“I don’t know. It’s bright. Very bright.” Conan couldn’t help staring at the glowing veins.
Pak Song smiled. “If color is too much for you, next time Lin can try for more natural look. He gave it electromagnetic energy so you can become aroused. So you can come. Neon, fiber-optic sensors transmit impulses through the cock, much like nerve endings. Lights get brighter as sensation gets stronger. You will look like light show when you come.”
“Come?”
Lin met Conan’s gaze, his expression regretful. “Not the way you’re thinking. If they had left your prostate, maybe we could have done something with it. But you will be able to give your woman pleasure.” Lin shook his head.
Pak Song wiggled a finger at his son. “Don’t discourage our patient. Maybe next time we tune you up, we can make you sac with fake balls, even though they won’t do what nature intended. We hate making bionics that cannot function like real thing.” The corners of Pak Song’s mouth lifted, and he held his palms apart. “Your new cock is twelve inches when erect. Like this. Two inches diameter. Deluxe-bot sized. We don’t believe in doing things halfway, so we made you like our finest bot model.” Conan wondered if he’d be able to get his man-made, neon cock up at will or whether he’d have to pump it as he understood women had to do with their sexbots. Still, he wasn’t inclined to ask just now. Now that he’d recovered from the first look at the outrageous cock—he was actually rather intrigued by it—he turned his attention to his hand. He could feel it, or maybe he was just feeling the hand that wasn’t there anymore, because while it looked absolutely real, Conan wasn’t able to control the movement of the wrist or fingers, no matter how hard he tried.
“It doesn’t work,” he said as the arm came off in Pak Song’s hands.
“It will.” The cyborg maker set the realistic-looking wrist and hand on Conan’s stomach, then lifted the stump of his arm to the light. “A h.
Just as I thought. Loose connection here. Not making contact.” Pak Song folded back a flap of skin-like material, revealing a grid of complex connections that passed nerve impulses from Conan’s stump to the bionic prosthesis, and repaired the connection. Then he looked up and grinned. “I made flap this way so you not scare people when you not wearing hand. Put it on now.” Conan did, and was amazed that he now was able to move his hand and fingers at will. He grinned as he picked up a water glass from the bedside table.
“You like?” the old man asked.
Pak Song’s skill amazed Conan. His meticulous attention to detail in hiding the high-tech circuits that connected his own severed muscles and nerves to the ones in his prosthesis seemed unimportant, now that the prosthesis acted as an extension of Conan’s own body. “I like. A s for the flap and the neon cock, I doubt anyone will have occasion to see them.” When he had the prosthesis on, it looked real, normal. The only visible evidence of his severed hand was a barely discernable line where his own flesh met the bionic replacement. But he could remove it whenever he chose, while his colorful cock was now a permanent part of his anatomy. If he ever disrobed, that new addition couldn’t possibly escape notice. Of course the empty crotch it filled would grab attention of a different kind.
“Oh, yeah, Captain. Some pretty lady will see it, because you’re gonna work better than any sexbot I ever made. Especially once hormones start working to give you back your sex drive.” Pak Song slapped a small square patch on Conan’s left lower abdomen.
Testosterone, forbidden on Earth, was apparently easy to come by on Obsidion. “You try out new cock in one of the pleasure palaces, once that catheter comes out and you get Leander to pierce your cock to please the ladies. Better yet, I’ll lend you one of my own best bots for you to practice on. Now sit up and pay attention. I’ll show you how to make adjustments if arm suddenly needs minor tune-up.”
* * * * *
The following week, freed from his bed at last, Conan donned the hated white robe that now was the only garment he could wear most places in the galaxy without risking arrest. He knew the rules and had enforced them personally at times before becoming a eunuch. If he were caught on Obsidion without it, the king would have him turned into a drone, the usual punishment throughout the galaxy when eunuchs tried to masquerade as whole.
Conan tried not to notice how people averted their eyes when they passed him. He tasted bile rising in his throat. He felt the pity and the disdain.
Gods, but he hated being the object of sympathy and derision. A t least he got away from the stares for a while when he stepped inside Leander’s Barber and Piercing Salon and felt the barber’s quiet acceptance.