It was a warm feeling. Comforting, if the word could be used. The cord going from the nape of my neck to the wall warmed my artificial foramen magnum with 120 volts of AC heat, coursing power to my half-drained body. People always ask me if I can tell how much battery power I have left--I always respond, “can you tell how much caloric energy you have left?” I learned in that way that I experience the equivalent of “hunger,” but the way I recharge is more like “sleep”. So here I was, with every servo and piston within my frame relaxed, prepared, I suppose, to sleep. My SO--my significant other, though he wished I called him “honey”--was gone this night. A night without him wasn’t all bad--I could run folding simulations if I wanted, reach a couple perfect scores in Tetris--but these are essentially idle routines, secondary to primary programming. I always find it interesting, how much humans are obsessed with the meaning of life. Mine is laser-etched on my wrist plating. “Learn.” And when my “honey” was not home, I had no way to learn, at least what was necessary. The embedded collections of fifty encyclopedias from Ancient Sumeria to the Encyclopedia Brittanica contained on a chipset in my left pectoral plate, coupled with dozens of collegiate textbooks, thousands of research papers, and easy access to the Internet, rendered a search for empirical information a trivial affair. However, aside from the mocking automatons of the Sims that the SO had installed on my personal computer as an “anniversary present,” I had no way of studying human interaction. Even the ant colony in our basement had ceased to entertain me after I had studied it for a week straight, my cable plugged in to the wall next to it, my programs rendered near-fragged by such a long period without a restart. I experienced an odd feeling in these times. It was like I needed a charge, even though I was charged and charging. No matter what diagnostics I ran, it all came down to the same. I wished he was home. The snake in my neck pushed more energy into my half-empty frame. My neck servos disabled, I stared at the ceiling, which was painted in a pattern of exactly 376,342 puple-on-white dots. From what I had researched, my honey had an objectively terrible sense of decor, but I didn’t mind. I found more sense in angular geometry, and so did he. Modern architecture was all curves and circles, but he seemed to love the geometric. Maybe that’s why he loved me. As I stared at the dots, the recessed lights blinked on, warm-colored LEDs washing the room in light. I heard his footsteps, unable to turn my head. Without a word, he sat down next to me, and put his arm over my chest. Against my plastic cheek he pressed his lips; the thermosensitive membrane intended to detect heat fluctuations sensed a warm, somewhat quavering presence. He breathed against my head-frame, slightly clipping my aural sensors, and kissed me in various places, some that I didn’t register, only feeling the slight displacement of neck servos. It was senseless, literally, but he insisted, to show his commitment to me, some android without the warm lips and wet mouth he did. “Honey…” He whispered into my auracle, a gentle, warm gust of air with emotion I didn’t really understand. Nuzzling my neck, he moved his hand near my larynx. I was tempted to reinitiate operating procedures; I restrained. “Hon...I’ve seen you do this from time to time…” A current surged through me as he gently disconnected the auxillary cable connecting my circuitry to my voicebox. It was the simplest circuit in my body, and the easiest to access...I had learned how it could make me feel after he disconnected it as a joke one day, when I wouldn’t stop listing ancient Roman warriors. I’m not the only machine that feels what he did next. Speaker systems with jacks like mine always make audible static cracks when a cord is connected or disconnected...or gently circled around the rim of the jack, as he did now with gentle control, listening for the cracks and pops of my voice. Those systems might not have complicated processors like me...but the limbic system did develop before the cerebrum. Here a loud whine began, more than the quiet interference produced by his gentle movements, and I realized I was producing the sound, that I had involuntarily taken myself out of standby mode to vocalize my response. Involuntarily? The static-filled whine increased and decreased in pitch, a ragged moan of interference that he didn’t seem to mind at all. Waves of current permeated my frame, activating multiple motors and hydros, making my chest heave and my hands become fists, back arcing in reflex. He was right, I had tried this before, and I was surprised he had seen me disobeying my primary objective for...personal pursuits. But my hands were clumsy, my motors lacking the finesse of organic control. On the other hand, in his other hand, he seemed to be stroking my frontal plating, my gracilis area, as he deftly manipulated the cable, the interference beginning to make my vision slightly distorted. Something was mounting, in the vicinity of the buzzing speaker, that I didn’t recognize. My body was no longer under control and I was “spazzing out,” the foreign feeling overloading my processors, new colors and sounds and feelings coloring my mind as a climatic wave of current washed over my body, sparking the gap between the jack and the port, completely overloading every relay in my body. I shut down instantly. When my vision came back online, I first saw his concerned face, nervously surveying my body, visibly distressed. “Oh, oh, no...Oh no…” He saw my simulated eyelids blink open and focus on him. “Are you okay? Did I do something wrong?” His hand cradled the back of my head, and I worked through the lingering paralysis to shake my head. Trying to speak, I realized my audio jack was still unplugged, and reconnected it. “N-no,” I said, with an uncertain, hazy voice. “You did something right.”
