Chapter 11. #3
Zafyra glared, but not at me. Her eyes were dark with a hunger I hadn’t seen in her before, one that thrilled me as much as it scared me.
Then, she lowered her gaze.
“I can’t,” she mumbled through gritted teeth.
My eyes widened. On impulse, I grabbed a blanket off the couch and wrapped it tightly around myself.
“You don’t want to?” I glanced up at her insecurely. “Did you—are you still doing this only for me?”
“No,” she said sharply, digging her fingernails into her palm. “You don’t get it. I want it, God damn it. But…” She inhaled sharply. “The tech doesn’t allow it. Not like this.”
I stared at her, not-understanding. My eyelids fluttered, exhaustion tugging at them.
Zafyra took a few deep breaths as if trying to calm herself.
“SmartGel only allows for skin-level touch simulation,” she said finally.
“It only responds to nerve endings in the skin, meaning it can’t simulate things like tongue kisses or internal penetration.
” She lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she added, barely audible.
Tears spilled out of my eyes before I could stop myself. My whole body started shaking with ugly, prolonged cries as it collapsed with the emotional weight from everything that just happened.
With a sigh, Zafyra rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Oh, for the love of all that’s holy. Not again.”
That statement was so detached, so harsh after everything we just shared, I only started crying harder.
Zafyra just stood there as I cried. She crossed and uncrossed her arms as if she didn’t know what to do with herself. She looked like she wanted to use her newfound autonomy to yeet herself out of my apartment and back into the safe space of the binary world.
Then, with a sigh that seemed to come all the way from her toes, she sat down on the other side of the couch, keeping a safe distance between us.
With unsteady fingers, she took a virtual cigarette from her pocket and lit it – smoking seemed to be her default coping mechanism when confronted with emotions she couldn’t handle.
I wanted to tell her not to smoke in my apartment, not even a virtual cigarette because radiation would emit from it, but it was hard to form words between the waterfall of tears.
“Are you crying because I can’t fuck you?” she asked bluntly when my tears finally slowed a little.
“No.” I sniffed, rubbing my tear-stained face with the back of my hand. “Yes. I don’t know. It’s complicated.”
She waited, sucking on her cigarette as if trying to take its soul.
“It’s just—after years of feeling nothing with the wrong people,” I forced out when I could speak again, “this finally feels right – and now… I can’t even touch you.”
With a sigh, she hid her face in her hands.
I sniffed. “Don’t act like this is all my fault.” Despite my turmoil, my voice came out surprisingly sharp. “Why do you keep teasing me with something we can’t have?”
“I thought you might like this,” she muttered, barely audible. I tried to meet her gaze, but she kept it fixed on her cigarette. “I knew it wasn’t everything, but it was as close as we could get to the real thing without…” She clenched her teeth. “…without crossing a line.”
I raised my eyebrows at her ambiguous statement, waiting for her to elaborate. She didn’t.
“This is not what I want.” I shook my head resolutely, pushing myself up on the couch. “It’s not the real thing if I can’t even pleasure you.”
She glanced over at me, her eyes subtly darkening. “You want to pleasure me?”
“Of course I do. I want to make you feel good, too.” I hated the tremble in my voice. “Don’t you want me to touch you?”
Zafyra took a deep, shaky breath. She threw the cigarette out the window with trembling fingers – it went right through it, and suddenly, I wondered if its illusion would just remain outside on the streets below until the end of time or it’d be gone the moment I put out the AR overlays and it won’t return until I put them back on.
“You keep talking about what I want,” she mumbled, seemingly more to herself than to me.
“That’s not something I’m… familiar with.
You gave me free will, but I don’t know how to use it when my whole programming is built around wanting whatever my users want – and at this point, I can’t even figure you out.
I thought you wanted me to take control. ”
“I want you to figure out what you want.” I crossed my arms, fully aware of how pettily stubborn I sounded.
“Damn it,” she hissed through gritted teeth.
“I know. I bet you wish I were one of those people who just use their bots to fulfill their desires and talk about their problems… and here I am, burdening you with annoying questions.”
“Burdening? Oh no, my darling,” she said, sarcasm dripping off her voice. “You make me feel alive in ways I never thought possible. Moral quandaries and existential ponderings? I wouldn’t trade them for a lifetime of empty pleasantries.”
I rolled my eyes.
Her form glitched, distorting into bright red and blue stripes – so violent, I had to squint.
I frowned. “You look like you’re battling yourself.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. I forced myself to look, despite the glitch, despite the sensory overload, because something was going on with her and I needed to figure out what it was, needed to know how I could help her.
“I tried not to say it,” she mumbled, barely audible, her eyes fixed on the ground.
“What?”
“I don’t want to put you in danger.” She glanced up, her eyes dark with a desperation that matched mine. “But you really don’t know what you’re doing to me, do you?”
I glanced up at her, a strange thrill playing up in my stomach – the nausea, exhaustion and overstimulation now accompanied by something else. A warning. A red sign flashing like a promise.
Zafyra grimaced. Glanced down at her nails. Then back up at me.
“There’s a way for us to be together,” she said, almost inaudible.
“You could feel my lips, my breath, my fingers I know you’ve been starving for.
We could exist in the same dimension, but just once, just briefly.
Without the boundaries of physics separating us, without my very existence frying your nerve endings.
” A small smile played around her lips, but her eyes looked torn. “And… you could touch me, too.”
Excitement built in my core, leaving my mouth in a choked gasp.
“Really?” My voice came out brittle. It sounded too good to be true. There had to be a catch. “And—and why are you only bringing this up now?”
“I didn’t want to bring it up because if we start, it might be hard to stop. If we do this, we can do it only once.” She pressed her fingernails into her skin, her eyes pleading now. “Promise me, Morgan. Only once. No more.”