I was almost positive she wouldn’t hurt a fly, even in her current emotional state she’d flinch away from striking out. Not that she could in that moment with her power suppressed, but my mind was already working ahead, she couldn’t stay here like this. The other female inmates would eat her alive, and I wouldn’t put it past the guards to at least cause her more mental anguish with verbal baiting and cruelty. Which was the last thing she needed.

  I kept my face as neutral as possible, but I imagine a sliver of compassion was leaking through.

  She shivered, “My father was an abusive alcoholic, and my mother a willing victim. Too afraid to get us out of there, or to stop him from abusing either of us. When I was a child, his abuse was mostly verbally demeaning and emotional, but he enjoyed putting out cigarettes on me, and he’d slap me or spank me for the smallest infraction of the rules. Sometimes he did it when he was angry, but during those years my mother took the brunt of his physical abuse, it was a miracle she didn’t die from it several times.”

  She shook her head as she looked at me, then said, “Halfway into my thirteenth year when I grew my curves it got even worse. He didn’t sexually abuse me, but he started to call me a slut if I bared even the smallest amount of skin. Other things, worse things. Accusations of being a whore if I didn’t come straight home from school, which usually including a beating during his verbal abuse. My back and legs were already scarred with burns, so it wasn’t like I could wear anything revealing, it was all in his mind.

  “That continued for another two and a half years, until he beat my mother unconscious and then started on me because he hadn’t gotten all his anger out yet. It was just past my sixteenth birthday, and it’s a little blurry. One moment I was a bruised and bloody mess, with scars all over my body, the next I looked perfect like I do now, and it was my father on the ground crying out.

  “I felt empty. So very empty and wrong inside. The only thing that gave me any modicum of happiness was his loud and tortured screams. I paid him back for every moment, before he died. I think he died of thirst, it lasted about three days. I was a stone inside, a doll in the mirror, cold.”

  She shuddered.

  Then shook her head, “I felt so empty with my parents’ death. Cold and dead, for a few days as I ate everything in the kitchen. I also had no place, no money, no ambition. So I did what they accused simply to get more food. I put on one of my mother’s kimonos, put pink blossoms in my hair, and I went out to torture people for a spark of something and to take their money so I could eat. That didn’t last long, when the Trio took me down.”

  I nodded, “Your mother?” I asked, since she hadn’t mentioned her, and according to reports she’d tortured them both.

  She tilted her head forward in shame, “Died of her injuries. The ones my father inflicted. I was too busy torturing dad to call an ambulance. I suppose I did kill her in that way, neglect, but I didn’t torture her to death like the authorities believe. I hated her, for giving into her fear, for being too weak to leave that sick bastard, for not saving me, but I didn’t want to see her die either. I wanted her to live. Not out of any morality, but simply to suffer in her cowardice and fear. Killing her would’ve been a kindness, or so I believed at the time in my cold outlook.”

  She shivered, “It’s a nightmare.”

  I wanted to tell her a lot of things, but it was nothing she’d believe in her current state. She needed long-term care to begin to forgive herself, put her abuse behind her, and see hope and beauty in the world out there. That it wasn’t all dark. When it all happened, she’d been an abused and beat down personality that was too young to have learned this too shall pass. Which is why her subconscious made the power burn her out, because she and it didn’t know she could be free merely by walking away.

  So it took away the pain, and that emptiness turned her into a monster. But it was clear that wasn’t who she was as a healthy young woman for perhaps the first time ever in her life.

  “I’m going to get you transferred to a psychiatric facility. Once they feel you’re ready I imagine you’ll be released on parole.”

  Thea interjected to me through comms, “Already starting the paperwork, the warden should have it on his desk in thirty minutes.”

  “Released?” she asked in disbelief.

  “The world can be a wonderful place. Your father was the monster, not you. I know you won’t believe that right now, but it’s true. You still have a long life, and time to find the joys this life has to offer. What happened to you was monstrous, but it’s over now.”

  She frowned, “Will I see you again?”

  “I’ll check on you from time to time, as the facility allows. I won’t be your doctor anymore, as the program is complete if accidentally so. I thought you’d be angry with me.”

  Her eyes watered, “You’re the only one that looks at me without fear and disgust.”

  Oh. I guess that didn’t really surprise me. The guards would fear her, and most supervillains were assholes.

  “I don’t think that will be a problem when you’re transferred, but I’ll check on you after a few days.”

  She nodded, “Thank you, doctor. I’m not sure I deserve it.”

  “The only thing you didn’t deserve was what was done to you.”

  She looked far from convinced, but also grateful for what she obviously believed was my foolish insanity.

  On that note, I took my leave. I spent another hour in the facility, heading up to the warden’s office to make sure nothing else went wrong. I knew he wouldn’t be happy with the transfer orders for one of his most previously sociopathic inmates. Based on his scowls and looks of disbelief as to my sanity, I thought it was time well spent.

  I also recommended no more than mild sedatives to the psychiatric facility. Her brain chemistry was perfect now after all, in balance, and she just needed therapy to find herself and be ready to face the world. To become a happy and productive member of society. I also didn’t believe she’d be violent.

  Powerful drugs would only impede her recovery, though an occasional mild sedative might be beneficial.

  It was close to noon by the time I returned home, and I ignored the twitch of disappointment my Thea wasn’t there when I arrived. Of course, her mind and interfaces were, just not her body. At the same time, I hoped her date with Faith was going well, there was no reason to think it wasn’t, but doubt was a natural thing.

  Despite that, the bots she controlled with her main core on the ship had my lunch ready and waiting, and I sat down to dig in. I was tempted to ask her how it was going, but I could damned well wait until she got home. I was sure she’d be bursting to tell me, and I didn’t want to be annoying or distract her.

  After lunch I took some time to plan out the date later that night, and I started gathering things and make food myself for it. It felt both necessary and a little silly not to just tell Thea what to make for tonight, but I wanted to woo them both. That meant putting in the work myself.

  It was the thought that counted, and relationships were made up of the small things to show they were on my mind.

  At the same time, I was mentally revising my project list. The siphon was still going strong and without problems, and I couldn’t start on the Mars project until it was done. Which meant I had a whole lot of time in my day now to kill. My main project had taken most of my focus the last year. Perhaps too much time. Once meeting success on my major project to save the world, if still in progress, that had freed up too much time. Work life balance included work after all.

  So I added a couple of more side projects to keep me busy and feeling useful.

  One of the downsides of a technological world was all the chemicals our bodies were exposed to on a day to day basis. None of the millions of years of evolution had built natural mechanisms to deal with those chemicals. Some of course, were shed through sweat while working out, or in a sauna. But many were just contained by the body’s tissues, because the body had no clue what the hell else to do with them. The body just didn’t know how to break them down and add it to the body’s natural waste to be removed.

  So I added medical nanites to the project list, not so much to heal trauma but to purify the body of the various chemical poisons that build up over the years. Healthcare was a hard system to break into, there were so many regulations and red tape. The current drug companies had it pretty tied up. Still, I’d faced worse odds, and this issue wasn’t something healthcare really addressed at all, so maybe it wouldn’t tweak their noses.

  Pollution was also a systemic problem, whether it impacted global weather or not was immaterial, as it was poisoning people with even more chemicals. I wasn’t at all interested in the political aspects of the issue. The simple fact was we cleaned our houses to maintain our health, it just made sense to keep our planet clean as well. At least, as well as we could.

  So that was my second project, research into cleaning up the air and ocean, as well as landfills and even toxic and nuclear waste. I’d have to figure out what could be recycled, and what simply needed to be removed from existence. Finding it all would be the easy part, since I could just scan the planet with meta-energy for the specified atomic structures once I’d worked up a definitive list.

  So I got started on both of those, aims, goals, scientific methods and testing schedule. That all took some time to get going. Once I had it scheduled out, I also had our picnic meal in the fridge ready to go for that night.

  It was right around one-thirty and I was on the couch when Thea teleported into the living room. She gave me a bright smile, and she walked over and crawled into my lap. She’d worn a cute yellow sundress and white sandals for the date, and she looked adorably sexy and mischievously beautiful as she claimed a soft kiss.

  “Hi, master.”

  I grinned, “Hi yourself. How’d it go?”

  She said, “We went to a sushi place, and had a good time. You know, she’s so vibrantly warm it’d be hard not to have a good time with her. It’s users she’s wary of forming connections to, so she was very relaxed with me. After, we went to the local mall. She picked up some clothes, and I got some clothing ideas for my conjuration. So, the date for tonight is still on, she’ll be here at six.”

  I kissed her softly, and she moaned into my mouth.

  “Any new insights, that wouldn’t be breaking a confidence.”

  She winked, “Good qualifier. No, although I’m surer than ever my theory into her nature and her concerns about you are tied up with her power’s personality change, assuming there was one. I also may have talked you up a bit.”

  I laughed, “How so.”

  She shrugged, “Things you can’t say without sounding self-serving. I told her with your social dissonance issues you could see those needs her outward personality doesn’t show. I also told her what a good man you were, in general, without betraying your secret projects. I also might have mentioned you had an amazingly fat and long cock.”

  I snickered, and then changed the subject before I was tempted to ask what Faith’s response to that was, “I’ve been thinking.”

  She smiled, “You always are, what is it?”

  I tilted my head, “You’re more than a servant now. A wonderful woman with ambitions of your own, not to mention being my love now. I was wondering if you wanted me to look into building a class two A.I. to take care of the little stuff, so you could focus on your new ambitions, personal projects, hobbies, and of course our relationship.”

  She giggled, “I love you too, master. I love that you made the offer, and are thinking of me as your lover and partner and not your servant, but no. This body, and my mostly independent meta-energy construct in it is focusing on you, our relationship, my ambitions and hobbies, and personal projects. That’s what this body is for, all of my newly expanded needs and interests on all levels. It’s my creation energy construct on the ship and core of me that’s doing all the usual things. Cooking and cleaning with the bots, maintaining the ship, and monitoring your health and needs remotely when this body isn’t with you. Listening for orders, or chances to help you unobtrusively. Also, experiencing everything this body does.

  “I love doing all of those little things, as an expression of love and service. Plus, even with all that and running the ship my core A.I. on the ship already has too much time and not enough to do. The capacity and speed of my processing is significantly higher by magnitudes in this body alone compared to my old quantum core, and the creation matrix is even faster.”

  I nodded, and then relaxed about that.

  “Just how independent is this body?” I patted her ass.

  She giggled, “It’s inextricably entwined with the core on the ship, so an extension, or second brain that works in perfect harmony. At the same time, it’s completely self-sufficient in the sense that if the ship was destroyed, I’d still be here. Just as a meta-energy construct alone.”

  She kissed me softly, and melted her body against mine, while she swiveled her hips and ground down on my cock with a wild wanton moan of desire.

  I could take a hint, my sweet naughty Thea was feeling needy for my cock, a state of mind I currently shared about her heavenly body. I needed to share pleasure with her. She giggled naughtily when my robe construct disappeared, and her silk panties were the only thing separating our grinding sexes. Just how moist and hot she felt through that thin material made me moan in anticipation. It never failed to turn me on, just how soaked and ready she was for me, all the time.

  Yet, we weren’t in a hurry. The way her sex glided along mine felt amazing as we playfully kissed each other, and I teased her bountiful breasts through the yellow sundress to both of our delight. A little dry humping would go a long way to raise up the anticipation, and to elevate the eventual mind-blowing pleasures of our joined bodies.

  It was going to be a good afternoon…

  Chapter Twelve

  The sun was low on the horizon, sunset a mere hour away, and the three of us sat on a blanket on the beach. The rolling waves and warm breeze felt good, and I was enjoying the company and view. The food was laid out as well, some simple sandwiches, strawberries, melons, and a bottle of white wine.

  Thea was in a pair of short shorts and a white bikini top, with her long wavy light brown hair up and off her neck, revealing the gentle curves there. She was also barefoot. She looked delicious, as her double D cups were practically spilling out of the tiny bikini top. It was also more than obvious she was aroused as her nipple bumps were very clear to see.

  Faith looked mouthwateringly beautiful and lithely sexy. She sat rather demurely given the light blue loosely flowing skirt she had on which went down to lower thigh. She also had a matching halter top on which didn’t have much more coverage than a loose tube around her C cup heart shaped and firm breasts, save the two spaghetti straps over her shoulders. She’d arrived in red strappy open toed sandals, but at the moment they were sitting in the sand next to the blanket. Her long and straight light blonde hair was down and blowing sexily in the breeze as it caressed her body and shoulders, while scintillating stunningly in the setting sunlight.

  Half the time I wasn’t sure where to look, as I was captivated by both warm ocean blue and vividly piercing green eyes.

  We’d just been chatting lightly, and there was some playful flirting going on as well. Faith had been surprised and then pleased to find out I’d made the food, when she’d complimented Thea on it and had been corrected by my light brown-haired beauty.

  Faith looked really thrilled to be there, and more than a little turned on by both of our attentions. It was clear to me she found us both very attractive, and far more than just on the shallow level, though there was plenty of chemistry and shallow attraction too, to go around between us all.

  It was about halfway through the date after I’d claimed a particularly languid and passionate kiss from Faith that the conversation moved on to more serious things. She was breathless, and obviously as turned on as the both of us were. I was sure Thea’s pheromones took part in that, but not overly so, and she was just as attracted to me at the least.

  Point being, I think it was that lust and her desire for us that pushed her to share her story and the strange circumstances of her current personality. Which was as far as I could tell, always warming and vivacious. Along with her killer body, soft lithe curves, petite sexy ass, and heart shaped C cups just a little too generous for her body. It was a potent combination, not to mention the model beautiful looks of her face. She wanted to get it out there, before we jumped into bed, which was looking more and more likely to be that very night based on our flushed excitement and more blatant flirting that was filled with more promise instead of teasing playfulness than ever before.

  Faith said, “I need to explain as I promised. My life is strange at times, though you should understand I like myself, and what I am now. I’m don’t feel less independent, or less of anything, if anything the changes the quickening brought to me has made my life richer. If more complicated in one specific way.

  “To make sense of it, I have to tell you a little about before I became a titan. My mother was catwalk model, that transitioned to a clothing line model by the time I was older. She was a few inches taller than me, but remarkably similar in facial features save her complexion was a little darker. I got my skin, hair, and eye color from dad. She was… kind of an entitled bitch, honestly. By the time I was old enough to understand my parents’ interactions, the shiny had no doubt wore off the marriage.

  “My mother was a harridan and blamed my father for every little thing that went wrong. She gave withering and blistering insults. I have to assume my father had fallen for her beauty and form, though I can’t know for sure because I don’t know if she was always like that. As for me, she was cold to me, and demanding, but not verbally abusive like she was with dad. We didn’t really get along, but neither did we fight all the time.

  “My father on the other hand doted on me, and we’re very close still to this day. He was even unfailing supportive and kind to my mother, despite her attitude. In some ways, in hindsight, I think that must’ve made it worse, but he’d never raised a hand or his voice to her once, at least not in my hearing.