Man or Machine: 2 (Body Electric) Read Online Free PDF Page B

body,” Hal said. “I always was.”
    And he was turned on now. With him lying on his back, his legs spread out, she could see exactly how much. His erection was a thick rod pressing against the crotch of his black jeans. The sight brought a rush of mingled anger and lust to Ilsa.
    The lust made her even angrier actually.
    “So you thought you’d hide in the closet and indulge in a little virtual-reality screw?”
    His grin widened. “I couldn’t resist it. I knew as soon as I saw his…capabilities that something interesting was going to happen.”
    “And you saw nothing wrong with hacking into him so that you had control. It never occurred to you that you were intruding on an intimate, private act.”
    “You seemed to be enjoying yourself. A lot.”
    “I thought I was having sex with Dallas!”
    “Well, you were. In a manner of speaking. You were having sex with both of us.” He narrowed his eyes as if thinking about something immensely pleasurable. “Come to think of it, that was my first threesome. Nice.”
    “Hal, that is absolutely disgusting.”
    “Ilsa, it was extremely cool. I can’t think of a more appropriate way for geeks to get it on. Through a robotic intermediary.”
    “It’s not cool if one of the parties had no idea it was a threesome.”
    “Come on. You suggested my name to him afterward. You had to at least suspect. Didn’t it seem familiar to you at all? Didn’t it remind you of the way we used to be?”
    Oh God, it had. The way Hal used to touch her, to move inside her. The way she’d let herself go with him. It was why she’d been able to let herself go with Dallas—because although her mind knew she was with a robot, her body had fallen into the past. Into remembered pleasure that she’d shared with Hal.
    Who was lying, bound and aroused, on her bed.
    “I trained Dallas,” Ilsa said. “I created him. Of course it was going to feel familiar.”
    “So what you’re saying then, Ils, is that your masturbatory fantasies are about what we used to do together. I’m flattered.”
    “That’s not what I’m saying!” she cried furiously.
    “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. They’re good memories. I think of them often myself.”
    “Would you shut up ?” She jumped up from the chair and strode to the far end of the room, as far away from him as she could get.
    “You’re right,” he said. “That’s not what you meant. I was being deliberately obtuse.”
    She clenched her fists and tried to breathe calmly, facing the wall. There was a framed photograph of a lake in Maine where her family used to go on vacation. She rarely looked at it and she wasn’t able to take in the details now.
    “I’m sorry,” he said.
    “Are you sorry about being deliberately obtuse or are you sorry about what you did?”
    “I didn’t mean it as a violation. I didn’t think I would manage to control the robot so…completely. And by the time I realized I could, I was too involved to back out.”
    “Involved!”
    “I’ve missed you, Ilsa.” His voice was low and sincere. She struggled with herself not to turn around and look at him.
    At MIT they’d dated, or sort of dated without saying they were dating, for weeks before they ended up in bed together for the first time. They’d gone to the movies and shared popcorn. They’d gone out for pizza or coffee. But mostly they’d worked together, parking their laptops side by side and sparking ideas off each other, laughing over stupid jokes or brainstorming solutions to problems or daring each other to try something new, something interesting, something that just might work.
    She’d wanted him from that first moment when he’d smiled at her and retrieved her quarter. But she hadn’t let herself touch him. It was a big step. It was laying herself open. She probably wasn’t the only virgin doing a master of engineering in computer science at MIT but she was probably the only female one. And he was gorgeous. Properly gorgeous ,