The thrill of the chase, the exhilaration of pursuit, had been making Lupin Caelum’s blood run hot since before he was Lupin, thief extraordinaire. Rivulets of hot water streaked down the curve of his back, tracing the crack of his ass as steam rose in billowing clouds around him.

He wasn’t born Lupin, but his life as a thief had become such a cornerstone of his identity that it was difficult to think of himself as having any other name. For all intents and purposes, Evan Conroy, of the sixth district slums of EC-2269J-07SAG13 was as dead as the barren rock he’d been born on.

A final few droplets of hot water splattered against Lupin’s skin as the showerhead shut off. A cloud of steam followed him as he stepped out of the glass enclosure, vapor rolling off his skin in delicate curls. Few things came close to the sensation of a hot shower after a successful operation.

While luxury was certainly something Lupin enjoyed very much, he still appreciated the smaller things in life. After stealing and conniving his way out of poverty, the very first luxury he had enjoyed was a hot shower, and it was a luxury he still enjoyed indulging in every now and again.

All his life, Lupin had worked to make sure that he would never have to live on the streets again. He’d made plans already. If ever he became destitute again, he would off himself. But not before taking one last hot shower.

Maybe it was a stupid idea, but Lupin had suffered poverty enough to know that he would rather die. It wasn’t the lack of money that made poverty difficult. It was the soul-crushing futility of trying to clamber out of that pit in a legitimate way.

Not that Lupin genuinely had to worry about going broke. In the last century alone he had made enough credits from his heists, big and small, that even if he lost most of his assets he would still be left with an appreciable amount of money to at least live comfortably.

Of course, there was always the chance that Lupin could lose everything to some sort of catastrophe. However, the likelihood of the Prime Galactic Union completely imploding was so remote that if it ever happened, he figured he would have other things to worry about than his money.

A quiet sigh escaped Lupin as he dried himself off with the towel that was hanging from a nearby heated rack. The luxurious, downy fabric felt absolutely exquisite against his bare skin. It dried him up like nothing else he’d ever used before. This towel was one of the highlights of the three months he’d spent in the colony of Laxh. He had to figure out where to get one for himself.

On his way out of the bathroom, Lupin stopped to take a look at himself in the mirror. Three months of wearing this new vessel and he still hadn’t quite gotten used to it.

Lupin’s new body was lean. It was somewhat on the slight side, but with just enough definition to be sexy. He brushed his fingers over his cobbled abs and cut biceps. He didn’t look very muscular, but he knew intimately the strength that his slender appearance belied.

With a light touch, Lupin traced the side of his face. He was pretty. His eyes were glittering green, nothing like the dull, drab brown of his old body. The dimples on his cheeks when he smiled made him look innocent, but also dazzlingly handsome. His skin seemed to glow with the exuberance of youth, yet he looked barely a day over twenty.

There were days that Lupin missed his old vessel, but mostly out of sentimentality rather than any actual attachment to it. This vessel, though, he was happy to keep for a while. For good reason, too. After all, he’d sunk a good three billion credits into the fabrication of his new body.

Lupin’s new vessel wasn’t just pretty. It came pre-trained with all the skills that he had painstakingly learned in his original body. It was quick, both physically and mentally, designed for speed, stealth, and precision—all things necessary for the kinds of jobs that he did.

Not to say that the new body was all business. Since Lupin intended to occupy this vessel as his default for a while, he’d splurged a little on fun enhancements. For instance, hardly anyone could resist his charms when his new body’s enhanced pheromone production ensured that the people he fancied would find him attractive in a primal way.

Lupin’s body produced aphrodisiac compounds and sensitivity enhancers which came out primarily through his bodily fluids. Bare skin-to-skin contact with him was intoxicating. Sex was transcendent, good enough to simulate a psychological dependence in his partners.

Most importantly, Lupin paid for certain improvements downstairs. His original body had not been particularly large, but as part of his missions, he’d hopped between vessels of varying degrees of endowment. He’d always liked the long, thick ones best, and now his new body had the kind of endowment that most men would be envious of.

Lupin chewed on his lower lip and rubbed his nipple with his thumb. Just looking at his body got him horny. The aphrodisiacs in his system didn’t just affect his partners. They affected him, too.

The manufacturers of the vessel had promised that the error would be corrected in the next version, free of charge, though Lupin didn’t really mind it all that much. He enjoyed being horny. It made him feel strong. Virile. And now that he had a massive cock, being half-hard all the time to show it off was hardly a drawback.

Lupin slung the towel over his shoulders. He grabbed his prodigious cock. His fingers couldn’t even close around it. He moaned, the sound low and guttural in the sexy baritone voice of his new body. He was so fucking horny. Successful heists always got him going.

Idly pleasuring himself, Lupin walked out of the en-suite into the bedroom. The place was nice, but it wasn’t his. The apartment belonged to Axcyk, a cute guy in his late twenties who worked as a senior electrician for a local maintenance contractor. The same contractor, as it so happened, that worked with Lupin’s target gallery.

Lupin walked up to the wall of the apartment and waved his hand. Projectors mounted on the walls provided a floor-to-ceiling real-time view of the exterior of the building. Axcyk’s suite was high enough in the building that the contragrav traffic below didn’t obstruct the view outside at all.

Even though this city, Xalzcnyt, was something of a cesspool of filth and indecency, Lupin had to admit that the skyline was magnificent. Beyond the jagged mountains that bordered the city’s southern edge loomed the pale visage of Veltirjin A, the mighty gas giant that the moon orbited.

Lupin jerked off in front of the "window" for another two minutes before he got tired of the view. He turned back toward the bed and clambered on top of it. In the center of the bed, on top of the sheets, was a small bundle of black cloth that contained the spoils of the evening’s operation.

With reverence, Lupin carefully unfolded the cloth. In the milky light reflected from the turbulent clouds of Veltirjin A, the Pleiades diamond collection glimmered like fist-sized crystals of solidified starlight.

The gemstones were so pretty that Lupin was almost tempted to keep them for himself. Unfortunately, that was simply out of the question. Even if he had been willing to renege on a contract for the diamonds, his patron had offered a sum of money so unfathomably vast that not even the prettiest stones in the universe could top.

It wasn’t like Lupin had wanted to steal the Pleiades in the first place. In fact, the first time he was approached with the idea, he had said no. Maybe long ago, on Earth, diamonds were precious, but in the age of stellar expansion, they were just so passé.

When he heard the amount that was being offered in exchange for the Pleiades, however, Lupin quickly changed his tone. He promised to do some research and get back to his would-be patron. What he found gave him reason enough to go after the Pleiades, as unlike most diamonds formed in lava tubes on geologically active planets, the Pleiades were celestial diamonds.

As the story went, a cargo freighter delivering goods from the Alphonse system to the Nrim system got lost due to some unknown slipspace disturbance and ended up far away from home, orbiting around an unknown white dwarf. It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time as the crust of the stellar remnant was ripped open by a vicious quake, ejecting the rough stones that would become the Pleiades in the process.

More than the money he was being offered to do the heist, the notoriety of stealing the galaxy’s most unique gemstones had been reason enough for Lupin to accept the job.

While he was wealthy beyond the reckoning of most people, Lupin still placed relatively low on the rankings of the Prime Galactic Union’s wealthiest. People a few hundred ranks higher up than him had amassed wealth that more than dwarfed his.

The figure that Lupin had been offered in exchange for the Pleiades would catapult him right into the ranks of the super-rich. Once he verified that the offer was legitimate, he got into contact with his would-be benefactor and accepted the assignment without a second thought.

Lupin grunted. He pumped his hand up and down his cock. Fuck. He was so close. In just a few weeks he would have the means to do anything his heart desired. He could already imagine the improvements he would make to his place once the money was wired into his account.

God. The mere thought of finally being able to build a pleasure dome of his own was enough to send Lupin straight over the edge. His back arched and his toes curled as thick ropes of hot white cum shot out of his massive cock.

Voluminous strands of ejaculate soaked the sheets in front of him and completely drenched the Pleiades in seed. The glittering jewels had never looked so good as they did then, with Lupin’s cum slowly dripping down their sparkling facets. Thanks to them, Lupin would finally be able to secure an eternity of luxury for himself.

Once the glow of orgasm diminished, Lupin raised his fingers to his mouth and licked off the little bits of cum that had dripped onto his fingers. From the looks of it, his little theft hadn’t been noticed yet, but it was probably still in his best interests to get away as soon as he could.

Lupin had left some convincing decoys in place of the Pleiades, and had caused enough chaos to delay the cops for at least a little while, but it wouldn’t be long before the authorities caught on to his tricks.

Snatching up his bag, Lupin pondered getting dressed properly before leaving the apartment. He decided it wasn’t worth it, since he didn’t have any plans to go anywhere other than the space port. He pulled out a square metallic tile from his bag and placed it against his chest.

Lupin shivered as the nanomaterial suit held within the tile crept across his skin. The silvery jumpsuit was cool to the touch and clung tightly to every curve of his body. The feeling of the fabric sliding against his skin had gotten him half-hard again, and the suit left very little of his cock to the imagination.

It was just how Lupin liked it. Since he had the equipment, it made little sense not to flaunt it, after all. Regardless, he felt it would be a bad idea to give the cops something as easily-identifiable as that.

With a few taps on the wrist, Lupin felt something snug and hard form around his cock, giving him a smooth and nondescript bulge. He’d toyed with chastity before. This was very much like that. He let out a little groan as he felt his cock strain against the cup. It felt good.

Lupin hardly ever stole from the people he took advantage of to make his marks, but Axcyk’s towel was one exception he was more than willing to make. He cleaned off the Pleiades with the towel and shoved it in his bag afterwards.

Then, Lupin gingerly eased the seven fist-sized gemstones into their own individual contragrav suspension containers just to make sure they didn’t get jostled around too much. He placed the containers into their designated spaces in his bag. Once he was satisfied that he had everything, he slung his bag over his shoulder.

Lupin walked over to the nightstand and picked up a half-circle silver band that was about an inch thick. He also picked up a glimmering metal disc, roughly half the size of his palm. It was so small, and yet somehow it contained the pure essence of an intelligent mind kept in suspension.

The disc was made out of a few parts. It was surrounded by a flat donut about a quarter of an inch thick from the inner rim to the outer rim. The hole in the middle was filled with a shimmering greenish-blue fluid sandwiched between two panes of nigh-indestructible polyglass.

Lupin walked over to the corner of the room. Slumped against the wall where he’d originally shed it was the body of Axcyk. Lupin knelt by the body and leaned it against him. He brought the disc up along Axcyk’s back, and the spinal port at the base of Axcyk’s neck opened in response to its presence.

With a fond smile, Lupin slipped the disc back into its rightful spot. He almost felt sorry for Axcyk. The electrician would almost certainly be found innocent of Lupin’s crimes, but it would be a harrowing couple of standard months for the poor guy.

Lupin appreciated Axcyk’s sacrifice for him, though. After all, he wouldn’t have been able to get away with it if he hadn’t used Axcyk’s body to mess with the gallery’s wiring.

As the disc got settled into Axcyk’s body, Lupin watched for a response. Pretty purplish-blue eyes fluttered open, blinking rapidly in the dim light of the room. Axcyk seemed disorientated, which was normal right after slipping into a new vessel and being rebooted.

As soon as he was certain that Axcyk’s mind had sufficiently re-established itself, Lupin took the silver band he’d been holding and slapped it on the back of Axcyk’s neck, right on top of the port.

The silver band conformed to the shape of Axcyk’s neck and hummed. Just as Axcyk seemed to be saying something, his eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped against Lupin. It looked like the suppression collar had worked.

Lupin gently lowered Axcyk to the floor and made his way out of the apartment. The hallways, luckily, were mostly unoccupied. "Hey, did you hear about the blackouts downtown?" said one of the neighbors that Lupin crossed paths with.

Shaking his head, Lupin said, "No, I didn’t hear. Is it bad?" he said. While time was of the essence to him, he couldn’t afford to look like anything was out of order. He had to raise as little suspicion as possible, and that meant making sure that it didn’t seem like he was in any hurry at all.

"Nah," said the neighbor. "I mean, it’s bad, but it’s not really surprising. It’s not like people didn’t try to warn them that it was going to happen eventually with the old infrastructure down that way. Luckily it happened after the gallery closed. Could you imagine the trouble the cops would be in if the power went out and the place was packed with thousands of people?"

Lupin chuckled. "It would probably be a clusterfuck," he said. He’d definitely taken the possibility of a stampede into consideration when planning out his heist. The stampede would have been a great distraction, but he didn’t want blood on his hands.

"Anyway, I should probably let you go," said the neighbor. "I gotta get back to my kids."

"Alright. Say hi for me. And, uh, see you, I guess!" said Lupin, as he continued his way down the corridor. Luckily, the conversation hadn’t gone on for much longer. The sooner he was off-world, the easier it would be to lose the authorities.

As soon as he was out on the street, Lupin booked a cab straight for the spaceport. He had a pretty good rapport with one of the guards there and managed to board his personal craft without much trouble. It took only a few minutes to get clearance and he managed to leave the moon before the first alarms even sounded.

As Lupin pulled away from Laxh, he went over his escape plan. Flying straight out of the system was out of the question. Once the authorities realized that he had stolen the Pleiades, ships leaving the system would be the first thing on their radars. Even if he did make it to the edge of the heliosphere before the planetary government found out what he’d done, they would be scanning the area for slipspace jump signatures to trace.

Luckily, Lupin had another trick up his sleeve. While common sense dictated that trying to do a slipspace jump from within a star’s heliosphere was a bad idea, he’d come to learn that with a small enough ship, and a tight enough jump bubble, most of the dangerous consequences could be avoided entirely.

In order to minimize the risk of detection as his jump drive powered up, Lupin maneuvered his ship to the far side of the gas giant that Laxh orbited. With interference from the magnetic field and the lack of line of sight from the moon, he could reasonably spend a couple of hours hiding in the shadow of the planet even though he only needed one at most.

While he was waiting, Lupin got more comfortable. He was the only person onboard, and the temperature in the cabin was quite nice, so there was no reason to keep the jumpsuit on. After tapping his chest twice and confirming his intent, Lupin sighed as the silvery fabric turned back into a metallic tile.

Lupin slung his legs over the arm rests of his chair and worked his fingers up and down his cock. He groaned. Now that he didn’t have a mission to worry about, he had every intention of enjoying his new body as much as he could. He kept an eye on the status of his jump drive in his peripheral vision.

"Hey, Hermes,’ said Lupin. A ping from the console indicated that the onboard computer was listening for a command. "Can you patch us in to the local news on Laxh?" After a few seconds, there was another chime, and a holographic projection popped up in front of Lupin.

The sight of his name on the breaking news headline made Lupin’s cock jump. He hadn’t left any evidence that could point to him at the crime scene, and yet the news had automatically assumed he was to blame. He grinned, his cock harder than ever. Nothing stroked the ego quite like having the entire galaxy think he was behind every major heist.

Before Lupin could cum, though, the computer chimed, indicating that the ship was ready to make the jump. Lupin lowered his legs from the arm rests and let go of his cock. He took a deep breath, grinned, and engaged the slipspace drive. It would take a few days to reach the rendezvous point, but once he did, he would never have to worry about anything ever again.

---

"Rehab, seriously?" said Lupin, chuckling with derision. Maybe it was a stupid thing to do in front of a magistrate that held his life in the balance, but he couldn’t even comprehend why he hadn’t spent a single day in jail since his arrest.

"Yes, Mr. Conroy," said the magistrate. The corner of his lip twisted into a vicious snarl as he said, "it appears that you yet have friends in high places who would be very upset if you went to prison."

So it was corruption in the justice system, then. Lupin almost rolled his eyes. He didn’t have friends in high places—hadn’t been aware he had any. Though he wasn’t going to complain if some rich fuck stuck his neck out for him. He’d even entertain whatever request would be made of him.

"However, it was determined that crime sprees such as yours cannot go unpunished entirely," said the magistrate. "And it is for that reason that you are being sentenced to the Recidivist Rehabilitation program. I sincerely hope you fail to complete the 52 standard weeks of treatment, Mr. Conroy because I would very much like the pleasure of welcoming you back in my courtroom to lock you away for a very long time."

Lupin woke up with a start. It had been two standard months since his sentencing. His memory of what had transpired leading up to the trial, and the things that had happened since then was hazy at best.

With a grunt, he rolled over in bed and checked the local time. It seemed that he had two hours left before work started, and seeing how he was already up, he figured it was probably for the best if he started getting ready.

Once he was sentenced, Lupin was put under something called civil confinement. At the time he’d been too hung up on the notion that he was going to get away with everything without spending a single minute in jail to realize what the judge had meant.

For the last three weeks, Lupin had been living with Officer Vincent Lang, the detective that had been hot on his heels ever since he made a name for himself. It ended up more pleasant than he anticipated. It wasn’t anything like the life he used to live, but it was better than jail or being on the streets.

Since most of Lupin’s assets had been taken as restitution for his crimes, he was basically broke until he got access to the space age equivalent of the Swiss banks. Vince had been kind enough to volunteer to put him up.

It was strange, really. The last thing that Lupin expected from the officer was kindness. After all, he’d run circles around the guy for the better part of two centuries. He would have thought to find a lot of resentment there, but Vince treated him almost like an old friend.

Speaking of the devil, Vince was already making breakfast when Lupin left his room to take a shower. "Morning, beautiful," said Vince. Lupin ducked his head and blushed. It wasn’t like him to be so bashful, but he still hadn’t quite gotten used to waking up to someone making breakfast.

For all the luxuries that he’d managed to afford himself in his two hundred years of stealing, Lupin had never allowed himself the luxury of a partner. He’d been betrayed before, and escaped only by the skin of his teeth. A partner, he’d reasoned, was an unacceptable risk.

Lupin slept around, of course, and he’d brought hook-ups to some of his hide-outs before, but the one thing he’d never done was bring someone home. Right now, at least until that wealthy person who had vouched for him made contact, Vince’s home was his home, and he still couldn’t quite wrap his head around living with another human being.

"Why’d you volunteer?" said Lupin, groggily making his way to the kitchen table. The court had taken everything, but at least they let him keep the towel. "There’s gotta be something in it for you," he said.

"Hm?" said Vince, looking up from the food that he was cooking. "Well, I guess is something in it for me," he admitted. Lupin nodded. Of course. He’d never been convinced that people did things out of the goodness of their hearts, and he’d always told himself that the people who did were complete morons.

"Can you tell me what?" said Lupin. He did wonder what kind of kickback Vince was getting from all of this.

"I get to know you," said Vince, with a wry grin. "Don’t get any ideas, but I’ve been investigating you for centuries. This is a rare opportunity to talk to you and actually get a glimpse into your mind."

Vince shook his head and laughed. "This might be strange to you, but I actually feel a little pissed off that you got caught," he admitted. "The last two centuries have been like the best game of cat and mouse in the galaxy. I enjoy the thrill of the hunt. I’m sad it’s over now."

Lupin was flabbergasted. He appreciated the sentiment, but it hadn’t really hit him until that moment just how weird Vince was. "Well, we could keep going if you let me go," he said.

Vince scoffed. "Like that could happen," he said, shaking his head. "There’s a built in suppressor in your disc that will trip if you ever leave your designated area without permission. Not to mention, there’s a tracker embedded your disc that will let them find you the moment that you do, anyway."

Lupin had suspected as much, though he was off-guard by the seeming implication that Vince would let him go if it were possible. He decided not to press the subject. "I’m going to go take a shower," he said. The last few weeks hadn’t been as miserable as Lupin thought they would be, but they had still sucked a lot. Luckily, he still had hot showers to turn to.

"Are you feeling alright?" said Vince. His voice had taken on such a sudden seriousness that Lupin felt a bit of whiplash from the change in tone.

It took Lupin a moment to realize what Vince was talking about. "Oh. Yeah, I’m fine. I was disorientated last night when they slipped me into this vessel, but I’m okay now," he said.

As part of the rehabilitation program, Lupin had agreed to have the body he was arrested in examined in order to produce a standard vessel without all of the enhancements that he had paid for. Yesterday, he got transferred to the standard vessel, while his ideal body was carted off to be sold to the highest bidder. He hoped that the sale of that other body would wipe out most of his judgment.

For what it was worth, Lupin’s new body was every bit as pretty as the last one. It still had the same physical appearance. It just didn’t have any of the combat training, cognitive improvements, or fun enhancements. His cock was depressingly tiny compared to what it had been before.

"Alright," said Vince. "We’re gonna leave a little early today. I left a bunch of work yesterday that I need to finish when we get in."

"Yeah, yeah," said Lupin. Part of the rehabilitation program was reintegration, which meant finding an actual, legitimate job this time. Just his luck that Vince had insisted on getting him work at the local precinct.

With a sigh, Lupin headed for the shower. Things could have been worse, all things considered. He just couldn’t help but wonder when he was going to get bailed out of this whole damn thing. He hoped it would be soon. As much as he appreciated Vince’s help, he didn’t want to be there longer than he needed to be.

---

"Are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay, Mr. Avery?" said Lupin. He licked his lips, which were still tingling from the sizzling kiss the two of them had shared earlier. He traced his fingers down the middle of Jon’s chest and said, "I’m sure your boss would understand if you got a little delayed on your way back."

"I’m afraid my employer doesn’t suffer tardiness, Lupin," said Jon. His face was flushed, and his cock rock hard against Lupin’s thigh. "I’m due back at a very specific time and I’m already cutting it close as it is."

"Are you sure? That’s a shame…" said Lupin. "I’m sorry. I really was looking forward to spending some more time with you. You’re too pretty to just let go without a fight."

Jon chuckled. He leaned in and kissed Lupin. "I’ll transmit my contact information to you. Maybe we can meet when there isn’t as much time pressure. I’m sure you’d like to start that new life that my master’s money will be able to buy for you."

Lupin grinned. "Alright, alright. I don’t want you punished for my sake, anyway," he said, watching as Jon stepped naked through the airlock into his own ship, carrying the case which contained the Pleiades with him.

The ship shuddered under Lupin’s feet a few minutes later as Jon pulled away. The thrust cones of Jon’s ship became steadily smaller in the window until they smeared out into long streaks as the ship made a slipspace jump.

Less than a heartbeat later, Lupin’s entire ship shook. Hermes chimed, alarms blaring in the cabin, warning of an incoming electromagnetic anomaly. Lupin leapt toward the console and tried to figure out what was going on but his instruments were all going haywire.

The shaking and the frantic ringing of the alarms stopped almost as soon as they started, plunging the ship into a terrible silence. One by one the onboard lights shut off, and Lupin realized that it would only be a matter of minutes before the life support systems completely broke down.

The money had already been transferred to Lupin’s highest-security account, which meant that it was going to be safe regardless of what happened to him, so all that was left was to get himself to safety. Luckily, he’d had an emergency cryopod installed in the ship that had its own power system and was practically immune to electromagnetic events because it did not turn on until necessary.

It was cold the moment Lupin slid into the cryopod. He felt his consciousness slipping, the edges of his vision blurring to black. The only thing he could hear was the eerie silence of the ship and the hiss of the cryostasis gas flooding into the pod.

"Are you alright, Lupin?" said Vince. "You’ve been staring into space for the last ten minutes. Are you sure you don’t want a day off? It’s entirely justifiable to not want to go anywhere after being slipped into a new vessel, you know."

"H-Huh?" said Lupin. He felt strangely foggy. Thoughts were… difficult. He struggled to figure out why Vince was in front of him. Most cops got someone else to fetch something from the filing office or called in to request a digital copy when a hard copy of documents or evidence wasn’t required.

Lupin shook his head. He couldn’t remember what he’d been doing. It was like his train of thought had not only been derailed, but that the tracks themselves had just disappeared. It wasn’t time to go home, was it? It felt like he’d sat down at his desk only a few moments ago.

"I was asking if you wanted to drop by somewhere and get a bite to eat on the way home," said Vince. That was somewhat helpful. It at least told Lupin that Vince was here for him rather than for anything else. Though it still didn’t quite paint the full picture.

"Uhh… I can’t really think of anywhere I would want to go," said Lupin. He glanced at his computer screen, eyes widening at the realization that it was, indeed, time to go home. "I-Is that really the time?" he said.

Vince peered past the cubicle wall and glanced at Lupin’s computer. "Uh, yeah," he said. He chuckled. "Having more fun than you thought at the police department? Time flies when you’re enjoying what you do."

"Uh, no… I just…" Lupin struggled to find the words to express himself. It was so strange. He usually had no problem explaining the things in his head. At the moment he felt like he was trying to think with a skull stuffed full of marshmallows. "I just can’t remember doing anything," he said, after some difficulty.

Vince patted Lupin on the shoulder. "I wouldn’t worry too much about it," he said. "It’s probably just a side-effect of the new vessel. As soon as you get acclimated, you’ll probably be good as new. Whatever that means."

Lupin shrugged and picked up his things. He felt weird, almost like his perception of the world had slowed down by a tiny, but nevertheless noticeable amount.

Vince had a point. Maybe Lupin shouldn’t have insisted on coming to work. Vince had warned him that he might be feeling weird after being fitted with a new vessel, especially one that had an inferior mental capacity than the one he had previously occupied.

"You should probably listen to me more," said Vince. "Wouldn’t want you to make trouble for your coworkers here." Lupin sighed. Vince was right. The best way to get out of his current situation unscathed was to rock the boat as little as possible. It wasn’t like Vincent gave outlandish advice. If anything, Vince was annoyingly sensible.

Lupin didn’t fight when Vince slung an arm over his shoulder and walked him out of the filing department. He was glad a friendly cop had stepped up to "adopt" him for his sentence. He was sure the rich friend the judge had talked about would get him out of his predicament soon, but he was starting to think that he wouldn’t really mind if it took a little while.

---

"There you are," said a voice, crackling with static. Lupin slowly came to awareness, though he felt like a bubble slowly rising through thick molasses. A finger, padded in the thicker insulating fabric of a space suit, tapped at the glass of his cryopod. "Thought you were gone for good. Glad you’re not."

Something was off. Things didn’t seem right. The colors of the interior of Lupin’s ship seemed washed out—faded. A beam of pale caustic light was streaming in through the doorway, casting a perfectly crisp shadow on the wall opposite the room’s entrance.

Lupin knew the character of the light streaming into the room, and it spelled trouble. Somehow his ship had drifted from interstellar space into spitting distance of a white dwarf. He had no idea how long that could have taken, and there was no indicator of the current standard time and date in his cryopod.

Truth was, Lupin was just glad to be rescued. At first, he let himself hope that maybe Jon had come back to rescue him, but that little spark was quickly dashed against the rocks when he saw the badge on his rescuer’s suit. Well, fuck. As if his luck couldn’t get any worse.

Lupin blinked. He’d drifted off again, and had entirely forgotten what he’d been daydreaming about, and what he’d been doing before he started daydreaming. It was a common enough occurrence now that he’d resigned himself to it. It was as if his mind wasn’t his own anymore. It was as if there was a permanent fog in his skull, a fuzziness to his thoughts that refused to go away.

Over the last three weeks since he got his new vessel, Lupin had been feeling increasingly fuzzy. His thoughts were slower, though he lacked a reference to properly say by how much.

If it weren’t for the fact that the rest of the staff at Vincent’s precinct weren’t all so nice to him, Lupin was sure he would have been fired long ago. His productivity had tanked as soon as he got his new body. He kept drifting off, losing his train of thought. Focusing on anything was difficult, and he was starting to have some trouble with what little arithmetic he had to do these days.

When he had first started, the job had been so easy as to bore Lupin. Now he kept a calculator next to his keyboard for any operations on numbers greater than a hundred.

Words were more difficult, too. More and more, Lupin found himself tongue-tied, the word that he wanted dancing on the tip of his tongue but never coming out. He struggled to express himself, when he used to be so eloquent.

Something was wrong; Lupin was sure of it. He’d talked to Vince about it because he knew the officer would listen to him, and would know what he should do. In the past two weeks, Vince had taken Lupin to see a GP and two different specialists, all of whom said that he was in perfect health.

And yet, Lupin couldn’t shake the feeling that something was happening to him. Something bad that he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around. He felt like he was losing his mind—not in the sense that he was going insane, but in the sense that his cognitive abilities were declining.

Just yesterday, Lupin had spent a good twenty seconds staring at the seat belt in Vince’s car, trying to figure out how it worked. It was as if the knowledge had simply evaporated from his mind. He didn’t recall the knowledge, but he was able to figure out how the mechanism worked. He was afraid that before long he wouldn’t be able to do even that.

To make matters worse, Lupin had been having impure thoughts about Vince of late. Not that he didn’t find Vince attractive, or anything—the officer was handsome enough, after all.

Almost two months of having no one to sleep with whatsoever was driving Lupin up the wall. As if it wasn’t already difficult enough to concentrate with the cottony feeling in his head, every now and again his cock would harden in his pants, and his thoughts would wander to Vince, and he’d lose his train of thought all over again.

As the days passed, Lupin’s condition only got worse, and all the medical professionals that had a look at him said that observation was all that they could do at the moment.

Lupin’s dependence on Vince steadily increased. He had to rely on the officer to advocate for him because it was getting more and more difficult to express himself, and when the doctors talked to him he could scarcely last a few seconds before his mind wandered off to some other, more exciting topic.

At some point, Vince moved Lupin into his room, setting out a mattress for Lupin to sleep in. Lupin supposed Vincent must have seen him one night, and thought that he was sleeping fitfully when really he was having an intense wet dream about Vince. He dreamed about Vince almost every night, now.

Lupin dreamt of being pinned down under Vince, being fucked up against the wall by Vince, being on top of Vince, riding the officer’s cock, among other, varied fantasies. He’d always been more of a top, but when it came to Vince, it was like his mind had decided that he would exclusively be a submissive bottom boy.

---

"You know I thought you would be more interesting than this," said Vince. He seemed disappointed. Exasperated. "I thought there was some sort of visionary genius behind all of the thefts. Some greater plan, or purpose behind it all. Turns out you’re nothing more than a small-time thief with big-time skills."

Lupin didn’t know why but the words cut deep into his soul. The day had started like any other day. He hadn’t done anything differently. He wasn’t expecting the hostility at all. It almost seemed as if Vince was another person entirely, and the kind, gentle man that Lupin had come to know was just a fabrication.

"You know what? I’ve had about enough of this, I think," said Vince. "I can’t believe I thought it would be a good idea to bring you into my home. I should have known nothing good could come of helping out criminal scum like you." The sneer on Vince’s face felt like a dagger right through Lupin’s chest.

Vince walked over to Lupin. He grabbed Lupin by the arm and dragged him out of his chair. He pulled Lupin all the way to the front door, wrenching it open. "Get out of my life, you miserable excuse for a human being," Vince snarled.

The next thing Lupin knew, he was flying through the air. Icy-cold raindrops splattered across his face and chest. He was only wearing underwear, and very little at that. He landed on the sidewalk with a thud that made his teeth chatter.

Lupin looked up, eyes wide and pleading at Vince, who stood on top of the stairs to the front door. "They said never meet your heroes. I didn’t know they meant never meet your villains, either," said Vince, shaking his head. Lupin crawled onto his hands and knees just in time to hear Vince slam the door shut.

"No! Please!" Lupin screamed. He sat bolt upright, his chest heaving. Cold, clammy sweat was dripping down the sides of his face, and his arms. He looked around. He was in Vince’s room. It was dark. He wasn’t out on the streets. Nightmare. That was all it was. A nightmare.

A light turned on, illuminating the room. Vince looked over the edge of his bed. "Are you alright?" he said. Lupin took a deep breath and nodded. "Come on," said Vince. He patted the bed beside him. "Come lie down with me. Maybe some contact will help you feel better."

Lupin froze. It was all that he’d ever dreamed about the last few days and yet, for some reason, something in the pit of his stomach told him not to do it.

"You can’t possibly be scared of me after everything we’ve gone through," said Vince. When Vince put it that way, Lupin couldn’t really think of a reason why he shouldn’t do it.

"I-I’m not," said Lupin. He didn’t want Vince to think that he didn’t trust him, or anything. He just felt… strangely uneasy about the whole thing.

"Then what’s the problem?" said Vince. "I had a boyfriend once who told me that being in bed with another person helped him get over the really bad nightmares that he often had. It can’t hurt to try, can it?"

Lupin supposed Vince was right. It couldn’t hurt to try, and he really didn’t want to go through that kind of nightmare again. It was probably for the best if he just did as Vince told him to. Most of the time, when he ignored Vince’s advice, things ended up going pear-shaped.

Reluctantly at first, Lupin climbed into Vince’s bed. He tried to lie as far apart from the officer as possible, but he couldn’t help inching back toward him as his cock got harder. "The whole point is to be in contact, Lupin," said Vince, wrapping one muscular arm around Lupin’s waist and pulling him close. Lupins back was flush up against Vince’s chest, and the officer pulled him closer still.

"There," said Vince, keeping his arm draped over Lupin’s side. "That’s more like it. You should be able to sleep better now, or at least sleep without having nightmares."

Lupin sighed and closed his eyes. He did enjoy the warmth of Vince’s body behind him. He enjoyed it a bit too much, if he was being honest. He shook his head. As if he was going to be able to sleep with how hard his cock was.

Vince’s arm drifted down Lupin’s side. His fingers briefly brushed over Lupin’s modest erection. Lupin bit back a moan and hoped that Vince hadn’t noticed just how hard he was in his underwear. "Do you like this?" Vince whispered. The tone of Vince’s voice sent a shiver down Lupin’s spine. "You know… I was wondering why you were saying my name in your sleep…"

The bed shifted under Lupin as Vince moved. He rolled over onto his back. Vince clambered on top of him, hands pressing into the mattress on either side of his face. "Is there anything you want to tell me, Lupin?" said Vince.

Lupin chewed on his lower lip. He wasn’t above sleeping with cops to get what he wanted, but this was different. His whole body felt warm and tingly. His cheeks felt like they were going to burst into flame. Even his breath felt hot on the way out.

"You know, you have a reputation," said Vince, leaning down so close to Lupin that their noses were barely an inch apart. "They say you’re a charismatic playboy who can charm the pants right off any man he sets his sights on. I never would have expected that you could be so shy."

It was too much. Lupin tilted his head to the side, looking away from Vince’s eyes. He didn’t know why his heart was beating so fast, why he was feeling this way. He felt feverish, his whole body flushed pink with arousal. He’d never felt anything like it before.

"That’s okay," said Vince, bringing his mouth close to Lupin’s ear. "If you feel shy, then let me take the lead. You’ve always intrigued me, Lupin. I’ve always wanted to know what you taste like. How you would feel…"

Lupin whimpered. His cock was so hard. His pucker twitched. He felt so empty and horny and desperate. He turned his head back to Vince. Their eyes locked as Vince rubbed his chin with his thumb. "Will you be mine, Lupin?" Vince whispered.

Fuck. The dam broke. Lupin surged upward and wrapped his arms around Vince’s neck. He kissed Vince and moaned as sheer, utter pleasure flooded his body.

---

In the heat of the moment, Lupin realized that there was nothing he wouldn’t do for Vince. For all the money that he’d made in his centuries, no one had made him feel so safe, so trusted, and so warm as Vince. He let out a little moan as Vince broke their kiss and moved down to nibble on his neck.

Lupin shifted his legs apart as Vince’s fingers hooked into the waistband of his briefs and peeled them off. A quiet whimper escaped him as he felt Vince’s fingers prodding at his hole. It wasn’t that he’d never had any experience bottoming. It was that he couldn’t remember the last time that he took anything larger than a finger up his ass.

To Lupin’s surprise, Vince’s index finger slipped easily into his ass. he moaned, eyes widening. It felt so good. His hole clamped down around the knuckle of Vince’s finger, the walls of his chute fluttering as Vince gently stroked his insides.

Before long, a second finger was inside of Lupin. He felt a slight burning sensation, but he could hardly notice it through the pleasure burning in his loins. He didn’t remember ever being this sensitive in his ass, but he wasn’t complaining.

A third finger slipped into Lupin with only marginally more resistance than the second. Vince masterfully worked him open, stretching his asshole, making him feel so good he felt like he was floating on a cloud as he helplessly bucked his hips onto the officer’s fingers.

Lupin grunted. Vince had pulled his fingers out, leaving Lupin’s hole yearning and empty. He could feel himself gaping, his hole refusing to close entirely. Not that he cared as soon as he felt the blunt head of Vince’s cock at his entrance. A long, low moan slipped from his lips as Vince slid into him with one smooth motion.

Lupin’s back arched off the bed, his toes curling as he wrapped his legs around Vince’s midriff. He didn’t think he’d ever felt pleasure like this before. It raced through his veins like lightning. It pooled in his stomach like molten fire. He couldn’t think, couldn’t speak. The only thing he could do was hang on for dear life as Vince’s hips started moving.

Vince’s cock slid in and out of Lupin in long strokes, getting each thrust getting harder and faster with each roll of his hips. The whole time, Lupin’s whole body was flooded with ecstasy. Vince’s cock rubbed up against his prostate in just the right way that every thrust, was exquisite torture, a pleasure that he couldn’t quite get enough of. "More. Harder. Please, Vince!"

Vince was more than happy to oblige Lupin’s request. He slammed his hips harder and harder into Lupin’s, moaning and grunting as he slipped into a powerful and brutal rut that made Lupin’s blood and body sing. Waves of pleasure rolled over Lupin and crashed into his mind, one after the other, blending together into an eternal ocean of bliss.

---

"What are you thinking about, pet?" said Vince. He was seated at his desk. Lupin was perched on his lap, naked as he spent most of the time these days, with a collar around his neck that bore the colors and the insignia of the police department.

Lupin licked his lips as he wracked his head for an answer. He let out a little moan as Vince cupped his bare bottom and slipped a finger into his hole. The brief spark of pleasure seemed enough to derail Lupin’s thoughts. His eyes glazed over and his caged cock squirted a glob of pre-cum onto Vince’s thigh. "Dunno," said Lupin, with a giggle.

Once Lupin’s condition had progressed to the point that he was getting basically no work done and causing a bit of a problem for the filing department, Vince found him a new job as the precinct’s pet.

The cognitive decline in Lupin had gotten so bad that while he could still function as a human being and still had faculties for language, it took a lot of effort on his part. As it was, Vince thought that Lupin looked quite happy in his new life, certainly happier than he had ever been as a career criminal.

It seemed that Lupin was more than happy to mindlessly wander around the precinct, jumping into laps, and begging for bones. Vince supposed it only made sense. Being the precinct’s little slut didn’t require a lot of thinking, and while Lupin held a special place in his heart, he didn’t really mind him sleeping around because Lupin went home with him at the end of the day.

A few times, the old Lupin resurfaced partially. The incidents always caused a bit of a mess, and left the poor little himbo upset for days on end. As it turned out, though, the solution was rather simple. As long as Lupin was kept horny and singularly focused on sex, the dregs of his old personality wouldn’t be able to find the space to reassert themselves and cause trouble.

Up until recently, no one could figure out what had caused Lupin to regress to such a state. A few days ago, one of the specialists they’d consulted with, working closely with the manufacturers of the vessel that Lupin had been found in, came to Vince to confirm their findings by directly examining Lupin.

As it turned out, the genetic template that the manufacturers had used for the enhanced vessel created a base with severely limited cognitive abilities that were covered up by the enhancements that had been installed into the vessel. When the Prime Galactic Union produced a version of the vessel without any of the enhancements, they created a vessel that was severely limited in cognitive capacity.

Despite Lupin’s innate intelligence, being slipped into a vessel with such inferior capacity for that intelligence gradually restricted him to what the vessel was capable of. There was a chance that the process was reversible, but as he was now the sole decision-maker for Lupin, Vince had declined. He rather liked that Lupin seemed so much happier, simple as he might have been.

Vince typed up the last of the report that the Prime Galactic Union had asked him to make on the matter. He concluded by recommending that slipping criminals into sleeves with severely limited cognitive capacity be made standard procedure for the rehabilitation program. After all, it seemed to have changed Lupin for the better.

"What do you think, pet? Should we turn all those other bad guys into empty-headed little sluts like you?" said Vince, pushing two more fingers into Lupin.

"I dunno, Master," Lupin giggled, gently bucking his hips onto Vince’s fingers. "What should I think?"

Vince smirked. He eased Lupin off his lap and bent him over the desk. He unzipped his pants and fished out his cock, rubbing it on Lupin’s hole. "Good boy, asking Master to think for you rather than having any silly thoughts of your own," said Vince. "You should think it’s a wonderful idea. You should think that all the bad guys out there should be turned into slutty little things like you."

Lupin moaned as Vince slipped into him. He giggled. "I’m a slutty little thing!" he said, bucking his hips back into Vince’s.

Vince chuckled. To think how far the great thief had fallen. He hadn’t been sure that rehabilitation would work on the likes of Lupin, but now he was definitely a believer.