Touch

Katy was afraid to touch his face. It was a silly fear when she thought about it, it’s just some fake skin, yet she knew what Larry’s face should feel like. It should feel rough when she moves her thumb up and down his chin, smooth when she runs her fingers down his jaw but prickly when she runs them up. His neck and chin should feel like rough sand paper and his lip and sideburns should feel like a sandpaper with a finer grain. He was always clean shaven but his face had so many different textures to it.

Her finger tips remembered.

That was her Larry though.

When her fingers hovered over this Larry’s face she knew it would feel different. She wasn’t ready to feel something different, not when he looked, acted, and sounded much like the Larry she knew. She could back out and she knows this Larry would understand. He was like that. Sensitive, caring, and understanding even though he was a robot.  She wanted to do this though, get over this mental hurdle.

She finally cupped his jaw in her hand and she wanted to jerk her hand back but she refrained. His skin was warm to touch and when she ran her thumb over his skin it felt… strangely like actual skin. It’s soft and squishy and wrinkles in it moved with her finger.  It was also smooth. Completely smooth. As realistic as the texture was it was still some sort of silicone, no hair grew out of it. It of course had artificial hairs placed into it to simulate the natural fuzz that humans had but it wasn’t the same. There was no rough stubble, no sign of a beard that grew, it was...

It was different.

Katy cupped Larry’s face with both her hands and ran her fingers over his skin, over where facial hair should grow on a human. It was all soft and smooth with no roughness to it. She knew it would be soft and smooth, she knew he didn’t grow facial hair, but feeling it filled her with…

Relief. 

She was relieved, she didn’t know she’d feel relieved. She thought she’d be upset but she was so glad his skin felt different.