Man, Get Yourself a Woman

I started to panic. Suzy sensed it, and took a gamble. She made contact again, even though I hadn't technically permitted it. I immediately told my Healthee it was okay. It had the decency not to chirp urgent agreement.

"Okay," she said. "I think it's time to talk about it." It was a fair assessment. I figured most people didn't freak out so badly, so soon. She assumed it wasn't just about the women. She was right.

"Farah," I choked out. "I miss her so much."

"Can I?" she asked.

I nodded. Her AIs linked with my Healthee. She learned what I could've told her after who-knows-how-long choking, blubbering, crying, and all the rest. It counted as talking in the modern world. The panic of letting somebody in was just as acute.

I felt her withdraw into herself, absorbing the information through her eye-based HUD. "Holy shit," she said. "Sorry. Oh, I'm so sorry, Paul. That was entirely unprofessional. It's just... I've never seen it before. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," I blubbered. "I know."

Farah had been -- was -- a real woman. Ironically, she was a mutant, and yet not a mutie. At eighteen, the doctors had hoped. By twenty, they'd been willing to declare it. She was one of the rare natural births in the third generation whose cum addiction hadn't overwhelmed her personality and identity, and she was fertile. She'd had a real life -- school and work. Then, at age thirty, she'd met me. We'd had a real life together, albeit a very, very unusual one. I'd known for an absolute fact that she'd loved me, because I'd never once cum in her. She'd never once ingested or absorbed mine, or anyone else's. We'd figured out a sex life. She'd milked me every single time -- five times a day, give or take, for five years, right into the extractor. I'd devoured her pussy, ass, and breasts, and used any and every toy on her whenever she'd asked.

I'd been so happy. We'd gone outside together. She'd gotten a partial exemption from the leash law. My own chastity device had barely even bothered me. It had been truly unreal. It had been perfect.

Then she'd felt herself slipping, and so she'd left. She was a mutant, not a mutie. She wasn't immune. She was just resistant. She'd gone full Neutrex -- no sexual urges at all. The doctors had been grateful it'd even worked. Her life, wherever she was, was a clean room, devoid of anything with even a hint of maleness. In my better moments, I hoped she was happy; I hoped she'd found muties -- and maybe even another woman or two -- to share her sexless life with. I did have some of those moments. I didn't have nearly enough. I hadn't had the strength, for example, to reply to the one message she'd sent me, telling me that she'd landed in her new life okay and hadn't lost her mind.

Suzy started crying, and that triggered me. We stood there, in front of five shelter cubes, clutching at each other and bawling. Our AIs didn't seem to know what to do. Warnings blinked in and out of existence. I figured they were being told we were in crisis, but also doing something vital.

We had to leave and get cleaned up again. Suzy apologized a million times. I didn't quite beat that record, but got scolded plenty for mine anyway. I didn't even know what I was feeling. I was feeling too much of everything, all at once.

"Five years," she said reverently. "I don't even know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything," I said. "I know it's all fucked up -- and even was in a good way, kind of, for a while."

"Yeah," she said. "So... can I say something?"

I shrugged and nodded.

"I think I can make some adjustments," she said. "There are women that I just don't think are going to work for you. They're going to remind you too much of her. I've been at this job for a few years now, Paul, and me and the AIs make a good team. No pressure, but I think we can get you a good match quicker now."

I nodded quickly. "Yeah," I said. "Yeah, you should. I'm in no state."

"Well, we can't just have you rolling over," she said. "You still need to be involved. It's just... some things are obvious, you know? You loved her. You were real partners. It's okay for that to still mean something. It's okay to not be okay with how it ended."

"Is it okay for me to take responsibility, then?" I asked.

She was going to nod -- too eagerly, again. She stopped herself. "It's a fair question," she said, "but all the AIs agree that it is. I think I see it. I think, if we find a good match, it'll be good for you and for her. And, not to be too blunt about it, Paul, but your numbers are excellent. After the first few months, you might even be able to start contributing generally again -- maybe one load per day."

"Really?"

"It's possible," she said, "and you've got a solid twenty years left before you'd need the next wave of supplements. Your social scores could cover them for twenty or more after that, and who knows what might be covered if you're still a caretaker? If things work out, you could give a woman a real life."

"Something like one, anyway."

She was about to make the hard sales pitch, but stopped herself again. "Yeah," she agreed. "Something like one."

"Okay," I said. "Take two. It's going to happen again, though."

"I know," she said. "I'll be ready next time, unless you're just waiting to drop a story about orphaned puppies on me."

I tried to chuckle at the joke. It sounded fake, and I was embarrassed.

We went back onto the walkway. I vaguely noticed that some of the cubes weren't the same ones. Suzy and the AIs had already swapped some out.

Suzy kept it together. I tried. We reviewed the bios. Male Guilt didn't merely flare. It worked me over. It punched and kicked. It jabbed nerves. Suzy couldn't even keep lecturing me and scolding me for apologizing over and over; she had to get a shelter AI to start doing it for her. It was horrible. One minute we were talking about perfectly reasonable things, like personalities and interests, but then it was back to pinnacle male bullshit. Since I was walled off from the women themselves -- no smell, no sense of their heat -- I could be the worst kind of male there was. I could judge everything. Worse, I could see options: haircuts and colors, eye colors, piercings, tattoos -- which included all manner of quasi-permanent makeup to mimic natural features or enhance them -- and even slight modifications to weight. I forced back my rising bile and tears to draw a hard line at outright cosmetic surgery. Suzy, at least, seemed inclined to let me off that particular hook.

There were stages to how I processed the process. I learned that quick, harsh vetoes for typical male bullshit were a blessing. That meant I didn't have to read the bios, let alone watch the videos. The videos were torture. Women who knew they were about to slip away were desperately trying to sell themselves to some future male, but they weren't allowed to freak out and plead for their identities and their souls. There were rules, and they had to find a way to work within them. All of that shone through. I felt it whenever we watched one. I felt sick. I became a patient, for all intents and purposes. Suzy, Healthee, and the shelter AIs were a medical staff, trying to keep me stable so I could keep going. I couldn't get a regimen, though, like the one Suzy had said she was on. It might've affected the cum.

The first time we progressed to seeing an actual woman, I had my second genuine breakdown. The cube went translucent, and the tragedy of the ghost became the horror of the flesh that remained. She was hooked up to machines like a dying animal. She couldn't do anything for herself, and all the sexual stimulation in the world was barely enough to stave off her suffering; it was so far away from being able to retrieve her consciousness that the machines' and AIs' herculean efforts struck me as just more cruelty. I had the worst thought: they should just kill them. Healthee pinged an orange-tier warning. I felt like Suzy was shouting into my ear, but was also a million miles away.

I didn't just cry. I wailed. Male Guilt mutated. It spread like cancer and wildfire. Thoughts of suicide were only pushed back by thoughts of murder. I wanted to kill -- no, torture endlessly, and then kill -- everyone who'd contributed to the nightmare that was my world. After that, though, I knew that I would need to kill myself. It wasn't fair that I was male -- that I had a life and an identity. It wasn't fair that women needed my cum, let alone that I could never give enough.

"Why aren't they fixing this?" I screamed at some point. It was stupid. I knew why.

One of the shelter AIs answered anyway. "The new legal regime was a direct response to the excesses and unforeseen consequences of the prior era. The decision was made that the risk of exacerbating the situation was too great."

"FUCK YOU!" I shouted at it. It didn't care.

When I wasn't losing my mind from guilt and grief, though, I was actually one of those people who would immediately agree that things could always be worse.

I came back to myself eventually. I was curled up in Suzy's arms. I knew that she was completely sick of my shit, even though she didn't let it slip at all.

"Shhhh," she said. "It's okay, Paul. Never stop caring. Never stop being good. But we have to find a way through. Focus on your girl -- whoever it ends up being. She needs you. Just her. Just the one. Find her, and take care of her. Give her a life."

The first time she gave the speech, it started everything up again. It was an aftershock to the earthquake. The next time, it helped more noticeably. My team didn't push me to retreat and clean up again. They did what they could right there, on the walkway. I knew why. The risk that I'd never come back into the stacks was too high.

When I was finally able to stand up and face the cubes again, I felt my exhaustion take over. I welcomed it, even though I knew I'd regret it later. I shook myself -- even slapped myself -- and refocused. I embraced the shittiness. I started dismissing some of the older women, which barely made sense from any physical perspective. Suzy didn't let any of it faze her, or hid it expertly. She went back to being purely professional. When I vetoed cubes for the most awful, petty shit, she sent them away without a word. When I requested different hair or a different eye color, it came up almost immediately.

We didn't make many more cubes translucent. Eventually, that caused a barely-perceptible ripple of concern through both the mutie and the AIs. Living with AI for so long, you get a sense. You can feel it, like a distinct hum in the atmosphere. I gave Suzy a pointed look. I silently told her I was in it for the long haul. She gave a curt nod, and we continued.

"Her," I said. Like a typical male, I reacted to the visuals. I pointed right to the pictures. "Green eyes. Longer hair. Blackest black. A ponytail with the messy shit in front."

Suzy and the AI made the adjustments faster than anything. They'd been building a profile for me the whole time. They'd developed a sense for what I liked.

"Her," I said again. I turned to Suzy.

She smiled and nodded. "An artist," she said. "A writer. That's really good. You love smart women, but it's different from..."

"From her," I said, as a compromise.

"We have a solid profile," Suzy said. "The AIs are unanimous that we could streamline."

I shook my head. "This time it's different. Let's do it."

First was the bio -- threadbare, because she was only twenty-three. She'd only been in the shelter for four years. She'd fast-tracked on a charity education program. She'd studied literature in multiple languages. She'd written, and even "published," such as it was in the new world. She'd had the drive to leave something behind.

Next was the video.

"Hello," she said. She was self-possessed, quiet, and contemplative. Her hair was shorter and lighter; her eyes were hazel. "My name is Elizabeth Wells. I am speaking to you from somewhere far away -- perhaps very far away. Time is distance. Wherever I am -- if I still exist when you see this message -- I will be far away in another direction. Not parallel or perpendicular. Strangely skew. Mystically so, perhaps. And yet, the body may be close by. I hope it does not engender undue pity. I hope it doesn't make you sad.

"I am me; I can be no one else. I can only go far away, or end. My body and my addiction will make you every promise. I make only one: I will be grateful if you are able to bring me back. If that can't happen, know that it's not your fault. Whatever strange mutation of me you're left with instead, I hope she makes you happy. I hope you'll consider taking good care of her. She'll be someone, too. So are you, though. Never forget that. You're not just cum. You have a soul.

"I won't say goodbye, because I hope that I'm not saying it to you. Perhaps, then, my 'hello' was premature." She smiled wryly, then, and it told me everything about her sense of humor -- and, oh, what a thing to have been able to hold onto. "Ah well. Perhaps I need a better editor. Until and if we meet." She paused knowingly, then gave away that she was finished. Her eyes flashed that same sense of humor. She was brilliant. I knew it in my bones. The bio hadn't even been necessary.

I had my third breakdown, but it wasn't so bad. I'd already decided I was going to choose her, and that made everything better. So, too, did the fact that her video had seemed so honest and true. I didn't have to think about what she might've said instead, without all those rules.

"We really don't have to," Suzy said. "The AIs are saying you've done more than enough. If you finalize, we have your cum. We can give her some, and see what happens."

I relented. I wasn't strong enough to see her inside of her cube. "Her," I said again. "What do you need me to do?"

We left the stacks and went to an office. It was very formal. Another mutie came in, and she was dressed to both impose and impress. She radiated the authority of age and experience -- leadership and lawyering. It was no surprise that she was the face for the contract work. She was very stern, and, even though we both knew that I could return the woman to the shelter at any time, she did her best to make it seem like I was making an ironclad commitment. She played the moral angle. She credited my solid social profile just enough to make it leverage on her side of the table. She didn't give a shit about assuaging my Male Guilt. If it would have given one woman a chance to come back, she'd have let it off of its leash to devour me whole and spit out my life's remainder of cum. I immediately respected the hell out of her. She was a fighter for the women. They deserved that. It even made me a little attracted to her.

I didn't catch her name; she was more than one hundred percent business. Once her part was done, she disappeared. Suzy took me to a special waiting room, and she stayed with me. She was nervous. I didn't know if she was absorbing and reflecting it from me, or if she was just that invested. I wanted to believe she cared.

"I don't want to belabor anything," she said.

"It's okay," I replied. "Maybe it'll help. I don't know."

"It's not going to be her," she said. "That's months away, if we're lucky. What walks through that door is an addict. Elizabeth said it herself: that version of her is going to make you every promise, and do absolutely anything if she thinks it'll secure more cum. I can only ask you to be kind, Paul. Try to be kind to all the versions of her you might have to deal with before you get to the real her."

I was almost offended, but Male Guilt kept that from happening. "I will," I promised. "I'll do the very best I can."

"But also remember she's an addict," Suzy said. That surprised me. "You need to be in charge. You need to be in control. It's for her own good. When the time comes to start separating -- giving her her isolation time, so maybe she can figure out how to really live again -- it's going to be really, really hard. That's when your kindness is going to make it harder."

"I know," I said. "You're right. It will be hard."

She put her hand on my leg. I tensed up and looked at her. She patted it and smiled.

"Easy, there, Paul," she said. "People like me... we have a sense of things. I know you're not into me. I like you, and if you asked me over, I'd come in a heartbeat, but it doesn't bother me. So, when I tell you that you can call me if things get too hard, please, know what I'm offering. This is my job. I'm offering real help."

I placed my hand over hers and rubbed it. It was more difficult than I'd thought it would be. "Thank you," I said. "I do know. You've been amazing today. They're lucky to have you."

"Thanks," she said. "And hey -- next year, maybe... call me. Just call me. I have friends. There are a lot of people out there who'd like to just hang out with you, Paul, and maybe even date you. If things go well, Elizabeth might be your first step into a new stage of your life."

"I'm not sure I can think about that right now."

She nodded. "I know. I just want to make sure it's somewhere in the back of your mind -- for later."

I nodded back. "For later."

We waited some more. I didn't know if it was cause for concern. I worked up the courage to ask Suzy the question that I supposed everybody always wanted to ask.

"So," I said, "I noticed that you never really used... a word. You know? I'd like to be in the loop, if I could."

She chuckled. "Yeah, I forget sometimes. You don't really know what it's like out there."

"Oh?"

She winced. "Sorry. That's shitty. Oops -- sorry. That's unprofessional. I just mean... there are women. There are men, like you. Then there are males with lots of that combat DNA, and then there are males on the other side that are hardcore feminized. They say that neither of them technically qualify as offshoots, even though lots of us are skeptical. I guess the cum still works; that's hard to argue with."

"Sorry," I said. "I don't really follow."

"It's mostly us," she said. "Out there. It's mostly us. Think about it."

I did. I felt stupid, because I got it almost right away. I nodded.

"So why use a word?" she asked rhetorically. "Most of us feel like girls. A few want to be called boys, or something niche, but why go around calling everybody 'human' when that's basically all there is? 'Man,' 'woman,' and 'male' are reserved. Out there in the physical space, we're not the exception. We're the rule. We take advantage of that. The net is the net, as I'm sure you know. Trash fire for the slurs, but the AI can filter almost all of them if you want."

"Huh," I said. "I feel dumb. Sorry."

She reached out and patted my leg again. Notably, she let that one apology slide without a scolding. "You didn't need to think about it," she said. "It's not a big secret or anything, but you've got your role to play, and you should try to be happy with what you've got. The system says you're earning it, and I think I'm more qualified than most to say that it's right."

All the AIs gently warned us it was time. They let us ease into the idea. I would've been more nervous but for how utterly drained I was. I hadn't felt -- or cried -- so much since Farah had told me she'd had to leave.

The door opened, and two very muscular muties in cobalt medical uniforms guided Elizabeth inside. She was wearing a loose, slinky shirt, lightweight sweatpants, and blue grippy socks. Her hair was shorter than the custom job I'd imposed on her scans, but it was blacker than black and tied up in a messy bun. She looked to me immediately with brilliant green eyes. The connection was instant and overwhelming. She was a woman, in the flesh, in the same room as me. She was beautiful. I wanted her. She wanted me. She sent every signal she could without incurring the wrath of her wardens. Her eyes dilated so much that the green was more than halved.