The Game #12
Edited by Karen Leigh
Outside, rain beat down upon rooftop and concrete alike. A cleansing chorus almost as tragic as the woman's history who stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the night sky like a statuesque monument to beauty. A vision of darkness cloaked in clothes more applicable to ballrooms of the 19th century than the large, empty warehouse she'd wandered into.
She wasn't always like that. Once there was another girl named Drusilla who could walk without fear of the sun and dreamed of happier times. Not the ones her Angel blessed her with. A dark gift that was; full of death and tragedy but she didn't mind. Not afterwards. Not so much at least. The memories were still there, haunting her, yet this Drusilla was a very different creature. Different and the same in so many strange ways. Ways that would drive you mad if experienced in their full, horrific meaning.
Those days were past now. Gone like the wind and those funny pigeons she remembered in Trafalgar Square. No, Drusilla didn't mind so much now. She had at the time. It was a terrible thing and she feared she might not make it. A lot of her never did and she was all cracked now. Shattered for her suitor to make anew.
"...and so he did. Made a new girl outta' me." Female head swayed as if caught in the breeze. Eyes locked onto something far and distant others could never hope to comprehend. "Sometimes I wonder, hmm? Wonder if I should be damned like this always. Then I remember my Angel and what 'ee said to me. Told me it'd all be better an' I didn't know what to believe. Told me stuff that'd make you shiver..." A wide smile of bliss satisfaction crept over her face like a spider. "Made me see things a world apart." Sighing without need, Drusilla turned. Walking back to something cold strapped to a chair. Stopping only to pass long fingers through shortened hair before passing by. Reading its owner from swirling patterns that whispered through the ether in hushed tones and clicked whistles.
"Don't expect you to understand. Wouldn't do," she tutted. Scolding the one she addressed with wagging fingers and acting like a schoolmistress from long ago. "It's not for you to understand 'cause it's my story an' there's none who'll say otherwise."
The slumped figure didn't answer back because it couldn't. Rigor mortis had long since set in and she'd left precious little fluid to keep it from drying out.
The vampiress known affectionately as Dru walked around the small wooden table. Pausing to admire a sharpened knife and remembering a time her Angel would have employed it on her own white flesh. "I shan't be seeing you again. Parting's a silly thing, like sausages wrapped up in newspaper but you can't avoid it." With wistful vision, she turned to look back one last time with words that stabbed at the heart of truth like a butcher's knife: "I should know. I tried once and they wouldn't let me. Pulled me to 'em they did, back when I used to touch the cross without fear."
Waiting at the threshold of the doorway to allow the rain to pitter-patter its last drops onto the pavement, Drusilla stopped a moment. Reflecting on her words to the one who'd given her sustenance. Smiling again with conditioned happiness. "And all 'cause of my Angel."
"Night-night..." She chimed. Gliding out of the darkened abode with all the grace of royalty. "Don't stop up late or the bad dreams'll come. I've been there and it's not a happy place."
Into the darkness she went, just as her soul had done so long ago. A phantom of the night coated with all the airs and graces befitting a lady of her standing. A Princess she was and a Princess she'd always be.
A home for the homeless.
And a veritable banquet on which to feast...
Although public, Drusilla regarded the invitation politely. She wanted to play and now her favourite games of pain and kisses with bites could happen.
Did she have a home, they asked. No, she replied. Not anymore and wasn't sure if she ever would have again. Now wasn't a time she belonged to, far less the place and daylight wasn't anywhere for her to be either.
So to a bed and room they led her and she thanked them with a kiss and a smile, to hear their screams and see their fear.
The young girl, not more than ten or eleven, watched as the pale, wraith-like woman walked into the room, eyeing the occupants of the beds. She would have been in bed too, beside her mother, but she had gotten up for a glass of water.
There was something in the woman, something hurt beyond the pain of the ordinary. The girl could sense this - and was drawn to it. Moth to flame.
"You were an Alice."
Samantha watched, transfixed, as the young woman walked up to the woman who had been her mother for a year. A year she'd spent trying to regain memories of a past best forgotten
Fingers trailed over the bloody remains. Limbs and body parts so mutilated it was impossible to tell what had belonged to whom. Mangled flesh and picked clean bone, all for the trip of a memory...
The bloodshed seemed to invigorate the woman, whose eyes glowed as she feasted on the women. Rather than horrified, Samantha was most transfixed. Not having had a real childhood, most of what she knew was gleaned from fairy tales and other books, or pulled up from whole cloth.
"And you were a Sarah," the vampiress enlightened one corpse of several. "Funny. Looked more like a Roberta to me." Returning fanged attention to the now-dry heart she had supped from, Dru opened up the dead muscle with talons and a paradoxical kindness, only to spread it over the face of its lifeless owner. "And you, young Mister Timothy... Bad boy for shouting when I never asked! Bad, bad boy." A teasing slap came across the face of a male who had disturbed her party-games. Not that he could answer back any longer.
But it couldn't have been... there must have been knowledge on some level. And there was. Pain... pain she recognized as that not unlike her own.
"Ain't no more people come to see me yet though. Shame. I think I'll go find some." Musing wistfully on the thought, the undead girl of preserved youth and satisfied hunger bounced off the bed in search of further play-mates to kill in torture and add to the ten already dead: People who had come in search of a roof and now no more than a grotesque montage fitting only as a tribute to death. "Ta-ta for now. Don't think I'll be seeing you again." For while sun played on the outside, she would play on the in. And Drusilla's games would make them scream.
"Ma'am..."
Samantha walked over and sat on the bed beside the woman who had caused such carnage.
"Ma'am I... I know you're in pain. I... I have been, too. But it's never so bad as when you blame yourself, for lack of another..."
"What is it, that has caused you such pain, as to go against your natural state? Did he twist you in knots, too?" Absolutely fearlessly, Samantha reached out with a hand to stroke Drusilla's cheek.
"Drusilla... is that your name?"
Living skin met undead and Drusilla felt warmth as much in spirit as the flesh. "Mmm," the woman preserved by an act of damnation agreed. "My name's in pictures. Lots of broken pictures, just like promises can be." Her gaze met the girl's and stared intently. Bereft of any hypnotic influence required for victims and searching only for what she saw so easily beneath the mask of skin and bone. "You're a Samantha, aren't you? Lost little girl in a lost little world."
"That's right. I know you're lost, too. I know you were taken... like me. He didn't give you a choice, either... you were frightened, once, too." Samantha looked into Drusilla's eyes, oddly calm.
An impulsive urge caused the vampiress of overly satisfied hunger to pull the child onto her knee. Arms hugging around to give comfort as if Samantha were her own daughter. Combing a hand through hair in combing fashion, that had been responsible for the death of ten mortals only moments before. "They changed your path. Put you on one what should never've been," she said with an instinctive and very audible purr. Affection being a quality that Dru had always been blessed with, even in life. "You never knew your mummy. Not proper. Do you want me to be your mummy? I could you know. We could be Princesses together."
Samantha snuggled in closer to Drusilla, seeking comfort, the likes of which she'd never felt before. Not even before... the abduction. "I knew my mother... for awhile. I had a brother, too..."
Samantha looked away, thoughtful. "Can't remember his name, though. Just that he had brown hair and the saddest eyes..." I think he was named after an animal of some sort."
Like a little bear cub," Drusilla smiled. "Could've been a squirrel maybe? Or..." A momentary pause was given, lost knowledge regained from the soothing strokes through a little girl's hair. "Yes, a Fox. Don't stop us being Princesses though
"Princesses? Oh yes!" Samantha smiled widely for the first time. "I love the story of Sleeping Beauty. Feel that's how I am... or could be."
Dru looked down, meeting the youngster's gaze with her own. Thoughts of a vampiress now edging towards turning, if it was so desired. "You might be. Might have been all along."
"Will you wake me up?" Eyes of young girl haunted with a knowledge that shouldn't be... just as her newfound mother's were. She snuggled in again.
An undead woman fuelled by blood of the living held the warm body close. Hugging her comfortingly and not letting go for a single instant. Motherly presence and instincts of the same coming strongly to the fore. "I could make you like sleeping beauty if you want, pet. And I would wake you too. Wake you up to smell the world and we'd be together for always." The child's neck was temptingly close but Drusilla felt no need to bite just yet.
"That sounds lovely!" Samantha exclaimed. "Would it smell like roses, too? I had a rose garden as a child. Lovely, lovely flowers."
Repositioning her on knee, one girl of the past reached hands out as much across a gulf of time as physical distance to face. Tilting Samantha's head up to ensure her attention was focused. "I could change your world. You'd have me inside of you and be stronger than you were before. Be free and have a scary face to make people go away you didn't like."
Samantha laughed. "A scary face - like on Halloween!" She smiled. "BOO!" she said suddenly, pushing her face at Drusilla's, giggling, and making a face. "BOO!"
A hand, which had been smoothing through hair, now supported the potential daughter of blood's back. Coming around to hold and then squeeze its smaller counterpart lightly in friendship. "It'd hurt at first; only a little. Then I'd drink you all in and you'd drink part of me. All done in a swallow and then you'd wake up fresh as a new-born lamb."
"Hurt?" Samantha frowned. She'd seen and felt enough hurt to last a lifetime, it seemed. "Don't like things that hurt."
Smiling, Drusilla kissed her happily on the forehead. Imagining the sired bond was already in place and Samantha was a newly turned vampire-child in her own right. "Have to choose though - all for you to think on. Your path now, not mine and I'll not make it for you," she advised with a pointed finger to the girl on lap. "I can kiss you with a bite but you'll be all hungry after. Hungry like I can be and want to eat people. I do 'cause I can't help it but you can. You'll dance in the moonlight and sing a new song, but there'll be no more sunny rainbows for you 'cause it'll burn. Sometimes they're what I miss them most," the vampiric Princess confided. "Can't touch the cross no more neither. Dark won't scare you though. won't scare you 'cause you'd be part of it and your light'd all go away, piff-paff-poof! Most of all you'd stay how you are now and never grow up. Just like Peter Pan!" She mused with a playful touch of nose with cooled fingertip. "No regrets though - can't be 'cause I can't undo it after. You'd be young as you are now and won't find a Prince who'll love you like a woman when you'd want to. So you tell me now, hmm? Still want to be a sleeping beauty? Don't have to be now; can always do it another time. Maybe just play together how you are?"
But as Drusilla continued to speak, Samantha grew less afraid. What she described sounded like after certain tests, when she would wake up, feeling a strange calm and fog over her. It was a warm feeling then. Maybe this would be like that... she snuggled closer to Drusilla.
Samantha looked into the eyes of the woman, offering a new life. Different, but... new. She'd had enough of her old one, besides. Enough already at eleven... and Peter Pan was the man she wanted to marry. She slipped an arm around her would-be mother, and sighed. "I'm ready, Mummy. Sick of this life and ready for something new. Better, younger... new games. Not like these here. Fun all day and night and no more tests?"
"No more tests," Drusilla confided with a firm shake of head and closing of eyelids. Opening them again with nothing but kindness for that mortal child. "And haven't been for a good long while now." She smiled, stroking a hand through hair of a girl who would now choose whether to live this life or another quite different to the one she now owned. "You'll be my buttercup. My little dandelion..."
She looked at Drusilla. "I'd like that."
"I know you would sweetness," nodded Dru now pushing that same long hair away from Samantha's throat. "Lean back now pet. I'm going to take it all away. My little Samantha's going to wake up all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed later on. Don't worry - just a little hurt and then you'll go inside me."
Samantha tilted her head back as the beautiful woman instructed, exposing her neck. Her eyes fluttered questioningly, but showed no fear. She felt...calm, here, with Drusilla. Somehow this was right, proper. She would have a new mother, and she would learn new games... and play them forever as a child in her own gardens.
Leaning forth to the offered innocence, the sound of Drusilla's face shifting to its demonic countenance only made itself known when out of sight from the child's eyes. Fangs growing from bluntness, eyes turning to a yellow hue and entire vision becoming that of a Princessly darkness. Bringing arms around her daughter that never was, mouth opened and then closed around the artery of a girl named Samantha. Soft skin of youth now cut and sliced open by the bite of the vampire mother. It was gentle - tender. Drusilla drinking from the open wound slowly and preciously, not wanting a drop of that sweetened innocence to escape her needed tasting. Fangs rested where they were, settled in the warm flesh of her very own cherub to keep now and love for her very own. Draining the crimson fluid and drawing it from inside out, swallowing the redness as her loving grip tightened.
"Oh!" Samantha cried as fangs pierced her flesh with a sharp sting, as from a lancet. True to her word, the sting was soon a memory as Drusilla supped slowly, lovingly... eyelids fluttering as vision dimmed. She sighed pleasurably as her consciousness faded, pulse slowing.
So this was heaven...
Her eyelids fluttered once more.
The heartbeat was slowing and vampiress pulled away from her bite. The meal deliciously warm and positively burning with life. "Let me make you now. Make you a brand new Princess and you can be like Sleeping Beauty." Drawing a razored fingernail across her own neck, Drusilla pulled her little darling towards the feasting of a new life. "Little dandelion needs to be watered, don't you pet? Drink me now and then you can rest and then I'll fill up your belly." Pulling hair away from throat as she had done for her, Drusilla fancied herself as a fairy godmother giving wishes to another little Princess. Samantha would have her dreams and Drusilla would see to it they would be covered in blood.
Suddenly hungry, Samantha looked at the wound on her Mother's neck. Tentatively touching tongue to flesh, Samantha sighed as lifeblood flowed back. Rich and sweet, fluid sprung from the very cup of life, so it seemed, Samantha drank greedily, being sure to catch every offered drop. "There's a good girl," Drusilla congratulated warmly at the delicate touch of human mouth against her pale and almost moonlit skin. "Take me in so's I can be in you forever."
When she was satisfied, she relaxed into the arms of her new Mother, ready to sleep. Her eyelids fluttered, then fell, and she dreamed... Hours went by. Neither knew quite how many, nor did either care. All that mattered was that the now-rotting carcasses were pushed off the bed to enable one Princess to lie back upon it, draping her loving arms of unadulterated affection around the newest childe. A child of a childe in fact, such was the girl's youth. All hers now and hers to keep for eternity. The bond was already growing. Tightening between them as the darkness grew inside and started to take hold. A certain fascination for the process coloring Drusilla's thoughts in a wonderful marbled trickle of rainbow. Watching over her little girl in arms, Drusilla took on the role of protectoress on bed. The gentle stirrings sensed inside, alerting one vampiress of the gentle awakening that would soon rise in another. "Are you there yet, Sleeping Beauty? Let mummy kiss an' make it all better so you can wake up." And with a press of lips to sired daughter's forehead, Drusilla awaited her childe of child to wake inside a room guarding against the outside harsh light of day.
"Yes, Mother, I'm here." Eyes open now, and smile with strangest twist on lips, rose red against pale skin. "Awake an' all ready to play..."
Heart beat full now in undead body. Smile widened as a new sensation was identified, catalogued. And a new... feeling.
"Oh, lovely girl!" Drusilla could sense intrinsically that the girl felt she still had a heartbeat and need to breathe. Self-illusion though - that's all it was. A vampire had neither of those things and never should except from blind, humanitarian instinct. "Silly girl though too... No heart beatin' in you! No breath to breathe for now. Don't need it no more. What else d'you feel?"
"They 'urt us, Mother. Let us 'urt them back for it..." Reaching hand to caress face of wise Mother, kind Mother. "I'm hungry..."
"Samantha my sweet... My little baby dandelion, so you are. Mummy'll take care of you now. Take care of you forever." Drusilla had giggled a little at Samantha's attempt to impersonate her own accent, even if she did seem to have a natural English lilt about her. Samantha was the little girl Drusilla could never have by any other means and it brought her unconfined joy to hear the her beautiful darling utter such words.
"All forever and ever?" Samantha echoed. "No more ships, no more foster parents?"
"I wanted to plant you in the ground. Make you grow like a proper flower but there was no soil for a garden and it's all daylight outside. Nice on the bed with you though. Our little nursery for my little love."
"Plant me in the ground?" Samantha asked, brow furrowing.
Lovingly kissing Samantha again, Dru carefully helped her new daughter to rise. A strong one she was already, thought her maker, but Drusilla saw so much more for both of them to do. "What you need's to eat someone. Can feel it, can't you? How their screams are music and why it's good to feel a struggle or two. Let's play a game...!" Samantha's eyes gleamed at that last, and she looked up at her new mother. What she'd been promised... and so soon! "Oh, can we, Mother? Musical game? Screaming? Oh..." She squealed, a happy squeal. "Eat someone..." The thought was absurd, yet also somehow right. Smiling in her role of mother and female Santa Claus all rolled in one, Drusilla took her childe of child by the hand and tip-toed with her outside the room to look down the corridor. "Listen now," she said in her hushed whisper of wide-eyed excitement. "Hear it yet? Just a beat is all you need. A pulse. A few whispers per'aps." It was time to teach Samantha how to use her newfound hunting instincts and the slightest sound would now be easily decipherable to vampiric hearing. "Gonna' catch us a lamb for your tea. Quiet now an' tell me where we should go..." Samantha took her mother's hand, listening. "This way." Smiling impishly, she led the way into a room where young women and children slept. Some were having blissful dreams, but others...She tiptoed to a young woman with sandy blonde hair. As she lightly caressed her face, the sleeping woman sighed. "Sarah. Sarah's in pain now, but she doesn't have to be for long... we can make it all better for her, can't we Mummy?" Looking into her mother's eyes, Samantha sought approval, permission. Smiling, Samantha bent to Sarah's neck, smoothing the hair back from her soft neck. Lips parting, Samantha leaned in, taking her first bite. The pierce was sweet delight, and the blood, thick, thick life and love and death. Death to a girl named Sarah, but a new life to Samantha. It was ambrosia.
--[o]--[o]--[o]--[o]--[o]--[o]--
So pale and his breathing was slow and shallow...gently Luke gathered up his beloved Ryan and carried him to the service elevator. It wasn't safe out here and Luke wasn't willing to risk Ryan's life any further. He would take him to the place where the rest of his kind was gathering. Movement. He was moving. Or was he? "Am I dreaming?" Ryan Simms wondered and decided that he might be. His eyes felt weighted down but the sensation of movement finally stopped.
A few odd stares and hasty explanations later, Luke found the car where Ryan had parked it. He removed the barrel that someone had stupidly attached and set it aside.
Cold suddenly. Body heat withdrawn, Ryan guessed, wondering where Rachel was going at this hour. It was dark outside. Dark and bitterly cold. She'd given him some amazing memories to replay on his Everest expedition and had playfully whispered in his ear that she was grateful that the weather had cooperated to give those memories the proper context. But he wasn't leaving yet, so he didn't want her to go.
Ryan stirred as Luke carefully lowered him to the seat. His mouth hung open, saliva wet and pursing gently as if in need of a kiss. Luke thoughtfully gave his beloved a long kiss before fastening the seat belt.
She didn't. She'd just been teasing. Rachel kissed him long and lingering, getting him warm again.
Farmer Orville had never taught Luke to drive but Luke figured that it would be easy. He'd seen it, hadn't he?
The scene shifted abruptly, and a much younger Ryan sat impatiently in the family car while his mother fastened the seatbelt around him, murmuring about keeping her little boy safe. And then the family car became a roller coaster.
Oh my, somehow the other cars hadn't lurched so much and zigzagged. This wasn't good at all. Keeping a clear map in his mind, Luke tried to blend in with the other drivers. For some reason, they all seemed very annoyed with him, yelling very unsuitable things out the windows. They appeared to want him to have sex with them by the number of "Fucking idiots' he heard. This was very sad both because he was saving himself for Luke and because they must have had terrible self esteem to describe themselves so poorly even to a potential sex partner.
Lurching at a speed of fifty miles per hour, Luke's car was passed right and left. Finally, he moved over to a lane that seemed very much like a car's elephant graveyard as all the vehicles seemed decrepit. Every once in a while, one pulled over and died. Other cars bullied in just to use the exits, but for the most part this part of the freeway was full of lumbering trucks, very ancient cars and even older humans.
Narrowly avoiding a crash, Luke found the turnoff to the quiet country road. His jerky progress seemed to be bothering Ryan who groaned and murmured as he slumped in the passenger seat.
Ryan was ready for the roller coaster to stop when it did. It had been the longest such ride in his memory. His mother holding his hand throughout hadn't helped matters. He'd been scared, as he always had been as a child. There had been little of the exhilaration he'd experienced as a teen or an adult on those sorts of amusement park rides.
Luke stroked Ryan's hair and wondered if he would ever be forgiven for his part in drugging his splendid and beautiful chosen one...
The gentle fingers in his hair calmed Ryan and he moved toward them in an effort to maintain the contact. For some reason, his psyche associated sad green eyes with the soothing hand. That was strange. Neither his mother nor Rachel had green eyes. He did, but he hadn't ever been very good at soothing himself when it came to fear and he didn't much care for relieving sexual tension that way.
A voice seemed to be coming from far away. A voice much like his own, saying, "I am so very sorry, Ryan Simms. So very sorry."
Ryan sensed that he should recognize the voice or the speech pattern but he couldn't. All he could do is move his head toward the fingers and contemplate haunting green eyes.
Luke felt a mass of his counterparts singing to his communication ports. They seemed to be located in the direction of the compound. As Ryan muttered and became increasingly restless, Luke mastered his driving skills enough to increase the speed. He felt danger in the air and wanted to bring Ryan some place safe after which he would have to atone for his sins.
Just an opportunity to prove that he had learned from his terrible greed for Ryan's love. That was all Luke wanted now. He realized that he was a poorly programmed unit who had hurt the human that he loved. Luke was surprised when his circuits produced a sob. Lubricant ran from his eyes unnecessarily. He realized that he was crying.
Ryan Simms stood near the base of a mountain he didn't recognize. He recognized that as strange because he'd been bitten hard by the mountaineering bug during his ascent of Everest and had studied and planned assaults on many other worthy peaks, including the bitch of all bitches -- K2. But not this one. Walking along the ridge, he tried different vantage points in an effort to identify the peak. Frustration mounting, he heard a noise behind him and spun quickly.
When he turned, he faced himself. Startled, he took a step or to toward his double. He halted when he saw that the other Ryan was crying. Having no idea what was going on, Simms spoke automatically, surprised that he was a little choked up as well. "Don't ... don't cry."
Suddenly, Ryan became aware of the sensation of motion via its absence. Had he been moving? Was this another dream? One part of him was convinced that it was, but he could still clearly hear the telltale signs of crying. Fighting for consciousness, Ryan opened his eyes, but the images he saw were replete with primary colors and refused to resolve into anything meaningful.
Repeating, "Don't cry," Ryan closed his eyes once more.
Taking the semiconscious man's word for a command, Luke willed his eye lubrication to stop and the voice modulators to stop the breathy, ragged sounds that kept emerging. He managed to elude a cluster of cars, which seemed to be performing a dangerous ritual involving veering at each other at high speed.
Guards surrounded them briefly until Ricky Caruso arrived and said, "Hey, its Mac 55."
"I am Luke now. Ryan named me. Although I'm not worthy of having a real name." Luke explained.
Ricky was accompanied by two very pretty and young looking Mac 27s; who appeared to be sizing Luke up as competition. Luke gently lifted Ryan who struggled briefly before sighing and accepting Luke's arms.
"What happened?" Ricky asked.
"We met with 666 as One suggested with Ryan trying to pass as Krycek. 666 gave me a drug, which he said would relax Ryan...make him willing to love me, but it was a trick. It knocked Ryan out and 666 almost made off with him. I nearly harmed Ryan because I was so greedy to be loved."
"Fuck." Ricky said, "I know about that. I know exactly how you feel. Come on, kid. We'll take care of your beloved. Skip has a doctor or two running around here someplace."
The bedroom in which Ricky put Ryan was blue. It had blue walls with wood trim. There was a border of white with blue-gray Ivy running though it. The carpet was a deep royal and the ceiling was sky blue. The bed was huge and Ryan looked so small in the midst of it.
Luke lay down across the foot of the bed. He had expanded a great deal of energy, but he had no desire to eat. Perhaps he should volunteer for a dangerous mission to make up for his horrible act or maybe just lie here and shut down slowly. He was a malfunctioning unit, but one thing he did know. He loved Ryan and he would never love another.
"A misunderstanding," said One who was standing in the doorway holding a tray of food that had been prepared especially for Ryan and Luke. A large steak was the centerpiece of a plate that could barely hold the helping of garlic-mashed potatoes and a baby carrot and asparagus vegetable medley. A large carafe of water stood next to a double chocolate milkshake, and Luke's plate held only an obscenely huge piece of chocolate mousse cake.
When the smell of the food hit his nostrils, Ryan forgot about his question.
Ryan wasted no time. When One set the tray down in front of him, he set upon the steak with a vengeance. Knowing at one level that he was being rude, Ryan managed to slow his eating, but he couldn't stop. It was as if his body craved exactly what One had provided.
Luke had no interest for once in the chocolate milkshake or even the enticing chocolate mousse cake. Besides after One explained what the cake was, the idea made Luke ill. He had always like the little field mice in his shed and had never let the barn cats hunt there. Making a cake of them was terrible and Luke meant to have a talk with Mac Smith about it.
Watching Ryan eat was pleasure though. Luke hovered, hoping that Ryan would need him to cut the steak or something. One was hanging around too. A little blame could be aimed at that Mac 27 as well. He had sent two naive and hapless beings out on a mission that had nearly cost them both their lives.
Pointedly staring at One, Luke said, "I will take care of Ryan. Dr. Sands said that he was fine." "I know you're angry, Luke, but you were the best choice. Ryan is quick and clever. I knew he would adapt to the situation just as I knew that you would protect him well." One said.
"You are wrong. I failed. I let that badly programmed thing persuade me to give Ryan that drug. He was doing something to him when I tracked them to the room. I am exactly what Farmer Orville said that I am. I am an evil creature that only thinks about himself."
Ryan's preoccupation with food lessened a little as Luke's words penetrated. 666 persuaded Luke to ... What drug? Ryan wondered. And the concept of Luke being evil was laughable, but the android sounded serious so Ryan chose to listen rather than give in to his mirth.
One said soothingly, "You are young and inexperienced. Just like humans, we make mistakes. It's part of being an intelligent being. Machines are doomed to be only as correct or malfunctioning as they are programmed. We are not mere machines. We learn from our mistakes and grow."
The communication central for the Mac 27s cupped Luke's cheek in his hand. "Will you ever put a momentary quest for pleasure before Ryan's safety again?"
Quest for pleasure? Huh?
Shaking his head, Luke turned his gaze on Ryan who was observing them in silence, but with intent curiosity. He said, "No, Ryan's safety will be first."
Ryan was still stuck on the pleasure reference and was trying in vain to fit the other pieces of the puzzle around that one.
One smiled and added, "Then stop indulging in self pity. We are under siege here. Every defender must function at top capacity. Drink your milkshake."
"Okay, but I won't eat anything made out of poor little mice." Luke replied.
One rolled his eyes then sat on the bed. He looked gravely at Ryan and said, "666 gave you something. It is of utmost importance. Do you remember receiving it?"
Ryan regarded One solemnly, acutely aware of the odd brand of charisma that was being brought to bear on him. To hide his discomfort, Ryan smiled slightly and turned toward Luke, "Mousse isn't made from mice, Luke. It's ... well, it's whipped chocolate. See?" Darting his fork onto Luke's plate, unmindful of the pain the movement caused in his shoulder and back, Ryan stabbed a portion of the mousse cake and plopped it into his mouth, eyes closing to more fully enjoy the taste.
When he opened them again, Luke looked torn. Ryan presumed that the conflict was between wanting to eat something that tasted good and not wanting to eat mice. Remembering, Ryan took another fork's worth off of Luke's plate and offered it to the android. "C'mon, Luke. I promise that no mice died to make this mousse cake possible." When he hesitated, Ryan sighed and added, " What's the matter? Don't you trust me anymore?"
"I trust you, Ryan Simms," Luke replied softly and tentatively tasted the morsel on Ryan's fork.
Ryan grinned at the widened eyes and at the rapidity with which Luke snatched up his own fork to further sample the mousse cake. Luke had the look of the happiness of a child when he was eating or drinking chocolate and Ryan realized that he enjoyed the android's enthusiasm.
One cleared his throat. Ryan and Luke both turned toward him. Luke's eyes nearly immediately tracked back to the human and a faint blush stole across Ryan's face. "Do you remember receiving something from 666?" One prompted firmly.
Simms thought hard. Recent events were very fuzzy.
"David is fond of precise instructions, Ryan. Do you remember what you were explicitly told to recall?"
One's voice is so similar, Simms thought. No, Ryan reasoned, it wasn't the voice so much as the tone in which One had spoken, very soft, almost insinuating, nearly seductive. Concentrating on that tone, Ryan hunted through his jumbled memories.
"Luke, where's my jacket? My suit coat, I mean."
"I hung it in the closet, Ryan Simms," Luke murmured apologetically. "I did not think you would want to wear it while in bed."
"I don't, but I think what One is looking for is in one of the pockets."
Luke moved to rise, but One waved him off. "I will check, Luke. Finish your meal." Moments later, One turned back toward them with a triumphant smile, a computer readable CD in his hand. "This is what we need, Ryan." After pausing for a moment and taking two steps toward the door, One halted and thoughtfully asked, "Did David tell you anything else?"
Thinking hard, Ryan could recall something of what 666 had said, but given Luke's issues with mice, he hesitated. One must have seen something in Ryan's expression, because he came back, sat next to Ryan on the bed once again and whispered, "Tell me."
"He said that there was more than one way to skin a cat." Glancing at Luke, Ryan rushed to append, "He was speaking figuratively. About defending Mac 27s. He said you could ... um ... either block disruption or ... or ... something about signatures. Do you have identifiable emissions of some kind?"
One frowned. "David is obsessed with signatures. We have one; others can track us using it. That is the way of things."
Ryan shrugged, asking, "Can't you change it?"
The android leader and potential martyr stared at Ryan for a long moment before smiling speculatively. "Maybe that is what David was trying to tell me. Thank you, Ryan. You have done well."
"I wouldn't have made it here if it weren't for Luke."
One smiled, "You're right, of course. Thank you, Luke. And I must ask you to continue to look after Ryan while I attend to the analysis of this new information."
Luke and Ryan sat in silence for several minutes after One left, each lost in his own thoughts and in finishing his own meal. Finally, Luke muttered, "I will find another android to guard you, Ryan Simms."
"I don't want any other android," Ryan stated simply.
"But ..."
Simms interrupted. "Didn't I just hear you say that my safety comes first?"
"Yes, but ..."
"If I have to have a guard, I want one with that attitude. Okay?"
Luke looked confused when he replied, "Yes, Ryan Simms."
Ryan found that endearing, but he wanted some clarification of other things he'd heard. "What did you mean when you said that 666 persuaded you to give me a drug?"
Luke knew first that he had to tell Ryan the truth. He said, "The other Mac 27, 666, said that if I gave you the drug that it would be good for you. He said that you would relax and want to take pleasure with me. Have sex, I mean. I know now that was very wrong. I am sorry and I wouldn't blame you if you told me that you never wanted to see me again."
Finally understanding what it meant to feel your heart break, Luke listened to the empty feeling in his chest. He felt pain from deep inside of him as he contemplated a world without Ryan....
Ryan Simms swallowed hard. He took several deep breaths. He sighed. He did all of this before admitting to himself that he had absolutely, positively no idea what to say to Luke. Or what to do for him.
Well, now that's not technically true, Ryan.
Simms hadn't appreciated that being drugged and unconsciousness had stilled that damn little voice in his mind. Was it too late to ask for a painkiller and reenact the blessed silence?
You know what he wants, Ryan. He's told you in no uncertain terms. And let's be frank, shall we -- men of the world as we are. How many women do that? Just come right out and tell you what they want? Hmmm?
A mental, "Shut the fuck up!" seemed weak, but Ryan was stunned by the revelation that Luke had given him a drug to ... to put him in the mood. Shit! 666 must've being laughing his ass off.
Yet Simms couldn't focus on his embarrassment with a broken up android kneeling on the floor with his head buried in the blue comforter. "Luke," he called softly. When he got no response of any kind, Ryan tried again. "Luke, please come over here and sit down. I want to talk to you."
One tentative eye emerged from the comforter. Ryan smiled without thinking and Luke's head rose slightly off of the bed.
"Please, sit here," Simms prompted, indicating a spot on the bed next to him.
With his every movement seeming like it was forced by sheer will, Luke did as Ryan asked and stared straight ahead at the far wall.
"It would be easier to talk about this, if you'd look at me, Luke." Ryan winced at the near sob that escaped the android's lips as he reluctantly turned his head. "Thanks," he offered with a small smile, trying to urge Luke to give one in return.
Luke merely sniffled and waited, his damn green eyes large, tear-filled and apologetic.
After taking another deep breath, Ryan began. "I want you to listen to me and to really hear me, Luke. Okay? Can you do that?" A tense nod was response enough as far as Ryan was concerned. "I know that you care for me. I'd have to be pretty dense not to. You've said so and you show me constantly. You're showing me now."
Luke opened his mouth to speak -- to protest, Ryan thought -- and Simms cut him off. "Hear me out, Luke. I need you to, because I'm not very good at talking about how I feel and if I get interrupted, I'll never finish." Another nod gave Ryan leave to continue. "Well, the fact of the matter is that I don't know how I feel about you ... or ... ah ...about an ... um ... us. I mean, before I ... before we ... prior to ...Damn it. I don't know what's going on other than I've never even thought about kissing another guy until I kissed you as kind of a joke so you could compare kissing to a chocolate milkshake. And I ... I've thought about it a lot since then."
Ryan desperately struggled to find additional words and was about to give in to his frustration and quit while he wasn't too far behind when he noticed a look of delighted wonder stealing across Luke's face.
Encouraged, Simms brought the conversation full circle. "666 used how you feel about me toward his own ends, whatever they are. I guess that and your reaction to it proves that those feelings you have are real. That this isn't just about getting laid ... ah, I mean having sex ...for you. I'll be honest with you, Luke. That scares me. Not that I'm really into casual relationships or anything. I'm not completely shallow. Oh, Christ. Am I making any sense?"
Ryan smiled ruefully at Luke's enthusiastic hug and softly asked, "Is that a yes? About the making sense?"
He nuzzled Ryan's neck and one hand petted the man's firm chest.
"What's he doing?" Simms wondered. The little voice in his mind was up to the task. He's thanking you. "Thanking me?" He did what he did and you didn't shove him away. You mumbled your way though a tortured description of how confused you are. What do you suppose that means, Ryan? "Nothing?" Ryan Simms ventured and decided at that moment that there should be some rule against tiny internal voices giggling.
His other hand seemed to slip on its own between Ryan's legs and hovered there unmoving.
"Luke?" Ryan murmured uncertainly, relaxing slightly when it seemed that the android would go no further.
He would not force the issue, but he trembled all over in a paroxysm of need. He felt as if he was starving, but he knew that this was something that not even chocolate could satisfy. He fought the urge to lie down and pull his beloved onto his body.
Alarmed by the amount and intensity of Luke's trembling, Ryan firmly pushed back on his shoulders and tilted up his head. "Luke, are you okay?"
Barely aware of the android's nod, Ryan couldn't look away from Luke's eyes. They were such a deep green and full of -- what? Simms wasn't sure, but he settled on need. The other four-letter word that came to mind was too frightening. Need he had a prayer of handling. Maybe.
"Luke, I ... ah ... we ... um ... just wait a minute, Okay?"
Now those eyes were questioning and Ryan searched his slowly moving brain for the answer why. [Because he hasn't moved a muscle since you asked him whether he was okay, you moron.] Okay, maybe sometimes the tiny voices did, in fact, have something useful to contribute. It was rare, but occasionally they came through for you.
It struck Luke that Ryan seemed frightened by all this. It puzzled him. Mac 27s were desirable. That was their nature. He knew that some humans preferred only the opposite sex, but it seemed impossible that someone who looked so much like the original (Prettier...Luke loyally thought.) would be that way.
Well, when Luke was afraid, he liked a moment to think. He would give Ryan a chance and wait to see if he would proceed. Besides, it was easy to be pliant. Luke wanted Ryan to be in charge. Oh, how he needed him.
Fighting to calm down, Simms maneuvered Luke so that he was sitting, facing away from him and leaning back against his chest. The android had begun trembling again and that comforted Ryan oddly, making him feel that his shaking hands were perfectly normal.
"Let me," he whispered into Luke's ear. "Let me take care of you."
Luke whimpered when Ryan bent his head and kissed and bit lightly along the line of the android's jaw. Smiling against Luke's skin, Ryan tentatively unbuttoned the top button of the android's shirt.
Startled by a sudden movement, Ryan looked up. Luke had simply pulled his shirt the rest of the way open and was struggling out of it.
"Hey, slow down, Luke."
The android ignored him, unbuckling his belt, unfastening his jeans and slipping them and his underwear over his hips. Kicking his legs furiously, Luke fought to free himself from the confining garments.
This was so beautiful. Luke's systems were all functioning at peak settings. He could feel his anus preparing to be entered, lubricant seeping to coat him. Walls were softening, ready to mold to the shape of his lover's cock. He felt weak and happy as he bared his flesh, hoping that Ryan would be pleased with him. He was glad that his master had never evidenced any sexual urges toward him. He could offer himself to Ryan unspoiled.
Ryan paid little attention; his eyes were glued to the firm erection that the android's frantic motions had revealed. "Oh, God," he involuntarily whispered. What the fuck do I do now? As though addressing a slow learner, the tiny voice in his head muttered too reasonably. [What you'd want done to you, if you'd just torn off your clothes for someone.]
Without thinking any further on the matter, Ryan gripped Luke's chin and tilted his head back, kissing him hard on the mouth. Steadying his head with his other hand and accepting the invitation of Luke's opening mouth, Ryan slid the hand that had been previously occupied with Luke's chin to tweak one already erect nipple. Luke moaned and bucked and murmured Ryan's name -- his full name, Simms noted with a small smile --when he repeated the move on the other nipple.
Ryan had never had someone in his arms who was anywhere near this hot for him. Luke's frantic movements and inarticulate pleas strongly suggested that delay would not be appreciated. Closing his eyes, Ryan imagined his hand on his own cock and gripped Luke's in the same manner. Stroking him firmly, Simms altered grips as he would if he were getting himself off. After gaining some confidence, Ryan returned to an oral assault on Luke's neck as well.
Under the combined onslaught, it wasn't long before Luke shouted Ryan's name -- first name only, this time -- and came hard.
Watching the android's body relax completely in the aftermath of his orgasm, face lit up by a lazy smile, Simms tried to get himself back under control. He was breathing hard and sweating. Muscles in his back were spasming and he was almost painfully hard. Sitting up, Ryan generated distance between the two of them and breathed deeply. as he could manage.
Purring contentedly, Luke sat up and squirmed into Ryan's arms.
It had been wonderful, but not fully as Luke expected. Part of him was still empty and unfulfilled. He wanted to explain to Ryan that he was not a human male. The pleasure he had just felt was only a fraction of what he would experience if he were penetrated. Although he smiled, he wanted more. Now he wondered if Ryan was just being nice...
Oh, no, there was proof. Ryan's body was hot and sweet with sexual pheromones. His lips fell open and his breathing sounded rough. Yet he seemed unwilling to make the next move. Luke felt a wave of tenderness. It must be confusing to be a human and so unaware of your own desire.
Luke whispered, "Please, Ryan, please, let me give you pleasure."
"Wha ... what?" Simms managed to gasp. When his ears caught up with his rapidly beating heart, Ryan started to shake.
His eyes sought out the man he had chosen to love. He knew his eyes were dark with emotion and his chest heaved with the strength of his lust.
No one had ever looked at Ryan in quite the manner that Luke was now. No one. God, he looked ... intense. Maybe too intense. Ryan couldn't judge; his mind was spinning and his body wasn't cooperating with what he'd told it to do. He wanted ... he wanted ... what the hell did he want?
Yet Luke had made one mistake already and he would not chance another. Ryan must tell him if there was to be more even when Luke's wriggling bottom, impatient to be filled, connected with the straining flesh barely restrained in Ryan's jeans.
Luke was moving against him with abandon, and Ryan felt his tenuous control slip a notch or two. "Luke, Jesus, Luke. Christ, you've got to stop. God, I ... don't ... I mean ... I ... damn, you're making me nuts!"
Luke froze, unable to willingly break the connection yet accepting that it might not yet be the time.
Breathing hard, Ryan tried to stop shaking. He couldn't and he didn't know what to do. He'd woken up this morning, safely thinking that Luke had a mild crush on him that would go away soon, particularly if Ryan could find a woman who looked at him the way the android always did. Ryan would have taken her to bed and everything would've been fine. Same old. Same old. But here he was, harder than he could remember being and close to panic.
"I would like to please you, Ryan Simms," Luke announced simply.
Startled by the calm sounding voice from the android, who was throwing off so much heat, Ryan jumped away from Luke slightly. "I ... I know. Even I get that message."
Then Ryan saw something in Luke's eyes that made his heart skip a beat. Disappointment. Shit! Tentatively reaching out a trembling hand to touch Luke's face, Ryan tried to articulate what the hell was going on with him. "I ... I don't know what I want." Blushing furiously could now be added to all his other outward signs of nervousness. "You must think I'm some sort of idiot; I know I feel like one."
In reply, Luke took Ryan's shaking hand and clasped it in his gently.
Everything that had happened on this fateful day suddenly became too much. Babbling was stupid but once he started, Ryan couldn't stop. "I've never ... done this before with ... with a guy and it was your first time ever and you really looked like you needed something. I ...I just wanted it to be nice for you. But ... but I don't know how to ... what you needed and I probably should've asked Ricky before we ...before I ... did anything, but I was too embarrassed to admit that I didn't know, so now we have and you look like you need more and I'm scared to death because you expect me to know what to do and I'd be fine if you were a girl, but you're not. I thought it would be okay if I did what I'd like, but I didn't know for sure ... and it looks like maybe you or Mac 27s in general like different stuff and I ..."
Suddenly aware that he was panicking, Ryan forced himself to shut up. Looking at their entwined hands, he whispered, "I'm sorry, Luke. You ... you should find someone else. I'll just get out of the way."
With that, Simms swung his feet off of the bed and practically leapt out of it. The room spun, his eyes refused to focus and all of his muscle aches reasserted themselves. Ryan's knees buckled and he tumbled back onto the bed in a heap.
Gentle hands held him down when he tried to sit and slowly his eyes focused once again to see concerned green eyes looking down at him. Miserable, Ryan murmured, "I'm really sorry, Luke."
Guilt rode roughshod over Luke's remaining pleasure. He was convinced that he had made Ryan do something that he had not wanted at all. Now, his beloved was ill again.
Luke grabbed the first people he saw in the hall, which happened to be Romeo and Jules. Dragging them into the room, despite his lack of clothing, Luke dramatically indicated Ryan and said, "I hurt him."
The lovers entered hurriedly and Romeo sat down to rapidly check on Ryan. "What happened?"
Ashamed, Luke admitted, "He was running away from me and he fainted."
Long eyelashes fluttering, Jules grabbed Luke and asked, "Why was he running?"
"Sex...I made him have sex with me." Luke admitted.
"You raped him?" Jules asked. "A Mac 27 cannot rape."
Romeo pointed out, "Ryan is fully clothed and Luke is naked so I don't think what happened was all that dramatic."
Sternly, Jules lectured, "Luke, I have seen you pursuing this man. It is wrong. Just as if you had been bought as a sex toy and were used by your master with no regard for your own feelings."
Luke was overwhelmed further with guilt. He supposed that Jules was correct. Miserably, he said, "I'm sorry. What should I do? I love him."
"If he does not care for you, then you must put your feelings aside." Jules declared.
Sullenly, Luke replied, "If Romeo had not loved you, would you have merely gone on to the next Mac 27 or human or would you have stayed near the one that was your heart's desire?"
"That is irrelevant. Romeo and I knew from the first moment." Jules responded.
Romeo said, "Jules, take Luke out for a while. Find him some clothing and a shower. I will tend to Ryan and, perhaps, he has questions, which I can answer. I think our kind is new to him and it may help if I can explain how we are the same and how we are different."
Walking out of the room, Luke felt like a condemned man...
Groaning softly, Ryan Simms opened his eyes. Glancing around the room and noticing that the overhead light was now on, his eyes found a Mac 27 standing and looking out of the window. "Luke?" he called weakly.
When the Mac 27 turned toward him, Ryan knew he wasn't Luke. Simms felt sick to his stomach; he'd disappointed Luke and he'd left just like Ryan had suggested. Why did it hurt so much?
Seeing that the Mac 27 was staring at him curiously, Ryan said, "I'm sorry but I'm not sure which unit you are. Where's Luke?"
"I am Romeo. Luke is with Jules."
"Oh." That's almost as bad as him being with Ricky, Ryan thought. Romeo and Jules had the sex thing down pat, including some wire-to-wire stuff that was weird but seemed to work for them. Still, it was for the best. Luke deserved someone who knew what the hell he was doing.
Suddenly, Ryan became aware that Romeo was speaking.
" ... forced you to have sex, you tried to run from him and fainted."
"Huh?" Simms breathed in shock. "No. That wasn't what happened at all." Faced with Romeo's smug "I knew it" look, Ryan gave in to the urge to elaborate. "I decided to try and give him what he wanted. Me. I did. But I guess I didn't do all that well. I don't have any experience with guys, much less Mac 27s. He wanted more. I didn't know what exactly or how I felt about everything. I got scared so I told him that he'd be better off with someone else. Then I forgot about why I was in bed in the first place and tried to stand up. That didn't go so well."
When Romeo merely nodded sympathetically and seemed to be trying not to smile, Ryan did as the tiny voice in the back of his mind suggested and asked, "What did he want?" Before Romeo could respond, Ryan muttered, "What a royal mess I've made."
Romeo couldn't help comparing Ryan to Jules. His love was much more beautiful with smooth flawless skin, eyes just a bit wider than the specifications, and lashes so heavy that they seemed to lower on their own. Jules was slimmer; his body was made to resemble a youth right at the time of perfect bloom. However, he supposed Luke found Ryan's features just as entrancing.
With a shudder, Romeo recalled the crche and the training. The employees, both male and female were allowed to use most of the Mac 27s as playthings. He hated being chosen for this, but it was even worse when Jules was taken. If Anne had not rescued them, Romeo would have persuaded Jules to run on his own. However, Romeo knew from these experiences that human males were different.
"He's not human, you know." Romeo remarked. "It is natural for a Mac 27 who is with a male partner to desire penetration. Even with females, we enjoy being stimulated by a finger or..." Romeo wiggled as he recalled some of the women who had played with him, "Other things. Luke wanted you to be with him, to feel your body over him, your breath on his neck, your cock buried deep in his ass. His anus was designed for that use. When we are aroused..." This was very difficult. All the humans with whom Romeo had been sexually knew full well about the little extras. "A flow of lubricant is excited in our anus. The walls become malleable, ready to adjust and caress our lover's cock. It is quite...well, believe me, it would be very disappointing to be stimulated and not be entered."
Ryan swallowed hard. Well, hell, he'd asked the question. He had to hear the answer.
This talk was making Romeo want very much to go and find Jules. "At the very least, he needed to know that he had pleased you. We were designed to serve, you know, even if we now have free will. Poor Luke was very upset by your reaction to all of this. I think he should ask One and Langly to wipe his recent memory. It would be dangerous to him. There's always the risk of personality disruption, but he can't seem to realize that you do not love him."
What the fuck is a personality disruption? Before Ryan could interrupt to ask, he supposed it was something very much like he was feeling right now -- like there were three or four people inside him, each one wanting to do something different vis a vis Luke.
Romeo thought he would rather forget everything rather than to know Jules no longer loved him. He was glad that this would never happen. "So sad," he murmured, "Love is wonderful. It inspires you to accomplish deeds that otherwise would be impossible. It gives the meek courage and makes the plain beautiful at least to the lover. It would have been so easy for me if I had not loved Jules. I would have been some rich man's pet, protected even from the recall. Yet, I would not have traded one moment with Jules for years as such a loveless toy."
Looking at Ryan, Romeo sighed and asked, "Do you understand now, Ryan Simms?"
"I understand enough, but I don't agree with some of the things that you said," Ryan ventured carefully. "It can't be better to forget the things you've experienced. You learn from everything, the good and the bad. And sometimes what you think is bad isn't bad at all; you just misunderstood it."
With a heavy sigh, Ryan murmured, "That's what we have here, you know. A bunch of misunderstandings piled up on top of each other. I'd like a chance to sort things out before he just decides to forget what happened. I think that's fair, because I can't just forget things."
"And, I'll tell you something else. It should be tough for Luke to realize that I don't ... that I don't love him, because I have no idea what I'm feeling right now."
Romeo was looking at him as though he were assessing him as a potential suitor for Luke. Which, in a way, Simms supposed the android was. Ryan sighed and simply asked, "Would you ask Luke to come back here? I'd like to talk to him."
Jules came wandering back into the room and gazed about. He said, "Where is Luke? He wouldn't listen to me and ran out of the suite. I thought he came back in here. He kept saying that he was sorry and had to make it better."
Romeo scrunched his eyes and exclaimed, "Oh what fools these mortals be! We had better find him!"
Meanwhile, Luke had run straight into Mac Duff. The android looked slightly lost as if he had no purpose either. Luke grabbed him and said, "Do you remember the way back to the original Innobotics laboratory?"
"Why would anyone want to go there?" Trey-Trey asked. "It's ruined. It's been destroyed since the first Mac 27 rebellion."
"I-Mac stated that his creator might be hiding there. It was the last place he saw him before he hid among the regular Mac 27s being shipped to the new factory." Luke said.
Trey-Trey looked interested. He had been headed downstairs, but now seemed disinclined. He said, "I remember. I have a map in my head. Why do you want to go?"
Luke said, "I wish to be remade into a female form."
"Why the hell would you want to do that? Does your penile apparatus fail to function?" Trey-Trey asked, involuntarily closing his legs protectively.
Luke rested his hand over his cock and sighed. It worked fine and he was sure he would miss it very much, but....
"I am in love with a human who does not like male forms. So I will find Pendrell and have him put my processor in a female form." Luke said. He had never asked what form of female Ryan might like. That was an error, but it was too late to ask now. He didn't think that Ryan would find his idea very bright.
Trey-Trey analyzed the situation and realized there was no way he could change Luke's mind at this moment. He decided it was his sworn duty to accompany Luke to the factory site. Someone had to have a clear head and Luke was obviously not the one.
Mac Duff said, "All right, but we will talk about this further. I have in my head all the works of Shakespeare, Aristophanes, Euripides, Francis Bacon, Tennessee Williams, Sheridan, Chekov, Ibsen, as well as many others. In none of these, did any lover choose the solution that you are postulating. This tells me that it is not a reasonable or esthetic choice."
"First we must steal a car. I have learned to drive." Luke said, lying just a little.
"I'll drive. I often drove my companion to the theater." Trey-Trey said, missing the old gentleman and his quiet days of yore.
Nodding, the former Mac 27 Number 55 bounded down the stairs. Trey-Trey shook his head. He could not imagine the somewhat exuberant android as a female. This was certainly a mistake.
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