The Virgin’s Bucket List Episode 3

📖 The Story Continues

Lindsay remained in the doorway, afraid that blinking might make the stranger disappear. The last glow of evening slipped through the curtains and traced the hard planes of his body, making him look less like a birthday surprise and more like a fantasy someone had accidentally delivered to the wrong address. Her wish could not literally have produced a boyfriend. Even desperation had limits, and magic did not leave wet towels on a girl’s comforter.

Her phone chimed before she could decide whether to run. A message from Julie filled the screen, beginning with an apology for working late and a cheerful birthday greeting. Lindsay’s irritation softened. Her sister might be absent, but unlike their father, Julie had at least remembered the date without needing to be reminded.

The rest of the message was stranger. Julie promised a special gift to begin Lindsay’s first year of adulthood, something from her company’s newest line of high-tech products. It had been designed to feel exactly like real skin, she explained, and might honestly be better than a real boyfriend. The message ended with a teasing instruction to enjoy herself.

Lindsay slowly raised her eyes from the phone to the man on her bed. “Better than human?” she whispered. The bizarre pieces locked together with a logic that could only make sense on the worst and most confusing birthday of her life.

Julie knew about her lack of experience and had always encouraged her to be less afraid of adulthood. Apparently, she had decided encouragement was not enough. The box that should have accompanied such a product was nowhere in sight, but perhaps a machine this advanced had been delivered and activated by professionals. Lindsay’s cheeks burned at the thought of strangers installing a naked artificial man in her bedroom.

“Did Julie send me a hyperrealistic sex robot?” Saying the words aloud should have made the theory sound absurd. Instead, the stranger’s stillness and impossible beauty made it seem increasingly plausible. No ordinary boy would match every item on her private list so precisely.

He had the dark hair, strong jaw, and athletic body of someone designed according to a teenager’s least subtle fantasies. More importantly, he had appeared without asking Lindsay to flirt, impress him, or risk rejection. Machines could not gossip at school. They could not laugh at her inexperience or tell Alyssa she had been awkward.

She moved closer to the bed. The supposed android’s chest rose and fell with remarkable realism, and beads of water still clung near his collarbone as though he had recently showered. Julie had not exaggerated about the skin. From even a few inches away, Lindsay could not detect anything mechanical.

“Is he real?” she breathed, immediately scolding herself for using the wrong pronoun. It was not a he, she reasoned, but an extremely sophisticated product. Her sister worked with advanced technology, although Lindsay had never imagined the company advancing in this particular direction.

She glanced at the bedroom door and considered calling Julie. That would require admitting she had opened the gift and had no idea what to do with it. Worse, Julie would tease her forever. Lindsay had endured enough humiliation for one day and was determined to understand at least one problem without asking for help.

Her attention returned to the smooth skin of the stranger’s chest. The dare, the bucket list, and her whispered birthday wish crowded together inside her mind. Perhaps this was not a boyfriend, but it might allow her to stop feeling terrified of physical intimacy before she found one.

Lindsay extended one cautious finger and touched his shoulder. Warmth met her skin. She jerked back, then remembered Julie’s claim that the product was supposed to feel human and nearly laughed at herself.

The second touch lasted longer. She pressed her palm lightly against his upper arm, marveling at the firmness beneath soft, heated skin. There were no seams, charging ports, or synthetic irregularities. Whoever had built him had reproduced even the faint pulse beneath the surface.

Confidence arrived in reckless little increments. Lindsay traced the edge of one sculpted muscle, fascinated by how completely the machine responded to gravity and breath. “This robot feels so real,” she whispered, more impressed than frightened now.

Her gaze traveled over the body that had apparently been selected for her, lingering on the towel at his hips. Julie’s message had promised that the gift might be better than a boyfriend. Lindsay wondered whether that claim applied to all of him, and curiosity sent a fresh blaze across her cheeks.

She hesitated with her hand suspended above his abdomen. Nobody was watching, nobody could reject her, and a machine could not judge. After a day in which everyone else had controlled the story of her private life, the choice felt daringly her own.

Lindsay leaned closer and brushed her fingertips over the hard lines of his stomach. The muscles tensed beneath her touch. She paused, telling herself the response was probably an automated feature designed to make the experience convincing.

Before she could investigate further, a strong hand closed around her wrist. The stranger’s eyes opened, alert and unmistakably human, and fixed directly on hers. Lindsay stopped breathing as he held her in place and demanded, in a deep and thoroughly irritated voice, “What are you doing?”