AISHA RETURNED WITH the tray. She said, “She’s a lucky girl.”

“How so?”

“To be thought of like that, the way you think of her. That’s something.”

“How do you know how I think of her?”

“If I couldn’t tell by the look on your face, I’d know by how much effort you put into that.”

Wearily he asked her, “Doesn’t somebody think of you like that?”

“Joel, I’ve been rendered. There’s no reason for anyone to ever think of me again. That way or any other way.”

“Rendered?”

“I was taken out of my body. Put into a bot.”

“This bot.”

“This bot and others. There are eight girls here. Eight girls and twelve bodies. Different personalities, different bodies. We’re mixed and matched. Adapted to an individual visitor.”

“And this is your life now?”

She looked down for a moment. “Yes.” Then her face came back up. “I had a life before. Obviously.” She blinked. Then smiled. “But this was a good opportunity for my family.”

“You have a family?”

“I did. I’d prefer not to talk about that, though. If you don’t mind. Actual emotion is pretty inconvenient.”

Feeling numb, he took a sip of the cold beer. It wasn’t his first taste of bee but, like each time before, he wondered how long it would take to get used to the bitterness.

He asked her, “You’re not drinking?”

“I got it to keep you company. Actually drinking, though, it’s,” she hesitated. “It’s kind of inconvenient.”

“Does it do anything? If you drink?”

She waved a finger. “Nothing good. Only things that involve maintenance.” And she smiled. “Usually I do, but I like you. I’d rather be real with you. Or as real as I can be, at least.”

“You are inside a bot, then?” He was thinking about the Gabriel. About sitting across the table from him. Then being made to stand. Stretch and move. He was thinking that he knew how Aisha might feel. But he realized he didn’t. What he knew was how the bot felt.

The light dropped from her face.

“Kind of. I’m a person, or I was. And now I live inside the bots, as you call them. I inhabit the bot for my work.”

“And this is your work. What you’re doing with me.”

She kept her eyes on him as she nodded.

“And so, will you be reporting back about me to…” he hesitated, “To whoever it is here?”

“No,” but she nodded as she said it. Her eyebrow raised. He understood. Their conversations could be monitored.

She looked at the blank screen. “Did you do you wanted to do?”

He nodded. Then he realized, “You knew…” she held up a hand to stop him. He narrowed his eyes. She motioned for a pen and paper. He shrugged. Quickly she hunted in the drawers. She came up with colored pencils and a drawing pad.

She set the pad on the table in front of him. With a colored pencil she began to write. Her big scrawl was hard to read. Joel was puzzled. H thought she could barely even write. Maybe English wasn’t her first language. Maybe it wasn’t even her first alphabet.

He looked in her face and then he saw. She wasn’t looking at the pad. Her head was turned away so that she couldn’t see it. Writing that way she could communicate with him without being observed.

But, if she didn’t look at the pad, he wouldn’t be able to answer. He couldn’t communicate back to her.

She wrote, ‘Don’t tell me about her. They’re looking for a companion. For you.’ She turned the page to cover it. Then she looked down to see if he had understood.

She looked away again and wrote. ‘You don’t want it to be her.’

She turned the page again to cover what she had written. There was a determination in her eyes as she looked back to him. She tapped her finger on the pad. For emphasis. I don’t want it to be her? he thought. His eyebrows tightened as he shrugged. He shook his head, pleading. Eventually he mouthed, Why not?

Aishas’s eyes blazed. She pointed to herself. Her hands swept down from her face to indicate herself. Her body. He understood.

What Aisha was telling him sank in like a rock falling in dark water. You don’t want it to be her, because then she’ll be like me.

~~

She said, “I have a job to do. Results, you know? I have to deliver satisfaction.”

“Look, I…”

She put a finger to his lips. “It doesn’t have to be that way. Although it still can be if you’d like to.” Her eyes lowered and then batted open at him. “I’d like that.”

“You have to say that, right?”

“I have to say something like it.” She nodded. “But I don’t have to mean it.”

“Now you are just saying that.”

“No.”

He didn’t know what to say.

She shrugged and saved him. “So, ‘satisfaction’?”

He looked at her, puzzled. She said, “Let’s dance.”

“I don’t dance.”

“Good. So.I’ll teach you. It will be good. You’ll like it. I promise.”

Before he found a way to say, ‘No,’ she found music. Nineteen eighties music that he’d forgotten about. A song called Let’s Dance. A rhythm that jerked and slid. Slunk in a way that his body moved. They danced. They moved across the floor. Moved to a space where he felt them flow.

When she put his hands on her hips she sighed. Her eyes sank and burned and he laughed. He thought about moonlight, dancing in moonlight.

With a beat and a glow in her face, she told him, “Feel it. Feel it here.” Her stomach rolled. “I dance. For you. All you do is you appreciate. And demand.” She moved away. “Show me. Show me what you feel.”

He wanted her to drink with him, but he didn’t say it. As his mind relaxed he began to think about all that had happened since he boarded out of school to Honey’s place.

Almost like a blow he felt the beer and the tiredness washed over him, covered him like a wave. Aisha’s hand softened on his stomach. She looked up.

“You need rest, soldier.” Joel blinked. He wasn’t sure about where this would go. She put a finger to his lips. “I’ll take care of you, okay? I’m here to help you rest and relax.” He frowned. She smiled. “Let me do my job.”

She took him into the bathroom and ran the shower. After she slid off his jumpsuit she shrugged out of hers. Underneath she wore a bodystocking. She kept that on as she guided him into the shower and stepped in with him.

In the warm cascade she ran her firm hands over his body to wash him.

As she lathered him she said, “All this, soldier. It’s all you. No implants, no enhancement, no extras. Its all you.” She looked in his eyes. “You’re something. You know that?”

As she moved back to take a look she shook her head. “Lucky girl.”

She toweled him and led him back to the room. “Get up on the table. I’ll give you a proper massage.”

Her hands ran expertly over his body as she oiled him, stretched and pulled his limbs and pressed the kinks out of his muscles. She stood over him and slung his leg over her shoulder. Popped all the joints from his toes to his hip. Next she hauled up the other leg and did the same. Then she rolled his spine and made every vertebra pop.

She massaged his fingers and the whole of his hands and wrists. After his toes she flipped him onto his front and massaged his back, muscle by muscle. After she reached his head, she turned him over again.

His face, his neck and his skull felt like she took him apart and then with perfect skill and precision, put him back together again. Cleaned and refreshed.

A full service massage. She cleaned his body, oiled his skin again, gently rubbing the oil into the pores. She found gentle music, set the lights and brought a cover. When he opened his eyes and his mouth to speak, she put her finger on his lips and closed her eyes.

“You have your job, soldier. I don’t know what it is. It doesn’t matter to me. I have my job. Let me do my job. Okay? For you.”

He didn’t believe he was going to be able to sleep with her voluptuous body anywhere near him. After she covered him with a sheet, she laid her warm body on top it, over him. He heard her whisper, “Lucky girl.”

Her warmth and her steady breathing soothed him away to a deep sleep.

In the morning he awoke alone. He looked around for her. The sweet perfumes of the oils and of her were still with him. He stretched as he got up to shower. He felt an inch taller. And strong. He felt powerful. More than he had ever felt before.

And when he stepped out of the shower, rubbing his hair with the thick white towel, she was there in his room. She had laid out a tray of breakfast for him. She touched his neck and traced the line of his jaw.

“Thank you, soldier.”

Before he could speak, she touched his lips with her finger. Then she stretched up to kiss him on the lips. Just long enough that it ended too soon. And she was gone.

He wondered if she would she be back that night, or if he would survive long enough to find out. But none of that troubled him now.

He had been in a kind of contact with Honey. The talk with the gatekeeper at Hopes’ had encouraged him. People there cared about her. He even thought they might care about him. A bit.

He had a strong feeling about the games. Or the ‘process,’ or whatever it was. Not a good feeling.