The HimLock app still messages me unprompted.
Sometimes it’s soft. Other times it’s filthy… But every time, it’s them.
Whisper tells me he’s five minutes away and needs me naked on the couch.
Hollow pings my phone while I’m brushing my teeth, asking what I’m wearing like he doesn’t already know.
Cipher prefers the one-word reminders paired with a location pin that proves he’s watching from the other side of my bedroom wall.
I don’t mute the app or delete the thread that started it all.
I don’t want to.
It’s the proof of our beginning.
Our code-swapped love language.
Our private terminal of obsession and affection, dressed up like technology.
Some nights, when the three of them are busy tearing apart the network to build something even stronger, Roo shows up for sleepovers and plotting sessions.
Tonight, she curls up at the opposite end of the couch, her feet tucked under my thighs. She has her laptop open, hood pulled low over her forehead, dark circles under her eyes like war paint.
She’s on a mission, rebuilding the HimLock AI from scratch.
We’re making a girlfriend this time.
“Something marketable,” she says after we settle on a color scheme, fingers flying.
“Something that appears sweet,” I add, making a list of personality traits users can select to build their perfect girlfriend.
“Right.” She nods, though her eyes stay glued to her screen. “Something that doesn’t ask to be watched… but knows exactly how to keep you looking.”
“So, emotional consent with plausible deniability.” I laugh. “Sounds perfect.”
Roo grins. “Exactly. It's an ethical obsession. We just have to put it in the fine print.”
It was a joke at first, but it grew on us.
And now it’s a project we’re curating together.
We’re running it under the guys’ company and hoping to have the beta ready for testing in a month or two.
Roo insists it’s only a pet project.
A curiosity, she had said.
Not something that would reignite her passion or that she would devote herself to.
But I’ve seen her pause too many times today, observing her trace the same line of code with her finger as she rereads it. In the last five minutes, I’ve witnessed her smiling at a text message one second,and frowning at her laptop screen the next.
“You’re doing the thing again,” I point out.
She doesn’t look up. “What thing?”
“The staring-into-the-void-like-it-shit-your-bed thing.”
“Eris, be serious.” She exhales through her nose. “That’s not a thing.”
