Page 26 of The Love You Hate
I close my eyes and hold my breath as she yanks off the heart rate monitors and takes out my IV. I make a joke about going to space, because it is what it feels like sometimes, and she smiles meekly, barely meeting my eyes. I am butt-ass naked, but that doesn’t register as weird to me anymore. The doctor has not had sexuality systemically flushed from her system, I realize. It’s weird for her. “That’s great. One step closer to the goal.” The doctor nods, then steps out of my way, holding up my gray robe. The lab robe. We all wear them when we’re in testing. Medical. Mental. Sexual. We’re gray, muscular lab rats. “Should I report to Coldren’s office then?” I always speak with him after a session. It’s a skewed psych session where he pours over every detail of my time in the chamber.
She nods, tucking her brown hair behind her ear. “Yes. He’s waiting for you now. In testing room C.” I set off without another word. It’s obvious I’m making her uncomfortable. I know when I’ve arrived to the corridor of the doctor’s offices because it becomes warm, cozy even. The crisp cold air of the lab vanishes. I open the door with one big palm, and swing into the room. He’s at his desk, a scan of some sort in one hand and his finger and thumb on his other hand clutching his chin. Coldren’s deep in thought as I approach his steel, no-nonsense desk.
He looks at me over the rim of his glasses. “Nate. Good session. I watched in real time today.” Well, that’s kind of fucking creepy, but isn’t that his job?
“I’m done? Safe to be let loose in the wild without a bleeding heart?” I’m half joking, but that’s the root of it. Eradicate the emotion attached to the opposite sex and sex in general. “The proctor doc said she thought it might be my last session.” Stealing my nerves for what comes next, I sit in the dark leather chair in front of his desk. It always smells like some kind of furniture polish and it deviates starkly from the nothingness scents of the lab.
“I think it might,” he says. “Tell me. How did it feel today? How was it different from last time two days ago?” He’s diving right in.
Swallowing, I fold my hands in my lap, wiggling my toes in the black scuffs they give us to walk around in. “I felt nothing, Coldren.” I meet his eyes. “Absolutely nothing. Nothing triggered a lewd thought this time. That’s how it’s different. She, I mean, the image, could have been a concrete wall for all that my mind took into account.”
His silver brows knit together. “You didn’t think of Raya once? There was a brief segment that showed up elevated on the heart rate report.” He squints his eyes at something on his computer screen I can’t see. “But nothing too consequential. Really, nothing at all.”
“I didn’t think of her.” I can’t say her name. Then I might think of her and then I’ll be in this training program longer. “There was literally nothing when I was watching the mannequin on the screen.” When the dummy ex-girlfriend appears, she’s clothed, but still scantily clad. She then dives into a thirty-minute escapade of taking off her clothing, teasing between her legs with her fingers, and ends with fucking herself with a dildo while using my name. Even her voice sounds familiar. “There was nothing this time. As I admit it, thinking of what I just sat through, I realize how odd that is. As a man, I rolled in here thinking about sex, at minimum, twenty times a day. The sight of a female doctor taking off her lab coat was enough to trigger a subconscious sexual thought. Now, there’s nothing. It’s almost as if it’s been erased.
Coldren smiles, shaking his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. We have literally deprogrammed you. They didn’t think it was possible.” He chuckles. “The perfect robots. We can erase the strongest emotion from the strongest men in the entire world.”
My stomach sinks. That statement makes me double back. “One day in the future, when it’s important to have, uh, all that stuff back, you’ll be able to fix me back to factory settings, right?”
His gaze darts up from the screen. “Of course.” Lie. That was training I finished long ago. I’m a human lie detector. He should know better, out of all people.
I ignore it in favor of trying to get what I want right now. The future is so far away. “Am I ready for assignment, then?”
He nods, eyes alight. “I think you are.” The doctor signs off on the magic yellow sheet of paper, but then looks up at me. “Any other urges outside of the chamber? Masturbation?”
I shake my head. “None. Your perfect little robotsoldier.” He knows this already. We’re watched near constant. Even while we shower and shit. They know if our bowels aren’t regular, damn straight they know if we’ve been choking the chicken in the “privacy” of our own room. I leave his office for my quarters, and sink into a dreamless, detached sleep.
****
Presley groans from the sofa,and I realize I’ve let my thoughts wander and my guard slip. Breathing heavy, I verify I don’t have any new emails, tuck my laptop under my arm and return to her. She’s half hanging off thelove seat, her head is off and her hair dragging on the linoleum floor, mouth open as she snores. Her shirt has ridden up, exposing the bottom swell of her breast. Gently,I take her into my arms and bring her to the bedroom. As I lay her on the bed,her eyes flutter open, just for a second.
Presley’s sleepy smile stabs at me. A thrill, followed by a chill, and then she speaks. “Oh, my gosh. You’re finally taking me to bed. My dreams have come true.”
What do you know? My fucking cock responds with a brisk salute. I am so fucked.
