“Look, I’m sorry that you two have had such rotten luck romantically.” She sat up straighter and crossed her arms around herself protectively. “But I just don’t think I’m the answer. I mean, we haven’t even known each other a month yet, guys. I can’t move that fast, emotionally. I don’t think anyone can.” Liar, whispered the little voice in her head but she pushed it away.
“You never heard of love at first sight?” Blakely grinned at her, but it was a sad, tired grin. “Kid, from the minute I picked you out of the line-up at the Prostie Palace I wanted you.”
“All I know is that when you were dying, when we thought we were losing you last night…Goddess, Sadie. I don’t know what I would have done.” Holt sighed and shook his head. “But that’s neither here nor there. As I’m sure Blake told you, we’ll respect any decision you make and we’ll try to avoid touching you at the same time so we don’t inadvertently strengthen the bond we’ve already formed.”
“Blake said it isn’t a complete bond anyway. Isn’t a Life-bond,” Sadie said in a small voice.
“No. No it isn’t,” Holt agreed. “Blake and I haven’t been inside you, inside your body at the same time, Sadie.”
“But…But, last night.” Sadie was so mortified she could barely go on but she had to finish. “Last night while Blake was kissing me you were…you had your tongue.”
“Not like that, sweetheart. That strengthened the bond, but that’s not how…” Blakely started.
“To bond fully with you would require double penetration and ejaculation,” Holt finished for his partner in an almost technical tone.
“So it couldn’t be done…orally,” Sadie asked, feeling like she might blush to death. “I mean because last night when I…I sucked…”
“No, honey, it would have to be below the belt, so to speak,” Blakely told her gently.
“But…but both of you at the same time…” Sadie couldn’t finish aloud. It would hurt! And isn’t that what you’re really afraid of? Even more than sharing emotions or feeling like the Solar System’s biggest slut? That it would hurt? whispered the little voice in her head. After all, it’s not like either one of them is small… Nope, both Blakely and Holt were definitely above average in the size department. Accommodating both of them at once would be no easy task, especially for someone with as little experience as Sadie.
Blakely must have seen the fear clouding her honey-amber eyes. “Baby,” he said tenderly, cupping her cheek in his palm gently. “If there’s one thing you need to know about me and Holt it’s that we’d never, never hurt you. I know you’re not interested, but I want you to know that if you ever changed your mind we’d make it good for you. Intense, but good.”
“Oh,” Sadie said in a small voice, drawing away from the warmth of his hand reluctantly. Behind her eyes a scene played like a porno-loop over and over. She saw herself caught between them, pressed between both large, male bodies, feeling the hot current of desire running between them all, binding them into one. She saw her body opening to them, hot and needful, willing to give up her secrets—her treasures—to their touch. Willing to be penetrated and filled and fucked, to be taken any way they wanted her or needed her. To feel both of those long, thick, hot cocks entering her, pressing deep and hard to fill her completely…She wrapped her arms around her mostly bare breasts and pressed her trembling thighs together tightly.
“Sadie, I hope you understand what we’re tying to tell you now.” Holt broke the spell, scrambling the erotic scene into static behind her eyes. “But that isn’t what we need to be talking about right now. Right now we need to be talking about how to stop Van Heusen before he makes another batch of illegal prostie-borgs.”
“But…” Sadie sat up straighter and struggled to drag her mind onto less X-rated subjects. “But if Xavier is out of the picture…”
“But his double-crossin’ partner Red Mike is still out there,” Blakely pointed out. “And about a hundred other pirates that’d be more than willing to mind rape any innocent colonists they could lay hands on for the prices I’m sure Van Heusen’s payin’ out for black market brains.”
“Blake’s right,” Holt said, grimly. “Van Heusen’s got the only illegal flesh tank operation big enough for mass production in the System. I’d bet my badge on it. We put him out of business, we put the mind rapers out of business. Van Heusen’s the key. We’ve got back up on the way, but we’ve got to catch him red-handed. The question is how to make the sting.”
Sadie began to feel interested. Suddenly, the Solar Pulitzer seemed like a distinct possibility again. “Listen, boys.” She looked from Holt to Blakely. “Remember how I told you I’d be willing to do some undercover work when I signed on to this gig? Well, I think I’ve got an idea…”
15
Roald Van Heusen was the most notorious drug lord and prostie-pimp in the Solar System. He somehow always managed to stay one step ahead of the law. He was prosecuted but never convicted, had credit to spare, and his base of operations showed it, Blakely thought. Van Heusen had built himself a pleasure palace on the dark side of Iapetus complete with its own atmosphere dome and mercury flare lighting to keep the daemons at bay. As the landing craft touched down beside it and the modular flexi-seal hugged the dome’s entrance, Blakely whistled.
“Hey, Holt, looks like crime does pay.” He admired the gaudy structure made entirely of costly Old Earth marble imported at unimaginable expense. It sat in the middle of the atmosphere dome looking like a wedding cake lit up from within. The illegal flesh tanks were probably well hidden somewhere under the lavish structure, Blakely speculated. Even on the dark side of Iapetus, Van Heusen wouldn’t be bold enough to have them right out in the open.
“Wonder how many colonists he had to mind rape to build this place,” Holt said darkly. “Back-up’s standing by?”
“Got a crawler over the ridge,” Blakely reassured him, nodding at the large, stony outcropping about half a mile to their left. Very faintly, he could see the wink of the vehicle’s lights, but the intense glow of the mercury flares around Van Heusen’s dome ought to drown them out until the crawler was right on top of the compound. “All we gotta do is make the bust,” he assured Holt.
“So…” Sadie unbuckled her harness and scooted to the front of the craft. “All we’ve got to do is to get Van Heusen to show us the flesh tanks and admit they’re his?”
“Got it in one, sweetheart,” Blakely told her, patting his chest where the tiny voice-activated recording device was secreted. “We just have to get it all on the listen chip and see the tanks. The minute we do that we’ll signal the back-up and he’s fried.”
He was trying unsuccessfully to keep his eyes off her, but it was damn hard to do. Sadie was “undercover” posing as a prostie-borg, and the outfit she had on certainly showed off her considerable assets to the best advantage. A bright red dress made of some soft, gauzy material clung to her full breasts and floated around her softly rounded thighs. The dress scooped low in the front showing the creamy inside curve of her cleavage, and parted alluringly in front to reveal a pair of tiny black satin panties that barely covered the golden strip of hair that decorated her honeyed sex. Blakely, remembering the delicious salty-sweet flavor of her cunt, longed to drop to his knees and bury his face between her thighs. To make her moan and beg for more as he had the other night while Holt tended to her breasts.
But it was not to be, no matter how much he wanted it. Sadie just wasn’t into it and Blakely could hardly blame her. Holt was right, nice girls didn’t want what they had to offer. He supposed the idea of a three-way commitment was just a little too strange for most women to handle. He just wished he hadn’t fallen so hard for her and encouraged his partner to do the same. Still, they had gotten over failed romances before and they would again. It just might take longer this time because of the bond.
Sighing, he popped the latch on the landing craft and said, “Well, everybody out.”
Thanks to a vid-call, from a friend of Snuggly’s w
ho owed the big Garon a favor, they were expected. An armed squadron of identical male flesh-bots, all bald and with a gold hoop through the right nostril, and led by a mechanical captain, was waiting to escort them to Van Heusen. After a quick but thorough pat down to be sure they were unarmed, Blakely and Holt walked behind the squad, heads up, alert for anything. Sadie, a carefully blank look on her face, trailed behind them. They were supposed to be wealthy research scientists in the field of cyberbiology, and they had dressed the part in synthi-silk clothes and real jizard-skin boots. Holt even had on a cape. Blakely always admired how well his partner played rich and disdainful, but he supposed it came naturally to the blond man considering his background.
They walked through an echoing marble foyer and down a long hall carpeted in real wool, another expensive import, before they came to a real wood door that was twice as high and three times as wide as Blakely was tall. Mmm, he thought, Van Heusen really likes puttin’ on the dog. The cost of importing this door alone was probably more than he saw in a year as a detective on Old Earth.
The mechanical captain pushed a recessed switch and, with a low rumble, the immense door began to slide into the wall, revealing a cavernous room. Blakely half expected to see a golden throne sitting at the end of the huge room, instead, there was an old-fashioned fireplace with some plush, antique-looking couches and chairs scattered in front of it. Blakely wouldn’t have been surprised to find out the furniture was imported directly from some fancy French court on Old Earth. There was a bearskin rug on the floor that Blakely hoped was antique; all species of bear had long been on the endangered list. Van Heusen had apparently spared no expense to make himself at home here on Iapetus.
The mechanical captain escorted them across the vast expanse of marble floor to the fireplace. When they got a little nearer Blakely could see a lean shape sitting in one of the high-backed antique chairs.
Roald Van Heusen, an elderly man thin to the point of emaciation, sat beside a fireplace big enough to roast a bull in, sipping a snifter of aged brandy and looking like an ad for the good life. The firelight played across his lean features and his quiet, conservative clothing and finely molded features marked him as a man of good breeding—a man of taste. Only the diamond ring on the thumb of his left hand that was too large and vulgar to be anything but real spoke of his wealth. Has to be at least six and a half carats. Maybe seven. Blakely eyed the diamond and wondered how much debilitatingly addictive synthonarc you had to sell to be able to afford such a nice bauble. How many innocent colonists you had to sell into a life of sexual bondage.
“Mister Van Heusen, these are Mr. Night and Mr. Day, the investors you were expecting, sir.” The mechanical captain had a surprisingly smooth voice, like an English butler on one of the old culture vids Blakely had watched as a kid.
“Thank you, Parkins. You may go.” Van Heusen waved a dismissive hand and the mechanical captain made a well-oiled bow and hovered away. “So,” he turned to Blakely and Holt, a sardonic little grin on his thin lips. “Mister ‘Night’ and Mister ‘Day,’ eh?” Using such obvious pseudonyms was guaranteed to get Van Heusen’s attention and let him know they were as anxious as he was to keep their business dealings quiet.
“I’m Night, he’s Day,” Blakely said, giving a quick half-nod to Holt. Van Heusen took in Holt’s blond good looks to Blakely’s dark intensity with an amused glance.
“But of course you are; the names suit you. And who is this lovely creature that I see with you?” he asked courteously, nodding at Sadie who stood perfectly silent and still behind them.
“This, or rather she, is the reason we’re here, Mr. Van Heusen.” Holt nodded stiffly and gestured for Sadie to come closer. Moving so smoothly it looked like she was gliding on air she came to stand before Van Heusen’s chair, a coquettish smile on her full pink lips. Van Heusen looked from Blakely to Holt with raised eyebrows.
“She’s a prostie,” Blakely said helpfully. “A prototype from our labs on Venus. Look.” He turned Sadie around and lifted the silky red gown to show her softly rounded ass. On the left cheek was a small tattoo (removable, of course, although Van Heusen didn’t need to know that) of a red capital C in a small blue circle. “Our logo—Century Labs,” he explained, turning her back to face them.
“Surely not,” Van Heusen muttered, standing to circle Sadie with an interested air. He ran one lean hand over her bare arm. “Her skin is so smooth and pliable, not a bit plastic. And the texture of her hair is terribly real.” He rubbed one of Sadie’s honey-brown curls between his fingers and turned back to Blakely and Holt. “I must say, gentlemen, this is really quite something. How is it achieved?”
“We use a special epidural conditioner in the tank during a critical stage in growth. The formula, of course, is something of a trade secret, although we wouldn’t mind divulging it if our goals appear to be compatible,” Holt said smoothly. “You see, we at Century Labs are working to create the perfect prostie. One that looks and acts like a real woman. We want to expand into the homes of the wealthy and influential of every inhabited planet and moon in the System.”
“You have my interest,” Van Heusen said, sitting back down in his high-backed chair and steepling his cadaverous fingers beneath his chin. “Go on.”
“You see,” Holt continued. “The prosties on the market today are good enough to service men who haven’t seen a real woman in a while—Ring miners and the like. But to appeal to a rich man’s palate, you must present perfection.” He gestured at Sadie who smiled vacantly back. “Using chemical processes and drugs I have specially developed at Century Labs, it is possible to make a prostie that is so lifelike it can fool anyone.”
“It seems you have achieved your goal,” Van Heusen said, giving Sadie another admiring glance. “But why come to me?”
Holt shrugged. “I have just a few flesh tanks at my disposal—for research purposes only, you understand. Mr. Night here,” he nodded at Blakely who nodded back. “Is interested in buying a much larger number of my specialized prosties than I have the means to manufacture. Rumor has it, Mr. Van Heusen, that you have the means to mass produce prostie-borgs at a reduced rate. Even incorporating my new drugs and processes, the profit would still be astronomical. You could sell a specialized prostie at ten times what you’re charging for a regular one now.”
“The scenario you present is most appealing, but I fear the wild rumors of mass-production are greatly overstated.” Van Heusen smiled a thin-lipped, insincere smile. “Why, I would have to have thousands of flesh tanks at my disposal and you know that would be completely illegal if I did not also have a government-sanctioned synthetic brain manufacturing plant on my property. Because what use is a tank-grown body without a brain to operate it?”
“Some people think synthetic brains are overrated,” Blakely said, carefully keeping a bland look on his face. They had Van Heusen hooked; now to reel him in.
“My friend Mr. Night is correct,” Holt put in smoothly. “In fact, the latest trend in laboratory work is to implant the brain of a human subject into the tank-grown body. Naturally we use only donated brains from organ harvestings,” he added.
“Naturally.” A small smile played around his thin lips.
“There are problems with such transfers, of course,” Holt continued, stepping forward to put his arm around Sadie’s shoulders. “The most notable one being that the personality of the brain donor still remains in the temporal lobes of the donated brain. It is this lingering trace of the organ’s original owner that causes difficulties and resists the sexual subjugation so absolutely necessary in the perfect prostie-borg.”
“That is an important element,” Van Heusen acknowledged, cautiously.
“It’s a problem to which I have devoted a great deal of research,” Holt said. “In past studies, the transplant prostie-borg was simply kept quiet with constant doses of syntho-narcotics. Effective? Certainly, but also expensive and unreliable. If the syntho-narc injections are allowed to lapse, you have an angry, pe
evish prostie-borg in chemical withdrawal that refuses to service your clients.”
“And you have a better way?” Van Heusen took an old fashioned tobacco burning pipe from one pocket of his black satin smoking jacket, filled it, lit it with a flare, and began to puff. Blakely thought he looked ridiculous—why not just use a nicotine popper like everyone else? Probably because it didn’t look ostentatious enough.
“I have developed a drug release mechanism implanted in the abdomen that is good for the life of the prostie-borg,” Holt told the puffing Van Heusen.
“So that you never run out of syntho-narcs.” Van Heusen nodded. “The only problem I see with that is how prohibitively expensive syntho-narcs can be. What if your prostie is rendered nonfunctional before the supply runs out? Terrible waste of drugs, you know.”
“I said I had developed a release mechanism that never failed. I didn’t say I filled it with syntho-narc,” Holt corrected him. He pulled Sadie closer, his fingertips caressing her bare shoulder possessively. “I filled it with a drug cocktail of my own concoction—a mild sedative mixed with a powerful aphrodisiac. It’s cheap, legal, and the results are more than satisfactory.” He leaned over and gave Sadie a lingering, probing kiss and, on cue, she moaned and melted against him. Blakely had to stop himself from joining them, forcibly. All an act, it’s all an act, he reminded himself, ignoring the persistent erection that insisted he should step up behind Sadie and begin nuzzling the soft back of her neck, bracketing her sweet body between himself and Holt. Instead, he turned his attention back to their target audience.
“Imagine coming home tired after a long day at the corporate free-zone and finding a beauty like this ready, willing, and eager,” he said to Van Heusen while Holt and Sadie continued to kiss passionately. “She’s gorgeous and she’s got just enough personality not to act plastic. She’s always ready for action. All the fun of a real live beautiful woman without the hassles. What wealthy CEO wouldn’t want one? Mr. Day and I feel the new, specialized prosties will become status symbols—must have items in a very short period of time. And because we’ll be selling exclusively to the obscenely wealthy we’ll have a cushion of credit between us and the law that isn’t there when you’re selling to Ring brothels.”