Love and Robotics (42 page)

“Always thought that sounded like fun.” Derkins dropped his whimsical look. “Anything you want to tell me?”

Alfred looked at Josh. “Don’t know what you mean. He’s sparko, poor lad.”

“He was hanging around outside like a lost soul. He’s in love with you, you know.”

“Did he say?”

“No, but I’m not as green as I’m cabbage looking.”

“We - you know.” Alfred blushed. “Nick caught us.”

Derkins spluttered. “Warn me before you drop bombshells like that!”

“I don’t see why I should be celibate just because my beau’s a robot.” He held up a finger. “No puns about nuts, screws and the rest.”

“You know me so well.” Derkins chuckled. “Is there anybody you can’t turn?”

He waggled his eyebrows. “I live in hope, Michael.”

“The thought of the bum thing makes my eyes water, no offence.”

“None taken. I’d kill for a smoke.”

Derkins found Alfred’s lighter, a soggy cigarette, and popped it into his mouth. “Don’t do anything daft. I’d hate to get a proper job.”

They gripped hands. “I promise.”

Derkins left on the next flight. “Be careful,” he said. Alfred had no doubts about the little man’s discretion, though he worried he’d shocked him.

Josh was a darling. Having established himself as “Lord Langton’s trainer”, he’d taken to the role with gusto. He slept on a truckle bed, fetched everything Alfred needed, helped him to dress. If Alfred couldn’t sleep he read to him, or took dictation of letters and
Dispatches
.

They restricted themselves to furtive smiles and looking at each other till their eyes hurt. The one respite was their goodnight kiss. Josh tiptoed across the room, Alfred pretended not to notice until the last minute. As his strength returned, he held him, the kisses growing more desperate as the nights passed. They’d part, frustrated and shaking. Neither had said
love
yet. Alfred had a superstitious dread of the word. He was always the first to say it. He’d wait until Josh was ready.

The chair was another nuisance. If you’re used to having an athletic body, being grounded is infuriating. “I hate this,” Alfred growled when the wheels kept sticking. “It makes me feel pathetic.”

Josh rested his chin on one of the arms. “A dear friend once told me never to despair, just grab life by the balls.”

“I wasn’t crippled when I said that.”

“I believed you. You should too.”

Alfred kissed his forehead. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

He was told he’d be discharged the next day. Josh was unusually quiet. He tidied their belongings and ran errands. Alfred didn’t see him until sunset. He was sitting on the truckle bed, looking at him in a way he couldn’t interpret.

“This is it.”

“Hmm?” Alfred wasn’t attending. He was desperate to be up and about. The skin on his chest itched furiously. His leg was monstrously engorged and purple, not like a limb at all.

Josh joined him on the bed. “No more wandering.”

“Let’s not rule anything out.”

“No, we won’t. They made enough fuss about our adventures.” His lip trembled. “It’ll be like going back to sleep. They won’t be thrilled we’ve -”

“Become involved?”

“You said you weren’t interested. Why?”

“I didn’t think you could.”

“Maybe I’m a new kind of a robot.”

“Whatever you are, you make me happier than I can say.”

Lying so they touched from head to toe, Josh undid the first few buttons of Alfred’s shirt. He lapped at the stitches. “Shall I carry on, or would you rather be reading?”

“No more
Su Mon Du Master
, I beg you. ‘Then they all fucked’ is not a legitimate storytelling tool.”

Now Josh was blowing raspberries on his belly. “Stop it!” Alfred protested, unable to suppress a moan.

“Lord Langton?” The nurse who changed his dressings banged on the glass. “Is everything okay?”

Josh returned to his chair in a twinkling. Alfred adjusted his shirt. “Everything’s fine.”

The sooner he was discharged, the better. Josh was proving hard to control - and even harder to resist.

The day Alfred left hospital was lazy and leisurely, the kind he’d forgotten existed. Josh said days like this were magical because they could pass as regular people. He agreed, though the number of strangers who assumed they were related was disconcerting.

“No,” Alfred said the third time, “that would be incest.” Out of sight, they doubled up laughing.

Recording Josh’s log. Wandering onto a film set. Gorging themselves at an all you can eat buffet. Wheelchair dancing. They accidentally smiled at someone and she wailed, “I hate being recognised!”

“Who the fuck was that?” Alfred exclaimed, loudly, as they walked away.

“Is it silly to like this more than adventures?” Josh asked.

No, it wasn’t. Though it angered him knowing that, for his lad, the ordinary was miraculous. CER had a lot to answer for.

They checked into their hotel late in the evening. As they threw down their coats and put their bags away, they were suddenly shy with each other.

“Phew, it’s roasting.”

“Isn’t it?” Josh fiddled with the fan, knocking on the network. An unearthly ululation filled the room.

“What the devil’s that?”

“One of Cora’s?”

“Sounds like someone’s got the plumbers in.”

A singer moaned, ‘Longing ... burning ... endless yearning ...”

“Here’s the fan!” Josh exclaimed.

Perhaps it was the week of thwarted desire. Perhaps Josh’s shirt brought out the colour of his eyes. Whatever the reason, Alfred wheeled towards him and touched his lips. “What happened at the factory -”

              “Do you want to do it again?”

              “Fuck, yeah.”

The play of tongues, fingers winding in his beard. His arms went up and around him. Josh’s knee slid between his thighs, rubbed his erection. He started to unbuckle his belt. Alfred stopped him. “We’ve a night and a morning. We can take our time.”

Tapering fingers against collarbones, the sensitivity of ear lobes and wrists. Josh had the cutest dimples in the small of his back. Alfred lifted his shirt and bit them. He moved lower, nuzzling his buttocks. He teased with a finger, his tongue, before licking Josh’s back up and down, hugging the slim body tightly.

Josh straddled his lap. “I like you,” he whispered.

Alfred undid the top buttons of his shirt and kissed his neck, teasing his nipples with his thumb. “Feeling’s mutual. Did you have the talk with Pip?”

“What talk?”

“You know. Relationships. Sex.”

“Sex?”

At first Alfred thought it was a joke. Staring into the artificial’s face, he was forced to accept the confusion was genuine. Josh was sitting with his shirt open, innocence shining out of him. He hadn’t known what he was doing the other day. It had been pure guesswork, done because Alfred wanted it.

Hands shaking, he did the buttons back up. “We need to get some rest. It’s a big day tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Josh got up, hands in his pockets. “I’ll turn in. Coming?”

This had gone on long enough. As soon as their oddness was commented upon, that would be it. The lonely road to disgrace and the squelcher.

“I want to sleep alone tonight.”

Josh was perplexed. “Don’t you need help?

“I can manage.”

Homeward Bound

Josh was confused. He’d accepted Cora turning herself in - it wasn’t right but she was implacable. She seemed to think she was making some sort of stand. Very well, though he thought her clockwork had turned.

It was the shift in his and Alfred’s relationship he couldn’t understand. In the past they’d doctored each other’s injuries but Alfred refused to let him near his bandages. They’d wandered in and out of each other’s rooms, he’d seen Alfred shaving, but that was over too. He was keeping him at arm’s length.

This made no sense. Surely the heat and the cries of the factory should have torn down any awkwardness? No more dissembling, no more denial. Yet there Alfred was, acting like they were ordinary bunkmates, only with this horrible strain between them. He could shake him!

The thing he minded most was not being able to sleep with him. There were too many strangers on the skyhub, people might get the wrong idea. You understand, don’t you?
No
. He couldn’t sleep. He only managed it with his hand against the wall, picturing Alfred on the other side. And if he touched himself thinking about him, where was the harm?

One morning Josh had gone to fetch breakfast. Looking around the bright blue room with its pale china and murmuring couples, he couldn’t name a single passenger. They’d kept to themselves. Granted, Alfred was dosed up on pain killers and found walking difficult, but did people think this was queer? Just as he wondered, a porky faced man nodded in his direction and said, “That’s the boyfriend.” He didn’t know what he meant but his tone sounded thoroughly nasty. He glared as he picked up his coffee and muffins, convinced people were whispering.

He took the lift to their suite. Alfred sprawled across his bed, arm over his eyes. Josh sat beside him. “I’ve brought muffins.”

“What? Oh, sorry. You know what these pills are like. They’d knock out an elephant.”

“They’re not the only thing,” Josh teased.

“I’m fed up with this stupid rumour. A rhino ran towards me and had a heart attack. End of story.”

They ate in companionable silence. Josh lay against him, careful to avoid the bad leg. “The captain says we’ll dock in two days.”

“What are you going to do when we get back to Lux?”

“I’d rather not think. It already feels like none of it happened.”

“Bet CER doesn’t see it that way. Imagine the paperwork.”

“They
wanted
me to meet Cora.”

“A kidnap and a killing later -”

Alfred’s grin faded. Josh wondered if he was thinking about the other night. Why was he ashamed? Sure enough, he spoke about something else.

“If you ever feel like you did - you’d tell me, right?”

Josh hurried to assure him. “I got bored and stuck in a rut. That’s why I liked this so much.”

“Who’s to say it won’t happen again?”

“I’ll do something. Go somewhere. See you.”

“Doesn’t anyone visit you at your flat?”

“Why? They’ve got their own lives.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Maybe it’s for the best. I’m hopeless at speaking to people.”

“You manage fine with me.”

“Yes, but you’re you. You don’t think, ‘I wonder how they’ve made a working voice box?’ You look at me and see Josh.”

“Do you really think people see you like that?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

“I’ve had enough of this. If CER agrees - I won’t blame them if they don’t - would you move in?”

“At Chimera?”

“Where else?”

Josh thought of his flat. It hadn’t been the same since the bombing. Chimera with her park, history and never knowing what lay on the other side of the door -

“I’ll think about it,” he said. “Maybe I could work for you. Then I could stop doing those stupid adverts. ‘What is the well dressed man wearing this season?’ Buggered if I know.”

“I’m a bad influence on you.”

“I don’t mind in the least.” Lying with his head on Alfred’s chest, Josh relaxed for the first time that trip.

To start with he hadn’t had a sense of touch. Rough, smooth, hot, cold - it slid over and underneath him. He saw the humans touch each other but that was different, a pack instinct. There was no reason for it.

That is, until Alfred had touched him. He wondered if he remembered. As Josh stumbled to his feet in the corridor, Alfred had taken his arm. He could still feel the shock of his fingers on his skin. It probably meant nothing. But Josh wanted, no,
needed
it. If he couldn’t go inside him again, he’d settle for this.

He felt Alfred shift onto his elbow. He must have thought he was asleep. Shyly, trying not to disturb him, he stroked Josh’s hair.

Why hadn’t anyone told him how good this felt? If you tickled Puss’s belly she crooned - the same dopy grin spread across his face.
Please don’t stop.
At the same time he became aware of Alfred’s heartbeat, staccato through his shirt.

“How your heart beats!”

The hand on his hair - just above his nape, where it tingled - froze. “You’d better go.” Shame was written in every line of Alfred’s face

“I don’t mind -”

“Just go.”

The rest of the voyage was uneventful. When they docked at Lux the press tried to waylay them; Derkins fielded awkward questions while they sneaked into the back of a truck. Josh fell asleep against Alfred’s shoulder, rocking the chair all the way home.

On arrival they were bowled over by Puss, closely followed by Nanny. She’d laid on the most ostentatious spread.

“I’ll be wheeling sideways for weeks,” Alfred groaned later that evening.

“How long do they think you’ll be in the chair?”

They were strolling the halls. Josh pushed the chair, doing the odd swerve when they reached corners. Puss brought up the rear, breaking file to pounce on a bat.

“Five months. I’m damned if I can wait that long.”

              “I can help.”

“You’re my friend, not a nurse.”

“Where am I sleeping?”

“Your room. Nanny’s set everything up.”

“Oh.”

They were coming to the guest room now. All Josh’s luggage was there, his clothes hanging in the wardrobe. When he went to the bookcase he found a new set of art materials, books he’d expressed an interest in, puzzles.

“Welcome home,” Alfred said.

Despite his disappointment, Josh felt a surge of gratitude and, well, the feeling he associated with Alfred. He bent and kissed his forehead. “It’s perfect. CER can go hang.”

“You’ll have to tell them.”

“They can wait.”

“Goodnight, I suppose.”

“Goodnight.”

Alfred hung onto the door handle. Josh stared at him. This was how it was going to be from now on.

“See you in the morning.” Before it became any more awkward, Alfred pedalled down the hall.

“Have you fucked yet?”

“Terrific, Lulu. Here I am, striving for subtlety, and you go and lower the tone.”

Alfred and Nanny were having their customary nightcap. The extraordinary hair was in two plaits. Her feet, rather like the ones on Josh’s bath tub, rested on the table.

“Life’s too short for euphemisms.”

“We didn’t ‘fuck’. Made love, as it’s known in civilised circles.”

She poked him. “Well? Are you, aren’t you?”

“It’s complicated.”

“More than friends, not quite lovers?”

“Got it in one.”

“Have you thought of a cover story?”

“Why? People invite their friends to live with them all the time.”

“Does Gwynnie know?”

He shrugged.

“Shouldn’t you tell her?”

“She’ll imagine worst case scenarios -”

“Not that you can blame her -”

“- and if it never goes further, what’s the point?”

“I’ve seen how he looks at you. Begging you to break his back doors in.”

“Nanny!” His eyes fell on the couch, where she was snipping out a series of articles. “Oh, come off it. Talk about embarrassing.”

It was a chronological map of their trip, taking in the highs and lows. She’d dated each in green ink, complete with editorial comments.

“A nanny never forgets her chicks. There was something about Gussy the other day.”

Alfred pointed at the wheelchair. “This has taught me a valuable lesson. Officially retired, starting from now.”

“What will you do?”

“I don’t know. Bee keeping. Clock mending. Maybe I’ll get a monocle.”

“You could join me and the girls for bingo.”

“Thanks but no thanks.”

She tapped an article about the pirates. “I was so worried. My wheel didn’t say peep.”

“I’ve told you not to mess with the occult.”

“Madeline sacrificed two chickens. An hour later we heard you were safe.”

“Coincidence!”

“We’ll agree to disagree. Welcome back, lovey.”

The separate rooms rule didn’t last. Their third night back Alfred opened his bedroom door to find Josh outside.

“I’ve missed you,” the artificial said.

“So have I.”

“Why can’t we -?”

He didn’t know how to tell him. Thankfully Josh changed the subject of his own accord. “That syringe. It’d better not be what I think it is.”

“No fear.”

“What
is
it?” He walked over, sniffed it. “Looks like frogspawn.”

“Dulls the pain.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Excruciating. You’re lucky you don’t feel it.”

“I do, it’s just - delayed. I always worry I’m going to fall out of a hub or get squashed, and not feel it, only to have it happen all at once days later.”

“Malik’s wrong. We could write a book about your hang ups.”

“Who wants to read about real life? I read to escape.”

“I wish I could escape this leg.” Alfred sat on the bed as Josh hovered. He took the syringe out of its case and rolled up his pyjama leg. “You’ll probably not want to look.”

Too late. “Oh, Alfred,” Josh exclaimed. His thigh to his knee was horribly discoloured, ringing the changes from inky black to sickly green. The golden hairs were the sole relief. “Why didn’t you say?”

“Didn’t want to worry you.”

“How long is it going to look like this?”

“How long’s a piece of string?”

“Twice as much as half its length?” Josh teased.

“I look like I’ve been hanged, drawn and quartered. Gents of Langton, queue up.”

The syringe was poised in mid air. “Are you planning to use that?”

“I’ve a needle phobia. The doctor used to knock me out to give me a shot.”

“How barbaric. You’ll hit an artery if you keep waving it around.”

“It’d help if I could
see
my veins.”

“Here.” Before he could argue, Josh was holding the syringe and scanning the wreckage. His hand looked tiny next to his leg. Alfred felt like a perverted old satyr. “Hold still.”

It wouldn’t go in. Josh jabbed himself and sucked his finger.

“So
that’s
why they don’t let robots work in hospitals.”

“If you’d loosen up -”

“How can I, knowing four inches of needle is going to be stuck in my leg?”

“It’s more afraid of you than you are of it - or is that spiders? And what about poisonous spiders?”

“They cackle evilly.”

They giggled, noses touching. Josh ran his thumb from Alfred’s cheek to his jaw. Face beatific, he kissed him. Alfred pulled him onto his lap and returned the kisses hungrily. It was only when Josh’s hand crept up his thigh he remembered how wrong this was.

“Stop!”

“Why?”

“I wish I could explain.”

“Don’t you like me?”

“Of course I do. But you should only do it if you mean it.”

“I
do
mean it.”

Alfred was ready to twist his hair out. “Okay, not mean it. Understand. Until you
know
what you’re doing, and the effect it has, please don’t.”

“Have I upset you?” He showed contrition the same way as a little dog: nuzzling, woebegone eyes. “You were fine before.”

“You haven’t
upset
me.”

It was nearly true.

A Charmless Girl

Gwyn had never been popular. Throughout her life she had battled to make friends, convinced that if she could only discover this secret everyone else knew, she’d manage it. But she’d see people’s eyes glaze over, their expressions grow bewildered, until they made excuses and left. She was too intense and odd for anyone to warm to.