Page 16 of Elanie & the Empath
“No.” Slowly, as if realizing that her reaction might have been extreme, she let go of my shirt, smoothing out the fist-shaped wrinkles she’d left behind. Which meant she smoothed her delicate fingers over my chest. Which meant she was touching me, silently, while we stared into each other’s eyes. And when that happened, my heart lurched, my throat bobbed, and despite my best efforts to keep it from happening, somethingtwitched.
I was going to hell. Abadhell. Probably the one where I’d be slowly digested in the belly of a leviathex for all eternity. And I’d deserve it.
Stepping away from me to climb back onto the table, she crossed her arms over her chest and said, “You must have a diagram or something, right? A picture in a medical text? Something safe?”
“No, I don’t have a diagram in the office. But I could…” Spinning around, I reached for my pen and paper again, fumbling the pen so hard it flipped off the counter and clattered onto the floor.
“You dropped your pen,” she said unnecessarily.
“I know.” Bending down to pick up the pen, using the moment to take a deep, steadying breath, I said, “I just… I need a second.”
I kept my back to her. I didn’t think I could draw what I intended to draw if she was watching me. If I could draw it at all. Because the second I touched the pen to the paper, I forgot what it looked like. Completely. Collecting myself, I yanked the image back into my mind, but my hand was shaking, my lines jagged and wobbly, my perspective all wrong. Ripping my first attempt off the pad, I crumpled it into a ball and tossed it into the flash incinerator.
“Do you need help?” Elanie asked.
Yes, loads of it.
“One moment,” I said over my shoulder. Bowing to my task, I drew two curving lines that intersected the top and bottom, an opening in the middle, and that magical little bud at the tip, that anatomical bundle of sensation, that perfect, swollen, needy little—fuck me, I was losing it.
Trying everything short of slapping my own face to pull myself together, I stood back and stared at my diagram. It was nothing to hang in the galleries on deck twenty-five, but it would do.
Holding the drawing up to my chest, I turned around and presented it to her.
Squinting at my masterpiece, she frowned as her head tilted to the side. “What is that?”
“It’s a vagina,” I stated. “Well, a vulva, technically.”
“That’swhat it looks like down there?”
Some truly unfortunate whimper came out of me. If mydrawing had been a white flag, I would have waved it. “You don’t know? Have you never looked?”
She shook her head with vigor.
“But you must have some basic understanding, right? Don’t you have hyper-speed access to every single gigabyte of data that has ever existed on the Shared Bionic Network?”
“You think the SBN contains information about sex?” She actually laughed. “Bionics are programmed for efficiency, Dr. Semson. We use and analyze data that is relevant to our professional duties. We prioritize tasks by importance. Curiosity about my anatomy and how it worked, until recently, ranked slightly below how to braid an oorthorse’s mane.” A corner of her mouth pinched while she looked at her pants again. “Besides, I don’t even know how that would work as a female. I’m flexible, but not that flexible.”
“You could use a mirror,” I suggested tightly. “It’s a simple way to see everything. To learn more about that part of your body. Since it seems”—I met her stare—“importantto you now.”
She was silent for a moment, thinking, processing maybe? Then she pointed at the drawing still clutched against my chest and said, “Show me.”
As a sharp lump formed in my throat, I turned my attention back to my diagram. “These here”—I traced a surprisingly steady finger over the outer curving lines—“are your labia. Your outer labium is here, and an inner labium is here.” Pointing to the oval I’d drawn, I said, “This is your vaginal opening. This is where Blake’s penis will fit more comfortably once you have enough lubrication.”
“Go on,” she said, nodding, not blinking, barely breathing. WasIbreathing? Not deeply enough, I realized as my vision went a little hazy around the edges.
Moving my finger up, I stopped at my target, then tapped the paper once. “And this is your clitoris.”
“Clitoris,” she repeated slowly, poetically. At least it sounded poetic to me. “What’s that for?”
“The clitoris is where most females find sexual pleasure,” I said, tapping the paper again.
She gripped the edge of my table and leaned forward. “But it’s so small.”
Small but mighty, I thought.Small buteverything. “The clitoris is incredibly sensitive. When it’s stimulated”—this time I didn’t tap the paper, but I moved my finger in a circle, right over that little bud I’d drawn, the slightly rough texture beneath my fingertip creating a bit of drag—“it can start to feel warm and swollen. It might also feel like a muscle twitching or pulsing, like?—”
“A heartbeat,” she whispered, crossing her legs, squeezing her thighs together.
“Yes,” I whispered back, dying a thousand deaths thinking about her little heartbeat.
