Countless people called him a machine.

            She thought, however, that it was she, and she alone, who truly had the personal experience to back up that claim. He was unflinchingly honest—even antagonistically so—and nearly everyone who had ever been in contact with him, for any length of time, knew the mechanical workings of his mind and heart; but it was only she who knew the mechanical workings of his body. And that was a distinction that (thankfully) even the boy Fana-tech Magazine had once called the “Crown Prince of California” could not claim.

            She had always liked the term “lovemaking.” She wasn’t sure why, honestly, except that there seemed to be something archaically attractive about it; it was an appealing word, carrying with it all the fairytale romances she had entertained as a teenager.

            She no longer used that term.

            But on consideration, neither did she feel comfortable calling what they did “sex,” because there was something primal, instinctual, about that term that didn’t fit, either. Sex implied passion. Heat. Lust. Desire. If lovemaking was the subtle, sensual heat of candlelight, then sex was a raging, hungry bonfire.

            And neither applied to this, because this…was somehow cold. Oh, her muscles ached and burned afterward, and she was often slick with sweat. Yes, there was heat, in the technical sense. But somehow, deeply entwined in it, there was still an underlying chill. And she didn’t mind that, really. In fact, it was partly because of that singular, mechanical coldness that she kept returning to his bed.

            That, and the unflinching honesty. The bare, clear truth of what their relationship was. He had never led her to think that they were anything more than a convenient partnership bound by mutual benefit. It had started that way, after all; she had agreed to stand with him in public, to hold onto his arm and smile for the camera and herald his virtues, because the prestige afforded by his name delivered to her a special significance. It furthered her station, and thus her influence.