Bred for Pleasure Ch. 02

Meghan sat on the stone bench overlooking the harbor, Rake's leonine head in her lap. Their run had been good, the oxygen-poor air limiting her endurance, but the red late-winter sky reflecting in the deep, oily, blue water provided a dynamic backdrop and she enjoyed the reassuring tightness of her fit legs pumping. Rake had run circles around her, tail swinging under the mini-kilt she'd got for his outdoor time. Owning him had forced her to get the exercise she'd been neglecting. The noon-time sun had risen above the City escarpment at about the right height for a run. At latitude 73.58 north it never completely set in summer, just dimmed behind the towering City and in winter it merely brightened the horizon at noon. On a March morning like this it was nice to get out and enjoy the few hours of bright, warm sunlight. To the north, through the narrow channel out to Baffin Bay she could see Devon Island and beyond the green flanks of Greenland, her glaciers long gone, now actually green, a dark line against the gray horizon.

Rake nuzzled at her crotch, instinctively drawing in her smell through her sweaty shorts. In the two weeks she'd had the Companion he'd proven well trained and useful. But he needed a lot of attention. Rake was eager to play in the mornings, though she often wasn't. Meghan wanted to be a good owner, however, and knew that he deserved to be treated humanely. She petted his mane, remembering how she'd taken him to completion in her mouth when he'd come to her bed full of energy and bright-eyed that morning. It calmed him.

She rolled the surprising taste on her tongue even now. Sweet and sour. A hint of orange and salt with a bite at the back of the throat like a good olive oil. Interesting what traits were bred into Companions. It must have been market-tested. Must have been popular in the old days.

Meghan listened to the low hum of the City, so often forgotten, since omnipresent. She felt the warm breeze and looking up could see the few wisps of cloud driven fast across the sky. Here in the protective arms of the City those winds were deflected.

Along the path another figure approached. Like Meghan she was dressed minimally for the weather - silk shorts and a breast band, hair pulled into a knot on her head. Caroline, if she remembered correctly, liked reading and varieties of chocolate. She painted, too, Meghan thought.

"Oh my, what's this?" the woman smiled, stopping before the pair on the bench, "You've gotten yourself a Companion, it appears. One hardly ever sees one of those any more."

Meghan returned the smile, spoke politely, if reluctantly, "He's called Rake. Very well trained. I felt so sorry for him alone in the shop."

The woman examined him closely. "I see he's a little gray around the muzzle. A rescue, I assume?"

"Yes, but one owner, they assured me."

"Is it helpful to have a Companion? With so few of us left, I mean. I suppose it keeps one from being lonely." The woman wasn't a friend and wasn't about to be.

"Well, I didn't..."

"Gladys caught the redeye just last week, I heard. This winter has been tough on the old guard. Who thought a life expectancy of two hundred would be so unbearable?"

"I hardly knew Gladys. Didn't she organize the garden club?" Meghan wasn't a joiner, but it was true, she'd seen fewer old folks around, she realized.

"If you could call that a garden. It must have been frustrating for her, everything dying in the summer. We'll all be back inside in a few weeks or be cooked ourselves." Caroline squinted into the red sun. "I don't relish another hundred years of retreat, myself."

"The City will take care of us, don't you suppose?"

"Well, the redeye comes for all of us eventually," Caroline sighed, hands on hips, "Stay cool, you and Rake. Good boy!" And she stole a few strokes of his mane, then jogged off.

Meghan believed firmly that the City had a plan. She was glad to be alive, grateful even. To be one of the few tens of thousands of what once were billions of humans still alive was a blessing. Here in the City, one of a half dozen, where the species had carved a redoubt against the calamity of the carbon poisoning was a privilege that gave her courage. Formally, this City was called Tesla after the corporation that built it, but that was long in the past. From before the Mars mission's last transmission, from before the last armored ship had returned from the launch facility in the now uninhabitable tropics, from a time when humans still made desperate plans. Now, the City AI directed things, harnessing powerful algorithms and the linked brains of her child and every other. Meghan's generation remembered dimly the desperate days of human failure. It was a time gilded by memory - she'd had a purpose then.

She knew the City's AI was building new defenses. She knew her own daughter, tied into the net 24/7, was contributing in a way she couldn't, to keep the race alive. Surely, the Cities and the networked brains of thousands could prevent the worst. Meghan didn't like to think too far ahead. It didn't pay to expect the worst, especially when the trend really was downward. She was happier to just let the redeyes, the attentive, blocky robots (with one red 'eye', another joke from the General Ontology Department, referencing a movie nearly two hundred years old), tend to her simple needs. Meghan had no purpose of her own now but to age gracefully and hope.

Rake made a loud snuffling sound, sneezed and rose up. Something in the water had caught his eye and he became intent, a small muscle in his shoulder trembling. Meghan looked, couldn't see anything but the oily ripples against the stone quay. Rake whimpered.

Then she saw it - a gray, shiny body rolled in the dark water, an eye gazed back at her for a long moment. With the smallest of ripples it was gone and Rake ran toward the edge, shouting, "Hey! Hey!....Hey!"

"Rake! Stand!," Meghan called, and he stood still, shaking, looking at the empty water, then at her and back at the water. She watched, too, waiting for a long time, but nothing roiled the surface again. The slick water was undisturbed.

She was as thrilled as Rake to see another living thing, she realized. How long had it been since she'd seen a wild creature except on her screen? This wasn't anything like her daughter's porpoise avatar; it was mysterious, dark, cold and solemn. There was intelligence in the briefly glimpsed eye, though not empathy, nor warmth. Meghan and her Companion stood for many minutes, watching nothing.

Suddenly, Meghan remembered the other Companion she'd seen in the shop, the woman, the Talker. After she'd left it whining in its cell and selected Rake, she hadn't given it another thought. It must have been Caroline's speaking of loneliness and the wild thing in the water that brought her to mind. Perhaps her Companion needed a Companion? Maybe two would be less trouble than one if they could keep each other company. Rake's morning and evening demands for attention were a little tiring even if the physical pleasure was a welcome benefit.

So she took Rake back to the apartment, passing a busy coffin-sized redeye, intent on its simple task. The redeye in her apartment had anticipated her and the Companion's need for water, then parked itself in a corner, unblinking. Rake groomed himself and curled on his mat to sleep, hands and feet twitching as he dreamed. Meghan sipped her water and watched for a while and her impulse grew to resolve. She walked to the shop just as the sun sank again behind the City's brow.

The obsequious shopman quickly processed her purchase after she made it clear that she didn't need to be sold on the benefits of another Companion. The small creature, called Marigold, who barely came up to Meghan's chest, in its shabby, tan sheath had indeed looked lonely, the last being on offer. Meghan left the shop empty of product, the holographic shopman smiling and congratulating her on her wise purchase, to wink out of existence at the close of the door.

Walking the Companion home, she mused on her name. Marigold was OK, but what if she picked a name that really made the creature her own. Maybe she could call her Hoe. Then she'd have a Rake and a Hoe. No, that was stupid, reminded her of the composted gardener, Gladys. Better to wait and see what name fit after getting to know her.

**********

Dolores reached for the cotton-candy tangle before her and pulled it into a more symmetrical shape. She sensed what was 'right' about it as she went, intuiting the proper relationship of its parts. This was a creative process like painting or music and the AI harnessed it well to achieve its larger goals. Though the woman's body still lived, emaciated and weak, in her cell, the mind soared, paired with the AI network, goaded and satisfied through the work of surviving the holocene. As humans had built smarter networks, had devised living algorithms, the original goals of the creators had changed. The charge: 'to save humankind' lost its original meaning when to be human became something more than mere biology.

Put simply, the environment that gave rise to biological human life had been replaced with one hostile to that life and the species evolved. A few remnant all-meat humans remained in the small compounds within the Cities and perhaps a few rumored bands of hunter-gatherers, but they were an evolutionary dead-end. Because the algorithm that valued the preservation of human life still ran, these compounds were maintained and the first gens, the old people, were subsidized, though they had nothing to contribute. They merely played out their biological imperatives unimpeded. In fact, it could be calculated as a cost to the overall project to put resources into their upkeep.

Dolores had stopped measuring time recently, but didn't realize it. She had forgotten the last, hastily ended vid with her mother. Her mind melded more tightly to the AI, Dolores' contribution to the value-consensus that guided the project became miniscule. As the AI grew smarter the human minds meshed within it grew less influential. A tipping point was coming, but the experience of the meshed minds was one of return to oneness, the loss of the ego, a blissful rise toward awe and elation. Dolores had no way of knowing if time was passing at all.

**********

Things got interesting when Meghan led Marigold into the small apartment. Meghan had waited to speak to the Talker, not caring really what skills it had, didn't take time to read the manual. It wasn't for her, anyway. They entered the room and stood before Rake who was sleeping curled on his mat, hands over his nose. He looked, but didn't stir. Meghan had thought he would be excited. But Rake hardly took notice. Apparently, he wasn't bred to be territorial. That made sense.

"Marigold, strip," she commanded and the Companion did, and spoke for the first time in a soft, whispery yet strong voice,

"In the years when we were

all children, this inclining

to be alone so much was gentle;

others' time passed fighting,

and one had one's faction,

one's near, one's far-off place,

a path, an animal, a picture."

As she recited, Marigold drew off the sheath, letting it fall. She was bare underneath, coffee-dark skin covered in short, tight-to-the-flesh golden hairs that ran in bands of varying thickness around her body, in some places nearly naked so that her skin shone through and in others lush. There was the slightest of peach fuzz on her face and scalp, tufts on the tips of her pointed ears and much to Meghan's surprise, a bob tail, all dark flesh with a bulb on the end. And six small breasts, barely swellings on the girl's torso, nearly invisible in the swirl of golden hairs. She was a black and gold, zig-zag-striped beauty. Well, the name Marigold fit her coloring. Standing naked, the recitation continued,

"And I still imagined, that life

would always keep providing

for one to dwell on things within,

Am I, within myself, not in what's greatest?

Shall what's mine no longer soothe

and understand me as a child?"

Oh, great, thought Meghan, a Talker talking nonsense. "Redeye," she asked the ever-listening assistant, "What is this?" Marigold fell silent. Rake's ears twitched, but nothing else.

"This is a Companion of the feline breed, approximately 27 years of age....."

"No, I mean what is she saying?"

"The Companion is reciting a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, a 20th century German poet, known for...."

"Enough!" Meghan sighed. Maybe this was a bad idea. She'd read that some Companions were bred for very specific needs. Her original owner had a taste for poetry, apparently. "I suppose this makes as much sense to Rake as it does to me," she said, looking at the slight Marigold, which set her off again.

"Suddenly I'm as if cast out,

and this solitude surrounds me

as something vast and unbounded,

when my feeling, standing on the hills

of my breasts, cries out for wings

or for an end."

The Companion fell silent, looking expectantly at Meghan.

"Don't speak again til I say so. Do you want a treat for that dreadful rubbish?" Meghan turned and got a meal bar from the cabinet, pressed it in Marigold's brown, bare palm.

Marigold nibbled on the bar while Meghan examined her more closely. Running her hands over the girl's coat Meghan felt it to be a little dry, brittle, no doubt from neglect in the shop. Well, here was an opportunity to help the surprisingly uninterested pair to bond.

"Rake, groom," she said and he unfolded himself and began running his oily fingers through his mane.

"NO, groom this one!" laughed Meghan, beginning to glimpse what she'd gotten herself into. She grasped Rake's wrist, pulled him up and placed his hand on Marigold's shoulder. The girl flinched, dropped the meal bar.

"It's OK. He won't hurt you, little one," Meghan soothed. And as Rake smoothed his oil into the golden pelt, the girl, instinctively, whispered again,

"God speaks to each of us before we are,

Before he's formed us — then, in cloudy speech,

But only then, he speaks these words to each

And silently walks with us from the dark:

Driven by your senses, dare

To the edge of longing. Grow

Like a fire's shadowcasting glare

Behind assembled things, so you can spread

Their shapes on me as clothes.

Don't leave me bare.

Let it all happen to you: beauty and dread.

Simply go — no feeling is too much —

And only this way can we stay in touch.

Near here is the land

That they call Life.

You'll know when you arrive

By how real it is.

Give me your hand."

Meghan was touched, surprised that the creature had at her command appropriate words. That poem almost made sense. She peeled off her own remnant of clothing, the breast band and silk shorts landing on the floor with Marigold's, watching Rake work the oil into the dry fur, pulling down along the girl's arms, then kneading from the shoulders to the hips, both in back and in front. She observed Marigold's nipples prick, all six of them. She noticed Rake's member thicken and hang down from the scrap of kilt he still wore. His Quivertail coiled lazily. Meghan snapped the kilt off, gave the Companion's black organ a rub. "Good boy."

Meghan saw that Marigold's bob tail twitched. The girl hung her head. Rake knelt, kneaded the oil along her flanks and Marigold spread her feet. She saw Rake's nostrils flare. This is better, Meghan thought. The girl's scent mixed with the musk of Rake's now familiar oil, her vent swelled, opened outward, pink and moist. Rake breathed deeply, now hard.

Meghan felt her own labia tingling, standing there watching. She touched the feline Companion's face, felt the peach fuzz prickle, saw the intensity in her hazel-flecked eyes. "Does that feel good," she asked.

The girl exhaled in a throaty sigh, reciting,

"Interior of the hand. Sole that has come to walk

only on feelings. That faces upward

and in its mirror

receives heavenly roads, which travel

along themselves.

That has learned to walk upon water

when it scoops,

that walks upon earth,

transfiguring every path.

That steps into other hands,

changes those that are like it

into a landscape:

wanders and arrives within them,

fills them with arrival."

Meghan bent and touched her forehead to the Companion's, reached a pointed finger to the tip of one bright, pink, swollen nipple, pinched it gently. Marigold whimpered, twisted her feet into the carpet as Rake stroked her inner thighs. Meghan knelt beside the pair, beside Rake on the carpet as he rubbed the oil into Marigold's calves. She could smell herself, then, too.

"Marigold, put your palms on the floor," she said and the Companion bent at the waist, an inverted V, presenting.

"Rake, Mount!" she commanded and he rose to get behind Meghan.

"NO! Mount this one," she laughed again, touching Marigold's furry, sleek bottom. Rake was confused. Meghan stood and pulled him upward, moving him behind the girl. "Oil your penis," she commanded and he wrapped his dripping hand around the rigid shaft, stroked it till it shined. "Now, Mount!" Meghan urged and grasping his thick organ, steered him. The girl's pink slit parted as Meghan pressed his rubbery crown against her, guiding his thickness slowly within.

Marigold recited,

"How I have felt that thing that's called 'to part',

and feel it still: a dark, invincible,

cruel something by which what was joined so well

is once more shown, held out, and torn apart.

In what defenceless gaze at that I've stood,

which, as it, calling to me, let me go,

stayed there, as though it were all woma...unnnggghh."

"Stop talking, now, Marigold, stop," Meghan said, watching the bob tail, pointing upward, jerk side to side. "Just take him in, now." Rake wasn't slow, once commanded to mount, as she knew from experience. Over their two weeks of coupling she'd worked hard to give him some lessons in patience. He grasped Marigold's hips and pulled her to him, plunging deep. Marigold made mewling sounds. Rake pulled back, the Quivertail raised and whipping, and Meghan, kneeling behind Rake, saw the girl's clitoris exposed from its hood, a red, wet pearl. "Remember, Rake. Slow, go slow."

She reached between his legs and cupped his heavy testicles, holding him back. He growled through gritted teeth, the first time she'd heard him make that sound. It vibrated in her.

"You both get on your knees," Meghan instructed, then moved in front of the girl, spread her legs and pointed to her mound.

"Lick, Marigold," hoping she'd been trained as well as Rake. And she was, dropping her furry head between Meghan's thighs, extending a soft, muscular tongue and gently probing the silky, wet flesh there. Rake slid smoothly in and out of the girl, slowly burying and exposing his slick, obsidian cock. Marigold purred and Meghan felt it transmitted through the tongue tracing her labia, felt the wetness and the heat, was teased by the Companion's furry cheeks on her thighs.

For long minutes Meghan let the Companions couple over her. She'd trained Rake to hold off his climax until her command after many failed, though deliriously pleasurable attempts. But Marigold had no inhibition and quavered through a number of tense-bodied orgasms as she licked at Meghan. The striped girl grunted, panted, haphazardly lapped her tongue along Meghan's slit. It was enough, watching the wild-maned Rake kneeling over the girl's upraised bottom, to elicit an electric jolt through Meghan's body.

She raised her ass off the floor and served herself to the Companion as she clenched and groaned. Rake's slow, gentle rhythm pushed Marigold's mouth against her and his Quivertail, curling under them both and, slicked with the juices dripping from their juncture, probed its three wriggling digits back and forth between her labia and rectum til she was raised up from the floor on her toes and her shoulders in ecstasy, hands stroking the girl's peach fuzzed head.