She offered no resistance as Dick pulled her head towards his and parted her lips, exploring her wet mouth with his tongue. The desk between them was an obstacle to further passion so Dick rose up from his chair, helping to lift Alice out of hers. With their mouths still locked together the two of them performed an ungainly tango around the desk until Alice was standing with her back towards it. Dick gently kissed her neck and slowly began to undo the buttons of her dress.
Ordinarily this action would have been tantalisingly sexual. In this case, given the unreasonably large number of buttons and the fact that Dick didn’t carry a button-hook, it took an unfeasible length of time. In lesser men, passion would have subsided but Dick wasn’t a lesser man and he was still hard while the last button popped open. Almost in an act of triumph he swept the papers and Alice’s handbag off the table and gently lowered Alice down.
She lay there in her underwear, arms spread, her tongue flicking over her wet lips. Swiftly removing his trousers Dick leaned over her and nuzzling her face, drank in her sweet nectar-like perfume. He moved slowly down, kissing her whole sensual body, paying particular attention to her firm breasts that were rising and falling with her increasing heavy breathing. Dick’s tongue played with her navel, then he buried his face in her warm groin, almost tasting the sex that was just moments away. Dick teased Alice, turning his focus to her inner thighs, licking and kissing them within an inch of her crotch. It was as he was tugging the silk of her panties with his teeth that Dick got another surprise. As surprises went, this was one of the biggest he’d experienced since his arrival here. He froze, and then he raised his head.
Dick tried to speak but he was so shocked, no words formed. He made a second attempt. This time he emitted a sort of strangulated sound, the sort you make when you’re gargling with mouthwash for too long until you reach that point of half swallowing and half retching. The third time he managed to get his mouth to work.
‘Alice?!’, Dick said, managing to simultaneously combine the intonation of a question and an exclamation.
‘Dick!’, a voice shouted in response. It was a deep voice. It was a man’s voice. In fact it was a voice that sounded very similar to that of Taylor. Dick had been so carried away with his foreplay with Alice that he’d failed to hear the library door open. The light spilling in from the hallway framed the imposing form of Taylor in the doorway.
‘Taylor!’ Dick exclaimed in a mixture of embarrassment and horror.
‘Taylor!’, Alice exclaimed in exactly the same way.
Dick and Alice got up from the table and began to hurriedly dress. Taylor entered the library, shutting the door behind him.
‘I told you that Alice was special, didn’t I?’
Dick nodded, then fell over, having put both feet in one trouser leg. He picked himself up. He didn’t need to say anything to Taylor. His wide-eyed expression said more than mere words ever could.
‘You saw the numbers, didn’t you?’
Dick nodded again. The numbers. He had seen the numbers. And had immediately remembered where he’d seen them before. On the inner thighs of the robot prostitutes. Then the enormity of the situation hit Dick like a frying pan full in the face. He’d been about to fuck a robot.
‘I kept Alice’s secret from everyone, and wanted to keep it a secret from you’, Taylor explained, walking towards them. ‘And I would have, if you hadn’t decided to bury your face in her damn crotch!’ Alice was now fully- dressed, looking at the floor with a shamed expression. Dick replaced the contents that had fallen out of Alice’s handbag when he’d knocked it to the floor, and handed it to her. She snatched the bag back, glared at him and then ran over towards Taylor who held her tight. Dick was experiencing a veritable rollercoaster of emotions. He felt terrible that he’d betrayed the trust of his leader and mentor. He felt guilty for taking advantage of the demure Alice. And he felt a combination of abject horror and peculiar arousal that he’d been moments away from having sex with a robot — coupled with more than a slight feeling of disappointment that he hadn’t.
‘But… how…why… when…’ He burbled.
Taylor released his grip on Alice and she walked quickly out of the library, closing the door behind her.
‘Sit down Dick. Sit down’ said Taylor. I’ll tell you all about it.
The two men sat at the table. Taylor leant forward to talk and Dick flinched. It was a reflex action to avoid the inevitable punch in the face from a man who had caught you red-handed going down on his robotic girlfriend. But Taylor didn’t throw a punch. Instead he sighed. There then followed an awkward silence, during which time Dick flinched twice more, certain Taylor would punch him without warning,
‘You’re lost for words because you’re so angry, is that it?’ Dick asked.
‘I’m not angry Dick… well I am, but I’m also relieved. Relieved that you know the truth’.
Dick looked at him with a puzzled expression.
‘It was only time before you found out. It was obvious you were especially attracted to Alice. What just happened was simply the inevitable’.
‘I’m really sorry Taylor, I truly am’, Dick said with genuine remorse. ‘You’re right. There was a weird attraction. She appeared so straight-laced and uptight that she became, well, a sort of challenge to me’. Looking Taylor in the eye Dick continued. ‘It won’t happen again. I swear to that. You can trust me in a room alone with her; you have my word of honour. OK, you might think that doesn’t count for anything but I’m deadly serious’.
‘I know’, Taylor said. ‘I believe you’.
Leaning forward, now confident that Taylor wasn’t going to hit him, Dick posed the question he’d been absolutely dying to ask.
‘Does anyone else know about the fact that she’s… er, well, you know, a…’
Taylor interrupted Dick to save him the embarrassment of saying something like ‘mechanical’, ‘not human’ or ‘a fucking robot’.
‘No. No one knows the truth. You’ve probably guessed that Alice was part of Project Gladstone but I couldn’t say anything when you told us you were working on it’.
‘Did you work on the project?’, Dick enquired.
‘In a sort of way’, answered Taylor.
‘Did you help to design them?’. Dick was intrigued.
‘Let’s just say that some of my skills were utilised. I’ve got an electronic engineering background, but I can’t tell you any more. Alice was one of the last working prototypes. She never went out in the field and was supposed to have been scrapped after final testing’. Dick was still slightly stunned as Taylor continued his revelation. ‘With the help of another resistance member I managed to ‘rescue’ Alice and de-activate certain parts of her programming. She was given a new identity like you and well, here she is, ostensibly an ordinary member of society but a key member of the Resistance. The Party has no idea she still exists’.
‘Couldn’t you have re-programmed her to be totally faithful to you?’, Dick asked, quite insensitively.
‘I wish I could’, Taylor replied. ‘But I don’t have the necessary skills. Changing her prime directive was one thing, but altering the rest of her behaviour is beyond my abilities’.
‘Does she know that she’s… er, well, you know, a…’
Taylor cut him short again. ‘Yes. It’s part of her programming. She has to know what she really is in order that she understands the importance of concealing the truth from anyone. Plus, of course, if you found a serial number imprinted on your inner thigh, it would only get you wondering wouldn’t it?’
‘Until I saw that’, Dick explained, ‘I had absolutely no idea at all. I didn’t even realise when she was almost naked. She’s a perfect replica. There are some people I’ve known who are, well, less human than her’.
‘I know. The realism is uncanny, isn’t it? But there was one aspect of the design and engineering that even the best technological brains in the Party couldn’t overcome. One thing they had to conceal’.
Dick threw Taylor one of his puzzled expressions.
‘The smell. The hydraulic fluid necessary for their operation has a characteristic and unusual smell. You must have noticed that from the demonstration of Jack’.
Dick thought back and remembered that Jack and the robot harlots built for the demonstration shared a very odd odour. ‘That’s right! I mentioned it to one of the technicians who said that when Jack was sent out into the field, that smell would be masked by a strong cologne’.
‘That’s why Alice wears her distinctive perfume’, Taylor explained. ‘To mask the oil’.
Dick smiled. He’d been aware of her alluring perfume from the first time she appeared in his trailer. If only he knew then the real reason she wore it. He nodded and then asked Taylor with an astonishing amount of
