"Honey, do you see this?" I say, pushing back from my desk in disgust. "Even our CAD software uses generative AI now! It's like they won't stop until nobody has a job!"

  "So I see," my girlfriend says, leaning against me and examining my laptop screen with a nasty look on her face. Nothing escapes those sharp green eyes. I speak from experience here! She adjusts her glasses before saying more, a nervous habit that I've always found adorable. "The thinking machines intrude upon even the rightful province of artificers! Is nothing sacred, dear? Why, in mine own lands, the guilds wouldn't have it!"

  That's another thing. Reka, my girlfriend, is Hungarian, and her English is sometimes, shall we say, a little outdated. Not that there's anything wrong with that! It's charming, and I'm used to it by now, mostly.

  "What guilds, Reka?" I ask rhetorically. "Labor unions are dead in this country. Forget about workers' rights. AI is coming for all our jobs, whether we like it or not."

  "Fools," she snorts derisively. "You can't build a kingdom of automatons alone. I should know."

  She does?

  Reka stands abruptly, pulling me to my feet with surprising strength. Where did all that power come from? She's so slim. The only big things about her are her eyes and her, uh, assets. "Come along, Brad. A meal will set your mind at ease."

  I agree with a nod and allow myself to be dragged out of our room by the arm.

  "We'll go to that burger place you like in the student union, my love. I'm paying."

  "Reka, you don't have-"

  She cuts me off abruptly. "I want to, dearest. Besides, there are matters I would put before you."

  Matters? That could be anything. She doesn't want to break up, right? Reka wouldn't dump me over a burger, or at least that's what I tell myself.

  No, that's my low self-esteem talking. She wouldn't be clinging to me like this and staring daggers at every woman who so much as glances at me if our relationship were on the rocks.

  People do stare. Cal Poly engineering is not a particularly large community. I'm the nontraditional student who was in the military, and Reka is...Reka. We're easy to spot.

  How to even describe my girlfriend? She's bold and brilliant and utterly without care for how others view her. Imperious and used to being obeyed, I somewhat suspect she comes from money, maybe even aristocracy. Do they have aristocrats back in Hungary? They were communist for a while, I understand, so maybe Reka's family got rich from privatization after the Iron Curtain fell. Whatever the explanation, my darling wears designer everything and doesn't look at price tags.

  Yes, I'm glazing her, I realize, but just look at her! My Reka is slender as a model, with long legs, a generous bust up top, and the kind of face that makes you want to take up painting. Our walk across the university quad might as well be a royal procession. "Make way for the queen!" I want to yell.

  So if she's the queen, then who am I?

  Nobody special. I'm Brad Regis, just a guy, and I honestly have no idea why a goddess like Reka Fekete ever gave me the time of day.

  The first year of college was not easy, especially with me being older and the world still recovering from the pandemic. Transitioning from Navy life added another complication. After a few failed attempts to socialize with covid-traumatized classmates, I decided to just lock in and focus on school.

  Then I met her.

  She was running a recitation session for one of the early engineering core classes: statics, if you want to know. Needless to say, I instantly fell in love with her.

  This is the part where I walked up to her and asked her out, right? Wrong! She walked up to me. Even now, the memory is burned into my mind.

  "You!" She pointed at me after class was dismissed. "My good man, I'm told you were a sailor. I would have a discourse with you. Commerce upon the sea has always held my interest."

  What followed was the most surreal conversation of my life. How could somebody studying for a PhD in mechanical engineering not know what submarines were? Well, Hungary is a landlocked country, and Reka had very sheltered vibes.

  During a lull in the conversation, she caught me checking her out. "Do you find my form pleasing?" she asked. There was no hostility in her tone. Reka wasn't offended, just the opposite in fact.

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  "Yes," I answered honestly.

  "Do you wish to take me to bed?" Her eyes were dark with desire and something I couldn't place, a hunger that no one had ever looked at me with before.

  "I wish to date you," I blurted out. Stupid, I know, but I had to shoot my shot.

  After that, I had to explain what "dating" was. Yes, very sheltered. Wonder of wonders, once she understood, she agreed.

  That was two years ago.

  "Bacon cheeseburger, no pickles, right?" Reka's words shock me back into the present.

  "You know me so well," I say fondly.

  "Not as well as I would wish." Reka's smile is positively incandescent as she goes off to buy our food. Her raven hair, smooth as silk, bounces and undulates almost like a living thing as she walks. How does she get it to do that? We live together and use the same bathroom. I know what cleaning products she uses. Nothing we have can make hair do that.

  Hot girl magic, I suppose.

  A whole horde of jealous eyes bombard me with contempt I feel rather than see as I pick out an empty table for us. Despite my protests, this is our usual division of labor. Reka buys the food while I secure our seats.

  Just a few minutes later, Reka slides into the seat across from me and sets down a tray of food: two burgers, two large fries, and two sodas, pretty standard. She daintily pops a fry into her mouth and bites down, revealing perfect, straight white teeth with prominent canines, almost resembling fangs.

  "Potatoes are fine things, no? Though the beef here is below middling, I deem," she says conversationally. One fry becomes two, then three. There's a reason we get two large fries. Reka will eat all of hers and half of mine. My baby's appetite is strong.

  How she maintains that figure is a mystery for the ages. She doesn't even really exercise. Her only vigorous physical activity is in bed. The thought makes me blush, and I try to hide it by taking a bite of my burger. "Below middling," I mumble in agreement, but the price is right, not that I'm paying.

  My girlfriend is not deceived. "Already amorous, are you? And I'm not even wearing one of my fine gowns, or the lingerie that you like," she teases me brazenly.

  My blush deepens. "Honey, people are staring," I whisper, yet the sound carries against my will.

  Reka waves a hand dismissively. "Never mind them, dearest. Admiring my beauty is no crime, and desiring my body is well within your rights as my boyfriend. We may make love as much as you like once we've had a bit of time to digest. Speaking of which..."

  Her eyes twinkle with mischief as she steals one of my fries. She still has plenty of her own! "Hey!" I protest in faux outrage while she laughs musically.

  "You love it, don't gainsay me!"

  Gainsay? What does that mean again...

  "Right," I say agreeably. Agreeing should be safe.

  "Tomorrow shall be a momentous day," she says, suddenly serious. "The stars are right."

  I look up from my food. "Reka?"

  Her glasses slip down her nose, and Reka studies me with her naked eyes. She only takes off her glasses when...

  I'm blushing again.

  She smiles reassuringly, but the weight of her gaze doesn't diminish. "Tomorrow, Brad," she repeats.

  "What's tomorrow?" I ask, my food forgotten.

  "We haven't discussed our future," she says. Her eyes pin me in place, green and bright and burning.

  "Our future?" I gulp. She's hardly ever like this. Our time together is usually so light, so playful. Serious Reka hits different.

  "Are you happy, my love?" The question feels like a slap. I wrack my brain for an answer. Is this a test? What should I say? What does she want me to say?

  "Yes," I answer with only a moment of hesitation, and even as the word passes through my lips, I know I'm telling the truth. "With you, yes. I love you."

  A beam of sunlight from the student union window reflects off of Reka's eyes, making them appear to flash for an instant. "Gooooood," she says breathily. The word is long and smooth and flows from my ear to my brain, caressing it like a lover. "I love you, too, of course," she returns my feelings with the kind of confidence that makes my breath catch. "Though I was not referring to our relationship."

  "You weren't?" Then what could she mean? My face contorts in confusion.

  Reka reaches across the table and cups my cheek. I lean into her touch and enjoy the electric sensation of her warm fingers brushing against my skin. Even the faintest connection is enough to undo me. After two years, I've built up exactly zero resistance to my girlfriend.

  "You are discomfitted by the state of the world, are you not? The economy, the job market, politics, and so on?"

  I nod. She grips my chin with her thumb and forefinger and makes me look at her, really look.

  "I am a wealthy woman, you know."

  I do know. How could I not?

  "What are you saying, honey?"

  "I'm saying you need never work again, dearest. I can take you away from all of this, from here. But I must know: are you 'all-in'? For me? For us?"

  At last, I understand. She wants to take me back to Hungary, to live on her family's estate. I admit I've thought about it. The way she's looking at me demands an immediate answer.

  "Yes," I state with confidence that surprises even myself. "I love you more than anything. I want us to be together forever. Wherever you go, I'll follow."

  That must've been the right thing to say because she grabs me by the collar and pulls me across the table into a searing kiss that leaves me breathless. There is no time, no crowd, no cafeteria, only her demanding mouth taking everything I have to give. When she eventually pulls back, my lips are still tingling from the heat of it. I'm hers, utterly.

  "Tomorrow," Reka repeats with her hand on the back of my head. We're still nose to nose, and those eyes, those eyes are bigger and deeper than I've ever seen, pools of infinite depth leading to an endless void. I quiver in her grip like a fish on a line. "Tomorrow is the last day of the quarter. You will accompany me to the lab, and then we're going on a little trip."

  With those words, whatever connection that was holding me breaks, and I remember we've still got hot food to enjoy. For the rest of the meal, we talk about inconsequential things, and I wonder what Europe will be like.

  Reka at lunch