Alec

Zach had a dream once recently where he was wandering alone inside some kind of palace. The building was all white, pure white, and glowing. Even the tiles beneath his feet had a glow to them. Once his eyes adjusted to the sheen (there were no windows but it was as if there were a multitude of them) he decided the palace, if it was a palace, was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. As if the whole thing had been carved out of pearl.

On the other hand the building was pristine to the point of sterility, and during his aimless wanderings he began to wonder if he wasn't standing, say, in the middle of an unfinished, or abandoned, wing of an overly ornate hospital.

Remembering the dream the next morning, while sitting opposite the sculpted perfection of Alec, whom he'd made love to a half hour earlier, Zach began to wonder if the dream wasn't some kind of metaphor for his life these days, his life since he'd acquired Alec.

Unlike Zach Alec didn't eat or drink. He didn't need to. Sunlight was his food, so to speak. Plus, as with modern cars, there was a charging station, just in case, next to his bed. The discreet plug entrance being up top, otherwise hidden behind a tuft of his synthetic, though wholly realistic, dark hair. (With a secondary one underneath the heel of his left foot.)

To charge himself, during daylight hours, Alec would lie naked, with an ever-present hard-on, for an hour or so on a chaise in Zach's fenced-in backyard. The indoor charging station being merely a precaution. In the event it rained, say, for three straight days.

Exposure to sunlight didn't change the tone of Alec's beyond realistic skin however. He didn't tan. His relaxedly muscled, tall, hairless (aside from the top of his head), smooth body carried the same pale shade as it had the day Alec was delivered to Zach's upscale ranch house in a gated community. Which, incidentally, Zach had taken out a second mortgage on in order to, partially, pay for Alec.

On the other hand there had been savings. Alec now cleaned house, on a daily basis, as well as maintaining the backyard pool (Alec was a hundred percent water tolerant). Meaning Zach could fire both his former twice-a-week housekeeper and his pool boy. Actually a tooth-challenged guy in his late thirties who smelled of stale cigarettes and whom Zach had also fucked, once. Before giving him a hundred dollars and sending him on his way, for good.

Alec, an AGM model (followed by a string of meaningless, to Zach, numerals), cost about the same as a lower end Ferrari, a legendary marque Zach could no longer afford. Instead he now had, to his mind, the perfect gay male. Programmed, no less, to be that way and to act that way. Something which had raised a big stink in Congress when the Android-class of pseudo-humans first became commonplace. Males, yes, but GAY males?

Conservatives fought against it but commerce, as usual, prevailed. And now AGMs both populated the country and were immensely in demand. Among the rich and near rich (like Zach) at any rate.

One of the things Zach loved about Alec was that he could fuck him in the morning, as he had just a short while ago. For reasons of realism all AMs and AFs had rectums. Though they served no practical purpose aside from those owners who wished to use them for (male or female) anal sex.

Zach had always loved fucking early in the morning. After a good night's sleep he felt vital and strong and viral. Besides, he nearly always woke up with a hard-on anyway. And unlike male humans, who let's face it would not be clean in the morning, and who you'd probably want to fuck in the shower for that reason, AGMs were ALWAYS clean. As pristine as that white building Zach had wandered around in recently, in a fanciful dream world.

In fact the only time an AGM's rectum was not clean was after a man like Zach shot his load of semen up it. Then the reverse would happen--either then or later. Opposite of gay humans, who (it was hoped) douched themselves before sex, AGMs douched themselves after. There was a special solution for this, though plain soapy water worked just as well. Afterwards? Pristine again. Like an abandoned, incredibly high-ceilinged, gothic-themed hospital wing.

The anus and rectums of AGMs were designed especially (and this is one of the things that distressed many on the Right) for penetration, and not only were the opening and tunnel perfectly smooth and moderately tight, but they were elastic. Expandable up to a point. Their limit being, according to the manufacturer, about eight inches in length and three inches in diameter. Though these limits were described in millimeters. Look it up if you wish.

Zach had no friends endowed to this extreme extent, but he did have friends. Gay friends. And the other great thing about Alec, whom he (well, him and the bank) outright owned, was that he could loan Alec out to one or more of these friends without fear the Droid would, let's say, grow fond of them rather than him. Alec had been especially pre-programmed to be loyal, a husband as it were, to Zach. A hundred percent.

And so Zach might throw a cocktail party, and Alec, wearing, perhaps, nothing but a bikini panty, or a panty and thigh-highs, as well as gobs of blue eye shadow to match his electric-blue eyes (dark hair, blue eyes--a killer combo), as well as red lipstick the intense bright shade of a recently polished fire engine, and in addition to serving Zach's guests, he was also allowed, or rather his guests were, to take Alec back to his separate bedroom, be sucked by him, and then fuck him. Bareback him naturally. There might be a whole queue of these guys on a given night. Yet Alec's rectum remained tight but not too tight, and ever-elastic. Ever giving.

While at the end of the tunnel, deep inside his organ-less body, a round reservoir collected the plentiful commingled sperm. Up to a half-cup or so, if necessary. Producing little or no leakage on the bedsheet below. Perfect!

A typical party guest might say, to Zach, "He's fucking amazing!"

"Isn't he?" Zach would agree.

"Just like a human, but better."

And Zach would stand there, smiling, thinking, Don't you wish you owned one?

"Is he still in there?" meaning one of the house's four bedrooms Zach had assigned to him.

"Yeah. Somebody else." Then, "It's a fucking gang-bang!"

And Zach would smile, knowing, understanding that after it was all over Alec would then douche himself, twice, before rejoining the party, in a panty, and that his rectum would be pristine once more when it was Zach's turn again come morning.

"How do you feel?" Zach might ask, over breakfast for one.

"Fine."

"After last night?"

"Fine."

"Fine? Really?"

It was like talking to a college sophomore. One word answers. Revealing as little about himself or herself as possible. Go away, old man. Though merely in his mid-forties, Zach hardly considered himself old. Nevertheless, in Alec, he'd requested a model in the virtual late-twenties range.

"My guests were very pleased."

No response. A laugh--by Zach.

"Some of them may want to borrow you, they said."

An alert look--slightly artificial. And his voice...it was the least perfect thing about him. Nasally. Slightly tinny. Artificial but forgivable. Even perfection is slightly less than that.

"Borrow me?"

"I blew them off," Zach once again laughed. "Still..."

Alec sat across the table from him. Said nothing. Wore a look that might best be described as a cross between wary and wondering. Critical, in other words.

"You were a big expense for me, Alec. Probably more than I can reasonably afford, actually. You've helped out a lot--cleaning, maintaining the pool. Great job. But if these guys are legit, and really want to borrow you for, say, a night..."

"A party?"

"A party, yes, of sorts. But maybe a party of two. You and..."

Zach pushed his coffee mug forward--as if a chess piece on a checkered board. "I could charge a lot of money. Make back some of it I spent on you. One night. You return in the morning. Job done."

"I can drive a car," Alec announced blankly.

"Yeah, I know. You drive over, spend the night with this guy, or guys, and..."

"Drive back in the morning," Alec deduced.

"And then we'll fuck here," Zach offered, rather lamely.

"Zat all I'm good for?"

"Huh? No! You cook, you clean, you..."

"Like a fucking wife," Alec blinked.

The programmer had explained, well before Zach took delivery, that AGMs, as well as AMs in general, had, although virtual brains, minds that learned from experience, and grew, and adapted. They--AMs--for all their loyalty, could even become confrontational after a time. Rather like a dog that one day, out of the blue, bites his owner.

"Not that VHs are dogs...," the programmer was quick to add.

"What's a VH?"

"Virtual. Human."

"Oh."

"Not that I'm demeaning, uh, dogs either," the guy added.

"Not a wife," Zach went on to clarify. "A..."

"Slut," Alec intervened.

"What?"

"Guy last night called me a slut. Fucking slut."

"He was drunk."

"You served 'em."

"No, YOU did. I merely--"

"Got them drunk. And I paid the price."

"What...price?"

"My knees are sore."

"Sore? I..."

"How much?"

"How much what?" a befuddled Zach wondered.

"You charge. For me."

"Uh...I was thinking...a thousand dollars."

"A thousand dollars. For me. One night."

"Yeah. It was just a--"

"Turn me into a prostitute."

Alec's vocabulary, and knowledge base, was surprisingly rich, and to the point.

"I don't see it that way," Zach stated. Half-emphatically.

"How [do] you see it?"

"A favor for a friend."

"You charge? Your friend?"

"Better than buying one of you..."

"I'm not a slave."

"Didn't say you were."

"I'm not a slave," Alec said emphatically. Not half so.

Zach blew air. His coffee was cold. He wished Alec drank coffee. Did something half-human. This was like arguing with a woman. A soon to be ex-wife. "It would just be this one guy. This one time..."

"You're sick! Fuck off!" before she stormed out of the room.

"It's a way to make back some of the money I spent on you," Zach explained in a level tone. "That's all. I have a second mortgage to pay off. I..."

And Alec blinked. Then blinked a second time. He seemed to be coming back to his virtual senses.

"I understand. I'll do these things. Then come back to you?"

"Always," Zach grinned. Falsely.

He remembered the tutorial he'd received, remotely, in virtual Air, by a company spokesperson, an attractive woman with hair as dark as Alec's. She said, "If your AM, or AGM, ever reaches the point...and this could come years from now, hopefully, but also sooner...ever reaches the point where he begins, because of his learning skills...begins to question you or disobey or otherwise annoy you, say...It may be time, regretfully, to return him to us for reprogramming. Or in fact to trade him in for a new model."

Bright (virtual) smile: "We have tremendous trade-in programs for all our [unintelligible]. Just contact us, if and when, though it's not likely, this ever happens and we will be glad to guide you through the process. Good luck with your new purchase, expect delivery, directly to your home in the very near future. And please remember...Our Androids are people too. Bye!"

"I'll kill them. All of them," Alec said, holding up an unused butter knife, silver serrated blade out.

Zach, rising, chair scraping back, eyes wide: "WHAT? Who?"

It was as if a naked Alec had suddenly turned into that most American of things: a serial killer. One with a hard-on.