Free The eGirl by Michael Dalton Page A

enforced love Selena had for me had been in the back of my thoughts since I’d brought her home. She had figured out quickly it made me uncomfortable, and she’d since done a good job of keeping it mostly hidden. But now and then it came out as it just had.
    I felt something for Selena, even if I wasn’t still sure how to think of her. She was a physical thing, a legal possession, yet a week with her had convinced me her personality and self-awareness weren’t simulations, just clever programming. There truly was a real person inside there.
    But it wasn’t a human person. People couldn’t be compelled to feel things like love. The personality tweaks weren’t the same thing. She could turn them on and off when she changed her appearance as she’d done with Elsa. It was not so different than someone taking on a different role just to have fun.
    Selena was locked into loving me, and that was a problem. I couldn’t see how I could ever return something that was compelled.
    ♦ ♦
    But Selena had other things on her mind. On Monday morning, with the kids all in school, she came into my office to see if I wanted to do anything. I did. I remade her a bit; I’d seen a pretty woman running past the house on the way to school that morning—long athletic legs and dark chestnut hair—and I wanted to make Selena look like something like that.
    But as I got her hair to the shade I’d envisioned, she knelt down next to my chair and took my hand.
    “I know you like doing this.”
    “It’s fun.”
    “I’m just curious about one thing you’ve never asked of me.”
    “What?”
    She seemed to gather up some resolve for a moment.
    “I’ve never asked either, because I thought it might be too hard for you, but . . . Paul . . . would you ever want me to be Megan?”
    I was about to exclaim, Oh god, no , but the words died in my throat.
    Megan.
    She could be Megan. She wouldn’t be Megan, of course, any more than she was Elsa Berger, but she could look like her.
    My heart was pounding in my chest. I’d looked at the photos and videos of her so many times. Would this be so terribly different? She would just be here physically instead of on a display. Was this a terrible idea? Would just once be so wrong? Just to see her one last time?
    It was a long time before I could say anything. Selena sat there quietly waiting for an answer.
    “You cannot, ever, ever , do this in front of the kids.”
    I expected her to say something like Of course not , or I understand , or I would never do that . She said something entirely different.
    “Paul, it was Alisa’s idea.”
    “What?”
    “Not that we do anything, necessarily. But Saturday night, after her soccer game, she asked me if you ever had me become someone else, when they weren’t around. This put me in a difficult spot because I knew you wanted me to keep these things from her, but it was clear to me she had suspicions. I concluded that lying to her would do more harm than the truth. So I said, ‘Yes, sometimes.’ She then asked, ‘Does he ever want you to be my mom?’ When I said no, she said, ‘Maybe you should. It might make him feel better.’”
    I was speechless.
    “Paul, she cares about you. I’m sure she doesn’t understand everything about what you’ve gone through, but she loves and cares about you very deeply. And she’s a bright young woman. I’m becoming convinced she knows what we’ve been doing, or at least suspects some of it. As careful as we’ve been, there are some things you just can’t hide.”
    She had too much of her mother in her. I knew, somehow at that moment, that Megan would understand and forgive this.
    It still took me a minute to actually say it.
    “Okay.”
    “Do you want me to be her, like Elsa, or just be like her?”
    “Don’t be her. It wouldn’t work. Looking is enough.”
    “All right. Why don’t you close your eyes?”
    A few seconds later, I heard Megan’s voice.
    “Paul?”
    I forced open my eyes. She was kneeling