Author : Gray Blix
He awoke and lifted himself to glance at a mirror. Admiring his muscular arms and well-defined pecs and abs, he said, “You don’t look half bad, Danny. There’s a girl out there who is gonna like those hard muscles against her soft flesh, isn’t she, huh, ISN’T SHE?”
Then he saw her out of his peripheral vision. “You heard that, didn’t you? Well hear this: I know I’m nothin’ without you, Lara.” Welling up with tears, “You complete me, baby.”
He wiped his eyes and squinted against the first rays of morning sun. Slumping back onto the bed, he waited for her to say something.
Finally, “Lara…”
“I am here for you, Danny,” she said in her soothing way.
Again his eyes moistened. “I know you are. Come here, baby.”
Already close to the bed, she came closer still, leaning into it as he reached out to touch her, to stroke her. She seemed to purr in response.
“Ahhh, that’s warmin’ you up, huh, Lara? I know it’s warmin’ me up.”
“I am ready for you.”
He lowered himself onto her, and within seconds she conformed her shape to his anatomy and engaged the interface to his cerebellum and motor cortex, becoming a seamless physical and neurological extension.
He stood up and again looked toward the mirror. He liked what he saw, a finely tuned mid-30s hunk of a guy. He had never gotten a tatoo while on active duty, probably the only soldier in his regiment with virgin skin. He turned and looked over his right shoulder to see reflected the new tatoo on his butt cheek.
“I haven’t let anyone else see this, Lara.”
The letters were reversed, but he knew the words: “Lower Anatomical Replacement Assembly.”
He had been told that the transition from wheelchair to Lara would take months of effort, but he surprised himself and his medical caregivers by making the adjustment in less than a week. “Lara’s doing all the work,” he said. “I’m just her grateful passenger.”
Indeed, Lara had done her job so well that after a few days back at work, he didn’t give her a second thought — which allowed him to turn his attention to other matters. Like women. Not that he hadn’t thought of the opposite sex when wheelchairing his way around the office, but now he had the courage to approach the young receptionist whose smile made his heart skip a beat every morning when he glided by. Today was the day he would ask her out.
“It’s about time,” she said, accepting his invitation. “I’ve had my eyes on you since your first day of work.
“You mean my first day back?”
“No, your first day of work, when you wheeled your way into my thoughts. You were so shy, I was about to ask you out, but then you disappeared.”
Their evening out ended at her apartment, where she awoke the next morning to find him staring at her.
“When I see you like this, at first light, without makeup…” His eyes moistened as they were wont to do. “You’re a natural beauty.”
“Well, I can’t take the credit for my appearance,” she said. “I owe it all to Fara.”
“Fara?”
Brushing her hair aside to kiss her cheek, he noticed a small tatoo behind her ear. It read, “Facial Anatomical Replacement Assembly.”
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