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“When you’re surrounded by perfection, you begin to see….the beauty in flaws.”
The red-haired genius kid had no idea how right he was, Dorian thought. Then again, maybe he did. Maybe that was the whole point. He was genetically engineered to be smarter, stronger, better (what did better mean?). To be perfect – and yet still human.
Like Dorian.
Dorian had often wondered about his own creation. He’d been made to be perfect, according to the definition of that word that humans had; the perfection of his body had been shaped by the specifications of the humans who desired his construction; it existed to serve the needs of those humans. His body was not his own, and in its perfection there was no story to tell, no deliciously human idiosyncrasy written onto his body, no experiences that shaped his physical form. In his perfection as a machine there was no freedom to be.
Dorian had often wondered why, given this fact, he hadn’t been made in the image of his maker. How had Dr. Nigel Vaughn decided to make Dorian a dark-skinned man of average height, of all the myriad possibilities? Why had the brilliant roboticist given him that small piece of humanity, of individuality, in giving him an appearance totally his own? Why, too, had Dr. Vaughn given him his very own soul, unique, individual, meant to define him and make him feel, when that soul resided in a body that was not even his own?
Maybe it was ironic, that unique soul burning within him, when his body could not tell its own story.
That was why he was so fascinated by John Kennex’s body. There was a beauty in flaws, and there was a beauty in John Kennex’s flawed, human body. That body told a story, its imperfections writing a narrative across his skin, speaking of a being who was his own man in a way Dorian could never be. His body was shaped and defined by the choices made by its owner, molded by the experiences of the soul within, and told of it. It was his own, human, natural, the product of the genes of two other human beings combining rather than of a man-made perfection, and therein lay its beauty, that it was made simply to be, rather than to be perfect in serving a purpose.
So when they lay together, with the lights dimly on, or in the dark (Dorian did not need light to see), he liked to trace his fingers over John’s half-naked form. He liked to admire the human canvas before him, to marvel in the stories it told.
Of course, Dorian could not really feel John’s body beneath his fingertips. He couldn’t t revel in the softness of the skin, the hardness of the muscle, the texture of the hair that peppered John’s body. He could only register its presence. Still, he enjoyed letting his fingers roam, marveling at the way the human body shivered as his fingers trailed tenderly over the sensitive skin at his hips. Smiling as John shivered in anticipation when his hand trailed up a thigh (the non-synthetic one) and wondering at the way it reddened if he pressed down or bit. There was something so incredibly charming in those reactions, human and candid and unpredictable as they were.
He liked, too, how John’s physical body spoke of the character within. His own body had shaped by human standards of the aesthetically pleasing and the useful. But where his own body had an effortlessly flawless male form, John’s fit and shapely body spoke of a willpower within, to conquer his own body and his own pain. John’s body had not been molded according to a Greek ideal of beauty but been made by the necessity for a strength both physical and mental. Each muscle of his was more than a combination of chemicals or a smooth, aesthetically pleasing curve; each told a story of necessity and willpower.
His tattoo was another story, written in dark ink on John’s skin. It was, Dorian had been pleased to discover, intriguing in a visceral sort of way, the bad boy undertones of it sending surges of excitement through his synthetic body. But, thinking beyond that, the tattoo meant that John’s body was his own, to change and write on, rework and transform. He liked to trace the curves of the inked image, wondering at the choice John had once made to make this change to his own body, to write his values onto his own skin in a way Dorian never could. His body was a canvas, to be painted and repainted, while Dorian’s had the tragic finality of a work of art already perfect and therefore unchangeable.
Finally, there was John’s scar. Dorian liked to trace it with his fingers, though he could not truly feel the way the smooth, raised skin of the scar contrasted with the rest of John’s body. Still, he liked to run his fingers over it (John had jumped the first time he’d done it, self-conscious). It was yet another piece of John’s humanity, his vulnerability. It told of a gunfight, an ambush, of the courage possessed by the man with it to plunge into danger and of the pain survived by him. It told of marks left on the character, on the soul, perhaps. It spoke, as Dorian’s body never could, for Dorian’s infinitely more durable body could be repaired, made good as new, parts replaced.
Sometimes Dorian ran his fingers over something as simple as John’s stubble. Dorian had a perfect head of synthetic hair; he could not, like John, grow stubble from several days of not shaving as he dealt with a difficult case. There was no five o’clock shadow to creep up on his face, to highlight his exhaustion. For that matter, he could not bruise, there could be no bags under his eyes to suggest how long and how hard he had worked. But John’s body said all those things, spoke of his dedication and his ceaseless efforts, his stubborn single-mindedness as he drove himself past the limit.
Even his synthetic leg told a story Dorian’s body couldn’t. That leg was an idiosyncrasy, an exception to an otherwise human body of flesh and bone, and in its very synthetic nature lay the story of a man who had suffered loss and trauma and yet survived it. The leg was similar to much of the hardware making up Dorian’s body, and yet there was a fundamental, devastating difference between the two. That was perhaps why that leg (usually charging, but it was attached to the human body at the moment) was the only part of John’s body that Dorian didn’t give too much attention to. Not through any sense of disgust or repulsion, but because of the inescapable reminder it served as that John’s leg had been made to serve his human needs as Dorian’s synthetic body had been created to fulfill human requirements.
John had learned to oblige Dorian when the android’s fingers trailed over his body, though his skin still flushed at the attention. His heartbeat grew erratic, as if unsure whether to be excited or embarrassed. Dorian liked to press his hand over John’s chest and feel as that heard beat valiantly, pumping the lifeblood through John’s human veins. He reveled in the way that heartbeat sped up as he trailed kisses over John’s skin – slow and tender at first, worshipping.
Then Dorian pressed his lips directly over John’s heart and left a kiss there. He knew the heart had nothing but the simple function of pumping blood; it was hardly logical for it to be associated with romantic notions, but somehow, inadvertently, Dorian had picked up that human eccentricity. And so he pressed his lips over John’s heart and kissed the skin there and murmured “mine” softly.
“Yours,” John agreed.
Dorian froze, his eyes flicking to John’s face. The other gazed down at the android lovingly, his one word probably forgotten. He had said it as fit the moment, hardly knowing what it meant to Dorian. Dorian let his head drop onto John’s shoulder as he held himself still and let the pleasure and joy that word brought wash over him. He was consumed, as something electrical, fiery, consuming surged through him. Perhaps this is what humans meant when they said they were “on fire,” or maybe this was what it was like to be “drowning,” to feel out of control by the things one’s body was feeling.
“Dorian?” he heard John ask, concerned. “You all right?”
“Yeah,” he managed to say. “I just- “
“You looked like you were having an orgasm there, man.”
Dorian nodded. “I was.”
John raised his eyebrows, a mildly questioning expression on his face. He knew orgasms were different for Dorian, with his synthetic body, than they were for him. Emotional rather than physical – Dorian had explained that. Dorian didn’t think John really understood, but he didn’t think either of them minded.
“My body is not my own, John,” Dorian explained. “It does not belong to me.” He didn’t need to go on; John had seen all the detailed paperwork that outlined Dorian’s uses to the department that owned him, had read all the reports that led to a decommissioning, following which Dorian’s body had been thrust carelessly into a body-bag and the synthetic form shipped off to a warehouse somewhere, regardless of the soul quietly dormant within.
“Oh.” John blushed suddenly, shame coloring his cheeks as his eyes searched for somewhere to look in the room. “I, uh – “ he stammered. “I hadn’t – thought of it like that.”
“You said you were mine,” Dorian continued. “You gave me agency. A possession cannot own things. But – a free man can.”
“Oh,” John said again. “Well.” He seemed to cast around for something to break the suddenly charged silence. “You’re a person to me,” he offered. “ A hell of an annoying one, though,” he seemed to feel the need to add.
Dorian chuckled, his laughter breaking the seriousness of the words preceding it.
Slowly, he lowered his head, until his lip’s met John’s skin again. “Can I?” he asked softly.
John seemed to know exactly what he meant.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Yeah.”
Dorian parted his lips, sucking a bruise into the skin above John’s collarbone. He watched in fascination as the skin blossomed with a redness that would later turn into a bruise-colored mark. John remained silent, watching Dorian watch him as the stillness surrounded them.
Dorian traced the collarbone to the shoulder, sucking bruises and biting, following each mark with “mine.” John began to squirm beneath him, his breath coming more quickly. Dorian sensed his heart beat faster as excitement flooded his body. It made him more fervent, as he bit where he had only sucked, leaving a trail of more bruises down John’s shoulder to his arm. “Yes, oh yes,” John murmured as he took skin between his teeth and bit down. He had to temper his bite so as not to tear skin.
John writhed beneath him, the excitement expressed by his pounding heart followed by the arousal flooding through his veins, easily apparent to Dorian’s inhuman sight. The human canted his hips up, seeking attention, which only spurred Dorian on. He towered above John now, his body covering the human’s, and with an easy movement, he pinned John’s wrists above his head, allowing his fingers to leave more bruises as they bit into skin while his mouth continued its biting and sucking.
“Mine,” he growled, relishing the tremor that ran through John’s body at the sound. “Mine,” he insisted, more adamantly, as he bit the skin above John’s nipple. John growled in response too, the sound low, as his hips canted up again.
Dorian moved lower, his hands moving from John’s wrists to his hips, fingers digging in equally hard to leave ten identical marks as he pressed John’s hips to the bed. John whined, frustrated at being held still. He let his legs fall apart, and Dorian happily took what was offered, biting his way down John’s thigh and relishing the desperate exhalations they evoked from the human. “Mine,” he insisted again, and John had no breath left to say any words.
“Mine, mine, mine…mine,” Dorian left a trail of words just as he left a trail of bruises back up John’s thigh. He murmured those very same words against the skin of John’s synthetic leg, too, and for once John did not seem to mind that Dorian drew attention to the synthetic body part.
“Dorian, I need – “ John breathed, just as Dorian uttered “John, can I – “ at the exact same time. Their eyes met, exchanging a knowing glance. He could sense John’s body go the human equivalent of haywire with need and arousal, a feeling he himself shared.
“Yours, I’m yours, come on – fuck,” John gasped as Dorian’s teeth sank into the skin of his thigh again. “Yours,” he begged, as if he was saying please.
Dorian paused for a fraction of a second, savoring each of those words as they washed over him. Uttered in John’s hoarse, arousal-broken voice, they sounded sweeter than any words of love or affection.
Eagerly, he spread John’s legs wider apart. He was still slick and prepared from when they’d made love earlier that night (and that was what it had been – lovemaking, slow and gentle, with none of the possessiveness that drove Dorian now). This time, after a cursory insertion of a couple of fingers to ensure John was prepared, Dorian entered him with one smooth movement. John sighed contentedly, throwing his head back as Dorian filled him. And how could Dorian not claim that beautiful, bared throat? “Mine,” he murmured against the vulnerable expanse of skin.
“You’re mine,” he growled again, as he began to fuck John. His hands returned to where they’d been on the human’s wrists, pinning him down as he continued to thrust into John’s body. “You belong to me,” he snarled, the words spilling in a kind of savage, primal way that he didn’t think he was programmed to experience in the first place. That’s what John would see – a human, animalistic kind of need; he didn’t spare any processing power to feel embarrassment at the thought. At the same time, with each deep thrust into the expectant human body beneath him, he came one step closer to satisfying some something unspoken, indescribable need within him that knew little of physical pleasure.
“Say it,” he ordered, the words torn from him by the same savage instinct; he wondered if it was a glitch in his programming that let him lose control in such a primal, such a human way. John’s stuttered gasps had progressed into surprised moans and small screams, sounds he could not hold back as Dorian drove into him hard enough to rock his bed. He made John’s body his own, laying a claim laying a claim that could only be laid through this kind of physical possession.
For a few seconds, Dorian heard nothing but John’s incoherent sounds; finally, however, John gathered his wits enough to let out a stuttered “Yours, I’m yours, please,” before going back to his incoherent litany.
Dorian was close now; John’s words, uttered with such effort as his human body fell apart with the sensations surging through it, had done much to speed him towards his satisfaction. He leaned forward, claiming John’s lips in a possessive kiss as he continued his movements, and when he broke away from it, he breathed another “mine” into the space between their lips. “Yours, yours, always,” John pleaded, the need filling his eyes.
They came at the same time. At least, Dorian supposed that was the correct phrase. John came, his body stilling momentarily as he spilled all over himself and let his eyes flutter closed. Dorian did not spill himself into John’s body; he could not mark the human as his own in that way. But that word – “always,” uttered so thoughtlessly by a desperate human in a moment when all the barriers were gone, when thought had fled and the walls between words and emotions were broken, that word had pushed him over the edge. It was …. he was not sure how he could describe it. There were strange sensations within him, electrical surges and shocks and subroutines following each other incoherently, his perfectly programmed brain out of control. He wondered whether this was another aspect of being human, this feeling of being so completely out of control due to the sensations of one’s body. To be controlled so completely by one’s own body.
And yet, despite the lack of control, his body felt his own for the first time. He felt a feeling of relief washing over him, from the sensations, but also from that one word John had said.
“Always.”
A human life was short, John’s likely shorter, but still – for all that life – his.
Always.