Page 17 of The Genius
“I’m just curious if there’s going to be different skin tones, hair colors, height, and all that.”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you modeled after a real woman?”
“Yes.”
“Not a living one, I hope?”
“Why?”
I thought it was self-explanatory, but still answered. “Because who would want to have a sex-bot made in your image? In case the poor woman ever came to the Northlands, every man here would associate her with a whore.”
Her large brown eyes blinked before she got out of the bed. “On behalf of management, I thank you for taking the time to test me. Your input is valued.”
“Hey, wait a minute. You said you didn’t have any testers after me, so why can’t I spend more time with you? I would love to go a few more rounds. Maybe you could pretend to be my wife or something. I would like that.”
“I’m afraid your request to spend the night with me has been declined.” Natura kept dressing herself, with her back to me.
“Note to designer. You’ve got to work on the post-sex behavior of the model. Her voice has gone back to flat and she seems dismissive, like she wants me gone. That’s not going to entice clients at whorehouses to wanna come back.”
Natura put on her clothes and sandals and walked to the door. Her long shiny brown hair flicked back when she gave me a last look over her shoulder and exited the door.
Why the hell did I feel like I’d hurt a dead thing? That shouldn’t be possible. Sex-bots were flirtatious and fun. None of them expressed emotions except lust and joy.
Whatever the engineers had cooked up in their laboratory this time, it came with a scary side effect. That Natura machine was real enough to make you feel things, and it confused the hell out of me.
CHAPTER5
Dumb Genius
Shelly
For someone with a sky-high IQ I was unbelievably stupid. For eight days now, I’d been trying to make sense of my crazy behavior.
I slept with Marco.
I actually slept with Marco.
Hundreds of times, I’d repeated the words in my head, but they still felt unreal to me.
I’d seen enough Nmen having sex to know that it reduced otherwise sensible people to nature-driven horny primates.
But the sounds I had made when I was with him. The way I had moaned and arched my body. I closed my eyes.
It was the most embarrassing thirty minutes of my life.
It was the most amazing thirty minutes of my life.
I was unable to connect the person I’d become in that room with Marco to how I saw myself.
Shameful over my behavior, and shocked that I’d allowed him to come inside me, I blamed myself again and again.
Regretting it.
Not regretting it.
Regretting it again.
