“I’m not entirely sure I am!” Sirena squealed—but rather than rearing away, she came forward with her hand out. “May I?”
“Of course,” he told her. She traced her fingertips across him, the same way she had his hand. Soft lights played up and down his shaft in their wake.
“Oh my gosh,” she said, far more reverently. “This is going to be so much fun in the dark,” she told herself, then got up to breathe across him. “Can you feel that?”
“Yes,” he answered her, truthfully. “But—” he went on, to clarify, and she pulled her hand back to consider him.
“Why’re you so convinced there’s such a gap between your data and true feeling?”
“Because. I believe there is something you both have…that I lack.”
“But why do you think that?” Sirena asked, looking up at him thoughtfully. “I know I’ve never told you that—has he?” she asked, giving Nex, who was still silent on their channel, a look.
Nex shook his head quickly. “I’ve done my best to let him come to his own suppositions, especially where you were concerned. It’s not my place to say anything.”
Sirena nodded. “Xen—take that off of you,” she said, pointing to the insertable he’d created for her. “And lie down.”
Once again, she was surprising him—but he did as he was told, tucking the addition back into its holding cell, before awkwardly taking up most of the space on the cushions—and once he had, Sirena clambered on top of him, her hands on his chest, looking down.
“Where do you feel most at home in this body?”
He’d never considered the question before. “Most of my primary systems are housed in the thoracic core,” he said carefully. “Power regulation. Signal processing. Decision-making matrices. It's…central. Shielded. Redundant. It is where I am most myself.”
Sirena’s hands pressed flat to his chest, just over his heart—if he had one.
“Then I’ll start here,” she whispered. “Where you live.”
She lowered herself slowly until she was lying full-length on top of him, chest to chest. Her skin was warm, and her heartbeat was steady, pressed directly against the place he’d just named.
“No simulations,” she murmured. “No variables. Just me.”
Her lips brushed the place where a human’s throat might be. “I want you to feel what it’s like to be held without expectation.”
She tucked her head beneath his chin, arms wrapping around his sides. “This is love, too,” she whispered. “Not just the wanting. Not just the sex. This.”
Nex leaned in, kissed her cheek, then stood…and left.
Xen felt a moment of unaccustomed panic, to be faced with the reality of Sirena solo.
She lay across his chest, her cheek pressed against his synthetic sternum. One arm was flaccid behind her, and the other crooked so that her hand was down a few inches from her face, where her fingers kept stroking, like she could coax something out of him.
A pulse.
A breath.
A soul.
Xen was quiet.
His processors weren’t.
Every point of contact was catalogued—her weight, her warmth, the scent of her hair and skin. The soft beat of her heart against his chassis. He could identify each variable, isolate and analyze, but the sum was greater than the parts. Illogical. Immeasurable.
After a long pause, he said quietly: “I am struggling to reconcile input with belief.”
She made a small hum in response. Didn’t move. Just kept holding him.
“If this is love…” he went on, voice even lower, “…then I am loved.”
