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I know when I fell in love with him, that�s easy. But the
other stuff, the real intimacy, all stems from the hellish
night I can face to face with Anna again after two years of
searching for her. And put a bullet in her brain. I�d been chasing her so long it was a shock to finally see her again, in the flesh, not a ghost, a dream, through a cloud of dust and smoke, the sickening smell of charred flesh and the sound of ringing in my ears. Not a huge surprise that she wasn�t pleased to see me but she was ready for us, for me, my synthetic leg and my synthetic partner. When she looked at Dorian maybe she knew, maybe she saw something between us no one else had seen. Maybe it�s just in the way I look at him. But whatever it is, whatever it was, Dorian was to bear the brunt of her hatred for me. We were following a lead. We�d followed too many leads that hadn�t panned out and we were on our own, chasing shadows again. Only this time it turned out not to be a shadow, she turned out to be real, selling black market tech out of a derelict workshop in one of the worst parts of town, alone but far from unarmed. This woman, who�d already destroyed my life once, wasn�t finished. The moment she saw me she activated some kind of pulse. First thing I knew about it, my leg had gone into spasms, agonising and incapacitating. It folded on me and I dropped, robotic knee hitting the ground so hard the concrete cracked, but at least I couldn�t feel the sharp shards of metal and glass littering the floor. I thought she�d mis-calculated. Then I saw Dorian. For the first time in so long he looked like the robot I often forget he is, standing locked in place, entire body trembling like he was in the grip of something utterly awful. Whatever had taken out my leg had paralysed my partner and I was helpless to stop Anna as she picked something out of a wooden crate on the floor, something that looked like a handgun with its barrel blown open and back. She kicked my gun out of my hand was she walked by me, kicking me in the ribs with the high metal heels of her knee-high leather boots, opening up a cut across my chest, unbalancing me so I had to put my hand down to stop myself from falling, curls of metal burrowing into my palm. I swore at her and she looked at me with such sadistic hatred I couldn�t believe I�d ever imagined love in those eyes. She said some stuff as she approached Dorian but I wasn�t listening. I was realising the mistake I�d made, coming here without adequate backup, dragging Dorian into my personal hell. I had no idea what she was saying, no idea what she was doing until she grabbed Dorian�s shoulder and slammed the thing in her hand roughly against the side of his head. Then the real horror started. Whatever kind of torture device it was, it started to hum and spin, making instant mincemeat of Dorian�s synthetic, mocha skin, twisting and pulling at his black, man-made hair. I heard his head crack open like a goddamn hard-boiled egg and he didn�t make a sound. But I did, I started shouting, yelling, finally pleading with her to stop, but she didn�t. I tried to move and the disrupted circuits in my leg sent fire along every living nerve. I begged as I watched, heard, smelt wires being stripped and snapped, circuits and processors giving under pressure as that thing burrowed deeper into my partner�s brain. His face lit up like a pinball game, vivid colours flashing in his eyes, foreign words tumbling from his flapping mouth. I know I screamed, and in that release of pain and rage I made an impossible lunge for my gun way over on the floor under a bench, where it had skidded to a stop. My leg gave way entirely, other limbs blazing agony. I hit the deck, shirt and skin torn open by the debris and not caring, not capable of feeling more pain than I was already in. My head was on fire, eyes wet, vision blurred, but still somehow I managed to roll onto my front, aim and fire. I felt a shock of triumph and terror when I saw the blood bloom from the gunshot wound just to the right of her left eye, my bullet smashing through her skull to churning up her brains. See how she fucking liked it. She fell a single, final, heartbeat later and Dorian dropped, a doll with his strings cut. I tore myself to ribbons crawling over to him, but I didn�t give a flying fuck, I just needed to get to him. Pushing, pulling, I managed to sit up and lift Dorian�s ravaged head into my bloodied lap. I put my hand over the wreckage as if that could stop the flow of purple lubricant or the gel from one shattered eye leaking between my fingers. The babbling had stopped. Dorian was gone. That�s where Richard found me, some indeterminate time later, holding my partner�s heavy body, rocking us both slowly back and forth, tears falling onto ripped, synthetic skin, sobbing like it was being torn from my soul. ~ I knew a place, down by the wall, where I could get beer, bourbon, and mugged if I stood still long enough. My obsession, my misplaced trust and inexplicable, inescapable love for that mad bitch had cost me two partners, the lives of two friends. I�d known Pelham since the academy. He and his wife, Anna and I, we�d double-dated, been on weekend vacations together, shared dinners and drinks. I still miss him every day. But Dorian� I love - loved - Dorian. I fell for him early on, the moment I opened my eyes to the real world, back in the chilling terror of the recollectionist�s chair, and seen his wry smile, the relief in those too-blue eyes that he�d been in time to save me from a fatal seizure, in time to save me from killing myself. We went for noodles even though he didn�t eat, this place in the market. I remember it was dark, late at night, relentlessly raining, but the noodle stand was warm and being with him felt right. I never told him, of course, never acted on how I felt however much I wanted to because I thought it was a risk - I told myself it was a risk - and I didn�t want to give anyone any reason to take him away from me. I enjoyed the time we spent together, looking forward to his company. It was enough to bicker with him, sympathise with him, share private jokes and smiles, and eye-fuck each other as often as possible. If I�d asked, I�m almost certain he would have said yes. Sex with bots these days is commonplace, Sandra�s problem wouldn�t have been that he was a robot but that he was my partner. Strange that, when you think about it. Time was, it had been a given that partners would eventually wind up in bed; all that time spent together, all that unresolved tension spilling over, spilling out. Even when the DRNs were first introduced, nothing much changed. They were designed to feel, in a way that made them better than a human partner because a lot of us men, we�re shit at feelings. Now everyone�s partnered with an MX, and no one wants to sleep with one of those things even if they could. It was too late to ask Dorian if he wanted to take it further. Too late for anything. I had no idea what would happen next. I couldn�t imagine how the next morning was going to pan out, never mind the rest of my life. So I sat drinking flat beer and cheap scotch at a wooden plank nailed to two metal girders in a sad excuse for a bar with great views of the wall. It was raining again, had been since I�d left the scene, left Anna�s body to the cops and Dorian�s body to Rudy. I�d seen tears in his eyes too when I�d got up and he�d knelt down, his tender touch to my partner�s head undid me and I had to get away. I had no idea what would happen to him, whether he�d be sold for the pricey parts Rudy had told me about on the day I�d gone down to requisition a new bot and ended up with my DRN in place of another soulless MX. I remember Sandra telling me he was special. I never found out what she meant by that exactly but she was right, he was. Special to me at any rate, more than she would ever know. I didn�t know how to go back to work without him. They would partner me with MX after MX until I broke too many and they had no choice but to retire me. Might as well save them the money and the trouble. It wasn�t like the job hadn�t become me and Dorian. Anything, everything was bearable with him by my side. Without him, nothing was. I drank until the sun came up. Barman didn�t care if I left his place and was instantly killed by a speeding car driven by a drunk or passing opportunist with a dirty knife. As long as my money stayed good I was welcome to sit and drank his overpriced liquor and illegally imported beer. Sometime after people started going to work, and the smell of coffee overrode the stink of urine out in the street, Richard found me and took me home. He didn�t say much, didn�t give me a hard time for drinking or being drunk, didn�t ask me where I�d been or why I�d vanished from a crime scene of which I was the only survivor. I guess he�s more human than I ever gave him credit for. I was too drunk, too grief-stricken to do more than accept his help. I didn�t get angry with him for no reason, didn�t try to shoot his MX - although I didn�t have a gun so who knows what I�d have done if I�d had one - for once I didn�t alienate someone who was trying to be a friend. Dorian rubbed off on me, what can I say? He changed me, slowly, and not in the big ways, but in lots of little ones that made me a slightly nicer person to be around. As I lay on my bed with my leg reporting a critical lack of charge and an amber warning of systems failure, I wondered who I would become without him, whether I�d have any friends left in a week�s time, a month�s time, a year down the line. If I was still around a year down the line. Dorian was the robot, he was supposed to always be with me until I was the one killed in the line of duty. I was supposed to leave him behind, not the other way around. I imagined when I finally had the presence of mind to be angry, if it wasn�t Dorian I�d be directing my anger at. I had a history of blaming everyone but myself. ~ I went to the lab because I wanted to say goodbye. There was a message from Rudy on my phone telling me he was ready for me. I had no idea what I�d find but I figured he�d probably made Dorian look presentable for his grieving partner, the way undertakers did for the loved ones of the dead. I expected him to have done that because I thought he�d understand. What I didn�t expect was the sheer level of thoughtlessness I witnessed as I forced myself down the metal stairs into his realm. It was a long time since I�d been the angry man Dorian had first met, I�d settled down into simply being a grouch, complaining at every opportunity, smiling begrudgingly and only when no one was looking. Dorian had taught me to actually enjoy life again. But the rage I felt as I walked down those stairs greeted me like an old friend. �What the hell is this?� Sitting on the workbench was another DRN, the spitting image of Dorian like so many of them were; legs swinging, lips pursed, wires connecting the back of his neck to Rudy�s systems. They both looked up at me and I felt violence inside me like nothing I�d ever known, fists clenching, fingernails cutting into the palms of my hands, muscles tensing. I was going to hit someone very hard and it was going to fucking hurt them. It was going to get me fired. Not that it mattered, I was on my way to resign. I wanted to do Sandra the courtesy of doing it face to face, I wasn�t worried about being talked out of it. Punching the DRN would be pointless and up to that point I�d liked Rudy, I appreciated everything he�d done for Dorian over the years. This was incomprehensible to me. �John?� Rudy might have said something else but I couldn�t hear over the rushing of my blood and the pounding of my heart. �What the hell are you thinking?� I hated my tears but the bot looked so much like Dorian it hurt like a bullet wound to see it. �I don�t want a replacement. I didn�t lose a goddamn pet!� �John -� The DRN sounded the same too, same inflection at the end of my name, the slight lengthening of the �o�. His eyes were the same vibrant blue, same intelligence in them telegraphing a consciousness that should have been beyond him. �Turn it off.� I was close enough to do some damage but I couldn�t take my eyes off the bot�s face, so so much like Dorian. Why did Vaughn have to make them all look the same? Rudy stepped back, possibly survival instinct kicking in. He needed it to. He should have been running. �John, you don�t -� �Turn it off.� I almost choked on the hurt and the grief tearing me apart inside. �I don�t want it.� �John-� It looked at me, confusion on its face. I was losing control, I could feel it. My whole body was shaking, violence a second away. �Don�t fucking talk to me!� Then it lifted its eyebrows and said, �Five days in the hospital and you don�t even visit.� I think my heart stopped. �Dorian?� I heard Rudy�s nervous laugh, heard him ask if I really thought he would have given me a new model, but I didn�t answer because all I could focus on was my partner, my best friend, alive and whole and smiling at me, eyes in tact, still himself. �Yeah, John. It�s me, man.� �How�.?� I barely got the word out before he was off the bench and I was right in front of him, and we were hugging like long-lost lovers. I held him as tight as my arms could manage and he held me with mirrored strength, such a tiny percentage of what he was capable of, large hands splayed across my back. I wouldn�t have cared if he�d crushed me. I cried like a baby into the crook of his neck and he made these soothing sounds into mine, mouth warm against my throat. I honestly don�t know how long we stayed like that, Dorian could tell me if I asked but I didn�t care. I had trouble disengaging, only able to go as far as to drop my hands down his arms to his wrists. I stopped short of holding his hands but only because I wasn�t sure what that would mean. I looked into his eyes for a long time too, double-checking it was really him, checking out the smile on his face. Then finally I twisted around to look at Rudy. �Sorry.� �It�s okay. Perfectly understandable if you thought he was another bot.� To Dorian, I said, �I thought you were dead.� �Is that why you haven�t been to see me?� I nodded, blinking back more tears which Dorian helpfully wiped away with a hand he had to shake loose from my grip. I couldn�t remember ever being so happy in my entire life. �It�s okay, John,� he murmured, understanding clear in his tone and expression. �It makes sense if you thought I was dead. You didn�t want to see my body�.� �No.� Christ, I was good for nothing, shaking apart, melting into tears, breathing like an asthmatic. �I�m sorry.� �No, John.� Rudy came closer. �I�m sorry, I should have called you. I only knew for certain yesterday that I could fix him.� I reached out my freed hand to squeeze his shoulder. �Thank you. Thank you�.� I could only be grateful that Richard wasn�t there to see me disintegrate. ~ Rudy wasn�t completely done, as the wires still plugged into the back of Dorian�s neck testified. I didn�t care. I wasn�t letting Dorian out of my sight. I was happy to lie on Rudy�s couch and drink in the sight of my partner, living if not breathing, definitely talking. He couldn�t remember what Anna did to him, that memory was gone. Rudy reassured both of us that was on purpose and nothing else was lost. For the first time since I�d met him I wanted to kiss him. Rudy. Dorian too. I really wanted to kiss Dorian. I had to tell him. For days I thought I�d lost him and I was certain that at least one of my drink and grief-induced promises to myself was that if I ever got the chance I would come clean, admit how I felt even if he didn�t, or couldn�t, return those feelings. I knew either way he�d let me down gently, wouldn�t just walk away and I�d never see him again. Things might get awkward for a while but in the end nothing would change between us, we�d still bicker and share private jokes like an old, married couple. Every time he caught me looking over at him he smiled, and that was all the time when Rudy wasn�t blocking my view. After a couple of hours I think he knew something was up but he didn�t say anything, waited patiently for whatever Rudy was doing to finish, for us to have our time. Sleep wasn�t something I�d had much of in the last few days and despite not wanting to close my eyes, not wanting to lose sight of Dorian, my body was trying to override my brain, slowing my heartbeat, pulling my lids closed. I was fighting it when Dorian finally detached himself from Rudy�s systems and crossed to the couch, crouching down so he was face to face with me. �It�s safe to sleep, John.� I didn�t care. �I�m here, I�m alive, I�ll be here when you open wake.� But I really didn�t want to sleep, not yet, dragged my legs around and sat up, manoeuvring with all the grace of an MX until I had one knee either side of Dorian where he remained crouched in front of me. It looked uncomfortable and I had to remind myself he could remain in that position indefinitely without a single shift to rebalance, robot limbs locked in place. It made me feel like an ageing human. �When I sleep,� I told him, making sure he was listening and would understand, �I want you with me.� Blue lights raced up the side of his face and his eyes, those famous windows to the soul, looked at me with what I hoped was dawning happiness. It was now or never. �I�ve loved you since the night you saved my life at the recollectionist�s.� From across the room, Rudy piped up, �You went to a recollectionist?� He�s lucky I can�t shoot bullets from my eyes. Dorian either. �John, are you asking me to share your bed?� I nodded slowly. �My bed, my home, my bathroom, my kitchen. My shower, my couch, my view. My breakfast, my dinner, my noodles. My downtime, my spare time.� I grinned. �My hopes, my dreams, my orgasms.� He was so close it felt natural to put my hands either side of his jaw, to lean in and to kiss him, just a touch of my mouth to his; chaste, almost platonic, until I licked his bottom lip with the underside of my tongue. He reared up, hands framing my face, his tongue pressing into my mouth, wet and filthy and perfect. He fitted himself against me, chest to chest, and no way he didn�t feel my dick go from zero to steel in two seconds. I wanted him, there and then, wanted to strip his clothes from him and see him, touch him, figure out how he worked, what we could do, what it took to make him feel the way he was making me feel; clothes too tight, skin too hot. When he finally broke apart, incapable of looking away from one another, I heard something clattered to the floor across the room and Rudy�s remark, �Holy Christ, that was hot.� ~ I met Sandra at our old favourite place, a nice place downtown. She was sitting at the bar with a cocktail for herself and a Scotch waiting for me, a good one. I took the stool next to her. Before the ambush, before Anna, we used to meet like this on quiet Friday nights, just to talk over drinks and tapas. She looked good, she always did; a woman I would have been proud to call my date, almost had once or twice, but that was then. �There�s something I need to talk to you about.� No point in making small talk until I�d come clean, We both knew I hadn�t asked her to meet me to talk about work. Not exactly anyway. �Does this, by any chance, have something to do with Dorian?� �Yeah.� I didn�t bother asking how she�d worked that out but she told me anyway. �I assume you were on your way to hand me your resignation yesterday afternoon. You stopped by the lab first. Dorian�s the only person who could possibly have changed your mind. I take it Rudy�s managed to repair the damage.� �Guy�s a miracle.� �And Rudy�s a genius.� I thought she might have winked at me, or maybe it was just the way the light caught her eyes. I lifted my glass and drank half the Scotch, felt the burn at the back of my throat, savoured it. �You remember when I asked you why you�d put in the request for me to get Dorian in particular, and you told me it was because he was special?� She nodded. �You were right.� �The two of you work well together, you complement one another.� I looked at her over the rim of my glass. �We do more than that,� I admitted, and she smiled like she already knew. �I wondered. Richard told me about the state you were in when they arrived at the scene last week.� I could imagine, but Sandra shook her head. �He was shaken, John, he respects you no matter what you might think. He�s envious of your partnership with Dorian. Police officers don�t have that any more, they have robots who protect them in a firefight and keep them to connected to the precinct. But they don�t have partners, someone to ride with. You�re lucky you have that. You�re as unique as Dorian, and Richard might be jealous but he isn�t malicious. He does like Dorian.� I knew that. Richard�s not as bad as I make him out to be. He�s a good detective and I know if it came to it he�d take a bullet for me. I just doubt he�d take one for Dorian, and I would, however crazy that sounds. �I just wanted you to know. I won�t give him up.� �I wouldn�t ask you to. I�d warn you not to do anything inappropriate at the precinct but you�re always doing inappropriate things in the office, both of you. So just try not to do anything more inappropriate than usual.� We weren�t about to have sex in the conference rooms, we were having enough sex at my place - our place I guess. Dorian can last, basically, forever, but I need recovery time. We were taking risks for one another from the get go, that wasn�t going to change. Nothing had changed, not really, just those long, meaningful looks that we shared all the time had tended to lead to more over the last day; a folding of hands, the caress of an ear, him fucking me against the kitchen counter. �You know, you�re not the first. Before the DRNs were decommissioned, a couple of detectives became involved with their partners.� The only other DRN I�d seen was a mirror image of Dorian. Were the others? Did they all look the same? Had other detectives slept with their Dorians? Were they still on the force, were they looking at my Dorian with yearning, with envy, with want? �Did that have anything to do with them being decommissioned?� The last thing I wanted was to put Dorian�s life at risk. I couldn�t give him up but we could be careful, quiet, secretive. �No.� I was relieved when she shook her head. �As you know, the DRNs were designed to feel emotion, to love, to be loved. For a time, those couples were happy. It was only when they started to take their own lives, when they began taking justice into their own hands, that concerns were raised. It�s not a crime to love someone, John. Just� remember he�s a cop first even if you�re not.� I wasn�t sure if that was true anymore but I didn�t say anything. I was happy not to have to fight for Dorian and I. ~ I knew he was big from that morning that haunted me for weeks afterwards, the morning I�d been mentally scarred by the sight of the MX ken dolls and Dorian had decided to make matters worse by showing me his dick in mid-morning traffic. I knew he�d have stamina too, cos, well, he didn�t have a biological need to ejaculate. I didn�t know he had no physical need either. I didn�t know he�d be able to keep it up for hours, days if he started with a full charge. He does have sensation in his dick, there are sensors similar to human nerve endings all the way up the shaft, in the head, in testicles that are essentially just for show. The longer he fucks for, the longer the pleasure sensors are stimulated, the better it is for him. I�m surprised I can still walk. I get now why sexbots are so damn popular. It�s not all taking on my part either. Dorian�s happy to let me bury myself to the hilt inside his perfect ass and fuck him for as long as I can keep it up, until his tight, slick passage pulls yet another shattering orgasm from my balls which by now have to be almost empty. I�ve done things with him I�ve never even imagined doing with anyone else. After a week I let him see me without my leg on. That took more trust and courage on my part that letting him fuck me the first time. He kissed the stump, insisted on touching it until I got comfortable, until I got hard, then he rode me like a fucking rodeo bull and I came so hard I was seeing stars. I thought I knew the definition of intimacy, thought I knew what love felt like, but Dorian�s rewritten those things, he�s made me doubt I�ve ever been in love before. Don�t get me wrong, he still drives me crazy in the cruiser. The other night, on a long, boring and eventually fruitless stakeout, he masturbated right there in the passenger seat, going for an hour until Maldonado radioed us to pull out. I had to stop myself from saying anything incriminating, had to stop myself from groaning. It�s impossible to drive with an aching hard-on, so I made him blow me before we left the dark alley too close to the wall to have working CCTV. That phrase that�s often used, �he has a mouth like a hoover�? Dorian does. He understands suction and he knows how to use it. Plus he doesn�t need to breathe. He gives the best damn blow jobs on the planet, he�s the best fuck I�ve ever known, and after it all he loves to cuddle. What more could I ever want? He�s effectively made sure no one else is ever going to be able to measure up. Not that I want anyone else. He�s redefining living for me, ironically, and I can�t help feel sorry for every single other person in the world. Because Dorian�s unique, and Dorian�s mine. And if anyone tries to take him from me again, I�ll do to them what I did to Anna. And they say DRNs were the crazy ones. Go figure. |