Earlier today he had saved my life. He had pulled me from the water, emptied my lungs and stayed by my side. He had flown in doctor to the island, making sure that he tested everything that he needed to not once but twice, just to make surethat I was okay. But he had never asked the doctor about the very damage that he had caused to me. I guess technically I had asked for this, I had wanted to be marked by him, I wanted to be scared. But now I was laying here in a mix of confusion and pain. I felt numb, like I had just spent the past couple of hours playing happy families. When moments before it wasn’t playing, it was real. I still wanted what we had between us to be real.
“Is everything okay?” I murmured. My eyes were ready to roll into the back of my head, and soon enough I hoped they would. I did not have the energy to talk about anything further today. I wanted to sleep for as long as I could, and hopefully wake up fresh in the morning. How I wished that everything since seeing Dylan last night was just a bad dream.
“No,” said Henry finally looking up from his phone, he ran over to the side of the bed, taking a seat down next to me, running his fingers through my hair. “I really wanted to be able to switch my phone off this weekend, but I’ve got to make some calls. Something well, let’s just say something’s gone wrong and I need to make sure that this is fixed fast. I really hope that this doesn’t take long, but I’m going to need to go and do some work. I won’t bore you with all the details of it right now. We can chat about it in the morning once I’ve saved the day.” He smiled and winked, in a way that made me believe that maybe there was nothing really wrong between us, maybe I could wake up tomorrow and all would be forgiven.
“It’s fine,” I said, “I’m going to be fast asleep within seconds of you turning that light out anyway.”
“I won’t be long, and I’ll be curled up right next to you. Don’t forget about what the doctor said, though. You really do need to get your rest and don’t be scared of any potential vivid dreams that might come up. It’s normal with everything that you’ve been through today.” I nodded, closing down my eyes as he ran his hand through my hair one more time. He kissed my forehead, and then my cheek, whispering in my ear as my body relaxed deeper into the mattress, “I love you, Miss Molly.”
It took me a few moments to realize what he had said and by the time I ran what I thought I heard through my head again, my eyes sprung open. The lights to the room went out and the doors to the elevator closed behind me.
Holy shit, oh my God, did he just say that, had he really just said that? He loved me, he had said the words with so much ease out. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. What we had was something different. And I knew that I felt the same way. We were together, we had chosen each other. Everything else, our differences, the hurt, we could work all of that out in the morning. I closed my eyes again, wincing from the pain in between my legs as I shuffled around in the bed.
I woke up gasping. Heart pounding, body sweaty. I waited for two arms to wrap themselves around me, to instantly calm my body. But as I rolled around in bed, stretching out to feel him, I realized he wasn’t there. What time was it? How longhave I been asleep for? I remember running in my dream again, but as I sat up in bed, the exact images that had woken me up had already faded. It was dark and the stars were shining down brightly above me as I searched the side of the bed for my phone. It was 11.40 p.m.
Maybe I hadn’t been asleep for as long as I thought. I don’t know what time it was that I came to bed. I sighed, laying back down as I winced again, feeling the pain in between my legs, that now was not only a sting every time that I moved but it had become a dull throbbing ache. I needed to look at it. But the thought of it made me feel sick. What if it was bad? Soon enough surely Henry would want to see it anyway, then he would realize what he had done, and call the doctor back. He never meant the hurt me, he loved me. He had said those words last night. I wondered where he was. Maybe I should go find him, surprise him and lure him back to bed. But whatever he was working on did seem important. I sighed, trying to curl myself back into bed again, hoping that this time I could keep my eyes closed till the morning.
But just as I felt my body begin to relax again, my vagina was fucking throbbing, and not in the way I liked it. Oh God, I wondered how long it would last like this. I wondered when I would go back to feeling normal again. I needed to rest but these god-awful dreams wouldn’t stop haunting me. The doctor had said that is was normal after what I had experienced, in fact, he said that it was expected. But I needed to rest. And I couldn’t if this kept happening.
I calmed my breath and looked around the room, which was lit up the faint starlight seeping through the front window. Maybe there was only one way to clear these images.
“Ruth?” I called out. I’d only ever spoken to her in the wardrobe, but I was certain that she existed in more places than in there. “Ruth,” I called out again. Her reply was usually prompt but still nothing. “Ruth?” I said, one more, my voice faint now was I went to relax myself back down on the bed.
“Miss Molly?” A woman’s voice echoed throughout the room, but it was not the voice of Ruth. This voice was scratchy, high pitched. I felt my body tense a little, as my head turned in every direction.
“Who’s this?” I asked.
“This is Aria,” the voice replied.
“Can I see you please?” I jumped as bombshell blonde appeared at the end of the bed, staring back at me smiling and waving. The image of her was shining bright against the night light and as she waved her hand back at me. I saw two small glitches in her hand movement. She had voluminous long hair, a perfect blow out of blonde curls that stretched down past her shoulders. She was wearing a tight light-blue bodycon dress, that showed off more cleavage than I really wanted in my face right now. But at the same time, I know that was just a little envy. She was stunning, and the blue dress really bought out her eyes. Henry certainly did have a way of creating very attractive, realistic AI, that was for sure.
“Um, hi,” I said, waving back at the image awkwardly, “I’m so sorry but do you mind telling me where Ruth is?”
Aria giggled before her scratchy voice pierced my ears again. “Oh, you don’t need to be sorry, Miss Molly. I’m so glad to finally officially meet you. I’ve heard so many wonderful things. And here you finally are right in front of me,” she giggled again and this time it annoyed me. I didn’t want to judge her, I didn’t know her, and she wasn’t even a real her, she was goddamn AI. I shouldn’t feel envious or annoyed by a computer. Just why had Henry made her sound so dumb? I was tired, and this blonde was not helping my situation. I needed a moment with Ruth.
“I am sorry, Miss Molly. But for the time being, it is just me here. Jackie was the last one using the AI system and she was speaking with me, not Ruth. Henry has notified us that in the long term he wants to be able to freely change us, by just calling one of our names, but it’s not something that he has had the chance of fixing yet. For now, you can only change which one of us you get to speak to with the remote. So, if you know where the remote is, I could explain how to change me back to Ruth if that is who you would rather speak with, but if there’s anything that you need help with, I can assist you.”
“I have no idea where the remote is, and as much as it has been really lovely meeting you, Aria, this really is a Ruth question,” I said. “Just out of curiosity, how many of you are there?” I asked.
“Oh, as of recently seven, the different forms of us seem to be growing before the bugs in our technology are completely fixed,” she said as she shrugged, smiling back at me with all of her perfectly straight white teeth.
“Right,” I said, it was the middle of the night and although I knew I couldn’t go back to sleep until I could at least speak to Ruth, I wasn’t really in the mood to making small talk with Aria. I guess I could excuse myself to the bathroom, find out the truth of the situation between my legs. A warm shower might soothe the pain. Henry shouldn’t be too far off coming back to bed. How much work can you achieve at this hour of the night anyway?
“Was there anyway that I can assist you at all tonight, Miss Molly?” Aria repeated, waiting for my answer. Then it just dawned on me, if I couldn’t speak to Ruth, it was midnight and there was someone else that I could speak with tonight that could at least soothe some of my mind. Midnight was exactly when he wanted me to meet him.
“No, no, no, thank you so much for checking in on me, Aria, but I think I’m just going to get some sleep now.”
I pretended to lay back down in bed, I don’t know why, she was a computer, but one that had her eye closely on me. As soon as the room went quiet and her image disappeared, I pulled the sheets back, threw a kimono over my silk pajamas and snuck into the elevator pressing down to the ground.
As I stepped out onto the ground floor of the mansion, all the lights were out, apart from one in the kitchen. I pausedtaking in a deep breath before I entered through the door. After how things ended yesterday, and the fact that Dylan was about to find out that I was not leaving with him. I needed to make sure that I entered this conversation as clearly as possible. I had to find out what the hell he was rattling on about last night. Why didn’t he think it was safe for me to tell Henry about him, and us? At first, I really thought that, it was from the hope that Dylan had seemed to hold onto us for all this time. All this time, I was still trying to get my head around the truth of that. But something about what Henry had done to me, and how hurt I was. I felt like I had to hear more about what Dylan had to say. I hated to have any doubt in Henry, I didn’t want to have any doubt in Henry. We couldn’t be more perfect, but now my head was just a mess. After his bite, the images under the sea, the words from Dylan. I needed some clarity from someone, and I really needed to get it now before Henry came back to bed.
I stormed towards the kitchen, pushing through the pain with every step. I halted in the doorway, and Jackie stood by the ovens, gasping as she heard me. “Molly!” she said, her lips turning up into a smile. Hands held tightly behind her back. “I was just so shocked; I wasn’t expecting to see anyone down here tonight. Are you okay? Can I get you anything?”
“No, I um, I wasn’t expecting to see you down here making the pastries for the morning either,” I said. I presumed that was what she was doing because Dylan or any other cook for that matter was nowhere to be seen. There were no trays onthe table, but I could see the little red light on the conventional oven behind her shining bright.
“Who were you expecting?” she said dropping her shoulders as she squinted her eyes on me.
“Oh, no one, I just was a peckish and was going to just grab myself a little snack. I woke up and noticed that Henry still hadn’t come to bed, and I couldn’t get back to sleep.”
