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	I open my eyes with difficulty, willfully ignoring what happened last
night.  `Who're you?' I ask the dark blur in front of me.

	`Someone who loves you.'

	`Leah?' I ask, for that is the next line.

	`Yeah, let's get out of here before Jabba notices I'm here.' I guess
she's referring to Reiko as Jabba, then.  It is sort of an apt match.

	`Lead on, princess.'  I feel lips brush my forehead at that.

	`We need to get you slightly more dressed, Captain Solo.' she hands
me clothing, and I put it on blind, then a hand takes mine, and she leads me
for quite a while.  I use my free hand to wipe at my eyes, and by the time we
get out of that, Reiko's, house I can see again.  Leah has shortish dark hair,
and is wearing a black trench coat over, so far as I can tell, a leather
bodysuit.

	She gathers me into her arms, her limbs hard and muscular, and bounces
into the air like someone in _DragonBall_.  I press my face to the side of her
neck, not wanting to watch the ground flash past.  I just breath in the soft
scent of her, the warm gentleness of her touch a soothing balm to mauled
feelings of safety.  After a while we stop, and she sets me down.  I glance
around the small room, tatami on the floor, a futon folded against one wall.

	`OK, Han, we're far enough away that we'll be safe for a while.'
Leah turns to look at me, and I feel my knees get weak.  She is gorgeous,
unusually large violet eyes with strange dark stripes under them, a perfection
of movement that I've never seen before, and the most gentle look on her face.
It scares me.  Before last night I might have thought such things, but I
wouldn't be responding like this.  `Han, are you OK?  Jabba really screwed
with you last night, but this was the earliest insertion point.'

	`NO, I'M NOT OK!'  I stop, appalled at the sound of my voice.  After
a moment I continue, `What do you mean, insertion point?'

	`This.'  She hands me a sheaf of papers, and sits down.  Pulling a long
thin bundle from her back she unwraps a butterfly knife as tall as she is,
settling it across her lap to examine the edge.  I look at the papers and
realize the tiny print is in English.

	`I'm not terribly good at English.'

	`Oh. Sorry,' she folds the knife and slings it, motioning me to sit
in her lap.  I hesitate, but do so, and she wraps her arms about me and starts
to read, running one hand down the page as she speaks.

	What she reads is shocking.  By the time she shifts to the second page
I've gone beyond shocked to furious, and then to scared.  I'm shaking by the
time she finishes.

	`Sorry to do that to you, but . . . it seemed the best way of
convincing you what I've got to say is real.  I was told to rescue you, and
this was the earliest time that the transfer from my world to this one could
take place.  I don't know how it works, but I know how to do it, now.  The
people who sent me here offered me this new body as bribe, so I agreed to
rescue you, sight unseen.'

	`Then why'd you answer `someone who loves you,' hmm, Leah?'

	`You were so beautiful that it just came out.  If it bothers you I'll
stop, Youko.'  I squirm in her lap, suddenly realizing why I'm so
uncomfortable.  She doesn't feel quite human, but in spite, perhaps because, of
that, I'm finding it horribly . . . arousing.  She presses her hand against my
belly, and I twine my fingers with hers.

	`Please, don't stop, Leah.'  I take her hand and slide it, gloves and
all, into the waistband of my pants.  She starts stroking my pubic hair.

	`Captain Solo, you should know some things before we go any further.
I'm a full-conversion cyborg, my name is Gally, and I haven't done anything
like this in longer than you'd care to think about.' she keeps stroking my
mound as she speaks, and I want her to go further.

	`Thank you for telling me, Garry-chan.  Please, don't stop.'  I
shiver at the touch of her lips on my neck.

	`Are you sure, Captain?  This could be just the result of the demon
blood still in you.'

	`Yes, I'm sure.  Why are you still playing this game, Leah?'

	`Because, too-casual use of your name may draw unwelcome attention,
Han.'  She at last slides her finger over that part that I've been wanting it
on since I sat in her lap, or perhaps before.

	`How?'

	`Jabba ga ma-ou dakara, Ma-ou.'(Because Jabba is a demon-lord)
[paraphrase from _KokoWaGreenwood_, which is why it is in Japanese --S] Her
fingers slip slowly, evenly, with just the right amount of force, across my
clitoris, and I rock in counterpoint, my heart racing and my breath quickening,
as she kisses the back of my neck repeatedly.

	After what seems the most pleasurable of eternities I climax, suddenly,
stiffening in Garry's arms.  I feel the press of her face against my neck, and
wetness that seems out of place for an instant.

	`What's wrong?'

	`Nothing.  I'm happy.'  she's crying on my neck and happy?
`I. . . this is the first time I've had sex with someone since Ido pulled me
out of the junkyard thirty years ago.' and that was having sex with someone?
broad definition, then.

	`May I . . . ' I trail off, my right hand sliding between our bodies,
cupping her mound through her bodysuit.

	`You can't.'  Her voice is sad.

	`Why not?  I let you . . . '

	`I mean you can't.  The nerves that would connect to . . . such places
were severed long ago, apparently when I was first made into a cyborg.'

	`How cruel!'

	`Not really.  Whoever did it did a very good job, so it isn't like I
get frustrated or anything.  I just don't have sexual feelings.  I can find
people attractive, want to have sex with them, but there isn't that physical
urge to fight, or go with.'

	`Why would someone do such a thing?'

	`I decided that it was probably because I am a combat cyborg, and
that kind of thing could lower my efficiency.'

	`That is . . .'

	`Evil.  Yeppers.  I've this bad feeling that I would have asked for
such a thing to be done, then.'

	`How?'

	`From what I've recovered, I was almost as nasty as Rei- Jabba-chan.
It isn't something I'm terribly proud of, you might imagine.  Humanity had
spread off the Earth and was poised on the brink of the stars when my comrades
and I went into the war.  I don't know if I did any of it, but the starships
were destroyed, and far too much technology was either lost or rendered
prohibitively expensive.  I spent a long time, two hundred years or more, all
but dead, my brain on minimal support.  I awoke with no memories, no past, just
a persona with skills that I didn't fully understand.' her hands stroke my
belly softly, and I press my cheek against hers, my left hand against the other
side of her face.

	`And so you became a better person for it?'

	`Saa.  I don't know.  I do know I want to protect you, and protect
this world of yours.  Maybe they knew this would happen, and that's why they
sent me.'

	`That what would happen?'

	`I'd fall for you.  The last little bit _really_ sucked wind; I get
assigned to take out this nasty land-pirate, find out he's a persona of this
guy I kinda like, get him killed, end up fighting a whole bunch of copies of
me, trash the damned things, find the guy I'd been hunting for the last ten
years and have my superiors tell me I can't kill him, the same superiors who
sent the copies after me; I kill him anyway.  I get into this nasty drag-out
fight with the nasty persona, he escapes his body, and Zalem's defenses take
him out somehow.

	`I think everything is looking up, start out to visit one of my few
friends, and get blown into little bits by a humanoid bomb.  A little later I
wake up in Zalem, the city that floated over my home, the city that I've had
friends die trying to reach, and it disgusts me.  I was reconstructed by that
evil guy, the one I thought I'd killed, and the hypocrisy in the air is so
thick I can't stand it; we end up confronting the artificial person who kept
things running and discover that she's kinda insane.  She tries to distroy
Zalem, which would ravage an already shaky world.  I basicly sacrifice myself
to stop that.

	`Next thing I remember, I was talking to a pair of women with short
hair, one about 150 tall with a flat-top in this weird battlesuit, and the
other with hair just a little below her ears, dressed in some sort of sailor
suit.  Don't look at me like that,' I raise my eyebrow, for I hadn't realized
my expresion was that incredulous, `I wouldn't have believed it either,
though,' she murmors, continuing in a louder voice, `and they tell me that
their gonna give me a new body, and a couple tons of equipment.  They can't
send me home, they say, but can send me to a parallel world of my choice, if I
don't want to do them a favor.'

	`Me?'

	`Pin-pon.  You're a pivot; a person who can control what the world
becomes.  They don't like Jabba-chan, feel that she `gives a bad impression
about the diversity of relationships based on power-differentials' or some
such, and wanted me to stop her from achieving her plans.  The means were left
to me, but they gave me a list of suggestions ranging from the completely silly
to the practical.  I rescued you because I couldn't leave you in her hands,
couldn't let her hurt you more.'  I lean back against her as she falls silent,
stroke her face lightly.

	`Thank you.  Re-Jabba, if she'd just kept up her act, would have been
able to take me willing, had she only waited.  I would have given myself to
her, body and soul.'

	`I fear that she needs to take you unwilling, for her plans to
succeed, that she needs to force you into the dark, break you, wrap you around
an inner core of pain and betrayal in order to use you as she wills.  If you
came to her willing, convinced of your own will that you would do what she
wanted because you loved her it could well have totally messed up her plot.

	`No way of knowing for sure now.  Sleep, Han, it will do you good.'
She lays the futon out, and covers me with a soft blanket.  I look around
again, taking in the traditional sparseness.

	`OK, so long as you are here.'

	`I will be.'  She lays down beside me, her hand stroking my back
softly in slow circles through the blanket.  I scooch closer to her, rest my
head against her warm chest and listen to her strange heartbeat, I should ask
about that when I wake.  I lay like that for a few long minutes, bask in the
warm safe feeling until I drop into darkness.

---

	I stare down at the top of Youko's head; her too-pretty face, her
innocence betrayed by one she almost loved, her raw pain, and her unwarranted
trust in me all scare me.  I've lost too many of these broken, needing
people that draw me like a moth towards the flame.  I snort, that would be
appropriate, too, if, like the moth to whom the bright light smells like a
female, I too suffer from some sort of biophysical attraction to that which
will hurt me the most.  I can't believe she would try to hurt me, but is she
strong enough to survive what's been done to her?  I've seen people die of
lesser trauma.

	I keep stroking her soft back; perhaps the others were too hard,
friable, unable to take the blows and keep functioning.  Perhaps I'm just
deceiving myself.  Even Yugo was harder than this, and he almost pulled
through.

	`So, what are we doing, hmm?'  I look up at the sardonic voice, into
the most beautiful set of golden eyes I've ever seen;  golden eyes are
horrificly attractive anyway, but the face around them frames them better than
I would have otherwise believed possible.  I tear my eyes hers with an effort,
confirm my fear about just who she is.

	`Lillith-chan?'  I pronouce the `th' sound to see if she'll correct me.

	`Lillis.  Ri Ri Su yo!'   she corrects me, and I nod.

	`Lillisu-chan, what are you doing here?'

	`I'm here to retrieve my Mistress's pet.'  I can feel the
capitalization on `Mistress,' to my mild amusement.

	`Oh.  I'm sorry, but she can't have her back.  If you want to stay I'm
pretty sure I can keep her from hurting you, at least physically.'  I keep
stroking Youko's back, a slight worry about how we were found tickling me.

	`And why would I want to do that?'

	`I don't know, perhaps because I can almost certainly do things to you
that you've never experienced, I've a longer fuse than Jabba-chan, and you like
a challenge.'

	`What kind of challenge could you provide?'  I notice she skips to
the last clause first.

	`I'm physiologicly incapable of sexual arousal.'  Her eyes get big,
and she sinks to her knees beside me, stroking her hand across my chest,
careful to avoid distrubing Youko.  Her touch is nice; anyone's touch is nice,
one of the reasons I like fighting.  Her eyes get really large at what she
finds.

	`What are you?'  I smile at her.

	`I'm a full-conversion combat cyborg.  As far as I've been able to
discover the doctors who first worked on me did some really nasty things to my
brain.'

	`I bet I can make you come.'  She has a most . . . intriguing
expression on her face.

	`What do you bet?'  She looks concerned by this question, and doesn't
answer.  I wait a moment more before speaking, `Scared?'

	`No, worried as to what could come of this; the portents have
changed.'  She strokes Youko's side gently, rolls her off me as carefully as a
mother trying not to wake her child.  Youko murmors something almost
intelligible, curls up slightly around the pillow.  Lillis turns to me again,
straddles my hips, her hands on either side of my chest, `I,' she pauses
nervously, `bet nothing.  If I make you come we will have to decide how to
proceed,' she pauses, obviously fishing for a name,

	`Call me Leah, Luke-chan,'  she looks at me puzzled for a moment,
then suddenly laughs.

	`Like in the Star Wars movies, huh?' I nod, and she continues,  `So
I suppose she is Han?' I nod again, and she kisses me, `Which explains why I
couldn't track the use of her name, and had to follow the trace of demon blood
left in her.'  which answers that question.  She presses herself to me, and I
wonder at the way it feels, almost like I'm in two places at once.  `If I
don't make you come, again we will have to decide how to proceed.  Good,' she
murmors, and I can suddenly feel parts that I know I don't have jiggle as she
shifts, `the feedback loop is working.'  Feedback loop?  Then . . .

	`Induction mode, metamarsupial three.'  I whisper the phrase,
activating the feature that I thought sure I'd never need when I was told of
it.  `How does that work?' I ask, both curious and stalling for time, having
the eldritch computer that now takes up more than half my skull^1 make sure the
link is adequite for mapping the new nerve paths off of.  Instants later it
reports to the affirmative, and she starts to speak,

^1
/------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| After fusing with the orbital elevator most of her biological parts were no
| longer in existance, so she was rebuilt without them, using artificial
| nerves.  This greatly reduces the need for supporting structures to keep the
| nerves fed, supplied with oxygen, _et cetera_ and the extra space made
| available was used to house a great deal of silicon.  Supposedly the
| resulting machine is capable of calculating pi to several billion places in
| about ten minutes; Gally-chan has not bothered to check.
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

	`If I'm going to bring you off I need to insure adequate data transfer
between my body and your mind, and to do that I need to feel what you are
feeling.  With a normal human this could fry their brain, but you are hardly
normal, so I won't worry.'

	`If I was a normal human you probably wouldn't worry either.' 'Tis a
blunt way of putting it, but matches what I feel.

	`No, having my partner's brain fry from the feedback loop would leave
me a vegitable for a month or so; if I survive that it will take more than a
year to get back to where I am now.  I really like doing this; there's just no
one I can trust to enjoy it with.'  Her smile now is almost wistful.

	`Why are you telling me this?'  I'm really confuzzled now.

	`Because, by morning we either will be working together or one of us
will be dead.'  She smiles sadly, kisses me lightly on the lips, her body
pressing against me, a surging arousal throughout my body, as unfamiliar as the
sunrise, at once wonderful, scary, comfortable, painful.  I gasp despite
myself, the sensations building higher like the feedback scream of a heavy
metal song.  Just when they get almost unbearable they change, the new nervous
paths carrying the signal, increasing the fidelity a hundred-fold; I shut the
induction off, the schematics updated.

	She stiffens against me, orgasm washing through us both, and I almost
faint, something I'd thought impossible for me.  I press my lips to her neck,
the sensation almost enough to bring us both off again, try to come up with
something adequite to say.

	`Unnn,' she murmurs, the feel of her throat moving under my lips
burning warm trails through us both.  I remember something, and hope I've
interpreted her kinks correctly.  I pull the memory forward and dump it to the
computer, which fills it out and replays it on my nerves; it doesn't hurt as
bad as it did the first time, instead the pain is magnified a thousandfold as
the feedback loop passes the data back and forth, amplifying it ever so
slightly with each pass.  At the time losing my eye wasn't worthy of that much
attention, it was an inconvenience, nothing more, the pain minor compared to
the ongoing `reminders' about my left arm and foot. [Um, they did flip 8:6,
right? --S] Now it feels like the explosion, only going on far longer.  Lillis
orgasms almost instantly, the pseudochemical rush in my systems singing
counterpoint to the pain.

	After an eternity of ecstatic agony the memory ends, leaving only the
aftershocks, each intense enough that I feel like my nerves are going to melt;
only the knowledge that they are mostly high-temperature superconductors keeps
me from worrying about them.  Suddenly the feedback loop shuts down, leaving me
with only the sensation my own body is generating, pulsing in time with the
beat of my hearts, the coolant almost two degrees above its proper temperature.

	`Leah,' she murmurs, her face pillowed against my chest,
`Leah-chan,' she snuggles against me, soft, relaxed, somehow trusting in a
way that I hadn't expected from her, `Dai suki yo.'

	I gape down at the top of her head, wrap my arms tentatively about her,
`How?'

	`Two out of three is wonderful.' she cups her hands about my
shoulders, and I can see an unguarded smile on her face.

	`What do you mean?'

	`Whell, I obviously made you come.  However, what you did just now,'
she makes a soft contented sound, `was better than anything I've ever felt
before, and I'll take your word on fuse-length.'  She wiggles a little bit,
moving us both slightly, then pulls Youko up against us both, covering the girl
with one wing and us with the other.

	I gape at her, `I thought you said that I'd either join you or kill
you.'

	`I wasn't that specific,' she speaks softly, her hand stroking my
face, `and you are too wonderful to risk annoying, koibito.'  Lover?  She
called me `Lover?'  `Oyasumi,' she says, kisses me on the cheek.

	Her stroking hand slows, eventually stops, the goofiest smile I can
imagine on her face as her breathing settles to an even rhythm, her weight
unimaginably pleasant against me, and Youko's warmth against my side.

	Eventually I let myself sleep; perchance to dream; the computer set to
wake me at the first hint of trouble.

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