Treacherous

Androids don’t make decisions their own, and they most certainly aren’t impertinent. Programmed to analyze even the smallest situation they sometimes react without command based on the history of similar situations. They may argue if they consider a course of action to be dangerous or in poor judgment, but once given a direct order they cannot interfere no matter how dire or illegal the consequences.

Bell knew all this, so she guessed she must have given some sort of intimation. Ramsay urging her to look up at him and then covering her lips with his own was both unexpected and welcomed. She considered stopping him, knew she should, but instead she squeezed him tighter and kissed him back.

Was there a program for foreplay? She’d look into it if she ever got over the strange feelings she knew having sex with Ramsay would cause. Right now she just wanted… something.

Their clothes hit the floor of the living area as he led her in the direction of her room. The word for it wasn’t passion, but more like urgent. SHE needed this and he was there to serve.

Naked as they reached the bed his stroking hands were now covering more ground. Warm and gentle, perfect hands.

Bell moaned in reaction, her body not seeming to care who was doing the touching. She arched her breasts into his hands and then moaned again as he bumped her legs apart and slowly entered her.

Ramsay’s mouth absorbed her cry as she felt his replicated anatomy penetrate hers. So much like flesh and bone. So much like a real man. So much better.

He slipped inside as if he had no girth at all and then filled her like no man ever had. She clung to him, moaning and crying out as he gently stroked into her, ever mindful of her swollen stomach.

“Ramsay. Oh, my god. Ramsay. Ramsay.”

She hadn’t realized she was speaking until she heard her voice. Her earnest words didn’t sway his pace, causing him to go wild like a human would. If anything he slowed, drawing out the experience.

Bell was nearly clawing at him. The slow and steady pace should have done nothing for her based on past sexual experiences. Only Riddick had ever done more than cause her to feel a yearning for something missed, and his brand had been hard and fast. No comparison to this. This was like having the glue that held her together slowly warmed and plucked at until she felt like screaming.

Random kisses stopped. His chin pushed forward, his mouth searching. Bell turned her head, mindlessly giving him access and then she did scream. Always the area just behind and below her ear had been ultra-sensitive. The slightest touch felt ticklish and made her pull away. Now, with her body pinned and being wound tighter and tighter by Ramsay’s fixedly pistoning hips his soft lips, warm breath and scraping teeth on the area acted like a push start.

She yelled and bucked into him. The rest was just a fluid of motion. She didn’t realize as it was happening in her mindlessness, but knew what he must have done. No climax for him, he would cater to hers, increasing his pace, holding her tighter, working her through hers. But then he would settle as soon as she needed him to, not reaching a release of his own.

Bell came back to reality and found herself still in Ramsay’s arms. He’d pulled out and was resting beside her, and had pulled the blanket over them.

“You needed this,” were his first words when she opened her eyes.

Bell nodded, fighting tears and not understanding why.

“He was your first?”

She smiled, feeling the hot trail slide from the corner of her eyes. “No. But he was the first that gave anything to me.”

“You never reached climax before him then.”

“Yeah.”

He was silent until the unchecked tears stopped. A corner of the blanket worked as a tissue and he dried her face. Then he was smiling down at her, far more handsome than she remembered, “You should have found me first.”

Bell laughed. She put her arms around him and hugged him, thankful for the humor to relieve the tension she was feeling. “Oh, Ramsay, you’re not real. How immoral it this?”

“My knowledge of morality doesn’t condemn finding pleasure.”

She grinned up at him, “So says the overgrown vibrator.”

He smiled and shrugged, “Not far from the truth, and basically the same. I think fear of being replaced caused men to perpetuate that being with a synthetic is a sin. Procreation would stop once women realized there is such a thing as an unselfish bed-partner.”

Bell laughed at his tone. He sounded like it was something he would look forward to, the phasing out of real men.

“You laugh, but only because I speak the truth. How many men have made you weep in bed?”

“Probably more than one, but not for this reason.”

“Ah, yes, the hassle of relationships. Men are not only selfish, they are egotistical and cruel. A man that can’t satisfy his woman must insult the woman so he doesn’t feel it was incompetence of his own. An injustice to you.”

Bell smiled as he spoke, “You’re rather opinionated when you get going.”

“I just care, Bella. You deserve what I can give you, not what men have dished you. Even Riddick had his faults, though I say so carefully.” He smiled here. “Love you and leave you. Is that the saying?”

Bell smiled softly, remembering, “He never loved me, and he never made any promises.”

“But he still hurt you.”

She shrugged, “I hurt myself. I wanted something I couldn’t have. Still do.”

Ramsay frowned, “What? Why? What is it about him?”

“It’s more me than him. I’ve known Riddick since I was a child.”

Shock showed on his face, “I don’t understand.”

Bell sighed, hurting to even tell the story. “I was adopted. My mother chose at the last second to adopt a girl instead of a boy. She’s regretted her decision ever since, I think.”

“What?” Outrage sounded in his voice.

She cut him off before he got started, “Don’t get me wrong. She loved me. Both of my parents loved me, which was probably part of the problem. They’d visited with a little boy they were going to adopt, but then right before they did an infant became available. Me. They’d wanted an infant to start out with, so jumped at the opportunity.

“They were hesitant about how they’d do as parents, so they didn’t want to adopt two at once. But later, they decided they could handle it and wanted another child. My mother had never been able to stop thinking of that little boy she’d almost adopted. So naturally she wanted him.”

They readjusted their twisted limbs to lie more comfortably as he listened to her.

“The circumstances and coincidences of how we were found was what had drawn my mother to us. Both me and the boy had been found rather than given up for adoption. We had both been found as newborns, and had both been nearly strangled with our own umbilical cords.”

Ramsay gasped in outrage again, “How could a human do that?”

Bell smiled, “I don’t know, but the similarities always seemed important to my mother. As she searched for that little boy she started to find more orphans found in such a way. And even higher numbers of dead babies found killed in such a manner. It was too much of a coincidence to be random.

“But I’m getting away from the point. My mother wanted this boy. I guess she’d felt guilty for not giving him a home when she’d had the chance. Years went by and they never adopted again, still searching and then fighting for this boy. He was in a steady stream of foster homes, all bad for one reason or another. Some gave him back to the state, others closed and gave all the children back. My mother was told repeatedly that he had to pass certain behavioral tests or other such things to be available for adoption. They applied for foster status so they could have him that way, but it was as if the state was against giving him a good home.

“Years passed and constantly she fought to get him, even going so far as to bribe a few people, but nothing worked. A couple times she even took me to see him. We were young, six and eight, the first time, and if he wondered who we were he might have just thought my mother was one of an countless social workers evaluating him.”

Ramsay interrupted, “Why was it so difficult?”

“I don’t know. As he aged it was because of behavioral problems. He was angry a lot. He got into trouble at school. He was in fights. The irony being that his anger probably stemmed from not having a home or a family. But before that, I don’t know. He was just a little boy. I don’t know if there were complications with the state or mistakes made or what.

“My mother never got to adopt him. She cared for him as much as she could without interfering in his life. The state had told her that would breach some sort of conduct and make her ineligible to adopt him. Obviously niceness is illegal in foster parents.”

Bell was silent for a few minutes.

“I was twelve when I came into the living room and found my mother crying. She pulled me onto her lap like she hadn’t done in years and rocked me. And cried. She stopped making the phone calls and visiting social workers after that. I didn’t understand and they didn’t explain it to me. Well, not for years.”

Bell toyed with rubbing Ramsay’s solid arm where it lay across her naked ribs. “Richard B. Riddick was sentenced for his first murder at the age of fourteen.”

“So all along he’d been needing a good home and one had been trying to find him?”

She smiled sadly, “Yeah, basically. Richard has been a part of my life for nearly as long as I remember. Once he was convicted, it was more of just watching the news. But before that he’d just been a dopey kid that I was told to be nice to because he was going to be my brother one day.”

“So was it like incest to sleep with him?”

Bell gasped and slapped his shoulder, “No! You idiot. We never had blood ties.”

“Or so you think.”

She shook her head at his cryptic tone, “Nice try. They do blood work on orphans. DNA testing would show some sort of link. We were never matched as relatives.”

“So what was with being found with your cord around you neck?”

“Furyan abolition.”

“Excuse me?”

Bell pushed at Ramsay and wiggled free when he gave her enough room to. She moved about the room finding clean clothes, waiting until she was nearly fully dressed before answering him. “All the infants that my mother looked into that had been found in such a manner, even the ones that hadn’t survived, had been found within a certain range of Furya. All had been found within a two year time period.”

“The Furyan wars,” he concluded.

She just nodded.

“Then you’re Furyan,” Ramsay said, his eyes widening as if he would have never guessed such a thing.

“So is Riddick,” she said softly.

They were silent, staring at each other and then two and two added up. Ramsay’s eyes dropped to her bulging stomach. “So is your child,” he whispered as if someone might hear.




**Yes, folks, this was originally the end. But then we got tcor... Chapter 19 is in the works. Thanks for reading!