“THEN WHY DOES IT SOUND LIKE SHE IS IN PAIN?”

WHAT THE FUCK YOU FUCKING PERVERT

Kaveh clapped a hand to his ear, the traitorous earbud that doubled as a microphone, and clenched his other hand in front of him as if he were squeezing an invisible neck, pleading with his eyes for Nikola to please, please shut up!

“I WAS CONCERNED, AND CONFUSED, BECAUSE I DID NOT THINK YOU OF THE DISPOSITION TO HARM HER, AND AS SYMPHYLE-OF-MY-SYMPHYLE, I AM BOUND TO PROTECT HER. BUT I DID NOT INTERVENE, BECAUSE OF HER REPEATED REASSURANCE TO YOU THAT SHE WAS NOT IN PAIN, IN FACT MULTIPLE TIMES REQUESTING THAT YOU GO HARDER—”

“Please, stop!” he said through clenched teeth, squeezing the invisible neck harder. “If you want, we can talk about it later when we know we aren’t being surveilled. I’ll tell you all about how that works. But not now!”

“THEN PERHAPS WE SHOULD CONTRIVE A WAY TO SPEAK IN CONFIDENCE, ALL WHILE NOT ANTAGONIZING YOUR GOVERNMENT.”

“Yes, I think that would be wise,” he said, unclenching his jaw.

“I AM ABIDING THEIR WISHES PENDING LEGAL CLARIFICATION OF OUR STATUS AS PERSONS IN YOUR COUNTRY. YOU ARE COMPLYING WITH THEM FOR MY SAKE, YET YOU DO NOT TRUST THEM.”

Kaveh relaxed. “No. I don’t.”

“THEN WHY DO YOU WORK WITH THEM?”

“Right now, I don’t have much choice if I want access to you. But I suppose the truth is, I hope they can be better.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes, Kaveh knowing he needed to talk about real subjects that affected their future, but already hung up on how to articulate how casual sex worked to an asexual alien cyborg.

Casual. Was it casual? It hurt his heart to think of her as “casual.” She needed more than casual. But given such a shaky starting point, how could this ever work out in the long term without him inadvertently hurting her? He had to go back to New York eventually. It was like playing a video game on expert mode, with only one heart of health left.

Still, he’d been thinking about her all day, in the way anyone infatuated would think about a new sex partner, making little to-do lists in his head of all the things he wanted to do with her when he got home and the order he wanted to do them in. And he wasn’t sure where this was coming from; it wasn’t like he had a thing for younger girls, and even though he had always been the wealthier in any relationship he’d been in, he’d never exactly been a sugar daddy before. Was this sober!Kaveh’s type? Young, volatile, destitute, and emotionally unavailable? Oh yes, gimme that shit, inject it right into my veins!

A conundrum for another day.

“You need a new surname,” said Kaveh. “They want me to find out if you have a preference.”