Chapter 10
Thirty-One turned away from the human couple, looking at the half-eaten meal Ophelia had left on the table. Trying to ignore their low, murmured conversation, he grabbed the plate and her glass and carried them to the sink.
He didn’t know how to interpret the strange feeling raging through him at the sight of them together.
No. That wasn’t entirely true. He knew what he would have called it if he were human.
Jealousy.
But he couldn’t get jealous. It wasn’t in his programming.
It would be completely counterintuitive to have an android meant to service humans sexually across all possible situations get jealous of their primary user.
He should be able to watch a small army copulate with her without feeling anything.
The mere thought made his joints lock up. He did not like this feeling.
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to act normal, scraping off the uneaten eggs into the trash can before he began to rinse the plate.
“Is he cleaning?” Logan asked.
“Oh, yeah, he’s been quite helpful. You guys really made him well-rounded. I didn’t expect that from a… a…”
“Sex bot?” Logan teased.
She cleared her throat in embarrassment. “Yes, that.”
Thirty-One slipped the plate into the metal dish rack by the sink, then cleaned the cup and fork in the same efficient manner. He lingered, reluctant to turn back to them, his hands braced against the edge of the metal basin.
“You know, your mom called me.”
Ophelia groaned. “God, tell me you didn’t pick up.”
“Only like the tenth time,” he deadpanned. “She said she was worried about you. I let her know we had a little… disagreement but everything would be fine. And I promised you’d come see her when you got a minute—sorry for that.”
She sighed. “It’s fine. I can’t put it off forever.”
“Mmm, not forever, but maybe a few more hours? Long enough for me to apologize to you… properly?”
Her arousal bloomed in the air; he was fine-tuned to that scent, could pick it out even under the heavy blanket of green apple dish detergent that surrounded him.
“Okay.” The words were shy but full of longing.
The soft, wet sounds behind him were unmistakably from kissing.
Driven by an impulse he didn’t understand, Thirty-One grabbed the dense ceramic plate he’d just cleaned. He brought it up high over his head and dashed it against the concrete floor with his full inhuman strength. The resulting sound was like a thunderclap, echoing off the walls of the apartment.
Ophelia shrieked in surprise as Logan cursed.
Thirty-One turned back to them with a placid look. “I apologize. It was slippery.”
He did not enjoy jealousy, but he found he rather liked lying.
“I’ll get it,” Ophelia murmured, pulling away from Logan. “You go take a shower and put on something more comfortable.”
Logan lingered, eyes locked on Thirty-One in a suspicious manner, but at length he capitulated to Ophelia’s suggestion.
She stood at the edge of the galley kitchen, gaping at the mess he’d created. “Gosh. How hard did you drop it?”
He shrugged, lowering himself to his knees as he slowly picked up slivers of the shattered ceramic.
She knelt on the other side of the room to do the same.
He studied her from beneath his lashes as she worked, not the least bit suspicious of his intentions, unlike Logan.
Did she trust him implicitly after only one day together? Was she so na?ve?
He liked that she was trusting. He hated it, too. His eyes flicked toward the open bedroom door, where the distant splatter of water from the shower filtered out.
She trusted Logan too easily.
He’d been working on Thirty-One’s code for two years, taking over for another employee whose family had decided the chaos of the city had grown too great as DC had become a hub of industry in the technical field.
They talked in the lab. Unfiltered, because there was no one to hear them but their colleagues and the androids they were working on.
Logan complained often and about everything.
How unfair it was to be stuck in the basement of the building.
How hard he’d worked to get paid so little.
How much he deserved a seat at the table with the engineers, the designers, not the lowly little coding ants who spot-checked and perfected their designs.
He complained about Ophelia when he was alone with his male colleagues. She was too pliable, too dull, too introverted. Too accepting of anything he wanted from her. Too anxious and needy and in love with him.
Thirty-One wanted to tell her. He wanted her to know the selfish, grating things her perfect fiancé said behind her back. She should know the way he laughed when the others joined in, piling on her despite having met her at gatherings outside the facility.
Something stayed him. He watched as her silken hair spilled over her shoulder, dragging through the mess, causing little shards of plate to clink together. She mumbled a curse, awkwardly trying to toss it back behind herself.
It would hurt her. That’s what made him bite his tongue. Knowing how deeply Logan disparaged her would spear her through her fragile heart. He did not want to be the one to hurt her like that.
Rising to his feet, he chucked his handful of broken ceramic in the trash, and he grabbed an errant hair tie from the little counter that separated the kitchen from the living room. He circled her, breaking more bits of plate beneath the soles of his shoes.
“What are you—” She ended the sentence with a soft gasp as he dragged his finger tips over the back of her neck, gathering up her fine hair.
“It’s getting dirty,” he rumbled, twisting it into a bun at the base of her neck. He secured the loose shape with the hair tie, fussing with it a little longer than he needed to, using the excuse to touch her to his advantage.
The look she gave him when he was finished was soft and made his mechanical heart feel warm.
She reached back with her free hand and touched the bun, mouth pulling in a small smile. “Thank you. That’s sweet.”
Impulsively, he cupped her cheek, strumming his thumb over her smooth skin. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t pull away—at least, not until she heard the bathroom door open.
Then she reeled back from him in a panic.
“Ah!” She sat back on her heels, opening her hand as the iron tang of blood filled the air.
In her anxiety, it seemed she’d forgotten about her handful of sharp ceramic, tightening her fingers around it. The red-stained pieces fell to the ground with a musical tinkle.
“You are hurt,” he said sharply, snatching her hand up.
Blood dribbled from several cuts in her palm and fingers.
“You’re lucky you didn’t slice a tendon. That was careless.”
“Stop scolding me,” she hissed, darting a glance at the bedroom where Logan was rummaging around.
He yanked the tea towel off the oven handle and wrapped it around her palm. Before she could protest, he slid his arms beneath her and lifted her off the ground, lest she find some other way to cut herself on the wreckage of his temper.
“Put me down!” she whispered, squirming.
He pinched her flank, enjoying the appalled sound she made as she stiffened in his arms. He set her down on the couch as she glowered at him.
“Where is your first aid kit?” he asked.
“Under the bathroom sink,” she muttered. Her face was bright red, and she wouldn’t meet his gaze.
“Stay here.” He crossed into the bedroom, where Logan was ruffling his hair with a towel as he studied himself in the full-length mirror.
“Hey,” Logan whispered, turning to face Thirty-One. “Come here.”
Thirty-One wanted to refuse, but if he did, Logan would immediately be aware of the new flaw in his programming. Bitterly, he crossed the room to stand before his coder.
Logan’s eyes darted toward the open door and back. “Did she let you touch her while I was gone?”
That was what he wanted to know? Thirty-One fought the urge to ask why that was his first question. Ophelia had been in emotional distress since he’d abandoned her, and all he was concerned about was whether or not she’d permitted Thirty-One to have sex with her.
“Only briefly,” Thirty-One said. “We did not have intercourse.”
Logan deflated, scrubbing a hand over his clean-shaven jaw. He was despairing, not jealous. Strange. His cuckold fetish had a stranglehold on him if he was truly so dismayed to know his fiancée hadn’t slept with another man—insofar as Thirty-One was a man, anyway.
“But she let you touch her… You think you’re wearing her down?”
Go fuck yourself. He’d learned that phrase listening to the Automata employees speak to each other. Now it lingered on the very tip of his tongue.
He forced himself to answer truthfully. “Yes.”
Logan blew out a relieved breath, clapping Thirty-One on the shoulder. “Good. That’s good. Keep it up, okay?”
He narrowly resisted the urge to slap the man’s hand away. “As you wish.”
Logan turned away from him, apparently dismissing him from the conversation.
Impatiently, Thirty-One made his way to the bathroom and retrieved the first aid kit before returning to Ophelia. She was right where he had left her, but her eyes were bloodshot and full of tears as she stared at her hand.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, kneeling before her.
“It’s going to get infected. I’m going to get sick. I’m going to d-d—” She squeezed her eyes shut as her tears spilled over and her breath turned to shuddering, soft gasps.
“Think it through logically, Ophelia,” he urged softly, spraying her small wounds with antibacterial cleanser. “You are healthy, aren’t you?”
Her eyes cracked open as she nodded.
“And you would notice, wouldn’t you, if you had the beginnings of a blood infection? You know the signs.”
Biting her lip, she nodded again.
He hummed softly, smoothing a healing gel over the many cuts. “Modern medicine is quite advanced. You would catch it early. Do you truly believe you will die?”
Her eyes danced over his face, the gray irises almost glowing against the irritated red of her sclera. “No?”
He raised his brows at her, prompting her to try again. She sighed, closing her eyes.
“No,” she said more firmly. “It’s the stress.
I-it makes the things my mother taught me get stuck in my head.
It’s like I’m caught in a feedback loop.
Sometimes, it’s like there’s a magic ritual I can do to make it feel better.
Wash my hands a hundred times, or get into bed from the shower without touching anything unclean, or sanitize every surface in the apartment until all of it is safe.
But sometimes, I’m not sure what to do, or I know I’m not supposed to do it, and it’s like I’m just… ”
She shook her head, shoulders sagging.
“Paralyzed?” he suggested.
“Yes. Just… stuck in part of that loop. No way out, no way forward. It’s awful.”
He smoothed a gauze bandage over her hand, wrapping it so all her fingers were bound together.
She laughed at the sight, flexing her fingers with a wince. “I feel like a mummy.”
“It’s only temporary. You can take it off in an hour. The medigel will have healed your wounds by then. They’re shallow.”
“Thank you,” she said without looking at him, smoothing her uninjured hand over the gauze wrapping.
“You seem so touched by the smallest acts.”
She looked up at him in surprise, taking a breath to say something when Logan called out to her. Irritation spiked through Thirty-One.
“Babe, I’m so sorry. There’s something I’ve got to take care of back at the lab.” He bounded out into the living room, taking in the scene of Thirty-One kneeling before Ophelia with an unreadable expression. “Did something happen?”
“Oh, it’s just a scratch,” She waved her gauze-mittened hand as though she hadn’t been on the verge of a breakdown over the injury mere moments ago.
“Good, good,” Logan said, ducking in to press a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll probably be home late, okay?”
“No problem.” She beamed at him, but for some reason, Thirty-One found the expression insincere.
Logan didn’t seem to detect anything off about it. He grabbed his keys without a second look back, stepped into his shoes, and then he was gone.
Good riddance.