Man or Machine: 2 (Body Electric) (10 page)

“We’re all set,” said Dallas. “One more check, if you don’t mind. If you can both think of something very emotional. A time you were very happy or very sad. It will help with calibration.”

Ilsa thought about the phone call.

Two years and eleven months ago she’d been working in her student apartment, finishing off an assignment so that she could go meet Hal. They had been seeing each other for several months and she’d promised him she wouldn’t stay up all night working without him. She’d been making stupid mistakes and having to go back and fix them because she was thinking about what she and Hal would do later in his big, rumpled bed. It was quite distracting.

“Hal?” she’d said when the phone rang. But it wasn’t Hal. It was a strange sound, something she’d never heard before and she couldn’t identify.

“Hello?” she said, trying to work out if this was a prank call or a strange marketing ploy. It sounded like someone breathing hard, with an odd keening sound between the breaths.

And then she recognized something. “Dad?” she’d said.

“Ilsa,” said her father.

He’d been crying. That had been the sound.

“Dad? What’s wrong?”

“Ilsa,” he said again. He seemed to have trouble forming the word. “Do you remember the promise you made me?”

Dread and panic rose in her. She’d never heard her father crying before.

“Of course I remember,” she said quickly, as if reasserting her promise could make him stop. As if it would bring everything back to normal, as it had been two minutes before. “Your work is a family secret. It’s a family decision to discuss it with anyone.”

“Good. You and your brother and your sister, you mean more to me than anything else. But the work…” He choked.

“Dad?” She jumped up from her seat as if she could go to him instantly.

“I need you here,” he said.

“Why? What’s the matter?”

“I’m dying,” said her father, the world-famous inventor Victor Morgenstern, the man who could do anything with technology, anything at all.

It made so little sense that she thought at first he was saying
I’m trying
, but then he said it again. “I’m dying, Ilsa. I need you to come home and help me finish with these people.”

“With these what?”

“But you mustn’t tell anyone, Ilsa. Nobody at all. As you promised.”

“There’s someone who can help, Dad. I know someone.”

“No one, Ilsa. This is more important than anything. Promise me again.”

She promised. She trusted her father more than anyone else, after all. Except for one person.

She put down the phone. And in the silent darkness, lit only by the computer screen, she understood the only way to keep her promises to her father was to break her promise to Hal.

In that moment she understood that she was going to lose them both. And at the same time she knew that if she were going to survive this, she would have to learn not to feel the loss.

She was going to have to learn not to feel anything at all.

“Interesting,” said Dallas.

Ilsa blinked and focused her eyes. Dallas was looking from her to Hal, whose eyes were shut, his mouth a thin line. His eyebrows were drawn together as if in pain.

She had to restrain herself from touching his face, from smoothing out the crease between his brows.

He shook his head, his eyes still shut. Then he opened them and for a short, confusing moment, he was gazing straight at her without seeming quite to see her, until he turned his attention to Dallas. “Do they work?”

“Very well.”

“I don’t think I understand exactly what data they’re transmitting to you.”

“That’s okay, stud. I’ve got it under control. Now, quickly think of something that involves the opposite emotion from the one you thought of before.”

That was easy. The first kiss with Hal. All the barriers broken down at once between them, all the secrets and fears. A rush of pure, clean happiness.

“Good,” said Dallas. “Now let’s get dirty.”

The lights dimmed. Ilsa made herself look at Dallas. He was her safety catch. As long as she could focus on Dallas, she was going to be okay.

“You’re wearing too many clothes, baby,” he said, his voice soothing, as if he knew she was having serious second thoughts. He unbuttoned the remaining buttons on her shirt and slipped it from her shoulders. Then he reached round and unfastened her bra and took that off too. The air in the room was warm but her nipples tightened with the exposure.

And then she felt Hal. He had come around behind her and his hands settled on her bare waist. They were unmistakably Hal’s hands, large enough to nearly span her waist, unmistakably his thumbs stroking up the line of her spine so lightly and carefully.

It was the first time he had touched her since she had left him.

Was she disappointing him? Had her body changed in these years since they’d touched?

She wanted to turn around and look at him, see the expression on his face, to know if he wanted her. But she didn’t dare.

He smoothed up her back to her shoulders and then down her arms, capturing her hands in his. And then she felt him leaning forward and she felt the shock of his mouth on her neck. Kissing her skin.

She shivered.

He held her gently captive while Dallas unbuttoned her jeans and took them off her, along with her underwear. Hal kissed the tender spot behind her ear and then nibbled on the lobe and she shivered again.

“That’s where you like to be kissed,” he whispered. “I remember everything, Ilsa.”

She did too and the remembered pleasure made the present even more intense. So did the desire in his words and the knowledge that he did want her.

His hair brushed the side of her face but she couldn’t see him. She knew he was fully clothed behind her, holding her, working his way with kisses around to her other ear. And in front of her Dallas was on his knees, kissing his own way up the inside of her thigh.

Hal let go of her right hand and clasped her breast. It fit entirely in his warm palm. He teased the nipple with his fingers and Ilsa felt her legs trembling underneath her.

“I think,” Dallas said, his words vibrating against the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, “that we should move this pretty lady to the bed.”

“Good idea,” said Hal. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the big guest bed. When he laid her down, gently, she could see his face. He was slightly flushed, his hair rumpled above the electrodes. He didn’t take his gaze off her body as he shed his clothes.

She forced herself not to put her hands over her breasts, not to hide from him. She was doing this for Dallas and so was he. Pure and simple.

Ilsa watched him step out of his jeans, watched him pull down his boxers over his straining erection. Seeing him so aroused sent a wave of desire through her. Beside the bed, Dallas removed his clothes, and his cock, as erect and proud as Hal’s, pointed straight at her.

“We’re going to do this,” she murmured, hardly believing it.

“Oh yeah, baby. We’re going to do this over and over and over again until we can all barely move.”

“Until
we
can barely move,” said Hal. “You’ve got enough power to do this for seven days straight, Dallas. We humans,” and he climbed on the bed, kneeling beside where Ilsa lay, and put a brief kiss on her stomach, which fluttered under his touch, “we humans are considerably more delicate.”

“It’s one of the things I hope to learn,” said Dallas, joining them. From where Ilsa lay, she could gaze at both glorious male bodies towering over her, one on either side.

From this vantage, the similarities and differences were even more striking. She could see how their height matched and their breadth differed, how Hal was pale and Dallas was darker. But she could also see the contrast between Dallas’ hairless, even skin and Hal’s body, with the trail of hair from stomach to groin, with dark hair on his arms and legs and underarms, with the slight growth of stubble on his chin. The way the muscles played under his skin, not more complex but different from Dallas’ mechanical simulacrum.

And Hal was breathing rapidly, unlike Dallas, who was still. He was close enough so she could smell his skin, the soap he’d used and the faint tang of his aroused sweat.

The scent, slight as it was, was so searingly familiar she knew that if she closed her eyes, she would imagine herself back in Hal’s bed in Massachusetts.

“Interesting,” said Dallas. “I didn’t know scent was so significant.”

“It’s quite a primitive sense,” said Ilsa quickly before Dallas said any more, before Hal could interpret his words, and to provide further distraction she reached up and wrapped either hand around Hal’s and Dallas’ hard cocks.

Hal gasped and Dallas said, “Ooh yeah.”

They looked so similar but they felt different. She pumped up and down on both of them. They were the same length, same hardness and same girth. Their shapes were the same. But Hal’s skin was softer and more elastic, with the hardness underneath like a core of metal. Dallas’ cock, which actually did have some metal in it, had tauter skin.

But she was giving them both pleasure by touching them. Hal in her right hand and Dallas in her left. She stroked them in time, as she’d seen them stroke each other. If she gave everything to Dallas that she also gave to Hal, she couldn’t be making love with Hal specifically, could she?

“Ilsa,” said Hal, his head tilting back, “that’s amazing. It’s been such a long time since you touched me.”

There was a slight tremble in his voice and though it frightened her as much as it thrilled her, she kept on stroking. Both of them, up and down, a squeeze at the head of their cocks, slipping her hands underneath to cradle their balls in her palms and stroke their perineums—perinea?—with her fingertips. Exactly the way Hal used to like it.

“Oh yeah, baby. That’s great. Touch us.”

Looking from one to the other—Hal watching her intently, Dallas gazing from her to Hal with his glowing eyes—she reached around to caress the curves of their perfect bottoms. Then she couldn’t resist going back to their cocks. She’d fantasized about this while watching them—being the person who was bringing them both off. In between them, like the filling in a gorgeous male sandwich.

Though that wasn’t the only thing she’d fantasized about.

She couldn’t tell which one of them put their hands on her first—suddenly they were both touching her naked body, spread out before them. Dallas squeezed her breast, kneading it and teasing her nipple to make it even harder; Hal stroked her belly, her hip, her breast, ranging all over her as if he couldn’t touch enough of her at once. He dipped a fingertip in her navel and felt her thigh, touched her face and lips and ran his fingers through her hair. She tightened her grip on both cocks.

And then Hal’s hand slipped between her legs. She was sopping wet, swollen and aroused—there had been too much sexual frustration in the past twenty-four hours. The brush of his fingertip on her clit made her buck up on the bed, clench her teeth and groan. But he didn’t stay there long. He was exploring, stroking the length of her pussy and then pushing into her only to come out again and brush against her clit.

“Ils,” Hal muttered and he leaned forward to fasten his lips around one nipple and suck. Ilsa cried out with the sweet shock of it, the hot wetness of his mouth pulling at her. Dallas immediately followed suit, sucking on the other nipple. She could feel his hand spreading her legs wider and joining Hal’s there, sliding a finger inside her while Hal played sweet havoc with her clit.

Or was it the other way round?

The position of their bodies now, as they sucked and kissed her breasts and fingered her pussy, meant that Ilsa couldn’t quite reach their cocks so she gave up for the moment and concentrated instead on touching their backs, their necks and their heads, their strong shoulders, as she let herself feel the wonderful sensations they were creating. They’d hardly been in this room for fifteen minutes but already she was on the verge of her first orgasm. Two mouths on her breasts, two hands at her pussy, one circling her clit and the other fucking her now with two, maybe three fingers inside her.

And then Hal’s head abruptly left her breast and he scooted down the bed and put his mouth on her crotch. His hot liquid tongue there, where it felt like her entire body’s worth of nerves had collected.

Instantly, she was coming. She reached down and grabbed handfuls of Hal’s hair and she bucked and writhed on the bed, crying out wordlessly all the tension and frustration she’d been living through for the past hours, everything her quick self-delivered orgasm yesterday had not assuaged. He went with her, holding her hips and gently licking, drawing out her orgasm, while Dallas continued to finger-fuck her with a delicious relentlessness.

Then it happened. She giggled.

Ilsa didn’t giggle every time she came. Only sometimes when she was overstimulated, and only with Hal. There was something about the way he touched her, the way he made her feel, the orgasms he gave her that sent an extra little shiver of bliss up her body and made her ticklish.

She’d been surprised the first time it had happened. Hal had been delighted. He’d spent hours trying to make her do it again. And again.