Core Drive: A Westworld Story

Áine Part 14

I didn't know bodies could burn in a good way. Didn't know I'd like it so much.

There's a quietness in my head. An emptiness that is beautiful and lonely all at once.

I watch The Deputy through hooded eyes, it's impossible to keep them open. The ash from her cigarette falls over her chest, small particles speckle her breasts. She sucks, long and slow, pulling the fire closer down the shaft of the cigarette and then exhales with a contented sigh. Her other hand traces the side of my ribs all the way down to the dip in my hip and back again.

The ground is hard and uncomfortable, but I'm surprised to discover that the firmness of The Deputy's arms and legs and midriff are the furthest thing from uncomfortable to lie over.

The horses outside the shack nicker, startled by something I can't see. The distant shouting of men makes its way through the night. I instinctively clench up and The Deputy laughs.

"Easy darlin'," she shifts under me, spreading her legs wider so I sink further into the dip between.

"Aren't you worried someone would see?" I press down on her shoulder to leverage my weight and sit up. She grunts in response, disappointed in the loss of heat against her chest.

"That we fucked? No," she takes the last drag, this time the cloud of smoke comes from her nostrils like she's a fire-breather. "Maybe if we were more like them, the guests, we'd have more sneakin' to do. More explainin'. But we ain't like them."

I know there's smoke left over in her mouth, a sudden need to taste what controlled fire is like makes me lean forward and kiss her softly. I use my tongue to pry her lips open, lap it against the roof of her mouth and swallow the taste. I hold back a cough before asking, "Wouldn't they wonder if I corrupted you?"

She tilts her head to the side, considering something. "Interesting choice of words."

"I am your prisoner," I say. "This isn't exactly conventional behaviour."

"Conventional. There you go again, thinking like them."

"Or I don't think like you."

"That you don't. You' could've walked out that door if you wanted to. Hell, you could have reached for my gun at any moment." She eyes the revolver, shiny and slick. A wicked grin making her look fiendish. "You don't seem to grasp just how much freedom you have right now."

Right now. Not always. Just in this moment. "And what if I ask you for more than just 'right now'?"

The Deputy stops grinning, her eyes narrowing in a way that lets me know the tenderness between us has fizzled out, and I put out the fire. "Careful with your next words."

"Why should I be? Isn't this finally what you and Clementine wanted? For me to realise my freedom? What if both of you are wrong? What if I am different? Different from you, and her, and the guests? What if you're doing to me what they did to you?"

The Deputy pushes me off her and gets back on her feet in such quick, fluid motions, I'm left a little winded by surprise. She shoves her feet through her trousers, jaw screwed shut.

I push further, kneeling on my knees, looking up at her, "I can't explain it, but something has been whispering to me. Driving me to make choices. Like there's someone else inside me. Sometimes I feel their echoes. I see their ghosts."

"Those are just memories. They died a long time ago."

"No! I know there's more. And whatever it is that is doing this to me, it's pulling me somewhere."

The sound of wings fluttering close to my ear makes my head snap to the left. The moon is big and hounding. The dove that has been imprisoned to this shack, same as me, is finally on the outside, its beak pecking at the broken window.

When I look back at The Deputy, she's staring in the direction I was, but I know she can't see the dove, can't hear it even though it incessantly knocks against that broken window as if the glass were still intact.

"Out of all of them, I thought you'd understand what this was like." My voice is shaky, but those words were difficult to let loose.

She lifts her head high, regarding me coolly as I kneel before her. Slowly, she reaches for my face, slides her fingers against the base of my scalp, near the left ear and leans down to whisper, "I may have told you about my past, but don't think for a second that means you know me."

"But I do, know you," I rise to my feet, "Goldie."

The Deputy gasps, taking three large steps backwards, "What did you call me?"

"That was your other name, the one that belonged to the other body, in that other life, wasn't it?" I take three steps forward. "You were more beautiful than I imagined. A deputy during the gold rush. Klondike. Doomed from the start...right?"

She's on me in an instant, hand around my throat, "You don't know what you're talking about."

"But I do, you just aren't listening," I stare her down, feel this electricity bubble around me, swirl in my head. I want The Deputy's hands off me. But I don't want to struggle. I don't want the fight to be physical. There, she'd always win. So I feel for that connection again, give it sustenance, a sensation to be tied to; the heat of our sex a few minutes ago, the taste of smoke on her lips, the firmness of our bodies pressed together.

The Deputy's face contorts, confounded. She coughs as if choking on something. Then, with a struggle, her arm seems to be pulled back from my neck by an invisible force. Enough tension in her body that her whole hand trembles. She lets out a seething noise, pained.

"I told you," I look at her as she's slowly brought to her knees, our roles reversed, "I'm different."