by Roxy Mews
Jon grabbed the file again and shook his head when he got to the flyers in the back. “I think we need to stick close to Paisley on this.”
“Why me?”
“You’re human. You’re the most easily influenced on the mechanics issue.”
“You don’t know me very well. People don’t influence me.”
“I know you better than most.” Jon raised his eyebrows to show her he meant he’d seen her naked.
This was not an impressive feat in Paisley’s eyes. “Lots of people know me in that way, and that’s not the way you really get to know someone. Riding a guy’s joystick to O-town doesn’t mean he knows anything about me aside from the feel of my hip bones.”
Jon didn’t say anything else for a second. He lowered his eyes to her hips and his tongue slid out over his lips to moisten them to a shiny pink. It should be criminal to have soft supple lips underneath all that deep brown facial hair. The hard and the soft together all on one face was really tempting.
It was a shame this guy thought she would betray her friend.
Ben tapped her shoulder to get her attention. “Regardless of how you look naked, which was lovely, by the way…”
Paisley spun her hand in a circle to tell him to get to the point. And to fan herself.
“Anyone looking to take down the robotic rights would prefer to work with a human. They would be more likely to approach you than any of us.”
“Ben, she would not be effective with undercover work. She’s too open. They’d see right through her.”
“I disagree, but it doesn’t matter.” Ben pointed to her as he and Jon talked about her like she wasn’t there. “She doesn’t have to get into the meetings, just be approached. Or find out about someone who is going.”
“I could always plant a bug on someone,” Paisley offered. “If you find someone who you think is a possibility, I could plant one of those sticky sensors Coral makes.”
Coral looked at Quinn fast. “It was for research.”
Paisley could barely contain herself. It wasn’t every day you helped teach a robot to lie.
* * * * *
It took over thirty minutes of—thankfully—talking about something other than having sex for information or how incompetent little human Paisley was before they got back down to business. Coral promised Quinn she would not put bugs in his shower anymore to listen to while she was at work. Paisley tried signaling to her bestie that letting Quinn in on the fact that Paisley had heard recordings of Quinn masturbating was not a good topic. Unfortunately, Quinn reminded her that honesty was important in a relationship and Coral was way too honest.
Paisley had to give props to Jon and Ben for not even batting an eye. It made her wonder how much of their own bodies they shared when they worked over a woman together. They obviously enjoyed women. Although if Jon was a pleasure bot, he might be able to control that too.
But bugs could be used to spy on people for more than just voyeuristic enjoyment, and all agreed they could find out a lot if Paisley got close to someone in the movement to drop a bug on them. Hopefully it was someone who found women attractive. Paisley knew she could work a seduction. Ben wasn’t as convinced.
He leaned forward. “And how exactly do you think you’d get that bug planted in a guy’s wallet? That takes training that you don’t have.”
“Easy.” Paisley wiped her mouth and pushed her empty plate away. “I’d fuck him.”
Ben and Quinn looked at each other uncomfortably. Jon and Coral nodded and accepted this as a completely reasonable course of action.
Jon leaned around her to Ben. “I may have misjudged her. She might work out just fine.” Then he turned his attention to Paisley. “I only wish I was on your list of people to bug.”
“She already placed a device on you. Why would she need to do it again?” Coral asked.
Screwing with the guy was fun and all, but Paisley didn’t want to outright lie. “Knock it off, Coral. Stop messing with the guy.”
“If you didn’t place the recording device on him, who did? I’ve been picking up on the signals since he walked in.”
Quinn jumped up and ran to some kind of fuse box on the wall. He opened it up and checked some of the switches.
“I’ve got the scrambler on. If he’s wired, this stopped the transmission from going out. It wouldn’t stop the signal. You must have picked up on it.” He closed the metal door and pointed to Jon. “Strip.”
Ben went to stand by Jon, who had already stood, and neither of them looked like they were at all pleased with the situation.
“This is ridiculous.” Ben held out his hand to stop a very determined-looking Quinn’s advance. “He’s not wearing a wire. He’s applying for the same rights these idiots want to take away. You’re jumping to conclusions because your girlfriend said she felt something?”
Coral opened her mouth to let her speaker get the best audio feedback. Then she replayed something she’d obviously been dying to show Paisley by the way her lips turned up into a smile as Jon’s words came from her mouth.
“Paisley’s pussy isn’t one you’d forget. I really wish you hadn’t fucked up my mission.”
“Your mission was not about getting in her pants. If that was the goal, I’d have gladly helped.”
Coral closed her mouth to turn off the recording of Ben and Jon’s voices. “I also have access to all past recordings on the device’s memory. Either this was a recent conversation, or the device has a large storage capacity. Do you recall when you were talking about Paisley’s pussy?”
Paisley grabbed some popcorn. “Yes. When did you last discuss my lady parts?”
The productivity went downhill from there.
Jon and Ben talked too quietly for Paisley to hear, but then again, she was probably the only one without mechanically enhanced senses.
Luckily Coral took pity on her. “Please increase your volume. Paisley can’t hear, and it’s rude to speak so only one person in the room can’t follow the conversation.”
“What will me taking off my clothes prove? Can’t you just sweep me?” Jon asked.
Coral leaned over and explained, “They know that Quinn has a bug sweeper as one of his alterations from the Military. They were talking about the plausibility of it being as updated as my software.”
Quinn grabbed the jacket Jon had discarded. A slow steady beep came from his hand as he passed it over the fabric.
“Not here. Hand me your next piece of clothing. If you know what pieces of clothing would have been out of your hands for a significant period of time, I could start with those.”
Jon worked his arms out of his suspenders. He unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans. His shirt went over his head and he kicked off his shoes to pull his feet from the legs of his pants.
Coral leaned in and whispered, “Are you sure you no longer have interest in sex with him? It looks like he has excellent equipment, and with his experience seducing women, I would wager he is quite skilled in orgasm production.”
When Coral whispered in a normal setting it was subtle. When Coral whispered among mechanically enhanced ears, everyone turned to look.
“Coral.” Quinn sighed. “Talking about another man’s dick doesn’t do great things for my ego.”
“Why? I didn’t say I wanted to have sex with him. Paisley deserves to have good sex. And from what she told me, Jon owes her penetration.” She tilted her head and did her triple blink. “He’d be able to adequately manipulate a g-spot with his girth.”
Ben cleared his throat. Jon just put his hands on his hips and stood thoroughly enjoying being on display.
Then they all turned as Quinn began beeping again. The beeps never changed in length or frequency. Quinn pointed to the underwear.
Paisley forgot about the popcorn and blinked a few times to make sure her eyes wouldn’t dry out at a crucial mome
nt.
Sure enough, even when it wasn’t happy to see her, Jon’s cock was an impressive sight. Paisley caught herself licking her lips, remembering the feel of the ridge of his cockhead up against the roof of her mouth. He filled her mouth almost to the point of depriving her of oxygen. She’d loved every stolen breath around him, and even though she shouldn’t, she wanted to do it again.
Just not with him. Not really. It was hard to deny that she wanted a man who was naked and gorgeous in front of her. So, so hard.
Paisley jumped as a finger swiped across her lips.
Ben leaned well inside her bubble. “Stop drooling. He’s only impressive when you haven’t seen mine up next to it.”
Then Paisley really couldn’t breathe.
“It’s in the underwear,” Quinn declared.
He took the garment to the kitchen and dropped it in the sink. He turned on the faucet and let the water push the fabric down a large drain. Paisley was about to ask why he was trying to stop up the plumbing when he flipped the switch and ran the disposal.
It was a mostly quiet sound to start, but then they all heard the grating metal sound that followed.
Noticing Paisley’s look of confusion, Quinn supplied, “It’s an industrial strength model. The bug is crushed and on its way to visit with the fishes.”
Quinn frowned at the attention his visitor’s penis was getting and threw clothes at the mildly excited Jon Bond.
“Am I allowed to get dressed again?” Jon asked.
“I don’t mind if he remains without clothing,” Coral provided and stood to unbutton the top of her shirt. “I could take off my clothing too. I wouldn’t want our guest to be uncomfortable.” She leaned toward him, which did nothing but flash a ton of cleavage his way. “I prefer to be without clothing myself.”
Paisley nearly fell out of the chair laughing. She loved Coral. If only humans would be as comfortable in their skin.
“I want to be the only one who sees you naked,” Quinn said as he got himself close enough to rebutton Coral’s shirt.
“That sounds like you are being possessive. But I don’t recall you two discussing exclusivity or…” Paisley paused for dramatic effect. “Marriage.”
“Why would we have to be married for Quinn to see me naked?” Coral turned in Quinn’s grip, but she didn’t try to take her clothes off anymore.
Quinn moved to place himself between the still-not-dressed Jon and Coral’s peripheral vision.
“He doesn’t,” Paisley said as she tried to lean around Quinn for a better look. “But if he wants a serious commitment, a proposal is a good way to express that.”
“Hmm,” was all Coral said.
She didn’t mention it as they stopped talking about commitments, but Paisley was pretty sure she’d hear her own voice in a recording later.
Sure enough, the guys distracted themselves with talk about where the security at the DMA would have failed. Coral took the opportunity and pulled Paisley aside. She told the men they needed to go to the bathroom together.
Paisley kicked off her heels and went with her friend. “Coral, when you are in your own house, saying you’re going to the bathroom with another girl in tow is not normal—it’s strange.”
“Then how am I supposed to get you alone to talk?” she asked.
“You tell them you need help with something in the kitchen, or that you wanted to show me a piece of clothing you bought recently.” Paisley realized she needed to work with Coral on more than bar etiquette. It had been way too long since the two had hung out anywhere else. And Coral was great bar bait.
“But we only have one room in the cabin.”
“Then you go outside to discuss my penis,” Jon called out.
Paisley didn’t turn when Jon grunted. She knew Quinn would hit the guy for that.
Coral didn’t miss a beat. “Paisley would you come outside to see the skillful way that Quinn stacked the firewood?”
“I’d love to.”
“I could also tell you how lovely his muscles looked when he chopped the firewood without his shirt on.”
The door shut and Coral shivered as they went outside.
“The scramblers and transmission blockers really bother you, don’t they?”
Coral was made of metal on the inside and stronger than pretty much any human being that ever existed. It always bothered Paisley to see her friend get hurt. It was like seeing Thor get a black eye.
“It’s slightly uncomfortable, but it doesn’t activate my pain sensors. It creates static noise in my systems when I pass the barrier Quinn set up.”
“Can’t say I can relate.” Not even close. Maybe it would be similar to chewing on tin foil with metal fillings. Either way… “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“I got a lot more information than I told the men.”
“Like what?”
“The bug was planted by the Anti-Mech protesters. And they did so from inside the DMA.”
“So that means that Jon was without his underwear at the DMA?” That was definitely not part of the protocol for assessment. So unless the man took off his boxers to pee and tossed them into a corner, he’d been doing something very naughty with someone other than her at the DMA.
Coral nodded. “We already presumed it was a group acting with someone at the department of mechanical affairs, but I know that you wanted to have more sex with Jon, or Ben, or both. And I wanted to make sure you were aware that they were naked in a government building the day you processed Jon’s file.”
“Why should that bother me?” Paisley was going for aloof. She could fool Coral when it came to emotions. Paisley never really liked talking about her emotions, so she was good at putting a mask on her face. As long as she wasn’t covering up annoyance. For some reason, she possessed an epic resting bitch face that gave away her hatred of stupidity like nothing else.
“You want to have more sex with them.”
“That would imply I’ve had some sex with them.”
“Oral sex is sex. You said any contact with genitalia and orifices counts as sex.”
“Point, Coral. Get to one.”
Coral gave her head a fast twitch. She pushed herself back. Coral would often disguise her quirks when she was still pretending to be human or had to act more human to please her owner. Now that she had a certificate of humanity, she was her own owner. Giving someone freedom usually gave them the innate desire to raise their finger in the face of what they couldn’t do before.
Coral used certain body movements to help restart or reprioritize her programming commands. She was reorganizing her intended conversation to get to her main point quicker.
“I only want to have sex with Quinn, and if I found out he had sex with someone else it would make me…” She struggled with expressing emotions too. Coral didn’t talk about feelings because she was still learning how to classify them.
Paisley was more in the camp that she wanted to ignore the bad ones in hopes they would go away.
“It would make you mad. Or sad. Or frustrated.”
Coral nodded. “Yes. All of those, but to a higher level of upset.”
“I thought you wanted to talk about Mr. Hottie and Robohippie and sex?”
“It would be inappropriate for me to refer to them by your nicknames, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes. So save it for a time when you really want to tick me off. Coral, you are getting off track. You’re becoming a little too human right now. It’s getting cold out here. Get to the point.”
Normally having your friend press as much skin to yours as possible would be weird. But this was Coral, and Paisley hugged back to enjoy the heaters inside Coral’s body warm them up.
“If you do want to have sex with them, I think you should do so without expectations of emotions and use your skills to get information from them about why Jo
n’s underwear was out of his sight at the DMA.”
Paisley pulled back. “You want me to screw them to get information?”
“Did I insult you? I’m sorry.”
She couldn’t stay mad. “Apology accepted. I’m not going to have sex with them to loosen them up for information. I’m not opposed to planting a bug, but gaining someone’s confidence in such an intimate way to coerce them into a confession seems skeevy.”
“After sex would be the perfect time to gather information. Both of these men have blood vessels in charge of their penile swelling upon arousal. Jon’s pleasure bot status means he has more control over it and some random upgrades that I wasn’t privy to in the file I hacked about him, but they would be distracted once you get them to an orgasmic state.”
“I mean because it’s wrong. Sex should be about fun and pleasure. I don’t want to make sex about work. I have sex to get lost.”
Coral’s head cocked again. “Interesting data. I felt like I found a part of myself when I had sex with Quinn. His data became the most important. I wouldn’t like to be lost. I prefer to be found.”
Paisley went back inside with Coral, wondering what it would be like to find something instead of losing herself in sex.
Chapter Eleven
The car came to pick them all up, and this time Paisley sat next to the door. She didn’t care that she was the smallest. She even took a bit of pleasure when Ben’s head knocked the roof as the car hit a bump.
“We pay for a bigger car next time,” Ben mumbled.
“What?” Paisley had thought that Coral was using a government vehicle to cart them around. It hadn’t occurred to her that the guys were footing the bill.
“Or we could just not bring a passenger with us,” Jon replied.
Rude, but it was an obvious solution to a robot.
“Don’t worry. Coral and I can communicate at work or meeting outside the office on our own.”
The suggestion that Coral had made to sleep with these guys to figure out what they knew was on her mind. Paisley crossed her legs away from them and toward the door. Maybe if she could keep her legs closed and her body language shouting out a big Stay Away, she’d be able to remember that they had just done something involving getting naked at the DMA offices.