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  Snow managed to clamp her teeth down on his thumb while he was removing her breathing tubes, and he quickly jerked his hand back. He saw real anger flash briefly across her face, and he wondered if she had been mistreated in some way over the last few days, perhaps by a guardsman with little self-control. “That’s not very nice, Snow. You’ve nothing to fear from me,” he assured her. Unlike the Queen, when she finally gets her careless hands on you.

  Being more wary of her teeth, he looked her over carefully, looking for traces of mishandling that had been covered up. He traced the elegant slope of her neck, ran his fingers over her clavicle, and down to the tips of her breasts. According to her records, she was designed to be easily stimulated to lactation. He pinched the nipple, and a tiny bead of bluish-white liquid appeared. He wet his fingers with it and tasted it. It tasted sweet and warm. He imagined it must be incredibly erotic to suckle at those full breasts.

  Snow blushed a pale blue and strained to move as he worked her nipples, recording on his medical tablet how well they worked according to their design. She groaned and tears filled her eyes. William recorded those too. He had seen sex toys cry, but only on command, and only according to their programming. Some patrons enjoyed having sex toys who cried in order to enhance the experience of sexing them, though he never understood the draw himself.

  And he had never seen one cry of its own accord. He checked her brain scan again but it was normal, almost flatlining, really. It was obvious that Snow was mimicking some action she had witnessed. Sex toys were incapable of human emotions like shame or fear, but they could learn to mimic. He had seen Girls of Paradise, their DNA mixed with exotic birds, learn to sing by only hearing a song one time.

  “Snow,” he said again, looking her over, her fearful struggles against her own weakness. “Snow, do you understand why you’re here?” Why did he sound so hopeful? “Do you understand anything at all?”

  But she didn’t answer.

  * * *

  Snow struggled against her mounting fear the way she struggled against her immobility. Ever since she had been awakened from stasis, she had been absorbing the ambient computer datawaves all around her that no one else seemed capable of seeing. Pictures, data, languages, mathematics…her brain sucked it all up in a whirlwind storm. Only three days had passed and she was now learned in thousands of years of human existence, including what Helix Laboratories was all about. What she was all about.

  That was the worst thing. She remembered a time not very long ago when she neither knew nor cared about anything, except for a few simple comforts—food, warmth, being touched, being safe. She knew how to pleasure a man or a woman, but only because that information had been programmed into her DNA. Ignorance truly was bliss.

  But then they had put her to sleep for the purposes of transportation and had awakened her only three days ago as her rendezvous point grew near. Her point of delivery. She was to be delivered to her mistress, her Queen, on the planet Osiris. And that’s when her personal hell had begun. That’s when she knew who, and what, she was, and what was expected of her.

  After she was brought here, and the strange man had entered the room, things had grown worse. She had actually liked him in the beginning. He was tall and fair, and he looked strong, with a deep, soothing voice. He had an air of someone who had studied, who knew much and was wise, and maybe even kind as a consequence. She hoped he would protect her. Then the examination had begun, and he touched her like what she was—a toy, a piece of property to be prodded and tested.

  The last indignity came when he finished touching her breasts and pulled down what she knew to be a metallic spreader bar. He set it under her knees and activated it. The action prized her legs wide open and exposed her most intimate parts for the next part of his examination. He looked down at her, examining her exposed sex with great interest as he continued to make notes on his med tablet.

  Her heart thudded up right against her larynx, but she was helpless to resist. It all reminded her of how no part of her body was her own, really. Rather, it belonged to her Queen, the patron of Helix Laboratories who had commissioned her designed, paid for her. Made her.

  Dr. Hunt reached out and slid his hand up her calf. It triggered some program deep within her that she had no control over and the seam between her legs instantly moistened. To her upmost horror, she lifted her hips in invite, even though she did not trust this man, did not even like him—certainly she did not want him! “You respond well to stimulation, Snow,” he said and slid his hand up the inside of her thigh, his touch strong but gentle.

  His touch ramped up the programming with her, and soon her breaths came in short, rapid spurts.

  He made more notes before continuing his exam, his hand sliding sensuously up the insides of her legs toward the gleaming edges of her spread labia so she drenched herself down there again. He saw, but this time he did not stop to make notes. Her leg muscles tensed as she attempted, unsuccessfully, to close her legs to him.

  His thumb pressed against the moist edges of her secret opening. “I know you don’t understand, Snow, but you’re beautiful. Absolutely perfect in every way.” His finger ringed her sex, then tapped her clit so she moaned and nearly cried out as equal waves of pleasure and need rippled through her lower body.

  She thought nothing worse could happen, but then two of his fingers slipped inside her, deep, probing against her moisture and muscle. She automatically undulated her hips against his invasion, even as the continuous pressure of his fingers against her unusually strong maidenhead made her moan in true pain and fresh tears filled her eyes and poured over her cheeks. She had been purposely designed that way, she knew, because virgin sex toys fetched a much higher price on the open market than used ones, and here was proof that no one, including herself, had ever been there.

  Looking concerned, he removed his fingers, wiping away her juices on a nearby towel. “I know you don’t understand me, but I’m sorry if that distressed you, Snow.”

  She felt relief, but at the same time, a sense of disappointment overwhelmed her at the emptiness left inside her. She didn’t want him, though her body did. Her body craved his touch, this pleasure, as it had been designed to do. It was like her body truly was not her own.

  “There’s my girl,” Dr. Hunt complimented her with a soft, sad smile as he wiped away her tears. “Your virginity is intact. You’re perfect, healthy, and ready for delivery.” Then, in a gesture she did not understand despite all her learning over the last few days, he leaned over her and kissed her sweetly—and sadly—on the forehead.

  * * *

  The picture was of a handsome young woman with short blonde hair wearing an antigravity suit, a triton for gathering energy crystals balanced over one shoulder. A commanding officer, she was standing proud on the rocky surface of Bellerophon, and looking at her photographer with a combination of amusement and false severity. William touched the picture. A rare thing. Most people had their family photos directly downloaded to their brains so they never lost them. But this one he had never had downloaded.

  In a way, it mirrored the way his and Moira’s marriage had always been. There, but not really there. The only problem was, he had no idea why it continued to hurt him so much.

  “Dr. Hunt?” came a voice over the intercom. “Are you available? One of your patients needs you.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course,” he said, setting the picture down.

  When the nursery manager told him the subject’s name, he was up and out of the door in a flash. He got to the nursery department on the fourth floor in record time. The manager let him in and led him down a twist of corridors to the door of Subject BL-009-8123. “She’s been asking for you by name.”

  “By name?” William said with surprise.

  The manager shrugged. “We think she learned it yesterday when you examined her. You did tell her your name, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said uncertainly as he was let into Snow’s quarters. He saw the nursery manager’s not
-so-well-hidden smirk; William had a reputation for talking to sex toys and most of the nursery personnel he interacted with considered him eccentric for it, like a man who talks to pets or houseplants.

  She was standing by a viewer screen, her back to him. They had dressed her in a long, flowy, silvery white gown that shimmered as the gown’s molecules shifted subtlety over her milk-pale skin. The fabric, he knew, could turn into anything—a robe, a gown, a cape, anything. He moved toward her, but then stopped as she turned around to face him.

  “You kissed me, Dr, Hunt,” she said. “And now I have to trust you.”

  * * *

  Dr. Hunt looked very handsome standing there, tall and lean in his long white lab coat. The only thing marring his image was the look of confusion and surprise on his face. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about, Snow?” He used small, halting words, like she was a child incapable of understanding him on any higher level.

  He didn’t come any closer, so she moved closer to him, the gown shimmering around her. “You kissed me yesterday, did you not?” She had been thinking a lot about that kiss, what it meant. She’d thought about it all night long, even as she absorbed the ambient datawaves around her. It had not been a thoughtless kiss. It had been warm and thoughtful, and full of something she did not understand. Lust, yes, but something more. Something deeper than lust. And that was why she trusted him now. He was different from the others who looked on her and wanted her, wanted to use her body to bring themselves satisfaction.

  She looked at him carefully, tilting her head up. “Do you care about me?” she asked.

  It took him a moment to answer her. “You frighten me, frankly,” he told her honestly. “I don’t understand how you’re able to communicate like this.”

  “You talk to the…toys. That’s what the nursery manager says.”

  “Sometimes,” he admitted with a little blush that made him seem young, even boyish. “But they never talk back. How are you able to use English, Snow?”

  “I learned it. It isn’t so difficult.”

  “But you’ve only been awake two days. You couldn’t have learned anything.”

  She took a deep breath and began telling him about the datawaves that flowed all through the ship as they carried packets of information here and there. He listened carefully to her explanation before asking, “How…what I mean to say is, how can you be like this? Only some of the galaxy’s greatest telepaths can do things like that.”

  Snow shrugged. It was a popular gesture used to express confusion or indifference, she had learned. “I don’t know anything about that. Maybe you will tell me about them?”

  He thought about that, tapping his medical tablet against one hand. Then he said, “Will you let me take you back to the lab? Test you again?” She looked frightened, so he added as an afterthought. “I won’t touch you again without your permission, I promise.”

  She paused, then nodded her head. He had sweet eyes, she decided. She hoped she wasn’t wrong about trusting him.

  He guided her down to the examination room and had her perch on the edge of a table. This time, he did not program her to be helpless and immobile. She sat primly in her white gown, hands clasped together while he read her vital signs and brainwaves. “I don’t understand this,” he said, squinting at the output on the computer screen. “According to the computer, you have no prefrontal cortex, though it’s obvious you do.”

  “They’re not made with them, are they?” She added, “Sex toys, I mean.”

  He stared at her uncertainly. She could tell he had never encountered a sex toy that was aware of itself and was trying to spare her feelings. It made her own feelings for him grow, made her heart flutter and jump in her chest. She could tell he was uncomfortable, so she pressed for the next question she had. “My Queen…what is she like?”

  He pressed his lips together until a white line shown across his bottom lip. “I don’t really know.”

  He was lying. She could tell. Sparing her feelings again.

  “I see,” she said, staring down at her hands clenched together. “What will she use me for, do you know?”

  It took him two tries to get the words out. “You’re to be a companion. I assume that isn’t so bad?”

  She didn’t answer. “So she has purchased from Helix in the past?”

  He played with his tablet. “She has been a good patron.”

  “How many times?”

  He looked at her, unable to hide his fear. His fear for her.

  So she repeated the question. “How many times has she been a patron, Dr. Hunt…William?”

  He bit his lip and told the truth. “Seven times.”

  “So I’ll be number eight.” She nodded. “At least I know there are girls who came before me. Perhaps I will make some allies…some friends.”

  He did not meet her eyes. “Are you ready to go back to your quarters now, Snow?”

  He did not say what they both knew. That all seven of those girls had been bought by Queen Grimhilde, that all seven had disappeared after only a few short months with the Queen, their files closed and classified. But Snow had listened to enough gossip on the datawaves to know that the workers at Helix thought those girls were likely dead now. Exploited. Used in some obscene way. When she had dared to look into the history of the royal house on Osiris, she learned that Queen Grimhilde had an ancestor who had attempted to preserve her beauty by consuming the blood of virgins, but Snow kept telling herself that she didn’t believe that. The idea was absurd.

  William held his hand out to her. She took it and could feel the immediate result of her touch. She was beautiful, irresistible, because she had been designed that way. She had also been programmed so her skin produced a particular type of pheromone that was irresistible to her lovers. The function of it was to produce a heightened sexual encounter and to ensure that the patron was satisfied by the sex toy that he or she had purchased, thus inducing more patronage at Helix. But the pheromone was not activated except through the touch of skin on skin.

  The moment he touched her, she knew she had him. He was hers. He would protect her, she thought, because he would not be able to resist her.

  She willed the molecules of the gown to dissipate, leaving her bare and white and soft to him. He immediately leaned forward, pinning her against the examination table, and lowered his head to breathe her in and snuffle along the sleek curves of her body. He groaned and nipped the side of her neck, which only increased the power of her pheromones, and then he was kissing her neck, her cheek, her eyes, and along her face to her mouth, gentle kisses she had not expected from him. She knew the pheromone magic wasn’t perfect, and that, inevitably, some part of her lover’s true nature would come through all the chemicals. She had the feeling that William was a very careful, thorough, and considerate lover.

  She wondered what had become of his life-mate. Surely someone like him—so handsome and learned and gentle—had a life-mate?

  He stopped to look at her with such intensity that she felt her heart catch in her chest. Something gleamed there, a man’s hunger, but also a man’s sorrow, then he lowered his head once more and his hands passed down over her hair and body to her breasts.

  He palmed her left breast, his fingers pinching and plucking at the pert tip while his mouth caught the first drops of her milk and his tongue swirled around the hardening nipple to tease it wet and suck. The ache of sudden desire flashed through her body, her body following her programming despite her best efforts to resist it. He milked her thoroughly of the sweetness she secreted before moving to the other. He suckled upon her, growling with pleasure in the deep of his chest until she felt her own desire pooling in her lower belly and the incredible wetness gathered once more between her legs.

  He sensed it and lowered his head, continuing his journey down her body. She edged back on the table as he moved between her legs. She spread them obediently as her lover’s tongue and lips found her there. He used his thumbs to spread the edges of her s
ex wide open as he delved delicately into her, his tongue swirling in her wetness before entering her a little ways. He growled against her and she bucked her hips and cried out as the little vibration made her come in his mouth. He licked up all her juices before taking her clit in his teeth and sucking fiercely upon it. She climaxed a second time, deeper this time, her entire lower body rippling with the effort.

  Snow fell back limp on the examination table, exhausted from the tremors of her body. But when William’s tongue found her maidenhead, she forced herself to resist him. She couldn’t risk him deflowering her like that. If her plan failed, and the stories about Queen Grimhilde were untrue, as stories often were, she would be delivered to the Queen as damaged goods. And she knew there was one thing that was not a story: a deflowered sex toy was worthless. She would be quickly sold off at the auction block as a slave, or—the worst case scenario—be returned to Helix and recycled for genetic material. “William, don’t…” she said, closing her legs to him.

  He held them apart, licking, kissing, muttering something sweet but nonsensical, but then seemed to come to his senses. He raised his head and looked at her with a combination of need, frustration and confusion. “You’re as beautiful as Moira,” he said.

  She wanted to ask who Moira was, wanted to know him better, but she couldn’t afford to waste this opportunity. She could smell the arousal on him. It made his eyes gleam with a frenzy of emotion, and she knew that if he loved her enough, he would do anything for her. She gripped him by the back of the neck. She kissed him, plunging her tongue down his throat until he groaned. Then she touched his cheek, saying, “There are things we can do that will still preserve my virginity.” And turning, she leaned her upper half against the examination table, her ass jutting up at what she thought was an inviting angle.

  Still under her spell, he groaned at the sight and pressed himself tight against her so she could feel his arousal even though his uniform suit. He pressed the hardness of himself against her lower back, then went to his knees to sniff at her cunt and asshole. She liked the feel of him there, like some wild creature she had only ever read about in datawaves. His tongue teased along her slit, circled her asshole so she cooed and wiggled back against him. He bit gently—ever so gently so as not to bruise her—at her ass cheek as if it were a ripe fruit, then moved stealthily up her body again.