by Trent Evans
He’d finished it off by constructing a crude gag from a strip of cotton fabric. He’d forced it between her teeth, then tied it off behind her head. He’d used another one of those cotton fabric strips to blindfold her as well. He was surprised at the hardness of his erection at the sight of her so utterly helpless, loving the fact that the gag almost instantly had her drooling, the way her head darted from side to side as if by some miracle she’d be able to see anything but black. He supposed she could probably see narrow strips of light from below the imperfect blindfold; he’d have to think about improving that. Part of him almost saw it as an affront; if he wanted to deprive her of her sense of sight, then that is what would happen. Period. But it would more than do for the time being.
Reinforcing her helplessness, emphasizing the fact that she relied on him for everything — that was the purpose. It both reinforced her status to her, and aroused him. The surge of dark, possessive lust surging within him at that thought surprised him with its pure, animal strength.
If it made his cock hard, he was going to try it. After all, this wasn’t a human being, was it?
The hatch to her shuttle hissed as the station’s atmosphere equalized with a newly purged one of the shuttle’s interior. It held the telltale acrid note of recent disinfecting, one that was reassuring.
It was a standard, nondescript shuttle, essentially a cylinder about ten meters long, with a small emergency propulsion plant. Aside from the grav chairs — it could accommodate up to four — it also had one emergency hyper-sleep chamber. He always wondered why they included only one if a shuttle could carry up to four people. Hyper-sleep was a last ditch measure put in place in case shuttles or other craft became stranded, adrift in deep space.
It bought the human lucky enough to be inside time to be found. Or not.
There was a small cargo locker set behind the back row of grav chairs. Surprisingly, it wasn’t locked. Inside were items he expected: changes of clothes for her, three or four jumpsuits, some underwear. Nothing special.
But then, setting those aside, he found something very interesting indeed. A black bag, zippered, with two white, embroidered patches at either end. The patches were emblems he was unfamiliar with. They were a round, almost liquid shape — perhaps a symbol — like teardrops chasing each other in a circular pattern. It was quite striking.
The bag was larger, perhaps four feet long, and two feet deep, large enough you could smuggle a small person inside it. He half wondered if that’s what he’d find when he drew that zipper down, his morbid imagination already whirling.
But instead, he found something even more fascinating.
Holy shit.
Much of it was readily identifiable. Some of it, he’d never even seen before. It was, for lack of a better term, an S&M treasure trove. It seemed to have everything; whips, canes, manacles, handcuffs, gags of several different sorts, blindfolds, hoods, chains, paddles. Almost every instrument of correction or restraint that he’d ever heard of — and a few that were entirely new to him — were in that bag. He explored further, finding things like plugs, dildos, vibrators, bottles of lubricant, clips and clamps, even what looked to be a small bag of surgical needles. A shiver went down his spine at the sight of those.
He sat down in one of the grav chairs, running both his hands through his hair, trying to figure out what all this meant, what it implied. Why would the company send this with an android? What was the point? It certainly was nowhere near standard issue equipment for traveling, and it was most definitely not work-related. So, why in God’s name was it there?
But that wasn’t even the most important question. Because the implications of what that bag meant were even more profound.
Did the company know? Was it possible the company knew about the things that he fantasized about, that the things he thought about deep in the night that he’d never been able to confess even to his own wife? The needs and desires and urges that he’d pushed down brutally, ignored, rationalized away, or simply denied. Would the company have known? And what did it mean to him if they did?
The Eye.
It couldn’t be — but then again, why couldn’t it? Maybe he was talking in his sleep? Exposed the long-suppressed, deeply hidden id of Martin to the all-seeing, all-hearing central computer. How would be ever know either way?
You need to get a grip. This paranoia you’re talking now.
But it had him reeling. The meaning of it equal parts terrifying and enraging. If it didn’t know, then why would the company arrange to have this done, to have this thing sent to him with all the accoutrements to realize his deepest, darkest fantasies?
He’d never told a soul. How could they have known?
For a moment, he wondered if he should simply jettison her — it — flush it out the airlock, deny it, make it go away, just as his own desires, his own needs had always been pushed away.
If he didn’t face it, he could deny it existed.
He could deny what it said about him.
You’re not blowing her out the goddamned airlock, you asshole.
“Her?” he whispered, looking down at the grating of the floor, shaking his head.
He knew such an attitude, such a coping mechanism was far from healthy, but out there, in that situation, healthy mattered a lot less than doing what he had to in order to survive.
But what if survival might mean becoming something he no longer recognized, could no longer sympathize with, could no longer understand?
He set all that aside though. He’d have to tackle that some other time.
First, he had more questions for his beautiful, enigmatic visitor.
* * *
What happened in space stayed in space. It was a saying all the station jockeys had had for a long time — and it was one he’d never really understood until now.
He looked down at the woman bent over the storage crate, his cock stretching her pussy, thrusting in and out, the glistening wetness of her cunt something that had him watching it almost obsessively. He’d used the powered manacles on her, securing her wrists at the small of her back. She laid her right cheek on the cold of the steel crate, the gag pulled hard between her teeth, galling the corners of her mouth cruelly. Her body trembled, but her cunt was practically a waterfall, the scent of her sex strong in the air.
Once again, he marveled at all the things that they had managed to replicate in this bewitching android female.
He thrust harder, the sounds of his flesh slapping hers loud in the silent room in a way that only added to the eroticism of it. He didn’t speak. She couldn’t speak.
It was just him taking her, using her body.
His.
It was odd because with Diandra ——though he’d never so much as spoken a word of it — from the beginning he’d felt a sense of possessiveness about her. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it had always been there just under the surface.
With this toy, with D, this thing provided solely for his enjoyment, he began to understand it better, that joy of control, of possessing something lovely and sexual and vulnerable to his darkest lusts.
He wondered if it had been that way all along with his wife and he’d simply never had the courage to confront it. Was this — having this toy here — was this bringing out something that had always been there, exposing the real him? Or was he evolving — or perhaps devolving — becoming something else under the stress of circumstances?
What was the old axiom? That absolute power corrupts absolutely?
He didn’t know the answer and he supposed at that moment, it didn’t matter.
She was here. D was here.
And he would use her.
He would explore things with her, things about himself that he’d never have the courage to dive into with his own wife. Wasn’t that the point? Wasn’t that what his wife said she wanted?
The question is, Martin — do you want it? Are you prepared for what you might see?
He didn’t know the answer to
that either, but part of him was impatient to see it, to learn it, no matter the cost.
He pulled out of the jealous grip of her cunt until the angry red of the head of his cock was exposed, a viscous glistening rope of fluid draped between the tip and her swollen, slick labia.
Then he saw it and it froze him in place, his heart doing flip-flops in his chest.
Holy shit!
His wife was blessed with a birthmark up at the very crease where thigh met buttock on her left leg. It was half the size of a fingernail, on the inner thigh so it was only visible up close, with one at the right angle. Or if he was fucking her.
He took a step back, almost staggering, his cock bobbing in front on him, his mind reeling.
Oh my God.
Had he been wrong all along?
She squirmed, straining to look back at him as he stuffed his cock back in his pants, his heart pounding. It was one of the imperfections of his wife that he so loved. He adored it. He must have placed a million kisses upon it since the first time he’d made love to Diandra.
How many times had he stroked it affectionately? How many times had he rubbed the head of his cock across it, a loving, sexual gesture?
And yet this android had the exact same birthmark in the exact same place. It was even the right hue, the right shape. But only Diandra had such a birthmark. The human Diandra was the only one who could have such a birthmark.
How could this be?
You know that this means, Martin.
He reached over her, switching off the manacles. Her arms instantly relaxed, her hands falling to her sides. Then she brought them up to her face, her fingers touching the sides of the gag, but going no further.
“You can… you can take it off. It’s okay,” he said, walking backward.
Then he spun around and dashed through the hatch, slamming it behind him. He stood in the corridor for a moment, breathing hard, willing himself to calm.
Keep it cool, Martin. Keep it cool.
As he walked toward the pilot house module, he ran through the data again in his head, tried to make sense of it.
Why would they perfectly replicate everything down to even the smallest birthmark? The tiniest imperfection? What purpose would they have in doing so? It didn’t make any sense. The only answer to that question was that they wouldn’t.
Because it was her.
But it couldn’t be her. This wasn’t Diandra. This was D. She had no memory.
She has no — you asked her yourself, Martin. She doesn’t know why she’s here.
Her earliest memory was her technician — who was probably the one who activated her.
No, this isn’t your wife. But my God, she’s so much like her.
He dashed down the corridor, throwing open the hatch to the pilot house, slamming it and locking it behind him. In the jump seat, he punched up the messaging program. Most of the crewmembers used it on an almost obsessive basis, constantly sending messages out to loved ones, friends, coworkers.
He had always wondered if it was a bid for those crewmembers to do something — anything — that confirmed they were relevant, that they still mattered, that they were still part of the human race.
Light-years away from civilization, it was easy to feel like one had been forgotten, a lost soul fallen down a well to the center of the earth, never to be found again.
He opened a new message, punched it in quickly on the keyboard:
He sat back, reading the message again, his mind whirling.
If she’s gone, she won’t respond to the message. She won’t be able to because she’s not there.
“Which would mean that she’s here with me — and that this is her.” The sound of his strained voice echoed unsettlingly in the quiet of the pilot-house.
But if she does respond, what does that mean?
“It means nothing, Martin. It means that that thing in there... isn’t human.” And despite what he had done with it — and what he still intended to do with it — it didn’t mean he was a monster.
Taking a shaky breath, he sent the message, dropping it into the queue. It would be approximately eight hours before it was transmitted via the star packet relay, plenty long enough for him to change his mind about sending it — or give him time to modify it.
“Martin,” the voice said, female, cool, neutral — a tone he’d never heard from the Eye in the Sky before. He sat in silence, wondering if he was simply imagining things. His nerves were more than a little strained at that moment.
“Martin, attention.”
“Yeah, I’m here,” he said, shocked at what he was hearing, a chill running down his spine.
For he knew now what this was. It was an assessment examination.
What the hell?
“Question. What is your middle name?”
He didn’t answer for a moment.
“Repeat. What is your middle name?”
“It’s Colton. But you already know this.”
There was no response.
“Question. What color is the ocean?”
He tilted his head, not believing what he was hearing. “Blue,” he said sardonically. Again, there was no response. His muscles were beginning to twitch, nerves really getting to him now.
“Statement. The dog jumped inside the cat.”
He felt his jaw drop open. It made no sense whatsoever. Was the computer malfunctioning?
“Statement. Repeat. The dog jumped inside the cat.”
“That makes no fucking sense at all.”
“Thank you,” the voice said. Two faint clicks were heard and it was gone.
“Eye!” he snarled, “What the fuck is going on here?”
“Yes, sir, what can I do for you?” Eye’s familiar voice was back, the pleasant female smooth tones.
“What do you think you can do for me? What was that test for?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t understand your question.”
“Eye, the test you just gave me one minute ago. That one.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I still don’t understand your question. Can you be more specific?”
“No, I can’t be more… uh, just forget it.”
A cold weight sank in his belly. One of three things was going on. Either Eye didn’t know she’d given him the test — which would mean she was malfunctioning.
Or she was purposefully not acknowledging she’d just given him the test.
And what do we have behind door number three, Martin?
Or he was beginning to lose his marbles.
Martin, relax. Just relax. It’s just an assessment exam. You know these happen.
But the question was why was it happening now? Why was it happening to him after so many contracts?
It shook him almost as much as the possibility that the bound, gagged, naked woman back there in the crew module might have been his actual wife.
“Eye, I need you to check on something.” He kept his voice modulated, calm.
Sane, you mean?
“I need you to tell me who sent the transport shuttle. Who dispatched it?”
A half-second delay.
“Your wife, sir.”
Fuck!
So, she was there. She was back home.
Diandra’s not here with me.
It was an odd sense of relief, mixed with a tinge of regret. He wanted to see her so badly at that moment, he almost hoped it was her. He needed the comfort of her touch, her sweet smile, the feel of her breath on his skin as she murmured his name, as she told him she was there for him, always.
But inside, he knew that would have made things much, much worse.
“Sweetie, I don’t know what I’m into here,” he muttered to himself.
The fact was, she wouldn’t have been able to dispatch herself on a transport. So, Diandra had to be home.
She had to be back on Earth.
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“This is stupid,” he snapped. “You’re being stupid. Get a fucking grip, Martin.”
He punched up the message he’d composed, still waiting in the queue… then he deleted it.
Sighing, he turned off the console, rising to his feet and stretching, his body more tired now than he’d felt in weeks, a fatigue much more profound than mere physical exhaustion.
But then he remembered something. He’d already asked Eye to confirm the shuttle’s origin — and she’d refused to answer him.
Was it possible he was misremembering what he’d asked her — or was the computer truly giving him a different answer this time?
A correct answer.
And if so, why?
He held his head in his hands, taking a deep breath, then another.
One thing at a time, Martin. One thing at a time.
Chapter 9
Though he tried to ignore it, the thought kept coming back to him over and over again. As he often did now, he’d left her gagged, blindfolded, bound on his bed, the slick, viscous trail of his semen dripping down her perineum from her swollen, well-fucked cunt.
He’d left her squirming on her back, her arms bound beneath her. He knew he couldn’t leave her that way long, but he liked the look of utter helplessness, the way her face blushed, the way her nipples were still standing up hard and proud.
His entire room had smelled of sex when he’d stepped out.
The thought had come to him — even in the midst of using her body — when everything was as it should be, his plaything submitting obediently and quietly to his now insatiable lusts.
It should have seemed right. But still something was off. There was a piece missing. Something didn’t quite add up.
On a whim, he strolled back to the pilot house. Not even sitting in the seat, he brought up the messaging program. Out on the galactic rim, video messages were basically prohibited due to bandwidth concerns. The star packet relay system had to supply the communication needs for innumerable systems, stations, and ships in the local area, so minimizing the size of each message and the length of each message was critical. As a result, crew members on the station could only send what essentially amounted to text-only messages.