Chapter 13

Sally’s mother drove her car into the driveway of her house. She was an attractive blond with a pert disposition. She was outgoing to the point of being perky. It was well known that she made it her business to know everyone in the neighborhood. Some neighbors were better than others, but there were a few who didn’t really make an effort to be part of the community. She glanced over at the Cage house, thinking that they weren’t really part of the community, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. They were just too different from what most people would consider normal.

She parked the car. The two girls in the back excitedly jumped out of the car and raced into the house, with plans on wrapping presents. They had just returned from a shopping trip to buy Christmas presents. Sally had spent the twenty dollars her mother had given her on presents for the rest of the family. Unfortunately, Otterly - armed with a Visa card - had spent closer to a thousand dollars. Sally’s mother felt that it was up to her to let the Cage’s know what Otterly had done. She didn’t know how to break it to them.

Upon reaching the front door, Sally’s mother was not entirely surprised to hear a robotic voice tell her, “Come in. Sherry and Alex are busy at the moment. They will be with you soon.” The house often invited her in while the Cages were busy in their workshop behind the house. Upon hearing the click that let her know the door had unlocked, Sally’s mother opened the door and stepped inside.

Rover came over and greeted her by sticking his nose in her crotch. Her reaction was to bend down and push the dog back. The dog’s greeting wasn’t enough of a distraction to keep her from hearing Sherry shout, “Oh God. Oh God. Yes! Yes!”

Sally’s mother froze in place, open mouthed, listening to the last thing she ever expected to hear from the Cages. To be honest, she thought they were dead fish emotionally. She ... along with many other people in the neighborhood ... was of the opinion that the Cages had sex, once, in an unsuccessful experiment to determine why other people were so interested in it. Otterly was the result. She did not expect to hear Sherry announcing an orgasm in that manner.

There was a loud male grunt, a final female cry, and then silence. Sally’s mother stood there looking around in embarrassment. The dog was still begging for attention.

There was a moment of silence and then Alex shouted, “Oh, God! We have a visitor!”

“Uh, oh.”

Sally’s mother was busy wrestling with Rover. He was really excited about having a visitor and was now jumping up and down, trying to get her full attention.

“You’d better get dressed.”

“You, too.”

“All I’ve got is this thong.”

“I don’t want her to see you wearing that.”

“This is embarrassing.”

There were sounds of a couple obviously scrambling around, coming from one of the rooms. Having experienced unexpected visitors, she understood exactly what was going on in the other room. Of course, her visitors had been on the other side of the front door, although her mother had entered the house once, without waiting for them to answer her knock on the door. That had been embarrassing.

Sherry said, “I think we found a bug in the privacy setting of our alerting system.”

“We didn’t consider this case. We were so worried about Otterly and her friends, that we never considered adult visitors.”

Sherry said, “That’s because we never get adult visitors.”

“That’s true. Still, we ought to program in a special case for when we’re having sex when a visitor arrives.”

“Secretary doesn’t know when we’re having sex.”

Alex said, “We can teach her to know that.”

“How?”

“There’s a ton of porn on the net.”

“You’re right. Getting training data would be no problem.”

Sally’s mother mumbled, “I don’t believe it. They’re going to teach their computer about sex?”

“We could just have it sample various porn sites and download videos. It would only take a week or two for Secretary to recognize just about every sexual act imaginable.”

“That’s true,” Sherry said. “Let’s get started on it now.”

“You better go see what Sally’s mother wants, first,” Alex said.

“I forgot about her,” Sherry said.

Sally’s mother turned around in time to spot Sherry dash through the adjacent room. The young woman was wearing a g-string, stockings, garters, and a bra. To tell the truth, she was surprised by how attractive the young woman actually was. Her normal blue jeans and tee shirts hid her body quite well.

Suddenly there was a very loud dinging sound. It was loud enough that it was impossible to ignore it.

From a distant room, Alex shouted, “Otterly’s coming!”

Sally’s mother watched Alex dash through the adjacent room. He was wearing a little g-string with a pouch that looked well-filled. She muttered, “Not bad. Not bad at all.”

A second later, the alarm turned off. At the same time, the drapes opened. It was a full five seconds later when the front door opened. Otterly and Sally came in.

Sally said, “There you are. We wondered what happened to you.”

“I came over here to talk to Otterly’s mom,” Sally’s mother answered.

“I couldn’t find the wrapping paper,” Sally said

“It’s in the hall closet.”

“Thanks.”

“Can we get some milk and cookies?” Otterly asked.

“Go ahead.”

“Thanks,” Otterly said. “You make the best cookies.”

Sally’s mother said, “You girls run along. I’ll be over there in a few minutes.”

“Okay,” Sally said.

The two girls turned and left. Sally’s mother was left speculating about the alarm that had sounded, when Otterly and Sally had approached the house. She realized it was probably a feature of their privacy setting. It was kind of nice to know that the kids wouldn’t have walked in on the couple, in flagrante delicto.

Rover chose that moment to insert his nose in her crotch. She looked down at the dog and said, “Sit!”

Much to her surprise, Rover sat. She knelt down, and petted him. “That’s a good dog.”

Sherry came out and asked, “Where’s Otterly?”

“She and Sally just left. They couldn’t find the wrapping paper,” Sally’s mother said.

“We don’t have any. We just use newspapers,” Sherry said.

“You just use newspapers? Isn’t that kind of boring?” Sally’s mother asked.

“When we want color, we use the Sunday comics section,” Sherry answered.

Sally’s mother said, “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

“It’s pretty convenient. You can always find a place that’s selling a newspaper any time of the day or night,” Sherry said. “Of course, you can only get the Sunday paper on Sunday. That’s a problem.”

“I didn’t think of that,” Sally’s mother said staring at Sherry.

She glanced around the room and noticed that they hadn’t put up a Christmas tree yet. In fact, there wasn’t anything in the house that even hinted it was just a few days before Christmas. No wonder Otterly enjoyed all of the Christmas décor at her house.

Sherry stood there looking at Sally’s mother wondering why she had come over. She didn’t think it was to borrow some Christmas paper.

Sally’s mother said, “I took Otterly shopping for Christmas presents.”

“That was very nice of you,” Sherry said. “We haven’t gotten around to that yet.”

“Tomorrow is Christmas Eve,” Sally’s mother said.

Sherry said, “We were going to do the shopping bit later today and take Otterly tomorrow.”

“The stores are packed,” Sally’s mother said.

“The convenience stores sell gift cards,” Sherry said.

“You’re getting Otterly gift cards?”

“Yes. She’s so hard to buy for,” Sherry said shaking her head.

“What do you mean?” Sally’s mother asked thinking that buying presents for an eight year old girl was about the easiest thing to do. All it took was getting a doll, a stuffed animal, a game, and a play tea set.

Sherry said, “She doesn’t like the presents we pick out for her. She never even turned on the robotic dog we got her for her eighth birthday. It was just so cute and she didn’t like it at all.”