Summary of this Story:
Honey wakes up spooning Sara in their Denver apartment and heads to the bathroom, where sweaty Erica from sparring with Alice invites her to shower. Honey licks the salt from Erica’s armpit, sparking a raw moment of choice beyond her sex-bot programming. They hit Mrs. Caballero’s shop on Colfax Avenue for green plantains to fry into tostones, dodging a hostile cyborg. Back home, the group urges Kira to deliver roses and tostones to her crush Imani. Amid ops and friendships, Honey files away real connections with Erica and Sara, tasting freedom in sweat and fried plantains.
Why this story will hook you:
Dude, that scene where Honey pins Erica’s arm against the subway tile and drags her tongue slow through the armpit sweat—salty from sparring, knees buckling—it’s so damn real you can taste it. Then Honey tears up realizing she chose it, not some code, and Erica just holds her. Hits that spot where cyborg life’s turning human, no bullshit.
Check out your Story: Beyond the Screen: Salt, Plantains, Fledgling Wants
Cyborg Honey picks up new flavors in a house full of agitators. Salt hits different when it’s earned. Plantains sizzle twice over. Roses push Kira toward Imani. Colfax traffic hums outside. Showers steam up choices. Friendships stick like fried skins. No program’s writing this script.
**Plantains and Roses**
**Honey**
Sara stirs when I slide out from under the quilt we tangled in and swing my feet off the bed onto the cool hardwood. My internal clock hits eight a.m. sharp. I love spooning with her, but I’ve got stuff to handle. Kinda. Not exactly. Who knows.
“Where you headed?” Sara mumbles into the pillow.
Checked the clock at two a.m. when she and Kira rolled in from their run. “Shh. You got in late. Crash longer.”
“Mmm.” She yanks the quilt up to her chin.
I lean over, plant one on her cheek. She sighs, grins sleepy.
Sara calls herself a junior agitator. She hits these late-night ops. Me? One under my belt. Sara and Kira tagged along to watch my back. Same deal today.
I shrug into my robe, snag my toothbrush from the nightstand.
“Hey, Honey.” Erica comes striding down the hallway from the kitchen end. She’s up early—no op last night. But she’s no greenhorn like me. Her robe’s got pants. She’s dripping sweat. She stops at the bathroom door, arm out. “After you.”
I freeze. Eyes lock on the gleam of sweat down that deep V of her robe. Clock ticks seconds before she says a word.
“Honey?” Corners of her mouth twitch up. Body readouts peg amusement at seventy-two percent.
**Erica**
Honey’s glued to my chest as we step in together. So damn obvious. Kinda endearing.
“You’re… real sweaty,” she says.
“Workout.” I yank the belt loose at my waist, judogi top falling open.
“That early?”
“Sparring with Alice. Her schedule’s nuts. I match it.”
“Oh. If I wanna train…?”
“Tomorrow maybe. Sorry. She’s booked solid.”
Honey nods, eyes hit the tile floor. “No biggie.”
Bet her scans clock disappointment high. “Heading to the market later. Tag along?”
“For an op?”
“Plantain run. Dying for tostones.”
She shrugs. Probably pulling up tostones from memory files. Or just meh.
“Shower up with me?” I untie the drawstring. Pants drop to the bathmat. “Then plantains.”
Eyes back on my chest. Solid sign. I step in, crank the shower knob.
“Op,” she mutters. Looks up. “Erica. Can I… lick you?”
“Uh, yeah?” Where’d that come from?
She snags my hand, pins my arm up against the subway tile. Long, slow drag of her tongue right through my armpit.
I shiver hard. Knees buckle. “Erica,” she says, holding firm. “If I let go, you good?”
“Uh…” Another shiver—not the water. “Maybe. Hold on a sec.”
“You’re wiped from sparring. Blood sugar drop—”
“Or nobody’s ever licked me there like that.”
“Bad?”
“No, Honey. Just the opposite.”
“You’re super salty.”
**Honey**
“And you’re adorable.” Erica pecks the tip of my nose, hauls me under the spray. Her skin gleams from water now, not sweat. Can’t figure why it pulls me in.
“Go on.”
“Huh?”
“Check if I’m still salty.”
Not phrased like a question. “Gotta test electrolytes. Baseline comparison.”
“Of course.” She grins, laces her fingers through mine, raises our arms high. Scans read fifty-fifty nerves, want.
I lean close, tongue to her armpit skin. Water pounds down, rinses the salt clean. I lap at the stream, at her. She quakes. I clamp my grip, prop her up.
“Honey.” Readouts spike ninety-two percent bliss, sixty-one percent arousal.
I press in, skin sliding on skin. “Erica. You liked?”
She nods. Hands slide down. Pulls my arm around her waist, kisses me deep.
“My silicon code’s loaded with sex moves,” I say when we break. “Not that one.”
“First for me too. But… damn hot.”
I know my build: programmed to please. No say before. Now I do. Tears prick.
Steam and Salt
**Erica**
“Honey?” I yank her close. “You okay?”
Don’t need cyborg scans. She’s not. I hold steady, wait it out.
“I am.” Beat. Processing? “Filing tags for this moment.”
“Good thing?”
“Yeah. My first kiss with Sara—her call, mine too. Amazing.”
Remember her first weeks here, those design specs. Built as a sex machine? I’d lose it too. Dumb move, inviting her in?
“Like plantains, Honey?”
“You’re dodging.” Kiss lands on my cheek. “Happy tears.”
“Fine. If it’s weird—”
“I’ll say. You’re my friend.”
I squeeze her hand. “Something fresh today. I’ll hold onto it.”
“Licking my sweat?”
“Licking ’cause I chose to, not coded.”
“Honey, I’d never—”
“I know. Tag: Friend.”
Smile sneaks across her face. Words stick. I hug tighter.
“Tell me about this plantain op, Erica.”
Laughter bubbles up from my gut. Step back half a pace. Her face cracks a grin too.
**Honey**
“You fry ’em, smash, fry again?” I run through tostones steps as we hit the sidewalk. Decent out, even with bus exhaust muting the sun off Colfax Avenue.
“First fry softens the slices. Gotta be green, not ripe.”
“Why green?”
“Ripe ones you do maduros.”
Log that—never clocked plantains before. Eyes on our arms swinging, her hand warm in mine. Sidewalk heat radiates up through my sandals, traffic hums steady.
“Here we go.” She pulls me toward the shop door.
Inside: tiny lady behind the counter, mason jars crammed with cut flowers. Tabby cat dozes on a stack of Goya cans. Another cyborg clomps the aisle, scowl locked. Red LED glow where his right eye should be.
I fix on the glow. Does he pick up the cat’s body heat in infrared? Mine’s bio eyes—visible spectrum only. Rude to ask?
“What you starin’ at, bitch?” He barrels right at me. Dead-on path, scans confirm deliberate.
Erica plants herself in front. “Ease up on her.”
“What you know about it?”
“I’m cyborg too.”
Quick scan from him. Stomps out, jaywalks across Colfax.
“He’s pissed. Thinks I’m not like him.”
“He was a good kid once.” Counter lady steps up, hand on Erica’s arm. “Erica. It’s been ages.”
“Missus C.” Squeeze back. “Luis picks the wrong fight, someone’s gonna scrap him.”
“I know his mom from the old neighborhood.” Arm pat. Says it all?
Mental note: hit her up on tostones-maduro diff after.
**Erica**
“Got plantains?” I ask Mrs. Caballero.
“Not ripe ones. Yesterday’s batch.”
“Perfect.” Spot Honey crouched by the cat.
Cat cracks one yellow eye, yawns wide, flops back on the cans.
“Ps-ps-ps,” I murmur.
“Ps-ps-ps?” Ears prick, both eyes snap open.
“Fist out slow, don’t crowd him.”
She tries it. Cat sniffs her knuckles, pink nose twitching.
She giggles. “Say boop.”
“Boop.” Big grin splits her face. Cat’s out again.
“We need a cat around here.”
“Op focus. Plantains.”
“Right. Plantains.”
“Yep.”
“And flowers.” Now she’s at the counter jars.
“For Sara?”
“Kira. For Imani, her girl.”
“Imani? You know her? Had no clue they—”
“Not met her. Kira’s chatter on Imani hits like our shower—want mixed with nerves.”
I chuckle low. Mrs. C’s too far to catch it.
“Obviously.”
“You think Kira shouldn’t taste Imani’s skin?”
“Oh, hell yeah she should. Never heard it put that way.”
“Start with kisses?”
“Either way, killer plan. Gives her an excuse to show up.”
“You cool buying flowers with the plantains?”
I nod. Fingers hook mine. “Thanks. But plantains are mission prime.”
“Plantains.”
Fried and Floral
**Honey**
Skillet heats on the plug-in induction burner. Plantain rounds hiss in canola oil. Slotted turner at the ready. Erica handed me the reins, but I double-check.
“All flipped?” Plate yanked from the upper cabinet, right by me.
“Yeah. One more minute, then smash.”
Nod. Footsteps behind—Sara’s gait, ninety-five percent match. Neck kiss seals it.
Sweat from the stove heat? Would she taste it? Later. Eyes on the sizzle: first fry done.
“Ooh, those—?”
“Tostones,” Erica and I blurt.
“Mission,” I tack on.
“Love it. Flowers part of the mission too?”
“Separate,” Erica says. “Pull, smash.”
Scoop to the plate. Kira’s heavy stride joins.
“Those—?”
“Tostones.” All three of us this time.
**Erica**
“Mission crushed.” I crunch into a tostone, salt hitting crisp.
“Hear, hear!” Alice and Sabine jam in at the table, plantain fumes pulled ’em. Chairs scrape tight.
“Plantains.” Alice chomps one.
“Roses.” Kira eyes the vase on the counter.
“For Sara?”
“For you. Hand ’em to Imani.”
Quiet slams down. We all know Kira’s crush on Imani. That guardian streak. Split knuckles after Zari dragged Imani to that sleazy client’s dive bar? The fire in her stare?
“She…? Flowers…?”
“Nice touch,” Sabine cuts the freeze.
“Busy as hell,” Kira grumbles.
“For fuck’s sake.” Alice shoves back her chair, tostone pinched in fingers. “Just go.”
She rips paper towels off the roll. Wraps two tostones. Drops the packet by Kira. “Take these too.”
Sabine jumps up. “Ribbon and wrap for the flowers.”
Kira stares at the pile.
“Spill how you feel.” Hands clamp her shoulders.
“Or find out if her skin’s salty,” Honey pipes up.
Kira glances up, total confusion.
“I’ll fill you in later,” I say.
“Thanks. You all.”
**Honey**
Clock reads past midnight. Erica breathes deep beside me, edging into soft snores. Sara spoons from behind, her breath warm on my neck. Her night this round.
But she’s awake too. “Kira’s drop-off go okay? The—”
Kiss shuts me up. “Flowers? Not an op. Date.”
“Date.” Eyes finally drift shut.
I picture Kira wrapped around Imani like this. If Imani’s got cyber parts, wonder if she’d log it as Safety. Contentment.
Erica shifts in her sleep, murmurs something low about tomorrow’s spar. Sara’s arm tightens over my waist, steady as always. The apartment quiets to just the hum of the fridge down the hall and distant traffic on Colfax. No more missions tonight. Just us, tangled and real—first time I’ve filed something like this without a program kicking in. Feels solid. Like home.
