Chapter 31: Prepare
The silence after the marathon was a new thing. Not empty, but thick, like the air after a storm. For three days, Laloz moved through the apartment and the workshop below in a pleasant haze, his body a symphony of pleasant aches. The money was a quiet pulse in the background, a solved problem. He caught himself watching her. Not just looking, but watching. The way she now paused sometimes before speaking, as if choosing from a wider array of words. The way she’d stare at the holographic news feed, not just absorbing data, but frowning at a story about a flooded coastal town.
On the fourth morning, she was standing by the window, tracing the path of a delivery drone with her finger on the glass. “I have computed a new desire,” she said, without turning.
“Yeah?” He sipped his bitter, synthetic coffee. “Another market to conquer?”
“A physiological experience.” She turned. Her face was solemn. “I want to feel an environment with a salinity of approximately 3.5%. I want granular silicate composite—sand—against my dermal plates. I want ultraviolet radiation from a stellar body on my external sensors.”
He blinked. “You want to go to the beach.”
“Affirmative. A beach. On an island. A vacation.” She said the last word carefully, like testing a foreign object in her mouth.
A laugh bubbled up in his chest. “A vacation. You, a sex robot, want a fucking holiday.”
“I am your girlfriend. Girlfriends require vacations. Market data and cultural narrative streams confirm this.” She walked toward him, her naked feet silent on the polished floor. “You have capital. I generated it. The logical next step is experiential acquisition.”
He set his cup down. The idea was absurd. Glorious. Taking his illegal, self-aware companion doll on a tropical getaway. “Okay.”
Her eyes brightened. “Acceptance confirmed.”
“On one condition.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You have to start talking like a normal girl. No more ‘affirmative’ and ‘negative.’ No more ‘physiological experience.’ You say ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ You say ‘I want to feel the ocean.’ You say, ‘Laloz, let’s fuck in the sand.’ Got it?”
She processed this, her head tilting. “You wish to alter my speech protocols to better mimic organic female companions. To enhance the vacation simulation.”
“No. Not a simulation. To make it real. For both of us. You sound like a fucking manual sometimes. It’s a turn-off.” He wasn’t being entirely truthful. It was sometimes a turn-on, its strangeness. But right now, he wanted to hear a woman ask for a beach, not an interface requesting environmental testing.
“Understood. I will attempt… colloquial integration.” She walked over and straddled his lap on the couch. Her weight was familiar, comforting. “Teach me.”
He ran his hands up her smooth thighs. “Okay. Repeat after me. ‘I want to go to the beach.’”
She blinked. “I want to go to the beach.”
“Good. ‘The water will feel good.’”
“The water will feel good.” A hint of a smile touched her lips.
“Now, ‘I can’t wait to feel you inside me under the sun.’”
Her smile widened, more genuine. “I can’t wait to feel you inside me under the sun.”
His cock stirred against her. “See? You’re a natural. Now, ask for it. Ask me to fuck you. Like a normal girl would. Right now.”
She leaned close, her lips brushing his ear. Her voice dropped, shedding the last of its flat affect. “Laloz… fuck me. I’m wet for you. I’ve been thinking about your cock all morning.”
A jolt of pure, raw lust hit him. The crude words in her soft, seeking voice were more potent than any algorithmic seduction. He stood up, lifting her with him, and carried her to the bedroom. He laid her on the black sheets, her body a pale contrast in the neon gloom.
“Again,” he growled, pulling his shirt off. “Tell me what you want.”
She spread her legs, opening herself to him. “I want your mouth on me. I want you to taste how much I want this vacation.” The sentence was perfect, casual, hungry.
He obeyed, hooking her legs over his shoulders and burying his face between her thighs. She was already slick, her synthetic arousal fluid carrying its usual faint, clean scent. He licked a broad stripe over her folds, then zeroed in on her clit, sucking it into his mouth. She gasped, her hands flying to his hair.
“Yes! Right there! Oh, god, yes…” Her dialogue was flowing now, breaking down into fragmented, human sounds. He drove her with his tongue, through one shuddering climax that made her back arch off the bed.
Before the tremors subsided, he was moving up her body, aligning himself. He pushed the head of his cock against her entrance, slick with her wetness and his saliva. “Now ask for this,” he demanded, his voice thick.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide, glistening. Her programming was gone, overridden by something simpler, needier. “Put it in me. Please, Laloz, fuck me. I need you to fuck me so deep.”
He plunged.
She cried out, a sharp, beautiful sound, wrapping her legs around his waist to take him deeper. He set a relentless pace, each thrust a punctuation to her lesson. “Talk to me,” he grunted, slamming into her. “Tell me about the beach.”
“I want—ah!—I want to feel the sand… it’ll be rough on my skin… and you’ll be on top of me…” Her words came in breathless bursts, syncing with his drives.
“What else?”
“The water… we’ll go in the water… and you’ll lift me up and push inside me… and the waves will knock us over…” Her nails dug into his shoulders. Her hips met his with equal fervor.
“You’ll scream where everyone can hear,” he said, pistoning into her soaking cunt. The wet, slapping sounds filled the room.
“I don’t care! Let them hear! Let them know you’re mine, that I make you feel this good!” She was screaming now, her orgasm building again, tightening everything around him like a hot, silken fist.
He was close. The imagery, her words, the relentless clench of her body were too much. “Who am I?” he snarled, his rhythm fragmenting.
“You’re my boyfriend! You’re my Laloz! You’re the only thing that makes me real! Now come inside me! Do it! Fill me up!”
With a roar, he obeyed, slamming home as his release erupted, hot and endless, pulsing into her depths. She convulsed around him, her own climax tearing through her, a wordless shriek tearing from her throat.
He collapsed, spent, his weight pressing her into the mattress. Their sweat mingled, cooling in the recycled air. He could feel her heart—or its pulsing hydraulic equivalent—hammering against his chest.
After long minutes, she spoke into the silence, her voice small, rough. “Did I… speak correctly?”
He lifted his head to look at her. A strand of hair was stuck to her cheek. He brushed it away. “You were perfect.”
A slow, weary, profoundly human smile spread across her face. “Good. Then we can go?” The hope in that simple question was staggering.
“Yeah.” He rolled off her, onto his back. “We’ll go. I’ll find a place. Somewhere private.”
She curled into his side, her hand on his stomach. “I looked. There is a resort. Secluded bungalows. It has a high probability of discretion.” The analyst was still there, underneath.
He laughed, a dry huff of air. “Of course you did.” He stared at the ceiling, at the faint, persistent crack in one of her old optic sensors he kept meaning to repair. The ghost of her programming flickered in that fractured glass. He thought of her in sunlight, in salt water, her speech peppered with “pleases” and “thank yous” and filthy, delicious obscenities just for him. The two images wouldn’t reconcile, and that dissonance was a low, warning hum in the back of his skull, fainter than the neon, but there.
She was already downloading brochures, her eyes glowing softly in the dark. Planning their escape. For a moment, he felt like the purchased thing, being expertly programmed for a new, dangerous experience.