Toebal Riek understood the idea of sunlight. Even though he had been constructed inside a laboratory far enough inside the Castle that he never got to see it, he knew what it was because he was programmed with a basic understanding of how the world works—at least according to the Benecorts.

“What pronouns should we use for Toeriek?” asked one of the scientists while constructing him. The language they were speaking was an offshoot of pre-Cortian in which all nouns were given a grammatical gender, either masculine or feminine. No neuter option.

“Probably best to assign him male,” said the lead scientist. “We don’t want our machines getting the idea that they can produce new life.”

And so, Toeriek was raised on the impression, given the masculine pronouns used for him, that he was biologically male. Despite the fact that he was actually a sexless robot.

But now, Toeriek was free and enjoying the outside world. Female sunlight fell on the male leaves that grew from the female branches of male trees that thrust male roots into the ground, which was usually female, unless it consisted of barren rock or any kind of artificial flooring. Male animals flitted through the underbrush (most animals were assumed to be male unless the beast’s gender was known, except predators, who were always treated as female, usually even if they did have male parts), while birds (a completely different class of nouns) each of which Toeriek would have called “she” if he’d been leaning towards English, flew through the male air while male droppings fell from their female excretion organs. It was all very wonderful.

Until his gaze fell upon something he could not classify.

Human beings, in his pre-Cortian language, were classified as female—being the world’s most effective predators—unless they exhibited identifiably masculine behaviors. This has produced some hilarious circumstances among translators in both directions, as it means many women will be treated as male for language purposes if they are seen to throw a punch, wear certain kinds of clothing or interrupt their interlocutors to make the same point in different words; and men would often be treated as women if they kept quiet or were vegetarians.

So it confused Toeriek when he came upon a young human in the woods whom he could not immediately classify. The human was short and somewhat stout, had short hair, smooth skin, a touch of fur growing on arms and legs, but not enough to be conclusive, and she carried herself (again, as a predator, assume it is female) with an unsettling combination of grace and swagger.

“Hello,” said the human. Somewhat awkwardly.

On the basis of that word, Toeriek decided the human must be an English speaker. This was good, because English was one of the languages Toeriek happened to have stored in his memory banks.

That being said, all of Toeriek’s interactive and humanizing programming was written in his pre-Cortian offshoot and thus, even if his English did come out flawless, he would still only be translating into it.

“I say,” Toeriek said by way of greeting, “what an attractive afternoon we are having this day.”

He could tell immediately ased on the confusing human’s facial ticks that his vocabulary might be problematic.

He feigned clearing his throat, then ventured, “Might I inquire as to your sexual organs?”

“Oh, God,” the human replied. Toeriek dutifully ran this response through his data-banks, but while both “O” and “God” were listed as possible pseudonyms for sexual organs, the respective entries were in opposite categories.

Toeriek decided on a more subtle approach. “What is your name?”

“I’m sorry,” said the human, “I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but are you a robot?”

“Robot” was listed in the data-banks as an only moderately offensive word for what Toeriek was. “I am an android,” Toeriek enunciated. “Now, what is your name?”

“Brooklyn Bailey,” the human said. “Why do you ask?”

“I really must classify you,” answered Toeriek. But neither of the names did any good. The name “Bailey” seemed to possibly have a tendency to be feminine, though not exclusively, but even so, it was presented in the position of a family name, which offered no help. And Brooklyn seemed to be the name of a place. This wasn’t working.

“Oh my God,” Brooklyn Bailey repeated. “You’re a robot and even you think you’re entitled to know what’s in my pants?”

“I must know,” Toeriek verified, “my tongue depends on it.”

“Ew!” cried Brooklyn Bailey, and Toeriek could tell the human was exhibiting indications of disgust. Though he did not know what he had said wrong, he seized the opportunity to gain more ground.

“I am sorry to disgust you,” he began. “Please, does your sexual aversion stem more from homophobia or from a rational distrust of what appear to you to be male advances?”

Language, he finally pieced together. Not tongue, “language”. 

He explained the slip of the tongue, but the human was still not satisfied.

“Jesus Christ!” said Brooklyn Bailey, “What does it matter what gender I am!”

Toeriek calmly explained his linguistic predicament.

Brooklyn let out a groan which Toeriek felt went on far too long to be entirely natural. “Fine. Look, I don’t care what you call me in your language, I don’t speak your language; if your language defaults to female, fine, whatever, I guess that makes up for all the Earth languages defaulting to masculine, but I speak English, so when you’re speaking in English, to me or to anyone else you’re talking to if you’re talking to anyone else without me—which would be kinda creepy anyway, because I don’t know you, but here we are—you refer to me as they. OK? They/their/them, those are my pronouns.”

Toeriek stored this in his memory banks, which meant that from now on, he would refer to Brooklyn Bailey only by their preferred pronouns.

“Thank them,” Toeriek said to Brooklyn Bailey. “Do they want me to leave now? I am enjoying their conversation.”

Brooklyn Bailey rolled their eyes and sighed, then proceeded to re-explain second person with the patience of a gender-neutral saint.

I don’t know what happened to me. From the moment I saw her, though, I don’t know. Something happened to me. Was it hormones, maybe? Some kind of pheromones in the air? Something she exuded. I don’t know.

That kind of thing doesn’t happen to me a lot. Just ‘cause I see a pretty girl, I mean, what the hell is beauty, you know? That’s just not how I fall in love, when I fall.

I guess love wasn’t really what heppened to me there, though. But I think what really did it for me was when she looked at me. How she smiled. Beautiful women like that just don’t smile at guys like me. Not how she smiled. They sure as hell don’t talk to us out of the blue, but even if they did, that smile.

I knew something was up. Didn’t I? I thought I did. I remember thinking “This can’t be real, it’s gotta be some trick.” So why did I…

No. I know why. I didn’t fucking care. Of course it’s a trick, I figured, that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it. Right?

Phoenix, she said her name was. Phoenix Drake. I didn’t think that was real, either. It sounded tailor-made to yank in dorks like me, obsessed with Fantasy. I guess I just appreciated that she cared, you know. That she made an effort. Or, I don’t know, maybe she was into it, too. Maybe that meant she was really…

But why me?

I never would’ve asked her back to my place, let alone invited myself to hers, you know? Did I think there was anything… sinister about… You know, she just seemed so genuine, you know? The way she smiled. Those wide, wide eyes. The way her eyebrows stayed up while I was talking.

“Wait,” I finally said. I didn’t say it till I was on her threshold.

Her look when she turned back was so curious.

“What’s going on here?”

The new smile on her face was different. Then she was biting her lip.

“I just thought maybe… you wanted something a little more… private.”

She leaned in close enough to me I started breathing in the air she was breathing out. There was something off about it. It was like, wet. Or maybe salty, something so… slick.

But her eyes were so innocent.

“I shouldn’t be doing this.” By the second time I chickened out, we were in her room, this quaint little tenement room in Baker’s Crescent, at the Arcade. By then, I had my shirt off and she was in… just the most beautiful corset.

And she gave me this look. So vulnerable. So hurt. Made me feel guilty for making her feel unwanted so suddenly. She raised her hands, as though to cover herself, her cleavage, but ended up touching herself instead. I think she asked something like “Don’t you want me?”

I guess you could say it finally tipped her hand. “Hold on,” I said, “You’re not…” She looked maybe late twenties, but… “You are over eighteen, aren’t you?”

She tucked in her chin and looked at me through her eyelashes.

“Well, actually,” she said, “I’m more than five thousand years old.”

“I’m serious,” I protested, though reeling at how perfect that answer was.

“Just relax,” she told me.

I think what might have happened then is that I got another dose or something? Everything stopped mattering as she leaned in and pressed her entire body against mine.

I shouldn’t say that. I shouldn’t blame. I know that I’m an adult. I know I should accept responsibility.

But no one deserves to be treated like this.

Once I started moving inside her, I realized something was wrong.

I know how I look and I confess it had been a really fucking long time, but I wasn’t a virgin or anything. I know how the inside of a woman’s vagina is supposed to feel. She had none of the soft fleshiness—I couldn’t even feel a pelvic bone down there. Instead, she was… I’d almost say “rough”, but it was like there was a hard tube ribbed on the sides (Ribbed for her pleasure, my brain told me.)

I looked into her eyes. “What are you?”

Now, only one eyebrow was up as she smiled and wrapped her legs around me to prevent my escape.

Suddenly, the whole room collapsed. The walls fell down and we were in some kind of lab and there were eyes. That was all I could see at first. Like a dozen pairs of eyes moving around the room with quick, darting movements. No. Not all pairs. Some didn’t become pairs of eyes till they turned. Then my vision adjusted.

“Relax,” she whispered. Then she licked my ear.

“What do you want?” I tried to ask. But whatever they had me on was working too well. One more dose and I groaned and spent myself inside her.

I remember hearing them tittering, hissing and croaking in what I can only assume was their native inhuman language.

I know you don’t believe me. I know it sounds like I’m saying I was abducted by aliens or something… But I wasn’t. I was lured into a sexual relationship with lizard people living right here in my hometown.

It had been raining for three days. That was what Vyxen O’Connell noticed. She didn’t watch the news—she preferred to get other people’s spin on it—and she really didn’t care about checking the weather. So she didn’t even really know there was a hurricane.

Of course, as hurricanes go, it was pretty unimpressive. I mean, obviously, if Vyxen didn’t even—not that she was the most observant person, but still. It didn’t rip up trees from their roots. It didn’t flood houses, that she could tell. It just rained. A lot. And she liked that.

But at the end of that one particular day, Vyxen O’Connell was walking home from class just as the reain was about to let up and she happened across an old woman on the ground by the side of the road, curled up in a ball in a coat—a coat made of leaves.

You don’t just see a coat that’s made of leaves and not stop to help somebody.

“Excuse me,” Vyxen said to the old woman, “do you need my help?”

“Bless you, child,” said the woman in the leaves.

Vyxen took the old woman by the hand and suddenly, there were fingers made of wind with a strong grip clutching at her hair and the woman, whose face was a cloud, pulled herself close in to Vyxen, peering at her face. “I know you mock me,” said Hurricane Frances. “You shouldn’t even be out of doors, even this far inland, but I have a little surprise for you.

The hand that Vyxen held was turning blue, and not from the grip.

The old woman whispered in the voice of the wind, “I promise you,” she said. “You will notice me here after I am gone!”

Then the hand in Vyxen’s burst like a water-balloon and the old woman in her coat of leaves fell back down to the ground, blending in with the rain.