WARNING: The following story is fetish smut, made for perverts who enjoy natural body magic/detachment/disassembling people non-lethally. If you are not a member of that community, I strongly advise that you turn back now. Things will get freaky.
SECOND WARNING: Yeah, it's a story. That means words. If you watched me for the recent picture, sorry to disappoint.
-
Heather rolled her eyes, wishing as she often did that she could do something more proactive than rude expressions or complaining. She missed being able to punch people in the gut. Not that she'd ever done it, or even threatened to, but the unspoken and ever present possibility of a gut punch was, Heather hypothesized, the bedrock of civilization. Unable to engage in a fist to tummy debate, Heather tried complaining. "This is ridiculous. Sam's talking in riddles, Deidre wouldn't stop giggling, and you're LITERALLY shaking with excitement. Can you guys just tell me what's going on?"
"Not!" Zoe replied, too excited to remember the "No I'm-" part. She adjusted Heather, holding her bodiless head against her side in a feeble attempt to hide her trembling hands. Not only did it barely make a difference to the sensation of shaking, now Zoe was drumming her fingers along Heather's neck stump, her acrylic nails clicking against the transparent force field capping her neck and leaving her looking like a textbook cross section come to life.
The elevator doors parted and Zoe nervously adjusted her grip again, tucking Heather into the crook of her arm as her high heels took over the incessant clicking. Even as a lowly former lab rat, Heather knew that heels were not work appropriate footwear. But, when your daddy owns the company that owns the company, exceptions were made. Exceptions were probably the only reason Zoe still had a job. Heather at least believed botching a routine portal experiment and misplacing your test subject's body in a pocket dimension was grounds for dismissal.
A sharp beep and the snap of magnetic bolts disengaging snapped Heather out of her brooding. Zoe pushed the door open with her side, entering the lab of Dr P. The dour, greasy haired doctor looked up from his desk, his frown deepening as not-Dr Zoe and Heather approached. His eyes were not the only pair on the pair; cages of what looked like mammals lined each wall. Technically they were mammals, just ones made from synthetically cultivated organic tissue and bionic components rather than being born of a mother. They were meat robots, free from pesky natural qualities like emotions, personality, and free will. Apparently they were going to be the next big thing in espionage, though all they did for Heather was give her the heebie jeebies.
Reaching the doctors desk and setting Heather's head down without asking, Zoe asked "Hey Dr P, how's the boyfriend?"
"He misses me." Dr P accusingly replied, voice trembling with contempt and exhaustion. Heavy bags sagged under eyes nearly as glassy as his meat puppets. Heather smelled coffee in his mug, which had always held peppermint tea before. "Skip the pleasantries and just give your stupid speech so I can go home." He ordered, producing a small plastic remote.
Seconds of silence passed, Zoe clearly not used to be spoken to like this. Heather could almost hear the metaphorical gears in her head grinding as she calculated the cost of getting daddy to transfer mean old Dr P to the University of the Streets. Eventually, Zoe swallowed her pride and rested her hand on Heather's scalp, spinning her around and leaning over to speak face to face. "So, tomorrow is the third anniversary of... well, you know. When I kind of lost your body."
"...Huh." Heather said. "I guess I'd sort of lost track of the time."
"Good!" Zoe said, then hastened to add "I mean, it's good that it hasn't felt so long! I hope that means I've done a good job taking care of you."
"It was definitely kind of you." Heather non-answered. "Those bloodsucking lawyers were ready to chuck me out with the rest of the medical waste, that waiver I had to sign was, like, pure evil."
"Pure evil is our motto." Dr P interrupted, yawning. "You might've known if you'd read the contract before signing it."
"Zoe, please throw me at Dr P as hard as you can." Heather commanded, dead serious. This was as close to gut punching as she could get.
"He's just kidding!" Zoe said, staring daggers into the weary eyed doctor. "And besides, you might actually be thanking him soon!" Zoe motioned at the doctor, who hit the button and filled the room with a cacophony of hydraulic hissing, metallic grinding, and steel stretching. While Dr P swore up a storm and clutched his ears in pain, Zoe picked Heather up and held her at eye level, smiling a big stupid smile as she shouted over the roar of machinery "You see Heather, while we've done our best to find your body, statistically speaking, the chances of locating the exact dimension we'd sent it to is infinitesimally small. So, about a year ago, I started pulling strings and had some departments start a special secret project, spearheaded by Dr P. I wanted-"
The machinery stopped, silence flooding the room. "Oh thank fuck!" Dr P said. "Why is the secret elevator so loud? Is it supposed to sound like two big rigs doing it doggy?"
"I'm in the middle of my speech!" Zoe shouted.
"Did Dr P make me a synthetic body?!" Heather asked, seeing where this was going.
"Yes." Dr P answered, stealing Zoe's moment.
"GOD-" Zoe shouted. "UGH!" She groaned. "Yes!" She answered, spinning Heather around to see.
Standing inside the secret elevator hidden in the bookshelf behind Dr P's desk was a headless female body, nearly identical to Heather's. Apart from its neck stump being capped off with a chunky steel collar with adjustable clamps and what looked like a charging port. And its skin tone was closer to Heather's current "spent 3 straight years indoors" pallor rather than her original tan. And its slightly exaggerated sexual characteristics like more shapely hips, perkier boobs, and more graceful limbs. And Heather felt like she'd probably remember having four pack abs. And of course, when she'd lost her body in another dimension, she'd been wearing a specialized safety suit, whereas this artificial body was in its birthday suit.
"Why is my new body naked?" Heather asked, more confused than angry. "And who decided to... 'upgrade' my proportions?"
"Great questions, sweetheart!" Dr P said, in the gayest voice he could. "Zoe, care to explain?"
"I wanted to treat you!" Zoe answered, flustered. "After all this time without a body, you deserve the best one mad science can make! Aren't you excited?! You don't sound excited!"
"Excited! I'm fucking ecstatic!" Heather answered, laughing. "This is amazing! You're amazing! Thank you so much!"
"You're welcome." Dr P said, knowing Heather wasn't addressing him but pretending anyway. "And I'll pass your thanks along to the rest of my team, along with the cybernetics department and the finance people Zoe bribed to rearrange some resources." He pressed a button on his remote, the headless body marching a few steps closer in a stiff lockstep.
"Easy!" Zoe shouted, as Dr P snatched Heather right out of her hands. In all honesty, Heather didn't mind the rough treatment any more. Everyone in the labs had treated her like a cross between a person, a pet, and a desk ornament over the last 3 years, both figuratively and sometimes literally passing her around like a toy. She wouldn't have even noticed how rude that was if Zoe hadn't made a fuss.
"First, I need to emphasize that like all my creations, this body is a synthetically generated bionic automaton. It is not human. So I can't guarantee it will feel like your original body, or even a human body at all, particularly since we're using a cybernetic relay to translate all sensations and communications rather than a direct connection." Dr P explained, walking around the headless synthetic bio-whatever and positioning Heather's head over the collar.
"Wow, way to sell the project." Zoe said, scowling.
"I'm not saying it won't feel real! I'm just saying there's literally no way to tell if it will beforehand!" Dr P retorted. "It's not like I can ask my specimens if they feel 'real'! Even if they were sentient, they'd have no frame of reference on what 'real' feels like, so how'd they know if they felt real? Or if the collar's sensory translations felt any less real?"
"Speaking of, why the collar?" Heather asked, as her head was set down in the surprisingly warm slot. She felt metal beneath her stump, informing her there was no direct connection between her neck and her neck to be.
"I just said the body's not human. It's not biologically compatible with humans. If we could've cloned you, in theory we could transplant your head directly onto the clone body, but since any clone of you would be decades younger, there'd be no realistic way to clone you a full body of appropriate age. So next best thing is a synthetic body, which requires cybernetics to process and translate sensations and commands." Dr P explained, fiddling with his remote and adjusting Heather's head. With a hiss, a rubbery material pressed into the sides of her neck and tightly vacuum sealed to her flesh.
"Uh, is my neck supposed to be going numb?" Heather asked, nervous as what little was left of her sensations seemed to be shrinking rather than expanding.
"That's topical anesthetic." Dr P said, his dour demeanor turning grim. "To control this body, we need to attach your spinal column to the sensory translator. To do that, we need to close the portal between your head and original body. When that happens... well, you'll be decapitated. Properly. But don't worry, the instant the portal closes, the collar will put you on life support and begin sensory connection and calibration. According to our projections, there's only a 2.5% probability this will kill you."
The weight of the situation suddenly fell on Heather's distant shoulders. Zoe stepped up to her, placing a reassuring hand on her cheek. "Everything's going to be fine! Trust me, if I didn't think this was going to work, I would've sent everything back to the drawing board. This is the best chance you'll ever get of having a normal life again."
"Yeah." Heather said, half convinced. "It's just... the finality, you know? Like, this is it, isn't it? Once I say yes, that'll just be the end of my real body. It'll really be gone, not even an 'infinitesimally small' chance of finding it. I'll never be a real woman again, I'll just... look like one. Maybe feel like one. Maybe not. It's just... a lot to take in, you know?"
"Do you need some time to think?" Zoe asked, struggling to hold back tears.
Heather closed her eyes, trying to will a final sensation from her lost body. Throughout the first few months of her separation, she'd still been able to move it around and feel its sensations, her body stumbling through a featureless dimension with an inexplicably survivable climate and gravity. It had given her hope, the feeling of her heartbeat, her chest swelling with each breath, her hands running up and down her skin when she was alone and unmonitored. But, as time wore on, her body became stiff, sluggish, and numb. She lost feeling in her fingertips, her toes, her fingers and soles, bit by bit she lost herself, until by month 8 of her 3 year headless stint, she woke up and realized she could no longer feel that gentle heartbeat that had kept her hope alive.
Will all she willed, no amount of willing would give her even a single beat of her heart back. She opened her eyes, drained of all doubt. "Dr P, give me my new body."
"As you wish." He said, tapping the button and casting the metaphorical die.
Heather's eyes went wide with shock and pain, her mouth seizing in a silent gasp as, with an electric crack and mechanical whir, the portal was broken and the collar set to work jamming microscopic needles, probes, tubes, and sensors into her exposed stump, some sort of fast hardening liquid applied to staunch the blood loss. The anesthetic masked the worst of the pain, but plenty managed to slip by into Heather's brain.
"It's okay, it's okay, it's almost over." Zoe said, clutching Heather's cheek and stroking her hair. She honestly had no idea if that were true, but she spoke with authority and the steady hands that brushed Heather's short bob of brown hair and stroked her pale cheek were reassuring. She tried to relax, even as a worrying haze of cloudy black began dancing in her peripheral vision, and stars danced across a room that seemed to be getting darker by the second.
An inhuman noise came out of Heather's mouth as she dragged a burning breath of air down her throat, her hands launching themselves at her collar. She doubled over, legs falling out from under her and dropping her right onto Zoe, who threw her arms around her friend. Heather reflexively kicked out a few times, arms flailing as body and brain tried to communicate for first time through the sensory translation system the cybernetics team had cooked up. There were a few more seconds of spasms and twitches, then stillness.
"Zoe?" Heather said, in a voice very close to her own if a bit distorted around the edges.
"Heather?" Zoe asked with trembling voice.
"Please get your boobs off my face." Heather said, glancing cheekily up at the flustered lab technician.
Zoe opened her mouth to say something, but finding no appropriate response, she simply let Heather go, allowing the bionic woman to crash into the ground.
"Ow, my knees." Heather chirped, her exquisitely manufactured limbs flopping and squirming like a drunken octopus as she tried to remember how they worked. "I can't believe how much I've missed you, banging my knees!"
-
"I wanna do it!" Heather insisted, slapping Zoe's hand away.
"Ah! Okay! Jeez!" Zoe replied, clutching her wounded hand to her chest.
"Sorry! Still getting used to how strong I am!" Heather said, reaching out for her carer. "Not like I chose to be an Olympian."
Zoe rolled her eyes. "Look, if you want me to get Dr P to make some downgrades, I will. Sorry I tried to do something nice! Now are you going to press the button?"
"Yeah!" Heather cheered, reaching out to the elevator's control panel and pressing the button for ground level. Or, trying to. Her poke went low and hit the button for floor -1. "Shit." She swore, trying again and this time managing to line up her wobbling finger with the correct button. "Yeah!" She cheered, lighting up like she'd just solved the riddle of the ages.
"Nice job. The physical therapy seems to be going well." Zoe said, rubbing the developing welt on her hand and wincing as her ears popped. Only 2 of the 24 stories of the lab were located above ground, mostly the bureaucratic, logistical, and marketing offices. All the real semi-legal science was done below ground, away from prying eyes and building safety regulations.
"Yeah! They didn't even expect me to be walking until the end of the first week, but look at me! Four days in and I'm already on my own two feet!" Heather said, lifting her cane off the ground to show off how easily she could balance herself. Two seconds passed before she firmly planted the cane back down, leaning in as one of her knees buckled. She continued "Dr P said the cybernetics team had come up with a really good... hang on." She clumsily dug through her dusty old purse, dredged from one of the many boxes of belongings that had gone unopened for 3 years. Pulling out a spiral bound notebook, she flipped to a page and squinted at the barely intelligible scribblings her unsteady artificial hands had managed to produce. "Soft-predictive AI assisted interpretation software." She smiled, immensely proud of her wavering block letters that only occasionally ran off the page or swerved into each other. They said she wouldn't have the digit dexterity to even hold a pen for two weeks. She'd demanded pen and paper anyway, and had spent the past three days practicing every spare moment. "Like, I have no fucking idea what any of that means, but I have to agree!"
The elevator shuddered to a stop, one floor short of Zoe and Heather's destination. The doors slid open, revealing a lab technician Heather had never met before along with "Sam!"
Dr Samuel Sr turned from his conversation partner, a brilliant smile curling up his dark cheeks. "Heather! How's the new bod treating you?" He asked, leaning his towering six foot four frame into the elevator and enveloping her in a bear hug.
"Great, though some big jerk is trying to shake it apart!" She teased, patting his back with one hand while the other clutched her cane for dear life.
"Heh, well if that big jerk succeeds, know will always have an opening for you." He replied.
"Yeah right, I'd have Zoe punt me off the roof before I got plopped on your desk again, stuck listening to another one of your boring-ass fishing stories!" Heather said, pressing her cheek into his scratchy buzz cut to nudge him off.
Sam released her, jolting upright like he'd just remembered something. "Oh, speaking of, I was actually just up at Winslow last Friday with my sons, and you would not belie-"
The doors slowly began to slide shut, Sam unable to keep up a poker face as he valiantly tried to continue his story gag through his giggling. Heather couldn't help but giggle too as she said "Oh no, the door is closing and these stupid fingers keep missing the door open button! Darn, I really need to practice my hand-eye coordination, so sorry!"
The doors closed, and Heather let out a proper chuckle. "What an ass."
-
"Again, I'm so sorry about this. Trust me, I really pushed for the cybernetics team to come up with a better solution, but they said it would delay the project at least six more months." Zoe said, carefully working the shampoo through Heather's hair.
"It's cool." Heather said, shrugging her shoulders as the hot water of the shower ran down them. "Honestly, you washing my hair every night is probably what kept me sane for so long. It's calming, social grooming, you know? Plus your hands are like, so soft!"
"Thanks!" Zoe said, blushing."Still, it's a bit weird washing you in the sink again. We stopped doing that... what, by the end of month two?"
"What, you broken up that we aren't showering together any more?" Heather joked, receiving a stunned look and a splash of water to the face. "Relax! I just want to get the hang of washing myself again. Once I've gotten over the novelty, I'll let you shower with my body all you want, lather it up all slow and sexy, just the way you like!"
"Stop it!" Zoe groaned in exasperation, much to Heather's amusement. She continued to wash Heather's hair in silence, a bit rougher now that she was annoyed but still meticulously careful not to get a single drop on Heather's collar.
In truth, she was being a bit paranoid. Dr P had assured them the collar could survive a decent amount of moisture, even a few minutes of total submersion, without failure. Still he advised to avoid getting the collar wet whenever possible, as it wasn't fully waterproof, particularly around the charging port. They'd wanted to do a wireless charging system, but when they realized it would take 20 straight hours of wireless charging compared to 7 hours of wired they elected to sacrifice water resistance for day to day practicality.
Thankfully, the collar was designed to come in two, allowing Heather to detach her head and shower her body remotely out to about a hundred feet (depending on the number and thickness of walls between head and body). Apparently they came up with this before they even discovered the water problem, as they were already speculating mass production with a range of bodies people could swap between on the fly. Regardless, the charging port only needed to be on one of the collar's halves, so they stuck it on the head half and made the body half watertight while detached.
While her body showered, her head was washed in the bathroom sink by Zoe. Zoe claimed this was to save Heather some time, washing her head during her body's shower. Heather didn't argue with her, even if it was plainly obvious she had other motives. She continued to scrub her perfect, decapitated body, noting an occasional glance in the bathroom mirror which just so happened to offer a decent view of the shower. She would've danced, really bust Zoe's chops, but she didn't want to slip and break her brand new ankle. Maybe when she got steadier on her feet...
-
"Ew." Heather said, swallowing hard and fumbling for another room temperature cheese cube. "Ow." She said, jabbing her palm on the toothpick before managing to get her fingers around it.
"You know, just because you CAN shovel stuff into your mouth now, doesn't mean you should." Zoe said, watching Heather grimace as she swallowed the slightly sweaty piece of provolone, the befuddled employee staring slack jawed at the cyborg amazon.
"If Dr P didn't want me to eat everything in sight, he wouldn't have made my body retain its shape no matter what I eat." Heather said, tossing the toothpick in the direction of the trash can and missing by several feet.
"That is a gross oversimplification of how artificial bodies work." Zoe said, as if she understood any of Dr P's work. "Come on Hungry Hungry Heather, there's cookie samples on the other side of the store. If you promise to behave while I pick up some meat, you can have some."
"You're not my mom any more!" Heather said, following behind Zoe regardless. She swayed a little, stumbled twice, but kept the cane tucked into the crook of her arm unused. A week had passed, and each day her body felt less like something she was piloting and more like... hers.
"So, hamburgers or taco salad?" Zoe asked, tossing a large package of ground beef into her basket.
"How about just tacos? In taco form?" Heather asked, casually.
Zoe looked at her, skeptical. "With how the potato chips went? I'm not sure you're quite ready."
Heather shrugged. "If I smash them, I'll just be having handmade taco salad."
Zoe couldn't help but laugh. "Alright, just tacos. But if you get any on my carpet, you're cleaning it up this time!"
"Like I already offered last time." Heather said, smiling as she strolled with Zoe over to the cookies. She considered crushing a taco on purpose, just so she could get her hands on the vacuum. As a helpless severed head, there were so many mundane things she missed doing. Picking her nose, tying her shoes, brushing her teeth, and while she never once thought tidying up would be one of those things, now she wanted nothing more than to bust some dust bunnies.
-
"Hey Zoe?" Heather asked, rolling onto her side to face her friend.
"Mmmph?" Zoe answered, her face buried in the carpet where she'd collapsed. Three empty wine bottles sat in the middle of the coffee table, along with two glasses. While Zoe had occasionally imbibed during her time as a head, it usually ended with crying and bemoaning her situation or getting into drunken fights with Zoe for doing this to her, even as she continued to care for her. She wanted to try drinking again now that she could do the sipping herself, and had challenged Zoe to a drinking game. Too bad for Zoe, Heather's artificial body processed alcohol extremely efficiently, and even after two whole bottles to herself she was only moderately drunk and sobering superhumanly fast.
"I think that maybe I should move out." Heather said, ripping off the bandaid.
Zoe rolled onto her back, eyes in full puppy dog mode as they locked blearily on Heather's. "Buh?"
"Like... you've been great to me. I'm grateful. But like... I've gotten pretty damn good with my body. Like in a week or two, it'll be like I never lost it. I'll be just like anybody else." She said, rubbing her shoulder and grazing her thick metal collar. She rolled her eyes. "I mean, apart from this elephant, obviously." She said, deactivating the latches holding the halves of her collar together and lifting her head off her body. Even a little tipsy, the change in perspective and center of balance hardly phased her, she only nearly gagged. She set her head on the floor for a proper eye to eye. "Look, it's just... living out of your place, mooching off your money, sleeping on your couch, it's... I want to be independent again. Not just physically, but in every sense. I want to feel like my own person, not an accessory."
Zoe shook her head. "You're not accessory! You're..." She stopped, unable to produce the words she wanted to. "Hmmph!" She pouted, grabbing Heather's head and curling herself around it. "I'll miss you." She said, squeezing Heather's head tightly.
Heather let out a sigh, her hot and boozy breath bouncing off Zoe's belly and back onto herself. "I'll miss you too." She said, her voice muffled.
It took only a few minutes for Zoe to pass out, loudly snoring like she always did when she was shitfaced. Heather, however, was awake for several more hours, thinking and thinking. She'd be stuck on the charger well into the afternoon tomorrow, but her battery would last through the night. She'd be damned if she was taking away Zoe's heady-bear.
-
"AAAAAAAAAAA!" Heather screamed, accompanied by a crash of flesh on floor.
Zoe jumped out of her seat and sprinted down the stairs, phone in hand ready to dial 911. "What's wrong?!" She shouted, bursting into the living room.
Before she could do anything, Zoe was bear hugged with the force of an actual bear, all the air squeezed from her lungs leaving her unable to even gasp in surprise.
Heather lifted the smaller woman off the floor and shook her like a doll, laughing joyously as she did. "YES YES YES YES YES! THEY SAID YES!"
"hhh" Zoe choked, her legs flailing uselessly beneath her.
Realizing she was close to snapping the poor girl in half, Heather set her down and shifted her grip, now merely powderizing her shoulders in a vise grip of excitement. "They said yes! I'll be starting Monday! $52,000 a year with automatic pay grade increases every 6 months! I got the job!"
"$52,000 a year?" Zoe asked, the heiress to a third of her father's tech empire never having held a job for less than a quarter million.
"I know, I know, but that's actually pretty good for us peasants, especially considering the three year gap in my resume." Heather said, patting Zoe on the shoulder.
"Heh." Zoe said, trying to make herself smile. "Well, we all start somewhere. Good for you!"
"Come on, let's celebrate! Dinner's on me!" She announced, grabbing Zoe's hand and dragging her to the door. "Uh... well, actually, my first paycheck isn't coming for another couple weeks, and I was kind of saving up my disability checks for the down payment on an appartment..."
"I got it." Zoe said, snatching her purse off the dining room table as they passed.
"Aw, thanks! You're the best sugar mamma a girl could ask for!" Heather said, bringing the back of Zoe's hand to her lips and kissing one of her three ridiculously opulent rings. "Don't worry, I'll pay you back come pay day! Whenever that is. I don't even remember how that works! I'm dying to find out!"
"You really don't have to." Zoe said, knowing Heather damn well knew that but wanted to do so anyway. "Just... consider it my gift to you." She sighed, and whispered "My last gift, I guess."
-
"And you're absolutely sure about this?" Zoe asked, half setting and half dropping the final heavy cardboard box to the floor. "This neighborhood is a bit... rough."
"It's a shit hole." Heather corrected, gleefully tearing open the box containing her bed frame. "And it's my shit hole!"
The one bedroom apartment was as spartan as they came, with drab tan walls and a carpet more filth than fiber. But it was cheap, and while Heather was restarting her life from scratch, cheap was the name of the game. "Come on, help me get my bed together. The rest of this shit can wait, I'm dying to have my own bed again!"
Zoe approached, flopping down beside her friend. Like everything else, the bed frame was cheap as dirt and absolutely hideous. She scowled, unable to believe her friend would take this over continuing to live with her. If she wanted a bed so damn bad, Zoe would've happily bought a hundred, all of them memory foam massage beds with heated pillows and white noise emitters and a button that sucked your dick, just because.
"Phillips screwdriver." Heather said, holding her hand out as she scanned the instructions.
Zoe looked around her, spotting a box labeled 'tools & bike parts' and quickly finding the tool.
"Thank you." Heather chirped, tearing open a bag of screws and lining up some L shaped pieces of metal with holes drilled in the wooden boards. "Hold that steady." She said, nodding at the board. Zoe complied, resting her knees on the wood as Heather screwed in the metal and affixed the supporting boards. Zoe stared at Heather's hands, looking for any sign of weakness, any tremors or imprecision, any faults at all. There was nothing. They were strong, perfect, beautiful hands. The hands of an independent woman, who didn't need no sugar mama any more crescent wrench. Zoe sighed, her eyes wandering all over the engineering wonder that was Heather's body. Dr P had really knocked it out of the park, though even without the upgrades Zoe had requested, Heather was quite the looker. Her old body had been what distracted Zoe that fateful day, the split second or two or twenty or however long she'd absentmindedly been staring at her headless body in its tight crescent wrench! plastic jumpsuit wander around that had led Zoe to miss a crucial warning on the portal projector.
Then again, it wasn't Heather's body that Zoe had grown attached to over the last three years. Her detached head wasn't just beautiful, but funny, persistent, outgoing, and she was just so easy to talk to. While growing up rich had its perks, it also meant Zoe grew up alone. According to daddy, all the other kids were just after his money, going through Zoe to get it. Nobody really like her or her siblings, they were just getting used. But Heather... Heather was her friend. Her best friend. Her only friend, really. Wistfully looking into her Crescent Wrench! eyes, Zoe saw an annoyed expression. She looked so cute when she was annoyed, it might have been why Zoe had enjoyed doing it so much. "CRESCENT WRENCH!" Heather blurted, like she'd already asked a several times.
Zoe snapped out of her staring. "Oh, uh, sorry!" She said digging through the box. "Sorry, I just..."
Heather sighed, resting a hand on Zoe's shoulder to stop her search. "Seriously, are you alright? You've been pretty spacey all day. Nearly drove us off the road staring into the space. Look, I know this whole situation is kind of a big change for both of us, but-"
Zoe's arms flung themselves around Heather's torso, her face pressed into her augmented chest. "I LOVE YOU!" Zoe screamed into Heather's cleavage.
Heather blinked. She didn't even know if there was a correct way to respond to that. While it probably wasn't "Pardon?", that's what she went with.
Zoe looked up, tears in her eyes. "I love you! I've crushed on you since you were just a tester, I moved our schedules around and reassigned your tests so you'd always be doing experiments with my team! But I was just crushing on you back then! Now, after everything... I love you! And I know you want to move on, you don't want any more reminders of how I fucked up and stole years you'll never get back, you want to be normal again and forget all about the stupid experiment and my stupid ass that ruined it, but I l-"
Zoe's eyes went wide, then flicked down. Heather's lips had stopped hers in their tracks. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then, Heather broke the kiss. "No shit." She said, struggling not to laugh.
"Huh?" Zoe asked.
"You are the most transparently closeted lesbian I have ever met. I knew you were into me since day one. What, you expected me to buy that it was just coincidence that I was always stuck on whatever project you were working on?" She asked rhetorically, struggling not to laugh as she remembered the stammering technician trying to make small talk as she bungled her way through her job. "You think I didn't notice how you never had a boyfriend for 3 years? Shit, I got 3 as a penniless head, plus a few dates with girls!"
Zoe frowned, and Heather realized just how rude that sounded. "Uh, but yeah. I knew. And I ignored it. Because the power dynamics were all messed up, you know? You being my caretaker and me being your dependent, it would be like a doctor starting a relationship with their sick patient, it's... weird. And what if it didn't work out? Now you'd be tending to your ex's head, super awkward, or I'd get tossed off to some other schmuck and suddenly finding my body slips down the priority list. We couldn't have been partners before."
Heather rested a hand on Zoe's cheek, wiping away a tear. "But now? I'm my own woman. I can rely on myself. I can make my own choices. I can be a partner. So... would you like to try being my partner?"
Zoe lunged in for another kiss, grabbing Heather's cheeks and letting out years of pent up desire. She was an objectively terrible kisser, having had no experience since a failed college romance with a guy she only dated for appearances, but Heather was happy to teach her. They swapped spit for several minutes, until Heather began to feel some not-so-dry humping on her athletic thigh. "Whoa there, take it easy!" She said, pushing Zoe's face back a few inches.
Zoe stared at her, scared she'd somehow ruined everything and Heather would take it all back and order her to leave and never come back. Instead, Heather unlatched her collar, and lifted her head off her neck. "We've built up quite a sweat, moving all these boxes around." She said, setting her head on the naked mattress. "If I remember correctly, I think I promised to shower with you at some point. Does that ring a bell?"
Zoe grinned, wiping a few sweaty strands of hair out of her eyes. "I think I remember something about lathering you up, slow and sexy." She said, grabbing Heather's body by thehand and dragging it to the bathroom. Heather's head smiled, taking another good look at her brand new shit hole before closing her eyes and concentrating on something much nicer.