The Women Downstairs

The moment my body reached the courtyard, a woman slapped me.

Hard.

Twice.

My head turned with the force.

“You bitch,” she spat. “My husband already said he wants to buy your husband’s sick little app.”

A crowd had gathered beneath umbrellas and winter hoods.

Women from the building.

Neighbors.

Some I knew.

Some I had avoided out of shame because the patch often made me say things I would never choose.

Their faces showed rage, fear, pity.

The woman who slapped me was crying now.

“Do you know what happens to us if men can buy that thing?”

Yes, I thought.

I know exactly.

I wanted to kneel because I chose to.

I wanted to apologize from my own soul.

I wanted to warn them.

Run before they make obedience sound like love.

Instead, my knees hit the pavement.

The Obedience Patch forced my spine straight.

My voice said,

“I apologize for upsetting you.”

Everyone went still.

The woman stepped back.

“What the hell?”

Noah’s voice came through the patch speaker, low and irritated.

“Mira, why are you making them angry? I told you to build relationships.”

Build relationships.

Like a marketing campaign.

Like the women around me were future customers, not future victims.

“Honestly,” he continued, “if they dislike Obedience, half the fault is yours.”

A neural pulse shot through my corpse.

The body convulsed.

The ghost of me felt it too.

Not physically.

Worse.

Like memory of pain echoing through what remained of my soul.

When it stopped, my mouth opened again.

“I caused a misunderstanding,” my voice said. “Obedience is a blessing for wives.”

The women stared in horror.

“With Obedience, my husband praises me every day. My mother-in-law finally accepts me. I have never been happier.”

A few women crossed themselves.

One whispered, “She sounds like a recording.”

Noah heard.

His anger sharpened.

“Kneel there and promote the launch until I tell you to stop.”

The command locked in.

My corpse stayed on its knees.

The sky darkened.

Then hail began to fall.

Small stones of ice struck my hair, shoulders, face.

People opened umbrellas.

No one knew what to do with the dead woman kneeling in the storm.

Some filmed.

Some laughed nervously.

Some looked away.

Humiliation burned through me, impossibly alive despite death.

From the beginning of our relationship, Noah had loved the word qualified.

Be a qualified girlfriend.

A qualified wife.

A qualified daughter-in-law.

A qualified woman.

I had tried.

God help me, I had tried.

But the qualifications kept changing, and I kept shrinking, until finally there was nothing left of me but a body that followed instructions after death.

Then someone pushed through the crowd.

A coat landed around my shoulders.

Strong hands pulled my body upright.

“Mira.”

The voice broke.

Rowan Reed.

My childhood friend from the orphanage.

The boy who used to save half his bread for me.

The man I had stopped contacting after marriage because Noah said old male friends were inappropriate.

Rowan’s eyes were red with fury.

“What did he do to you?”

I wanted to tell him I was sorry.

That he was too late.

That I was already gone.

He held my body carefully, like I was something fragile and still worth saving.

“Listen to me,” he said. “We’re going to the police. If they don’t listen, I’ll livestream everything. I don’t care how powerful he is.”

A tear slid from my corpse’s eye.

Maybe the body remembered him.

Maybe I did.

For one brief second, I felt less alone.

Then Noah’s voice exploded through the patch.

“Who is that man?”

Rowan looked around, startled.

Noah’s fury shook through the signal.

“Mira, you cheating whore.”

My body shoved Rowan away.

Then my hand rose.

Slap.

Slap.

Slap.

Again.

Again.

Again.

My own dead hand struck my own dead face while my mouth shouted,

“I am filthy. I betrayed my husband. I deserve punishment.”

The crowd gasped.

Some laughed.

Some filmed closer.

Rowan lunged forward and grabbed my wrists.

“Stop it! Mira, stop!”

I could not.

I was not there.

Noah and his mother arrived with security minutes later.

Eleanor Song’s face twisted when she saw Rowan holding me.

“Shameless little slut,” she hissed. “In broad daylight?”

Rowan shouted, “She needs help!”

Noah walked up slowly.

His face was calm now.

Too calm.

He put one arm around my corpse and smiled for the cameras.

“My wife is confused. Obedience helps with that too.”

Then he lowered his voice.

“Mira, tell everyone who this man is.”

No.

Please.

Not Rowan.

My mouth opened.

“Rowan Reed is my lover.”

Silence fell.

Rowan went pale.

I screamed without sound.

Noah lifted a hand.

“Take him to the police.”

Security dragged Rowan away as he shouted that Noah was abusing me, that the patch was illegal, that I needed a doctor.

No one listened.

Noah kissed my temple.

“You will behave at the launch,” he whispered.

My ghost looked at him and finally understood.

He had not loved me badly.

He had loved owning me.

And now that I was dead, I was finally the wife he always wanted.