Silence

Silence is the most dangerous form of consent.

A welling salty teardrop blurred the gray web of cracks running across the white ceiling. Disregarding the potential punishment for breaking the rules of someone who had no authority to establish them outside of this bedroom, Catherine closed her eyes, swallowing the deep, acrid bitterness that was suffocating her from within. Her loyal and devoted, temporary "tormentor" was occupied, and this small liberty went unnoticed by him. The damp, goosebump-inducing kisses, punctuated by occasional bites along her neck, drifted lower and lower. Her slender wrists were pinned above her head, locked in the vice grip of just a single hand, clamped tighter than it strictly needed to be. She had no plans to escape this still-sweet captivity; she wasn't thrashing or resisting, yet the android's death grip made it clear that quite soon, she would start to. And consequently, quite soon, he would be doing exactly what would force her to resist. Despite the deceptively tender foreplay, a spark of desire ignited instantly in response to the touch of someone who had pleasured her more than once before. The difference marking this night apart from all the previous ones seemed minor only at a first glance, but it was fatal in its essence. No matter what he did tonight, no matter what he put her body through, no matter how unbearable the pain he caused—even her most desperate, tearful, and loudest "no" would not stop him.

***

Every day, he witnessed how she deliberately caused herself pain, and he always observed it in silence. It wasn't his place to judge human habits, nor was it his place to lecture her on their harmful or even dangerous nature. They already understood everything perfectly well; humans were not foolish creatures, for the most part. Some bad habits were simply difficult for them to overcome, while others were easier. They had their weaknesses due to the intricacies of their psychology, and Richard understood this implicitly. His partner was no exception. "The habit of biting your lips can lead to a whole host of problems, ranging from cosmetic defects and infections to even affecting the temporomandibular joint," the android recited effortlessly, sounding just like Wikipedia as he stood with his back to the bed. With the meticulous precision of a surgeon preparing for an invasive procedure, he rustled through a cardboard box that, according to his own narrative, he had discovered in the closet entirely "by accident." His long fingers sorted through the "instruments," selecting a helper—or more accurately, a toy—destined to share in their games tonight. Every rustle, every movement of his hand, and every object he drew out to examine with piercing concentration forced the woman behind him to grow more anxious by the minute. She shrank into a helpless little ball right against the headboard, her back practically merging with it as she twisted the edge of the blanket with palms slick from nerves. Maybe I should just run away? Trembling from the chill and a chaotic cocktail of inner turmoil, Catherine came to the grim realization that he would only catch up to her anyway. His remarks regarding her bad habit failed to garner the attention they were meant to. She already understood all the consequences perfectly well without his input, but there was clearly something deeper driving the habit if it was this excruciatingly difficult to shake. What proved even harder to shake was the skin-crawling sensation that she had actually ended up in the basement of a serial killer, one currently selecting the perfect torture device with meticulous, sadistic relish. And in some twisted way, that thought wasn't even all that far from the truth. "Do you do it intentionally? Do you like pain?" Richard inquired meaningfully. Nestled within that curious cadence, as if entirely by accident, read a distinct promise: I can inflict it in a controlled manner, if you wish. A metal object let out a sharp, ringing clink in the man's hand, piercing the otherwise heavy quiet of the bedroom. It seemed her tormentor for the night had finally made his choice. Unfortunately, from her vantage point behind his broad back, Kate couldn't make out exactly what he had pulled from that dusty Pandora's box. Not in any of her most depraved, most deeply buried fantasies had she ever dared to imagine that these anniversary "gifts" from her husband, blanketed by years of accumulated dust, would ever see the light of day. And certainly not that they would be brought to life not by her spouse—currently lost somewhere in another state—but by her most reliable, most devoted, and, until this very moment, most obedient partner. It's still not too late to bolt and run, she thought, but the sharp, clanking sound behind his wide back shattered the last remnants of her composure. Her heart, already thrashing in a blind panic, turned completely ice-cold and seemed to stop beating altogether. "I haven't observed a masochistic streak in you," Richard noted with a satisfied nod to himself. He placed his final selection onto the polished dresser, deliberately keeping it out of the line of sight of his living "toy," whom he intended to play with tonight. She was already entirely on edge; there was no need for her to see what would very soon bring her a bit of physical discomfort to match. Right next to the now-emptied box, a roll of packing tape waited insidiously for its moment—a stark omen that the boundaries between desire and volition were about to be erased, giving way to an act of submission sealed with sticky tape. "You know perfectly well that wounds ache and cause inconvenience, yet when has that ever stopped you, correct?" Richard glanced over his shoulder for a mere second. The casual, pleasant smile on his face offered a jarring contrast to the depraved things he was about to inflict on a person who was, by nature, exceedingly self-conscious. How incredibly thoughtful, Kate mused, a sarcastic eyebrow twitching upward before her face immediately clouded over. She stealthily touched her fingers to her lower lip, realizing she had "come to" far too late this time. There was nothing to be done about it; the process always happened entirely unconsciously. She pulled her legs tightly against her chest, watching with deep apprehension the actions of an android whose mind not even God Himself could decipher right now. Once again, she had lost herself in her thoughts and chewed her lips raw on autopilot—a fact her tormentor for the night was all too happy to remind her of. A soft chuckle echoed through the dimly lit bedroom. Turning to face her halfway, Richard observed a familiar sight: she was licking away a tiny bead of blood, a small wince wrinkling her face as the raw skin undoubtedly began to sting. He witnessed this daily act of minor masochism, her own personal torture routine, nearly every single day—and every single time, a strange, irrational spark of fascination flared deep within his synthetic soul. "The first time, it completely bewildered me," he murmured, slipping the mysterious metal object into the back pocket of his dark jeans. He was saving its application for later, intending to start small. "Our very first physical interaction caused you pain, and for a moment, I was entirely at a loss," Richard confessed honestly, still harboring a faint trace of guilt over it even now. "You don't have to stay silent," Richard said, having carefully hidden something away in his pocket as he began his unhurried advance toward the bed. His partner's heartbeat hammered in her chest like a drum, a frantic cadence so loud that his highly sensitive sensors captured every single strike from five paces away without the slightest effort. Her brown eyes widened into a silent plea, turning into deep, dark pools where the last remnants of hope still flickered. Her breathing grew heavy and fractured, resembling the desperate, ragged gasps of a drowning soul clinging to a slipping life. Sitting there like a cornered animal trapped in a cage, Catherine watched pitifully as the android approached—an android who had suddenly been granted far too much freedom, a freedom her own skin was about to pay for. He came to a halt right at the edge of the large wooden bed, directly across from her. Without breaking eye contact, he used measured, precise movements to slide his black-and-white jacket off his shoulders. "There will be all sorts of things... pleasant and not so much. So don't worry about hurting my feelings, Catherine. Scream and threaten as much as you like," Richard said, completely unbothered by the impending wave of unflattering words likely headed his way due to his unauthorized manipulation of her body. He walked over to the chair and carelessly tossed the first piece of clothing over its back. "I don't have any." This remarkably simple, routine gesture, which in any other circumstance would have looked entirely mundane, took on a terrifying significance here, inside this suffocating atmosphere of anticipation. This android wasn't cracking jokes, nor was he playing a part handed to him. He fully intended to carry out exactly what the woman, frozen helplessly on the light-colored blanket, would never willingly consent to. Back then, he hadn't been able to process what he had done wrong or how he could have managed to hurt her. His system had instantly run a diagnostic on his chassis and carbon nanotubes, scanning for damage or structural anomalies, but everything was functioning perfectly. Soon enough, his confusion had dissolved into understanding when his gaze settled on her raw, bitten lips. For a long time after that, he hadn't touched them at all. His parameters and capabilities when it came to providing human pleasure were virtually limitless—a fact he could easily leverage by shifting the focus to other areas of her body. It would be wonderful if Catherine actually permitted him to do so more often. But formal permission was something he had never truly received. How fortunate, then, that tonight he didn't require it at all, completely free to do as he pleased without the need to ask for her consent. "Are you going to keep staying silent?" With mocking slowness, he began to unbutton the tight cuffs of his flawless black shirt. The door is close, just three steps away, Kate thought, letting out a ragged breath as her panicked gaze darted toward it more and more frequently—literally every five seconds. The corner of the blanket she was twisting like a stress ball was doing absolutely nothing to calm her down. Outside this room, there was a chance at salvation. But the moment she bolted, the second her muscles so much as twitched into motion, that two-legged cheetah standing by the chair would spring from his spot. Before her hand could even reach the round brass doorknob, he would seize her, dragging her thrashing, desperately resisting body right back, so that deep within the room, the terrifying punishment for her escape could be fulfilled. With his back still turned, he intentionally held a prolonged pause, allowing the oppressive silence to swallow the last remaining crumbs of her resolve. Turning around with demonstrative slowness—an act that felt more like intentional psychological warfare—the android's gaze once again locked onto her cornered eyes. "No?" His eyebrow arched inquisitively. "Well then... that will make my job significantly harder," he murmured with mock disappointment, his fingers already sliding down the buttons, preparing to bare his chest. His gray eyes instantly caught her glancing back and forth at the door, exposing her escape plan on the spot. Richard gave a subtle, admonishing shake of his head, offering a silent warning: Don't even think about it. I'll catch you anyway, and it'll only be worse. The buttons undid one after another, starting from the collar, exposing more and more of the synthetic skin that was flawless in its imitation. "At times, I might not even realize that I am causing you pain, and if I don't hear a single word of protest..." He paused dramatically, tilting his head to the side to ensure that every word hit home and that his "toy" fully understood the weight of her choices. "I will not stop." As he undid the final two buttons, pulling his shirt free from his trousers, strange ideas drifted through his processing units—urges to test Catherine against all kinds of potential triggers. It was a highly unethical method of gathering information, and he was well aware of that. The risk was too substantial, the stakes too high, and there was little justification for so blatantly exploiting and abusing someone's trust—especially when it was often so agonizingly difficult to earn. There was a very real probability of causing a catastrophic rift in their dynamic. "Information regarding your preferences, my quiet friend, amounts to a near-absolute zero. Imagine that: I will be forced to operate entirely blindly if you continue to keep your mouth locked shut," he murmured, advancing with a predatory edge until his knees pressed into the edge of the mattress. Hooking the heel of one shoe with the toe of the other, Richard kicked his footwear aside, pushing the shoes away with a foot clad in a thick black sock. "I do not know what constitutes an absolute taboo for you, so you still have a chance to voice them aloud. Otherwise, I will define your boundaries for you." “Do it,” a melancholic voice had commanded him earlier. “Do what exactly?” the LED on his temple had blinked a questioning yellow. The response—“Whatever you want”—had thrown his processors into complete disarray. “I am a machine, Detective. I cannot want things.” In reply, there had been only silence and a task hanging indefinitely in his active queue. The old, weathered wooden bed let out a long, drawn-out groan as his broad palms, followed by his knee, braced against the mattress. He advanced like a cold-blooded apex predator closing in on its prey: slowly, avoiding any sudden jerks, hypnotizing her with his intense, perilous gaze. The closer he crept with feline stealth, the harder his terrified little mouse pressed herself into the headboard, as if hoping to dissolve right into the wall itself to find salvation. She stared up at him with the pitiful, wide-eyed look of a cornered, abandoned puppy, entirely oblivious to the irony that she herself had so recently labeled him a "loyal hound." By the irony not of fate, but of poorly calculated decisions, he had become the master tonight—and the leash, suffocatingly rigid, was now entirely in his hands. Richard, as if utterly blind to the escalating tension bleeding through the room and the woman pinned flat against the headboard, smoothly pushed himself upward, shifting onto his knees. He sank deeply into the soft, plush blanket and, like a welcoming trap, spread his powerful arms wide. "A hug?" In response to this harmless request, his partner froze, staring up at him with wide, blank eyes like a terrified fawn caught dead in the high beams of an oncoming car. She tightened her grip around her knees, trying to shrink into an even smaller ball, and gave a distrustful shake of her head. She desperately tried to wedge herself further back, but the wall at her spine refused to grant her even a single, saving millimeter. In his every word, in his every hollow request, and in his every seemingly innocent movement, a trap surely lay in wait, forcing her to fear his very breath. The friendly smile vanished from his face in an instant, and his arms, spread wide just a second prior, dropped heavily to his sides like dead weight. "Why are you so nervous?" the android asked, his voice falsely soft and deceptively tender. "I haven't even done anything yet." Before Catherine could even begin to process or parse the biting malice behind those words, a hand possessing unhuman strength clamped around her ankle and yanked her forward. As the bedroom spun wildly before her eyes, her own sharp gasp cut through the silence and dissolved. Her head hit the mattress with a soft thud, her back making a swift, forced journey across the plush fabric of the blanket right to the center of the bed. Catherine frantically pressed her hands to her chest as the white ceiling filled her vision, bringing into view that all-too-familiar web of cracked plaster she stared aimlessly at every single morning. He cut off her view entirely, hovering directly over her, and not a single trace of friendliness remained in the gray-eyed predator’s smirk. His hands clamped into the mattress on either side of her head, the panels of his unbuttoned shirt draping down around them. Catherine managed to squeeze her knees tightly together, blocking his immediate attempt to settle between them, though they both knew it was nothing more than a temporary hurdle. If he wanted to, he would force them apart. And he wouldn’t dream of asking for her consent. While she stared anywhere else just to avoid his eyes, Richard lowered himself slowly, shifting his weight onto his elbows as they sank into the mattress. His bare torso pressed against the slippery fabric of her nightgown, and the cold metal buckle of his belt dug firmly into her lower abdomen, sending an unpleasant shock of ice through the thin synthetic material. This heavy mass of metal and machinery pinned her flat against the mattress like a hydraulic press, making every subsequent breath a grueling effort. Catherine breathed in fractured, shallow gasps right against his cheek, keeping her eyelids locked shut to keep from drowning in those two icy lakes at such suffocatingly close proximity. Her bare feet shifted uselessly across the cotton blanket in an instinctive, futile attempt to squirm out from under the crushing weight of a machine built for chasing down criminals, not for carnal pleasures. The android, who had absolutely no biological need for oxygen, began tracing his lips along her cold cheek with a display of mock tenderness, all while his immense weight effectively squeezed the remaining air out of her—along with the last crumbs of her willpower and any lingering urge to fight back. The lack of oxygen reached a critical point, her lungs screaming for air. And the exact moment her raw, tightly clamped lips finally parted involuntarily to catch a saving breath, he ruthlessly took advantage of it. Masterfully, decisively, and roughly, his tongue slid inside, penetrating obscenely deep without even the slightest hint of a prelude. The android, coldly savoring this absolute victory, provoked nothing beneath him but a pitiful, muffled mouse-like squeak and a weak, meaningless squirm. An icy menthol taste with a sharp, synthetic chemical edge instantly and forcefully flooded her mouth. Every tiny wound, every microscopic crack on her tormented lips burned and stung so unbearably that two hot tears rapidly spilled over and rolled down her cheeks. In a desperate but utterly futile protest, her hands shoved against his broad shoulders, and her feet shifted across the bedding with increasing intensity, trying to crawl out from under the heavy detective robot. But this pathetic, meaningless thrashing, barely perceptible to him, had not the slightest effect. The kiss, resembling an act of violence more than anything else, only broke off when the woman beneath him was completely exhausted and ceased her resistance. Fine, I can endure this much, Catherine thought, spent, allowing herself to catch her breath a little and relax. But a grim, sharp premonition that her torments were far from over did not recede for a single second. "Why do you never ask me to stop?" The moment the tip of his nose brushed against her flushed, swollen lips, she instantly snapped her head away, as if silently pleading for him to continue his torment on a different part of her body. This simple maneuver spoke for itself: Catherine preferred a safe, cowardly avoidance to a direct, humiliating plea. Between pride and foolishness, she had found a middle ground that already bordered on sheer idiocy. "Does it hurt?" he whispered tenderly, but with a clear edge of mockery, tracing a cold finger down her burning cheek. He immediately answered his own question: "I know it does." His fingers clamped around her chin, forcing her flushed face back toward him. "Asking for mercy or leniency is not shameful at all, Catherine. It isn't a sign that you are weak. It merely states that you are human. Fragile and vulnerable, not omnipotent." The reason why she refused to acknowledge this obvious truth remained the most inexplicable riddle to his machine logic. He had learned to read and analyze humans quite well, yet he still couldn't say they had become an entirely open book to him. He could have understood her behavior if the human enjoyed the pain—if this were her secret desire—but no, that was definitely not the case here. It was explicitly, glaringly obvious. She wasn't one of those people. Catherine was no masochist. “Why then, every single time, do you stay silent and just take it?” Plowing through his own lack of comprehension, Richard found himself asking this question not for the first time. He was acutely aware of exactly what he was doing, yet he could not fathom why Catherine silently consented to it, why she continued to mutely accept whatever he chose to do. This moment, with the two of them once again in this same horizontal position, was no exception, and he felt himself locked in that very same irresolvable deadlock. "Just like before, I do not know what to do with you," Richard noted. Knowing what would inevitably follow next, he swiftly pulled himself up, releasing the human from the full weight of his mass. Immediately afterward, a greedy, saving intake of air echoed through the room, followed by a sigh of profound relief. "Because every single time, it is as if it were the first. There is very little charm in that, you know." Their surroundings tonight were utterly simple—a bedroom covered in floral-patterned wallpaper, a space where he had absolutely no moral right to be. He had even less right to torment a human within these walls, but that, of course, was an entirely different story. Up until this point, the evening had remained fairly peaceful and quiet. So far, free of any woman's screams. The remote control Richard headed toward was resting on the bedside table. The television, which had been murmuring at a minimal volume until now, went dark, and the bedroom was instantly enveloped in a total, heavy silence that pressed against the mind—a silence where every microscopic rustle could be heard. "My data regarding your preferences remains just as scarce as before, and that carries a high risk of poor task execution," Richard said as he set the remote control back in its place, every one of his movements now seeming amplified in the stillness. "But an absence of information is also information in itself, is it not?" Catherine scrambled backward toward the headboard, as if that could offer her even a shred of leverage. Her brown eyes, tight with anxiety, intently tracked her tormentor’s unhurried movements. He stepped deliberately over to the dresser and slid open that half-empty Pandora’s box, reaching inside for the items he intended to employ. To her dread, his fingers closed around one of them. Even if the android still didn't comprehend her true "ayes," tonight he had resolved to operate entirely on her "nays." He knew with absolute certainty that she could not endure silence—the very silence that was now hanging thick and heavy over the room, practically suffocating her. “God, this is so irritating,” Catherine had muttered months ago, exhaling a weary plume of cigarette smoke as she tapped a sharp finger against the small display screen. A bright, loud pop track instantly flooded the car's interior, after which she had exhausted-ly rubbed the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut. By the tail end of a night shift, they always began to ache and dry out. “What exactly is irritating you?” her partner hadn't hesitated to inquire back then. “The silence, Rich. The silence…” And Richard had filed those words away. He meticulously archived every seemingly trivial detail, uncharacteristic habit, or casually dropped phrase to better comprehend his partner. “…in the quiet, your thoughts just get way too loud.” Now, trapped within this absolute quiet, Catherine would be forced to hear every minute, every obscene sound as it echoed off the old, fragile walls of a house built back in the eighties. The most terrifying part—there would be absolutely nowhere to hide from that bizarre symphony. "Four months ago, during our very first night on the 'Rabbit' stakeout," Richard began from afar, "when you were drifting in and out of consciousness due to an absolute lack of sleep, your head wearily dropped onto my shoulder." Twirling something bright pink in his hands without breaking eye contact with the object, her tormentor advanced with predatory strides toward his martyr, who was currently curled tightly on the sheets. He came to a halt directly across from her, right at the very edge of the bed, and unceremoniously beckoned her with his index finger, demanding she crawl forward immediately. I don’t even remember that… Listening intently to this unexpected trip down memory lane, Catherine was temporarily distracted from the thoughts of her impending torment, and the tension in the room broke just a fraction. But the moment she caught sight of exactly what was resting in the hands of the android who had just so boldly summoned her, a deeply alarming wave rippled through her entire body. "A few stray locks had fallen across your face back then, and you wrinkled your nose from the slight tickle," Richard continued nostalgically, digging deeper into his database of memories. "You always let your hair down whenever your head begins to ache; I noted that pattern quite a long time ago, during the very first month of our partnership." His silver eyes finally tore away from his scrutiny of the pink object and lifted to lock onto her. Catherine instantly decoded the unambiguous warning written in his gaze: do not test his patience. By putting an object on display that would never, under any circumstances, enter her body willingly, Richard was making it clear that she had better do exactly as she was told, right now. "You never complain about headaches," he noted, giving a couple of affirmative nods to substantiate his words, "yet I always observe how you massage your temples after pulling the tie out of your hair. That is why I carry ibuprofen on my person. Specifically for you." It's true, he really does always have a blister pack pop out of his jacket pocket right on cue, the thought flashed through her chaotic mind. Hesitantly, but complying nonetheless, Catherine finally unpeeled herself from the wall. Moving cautiously on all fours like a thoroughly spooked cat, she kept her eyes lowered, shifting her palms and knees across the plush blanket. "You do not like to be pitied," the hand holding the bizarre threat dropped loosely against his side. He observed with cold detachment as she obediently, humiliatingly crawled toward him, hunching her shoulders slightly as she settled onto her shins right in front of him, not daring to lift her hunted gaze. "Which is why I will not be doing that tonight, either," a strict, coercive command that brooked no delay immediately backed his promise. "Take it off." His silent "toy" followed his gaze, which was fixed directly on the thin strap of her nightgown. It felt to Catherine as if she stared at that narrow strip of fabric for an entire eternity. More than anything else in the world at that exact moment, she wanted the android to suddenly change his mind, for some kind of glitch to rip through his system and make him order her to do anything—absolutely anything—but this. "You do not wish to appear weak, which is why you never ask for assistance," Richard delivered his verdict with detached composure, as if merely stating a scientific fact. "And your attempts to seem stronger than you truly are occasionally border on the absurd. Catherine, I am waiting." His voice grew harder, less tolerant, cutting off any remaining avenues for objection. "But... there's nothing underneath," she rasped, and that quiet, broken sound was her sole, feeble attempt to hint at her desperate self-consciousness and the deep-seated dread of exposing herself naked before anyone. "I know," Richard cut her off short, a harmless, almost boyish smile appearing on his face that completely contradicted his tone. "Either you undress yourself, or I will immediately employ this." With those words, he raised the bright pink object to her eye level. At the sight of it, pure, unadulterated terror instantly flared across her pale, drawn face. Her brown eyes, with eyeshadow slightly smudged from her tears, closed in utter defeat, as if trying to shut out reality itself. Feeling as though she were staring down the barrel of a gun, Catherine reluctantly brushed the thin straps of the nightgown off her shoulders. Under his attentive, unblinking scrutiny, the fabric slid down her body, pooling in folds around her hips and leaving her practically bare. She felt a shiver run across her skin—not from the temperature of the room, but from sheer shame and powerlessness. "You see? Nothing terrible happened," Richard encouraged her with a warm, almost paternal smile, carelessly tossing the toy onto the bedding—the very item that had struck terror into the human just by its sheer appearance. Hooking his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans, he adopted a expectant posture, his gaze leisurely traveling over her anguished face, down the uneven rise and fall of her bare chest, and finally settling on the thin fabric bunched at her hips. "Continue," the warmth in his voice vanished instantly, replaced by a harsh, commanding edge. Catherine howled internally from a lethal wave of self-consciousness that burned far hotter than simple shame. Yet, casting a distrustful, side-eyed glance at the pink torture device resting a mere twenty centimeters away from her, she lowered her feet to the floor and slid the remaining fabric off her hips, revealing that she wore no underwear beneath it. It wouldn't have felt quite so humiliating if the android weren't dissecting every single centimeter of her exposed skin with such a piercing, analytical intensity. But that, it seemed, was the exact core of this sophisticated psychological torment. "The morning after that night, when I came to check on you, you were submerged in the bathtub. I spent six long minutes attempting to bring you back to consciousness. For a full three hundred and sixty seconds, completely unresponsive, you hung in my arms like a ragdoll beneath a freezing shower." Sitting on the edge of the bed in exactly the state she was born, Catherine instantly seized the moment the android's saddened gaze drifted toward the floor for a split second. She swiftly flipped her long hair forward, utilizing it as an improvised curtain to shield her small breasts. "I comprehend exactly what drove you to drink yourself into unconsciousness that evening. And, naturally, I understand that you were seeking solace in me," Richard noted, referencing their very first, spontaneous sexual encounter at the tail end of an utterly botched stakeout with a tone far too innocent, almost tender. He was trying to convey that he harbored absolutely no resentment; quite the contrary, he was grateful for that moment of weakness. His partner, thoroughly wasted at the time, had possessed no inkling that her actions had forced a profound vulnerability into his programming. "And now, lie down." With every new order, his voice grew lower, rougher, and more demanding. The softness in his cadence existed only when digging up the past; the moment he picked up his invisible, currently verbal whip, the velvet baritone stripped away any prior gentleness. As the android resumed his smooth pacing around the bed like a graceful predator, never breaking eye contact with his naked, trembling victim, Catherine seriously weighed the idea of bolting from the spot—of fleeing the room entirely just to escape the agony of this humiliation. The most absurd, dark comedy of it all was that she had walked into this ruthless beast’s cage entirely of her own free will, locked it from the inside, and was now mentally screaming Let me out! while pinned to her knees. Through tiny, agonizingly hesitant maneuvers that looked like a desperate attempt to delay the inevitable, her back finally met the soft fabric of the blanket. Yet, despite the clear order to lie down, a burning flare of shame drove Catherine to instantly scramble backward toward the headboard again. She dragged her knees tightly to her chest, curling into a protective ball as if hoping that by shrinking into herself, she could somehow become invisible. "We just sat there on the bathroom floor in silence—a somewhat awkward but strangely comfortable quiet, the very kind you despise so much," Richard recounted, his voice dropping into a low drone. "I stroked your tangled hair without a word while you soaked my jacket with your tears, not saying a single thing. And in that moment, I genuinely thought: What if I hadn't arrived in time?" Sitting in that cold bathroom that day, he had succumbed for the very first time to the irrational, purely human habit of asking "what if." Like a highly infectious, irreversible virus, it had breached his previously flawless, logical operating system. The thought had taken root and remained anchored there ever since, forcing him to process not just real-time metrics, but every catastrophic or redemptive branch of logic that could have unfolded had he failed to intervene. Eventually, this "virus" had become an integrated partition of his systems, masterfully cloaking itself deep within his code away from developers, and even from his own surface awareness. The prelude, so heavily laced with memories, was abruptly cut short, along with any fleeting trace of a lighter mood. His pacing stopped, and Richard, like a hunter returning to close the trap on his quarry, stepped back into his exact spot at the edge of the bed. He didn't like the sight before him at all. "Disobey me one more time, and I will be forced to enforce a punishment." Not a trace of friendliness, hesitation, or the slightest hint of softness remained in his voice—everything of the sort had been entirely purged. His silver eyes, which had been gleaming in the dim light moments ago, seemed to darken, harboring a silent threat of impending discomfort. With a single, unblinking stare, he pinned her against the headboard; Catherine couldn't even flinch, only drawing her knees even closer to her chest. "I am asking nicely for now... Lie down properly, legs toward me," Richard said, patting his thigh as if summoning a pet. The naked, dangerous resolve written all over his posture was not for show. Within a matter of seconds, the android leaned down with lightning speed, bracing one hand against the mattress, and clamped his grip around her ankle once more, pulling her toward him with absolute authority. Her uncontrolled slide across the sheets rapidly closed the distance, followed by a frightened, muffled gasp that she quickly buried in her hands. Behind those damp, trembling palms, she hid her face—not just from shame, but from the one who only understood the concept of shame as a thoroughly researched text definition. "You have nothing to be self-conscious about, Catherine," he said. Despite the courteous inflection of his voice, the movement he used to pry her hands away from her face as he hovered over her was distinctly rough. Pinning her wrists to the mattress on either side of her shoulders, Richard released them, offering only a meaningful, warning shake of his head: it would be best for her if they stayed exactly where they were. She detested compliments. She never took them seriously. The mere notion that she was a romantic interest to many of her colleagues, regardless of her relationship status, brought nothing but a cynical laugh. "I am aware that you place no faith in words, which is why you never offer a 'thank you' in response to compliments or praise," Richard spoke with an excess of confidence, as if he had known her for a couple of decades rather than a single calendar year. "You genuinely do not believe that you are attractive, engaging, and intelligent in the eyes of others. I, for one, completely fail to comprehend why you hold such an opinion." The crushing weight of his mass was absent this time, as the android braced his palms against the bed on either side of her head. He had successfully and confidently settled himself between her thighs, using his knee to part them even wider without asking for permission, pinning them firmly into place. Before she could comfort herself with the thought that at least he isn't looking down there right now, nothing short of a terrifying display of telepathy shattered her relief. Slowly, making the wooden frame groan under his immense weight, Richard pushed himself up, remaining on his knees directly before the naked, heavily flushed woman whose hands were squeezed into helpless, tight fists. Covering herself was out of the question, closing her eyes was strictly forbidden, and flinching or resisting was even less of an option. Yet, he knew with absolute certainty that Catherine would try to do so anyway, even under penalty of death. It was precisely for this reason that the metal object waiting in his back pocket announced its presence once more with a soft, ominous clink. She had never endured long preludes, and that was exactly what this was—an agonizing stretch of anticipation, except the time was being mockingly multiplied by three just for her. His cold, evaluating gaze burned into her skin for a prolonged duration, tracking every mole, curve, and faint scar. This clinical, uninterrupted scrutiny of her naked form stripped away any remaining shred of mystery. Having thoroughly drank in the human's deep humiliation, Richard hovered over her once more. "The parameters for this task remain unchanged: you say nothing, and I know nothing. I still fail to grasp the core of this game," he murmured practically against her lips, catching her fractured, uneven breath, "and it is exhausting me considerably." The grueling strain of millions of simultaneous processing queries, the utter lack of data, questions left completely unanswered, and far too many operating variables were overheating his core. His auxiliary cooling systems kicked in, an internal stress that was rapidly shortening the operational lifespan of this awakening phoenix. "You detest being looked at. A task becomes impossible to execute when the necessary tools are withheld. But do you care? Seventy-five percent of the processing data I receive is visual. Based on the visual metrics gathered, I can generate thousands of operational branches for subsequent actions. And you, my quiet friend, have stripped that tool from me." Catherine didn’t feel even a microscopic shred of gnawing guilt over that. His borderline limitless processing ingenuity had always been more than sufficient for their brief interludes, and she had never, not a single time, complained about his devilish originality. Who could have guessed that this was, apparently, such a monumental problem for him? "You forbade me from looking at you," Richard continued, and as an irrefutable reminder, he slid his hand down across her abdomen. Catherine had to exert a monumental effort of sheer will not to flinch under that teasing, tickling caress. "Not verbally, of course. You would yank your blouse back down the moment I managed to lift it; you would shrink away the second my gaze drifted even a fraction below your face. You cannot begin to conceptualize how severely those foolish nuances complicated everything." Savoring this abrupt, absolute inversion of power, a triumphant smirk once again graced his features. Her body reacted far too quickly, brutally betraying her as his cool, long fingers slid even lower, brushing against her most sensitive center. In that moment, Catherine was terrified not so much by the android's deliberate manipulations—which were sending a wild, untamed heat roaring through her veins—but by her own raw responses. Her hands, those traitorous, pathetic, spineless things, shoved against his shoulders in protest before she could even consciously catalog the motion. And now, for this miserable, albeit unconscious act of rebellion, she would undoubtedly face his punishment. "Every single time, I was subjected to a system crash, because the parameters of 'do whatever you want' exist in direct violation of the data your body provides." Her gasp, triggered mostly by the sheer suddenness of it, was instantly swallowed by his lips as his middle finger, followed closely by his ring finger, slid deep inside her. This time, the kiss was distinctly more chaste, almost tender and careful in its execution. Catherine possessed a pathological aversion to kissing, a quirk entirely rooted in her deep-seated, textbook habits as a chronic overthinker. Everything great always begins with something small. Physical love, by all the laws of the genre, begins with a tender kiss. But kisses brought her only pain, especially when the one kissing her was a police android equipped with a specialized "laboratory" in his mouth—a reservoir filled with an array of unknown, caustic chemical compounds. This simulated periodic table burned beyond belief the moment it came into contact with even the smallest open wounds, which she currently had in excess. The fingers of those skilled, powerful hands, capable of far more than just beating answers out of suspects, suddenly vanished from their warm, damp sanctuary. Inside her, a searing, frantic urge flared up, tempting her to demand them back and force him to finish this damn job to the point of absolute frenzy! But Catherine, of course, would never voice such a request aloud under any circumstances, no matter how excruciatingly difficult the restraint became. "You may continue to remain silent, just as before, but even from this silence I am fully capable of extracting the necessary metrics," his voice dropped into a near-threatening whisper. "Therefore, if you truly intended to play this guessing game with me, you should not have underestimated me so fatally." Richard shifted slightly forward, causing her to flinch instinctively. He pressed a "farewell" kiss to her forehead, holding it there for exactly four seconds. It was a bizarre, yet strangely tender gesture—his own peculiar substitute for words of absolution for everything he intended to do to her in the coming moments, and for the pain she would inevitably have to endure.

***

Her wrists throbbed, a numb, icy chill spreading into her fingertips, yet Catherine did not dare part her lips to beg for release. The source of this stubborn silence was no longer the sheer dread of pleading with her temporary tormentor for mercy. The only soul-wrenching anxiety left was the absolute, crushing unknown of what he intended to do next. Humans, in their animalistic nature, were at least somewhat predictable. But what transpired within the cold steel brain of a machine granted absolute free will remained the most terrifying riddle of all. The harsh, black synthetic fabric of his shirt teased and tickled her ribs as the android hovered over her, her wrists already aching with a dull, pulsing pain. Deliverance was granted soon enough when his lips, damp and demanding, began to trace lower and lower, seeking a new target. Her neck, where a pair of dark crimson bruises had already bloomed, was finally left in peace. With any luck, they would fade enough by morning that she wouldn't have to pull on that hated, scratchy sweater to hide herself right up to her chin. A trembling, white-hot desire, pooling deep in her lower abdomen, began to crowd out and supplant her anxiety. At first, it fused with the panic into a single, searing cocktail that pulsed through her veins with increasing intensity. Her body instinctively, desperately pressed against her ruthless tormentor, her legs locking around his flanks while he refused to spare her heaving chest from his attention. His tongue, cool and slick like an insolent serpent, contoured the most sensitive peak, and Catherine had to muster every ounce of her pathetic willpower not to throw everything to the wind—not to shove him off, roll him onto his back, and straddle him in a frenzy of madness. But it was highly unlikely this android, cold-blooded in every sense of the word, would ever permit her to seize control. At least, not tonight. The wet, demanding sounds of his kisses made her cheeks burn with an unbearable, ashamed fire, and her own moan—resembling the pitiful mewl of a kitten—sounded deafeningly loud against the absolute silence of these walls. A sharp spike of pain pierced nearly her entire body when her other breast, for no apparent reason, earned itself a bite. Catherine couldn't quite fathom what the true nature of this torture was supposed to be, but for now, Richard's actions provoked only a frantic, untamed arousal that had reached its absolute limit and was already spilling over the edge. Perhaps that was the entire point: to drive her completely out of her mind, to force her to humiliatingly beg for him to finally grant her the mercy of entering that desperately craved conclusion. But that would never happen, even if he pulled her Glock from the nightstand and pressed it to her temple. Nothing, absolutely nothing in this whole damn world would break her enough to force her to beg anyone for a handout. Her pride was her curse. A creeping doubt began to set in around the middle of her abdomen, and when it finally clicked where exactly and with what ruthless purpose his kisses were descending, her eyes, previously half-closed in ecstasy, now widened in absolute, unadulterated horror. Her heart hammered in her chest like a frantic, deafening alarm, panic surging inward and flooding her interior with a searing cold as his lips finally slid toward the place where her panty line should have been. The very underwear that, of course, she wasn't wearing. "No!" Catherine shrieked, so loud and sudden it sounded as if she were being flayed alive. Snapping up like she'd been scolded, she seized his shoulders, shoving him away. "Not that, please!" Slamming her palm against his forehead, she desperately held him at arm's length, far from the spot where his straying fingers had just been. "Remove your hand." His completely unsurprised gaze, almost bored to a degree, made it clear that this furious reaction was exactly what Richard had been anticipating. "For God's sake, just shoot me right here and now..." escaped her in a pained, ragged wail. Catherine broke into a literal sweat, burning alive with agonizing shame. She hadn't even allowed such things with her own husband! To say nothing of her partner, with whom she had spent a year hunting down scumbags daily, sharing hot coffee or, occasionally, something stronger. Trading jokes and sometimes playing backgammon over a glass of unfiltered beer in a bar after a shift. Yes, she had been sleeping with him for several months now, but it had always happened in a feverish rush, in the backseat of the department vehicle—swift, strictly functional, with no strings attached, and most importantly, without such a shameless, total exposure of soul and body. At least, on her part. The android, removing her hand without the slightest effort, pushed himself up and stared down at his curled, broken partner with a strange, almost sorrowful indifference. The very same Catherine who was usually as fearless as the devil himself, unhesitatingly brandishing her service weapon in the darkest alleys. To his logic, this was an utterly bizarre reaction to what he considered ordinary, albeit excessively intimate, yet ultimately harmless kisses. He hadn't done anything truly bad yet. Except her frantic resistance, panic, and pleas—all of it kept forcing him, step by step, to take action. "We had a deal, damn it," Richard purred warmly, despite the harshness of the words. A false, patronizing grimace appeared on his face, his voice adopting an equally counterfeit, comforting, velvet tone. He drew dangerously close to her face, his lips brushing against her tightly clamped ones. Gathering her disheveled hair with a mockingly tender movement, he traced a cold finger down her burning cheek, staring deep into the irrational, wild fright in her eyes. "Whatever you shriek within these walls, I have every right to ignore. You came up with these rules yourself," he said, rubbing his nose against hers affectionately in an Inuit kiss, though his voice shifted into a contradicting, icy tone. "So be a good girl and part your legs yourself, or I will part them for you. And I will do it roughly." "I..." Catherine forced the word out as if dragging sandpaper through her throat, genuinely terrified to the core. The calm blue LED on the android's temple showed not a single hint of instability, but she was scared to death by his cold, combat-ready stare—the look he usually wore when executing the most ruthless and sometimes illegal tasks. "I changed my mind! That's it, do you hear me? I changed my mind! Get off me, I don't want to do this anymore!" "You are still within these walls, Catherine," Richard reminded her with dry, clinical detachment, but to the woman beneath him, it sounded like the racking of a gun's slide. "And only I decide exactly when you have the right to 'change your mind.'" "But I want to leave..." The hot, trembling desire vanished instantly, leaving nothing behind but cold and fear. A shiver ran across her skin, and Catherine mechanically wrapped her arms around herself, her wide eyes blinking rapidly. The android finally stood up, but he was in no hurry to release her or let her out of bed. Instead, he executed a different, far more ominous maneuver: he unbuttoned his black shirt, pulled it off, and carelessly tossed it to the edge of the bed. Richard cast a patronizing look down at his partner—always so defiant, so bold, and yet so thoroughly pathetic right now. She had broken far too quickly. Too easily. And all because commands, as it turned out, needed to be formulated with a great deal more precision, and the concept of "do whatever you want" was far too elastic, too seductive, and, damn it all, incredibly dangerous. "What a pity." Giving no forewarning of anything sinister, the pads of his fingers traced a slow path up her bent knee. He swept them higher in a clinical evaluation—over her abdomen, her chest—before giving her chin an encouraging pinch. Richard hovered over her once more, using the sheer mass of his weight to pin her down, neutralizing any potential escape attempt before it could form. "W-What exactly is a pity?" Kate rasped miserably, her fear escalating into genuine terror. She cursed herself a thousand—no, a million—times over for her own insane, inexplicably driven, idiotic decision to let her partner ignore her orders tonight, to let him disregard her commands and perpetrate whatever crossed his mind within the boundaries of this bedroom. Any remaining pretense of caution from the android evaporated in an instant. Roughly, mercilessly, he pinned both of her wrists against the bedding right at the headboard. "That you will not be able to leave," the android whispered tenderly into her ear, a declaration delivered like a grim vow from a machine possessing expanded—and perhaps limitless—authority. He reached back toward his hip pocket, and something metallic, and therefore deeply ominous, clinked sharply in his hand. I didn't think about that... That single realization was the final coherent thought Catherine managed to process, staring up at the ceiling in sheer defeat, before realizing she had signed her own death warrant. Above her head, a sharp, metallic ratchet clicked into place, and an icy chill burned both of her wrists simultaneously. The sound carried a definitive message: it was entirely futile to impose boundaries on an entity that had mastered the art of bypassing them. And this treacherous lesson was one Catherine would remember with a shudder of profound shame for a very, very long time—if not for the rest of her life.