Page 19 of Smart@ss Cyborg

“You experience a significant amount of emotion,” I observe. “Every emotion. It must be exhausting.”

She quiets, and oddly, I think I pick up on an expectancy in the air. As if she’s waiting for me to act following my statement.

“Speaking of exhaustion, I believe I’m feeling it myself. I find I’m growing weary of parsing—orattemptingto parse—your reactions and brain activity. Therefore, I’m looking forward to doing what humans do in beds.”Rest.

She shrinks away from me, and I frown at her in the dark, drawing back the portion of covers closest to me, which has the unintentional side-effect of releasing more scent receptors of her recently deceased mate. It’s odd, smelling the male as I bed down. Actually, it’s odd to scent a female too. My kind tend to keep a healthy distance from one another unless we seek to be old fashioned and take mates. “Good night,” I say politely.

She stops breathing as I settle into the bed, arranging the covers over my cybernetic legs, and generally adjusting to the strange presence of an overactive brain in such close proximity. I lie back, placing my head on the pillow, and close my eyes.

Her bioframework is so bright beside me I may as well be wide-eyed as I stare at the sun.

Frowning, I open my eyes and look over at her. “Why is your brain dumping fear chemicals into your system?”

She looks at me in what appears to be confusion. “What?”

I prop myself up on an elbow, and I can only assume that she must feel the movement ripple through the mattress since she likely has few visual clues—yet she scoots farther away from me, her brain contents flaring. My eyes scan her whole body, and I see her hand clutching at the distended ball of her stomach that houses her tadpole. “Does your stomach hurt?” I ask.

She swallows loudly, and there’s a strange length of time that stretches on in silence after I’ve asked my question, as if she has to weigh her answer. “Why?” she asks.

I flick my fingers at her midsection. “You’re clutching your belly.”

She glances down, her fingers spasming tighter over her bulge of human-in-progress. “Look,” she says on an oddly shaky exhale. “I’m never going to get to sleep if you’re planning to drag this out. If you’re going to do it—do it now,” she orders, and her whole body stiffens like she’s bracing herself.

I blink at her, trying to comprehend her words. “Explain.”

She throws me a look I can’t interpret. “Are you going to want your—your husbandly dues tonight?”

I frown at her, sitting up, and frown harder when she shrinks back from me even more. “What are husbands due, exactly?”

Silence.

“Becky?”

“SEX!” she explodes, startling me.

I consider her carefully. “Is… performing sexual acts something a husband must do for his wife?”

Becky opens her mouth, then closes it, nostrils flaring.

I feel my forehead bunch in disappointment. “When I asked earlier what responsibilities a husband has, you failed to mention this. I didn’trealize what I was agreeing to. I believed that because you are already gravid, you wouldn’t have reproductive needs.”

Becky’s eyelids flutter rapidly. “Are you saying you don’t want sex?”

I shake my head, but knowing she’s unlikely to see it, I add aloud, “Civilized Yonderin have no sexual contact.”

Becky is staring at me. “Then how do your people make babies?”

I try not to scoff. “My civilization is quite advanced—we duplicate ourselves through the sterile and highly refined process of pairing genetic material in laboratories. Save for the occasional deviant living in the outer reaches of the ocean, we turned away from primitive mating habits a long time ago.”

Becky’s jaw muscles slacken at my words, leaving her mouth gaping open in a human expression of disbelief. “Are you serious?”

I give her a firm look she can’t see. “Yes. Now will our agreement to be married stand without this clause being added, or will you require me to service you at your biological whims?”

“N-no!” Her hands flap between us, and then she falls still. “Thank you.”

My brows rise, but I keep the tone of my voice level, not wanting to offend her. “I believe I should be thanking you. I’ve seen human mating vids. I have no interest in rooting around with my pissing organ, trying to hump it into a female human.”

Becky makes a choked sputter.

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