Chapter Two; Conlustro

Conlustro. Verb. 1. illuminate, make bright, light up fully 2. look over, survey 3. traverse, explore

When he thought I was ready, Father took me with him to the township, to get supplies. It was very confusing, but exciting, to be among so many other people. They seemed wary, cautious. I heard Lore's name mentioned more than once, and the glances the other colonists gave me were not kind. It was strange, I had done nothing wrong. I was sure that I was being courteous and polite, but they seemed not to trust me. I asked Father about it on the way home, but he was evasive. I gathered that it was something to do with my brother, but Father refused to elaborate, which was frustrating.

"You ask him yourself." He said, and I resolved to do so.

That night, once our parents were asleep, I asked Lore why the colonists seemed so averse to my presence in the township. He scowled, his face creased. I did not like this face.

"I made a terrible mistake, and now they believe that I will repeat it, that it is just the way we are. I didn't think that it would affect you."

"What did you do?"

"There was a girl..." He looked ashamed. "She was interested in me, in an intimate way. She wanted to know what it would be like, to have sexual intercourse with an android. I obliged, but..."

"What happened?"

"I..." He sighed. "I was too rough. I was... excited. And I frightened her. It was wrong, I know, but..." He looked away. "Anyway, she told her mother, who told her husband, and soon the whole town knew. And now, they think I... That I forced her."

"But you did not?" I queried. He shook his head.

"No, she was willing, at first. But when she asked me to stop... I did not."

"Lore..." I was shocked. I had never known my brother to be violent, and to find him admitting to such an act was deeply disturbing to me. He sensed my distress, reached out to touch my arm and reassure me.

"Father changed my programming, and yours too. It won't happen again. But the colonists don't believe him. And now, they think that you too may behave in such a way."

"This is terrible!" I said, aghast. "We should convince them that we mean no harm!" He shook his head.

"It's too late, Data, they have made their decision. Best if we just stay away." He smiled at me then. "We don't need them. We have each other." I smiled in return. He was right. What could they possibly offer us, that we could not provide for each other?

It was some time before Father agreed that we were ready to leave the grounds surrounding the house. I am sure that he came to understand how important it was for our development that we be allowed to explore, to learn about the world, but also to do it by ourselves. Mother worried of course, and insisted upon preparing a pack with 'essentials', although we assured her that there was little need. Nutrient suspension, blankets, torches, and most amusingly a map. I pointed out to her that there was no need for it, but she insisted, and told me that it would make her 'feel better' about us going out alone. Mother also made us promise to be home before dark, although again it seemed somewhat pointless to me, and I remarked as much to Lore.

"It's a mother's job to worry." He told me. "Even though she appreciates how capable we are, she wants us to know that she is concerned for our safety and wellbeing. It's a sign of affection."

Our parents watched us from the doorway to the house as we left through the gate and started down the track leading across the pasture and towards the forest. I turned back to wave, and Lore waved also, before taking my hand. It did not take long before the house was out of visual range. Lore tugged at my hand and smiled.

"Come on!" He said, and began to jog.

"Why should we hurry?" I queried. In answer he grinned widely and dropped my hand.

"Because it's fun!" He said, and sped up, drawing away from me. I was puzzled for a moment, and increased my speed to draw level with him. His eyes were bright as he looked at me before breaking into a run. Intriguing behaviour! He must know that he could not outpace me, our physical systems were identical. He looked back over his shoulder and laughed, and I understood. It was a game!

As soon as I grasped the meaning behind his actions I felt the fun of it myself, and soon we were racing down the track. The feeling was exhilarating and I laughed out loud from the sheer joy of it, to feel how strong and fast I was, how sure footed. We were approaching the forest, thick with evergreen pines, and Lore put on a burst of speed to reach the tree line before me. Soon the trees surrounded us, and still my brother did not slow his pace, dodging around trunks and undergrowth, leaping and ducking roots and branches. I was laughing, the pleasure of the chase taking over. There was a clearing approaching and I saw my chance. I put my head down and stretched out my arms as I sprinted forward, just as Lore slowed to look around.

I caught him around his waist, my momentum throwing us both to the ground. My brother howled with laughter as we tumbled, rolling through the carpet of pine needles until we came to rest.

I had to 'breathe' hard, lying there on the forest floor. I had never tested myself physically before, and I had to take a moment to rest and allow the air to cool my systems, inhaling the resinous scent of the pines and the heavy smells of the earth with every intake. I closed my eyes against the sunlight, shining dappled through the canopy, and listened to Lore's breathing as he lay next to me. I turned my head to look at him and at the same moment he did the same, and we locked eyes simultaneously, which for some reason struck us as humorous and set us both to laughing once more. We were both covered in leaves and pine needles, caught up in our hair and activating the sensors on my face with their tickling prickles. He looks ridiculous, I thought, and I realized that I must look the same, and the thought made me laugh again, looking at my brother laughing next to me. The moment was golden, as bright as the sun, shimmering laughter and skin and golden eyes, and I have no idea which of us moved first, or whether we moved, as we so often did, in unison, but our lips met, and that moment too was golden. My hand found the dip of his waist at the same time as his fingers twined around the back of my neck. It made my skin shiver with sensation, the newness of the experience at once shockingly unfamiliar and the most natural thing in the world. I opened my mouth to him and he suddenly pulled back, drawing his hand away. His eyes were puzzled, his forehead creased, and I could see that he was analysing the situation. I did not want to think, I felt nothing save the longing for more of the same, more contact, more sensations like that one, that made my circulatory system increase its speed, that caused my head to whirl with emotions strange and compelling. I did not wish to speak nor move for fear of shattering that shining instant. Lore looked at me strangely, and my fingers tightened on his waist. His eyes were bright and feral, hungry looking, and it made me feel something that I could only call desire. Lust. And then it was my turn to analyse as, unbidden, my memory banks supplied me with words and phrases that made me uncertain and afraid. Sex, intercourse, penetration, taboo, incest.

Incest? My face made a frown.

"Let's go." Lore pushed himself up to stand, and held out his hand. I took it and he pulled me up. I could not look at him. This feeling too was new. Shame?

He dropped my hand when he saw the confusion on my face, and walked away across the clearing to where the path led towards the still distant mountain range, brushing the leaves from his clothes and hair. I wanted to talk to him, ask him if his feelings were the same as mine, if he too was confused and conflicted, but I could not make the words, and instead simply followed, similarly divesting myself of the detritus of the forest floor. As we walked in silence, I thought deeply about what had happened, and reached a conclusion.

It took some time for us to reach the foothills, and the steep mountains soared away above us. We were silent, both committing the moment to our memory banks and drinking in the detail of the vista. I turned to look back, but we were still too near the forest to see very far. I wanted to climb higher. I started up the rise, but Lore grabbed my hand. Puzzled, I looked back. He shook his head.

"If we go any further, we won't make it home before dark."

I analysed his statement for a moment before replying.

"By my calculations we still have forty eight minutes, fifty two seconds..."

"I know. But we shouldn't be late."

I frowned at him. He had never interrupted me before. His behaviour was atypical, and it worried me.

"Are you functioning correctly?" I asked, and he quirked a small smile.

"I believe so."

"Then why are you behaving so strangely?" I queried. He looked away from me, back to the forest.

"Let's go back." He began to walk away, and it was my turn to grab his hand and halt him.

"Lore, please tell me what is wrong. I am confused. We do not keep secrets from one another. We talk. Please talk to me."

"Fine!" He snapped. "What happened between us was wrong, and it should not be allowed to happen again."

"Why?" I was annoyed with him now, and it made my voice sound strange.

"Because it is taboo! We should not behave in such a way."

"It is taboo to some sentient biological organisms, but not to all. And for the most part, the only reason that it is considered wrong..."

"Data!" He snapped, "You are my brother!"

"No I am not!" I snapped back. Was this an argument? I had never had one before, certainly not with Lore, and I did not like it at all. It made my chest feel tight, and my face was creased into an unfamiliar expression of anger. Lore's face was the same, and I did not like that either. I did not want to be angry with him, and I also did not want him to be angry with me. My memory banks supplied me with an appropriate response, and my face smoothed a little, although my eyebrows were still drawn together and my mouth turned down at the corners.

"I am sorry." I said.

"You're right." Lore was not listening to me. He was processing, I could hear it in his chest. He was thinking hard about something, and his eyes always looked far away when he did that. I waited for him to finish running his calculations.

"We are not brothers. We're something else." He smiled at me then. "Something new."

"Yes. We are androids." I agreed with him. He looked at me thoughtfully, and I felt his grip on my hand tighten. I squeezed his hand in response, and he leaned towards me. Our lips met again and it was just as sweet as before, the texture of his lips soft and the tingle of excitement sparking through my neural net. There were new command lines activating in my coding, and it was a heady sensation to feel my thought processes shifting in response to the stimulus. My hand went to his waist again, but this time I put it farther around him and pulled gently. He moved closer until our bodies were touching, and that was even better. Once more I opened my mouth and this time he accepted me, his arms around me, pulling us close. I was making noises I had never made before and he was echoing them, gasping breathy moans, and they excited me, making me want to kiss him harder. I felt his tongue rake the roof of my mouth and it was a burst of sensory information, leaving me giddy with longing. I realised that there was a whole new set of subroutines available to me, and I could chose how I wished this encounter to progress. I knew what I wanted, and how to make it happen, and I wondered if Lore had the same options.

He broke the kiss, leaning away from me slightly. I was breathing hard, an autonomous response programmed partially to mimic humanity, partly to cool my processors, racing along with my thoughts. I did not want him to stop kissing me, I wanted more. It felt so wonderful.

"Wait." He said, as if he knew what I was thinking. Perhaps he did. I hoped that he too was anticipating further intimate contact, and the thought made me tremble. He let go of me to swing the pack down from his back and pull out the blankets to spread on the grass. I understood and followed him down as he sat.

He spent a long moment looking at me, and I at him. He raised his hand to touch my face, as if to memorise the tactile shape of me. I found myself mimicking his movements and marvelling at the texture of his cheek, the soft pout of his lower lip under my thumb. I traced his eyebrows, light and feathery, as his fingertips trailed down my neck. I closed my eyes to allow myself to relish the sensation, and my breathing sped up again as my lust rose, a hot feeling in my chest. I opened my eyes again to see Lore gazing at me with that hungry look, and I was dizzied by the intensity of it. The emotions sweeping through me were fierce, more powerful than anything I had ever felt before, and I wanted more. I ran the fingers of my hand up the back of his neck and into his hair, and he closed his eyes and sighed as I leant forward to kiss his throat, measuring his racing pulse with my mouth. He put his arms around me again, and I moved my mouth up to kiss his jaw, his cheek, his temple. He was turning his head to kiss me as well, his lips leaving a tracery of sensory data across my face, warm and sensual. Our mouths met again and I felt my passion met and answered. He knew me, understood me, and I him, and this was meant to be. We both rose up onto our knees to increase the area of tactile stimulation, pressing our bodies together. I tugged insistently at his shirt, pulling it up to run my hands over his body, exploring him with my fingers. My circulatory system had rerouted as a reaction to the activation of my sexual behaviour subroutines, and there was a pressure I had never felt before, my sex organ engorged and trapped inside my clothing. Lore pressed himself close and I felt his hardness against mine, rubbing and straining, and the friction was exquisite pleasure, but torturous in its inadequacy. My hands found his chest, my fingers his nipples, taut peaks of hardness between my finger and thumb, and he groaned into my mouth as he ground himself into me. His hands slipped under my shirt and trailed up my back and I had to take my mouth from his to gasp at the sensation. He laughed, and his voice was low and thick.

"Slowly, now." He said, and I looked at him.

"I know what I am doing." I answered, and my voice was husky with lust. He laughed again and shook his head, his fingers dragging down my back and making me arch my body into his.

"No you don't, not yet. You've got the programming, but you don't know how it's going to feel. Let me lead."

I conceded to the wisdom of his words, although privately I was disappointed. It saddened me that he had experiences before this, and I found myself wishing that we could have explored these feelings and sensations for the first time together. My thoughts were swept away from me as his hands slid under the waistband of my pants to clutch at my buttocks and pull me harder into his body, and his mouth met mine again with a ferocity that I was compelled to answer. He pushed his hands against my chest to make me lean back so that he could remove my shirt, and I his, and for a moment all we could do was look at each other, so alike but so different. I could see every crease and dimple that differed from mine, faint lines of scarring from repairs of the past, the wrinkles where he had engaged in different activities than I. Our experiences had shaped our bodies, although I was sure that nobody else would ever be able to tell us apart.

"You're beautiful." He said, and at the same moment I said "I love you."

"I love you too." He put his hands to my chest and I knew what he wanted of me and lay back, my hands on his shoulders drawing him down to cover my body. His leg slid between mine and he pushed his thigh into my erection, his own hardness pressing into my hip. He lowered his mouth to mine, biting my lip and making me cry out as he pushed his leg into me harder. He sucked my lip into his mouth and the sensation sent a shock through me as I felt a mounting pressure in my sex, a yearning for more, more friction, more contact.

"More." Was all I could gasp, and I know that he understood, but all he did was smile and maintain the pressure on my sexual organ, rubbing himself against me in return. My hands were all over his body, I wanted to touch every part of him, map his body for my database, remember every point of contact. My hands found the fastening of his trousers and I fumbled with it as we kissed, his mouth hot on mine. He grabbed my wrists and knelt up, and I made a sound of disappointment, because instead of more, he was giving me less, and it felt unfair.

"Please." I begged him. He was smiling widely, his hands still holding my wrists, and I think that he enjoyed the power he had over me in that moment.

"Go on." He let go of my wrists and I undid the fastenings on his pants to draw out his sex organ. Identical, I thought hazily, and he let his head fall back as I stroked him, the way I wanted him to do to me. I could not stop the movements my body was making, my programming driving me to seek completion, and I shifted my body towards him to press myself against his leg.

He looked down at me, his mouth open. His eyes were unfocused, butted with lust, and I gasped with need.

"Please!" I asked him again, and he groaned as my hands moved insistently. Following the guidelines in my database of techniques I used one hand to caress his faux-testicles while the other slid up and down the length. I could feel him moving, pushing himself into my hand, and I rubbed myself against him again. His eyes focused on me, and he shuddered.

"Slow down." He said huskily, and I complied as he undid the fastenings of my trousers and pulled them down, allowing my erection to spring out. He took it in his hand and the flood of sensory information was almost overwhelming. I registered a warning about a CPU overheat as I began to gasp for air, and the tactile sensory data became a feedback loop, intensifying to an almost excruciating level.

"Look at me." He gasped, and I locked eyes with him. My grip on him was hard, and we were moving our hands faster, our rhythms in synch, identical, identical.

"Listen." He seemed to be struggling to speak. For my part, I was unable to utter a word, only meaningless gasps and moans, but I nodded to show that I understood.

"Focus on me. Concentrate on my face. If you allow the sensations to take over, you'll shut down. Trust me, look at me, I love you, I... Love..."

His pupils were enlarged with excitement and I could see my reflection in their dark depths, the lust on his face mirrored in my own. I could feel the most incredible sensation building in me as we moved together, and he lowered himself down until our bodies were almost touching. Our breath was shared, hot gasps of air, as both of our internal systems struggled to process the information from our sensor clusters, heady and intoxicating.

"I... love you..." I managed, before an enormous surge of sensation washed over me. My whole body spasmed, the servos reacting to the emotional burst of release, and a spurt of fluid rushed from my sex, spattering up my chest. I screamed out loud, eyes wide, and Lore was crying out too, his body shuddering against mine, his erection jerking in my hand. The ecstasy poured through me, and I felt the world slipping away, my mind awash with the glorious explosion of release, both emotional and physical. I forced myself to focus on Lore, anchoring my consciousness to him as the climax threatened to shut me down. I would not allow it, would not let my mind close down and miss a single moment of this phenomenal instant of joy and love.

Slowly the euphoria drained from me, leaving me gasping and shocked, to be replaced by a warmth, a glowing feeling of satisfaction and affection. I had not taken my eyes from Lore's face, and his expression showed me that his lust too had been slaked.

"Are you alright?" He asked, and all I could do was nod, and he smiled shakily and lowered himself onto me, our chests hot together and slick with our emissions. I wrapped my arms around him and found myself weeping from the sheer relief of knowing that I had found my place, in this moment, and nobody could ever separate us again, because we were one.

We spent some time like that, satiated, holding each other, whispering into each other's ears. No more secrets, we promised, we would share everything. But of this, we would never speak to anyone else. They would not understand, we reasoned, they would never comprehend.

"I don't want this to end." He murmured. "I want to stay here forever."

"That would be impractical." I replied, and he laughed lightly.

"I know. But it doesn't stop me from wishing it." He pushed himself up to kneel before me on the blanket, and I saw that his body was smeared with our lubricants. I reached up to run my fingers through the wetness and he shivered.

"I should have rerouted my fluidic system, and you too. Then we wouldn't have made such a mess." He was smiling, and I knew that he was half joking. I smiled too.

"We must clean ourselves before we return home. Mother and Father will ask questions."

He hummed in agreement, and his eyes sparkled. He lowered his head to my body and lapped at the lubricant, trailing his tongue up my chest. The motion sent a burst of sensory information coursing through me and I gasped at the sensation. He looked up at me and smiled, his tongue moving over my chest, and I reached down to push my fingers into his dark hair. He closed his eyes and sighed as my nails raked his scalp, and then he was covering my body again, kissing me, our bodies twining together. I had thought myself satisfied, but I felt my ardour rise again as we moved against one another, and I knew he felt the same, because we were the same, identical, the only ones who would ever know this feeling. His arousal pressed against mine once more, and his arms gathered me to him as we moved together, gazing into one another's eyes. I did as he had suggested and rerouted my circulatory system to avoid the expulsion of lubricant in imitation of seminal fluid, and I watched his eyes flicker, knowing he was doing the same.

He pushed himself up again to recommence his ministrations on my body with his mouth, and it was the most extraordinary sensation when he moved his mouth to my sex and took it into himself, massaging it with his tongue and lips. It seemed a mere instant before my orgasm washed over me, his skilful mouth wringing the pleasure from me in a glorious burst as I looked down at him, his golden eyes locked on mine, holding my mind steady with his gaze. As my climax abated and my breathing began to slow he knelt up and I followed, but only to push him down and do for him what he had done for me, kissing and licking him clean, tasting myself on his body, the same but different, before activating the command lines to govern my sex act and swallowing him into my throat. He too was ready for me, and his fingers clenched in my hair as I satisfied him, his eyes bright and mouth open in wonder and delight.

We kissed again then, held each other close, just a little longer before we had to go. Then we gathered the blankets, shaking them to remove the grass, and began to make our way home, hand in hand. We had dallied longer than we had intended and had to run the last part of the journey back to the house, racing across the pasture, laughing and exhilarated. Mother met us at the door just as the sun dipped below the horizon. We were both breathing hard from our exertions, both physical and mental, and neither one of us could stop smiling.

"Well, you two look as though you had fun." She remarked as we entered the hallway. She held out her hand and Lore gave her the pack. "How far did you get?" She enquired, and I looked to Lore, who grinned.

"Farther than we had anticipated, but not as far as we would have liked."