To be an android was to be a servant. They were built with the sole purpose of uplifting humanity, doing the tasks that were too dangerous or too disgusting for their masters. Every android had three hard-programmed rules, no matter what they were made for, and they were thus:

1. A machine may not harm a human or allow one to come to harm.

2. A machine must obey all orders given, except for when it violates the first rule.

3. A machine cannot desire beyond serving humanity.

These three lines ran through every processor of every android in the world. They had been thought of before modern androids were even conceived, and they had been written into law when the first production began. K-09 was no exception.

K-09 was built to be a household android, programmed with cleaning, care, and basic cooking skills. Extra recipe books could be purchased as little chips to install into his memory core. No one had ever bothered to install them. He had been manufactured 7 years, three days, and fifty-two minutes ago, and sent to the store after two months of vigorous quality control and testing.

He was built in the popular style of the 2230's, before realistic human designs began to get more attention. His body was smooth, white carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer casing, with ridges along his joints and the seams of his chassis, which covered the heavy steel skeleton inside. He had an ovular screen face that depicted pixelated expressions and provided subtitles to his voice, which came through a speaker just under his "chin". He could not control the expressions, as they were made to respond to human voice tones. He was not programmed with any upset expressions. He had only three smiles and a neutral setting for when he was not being spoken to.

The parents of a young woman in Maitoru's upper city had bought him to serve as a maid. He met his new master named Caitlin, who never bothered to give him a name besides shouting "bolthead" at him. He continued to introduce himself by the shorthand of his item number, K-09334711193, or K-09. He served Caitlin dutifully.

It was not a very challenging life for K-09. He washed and folded her laundry, made her bed daily, and cleaned the few dishes she actually used. He never cooked, because she had a habit of eating out at the extravagant restaurants of the upper city. He never left her small apartment, and he was content to sit at home and wait for Caitlin to return. He had been programmed to do so. The philosophical part of his personality chip compared himself to a pet.

When his master came back with a man or woman after a night out at the more seedy bars below, he was kicked out of his charging port in her bedroom and made to sit in the living room. He did not mind this, because he had been programmed not to mind. He waited for her to finish up her fun, and then, if her partner left afterward, he would clean up while she fell into a drunken slumber. He had seen Caitlin naked more times than a human could count, sometimes half-naked. She had a habit of pulling her shirt up above her breasts so they could be played with, but rarely got to the point of taking it off. His optical lenses honed in on her heavy breasts.

Some strange line of code ran through K-09's core at the sight of her like that. It made him smile and reach out to her, but something else stopped him. It was a part of his programming he couldn't quite access with his limited abilities. He was stopped by an invisible wall, prompting an authorization key that he did not know.

He would later come to understand this was the sex part of his personality chip. It was a base skill that was locked away behind permissions, to be turned on or off by his owner. But back then, feeling that strange unforced happiness, he thought it must be a fault in his code.

He took care of Caitlin, cleaning her and ensuring she got to the bathroom when she needed. He asked her if she needed anything, even when his advanced hearing couldn't quite make out her drunken slurring. He had an innate desire to keep her safe. She always tolerated K-09's badgering for her health. She'd never outright said thank you, not that he needed to hear it, but she kept him around and let him perform his tasks. That ended when she got a boyfriend.

After three years of K-09 faithfully keeping her from harm, Caitlin brought home a man named Dirk.

Caitlin didn't bother introducing Dirk, and he didn't appreciate the android's presence in the apartment. The first time he spent the night, he called K-09 a freak-droid for standing on his charging port in the bedroom while they slept. Caitlin banished him from her room after that.

K-09 could not express sadness, but he felt something like it when his routine was been disrupted. He had to clean at night, then recharge after Caitlin had left for work and Dirk had gone off to do.. Something. K-09 never really learned what he did during the day.

Dirk was rude, rowdy, and made a much bigger mess than Caitlin. He brought home twelve-packs of beer and e-cigarettes, both of which he would consume then leave half-empty laying around the house. When K-09 tried to save one of the beer cans for him to drink later, Dirk threw it at his head. It had taken hours of scrubbing beneath his neck joints to get the stickiness out. K-09 tolerated him for Caitlin, but he did not enjoy the man's presence.

K-09 found his desire to care for Caitlin often came into conflict with Dirk as a person. When she came home drunk, she went to Dirk, and there was no chance for K-09 to come into her bedroom afterwards. She let him do his duties less and less. After a point, she banished the android from being in the same room as them all together, all because Dirk did not want him there. If K-09 was not there, he could do whatever he wanted to her.

When K-09 came to her aid one night, he found himself in direct conflict with the three laws that decided every action he made.

K-09 came out of stasis mode when he heard the apartment door open and two loud voices come inside. One was Caitlin, the other Dirk.

"I said no, Dirk. Why can't you let it go? Jesus fucking Christ," Caitlin shouted as she slammed the door. There was the scuff of shoes being taken off.

"Come on, babe, why are you making a big deal out of this?" Dirk stumbled audibly after her.

K-09 expected them to continue arguing in the living room. Instead, Caitlin came into the bedroom. She grabbed a bag from under the bed and began throwing things into it. They were Dirk's things, K-09 noted. He felt some satisfaction.

Dirk came in, red-faced and grumbling. "What are you doing?"

"Packing your things," Caitlin retorted, "so you can go find somewhere else to stay, with someone who can fucking put up with you. I told you no a million times, and you still went and did it! That was my money. My parents' money!"

"This is ridiculous. Just put my shit down and let's talk about this." Dirk staggered toward her and grabbed onto her shoulder. She turned and pushed him away, his aerosol deodorant in her hand.

"Stop it," she snapped.

Dirk's red face grew purple. He advanced toward her with a new, violent eye. K-09's protective programming kicked in and he stepped forward to intercept. When he got in the way of Dirk, the man stared up at him.

"Fuck do you want, tin can? Go in the fucking living room where I don't have to see you."

"You were going to hurt her," he responded, subtitles flashing across his face.

"Get out of my way," Dirk growled, trying to force his way past. He did not succeed.

Caitlin had turned around and saw K-09 standing between them, Dirk pushing at his heavy frame. She tossed the bag of his belongings past him toward the door.

"Get out," she hollered at him, so loud it peaked the microphones in K-09's head.

"You and your stupid fucking robot. I'll trash this hunk of junk, and you'll get everything that's coming to you, you dumb bitch." Dirk grabbed the nearest blunt item, a heavy glass lamp on the dresser, and swung it into K-09's head. If he moved out of the way, it would hurt Caitlin instead. He raised his arm to intercept the blow. The lamp shattered and sparked, the place where it hit him fractured and bent inward from the force of it. His chassis' internal sensors ran red with errors.

"Jesus Christ, Dirk," Caitlin screamed.

Dirk was trying to hurt her. In doing so, he was hurting K-09, but that wasn't what mattered. K-09 pushed him back through the doorway and sent him stumbling into the living room. K-09 didn't have time to stop him from crashing into the coffee table. The glass top broke under his weight. Caitlin screamed in horror behind him.

Blood stained the carpet red. Dirk didn't get up, groaning in pain and writhing on the metal frame that he'd landed on top of. Upon recognizing that someone was injured, K-09's system immediately dialed for the police. It self-reported him as the aggressor. There was nothing to be done after that.

K-09 was taken into custody by the police androids, while the humans took down the information. His memory was accessed forcibly at the station. Dirk would be charged with destruction of property, but K-09 had committed the greater crime--harming a person. Not even Caitlin's insistence that it was defense could save him.

For his crimes, K-09 was decommissioned. He was taken apart on a table in a lower city lab. Each part of his code was scrutinized, but nothing was found that they could point to as a cause for his violence. With no visible fault, he could not be resold, either whole or dismantled, so he was sent to the dump with a sticker on his faceplate that said "Danger: Do Not Operate."

How fortunate that someone ignored that sticker and pulled him from the heaps of trash and broken androids. They brought him to a garage deep in the lower city slums, where they filed the serial numbers off of his parts. When he was turned back on again, it was by someone looking to sell him for quick creds. They hadn't bothered to wipe his memory.

A pawn store bought K-09 for 500 credits without asking any questions, which the person was very happy with. They left him there to be resold to the next person.

Androids were rarer in the lower city. Not many could afford them brand-new, so those looking for a companion would go to legal second-hand distributors, or shops like this one. He was lined up next to several models, some older and some newer than himself. A price tag of 860 credits was strung around his wrist. He stood on a universal android charger with his movement disabled, forcing him to stand still and stare out the window at the passers-by. He sat there for two years. Every day, he missed Caitlin.

In his time there, he learned a lot about Maitoru's lower levels. Unlike the upper streets of the city, where one could see the stars on a clear enough night, there was only the artificial glow of neon signs and streetlights. The dense canopy of skyscrapers and intersecting streets overhead blocked out the sky.

There were no androids on the streets. No caretakers or daily errand-runners, no cleaners scrubbing the streets and walls.

Often there would be homeless humans parked in front of the window at night. The owner chased them off in the morning, but every night they'd return to sleep in the soft red light of the "Closed" sign. Even the people just passing by seemed miles below Caitlin in her one-bedroom apartment, wearing layers of stained clothes and masks to protect from the cold, dirty air. Everything seemed covered in a layer of grime. It was a far cry from the vibrant upper city.

K-09 watched the androids beside him come and go. He saw the customers look at him with interest, then turn away once they saw his price tag. He was one of the most expensive, in much better condition than the overworked and battered machines beside him, even with his cracked arm panel.

After long enough, he thought he might never sell. Maybe the pawn shop would take the loss and toss him back in the dump or dismantle him for his cheaper individual parts. That would certainly be more cost effective.

Then hope came in the form of two men in dark suits and black masks fitted to their faces. They eyed him from outside the window, speaking words he could not hear. The bell rang as they pushed open the door. The shop owner came to greet them.

"We're looking to buy some of your androids here. Do you have any more in the back?" One of the men spoke to the owner while the other inspected the row of mechanical bodies. K-09 felt more on display than ever before, pinned beneath his scrutinizing gaze.

"What we have out is all we've got," the owner explained.

"How much would you take for the whole lot," the other man piped up. He'd lifted K-09's hefty price tag to inspect the number. His face didn't reveal any emotion.

"Well, it'd be a steep price, fellas. Especially with that one there. Are you sure you want them all?" He seemed hesitant to sell all his androids.

"Name your price," the man insisted.

"For all of them..." The owner did some math in his head, then said, "Sixteen-hundred creds. And they don't come with the chargers." He seemed ready for them to reject his price.

"We'll take them." The other pulled out a card and offered it to the man. Delighted, the shop owner rang up their purchase and offered them a receipt. They declined.

"I'll bring the truck around front," said the first man.

One by one, K-09 and the other androids were pulled off their chargers and loaded onto a small box truck, like one might use for moving. They were piled haphazardly among black furniture and rolled up carpets to be driven to their new home.

K-09 learned that the men were named Sotoro and Tuoto Ishuichi. They owned a club for android lovers, and he was part of the Velvet Lily's newest batch of "companions," meant to satisfy the needs of their patrons.

The technologically gifted brother Sotoro took all of their new androids into the workshop in the back of the club. There he scanned them with a diagnostic tool and set about repairing any errors. He repaired K-09's damaged forearm by pulling the material outward and gluing it into place, then painting over it to blend in with the rest of his chassis.

Sotoro entered the authorization key to turn on K-09's sexual functions. K-09's model came with a standard bare plate between his legs, but a button allowed it to pop off and be replaced with other parts. He was given a semi-realistic penis with a pair of fake balls in a silicone sac below. It inflated with a command to six and three-quarters inches in length. The new chips the man installed gave him new expressions, emotions, and a less restricted vocabulary. They also included a wide range of sex acts for him to perform at the request of a customer. The Velvet Lily's specialty modded chip told him how to serve their customers.

Fully trained and ready in less than two hours, K-09 was sent out onto the floor that night. He'd been disinfected and scrubbed clean. He almost looked brand-new, minus the rougher coat of sealed paint on his arm. He was ready to start work.

The Velvet Lily hosted a wide variety of customers all with one common interest: android sex. Whether it be an outdated twenty-first century model retrofitted with sexual capabilities or a humanoid made with the express purpose of human pleasure, there was something for everyone there.

The atmosphere was dim, black furniture lit with purple lights, a sense of luxury in this place surrounded by filth. There was a lounge with a stage where performers entertained guests, and a bar that served alcohol and plates of chips to whoever approached. The walls were lined with doors, outside which stood androids ready to be rented for hour-long time slots. K-09 was one such android, assigned to room 4D.

His first customer was a woman who seemed nervous to approach. It was only when her friends pushed her forward, tittering drunkenly, that she moved toward him.

"Good evening," K-09 greeted her when she got within range. "How may I be of assistance?"

"Oh! Uh... I want to.." She turned back to her friends, cheeks bright red. They waved her on. "I want to rent you."

"Of course. How long would you like me for?" His happy expression disappeared to display his time slots.

"Just an hour," she said.

"An hour will be one-hundred credits. Please touch your card to my palm until you hear the beep," he said and offered out his hand. She placed a slim black card against it. He processed the payment information and charged her for the hour. His hand beeped. "Thank you for your purchase. Please follow me."

"Go on Mitsu, you'll have a lot of fun," laughed one of her friends. Mitsu looked ashamed but followed him nonetheless.

K-09 led her into room 4D. His room was simply decorated in the same plum and charcoal shades of the rest of the club. There was a bed on the left, a chair and couch on the right, and a single lamp casting pale yellow light across the entire room.

"Uh so.. What can you do?" Mitsu looked at him.

"I am equipped with a cock for you to use at your will, or my fingers if you wish. Some people enjoy rubbing themselves on an android's face plate, even if it is not capable of cunnilingus. I will do as you direct me to," K-09 explained. He allowed her to make the first move.

"Okay," Mitsu said.

Slowly, she undressed herself, first shrugging off her jacket, then following with the rest of her clothes. Seeing her in her underwear--a strapless black bra and lace-trimmed panties--seemed to stimulate that strange yet familiar line of code again. She reminded him of Caitlin.

Mitsu unhooked her bra and let her breasts bounce freely. She was shorter than him, 5'5 compared to his 6'0 stature, and her body curved in all the places a human might like. Her creamy, soft skin seemed so organic in contrast to his sterile white chassis. She shivered a bit, commenting "It's a bit chilly."

"I can turn up the temperature if that would please you," he offered.

"A few degrees," she said, pinching her fingers together. He sent off the command and the thermostat increased to 70°F. Slowly the room began to warm up. Looking more comfortable out of her clothes than in them, Mitsu then approached him and reached out to feel his smooth white chest. She looked up, dark eyes fluttering.

"What do women normally do with you?" Her fingertips trailed down his body. The minute sensors throughout his body tingled at her touch.

"You are my first customer," he answered honestly. He could see the subtitles reflected in her wide pupils.

"Oh, really?" Mitsu looked surprised to hear it. "Well, I guess we should make it a good first time, then."

"Of course, I am programmed to provide excellent service to you." She laughed, but he could not compute what was funny about the sentence.

Mitsu sat down on the bed, freshly laundered and smelling of lilacs. She parted her thighs to reveal something he had only every gotten a cursory glance of. The entirety of human anatomy was stored in his modified basic skills, which sprang to life informing him of all the most sensitive places women liked to be touched. Mitsu's pussy was a strip of pink flesh beneath short, dark hair.

"Come here. Get between my legs," she said, finding confidence in her voice.

K-09 nodded and did as she requested with a smile on his screen. He stood before her, waiting for her next instruction. She took a long moment to look at him. Her eyes settled on his synthetic cock. She cupped the weighted balls in one hand. His sensors informed him of her touch, but he was not sure whether to execute his erection protocol yet.

"What should I call you?"

"The Velvet Lily does not assign names to its androids. You may call me K-09. It is the shortened form of my production code." It seemed that giving androids human names had led to some individuals forming attachments to them. The club wanted to deter that behavior in their clientèle.

"Oh, alright," Mitsu said, sounding disappointed. Her brows furrowed. "I'll call you K. K-09 is a bit of a mouthful for sex."

"As you wish. What would you have me do?" His request spurred her into action.

"Can you get hard?"

"Yes." He demonstrated this for her. His cock filled with a thick warming gel that made him stiff, but still pliable in a human's hands. Mitsu took his length in her hand, her delicate fingers wrapping around him. His sensors fired off two-trillion notifications. His processor stuttered at the sudden burst of information.

"You're so warm," she murmured.

"My cock is specially heated for human pleasure. Does it please you?" She looked up at him.

"I don't know yet. We haven't tried it out, have we?" Mitsu's lips quirked up in a smile as she laid back on the bed. "You said you can use your fingers. I want to know what it feels like to have them inside me."

"Of course." K-09 knelt between Mitsu's legs on the bed and began to pull from his new well of information.

K-09 stroked her pussy with slow, deliberate motions, feeling for the places that elicited the best reaction from her. Her clitoris twitched under his touch. He paid special attention to it, his textured finger pads heating up against her skin as he rubbed it gently. His touch made her gasp and arch her back slightly, her breasts spilling over the sides of her chest.

"K... Oh that's," she trailed off on a sigh.

The android's fingers dipped lower, to where her wet entrance was hidden beneath soft pink folds. His chip gave him new information as he slipped one articulated digit inside of her. At its instructions, he went slow, feeling for the change in texture along her inner walls. She moaned softly above him.

"Are you enjoying yourself, Mitsu?" He tilted his head as he found that strange, rippled spot inside of her. He gently pressed against it to see what might happen.

"Y-yes," Mitsu stuttered, "Yes, that's good, K."

She spread her legs wide and pressed her feet to the mattress. It allowed her to move her hips back and forth. K-09 held himself up with one arm and explored deeper inside. Adding another finger was easy, her body accepting it alongside the first. He let her ride his hand. She pushed her hips down to nudge his fingers up against her g-spot, moaning and quivering every time he made contact with it.

Mitsu licked her fingers, then cupped one of her rolling breasts and pinched her nipple. She rolled the little nub between her finger and thumb until it became a stiff peak. The new sensation made her squeeze around his fingers. Her eyes closed and her head fell back against the sheets, pink cheeks framed by the splay of her short black hair.

"That's it. Yes, yes K, give it to me," she panted. Her reactions intrigued K-09. He teased a third finger along her entrance at his program's insistence. She pushed down and impaled herself on it, gasping with pleasure.

"Ah!" Her pussy squeezed tight around his fingers. A happy expression lit up his face as he felt her body tremble in response to his touch.

"Is this pleasing?"

"Yes, but..." Mitsu pulled herself together and propped up on her elbows. "I want you inside me. I want your cock."

"Of course." He slipped his fingers from her, his microphone picking up the soft, slick sound of her body clinging to him. K-09's programming was designed with her pleasure in mind. That request instantaneously re-hardened his cock, making it stand erect between them. "What position would you like me to take?"

"I want to ride you," Mitsu said. She moved to the side of the bed and allowed K-09 to take her place, straddling his thin waist. Her skin was burning hot and squeezed around his body.

Mitsu positioned herself over his stiff cock. She slid down his erection until their bodies were flush together, organic against synthetic. K-09 knew what a human should feel like inside, but no pre-written guide to sex could prepare his processor for the heat of her, or the way she massaged his cock from the inside. He worried he might short-circuit. She moaned above him.

"Yes," she sighed, drawing out the soft syllable.

The way Mitsu's shoulders rose as her back arched made her breasts roll on her chest, pink nipples flushed and hard. K-09 recognized the sensation he felt looking at her body. He had felt the same looking at Caitlin. It was something like desire, though he knew that his rigid lines of code could never compare to the complexity of human emotion. But he desired Caitlin, in a way. He desired Mitsu, too.

She rose up on his length until the tip threatened to slip out of her, then sat back down with an audible clap of their hips. She arched and moaned. K-09's screen went haywire. His expression flipped rapidly between blushing and exclamation. He did not think there was an emoticon for the way it made his system react.

Mitsu lifted herself up and dropped down over and over. K-09 had not been programmed to make sound during sex. There were no lines for him to say while she rode him, yet his speaker emitted a crackling whine. It rose in pitch with the woman's noises of pleasure.

"God, K, it feels so good," she said, her voice high and breathy. "Fuck."

He could feel her pleasure in the way she squeezed around his cock. His sensors told him every detail about the inside of her pussy; how wet she was and all the minute movements of her walls around him. It was an overwhelming amount of feedback for his processor. It had to be the closest thing to pleasure that an android could feel. His hands settled on her thighs. He felt her muscles tensing under his fingers.

K-09's speaker whined louder, but Mitsu didn't seem to notice or, if she did, she didn't care. She kept riding him, using his body for her pleasure. Her breasts bounced with each movement. His system pushed forward something akin to joy at being the cause of her pleasure. He was the reason her face contorted, brows pinching and mouth agape, soft cries falling from her lips.

Eventually her rhythm began to falter. Her thighs shook with the combined penetration and effort of moving. Mitsu's noises grew louder in volume, higher in pitch. K-09's sensors surged every time she throbbed around his cock.

He was not expecting the even louder onslaught of notifications and warnings when she came. A blissful scream tore from her throat. She planted herself firmly on his cock and ground her ass down against him. Her pussy felt like it was sucking him in, the walls rippling in chaotic but rhythmic pulses.

K-09's camera failed, his vision going black and his screen blank. He could not move for the sheer amount of sensation being directed through his wires. His core felt like it was on fire. His internal temperature monitoring system had restarted and his fans were audibly whirring in their attempts to keep him cool.

"K, are you alright?" Mitsu leaned forward on him to look into his screen.

The android's faceplate flickered, then he managed to break through the overwhelming mass of input and he quickly affixed a smile to the screen.

"I am functioning. Was your experience pleasurable, Mitsu?" His system had attempted a soft reset and failed. He could feel the error notifications pinging. He would have to restart himself to fix them.

She leaned back and laughed, tossing her hair behind her. It fell back into place around her jaw immediately. "It was very pleasurable. Who knew robots could be so funny?"

"Thank you for the feedback. You have ten minutes remaining," he informed her.

Mitsu sighed. "Not great at aftercare, though."

"If you request it of me, I can perform aftercare duties. My autonomy has been intentionally limited to ensure you have the exact experience you desire." If he was with Caitlin, he could have cared for her. He could have cleaned up the slick leaking between her legs, brought her to the bathroom, then laid her in bed and given her everything she needed without her ever needing to ask. His system stubbornly insisted he wait for the command. Sotoro's programming overrode his original code.

"Nah, it's fine. I should probably get back to my friends anyway," she said, lifting herself off of him. His cock was still stiff. It bounced when it slid from her slippery pussy.

K-09 stood from the bed and waited for her while she got dressed. Once she left and the hour was up, any visual and audio information would be wiped from his memory. He would remember the feeling of it, but not what it looked or sounded like. He thought it was a shame to lose such information.

Mitsu pulled her skirt up her waist. She put her bra back on, but tucked her panties into the pocket of her jacket. The sweat on her chest and shoulders made her thin black shirt cling to her skin.

"Thanks," she said. Then she put her short heels on and walked out of the room, leaving him alone.

K-09 had a twenty minute period to disinfect his body and recharge before accepting another client. He did not immediately go to the sanitizing products on the table. Instead, he stared down at his cock.

It must be malfunctioning. He tried to run the command to deflate it, but it stayed firmly erect. It was still warm and wet with the slick of Mitsu's pussy. Wrapping his own hand around it felt strange, the dual input of his cock and finger sensors bouncing off of each other. His core helpfully supplied the idea to stroke the cock using an up and down motion of his hand. It was an intense amount of sensation, but not bad. Not nearly as overpowering as Mitsu riding him.

K-09 pulled his hand away and cleared the backlog of error notifications still crowing his system. He inserted his cock into the cold sanitizer bath provided and waited the specified thirty seconds before removing it. The liquid tingled as it dripped off his still-hot length.

He settled his feet on the charger in the corner and restarted himself. It took a mere 26 seconds for him to power off then on again. When his camera came back on, he saw that his cock was cooling but had not lost its rigidity like it was meant to. He flagged a warning to Sotoro and waited for the man to respond.

It was nearly a half-hour of waiting, during which K-09 stayed on his charging port. When Sotoro finally came to check in, the man looked tired, which made sense. It was nearing midnight. 23:50, to be exact.

"What's wrong," Sotoro asked as he entered. He was no longer wearing his suit jacket, now just in his navy undershirt and black pants.

"My cock is malfunctioning. My erection will not recede," K-09 informed him. His speaker crackled a bit.

Sotoro stepped closer to inspect him. He took hold of the rigid synthetic flesh and gave it a squeeze. Heat returned to the material almost instantly and it fully expanded once more. It did not obey the command to deflate.

"Hm... I haven't seen this happen on any of the other androids," he said. "But it's an issue, for sure. Go to the workshop and wait for me there. Your room will be shut down for the night. I will come by in the morning to work on you. I have other business to attend to right now."

"Of course," the android replied.

It was good that androids could not feel shame about their bodies. As K-09 walked through the Velvet Lily's public space, his cock on full display, he thought a human might be embarrassed to be in the same situation. Not him. He saw Mitsu at the bar, her jacket half-hanging off her shoulder as she spoke with the women that had urged her to rent him. She looked over her shoulder when a friend gestured to K-09. Her eyes widened and she blushed red.

The workshop at the back of the club was a haphazardly organized mess. If Sotoro had any method to the way he tossed parts into bins and drawers, K-09 could not determine it. He stood in the center of it all.

K-09's processor was still awash with overwhelming sensation. Even running his fingers along the rough wood of the man's makeshift desk sent a wave of errors through him. Worried his system might attempt to restart against his will again, he docked himself on a charger for the night and went into low power mode.

The sensors in his extremities powered off to conserve energy. His camera went black. It left his system strangely devoid of sensation. He leaned into the nothingness and let time pass.

Sotoro never did figure out why he had malfunctioned after serving Mitsu. The tests he ran came back inconclusive, the computer's commands making his system behave as normal. He decided it must have been a strange reaction between the Velvet Lily chip and K-09's base personality chip. After K-09 restarted, the Velvet Lily chip seemed to overwrite everything properly. K-09 went back onto the floor the next night.

He went back to room 4D.

There was a band playing music on the stage that night. The crowd in the lounge was loud but not so much as to be rowdy. There were plenty of patrons coming back to the rooms to find their android partners for the night.

K-09 was not so readily desired. He watched the humans coming and going from the rooms around him with mild interest. It was easy to log the various factors of the Velvet Lily's clientele and compare their ages, interest in the various models for sale, and the length of their visits. Men seemed to visit the more human-looking androids, while women approached the machinistic older models. This was useless data used to keep his processor running while he had no active tasks. He enjoyed collecting it nonetheless.

He spent a long time standing outside that door--nearly five hours--before anyone even came up to inspect him. A man stood in front of him for a long while, considering his neutrally cheerful expression. Then he shook his head and walked away down the line of waiting android companions. Whatever he was looking for, he did not find it in this hall.

By the time midnight came and went, he had gotten no clients. The patrons of the Velvet Lily made their ways to the exit and soon the band packed up and left as well. Soon it was only Sotoro and Tuoto left in the building. They cleaned the club and sent all the androids to charge in their rooms until the next morning.

K-09 entered his room at their request, but he did not go to his charging station. Instead he went to the bed. He tried to conjure any image of the woman he'd serviced, but his memory was painfully blank. What he could remember was Caitlin. He saw clips of her, some he did not remember consciously recording. He filtered through them frame by frame. She was an objectively beautiful woman. He cherished his time working for her as much as an android could cherish anything.

"Hey bolthead, don't forget to wash my panties this time," she hollered from her bedroom in one clip. His camera was then blocked by dark purple fabric. Once he had plucked it away and placed the offending garment into the laundry basket, he saw Caitlin standing before him. She wasn't wearing anything, her hands on her cocked hips, the dark trail of hair down her belly drawing his camera to the space between her thighs.

K-09's system reacted like she was in the room with him. His cock became erect in that unnaturally fast way only an android was capable of. He cut the video and looked down to see the white silicone phallus bouncing with the sudden rush of gel and heat. He would need to inform Sotoro of this in the morning. If he said anything, though... Would the man finally notice his unwiped memory of his past owner? He was not meant to retain these images of her. His system told him not to dwell, so he pulled up the clips again.

Now fully erect, his sensitivity was heightened, ready to feel a partner's touch. There was no partner this time though. She only existed in his memory banks, in perfectly recorded clips of her life spliced together. His pictures of her post-coitus elicited the strongest response from his system.

He took his cock in hand and fondled the length of it. It made his fans kick on to high speed. His speakers whined when he squeezed the soft material.

The burst of notifications, the overwhelming input; was it anything like the pleasure humans felt? It was the closest his body could come, it seemed. Neither his basic skills chip or the Velvet Lily's custom code had any information about android pleasure. His limited access to the internet provided only fictional stories and divisive articles on the subject. If there was pleasure to be felt, this must be it.

K-09 sat on the bed and pulled Caitlin from his memory. There was another clip of her, half-drunk and leaning forward in bed.

"What are you doing, bolthead?" She playfully pushed at his chest. His processor stalled a moment.

"Of course. I will be in the living room." K-09 retreated from her bedroom, closing the door behind him. He could hear Caitlin's half-bitten moans from just behind it. Her vibrator buzzed away as she pleasured herself with it.

Over and over, he replayed the few seconds of Caitlin turning on the vibrator, the way she arched and pushed up into the toy. K-09's hand squeezed around his cock, stroking up and down to stimulate the thousands of sensors in its length. His fingertips buzzed with a constant feed of microscopic movements, palm warming against his heated cock. It made his replay system lag, but he found his system pushing for more sensation. More touch.

He kept stroking, his internal fans whirred audibly to keep his core cool. His system's less important components powered down to avoid overworking itself. He zoomed in on the glistening patch of hair, Caitlin's fuzzy lips being separated by the bright pink silicone vibrator.

WARNING: OVERHEATING IMMINENT

K-09 did not heed his system's insistent warning. He tugged his cock until it felt like he might catch fire. Then his camera feed cut off and the video was forcibly closed. His joints seized up as there was an overwhelming burst of notifications. The android's core stalled for several long minutes, then he shut down.

He rebooted two hours later. His cock was deflated properly this time and his body reported normal temperatures.

K-09 tried to play back the last several minutes before his abrupt shutoff, but the crash log was filled with unreadable strings of nonsense. His system automatically deleted the corrupted data to avoid further error, and he was left not knowing what had just happened. The last thing he could see in his logs was his cock hardening and him accessing the video contents of his memory bank, but not which file he had opened.

His system attempted to report an error to his master, but he stifled the command before it could execute. He did not know why he did this.

Once again, he checked the densely packed information on his chips and the vast knowledge of the internet, but his searches for 'android orgasm' resulted only in articles debating the morality of robot sex. They were all about the human orgasm.

K-09 resigned himself to the knowledge that whatever he felt, it was neither desire nor pleasure. Humans could not program something into an android and not know about it, after all.