Volume 20: All the Kinds of Broken
Chapter 23
Caught
Chapter Notes
Another long-ass chapter because I wanted to get through this Vera thing. You can find Vera’s side of the scene in the Restaurant in “I’ll Be Watching You.” That story also covers the outcome of her Hargist phase. Tilrey and Krisha find their way to friendship of a sort in “The Trip to Harbour.”Next up is another story about Tilrey, Gersha, and Ceill. It won’t be as fluffy as the last one, because Ceill’s getting older, but I am looking forward to writing loving relationships again. :)
Chapter Notes
Another long-ass chapter because I wanted to get through this Vera thing. You can find Vera’s side of the scene in the Restaurant in “I’ll Be Watching You.” That story also covers the outcome of her Hargist phase. Tilrey and Krisha find their way to friendship of a sort in “The Trip to Harbour.”Next up is another story about Tilrey, Gersha, and Ceill. It won’t be as fluffy as the last one, because Ceill’s getting older, but I am looking forward to writing loving relationships again. :)
Another long-ass chapter because I wanted to get through this Vera thing. You can find Vera’s side of the scene in the Restaurant in “I’ll Be Watching You.” That story also covers the outcome of her Hargist phase. Tilrey and Krisha find their way to friendship of a sort in “The Trip to Harbour.”
Next up is another story about Tilrey, Gersha, and Ceill. It won’t be as fluffy as the last one, because Ceill’s getting older, but I am looking forward to writing loving relationships again. :)
They went to Vera’s dorm room.The place was just big enough for a bed, a desk, a chair, and a window, and when the door closed behind them, Vera had no idea what to do. Her face was swollen from blushing. Tilrey had made it clear he wasn’t willing to break any rules to be with her, yet here he was disguised in student clothes, committing a clear-cut wardrobe violation.The slouchy student tunic and trousers set off the lines of his body. When he stripped off his parka, she flitted a few steps back, unable to take her eyes off his long legs and broad shoulders. “You look good in those clothes,” she said before she could stop herself.“Yeah, well.” Tilrey glanced down at himself, brow furrowing as if he were just realizing how risky his masquerade was. He was passing as one of her peers, like the two friends she’d brought here to try to forget him—only she’d rather have him here, so much rather.Hopefully he wasn’t actually worried she’d report him. To show him it was the last thing from her mind, Vera fished the Hargist scarf she’d found on the Quad out of its hiding place in a pillowcase and wound it around her neck. She’d slept with it on last night. “What do you think of my violation?”Tilrey reached for the scarf, then stopped. “That’s pretty.”“Isn’t it?” Vera held out one end invitingly.He stroked the scarf as if it might bite him. “It’s from Harbour, isn’t it?”“I suppose.” She bit back the explanation of how she’d found it. “Tomorrow I’m going to wear it to class.”The look on Tilrey’s face—startled and a bit admiring—was worth the rash decision. “You won’t report me, will you?” Vera teased.He smiled the radiant smile he’d shown her in the library. “I guess that would be awkward, Fir’n.”“I guess it would.” But Vera couldn’t pretend this wasn’t weird. She sat down on the bed, keeping her back straight. “Was there something special you wanted to talk to me about?”Tilrey stayed standing, hands fidgeting in his pockets. “Uh. Fir’n. I thought perhaps I should warn you about, uh, Councillor Lindthardt.”“Who?” This didn’t sound promising.“He was just elected, and your Fir Grandfather seems to favor him. That’s why I came—well, one reason. I probably shouldn’t have. I just, uh, I . . .”Vera felt her self-assurance trickling back. She was the Upstart here; it was her job to take charge. “Sit,” she said, patting the bed beside her. “Whatever it is, don’t be afraid to tell me.”Tilrey sat, not as close as she’d suggested. “I may be overstepping, Fir’n. I’m sorry. But Lindthardt—well, he asked me about you. He says he wants to marry you.”Vera expelled the tension in a loud laugh. “I don’t even know this Councillor Lindthardt, and I’m not getting married for ages, maybe ever.”“Oh, of course. He said so himself. But Fir Lindthardt . . . well, he asked me to tell him whether you would be … worth his while.”Irritation brought fresh blood to Vera’s cheeks. “What does that mean? I’m not a crate of goods to be bartered, and I don’t like it when people talk that way behind my back.”“I know,” Tilrey said. “I know the feeling.”He raised his eyes, so wide and blue they stole Vera’s breath. Of course he knew, better than she did.But she wouldn’t think about that. She wouldn’t think about how it had felt to find him at the Restaurant sharing a bottle of wine with her grandfather. Today, in these clothes, he was a student and a peer, because she wanted him to be.“So,” she asked, “what exactly does Fir Councillor Lindthardt want in a wife?”Something shifted in Tilrey’s eyes, and then he smiled again, blinding as the sun. “Sex,” he said. “He wants his wife to be very interested in it—with him, that is.”“But why would he ask you whether I want to have sex with him?”“I don’t know, Fir’n. I can’t imagine. He seemed to think I would be able to tell if you had any interest in . . . cock was how he put it. Sorry to be so crude.”Vera reddened again. “And what did you tell him?”“That it’s none of his business or mine.” He blinked. “Well, I said that in a more respectful way. But I came here to warn you in case he ever comes around trying to be sweet or anything.”Vera couldn’t even visualize this Lindthardt. Right now she had eyes only for what was in front of her; she wanted to tug Tilrey’s shirt over his head and run her hands down his broad chest and feel his breath heave. She wanted to gasp under his weight; she wanted to pull his hips up against hers.But she wasn’t sure he wanted any of those things. Trying to sound arch and witty, like one of the student wags in the caf, she said, “What makes you so sure it’s none of your business?”It was Tilrey’s turn to blush. “You know.”Vera knew all too well; he’d covered that in the Library. “Well,” she said, still in her put-on breezy tone, “if Lindthardt ever pesters you again, you can tell him I’m not interested in cock as an undifferentiated global category, and I don’t want his as my first, or probably at all.”Tilrey didn’t answer, but his breathing sped up. Was Vera not being clear enough? Not daring to look at him, she reached across the bed and rested her hand very lightly on his thigh.At last, Tilrey turned toward her. “You know we shouldn’t, Fir’n.”“That’s right. But here you are.” Vera remembered the Hargist boy who’d teased her for her timidity. “You didn’t seriously come to talk about Fir Lindthardt, did you?”His laugh was strangled. “He’s the last thing I want to talk about.”His hand came down on top of hers. Feeling it tremble, Vera closed the distance between them.As she raised her lips to Tilrey’s, she was terrified he would bat her away like a silly child. But he was breathing hard, his cheeks flushed. He lowered his head, dark-gold hair tumbling in his eyes, and kissed her so tentatively that she shuddered with need and frustration.Then his arms were around her, and he was pulling her down and saying, “We shouldn’t, we shouldn’t,” but his body seemed to disagree, and she arched up against him and whispered in his ear, “I want you to be the first. Only you.”Vera really did wear the purple scarf to her Industrial Budgeting class the next day. The professor paused in his lecture to give her a hard look, then returned to droning on about the numbers on his projection screen. An ancient retired bureaucrat, he probably thought his watery eyes had deceived him.Someone else noticed, too. As the class broke up, a hand plucked at the hanging end of the scarf, making Vera whip around.Svetta, the girl from her old dorm pod, stood glaring at her across a row of empty seats. “That’s mine.”Vera pressed a protective hand to the scarf. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”Svetta’s expression softened a fraction. “You can have it if you want. They’re cheap in the Outer Ring. I just didn’t think someone like you would pick it up.”“What do you mean, someone like me? A Linnett?”“A Huddler.”“A what?”“Boring. Proper. Obedient. You always were. It’s not an insult.” Svetta smiled sweetly. “It just means you’re happy huddling indoors for warmth, and you don’t care that there’s a whole world out there. I told Ram not to bother with you, but he said he saw something in your face.”“Ram?” That must be the boy at the tram stop; he’d seen Vera crying after Tilrey rejected her. What did that have to do with not being boring? Was she timid and boring, like someone huddling around the fire rather than forging out into the unknown?No, she couldn’t be—not after what she and Tilrey had done. She would never be a Huddler again. “Maybe I just think there are better things to do with my free time than jump off buildings,” she said, trying to ignore the excited thudding of her heart.Svetta smiled again, impish this time. “Oh, we do a lot more than that. Would you like to know more?”“You look happy,” Artur said as they dressed in the locker room after a good long swim.Malsha’s secretary was way too sharp-eyed. Suddenly acutely conscious of his expression and tone of voice, Tilrey said, “Endorphins.”“Mmm.” Artur was giving him a long look. “But I noticed it before we went in the pool. Are you fucking somebody? That Bror?”Tilrey pulled his shirt over his head. “Bror and I are just friends.”“It wouldn’t be a problem if you did, as long as it’s another Drudge. Malsha probably won’t care at this point—or won’t feel threatened, anyway. You deserve to please yourself sometimes.”If only it were that easy. Tilrey forced himself to grin roguishly. “If I were pleasing myself, I wouldn’t tell you about it.”“No, you wouldn’t.” Artur grinned back, but his eyes rested on Tilrey an instant too long.Next time would be the last, Tilrey vowed to himself. He would tell Vera as much when they met again in five days’ time, as they’d agreed. She had to understand. Maybe she’d even be sick of him by then, the novelty worn off.He had “pleased himself” with her, at least at first. He’d gotten so carried away, so turned on by her eager hands and lips and the excitement of doing something forbidden, that he’d even dared hope Malsha’s training wouldn’t hold.He relieved her of her unwanted virginity—carefully, watching for cues, knowing how much it hurt when someone did this by force. Then, at her urging, he kept going until he admitted to himself he couldn’t finish on his own. Not anymore, not with anyone. He collapsed on top of her, too embarrassed to ask her to order him to come, especially since he didn’t seem to have succeeded in bringing her to climax, either.It was such a humiliating failure of everything he was supposed to be—someone who could always please others, if not himself—that he was stunned when Vera seemed not to mind. She snuggled up against him and nuzzled his neck and whispered, “I knew I made the right choice. I always knew it had to be you.” This was strange and terrifying but flattering, too.When it got dark outside, and Tilrey had to go, Vera asked, “When will you come back? You don’t have to, you know.”That embarrassed him again, and he said, “I want to” and proved it by kissing her long and hard.One more time. If having a secret lover—Malsha’s granddaughter—was putting a little spring in Tilrey’s step, that just showed how deeply broken he was, didn’t it? Vera might claim she was old enough to do what she wanted, but he hadn’t forgotten her father’s vicious rage, more than a year ago now, or the bruises it had left on him. High Upstarts didn’t want their whores anywhere near their precious offspring.Malsha noticed something different about him, too. “You’re looking relaxed, love,” he said on the next free-night, as they bathed together in the steam. “Is Lindthardt really good in bed or something?”Tilrey knew how to deal with this sort of fishing question. “Are you going to invite him for a threesome, Fir?” he asked with an enigmatic smile. “You could find out that way.” Please don’t. Lindthardt was such a suck-up he would probably say yes, even if the thought of sex with Malsha made him cringe.Malsha flicked Tilrey’s hair out of his eyes. “Don’t give me ideas. Beirthsha’s a handsome boy but not my type. Such a narcissist.” He rolled his eyes. “There can only be one of those in my bedroom. I’m glad, though—I thought you’d be upset after I shared you with him. I know you weren’t expecting it.”Again Tilrey didn’t take the bait. “Why would I be upset? It’s my job to be shared.”“Oh, come now.” Malsha moved closer. “You can pretend all you want,” he whispered in Tilrey’s ear, “but I know how proud you are, sweetheart. You know you’re worth ten of that Lindthardt boy, and it pained you to have to suck his pathetic little cock.”Tilrey opened his mouth and let his body go supple. “His cock,” he said between kisses, “was actually quite respectable.”The second time, Vera left the blinds open, and the room filled with sunlight. She showed Tilrey the sheer drop outside, no risk of anyone peering in, and said, “I like the sun. I like the outdoors.”“Me too.” Tilrey perched on her bed in his student clothes, stiff-backed and awkward again. “I like it in Thurskein, anyway, where you can stay out for more than a second without getting frostbite.”“Mmmm. You have to tell me more about Thurskein. I want to know all about it.” Ram and Svetta and Vera’s other new friends said that Laborers, particularly Laborers of the southern cities, lived closer to the earth. Upstarts were Huddlers, alienated from their origin as survivors on the tundra.“But you know,” Vera went on, trying to look casual as she undressed, “the cold here isn’t as deadly as you’d think. In summer, you can walk at ground level for a whole half-hour. From the Outer Ring, you can see the sun rise and set over the Wastes. It’s magnificent.”“I’ve seen it.” Tilrey blushed hard. “You’re beautiful,” he added as if to explain the reaction. “But . . . this should be our last time. Okay, Fir’n?”“Let’s not think about other times. Let’s just be now.” Vera’s new friends believed in something they called “inhabiting the now.” When you leapt off buildings or lingered outdoors, the past and future disappeared in a rush of adrenaline that took hours to fade.Still more self-conscious than she liked to admit, she stepped out of her panties and came to Tilrey wearing only the purple scarf. Down deep, she was confident this wouldn’t be the last time. She said in what she hoped was the voice of a mature, sexy woman, “And I want to make it good for you. Show me how.”Tilrey laughed softly as his arms took her in, and her heart thumped against his.“It’s always good for me,” he said. “Just touching you—you can’t imagine. No, that’s my job, Vera. Let me make it good for you. Show me how to make it better.”And it was better this time, or at least Tilrey hoped so. Following her nervous instructions, he managed to get her close to the brink, possibly over it—he wasn’t sure.Afterward, as they rested in each other’s arms, he admitted, “I wish I had more experience with women.”“I don’t think anyone could be better than you.” Vera stroked his hair. “You’re perfect.”Her tone was so plummy and magnanimous, as if she were imitating the way her elders talked, that Tilrey stifled a laugh. He wished he dared ask her if she’d come, but then he might have to admit he’d faked his own throes of release. Apparently she, too, was inexperienced enough not to know the difference.“These things take practice,” he said, enjoying the unusual sensation of the sun on his bare shoulder. “There’s no shame in that.”“Mmm.” Vera tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. “I could practice forever with you.”By the time the sun sank and he had to leave, Tilrey was wondering why he’d been so excited last time. When you came down to it, this girl was just one more Upstart who needed to be petted and serviced and lied to. She was pretty, and she was kind, and he liked her well enough, but he couldn’t shake the sensation of still being on the job.Maybe that was just another way he was broken. Maybe he would never again feel the sort of consuming love he’d had for Dal.He tore himself away from Vera’s clinging kisses. “It was good, but like I said, last time. You know why.”“I know. I know. I just want you to know this is more than fun for me. I don’t think of you the way they do. I want you to know that I . . .”She stopped, her expression so desperate that something twisted in Tilrey’s chest. He picked up her hand and raised it to his lips, a gesture that always seemed to touch Upstarts in some deep way. He thought of it as expressing fealty, but to them it was clearly more.When he brushed her palm with a kiss, Vera shivered all over. Her eyes closed. Tilrey felt an unexpected shudder move down his spine, leaving him lightheaded and strangely excited. She isn’t pretending, and I’m not just a novelty for her. She really cares about me.“Maybe one more time,” he said.From the window of the neighboring dormitory, Krisha watched Tilrey exit Vera’s dorm and hurry toward the tram stop. The student clothes were a decent disguise, but not good enough when you knew what to look for.The poor kid obviously didn’t know that the new chip he’d had implanted in his hand didn’t just unlock the door of the apartment. It also tracked his movements and sent the data to a reader in the Magistrate’s possession. After noticing “abnormal activity” in the log, Malsha had passed the device on to his driver and instructed him to conduct surveillance. The next time Tilrey headed for campus, Krisha was steps behind.Taking his time now, Krisha strolled outdoors and back toward the car. He’d done his job; all that remained was to report to the Magistrate.Back when he was a teenager in the garrison in the Wastes, Krisha had never snitched on any of the other Outer boys who lived there as servants or whores. He felt no loyalty to the Oslov soldiers who had burned his village and enslaved him. He was too proud to gain their favor at others’ expense.But he was older and less proud now, and the Magistrate had earned his loyalty. He’d never been rough with Krisha, never beaten him in a drunken rage or burned him with the butt of a pipe. Thanks to him, Krisha had a decent posting, more than enough food to fill his belly, and a warm bed in his very own room. So if he was asked to snitch, he would snitch.Still, watching snowflakes flit through the purple dusk, he wished he didn’t have to. Tilrey was an ungrateful brat who’d been given plenty of warnings, but it felt wrong anyway. Like he was betraying his own.He wouldn’t risk covering for Tilrey; Malsha could always tell when he was lying. The boy would simply have to learn his place in the world, just as Krisha had.With a heavy heart, he went to do his job.“It’s beautiful, Fir,” Tilrey said as Malsha unrolled a long scarf across the Restaurant table. It was knitted from thick wool like your average scarf, but intricately striped with brilliant colors: scarlet and salmon-pink and ocean blue and russet and cream and black. “Is it from Harbour?”“Of course. I brought back a few of these more than a decade ago, and I’d forgotten I had this one till I found it at the back of my closet.” Malsha gathered up the scarf and handed it to him. “It’s for you, love. Put it on.”Tilrey wound the scarf around his neck. It was warm and soft. They were drinking aperitifs, surrounded by the aromas of delicious food they would soon be eating, and he said with sincerity, “Thank you. I love looking at it.” Then he added, “But can I actually wear it? It’s not regulation.”Malsha chuckled. “No one’s going to write you up for wardrobe violations, my darling.” He tucked in the ends of the scarf for Tilrey and smoothed it. “There we go. Actually, it would please me if you wore it everywhere. Anyone who knows me will know I gave it to you.”Another mark of ownership. Tilrey made himself smile; he had to tread carefully right now. “Of course, Fir.”“Mmm.” Malsha sat back and contemplated him from across the table. “What a lovely picture you make. A dutiful little Skeinsha with a hint, just a hint, of luscious decadence.” He gave a little start, as if pulling himself out of a trance. “Oh, here she comes. Did I mention my granddaughter’s joining us for dinner tonight?”Tilrey stared at him, at first just confused. Aside from Gunhild’s brief visit, no member of Malsha’s family had ever dined with them.Then he saw Malsha’s hungry, predatory expression, and a flash of understanding iced his blood. He knows. This was all a setup. Malsha had lulled him into a good mood just to heighten the moment when the shock and terror of knowing he was caught spread over his face.He turned wildly toward the entrance, looking for Vera as if he could warn her to stay away, not to walk into the trap. But Malsha yanked him back around, close enough to speak into his ear.“You’re going to be quiet now,” the Magistrate said in a hiss. “Not a word, not a soulful look at her. If you don’t sit like a stone, you’ll regret it later.”Tilrey said, “It was my fault.” The words sounded more pathetic and less impressive than they had in his head.Malsha gave him a perplexed look. “You heard me. You’re furniture now, sweetheart. Not a word or you suffer for it later.”Then he rose to greet his granddaughter with an embrace.Tilrey’s heart was thudding, pumping panic through his body, but he managed to turn his face and focus on the snowy cornice outside the window. I’m not really here. Whatever happened next, he would survive it; the key was to leave his body and watch the scene from a distance.Vera couldn’t do that, though. She didn’t know how. Malsha would be cruel to her, humiliate her, and she had none of the defenses that he did. He didn’t need to glance at her to know she was already betraying herself with blushes, shocked to find him part of what was supposed to be a tête-à-tête with her beloved grandfather.Malsha ushered his granddaughter into the place he had vacated. Settling in beside Tilrey, he caught him around the waist and drew him close.Tilrey clenched his teeth, but he didn’t budge. Malsha didn’t usually indulge in these public displays, even in the Lounge where they were expected. This was purposeful.When the Magistrate spoke, his voice was so warm that Tilrey shivered. “You’ve met my piece?”Tilrey could feel Vera twitch. She said with obviously put-on casualness, “Yes.”“Yes. I imagine you’re confused.” The warmth left Malsha’s voice. “But so was I, when I learned you’d stolen something that belongs to me.”The server arrived. Tilrey left his body and floated above the table, watching as Malsha made a long and bizarrely intricate dinner order. He noted in a detached way that he was learning something valuable about the Magistrate. The man wasn’t above sating his taste for other people’s discomfort on his own flesh and blood.When the server finally left them, Vera was shaking; Tilrey felt her tension vibrate in the air. He hoped she wouldn’t make an outburst. Malsha wasn’t going to go easy on anyone tonight.When the Magistrate’s hand seized his under the table, he almost yanked his free. Almost. Then he went limp and let Malsha lace their fingers together and place the intertwined hands where Vera could see them.Tilrey’s eyes prickled; he blinked that away. If Vera was shocked, she shouldn’t be. He’d never hidden what he was. He leaned into Malsha’s arm, letting it support him. He kept his eyes down.He doubted he would escape punishment this way, but escaping punishment wasn’t the goal. Not letting Malsha win was. Any rebellious gesture would only end up feeding the man’s bottomless appetite for pain and misery.“I hope you’ll be understanding, Vera,” the Magistrate said. “I’ve never had cause to reprove you before. But there are boundaries, and I’m afraid you’ve crossed one.”At last Vera spoke, in a strangled voice. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about!”Malsha went on as if she’d just confessed her crime instead of denying it. “Yes, indeed, there was a witness. A concerned bystander who told my driver, who followed you on a second occasion. But that’s not the point, Vera. If you hadn’t known you were doing wrong, you wouldn’t have done it on the sly. You would have come right out and asked me.”“Asked you what?”She sounded panicked. Tilrey felt her eyes on him, wanting him to speak up, and he bit his lip. Malsha’s fingers squeezed his, warning and perversely reassuring at the same time. Not a word. I’m here with you.“You didn’t ask me if you could use the boy,” the Magistrate said. His voice had gone from frosty to gentle again. “I would have said no, because it goes against his proper function as political currency, not to mention it’s downright unsavory, and rather absurd, for us to share him.”In his detached way—because he was only a thing to be used, after all—Tilrey couldn’t help but admire how carefully Malsha picked his words to arouse and wound Vera’s pride. If the thrill of the forbidden had driven her toward Tilrey, shame would hold her back now.It must be difficult to have such touchy emotions. He had arrived from Thurskein with pride and shame, he was fairly sure, but that felt longer than a year ago.“But I wouldn’t have been offended by the request,” Malsha added with devastating calm. “I know how tempting he is.”A sharp inhalation across the table. Then, at last, Vera gathered her courage and fought back. She said, “I would never ask to ‘use’ him. He’s a free citizen and not—not something that belongs to you.”The flush of gratitude that bloomed inside Tilrey died just as quickly. She wasn’t helping him. She was grandstanding in her romantic way. She didn’t understand that he wasn’t free. Maybe that was his fault for not telling her; he had been fronting, too.Malsha said, “I applaud your spirit, my dear, and your idealism. But there are certain realities one must face.” He loosened his grip on Tilrey’s hand enough to stroke it with theatrical tenderness. “No, I don’t own him. But, as his patron and protector, I do own his time, which is quite valuable, and it’s in my interest to control access to that.” Under the table, he pressed his thigh against Tilrey’s. “Now, can you offer me any good reason why you should steal my boy’s time?”After a flustered pause, Vera said, “We’re friends. I knew him before you even did . . .”Snow flurried outside, turning the guardlights’ radiance milky and dreamlike. Remembering what Vera had said about walking outdoors, Tilrey wondered how long he could survive sitting on that cornice before he froze to death. Not that Malsha would ever give him a chance to find out.They were talking about what had happened in her father’s house in the Southern Range. Tilrey stopped listening and focused on the snow. The important thing was that Vera didn’t seem to know what her father had done to him, both before and after he found out about them.She wanted a saga hero, a stream hero. If she learned the whole story, she might expect Tilrey to swear revenge on her family. She would never forgive him for submitting and enduring like a coward.He couldn’t block out Malsha saying in an obscenely “concerned” voice: “What kind of friend are you, Vera, if you get him in trouble and cause him pain?”Tilrey squeezed Malsha’s hand back, just a little, hoping to cut off the circulation. Look who’s talking.Vera, of course, took no notice of this tiny act of resistance. She went silent for a long moment, lost in her own misery, before saying, “Please don’t punish him this time. Not for this. It was my fault.”Don’t fucking say that. I’m a person. I made a choice, too. Tilrey wanted to shout it at her, his whole body tightening. But he couldn’t even move.Malsha’s iron grip on his hand loosened a little. “Believe me, I don’t want to,” the Magistrate said, full of that awful concern again. “But I can’t punish you, and how else can I stop this from happening again?”“It won’t! I promise you.”Tilrey returned his attention to the window, very deliberately controlling each inhale and exhale. Whores are beyond shame. His cheeks didn’t heat even when Vera said, “I practically forced him. I won’t touch him again. Ever.”Touch him, as if he really were a thing with no say in the matter. Had Malsha convinced her of that? Had she believed it all along?“I swear,” Vera pleaded. “Please don’t make him suffer because I’m spoiled and selfish.”Yes, you are, said a small, vicious voice inside Tilrey. She should have known things could end this way. In the new, Malsha-enforced version of events, she was the one who had made all the choices.But Tilrey had bought the student clothes and come to her. He couldn’t forget that. He wondered who the “concerned bystander” who’d spotted him was, and whether it was someone he could find and give some form of comeuppance to. Her tattletale little brother again?No. It wasn’t anyone else’s fault. This would have happened sooner or later.At last, Malsha’s hand slipped free of his. The server had brought a carafe of something, and the Magistrate was pouring it into glasses. Vera—Vera was crying. Tilrey saw the glitter on her cheeks from the corner of his eye.Breaking her seemed to have put Malsha in good spirits. “Drink up, my dear,” he said. “This isn’t worth all the theatrics. Since you’ve acknowledged your mistake, the boy won’t be punished.”“You promise?” It was a whisper.Tilrey bit his lip again, hard, reminding himself that Malsha was merely trying to teach Vera that actions have consequences. The decision to punish or not to punish would always be his.“I promise,” the Magistrate said solemnly. “And I understand if you’d prefer to leave now.”Vera was on her feet in an instant.Anger choked Tilrey, and for the first time he disobeyed one of Malsha’s commandments. He looked up. He caught her eye.She’d turned, perhaps for a last glimpse of him—her face a mess, her mouth twisted. Tilrey managed to keep his own eyes dry and steady as he looked back.
I am real. I am a person. And someday you’ll all be sorry you ever treated me like anything else.
Vera turned again and fled, her tears glittering in the Restaurant’s mood lighting.“What did I say about soulful looks?” Malsha asked.Malsha ended up eating most of the dinner. He showed an excellent appetite, exclaiming on the quality of each dish, and insisted on dessert. But he didn’t reprimand Tilrey for picking at his own food, and he didn’t try to talk about anything else, which was a mercy.They were in the car coming home when the Magistrate finally said, “You should know there was no bystander. The chip in your hand is a tracker, love. Keep that in mind henceforth.”Tilrey vised the back of his left hand with his right as if the hand itself could take the punishment for his foolishness. Should have known.He released it. “Thanks for letting me know, Fir.”“You’re welcome.” Fingers stroked his knee. “You behaved yourself, at least until the end. I think the lesson sank in. Wouldn’t you say?”Tilrey didn’t answer. He was waiting for his own lesson.It came soon enough. They went straight to the bedroom, where Malsha fed him a palmful of sap. Then the Magistrate sat in the armchair beside the bed and gave the signal to undress, two fingers slashing the air horizontally. “Everything but the briefs.”The way Tilrey stripped was mechanical, timed to the second, but he made it look spontaneous every time. Do it like you’re by yourself, Malsha liked to say. Only a little slower.He folded his trousers, set them on a chair, and stretched, rolling his shoulders as if pausing in a private routine. He stepped toward the bed, grateful for the sap numbing his senses.“Not yet.” Malsha’s voice had turned sharp. “Go out and get Krisha.”Tilrey froze, painfully present again. So that was how it was going to go.For a split second, he considered his options. A flat no, repeated enough times, would eventually land him back at the officers’ club. Getting on his knees and pleading would amuse Malsha, but only enough to postpone the inevitable. This was like everything else: The only way out was through.He reached for the robe hanging from the closet door. Malsha said, “No. As you are.”Tilrey went out to the coldroom in his briefs. The interior door led him into a clammy vestibule, where he knocked at the door of Krisha’s quarters.On the way, he’d considered yet another option: stepping out the other door, into the cold. But he wasn’t ready to die for his self-respect like someone in the sagas that Vera loved so much. He had never been her hero.Krisha started backward at the sight of Tilrey standing nearly naked in the doorway. The driver wore his off-hours clothes, a baggy T-shirt and track pants, and he smelled of dried cod flakes. Behind him, light from the cylinder flickered around the room. The breathy sounds suggested porn, or maybe just an intense dramastream.“Fir wants you in the bedroom,” Tilrey said.Fighting the impulse to cover himself, or at least to cross his arms, he settled for turning and marching back inside without looking to see if Krisha followed. In the bedroom, he positioned himself before Malsha’s chair with hands clasped, the picture of submission—or indifference.The driver arrived a moment later, wearing a fleece he must have grabbed to make himself presentable. “At your service, Fir Magistrate,” he said, glancing sheepishly at the bed before ducking his head.“You look so awkward here, Krisha,” Malsha said. “One would think you’d never been in that bed before.”Krisha examined the floor. His usual slack-jawed expression had turned glum.“No one would think this was your lucky night, either,” Malsha said. “But it is. Sit on the bed.” As Krisha obeyed, he added, to Tilrey: “Can you tell me why this is happening, sweetheart? Of course you can, but I need to hear it from your mouth.”Rage pulsed through Tilrey, but the only way out was through. He dug his nails into his palms. “What I did—what we did—endangered your reputation with your colleagues, Fir. If anyone knew, it would look like you can’t control your own household. It mustn’t happen again.”“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” Malsha blinked placidly at them both. “As for the details, we can deal with those later. Come and sit on Krisha’s lap.”Tilrey could see Krisha from the corner of his eye, perched on the edge of the bed with tight shoulders and bowed head. Clearly he didn’t want this, either. The driver might be a coarse fool, but he had never leered at Tilrey, never treated him like anything but a bother. Maybe that would make this bearable.Tilrey took a step.But still. To walk over there and lower himself onto the big man’s knee like a child.He had to. Even if the blush set his face on fire.Krisha winced as Tilrey sat down, then grunted under his weight. He shifted to tug Tilrey between his spread knees, keeping him just clear of his crotch.They were both tense, their bodies warring magnetic poles, but they were also both aware of their impatient audience. After a moment Krisha took hold of Tilrey’s shoulders and pulled him in against his chest. “Better not fight,” he said under his breath.Think I’m stupid? Fighting another rush of anger, Tilrey inched back enough to rub against the driver’s cock.It was soft, but it hardened obligingly. Krisha made a hissing sound, his grip tightening.“Kiss him,” Malsha said. “Make it real. And you, Rishka, take that ridiculous fleece off him.”Krisha grunted again as Tilrey rocked back against him. He twisted Tilrey around to reach his lips and bestowed a quick, chaste kiss. Cod flakes. Stubble. Suppressing the urge to retch or laugh, Tilrey peeled the fleece off Krisha’s shoulders.He tried to see the situation objectively. Krisha was younger and better looking than most of the men he obliged—a beauty in his own right, with those broad cheekbones and glinting, hooded eyes. He was certainly more appetizing than Dhreil from the Sanctioned Brothel.But he saw Krisha nearly every day and every single free-night. From now on, every time Krisha opened the car door or brought him dinner in his room or quizzed him on where he’d been, Tilrey would remember tonight. He would never fully shake the sense-memories, just as he’d never shaken the officers’ club. And Malsha knew it.The old man tsk-tsked. “That wasn’t a proper kiss, Krisha. Tell me, are you holding back?”Krisha’s nails dug into Tilrey’s bare arms. “He’s yours,” the driver said sullenly. “Don’t want to . . .”“Hurt him?” Malsha’s eyes were wide and wet. “Is that what you’re worried about? You like to play rough when you’re on top, I seem to recall.” A chuckle. “Of course, you can’t help it. It’s how you were brought up.”Krisha loosened his grip, and Tilrey released a long, controlled breath. He would show no reactions but those he physically couldn’t repress.“But you don’t like him much, do you, Krisha?” Malsha’s voice dipped lower, into a rhythm. “The boy thinks he’s better than you because of your rough accent and your spotty grammar—oh yes, I’ve seen him roll his eyes. Maybe he’s seen how you still sound out the big words when you read. His whole life he’s had it easy; he has no idea what you’ve overcome. This little Skeinsha slut thinks he’s better than you. Maybe he deserves a little rough play.”Tilrey and Krisha had both gone still, the driver’s cock hard and inert against Tilrey’s ass. But when Malsha said “slut,” Krisha’s fingers pressed into Tilrey’s flesh again.“You want me to hurt him, Fir?” he asked as if his ears might have deceived him.Malsha widened his eyes. Of course, you dunce. “You may be surprised at how well he can take it. And if he can’t by now—well, he’ll learn. So go on, Krisha. Do it the way you learned in the garrison. Start with a real kiss.”Krisha stared at his master. “They didn’t . . .”“No, I imagine the soldiers didn’t kiss you much, but indulge me. I want to see it.”This kiss caught Tilrey unprepared—rough and wet, nothing tender about it. Krisha’s mouth locked on his, the tongue flicking down his throat.Tilrey did his best to relax into it, but he couldn’t breathe, and the man’s grip on his biceps was sending shoots of pain up his arms. He squirmed away—only to yelp as Krisha reared up and tossed him down on his back in bed.The driver’s weight came down before Tilrey could catch his breath. Fingers pinched below his collarbone, and white-hot pain lit up his whole left side, making him gasp and flail against the heavy form that crushed him into the bedclothes.For a terrible moment, he couldn’t stop struggling. He bucked until Krisha straddled his body and pinned a wrist above his head. Then, at last, he lay still, his breath coming in hectic near-sobs.The driver’s eyes were blank as a polar bear’s. “Don’t fight,” he repeated. Maybe it was his way of being considerate.With his free hand, he ripped Tilrey’s briefs down a seam, then jerked the rags free and tossed them aside. “How d’you want me to have him, Fir?”“However you like.”Tilrey knew that tone, breathless with arousal. Malsha must have thrown Krisha the lube, because Krisha reached to catch something, releasing Tilrey’s hand as he did so.Tilrey stayed still. Blinking back the tears wasn’t worth it, he decided; they were simply a physical reflex. This wasn’t the old days when he’d wept out of shame at the destruction of everything he was. That boy was long gone.This boy would lie back and observe everything from a distance—Malsha’s quickened breath, Krisha’s pathetic fumbling with the bottle. If Malsha could find other people’s discomfort amusing, perhaps he could, too—his own included.Krisha’s mouth twisted as if the burden of choosing put him in a funk. But he flipped Tilrey over, tugged him up on all fours, and kneed his thighs apart.Tilrey knew the roughness of passion. This was different. It felt mechanical, like his own undressing, as if Krisha were channeling a long-held memory.He shut his eyes and concentrated on his breathing as the driver’s greased finger probed inside him—gentler than it needed to be. He raised his hips.When a second finger slipped in to the knuckle, pain skittered down his spine, making him writhe. A hand smacked his ass-cheek—new pain, hot and stinging, not entirely unpleasant. Krisha said in a lifeless voice, as if reciting a script, “Take it, slut.”Tilrey’s nerves kept firing, tiny fireworks of pain bursting behind his closed lids. He released a sob, felt a hot tear flow down his cheek. He focused on his breathing and let it take him far away.Krisha was big everywhere. When the bulky cockhead prodded his cleft, he shivered from head to toe. Before he could raise his hips again and brace himself, Krisha was breaching him, pushing in relentlessly deeper and deeper. Still a machine, one that had been programmed to prepare its partner carefully but knew nothing of reciprocity or cues.Tilrey moaned. He turned his head and bit the flesh of his arm to ground the pain. But it was only pain, and he was somewhere else.Krisha bottomed out, the furred balls soft against him. Tilrey let his head droop. He inhaled and exhaled in sync with the driver, breathing through the unendurable fullness till it became endurable.Then Krisha began to move. Tears coursed down Tilrey’s cheeks. He didn’t arch up into the rough thrusts or pretend to enjoy them. But, as Krisha found a workmanlike rhythm, his mind grew calm enough to free itself again.This was nothing. It would be over soon. He only wished Vera hadn’t had to see him like that. She would always despise him now, not that it mattered. But all the same.Krisha’s hand tangled in his hair, jamming his face into the duvet. Forcing himself to relax and exhale into each thrust of that mechanical cock, Tilrey wondered if Malsha had trained Krisha to climax on command, too. He suspected not.Sure enough. Five or fifteen minutes or perhaps a half-hour later, Krisha gave an animal grunt and pulled out. Another grunt, and warm wetness spattered the small of Tilrey’s back. He held himself still on aching joints, suppressing a shudder of repulsion, and waited for Krisha to collapse on top of him.Krisha crumpled to the side instead, as if he didn’t want to touch Tilrey any more than he had to. After what seemed like a respectable interval, Tilrey inched up into a sitting position, equally mindful of the throbbing ache inside him and the danger of staining the bedclothes.“There, there.” Leaning over the bed, Malsha nudged him down onto his stomach. “Rest a bit, and we’ll get you cleaned up.”A finger stroked Tilrey’s bottom lip, slick and scented of pine. He licked the sap off and swallowed—a reflex.“Yes, just like that, love.” Malsha returned to his armchair. “Krisha, my great brute, your service is appreciated. You’ll get some frozen dumplings and salmon-skin crisps in your rations this week. Now, back to your den.”The sap made Tilrey’s head go light and loose. He barely heard Krisha leave.“Hmmm.” That was Malsha, on the bed with him now. “If I were to take you with his seed drying on you, would that prove my dominance over both of you, or compromise it? What do you think?”“Compromise it.” His voice sounded strange.Malsha laughed. “It wasn’t a real question.”Tilrey’s whole body shrank from the prospect of being fucked again. Finding Malsha’s hand beside him, he brought it to his lips. “Use my mouth. Please, Fir.”Malsha didn’t pull his hand away, but he did take an agonizing pause. “Say that again?”Tilrey kissed the palm a second time. “Use my mouth, please, Fir.”He wasn’t ashamed. What good would it do to martyr himself now?“Well, all right, then, sweetheart,” Malsha said. “As a reward for your cooperation.”When they were done, Tilrey lay for a while curled into the Magistrate’s body, feeling Krisha’s leavings begin to dry and stiffen on his back. Nothing about this intimate position felt unnatural, or contradictory to the rage he’d felt earlier, or even particularly unpleasant. It was simply his reality.“You know, I was shocked.” Malsha reached down to rub the nape of Tilrey’s neck. “You did manage to give me quite a fright, the two of you. Are you proud?”Tilrey didn’t answer.“I didn’t think either you or Vera had it in you,” Malsha continued. “Then again, I suppose she takes after me. Always a sentimental streak when it comes to a special boy.”When Tilrey still didn’t respond, he added: “I don’t want to know about the gory details, obviously. But I am curious: Who took the initiative in this little romance?”“Her. Then me. Then her again.”“An equal effort, eh? How romantic.” Malsha tousled his hair. “I fell madly in love with a whore when I was just a little older than Vera. He was clever like you. Perhaps it’s a necessary phase. I even fell in with Dissenters during my student days—did you know that? Lost my virginity to one. I was so determined to despoil my name.” He sighed, his hand going still in Tilrey’s hair. “I hope you’re not in love with her.”Tilrey couldn’t stop his body from stiffening. “I’m not in love with her, Fir. I’ll never feel that way about anybody, ever.”“When you make pronouncements like that, I’m reminded of how young you are.” Malsha tucked a strand of hair behind Tilrey’s ear. “How can you tell the future? Anyway,” he continued, businesslike, “I need to know one detail, and you can help me. What’s our dear Vera so discontented about?”Tilrey considered keeping Vera’s secrets, but only briefly. It simply wasn’t worth it. “She thinks her life is going to be miserable, Fir. Because it’s all so planned out.”He couldn’t stop irony from edging into his voice. Poor Vera, forced into a box. Maybe someday she would learn to satisfy her taste for drama by tormenting others, just like her grandfather, or maybe she would find a kinder outlet. It was none of his business. “She doesn’t want to marry someone her parents choose for her,” he added.“Who can blame her? Her parents despise each other, as do her grandparents.” Malsha wrapped an arm around Tilrey’s shoulders. “But being a Linnett has its compensations. She learned a harsh lesson tonight, but she’ll sort herself out in the end.”“And you,” he added after a moment. “I’ll keep you close, my sly lad. To think I was almost convinced for a moment that you were broken.”*The night had cleared, and the cold only made the sky blaze brighter. Vera had just located the Pole Star when the door of her mother’s apartment opened, and her brother rushed out.“Are you crazy?” Valgund seized her arm and yanked her toward the door. “I saw you through the window. How long have you been out here?”Vera yanked back. “Don’t be silly. It’s twelve below—balmy.” Her fingertips were going numb, but he didn’t have to know that. “We were born to this place, Gunsha. We should know how to endure the cold like our ancestors did.”“Our ancestors froze to death, like, regularly.” Valgund wore his coat and boots over his pajamas; he was visibly shivering. “Look, I won’t come in till you do. Do you want me to get frostbite? I’ll wake up Mom and tell her it’s your fault.”“Could you go one day without ratting on me?”“I haven’t done that in forever. Just come in.”Vera heaved an exaggerated sigh. She’d lingered here on the parapet to clear her head and cry about what had happened at the Restaurant, but now her tears were dry and her throat was sore and she only felt cold.This was no saga. She had seduced her grandfather’s kettle boy—used him—and she should have known how it would end. She wasn’t the first bored, spoiled girl to do something like this, and she wouldn’t be the last.I didn’t use him. We made love and it was perfect. But she had no use for that rebellious inner voice now.“Fine.” She touched her numbing hand to the sensor and hauled the door open. Valgund slipped into the coldroom after her and sealed it.“Let’s continue living our wonderful civilized lives, then.” Vera sat on the bench and let the room’s delicious heat engulf her. “Why should we bother to feel the wind or the roughness of a tree trunk or look at the stars when we could be debugging a new program for automating the watering of a greenhouse?”Valgund shed his coat. “You’re acting weird, Vera. I’m the one who’s supposed to say stupid things and be obsessed with the outdoors and plants.”“Maybe you don’t know me.” Trying to peel off her gloves, Vera realized she had to rub the life back into her fingers first. “Maybe nobody does.”“Are you a Hargist now?”Her head jerked up. “How do you even know what that is?”“We have them at school, too.” Valgund kicked off a boot. “When Mom asked me where you got that purple scarf, and I said I didn’t know, she told me Hargists wear them. I like it, by the way.”“Oh, do you?” He was so young; what did he know about anything that mattered? “Well, guess what? I do have Hargist friends, and now you can rat me out yet again.”“I only did it the one time,” Valgund said. “And it was only because that boy was so pretty, and I was jealous when I saw you going in his room.”Vera stopped her rubbing to look at him. She’d guessed as much but never expected him to admit it. “Is that an apology?”“Take it any way you want.” Her brother shoved his boots under the bench and stepped to the inner door. “Your Hargist friends. Could I meet them?”“I thought you were scared of the cold.”“Not scared, just sensible. You have to prepare for it with special gear. My friend Angar knows all about it; his uncle took him winter camping to toughen him up.” Valgund pressed his hand to the sensor. “You should meet Garsha—he’s a real daredevil. Your friends might already know him.”“My friends don’t hang out with children.” At this point, Vera wasn’t even sure that Ram and his crew considered her a friend. Svetta still had a tendency to giggle and roll her eyes when Vera was around.Maybe Svetta would be more impressed if she knew about what had happened with Tilrey. But that was private. Vera would lock those memories of sun-washed bliss in her heart and throw away the key.(And she knew, though she scarcely dared admit it to herself, that she couldn’t risk her grandfather’s wrath again, for Tilrey’s sake and her own.)“I’m not a child,” her brother said. “Mom and Dad are all set to disown me because I don’t want to be just like them. And, unlike you, I’m doing something about it—refusing to apply for Diplo.”Vera tried to scoff. “Mom would never ‘disown’ you. You’re her favorite.”But her brother had a point. While she kept her rebellion to the shadows, he was defying expectations in the open. Maybe they were more alike than she wanted to admit.And Ram and Svetta might be impressed if she brought them a new recruit or two.“I’ll consider introducing you to my friends,” she said, following her brother indoors. “If you manage not to rat on me about tonight, we’ll see.”
They went to Vera’s dorm room.
The place was just big enough for a bed, a desk, a chair, and a window, and when the door closed behind them, Vera had no idea what to do. Her face was swollen from blushing. Tilrey had made it clear he wasn’t willing to break any rules to be with her, yet here he was disguised in student clothes, committing a clear-cut wardrobe violation.
The slouchy student tunic and trousers set off the lines of his body. When he stripped off his parka, she flitted a few steps back, unable to take her eyes off his long legs and broad shoulders. “You look good in those clothes,” she said before she could stop herself.
“Yeah, well.” Tilrey glanced down at himself, brow furrowing as if he were just realizing how risky his masquerade was. He was passing as one of her peers, like the two friends she’d brought here to try to forget him—only she’d rather have him here, so much rather.
Hopefully he wasn’t actually worried she’d report him. To show him it was the last thing from her mind, Vera fished the Hargist scarf she’d found on the Quad out of its hiding place in a pillowcase and wound it around her neck. She’d slept with it on last night. “What do you think of my violation?”
Tilrey reached for the scarf, then stopped. “That’s pretty.”
“Isn’t it?” Vera held out one end invitingly.
He stroked the scarf as if it might bite him. “It’s from Harbour, isn’t it?”
“I suppose.” She bit back the explanation of how she’d found it. “Tomorrow I’m going to wear it to class.”
The look on Tilrey’s face—startled and a bit admiring—was worth the rash decision. “You won’t report me, will you?” Vera teased.
He smiled the radiant smile he’d shown her in the library. “I guess that would be awkward, Fir’n.”
“I guess it would.” But Vera couldn’t pretend this wasn’t weird. She sat down on the bed, keeping her back straight. “Was there something special you wanted to talk to me about?”
Tilrey stayed standing, hands fidgeting in his pockets. “Uh. Fir’n. I thought perhaps I should warn you about, uh, Councillor Lindthardt.”
“Who?” This didn’t sound promising.
“He was just elected, and your Fir Grandfather seems to favor him. That’s why I came—well, one reason. I probably shouldn’t have. I just, uh, I . . .”
Vera felt her self-assurance trickling back. She was the Upstart here; it was her job to take charge. “Sit,” she said, patting the bed beside her. “Whatever it is, don’t be afraid to tell me.”
Tilrey sat, not as close as she’d suggested. “I may be overstepping, Fir’n. I’m sorry. But Lindthardt—well, he asked me about you. He says he wants to marry you.”
Vera expelled the tension in a loud laugh. “I don’t even know this Councillor Lindthardt, and I’m not getting married for ages, maybe ever.”
“Oh, of course. He said so himself. But Fir Lindthardt . . . well, he asked me to tell him whether you would be … worth his while.”
Irritation brought fresh blood to Vera’s cheeks. “What does that mean? I’m not a crate of goods to be bartered, and I don’t like it when people talk that way behind my back.”
“I know,” Tilrey said. “I know the feeling.”
He raised his eyes, so wide and blue they stole Vera’s breath. Of course he knew, better than she did.
But she wouldn’t think about that. She wouldn’t think about how it had felt to find him at the Restaurant sharing a bottle of wine with her grandfather. Today, in these clothes, he was a student and a peer, because she wanted him to be.
“So,” she asked, “what exactly does Fir Councillor Lindthardt want in a wife?”
Something shifted in Tilrey’s eyes, and then he smiled again, blinding as the sun. “Sex,” he said. “He wants his wife to be very interested in it—with him, that is.”
“But why would he ask you whether I want to have sex with him?”
“I don’t know, Fir’n. I can’t imagine. He seemed to think I would be able to tell if you had any interest in . . . cock was how he put it. Sorry to be so crude.”
Vera reddened again. “And what did you tell him?”
“That it’s none of his business or mine.” He blinked. “Well, I said that in a more respectful way. But I came here to warn you in case he ever comes around trying to be sweet or anything.”
Vera couldn’t even visualize this Lindthardt. Right now she had eyes only for what was in front of her; she wanted to tug Tilrey’s shirt over his head and run her hands down his broad chest and feel his breath heave. She wanted to gasp under his weight; she wanted to pull his hips up against hers.
But she wasn’t sure he wanted any of those things. Trying to sound arch and witty, like one of the student wags in the caf, she said, “What makes you so sure it’s none of your business?”
It was Tilrey’s turn to blush. “You know.”
Vera knew all too well; he’d covered that in the Library. “Well,” she said, still in her put-on breezy tone, “if Lindthardt ever pesters you again, you can tell him I’m not interested in cock as an undifferentiated global category, and I don’t want his as my first, or probably at all.”
Tilrey didn’t answer, but his breathing sped up. Was Vera not being clear enough? Not daring to look at him, she reached across the bed and rested her hand very lightly on his thigh.
At last, Tilrey turned toward her. “You know we shouldn’t, Fir’n.”
“That’s right. But here you are.” Vera remembered the Hargist boy who’d teased her for her timidity. “You didn’t seriously come to talk about Fir Lindthardt, did you?”
His laugh was strangled. “He’s the last thing I want to talk about.”
His hand came down on top of hers. Feeling it tremble, Vera closed the distance between them.
As she raised her lips to Tilrey’s, she was terrified he would bat her away like a silly child. But he was breathing hard, his cheeks flushed. He lowered his head, dark-gold hair tumbling in his eyes, and kissed her so tentatively that she shuddered with need and frustration.
Then his arms were around her, and he was pulling her down and saying, “We shouldn’t, we shouldn’t,” but his body seemed to disagree, and she arched up against him and whispered in his ear, “I want you to be the first. Only you.”
Vera really did wear the purple scarf to her Industrial Budgeting class the next day. The professor paused in his lecture to give her a hard look, then returned to droning on about the numbers on his projection screen. An ancient retired bureaucrat, he probably thought his watery eyes had deceived him.
Someone else noticed, too. As the class broke up, a hand plucked at the hanging end of the scarf, making Vera whip around.
Svetta, the girl from her old dorm pod, stood glaring at her across a row of empty seats. “That’s mine.”
Vera pressed a protective hand to the scarf. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
Svetta’s expression softened a fraction. “You can have it if you want. They’re cheap in the Outer Ring. I just didn’t think someone like you would pick it up.”
“What do you mean, someone like me? A Linnett?”
“A Huddler.”
“A what?”
“Boring. Proper. Obedient. You always were. It’s not an insult.” Svetta smiled sweetly. “It just means you’re happy huddling indoors for warmth, and you don’t care that there’s a whole world out there. I told Ram not to bother with you, but he said he saw something in your face.”
“Ram?” That must be the boy at the tram stop; he’d seen Vera crying after Tilrey rejected her. What did that have to do with not being boring? Was she timid and boring, like someone huddling around the fire rather than forging out into the unknown?
No, she couldn’t be—not after what she and Tilrey had done. She would never be a Huddler again. “Maybe I just think there are better things to do with my free time than jump off buildings,” she said, trying to ignore the excited thudding of her heart.
Svetta smiled again, impish this time. “Oh, we do a lot more than that. Would you like to know more?”
“You look happy,” Artur said as they dressed in the locker room after a good long swim.
Malsha’s secretary was way too sharp-eyed. Suddenly acutely conscious of his expression and tone of voice, Tilrey said, “Endorphins.”
“Mmm.” Artur was giving him a long look. “But I noticed it before we went in the pool. Are you fucking somebody? That Bror?”
Tilrey pulled his shirt over his head. “Bror and I are just friends.”
“It wouldn’t be a problem if you did, as long as it’s another Drudge. Malsha probably won’t care at this point—or won’t feel threatened, anyway. You deserve to please yourself sometimes.”
If only it were that easy. Tilrey forced himself to grin roguishly. “If I were pleasing myself, I wouldn’t tell you about it.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” Artur grinned back, but his eyes rested on Tilrey an instant too long.
Next time would be the last, Tilrey vowed to himself. He would tell Vera as much when they met again in five days’ time, as they’d agreed. She had to understand. Maybe she’d even be sick of him by then, the novelty worn off.
He had “pleased himself” with her, at least at first. He’d gotten so carried away, so turned on by her eager hands and lips and the excitement of doing something forbidden, that he’d even dared hope Malsha’s training wouldn’t hold.
He relieved her of her unwanted virginity—carefully, watching for cues, knowing how much it hurt when someone did this by force. Then, at her urging, he kept going until he admitted to himself he couldn’t finish on his own. Not anymore, not with anyone. He collapsed on top of her, too embarrassed to ask her to order him to come, especially since he didn’t seem to have succeeded in bringing her to climax, either.
It was such a humiliating failure of everything he was supposed to be—someone who could always please others, if not himself—that he was stunned when Vera seemed not to mind. She snuggled up against him and nuzzled his neck and whispered, “I knew I made the right choice. I always knew it had to be you.” This was strange and terrifying but flattering, too.
When it got dark outside, and Tilrey had to go, Vera asked, “When will you come back? You don’t have to, you know.”
That embarrassed him again, and he said, “I want to” and proved it by kissing her long and hard.
One more time. If having a secret lover—Malsha’s granddaughter—was putting a little spring in Tilrey’s step, that just showed how deeply broken he was, didn’t it? Vera might claim she was old enough to do what she wanted, but he hadn’t forgotten her father’s vicious rage, more than a year ago now, or the bruises it had left on him. High Upstarts didn’t want their whores anywhere near their precious offspring.
Malsha noticed something different about him, too. “You’re looking relaxed, love,” he said on the next free-night, as they bathed together in the steam. “Is Lindthardt really good in bed or something?”
Tilrey knew how to deal with this sort of fishing question. “Are you going to invite him for a threesome, Fir?” he asked with an enigmatic smile. “You could find out that way.” Please don’t. Lindthardt was such a suck-up he would probably say yes, even if the thought of sex with Malsha made him cringe.
Malsha flicked Tilrey’s hair out of his eyes. “Don’t give me ideas. Beirthsha’s a handsome boy but not my type. Such a narcissist.” He rolled his eyes. “There can only be one of those in my bedroom. I’m glad, though—I thought you’d be upset after I shared you with him. I know you weren’t expecting it.”
Again Tilrey didn’t take the bait. “Why would I be upset? It’s my job to be shared.”
“Oh, come now.” Malsha moved closer. “You can pretend all you want,” he whispered in Tilrey’s ear, “but I know how proud you are, sweetheart. You know you’re worth ten of that Lindthardt boy, and it pained you to have to suck his pathetic little cock.”
Tilrey opened his mouth and let his body go supple. “His cock,” he said between kisses, “was actually quite respectable.”
The second time, Vera left the blinds open, and the room filled with sunlight. She showed Tilrey the sheer drop outside, no risk of anyone peering in, and said, “I like the sun. I like the outdoors.”
“Me too.” Tilrey perched on her bed in his student clothes, stiff-backed and awkward again. “I like it in Thurskein, anyway, where you can stay out for more than a second without getting frostbite.”
“Mmmm. You have to tell me more about Thurskein. I want to know all about it.” Ram and Svetta and Vera’s other new friends said that Laborers, particularly Laborers of the southern cities, lived closer to the earth. Upstarts were Huddlers, alienated from their origin as survivors on the tundra.
“But you know,” Vera went on, trying to look casual as she undressed, “the cold here isn’t as deadly as you’d think. In summer, you can walk at ground level for a whole half-hour. From the Outer Ring, you can see the sun rise and set over the Wastes. It’s magnificent.”
“I’ve seen it.” Tilrey blushed hard. “You’re beautiful,” he added as if to explain the reaction. “But . . . this should be our last time. Okay, Fir’n?”
“Let’s not think about other times. Let’s just be now.” Vera’s new friends believed in something they called “inhabiting the now.” When you leapt off buildings or lingered outdoors, the past and future disappeared in a rush of adrenaline that took hours to fade.
Still more self-conscious than she liked to admit, she stepped out of her panties and came to Tilrey wearing only the purple scarf. Down deep, she was confident this wouldn’t be the last time. She said in what she hoped was the voice of a mature, sexy woman, “And I want to make it good for you. Show me how.”
Tilrey laughed softly as his arms took her in, and her heart thumped against his.
“It’s always good for me,” he said. “Just touching you—you can’t imagine. No, that’s my job, Vera. Let me make it good for you. Show me how to make it better.”
And it was better this time, or at least Tilrey hoped so. Following her nervous instructions, he managed to get her close to the brink, possibly over it—he wasn’t sure.
Afterward, as they rested in each other’s arms, he admitted, “I wish I had more experience with women.”
“I don’t think anyone could be better than you.” Vera stroked his hair. “You’re perfect.”
Her tone was so plummy and magnanimous, as if she were imitating the way her elders talked, that Tilrey stifled a laugh. He wished he dared ask her if she’d come, but then he might have to admit he’d faked his own throes of release. Apparently she, too, was inexperienced enough not to know the difference.
“These things take practice,” he said, enjoying the unusual sensation of the sun on his bare shoulder. “There’s no shame in that.”
“Mmm.” Vera tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. “I could practice forever with you.”
By the time the sun sank and he had to leave, Tilrey was wondering why he’d been so excited last time. When you came down to it, this girl was just one more Upstart who needed to be petted and serviced and lied to. She was pretty, and she was kind, and he liked her well enough, but he couldn’t shake the sensation of still being on the job.
Maybe that was just another way he was broken. Maybe he would never again feel the sort of consuming love he’d had for Dal.
He tore himself away from Vera’s clinging kisses. “It was good, but like I said, last time. You know why.”
“I know. I know. I just want you to know this is more than fun for me. I don’t think of you the way they do. I want you to know that I . . .”
She stopped, her expression so desperate that something twisted in Tilrey’s chest. He picked up her hand and raised it to his lips, a gesture that always seemed to touch Upstarts in some deep way. He thought of it as expressing fealty, but to them it was clearly more.
When he brushed her palm with a kiss, Vera shivered all over. Her eyes closed. Tilrey felt an unexpected shudder move down his spine, leaving him lightheaded and strangely excited. She isn’t pretending, and I’m not just a novelty for her. She really cares about me.
“Maybe one more time,” he said.
From the window of the neighboring dormitory, Krisha watched Tilrey exit Vera’s dorm and hurry toward the tram stop. The student clothes were a decent disguise, but not good enough when you knew what to look for.
The poor kid obviously didn’t know that the new chip he’d had implanted in his hand didn’t just unlock the door of the apartment. It also tracked his movements and sent the data to a reader in the Magistrate’s possession. After noticing “abnormal activity” in the log, Malsha had passed the device on to his driver and instructed him to conduct surveillance. The next time Tilrey headed for campus, Krisha was steps behind.
Taking his time now, Krisha strolled outdoors and back toward the car. He’d done his job; all that remained was to report to the Magistrate.
Back when he was a teenager in the garrison in the Wastes, Krisha had never snitched on any of the other Outer boys who lived there as servants or whores. He felt no loyalty to the Oslov soldiers who had burned his village and enslaved him. He was too proud to gain their favor at others’ expense.
But he was older and less proud now, and the Magistrate had earned his loyalty. He’d never been rough with Krisha, never beaten him in a drunken rage or burned him with the butt of a pipe. Thanks to him, Krisha had a decent posting, more than enough food to fill his belly, and a warm bed in his very own room. So if he was asked to snitch, he would snitch.
Still, watching snowflakes flit through the purple dusk, he wished he didn’t have to. Tilrey was an ungrateful brat who’d been given plenty of warnings, but it felt wrong anyway. Like he was betraying his own.
He wouldn’t risk covering for Tilrey; Malsha could always tell when he was lying. The boy would simply have to learn his place in the world, just as Krisha had.
With a heavy heart, he went to do his job.
“It’s beautiful, Fir,” Tilrey said as Malsha unrolled a long scarf across the Restaurant table. It was knitted from thick wool like your average scarf, but intricately striped with brilliant colors: scarlet and salmon-pink and ocean blue and russet and cream and black. “Is it from Harbour?”
“Of course. I brought back a few of these more than a decade ago, and I’d forgotten I had this one till I found it at the back of my closet.” Malsha gathered up the scarf and handed it to him. “It’s for you, love. Put it on.”
Tilrey wound the scarf around his neck. It was warm and soft. They were drinking aperitifs, surrounded by the aromas of delicious food they would soon be eating, and he said with sincerity, “Thank you. I love looking at it.” Then he added, “But can I actually wear it? It’s not regulation.”
Malsha chuckled. “No one’s going to write you up for wardrobe violations, my darling.” He tucked in the ends of the scarf for Tilrey and smoothed it. “There we go. Actually, it would please me if you wore it everywhere. Anyone who knows me will know I gave it to you.”
Another mark of ownership. Tilrey made himself smile; he had to tread carefully right now. “Of course, Fir.”
“Mmm.” Malsha sat back and contemplated him from across the table. “What a lovely picture you make. A dutiful little Skeinsha with a hint, just a hint, of luscious decadence.” He gave a little start, as if pulling himself out of a trance. “Oh, here she comes. Did I mention my granddaughter’s joining us for dinner tonight?”
Tilrey stared at him, at first just confused. Aside from Gunhild’s brief visit, no member of Malsha’s family had ever dined with them.
Then he saw Malsha’s hungry, predatory expression, and a flash of understanding iced his blood. He knows. This was all a setup. Malsha had lulled him into a good mood just to heighten the moment when the shock and terror of knowing he was caught spread over his face.
He turned wildly toward the entrance, looking for Vera as if he could warn her to stay away, not to walk into the trap. But Malsha yanked him back around, close enough to speak into his ear.
“You’re going to be quiet now,” the Magistrate said in a hiss. “Not a word, not a soulful look at her. If you don’t sit like a stone, you’ll regret it later.”
Tilrey said, “It was my fault.” The words sounded more pathetic and less impressive than they had in his head.
Malsha gave him a perplexed look. “You heard me. You’re furniture now, sweetheart. Not a word or you suffer for it later.”
Then he rose to greet his granddaughter with an embrace.
Tilrey’s heart was thudding, pumping panic through his body, but he managed to turn his face and focus on the snowy cornice outside the window. I’m not really here. Whatever happened next, he would survive it; the key was to leave his body and watch the scene from a distance.
Vera couldn’t do that, though. She didn’t know how. Malsha would be cruel to her, humiliate her, and she had none of the defenses that he did. He didn’t need to glance at her to know she was already betraying herself with blushes, shocked to find him part of what was supposed to be a tête-à-tête with her beloved grandfather.
Malsha ushered his granddaughter into the place he had vacated. Settling in beside Tilrey, he caught him around the waist and drew him close.
Tilrey clenched his teeth, but he didn’t budge. Malsha didn’t usually indulge in these public displays, even in the Lounge where they were expected. This was purposeful.
When the Magistrate spoke, his voice was so warm that Tilrey shivered. “You’ve met my piece?”
Tilrey could feel Vera twitch. She said with obviously put-on casualness, “Yes.”
“Yes. I imagine you’re confused.” The warmth left Malsha’s voice. “But so was I, when I learned you’d stolen something that belongs to me.”
The server arrived. Tilrey left his body and floated above the table, watching as Malsha made a long and bizarrely intricate dinner order. He noted in a detached way that he was learning something valuable about the Magistrate. The man wasn’t above sating his taste for other people’s discomfort on his own flesh and blood.
When the server finally left them, Vera was shaking; Tilrey felt her tension vibrate in the air. He hoped she wouldn’t make an outburst. Malsha wasn’t going to go easy on anyone tonight.
When the Magistrate’s hand seized his under the table, he almost yanked his free. Almost. Then he went limp and let Malsha lace their fingers together and place the intertwined hands where Vera could see them.
Tilrey’s eyes prickled; he blinked that away. If Vera was shocked, she shouldn’t be. He’d never hidden what he was. He leaned into Malsha’s arm, letting it support him. He kept his eyes down.
He doubted he would escape punishment this way, but escaping punishment wasn’t the goal. Not letting Malsha win was. Any rebellious gesture would only end up feeding the man’s bottomless appetite for pain and misery.
“I hope you’ll be understanding, Vera,” the Magistrate said. “I’ve never had cause to reprove you before. But there are boundaries, and I’m afraid you’ve crossed one.”
At last Vera spoke, in a strangled voice. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about!”
Malsha went on as if she’d just confessed her crime instead of denying it. “Yes, indeed, there was a witness. A concerned bystander who told my driver, who followed you on a second occasion. But that’s not the point, Vera. If you hadn’t known you were doing wrong, you wouldn’t have done it on the sly. You would have come right out and asked me.”
“Asked you what?”
She sounded panicked. Tilrey felt her eyes on him, wanting him to speak up, and he bit his lip. Malsha’s fingers squeezed his, warning and perversely reassuring at the same time. Not a word. I’m here with you.
“You didn’t ask me if you could use the boy,” the Magistrate said. His voice had gone from frosty to gentle again. “I would have said no, because it goes against his proper function as political currency, not to mention it’s downright unsavory, and rather absurd, for us to share him.”
In his detached way—because he was only a thing to be used, after all—Tilrey couldn’t help but admire how carefully Malsha picked his words to arouse and wound Vera’s pride. If the thrill of the forbidden had driven her toward Tilrey, shame would hold her back now.
It must be difficult to have such touchy emotions. He had arrived from Thurskein with pride and shame, he was fairly sure, but that felt longer than a year ago.
“But I wouldn’t have been offended by the request,” Malsha added with devastating calm. “I know how tempting he is.”
A sharp inhalation across the table. Then, at last, Vera gathered her courage and fought back. She said, “I would never ask to ‘use’ him. He’s a free citizen and not—not something that belongs to you.”
The flush of gratitude that bloomed inside Tilrey died just as quickly. She wasn’t helping him. She was grandstanding in her romantic way. She didn’t understand that he wasn’t free. Maybe that was his fault for not telling her; he had been fronting, too.
Malsha said, “I applaud your spirit, my dear, and your idealism. But there are certain realities one must face.” He loosened his grip on Tilrey’s hand enough to stroke it with theatrical tenderness. “No, I don’t own him. But, as his patron and protector, I do own his time, which is quite valuable, and it’s in my interest to control access to that.” Under the table, he pressed his thigh against Tilrey’s. “Now, can you offer me any good reason why you should steal my boy’s time?”
After a flustered pause, Vera said, “We’re friends. I knew him before you even did . . .”
Snow flurried outside, turning the guardlights’ radiance milky and dreamlike. Remembering what Vera had said about walking outdoors, Tilrey wondered how long he could survive sitting on that cornice before he froze to death. Not that Malsha would ever give him a chance to find out.
They were talking about what had happened in her father’s house in the Southern Range. Tilrey stopped listening and focused on the snow. The important thing was that Vera didn’t seem to know what her father had done to him, both before and after he found out about them.
She wanted a saga hero, a stream hero. If she learned the whole story, she might expect Tilrey to swear revenge on her family. She would never forgive him for submitting and enduring like a coward.
He couldn’t block out Malsha saying in an obscenely “concerned” voice: “What kind of friend are you, Vera, if you get him in trouble and cause him pain?”
Tilrey squeezed Malsha’s hand back, just a little, hoping to cut off the circulation. Look who’s talking.
Vera, of course, took no notice of this tiny act of resistance. She went silent for a long moment, lost in her own misery, before saying, “Please don’t punish him this time. Not for this. It was my fault.”
Don’t fucking say that. I’m a person. I made a choice, too. Tilrey wanted to shout it at her, his whole body tightening. But he couldn’t even move.
Malsha’s iron grip on his hand loosened a little. “Believe me, I don’t want to,” the Magistrate said, full of that awful concern again. “But I can’t punish you, and how else can I stop this from happening again?”
“It won’t! I promise you.”
Tilrey returned his attention to the window, very deliberately controlling each inhale and exhale. Whores are beyond shame. His cheeks didn’t heat even when Vera said, “I practically forced him. I won’t touch him again. Ever.”
Touch him, as if he really were a thing with no say in the matter. Had Malsha convinced her of that? Had she believed it all along?
“I swear,” Vera pleaded. “Please don’t make him suffer because I’m spoiled and selfish.”
Yes, you are, said a small, vicious voice inside Tilrey. She should have known things could end this way. In the new, Malsha-enforced version of events, she was the one who had made all the choices.
But Tilrey had bought the student clothes and come to her. He couldn’t forget that. He wondered who the “concerned bystander” who’d spotted him was, and whether it was someone he could find and give some form of comeuppance to. Her tattletale little brother again?
No. It wasn’t anyone else’s fault. This would have happened sooner or later.
At last, Malsha’s hand slipped free of his. The server had brought a carafe of something, and the Magistrate was pouring it into glasses. Vera—Vera was crying. Tilrey saw the glitter on her cheeks from the corner of his eye.
Breaking her seemed to have put Malsha in good spirits. “Drink up, my dear,” he said. “This isn’t worth all the theatrics. Since you’ve acknowledged your mistake, the boy won’t be punished.”
“You promise?” It was a whisper.
Tilrey bit his lip again, hard, reminding himself that Malsha was merely trying to teach Vera that actions have consequences. The decision to punish or not to punish would always be his.
“I promise,” the Magistrate said solemnly. “And I understand if you’d prefer to leave now.”
Vera was on her feet in an instant.
Anger choked Tilrey, and for the first time he disobeyed one of Malsha’s commandments. He looked up. He caught her eye.
She’d turned, perhaps for a last glimpse of him—her face a mess, her mouth twisted. Tilrey managed to keep his own eyes dry and steady as he looked back.
I am real. I am a person. And someday you’ll all be sorry you ever treated me like anything else.
Vera turned again and fled, her tears glittering in the Restaurant’s mood lighting.
“What did I say about soulful looks?” Malsha asked.
Malsha ended up eating most of the dinner. He showed an excellent appetite, exclaiming on the quality of each dish, and insisted on dessert. But he didn’t reprimand Tilrey for picking at his own food, and he didn’t try to talk about anything else, which was a mercy.
They were in the car coming home when the Magistrate finally said, “You should know there was no bystander. The chip in your hand is a tracker, love. Keep that in mind henceforth.”
Tilrey vised the back of his left hand with his right as if the hand itself could take the punishment for his foolishness. Should have known.
He released it. “Thanks for letting me know, Fir.”
“You’re welcome.” Fingers stroked his knee. “You behaved yourself, at least until the end. I think the lesson sank in. Wouldn’t you say?”
Tilrey didn’t answer. He was waiting for his own lesson.
It came soon enough. They went straight to the bedroom, where Malsha fed him a palmful of sap. Then the Magistrate sat in the armchair beside the bed and gave the signal to undress, two fingers slashing the air horizontally. “Everything but the briefs.”
The way Tilrey stripped was mechanical, timed to the second, but he made it look spontaneous every time. Do it like you’re by yourself, Malsha liked to say. Only a little slower.
He folded his trousers, set them on a chair, and stretched, rolling his shoulders as if pausing in a private routine. He stepped toward the bed, grateful for the sap numbing his senses.
“Not yet.” Malsha’s voice had turned sharp. “Go out and get Krisha.”
Tilrey froze, painfully present again. So that was how it was going to go.
For a split second, he considered his options. A flat no, repeated enough times, would eventually land him back at the officers’ club. Getting on his knees and pleading would amuse Malsha, but only enough to postpone the inevitable. This was like everything else: The only way out was through.
He reached for the robe hanging from the closet door. Malsha said, “No. As you are.”
Tilrey went out to the coldroom in his briefs. The interior door led him into a clammy vestibule, where he knocked at the door of Krisha’s quarters.
On the way, he’d considered yet another option: stepping out the other door, into the cold. But he wasn’t ready to die for his self-respect like someone in the sagas that Vera loved so much. He had never been her hero.
Krisha started backward at the sight of Tilrey standing nearly naked in the doorway. The driver wore his off-hours clothes, a baggy T-shirt and track pants, and he smelled of dried cod flakes. Behind him, light from the cylinder flickered around the room. The breathy sounds suggested porn, or maybe just an intense dramastream.
“Fir wants you in the bedroom,” Tilrey said.
Fighting the impulse to cover himself, or at least to cross his arms, he settled for turning and marching back inside without looking to see if Krisha followed. In the bedroom, he positioned himself before Malsha’s chair with hands clasped, the picture of submission—or indifference.
The driver arrived a moment later, wearing a fleece he must have grabbed to make himself presentable. “At your service, Fir Magistrate,” he said, glancing sheepishly at the bed before ducking his head.
“You look so awkward here, Krisha,” Malsha said. “One would think you’d never been in that bed before.”
Krisha examined the floor. His usual slack-jawed expression had turned glum.
“No one would think this was your lucky night, either,” Malsha said. “But it is. Sit on the bed.” As Krisha obeyed, he added, to Tilrey: “Can you tell me why this is happening, sweetheart? Of course you can, but I need to hear it from your mouth.”
Rage pulsed through Tilrey, but the only way out was through. He dug his nails into his palms. “What I did—what we did—endangered your reputation with your colleagues, Fir. If anyone knew, it would look like you can’t control your own household. It mustn’t happen again.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” Malsha blinked placidly at them both. “As for the details, we can deal with those later. Come and sit on Krisha’s lap.”
Tilrey could see Krisha from the corner of his eye, perched on the edge of the bed with tight shoulders and bowed head. Clearly he didn’t want this, either. The driver might be a coarse fool, but he had never leered at Tilrey, never treated him like anything but a bother. Maybe that would make this bearable.
Tilrey took a step.
But still. To walk over there and lower himself onto the big man’s knee like a child.
He had to. Even if the blush set his face on fire.
Krisha winced as Tilrey sat down, then grunted under his weight. He shifted to tug Tilrey between his spread knees, keeping him just clear of his crotch.
They were both tense, their bodies warring magnetic poles, but they were also both aware of their impatient audience. After a moment Krisha took hold of Tilrey’s shoulders and pulled him in against his chest. “Better not fight,” he said under his breath.
Think I’m stupid? Fighting another rush of anger, Tilrey inched back enough to rub against the driver’s cock.
It was soft, but it hardened obligingly. Krisha made a hissing sound, his grip tightening.
“Kiss him,” Malsha said. “Make it real. And you, Rishka, take that ridiculous fleece off him.”
Krisha grunted again as Tilrey rocked back against him. He twisted Tilrey around to reach his lips and bestowed a quick, chaste kiss.
Cod flakes. Stubble. Suppressing the urge to retch or laugh, Tilrey peeled the fleece off Krisha’s shoulders.
He tried to see the situation objectively. Krisha was younger and better looking than most of the men he obliged—a beauty in his own right, with those broad cheekbones and glinting, hooded eyes. He was certainly more appetizing than Dhreil from the Sanctioned Brothel.
But he saw Krisha nearly every day and every single free-night. From now on, every time Krisha opened the car door or brought him dinner in his room or quizzed him on where he’d been, Tilrey would remember tonight. He would never fully shake the sense-memories, just as he’d never shaken the officers’ club. And Malsha knew it.
The old man tsk-tsked. “That wasn’t a proper kiss, Krisha. Tell me, are you holding back?”
Krisha’s nails dug into Tilrey’s bare arms. “He’s yours,” the driver said sullenly. “Don’t want to . . .”
“Hurt him?” Malsha’s eyes were wide and wet. “Is that what you’re worried about? You like to play rough when you’re on top, I seem to recall.” A chuckle. “Of course, you can’t help it. It’s how you were brought up.”
Krisha loosened his grip, and Tilrey released a long, controlled breath. He would show no reactions but those he physically couldn’t repress.
“But you don’t like him much, do you, Krisha?” Malsha’s voice dipped lower, into a rhythm. “The boy thinks he’s better than you because of your rough accent and your spotty grammar—oh yes, I’ve seen him roll his eyes. Maybe he’s seen how you still sound out the big words when you read. His whole life he’s had it easy; he has no idea what you’ve overcome. This little Skeinsha slut thinks he’s better than you. Maybe he deserves a little rough play.”
Tilrey and Krisha had both gone still, the driver’s cock hard and inert against Tilrey’s ass. But when Malsha said “slut,” Krisha’s fingers pressed into Tilrey’s flesh again.
“You want me to hurt him, Fir?” he asked as if his ears might have deceived him.
Malsha widened his eyes. Of course, you dunce. “You may be surprised at how well he can take it. And if he can’t by now—well, he’ll learn. So go on, Krisha. Do it the way you learned in the garrison. Start with a real kiss.”
Krisha stared at his master. “They didn’t . . .”
“No, I imagine the soldiers didn’t kiss you much, but indulge me. I want to see it.”
This kiss caught Tilrey unprepared—rough and wet, nothing tender about it. Krisha’s mouth locked on his, the tongue flicking down his throat.
Tilrey did his best to relax into it, but he couldn’t breathe, and the man’s grip on his biceps was sending shoots of pain up his arms. He squirmed away—only to yelp as Krisha reared up and tossed him down on his back in bed.
The driver’s weight came down before Tilrey could catch his breath. Fingers pinched below his collarbone, and white-hot pain lit up his whole left side, making him gasp and flail against the heavy form that crushed him into the bedclothes.
For a terrible moment, he couldn’t stop struggling. He bucked until Krisha straddled his body and pinned a wrist above his head. Then, at last, he lay still, his breath coming in hectic near-sobs.
The driver’s eyes were blank as a polar bear’s. “Don’t fight,” he repeated. Maybe it was his way of being considerate.
With his free hand, he ripped Tilrey’s briefs down a seam, then jerked the rags free and tossed them aside. “How d’you want me to have him, Fir?”
“However you like.”
Tilrey knew that tone, breathless with arousal. Malsha must have thrown Krisha the lube, because Krisha reached to catch something, releasing Tilrey’s hand as he did so.
Tilrey stayed still. Blinking back the tears wasn’t worth it, he decided; they were simply a physical reflex. This wasn’t the old days when he’d wept out of shame at the destruction of everything he was. That boy was long gone.
This boy would lie back and observe everything from a distance—Malsha’s quickened breath, Krisha’s pathetic fumbling with the bottle. If Malsha could find other people’s discomfort amusing, perhaps he could, too—his own included.
Krisha’s mouth twisted as if the burden of choosing put him in a funk. But he flipped Tilrey over, tugged him up on all fours, and kneed his thighs apart.
Tilrey knew the roughness of passion. This was different. It felt mechanical, like his own undressing, as if Krisha were channeling a long-held memory.
He shut his eyes and concentrated on his breathing as the driver’s greased finger probed inside him—gentler than it needed to be. He raised his hips.
When a second finger slipped in to the knuckle, pain skittered down his spine, making him writhe. A hand smacked his ass-cheek—new pain, hot and stinging, not entirely unpleasant. Krisha said in a lifeless voice, as if reciting a script, “Take it, slut.”
Tilrey’s nerves kept firing, tiny fireworks of pain bursting behind his closed lids. He released a sob, felt a hot tear flow down his cheek. He focused on his breathing and let it take him far away.
Krisha was big everywhere. When the bulky cockhead prodded his cleft, he shivered from head to toe. Before he could raise his hips again and brace himself, Krisha was breaching him, pushing in relentlessly deeper and deeper. Still a machine, one that had been programmed to prepare its partner carefully but knew nothing of reciprocity or cues.
Tilrey moaned. He turned his head and bit the flesh of his arm to ground the pain. But it was only pain, and he was somewhere else.
Krisha bottomed out, the furred balls soft against him. Tilrey let his head droop. He inhaled and exhaled in sync with the driver, breathing through the unendurable fullness till it became endurable.
Then Krisha began to move. Tears coursed down Tilrey’s cheeks. He didn’t arch up into the rough thrusts or pretend to enjoy them. But, as Krisha found a workmanlike rhythm, his mind grew calm enough to free itself again.
This was nothing. It would be over soon. He only wished Vera hadn’t had to see him like that. She would always despise him now, not that it mattered. But all the same.
Krisha’s hand tangled in his hair, jamming his face into the duvet. Forcing himself to relax and exhale into each thrust of that mechanical cock, Tilrey wondered if Malsha had trained Krisha to climax on command, too. He suspected not.
Sure enough. Five or fifteen minutes or perhaps a half-hour later, Krisha gave an animal grunt and pulled out. Another grunt, and warm wetness spattered the small of Tilrey’s back. He held himself still on aching joints, suppressing a shudder of repulsion, and waited for Krisha to collapse on top of him.
Krisha crumpled to the side instead, as if he didn’t want to touch Tilrey any more than he had to. After what seemed like a respectable interval, Tilrey inched up into a sitting position, equally mindful of the throbbing ache inside him and the danger of staining the bedclothes.
“There, there.” Leaning over the bed, Malsha nudged him down onto his stomach. “Rest a bit, and we’ll get you cleaned up.”
A finger stroked Tilrey’s bottom lip, slick and scented of pine. He licked the sap off and swallowed—a reflex.
“Yes, just like that, love.” Malsha returned to his armchair. “Krisha, my great brute, your service is appreciated. You’ll get some frozen dumplings and salmon-skin crisps in your rations this week. Now, back to your den.”
The sap made Tilrey’s head go light and loose. He barely heard Krisha leave.
“Hmmm.” That was Malsha, on the bed with him now. “If I were to take you with his seed drying on you, would that prove my dominance over both of you, or compromise it? What do you think?”
“Compromise it.” His voice sounded strange.
Malsha laughed. “It wasn’t a real question.”
Tilrey’s whole body shrank from the prospect of being fucked again. Finding Malsha’s hand beside him, he brought it to his lips. “Use my mouth. Please, Fir.”
Malsha didn’t pull his hand away, but he did take an agonizing pause. “Say that again?”
Tilrey kissed the palm a second time. “Use my mouth, please, Fir.”
He wasn’t ashamed. What good would it do to martyr himself now?
“Well, all right, then, sweetheart,” Malsha said. “As a reward for your cooperation.”
When they were done, Tilrey lay for a while curled into the Magistrate’s body, feeling Krisha’s leavings begin to dry and stiffen on his back. Nothing about this intimate position felt unnatural, or contradictory to the rage he’d felt earlier, or even particularly unpleasant. It was simply his reality.
“You know, I was shocked.” Malsha reached down to rub the nape of Tilrey’s neck. “You did manage to give me quite a fright, the two of you. Are you proud?”
Tilrey didn’t answer.
“I didn’t think either you or Vera had it in you,” Malsha continued. “Then again, I suppose she takes after me. Always a sentimental streak when it comes to a special boy.”
When Tilrey still didn’t respond, he added: “I don’t want to know about the gory details, obviously. But I am curious: Who took the initiative in this little romance?”
“Her. Then me. Then her again.”
“An equal effort, eh? How romantic.” Malsha tousled his hair. “I fell madly in love with a whore when I was just a little older than Vera. He was clever like you. Perhaps it’s a necessary phase. I even fell in with Dissenters during my student days—did you know that? Lost my virginity to one. I was so determined to despoil my name.” He sighed, his hand going still in Tilrey’s hair. “I hope you’re not in love with her.”
Tilrey couldn’t stop his body from stiffening. “I’m not in love with her, Fir. I’ll never feel that way about anybody, ever.”
“When you make pronouncements like that, I’m reminded of how young you are.” Malsha tucked a strand of hair behind Tilrey’s ear. “How can you tell the future? Anyway,” he continued, businesslike, “I need to know one detail, and you can help me. What’s our dear Vera so discontented about?”
Tilrey considered keeping Vera’s secrets, but only briefly. It simply wasn’t worth it. “She thinks her life is going to be miserable, Fir. Because it’s all so planned out.”
He couldn’t stop irony from edging into his voice. Poor Vera, forced into a box. Maybe someday she would learn to satisfy her taste for drama by tormenting others, just like her grandfather, or maybe she would find a kinder outlet. It was none of his business. “She doesn’t want to marry someone her parents choose for her,” he added.
“Who can blame her? Her parents despise each other, as do her grandparents.” Malsha wrapped an arm around Tilrey’s shoulders. “But being a Linnett has its compensations. She learned a harsh lesson tonight, but she’ll sort herself out in the end.”
“And you,” he added after a moment. “I’ll keep you close, my sly lad. To think I was almost convinced for a moment that you were broken.”
The night had cleared, and the cold only made the sky blaze brighter. Vera had just located the Pole Star when the door of her mother’s apartment opened, and her brother rushed out.
“Are you crazy?” Valgund seized her arm and yanked her toward the door. “I saw you through the window. How long have you been out here?”
Vera yanked back. “Don’t be silly. It’s twelve below—balmy.” Her fingertips were going numb, but he didn’t have to know that. “We were born to this place, Gunsha. We should know how to endure the cold like our ancestors did.”
“Our ancestors froze to death, like, regularly.” Valgund wore his coat and boots over his pajamas; he was visibly shivering. “Look, I won’t come in till you do. Do you want me to get frostbite? I’ll wake up Mom and tell her it’s your fault.”
“Could you go one day without ratting on me?”
“I haven’t done that in forever. Just come in.”
Vera heaved an exaggerated sigh. She’d lingered here on the parapet to clear her head and cry about what had happened at the Restaurant, but now her tears were dry and her throat was sore and she only felt cold.
This was no saga. She had seduced her grandfather’s kettle boy—used him—and she should have known how it would end. She wasn’t the first bored, spoiled girl to do something like this, and she wouldn’t be the last.
I didn’t use him. We made love and it was perfect. But she had no use for that rebellious inner voice now.
“Fine.” She touched her numbing hand to the sensor and hauled the door open. Valgund slipped into the coldroom after her and sealed it.
“Let’s continue living our wonderful civilized lives, then.” Vera sat on the bench and let the room’s delicious heat engulf her. “Why should we bother to feel the wind or the roughness of a tree trunk or look at the stars when we could be debugging a new program for automating the watering of a greenhouse?”
Valgund shed his coat. “You’re acting weird, Vera. I’m the one who’s supposed to say stupid things and be obsessed with the outdoors and plants.”
“Maybe you don’t know me.” Trying to peel off her gloves, Vera realized she had to rub the life back into her fingers first. “Maybe nobody does.”
“Are you a Hargist now?”
Her head jerked up. “How do you even know what that is?”
“We have them at school, too.” Valgund kicked off a boot. “When Mom asked me where you got that purple scarf, and I said I didn’t know, she told me Hargists wear them. I like it, by the way.”
“Oh, do you?” He was so young; what did he know about anything that mattered? “Well, guess what? I do have Hargist friends, and now you can rat me out yet again.”
“I only did it the one time,” Valgund said. “And it was only because that boy was so pretty, and I was jealous when I saw you going in his room.”
Vera stopped her rubbing to look at him. She’d guessed as much but never expected him to admit it. “Is that an apology?”
“Take it any way you want.” Her brother shoved his boots under the bench and stepped to the inner door. “Your Hargist friends. Could I meet them?”
“I thought you were scared of the cold.”
“Not scared, just sensible. You have to prepare for it with special gear. My friend Angar knows all about it; his uncle took him winter camping to toughen him up.” Valgund pressed his hand to the sensor. “You should meet Garsha—he’s a real daredevil. Your friends might already know him.”
“My friends don’t hang out with children.” At this point, Vera wasn’t even sure that Ram and his crew considered her a friend. Svetta still had a tendency to giggle and roll her eyes when Vera was around.
Maybe Svetta would be more impressed if she knew about what had happened with Tilrey. But that was private. Vera would lock those memories of sun-washed bliss in her heart and throw away the key.
(And she knew, though she scarcely dared admit it to herself, that she couldn’t risk her grandfather’s wrath again, for Tilrey’s sake and her own.)
“I’m not a child,” her brother said. “Mom and Dad are all set to disown me because I don’t want to be just like them. And, unlike you, I’m doing something about it—refusing to apply for Diplo.”
Vera tried to scoff. “Mom would never ‘disown’ you. You’re her favorite.”
But her brother had a point. While she kept her rebellion to the shadows, he was defying expectations in the open. Maybe they were more alike than she wanted to admit.
And Ram and Svetta might be impressed if she brought them a new recruit or two.
“I’ll consider introducing you to my friends,” she said, following her brother indoors. “If you manage not to rat on me about tonight, we’ll see.”