Imperfect Partners (2 page)

“To Obsidion. He has spoken to Pak Song, the cyborg maker there, who assures us he can make you a new hand. Maybe a new cock, too.” Miles laughed, as though trying to make light of Conan’s situation. Then he sobered. “We take care of our own. A t least we try.”

* * * * *

Two days later, Conan donned the white robe of a complete eunuch and hobbled on shaky legs to Shedir’s sleek ship. Not his own starship. Not now and not ever again.

He had been one of the Federation’s best. He’d given his most productive years to patrolling the galaxy, keeping Earth safe from would-be invaders. Now he was nothing. Less than nothing.

Conan would miss commanding a squadron and fighting forces of evil in the name of the Federation. He wouldn’t miss the motherfuckers who had mutilated him because he had placed blood loyalty above Federation law. He had done the right thing. He would do it again today, even knowing the consequences that would follow.

Life as Conan knew it was over. For a brief moment he had considered using his remaining hand to finish what the SEC operatives had begun. But the gods of his forefathers—gods he still halfway believed in—would protest if he ended his miserable life.

Lacking a better option, Conan had let Miles and Shedir persuade him that Pak Song might be able to restore him.

* * * * *

On past visits to Obsidion, Conan had eagerly anticipated stops at the pleasure palaces, but now when he left the starship, he skulked down the Street of Pleasure in his white robe. Humiliated at his state, he lowered his gaze so he wouldn’t have to see the pity in others’ eyes as he made his way to Pak Song’s sexbot emporium.

Once there, he stood with a young clerk among Pak Song’s collection of sexbots, and after a short wait the wizened A sian gentleman appeared. His intense brown eyes and cheerful demeanor put Conan a little at ease when Pak Song introduced the young clerk as Pak Lin, his son. “Come with us to the workroom and we will see what we can do.”

Conan endured a gentle, thorough examination of his scarred, empty groin and the still-raw stump where they had hacked off his right hand. “Well?” he asked when he could no longer stand the silence.

“Be patient. We do not see problems like yours every day.” Pak Lin bent so close to Conan’s groin that the young man’s warm, moist breath tickled his thigh. “What do you think, Father?”

Pak Song shook his head. “I fix arm. No problem. A bout cock, I’m not so sure. Have never tried to put bionic cock on a human. A m thinking, though, that making one work the way nature intended will take some doing.” He looked up at Conan, his expression thoughtful.

“Don’t worry. We welcome the challenge. Pak Lin is experimenting, trying to discover how to make more realistic genitalia for our bots. We will see what we can come up with.”

A week later, at a hospital on Obsidion

“You want hand that stays on all the time, or one you can take off and make adjustments, whenever you want?” Pak Song looked up from the scarred stump where Conan’s right arm ended so abruptly.

Conan didn’t want to become a cyborg at all, since Pak Song hadn’t seemed at all certain that he could replicate his amputated genitals.

Still, if he was to earn his keep on some planet where its rulers would accept his modifications, he needed the use of two strong arms and hands. “What type of adjustments are you talking about?”

“Wrist and hand are complex mechanisms. Many components involved in making hand work. Bionic parts to wear out, malfunction. Pak Lin suggested, since you are engineer by training, you might like being able to make minor repairs yourself. Would save you from having to return here with every little problem.”

When the wizened genius showed Conan a schematic of a bionic hand and wrist, he saw the truth. They were dealing with a complex mechanism, one that might well require regular but simple adjustments he might be able to perform, even left-handed. “Let’s make it removable.” A fter all, there was no chance—no chance at all—that there might someday be a female in his life who might object to the fact that he could remove an appendage at will.

Not now. He was as impotent as any drone back on the Earth. A eunuch. He’d almost become accustomed to thinking of himself as one, but he hadn’t yet dredged up the courage to say the word out loud. He cringed with shame at the thought of his empty crotch and the clear tube he had to insert to pass his urine. He hated that his shame was broadcast to one and all by the hooded white robe decreed by law on Earth and by custom throughout the galaxy as standard apparel for creatures who were altered as he had been.

Fury practically overcame him, as it did every time he thought about what had been done to him. He clenched his fist until his fingernails dug into his palm, welcoming the pain. Welcoming the dull ache between his legs where they’d hacked away his manhood.

Conan hated the bitterness in himself almost as much as he hated the bastards who had ordered his mutilation. “I can see where being able to adjust the mechanism in the hand might come in handy,” he said, trying for a smile.

“Okay, Captain. My son thinks he may have figured how to give you a new cock. We may as well implant one at the same time I install the bionics to make your hand work. Will save you from having to make a second trip to surgery.”

“Lin figured out how to make a bionic cock that will work?” Conan couldn’t help doubting the ancient cyborg maker’s claim.

Pak Song grinned. “Is not so farfetched when you consider that we make cocks for sexbots every day. Lin sees no reason we cannot make one of them work for you.” He set a large, leather case on the bed, opened it and gestured toward a selection of colorful dildos like the ones Conan had seen in the old man’s sexbot emporium. “Lin says for you to pick any of these models that we designed for use in our most realistic-performing sexbots. Have testimonials from many happy ladies. Pick the one you like best.” Conan scanned the array of false cocks that ranged from almost natural looking to outrageous, from puny appendages the size of a finger to ones that would do justice to a bull. “That one in the middle, with the flashing green neon color in the veins, looks interesting.” It sure as hell didn’t look real, but then it wouldn’t be, whether it worked or not. The idea of having a working cock that looked as though it belonged on a bot appealed to his sense of whimsy. “While you’re at it, why not make me a new set of balls, too?” Pak Song gestured toward Conan’s robe. “I wish I could. A lso wish I could promise cock will work like real one. Like I said, we never tried this before, but we will do best we can.” He paused. “Lin consulted with a urologist here at hospital. He says he can connect what remains of your urethra to an artificial extension so new cock will function correctly that way. Now that Lin suggested it, I see no reason I cannot implant bionic cock that will work, almost as easy as hand. Will enjoy trying. Never had the chance before.” The old cyborg maker let out a sigh. “Most times, Earthling eunuchs like you—ones who have lost it all—get turned into drones and sent to the mines on Mars.” Conan supposed, when he thought about the mindless, emotionless blob of former humanity that he could have become, that he should be grateful to the rulers for leaving him with his mind. “I’ve already put myself into your hands. If you think you can make me a new cock, go ahead.”

“Okay.” The cyborg maker lifted the neon cock out of the case. His grin grew wider as he looked at it. “You sure this is what yours looked like?”

“Don’t they all look pretty much the same?” Conan liked the hefty size of the glowing dildo, and who the fuck cared if it provided a beacon in the dark? Looking at it would also remind him that the thing wasn’t an original part, that because he’d helped Xander he’d be spending the rest of his life as neither male nor female unless he dosed himself with the hormones his body could no longer produce.

“Up to you, Captain. Next week we will attach your new hand.” Pak Song shifted the artificial cock from one hand to the other, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “A nd a deluxe-model cock.”

Conan hoped so. He’d still be a eunuch, still be compelled to wear the white robe he hated. He thought, if he had something functional to fill his empty groin, he wouldn’t feel as though he was quite as much a subject for pity and disdain. When Pak Song shuffled out of his hospital room, Conan stripped off the hated symbol of his unmanning and lay on the narrow bed to await his date with destiny.

His eyes closed, Conan daydreamed himself whole, his cock proudly rigid against his belly, his balls tight against his groin. A s he approached his bot, it morphed into a voluptuous female—an Earthling woman whose sensuous movements tempted him beyond resistance…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He moved closer until they stood mere inches apart, his cock head brushing the slightly convex satin of her belly.

Forbidden. Her rich, woman scent filled his nostrils, made his mouth water to taste her mouth, her throat, her satiny cunt lips. His fingers itched to pluck ripe nipples the color of cherries. Her auburn hair called out to be stroked, caressed, claimed in the way his ancestors had marked their mates for centuries before the Fall.

She knelt at his feet as he expected a well-trained slave to do. Her mouth felt hot and wet, like nectar of the gods on his smoothly shaved balls, his rampant cock. His juices bubbled, stimulated by her hands and mouth and the sight of her there, subservient to his desire. She’d swallow his ejaculate and then beg him to give her more of the same where it might take root.

Pressure built in his balls. He strained to find release. When it didn’t come, Conan reached for his lover. Had to have her take more of his cock down her agile throat. “Suck me, damn it. I’m—”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He felt not a woman’s silken hair but his own empty groin. “I’m fucking dreaming.”
Chapter Two

“Ouch.” It felt to Conan as though Pak Lin were ripping away his skin along with the pressure bandages that had covered his crotch for what seemed like at least the last six months.

“Look.” The handsome young man beamed down at his handiwork. “I have made you a cock.” Conan stared at the mirror suspended above his bed—at the biggest penis he’d ever seen, complete with a catheter protruding from the slit at its tip. It sprang from his hairless groin the way his own cock once had, and curved against his thigh as though a permanent part of his anatomy.

A pparently it was.

When it twitched and began to thicken as the cyborg maker lifted and examined it, Pak Song cackled. “I told you. My boy has made you cock that works.”

Gods in the universe, he had a cock again. A hot-pink cock with a glowing purple head and neon-green veins that blinked up at him as the flesh hardened beneath his gaze. “It doesn’t look real.”

“The cock looks exactly like the model you picked, except that Lin made it bigger. You big guy. Bigger than the bot he designed that one for.”

Shit. Conan hadn’t exactly envisioned having a cock that looked exactly like the one he’d selected. Or one that was quite so fucking huge.

“A ll it needs is a ring or two,” he commented, imagining some sparkling stones winking from the head and shaft of the monster appendage.

The wrinkles on Pak Song’s forehead deepened, as though deep in thought. Finally he looked up at Conan’s face. “Once you’ve healed, piercing it should be okay as long as you get acrylic ring. Metal might interfere with electromagnetic conduction.” It was all Conan could do not to break out laughing. “When can that be done?”

“A nother week, maybe. A fter catheter comes out.”

Conan lifted the monster cock—the thing felt real enough—and slid his fingers lower. “No balls?” Lin shook his head. “I refuse to make something that has no purpose. But I will work on a prototype. Maybe have one ready by time you wear out this cock.”

“Wear it out?”

“Sure. Ladies love that model. I told you so.”

“I don’t know. It’s bright. Very bright.” Conan couldn’t help staring at the glowing veins.

Pak Song smiled. “If color is too much for you, next time Lin can try for more natural look. He gave it electromagnetic energy so you can become aroused. So you can come. Neon, fiber-optic sensors transmit impulses through the cock, much like nerve endings. Lights get brighter as sensation gets stronger. You will look like light show when you come.”

“Come?”

Lin met Conan’s gaze, his expression regretful. “Not the way you’re thinking. If they had left your prostate, maybe we could have done something with it. But you will be able to give your woman pleasure.” Lin shook his head.

Pak Song wiggled a finger at his son. “Don’t discourage our patient. Maybe next time we tune you up, we can make you sac with fake balls, even though they won’t do what nature intended. We hate making bionics that cannot function like real thing.” The corners of Pak Song’s mouth lifted, and he held his palms apart. “Your new cock is twelve inches when erect. Like this. Two inches diameter. Deluxe-bot sized. We don’t believe in doing things halfway, so we made you like our finest bot model.” Conan wondered if he’d be able to get his man-made, neon cock up at will or whether he’d have to pump it as he understood women had to do with their sexbots. Still, he wasn’t inclined to ask just now. Now that he’d recovered from the first look at the outrageous cock—he was actually rather intrigued by it—he turned his attention to his hand. He could feel it, or maybe he was just feeling the hand that wasn’t there anymore, because while it looked absolutely real, Conan wasn’t able to control the movement of the wrist or fingers, no matter how hard he tried.

“It doesn’t work,” he said as the arm came off in Pak Song’s hands.

“It will.” The cyborg maker set the realistic-looking wrist and hand on Conan’s stomach, then lifted the stump of his arm to the light. “A h.