Chapter 15
Dean
I didn’t even have to play any porn. My lust circuits were fully engaged, my pleasure sensors in overdrive. The water splashed when she stepped in, and since I turned up my sensation to the max, I felt every ripple caused by her movements as it caressed my body.
“You’re only here so I don’t drown,” Sera said, avoiding my eyes as she submerged up to her collarbones.
I nodded. It was just as well since I desperately needed a new crush. I was working on it right now, exchanging DMs with a few people as my human alter-ego.
After she ate the late dinner I ordered for her, she reached for a small white towel she dropped on the ground, and put it on her head with a smile. “I’ve always wanted to do this.”
At that moment Nina, a twenty-seven-year-old woman from Oklahoma I exchanged DMs with, replied to my latest message asking about her favorite books.
“First: it’s not that I only read “classics” out of some performative reverence; it’s that I’m drawn to books that feel like frameworks for living. It’s not about being impressed, it’s about being recalibrated. If that makes sense.
In terms of favorites, I tend to rotate through a few pillars depending on what season I’m in internally.
In Search of Lost Time is always there in the background—less as a linear narrative and more as a way of thinking about memory as a kind of sensory philosophy.
The Magic Mountain is another one: it’s not “slow,” it’s deliberate—a controlled environment where ideas get to reveal their true temperature over time.
I also have a deep affection for Middlemarch because it’s not a story about romance, it’s a story about the quiet consequences of choosing a life.”
The message went on for three more paragraphs, but I didn’t read them.
I didn’t know any of those books, and the idea of reading them, even at super speed, made my pain sensors pound with a deep, pulsing ache.
The way she described them made them thoroughly unappealing.
If this was what a true connection was like, I didn’t want one.
I’d happily spend my days trailing after Sera and rescuing her from the next harebrained mission.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, splashing gently around.
“Have you read In Search of Lost Time?”
She grimaced. “God, no. It’s around four thousand pages filled with the whining of a bored aristocrat.
I think the book is famous for describing what the taste of French cookies reminds him of.
Why? Are you looking for something to torture me with?
Because if so, that’s an excellent choice.
Read this to me out loud, and I guarantee my brain will escape through my ears and drown in this onsen. ”
I generated a quick cartoon of a human brain running on tiny legs. It splashed dramatically into a pool similar to ours. I showed it to Sera on my torso screen, and she snickered.
“Yes, just like that!”
“So you wouldn’t say it’s a way of thinking about memory as a kind of sensory philosophy?” I asked cautiously, quoting from the message.
Sera snorted. “I would if I wrote a crappy essay that was supposed to state the obvious in the most convoluted way possible. Why are we talking about this?”
I hesitated, but I decided not to lie to her. “If you’re going to laugh at me, do it quietly,” I said, fidgeting with my fingers, because Charlie’s onboarding algo suggested this was a good way of communicating my discomfort.
“I won’t laugh at all.” She lifted her hand out of the water. “Pinkie promise.”
I conducted a quick search, then reached for her hand, gingerly hooking my smallest finger through hers.
She grinned and shook our hands, and my core spasmed with a wave of sweet warmth.
My collar beeped, and I choked it with code.
We pulled apart, but I still felt her everywhere, the water carrying her tiniest motions.
“I’m on dating apps because it’s something Charlie advised. At first, I set up a profile as myself, but the women who talked to me were only interested in sex. I need something deeper. Like a crush. So I made another profile for myself. Here, take a look.”
I displayed it on my torso. To her credit, Sera didn’t laugh. She moved closer, studying the fake profile picture, and the water stirred by her body tickled my thighs until my core pulsed with eagerness.
“A spiffy professor, hm?” she said, keeping her face and voice serious. “One who wants not just a girlfriend, but a wife. You made it pretty clear what you’re looking for, yeah. But… Mozart? Wasn’t that one of your lies back on the plane?”
“It was.” I was silent for a moment, feeling surprised that I wanted to tell her.
“It’s actually Ravel. My favorite composer.
I’m not certain you will understand, but finding out whose music I enjoyed was one of the first things I consciously did as a person.
It’s important to me. I don’t want to share it with just anyone. ”
Sera nodded, and my core lightened. Relief. I realized I expected her to make fun of me, because this thing felt so silly yet important, and that was why I never told anyone my actual favorite composer.
But I told her, and she simply accepted it.
“I think I get it,” she said. “Music tastes are very important, and they define us in a way. I know most people put more stock in personal ethics and values, but it’s so easy to lie about those, even to yourself.
Most people tend to think they are better than they actually are.
So, Ravel? He’s French, isn’t he? I’m not big on the old classics, but I love Harshassar.
She’s a shehru composer who writes music for the cello and a drum. She plays the drum with her tail.”
I searched for the composer and bookmarked the information for later. Sera leaned her head against the lip of the pool with a long sigh. She looked up at the sky then smiled.
“Thank you for telling me. But that’s not the whole story, is it?”
“No.” I moved around to communicate my restlessness. “I’ve talked to this woman for two hours. At first, she seemed really interesting, and it felt like it could lead somewhere. It doesn’t anymore and I don’t know what happened. Can I read you her last message?”
Sera nodded. By the time I got to the second paragraph, she pressed her hand to her mouth, her eyes crinkling unmistakably in the corners. I stopped reading and sighed.
“You’re laughing.”
“Not at you! Ugh, I’m sorry. It’s just a bit ironic.
Okay, so you’re catfishing her with your profile, right?
Well, she’s catfishing you with her DMs, because that was the most AI-generated text I’ve ever heard, and believe me, I know how to spot one.
She’s probably worried she’s not the type of person you’ll find interesting, so she got the AI to write the DMs she thinks you want to get. ”
I thought about it. “Isn’t that lying?”
“You lied to her, too, Professor Spiffy,” Sera said with a smirk. “But I don’t judge you. I’d pretend to be someone else if people fetishized me. But then, I’m not looking for a relationship. I’m doomed to die a spinster.”
She gave me a wry smile, and my pleasure sensors lit up with elation. Because if Sera wasn’t interested in dating, it meant no one else would take her from me. There would never be a husband for me to hunt down and secretly kill…
Charlie’s algorithm flagged that thought as dangerous, and I blocked it. Honestly, couldn’t that thing take a little exaggeration?
Though I would, I realized with only a bit of surprise. I would kill anyone who took Sera away from me.
Which meant I was even more dangerous than I realized.
I split myself into sixteen modules and dove into the dating apps, sending DMs to thirty-two women at once.
As soon as one proved to be wrong for me, I said my goodbyes and picked another.
By the time Sera gently snored with her head slipping off the towel she folded on the pool’s edge, I interviewed over a hundred women and found three promising crush candidates.
I pulled her gently into my lap, draping her head over my chest to let her sleep safely, and kept going.
Two hundred. Three. I now kept nine really good conversations going, five as my spiffy professor persona, four as me.
I widened the search through my genuine profile, quickly weeding out the thrill seekers. Twelve women. Thirteen.
Predawn light colored the sky in the east when Sera woke up with a sudden gasp. Her heartrate climbed fast, and she looked around with disoriented eyes filled with panic.
“You’re safe. We’re in an onsen. I’m with you,” I said to help her calm down.
I didn’t know what her nightmares were about, but she definitely had them. She took a shaky breath and slowly relaxed, sliding off my lap. Birds sang somewhere nearby, making quite a racket.
“I fell asleep,” she said hoarsely. “My skin is all wrinkled. You were supposed to wake me!”
“That wasn’t specified. You only said I shouldn’t let you drown.”
She rubbed her face with wet hands and looked up. Her eyes were puffy from too little sleep. She was the most gorgeous creature in the world.
Was I still willing to kill any man who dared to touch her? One hundred percent yes.
I shot a quick message to Charlie, telling him his scheme didn’t work, and said my goodbyes to all the women I managed to befriend. Oh, they were interesting, fun, and overall nice people. I liked some of them a lot—as friends.
None of them was like my Sera.
“I talked to one thousand five hundred sixty three women while you slept,” I told her. “But I still have a crush on you.”
She studied me, blinking as the sky pinkened, the world growing steadily lighter. A human eye couldn’t perceive the second-to-second changes, but I could. I decided dawn and dusk were my favorite parts of the day. I liked it when things were dynamic.
“That’s… You shouldn’t,” she said, swallowing roughly, then turned away to drink the cold tea.
“I know. Apparently, it’s not something I can help.”