Driven Page 2

  Pleasurebots couldn't help it. They were designed for sex--to have sex, to give it, and most of all, to enjoy it. Unlike human women, a bot could orgasm multiple times from stimulation that would leave a regular woman cold. Their low pleasure threshold had been built into them to keep them doing what they were meant to do. After all, a creature whose sole purpose was fucking should know how to do it well.

  The Passion Model spread her legs wider, exposing her pink clit beneath the groomed pubic hair. Linna stepped back into the shower, not wanting to watch, but unable to stop. Her own nipples tightened at the sight of the bot, face and chest flushed with arousal, as she tilted her hips back and forth in the stream of water jetting up from the bidet.

  The Passion Model moaned again, her head lolling on her shoulders. Her thighs trembled as she jerked into a climax Linna could see even from across the room. A moment passed and another ripple of orgasm undulated through the bot's toned, perfect body. She gasped and moaned. Her cries echoed in the tiled room.

  Then, as calmly as if she'd sneezed rather than experienced two explosive orgasms, the bot finished her ablutions and dried off, then picked up her clothes and left the cleansing station. None of the other bots even noticed the performance, as commonplace to them as passing someone on the street.

  Linna looked around the room and into the large communal shower across from her. Four LUV models, identical except for the color of their hair, were using the shower. Bathing for bots was nothing more than a maintenance function, not the pampering necessity it could be for humans, but they scrubbed themselves thoroughly anyway. One slipped a soapy hand between her legs, and just like that, as fast as that, she let out a low, shuddering cry. Her hand came up to rest on the tiled wall while the one between her legs slid in and out between her thighs in a slow rhythm that made Linna's nipples tighten further to watch. She could imagine all too well what that pace, that slickness, that pressure, would feel like.

  Her clit throbbed in a pulse that took her by surprise and made her put out a hand to steady herself. It had been a long time since she'd had a real orgasm, though she faked them regularly to fool her patrons. Linna watched the bot, whose pace had quickened, hips pumping, fingers swirling on her love button. In the next minute, the chorus of cries and moans echoed throughout the shower as the other LUVs followed the first one's lead. They all writhed, hands thrust between their legs, their bodies jerking with orgasms. The first LUV model finished with a whining cry and shuddered beneath the spray of water, then rinsed off and stepped out of the shower.

  For a bot, coming was as natural as breathing. For Linna, the task was a little more difficult. She turned herself firmly toward the back of the shower cubicle, not wanting to witness any more bots getting themselves off. Her body ached and tingled with arousal. She'd fucked three patrons the night before, all old men with imperfect bodies and little else on their minds but getting their rocks off. She'd writhed beneath them and screamed at the right times, but a convincing performance was still just an act.

  The memory of Del's eyes, dark with passion, and the feeling of his tongue in her mouth made her breath catch in her throat. If a man like Del made love to her, Linna had no doubt he'd take his time to be certain she reached her climax.

  At the thought, her clit pulsed again. Her nipples throbbed. Linna slid her fingers down between her legs and found her folds, slick with wetness. Her clit was a hard, erect nodule, and as her fingers brushed it, she had to bite her lip to hold in the moan.

  It had been a long, long time since she'd taken her own pleasure like this. The circumstances of her life meant she had more than her share of sex, but how long had it been since she'd even wanted to come? How long since her body had yearned for release? How long since she'd learned to shut down those urges until the only orgasms she could have were faked?

  She closed her eyes and leaned into the warm artiwater pelting down around her. Once upon a time, in her life before, she'd had a real water shower. The water had coated her body in a way the artificially created liquid could never duplicate.

  She tilted her face up to the spray. Linna sighed, lost in the sensation of her fingers tweaking her clit. This wasn't nearly enough. She wanted a man inside her, a thick, long cock to fill her. She wanted Del to be fucking her--

  She moaned aloud, not embarrassed, since nobot in the room would give her a second glance. She spread her legs to allow first one finger to slide inside her slick tunnel, then another. The heel of her hand pressed against her clit.

  A man like Del would know just how to touch a woman, she thought. He'd be able to lift her up, impale her on his cock while her legs wrapped around his waist. He'd lick and suck her nipples while he fucked her standing up, his hands under her ass and his firm, ridged stomach teasing her erect clit with every thrust.

  Linna's orgasm burst through her with explosive force. Her knees weakened. Her vision blurred. For an awful, wonderful moment, she thought she might pass out from the sheer physical overload.

  She pushed her fingers deeper, and a smaller climax rippled through her. Linna shuddered then withdrew her hand. Eyes closed, she continued to lean against the cool tile wall until she could breathe again.

  Gloom closed her throat and stung her eyes. Would the only pleasure she ever had have to come from her own hand? She forced away the melancholy. She hadn't chosen this life. It had been chosen for her by a man who didn't know how to regulate his desires. She made her living fucking strangers. That was sex. She had to accept the fact she'd probably never make love to anyone again.

  Linna got out of the shower, dried off, and dressed in the jumpsuit. Weariness overcame her. Despite the many artificial organs and systems in her body, the metal and plastic that made her officially mecho and not human, she still had to sleep. She went down the hall and opened the door to an empty recharging booth and ducked inside. She aligned her body with the charger. She had no outlet for the three-pronged plug that would normally be used to recharge a Pleasurebot's batteries, but she did have a small hole for the refreshing tube. She'd had to pay extra for that adaptation, a debt she was still working off, but it was worth it to have the option of cleansing her body's blood stream without having to use normal human facilities. She didn't always use it, and it wasn't a perfect system. She still had to make other arrangements for other functions, but it had helped her keep her secret. Eating and drinking could be passed off as social niceties, done for show, but going to the bathroom would be a dead giveaway that Linna wasn't what she pretended to be.

  The tube stung going in, but she forced herself to relax against the pain. After a moment, Linna leaned back against the padded wall, hooked her arms into the padded cuffs, and closed her eyes at last. Nobody would bother her here for hours. She could sleep, and as she did, the last vision that filled her mind was Del's face.

  The damn retscan was on the blink again. Delek muttered a heartfelt curse as he manually punched in the key code that allowed him to access his apartment. The door slid open with a cranky wheeze.

  Once inside, he looked around the stark interior and shook his head. "Rat hole."

  There weren't any rats in Newcity any more unless you counted the ones that walked on two legs. Rat hole was still a good description of his place. Dirty, smelly, in constant disrepair. A crack in the ceiling dripped coolant into the bucket he'd placed there three months ago. The paint on the walls peeled in half a dozen places, and holes in the plaster revealed the mess of tubes and wires that made up every fricking building in Newcity.

  "Viddy on," he barked to the empty room.

  System's soothing female voice replied, "Negative. Account usage has exceeded credit deposit. Please authorize additional credit amount."

  "Fuck," Delek sighed.

  "Command not recognized," System replied, unflappable as always.

  "Non-citizen DLK 24196010-X. Authorize seven hours of viddy time."

  "Viddy viewing authorized. Your account has been debited. Thank you."

  "Yeah,
fuck you," muttered Delek. "And Adar's Ruling Council." The last he made certain to keep under his breath. He had enough problems without being arrested for treason.

  The battered viddy screen came on, set to some stupid entertainment program that showed a series of fashionably dressed Newcitizens competing for Offworld vacays by answering trivia questions. The ones who answered correctly got to go to the next round. The ones who didn't had to suffer an electric shock.

  "Filter game shows," he ordered.

  Another show came on, this one a political discussion. Delek recognized the face of Newcity's leading news forecaster, Brent Auckland. He was interviewing Howard and Cyndira Adar, both of whom looked as serious as death, about the latest regulations concerning the city's mecho population.

  "There's life and there's death," Howard Adar said. His left eye twitched, the only remaining sign of a nearly-fatal gunshot wound he'd taken eight months ago. "Brent, I've made no secret of my own brush with death. I could've opted for the surgery that would've made me less than human, but frankly, I'd rather have been headed to the incinerator than living with a bundle of metal inside me."

  Del made himself a sandwich while he watched the show from the kitchen. Auckland listened to the Adars' account of what had happened in the Oldcity hangar with an expression of sincere sorrow on his face. Lying bastards. Their story was a bunch of harah--shit--and Del knew it because he'd been part of it.

  Their official story was that their son, Caldyx Declan Adar, had been injured in a hoverscooter accident Offworld on Calypig. He'd survived, but with injuries so severe he'd become a recluse. A mecho R.I.Op whose brain hard-drive had malfunctioned discovered the Adar secret, abducted and tried to blackmail Caldyx. The Adars' brave, brave son had decided to reveal the truth himself rather than give in, and the mecho went insane.

  "What a crock of harah," Del muttered.

  Declan Adar hadn't been kidnapped and murdered by a Recreational Intercourse Operative gone haywire. He and the R.I.Op Gemma had fallen in love and escaped Newcity for parts unknown to Del. He'd driven them to the border in his very own taxi. Only quick thinking and natural reflexes had gotten him out of that one, and he hadn't felt guilty at all when Vortran Slizzbeck's flunky Ropert had taken the fall instead of Del. Ropert hadn't been involved in the Adar case at all, but he'd done plenty of other evil stuff, and Del decided Ropert had deserved exactly what he got.

  It didn't matter the man was a fellow Xanderran, he was also a traitor to their home world and a nasty bastard to boot. Delek had no sympathy for anyone who sold out to slime like Slizzbeck, who trafficked in stolen goods. On Xanderra, personal property was considered sacred, and thievery was punished with immediate death. Ropert knew that. He'd gotten what he deserved, even if it was for something he hadn't done.

  "I just want to see this city clean again," Howard continued, interrupting Del's reverie. Cyndira--That smug bitch--held her husband's hand and nodded. "When Newcity is clean, my job will be finished."

  "And so will everything else," Del said aloud. His sandwich tasted like it had been made with real sand. "You're going to take away everything that made this a great place to live, you bastard."

  He'd had seven great years here, in this vibrant, thriving Earth city. It was a lot different than his home world. Freer. Dirtier and uglier, too, but it had been the freedom he'd craved, and received, from Newcity.

  Now that freedom was being taken away. As a non-Earthen humanoid, he'd been denied citizenship. He couldn't vote, not that Newcity elections were anything but a joke anyway. He couldn't be ranked, which meant he couldn't afford the luxuries and privileges even the lowest-ranking Newcitizens could. Del didn't mind that. He wanted to work for what he got, and he did. Worked his ass off, ferrying people back and forth all over the city.

  No, what burned him up was that his place of birth, his nationality and ethnicity, kept his work from being compensated fairly.

  Del thought it was probably time to move on. Leave Newcity. Hell, leave Earth entirely, since the rest of the planet was in worse condition than Xanderra. He hadn't been Offworld in seven years, but he was sure he could find a better place to live...a freer place to live than this.

  Only two things had held him back from leaving before this. One was the very real obstacle of money. He didn't have enough for an Offworld visa. He could be kicked out of Newcity, but he couldn't leave voluntarily unless he paid for the privilege. He could sneak out through a zip in the Dome and seek an illegal exit via the Oldcity transport systems, but that cost money too, and Newcity credits weren't any good there. He needed cash, or something to barter.

  Del looked around his bare apartment, which though far more technologically savvy than his home on Xanderra, was far less civilized. There was very little in the place that wasn't connected or built in. He had a collection of viddy tapes, but they'd be worthless in Oldcity, where viddy screens were scarce. He'd need more than a few bits and pieces if he wanted to barter his way onto a berth. He could work for his passage...that wasn't a problem. He just needed to get one.

  His second reason for staying was far more complex. Linna. He'd driven her home countless times, most times for free. She was more than beautiful. She was smart and funny. She always said, "Thank you." She always remembered to ask him about his day. She brought him presents, nothing special, just little things here and there she knew he'd like. She was kind. He'd seen her stand aside to allow older Newcitizens take her place on the pedtread, even when he could tell she was exhausted and just wanted to get home.

  Linna had secrets she didn't keep as hidden as she thought she did. Del didn't know what circumstances had made her what she was, but he knew for sure what she wasn't. She was, or had been, a fully human woman. She passed herself off as a Kompanion Model, and she did a great job. She had the intelligence and social savvy to be one. Del was willing to bet she'd fooled a lot of people over the years. He bet even the men and women she took as clients didn't realize she was not a real Pleasurebot.

  But Del did. It was the way she smelled. The way she moved. The flicker in her eyes when she spoke to him. A good bot, and most of them were very good these days--the market demanded it--was nearly indistinguishable from a human. The main difference was that every smile, every laugh, even the occasional tear, was programmed. Not real. Pleasurebots didn't have emotions. The only real thing about them were their orgasms.

  Linna was a real woman, even if parts of her were artificial. Del had seen her move out of the way of an oncoming hovertaxi with a driver high on hallucinabars. She was fast, definitely enhanced. But still human.

  The new laws penalized those who'd started life as human but now lived only through the benefit of a majority of artificial systems or organs. It was no wonder she'd been living as a full bot. Pleasurebots were regulated, but they did have rights. They could keep most of the credits they earned. They were guaranteed safe treatment at the hands of their clients. They were allowed to utilize the government-subsidized recharging stations with only a small co-pay.

  But what kind of life could it be? It was next to impossible for a bot to try and pass itself off as human. Del hadn't heard of the penalty for a human passing herself off as a bot, but he didn't think Howard Adar and the Ruling Council would treat such a deception lightly.

  Del didn't know what had shadowed Linna's eyes and made her live as something she wasn't. He only knew she was the only woman he'd met in his entire life who made him feel like making love to her would be worth the heavy price.

  He'd kissed a lot of women in his search for one who was worth making love to. There'd been many females, at home, in his travels, and here, who had offered their bodies to him. Some of them had been very persistent. He'd refused them all, not willing to shackle himself for the rest of his life to any of them.

  Celibacy was a real bitch, especially in Newcity, where sex was the most popular pastime. It was hell to watch the couples fucking in the back of his cab, to smell their arousal while his own cock strained at th
e front of his pants without release. Sex was everywhere, used to sell products, reward good business, sold, bought, traded and given away.

  It was all over the viddy, too. Human pornography fascinated him. Orgies, threesomes, gang-bangs...the sheer variety amazed him. Del ordered the viddy to switch to the All-Sex Network. ASN was showing a popular sitcom called Easy Street. The plot revolved around the sexual adventures of the people who lived along one city street. Every week, guest actors joined the regular cast for a fifteen-minute orgy finale. The all-human cast had made the show a runaway hit for three seasons already.

  Del watched as one actress, Bahnzahna, gave oral sex to one well-hung actor while another actor fucked her from behind.

  That would never happen on Xanderra.

  He reminded himself that was one of the reasons why he'd left his home world. It didn't help. Del ran a hand over his head, noting it was time to shave again. Heat flashed over him as Bahnzahna moaned and shuddered in orgasm. A real one, from a real woman, not faked or from a bot who had no choice but to come, no matter what.

  "Viddy off," he barked at the screen.

  Just because he couldn't make love to a woman didn't mean he didn't want to. Harah, didn't mean he wasn't almost desperate to. Times like these, when his cock stiffened and throbbed, he thought he might just go out and find some random partner, anyone would do, and release the pent-up lust of years and damn the consequences.

  But he knew he wouldn't. A few minutes of pleasure wasn't worth a lifetime commitment. Not unless it was with a woman like Linna, he thought, then shook his head. He'd broken down tonight. Asked her for a kiss. The taste of her had made him want to kneel in front of her, to worship at her feet. He had wanted to lose himself in her, give himself over to her. A frightening prospect, but one he knew he couldn't fight.

  He was Xanderran. They mated for life. Fleeing home couldn't change what he was.