She's kept a few secrets...

"Not that much!" she said defensively. It felt weird to have a normal fight, one that didn't immediately deflate when she collapsed with wracking sobs at the first hint of conflict. "Just a couple of things!"

"Like what?" Brad growled.

"Like... uh, I know! That my arousal is always gonna be at least as high as yours."

"What the fuck? Why would you do that?"

"Well, I guess I wanted to reward you a little," she said as she pulled him closer to her. He resisted, but only slightly. "I know it's been a bit of a dry spell."

The four year anniversary of their last activity had been the previous month. Brad didn't stop to think about why he knew that number off the top of his head. "Dry spell? You're... what, like now every time I get horny you become an insatiable sex ****?"

"Stop saying that," Stacy pleaded. "I don't like that term. That's not what we are, and it doesn't make me a ****. It just means that when you're horny, I'm horny. Speaking of which, though, you are my registered owner. You'll have to confirm, but I had no doubt you will. But a golem registered to you might be a little bit more... obedient."

A beat passed. "...fuck," Brad said. "I sat here and watched you kill yourself, Stace. You even asked for my permission. Fuck!"

He kicked the coffee table hard enough to send it sliding across the floor. "Fuck, I knew it! You're gonna be some mindless-"

"Stop," Stacy said. She knew how to stop a spiral; she'd learned from the best. "Breathe. Feel me."

She took his hand with her good hand and put it on her chest. Brad felt the soft rising and falling of her sternum, the soft flesh of her breast fluid against her ribcage. A shuddering sigh escaped him. They stayed silent for a moment before Stacy spoke again. "It means I'll get satisfaction from doing what you want. I already do because I love you, and it will just be a little stronger now."

"Also, I toned down my grief a little bit. But that's why we're doing this, right? I told you I'll still feel superficial sadness, and I'm tired of being sad. And I made a few quality-of-life fixes, like how I say 'nuclear'."

Brad had teased her for her inability to say the word right for years. Anytime it came up, he would try to goad her into using it in a sentence. Today, though, she enunciated it flawlessly.

"Oh, no, babe, why would you do that? I love the way you say it!" he was beginning to break down again. "What else did you do? What else did you change? Can you please change it back, please?"

He was begging now. She watched him listlessly, with an increasingly hazy eye. "Please, babe, just change it back. Just change it all back, I can't lose you, Stacy! I can't fucking lose you!"

"You're not losing me," she said. "I'm gonna be the same... same as I was. I just gotta do this thing mnow. Noww. I, uh, think it's getting to my brain a lil."

"What did you do to yourself?" he whispered.

"It's in the app..." she sighed. "I feel... so strange. Like, I could have sworn I was right here, but then, it's just... hm."

He stared at her with tears in her eyes. "I know it's hard to think, baby, but can you tell me how to figure out what changes you made?"

"Made? Changes to me-made?" she said twitchily. Her entire arm and part of her shoulder were now slightly blue, as though oxygen-deprived. "It was- it was... maw! oh! fuck, oh fuck, that was fucking... wow!"

"What happened?"

Stacy's grin was far less charming when half of her face was the color of a light bruise. "I'm thinking with dirt!" she laughed. "I think... I think part of my brain is dirt."

Suddenly her left eye twitched upwards while her right eye stared mindlessly straight. It slowly returned to match its counterpart, ending with an unnervingly wide-eyed smile. "I can feel it now, babe."

"I know," he said patiently. "Just tell me how I can track your changes."

"Oh, that?" she said with a chuckle. "There's an app. You should have gotten an invite by now. Now! Now! My. Mind. Is-now. Dirt. Think, I think another piece just conconverted."

"When would this invite have come?" Brad asked as he pulled out his phone.

"Oh, yeah. It comes when, ah, I believe when I put the ring on. Is when it came. Went? I, uh, am kinda really having a... yeah, I forgot to tell you about this part. Huh."

"Tell me what?" he said. "What else haven't you told me?"

"The braiiiin part gets weeiiiird," she moaned. "I don't think it's gonna be a lot of, I don't know, something like, uh... I, uh, think you might have trouble seeing me."

"Are telling me you're gonna fucking turn invisible?"

She stared at him for a second, mouth agape, and he saw her pupils quiver. "No!" she finally replied. "No, I mean, hard to watch! It's hard to watch! Like, it'll be weird and bad and hard and watch and problem. But they said to tell you that I'm actually enjoying it."

"Are you?"

She raised her arm. The faint blue discoloration that had centered around her ring had moved on, leaving smooth, flawless skin from her fingertips to her elbow. In contrast, the tissue from her elbow up to her mouth and across her chest was now discolored. She marveled at her flesh, sensuously closing and opening the fingers as though she'd never done it before.

"Yes."