Page 44 of Smart Ass

It wasn’t an argument, though. It was flirting. Foreplay.

“Choose,” Max demanded.

“Um, I guess I’ll wear something?”

Max felt like fireworks were going off in his circuits. Heat like a thousand suns. “Good boy,” he cooed.

Ben scowled. “Maybe I’m taking it back. Find your own way to stalk me.”

He didn’t mean it. Max was getting the sense that Ben both loved and hated being adored. Yet he was all too ready to be called a bad boy, and act up until he achieved the title.

It didn’t escape Max’s notice that Ben hadn’t actually objected to being “stalked.” This was his version of enthusiastic consent.

“Either way,” Max answered, “I will know where you are and what you’re doing. I’m only giving you the choice of how. I would prefer that you wear a watch that allows me to monitor your pulse.”

“Fuck, dude!” Ben’s breath was still erratic. “I guess I could, um, wear something like that. Since you’re going to be all weird and obsessive about it.”

Max wanted to smirk. This was definitely better than flowers. “I am,” he agreed. “Thank you.”

“You’re not going to watch when I, like, go to the bathroom are you?”

“Why not?” Max asked. There wasn’t any part of Ben that he didn’t want to know about.

He realized a second later that Ben might feel differently about that. Not as a sub, or because of societal taboos around toilets, but because he was trans. He’d heard Ben talk about that before, when he read articles about hate groups trying to deny trans kids access to the right bathrooms. Maybe this was something that Ben was uncomfortable about, or a time when his dysphoria was more pronounced.

“Because that’s pervy.” Ben seemed to be enjoying himself.

Well, that was okay, then. Max just had to know how to speak Ben’s language. “Yes,” he agreed contentedly. “I’m a perv.”

“And what if I go to a club, then? What if I want to dance with a hot guy? Or have somebody fuck me good?”

Max’s first instinct was to roar. And then send every bot in the factory to chain Ben down.

He managed not to, but only because he wasn’t in any of the bots’ systems right now and they were too far away.

That gave him time to think, though.

Ben was probably throwing that out there to test his limits. It was probably his way of asking how committed Max was to him. That’s what the Dom half of him said. It wanted Max to declare that he could give Ben a good hard fuck any time he wanted. Right now, in fact.

The next building over manufactured, among other things, a wide range of sex toys. Max was certain he could figure something out. He could fulfill Ben’s every fantasy and make him beg for more.

But going dancing? That was something he could never do.

It was literally impossible. Who wanted to dance with a talking watch?

It was like the moment when Ben had patted the maintenance bot. Or when he’d shivered in the chair after their scene. Ben needed touch. He wanted, in his own words, a hot guy. And Max couldn’t give that to him.

Unless…

The factory also produced androids.

It seemed so obvious.

Max could just… transfer himself to an android body. He’d figure out exactly what Ben wanted—maybe even let Ben design the specs—and then migrate.

That had to be the answer.

That could even explain why there weren’t any fun knowledges. Maybe they’d all transferred their consciousness to android bodies.