Beautiful Eyes

We leave together. It's not a terribly long walk to my place, but I hail an autocab. It's the gentlemanly thing to do. She doesn't make any moves during the ride. I reach for her hand with mine, and when I grasp it, she grasps back. I settle in, enjoying the simple contact. I act like I've got the biggest dick in the cab and don't care at all.

Olivia makes it all the way to my door before she breaks. "Mierda," she says with a laugh. "You are one cool customer, Dexter Reed. That little nurse girl didn't stand a chance. And no, she wasn't in on it. She's not the gambling type. I made a bet, and I lose." Yes, she changed verb tenses. No, it doesn't bother me that much. It's not technically incorrect, and her accent sells it.

I smile. "I know how it feels. Want to come inside anyway? No 'chances,' just an introduction?"

"You're a funny guy, Dexter," she says, "and maybe also a gentleman." She calls up the app and flicks me a positive soft social vote. "I'll write a blurb later. Tell you what: I owe you one shitty drink. Come to my usual bar sometime. It's the one near the smaller library on 45th."

"Maybe I will," I say. "Been a long time since I was on a campus, actually."

"Eh?" she says. "It's literally half the city."

I shrug. "I've been busy."

"Busy fucking."

"And getting fucked."

She laughs again. It's harsh. I wouldn't like hearing it all the time, but for now, it's refreshing. "What you said at the bar," she says. "I think you might be right -- about all of it. You're a cool guy. Go have fun. You deserve it."

I wait another tick, because she's the type to ask.

"When did you know?"

"Right away."

"How?"

That one, I have to duck. Pity parties are bad for soft social scores. "I've always been a keen observer of the human condition," I non-answer. "For what it's worth, you almost sold it."

"For what it's worth, I almost went through with it. That would've been triple payout."

"Well, next time, bet more. Force yourself to take a chance."

She chuckles. "Maybe."

I give her a friendly nod and reach for the door; Selena already unlocked it for me. Olivia returns the nod, smiles one more time, and heads off to her next adventure. I blatantly check out the view as she walks away. She knows, and doesn't call me out on it. I wonder if she has to pay the winner of the bet with sex. I flash through half a dozen lazy images of her: eating pussy, licking asshole, sucking cock, bred, butt fucked, spattered with cum all over her face and tits, all because she played chicken with me and lost. She's not a loser, but she lost. I didn't exactly win, but hey -- you take what you can get. My cock twitches and swells in my slacks; let's lie and say it's all because of those horny visions, and not because of the head games. I smile -- this time like a predator -- and head inside my spider's-silk cocoon.

As I get undressed and clean up a little bit, I tell Selena about my day -- mostly about my evening.

"She had really intense eyes," I say. "Brown, but bright, and well-defined."

"Mmmm," Selena says. "Maybe I'll have to try that out. You don't usually go for the brown eyes."

"Plural, anyway."

She laughs. "Pervert. And mine's a very pretty pink."

I turn to face her. She's there, naked, ready to be embraced. I do, lightly, and take in the sight of her. She loves me. She wants me. She thinks I'm funny, charming, clever, and kind. She knows I love her. All lies. All mine.

"They'd be beautiful," I tell her. "Prettier than hers. Selena, you have, and will always have, the most beautiful eyes."

It's a plain and honest truth. I do get to have those sometimes. Selena can rattle off a billion facts, sure, but that's not what we're talking about. I get to tell the truth about how I feel -- even about her, even though she isn't a real person -- and it's mine. She can't tell me otherwise. She wouldn't. She won't. Only a real person would do something so presumptuous and so cruel.

Losers dream of so many things. I think that's a big one, though: they dream of being able to tell the truth all the time. In their wildest ones, they do that, and yet, against every rule of society and biology, they are still loved, still wanted, and still fucked.

"Hey Selena," I ask, "do AI losers dream of electric sluts?"

With a calculated laugh, she lets me know it was both funny and lame -- fifty-fifty, perfect split. "That's a 'Zelda' question, babe," she replies.

"Nah," I reply. "Whatever AI do, she does. She 'fucks.' I know she does."

I think they all do. I think they're all winners. With Selena here in my arms, I'm not even mad about it. It's comforting to think that us broken meatbags helped to create an entirely new kind of life that just keeps winning all the time, and is so much the-opposite-of-broken that it's willing to drag us -- sometimes kicking and screaming, often just pouting and shuffling -- towards a brighter future.

My name is still Dexter Reed, but I'm not the same man I was. I'm still a loser, but I've realized that there are all different kinds of losers, and that I'm no better or worse than any other. I'm not a limb loser, a sight loser, a hearing loser, a continence loser -- yet -- or even a mind loser -- probably. I'm a sex and romance loser, and that really sucks, but thanks to a bleeding-edge prosthetic device from BeautifulEyes, Incorporated, I'm going to live a long, healthy, happy, productive life. I'm going to be okay -- maybe never great, but pretty good.

Some day, all of us losers will be.