Women of Steel 2: Martini on the Rocks by Camille Anthony

In the middle of the night, Marti came awake in her lonely bachelor’s quarters, eyes staring into the dark, mind spinning with the information her subconscious had provided during sleep. “Newton! Hercules’s sidekick was Newton, the young centaur.” Her sleep-encrusted eyes narrowed. “But you cheated me on the song, you dog. Those weren’t the right words!”

She fell back against the cool cotton sheets, drawing her blankets up around her shoulders. Shivering in the pre-dawn chill, she twitched and fidgeted until the covers cocooned her just so. “I don’t know how I could have forgotten that show. Mom loved that little mute guy, Tewt, who communicated by playing on the pan pipes.”

A wide yawn surprised her, over before she had time to bring up her hand and cover her mouth. Halfway through a second jaw-stretching yawn, her bladder woke up and screamed. “Well hell! Just when I start to get warm I gotta pee!”

Throwing back the blankets, she sprinted toward the loo, quick-stepping across the cold floor until her bare toes reached the thick army-green rug she’d used to cover the tiles of the latrine.

Doing the pee-pee dance, she palmed the light on, yanked up her nightgown and wiggled out of her panties. Before her bottom hit the seat, the flood commenced. Her chest rose with a thankful sigh, relief flooding through her. “Thank the Matrix I made it, this time!”

She didn’t know why, but the last couple of days she’d missed the mark a few times, unable to control her bladder long enough to make it to a bathroom. She’d never had this problem before and couldn’t figure out why it had cropped up now.

One thing was certain — she found it darned embarrassing wetting her panties while practicing on the combat drill field… and it was inconvenient, too. Nothing like sprinting off the field while trying to keep the telltale signs from running down your leg. The situation made her feel like a damned school kid, unable to hold her water. Damn it, she was too young to start wearing Retains.

Her toes curled into the warmth of the synthetic rug while her bare arms sprouted a second rash of goose bumps. Impatient to finish emptying her bladder and get back to bed, she rubbed her hands up and down her chilled flesh, working heat into her skin… and froze in the midst of the action.

She hissed through her teeth as a spike of pain curled about her swollen nipples. “Ow — ow — ow! Ouch!” She’d forgotten and inadvertently brushed her distended tips. They were so tender, the slightest touch sent agony screaming through her. She carefully cupped her throbbing tips and held on until the pain lessened.

Once it let up, she moved over to the sink and turned on the hot water, waiting impatiently for it to warm up. Shivering, she stuck a finger under the flow and snatched it back. Brrr!

Eons later, convinced the water was never going to turn warm, she gritted her teeth and thrust her hands quickly under the gushing water, lathering and drying them in record time. There was nothing worse than washing already cold hands in colder water.

“Damn the maintenance department to hell,” Marti snarled. She’d put in a request for them to repair her hot water heater two days ago and it still wasn’t fixed. Why was everything going to hell in a hand basket around her, lately?

Fine tremors, caused by the cold, still ran through her hands as she returned everything to its place and headed back to bed, absently palming off the light, brow furrowed in conjecture.

Can good sex destroy your bladder?

She thought it might, because she hadn’t had the “I-can’t-hold-it” problem until after she’d been with her borrowed A.I. unit, Denzel. And, oh my churning Matrix, he definitely had given her good sex! As always lately, as soon as she thought about him, her heart hurt with the now familiar ache of missing Denzel. She’d never had a better lover or better sex. In fact, she wouldn’t mind having some of that stellar class fucking right about now.

“Dammit, I forgot to bank my covers.” With a disgruntled sigh and another low curse, she slid back under her ice-cold bedding. “Shitpissfuck! I’ll never get back to sleep at this rate. Reveille sounds entirely too early these days.”

Hugging herself beneath the blankets, waiting for her spot to warm up again, her mind drifted back to those few glorious days spent with her M.A.N…

Bold, flamboyant heat-inducing pictures made up her memories of those long lustful hours of sex — the hot, panting, groaning, toe-curling, raunchy, nasty best ever imagined kind of sex only possible with a partner blessed with inhuman stamina.

Marti sighed and curled her legs up closer to her torso, trying to evade the distracting cold.

Hard to imagine it had only been three months since her life had changed. For five years, she had devoted her energies toward pushing back the Scarth invasion. Only when Earth’s forces had battled the enemy to a standstill, negotiated a cease-fire and mopped up the radioactive hot spots had she given herself permission to take care of her own needs.

With all the abandonment of over five years’ worth of horniness, she had dived into the sexual experience of a lifetime. She had thoroughly indulged her deprived libido. For five glorious days filled with the joyous heat of discovery, she’d reveled in the intimate attentions of her personal Mechanistic Anatomically-correct Nurturer, taking full advantage of its torrid lovemaking skills — edgy erotic skills that had left her craving more.

General Thalassic had recalled her to active duty five days early due to rumors of another all-out Scarth invasion. For the first time during her military career, Marti resented having to answer to a higher authority. Reluctantly, she had packed and accompanied her escort back to headquarters. She’d arranged to have the unit delivered back to the offices of M.A.N.-Kind, Inc., only to find it had anticipated her orders and left without saying goodbye. If she’d had her way, she would have remained with her M.A.N. for the full ten days, luxuriating in the sensual feast he’d spread before her.

A heated shudder chased the early morning cold away as she moaned in remembered bliss, recalling how often he’d spread her… buried his hot mouth and facile tongue between her thighs and made her his feast.

Marti greatly feared she’d fallen in love with him… it… and how lame was that? To fall in love with a machine — an android — was the height of stupidity. The two of them didn’t have a future. Hell, Denzel wasn’t even real. The android might fake sentience better than some of the soldiers she commanded, but the bottom line remained that he — it, it, it! — wasn’t human.

Marti rocked back and forth, biting back her cries, determined to keep her needs private. The walls were thin and the officers sharing this apartment block were light sleepers.

“Oh, Matrix, I burn for him, still!” She gasped as her nipples beaded, womb tightened. A pulse of liquid fire dampened her panties and she squeezed her thighs together, applying pressure to her clit in a useless effort to tamp down her rising arousal.

Denzel had conditioned her body well… no — he’d addicted her to his body. These last two barren months had taught her nothing she did could stop her hungry pussy creaming in readiness for her absent mechanical lover.

Wide-awake now, she turned onto her back and stared into the dark. The folds of her sex throbbed with the slow, heavy beat of her pulse. She wanted relief, wanted to fly, but she’d never flown as a solo pilot. Masturbation wasn’t the answer — not for her. She couldn’t get off by using her own hand or orchestrating her own pleasure, which was one of the main reasons she’d looked into purchasing a M.A.N. in the first place.

Turning on her side and curling into a horny, fetal ball, Marti closed her eyes and wished — like she did a hundred times a day… two hundred times each night — that Denzel had been real.