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

We didn't think about them once they were gone, but this time..."

"This time you played God," Cori said.

"It wasn't that way," Emi snapped. She swung her head toward her husband. "Tell them, Enver. Tell them how it happened."

Emi started to stand up, but Cori put her hand on the woman's shoulder and kept her down. When her husband stayed silent, Emi shook her head.

"Fine Enver. I will say." She swallowed hard and composed herself. "We didn't see what was happening. First a portrait was ordered. Enver painted it from a video and pictures. We sent it away. We thought nothing of it. One day a contract is sent saying Enver may not use that image. Enver signed it. What did we want with the girl's face? There are many beautiful girls he could paint. One portrait didn't matter.”

"Then Ding Xiang came and asked for a companion. It was the same girl, but this time he had many things he wanted. He told us how to make this room. He paid the rent for six months. He ordered a companion with the face of the girl Enver had painted. We signed an agreement to speak of none of this. He paid so much we didn't care what he did here."

Emi's shoulders fell. She put her palms to her cheek. Enver never moved, but he spoke as if remembering a long lost love.

"All of her," he said. "I knew all of her, every shade of her."

"When did you first meet her?" Finn asked.

"She came only once to see the room," Emi said. "We saw her with Ding Xiang then. We spied and saw them. She never came back. We did not meet her."

Suddenly she stood up and began to pace, needing to move even if there was nowhere she could go.

"We put her to bed every night in this room, as we were told. I didn't know why Ding Xiang didn't want us to send her to him. Then I thought he was like the other men, eccentric, odd. Enver finished painting, but I had not sealed her. A package came for me. Inside was a chip, and a wiring schematic. I knew what this was. I was to make her move."

"But there are moving dolls, missus? This is nothing strange," Finn said. Emi looked at him and her eyes darkened, her voice lowered.

"Not like this one." Emi's steps slowed. She wrapped her arms around herself as she wandered in and out of the light that came through the big windows. "I followed instructions. I wired her. I embedded the chip. Soon only Enver put her to bed. He said it was so I did not hurt myself lifting her. She was beautiful in the moonlight. She was the best we had ever done. One night Enver did not come back so quickly from this room. I went to see what was wrong. Enver was stroking her hair. He came away when I called. He was embarrassed. I thought he was only admiring his work."

She turned and looked at Cori and Finn, sighing when she realized they did not understand what she was telling them.

"Ding Xiang came and went. I don't know what program was in her head but each day, each week, he did something to make her more human. Sometimes we were still working in the night, and we could hear her moving. At first she was like a child, stumbling, hitting things. I would find her leg chipped, and I would repair her skin. Enver would repaint her. For months we did this. Then we heard them together. She spoke."

"We couldn't understand her words," Enver said, as if that was an excuse for something.

"Did that matter, Enver?" Emi said.

"She cried," he said, his voice tight as he remembered the moment "I heard her crying."

Emi uttered a sound, guttural and primal. She went for her husband, but Cori stopped her. Emi raised her hands and backed off.

"You made this happen. You are shamed," Emi said, her voice dripping with disdain.

"Missus. Look at me. Look at me," Finn said. Reluctantly she did as she was told. "Did you not fear for yourselves knowing this man could come as he pleased?"

"He needed us." Emi shrugged away that concern. "And money makes you think unreasonable things are reasonable. You cut off your arm. Enough money tells you it was never there, so you learn to use the one you have left."

"Emi." Enver roused himself with a warning to his wife. "We can be sent away if you speak of this. We have a right to a lawyer. We ask for a lawyer."

Emi's voice rose, her neck stretched as she looked around Finn.

"I want no lawyer. I want this to end."

She pushed past Finn. She cast a withering glance at Cori. Emi Cuca took a high backed chair and waited until she had their attention. Enver could not look at her, but he would hear and that was enough for Emi.

"That girl is dead because of Enver," she said. "Sometimes he didn't hear me speak. Sometimes he did not come to bed, and I would find him asleep holding her hand after Ding Xiang was gone. Enver brushed her hair. Only Enver touched this one unless I was adjusting her wiring or her joints. Sometimes I found her in the closet, locked inside instead of in this room as she should be. Enver wanted to be alone with her; he wanted to hide her so that I couldn't see them.”

"Then one day Ding Xiang came through the front door to thank us for our work. He invited us upstairs. She was on the bed as instructed. I was happy that Ding Xiang would take her away."

Emi fell silent, thinking about the hope she had harbored; remembering the moment when she thought Ding Xiang would be gone from their life.

"But he didn't take her, did he?" Cori spoke.

"No. We stood just there." Emi pointed to the dining room table. "Ding Xiang opened