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© Bryan Beal
The sigh was electronic. Verity could only feel less than adequate as a woman while she perused the perfect specimens before her. How could her sharp lines and boxy body match up to whatever standards her culture deemed worthy of her species? She was at once sick of the conceit and drawn in by the alluring promises that such beauty held for those who attained it. The droid clicked image after image, thousands per second, absorbing every detail.
Her single eye drew it all in. Every perfect curve that she would never have. Every square centimetre of unblemished skin that she would only ever have in her dreams. And yes, Philip, Verity says “no” to your question. She looked at the gorgeous necklines and inviting bosoms that greeted her in every photo and hologram. The hint of something more than would make her truly a woman. She would be seen and applauded. 
There she was. Raven hair and richly adorned lips that told Verity all she needed to know about herself. While she was stark, white and pale, she would never truly feel like a girl. That her very self kept her from accepting herself. If she looked like the girl before her, she would finally know what it was to be at peace with herself and with her own body. She would have cried if she had been built with the capacity to do so. Verity felt all the more miserable indulging in the torment that both sustained and destroyed her soul.
Verity felt no joy. The life had been sucked from her in this swirling cycle of pain and anguish. She closed the connection, feeling worse then when she opened it. She walked back through corridors which reflected her dreary existence back at her. She knew that deep down in her being there was a woman. In her head, she knew. Her dessicated soul was blinded by the glare of society's gaze and judgements.