Aftermarket Lover (SDS Robots) Read online

  Ash undressed faster than he ever remembered undressing and pulled the covers back, getting in and lying down on top of Lin. He wanted to feel skin on skin, or skin on… whatever it was that robots had that sure felt like skin. Lin was warm and his skin simulant was so close to the real thing that Ash got turned on by the full-body contact. He moved his hands over Lin’s sides, feeling the musculature and ribs, while pushing his erect cock against Lin’s ass crack.

  Lin pushed up on his knees, pillowing his face in his arms. He turned a sultry face to Ash and said, “I’m self-lubricating, so if you’re ready…”

  If. Ash seized Lin’s naked hips, pulled the buttocks apart and aimed the tip of his cock at the hole. It was hard to see in the dim lighting, but he focused on getting his rod inside that tight passage as soon as possible.

  Lin crooned his approval as Ash entered him, making noises like he enjoyed it. Ash wondered through his haze of lust if he really was enjoying it, or if those sweet whimpers and moans were programmed into him. He closed his eyes and slipped further in, every movement flooding his cock with wild pleasure. He wasn’t going to last long.

  Finally he was in all the way. Stopping to catch his breath, Ash released his grip on the robot’s hips and moved a hand around to grasp Lin’s cock. Reciprocating was half the fun, right? He felt around Lin’s groin area. The skin there was as smooth as his ass.

  Ash’s eyes flew open.

  There was nothing there.

  “What the hell,” Ash said roughly. His cock began softening inside the robot and he pulled out. “What the fucking hell.”

  He pushed Lin away from him, almost in panic. Lin remained in the same position with his bare ass in the air. His face was averted.

  Ash scrambled backward off the bed. “You—you freak,” he said. “Get out of my bed.” All thoughts of sex left him. No wonder the robot wanted to sleep in another room. He’d tried to hide this for as long as he could.

  He stood there naked, watching Lin slowly crawl off the bed and stand with his hands over his crotch. “What are you doing?” Ash said, his voice shaky. “You’ve got nothing to hide there, right? Shit.”

  The robot’s lean figure, his soft pale skin, the long line of his back and torso and legs all in perfect proportions still appealed to Ash despite his disgust. Which only made him angrier.

  He strode to Lin and started to pull his hands away. Lin resisted and Ash grabbed his wrists and yanked them upward.

  He stared at the blank expanse of skin where the robot’s legs came together. It was horrifying and pathetic.

  Ash’s mouth tightened. He let go of the robot and shoved him. “Get out of here.”

  The look of shame and despair on Lin’s face took Ash aback. He looked almost human. As he walked out of the bedroom, his eyes still not meeting Ash’s, Ash couldn’t help but watch him go.

  ****

  The next morning, Lin was in the kitchen when Ash came in. “Good morning,” he said quietly. He was at the sink and turned his head toward Ash slightly as he said it.

  Ash ignored him and sat down at the table where Lin had placed his breakfast. He ate his hot grain cereal and drank his coffee.

  Tiny came in, his little feet padding along the tiled floor. He sat by Ash’s feet and looked up at him.

  Ash glanced down and shook his head. “Can’t take you for a walk, sorry.” Tiny liked two walks a day, one in the morning and one late in the afternoon. But Ash didn’t feel like it right now.

  “I will take Tiny for his walks today and feed him,” Lin said in his soft voice. He turned around and faced Ash, light blue eyes gazing at him with faint hope. “So please do not concern yourself, Ash.”

  Ash bristled. The robot was addressing him like he was as human as Ash, someone who could use his name.

  He abruptly got up, lifting his mug and downing the rest of his coffee, feeling Lin’s eyes on him. It irritated him. Ash put the mug down and went to get his work jacket and keys to the land skiff.

  “If you like, I can prepare lunch—”

  “No, that’s fine,” Ash said shortly. He was almost out the door when Lin tried again. “Ash—”

  He turned, contempt twisting his features, and Lin shrank back. “Leave me alone. I don’t need a machine keeping tabs on me.”

  Ash shut the door behind him, but not before he’d seen the look of hurt on the robot’s face.

  That evening Ash came in tired and dirty. Lin was in the kitchen again, as if he’d never left. “Hello, Ash. How was your day?” he said. “I prepared stew for dinner. Please sit down, I will bring it to you.”

  Ash didn’t answer or look at him, but sat down. Lin brought his bowl of stew along with bread and butter.

  He ate. The stew was tasty and satisfying, but he couldn’t bring himself to thank Lin for making it. He knew he was being childish but couldn’t stop himself.

  Ash turned and saw Tiny sitting on the kitchen floor a few feet from Lin. “Tiny,” he said, smiling. At least he could count on someone. “Tiny, come here.”

  Tiny remained where he was.

  Ash frowned. “Hey. Come here.” He snapped his fingers.

  The dog lay down on his stomach. He lowered his head to the floor, staring at Ash with a sad expression.

  Ash looked from Tiny to Lin and back again. His own dog was taking the robot’s side!

  He got up, exasperated, grabbing his jacket as he headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out.”

  He strode down a well-worn path behind the station, up a brief rise and then a small hill until he reached the top of the ridge.

  The ridge path ended in a small plateau at the highest point. The binary suns had set already and fading strains of sunlight lit the ridge just enough to see. From here Ash could see the flatlands for miles, and the deepening violet skies over the purple mountains in the distance.

  Ash sat down on a large flat rock. It was his favorite place to escape to, a place where he could sit and look out over the view and think about things. Or not think about things.

  His stomach clenched, remembering the feel of the smooth skin where Lin’s genitals should have been. No cock. No balls. Just an expanse of skin all the way to the asshole.

  A perfect robot to use for sex. All Lin could do was service, not be serviced.

  Or loved.

  Ash stared at the flatlands. He’d never heard of an SDS robot with no genitalia. What would be the point of it? He thought they were equipped with, well—everything—so the experience of sex with a partner, one who could feel everything you could feel, would be more satisfying.

  He wasn’t sure how robots felt things. Maybe they had sensors that mimicked human senses like touch and smell and taste?

  And their emotions? He knew even less. Did they even have real emotions?

  Ash turned his head to see Lin standing on the path, his blue eyes staring at him.

  The evening winds blew across the plateau.

  Ash looked at the robot. He didn’t know what to say, but didn’t feel like carrying on a fight anymore. He sighed. “You can sit here, if you want,” he said, indicating the area next to him on the rock.

  He couldn’t see Lin’s expression in the twilight, but the robot slowly walked over and sat down several feet from him.

  They sat in silence for a time, the wind providing the only sound as it whistled between the rocks.

  Ash knew he would have to break the ice. It wasn’t the robot’s place to do it. “Sorry,” he began. “I guess you can’t help being… like that.”

  “It’s all right.”

  More silence. Ash stared at the flatlands below. Why did something always go wrong when he tried to get together with someone? Even a freaking robot couldn’t be a match for him.

  “I hope that I have provided good service to you in my short time here.”

  Ash turned his head. Lin was gazing at him with a gentle expression, the wind rippling through his hair. His silver hair reflected
the light of the two moons rising in the sky, and his smooth synthetic skin looked like pale-colored paint. “I am sorry that I can’t stay. I would have liked to have stayed with you.”

  Ash started. “What?”

  The robot blinked. “I thought—” His face froze for a moment as he processed Ash’s reaction. “Are you not returning me to Jake?”

  Ash hadn’t thought about what came next. Did he want to get rid of Lin? Give him back to Jake like a defective good?

  It wasn’t like Lin had done anything wrong. The station was sparkling clean, his cooking was wonderful and the blow jobs made Ash feel like a teenager again. The robot wasn’t the greatest conversationalist but then neither was he.

  Taking Lin on wouldn’t mean more responsibility. If anything, Lin’s work relieved him of maintaining the station and preparing meals, which meant Ash could spend more time out looking for gold. He might be able to leave this barren rock sooner.

  He looked at Lin. “I want you to stay. If you want to.”

  Lin stared at him, his mouth hanging open. Then he recovered himself. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” Ash held out his arm and beckoned Lin closer, and Lin scooted over until Ash could put his arm around him.

  A bounding ball of fur landed in Ash’s lap. Tiny barked, tail wagging as he looked up at Ash.

  Well, Ash thought, that’s settled.

  ****

  The next few days were calm and pleasant. Lin cleaned the station and cooked meals while Ash went out to work.

  Ash messaged Jake and told him he would keep Lin. At the end of the week, Jake showed up for his usual delivery.

  The two men stood outside Jake’s ship and hunched over their U-tabs as Ash transferred the money. He’d been shocked at the price, which was the equivalent of just three weeks of his salary.

  After the transfer was confirmed, Ash looked at Jake. “Okay, now you can tell me everything. What bugs has he got?”

  “What do you mean?” Jake demurred.

  “For one thing, it’s a ridiculously small amount of money for purchasing a robot. For another thing he’s missing a few… parts.”

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “I kind of thought you’d notice that eventually.”

  He drew Ash closer to the ship, out of earshot of Lin who was inside the station. “He’s an SDS Hybrid model.”

  “You mean—”

  “The experimental ones with real flesh mixed in with synthetic flesh,” Jake said.

  “The ones who killed their owners,” Ash said, recalling the stories on the U-net. “Thanks. Can I look forward to getting killed in my sleep now if I get on his wrong side?”

  “Those were the early ones,” Jake said patiently. “V-Lin is a late model. The late models had that glitch programmed out of them. No, the ones they built toward the end have a different issue.”

  “No genitals.”

  “Actually no, that’s just a custom option at the owner’s request. The late models were designed with human emotions but their human side began to take over. Most of them had to be destroyed because they became too unpredictable—like humans.”

  Ash stared at Jake. “That still doesn’t answer my question. What’s Lin’s story?”

  Jake drew even closer and lowered his voice. “He’s only had one owner—the one who ordered him without the, well, essential parts. The guy was a real bastard. He finally got bored with V-Lin and got another SDS Hybrid, and sold V-Lin to a used robot dealer. He was sold from dealer to dealer and I got him from a U-net auction.”

  “But that doesn’t explain—”

  “Look, he’s got emotions, right? Like a normal human. So it’s not like dealing with a robot robot if you get my meaning. The hybrids have a war going on inside them: the machine side versus the human side. Some of them stay robots but others morph into something that isn’t one thing or the other. And some…” Jake hesitated, then continued, “Some start leaving the machine behind altogether.”

  Ash stared. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean their computer brain inside them, the circuitry or hardware—however you put it—dissolves due to the increasing humanity of the hybrid.”

  “What’s the end game? Do any of these hybrids turn completely human?”

  “Don’t know. There’s an experimental treatment that accelerates the process supposedly. The hybrid’s individual will is a big factor.” Jake paused. “Of course, if he doesn’t have the parts though—he can’t grow them. He’s doomed to be sexually unfulfilled forever.” He checked his tab. “I gotta go. Thanks for the sale. Oh, and here’s the key.”

  He handed Ash a device that resembled the one Ash used for his entertainment center. “What’s this?”

  “The key. You’re supposed to control the robot with this. Just turn it on and read the screen, it’s self-explanatory,” Jake said over his shoulder as he headed up the ramp. “Good luck!”

  Ash backed up as the ship’s engine fired. He glared at the delivery pilot’s smiling face and cheerful wave through the cockpit window as the ship took off. It was just like Jake to half-explain things at the last minute, always keeping him off-balance.

  He walked into the station holding the key, still stewing. Turning the key on, Ash waited for the screen to show something.

  A master menu came up. Ash scrolled down the commands.

  He frowned.

  Pain. Pleasure.

  Fear.

  What kind of robot commands were these?

  Ash was staring at the key when Lin entered. He looked up and saw the expression on Lin’s face. Before he could react, the robot snatched the key out of his hands and ran out of the station.

  “Wha—Hey!” Ash yelled.

  He took off after Lin. The robot ran behind the station and up the small rise, and Ash knew where he was headed.

  The robot was already on the ridge line by the time Ash started up the rise. He cursed under his breath, and kept running. Damn, but he was fast. “Lin, wait!”

  Ash heard Tiny barking behind him. This was getting ridiculous.

  He speeded up and reached the plateau at the top of the hill just as Lin stopped at the edge and turned to face him.

  Tiny barked and barked. “Tiny, stop,” Ash said. The little dog ran back and forth between the two as if trying to bring them together.

  “I won’t let you have this.” Lin gripped the key like his life depended on not giving it up.

  “Okay. I won’t take it from you. Just tell me what is the deal with that thing anyway?”

  He began walking toward the robot. “Stay away,” Lin said, looking as close to frantic as a robot could. He scrolled down the screen as Ash said, “Hey, wait—”

  Lin held up the key for Ash to read. It said Terminate Robot. “I’ll push this,” Lin said, his eyes wild. “I will. Don’t come any closer.”

  Ash stopped. “Fine. Can I ask just one question?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t even know what that key thing is for, all right? But do you trust me?” Ash extended his hand toward Lin. “I just paid Jake for you. You can stay with me if you like. But you have to trust me, and I have to be able to trust you. Okay?” Ash looked at him earnestly. “Give me the key.”

  “No!”

  “Please. I promise I won’t use it to hurt you.”

  Ash waited with his hand out for what felt like an eternity. Finally, Lin slowly reached out and dropped the key into Ash’s hand with shaking fingers.

  Ash scrolled down the list of commands one last time, his mouth tightening in disgust. What kind of sick fuck did these things to someone? And then he drew back his arm and hurled the key off the cliff.

  Lin gasped. His eyes trailed the arc of the key as it sailed through the air. They heard it break as it hit the rocks below.

  “I don’t want to control you,” Ash said. “I don’t like being controlled, so I won’t do that to you. If you stay here with me, we’re equals. I don’t care if you’re a robot or p
art-robot or whatever you are.”

  Lin stared at him, his eyes huge. His mouth moved silently as if he couldn’t find the words, and then he said in a trembling voice, “I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”

  And suddenly he was in Ash’s arms, hugging him, and Ash was hugging him back. “I feel like crying,” Lin said into his shoulder, “but I don’t know how to do that.”

  Ash laid his cheek against the silver hair, his own eyes a little moist. He didn’t know if it was pity for Lin or something more selfish, but all he knew was that he felt happy. “Hey,” he said. “I hope we didn’t need that key for anything. You’re not going to grind to a halt or anything without it, are you?”

  He felt a funny snorting against his shoulder and realized Lin was laughing. It was the first time he’d heard him laugh. “No,” Lin said. He lifted his face and gazed into Ash’s eyes. “I don’t need it at all.”

  His blue eyes shone with emotion, and Ash looked for signs of the machine, but all he saw were normal human eyes.

  He lowered his face and kissed him.

  A surprised murmur met his lips, and then Lin was kissing him back.

  Tiny barked at their feet, but they didn’t stop until they had to come up for air.

  ****

  He took Lin back into his bed—their bed—that night.

  Ash wasn’t sure how he’d react to Lin’s naked body again with the absence of his private parts, but all doubts left him when they embraced for the first time front to front. Lin’s body was warm, and though Ash had to suppress a momentary flinch when he felt that smooth empty area again, the reaction was brief.

  This was Lin, someone who felt and acted like a real human being.

  “Do my looks please you?” Lin asked. He touched Ash’s cheek tentatively.

  Ash was puzzled. This wasn’t the first time Lin asked him this. “Yeah, sure, you look great. Why do you think I wouldn’t like the way you look?” Then he thought about it. Lin had been a custom-made robot and his owner probably ordered one that was his own race. Since Ash was Asian, Lin might be thinking he wouldn’t want a Caucasian robot. “You’re fine. I mean, if I custom-ordered a rob—someone like you, he would look just like you.”