] In the stairway, I said, "You couldn't just watch a porn ] channel?" ] ] "It's not the same," she said. "That's all packaged and ] commercial. I wanted to interview them before and after. ] I have to know -- what it's like." ] ] "Why?" ] ] She paused on the stairs, and I stopped too. The ] muscleboys, muttering, went out onto the street, and we ] were alone in the flashing green and red light. ] ] "Suze, I'm going to start the clock." ] ] Like she'd poured a bucket of ice water down my spine. ] "You're what?" ] ] "I'm going to take the treatments." She spoke quickly, as ] if afraid I'd interrupt her. "They've gotten much better ] in the past couple of years, there are basically no side ] effects. They're even making headway with infants. In ] five years, it looks like most babies won't have any ] arrestation effects at all, and -- " ] ] Tears had sprung to my eyes. "What are you talking ] about?" I cried. "Why are you talking like them? Why are ] you talking like being like us is something to be cured?" ] I punched the wall, which hurt my hand. I sat down on the ] step and cried. ] ] "Suze," Abby said. She sat down next to me and put her ] hand on my shoulder. "I love being like us -- but I want ] --" ] ] "That?" I shouted, pointing up to the top of the stairs, ] where they were grunting again. "That's what you want? ] You'd rather have that than us?" ] ] "I want everything, Suze. I want every stage of life --" ] ] "Oh, every stupid stage, as designed by stupid God, who ] also gave us death and cancer, and --" ] ] She grabbed my shoulders. "Suze, listen. I want to know ] what that up there is like. Maybe I won't like it, and ] then I won't do it. But Suze, I want to have babies." A neat new short story of Sci-Fi released under the Creative Commons license. Fiction: Start the Clock, by Benjamin Rosenbaum |