Chapter 3
While I waited for a response, I realized that Dr. Semson might be the strangest man I had ever met. What kind of doctor didn’t want to examine their patients? What kind of doctor stared in slack-jawed silence at someone sitting on their table for this long?
Maybe it was just me. Maybe it was because I was a bionic and he was a Portisan. Either way, I had no time for his prejudices.
Giving him a pointed look, I said, “Well?”
His throat bobbed, my sensors detecting his accelerating heart rate, constricting pupils, perspiration lining his upper lip and beading across his brow. Was his sympathetic nervous system activated? Was he scared? It didn’t make any logical sense. I was not a threat to him. He must see that.
Eventually, he said, “Lie down, please,” and I released a breath at his calm voice and soothing tone. Good. Maybe I could finally get out of here and back to work.
Reclining onto my back, I settled my head on his pillow. His ceiling was composed of digtiles, all depicting a sky as blue as his skin, with puffy white clouds floating lazily by. It was a nice choice for a doctor’s office, all things considered. Peaceful.
So were his instructions: “Raise your arms above your head.”
I detected a three-degree increase in the temperature in his office, a pleasant warmth covering my exposed chest as I obeyed his command. Closing my eyes, I said, “That’s nice.”
“What’s that?” Even though he stood right beside me, his voice sounded far away.
“The warmth. It feels nice.”
His answering silence was deafening. Rude.
I was merely trying to tell him how I felt so he didn’t have to guess.
Considering that his empathic abilities didn’t work on me, I figured he might appreciate the feedback.
Apparently not. This was why I rarely concerned myself with setting others at ease.
It used up too much energy and wasted too much time. I was generally awful at it anyway.
Speaking of time, after a length of it I refused to keep nanoscopic track of, he finally said, “I’m going to touch you now. I want you to tell me if anything I do is uncomfortable for you. Can you do that for me?”
I opened my eyes and found myself staring into his, silvery-blue and clear. Blake never asked me ahead of time to tell him if anything he did was uncomfortable. He just went for it, the kissing equivalent of act first and ask questions later. Although he never really did that either.
“I can do that,” I said, scanning his face while his gaze slid down my throat, my chest. He was handsome, this doctor, older than my twenty-nine years by half a Standard decade if I had to guess.
He had thick silver hair that swooped effortlessly across his brow, those moonglow blue eyes surrounded by a forest of long, dark lashes and broad cheekbones.
And his lips were…pleasing. His upper lip had a bow shape to it I found agreeable, with a deep divot in the center, right under his nose.
And aside from a tiny dark blue freckle under his right eye, his face was remarkably symmetrical.
While I watched him roll up his sleeves to his elbows, revealing cobalt blue arms dusted by the faintest hint of silvery-white hair, I realized that those were pleasing too.
Corded muscles, prominent veins, strong wrists, all leading down to the slightly webbed fingers reaching out for me.
When his fingertips made contact with my skin, his touch was soft and gentle.
Entire galaxies apart from Blake’s kneading and prodding.
The light in his office wasn’t bright or glaring, and yet I found myself closing my eyes again as his left hand rested warmly on my shoulder, his right hand moving slowly and confidently, gliding up and over the swell of my right breast, stopping just shy of my nipple.
Moving his hand an inch over, he repeated the motion, continuing in a rotating pattern until he’d completed the circle.
His footsteps echoed through the silence of his office as he walked around the table to stand on my left side. He placed his right hand on my shoulder, and his left hand on my other breast was even softer, even warmer as it moved over my skin.
I opened my eyes again, wondering if it was normal for beings to find breast symmetry exams so relaxing. A lock of his silver hair slid forward over his forehead, and when he flicked his head to the side to clear the hair from his eyes, his fingers brushed over the tip of my nipple.
It was barely a touch, barely a whisper of his skin against mine.
But something stirred inside me, a tingling heat infusing my breasts, converging to swirl around my nipples, setting off a cascade of sparks that traveled deep into my belly, lower, spreading out warm and heavy between my thighs.
My hands grabbed his table. My toes curled.
Internal alarms blared. My heart rate, respiration, vasomotor tone all out of range.
Glancing down at my breasts, I gasped. My nipples had changed, transforming from their customary soft, round discs into firm, pointed darts.
And, stars above, there was a slipperiness between my legs. Was I leaking?
Bolting upright, I met the doctor’s wide-eyed stare. “What’s wrong with me?” I demanded. “What did you do?”
“Nothing.” Hands raised, he lurched away from the table so quickly he bumped into his counter, toppling a flexGlass container of tongue depressors.
His pulse skyrocketed, his pupils doubling in size.
“Your examination is complete. Your breasts, in my purely medical opinion, are perfectly symmetrical.” An awkward laugh. “Nothing lopsided about them.”
I glanced down again. “But why are my nipples like this? You touched one of them, and now they’re both hard.”
His only answer was a stifled groan, as if he was in pain.
“Don’t groan at me,” I snapped, any lingering sparks in my body fizzling out one by one. “It’s not my fault that I don’t understand what’s happening.”
The breath he took was the deepest I’d ever heard another being take. “Elanie.” He clasped his hands together, bringing his knuckles to his lips. “What kind of research on puberty did you do before you upgraded?”
“None.”
“None?” he repeated, asking it like a question.
Like it was something that deserved an explanation.
Like he couldn’t believe that a being would make such a monumental decision without looking into it first. Without weighing the pros and cons.
Learning the risks and benefits. But he didn’t know what it was like. He didn’t know how awful it was.
“I tried,” I admitted. “Once. I searched the Vnet for information about the upgrade, but the first link I clicked led to a pornographic senso-vid.” A shudder ripped down my spine at the memory.
“It was horrifying. I couldn’t risk clicking again, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have installed at all.
But I wanted to. So I just”—I shrugged—“did it.” It was the first rash decision I’d made in the twenty-nine years since my CPU had booted up. First and last.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” he said, at least sounding sincere. “I can see that being…off-putting.”
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” I stared at my breasts again. “What just happened to my nipples is abnormal.” I knew it. I was going to have to uninstall and reinstall the upgrade. I was going to have to go through it all over again. “I’m malfunctioning, aren’t I?”
It seemed dangerous to raise my head, to meet his stare, because then I’d see the confirmation of my fears, my brokenness, reflected in his expression. But when I gathered my courage and tried, his eyes were right there, catching me mid-spiral with a steady calm.
“No, Elanie,” he said, “it’s not bad or abnormal.
And you are not malfunctioning.” His chest rose and fell as he took a step toward me.
“What you were, or at least what your body was, was aroused. You see”—he ruffled his hair—“certain types of touch on certain areas of the body can cause symptoms of arousal. Which might have been what just happened.” He ran the back of his hand over his forehead. “With your nipples. Accidentally.”
“Aroused?” Staring at him, awaiting further explanation and not receiving any, I felt my patience snap. “What in the stars are you talking about?”
Instead of answering, he walked around me to gather my bra and sweater from the tray where I’d discarded them. Handing them to me, he said, “I will explain everything I can to the best of my abilities, I promise. But please, put these back on first.”
“Fine,” I said, taking my clothes, putting on my bra while he turned around. After I pulled my sweater over my head, I said, “I’m done.”
At the sight of me fully dressed, he exhaled a relieved “thank you.”
“Explain further,” I insisted, needing data, craving answers. “About my nipples.”
Leaning back against his counter, crossing his arms over his chest and his legs at his ankles, he said, “As a hormonal being, when you become aroused—whether through touch or other sensations like when someone else smells good or you enjoy the sound of their voice. Sometimes simply from thinking about someone you find attractive—your body might respond in certain ways. Your heart might beat harder and faster. You might breathe more rapidly. Your muscles might tense or relax more than usual. Your nipples might grow tight and firm. Certain parts of your body might feel warm or tingly or—”
“Slippery?”
His mouth snapped shut. At least five billion nanoseconds passed by without him taking a single breath. Until he finally squeaked out a high and tight “mm-hmm.”
“That’s what I felt,” I said while he sucked his lower lip into his mouth. “When you touched my nipple, I felt warm and slippery between my legs. Like I was leaking. And you’re saying that’s normal?”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. When he was done, he looked at me, then closed his eyes and scrubbed both his hands over his face.
Eventually, he said, “Yes. I’m saying that is perfectly normal.
It simply means that your body enjoyed the way I was touching you.
Which was not at all intended,” he added, talking fast. “But it happens sometimes. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.
Hormonal beings are sensitive, and it can be confusing at first, learning the ways your body responds to pleasurable stimulation. ”
“Okay,” I said, attempting to process this information. “But—”
“I realize we’re really just scratching the surface here, Elanie,” he said.
“But I have another patient in three minutes. If you’re comfortable with the idea, I would recommend talking to Blake about what kinds of touch feel good to you.
Experiment with him. Try things out. Start there.
And if he tells you that your breasts are lopsided again, have him come see me to have his eyesight checked. ”
He held out a hand to help me off the table, and I stared at it.
I didn’t want to leave. Not yet. Not when I was finally getting what I came for.
“Can I make another appointment?” I asked, taking his hand.
“I have so much more to learn. So many more questions to ask. Like, what is the purpose of a body leaking in response to arousal? What are the structures and functions—”
“Next time,” he croaked out, letting go of me the second my feet touched the floor.
Walking to his door, he slammed his hand over the sensor.
“My schedule is available through the MedBay app on your VC.” When his door slid open, he waved me through.
“It was nice to meet you, Elanie. Have a wonderful day and please give Sunny my regards.”
Was that sarcasm in his tone? I could never tell.
“I will,” I said while walking backward out of his office. “Make another appointment, I mean.”
“I’d expect nothing less,” he said, sounding pained.
I didn’t necessarily feel like he was pushing me out, but I didn’t not feel that way either as he followed me to the door.
With a curt wave and a tight nod, he mashed the sensor again.
And just as his door slid closed on his symmetrical face and tousled hair, I heard a thump, then a crash, then a muffled cry of “sweet weeping Saints!”
He was a strange man. But maybe all Portisans were strange. I didn’t know many. Maybe the entire planet was inhabited by strange, stammering, sweaty-lipped empaths. It didn’t matter. I didn’t need him to be normal. I didn’t even need him to be friendly—which he was, I suppose. For the most part.
I only needed answers, and he had them.