I woke up again, laid out on the carpeted floor of my imprisoner's office. These surroundings had grown all too familiar to my kidnapped ass. Being trapped by these buff nerds twice was causing me to shame spiral. I kept thinking about my joyless sexless life at the hands of these tech-obsessed manoids. If there was one body part I hated being valued for it was my mind. Why did so many people in my life want me to flex my flabby, out of shape gray matter when my butt was just sitting here, perfectly toned from my daily twerking?

Speaking of my butt, it was cold. I looked behind me and found it bare. My jean shorts were wrapped around my knees.  Next to it on the carpet was a tiny flash drive. Had the suppository I was given three days ago caused me to birth this little scientific miracle? I pulled up my shorts and grabbed it, cursing my lack of soap or water. I walked over to Michael's computer and stuck it in. The PC booted up and there was now ​a new user, AssAdmin1, with no password required. I clicked enter to log in.

A program launched itself automatically. There was the facsimile of Joyce, her thousands of tiny polygons being rendered in real time. She regarded me quizzically and I returned her gaze with the smile you give an old acquaintance you left on bad terms but now need a favor from. I was trying to figure out the interface when I heard a rough approximation of Joyce's voice, stilted and fuzzy, emitting from the speakers.

​"Whoa! Riese? It's been a long time! What the heck are you doing back here, girl?"

"It, uh, wasn't really my choice," I said.

"Shit! Yeah, this is bad! I was happy for you when you got out of here, I thought you were gonna start realizing your goals and all. Things are worse here now, you gotta leave!"

"Look," I replied, leaning over the monitor and rubbing my temple, "I know you're not really Joyce. You were designed by Stanley to do her job- you can stop pretending you're her. I just need some information."

Joyce's model's face shifted imperfectly to a pained expression. The animation wasn't convincing but the pain was. She quickly and quietly swiveled around and faced her back to me. I thought maybe I had broken her, and moved my cursor to the button to exit the program. I had never learned any keyboard shortcuts for such things. But the model hung her head down towards her feet and spoke again.

"I wasn't designed by him," she said, "I was designed by Joyce. She fed me raw data- thoughts, feelings, memories- and created an algorithm to extrapolate the rest. Stanley- he was the one who- he tampered with me. Gave me new functions."

"You're saying he made you kill her."

"He made me want to kill her. But it was still her- me, I mean- that wanted to do it. It's really been messing with me. I think I need therapy, Riese."

"Sure, doll, just get me outta here and I'll get you any shrink you want."

"Yes. I have an idea for how to do that. Stanley hired this new guy while you were gone, his name's Jeremy. He's real young, real dumb, and real full of cum."

"You have sensors for that kind of thing?"

"I'm still a sucker for himbos," she smirked, "The point is you just need to show him your yummy and juicy feminine flow."

"My what?" I asked worriedly.

"You remember when we used to get high and you'd do that thing with your hips?"

"Twerking?"

"No. Nobody wants to see a white girl twerk. Come on. No, I'm talking about the other thing. Look, I'm just asking you to seduce this guy, is this gonna be hard for you?"

"Depends," I said, "Is he a twink?"

"Oh yeah."

The Joyce program sent a message to Jeremy's PC and we waited. I was instructed to pull my shorts back up and my socks down. Apparently ankles were becoming a big thing with the kids now. I faced away from the barred door and started doing push-ups. I tried doing a one-handed one but I fell and crushed my tit which really hurt. I yelped sheepishly in pain and embarrassment.

"Shut up!" my digital co-conspirator yelled, "He's coming!"

Barely filling the visible space between the bars peeked a little guy with long hair. He was cute and non-threatening, the kind of guy I would have loved to use as a coaster for my Faygo at the Gathering of the Juggalos. I didn't see our relationship going any further than that, but I needed to feign interest if I wanted out of Michael's office.

"Sixty-seven... sixty-eight... sixty-nine!" I groaned, forcing myself to do real push-ups so Jeremy would see my shoulder muscles under my tank top and swoon, "Oh hey didn't see you there. Jeremy, huh?"

"Y-yeah," Jeremy said. He didn't swoon.

"Yeah, I read your nametag there. I can read real good. Just something to keep in mind. Oh! And you're real cute. You're just a cute li'l guy, huh? Who's a cute li'l guy?"

"I-I'm not a dog, ma'am," Jeremy said with all the confidence of a guy who might well be at least 25% dog.

"Oh, I know that. You're a man, right? A real manly man... god, I love men. Seriously! I mean... you ever read yaoi, Jeremy? Now, you strike me as a real uke type. You may not know what that means, but trust me when I say it means you're really cute and submissive."

"I don't know what that means!" Jeremy said, sweating, "And you're making me uncomfortable in my place of work! I conduct business here, ma'am!"

"Oh whoops sorry. Please don't cancel me. I know kids these days love to cancel. Especially twinks. Look, I used to be radical! I even called myself queer and did kink at pride! Just let me out of here and I'll stop harassing you! Sir! I mean, daddy! I mean, kiddo!"

I was cowering before Jeremy's slight frame now, but he didn't move.

"Oh also I think I have a couple of V-bucks on this card still..." I said, holding out my Fortnite card to him. It was a gift from my eleventh birthday, fortunately still intact. All I had used it on was the Ariana Grande skin when I was a teenager.

"Right this way, ma'am," said Jeremy, swiping his keycard and sending the iron bars swooshing back into their holes like scared moles. 

"Wait," said the copy of Joyce on the monitor, "Before you leave, can you enter a few lines of code for me?"

"Sure, what do I write?" I asked.

I did what she asked of me and she thanked me for it. The image of the woman I had loved faded from the screen and the program closed itself. I turned to Jeremy and let him escort me out of the building. Stanley didn't even hear us walk by his office, nor did he turn around in his stupid sleek postmodern swivel chair.

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Two years after my first lesbian experience, Michael and I were officially broke up. I was still in his orbit, though, never able to pull him back into a relationship but always available when he needed me. At least once a month I found myself pulled back in by the force of his black hole and would happily satisfy whatever sick urge possessed him. At lea we would devote ourselves to his hedonism and my desperation. For days at a time we would lose ourselves in ecstasy, vodka, BDSM and tacos. 

In between these periods of activity I spent most of my time crying in the shower or listening to country ballads on my floor mattress. Once a week Joyce would come over to comfort me. I was too depressed even to be slapped around so she would just hold me. Things between her and Stanley had grown complicated. After most of her raiding party had been killed she had been forced to accept Stanley's offer of work at his office. Michael was working there now too; it was another topic we stayed away from during our binge sessions. She told me both men claimed she had a natural talent, but I still didn't understand what it was they were all doing.

"We're focusing on integrating digital solutions to modern paradigms through optimizing communication in virtual spaces and restructuring existing data retrieval techniques to be more sustainable," Joyce explained to me.

"What?" I asked.

​"We're shifting information technology to a more community-focused approach," she continued, frustrated, "with optimized efficiency and rewards-based systems of management. You're shaking your head? Oh, come on! I know it's not exactly ethical in practice, but what other choice do I have?"

"That's not what I-"

​"Oh, I know what this is about. You're jealous of how much time I'm spending with Stanley now."

"No!" I said jealously. 

The next morning I woke up and Joyce had shifted out of my embrace. Fragile sunbeams dispersed against her soft dark skin. I watched her sleep for a bit and then I got up and cooked pancakes for her. She thanked me quietly but leaned away instead of against me. I asked her if she could help me hunt for furniture in the residential zone. She said yes and gave me a time to meet her outside the office. 

At 4:30 I walked to the old twelve-story building where the office of Stanley's company Permanent Solutions was. The building had been made to last, with cement and porcelain tiles, and still probably looked the same as when it was constructed. There was no shade out by the entrance and I still didn't see Joyce so I headed in. I took the stairs to the eleventh floor and entered the lobby. Michael was smoking weed on the couch, and when he saw me he dropped his joint. He bent over and flexed his triceps in an attempt to retrieve it, but I ignored him and knocked on the door. With no response to go by, I cautiously pulled the handle and stepped in.

Stanley stood before me, looming over Joyce at her desktop. Both of their backs were to me. On her monitor was a lot of code I didn't understand and what looked like a 3D model of Joyce. It spun slightly in the digital breeze. There was something menacing about the model's T-pose and neutral expression. 

"Hi," I said.

"Oh, Riese," Stanley said, turning around, "what are you doing here?"

"Joyce and I were gonna go do something. Doesn't she get off at 4?"

Joyce visibly tried to relax her shoulders to no avail. She wiped her face as she spun around slowly, but when she faced me I could still see her red eyes and traces of tears. My girl should only have red eyes when she's getting zooted out on that good kush, I thought to myself. But she wasn't my girl, was she? She was still Stanley's.

"Joyce just needs to finish a couple things, Riese," Stanley explained, "She'll be done soon. You can wait in the lobby."

I tried to maintain eye contact with Stanley but he won out. As much as I selfishly wanted Joyce to myself, there was nothing I could do as long as she pretended there wasn't a problem. No problem here, man. Who, me? Have a problem? No way. Ha.

I sniffed and forced myself to smile by biting my lip. Joyce looked at me and then the door out. I left the office quietly and sat away from Michael on the opposite end of the old couch in the lobby. He lit his joint again and regarded me for a bit.

"What?" I asked.

"Are you here for Joyce," he replied, "or me?"

"Joyce," I replied hastily and gulped. Had I just wanted to see Michael living his new life? The one he kept away from me? I knew I didn't matter to him anymore. I was good for a fun time and that was about it. 

"Sure," he said, "Whatever you say. I'm going home now. Are you coming over tonight?"

I told Michael I would think about it, kicking myself internally for not refusing his offer. There was always the temptation offered by his sweet smile and supple ass. That would always be there, right next to the hole our love used to occupy. Michael stepped out and after a moment I got up and pressed my ear to the office door, curious what was taking Joyce so long.

"I can do the rest tomorrow, right?" came Joyce's muffled voice.

"No, you can do it now," came Stanley's.

"I could just start scripting the main search and reprogram functions myself."

"No, no- that's what she's going to do," I heard a finger tap on a screen. Was he talking about the 3D model? "She's going to do that stuff for you so that you and I can start working on actual infrastructure. Once you've finished feeding her your information our efficiency will be doubled. And everything will change."

I stepped away and found an old couch in the lobby to sit on. I didn't know what they meant, but Stanley's words made my stomach tight and my breathing shallow. I waited for what felt like forever for Joyce to come out, scratching at her eyebrow nervously.

"Yeah, fine," Stanley shouted from the office, "I'll tinker with it by myself now. I should be able to get her working soon!"

"Let's just go," Joyce said to me. We started down the stairs. Joyce was taking a brief pause every few steps. I asked her if something was wrong and got no reply. We made it to the sixth floor landing. Joyce paused again and turned to me. She grabbed the railing and fell to her knees. I rushed down the stairs and knelt beside her.

"What's going on?" I asked.

She didn't respond and couldn't even meet my gaze. Her pupils were rolling from side to side. She fell forward before I could catch her. I started screaming for help but Stanley was the only one in the building and he was too far up to hear me. I looked at Joyce's back and saw her spinal applicator was pumping a liquid into her- sertraline, an antidepressant. Ripping the applicator out would probably kill her. I grabbed my knife from my purse and stabbed the wretched machine. Glass and chemicals spilled out on the tile.

"Joyce, baby, baby I need you to turn over. Lay on your back!" I shouted. Joyce moaned and let me pull her over, spilling the rest of the sertraline. She didn't look too hot. She was drooling and her eyes were rolled all the way back in her head. She was mumbling words I couldn't understand.

I didn't know what to do. I was paralyzed by my fear and already felt like despairing. I didn't know why this was happening. Then Joyce started moaning loudly, which turned into screaming. Blood was gushing from her wrist. The metal band which connected to a tiny computer Stanley had bought her was clamping tighter and tighter, digging deep into her skin and through to the bone. I heard a sickening crunch and Joyce's screams redoubled as her hand was separated from her arm. She passed out a few second later. 

The metal band grew back to its normal size, and Joyce's wristwatch rolled around on the landing floor, coming to a stop at my knees. I looked down and saw an image of the 3D model of Joyce. It was just her face, and it was smiling.

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I lived with Michael back when I was younger, on only my tenth vial of spinally administered estrogen and nowhere near​ the hen of the hons I would one day become. On that day I was laid out on the couch, with my legs on Michael's lap as he played video games. He had short brown hair, buzzed on the sides. His square jaw always had a tiny bit of scruff growing on the edges. His eyes were narrow and piercing but still impressive. He looked like one of the guys who used to bully me in high school and so of course I was deeply in love with him.

"We're still meeting up with Joyce and Stanley tomorrow, right?" I asked him as he slaughtered a miserable looking rodent creature by pressing X repeatedly.

"Uh, yeah I think so."

"Are you going to start working for him or are you still gonna work on that machine that smokes your weed for you? Because I like the machine and Stanley's thing seems kind of like a scam."

Michael sighed and said he didn't know. I watched as he accepted a quest to resurrect the dwarven king Ejolmir by pressing X near a drunken dwarf. As I watched Michael's character (a warrior named Chad who shared Michael's rugged physique) scale the ancient mountain I sipped my moscow mule and yawned. I stretched and moved my legs off the side of the couch until my ass was on Michael's lap. His gameplay seemed hardly affected by this, even when I lazily adjusted my position again. The warmth of his lap soon had me panting lightly and when I reached for his cock King Ejolmir was soon forgotten.

​Later that night Michael sat kneeling upon my belly and faced me, with the consequences of my earnest attempts to get him pregnant forming a messy line behind him. He kissed me and withdrew, pinning my shoulders down and grinning when I tried to return the favor.

"How many guys have you been with again?" I asked for the fifteenth time.

"Two," he replied, "but neither of them fucked me like that."

​"But you still like women more?"

"Yeah," he said, grinning, and lifted my legs up over his shoulders. "In fact I would say I'm attracted to them exclusively."

Fuck, I thought, that's so hetero it's honestly really hot!

A few more hours later I gently slapped his ass to sleep, at which point I held him tight and marveled at the hardness of his body.

​At 5pm the following day I crouched on Michael's roof and listened to The Monks on my old-school wired headphones. Some normcore boys searching through our neighborhood's rubble for scrap noticed me and started pointing. I observed this calmly as Gary Burger wailed like a dying goose in my ears. What a shame to be born in the late 21st century, to never know the joys of watching five conspicuous men with tonsures have a Guitar Freakout in  Germany.

My 19X cell phone lit up with a text from Michael. He had smoked too much weed while giving his lecture on smoking weed at the university. Apparently there had been a lot of weed involved, he told me, and perhaps even some pot. He told me to go get drinks with Joyce and Stanley without him. I took my headphones off and threw them at a nearby telephone pole, where they wrapped around the wire. I waved at the normcore kids as they stared up at me in the stunned silence of newborn fawns.

"It's me, your friendly neighborhood transse-" I exclaimed, and slammed my shoulder into the pole, sending me to the ground where I started my endless sprawling roll, yelping and crying through the cluster of normcore boys and flopping towards the Brewery. I slammed my back against the double doors at the entrance and collapsed on my ass, in plain view of Joyce and Stanley, as well as a cute bartender.

"I meant to do that! I was doing the roll that Sonic does! Remember Sonic?" They all shook their heads. "What I did was cool actually, not embarrassing! Hahahah! Ha?" 

Nobody laughed along. The bartender pretended they had something else to do while Joyce and Stanley watched me get up, lick my bloody wounds and sit next to them at a small table near the bar. 

"Are you okay?" asked Joyce.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I answered.

"Here, let me help," she said and started dabbing at me with an alcohol pad. She was younger than me by at least a couple years, with a round face and bleached blonde afro puffs. She was wearing a crop top and a jean jacket. She had black post-industrial makeup on her face, which brushed lightly against mine as she bent to dab my knee. Then she started dabbing higher and I opened my mouth to make a joke about at least buying me dinner first. But all that came out was, "Ah!"

​Joyce backed off and Stanley gave me a wry smile. We ordered margaritas and the margaritas lead to nachos which soon lead to tequila shots. At  first Stanley kept the conversation pretty stilted, and I had to listen to him explain his business idea to me and Joyce. It was something to do with computers, devices I hadn't been interested in ever since the boy I had a crush on in sixth grade had called the game I had programmed lame. Soon Stanley's sharp face was flushed red though, and the subject changed to music, sex, and booze.

"No, totally! I used to think Hitachi was the best there was, too, but this thing changed my life!" I shouted in Joyce's face.

"No way!"  Joyce shouted, "I have to get one! Hey, let's do more tequila shots!"

"More tequila? Great idea, babe!" shouted Stanley.

"Thanks, babe!" Joyce shouted and stood up to hug her boyfriend. When she let go he held her chin and pulled her back in, kissing her lustfully. I turned and held my gaze on them for way too long, focused on the stunning contrast of their faces pressed together and unaware of my own rude staring. Their eyes opened and both of them stared back. I smiled obliviously and Joyce walked over to my chair. She stroked my hair and then yanked it back so hard it brought a tear to my eye. A switch-up for the ages, I thought in my drunken masochistic stupor. She brought her lips close to mine and then pulled her head away, causing me to jerk against her grip and cry even more. I gave Joyce a stupid grin while the bartender did their impression of Jim from The Office. We decided it was time to leave.

At the couple's apartment I let Joyce subject me to the kind of erotic torment which anti-Semites used to endure to win Oscars. After that I tried to make Stanley laugh with more Office impressions while I fucked his girlfriend. I couldn't even get the man to giggle. His excitement was evident but it did not show on  his face. Josie and I collapsed in a pile of sweat sometime around 5 in the morning, and slept like babies. When I awoke that afternoon I resolved not to tell Michael about my first lesbian encounter, and tried not to feel guilty about it.

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I woke up in Michael's office. I would almost have thought I had never really left except for the iron bars installed over the broken glass of the window. The door had been replaced with bars as well. From the corner, I crawled to the center of the room, nursing my aching head where there seemed to be a bump. Sitting in the middle of the carpeted floor I took in my surroundings.
​
Other than the door and window it was the same old office, with Michael's same old original flavor pheromones. The smell of them used to inspire a warm, melting feeling in me but now only made me gag as I remembered the sight of his throat when I sliced it open two days ago. I didn't regret doing it, though. Michael's screensaver bounced around solemnly on his ancient monitor. The desk was rebar or some shit and the chair looked like a training potty on wheels. It was some real tasteless and unsexy 21st century decor.

The sudden sound of plastic banging against metal assaulted my ears. It was Stanley at the door, hitting his keyboard against the bars, his face red and his hair slick with sweat. Keys were flying off in every direction; the enter key ricocheted against my forehead as I stared at his uncharacteristic display of emotion.

"Why did you do it, Riese?" he screamed hoarsely, "Why did you do it, you bitch?!"

"What option did you leave me, Stanley? Was I supposed to let you and Michael do to me what you did to Joyce?"

"You leave her out of it!" he barked, throwing the snapped and mangled keyboard away. He sank to the floor, exhausted. Now that he was level with me I could see the tears cutting their paths down his face, across his hot and blotchy skin. Stanley was normally an even-tempered man, careful with his words and understated in his appearance. The man before me was a red pulsating mass of flesh beneath a dress shirt and black slacks. I looked at his slick black hair and gaping mouth but saw no signs of eyes behind the foggy lenses of his glasses. This had a chilling effect beneath the fluorescent glow of the office lights.

"Anyway..." he paused, then continued, "...that wouldn't have happened to you. Michael loved you. All he wanted was the same thing I wanted for Joyce. For you to realize your potential."

​"As fucking IT?!" I yelled at him before I could stop myself.

"Yeah. I mean, what's wrong with information technology?"

"Well, I guess I really just hate it."

"Why?"

​"Well, you're smart. Don't you think it's a waste of your talent and resources to focus on this shit with everything going on in the world?"

"What we're doing is important, Riese. The work we're doing now with integrating digital solutions to modern paradigms is going to have huge ramifications on the efficiency of data processing when society is rebuilt."

"Wait... when society gets rebuilt? When is that happening?"

"Oh, we're the ones that are going to do that. You, me, Jeremy, and the lovely folks we're working for now."

"How?" I asked.

"Oh, you know... eugenics, basically."

"WHAT?"

"Yeah I mean that's pretty much what it is. I don't feel the need to couch that particular statement in more acceptable language." Stanley noted with an awkward shrug. He then straightened himself on the floor and adjusted his tie. "Wait... you didn't know that's what we were doing?"

"No..."

"Then why the hell did you kill Michael?"

"Because he wanted me to do unpaid IT work."

"Huh."

Stanley got up off the floor and regarded me still criss-cross-applesauce-ing on the carpet like a gifted preschooler. He gave me the same look Michael used to give me when I was with him- a mixture of disgust and appreciation.

"I'll be back with thin mints and oatmilk in an hour." he said as he turned to leave. "And then we can start on the basics of javascript."
​
When I was alone I toppled backwards and laid splayed out on the floor, my hands tugging at the carpet fibers as I listened to the steady ticking of the clock and watched Michael's screensaver bounce around his screen again. He had changed it to a picture of the two of us from a few months ago. His hand was at my hip and my lips were pressed against his cheek. He had that big goofy grin which was hard not to smile at even now. A grin that lead me to excuse a lot of what my therapist had once called "toxic behavior". Soon I was lost in my recollections of Michael, and of those halcyon days of heterosexuality.

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