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"I was about to say, you couldn't afford me," Xris told her. "Sister."
Taking the twist out of his mouth, he tossed the soggy, half-chewed mass in the reeeptionist's trash disposer, then walked off.
It shouldn't gnaw at him, but it did. Gnawed at the part of him that hadn't been---couldn't be--replaced by machinery. People in general, women in particular--the way they looked at him. Or didn't look at him. You asked for it, you know.
"Yeah, that's true," Xris agreed with himself. Taking out another twist, he stuck it in his mouth, clamped down on it hard with his teeth.
But he preferred the pity, the disgust to be up front. Better that than later. Behind closed doors. Not that there ever was a later. A door that ever closed. It happens to all cyborgs, eventually. Even the "pretty" ones. Sure, when she digs her nails into your fake flesh, it'll bleed fake blood--the miracle of modern technology. But when you hold her close, she'll hear the drone, the whine, the rhythmic clicks. And her flesh, her living flesh, grows cold in your arms, grows cold to your sensor devices. She realizes a machine's making love to her. She thinks: I might as well be screwing a toaster ....
The lift had stopped. It had been stopped for some time, apparently, for it kept repeating "Floor eighteen" in a manner that was beginning to sound irritated.
Berating himself--My God! How many years has it been since the operation-anyway? Nine? Ten?--Xris strode off the lift
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