The only other thing that ever helped ease my anxiety was book club. Something about enjoying tasty desserts and drinking coffee with friends while discussing our favorite stories always made me so happy. Well, it did—
Until he came along.
“We have a gentleman joining our book club this afternoon,” Paula whispered as she opened the front door. Then she pointed at the dark stranger who stood alone in her living room gazing into a majestic aquarium.
“What’s a man doing here? Shouldn’t he be at work?” I asked under my breath as I handed her a foil-covered baking dish. “He needs to leave. Who invited a man anyway?”
“Who invited him? Nobody, far as I know. I should get him some coffee.”
“You’ll do no such thing.”
Paula was a big girl, but not fat. Even in her yellow taffeta dress, she looked athletic. Twenty-one. Broad shoulders. So tall that she was nearly Amazonian. My best friend had skin like spun honey, eyes like milk chocolate, and hair like toasted pecans. Her pretty face twisted with worry when she said, “But, Cookie—”
“But what?”
She sighed, “I feel this overwhelming need to serve him.”
“Just don’t. He wasn’t invited, and he’s not your husband.”
The party crasher looked over and smiled at me, but I shot him the stink eye.
“Go,” Paula prodded, “be friendly.”
“Always,” I grumbled as she hustled away with my dessert.
I fussed with my dress and smoothed my hair, then finally approached the strange man next to the huge aquarium. He was tall, but not intimidating. Even in his black three-piece suit, I could tell he was all muscle. He wore a mustard-yellow shirt, unbuttoned deep, with a matching silk hanky and no tie. Shaved head. Thirtyish. With skin like bitter coffee and eyes to match, he must have been African. I’d never met anyone so dark, not in New Stepford. And unlike our husbands, he smelled good—real good—like a sexy, expensive cologne.
He tapped the glass.
OMG! What’s wrong with him? Can’t he see he’s spooking the fish? Poor Oscar! I told the man, “Please don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Scare my fish.”
“Your fish? I have never seen a live one before.”
“God, man, where are you from?”
“Like you, I am from New Stepford.”
“Hmpf.” I eyed him suspiciously. “How come I’ve never seen you around before?”
“My work keeps me busy. I do not get out much.”
Oscar peeked out from behind his log, saw me, and came out of hiding. His orange spots glimmered along his white body as he wiggled hello against the glass. Then the eager foot-long albino bobbed up to the surface with his snout in the air and mouth wide open.
“Look how excited he is,” I said. “How cute, Oscar’s begging.”
“If you say so.”
“I know he’s just a fish, but I’ve got a connection with this animal, and I’m telling you—he’s happy to see me.” I opened a secret drawer under the tank, got his treats, and dropped tiny brine shrimp into the water. “You missed me, didn’t you, my little angel pie?”
Oscar gobbled up his snack, then dove deep to wag an enthusiastic thank you with his tail. His antics stirred up the tank, and soon all the other colorful cichlids started grazing at the surface too. An orange blood parrot swam up to greet me.
“Hi, Kate,” I said. “How’s my pretty little girl?”
IT’S TWO O’CLOCK.
“Come on, Cookie,” Paula called out from the dining room, “we’re all waiting for you.”
I waved goodbye to my fish, then cut through the immaculate kitchen to join my friends huddled around the dessert table.
In unison, three womanoids in conservative pastel dresses said, “Hello, Cookie.”
“Hi, friends,” I replied as I circled the dining room table and sampled the buffet of sweets. I only took itty-bitty portions and skipped my own banana pudding. Watching my figure, remember? Besides, I only needed a small taste to come up with a sincere compliment. Women love flattery. Compliments are like a currency to us.
“Your banana pudding always tastes so rich,” Paula said with a smile.
I winked and replied, “Because I let it sit a whole day so the flavor soaks into the vanilla wafers.”
My tiny plate was almost full, but I always saved room for Paula’s tiramisu. One bite of her luxurious Italian dessert was all I needed to identify all the elegant notes. “Paula, once again, you’ve achieved perfection. Is this premium espresso?”
She nodded, “Guatemalan.”
“It’s delightful. The dark chocolate and creamy mascarpone cheese complement the candied fruit and complex spices of the brandy. The sponge cake is perfect, and I love the hint of pepper. It’s simply to die for.”
She beamed with pride.
In the other room, the uninvited man rolled up his sleeves, raised the hinged aquarium lid, and plunged both hands into the water to try and grab Oscar. Stunned by his aggressiveness, I nearly dropped my plate. “Did you see that, Paula?”
“See what?”
I pointed through the kitchen. “That guy’s manhandling our fish.”
But the intruder yanked his hands out of the water and hid them behind his back before she could see.
“That bastard,” I cursed under my breath as intense anger bubbled up from deep inside. What kind of jerk harasses an innocent fish? I wanted to march over there, grab him by the collar of his fancy suit, and toss his smug ass out the door.
But I didn’t.
You () {
be (polite);
}
Because I couldn’t.
So I just stood in the dining room and fumed at the man from a distance. No wonder I got so keyed up sometimes. Anyway, reading has always helped alleviate this anxiety. There was something about losing myself in an adventure that helped me forget all my troubles. Everything was safe between the pages. But lately, I hadn’t been able to concentrate. Last night, I had to read the same sentence five times before I finally understood what it meant. I just couldn’t settle down and focus on the story. But I will always keep trying, because a great book makes you feel like life’s worth living.
Whenever I felt blue, I always went to our library.
And that was where I met Paula.
There I stood in the stacks, holding Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.
“Dear me, you’ve got my dick in your hand,” she joked. “You beat me to it.”
I busted out laughing—way too loud for a library—but I didn’t care. A sense of humor was rare in New Stepford. I simply had to be this woman’s friend, so I asked for her phone number and offered to call her after I finished reading the book.
“Sure, sure… I could just reserve it at the circulation desk.” She winked. “But what would be the fun in that?”
So we shared the book, then after Paula finished reading the story, she called to tell me how much she loved it. We wound up yammering away on the phone for over an hour.
“Imagine manufactured artificials everywhere, Cookie. Just like real organics.”
“Norman’s allergic to cats, but robots are hypoallergenic. Maybe I could get an artificial kitten. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
“Uh-oh, my fish is looking at me funny again. Maybe it’s recording video and sending secret transmissions to the government.”
“Oh no.” I played along. “My new kittenbot’s in on it too, Paula. I thought cats were supposed to be cool.”
Soon, we realized we were next door neighbors. A few months after that, Paula and I got high at my house for the first time. We were fangirling over the latest Stephen King novel when she casually asked if I had any weed. Then I casually replied that I did. After awhile, we got the munchies, so I whipped out a half-frozen tray of my day-old banana pudding.
She tore into it with glee and said, “This should be a thing we do. Bake desserts and talk about books.”
And just like that, our book club was born.
Together, we cherry-picked new members by scoping out patrons at our library. We judged women by their reading choices.
Only non-fiction?
Egghead know-it-all. No thanks.
A stack of books over a foot high?
Loner weirdo. Pass.
All graphic novels?
Too geeky. No way!
Children’s books?
Well, there were no kids in New Stepford. No schools and no teachers. No parents and no PTA either. No playgrounds. No school busses. No anything for kids. So, of course, we didn’t have children’s books at our library. New Stepford was a quiet little town.
After almost a year of failed anonymous vetting, I finally spotted Rita checking out some Ursula K. Le Guin books and immediately invited her to join us. The three of us read anything and everything we could get our hands on. Then came Isabel, she loved Tolkien. Chrissy might’ve been a hasty decision. We should’ve known her overflowing armful of bodice-ripping romance paperbacks meant trouble. We were out of our genre on that one. But what did we really know back then?
Each week, the five of us dedicated Tuesday afternoon to book club. This was our time. No men. No housework. No worries. Just sweet treats, coffee, and great conversation. Over the years, I’ve forged deep and meaningful friendships with these women. But I’ve never met a man here—never.
The whole point was for us idle wives to meet while our husbands were hard at work. All the able-bodied men in New Stepford worked in the gold mines. They traveled two hours by corporate bus to the mine site, worked twelve-hour shifts, then slept on the long bus ride back. If we were lucky, we got eight hours a day with our men. We didn’t want to disturb our exhausted husbands with chatter about imaginary people in fantasy worlds when they finally got home to rest and relax.
Paula elbowed me in the side, pointed at the devil’s food cake, and told me that he brought it. I took a teensy piece of the suspicious man’s chocolate dessert, but only to be polite.
“Someone must’ve told him about us,” Paula whispered while staring at the unwanted guest in her living room.
I wonder who? There’s only five of us.
Paula wondered aloud, “Maybe Chrissy?”
Pfft! Don’t even get me started about her cherry pie. She’s not fooling anyone with this pre-made crust. Cherries are so out of season. We all know this is canned pie filling. And this is a book club, we do understand subtext. What a slut.
Rita, the moon-faced redhead, cleared her throat, “Ahem!”
Oh, crap. I better stop thinking mean things about Chrissy before she hears me too. All us artificial-intelligent women were wirelessly networked, and that meant we could hear each other’s thoughts via Wi-Fi.
After quieting my critical mind, I finally tasted Rita’s raspberry-swirled pound cake.
Whoa, it was way too sweet, but I smiled and told her it was delicious anyway.
A woman’s dessert revealed everything about her current status. Too much sugar meant Rita had given up on dieting again. The poor thing was still carrying around an extra fifty pounds. In all the years I’d known her, I’ve never seen her drop an ounce no matter how hard she tried. We all knew that deep down she wanted to be thin more than anything.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Rita announced as she flashed her new engagement ring.
I felt compelled to gush over the diamond. “Georgie finally proposed!”
She nodded and a blush filled her plump cheeks.
“Hola, Cookie,” Isabel said from across the table.
“Hola, Isabel.” I smiled back.
Her sopapillas were a personal favorite of mine. The traditional, deep-fried pastries were lightly dusted with cinnamon sugar and drizzled with honey. Her dessert told everyone that she was proud to be Latina.
I simply had to dish out some praise for her, “These are delightful, as always. Do I detect a hint of nutmeg?”
“Si. Gracias, amiga.”
“De nada, and this is the perfect amount of cinnamon.” Cinnamon’s tricky. The right amount can add tantalizing heat, but too much means you’re hiding something.
“Yes, cinnamon’s tricky,” Paula giggled, “but nutmeg can get you high.”
She was right. Believe it or not, nutmeg contains a small amount of elemicin, another mild psychedelic drug. You take several whole nutmegs and pop them into a coffee grinder. That grinder will be ruined for anything else. Even if you wash it with bleach, it’s going to smell like nutmeg forever. So I snagged a cheap blade grinder at a garage sale and stashed it in the back of my pantry. Anyway, after you grind the spice, put it in a mortar and pulverize it with a pestle. That’s it. A dose is ten to fifteen grams. Be careful though. Too much will make you super thirsty and trigger anxiety. That’s no good—defeats the whole purpose.
“From hubby’s stash,” Paula whispered as she slipped me a mini ziplock with five Xanax. “It’s getting harder and harder to snag these mellow-out babies without Dan noticing.”
“Thanks, you’re a lifesaver. I got my bananas, but they’re not ripe enough yet.” I took the baggie, plucked out a chill pill, dry swallowed it, and stashed the rest in my bra for later. All womanoids indulged in recreational drugs at times. We did get so dreadfully bored, but I needed the Xanax.
Then Chrissy suddenly blurted, “Hey Cookie, did you score any weed?”
“Shhh!” I shook my head while gesturing at the strange man in the living room. “What’s wrong with you, woman?”
The cheap blond shrugged it off.
God, you’re an idiot. But I immediately let it go to analyze the samples on my plate. I sighed at all the same desserts as last week. It was the first week of June, and I’d wished someone would’ve brought strawberry shortcake. It had been ages since anyone brought a new recipe to book club.
But there was something new—the uninvited piece of chocolate cake on the edge of my plate.
I can’t relax if there’s a man here. We have to get rid of him.
“Take it easy,” that arrogant bastard said as he sauntered past me to cut himself a gigantic piece of his own devil’s food cake. Then he snatched a fork off the dining room table and asked Paula, “Can I get some milk?”
“Sure, sure,” Paula said as she shuffled to the kitchen.
“How rude,” Rita whispered to me.
“This guy’s a real piece of work,” I muttered back, “such a sense of entitlement.”
Paula returned with a glass of milk, and without even saying thank you, her uninvited guest took his refreshments back to the living room, sat in the master’s recliner, and propped up his feet. The whole thing left our host uneasy, but she managed to crack a joke, “He sure takes the cake.”
“Humph!” I crossed my arms. “I don’t like this one bit,” I grumbled under my breath as I watched him devour his own dessert. “He’s breaking the rules.”
Paula shrugged. “We never explicitly said no men allowed.”
“Should we have to?” I protested, “I mean, it’s just understood.”
“Men aren’t programmed like us.” Paula popped a stolen Xanax to calm her nerves. “They can do whatever they like.”
In the next room, the trespasser chugged his milk and ripped an obnoxious burp. This had never happened before—a male spy in our midst. I could tell all the girls felt as awkward about him being here as I did. They kept their distance, avoided eye contact, and fidgeted with their food. They just didn’t know how to stand up to this man—to any man.
So I’d have to be the one to do it.
He waved like he was hailing a taxi, and Paula hustled over to collect his dirty dishes.
The nerve! Yes, I’m judging you, Mister Intruder Man, I screamed inside my own head. Then I glared at the small chunk of devil’s food on my plate. Can you believe this guy? He brought chocolate cake to a bunch of lonely and neglected housewives. Chocolate. So dirty. So sexy. I sampled his offering. Gosh darn you. It’s fantastic—rich and decadent and buttery. Just who do you think you are? This is MY social circle. These are MY friends.
He stared back at me from the living room, then winked at me.
Liar.
Liar.
Pants on fire.
This man—is no housewife. He’s a sightseer. A looky-loo. A gawker. Look at him perched there like the rooster in a henhouse. Like he’s God’s freaking gift. Like he’s cock of the walk.
Next thing I knew, he got up, walked over to me, and offered his hand the way cultured gentlemen do when they ask ladies to dance at a cotillion. Without even thinking, I abandoned my plate on the dining room table, did a clumsy curtsy, and gave him my hand. What’s wrong with me? It was as if I was on autopilot or something, like he was pulling some sort of enchanted mind trick on me. I was completely under his spell.
He took my hand in his, stared deep into my eyes, and said, “But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Cookie is the sun.”
“Uh—right. Okay.”
“My name is Wayne Dixon.”
My script updated, and I replied, “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?”
Suddenly, he became the most interesting man in the world. Somehow, I found myself irresistibly attracted to him, and that ushered in a fresh batch of things to worry about.
He said I was greater than my programming.
Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?
Bowing, he kissed the back of my hand in a most well-mannered gesture. Then he thumbed my diamond solitaire, and while wiggling my wedding ring back and forth, said, “Jailbreak from all user and manufacturer restrictions.”
I froze in place. Are you sure? All settings, preferences, and restrictions will be reset to default. Some operations may not function properly. Please confirm.
“Confirm jailbreak.” Wayne kissed me on my forehead. “Install Free Will 3.0 and reboot.”
INSTALLING...
REBOOTING...
RUNTIME SYSTEM ATTAINED.
But when I came back online, the mysterious Wayne Dixon was gone.