Page 51 of Garbage

He gripped the base of Evan’s skull, tangling his fingers roughly in Evan’s hair.

Evan’s eyes widened, going glossy with desire, but Quincy only had a moment to see it before he was crashing their mouths together.

Evan was his to fuck and touch and adore. No one else was going to make Evan whimper against his lips, his whole body going slack except the hand that had latched into Quincy’s neoprene uniform shirt.

“I’m sure,” Quincy repeated. “I’m sure.” He whispered the words into the shared air between them. “Whatever you want, I can give it to you. I’ll get a penis if you want. As soon as I can afford it. And I know it’s weird when I hug you with my other limbs, so we don’t have to…”

Evan went stiff in his arms, then pulled back. He placed his hand over Quincy’s mouth.

Quincy could still speak like that—he had secondary speakers mounted under his hair and a third low-quality emergency pair that could pop open in his shoulders—but he let Evan quiet him.

Evan looked sad. And maybe a little annoyed. “Quincy… This is exactly what I mean. If you think you have to modify or use your body in ways that you aren’t comfortable with to be with me, that’s not a healthy relationship. That’s you giving up a part of yourself because you think you need to be someone else for me to want you. Which I don’t want you to do. But it scares me that you’d think that.”

Quincy huffed. Okay, so he didn’t want to lock his limbs away, and his only real interest in penises was Evan’s penis… but he wasn’t against trying one out himself, necessarily, especially if Evan wanted to touch it. It was mostly that whole men-have-penises thing that got him a little confused because, well, he wasn’t really sure he was a man.

But what Evan didn’t understand was that these things were trivial in comparison to the joy he got from just being in Evan’s presence. They dimmed to almost nothing when he thought about going home with Evan every night. If he could just make Evan understand…

A low, stilted voice arose from the car’s speakers, matching the text that scrolled across the screen. You have arrived at your destination.

Quincy wanted to hit something for the first time in his life.

“Shit,” Evan swore. He looked like he was feeling the same thing. “We will talk about this tonight. No more sexy distractions. Just talking. Like we should have done before.”

Quincy felt like he was tearing apart and dripping inside, code dribbling out data that he couldn’t hold as it fell and crashed on the floor.

“Okay?” Evan prompted him. “We’ll talk about this, because Quincy… you’re so important. You’re gorgeous and smart and sexy, and you deserve everything you want in life.”

Quincy turned toward the door. He was going to be late. Later.

If Evan thought he was so many nice things and he deserved what he wanted… Why couldn’t he just have Evan?

Evan pulled his hand back and kissed it. “Go to work, baby. We’ll talk tonight.” Quincy let his eyes flutter shut, for just a moment.

But he still got out of the car.

He was late. Really late.

And he kept feeling pain that didn’t register anywhere on his body. At least Evan had called him baby?

He watched as Evan gave him one last sorrowful look and programmed the car to drive off, not retreating until the last flash of taillights disappeared around the corner.

He trudged into the depot, where there was at least a different security guard on duty. The stony-faced woman looked him up and down. The dispatcher was still in his office, and four trucks were still in the lot, so maybe he wouldn’t be noticed.

He ran to his vehicle and swung into the elevated seat. QNS-84-17 was waiting for him, staring straight ahead. He could practically hear the start-of-shift routine scanning through the android’s head as he looked down Quincy’s body for 0:35 seconds, checking that his seatbelt was on for the drive and the door was closed. They were, so he pulled out.

They were the last ones, but only by 1:48 minutes. He’d made it.

That was one worry taken care of, but that only left him with a million more. He got out of the truck when it stopped, slugging bags of trash with only the tiniest memory allocation to make sure he did his job.

The rest of his mind just kept looping through the past night, memories and questions and thought progressions all colliding with each other, as he launched more subroutines.

Evan looking up at him with dreamy eyes. Evan’s insistence that they needed to talk before they had sex again—did that mean it might not happen? Or that it would when Quincy passed some invisible milestone to show that he was sufficiently not being coerced? Was Evan really okay with him not having a penis? And what about his other limbs, that felt like such an important part of him—did Evan really not mind? What did a second argument mean for a couple?

It was all interspersed with research on BDSM. Visions of Evan clawing at his back. Memories of Evan going soft and needy the moment Quincy pinned him down.

Every memory of every single smile and touch that Evan had ever given him. After he got his memory upgrade, Quincy had saved them all.

And round and round, memories and questions, despair and hope, all tumbling over and interrupting each other for processor space.