"We have achieved a lot in the path of natality. Artificial insemination and wombs have gone a long way. Even biological and synthetic humans can have descendants. Yet one thing is still beyond us after this much time, how to have true humans since inception."
-Gangesh Babu, 2301, Paragon of Natality Election Speech
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Ignoring the whole comedy sketch that unfurled, the continuation wasn't that much exciting. Well, not for me.
"I knew it!" Gloria jumped on the spot whilst clapping. "You have a talent for clothing! Ehrm… dressing the clothing I guess. It's a shame you waste it dressing so dull."
"I wouldn't say I dress dull." I protested.
"Lorem, darling, you have come here with a tracksuit and the tunic you gave me has fewer decorations than a sheet of stainless steel. You are not fooling anyone."
I did manage to fool someone, though. Namely, myself.
"Yes, yes." I sighed. "Are we done?"
"Not even close!" The seamstress added happily. "Don't worry, I don't need you to do much, just pose like the images I've just sent you."
Indeed, a notification popped up on my interface a second later. The DM was full of images of butlers. I… I didn't know what to make of it.
"That's all?" Sure, it was weird having a folder of butler images, but the poses were normal. Nothing… Gloria-like.
"Yup." She nodded. "Though could you change your hair a bit?"
"How? You want me to brush it?"
"No, you silly goose!" Gloria giggled. "Make it shinier. Your natural color is too dirty, make it more golden."
I would have taken it as an offense if it wasn't because Gloria's natural hair color was also more toward dirty blond. Maybe ashen. Color theory and I weren't exactly on speaking terms.
I considered the petition a shapeshifting practice. Not that I had a reason to refuse, but that way I could mute the voices that were screaming at me that I wasn't being productive. I always get sick if I'm not being productive, and the voices don't help with that.
It took a couple of minutes, but slowly I was growing more accustomed to my new body, and therefore my shapeshifting, meant I found no difficulties. Just a tedious process.
"Hmm…" Gloria groaned in thought. "That's a nice gold blond, but I don't know how to feel about it. Maybe black hair would have been better…"
"I can change it." I offered her.
"No, no. It's okay, I want you to try other things later, and that blond will go perfectly with them."
"But of course," I should have imagined that it wouldn't be 'only' the butler outfit.
We spent the rest of the morning trying different outfits and taking reference pictures for her. I don't know how many references an artist needed, but Gloria took so many that she could make a 3d model out of me purely from the many perspectives she had at her disposal.
But the whole modeling thing wasn't without its perks. Some suits weren't made for someone of my size, so Gloria showed me some basic shapeshifting techniques to reduce my body volume. I was surprised to find out that you could significantly reduce your size without having much knowledge or experience in shapeshifting.
The theory behind the reduction of volume was to push some muscles inside of the body. It was a bit painful, and it didn't do anything with the bones, but parts like the shoulders decreased in volume significantly. It wasn't anything applicable to day-to-day moments, but practice was practice.
I'm not joking when I say that it's not applicable to daily occurrences, I could barely move my shoulders whilst I had my size was reduced, and the muscles weren't there. As it would appear, if your muscles are tucked in like a turtle, they can't do their function. This meant I had to undo the process and repeat it for each individual pose, but that was only a positive in my book. More supervised practice.
"Ah~" Gloria moaned as she stretched her four arms. "We're done for the day!" And also cracked her neck. A bit too loud for it to be healthy. "What are you going to do now, Lorem?"
"Not much. Gonna grab a bite and connect for a while on my tycoon to watch the progress and give new directives. Other than that… no idea, really." I made my way into the dressing room. She was fast to call the day over, but I was still wearing a white suit, reminiscing of nuptial outfits.
"A free afternoon? I would invite you to something, but I wouldn't like to steal more of your time."
"Please do so, I have nothing else to do," I added with a sigh as I took my coat.
"Ah, right. Your girlfriends are on evolution."
"They are not my girlfriends," I growled.
"Whatever you say, darling." The seamstress giggled. "Though I wish I was as close with my class as you are with the other two."
"Well, I'm only close with my classroom mates, if that helps you soothe your pain." I popped my shoulder as I took out the shirt. My back muscles had grown a bit sore from all the posing. "What about your classmates?"
"Hmm, it was a bit different when I was a student," Gloria explained over the curtain. "Alpha Centauri wasn't as populated back then, so we were more people for each class, not like you youngsters that have 5 students at most per class." A giggle escaped my lips. "What's that laugh for?"
"Nothing, nothing." I giggled again. "It's just that you look younger than me and hearing a 'kids these days' type of line from you makes it quite amusing."
"Don't worry about the age dysphoria, it will disappear with time."
"I hope so." However, I was more worried about the other way around. I feared I was looking at students as if they were too immature when they were barely a few days away from evolution, instead of feeling that humans were too old or too young.
"So you have no plans with your polycule, then?" Gloria asked.
"None at all." I made my way out of the dressing room with the white suit in hand and donning now my yukata instead.
"Oh, so it's okay when I say polycule but not girlfriends?" The seamstress crossed her arms and pouted.
"Those are different terms," I replied sternly.
"No, they are not."
"Yes, they are." I sighed. "Girlfriends in plural implies that I am in a bigamous closed relationship whilst a polycule is an open relationship, with the added bonus of different sexual tendencies."
"Sounds the same to me," Gloria replied.
"Not gonna lie, you are sounding like an old woman right now." And my words instantly merited a kick in the shin. "Okay, that was pathetic. I barely felt it."
"You want me to give it another try?" The seamstress smoldered, her hands closed in a fist and moving in boxing gestures.
"Sure. I think I deserve it for calling you a decrepit old woman." I added with a smile.
This time Gloria didn't contain herself, throwing all her might in her kick. Good thing I knew it couldn't be that bad. Most of her body weight was focused on her upper body, and without sprinting, she wouldn't get that kinetic energy going. It still hurt when it connected.
"Better." Though I restrained myself from showing the pain.
"You are weird," Gloria mumbled.
"Says the budget Hindu goddess." I snickered.
"There isn't much mass to do eight arms, I'm afraid." She shrugged. "Anyhow, if you are free this afternoon, send me a message or something."
"Will do." I gave her a nod and took my leave.
As I walked out, I realized I could have offered her to launch together, but I supposed that if she hadn't offered it herself, it was because she didn't want to or was too occupied to do so.
The Terra Nova Enclave had a lot of culinary options at its disposal. Options that I refused to take. If I could have free and nutritious food, why should I pay for it? And for the first time, I didn't mean a printer. Whilst the fruit bonanza was a morning activity, the food still lingered on the trees, ready for the taking. Having an orchard in a space station felt like a bit of a waste of… everything, but the fruits were good, and the rest could be damned for what it respected to me.
Nature was a bit hard to come by, mainly because of the nature of Proxima b. The habitable space was limited if one didn't count the underground, either one side was too hot or too cold, meaning that the middle belt was the only real place to sustain life. Nova Jericho already took a lot of that belt, and whilst there was vegetation, it wasn't as bountiful as here.
Once again, I was still amazed that they could afford such an amount of flora in space.
"Looking for a snack?" A deep voice tolled behind me.
I turned to face a rather short man – compared to me at least – with animal features. Instead of the side, his ears were placed on top of his head, and they were of canine origins with their floppy brown protuberances. Sure enough, he also had a short tail wagging behind him. I was the first person who would use shapeshifting to give themselves animalistic traits, but that didn't make it less weird as I saw more and more humans with such characteristics.
Animal humans – they surely had a name to classify themselves, but I had no interest – were more of an outdoor type of person. With myself being the opposite, I didn't see many of them at Nova Jericho.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
"Yes, I was hoping to snatch a piece of fruit or two for lunch," I told with honesty. The fruit trees were communal, so I didn't fear any repercussions for taking a piece without permission.
"A piece for lunch?" He scanned me from head to toe. "A body of that size will need more than that."
"I'm not peckish right now," I responded. Besides, biological humans were more efficient at food digestion. Part of the reason why I had gone to the toilet this little during these days. My new body used any intake far more optimally than before, therefore creating fewer residues.
"Not judging." He raised his arms defensively. "Grab a few apples from that tree if you want. I'd recommend washing them first, but it's not like it's going to kill you or anything."
"Thanks." I nodded at him.
"No problem, mate." He waved at me and went back on his way.
He really came from my back and talked to me. I could never. I grabbed the apples from said trees, even if they weren't my favorite fruit, and basically devoured them. I ate everything, not a spec left of them. Even the stem at the top.
Now, I wasn't being weird or nasty, I just wanted to know how much my body could digest from two full apples.
After being satiated, I went back to my room. I would probably have a bit of hunger later, but nothing that a protein bar couldn't solve. I entered my room with the full intent of initiating Project Tycoon, but I found my bed occupied.
"Hello, handsome." A beautiful brunette purred at me; her posture maximized for erotism. She was also… lightly dressed.
I scrubbed my eyes and sighed. "How are you inside of my room, Mérida?"
"Really?" She jumped out of her posture in outrage. "You have a goddess amongst men in your bed and that's all you have to say?"
"You know that calling yourself goddess amongst men is a sign of lack of confidence in your looks, right?"
"Oh, fuck you, man." Mérida dropped in the bed in defeat. "It was too much to ask for a modicum of passion. Maybe a congratulations?"
"One, you didn't congratulate me." I crossed my arms. "Two, how did you get in my room?"
"You are being a salty prick. You would have been mad at us if we congratulated you. You don't like to celebrate any achievements and prefer to drown in misery like the bastard you are." I didn't refute it, her words were the apex of veracity. She sighed once she saw that I wouldn't give her any play. "Your assistant let me in."
"Sandra, is that true?"
"Affirmative. I considered her petition to enter your room to not be detrimental as she is a close friend of yours, besides the fact that you don't possess any physical objects of value that could be stolen. Not that they could be stolen as I have permission to lock down the room in such circumstances."
"I see." I sighed. "Next time send me a notification."
"She petitioned for it to be a surprise." Sandra objected.
I walked to the desk and sat on the chair. "Whose assistant were you again?"
"Yours, Lorem." The Virtual Intelligence responded obediently.
"Access notifications and no more surprises," I commanded.
"Noted." The lights of the room returned to their previous state once she stopped talking.
"See? You are such a dull person. You don't even want surprises!" Mérida protested from her prone position, raising her feet in the air, slightly kicking around.
"I prefer to do without them."
"But do you like them?" She asked with a sultry tone.
I didn't respond immediately. "…I can live with them."
"I see, I see…" Mérida turned her back to place herself on all fours and slowly walked toward me. "What do you think about this?"
Her eyes glowed blue.
"So you've chosen the synthetic path." I hadn't really focused on her body until now, but the truth was, it was difficult to distinguish between biological and synthetic humans unless they had modifications on their bodies. Whether they were animal parts or robotic augments.
Mérida felt more alive now that she was part machine. Her hair and skin were more lustrous now, both now more brunette. Her hair was the mesmerizing brown of autumn, whilst her skin approximated the delicious brown of caramel. Her green eyes contrasted perfectly with her brown self; before her evolution they had a jade tinge, yet now they gained a more verdant look like that of lush grass.
"Affirmative," Mérida responded to my question with the dead yet obedient of a manufactured intelligence.
Her voice sent shivers down my spine.
The good kind.
"Good you like to see the perks of my evolution," the synthetic human smiled sultrily as she finished her sentence, "…master?"
I felt civility and reason leave my body.
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I threw myself to the bed, Mérida casually dodged to the side and adopted a posture as I met her on the mattress, eye to eye.
"So much for the cool and intellectual behavior, huh?" She snickered, her arms slithering and coiling around my neck.
My response was non-verbal, a simple kiss on her red, vivacious lips. I caressed her cheeks, my movements slow and heartfelt. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't find any hint of her robotic body. Flesh and machine intertwined in a single cohesive system. No metal to be found, only her warmth.
"You are beautiful." The words escaped my mouth as our lips separated.
"Wasn't I before?" She joked, but the blush in her cheeks betrayed her.
"You always were, and you'll be." I kissed her again, this time combing her delicious and silky hair.
Every touch was maddening. We were both evolved, we both possessed enhanced senses. Mérida didn't stay still, a superficial kiss wasn't enough. Our tongues rolled in a French kiss, wetness and warmth exchanged. I was a peak organic living organism and she was a mechanically enhanced organism, we could have stayed for minutes without end locked in a tender kiss.
But patient we were not.
Mérida put her hands on my shoulders and slowly pulled down my yukata. I kicked my wooden sandals away, falling far somewhere in the room. I couldn't care less.
She undid the kiss and gathered air as she grabbed my hands and led them to her lingerie. I don't know where she got it, but the laced black underwear set up the mood. With one hand I pressed a breast, with the other I circled around the nipple.
My hands drowned in tenderness. Mérida had always been sensual, with a peak body made for sex, yet the evolution amplified every factor manyfold.
The synthetic giggled. "That's all you can do?"
I silenced her by locking her to another kiss and unlatching her bra. She continued pushing down my robes and I played with her hard nipples. My body ached me to be rough, to destroy her, but I couldn't do that to her. Love was meant to be a caress, even if my instincts dictated to ravage.
Her cleavage was perfect. Big, enough to not fit in a hand, but not excessively so. I unlatched the kiss again and I finally could get a sight of those breasts, not only knowing them by touch. Her skin was caramel, yet her areolae were chocolate.
I was unable to resist the temptation to taste that dark chocolate.
"Ah~" Mérida moaned for the first as I circled her perk nipple with my tongue, my other hand groping her. "More~"
She begged, her arms crawling downward to my member. If it wasn't erect already, her cold touch certainly fulfilled that task. She released the tight, ever-growing erection out of my boxers and began stroking it. Her movements sent shivers down my spine as her long fingernails scratched my scrotum. I wasn't ashamed to admit that I moaned too to her touch.
I was lacking behind her and I couldn't allow that.
With my mouth, I shallowly bit her nipple, prompting another moan out of her. My free hands parted separated ways. One when upwards, where I led a finger on her mouth and she began sucking greedily, whilst the other explored downwards. I charted with my fingertips her body, from her soft cleavage, down her exciting exposed belly, and then finally to the laced fabric.
My fingertips traversed the black panties like rugged terrain, falling in every ridge along the way, and reached the bottom of the valley. Her sex was dripping. I pushed the fabric aside and led a finger inside. Her walls greeted me with surprising force, even a single finger was tight. A thought formed in my mind. Had been her virginity restored by the evolutionary process? The tightness was maddening, a guillotine for fingers alone, I couldn't imagine other digits going in.
I didn't stop there, assaulting three parts of her body wasn't enough, so with my thumb, I caressed her clit. I felt her grip on my length weaken.
"Oh~" Mérida stopped sucking my finger to let out a moan. I bit on her teat, ever-so-slightly more vicious than before. Another moan. And a release.
I released my jaws from her breast and looked her in the eyes. Her verdant, beautiful eyes. We were both panting. I removed my hand from her vagina and licked the trickling liquid from my fingers. I made sure to gather it all in my mouth the gulped it down with force, audibly.
Mérida launched her arms towards me and locked my neck in an embrace, driving me closer to her, and into a kiss. Her tongue moved more viciously than before.
If we weren't panting enough, by the moment we separated our lips, we were out of breath. I wasn't even sure how was that possible with our bodies.
She moved her head next to mine and bit the top part of my ear, saliva drooling inside. Then she whispered, "I'm ready, Lorem," her hot breath caressing my earlobe.
Everything was going too fast. I didn't even have my chance to caress her, to taste her, to worship her. She didn't let me. And now I couldn't even control my body as she led me to madness.
I grabbed her butt with a strength I didn't even know I was capable of. My fingers drowned in the soft flesh. Not big, but certainly the perfect size. Sometimes shape was better than size.
But I wasn't there to taste her buttocks, no, I raised her underside, her whole body, and put her on top of me. On my chest. Mérida nudged up and down, her sex drenching around my belly button.
"Mmm~" She purred. "You know, it's between my ass cheeks."
"I k-know," I responded weakly. Damn, I know.
She raised her body up and down slightly, her glutes caressing my penis as it pushed skin up and down. This was a first, and not in the bad sense.
"You are enjoying yourself too much." Mérida lowered her upper body, her breasts hanging so close to me that her nipples scratched my chest in a comforting caress.
"I d-don't know what y-you are talking about." Maddening, everything was maddening. I had never felt like this before. My previous body hadn't been this sexually active. I now understood hedonism in all of its glory.
"Mmm~" The synthetic woman sat on my legs; my cock pressed against her stomach. "Really?" She circled one finger around the head of my member.
It twitched. I twitched.
A moan escaped my lips.
Her eyes shone with desire; her vagina thoroughly soaked the base of my length alongside my scrotum. I felt my sanity dwindle by the second.
"Look how big it is!" Mérida stated with glee, her whole hand enveloping the head in a tight grip. "I doubt it will fit. I will certainly be split in half~" Contrary to her words, her lips curled in want. "What do you think, Lorem?"
I moaned again at the mention of my name. "P-put it, in."
"What's the magic word?" She used her other hand to circle my nipples. Her long fingernails, scratching my skin violently, sent shivers down my spine.
"P-please…" I grabbed myself to the bed, otherwise I knew I wouldn't be able to handle myself.
Mérida raised her body, aligning herself as if she were a gravitational catapult, lips meeting head. She let out a moan as she slowly pushed herself in. I greeted my teeth as I was devoured. I also let a moan, that's when I realized both of us were in pain. She was too tight, and I was too big. Our eyes met; she was also aware of the fact. That didn't stop her from smiling maliciously.
Then she plunged down on me.
"Oh!" We both moaned in pain and ectasis, my eyes opening like plates and her back arching to an unhealthy degree.
My head hurt from the sensations. Another part of me also ached. Walls pushed me with brutality, and the tip was touching things that shouldn't be touched. My vision blurred from the intake and Mérida collapsed on top of my chest with a thud, her body slightly rebounding at the impact.
"Ugh…" She groaned in pain and exhaustion.
I embraced her naked back, leading her warmth and chest closer to me, our bodies still connected.
"T-this was a bad idea," Mérida added with a pant.
"Having sex immediately after evolving? Yes, quite in fact." I wasn't still fully recovered, though that was more because I had led my body to the limit these last days rather than the recovery taking that long.
"Can we leave it here?" She asked in a low whisper, the side of her head resting on my chest, her eyes looking up at me.
"Of course." I nodded. "I would never push you."
"Now I feel bad." Mérida raised her hips and our bodies separated with a lewd pop. "Look how excited this boy is."
"I prefer to see him sad than to see you sad."
"How romantic." She snickered and slid to my side.
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---NSFW section ends here---
We rested in bed for a couple of minutes without saying a word. I didn't know if synthetics needed air to live, but Mérida's chest continued heaving up and down for a while.
"Well, that was anticlimactic." The brunette synthetic pouted. "I expected a machine body to have more resistance. Immortal, my ass."
"There's a time for everything, and this one wasn't the right one." I patted her head. She wasn't against it as she snuggled beside me. "What will you do now?"
"What do you think?" Mérida turned to face me; her body covered by the sheets. "Gonna check a look to my tycoon."
"Let's hope you got something good." I abstained from mentioning my own tycoon. I knew that would make her mad, especially if she got a lackluster parcel. Not everyone could have habitable worlds, let alone multiple planets.
"I'm spent." She blushed whilst looking at me. "Can I stay here for the night?"
"Sure." I held my body hard from the urge to say that it was still midday. Even my mind urged me to speak up the clarification, but I knew better than to break the moment.
Mérida snuggled closer to me. Her body was supposed to be partially metal, yet her sweaty skin warmed mine. "See you, later."
"Have a good travel!" I bid my farewell, and then she closed her eyes, her consciousness leaving her body. She left her body as she initialized Project Tycoon, my arm having become her pillow. "Well, fuck. I can't move now."
I sighed and connected myself to Project Tycoon despite my wakefulness.