Page 95 of Smart Ass

“Alright,” Ben said, getting back on track. “But the thing is, if that bot and I walked down the street together, people would wonder why. What could that bot possibly see in me? Am I rich enough to hire an attractive escort or reel in a trophy husband? Or maybe they’d just assume the bot was looking for someone else to fuck and try their luck.”

Max abruptly marched the bot to the corner. He shut off the light directly above it.

Ben laughed. He couldn’t help it.

“What?”

“You put the bot in time-out for being too sexy.” He wagged his finger at it. “Bad bot. Don’t be sexy!”

Max finally laughed, too.

“I wish you’d told me,” Max said.

Ben shrugged. “Like I said, it’s your body. You get to choose. Whatever your body looks like, I’ll accept it.”

“Help me choose.”

Ben reluctantly opened his laptop again.

It suddenly hit him what seemed so off with Max. Ben had spent hours obsessing over his body shape early in his transition, using simulators to see what his face might look like. He’d been eager to see himself as he could be. Yet Max seemed to think that one bot was as good as another and didn’t have any sense of what he might want to look like.

Even beyond that, Max called the bot it. He never seemed to connect or identify with it. He didn’t say, “This is me. This is who I am.” It was more, “I’m going to learn to control this collection of annoying parts so I can move on to more important things.”

Which made Ben really wonder if this was what Max wanted, or if it was just what he thought he should be doing.

Without Ben doing anything, a new window opened. It slowly scrolled up an Orbit webpage, revealing model after model. They all looked… fine? Conventionally attractive? Not otherwise distinguishable in any meaningful way?

“Which ones do you like?” Max asked, sounding hopeful.

“I dunno. I think you’ll be awesome whatever you do or don’t look like. And I’m bad at this shit. We should ask Quincy and Evan. Or some of my other friends. Get a lot of opinions.”

“I want them to meet me when I’m already in my body.”

Ben bit down his frustration. What had happened to I’m not sure I want a body from a couple weeks ago? Didn’t Max know how perfect he already was?

“Quincy and Evan would really, really like to meet you. They won’t care if you have a body or not. They’ll love you.”

Ben hadn’t told his best friends about Max during the trial, or the first few days after it when the two of them were all loved up and didn’t need him around anyway. They were still deliriously happy, to the point where Ben almost felt like a third wheel when he saw them.

He wouldn’t, though, if Max were there with him.

Or rather, if Max were hanging out with everybody, instead of creepily monitoring their conversations from Ben’s watch without joining in.

Ben hated it, like he was being pulled in half.

He hadn’t minded for the first week or so, when they’d both kept hoping that Max would make some sort of breakthrough. But now it seemed like he had to choose between Max and the rest of his life.

And he wanted to choose Max. It was just frustrating.

God, was Ben itching for a scene.

He hadn’t felt comfortable going out to the club or meeting anyone when he was doing… whatever he was doing with Max. The thing where Max was his Dom.

Not that they’d ever discussed exclusivity or anything.

Not that Ben was even looking for monogamy. That wasn’t his thing. He didn’t do it.

It was just that Max’s voice still made him melt every damn time. When Max had him install the cameras in his apartment, it made him shivery.