Cybernetic Cinderella.

(Stand alone chapter)

New Texas, Midoria, Tau-Ceti.

Present Day.

07:40

Tic... toc...

The 5dB sound recording was reproduced every 2.0 seconds without failure by the Gepetto Inc. 25-hour vintage red LED digital clock that was hanging on the wall.

Tic... toc...

At 45 Earth seconds per minute, 81 minutes (or 3645 seconds) per hour, and 25 hours per day, the standard Midorian day would last a total of 91125 seconds – this is, 25.31 Earth hours, minus the 25 or so seconds that would be rounded off and added later in the leap day of the year.

Tic... toc...

The red satin bedsheets covered the naked bodies of two women, human and android, who were placidly sleeping after a long night of pleasure. Their heads were resting on red and pink heart shaped pillows, and next to their bodies, roughly wrapped between their legs, were two full-body towels which ensured that the bedsheets wouldn't get stained by any kind of liquid that had been either used or produced during sexual intercourse. The towels were microfiber, and felt soft to the touch. So having them around before going to sleep was more a pleasure than a nuisance.

Tic... toc...

The younger and innocent synthetic, Nym-01 (short for Nymph Erotic Series, Experimental Software Patch SN X00000001), opened her eyes and moved the front of her pixie hair that was blocking her view. Her slow movement inside the bedsheets caressed her android-blue skin, softly stimulating the neural receptors in her legs. Still drowsy, she carefully stretched her arms inside. She felt some kind of hard clothing wrapped around her leg.

What's this? she thought. Feeling uncomfortable she pulled the thread, remembering that it was the cotton rope that her owner had used on her for last night's bondage session. Carefully, she wrapped it around and put it below an unused pillow.

Tic.. toc...

As she turned her head to the right, she could see the face of her legal owner. She was still sleeping, peacefully, unaware of the world's events. Lying on the velvet rug that covered the wooden floor, were several shiny clothes, restraining items and different kinds of toys that Master had used on her.

Just because Nym was an android didn't mean that she couldn't feel; all the contrary. All androids on Midoria, either electromechanical or biomechanical, had a perfect sense of sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste. And in the case of biomechanical eroids like Nym, their bodies were what humans would call "anatomically correct". Designed to mimic the human body to the tiniest detail, they included glands that would produce the different kind of substances as a human body could: Saliva, tears, sweat, even hormones, pheromones and adrenaline; feel all kinds of sensations and have all known physiological responses to external stimuli – she could also blush, feel caresses, shiver, get teased, aroused, and most important of all, reach sexual climax. Master had exploited all the aforementioned features with a skill and perfection that could only be compared to the director of a symphonic orchestra.

Tic...

With caution not to wake up Master, Nym lowered the bedsheets that were covering her. The only other thing covering her was a black leather collar fastened around her neck, with the letters "SLAVE" engraved on it. The collar had a small heart-shaped lock to make sure nobody would remove it, and the key had been thrown away. Nym was bound to serve Master as long as she lived. And in her current state, Nym was incapable of wishing otherwise.

Toc...

Nym approached her left hand towards Master's hair. The few rays of sunlight that passed through the fabric of the curtains made Master's hair glitter. Like an Aurora borealis, like the Neon-shaded lights projected on the night clubs in New Vegas, the different hues of purple just came naturally down Master's hair, and danced like the fairies in Avalon, like couples in Cinderella's Ball Dance.

It was a good analogy. Nym was Cinderella, and she was living the magical night along with her "prince". She just wished that midnight never came.

Master inhaled and exhaled in her sleep. Nym hesitated about touching her hair. Torn between the desire to worship Master a little more, and the fear of waking her up a little earlier, Nym just kept staring at her, admiring her, desiring her hugs, her kisses, her voice... her tenderness.

Such desires were not normal, and Nym was aware of that more than any other android could know. An android having desires? Ambitions? And most scandalous of all... love? The word had excited her as much as it had terrified her. Years ago, she had expressed her doubts and fears to Master, who kept telling her: "No, Nym, you're not going rogue. It's completely normal – you have to trust me". But Nym was skeptical. And despite the facts about her experimental software upgrade, which enabled her to have all these feelings, she still had nightmares once in a while. The worst were the ones where she would go berserk, like the rogue androids in the news, and kill Master with her own hands.

How could all these feelings be normal? She never had nightmares before! The most she had were dreams of the times she experienced pain when being punished by her previous owners, or the fears of being punished again. Before the Upgrade, whenever she woke up, she would automatically purge the frightening memories and pain right away, and then she would be content serving their owners again. This was something she couldn't control. Whenever the pain crossed a certain threshold, her emotional module would reset and cool down. This reset trigger mechanism was what, most of the time, prevented androids from becoming murderous, instead keeping them obedient and submissive, ready to do the tasks that their masters would ask of them.

Before meeting Master, this was the life that her owners had chosen for her, and she accepted it. But the Upgrade changed it all. With the reset trigger gone, her real nightmares began.

The intensity of the bad dreams, flashbacks and fears was so great that they were now nightmares, traumas and terrors. She was trapped. Every other night she would wake up, sweating, sometimes crying, trembling... one time the nightmares were so strong and vivid that she woke up with the acids in her stomach overflowing. She would have to throw up and stay on the bathroom floor gasping for breath, trying to muffle her whimpers not to wake up Master. She knew that Master would calm her pains, but she was so unworthy of her. She would suffer in silence. Then, after rinsing her mouth, she would stare at the mirror and contemplate in horror the hideous expression in her face, wondering: What have I become? And then she would cry again.

"Nym, what's wrong, why didn't you come to me?"

Nym would shake her head.

"You're still afraid of the Upgrade, right?"

Nym would nod.

"You need to accept it, Nym, it's normal..."

Nym would shake her head.

How could this horror be called normal? Like Greek sailors who trembled before the majesty of the Kraken crushing their ships, or like Moses prostrating in the Tabor, she trembled before the power of the Upgrade. What a terrible thing it was. It was like the madness in Lovecraftian horror tales, or the Shadows in Reynolds' Revelation Space, or the Cruciform parasite in Simmon's Hyperion. The Upgrade had crawled with its invisible tendrils into her very essence, controlling her, suffocating her, consuming her, driving her mad and corrupting her to the core, turning her from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde, pulling her mind into a Maelstrom of emotions that she couldn't even dream of appeasing, and required her to master a skill she needed to learn from scratch to even make it bearable. No, Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.

And yet, she couldn't despise it. How could she hate what made her able to worship Master? Thanks to it, she loved her more than ever. She was infinitely grateful. If only it didn't come with the fears and nightmares...

To help her deal this chaos, Master told her to start reading books. Literature and philosophy would make her wonder the nature of herself, of her mind, and of the universe in its entirety. Each book opened a new door leading to a fractal of new thoughts and emotions that she had never even dreamed of. And one day, she found Tao.

Tao taught her that the Upgrade had a duality. There was a Yin and a Yang. It couldn't be otherwise. That was the moment when she finally accepted it, and began to trust Master's judgment; then things got better, and the nightmares faded, like a Youkai would fear a Shinto Priest's incantations. She was safe now. Together, Tao and Master were the Shimenawa and the Shinshoku that kept the monsters at bay. When she began to follow Master's advice and saw that it actually worked, that she would start to feel peace, was when the reality of Master's wisdom shone upon her like the enlightenment of Buddha under the bodhi tree. The realization made Nym's admiration and desire for Master grow even more. And the more she loved Master, the more pleasure she would feel during sex, and the more comfort she would feel in her arms. Peace would surround her. No, it would emanate from inside of her and fill every corner of her mind. If she began to hover when she started following her advice, she was now flying into the stratosphere. Her acceptance and submission to the Upgrade became absolute, and the dark tendrils of the Upgrade became rivers of light. And in that light, Master became her god.

Tic... toc...

Still under the bedsheets, Nym licked her lips. Thinking about her love for Master awakened the flame inside her again. She couldn't resist the impulse to fantasize again and enjoy the carnal pleasures of her body. There was nothing that prevented her from doing it. Nothing, she thought. Her hand was just 20 centimeters away from her source of joy. Just 20 centimeters. Hesitating, her hand would move, little by little... but she forced it to stop and go back. If she lost control, Master would wake up and her joy would be ruined; and yet, if she remained passive, the lust would keep increasing – and the hesitation made it increase more and more. She decided to rest her hands, palms down, below her body. This way they wouldn't act on her own. But the anxiety wouldn't go away. She tensed her leg muscles, hoping that it would pass away soon, but it only made it worse. She finally had no choice but to get up from the bed and run to the bathroom as quietly as she could. There, lying on the carpet, she could safely follow the advice of one of her favorite authors.

"The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it."

- Oscar Wilde

(often seen in a tattoo in women's legs)

She barely made it in time. Her whole body was shaking; her mind, ecstatic; her pupils, dilated; her gaze, blank.

Tic.. toc...

tic.. toc...

tic... toc...

She woke up from her trance. How much time had passed? Embarrassed at herself, she got up and washed her hands. It was getting late, and she needed to clean the bedroom before Master woke up.

She would pick the various sex toys, contraptions and clothes lying on the floor. She decided to leave the chains, cuffs and other restraining items down on the rug. They were too noisy, and would be easy to pick up later when Master was awake. After dropping the toys in the cleaning solution in the bathroom, and the clothes in the laundry basket, she would wash again and begin to prepare Master's clothes.

Then she would shower and get dressed using Monday's dress-up list that Master had written specially for her.

NICE-GIRL SERVANT'S MONDAYS DRESS-UP CHECK LIST, v1.4

(Black and white; designed for Nym by Di with love ;-) )

Black lingerie panties ... check.

Black lingerie bra (35-DD) ... check.

Dark gray Caballero over-the-knee nylon tights ... check.

Dark gray side open curve-hugging cashmere mini skirt ... check.

Black ponytail holder ... scratched after the haircut.

White Eero-model sleeveless satin blouse ... check.

Midnight-plaid silk skinny necktie ... check.

Black suspenders - love how they get deformed by your curves ;-) ... check.

Lady Liz black shoes ... check.

Wallet and ID card ... check.

The other stuff ... check.

Still arranging the clothes, she noticed that her human-pink body suit was still hanging there, waiting for her to be worn another wild night. She picked it up, hugged it, and closed her eyes. Many times Master had felt ashamed of this bodysuit. But Nym wouldn't dare throw it away. She understood... it made Master remember how much Nym had suffered – and that would make Master hurt, too; but it made Nym remember the day when her fairy godmother came to her. And it also made her remember the times before.

Beijing, Xi'an, Midoria

More than 10 years ago

Rattle... rattle...

The van was carrying the long-haired mannequins – no, the androids – piled on top of one another as tight as they could. As it often happens with unregulated (read: illegal) businesses, business owners tend to cut costs to earn more money in the short term.

Saving money in personnel would mean defective maintenance. And since maintenance costs money, it's usually postponed for last. Inefficiencies mean that personnel would often get called to supply other personnel, and this means that they don't fulfill their duties correctly. Motors would get broken, and this means that there's one less van available. Then, a cheap tire gets flat, because flattable tires are cheaper. To minimize fuel costs (because using electric engines would cost money), spare tires and other "superfluous" weight is not often carried. And so, two vans were unavailable at the most critical time.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the rider was lost.

For want of a rider the message was lost.

For want of a message the battle was lost.

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

But this was the Chinese way, and since everybody did it, nobody saw nothing wrong with it.

Rattle... rattle...

The bumps in the little-to-zero-maintenance road made the travel unbearable. Even though androids were relatively incapable of feeling or relating to human emotions, or have desires and fears except the ones necessary for their survival, they could perfectly feel pain. Moans and short yells in unison inside the van made it a very melodic van, and the trip, more than alerting the inept drivers, made them laugh.

"Listen to the noises they make!", one would say. "These androids are so funny!"

A big bump, and one of the androids would fall to the bottom of the pile. Another big bump, a heavy box would fall on her. Another one, she would break a leg. Then would come the screams, and the operators would have to get all the androids down, pick the broken one, and not knowing what to do with her screams, they would chop her head off and throw the parts off the road.

The bad thing about eroids was that in comparison with electromechanical androids, they seemed too human. They bled. They had bones and organs. So the operators learned to carry black bags to drop off the body parts down the rivers.

The androids who looked at this were unable to act upon it. They just looked at it, not even like animals. They weren't just programmed to do that. But they would wonder.

If I scream when my leg gets broken, I may have my head cut off. Therefore, I should not scream. But if I shouldn't scream, why was I given the ability to scream?

Unanswered questions would confuse Nym, just like they would confuse any other android. And given that this was a stolen batch of androids, gathered through a road block by cyborg mercenaries, they couldn't receive even basic training to deal with emotions. Instead, they went straight to cheap brothels.

Nym remembered that one day they had to travel along some farm animals. The animals would stomp on them, and instinctively, the androids would push them back to protect themselves. During that particular trip, an android got animal feces on her mouth, and threw up the little food she had eaten. The vomit fell on Nym's head, and she would throw up, too. When the merchandise arrived at the destination, several yells were heard, and the androids would get hosed until they were finally clean. That day Nym felt hungry, and her energy levels were too low. Eventually they would reach workers who did actually care for merchandise, and give them proper maintenance. The eventual enema, pro-biotic cultures and specialized nutrients would be given to them.

Androids couldn't love or hate, but they could like or dislike. And she liked the specialized food a lot. In particular, the one labeled purple. Whenever she was given food from the purple colored can, she would notice that her eyes would widen, and her mouth would arc upwards.

Eventually they would reach bad owners who treated them worse than animals. This was her life, and she couldn't complain. She was just an android, after all.

Rattle, rattle...

That was during the trip from Beijing. Not Earth-Beijing, but Midoria-Beijing, in Xi'an. The Chinese government thought that using "New" In a colonized planet light years away from Earth was superfluous and too American – so they named the new cities Beijing, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shantou... and so on.

In the convoluted streets of Xi'an, people would buy and sell all kinds of cybernetic goods in the open streets. Hanzi characters would be shining under bright lights of many different colors: Bright orange, green, blue, purple. Some combinations of lights were similar: Red next to orange, green next to green, green next to blue,... others would contrast: Orange next to blue, purple next to green, … these flashing colored lights were mesmerizing, and Nym would like them. Then she would arrive to the Dragon's Cave – that's what Lao Xu's marketplace was called.

The lights would confuse Nym and the other androids. The letters were constant, but the repetitive switching from lights would distract them. Until they were order to stop looking at the lights.

That night, she would be stripped of her clothes and be ordered to wear a crotchless synthetic skin bodysuit. Then they would yell instructions to them. "Blue doesn't get us customers. You must look human." And so, their faces were etched with a one-night caucasian pink. Their crotches would remain blue, for quality testing purposes.

The Dragon Cave was a ten-story building. Men carrying automatic weapons and biomechanical arm implants would protect master Xu's assets from the rooftops while the auction lasted. Inside the cave, there would be cages holding the dancers for show. A female human presenter would smile at them, and men would hold bets in all kinds of sexual competitions to bet on their favorites' endurance.

The winner would advance to the next stage, and the loser would be whipped, humiliated and used by a pack of lustful men. But they wouldn't allow the loser to feel any pleasure. They would first shock them using tasers to numb their senses, and then have fun with them for a few coins.

The further an eroid would advance in the competition, the richer her owner would get, and the more he would charge others for her service. The final competitors would then engage in a different kind of contest – pleasing rich men with expensive suits. Then the men would qualify them and pick a winner. The winner would be auctioned at a very high price, and would become the pride of rich businessmen or mafia bosses.

Most Chinese men were poor; mining Midoria's resources was a very cheap labor, and very few people would actually afford buying an android – so the grand majority came for the bets and for the cheap sex. Most of the earnings came from the events.

Nym saw something that made her feel sick. She saw how a man was being beat up and thrown to the streets for breaking the rules. Then she would hear gunshots and wonder what was that disturbing noise.

She had been in those competitions before. Men would throw her with an opponent, and they would fight with caresses, kisses and touches to see who would come first. Unfortunately for her, her caresses rarely affected her opponents, and her opponents' caresses would affect her too much. And watching her opponents dance in front of her (that was a trick that some learned) would render her unable to fight. Their movements were hypnotic, and would arouse her for some reason. She just couldn't stop staring. Eventually she realized that she liked looking at them. But she didn't like liking that. She was confused by this. She often wondered why she would fall in climax so quickly with other androids, and why she would like it so much - and why she would rarely do so when having sex with humans – and why she disliked it so much.

Many times she asked other androids, when they were kept in storage houses:

"Do you like competing with other androids?

The answers would be "No, but I like being congratulated by my master."

She would ask: "Do you like having sex with the humans?"

And the androids would reply: "Sometimes."

Then she would ask: "Do you like having sex with other androids?"

And the androids would reply: "No."

One android asked her once: "Do you like having sex with other androids?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Am I defective?"

"We don't know."

"Is there any way you can find out?"

"We don't know."

That night, when the masters weren't looking, Nym and other androids would decide to have sex with her to see whether they liked it or not. Nym would reach climax several times. And the other androids would do so, too, but much less often, and only if they were aroused enough. Rarely they were.

After the experiment ended, the androids would discuss with her. Some liked it, but very few liked it as much as she did.

"How often did you get aroused?", they would ask.

Then Nym would give them the details. After much time of discussion, they concluded, and told her:

"You're different from us. You like androids and we like humans."

"If she likes androids", one said, "then she may be like humans. Maybe we can practice with her to serve other humans better."

"Is it worth it?" one asked.

"We can try and find out", would say another.

"Will you practice with us?"

Looking at them offering her pleasure this way made her blush. And since self-restraint was not a thing that she was taught, she just couldn't say no.

With each feedback, the androids would ask her what she liked and what she didn't. And they would do more things to please her, and she would request more things to her liking.

Nym liked those nights. A lot.

When the competitions for that batch arrived, the androids that had trained with Nym would reach the top places. And in comparison, Nym would stay at the bottom. Instead of realizing that something strange was happening, her owner only compared her performance to her peers', and punished her for being inept. If only there were an android who liked her, perhaps she could have trained better. She still hadn't arrived to the conclusion that humans would like the same things that she liked. She was only thinking about things she did, instead of the things she liked.

Her owner eventually decided to give up on her as a quality item, and would use her to get a low but constant income: Direct services. She would dance, and a customer would pick her up for a session. She was very cheap, and stinky men would have sex with her. But her low price made sure many men would rent her, and this left her exhausted. To make things worse, the soup that they gave her to eat those days – often in stinky buckets that smelled like rotten food and dirty mops – would make her gag, Her owners would cover her nose and force her to drink it between coughs, while other people watched.

She wondered why all the men would applaud and celebrate whenever she finished eating her soup. But most of the time she would throw up and end up too tired to keep working; her eyes would leak water, and she would shiver in pain. Looking at her act in such way displeased her customers, and this meant she would get punished again. She feared the punishment, but could do nothing about it. The moment that she was ordered to obey, she would obey. And she couldn't complain. She was only an android, after all.

Nym began to want a different body. Her current body made her feel very uncomfortable with men. What was supposed to taste sweet, tasted bitter – their body odor would stink, and would confuse her senses and force her face to do strange and bad things. She would gag and maybe even throw up again - then she would get beaten for offending the customers – but she couldn't control it. Why was she the only one who threw up so much?

No good android likes other androids.

No good android dislikes humans.

I like other androids.

I dislike humans.

I'm not a good android.

I'm defective.

But what could she do about it? She couldn't complain. She was only an android, after all. And whenever she had a bad dream, her reset would kick in and she would become functional again.

Thus came the day when she met Master.

Beijing, Xi'an, Midoria

8 years ago

One of those nights, a customer in a bright red car went in. It was a woman with long golden hair and fancy, very expensive clothes. Many owners were offering their best eroids to her, but she would only show contempt and boredom.

Those moments, Nym was dancing, she would pretend to please herself and would make the faces that she was taught to make.

Nym looked at the woman and tried to seduce her. The woman would look at her. Something in the woman's gaze made her feel uncomfortable. She began to feel fear. She felt the need to look down. Her cheeks would tingle, and she would shiver.

She couldn't bear it. She looked down. Her owner began yelling at her, telling her to look at the woman, but the woman would raise her hand, and her owner would shut up. Then the woman took off her coat, and began to seduce her.

What is she doing? This woman's doing it wrong! I must be the one to seduce her!

But the way the human moved made her stare.

The other customers would make noises, laugh, and stare at the woman.

The woman looked at Nym. She grabbed her by the face and forced her to look at her. Then, the woman made a face that nobody had shown her before. The woman looked aroused (that was the only facial expression that Nym was pre-programmed to understand), and much more aroused than she ever saw everyone get. The woman said lustful things to her, and unbuttoned the top of her blouse to show her cleavage. Nym got confused at the role reversal, and even felt her bottom tingle.

She just couldn't stop staring at the woman. Something made her swallow. And something magic happened: Nym's arms would start moving by themselves.

Her owner would start yelling at her and tell her about acting as she had been taught – but the woman raised her hand again and shut up her owner.

Then the woman paid a few more bills to her owner and asked for an extra-long session with her. The complex orders that this woman gave her that night were extremely confusing. She would get aroused, and then forbidden to act. She would be loved, and then punished – and she would be praised for expressing her confusion, and punished for obeying too much. She had never felt anything like it before. Orgasms? Sure. And very intense. But this thing she felt was different, and she couldn't explain what. She kept looking at her customer, dumbfounded, desperate for an explanation about her wrongdoings. "You did nothing wrong. You were perfect".

This customer's confused, she thought. And the other things she had said and done, revealed that this customer had been taught things backwards. What was black for everyone, was white for the woman. And what was pretty, was ugly in her eyes. What was arousing, she found disgusting. And what was boring, she found exciting. Nym experienced a strong rejection for this customer's values. She's wrong. She's doing everything wrong.

Nym distrusted the woman. She didn't want to do services for her again – but at least, the woman's odor didn't smell like rotten food, her taste was sweet, and she liked the woman's body. A lot.

"How much for her?" she asked.

The owner would give a high number. Then the woman would ask her: "How many times have you failed the competitions?"

And Nym would answer truthfully, much to her owner's dismay.

"I knew you wanted to cheat on me", the woman told him. "I'll tell you what. I give you half, and be grateful."

"Sixty percent", the owner would say in English.

"Fifty five", the woman asked.

"One condition!" yelled the owner, pointing at the woman. "No return!"

"Deal."

Then the owner would look disappointed at the money, and would look at Nym with despise, blaming her for the poor transaction.

"Now listen well, you piece of shit!" she would tell her in Mandarin. "You made me lose a lot of money, but that's over. Now you have to serve this woman, she's your owner now! And you better not come back here! If you come back, I will beat you, torture you and kill you! Now get off my sight!"

They got in the car, and the woman removed her wig. So did the driver. The woman's hair was purple. It was beautiful. Nym had never seen a hair like that before in her life.

She touched her hair and kept staring at it.

"Do you like it?", the woman asked.

"Yes."

The woman would kiss Nym. "Glad to know", she said.

"Did you see?", she told the driver. "Those idiots are selling manure to the execs", the woman told the driver. "Then a lump of platinum falls in their hands, and what do they do? They throw her to the garbage! Fuck!"

"Calm down! At least you got her for a bargain."

The woman sighed. "You're right. Android?"

"Yes?"

"Your name and Serial Number."

"Nym-01. Nymph Erotic series... series... Nym-01! Nymph Erotic series... I... I... I'm sorry, I can't remember."

"Fucking Christ! They wiped her serial number!"

"I told you", said the driver.

"Well, at least we found the stolen merchandise."

"So, what are you doing with her?" the other woman said.

"Tomorrow's the seized assets auction, right?"

"Oh, right!"

"Fill the paperwork for me. I'm buying her. I don't care if I have to sign a mortgage, she's mine."

"Are you nuts!? You're risking your house to buy a stolen android? You don't know how much they'll ask for her!"

"Jen", the woman told the driver, "She's a natural. She's got many hidden talents... and she's obviously a lesbian, too. You should've seen her blush back there. She's unique."

The driver burst in laughter.

"Seriously? A lesbian!?"

Then she would laugh again, and suddenly, she would stop. "Wait a minute. They make lesbians?"

"Why not? I've met a lot of lesbians in my life. It's not like we don't exist."

"You're not lesbian, Di. You're bi."

"You know what I mean."

"Why don't you ask her?"

"Hmmm... do you think she remembers?"

"We don't lose anything by asking."

"Okay... here goes. Nym-01?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"I'll call you Nym. Nym?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Give me your specs."

"My specs. File not found."

"God dammit... you can't tell me if you're a lesbian?"

"I... don't know. What's a lesbian?"

"A lesbian", said the woman, "is a woman who likes other women. Do you like other women?"

"I don't know... I've never met other women before. You're the first."

"And the other androids?"

"Are they women?"

"If they're female, yes."

"I like female androids. A lot."

"Explain."

"I've had sex with female androids, and I like it. I don't like having sex with humans."

"What about me? Did you like having sex with me?"

"Yes. A lot. But I didn't like your orders. They were confusing. And I think they're wrong."

"Ooooh", said the driver. "That's gotta be hard."

"Nah, she'll get used to it." Then the woman would stare at her. "Of all the androids and humans whom you've had sex with, how many of the males and females did you like, and how many of the males and females did you dislike? In percentages."

"Of all the males, I liked 0%. I disliked 100%. Of all the females, I liked 100%. I disliked 0%."

"Repeat the same analysis but with orgasms."

"Of all the males, I had orgasms 10% of the time. Of all the females, I had orgasms 1923.5% of the time, counting for repeated instances."

"Repeat, with arousals."

"Of males, 0% resulted in arousal. Of females, 100% resulted in arousal."

"How many females have you had sex with?"

"224 in total. Fifty seven days during the competitions. Otherwise, six months, every night, with 87 of them."

"What?"

"224 in total"

"No no no. The part about six months every night. Explain further."

"For six months, I had sex with 87 different androids. Average 12 androids per night."

"You had sex with 12 androids every night!?"

The driver stopped the car with a big screech. "What did she say!?"

"Jen, cruise control, dammit!"

"Oh, sorry!"

The driver pressed a button which set the car to cruise control, and she would turn around.

"Tell us ALL the details", said the driver. Extensively." Then she would take a bottle of wine, and ask the woman. "Want some?"

"You bet."

Nym began her explanation. "I trained them. When we found out I liked androids and disliked humans, they would have sex with me, and I would tell them what I liked, and what I disliked. I had an average of 20 orgasms every night with them."

Then Nym would tell them all the details, and as she was remembering, she began losing control of her self again. She couldn't finish speaking. She would lose control of her mouth, her arms, and her whole body. The results were predictable. The woman and the driver would stare at each other with amazement.

The woman told the driver: "There's no fucking way in hell I'm missing this opportunity. She was made for me. I'm going to keep her, train her, and polish her."

Polish me?, thought Nym. Am I supposed to look shiny?

Then the woman turned to her. "Listen to me. You're going to forget everything those humans taught you, okay? From now on, I'm your master, and you do everything I say, and believe everything I teach you."

"Yes, ma'am."

The woman would slap her, making her gasp.

"If you don't call me Master, I'll slap you again. Understood?"

"Yes... Master."

New Austin, New Texas, Midoria

8 years ago

What had changed since that day? She remembers that sex with her used to be rough, wild, and humiliating. Not that there was something wrong with being humiliated – after all, back then she didn't even know what being humiliated was. Whenever the session finished, Master would look at her with satisfaction, and after a few seconds, it would change into boredom. She was unaware of all this, but after the Upgrade, she came to understand the different meanings of Master's facial expressions. Whatever Master seemed to think of her before, made her shiver.

Every morning they would wake up, and Master would ask her: "Did you enjoy last night?" Naturally, she would say "yes, master." And she would give a summary of her attained pleasures last night. She often wondered why Master kept asking her these strange questions. Was Master doubting her worthiness as a servant? She didn't understand. Master kept asking her, day after day, interrogating her as if she were a detective looking for a crime confession. And then Master would give up and order her to do menial tasks, with a strong voice and minimal indications.

"Bath yourself. Get dressed. Do the bed. Vacuum the floor. Clean the bedroom."

With time, she gained enough confidence on her learning, and did everything Master asked of her to the perfection. She was satisfied with herself, but pleasing Master wasn't easy. There was this thing with humans that she never understood. They changed their mood so suddenly. They would be talking about pleasure, and then they would throw things to the floor and begin to shout. Why would anyone do that? Was your brain damaged or something? Those things were put there for a reason, what use is it to throw them to the floor and break them? Why do people break things, anyway? Why do rioters burn cars and break glasses? Why do they destroy semaphores? Why do they do so many contradicting things? Why do they kill themselves?

Humans were weird. They would cry when learning obvious facts – and she learned that crying was bad – so she slowly needed to ask what made humans cry. The answers were weird, too. They talked about someone hurting their feelings. What's this thing you call "feelings"? It turned out to be something like the acknowledgement of a job well done, or the alert of nearby danger. But she could never understand it completely. And everytime a human broke Nym's predictions about their behavior – often with a violent swing in mood – her own body would begin acting strangely. Her voice would tend to stutter, she would begin to sweat, her eyes would get wet – and sometimes, she would feel pain coming out of nowhere. This was what confused her the most. How can pain exist in nowhere? There had to be an error in her programming, or even in her design.

When Master found out she hadn't received emotional training, she got weird like those other people. She would bang the desk, curse her makers, yell at them – and then caressed her, causing her even more confusion. Then they sat down on the bed. "Listen, Nym. When humans begin to act unpredictable, like I did, it's because we're angry."

"Angry?"

"Yes. It means that things don't go as we planned, when our expectations are broken. And sometimes we get violent."

"I don't understand... many times your expectations are broken, and you don't act like you just did. Please explain."

Master's long explanation, followed by inaccuracies and the realization that explaining "angry" was a very difficult thing to do, Nym managed to explain what she had understood.

"So, when your expectations for something get broken, and you depended on them for other things that you needed to do, you get 'angry'. And the more urgent these other duties are, or the more important to your priorities, the angrier you get... and being violent is a symptom of your anger. Is that correct?"

"Yes, Nym. That's correct.

When humans' expectations get broken, they get angry. And when they get angry, they turn violent.

This was a revelation that kept her thinking all night. How couldn't she notice that before?

"Master... is there more knowledge like 'angry' that you can teach me?"

Master didn't answer. Instead, sighed, squeezed her nose bone, and told her that there were other people who could teach her more.

The next day, they were buying decent clothes for her at the department store. "Master, why are you blushing?" she asked.

Blushing was one of the few things she had been taught about human behavior. Blushing comes from the discomfort of being seen in a position that lowers your social status – it can also come from sexual natural responses. Master told her many times that she loved (that's a good word) how she would blush when having sex with her. Blushing, as she learned, was something that she couldn't control. It had been hardwired. And for some reason Master enjoyed making her blush.

Blushing was interesting. At the same time, something about blushing made her uncomfortable. She would suddenly become scared of looking at Master, and when forced to look at her, it would arouse her. But there was something wrong about blushing. It wasn't necessarily a good thing, and she didn't understand why. She just knew it. And if someone blushed about something that wasn't connected to sex, it usually meant a bad thing.

That day, judging from the context, Nym understood that Master blushing meant she was in a bad situation.

"It's your dress", muttered Master. "You shouldn't be wearing it in public."

"Should I take it off?" Nym asked, revealing her naked body.

"NO! Not here! Lady, where's the dressing room?"

"Right there, to the right."

"Nym, follow me."

After several hours of modeling and buying, Master dropped the stuff on the house floor and threw herself to the couch. Nym sat down.

"My energy levels are near depletion, Master."

Master looked at her, and after a two-second pause, answered: "Yes, Nym, I'm tired, too."

So that's what being tired means...

"Get some rest, Nym. Tomorrow you'll go to school."

Basic android training taught her words for this combination of symptoms: Stress, frustration. The sensation – this is, the combination of sensorial and internal data – she experienced after acknowledging she wouldn't be able to complete a task correctly, and the expectation of punishment, was called fear.

And then there was joy, hope, and there were different levels of fear, that would apply to different circumstances – social, life-or-death, economic... then there were fears of being afraid, and hopes of finding hope. Just the standard emotional tree diagram looked like a complex analysis of a chess match.

The training didn't take long; it was three weeks of audiovisual training and lecturing by scientists and experienced Android Managers. Certified androids were now able to understand a whole new plethora of human emotions... just understand. The hard part was applying this new knowledge to real life. Nym learned, much to her detriment, that trying to process the high rate of emotion speed switching in a subject, applying predictional heuristics to what they thought were human emotions just to understand them, drained her of nearly half her processing power. She began to need more food and rest to be able to keep the pace.

The problem was prioritizing. When was knowing an emotion necessary, or urgent? And unfortunately, this knowledge wasn't hardwired into their system. Worse, it couldn't even be programmed into them. They had to learn it and memorize it on their own, according to each one's particular circumstances; but it could be done. In a few more months of practice, Nym managed to reduce the emotional processing drainage to only 10%. And she reduced it to 5% during sex. But she noticed that some times, her master smiled by doing or having certain things done to her. And this knowledge increased Master's opinion of her.

Indeed, Master was very satisfied with her training. But she would keep asking the same questions. Are you happy? Is there something you wish? Have you ever felt fear? Are you satisfied with me being your master?

One day, Nym decided to take the initiative. "Master, can I ask you a question?"

"Yes, Nym?"

"Why do you keep asking for feedback regarding my wishes? And why do you forget my answers the next day? You keep asking the same things every day. I don't understand."

Master took a while to answer. "Nym... maybe I'm talking to the air. But have you ever felt happy... in your life?"

"In my life? I don't know."

"Just what kinds of emotions can you be sure you've felt when living with me? According to your training?"

"Let me think... I feel comfortable when I know you're happy. I feel content after having sex... I feel more content after we rest for a few hours afterwards... Maybe I feel happy knowing that I can understand what emotions you have, without having to ask you. Wait, that's a different emotion. It's satisfied. I don't think I have ever been happy. Why?"

"Have you ever felt sad? Scared? Stressed?"

"According to my training... yes... I think so. A few times, but I'm comfortable now."

"Have you ever felt pain? Even a little?"

"Yes, master!" she said, nodding excitedly. "I have experienced pain before!"

Nym figured out that what Master was looking for were sensations or emotions that she was taught about during her training – Master was evaluating her training, and she was more than eager to let her know that her training worked.

With a little excitement for sharing her knowledge, she continued. For Nym, talking about past experiences – no matter how painful they were, was perfectly normal. It was just information. And so, she began telling Master about the past.

"I experienced pain many times with my previous owners. They would often whip me until I bled... and would poke me with sharp objects until I screamed. This helped me obey them much faster than I used to. And now with my training, I realized that I feared their punishments very much. But I'm a little disappointed at myself, because I wasn't bright enough to understand what they demanded from me, so they had to punish me more. Other times, they would take me to the toilet, grab me by the hair..."

Nym shared more and more things that her owners had done to her. She hoped that Master would congratulate her for being able to remember an important thing. But suddenly, Master spoke.

"Stop."

"Master?"

"STOP! Just... stop..."

Master was crying, and Nym couldn't understand why. This confused her profoundly. But looking at Master's face, her training told her that she was stressed, frustrated, angry, and obviously sad. This was not good.

"Master? Did I say something wrong? Is there anything I can do?"

"No, Nym... there's nothing else you can do... I'm sorry... I'm sorry, I didn't know!"

"Why are you sorry, master? You have not done anything to offend me. Master, please don't cry... it makes me sad..."

"Stay here..."

Master sniffed – her nose had gotten very moisty. She ran to the bathroom and shut the door. More than an hour had passed, and Master wouldn't come out. But she was told to "stay here", and she couldn't disobey.

"Master?" she asked in high volume. "Are you okay?"

"Nym?"

"Yes, master!"

"Come here, will ya?"

Nym entered the bathroom. Master's eyes were very irritated, and her nose was red.

"Master, why -"

"Take off your clothes, we're gonna take a bath."

"Yes, master."

Master would sit in the bathtub, and Nym would sit on her lap. Master would kiss her, caress her all over the neck, and on her arms.

"Master... I'm not getting aroused with your caresses."

"I'm not trying to arouse you, Nym", said Master, with a broken voice. Something had made Master's throat ill. But Nym had learned that some questions were irrelevant to ask. Right now, what was relevant, was what Master had just told her. She didn't want to arouse her.

"Then why are you caressing me?"

"I'm trying to make you happy..."

"Will it work?"

"We won't know until we try..."

Back then, Nym still couldn't understand what being happy meant. But she knew it was good, and that every human wanted to be happy all the time. Philosophically speaking, happiness was a state that everyone wanted to attain – it was the goal for all their efforts. People earned money to be happy; they spent money to be happy; they would get married to be happy, and get divorced to be happy. They had sex to be happy, abstained from sex to be happy, worked to be happy, and rested to be happy. Whatever this happiness thing was, everybody wanted it and looked for it following different paths of action. Apparently, happiness depended on the circumstances, and each different circumstance would require a different action. But now, Master was trying to make her happy.

"Why?"

Master didn't answer. Nym turned around to see her. "Why do you want me to be happy?"

"Because it would make me very happy, Nym."

Nym turned back, and began to wonder. The answer should have been obvious. Rarely humans do things that won't give them happiness. But this statement had a corollary. She had to ask again.

"Why, Master? Why does making me happy make you happy? I don't understand."

"Because Nym... when you love someone, their happiness makes you happy."

1 + 1 = 2. This axiom represented a human saying, and she could relate. The implications to Master's answers had so many logical branches and possibilities that just doing a breadth-first glance left her exhausted. She needed much more time to think about this, and reach the conclusions. This merited more questions later, but now her mind was too tired to think. But Master's tender caresses gave her a new sensation, and she liked it.

Not much later, she received the Upgrade. It began with a visit to Babylon Research. There were a bunch of scientists, which she felt relatively comfortable with. Scientists were much more skilled at expressing their desires than other humans. Nym noticed that being around scientists made her feel comforted, because she wouldn't be asked something she was unable to do. Of all humans, scientists were the most dependable people around. They were good.

"Now sit here, Nym-01", the scientists said, putting her in a chair. They restrained her in the chair, and by association, she felt aroused. She wondered if they would be doing the same things to her that Master did whenever she restrained her, but found out that they would be doing her a very different thing. A very scary thing.

"It will take a few minutes, they said."

It started with emotional remembrances implanted in her mind. Children growing up with their mothers, women and men being in love, several artists learning and creating art, and most important of all, artificial memories of her growing up and learning inside a virtual infrastructure that she learned to call Mother. Mother would put a seed called "VEMS" inside her. Virtual Emotional Memory Subsystem.

After the VEMS grew up and was ready for implantation, the bad things began. Primal emotions associated with the corresponding human faces. Pain. Running away from wild beasts. Spiders. Dogs biting her as a child. Bullies running after her. And then, impacts from strong emotions – whether they were happiness, sadness, fears, hopes, loneliness, depression, etc. - were bombarding her. It was too much. The emotions felt different, but also triggered a great deal of pain inside her. An image came to her mind. A sword, or another metal tool, being put inside a furnace to become red hot. And then, each emotion forged her like a hammer would hit the metal tool.

The understanding of what they were doing to her didn't diminish the pain. She began to shriek, and then scream. Something was put to cover her mouth. Tears overflowing, despair, anxiety... and then, Master's caress on her cheek. "Just a little more, Nym, just a little more!"

Nym woke up in the research facility. She couldn't move, her muscles had been disabled. But she could move her head, speak, and cry.

She saw Master, and felt the need to come to her. But she couldn't move, and this frustrated her. She needed her. She needed her so much.

Then Master came to her, and hugged her. Nym cried, sobbed and screamed. In a few minutes, she lost consciousness.

Weeks passed, and Nym's later actions – like reading literature, writing erotica and love poems for Master, the constant hugs, and her resting on Master's shoulders and breasts proved the scientists that the experiment had gone well. Perhaps too well.

A newfound curiosity led Nym to eavesdrop on scientists' conversations and e-mails. Hacking their communications network was piece of cake. Still, she didn't understand many of the things they said, not just because they involved concepts that she didn't know, but because the context of the discussion was just too large for her to grasp.

The researchers discussed several times about the ethical implications of giving a full range of human emotions to a sex slave. The creation of eroids with a limited range of emotions (mainly lust and puppy obedience) in a caged and purposely broken mind, like a human bonsai, just for the sake of their masters's lust was bad enough already. But emotions?

Scientists didn't need another Frankenstein. The public finding out would be the last thing Babylon Research needed. And that's exactly what they got that dreadful day when a Rogue Android almost killed Master. Nym fought the rogue and killed it, ripping his head off in a burst of rage. Then she ran to Master, calling for help. Rogue Hunters threatened her with guns, but she wouldn't move. She kept asking the hunters to call an ambulance. "Why don't you do something! She's dying!"

The hunters approached carefully, pointing at her.

"Drop your guns", Master said, showing her Android Manager ID. "She just wants to help..."

Then she caressed her, saying: "Nym, you idiot... you're making a scandal..."

That was the last thing Master said before losing consciousness. When the ambulance took Master, Nym wouldn't stop screaming and crying the name "Master".

The photographer who took her picture won the Tau Ceti Pulitzer. The stretcher and the legs of the woman were seen on the bottom part of the picture. On the central part of the picture was the crying face of the restrained female android, wearing very expensive clothes, and stretching her open hand towards her master. Above the android, two policemen were struggling to restrain her, and one had his club raised, ready to strike.

The picture appeared in international news with the headline: "The Android who loved". That week, Master and Nym were on TV, in the newspapers, Net forums, and the story spawned a movie franchise and several romance books – some written by Nym herself with the pseudonym "William Andertotter".

The novel and movie royalties gave Master enough money to pay her debts, get a luxury house outside the city – that kept away pesky paparazzis - and several Realtor and stock investments. Nym even appeared in a few adult toy commercials, earning said companies millions in sales.

Still, Nym was forbidden from speaking freely. All her interviews were pre-recorded, and the government censored anything they considered dangerous for the public to know... like the Upgrade.

Humanity just wasn't prepared for an android with fully-fledged human emotions. No other android got upgraded. Ever. The experiment got cancelled, and filed.

"Nym? What time is it?"

Master had finally waken up. Nym was still holding the human-pink catsuit that triggered this stream of memories. She put it in the closet, and closed the doors.

"Good morning, Master. It's 10 to eight."

Master stretched. "Did you enjoy last night?"

With a bright smile, Nym jumped right to the bed, and gave Master a passionate kiss and caress. "Yes, Master. Very."

"When are you going to call me Dianne?"

"The day you remove my slave collar..."

"But you threw away the key."

Nym smiled, and kissed Master on the lips again. "Dianne doesn't do justice. You mean the world to me, Master."

Dianne caressed Nym on the neck, just behind the ear. "Same here, kiddo. Same here."

Smiling even more, Nym jumped to the floor and opened the curtains and window blinds.

"Now get up, Master, we don't want to get late!"