More Than a Man

By Emily Ryan-Davis

And Elise Logan

Smashwords Edition Copyright © 2010 by Emily
Ryan-Davis and Elise Logan

All rights reserved. Except as permitted
under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication
may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any
means, or stored in a database retrieval system, without the prior
written consent of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents are the product of the authors’
imaginations or are used fictitiously.

Cover Design by Amanda Kelsey

Emily Ryan-Davis and Elise Logan

[email protected]

Visit our Web site at
http://www.scorchedsheets.com

Released in the United States of America

First release December 2010

Special thanks to…

DeanTheAdequate, for refusing to let us
browse 4Chan for inspiration;

Hickepedia, for facilitating the use of
Urotsukidōji DVDs via Ed and Sharon;

Keri Stevens, for participating in that
Twitter brainstorm session last November (where liquor might or
might not have been involved);

Chris Q and Mindy, for being brave enough to
read about Aya and his extras;

Romance Divas chat room regulars, for letting
us share our favorite passages as we wrote them;

Kristen Painter, for generously sharing her
publishing experience; and

The crew at Rev It Up, for providing drinks
Elise can drink and food she can eat and wifi she can use during
kung fu.

More Than A Man

Chapter One

Long lines of Christmas brides stretched
through all four doors of the Veda City Manporium. Young women,
their mothers, and their best friends huddled in their lacy finery
and blew on their recently-manicured hands, impatiently waiting
their turn at the order kiosks. The crowd was worse than usual
because of the State decree set to take effect on the first of the
year. Talk about Big Brother. Noelle wrinkled her nose. It was bad
enough that created mates faced a different standard under the law
and had to be approved for natural procreation, but to now be
required to run your possible mate through an approval process?
That took things to a whole new level. Sure, on one level it made
sense that created constructs needed specific controls—obviously
you didn’t want some crazy running around creating an army of
serial killers or something. But that was why the existing
psychological pre-order process existed, and why the State recycle
programs were in place. As much as it upset her, she at least
understood the need. Now, though, the State was pushing much
further. Veto power over creations and recurrent batteries of tests
before being granted provisional citizenship went too far.

It was a battle she and Kendall had lost.
They’d argued before the Supreme Judiciary Council that such
measures exceeded the dictates of the Constitution of the State and
were a gross violation of the rights of individuals. Though they’d
had support from the Coalition for Equality and several privacy
groups, the Council had upheld the State’s decree. They’d even
pointed out that Noelle herself might not be twice widowed if such
a system had been in place earlier.

Noelle's stomach knotted as her line shuffled
and she inched closer to her last shot at a husband. Her previous
two attempts...she drew a deep breath and pushed them from her
mind. This marriage would not end with death. In a way, the Council
had pushed her to do this now. She, like many other brides here,
wanted to beat the deadline. Not because she worried that her list
wouldn’t make it past the State approval process, but because she
absolutely believed the approval process was fundamentally
wrong.

Making the most of her wait time, Noelle went
to work on her Christmas list. Phase-shifter goggles for Ari,
pleather gloves for Mora, a retractable cord holder for Kendall,
a...
Huh
. Frowning, she keyed Kendall's number and fitted
the Brilliantfone's wireless receiver to her ear. Kendall answered
before the second tone, her oval face appearing in the upper right
corner of the 'fone's screen. Skipping preliminaries, Noelle said,
"I don't know what to get for Brenda."

"Brenda's easy.” Kendall looked at the cam
long enough to make lens contact. "She's obsessed with old animated
Japanese porn. Find something with tentacles through VintageBay and
she'll love you forever."

Noelle blinked at the screen of her 'fone,
where a cursor flickered in anticipation beside Brenda's name.
"Tentacles? Really?"

Kendall laughed, glancing up again. "Yes,
really. You should watch some. It's really weird but kind of
hot."

Tentacle movie for Brenda. Brenda who
wouldn’t even swear because the words were “icky.” Shaking her
head, she keyed it in. "Thanks, K."

"Where are you? It looks mobbed."

"Oh, uh, you know," Noelle evaded. "It's the
week before Christmas. Everything is mobbed."

"Is that woman in line behind you wearing a
tiara?" Kendall started to laugh but stopped abruptly. "Omideity.
You are
not
at Manporium. Noelle!"

"Um, gotta go. Bye!" She cut off the
transmission. It rang back immediately, but she muted it. Kendall
would give her hell later, but she just didn't think she could deal
with the whole girlfriend support thing. And she did not need
talking down from a ledge. Kendall might believe life without a man
was a perfectly valid choice—and it
was
—but it wasn't the
choice Noelle wanted to make for herself.

Forcing herself to focus, she double-checked
her list. Only the family left. Joy was easy. All her sister ever
wanted was vidstreams. Mom was similarly easy—book cards were her
addiction. Dad, however, insisted on her companionship instead of a
pretty box.

Shunting her shopping list to the right side
of the screen, she pulled up the recipe she'd dug up. If Dad wanted
to make gingerbread men, she wasn't going to argue. But she was
going to have to do some shopping.

Noelle skimmed the recipe, notating items
she’d need to buy. Whole peppercorns, for one. She was pretty sure
he didn't have the red hot candies, the spiced gum drops or the
black licorice whips. Frowning, she tapped her finger against the
side of the 'fone. Ginger, cloves, cinnamon. Unsulfured molasses?
What the heck was that? And royal icing?

The line shuffled forward. The edge of a
sleek black console was just visible as Noelle peered around the
uneven line of frothy veils. At least she could actually see the
kiosk now.

Muttering to herself, she closed the recipe
and pulled up a search. Toggling through the options, she finally
found a store with both the molasses and the icing. Thank Deity, it
was only two blocks from her place. She could run out tomorrow and
grab the ingredients.

A bride in the line to her left giggled.
Noelle looked up from her ‘fone to see what was so funny. She met
the laughing gray eyes of the other bride with a raised brow.

The other bride shrugged. “Just nervous.”

Noelle nodded understanding and turned her
attention back to her lists. She remembered being giddy and
nervous. She remembered looking over her shoulder at her friends as
they waved her through the doors to the kiosk and went to wait for
her in one of the lounges. It had been sleek black and chrome décor
then, emphasizing the newly built facility. She’d placed her order
at the kiosk before joining her mother and sister, Kendall and a
few other friends in the lounge to await John’s delivery. She also
remembered the bride at the kiosk next to her when she’d input her
list. She’d been very talkative and quite excited about the new
upgrades to the Manporium technology that allowed modifications
that were simply not possible in strictly humanoid physical
configurations. Erica. That was her name. Erica had been over the
moon about the idea of a man with two dicks. She’d gotten the idea
after her cousin accidentally ordered a man with five balls. Noelle
smothered a laugh, picturing Erica and her Manporium mate snuggled
up in multiple-penetration bliss. She hoped he was everything Erica
wanted. Micah certainly hadn’t turned out how she planned.

The line inched forward another few feet.
Almost there
. She closed the search and pulled up her
husband list, trying to quell the anxiety fluttering in her
stomach. Maybe she should have paid closer attention to the bride
‘zine tips for pre-Manporium relaxation. Likely, “Do not review the
list while standing in line” was the number one tip, but she
couldn’t stop herself from quintuple-checking.

Penis dimensions: nine inches long, two
inches in diameter
. Noelle bit her lip and stared at the line
item. Ironic it was first, since she’d just been thinking of
Erica’s preoccupation. Maybe she should specify something bigger.
Or…she hesitated, on the verge of calling Kendall to ask her
opinion. Best not to open that door again. And definitely best to
forget Erica.

Anyway, she’d tested a variety of dildos
prior to arriving at nine-by-two. Her cheeks warmed at the memory
and she squeezed her thighs together beneath her dress, focusing on
the texture of the real silk stockings she’d procured from
VintageBay.

Oh, yeah. Nine by two was definitely the
perfect size, big enough to stretch and make her gasp, not so big
as to stretch and make her yelp. Not like the eight-and-a-half by
three unit she’d tested.

A few lines over, one of the kiosks shrieked
an alarm. Noelle started, wrenched from her low buzz of arousal,
and focused on her surroundings. A harried attendant dashed over
from the help desk. Seconds later, a girl barely out of her teens
fled the store in tears. Eyebrows raised, Noelle shuffled her 'fone
to her left hand and sidestepped right, craning to see around the
large bride-to-be in front of her.

More attendants rushed past, weaving behind
kiosks and through lines of anxious brides. Vocal irritation
rippled through the crowd when attendants began shuffling brides
into other lines. The woman ahead of her planted her feet and
stared down an approaching attendant and the semi-hysterical bride
he had in tow. The pretty young man threw a desperate glance at
Noelle.

“Deity,” she sighed beneath her breath.
Rolling her eyes, she moved to make room for the hyperventilating
brunette.

The bride behind her huffed, retreating only
an inch. The attendant hurriedly stuffed the panicked bride into
the inadequate space in front of Noelle. Noelle stumbled back into
the woman behind her as the brunette's elbow caught her ribs.

Her 'fone leapt from her hand, arcing up into
the space over the brunette's head. Noelle's heart froze.
Everything was in that 'fone. Adrenaline flooded her system and she
launched herself upward, clawing the air. The bride behind her
squealed as Noelle’s foot connected with her leg. The brunette went
down in a heap of white organdy. Noelle's fingers skimmed the edge
of the ceraglass casing, scrambling for a grip. For one horrible
moment she thought she'd lose that tenuous hold, but her hand
clamped down. All the air went out of her in a relieved sigh a
split second before she smashed into the broad back of the large
bride at the front of the line. Clenching the Brilliantfone for all
she was worth, Noelle braced herself for the fall.

She landed on the lumpy, soft brunette. The
downed bride shrieked and lashed out with her tiny satin handbag.
"Get off me!"

Muttering apologies, Noelle rolled to her
knees. What a flaming mess. Pushing herself up, she brushed out the
skirt of her own off-white satin dress.