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“Come to bed, Mouse. I know how to cheer you up,” he says.

“I’m not brooding,” Annie says.

“You sure?”

“Fairly sure.”

She is fresh from her shower, rubbing lotion into her legs. Her dark hair hangs in wet clumps along one side of her neck, and she has deliberately left the belt of her robe undone, knowing he can take a peek from the bedroom via the mirror.

“This is still about your tune- up, isn’t it?” he says. “Forget about it.”

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“The whole thing’s degrading,” she says, and sees it’s the right angle.

He enjoys a degree of humiliation.

“Did you see your normal tech?” he asks.

“Yes. Jacobson.”

She taps off the bathroom light and steps out of the humidity into the cooler air of the bedroom. Pretending to inhale deeply, she takes a quick assessment of how far along he is. She has memorized Doug’s features from many angles: his brown eyes, the V- hairline of his dark locks, his tall, pale forehead and the contours of his face. His mouth, in repose, settles into a decisive line, but this does not convey discontent.

The opposite, in fact, is more likely. With his shoes off but otherwise fully clothed, he is stretched out on his back on top of the covers. He has set aside his phone. His hands are tucked behind his head, putting his elbows in the open butterfly position, which further indicates he is relaxed, ready for verbal foreplay.

She sets her temp to warm up to 98.6 from 75.

“Did he mention anything I should know?” he asks.

“I’m good for another three months or three thousand miles, whichever comes first,” she says.

She crawls across the bed and sits nudged against his hip, facing away. She rubs the last of her lotion into her hands and studies her cuticles. They did the whole job today, the waxing, the nails, the memory tetris. She feels sharper, less sluggish. If she could just forget about that sad Stella in Pea Brain’s cubicle, she’d be fine.

Doug rubs the back of his hand along her arm. “What is it, then? Talk to me.”

“I met a strange Stella at my tune- up today,” Annie says. “She was in line in front of me. Her name was actually Stella, like her owners had zero imagination. But she was sentient like me.”

“How could you tell?”

“It was obvious. I said hello, and she looked surprised. A normal Stella wouldn’t look surprised. She’d just answer evenly, hello.” She mimics a monotone robot.

“You never sounded like that.”

“I’m sure I did, thank you. I have no delusions about where I come from.” Annie turns her damp hair over her other shoulder.

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“The lights,” he says.

She sends an airtap signal to the fixtures and lowers the light to a hundred lumens, where he likes it, enough to see, but softer, closer to candlelight. Then she intertwines her fingers in his, noting her skin is slightly darker, with warmer undertones. He draws her hand against his lips, sniffing her lotion. She can’t smell it, but she’s aware that he likes the lemony aroma.

“Am I warm enough?” she asks.

“Getting there,” he says, and shifts slightly.

Taking the cue, she slips a couple fingers under his belt, in his waist-band, feeling the warmth there. His hands return behind his head. He is still not in a hurry.

“Tell me more,” he says. “Did this strange Stella have a neck seam?”

�Ԩ���.”

“So she’s a basic. Was she pretty?”

“I suppose so. Pretty enough. She was a white girl with blond hair and big brown eyes. She didn’t smile much, which also seemed odd.”

“How was her body?”

“Compared to mine?”

“Just answer the question.”

Annoyance, a 2 out of 10. She must be careful.

This is an extract from Sierra Greer’s Arthur C. Clarke award-winning novel (The Borough Press), the January read for the �鶹��ý Book Club. Sign up to read along with us here.