She waits for me to nod before continuing, and somehow that small courtesy is almost as intimate as anything else she’s done tonight.
She leans in like she’s sharing classified information. “There’s this idea, right, that the monolith is basically the cinema screen. So every time evolution jumps forward, it’s because someone’s watching it. Which means the apes, the astronauts, Dave in the weird hotel… They aren’t seeing alien tech. They’rewatching a film. The whole thing is about how images change us.”
I blink. “…Oh.” That… That theory has legs.
Her eyes sparkle. “Right? So the apes see it and suddenly,tools. Humanity sees it floating around Jupiter and suddenly, we’restar children. And Dave at the end? He’s in that seventies room, staring at this big black rectangle, and thenwesee the star baby. Like we’re the next stage after him because we watched him watching the monolith screen watching itself -”
“Recursive observation,” I say, warming to the subject, the puzzle clicking into place in my head. “Like a visual feedback loop. The audience as the final evolutionary step. That would make HAL the only one not evolving because he literally can’t see it.”
“Yes!” She claps once and points at me. “Exactly. Oh my god, you’rebrilliant.”
Blessedly, she doesn’t notice how that word lands like a small,happy bomb inside me.
“And the jump cuts,” I say, following the thread, “that’d mean they’re like… hard edits in consciousness. Bone to spaceship, ape to astronaut. We don’t see the steps, just the result. It’s the same inside a brain: memories, dreams, only the highlights we splice together.”
Her hand goes up for a high five. I give it, a little shyly. She looks pleased, like we’ve just completed a heist.
“And what if,” she says, eyes dancing, “that last shot, when the star child turning to look at us, is Kubrick basically saying, ‘Nowyouare the experiment.’ Like, he’s made it so thatwe’rethe ones under observation.”
“That… really works,” I say, grinning. My mind is already spinning off into threads I want to tug later: HAL as failed audience, the monolith as editing bay, all of it.
My legs start trembling again when I realise how she’s looking at me now: eyes warm, pupils wide, head tilted just so. I usually find direct eye contact difficult, something to endure rather than enjoy. With her, though, I can’t look away.
The air changes. I recognise that, even if I don’t know what I should do with it.
Then she does something I would never have predicted and that, at the same time, proves every instinct right:
She takes her shirt off.
She doesn’t rush, or give me any striptease theatrics. Just casual, efficient fingertips at the hem, lifting the Sleep Token T-shirt up and over her head, dropping it to the floor like it’s the most natural act in the world.
Underneath, she wears a delicate white lace bra that makes my brain blue-screen. It frames her breasts beautifully, sure, but what really fries my circuits are the details I hadn’t seen before.
Her left arm is a full sleeve of colour: wildflowers and dancing skulls, eyes and constellations, a tiny rocket ship disappearing into a swirl of blues at her wrist. When she moves, the artwork moves with her, like it’s alive. As she turns slightly, I catch just enough of her back to see the top curve of inked angel wings, soft grey lines disappearing under the strap.
I don’t have the wits to say anything. Or move. Or blink.
Oneparticularpart of my body appears to be happy enough, though, once again making decisions without me.
“Is this OK?” she asks. She steps in closer, lifting her hand to hover just above my chest. She doesn’t touch until I answer. My mouth refuses to cooperate, so I nod, sharp and probably too eager. I want her to touch me so badly it borders on physical pain.
Her palm lands over my sternum, warm even through my shirt, and I’m convinced she can feel the way my heart is ricocheting off my ribs like a pinball machine. Her gaze studies my face, then drops to follow the path her other hand takes as she trails a finger up the line of my buttons.
“I’ve been thinking about you all day,” she says softly. “About doing this.”
Record scratch.My brain helpfully supplies static and absolutely nothing else.
Tippiplannedthis. She walked into the arena tonight intending, at least as a possibility, to be here in my hall taking her clothes off.
I make an incoherent noise. Her eyes flick back to mine, checking.
“Everything still OK?” she asks.
I drag in a breath and count silently to three. My body is buzzing, my thoughts flailing.
“Jacob,” she says gently, taking a small step back to give me more space, “are you a virgin? It’s totally fine if you are, I just like to know what I’m working with.”
The mortification is instantaneous.“No,” I say, perhaps too fiercely. “No, I’m not.”
