They were messing around the office one afternoon; things there were slow at that time of year. Experimental Gerar (a feline-like humanoid hybrid) had bought a cache of old data from some Timonier who lived in the Ruhrik Zone, she'd showed it to Nol (a human non-hybrid, who are very rare these days), and the two were going through it, trying to identify what kind of information it was. It turned out to be low-resolution pictures, 2D, from the early 21st century. At the time, there'd been a powerful puritan push in the West; a lot of then-clandestine things (which seem pretty tame these days) had been hidden inside people's computers.
They'd finally established the picture format (a variation on the old JPEG compression) and were looking at the ones that hadn't been encrypted. Digital pornography.
A particularly impressively hung specimen appeared on the screen; Nol laughed and pointed. "Wow, get that."
Gerar zoomed the screen in to the relevant point, and the two examined the patterns of pixels. "'Sbeen modified with a paint program," she said.
"You sure?"
She restored the whole image as Nol brushed one of the nanotech insects – a mantis – off the top of the display. "No," she said, tossing her long black braid behind her, "but statistically, that's pretty close to the upper limit -"
"Oh, and of course, you've made a study of penis lengths of the late twentieth century?" She grinned, an 'ah, shaddap!' expression on her face. She was about to reply when she thought of something, a feline grin lit up her face and her large orange eyes sparked mischievously. She cleared the screen and made an inquiry on the human anatomical database. Nol laughed out loud at this, but Gerar waved his derision aside and pointed to the monitor. It was a diagram of the penis's nerve structure.
"Imagine this," she said in her slow, this-may-be-a-moneyspinner voice. "A nano prosthetic, that goes over the normal penis, passes the bloodstream and the nerve-impulses through -" Nol cocked his head to one side, thinking about it. They had looked at similar schemes before, but had come up against a lack of knowledge in the genome area. Some day, someone would devise a way of altering human code in situ, but it would have taken far too much work for them alone. This, however ...
"It could be actuated by the same – " Nol added.
Gerar cut him off, "And parallel – no, direct-linked response -" ... and they were off on another tangent.
Their actual work was growing repair tissue from banks of standard cells, stacked into place by nanotech 'performers'. Like most graduates of Nexus, they'd had solid groundings in related fields, and the bewildering (to the outsider, anyway) array of pets and nanotoys that cluttered the office were testimony to their skills. Gerar and Nol had even been able to sell the designs of some of them.
One of Nol's recent successes was a glove made of living tissue, stronger than ordinary skin. It had a web of nerves which passed pressure sensations straight through to the hand in the glove, while protecting it against severe heat. It had proven useful for people who cooked their own food.
Just after Nol'd finished the testing, Gerar had shown him a model. It had belonged to a medical doctor of the late 20th century; a grossly distorted mannequin, meant to represent the relative intensities of nervous tissue throughout the body. The lips, tongue and fingers were oversize; the genitals were, in relation, tiny. Various ideas that they'd both had during the past month suddenly came together on this concept.
Nol put a few tentative models through the simulator while Gerar stood behind him and watched, rubbing her index finger along the ridge of purple velvet that covered her crotch. Nol glanced to her and saw the dark spot in the junction of her legs that attested to her excitement.
"What's the deal in having a big dick, anyway?" he said offhandedly.
Nol could see her smile reflected in the monitor. "Are you telling me that you've never seen some guy whose equipment made yours look tiny in comparison -"
"Despite what you think of me, I'm not in the habit of examining genitalia -"
"- and wondered what it'd be like to have a really huge -"
"I can't believe that I'm having this conversation."
Gerar burst out laughing, and then pointed to the screen. "There ... yes. It should detach itself on receiving, say, a pheromonal signal. Something unique, preferably scentless ... one of the KS93 analogues should do. In case the wearer can't find pants to fit." This last was said in a mocking tone.
Nol turned in his seat to face her. "Do you want one of these?"
Gerar stared back at him incredulously for a moment, then smiled. "About three months ago, I had this implant – a mood stabilizer, releases tiny amounts of some nonadrenaline analogue, or something like that, into my bloodstream. It was for that pseudoreligion that Bruxham wanted us to represent. It's still in me, and ever since I had it put in, I've had no interest in sex whatsoever. I don't think I'd make a very good test subject ... whereas you are obviously turned on by the idea ... come on, don't pretend that you aren't."
Nol gave her a disbelieving look, then admitted grudgingly, "Well, it would be interesting, just for a while ..."
She smirked. "Of course it would ..."
All businesslike (in appearance, at least), Gerar summoned up the relevant structural data from the database, and displayed the model, in its erect state, on the holo. She touched the dataplate and using virtual effectors, made some small changes in the model.
"Personally, I've always been rather fond of this shape ... very thick just behind the head, here -" illuminating the indicated section with flashing red arrows, "and ... yes. That's about the right shape ... so, let's just scale the entire model by 1.45 ... wow!" Nol had to admit, he was impressed. The prosthesis, when complete, would fit over the original member, with anchor segments fitting down around the scrotum and into the pubic hair. When in place, millions of microscopic cilii would hold it on firmly; veins near the base would intrude through the skin and divert some of the blood from the regular circulatory path. Because it wouldn't function with the regular mechanics of erection, nanoprocessors would emulate the effect, diverting blood through the spongy, centimeter-thick layer, swelling it to about two-thirds of its original size. There was an opening at the end which would allow the urethra to pass through.
"Anything else you can think of?" Nol asked casually. Gerar thought for a moment, her small chin resting on her fist, stared at her painted gold and blue nails for a minute and made a few minor changes to the general color scheme, darkening it slightly, then she increased the diameter of the veins that ran along the underside, until they were almost as thick (in the model) as her little finger. "Not many girls go for that lumpy look," Nol cautioned her.
"You aren't going to waste a beautiful tool like that on a girl, are you?" she asked with mock dismay.
Nol smirked at her. "You'll be the first."
She trained her attention on the model, plotting cell-stack paths. Distractedly, she said, "Actually ... I'll be the second. If you can masturbate through it successfully without pulling it off, then it'll be a success." She set the substrate up, poured the nanoproducers and the base material in, and set it off. The device started growing; while it worked, Nol went and had a shower.
While he vigorously soaped his thick red shock of hair, he called out:
"You really think that there'll be a market for this?"
"Come on!" she scoffed, poking her sable head into the steamy shower, "Everyone's been telling us that size doesn't count for centuries, but you remember what Captain Brenten said in Tank Police..."
"No?"
"I quote: `This is a MALE THING! When it comes to male things, the bigger, the better!' Anyway, it doesn't really matter if they never actually get used for fucking ... it'll probably become a status symbol, like wide ties were in the late twentieth century." She continued in slightly more subdued tones: "Oh, boy. Um, maybe that's just a little bit too..."
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