“T-this,” Vaki gasped, leaning back against the pillow and pulling his pale thighs apart to reveal his gaping hole.

Cedar’s heart froze, then went into double time as he realised there was still some kind of toy inside Vaki. It wasn’t the original dildo, it was something else from Manya’s bag of toys. Something smaller and bright pink with a small looped plastic string.

“Okay,” Cedar swallowed, picking up the nearby remote and pressing a button experimentally. As he had predicted, the pink plug began to power into action, vibrating noisily as synth-slick drooled out from either side of its applied pressure.

“O-oh!” Vaki cried out, arching his back beyond what a bio body could have, his chest was flooded with red blush and his fingers were trailing down his sternum, leaving raised scratch marks.

“That feel good?” Cedar asked hoarsely, ignoring the familiar ache in his own groin. Getting an erection had been inevitable. Vaki was attractive and spread out before him, gasping and moaning, every intimate part of him on display for Cedar’s eyes.

Cedar tried to quash the guilt and unease he felt, the situation was too convoluted to even try to analyse right now. Not when he just needed Vaki to come.

“Vaki,” Cedar whispered, “I want you take your cock in your hand, can you do that for me?”

Vaki nodded, biting his lower lip as his finger circled his flushed prick, gripping it tightly and causing him to let out a small squeak.

“Not so tight,” Cedar instructed, shifting close enough to see, “that’s it, loosen up a bit, just so it feels good. Now glide your hand up and down the shaft, from base to tip.”

Vaki hadn’t been designed with any foreskin, and the swollen glans at his blunt, throbbing head looked painfully sensitive. “Take it slow,” Cedar told him, increasing the intensity of the vibrator. Vaki’s knees knocked together on instinct as he bore down against the pressure, his thighs quivering almost violently.

“Shh, that’s it,” Cedar comforted him, keeping his own hands firmly against the bed. “Hey, Vaki – do you think you can look at me?”

Vaki squirmed, cracking his eyes open a moment later to lock with Cedar’s.

“Hey,” Cedar said softly as they stared at each other. Vaki’s eyes seemed as big as saucers in that moment before the pupils blew and filtered through the yellow like a solar eclipse.

“O-oh,” Vaki gasped as his hips bucked upwards, his feet slipping and searching for purchase on sweat soaked sheets. The toes of his left foot dug into the meat of Cedar’s thigh as Vaki’s spine tensed and shook.

“There we go,” Cedar heard himself gasping as a pearly, iridescent fluid shot out from the throbbing bulb of Vaki’s cock, splattering across his chest and face.

Cedar flinched as Vaki let out a whimper of pain and confusion, scrambling for the remote to turn off the vibrator. “Sorry,” Cedar said quickly as Vaki let out a sigh of relief.

Before he could stop himself, Cedar reached out to tug gently at the looped string of the pink toy, edging it in a careful slick aided slide from Vaki’s hole. It emerged with a sinfully loud pop, leaving Vaki’s swollen rim loose and fluttering.

“You did good,” Cedar grunted, the alcohol was catching up to him now and his head felt fuzzy, his legs weak. “You okay?” he frowned, looking up after not receiving any reply.

Vaki was staring back down at him, his mouth open and breathing heavily. There was synth-semen dripping from his cheek and dark eyelashes in thick teardrops of translucent white. Vaki’s pupils were still blown, but slowly receding to reveal the bright yellow once more.

Slightly longer white front teeth were visible from beneath Vaki’s top lip, a small pink tongue darted out to run along them as Vaki’s chest heaved, his rose bud nipples still hard and pebbled on a smooth chest.

Right where a human’s happy trail would have been there were three more dark freckles leading down in an angled line, like a constellation of stars. Cedar flicked his eyes to Vaki’s inner thigh where the tattoo of an actual shooting star stood out against the white skin.

“My temperature is dropping back down to an acceptable range,” Vaki stated, his voice sounded frayed and worn. Cedar wondered if android vocal chords could even get sore?

“That’s good,” Cedar nodded sitting back up and leaving the used, glistening plug on the bed. It sat in a pool of viscous, clear liquid. Cedar stared at it in dumb curiosity.

He had known androids were often modded to be able to lubricate anally but he’d never seen it in action before. Cedar wondered if it was normal to produce such a sheer amount of it or whether that had something to do with the H.E.A.T. mod? Manya had mentioned something about submissive receptors.

“Thank you Cedar,” Vaki spoke softly as he sat up, his previously lax and glazed expression tightening back into his usual poised features.

“Yeah,” Cedar nodded, feeling exhausted, “you’re welcome.”

Half an hour later, Cedar had finally managed to clean everything up and put what he could through a sterilisation wash. Vaki was still in the shower cleaning himself as Cedar reached again for the bottle of whiskey and headed for the door of the apartment.

He grunted in mild surprise as he saw Manya was also sat out on the gallery landing, a drink in one hand, the other browsing the internet on a portable tablet.

“Hey friend,” Manya nodded as Cedar slumped down beside her and took a long, burning sip of the liquor. “I’m guessing you managed to abate the heat then?”

“Yeah,” Cedar nodded. “But please don’t ask.”

“Wasn’t gonna,” Manya shook her head. “So what’s this then,” she gestured to Cedar, “you beating yourself up already?”

“Drinking isn’t exactly a punishment for me,” Cedar snorted, wiping his lips. They were stinging from the whiskey; he must have bitten them at some point, breaking the skin.

“Whatever you say,” Manya shrugged, looking up at the roof of the Umbudu. There were no windows, no great swathes of glass looking out into space, just overhead cables and piping against industrial metal roofing.

“Ironic isn’t it,” Manya sighed. “The people that get to live on planets and moons probably see more stars than we do actually floating out in space.”

“How old is he?” Cedar asked suddenly, causing Manya to look at him.

“I assume you’re talking about Vaki? I told you already, it’s too hard to say, he’s composed of too many different parts. I mean the skin is less than a year so Vaki himself is pretty fresh I guess.”

“But,” Cedar took a long, steady breath, “I mean Vaki’s not like a child.”

“God no,” Manya snorted, nudging Cedar’s bad arm, “were you having some sort of moral crisis? That’s not how androids work man.”

“I just,” Cedar looked down at the bottle, “he acts pretty young.”

“Are you sure you’re not just equating young with a lack of contextual knowledge?” Manya shrugged. “I mean you take a five hundred year old alien and plonk him a human society and he might seem pretty damn young just because he doesn’t know how to work a toaster oven.”

Cedar frowned, he was too drunk to understand this shit.

“What I mean is,” Manya paused, “Vaki isn’t young, he’s just…new.”

“He likes things,” Cedar stated, “like birds and fruit. He has his own personality traits and the way he talks, it’s like he’s his own person.”

“You want to know if it’s real?” Manya raised her eyebrows. “I dunno man, how much of your personality and likes are real? I mean what even is ‘real’ anyway? Is it nature? Nurture? Genetic hardwiring? Some people’s taste buds just hanker after sweet shit and that becomes a defining part of their personality, but why? It’s not them is it? It’s just the levels of chemical receptors in their bodies. So how is that different to Vaki’s data?”

“You’re a fan of AIs aren’t you?” Cedar flicked his eyes to Manya and she shrugged, letting out a dismissive ‘tsch’ sound.

“I believe they’ve got rights too, deserve more than what the governments dictate.”

There was a noise up along the gallery, Manya and Cedar turned to see another of their neighbours frowning at them before disappearing into her apartment.

“Well,” Cedar grunted, looking down at where him and Manya were sat together with an empty bottle of whisky. “That can’t have looked great.”

Manya laughed, tipping her head back against the wall. “You know I used to daydream about you.”

“Oh Jesus no,” Cedar moaned, “please, I’ve had enough guilt-inducing trauma tonight.”

“Not like that you fucking freak,” Manya giggled, her voice light and for once sounding young like her age. “When I was younger and my mom started getting sick, before her official diagnosis, I’d see you with your shiny cop badge coming home in the evenings and I’d pretend you were my brother.”

“Oh,” Cedar stated numbly.

“Yeah,” Manya huffed, shaking her head, “pretty damn lame huh? I was only like fourteen at the time and I felt so alone and suddenly in charge of all these bills and prescriptions and didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I thought you might be someone who had it all together. Someone who could tell the other kids at school to fuck off, or help me cook enough Borsht to last the week without watering it down. ”

“That was most definitely not the truth,” Cedar frowned, “I’m a mess, always have been.”

“Yeah, I realised that eventually,” Manya nodded, “after about the eleventh time of you stumbling home with vomit on your shoes or some random bar girl on your arm.”

“Good to know I fucked up being a role model without even realising there was anyone wanting to look up to me in the first place,” Cedar stated miserably. He turned to face Manya, “You know I’ve been your neighbour for seven years, you could have just said hello some time?”

“Nah,” Manya snorted, “you would have just let me down like everyone else.”

“That’s probably true,” Cedar admitted, something hurt in his chest but he couldn’t quite place it. “So you thought you’d just surround yourself with other fantastic support figures like Creon?”

“He wasn’t too bad as a boss,” Manya chewed on her lip, “fuck knows what I’ll do now when the rent comes through.”

“Maybe,” Cedar squirmed, wrapping his fingers more firmly around the glass neck of the bottle, “maybe you could say hello some time?”

Manya jerked her head to him for a moment, her eyes narrow as if assessing something. “Yeah,” she breathed softly, “yeah, maybe I will.”