Sing Me Your Scars (Apex Voices Book 3) (10 page)

The music stopped, and after a few minutes of applause, Miria
stepped through the curtain, wiping sweat from her forehead. Her enhancements
included a set of tits the size of baby torpedoes. What the clients couldn’t
see was the internal system used to hold them upright, a fine net-like material
that ran from the implants, over her shoulders and down to her waist, anchored
with screws into her spine.

“Your boys are here, Sugar,” Miria said with a grin. “I warmed
them up for you.”

Sugarsin’s music started, and she stretched up high on her toes,
rotated her shoulders back and around, and shook out her hands. This was the
easy part. After her show, she had to go out, chat up the customers, and
pretend she didn’t mind their hands trying to creep under her robe to cop a
feel.

She put on a smile and moved through the curtain, slow and lazy
in her long gown, the very picture of Tudor loveliness. Except for the lace
g-string underneath, of course.

§

Sugarsin redressed Henry, checked his factory imprint again,
and wrote down his model and serial number. While she drank coffee and searched
for the manual online, her feet tapped out an impatient rhythm, stilling once
the manual opened up on her screen. She read for half an hour, her coffee
turning cold and forgotten.

“Okay, Henry,” she whispered. “Let’s see if you work.”

She pushed the on/off button hard and held it for the required
thirty seconds, designed that way so it couldn’t be pushed accidentally. If
someone had Elvis serving drinks to their dinner guests, it wouldn’t do to have
an errant pat on the back result in total shutdown and spilled martinis.

Inside Henry, a tiny click sounded, then a subtle whir. The
synthetic skin warmed beneath her hand. After another click, another whir, his
hands closed into fists, then relaxed. His eyes opened. He blinked.

“I like her not,” he said, his blue eyes narrowing. His voice
held a deep, rich resonance, his accent heavy, though not difficult to
understand.

Sugarsin stepped back.

“Blighted in the eyes of God.”

“Well, hello to you, too,” she mumbled, crossing her arms across
her chest.

“If it were not to satisfy the world, and my Realm, I would not
do that I must do this day for none earthly thing.”

“No wonder people didn’t like you. Keep it up and I’ll shut you
off, stick you in the corner, and dress you up with string lights.”

He gave a small bow. “Good morrow. I am
Henry VIII, by the
Grace of God, King of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith and
of the Church of England.”

“Yes, I know.”

He cocked his head to the
side. “Of course. How could you not?”

“I have a feeling you’re going to be a handful.”

He lifted his chin, but said nothing. Instead, he walked around
the room with his hands clasped behind his back. When he stopped at her
bookcases, she looked down and nudged the carpet with her toe. More than half
the books were accounts of the Tudor dynasty, with more than half of those
focused solely on Henry VIII.

“Are you fond of history?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Sometimes.”

“
Tudor
history?”

“Sometimes.”

She followed him into the kitchen, where his only comment was a
wry “No servants?” into the dining room, and up the stairs. He paused in front
of the picture in the hallway, a reproduction of Hans Holbein’s
Henry VIII
after 1537
, peered into the small spare bedroom, the bathroom, and then her
bedroom, where her costume from the previous night hung from a hook on the
wall.

He stepped into the room. “Do you also sometimes have a fondness
for dressing as historical figures?”

“It’s a costume for work,” Sugarsin said.

“And what do you do?”

“I’m a dancer.”

He turned. “A dancer. What sort of dance do you perform?” he
asked with a smile.

In that moment, Sugarsin could see why the real Henry had charmed
a legion of women, even if the construct had only a tenth of the charisma of
the real man. “The sort with no clothes.”

One eyebrow raised. “That must be…challenging.”

Sugarsin laughed.

“My dear lady, I fear I’ve been remiss. May I ask your name?”

“Sugarsin.”

The eyebrow raised again. “Sugarsin. I quite like it.”

He paced back and forth while he recited a long poem about the
divine right of kings, his voice rising and falling with each line. She read
passages from several books on Tudor history, and he scoffed at the differing
opinions in each book, until she read from a fairly obscure tome that
contradicted nearly everything in the earlier narratives. He took the book from
her hand and tossed it aside. “I like it not,” he said.

She settled him into the spare bedroom. According to the manual,
he needed several hours of system downtime, a state that resembled sleep (minus
the snoring, tossing, and turning) to recharge. When she bid him goodnight, he
trailed his fingers through the ends of her hair and lifted his hand to her
cheek, but she pulled away before his fingers made contact.

§

“I’d like to see you dance with no clothes.”

“I’d like you to keep writing whatever it is you’re writing and
let me finish my coffee.”

He pushed the chair back from the kitchen table and held his hand
out over the paper. “It is another poem.”

“More divine rights?”

“No, a discussion of children and their fathers. Tell me of your
father.”

Sugarsin set down her coffee mug. “I never knew him.”

“Are you a bastard, then?”

She ran her finger along the edge of the table. “Good question. I
don’t know. If they were married, my mother never mentioned it. He split when I
was two, and I never saw him again.”

“Have you any memories of him?”

“No.”

“’Tis a pity. Are you close with your mother?”

Sugarsin shook her head. Hard. “No. Tell me more about what
you’re writing.”

“When are you going to allow me into your bed?”

She choked down a mouthful of coffee. “What?”

“You’ve given me no tasks to perform, no parties to attend to.
You have neither a husband nor a lover, so I assume I am here to warm your
bed.”

“You assume wrong.”

“Oh? Do your tastes align with commoners, then? Most women would
give almost anything to bed a king.”

“I’m not most women. And
anyway, several women gave up their
lives
when they bedded Henry VIII,
in case you’ve forgotten.”

“But I am a false king, am I
not? Do you prefer to bed women?”

“No, I don’t prefer women.”

“No husband, no women. Are you frigid?”

Sugarsin slapped her hand down on the table. “Enough.”

“As you wish,” he said. “Milady. Will you tell me why you’re so
enraptured with Tudor history?”

She shrugged. “The tragedy, I
suppose. They had everything, money and power, and it wasn’t enough. It
should’ve been, but it wasn’t.”

He didn’t say a word, only nodded in response.

Later, he watched her put makeup on and pack costumes in her bag.

“Why are you taking those, if you dance with no clothes?”

“Because I wear them first, then they come off.”

He touched the sleeve of her Anne Boleyn dress. “Are you not
taking this one?”

“No, not tonight.”

“Do you believe she loved him?”

Sugarsin tossed her hairbrush in the bag. “Do you think
he
loved
her
?”

“I should think so, at least to some extent.”

“Not enough,” she said.

“Enough, though, to make her a queen.”

“But not enough to keep him from having her head cut off when he
grew tired of her—what a nice guy—but you already know this. It’s in your
programming.”

He smiled and folded his arms across his chest. “On light
pretexts, by false accusations, they made me put to death the most faithful
servant I ever had.”

Sugarsin smiled. “Good King Hal said that after he had Cromwell’s
head chopped off.”

“A terrible mistake, that, and one he regretted for the rest of
his days.”

“Well, he made quite a few
mistakes during his reign,” she said.

“Why do you think it so?”

She tapped one finger against her chin. “Because he had absolute
power. If someone said or did something he didn’t like, he had their heads cut
off or their guts torn open.”

Henry nodded. “No one should have that sort of power. Over
anyone.” He crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels. “Are there many like
me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are there many Henrys like me?”

 She shook her head. “No, you weren’t a popular model.”

“And why is that, pray tell?”

Sugarsin zipped up her bag and turned to face Henry. The overhead
light gave his eyes a mirror-like shine. “Because you’re sort of an ass.”

“Hmmph. Why did they make me that way?”

“They try to be as realistic as possible with the programming. I
mean, if someone wants Elvis, they want him, not just a lookalike. They can go
to Vegas for that.”

“Is Elvis popular?”

“Very.”

“I take it as a personal affront that a singer is more popular
than a king. Especially one such as I.”

“And there you go. Arrogance
isn’t attractive, even for a false king.”

“How presumptuous, then, are
you, to find fault with your Prince.”

Sugarsin groaned, picked up her bag, and pushed past him.

§

When she got home, Henry was already in the spare bedroom
with the door shut. Sugarsin lay awake for a long time watching shadows
playdance on the ceiling. The weight of another person’s presence, even an
artificial one, hung heavy in the air.

§

She bought him new clothes and took him to the park.
Perfect, beautiful children were running in circles, their mothers, all enhanced
in some fashion, busy calling out names and setting up picnic lunches.

They sat below a willow tree, half-hidden by the branches. He
watched the children play, laughing at their antics. After a time, he turned.
Smiled. “Do you wish to have children?”

“No.”

“And why not?”

Below the children’s round,
cherubic cheeks, high cheekbones waited. Below their slim torsos, perfect
curves for the girls and wide shoulders for the boys. And if anything didn’t
turn out quite right, doctors were ready and willing to add or subtract where
needed.

She thought of her mother. The secret bottles stashed under the
sofa; the liquor-slap of hands before Sugarsin learned how to avoid them; the
drunken slurs and at times, the strange men who wandered in and out of her
mother’s life, ignoring her young daughter, if said daughter was lucky.

“I’m not the motherly type.”

“Why have you neither husband nor lover?” he asked, his voice
low.

“Because I choose not to.”

“Most people wish to have a companion, no?”

“I suppose so, but I prefer to be alone.”

“But now you have me.”

“Yes, but you’re not real.”

He said nothing in return.

§

She woke in the middle of the night, twisted in her sheets.
Henry stood by her bed.

“I do not wish to be an ass,” he said.

Sugarsin wiped sleep from her eyes. “What?”

“I would like not to be a king, even a false one.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No matter. I am sorry to have disturbed your sleep,” he said,
and closed her door.

By morning, she’d convinced
herself it had been a dream; she found a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen and
a note next to her coffee mug.

I’ve gone for a walk.

H.

He returned several hours later and without a word, went upstairs
to his bedroom and shut the door with a quiet click. She curled up on the sofa
with a book, but closed it after a few pages and turned on a movie instead.

§

She didn’t see him at all the following day, although she
heard him moving about in his room, and before she left for work, she knocked
on his door. “Is everything okay?”

“Quite so,” he said.

She returned home several hours later to find Henry waiting in
the living room. He handed her a glass of wine and sat next to her, silent,
while she drank. Once the glass was empty, he led her upstairs and pressed a
chaste kiss to her cheek. “Good night,” he whispered before disappearing into
his room.

She gave a small laugh and climbed into bed.

§

Another note sat on the kitchen counter.

I’ve gone out.

H.

He returned with a bouquet of flowers, and presented them to her
with a low bow.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You are most welcome.”

He cooked her dinner, using recipes he found online.

“What’s the occasion?” she
asked, after he led her to the table.

“No occasion at all,” he said and poured her a glass of wine. “I
wanted to cook for you, so I did.”

After she ate, he took her hand. “Walk with me.”

“Where?”

“Outside. In the fresh air.”

They ended up in the park,
walking in aimless circles where they’d watched the children play. On their way
home, she stumbled on a bit of cracked pavement; he caught her before she fell
to the ground and kept his arm around her the rest of the way home.

When they shut the front door behind them, he leaned over and
pressed his lips to hers. He tasted of lemons. They walked upstairs together,
but he pushed her gently into her room and shut the door between them.

§

He liked to brush her hair and when the strands were tangle
free, run his fingers through it over and over again. He whispered to her in
French, laughing at her frustration when he wouldn’t translate, wrote poem
after poem, and read Shakespeare aloud, an anachronism she found amusing. He
made her desserts topped with whipped cream. He massaged her back and shoulders
when she got home from work.