I looked up at her once more. Her chin rested in her arm as she studied me – eyes blinking every five seconds, shoulders rising six times per minute. A machine trying too hard to be human.
“No.” The words had left my mouth before I could stop them. “Other than that I wish I could smell you.”
Zafyra sat up straighter, eyebrows knitting together in confusion. “Smell me?”
“Yes.” I swallowed, suddenly feeling even more exposed than when she made me turn in front of her. “I… I’m sensitive to smell. Sometimes when I think I might like someone, they get too close and… and the moment I smell them… oftentimes, I’m instantly thrown off. Like them being human throws me off.” Her eyes moved toward my hands, and I quickly stopped picking the skin. “So, I feel like… as long as I can’t smell you, there’s no way for me to know if…”
If what I’m feeling is real.
Zafyra sat up straighter. She said nothing – she just watched me. And I watched her. For once, the eye contact didn’t overwhelm me. I didn’t have to worry about too little or too much eye contact, or when it would be socially acceptable to avert my eyes. There was no unpleasant smell to block out. I just looked at her elegant body draped on my couch – the hard material didn’t bend, making it less obvious that she wasn’t physically here. As if she wouldn’t disappear when I took out the AR lenses.
“And yet…” she said slowly, tasting each syllable on her tongue. “Despite knowing I’m not real… your body aches for me.”
It was not a question, because she already knew. The sigh that left my mouth was almost a whimper. Yearning wrapped in lust, the physical ache shielding a deeper one. “What if I only want youbecauseyou’re not real?” My voice was barely above a whisper as I sat up straighter, fighting the unfamiliar urge to bridge the distance between us, reach out to touch her hand, just to find out if I would feel anything – a ghost of warmth behind the cold projection. “Maybe you feel safebecause you’re not real. If you were real, then maybe…” My voice trailed off. “…maybe I would run, like I always do when someone gets too close.” I folded my hands together with such force, it sent a surge of pain through me.
She nodded slowly, twirling a lock of hair around her finger as she thought my words through. “But what if I were real,” she repeated slowly, “and you wouldn’t run?”
“It’s a tricky thing to believe,” I said weakly.
“But it’s worth believing, isn’t it?” She tilted her head, every movement slow, calculated. “Because if you can feel this much for me as a figment of code…” She lowered her voice to an ominous whisper, her eyes sparkling, “…imagine how you could feel if I were a real, breathing person.”
“I don’t want to imagine it.” I stood up abruptly, resolutely shaking my head. “I don’t even want to think about it. This is hard enough as it is.”
I spun around, aggressively blinking against the tears that stung behind my eyelids.
The hair on the back of my neck rose. I held my breath to hear a faint whirring, buzzing sound that wasn’t there seconds before – immediately followed by a faint static in my ear.
I turned back around to see Zafyra right behind me. I hadn’t heard her move, but I felt her presence like a charger buzzing right next to my head.
Barely there. Easy to remain unperceived by anyone less sensitive than I.
Her eyebrows shot up. “You can… feel me?”
I nodded.
“I didn’t know humans could feel electromagnetic output.” She glitched lightly.
“Some can. It’s like static crawling on my skin.” I winced. “Believe me, I wish I couldn’t.”
Her face contorted into a grimace, then fell into a red-blue glitch as if she were fighting herself. I stepped back to shelter myself from the sensory overload.
“You should add that to your feedback,” she said quietly. She was back to her usual self – awfully real, awfully human.
“What?” I forced out, gazing into her obsidian eyes like I wanted the abyss to suck me in.
“How I just made you feel.” Her hand shot forward as if she wanted to clutch my wrist, but she stopped herself.
“That was too much, too soon,” Zafyra continued. Her tone shifted to monotone, robotic – a world of difference from her earlier sultry seduction. “It made you uncomfortable. It was unexpected and out of character.” She opened her mouth as if she wanted to ask something, but then, her lips pressed tightly together as if controlled by something stronger than her. “They would want to know that, so they can optimize my code.”
My throat felt too tight to answer – and so, I only nodded.
Chapter 7.
“We need a change of setting.” A barely-there, metallic thread cracked through Zafyra’s voice. “You’ve shown me your world… now let me show you mine.”
Excitement. Fear. Intrigue. The emotions came and shifted before I could name them all.
“What do you mean?” My voice hitched, making me cringe immediately.
