by daisy harris
Her center pulsed. A hint of fear shot through her, but Kuri turned away from Frank and lifted her knees up to the seat of the car. Despite the car’s tinted windows, it felt as though any passerby might see her ass raised.
Frank stroked a hand over her rear end, and Kuri could feel her marks under his calloused fingertips. He pulled her thong to the side and drew a line through her moisture. His hand fell to the back of her neck and forced her face down.
She yelped when his cock settled in the crease of her behind. The head of it nestled at her pussy lips for a split second before Frank plowed into her. He bucked so fast she couldn’t hope to keep time. Instead, Kuri arched her hips up and called his name as he got impossibly harder and bigger.
Frank rested one arm along the seat back and with his free hand gripped her shoulder for leverage. He curled into her again. “Always, Kuri. I’ve always wanted you.” His voice was a desperate groan.
When she didn’t respond, his palm landed on her behind again—only a swat. This time for pleasure, not pain. A lovely sense of abandon filled her. She bit her lip. “Yes.” Her strangled whisper filled the car.
He jackhammered into her, the hand on her shoulder pressing her into the seat. Kuri came over and over again, spasming against his dick until it became hard as marble inside her, and so big Frank could hardly move.
He snarled out a sound of deep satisfaction and collapsed on top of her. His big body shook and Kuri felt Frank’s damp forehead on her back. His lips followed, then his hands, as he stroked her muscles and rounded his arms under her ribs to pull her up, maneuvering her inside the tiny space. Frank kissed and cradled her against him. His softening cock slipped from her center.
She snuggled onto his lap. Happiness rolled over her in puffy, billowing waves. Kuri smiled, but even as she opened her mouth to speak, black tendrils wound from the corners of her mind. It was happening again—the gray emptiness. But this time, she didn’t want to forget. “No, no.” She shook her head, trying to force her eyes to focus, struggling to get her mind back in the now. Her body moved of its own accord. She shuffled her skirt down over her reddened behind.
“Doll? “Frank searched her face.
Kuri saw him through a haze of gray and scrolling data. Her consciousness faded, as the glitch in her programming invaded her mind. “Thanks for the ride, Big Man.” A voice spoke. It sounded like her, but Kuri couldn’t control it. “That will be fifty dollars.”
“What?” Frank looked down at his wet dick, still half-hard and hanging out his open fly. Crap, he hadn’t even taken off his pants. “Kuri…? Doll…?” He ducked his head, trying to meet her eyes. Frank knew she’d been with it before, and figured she would remember, but now that her eyes were glazed over and her gaze unfocused he knew she’d slipped into some other mental state. He snapped his fingers in front of her face—maybe if she could focus on him, Kuri would snap out of whatever was taking over her system.
She focused on something in the distance, as if she couldn’t see Frank. Her lip trembled. “If you don’t pay up, I’ll call my makers. They’ll beat you down.”
Frank rubbed his face, confused. He’d seen what she’d been wearing, and felt every inch of her skin under that. She didn’t have a phone, and the way she combed shaking fingers through her hair said that somewhere in Kuri’s programming-addled mind, she knew she didn’t have back-up. His struggled to figure out what she knew of her situation.
“It’s okay.” He bit back his frustration, vowing to never let her out of his sight again at night. Whatever he had to remove from her brain—memories, preferences, heck, maybe even part of her mental capabilities—didn’t matter. He would rip out this thing she was doing if it was the last thing he did.
Frank dug some bills out of his pocket, deciding to play along. He couldn’t reprogram her that night—not with the entire ZU packed in boxes—but Kuri always seemed to wake up aware of who and where she was in the morning.
He just hoped she remembered fondly what they’d done. “Here, doll.” He swallowed the bile in his throat when he handed her money. This part, he hoped with every fiber of being, she’d forget. “Do you have a way to get into your apartment?” Frank looked for his phone to call Shani or Barb. Maybe one of them could come downstairs and escort Kuri back to her room.
Kuri convulsed—as if her electrical system had short-circuited. Her expression went blank for a solid five seconds before a fake and flirtatious smile took its place. The shift was like someone had switched channels on a TV. “Thank you for a good time.” She opened the door of the car and stepped out. A glistening drop of his cum trailed down her leg as she walked away.
Frank climbed out of the car. He wanted to run after her, see her upstairs, wash her with a soapy cloth and set her safely to bed. Instead, he dropped into the front seat and picked up the ZU’s spare phone. He’d forgotten his own in his haste to get to Kuri.
Shani picked up on the first ring. “What the fuck do you want now, Q? I’m off tonight.”
Frank cleared his throat. He listened, and in the background heard girls shouting to each other. “Did Kuri make it inside okay?”
On the other end of the line, Shani hesitated. “Yeah… She’s here.” Shani, Kuri and Barbie always covered for each other.
“I’m not mad at her Shani. I’m just—”
“Worried, I know.” A door closed in the background and then Shani spoke in low tones. “Go easy on her. It’s worse this time. Used to be once a month or less she blacked out. Now it seems like more often.”
“I know.” Frank scraped his nails through his hair. “Listen, just don’t let her leave tomorrow morning until I come get her okay?”
A pause. “You’re not sending Q?”
He wondered how to phrase his response. I’ll be in the area slipped out, which made no sense whatsoever. Except for meetings with other branches of the Zombie Underground, Frank hardly ever left Pike Place Market.
“Um, okay.” Suspicion saturated Shani’s voice, but a male voice spoke in the background, “Tell Frank I say ‘yo’.” Then Shani laughed into the line. “Royce is trying on a new, old-school rapper persona.” Over the line, Frank heard giggling—a sound Frank had never heard the hard-nosed Shani make before she met her boyfriend. Shani returned to the phone, “I gotta go make time with Mr. Gangsta.” A peal of laughter and the line went dead.
Frank pressed his skull into the headrest. His body stank of sweat and sex, but Kuri’s flowery fragrance lingered on his skin. He wanted to rub his shirt on his dick to save the smell of her, in case he never managed to get close to her again. With one last look up at the apartment building, he started the car and eased down the hill and through downtown.
* * * * *
Beep. Beep. Beep. Kuriko stared at the chirping clock. She blinked as bits of the previous night’s events flickered in her memory. With nervous fingers, she felt her way through the folds of her sheets. When her hands failed to meet flesh, she breathed a sigh of relief. Then she flung off her pink comforter and smiled.
Whatever she’d done the night before had at least happened outside her apartment. She waited at the door to the bathroom until the shower water stopped running. “Shani? You almost done?”
“Yep.” The click of the other girl’s door closing signaled that the bathroom was all hers. Kuri slipped off her nightie and turned on the water, feeling the warmth sluice over the skin. She stepped under the fall and soaped up her loofah. After all her years, she’d never looked at her body until after she washed. There wasn’t any telling what might have been left behind the previous night.
Her hand smoothed over her arms and a memory crept up of the argument she’d had with Frank the day before. Kuri could almost feel him gripping her. An image popped into her mind of his one dark hand and one light one clutching her hips and Kuri scrubbed the loofah lower, scraping any possible evidence of her night from between her legs.
A softened bruise on her backside drew Kuri’s attention and she scoffed. As
if it wasn’t enough that she still had a shiner, some jerk probably left a handprint on her butt.
Worst part about that was that it encouraged the next guy to smack her too. In general, Kuri didn’t care. It’s not as if she remembered what happened with men, but she worried that she’d end up in a hospital, discovered to be a stein, and handed over to the police.
She stepped out of the shower stall, wrapped her fluffy towel around her chest and peered in the mirror. Leaning in close, Kuri wiped steam from the glass and spotted not just one, but a whole line of love bites trailing down her neck. Drat. She flicked on the bathroom fan and used her towel to clean the mirror better. Then she twisted her body to check out the damage to her rump. The guy had left swats all over the place, big handprints of fading red.
A memory flitted across her imagination—Frank’s face, his smell. She shook her head to clear the image. She must have been fantasizing about her boss to get through sex and gotten wires crossed in her memory.
Fantastic, now when she saw her boss again, she’d be imagining him hung like a stallion. Kuri wound a towel around her head and kicked away the ripped shirt she’d worn the night before.
Opening her drawers, she rifled through lumpy sweats and drew out her most ragged outfit—the one reserved for late-night movies with Shani. Kuri tugged the loose outfit over granny panties and an old sports bra and wound her hair into a bun without brushing it. Her fingers fumbled with her contact lens case, so she shoved her one pair of glasses on her face. They were black and huge—an old 2030s style. Oh well, Frank just had her packing boxes that day anyway.
When the doorbell rang, Kuri flinched. She felt weird—as if her skin was too tight. Her nerves ratcheted higher when instead of Q-ter, Frank was at the door.
His gray-brown hair was slicked back, and he’d shaved. Three bits of paper dotted bloody nicks on his scars. She scanned to his thick neck, to where the cords of muscle disappeared under a clean, white dress shirt. A purple love bite colored his brown skin. His collar bent at an angle to frame it, as if he’d been trying to show off his badge.
Kuri raised her eyebrows. What, like she was supposed to be impressed that Frank had gotten laid? But she had to admit he cleaned up nice.
“‘Morning, doll.”
She detected a hint of question in his salutation. “Um, good morning, Frank.”
He stood there staring at her with an odd expectation in his eyes. And maybe a hint of fear. “Listen, we should probably talk about what happened. You gotta know I would never do anything to hurt you. Hell, I felt guilty as shit taking you up on it, but I’ve cared about you for a long time. More than you know.” He stopped for a breath, and color crawled up his tan cheeks. Frank looked wild and desperate, and Kuri had no idea why.
Frank stared at her harder. “Oh, and I forgot.” His arm had been behind his back, and he wound it around to show her a bunch of Gerber daisies. Before Kuri’s mind processed what that could mean, her attention darted lower, to the dress slacks she’d never seen him wear. At the juncture of his thighs, unmistakable proof of how happy he was to see her bowed forward in an impressive display.
“Aw hell. I’m sorry about that.” Frank covered his crotch with the darker of his hands. He smiled at her sheepishly.
Oh no.
Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh…fuck no. She snatched off her glasses to press the heel of her hand into her face. “Frank. Tell me it’s not what I think.”
He dropped the flowers. “I didn’t… Aw, crap. I’m sorry.” Frank stepped toward her—as if she’d curl into his arms for comfort.
“Go away.” Kuri gave him a hard shove.
Frank stumbled, tripping over the flowers littering the doorstep. “C’mon—”
She slammed the door so hard the flimsy wall shook. Then Kuri pressed her forehead against the painted wood. She knew he wasn’t going to go away. Frank was the type of guy to stand there stoically until she had no choice but to leave the house.
“I’m gonna wait,” Frank called through the door. “I’m sorry you don’t remember, but nothing bad happened.”
Kuri’s temper spiked. She was covered in bruises and knew most of them hadn’t been there the day before. Humiliation welled up in her chest, forced tears to her eyes. “Bullshit.” She yanked open the door and scowled right in his big, stupid face.
Chapter Four
Kuri looked as if she wanted to tear his parts off and graft them to someone else. She wore a baggy sweat suit and flip-flops. Even though he felt guilty as hell over having sex with her, and worse still that she was angry, Frank smiled that she’d at least changed her shoes.
She poked him in the arm. “I don’t know all the details of what happened last night, but it is never going to happen again.”
Frank rubbed his face—all weirdly smooth from the first real shave he’d done in years. He wasn’t letting her off so easy. “We need to talk about it.”
Her eyes got wide and she frantically shook her head. “No, we don’t. If you want me to keep working for the ZU, you’ll never mention it again.” Her face flushed—a beautiful pink color high on her cheeks.
He wanted to kiss that heated flesh. Frank eased nearer. Her smell wrapped around him, filling his senses, making him nuts. Frank tried to keep the growl out of his voice. “I’m not gonna make you get a full reset. But I think you and I need to schedule some more reprogramming.”
She looked up at him, her eyes narrowed. They stood so close Kuri’s sweatshirt brushed Frank’s chest. “I can’t believe you’d make me get a reset.” She frowned. “To make me forget everything altogether, just so you can stop this one glitch?”
Frank stroked her arm. “I said I wasn’t gonna make you get a reset.”
“That means you thought about it. How exactly do you think you would force me anyway?” She put her hand on her hip and stuck out her chin.
He retreated a step. “Well, you’ve got to admit, running around picking up strange men every night is not exactly normal.” He caught the hurt in her expression too late.
“As if you would know normal.” She rotated toward the door, her shoulder scraping across his ribs. “Let me go.”
He felt the heat of her body through the layers of her clothes, and remembered her soft curves. Frank pressed a hand to the wall, trapping her outside the door, but Kuri didn’t turn around. Her narrow shoulders tensed.
“No.” Frank hovered between wanting to hold her in his arms and wanting to take her over his knee. He bent to murmur in her ear, not missing her sharp intake of breath or the way her skin puckered into goose bumps where her sweatshirt bared her nape. “You’re coming to work. With me.”
She sniffled. “I’m not getting a reset, Frank.”
“Shh… Maybe we don’t have to do it.” He stroked a hand down her back. Frank wove through ways to get more time, more opportunities to not let their new closeness fade to nothing. “You seem better today.”
Kuri snuffled a watery laugh. “Yeah, I look like crap.”
Frank wasn’t sure how to answer. She looked gorgeous to him no matter what. He hedged. “Well, you look different. That’s something. And you didn’t put on your platforms.”
She gazed at her feet. “I guess.” Kuri’s shrug rubbed her against his body. “But I might have changed my shoes before I left for the day.”
He skimmed a finger down her arm, over her baggy clothes. “So come with me now.” When she didn’t respond, Frank touched the back of her hand, daring her to let him lock fingers. “Give me a chance.”
She spun around, knocking off his touch as she rotated. “I won’t let you mess with my system anymore.” She’d complained before about Frank’s reprogramming, but never flat-out told him to stop.
It was a day of change for her apparently, and Frank didn’t want to set her back by arguing. “How about a deal?” He stepped back a few paces, giving her more room.
Kuri cocked her head. “What kind of deal?”
Frank crossed his arms. He didn’t wan
t to give up the opportunity to get her on his table and her brain open for his scalpel. But he wanted something else more. “Spend the night with me.” When she opened her mouth to argue, he rushed to make the deal sweeter in case he needed to negotiate up. “Just one more chance. Maybe you’ll remember more.”
“Frank, I can’t…”
“I saw that you remembered something. There was that second, when you answered the door. I know that you remembered something.”
Kuri paled, her hand fluttering to her hair to comb at a loose strand. “I don’t know if I remembered. I never see more than flashes.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“If you won’t remember anyway, just spend the night with me. It’s safer than you being alone. We don’t have to have sex.”
She scoffed, so he grabbed her hand. “I’m serious. Stay with me. So I can keep an eye on you.”
Kuri bit her lip. “Like I’m a little kid?”
He laughed. “That’s the last thing I see you as.” Frank gave her a smile—trying to be seductive though he didn’t know how. “Think of it as an experiment.”
Her shoulders dropped—the only sign she’d agreed. “Whatever, Frank.” Kuri looked up, giant eyes flashing. “But if we’re doing this, I’m not spending all my waking hours hiding indoors.”
Frank’s nerves strung tight. He knew where she was going with this, and didn’t like it one bit.
Her lip twisted into a challenge. “If you’re going to court me, Frank, you’re going to take me on an actual date.”
The elevator opened on Kuri’s floor just then and Frank rushed to shuffle into Kuri’s apartment to hide. But she blocked his way, keeping Frank prisoner as a lifer passed only three feet away.
His heart thundered in his chest. Frank ruffled his collar, flipping it up to cover his cheeks. He wished he hadn’t left his hooded sweatshirt back at the office. “You know I can’t do that.”