The Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee Read Free Book Online

coldness, the potential cruelty I had seen before—or had I imagined it? Was a robot permitted to be cruel to a human?—and no kindness, and no smile.
    In desperation, frantic, my eyes slid away to Egyptia.
    Pretending to see me for the first time, acting friendship now where she had acted Cleopatra-in-lust a second before, she rose and swam toward me.
    (We spend our lives acting.)
    “Darling Jane. You came after all.”
    She threw her arms around me. I felt comforted in the midst of fear, and I clutched her, being careful not to spoil her clothes, a trick I sort of mastered with my mother. Over her shoulder, the silver robot looked away and began to tune the guitar. People were sitting down by him, asking him things, and he was answering, making them laugh over and over. I hadn’t seen him before because he was surrounded by people. Built-in wit. If only I had some.
    “Jane, you look adorable. Have some champagne.”
    I had some champagne.
    I kept hoping the leaden feeling would go away, or the other feeling of burning up inside would go, but neither did. Later he played again, and I sat alone, far away amid the bushes, forcing back the stupid uncontrollable tears. In the end, the nasty Lord took me to a grove in the gardens, and seated under the vines there, which were heavy with grapes, he fondled me and kissed me and I let him, but I kept thinking: I can’t bear this. How can I make him stop?
    About one in the morning, as he was telling me to come along, we’d go to his apartment, I thought of a way.
    “I—I haven’t had my contraception shot this month. I’m overdue for it.”
    “Well, I’ve had mine. And I’ll be careful.”
    “No, I’m a Venus Media, very fertile. I can’t risk it.”
    “Why didn’t you bloody well tell me before?”
    Acutely self-conscious and ashamed, I stared at the grapes. If I cried again, my mascara would run and he would hate me and go. So of course, I couldn’t cry. I thought of the robot. I thought of the robot kissing Egyptia, and all the women who would ask to be kissed. If I asked, he would kiss me. Or bite me. Or—do anything I said, providing someone paid Electronic Metals Ltd.
    “I feel sick,” I said to Lord. “Nauseous. I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t vomit over me,” he said, got up, and fled.
    There was some wine left, so I sat in the grove and drank it, though it had no taste. I tried to make believe I was in Italy, long ago, the grapes around me, the heavy autumn night pressed close as a lover to the city. But I heard gusts of a band somewhere, or a rhythm tape elsewhere.
    Catching the lights in the leaves, his silver skin glowed, though his hair only fired up when he was ten feet from me. I thought he was coming toward me and my heart stopped. Then I realized I was close to the non-moving stair going down to the street, and he was simply leaving the gardens, the guitar on its cord over one shoulder, and a blood-red cloak from the old Italy I’d been trying to go back to slung over the other.
    He went by me and down the steps. He ran down them lightly. A eucalyptus tree screened him and he was gone.
    My heart restarted with a bang that shook me to my feet.
    Holding up my long skirt, I ran down the steps after him.
    There were bright lights, and quite a few people out on the sidewalk, and cars hurtling by. All the shops and theatres and bars which stayed open flared their signs and their windows. And he passed through the lights and the neons and the people and the fumes of the traffic, now a slim dark silhouette, now a crimson and white one. He walked with a beautiful swagger. When a flyer went over like a prism, he put back his head to look at it. He
was
human, only his skin gave him away—and the skin might be makeup. He moved like an actor, why not paint himself like one? People on the street looked at him, looked after him. How many guessed? If they hadn’t heard Electronic Metals’ advertising,
no one
.
    I followed him. Where was he going? I supposed he