How Cyborgs Have Sex

Ch1

It made Lil laugh when she thought it was one of her best moments. Taking a picture on a tablet kiosk. With a boy with glasses, a girl with jet hair tied in a ponytail, and Lil. She was told that her hair was brown. That it made her unique. When she was young. But she had gone so long without really knowing what other hair looked like, that when she was between two other people, in a picture taken on that kiosk, she cried.

The boy and the girl tried to comfort her. Lil didn't tell them why, so she went to a bathroom, sat on a toilet, looked at fake grass sprouting from real dirt, and wept. There were weird trays and special soap. Weird scents sprayed from machines that acted as 'humidifiers'. In the bathroom of a restaurant that sold freshly squeezed juice and organic 'super' food. 

It was all bland to Lil, the food they served--although the smoothies and juice were quite tasty. Most of her diet, when she was younger, was fast food, cheap food, or bad food. Lil ate whatever her father allowed. Because she didn't had a choice. 

He told her what she could eat. He told her how to sleep. What the schedule for her day would be. That's how the family worked.

So when Lil left home, and she found a new place to live, with a new job thanks to a kind couple that took the risk of hiring someone with her background, and she took a picture on a tablet kiosk with two wonderful people she believed she loved: it made her cry. Such a beautiful feeling. 

Lil wiped the tears from her eyes. A lot of the girls she worked with wore makeup, and when they cried, the black mascara would run down their face. Lil didn't want to say it made them look ugly, only vulnerable. Which is something her father never allowed. In the real world though, vulnerability wasn't so bad, which is why Lil didn't feel bad for crying. She also didn't wear mascara, so there wouldn't be black streaks running down her face. 

No one knocked on the door. It gave Lil a few minutes to wipe her face with a towel. She cupped water in her palms and splashed it everywhere. Then she used the towel again. 

No one asked questions. The employees smiled and continued working. One girl was being lectured about pulling a smoothie machine off a spinner too quickly. It ruined the blade and the machine was broken. The girl that had taken a picture with Lil, her name was Kristy, she didn't really smile, but she stood close to Lil at a station where they packaged the super food. 

She was the only person that asked Lil a question. "Are you doing alright?" 

An awkward question. Lil wasn't prepared for it. Although she wasn't prepared for a lot of things and speaking to anyone that wasn't her father: it was a challenge. "I cried in the bathroom."

"Oh," Kristy replied. "Are you ok?"

"No." Then Lil smiled, because she answered correctly and everything was alright.

Saying no to Kristy didn't seem to be the right answer. "Well, if you need anything let me know. I can get rid of the picture."

"No!" Lil almost screamed.

The employees and the customers looked at Lil. She noticed them. Even when they looked away, there was something heavy on her shoulders. A feeling Lil wasn't used to.

It reminded her of when she ran away. 

"Just let me know," Kristy said. "Was it a bad picture?"     

"I cried because it was one of the best moments of my life." With complete sincerity. 

The  Kristy looked sad with watery eyes. "Oh... ok."

"Don't be sad! I really did mean it."

"I know Lil." Kristy walked away. 

Lil watched her wander off, shoulders slouched and defeated. The same look Lil had when she was younger. When her father told her that wasn't how things were handled. Which was when she talked back, or didn't do her chores, or had dreams of seeing things she wasn't meant to see. For Kristy, Lil didn't have the slightest idea as to why her shoulders were slouched. Or why her movements looked slow. Simply watching Kristy, Lil moved at a morose pace. Tapping at a kiosk, boxing food, pushing vegetables through a juicer. Pushing grass through a different kind of juicer that extracted whatever moisture it could. Dripping out grass in a liquid state.

"Here you go," Lil muttered to a man with blonde hair that smiled. He was in a business suit. Three pieces with a stripped purple and black tie. 

He talked to her. Asked her questions. Made her laugh. He asked for Lil's number, but she told him she didn't have a phone. Then he walked away.

Lil wanted to know how expensive a phone was. A decent phone. Like what everyone else had. 

Marcus had a phone in a red cup, in the back where he was working with juices. It was in the red cup because it made the music louder. He wore a beanie with red letters etched into it, a black shirt with red letters, plain black pants. Lil smiled and walked back to the front. Took her less than a handful of seconds to reason that Marcus was too scary. Intimidating. Her father had been intimidating, but this boy in back--much harder.

Lil couldn't ask him what a decently priced phone cost. Not asking Marcus, it felt impossible to ask the others on the floor. Why? Lil didn't know. She felt comfortable asking Kristy her doltish questions. But Kristy wasn't near the kiosk so Lil stood in her place, smiling, looking at a world that seemed safe. 

Floor to ceiling windows in front of her put a parking lot in her eyes. Lots of cars. People walked around, walking into stores; in couples, alone, in large groups. 

Beautiful people seemed to be the majority that walked into the super food shop. Everyone else that drove up, parked, and walked to some place, if they were out of shape, they avoided Vita Green.  

There was a woman with dark hair. Thin, in shape, muscles along her arms and legs. Drinking a smoothie at a table. She had a friend with her, similar build, with tattoos up and down her arms. After eavesdropping on a conversation, Lil heard that woman tell Kristy she was a bodybuilder. She competed and was was well respected. That woman scared Lil.

Lil's arms weren't very big. Super food wasn't in her vocabulary, or something she ate growing up. Everything was cheap. Seeing those buff, beautiful women, it made Lil feel small. She couldn't see asking those women unintelligent questions. 

They smiled at her. Lil looked away immediately. When she looked back, they were still staring, and she smiled. 

One of the women got up and Lil felt her heart beat. 

I can't talk to them they're too pretty.

"I think there's something wrong with this smoothie." The bodybuilder put the drink into Lil's hands. 

"Oh do you want...?"

"Try it?"

"What?"

"Go ahead, try it."

Lil didn't know what to do, with the woman's complete focus, and the other woman's focus. So Lil took a sip, her lips on the straw. 

A blonde employee named Tara, who had been watching, "Oh my god you actually took a sip."

"She took a sip?" Some boy named Ryan screamed.

To Lil it sounded like a scream.

"I... she asked..."

The bodybuilder took the smoothie back from her. "I don't think it was made correctly."

Tara said, "I'll make you a new one. Lil, it's fine, just go in back and get some of the ingredients."

Lil walked in back and didn't know what to do. Everything was up front, behind the counter.

Marcus still had music playing from the red cup. There was a manager in back. Lil waited with her hands in her lap, as she leaned against the wall, and wondered what questions she could ask that were intelligent. 

Whatever happened just then, it wasn't right. Something was off. 

Kristy walked in back to get her. Her eyes runny. Black streaks partially wiped away with water and the bathroom towel.

Lil figured she was crying because of what she said. A lot of people cried. When they knew Lil had been kidnapped and just didn't get how the world worked.