[Omake] Sachiko and Maeko Come Out

Author’s Note: This chapter is a tad steamier than anything in the book, but it is not erotica. I don’t know where the MPAA draws the line between PG-13 and R these days, but this is somewhere around there.

Sachiko and Maeko’s relationship in the main story was an allegory for a socially-unacceptable love. In this setting, same-sex relationships are universally accepted, so I needed to draw on something else.

The motivation for this omake was to show the two of them to be happy and comfortable in their relationship. Initially, I planned to demonstrate that with some relaxed, open flirting, and you will get that in this chapter, but I felt it was more honest to delve deeper into Sachiko’s desires. Part of her character arc was becoming comfortable with the idea that she, like most people, is a sexual being, and I felt she needed to really own that and take pride in who she is.

For the record, this is not one of those things where the author is writing his barely-disguised fetish. I don’t really have a thing for sex with robots.

But it is a wish fulfillment fantasy in another way. There is some talk at the end of the chapter of not letting others dictate your happiness, and visibility and pride being the best way to foster tolerant, peaceful societies. This is all true, but it downplays the very real threat of bigoted violence. Things are a lot better in many places in the world than they were when I was young, but hate-based violence is still a reality for many. This is why speaking out and being visible can be dangerous, but it’s also why it’s important to do so, if you are able.

Sunlight filtered into the bedroom, causing Sachiko to stir from her sleep.

“Need to put up some drapes,” she mumbled. “I slept better on the ISS.”

“We both know that’s not true.” The sound of Maeko’s voice startled Sachiko out of her sluggishness.

Never before had Maeko spent the entire night in bed. She usually snuck out after Sachiko fell asleep and spent the night at her recharging station, which was, unfortunately, downstairs. Even on the rare occasion that she didn’t need to recharge, the discomfort caused by Maeko’s presence in bed would cause Sachiko to sleep fitfully.

On that night, however, a miracle had occurred. Not only had Sachiko slept soundly until morning, but when she woke up, they were spooning. She even had one hand cupped over Maeko’s bare breast. Worried that she might be dreaming, Sachiko gave it a squeeze and felt the reassuring hardness of cermet beneath her fingers.

Maeko brought her hand up and placed it over Sachiko’s. “Good morning to you too.”

“You could feel that?”

“I mostly sensed the bed moving as your weight shifted slightly, but the artificial skin reported the movement of your fingers.”

“The skin, huh? I didn’t realize it was so sensitive.” As she spoke, she slowly trailed her hand down Maeko’s side, barely brushing her fingers against the artificial skin. “Does that mean you can feel this?” She plunged her hand towards Maeko’s completely smooth crotch, and when it made contact, Maeko let out an exaggerated moan, causing Sachiko to break out into a fit of giggling.

Being able to flirt so openly with Maeko was truly a joy. Even on the station, they had to constantly worry about being caught in the act, and after returning to Earth, they’d decided to keep their relationship a secret, so as to not interfere with their diplomatic duties. On GE26, however, there was no one to bother them.

“You liked that, huh?” Maeko teased.

“Yup, you know me. I’m all about those fake moans.”

Beneath the laughter and the sarcastic denial, however, Maeko detected a hint of excitement in Sachiko’s voice. “Yeah?” This time Maeko spoke in a soft, breathy voice as she pushed her hips back against Sachiko in an undulating motion.

“Yeah,” Sachiko admitted, more of a groan than a word. She allowed her hands to roam over Maeko’s body as she desired, encircling the gynoid’s leg with her own and planting small kisses on the nape of her neck, before pausing. “How’s your battery, babe? You need to recharge first?”

“I’m fine. I have more energy than usual, since someone went to sleep early last night.”

“Sorry about that. Being here brings back a lot of memories. Dealing with them has been a little exhausting.”

Extracting herself from Sachiko’s embrace, Maeko turned to face her lover. “You know, we don’t have to live in this house. There are plenty of others on the island. We don’t even have to stay on this island.”

“No, this is where I want to be. I saved this place. It’s my house. I belong here.”

Smiling, Maeko pushed Sachiko onto her back. “You just like doing it in your parents’ bed.”

“What? No, I never even thought of it like that. OK, you convinced me, we have to move now.”

“Liar. You can’t keep anything from me.”

Sachiko knew it was true. Maeko’s ability to see through her lies was the scariest aspect of their relationship, but it was also comforting in its own way, so instead of arguing, she placed a hand on the back of Maeko’s head and pulled her into a kiss.

⁂

“Thank you.” Sachiko nuzzled Maeko’s cheek. “I love you.”

“So which do you prefer?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you like it better when I pretend to feel it?”

“Oh.” Sachiko took a moment to seriously consider the question. “I like… both. I guess I prefer when you don’t pretend. When you stare at me with your expressionless face, it’s like you’re focused so intently on me, on making me feel good, that you can’t spare the attention for anything else. It’s also more honest, but at the same time, a little roleplay is nice every now and then.”

“Understood.” Maeko sat up and swung her legs to the ground, but stopped suddenly. The lengthy pause treated Sachiko to a view of her bare back, which was glistening with sweat—Sachiko’s sweat.

“What’s wrong?”

“I am shutting down all nonessential systems so that I can reach the recharging station before I lose power.”

“Shame you couldn’t keep the reactors.” She grabbed a bedsheet and wiped the sweat from around Maeko’s charging port.

“And to think, you were so upset when you learned of them.”

“Well, they had their benefits.” Though Maeko couldn’t see it, she could easily imagine the sly smile on Sachiko’s face, a smile the girl had never shown before they moved in together.

“I simply underestimated your vigor this morning. You have never wanted to do it for so long before. I will not repeat the same mistake.”

Without another word, she stood and left the room. Sachiko yawned, stretched, showered, and dressed before heading to the kitchen.

“Babe, you make it to the charging station OK?” she called out as she powered up the food synthesizer.

“With seconds to spare.”

Pouring herself a glass of water, Sachiko rounded the corner to the back nook where they had installed the charger. “About the bed, it’s not like I’ve got some kind of weird parent fetish.”

“You don’t need to justify yourself to me. I’m not going to leave you.”

“But I want to. This is important to me. I looked up to them, you know, but then after the accident, I felt superior. I did what they could not, but later on, when I learned they were both attacked from behind, I realized that maybe they had seen through the illusions as well, and I was just lucky enough to survive.”

“I doubt it.”

“But you can’t rule it out.” As she spoke, she fidgeted with the water glass in her hands, an unusually nervous behavior for her, Maeko noted. “Anyway, when we came back here, and I saw the bed, I realized I could do at least one thing they never did: have sex on it.”

“That’s a weird flex. Honestly, it would be more normal if you had a sleeping with mommy kink.”

“If I were normal, I never would have attracted your attention.”

Maeko couldn’t deny that, but she was more interested in why Sachiko was so sure that her parents weren’t intimate. Before she could ask, however, the food synthesizer emitted three short beeps to announce that it had finished. Sachiko downed her water and skipped to the kitchen.

“Are you eating raw nutrient blocks again?” Maeko knew that not enough time had passed for it to create a full meal.

“Don’t start. I like them.” With a floppy, slimy gray bar hanging from her mouth, Sachiko returned to the charging nook. “They’re the honest truth of what the synthesizer makes.”

“You never were one to shy away from the truth, but they taste bland.”

“All those artificial flavors lower the nutritional value, and they take more energy to synthesize.”

“But you ate more delicious meals in space. I want you to be happy here.”

Swallowing the last of the bar, Sachiko approached Maeko and gently rested her forehead against the gynoid’s. “You’re all the happiness I need right now. Besides, in a few years, we’ll have fruits and vegetables growing here again. Real food.”

“Just don’t push yourself too hard. If you repress your desires too much, they’re likely to explode all at once.”

“Did I have any trouble repressing my desire this morning? Actually, there is one thing I’ve been holding back on. As long as we’re talking about honesty, I want to be open about us.”

“That is the reason I’m with you, but what brought on this change? I thought you were waiting for permission from the council.”

“Screw the council.”

“I bet you’d like that.”

“No! Well… maybe.” Sachiko’s devilish grin made it all too obvious that she liked the idea of being in the middle of a gynoid orgy. “What I mean is, they want us to wait until the gynoid equality law passes, but it’s been delayed how many times over the years? I don’t want to wait until I’m old. Besides, it’s only a matter of time before some paparazzi snaps a photo of us together. I’d rather control our coming out.”

“A paparazzi, all the way out here?”

“It’s possible. I am the girl who saved the world, after all. That’s actually what held me back more than the council. So many people look up to me. What if they feel betrayed, let down?”

“There isn’t a person alive right now who doesn’t love you. Some might be disappointed, but you’ll still be their hero.”

“You convinced me. We got nothing scheduled today, right?”

⁂

Opposing the council was not difficult, under ordinary circumstances. Though they had allies in government, they had yet to acquire enough power to pass the Gynoid Equality Act. They did, however, operate the only internet connection on GE26. In a way, it was the same problem Sachiko had faced aboard the ISS, when JAXA had the power to cut off her livestream, but in that case, she had relied on the council to take JAXA by force. With her benefactors in intelligence in agreement with the gynoids, she had no force that could do the same to the council.

A livestream was out of the question. Even a short video might be caught by the council before they could finish uploading it. Sending a small encrypted file to Yasu, on the other hand, might not catch their attention. She had started her PhD program a few weeks prior, and they had already sent her classified data from the reactor excavation to help with her research. As long as Yasu posted the video before the council broke the encryption, it would spread across the internet too quickly for them to control.

That’s how Sachiko and Maeko found themselves lurking in the hoshinaut shipping chat, waiting to see if it worked. After only a few minutes, the video popped up. With shaking fingers, Sachiko tapped play to check that it hadn’t been modified.

“Hey everyone! Maeko and I are actually girlfriends. We’ll be holding a livestream later today to answer questions.” The video concluded with the two of them kissing for the camera. After it was posted, the chat was silent for a few moments before someone replied.

HinaIsABottom: lol nice fake

T-38Pilot: Look who posted it.

Immediately, the chat erupted, with almost everyone spamming some variant of “THE MEME SHIP IS REAL?!”

Discovering that she had been holding her breath, Sachiko exhaled. Her relief was tarnished only slightly by learning that they were considered a joke to the shippers.

Once the initial shock wore off, their feelings started pouring out. Although there were some very disappointed devotees of other Sachiko ships in the chat, most of the messages were supportive. It wasn’t long before the video spread outside the chat, and within minutes, both Sachiko and Maeko were getting thousands of emails and text messages congratulating them.

Placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder, Maeko planted a peck on Sachiko’s cheek. “I told you it would be fine. Let’s get ready for that livestream.”

“You think they’ll let us?”

“We already announced it to the world. They know that blocking us now would be counterproductive.”

⁂

Although not as popular as the Earth reveal livestream, millions of viewers joined. Sachiko did most of the talking, while Maeko managed the chat, selecting questions for the two of them to answer. Her goal was to choose questions that were critical, but which were worded perfectly to set up a positive, educational answer.

“Isn’t this just like having a 2D waifu? You can’t get a real girlfriend, so you decided to play life on easy mode.” Sachiko read the question aloud before answering. “It’s hardly easy. In most relationships, small lies can be healthy. You don’t always have to tell your partner everything, but it’s nearly impossible to deceive her. I can’t even protect my ego by lying to myself, because she calls me out on it.”

“Similarly, it is difficult for me to hide things from Sachiko. I tried to throw her a surprise Birthday party, but she found out about it in advance.”

“That’s only because you didn’t hide the decorations well enough. There’s other issues, too. Maeko is every bit as human as you or I, but she doesn’t have emotions. I have to love her twice as much to make up the deficit. Let’s see. Next question… I didn’t realize you were a mysophiliac.”

“She isn’t. Trust me. I’m incapable of lying.”

“They’re not going to believe you if you say stuff like that. Listen, I don’t find gynoids disgusting. Like everyone, I do feel a bit uneasy when we touch, but I love her despite that. Still, that doesn’t make my love for her superior. Love takes many forms, and nobody deserves to be belittled for loving another consenting adult, no matter their reasons. Being accepting of one another will help maintain the peace that we so nearly lost.”

As if to demonstrate the point, Maeko rested her head on Sachiko’s shoulder, causing the girl to jump in surprise at the sudden contact, but then, with a smile on her face, she leaned her head on Maeko.

“Wow, we’ve been going for three hours,” Sachiko realized. “We have time for one more. Choose a good one, babe.”

“I have the perfect question for a grand finale.” The text appeared on Sachiko’s screen.

“This is a question for Maeko. How many fingers can you fit—OK, that’s highly inappropriate. How would you feel if someone asked you that question?”

“Indeed. I selected this as an example of what not to ask us in the future. It’s not just inappropriate; it’s offensive, and for the record, she prefers two.”

“Enough! We. Are. Done. Goodnight, chat.” After quickly ending the stream, Sachiko glowered at Maeko, but she couldn’t keep it up for more than a few seconds before bursting into laughter. “I thought we agreed to keep it family friendly.”

“We needed to give them something spicy to talk about. Besides, there are those who believe you’re just pretending. I want to leave no doubt. You’re going to have to get used to everyone in the world knowing that we have sex.”

“That… doesn’t sound so bad, actually. Today’s livestream was a lot of fun. It wasn’t the same kind of rush as when we ended the war, but I felt a bit lighter knowing that I don’t have to lie to everyone anymore. I’m sure it was only fun because you were filtering out the haters, but who cares about them? Either they’ll come to accept that most people have sex, and I’m perfectly normal, or they’ll stew in their own misery for the rest of their lives, but that doesn’t mean I need to be unhappy too.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself. I look forward to your continued happiness, and to sharing it with the world.”

“Aww, I love you too. I feel great, but I can think of two things that would make me even happier right now. Can you guess what they are?”

“I bet I can,” Maeko said, tracing two fingers down Sachiko’s cheek.