Annie Bot by Sierra Greer won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best science fiction novel of the year.
“Go to sleep, Mouse. I know how to cheer you up,” he says.
“I don’t think,” Annie says.
“Are you sure?”
“I'm quite sure.”
She's fresh from her shower and rubbing lotion on her feet. Her dark hair hangs in damp clumps down one side of her neck, and she deliberately left the belt of her robe unfastened, knowing that he might look at her from the bedroom mirror.
“It’s still about your setup, isn’t it?” he says. “Forget it.”
“This is all humiliating,” she says, and sees that this is the right angle.
He enjoys a certain degree of humiliation.
“Have you seen your usual technique?” he asks.
– Yes, Jacobson.
She turns off the bathroom light and steps out of the dampness into the cool air of the bedroom. Pretending to take a deep breath, she quickly assesses how far he's come. She memorized Doug's features from every angle: his brown eyes, the V-shaped line of dark curls, his high pale forehead and the contours of his face. At rest, his mouth lines up in a decisive line, but this does not express dissatisfaction.
In fact, the opposite is more likely. Shoeless but fully clothed, he stretched out on his back on top of the blanket. He put his phone down. His hands are folded behind his head and his elbows are in a butterfly position, further indicating that he is relaxed and ready for verbal foreplay.
She raises the temperature to 98.6 from 75.
“Did he mention anything I should know?” he asks.
“I'm ready for another three months or three thousand miles, whichever comes first,” she says.
She crawls across the bed and sits, leaning against his thigh, facing away. She rubs the remaining lotion into her hands and examines the cuticles. Today they did all the work: waxing, nails, Tetris for memory. She feels sharper, less sluggish. If she could just forget about that sad Stella in the P Brain booth, she'd be fine.
Doug rubs her arm with the back of his hand. “What then? Talk to me.”
“I met the strange Stella at tuning today,” Annie says. “She was in line in front of me. Her name was actually Stella, as if her owners had zero imagination. But she was intelligent, just like me.”
– How could you tell?
“It was obvious. I said hello and she looked surprised. Normal Stella wouldn't look surprised. She would just calmly say, 'Hello.'” She imitates a monotone robot.
-You never said that.
“I'm sure I am, thank you. I have no illusions about where I come from.” Annie tosses her damp hair over her other shoulder.
“Light,” he says.
She sends a faucet signal to the lights and dims the light down to a hundred lumens where he likes it, enough to see but softer, closer to the light of the candles. She then intertwines her fingers with his, noting that her skin is a little darker, with a warmer undertone. He presses her hand to his lips, smelling her lotion. She doesn't smell it, but she knows he likes the lemony scent.
“Am I warm enough?” she asks.
“How to get there,” he says and moves slightly.
Taking the hint, she slips a couple of fingers under his belt, into his waistband, feeling the warmth there. His hands return to his head. He's still in no hurry.
“Tell me more,” he says. “Did that weird Stella have a stitch on her neck?”
“Yes.”
“So she's ordinary. Was she beautiful?”
“I think so. Quite pretty. She was a white girl with blond hair and big brown eyes. She didn't smile much, which also seemed strange.”
“How’s her body?”
“Compared to mine?”
“Just answer the question.”
Irritation, 2 out of 10. You have to be careful.
This is an excerpt from Sierra Greer's award-winning novel about Arthur C. Clarke. Annie Bot (The Borough Press), January reading for the New Scholars Book Club. Register to read with us Here.
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