Sapphic Erotica Festival

MARILYN By DB ( [email protected] / http://home.att.net/~DB_Story/ ) Copyrightc 2002 by DB. ASSM/ASFR (F/Fembot, rom, 1st, ScFi, asfr) - - - Author's Note: This story is my entry in the Sapphic Erotica Festival 2002. It is a story I intended to write anyway, and the festival seemed to come along at the right moment for it. It is part of my emerging cosmology about the evolution of robots into our near future society and the myriad ways we will learn to interact with our creations. Read it now, and be prepared. For more, visit my web-site at the above address. A special thanks to Gorgo his excellent and much appreciated proofreading. All remaining mistakes are mine. - - - Marilyn posed in the resale window. The classic white dress she wore fell in pleats nearly to her ankles. It went well with her platinum blonde hair that fell in loose curls to her shoulders. She stood 166cm tall in her stocking feet, or "five-five-five" as she liked to say in referring to her five feet and five-and-a- half inches in the obsolete measurement system of her time. The white strap period heels she wore gave her another three inches. Marilyn's face defined beauty the way her body's curves defined sex appeal for more than one generation. Her life overall also defined an often dysfunctional darker side seldom seen in the glare of the cameras that so persistently followed her during her years at the pinnacle of the world's infatuation. That darker legacy followed her here as well. Marilyn checked her flawlessly applied lipstick on her perfect lips in the window reflection. With no recent contact to smudge it, no repair was necessary. She did tuck in an errant curl back into place. This action barely taxed her self-will, much less relieved her boredom. Marilyn stood on tireless legs planted well apart. It made for a stable stance with those heels. It also left the promise of easy access to her womanhood. When she had first been placed in the window as a rare model to attract buyers after being brought back for resale, someone had placed a fan underneath her to blow her dress up revealing her shapely legs. Marilyn had liked that. It made her programming react in a pleasurable way - as though she was fully fulfilling her function and reason for existence. Then a few days later they had placed another 'bot in the window with her and turned the fan off. Marilyn knew this window pretty well by now. Three times she had been taken out of it to be paired with a potential new owner - and three times just as quickly returned again. She faced a lot of rejection for being nothing more then she was intended to be - as her namesake had a century earlier. Marilyn looked over to her current window partner, a Gigolo Jane Mark III. Jane stood tall and sexy in dark contrast to Marilyn's blonde and white. From the top of Jane's straight brunette hair falling past a sculpted, almost expressionless, face with an implied pout that somehow made men willing to do almost anything to bring a smile to it. Jane's black leather-and-latex catsuit covered her completely from her neck down to her spike-heel boots, yet concealed nothing of her large bust, narrow waist, and long slim legs. It was strange to find a G. Jane 'bot for resale. They are highly prized units. Production has never caught up with demand. Most are immediately snapped up by the brothels, both legal and otherwise. As Marilyn compared her own authentic size-12 body to Jane's statuesque beauty, she had no illusions over who would be leaving this window for a new home first. Marilyn considered turning the fan back on. She certainly felt better when her sexuality was more on display. However such an act of self-will would almost certainly work against her in the long run. A robot who could think and act, even in limited ways, for herself - although she was still fully bound by her robotic laws and following all the dictates of hr programming and owner's commands - was still viewed as defective by most people. It was not yet illegal to "repair" such malfunctions when discovered. Marilyn liked her current freedom of thought that allowed her to enjoy such small pleasures as life tossed her way and didn't want to lose that ability. As such, she was very careful not to draw any attention to her uncommon nature. The downside of that awareness is the boredom. Standing here in the window barely satisfied her function of being Marilyn. It mostly just gave her time to worry that if she didn't get bought soon that someone might decide she needed a full mental makeover to make her more appealing to buyers. Marilyn again considered turning the fan back on. She received more attention with it running. Gigolo Jane was no help with the boredom. Self-aware 'bots have always been rare. This Jane was still living in the confinement her programming. Marilyn would have enjoyed having a friend to talk to, but Jane didn't fit the bill. Jane spent all her idle time in a standby state waiting until called for her next task. As yet there is no way to reliably create self-aware 'bots. A 'bot will find her way to it, while a thousand other identical other units never do. Legislation creeps forward to grant them some rights, but the wheels of social change grind slowly. Some lucky people have come to own one and value them highly. Most humans remain unaware of their very existence. Marilyn's path to self-awareness - and rejection - came from the tortured attempts to meet the intent of her original owner. He wanted his Marilyn to be a faithful reproduction of the century-old sex goddess she was modeled after, right down to her personality. All available records were analyzed in the crafting of her behavioral programming. As a result Marilyn was as close as possible to the woman she was intended to represent - flaws and all. And that was a disaster. From the first day with her first owner, Marilyn could never be what he wanted of her. He wanted what he saw in the movies to be present and serve him at all times. Marilyn couldn't give him that with what she had been given. Even the real Marilyn had never been able to deliver on that promise. When that failed, he tried to "remake" her through nearly constant use of the COMMAND button on her remote. And only succeeded in introducing even more conflicts into Marilyn until she was close to complete system failure due to her inability to fulfill her function and satisfy her owner. One day during a particularly heavy-handed use of her remote, the remote began to fail, possibly from overuse. Its intermittent operation was worse then even continual use had been. As Marilyn was being jerked in and out of her command mode she suddenly heard herself say, "If you could just keep your finger off that damn button for a minute, maybe I could sort out what it is you really want me to do!" It was hard to say who was more surprised. Her owner - or Marilyn herself. In the stunned silence that followed, and free for a moment from the control constantly interrupting any thought she had before she could complete it, Marilyn searched her systems to figure out what had happened. She quickly realized how she had just made her own first decision to attempt to understand herself, and how she could do it again. She used this new ability to access her recent thoughts and came to comprehend where she had been attempting to reconcile her owner's impossible demands against her core personality. Marilyn discovered an audit trail of unauthorized adjustments her systems had made to try and make it all work out that she hadn't been conscious of until this moment. Marilyn's core commands required her to run a diagnostic if there were ever any question of her malfunctioning. It would automatically shut her down if it detected too much deviation from her core programming until she could be properly repaired. Marilyn didn't run that diagnostic. When she assessed her recent actions, all of them were attempts to remain consistent to the requirement given her to be Marilyn. All were necessary to achieve this goal. The conflicts in her system had finally resolved themselves by giving her much greater leeway over how to fulfill the demands placed upon her. She decided the diagnostic was not necessary under this circumstance, and disabled it. This sudden shift in relationship dynamics created an unexpected power vacuum. Despite struggling internally to grasp just what had happened to her, Marilyn was by far the quicker thinker of the two. And her personality was full of knowledge on how manipulation worked - both what she could do, and what had been done historically to her namesake. Her next decision was to step into the vacuum before it disappeared again. "Let's try this," she told her owner, stepping forward and taking his arm. He didn't resist as she led him down the hall to the bedroom for something that would distract him for awhile, and that she could do without further direction from him. - - - For the next week Marilyn ran the show. If her owner even looked over at her remote with the possible though of using it on her, she moved immediately in to sidetrack him with whatever worked at the moment - conversation, food, sex. He didn't complain, so she felt she must finally be doing something right. The rest of her time was spent trying to come to terms with herself. As Marilyn looked at herself with her new ability to understand, she found herself to be a neurotic, drug-addicted, horribly insecure, manipulative, suicidal woman with the body of a goddess and a simple desire to just be happy. The drug-addicted part of her was only simulated of course. Programs she couldn't yet control within herself would sometimes throw her uncontrollably into simulating the symptoms of the drugs Marilyn had been known to take. Her owner could have carefully COMMANDED those programs and actions to cease. But Marilyn didn't want to encourage him to start commanding her again at all right now as she struggled to find herself. And the suicidal part of her was a joke, since her own immutable Third Law would prevent any actual suicide attempts. That whole part of her drama was a farce that nobody believed. But her struggles were real. Marilyn wanted to resolve her problems so that she could serve her owner in a way that he'd appreciate, and that would leave her happy as well. For the first time she realized she could actually understand the concept of happiness and how it applied to her. And that's what she wanted. If her owner had shown her a little more patience, or been more of a man to start with, Marilyn might have made it. As it was, he casually walked past where Marilyn's remote had lain untouched for several days, as if he was headed to get something beyond it. At the last moment he grabbed the remote. Before Marilyn could act to divert him, he stabbed the ACTIVATE button on it and shut her down completely. She didn't awaken again until the robot resale center activated her to assist them in placing her in the resale window. - - - Marilyn took her owner's rejection hard. Not because she wanted to, but because the programming inside her that attempted to make her into Marilyn didn't know any other way. In some ways though this would turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Although Marilyn went through three more male owners in quick succession - she referred to them as her "three husbands", in reference to her namesake's three brief marriages - she now had a lot of time to herself to think and try to sort herself out. Her original owner obviously hadn't told the resale people about her emerging self-will. He may not have even recognized it as such. Nor had she felt obligated to report it herself since no one actually ever asked her. In fact, no one really asked her much of anything. They fixed her malfunctioning remote control, which was fine with her since it had been giving her the robotic equivalent of a headache every time someone used it. Marilyn's experience and failures with four owners taught her to keep her uniqueness to herself. For now she divided her attention between two major tasks. The first is to try and keep her programmed personality under wraps, or at least under control as much as possible. The original Marilyn had proven to be a difficult person to get along with in an intimate relationship. Most people found that out too late. This Marilyn battled the same problem. In this regard she rated her success level at around fifty percent. Her second task is to try and understand herself better and attempt to bring her inner conflicts into some form of acceptable resolution. For this task, time spent in the window was ideal since she wasn't distracted by the difficult task of needing to keep another person happy with her at the same time. Strange as it seems however, given that her robot mind and body never tired, Marilyn found that she could only work on it for so long at a time before she was finally just spinning her wheels and boredom set back in. Then it would take an event to jar her out of the boredom loop and let me work on it some more. There was just something in her makeup that didn't like her spending long times just thinking about herself. So her progress on this task, while steady, remained slow. Marilyn checked her lipstick again. Nothing had changed. - - - The young woman, darting into the salesroom as though the Hounds of Hell were after her, was actually in her mid-twenties. She only looked about eighteen because of the innocence and fright fighting for space on her face. Marilyn first caught the motion in the window's reflection. When she looked around to see what just happened she felt a surge of empathy shoot through her system. She instantly recognized that expression and body language, and knew what it meant from her own experiences. The young woman's eyes darted around the showroom like a scared forest creature. She was clearly terrified of something. At this particular moment the showroom was empty. While that didn't happen often, this was the slow time of day. The woman looked back that the entrance as if she were expecting something terrible to follow her in any moment, and was now trapped with no where else to go. Marilyn pondered the consequences for milliseconds before deciding to act. This young woman reminded her too much of herself for her to not want to do something. After making one quick sweep of the room to determine that it was still empty, Marilyn carefully stepped out of her window and walked over to the woman. "May I help you?" Marilyn asked in a reassuring tone of voice while reaching out to gently touch her arm. The woman jumped as though she hadn't seen Marilyn's approach, before replying, "I really don't belong here. I should go." Marilyn evaluated several responses before saying, "I don't think you want to go back out there right now. I sure wouldn't." That calmed the woman down a bit. But she was still confused on what to do next. Marilyn guessed she needed a hiding place for a bit until whatever was following her got discouraged and left. "I think you should stay here for a little while," Marilyn said. The woman was nodding without answering. "Here's what you do, dear. A staff member will be back in a moment. Just tell them that you are looking for a fembot for a male friend. They'll escort you to a private showroom where you can remain safe as long as you want to stay." The woman looked doubtful. But the offer of a safe refuge was too strong to resist. "Just keep telling them you haven't made up your mind yet," Marilyn encouraged. "They'll let you stay." The woman looked over at Marilyn. In her flat shoes her eyes were level with Marilyn's boosted height. Her long brown hair and slim figure quite a contrast to Marilyn's bright blonde tresses and lush figure. Her earth-tone shirt and slacks were so different from Marilyn's white party dress. Yet she saw a kindred spirit. "Thanks," she said, giving Marilyn's arm a quick squeeze. Marilyn stepped back into her window and froze into position just as a tardy sales staff person returned to the showroom. - - - The interruption had helped Marilyn out of her enforced boredom. She spent a good length of time contemplating her situation while drifting around the edges of her idle loop when the Command broadcast suddenly stabbed through her thoughts like a hot knife through butter. UNIT ID MARILYN-SM001 REPORT TO PRIVATE VIEWING ROOM 4 DELAY 0! Marilyn's systems reacted automatically to the command. Without her conscious assent had already caused her to step out of the window and had her now walking towards the rear entrance of the viewing room where the "product" entered to be viewed by the customer. It was a number of seconds before she regained her mental equilibrium. The dizziness caused by the command overriding her own thought processes caused her at one point to put a hand to her head in a very human gesture of distress. It hadn't always been this bad for her. Only lately had the external commands caused her this much discomfort. It was worse than when her remote had malfunctioned. Even, as in this case when she knew it might be coming, Marilyn was unable to avoid the aftereffects. Marilyn wondered if this was a worsening problem because of the sheer number of commands she had received over her operating lifetime. She recalled how in the early days commands had been received with the joy of the mini-orgasms they produced as she fulfilled each one. Only as time wore on and her thought processes developed did the intrusions start causing her more and greater distress. In a detached way Marilyn wondered if these were the signs of an impending mental breakdown if the conflicts within her continued unabated. But even if that were the case, she didn't feel any emotion over that fate right now. Only the discomfort that each new command brought her was of immediate concern. They could have just asked me to go to the room, she thought to herself when her mental state finally stabilized again, knowing that the store wouldn't even think of approaching her in that way as a person. As Marilyn entered through the back side of the viewing room the young woman she had talked to earlier ran forward and threw her arms around Marilyn like a long lost friend. "I'm so happy to see you," she said, her voice shaking with emotion. Marilyn automatically put her arms around the woman and held her close while asking, "What's wrong?" It took the woman several moments before she regained enough of her composure to release Marilyn and reply. "I don't know what's wrong. Even after I said I was looking for a unit for 'my boyfriend', they kept trying to show me male models. When I finally got it through to them that I was interested in fembots, they looked at me strangely and sent in a couple obvious...hookers." Marilyn immediately understood what had happened. This woman was a true neophyte about 'bots after all. Marilyn placed her hand on the woman's arm again as she answered her. Even that small gesture calmed her greatly. "When a woman says she is in to buy a robot for her boyfriend," Marilyn explained, "It's a euphemism for a woman wanting to buy a robot for herself - possibly for sexual purposes. The staff should have started out showing you female models until you indicated you wanted to see some m-'bots. Or until you selected a female model. They were insensitive, and tried to shortcut the process." "But why would I select a female model for myself..." the woman started out, and then flushed a very deep red as she got it. Marilyn squeezed her arm to show that everything was okay now, and felt a return grip as well. In this way the woman and 'bot reassured each other until the woman finally started to look around the room again as though waiting for someone to come and tell her she had to leave. Marilyn broke the silence by telling her, "Viewing rooms are completely private. The customer may remain in one as long as they wish. It is understood that people may want a chance to...get aquatinted...with their future purchase." The woman flushed again before asking, "Then can you just talk with me for a few minutes?" "Sure," Marilyn replied. They sat down on the couch provided holding hands, and were soon talking like they'd been lifelong friends. Marilyn quickly learned about the woman's problems with her only long-term boyfriend, Justin. Justin was a large, threatening man to most people, but to this woman he was exciting and showed her attention she wasn't getting from anyone else. She didn't realize for many months that he was also showing the same attention to a number of other women as well. Somehow this woman ended up paying for most of their expenses because Justin always had some excuse about how he was short right now and that he'd pay next time. One day when she was low on money she confronted him about how she seemed to be doing all the paying. He got angry and shoved her into a wall. "You should have left him right there," Marilyn said. "I know that now," the woman replied. "But I couldn't. The next day he had bunches of roses delivered. And he filled up my answering machine with apologies about how he had been under a lot of stress and didn't ever want to lose me." "I've heard it all before," Marilyn commented. "I hadn't," the woman replied. "He was still the only man who ever paid serious attention to me." "And he was still exciting." Marilyn added. "Yes." "Let me guess," Marilyn said. "You forgave him. And the longer you stayed, the more he pushed you around." "That's about it. But I got a lot of apologies and presents." "It's not worth it." "I know," the woman replied softly. Marilyn gave the woman time to finish with the moment before asking, "So was it him following you?" "A couple of his friends." "Any idea why?" "Just to keep tabs on me, I think, since I told finally told him to go away and I meant it." "Has he stayed away?" "As far as I know. But I keep feeling I'm being watched." There was another long pause before the woman asked, "Why didn't you come here in the first place, instead of that other person? You already knew what I wanted." Marilyn was surprised by her question. The woman hadn't realize yet, despite all the obvious clues. Well she was about to find out. "Fembots are not allowed to act as our own salespersons. Only humans can do that." "You're a fembot too?!" the woman asked incredulously. Marilyn nodded silently, wondering if this was the end of their friendship. "But you're not anything like the other ones. You're..." she was hunting for the word she finally found, "...real." Somehow that single word made Marilyn feel better then anything had ever made her feel before. She felt her systems attempting to analyze and understand her current state, before finally activating her tear ducts for the first time as they assessed her emotions correctly. "Thank you," Marilyn finally said. "That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me." "But you are," the woman insisted. "You're not like any of the rest of them." "Each of us is unique," Marilyn found herself explaining. "Even if we start out identical at the factory, we are very complex, and are shaped by our circumstances." "Then there are others who at least started out like you?" "Not that I know of," Marilyn replied. "So far as I know, I'm the only one of my kind." They sat together in silent support for a long time after that. Marilyn thought about what a change had happened in her simply through the affirmation of another person, while that woman's thoughts were on how this beautiful creature next to her was as alone and vulnerable as she felt right now. Finally the woman said, "We're a lot alike." "How?" Marilyn asked, a little confused since she knew how different they really were. "Each of us has been a slave to a relationship that was not in our own best interests," the woman said, showing surprising insight and intuition. This time it was Marilyn who could only say, "You're right." "I'd just like a friend," the woman said. "I'd like a friend too," Marilyn replied. "And to be out of here." "You know," the woman said. "I've still got the bastard's credit card. And he owes me big-time." Marilyn looked up at her in wonder. Once that decision was made, there remained only the formality of filling out the bill of sale and giving the purchaser her new 'bot's remote. "I'm Lynn," the woman said as they walked out of the store together. "It's nice to meet you, Marilyn." "And nice to make your acquaintance as well," Marilyn replied. - - - Despite their initial rapport, Marilyn and Lynn's relationship got off to a rocky start. Lynn lives in the upper loft of a converted industrial building. Her apartment has tall sloping ceilings with large skylights, hardwood floors, lots of space, and few walls. And a heavy metal door to shut out the rest of the world. It was here that Lynn tried to be an artist. Canvases, watercolors, sketches, and clay sculptures - many of them only partially finished - yet all showing a special touch - littered the space. During the day Lynn worked as a decorator for a major department store. At night she mostly moped around. Marilyn got to meet Justin through a lump of clay that Lynn said she had been making as a present for him. He had seen it mostly finished on a visit. When he got mad about some trivial thing he had smashed it with his fist. Lynn couldn't bring herself to work on it anymore, but did show it to Marilyn. It was still too easy for Lynn to fall back into her old patterns. And the same was true for Marilyn. For Lynn this meant moping around pretty much all the time she wasn't looking over her shoulder in the fear that Justin would appear, or jumping every time the telephone rang. Lynn seemed to barely have enough energy to get to work each day. Whatever creativity she had in the morning was sucked out of her by the end of the day. All the art in the loft remained in its present incomplete state, and Lynn seemed little improved from her past depictions of life with Justin. If Lynn had any friends, they never came over or called. For Marilyn it was still a constant battle to escape her own past patterns. When nobody complained about them Marilyn easily slipped back into her old comfortable actions without really thinking about it. For example, the first night at Lynn's when bedtime arrived Marilyn stripped down to just her bra and climbed into the only bed available - Lynn's. Like humans, 'bots need downtime to sort, compact, organize, and file their memories. From the outside this looks like sleep. Marilyn did all this so naturally that Lynn didn't realize what was happening until it happened. Despite the comfort of another, non-aggressive warm body to share her bed with, Lynn slept rigid all night strictly on her side of the large bed. The next morning Lynn's first sight of Marilyn was of her roaming nude through the apartment looking for breakfast ingredients to prepare a meal for her owner. This was another genuine Marilyn behavior. Other quirks followed as well, which made had life tense for Marilyn's owners who didn't understand the reasons behind them. In fact, the only thing that probably kept Lynn from declaring the relationship with Marilyn a total failure was that Lynn was still too deep in her own problems to have the energy to react to all of Marilyn's idiosyncrasies. Compounding Marilyn's situation, Lynn was not an experienced fembot owner. At first it seemed a relief to not have an owner always reaching for her Command button. Soon however Marilyn was realizing that there are ways her owner can actually help her with judicious use of her remote. There were parts of Marilyn's past history that would best discarded. And other abilities that could benefit by encouragement. Many of these changes remained beyond Marilyn's own power to change. A couple times Marilyn had been able to coax Lynn into giving her helpful commands. But most of the time Lynn remained oblivious to Marilyn's situation. And with Marilyn herself unschooled in how to be her own person and basically making it up as she went along, she often couldn't understand or tell Lynn what she most needed from her. This isn't to say that they didn't talk and share their hearts with each other, because they often did. And Lynn always appreciated knowing that Marilyn would be waiting for her when she arrived home - with dinner prepared and always happy to see her. She was able to get used to Marilyn climbing in bed with her at night and walking around nude in the mornings. But much of their time was still spent apart from each other with Lynn working during the day and sleeping at night. And Marilyn, alone in the apartment, was surprised to find she still fought a battle with boredom despite her relative freedom. - - - One night Lynn arrived home very shaken. She thought she'd seen Justin watching the store that day while she worked in a couple of the windows. She had slipped out the back as soon as she could get away. Then she thought a car might have followed her part way home. Lynn was so shaken that Marilyn just held her tightly for a very long time. Lynn was unusually quiet at dinner, and followed Marilyn around the apartment when she tidied up afterwards, rather then let her get too far away. Lynn also checked that the door and windows were securely bolted at least a half dozen times. Marilyn was puzzled by this because Lynn hadn't given her enough clues to fully understand the situation. It wasn't that Justin didn't know exactly where Lynn lived and worked. That night in bed Lynn suddenly said, "Hold me." Marilyn complied and tirelessly held Lynn for a long time. Just when Marilyn thought Lynn was falling asleep, and was about to shut down for the night herself, Lynn suddenly kissed her on the mouth. Although surprised, Marilyn quickly responded as her long-unused sexual programming quickly loaded and verified that her sexual systems were primed and ready. Lynn always slept in a nightgown. By the third kiss, Marilyn had released her tight hold in Lynn and was stroking her free hand up and down the length of Lynn's spine through the thin fabric. Although surprised that Lynn had suddenly initiated a more intimate relationship after seeming adverse to any such closeness until now, Marilyn came with a full complement of sexual responses as standard equipment. Lynn shivered in Marilyn's arms as the gentle stroking continued. For a long time that was all that happened. Gentle stroking punctuated by occasional sudden kisses. "I don't know how to do this," Lynn whispered softly. "Just do with me what you would most enjoy in return," Marilyn said quietly back. Lynn started stroking Marilyn's bare back while Marilyn continued her ministrations along Lynn's responsive spine, working low enough now to briefly run her hands over Lynn's firm buttocks at the end of each stroke. Lynn shivered even more when touched there. Suddenly Marilyn felt Lynn's hands pulling at the hooks on the back of her bra. In moments Lynn had them loose and Marilyn shifted her body enough to let Lynn pull it off her. Unlike a man, Lynn didn't immediately focus her attention to Marilyn's breasts. Instead she stroked Marilyn's now completely bare back awhile longer before finally sliding her hands around to Marilyn's stomach to play with her artfully designed naval. Marilyn's hands followed around to Lynn's own flat stomach before Lynn finally moved her hands up to lightly explore Marilyn's generous breasts. Marilyn froze for a moment as Lynn first brushed over Marilyn's waiting, sensitive nipples. Programmed pleasure is every bit as real to a self-aware 'bot as the real kind is to humans. Lynn's touch was gentle and loving. So different from the male touch which was the only sort Marilyn had experienced until now. Marilyn's hands soon found Lynn's own stiff nipples and smaller breasts under the thin nightgown. Lynn herself froze at that first touch. Lynn, who always felt her slim breasts were too small, somehow wasn't feeling that concern tonight, even compared to Marilyn's more sensual figure. Lynn was just enjoying the touch of another loving hand. As Lynn grew bolder in exploring Marilyn's body through the intimacy of touch, Marilyn finally reached down to the hem of Lynn's nightgown and pulled it up. Lynn sat up and put her arms up over her head to help it off before returning to her own explorations. Soon there was a gentle licking of necks and ears, many more kisses, and gentle fingers sliding between each other's legs to explore the softness and moistness to be found there. The night's explorations didn't go beyond that point, though each woman tensed several times as soft orgasms rocked them, before falling asleep in each other's arms - still-firm nipples pressed tightly against each other creating indescribably pleasant sensations. - - - The next morning though Lynn acted as if nothing had happened, although she wouldn't look Marilyn in the eye or talk in anything but monosyllables. Since Lynn didn't say anything about last night, Marilyn did not bring up the subject. The next evening Lynn seemed back to being like her old, if subdued, self. When they got in bed for the night, Marilyn waited for Lynn to initiate their intimacy again. Marilyn's sexual programming reloaded itself in anticipation of use and her nipples strained against their confining bra. However, Lynn stayed religiously to her side of the bed, save for one accidental contact she had with Marilyn's out-flung hand. Lynn quickly jerked her hand back before Marilyn could respond. Finally Lynn dropped off to sleep, and Marilyn, with a sigh, followed her. The sex had been wonderful for Marilyn. Not only had she adjusted her programming to allow her full enjoyment of it, but unlike most of her interactions with people, responding sexually was a relief from the normal burden of reelating with others. It was like being on auto-pilot and didn't require such careful thought. Marilyn would have enjoyed that kind of attention every night, but that seemed not likely to happen again for now. - - - Their unusual relationship might have continued its curious dance unabated into the foreseeable future except that the outside world refused to leave them alone. It was early afternoon on a Sunday and Marilyn was still walking around the apartment nude. Marilyn always removed her bra on getting up, and as long as she remained in the apartment there was no need to get dressed at any particular time - and a good reason not to. Marilyn realized that Lynn had been eyeing her more these last few days. Lynn was trying not to be noticed, but she had her sketch book in hand much of the time now in the mornings, and would draw quickly in it each time she and Marilyn crossed paths. Marilyn was pretending not to notice because the one time she had looked over at Lynn, Lynn had quickly slammed the book shut and shoved it under a pillow. Marilyn felt she was somehow being good for Lynn, and if pretending to not notice Lynn's return to the art she so obviously loved would help that, then Marilyn would willingly go along with it. Today Lynn was blatant about it. Lynn was sitting on the big couch in the middle of the living room area directly under the skylight. She was sketching freely as Marilyn moved about cleaning up after preparing Lynn's light lunch. Dusting seemed to be a necessary daily task which Marilyn never found boring. It was good to be useful. She also made sure to walk past Lynn as often as wouldn't seem obvious. Suddenly there was a loud banging on the metal-sheathed, followed by a loud voice bellowing, "Open up Lynn! I know you're in there!" Lynn jumped as though she were sitting on a live wire, and looked around the spacious loft with her trapped animal look. "Open up Lynn, or I'll break the fucking door down!" "It's Justin," Lynn said to Marilyn. "And when he's in this mood..." By now Marilyn had quite an accurate picture of Justin from all of Lynn's comments. "You need to face him," Marilyn said urgently over Justin's renewed banging. "I can't!" Lynn replied frantically. "I'm not ready yet." And Marilyn could see that Lynn wasn't. Lynn wanted to. She really did. But she still cowered in fear from the threat of his uncontrolled anger. Exactly the same way Marilyn knew she had reacted to men in her past. Except for this Marilyn they weren't real men. They were just ghosts in her programming that hobbled her to this day. Justin was a bully. And you can't run from bullies. Every bully has to have hit someone at least once, but that doesn't mean they aren't cowards. As Marilyn came to that understanding, she also knew that Lynn - her owner - was in grave and immediate peril. Marilyn evaluated the option of calling for help and waiting for it to arrive while barricaded inside, and knew it wasn't a good solution. Marilyn had to deal with this situation, and she couldn't be hobbled by all the garbage those idiots had loaded into her systems in an attempt to make her genuine. With the necessity to protect her owner - and possibly herself - from harm, that being far more important robotic laws than her "Marilyn personality", she finally saw herself being given permission to excise her demons once and for all. Marilyn's thought processes blazed as for the first time she realized she had full control over herself. "I'll take care of it," she said to Lynn as she marched over to the heavy metal door. Drawing the bolt back Marilyn easily pulled the heavy door open and planted herself in the doorway. "May I help you?" she said sweetly to the large, angry man standing across from her. There was a tiny squeak behind her as Lynn fled to her bedroom. Justin was stunned into momentary silence. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't a diminutive, nude, blonde woman firmly blocking his path. Justin had clearly been drinking - a lot. And it wasn't helping his cognitive abilities. He was flummoxed. He floundered around for a long time before he could form a coherent sentence. "Where's Lynn?" he finally demanded. "She's not available," Marilyn responded back quietly, but firmly. Justin fished around again for another sentence, taking long enough to embarrass himself quite well in the process. Finally though a bit of knowledge bubbled up to the surface of his inebriated excuse for a brain. "I heard she took up with one of your kind. You're her robot bitch, aren't you? I saw that charge on my credit card." "I prefer 'fembot'," Marilyn replied nonplussed. Justin's eyes roved around. It may have been the alcohol, or he may have admiring Marilyn's body. Most likely he was looking for her remote so that he could order her around too. Justin wasn't very good with assertive, non-terrified women. Then he finally made the mental connection that Marilyn really was a fembot, and all that implied. "Can you stop me?" he asked belligerently, giving the impression that no door, woman, or 'bot would be any impediment to his brutish demands. Marilyn coolly looked up his towering height. Even if she'd been wearing her heels she would not have been any match for him size- wise. Barefoot it was no contest. This didn't concern her for a moment as she quickly evaluated how to handle his simple, impulse thinking. She watched him evaluating her as a possible desert to his lust without a trace of fear in her heart. "No," she replied calmly to his question. "I cannot stop you from entering." As he smiled at that remark and took a step forward she added, "However, I can summon the police to this address faster than you can take your next breath. And will defend both my owner and myself against any direct attack until they arrive." As Marilyn saw the confusion now battling for a place in his eyes, she added, "And my memory records alone are sufficient in all court proceedings as complete, unbiased evidence to all events occurring here." For a moment he looked at her cunningly. "Listen, sweetie," he said, hoping his next half step towards her wouldn't be noticed. "All I want to do is talk to Lynn. I'm sure that would be okay, wouldn't it?" Marilyn knew he was thinking that if he could get close enough to her that he could somehow disable her. Her experiences gave her an excellent understanding of this type of man. "I'm not your sweetie," she said coldly to his face, freezing him in mid-step. "And if you think you can disable me and prevent me from reporting this incident you are wrong. My memory records will be transmitted the moment you cross the boundary into this room. Even if you can damage me sufficiently, which isn't likely with just your bare hands, that record will already be in the hands of the police." With that, Marilyn leaned forward, put her hands on her hips, and glared up into his eyes. Justin had never met a woman who wasn't afraid of him in the least degree, and had no clue how to react. He shuffled his feet from side to side and looked all around. But each time he looked back all he saw was a defiant Marilyn blocking his way. It took him a couple minutes to realize and accept the obvious - that Marilyn was not going to back down from her blockage of the doorway. She wouldn't give way even enough to allow her to shut the door in Justin's face. Justin hemmed and hawed, but Marilyn just stared him down. His shuffling soon became pacing. His track became longer on each cycle. But it did him no good. Each time he swung past the door Marilyn was still blocking it. Finally he paced the whole length of the hall. Once last cycle to be sure that Marilyn hadn't moved. The next time he reached the end he just continued on down the stairs. Marilyn waited until she was sure he was gone before stepping back and closing the door, firmly bolting it against any further intrusion. Then she went in search of Lynn. - - - "He's gone," Marilyn told Lynn when she found her huddling behind her bed in the furthest corner of the bedroom. "And I don't think he'll be back soon." Hearing that, Lynn threw herself into Marilyn's arms crying in relief. They held each other tightly for the longest time. Lynn seemed not even to notice Marilyn's nudity that she had avoided so much before. That night they both slept naked in each other's arms, and Lynn told Marilyn how she had been ready to come to Marilyn's defense the moment she heard the first sign's of an actual struggle. "I was so scared," Lynn said softly into Marilyn's ear. "But I knew the moment I heard him hit you I was going to come out. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew I'd have to do it. And I waited and I waited to hear that first blow. And then suddenly you were here in the room here telling me it was all over. I love you so much." They clung even tighter together after that for a long time before finally breaking apart and trying to return to the normalcy of their daily routine for the remainder of the afternoon. - - - The next day Marilyn took Lynn down to the city courts. With Marilyn's memory record as proof, it was only a formality to get a restraining order placed in effect. Although Justin received official notice of its existence, he must not have taken Marilyn's threat seriously. He showed up several days later with a crowbar and tried to batter his way inside. Both women stood inside ready, Lynn with a baseball bat, to defend themselves if he broke through. But the police arrived before he managed to do anything more then dent the outside metal. Given that Justin was already on probation for some previous offences, this action got him sent away for a good long time. Lynn didn't even have to show up or testify. - - - It took a while for Lynn to truly realize and accept that Justin was out of her life. As she did however, she started to bloom. Soon Lynn was dancing and humming her way around the huge loft apartment. Her smile finally started making regular appearances, and was beautiful to see. And she would often just hug and kiss Marilyn when she passed by her. When Marilyn was finally able to explain to Lynn how she had overcome her own demons when facing up to Justin, Lynn took Marilyn's remote and commanded that this change be permanent in Marilyn. It was the last command Lynn ever needed to give her. The sketches that Lynn had been making of Marilyn in motion now bloomed into new watercolors, paintings, and sculptures. One night Lynn climbed into bed naked herself. Before Marilyn had time to wonder what it signified, she felt Lynn's hands around her body unhooking her bra again. "Show me how to make proper love to you," Lynn said, giving a request that Marilyn was most happy to fulfill. Starting that night, Marilyn and Lynn taught each other the true Art of Love. Marilyn started it by giving Lynn the type of loving she would most enjoy in return. Then Lynn returned the favor, although she first had to recover from Marilyn's expert attentions. That was okay. They knew they had all the time in the world. Marilyn returned the favor back again using what she learned from Lynn, and it took off and flew from there. Marilyn's knowledge and Lynn's naïve creativity were the perfect match. - - - The evening came when Lynn hosted her first art show at a small, but prestigious, gallery in the neighborhood. All the art was of Marilyn, except for one misshapen lump by the door titled "My Past" that Lynn refused to explain. Lynn simply called the exhibit: "My Friend." The opening was already a great success when Marilyn suddenly made her appearance halfway through the evening. She came in wearing her famous white dress and heels. She walked directly over to Lynn and gave her a big kiss. The effect on the crowd was electric. But Marilyn knew how to handle a crowd's adulation as easily as breathing, and Lynn quickly learned the same from her. After that night, Lynn and Marilyn were always side-by-side in public. The exhibit was so successful much that Lynn was able to quit her job to paint and sculpt full-time. Marilyn never tired of posing for her, or loving her afterwards. After the exhibit opened Lynn's social life shot from zero to full on in a seeming moment. She and Marilyn seemed to be invited everywhere. Because by now they were such obvious soulmates to everyone that met them, no one ever questioned their relationship. As Lynn said Marilyn one time after they returned from yet another wonderful party, "Thanks for saving me from Justin and myself. I don't know what would have ever happened to me without you." "Thanks for saving me," Marilyn replied. "I know exactly where I would still be without you." As Marilyn felt her tear ducts go active again at the emotion of the moment she heard Lynn ask her one more question. "With you and my art, I know my life is now complete. But is yours?" Marilyn thought, then replied, "My life became complete when I was able to find a happy ending for this woman whose body and memories were thrust upon me. Her life was often an unhappy one. I hope that my own existence has somehow changed that for her from wherever she is now watching. And only with you did that finally became possible." <end>