Chapter 16: Clinical Desires
The hum of the condominium’s climate control was no longer a background note; it was a taunt. A sterile, constant reminder of the contained, sanitized life they were now supposed to lead. The bin had been emptied, but the ghost of the latex remained, a film over every interaction. Laloz moved through the rooms like a charged particle, jumping at Glitch’s every twinge, every sigh. His love had metastasized into a tight, paranoid vigilance.
Then the bleeding started.
Not a flood, but a sinister, persistent spotting the color of rust. It brought a silence so profound it seemed to vacuum the air from the high-tech monolith.
The medical spire downtown was a needle of polished obsidian. The examination room they were ushered into was a study in impersonal care: beige walls, a cracked tile near the sink holding a faint, unidentifiable stain, the buzzing fluorescence casting a sickly pallor. The scent was overpowering—antiseptic undercut with the sweet, fake scent of ozone spray. It smelled like worry given form.
Doctor Eshen was a man of precise movements and a voice that never varied in pitch. “Given the anomalous nature of the gestation sac’s implantation in your modified reproductive tract,” he said, his eyes on a holoscan hovering above his desk, “vascular stability is our primary concern. The tissue is… idiosyncratic. It requires consistent, directed blood flow to maintain viability.”
Glitch lay on the exam table, paper sheet crinkling under her. She felt dissected by the light. Laloz stood rigid by the wall, his arms crossed, jaw clenched.
“Directed blood flow,” Glitch repeated flatly. “What does that mean, ‘directed’?”
Eshen turned the holoscan. It showed a shimmering, pearlescent sac nestled within a complex web of synthetic and organic tissue. It looked beautiful and utterly alien. “The vascular network supporting the sac responds poorly to standard hormonal regimens. It requires physical stimulation to optimal dilation and circulation.”
A cold knot tightened in Glitch’s stomach. “Physical stimulation.”
“Manual intervention,” Eshen clarified, his gaze shifting momentarily to Laloz before returning to Glitch. “Regular, meticulous massage of the internal tissue walls. To encourage engorgement. To feed it.”
Laloz made a sound, a short, aborted intake of breath. Glitch didn’t look at him. She stared at the ceiling. “You’re telling me I need to be fingered to keep this thing alive.”
“I am telling you that the viability of your pregnancy currently depends on inducing regular hyperemia in the supporting endometrial matrix.” Eshen’s tone was devoid of judgment. It was worse than judgment. “We will begin the first session now. To demonstrate the technique. Your partner should observe. Consistency will be key.”
A nurse, a woman with kind eyes and gloved hands, helped Glitch position her legs in the stirrups. The exposure was absolute. The chill of the room kissed her inner thighs. She heard Laloz’s breathing quicken, a harsh rhythm from the corner.
Eshen approached on a rolling stool, a new set of gloves snapping against his wrists. He applied a clear, cold gel. His touch was neither rough nor gentle; it was procedural. Glitch flinched as two fingers pressed inward, past her entrance, seeking a different depth.
“Here,” Eshen said, his eyes on an internal monitor. “Can you see, Mr. Laloz? The vascular bundle is here, along this lateral wall. It is currently underperforming.” His fingers moved in a slow, firm, circular kneading motion. A deep, internal pressure bloomed inside Glitch, not pleasurable, but profoundly intimate. A violated intimacy. A hot tear escaped the corner of her eye and traced a path into her hairline.
She turned her head. Laloz was staring, frozen. But not at her face. His gaze was locked on the point of connection between the doctor’s hand and her body. His pupils were dilated black. His chest rose and fell in shallow heaves. And pressed against the front of his dark trousers was an unmistakable, rigid bulge.
A white-hot wire of fury spliced through her shame. Her vulnerability was his fetish. Her medical necessity was his show.
The doctor droned on about angles and pressure duration. The nurse placed a hand on Glitch’s ankle, a gesture meant to be comforting that felt like another restraint. Laloz hadn’t moved. Hadn’t blinked. His cock visibly twitched against its fabric prison.
The session ended. Eshen withdrew his glistening fingers, stripped the gloves with a snap. “Twice daily. For at least twenty minutes. Deep, consistent pressure. You have the coordinates on your home monitor now.” He looked at Laloz. “You must ensure it is done. The consequences of neglect are absolute.”
The ride home in the auto-cab was silent. The tension was a third passenger, thick and smothering. The second the pneumatic door of his apartment sealed behind them, Glitch rounded on him.
“You liked that.” Her voice was a shard of glass.
Laloz’s face was pale, conflicted. “What? No. I was… it was terrifying, I was scared for—”
“Don’t you fucking lie to me.” She advanced on him. “I saw you. Hard as a rock. While some stranger had his fingers inside me telling me I’m broken.” The fury was liquefying now, mixing with a desperate, traitorous need. The clinical probing had stirred something, a dormant hunger worsened by weeks of latex and fear.
“It was… it’s you,” he stammered, backing up. “Seeing you like that, so… exposed. Knowing it was for the… for our…” His words failed as his eyes dropped to her body, still humming with the ghost of the examination.
“Our what?” she sneered, closing the distance. “Our little experiment? You got off on it. Admit it.”
He crashed into the edge of the kitchen island. Trapped. His resolve shattered. “Yes! Okay? Fuck, yes! It was horrible and beautiful and I wanted to rip his arms off and I wanted to be him and I’ve never been so scared or so hard in my life!” The confession exploded out of him, raw and shameful.
Without breaking eye contact, Glitch reached for his belt. She unbuckled it with brutal efficiency, yanked his zipper down, freed his straining cock. It was flushed, thick, pulsing with his heartbeat. “He said it needs to be fed,” she hissed, her own breath coming fast. “He said you have to ensure it’s done.”
Understanding flooded Laloz’s face, erasing the shame, replacing it with a dark, possessive heat. “The technique,” he breathed.
“Show me you learned it.”
He pushed her then, not towards the bedroom, but onto the cold, polished floor of the living room. The one with the view. He didn’t bother with her clothes, just shoved her dress up around her waist. He fumbled for the bottle of conductive gel they’d been given, slicked his fingers with a sloppy, urgent generosity.
His touch was nothing like the doctor’s. It was hungry, claiming. He found the spot, not with clinical precision, but with the intimate knowledge of a lover. He pressed deep, the heel of his hand grinding against her as his fingers curled and stroked that internal, needy bundle of tissue.
Glitch cried out, her back arching off the floor. It wasn’t gentle. It was a reclamation. A dark mirror of the exam. The pleasure was immediate and shocking, a deep, visceral thrum that vibrated out to her very bones. Her own cock, ignored, throbbed against her stomach, leaking onto her skin.
“Is that it?” Laloz growled, his face a mask of fierce concentration. “Is that feeding it?”
“Yes,” she gasped. “Harder. Don’t stop.”
He fucked her with his hand, his pace relentless. The clinical instruction was there, the targeted pressure, but it was transformed by his rage, his fear, his lust. She came in a violent, shuddering wave, her body seizing around his invading fingers, a blinding white flash behind her eyes.
“You see?” he panted, hammering into her, each thrust driving his fingers deeper. “I’m ensuring it’s done. I’m taking care of you. Of it.” His voice broke. “It’s all mine. This is all mine.”
The duality was the trigger. The violation and the caretaking, the clinical and the obscene, twisted together into one incoherent thread of need. Glitch pushed back against him, meeting every drive, her own neglected cock swinging, slapping her stomach. She came again, a softer, deeper unraveling, and felt him follow, his roar echoing off the glass walls as he emptied into her, his fingers still pulsing inside her, milking his own seed deeper as if he could force life into her through will alone.
They collapsed on the floor, a tangled, sweating heap of limbs and spent violence. The city lights blinked silently beyond the glass. Inside Glitch, the stirred tissue hummed with redirected blood, a satisfied, ugly ache.
Laloz pulled his fingers free with a soft, wet sound. He brought them to his lips, tasting her, tasting the gel, tasting his own come. His eyes were haunted, triumphant, utterly lost.
“It’s viable,” he whispered, more to himself than to her. “I’ll keep it viable.”
Glitch rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling. The prescribed twice-daily routine stretched before her, an endless horizon of forced, medical intimacy. A treatment plan written in sweat and come and desperate, clawing love. She placed a hand on her lower belly, where the strange, mutated womb now throbbed with artificial life.
It was fed. For now.