#nikkixiris

Nikki’s Fresh Start

Chapter One

Nikki Freeman was about to have a fresh start. She was finally free, in more ways than one: she was free from the psych ward she had spent two years of her life locked up in, she was free from her hometown and everyone it who reacted with outrage over her release, she was free from her house, which was no longer a safe space for her, she was finally free of everything that reminded her of the man that destroyed her life.

Bear. The man she saw as a brother. The man she trusted and relied on. The man who made her a prisoner in her own body, raped her and made her a murderer, the man who refused to end her suffering.

Nikki never saw herself getting close to anyone ever again, not just in the romantic sense but in the platonic way as well. How could she? The trauma of Bear’s wish, the trauma of her friends failing to help her, along with the traumas of the murder trial and her time in the psych ward all lead to Nikki vowing to never trust anyone ever again.

Before Bear made his wish, Nikki had no problems living alone. However, her release from the psych ward back to the comforts of her own home left her frightened of being alone in her own house Most nights she was too terrified to sleep, and even when she was able to get to sleep, she’d wake up screaming and shaking from the nightmares she’d have. To make matters worse, Nikki’s release was met with outrage from folks in her small town, particularly from friends and family of Nikki’s supposed victims, including death threats sent directly to Nikki’s house. Of course moving away was the most logical solution, but the fear of living alone again lead to Nikki doing something she thought she’d never do: looking for a roommate.

Nights where Nikki was unable to sleep were spent searching for roommates online, until one day Nikki finally accepted an offer from a woman named Iris living alone in a big, fancy house two hours away from Nikki’s hometown. Nikki knew she wanted her potential roommate to be a woman, that was the only option. This specific roommate had advertised living rent-free in a two-story Mediterranean villa overlooking the beach, with a courtyard, large private pool and a hot tub. Of course the offer would be tempting to everyone, but what really sold Nikki on the offer was that the woman behind the advertisement had specified wanting a female roommate only, something that made Nikki feel this woman was a kindred spirit.

It was three in the afternoon when Nikki’s Uber driver reached the villa, and as Nikki stepped out of the car with a suitcase in one hand and a large duffle bag hanging on her right shoulder, she found herself staring in awe at her new home. She had seen pictures in the advertisement, but seeing it up close made her feel like she was about to enter a celebrity’s home. The house had a gated driveway which was opened by a password Nikki had received after accepting the roommate offer, and the walk from the gate to the house was surrounded by a forest of tall palm trees on each side of the road, peacefully swaying in the breeze. There was something about the privacy of the home and the sound of swaying palm trees that instantly made Nikki feel safe and relaxed.

Nikki approached the front door and rang the doorbell, suddenly feeling nervous about meeting her new roommate. It took a few minutes until she heard footsteps from inside the house, causing Nikki to focus on the sounds of the palm trees to calm herself down. The door opened, and Nikki was greeted by a beautiful brunette woman wearing an oversized black graphic tee with some band logo on it and dark blue lounge shorts. She had striking hazel eyes with sharp, black eyeliner, a heart-shaped face with high cheekbones and full Cupid’s bow lips.

“You must be Nikki,” the woman said, smiling sweetly. Her voice was deep and husky, something that made Nikki’s heart beat faster. “I’m Iris, I’m so happy to meet you.”

Nikki smiled back, simply answering “It’s great to meet you, too.” Nikki smiled as sweetly as she could, but her eyes gave away how broken and exhausted she’d become; her smile didn’t quite reach them and there were layers of dark circles underneath.

“Come on, I’ll show you to your room,” Iris said.

Nikki followed Iris into a grand foyer with cream-colored stucco walls, terracotta flooring, arched doorways leading into other rooms, a high ceiling with a beautiful, shining chandelier and a long, curved leading to the second floor.

“The rooms are upstairs” Iris said. “Would you like to drop your stuff off first or do you want a tour?”

Nikki was about to answer, until something peculiar about Iris caught her eye; one of her hands was robotic. Nikki was left speechless at the realization…maybe it’s a prosthetic? Of course the immediate explanation that popped into her head was that her new roommate was a robot, but she knew that would be ridiculous. It took a few minutes for Iris’s question to register with Nikki as she stopped staring at Iris’s hand and snapped back to reality.

“Uh, I’d rather go to my room first,” Nikki said. “This duffle bag’s pretty heavy.”

Iris lead Nikki up to the second floor and into her bedroom, a beautiful room with warm, olive-green walls, a high ceiling with exposed beams and light hardwood floors. On the right wall there was a big, queen-sized bed, opposite of that there was a large fireplace with a Smart TV hanging above it. Beyond that were several chairs and sofas, bookshelves lining the walls and the main focal point, two large, sliding glass doors that open to a private balcony. There were two doorways on each side of the room, one leading into a large, walk-in closet and the other leading to a private bathroom.

Nikki was at a loss for woods. She couldn’t believe this bedroom belonged to her. Surely she would wake up any minute back in her old bedroom and realize this was all a dream. When it sunk in that this wasn’t a dream and was in fact her actual new home, Nikki felt a happiness she hadn’t felt in a very long time .

After Nikki put her suitcase and her bag in her new room, Iris gave her a tour of the rest of the house. Iris’s own bedroom was on the wall opposite of Nikki’s room, a distance that made Nikki feel comfortable knowing she had plenty of privacy while being close enough that Iris could quickly get to her in case of an emergency. The walls on the second floor had plenty of windows to let in natural light, and there was even a wraparound balcony with lounge chairs overlooking the outdoor courtyard and the beach beyond it.

Once they got back down to the foyer, Iris showed the living room, kitchen and dining area. She then lead Nikki out to the courtyard in the back, a beautiful outdoor sanctuary with covered walkways lining the perimeter of the house, opening up a patio with beautiful tiled flooring, a large outdoor pizza oven and an outdoor dining area. The patio overlooked the big L-shaped pool with the round little hot tub next to it. Beyond that was a grassy area with stone pathways leading to beautiful gardens and hedges, with a beautiful stone fountain right in the center. There were plenty of lounge chairs and outdoor sofas throughout the courtyard, and the perimeter of the house was decorated with plants in terracotta planters while the shade structure was covered in climbing vines. At the back of the courtyard there was a wrought iron gate leading to private access of the beach, but Nikki insisted she was too tired to venture to the beach today.

Nikki went back into her room to unpack, her back to the door as she unloaded her suitcase. She suddenly heard Iris’s voice behind her, causing her to flinch and let out a little scream as she turned to Iris in a panic.

“Oh shit!” Iris said, feeling terrible for frightening her new roommate. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Um, so, this is super embarrassing, but I don’t really have any food in the kitchen at the moment so I’m gonna run down to the market to stock up. Do you wanna come?”

Nikki appreciated the offer, but just the thought of going out anywhere made her feel more exhausted than she already was.

“I think I’ll stay here and take a nap,” Nikki replied. “I didn’t really get enough sleep last night.”

Iris nodded before adding “Okay, well, any requests?”

Nikki replied with a no, but it wasn’t until Iris started closing the door that Nikki remembered something.

“Oh, wait!” Nikki said, causing Iris to open the door again. “Could you get some herbal teas? They help me sleep.”

“Okay, herbal teas, got it,” Iris said. “You can call or text me if you think of anything else. Alright, see you later.”

Iris closed the door and walked away, leaving Nikki alone to continue unpacking. After putting her clothes away in her new walk-in closet, she went into her bathroom to put her toiletries away. As she placed her toothbrush and toothpaste by the sink, she looked up at her reflection in the mirror. She hadn’t realized her dark the circles under her eyes were. She was sure Iris could tell she was exhausted just from looking at her. Her eyes also went to the two stitches on her forehead and the one on her cheek, the result of her self-harming with a broken bottle when she was under to One Wish Willow’s spell.

Nikki flinched at that memory. She was so caught up in the joy of her new home that she had almost forgotten about her trauma. There was a part of her that wanted to bash her head against the edge of the sink or smash her head into the mirror in order to get that memory out, but she instead tried some breathing exercises she learned in therapy, which was enough to stop the intrusive thoughts.

She walked back into her room and closed the curtains to darken the room, then unpacked three sleeping aids: a weighted blanket, a sound machine and a night light (by now it was 5:30 PM, so she figured it would be dark out by the time she woke up). With her sound machine set to sounds of ocean waves, her night light plugged in and her weighted blanket on top of her, Nikki closed her eyes to sleep. This time, Nikki had a feeling she’d be able to get her first peaceful sleep in a long time.

Going to the market reminded Iris of Josh. She could still remember their “meet cute” scenario of meeting at a grocery store that had been programmed into her when she first arrived at his apartment. She could even remember how it felt to be in love with him, a love that she thought was true and genuine. It still hurt her so badly to look back on the moment where she learned it was all a lie, that she was just a machine programmed to love this person. That all her memories of her life before Josh had never happened; she’d never visited Japan, she’d never gone to college, she’d never had a childhood or even had parents.

Iris tried her best not to dwell on it, but as soon as she walked past the fruit section she kept expecting to see Josh. She hadn’t realized she’d been frozen in place until she heard someone say “excuse me” behind her. Iris apologized and moved out of the way, suddenly feeling embarrassed for having a freeze response in a grocery store.

Normally Iris would never have any reason to go food shopping due to her being a robot, but now that she had a flesh and blood human as a roommate she knew she would have to get used to visiting the grocery store. It had been embarrassing for Iris to admit to her new roommate that she hadn’t stocked the house with food yet, but it had been clear from Nikki’s reaction that the only thing she had on her mind was getting some sleep.

Iris decided to focus her thoughts on Nikki instead of Josh as she shopped for food. From just the short amount of time they’ve spent together, Iris could tell that Nikki was a deeply traumatized woman. There was just something about her eyes that showed not only extreme exhaustion but immense pain and sadness. Even the exhaustion was another clue for Iris; Nikki most likely suffers from nightmares. She also remembered how Nikki flinched and screamed when she heard Iris to try speak while Nikki’s back was turned to her, something Iris still felt remorse over.

During the drive home, Iris contemplated on whether or not she did the right thing by not immediately revealing to Nikki that her new roommate was a robot. After all, the sole reason for Iris’s creation was specifically to be a sex robot. It would be logical for any potential roommate to get the wrong idea and assume Iris wanted a new sexual partner instead of an actual roommate. Iris would of course inform any roommate that she was now a free woman with total control over her own autonomy and therefore was no longer just a sexual object, but revealing her whole backstory could be risky considering she had been used to commit murder. Iris didn’t know Nikki well enough to know whether or not she could trust her not to call the police.

Once Iris arrived home, she decided not to immediately reveal her robotic nature to Nikki, instead she would wait until the two of them truly form a bond and gain a sense of trust in each other. She could tell that Nikki had noticed her robotic hand back when she first arrived at the house and was noticeably perplexed by it, so it’s entirely possible that Nikki could ask about it before Iris felt ready to explain everything. She pondered on what she would do in that situation, and ended up deciding she would tell Nikki the truth about being a robot, clarify that she has no desire to use Nikki for sex in any way, but she would wait another time to tell Nikki the whole story.

After bringing in the groceries and filling up the kitchen, Iris decided to sneak upstairs just to see if Nikki was still asleep. She could hear Nikki’s noise machine and see the light from her night light shining through the bottom of the door, both of which told her that she was most likely still asleep. Iris walked back downstairs to let Nikki continue her nap and went down to h the living room to watch some TV.

—-

Nikki’s eyelids felt heavy as she slowly opened them, still half-asleep. Even though she was waking up in a room that was still unfamiliar to her, the light from her night light brought her a sense of comfort. She remembered feeling humiliated and almost offended when her therapist recommended she get one back when they were discussing Nikki’s struggle with nightmares; night lights were for toddlers, Nikki was a grown woman. However, Nikki was willing to do anything just to get some sleep again, so she reluctantly bought a red night light and found that her therapist was right. She did still have her bad nights, but her light, along with her sound machine and weighted blanket, were definitely helpful.

Nikki stretched and let out a big yawn as she sat up in bed to look for her phone to check the time. The light from her phone was harsh on her eyes as she turned it on, but after her eyes had time to adjust she saw that the time was 8 PM…clearly it had been a good nap, and one she desperately needed. Her eyes scrolled down to the lower half of her screen to see a text from Iris sent two hours ago:

“Hey, didn’t wanna wake you. There’s food for whenever you’re hungry. I’ll be in the living room watching TV”

Nikki did indeed feel hungry, so she got out of bed, yawning and stretching some more as she did, and walked out of her room to head downstairs. The living room and the kitchen were connected in an open-concept layout, so Nikki knew she’d end up interacting with Iris on her way to get food. She could hear the TV was still on in the living room as she got closer, and sure enough Iris was still there on one of the sofas watching some nature show.

“Oh hey, you’re up” Iris said, smiling as she turned towards Nikki. “Had a good nap?”

Nikki let out a small smile as she replied “Yeah, first good one in a while, actually.”

“That’s great,” Iris said. “So um, there’s plenty of stuff in the kitchen now if you wanna make anything, I also just got some frozen pizzas in case you feel too tired to cook anything.”

“Oh good,” Nikki said. “Frozen pizza sounds perfect, honestly. I’m still way too tired to cook something myself.”

Iris let out a small giggle. “Okay, great. I’ll be in here if you need anything.”

Nikki wandered past the living room area into the kitchen and opened the freezer to check out what pizzas were in there. After taking a few seconds to decide whether she felt like pepperoni pizza, meat lover’s pizza or margherita pizza, Nikki settled on margherita. After putting it in the oven and setting a timer on her phone, Nikki sat at the dining room table.

The kitchen had sandy beige walls with dark brown wooden cabinets and a large oval dining table and chairs to match. The countertops had colorful geometric Aztec-inspired tiles as a backsplash and in the center of the kitchen there was a big rustic island with two bar stools. The dining table was in front of the island and three feet from the threshold into the living room. The kitchen had terracotta flooring while the living room had dark brown hardwood flooring with a big beige rug covering the majority of it. The living room had light olive-green walls and three beige sofas; a long sectional right at the threshold (the back of it faces the dining table) and two loveseats on the opposite wall. Two big windows with mustard-yellow curtains were behind each loveseat and on the wall in-between both of them was the big screen TV. On right wall was a great big wood-burning fireplace while the left wall had an arched entryway into the foyer.

Iris noticed how quiet it was in the kitchen and couldn’t help herself from peeking over the back of the sectional to see how Nikki was doing. She saw Nikki sitting alone at the dining table, her head resting in her arms as she mindlessly stared at the timer on her phone. Iris’s gut feeling was telling her that Nikki wanted to be alone, but she just couldn’t help feeling empathy for how sad and lonely she looked.

“Hey,” Iris said, snapping Nikki out of her daze. “You can wait for your pizza in here, if you want.”

“I’m fine here, thank you,” Nikki said in a monotone voice before returning her gaze to her phone.

Iris was sad, but accepted Nikki’s answer and turned back to the TV.

Once Nikki’s pizza was ready, she ate alone in silence while Iris continued watching TV. Nikki could see the TV from the table and she too watched while eating; or rather, she just mindlessly stared at it without really taking in what she was watching. Nikki got full after four slices so she put the leftovers in the fridge before sitting back down at the table and scrolled on her phone. As she did so, Iris turned off the TV and stretched as she got up from the couch.

Turning towards Nikki as she stretched, Iris said, “Hey, it’s 10 PM so I’m gonna head to bed. I got you some herbal teas like you requested, they’re in that cupboard over there if you want to make yourself some before you go to bed.”

Nikki suddenly felt touched that Iris remembered and replied with a smile, “Oh god, thank you. Yes, I’ll need that for sure.”

Iris smiled back. “Alright, great. Well, good night.”

“Good night,” Nikki said back.

Iris walked away to head upstairs and as she did Nikki got up to make herself some tea. She was definitely already feeling tired again from all the pizza she ate but she was worried her long nap would end up throwing off the sleep schedule she’s been trying to get back to. Once her tea was ready, she went back to the table and thought about the day she’s had so far as she slowly sipped her tea.

More specifically, she thought about Iris. One of the goals in her therapy was learning to trust people again, something she struggled the hardest with. Her gut feeling about Iris was that she seemed like a sweet woman, clearly someone who wanted to get to know Nikki more but was willing to do so on Nikki’s level since she could probably tell she had trauma of some kind. However, said trauma was also caused by someone Nikki thought was just a sweet friend she could trust. What if Iris is just pretending to be a sweet, thoughtful roommate in order to gain Nikki’s trust so that she could do something sinister? And what’s with that robotic arm? Even if it was just a prosthetic, she figured Iris would’ve explained what happened to her arm by now. What was she hiding…

Nikki snapped herself out of that dark spiral by lightly smacking her palm against her head. “Don’t do that, don’t fucking do that,” she thought to herself. “She’s not like him. She’s not like him. If you’re going to be like this then what was this all for? Why bother looking for a fucking roommate if you’re just going to make me paranoid about her? Maybe she hasn’t talked about her hand because she was in a terrible accident and isn’t ready to talk about it. You of all fucking people should know what it feels like to not want to talk about trauma. It’s just a prosthetic, that isn’t scary. Stop being a fucking ableist and drink your tea, I don’t need this energy before going to sleep.”

Nikki took some more sips from her tea to calm herself down. Eventually it did its job, not only was she calmer but she was getting sleepier from the warmth of her drink. By the time her cup was empty, she felt ready to hop back into bed. She washed her cup and put it in the dishwasher before heading upstairs. She went into her bathroom, brushed her teeth and hopped back into her bed. Her first day at her new home had come to an end, and overall she’d say she had a good day. Hopefully she’d have a good, peaceful sleep and the next day would be just as good, maybe even better.