Speaking of Tron porn (I wasn't, but pretend I was), I reviewed the Tron porno, Pron. It's up at the website I contribute to, Fempop.

Your move, reader.

The Grid didn't have water. Well, it had water, but not water-water. Liquid came out of faucets, but it didn't evaporate or rain. And the Sea of Simulation didn't have currents or tides, it was really just an oversized puddle. You couldn't even swim in it, it had no buoyancy. Fluid physics in the old days were pretty limited, as Sam found out the first time it rained on Quorra.

She'd taken to thunder and lightning well—Sam told her about counting seconds to see how far away the storm was. They were driving home, so Quorra delighted in how the thunder shifted from the lightning as they drove. Then it started to rain and while Sam was thinking about what thiswould do for traffic, Quorra rolled down her window and stuck her head out.

"Holy crap," she uttered (he had her on swear word training wheels until she graduated the Sam Flynn Finishing School). "It's water."

"Yeah." Sam hit the windshield wipers. "Evaporation, condensation, precipitation, lather, rinse, repeat."

She wasn't listening again. "Can I drink it?"

"Yeah, I mean, I hope so… Probably."

Quorra reached her cupped hands out the window. Sam smiled and forgot about acid rain. His dashboard had so many gadgets, one was bound to warn him if there was something to worry about. "Stick your tongue out."

She did, jerking back into her seat when a raindrop landed on her tongue. "It's cold!"

They arrived back to the apartment then. Sam hurried inside, and Quorra only tentatively stepped out of the car, pausing to listen to the rain tapping at her jacket. Sam looked back to see her engrossed in the puddles she was walking through. He thought of telling her to get inside before she caught pneumonia, but he'd never been good at that dinner-before-dessert stuff.

He threw on a trenchcoat from his Matrix days—in retrospect that shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone—and brought out a less embarrassing yellow rain slicker for Quorra. They sat outside and no matter how hard it rained, Sam felt warm.

It was a good thing it'd rained before Quorra had taken a shower (not that she got dirty or seemed to smell at all) . By the same token, Sam wanted her to see the ocean before a TV show spoiled it for her. And what better way than to take a yacht to a private island?

One of Kevin's old friends had an investment opportunity, and explaining it involved a three-day boat trip to the tropical island of Kulai-Kulai. It was probably a pie-in-the-sky plan—the crowd Kevin had run with seemed to specialize in that—but Sam wouldn't say no to hearing some old war stories about his dad.

The first thing to do was get supplies. Aside from the clothes Quorra had had when she entered the real world – Sam was still trying to figure those out – Quorra usually wore Sam's clothes. He was weaning her off his football jerseys, but a vacation was a good excuse to put his foot down. They were getting her a wardrobe.

Sam thought his involvement would be playing Richard Gere in Little Woman, not that he'd ever watched that. He'd flash a credit card and the stores would leap into action, turning Quorra into a modern princess, possibly with the help of a flamboyantly gay fashion person. He went to the nearest fashion house, flashed his card, and asked for the works. Quorra emerged a half hour later in four layers of chiffon and four-inch heels, 'reflecting the quintessential experience of the goldfish.' Sam's credit rating had also been downgraded. After that, they went to the mall.

Luckily for Sam, Quorra's sense of style was about as utilitarian as his. Leather jackets were cool. Jeans were cool. All Sam had to do was steer Quorra clear of Hot Topic and they had a suitcase full of wearable clothes (they also bought suitcases). Beach clothes were pretty easy, just white linen and sandals and in general things that looked like they belonged in a feminine hygiene commercial. Not that Sam had ever watched those.

The real problem was the bikini. It wasn't that it looked bad on her. It looked great. All three square inches of fabric.

If not going to Church on Sunday and saying "Jesus Christ!" when you stepped on a Lego got you in the dutch with the man upstairs, than Sam was definitely going to hell if he let Quorra wear that in public.

"Uhhh, Q…?"

"Do you like it?" Quorra asked nervously. She did a little twirl. Why did she have to do a twirl?

"It's good, I just, uh, don't know if it's you."

Quorra looked down, confused. With the amount of skin she was showing, it couldn't be much more 'her'. "Who else is it?"

"Sluts," Sam replied.

Quorra cocked her head to the side. "I looked online for the kind of swimsuit my favorite celebrity would use. This looks a lot like what Google said to 'Megan Fox bikini.'"

"Yeah, well, that suit costs twenty bucks and that's only about a dollar worth of fabric. We'd be getting gypped."

"Of course!" Quorra said, pleased that the world made sense once more. "I'll take it off right away—"

"Dressing room!" Sam yelped, pointing.

A store clerk was nearby, watching avidly. For a woman, she seemed pretty interested. Not that there was anything wrong with that.

"I don't suppose you could help her find something…" Sam searched for the right word. "Non-pornographic? She's a pen pal. From Argentina. They don't have beaches there."

The woman did not look convinced. "One, is she a mail order bride, and two, wherever you got her, do they sell men?"

Quorra had the curiosity of a child and the smarts of a supercomputer, making for some interesting questions. She didn't get how, if the sea and the sky were the same color and right next to each other, people avoided accidentally breathing water. What about sharks? Even if they were too small to sink the boa, what if they herded a whale into it? What then?

Sam told Quorra to trust him. That tided her over.

Quorra was more impressed by the rickety pier creaking under her feet than the ocean—it was a calm day and the ocean didn't look too different from the Sea of Simulation back on the Grid. The yacht didn't awe her either, being only a little bigger than the Solar Sailor.

Then she stepped onboard and it hit her. The tide making the boat rock back and forth, that's what got her. She stumbled and Sam caught her, but she laid in his arms, not making any attempt to get up, just taking in the yacht's motion.

"Oh, Sam… it's so powerful!" she said with wide eyes, seeming to approve when Sam lowered her to the ground. She laid with her hands folded over her stomach. "It's like the wind, only it just… hits you!"

"Yeah. We'll see if you think it's so great when you get seasick."

"Seasick? What's that?"

"Your face turns green and you vomit, hopefully over the side."

"Awesome!" Quorra enthused.

Sam turned out to be prophetic. When they set out, the sea turned out not to return Quorra's affection. She spent the morning on the guard rail, spewing her way through yesterday's meals, and when her stomach was empty, he took her down to their room to lay in bed and make copious use of the bucket. Software or not, Quorra probably needed to retain fluids, so Sam feed her Sprite and rubbed her back.

As near as Sam could figure, it was the womb. Even someone who'd been born in the desert had spent nine months in the womb, associating liquid with peace and tranquility. Quorra didn't have that. She'd sprung out of Kevin Flynn's head fully formed, like a goddess.

It was a metaphor that rushed back to him when Quorra finally got her sea legs. He woke up one morning to find her gone, rushed out, and saw her standing at the rail, watching the ocean. The bikini she'd settled on was a lot classier than the last one, actually having straps to hold everything in place instead of dental floss and hopes… so it was probably just her that brought him up short. Her pale skin was as smooth and glossy as the water they were sailing over, and the contrast of the black swimsuit made her look… ethereal, that was the word he was looking for.

Like an alien. A benevolent alien, like E.T. But sorta hot, unlike E.T.

She turned around. Okay, not sorta. "You've overdressed."

Sam picked at his jacket. He hadn't changed out of his street clothes, being too busy monitoring Quorra. "Oh. Yeah. I fell asleep in these."

"They are wrinkled," Quorra said, stepping up to them. She efficiently worked his jacket off him, then, laying it over her arm, tugged at his shirt.

"I got it!" Sam insisted, pulling his shirt off, thinking twice about it, then letting her have it. He drew the line at his belt, however. "So. The ocean. Two-thirds of the Earth's surface. How do you like it?"

She popped her eyebrows like she was sharing a secret. "I loveit. When I stand at the rail, it splashes me!"

He couldn't help but smile at her enthusiasm. Seriously, he'd tried. "I'm happy if you're happy."

"Great. I'll go find the laundry. Give me your pants sometime, okay?"

Not touching it.

Over dinner, Sam half-listened to Cal's proposal, being a bit more concerned over Quorra's eating. It had to be sushi. There had to be chopsticks. But she turned out to handle them as deftly as a video game controller. Funny, the skill set you got growing up on the Grid. She couldn't handle public transportation, but fencing was no problem.

Sam really only had to half-listen anyway, the proposal had so many buzzwords and ad jargon that he only needed every third word to fit it together. Something about public transportation for the suburbs. It sounded eco-friendly and all that, so he decided to throw some change its way. It would probably be good PR, and he'd hate for all of Quorra's vacation to be mooching.

Deciding how much to invest was the trick. Not too little to insult, but not too much to be bilked. The following afternoon, he busted out the swim trunks and soaked in the sun. It had always helped him think back when he'd been a surf ninja, and the tan (and the girls who liked the tan) hadn't been so bad either.

The first clue that Quorra had joined him was her pulling a chaise longue up next to his. Girl was quiet at a cat. "Tanning, right?" she asked.

"Yup."

"I wanted to try that! You can show me how."

"There's… not much to it."

Quorra daintily located herself on the chaise longue, wiggling herself into place just so. When she was situated, she looked over at him, not seeing the smile he hid at her antics. "So, Sam, the seawater has salt in it, right? We can't drink it?"

"Nope."

"What do we drink then?"

"We have to bring fresh water with us."

"Mmm," Quorra said, which Sam guessed was the noise she made when she was filling information away.

He looked over at her and saw the top of her swimsuit had joined the sleeves of her swimsuit in not existing. She was on her belly, but he still turned away so fast he almost tipped his chair.

"Sam?" she asked, lifting herself—

"Don't get up," he said quickly. "I'm fine."

"I was just getting a tan. Did I do something wrong?"

"No, it's just… a lot to take in."

"What is?" she asked innocently. "Moi?"

She was doing it on purpose, he'd swear it on a stack of Bibles… "You remember the talk we had about public nudity?"

"Yes, but we're hardly in public. Everyone else is watching a football game on the large television. And I don't mind if you see me naked."

Definitely on purpose. "Well, I do. I think we should keep things… you know… professional."

Now Quorra did lift herself, offering a smile upward, her arm just concealing… stuff. "And what are we professionals at?"

He sighed and tried to stare at the clouds. The big, fluffy clouds. "We're, like, professional friends."

"If you're worried that I'll look weird, it's alright. I have nipples and a vagina, like other women. I've checked."

"Good to know. A little too much to know, really, but—"

A concerning thought hit her face. "Sam, are you worried I'll have my way with you?"

"What? No! What?"

"Because I completely respect your body and privacy. I wouldn't do anything you're not comfortable with."

"Thank you… but, seriously, I'm not all that worried about you being a sexual predator."

"Good!" Cheerful again. She tossed him a tube of suntan lotion. "Could you rub some on me?"

If he ever let the woman near any monks, heaven was getting less crowded. "Sure." There had to be some way to touch her without… bad-touching her. "Tell me about the ocean, Quorra."

The lotion squirted out with a raspberry sound, like it was mocking how lame that line was. "You'd know a lot more about it than me, Sam."

"I know. I like hearing about it from you. You make it sound so… new."

She looked over the elegant slope of her shoulder as he rubbed the lotion over his hands, then looked straight ahead, out at the water. He put his hands at the back of her neck. His skin was sun-warm, even through the cool lotion… back on the Grid, she'd been cold as stone. He imagined all the sun and life of the real world being absorbed into her until she was brimming over, and it sounded about right.

Quorra made another little "mmm" noise as he rolled his hands down her spine. "The ocean… it goes as far as the eye can see, and then it's deep too. I like that. Even now that I see it, there's more I can understand. I'm just at the surface. I can go deeper."

He'd reached the dimple of her waist. Rubbing the lotion into her skin a little, he moved back upward. She simpered into his touch, laying her cheek against the chaise longue's neoprene strips.

"See? You make it sound so nice." Sam said, allowing his voice to be a little fond.

"It isn't?"

"Not always." He massaged her neck, feeling the ends of her hair tickle the backs of his hands. "Favorite part so far?"

"I saw a whale, the other day. Things don't move like you'd think here. I like how different it is, but-heavy objects and light objects fall at the same rate. The Earth goes around the Sun instead of the other way around. The Moon is huge and far away, not small and close. When I saw the whale, I thought maybe it had started out as a small fish, and then it had gotten old, and big, and now it was so big-maybe it was the first fish ever. I knew it was impossible, that the world didn't work that way, but it still felt old… and it made me feel very young. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, I do. People talk about how big the universe is, and how it makes them feel small and insignificant. I never felt that. I go to the ocean, and it's so big it might as well be the universe, but right there, in your face. And it makes me think that the things that bother me aren't so big. The mistakes I've made aren't so bad."

There was enough room to sit down beside her. So much for professionalism.

"Are we bonding?" Quorra chirped suddenly.

"Maybe a little," he replied, nonchalant.

"I like bonding."

"It ain't so bad."

He left before she tanned her front.

Their business concluded, Sam and Cal got down to emptying the liquor cabinet. Sam wasn't much of a drinker, but he'd been in Phi Omega Phi and Cal had been in Omega Phi Omega, so it was a matter of honor.

The next time Quorra saw him, he was singing It's A Small World After All, badly. Quorra hadn't known it was possible to make that song worse. Spotting her, he stopped the music. "Quorra! Did you know my dad was the inspiration for Jack Sparrow? He worked with Disney on some rides and he spoke with a British accent when he's on Quaaludes. Wild!"

Quorra set aside her reading material. "Sam, I believe you're intoxicated."

Sam froze suspiciously, like he'd just been told he stepped on a landmine. "I am?"

"Have you been imbibing alcohol?"

"I don't remember what imbibe means, but I think so."

"Your speech is slurred, your movements are uncoordinated, and you're carrying a bottle of Colt .45 liquor."

Sam pointed at the picture of Billy Dee Williams on the label. "Lando!"

Quorra pulled the bottle from his slack fingers. "I think I should hold onto Lando for now." A quarter of the bottle was still full. She smelled it. Like someone had derezzed a ferret.

Sam made his way to the dresser, where he batted around his wallet until he had gotten a laminated card out. "Quorra, this is a hangover cure. I'm going to need you to get everything on this list before I wake up, which will probably be in less than twenty-four hours."

"Why do you have a hangover cure in your wallet?"

"Because I was in college, Quorra." He flipped the card over to her. It landed in the clothes hamper. "Thanks. I owe you one."

She had just enough time to roll out of bed before he collapsed on it.

When Quorra got back, Sam was still asleep, with a death-grip on her pillow. Quorra didn't know if it was because it smelled like her hair or it was Posturepedic. She would've just switched pillows with him, since Sam's definitely smelled like his hair, but… well, it had been his idea for her to go online.

Sam had her reading YA novels and interacting in the fandoms, figuring that as people who spent way too much time on the computer, they were natural peers for someone who had lived in a computer. So far she'd made a lot of friends, except when she asked questions like why Snape was considered attractive or why people liked Damon when he was a rapist. But aside from that, she'd learned a lot about social interaction. And the beginning of wisdom was knowing how little you knew.

For instance, Quorra knew where babies came from. After aliens used sex pollen to make two straight men do it, the one whose ass-hymen had been ruptured gave birth to an ass-baby. But she didn't know how the female gender was involved, and you'd think they would be.

Chatting with her new friends, Quorra discovered to her consternation that she was a virgin, that she had never been to any bases, and that she had never seen a man's thing, as erotic pastries didn't count. Naturally, she'd tried to rectify the situation, as virgins couldn't write smutfics, and all anyone read was smutfic. She was really eager to go to bases with Sam—he seemed like he'd been on a lot of girls' bases.

But it made sense that before she touched him, she looked at him. And he was asleep, so he wouldn't be self-conscious. And he owed her 'one.' That could be one look at his penis. And she had a suspicion that could only be confirmed by his thing.

And besides, he clearly wanted to see her naked. His computer had many videos of naked young women and she was a young woman, so why wouldn't he want to see her nudity? He was probably just shy, like a uke before being deflowered by a seme, so if he was upset about being seen naked, she could show him her naked body and not only would they be even, they'd have broached the topic of mutual nudity.

Nodding at her own rightness, Quorra pulled down Sam's Bermuda shorts and was instantly disappointed.

"I think we should go on break," Quorra said when Sam had woken up and gagged down his hangover cure.

"On break from what?"

"Our unresolved sexual tension!"

Sam looked as his hangover cure, gave it a smell, conceded that there were no hallucinogens in there and he had heard Quorra right. "Even if we hadUST, wouldn't taking a break from it mean having sex?"

Quorra thought about it. "No, I'll just stop mooning over you."

"You moon over me?" Why did that strike him as cute?

"I multitask while I'm doing it, so you probably don't notice. Last week, when I took Marv for a walk, I was very heartsick."

"I couldn't tell. You're pretty good at multitasking."

Quorra thought her heart was broken. People in healthy relationships had great sex all the time and you needed a penis, preferably two, to have great sex. And Sam didn't have a big penis. He had a… penis. So she couldn't be shipped with Sam.

Why couldn't he be a woman! Then they could be lesbians and his penis size wouldn't matter.

The thing was, she didn't feel heart-broken. When he smiled at her, which was a lot, since he was trying to cheer her up, because she was possibly heart-broken, she felt the same fluttery, giggly, groiny things as always. So she set about lying in bed, staring out the window, and sitting where the waves would splash her (which was kinda like being rained on, only sideways), hoping it would help her figure out if she was heart-broken, since that's what men in her stories always did after the villain had killed their girlfriends, but before they realized they were in love with their best friend or arch-enemy or Draco Malfoy.

But it seemed to be taking a lot longer for Quorra. Mostly, she just got bored. She tried to be sad about being bored, but Sam was always intervening to ask if she wanted to go for a swim or play video games, which was too much temptation to resist, so she kept reminding him that they were friends.

"I thought we had UXT." Sam said, turning on the PS3. The island Cal had delivered them to was fully stocked with a building that had rooms in it, rooms that had TVs in them, and TVs that had game consoles. Fortunately, Quorra never left home without a party game.

"UST. And we do, but we can never act on it."

Sam considered this as carefully as he could while also considering which fighter could kick Quorra's ass without being cheap. "Doesn't that mean we have more UST?"

Quorra pondered this, lip bitten and eyes slanted, all through the first round. After her fighter ripped his fighter's heart out—"Sam, I think we should secretly be in love with other people."

"Way ahead of you," Sam snorted. He was already emphatically notin love with Quorra, so all he had to do was find a nice girl to be in love with. Although it would be hard to find a girl as nice as Quorra…

"How do you feel about Alan?" Quorra asked, prompting the edgiest of side-eyes.

"He's like a father to me."

"Your dad's kinda hot."

Sam dropped his controller. "I forfeit."

Quorra went back to brooding. She'd found a cliff on the island that made her feel like Batman when she crouched on top of it. An hour later, after she'd stopped brooding and started defending the snacks she'd brought from seagulls, Sam found her again. He set down the bucket of ice and beer he was lugging with the upper-body strength that would never Patrick Swayze her. "There you are. I was thinking of hiring bloodhounds. And you know I'm a cat person."

Maybe that was a joke and maybe it wasn't. Quorra resolved not to tell Marvin. "I'm brooding."

"We can't brood together?"

"Does Batman brood with other people?"

"Batman has Robin." Sam sat down beside her. "I thought, as long as you're brooding, you might need beer."

It would be good research… "Promise me we won't get black-out drunk and have sex?"

"Quorra, I like my women like I like my shaving cream. No alcohol."

"I thought you were going to say white."

"FYI, I've dated a lot of black women."

Quorra's eyes widened, jouncing around like Sam might be on a date with one right that second. "How much is a lot?"

"I plead the Fifth." Sam did a kind of karate chop to open a bottle, then handed it to her. He opened his own by twisting the cap.

"Are you trying to impress me?" Quorra asked.

"I am if it's working," Sam laughed. "Really, I just try not to use the judo bottle opener too much because I might break my hand. Or worse, the beer."

Quorra toasted him. "In that case, I'm impressed you'd go so far to impress me."

"Meta."

"Oh, I hate meta. Nothing's worse than meta." Quorra sipped her beer. "What is this? It's worse than meta!"

Sam leaned over to sniff her drink. "Just beer."

"That's how it's supposed to smell?It's bitter! Why do people drink this?"

He shrugged. "It makes ordinary women look like you."

Quorra stopped gagging. That was a good line. She'd have to use it in a really romantic story. Not the kind where someone got spanked.

"Come back to the homestead. I'll make you an appletini. You'll like those."

Sam was right. Appletinis did taste better. He made her two before saying that was probably enough for a first-timer. Quorra disagreed. She was the last ISO, destined to bring peace and love to the planet. She knew her limit. And her limit was at least ten, because that's how many she made.

When she got up to pee, Quorra realized she was 'buzzed.' Her head was swimming and her legs seemed reluctant to take her where she wanted. They seemed to prefer the idea of lying on the floor. Quorra overrode them.

She had had an important alcohol realization. She loved Sam. Well, she had always loved Sam, but now she knew she loved him more than big penises. And they could always do cunnilingus, like lesbians. That was important, so Quorra wrote it down on her arm to remember when they had sex.

It was easy to move once she took off her skirt. Her panties had a much wider range of motion. She wasn't sure why people wore other things.

Sam was out on the beach, enjoying a barbecue with his friends. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and swim trunks, so he had no call to ask where her pants were. She hadn't even been wearing pants!

"Hey, Sam."

"Hey."

"Heeeeeeey."

"Are you drunk?" Sam asked.

"I'm in love!" Quorra replied.

Sam looked at her. Quorra tried to look extra-in love. "Are you high?"

"High on love!" she beamed.

"She's never had alcohol before," Sam explained to Cal and the staring onlookers. "Grew up in Utah. This close to being a sister-wife."

Quorra spread her arms wide. "Sam, I love you!" She brought them in to hug herself.

"I love you too," Sam nodded. He got up, dusting the sand off his trunks.

"No, I lurveyou! With a V and an R. Or a W-U-V."

Approaching her skittishly, like she was a very huggy wild animal, Sam got in close enough to put an arm around her. "That's a great thing to talk about in private. Phonetic spelling. Let's go back to our room, you can lie down, I can hide our alcohol—"

"No! I'm telling you here! I want the whole world to know!" She pulled away. "I love Sam Flynn and I don't care if he has a small penis!" She hugged him to her breasts. Although shocked, Sam didn't feel the need to be out of contact with Quorra's boobs. "I don't have big mammaries, but it's not the size that counts, it's whether people wanna look."

"What small penis WHAT." This demanded face to face. He pulled back. "What are you using, the metric system?"

Quorra caressed his face, which she didn't have much experience at, so it looked more like she was desperate to get an eyelash off his cheek. "I don't care if you have a baby dick, I wanna have your babies!"

"Quorra, my penis is six inches long. That's average. I've measured it, that's not counting the balls." He glanced around at the onlookers, who were really on-looking. "Trust-fund kids have a lot of free time."

"Average?" Quorra patted Sam's arm. "Average is ten inches. Fifteen is above-average, twenty is big. Six is small, but that's okay, I'm petite!"

Sam had a great poker face, but it wasn't that great. "…what were Friday nights likeon the Grid?"

"I didn't learn this on the Grid, silly. I know it from my Anita Blake books."

"Anita Blake?" Sam said the name like a homicide detective who'd just gotten a new suspect.

"You know, written by Laurell K. Hamilton? All the men she has sex with are at least a foot-long."

Sam stared at her, working his jaw. "Would anyone with a fifteen-inch dick please raise their hands?"

One person raised his hand.

"Put your hand down, Ken, you're Chinese, for God's sake!"

Everyone kept their hands down, to Quorra's shock and bewilderment. "Everyone on this island has a small penis!"

Horror quickly turned to humor, when Quorra said "Small like… radishes!" and finally teetered over like a counterpoint to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. She kept repeating "radishes!" interspersed with laughter. When Sam picked her up, she implored him to "Patrick Swayze me!"

He took her back to her room. For his trouble, she vomited halfway there.

"Laurell K. Hamilton is a horrible writer," Sam was explaining to her when they crossed the threshold. "Have you ever seen anyone have hair that's 'metallic gold'? Or 'black silk'?"

Quorra reached out and felt Sam's hair. "No, it's more like… soft straw."

Sam set her down on the bed and, in wonder, Quorra tried to spoon with the pillow. He looked around, just to make sure Quorra hadn't built a death-ray in a drunken haze. There were ten drained glasses; no lasers.

"You couldn't have just used one over and over? Now all of those have to be cleaned."

Quorra giggled. She and the pillow looked very happy together. "You've been a bachelor too long."

He rinsed out the glasses, one by one. "Yeah, maybe."

Quorra got up, teetering, and Sam was just headed to tuck her back in when she toppled. Luckily, he caught her. She wrapped her arms around his neck; when he set her down on the bed, she kept her arms where they were.

"Why don't you just ask me out?" she asked, staring into his eyes in an unnervingly sober way.

"Well… c'mon…" He got down on his knees, since it was easier to stay there when she had such a firm grip on his neck. "My dad raised you. You're like a sister to me. It'd be weird."

Sam tried to get up. Quorra held onto him.

"I don't think it'd be weird. I think it would be very natural. We'd be just like we are now, only you wouldn't have to spend so much time hiding how you feel."

When she said it like that, it suddenly seemed like he did spend a lot of time pretending… clarifyingthat she wasn't his girlfriend.

"Besides," Quorra continued, her slurred words not seeming to have any effect on her train of thought. "I'm an ISO. A sentient computer program, brought about without human input. I have no concept of familial bonding. I liked your father, but he was simply a teacher to me. You're much more."

Apparently reacting to something in his face—some deep-seated surprise at being accepted—she kissed him.

Maybe he just didn't get kissed that often, but Sam thought it was actually pretty nice. Better than he could've managed if he'd drunk ten Appletinis. Although in that case, he'd be gay, so it wouldn't really matter.

Quorra pulled away and gravity took over, pulling her down to bed. "Was that awesome?" she asked, mostly rhetorical.

"Yeah. A little wine-tinged, maybe…"

"Good wine?"

"Nice vintage. Strong flavor. Get some sleep."

"Mmm." Quorra shuffled under her covers as Sam pulled them over her, eyes closed, head sunk into the pillow. "Just FYI, but I plan to do more of that. You deserve to be loved."

"Sleep," he ordered, backing out of the room.

He had his famous hangover cure waiting for her the next morning. She didn't need it.

"You don't get hangovers? Is that an ISO thing? What, can you breathe underwater too?"

"I don't think so…" Quorra said wonderingly.

He jabbed a finger at her. "Don't test that out."

She nodded blithely and dug into the breakfast he'd prepared, which Sam felt a little crummy about now. And he'd been so… willingto care for her.

"So I think we should go out for drinks," Quorra said, staring intently at her laptop.

"Why? Is your next tour of the human experience going to be an AA meeting?"

"No, though those do sound fun. We can certainly get coffee or an ice cream sundae to share. The chief thing is we should be in each others' company while being straightforward about our sexual interest in each other."

"See, when you talk like that I want to get you a promise ring or something." Sam tilted her laptop shut, slanting his way into her field of vision. "Just… try to remember that just because you're attracted to me, we're not, like, soulmates. I'm attracted to Paz de la Huerta, doesn't mean I'd go near that crazy broad without a can of pepper spray."

Quorra blinked very slowly. "I don't want you seeing Ms. Huerta anymore."

"Okay."

"I mean it, Sam!"

He backed away. "Pick you up at eight?"

"Yes," she nodded. "I'll find out her scent, Sam. Don't let me smell her on you."

Sam continued backing away. "Over the weekend, I'm renting some Lifetime movies and I want you to watch them with me." He considered adding Fatal Attraction to the Netflix queue, but he didn't want to give Quorra any ideas.

Quorra politely waited for him to leave before opening her laptop back up. Firefox was still on her Amazon page. She looked through a few of the book reviews to be sure it was what she wanted, then set the website to charge extra for overnight delivery. Soon, she'd have Sam right where she wanted him, and it would all be thanks to The Art of the Pick-Up: How To Get Them To Do Anything You Want In The Bar And In Bed.