Pleasure 2035 Read online

  Dix wheeled toward a huge blue tent, throwing one last remark over his shoulder, his eyes glittering mischievously. “Come to my tent tonight for dinner. You can amuse me with stories of your encounters, Mr. Blue Honey. Bring your girlfriend over there and we’ll fill her in on our mission here at the Camp.”

  Mayflower’s eyebrows raised so high Mark thought they’d slide right off her head, but she said nothing.

  “She’s not my girlfriend, Dix. She’s a Black bag chick, and we’re taking her home to roost.” He let the frosty tone in his voice convey as much as his words.

  Dix stopped and wheeled around, glanced toward Mayflower, whose mouth dropped open, and back toward Mark.

  “Yeah, right,” he snorted, and rolled across the soft earth to his tent. “Be there or be square.”

  For once Mark wished Klyper Corporation hadn’t developed the symchronium alloy that allowed wheeled vehicles to navigate all terrains. He caught Mayflower’s surprised gaze and frowned.

  If they survived the trip to Chico’s bar, Mark decided, he’d teach her a lesson about lying she’d never forget. The problem was, neither would he.

  Chapter Nine

  Mark thought she was a Black bag chick? After she’d saved his ass twice? What the fuck? Two thousand years to learn a thing or two about people, and he comes away with nothing except a nice body and a pretty face. And the ability to make her feel safe and secure like no one in her life ever had, at least until now.

  Asshole.

  Anger boiled. So he thought she was a highly trained assassin, did he? Well, she ought to have killed him, if she could have gotten a drop on the fucker. He was too heavy, too tall, and too damn sexy. Damn. All the effort she put into keeping safe over the last several years and it all went to hell because of one really nice cock. She’d lost her mind.

  The woman named Selena pushed her aside roughly and reached past her into the ambulance. Her green eyes reminded Mayflower of her own, their natural color without the contacts, only Selena’s held anger. Lots of anger.

  Selena’s black ponytail whipped Mayflower in the face as she crawled inside and began the task of readying Dime for transport.

  “Maaaaaaflooer,” Dime screamed, and banging ensued. Hannah jumped into the ambulance before Mayflower could even turn. Mayflower hustled in behind the determined young woman, who shoved Selena so hard she landed in the cushioned driver’s seat.

  “Dime? It’s Hannah,” she said, brushing his hair back from his face, her touch loving. He focused on her briefly before turning to his gaze to Mayflower.

  “Maaa,” he said, grinning. He reached his hand out and grabbed her hair. “Maaaafloooer.”

  Hannah continued to soothe away Dime’s fears. She glared at Selena, who shifted uncomfortably in the driver’s seat, the displeasure in her expression still evident. Mayflower’s eyes brimmed with tears. This was the most cognizant she’d ever seen Dime, the most aware. Her chest ached. What had she done wrong?

  Memories of Mark’s spanking made her pussy tingle, and his words bounced around in her head. “Stop torturing yourself for things you can’t control,” he’d told her, and she’d let go of her guilt for a little while. How she needed him to tell her again, to make her feel secure. But he was an asshole.

  “People like you should die,” Selena spoke finally, the gruffness of her voice indicating she most likely had a epi-plasmatic esophagus. Her left hand, waxy white, and her right foot, metallic silver, probably also possessed some of the same nanobots.

  Once a surgeon did a regeneration on a body part, it didn’t take much effort to patch those working cells into other synthetic body parts. It helped stave off the rejection of the different alloys by the human body.

  Mayflower, her attention on the slightly older woman’s prosthetics, didn’t realize at first that Selena was speaking to her, until Hannah stood up for her, challenge in her voice.

  “She’s not his real mother,” she said, cradling Dime’s head against her breasts.

  He snuggled into her full bosom and moaned, wrapping his arms around Hannah’s waist. His computer clattered to the floor, and Hannah blushed. Mayflower bit back a chuckle.

  Though the anger in Selena’s eyes subsided some, they still held suspicion.

  “I’m not a Black bag chick, either,” Mayflower added, gathering up Dime’s equipment and preparing him to move. Selena snorted as she lifted herself out of the chair and picked up Dime’s various items.

  “I know,” she said with a huff, and Mayflower bristled.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Selena looked her square in the eye as she handed her Dime’s mouse.

  “Let’s just say I’ve met one,” she answered, pulling up one side of her blue cargo pants to reveal the rest of her cybernetic leg. “You don’t qualify.”

  Mayflower trembled. The synthetic leg reminded her of the synthbots, and though she’d managed to overcome her phobia during Chico’s attack, she still wasn’t used to dealing with it on the spot. Selena tilted her head and her mouth formed an “o.”

  “Synthbots?”

  Mayflower nodded, her mind numb. Selena nodded back, comprehension and compassion replacing all else in her demeanor. Only the familiar chore of coaxing Dime to move kept Mayflower’s mind intact. Selena helped her and Hannah, and between the three of them, they managed to relocate him to a small building just across the parking lot from an old landmark, the Korean Bell.

  A young man with two prosthetic arms and an ear the same color as Selena’s hand guided them to an empty corner, one where Dime and his equipment fit perfectly. Around the yellow room, stands with remnants of glass cases stood. Once containing artifacts from Korea, they’d long been looted. By each of those stands sat a neural trauma victim, six in all, and all like Dime.

  Out of the six, only two were still children. Mayflower guessed the others ranged from the late teens to the early thirties. She gulped, relief trying again to spill out through her tear ducts. She’d always wondered if Dime might make it past his twenties. So, the potential did exist. She gulped again.

  “Sam? Please get Hannah here some bedding,” Selena addressed the young man who helped them with her gravelly voice. “She’s Dime’s helpmate.” Selena motioned to Hannah. “Isn’t that right, dear?”

  Hannah, obviously conflicted, wrung her hands in front of her and bit her lip until Mayflower smiled and cocked her head in Dime’s direction. Hannah squealed and rushed to his side, curling up beside him and sighing. Mayflower gave Dime a peck on the forehead and left with Selena, satisfied with Dime’s arrangement.

  Unfortunately, now she had nowhere to sleep.

  Chapter Ten

  “She’s got to bunk with you, Mark,” Dix said, shrugging as if he had no control over the situation. Mark knew better. “We just don’t have enough room for her anywhere else.”

  “You want me to sleep with an assassin?” Mark retorted, snorting in disgust. “She’ll kill me and then everyone else here.”

  Dix looked at him like he’d lost his mind. Maybe he had. Thinking clearly had been a struggle lately. Thinking about plunging into the beautiful Black’s wetness while she screamed his name hadn’t been difficult at all.

  “If you were that worried about it, why did you bring her here and put us in danger? You’re too good a soldier for that. You know as well as I do she’s no more an assassin than that neural trauma kid you brought with you. You’d have to be an idiot to mistake her for one.”

  Mark cringed inside. If she’d popped out of her pleasure synth box in his tent, Dix would have pegged her for a bag chick, too. But she didn’t pop out there; she popped out in his apartment. Into his world. Into his life.

  “No,” Mark said again, a little too loudly.

  “It’s settled then. She bunks with you. I’m not moving Selena into another tent. Not after it took me six months to convince her to move into this one.”

  Mark understood. Dix had a thing for Selena even when she served under
him in the Iraq III, but military guidelines didn’t allow him to act on it. After she got injured by a bag chick fighting for the Iraqis, Selena refused his advances.

  Dix kept after her until she, like the other walking wounded at the Camp, came to realize her injuries meant nothing. She was a beautiful, desirable human being inside and out.

  Mark sighed, resigned to his fate, the clammy cold ruling out any idea of sleeping outside. He’d bunk with Mayflower tonight and tomorrow they’d venture forth, probably both get killed trying to find what Chico died for, trying to find the one thing having the potential to end the conflict between the Blues and Blacks.

  At least he’d found a place for Hannah and Dime, though he had no idea why he’d secured them here.

  Yes, he did. He’d done it for Mayflower, and she’d betrayed him. She’d failed to mention she’d been Chico Orlando’s girl, and no one came away from Chico undamaged.

  He’d learned that lesson the hard way back in Iraq III. Maybe she didn’t realize it, but she’d betray him sooner or later, and he’d had enough betrayal to last his share of lifetimes – his and many others. The sooner he died in combat, the better.

  He banished all bleak thoughts as he and Dix finished dinner, a merry event including war stories and too much vodka. By the time the orange sunset signaled night had fallen over the dreary landscape, Mark decided he’d ingested enough liquor to deaden his libido. No matter how much he wanted Mayflower, his dick wouldn’t work and he’d be immune to her feminine tricks.

  Time to get some rest and prepare for battle.

  * * * *

  After checking on Hannah and Dime, Mayflower tried to go to sleep before Mark got to their tent, intent upon ignoring him. For some unknown reason, he had his heart set on trying to get them both killed just because of some grudge he developed in the last seven hours.

  The cold seeped into Mayflower’s bones, and she tossed and turned. Even with two blankets, warding off the chill proved nearly impossible. Old Long Beach’s climate had changed over the years, and its winter, though snowless and relatively mild, presented its own kind of hardships.

  A quiet swish of the tent flap startled her, and she sat straight up. Selena filled the doorway, a pilox lantern in her hand.

  “Mayflower,” she said in her raspy voice. “I think you should come with me.”

  “What? What’s wrong? Is Dime okay?” Mayflower crawled around the floor of the tent furiously searching for the slippers the residents provided for her. Their hospitality still overwhelmed her. What’s theirs was hers. They made it abundantly clear.

  Selena laughed. “Yeah, he’s okay. Follow me.”

  Mayflower stumbled through the dark toward a tent she recognized as Dix’s. Selena ushered her in, directing her toward an ornately carved chair with a fancy, embroidered cushion sitting in the corner, probably a pricey museum artifact lost to history after all the looting.

  From the looks of the Camp and what she’d discerned so far, the outcasts and rebels scavenged for most of their belongings, so nothing surprised her. After the Great Fall, all kinds of treasures were lost to history for all eternity and turned up in the most unusual places. When pilox was discovered, it seemed to be the end of all the bad things in the world.

  A renewable, clean energy resource should have made life better, but it didn’t. The Blues tried to make it a commodity and the Blacks fought back, and history took a jaunt down a terrible path.

  Martha Washington’s shoes probably covered the foot of some lithac junkie somewhere, and finding a Renoir painting used as a table wouldn’t have shocked her one bit. Mayflower sat down with great care, adjusting the tan cargo pants and mauve T-shirt the Camp gave her so they could destroy her old clothes, hiding any evidence a Black walked among them.

  They hadn’t asked her to remove her hair adjuster or her purple contacts yet, but it was only a matter of time, and in truth, disposing of them would give her nothing but great pleasure.

  A groan drifted through the dimly lit tent, and Mayflower squinted, trying to find the source. As her eyes adjusted to the light, the outline of a couple embracing appeared before her. Two people, tall and elegant, the man’s longish light hair shining in the moonlight and the woman’s raven black hair only visible by the slight movement of its silky strands, stood with their arms around each other, kissing passionately. Wait, no. Not two people.

  Two synthbots.

  Mayflower clutched the sides of the chair to keep from falling over. Two synthbots mated right in front of her. One of the creatures rubbed the sides of the other’s face with its hands, kissing it with great skill, while the other lifted its leg to the larger creature’s waist and wiggled closer. Mayflower’s vision blurred. How could this be happening?

  “Oh, Dix,” the shorter synthbot gasped in a low voice, and Mayflower recognized Selena. Curiosity salved her fear enough she leaned forward and examined the scene more closely.

  Dix and Selena. Not two synthbots. Just Dix and Selena.

  Dix faced her, pulling Selena in front of him, exposing her exquisite body to Mayflower’s view. He held her hips possessively as she leaned into him, her head back against his shoulder and her eyes closed. His eyes blazed, his gaze never leaving Mayflower’s, as his hands traveled along Selena’s waist to her breasts, pinching and massaging her nipples.

  “Mayflower,” Dix spoke, his voice husky with desire. “Selena thought it might be helpful if you saw us together. Saw people with cybernetics who weren’t synthbots. Would you like to watch?”

  Mayflower got to her feet, her legs still numb, and walked toward them as best she could. Dix’s legs below his upper thighs were made of the same material as Selena’s, but from her vantage point, she noticed his scrotum behind his large, engorged cock. He was all human with cybernetic parts, just like Selena. Mayflower breathed a sigh of relief.

  Warmth flooded her cheeks after she realized she stared at the naked pair, but Mayflower didn’t want to stop. They fascinated her, their human beauty only enhanced by their prosthetics, and though she liked being watched more, viewing other couples having sex always excited her. Tonight she needed some excitement.

  Dix swept Selena into his arms and carried her to the bedding on the ground, laying her down gently. His legs, though metallic, made no sound, no clicking or swishing. Probably because of the alloys they were constructed with at Klyper Corporation. For all the terrible things her father’s company had done, he did manage to do some good. God rest his miserable soul.

  Mayflower stepped closer and dropped to her knees, ogling Dix and Selena as they stroked and caressed each other. Dix’s expert touch brought Selena up off the floor, her back arching as his fingers masterfully entered her. Dampness coated Mayflower’s thighs and her nipple ached. Mark’s visage floated through her hazy brain no matter how hard she tried to ignore him.

  Selena used her human hand to fondle Dix’s balls, caressing them. She ran her nails up and down his hard cock, running her thumb over the tip, smearing the droplet of pre-come over the head. When she lifted her hand to her mouth and sucked her thumb, a low groan escaped his throat.

  Dix spread Selena’s thighs, crawling between them as her fingers tangled in the sheet. His face disappeared in the juncture between her thighs and Selena gasped. Mayflower heard another moan, and realized it came from her. Her pussy ached, and without thinking about it, she’d let her hand wander down between her thighs. She fingered herself, rubbing her hardened clit as more cream dripped from her swollen pussy.

  Dix kissed his way up Selena’s belly, letting his tongue flick in and out of her navel. His lips tortured her breasts next, suckling her nipples and kissing their ample swell. She massaged the hard muscles of Dix’s upper arms, lifting her pussy to him, encouraging his sweet invasion.

  He entered Selena, his hard length sliding in easily, and Mayflower’s finger slipped inside her tight hole. As she watched Dix riding Selena, her hips lifting into him as she whimpered for more, her own strokes grew harder a
nd faster. She reached her peak, the waves of sensation coalescing into an explosion of ecstasy that rocked her body, shaking her, releasing her.

  Selena yelled as Dix lifted into her one last time, suspending them both in the air, taking her to the pleasure zone before he spilled himself into her, his come filling her and dripping between them onto the sheets. Mayflower relaxed, her orgasm ebbing as she watched them enjoy the waves of bliss.

  Dix collapsed on top of Selena, who giggled and wrapped her legs around him, her synthetic limb hooking at the ankle with her other leg.

  “God, woman,” Dix said, laughing and nuzzling her neck.

  Selena reached out and patted Mayflower’s arm. No words passed between them, but none was needed. Anything Selena asked of her, she’d give.

  “Go to him, Mayflower,” she whispered. “Convince him you are his for eternity.”

  Except that. Damn. Didn’t she realize Mark didn’t want her?

  Mayflower patted Selena’s hand and left the couple in each other’s arms, drifting off to sleep. She used the pilox lantern to navigate her way back to the tent designated as theirs. She slipped through the opening as quietly as possible, the scent of vodka tickling her nose.

  Mark lay on the ground, his still form looming large in the semi-darkness. Mayflower crawled beside him, trying not to wake him. She didn’t need to be turned out into the night, and she didn’t need any bullshit. Still, the urge to snuggle up to his warmth tempted her beyond all reason. She slid under the covers and burrowed in. Mark didn’t move.

  The flat pillow provided little in the way of comfort. Mayflower tried to lay her head on it, but something hard poked her. She felt around, her hand connecting with the unmistakable outline of a blaster.

  “Don’t touch it unless I tell you to,” Mark’s voice carried over to her side of the bedding.

  Mayflower stilled. She didn’t know if he could hear her rapid breathing or not, but to her, it roared through the silence between them. He trusted her enough to give her a weapon. That was something.