Page 57 of Ezra
“Four in three years? That’s pretty tame,” Katrina replies lightly. “All right. Fair enough.”
I mimic the sound she made earlier, clearing my throat.
She looks up at me. “What?”
I motion between us, leaning against the dining table. “I’ve told you my body count. Let me hear yours.”
Katrina reddens. “Oh, no. You’ll laugh. Absolutely not.”
“Why?” I smirk. “Because it’s higher than four?” It wouldn’t surprise me. With a face like hers, I’m positive Katrina has her pick of suitors. She could have whoever she wanted, easily. Her temperature spikes and her heart quickens, much to my amusement.
She averts her gaze, huffing. “No way. I’m not telling.”
“You have to. We struck a truce, and then you offered an equal of exchange of information. If you negate on that, well?—”
“I’m a virgin, okay?” Her heated words and frown melt away, and she stares at me with wide eyes, looking something between horrified and astonished that she actually told me. “I’ve—touched myself, and I play with toys, but that’s it.”
It’s my turn to be surprised. It never occurred to me I might be her first sexual experience. She’d never felt anything like that before. If I’d known, I would’ve been far gentler, slower in my ministrations. Though chastity is a human social construct and has changed in its imagined value over the centuries, it’s obviously still something of consequence to Katrina.
Since it means something to her, my programming dictates it probably should mean something to me. I research in a matter of seconds how special a human’s first time can be. That there are those who are quite willing and happy to “lose” it, though it’s confusing to me how it is something to be lost. And there are those who “keep” it for someone special.
Is Katrina one of the latter? Did it mean something more when she surrendered herself to me that night and allowed me to touch her?
I’m not sure how to translate this newfound information. “So you’ve never been withanyman?”
“What? Yeah. So? It’s not a big deal,” she sputters. “Plenty of people wait until their late twenties to do it. Some even wait until they’re thirty. Who cares?”
“I don’t,” I reply, unsure why she’s suddenly so defensive. “Whether or not you’ve had sexual partners makes no difference to me.”
“Okay. Sorry, I didn’t mean to react so strongly, it’s just—it’s a sensitive subject for me,” she explains. “I’mverysingle, and sure, it’s by choice, but you’ve never been to college. The pressure about that is unbelievable. Like, if you don’t lose it by the time you graduate, you’re a loser. Or a spinster. Or both. When I was getting my master’s, other women were getting married. It’s 2070. You’d think it was a hundred years ago. In some ways, humanity really never changes.”
“What happens in your bedroom is your business, and yours alone. It’s not relevant to our investigation,” I reply. Or to me. If anything, this revelation fills me with a strange sense of pride.
Like I was exceptional enough, and she wanted me more than she’s ever wanted others.
Katrina nods, toying with her tablet. “Thank you.”
The colors, pen strokes, and the palette catch my eye, and I venture a little closer to her. “Are you drawing?”
“Oh, yeah.” Possibly relieved for the sudden switch in subject, she looks at me with a little nod. “It’s something I’ve always done to relax ever since I was a little girl.”
Art is important to her, if her love of cave paintings is any indication. “May I see?”
Katrina ruffles her hair and makes room for me. “Sure. If you want.”
I step around the couch and sit next to her, noticing a shift in her body language. She turns toward me but moves away a little. I make her nervous. If I’m right, she wants to trust me. When sheoffers, I gently take her tablet and zoom out of her current work. She’s drawn prehistoric humans and animals, quite realistically.
“I took some art classes in college,” she replies as Charlie hops into her lap, trilling happily now that he’s won her back from her tablet. “As electives. I really enjoyed them.”
I swipe across the screen, admiring several different sketches and paintings. Then I pause when her artwork shifts to something more futuristic.
My inner temperature suddenly rises. My systems initiate a cooling cycle through my biocomponents when I realize what—or more precisely, who—I’m looking at.
“Is that me?” I look up at her in astonishment.
Katrina hesitates then nods.
My eyes return to her creations. She’s more than a hobby artist. Her drawings are lifelike and accurate. She’s drawn my face, my hair—even the whiteness of my eyes, the only indication in her renditions that I’m not human.
