How Cyborgs Have Sex

Ch2

The conversation didn't go that great.

"It's just, my friends and I found a bunch of needles in the fridge, and Carlton has had a past with needles."

The blonde woman, Phil remembered her name was Emily, was on the line and confronting him. Phil knew who Carlton was. A tall Asian boy with a Chinese accent. Carlton wasn't his real name, but something Americanized so people didn't have to try pronouncing his other name.

Seanjon, Porkboy, Dim Sum... Phil didn't really remember and he always thought of Carlton as some form of chinese cuisine. Thinking about Dim Sum made his mouth water. Even as Emily complained:

"Well, what do you have to say?"

"About the needles?"

"Carlton has been shooting up!"

Phil was behind a computer screen, in a private office, on the tenth floor of a building in one of the city's nicer neighborhoods. The screen in front of him was buzzing. He'd been working for a few hours. It was past lunch. Almost time to leave. But he had two more hours left. Then there was Emily talking into his ear.

"Look," Phil tried to start. Then he thought about impotence. Then there were the hundreds of dollars of pills that didn't work. What normal man would want to tell some random fling the truth? 

Then Phil left it at, 'Look', and didn't say anything else. Letting the silence turn creepy.

"Well?" Emily asked.

"Well, what?"

"You were about to explain to me why there were needles in a lunchbox and nothing else."

"That was it? Just needles?"

"Yes."

There weren't any drugs inside the lunchbox? Phil tried to remember packing it. He looked through the memories of him putting the lunchbox in the fridge, the roommate asking about why there was a lunchbox in the fridge, then his excuse. He didn't really remember packing it though. 

The needles were usually with the drugs though. Almost never separated. Would Phil actually forget? Or would he...

Behind the computer screen, Phil's eyes on the screen but very past it and looking into his head: there was Carlton, taking the small vial, loading a syringe, shooting the liquid into his arm. It was a sinister thought. If Carlton took the drugs and pretended they were heroin. Or maybe Carlton would actually believe it was heroin.

Maybe he'd get an erection. 

Phil asked, "Where's Carlton right now?"     

"We don't know. He disappeared."

"Are the needles missing?"

"No, but you have to tell me why you have needles." 

Phil felt that Emily already knew. That him not mounting her at the party was proof. During the phone call, right then, it was like she had all the blanks filled in. 

Then Emily said, "We know you had heroin in there."

Surprisingly, this accusation made him feel better. Like when he was younger and in high school and drugs of the more potent variety made him feel dangerous--except this time it was easier than admitting how men used needles to have sex. 

The trick was to make Emily believe it was heroin without ever actually admitting to it. "Why would you think that I had heroin in my lunchbox."

"What else could it have been?" Emily wasn't looking for an answer though. Through the phone she groaned, cursed, and said, "Judy doesn't know what to do or where to look."

"Did they have sex?" Phil asked.

"I don't think so." Emily replied, "The lunchbox was on the kitchen table. There were only a few needles left inside."

That verified it, Carlton was shooting Erectile Dysfunction medication into his veins. There was no way Phil forgot the medicine at his place; and he had to admit he was curious, what would happen if the drugs entered the bloodstream. 

He pulled himself from his desk and looked out the window, at the city. As cars passed by on the street below: slowly and the figures on the sidewalk moved quicker. There were shops lining the bottom street. The window was a great view; Phil always saw how the world continued to move forward. Just by looking out a window and watching the cars. Planes passed by too. 

That's why Phil knew no matter what could happen to Carlton, with a needle in his arm injecting erectile dysfunction medication , the world wouldn't slow down. The same way the cars passed by on the street, or the planes overheard, or the people on the street. The world didn't have time to stop.

Of course to Phil this was probably an excuse not to come clean. Or tell the truth. It was hard to be honest with his penis being what it was.

Emily was breathing on the other line, doing something, maybe messaging her friends from her other phone. She had two phones. And a landline. Phil hadn't asked her about why she had three ways for people to contact her, or why she used her work phone to talk with him.

There were risque messages about heroin and needles and promiscuous sexual positions, sent from Emily's phone to Phil's. He had been meaning to bring up that the IT department, her company as a whole, had complete access to their property. That phone she was using was their property. 

When Phil first picked up the phone, a few minutes before Emily brought up the needles she found in her fridge, he had the idea in mind. Emily's first question was, "There were a bunch of needles on the table."

Then Phil forgot about warning her about company property.

What Emily was doing on the other line now, Phil didn't know, he just heard her through the phone. She was hiccuping. Sifting through papers. While Phil was listening, looking into the city as it looked back at him. The sky was the mouth, the giant buildings the eyes. Phil watched the face watching him.

"So you aren't going to tell me why there were a bunch of needles in a lunchbox?" Emily asked. "I'm not into drugs."

"Maybe it's insulin." Phil replied.

"Then why wouldn't you just tell me that?" 

Phil really hadn't thought about an excuse. His mind always went blank, when there was a very good reason to lie. It was genuinely discomforting. 

But it made perfect sense. Telling Emily he shot insulin.

Then, looking at the demon face in the city, Emily said, "It's just that you aren't very fat. You're really in shape. I can't see you having diabetes."

Agreeing with her would only make him as suspicious. "What about the heroin you knew I hid in the lunchbox?"