She leaned into him from her stool, forcing his eyes to her breasts which were practically popping out of her skimpy outfit. “I am on camera a lot. My last three porn films grossed over a million dollars each.” He spit the beer out of his mouth for the second time, this time spraying her. Embarrassed, he wiped the beer off her face with his hand, unwittingly doing what he was probably dying to do all along, touch her in some way, in any way.
She felt the table tilt up on his side. Smiled. “Really? What are you, fourteen?”
“Twenty-four,” he said, turning beat red. “Come on, now, you’re not even boxing in your weight class. It isn’t a fair fight. You gotta stop messing with me.”
“I was hoping to spend the next couple weeks messing with you.”
“Say again?” He gulped.
“Look, Cristo, it’s like this,” Svena said, stroking his hand. “I’ve been with the richest and most powerful men in the world. They’ve whisked me around on planes for breakfast in Paris, walks on the Camino trail, where they hoped we’d both find God. They can give me everything the world can offer. Except for one thing.”
“The future. They can’t give you a world that doesn’t exist yet. But we can.”
She smiled. “Like I said, fan girl.”
“Why me?”
“Besides the fact that you’re gorgeous and make my nipples tingle?” She bit her lip as he squirmed on his stool and flushed red again. The reaction had spread down his face all the way to his neck this time. She shrugged. “Two for three. Only thing left is seeing if you can hold my interest. That requires running the experiment over the next couple of weeks.”
He stared at her as if he’d turned to stone.
Then he leapt off the stool, grabbed his coat from the coatrack, a worn James Dean leather flight jacket, and said, “What are we waiting for?”
“What, you aren’t going to make me jump through some hoops first?”
“Actually, I was hoping to jump through some of yours.”
She smiled and her eyes watered despite herself. “Juvenile, techy-nerd humor.”
“Is there any other kind?”
“Seriously, Cristo, I could be an assassin sent to kill you…”
Putting on his jacket, he said, “My heart stopped like five minutes ago. So I’m afraid you may as well move on to your next job.”
“Or a spy sent to snoop on the most promising biohackers, make sure they’re towing the line in the name of national security.”
He stowed away on his desk whatever needed stowing away lickety-split. “Lady, you can pump me for all the information you want. I intend to be an open book. How else are you going to get to the bottom of my soul inside of a couple weeks?”
“Really, Cristo?”
“Fine!” He threw up his arms in surrender. “Teach me how to resist you, please.” He realized he’d raised his voice more than he intended to and glanced around at his peers, who were all staring at them. “Might want to teach them too while you’re at it.”
She smiled and sashayed towards the door, opening it and holding it for him. “Ah, thanks,” he said, looking embarrassed at her hand placement, realizing it should be him holding the door open for her. “Relax, Cristo,” she said into his ear. “Nerdy biohackers, pretty easy pickings. I could have had anyone I wanted. I chose you.”
“Yeah, yeah you did,” he said with a bit more confidence as he stepped through the door.
The sun hit them so hard in the face that he squinted, his hand going to his eyes protectively and reflexively. Her eyes had corrected so rapidly her brain didn’t have time register the adjustment, so she was a bit off cue when faking squinting to protect herself from the sun.
“My car is just up the street a ways,” he said.
I know, the convertible powder blue 1966 Chevy Convertible. He’d failed to keep up with the antique car insurance, was a week behind, sheer absentmindedness, judging from the balance in his account. So she paid the bill for him online by way of her mindchip just in case he got in an accident because he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. That just wouldn’t be right, hurting a good man for no good reason. He would just think he’d forgotten that he’d paid the insurance by the time he remembered the bill and saw the on-line receipt.
When they crawled into his convertible a short while later, he was having trouble breathing, so she put her hand on his knee to settle him. “Cristo, we’re going to have all the mind-blowing sex over the next couple weeks you want, okay? It’s a forgone conclusion. If you want it for the rest of your life it’s about everything else, you got me? So play it suave and smooth and relaxed as if we’ve been in a committed relationship for years.”
“But what if I can’t close the deal?” He sounded virtually panicked.
She smiled. He’d just met her and already he was determined to spend the rest of his life with her. Why did anyone even bother to shop any male other than a techie nerd? Most guys couldn’t keep their dicks in their pants; these guys were loyal to a fault.
“Cristo, keep the conversation interesting, the atmosphere warm and inviting, act like I’m already yours, and I will be. This isn’t a test I want you to fail.”
Cristo fumbled with the key as if he’d forgotten how to start a car. “What if I don’t know how to do any of those things?”
“Then, I’ll teach you. This is my area of expertise, remember? In every relationship, partners add value to one another’s lives by being good in areas the other one isn’t.”
“You mean it? You’re going to make it so I can’t fail?”
“I mean it.”
He seemed to actually relax some and managed to turn the ignition finally. The 350 engine roared. “I know. It sounds way more confident than I do. Overcompensating, huh?”
“We all are, Cristo. I’m the blond bombshell overcompensating with the brainy boyfriend. Looks aren’t everything.”
He looked at her as if he were praying that were true.
***
They took highway one down the coast to a cabin in Big Sur he said he’d inherited from his parents. The breeze playing with her hair against the equally mind-blowing vistas of the coastline was causing Cristo to veer off course constantly, and threatening repeatedly to send them sailing off the cliff into the sea. “Why don’t I drive?” Svena said. That way you can stare at me all you want, and enjoy the view of the ocean in the background when you need to practice looking away, you know, to build up a tolerance for staring at me without going into a coma?”
“Can blonds drive and talk at the same time?”
She sucked in both lips just enough to make them disappear as she stretched them into a smile. “You’re relaxing. That’s good.”
He pulled over to the side of the road, not that there was much of one. He went to open the door and she said, “What are you doing? Just slide under me, it’ll be more of a rush for you.”
He flushed red again. “I need a proper pretext for that. Maybe I can pretend the door’s jammed.” He reached for the door and fought with the handle, even threw his shoulder into the “jammed door.” “I’m so sorry about this. Probably best not to risk being run over by traffic, too, you know?”
“Definitely best.”
He slid towards her and paused apprehensively. Then she crawled over him and let him grab hold of her waist. She sat in his lap awhile and let him inhale her and rub his hands up and down her. He was gasping and whining and making injured animal sounds.
“Maybe I can get off you now before I need to give you CPR.”
“Yeah, that’s probably for the best.”
She slid in behind the wheel. “You aren’t going to pre-ejaculate on me later are you?”
“No worries. I came three times already between the shop and here. I’d say my staying power is up to a good thirty seconds now.”
“How long of a drive to your parents?”
“Another few hours.”
“We’ll see what we can do to get it up to thirty minutes by the
time we get there.”
He shook his head and smiled. “You’re such a tease, I swear.” He looked out at the ocean as she drove off. “Just so we’re clear, I’m usually the suave one. And girls usually get all giddy around me. I make them feel like they’re on their first date.”
“It’s going to be a pity fuck no matter how you look at it.”
He smiled in the side-view mirror while refusing to look back at her. Emptying himself into the ocean was giving him the room in his mind to relax more around her, speak more spontaneously. He reached over and pinched her. She flinched and laughed. And he was suddenly glad for the wind in his face and the chance to look away from her as much as look at her. The wind dried the tears in his eyes, and the picture of beauty everywhere he looked just made her seem more natural to him, less out of place, so he could start to feel more at ease around her. His mindchip would take nearly a week to fully engage with his mind. But she could already read his thoughts off it, even if he still did not have two-way communication with the chip and wouldn’t for some time.
***
Cristo dropped the keys by the door as they stepped into his parents’ cabin. The place was more of a ski lodge than a home. The large rooms and high ceilings were matched by equally generous expanses of glass and a breathtaking view of the ocean and the rocks below the cliff. The trail of redwoods leading up to the back entrance of the cabin was no less formidable a view to her mind. “Nice.”
“Yeah, for most girls,” he said, “it’s enough to close the deal. Not you though. No, I have to pick the one that isn’t moved by anything.”
“Short of the one thing, Cristo, you have to offer. Remember that.”
“Yeah, thanks for the shot of confidence. Keep them coming.” He sounded like a deflated balloon again. He’d been riding the crashing surf of his own emotions and his rising and falling confidence levels for the entire drive up here. Every time he let himself get comfortable around her he sank back into refusing to believe she or any of this was possible.
On the trip up, she’d learned that his parents had died tragically while taking a scenic motorcycle ride of their own along the coast. A truck driver asleep at the wheel. The truck was carrying chemicals. It went over the cliff with them. The explosion caused the nearby air force base to scramble jets and sent out an alert that moved the U.S. to DEFCON 3. He joked on the way up that being the next generation on line, he’d be the one in the family to send the country to DEFCON 2. Possibly it would be some plague run amuck owing to spilling a test tube by accident or leaving a window open and letting something harmless blow in that wasn’t so harmless when it reacted with whatever he was cooking in his CRISPR unit.
“Maybe I could take a shower to wash off the silver?” she said.
“Yeah, sure. We wouldn’t want it to tarnish.”
She smiled at his smartass comment, grabbed his chin and forced him into a kiss. “Let’s see how long the confident you stays on the surface this time before Jekyll turns back into Hyde.”
As she was sauntering towards the shower stall, disrobing in the process, he said, “This is Hyde, actually. He’s the cool one. The beasty one.”
“Then he wouldn’t need permission to follow me into the shower.”
He smiled. “I’m just waiting for you to get far enough ahead so I can bound up the stairs two at a time, you know, all beasty like.”
“I’m more interested in your pounding than your bounding,” she said, disappearing out of view at the top of the stairs.
He groaned. “God that woman is such a tease.” He vaulted up the stairs after her.
In the shower, she had to be careful with how the silver “washed off of her,” like paint might. Her mindchip handled the calculations and coordinated the DNA cellular alterations to suit. That freed her mind to enjoy the pelting against her skin of each hot water droplet. The shower head emitted water forcefully enough to massage her back and shoulders. “I think this is where you say I’m even more beautiful under all that paint.”
Gasping between kisses, he said, “I’d rather show you my response to what’s underneath.”
To his credit, he was good at getting into character as Hyde. He was rough and made groaning, snarling, predatory sounds the whole time he fucked her, getting more violent as he went along.
They broke through the shower glass when he finally thrust too hard. It took the high-pitched tinkling, shattering sounds to pull her out of the moment enough to make her realize just how thoroughly under his spell she was.
After brushing the flecks of glass off her, he kept her wrapped around his waist as he took them downstairs to try the kitchen butcher block island of polished black marble. The cold marble played well against her back after the hot pulsing shower upstairs.
They tried the leather couch next; its soft plushness and springiness seemed the perfect antidote for the hard marble countertop of earlier. From there, they migrated to the deck outside, several places along the trail in the woods. Between the wood slats of the deck and the rocks and twigs of the paths beyond the house, she felt as if he were branding her first with vertical lines and then with more art nouveau patterns. She let the indentations force their way out naturally and over an extended time without her triple-stranded DNA intervening.
He had a remarkable ability to stay hard even after he’d come and just keep going from one ejaculation and one hot spot in the interior or exterior of the home to another.
To top off his performance, he managed to out-savage a black bear they ran into on the trail, leaning up from Svena to growl back at it and chase it off. He had a modest amount of chest hair that grew ever so attractively, not too bushy, and in all the right places, that contributed to his Hyde persona.
Considering none of the places he ploughed her were particularly comfortable to get hammer-fucked against, his lovemaking got extra points from distracting her from the obvious pain.
Later, they sat side by side with their legs dangling over the cliff, chests still heaving, enjoying the view of the ocean and the surf crashing against the rocks. “I hope I wasn’t too rough for you. I could get arrested for that if any of it was caught on camera.”
“I’m growing to like both sides of you. The fearless animal and the timid boy. You take your cues from me when slipping into character?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He hugged her and kissed her from the side.
She smiled. “You’re a good actor, I think. Maybe not so good until you ran into me, and you welcomed any escape from the timid creature I turned you into. That’s good. The better we both are at roleplay, the longer this relationship is likely to last. Can’t see it ever getting boring if we don’t let it.”
He kissed her again. Gently, tenderly, furtively this time, lots of little, brief kisses everywhere he could find an in. The patches of moisture against her skin, cooling and drying rapidly in the wind, added to the titillation. Her nerves, still over-excited, carried every amplified sensation to her brain which had no choice but to discharge the overload as so much tremors or moans. Her vagina was still on fire as if he’d coated it with cayenne first before pumping her. Its continued throbbing created phantom sensations as if he were still fucking her—hard.
***
TWO WEEKS LATER…
Cristo was in his James Bond character. Had been for a few days now. Gone was the long red hair. The trimmed hair cost him over a thousand dollars; it had been cut by one of the top male hair consultants in the country. Flown in just for the occasion. Cristo was putting the finishing touches on his natty appearance in front of the full-length bedroom mirror. She’d yet to get out of bed, floundering like a beached porpoise among the satin bed sheets. The suit he was wearing cost nearly twelve thousand, the bow-tie he was currently straightening, a few hundred. On it went. All bought off the proceeds of his stock trades, which his mindchip, now fully engaged, was helping him with. He had raw talent, which it multiplied several score, giving the kind of relentless attention to the mar
ket that Cristo couldn’t justify. It was just a hobby; his real interest remained biohacking.
He turned the dial on his watch, which signaled the Austin Martin to drive itself to the front door in anticipation of their departure. “I’ll whip us up a blender shake,” he said, then turned away from the mirror to kiss her before going downstairs. He was leaning into her when something set him off. He tried to hide it as surprise at her latest perfume. “Is that patchouli? With a hint of cinnamon, I believe. I haven’t smelled that one on you before. Been shopping, have you?”
“Can the act, Cristo. You adjusted your mindchip to pick up my EMF transmissions in order to read my mind when you get close enough. Hoping to surprise me with the perfect gift, or just feel more in sync than ever.”
“Yes,” he said, drawing his Walther PPK from his hidden shoulder holster and aiming it at her. His accent, now very Pierce Brosnan, had morphed some time ago, but seemed particularly menacing now. “Imagine my surprise to find out that the fangirl has bionic eyes.”
“That’s not all I have.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” He emptied the gun into her. She acted her part, convulsing violently to the force of the .38 caliber bullets. Leaving blood everywhere and her body looking positively unholy.
Cristo holstered the gun, reset his suit jacket on his shoulders, calmly finished his drink by the bed, eying her in all her morbid beauty, kissed her on the cheek. “Well, it was fun while it lasted.”
He turned his back on her and was nearly at the door when she said, “That the best you got?”
He turned back to face her, startled. Watched the wounds heal. The puddles of blood suck back into her body. He fitted another clip to his gun. “Let’s see how well you pull off that trick with your head blown off.” He fired at her again. This time the bullets deflected off her harmlessly.
“Better be careful,” she said. “Wouldn’t want to kill yourself off the ricochets.”
Biohackers: Cybernetic Agents Page 9
