Mimi hissed at the male and gave him a push. He hesitated, then shoved past Tim and ran down the hall and out of the house. Mimi cowered.
“It’s all right,” said Tim. “Don’t be afraid. Come here for a minute. Give me your hands.”
Around her wrists and her throat he clicked the three metallic bands. The neckpiece that would shock her if she tried to leave the house through any door or window. The bracelets that would do the same if they detected the pheromones of any other human.
She tugged at them uncomfortably. “I hate these,” she said. “Tim, what is this? They’re ugly. They feel bad.”
“They’re just for training, sweetheart,” said Tim. “You won’t need them forever. And in the meantime, you’ll get used to them quickly. If you don’t do anything wrong—and you know what I mean—they won’t hurt you.”
Mimi stared at him. She started crying.
“No tears. They react to that, too,” said Tim, and said good night, leaving her bedroom door open.
He locked the front door and went back to bed. He felt a little guilty about the lie he’d told at the end, but also incredibly sleepy in a way that, he realized, he hadn’t experienced for months. Which was a shame, since he had just two hours to rest before getting up for work. He filled them with bad dreams, but he slept all the same.
Edwina was glad to see him back. She cornered him in frozen foods and gave him a heartfelt nuzzle.
“Hey!” she said. “Slacker! Vacation time, I heard. Nice work if you can get it! And now, back from celestial heights to the depths of the seventh circle. Tim, Tim, how quickly we fall.”
“Hey,” said Tim, uneasily.
“Where’ve you been?” pressed Edwina enthusiastically. “What’d you do?”
“I went to Tanzania,” Tim allowed. “Touristy stuff. You know. I had to use my days.”
“Cool! Very cool! Did you have fun? Did you bring me a souvenir?”
“Oh,” said Tim. “Yeah, it was good. Yeah, I mean, I did, but I forgot it at home. I’ll bring it tomorrow.”
“Right,” said Edwina, amused. “I’m excited for that.”
She gave Tim some close scrutiny. He stared at his price checker and tested the button, beeping out a one-note song.
“So, Tim,” she said, still cheerful but quieter. “I just wanted to let you know that that bacterial mind, the one you liked, she’s doing okay. She’s out of the hospital, she’s awake, she’s getting her life back together.”
“Um,” said Tim. “Great, that’s nice to hear. I didn’t really like her, but—”
“Tim,” said Edwina, “come on. We’re friends. It’s okay. Nestor told me about her recovery when he had to explain that the higher-ups decided not to fire me. Kind of a letdown, actually. For me and him both. But I hope you realize that that whole thing—it’s totally fine. I know I kind of took some flack for you there, but I just did it to piss Nestor off. No way that you need to feel that you’re under any kind of obligation. Or that I’m in any way upset. Everything worked out! And even if it didn’t, it still would’ve. You know what I mean?”
“Yes,” said Tim. “I appreciate it.”
“You don’t need to appreciate it! But I appreciate that you do!”
“Good to be back,” said Tim. He played his little song again. “I should probably getting cracking.” He smiled wanly. “Back in the swing of things.”
“Attaboy!” said Edwina. She dealt a playful punch to his midsection. “See you on break?”
“You bet,” said Tim.
Tim roamed the aisles furtively, avoiding Nestor and his coworkers, poking irritable dimples into bags and wiping smudges across the frosty glass doors of the coolers. He followed a few sleepers, but nothing they took from the shelves appealed to him. One of them, a petite, knock-kneed horse with delicate, quivering ears, seemed a little special, so he placed a pretty red enameled brush in her cart, and waited to see how it felt. He followed the horse for a couple more minutes, then took the brush out and hid it in his bulges. He watched her wobble away. Tim removed the brush and put it on top of a vitapaste display. The sound system dinged three times. It was time for his employee group to go on break. He went to find Edwina.
Mimi was not adjusting to celibacy in the way that Tim had hoped. She was not growing calm and mature. Instead, she had taken to pleasuring herself with a frenzy that deeply disturbed him. Perhaps if her autoerotics had occurred in the bathroom, or in bed under cover of night, he could have accepted that as a positive compromise to intercourse, but she fingered herself at every opportunity: lazily, almost unconsciously, while watching her movies; bored and impatient while waiting to be fed; dreamily in the bath, scooched down under the spigot, her eyes closed. She rubbed herself on cushions, rocked against the countertops, ground herself against the carpet. One night, listening to Tim read from a history of ursine inventions, she even enfolded one of his nodules between her legs and began squeezing it slowly with her thighs while she sucked on a strand of her hair. He slapped his hand against her neckpiece, activating the shocker, and her body wrenched. But, to his horror, she didn’t let go. In fact, she clenched tighter, and then, smiling up at him with malevolent pleasure, began tapping her finger against the button of the band around her wrist, setting off a series of little light electrocutions that grew quicker until the intervals between them were almost imperceptible, like a stuttering purr. Her hair rose in a static cloud. She grinned.
Tim hurled her off him, onto the floor, and ran to his room. He slammed the door and threw himself on his bed, plunging his face deep in the cool electrolyte fluid.
Edwina asked Tim to have a drink after work.
“What?” said Tim. “Oh, thanks. I don’t think I can, though. I have to get home. Mimi’s going to be hungry and bored.”
Edwina protested. “Seriously, Tim? She’s a human. I think she can take care of herself for a couple of hours.”
Tim had to admit that that seemed to be the case.
They went to Menagerie, a loud, dark dive with bars on the windows and peanut shells all over the floor. For a while, they talked shit about Nestor. That took two beers each. Tim told Edwina what he’d learned from the vet, the rumors about the antihuman viral colonies. Predictably, Edwina was intrigued.
“That’s terrible!” she said. “But it’s also amazing. A real resistance movement, glory be. Now if they could turn against the systems that are oppressing them, and not the lowest victims of those systems, we might really have something.”
“Do you really think the humans are the victims here?” asked Tim. “I’m serious. They do nothing, and have everything. What if they’re really still in charge? What if everything worked out exactly the way they wanted it to? What if we’re just following some massively complex and subtle protocol that they set in motion millennia ago? Maybe they’re not even aware anymore that they’re the gods in this universe. Or worse, maybe they’re completely cognizant of it.”
Edwina bared her teeth in feral delight. “Oh, my,” she said. “Timtimtim. My labors have not been in vain. Another drink?”
He bought the next round. He told Edwina about his date with Hannah.
“Jeez,” said Edwina. “Well, yeah, that’s a heavy load to lay on a guy. Maybe not ideal dinner conversation. Although, you got to hand it to her, she wasn’t playing games. Still, she had no game. Ultimately, just not sexy.”
“Sexy?” said Tim. “Who cares about sexy? My species is so far away from giving a shit about sexy they didn’t even have to bother to neuter our DNA when we all went clonic. We were fine, just as we were.”
“But, my dear, you’re not fine just as you are. Are you? If you’re going on blind dates? If you’re—forgive me, Timmy—stalking the sleepers? Be real with me here.”