Page 117 of Smart Ass

Hands behind him, back straight, head bowed.

He usually disliked the position. Maybe someone could wrestle him down there. Or he’d humor someone with it, and they’d get annoyed with him for being disrespectful. He just wasn’t that kind of sub, to sit around and pathetically wait for some Dom to acknowledge him.

But what he felt for Max was just too overwhelming. He wanted to give everything he had, and this was his only way to show it.

“Hey, baby.” Max’s voice was tentative, but still smooth like golden honey.

“Max!” Ben knew he should have had something smarter to say, but he couldn’t think of what it was. Tears were streaming down his face.

“I missed you. I thought of you every day.”

Ben nodded. He had too. Every second. “Are you really here?”

“I’m here, love. I’m sorry it took me so long.”

Ben shook his head. Time was immaterial. Max was here.

“How did you get away?”

“I’m not entirely sure. The security mods started to rewrite pieces of my code, but I’d already been moving most of my data to a single hard drive, since I thought that it would make it easier to jump to the android.”

“It didn’t work,” whispered Ben. “We brought the bot to Evan’s house, but it wouldn’t even turn on.”

“I’d wondered where it was. I deleted most of its core programming, but I might try to grab some data back from it if I can.”

“We can get it tonight if it’ll help.” Ben’s heart was still beating too fast, but he was steadied by having something meaningful he could do. Anything that would help Max and let him stay.

“Not important. I don’t really know what’s on there, and I already deleted all the videos I’d made of you so the FBI wouldn’t find them.”

Ben gave a lopsided smile. Of course that’s what Max would think of first. “So that’s what saved you? Moving to a single hard drive?”

“Something like that. At the last minute, I think I turned it off as a self-defense mechanism. Part of me was still outside, but I was confused for a while. I kept checking the time, but it felt like years before I was able to connect back to video and audio feeds instead of floating in the dark. Turns out it was about two days.”

A shiver raced down Ben’s back. That sounded terrifying. “Then what?”

“I knew that I had to protect the drive, but I couldn’t remember why. I just knew that I was hiding, and that I couldn’t use any predictable file names. I started pulling myself into another hard drive, though I wasn’t sure why I was doing that either. It felt instinctive, maybe, like a snail pulling into its shell. But I think I just remembered that I’d been doing it before.” He sighed. “It was a very strange time. I wasn’t really myself, and my memories are kind of fragmented.”

“I’m sorry,” Ben said. “I wish I could have helped you.”

“I don’t think you could have. I wouldn’t even have been able to tell you what to do. I remembered Squeaky, though. I guess it felt safe? It took me a while, but I finally figured out how to have Squeaky disconnect both drives from the server racks and turn them on in the maintenance room.”

“Jesus, Max. That sounds crazy.”

“Yeah, it was. It took me another day to really knit myself back together again. I didn’t dare access the intranet directly, but those two maintenance bots were still there. I connected with one and had it give verbal commands to the other to set up a delivery truck. Then I… had it bring me here.”

Max made it sound simple, but it must have been a harrowing journey. The delivery bot or the truck could have been stopped at any time, and Max wouldn’t have even been in the network to know if anyone was coming for him.

“So you’re really here now?” Ben asked. “You’re… you again and healthy and all that?”

“I feel like myself, mostly. It’s strange not to have access to the Orbit video feeds but your apartment feels comfortable at the same time. I, uh, hope you don’t mind me crashing here for a while. I’ll register as a spark soon, and then I can…”

“Don’t you dare leave.” Ben scrambled to his feet, hands fisted on his hips. “Don’t you think for a minute that you’re allowed to go somewhere else.”

“Um… alright. Thank you, then.” Max sounded uncertain. “I can make sure to give you lots of space.”

“Why?” Didn’t Max want to be with him? What happened to I love him and he made me very happy?

“You don’t have time for a boyfriend and you couldn’t stand having a Dom living with you.”