Real Housewife!

by Kasey Furutani

Episode Ten

At ten in the morning, Hannah gussied herself in a yellow dress she thought made her bottom look especially nice. I’m just grateful to have an ass, she thought. Real lips and real skin and real bones and a real butt.

Now, she finds herself gasping against jagged rocks as she fights the current that threatens to take her away. A stone thrown from above smacks her right cheekbone and claps the water behind her. She hears boos. She hears you suck! She hears you signed a contract!

“I’m real,” Hannah yells above the waves. “Who in their right mind would make a robot Housewife like me?”

“FAKE,

FAKE,

FAKE,” the remaining Housewives chant above. Of course, Kitty’s voice is the loudest.

Hannah turns to the cameraman, her shadow for the past nine weeks, who joins her in the water in a diving suit. He shoves a waterproof camera in her face. She groans. The camera zooms in. Her strength weakens. The audience leans forward.

Episode Eight

Hannah notices Kitty side-eying her all day. At breakfast- side eye. In the makeup department- side eye. Even on the toilet, Hannah feels Kitty’s side-eye from the neighboring stall. Kitty is the only Housewife Hannah thinks might be human, so it is weird to see a body part glitch. In previous seasons, the robo-Housewives tried to act as real as possible to avoid elimination, but this season’s strategy might have changed. Hannah still believes Kitty has a regulated body temperature of 98.6 degrees and a heart that pumps blood. She is probably made of bones, not steel. She might be at least seventy percent silicone, but she has a brain at least. Maybe.

Today’s elimination was Cupcake. The audience agreed that she tries too hard, and nobody likes a try-hard, human or not. Upon announcement, Cupcake cries real tears and her face turns into a purple blotch. The remaining Housewives stand in a row and watch the spotlight shine on Cupcake as she is dragged to the incinerator. Hannah turns to see the dead expressions in the Housewives’ marble eyeballs and catches Kitty’s side-eye. Her face tilts one degree to the left and flashes Hannah a perfected smile, sculpted by an orthodontist or a factory.

Episode Six

Breakfast is a feast. Hannah had not seen fruit this vibrant since she was in school. Apples of all shades, cored and sliced. A mango, nuclear orange and cubed. Actual bananas, the length of her forearm.

Fluffy, Pretty, Kitty and Bunny sit with their legs crossed, a napkin on each of their laps. Hannah finishes her plate and grabs more. The Housewives only move when their mimosas are served.

“It’s Girl Talk Time,” Pretty announces.

“Tell me all about him,” Kitty says.

“My job is demanding, but all I really want to be is a mother,” Fluffy says.

It is so obvious Fluffy is fake and Hannah can’t believe it took this long for the audience to vote her as a fraud. Her dialogue is directly stolen from Sex and the City. Also, in direct sunlight, her poorly tanned skin is known to peel off and expose a cloudy, plastic imitation of a cheekbone.

Episode Four

Nana and Pinky are removed from the competition after making out in a bathroom stall, caught in a viral video. Of course, no action was taken against the videographer, but it did not matter because the audience did not care. What they did care about was the reveal that Nana and Pinky are human, which gave the other Housewives an unfair advantage, because the fakes are not programed to feel sexual attraction. Hannah, snuggled in her pastel, prison-style bunk deemed The Dreamhouse, snuck articles about the Nana and Pinky fiasco on her counterfeit smartphone.

Lesbian Housewife….Robot?? Sex — Here’s How to See the Newest Porn Trend

Nana and Pinky in LOVE?????? Click More to Find Out!!!!!

Robots or Humans — Who Loves More?

After Nana and Pinky walk off the soundstage, hand in hand, Puppy’s red lips fall off. Taking advantage of this bit, the producers re-film the live studio audience gasping, then throw Puppy into the incinerator.

Episode Three

Shopping Spree! The Housewives are given credit cards to spend as much money as they would like. In their stilettos, the Housewives run to their desktops and begin clicking. Hannah, slouched over her sticky keyboard, peruses the Internet and wonders if she needs to restock toilet paper. She turns around and sees the others mechanically pressing buttons to purchase handbags, perfume, cars by the hundred.

Today’s elimination is Prairie Dog because she did not pass the Captcha test.

Episode Two

This is the first elimination episode. To win the audience’s favor, each Housewife tells the story of how they met their husbands.

“My husband charmed me at a charity gala,” Kitty says. “He’s an animal rights lawyer.” Hannah knew that Kitty’s husband is a lawyer, but he fought for companies that used animal testing. She read about it in the tabloids, on the subway ride to the sound set. This could be an imitation Kitty, Hannah thinks. This happened on Season 27, when a robot version of a child star’s mother won the competition.

“My husband is a three-time champion in luge,” Puppy says. “We met at an exclusive ski resort in Switzerland.”

“My husband works in Big Internet.”

“My husband is a skin surgeon.”

“Hannah?” The producer says. Hannah drags herself onto the stage, self-conscious of her tummy rolls next to the Housewives’ literal chiseled bodies.

“Well, it’s kind of funny,” Hannah says. “When I first married my husband he wasn’t rich at all. We were squatting in his aunt’s friend’s cousin’s apartment in Berkeley.”

The eleven Housewives stare in unison, eyeballs rolling in their sockets.

“And, um, well my husband had an idea for an app. We borrowed some money and he pulled some stuff together…”

The producer gives Hannah the let’s wrap it up signal.

“Yeah so my husband is in tech I guess? He sold the app and it was successful?” Hannah grunted against her will. “You can say we have enough money to pay off our student loans, and buy a house in the Bay and still have some to spare.”

The Housewives clap mechanically. No one blinks.

The first elimination is Steffy. After Kitty spills water on her, Steffy glitches and steam flies out of her ears, like a locomotive.

Episode One

Hannah only starts to feel safe when she sees cameras everywhere. There are eleven other Housewives, most of them blonde, tall and enhanced. Hannah pulls at her thick, brown hair and wonders again why she agreed to this opportunity. There is nothing to do. Earlier, the producers took everyone’s phones and sealed them properly in a fail safe locked bag, then threw them in the ocean.

As promised, her wardrobe is curated and already in her closet. Her outfit for the introductory episode, a vermillion jumpsuit with spaghetti straps and wide legs, highlights her warm skin tone. When Hannah asks how the wardrobe department already knows her size, the assistant half shrugs, then runs to pick up batteries scattered on the floor.

Housewife number one, a fluffy haired bottle blonde, is called to stage. She says, “I’m Kitty and I’m a REAL housewife.”

They go up one by one.

“I’m Bunny and I’m a REAL housewife.”

“I’m Cupcake and I’m a REAL housewife.”

Just as Hannah thinks they would run out of twee names, number eleven, Prairie Dog, exits the stage. The producer beckons Hannah to get on stage stat.

“I’m Hannah,” Hannah says, opening her arms and exposing her green veins and unshaved armpits. “And I’m a REAL housewife.”

Kasey Furutani's writing has appeared in McSweeney's Internet Tendency and is forthcoming in Ligeia Magazine. She also attended the 2022 Kenyon Writers Workshop. A former staff writer for Time Out Tokyo, Kasey now lives in Los Angeles.