“So how was work today?” she asked, popping a grape into my mouth.
I laughed and ate the offering.
“Long,” I replied, “but we’ve decided to nominate Jimmy to the Security Council as a specialist in conscious boundary systems. He’ll be a big help.”
“Jimmy—Bob’s brother Jimmy?” she asked.
“Yeah, that’s right, well sort-of brother anyway.”
I frowned. For brothers, adopted or not, Jimmy and Bob sure didn’t seem to talk much. Of course, I hardly spoke to my own brothers much either.
We pulled some pillows up around us, and the sun began to set as we chatted. This was the first time I could remember feeling totally at ease with Cindy in a long time. It was nice. Finally, perhaps things were turning around.
When I was about stuffed, she surprised me again.
“So Mr. Rick Strong, who would you like me to be tonight?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” she said, casting her eyes down, and then looking back up at me as she bit her tongue between her teeth and smiled.
Yes, I knew what she meant.
“Would you like me to skin up too?”
I smiled playfully at her.
“Sure...” she giggled like a schoolgirl, “you go first.”
She had unbuttoned my shirt and was rubbing my chest, playing with one of my nipples. We hadn’t made love in months. She nudged me with a phantom for a stimshare and I quickly accepted, watching her shiver as my sensory input filled her. I hadn’t expected this when I walked in the door.
“No, you first, who would you like me to be?” I asked.
This wasn’t the kind of stuff I really went for, but I was happy to experiment a little. She looked at me shyly, and then looked away, embarrassed.
“Well, that Spanish guy in the crime dramas, you know, Julio...”
“Sure, sure...I know him,” I said, laughing. “Are you sure?”
She nodded.
Echo had already sent me the copyright release in an overlay the moment she uttered the words. Looking at the rates, I could see that skin time in this Julio guy was expensive. He must be popular with the ladies.
What the heck. I punched the ‘buy’ and ‘skin’ buttons simultaneously with a phantom and detached out of myself to look down at some Spanish guy sitting on the pillows, cuddling with my wife. It was hard to get used to this stuff, I thought, shaking my head, and then snapped back into my body.
“So what do you think?” I asked.
I sat up a little and put myself on display, raising my eyebrows and winking at her.
“Very sexy, Mr. Commander,” she laughed, “now it’s your turn.”
“Ahh...how about that Phuture News Network celebrity girl?”
“What?” she exclaimed, laughing and punching me gently in the shoulder.
“Yeah, yeah, that girl...you know the one.”
I laughed awkwardly. The Phuture News girl’s large breasts were about all that came to mind on such short notice.
“Okay,” she agreed, grinning shyly. “If that’s what you’d like.”
As I watched, holding her, she morphed into the Phuture News girl. With particular fascination, I watched her breasts swell under the transparent fabric of the kurta. She looked up at me bashfully.
Maybe I could get used to this.
A rush of animal desire coursed through me. I lifted the kurta, revealing her swollen breasts whose nipples popped to attention like little soldiers. I took one of them into my mouth, rolling it around with my tongue, hearing my wife softly moan as I scooped her into my arms.
Yeah, I could definitely get used to this.
Afterwards we were lying in the jumble of pillows beside the table, back in our own skins. Cindy was lying curled up beside me with one of my arms wrapped around her, and my brain was lazily tingling and thinking about how best to bring up my idea. She was trying, so maybe it was time for me to try too.
Baby steps, baby steps. I smiled at that thought.
Cindy gently twitched against me, dropping off to sleep, and then she twitched harder, and then again. Wait, was that a sob?
“Cindy?” I said gently, my brow furrowing and my brain fighting back from the fog it had drifted off into.
“Cindy?” I asked again, more urgently.
She turned to me, slowly, her eyes wet above cheeks streaked with tears. She wiped the tears away with the back of one hand, looking down and away from me.
“Honey, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know...”
“Come on, what’s wrong?”
She sighed and looked at me, shrugging her shoulders and hunching inwards as if to protect herself.
“I just didn’t like that, Rick,” she said softly. “The way you looked at me, you were happy I was someone else.”
The fog around my brain quickly evaporated, sensing imminent danger.
“Honey, that’s not true at all,” I said, knowing this was only half true. I raised myself up on one elbow to look down at her. “I was only doing it because you wanted to.”
That was true enough.
“I was only doing it because I thought that’s what you wanted,” she declared, wiping away another tear. “I want to make you happy, Rick. I know I haven’t been great to be around lately.”
“Aw, honey,” I replied, searching for the right way out of this, “look, I love you, and you’re the only person I want to be with.”
This was absolutely the truth.
“If anything, it’s me that wants to make you happy. I want to make us work again. It’s my fault, all this, I mean, you know what I mean.”
The guilt spilled back out and my emotions welled up. I knew she could see it.
“I love you too,” she replied simply. “I’m just not comfortable with all this pssi stuff. I am trying though.”
This suddenly seemed like the right time.
“Look, I’ve been thinking.”
“Uh huh,” she sniffled.
I took a deep breath.
“Like I said, I’m not sure if we’re ready for kids just yet, but maybe we are. Maybe we could take a half step, and get you more into the pssi system at the same time.”
“I’m listening,” she said, reaching up to tenderly stroke my chin with one hand.
“What would you think about proxxids?”
She crinkled her nose. “What, those are like little fake simulated kids right?”
“Well, yes and no,” I answered, “I’ve been looking them up and talking to Jimmy and Patricia. I think it could be perfect for us right now.”
Silence settled, and then, “I’m still listening.”
“They’re not just fake kids. They take our actual DNA code and mix it together as if it was a real fertilization, and then simulate the development process to generate what our real little baby would be like if we had one.”
I took a breath, watching her carefully before continuing.
“You can pick traits, of course, like eye color or more subtle stuff if you want, but that’s sort of the point,” I explained. “It’s like trying out a trial version of how your kid will look and behave.”
“Uh huh,” she replied skeptically, “why don’t you just get them to send you a bunch of mock-ups and we can stick them up on the wall and pick a model we like?”
The sarcasm was obvious, but lightened with humor. I could sense the clouds clearing.
“It’s not just that,” I added encouragingly, “these things, you have to take care of them, just like they were real babies...feed them, burp them, put them to sleep. You get the full treatment, and that’s really the point—you can see how your kid will behave at different ages before you have them, to make sure you’ll like what you’re getting.”