Sally had two plastic tubes that went into her lungs via her mouth, feeding her a steady supply of vitamins and nutrients, and so when we kissed I had to work my lips around them. We created a special technique and as a result our tongues had this one superdeveloped muscle that was lax and flabby on everyone else. It was a small point of pride for us both.

I had set up shop in the clean room. Once I passed through the disinfectant shower, I could wear my regular clothes instead of the white coveralls and facemasks that was S.O.P. for the others. Since Sally and I had already exchanged so much bacteria and DNA, they figured there was really no point in trying to protect us from each other. My job is almost entirely phone-based, so I brought in a card table and my Emerson Multi-Line and a headset and my Rolodex and my laptop and some legal pads and some ballpoint pens and I was good to go. I cannot overstate the importance of mobility in today’s age.

“Doris: The scoop. Uh-huh. Twenty? Make it fifty.” This was me on the phone. “Show some leg and he’ll wilt, D. No I’m kidding. But he’ll think it’s a bargain at half the price.”

Sally had never seen me at work and was curious to suddenly have access to that side of me. I played it up a little bit. I pumped it up a couple of notches. I took to pacing around the clean room, hands behind back except when gesturing (index and fuck-you fingers together and pointed heavenwards, a starting gun) at the disembodied voices in my ear.

I heard Sally typing something on the stenographer’s electronic keypad. I put Doris on hold and freed my right ear from the headset as the robotic voice started to speak:

“Baby-check-out-Morrison-Pharmaceuticals.”

“Morrison?” I said. “That’s yesterday’s news, sweetheart.”

More typing, then: “I-feel-it-in-my-new-head.” Type type type. “Morrison-is-coming-back-something-big.” She smiled around the tubing, then raised the head-end of her Kraftmatic Adjustable Bed to get a better angle on me. She nodded and I once again felt a little dizzy that this woman was focusing her entire attention on me. I unplugged the headset and went over to her, kissing the right side of her neck, moving up until I reached the healing scar behind her ear.

I hustled back to my little desk and reattached myself. “Doris? You still hangin’ tough? Pick up as much Morris Pharm. as you can. Yeah. Do I sound like I’m joking? Get Rico on the horn and buy it up.”

That’s how we found out that Sally’s implant picked up information that nothing else could because, sure enough, the very next day, Morris Pharmaceuticals issued their press release about Diaphynol-19 and by Saturday, Sally’s operation had paid for itself.

I love her so much. So so so much.