She adjusted the headset, logged in, scrolled through the tedious permission options and waited. The suit was filled with tiny rubber nodes, which bristled in anticipation. Now she was awake, did she even feel like this anymore? But yes, she did. Or if not exactly this, then something like it, anyway. She chose a room in Venice, with an immensely high ceiling. She clicked Afternoon. The light changed. The sound of water lapped outside the slightly blurry window in her peripheral vision. The headset wasn’t very comfortable, but at least she didn’t have to think about the walls of the cabin. She did not have to think about the bed she was actually lying on, or the person who had probably died there. That was definitely not what she was thinking about.

‘Okay,’ she heard Harlow say eventually. Then finally they were synced, and Harlow was there, tethered to one of his less absurd avatars, but which still made him look like a Brazilian martial artist. He was pressing into her, which was nice. It was him, but not him, which was fine. She would have liked to kiss him, but that was not something the suit was able to replicate.

‘Should we request Frida?’ Harlow asked.

‘No,’ Sylvie said. ‘No. I just want you.’

And it was nice to feel him, to see him, even though her suit hadn’t been updated for a while, and there were little glitches — his image lagging, while the sensations moved on. A church bell tolled from the piazza on the other side of the little canal. A boat went past, a man in it was singing.

‘Like this?’ Harlow said, his voice sputtery in her ear.

Like what? she wanted to say. It wasn’t really clear what he was doing.

Then he slipped down between her legs, and she felt the imperfect movements of his fingers cascading through her.

Sylvie lay awake for a long time afterwards, Harlow gone, the SkinSuit dumped at the bottom of the shower. She tried to concentrate on her heartbeat, but that only made things worse. Her heart was the source of the panic. From there, it stretched out into her arms.

Inside the locket was an image of a saint.

She had suddenly remembered this, as she lay beneath Harlow’s heavy avatar.

Joan of Arc probably, or Saint Cecilia preparing to be beheaded. The woman’s eyes cast up to God in her abandonment.