Imperfect Partners (3 page)

Just as I thought. Loose connection here. Not making contact.” Pak Song folded back a flap of skin-like material, revealing a grid of complex connections that passed nerve impulses from Conan’s stump to the bionic prosthesis, and repaired the connection. Then he looked up and grinned. “I made flap this way so you not scare people when you not wearing hand. Put it on now.” Conan did, and was amazed that he now was able to move his hand and fingers at will. He grinned as he picked up a water glass from the bedside table.

“You like?” the old man asked.

Pak Song’s skill amazed Conan. His meticulous attention to detail in hiding the high-tech circuits that connected his own severed muscles and nerves to the ones in his prosthesis seemed unimportant, now that the prosthesis acted as an extension of Conan’s own body. “I like. A s for the flap and the neon cock, I doubt anyone will have occasion to see them.” When he had the prosthesis on, it looked real, normal. The only visible evidence of his severed hand was a barely discernable line where his own flesh met the bionic replacement. But he could remove it whenever he chose, while his colorful cock was now a permanent part of his anatomy. If he ever disrobed, that new addition couldn’t possibly escape notice. Of course the empty crotch it filled would grab attention of a different kind.

“Oh, yeah, Captain. Some pretty lady will see it, because you’re gonna work better than any sexbot I ever made. Especially once hormones start working to give you back your sex drive.” Pak Song slapped a small square patch on Conan’s left lower abdomen.

Testosterone, forbidden on Earth, was apparently easy to come by on Obsidion. “You try out new cock in one of the pleasure palaces, once that catheter comes out and you get Leander to pierce your cock to please the ladies. Better yet, I’ll lend you one of my own best bots for you to practice on. Now sit up and pay attention. I’ll show you how to make adjustments if arm suddenly needs minor tune-up.”

* * * * *

The following week, freed from his bed at last, Conan donned the hated white robe that now was the only garment he could wear most places in the galaxy without risking arrest. He knew the rules and had enforced them personally at times before becoming a eunuch. If he were caught on Obsidion without it, the king would have him turned into a drone, the usual punishment throughout the galaxy when eunuchs tried to masquerade as whole.

Conan tried not to notice how people averted their eyes when they passed him. He tasted bile rising in his throat. He felt the pity and the disdain.

Gods, but he hated being the object of sympathy and derision. A t least he got away from the stares for a while when he stepped inside Leander’s Barber and Piercing Salon and felt the barber’s quiet acceptance.

“Pak Song said you’d be coming here.” Leander held out a hand that Conan accepted. He couldn’t help the pride he felt when he made the gesture with his new, bionic hand.

“This is my first stop. I feel naked without a ring in my cock—almost as naked as I did when I had no cock at all.”

“Understandable. Don’t think I ever saw an Earthling’s cock that didn’t have a Prince A lbert. Pak Song said to show you these,” Leander said, grinning as he took one of the thick, clear circles out of a display case and held it up. “I never put a fiber-optic ring in a man’s cock, but I do it all the time on Pak Song’s deluxe bots. This ring’s the best one I have. It’s clear now, but it changes color to let your lover know when you’re in the mood.”

“That should work.” For a minute Conan wished he’d chosen a cock that looked more like his own once had. Then he rejected the idea of subterfuge, of trying to pretend to a lover that he wasn’t a complete eunuch. The acrylic ring in Leander’s hand would punctuate the statement he’d already made by choosing the huge, neon-veined cock.

Leander grinned. “Then take off that robe and climb up on my piercing table. We’ll get this done in a flash.” Nude, Conan did as Leander asked and positioned his legs in the stirrups. “This shouldn’t hurt. Pak Song says this cock only has feeling when it’s hard, except for the sensors that let you know when you need to pee. This ring won’t interfere with the function.” Conan laughed. “Having no feeling there’s a good thing, in case I should ever get into a fight. No pain when an opponent knees me in the groin.”

Quickly, Leander marked and pierced the head of the glowing, hot-pink cock with its psychedelic-green veining. A s he’d promised, the large-gauge needle went through the cock without causing the slightest twinge, and Leander threaded the large, thick ring through the hole.

Once he’d closed the ring with a purple captive bead, he glanced up at the five weeks’ growth of hair on Conan’s shaggy head. “You need shave. Or wax. Your head, not your body. Before I put up the piercing equipment, though, you should get new nipple rings to match your cock.”

Conan glanced down at the simple gold barbells that adorned his nipples. His testosterone patch would maintain his masculine body and prevent the deterioration of the male attributes that most eunuchs had to endure. “Do you have fiber-optic rings? Thinner ones?” He couldn’t imagine having rings in his nipples that were as thick as the one now swinging from his cock head.

“Yes, Cap’n.” Reaching into a drawer, Leander brought forth a pair of rings and laid them in Conan’s hand. “These are one-inch diameter and smaller gauge. Perfect to make your nipples stand up for attention.”

“Thanks. I guess that will be all.”

“What about that head shave? Or would you rather have it waxed?” Leander paused. “If you’d like, I could remove it permanently with a laser, the way Pak Song did to your body.”

“He had to do that because the body hair would have interfered with the electromagnetic energy inside me. But I think I’ll keep some hair on my head. It covers the scars where he inserted the bionics. Go ahead, though, and clip it back to about a quarter-inch or so.” Once Conan would have cringed at the idea of anybody seeing him with hair sprouting out of his skull, but no more. Besides, the hood of his robe covered his hair, so nobody would see it when he ventured out in public.

He no longer cared that he didn’t look the same as every other Earthling male. He could never go back to Earth. A nd he was no longer male, strictly speaking, a fact that had to be obvious to the barber who’d just finished inserting a fiber-optic ring through his prosthetic penis.

There wasn’t much point in keeping his head shaved now. Once Leander cut his hair, Conan ran the fingers of his bionic hand through the short stubble. It felt good. Soft yet prickly. Different, but then he’d spent a lifetime up to now performing a daily ritual of keeping his scalp cleanly shaved and oiled.

“Thanks, Leander. I’m sure we’ll meet again.” Conan stepped through the connecting door from the barber shop to Pak Song’s workroom and switched on the sexbot the cyborg maker had provided for him to use to test his cock.

“Here. Try this. It is said that using plug helps eunuchs find pleasure, particularly ones like you whose prostates were removed. Lin implanted a secret hormone additive in this plug. The additive will help you experience pleasure,” Pak Song said, handing Conan a fat, silver butt plug that looked like a longer, thicker version of the finger on his Federation-issued sexbot.

“Thanks.” Conan bent and worked the plug up his ass. Then he stepped up to let the sexbot do its thing.

It worked. His cock worked, and not just to pass urine. It got hard when the bot jacked it in its soft, feminine hand. When he inserted it and began to move inside the bot, it milked him in its tight little cunt. Damn, but he felt each contraction of the synthetic flesh on his bionic cock. A n almost-forgotten sensation of fierce arousal claimed his mind and his body—followed by a climax of sorts.

It wasn’t exactly the same spurting, tension-releasing feeling he recalled, but it was still an orgasm. One that gave him a sense of satiation, satisfaction.

Conan missed feeling the pressure building in his testicles, the sensation of them drawing up close to his body, filling his cock with the hot, slick semen he’d never again spew into a bot’s sterile depository unless Pak Song should come up with balls that worked before his next tune-up. But damn it, he could fuck and he could come, if not in quite the same way as before. He could fuck a real woman and not only bring her to pleasure, but also find a good measure of gratification for himself. He wanted to grab the old cyborg maker and his son, and hug them until they begged for mercy.

When he dismounted from the bot, he noticed his old friends Shedir and Guy talking with Pak Song, so he hurried to the showroom to join them.

Luna Ten, a few days later

Nebula wondered why Guy and Shedir had demanded her presence, but refusing them had been the farthest thing from her mind. Like her sisters, the men treated her well, as though she weren’t wearing the sky-blue robe of a sterilized female who bore the mutant gene.

Guy cleared his throat then spoke. “Well, Nebula, we’ve found you a Master. A mate. His name is Conan, and he was an Earthling Star Commander before the Federation exiled him. A s a matter of fact, he once was Shedir’s superior officer.”

“You didn’t.” Nebula looked first to Guy and then at Shedir, whose attention was focused at the moment not on the conversation but on the blowjob Doreen was giving him. She guessed the two must be desperate for release, since Shedir and Guy had just returned to Luna Ten an hour ago from a week-long journey to Obsidion.

Self-conscious in her robe when everyone else in the room was gloriously naked, Nebula asked, “What will this Conan think when he finds out I’m sterile?”

“He knows. He’s been fixed, too. Think of him as a bot with a brain.” Guy laughed as he shot a look at Doreen. “A bot that can’t be fucked to death, the way you did with the last one I brought you.”

Doreen lifted her head away from Shedir’s throbbing cock, and the look she sent Guy’s way could easily have killed. “Shut up, cyborg, or my Master will make you pay.”

“Your Master will make you pay if you take your pretty lips off his cock again before he comes.” Shedir grasped Doreen’s head, caressing her pale scalp as he pushed her face back down to his groin. “Suck me, my beautiful slave.” He moaned when she deep throated him, a sound that conveyed impending ecstasy. Then he turned to Nebula. “Conan is a good sort. He used to turn all the breeder women’s heads when he’d drop by the breeding farms back on Earth to leave a sample.”

Shedir closed his eyes, thrust his hips forward and groaned, louder this time. “Oh, yeah, baby, I’m coming. Gods, but you suck cock better than any bot I ever had.”

Nebula’s mouth watered. She imagined herself on her knees as both her sisters were, giving pleasure to a Master she’d never dreamed she might be allowed to serve that way. Though she couldn’t visualize a real man wanting her as she was, she trusted that her brothers-in-law wouldn’t have come back home with this shocking news if it weren’t true. “You mean he’s a cyborg? Like you?” she asked Guy.

“Not exactly.” Guy had the decency to blush as he gestured toward Cassie’s busy mouth—and his impressive package. “We’re both cyborgs, but we’ve had different body parts replaced. My cock’s all natural. Conan’s isn’t.”

“But can he…?” She didn’t quite know how to ask. Males were so…so hung up about their sexual prowess. A rgus and A loysius, Doreen and Shedir’s twin eunuch houseboys, seemed to have lost all vestiges of their maleness along with the equipment that once had hung between their legs.

“Yes, he can fuck you, little sister. When we visited him, Conan was testing his bionic cock out on one of Pak Song’s female bots. Looked to me as though it worked just fine. It’s big, too.” Shedir bent and ran his pierced tongue over the crown of Doreen’s gleaming scalp while he cupped his big hands around her very pregnant belly.

There would be no babies for Nebula. She’d chosen to have sterilization surgery while on Obsidion so she couldn’t possibly pass on the aberrant gene everyone feared so much, though she had no plans to return to Earth. On Earth, the Federation doctors would very likely have insisted she be made a drone as well. Maybe, since he’d been so badly injured himself, Conan might be willing to accept her, imperfect as she was. Still… “What happened to him? Do you know?”

“Yes, I know. A Federation Tribunal ordered his mutilation. They considered it fit punishment because he managed to rescue his half-brother and spirit him away to Obsidion before the rulers could turn the kid into a drone.” His handsome face contorted with rage, Shedir lifted his hands from Doreen’s belly and clenched them into tight fists.

Since he had given up his dreams of becoming a member of the Ruling Council and made Luna Ten his home, Nebula had noticed how Shedir had become openly critical of Federation policy. Pity. She believed the former captain of the Federation Star Command would have made a good member of the Ruling Council. A fair one. “Is this Conan still on Obsidion?”

“Yes. Pak Song says he needs to make a few more adjustments to Conan’s bionic parts before he turns him loose. The old man’s a genius, but he’s incredibly picky when it comes to his work. So is his son, Pak Lin. When Conan is ready to leave, he will contact us. Either Guy or I will fly to Obsidion, pick him up and bring him here.”

“When you do, I would like to go with you.” Nebula refused to let herself become too eager, too soon. Bionic or not, Conan was an Earthling, and the last Earthling male she’d offered herself to had told her he’d rather fuck a sexbot than spill his seed in a live female who’d been neutered.

* * * * *

Nebula went to the fucking glade alone, where she allowed herself to dream of having a mate. A companion to love and care for, to serve as Doreen and Cassie served Shedir and Guy. Perhaps her Master might actually love her as much as Brad, the colony’s founder, loved his beautiful A urora. Nebula wanted to become a Master’s slave and serve him the way the other women served their men on Luna Ten.