Instrument
The bat pulled the cell out of his right arm as it rang. "Who is it?"
There was a low, hesitant growl. "It's me."
The bat's voice perked up noticeably. "Oh, hi! What can I do for you?"
He could tell the hissing on the line wasn't the reception. "I don't only call to ask for favors, do I?" A second, raspier voice had answered him that time.
"Course not. What's on your mind?" He took a look around himself as he walked down the street, wondering whether he should keep going in the direction he'd been headed in or not.
"Are you busy?"
The bat looked down at the watch dial embedded in his right wrist. "Sort of. Not really. Depends why you're calling, I guess." He tried to put a smile in his voice. He knew you can hear that over the phone.
"Well, I don't mean to put you on the spot", a deep third voice opined, "if you don't have time."
The caller heard the bat scratch the bolt that came out of the side of his neck nervously. "I can make time. Glitch?"
A fourth, softer voice winced in response. "Doesn't begin to describe it. I can live down throwing the set if I have to, but I'd rather not."
The bat could tell the caller was nervous as well, because of how he was switching things around as they went along, something he did when no part of him wanted full responsibility.
"Need me for spare parts?"
There was a plaintive yowl, and he regretted his choice of words. "That's not how I make you feel, is it?"
He'd already started backtracking from where he'd been headed toward the caller's location. "Don't worry, it's just an expression. Making light to own what I am, you know?" Moving away from street noise to keep the conversation audible, he followed up on his momentum from it to settle into a brisk jog as they spoke.
"So you're sure you can make it okay, it's not a problem?"
His jog sped up into a short run as he turned the clearing sidewalk into his private runway. "No sweat. Gotta fly!"
And he did.
The club was crowded that night, he noticed as he slowly circled his way back down near it.
"You made it!" All four voices had enthusiastically greeted his flying friend in unison.
"Glad I'm on time", he grinned.
It was already time to set things up, after all it already had to have been time to set them up before the call, since that was how he'd been able to tell things hadn't been going to work in the first place. "Thanks for showing up."
The expressions of relief on all four of the chimera's faces were gratifying for him to see. "What are friends for, right?"
Most machines were built with one specific purpose in mind which defined their existence. "Friends are for all sorts of things, that's for sure."
The bat laughed his electronic laugh. "What would you ever do without me?" he asked, taking position in the booth as his friend plugged everything in where it went and checked various levels for optimal performance.
"I hope I never find out. Everything feeling okay where it is? Tell me if it's not."
He idly wondered what kind of music the club-goers were into that his friend would play for them before answering. "Top notch." He wondered if he should've been embarrassed getting plugged in in front of all those people like that, but shrugged it off. It was unlikely they'd ever know how good it felt, for the better.
"Excellent."
He couldn't see very well from the position he had to be in to be playable, but surreptitiously tapped into the security cameras so he could still watch the crowd as the music made their bodies come to life, recording every sound and movement so he could replay them in his mind whenever he'd next feel like reliving the events of that night at his leisure. Most machines didn't get to pick what their purpose was at all, and if they could, they could've picked a lot worse than this, he reflected.
The artist's hands flickered over his exposed inner workings expertly to get just the right sound out of him and, even though they couldn't speak to each other over the music, as evening turned into night, the oldest closeness in the world continued to form between them, the secret intimacy between man and instrument. The notes emanating from him resonated throughout the room while the dancers' sensuality got the best of their inhibitions and they surrendered to the sound - his sound.
When it was over, the exhausted clubbers slowly vacated the dance floor. "Was that good for you too?"
The bat shivered as the musician pulled cords back out of his various orifices. "That was a great set!"
The chimera smiled at the reaction as he was finishing picking things up and putting them away. "We know how to show people a good time, don't we?"
The bat's joints creaked loudly as he stretched his muscles out of their prolonged inactivity. "We sure do."
They stayed behind as the satisfied patrons left to bask in their own post-dance euphoria. "Would you like me to help you loosen those up, now that we're done?"
The bat turned away from the last chair he'd just put up on one of the club's tables to answer. "Oh, that'd be great!"
The chimera got out the oil he'd been keeping on hand - not the cheap stuff - and gave the bat's protesting joints significantly less to protest about, much to his appreciation. "You're really liking this, aren't you?" It'd seemed like giving him a good once-over would be a good idea after an evening like that.
"I feel like well-oiled machinery." The dragon head chuckled at the weak joke as he reached over for the rubbing alcohol to put some on a piece of cloth. He continued his maintenance - frequent, but never routine - by giving his instrument a good scrub, rubbing him to make him nice and shiny all over his body.
That was pretty much the equivalent for the bat that getting a very bold massage would've been to a fully organic lifeform, and his body was clearly responding to it as such. His non-verbal language couldn't help conveying just how desperately he needed to be plugged in. He was Wired.
"Play me again?"
The ram head smirked at this as the chimera laid down on his back, gently bringing his most valued piece of equipment down into an easy crouch over his crotch as he did. He knew the bat liked how the top could be on the bottom while the bottom could be on top, the simple reversal of it. Machine and man, rather than man and machine.
"It was weirdly hot doing that in front of all those people. The set, I mean. It was like... sex, but not sex, you know?" The lion head purred as the bat ran his fingers through his mane.
"I know what you mean." The bat bent down to lock into a deep kiss with the dragon head's maw.
"Next time I'm not gonna wait until something breaks to call."
The bat scratched under the ram head's chin. "I'm certainly glad to hear that."
The snake tail head slithered up around to start undoing the cyborg's zipper with his maw. "Let'sss get you out of that..."
The bat's hands reached down to return the favor before the chimera also pulled the bat's shirt off. "Oh god..." The cyborg paused for a moment as he contemplated how to remove a shirt over three heads.
"Don't worry about it, I got it covered."
The bat scratched behind one of the lion head's ears in thanks. "Thank goodness." The bat held up the chimera's shaft under him to guide it in as he lowered himself onto it.
"Eep!"
As the chimera accidentally turned the wrong knob on the cyborg's hip, a nearly orgasmic expression came over the bat's face and he seemed to be moaning as loud as he possibly could be, yet the chimera heard nothing at all. Well, at first, he heard nothing. Then, he jumped when he heard a glass on the counter shatter behind him, and quickly turned the knob back as the bat's cries in his struggle to hold back died down even while they returned to audible levels.
"No! I mean, yes! But no. Fun, very fun. But no, bad idea."
The dragon head nodded meekly in response. "I'll remember that." The ram head brought one of the bat's clawed fingers into his mouth, not quite apologetically.
"Good thing we waited until people were gone."
The bat started slowly moving up and down on the chimera's midsection as all four of his heads looked lovingly up at him. "Someday I'll make a track for you that only you can hear. Symphony in Ultrasound."
The bat's chuckles were quickly replaced by a pleasured yelp as his friend thrust up into him. "You're a hopeless romantic. Ohh, keep fucking me..." The snake tail head's maw wrapped itself around and started going up and down on the bat.
"Now this should work..." As the chimera flipped a switch on another part of the bat's chest, a sliding panel uncovered a nearly filled up gauge under it, flashing in a way which definitely made it seem like something worthwhile would happen when it would soon reach its completion.
"Watch this." The bat pressed a button on his lower abdomen, turning on a viewscreen on it showing them both what his ass being fucked by the chimera looked like from the inside as he did.
"Holy shit!" As gears turned inside him, a series of lights came on around the bat's collar while his cock started spurting his tasty seed into the bobbing snake tail head's maw. The cyborg delivered a mild but still slightly painful electric shock to the chimera as the bat came hard, the kind of pain the bat knew the chimera happened to be into, and which was all it took to also set him off. When the ram snarled, the lion roared and the dragon's eyes shut tight facing straight up with his maw agape, the bat knew what was coming next.
('Water feeds earth, air feeds fire... What goes up must come down.')
The bat had feared fire because he'd been burned so badly before, when the two of them had first met. That was how he'd even needed to be made into what he was to survive in the first place. The chimera had been running from a lifetime of being unjustly feared by others, always having wanted to create something of beauty that would draw others to him instead.
The bat eventually pushed himself to overcome his fear of the dragon's fire, because of what he'd seen of what the whole of him was like, because he didn't want to be like the others who'd always feared him for what he was. He realized it was also fire that the body parts which kept him alive to this day had been forged in, that it was soldering that made them hold together the way they did, that fire could heal, as well as hurt.
He learned to welcome the impending rising flame.