Dominance (Fox Meridian Book 8) Read online

There was a slight pause and then Kit said, ‘Do you wish me to run him? I’ve extracted quite a good image from your memory.’

  ‘Hold off on that for now. If it is NIX, I don’t want to tip them that I’ve spotted them. Plus, there’s not that much point in getting rid of a NIX tail when I’m not doing anything I don’t want them noticing.’

  ‘I’ll save the image then. It’s odd to have only one person on a tail, isn’t it?’

  ‘Uh-huh. He’ll have a partner. If they’re professionals, it’ll be a team, but somehow I don’t think they’re that professional. I’ll keep an eye out. Oh, and pass that image to Belle. She can keep a check out for him near the house.’

  ~~~

  Despite the events of the previous Saturday, Sheela Na Gig was buzzing and so were Marie and Helen, for different reasons. For Helen, it was a subdued buzz because she was just looking forward to Terri’s return, which was due on Tuesday evening. For Marie, it was all about M.J. and the start of a multi-episode arc which had a special guest star.

  ‘Did you see the reviews? They absolutely loved you. I mean, I’m glad it’s not your day job because I’d be out of work!’ The redhead was almost bouncing on her seat, and she was not wearing a dress to bounce in.

  Naomi smiled an amused, slightly indulgent smile. ‘I saw the reviews. I admit to enjoying them more than I should.’

  ‘More than you should? They were worth enjoying.’

  ‘A Sister shows humility in all things,’ Naomi said, ‘except in her costume, obviously.’

  Fox, sitting beside the Sister Superior in their booth, did a quick scan, more for form’s sake than need. ‘You’re dressed in belts, Naomi. That skirt you’re… I think “wearing” is an inappropriate word.’

  Naomi smirked. She was not working, so she had dressed for the club rather than clients. That, apparently, meant a leather harness featuring a breast band with a peephole in the middle and straps which joined beneath a skirt that was more of a belt to conserve some modesty. There were also hold-up stockings with a pair of black, thigh-high boots over them. Her long legs were, in fact, far more thoroughly clad than the rest of her. ‘You’re one to talk,’ Naomi said. ‘Your skirt’s not much longer than mine and that teddy is translucent enough that it’s not hiding anything.’

  ‘She has a point, Fox,’ Helen said. ‘I don’t think I could wear that outfit. In public. Could I borrow the designs for Tuesday night?’

  ‘Yes, but you’ll need to sort out your own boots.’ Fox turned her attention back to Naomi. ‘You did kind of steal the show a little. I mean, Marie held her own. M. J. still managed to stand out, but you have a lot of on-screen presence.’

  ‘You hit all your lines perfectly,’ Marie said. ‘I don’t think we did a single retake with you.’

  ‘It’s not the first time I’ve been in front of a camera,’ Naomi said. ‘The last time was not exactly a speaking role. There were noises, but no actual words. However, I am used to public speaking and a lot of my work involves acting. I was a little surprised they didn’t get me out of my clothes more often. What was it? Two topless scenes?’

  ‘Only one made the cut,’ Marie replied. ‘Um, Adrian and Nathan are scared of you.’ Naomi lifted an eyebrow. ‘Well, maybe not scared. Kind of reverent.’

  ‘Ha! That does it then. They asked if I’d be willing to do more for next season and I suggested they wait for the reception on these episodes. I’ll tell them I’ll do it, if I get a sex scene with M. J.’

  Marie’s jaw dropped open.

  After a second, Fox said, ‘You know, if you’ve broken her, Sam’s going to make you buy him a new one.’

  ~~~

  Fox looked up as two more women arrived at the table. ‘You made it. I was beginning to think you’d chickened out.’

  ‘We took a while finding suitable attire for Eve,’ Kit replied. Her gynoid was wearing one of her ‘suitable for Sheela Na Gig’ outfits: white thigh-high boots and a white vinyl dress with powder-blue trim. The dress had a deep vent at the front, going down below Kit’s navel, held together with straps, but even held together, the dress showed off a lot of breast. Together with blue nails and blue eye shadow, Kit’s lips were painted an icy blue. She looked quite the ice queen.

  ‘You know,’ Helen said, ‘I remember when Kit was sort of sweet and innocent. And now she’s dressed as the porn version of the Snow Queen.’

  Kit gave a shrug. ‘I like white. Anyway, I think we found something suitable for Eve, don’t you think?’

  Eve was blushing a little as everyone turned to look. The bioroid was dressed in a vinyl camisole top, purple to go with her hair and eyes, with fishnet strips which did a good job of showing off her breasts. Her skirt was short and also purple, with wide cut-outs up the sides of her thighs. She was in purple platform pumps to give her a little extra height and with make-up she rarely wore on, it was relatively unlikely that anyone would recognise her. ‘I was a little worried I would be underdressed,’ Eve said, ‘but I seem to fit in quite well.’

  ‘You look beautiful,’ Naomi said. ‘I’m so glad you could join us.’

  ‘I said I’d get her out here at some point,’ Fox said, ‘and tonight seemed like a suitable occasion.’

  ‘And here I am,’ Eve said. ‘This is…’ She looked around, taking in the half-dressed humans and the general ambience. ‘This is going to be a new experience. Sam could not make it?’

  Marie shook her head. ‘He’s working until late. Maybe until morning.’

  ‘Sit down,’ Kit suggested. ‘I’ll get drinks.’

  ‘No problems getting here?’ Fox asked as Eve took a seat beside Marie.

  ‘None,’ Eve replied. ‘I think that the public have largely forgotten about the artificial woman living among them. If I walk in the mall in the tower, no one really takes any notice of me. Besides, with Marie and Naomi here, I do not think anyone will be looking twice at me.’ She turned and smiled at Marie. ‘I have been watching your show. I saw you both on it last night. Miko, my neighbour, thinks it quite amazing that I know you both. She has taken to coming to my apartment on Friday nights to watch with me.’

  ‘Well, I hope you’re enjoying it,’ Marie said. ‘I mean, I assume you are because you’d stop watching it if you weren’t.’

  ‘Yes. I realise that it is meant as entertainment, and it is entertaining. And a little risqué.’ There were some giggles around the table at that. ‘But I learn a little something with every episode. I see parts of the metro I have not been to. I learn about the Church of Saint Nicholas and its members. I believe Miko’s view of your profession, Naomi, has changed from watching it.’

  ‘That is why we continue to support the production,’ Naomi replied. ‘It costs us very little to assist IB-nineteen. We even get a little money in when one of us appears on the show. The effect on the reputation of the Church and sex workers in general has been very positive. It would cost us a fortune to mount a memetic campaign giving similar results.’

  ‘Cost-effective and entertaining,’ Helen said. ‘Makes you wonder what else we could do with that kind of programming. Maybe we should get Kit her own series.’

  Fox shook her head as Kit returned with the drinks and narrowed her eyes at Helen. ‘No,’ Fox said, ‘we get Kit and Eve a series. The adventures of two artificial life forms sharing an apartment.’ Eve made a vaguely strangled noise and took a drink of wine.

  Kit took a seat beside Fox. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said, ‘but I think it would work much better with an AI, a bioroid, and a digitised human. It should probably be a sitcom.’

  ‘I bet I could get IB-nineteen in on that one,’ Marie said, smirking.

  ‘I should probably just learn to keep my mouth shut,’ Fox said.

  ‘That is never going to happen,’ Helen said, grinning.

  15th January.

  ‘We should probably review Eve’s security status,’ Fox said. It was after midnight and they were finishing their drinks before leaving. Kit and Helen were going to escort Eve
back to tower three and Kit planned to stay the night there. ‘You’ve enjoyed being out, right?’

  Eve nodded. ‘I don’t believe it’s something I’ll do a lot, but I have enjoyed being out of the tower in a social setting.’

  ‘Right. Kit, maybe you could get something pushed through for that? Assess whether we can relax things for her a bit.’

  Kit nodded. ‘I’ll raise it at the next Palladium board meeting. I suspect BioTek will want to be consulted, but it is primarily a security issue.’

  ‘I’d suggest going with someone for a while. Maybe Miko could take you out, or Kit. If you fancy some exercise, I could take you running in Central Park.’

  ‘We haven’t done that in a while,’ Marie slurred. She was half-cut. Naomi had agreed to help get the actress home.

  ‘I generally only run when I want to think. Exercise doesn’t do much for me.’

  ‘That’sh a valid point.’

  Eve giggled. ‘Marie is a cute drunk. Thank you, Fox. I would enjoy the opportunity to see more of the metro. And to have a… Well, a more normal life.’

  Fox laughed. ‘I can’t promise you that. Helen’s the only one around here with a normal life, and I think that’s marginal. We can maybe get you out in the world more, and at least you’ll be weird in good company.’

  ‘That’s probably the best I can ask for.’ Eve raised her glass. ‘Here’s to being a little weird.’

  ~~~

  ‘Thanks for helping me with her,’ Fox said. She stood beside Naomi, both of them looking down at the already-sleeping form of Marie, tucked up in bed. ‘I can manage her on my own, but it’s easier with two.’

  Naomi chuckled softly. ‘Undressing Marie is hardly a chore.’

  ‘Even when she’s suggesting we all go to bed together?’

  ‘Especially when she’s suggesting that. Not that she would’ve stayed awake long enough to enjoy it.’

  ‘True.’ Fox turned and headed for the door. ‘Do you want a drink? Coffee, or a glass of wine? You don’t seem particularly impaired.’

  ‘No, I’m just nicely buzzed. Wine would be nice. If you’ll join me.’

  Out in the hallway, Fox turned toward the back stairs. ‘Okay. Belle, would you organise a couple of glasses of wine? Bring them to my lounge.’

  Belle’s blue-suited avatar appeared beside the door to the stairs. ‘Of course, Fox. Sam has sent through a message indicating that he will not return until morning.’

  ‘Right. Can you put a bottle of water and some Painaway on the nightstand beside Marie, please?’

  ‘Certainly.’ Belle vanished again, just as she had appeared.

  Fox opened the door and started up the stairs. ‘Of course, the wine won’t do anything to me. I don’t even get the buzz.’

  ‘That has to be the biggest disadvantage to your, um, condition that I’ve heard,’ Naomi said.

  ‘Well, I can get drunk on virtual wine. Terri coded up some virtual coffee that sort of feels like it’s giving me a kick in the morning. I guess if enough people go through the Akh process, someone will invent virtual drugs.’

  ‘I should imagine so. We already have virtual brothels.’

  Fox giggled. ‘Yeah. Virtual sex is so much better when you’re an infomorph.’ She started down the corridor to her lounge, still grinning. ‘You don’t get that weird disparity between what your mind has been up to and what your body did.’

  ‘Hmm, do you think of… Well, do you think of this frame as your body? Has your body image changed?’

  Entering the lounge, Fox dropped onto a sofa, settling back with a sigh, and waited for Naomi to sit beside her. Naomi crossed her long legs in their boots, and Fox’s eyes dipped to watch them, before flicking back up to Naomi’s face. ‘I think… I think whatever image I have of my body, it’s changing. I mean, I have this frame and a combat model in New York. We put one like this in Tokyo to cut down travel times to there and Australia. There are combat models on the Moon and Mars. The Moon should already have one of these Mielikki models, and Mars and Venus will get them in February and March. And then there’s whatever avatar I use in any viron I visit. I still think of me as me, but what’s me tends to change according to what I’m wearing.’

  One of the house’s arachnoform frames scuttled into the lounge with a pair of glasses balanced on its back. Naomi lifted one of the glasses and sipped. Her tongue flicked over her lips and she smiled. ‘Nice. So… What if you were occupying a frame that didn’t look like your old body? What if you were in one of these?’ She indicated the arachnoform, which was handing Fox her glass.

  ‘Ha! I couldn’t execute on the processor in there. It’s rated for teleoperation only. But, uh, I don’t know. I’ve never… Um, when I got my first frame, right after I was initialised the first time, I told them to let me try it out before they’d put the skin on it. That sort of looked like me, but it felt… not like me. But it felt like my body because of the way the software drives the hardware.’ Fox nodded to the spider-frame. ‘Thanks, Belle.’

  ‘Always my pleasure, Fox,’ Belle’s voice said from the robot’s speakers. Then the machine turned on its eight metal limbs and scurried off into the hallways.

  ‘I find it fascinating,’ Naomi said. She sipped her wine and then reached out to stroke her fingers over Fox’s exposed thigh. ‘The skin seems so real. You feel my touch like you would normally?’

  ‘Uh, that depends on what you mean by normally. The, um, mechanical process is different. Human skin…’ Fox paused as Naomi’s fingers slid inward, over the synthetic skin of her inner thigh. ‘Jackson went on about it once. Human skin has a lot of different receptors to detect… detect different things.’ Fox’s throat felt dry, even though that was not really happening, and she took a large sip of wine to wet it. ‘Pressure, heat, cold, pain. All done by different cells. Some of th-them aren’t entirely understood. I’ve got one kind of sensor a-and the drivers interpret the s-signals so they feel the same to me.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ Naomi said. She sipped her wine, and her fingers slid up Fox’s thigh, circling gently.

  ‘Uh, with this m-model, they p-put in a far higher density of mechanoreceptors in the h-hands. I c-can do things by t-touch you’d need vision f-for normally.’

  Naomi drained her glass and leaned forward to put it on the floor, and her hand slipped away from Fox’s leg. Fox let out a shuddering breath, aware that her need to breathe was entirely psychological now, but her arousal was something else. Her nipples were tight against the plazkin suit, and the skin on her thigh seemed cold now, bereft of Naomi’s touch.

  Then Naomi turned, slipping a hand beneath Fox’s skirt and cupping her mound, pressing gently. Fox gasped. ‘Are your palms the only sensitive areas?’ Naomi asked, her voice low, almost a whisper.

  ‘No…’

  ‘Good.’ Naomi pulled her hand away and swung around, straddling Fox’s thighs. Reaching up, she slipped the straps of Fox’s suit off her shoulders, pulling the garment down sharply to expose Fox’s breasts, but keeping her arms trapped. Bending forward, Naomi slid her tongue slowly over an engorged nipple and Fox moaned.

  Lifting her head, Naomi looked into Fox’s eyes. ‘If you tell me to stop, I will.’

  There was a part of Fox’s mind telling her that she should stop it. Somewhere inside her, some thought was trying to put forward an argument. ‘I… I’m not sure what I want,’ Fox said, ‘but I don’t want you to stop.’

  Leaning forward again, Naomi claimed Fox’s mouth with her own.

  ~~~

  Fox lay in the near-silent aftermath of another orgasm, listening to the sound of her breathing. And Naomi’s. They seemed to be breathing in sync as though one or the other had made some conscious decision to breathe in time with the other, or it had simply happened… It could have just happened.

  Fox had lost count of the number of times Naomi had driven her over the edge. The Sister Superior had taken charge like the dominatrix she was and Fox had gone where Naomi ordered. Up and up, high
er and higher, only to fall into white heat. Naomi had demanded that Fox climax again and again, and Fox had come. Naomi had demanded pleasure from Fox, and Fox had given it.

  Now it was three in the morning, and it seemed that Naomi was slowing down. She lay against Fox, their legs entwined, and nothing was said for several minutes.

  ‘You really are quite sensitive down there,’ Naomi said, her voice soft.

  ‘It’s configuration,’ Fox replied. ‘There’s some file somewhere with a lot of amplification values for different regions of the body. Or so I was told. Like, your palms are more sensitive than your forearms. The ones for my erogenous zones are tweaked a little too high, but not too high, and I kind of like it how they are.’

  ‘So do I.’

  Fox gasped as Naomi reached out and began to slide a finger over her navel stud. It was a weird sensation, like an erotic version of butterflies in the stomach. Then Naomi’s lips were adding butterfly kisses along Fox’s neck. ‘You know… we have t-to sleep sometime,’ Fox said.

  ‘You’re going to come once more for me.’ There was amusement in Naomi’s voice, but also a firmness: she would not be argued with.

  ‘I’m going to come one more time,’ Fox said. ‘For you.’

  Naomi’s fingers slid down over the firm cybernetic muscles of Fox’s stomach and more butterflies took wing, doing a rapid circle and then flocking down. Fox let out a whimper and Naomi was inside her, three fingers pushed in and up.

  ‘There’s s-something…’ Fox said. ‘When… When I sleep.’

  ‘Yes?’ Naomi’s fingers pressed and circled, their pace increasing. She knew by now exactly which spot would give the greatest effect and she was merciless. ‘Keep going.’

  ‘I… I won’t be… be in… Oh God… in my body. If… If you wake… wake up, don’t be… alarmed. PleasecanIcome?’

  ‘Wait…’

  ‘Please… please… please…’

  ‘Now, come now.’

  The driving fingers drover harder, faster, and Fox’s eyes rolled back. Her back arched off the bed in a motion that would likely have snapped a natural spine. There was light so bright it seemed like darkness, and then Fox was collapsing back onto the sheets… and Naomi’s fingers were still inside her, still moving, driving her up again.