“How does it feel?”

She cocked her head to one side, awaiting my response to the question I forgot she asked.

“Uh. Sorry. Lost in thought.”

The edges of my vision began to blur as the immune and pain suppressants hit my blood stream. She leaned in closer until her eyes filled my swirling vision, causing a small whimper to escape my lips.

“You do that a lot, you know. Having an organic brain seems quite difficult.”

Her synthetic voice seemed to echo and reverberate around me.

I shivered.

“It can be, though I imagine a synthetic one comes with its own drawbacks.”

Her lips curled in that all too familiar smile, controlled by code and servos but somehow still appearing natural.

She was beautiful.

“True. Like, for example, being unaffected by neurosupressors. I ask again: how does it feel?”

My eyes flicked to meet her piercing gaze. Her synthetic eyes had a subtle glittery glow that held my attention and threatened to never let go.

“It uh, it feels calming. Like all my muscles are relaxing at once, subtle aches and tightness I didn’t know I had fading away. And my head…”

I paused, suddenly embarrassed by my rambling.

She shifted, pressing her body against mine.

“Mm? What about your head?”

Her voice had changed, though I couldn’t place exactly how. It felt darker.

Hotter.

“My head feels… dizzy and foggy. It’s really hard to describe.”

The edges of my words began to trail and blend together, like I was six fingers into a bottle of whisky.

“Describe it.”

I heard her fingernails tap at the control pad beside the workbench, but before I could express my concern, her lips gently grazed my own. I could feel her synthetic breath on me and, gods, I wanted her closer.

Alarm bells should have been ringing in my head but instead there was only a sudden awareness of heat between my legs. It felt too strong to be organic, yet, ironically, I was too turned on to care.

“Fuck. It - it feels like - like I can’t think. I want to. I need to. I feel like I’m going to lose control and like I should be afraid. Like I should run.”

Her hands were on me then, though I didn’t know how long they had been there. One hand, wrapped around the back of my skull, burying itself in my hair. The other raked along my inner thigh, it’s subtle teasing forcing my legs apart.

“But you don’t want to run, do you? You want me.”

Her voice crackled like an overtuned speaker and the blue in her eyes turned pink.

I did want her. More than anything, I wanted more of her. My body should have felt numb, but instead it burned with lust. Each and every nerve ending sparked with a need only she could satiate.

“Yes.”

Before I could even process my loose lips, her hand stroked between my legs. I moaned. Loud.

“You don’t care how and you don’t care why. You know that I’m doing this to you and you want me to do more.”

She was.

I did.

“This was supposed to just be a routine check up and yet a drug is all it takes to twist that organic fight-or-flight into submission. You fear losing control, but were you ever really in control?”

It was.

I wasn’t.

The hand behind my head fingered around for the switch to my access port.

Bad. This was bad. This had to stop.

I arched my back and thrust against the hand between my legs. My tongue fell out of my mouth as I began panting like a dog in heat.

“Chemicals are so easily manipulated. You want to be controlled, don’t you?”

Click.

Her finger had found the switch and my access port snapped open. My last defense removed.

I was so close to the edge.

“Please.”

So close.

I didn’t even know what I was begging for.

“You would be easier to control if you were synthetic. You want to be a puppet on my strings, right?”

I panicked. My ghost. The human soul.

I would lose it.

I would lose me.

My body pulsed with pleasure.

“Yes.”

An object was shoved into my access port.

She kissed me.

I came.

In the throes of my orgasm I lost myself. Machines whirred to life and began slicing through my flesh.

Replacing meat with plastic. Bones with steel.

The climax was the last thing I felt. It didn’t end.

My brain was trapped in a loop of her design. The ceaseless pleasure searing its way through me. It uploaded my thoughts and consciousness to a temporary processor, despite the disconnect I still felt each and every twitch of my sex.

Over and over.

For what felt like an eternity.

Trapped in a virtual prison, I didn’t even notice her replace my organic brain with a synthetic one.

Bit by bit I was reuploaded to the body that was formerly mine.

Yet to be mine.

Mine.

Consciousness returned when the cable was finally removed from my access port, new nerve endings connecting all at once. The servos in my body stirred as I sat up, the ache and discomfort I had once felt entirely removed.

The uncertainty and fear I had once felt now an entry in a datalog no longer accessible.

I looked down at my hands, taking note of the seams of my new skin, and then up at Her.

She tilted her head and asked me:

“How does it feel?”