Excerpt
The nest reshapes when he lays me down.
The substrate reads the geometry of two bodies and configures itself to hold them in relation to each other.
The hive cradles my back and calculates the precise angle to elevate my hips, having determined over sixty million years that this angle is optimal.
The hive supports my knees, angling them open.
I should be afraid of this; a living surface is arranging my body for breeding with the impersonal efficiency of a factory line.
But the hormonal regimen has been in my bloodstream for over an hour, and my body is running on a different protocol now: the hive protocol, the entrained protocol, the one that says your job is to open.
The drone kneels between my legs.
