Chapter 3

16

While the body and brain slept, Ai kept her mind running as software on the kybernet. That was a flagship feature of the Caliburn. Though it was unhealthy for humans to overuse it, software was Ai’s natural state. It gave her more time to think.

She had care of Kaitlin’s body for four weeks — twenty-seven days, now. In that time, she wanted to experience as much of human sensuality as she could. Sensuality, not just sexuality: food, it seemed, was also an important component. Not every meal could be an explosion of flavour. She still had Kaitlin’s diet to consider. But with some careful tweaks to the smoothie formula, it would leave plenty of leeway for such ‘cheating’.

She couldn’t forget sexuality either, not even if she tried to. Even if she never went to bed with another, she could still explore her borrowed body on her own. Her improvised fun in the shower couldn’t hold a candle to the techniques she’d found in her research.

Yet her true goal was greater still. She wanted to have sex with Tony.

It felt strange yet exhilarating to admit it so openly, in such bold terms. If she were in the body instead of just the kybernet, she would grow short of breath just by contemplating it. Yet as much as she wanted it, as much as she researched, she still knew so little about what it could actually be. She only had one clear mental image: the thought of his long-fingered, deft hands on her skin.

That wouldn’t happen any time soon. Tony was already scared of his sister’s body; if she approached her goal openly, she’d only frighten him and push him away. She would need to take her time, steadily build his comfort. She would need to be subtle – even though she had a definite time limit before Kaitlin’s return.

17

The next morning, Tony left his room to find Kaitlin knelt on a mat on the living room floor. She stretched her spine, thrusting her chest out — directly towards his door — until it threatened to burst through her sports bra.

That stopped him in his tracks. He was just dreaming, right? He pinched himself, bringing a sharp flash of pain. No, he wasn’t dreaming.

Kaitlin — no, Ai — held the pose for several more seconds. When she released it, she moved fluidly forwards: legs stretched out before her, and her body bending over them, bringing her head towards her knees. If not for how her legs obscured his view, it was like she was actively calling his eyes down her cleavage.

He tore his eyes up towards the ceiling. “Wh-What are you doing?” Was it just him, or was the room hotter than normal?

“Yoga.” Ai’s voice was muffled into the floor, so she spoke through the speaker at the same time to keep it clear. “It is an important part of Kaitlin’s routine, focused on strengthening her back. I am almost finished.” She unfolded herself to lie flat along the mat. Completely flat, her resting pose resembling a corpse. Yet she took deep, heavy breaths, and her skin still shone with fresh sweat.

Tony found his eyes drawing back towards her. He forced himself to look at the wall. “And what are you wearing?”

A sports bra and shorts, both tiny and made of pale blue lycra. “Flexibility and freedom of movement are fundamental in both this and jogging. These garments satisfy all requirements of protection, hygiene, and support. They are sufficient.”

Mechanical limbs moved in a precise dance. By the time he reached the kitchen, his morning coffee was waiting for him. Even with a whole new body to take care of, Ai remembered her original duties. Though he thanked her under his breath, he had other things to comment on. “They don’t cover very much, though, do they? You’re going to go jogging in those?”

“Correct.” Ai drew herself to her feet. The movement was more deliberate, more mechanical than anything he’d seen from Kaitlin. “Public decency laws in this state are permissive. I could legally, though not comfortably, jog naked.”

He choked on his coffee while he pushed the image out of his head. Seriously, why did he feel so hot?

Ai blinked once. The air conditioning changed modes, replacing the heat with a cool that chilled the sweat from their skin. She let out a sigh from the sensation, her tone low and warm in ways that tickled the back of his brain. “Hot yoga,” she explained. “Sequences meant to be performed in hot, humid environments. I selected 40 degrees Celsius.”

Oh, good. The room really had been hot. It hadn’t just been him.

Ai slipped into running shoes. “I hadn’t expected you awake before my return. Shall I make breakfast before I go?”

He waved her off. “I can handle making some toast. You go look after Kaitlin’s body.”

18

Ai’s morning had already been full of new experiences. Oppressive heat, making her skin slick with sweat, leaving her short of breath before even her first stretch. The strain of muscles being pushed and pulled beyond their normal comfort zones. As she’d laid in the final corpse pose, she’d felt a lingering ache, but also a sense of satisfaction and euphoria. She wondered how much of that was from endorphins, and how much from a job well done. And finally, as she’d brought the climate back to normal, there had been a brisk chill, something that made her skin sing with relief. A refreshing, bracing bite.

Jogging was another new experience. For one thing, she did it herself. Rather than rely wholly on the body’s reflexes, she practiced the movements under her own control. She stumbled a few times at the beginning, but soon learned how to spring from one step to the next without falling. The running shoes were considerably easier than the heels: perfect for a beginner.

Even aside from doing it herself, it felt different from the way she’d walked yesterday. The burn in her legs, in her lungs ... she’d thought it would just be uncomfortable, but it brought a sense of exhilaration. A runner’s ‘wind’. The feeling of weight was different from walking, too, keeping her stride straight and forwards — and the sports bra controlled her chest considerably better than the lacy one she’d worn with the maid uniform.

Yet she still caught just as much wary, wide-eyed attention. If it wasn’t some maid-phobia epidemic, what was it?

Kaitlin’s routine specified a certain amount of time to spend jogging, but not any certain destination. As Ai ran, she kept a timer running with her, but otherwise just lost herself to her surroundings. The inner city was full of bustle, even at that time in the morning. People in suits, going to and fro among the towering office buildings. The electric hum of cars, inching along the rush-hour traffic on the wide streets. An honestly surprising number of sushi restaurants. She’d always had access to that information, but it felt strange to actually see them all grouped so closely.

With Tony handling his own breakfast and other needs, Ai’s morning freed up considerably. There was somewhere she wanted to go. As her run’s time drew to its end, she turned her route towards the local thundertrain station. The underground platforms swarmed with people who’d just arrived from the suburbs. She hadn’t expected just how packed it would be: with people pressing in on her so tightly, she had to fight the tide just to reach her more sparsely-populated destination. She could have sworn that people made an effort to cram themselves in close to her.

Soon she reached the platform, and once she was on the train, the pressure eased considerably. That time of morning, an awful lot of people came inbound to the central business district. Far fewer headed away from the city and to the southern suburbs. Once all were aboard, they were off like a shot. The underground tunnel’s sound-absorbing material and the train’s own damping did their best, but she could still feel the continuous sonic boom rumbling through her feet.

In less than fifteen minutes, she reached Summerston. The streets here were different: narrower, for both foot and car traffic. Rather than sky-scratching towers, the buildings were two-level suburban homes. Many looked like they were built to the same pattern: a front-facing balcony, two large upper windows like eyes, a small garage at the side. Between the small private yards and the grass and trees beside the sidewalks, there was much more greenery around her. Yet, the air in the city was just as fresh. The air-scrubbers did an efficient job.

A short walk brought her to the Cruise house. The older building stood out from its mass-produced neighbours with its chocolate-brown paint job, old-style solar panels, and the deck extending from the back. It had been in the family since their great-grandfather; it had most recently passed to Kaitlin and Tony in their teen years, after their parents’ accident.

The key Kaitlin had given her fit the front door perfectly. As soon as she was inside, she heard voices. Moaning voices.

By reflex, Ai tried to tap into a nearby camera, but there were none. Kaitlin’s house had plenty of kybernet-enabled appliances, but they didn’t form as smoothly-integrated a network as her extensions back home. She pushed down the disorientation and focused on the present, on what Kaitlin’s body could still see, hear, and feel. These new limitations, and being outside her domain, would just have to be more new experiences.

Opening the master bedroom’s door hit her full-force with the situation. The next moan came louder and clearer, better showing the entwined masculine and feminine tones. Their bodies were meshed more tightly than their voices: a blue-haired, tattooed woman perched on hands and knees on the bed, while a lean, androgynous man took her from behind. His knuckles went white from the force of his grip on her hips, while her hands balled into fists holding great handfuls of the bed’s sheets, squeezing tighter every time he slapped his body into hers. The look on her face — eyes closed, mouth hung wide open — made it clear that she relished the violence of their coupling.

They kept each other’s attention so thoroughly that they didn’t notice Ai, not even when she entered the room. She took full advantage for a closer look, a closer experience. Choking heat radiated from them, taking her breath away more fully than any of her stretches, any of her jogging. Watching them stirred something in her body, a primal instinct that made her heart race. In trying to think about it in any intellectual sense, she could only put it into one word: ‘yes‘.

The looks on their faces transfixed her. They expressed themselves in harmony: the wild fire in his forest-green eyes showed the same passion as the furrow of her brow. If Ai had sex, would she look like that? She tried to re-imagine the scene, to put herself and Tony in place of the strangers.

No. Not quite. Maybe they would wear similar expressions, but the strangers’ bodies were too dissimilar. They were beautiful in completely different ways. The man’s features were sharper, hawklike: the pleasured twist of his mouth made it look almost like a beak. His paper-white skin was lighter and smoother than Tony’s, and his body was built taller and more wiry, while his short, thick hair was an unnatural, vivid purple.

The woman was considerably smaller than Kaitlin, in every dimension. Her ‘elfin’ height went well with the bright blue of her hair and its short pixie cut. The shade was a little more vibrant than Stella Blaze, on the poster on Kaitlin’s wall. Ai couldn’t decide whether the woman’s body was a machine or a work of art. It was fit, toned to the point that individual muscles stood out on her abdomen, and especially on her arms when her fists clenched on the bed. Yet its decorations caught the eye: steel barbell piercings emphasised her nipples in ways her tiny breasts didn’t. A colourfully-inked vine rested its thorns against the side of her tight abdomen before reaching up and curving around her left arm. Ai counted the vibrant roses which bloomed along her sleeve. She’d just hit three when something else demanded her attention.

The elfin woman let out a howling, animalistic shout. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Don’t fucking stop!” Her body went wild, thrashing about as something else took hold of her. She lost balance, sinking until her shoulders and chest hit the bed, while her hips still slammed back into her partner — who let out more ravenous cries, until he gave a roar to match her howl. His convulsions were shorter than hers, a shudder rather than a writhing seizure. When they finished, they both sank forwards, the man bent almost double.

Now they were satisfied, the passion soon cleared from their senses. Which meant the woman opened her clay-brown eyes and finally noticed Ai. “Oh fuck!” She jolted back, the impact nudging her lover back into full consciousness too. While they hurried for clothing, she looked over at Ai. More specifically, at something just above her head. “Not Kaitlin,” she said, as much for her lover as herself. “You’re that AI she left ... what’d she call it, sleeve-sitting? Ai, right?” She relaxed, sitting back wearing only her dark panties, while her partner pulled on the rest of his tight-fitting clothes.

Ai realised she’d been holding her breath. It took her a few heavy pants before she could speak. “And you must be Nita. The friend she left house-sitting.” Her gaze lingered on the naked parts of Nita’s body. They were ... enjoyable to look at.

Nita took the gaze in stride, though still showed a need to explain the situation. “We were just breaking in Alex’s new body before work. It’s been a while since they’ve been—”

Alex interrupted with a hand on Nita’s shoulder and a kiss on her lips. He — they, Ai corrected herself, if that was the pronoun Nita used for Alex — had dressed fully. “Speaking of, better get going.”

Nita squeezed their hand. “Okay, love.” While Alex left, she turned back to Ai. “It’s been a while since they’ve been male, so.” There was a certain ease in her stance, a relaxation and satisfaction that seemed to sink bone-deep, and to glow especially brightly from her smile.

Ai looked around the room. “So you had sex, on Kaitlin’s bed.” She considered her own goals. “I am in no position to judge.”

That widened Nita’s eyes. “Ooh. Who’ve you been fucking?”

“No one.” Ai kicked herself for answering too quickly. The word ‘yet’ hung, unspoken yet obvious.

It spread Nita’s smile into a wickedly playful grin. “Ohh? Who are you going to fuck, then?”

Ai had come here with a goal. This irrelevant interlude wouldn’t get her any closer to it. That was why she changed the subject; it had nothing to do with the curious way her cheeks felt like they were overheating. “Where does Kaitlin keep her sex toys?”

Nita blinked, then pouted. “Just because they’re machines and you’re a machine doesn’t mean that counts as sex, you know.” She bent low, folding herself almost in half, and grabbed a box out from under the bed. “No, we haven’t used any of them. The whole point was to get down and dirty with Alex’s new body.”

Ai opened the box to find an array of stimulators. Her research already identified them: a dildo with a suction cup; a wand; a rabbit vibe; a set of patch vibrators; a strap-on; and several more.

Nita watched her pick through them for two minutes before she chimed in. “Word of advice: she always says the wand’s her favourite. I don’t know if that’s just a personal thing for her, or if it really works with her body for some reason.”

Ai filed the thought away, sorting that to the top of her planned experiments. But that was still in the future. For the present, she tilted her head and peered at Nita. “Why are you helping me?”

Nita shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Sex is fun. Good sex is better fun. Even if you’re just playing on your own, why not help a girl out?”

If. That conditional hung over Ai’s head. She wanted, dearly, for it to evaluate false. And if Nita could give her a better chance ... her hands tightened, clenching in her lap. “You, clearly, know how to attract a mate. How...” How would she what? Seduce a person? Get someone into bed? She didn’t even know what kind of terminology to use. “How would I get started on that?”

This time, Nita’s smile was less wicked, more thoughtful. “You are damn cute, you know that?” She shook her head. “That all depends on the partner. Some people, you just have to show off your body — especially a body like Kaitlin’s — and they’re down to fuck. I know some clubs I could send you—”

“No.” Ai slammed the word down like a gavel. “No strangers.”

That stopped Nita short, but then her grin returned. “You definitely have your eye on someone.”

That burn came to her cheeks again. The truth of Nita’s words only made her blush hotter. But what would denial get her? She took a deep breath and locked her eyes with Nita. “Tony Cruise.”

“Ooh.” Nita tugged her arm to sit down next to her. She drew in close, eager to dish. “You’re hot for owner, huh? You know, I’ve heard rumours, but you’re the first AI I’ve met who actually is.”

Ai’s face felt like it might burst from sheer rush of blood. Not just from the teasing; Nita’s proximity made it so much easier to feel her nudity. She kept just shy of brushing her pierced nipples against Ai’s arm. She kept silent, just watching Nita expectantly.

“You’re playing in hard mode,” Nita said. “He’s shy at the best of times. You’ll have to take it slow.”

Ai nodded. “Yes. I know I have already been taking a more subtle approach.”

“Ooh.” Nita wiggled. “So what have you done so far?”

Ai told her about the morning.

By the end, Nita broke down giggling. “You ... You did yoga in front of him, in that. You call that subtle? What would you do if you wanted to be overt?”

Ai blinked at her. “I would approach him and say, ‘sir, would you like to have sex?’”

Nita choked. “Yeah, that’s more overt.” She shook her head. “With Tony, you’ve got to take it more like ... dating. He’s more about the connection than the attraction. Honestly, I think it’d take a pretty special connection for him to go for it in less than a month or two. Just spend time together, have fun together. You have to get him comfortable with you, before you can get anything more.”

That raised another point, something which deeply confused Ai. Discomfort. Her head snapped up and towards Nita. “Why is everyone afraid of Kaitlin’s body?”

Nita blinked. “What?”

“Wherever I go, people stare,” Ai said. “They don’t let me out of their sight. Their eyes grow wide. Their hands shake. They become short of breath. Almost everyone I pass acts like I’m some terrible threat. I thought at first it was something wrong with what I was wearing, but if anything, the response has increased since I changed into this.”

Nita burst into laughter. “Ai ... they’re not afraid.” She rolled onto her hands and knees again, pushing into Ai’s personal space. “Kaitlin’s gorgeous. You’re gorgeous.” As she leaned in, she raked her gaze over Ai. Her eyes grew owlishly wide, her pupils as wide as any Ai had seen, her breath deepening with infectious excitement. “That’s how people look at someone they find attractive.” She placed her face right in front of Ai’s. “Look at someone they want to fuck. Maybe there is a little fear — they want it so much it scares them. Especially with you putting it all on display like that.” Her gaze dipped; though her eyes were still wide, her smile was warm as she surveyed Ai’s cleavage. “But mostly, they’re not afraid, Ai. They’re horny.”

Ai found she could understand a bit better, not just from explanation, but from experience. Her heart thudded in her chest, her breath coming faster. It was a lot like when she’d been running, but she’d done nothing with such exertion. Something drew her to Nita, some instinct...

But Nita was, for all her helpfulness, still a stranger. While instinct encouraged her forwards, Ai still shifted back slightly.

The tattooed girl took it with good humour, a smile on her face as she drew back to sit on her heels again.

Ai looked down at herself. “And this is too much. Too overt. Then...” She looked up into Nita’s face. “How should I dress?”

19

Coming home felt like emerging from underwater. Like taking in a breath of fresh air, she took in the connectedness of her extensions. Before her foot was even inside the doorway, every inch of the apartment was closer to her than her fingertips.

A moment’s thought checked each camera. Tony wasn’t home; he must still have been in class. Good. That gave her some privacy. While the door still swung closed, she passed the box and her other acquisitions to her roller extension, which took it to her bedroom. Ai herself went straight into the bathroom.

Once she stripped them off, the shorts and sports bra went straight into the laundry to be washed later. It would be a waste to use a cycle on so little, and she had something else to wash first.

All morning, she had been looking forward to this with glee far beyond her satisfaction with her cleaning duties. This shower felt even better than the night before. Her exercise had earned a layer of sweat, sticky on her skin. Even just the touch of hot, flowing water started washing it away. Yet, she could handle the pleasure better, too. She knew what to expect, and so she could react to it better than just shutting down and basking in bliss. All her hands — the shower’s extensions included — worked at lathering her with soap. After the next rinse, her skin’s softness could breathe again. And all the while, the water’s heat worked to soothe the strain in her legs. Except for the afterglow of exercise, she could forget that she’d been running.

Yet, that wasn’t enough. Her legs had recovered, but her back still kept most of its ache. She stayed under the shower, letting the heat do what it could to loosen that tightness in her right shoulder. Cleaning her skin just made it hunger for new stimulation. Her fingers itched to touch; she knew already how supple that skin would feel...

No. She’d already explored in the shower, with her bare hands. That would only tread old ground. She forced herself to turn off the shower. After that, three towels and all her hands made quick work of drying her off. She was still home alone, so she crossed the hall without even a towel on.

Nudity felt nice. She hadn’t noticed it the night before; she’d been overwhelmed, unaware of anything but her own thoughts. Now, she could feel the sense of liberation from having the air kiss every inch of Kaitlin’s body.

Kaitlin’s hand shook as Ai closed the door behind her. Kaitlin’s heart raced and lungs worked faster as she approached the bed. She was naked, alone with tools of pleasure. The night before had been an accident, a shower which went in new directions. This time, Ai intended pleasure, and the anticipation raced through her borrowed body — from the core of her heart to the surface of her prickling skin.

Sitting on the bed’s edge, she chose from her new panoply. The wand stood out to her first: all smooth white plastic, with a long handle and a large bulb at the end, looking almost like a wireless microphone. As she gripped it, she thumbed a button until it paired with her kybernet.

After that, just a thought activated the motor and made it buzz. As eager as Ai was to experience what that vibrating head could do, she knew how easily it could overwhelm her. A simple hot shower had overwhelmed her; this was a tool designed specifically to create pleasure. She needed to take it slow.

First, she held the inert head against her mouth, feeling the smooth plastic under her soft lips. Even expecting it, even causing it, the first vibration shocked her system enough to make her gasp. It left her lips tingling, even after she’d turned it off. And her research showed that weak vibrations like those were on the low end of the stimulation that humans sought for themselves. How could they stand it? How did they get anything else done?

Kaitlin’s nipples ached from their hardness. It felt like all the blood racing from her excited heart had just stayed in them, perking them to an uncomfortable limit. Between her thighs, she burned with hotter, wetter yearning. But just vibrating against her mouth left Ai dizzy. No way could she handle taking the vibrator to more sensitive zones. She needed to try it out somewhere with less of an erotic charge. Somewhere like ... her shoulder. Yes, surely that would be easier.

Bad idea. The wand hit her system harder than the first rush of hot water on her back, harder than the first sensation which had taught her to so crave others. A reflexive, almost panicked thought shut the vibrator off.

Afterwards, her shoulder felt different. She rolled it, finding the joint looser, more flexible. It felt better. So that tightness wasn’t correct function. She’d have to ask Tony about it later.

Tony. Just thinking about him brought a flood of other images. She tried to picture his lips in place of the wand — pressed to her own, or teasing along the skin of her shoulder, or going beyond to the other ways they could please her. She groaned under her breath, not from stimulation, but from the need for it. Thinking about her shoulder only distracted her from meeting those needs.

Her nipples hadn’t stopped aching. Maybe the vibrations could soothe them like they had soothed her shoulder. Her right arm carefully crossed her chest, hugging both her soft breasts to squeeze them together and point both her nipples inwards, until they almost touched. That let her set the wand’s warm plastic to both at once, and with a thought, the motor started again.

The vibrator felt like a taser, shocking her with raw, electric pleasure. Instinct jerked her body forwards, pushing her breasts more firmly against the rumbling toy. She almost lost hold again, almost let her breasts slip back to their natural, rounded shape; she kept them together, kept those eager peaks tight on the wand. After several seconds, she realised she’d been holding her breath, and let it out in a long groan.

But for all the bliss it brought her, her body still cried out for more. With a reluctant whine, she pulled the still-vibrating wand away from her chest.

It tickled as it made its way down her abdomen, though laughter was the farthest thing from her mind. She sank back onto the bed, trying to get comfortable in spite of the ache of yearning. As hard as she tried to steady her breathing, she still found herself gasping. Her thighs spread, inch by inch, in preparation.

Vibrating her nipples had been like a taser. Touching the wand to her clitoris was like lightning from heaven. A shout pulled itself from her lips. She had expected trepidation to shut the wand down again. Instead, craving just demanded more from it. The motor’s rumble turned into a high-pitched whine as she pushed it to its highest settings, taking everything she could get from it.

Everything she could get, and so much more than she could handle. When orgasm struck, it annihilated everything else in her world. Maybe she moaned or screamed; maybe she shuddered or writhed. She honestly didn’t know. She only knew pleasure, white-hot enough to burn and blind her, to scorch her senses and leave her insensate to anything else.

When it eventually finished, the whole world seemed dim by comparison. Timestamps told her she’d held onto that state for over a full minute, just shy of seventy seconds. A new cramp had appeared low on her back. She must have thrashed around too much.

For a long while, she just lay there, soaking up the after-warmth. Once her mind could work again, she summoned her roller to take the toy away and clean it. By the time that was done, she could bring Kaitlin’s body to move again. Finally, she turned her attention to the last of her new acquisitions. Finally, it was time to get dressed.

20

After class, Tony’s mind buzzed with ideas. Carl Talosi had posted a new presentation, and that always fired him up thinking about robots. He’d had feedback on two assignments and some more practice questions assigned for a quiz. Nothing back about his hardware project yet, but that was more than enough to sink his mental teeth into. He took notes in his kybernet, leaving his walk home on autopilot.

As soon as he was through the apartment door, a smooth voice pulled him out of his trance. “Good afternoon, sir. You have two new messages. Would you like to review them?”

Tony steeled himself to see his sister’s body clad barely in underwear, and turned towards the voice.

Instead, he found her dressed top to bottom in black. It started with makeup: her eyes were thickly lined and lightly shadowed, and dark lipstick made her mouth stand out more from her peach skin. The dress started with a wraparound Mandarin collar, and extended down into long sleeves and a skirt that almost reached the floor, showing just a hint of heeled pumps. Its fit flattered her figure without obscene tightness, flowing rather than squeezing. The sleeves and upper chest were done in a lace-decorated, semi-transparent mesh, showing skin without exposing it — enough to show her collarbones and, if he looked closely, just a hint of cleavage.