Intimate Relations, Rebecca Forster [best ereader for manga .txt] 📗

"But..."

Finn urged her on but before Gretchen could answer, a roar erupted from the back of the pub. Someone called to Finn to check out the bulls eye the woman with the cheeky laugh had tossed. Finn smiled and waved, but he did not want to end the conversation with Gretchen. He always had an appreciation for her beauty and an admiration for her calling, but now he saw her character. He knew she was smart, but now he understood that she was thoughtful. She was quiet, but she could speak her mind.

"The topic was rainbows, I believe." Finn let his hand drop to the bar. His finger tapped the top of her hand.

"Well, if you really want to know the truth, I am somewhere between you and Geoffrey. I'm a practical kind of girl. If I'm going to have a man home with me, I want him to be the kind who will linger in the morning and kiss me before he leaves. If he says he will call, I want him to follow through. If he won't then he doesn't have to say anything, and I appreciate the time we had together," Gretchen said. "So I will settle for a little bit of the rainbow and hope there are a few Screaming Mimi's thrown in for good measure. In the end, it's the choice that matters. I hope I choose well."

"I'm thinking you deserve more, Gretchen."

She picked up his hand and laced her fingers through his. She looked at the coupling, smiled, and then raised her lovely dark eyes to him and said:

"That's exactly what I'm talking about, Finn. You just gave me a little of that rainbow."

"You're an easy one to please."

"You might change your mind if you gave me a whirl," she teased. "I may surprise you."

"I may surprise myself."

Ten minutes later Finn paid the tab. Geoffrey saw them off. As Finn walked with Gretchen to her apartment, he was very happy that he had left the key under the mat.

Emi kept her eyes down, but slid them toward her husband now and again as if expecting something to happen. Anger? Fear? Sadness? Frustration? She saw nothing out of the ordinary. He worked as he always had: diligently, lovingly, brilliantly.

It was a day and a night again. They were in the workshop, side by side, creating the things that made them rich and now caused them grief. It seemed a lifetime ago that the police had come, and yet an instant; it seemed a dream, and yet all too real. But Enver acted as if their problems had nothing to do with him. It was as if the police had not questioned him like they would a common criminal. It was if a girl had not died in this very house. As if those horrid people with their sick play acting had not soiled their home. It was as if that man—the jellyfish—had not gone upstairs to finish what he started, and take what belonged to him.

Enver had slept for the night and most of the day; Emi could not. When he wakened, he ate and went to the workroom, reminding Emi that they had orders to fill. Two companions had to be finished by the end of the week. The first was near completion. She was one of their best. Her long blonde hair was fashioned into loose braids. She had smaller breasts than were usually requested. Emi took great care with the companion's femur to make sure it attached to the hip properly. It was imperative that the hips moved smoothly. When they did Emi felt a surge of pride. She had, indeed, done something no one else ever had; she had created a joint that moved better than a human's. She had made a 'skin' that contracted and stretched like that of a young girl. All this would have brought them millions of dollars; it would have kept them secure their entire lives. Now Emi wasn't sure what she could do with these things she had made. She wasn't even sure she could continue working with Enver. Emi sealed the companion's skin permanently, so that the seam could not be seen with the naked eye. She had not even shown this technique to the jellyfish man.

Enver was working on the second one now. He painted the eyes—his masterful signature. His face was so close to his work that it almost seemed he might kiss the thing. Emi turned her head away because if he did she would be sick. What he was working on wasn't a woman. It wasn't even a companion. It was silicone stretched over a face and skull made of plastic and metal. It rested on a satin pillow, the back of the skull exposed, the head hairless.

Emi sighed and pulled a metal foot, ankle, fibula and tibia in front of her.  She arranged them just so, fiddling with her unique joint. It was a puzzle to figure out how to integrate the leg joint to meet the client's specifications. The man wanted his doll to stand pigeon-toed, her pretty little feet turned inward like a child's. It was not for her to tell the client that it wouldn't be possible. It was for Emi to figure out how to make it so that the companion could stand in the way he wished.

The bright lights of the workroom shined on the table. Behind them the finished companions hung on their metal rods. The boxes of limbs were back where they had been before the police searched the workroom. She could hear the 3D printer laboring to build a breastbone. The police had found nothing to interest them, as Emi knew they wouldn't. They made Enver open the locked closet on the second landing. They closed it when all they saw was a companion sitting in the corner on a chair.  Emi heard one officer say he