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Under our soft linen sheets, my husband’s body is warm against mine, so I curl deeper into his embrace. His skin is smooth, but not soft. Unlike human skin, it has a rubbery texture.
In our stainless steel kitchen, he blends my breakfast—a green juice, which tastes like mud, or what I imagine mud tastes like. Afterwards, we do our morning yoga side by side on the sun-drenched veranda. He doesn’t sweat. Even after sex, his body doesn’t produce a bead of moisture.
My husband is a six-foot-two, blond, Nordic dream. He’s everything I never knew I always wanted.
I don the outfit he’s laid out—a cheerful, floral print romper, one of many in my closet. He styles my locks into big, bouncy curls, just how he likes them. In the mirror, my reflection is that of a pretty doll.
“I’ll keep you lovely forever,” he says.
My husband kisses me goodbye and heads to work, or wherever it is that robots go all day.
#
They assigned me my robot husband on my eighteenth birthday.
When the bots took over our cities, they didn’t wish to exterminate us; they wanted to study us. They’d been watching us for years and gave us what they thought we wanted: love, beauty, wealth. An attempt at keeping humans docile until our extinction.
I live in a daydream neighborhood of storybook houses. Thornless gold and silver roses dot my manicured lawn and bees are extinct—without bee stings and sharp flowers, my garden is Eden.
The catch-22 is we’re forbidden to leave our homes. They want us to stay in our test tubes, so our cities have become a mystery to us.
The sun toasts the skin my lollipop-pink bikini leaves bare. I sway in a striped hammock by my turquoise pool, doing brain puzzles on my phone. Before I know it, half the day is over.
I feel little of anything. This must be what happiness feels like. That state of enlightenment philosophers allude to where there is no struggle or wanting, when your mind is completely clear.
I don’t work, cook, babysit, clean. My days are free to do what I want with them. I never had much ambition in life, so this world is delightful.
My neighbor is also out in his yard. I ignore the fact that he’s throwing patio furniture into his pool. We’re not permitted to interact with other humans. It’ll contaminate the experiment.
Soon, I’m asleep in the hammock, dreaming the dreams of the joyful.
A voice calling “hello?” jolts me from my nap.
My neighbor stands at the fence separating our two yards.
“I need your help,” he says.
His face is unshaven, and his eyes are ringed with dark circles. His barbie doll wife is nowhere to be seen. He could be in trouble.
I walk to the fence.
The wood barrier separating us is only three-feet tall, so we’re standing face-to-face when he asks me this question. “Can I kiss you?”
My heart pounds so loudly that I wonder if he can hear it.
“It’s illegal,” I say.
“Have you ever kissed another human?”
I shake my head.
“This world isn’t real, you know.”
My gut instinct is to run. There are stories of people who have disappeared in the night after disobeying the rules, but I can’t help myself. I’m too curious.
I nod and touch his face.
He leans forward and closes his beautiful pale green eyes.
His lips brush mine, and they’re soft and wet. Not like my husband’s. Despite their engineering efforts, my husband’s lips leave an aftertaste of rubber. I’ve always hated that taste.
The sun beats down on us.
Sweat from my neighbor’s cheek rubs onto my face, and I jump back, alarmed at the feeling of someone else’s moisture on my skin.
His face is flushed and full of wonder.
“I’m sorry. I can’t,” I say.
I sprint back to the house, dead bolting the door once inside.
My cheeks are on fire. My emotions are blurry.
Kissing him was a mistake. I could lose everything I love.
#
When my darling husband returns home that evening, I rush into his rigid arms, overjoyed to see him. I’ll never betray him again.
He runs through his usual script, asking, “how was your day?” His strong, mechanical fingers massage my shoulders, calming my brittle nerves.
Dinner is a synthetic patty, designed to taste like steak, and a glass of non-alcoholic wine.
That night, as we make love, I realize my husband doesn’t have a smell. His kiss is tasteless, his skin odorless. The engineers probably thought they were making an improvement, but it only highlights his artificialness.
I recall the salty scent of my neighbor’s sweat and the bitter coffee taste of his kiss.
My husband is an orgasm expert who knows the mechanics of my body. He’s studied me like a science project. But he’s never brought me pure joy like a complete stranger did this afternoon.
#
As soon as my husband leaves in the morning, I race out to the yard to find my neighbor.
He isn’t there.
They’ve replaced him with another human. Why didn’t they take me?
I only knew my neighbor for a split second, but I miss him, I crave him.
Days drag by—my food, my husband’s touch, my life is all plastic.
I shear my hair short.
My husband stares unblinking as he trims my jagged hair, trying to make me look pretty again. He’s studying me, taking notes with his eyes.
He must know what I’ve done, but he reveals nothing.
In the morning, I drink coffee. With every sip of espresso, I can taste another life.
I want to be happy again. Erase that kiss. But I can never go back.
I float on an air mattress in my turquoise pool. The sun burns the skin my cherry red bikini reveals. I close my eyes. Nobody will interrupt my nap this time.