Page 23 of Leviathan

I sat back on my heels, the panel that hid this section of the wall on the floor next to me, examining the white glowing cords, the neurofilaments that were hidden behind it, as I tried to work out the best way to get to that spot that was just out of reach.

I'd been on Lyrien for almost a month now, going off the clock and calendar Lyrien had set up for me, and it was a strange sort of heaven. When he meant that he could entertain me, he meant it. He had the ability to change the internals of the ship easily with his drones, rearranging the spaces into complex structures within hours of my mentioning a desire. But only after I had cleared specific segments of neurofilaments that he isolated for the task. He was methodical about it, to the point that he had created a grid for us to work through, section by section.

He had a manufacturing bay with a variety of machinery that he wouldn't allow me to touch unless I completed a four-month operations and safety course. I wasn't ready to add that onto my rapidly filling schedule of activities, but sometimes I watched a live feed of the room when I requested something in particular. It was fascinating to watch how he took a vague description of mine and turned it into a viable product, like my new treadmill that had been added to my gym. He mentioned he was using blueprints for other species, then adapting them to my own descriptions of what I needed, but it was still impressive.

So far, he had made me a gym that included a climbing wall with safety equipment, a swimming pool with a full window out into the stairs, a media room with surround sound and cushions, a vocational training classroom, and something that he was building for me now that I couldn't wait to try out. I'd described a holodeck to him, and he said he had the perfect thing. I didn't recognize anything coming out of the manufacturing bay, so I decided to wait for the full reveal rather than watch what he was doing.

Plus, I had plenty of work to do tracking down the smudges on his neurofilaments. They were the most alien thing about him, and I was having a hard time thinking of him as a software program whenever I handled them, especially because they seemed to have some sort of sensory input for him. He had even stopped me a few times in the first week of my working on them to tell me that it was overstimulating and he needed a break.

The more I worked on them, the more used to it he got, which was good, both because he needed me to do this and for the more selfish reason that I liked touching them. They were soft, reactive, and warm. They pressed back against me like they were limbs, and it was the closest I had gotten to a kind, affectionate touch since I was taken. As time went on, I realized that doing this job for him was fulfilling a need I had, a craving for closeness.

It was a problem.

Not for him, but for me.

He was an artificial intelligence housed in a giant alien spacecraft, and I was a small biological humanoid he had rescued. When he dropped me off where I wanted to go, that would be the end of all of this, and I was developing...feelings. Feelings he couldn't possibly return. Maybe it was a reaction to him rescuing me. Maybe it was because it was starved for affection, and he had rescued me and treated me with a genuine kindness that was almost painful to receive because of how deeply I craved it.

Or maybe it was because he took care of my every need.

Almost every need.

Every time one of his neurofilaments shifted while I was working around it, stroking the inside of my wrist or curling around my palm, it felt good, like someone trailing their fingers against me, and my body would react as if it were being caressed, with pleasure tingling along my skin where he touched me. His neurofiliaments seemed to react to me more and more as I continued with the maintenance work. These spot cleaning sessions kept leaving me with a soft ache between my legs.

I craved his touch, missing it when I was alone in my rooms.

I eyed the spot, deep in the mass of neurofilaments. The ones in the wall were thick, like a woven fiber shaped into small tree trunks, but he could shift them and part them to some extent. We had done everything I could reach at arm's length by kneeling in the hallway, but the next spot was pretty far back, and it was on a big one. He could move the big ones as well as the smaller-sized filaments, but it was a slower process, and I wouldn't be able to clean that spot today.

"Lyrien," I said. "I think the only way for me to reach the next spot is to climb in. Can your neurofilaments support my weight if I crawl on them?"

He was silent for a moment, a pause I'd gotten used to whenever I asked a question about touching the neurofilaments in a new way.

"They can easily support your weight," he said, an almost husky quality to his voice.

When he made his voice sound like that, it made my problem so much worse.

I hadn't told him because I didn't want him to stop, but damn, was it doing something to me.

"Alright, I'm going in," I said. "Let me know if this is too much or if you need me to change anything I'm doing. We can stop at any time."

I leaned forward into the gap he had made in the filaments, putting both of my hands down on the silky surface as I leaned my weight in slowly, testing to make sure I wasn't going to slip through the fibers. They held sturdy beneath my hands.

"Maria," he said, his voice still holding that husky quality. Then he made a sound like he was clearing his throat. I rocked back on my hips, taking my upper body out of his space, puzzled by the sound.

Why would a software program generate the sound of a throat clearing? Maybe he was trying to sound more relatable to me? There were so many things like that, small things that made it hard to remember he was just software.

"Would you be willing to remove your clothing?" he asked.

My heart rate spiked upwards for a moment, and it took me a second to remind myself that, despite how delicious his voice was, he was not a man.

He was a spaceship, but he was also of alien origin.

"Why?" I asked, even though I already knew what he was going to say.

I'd been so careful about how much I touched him with my bare skin because of how much I wanted to, how much it turned me on. It felt like I was taking advantage of him, of satiating a one-sided need. So I held back.

"The feeling of your clothing is uncomfortable," he said. "It is preferable to have your skin touching me instead. However, if this request is unpleasant to you, please ignore it. It is only a preference of mine."

The only problem with the request was that I was far too eager to do it. I was already feeling dampness between my legs. I was performing maintenance. I couldn't crawl around in him, dripping wet with arousal.