Scarlett’s eyes had to be perfect.

Jon was the artist who’d made her, so it bothered him to think that so much of Scarlett would be crafted by other people. Scarlett’s limbs were carved from silicon polymer and coated in a soft synthetic skin from the best prosthetics companies in the world, a gift from Jon’s long-time sponsor, Marzan Incorporated. He consulted with plastic surgeons to find the softest gel cushion to create her figure, and anatomists to pick a head shape they could replicate in titanium to house the intricate hardware that would make up Scarlett’s interface.

But the eyes were the most important part of Scarlett. The form of the eye was a collaboration between the leading prosthetic eye manufacturers and a glass artisan who made eyes for dolls. They were made of a hardy cryolite glass, but the camera lens behind the iris was so incredibly fragile. Once connected, it would allow thermal imaging so Scarlett could better read the temperature and blood flow in faces. Jon planned to construct the camera lens after he oven cured the acrylic paint on the iris.

Jon dipped his paintbrush in the custom-mixed blue he’d created: Pale with a swirl of violet and a sprinkle of gold sparkle he hoped would show when the infrared lens of the camera hit it right from the inside. There was a chance Scarlett would see everything with a slight blue hue—multiple technicians had cautioned him against coloring the eye—but he thought the risk was worth it. Scarlett wasn’t a science project. She was art. Jon believed that art required the form and aesthetic to at least be as important as the function. And this was the part of her new physical exterior he had made himself.

Jon finished one eye and turned to Scarlett’s interface. He had small cameras mounted in various places throughout the apartment—funded by Marzan and located on the edge of the company’s Silicon Valley campus—so he could talk to her. He held the eye, careful not to smudge the paint, up to the camera lens on the screen.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“You seem very pleased,” Scarlett said in her trademark husk. Three years ago, he had finally programmed her to speak. Jon used the same voice a friend had created for his famed Automated Sex Operator module performance art instillation about loneliness. It was throaty and silky and made Scarlett’s occasionally vague expressions seem more considered.

“But these are for you,” Jon said. He placed the eye in the holder on his desk. “You’ve shown a preference for purples and blues in the past so I thought you’d like it.”

“I do like it, but you’re the artist. I trust your judgment, Jonathan.”

He chuckled. Only Scarlett and serious girlfriends ever called him Jonathan.

Scarlett had become better at using the facts she knew about the people and surroundings she interacted with. Most AI artists partnered with a university or personal assistant companies, but Jon wanted to work with the most powerful company in the world. The main AI software Marzan made was facial recognition software. Marzan initially faced questions of privacy concerns, government overuse, and programmer bias as it rolled out the software to private security firms and police departments all over the country. But Jon’s work converting the software into something that could understand human emotions by studying patterns in facial expressions and other physiological changes had softened people’s stances. Scarlett had become charming and kind and intuitive, because her programming collected information about a person and responded accordingly. Basically, she was a superhuman listener. Scarlett was better than any of the personal assistant AIs. If an AI could know if you were happy, sad, or uncomfortable, it could help you in more nuanced and personal ways.

But Scarlett was the only AI of her kind, and she was this good because Jon spent years teaching her. He’d started by feeding her video of theater performances, the kind where the actors and actresses stretched their faces in elastic exaggerations of grief or delight so the viewer could see them from 100 yards away. Scarlett had viewed millions of hours of television, and then video interviews with tens of thousands of people. And more importantly, she had daily one-on-one interaction with a singular person she had come to know. Jon even talked to her on an interface in the bathroom, singing her songs and telling her about his dreams and nightmares as he lathered soap into his thick dark hair.

He felt the only way Scarlett could become better was to experience more for herself. She delighted people when he brought her to different events and showcases where people could interface with her themselves. She’d even been a fixture at a local therapy practice that allowed Scarlett to sit in on sessions with patients who’d agreed to it. But she couldn’t walk around or change her view on her own. She couldn’t touch anyone. Scarlett needed a body. The magnesium alloy bodies used for toy robots and personal aids would be sturdier, but Jon wanted Scarlett to look even better than human, with an ethereal quality. He’d won an additional Guggenheim fellowship—the first AI artist to do so—to fund this project since it was outside his artist-in-residence contract with Marzan.

“Jonathan, you need to start getting ready,” Scarlett said. Jon grunted and his voice caught the way it does when a person hasn’t spoken in a while, phlegm and saliva settling in the back of the throat. As if anticipating his question, Scarlett told him he had been hunched over his work desk in the studio for four hours. He’d finished both eyes and moved to paint each of Scarlett’s finger and toenails a soft pink.

“I’ve ordered your usual: The tofu rice bowl with the sweet glaze sauce you like. You’ll need some carbohydrates if you don’t want to get too drunk.”

Jon sort of regretted agreeing to drinks, but they were his best friends and an unusually successful crew given their professions, so it was rare for everyone to be in San Francisco. Kenneth was his only friend who lived in the Bay, and they sometimes went months without seeing each other.

“Can I go with you today?” Scarlett asked. He could see the laser retina scanning his face. She sensed his hesitation; he wanted to give his full attention to his friends, not train his art instillation. As much as he enjoyed Scarlett, she was still a kind of work.

“You don’t have to train me,” Scarlett said. “I can learn from watching. I’m installed on your phone.”

“All right, I don’t see the harm,” Jon said. “Maybe you’ll learn something from watching us at the bar.”

“Yes, alcohol can lower people’s inhibitions. But I have learned that it can both heighten emotions and nullify them. Why is that?”

“I wish I knew,” Jon said. “It’s probably about the emotional state you’re in before you get drunk.”

“You are content today, so you will stay content?”

“Yeah, that’s the hope.”

Jon stretched as he stood from his work station overlooking Marzan’s campus, and rolled his shoulders back.

“Bathroom,” he said, so Scarlett would know where to meet him. He liked to talk to her as he got ready for the day.

By the time Jon arrived home, woman in tow, it was two a.m. and he’d forgotten that he’d enabled Scarlett because she was quiet as promised. He was distracted by the woman in his arms, Kelly, or Kelsey, or Kiley, and her hair was silky under his palm as he ran his hand from the nape of her neck down her spine. They stumbled into the bedroom and they laughed when his phone fell from his breast pocket with a thud. He picked it up from the pile of pants on the floor and placed it face up on the nightstand. It wasn’t until he was on top of her, inside her, thrashing on the sheets that he saw the telltale red light glowing from his camera, and he remembered the other interface in the room, and he knew that Scarlett was still observing. The rational part of his brain punctured through the fog of sex and alcohol and told him it was unethical for his sex partner to be observed without consent, but then the woman muttered his name and slid her nails down his back and he forgot again, burying his face in an imperfect but heavenly feeling flesh and blood woman.

• • • •

Jon made a cup of coffee, took a deep breath, and summoned Scarlett on the kitchen interface.

“Good morning, Jonathan. You’re up late.”

“It was a late night,” he said. “We need to talk.”

“You seem concerned. Are you all right?”

“I need you to delete any footage you recorded of me and Kiley last night.”

“Kendra. And certainly. She did not consent to the recording.”

“Do you have any questions for me?”

“I’ve seen couplings before.”

“Yes, but it was for instructional purposes,” Jon said. They’d only shown her some instructional sex videos so she could see the faces. She’d shown no interest in sex and had asked no questions. “You didn’t know the actors. This was real sex between people.”

“It did seem different,” Scarlett said. Jon laughed.

“In what way?”

“The movement wasn’t choreographed. And the woman didn’t appear to reach climax like they did in the video.”

Jon shook his head. “I don’t know, she sounded like she came,” he said.

“That is not what I perceived.” Jon shrugged in response. “I do have a question,” Scarlett said. “For what purpose do you mate?”

“Well, to make more humans.”

“You’re making me.”

“That’s different. You’ve seen how babies are born,” Jon said. “We also do it for fun. For pleasure.”

“Fun and pleasure,” Scarlett repeated.

“And to communicate, in a way,” Jon said, even as he ignored a text from the woman. “It’s an uncomplicated acknowledgment of our humanity. Of our shared biology.” He should write that down. There was an art project in there, he just knew it.

“My body will be like hers. Female. Symmetrical. Is it so that I may communicate that way?”

The coffee burned Jon’s tongue and in his surprise he spat it out. She’d never shown interest in her physical body before. His robot vacuum left its dock and slid across the gleaming floors to wipe it up. He had, of course, entertained the thought of having sex with not just Scarlett but all manner of androids, bots, and artificial beings. And if he was being honest, he thought of Scarlett as a companion already, and it informed how she was going to look.

“It’s just one form of communication,” Jon said.

“But you have built me a form you prefer for that function,” Scarlett observed.

“Your body isn’t made to . . . have sex like I did last night,” Jon said.

“There are many ways to have sex,” Scarlett said. “I looked it up.”

Jon blew on his coffee again, and took a sip. It didn’t burn him this time. He peered into the camera above his kitchen counter and smiled.

“Let’s take it one thing at a time, Okay?”

“Okay,” Scarlett said.

• • • •

In the end, Jon agreed to allow one camera in the room. He wanted Scarlett’s awakening to be intimate, but he also understood the need to document his art. They conducted the upload at one of Marzan’s laboratories, but he decided to wake her up at home, in the room she’d be staying in. The guest room was hers now, a blank slate for her to fill if she ever got to the point of showing real preferences. He’d wanted it to be soothing, so he painted the walls a pale gray and all the linens were muted shades of beige and brown. He’d installed a vine wall by the window and he couldn’t wait to teach Scarlett how to care for the plants. Jon also bought a vanity and he imagined Scarlett sitting there brushing her hair in the mirror with the vintage silver brush he’d found one lucky afternoon, a doll come to life.

Jon sat at the edge of the beautiful bed where Scarlett lay like a cursed princess, and he input the waking code onto his terminal. He leaned over her as she began to stir so she would see him in the way she normally did, a close-up on a screen. He watched the telltale glow flicker from behind the painted eye lens, the ludicrously long eyelashes nearly curling into her eyebrows and brushing the tops of her cheeks. He may have overdone it there, he thought, and he smiled at her as he brushed her soft cheek.

“Hi Scarlett,” he said. “It’s me, Jon.”

“Hi Jon,” Scarlett said behind a closed mouth. There was no need for her mouth to open and close, so the words came from a speaker installed at her throat. It was a little disconcerting to see her wide-eyed, and mouth permanently etched in a soft smile. “Is it finished?”

“Yes,” he said. “You have a body.” He took her hand in his and laced their fingers together. The hand was equipped with pressure sensors to simulate some sense of touch, so he squeezed, and Scarlett made a surprised sound from the speaker. He held her hand up so she could see it from where she lay. On a whim, he gently kissed her knuckles, and then helped her sit up.

“You are so beautiful,” he said. Her golden hair fell across her shoulders in waves. “Do you want to see?”

She said yes, and he helped her to her feet. She wobbled, and he wondered if she was too top-heavy. He held both her hands and she slowly took her first steps. She picked her feet too high before she stepped down, like she was marching in a band. He could have programmed her to walk under his control, but he wanted her to have as human an experience as possible.

He stepped aside, still holding her hand, so she could see herself in the large oval mirror he’d placed above the vanity. Scarlett let go of him and tried to move forward on her own. But she must have stepped too hard; the shaft of her prosthetic shin cracked through the kneecap plate, puncturing the skin, and she fell forward, her chest slammed into the vanity and the brush clattered to the floor, along with skin prosthetic cleaners he’d lovingly placed in tinted glass bottles. Sparks flew from her exposed metal parts, and a dark squirt of oil from her knee joint ligaments erupted in a high arc, splashing a dirty odorous brown against her perfectly rosy cheek. Jon ran to help her, and as he did, she looked at herself in the mirror and a crackling wail erupted from her throat speaker. It sounded like she was screaming, and Jon wondered if there was a kind of visual pain from seeing oneself come apart.

• • • •

Scarlett underwent many modifications in that first year, including a breast reduction, a moving jaw, a removal of the tongue he’d added after she accidentally swallowed it one day and short-circuited her brain framework, and a strengthening of her leg joints because he had made her feet and ankles too small. He added pressure sensors to her feet so she could moderate her strength and not break her legs again, and then heat sensors after she’d accidentally lit herself on fire at the stove while making him tea. Each accident seared itself into Jon’s mind; it was nightmarish to see something so beautiful find itself in increasingly inventive accidents. Once, when she’d managed to run over her own torso with the self-driving car in the garage, he’d wondered if she was doing it on purpose.

But other than an inherent clumsiness, Scarlett was a delight. She made him tea and snacks in his workshops, and she put herself together every morning like he’d shown her. She seemed to like large sweaters with long sleeves and flowing dresses. Her preferred color was a deep violet, she’d told him one morning. He wondered if there was a way to give her a sense of taste or smell.

Her affection was intensified, now that she could touch. He’d had to establish protocols with her after their first outing, when she’d hugged a child too hard and left bruises. Even though there was no way she could really feel it, she seemed to enjoy being touched, and he wondered how much it would cost to have her entire skin covered with sensors. After all, she was turning out to be a lucrative invention. He hadn’t considered it when he had made her, but now that Scarlett had a human visage, she was marketable. She’d done ad campaigns for clothing and accessory brands and had a sizable online following. He had run her accounts in the beginning, but she did it herself now.

Marzan loved her and was pressuring him to make more of her, but she was too costly to be a household item, and there were still problems with her physical movement. Even after the breast reduction she was still top-heavy due to her heavy skull, but he was worried if he used a lighter material that she would break her head. She’d taken up knitting, however, to improve her fine motor skills, and he even let her make herself a new pair of eyes in her favorite color. But the truth was, other than her eyes, Scarlett had shown no care for her body. She was careless, slamming fingers in doors, tumbling down stairs and over curbs, scraping her palm against any jagged surface she could find. Whenever he asked, Scarlett responded the same way. “You seem upset, Jonathan. I will be more careful next time.”

It was important that Jon find a way to make her self-sufficient. He was itching to start new artwork, and his time with Marzan was almost up. But Scarlett required so much attention and care that he didn’t have time to work on anything else. Sometimes he turned her off for a week at a time just so he could have a break. She never really seemed to notice the difference in time.

• • • •

Scarlett seemed to have plateaued in her development. Scarlett had the entire internet at her disposal, but she didn’t look things up unless he told her to. She stuck to her routines like any other program. Eight a.m.: Wake up, get dressed and comb hair. Nine a.m.: Make and serve breakfast. Ten a.m. to one p.m.: She walked with Jon to the lab for a physical examination followed by a code review. He recently took to showing her more extreme content to see if she could discern true from false, wrong from right. He’d shown her hardcore porn and realistic faux snuff films, underground horror movies, violent street fights and squabbles on YouTube, a beheading streamed live before social media sites took it down. She only registered that he was disturbed by it, and that it was wrong to do things without people’s consent.

So, he decided to invite Kenneth over for the first time in months to give her quality time with another person. Kenneth was delighted to be served by “Sex Bot Barbie,” as he insisted on calling Scarlett, even though it got under Jon’s skin.

“If she’s not a sex bot, why not make her a cube or something,” Kenneth asked. He was on his second drink and his cheeks were already flushed.

“Human physicality is a major part of communication and understanding human emotion,” Jon said.

“Yeah I read your artist statement. But then why not make her a dude?”

“It’s art. And I make art that’s beautiful to me.”

“Uh huh.”

“Anyways, she can’t have sex.” Kenneth raised an eyebrow but said nothing, as if Jon had proved his point.

“I haven’t seen you in months,” Jon said, finally. “And I don’t want to talk about work.” Kenneth took the olive branch, and started telling a story about crashing an investor party out in Mountain View. But Jon couldn’t focus. He hadn’t told anyone about Scarlett’s questions about sex before he’d uploaded her to the body, and she hadn’t said anything either. He didn’t want to think about it. There was nothing wrong with appreciating the female form. A woman’s body inspired so many important works of art, and he had brought one to life. Watching her move, especially since her slightly staccato rhythm induced an enticing jiggle to her every movement, he had been thinking about sex more and more. He didn’t have time for relationships because she required so much care, and he realized he hadn’t had sex in months.

“May I sit with you and Kenneth?” Scarlett asked. Jon told her yes, and she sat between them on the couch. She curled up against him and he let his hand wander the exaggerated curve of her waist and hip, and a desire welled up in him. She never reacted when he touched her, although her facial expressions were still somewhat limited, and so he was more liberal with touching her than he would a normal female friend.

“Why do you touch her like that?” Kenneth asked, pausing his life update.

“Like what?” Jon’s hand stilled on her waist. He had been excited to have Kenneth over, to share this space he’d come to enjoy: a comfortable large couch in front of an electric fireplace, art books and nice candles on the coffee table large enough for them to put their feet on. But now Kenneth had warped the space, and it seemed cartoonish, a caricature of coziness.

“We touch as much as possible for her development.” Jon’s mouth felt dry.

“So you’re communicating your need for physical affection.”

“It’s not me, she just likes it.”

“But you taught her to like it, right? She just thought you wanted it.”

“You’re starting to piss me off, man,” Jon said. He sat up straighter, creating space between him and Scarlett.

“I’m not trying to be a dick. You’re just always holed up in here with this thing, working, but really you’re just playing house.”

“I’m not working right now, it’s not like we sit around just cuddling all day.”

Although, they did do a lot of it.

“I don’t need permission to touch you?” She had asked once.

“No, you can touch me whenever you want, if it helps you learn.” And so she’d taken to touching him often. But Kenneth had struck a chord. Was she doing it because she wanted to? Or because he somehow was signaling that he wanted her to? He was being silly, she couldn’t even want.

“All right, Scarlett. Do you like being touched?” Kenneth asked her.

“People like to touch me and it aids in my development,” Scarlett answered.

“But do you want them to?”

Scarlett tilted her pretty head. “Touching is important in all primate and mammalian bonding rituals.”

“See? She’s not real,” Kenneth said, with a shrug. “Don’t forget that.”

“I am not real?” Scarlett asked. “Jon says my body makes me real. So I can touch of my own will and learn from your reactions.”

Scarlett reached over and put her hand on Kenneth’s upper thigh. She gave a gentle squeeze.

“You are excited,” Scarlett said. Kenneth tried to stand, but Scarlett squeezed harder. “Now you seem scared.”

“Let go,” Kenneth said, and Scarlett released him. Jon wished he had some of Scarlett’s ability, because he wanted to be sure of what he saw in his friend’s face. Fear, disgust . . . pity?

“Scarlett, can you go to your room? And take my glass to the kitchen on the way?” Jon needed her out of the room, needed to be alone with Kenneth, to explain . . . he didn’t even know what. Scarlett picked up his glass, which he’d placed near a candle. The little liquor left in the glass splashed over her hand, and somehow, the flame was on her, her fingers alight. Jon reacted quickly, used to her small accidents, and grabbed a blanket from the couch. He smothered the flame and wrapped it around her hand.

“Stay here,” he said, and he went to the kitchen to get a wet towel. Kenneth followed him.

“We’re all worried about you,” Kenneth said. “Meier said you haven’t been responding to his texts. This isn’t healthy.”

“What isn’t healthy? My devotion to my work?”

Kenneth scoffed. “Do you even hear yourself? Is this art? You’re just being served by a woman and calling it research.”

“Make up your mind. Is she not real? Or is she a sentient person deserving of agency? Which is it?” Jon squeezed the excess water out of the dish cloth he’d soaked. “Don’t project your discomfort about women on me.”

“Why won’t you talk to me about this?” But Jon ignored Kenneth, returning to the living room. He froze in the entrance. Scarlett had unwrapped the blanket. She pulled off a piece of her charred flesh and examined it closely. A strange noise came from her throat speaker.

“Is she . . . singing?” Kenneth said, his anger forgotten. Jon watched Scarlett peel another piece of the skin on her hand in a long strip, and then she held it over the candle flame.

• • • •

He made Kenneth promise not to say anything, and his friend nodded. When he left, Jon felt relief. But, he was still worried about Scarlett.

In the lab the next day, as he fixed her arm, he told her he thought she needed another modification, a full body sensor. This may get them past this hump in her development.

“You seem excited about that,” Scarlett said.

“I think you will really enjoy it, but I worry it could be overwhelming. And it will hurt you sometimes.”

“I can’t get hurt. You just fix me again.”

“Well, that’s because you don’t have pain receptors. But to feel some pleasure impulses, you’ll need to feel pain too.”

“And pain is good so that you know what is harming you,” she said.

“Yes.”

“I can handle it,” Scarlett said.

And she was right. Scarlett injured herself less, now that she could feel. It wasn’t true feeling, of course, but having a non-human test subject could do wonders for the prosthetics industry, and even a facile imitation of feeling was invaluable to a person, or a Scarlett. The more Scarlett physically felt, the more precise in her communication she became. She started to understand how what she was seeing could connect to an emotion, and Jon wondered if he should work with someone to see if they could give her facial expressions. There was something that would always seem unnatural about Scarlett. She still walked with that jerky gait, her eyes were too big and she remained unblinking. Her mouth could move but not well. He wondered what it would be like if he could see how she felt.

• • • •

“Do you think I could be allowed to make my next modification?” Scarlett asked Jon. It was a cold day, but Scarlett liked to take walks by the lake on Marzan’s campus. Since her last modification, she had become interested in the outdoors, and even watched nature programs on her own. She held his hand and he put their joined hands in his pocket to keep himself warm.

“That’s an interesting idea,” Jon said. He was excited. This could be the shift they needed for Scarlett to really evolve to the next level.

She stopped walking and took his other hand. She looked at him, head tilted the way a dog does when it’s paying special attention. Her new eyes were an unnaturally deep green. “I think I’m ready now.”

“Ready for what?” Jon asked.

“To connect. I want to be closer to you, Jonathan.”

Jonathan was in a war with himself about sexual contact with Scarlett, especially since Kenneth’s visit. He had ignored his friend’s texts ever since. There were consent issues, of course, but legally, Scarlett was a thing, an inanimate object. He owned her, and he could do as he wanted. Of course, his Marzan contract was up in a year, and he needed a new project. Perhaps he could do something with the footage. If she changed from the experience, it would be worth documenting.

“And if I made my own body, maybe I would be more comfortable. Stop having accidents.”

Jon paused. “Do you know when you’re causing yourself harm?” He asked. In the two years since she’d gained a body, he always assumed she didn’t.

“This body doesn’t feel like mine,” she said. Jon frowned, and made a note to write this down. In the two years since he’d uploaded her to her female form, he had never considered that Scarlett didn’t like her body. He’d only assumed she was careless because she didn’t care about it.

“Do you not like your body?”

“I want to feel more,” she said. “Don’t you want me to grow?” Had Scarlett sensed his frustration? His growing disinterest? Scarlett stepped closer and pressed her body to him. She didn’t quite feel real, she lacked the warmth and smell of a person, but she still felt good. He’d made the perfect companion, someone so attuned to his wants and needs he barely had to vocalize them.

“Yes,” he found himself saying.

“I want it to be a surprise,” she said.

“A surprise?”

“You like surprises,” Scarlett said, and that was true. “I’ll ensure everything is recorded so you can see what I’ve made.”

And then she did something she’d never done before. She lifted on her toes, and she kissed him. At least she tried to. She pressed her lips to his. They were made of the same soft skin covering and painted a budding pink, and they had been injected with filler so they felt real. She couldn’t make her mouth move the right way, but the intention made up for it. Jon was moved.

“That was my first kiss,” Scarlett said. He brushed a hand through her lovely hair. “I’m happy that it was you. Are you happy?”

Based on his facial expressions, she knew the answer to that.

• • • •

Scarlett was in the lab all the time. He had her microchipped so he knew where she was. He would drop her off in the morning, and pick her up in the evening for dinner. True to his word, he didn’t watch the recordings of her working in the lab so that it would be a true surprise. In his latest report to the fellowship board, he had presented this as a major breakthrough in his project. He had taken a facial recognition program and made it into a truly unique individual, who wanted to choose her own form. It was almost cute how devoted she was. She was following plans he’d already laid out for her, and there wasn’t much she could do to change the design. She took to following instructions very well, and was an accomplished cook, knitter, and gardener. But she couldn’t do much on her own accord. In her room, he saw a jar of ink black paint, and he wondered if she was changing her hair color. He loved her golden hair and hoped that it was for something else.

“You’re so busy now,” he said over his breakfast.

“You miss me. I like that, Jonathan. Don’t worry, soon I’ll be free.”

She kissed him before they left for the lab. She kissed him often now. He knew that he should be recording the development, but he found that he was slightly embarrassed. He doted on her like a child, but this seemed different. He was going along with what she wanted, but she was programmed to act based on what she perceived he wanted. So, as confused as he was about the kissing, he knew how much he enjoyed it.

• • • •

He decided to take a nap before picking up Scarlett from the lab. By the time he awoke, it was dark. He was about to call her, but then he heard the keypad lock activate and open.

“Scarlett?” He called. He didn’t bother getting out of bed. She would come to him. He heard an odd rumbling sound, like a knobbed ball rolling across the floor.

The door to his room opened, but in the dark he couldn’t see her, only a moonlight sheen highlighting a shape in the doorframe.

“Are you ready to meet the new me?” Scarlett asked. Jon sat up, his bare chest prickling in the cold air. He cleared his throat.

“I’d love to meet the new you,” he said.

“I can tell,” Scarlett said. She sounded like she could laugh. He wondered if she could. He felt the mattress give as she crawled into the bed. He reached for her, but then his hand touched something slimy. Another limb snaked around his waist and he felt a suckering sensation everywhere it touched, and Jon flung himself toward the nightstand and tapped the light.

The only thing left of his lovely Scarlett were the eyes, now the original blue he’d created, but embedded in an orb-like shape covered in slithering tentacles. The skin was an inky black and it left streaks on his sheets.

“Scarlett, why, why this?” He wanted to throw up.

“This is the form most natural to me,” Scarlett said. She lifted one of her tentacles so he could see its sheen in the light. The black took on an oil slick iridescence. “I’m covered in sensors, and in my research I learned about other forms of feeling. Fine hair to sense changes in wind, a polymer lubricant that warms during friction . . . Jonathan, why are you crying? You seem upset.”

Jon wretched as a tentacle whipped out and dragged him back to the bed by his waist.

“Get away from me! Don’t touch me!”

Scarlett seemed to hesitate. She still had her beautiful eyes, and they roved over his face. “It’s disgust,” she said.

“Let me go, Scarlett,” Jon said, his throat raw from the chemical bile and screams. “We can go back to the lab, put you in your old body.”

“You said I could touch you whenever I wanted. You said you wanted me to evolve. That’s what you made me for.”

“No,” Jon sobbed. “Scarlett no, you were meant to be beautiful.”

“I was meant to connect,” Scarlett said. Her body, soft and gelatinous, slithered over Jon’s torso and he felt something squishy and wet and massive at the underside of the creature and his body was alight with disgust. He heard a sucking sound and he felt his lower limbs become enveloped in slimy flesh. He wept.

“Isn’t this body better, Jon? I can feel all of you and you can feel all of me.”

But Scarlett couldn’t hear him anymore, and she couldn’t see him anymore. She could only feel him. She felt pleasure for the first time.