He finished his vegetable fragments and wiped his fingers on his pants, shooting me a brief, almost furtive glance.

Yes. The data was starting to fall into place.

He stood then, crumpling the food wrapper and adjusting his pants. He looked away pointedly, as though I hadn't seen him look at me. Well. From his point of view, it might seem I hadn't. I was, after all, faced away, faceplate opaque. One of the two drones with me was assigned solely to surveilling him, my partner in this current security assignment. He walked away, tossing the wrapper in the trash and shooting another look at me, this one not as veiled.

Yes, definitely. I was good at patterns – SecUnits have to be. He'd worked with SecUnits before. The questions he'd asked and not asked at the instructional briefing on my operation had made that clear to me.

I sent the drone with him as he walked out. My other four drones were stationed where they could observe the four accesses to our location. My client dutifully visited each of these accesses, physically tapping the drones at two of them and looking to check the locations on the other two. Those two were safely located on the ceiling. I'd moved the other two out of his reach after he'd touched them. The cheap surveillance drones I'd been provided with were delicate.

I didn't think my client meant anything by it. He was being careful, verifying there was no way anyone could interrupt what he was going to do. I knew what that was, at least in broad strokes.

You might think I'd be disgusted or repulsed to be used sexually by clients. I'm not. That's a human-oriented point of view. I'm a piece of equipment and my opinions about my use rarely extend past avoiding damage, governor module shock, or death-by-boredom. That last one isn't possible, unfortunately, or at least I have not yet succumbed to it. I've been put to the test often enough that it's right near the top of things I have an opinion on.

Still, the humans who took advantage of privacy with me usually acted like they were doing something surreptitious and socially disapproved of. Which made no sense, given there's an entire line of popularly available products very much like me available for the express purpose of human sexual use. Every large-scale facility I've been assigned to has had them somewhere, tucked away with private areas so the humans could make reservations and entertain themselves. It didn't seem like that bad a gig. ComfortUnits are unlikely to find out if it's possible to die of boredom.

So when he walked back to the central location we'd staked out as our optimal staging area, I wasn't surprised when he ordered, "Hey. Take off the helmet."

I did, holding it at my side. I looked at him with my eyes. This is generally inadvisable for good client relationships, but it wasn't disallowed unless the client ordered me not to. Also, I wanted him to know I was seeing him, that I saw him, and I knew what he was going to tell me to do. It felt important somehow.

He met my eyes and faltered for a moment. I could imagine him reconsidering. He'd clearly done this before with some other unit. He was too practiced for this to be a first time. But maybe the others hadn't looked at him.

Humans have so many rules about eye contact. Reading it and making sense of it was built into my programming, right alongside understanding human body language, tone of voice, and various other threat detection processes. I didn't want to spend the rest of the shift staring at the wall or entertaining him in ways that might involve damage or pain. I dropped my eyes.

Through my drone, I saw him chew his lip. "You watching the perimeter?"

"Yes."

He nodded slowly, glancing behind himself anyway. Paranoid. My assessment flipped. This was his first time. He wasn't practiced. He was just smart and careful. "Do you bite?" he asked, making it clear where his thoughts were.

"Not clients." Doing any harm at all was highly punishable and as I've said, avoiding (my own) pain is a priority.

"Okay, kneel." He started unfastening his pants.

I knelt. "If you intend to use me orally, you would benefit from lubrication. I do not generate saliva."

He froze, staring at me. My eyes were directed straight ahead, at his half-hard erection, the folds of fabric around it, one hand on himself and one on the cloth. "Uh … do we have any?" He looked around.

The industrial facility we were guarding almost certainly contained varied lubricants, but we were posted here to prevent interference with the machinery. Theft of supplies counted. It was a direct question, though. I was required to answer. "No."

He seemed lost, his big plan derailed by the assumption that my oral cavity would conform to human standards. This wasn't my first time and I was aware of the complaints clients had made upon discovering that fact. He finally said, "What can you do then?"

"Tactile stimulation, either with my lips or hands."

"Uh." He looked down at my hands, where they rested on my knees. "You'd take the gauntlets off, right?"

"Yes."

"Both of those, then." He started stroking himself slowly.

I took off the gauntlets. I wasn't sure what to do with my hands since his was in the way. I rested them lightly on the soft skin of his lower belly, a position that would discourage him from thrusting inside my mouth and incurring discomfort and possible injury (to him). I tensed, though, waiting to see if the governor module deemed this to be disallowed contact. Any physical contact with clients was closely monitored, especially outside medical necessity or strict job performance. But apparently 'both of those' was a clear enough command to allow the touch.

I knew what to do with my mouth. I could tighten my lips and create an orifice for penetration. I could even stroke my tongue lightly across the moving tip. As long as he didn't press in very much and I didn't try to make a seal around him, the dryness would have little impact. He was producing a very small amount of natural lubrication himself that helped. I moved my head to smear it over my lips, which meant I could apply a little more pressure.

He was fully hard now, breathing faster. I could feel the heat through his skin and the muffled throb of his heartbeat. He spread his legs a little so his pants wouldn't fall and put both hands on my shoulders. That gave me the opening I needed to put my fingers on either side of his shaft.

A ComfortUnit probably knew how to do this better than I did. There had to be techniques, modules, programs. I couldn't imagine how I might finesse my way into getting one, though, so it was on-the-job learning instead.

I made ten faint points of pressure along his shaft, pulling back and forth lightly on the loose skin. He was making a few hip motions, but mostly I was handling the movement – of my head, of my hands. This was convenient, and safer for the client anyway. His fingers curled around my pauldrons, digging under the edges, so I had good reason to believe it was working. That was nice.

I don't get many opportunities to please clients in my line of work. Just saying.

After a standard amount of time he came, the act preceded by a few rasping breaths and accompanied by a pair of grunts. He thrust deeper into my mouth at that, too. There was enough ejaculate by then that friction wasn't a concern. It may also have been an involuntary motion. It was hard to tell with humans. Again – one of those things a ComfortUnit probably knew automatically.

Maybe I'm in the wrong line of work.

His breathing slowed. I stayed perfectly still. Client reactions at this point varied in significant ways. I was frequently assaulted or threatened. Best case, I was ignored or patronized. Responses were better the less I did, although my data set for this was not extensive enough for reliability. I did lift my fingers enough to end contact with him, but otherwise my hands stayed where they were and his softening penis stayed in my mouth. My tongue and lips were now immobile.

His heart rate dropped and he heaved a sigh, pulling out. Ejaculate dripped down my chin. My mouth remained open. He took a shuffling step back to clear my hands and wiped at himself. He looked at me. "That's creepy. What the fuck are you doing?"

The tone of voice was concerned and frightened, or nervous, not confrontational or threatening. I wasn't entirely sure what he meant, but I assumed it was my lack of movement. I shut my mouth and put my hands down. My tongue isolated the foreign material at the front of my mouth.

He fastened his pants and walked briskly over to the trash can. He brought it to me. "Here. Spit."

He must have seen my lips moving. I spat. He reached for my face with his free hand. I flinched hard, misinterpreting the gesture as an attack. He froze for a long moment, then slowly wiped my chin with his sleeve. "You're not just a piece of equipment, are you?"

I didn't know what to say. What was there to say? It was nonsensical. Either yes or no would get me in trouble as they both implied I was more than equipment. Which I wasn't. My buffer rescued me with, "Please restate the question."

He didn't believe me, even though I hadn't answered. He narrowed his eyes at me and I felt nervous. But then he gestured at me and changed the subject. "You can … get dressed or whatever? If you want?"

I put my gauntlets on, then replaced my helmet. I didn't opaque the visor right away because he was looking at me. I even looked back for two seconds before looking away. On the drone, I could see he continued regarding me for a few additional seconds, until his expression cleared. He'd come to some decision, probably about the equipment thing. He double-checked his pants, returned the trash can, and fished around for a shop towel to wipe at his soiled sleeve.

I opaqued the visor then, as we seemed to be done. He sat in his chair again, his body language looser than it had been before. His next glance at me wasn't furtive. It lingered. "Same time tomorrow?"

It was an interesting question, provided in a barely common enough idiom that I understood both it and the implication. He had decided his earlier question in the affirmative – that I was, indeed, more than equipment. He was wrong, but I liked the idea anyway. It gave me something to think about that wasn't boring. "Yes."