The little villa in the south of France is owned by someone George worked with long ago. Someone who obviously stayed with Elster's company long enough to make a pretty penny, Odi thinks, though he doesn't say anything. He's just happy to be with George, and though they go in the off season it's still beautiful and bright and warm, and no-one knows him.
He still feels conspicuous, moving among humans as if he is one of them, even with the contacts to hide his synth-green eyes. But he lets George take him shopping in the nearby town for a modest wardrobe suitable to a human his age, lets him take him out walking through the cobbled streets and along the seaside. He's learned the little tricks that let him sit with George in sidewalk cafes under striped umbrellas and slowly sip coffee, talking and watching people walk by. George, somehow, always seems to know when Odi begins to feel too overwhelmed, and calms him with a hand on his knee or an arm around his shoulders, taking him back to the villa and away from the public.
The evenings are what Odi likes best. He cooks the food they bring back from the market - simple, healthy, fresh - served with a glass or two of local wine. After George eats they curl together on the couch in the villa's small lounge. Odi charges if needed and George selects a movie from the dusty stack of DVDs in the entertainment center, whatever he feels Odi most needs to see.
Odi could, if he wanted, access the synopsis for almost any movie in the world from the internet. But he likes discovering these with George, resting back against his chest with George's arms around him, listening to George's occasional comments and explanations of the stories they watch. He asks questions, sometimes, enjoying learning more about the wide scope of life - how people live, play, fight, love - through George's eyes and the plots of the films.
Mostly, though, he just likes being close to George.
One night it's an old black and white film about a fishing boat captain in the Caribbean during the second world war. Odi watches the beautiful blonde heroine with the heavy lidded eyes slide down to perch on the captain's lap, pressing her lush lips to his in a lingering kiss. Strangely, he questions her.
i"What did you do that for?"
"Wondering whether or not I'd like it."
"What's the decision?"
"I don't know yet."/i
Odi presses his fingers to his own lips lightly as he watches them kiss again, longer, more passionate. He knows enough about human physiology to understand, in theory, why a kiss affects them so. How the concentration of nerve endings and thinner skin mean more sensation. But why would the feel of lips against lips feel any better than any other kind of touch? At the same time, he thinks on his own experience, the few times he's pressed brief, chaste kisses to George's cheek or forehead, the sensation of pleasure that had resulted. Was it part of Elster's clever programming, to detect when stimulation to the lips meant ikissing/i and should be interpreted as pleasurable?
He checks his charge. 92%. Almost optimal. Then he unplugs and shifts in George's arms to look up at him, and George raises his eyebrows, questioning.
Odi chews on his bottom lip. "George... what does it feel like to kiss?"
George watches him for a long moment. "Pleasurable," he says finally, carefully. "Intimate. A way to express attraction, passion, or affection, to connect with someone you love. It depends on your intention." His lips quirk into a small, bemused smile. "Don't you go getting any ideas from that femme fatale on screen there."
The comment leaves Odi feeling puzzled, though he had come to the logical conclusion that the only person he cared for enough to kiss was George. "Why?"
"You're far too young to be thinking about kissing."
He doesn't point out the inaccuracy of the statement, since he would have had to be thinking about kissing to have brought it up in the first place. Instead he ponders the idea of age. "I suppose that on human terms I only have six years of memory," he says slowly as he thinks, "But my original programming was intended to give me the experience of a human who had reached the age of maturity. And taking into account that synthetics can process and retain more information than humans should mean - "
George chuckles softly and shakes his head. "Well then, you're still too young to be thinking about kissing ime/i."
Strangely, George's reaction leaves him feeling disappointed. He glances at the screen and searches for data on the movie. "The actors in this film have a twenty-five year age difference. They married. They remained happily married until Humphrey Bogart's death in nineteen-fifty-seven."
"That's beside the point."
The disappointment grows. "You don't want to kiss me?"
George closes his eyes for a moment and gave a long sigh. "Odi... there's certain... lines. That shouldn't be crossed. The fact that we share a bed - oh god, don't look at me like that. Just trust me. You don't want to do this, okay?"
Odi tries to pull his bottom lip in, but it twitches back into a pout with the disappointment he feels. "But... I love you, George. Who else would I ever want to kiss?" Then the thought crosses his mind - he'll never know anyone else well enough to love them. That he can't, by the nature of what he is, safely become close to anyone other than George. He lowers his head, only to have George reach up to stroke the side of his cheek gently, and while he knows that George intends the touch to be reassuring and comforting, it only makes the ache of disappointment inside him grow.
George sighs again, pressing his lips to his forehead. "... you're just curious?"
"It's alright," Odi replies, trying to push away the disappointment and failing. "It was silly of me to ask."
"It's not silly," George's fingers press against the side of his chin, avoiding his power switch with careful familiarity as he gently urges him to tilt his face up. Then George's lips are pressed to his, a warm, gentle pressure, caressing, lingering. Odi feels an immediate rush of warmth move over him, an unexpectedly intense pleasure registering through his sensory relay. He feels elation and excitement at the same time, in a slightly nervous way, while part of his mind tries to find some logical explanation as to why he's reacting how he is. It isn't logical, except that the knows that he's kissing iGeorge/i, and that fact alone awakes a strange, fluttery happiness inside him, mixed with an aching longing to be closer to him.
The pressure against his lips lessens slightly, and Odi leans forward to increase it again, a soft moan escaping his throat at the shiver of pleasure that runs through him. He feels like he needs to anchor himself against this whirlwind of emotion and sensation, so he slips his arms up around George's neck and presses closer to him.
What he doesn't expect is the low hum George makes in the back of his throat as he does, soft and throaty and unmistakably pleased. George's fingers slide back into his hair, exerting a most delicious pressure on the back of his skull, and the arm that's still wrapped around him tightens, pulling him closer. Odi draws a soft gasp, lips parting, surprised when George's teeth catch his bottom lip, sucking and nibbling gently. The sensation is intensely pleasurable, a lightning-shock that rushes through his relay and lingers in his groin, and Odi groans, wanting more, wanting to give himself over completely to this illogical pleasure and beautiful sensation.
George breaks from his mouth abruptly, pressing his forehead to Odi's, letting out a long, shaky breath. "Jesus."
"You stopped," Odi says before he can stop himself, unable to keep the disappointment out of his voice. His lips still tingle with remembered pleasure, and it takes every bit of his self control to keep himself from twisting to claim George's mouth again.
George gives a soft huff of a laugh, helpless. "Yeah. I'm sorry. It wasn't my intention to... you..."
"Then what was your intention?"
George sighs again, moving to press a kiss to his forehead, nuzzling his hair. "You... kiss very organically," he murmurs, not answering Odi's question, his fingers stroking through his hair and down his spine almost restlessly. "I didn't expect..."
"It feels..." Odi stops, too many words running through his mind. "Like nothing I've ever experienced," he says finally. "I can't imagine how people can ever stop kissing."
"...yeah." George says after a moment, and lets out another long breath. His pulse and temperature are both elevated, breathing quicker than usual, and his fingers tighten on Odi's back slightly as he holds him. "... please don't ask me for that again."
The thought of it makes Odi feel even more disappointed. "Why not? It pleased you, didn't it?"
George's eyebrows are knit when he pulls back to look at him. He opens his mouth to say something, then sighs again. "Yeah," he says finally, and looks away. "But I... can't. Things can't be like that between us. Alright?"
Odi feels his throat tighten, and has to purse his lips to keep them from pouting. "... why?"
"Too many reasons." He brings a hand up to touch Odi's cheek, looking as unhappy as Odi feels. "I'm sorry, Odi. Forgive me. Please."
Despite how he feels, Odi forces himself to nod. He sits back against the couch, trying to push away the disappointment he feels, swallowing hard against it and not having any success. "... George?"
"Yeah, Odi?"
"Can we... still cuddle?"
George sighs, but tugs him closer, urging Odi's head towards his shoulder and pressing a kiss to his hair. "Yeah. Yeah, we can."
Odi brings himself out of power-saving mode the next morning when he feels George start to stir, as he's set his sensors to do. But he feels unexpectedly strange - warmer than he should be, a curious sensation sparking across his relay that aches, though it's in no way painful. It makes him want to cuddle closer to George, which he does, nuzzling his face against his neck. Then he takes full stock of himself and realizes that he's ierect/i, cock pressed hard against George's thigh.
Embarrassment overwhelms him immediately, and Odi jerks away with a squeak, sitting up and scooting to the other side of the bed. "I'm sorry!"
George, fully awake now, blinks up at him with a soft groan. "Oh, Elster, what have you done..." he mutters, then pushes himself up as well. "It's okay."
Odi's torn between wanting to hide his face behind his hands and press them to his lap, panicked, mortified. The thought of crawling under the bed is incredibly tempting. "I'm sorry, I - I didn't activate those subroutines, I don't think I have the ability to do it by myself, I don't know how I - "
"It's okay," George says again, reaching across the space between them to lay a hand on his shoulder. "Trust me. It's just part of being..." he snorts softly. "Human."
"Humans have to deal with... just randomly? That's terrible! How do I make it stop?"
George snorts again, and he doesn't seem at all troubled by these unpleasant events, which makes Odi feel slightly less terrible. "A couple options. Not sure a cold shower would affect you much. So you either wait for it to go away on its own, or you, um, stimulate yourself until... you finish your sexual response cycle."
Odi thought about touching his own lips, and shook his head in confusion. "How can that work if my adult subroutines are based on the expectation of sexual intercourse?"
George winces, but smiles, shaking his head. "Oh, I'm sure Elster's programming was far more human than a simple "if-then". Just try it. It has as much to do with the intention as the mechanics. Think about wanting to give yourself pleasure. You'll be fine." He gets out of bed at that, pulling on a bathrobe and patting Odi's hair as he passes. "I'm going to shower. You can do whatever you choose."
Odi watches him go, then leans back against the headboard and pulls his knees up to his chest. There's definitely no way to override those subroutines, though he has the distinct feeling that there must have been before Elster's code made him conscious. The situation he's in begins to feel distinctly uncomfortable, so Odi closes his eyes, laying back down, and slips one hand down into his pants.
He's most definitely more sensitive like this, and pleasure shivers through him as he curls his fingers around his cock, squeezing gently. He lets his fingers move over the length of his shaft, caressing, exploring, discovering what feels best and feeling his breathing come harder as he does. He still feels awkwardly self conscious laying here doing this alone when it's designed to be done with a partner, but he tries not to think on it, focusing instead on the shivers of pleasure that travel through his relay as he begins to stroke himself slowly from root to tip and back again.
Before he can stop himself, he's replaying his memories of the night before. The memory of George's lips against his sends a flood of sensation through him, unexpectedly strong. For a moment he stops, frozen, guilty. George had said things couldn't be that way between them. He had to respect that. But at the same time he knows that those memories are the key to accomplishing his aims. And George isn't here, and won't ever know.
Odi closes his eyes and presses the side of his hand against his lips as he begins to stroke himself again.
It's too easy to replay exactly how things had felt - the pressure of George's fingers against the back of his skull, his soft moan of pleasure as he pulled Odi closer. He remembers the pleasure of his lips moving against Odi's, sucking and nibbling at his bottom lip. He feels his breath quicken, the same aching, fluttery happiness moving through him, and imagines what it would be like to feel that now, to have George draw him close and claim his mouth again, kissing him breathlessly as Odi strokes himself. He imagines George pushing his fingers away to touch him himself, his broad hands larger, warmer than his own, and the thought is so intensely arousing that Odi suddenly feels himself completely overwhelmed, pleasure rushing and sparking across his relay, entirely eclipsing every thought and process so that for a few seconds all he can do is feel that incredible, overwhelming ecstasy.
His first thought, when his thoughts return, is that he's somehow malfunctioned. But soft waves of pleasure still buzz across his sensors, and he recognizes that his cock has begun to soften, the aching need he'd felt turned to relief.
His next thought is to wonder how the hell humans keep from just having sex iall the time/i. If it had felt that good just ithinking/i about George -
No. Odi forcefully pushes his mind away from that thought, forces himself to access and replay a random memory - washing dishes at home. Then he lets out a long breath.
George had, very firmly and definitely, declined any possibility of... this. He had to respect that. The thought crosses his mind that George and Mary would have certainly shared this kind of intimacy, which brings with it a surge of guilt. It's been selfish of him, to ask George to give away a part of himself that would be so special. He won't do it again. It will be enough just to be important to George in the ways that he already is.
He dresses, going downstairs, and starts breakfast.
George joins him a short time later, clean and dressed. "You feeling better?" he asks quietly.
"Yes, thank you. But... I think it best if we not talk about it," Odi says, trying to keep his voice even and calm.
"Probably," George agrees, reaching around him to grab a coffee mug. But as he does so, Odi detects under the scent of George's soap and aftershave the lingering traces of a scent that he hasn't noted in quite some time - certainly not since he's developed consciousness - and for a split second he freezes, unsure of how to process the knowledge.
George pours himself a cup of coffee and sits down on a stool on the other side of the island, and now that Odi knows what to look for it's unmistakable - George is certainly post orgasmic, languid and relaxed. And logically, the defining factor in him being that way must be that Odi was also...
The realization makes him feel awkward and self-conscious and aroused all at once, but at the same time he knows there's nothing he can ido/i about it.
Instead he focuses on making breakfast, and thinks about washing the dishes.