Different.

I should give her credit in that she didn’t walk up to me and start it right away. We were both curled up in the motel room, avoiding the stiff, embalmed bed (“Ew, smells like burbon.” “…can we not sleep in this?”) and slumping ourselves deeper into the crusty carpet around a shared bottle of Dr. Pepper and cheap Chinese-style meat product. RENT has it wrong, you know—bohemians don’t eat tofu and greens. We feast on what we are thrown or what we scavenge as we prowl through the jungles of this world, whether it be stale bread with catsup spread on it or a chunk of raw poultry. Whatever stops the gnawing wolves in our stomachs from eating up our ideas and turning that idiosyncratic light of ours to more mundane things, like why the hell we’re flat broke and can’t afford groceries. Sharks aren’t particular about what they eat as they ceaselessly swim; they just get what they can.

The cable box was out or maybe it was the TV itself—or maybe we were the defected electronics, and refused to fully turn on the tube. Either way, it hissed and crackled with electronic snow and spit out one or two random images to tantalize us. True to American television, they were mostly commercials.

Between a static-laced voice singing about imitation butter and a department store babbling about errors in orders, she put a hand on my shoulder. Lightly she fingered the thin web of cracks, frowning at the fading splits—they’re almost gone, you know. There will still be lines for me to remember them by, but the exoskeleton is almost closed. In a way, I’m contained again, protected, since they can’t split me open as easily or penetrate.

“Those people were real assholes, Olo.”

I nodded and looked to the door on reflex, checking to see if the locks were fastened tight, the windows closed, the drapes up and blotting out the scene within. I’m a sensible shark, you see—I always watch for the other predators when I slow down to rest for a bit. They can’t overtake me. “They were, Scoot. They just took…you know, and they sold it. Like it was something they owned, and not me.”

“All of us aren’t like that.” Husky tone; Scooter’s voice (it’s too late for anonymity, anyway) seemed to rumble up from within her like rock, rolling like boulders with certainty. She waved aside my ‘I know’ and sighed. “That ain’t it. I mean people who…well, share sheets. We’re not all like that.” Her hand travelled to my back, just below the neck, and patted the plating. “It’s different…I could show you, you know. It’s nicer with women, for humans and poleepkwa.”

My voice cracked like ice and shattered so that the sentence fell apart, the words like broken icicles at our feet. “W-what—no. Oh no…no no no no…” I shrunk back, wrenched her hand away—had it gone lower, snuck further down while I wasn’t noticing? No, but I wouldn’t let her. If I had to I’d scratch at the hands, use the little bit of self-defense and flee.

But Scooter was my friend. Why would she want to hurt me? The sardonic reply came quickly: Why did all of those customers want to hurt me?

She sighed, let go of me and slunk back. Her eyes—I couldn’t look away, not because they were angry, or because they were sad, but because they were sad and trying not to show it. The ice blue was melting, getting watery with the heat and tension of the moment and she turned, blinked back the gush from the melting glaciers. Raindrops, or lakes of ocean water that were separated from me by the small flaps of skin, slightly smudged tangerine. Nonchalantly her shoulders moved in a shrug that turned into a slump. “I guess I always choose the people I can’t be with.”

She was going to stop this…she was going to stop herself and retreat in inglorious defeat because I didn’t want to take part in this. When did humans do that? Never; never had they turned tail to me and fled when I whimpered for it to stop short. Instantly I realized how she must have been feeling—you’re high up on the roller coaster but derail and fall before going down the big hill. No safe rush, just the dull, sick swoop of your stomach dropping and the long plummet down, down, down, down, down. Just because I wasn’t comfortable…that had never happened.

I acquiesced. No, more then that: I agreed. That was the good in it; the vital difference that made it more then torture and, maybe…enjoyable. I chose to do it, not out of fear but out of curiosity, of companionship. The way sex is supposed to be chosen, I think, and it was all so different. So familiar and unfamiliar; the scraping of plating against soft human skin, not rough this time but infinitely more delicate, more careful. Gentle, because she wasn’t trying to hurt me. It smelled different, too—free of the stench of booze but smelling like fruit, whatever perfume Scooter wears...most of the people who rented me had been drunk when they paid for it; they’d probably had to prepare themselves with the actual act by drinking, matching the heat down there with the warm fog of alcohol so that it makes a shred of sense. Things were clear this way—it didn’t make sense but then again when does anything in my life, our lives, make sense? I’m sitting in a motel room with Dr. Pepper, for Vishnu’s sake.

La Vie Boheme, I guess. It still smells like strawberries.