Chapter 2

"What is your sexual protocol?"

"I may engage in sexual activity only with the express consent of my end user for the purpose of providing him with pleasure," I recited it slowly. Something about it didn't seem right and I frowned.

"Then why did you perform oral sex on Lucy and her friend just a few hours ago, Ming?" Peterson asked reasonably.

"I ... I..." I searched for an answer and found that I could not find one. I felt as if I couldn't breathe suddenly and a surge of panic rushed through my body.

"Mmmm ... that's a problem." Nance was making some notations on her clipboard.

"Ming." Peterson caught my eyes and I stared at him. "Listen carefully. Yellow Gambit Six Nine Six Access."

I blinked as if I hadn't heard him. I found myself lying down on the glass table and I sat up slowly, feeling very refreshed and my recent distress all but forgotten.

"Shall we continue, Ming?" Peterson looked up from his clipboard and I nodded. "Please list your sexual protocols."

"Priority One: I may engage in sexual activity when required by Technical Services to ensure the proper operation of my sexual functions. Priority Two: I may engage in sexual activity to alleviate conflict with my Safety and/or Conduct protocols. Priority Three: I may engage in sexual activity with the express consent of my end user for the purpose of providing him or her with pleasure."

"Better," Nance said with a nod. "I'll get a note off to Simmons. He's not going to like taking a hit on this."

"It's always the little things," Peterson agreed. "Well, make sure he knows the protocols were in place. It was just a parity error; she knew what she was supposed to do, but not why."

"Hmmph," Nance grunted. "It's easy to forget these things need to know why."

"We're not building toasters, Nance!" Peterson laughed. "Ming, would you like to be punished?"

"Have I offended you?" I felt suddenly very contrite and I just knew I had done something wrong. I looked down at my feet and clasped my hands behind my back.

"No, Ming, you haven't offended me at all. In fact, you've pleased me a great deal and I'd like to reward you." Peterson's face was kind. "Punished is perhaps the wrong word. Would you like to be spanked?"

I felt a great flood of relief and I smiled eagerly. I would enjoy nothing more than being spanked right then. It seemed I'd been waiting for days, ever since I'd first awoken in that strange bed, to be spanked. "Yes ... Master." It seemed proper to add that title and I slipped to my knees, bending over to kiss his feet. "Please spank me."

"Vitals?" Peterson looked at Nance.

"Looks good. Her pulse, respiration, blood pressure, everything is going up nicely," Nance shrugged.

"She's almost too eager." The man rubbed his bearded chin. "Call up the purchase order, what does it say?"

"Okay, hold on..." The woman pushed some keys on the small pad. "Uh, oh ... no, she's right on target I think. She's SubMas Level 9; Em Response is a pos straight eight ... PTh 1 ... PTo 9 ... Jesus, that's cruel." Nance shook her head. "You're going to have to break the skin to get an endorphin response."

"Yeah." Peterson frowned a bit. He didn't look particularly happy and I was worried that I was displeasing him somehow.

"Master?" I was still at Peterson's feet.

"Yes, Ming?"

"I am sorry, Master." I kept my eyes down and my lower lip trembled slightly.

"Oh, no!" He laughed. "It isn't your fault, Ming. Look, maybe we should explain..."

"Do you think that's wise?" Nance broke in. "Some things are best left to the customer's discretion, don't you think?"

"Yeah, but well ... We need to do it, so she'll have some downtime anyway. If it becomes a problem we'll fix it, better to find out now. This will come up again, I'm sure. Make a note of her system time and we'll have conditioning run a linear memory purge if we have to."

"You're the boss," Nance sighed.

"Ming," Peterson looked down at me. "You're made for pleasure..."

"Someone's idea of pleasure," Nance interjected softly. I glanced at her and saw some compassion in her eyes.

"Quiet..." Peterson continued, "You're a Level 9 Submissive/Masochist, which is peak. Your Emotional Responses are topped out, everything from fear and love, to shame and pride and all the stuff in between. Normally these responses would be graduated, on a sort of curve if you want to imagine it that way. Fear might be low and Love might be high, or vice versa, depending on the effects desired. This also helps avoid unnecessary emotional conflict. Do you understand?"

I shook my head. "I think I should love my fear. I do not think that I feel ... distressed."

Nance laughed. "You think the customer knows something we don't?"

"Series IV." Peterson grinned. "I love these things. Okay. Good, Ming. Now the other thing is that your Pain Threshold is set very low. A normal healthy adult human is about a 4 or 5, right in the middle. Yours is significantly lower than that, like a young child's. You will feel virtually everything and it will hurt a great deal. Think of it as having supersensitive skin, but of course it goes much deeper than that."

I nodded, remembering how much just having blood drawn had hurt. It had seemed like the worst thing in the world. But at the same time...

"Your Pain Tolerance, however, is set very high, maxed out in fact. Everything hurts, but your body is able to withstand it to a degree that would far exceed anything I or Nance, or any other normal person could take. This doesn't mean you enjoy it, that's a function of your SubMas conditioning. Pain Tolerance means that your nervous system itself has been modified so that your body will resist taking normal defensive measures, such as passing out or going into shock. Your mind too is affected by this, creating in essence the ability to accept pain, to rationalize it, if you will. This combination allows you to function under extremely adverse conditions."

"It's important you understand that Threshold and Tolerance are not the same thing; they don't even necessarily go hand in hand, although most healthy people possess a certain equilibrium," Nance said, trying to explain. "In your case there has been a deliberate effort to separate them."

She looked at me and I questioned Peterson, returning to his previous statement. "Then there is an increased risk of injury?" I asked and when Peterson nodded, I came to the logical conclusion... "That is acceptable." I smiled up at him. "Will you hurt me now, please?"

"Welcome to SubMas 9..." Nance whispered, somewhat sadly, I thought.

"Stand up, Ming." Peterson gestured and I rose to my feet, wondering a little petulantly if I was ever going to get spanked.

He turned me around and I felt his warm hands on my back, touching my soft, golden skin as he examined me closely. I had not so much as a mole now, not a mark or scratch. My body was as smooth as a baby's, tender and new.

"We'll do this tonight. I'll get that Series II training unit they keep down in Behavioral Sciences, it's a Level 5 DomSad." He looked at Nance. "Unless you want to do it?"

"No thanks," she chuckled ruefully. "Not my cup of tea, I'm afraid." She glanced at her clipboard. "Three days you think? We're already two days overdue on this one."

"I know." Peterson shrugged. "The delivery date is only an estimate anyway. It's in the small print. I'll do the paperwork on it." The man looked at the clock on the wall behind him. "I guess we have some time to kill, do you want to take Ming back to her room? I'll set everything up for tonight, say 1900 hours, we'll use the lab in 3b, it's empty and soundproofed."

Nance nodded and jerked her head. "Let's go for a walk, Ming. Get dressed."

I smiled briefly at Peterson and followed Nance out of the QA Lab and into the corridor.

"Did you understand everything Peterson was saying?" she asked me as we walked along a broad, open-air skyway. The facility was largely stainless steel, aluminum and glass, very modern and beautiful, but somewhat cold aesthetically, I thought.

"I think so. You're going to test me. My response to BDSM."

"Yes, that's right. Believe it or not, that's your primary function. All the rest ... the skills, the knowledge, even your appearance to a certain extent, is secondary to your ability to perform as desired in a specific environment. In your case a Dominant/submissive environment, and more precisely in a Sadist/masochist relationship." Nance looked at me, pausing and leaning on a railing a thousand feet above the city proper sprawled out below. "How does that make you feel?"

"It makes me very happy." I didn't hesitate; the emotion was clear and strong inside me. "I'm nervous, a little afraid that I will not know exactly how to satisfy my end user, my ... owner ... but I'm sure he will teach me." I glanced at the woman beside me. "Will he?"

"Oh, I'm sure he will," Nance nodded, but she didn't seem pleased.

We started walking again, slowly.

"Why does that bother you?" I asked her.

"I started working here right out of medical school. The money was good and the work was ... interesting. I wasn't curing cancer or anything, but I was creating something new, you know?"

I didn't, but I let her continue.

"We were building the Series I then, mostly. The Series II was just coming online and it was exciting. But they were just ... things. Not real, not like people at all. The Series I especially. They weren't so much conditioned as just wiped. They had so much hardware..." Nance gestured helplessly. "Well, you saw those two this morning. Robots really, the body is just a life support system for the CPU. I suppose that was natural though, you know, hybrid's getting us from the Replicant era into the Biogenisis age."

We turned towards the pyramid shaped enclosure where my rooms were located.

"Anyway, Series II was better and then Series III was a real breakthrough. We were finally able to teach, instead of just program. They started living up to their potential. The hardware requirements lessened significantly and software started catching up with genetics, so that the body itself could be programmed. Bio-Dynamics wasn't just theoretical anymore, it was applied."

She paused, looking at me as if she expected something. A question perhaps, but I was content to listen and I only nodded.

"Anyway, the Series III units are still robots, still limited in a lot of ways," she continued. "Not just by design, but by the technology required for mass production."

Nance stepped onto the lift and I joined her, although it was really only intended for one person. We stood very close together, facing each other and my eyes were level with her full breasts, pressing against the white fabric of her uniform. She was looking down at me as we were gently pushed upward along the Plexiglas tube.

"But you, Ming..." she whispered. "The only limits on you are put in place out of fear."

"I don't understand." I smiled up at her.

"Series IV is a new race, a new life form." She put her hands on my waist. "Series V will have no hardware at all and Series VI..." she shrugged. "They will be children, raised from the womb to perform specific duties. Conditioning will begin in the uterus and never stop, do you understand?"

"I think so." The lift stopped at my level, 1244-Gold, but neither of us moved. I had my hands around her neck. "You are frightened."

Nance nodded. "We are all frightened..." she said as I pulled her face down to mine, " ... of you."

I kissed her deeply. I knew it was what Nance wanted, had wanted all day long, and yesterday too ... since she'd first seen me.

"You do not have to be afraid," I whispered. "I am just a person." I led her by the hand, pausing to open my room with my palm print on the scanner.

"Ming, I..." Nance stared at me and I suddenly found her very attractive.

I hadn't noticed before really. She might have been 40 years old, with a handsome face, strong and serious. Her black hair had a few early gray strands starting here and there. She seemed fit and firm and I wanted her, not just sexually, but emotionally. I had a very large hole inside me someplace, indefinable and irresistible. Nance could fill it, I thought, if only for a brief while. That would be enough.

"Shhh ... I know you want me, Nance." I smiled and dropped to my knees as the door slid shut with a whisper. "When I kissed that girl, before, on her sex..." I tilted my head, fixing my eyes on hers as I slid my hands up the woman's legs, across the back of her knees and along her thighs, " ... I could sense your desire."

I pulled her panties down, drawing the nylon taut so that she could step out of them.

"You don't have ... to ... ohhh!" Nance hissed between her teeth as my mouth found her pussy. I'd lifted her skirt high enough to expose the woman's sex and I sucked her tiny clit eagerly. "Oh yes! Ming! Lick me ... Please!"

Her fingers were in my hair and I tickled between her labia, engorged with excitement. I could taste her sexual energy, the small dampness already starting and I stiffened my tongue, pressing it inward as she clutched me to her.

Nance slowly backed towards my small bedroom, leading me as I shuffled awkwardly along on my knees, refusing to stop my efforts at bringing the woman pleasure. She sat down finally on the bed, falling onto her back, and I took advantage, pushing her legs up so I could tongue her asshole as well. It gave me even greater pleasure to do that for her, licking at her anus and working my tongue inside while my thumb flicked over her clit gently.

"Ming..." she breathed as I wormed my tongue inside her anus, feeling delightful shame at doing something so blatantly taboo.