by Raletha
In which Trowa makes and overture, and Quatre makes a decision.
I stared at the photograph. I imagined myself the centre of that attention—the admiring hands and the accompanying soft, flattering murmurs. I imagined myself detached from it—the flattery—and yet pleased by it. Satisfied maybe, my vanity indulged by this wanton exhibition.
It was a nice fantasy, but, no, I was probably one of the tuxedos. One of the admirers, stifled by formality, wanting what was just out of his grasp, just beneath the barrier of his gloves: perfection.
"I don't know," I said to Trowa; I glanced from his face back to the painting. Maintaining eye contact with Trowa unnerved me still. "Neither, maybe. Or both."
"Would you enjoy me like this?" asked Trowa. He turned back to the painting, bent, and placed a finger upon the glass, over the nude man in the domino mask.
Heat washed my brain. I felt it, the pressure of it, under my skull. It made me dizzy.
"I don't know," I said, but I wondered if I did know, somewhere I did not want to acknowledge. The flutter of my blood, descending deep in my belly, told me I knew something.
"Quatre," Trowa said and turned once more to face me. His expression was both serious and entreating. "You've had me for a week."
"Yes," I acknowledged with a nod. My voice barely rose above a whisper. My heart skipped its next beat, or so I imagined.
The android glanced down, an illusion of demureness. Then he tilted his head and peered at me from behind his hair. "My capacity to learn is optimal now. I want to learn more about you."
"You are learning about me," I said. To my own ears I sounded defensive.
"More than this," Trowa said. The androids pupils appeared dilated now, as if his desire were real. As if he could actually be attracted to me.
As if he even had a choice in the matter, I thought bitterly. "This can be enough for now," I said. I hoped it could be. Was the android meant to pressure me?
"Perhaps you misunderstand me," Trowa said, "It's important for me, for my purpose. If I'm to become an ideal lover for you, then I need to learn about your body as well as your mind." He tilted his head and smiled at me again, a different, darker smile. "I want to learn how to pleasure you, Quatre."
I could not reply, not to such a direct declaration. I turned away from Trowa and looked at the open closet door, wishing I were on the other side. It was too close here in the closet. Too hot and stifling. Trowa said he wanted. How could Trowa want anything. It was an absurd declaration. I closed my eyes and reminded myself he was an illusion. No matter how clever he seemed, he was silicon and electrons. There was no awareness, no desire there, only a very sophisticated simulation.
The rustle of cloth came behind me: Trowa putting the photograph back with the others, I surmised. This would be over soon. I took the few steps to the open closet door.
"Quatre?" Trowa's voice halted me. I put my hand on the doorjamb and pressed my forehead to the back of my hand. What now?
"Yes, Trowa?"
"Please turn around and look at me."
I inhaled and exhaled. The lateness of the hour yawed within my mind, and I was grateful for the doorjamb, helping me to stay upright. I inhaled more deeply, held the breath, and then turned with an equally deep sighing exhalation.
Trowa had removed his clothes. All of them.
He stood posed like the man in the photograph, arms overhead. He was even more perfect. All of him, perfect, right down to... my gaze fell between his legs... to his perfect, intact (and thankfully flaccid) artificial penis.
"Do you find me beautiful?"
"Yes," I said, barely audible. I could not lie.
He twisted his waist a little, stretched a little. A tiny smile tugged the edge of his mouth. "Do you find me erotic as well?"
This time I could only nod.
"Do you wish to touch me?"
My first thought in response to that was that I could not touch him, for I was not wearing gloves.
I was too tired for this. Too oversaturated mentally, emotionally, and now physically. The burn from my head had infected my whole body, burrowed under my skin. I moved back toward Trowa and bent to pick up his shirt from the floor.
"Yes," I said. "I want to touch you." I handed him the satin shirt. He held it without making any move to put it back on. "But I don't want to."
"I don't understand. You contradicted yourself."
"It's called ambivalence, Trowa. It's wanting two polar things at the same time."
"Why don't you want to touch me?"
"You're not," I sighed, and scrubbed both hands through my hair. I was indeed too tired to speak carefully, so I ended up with candid instead of careful. "Trowa, you're not real."
"I am not unreal." Trowa frowned in a display of mild confusion.
"I mean, you're not a person. You're not human. You don't have feelings and thoughts. Not real ones. You're a machine, Trowa. A self-propelled, artificially intelligent dildo."
No offense registered in Trowa's fine features; he quickly returned to his customary placid and slightly smiling mien. He replied simply, "You knew what I was when you got me." His lack of perturbation reinforced to me that he was not human; a sapient and feeling being would have been hurt. Trowa was unfazed by my words.
"You were a gift. Duo gave you to me," I said.
"I didn't know that," Trowa said softly.
"Please, put your clothes back on. I'm tired, and I want to go to sleep now."
"I apologise, Quatre. I did not mean to upset you."
"I'm fine. It's fine. I'm just tired."
"Yes, Quatre."
Trowa picked up his clothes and left my closet, and then he left my room, shutting the door softly behind him.
I returned to bed, but I did not sleep again soon. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Trowa, standing there nude, asking me if I wanted to touch him. My mind's eye showed me myself touching him: wondering, marveling touches of his perfect skin and his perfect body. Without gloves, without physical barriers of any kind. I was naked too, both of us, and he touched me. He rubbed my neck and my scalp.
At some point the fantasy dissolved into sleep. I woke at my usual time with my brain fuzzy and fatigued.
Breakfast awaited me; Trowa knew my routines well. He had baked the croissants I had left out to thaw overnight. The local French bakery sold me the dough before its second rising. Trowa had also brewed coffee. I sat at the bar, and he passed me an oversized latte—my preference on an empty stomach—a plate with the croissants, butter, and raspberry jam. The newspaper he downloaded from the terminal in the kitchen and passed to me the cell-sheet.
tbc... I scanned the headlines and waited for the coffee to cool.
"How do you feel this morning?"
"Fine," I said, wincing as I straightened my back. The gym was definitely with me today.
"You look tired."
"I didn't sleep well."
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault."
I had my breakfast and my coffee, and wondered what it was I usually did on Sundays. Usually I prepared for Monday, but today I felt lazy and sore and selfish. Instead of my usual shower, I drew a bath and poured rose and sandalwood scented oil into the water stream. While the bath filled, I sought out the book I had bought yesterday, the Asimov robot stories.
Spending my Sunday morning reading in the bath was such an indulgence. I couldn't recall when I'd last done such a thing. It was, I decided, a far better use of my Sunday morning than holing up in the study at my desk for the day.
The hot water immersion eased the aches of my muscles. I worried the steam would damage my book, but I was very careful to keep my hands dry and the book out of the water.
The first story I read was about a boy and his robotic dog. The boy loved his robot dog, and it seemed to the boy that the robotic dog loved him. When his parents replaced the robot dog with a real dog, the boy was heartbroken. He couldn't understand why the 'real' dog was meant to be better than his robot dog. He only wanted the dog he had loved, and who had loved him in return.
'Who' had loved him, not 'that' had loved him it seemed to me. The robot dog was a real entity to the boy.
I set the book aside. It was only a story, and the protagonist was a child. It was easy for children to pretend and play make believe, to experience fantasy as reality, to see life and mind in things where there was none. Personification children did easily and throughout human history. Little girls with their dolls were no different from Asimov's boy and his dog.
But there was another theme at play: when you could not discern a different between a simulation and the real thing, was there truly a difference any longer? There was always that chance that what we experienced as reality was only itself a clever simulation. I could be a brain in jar dreaming an especially vivid dream.
Trowa could be real enough.
Real enough for what? For me? Could I let myself be like a child and pretend with Trowa?
I grimaced at the embarrassment that followed my imagining such a thing. It would be a deliberate deception of my self to allow myself to pretend. I'd never been good at that kind of conscious deception, no matter how self-serving it was. Sex with a machine was crass and bizarre. My temptation was personal weakness only. Trowa reminded me that I was alone. He exploited an insecurity I believed I had eradicated.
I frowned. That had been Duo's intention: to remind me I was alone. I had been content being alone, and I would be again.
When I got out of the bath, I dressed and went to my study. On my terminal I called up the ARI catalogue and paged to their Domestic Series of androids. My interest was tepid. These models were very obviously machines, both in their visual design and their functioning. Did I really need a robot to make my bed, do my laundry, answer my door, cook my dinner? I would still prefer to hire a human, someone who would go home after cleaning my bathroom or making my dinner.
If I returned Trowa, Duo could get a refund. This was well within the first ninety days of purchase. Yes. I would call ARI tomorrow and arrange for Trowa to be returned and for Duo to be reimbursed. It had been a bad idea from the start. I should not have even taken the gift this far, shouldn't have taken the invitation Duo gave me, shouldn't have gone to ARI; I should have declined the gift. Trowa should never even have been built.
I spent the remainder of my Sunday in my study, working.
to be continued...
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