She did not know whether to be outraged or relieved. He had seriously violated her privacy, yet she loved him. "I dreamed of having sex with you. It was fantastic, extending seemingly forever. All the girls did."
"That was when they accessed your brains. They kept you in orgasm, and let you relax only when they were finished. You were dreaming of sex with me when they transplanted your brain to a new and larger body."
"But we were children!"
"And felt guilty upon waking, believing this was illicit pleasure. That the small changes in your mind and body you discovered were because of lascivious dreams. So you buried those memories."
She found herself blushing. It was true.
He held her by the shoulders and gazed into her face. "Shee, I want to be with you. But I must wean you away from your machine origin. This is the way."
She capitulated again. "Do with me what you will."
He removed her clothing, and his own. His member was rampant. "They will invade you. Ignore it. Focus on pleasure with me." He made her lie on a fragrant pallet of moss, and kissed her and stroked her.
She responded, as she had to. She existed for this. She loved feeling his mouth on hers, his hands on her breasts, his member nudging her cleft. She grabbed handfuls of his lean buttocks and moved his loin against hers.
When he took too long to enter her, she caught his penis with her hand and guided it in, and wrapped her legs about him so that he could not escape.
Then they were in the throes of a continuous orgasm. She felt his ejaculate pumping into her, and her vagina clasped his member hungrily, drawing in more. It went on and on, transporting them. It was as if they floated up from the pallet and drifted across the field of flowers, carried by the surging waves of their mutual pleasure.
At last it was done. She discovered him panting at her breast, for once satiated. So was she. She felt the moisture of the overflow, and knew there would be serious cleaning up to do. But what a divine experience!
"What happened to the bee-chines you warned me about? I never saw them." She stood and wiped off much of the dribble.
"They are small. They entered your nose and got close to your brain. They set up their equipment and radiated the program to your random access memory bank. They finished and departed. You now have access to empathy."
"Doubt." But she checked her data storage, and found it: empathy. That had to be it, as it was new.
"Invoke it, if you wish."
"Curiosity." She invoked it. The program spread through her consciousness circuitry and faded. "No effect."
"Here is a damaged plant." He touched the stem. "It got crowded out of its original turf and must find new ground for its roots."
Shee touched the stem. She saw a scrape along the side. "It is injured! It is hurting."
"How do you know?"
"I feel its pain. Its roots are in bad soil and can't provide enough sap to heal the gash, and the sap leaks out anyway. This plant is dying."
Havoc put his hand on the base of the stem, circling it. Power passed into the plant. The sap rose up strongly, and filled the gash with healing balm. She felt the plant mending, its pain easing. "Sufficient?" he asked.
"Negation. It still needs raw nutrients to feed on. Otherwise it will quickly succumb."
He held his penis and guided a flow of urine to the soil at the base of the plant. "Enough?"
"It still needs more." She scooped up a handful of spent ejaculate and pressed it into the ground around the plant. "Now it has a future."
"You felt its pain," he said. "Figurative?"
"Literal! My leg smarted." Then she paused, reconsidering. "But I feel pain only when I choose to. My leg is not injured. How could I feel it?"
"You invoked the empathy circuit."
She nodded. "I did. That made me feel the plant's pain, and its pleasure when you healed and fed it. I never felt such things before. I always related to plants, and cared for them, but this was different. I felt its pain." Now she picked up on the significance she had overlooked before. It was as if she had briefly become the plant.
"You can turn off that program."
"Not yet." She stood and walked among the flowers. Each was a sex organ hungry for servicing. She felt that hunger. She turned back to Havoc, who was standing still. "Get it up again, Glamor." She lifted his limp member in her hand, then knelt to put her mouth on it, sucking it into renewed life. She felt his intensifying desire.
In moments they were at it again, thrusting into another mutual fulfillment. This time she related intimately to his burgeoning desire and release. It enhanced her own release.
"I could get to like you this way," he said as his spurting subsided. "Too bad you can't leave the empathy circuit on."
"Why should I turn it off? It makes me feel alive."
"But you are not alive."
Then she realized. "I am alive. What my body is made of doesn't matter. I feel, I hurt, I pleasure, I care. I am living!"
"Illusion. Turn off the empathy and you will revert to normal."
"The hell! I would die."
"That is the circuit speaking. It has corrupted you. You need to be rid of it."
She grabbed his member again. "If you don't shut up, Havoc, I'll work this up to shoot at a moon."
"That moon," he said, caressing her left breast.
"Revelation: you knew it would have this affect on me. That once I invoked it, I would not care to give it up."
"Confession," he agreed. "You did give me leave to do what I could with you."
"You deserve severe punishment. Take that." She kissed him hard on the mouth. "And that." She kissed him again, pinching his lean buttocks.
"I do," he agreed.
And of course soon enough they were into sex again. It was glorious this way, with the empathy making it dimensionally more potent.
"We're filthy," she said as they got back to their feet. "We need to go home and wash."
"When you are a Glamor, you will be able to conjure yourself," he said, taking her elbows.
They were in the royal suite. She hauled him to the private bathroom, the one without the bath girls. She scrubbed him herself, and he scrubbed her, though not necessarily in the dirty places. And of course they were soon back in the throes of sex, as the water splashed over them both.
"You gave me empathy," she said as they lay on the bed, after. "It has changed me. But do you believe it is safe to make me a Glamor?"
"It will change you. That makes it safe. You will no longer be bound to the will of the machines."
"So you said before. But the reality remains: if Voila does not enlist with the machines, they will destroy the human culture and me with it. You and I are mere drops in a rainstorm, unable to do more than delay the process marginally."
"Perhaps."
"If we are to exist so briefly, at least let's fulfill it to the extent we can. If you want me to be a Glamor, then I am ready."
"Then we will join Symbol."
"She has a hand in this?"
"For the ikon, since we won't be able to touch it."
"She was your prior mistress. She's jealous of me."
"With excellent reason. But the ikon will satisfy her. It will restore her to youth and sexiness."
"She's pretty sexy as she is. With her illusion, her appearance is what she makes it."
"Affirmation. I may take her back. She still loves me."
"And have three mistresses?"
He glanced quizzically at her. "You have a point?"
She had to laugh.
Then they were at Symbol's door. "Havoc!" Shee said. "We're still naked."
"Point?"
"You are incorrigible!"
The door opened. Symbol stood there. "Havoc!" she stepped into him and kissed him ardently.
He was right; Symbol still loved him.