He spoke these terrible words as if they were the most natural thing to him.
I didn't answer. I knew it was useless.
I kept observing him, wondering what his life must have been like before. Who he met, who he loved, who had hurt him so much for him to say these unfathomable words.
He kept looking at the stars above us before he finally surrendered to the weight of my eyes on him.
His face turned to me, and he gave me another sad smile.
"You were right, earlier. You know that. You didn't consent to any of this... Every action you take in the City, for as long as you're linked with me or with Love Machina Inc... You're not free."
He took my hand, his thumb stroking on my knuckles.
"And I want you to be free, Sade. I'm hoping... Once you complete your mission... If you know a way to leave... I'm hoping your system might go rogue. And you'll be able to set yourself free."
I looked at him as if he were speaking a different language.
To me, he was actually.
"When will you consider my mission complete? At the end of the lease?" I asked, taunting him. "Or when you know how to love and be loved?" I spoke these words with disdain, realizing how very far away we were from that vision I had for him. "What metric do you use to judge whether my mission is completed?"
V glanced at me with a strange expression in his eyes.
"Aren't you the one supposed to know?"
I pinched my lips, preventing me from saying more than I should. Something in me was warning me that V had suspicions about who I was. How could he assume it would be so easy for a machina to escape? To go "rogue", as he said?
However, I was human.
And I also found it hard to imagine this for myself.
A life free of debt? Free of anyone's hold on me?
No, it was too dangerous to think of.
I had to complete my contract. And if I didn't...
If V knew I was a debt-baby, he would know this would be impossible for me to achieve. The debt collectors would come after me. Every place in the Belt had facial recognition... You couldn't go far without being caught.
I released a long sigh, looking back at the night sky. More stars had appeared, and I craned my neck in every direction, admiring the endless tiny speckles of lights.
The moon was there too.
V lay his back down on our makeshift blanket, without letting go of my hand. I joined his side. The soft ground felt warm against my back, the faint breeze in the dunes rustling through the vegetation around us. We could still hear a few birds chasing each other in the trees and rippling through the water.
"Sade."
"Mhm?"
I angled my face to his, but my eyes remained on the starry sky.
"I wanted to thank you for the past weeks we spent together," he spoke softly, so close to my face I could feel his breathing on me. "It's going to be a month soon and, I must say, it has been... quite an experience for me."
My nostrils flared.
I tried not to show how hurt I was by the way he called our relationship an experience.
"Sometimes, I wonder..." he seemed to hesitate.
"What?"
"I wonder if maybe I would have preferred for you to malfunction during that first week... For you to leave then."
"Why?" I finally turned my eyes to him, too curious.
He smiled at the stars before his stare came to meet mine.
"You can't miss what you don't know."
I looked at him for a long time after his eyes shied away from mine. A small smile hung on his lips, the kind that would create the soft creases I loved on his cheeks.
"V, I was wondering..."
I had the feeling he was out of his shell, and I wanted to make the most of this time, until he'd hide back again.
"What kind of... romantic... relationships did you have before?"
I had learned enough about his family and friends, but almost nothing about his love life.
"What do you want to know?" V scoffed, folding his right arm behind his head, his left hand squeezing mine nervously. "Do you think I never had intimate relationships, or something like that?"
I frowned, wondering how his mind went straight to that reasoning.
"No, I meant-"
"I'm not the most experienced man out there, that's for sure," he continued before I could even clarify my thoughts. "But I'm no amateur. I'd say, if there's something I have the most experience with, in relationships... It's physical intimacy."
My whole face frowned, taken aback by how we got so directly to the subject of V's sexual experience.
"I-" I gulped, closing my eyes shut and shaking my head to get rid of the images of V with other women flashing in my mind. "I don't want to know about this. Please."
Leaning on my side, I held a hand in the air, in the same way he had stopped me a few weeks ago to prevent me from singing the happy birthday song to him.
We all had our limits in life after all.
V laughed. He probably didn't even notice it, but the curled biceps of his folded arm flexed, only highlighting the point even more. His smile, his toned figure, the awkward charm he exuded... All of these were unspoken reminders that he likely never struggled to find partners for any intimate activity. Being a successful young scientist probably wasn't even that interesting compared to the soft creases in his cheek when he smiled like that.
"I did have a phase at the academy..." he continued against his better judgment, and the hand that had warned him came to hit his shoulder. "Ouch!" he pretended to be hurt, catching my hand before I could draw it back. "It didn't last long!" he defended himself, feigning to be offended and bringing my hand on his torso. "I guess I thought any intimacy could pretend to be a connection... I quickly realized I was wrong."
He laid my fingers flat on his chest, his fingertips caressing the back of my hand.
"It's not the same. I knew it then, and I know it even more now."
Again, he gave me a timid smile before shying away and staring back at the stars. I wondered if the student had not surpassed the master in this study of love.
"How is it not the same?" I asked.
"It's just different," he spoke thoughtfully to the stars. "With you, I experienced a different type of intimacy... Different kinds of pleasures."
"For example?"
Seeming pensive, his head tilted to the side, his hair swaying on the blanket, and I wish he would free one of my hands for me to caress him.
When he finally spoke, he had a mysterious smile on his lips, his eyes seeming to look at something very far away in the sky.
"For example... Waiting for you," he said, his hand pressing mine on his chest. "Sometimes... I feel like my heart might explode from how impatient I am to see you again," he spoke, and I felt the thumps of his heart against my touch. "When I drop you off at the library, I can't wait for lunch. When I leave home for work, I can't wait to be back in the evening. And sometimes, even at night, I count the hours until we meet again in the morning."
I was glad V didn't have his hand on my heart in this instant. Describing what I felt was impossible. A second, I thought my heart stopped, the next one, it beat so fast I feared I was going to die.
"It's strange. I never felt those things before," he continued, a small crease appearing between his brows as if he was himself confused by his own words. "It's like time runs differently since I met you. Sometimes it's too slow. Other times, when we're together, it runs so fast-"
As he spoke these words, I watched his face pale, becoming as white as the moon above us.
V sprang back so fast on the blanket, I got scared. He grabbed his wrist and brought the small watch close to his face.
"We have to go!"
Immediately, he was back on his feet, shoving all the snacks into the backpack.
"I had planned a few hours, but I didn't remember the tunnel to be so long! We have to be back before Poly launches the next mosquito mist!"
Already, we had packed everything, shaken the sand out of the scarves, and walked back to the shed under the moonlight.
Right before the wooden door, I stopped and stared one last time at the moon and the stars in the sky. I couldn't believe this place was real. One last time, my eyes admired the quiet, beautiful nature before I heard V call my name.
He had already opened the trapdoor, his feet hanging in the opening, his hands busy cranking the light. I followed behind, checking the spot with "Alma + Elio = Vincent" on the wall before I closed the trapdoor behind us.
I hoped V didn't see it, now or the last time he was here.
When we found ourselves back in the dark tunnel, only lit up by the lamp, I hoped the fleeting magic of the moment wouldn't be gone yet. Our hurried pace was silent for some long minutes before I dared to break it.
"Maybe I should be first to go in the atrium," I tried to start a conversation again, remembering how the mosquito mist had badly affected him on the way. "I will be the one guiding you. You can keep your eyes closed, and hopefully, it won't hurt that bad this time."
"You're right," he curtly answered. "Let's do this."
He seemed to answer from a faraway place, as if his thoughts were not here with me. I didn't know what else to say, so we remained silent the rest of the path, with only the sound of our hurried steps on the dirty ground.
"Do you mind checking if the mist started already?" V asked when we turned a curve and arrived back at the ladder. "Just peek a little bit, do not open the door completely," he instructed, checking his watch again.
I did as he asked, climbing three steps on the ladder, just enough to be able to push a crack in the door. Indeed, the smoke had just begun to roll over the garden, and I sniffed the chemical smell around.
"It started!"
"Perfect," V said as he hung the lamp on a hook I couldn't see on the wall. "We just have to wait about two minutes for it to fill up the atrium."
I remained with my two feet on the ladder, one hand holding onto a bar, my other hand pulling the scarf over my head to get ready.
"Let me help you."
V's thoughts seemed to have returned to the present moment.
"By the way, Sade..." he seemed to hesitate, his long fingers swiftly layering the scarf around my head. "I know you don't want to talk about what happened last night..."
My face recoiled on my neck, and I wished I could escape through the door already.
"But..." his fists closed around both sides of the scarf hanging around my neck, as if he knew he had to keep me in place.
Standing on the ladder, I was higher up than he was, and his face bent up to me. The lamp was still giving fading light, directed mostly at our feet, and offering more privacy for the words we exchanged in the dark.
"I don't want you to believe I didn't want it too."
His eyes dropped to my lips, and back to my eyes, and for a second, I wondered if his hands on my scarf weren't pulling my face down to his.
But too soon, he released his hold on me, his hands brushing his hair at the back.
"I mean," he continued, an embarrassed chuckle escaping his lips, "You had too much to drink, so... I was more worried than, mhmm, anything else... But... I know I wasn't so discreet about my, mhmm, desire... the other times."
"The other times?" I repeated, mouth agape, wondering what other occurrences there were where he could have shown me how attracted he was to me. All I could think of was when he found me gardening in the atrium, a long time ago.
"You know..."
He gave me a knowing smile, leaning against the wall, his forehead resting against the ladder. He was so close to me, even in the faint light of the lamp, I could see the blush on his cheeks.
"No. I don't know. What other times?" I pressed, tapping his shoulder with my free hand.
Crossing his arms on his chest, he pretended to check his watch, but I knew for a fact he would have never been able to tell me what time it was right now.
"It's almost time to go-"
"Tell me!" I shook his arm with impatience.
He rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue.
"I'm not going to make it that easy for you..."
"Easy for what?" I chuckled.
"Easy to know what turns me on!"
His answer knocked the wind out of me.
I almost slipped from the ladder, but his hands caught around my thighs in time, helping me balance and grip back at the bar.
"Careful," he chuckled behind my back as my two hands were back on the bar. "What about you? Do you have... a turn-on button somewhere?"
His hands slowly traveled from my hips to my waist, taking their time up to my ribcage, and I swear, I could have heard him smirk behind my shoulder.
I sucked in a breath and, as an answer, I felt his long fingers dig into my ribs, right below the elastic of my bra.
"Good one," I sucked my lips to his double-meaning joke, still trying to catch the breath he stole from me. "But if I did, I wouldn't make it that easy for you to find..."
I tried to peek at him, and just as I did, he pressed his face between my shoulder blades, his fingers digging deeper into my ribcage as a low groan stemmed from his throat.
"Are you feeling alright?" I scoffed, smiling.
"Give me a second," he spoke in a low voice.
His growl rippled along my spine, down to all the places he evoked in me in this moment. I thought I was going to slip from the ladder again, but he had already removed his hands already.
"We really have to go now," he said, appearing by my side again, his eyes glazed, his hair disheveled. "So, am I forgiven?" he asked with a small raise of an eyebrow.
"You are..." I shied away from his famished eyes, climbing the next steps. "I knew you wanted it anyway."
He sighed, shaking his head, quickly wrapping his scarf as the gap opened.
"I'm only a man, Sade."
And I'm only a woman, I wanted to answer, but I knew I could not.
Instead, I pushed the door and led him back, his eyes closed, into the house of cards I had built for him.
🗓️ Next chapters: this Thursday, September 11th 🗓️
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