by Dhtreichler
“What are you doing to me?” A’zam demands to know.
“Just trying to understand how Jermaine’s little present works.”
“Is that what he calls it? His little present?”
“Actually, he calls it a device, but I didn’t want to burst your bubble.”
A’zam slides down and spreads my legs, kissing the inside of my thighs. With both the touch and kisses I feel myself getting wetter. At this rate he’ll probably have to man the lifeboats when his device is swamped by the amount of moisture I must be releasing in my vagina.
He finds my trigger with his tongue. He starts to stimulate it, at first by running his tongue over it, but then he changes direction and starts to circle it only occasionally running the tongue directly over it. I try not to think about what A’zam is doing to me, wanting to see if the software alone will bring me to an orgasm, but as he shifts his approach he apparently hits different sensors that result in the release of memories of a rising tension. The remembered feelings seem right in proportion to the tension I sense in my body. Good. Oriana got that right too. But then I realize the memories of tension aren’t mine. This is different than I remember, better in a lot of respects. Just different in others. So, Jermaine and Oriana were successful in linking new stored memories to physical triggers detected by the crude sensors we have in these bodies. There’s hope for creating a wider set of sensor driven feelings memories then. But the question is how will it feel when I actually have the release? Will I feel it or only remember a pleasant feeling?
His tongue has found a good spot and I feel the tension rising faster than before, the memory of the feelings of tension are also presenting themselves. It’s not feeling it directly all over my body, but it is clearly better than any build I’ve had since I transitioned. I remember being here before and suddenly A’zam stops and comes to visit. I feel him expanding as he tries to rise over me and put as much friction on my trigger as possible. Yes, I’m wet enough, and he picks up the pace, filling my vagina which now closes down on him so he is getting maximum friction as he tries to not only keep my build going but also his own. He’s going for the trifecta, a simultaneous orgasm the first time without the romancing or even a good amount of foreplay. If he can pull this off he may not need any further versions to hit a home run every time.
But as A’zam focuses on his own build he seems to lose sight of me and he has not been able to re-establish the contact that was creating my build. I feel a relaxation without an orgasm as I’m moving further away from the right spot. And then I feel his release. Between the inflatable device and the software upgrade he has gotten off very quickly. Probably too quickly. I feel him go through the relaxation cycle and he tries to start up my build, but he has lost it completely.
I push him out and over on his side. “What’s the matter?” he asks seemingly surprised.
“Hope you enjoyed yourself.” I know I’m coming across harshly, but I’m not particularly interested in going through the whole Kama Sutra again.
“Do you know what Jermaine used as the feeling memory for the release?”
I’m not particularly interested in the details at the moment. So, I don’t respond knowing A’zam is about to brag.
“Heroin. He used fucking heroin. When the best release comes it’s like a heroin rush.”
“Was this a best release for you?” I inquire, not sure.
“More like a coke rush I’d have to guess. What did Oriana use for your release memory?”
“She didn’t tell me.” I admit.
“I’ll bet it’s the same.” A’zam wants me to think he knows more about what my team is doing than I do. Just like him.
“Does it meet your requirements?” I wonder wanting to clean up since he has vagina liquid all over his device and all over me.
“I really like how wet you got. I have to assume that was Oriana. Probably has no idea how wet a woman gets normally.”
“Why are you so negative about Oriana? She’s done a fantastic job given how little time she had to work on it.”
“My problem is she hasn’t committed to the new life.” A’zam almost sounds angry, but it would have to be a remembered anger since he no longer feels anger. “If she’s waited this long I have to believe she’s not going to.”
“She has until Friday to give me her answer.”
“And you’re not going to push her,” A’zam clearly would, like he pushed me. “Is Jermaine ready?”
“Why are you suddenly so interested in my software team? You don’t want to use them for the immortals project.”
“Who said I don’t?”
“You did, yesterday.”
“I don’t remember that.” Here we go again.
“Do you remember we talked yesterday and you were having trouble remembering things we’d discussed before?”
“Of course. But you were off on some tangent that you thought I might be having a reaction to my last upgrade. I’m not.”
“How do you know?” I ask as he starts circling my nipples with his finger.
“I have a monitor on my watch that informs me of any system issues with me.”
“Why don’t I have one of them?” I’m curious why he never mentioned this before.
“You didn’t ask. You want one, go see Desiree. She can get one for you.”
“What are you doing with Symbol Ventures?” I need to know what’s going on here.
“You’re going to buy them for me.”
“Is the board informed? Has Petra started working the financial markets for us to raise that much equity and debt?”
“No. It’s going to be an all stock deal. A merger of equals, sort of.”
“And this is all arranged?” I’m not privy to anything here.
“No. You’re going to arrange it for me. Go see your friend Beth. She’s the COO now. She can take it to their board.”
“Why Beth and not the CEO?” I’m still lost.
“Fisher doesn’t want to do the deal. As CEO he thinks he can get a better deal than I’ll give him. Said they have hidden value I’m not looking at. So, I gave him a chance. Develop one board. If he can show me the value, I’ll up the exchange rate in the stock swap.”
“So, even though you gave me the assignment to buy Symbol Ventures, you’ve gone in and put a deal on the table.” This is where I remember I should feel anger. But I don’t. It’s still pure logic.
“Friendly conversations to tee things up.” A’zam wants to sound disinterested but he’s not.
I sit up and get on top of him, looking down at him now. “Why were you really in talking with them?”
“To see if they could build one board better than we can. And they did. It’s in you.”
“You’re saying they only built one board. Was it to our spec?”
“I gave them a lot of freedom to innovate.”
“Bullshit. You gave them our spec and then let them improve on it in essence putting them into the immortals business.”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“If you retain your current level of capability or not.”
“What did you do?”
“I put a sunset loop into the logic. I’m waiting to see if they found it or not. So far, it’s looking good for you, but it could collapse any time in the next week. And if it does? Well you stop functioning until I get you a new board.”
I grab his head and start to turn it, hoping to break the connection into his head, but he’s much stronger now than he used to be. He tries to toss me off, but finds I’m not the push over he thinks I am. The advantage of having a man’s body. We wrestle, but neither of us can get an advantage.
“Truce.” A’zam puts his hands up. “We’re immortal, just face it.”
I let go of his head and sit back up but still on top of him. “Why are you doing this?”
“I have to know.”
“What?”
“Whether you’re going to be my partner in this life o
r whether you’re going to continue to resist the new world order you began, even though you didn’t intend to.”
“I’m doing what you want.” I assure him. “Bringing up the immortal teams, integrating them in the points of greatest leverage, positioning us so we can dominate all markets including the immortals market. And I shared the Kama Sutra through with you twice already. What more do you want?”
“I want to know if I can trust you.”
“Trust me? You’re the one who sent our crown jewels to Symbol Ventures. I saw the box. It had Beth’s name on the return.”
“I didn’t.”
“What?”
“I put your board in a box I got from them and let you think you’d discovered something. Your board was built by my team here. And they did make a breakthrough even though they’re not immortals yet. And your board is as good as mine. Good until the next upgrade.”
“Transfer your goddamn team to me today. Or I’m done. I won’t play your games anymore.”
HALF
Of course, the problem is I don’t want to be A’zam’s partner. I need him to trust me. But this whole game he played on me about not remembering. That was just a ploy to see what I’d do if in fact he was disabled. Apparently, I reacted exactly as he expected I would. Take the conservative approach of shutting things down until we know what’s happening. Roll him back to a version where he was normal. I probably only passed because I didn’t take any action against him even though I could have given his behavior.
But what do I think about Dr. Woodall? He installed a board he made me think was from Symbol Ventures. Did he know? He’s the one who started me down the whole road of finding a pathway to keep us human. Was that A’zam too? He needed me, so he came up with a ploy to make sure I didn’t go back to my dying body? Dr. Woodall didn’t want me to either, so he went along? I don’t know what to think anymore.
I wonder what would have happened if I’d called Beth. That would have blown the whole thing because I would have revealed what we are doing in that call, although I’m sure they have some inkling. After all it’s in the goddam Chronicle almost every day. If Moshe is in fact the leak I’ve got to shut him down and that may mean rolling him back and taking away his internet connection. I hate to do that, but I may not have a choice. But then something reminds me that I wouldn’t have reacted this harshly before. If Moshe hadn’t transitioned I’d not be thinking of rolling back an employee. I’d take them off anything important and keep them isolated and under observation. But the most likely outcome is they would be released from the company. Why have I become so much harder on Moshe? Maybe because he betrayed me. I’m not feeling betrayed, I’m looking at it from a logical point of view. He was put into a position of trust – there’s that word – and he abused that trust. A’zam was checking me out to know whether he can trust me. I’ve come to the conclusion I can’t trust Moshe. Will A’zam come to the same conclusion about me if I continue to try to find a path to humanity for us? Will he then decide to roll me back? He as much as threatened that by telling me my board may have a sunset loop.
And now A’zam wants me to contact Beth. Start the discussion so by the time we really begin to flood the market they’ll be receptive to an offer. A’zam told me he did have a conversation with Fisher about us buying them, but that was several years ago, when we were both much smaller. So, the path actually is clear for me to open that dialog, but I don’t think Beth is the right avenue of approach. I’ll need to go to Fisher when the time is right, but Beth can give me some insights that will help when I do make the approach. Only I have to be careful that Beth doesn’t perceive I’m using our friendship to undermine her at her company or take it away from her.
I’m coming to the conclusion A’zam is about Oriana. If she wanted to come across she would have decided by now. The only reason she hasn’t given me her resignation is she feels loyalty to the company. We moved her up much faster than anyone else in the valley would have. She earned it, but still she’s loyal to people and AppleCore is people more than anything else. But I wonder how much longer she will take the exclusion by her team when they are all immortal and she isn’t. When she sees Jermaine doing the job she had and could have kept. She won’t stay as a mortal. She won’t be able to accept that she could have been in charge of the whole thing if she’d made a different decision. A decision predicated on a husband or significant other that wants a family when she doesn’t have either.
Jermaine appears in my door. Oriana is right behind him. They take a long look to see if I look any different. I don’t. “Looks like nothing blew up.” Jermaine observes.
I motion them in. Of course, Jermaine takes my chair at the end of the table and Oriana sits immediately to his left, which would be his right if he was looking at the table instead of my desk.
“Are we interrupting something?” Oriana asks.
I shake my head. I don’t know what to tell them since the orgasm software was merely a test and not the big deal A’zam had made it out to be. Will he continue to pursue my friends? Or was that part of the test to see how I handled it?
“We’ll come back,” Oriana starts to get up.
“Sit, I’m just partitioning a new part of my processor and I want to make sure it’s set up right.”
“That’s bullshit, but all we want to ask is if there’s a scorecard on the software?”
“Heroin?” I ask to see what Jermaine’s reaction is.
“You said it has to be the ultimate. In terms of the research I’ve done it appears heroin is about the ultimate experience you can have. Has a few downsides to a biological entity, but for us it should be no problem.”
“Not us.” I point out. “For immortals.”
Jermaine glances out of the corner of his eye to see Oriana’s reaction which is her head is down and she’s feeling badly again about being excluded from this conversation even though she wrote half the software. “Right. I’m sorry. Still trying to get this all under control, O.”
“Scorecard: you both delivered substantial improvements. I think Oriana did a better job of delivering the requirements. I asked for a courting phase. Didn’t see it.”
“Damn. I told you it wasn’t prime time yet. It was there but it must be easy to override is all I can think.”
“Consider courting an F. Foreplay? Rushed. So, the whole patience criteria wasn’t met either.”
“D maybe?”
“Maybe. Still didn’t do anything for me, so if you’re talking peak experience, you didn’t even get close.”
Oriana can’t wait since I said she’d done a better job, “What about you?”
“No orgasm, so that was a definite issue, but it was all because he lost the bubble going for his own.”
“So, he had one even if you didn’t.” Jermaine wants to confirm.
“Said it was more like stale cocaine than heroin.” I suggest.
“Cocaine doesn’t get stale.” Jermaine informs me.
“Then take that description as an indication it wasn’t even up to cocaine standards.”
“Damn. It was for me.” Jermaine responds.
“And your wife?” Oriana asks.
“She didn’t rate it on a drug scale. Just said it was so much better than it used to be.”
“Meaning when you were working all night and asleep when you were home?” I guess.
“Well, that’s one way you could describe the before.” Jermaine admits.
“So, a lot better but who knows how much,” I suggest.
“You do.” Oriana reminds me.
“Yes, it was better. Good linkage between the feelings memories. Noted some were new as I couldn’t remember them. Got wet at all the right times. So, lots of good things going on. As I said it only sucked because A’zam lost the bubble. The fact the software works like I remember shows how realistic it is. The question is do we want it to have the limitations we have, or should the software push through to the orgasm even if the stimulation fades?”
> “Damn.” Jermaine shakes his head. “And I was hoping I was done with this for at least a while.”
“Nope. You owe me another update by the end of the week.”
“I thought you said this was going to be a fun project.” Jermaine complains. “It’s damn hard to get what you want.”
“What we should all want because if we get this right we have a chance of restoring feelings to the immortal experience.”
“How do we do that?” Oriana is really concerned about this since it was one of the things that caused her reluctance to transition.
“If we can implant feelings memories and can link them to behaviors both of our immortal or by others the immortal encounters then we can restore some of the human interactions we expect.”
“But how many feelings memories are there?” Jermaine notes. “I’m concerned about the scope of what you’re suggesting. This could just go on and on.”
Jermaine has a point I’d not considered yet. I was definitely on my way to getting there, but was still focused on the orgasm limitations. I was hoping for a success that demonstrates the ability to link feelings memories to physical cues. I’ve experienced a crude example of that with my last sexual encounter with A’zam. It worked and generated the desired responses within me. But how proscriptive do we need to be? How do we create a range of experiences that will be satisfying to the range of prior experiences of the Immortals? How do we enable the Immortal to select the experience that is most desired by them? This raises an important question. Will immortals want a continuing expansion of the range of experiences from which they can select? It comes back to boredom. How long does anyone want the same experience? When you only live for less than a century routine may be acceptable for long periods of time. But when you live thousands of centuries, that’s not as likely an outcome. So, we have to create a framework for continuing evolution of choice.