Page 8

Back in my en suite, I head straight to the shower. I’m sticky with sweat, and I smell like sex. Who knows how long Ian will be busy doing… whatever it is he’s doing. And Eros said he’d be fine on his own down there, so I decide to take my time.

I shed my clothes and climb into the shower, turning the water up as hot as it will go before it scalds, and stand in the hot stream until my heart returns to its normal rhythm.

I take a long, steadying breath. There’s nothing wrong here; I did nothing wrong.

This isn’t like the time I accidentally fucked a married guy.

Ian is famously a bachelor. This isn’t like the countless times I’ve fucked a near stranger while drunk, either.

I’m fully sober. I just had pancakes, for God’s sake.

And Eros isn’t a stranger. He’s… well, he’s a sexbot. He’s built for this. It’s his purpose .

Still, I feel unsettled.

“Best sex of my life, though,” I say aloud to the shower.

And better than that, it’s incredible content for the book.

If Ian lets me, I could turn this into a chapter of its own.

“Testing the Pleasurebot,” or something.

I’ll come up with a better chapter title when I’m not sex-stupid, but who wouldn’t want to buy a book with a first-person account of what the original Eros model is capable of?

I dry myself off, suddenly excited, all my unease dissipating the shower’s steam. It’s hitting me little by little: the reality of this. I just fucked a real-life robot . And I’m going to write a book about it. A guaranteed bestseller. I’ll be rich. I’ll be fucking famous.

Pulling on my clothes, hair still wet, I feel clean and refreshed inside and out. I feel competent, satiated, light . I pull my hair into a bun, knowing it will dry in nice, loose curls that way, and grin at myself in the bathroom mirror.

Something catches my eye in the reflection. Movement in the room behind me.

I freeze, adrenaline spiking through me.

It was probably just a shadow, a drone passing by outside, silhouetted against the window. The lights are off in the adjacent room, and the curtains are drawn, drenching the corners in near blackness.

I turn away from the mirror.

There is a shape just inside the closed door of the guest room. At first, I don't understand what I’m seeing. It looks like a dark shadow, floating or hovering.

Wait, no.

It’s an arm. A long arm, reaching through the door from the hallway outside. Slow and shadowed, seemingly unhindered by the door in its way, it reaches for me with outstretched fingers.

And then it flickers. Lines and spots of white skitter across the shape. At the same time, a heaviness grips me, and I feel like I’m being pulled down through an impossibly tight tunnel, every cell of me crushed flat. My vision darkens at the edges.

Then the arm’s fingers seem to lengthen, to curve toward me.

Heart in my throat, I reach for the bedroom light switch.

I flick the light on.

The shape is gone. My room is empty.

I slump against the bathroom doorframe, my heart thudding like a jackhammer. It was just a shadow, a trick of the light. This crazy altitude. Maybe even some fucked up vibrations from Ian’s ley lines, making me see things.

“I need to chill the fuck out,” I announce to no one.

I take a minute to gather myself, and then I’m hurrying down the spiral stairs to rejoin Eros. But when I get to the foot of the stairs, I see that I’m alone. Eros is gone, and Ian is still, apparently, jacking it in his bathroom.

I meander to the kitchen, refilling my now lukewarm cup of coffee. I could use a stiff drink, but it’s still a little early for that. Closing my eyes, I pinch the bridge of my nose. It’s still a little early for a devil’s threesome with a Pleasurebot, but that didn’t stop me .

The rain is picking up. I watch as it lashes the window, rivulets of neon-bright water coloring the glass.

The storm has made it so dark that the city’s lights are on early, and it feels like midnight rather than early afternoon.

There’s a heaviness in the air, a vibration that feels like waiting.

Like an anticipatory inhale, or the pulse of silence just before a lightning strike.

Shivering, I turn away from the view. I much prefer the sight of Ian’s home, austere as it is. It’s warm and quiet, and I don’t like looking out that window.

I take another sip of coffee.

“You imagined it,” I say aloud, trying to dispel this strange mood, to regain the sense of excitement I’d had in the shower.

It wouldn’t be the first time I hallucinated, I rationalize.

Once, I spent a month microdosing mushrooms under the impression it would improve my mental health.

But the girl who’d sold them to me didn’t mention they were mushrooms she grew in her own cellar, a detail that would have been nice to know beforehand.

As it turned out, these mushrooms were not remotely safe for human consumption, and I was lucky I’d only been taking minuscule doses.

Even so, I saw a lot of fucked up, nonexistent things that month.

Whatever I saw back in my room, I’m determined to put it out of my head. I’m more than ready to get back to the tour and back to work. Back to not being alone at the top of a skyscraper.

I wander into the living area, nervously sipping my coffee. Where did Eros go? How long is Ian going to fuck himself for? Did he fall asleep? Maybe he’s taking a shower too.

Then something catches my eye. Something that I’m pretty sure wasn’t there before: a piece of paper on the bar. The back of my neck prickles as I approach.

It’s a note. Written hastily, almost unreadable:

Off-site lab emergency. Back soon. Make yourself at home. - Ian

Off-site lab emergency? Right after a mind-blowing three-way and my horrifying hallucination? Okay. Sure. Great timing. I’m alone in a Pleasurebot house of horrors.

“It’s not a house of horrors, Katherine,” I scold myself, going around to the other side of the bar.

I rummage around until I find the bottle of whiskey Ian was using last night and pour a healthy amount into the remains of my now-cold coffee.

“You’re safer here than some random guy’s apartment. Ian’s lawyer knows you’re here.”

I take a sip and wince at the burn. It’s early to start drinking, but I already feel better, knowing that in a few minutes and a few more sips, I’ll be loose and relaxed, hopefully enough to think straight.

I figure Ian brought Eros back down to the vault before he left.

Maybe I’ll even have time to get some writing done.

Mug in hand, I head back toward the spiral staircase, thinking I’ll retrieve my laptop from the guest room and hang out down here, maybe draft a list of specific questions I’d like to ask Ian.

Now that I’ve spent time with Eros, I’m starting to think of more specific things I can ask him, too.

Maybe I’ll even start on a loose outline for the book.

The narrative concept is already taking shape in my head.

I pause at the foot of the stairs and swallow the last of my coffee, a nice little buzz beginning to fizz its way through my veins. I glance over my shoulder, my gaze falling on that nondescript door in the far wall, marked only by a keypad.

I think of that shadowy form in the vault below.

I remember Ian’s words: The Prototype will make you swear off sex with humans. He’ll ruin you. Ian wouldn’t have said that if he didn’t want me interested. He wants me to find out for myself. Deep down, he wants me to meet the Prototype.

Anticipation buzzes on my skin.

I head toward the door to the vault, setting my empty coffee mug on a side table on the way.

Ian talks a big talk. He flatters; he tells me my blog is so innovative and brilliant.

He claims to see me as an intellectual. An equal, even.

He picked me over every other writer in the world.

But I know he’s full of shit. Because he didn’t cover the keypad when he was typing in the door codes. And I’m always paying attention.

“He wants something groundbreaking,” I murmur, stopping to stand before the nondescript door. I type in the keycode. “I’ll give it to him.”