Volume 20: All the Kinds of Broken
Chapter 29
Provoking
Tilrey was alone in the room again, but Bror had left a little of his energy behind him. Alternately sapping and dozing no longer seemed so attractive. When Tilrey remembered how lethargic he’d been before his friend’s visit, he felt ashamed.For the next few days, he choked down most of his food and dumped out the sap when Vlastor wasn’t watching. When he wasn’t reading, he did push-ups. And when he went to Verán’s bed on the next free-night, he resolved to say something.He couldn’t refuse a dose of sap from the Councillor, of course, so he had to wait for it to wear off. By the time his head cleared, he was lying on his back in bed with Verán’s weight on top of him. The Councillor had taken his pleasure and fallen into a light sleep, snoring softly.One of Tilrey’s knees was pinned under the old man’s body. He squirmed into a more comfortable position, jolting Verán halfway off him in the process.“Stop that!” Verán’s eyes fluttered open.“Sorry, Fir.” In his room, Tilrey had practiced a voice to use with the Councillor. He aimed to sound like an artless, earthy Drudge, the kind Upstarts never accused of insolence—someone like Krisha. He let a hint of his old Skeinsha accent sneak back. “I had a cramp.”“Well, I hope you’re going to lie still now. I’m tired.” Verán settled back on top and nestled his head on Tilrey’s bare chest; he seemed to enjoy the closeness, for now. Closing his eyes again, he murmured, “Got quite a pounding, eh? Never knew what hit you.”“I won’t be able to walk tomorrow, Fir.” Green hells, he hated flattering Strutters’ delusions.The old man’s jaw had gone slack, as if he were drifting off again. Tilrey said hastily, “Not that I need to walk far these days. Locked up like I am.”“Mmm.”“Might as well be in detention.” He raised himself onto his elbows, rolling the Councillor carefully off him. “Sorry, Fir. My back.”Verán’s eyes snapped open again, blue and baleful. “You don’t have back problems. You’re a child.” He sat up with an irritated grunt. “Why are you annoying me? Want another nip?”Tilrey knew better than to refuse. While Verán rummaged on the headboard shelf for a vial, he got right to the point: “I don’t like being stuck in that room, Fir. It’s bad for my mental health—probably physical, too.”Verán smiled icily as he pulled the stopper from the vial. “We all have to do things we don’t like, boy. That’s life. Doesn’t Vlastor bring you to the Gym every day?”“Just for a few hours, Fir.” Tilrey lowered his gaze. “I’d like to go to the Café and see my friends.”“What, and gossip and bitch about me?” Verán stuck his finger in the vial and licked it, then poured the rest into his palm. “I know how you Drudges get when you’re together.” He spoke with dry satisfaction, as if it pleased him to think he knew his inferiors intimately. Holding out his palm, he said, “You’ll stay close for now. You’re a security risk.”Whose security? Risk to what? As far as Tilrey could tell, Malsha’s exile had left Verán in charge of his party and his party in charge of the Council. Was he absurdly paranoid? “I wish you’d trust me, Fir.”“Drink it.”This was pointless. Tilrey bent and licked up the sap, though he was careful not to swallow it all. When Verán was asleep again, he would wipe some of the sticky liquid off on the bedclothes.While he was licking the Councillor’s palm clean, Verán said, “Trust is for equals. I don’t put trust in my inferiors, and certainly not in whores. You’d obey any man who gives you this stuff, wouldn’t you?”Tilrey straightened and rubbed his mouth. It was still full of sap, so he only shook his head.“Please!” A laugh. “As long as you behave, you’ll get more of that right here. No need to cadge it off your friends. Now, lie down and let me sleep.”The days wore on. Tilrey saw Bror sometimes in the Gym now, and Vlastor even let them chat. But they didn’t dare discuss anything important, such as the progress of Bror’s efforts to enlist the help of other Island Councillors.Eating everything on his plate was harder than Tilrey had anticipated. He didn’t like the feeling of having a full stomach; it tethered him to his body when he preferred to float away.Verán was sending him to more Councillors now, Islanders who all blurred in his head. They were no worse than the men he had obliged when he was with Malsha, but they had all attended the spring fling. Each had his own distinctive way of acknowledging it—a knowing chuckle, an embarrassed duck of the head, a possessive stare. No one besides Gourmanian attempted to apologize.One Councillor named Svallgren, who was about Malsha’s age with a round face and a perpetual look of wry amusement, did want to talk. While they were drinking tea in the sitting room, he said, “You look as if you’ve rebounded since the last time I saw you.”He meant that miserable night, but Tilrey managed not to flinch or lower his gaze. If nothing else, he could deny them the satisfaction of knowing how badly they’d hurt him. “I wasn’t in the best shape that night, Fir,” he said. “An Int/Sec cell isn’t a spa, and I’d just come out of one.”Svallgren chuckled. “No, it isn’t. I expect you were pretty well sapped that night, too.”“I don’t remember much.”Tilrey could almost see the Councillor relax, and he realized then that he was telling the Islanders exactly what they wanted to hear. It was easier for them to think of that night as a blur in his head—no faces, no dialogue, no precise awareness of anything they had done to him. And it was true to an extent—he couldn’t say he remembered this particular man’s cock in his mouth.“So we’ll make our acquaintance anew.” The Councillor reached out to brush a lock of hair out of Tilrey’s eyes.Tilrey leaned into the motion and let Svallgren’s palm cup his cheek, trying to look as if he enjoyed it. If he seemed nice and relaxed, then the Councillor wouldn’t give him such a large dose of sap to loosen him up.It was a struggle, because his body and brain both craved the numbness, the sleepy detachment from what was happening. But he needed to cut down; he’d promised Bror.“Mmm.” Svallgren was closer now, his lips ghosting over Tilrey’s cheek. “You’re lovely.”The kiss began gentle and deepened by degrees. Tilrey opened his mouth to it, trying to experience the eager, rapturous surrender he had with Gourmanian. But he felt only bored and repelled.The Councillor drew back to examine him. “Strange. You look so much like him at your age.”“Who, Fir?”“Malsha, of course. You don’t see the resemblance?”Tilrey’s stomach curdled. Malsha had the delicate features of someone who had been handsome in his youth, yes, but— “I don’t look like him at all, Fir! Why would I? His grandson looks like him.”Svallgren looked amused. “I’m not suggesting you’re secretly related. Only that the man was a narcissist; his ‘type’ was himself.”“I don’t see it.” Or want to.“It’s not that close a similarity.” The Councillor continued to stare, as if dissecting each element of Tilrey’s face. “There’s the coloring, your cheekbones, those lovely, wide-set eyes—but most of all, I think, your shyness is what reminds me of him. The way he used to duck his head to avoid meeting our eyes! His bashfulness was irresistible.”Heat spread over Tilrey’s cheeks. “You and Malsha, Fir? You, uh . . .?”“No, we never slept together.” Svallgren laughed fondly. “We were in the same class at school, year after year, so I felt like I knew him intimately. But we barely exchanged a word. Poor Malsha—he was always getting in trouble for his low quant scores. I offered to tutor him more than once, but he always made an excuse.”Poor Malsha. Tilrey was mortified by the comparison, but now he was also curious. “That doesn’t sound like him, Fir. I’ve never known him to be shy.”The old man was deep in his memories. “When we were at Uni, I tried to chat Malsha up a few times. He never outright rejected me, just slipped away. Then one day I saw him with Anton Brangán, the Hargist, and I knew I’d lost him to that crowd of would-be rebels and poseurs. Malsha was a natural follower, the sort of person you can mold to your will. But he chose the wrong leaders.”Tilrey recognized the caressing tone in the old man’s voice; it was the way men often talked to or about him. He shivered, more confused than ever. “You think Malsha was under Hargist control when he . . . was exiled?”“Perhaps their ideology poisoned him! Who knows? But his Hargist friends didn’t steer him toward treason; they were all long dead or in moral rehab or reformed by then.” Svallgren patted Tilrey’s knee. “Until Malsha was in his forties, we all wrote him off as a dreamy fool. After the Hargist phase, he didn’t seem interested in anything except old Harbourer books. And then!” He snapped his fingers. “He announces his candidacy for Council, he gives a few remarkably eloquent speeches, and the rest is history. Some people are late bloomers, I suppose.”This was the first time Tilrey had ever heard Malsha described as dreamy or shy. But most of the Mainland Councillors he knew—Saldegren, for instance—were a few decades younger than Malsha, so they wouldn’t have known him then. And the ones who were older, such as Tollmann, weren’t chatty.Why do I even care? But if there was something else Malsha had hidden from him, he wanted to know it. “Did Fir Verán think Malsha was a late bloomer?”This time Svallgren’s laughter had a nasty edge. “Verán barely noticed Malsha’s existence until he had to. It nearly killed him to see ‘that fool Linnett’ become General Magistrate.”More pieces of the picture fell into place. Tilrey understood now why Verán and the others called him Nettsha, a mocking diminutive of Malsha’s surname—they had always despised Malsha on some level.Some people are late bloomers. That was a strange idea, at least here in Redda. Wasn’t your fate decided the moment you took the E-Squareds? Or with your first posting?Still, he liked the idea that people could change. Someone could go from being despised by his peers to being grudgingly respected to standing on the podium in the Council chamber and giving orders to the whole Republic.Tilrey had no illusions that his own future would be impressive. But maybe he could change, too, just enough. Maybe, if he ate properly and sat up straight and stopped sapping himself into insensibility, he could erase everyone’s memory of the night of the spring fling. And maybe someday, after Verán released him, he could find an honorable posting and return to Thurskein and his mother with his head high—no shame, no apologies.He met Svallgren’s eyes. “So, when you use me tonight, you can pretend you’re fucking the young Malsha.”The Councillor’s breath caught audibly. “Maybe.”“Do you want me to be him for you?”“Yes, please, if you’re willing. If we could pretend that you’re inexperienced, that I’m initiating you . . . I’d like that a lot.”Of course you would. But Tilrey nodded. He liked the sound of if you’re willing; it was so rare for an Island Councillor to admit he might have some say in the matter. “Then maybe I’ll be a late bloomer, too, Fir,” he said, keeping his tone playful.Svallgren stroked his arm. “I can’t wait to see what you bloom into.”There were good nights and bad nights. That was one of the better ones. But eating was still a struggle, and Tilrey began flushing bits of food along with the sap. Naturally, one day the toilet got stopped up, and Vlastor found out. After that, the driver sat with him for the duration of every meal, watching each bite like a hawk.“I don’t understand why you care so much,” Tilrey said one afternoon, picking his way through a bowl of fatty salt cod and rice. “The Fir said I had to be back to normal weight in a month, but it’s been more than a month, and he hasn’t said a thing.”Vlastor cocked a brow. “He will.”“I don’t think so. He’s happy as long as I’m sucking his cock. You think too much about what Fir Councillor wants.” Tilrey forced down a bite. “Do you have a fetish for following orders, Vlastor?”Vlastor’s cheeks went pink. “Leave it to you to make everything sexual.”The driver was so easy to tease. Tilrey hadn’t dared try it until he saw Bror’s breezy manner with Vlastor, but now he pushed a little further. “What do you want Fir Councillor to do—pat you on the head? I don’t think he’s that type. We’re all just machines to him, made to do his will.“If I do my job right, then I am a machine. It doesn’t bother me.” But Vlastor looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Eat your food, Nettsha.”Tilrey forked up some cod. “I’m a machine for him to fuck. You’re a machine for driving him around and keeping the household running. We don’t have a thought in our heads, either of us.”“If you don’t like the way Councillors think, you shouldn’t have become a Councillor’s piece.”I didn’t choose it. But no one wanted to hear that. “I wonder what would happen,” Tilrey said, “if you told Verán that being locked up here isn’t good for me and I’m wasting away. He must respect your opinion, you being such a good machine and all.”Vlastor snorted, his blue eyes cold and humorless. “How about, instead of manipulating the Fir into giving you what you want, you work on giving him what he wants?”“What more can I give him? I do everything he tells me to.” Tilrey took a swallow of tea. He estimated there were four bites left in the bowl. “I’m done,” he announced, holding it out.Vlastor got up and took a look. “No, you’re not.”“Close enough? If you’d give me a break this once—”“If you’d act like an adult, I wouldn’t have to be here at all. You think I like babysitting you, Nettsha?” Vlastor glared at him. “You can’t imagine how much easier my life was before you came along.”“Your life was easier?”“Is that so hard to imagine? Do you ever think about anybody but yourself?”Tilrey remembered how uncomfortable Vlastor had looked after he mentioned Verán patting him on the head. He knew he should stop provoking the driver; nothing good could come of it. But after Vlastor left, he would be alone for hours, perhaps all night, with no one but Malsha’s phantom for company. The least he could do was give the driver something to think about.“Oh, I’m sure you were much happier before I came here,” he said, putting another bite in his mouth. “Verán didn’t have a kettle boy then, did he?”“Not for a while. Other Councillors were happy to lend him theirs.”“Weren’t there nights when he wanted his cock sucked and there was no one around to do it?”Vlastor went pale. “I’m not a fucking whore.”“Of course not. You’re ex-army and an ace mechanic and very tough and strong.” Tilrey chewed and swallowed. “But Verán chose you for a reason, didn’t he? You’re pretty for a driver. And if he asked, I doubt you said no.”He felt the slap before he registered Vlastor moving. It was a light blow, nothing that would make a mark. But it left a stinging, surprisingly pleasant warmth on his cheek.Vlastor recoiled as if his own impulse had frightened him. “You asked for that,” he said defensively.Tilrey touched his cheek, still warm from the contact with Vlastor’s palm. He almost expected to see blood on his fingertips.“So that’s a yes,” he said.Vlastor moved as if to hit Tilrey again, but this time he stopped short. “I see what you’re doing, you little shit. You think this is funny.”“Isn’t it?” It was strange how relaxed Tilrey felt now, as if a storm had broken inside him. The tension in his stomach subsided. While Vlastor looked daggers at him, he ate two more bites without even thinking about it.“I don’t see why you’re ashamed,” he said, forking up the last bite. “You were just doing your job. I’ve certainly done worse—you know how much worse. You were there. Part of the show.”Vlastor made an ugly sound in his throat. He wouldn’t meet Tilrey’s eyes. “Is that what this is about? Because I don’t want you that way. I was just—”“You were just following orders. I know.” Tilrey handed over the empty bowl. “Look at that! I followed orders, too. So you can go back to your sad little apartment and feel proud of yourself.”“Fuck off.”Poor Vlastor. He was a wan little slug when his defenses were stripped away. “Now you know the secret,” Tilrey said. “All you have to do is knock me on the head occasionally, and I’ll behave.”The driver took the bowl, glowering. “You’re not gonna tell the Fir I hit you, are you? It was only a tap.”“Why would I tell? Do you actually think he would care?” Tilrey lay back in bed and gazed up at the ceiling of the alcove. “Don’t worry, Vlastor. Your secrets are safe with me.”He hoped Malsha would visit later and help him make sense of the strange sensation that pulsed through him. It was as poisonous as sap and just as sweet, and the only name he could give it was cruelty.He wanted to hurt Vlastor and himself and anyone within reach. He wanted to open veins, slowly and luxuriously, and watch blood trickle to the floor.What the fuck is wrong with me? He’d promised Bror he would get Vlastor on his side. He’d gone and done just the opposite, and now he was having thoughts that didn’t even feel like his own.At the door, Vlastor said, “I’ll tell the Fir you need to get out more. Anybody can see that.”Tilrey closed his eyes. “Do whatever you like. I’m fine here.”
Tilrey was alone in the room again, but Bror had left a little of his energy behind him. Alternately sapping and dozing no longer seemed so attractive. When Tilrey remembered how lethargic he’d been before his friend’s visit, he felt ashamed.
For the next few days, he choked down most of his food and dumped out the sap when Vlastor wasn’t watching. When he wasn’t reading, he did push-ups. And when he went to Verán’s bed on the next free-night, he resolved to say something.
He couldn’t refuse a dose of sap from the Councillor, of course, so he had to wait for it to wear off. By the time his head cleared, he was lying on his back in bed with Verán’s weight on top of him. The Councillor had taken his pleasure and fallen into a light sleep, snoring softly.
One of Tilrey’s knees was pinned under the old man’s body. He squirmed into a more comfortable position, jolting Verán halfway off him in the process.
“Stop that!” Verán’s eyes fluttered open.
“Sorry, Fir.” In his room, Tilrey had practiced a voice to use with the Councillor. He aimed to sound like an artless, earthy Drudge, the kind Upstarts never accused of insolence—someone like Krisha. He let a hint of his old Skeinsha accent sneak back. “I had a cramp.”
“Well, I hope you’re going to lie still now. I’m tired.” Verán settled back on top and nestled his head on Tilrey’s bare chest; he seemed to enjoy the closeness, for now. Closing his eyes again, he murmured, “Got quite a pounding, eh? Never knew what hit you.”
“I won’t be able to walk tomorrow, Fir.” Green hells, he hated flattering Strutters’ delusions.
The old man’s jaw had gone slack, as if he were drifting off again. Tilrey said hastily, “Not that I need to walk far these days. Locked up like I am.”
“Mmm.”
“Might as well be in detention.” He raised himself onto his elbows, rolling the Councillor carefully off him. “Sorry, Fir. My back.”
Verán’s eyes snapped open again, blue and baleful. “You don’t have back problems. You’re a child.” He sat up with an irritated grunt. “Why are you annoying me? Want another nip?”
Tilrey knew better than to refuse. While Verán rummaged on the headboard shelf for a vial, he got right to the point: “I don’t like being stuck in that room, Fir. It’s bad for my mental health—probably physical, too.”
Verán smiled icily as he pulled the stopper from the vial. “We all have to do things we don’t like, boy. That’s life. Doesn’t Vlastor bring you to the Gym every day?”
“Just for a few hours, Fir.” Tilrey lowered his gaze. “I’d like to go to the Café and see my friends.”
“What, and gossip and bitch about me?” Verán stuck his finger in the vial and licked it, then poured the rest into his palm. “I know how you Drudges get when you’re together.” He spoke with dry satisfaction, as if it pleased him to think he knew his inferiors intimately. Holding out his palm, he said, “You’ll stay close for now. You’re a security risk.”
Whose security? Risk to what? As far as Tilrey could tell, Malsha’s exile had left Verán in charge of his party and his party in charge of the Council. Was he absurdly paranoid? “I wish you’d trust me, Fir.”
“Drink it.”
This was pointless. Tilrey bent and licked up the sap, though he was careful not to swallow it all. When Verán was asleep again, he would wipe some of the sticky liquid off on the bedclothes.
While he was licking the Councillor’s palm clean, Verán said, “Trust is for equals. I don’t put trust in my inferiors, and certainly not in whores. You’d obey any man who gives you this stuff, wouldn’t you?”
Tilrey straightened and rubbed his mouth. It was still full of sap, so he only shook his head.
“Please!” A laugh. “As long as you behave, you’ll get more of that right here. No need to cadge it off your friends. Now, lie down and let me sleep.”
The days wore on. Tilrey saw Bror sometimes in the Gym now, and Vlastor even let them chat. But they didn’t dare discuss anything important, such as the progress of Bror’s efforts to enlist the help of other Island Councillors.
Eating everything on his plate was harder than Tilrey had anticipated. He didn’t like the feeling of having a full stomach; it tethered him to his body when he preferred to float away.
Verán was sending him to more Councillors now, Islanders who all blurred in his head. They were no worse than the men he had obliged when he was with Malsha, but they had all attended the spring fling. Each had his own distinctive way of acknowledging it—a knowing chuckle, an embarrassed duck of the head, a possessive stare. No one besides Gourmanian attempted to apologize.
One Councillor named Svallgren, who was about Malsha’s age with a round face and a perpetual look of wry amusement, did want to talk. While they were drinking tea in the sitting room, he said, “You look as if you’ve rebounded since the last time I saw you.”
He meant that miserable night, but Tilrey managed not to flinch or lower his gaze. If nothing else, he could deny them the satisfaction of knowing how badly they’d hurt him. “I wasn’t in the best shape that night, Fir,” he said. “An Int/Sec cell isn’t a spa, and I’d just come out of one.”
Svallgren chuckled. “No, it isn’t. I expect you were pretty well sapped that night, too.”
“I don’t remember much.”
Tilrey could almost see the Councillor relax, and he realized then that he was telling the Islanders exactly what they wanted to hear. It was easier for them to think of that night as a blur in his head—no faces, no dialogue, no precise awareness of anything they had done to him. And it was true to an extent—he couldn’t say he remembered this particular man’s cock in his mouth.
“So we’ll make our acquaintance anew.” The Councillor reached out to brush a lock of hair out of Tilrey’s eyes.
Tilrey leaned into the motion and let Svallgren’s palm cup his cheek, trying to look as if he enjoyed it. If he seemed nice and relaxed, then the Councillor wouldn’t give him such a large dose of sap to loosen him up.
It was a struggle, because his body and brain both craved the numbness, the sleepy detachment from what was happening. But he needed to cut down; he’d promised Bror.
“Mmm.” Svallgren was closer now, his lips ghosting over Tilrey’s cheek. “You’re lovely.”
The kiss began gentle and deepened by degrees. Tilrey opened his mouth to it, trying to experience the eager, rapturous surrender he had with Gourmanian. But he felt only bored and repelled.
The Councillor drew back to examine him. “Strange. You look so much like him at your age.”
“Who, Fir?”
“Malsha, of course. You don’t see the resemblance?”
Tilrey’s stomach curdled. Malsha had the delicate features of someone who had been handsome in his youth, yes, but— “I don’t look like him at all, Fir! Why would I? His grandson looks like him.”
Svallgren looked amused. “I’m not suggesting you’re secretly related. Only that the man was a narcissist; his ‘type’ was himself.”
“I don’t see it.” Or want to.
“It’s not that close a similarity.” The Councillor continued to stare, as if dissecting each element of Tilrey’s face. “There’s the coloring, your cheekbones, those lovely, wide-set eyes—but most of all, I think, your shyness is what reminds me of him. The way he used to duck his head to avoid meeting our eyes! His bashfulness was irresistible.”
Heat spread over Tilrey’s cheeks. “You and Malsha, Fir? You, uh . . .?”
“No, we never slept together.” Svallgren laughed fondly. “We were in the same class at school, year after year, so I felt like I knew him intimately. But we barely exchanged a word. Poor Malsha—he was always getting in trouble for his low quant scores. I offered to tutor him more than once, but he always made an excuse.”
Poor Malsha. Tilrey was mortified by the comparison, but now he was also curious. “That doesn’t sound like him, Fir. I’ve never known him to be shy.”
The old man was deep in his memories. “When we were at Uni, I tried to chat Malsha up a few times. He never outright rejected me, just slipped away. Then one day I saw him with Anton Brangán, the Hargist, and I knew I’d lost him to that crowd of would-be rebels and poseurs. Malsha was a natural follower, the sort of person you can mold to your will. But he chose the wrong leaders.”
Tilrey recognized the caressing tone in the old man’s voice; it was the way men often talked to or about him. He shivered, more confused than ever. “You think Malsha was under Hargist control when he . . . was exiled?”
“Perhaps their ideology poisoned him! Who knows? But his Hargist friends didn’t steer him toward treason; they were all long dead or in moral rehab or reformed by then.” Svallgren patted Tilrey’s knee. “Until Malsha was in his forties, we all wrote him off as a dreamy fool. After the Hargist phase, he didn’t seem interested in anything except old Harbourer books. And then!” He snapped his fingers. “He announces his candidacy for Council, he gives a few remarkably eloquent speeches, and the rest is history. Some people are late bloomers, I suppose.”
This was the first time Tilrey had ever heard Malsha described as dreamy or shy. But most of the Mainland Councillors he knew—Saldegren, for instance—were a few decades younger than Malsha, so they wouldn’t have known him then. And the ones who were older, such as Tollmann, weren’t chatty.
Why do I even care? But if there was something else Malsha had hidden from him, he wanted to know it. “Did Fir Verán think Malsha was a late bloomer?”
This time Svallgren’s laughter had a nasty edge. “Verán barely noticed Malsha’s existence until he had to. It nearly killed him to see ‘that fool Linnett’ become General Magistrate.”
More pieces of the picture fell into place. Tilrey understood now why Verán and the others called him Nettsha, a mocking diminutive of Malsha’s surname—they had always despised Malsha on some level.
Some people are late bloomers. That was a strange idea, at least here in Redda. Wasn’t your fate decided the moment you took the E-Squareds? Or with your first posting?
Still, he liked the idea that people could change. Someone could go from being despised by his peers to being grudgingly respected to standing on the podium in the Council chamber and giving orders to the whole Republic.
Tilrey had no illusions that his own future would be impressive. But maybe he could change, too, just enough. Maybe, if he ate properly and sat up straight and stopped sapping himself into insensibility, he could erase everyone’s memory of the night of the spring fling. And maybe someday, after Verán released him, he could find an honorable posting and return to Thurskein and his mother with his head high—no shame, no apologies.
He met Svallgren’s eyes. “So, when you use me tonight, you can pretend you’re fucking the young Malsha.”
The Councillor’s breath caught audibly. “Maybe.”
“Do you want me to be him for you?”
“Yes, please, if you’re willing. If we could pretend that you’re inexperienced, that I’m initiating you . . . I’d like that a lot.”
Of course you would. But Tilrey nodded. He liked the sound of if you’re willing; it was so rare for an Island Councillor to admit he might have some say in the matter. “Then maybe I’ll be a late bloomer, too, Fir,” he said, keeping his tone playful.
Svallgren stroked his arm. “I can’t wait to see what you bloom into.”
There were good nights and bad nights. That was one of the better ones. But eating was still a struggle, and Tilrey began flushing bits of food along with the sap. Naturally, one day the toilet got stopped up, and Vlastor found out. After that, the driver sat with him for the duration of every meal, watching each bite like a hawk.
“I don’t understand why you care so much,” Tilrey said one afternoon, picking his way through a bowl of fatty salt cod and rice. “The Fir said I had to be back to normal weight in a month, but it’s been more than a month, and he hasn’t said a thing.”
Vlastor cocked a brow. “He will.”
“I don’t think so. He’s happy as long as I’m sucking his cock. You think too much about what Fir Councillor wants.” Tilrey forced down a bite. “Do you have a fetish for following orders, Vlastor?”
Vlastor’s cheeks went pink. “Leave it to you to make everything sexual.”
The driver was so easy to tease. Tilrey hadn’t dared try it until he saw Bror’s breezy manner with Vlastor, but now he pushed a little further. “What do you want Fir Councillor to do—pat you on the head? I don’t think he’s that type. We’re all just machines to him, made to do his will.
“If I do my job right, then I am a machine. It doesn’t bother me.” But Vlastor looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Eat your food, Nettsha.”
Tilrey forked up some cod. “I’m a machine for him to fuck. You’re a machine for driving him around and keeping the household running. We don’t have a thought in our heads, either of us.”
“If you don’t like the way Councillors think, you shouldn’t have become a Councillor’s piece.”
I didn’t choose it. But no one wanted to hear that. “I wonder what would happen,” Tilrey said, “if you told Verán that being locked up here isn’t good for me and I’m wasting away. He must respect your opinion, you being such a good machine and all.”
Vlastor snorted, his blue eyes cold and humorless. “How about, instead of manipulating the Fir into giving you what you want, you work on giving him what he wants?”
“What more can I give him? I do everything he tells me to.” Tilrey took a swallow of tea. He estimated there were four bites left in the bowl. “I’m done,” he announced, holding it out.
Vlastor got up and took a look. “No, you’re not.”
“Close enough? If you’d give me a break this once—”
“If you’d act like an adult, I wouldn’t have to be here at all. You think I like babysitting you, Nettsha?” Vlastor glared at him. “You can’t imagine how much easier my life was before you came along.”
“Your life was easier?”
“Is that so hard to imagine? Do you ever think about anybody but yourself?”
Tilrey remembered how uncomfortable Vlastor had looked after he mentioned Verán patting him on the head. He knew he should stop provoking the driver; nothing good could come of it. But after Vlastor left, he would be alone for hours, perhaps all night, with no one but Malsha’s phantom for company. The least he could do was give the driver something to think about.
“Oh, I’m sure you were much happier before I came here,” he said, putting another bite in his mouth. “Verán didn’t have a kettle boy then, did he?”
“Not for a while. Other Councillors were happy to lend him theirs.”
“Weren’t there nights when he wanted his cock sucked and there was no one around to do it?”
Vlastor went pale. “I’m not a fucking whore.”
“Of course not. You’re ex-army and an ace mechanic and very tough and strong.” Tilrey chewed and swallowed. “But Verán chose you for a reason, didn’t he? You’re pretty for a driver. And if he asked, I doubt you said no.”
He felt the slap before he registered Vlastor moving. It was a light blow, nothing that would make a mark. But it left a stinging, surprisingly pleasant warmth on his cheek.
Vlastor recoiled as if his own impulse had frightened him. “You asked for that,” he said defensively.
Tilrey touched his cheek, still warm from the contact with Vlastor’s palm. He almost expected to see blood on his fingertips.
“So that’s a yes,” he said.
Vlastor moved as if to hit Tilrey again, but this time he stopped short. “I see what you’re doing, you little shit. You think this is funny.”
“Isn’t it?” It was strange how relaxed Tilrey felt now, as if a storm had broken inside him. The tension in his stomach subsided. While Vlastor looked daggers at him, he ate two more bites without even thinking about it.
“I don’t see why you’re ashamed,” he said, forking up the last bite. “You were just doing your job. I’ve certainly done worse—you know how much worse. You were there. Part of the show.”
Vlastor made an ugly sound in his throat. He wouldn’t meet Tilrey’s eyes. “Is that what this is about? Because I don’t want you that way. I was just—”
“You were just following orders. I know.” Tilrey handed over the empty bowl. “Look at that! I followed orders, too. So you can go back to your sad little apartment and feel proud of yourself.”
“Fuck off.”
Poor Vlastor. He was a wan little slug when his defenses were stripped away. “Now you know the secret,” Tilrey said. “All you have to do is knock me on the head occasionally, and I’ll behave.”
The driver took the bowl, glowering. “You’re not gonna tell the Fir I hit you, are you? It was only a tap.”
“Why would I tell? Do you actually think he would care?” Tilrey lay back in bed and gazed up at the ceiling of the alcove. “Don’t worry, Vlastor. Your secrets are safe with me.”
He hoped Malsha would visit later and help him make sense of the strange sensation that pulsed through him. It was as poisonous as sap and just as sweet, and the only name he could give it was cruelty.
He wanted to hurt Vlastor and himself and anyone within reach. He wanted to open veins, slowly and luxuriously, and watch blood trickle to the floor.
What the fuck is wrong with me? He’d promised Bror he would get Vlastor on his side. He’d gone and done just the opposite, and now he was having thoughts that didn’t even feel like his own.
At the door, Vlastor said, “I’ll tell the Fir you need to get out more. Anybody can see that.”
Tilrey closed his eyes. “Do whatever you like. I’m fine here.”