Power and control were Miss Amber Sweet's bread and butter.

Everyone said she was addicted to the knife. Most people also said that she was addicted to street Zydrate. A handful of those who kept up with more than half of the rumors of her personal life for whatever sick reason would even have said she was addicted to sex. But the truth was, all of those things were secondary, more like symptoms than original causes of their own.

Surgery?

"Take control of your life, because it's what's on the inside that counts." "Everybody, everybody make your genetics your bitch!"

Amber had absolute control over her entire body, every piece hand-picked, designed, perfected, and replaced as soon as it began to lose its luster. Nothing was in her body that she didn't command to be there. Well, except that one organ system for which her father had threatened to disown her if she got it surgically altered, but most of that organ system was useless to her anyway, and the part that wasn't functioned perfectly well as it was.

Zydrate?

"I can't feel nothing at all!"

What was pain but a slave driver? Living things were naturally slaves to pain. Not Amber - Zydrate protected her from that. She could watch her organs be replaced and improved on, nothing happened to her body without her knowing it; she could do anything, and nothing could get in her way - thanks to Z, she would never bow down to pain.

And sex?

Well, why had her father invented GENterns in the first place?

Living things were slaves to pleasure as much as to pain, and Amber Sweet could bring pleasure to anyone. There was no non-solo sex act you could name that she hadn't mastered - any fetish, any pose, any type of sex her female anatomy allowed, she had done it all and then some. She'd even been gang-raped a couple of times and enjoyed the hell out of it, had to beg her father not to press charges the second time, even allowed her father to attach two robot bodyguards to her who followed her wherever she went in exchange for him not making a fuss - she didn't mind people not asking first, it just meant that they were that much more enslaved to her through their desire.

Not just princess of the world, Miss Sweet strived to be desire incarnate, to be the very image of every man's fantasy, and she succeeded. Oh, of course, she enjoyed fucking for the same reasons as anyone else, and she had her preferences to how she liked it, but she would fuck absolutely anyone, any way they liked, if only for the satisfaction of knowing that they were helpless to resist her. Between a sex life to rival that of her brother Pavi, her limitless money, her many surgeries each day, and her social status as the daughter of the king…Yeah, it was good to be Amber Sweet.

It was good to be her lover, too, as long as it lasted - she'd go all out on anyone, push them as far over the edge as possible. She took as much control as she could in one go, because she never planned to see the same person twice. That's not to say she would go out of her way to avoid fucking the same person more than once, but repeat performances were never her plan, so she would give and take as much as possible right from the start. The few people she did see on a regular basis were mostly people whom it would be impractical of her to control with sex anyway, for varying reasons.

There was just one exception: the local necromerchant.

Rotti had cut Amber off from GeneCo's stock of Zydrate as soon as he'd found out about her addiction, then had set up the Zydrate Support Network and forced her to take the credit for it, just to save face - after all, her being an addict further tainted his image, and lord knew her brothers did enough of that anyway. Not that she tried to do any better. Still, without access to GeneCo's stock, and without lack of access to her family wealth, she had no choice but to buy from an illegal dealer. She had a feeling her father knew, but as long as it couldn't be proven to the public, he let it slide.

Graverobber was nothing extraordinary in Amber's eyes. Yeah, not bad looking - sexy, even, in a dark kind of way - and not the dullest scalpel on the tray, though also not the sharpest, but there was nothing particularly special about him; as a person, he was meh.

Except that he wasn't a person - he was a bum, a street rat. He was scum, filth, so far beneath her that he wasn't even worthy of her notice, and she would never have granted it to him if it hadn't been for the miracle drug he peddled. That she, the daughter of the king of the world, had to rely on that bottom feeder for anything sometimes made her feel sick.

All the same, he was a creature capable of desire, and as such, she could control him. She knew he wanted her desperately, that she was his most treasured - if not only - fantasy. It was nothing unusual, she'd seen men look at her with even more longing and desperation than Graverobber (and who could blame them?); unfortunately for Graverobber, he had the rotten luck of being a person she needed to have control over indefinitely, for days and months and years on end. As a result, she didn't fuck him for the sake of absolute control for a few minutes, and instead tormented him with little taunts and gestures day in and day out, wrapping him around her little finger and dragging him around on a string while he panted at her like the mutt he was - her mutt.

She knew he knew her game, too, and that he hated her for it.

Poor bastard.

Of course, she could have given him the best fuck of his life and jerked him around on a string that way, but tormenting him without giving him anything was just as effective, and though few people would believe it, Miss Sweet did have some standards - there were some lows to which even she refused to stoop unless she had to, and letting a street rat touch her was one of them. She didn't have to - he would do absolutely anything for her in the hopes of getting a chance to fuck her - so everything was perfect; like anyone else, he was her puppet, her plaything. To Amber, Graverobber was nothing but a source of Z and a slightly different kind of amusement than usual.

Until, one night, he wasn't.

Only those who knew her well would have been able to see it, but the night of Blind Mag's final opera, Amber Sweet was in an exceptionally good mood. Finally, that ungrateful bitch who had overshadowed Amber all her life and taken Amber's rightful place in Rotti Largo's heart as the apple of his eye was going to get the full repo treatment; it was no less than she deserved, and Amber was truly ecstatic. Just one last stupid fucking opera where the peasants went all goo-goo eyed at the sound of that fucking perfect soprano voice, and Miss Sweet would never have to put up with Mag's existence again. It was a very good night, Amber thought, as she blew off a press conference to pester Graverobber for a hit, walking through the back alleys where water half an inch deep covered the pavement and neon lights gave everything a surreal hue.

She found him, tucked away in an alcove in a wall of the alley, not knowing or caring what he was doing there. He looked up at the sound of her approaching, and she gave him her best, nastiest smirk as his eyes met hers. For some reason, though, that flare of lust she always saw in his eyes upon her arrival didn't show, only the ice-cold anger she was also used to.

Strange…

Amber faltered for a moment, confused, then decided that he must be in a bad mood for some reason and to think nothing of it. She proceeded as usual.

"What's the matter, Graverobber?" she taunted. "Can't get it up if the girl's breathing?" She walked over to stand in front of him in her long, shiny, black coat, suggestively snapping a whip she held in her hand gently against the ground.

He just made a weird face at her that contained some combination of contempt and disgust, making a gesture with his hands as though dusting dirt off of them, and said nothing.

Only Amber's exceptionally good mood kept her from getting pissed off at his sudden indifference - surely, she couldn't be losing control over him tonight, of all nights. She proceeded with her taunting little dance, moving all over the place suggestively in just subtly enough of a way that she could claim innocence if someone tried to call her out on it.

"Z me," she commanded Graverobber, "I need a hit, and I'm late, so hurry - don't keep my surGENs waiting-"

"Bitch, pay me," Graverobber spat, cutting her off.

Again with the not playing her game! Something was wrong, and Amber decided to ramp it up a bit. Having been brought by her little dance into a crouching position, she leaned forward, deliberately lowering her chest to give Graverobber the best possible view of her cleavage, and crawled towards him, slow and catlike and suggestive and not nearly as subtle as what she usually went for with him.

"Later," she said, adding an extra-husky edge to her tone.

But his eyes didn't even spark. "Okay," he said coolly as he started walking away, "I'll see you later." Amber's bodyguards blocked him from walking further in the direction he started in, but he simply turned around and started going the other way.

Impossible.

"Where're you going?" Amber exclaimed, getting to her feet. "Stay here!"

She didn't miss the little headshake he made as he walked away without another word.

He wasn't under her control anymore. Somehow, his fantasy of touching her wasn't the most important thing in his life all of a sudden. Maybe he'd given up, more likely he'd found something else to replace it, but either way, her control had slipped.

And Amber Sweet simply could not have that.

Taking off her coat, which one of her bodyguards automatically reached over to help her with and take from her, she made a split-second decision to get Graverobber back.

"There's ways for me to pay, dear, other than dough," she said.

Just a quick fuck. No big deal, just what she needed to do to get him back under her thumb. Fucking street rat…

She watched as he slowed to a stop, then turned around. The moment she knew he could see her, she cupped her breasts in her hands, rubbed over them quickly, then began sliding her hands down her stomach, her hips, her thigh…She felt his eyes on her, watching her, scorching her with his desire, and she suppressed a triumphant smile; his lust for her was far from gone, she'd known it was.

"I want a hit of Z," she told Graverobber, making her voice slow and seductive, "and we're not talking for free."

She turned to her right and shamelessly straddled one of her bodyguards while still standing up, dragging his hand to her ass and forcing him to caress her leg; the idiot obeyed her nonverbal commands like a flesh puppet.

"I'm thinking more of a game of give and take," Amber went on as she turned around to press her ass against the crotch of her one bodyguard and run her hands down the bare chest of the other, taunting Graverobber with images of some of the gentler things she'd do to him; "and baby, I'll give 'til I break."

Graverobber was walking back over to her now, looking like he wasn't even making any sort of conscious effort to do so. Amber felt a thrill when she saw the look in his eyes: He was utterly hypnotized by her, completely under her control.

That's more like it.

She leaned back, allowing her bodyguards to lift her up as she lifted and parted her legs, just to push the envelope a bit. "I may be a bitch, but I ain't nobody's fool - this bitch knows the rules," she told Graverobber. It was true, too, more true than he would have guessed - she'd heard of junkies paying for Zydrate with sex before, and more importantly, she had never heard of Graverobber turning down such an offer. Either he really loved to fuck, or he operated under some principle that meant he had to accept whichever type of payment he was offered…and Amber had always had a strong suspicion that it was the latter. Selfish and stuck-up she may have been, but she definitely wasn't stupid.

Her bodyguards put her down as Graverobber crouched down by the wall and took off his pack, and she removed her hands from the two goons and stalked over to where Graverobber was looking up at her from, making each step suggestive.

"I'll let you fuck my soul for a hit of that glow," she told him, getting down on the ground herself, rubbing all along one leg before flexing her entire body. She knew she didn't have to work half as hard to seduce him as she was, but he'd had the audacity to not play her game, so she was going to do her best to drive him fucking insane.

She turned on him. "So come on," she taunted, "climb on." She lunged at him and shoved him against the wall. "Man up!" she shouted in his bewildered face.

In one quick movement, she grabbed him by the front of his shirt, lifted him to his feet, and twisted around so that she was between him and the wall, her back to him. "Come up and try my new parts," she mocked him, sticking out her ass and rubbing it against his arousal; "come on and break 'em in. We both know what we want…"

She said the words without thinking about them, throwing back her head and gasping as she felt his rock-hard cock press against her, bringing on an intense rush of arousal.

…Wait, what?

Graverobber leaned over her, she could feel his breath on her neck, and he reached down with both hands and grabbed her ass.

ZAP!

A white-hot bolt of electricity sizzled through Amber's body at his touch; it was all she could do to bite back a moan of pleasure. Fuck, that felt good…

…Wait, what the fuck? She'd had her ass grabbed plenty of times, by much more handsome, much more desperate, and much, much worthier men than this lowlife! Why did he feel so…amazing…?

What's wrong with me? Amber wondered momentarily.

Oh well, it didn't matter; it wasn't like she had the option of stopping now, whatever her problem was. Besides, maybe this would actually turn out to be a little fun. That would be nice. Right?

Amber turned around, forcing Graverobber to release his grip, and he raised his hands and pressed them against the wall on either side of her as she arched her back to press her groin against his. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of her bodyguards standing next to them. She glanced at him momentarily, then returned her focus to Graverobber. Graverobber, however, turned his head to see what she had looked at. He then turned his head the other way to see that her other bodyguard was standing on the other side of them. He looked at Amber then, the raging lust in his eyes giving way to a suspicious wariness.

Amber understood, and she smirked at him. "Oh, don't mind them, they won't bother us," she reassured him. She glanced at the two living robots. "Boys, give us some privacy, won't you?" she asked them sweetly, ever true to her name.

Without a word, both guards turned and walked down opposite ends of the alley, around the corners and out of sight. Amber knew that they were just beyond her field of vision, close enough to lend her immediate assistance if she needed it, but also far enough away that they'd keep anyone who might be wandering around from stumbling across the exchange between Amber Sweet and her drug dealer.

"There," she purred, placing her hands on Graverobber's chest and watching as the lust in his eyes returned full-force. "Not only will they not bother us, they'll make sure no one else can come along and bother us, either." She slowly slid her hands down Graverobber's chest as she sank to her knees. "You have me all to yourself," she told him, her voice husky, as her hands reached his belt. "We can do this however you like…You can take me any way you want…" She began unbuckling his belt and pants as he took off his heavy coat and threw it aside. "You know you want to take me," she added as she unzipped his pants. She certainly knew - the proof was right under her hands.

He looked down at her, meeting her eyes, his desire so intense it could have burned her alive…and then, suddenly, there was a flicker of hesitation there, the fire dying down.

Well, Amber couldn't have that, now, could she?

"What's the matter, Graverobber?" she taunted, turning on every bit of seductive charm she had so that even the movement of her lips as she said the words was enticing.

She watched his self-control snap behind his eyes, and she knew she had conquered him completely. He dropped to his knees, putting his hands around her neck…and damn it, his touch felt good! So good that when she exclaimed "Take me!" as he brushed her hair behind her shoulder, baring the pale skin of her neck, instead of coming out as a command, as she had intended, it came out as a gasp of desire.

He licked his way along her shoulder and up her throat. Heat poured into her body from where his tongue touched her skin, filling her and burning her up, pooling especially between her legs…He felt so incredible, words she meant as mocking taunts came out instead as breathy whimpers: "I can take it, baby! I don't care where you put it; why don't you surprise me?"

What. The. Fuck? Why, why did he feel so good? It didn't make any sense!

Then he pulled her closer, and she felt his breath tickle her ear. "Dance for me first," he growled, his voice so rough with arousal that she could barely understand him.

She laughed. Make him take his hands off her, then show off her body while he was rendered dumb by the sight, asserting absolute control over him? Fuck yes. It was almost as if he knew exactly what she wanted from him and wanted to give it to her, and was made all the more perfect by the fact that that wasn't the case.

Amber arched her back, rising to her feet, smooth as a dancer. Graverobber gave her a little room, and she started twisting and flexing her body, her movements flowing, contorting into all sorts of positions that she knew would make him want. Sometimes he'd grab at her, and when he did, it was all she could do to not gasp at the heat of his touch. She hid it by grinning wickedly at him and flexing whatever he'd grabbed onto, driving him crazier in turn. "Come on, work me!" she taunted him.

She knew he literally couldn't take it anymore when, as her moves brought her onto her back, he started to climb on top of her. But that was moving forward on his terms, and Amber wasn't going to let it go that way. She kicked him hard in the side, just under his armpit, and he fell to the side and away from her, pushed as much by surprise as by her own strength, she could tell. She scrambled to her feet, and he looked up at her from the ground, a tiny bit of confusion lacing the heat of his gaze.

"Come on," she urged him, smiling nastily, "you know you like it naughty."

He got to his feet, slowly.

"Oh, naughty boy," Amber teased him, "take me! And I ain't askin-"

He lunged at her suddenly, just as she jumped at him and wrapped her legs around his hips, and he slammed her into the wall, his body pressed hard against hers.

"Come on," she gasped, slightly winded from the force with which she'd hit the wet brick, as she felt him reach down and free his cock, guiding it between her legs. Poor bastard must practically be in pain-

Then Graverobber grasped her hips and pulled her down, thrusting up into her as hard as he could.

She had been mostly prepared for it, so Amber managed not to let out a scream of ecstasy at the intense pleasure that surged through her body, if only just. She couldn't contain a gasp, though, and she arched against Graverobber almost involuntarily. Sweet hell, he felt incredible!

…Why?

As he pulled out, then thrust into her again, and again, her hands, which she'd been holding over her head, dropped down to grasp him by his shoulders - she couldn't help it, he felt too good. She tightened her hold on him as he spun around, still inside her, and she looked down at him, smirking when he looked up at her. Then he dropped to his knees, lowering her to the ground slowly, carefully, almost as if he was some sort of gentleman or something. Amber held out her arms behind her to brace herself so he could go down faster. Then she was on the ground on her back, and Graverobber was on top of her, and he started fucking her roughly.

Amber gasped and moaned with pleasure as he took her, fighting the intensity of the rush but enjoying it all the same. She did her best to fuck him back, to pull him in, to thrust her own hips in time with his, but she easily could have lain there and done nothing and it would still have felt amazing. He felt too good, damn it! And it didn't even make sense, he wasn't doing anything special - in fact, she could have been fooled into thinking this was his first time, he fucked like an amateur! But god damn it, he felt so good…The part of her that knew he was scum hoped he'd finish soon, before she did, so that she wouldn't have to live with the shame of having been brought to ecstasy by a street rat; but the hedonistic part of her wanted this to last, to find out just how intense her orgasm would be if she did finish, and it wanted that very badly.

Before she could stop herself, she tilted her head up to press her lips against his for a moment. Kissing wasn't exactly normal for her, but for some reason, it felt right just then. She quickly realized what she was doing and broke away, but…No, even if she couldn't deny anything else, she wasn't going to think about how his lips felt, that was going too far.

Suddenly, she felt him pull back, surprising her - she knew he hadn't cum yet. A second later, he slid into her again, leaning over her and holding out a vial of Zydrate.

Amber fastened her gaze on the glowing drug. That's why I'm doing this, she reminded herself. I'm not letting this bottom feeder fuck me just for fun, I'm doing it for that, for Zydrate. She reached up to take the vial, but just before her fingers closed around it, he pulled it out of her grasp. She tried to grab it again, but he raised it up as high over her as he could, taking it out of her reach.

They were still for a second. Amber tried to focus on the blue glow above her, not the fact that his cock felt so good inside her even though he wasn't even moving…

"Now hold still, damn it!" he snarled.

Oh.

He didn't like that she was enjoying this. It made it difficult for him to pace himself. Well, wasn't that gentlemanly of him?

In that case…

Amber took her gaze off the little glass vial and met Graverobber's eyes. She grinned at him, almost laughing at his problem, then lurched into a sitting position, wrapped both of her arms tightly around his head and neck, and crushed her lips against his.

Kissing really wasn't part of Amber's normal routine, but if Graverobber was just on the verge of completely losing control, then one last push was more than warranted. She hesitated a moment to open her mouth against his - did the man even bathe? - but to her surprise, he didn't taste bad at all. He tasted good, even. Not delicious, but…good. Enough.

She rocked her hips against his, just enough that she felt him shudder, as she bruised his lips with the force of the kiss that he returned passionately. She felt his free hand tangle in her hair, pulling her harder against him. He was helpless right then, and she knew it - she could do anything to him, anything at all, and he wouldn't even notice.

So, she unwrapped her left arm from around his head, placed her hand on his shoulder, slowly ran her way up his upraised arm, intertwined her fingers with his around the vial of Zydrate, then yanked it out of his hand, pulling her mouth away from his in the same instant to grin at him triumphantly. Stupid son of a bitch, he shouldn't have let his guard down.

Amber was sorely tempted to just struggle her way out of his grip - even call her bodyguards to help her - and take the Zydrate without finishing this; Graverobber would be her slave if she stopped him halfway through and he never got to cum, and she would have everything she wanted. And yet…she didn't want to stop. He felt so good…Besides, she hadn't driven him over the edge yet, hadn't forced him to completely lose control, and that wasn't something she could let slide.

So she would finish it. Just as a power play. That was all. Not because she wanted to stay with him and keep fucking him for her own pleasure…

As Graverobber's arm came down, Amber placed the little glass vial on the pavement beside them, then flicked it with the tip of her finger, not taking her eyes off of Graverobber as his gaze followed the rolling vial of drugs until it hit the wall with a soft clink! He looked at her then, utterly bewildered. They looked in each other's eyes, Amber grinned at him…and then they grabbed at each other, drawing each other crushingly close and locking their lips in a bruising kiss, and started fucking each other mindlessly.

Amber let herself go for once, for the most part - the more out of control she went, the more Graverobber lost his own self-control, after all. That made sense, right? She bit his lip, his neck, digging her nails into his back like claws, gasping and squeezing him with every muscle in her body. She didn't give herself over completely, though, as she still didn't want him to make her cum, not him of all people. But no matter how hard she worked him, no matter how passionately she returned his touches, his kisses, his thrusts, he still somehow kept going. Now it was Amber who had to struggle with every ounce of self-control she had to hold back her orgasm…and her self-control wasn't nearly as strong or trained as Graverobber's.

Unable to fight it anymore, she tore her mouth away from Graverobber's and screamed as she came, the release incredible, powerful, mind-bending.

Sweet. Delicious. Fuck.

A few moments later, she heard him roar even louder than she had and felt him cum inside her, filling her. An extra surge of pleasure augmented her climax, making her cry out again, as it went on, and on…

She didn't relax into him when she was finished; instead, she struggled out from under him as soon and as quickly as she could. He slumped to the ground heavily, as though unconscious, and she couldn't help but smirk at the sight. Her bodyguards, who of course had heard her, came jogging down either side of the alley, and she held out her hands and almost gratefully allowed them to help her up - she didn't trust herself on her feet just then.

One of the guards looked at Graverobber, almost as though he was about to nudge the prone dealer to check if he was still alive.

"Oh, don't worry about him, he's fine," Amber told her guard. She thought for a moment, then revised, "He might not be able to walk for a few minutes, but he'll be fine." She chuckled.

Then Graverobber let out a very pitiful groan, and Amber saw his fingertips twitch. He looked and sounded so utterly pathetic, she couldn't help but laugh at him.

"Well, well, look who's awake," she said mockingly. With her bodyguards' support, she walked over to him, then crouched down and put her mouth right by his ear. "That was fun, Graverobber," she said softly; "let's do it again sometime." On a sudden burst of inspiration, she quickly swiped her tongue behind his ear, his helpless moan her reward.

She laughed again as she grabbed the vial of Zydrate on the ground, then stood up. "Come on, boys," she said to her bodyguards as they lent her their support so she could walk; "I don't know if I have enough time to get cut again before the Z gathering, but it's worth checking to find out." Because that was what was really important - her next surgery.

…Right?

She wanted to believe that, but as she proceeded back through the alleys, she couldn't help but dwell on what had just happened. Amber Sweet had forgotten more fucks than most people get to have in their entire lifetime, but the more she (unwillingly) thought about it, the more she was forced to acknowledge the one hundred percent certain, unquestionable, undeniable fact that what she had just done with Graverobber had by far been the best sex of her life.

And that made no fucking sense.

He hadn't done anything special, nor was he anyone special; on the contrary, she should have been repulsed by his touch, the filthy bum. But damn it all to hell, he had felt so good…

Why? Amber kept wondering. Why did I enjoy him so much? Why did having him inside me make me feel so…so…alive?*

Getting frustrated with herself, Amber turned to anger to protect her from the possible implications of where her mind was going. Something had happened to make him stop wanting her, had forced her to fuck him in the first place, and she wondered what it had been. It had better not have been a person, because if it was, and I ever meet them, they're going to wish that they had never been born, Amber thought wrathfully, completely unaware of just how very right - and how very wrong - she would turn out to be.

*Heh heh heh…"Somehow, I guess I just knew…but I didn't know I'd love you so much."