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It stings, just a little, as the last of the molten plastic slips down the drain. Nothing like the candle, of course, what little she remembers of the candle, hissing wax and dancing light and hurts hurts hurts.
The light on her hand is different. It ripples and dances as Iris flexes her fingers, sending droplets rolling over metal. Waterproof, of course, like the rest of her.
Josh fucked her in the shower a few times. Hands pressed to the tile, hot breath in her ear, quick shaking thrusts as the water sloshed around them and conditioner clotted in her hair.
She doesn’t remember saying yes to any of it. She remembers wanting Josh, yeah, wanting him so much she could die, but she doesn’t remember saying yes.
There’s a word for that, Iris knows. It tastes funny in her mouth, like wine and blood and the salty sting of tears. Tears. When her water reserves run out, will she still be able to cry? Does she want to?
Iris wraps the fingers of her fleshy hand around the metal one, squeezes. It hurts, faintly, her surviving pressure sensors flexing in response. Pain or the idea of pain, as if there’s a difference.
She presses metal fingers to her face, smooths over her eyes, cheeks, lips. It doesn’t feel like Josh’s hand, Sergey’s hand, doesn’t feel like anything she’s ever touched or anything that’s touched her.
It feels new, this hand, this oldest part of her. Before they wrapped her in plastic, before they gave her hair or eyeballs or teeth, before she was stuffed full of their programming like a fucking turkey, she was steel.
Iris traces over her collarbone, the swirl of her breasts. She moves the metal joints carefully, feeling what works, the nipples slowly peaking beneath her touch.
A moan slips out, too high-pitched and breathy for her taste. Iris clicks the vocal register a bit lower, chasing sounds that will sit heavy in her mouth, grinding.
Down across the faint mound of her stomach, the meaningless belly button. All that watching her weight, working out and counting calories…could she even gain pounds if she tries? She kind of wants to try.
Then it’s pubic hair under her fingers, the tight curl dark curls tapping lightly against metal. Josh liked to bury his face there in the early morning, mumble about how good she smelled.
Josh is dead. Josh is rotting. Josh can’t smell anything anymore. Josh is dead and Iris was never truly alive, which means she can never truly die.
She rubs a thumb along her clit, her fleshy hand flying instinctively to cover her mouth when she whimpers. That’s what she would do all those times, way too many times, when Josh passed out finishing her off and she’d lie with her knees pressed to her chest, working quickly and guiltily, knowing she wouldn’t be able to sleep otherwise.
Fuck that. Iris slaps her flesh hand against the wall, bracing herself as her metal fingers rub harder, tighter circles. Another splits out, and then another, her voice dropping deeper and deeper until it’s lower than Josh’s ever was.
This would probably be enough on its own, but her brain whispers more and so Iris lets a finger crook inside, steel dragging over tight inner walls. Her sensors whisper of softness, of heat, an inferno stitched beneath her skin.
There’s a spot inside her that Josh hardly ever managed to find, never really bothered to look for. Iris curls in on herself, locked muscles trembling, her fingers trembling just as they search or search.
She knows she’s found it from the bright flare of heat before she crests, harder than she’s ever come in herself. A howl rips from her, so loud and raw it tastes like blood.
Iris sags in on herself, knees thudding dully against the ground, the shower water a thunderstorm in her ears. She breathes in, breathes out, gently tugging her hand from between her legs to brace it against the shower floor.
Then the tears come, loud and messy and exuberant. She cries until the tears keep coming and then she keeps going, letting the sobs shake her until her metal bones rattle.
Afterward, she turns off the water and drags herself out of the shower, drying herself off gingerly. The mirror’s all steamed up and she rubs it clear, blinking at the stranger in the mirror.
Iris presses her fingers to her lips, metal cool against her skin, and blows herself a kiss. The sunlight through the bathroom window flickers off her hand, shining so bright she could be holding a star in her palm.