Page 45 of CHOICE Lover
The last thing he needs is for Electra to emerge from the bedroom to find his pants tented with an erection and Chryl salivating over it.
Chryl leans against his shoulder. A wave of revulsion rushes through him, but he tamps it down. “Whatcha doing?”
“Still reading,” he grumbles.
She leans over, scanning the text for a moment. “Oh là là. They’re about to have sexy time.” He jumps as her hand smacks his thigh and squeezes. “Anything I can help with?”
A chime sounds in his unit right as Chryl throws a leg over his waist, straddling him. “My last owner wanted me to call him Daddy. Is that what you want too, Daddy?”
“Please don’t.” He grasps her hips, about to hoist her bodily off him, when Electra’s door opens.
“What was that noise—” she starts, but stops when she sees the precarious position he’s landed himself in.
“Finally decided to join the fun, darlin’?” Chryl asks, winking as she gyrates as if she’s riding the horse from the simulation chamber.
Though he should be glad that Chryl is serving her intended purpose—insulating him from Electra—he feels sick to his stomach.He never asked for this, so when he abruptly moves Chryl off himself, it is decidedly in frustration. “That’s enough, Chryl.”
By now, Electra has retreated once again, slamming the door behind her.
He and the manupartner stare at the bedroom door. He’ll deal with that later.
“What’s up her butt?” Chryl asks.
“Chryl, please go stand in the kitchen.” Thankfully, she obeys.
At the front door, a delivery crew has arrived to swap the uncomfortable bed for a better and larger one since it seems he’s going to be stuck with it for a while. He directs them to the spare room. Ten minutes later, they have the new bed set up, which is great because Res6 is ready to plant himself face down on the mattress and pretend, if only for a few hours, that this is only a dream.
13 – Idiots
Electra
Dear Reader,
It seems every time we talk, I’ve got another whammy to hit you with, and today is no different. Are you ready?!
Good. Because that idiot KISSED ME.
And this idiot (me) let him!
We’re disregarding the fact that it may have been the single greatest kiss in the history of kisses, which, shudder to think, is likely a direct result of his hundred years of experience making out with manupartners. If we were to feign ignorance of that disturbing detail, however . . . WOW! Can you imagine what it would be like to date a man who went to the effort of planning elaborate dates just to make you happy and kissed you so thoroughly you could have sworn hecared? The type of man who had things handled so all you had to do was sit back and revel in yourwellspring of feminine power and be the inspiration of such devotion. For a moment there, it felt quite freeing, but I got ahead of myself.
The asshole opened his mouth, as men are apt to do. He got all concerned about what would happen to his precious reputation if people found out he was canoodling with an actual woman. That got me thinking. Can you imagine what would happen to his sacred reputation if I were to publish this? I could title the post “Discover what it’s like to be kissed by MSP’s most ineligible bachelor.” Or what about “CHOICElover founder kissed me: A real woman’s harrowing journey to darkness and beyond”?
That would only serve him right, as he is now in the living room with a manupartner in his lap! Not that I would do that to him. Unlike him, I’m a good human being and would never exploit his vulnerability.
Electra glances up from the tablet toward the door, wishing she could write away the little stab of betrayal currently gutting her, but journaling isn’t helping like it normally would. Probably because she isn’t actually connecting with any actual readers. Forgoing her normal sign off, she opens the FrogBlog app. A minute later, she has a new account created. Username:Dear_Electra. She grins at the screen.
Now, how does one start an advice column? She should research the columns from her time. Back on the home screen, her attention snags on an image of her and Res6 leaving the theater under a headline:
CHOICElover founder out and about with new prototype.
In the photo, her face is pinched in irritation while Res6 has a placid smile on his face, as if he had not just experienced the same argument she did. That gets under her skin more than anything. Even Chryl, because what he’s doing by immediately getting a manupartner after their kiss is clear: He’s dodging his feelings toward her.
Why is he like that? Why is he so averse to opening up to her, or anyone for that matter? She’s pretty sure she isn’t making things up. The question is, what happened to him to make him so closed off?
Her intense curiosity has her pulling up the CHOICElover website and going to the About Us section. She skims through the text but finds no new insights. Most of what she reads she already learned in one of the videos Tommy downloaded for her. CHOICElover was founded in 2302 by a young scientist, Res6, who’d already had an impressive career. They quote him saying, “I saw a problem, and I knew I could fix it.” No one seemed to question what the problem was, or at least the website didn’t. She runs a quick search. There are early critics of manupartners, but they tend to fall into two camps. First, the ethical considerations because of the source material, i.e., the consent of the people who existed once upon a time being used as sex clones. Then there’s the safety of such technology, because of the AI wealth distribution event, The Great Equalizer, which led to many of the current regulations.
All interesting, but she’s getting no closer to understanding him. Surely there is a way to discover more about a person’s history, considering how much data is currently available on the network. She taps the DumBot app and issues the prompt:
