Family Honor

"Don't you think that you are being just a little harsh, Anna?"

My mother's voice came in through the vid phone's speaker with no static, so I caught every little nuance of her disdain. I rolled my eyes, which got me the patented, parent response of "Don't you roll your eyes at me, young lady!" and sighed as I sat at the desk so she could see me. We shared beauty like a cold, her pin straight long blond hair only slightly duller than my own, my blueish purple eyes wider and more open than hers. But Janice Sartona, my usually sweet tempered mother, had a way about her that lit up rooms and had people loving her instantly. I, on the otehr hand, was commonly referred to as a frigid-, well. Iceburg was not a nickname given to me by friends, let's just say. Not that I really had any. And the ones I did have weren't exactly the kind to hand out cutesy nicknames. "No, Momma. This is ridiculous. I don't care what the law says, it's just wrong. And disgusting!"

"Anna Sartona, you will be happy for your sister! Right this instance! She loves Reo Fourthgen and he loves-"

I snorted. I couldn't help it. I tried to make it sound like a sneeze, but...well, you know moms. I turned my head from the glare and braided my hair into a professional style as we continued talking. "His name isn't Reo. He doesn't have a name! He is a Robotic ally Engineered Organism, fourth generation and he can't feel love. He can't feel hunger, or warmth or even wet! He's not real!"

My mother sighed, leaning into the camera so that her face took up my entire plasma screen. "He's all she's got. You will be there tonight, hmmm." It was more of a command then a question, so I didn't bother answering. She blew me a kiss and logged off.

I rolled my eyes again, turning circles in my swivel chair. Elaine. Marrying a bot. Sweet baby Buddha. I got up, finished dressing for work and then walked to the travel tube outside my apartment building. "Daily Informer, section 78, sub area T," I said, speaking directly into the little mic. The computer did it's thing to a light and sound symphony and then I was being air pushed to work.

Sitting at my cubicle, I went through the fliers and advertisements for final copy when Darla, my arch nemesis of the third floor popped her badly dyed, frizzy mop over the side of the half wall. "Anna! Congrats! I hear your sister is marrying a bot! I got her something. For the wedding night!" Then Darla dropped 4-triple A batteries on my desk, cackling into her coffee mug as she wisely ska-doed away. Great. How had Darla known?

The answer came during the morning meeting. There on the front page copy was my sister's wedding announcement, Elaine hugging a rather normal looking man...thing. I put my head down, hoping that if I ignored the room, then the room would ignore me. No such luck. "So, Anna! Congratulations! You are the first person that anyone of us know who's going to go through this. You are going to do a write up for us? Right? We'd be the first newshalo in this sector with a actually in depth story!" My boss, Mr. Mulligan, was giving me an interesting eye wiggle that had his uni-brow looking like a caterpillar doing the tango over his murkey eyes. "Could get you out of the copy room!"

"Of course!"  I said brightly. What else was I going to do? Darla snickered and wrote something on her touch screen that had her henchmen, Trisha and Lynn, giggling from across the room. I put my head back down, letting the meting drone on without my attention.

The work day didn't get much better. It only took three hours of snickering and knowing looks before I realized that I wasn't going to get anything done today. I ducked out early, telling Mr. Mulligan that I had to get home so I could start dressing for the rehearsal dinner that night. I was dressed in a low cut gown that left nothing to the imagination and took an actual cab to my mother's house. When I arrived, very early, I found Elaine in tears. Oh, great! Now the twit wanted to change her mind. There went my story! "What's going on?" I asked Great Aunt Maggie,the family gossip.

"Seems the young man...bot...seems her beau has decided that until he becomes a skilled lover, he can't offer her everything a real husband could and therefore isn't good enough," Great Aunt Maggie sort of whispered around her scotch.

"Wha...you got...no, c'mon!" I started to laugh, which pulled everyone's attention from the sobbing Elaine. She looked up at me, her eye make-up making two muddy rivers over her apple cheeks, and threw herself into my arms.

"Annie! Oh, it's so awful! You have to help me!"

"Shh, Laney, shh. It's probably better this way!" Okay, so I didn't approve, but that was no reason for my Mom to sound like an enraged tea kettle. I tried to be more sympathetic, but it was a strain. Elaine pulled back, a large snot bubble in her right nostril looking like it could set off World War Four. She sniffled, and thankfully, a crisis was averted.

"Will you talk to him?"

"I...what?"

"Please, Annie! Please! I love him!"

I sighed, from the bottom of my toes and closed my eyes. When I opened them, I was in my bed and it was all a bad dream.

At least that was what I had hoped. Actually, I opened them and Elaine had another snot bubble forming. Why the bot would be attracted to- no, even I wasn't that mean. "Yes. Oh, alright. Fine, Laney. But... I am not buying you a wedding present. Where is the damned walking toaster?"

Elaine clapped her hands, always the overzealous cheerleader type, and directed me to a room upstairs. I frowned when I realized the bot was in my old room and started to snarl as I climbed the stairs. I found him, sitting on my bed, dressed nicely in dark grey slacks, a light blue button down and a dark blue v necked sweater. He was looking at a halopic of me and Elaine from a vacation we took to Old Texas. He was smiling at us giggling in our bikinis and touching the glass. "Hello."

He looked up, unsurprised. Of course his biotic ears had heard me coming. Or maybe he had felt the vibration of my steps through his robot feet. Hell, maybe he had heat radar! "Hello, Anna."

I blinked but shrugged. I took the photo from him, replacing it on the shelf. "You have one very sad wife to be downstairs."

"Yes. I am quite afraid that I may have disappointed Elaine greatly."

I blinked at him again. Though the words were spaced a little funny, his voice was deep and rich, the kind you wanted to listen to on rainy days. Shaking my head, I sat on the desk, my already short skirt hiking up. "That's a mild form of saying I fucked up."

He sighed. I didn't even know bots could do that. He peered at me from under those extensive lashes, and frowned. "Elaine is my world. I just want her happy. But I have been researching. And she will not be too thrilled with my performance when it comes to the sex part. I am, quite literally, a virgin. She is not."

I couldn't stop the snort that came out. Elaine not a virgin was like saying New L.A had too many AppleBucks coffee and cyber cafes. A virginal Elaine. Yeah, not since Bobby Johansen when we were about fifteen."Yeah, well, that's a common misconception. Most woman don't care."

"Do you?"

"Do...what?" It was unfair that his eyes were so green or that his blue black curls kept falling into them, making him look boyish and charming. He's a machine, Anna. A microwave, a parking meter. Get a hold of your libido. Though, really, he was a rather attractive parking meter.

"Do you care about your lovers being virgins?"

"Hey, now! That's a little personal there, R.E.O. You don't just go around asking things like that of ladies!" He blushed...wait, blushed? I shook my head, hearing another set of wails creep up the stairs. "Look, Elaine...loves... you. What can we do to fix this?"

"I want to be skilled. In the sexual way. So that Elaine will be happy."

I nodded. "So, what, you need a chip upgrade, or something? Is this about money?"

Reo shook his head. "Practice makes perfect," the bot intoned.

I started to giggle and then full out laugh. "Then grab Laney and go ... practice."

The bot looked appalled. "I can not have relations with her before our vows. It would sully the whole process. I need someone to take her place."

He was looking at me and it hit me. I stood up so fast that I upset the halopics on my old desk and glared at him, my hands fisted on my hips. "Are you saying you want to ...practice with someone else? Who!?"

"You are the same specifications as your sister, Anna. You are her twin in almost every way."

Did he... had he just? "Are you suggesting that you want to boink me so that her sex life can be better?"

"I do not understand 'boink', Anna," he said.

"To screw, Fornicate! Scrump! Have the sex!"

"Oh." The bot nodded, still looking at me. "Yes, please."

"I...I..." A startled laugh escaped me and I walked out. I stopped at the top of the stairs, trying to process the fact that my soon to be robotic bother in law had just propostioned me. Once back in the living room, I told Elaine what he had said and she pushed me back towards the stairs."You can't be serious! That's... like borrowing your vibrator!"

Elaine glared at me, tucking her blonde wisps behind her ears. "IF you have ever loved me, Annie, you will march up them stairs and make love to that man so that he will marry me!"

The loud smacking noise that echoed in the room was my hand meeting my forehead. There was no way this was actually happening. But if I didn't, Elaine wouldn't get married tomorrow. And it would go down in the family history that I had screwed (pardon the pun) my sister out of her only chance at happiness.And then I would have no story. Darla and her evil henchmen would have a field day. I hefted a huge sigh and turned to go back upstairs.

Screwing a parking meter was all it would take it make everyone happy. Who else could say that about anything?

Author's Note

Just a little something had been bugging me for a while. I thought there was more to the story but I really don't think so now. Honest opinions please!

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

"Her eye make-up making two muddy rivers over her apple cheeks"--I like that.

"enraged tea kettle" another good one.

I liked this, Melissa. It's clever, funny, and very well written! Sam