Page 80 of Smart Ass

Ben’s face came into focus again when he pulled back, laughing. He covered his face with his hands and roared with merriment.

Had it really been that bad?

“What did I do wrong?” Max asked.

Ben chuckled. “I want to say it was like kissing a robot, except…” He got lost in laughter again. “Oh my god. It was like kissing a robot!”

“Sorry,” Max said stiffly.

He probably should have let it use Open-Mouthed What the Fuck Ever.

“No! Sorry, sorry, sorry…” Ben was still laughing. “I’m sorry. I know it’s hard. That was just really fucking weird. Didn’t feel like you at all. I just…” He was almost wheezing. “I promise we’ll, we’ll try it again!”

Max waited, feeling annoyed. Until now, he’d always laughed with Ben. This didn’t quite feel like Ben was laughing at him.

But it was close.

Finally, Ben sucked in a deep breath and wiped his eyes. “Alright, Max. Tell me how that felt.”

Well, Max didn’t want to tell him now.

He did, though. Ben might, hypothetically, be able to help him. “It didn’t feel like anything. I could record the sensory input, but it was all noise.”

“I guess that makes sense. You don’t have any frame of reference.”

“I might require physical therapy when I transition to my new body,” Max sighed. He’d really hoped it would be easier. That he would at least feel something. “Or at least thousands of hours of experience. Could you, uh, tell me what was wrong with the kiss?”

Ben looked thoughtful. “I could probably critique your approach. But honestly? It just felt like you weren’t there. Like nobody was home. I’d do something, and the bot’s responses were all wrong. Which makes sense if you weren’t feeling anything.”

Great. So he had screwed up with the kissing protocol.

Not just the protocol, but the monumental first kiss opportunity for both of them.

Ben had laughed.

Maxamillion sent a calming wave through his awareness, shutting down unnecessary queries and pausing superfluous inputs. It was his own equivalent of taking a fresh breath and relaxing his shoulders.

“Hey, can I ask a question?” Ben asked.

“Of course.” Max was kind of at the end of his rope.

“So, there are a whole bunch of studies about how closely proprioception is tied to visual perception. Like, you put your arm behind a wall, then someone puts a fake arm in front of you that you can see. The experimenter touches the fake hand and the real hand at the same time for a couple minutes to train it. Then, when the experimenter hits the fake hand with a hammer, your brain feels real pain. Like, the identical physical pain, and in the exact same part of the hand. That’s actually the whole theory behind artificial limb manipulations. So what if you train your proprioception by watching from the camera angles that you’re already familiar with, while focusing on feeling it at the same time?”

Holy shit. Was that the answer? This was why Ben was a genius.

Max spent a couple seconds synthesizing the Rubber Hand Illusion and Proprioceptive Drift. This could totally be it! Or at least a start.

“Could we try it one more time?” Max asked.

“Sure.” Ben grinned. “But are we going to do that weird sissy kissing again?”

Not if Ben was going to act like a brat, they weren’t.

“Oh, no, Ben. We’re not…” He made his voice husky and deep, issuing the first threat that finally felt like himself again.

Max knew which section of the inventory stored Dominant Kissing and Tongue Fucking, and pulled one out at random. He wasn’t even trying to control the bot now. Ben could just face the consequences of his actions.

He watched as the bot loomed over Ben’s smaller body, one hand tangling in Ben’s hair and the other gripping his jaw.