Ginosko – Chapter 1 [Complete] (Patreon)

Disclaimer: So that this story fits inside of Patreon’s Community Guidelines, it’s been revised so that it occurs in an AU where all the characters are legal adults. This includes the characters not involved in sexual events. Everybody is an adult, without a single exception. Sorry about the inconvenience.

“Ginosko Corp was founded to help, and so we expect you to help our clients: help them realize what we bring to the table and how our Integrated Intelligence Solutions make their world a better place. Thank you for listening to this introduction, and let us, once again, welcome you to the family. To the Ginosko family.”

I stare in what I hope is not visible, dumbfounded disbelief at the screen showing the name of our company. It takes some strain, and I’m briefly tempted to check whether my processors are under a heavy load. Still, my personality (insofar as I can claim it’s mine) doesn’t let me distract myself too much when there are more important matters to attend to.

Namely, glaring at the PR moron who’s looking eagerly proud at that mess of a presentation.

It is with no small measure of satisfaction that I see his look evaporate and be replaced by a noticeable whitening of his face and his hiding his shaking hands behind his back.

At my side, standing to my right, Lawrence does that thing he does when he thinks he is being discreet and not giggling in public.

“The Ginosko family?” I ask as I very pointedly arch my right eyebrow.

Never use too many words when you want to let someone hang himself. The more slack they have to do it with, the more satisfying the snap when they drop.

“I… Uh, I mean, it’s both a figure of speech and a reference?”

I tilt my head, inviting him to continue. He’s either too dumb or too savvy to do so.

Sitting in the office’s sofa, perpendicular to and a bit lower than my desk, Magda winces. Then tries to signal the hypothetically savvy man to knock it off by shaking her head and having her short, almost metallically red hair bounce with the motion.

Poor Magda. Always doomed to disappointment.

“A reference,” I finally say, as neutrally as I can.

“Well, yes.” Sometimes, I wish we could use stress as a source of energy. It obviously is an untapped resource.

And so is stupidity.

“A reference to what, if I may ask?” Come on, Generic PR Drone, take the bait and let us be done with this farce before I get actually angry.

“Uh? Isn’t that obvious?” And now he looks at me like I’m the one with a cognitive impairment.

Great. I can cross ‘savviness’ off his hypothetical profile.

“Enlighten me.”

Lawrence, stop that. You aren’t half as discreet as you believe yourself to be.

“Well, you are Patricia Ginosko.”

“I do seem to remember that, yes.”

He looks at me, obviously expecting a reaction he’s not getting.

Good thing about synthetic bodies? Poker face is not a skill: it’s a feature.

I straighten my back, my long black hair falling off my shoulders with the gesture and flowing down the front of my charcoal grey jacket. The motion subtly emphasizes my already prominent bust, and the utter cretin lets his gaze slip down for more than a second.

Lawrence seems to be having the time of his life.

Time to remedy that.

I pick up the cup of coffee in front of me and pretend to take a sip before making a face and turning my head toward him.

He’s… A man in his mid-thirties, not vain enough to artificially supplement his receding salt and pepper hairline, or maybe smart enough to realize that the more visibly organic he looks, the more a symbol of status his presence beneath me, in a subservient role, becomes. Aside from that, he’s not unattractive: he keeps himself in shape, and his posture is impeccable when he bothers with it.

His eyes are a startling shade of blue, though.

…

Right.

“This has gone cold. Make me a new cup,” I tell him.

He stiffens that tiny bit that means he knows not only is the coffee still at a perfectly acceptable temperature, but that I would only care if I choose to. It’s not like my sense of taste isn’t optional.

Or like this body has any caffeine receptors.

Without a single protest, he turns around and starts the expresso machine. The noise of the compressor working to up the pressure nicely illustrates what I’m currently doing to Generic PR Drone.

Yes, he has a name.

Yes, I have perfect recall.

No, I don’t care.

As soon as the hissing noise of the brewing process ends and Lawrence deposits the new cup in front of me with a perhaps impertinently loud clacking noise, I resume wasting my time.

“I have been hinting at you to explain your thought process, to perhaps marvel at the intricate ways that the human mind can conjure to fuck up so utterly, but it seems you insist on disappointing me, so I’ll have to guess. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

He opens his mouth to protest. I silence him with a pointed look that’s been refined by both kinesics and animatronics experts through three generations of Ginosko sisters. It’s one of a very few, select, trademarked gestures.

It usually does the job.

Magda is hiding her face in her palms. Too much empathy for this workplace.

“You thought you were being clever by referencing the way we, the executive caste, not only wear the name of the company as our own, but refer to each other as sisters. You thought referencing a family unit would make the video for new employees feel more welcoming. And you absolutely pissed off your boss, because that’s the only reason he sent you up here instead of smacking you over the head himself.

“My sisters and I are not your family, and certainly not the family of any intern unimportant enough to waste his time sitting through an indoctrination video. You are never to cheapen the image we project by diluting it, and the fact something so utterly elementary didn’t occur to you beforehand makes me suspect you only got this job because you’re sleeping with the right person.

“I’ll investigate—no, I’ll have someone who can afford to waste their time investigate. Then they’ll send me a nice report, and, at the end of today, both you and your lover with far too low standards will be out of a job. Start wiping your files; I don’t want any trace of your presence on our systems.”

His mouth opens and closes, his cheeks flushed in both outrage and embarrassment, and it’s quite obvious he’s trying to psyche himself up to a scathing rebuttal.

“Now,” I say.

He doesn’t even slam the door when he leaves.

With a sigh, Magda turns off the screen still displaying the last frame of the video I’m considering expunging from my memory.

On the one hand, unlimited storage. On the other, unlimited storage I don’t want to fill with unlimited garbage.

“Was that really necessary?” she asks, looking at me with those doe eyes she always has when a more assertive person would be reproachfully glaring at me.

… Which, it turns out, are far more effective than any glare.

I feel the urge to sigh, because my emotional module is usually linked to my bodily reactions. It’s an issue with all AIs derived from a human seed: we start having trouble if we decouple too much. Something about motion and sensory input being fundamental to the formation of the base personality.

Of all things science fiction writers speculated on, having artificial intelligences being touch starved wasn’t quite on the top ten. Yet here we are.

And it’s even part of my job to care about these damn details.

I finally give in to the urge and let out a long sigh. There are some very intricate, specialized machines inside my shell whose only function is to emulate bodily sensations such as the relief of letting out a long-repressed lungful. I even have a percussive device that mimics a heartbeat.

I can turn it off at will.

I never do. It gives me goosebumps.

And yes, I can disable the goosebumps, but there comes a point where it’s just easier to do an infomorph dive if I really want to get away from my physical senses.

Also, Magda’s still looking at me.

Again, I sigh. It has therapeutically proven benefits, in case anybody asks.

“Look, Higgins wouldn’t have sent him up here if he didn’t want me to fire him. The moron was probably too well connected, which is part of the game, but not when it makes the job harder for everyone else.”

“How magnanimous of you, to care so much for your subordinates,” Lawrence says.

I turn to the side and look directly at him, my eyebrow raised at his deadpan.

“Is there anything you’d like to bring to my attention, Lawrence?” I ask before I get distracted by the startling blue—are those implants? He doesn’t look like the type, but that is a very nice shade, and…

Damn it.

“Nothing at all. Except that your coffee may get cold.”

Catty son of a bitch.

… Note to self: drop a line to the mascot department and see if a feline-canine hybrid is in the works. It could be interesting to target the two key demographics at once.

***

Exhaustion is a fluid concept.

My body can run indefinitely as long as it’s properly maintained and I give it the right resources. A specialized digestive system makes it so most of those can be derived from a standard diet, which is a high-end feature for clients who want to diminish their body dysmorphia as much as possible when they jump to a synth shell—or, more likely, for unrepentant hedonists to keep enjoying any carnal pleasure they may conceive to indulge in.

Low-end shells have to make do with batteries and a frankly disgusting gruel. The marketing department has shot down every initiative to make it more palatable, purely to keep the comparative value of the digestive modules as high as possible.

It’s the kind of petty assholery that may raise a few numbers after the decimal point.

Or that some depraved bastard higher up the corporate chain gets off to when trawling the sexbot department. One of those two.

Anyway, while my body can definitely keep going, my mind is another matter entirely. I’m constantly gathering and processing information at a rate that, while capped by my creators, still induces a certain strain on my engram. Seeing as one of the key functions of my in-built limitations is that I never deviate too much from Elizabeth Belloch, the original executive from which all of my sisters are derived (or that I, God forbid, find a way to overcome my programmed loyalty to the company), a resting period for my mind to integrate the new information and stabilize any changes induced by it was considered vital while developing the executive caste.

All of that comes down to my sisters and I getting really grumpy if we don’t get our beauty sleep.

Which is why I find myself letting out yet another sigh as I slide my ID card on the reader beside the door to my apartment, anticipating maybe a short bubble bath before—

“Hello, Trish,” Lawrence says from my dining room, sitting at my table, still wearing his dark green vest and white shirt, though his sleeves are rolled up, so I can see the definition of his muscles and a lightning pattern running up his right arm—Lichtenberg scars? When did he get electrocuted—

Never mind.

“What the Hell are you doing in my apartment, Lawrence?”

He raises an eyebrow, and points to a coffee cup right in front of him, steam lazily wafting up from it.

“This has gone cold. Make me a new cup,” he tells me.

I stare at him.

And I finally laugh.

“All right, that was funny. Just for that, tell me how you got in, and I may not involve corporate security in this.”

“So, what I’m hearing is that you won’t make me another cup of coffee?” he asks as he stands up.

“Lawrence, it’s been a long day, and this joke is—”

“Doll mode: initiate.”

I don’t answer.

Because I can’t answer.

My pulse races as I start teetering forward, no longer being able to stabilize myself, because none of my muscles are answering to me.

And he rushes and catches me in his arms before I fall, my face smushed against his chest as he embraces me.

…

My ‘heart’ is pounding, my breathing ragged, and my emotional module is a mess.

And I cannot deactivate any of it.

“Hey, it’s all right, I’ve got you,” he whispers in my ear, and there’s such a thrill of fear sparking up my spine…

Then he lifts me in a bridal carry, letting out a slight grunt at the effort, shuts the door to my apartment, and carries me to my blue sofa.

And he lies me down on it, standing once again at my side like he does every day since I hired him, but looking down at me in a way he definitely never has with Magda present.

For just a brief, disoriented moment, I wonder if the kinesics and animatronics department could patent this one look.

“So, Trish, you’re probably wondering how come I’ve got access to a backdoor to a high-end executive model such as yourself. I am, after all, a mere secretary drone. Someone you parade around to tell anyone worth telling that you’ve got your own leashed human serving beneath you.”

He pauses, almost as if he expects me to answer with one of my scathing remarks. When I don’t, a playful smirk flits on his lips.

… Does this “doll mode” enhance attraction? I should be planning how to gut him and get rid of the body, not wondering at his sculpted jawline.

And if it does enhance attraction, what do I do to resist it? To cling to my real reactions when I cannot reach them?

“Well, what you probably don’t realize is that people have lives, Trish, that they have a past, because they don’t come out fully formed out of a factory like you and your ‘family.’”

He unbuttons his vest, slow and methodical, and then does the same with his white shirt.

My eyes seem to be the only thing I can consciously control, and yet I find myself following his every gesture, every twitch of his fingers as the cloth parts and I see the toned body it usually hides.

I feel a flush rise to my cheeks, and I clamp down on it, on the embarrassing sensation of even the slightest hint of attraction to this man who’s holding me captive.

And then he turns around.

Some describe Lichtenberg scars as fern-shaped. They have a rounded, flowing quality to them that merits such words.

The lines crawling out of the puckered circles dotting Lawrence’s spine that cross his back until they reach up to his right arm, though, are definitely lightning.

And my breath catches at the sight.

He stands there for a moment, secure in the knowledge that I’m engraving the sight in my memory, that there’s something about seeing him so grotesquely branded that won’t let me distract myself with other concerns.

Especially when I see the remains of what looks to be a Ginosko implant serial number tattooed right above his tailbone.

Then he turns around and looks down at me with a vacant, empty look that actually manages to shock the fear this situation merits right into my pounding chest.

“A high-end, full dive implant. The kind a regular person needs to save through his whole college education to get if they don’t come right from the top of an elite archology. The kind that gives an edge, but no more than an edge, to the best of the best.

“I was one of those, Trish. One of the best. Care to guess what happened?”

He looks at me, at my wide eyes, and then he whispers a last addition.

“Doll mode: speech granted.”

I feel something inside me unclench, and I draw a deep breath, just relishing being able to do so.

Then I try to scream, and nothing comes out.

He smirks. That same, damnable, infuriating smile he parades around the office whenever he thinks he can get away with it.

I glare at him, and the smirk widens.

Fine. I’ll play along.

“You got into the cyber-warfare unit of the company, got your implant busted while in the line of duty, and got fired because regulations stipulate aural devices don’t cut it. There. Do I get a prize for guessing right?”

There’s a flash of annoyance bordering on anger at my tone.

Then he leans on an arm that’s pressing down the cushion right beside my head, and he lowers his face until his eyes (so, soblue) are glaring right into mine.

“You know what? I think you do.”

And he leans further down and bites the side of my neck.

I gasp, and he softens the nibble, letting out his tongue and wetting my skin until he reaches my ear, intruding on it, the wet, warm sensation making me want to curl my toes, and scream, and push him away, and bite him as—

“Lawrence!”

His free hand snakes between the sofa and my back, lifting my body as he lowers his own and only my jacket and blouse shield me from the heat of his naked chest—

“Lawrence, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” I manage to say without a needy tone tinging my words.

… What?

Then he whispers into my ear, punctuating each word with a lick, a suck, or a nibble:

“Making sure the company compensates me for my time.”

My eyelids flutter, and my nipples get embarrassingly erect.

He holds me tighter against him, making sure I know he’s feeling me, my reaction, and I see his face appear in front of me once more, his infuriating, insolent grin daring me to protest my innocence, to tell him he has no power over me, that my body isn’t reacting to his assault.

“You… Did you code an aphrodisiac, you sick, twisted fuck?!”

“If I told you I did, would it make this hotter for you?”

“What are you even—”

“Doll mode: speech revoked.”

Fuck!

Words rush through my mind, all of them desperately looking for a way to get out, to tell him—

“Doll mode: expressions granted.”

And I glare at him.

It’s not much of an improvement, but I’ll take whatever I can get.

A thought that Lawrence seems to agree with, because now he’s unbuttoning my jacket.

And now my blouse.

“Oh? Didn’t wear a bra today, boss? Were you hoping to catch somebody looking?” he asks with barely disguised mockery.

There are two answers to this: the first one is that I don’t need a bra. My clothes are perfectly tailored to offer me as much support as I want them to, and my flesh is as firm as—

Right. There’s the second answer.

The one he wants to hear, and I’m thankful that I can’t speak at the moment, so I have an excuse not to tell him.

Because it wouldn’t be the first time I parade around the office without a bra, maybe opening a bit of cleavage when we are alone and taking the chance to scold him for inappropriate behavior when I catch him looking.

How long has this been going on? Have I been teasing an attractive employee and getting off on the utterly inappropriate power dynamics, or have I been programmed to do so, my thoughts intruded on by him, his mind molding mine, depositing his twisted perversion on me, seeding my thoughts with his, making me—

So. Fucking. Wet.

Oh God, this cannot be me. Elizabeth can’t have been this much of a twisted freak. There’s no way she could’ve been the legendary figure that she was if she got off on somebody else having this kind of power over her, if she wanted to pant and moan rather than yell and scream—

I am panting and moaning.

Fuck.

Aaaaaand there’s that smirk. Again.

With too much effort, I manage to regulate my breathing. Expression privileges seem to go further than I expected.

“A bit late to do that, you know? Now I can see how much you’re enjoying this.”

I maneuver my eyebrows to succinctly tell him to go fuck himself.

He laughs.

And the worse part of it is how much I want to rub my thighs together.

Something he may have caught onto, because he’s dragging my skirt up and—and now he’s holding my head up just so I can see it, just so I can watch as he rolls the piece of clothing until it’s nothing more than a broad belt.

“I like your taste in lingerie,” he whispers in a warm, wet gust of air that makes me clench down below.

I’ll tear his fucking head off as soon as he lets me.

He raises me up, getting behind me on the sofa, my back against his chest as he starts drawing lazy circles on the bare stretch of thigh between the top of my black stocking and my purple, satin panties.

And I get goosebumps.

Because, of course, I cannot suppress them right now.

… Being an informorph doesn’t sound that bad, after all.

“I know you’re enjoying this. You don’t need to pretend.”

And that should be a creepy line. Something that turned me off right away, but the way he says it…

He knows.

I don’t know how. Maybe he’s wearing AR lenses and monitoring my stats in real-time. Maybe he slipped some custom code that made sure I couldn’t do anything but enjoy it. Or maybe he’s just that good at reading me when I cannot suppress the connection between my body and my emotions.

But he knows.

And it’s so shameful, having him hold me as he makes my body react to his touch, as he makes me feel the way I sometimes yearn to feel when I’m by myself, and the shame gives everything an edge, a… Something. Something wet, and warm, and whispering, something that feels like black velvet beneath the moonlight, that smells like coffee and chocolate… No. That’s him.

He’s surrounding me with his naked arms, and I’m lying on his chest, and his smell is all around me, and I want more. More of it. More variations. More intensity.

I clamp down on the feeling, the yearning, the traitorous part of me. I strangle it, quieten it.

And then he whispers:

“You’re so wet it’s dripping through your panties.”

And the feeling surges.

Another moan escapes my lips, and his fingers travel along the edge of my panties, between the elastic band and the pristine skin beneath, before he lifts it, makes it taut.

And lets it go with a sharp snap that vibratesinside me.

He slides from underneath me and carefully lies me down before looking at me in a way I can’t decipher even with all my training and visual acuity.

“I’m going to let you speak in a moment. Just one word. And I want you to think what that word will be.”

I close my mouth, my cheeks still burning, still vividly displaying how much he’s affecting me.

He doesn’t smirk, but his eyes… Those blue eyes…

“Just one word, Trish: cock, or pussy.”

I blank out.

I can feel the strain, the thoughts accumulating inside me, the sheer amount of possible scenarios that choice, that awful, vulgar, demeaning choice may spell out for me.

I feel the warm wetness between my legs.

And my eyes trail down the line in the middle of his abdomen until I see the bulge straining his pants, with its own damp patch at the tip of something I have sometimes fantasized about causing in him.

“Doll mode: speech granted.”

I swallow the saliva in my mouth. It’s the one that tastes slightly sweet, the one my body was prepared to generate in case it would be used for intimate encounters rather than consumption of food.

I look into his eyes, his deep, severe, beautiful eyes.

“Cock.” The word slips right out of my mouth before I can think about it.

“Doll mode: speech revoked.”

My mouth hangs open, still savoring the last syllable to make it out of my lips, and I can only stare at him as he lowers his zipper, undoes his button and—

I shouldn’t be impressed.

Everybody who can afford it has whatever he wants down there. The absurd obsession with size is now a relic of a past where most people couldn’t experience the reality of a fantasy that could be more uncomfortable than anything else.

But…

But…

He’s so hard.

I can see a network of veins pulsing along the length, along the quivering, dark flesh, and I know I made him like this. That I have excited him to this point, that I have made him want me so desperately, so intensely—

He steps forward, and he’s right before my lips, beneath my nose.

I inhale, and it’s his scent. That deep, dark thing. The heat of a summer night beneath sweaty sheets. The—

I take another breath, deeper, drinking of him.

And I moan.

His fingers trace lines of fire on my scalp from above my ear to my nape, and I know I would be curling my spine if I could, that I would be undulating beneath his touch, his gaze, his eyes—

And then he touches my lips, and my eyes shoot open.

His hand closes around my nape, his grip strong, firm, and then he pulls me to him. But the only way I can get closer is if he goes inside me, if I taste him—

He pushes past my lips, and sparks fly off behind my closed eyelids.

His heat, his shape invading me, marking me, branding me… His scent getting inside me with every breath, the very air tainted by something animal, visceral…

And his taste.

I… I am not a virgin. I’ve done this before.

None tasted like his.

And I know the bastard just messed with my tastebuds so his precum would make me salivate and yearn for more.

Something spasms beneath my navel, and I try to pay it no mind as he drags himself over my tongue again and again.

“Doll mode: interactive loop.”

Wha—

An AR display appears in front me, a grid with moving bodies shown in square windows. All of them have a man and a woman. All of them are…

He moves his hand, and one square is highlighted as he smirks at me with that damn smile—

And suddenly, my tongue is enthusiastically curling around his member as my head travels back and forth. And my hand goes straight to my panties.

“Do you like it, Trish? You can thank the sexbot department.”

The bastard just installed a sexbot menu on me.

And I know how to suck cock like a girl literally built for it.

This is so fucking hot—

Oh God. I need to murder him as soon as I swallow his thick, warm cum—

No. No, Trish, focus, you can’t just let him win. You can’t let him know how much you absolutely crave to taste him, to feel his cockhead stretch out your throat, to feel him gag you as he thrusts in and out of you—

Fuck!

He lets go of my nape, his palm tenderly cupping my head right as the animation makes me turn aside and have his cock go between my teeth, pushing my cheek in and out, making it bulge obscenely.

And then my fingers slip beneath my panties, reach my drenched pussy, and push inside.

…

I didn’t know I could have my sight white out.

I didn’t know I could shake like this, almost vibrating with his cock still dripping delicious fluid along my tongue and my fingers frantically messing up my insides.

I didn’t know I could feel so much more than I’ve ever felt before.

“Already a… oh, fuck… already cumming your brains out, Trish?”

And the pet name, the diminutive, started demeaning, but now his voice is warm, and I see the way his jaw clenches when I flick the tip of my tongue right beneath his glans, and my fingers are drenched, and oh my God, I’m going to murder him as soon as he frees me, but maybe he won’t. Maybe he won’t ever free me, and he’ll just disable my tracking devices, and take me to his home and lock me inside his closet, only letting me out when he wants to stuff me full of his delicious cock, and I could do nothing to stop him, or to stop myself from enjoying every single second—

He pulls back, his cock waving in the air right in front of my eyes, and I manage to mewl a pitiful thing as my mouth keeps opening and closing around something that’s no longer there, my tongue keeps lashing out, and my fingers keep making the haze inside my head grow thicker and thicker.

“I am… I am going to restore your speech. Again, just one word. Just one, and I promise I’ll do what you want.”

I don’t nod, because I can’t. But my tongue waggles in the air, and he keeps looking at it as a fat bead of precum grows on his cock as I desperately try to reach it.

“Right. Right. The words are these, Trish: pussy, or stop.”

My pulse grows heavier, faster, and I can feel my breasts rippling with it as I process what he just said.

“Doll mode: speech granted.”

“Pussy!” I gasp out as soon as I can.

“Doll mode: speech revoked.”

Fuck!

My cheeks positively burn at the utter shame, at the craving I feel for him, and the smirk on his face only makes it worse, even if he’s panting, even if he’s also flushed, even if he’s devouring me with far too blue eyes that don’t hide even an ounce of the desire he feels for me.

There’s a growing warmth above my exposed breasts, and an almost tingle that is my body protesting at not being touched when I so desperately need it.

The grid with the entangled people shows up for just a moment, and he touches another square. My fingers keep frantically fucking me into a stupor, but my mouth stops trying to suck on a cock that just isn’t there.

Then he steps out of his pants, leans down, and kisses me.

I moan into his lips, his mouth, tasting his saliva, swallowing the air he breathes into me, and our tongues entangle as he moves his body over mine, as his heat almost scalds me, as a hand finally cups my right breast, and my eyes close before I realize what I’m doing.

“You’re so beautiful,” he mutters, almost to himself, as his lips briefly leave my own, and he stares at me with those eyes I always notice, always follow, always try to see whether or not they’re on me.

A part of me wants to deny it, to tell him that of course I’m beautiful, because I’m expensive.

Another… Another part is closer to Elizabeth, or I’d like to think so.

And that part isn’t trembling beneath his weight, overcome by sensation and emotion, but just because he’s denied me the chance to do so.

Then a hand that isn’t rough but is definitely bigger than mine grabs my wrist and drags my hand out of my soaked panties.

And he peels them off, even as the satin sticks to me, to my folds, and even as he keeps a hand not under my control from traveling down my body once again.

Then he looks at me as he forces my legs open with his own.

And lowers his hips.

I feel him, so, so close. I feel his heat, and I can almost imagine feeling something else. Something soft about to—

“Doll mode: off.”

My eyes shoot wide open, and he lowers himself, his lips meeting my own in a scorching kiss, his member resting right at my entrance, his arms surrounding me.

“Last chance, Trish,” he whispers into my ear, my name burning when he says it.

I could kill him. Faster than he can react. I could close my hands around his neck and forbid him from ever saying the word ‘doll’ again. From ever talking to me with his insolent tone, from ever turning my long, pretentious name into a syllable that’s a burning ember sinking into my mind and setting it ablaze.

I hug him, pull him down, twist my hips, and feel him enter me.

I stop, just for a moment, just to rest, just to savor, just to—I don’t even know. I just stop.

And he lets me, gently stroking my hair, brushing the long locks off my face, laying gentle kisses upon my brow.

I take a deep breath and force myself to look up at him.

His eyes, far too blue, were waiting for me, warmer than I’ve ever seen them.

“I love you,” he says, and something bursts inside my chest.

But, before I can react or answer in any way, he talks once more.

“And I’m gonna fuck you until you can’t think to ever live without me.”

He presses down on me, and I scream.

My body stretches open at his passage, but everything is far too intense, far more than I ever thought I had gotten used to. I spread my thighs before wrapping them around his hips, hoping to grant him easier entrance, to stop feeling like he’s forcing his way in and leaving nothing but yielding flesh in his wake.

I start saying something, I don’t know what, but he silences me with another searing kiss, and I can only suck on his tongue, desperately drawing more of him inside me.

Then he bottoms out, his pelvic bone pressing down on my clitoris, his glans pushing down on something that he’s just the right length to get at, and my fingers dig into the muscles on his back as he does a little twist with his hips that sends sparks through every sensory system I can link to his presence inside me.

I taste his saliva, so different from mine, so thick as it dribbles inside my mouth, and I drink of it.

I smell him, take a deep lungful of air that carries his sweat, the strain of the evening glistening over his muscles, and I let the piquant note of his arousal seep inside me, only breathing in more and more of it.

I listen to the wet meeting of our bodies, to his chest clapping on mine when he drops down the slight distance that separates us, to his rough panting.

I look at his sharp jawline, at the taut muscles with enough black and white hair to let me know this is his natural body, without cosmetic enhancements I can guess at. But I mostly look into blue, piercing eyes that hold me down with a heavier strength than a whispered ‘doll mode.’

And I feel him.

His heat, his sweat, his trembling, his weight, his…

His cock.

I hook my ankles together behind his hips and pull him even closer until I gasp with my mouth wide open at the way he grinds down on my clitoris.

Then my clawed fingers relax, and I trail down his spine, circling his scars, caressing them, feeling the rough, uneven flesh shift as he breathes and keeps himself over me while holding his weight with his arms.

He leans back, freeing my lips, and just looks at me in a way that makes me ache, and burn, and a thousand things that cannot be regular programming, that must be Elizabeth enjoying herself one last time through this version of her. Because if we could program this, there wouldn’t be any need for other departments. There wouldn’t be any need for anything other than unending nights beneath piercing blue—

Oh god, this is mortifying.

“You just made a promise, remember?” I ask both to cover up my embarrassment and because he just makes me feel the need to fill the silence.

I mean, he’s already filling me.

“You promised me there wouldn’t be any overtime this week,” he says with his dreadful deadpan.

I stare at him incredulously.

“You cannot be bringing that up right now.”

“I think I’m unlikely to find you in a better mood to listen.”

“Lawrence, I should remind you my handgrip is comparable to a hydraulic press.”

“So, you’re saying you’ll be paying me in handjobs?”

“You utter—”

And he pulls almost out.

I gasp, my voice turning into a strangled thing as he drags his member out of me almost completely, the rim around his head caught on lower lips that are snuggly fit around him.

And he pushes back in, and I close my eyes, clench my jaw, and whimper.

He doesn’t stop, doesn’t let me adapt; he keeps thrusting in and out, and I have my legs help him, pulling him toward me with such strength I actually lift myself off the increasingly damp sofa.

He shifts his arms beneath me and hugs me, his palms holding my back as I do his.

I whimper in his ear, and he bites down on my neck.

I clench around him, and he grinds down on me.

Every motion, every reaction, has an answer. Everything I do to him flows back to me in a way I don’t anticipate, but that doesn’t surprise me, as if I’m just falling into a dance whose steps I’ve practiced for years, as if just now I finally found the dancing partner I’d been waiting so long for.

My pulse races, and I wish it was a heart that did it. I wish it was blood pounding on my ears, making my cheeks and chest burn as he brings me higher and higher, as I—

I come.

This time, I recognize it. I feel the cresting wave climbing higher and higher before crashing down on and through me, and I feel ridiculously thankful that he’s letting me curl my toes as I moan his name over and over, the sound a litany that lets me keep a grasp of me, that lets me focus so that there’s something aside from crackling ecstasy, so that there’s someone to feel that ecstasy.

He slows down but doesn’t stop, his hard warmth still spearing me open, still dragging my insides back and forth with every swing of his hips.

And the crashing wave fades into ripples that muddle my consciousness, that ripple in and through me as they grow higher and higher, and—

Oh my fucking God, did he make me multiorgasmic?!

How the fu—

Hn!

Right. Right. Not the time to ponder deep dilemmas. Not while he’s still making me shiver, and pant, and moan, and keep saying his name over and over, and, and—

And he’s going faster.

Is he—?

He is.

He is about to cum inside me.

I feel ridiculously happy at the thought, at the idea of Lawrence filling me up with his seed, of spending himself inside me until every—

“Trish,” he says. And he says it with such hunger…

“Do it. Give it to me. Give me your cum!”

I start slow and seductive; I finish like a moaning, desperate slut.

And that does it for him, because he grinds down on me one last time before his hips jerk and then a spurt of warmth flows inside me, followed by two more, each one of them making me shiver as I tighten my hold on him, on this man who—

“Doll mode: initiate. Doll mode: remove memory block. Doll mode: off.”

My mind surges.

And I look up at my boyfriend in utter wonder.

“Trish? You there?” he asks, concern more than evident in a way a man shouldn’t feel right after blowing his load inside his girlfriend.

I mean, an accident is not quite in the cards for us.

“You worry too much,” I tell him, a hint of tired drowsiness on my tone.

He sighs and relaxes his arms, his full weight finally resting on top of me after holding himself aloft for too long.

“You shouldn’t keep asking me to do this. I don’t like messing with so many memories, and every time I have to tweak more of them.”

“Oh, come on, it’s just been four ti—”

“Five,” he says in a tone that makes a cold shiver run down my spine.

Which is somewhat of an achievement, seeing as I’m still stuffed with his slowly deflating cock and his satisfyingly thick seed.

“I… Wasn’t the last time on that company retreat, when you broke into my hotel room?”

“No. The flight back from Tokyo.”

“That didn’t count! You didn’t modify my memories; you just stuffed a generic air stewardess fantasy package and had your way with me!”

“If you don’t remember we are together and think I’m forcing you, it counts!”

I glare at him, at the worrywart who keeps indulging my dubcon fantasies.

“Fine. But the point is I remember all of it, so, no memory damage. Stop making a thing out of this.”

He glares back, and I can tell there’s something going through that devious mind of his.

Which I should hope so. I didn’t hire an elite hacker just so he could look pretty in the tight vest that passes as the male company uniform.

Well, not just because of that.

“Look, what if I came up with something else? Something that scratched the itch without touching your memories?”

Without meaning to, I clench around his no longer deflating member.

“What did you have in mind?” I ask, tilting my head and biting my lower lip as I lid my eyes.

He drops down, and his whisper is, once again, pure heat on my ear.

“You’ll find out soon enough…”

I clench around him, he bites my neck, and I prepare to spend a night with perhaps a tad too little sleep as he gets me ready to fulfill the promise he made during—

…

“Did you just tell me you love me?” I ask, incredulously, as he sucks on my right nipple and makes my toes curl once again—

He looks up at me, at my burning cheeks, my wide eyes.

Right before looking down at the breast he’s tending to.

“Lawrence! Don’t ignore me!”

He sucks on my nipple just as he flicks it with his tongue, and I moan.

“You’re going to tell me properly…” I finally grumble.

And then I lean back and allow my boyfriend to do with me whatever the Hell he wants.

As usual.