Letters to an Android

by Wendy Rathbone

  Cobalt held the parcel which weighed almost nothing but was heavy with meaning. This parcel had been touched, packed and mailed by Liyan, Lark and Tiri. He imagined he could still feel the warm imprints of their hands and fingers on the heavily banded, heat and cold-proofed cardboard box. On the front surface of the box were a dozen or so machine stamps stating when and where the box changed hands and traveled by different ships through different star systems until it finally found itself here in his hand. He saw a stamp for Arcturus. Azelfafage. Procyon. Mesarthim. And ship names: Kraken. Demios. Spacewitch. The package certainly had gone far astray. He saw the address label, faded, but printed in Liyan’s careful script: Cobalt, c/o Grand Aurora Hotel, Asteroid 1191782, DiamondVoid XP.

  He wanted privacy to open it. He knew he would not get it.

  He opened a drawer, took out a pair of scissors, and clipped the bands. Then he slipped one side of the scissors into a sealed, side flap, pressing hard to get it to open.

  A customer asked him directions to the hotel restaurant. He paused and gave the answer. Another came to inquire about outside local food establishments. Most of the questions he fielded were about food or drink or entertainment, all number one human concerns.

  When the box was opened, he upended it and the contents slipped onto the desk. One was a thickly, tissue-wrapped item. The other a small, black plastic box. He opened the box first.

  The silver band gleamed at him from its velvet notch. He took it out, held the smooth, cold metal between his fingers. It was an open-ended circle, which meant it could be squeezed or pried apart to fit him. But when he slipped it on the middle finger of his left hand, it already fit him perfectly. It felt cool against his skin. He’d worn very little jewelry in his life, and never any rings. This one flashed brightly in the indoor hotel lighting, a curved design that tapered cleanly at the edges.

  The next item felt heavier. He got the tissue unraveled while answering two more customer questions, and at last he held in his palm a piece of triangular crystal. It was fused with flashing colors of pinks, purples and yellows. He noticed within the tissue wrapping was a note. He picked it up and read.

  The vendor on Arcturus swore this crystal came from the heart of a dead sun and is millions of years old. I thought it was simply pretty. I told you I’d send you light if I could. This is the best I could find.

  Searching

  in the tumbling golden galaxies

  for the sky

  Love,

  Liyan

  “Sir? Sir?” More customers came, lining up.

  Cobalt glanced up. How long had he been staring at the crystal? Many of the faces before him looked annoyed.

  He answered all their questions, gave them directions, maps, advice, and the rest of the day rushed by without note, but also without his full attention.

  When the dinner hour came, he escaped to his rooms to immediately wave Liyan.

  Dear Liyan:

  The package has arrived. I received the ring and crystal intact. In fact the box, only a bit faded, had barely a scratch and bragged stamps from all over the galaxy. What a journey it must have taken. It’s been over six months since you sent it.

  I love the contents more than you can know. Thank you for the piece of dead sun. It is amazingly thoughtful, and a beautiful crystal, no matter where it’s from (and I like to think it really is from a star.) Thank Lark and Tiri, too. The ring fits my middle finger with no need to adjust it whatsoever.

  Your waves are everything to me, but with this package I feel I have received a piece of your journey itself.

  This gift, and your last wonderful wave to me have distracted me from my work, but all in a good way since my life, lately, is highly unexciting. I intensely need distraction.

  I’ll treasure these gifts always.

  Love,

  Cobalt

  *

  Cobalt kept turning his hand up, looking at the ring even as he entered the elevator and came out on the top floor.

  Everything gleamed, the elevator mirrors and lights just before the doors closed, the buttery penthouse sconces and lamps, the pink wine on the foyer table, but nothing so bright as his silver gift.

  Juneau came forward to greet him, dressed impeccably in gray silks, scent intrinsic of sterile office spaces and stale compressed air. He lorded over an empire of investment conglomerates and corporations. Other than the flat line of his mouth and hard, cruel eyes, he was a handsome man, clean-lined, slender, tall. Clever, too. But as spoiled as they came with a sadistic leaning that spoke some lack of ego…or empathy.

  “You’re late.”

  Cobalt knew he was within a minute of the specified meeting time. He said nothing.

  “You’ll make up for the minutes, of course,” he continued, moving toward the table, pouring two glasses of wine, the liquid ringing the crystal with little splashes.

  Juneau insisted on routines, as if they added to his ability to control his surroundings. As if they were civilized. He liked Cobalt to come to him well-dressed, and fresh with a single brand of high-end men’s cologne he provided. He paid for thousand dollar bottles of wine which he shared not because he was generous, but because he liked showing off. He ordered and controlled everything within his sight. He was not a nice man, but he was even-tempered. He had never hurt Cobalt out of anger. He did it because he liked to. Because he could.

  He had never been happy after Pel had threatened him with fines if Cobalt ever turned up injured. He wanted to control even Pel, and there had been instances of rare fines that Juneau decided in advance he would pay. He told Cobalt he thought of the fines as part of the price of renting him from Pel, a price he insisted was far too high. “But that is the least of my worries,” he’d told Cobalt once, “because I have more money than I’ll spend in a 1000 lifetimes.”

  Cobalt often wondered why Juneau, with such immense wealth, didn’t just buy an android to own, vat-grown and made completely to his specifications.

  But it seemed, unfortunately, he merely enjoyed renting them out.

  It was nothing for Juneau to pay for the treatment for a broken wrist one night when he’d twisted Cobalt’s arm a little too hard behind his back. Or to pay for laser heat treatments on a couple of bruised ribs.

  Cobalt dreaded these evenings with Juneau, glad they only came about once a month. But tonight he was in a better mood. The ring against the skin of his finger felt like wonder, awe, life. This was merely a moment contained within a span of vastness that diluted this scene, and Juneau was irrelevant. The folded letter in his back pocket and those memorized words seemed to surround him with a sort of protective veil. I want you here. I think there would be a place for you on this ship, or any other. The destiny of the stars lies in your eyes, Liyan had written. He was always able to go through the motions required of him but his real life, his reality and dreams as a living being flourished apart from all of this.

  He drank the fine wine and it went into his system like warm fire. It was quite good. Even Juneau’s mood seemed to lift as a result of alcohol.

  The older man’s dark hair glimmered. His eyes actually seemed to warm. The room flickered in soft rose light. Cobalt could smell fresh lilies by the door and the soft, alien cleansers used on the silk sheets of the newly turned bed. Despite tension, there was a beauty here in the wine, the elegance of velvet curtains and pillows, the sheen of the parquet floors.

  And then Juneau was talking, which he rarely did, of a young girl he once knew in his early years, before he’d made a man of himself. “Lyra was her name and she had a way about her that made the rest of reality, all planets, systems, stars vanish when she was nearby, when I could hear her, smell her, when her palms touched my back. She loved to paint. She died of a sudden aneurism at age 21. Proof that the cold of the universe is all that suckles our souls.”

  Cobalt said, “You loved her.”

  “Love.” Juneau’s eyes half-closed as he shook his head. “A trick of
light. A chemical reaction.”

  “You loved her and you don’t believe in love.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But what you had was real.”

  “A wisp. A delusion. A nice memory. It can be manufactured. Put into a drink. Like this wine here.”

  Cobalt stared at the last pink tints in his glass. “Maybe the transitory feeling can be captured. But not the actual personality of a unique love.”

  He laughed. “What do you know of love?”

  Cobalt didn’t answer. All he thought of was that Juneau had somehow spiked the wine. Perhaps he used Enchantment, the same drug Tiri had used in a night club on one of Liyan’s first stopovers on an alien world.

  He could feel a heated rush throughout his body. He looked up with hot eyes at a man who’d lost so much at a young age from sheer chance, an unforeseen and tragic fate, and who compensated now by leaving nothing to chance, dispelling all emotion and trying to control every aspect of his empire.

  This man had hurt him. This man had become an exaggerated character of the protective armor grief had given him. Nothing was left now but that armor. Their eyes met for a moment, locked. Cobalt breathed out slowly, forehead tensing. Juneau’s lips twitched.

  “Don’t ever feel sorry for me, android. I have everything. I even have you for tonight. I can even make you want me as you never have in the past.”

  The ring on Cobalt’s finger rested heavy on his skin. The barrier of the letter in his back pocket could not be denied. But he did not argue with his customer.

  He got up. He went to Juneau. He leaned down and he kissed him full on the mouth. He tasted of the wine, and of emptiness. Some voids did not even have stars.

  But the kiss was returned and a kind of false flame manufactured itself between them that defined a blush, a need, but nothing more.

  Maybe this night would not be so full of resentment, or hate. Or lust for control. There would never be affection. But maybe there would be a kind of relaxation from the usual tension.

  Cobalt carefully undid Juneau’s tie, knowing the man liked everything neat and slow. He rushed nothing. Through it all, he demanded respect and/or silence.

  More kisses. Never affectionate. They were about domination. About ownership. Cobalt had never initiated them before, but tonight Juneau encouraged it, no doubt his initial plan when he’d drugged the wine.

  He liked Cobalt to undress him and neatly fold every article of clothing before putting it aside.

  Cobalt did all that. And then it was his turn to be undressed.

  A spycam might easily have mistaken them for lovers. But the time they took with each other, and the kissing, was all an act. Paid for. Previously rehearsed over the years. Despite their cold arrangement, they knew each other’s bodies well.

  Juneau, though well into his late 40s, had a fit, firm body, broader than Cobalt’s, hard-edged, angular. He used his power, both mentally and physically, without hesitation. Cobalt’s role was to submit to anything he wanted. Juneau, being a sadist, enjoyed watching another’s discomfort.

  But tonight seemed different. Maybe it was the drugged wine. Cobalt’s relaxed manner. The pink, low lighting. Or maybe it was just a random mood. But Juneau fell back against the satin softness of the bed, the plush pillows, and pulled Cobalt to him as he never had before. A fever heightened his kisses. There was pleasure for both of them, a rare thing for Cobalt. They caressed in this manner for quite some time, easy, peaceful. Juneau did not act with his usual forcefulness or urgency. He lingered over Cobalt’s body as if admiring it.

  Cobalt decided it had to be the drug. Juneau had never once pretended to admire him except as an object to toy with.

  Tonight there was more exploration, and a certain pleasurable, lethargic sensation.

  Juneau said quietly, without looking at him, “You aren’t that different.” His hand ran warmly up Cobalt’s thigh.

  “From what?”

  “From human.”

  “I am human.”

  “The legalities of that are…never mind.” He kissed Cobalt gently on the side of the mouth as his hand stroked between his legs. Cobalt had never known him to do anything like this. While his body responded, a tension of mistrust remained deep within him. His heart beat a steady pulse at the bottom of his throat. Playing with Juneau, no matter how Cobalt responded, was never about anyone but Juneau. And their ‘almost’ conversations never led anywhere.

  But a contemplative, dreamy Juneau certainly was odd. He spent the next hour bringing pleasure to Cobalt, oblivious, or perhaps simply unconcerned with the fact that Cobalt was incapable of relaxing with him. The fact that he responded at all came as a surprise.

  The drug, of course.

  In some ways it was a good change of pace for them. And yet, disconcerting. Still, it made it easier to give himself for Juneau’s pleasure when the time came. He wasn’t relaxed, so it still hurt, but he was suffused with a kind of liquid heat. His skin felt pliable, steamy. Juneau’s body against his seemed to melt and there came wave after wave of shivering sweetness, like an awakening.

  He closed his eyes and saw warm stars. Flung galaxies with octopus-like arms. Ships of amber, burning lights. Quasars of rainbow smoke.

  In this whirlpool, his mind spun. Dizzy. Drunk.

  Juneau laughed in a way that Cobalt did not believe could exist without cruelty, but it was light and airy this time, and he felt an echo of it in his abdomen filling him up, making him want to explode.

  It figured it would take a powerful drug to make a man like Juneau open his heart against the sham of wealth, the legacies of grief, the disinterest of an unreal man, and the addiction of living for control.

  At best it was comical if not downright pathetic.

  Cobalt saw the stars dip and wheel. Flame caressed his back. Something quested within him. Turned him inside-out. Singed his soul. He cried out making Juneau press harder.

  He had not felt pleasure like this…ever. Not even with the kind and patient Saber.

  Juneau laughed again, body trembling, and when he was done he said to Cobalt, “I own you tonight.” Fingers pressed a bit too hard in his side. “I’ve tried to buy you wholly but Pel will not sell.”

  Shock rippled through him, pulling him out of his daze. Though it was Pel who rented him for this with seemingly no conscience, he could not have been more grateful to the man in the moment for saying ‘no’ to Juneau. This had been an unspoken fear of Cobalt’s for a long time now. Who knew how much Juneau might have offered? It would have been easy for Pel to pocket the fortune and turn his back on him. Perhaps Cobalt had made himself invaluable in other ways to Pel. To the Aurora. He hoped that was the case.

  Juneau peered at him with tight eyes. The room swam with fuzzy light, the tinted lamps like candles, the fake moonlight striping the velvet drapes bronze. He smelled wine and salt and Juneau’s spiced cologne. The satin pillows embraced him, everything a luxury, but inside a strange panic fluttered.

  “Don’t look so happy about that, android.” Juneau’s voice came low, steady but cool.

  Cobalt did not reply. He could barely imagine the horror of being fully owned by this man.

  Tense lips smiled. “Oh, wipe that look. You might like life with me. You liked this just now, didn’t you?”

  But there had been drugs involved. Veins on fire. Cobalt closed his eyes. The warmth of Juneau pressed against him but now all he longed for was a shower.

  “Look at me when I talk to you.”

  His eyes opened.

  “It’s only a matter of time before Pel bends. Everyone has their price. It might not be money, but maybe something else they love even more.”

  “But why would you want…this? Me?” Cobalt asked, straining to keep his voice from shaking.

  Dark brows rose.

  “You despise me,” Cobalt added.

  “Despise you? No. But then I could do anything I wanted with you. To you. Anything.” He bent
suddenly and bit him hard on the shoulder. Cobalt jerked away.

  “You little bitch. Don’t flinch from me!”

  After reaching an almost tentative compatibility it shouldn’t have surprised Cobalt that Juneau would turn on him this way, threatening, controlling, cruel. There was only one way with Juneau. Submission.

  “I’m sorry,” Cobalt said quietly.

  “And why wouldn’t you want to go with me? I’m wealthy. I can offer everything. What, you can’t take a little roughhousing? You’re too sensitive for my whims? In an android, that’s ridiculous. You don’t really care…or is it that you’d never see your pretty friend again?”

  “What?”

  “That man you were with when I saw you walking outside…was it two years ago maybe? I didn’t know Pel ever let you out. Is that pretty one special in some way? Does he rent you often? Well, he would be history, of course.”

  Now a different kind of heat shuddered through him at the thought that Juneau might be threatening Liyan.

  “So who is he?” Juneau asked casually.

  “I don’t remember who you’re talking about.”

  Quick fingers clasped around his throat, jerking Cobalt’s head forward until their chins almost met. “Don’t lie to me.” The hand against his pulse tightened. “I can easily find out anyway.”

  A bitter taste climbed the back of his throat as Juneau leaned into the grip. The pressure caught at his breath and he realized the man was pressing against his windpipe. If he bruised him, Juneau would be fined. But to Juneau a fine was nothing.

  “I can find him. I can do pretty much anything, you know. All it takes is money. And will.” His hand choked him now, pushing him back against the cool sheets. Cobalt tried to gasp as he fell onto his back, knees bending.