“No.” I wanted the ground to swallow me. And I wanted to touch ver more than I wanted to live.

“Neural asex can make people lose track of the messages they’re sending. I thought I’d made everything clear, but if I’ve confused you—”

I cut ver off. “You did. Make everything.” I heard my voice disintegrating; I waited a few seconds, forcing myself to breath calmly, willing my throat to unknot, then said evenly, “It’s not your fault. I’m sorry I’ve offended you. I’ll go.” I began to stand.

“No.” Akili placed a hand my shoulder, gently restraining me. “You’re my friend, and you’re in pain, and we’re going to work this out.”

Ve rose to vis feet – but then squatted down and began to unlace vis shoes.

“What are you doing?”

“Sometimes you think you know something, you think you’ve taken it in. But it’s not real, until you’ve seen it with your own eyes.” Ve pulled vis loose T-shirt over vis head; vis torso was slender, lightly muscled, vis chest perfectly smooth – no breasts, no nipples, nothing. I looked away, and then climbed to my feet, determined to walk out – at that moment, prepared to abandon ver for no better reason than to preserve a desire which I’d always known led nowhere – but then I stood there paralyzed, light-headed, vertiginous.

I said numbly, “You don’t have to do this.”

Akili walked up to me, stood beside me. I kept my eyes fixed straight ahead. Ve took my right hand and placed it against vis stomach, which was flat and soft and hairless, then forced my sweating fingers down between vis legs. There was nothing but smooth skin, cool and dry all the way – and then a tiny urethral opening.

I pulled free, burning with humiliation – swallowing a venomous barb about African traditions just in time. I retreated as far as the tent allowed, still refusing to face ver, and a wave of grief and anger swept over me.

“ Why? How could you hate your body so much?”

“I never hated it. But I never worshipped it, either.” Ve spoke softly, striving for patience – but weary of the need to justify verself. “I didn’t pick you for an Edenite. The Ignorance Cults all worship the smallest cages they can find: the accidents of birth, of biology, of history and culture … and then rail against anyone who dares to show them the bars of a cage ten billion times larger. But my body is not a temple – or a dung-heap. Those are the choices of idiot mythology, not the choices of technolibération . The deepest truth about the body is that all that restrains it, in the end, is physics. We can reshape it into anything the TOE allows.”