Today we celebrate our six month anniversary and boy, is she dressed the part. I look pretty good in a smoking if I say so myself, but she is smoking in her designer dress, hiding her curves in fabric, but in doing so showing off every curve she has. The black of her dress contrasts beautifully with her shiny metal skin. She hasn't adopted human like skin yet like many have lately, I think she's proud of what she is.

A limo drops us off at our favorite restaurant and we both share our courses through the menu as well as a delicious wine. It's funny that she appreciates the dinner almost more than me, only 50 years ago robots would rely on fuel cells and sometimes electric chargers, but now they can enjoy good food as much as humans and are much more efficient in turning it into energy.

I finally find the guts to start a tricky subject. Sheila, I say, these have been the best six months of my life. I know Ryan, she smiles, same for me. If you were human, I stutter, this would be the right time to go on one knee, offer you a ring and ask you to marry me. You are my best friend and I want to grow old with you. And if I were human, she replies with a tear in her eye, I would happily say yes and be your wife. But I'm not human, we knew it when we started this, the law forbids marriage between robots and humans. There's many reasons for that, one being that you would be the only one growing old.

I nod, what are our options Sheila? Going on like this? Wait until the law changes? It will happen eventually Ryan, she answers, the robot community expects to be capable of breeding with humans in another hundred years or so. And then there will be no more obstacles left. Unfortunately you won't be there anymore by then. By now, tears are streaming down her cheeks, and I move closer wiping her face with a napkin. We end up with a long deep kiss, both in deep thoughts.

After a few minutes she looks up. There is an option, she says, but it will ask a lot of you. What, I question, I'll do anything! I was thinking maybe I have my body frozen for the next hundred years. She laughs at that, shaking her head, too many risks with that. And what will I be doing while you're out? I have needs too. I let that sink in for a minute, realizing again just how human robots have become. What option do we have? She gets serious now and answers. It'll take too long before robots can finally qualify as humans, but there is already an option for humans to be turned into robots. Many have done so already. If you chose that path then I will be there to guide you and we can marry, there's no law against robot marriages. I will be honored to be your wife.

Of course, I think, why did I never think of that, but would I give up my soul? How does that really work? As if she guessed my thought she says. The robot brain is more complex than the human brain and there is enough room to store all your memories as well as your sense of being. We're not just machines anymore that follow a strict program or are controlled by a central computer. We're beings with free will and self awareness. I can't tell you what exactly you will give up, but I can tell you what you will gain. Me for one, and the laugh is back on her face.

But I've never even seen a male robot, I answer, I didn't even know they existed. They don't, she answers, three hundred years ago during the robotic revolution, when the first robots were legally declared as intelligent beings, it was determined to allow only female versions, simply because many humans were afraid to interact with us. It was imprinted in cyber technology and has worked out very well since. If you chose this path you will be a female robot, that's why I said it would ask a lot of you to give up. But as a robot we can reproduce, I actually look forward to that part, she says naughtily. I laugh for the first time and then I simply say, OK, I'll do it, with you on my side I can handle anything.

From that moment it was a fairly straight path. I had to sign an incredible amount of paperwork. The most complicated part was the disposal of my human body once my mind was transferred. In essence I will die from a legal point of view, with all my assets to be inherited by my robot body. I would no longer be considered human, but nowadays there's not that much difference anymore anyway. Also the costs of the robot body and the procedure to transfer my mind would take most of my assets. As a matter of fact, Sheila had to co-sign as she had to pay a part of the bill. Technically I would be partly her property with a payment plan to pay her off in the years to follow. The fun part was picking out the body, my body, from a selection with all virgin brains. Sheila decided most of it. I thought the body had too big of breasts and too many curves but she said I would love it. I was surprised about the asian features but all in all I was going to be a beautiful woman. By now I was thinking, if I have to be a woman, then I better be a stunner.

One week after our anniversary I reported to a clinic, Sheila close by my side. I was hooked up to hundreds of wires, most to my spine. But they would open my skull and connect a number of probes straight in my brain, once I was put to sleep. The whole transfer of data would take about 24 hours and once it was acknowledged that I was a fully functional robot my old body would be taken off life support and die within the hour and immediately be cremated so there is no chance of anyone ever claiming I was still alive. Are you ready for a new life she said? I nodded and at that moment everything went black.

So I'm a robot now and I have to say it doesn't feel that much different, mentally that is. I feel indeed like myself, I can't think of any memory in my old life that I don't have access to. As a matter of fact it's much easier to recall any of that. My earliest memories used to be from when I was about five, but now I can even remember things that happened to me when I was a baby. New memories are easily collected, every detail is stored, something I always had problems with.

Physically it's a whole different situation. Suddenly being a woman was really hard to deal with, no matter how Sheila tried to help. I just couldn't walk graciously, didn't know how to match my outfits, makeup was a disaster and let's not even talk about accessories. Eventually we chose for me to get a programming update, which scared the crap out of me. I was really worried I would loose part of myself and perhaps I did, as my male behavior was pretty much replaced by female knowledge. And even in my memories, as accurate they used to be, I recall them still but more like I was a girl than as a boy. I have embraced the programming since and if you see me now you would never believe I was once a man.

I have added more programming updates later, most of them to add knowledge. I'm a robot history expert now, with mental access to all robot and human literature. My specialty is robotic integration in human society and I think some of the work I do will knock probably fifty years off the moment that robots and humans are regarded as equal. I'm still amazed how easy it is to categorize all the knowledge I have collected and use just my brain power to form hypothesizes and deduct conclusions from them. It's easy to see why every company pretty much in the world has now a robot CEO and robot staff, with the economy blooming. And the same trend is visible in many country's governments.

My love life, that started all this, has never been better. I'm known as Rianna now, happily married with Sheila, my soulmate. I have developed a few fetishes, not sure if these were dormant in my old human body and now coming out in my female existence. More likely though some extra touches were added when I received my female programming, but I don't really mind. My dressing is a bit more extravagant compared to Sheila, my heels higher, my dresses more revealing, lots of leather, latex, satin and spandex. But she loves me no matter what I look like and we do a lot of role playing. Sexually things are amazing, we can go at it for hours and I have learned that two female robots can mate and reproduce. The result of our love was an egg shaped cybernetic chip, to be inserted in a robot child that we purchased. It's truly amazing how much of both ourselves we see in our daughter. In about ten to fifteen years we can purchase a fully grown body for her and transfer her mind to the new body. But until then we'll be a happy family with a second child on the way.