Sex, Toys & Bots: A Valentine Tale

"But your costume is not so resistant," his voice said but Sue was pretty sure she was the only one that heard it.

Without being asked Sue released his hand and he rotated quickly and worked the taser out of Sestaya's hand as Sue stared. He slipped it into a pocket in his suit. Then he offered his left hand and she took it with her right. He led her into the crowd. She gave a quick glance back toward the cheering mass of people around the bed.

She'd have liked to have said goodbye.

No. Probably better this way. She had the odd feeling Rachel would know what had happened even though her leaving with the plague doctor would never appear on any of the hundreds of gigabytes of security and other recordings.

My Editor's Gonna Freak

She looked at his broad smile as he set the e-reader on the sofa cushion at his left. She liked him in glasses, knew he hated them but the surgery that gave him excellent distance vision just didn't, quite, cut it for long reading sessions.

And this had been one long session.

"It's a first draft," she said with an amused lilt, "well, first and a half."

"A soccer ball? They played soccer with your supervillain's head?" It was his voice. Amused. No tricksy software.

"Well, it wasn't connected to her body any more. Why not?"

"Then they boiled it bare."

"To make a candle holder. I thought about a drinking mug. Think that would work better?"

"Put a note to Zoe's editor, include the drinking mug idea. She knows Zoe is a truly sick fuck. She'll have a better feel for what the poor readers can handle. She always does."

His laugh was soft but heartfelt. She grinned. Hearing that laugh live was... well. It was worth the fatigue rings around her eyes from twenty-hour bursts of manic writing.

"She's still gonna freak," Sue said happily.

Then a cloud came over the redhead's face.

"Riku," she said, "her company. Were they, her, part of... the attack?"

"Intended attack," his answer was slow, his personae were never reticent but the man... she bit her lower lip and nodded for him to continue. He'd shown her dead nanobots with his microscope. Someone had made them. You'd breathe them in and they'd tear you apart from the inside if someone sent the signal. Well, no, they HAD torn people apart. People around the world just... dropped dead. Massive haemorrhages and confused doctors. More and more each year. But like, an entire conference?

"They're trying to make them self-replicating" he continued only a degree faster, "I don't think, well, mostly sure, they've not figured that out. Yet. But someone redirected that new Electric Brains quantum plus supercomputer to work on that. I'd tracked this attack but only sussed that out after Rachel sent me that email."

"I saw three girls there," Sue said, "one had... elf ears. Best costume ever or..."

"They were real," he jumped on her pause, "but those three were just there because they love sex and fucking. Always have. I noticed you worked in mention of a similar trio in the book, but they'd do much better in a Hester Hendricks story."

Sue blinked then smiled. She told her muse to get busy in her subconscious. She needed a few days to rejuvenate and switch aliases and this was her way.

"What about Sestaya and her super-secret three letter agency?" Her muse off doing its duty, her voice was again unsure.

"They don't trust me. Think their insurance policies of digging holes and sealing them and using fusion reactors to power them will save... anyway. I 'liberated' their report from their hack-proof server and a couple of the gimps had nanobot sprayers in their bags. But they all claimed 'some dude paid me to walk around with it.'"

Sue sighed and nodded.

"As to Sestaya, she's your friend," he said and Sue snorted this time, "maybe we should invite her for a three way... you said Sestaya was a bit put out Rachel hadn't let that new boyfriend fuck her that night. Maybe if I offered..."

"Rachel doesn't have A boyfriend," Sue's voice was a happy lilt but she shook her head at his offer, "she has five boyfriends and two girlfriends. But we can only invite Agent Ali if you want to give up YOUR ass, she... has, um, desires. She fed me lines of bullshit but THAT I think was honest."

A flicker of thought ran through her mind about Rachel. The brunette indeed had a posse of lovers, although if Brandon was first amongst equals... so be it. But she jumped any and all as the moods hit her. She'd asked on a call that had been routed through enough satellites and ground stations that there was actually a tiny lag on each side 'where are you guys' and had accepted the answer of, if with just a tiny sigh, 'nowhere close to there, but not out of sight.'

"You're serious about that reunion?" He asked. "You think live is best?"

"You said you can get Pirate Queen to that financial adviser's conference Rachel's attending," she said, "they should meet... Again."

"She's accepted. Don't think she suspects anything, she's kept a low profile for years other than those school talks," he smiled, "I'll tap into all the camera feeds so we can watch."

Sue grinned. Rachel would be shocked to shit. Just as Margaret had been hugely surprised. "I'll see you in Vegas," Sue had told her, "just tell your IT people a software upgrade's on the way..." Sue was pretty sure 'Agent' Sestaya would be there, but what was the use of living underground if you didn't shove that fact up the right people's noses?

It was his turn to snort. He stood up. He pulled off his t-shirt and tossed it onto the sofa which left him wearing only his glasses and a pair of gym shorts that had been too small before too many times through the washer and dryer had reduced them yet another size. And it was very obvious they were too small. Sue's breath caught and her tongue flicked between her lips.

"Speaking about asses," his voice went husky as his glasses followed his shirt onto the sofa, "I'm not quite sure about that sex scene about two-thirds through."

Sue sat cross-legged on the old divan that clashed badly with every other piece of furniture in the little house. And every other piece of furniture in existence on Earth. It seemed to be the one item he allowed to connect his life now to what his life had been. Like her typing table. It was a decades old small folding wooden table with faded blue paint and a laptop and notebook on it in the little nook she'd claimed as her 'study' and had slipped it unseen from her old apartment. Her legs were bare except where the oversized tank top covered the very tops of her thighs. It was more clothing than she'd worn indoors at almost any point since their arrival, it was her 'going out' outfit.

"Oh," she said with amused concern, "which sex scene was that?"

"The one where Zoe's protagonist DPs the supervillain's main henchwoman with his cock in her ass and that giant vibrator in front and makes her cum so hard she passes out," he said, "after she was sent to seduce and kill him. After a few variations he turns her. I don't know if that's realistic. I think we need to give it ALL a test run..."

He bent and reached under the sofa cushion and pulled out a bottle of lube and a large vibrator. A very large vibrator. He flicked the switch and it hummed to life. He stepped toward the divan.

Sue's eyes went to slits and she pulled the tank top off and tossed it onto the floor. Then she reached forward and pulled his shorts down. It wasn't smooth, they caught on... something. Something long... and hard...

"If you think you're enough of a man," her voice was husky and slow, "do your worst, hero. I'm made of sterner stuff than those little law-abiding girl geek mathematics tutors you're used to."

He bent and his face moved quickly toward hers.

The time for talking had ended.

*****

I hope you enjoyed this story. In addition to its predecessor mentioned at the front, Sex, Toys & Video: A Tale, this intersects with my Mel's Universe tales, which are all listed on my profile page, simply click on my author's (PennameWombat) link at the top or bottom of this or any page if you'd like to explore the stories around some of the folks mentioned here.

Thanks again for reading and I hope this is worth a perfect -- but honest -- rating.