by Roxy Mews
Thanks to her brilliant cleaning skills, Paisley’s hands gripped the lace, just in time to feel the delicate fabric begin to slide. Images of pulling the entire dinner service off the table flashed before her eyes and she tried to adjust her stance. Her arms splayed and she turned so as not to go face first into the soup she had just served.
She turned the wrong way, and when her feet twisted her ass ended up falling right onto the hottie.
“Oh shit.”
Curse words are not appropriate to use in polite conversation. When you are a staff member at a royal dinner, using them was a terminable offense. There were probably older laws on the books that would have had her beheaded for this, but luckily the queen had a potty mouth too. Paisley had gotten away with some mild language slips before. She hoped it would save her this time too.
Her majesty coughed loudly as soon as the “s” sound started leaking from Paisley’s lips. It covered the curse for everyone except the man whose lap she’d taken over. Theirs was a queen of the people for sure.
Paisley used the distraction and attempted to run, but a strong arm looped around her waist and held her there. Warm breath blew at the baby hairs surrounding her ear as he whispered to her.
“Know that this was the best part of my visit to the palace. Don’t you dare apologize.”
He let her go after that, but Paisley’s underwear had fused her legs together and she thanked whatever god was in charge of genitalia assignment that she wasn’t a guy, because she had a lady boner to end all lady boners right then.
The queen coughed again, but this time it wasn’t for her to distract everyone at the table. It was to let Paisley know everyone was staring at her.
Paisley ran. There was no graceful exit. There was no dignity. There was just the fight or flight instinct set to get the hell out of there.
She wasn’t serving any more dinner. She was just getting the fuck out of the palace. Paisley was the most forward person one could ever meet, but she kept her business life and her getting busy life separate. Having someone hit on her in her uniform wasn’t anything new.
Having someone make her eyes cross with lust while she was serving them wigged her out.
She jumped down the last two steps to the servers’ quarters. Paisley shut her door and stripped out of her uniform. She threw on a shirt and jeans, and texted Coral while she took down her hair and the stupid little clip she had glued to her head with hairspray.
Usually she would take the time to take down her bun and release her hair, but she needed to get out of the palace now. She tossed her uniform and a change of clothes in the sack.
What the fuck did that guy think he was doing? It didn’t matter. One thing a staff member couldn’t screw up was protocol with visiting officials. Unless the personnel file had been altered since last week’s meeting, she had broken at least three rules. It was only a matter of time before Miss Matilda filled out Paisley’s exit papers and handed them to her to sign. Paisley couldn’t get fired if she wasn’t here to get fired, so she threw a few more things in her biggest purse, dropped in her travel toiletries bag and mentally planned to not come back until it was light outside again.
Chapter Three
Paisley swallowed the last dregs of the beer Coral had given her. The shit was bitter as hell, but she needed the buzz.
Never let a robot pick your beer. They don’t have taste buds.
“You bought the beer instead of Quinn, didn’t you, Coral?” Paisley threw the bottle into the recycling.
“He refuses to drink it. He says you have to spend good money on beer. I was trying to be efficient and purchase the product with the most alcoholic content.”
At least the beer would do its job quicker. Paisley figured if she drank one faster, she would stop caring what they tasted like. She grabbed another from the fridge before her judgment got the better of her.
“Anyway you look at it, I would add it to your database that Quinn should be in charge of all beer buying.”
Paisley gave her a chance to literally type it into her database. Being best friends with a computer was interesting at times. Coral never forgot Paisley’s birthday, though.
“Noted. Would you prefer one of my lubricant cocktails? Or from your description of the man at dinner, perhaps you need no lubricant.” Coral smiled.
It did Paisley’s heart good to find her friend joking with her. Coral had come so far from where she started. She gained confidence in herself every day, and even when she didn’t understand the situation, she tried her best. It was like having a giant two-year-old who learned from every single thing around her.
It was awe inspiring. The joking was a fairly new thing for Coral. Paisley had made sure she had plenty of dirty jokes in her database to keep Quinn on his toes.
“To be honest, it freaked me out. It usually takes some serious time to get me turned on like that. It’s not like I haven’t been around the block.”
Coral furrowed her brow. Paisley explained quickly to keep the conversation going.
“It’s an expression meaning that I’ve had a lot of sex. I’ve had enough that if the guy isn’t good at what he’s doing, I can’t usually climax.”
“Why would you want to have sex if you can’t have an orgasm? Isn’t that the point of sex?”
Coral had also recently discovered sex. She liked it with only one guy and didn’t plan on having it with any other men, which had Paisley amazed. It wasn’t like Coral was a prude. She would discuss the beauty of the female orgasm with anyone who would listen.
Maybe if Paisley hadn’t known variety was the spice of life, she would have been content with one man as well. On second thought, she wouldn’t have been. She needed more than what one man would give her. Or perhaps she knew too well what happened when she let one man give her everything.
She’d even thought about playing for the other team on occasion, but a very messy romp in a co-ed’s sheets let her know she preferred her partner to have a bit more of a Tab A to insert into her Slot B.
What she didn’t understand was her reaction to the hottie. When she’d thought of pursuing him, it was fine and fun, because she was the one who was going to be in control. Caught off guard and without her feet underneath her, she couldn’t deny how unsettling the situation was. Hot too, but the unsettling part was winning out.
“Most men count sex as being over when they have spilled their seed. The girl’s pleasure isn’t a factor in the duration. It’s more of the guy’s staying power.”
“Perhaps you would find better performers if you didn’t pick them up after they had become inebriated.”
“Are you going to start giving me lectures about picking men up at bars? Because seriously…you are living with and banging one.”
The door to the cabin opened and closed. “Banging is slang for sex,” Quinn said.
Quinn Briggs really was a damn fine guy. Paisley consoled her jealousy by imagining him naked.
Coral smacked Paisley on the back of the head.
“Ow. What was that for?”
“I find I don’t enjoy you looking at Quinn like you want to have sex with him.” Coral frowned. “That’s jealousy, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. But there’s no need to be jealous. I would never have sex with your man. I was just imagining what he looked like naked.”
Coral considered that. “That seems fine to me. He looks fantastic naked. I constantly tell him he should become a nudist. His penis looks to be incredibly uncomfortable in his pants.”
Quinn, who must have been the most perfect man ever, leaned over and kissed Coral on the shoulder. “It gets incredibly uncomfortable when I’m around you. Paisley’s not staying all night, is she?”
Quinn had noticed her bag. Paisley knew they were a new couple, and being that they both had mechanics to use to their advantage, they didn’t ever get tired. Coral h
ad a lot of sex. The best part was, since she was the first robot to ever gain human rights, she had to help with research regarding how her artificial intelligence had advanced. The chick got paid to send in reports about how her system responded to the horizontal hula.
Paisley wanted to get paid to have orgasms. She could always do porn, she supposed, but Coral got to have sex with someone she loved and that somehow seemed more socially acceptable.
“I’m not going to get in the way of you two getting busy,” Paisley said. She wouldn’t kill Quinn’s happy buzz.
She had hoped she could crash there, but unlike Coral, she could take a hint.
“Why would Paisley’s presence prohibit sex?”
“Coral, we only have one room,” Quinn tried to explain.
Coral just stared at him.
“I don’t want to have sex while Paisley watches and eats popcorn,” he said.
Coral turned to Paisley and asked, “Is it tradition to eat popcorn when you watch someone have sex?”
Paisley laughed. “That would be a fun evening, but no. Quinn is saying he doesn’t feel comfortable having sex with me spending the night.”
She picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder.
Quinn grabbed the sack and pulled it away from her. “I’m not saying get out. I’m saying I want some alone time with Coral later.” He handed her one of the good beers in his stash. “I can tell you’ve had a rough day. You are welcome here. Just not permanently.”
Paisley handed him the beer back. “Thanks, Quinn. I appreciate it. Really. But I need to either go back to the palace and face the music, or not drink an excessive amount so I can get in a cab without being predator bait.”
Coral leaned over to ask Quinn something but he just held up a finger. “I will explain later, but Paisley is about to run away and I want to offer her a place to go that’s safe.”
Coral nodded and waited.
Paisley figured he was going to drive her back to the palace, but instead he handed her a card. Paisley stared at him and looked at the card. It was for a hotel. She flipped it over to see he’d scribbled some numbers and letters on the back.
What… Did the guy get a referral bonus for sending people to the hotel instead of helping them out? Geez.
Paisley read the address and laughed. “This is in downtown. The part where you won’t get stabbed. I can’t afford to go there.”
He didn’t grab the card as she tried to give it back to him.
“It’s my expense code. You can use that information to get a free room. I usually have a few rooms set aside for consultants. If anyone has helped Coral with her data collection and interpretation, I’d say it was you. We still have one empty at the moment. It’s yours for as long as you need it.”
Paisley’s eyes teared up. “So even if I get fired, I can go there?”
Coral placed a hand on her shoulder. For a moment, Paisley forgot who Coral was and expected her to placate her fears.
“It would be unthinkable for you to still have a job if you sat on a guest’s lap and had vaginal palpitations at the dinner table. I’ll help you look for work tomorrow.”
Paisley’s stomach dropped. She never really was on what someone would call best behavior, but she’d had this job since she’d been on her own. Job meant money. Money meant the ability to be self-sufficient. Being self-sufficient meant she could afford to pay for the medical bills she’d just incurred. Maybe she should have skipped out on the extra booster shot.
There had been a time when Paisley had been dependent on someone else. A man like Darius Price would never gain control of her again. Aside from free drinks she scored thanks to her stunning cleavage and dance skills, she didn’t want to take hand-outs. Nothing was ever really free. Sometimes the barter was more costly than any bill.
The card felt heavy in her hand as she realized staying in a hotel that the government was paying for was a hand-out. A serious one. She didn’t want to take something that she didn’t earn. She tried to hand the card back again, but Quinn gave a frown that she hadn’t seen on his face since before he and Coral had finally gotten to go home together.
“Sit down and have another beer, like I offered you. You don’t want to go back to the palace tonight, right?”
Paisley shook her head side to side slowly.
“Then you need a place to stay that doesn’t interfere with my sex life or your safety. You are Coral’s best friend, and you will go stay at the Main Gates Hotel.” He grabbed another card from his wallet and put it into the depths of her bag. That bag was a black hole. She shoved the first card into her pocket. The gremlins that stole her hair ties would eat the one he shoved in her purse in three seconds flat.
“Now…do you want the shitty beer Coral bought, or the good stuff?”
Paisley did what she did best and decided not to think about later. She pushed it all away for a few minutes so she could enjoy where she was in that very moment.
She waggled her brows as she asked, “Can we make popcorn?”
Quinn stared at her trying to figure out if she was serious. When Coral laughed, Quinn turned to frown at her.
“Was I wrong? I thought she was making reference to your earlier statement about eating popped corn while she watches us have sex. I thought she was making a joke. Was I wrong?”
Paisley hugged Coral, and felt her friend’s skin grow cool. Coral always adjusted her skin temperature to make others’ body temps more moderate without thinking. Paisley must have swallowed the beer fast enough to warm up. “You got it just right, sweetie. I’m so excited we get to joke around together.”
“Do you want to hear the dirty joke I overheard at the magistrate’s office today?”
“Where did you hear that in a government building?”
“Two men were telling it in the men’s room.”
Quinn interrupted. “Wait. Why were you in the men’s room?”
Coral waved him off in a maneuver that Paisley recognized as something Coral had learned from her. “The ventilation system travels toward my office. Humans probably can’t hear it, but the sounds bouncing off the metal are very loud to me.”
Paisley thought about that for a second and said, “Hopefully just the sounds and not the smells.”
Coral wrinkled her nose. “I had to turn off my scent detection software frequently until I installed charcoal filters behind the vents. I assume that’s why I was given that office. No one else wanted it. But it does have a beautiful view.”
Quinn handed Paisley the beer after he opened it with just a flick of his mechanical fingers. He pushed Paisley into a chair.
She drank the much-less-bitter brew. “So tell me the joke.”
“There was a priest, a rabbi, a stripper and a vibrator…”
* * * * *
It took them a good hour of joke telling and overall bad puns to get to one of the reasons Paisley wanted to come over in the first place.
Paisley reached to the bottom of her bag and found the green flyer. She spread it out on the table and Coral’s eyes whirred. She must have been scanning the paper into her system.
“It’s using the same paper and ink as the first few you found.”
Paisley ducked down to catch her friend’s gaze. “So that’s good, right?”
“No.”
A full forever amount of seconds passed before Quinn explained, “I did some digging. Turns out my fingerprint passcode wasn’t removed from the Department of Mechanical Affairs website. They’ve been looking into this group too. The paper is from a printing shop downtown. Bulk paper.”
“If the DMA is looking into it, can’t they just request the name of the person who is printing these files?”
Quinn shook his head. “Whoever is making these never touches anything bare-handed, so there are no fingerprints. They are paying in cash, and using disposab
le flash drives. They are typing up these things at local computer stores and printing them from the print shop. Nothing to trace.”
As much as Big Brother watched every aspect of the world nowadays, Paisley had a hard time believing they had already hit a dead end. “They don’t have footage from the libraries? Or from the print shop?”
“According to the DMA files, there’s nothing that points to the individual or individuals involved.”
Paisley thought about that for a fraction of a second before she realized exactly what Quinn was telling her. “Someone from inside the DMA is doing it.”
“It’s the only conclusion I can reach. Otherwise there would be some trace. Even the best hacker would have missed some kind of tape or left some kind of evidence when they altered the video feed. If the video feed is unaltered, like the findings suggest, then…”
“Whoever is holding these Anti-Mech rallies is part of the DMA investigative team.”
Quinn looked at Coral and downed a beer in one fast swallow.
“Quinn is not happy about me working in the DMA offices now that he has uncovered this. I told him I am more capable of defending myself than any other female in the building.”
Paisley rarely disagreed with a supercomputer brain, but this time her friend was not looking at the whole picture. “They aren’t looking to assault humans here, Coral. If they are looking to take out all intelligent mechanics, they would probably start at the top with the one trying to grant rights to all other mechanical beings. These people are of the mindset that bots will never be as worthy as humans to walk the earth. Do you really think with all the access they have to research that they won’t have something that could be deadly to you?”
Coral thought for a moment. “If I shut down, would it be called dying?”
“Yes,” Paisley and Quinn said in unison.
Coral was alive in so many senses of the word. No matter what the paperwork said or what the government thought, Coral’s death would be beyond heartbreaking for Paisley.
