by Trent Evans
In a way, it was like a throwback to the old days on Earth, where people used to write actual letters on paper, and they’d be physically carried across the surface, first on horseback, then eventually by automobile, airplane, and ship.
Now, all that was gone, technology rendering all of that into quaint anachronisms. But out there, he was still reduced to a more elemental form of communication. In a way, it was more intimate, not clouded by facial expressions, tone, or inflection, or how someone might look.
No, it was simple, distilled, emotion, thought, and meaning, which was why the message he sent to his wife made little sense at all — at least on the surface.
He clicked the queue, and it was gone. He still wasn’t sure why he did it. He knew now that this woman with him on the station wasn’t Diandra. It was a thing. Yet why had he sent that second message? He was either doubting himself, or doubting her — it — whatever she was. Maybe he was doubting his sanity. One thing was for sure — if Diandra was there, if Diandra got the message, she’d know the answer.
And if she is there, Martin? And if she does reply with the answer, what then? Are you still going to be paranoid about this, or are you finally going to accept the reality of the situation?
Though he was loathe to admit it, he still wasn’t sure what the reality of the situation actually was. He was alone on Charon 90. Loneliness, isolation… they did things to a man — and he might not even see it coming until it was too late.
When he cracked open the hatch again in his bedroom in the crew module, she was exactly where he’d left her. The air was close, warm. He wondered if it was because she was struggling. He liked the idea of that. He walked over to the bed, stood over her, looking down at this helpless, beautiful naked woman, the marks from his hands still pink and livid upon her skin, the ropes digging into her wrists, into her thighs. He touched her breast and she shuddered, her face turning toward him, though he knew she couldn’t see a thing behind her blindfold. She made a sound through her gag. He couldn’t tell if it was protest or pleading. Or needing.
Did it matter?
No, it didn’t.
He pinched her nipple hard and she keened. He didn’t like how much that sound excited him, how much all of this excited him. Was this him? Was this really him? Or was it circumstance, situation, and stress making him into something he no longer recognized?
He took her by the hair, dragged her off the bed until she thumped to the planking of the floor. Bringing her up onto her knees, he pressed her back against the side of the bed, holding her fast. He thought about taking her blindfold off. He loved the way she looked at him. He’d especially love it if she looked at him as he was shoving his cock down her throat, but no, he wanted her to stay this way — anonymous, her identity, her value reduced to nothing.
The thought made his cock almost instantly hard. He pulled it from his pants, holding her tight by the hair as he slapped her cheeks, left, right, then left again, with the shaft, loving the sound, loving the way her face blushed furiously at his demeaning treatment of her.
You can’t demean a machine, Martin.
It didn’t matter. He still got off on it. And she was still reacting to it. He shucked off his shoes, then his pants, need growing within him by the second. Once he was naked from the waist down, he crouched down before her, his cock a hard iron bar bobbing between his thighs. He stroked her flushed, heated cheek with his thumb, traced the cloth of the gag where it plunged between her lips and her teeth. She bit it harder. The cloth was wet.
“So helpless. So beautiful. So mine. I’m going to tell you something, D. I still don’t know if you are who you say you are, but it doesn’t matter anymore. What I do know is that you’re here. I can do anything I want — and there’s so much I want to do to you. But I promise to keep you safe.”
Impulsively, he kissed her forehead tenderly, loving the feel of his lips against her skin, the taste of her sweat.
“I’m not going to lie to you though, D. I’m going to make you into something you don’t know anymore. I’m going to make you into something less than human, an animal, a pet. Sometimes it’s going to hurt, and I’m going to like that it hurts. And I’m going to teach you to like it too. Do you understand me? Nod if you do.”
She didn’t respond for a moment, then tentatively, she nodded her head, whether it was because she felt she had to, or because she wanted what he promised her. Would it be better if she didn’t want it — or if she did?
Martin, that question has no answer — unless you think this really is Diandra.
He banished it from his mind, standing up, holding her hair tight, knowing it was hurting her. But she kept very silent, very still as he stroked her lips with the head of his cock. He slapped her with it again.
“Do exactly as I tell you, bitch. You defy me, and you go back over this bed and I spank that ass until you’re crying. Do as you’re told. Obey me.”
Then he plunged within her lips, holding her tight, deep, deeper until she made a sound, a gargling, gagging sound. It only made his cock harder. He pulled back and she gasped.
“Open your throat, slut. Do this. You’re going to get very good at this before I’m done with you.”
Again, he pushed forward once more, pinning her head between his hips and the bed. He twisted his fist in her hair even further, wanting to hurt her, needing her to know he was controlling everything. She gagged again and he pulled back enough to let her draw air, her breath blowing rapidly through her nostrils.
“Again, slut. Open. Open.”
He pushed farther this time, and though she tensed and twitched, this time he could feel the resistance and then it yielded and he pressed forward, down, down until her cute nose was pressed hard into the nest of his pubic hair. He held her that way for several seconds. Her entire body seemed to vibrate with tension and then he pulled back out until the glistening head of his cock bobbed more inches from her lips. She looked away, breathing hard, her cheeks cherry red with embarrassment, and yet, at the mere touch of the head of his cock against her lips, she opened wide without being told, her tongue out.
He slid in again and again, and though she gagged once or twice, he forced her to take it until she calmed. Stroking her throat, he murmured to her, telling her to obey, to be a good girl. Soon enough, he was fucking her mouth hard, his balls slapping against her chin with each thrust. He grunted and groaned, cursing at her, promising she’d be punished if she didn’t do this exactly the way he wanted, if she didn’t learn. He called her a whore, a slut — dirty terrible names — as he used her. He didn’t know why, but that only turned him on more. He’d never even thought of such a thing before with Diandra, but now, it was a dark, twisted eroticism that only added to his arousal.
Much too soon, he could feel his orgasm building deep behind his balls. He thrust all the way in again, holding her tightly to him until she began to struggle.
“Hold it, bitch. Hold it,” he growled at her, and then pulled back. She gasped again, her chest heaving.
He stroked his cock furiously in his fist, still holding her by the hair.
“Open your mouth, cunt. Give me your tongue. Stick it out. Farther. Farther!” And then he could hold his orgasm back no further, and went over, groaning like an animal as his semen leapt forth. He painted her with sticky, pearly strands of his seed, her tongue, her lips, on her nose, even up across her forehead. As he squeezed the last of his seed out, his thighs trembling, he wiped the head of his cock back and forth across her lips, making sure they were well coated with his cum. Then he lightly slapped he
r face again.
“Just like that, every time.”
He bent down, kissed the top of her head. “You’re a good girl,” he murmured into her hair.
And then he left her, covered in his seed, debased, degraded.
His thing.
Chapter 10
He paced back and forth outside the entrance to the crew module, running his hands through his hair, his wrists scrubbing against the stubble on his chin. He’d forgotten how many days it had been since he’d shaved. Things weren’t… they weren’t running as smoothly as they usually were.
Well, no surprise, Martin. You have an android who looks like Diandra — whom you still don’t know why is here, and whose story you still don’t fully believe.
But that wasn’t what most bothered him at that moment.
He had let himself lose control.
Part of this job was never losing your cool, being always on guard against letting emotions take over.
You always let the data lead you.
You always trusted logic.
You always followed reason.
Those things would keep you out of trouble — keep you alive.
But there was something about D. She had... loosened something within him, uncovered a piece of his personality, of his inner person that he’d never known was there.
Maybe that wasn’t quite the truth either. Perhaps he had known it was there, but he’d never had the courage to confront it, to take it out in the light, look at it, examine it, try to determine what it really meant.
What it might say about who Martin really was.
There was no point in denying it: she was getting to him.
Yes, he was in control of her, in all ways — and that fact spoke to him on a primitive, almost elemental level. Was it sadism? Was he just indulging his inner control freak?
Or was this more deep-seated, perhaps him lashing out in a way, trying to avoid getting close, fighting her, avoiding letting her in?
Is that what he’d done with his wife all these years? He loved her dearly, but after all these years, had he simply been trying to prevent her from getting to him?
For the first time, he wondered if perhaps his reaction was a fear of real intimacy, a visceral aversion to the very concept of being vulnerable.
Ironic that, when he had made great sport of, and took great erotic enjoyment in, making her as vulnerable as one could possibly be.
And he planned still more of that.
Oh yes.
But he would be intellectually dishonest not to consider the possibility that he was doing this because of something he feared, something he didn’t want to face, something about his own makeup he... couldn’t confront.
“Jesus Christ, Martin, you’re a fucking head case,” he muttered under his breath. “You’re overthinking this, analyzing things to death like you always do. Go with the facts. Go with what you know.”
He knew he probably looked and sounded like an insane person, pacing back and forth, talking to himself, grabbing his hair as if he was about to suffer a nervous breakdown. He half expected Eye in the Sky to give him yet another assessment exam.
He probably would have too if he was in her place.
No, that’s borrowing trouble. Go with what’s known. Go with what you feel.
D was here. Whatever else she was, she was a fact. And she was lovely, and obedient, and incredibly beautiful. It was almost as if she was a personification of what Diandra could be, if he would just let her in.
It was the irony of playing with power dynamics. The person dominating was in many respects protecting himself, shielding his feelings. He took, he enjoyed, he conquered. But did he have to give of himself in that process? Must he expose weakness, or vulnerability, or even tenderness while doing so?
The answer was no.
Yet, he still wanted those things. Part of him needed to express those things with his wife, most of all. And he had experienced that with D, in a way. At least with her, he’d actually revealed his true needs and desires.
She had shown him.
That realization only made the truth an even harder pill to swallow though.
He’d never done it. He’d never once made himself vulnerable with Diandra, with the one woman in this life he should have been able to let his guard down with.
He’d never let her in.
It was a mystery to him as to why he struggled with all these thoughts. Perhaps it didn’t matter. What if this was all a function of being isolated, stuck in a hunk of steel hundreds of thousands of light-years away from home. Is this what it meant?
Is this what it felt like when one began to crack up?
There was something else he knew though, another fact he had to confront, sooner or later.
He’d treated D terribly.
He needed to make... amends. Somehow.
That wouldn’t stop him from continuing with what he envisioned for her, all that he still wanted to do to her. There were other ways he wanted to enjoy her... but he was not going to lose his humanity simply because she didn’t happen to be a human.
Taking a deep breath, he opened the hatch to the crew module, found her inside his bedroom. She was curled up on one hip, leaning against the bed, breathing slowly. He wondered if perhaps she’d fallen asleep, but as soon as he stepped in, her head moved and then she sat bolt upright, the movement of her breasts so lovely even then that he had to pause a moment to take in their beauty.
He wished again in that moment that this really was Diandra, that this really was his beloved wife, that he could tell her everything, the dark, ugly truth about him.
Show her everything he was too afraid to let into the light.
But it wasn’t her. He’d have to be okay with that, at least for now.
He crouched down in front of her, touched her cheek gently. A profound sense of relief flooded through him as, rather than flinch away from him, she leaned into his touch. He pressed fingers to her lips and she kissed them lovingly, almost reverently. It was a gesture that held so much meaning, so much emotional resonance.
He marveled anew at the ability of programmers to design software that could mimic human emotions, even simple tenderness, so well.
It was almost like playing God.
He peeled off her blindfold, and her eyes blinked several times as she tried to adjust to the light. Prying the gag from between her teeth, wincing inside at the red, inflamed marks at the corners of her mouth, he touched her lips with a fingertip.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.” His seed had dried to a dull sheen upon her skin, flaking in places. His cock stirred as he thought of it again, even as he recoiled at the way he’d used her. How could such a thing disgust him and arouse him all at once?
The answer was clear, of course. He’d studied it in his long hours of isolation, the duality of human beings, the good and bad, the right and wrong, the Jekyll and Hyde.
Every being had a dark side.
And Diandra, by means of her gift to him — whether she’d meant to or not — was allowing Martin to indulge his.
“Up you go,” he said, grasping her gently around the shoulders. She was unsteady on her feet.
“Legs fall asleep?”
She simply nodded, looking down.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I shouldn’t have left you here this long.”
She met his eyes for just the briefest of moments. “It’s okay, sir. I know you... didn’t mean to hurt me.”
The urge to hug her at that moment was overwhelming, to tell her he’d never want to hurt her, to lie to her and say that hurting her didn’t arouse him, didn’t make his cock hard, didn’t make him want to throw her on the bed and take her all over again.
He wanted to hold her head to him and tell her that he wasn’t this man he was becoming, this monster he was uncovering one act, one degradation at a time.
But he didn’t.
He would keep it inside as he always had, protecting his wife — if not her “gift
” — from what he really was.
Yes, he could show D. But would he ever show anyone else? Reveal that truth to the person who mattered most to him?
The answer to that one remained as elusive as ever.
Rather than march her into the bath, he picked her up, held her in his arms, and this time, he really did tuck her head to his chest. He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head, his lips lingering there longer than needed. He held her that way for a long minute, in silence, loving the way she felt in his arms, the tiny trembles that coursed through her muscles, the murmur of her breath, the way she clutched to him even with her arms bound behind her back.
Realizing what he’d done, he set her down again, unwrapped the ropes from her wrists. The marks left behind by the fibers were livid. They too aroused him, ghostly reminders of what he’d done to her, of his power over her.
And even as he felt an unaccountable and illogical tenderness, even protectiveness, when it came to this android, he still reveled in that naked power. If he were honest with himself, he would realize that he was taking hedonistic enjoyment in subjugating her. He’d have to unpack that some other time though.
Now, he needed to take care of her.
He took her in his arms once more, and this time she really did clutch to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. Shocking him, she kissed his chest.
He sighed with it. After all he’d done to her... she still was almost loving. It made no sense.
Stop thinking, Martin. Just do.
Taking her to the bathroom, she stood in silence, naked, afraid, totally surrendered to him, as he drew the bath. Grasping her hand, he guided her in. She let go a long, shuddering sigh as she sank into the steamy water. Washing her hair had his cock up hot and hard almost instantly, as if he hadn’t just fucked her mouth. It was tender and erotic, and in its own way, evoked a strong sense of intimate possessiveness within him.
No one else should do this. No one else would ever wash this girl’s hair.