by Amanda Heger
Finally, Helen looked up. “I swear it was subconscious. I’ve never had a very good imagination, so I guess my brain just filled in the blanks with…you.”
“Please, don’t worry about it,” Jake said. “But I’m sorry to say that we aren’t going to be able to help you. Love casting only works on humans, not, uh, robots.”
“Mandroid,” Helen corrected before she turned back to Eliza. “Are you sure you can’t help me? I read online that Man-A-Call—the company that makes Mandroids—is owned by a Cupid. There’s a rumor that he can work enchantments on machines. That’s why the Mandroids are so lifelike.”
“Unfortunately, you can’t believe everything you read online, especially when it comes to Cupids,” Eliza said.
A muscle twitched along Helen’s jaw. “I know. It’s just… Do you know how much Jacque cost me—only to break the second he was out of warranty?”
“I don’t,” Eliza said. “I’m sorry. Is there anything else I can do for you? I’d be happy to—”
“You can fix Jacque.”
Eliza sighed. “Helen, if you’d like—”
“Do you know what I risked to help you out the other day?” Helen’s words were getting more barbed with each syllable.
Eliza took a deep breath and tried to look calm, cool, and professional. “A lot, I’m sure. And I appreciate—”
“I violated company policy for you. I could have lost my managerial position.” Helen leaned over the desk, too close for comfort. “They could have sent me back to produce!”
“Let’s all just take a minute, okay?” Eliza closed the folder and slid it back across the desk. “Helen, I’m very sorry that you’re having trouble with Jacque, but enchantments don’t work on inanimate objects. Maybe instead you’d be interested in hearing about one of our other packages? I’d be happy to offer you a very steep discount. We have—”
“Do you know how cold it is in the produce section, Eliza?” Helen asked.
Eliza gave Jake a clear SOS stare. He held up his hands in defeat.
“It’s very cold every time I go in there,” Eliza said.
“Thirty-four degrees,” Helen said. “Thirty-four. That’s too cold.”
“Um, I’m sorry about that. But I really can’t—”
“Then I guess you leave me no choice.” Helen stuck her hand up the back of Jacque’s shirt like a ventriloquist. He blinked twice, then turned to face Helen. The whole thing would have been impressive if it wasn’t so damn creepy.
“Jacque, call the Department of Affection, Seduction, and Shellfish,” Helen said.
“The Department of Affection, Seduction, and Shellfish nearest to you is the Northern California division of the Department of Affection, Seduction, and Shellfish,” he said. “Is this who you would like to call?”
“No,” Eliza said. Panic clashed and clanged inside her like a hyperactive toddler with a pair of cymbals. “No, Jacque, no.”
Helen raised her eyebrows. “You’re willing to help me then?”
“Yes. Yes, I’ll help you. Or I’ll at least give it a try.”
Jake took a step forward. “Eliza—”
“It’s fine, Jake. There’s no harm in giving it a try.”
“Are you going to call Oliver and give him twenty-four hours’ notice before you enchant a sex robot?”
“Mandroid,” Helen said, “and I’d rather not wait a full day to get my Jacque back.”
Eliza sucked in a deep breath, then forced it out. She’d worked at an IT help desk for almost six months before this. Once, she’d spent an entire hour on the phone with a mansplaining CEO, trying to convince him that a screen saver was not something he needed to actively turn on. Certainly she could manage a Mandroid. “I already left him a message about this consultation. And since I’m not enchanting a human being, I don’t see the need to report anything else to the Department,” she said to Jake.
“See?” Helen petted Jacque’s thigh. “We’re going to take care of you, baby.”
“I’ll be out front,” Jake said before fleeing to the relative safety of the lobby.
“Men always have that reaction to Jacque,” Helen said when the door closed behind Jake.
Eliza wasn’t about to open that can of Mandroid worms. “What’s the problem with Jacque, exactly? Keep in mind that I’ve never seen a Mandroid in real life before.”
Helen hauled Jacque to his feet and tugged his shirt over his head. Eliza was pretty sure Jake sported a six-pack, but the dummy version of him had at least eight distinct abs on his plastic torso. Without fanfare, Helen laid him across Eliza’s lap. His head strayed uncomfortably close to her groin. “See? Three settings: virtual assistant, gaming assistant, and personal assistant. His personal assistant setting stopped working a month ago.”
Eliza leaned over so she could see where Helen pointed. A black box sat between the Mandroid’s shoulder blades. The tiny knob sat in the “virtual assistant” position, but the other two settings Helen had mentioned were also clearly labeled.
“Virtual assistant is like what you just did?” Eliza asked. “With the phone number?”
“And things like news, to-do lists. Watch this.” She flipped Jacque faceup. “Jacque, read me my shopping list.”
Jacque did that slow-blink thing again and turned to Helen. “Cantaloupe. Ground beef, two pounds. Supermax tampons, plastic applicator.”
“Okay. Helpful,” Eliza said. “And gaming assistant?”
She flipped Jacque over onto the desk, turned the knob to the correct position, flipped him back over, and pressed a button on his abdomen. A swath of his skin rolled down into his pants to reveal a touch screen. “I’m not much of a gamer. Or I didn’t used to be. Lately, that’s all he’s good for though, so I’ve been playing a lot of Bejeweled, Egg Salad Saga, that sort of thing.”
Eliza nodded as if that made perfect sense. “I assume personal assistant is his other function.”
Helen nodded.
“What about this?” Eliza pointed to another knob higher on Jacque’s neck. It also had three settings: verbal, manual, continual. “If you set it to verbal, what’s supposed to happen?”
Helen’s cheeks reddened just a little. “Verbal is dirty talk. Once you say enough trigger words to him, he’s supposed to get an erection.”
“So, manual is…” At a loss for words, Eliza made a quick back-and-forth motion with her hand.
Helen nodded. “And continual is just sort of automatic, you know? That was the last setting to go. For months, he’d ignored me unless I flipped him straight on. But now even that isn’t working.”
Poor Helen. First she’d had a flop of a date with Jake, and then she couldn’t even arouse her sex robot. “Did he come with a user manual?” Eliza asked.
“It’s useless. I’ve tried all the troubleshooting techniques already. I even called the company help desk. They basically said, ‘Too bad, so sad,’ and offered me a five percent discount on a new model. Can you believe that?”
In Eliza’s experience, some sex toys were better than others, but new models tended to work just as well as the old ones. Of course, none of hers looked like Jake—so maybe that was the difference. “Do you have the manual?”
Helen pulled it from the back of the folder. “I spent a lot of my 401(k) on this,” she whispered. “I really need you to fix him.”
Ah. That was the difference. Eliza opened the guide. It might as well have been in a foreign language.
“You read French?” Helen asked, looking over her shoulder.
“Oh.” Eliza flipped the booklet over to the side written in English.
But even with the words in English, she didn’t understand much of anything. The only thing even remotely useful was a diagram of the Mandroid’s inner workings. Apparently, he had a bladder near his belly button that held his “fluids.” When he was turned on
and, well, turned on, the bladder pushed the fluids into his penis, causing an erection. At an appointed time (set by the user, of course), the fluids shot out of the penis, leaving it deflated.
“Is he out of fluids?” Eliza asked.
“No. I flush and refill him every week, like clockwork.”
Of course she did. Eliza stood and walked over to Jacque. “I drive an old car, and sometimes the coolant reservoir gets a little clogged. Once every few months, I stick an insulated wire through the hose and clean it out. But if I’m out on the road and I don’t have one of those, I give it a little jiggle, jiggle, tap to see if I can get things moving.”
“You enchant your car?” Helen asked. “But you said you can’t enchant objects!”
“No. It’s just a trick… You know what? Let’s just try it. Can you take down his pants?”
Without any fanfare, Helen stripped the Mandroid naked and laid him across the desk. At least no one could say Eliza’s life as a semiprofessional Cupid was boring. And since this morning’s escapes hadn’t rid her brain (and body) of a need for Jake, maybe tapping along Jacque’s flaccid penis could completely kill her sex drive. One way to get rid of the problem…
“Okay, Helen. On my car, it helps if it’s been running. When it’s warm, the gunk in the tubes is looser. So, would you like to, um, warm him up?” Eliza asked.
“I can’t.” Helen sniffled some more. “I got my nails done right before I came over here. A manicure usually cheers me up.”
“Are you sure, because—”
“Think of it like a medical procedure, Eliza. Please, go ahead.”
Eliza stared at the naked Mandroid on her desk. It was time to decide how badly she wanted to be licensed. Yes, she wanted it badly enough to study her ass off. Yes, she wanted it badly enough to put her entire life on hold. But did she want it badly enough to do this?
Yes. Yes, she did. Because at the end of the day, if she had to jerk off a robot to help her family, that was what she’d do.
Here goes nothing. She closed her eyes, wrapped her hand around the penis—surprisingly lifelike—and squeezed. She’d just do this for five or ten seconds. Then things would—
The door flew open. “Eliza, I—Wow. I did not see this coming,” Jake said.
Great. She dropped Jacque’s penis and started to explain. But at the same time, Helen threw herself on top of Jacque, slamming Eliza against his nether regions. “Did you ever think of knocking first?” Helen barked.
Jake ignored her. “Eliza, I know you’re worried about Oliver, but—”
Something grew rigid beneath her left boob. Very rigid. And very thick. “It’s hard!”
Jacque’s head turned back and forth. “Let me show you my pleasure horn,” his deep, not-quite-human voice said.
“Jacque!” Helen shoved Eliza off the Mandroid and held him to her chest. “You’re back!”
Eliza crept away until she stood beside Jake in the doorway. The robot’s boner had knocked her so off guard that she forgot herself and grabbed Jake’s elbow. “He probably just had a wire loose or something, right? And I knocked it back into place?”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “Definitely.” But something in his voice said he wasn’t convinced.
And neither was Eliza. In fact, if she hadn’t spent so many years in PSC classes, being taught that Cupids could not—under any circumstances—enchant inanimate objects, she’d think that was a hint of Love Luster sparkling in the corner of the room.
But that was crazy. Right?
Chapter 13.5
“For Zeus’s sake, stop trying to enchant the dogs. It only works on people!”
—Every parent who ever raised a Cupid
What the…?
How did she…?
Why did it…?
You know what? I don’t want to know.
Chapter 14
“Cupid Exam Tip #42: Bring extra No. 2 pencils. Although these are not technically regulation approved, they can be thrown during projectile weapon portions of the exam for partial credit.”
—Sterling & Rockwell’s Strategies and Tactics for Passing the Cupid Licensing Exam
Eliza pulled Ron Weasley into the Department parking lot and flipped through the pages of Sterling and Rockwell’s. The last week had been an oasis of calm. Helen had left Herman & Herman a glowing review online, and Eliza hadn’t had to deal with any more customer shenanigans. Agent Oliver hadn’t even called to admonish Eliza about kissing Jake, and she and Jake had agreed it would be best for him to keep his distance for a few days—for the sake of their careers and her ability to study for today’s exam.
Knock, knock, knock.
Knuckles rapped against her window. Knuckles that had once brushed across her neck and left goose bumps behind.
She cracked the window. “Jake, hi.”
“You ready?” he asked.
Ron blasted out a few angry notes of Metallica. “That’s new. Usually, it’s just the CD, not the radio,” Eliza said, smacking her hand on the dash until the car fell silent. “Sorry about that.”
Jake looked beyond confused. “The car isn’t even running.”
“It’s got a short in the stereo or something. Who knows? Anyway, I didn’t realize you were coming.”
He threw one last perplexed look at the car before leaning closer and giving her a wide grin. “I wouldn’t miss my star pupil getting her license.”
Her pulse picked up with a steady Jake, Jake, Jake.
“Besides,” he said, “I have to certify your time log.”
“Oh.” She should have known. This was the last day of his enchantment after all, and his hormones were probably beginning to normalize again. Soon—too soon—she’d be just another girl with a mad crush on him.
Maybe Helen could help her order a Jacque of her very own.
Jake opened her door and gestured toward the bleak Department building. “If you get stuck on any of the multiple-choice questions, just remember that the Department makes all the regulations. So, if you can’t choose between two answers, pick the one that best serves their interests.”
“Generating tax revenue and protecting human life.” She followed him into the building as she repeated the words from her study guide.
“In that order. And for the practical portion, just remember—”
“Keep my feet square and don’t grip too hard.” She’d watched a ton of videos on archery in the last few days and gotten in a few hours of practice at the range. Then she’d done some math. If she got every multiple-choice question right and aced the other weapons trials, she could flub the bow and still pass—by one point. But that didn’t stop her brain from taking this moment to replay every Cupid-related mishap she’d had in the last twenty years.
“Jake, wait.” She stopped a few feet from the door, and he nearly bumped into her back.
But instead of wrapping his arms around her waist or laying his lips on the back of her neck as she hoped feared he might, he took a few steps back and looked at her expectantly.
The enchantment was definitely wearing thin.
“What if I fail?” she asked.
He cocked his head slightly to the right, and his eyes bored into hers. “You’re not going to fail.”
“You don’t know that.”
He took a step forward and squeezed her hand. “You’re not going to fail, Eliza.”
“But what if I do? I’ll let my dad down. I’ll let you down—”
“Stop.”
Indignation flared in her chest. “What?”
“Stop. You aren’t doing this for your dad, and you aren’t doing it for me. You’re doing this for you.”
“So if I fail, I’m just letting myself down? Great.”
“You aren’t going to let anyone down.” He grabbed her hand and squeezed. “You’ve come a long way in the
last couple of weeks, Eliza. Be proud of that, regardless of how this exam turns out, okay?”
She forced out a jagged breath and nodded. He was right. Of course. Jake the (gorgeous, funny, intelligent) know-it-all was always right. And his fingers intertwined with hers also felt exceptionally right. “Thank you,” she whispered.
He gave her hand a final squeeze as they reached the door. “Go knock Oliver’s socks off, Herman.”
She put a hand on the door but didn’t move. “Actually, about Oliver. I’ve been meaning to ask, is he a Descendant?” She felt slight shame at her inability to tell. For as long as she could remember, a Descendant could spot another Descendant a mile away. But with him, something wasn’t quite the same.
“Oliver?” Jake scoffed. “Yeah, no. He’s strictly human. Why?”
“There’s just something about his…his… I don’t know.” She shrugged. It was probably just her nerves talking. Agent Oliver held her future in his hands, and that made her anxiety skyrocket. It must also be messing with her Descendant-detection abilities. “It’s nothing. Never mind.”
She pressed open the door and stepped inside. Four agents turned to look at her. Oliver, two women, and a man she didn’t recognize. “Hi, I’m here for the exam.”
“Well, Ms. Herman.” Oliver stepped to the front of the crowd. “I have to say, I wasn’t convinced you’d show. And I see you brought your mentor along.” He smirked at her, and at once, Eliza knew he’d seen the kiss.
“He needs to certify my hours,” she croaked. She paused, waiting for the dressing down.
It didn’t come.
Her anxiety level multiplied by ten. Why wasn’t Oliver saying anything about what he’d witnessed? Was he waiting for the worst possible time to bring it up? When could be worse than now?
“Let’s get started. Peter, give Mr. Sanders the certification paperwork,” Oliver said to one of the other agents. “I’ll show Ms. Herman to the testing room.”
Soon Eliza found herself sitting in an ancient desk—the kind with a metal seat attached to a scratched desktop. Probably the same one she’d used thirteen years ago when she’d first taken the test.
