Human Sister

present.”
    “Why is that?”
    “We don’t want to frighten or offend him. Let’s wait until he’s nearly as comfortable with you as I am. Let him see to what extent my sense impressions and mental activities can be experienced by you. Let him see how you can take over my motor activities when I relax completely. Give him time. In the meanwhile, you’ll have many opportunities when he’s not present to experience through our braincord the love and pleasure I feel with him.”
    A momentary buzz of seemingly incoherent words and images flooded my brain, which was still connected with Michael’s. Then he smiled, nodded, and kissed me on my lips, as we’d been used to kissing ever since he was born.

    About a half-hour before dinner, I put on walking shorts and headed out to the vineyard, where I hoped to find solitude. As I walked I became aware as never before, not simply of my sexuality, but more expansively of the sensual richness and luminosity of the physical world. The gentle pokes and jabs of blades of brown grass and of clumps of dry, gray dirt made my feet feel free. The sun, low in the sky, felt warm and comforting, reminding me of how my skin had seemed to awaken for the first time on my birthday as it pressed against Elio’s dark silky skin; of how, since then, my clothes felt good in a new way when I put them on; and of how the spray of warm water in a shower now gave me goose bumps of delight.
    I took off my clothes and sat cross-legged on them in the shade of the green canopy of leaves. For about fifteen minutes, I sat clearing my mind. Then, expanding outward with my newly ripened senses, I noticed the world anew. I’d expected the vines would have grown heavier in my absence, but I hadn’t expected them to be so exquisitely filled-out, or the soil so soft and comforting, or the air so sweetly redolent of green. I knelt in front of a vine and ran my fingers from the ground up along its rough trunk, caressing its jagged calluses. I kissed a leaf, feeling with my lips its velvety underside. I licked a small cluster of little green orbs of nascent fruit. I gently wrapped my arms around the vine, hugging its gnarled reality; and then, sensing I was part of life infinitely greater than my own, I looked up at the sky, felt sunshine pour through the leaves onto my back, and pinched dirt between my toes—as my body shivered its own shimmering smile at this precious Earth.

    After dinner that first evening back home, Grandpa came in to visit Michael and me. “So, Michael, how was your day?” Grandpa’s sly smile indicated he’d known that Michael had been full of questions.
    “Elio’s coming to live with us!” Michael burst out. Whenever he became excited his eyes and face twitched like the surface of a puddle quickened by a sudden gust of wind. “Here, with Sara and me!”
    “Elio is coming here?”
    “He wants to,” I said, trying to sound as unconcerned as I could. “He’d like to come live with us and begin his university studies this fall at Berkeley.”
    “Does Elio know about Michael?”
    “Please, Grandpa, sit here,” I said, touching the back of his chair at our study table. “I’ll explain everything.”
    The muscles in Grandpa’s face and neck visibly tightened. I nodded to Michael, and he and I quickly took our chairs across the table from Grandpa.
    “There’s nothing to worry about,” I said. “I remembered that you said I shouldn’t tell Elio about Michael until Elio went to university, but I was confident he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize Michael’s safety.”
    “Jeopardize Michael’s existence ,” Grandpa interrupted. “ Our safety and freedom.”
    “I know.”
    “Do you?”
    “What’s wrong?” Michael asked.
    I shook my head, communicating to Michael not to interrupt.
    “Grandpa, I’m sorry I didn’t do exactly as you’d wanted, but Elio agrees with us about androids, religion—everything. And he wants to help with Michael in any way he can.”
    As in the blueing of the sky at foredawn, the darkness in Grandpa’s face softened, but he didn’t reply.
    “Elio loves me,” I said. “He’ll do anything he can to protect me and everyone I love. You’ll just have to explain the security considerations to him. That’s all.”
    “Let’s hope he listens to me better than you did.”
    I nodded.
    There was another pause in the conversation before Grandpa asked, “How did you communicate this information back and forth with Elio?”
    I