Laboratory Talks

Within the new frame of Rei’s life at Kuroda Plaza, she carved out a small intellectual space: her sessions with Doctor Kaoru Sato in his lab. Surrounded by flickering holographic displays and data-slates, she became a different kind of asset; one speaking of desire not as a scripted performance, but as a complex, messy equation.

She described the safety in Cillian’s presence, the thrill of Takumi’s dangerous intellect, the difference between a touch that was taken and a touch that was given. Kaoru, with his frantic, brilliant energy, drank it all in, his understanding slowly evolving from cold simulation and mapping, to code that began to hint at genuine emotional cause and effect. She was teaching a machine about the human heart, and in doing so, was rediscovering its contours herself.

It became a ritual for them to meet Wednesdays after work hours. This evening the air in Dr. Kaoru Sato’s lab was, as always, cool and humming with the latent energy of a dozen active processors. Rei entered to find him in his natural state: perched before a bank of monitors, his slight frame coiled with nervous energy, unruly hair falling into his eyes as he flicked through data streams.

He started at the sound of the door, scrambling to his feet, “Rei-san! You’re… eh… punctual. Good. Good.” He scurried around his desk, which was a chaotic landscape of data-slates, half-empty nutrient bar wrappers and discarded styluses. “One moment, please,” he muttered, gathering a teetering stack of slates from the chair opposite his. He dumped them unceremoniously onto the floor with a clatter and gestured for her to sit, “Please have a seat.”

He almost fell into his own chair, catching himself on the edge of the desk. Sato looked like an exposed wire in human form; wrapped in his plastic lab coat and alive with thought. His hair was slightly disheveled, his collar askew, his tablet balanced on one knee as his eyes darted between her and the glowing lines of code on the hovering displays beside his desk. Occasionally he angled his head in almost impossible positions to peak at screens behind him. Luckily for the health of his neck, his chair had wheels, permitting him to swirl easily; and he did so more often than what seemed intentional.

Rei sat herself down in the chair, discretely gathering food wrappers and dispensing them in a nearby paper basket within reach. Eventually Kauro looked up at her alertly, as if just landing from where graphs live, “Thank you. For last time. Your qualitative analysis of the safety-affiliation dynamic with Mr. Kelly was illuminating. It provided a causal framework that clarified the anomalous flatlining of dermal conductivity and the suppressed cortisol readings from that evening’s capture session. The data is cleaner now.”

Rei offered a small, patient smile, “Dr. Sato, I’m afraid you’ll have to dumb that down for me.” Kauro’s eyes widened. “Oh! Right, yes,” he blinked, pushing his hair back, “Your explanation… made the numbers from the night of the favor make more sense. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome Kauro-san. I’m glad I could help,” Rei said, cleaning her hands on a wipe pulled from a container on his desk. Kaoru nodded, his fingers tapping a staccato rhythm on his desk, pulling up new holographic windows, “For today’s session I want to map the differential parameters of your attraction to Executive Takumi. The biometric signature is… volatile. Distinct from the patterns observed with Mr. Kelly, or even the earlier more prompted interactions with most notably Mr. Shoma.” Rei crossed her arms. He glanced at her, his wide eyes earnest, “In simple terms – how is it different? What does your attraction to Executive Takumi… feel like?”

Rei considered the question for a long time, choosing her words with care, “With Cillian, it’s a harbor. With Shoma, it was a kissing game. With Takumi…”, she paused, searching for the truth in the sterile air, “It’s a storm, exhilarating and dangerous. It’s the thrill of matching wits with someone who sees everything, and the fear that he might choose to look away.” Kaoru scribbled furiously, muttering, “Contradictory attraction… high-risk, high-reward valuation… cognitive-intellectual stimulation as primary aphrodisiac.”

Rei laughed and interjected, ”Hold your horses Doctor! I didn’t say the intellectual attraction was the primary – after all he is good looking too. It’s more… the combination of everything seems to enhance the experience, so it feels wrong to say one aspect sits on top of some desire-pyramid.”

Sato looked up, his curiosity overriding his other notes, “And do you note his reciprocal desire? The biometric indicators are present. I am occasionally permitted to monitor Executive Takumi’s readings for project calibration, and….”, he stopped abruptly, his eyes freezing in horror, as he realized he was divulging confidential data about his boss.

Rei chuckled softly, a sound meant to smooth over some of the terror palling Kauro’s face rapidly, “It’s alright, Doctor. You haven’t revealed a state secret. I am entirely aware that Takumi is attracted to me.” Sato relaxed visibly, slumping in his chair, “Oh. Good. That simplifies… the emotional vector.” He leaned forward slightly, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, as if afraid the walls themselves were listening, “Then, why do you think he didn’t ask the favor for himself? Why did he delegate the… the intimate data capture to Mr. Kelly?”

The question, so simple, direct and profoundly human, caught Rei off guard. It was the least scientific, most personal inquiry he had ever made. She shrugged, a delicate movement of her shoulders, “That’s one of the difficult things with desire, Doctor. Understanding your own is a grand task in itself – to understand another’s? That’s a whole other level of difficulty.” Kaoru’s face fell, his disappointment apparent. He had been hoping for an explanation. Seeing his expression, Rei leaned in, mirroring his hushed tone. “I have theories though,” she confided, “One is that he loves his wife and wants to be at least partially true to her.”

The Doctor’s frown was immediate and telling. He didn’t speak, but the twitch of his eyebrow and the skeptical twist of his lips communicated volumes. Rei registered his silent rebuttal and moved on, “Another theory is that he’s building the want. Savoring the jealousy, letting it condense, to make the eventual release more… intricate or explosive. He’s a man who appreciates complexity and control.”

Then she sighed, flashing a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, a look of self-deprecating irony, “Or, maybe the fact I was a Chochin hostess simply means I’m below his standards. Fun to play with but not good enough to… well, you know.”

Kaoru was scribbling again, his muttering a low stream of consciousness, “Theory A: rejected per contradictory empirical data… Theory B: strategic delay and intensification through contrived conflict… Theory C: social hierarchy as a barrier to consummation, internalized by the subject…”

He looked up, his gaze clinical once more, “The last two theoretical frameworks possess a higher probability of containing operational truth. The data on delayed gratification and the neurochemical payoff of resolved social tension is compelling. And your self-assessment, while affectively negative, does present a logically consistent, if sociologically bleak, variable.” He paused, realizing he’d lapsed again, “In plain language… I think you’re probably right about the waiting game, or the class problem – or both.”

Rei simply nodded, the hard truth of her own words settling in her stomach. She had come here to teach a machine about the human heart, and in doing so, had been forced to articulate some of her own‘s most vulnerable beats.

Touches Given, Touches Taken

Another Wednesday came around and this time Kauro had cleaned his office prior to their meeting. A free chair and a decluttered desk greeted Rei as she entered. Kaoru was hunched over his slate, his brow furrowed in intense concentration.

“The previous data on ‘safety’ and ‘storm’ was useful,” he began, without preamble, bypassing a greeting as Rei closed the door and moved closer to the desk, “But now I need to map the micro-interactions, the physical feedback. You mentioned a distinction between a touch that is ‘taken’ and one that is ‘given.’ The biometric differential is significant, but the causality is unclear. Please elaborate.”

Rei settled into the now-familiar chair, the sterile light glinted off her Bicoca jewelry, the embedded stones catching the beams like stars. She crossed her legs while replying, “It’s about intent and consent. Sometimes, you want to be taken, to surrender control. Other times, you want to give, to offer something freely – and the best times… it’s shared in a constant, fluid exchange of giving and taking.” Kaoru’s head tilted, his expression one of pure, clinical confusion, “But the objective is to orgasm, correct? The physiological release. These shifts in agency… they seem like inefficient variables. Why introduce volatility?”

An almost pitying expression grew on Rei’s face, “Because desire isn’t a straight line, Doctor, it’s a dance. You test boundaries, you find them, you meet them. Sometimes, you think you want to be taken, but when your partner starts, you realize you don’t like what they’re taking, or how they’re taking it. You discover a new boundary in real-time.” Kaoru scribbled, muttering, “Real-time boundary discovery… dynamic consent parameters…”

“The dangerous dynamic,” Rei continued, her voice losing its softness and gaining a serious, analytical edge, “is when one person tangles their own need and pride so tightly that it overrides the other’s voice and their right to change their mind, to say ‘not like that’ or ‘not now.’” Kaoru looked up, his gaze utterly neutral, “Are you describing sexual assault? I require categorical clarity for the model.”

Rei let out an astonished chuckle, not at the subject, but at his brutal lack of delicacy. “Yes,” she said, her own tone matching his dispassion, “But it’s a spectrum. There can be smaller breaches. A touch that lingers where it wasn’t invited, a pressure that feels more like a demand than an invitation. Sometimes, the language to articulate that new boundary takes time to find. It might be a realization that comes days later.” Her hands trembled slightly on the desk and she retracted them under the table and leaned forward, her black eyes holding his, “What’s important, for it to remain desire and not just dominance, is that both voices matter. It can’t be one party disregarding, dictating or ignoring the other.”

Kaoru’s eyebrows were knitted so tightly they formed a single, troubled line. He processed her words, translating them into his own framework, “So, you are stating that for the interaction to remain within the optimal ‘desire’ zone and not cross into the ‘pain/control’ zone, it requires continuous, bidirectional communication. Both parties’ parameters and goals must be in a state of negotiation and compromise.”

Rei nodded slowly, running his sterile words through the rich, painful tapestry of her own experiences, “That is part of it… but the point I wanted to make is that the worst part isn’t just the physical transgression”, her voice dropped, becoming almost a whisper, “It’s when a person is deliberately disinterested in listening; when they use the attraction they feel, not towards the actual person in front of them, but towards the dream of that person. They project their own desires onto the other’s body, instead of sharing them in a dialogue. Forcing the enactment of their solitary fantasy onto the other.”

She took a slow breath, the memory of a thousand such enforcements of varying gravity flashing behind her eyes in Chochin Row, “Then it becomes a delusion, a play. They are forcing the result of their own self-centered pleasure onto someone who is not part of that delusion. They are taking the personality, the individuality… the power, yes, but the most terrifying part, at least to me,” she said, voice shaky but her gaze unwavering, “is the loss of the right to be yourself. To be forced to be seen only through the morphed, perverse dreamscape of another’s fantasy.”

The hum of the servers filled the silence. Kaoru was writing furiously, his stylus a blur. Rei leaned back, the moment of vulnerable intensity passing. She added, her tone dry and final, “Such egotistical fantasies, Doctor, are better suited for masturbation. Or…”, she paused, a flicker of profound irony in her eyes, “…possibly for Eidolon. But not between living, breathing, feeling people.”