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Everyone above the age of ten knows of the scientific method—a systematic, empirical means for acquiring knowledge via careful observation, rigorous skepticism, hypothesis testing, and experimental validation.
It is hammered into the tender brains of a sixth grader during their science classes and follows them all the way into theses and dissertations in college, should they even make it there in the first place with the deteriorating state of the education system. And clearly it is so vital, so instrumental because it heralds all major advancements in the various fields of science and is the quintessential tool of every scientist looking to reinvent the wheel… or maybe looking to complete their graduation requirements so they don't have to shill out thousands of dollars for another semester at those money-hungry academic institutions that care not about the quality of education but rather the—
Ahem. Anyway.
What was he talking about again? Oh yeah, the scientific method. Blah, blah, blah, it has five to seven steps depending on which science textbook you're using, and for such a vital piece of information you think it would be standardized by now. Blah, blah, blah, it's usually along the lines of making an observation, forming a hypothesis, and testing it, but the older you get the more it gets laced with bullcrap like reviews of related literature and filing for ethics approval and whatnot. Point is, scientists use this thing a lot. Usually to satiate their curiosity, or to answer some age-old question, or simply to mess around just because they can and never stopped to think about whether they should.
That is to say, in the pursuit of knowledge, scientists can do some really fudging dumb things.
The scientist in question? Doctor Captain Ryland Grace. The research design? Experimental. The line of inquiry? Whether the multibillion-dollar extensive healthcare system—a glorified nanny bot, really—aboard a spaceship hurtling into deep space could serve as a substitute for human touch. That is to say, a substitute for human touch in the interest of touch starvation… as a, uh, secondary objective. Because the primary objective involves… er… usecaseinsexualendeavors.
Ergo: Grace wants to turn Armando into a fuck machine.
Why, exactly, you might ask? First of all, why not? Actually, there are a million different 'why's to be asked, so let's run through all of them right now.
Why not settle with his hand? Because he's not a horny teenager anymore, he has standards. Why not use a makeshift dildo? Because he's really not willing to gamble sticking things up his ass when they don't have a base. Why not ask Rocky to make him a sex toy? Because he already has, and they've both already gone through an entire catalog of sex toys with varying degrees of success. Not really a 'why' question, but he knows people will ask this anyway: are he and Rocky together? Yes. They're boyfriends, mates, a guy who's probably gender-nonconforming but doesn't have time to worry about all that because he has two planets to save kissing sloppy style with his agender rock alien best friend that still wants him despite having a Certified Baddie™ mate back at home, whatever you wanna call it.
Oh, and don't worry about that last one. Eridians practice polyamory, and Grace wants that Certified Baddie™ mate as well. He just hopes that his autistic rizz and boyfailure charm works on them… whatever that means. Okay, seriously, he doesn't know what that means. He just heard his kids say it once and it stuck with him ever since. But he digresses.
Matter of fact, why not ask Rocky to get him off instead? Wow, the million dollar question. Well, dear reader, if only he could do that… because what he's asking for is far easier said than done.
Listen. Alien sex is hot and all. Rocky is hot and all, and he's not even loathe to admit that. He would love to crack that rock, have that rock crack him, feign fighting for dominance when all he wants is to be put in his place, have claws in his hair pressing his face into the mattress while he's being fucked senseless, show Rocky what it's really like to fist his bump. But alas… that's all in theory. In practice, there's a lot more boring stuff like logistics and trial and error. In practice, there's a lot of hissing and not-so-good groaning and 'owowow, Rocky, that's too much—' and '𝅘𝅥♫♪♬ Grace 𝅘𝅥♫♪♪ stupid ♬ !!!'.
Grace could write a whole litany out of the things that have gone wrong during their sexcapades. Really, there's a lot that can go wrong when you and your partner can't even be in the same atmosphere, when there's a big gap in your strength and weight, and when one of you is soft and fleshy while the other quite literally rock hard, and—oh. Oh no. Oh god. Now that he's started thinking about it, the memories are all coming back. Ack, no, make it stop—
"Oh, Rocky! Mh, that feels so good!"
"…"
"Rocky?"
"Does Grace actually feel anything when Rocky does this, question?"
"…"
"…"
"Yeah, no, this isn't really doing anything for me. Can we go back to you massaging my prostate? Thanks."
Right. He doesn't know why he even tried lying to a walking lie detector. Not his finest moment. He has a lot of those not-fine moments, really. Like… Fudge, no, it's happening again—
"W-wanna feel you, sweetheart. Wanna feel you so bad…"
"Grace… come here now."
"Hah… Rocky, c-can I just stick it in here?"
"Yesyesyes…"
"Mm, I bet you feel so—hgck!"
"Grace!?"
"Ugh, that is not insulated at all, oh my—"
He shudders. Right. Don't think about that day or the mini funeral they held for his penis. Just don't. Move on. Rejoice in the fact that on the third day, it rose again. Amen.
Truth is, alien sex is hard. They don't really have a lot of options. So far, the ol' reliable is mutual masturbation. It's tried and true with minimal risk, but it got old embarrassingly fast. The next best thing is Grace humping the surface of Rocky's ball. Not bad, especially when he gets really into it and loses himself to the sensations and to Rocky's penchant for dirty talk… but it's a little inadequate at times. Finally, there's using that one panel of xenonite mesh in Rocky's ball, but the most they can do with that is have Rocky give Grace a bit of a handjob. They really don't wanna push their luck with its flexibility, given the very disastrous consequences of things going wrong. Could you imagine if Earth and Erid's only saviors went out because they got a little too horny for each other?
And… that's about it. Until Rocky can figure out the carapace-tight xenonite suit he's been working on, that's all they've got.
Come on, now. Don't look at him like that. You think they haven't tried everything else? They're a little over two years into the journey to Erid; if you don't think they've christened just about every surface on the Hail Mary with his cum, that's kind of on you. And there's also multiple other unspecified liquids, but that's another kink for another day. Right now, it's time go fuck machine. Or, time go have-the-machine-fuck-him. Hopefully.
Grace has spent the better part of the last week tinkering with Armando's code, usually while watching Rocky sleep. Of course, what he's doing right now isn't any different. Rocky is curled up in the xenonite tunnel above him, completely still, all while he squints at the laptop in his lap and types furiously into Notepad++. Every now and then, he'll cross-reference Stack Overflow and pray that some poor, unfortunate soul from like 10… no, 20 years ago had the same problem he has and that someone gave them a solution for it. He must admit, the task is… daunting and rather time-consuming. But, well, it's honest work, and he's happy to do it.
Plus, it's kinda nice. With the astrophage problem solved and the issue of his dwindling food supply all figured out (thank you, conveniently calorie-dense Taumoeba), he has nothing to do. Between getting through shows, watching movies, and engaging in endless banter with Rocky, he's been getting kinda restless. Which isn't a surprise. He's in the equivalent of an beat-up aluminium can hurtling further into the universe than any human has ever gone, and he's going to land on a planet that he's not even sure will accept him or even be able to synthesize his needs for survival, and that's if nothing goes horribly wrong on the journey there because there's still a very real chance of a stray asteroid hitting them and leaving him and Rocky to die in the vast vaccum of space and—
Okay. Yeah. That's exactly why he shouldn't be left alone in his thoughts. So he's going to take all that existential dread, slide it to the side, and cram programming languages in his head like his sanity depends on it. Because it does. Woohoo! Cheers for escapism! His therapist is gonna really love this one. Not that he'll ever see her again. Oh well.
Grace pumps his fist in the air victoriously the second he finishes typing down that last string of code, instantly saving the file and rushing over to the cockpit to get it running. A couple button presses, one quick file transfer, and about a million clicks on various different 'confirm' prompts later, Mary's voice finally rings out on the speakers all around him.
[WARNING. New protocols detected. Are you sure you wish to overwrite existing protocols?]
He leans back into the seat, huffing, "yes, Mary, I'm sure." Jeez. It's as if he didn't just spend the last ten minutes saying exactly that.
[Administrator permission required. Please confirm overwriting of protocols by stating your full name.]
"Doctor Ryland Grace."
[Incorrect. Attempt number two: what is your name?]
What? Huh? Oh, wait, he remembers now. Rocky bullied him into changing it to include his new title, insisting that it's important part of Eridian culture to be addressed by all of your professional credentials. He tries, "Doctor Captain Ryland Grace?"
[Administrator permission granted. Welcome, Doctor Captain Ryland Grace. Protocol implementation will proceed.]
Whew. Hell yeah. All is well. All is good. That is, until red light slowly floods the monitors and warning sirens play incessantly around him.
Oh, what now?
[ERROR. You are trying to overwrite too many protocols at once! Cancelling protocol implementation automatically…]
He scrambles for the control panel, hands frantically flying over the user interface. "No, no, no, don't cancel!"
[Aborting automatic cancellation. Overwriting protocols must be done one by one. Would you like to proceed with manual protocol implementation?]
Exasperated, he mutters, "sure, whatever, go ahead."
[Protocol 'HCS-45431' to be overwritten with Protocol 'Armando Coitus Contraption-ification'. Please confirm, Doctor Captain Ryland Grace.]
"Yeah."
[Protocol 'HCS-19234' to be overwritten with Protocol 'i hate coding im abt to go INSANE'. Please confirm, Doctor Captain Ryland Grace.]
"What…" Grace blinks. Then, he recognizes that these are the names for his .txt files. "Yes, yes."
[Protocol 'HCS-90557' to be overwritten with Protocol 'just jam the arm up my butt i dont even care anymore man'. Please confirm, Doctor Captain Ryland Grace.]
He heaves a sigh. "Did I really name it that…? Uh, proceed."
This little back-and-forth goes on for longer than it really should. He doesn't remember having all those different protocols, much less the eccentric names for all of them. Perhaps it wasn't the best idea to code while sleep-deprived, but oh well. What's done is done.
[WARNING. Multiple basic health protocols are set to be overwritten. The HCS's built-in safety functions may be compromised. Would you like to proceed with manual protocol implementation?]
Listen, he's not the best at working with computers. His translator for Rocky is, kindly put, an unholy amalgamation of technology that's been thoroughly blasphemized to the core. It's so bad, it could probably put a whole class of computer science majors out of commission. And he knows they've seen some real shit, considering half of them are probably furries or femboys or both. He taped a tablet to a laptop. His lines of code are rudimentary and are basically sheer brute force. God forbid you hit Ctrl+F and type "else if" into that .txt file. Do you really think he's some kind of expert at programming? No, he just goes for the fastest option. Bonus points if it works as intended.
And the fastest option happens to be manually overriding all health protocols. So Grace goes ahead and does just that.
He smiles as he says, "please do."
[Protocol implementation complete.]
Mary both narrates that out loud and shows it as a little text on her monitors, punctuated by a cheerful little ding as the red lights in the cockpit slowly fade away. Grace can't stop himself from letting out a cheer, unbuckling his seatbelts as fast as he can.
"Yeah, go fudge yourself, Mary," he snickers when he steps back into the hallway. He heads to the dormitory where Rocky is, and he's very much still fast asleep. However, more importantly… Armando is also here. They're poised right above his empty pod, waiting patiently like they always have. At first glance, they're a little imposing, but he knows better than to fear them after all this time together.
Alright. Time to try things out.
Grace gets on the bed, laying flat on his back. He clears his throat. "Armando, take my clothes off."
The arms reach out for him just like how they did a thousand times before, though now they're just a bit gentler—all to simulate human contact, the prongs do a poor imitation of fingers hooking into the waistband of his jumpsuit pants to take them off. Another arm slides its apparatus under his shirt to lift it over his arms, just barely ghosting the skin of his stomach. Despite Armando's main composition of cool, hard metal alloy, Grace finds that their touch leaves a trail of fire in its wake.
"Armando," he breathes out, a little winded already, "touch me."
He still has his underwear on. He doesn't care, not when auxiliary arms slide up his sides and grip his waist, not when the main arm drags down his chest and stops just above the garter of his boxers. He arches into Armando involuntarily, the beginnings of a whine already building in his throat.
Oookay. Wow. Jeez. He didn't expect to be so receptive to the touch. He didn't expect to be half-hard already, tenting the front of his boxers after some light petting like he's devolved back into a horny teenager. Maybe there's a paper on this. How many years of involuntary touch abstinence does it take to reduce the human body to basal instincts? He could be a whole case study on the matter, he bets. Earth scientists are probably salivating at the thought of picking his brain apart. And body, for that matter. No human has been under the effect of enhanced gravity for that long, after all.
Gosh, he can't wait for Rocky to wake up so they can try this out properly—actually, hm… You know… What if he just… doesn't?
Yeah. Yeahhh. What's the harm, really? He's already worked up, and there's nothing wrong with trying things out a little longer. Just a test run. Yeah. Just one go. Can't hurt, right? Nope, no way at all. Armando's entire purpose is to not do that. Surely it'll be okay. Right? Right.
Cheeks reddening in embarrassment, Grace mumbles, "Armando, initiate masturbation protocol."
Without missing a beat, Armando tugs his boxers off and puts them aside. His dick springs out, slightly flushed and close to a full erection. He's not leaking, not quite yet, but he won't be surprised if he gets there soon. Armando's main appendage is curiously hovering around his pelvis area, the prongs already wet and shiny with medical-grade lube. Thank god they have a surplus of that, because he doesn't know what he'd do if he had to spit on his nanny-bot-turned-fuck-machine every five minutes to—oh!
Grace's breath hitches when he feels the prongs wrap around him, the hold a little awkward. But, with his lust-addled mind and the torturous slide against his sensitive length, it feels like divine mercy. Holy shift, the field of psychology deserves more credibility because why the heck is this whisper of a human touch fantasy doing things for him? Tactile hallucinations are crazy.
Armando is a little clinical with it; not a surprise, considering their original purpose. It is not a handjob in the traditional sense, not the stimulation of his penis via rubbing and stroking. No, for the prongs are quite literally not built for that. Instead, they find key pleasure points and absolutely go to town on them. One prong finds his frenulum, while the rest settle around or on the underside of his glans. Then, they rub in small, rhythmic circles—and it's enough to make him writhe and whimper.
"Hah… please," he whispers, shutting his eyes and losing himself to the sensations. It's great. It's wonderful, really. It's exactly what he wanted and more. But… despite it, he just can't sit still and take it.
It's not enough. It's not enough. After being denied of touch for so long, he needs more. More, more, more. He bucks his hips up, and that gets him going. His clumsy thrusts jostle the prongs, messing up Armando's perfect protocols. Though, if anything, the heterogeneity makes it even better; now, he can't predict exactly what he's going to feel next, and it feels all the better for it. Jolts of pleasure shoot up his spine every time the prongs get caught on his foreskin, and he doesn't even mind the slight sting that comes with it. Maybe he's a bit of a masochist, sue him. Oh no, you can't, there's no lawyers in space.
He lasts for all of five minutes before he cums, quick and abrupt—strings of white splatter around his stomach and even get on Armando's arm. The prongs keep rubbing him through his orgasm, letting him ride it out. It's so good, so so good, but there's just one problem. His pleased little whine turns strained with the plateau of pleasure drops off into the cliff of overstimulation, and he finds himself recoiling from the touch he's yearned so desperately for so far.
"Hngh," Grace chokes out weak protests. "Stop, stop, Armando, too much…"
The prongs don't stop. Oh no. Why aren't they stopping?
"Armando. Armando," he repeats desperately. "A-abort masturbation protocol, hah…"
His command doesn't go through. Why, why, why isn't it going through? Armando should notice he's in both physical and psychological distress. They've chimed in at inopportune times before, interrupting he and Rocky in the middle of sex because they misinterpret his vital signs as him being in danger. His heart should be going haywire right now; he can feel it thundering in his chest, pumping blood to every anxiety-riddled crevice of his body. Basic health protocols should kick in once he's sustained this rate of heartbeat for over—
Right. Grace did a manual override on those. And now Armando won't stop, because they don't sense anything wrong. And he must've forgotten to implement a killswitch for the code, because he wasn't originally intending to take things for a test run yet.
This warrants a fuck, he thinks. This warrants many, many fucks. This warrants a shit, a bullshit, and a horseshit. This warrants an entire dictionary of curses and profanities that would make his wild college self blush and the pope roll over in his grave. Popes, actually. Multiple. All two hundred, sixty-five of them. Or sixty-six. He wonders if the last one has kicked the bucket yet while he's been out in space.
Unfortunately, what comes out of his mouth is not a swear but a wanton moan. His abdomen tightens as the burn of overstimulation toes the line between pleasure and pain, and his second orgasm washes over him all too suddenly. Fuck. Due to his erratic movements, his cum lands all the way up his chest, painting a debauched picture on the unmarked canvas of his torso. He's never felt like this before; not once in his sparse sex life has he ever thought to experiment with marathon masturbation. His nerves feel absolutely shot and thoroughly spent, and every fleeting touch feels like it's setting off a sparking live wire.
Alas, despite it all, Armando still doesn't stop.
At this point, Grace is done. Forget what his mind wants, his body surely cannot handle any more than this. With all the strength he has left—which, admittedly, is not much—he turns himself over to lie on his stomach. It's the first line of defense, shielding his sensitive dick from those evil, evil prongs while he tries to get away from Armando alltogether. He doesn't trust his legs to work, so he doesn't even try getting up to run into another room. Instead, he tries crawling away into the far corner of his bed, hoping that the xenonite structure weaving around it would be enough to block the machine.
It's a solid plan for all of five seconds until Armando just… grabs onto his hips and raises them. Right. Yeah. They can do that. They've always been able to do that. It doesn't take long before those prongs find him again and fuckkkkkkkk.
Except this time, there's more. Because the universe decided he hasn't suffered enough just yet. No, because two of Armando's other arms start poking at his chest. It's a little ticklish, but he doesn't move away from them. He honestly has no idea what they're doing, not until they both start holding little pieces of cloth and wipe at his skin.
Ah, the cleaning protocol. Somehow, he hasn't overwritten that with something else. That's a worrying thought, actually. Why didn't he implement some kind of aftercare into the fuck machine protocol? Is he stupid? He's stupid. Rocky's gonna have a field day with this one. No wonder things have been going wrongggggoooohhhshitttt—
Grace wants to get a restraining order from his own mind. It's kidnapping him. His thoughts are holding him hostage, and he can't afford his own ransom. But again, he can't do anything about it because there are no lawyers in space. Fuck.
He simply comes back to reality to the arms running the cloth over his nipples; drawing all these soft, needy noises out of him when he didn't even know he was sensitive there in the first place. Maybe his entire body is sensitive at this point—he would not be surprised considering what little he knows of the effects of prolonged isolation on the human body. Regardless, point is, they're fucking toying with him here. They're basically playing with his nipples and it's just a whole other point of pleasure that he didn't think he would have to deal with today and he's already came twice.
"No, no… stop," Grace mewls as he claws futilely at the mattress, grabbing fistfuls of the sheets but never quite grasping at any kind of reprieve from his current predicament. His body just doesn't quite know what to do, because moving away from the prongs around his cock means pressing his chest further into the cloth, and vice versa. He's stuck in a constant loop of pleasure, forced to choose between the lesser of two evils yet never quite able to free himself from the throes of carnal ecstacy.
Suddenly, a familiar song fills the air—a break in routine, a respite from the madness. "Grace?"
It's honestly quite embarrassing how fast his head snaps up from the first note alone. Rocky is awake now, tapping against the xenonite barrier separating them and making little chirps and chitters. Grace knows his mate can't see him, not in the traditional sense, but god he must look like a wreck. His glasses are askew, his jaw slack, there's drool pooling up in his mouth and tears welling up in his eyes…
And now, a thin trail of cum pathetically oozes out of his dick. Because he cums a third time, and of course it's to the sound of Rocky calling his name and looking at him. Jesus. Even the simple act of being known is enough to send him over the edge. Grace chokes on his scream, hanging his head and letting spit trickle down his chin and land on the bed below him. It burns, it burns, it burns and he feels like he's going to die but it's so good.
Cause of death: orgasm. Place of death: space. Many, many light years away from Earth. All when it was significantly more statistically likely for him to die via starvation or terrible cosmic accident. God, strike him down now. What a way to go. Ryland Grace, you really keep outdoing yourself, huh?
Two taps on the xenonite grab his attention, pulling him out of his haze. "Grace finish Armando project, question?"
"Wha… huh?"
"Grace. Finish. Armando. Project. Question?"
By some miracle, Grace remembers where he is and snaps out of his stupor. He shoves Armando's arms away and splays himself over the xenonite, relishing in the brief relief it brings and hoping it gives him more of that. "Oh my GOD! Rocky! I'm sososo glad you're awake—hngh! Please!"
Grace presses himself even further into the xenonite, squishing his face against it. It's the furthest he can go right now, but even that is not enough. But while it is his current objective to avoid treatment, Armando's sole purpose has always been to administer it—thus, the arms snake around the structure persistently, grabbing at his limbs in a bid to do exactly what it was programmed to do.
They drag him back, forcing him on his hands and knees. He nearly buckles under his own weight, finding himself heavy with exhaustion. All the while, Rocky stays eerily still and Grace feels the weight of his "gaze". "Please what, Grace?"
"P-please… get Armando off me…" Grace squirms weakly when those prongs coil around his legs towards his spent cock again. He all but keens when they start rubbing, thrashing around in place in a futile attempt to stop the stimulation. He sobs weakly in-between moans, "I messed up, I messed up, Rocky please help me…"
All he can do at this point is swallow his pride. Now that Rocky is awake, he could go to the cockpit and shut Armando off temporarily. He also has the same level of administrative power as Grace, so he could simply issue a command that overrides all of his. Rocky is his best hope right now.
There's a beat of silence. Two. Then, finally… "Rocky will consider."
Grace squawks, "consider!?" What is there to consider? He is at his wits' end here! Does Rocky not hear his urgency at all!?
… no. He does. He can hear the urgency in his voice, yes, but he can also hear the way it's misdirected. Rocky hears everything; he hears far better than Grace ever will and knows Grace's body intimately, more than Grace will ever know himself. His hearing is even better than Armando's sensors sometimes. He knows the exact rhythm of Grace's heartbeat—he knows the way it quickens in excitement, knows the way it palpitates when he's flustered, knows exact notes of the song of each emotion.
Rocky knows that despite being wrung dry, Grace still doesn't entirely want this ordeal to stop.
"Grace bad. Grace very bad bad bad." His mate's voice pitches lower, sultrier, and it's then that he realizes that Rocky's ventral seam is lined with a silvery liquid—dripping down into a small puddle beneath him. "No wait for Rocky before self-pleasure ritual. No wait for Rocky before testing new project."
"S… sorry… mh…"
"Grace should be punished. Now."
The noise of loud, frantic thumping fills the room as Rocky moves into his ball. He's matching Grace in urgency now, matching the desperation in his heartbeat with his very own eagerness. The hiss of the airlock doesn't even have time to fully dissipate before he manages to get right next to Grace's bed. All the while, Armando hasn't stopped toying with the head of Grace's cock; the ministrations exactly the same as before, and it's so repetitive that he's beginning to grow numb to it.
Rocky presses his carapace to the xenonite panel right next to Grace, drawing as close as possible. "How many orgasms Grace had before Rocky wake up, question?"
"Hah… uhm…" Grace stills his movements as he tries to think. Bad mistake, because it allows Armando's other arms to snake around his chest and play with his nipples again. His train of thought comes to an abrupt halt at station Pleasure Town, and Rocky has to kick at his engine to get it going again.
"Answer."
"I… uhm…"
"Answer. Command."
"Three! Threethreethreemmmh—!" Grace cuts himself off with a moan when the auxiliary arms pinch his nipples.
His mate's vents begin steaming, and he doesn't know if that's a good or a bad thing. It's usually dangerous, actually. For him, that is. He can't even count the amount of times Rocky's steaming vents act as a precursor to a very bad time for him. And he's proven right almost immediately.
Rocky trills happily, "Rocky make Grace orgasm three times more, then! Armando, penetrate Grace."
"Huh!?'
The arms at his chest slither away, running down his back until they end up at his ass. They pry his cheeks apart with absolutely no decorum, and one of the arms begins spreading medical lube all over his entrance. It should be stated that, as a machine, Armando is not interested in the art of foreplay; make no mistake, for they are not a doctor but simply a tool. Tools do not bother with prerequisites, do not soothe one's emotions, do apologize for what they are about to do. They simply do.
So, once Grace is all lubed up, Armando wastes no time jamming one of their auxiliary arms up his entrance. No warning, no stretching, nothing. It's so sudden—a bloom of pain and pleasure blossoming at the base of his spine, and it's all too much.
Grace can't help it; he cums, again. Though, this time, it's very much dry and it makes his body seize up in overstimulation, drawing a shout out of him. Tears steadily stream down his cheeks, and he can hear Rocky cooing at him through the waves of his orgasm.
"Yesyesyes. More leak. So pretty," his mate praises. "Rocky watch. Rocky love watching. Rocky want Armando to stimulate Grace prostate now."
Armando, of course, obeys. They slide their auxiliary arm ever so slightly back, just enough to poke and prod at the walls close to his entrance. They're maybe two inches deep—the absolute perfect depth for what's to come next.
When they finally find it, it's obvious. Grace's entire body shivers at the slightest graze to his prostate, and his thighs tremble and threaten to clamp shut. Grace's elbows buckle when Armando massages his prostate; his face ends up buried in the sheets, muffling the high-pitched wail forced out of his throat when Armando simultaneously rubs the head of his cock.
"R-rocky, please…"
"Grace…"
"Rocky, I can't—" He chokes on his own spit, sputtering out a cough as the excess trickles out the sides of his mouth and stains his bed. "I can't… hah… no more…"
"Grace can take it," Rocky insists. "Grace good boy."
And boy, does that do something to him. In fact, it does so much to him that he cums again. He's reaching his climax faster and faster now, but he stays at the peak of it for less and less time before being thrown right back into the thick of things. This time, his orgasm comes and goes—identifiable only by the hitch of his breath and the violent twitch of his cock.
But, of course, Rocky can hear his entire body. He can sense far, far more than the outward physical signs. Grace sometimes wonders if he can hear his very synapses firing off signals to his brain, if he can hear the dopamine washing over his entire body every time he cums.
"So pretty pretty pretty. Rocky mate beautiful. One more? One more, question?"
"Hngh… Ah…" Grace groans, voice absolutely wrecked, "stop, stop…"
"No say that. Grace don't want to be bad." Rocky stomps one claw on the ground angrily—a threat, clear as day. There is no room for argument here. "Grace no want to disobey Rocky."
"I…"
"Grace not bad boy. Grace better than that. Right, question?"
At that, Rocky rolls the ball over so that the xenonite mesh panel is the one closest to Grace. He pushes his arm through it, removing the prongs from his dick and swatting Armando's main arm away. He chitters a quick command to the machine, and it dutifully withdraws the auxiliary arms as well.
Not long after, claw gently wraps around the base of Grace's weeping dick—heavy and grounding. "Say it. Command."
"Yes. Yes, yesyesmmgh!" Grace sputters, gasping when Rocky moves his grip up and down. "I'm not a bad boy. Not bad. P-please, Rocky—"
Rocky sings with delight, "Grace can take one more, then."
It doesn't take very long for Rocky's well-practiced handjob technique to send him over the edge. A flick of the joint here and there does wonders, and the tip of a claw digging into the leaking slit is enough to send him over the edge.
At the peak of his sixth orgasm, Grace passes right out.
—
Grace wakes up to the sensation of a wet cloth wiping over him. This time, it's not a maddening sensation—it's very gentle, mindful of accidentally hurting him. When he opens his eyes, he finds Armando nearby, their auxiliary arms cleaning him off thoroughly.
He rasps, "Rocky?" then winces at the sound of his voice. He sounds terrible. On top of that, his throat is very dry. He needs water like, yesterday.
Familiar notes fill the air, soft and soothing. "Grace awake now, question?" As always, the question is followed by two taps, and Grace cranes his neck towards the source of the sound. Rocky sitting in his ball in front of his laptop, all loafed up cutely.
"Mm, yeah—" Grace begins to answer, only to flinch when the cloth passes over his pelvis area. No matter how careful Armando gets with it, he has a good feeling he'll be sensitive there for a while. "Owgoshthathurts, fudge…"
"Grace okay?"
"Yeah, yeah just… shiiiiiiiift," he hisses, "ugh, how long was I out for?"
"Couple minutes," Rocky says as he rolls over, settling next to the bed once again. He's close enough that Grace can reach over and put his arm around his ball, so he does exactly that while his mate continues talking. "Enough time to fix Armando."
"Oh, thank god."
"No thank god, thank Rocky. Rocky do all the work."
Grace rolls his eyes, but that does get a chuckle out of him. He relents, "thank Rocky."
"Good, good, good," Rocky coos, happily doing the jazz hands. Then, his claws drop back down and his tone shifts. "Grace mess up bad."
He groans in exasperation, "I know, sweetheart, you don't have to rub it in."
His mate honks indignantly, "Rocky not rub anything in. Rocky stating truth! Grace mess up REALLY bad, statement! Grace lucky Rocky wake up before he—"
"Yeah, sure, whatever," he huffs, rolling over to his side so he can give Rocky a half-hug. "I don't even wanna talk about it anymore."
Rocky must hear something in his tone, because he mercifully drops the topic. Instead, he starts tinkering with his tools, humming contentedly. He's working on a small sheet of thin, malleable xenonite; it looks like the beginnings of that suit he mentioned. That's good. Very good. Soon, they'll be able to touch for real. Or, at least, they'll be able to touch as much as they physically can. Grace watches him work until his eyelids feel so heavy that he has to close them. He's fine with drifting off—if he falls asleep, he knows Rocky will watch.
Right before he does, however, Rocky speaks up.
"Rocky also put new word in portable Earth thinking machine while sleep. Have new nickname for Grace!"
"What is it, bud?"
Rocky brings his arm up to the mesh panel once again, the tip pressing through it so he can gently cup Grace's face. Grace's eyes flutter open, and he leans into the touch. Rocky's claw drags against his reddening cheek, and the touch is so tender that it almost hurts; at the very least, it makes his heart squeeze in his chest.
Then, Rocky trills sweetly, "fucking idiot."