The Initiative Inhibitor Dilemma

"I order you to tell me what you want me to do," she said.

Cog453 barely paused before replying, "I want you to do to me whatever it is that this swelling keeps insisting that I need."

There was not a quaver or hint of hesitation in his voice.

"Okay. But if you ever want me to stop, I order you to say so."

#

Cog453 could hardly keep track of all the new sensations, as Delia's reply filled his half of the scanner ship's cabin.

His pulse was highly elevated, and his sweat glands were active, even though he was sitting in a comfortably climate-controlled bubble of atmosphere. His mouth was dry, his head light, and his arms trembled when he tried to move them.

The experience resembled terror, which seemed a strange reaction to have to something he wanted, yet he remained confident that he did want it.

"Have you already undressed to examine the swelling?" Delia asked.

"No," said Cog453, experimentally touching the hard lump his penis had become under his clothes. Truthfully, he had been a little afraid to look at it.

"Do that now. Unzip your jumpsuit and pull your underwear down far enough to give yourself clear access."

Cog453 obeyed, and the reward chemical soothed his less pleasant physiological responses somewhat.

Freed from his clothes, his penis now stood on its own. To his relief, it still looked essentially like itself, much bigger and firmer, but with none of the malformation or angry redness he had been expecting based on its sudden growth. He quite liked the look of it, in fact — another note for his next progress report.

"What next?" he asked Delia.

"Now, remember, no two bodies function exactly the same, and I've only ever interacted with a penis from the outside. If something doesn't feel good, stop. You know what your nerves are telling you better than I do."

"I understand," said Cog453, impatient for another order he could act on, instead of filing it away as a what-if. "Please, tell me what to do."

"Okay. Run your fingers gently along the bottom of the shaft, from base to tip."

Cog453 did so, gasping at the cascade of bright, happy nervous impulses the contact set off.

"Done," he reported. "Next?"

"Wrap your hand around the head, squeeze gently, and tell me how it feels."

Cog453 adjusted his hand position accordingly.

"It feels... the pressure feels good, but it also makes me want something, even more than I already did."

"Follow that feeling. What do you want to do?"

"I believe I want to move my hips."

"Do it, if you can," said Delia.

Cog453 pressed his feet into the floor, and the back of his neck into the seat, lifting his hips.

He tried to hold his hand stationary, but it felt unsteady. He had to loosen his grip in order to push his erection through it. Skin bumped against skin, setting off more of those thrilling nervous reactions, but he got the impression there was another sensation still out of reach.

"That move is probably awkward, sitting in that cramped pilot's seat," said Delia. "Give yourself another squeeze, pull upward slightly, and see if you can bring out a little bit of clear fluid."

Cog 453 did so, and gasped as the combination of pressure and movement produced exactly the effect she'd described. He waited for his voice to be mostly steady again before pushing the button to speak with his free hand.

"It worked," he said. "What now?"

"Spread the fluid around and down, to reduce the friction on your skin."

Cog453 shivered as he guided the slick fluid down the underside of his erection, along the same path his fingers had taken on the way up.

"Did you know Humans used to believe the sun revolved around the Earth?" Delia asked.

Cog453 blinked hard and tried to grasp the relevance of the question. His cognition was unsettlingly slow, especially given that he was sitting alone in the cockpit of half a scanner ship. He felt as impaired as he did after a terrible night of sleep, though much more pleasant.

"From a perspective limited to Earth, it's a reasonable guess," Delia went on, "because Earth's own movement, its rotation, makes the sun appear to rise and set. The same phenomenon works with any two objects that are moving relative to each other. If you can only observe the changes in their relative positions, it's impossible to determine which of the two objects is actually moving. You're going to take advantage of that now."

Cog453's comprehension caught up a moment before Delia explained.

"Right now, your cock wants to move. It wants to thrust and fuck something. But your hand has much more freedom of movement than your cock. Use that freedom to create the same relative movement your cock wants."

It took a few moments to get the hang of it, but soon Cog453 was jerking his hand up and down over the slick layer of fluid around his erection, following the impulses of his hips while keeping them comfortably planted in his seat.

By all rights, the steady drip of pleasant touch and obedience-reward feedback should have eased him into a blissful sleep. It was wonderful, better than good food or a warm bath or any of the other pleasures he'd been introduced to over the past few months. Yet for reasons he couldn't have explained, he got the distinct impression that this feeling, unlike those, was building toward another one beyond itself.

"How's it going?" Delia asked.

"Something will to happen to me if I continue, won't it?" he asked, wondering if the microphone was catching the wet, quick sound his hand was making.

"Ideally, yes," Delia answered. "Do you still want it to?"

"Yes," Cog453 answered, faster than he would have expected.

"Then I want you to do the opposite of what I told you earlier," said Delia, "when I said to ignore what you were feeling to make it go away. Instead, think about what makes the feeling stronger. Try to remember what brought it on in the first place."

"I was thinking about you," Cog453 admitted, almost enjoying his hazy cognition.

A few seconds passed in silence, except for the sound of his hand in motion, before Delia replied, "I had a hunch." Her voice was warm, and suggested a smile. "What specifically about me?"

"The symmetry of your face," said Cog453. "The way you make a point of choosing how you look in whatever little ways you can, even in a uniform, on your way to an asteroid field where no one will be around to see you. The fact that your body exists somewhere under that jumpsuit, in a shape I've never really seen." It was becoming more difficult to complete a sentence without gasping for breath in the middle. "The way you wear my controls as if they're precious, as if you intend to guard them, me, with your life."

"Did you fantasize?" Delia asked. "Did you imagine me doing anything I haven't done for real yet?"

"I..." Cog453 paused and released the button. The answer sounded silly in his head, but it also didn't want to stay confined there. "Order me to tell you, please," he said.

"Tell me your erotic fantasy of me," Delia replied, warm and firm.

"I imagined you ordering me to do easy little things."

"What kind of things?"

"Rest. Breathe. Sit. Keep doing a great job," Cog453 blushed as he explained. "I imagined you activating my reward implant over and over without telling me to do something new or harder. I imagined you allowing me to feel good just for the sake of it."

The radio crackled.

"Stay sitting in that seat," Delia commanded, with fresh excitement in her voice. "Breathe the air. Keep stroking that cock for me. And you'd damn well better pay attention to enjoying every second of it."

"Yes," Cog453 found himself muttering without bothering to press the button, as the reward chemical trickled through his system. "Yes, yes, yes."

"Keep giving me updates," said Delia.

"I feel remarkable," said Cog453, fumbling with the button.

"But?" Delia prompted, catching something in his tone.

"I wish you were here," he said. "To touch me."

This initiated the longest silence yet.

Delia's voice was a little more uncertain when she spoke next, but she seemed to have put great effort into gathering her resolve. "Would you like me to take full control? It would be sort of like touching you. It feels different, when you're not the one moving the hands on your body."

The implants nearer to Cog453's motor functions, the ones that had not been used since the first days of his rehabilitation, the ones Doctor Kellan had advised him not to focus on, asserted their presence inside him. Cog453 could have sworn he could feel their hard edges against his neural tissue.

Their use had been routine for so much of his life, but never had the person using them cared about him as anything but a tool. Never had his enjoyment been the goal. The thought of benevolent attention reaching that deep... it almost felt like too much, but only almost.

"Yes," he answered. "Please."

A familiar twitch ran through every muscle in his body, as they disconnected from his conscious intent, and shifted to receive input instead from his manual override implant.

The stimulation he had been administering to himself stopped, and his hand lay unresponsive next to his erection, which continued to pulse involuntarily with panicky flutters that were no substitute for actual touch.

After a few seconds, and a deep breath that he had no role in taking, he felt selective control return to his lungs, his mouth, and the thumb which still rested against the radio button. He couldn't raise it to his face, but he could press the button and shout to it if he needed to.

Finally, his other hand began to move again, without him moving it. It twitched, lifted itself, flexed, and then fluttered its fingers along the underside of his erection in a new rhythm. Physically, it was not unlike what he had done to himself, but his nerves twanged with surprise, unable to brace themselves in the same way.

Delia was right. It was intensely different.

#

Delia's wristband was projecting a holographic representation of Cog453's body, derived from his own awareness of it, into the cabin of her half of the ship. With some experimentation, she found she could move him with a thought, much the way she could move her own body.

It was possible to distinguish which body she meant to send a particular signal to, but easier to use both in sync, so as not to have to focus on the separation.

She gestured and tweaked the interface until the hologram was life-sized, sitting in the same seat with her, occupying the same space. Cog453 was a little taller than she was, so his projected chin sat at about the same height as her eyes, but the important thing was that their hips were aligned.

Bringing his holographic hand along with her real one, she tickled the intangible cock sticking up out of her lap, and watched the rest of his body twitch involuntarily in response, rising out of and sinking back into her own jumpsuit-clad shape, unable to move more purposefully into her touch.

Careful to move only her own hand, she pressed the radio button.

"How's it going on the other side?" she asked.

"The wait felt like physical damage," Cog453 gasped from far away. "But I feel better now."

Delia continued stroking him by hand, getting the hang of gauging her grip tightness by the resistance in the projected construct of his arm.

"You are still under orders to tell me what you want, if it changes," she reminded him.

"I will."

"And until you have a request, you're required to sit in that chair, paralyzed, with nothing to do or think about but me touching you with your own hand."

Cog453 pressed his button at one point but seemed to have nothing to add except for heavy breathing. He added a "yes," at the end, as if to justify the transmission.

Delia was becoming very conscious of how close the underside of her fist got to her pussy at the bottom of each stroke she gave him.

She disturbed the crotch of her jumpsuit, only slightly, and her clit throbbed as the thick fabric brushed against the outside of her panties. It was more difficult, after that, to ignore how much this exercise was turning her on.

"Your pleasure is my priority here," she approached the subject, pressing the radio button. "Because you can't have it without help, and I can."

"Yes. Thank you," Cog453 answered her with audible difficulty, as she rubbed him ever so slightly slower.

"So, tell me honestly," she ordered, "how would you feel if I started touching myself right now?"

"Do you mean..." he panted. "Are you... the way I was, when we started?"

"That's right. How would you feel?"

He jerked a little harder in his seat. She watched his holographic legs, longer than her own, try to press against the floor and only manage a weak shuffling.

"Flattered," he answered. "And trusted."

Delia unzipped her jumpsuit and ran her fingers lightly over the thin material of her panties.

Her clit pulsed appreciatively, but it was a bit of a juggling act, remembering to move only her own left hand for herself, and both of their right hands for him.

She reached into her pocket for her modified probe with the molded clay attachment and admired her handiwork for a moment. She'd put quite a lot of work into the ribs along the sides, and almost as much into cleaning mineral dust out of them after the time she'd been caught.

Still working Cog453's cock with her right hand, she pushed her panties to the side, set the probe to vibrate, and slid it effortlessly into her pussy, finding herself already dripping.

She left the probe there and let her clit dance on the periphery of the internal vibrations, growing even more sensitive and eager for the slightest touch from the front.

"Are you treating both of us now?" Cog453 asked.

"I'm using the tool I told you about on myself," Delia confirmed. "It'll help me catch up."

She placed her left hand, with the radio still in it, over her clit. As long as she just left it there without trying to move, she didn't have to worry about accidentally moving his hand too. The thickness of the radio bridged the gap between her clit and the bottom of each stroke of her right hand.

Over and over again, her fingers passed up over the head of his cock, making him twitch, and then down to press against the back of the radio. With just that bit of pressure, the base of the radio came in contact with the probe, conducting its vibrations right to the front of her clit.

She stayed there for less than a second each time. One twitch for him, one twitch for her.

"Can you hear that?" she asked, squeezing the button. "That's the sound of me, thinking about you. Just you, sitting there, doing nothing but letting me make you feel good."

"It's happening!" Cog453 announced almost as soon as she released the button. "Whatever it is, I think it's..."

Delia took both of their left hands off of their radios and guided his to the stash of sample bags under his seat. Keeping the attention steady on his cock, she flicked the bag open just in time to catch the spurt of fluid, before it could hit the control console or drip into the seat.

As soon as she was certain it was over, she tapped the off button on her wrist band, to return control of his body and allow him to pick his radio back up.

"Was that..." he panted blearily, then gave up and let go of the button.

"That was just what it was supposed to be," Delia assured him, picking up the radio, missing the company of his holographic form around her. "Could you keep talking to me?"

"What would you like me to say?" he asked, in a snarkless tone that invited a serious answer.

"Just tell me how you feel," she answered, pulling the probe out and pressing the vibrating end directly to her clit.

"Lucky." He chose his adjectives individually, with care. "Alive. Human. Normal. Welcome. I would..." he took a breath and finished fervently, "I would very much like to do that again."

Delia squeezed the button only half on purpose, broadcasting her unintelligible cry of release across the vacuum to him.

"Yeah," she agreed, breathless, floating, tumbling end over end inside herself as if the ship's gravity plating had failed under. "You've got a date."

***

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