold outside. Amanda hasn't left the apartment yet today.
"Hey," says Amanda. "Come on in. How was your break?"
"It was great." Alicia unzips her jacket as she steps inside. "My family seems to like me a lot better when I've been gone for a while. Whoa, that's a shit-ton of CDs." She wanders over to Amanda's music collection and starts reading the cases.
"It didn't look anywhere near that neat a few weeks ago," says Amanda.
Alicia smiles at the CDs like she's proud of them. "Everything go okay?" She glances back at Amanda. "Jeez, what did you do to your arm?"
"Tripped." Amanda grimaces. "It was a pretty epic trip. It would have been really bad if Mikey hadn't been here to call an ambulance for me."
"He did?"
"Yeah," says Amanda. "Would you expect him not to? I couldn't reach my phone."
Alicia shakes her head. "Oh no, I'm just surprised he didn't call me afterwards. It's hard on him to be snapped out of it like that. He just went back to normal after you got your arm taken care of?"
It's a little funny to think of Mikey's objectified state as normal, but after spending some time around him, Amanda gets it. For him--for them--it is normal. "He didn't seem to have any trouble with it. I guess I don't know how to tell if he's upset, though. He's not the most emotionally transparent person I've ever met."
Alicia cracks up. She hasn't asked where Mikey is, but Amanda can sense her own reluctance to get him, so she doesn't wait to be asked. She goes into the kitchen and opens the pantry door. Mikey is lying there, motionless, the paper bag tucked in next to his head. Amanda picks up the bag and sets it on the floor, simultaneously squeezing Mikey's wrist.
He rolls smoothly off the shelf to a standing position. Amanda is struck by a sense of déjà vu, remembering the first time she saw him under the bed. The shelf must be just as difficult to get out of, and she's sure he wasn't doing it that easily when she first put him there.
Alicia doesn't hug him or greet him at all. She just picks up the bag and says, "Other than the E.R. visit, how'd it go? Did he work okay?"
"He worked great," says Amanda. "There was an incident with a bagel, but it was just a little cut, and I fixed it. Seriously, you've been a lifesaver, Alicia. If there's anything I can do to thank you..."
Alicia waves a hand. "You were doing me a favor, really, giving me a place to keep him."
Suddenly, Amanda remembers their conversation after she tested Alicia. She goes to grab The Sunset Tree out of her newly organized CD collection. "You want to borrow this? It has that song you said you liked."
"Oh hey, thanks!" Alicia sticks it in the front pocket of her jacket. It pokes out a little, but she leaves it there instead of putting it in the paper bag with the stuff for Mikey.
The apartment doesn't feel any emptier after Alicia leaves, Mikey trailing behind her by the wrist. It feels just the same as it always has, Amanda on her own. But the pantry looks a little bare.
***
Amanda is fine, and she stays fine for a while. Classes start up again after a few days. She's TAing a behavioral economics course this semester, which contains more students who are actually interested in the subject than the intro class did. It's also closer to Amanda's area of expertise, and therefore a lot more fun for her.
The behavioral econ students are eager to participate in her research, so the data collection process goes much more smoothly from there. Amanda finishes testing participants shortly after midterms, and dives straight into cramming for quals. She's glad now that her TA duties in the fall included sitting in on the intro econ course, because the refresher is really coming in handy. After a few missed calls and brief apology e-mails, Amanda's parents start mailing her stress balls again, along with back massagers and packets of bubble bath.
She can't use the bubble bath because her bathtub is grimy around the edges and she doesn't have the energy to scrub it out enough to want to sit in it. Her house is pretty much back to its pre-Mikey state, except for the pile of dishes, which aren't a problem because she's mostly stopped eating.
She gets three weeks between the end of the spring semester and quals. She spends them under a display table full of antique maps in a back room of the university library, blocked from inquisitive eyes by a solid wall of economics textbooks.
The exam happens in mid-June. By the time she walks into the examination room, Amanda no longer cares whether she passes. In fact, she's pretty much positive she's going to fail, drop out of the program, run through her savings in a month, and end up hitchhiking to Wisconsin and home-brewing beer for the rest of her life. Amanda would be good at making beer, she's sure of it. She wishes she'd gotten a head start on practicing her brewing skills, because she'll need them in Wisconsin, and she needs some beer right fucking now.
She makes it through the day somehow. She manages to dodge Dr. Powell's attempts to start a conversation about the direction of her research after the exam--seriously, what the fuck--and emerges into the early-evening sun.
"Amanda!" calls a familiar voice. Amanda pivots on her heel. She feels a breeze on her legs and looks down, just to make sure she's wearing pants. Ah. Shorts. Because it's June. That makes sense.
"Amanda, hey!" It's Alicia, looking about a million times better than Amanda did the last time she walked past a mirror. "How's it going?"
"Sleep," Amanda tells her. "I'm going to have some. Quals," she adds by way of an explanation.
Alicia grins. "Ah. Wow, you look fucking beat. Do you want Mikey for the evening? Or I could bring him by tomorrow, if you're going to sleep now."
Amanda knows the answer to that one. She's been desperately wanting a Mikey for months, and vaguely wishing for one for months before that. Having him now would be a total waste, though, because she's about to go to sleep for approximately sixteen hours. Or possibly years.
"Yes," she says. "Please. Tomorrow."
"Okay," says Alicia. "Sleep well!"
Amanda makes it halfway to the library before she remembers she has an apartment.
***
She actually does sleep for almost sixteen hours. A knock on the door wakes her up around noon. She almost ignores it and goes back to sleep, but then she remembers that Alicia is supposed to be coming, and rips herself out of bed to answer it.
Mikey looks exactly the same as she remembers him, down to the glasses. Amanda drags him straight back to bed, leaving a grinning Alicia to deal with closing the front door. She's missed having her housework magically done, but late at night when she lets her mind go where it wants to, she doesn't fantasize about a clean floor. She thinks about a boy who stays where she puts him, a soft warm RealDoll that follows directions and never says a word.
Amanda falls backwards onto her bed and drags him down on top of her by his shirt. She clamps her legs around his thighs, locking her ankles around the backs of his knees. He's hard already, and it feels just right against her clit, rubbing through his jeans and her cotton sleep pants.
"Move your hips," Amanda orders, and Mikey immediately starts thrusting forward. She doesn't bother taking off either of their clothes, because she can already tell that this will be enough. He swings his hips like he swings all his joints, loose and mechanical, starting on command and not stopping until he's told to. If she let him, he would keep doing this for hours, because it's what he's for.
Amanda clenches all the muscles in her ass and comes, silent and intense.
She stops him moving and pushes him off. There's a damp spot on his pants. At first she thinks it's from her, but no, Mikey came too without her noticing. She takes off all his clothes, wipes up the spill with his shirt, and sends him to do a load of laundry.
Lying back in bed, listening to the sounds of the washing machine starting up, Amanda has an idea.
***
"Hi, Ben, thanks for coming," says Amanda. "Right through here, we'll get you started. Mikey's just finishing up with the survey part, he'll be done soon."
She leads her latest undergrad participant into the testing room. It's a lot bigger than the previous one, but the setup is the same: a table, a computer, and two chairs. Mikey is sitting in one of the chairs, marking up a piece of paper.
She sets Ben up at the computer and gives him his instructions. It's music videos this time around, but the process is essentially the same: he gets a number of options to pick from, and the computer tracks his choices for her to record later.
Amanda waits outside until he's done. When he comes out, she debriefs him, warns him against telling his friends the gimmick, and heads back into the room. Mikey is still sitting in the chair, quietly waiting. She cleans up the space and then takes his wrist, leading him back to Alicia's dorm room.
If she ever publishes this study, she's going to try to get away with referring to her testing accomplice as a tool. That's what he is: a tool that does its job very, very well.
art
mix
Please check out iamsupernova's art and halfeatenmoon's mix for this fic!
***
Amanda has gone through three stress balls in the last five days, not because she's been wearing them out with her mighty muscled fingers, but because they're so comprehensively useless that she has no compunctions about taking out her stress on them in other ways. Like tearing them to pieces with her teeth, or setting them on fire.
People think it's funny to buy them for her as gifts, people like her parents and her high school best friend Brian who know nothing about grad school except that it's a lot of work. She gets them in the mail along with little notes saying stupid shit like "Take It Squeezy!" It helps a little to know that she has people out there rooting for her, but only a little. There's not much anyone can do to make her life less hellacious right now.
She's taking four classes, including econometrics, which is fun but also a raving bitch. Her research work is behind schedule, and she's been having some disagreements with her thesis committee about methods, which means she might have to rework her dissertation plan entirely. Quals are only a semester away, and she hasn't even started studying.
The real problem, though, is the undergrads. The two biggest time sucks in her life right now are the intro econ class she's TAing and the process of digging up and testing research participants, and both of those involve prolonged and unpleasant contact with the giggling, sulking, boneheaded gang of academic cash cows that comprise the university's undergraduate student body.
Amanda doesn't hate every single one of them. Once in a while, she meets one who's honestly curious, who asks questions that aren't going to be on the test, who actually checks out some of the books on the "recommended reading" list. It happens so rarely that it always takes Amanda by surprise. She tries to be aware of her attitude and suppress reactions that will discourage them from giving a shit, but really, heuristic thought patterns exist for a reason. Most of them don't give a shit. It's easier not to care in class, when she can tell herself that they're only biting themselves in the ass, but when they flake out on research trial appointments, she gets irritated.
Fortunately, today's appointment is with one of the few shit-givers. Alicia Simmons is the only student in the entire class with a perfect attendance record, and when she's stayed after class to ask Amanda about the material, she's always seemed pretty together. The chances of her skipping out are refreshingly low.
Sure enough, she's already sitting in the hallway when Amanda arrives, buried in a business management textbook. "Hey," says Amanda. Alicia glances up, and Amanda smiles apologetically. "Give me two minutes? Just gotta set things up."
"Sure, no problem. I'm early anyway."
The room Amanda is using for data collection is slightly smaller than a handicapped restroom stall, and approximately as conducive to a relaxed music-listening environment. This research is independent, not directly related to the lab Amanda is ostensibly working in, and it turns out grad students striking out on their own don't exactly get the same laboratory facilities as tenured faculty. Jason, another grad student in the same lab who Amanda hangs out with sometimes, is doing his thesis research under their advisor's governmental grant, and his testing rooms are huge. Amanda bitches at him about it, but she's really just grateful that she gets to do her own work at all.
She turns on the computer and sets up the program, checking the speakers to make sure the sound is working. Then she fishes the folder of consent forms out of her backpack and opens the door. "Come on in," she says.
Alicia pokes her head into the room. "Are you sure I'll fit?" she asks dubiously.
"I know, right?" Amanda rolls her eyes. "Hold your breath to get by the chair, there'll be more room after you close the door."
Alicia manages to get the door shut and herself situated in the chair in front of the computer. "Okay, bring it on," she says. "You said I get to listen to music, right?"
"Yep." Amanda pushes the consent form across the desk and scoots her chair back behind Alicia's. "Read this, sign it, then listen away. There's ten stations for you to choose from, flip through them as much as you want. Twenty minutes, then I give you five bucks and we're done."
"Huh," says Alicia. "Okay."
Amanda can tell she's trying to identify the independent variable of the study. Hopefully she won't figure it out. Amanda needs as much valid data as she can get before the exodus of the undergrads next week for winter break, and she has to exclude any participants who know what she's studying.
Alicia sticks mostly to the indie music channels. That's what Amanda was predicting for this condition, although she's pretty sure Alicia's taste in music would be the same regardless. But hey, that's what randomization is for.
At the twenty-minute mark, Amanda shifts her chair back to the desk, stops the music, and hands Alicia a five-dollar bill. Most of them take off at that point, but Amanda suspects that Alicia will be curious. Sure enough, as she accepts the money, Alicia asks, "So what was this about?"
"It's about hipsters, basically," says Amanda. "I'm interested in how social interaction ties into attention allocation, so I'm looking at the difference between what people listen to when someone else is in the room and what they listen to when they're alone. Some people I leave here by themselves, some people I stay with. I sit behind you so you can't see my reactions to your music choices."
"Oh, cool!" says Alicia. "So you expect the people who are alone to listen to more top-40 pop type guilty pleasure stuff?"
"Bingo," says Amanda. She starts shutting down the computer. "I think having someone else there should make people feel more self-conscious about their taste."
"How many people are you doing this with?"
Amanda groans. "Thirty per condition, so sixty total. I got twenty-four done this semester, and I'm supposed to have this finished by the end of spring, including data analysis. I'm gonna have to whore myself out for participants at this rate."
"And you're doing this by yourself?" Alicia asks. "Wow. That must be stressful, with your TA work and everything."
Amanda grins, thinking of the scorch mark on the sidewalk outside her apartment building, the only remaining evidence that the Take It Squeezy stress ball ever existed. "Yeah, well, that's grad school."
She stuffs the completed consent form in her backpack, to be filed in a cabinet in her advisor's office at some vague point in the future, and wrangles the furniture to get the door open. Alicia waits while she locks up the room and then heads in the same direction as Amanda.
"You're studying business?" Amanda asks, mostly just to be polite.
Alicia nods. "Double major with sound engineering. I'm headed for the music industry, graduating next December."
"Whoa, sweet," says Amanda sincerely. "I love music. I guess that's obvious, since I'm using it in my doctoral research. Man, senior year with a double major? That must be pretty stressful too."
"It's okay," says Alicia. "I've got a secret weapon against stress."
"What, like a standing massage appointment or something?" Amanda would love to get professional massages every week, but sadly she's a destitute student and that shit is expensive.
"Not... exactly."
Alicia looks speculative, like she's deciding whether or not to say something, and that just piques Amanda's interest. Nobody sticks with grad school this long without a strong urge to stick their nose everywhere it will fit. "C'mon, share," she coaxes. "I need all the suggestions I can get."
Alicia pushes open the door of the building and pauses on the asphalt at the edge of the quad. "I have a boy," she says finally.
"Oh," says Amanda, a little disappointed. "I don't really have time for a relationship right now."
"It's not exactly a relationship," says Alicia. "I mean, it is, but it's more like... consensual ownership. I use him for housework and stuff."
"Gotcha," says Amanda, who knows what "stuff" means. She's not really in the BDSM scene herself, but she has some friends who are, and she knows a fair amount about it. She's been to parties, she's seen people quietly waiting on their knees to be told what to do. "That sounds kind of awesome, actually. If I found someone who got off on doing my laundry, I'd be up for that."
"Yeah, it's working out pretty well for me," says Alicia. She holds up a hand. "I'm headed thataway."
"Thanks for being a lab rat for me," says Amanda. "Especially with your econ final in two days."
"It's all good, I needed the study break. Thanks for the five bucks and the new music. I'm gonna have to find that one song, the one that ended take your foot off of the brake, for Christ's sake?"
Amanda nods. "The Mountain Goats. I have no idea how to pronounce the name of that song, but you should definitely check out their stuff. They're great."
"I will." Alicia turns and heads toward the dorms.
Amanda's apartment is normally a ten-minute walk from campus. It takes her fifteen to get there, because as badly as she wants to be home, she's too tired to move quickly. Just inside the door, she's greeted by the sight of a pile of dishes that's been building in her sink for almost a week. It's utterly disgusting. She stares at it for a moment, then walks past it into her bedroom and crawls under the sheets.
***
Proctoring exams is the most boring pastime Amanda can imagine. She tries to use the time for homework or reading, but the concern of students possibly cheating on her watch keeps distracting her. Eventually she gives up and just stares creepily at the class for two hours.
Alicia was one of the first ones out the door for all the other tests this semester, so Amanda is surprised when she's still in her seat a few minutes from the end of exam time. The only other students in the room are the ones who always stay to the end, re-checking their work and making last-minute changes. On closer examination, Alicia isn't even looking at her test booklet--she's zoned out, scanning the room blankly like Amanda is.
"Time's up," Amanda says, and the five people scattered around the room pack up and deliver their booklets to her desk. Alicia is the last one to approach, and she hangs around until everyone else has left the room.
"I want to talk to you about something," she says when they're alone. "It should probably wait until you've graded me for the semester, though."
Because Amanda is curious like George, she says, "I can do that right now. Can't tell you what it is until grades are posted, but I can put it into the system."
"Awesome," says Alicia, and follows Amanda to the office she shares with Jason. Alicia waits while Amanda checks her final for wrong answers (there are two, and one of them is a question Amanda frankly finds unfair) and inputs the score. The course grade she comes up with, unsurprisingly, is an A. Alicia looks away until Amanda's done, not even trying to peek at the scored exam paper.
"Okay, done," says Amanda. "Shoot."
Alicia steals Jason's office chair. "So, I'm wondering how serious you were when you said you'd like to find someone who would get off on doing your laundry."
Amanda raises an eyebrow. When she doesn't say anything, Alicia continues, "Usually Mikey and I both go home for breaks, but his parents are going to be on vacation, and you seem like you could use him. Do you want to borrow him while I'm gone?"
The way Alicia says "use him" sends shivers down Amanda's back. "You're offering me a free full-time maid for three weeks?"
"If that's what you want to do with him."
It's probably for the best that Alicia's grade got entered into the system before this. The university only uses whole grades, but Amanda might have tried to hack the system to make it accept an A+.
"Sign me the fuck up," she says.
***
Despite having gone to school here for two years, Amanda has never been in the dorms. She's been invited a few times by students hoping to cross "fuck a TA" off their college bucket lists, but none of them have been successful.
The building isn't terribly attractive. Few dorms are, in Amanda's experience. As they climb the beer-spattered stairs to the fourth floor, Alicia says, "This arrangement isn't really traditional."
Amanda can't help it; she bursts out laughing. "Really? Now you tell me? That's it, I'm calling it all off."
Alicia grins sheepishly. "I mean, yeah, but even for this sort of thing. It's not about obedience so much as... property, I guess? He's not a slave, he's more of an appliance."
They step out of the stairwell into a hallway lined with obnoxiously decorated doors. Alicia looks like she's expecting Amanda to change her mind or something. Amanda shrugs. "Okay," she says. She doesn't really care what play-pretend hoops she has to jump through, as long as she doesn't have to face that mass of dirty dishes herself.
Alicia unlocks the only door in sight that isn't covered in bright colors and dangling whiteboard markers. The room is a bit larger than Amanda expected, with one bed made up and one bare mattress. The walls are covered with obscure band posters--yeah, Alicia would have picked the indie channels regardless of who was listening--and there's an electric guitar propped up in a corner.
"He's under here," Alicia says, crouching by the bed. Amanda startles a little when she sees a hand in the shadows. Alicia squeezes the wrist it's attached to, and the boy seems to wake up.
He slips out from under the bed more gracefully than Amanda would have thought possible--he's clearly had a lot of practice. He's thin, not very tall, wearing glasses and tight plain black clothes. His face is unnervingly blank.
Alicia perches on the edge of the bed, gesturing for Amanda to sit next to her. Mikey stays standing, very still.
"He can do laundry, dishes, vacuuming, filing, whatever," says Alicia. "Cooking isn't one of his main functions, but he can microwave stuff for you. He responds to vocal commands, but you can also physically put him where you want him." She pauses for a moment. "You can fuck him if you want, too. He takes directions well."
Amanda's pretty sure that won't happen. "Cool. What about, like, bodily functions and eating? Does he need to be told to do everything?"
"He usually deals with self-maintenance stuff while I'm out for the day," says Alicia.
"I can just stay in my room for a while," Amanda suggests.
Alicia nods. "That'll work. Give him maybe an hour twice a day. I'll pack up some energy bars and stuff for him. I'm leaving for home day after tomorrow. Do you want to take him now, so I'll be around if you need to iron out any kinks?"
Kinks is right, thinks Amanda. "Sure."
"Hey." Alicia's expression turns serious. "I'm trusting you with one of my favorite things. Take good care of it for me, okay?"
Amanda nods. She doesn't miss the bulge that appears in Mikey's skin-tight pants at the words.
***
Amanda doesn't set an alarm. Vacation is a wistful myth among grad students--breaks are the time they use to get work done without tripping over the undergrads or grading papers on the weekends--but Amanda doesn't have a specific reason to get up early, and she's fucking tired. So tired, in fact, that she sleeps until noon. When she finally wakes up, it takes her a moment to remember about the guy in her pantry.
She hops out of bed and pads across the kitchen to check on him. He probably has to piss like crazy. He's still there, right where she left him, stretched out on the bottom shelf with his eyes closed and his glasses still on. Amanda watches him for a minute. She's pretty sure he's not asleep, but he doesn't react to her presence until she squeezes his wrist like Alicia did.
He tumbles upright, ducking the shelf above him. Amanda considered having him sleep on the couch, but the pantry shelves are the perfect length for him, and it's not like he sleeps on cushions in Alicia's room. Besides, if Amanda's perfectly honest with herself, she sort of likes the idea of storing him when she's not using him. She would feel guilty about that if he didn't seem so thoroughly down with this plan.
She's not a hundred percent sure about that, though, which is why she says, "I'm gonna go hang out in my room for a while so you can deal with--" what was the term Alicia used? "--maintenance. You're welcome to anything in the bathroom or the fridge. While you're at it, if you could give me some kind of indication that you're on board with this whole situation, that would make me a little more comfortable."
Mikey doesn't respond. Amanda retreats into her room and tries not to listen to the sounds of the shower running and the toilet flushing. It seems rude, somehow, to eavesdrop on evidence of his humanity. She opens her laptop and turns on iTunes on shuffle while she hunts down an ancient Kahneman reference her advisor wants her to include in her thesis.
She emerges cautiously from her room after a while. The bathroom light is on. Amanda sticks her head in to turn it off and spots a giant smiley face drawn in the fog on the mirror. She snorts. It's impossible to imagine any smile at all on Mikey's face, much less one that enthusiastic, but the message is clear.
Mikey is standing by the pantry where she left him, hair damp, dressed in a second set of tight black clothes. Alicia only sent a few outfits with him, but as long as he's the one doing the laundry, Amanda thinks he'll be fine. If she were in charge of washing his clothes, he'd spend the last two and a half weeks of his visit nude.
Not that he'd mind. If she wanted, she could undress him, or tell him to undress himself, and she could keep him naked as long as she wanted. She feels a weird frisson of power at the thought. She's not going to do it, but she likes the thought that she could.
Laundry sounds like a good place to start. She takes Mikey by the arm and brings him into her bedroom, pointing at the piles of clothes on the floor. "Sort those into darks and lights," she tells him. "Strip the bed, too." She can't actually remember the last time she washed her sheets.
Mikey immediately sets to work. Amanda leans against the doorway to watch. His movements are a little odd--not exaggeratedly jerky like a robot, but less fluid than a normal person's. He's hard again, easily visible in his tight pants, and Amanda tries not to laugh, because here is someone actually getting off on doing her laundry. It's ridiculous, and a little bit awesome, and undeniably kind of hot.
Her apartment has a washer and dryer, fortunately. Amanda's not sure it would be a good idea to send Mikey out to a laundromat on his own. She doesn't know how he would handle it if anyone talked to him in public.
She watches him start the first load, just to be sure he knows how much detergent and what settings to use. Then she sics him on the huge mound of dishes in the sink and curls up on the living room couch with a stack of intro econ finals booklets. It's a good hour and a half before the sound of the water shuts off.
"Change over the laundry," Amanda calls without looking up from the exam she's grading, and smiles to herself when she hears him doing it.
So far, this is working out a lot better than stress ball immolation.
***
Amanda didn't plan on fucking Mikey when she accepted Alicia's offer of a loan. The point was to have someone around to do the shit Amanda doesn't want to deal with. She knows it turns him on, and that's okay with her, but she didn't expect it to turn her on too. She's not sure what to do with that.
She has him sort her music collection, which is a giant mess. Music helps her cope, so she gets a lot of use out of the five hundred or so CDs she owns. She has a gorgeous stereo system with tower speakers that she scored off Craigslist for twenty bucks from someone who was in a hurry to move. There are discs and jewel cases stacked perilously high on top of the stereo and scattered across the coffee table and part of the floor, while her media shelves are half-empty and in no order whatsoever.
Amanda sits on the couch, intending to get some work done on her laptop, but she keeps catching herself watching Mikey instead. She's fascinated by the way he moves. He's quick and efficient, never lingering or wasting a motion, but it doesn't look quite natural. It's like he swings his limbs from the joints, letting inertia and gravity propel them more than fine motor control. It makes him seem less real and more designed, like Amanda has an android optimized for her personal needs. There's a person in there doing this on purpose, optimizing himself for her, but the more she watches him, the easier it is to forget that.
He's hard again. He seems to get hard every time Amanda takes him off his shelf, and sometimes even before, maybe when he can hear her footsteps coming. There shouldn't be anything hot about alphabetizing CDs, but he sure as hell seems to be enjoying it, and Amanda has to admit the appeal in watching him stand there intently arranging U2's discography by title just because she told him to. She can't exactly deny it, given that she can't seem to keep her eyes away from him.
She wants to fuck him. And she could. Alicia said it was okay. But there's just something about overtly sexual slavery that makes Amanda wary in a way that commanding someone to do her chores doesn't. She's dealt with enough interpersonal drama to know that shit gets complicated when orgasms get involved, and this situation is already complicated enough.
So she keeps her pants on, and ignores the tightness in Mikey's, and focuses on how nice it is to have clear surface space for the first time in months.
***
Amanda is running late for a meeting with her advisor. She's normally pretty good about being on time, but Dr. Powell only deigns to talk to her face-to-face approximately twice a year, and of course the only other time this year Amanda has showed up late for an appointment was the last time they met. Of course. It's not like her academic success depends on what this person thinks of her, or anything.
"Slice me a bagel," she calls to Mikey as she scurries shirtless across the apartment, trying to find the folder with all the research-related information she printed out yesterday. She doesn't have time to sit down for breakfast, she'll just have to eat on the way.
At least she doesn't have to scrounge for a clean shirt, thanks to Mikey. She pulls on a semi-respectable-looking blouse from a hanger in the closet and hops into the kitchen on one foot, tugging on her shoe.
Mikey drops the bread knife on the counter with a clatter and raises his hand. There's a smear of red on it.
"Fuck," says Amanda. She drops her other shoe and hurries to look. There's a cut on Mikey's hand. The damage isn't bad, and it's only leaking a little, but Amanda is feeling a disproportionate amount of panic about it. Alicia told her cooking wasn't one of Mikey's features, and she asked Amanda to take good care of him, and Amanda just went and gave him a knife he's not designed to be able to use, and now he's broken.
Amanda takes a deep breath. Mikey looks as impassive as ever, just letting his hand drip on the bagel. Amanda takes his wrist and holds it over the sink, grabbing a paper towel from the roll on the counter to sop up the spill. She doesn't have any band-aids. If a cut isn't bad enough for an actual bandage, she tends to ignore it. But she feels like she needs to do something more now, something to fix Mikey.
"Hold," she says, and Mikey takes the paper towel she's pressing against his hand. She opens a drawer at the other end of the kitchen, taking out a bottle of glue. She carefully removes the paper towel and examines the break in Mikey's skin. It's still oozing a little, so she puts the towel back, with a clean part over the mess.
She gets out her cell phone and calls the department secretary to cancel. There's no way she'll get there early enough for the meeting to be worth having. She thinks of saying that a friend got hurt and she has to stay to help--it would be almost true--but the thought of calling Mikey a friend while he's right there listening feels wrong. In the end, she doesn't give an excuse, just apologizes and reschedules.
By the time she's done, Mikey has stopped bleeding. Amanda takes him to the living room, sits him next to her on the couch, props his hand on her knee, and opens the bottle. He doesn't react, because he never reacts. Amanda is starting to get used to it, to think of him as an object like Alicia does. She likes it more than she expected to.
She drizzles a line of glue along the cut, carefully sealing the break, then looks at it for a long moment. It looks like caulk, like mortar before it's smoothed down. Amanda can imagine for one glimmering second that all Mikey's edges look like this, plastic put together along shiny seams.
She touches the glue. It's mostly hardened, but still gives a little under her finger. The skin beneath it is warmer than it looks.
Amanda puts Mikey away on his shelf, arranging him with the glue on top so it won't smear. Then she goes to her room and jerks off, not even trying to think about anything but Mikey and his functions.
***
"You really should be finished with data collection for this experiment by now," Dr. Powell says reproachfully.
Amanda fights the urge to cringe. "I know, I'm sorry. I got started late, because Dr. Layton had some concerns about my methods that she wanted to discuss with me." Concerns that for some reason she couldn't outline in an e-mail, but had to describe in person, pushing testing back two weeks while she tried to find time in her schedule for the meeting. Amanda's still a little bitter about that.
(There was also the month during which Amanda played Bejeweled nine hours a day instead of doing any work. She's made the executive decision that Dr. Powell doesn't need to know about that.)
"What were the concerns?"
Dr. Layton objected to the presence of a researcher in the experimental condition, despite Amanda's attempts to explain that the presence of a researcher was the experimental condition. Yes, she told Dr. Layton, using a researcher as the additional person in the room does introduce potential third variables, but using someone with a different relationship to the subject would also introduce potential third variables. This (she explained to Dr. Layton) is because social psychology is nothing but one giant clusterfucked Katamari of third variables getting cuddly all over everybody's hypotheses, and that isn't going to change no matter how long they spend arguing about it.
Amanda rephrases this now in slightly less vulgar terms. Dr. Powell listens, then says, "Hm. She has a point."
Nooooooooooo, screams Amanda inside her head.
"What I'm wondering," he continues, "is whether your subjects might actually be adjusting their choices to accommodate their impressions of your taste, rather than trying to affect your impressions of their taste. They might be thinking that since you're stuck listening to whatever they choose, they should choose music they think you'll like."
"Um," says Amanda.
He checks his watch. "I've got another appointment. Think about it, okay? And draw me up a graph of the data you've got this weekend, if you would. I want to see where you're at."
***
Amanda collapses on her couch for exactly as long as it takes to realize that she really, really does not want to be on her couch. Where she really wants to be is a mosh pit at a hardcore show, where she can replace everything in her working memory with elbows and eardrum pain. But it's Tuesday, and there aren't any shows happening tonight that will have a real pit.
She goes with the next best option and dresses up for the goth dance club. Halfway through struggling into her corset, she remembers that she doesn't have to struggle. She gets Mikey from the closet and has him tighten the laces for her. Then she turns to look at him and thinks, huh. Why not?
He's already basically dressed for the scene in his plain black outfit. She finds an extra pair of combat boots that will fit him and lines his eyes with makeup. Finally, she digs through her accessories until she finds a studded collar, left over from the extravagant getups she used to craft for herself in high school. At a club like this, people will accept the collar as a reason for Mikey's silence. Amanda's not the sort of person who makes a big deal about collaring, but she doesn't know how Alicia feels about it, so she gives Mikey the collar to put on instead of doing it herself.
As they leave, she checks to make sure she has enough cash for drinks and a cab home. The club is close enough to be a reasonable distance on foot when she's sober, but she does not plan to be sober by the end of the night.
She's sober now, though, and the walk is pleasant enough to dispel some of the tension from her meeting. She leads Mikey by his wrist, and that helps a little too, the confidence that whatever else happens, Mikey will follow her instructions. She knows what they look like to people passing by, what assumptions people are making about their relationship based on her corset and his collar. It's interesting to think about the ways those assumptions are right and the ways that they're wrong.
This is the first time Mikey's been out of the apartment in over a week, Amanda realizes suddenly. She wonders if she should be taking him out more. Alicia didn't say anything about that.
The club is just starting to get busy when they arrive. Amanda pays the cover for both of them at the door, then stops by the bar to get started on the evening's substance abuse. She orders a shot of Bacardi to toss back on the spot and a gin and tonic to take with her onto the dance floor.
She hasn't let go of Mikey's wrist. She keeps her grip on it as she navigates the gathering crowd. They get a few looks, but they're more admiring or jealous than curious. No one here is going to ask questions. They wouldn't ask questions if Mikey were on his knees, or if he were on a leash. Amanda likes the thought of Mikey on a leash, but she doesn't seriously consider it. He's not a slave, and he's not a pet. He's just hers.
Well, he's Alicia's. But he's hers right now.
Amanda stays on the edges of the floor until she's about halfway through her drink, then sticks the glass in Mikey's hand, sticks Mikey in a corner, and heads out into the crowd. Not too far, because she needs to be able to see if anyone bothers him, but far enough to find a few people to rub up against, to share sweat and heat and rhythm.
No one tries to talk to Mikey. The slightly stiff posture he uses when he's waiting for her instructions makes him look standoffish in this context, and the collar warns off most people who are looking to score. Amanda keeps an eye on him anyway, just in case, because he's her responsibility.
She comes back to drain her glass after a few songs. She thinks about sending him up to the bar to get a refill, but that would involve interacting with the bartender, and she doesn't want to make him do that. She goes herself instead, holding his wrist over her shoulder like a knapsack.
After her third drink, she takes him out on the dance floor. He stays where she puts him, unmoving, while she undulates up and down his body like he's a stripper pole. Amanda could tell him to dance, make him move, but she kind of likes molesting him like this.
She turns around, dragging Mikey's hands over her hips as she dances, and spots a girl hurriedly averting her eyes. She's dressed head-to-toe in Hot Topic merchandise, but she's cute, and after Amanda stares at her long enough, she makes eye contact again and slowly moves toward them. When she gets close enough, Amanda grabs her by her overpriced, diagonally-striped Avril Lavigne tie and hauls her in for a kiss.
The girl seems startled at first, but goes with it willingly enough. Amanda hasn't had as much alcohol as she planned to before this part of the night, but if the opportunity wants to present itself early, she isn't going to complain. She works her way across the girl's cheek to her ear and says, "Want to come to mine?"
"Is he coming too?" the girl asks, gesturing over Amanda's shoulder.
Amanda grins. "Yeah, but he won't bother us. He'll stay in the closet where he belongs."
***
The girl is gone when Amanda wakes up, fortunately. Amanda always feels obligated to feed them if they stick around, and there's nothing worth eating in the kitchen. Besides, this chick wasn't really worth the Pop-Tart.
She gets Mikey out and takes him into the bathroom with her so she can take off his makeup while she's cleaning her own face. His eyeliner is barely smeared. She's kind of tempted to leave it on, because it's fucking hot on him, but she resists the urge. It's only after Amanda's done wiping both of them down that she realizes she's naked. It's a testament to how comfortable she's gotten with having Mikey around, she supposes.
She needs a shower pretty desperately after last night, so she steps in, leaving him standing in the middle of the bathroom. On second thought, she leans out of the shower and moves her towel from the rod to Mikey's forearm. He might as well be useful.
She takes her time, filling her sinuses with steam to help her recover from last night. She shampoos her hair, and soaps her feet, and scrubs the random's saliva off her crotch. Mikey is still there when she steps out, like she knew he would be. It's comforting, when he does what he's supposed to do. She's beginning to understand what Alicia meant about her secret weapon against stress. It's not just the tasks he does; it's the cushion of certainty that he'll do them. It's nice to be able to rely on something for once.
Amanda takes the towel from his arm and rubs herself dry. Mikey has a hard-on again. It's good to know that he doesn't only get off on dish soap and vacuum cleaners, she thinks, and ignores it.
***
Halfway through the third draft of an e-mail attempting to explain to Dr. Powell exactly why his criticism does not invalidate her methods, Amanda slams her laptop closed and rolls off the couch onto the floor. The jolt startles some of the frustration out of her, but not nearly enough for her to be able to finish the e-mail. She stares at the ceiling, trying to breathe deeply.
Jason told her once about a problem-solving method his programmer friends used involving a rubber duck. You keep the duck by your computer, he said, and if you come across a problem you can't solve, you explain the problem to the duck. Most of the time, according to Jason's friends, just organizing and expressing the problem is enough to solve it.
Amanda doesn't have a duck, but she does have a Mikey. What the hell, she thinks, it can't hurt. She heaves herself to her feet and fetches him from the closet. "You're a duck," she tells him as she sits him down. She flops down on the floor again, shoving the coffee table out of the way and propping her legs up on the couch next to his thighs.
"So," she starts, digging her feet in between the cushions, "I'm studying social attention microeconomics. That means I'm trying to figure out how people make decisions about what to pay attention to, and how they affect other people's decisions."
She pauses and looks at Mikey. "I wonder if I could make you quack," she muses. It would probably be a bad idea to command him to produce duck noises, although she sort of wants to try it and find out what would happen.
"Anyway, so I've got a few different experiments planned to pick apart this phenomenon, and the one I'm working on right now uses music as the object of attention. Half the subjects listen to music without me in the room, and I look at the tracking log later, and the other half listen with me in the room to see how my presence affects their choices. My prediction is that they'll listen to the less mainstream, more obscure music when someone else is sitting there potentially judging them."
Amanda pokes the back of the couch viciously with her toe. "The problem is... well, I'm not sure what you know about experimental design. I don't think most ducks have much of an elementary grounding in the scientific method. But one of the most important parts of designing a study is controls, making sure there's no difference between the conditions except the one you're putting there on purpose. And my advisor thinks that my subjects might be changing their decisions to make the listening experience better for me, rather than to affect what I think of their musical taste, because using the experimenter means there's a power imbalance."
She sits up, pulling her legs off the couch and crossing them under her. "But here's the thing about that. I'm testing whether my presence makes a difference in the subjects' choices. Powell is right, there are a few different possible explanations for that effect, if it's there, but first I need to find out whether it's there. If it is, then this shit goes in the fucking discussion section and I design more studies."
Amanda grabs her laptop. She'll have to remember to thank Jason for the duck tip.
***
There's really no point whatsoever in making this histogram right now, with only eleven subjects in one condition and thirteen in the other. Amanda runs the analysis just for shits and giggles--maniacal, stab-inducing giggles--and of course it's not significant. The graph is going to be utterly useless.
Obviously she spends three hours making it pretty anyway, because she's an academic masochist and can't stand the idea of handing in subpar work. Even utterly useless subpar work.
She finally finishes adjusting the font size on the axis labels to her satisfaction and sends off the image to Dr. Powell. She's been sitting staring at her computer screen all afternoon, so she runs a victory lap around the apartment to stretch her muscles.
Except then she turns a corner and there's a laundry basket where there isn't usually a laundry basket, and she trips and hits the floor hard. She manages to break her fall with her hands, but then the rest of her lands on her elbow and something cracks in her wrist.
"Fuck," Amanda says, and then, "fuck fuck fuck oh fuck, oh fuck that hurts." Her foot is still tangled in the laundry basket, and she should probably try to get her weight off her arm, but any amount of movement causes even worse pain. She's never broken a bone before, but she's pretty sure that's what just happened.
She closes her eyes, tries to stop cussing long enough to take in a breath, and hollers, "Mikey! I need you to call 911!"
He appears in an instant, and even through the pain, Amanda can tell that something is different about him. She knows for sure when he says, "What happened? Where's your phone?" His voice sounds exactly right, just like she would have expected, but it's still weird to hear. She's thought about his lips doing a lot of things, but talking isn't one of them.
Amanda tries to get the phone out, then flinches and stops trying. "Left pocket," she grits out. She doesn't have a landline, or she'd have him use that. "Tell them my wrist is probably broken."
Mikey deftly plucks the phone out of her pocket and dials. "Broken wrist," he says into it. "We don't have a car. Hang on." He picks up an electric bill from the kitchen counter and reads off Amanda's address. "Okay, thanks. They're on their way," he tells Amanda. "Can you try to stop leaning on it? Roll over a little?"
She tries, and manages it after an excruciating few seconds during which she coins a few new compound words.
"Wow," says Mikey. "I don't think I ever want to encounter a cockfucking shitmuffin, but I appreciate the imagery. Hang tight, they'll be here soon."
***
Amanda gets a black cast, which she plans to decorate with glow-in-the-dark paint, and some painkillers. Mikey stays quiet the whole time they're in the emergency room, but he hasn't gone back to his objectified state. He winces in sympathy when Amanda winces in pain; he shifts in his seat to get more comfortable while they're waiting; he's still there, still human.
The nurse asks if Amanda has someone to take her home. She calls Jason. She probably should have done that in the first place and saved herself the ambulance fee, but she thinks she can excuse herself for not being at her peak mental capacity.
While they're waiting by the parking lot for Jason to show up, Mikey says, "Your research sounds really cool."
It's the first time either of them have referenced their previous interactions out loud. Amanda wasn't sure if he wanted to pretend nothing ever happened, so as not to ruin things, but apparently not.
"Thanks," she says. "Damn, I've spoiled you. Now you can't be a participant." He snorts, and she hesitates before saying, "So hey, while you're being a person, can I just ask... am I doing this right?"
He smiles. It's a little smile, not the huge grin on his mirror-fog face, but it's sincere. "Yeah," he says. "As long as you're using me how you want to use me, you're doing it right."
Silence falls between them. Mikey doesn't seem to be a big talker, and Amanda is a little preoccupied by the unexpectedly enthusiastic reaction her body is having to the way he said use me. There is significant tingling going on in her abdominal area. It's distracting.
Jason pulls up after a few more minutes in his beat-up Volvo. Amanda opens the passenger-side door. "You okay, Amanda?" Jason asks, leaning over from the driver's seat.
She gets in, brandishing her cast. "Good as new in another six weeks, I'm told." The back door slams shut. "This is Mikey. Mikey, Jason."
"Hey," says Jason. "I'm glad you were around to help Amanda out."
"Me too," says Mikey.
Thankfully, Jason doesn't ask any more questions about how they know each other, just strikes up a conversation with Amanda about the ongoing battle between the econ building's custodial staff and the resident dirt-poor grad students over the removal of toilet paper from university bathrooms. The janitors' latest tactic is a kind of toilet paper holder that requires an array of tools akin to a lockpicking set to remove. Amanda, of course, has already figured out how to operate it with two ballpoint pens, and promises to teach Jason as a token of her gratitude for the E.R. pickup.
He drops them off at Amanda's place. She turns to Mikey. "Thanks," she says.
"Least I can do," he answers, and waits for her to take his wrist.
***
Amanda can't masturbate properly. The hand she usually uses is out of commission, and the other one just isn't cutting it. She twists and experiments and flips over, and nothing feels right. The cast doesn't cover her entire hand, but she's not supposed to use it for anything yet, and she doesn't want the fabric at the edge of the cast to smell like sex anyway. That could make handshakes with university faculty a little weird.
She tries for twenty minutes, which is a hell of a lot longer than it usually takes her to come, before giving up and staring grumpily at the ceiling. She wishes she had a vibrator. She's never needed one before, but if this is how things are going to be for six weeks, she might just have to buy one.
Then she thinks about Mikey saying use me and decides, fuck it.
She gets up, not bothering to zip up her jeans, and goes to get him from the kitchen. He'll come if she calls, but she prefers taking him and putting him where she wants him. And where she wants him right now is on her bed, folded up at the end, with his face between her legs.
Mikey bends easily, flexible like a rag doll. Amanda hasn't manhandled him much before, hasn't needed him in very many positions, but she can tell right away that he'll stay where she puts him as long as she wants him there. Good at taking instructions, Alicia said, and Amanda will just have to see about that.
She wriggles one leg out of her jeans and underwear and leaves them hanging off her other knee, not bothering to extract herself all the way. She sprawls on her back, legs spread, and grabs Mikey by the hair. "Tongue out," she says, and drags his head down.
He could eat her out himself if she told him to, she's sure, but that's not what she wants. Right now, all she wants is something to fucking hump, and he can be that.
She holds his hair tightly with her good hand, using it to move his head forward and back, stroking her clit with his tongue. He's limp and docile, keeping his tongue still and letting her do what she wants with it, and Amanda suddenly gets it, what Mikey meant when he said she should use him however she wants. He doesn't just want the depersonalization of being seen as an object, he wants the functionality. It turns him on not only to be used, but to be used for a purpose. He wants to improve her lifestyle like a shiny new dishwasher.
She comes, and puts him back on the shelf, and leaves the closet door open. Later in the afternoon, she calls Brian to catch up. They haven't seen each other much since high school, but they try to stay in touch, and it's been a while.
"I've been busy with school," Amanda tells him. "Broke my arm the other day. Tripped and fell on it at a funny angle, it was stupid of me. The worst part is I can't fucking jerk off. I know, it's annoying as hell. I got a toy, though, so I can at least get off. I don't know what I'd do without it."
She wanders by the closet and peeks in. Mikey's pants are having trouble containing the boner he's popping. Amanda grins to herself and says into the phone, "So what's been going on with you?"
***
I appreciate your point about the progression of theory formation based on results, but I'm still concerned about the applicability of those results if the measures don't sufficiently correspond to the intended phenomena. Perhaps after you're finished with this experiment, if you get the expected results, your next project could be an attempt to nail down the cause of this effect. For example, you could see if it still occurs in a situation where the additional presence is seen as incidental by the subject, maybe by using an accomplice as an ostensible second participant.
Amanda loves the independence of her work. She came up with the idea for her current project herself, and she's conducted all of the data collection so far. Her professors are usually pretty good about leaving her alone, as long as they still get to take the credit for everything she does right. But once in a while they like to stick their noses in and decide the course of her research for her with a casual direction phrased like a suggestion. Amanda seethes, choosing to ignore for the moment the question of whether or not Powell's idea makes sense.
Winter break is almost over. Alicia's going to be back soon, and she's going to take Mikey away. Amanda is surprisingly unhappy about this, considering that she has no claim whatsoever to him or his services. She should be feeling overwhelming gratitude for the time she's gotten, for the sparkling-clean apartment and the spectacular orgasms, but she's just cranky about having to give him back.
She lets herself imagine what it would be like to own Mikey for good, to take him out of the pantry every day and put him back when she's done. It's easy to think of him as hers, so easy that she already does it, even if she has to mentally correct herself every once in a while--hers for now, hers functionally.
Mikey has a fetish for functionality, after all. She wonders what he would do if she kept him, moved somewhere else with him or just refused to let Alicia in. She knows now that he can stop being a possession in an emergency, but she doesn't know whether being stolen would trip that alarm. She wouldn't do it, not after Alicia's been so incredibly generous with her toy, but she can't stop thinking about it.
***
The day Alicia comes to get Mikey, Amanda doesn't get off with him. She sets him to work on her breakfast dishes while she packs up the energy bars and spare black outfits that share his shelf in the pantry. She puts them back into the same paper bag Alicia sent them in. She could just have him do it, but she doesn't. She's not sure why.
Mikey is back on his shelf when the knock comes. Alicia is standing in the hallway when Amanda opens the door. She's wearing a puffy jacket and a hat. It must be cold outside. Amanda hasn't left the apartment yet today.
"Hey," says Amanda. "Come on in. How was your break?"
"It was great." Alicia unzips her jacket as she steps inside. "My family seems to like me a lot better when I've been gone for a while. Whoa, that's a shit-ton of CDs." She wanders over to Amanda's music collection and starts reading the cases.
"It didn't look anywhere near that neat a few weeks ago," says Amanda.
Alicia smiles at the CDs like she's proud of them. "Everything go okay?" She glances back at Amanda. "Jeez, what did you do to your arm?"
"Tripped." Amanda grimaces. "It was a pretty epic trip. It would have been really bad if Mikey hadn't been here to call an ambulance for me."
"He did?"
"Yeah," says Amanda. "Would you expect him not to? I couldn't reach my phone."
Alicia shakes her head. "Oh no, I'm just surprised he didn't call me afterwards. It's hard on him to be snapped out of it like that. He just went back to normal after you got your arm taken care of?"
It's a little funny to think of Mikey's objectified state as normal, but after spending some time around him, Amanda gets it. For him--for them--it is normal. "He didn't seem to have any trouble with it. I guess I don't know how to tell if he's upset, though. He's not the most emotionally transparent person I've ever met."
Alicia cracks up. She hasn't asked where Mikey is, but Amanda can sense her own reluctance to get him, so she doesn't wait to be asked. She goes into the kitchen and opens the pantry door. Mikey is lying there, motionless, the paper bag tucked in next to his head. Amanda picks up the bag and sets it on the floor, simultaneously squeezing Mikey's wrist.
He rolls smoothly off the shelf to a standing position. Amanda is struck by a sense of déjà vu, remembering the first time she saw him under the bed. The shelf must be just as difficult to get out of, and she's sure he wasn't doing it that easily when she first put him there.
Alicia doesn't hug him or greet him at all. She just picks up the bag and says, "Other than the E.R. visit, how'd it go? Did he work okay?"
"He worked great," says Amanda. "There was an incident with a bagel, but it was just a little cut, and I fixed it. Seriously, you've been a lifesaver, Alicia. If there's anything I can do to thank you..."
Alicia waves a hand. "You were doing me a favor, really, giving me a place to keep him."
Suddenly, Amanda remembers their conversation after she tested Alicia. She goes to grab The Sunset Tree out of her newly organized CD collection. "You want to borrow this? It has that song you said you liked."
"Oh hey, thanks!" Alicia sticks it in the front pocket of her jacket. It pokes out a little, but she leaves it there instead of putting it in the paper bag with the stuff for Mikey.
The apartment doesn't feel any emptier after Alicia leaves, Mikey trailing behind her by the wrist. It feels just the same as it always has, Amanda on her own. But the pantry looks a little bare.
***
Amanda is fine, and she stays fine for a while. Classes start up again after a few days. She's TAing a behavioral economics course this semester, which contains more students who are actually interested in the subject than the intro class did. It's also closer to Amanda's area of expertise, and therefore a lot more fun for her.
The behavioral econ students are eager to participate in her research, so the data collection process goes much more smoothly from there. Amanda finishes testing participants shortly after midterms, and dives straight into cramming for quals. She's glad now that her TA duties in the fall included sitting in on the intro econ course, because the refresher is really coming in handy. After a few missed calls and brief apology e-mails, Amanda's parents start mailing her stress balls again, along with back massagers and packets of bubble bath.
She can't use the bubble bath because her bathtub is grimy around the edges and she doesn't have the energy to scrub it out enough to want to sit in it. Her house is pretty much back to its pre-Mikey state, except for the pile of dishes, which aren't a problem because she's mostly stopped eating.
She gets three weeks between the end of the spring semester and quals. She spends them under a display table full of antique maps in a back room of the university library, blocked from inquisitive eyes by a solid wall of economics textbooks.
The exam happens in mid-June. By the time she walks into the examination room, Amanda no longer cares whether she passes. In fact, she's pretty much positive she's going to fail, drop out of the program, run through her savings in a month, and end up hitchhiking to Wisconsin and home-brewing beer for the rest of her life. Amanda would be good at making beer, she's sure of it. She wishes she'd gotten a head start on practicing her brewing skills, because she'll need them in Wisconsin, and she needs some beer right fucking now.
She makes it through the day somehow. She manages to dodge Dr. Powell's attempts to start a conversation about the direction of her research after the exam--seriously, what the fuck--and emerges into the early-evening sun.
"Amanda!" calls a familiar voice. Amanda pivots on her heel. She feels a breeze on her legs and looks down, just to make sure she's wearing pants. Ah. Shorts. Because it's June. That makes sense.
"Amanda, hey!" It's Alicia, looking about a million times better than Amanda did the last time she walked past a mirror. "How's it going?"
"Sleep," Amanda tells her. "I'm going to have some. Quals," she adds by way of an explanation.
Alicia grins. "Ah. Wow, you look fucking beat. Do you want Mikey for the evening? Or I could bring him by tomorrow, if you're going to sleep now."
Amanda knows the answer to that one. She's been desperately wanting a Mikey for months, and vaguely wishing for one for months before that. Having him now would be a total waste, though, because she's about to go to sleep for approximately sixteen hours. Or possibly years.
"Yes," she says. "Please. Tomorrow."
"Okay," says Alicia. "Sleep well!"
Amanda makes it halfway to the library before she remembers she has an apartment.
***
She actually does sleep for almost sixteen hours. A knock on the door wakes her up around noon. She almost ignores it and goes back to sleep, but then she remembers that Alicia is supposed to be coming, and rips herself out of bed to answer it.
Mikey looks exactly the same as she remembers him, down to the glasses. Amanda drags him straight back to bed, leaving a grinning Alicia to deal with closing the front door. She's missed having her housework magically done, but late at night when she lets her mind go where it wants to, she doesn't fantasize about a clean floor. She thinks about a boy who stays where she puts him, a soft warm RealDoll that follows directions and never says a word.
Amanda falls backwards onto her bed and drags him down on top of her by his shirt. She clamps her legs around his thighs, locking her ankles around the backs of his knees. He's hard already, and it feels just right against her clit, rubbing through his jeans and her cotton sleep pants.
"Move your hips," Amanda orders, and Mikey immediately starts thrusting forward. She doesn't bother taking off either of their clothes, because she can already tell that this will be enough. He swings his hips like he swings all his joints, loose and mechanical, starting on command and not stopping until he's told to. If she let him, he would keep doing this for hours, because it's what he's for.
Amanda clenches all the muscles in her ass and comes, silent and intense.
She stops him moving and pushes him off. There's a damp spot on his pants. At first she thinks it's from her, but no, Mikey came too without her noticing. She takes off all his clothes, wipes up the spill with his shirt, and sends him to do a load of laundry.
Lying back in bed, listening to the sounds of the washing machine starting up, Amanda has an idea.
***
"Hi, Ben, thanks for coming," says Amanda. "Right through here, we'll get you started. Mikey's just finishing up with the survey part, he'll be done soon."
She leads her latest undergrad participant into the testing room. It's a lot bigger than the previous one, but the setup is the same: a table, a computer, and two chairs. Mikey is sitting in one of the chairs, marking up a piece of paper.
She sets Ben up at the computer and gives him his instructions. It's music videos this time around, but the process is essentially the same: he gets a number of options to pick from, and the computer tracks his choices for her to record later.
Amanda waits outside until he's done. When he comes out, she debriefs him, warns him against telling his friends the gimmick, and heads back into the room. Mikey is still sitting in the chair, quietly waiting. She cleans up the space and then takes his wrist, leading him back to Alicia's dorm room.
If she ever publishes this study, she's going to try to get away with referring to her testing accomplice as a tool. That's what he is: a tool that does its job very, very well.
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