Volume 20: All the Kinds of Broken
Chapter 39
Caring
September, year 344
Election Night was still twenty-five days away when Ansha cornered Tilrey at the tram station on his way home from the Café.“No Bror today?” he asked, seizing Tilrey’s arm to pull him aside from the crowd.Dread froze Tilrey’s insides, but he managed to keep it off his face. “Bror takes a different route.”Ansha arched a brow. “I saw you with him, though. At the Vengangen Street interchange, two days ago.”Tilrey resisted the urge to tug himself out of Ansha’s grip. It would have been so easy, but any resistance would raise the redhead’s suspicion. “I ran into him on my way back from Wardrobe in Ring Three,” he lied, widening his eyes innocently. “I needed new tunics, and Bror was coming from seeing his folks in Six.”“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” Ansha said, leaning in and lowering his voice. “Brorsha’s a charmer, but he might not always have the best intentions. That day at the Café when you stormed out, he told Lus, Celinda, and me that he wanted a piece of you—you know, that way.” He scowled as if he couldn’t bear to repeat Bror’s crude words. “So I’d watch yourself alone with him, if I were you.”Bror’s little ruse was still working its magic. Tilrey tried to respond as if this were hitting him out of the blue. “That doesn’t sound like Bror. Unless he was kidding around.”“I was surprised, too! But he said it.”Now, at last, Tilrey wrenched his arm from Ansha’s with one firm pull. “He’s had plenty of chances to take his shot in the Vacants when I was drunk or sapped. But I seem to remember that you were the one who did that, and Bror was the one who stopped you.”Ansha reddened—was he ashamed? “I was just playing. I wouldn’t have taken it further. None of us would do that in the Vacants, with everybody else around. But alone with him—that’s where I worry about you. The way he was talking creeped me out, Rishka.”How concerned he looked! Tilrey wondered suddenly if Ansha knew about the plan for Election Night. If he cared. Maybe he was looking forward to it.“It’s kind of you to worry about me,” he said dryly, drawing himself up to show off his height advantage, “but you don’t need to. You’re not my big brother, and you’re not anything else to me, either. I hope you’re not taking what we do in Fir Verán’s bedroom seriously. Because I know that’s playacting.”Ansha winced—that barb had hit home. “I’m not the one who’s trying to pull a fast one on you, Rishka. I’ve always been honest with you.”Honest about envying and baiting me? But Tilrey knew he couldn’t take the frankness too far. “I’m not the naïve kid you think I am,” he said. “I know Bror’s not always what he pretends to be.”Forgive me—but Bror would, he already knew. Bror would laugh when Tilrey recapped this whole conversation in the Vacants.“So you don’t think he just wants to be your sweet older brother?” Ansha persisted. “You do know he might be buttering you up for other reasons?”This time, Tilrey could respond with complete honesty. “Of course he doesn’t just want to be my brother! I can tell when a man wants me. How old do you think I am?”“Mmm,” Tilrey said, his head pillowed on Bror’s lap. “I should go soon.”“Me too.” But Bror didn’t move, except for his fingers stroking back and forth, back and forth on Tilrey’s scalp, ruffling the hair and then smoothing it into place.They were on the window seat in their usual apartment in the Vacants, where they met every seventh-day now. Sometimes they moved from the window seat or sofa to the bed, other times not. Today they’d removed only their tunics, but there were times when they undressed.No schedules. No requirements, Bror had decreed. So they did whatever felt right on a particular day, with Tilrey always taking the lead and setting the tone. Sometimes, like today, they just kissed and held each other. Other days, they used their hands or mouths. But they hadn’t actually fucked yet, despite Tilrey dropping several hints that it might be time.Election Night was getting closer.Tilrey needed to be home in an hour and a half for his usual free-night duties, but he didn’t move, either. “I used to put my head on Malsha’s lap this way. He liked to stroke my hair.”Bror laughed softly. “Your hair’s very strokeable. Hope I don’t remind you of him for any other reason.”“You don’t! But…” How could he put this to make it sound enticing? “Malsha taught me to like being fucked. Sometimes. Sort of. Before him, it just hurt. He was gentle when he wanted to be.”Bror’s hand stopped moving. “That’s the least that asshole could have done for you. You deserve so much better than just ‘sort of’ liking it, Rishka.”“I want better than that.” Tilrey sat up so he could look Bror in the eye, though his cheeks pinked. “But it’s not gonna happen with any of them.”“I thought you said it’s pretty good with Gourmanian.”Tonight was Gourmanian’s night, Tilrey already knew. “He knows how to touch me,” he conceded. “But I don’t like touching him, so I’m always still pretending. Wishing he were … somebody else.”Bror sighed, then dropped a kiss on Tilrey’s forehead. “You’re so cute and so stubborn. But we’re still working on keeping you inside your body, remember?” He cupped Tilrey’s face with one enormous hand, looking intently into his eyes. “We’ve got plenty of time. Fucking isn’t the be-all and end-all—unless you want to try doing it to me? I know I’d like that.”“I don’t know. I’m not very good at that.” Tilrey broke the eye contact, plagued by an absurd conviction that Bror could see all the way inside to his awful secret, his dread of the approaching date. To change the subject, and because it had to be mentioned, he said, “Ansha saw us at the tram interchange. He warned me to watch out for you and your dangerous intentions.”Bror chuckled at the phrase. “That boy doesn’t let things lie, does he? What did you say?”“That I’m not naïve. That I don’t need him to watch out for me.” Tilrey swallowed; his throat was dry. “I said we met by chance, and I made it sound like I, I … like I didn’t care about you one way or the other.”He hung his head, embarrassed even to mention emotions. I care about you, I love you—he and Bror had never exchanged those words. When he was sucking Bror’s cock, Bror would gasp and tug at his hair and say, “Kid, you’re wrecking me! Verdant green hells, your sweet mouth. Don’t stop” and things like that. But Tilrey knew none of that meant much.“Good,” Bror said. “We want Ansha to think you think I’m a pest. An oaf, a layabout.” He chucked Tilrey tentatively under the chin, trying to make him laugh. “Not somebody you’d give the time of day.”Tilrey caught Bror’s hand, spread it between his, and planted a soft kiss on the palm. “Ansha’s not stupid. He won’t be fooled forever. And what if he tells Verán, and Verán decides to use you to … punish me?” He didn’t like to think about it, but he knew Verán too well. “To humble me? He seems to have this idea that Malsha gave me a swollen head by telling me I was special.”“You are special.” Bror’s free hand crept over Tilrey’s knee, up his thigh, to settle on his groin. “I don’t think Verán would do that. He thinks I’m a brute—can’t fathom what István sees in me. He sure doesn’t want me in his bed, pawing his kettle boy.”But I want you pawing me. Bror’s hand was moving, and Tilrey was already rock hard.“Let me this time,” he said, bringing his hand down on top of Bror’s to still the motion. “I want to make you squirm a little.” I want to hear you say you care about me.“You sure?” Bror caught Tilrey’s face between his hands again and gave him a gentle kiss. “You know I love making you come.”“I know. Let me.” Tilrey reached for the already-sizable bulge in Bror’s trousers and caressed it with the heel of his hand, palming it into life. “Mmm,” he hummed in his throat. “I really like your cock. I like how it feels in my mouth, in my throat.”Mentally, he ran through the list of all the endearments Malsha had used on him and other men still did—sweetheart, darling, my love. He didn’t especially want to use any of those words on Bror, or for Bror to use them on him. Yet he wanted … something like that. He wanted meaningful words to pass between them.“I like you so much,” he whispered, unbuttoning Bror’s fly to release that burly, impressive organ. “I even want to swallow your cum. I don’t want that with anyone else.”Bror’s hips pumped spasmodically, his cock straining up into Tilrey’s hand as a grunt burst from his throat. “Keep the dirty talk coming, love. It’s working.”He said love. Tilrey knew the word was meaningless in this context. But his cheeks warmed as he bent to lick around Bror’s cockhead, teasing him. Withdrawing, he said, “I’m gonna make you come better than anybody else. You’ll go home and jerk off for the next ten-day remembering.”“Hm! Yeah, I can see that being a daily occurrence.” Bror’s hand rested lightly in Tilrey’s hair, not trying to push him back to his task. “You’re spoiling me, Rishka. Do you know how fucking good that feels?”Tilrey had an idea. He explored Bror’s scrotum with his tongue, catching one ripe sac in his mouth and then another, rolling them against his tongue. When he did this to Upstarts, he cringed inwardly at the smells and textures, but the rich musk of Bror’s body was intoxicating.He tried hard to avoid the usual sequence of actions he would have performed on an Upstart—to vary his technique without ruining it. It was a struggle. His body was programmed with foolproof ways to please a man. Why resist that?Still, as he laved a long, wet stripe from the base of his friend’s cock to the tip, he tried to imagine they were a normal couple and he was a normal boy—learning by trial and error, the way he had with Dal. He gave himself permission to be awkward and imperfect, to fail.It was so hard.“Rishka! Fuck!” Bror lost control, squirming and gasping just as Tilrey had hoped, as Tilrey slid the entire cock into his flexible, unresisting throat. He kept it there, giving the base little lashes with his tongue and savoring the almost suffocating sense of fullness, as Bror writhed under him.“Green hells!” Bror moaned—and now his hand was moving in Tilrey’s hair, jerking his captive head up and down, desperate for the friction of the hot mouth. “Rishka, I can’t take any more!”But he didn’t resist when Tilrey withdrew again to hold his cock fast at the base. Straddling Bror, gazing down into his friend’s red face, feeling his own cock hard and heavy between his legs, he asked, “Are you sure you’re ready?”Bror laughed wildly. “So fucking ready. Damn, I love you.”Just words uttered in the heat of passion. Not meaningful. Tilrey knew that. But as he dipped to swallow Bror’s cock and bring his friend to an epic climax, he couldn’t suppress a tiny, private smile.I love you, too.Barely more than an hour later, Tilrey was in Councillor Gourmanian’s apartment—a regular occurrence. What wasn’t regular or normal was to find Councillor Saldegren sitting with Gourmanian on the sofa, looking excited and a little sheepish.When he saw Tilrey, Saldegren sprang up and gave him a smothering hug. His shape and even his smell were intimately familiar. But Tilrey stood frozen, not reciprocating.That embrace, those subtle scents of aftershave and natural musk, belonged to his time with Malsha. Saldegren himself belonged to that time, not to this one.The rotund, jovial Councillor had lost the favor of Verán and his other Island colleagues by making too many deals with Malsha, in which Tilrey had been the main incentive on offer. These days, Saldegren held little sway in the Council and was barred from the inner circle’s gatherings. Tilrey had heard Verán say he was “doing penance” and “winning his way back in.”To give this man any favors now, to do more than endure the hug, would mean betraying the Island. Tilrey knew that without an explicit order.He was relieved when Saldegren released him. “Green hells, I’ve missed you so much! My beautiful boy. How’ve you been?”The man’s dark eyes gleamed with genuine emotion. Tilrey shifted his gaze, intensely uncomfortable, and glanced at Gourmanian, who was watching from the sofa.Was he being tested? Gourmanian’s expression was neutral, perhaps a little amused, but Tilrey didn’t trust that. Verán might want to see how he would react to the touch of an old patron who was no longer entitled to him. It wasn’t Verán’s type of scheme, but you could never be sure.“I’ve been well, Fir,” he said, still not looking Saldegren in the eye.“Oh, don’t be like that! We’re not strangers!” Saldegren took Tilrey’s arm and tugged him over to the sofa, then sat down beside him. “You’re thinner,” he lamented. “Isn’t Visha feeding you?”“He lost weight in the Funnel,” Gourmanian said, his tone betraying nothing.“But that was a whole year ago!” Saldegren’s big hand stroked Tilrey’s knee, his whole body leaning too far into Tilrey’s space.The touch brought unwanted memories—Vanya’s weight on top of him, that hand working diligently to arouse him, that voice whispering endearments in his ear. All his training forbade Tilrey to pull away, so he sought Gourmanian’s gaze again, desperate. He can’t do this! Make him stop!“What’s wrong, Rishka?” Saldegren’s eyes were probing him.Tilrey hung his head. “I shouldn’t. You’re not…”“We call him Nettsha now,” Gourmanian said casually, as if Saldegren’s hand on Tilrey didn’t bother him. Was this part of the test? Was he going to wait to object until Tilrey shoved Saldegren away?But what if it wasn’t a test? He couldn’t do violence to a Councillor.“Oh, I know, but I can’t call him Nettsha. It’s ugly.” Saldegren caught Tilrey’s chin and lifted it, sending shivers of dread down his back. “Why won’t you look at me, Rishka? It’s been forever. Garsha and I go way back—school chums—so I convinced him to let me come over and check on you.”Could that be true? Tilrey couldn’t stop himself from shooting a glare at Gourmanian, even as his brain absorbed all the possible meanings of check on you.Surely Vanya couldn’t be expecting to share him with Gourmanian. Surely Gourmanian couldn’t have suggested that was a possibility. Unless Verán wanted to know if Tilrey had actual feelings for Malsha’s old ally? If he missed Vanya Saldegren, if he craved his touch?No, Tilrey couldn’t believe it. Malsha might have set a devilish trap like that. But Verán didn’t care about Tilrey’s feelings, barely even credited him with having them. So what was this?He inched back, out of Saldegren’s reach. It was hard to find words to remind Vanya of his own duty. “Fir Verán… wouldn’t want us together, Fir. You know that.”“Verán isn’t here.” Saldegren smiled reassuringly. “And Garsha won’t say a word—will you, Garsha?”“The principle of discretion applies to everything that happens in my home,” Gourmanian said smoothly. “You look so worried, poor lad. Have a nip to calm your nerves.”He brought out a vial and poured the sap into his hand. Eager to widen his distance from Saldegren, Tilrey got up and knelt to drink it, trying not to hear the drumbeat of warnings in his head. What’s happening is dangerous. Wrong. They’ll hurt you.The fear made his cheeks hot and his eyes tear. It was abject and servile, the fear of an obedient kettle boy, and he didn’t want to feel it at all.On the window seat with Bror, he had given himself wary permission to follow his feelings—desire, excitement, and the tender beginnings of something more. Here, there was nothing but disgust and dread for both men. Expressing those emotions would land him back in moral rehab or worse.What should he pretend to feel in this delicate situation, then? That was the question. How could he express loyalty to the Island without showing disrespect?With the warming rhythm of sap thrumming in his stomach, he finished licking Gourmanian’s palm clean and sat up, still on the carpet. “Fir, is this really all right?” he asked Gourmanian with a show of timidity. “You’re asking me to keep tonight a secret from Fir Verán?”“A trivial secret,” Saldegren declared. “Sweetheart, why on earth are you reacting this way?”“He’s just being overly conscientious.” Gourmanian flicked a lock of hair off Tilrey’s brow, then took his hands and tugged him up to sit between them. “Visha doesn’t need to know whom I entertain in the privacy of my home. It’s not as if you inform him what we do in bed—or do you?”“Of course not. Rishka’s discreet,” Saldegren said.“But Verán sent me to you, Fir,” Tilrey said between gritted teeth. “Not to him. And if he knew…”“Knew what?” Gourmanian threw his arm around Tilrey. “My love, I appreciate your sense of duty, but you’re being childish. Let me think for you. If something happens in my home during my time with you, and I say it’s all right, then it’s all right.”“He was never like this before.” Saldegren sounded worried. “How much sap is Visha giving him?”“No, no, he’s not sweet-drowned. I think I understand.” Gourmanian’s voice took on a crooning tone. He snuggled Tilrey closer, although Tilrey’s body refused to mold to his as usual. “My poor boy, my sweet child, did you think I was going to give you to Vanya? In the bedroom?”Tilrey couldn’t look at either of them. “I don’t know. I mean, no, Fir.” I don’t trust either of you. “I only know the party has rules and we’re breaking them right now, so … I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure.”“Rishka, I would never!” Saldegren made a show of retreating to the far end of the sofa. His tone was so aggrieved and pitying that it was almost unbearable to hear. “I would never ask that of you—or not until I work my way back into the good graces of our friend Visha, anyway.” He spoke Verán’s name with undisguised disdain. “I know my boundaries.”“Why would you even imagine that?” Gourmanian asked Tilrey, the possessive arm tightening around his shoulders. “That I’d hand you over to my friend like a bale of goods? Is that really what you think of me?”“Of course not, Fir.” Tilrey concealed his irritation as best he could. “I was just surprised to see Fir Saldegren here. That’s all.”Should he say he’d suspected Verán of setting up the situation to test him? No, that would make him seem even more childish—or unhinged.Saldegren rose from the sofa, his face a study in reproach. “I didn’t mean to make anyone uncomfortable. I should leave you two alone.”“No, stay!” Gourmanian loosed Tilrey and pushed him lightly toward Saldegren. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Nettsha, but the three of us should be able to converse like civilized people. I’ll fetch the tea now, and while I’m gone, you will update Vanya, who has missed you and worried about you. Is that understood?”Tilrey nodded.When Gourmanian went into the kitchen, and Saldegren returned to his place on the sofa, he struggled to meet the man’s eyes. He knew he looked sulky and chastened, and he knew Saldegren would find those emotions attractive on him, and he despised both men for putting him in a position where there was no rule to follow, no right thing to do.It wasn’t fair; it was never fair. He took his revenge by speaking to Saldegren in a cold, mechanical way. “I’ve missed you, too, Fir. Thank you for coming to check on me.”“You never used to take that tone with me! You sound almost as uptight as Visha.” Saldegren dashed a tear ostentatiously from his eye. He reached out as if to touch Tilrey, then stopped with his hand in midair.“Sweetheart,” he asked in a lower voice, “what did they do to you? What have they done?”Tilrey opened his mouth to say Nothing. But his throat closed in protest. He settled for shaking his head.“I see you at the Lounge, so skinny, and your eyes look dead. I’ve worried about you. You have no idea how much.”Pictures and remembered sensations filled Tilrey’s head: the Councillors standing over him in his cell. Gourmanian holding him down at the Spring Fling. The room with its locked door, and Vlastor glaring at him until he finished eating. Linden’s anger and the sting of his blows.Finally, he thought of the Election Night still to come, but he managed to say, “I’m all right, Vanya. I’m still me.”“You’re sure?”“Yes.” Tilrey willed himself to think about Bror—basking in the after-glow of passion, wrapping his arms around Tilrey, drawing him close. As long as Tilrey followed the rules, as long as he didn’t blurt out his true feelings to Vanya or anyone else, they would not take Bror away from him.“But you seem so cold and distant.” Saldegren complained again. “You haven’t really forgotten our time together, have you?”So that was what the man cared about—a cardboard facsimile of a relationship. It was a good thing Tilrey hadn’t been honest with him. A shudder ran through him as he realized just how little any of them knew him, how little they cared to.It was better that way, though. Safer.“I haven’t forgotten, Fir.” He forced himself to meet Vanya’s eyes at last. “And I’ll be very happy to spend time with you again. When Fir Verán allows it.”*Saldegren stayed for another hour. By the time he took his leave, Tilrey had done so much fake smiling and attentive head tilting that he ached with it. As Saldegren stood up, he finally allowed his smile to lapse and his jaw to clench.But when he rose in turn to bid the man farewell, Saldegren seized his hand and yanked him closer. Before Tilrey knew what was happening, the man was mashing their lips together, as if feverishly trying to replicate the long, wet goodbye kisses that Tilrey had endured in the Malsha era.He did not struggle or move at first—except by reflex, to let his mouth fall open. But when Saldegren’s hand raked through his hair, alarm bells shrilled in his head. He stepped backward, shaking off the arm and the kiss, his heart rocketing with the effort of this small but definite act of resistance.Mercifully, Gourmanian intervened, taking his friend’s arm. “That’s enough now, Vanya,” he said with an apologetic glance at Tilrey as he led Saldegren to the door.Tilrey wiped his mouth with a napkin, but he still tasted Vanya. By the time Gourmanian returned alone to the sofa, he was more or less composed.“My sweet boy.” Gourmanian gave him a long, level look. “I’m sorry about that. He told me he wouldn’t be … over-exuberant. But, after all, it’s not like he hasn’t kissed you before.”Tilrey nodded. He wasn’t sure he trusted himself to speak, much less explain that it wasn’t the kiss that had offended him but his own response to it.Pushing Saldegren away had been his duty. But it had also felt good to draw a boundary—too good, scarily good. He couldn’t let himself do that again.“You need to trust me more. When have I ever gone against Visha’s wishes? Besides,” Gourmanian added pragmatically, unfastening Tilrey’s tunic at the collar, “this is how I got Vanya to give up his opposition to the right to Soldrid at last month’s vote. One meeting with you was enough of an incentive.”“But I thought Besha made him change his mind,” Tilrey said, surprised. “That’s what Verán thinks, anyway.”“Let Visha think his favorite did all the work.” Gourmanian rolled his eyes. “Let’s not speak of Besha. He nauseates me. Bedroom?”Because it was late, they dispensed with the usual games that Gourmanian favored. Tilrey was first relieved and then sorry. He would have welcomed a sound spanking right now—a punishment for the guilty pleasure he had taken in saying no to Saldegren. A reminder of the all-important boundaries on his life.He sucked the Councillor’s cock to hardness, then rocked back with his knees splayed wide and stared up at the canopy while Gourmanian fucked him. It hurt a bit, and it took a while. But it was reassuring to be used in the way he was supposed to be, by the right person. This was what he had needed: to be put back in his place.With Bror, it would be different—it had to be! But he couldn’t think about that right now.When they were done, Gourmanian rested his head on Tilrey’s chest, eyelids drooping with satisfaction. “Stroke my hair, love. Yes, yes, good lad. Poor Vanya,” he added in a murmur. “I can’t blame him, considering what he’s missing.”“Too bad for Vanya he’s not one of the new Councillors-elect.” The words popped out of Tilrey before he could stop them. They sounded far too sharp, so sharp he wanted to bite his tongue.“Oh, you know about the party?” Gourmanian spoke sleepily, seeming neither surprised nor concerned. “I know it’s hard for you, my sweet boy, getting passed around. Verán doesn’t see what a sensitive instrument you are, how strongly you respond to the slightest pleasant or unpleasant change. That’s exactly what makes you so precious.”Tilrey blinked hard, still stroking Gourmanian’s hair as if the motion might wipe out the anger roiling inside him. “If he doesn’t think I’m valuable, why bother with any of this?”“Oh, Visha knows how valuable you are,” the Councillor said. “He just doesn’t understand why. Most kettle boys are either pathetic little toadies like Ansha, dead-eyed addicts like Lus, or bruisers like Bror—basically just drivers who know how to suck cock.”Tilrey winced inwardly at this description. “Bror is kind,” he said—then went silent, realizing Bror might have his own reasons for wanting Upstarts to think he didn’t have much going on upstairs.“He’s a good lad, and he’s good at what he does. It’s just not to my taste.” Gourmanian nuzzled his way to Tilrey’s right nipple and flicked it with his tongue. “But no matter what anyone does to Bror, he’s always himself. You’re different—vibrating and transforming with every change in the weather. Stiff and cold one second, gorgeously submissive the next.” An appreciative purr. “Malsha understood your potential, I think.”He did. All too well. “And that’s why you want to see me hurt?” Tilrey asked, keeping his voice soft and unthreatening. “To make me ‘vibrate’?”The Councillor pressed tighter to Tilrey, wrapping his arms around him. “Oh, you’re making us sound terrible! You do have a talent for reproach. I promise you nothing so bad will happen on Election Night. And when I see you afterward, I’ll get on my knees and suck that beautiful cock myself, to make it up to you. How’s that?”Tilrey didn’t want apologies or make-up gifts. He wanted what Lus had: insensibility. To be so numb, so seemingly inhuman, that they would find no more pleasure in hurting him.But he didn’t want to be numb with Bror—he wanted to feel every single second of their stolen time together. Was it possible to have it both ways? To turn his feelings off and then on again?“That sounds nice, Fir. Thank you,” he said politely, and fell asleep wondering.
September, year 344
Election Night was still twenty-five days away when Ansha cornered Tilrey at the tram station on his way home from the Café.
“No Bror today?” he asked, seizing Tilrey’s arm to pull him aside from the crowd.
Dread froze Tilrey’s insides, but he managed to keep it off his face. “Bror takes a different route.”
Ansha arched a brow. “I saw you with him, though. At the Vengangen Street interchange, two days ago.”
Tilrey resisted the urge to tug himself out of Ansha’s grip. It would have been so easy, but any resistance would raise the redhead’s suspicion. “I ran into him on my way back from Wardrobe in Ring Three,” he lied, widening his eyes innocently. “I needed new tunics, and Bror was coming from seeing his folks in Six.”
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” Ansha said, leaning in and lowering his voice. “Brorsha’s a charmer, but he might not always have the best intentions. That day at the Café when you stormed out, he told Lus, Celinda, and me that he wanted a piece of you—you know, that way.” He scowled as if he couldn’t bear to repeat Bror’s crude words. “So I’d watch yourself alone with him, if I were you.”
Bror’s little ruse was still working its magic. Tilrey tried to respond as if this were hitting him out of the blue. “That doesn’t sound like Bror. Unless he was kidding around.”
“I was surprised, too! But he said it.”
Now, at last, Tilrey wrenched his arm from Ansha’s with one firm pull. “He’s had plenty of chances to take his shot in the Vacants when I was drunk or sapped. But I seem to remember that you were the one who did that, and Bror was the one who stopped you.”
Ansha reddened—was he ashamed? “I was just playing. I wouldn’t have taken it further. None of us would do that in the Vacants, with everybody else around. But alone with him—that’s where I worry about you. The way he was talking creeped me out, Rishka.”
How concerned he looked! Tilrey wondered suddenly if Ansha knew about the plan for Election Night. If he cared. Maybe he was looking forward to it.
“It’s kind of you to worry about me,” he said dryly, drawing himself up to show off his height advantage, “but you don’t need to. You’re not my big brother, and you’re not anything else to me, either. I hope you’re not taking what we do in Fir Verán’s bedroom seriously. Because I know that’s playacting.”
Ansha winced—that barb had hit home. “I’m not the one who’s trying to pull a fast one on you, Rishka. I’ve always been honest with you.”
Honest about envying and baiting me? But Tilrey knew he couldn’t take the frankness too far. “I’m not the naïve kid you think I am,” he said. “I know Bror’s not always what he pretends to be.”
Forgive me—but Bror would, he already knew. Bror would laugh when Tilrey recapped this whole conversation in the Vacants.
“So you don’t think he just wants to be your sweet older brother?” Ansha persisted. “You do know he might be buttering you up for other reasons?”
This time, Tilrey could respond with complete honesty. “Of course he doesn’t just want to be my brother! I can tell when a man wants me. How old do you think I am?”
“Mmm,” Tilrey said, his head pillowed on Bror’s lap. “I should go soon.”
“Me too.” But Bror didn’t move, except for his fingers stroking back and forth, back and forth on Tilrey’s scalp, ruffling the hair and then smoothing it into place.
They were on the window seat in their usual apartment in the Vacants, where they met every seventh-day now. Sometimes they moved from the window seat or sofa to the bed, other times not. Today they’d removed only their tunics, but there were times when they undressed.
No schedules. No requirements, Bror had decreed. So they did whatever felt right on a particular day, with Tilrey always taking the lead and setting the tone. Sometimes, like today, they just kissed and held each other. Other days, they used their hands or mouths. But they hadn’t actually fucked yet, despite Tilrey dropping several hints that it might be time.
Election Night was getting closer.
Tilrey needed to be home in an hour and a half for his usual free-night duties, but he didn’t move, either. “I used to put my head on Malsha’s lap this way. He liked to stroke my hair.”
Bror laughed softly. “Your hair’s very strokeable. Hope I don’t remind you of him for any other reason.”
“You don’t! But…” How could he put this to make it sound enticing? “Malsha taught me to like being fucked. Sometimes. Sort of. Before him, it just hurt. He was gentle when he wanted to be.”
Bror’s hand stopped moving. “That’s the least that asshole could have done for you. You deserve so much better than just ‘sort of’ liking it, Rishka.”
“I want better than that.” Tilrey sat up so he could look Bror in the eye, though his cheeks pinked. “But it’s not gonna happen with any of them.”
“I thought you said it’s pretty good with Gourmanian.”
Tonight was Gourmanian’s night, Tilrey already knew. “He knows how to touch me,” he conceded. “But I don’t like touching him, so I’m always still pretending. Wishing he were … somebody else.”
Bror sighed, then dropped a kiss on Tilrey’s forehead. “You’re so cute and so stubborn. But we’re still working on keeping you inside your body, remember?” He cupped Tilrey’s face with one enormous hand, looking intently into his eyes. “We’ve got plenty of time. Fucking isn’t the be-all and end-all—unless you want to try doing it to me? I know I’d like that.”
“I don’t know. I’m not very good at that.” Tilrey broke the eye contact, plagued by an absurd conviction that Bror could see all the way inside to his awful secret, his dread of the approaching date. To change the subject, and because it had to be mentioned, he said, “Ansha saw us at the tram interchange. He warned me to watch out for you and your dangerous intentions.”
Bror chuckled at the phrase. “That boy doesn’t let things lie, does he? What did you say?”
“That I’m not naïve. That I don’t need him to watch out for me.” Tilrey swallowed; his throat was dry. “I said we met by chance, and I made it sound like I, I … like I didn’t care about you one way or the other.”
He hung his head, embarrassed even to mention emotions. I care about you, I love you—he and Bror had never exchanged those words. When he was sucking Bror’s cock, Bror would gasp and tug at his hair and say, “Kid, you’re wrecking me! Verdant green hells, your sweet mouth. Don’t stop” and things like that. But Tilrey knew none of that meant much.
“Good,” Bror said. “We want Ansha to think you think I’m a pest. An oaf, a layabout.” He chucked Tilrey tentatively under the chin, trying to make him laugh. “Not somebody you’d give the time of day.”
Tilrey caught Bror’s hand, spread it between his, and planted a soft kiss on the palm. “Ansha’s not stupid. He won’t be fooled forever. And what if he tells Verán, and Verán decides to use you to … punish me?” He didn’t like to think about it, but he knew Verán too well. “To humble me? He seems to have this idea that Malsha gave me a swollen head by telling me I was special.”
“You are special.” Bror’s free hand crept over Tilrey’s knee, up his thigh, to settle on his groin. “I don’t think Verán would do that. He thinks I’m a brute—can’t fathom what István sees in me. He sure doesn’t want me in his bed, pawing his kettle boy.”
But I want you pawing me. Bror’s hand was moving, and Tilrey was already rock hard.
“Let me this time,” he said, bringing his hand down on top of Bror’s to still the motion. “I want to make you squirm a little.” I want to hear you say you care about me.
“You sure?” Bror caught Tilrey’s face between his hands again and gave him a gentle kiss. “You know I love making you come.”
“I know. Let me.” Tilrey reached for the already-sizable bulge in Bror’s trousers and caressed it with the heel of his hand, palming it into life. “Mmm,” he hummed in his throat. “I really like your cock. I like how it feels in my mouth, in my throat.”
Mentally, he ran through the list of all the endearments Malsha had used on him and other men still did—sweetheart, darling, my love. He didn’t especially want to use any of those words on Bror, or for Bror to use them on him. Yet he wanted … something like that. He wanted meaningful words to pass between them.
“I like you so much,” he whispered, unbuttoning Bror’s fly to release that burly, impressive organ. “I even want to swallow your cum. I don’t want that with anyone else.”
Bror’s hips pumped spasmodically, his cock straining up into Tilrey’s hand as a grunt burst from his throat. “Keep the dirty talk coming, love. It’s working.”
He said love. Tilrey knew the word was meaningless in this context. But his cheeks warmed as he bent to lick around Bror’s cockhead, teasing him. Withdrawing, he said, “I’m gonna make you come better than anybody else. You’ll go home and jerk off for the next ten-day remembering.”
“Hm! Yeah, I can see that being a daily occurrence.” Bror’s hand rested lightly in Tilrey’s hair, not trying to push him back to his task. “You’re spoiling me, Rishka. Do you know how fucking good that feels?”
Tilrey had an idea. He explored Bror’s scrotum with his tongue, catching one ripe sac in his mouth and then another, rolling them against his tongue. When he did this to Upstarts, he cringed inwardly at the smells and textures, but the rich musk of Bror’s body was intoxicating.
He tried hard to avoid the usual sequence of actions he would have performed on an Upstart—to vary his technique without ruining it. It was a struggle. His body was programmed with foolproof ways to please a man. Why resist that?
Still, as he laved a long, wet stripe from the base of his friend’s cock to the tip, he tried to imagine they were a normal couple and he was a normal boy—learning by trial and error, the way he had with Dal. He gave himself permission to be awkward and imperfect, to fail.
It was so hard.
“Rishka! Fuck!” Bror lost control, squirming and gasping just as Tilrey had hoped, as Tilrey slid the entire cock into his flexible, unresisting throat. He kept it there, giving the base little lashes with his tongue and savoring the almost suffocating sense of fullness, as Bror writhed under him.
“Green hells!” Bror moaned—and now his hand was moving in Tilrey’s hair, jerking his captive head up and down, desperate for the friction of the hot mouth. “Rishka, I can’t take any more!”
But he didn’t resist when Tilrey withdrew again to hold his cock fast at the base. Straddling Bror, gazing down into his friend’s red face, feeling his own cock hard and heavy between his legs, he asked, “Are you sure you’re ready?”
Bror laughed wildly. “So fucking ready. Damn, I love you.”
Just words uttered in the heat of passion. Not meaningful. Tilrey knew that. But as he dipped to swallow Bror’s cock and bring his friend to an epic climax, he couldn’t suppress a tiny, private smile.
I love you, too.
Barely more than an hour later, Tilrey was in Councillor Gourmanian’s apartment—a regular occurrence. What wasn’t regular or normal was to find Councillor Saldegren sitting with Gourmanian on the sofa, looking excited and a little sheepish.
When he saw Tilrey, Saldegren sprang up and gave him a smothering hug. His shape and even his smell were intimately familiar. But Tilrey stood frozen, not reciprocating.
That embrace, those subtle scents of aftershave and natural musk, belonged to his time with Malsha. Saldegren himself belonged to that time, not to this one.
The rotund, jovial Councillor had lost the favor of Verán and his other Island colleagues by making too many deals with Malsha, in which Tilrey had been the main incentive on offer. These days, Saldegren held little sway in the Council and was barred from the inner circle’s gatherings. Tilrey had heard Verán say he was “doing penance” and “winning his way back in.”
To give this man any favors now, to do more than endure the hug, would mean betraying the Island. Tilrey knew that without an explicit order.
He was relieved when Saldegren released him. “Green hells, I’ve missed you so much! My beautiful boy. How’ve you been?”
The man’s dark eyes gleamed with genuine emotion. Tilrey shifted his gaze, intensely uncomfortable, and glanced at Gourmanian, who was watching from the sofa.
Was he being tested? Gourmanian’s expression was neutral, perhaps a little amused, but Tilrey didn’t trust that. Verán might want to see how he would react to the touch of an old patron who was no longer entitled to him. It wasn’t Verán’s type of scheme, but you could never be sure.
“I’ve been well, Fir,” he said, still not looking Saldegren in the eye.
“Oh, don’t be like that! We’re not strangers!” Saldegren took Tilrey’s arm and tugged him over to the sofa, then sat down beside him. “You’re thinner,” he lamented. “Isn’t Visha feeding you?”
“He lost weight in the Funnel,” Gourmanian said, his tone betraying nothing.
“But that was a whole year ago!” Saldegren’s big hand stroked Tilrey’s knee, his whole body leaning too far into Tilrey’s space.
The touch brought unwanted memories—Vanya’s weight on top of him, that hand working diligently to arouse him, that voice whispering endearments in his ear. All his training forbade Tilrey to pull away, so he sought Gourmanian’s gaze again, desperate. He can’t do this! Make him stop!
“What’s wrong, Rishka?” Saldegren’s eyes were probing him.
Tilrey hung his head. “I shouldn’t. You’re not…”
“We call him Nettsha now,” Gourmanian said casually, as if Saldegren’s hand on Tilrey didn’t bother him. Was this part of the test? Was he going to wait to object until Tilrey shoved Saldegren away?
But what if it wasn’t a test? He couldn’t do violence to a Councillor.
“Oh, I know, but I can’t call him Nettsha. It’s ugly.” Saldegren caught Tilrey’s chin and lifted it, sending shivers of dread down his back. “Why won’t you look at me, Rishka? It’s been forever. Garsha and I go way back—school chums—so I convinced him to let me come over and check on you.”
Could that be true? Tilrey couldn’t stop himself from shooting a glare at Gourmanian, even as his brain absorbed all the possible meanings of check on you.
Surely Vanya couldn’t be expecting to share him with Gourmanian. Surely Gourmanian couldn’t have suggested that was a possibility. Unless Verán wanted to know if Tilrey had actual feelings for Malsha’s old ally? If he missed Vanya Saldegren, if he craved his touch?
No, Tilrey couldn’t believe it. Malsha might have set a devilish trap like that. But Verán didn’t care about Tilrey’s feelings, barely even credited him with having them. So what was this?
He inched back, out of Saldegren’s reach. It was hard to find words to remind Vanya of his own duty. “Fir Verán… wouldn’t want us together, Fir. You know that.”
“Verán isn’t here.” Saldegren smiled reassuringly. “And Garsha won’t say a word—will you, Garsha?”
“The principle of discretion applies to everything that happens in my home,” Gourmanian said smoothly. “You look so worried, poor lad. Have a nip to calm your nerves.”
He brought out a vial and poured the sap into his hand. Eager to widen his distance from Saldegren, Tilrey got up and knelt to drink it, trying not to hear the drumbeat of warnings in his head. What’s happening is dangerous. Wrong. They’ll hurt you.
The fear made his cheeks hot and his eyes tear. It was abject and servile, the fear of an obedient kettle boy, and he didn’t want to feel it at all.
On the window seat with Bror, he had given himself wary permission to follow his feelings—desire, excitement, and the tender beginnings of something more. Here, there was nothing but disgust and dread for both men. Expressing those emotions would land him back in moral rehab or worse.
What should he pretend to feel in this delicate situation, then? That was the question. How could he express loyalty to the Island without showing disrespect?
With the warming rhythm of sap thrumming in his stomach, he finished licking Gourmanian’s palm clean and sat up, still on the carpet. “Fir, is this really all right?” he asked Gourmanian with a show of timidity. “You’re asking me to keep tonight a secret from Fir Verán?”
“A trivial secret,” Saldegren declared. “Sweetheart, why on earth are you reacting this way?”
“He’s just being overly conscientious.” Gourmanian flicked a lock of hair off Tilrey’s brow, then took his hands and tugged him up to sit between them. “Visha doesn’t need to know whom I entertain in the privacy of my home. It’s not as if you inform him what we do in bed—or do you?”
“Of course not. Rishka’s discreet,” Saldegren said.
“But Verán sent me to you, Fir,” Tilrey said between gritted teeth. “Not to him. And if he knew…”
“Knew what?” Gourmanian threw his arm around Tilrey. “My love, I appreciate your sense of duty, but you’re being childish. Let me think for you. If something happens in my home during my time with you, and I say it’s all right, then it’s all right.”
“He was never like this before.” Saldegren sounded worried. “How much sap is Visha giving him?”
“No, no, he’s not sweet-drowned. I think I understand.” Gourmanian’s voice took on a crooning tone. He snuggled Tilrey closer, although Tilrey’s body refused to mold to his as usual. “My poor boy, my sweet child, did you think I was going to give you to Vanya? In the bedroom?”
Tilrey couldn’t look at either of them. “I don’t know. I mean, no, Fir.” I don’t trust either of you. “I only know the party has rules and we’re breaking them right now, so … I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure.”
“Rishka, I would never!” Saldegren made a show of retreating to the far end of the sofa. His tone was so aggrieved and pitying that it was almost unbearable to hear. “I would never ask that of you—or not until I work my way back into the good graces of our friend Visha, anyway.” He spoke Verán’s name with undisguised disdain. “I know my boundaries.”
“Why would you even imagine that?” Gourmanian asked Tilrey, the possessive arm tightening around his shoulders. “That I’d hand you over to my friend like a bale of goods? Is that really what you think of me?”
“Of course not, Fir.” Tilrey concealed his irritation as best he could. “I was just surprised to see Fir Saldegren here. That’s all.”
Should he say he’d suspected Verán of setting up the situation to test him? No, that would make him seem even more childish—or unhinged.
Saldegren rose from the sofa, his face a study in reproach. “I didn’t mean to make anyone uncomfortable. I should leave you two alone.”
“No, stay!” Gourmanian loosed Tilrey and pushed him lightly toward Saldegren. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Nettsha, but the three of us should be able to converse like civilized people. I’ll fetch the tea now, and while I’m gone, you will update Vanya, who has missed you and worried about you. Is that understood?”
Tilrey nodded.
When Gourmanian went into the kitchen, and Saldegren returned to his place on the sofa, he struggled to meet the man’s eyes. He knew he looked sulky and chastened, and he knew Saldegren would find those emotions attractive on him, and he despised both men for putting him in a position where there was no rule to follow, no right thing to do.
It wasn’t fair; it was never fair. He took his revenge by speaking to Saldegren in a cold, mechanical way. “I’ve missed you, too, Fir. Thank you for coming to check on me.”
“You never used to take that tone with me! You sound almost as uptight as Visha.” Saldegren dashed a tear ostentatiously from his eye. He reached out as if to touch Tilrey, then stopped with his hand in midair.
“Sweetheart,” he asked in a lower voice, “what did they do to you? What have they done?”
Tilrey opened his mouth to say Nothing. But his throat closed in protest. He settled for shaking his head.
“I see you at the Lounge, so skinny, and your eyes look dead. I’ve worried about you. You have no idea how much.”
Pictures and remembered sensations filled Tilrey’s head: the Councillors standing over him in his cell. Gourmanian holding him down at the Spring Fling. The room with its locked door, and Vlastor glaring at him until he finished eating. Linden’s anger and the sting of his blows.
Finally, he thought of the Election Night still to come, but he managed to say, “I’m all right, Vanya. I’m still me.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.” Tilrey willed himself to think about Bror—basking in the after-glow of passion, wrapping his arms around Tilrey, drawing him close. As long as Tilrey followed the rules, as long as he didn’t blurt out his true feelings to Vanya or anyone else, they would not take Bror away from him.
“But you seem so cold and distant.” Saldegren complained again. “You haven’t really forgotten our time together, have you?”
So that was what the man cared about—a cardboard facsimile of a relationship. It was a good thing Tilrey hadn’t been honest with him. A shudder ran through him as he realized just how little any of them knew him, how little they cared to.
It was better that way, though. Safer.
“I haven’t forgotten, Fir.” He forced himself to meet Vanya’s eyes at last. “And I’ll be very happy to spend time with you again. When Fir Verán allows it.”
Saldegren stayed for another hour. By the time he took his leave, Tilrey had done so much fake smiling and attentive head tilting that he ached with it. As Saldegren stood up, he finally allowed his smile to lapse and his jaw to clench.
But when he rose in turn to bid the man farewell, Saldegren seized his hand and yanked him closer. Before Tilrey knew what was happening, the man was mashing their lips together, as if feverishly trying to replicate the long, wet goodbye kisses that Tilrey had endured in the Malsha era.
He did not struggle or move at first—except by reflex, to let his mouth fall open. But when Saldegren’s hand raked through his hair, alarm bells shrilled in his head. He stepped backward, shaking off the arm and the kiss, his heart rocketing with the effort of this small but definite act of resistance.
Mercifully, Gourmanian intervened, taking his friend’s arm. “That’s enough now, Vanya,” he said with an apologetic glance at Tilrey as he led Saldegren to the door.
Tilrey wiped his mouth with a napkin, but he still tasted Vanya. By the time Gourmanian returned alone to the sofa, he was more or less composed.
“My sweet boy.” Gourmanian gave him a long, level look. “I’m sorry about that. He told me he wouldn’t be … over-exuberant. But, after all, it’s not like he hasn’t kissed you before.”
Tilrey nodded. He wasn’t sure he trusted himself to speak, much less explain that it wasn’t the kiss that had offended him but his own response to it.
Pushing Saldegren away had been his duty. But it had also felt good to draw a boundary—too good, scarily good. He couldn’t let himself do that again.
“You need to trust me more. When have I ever gone against Visha’s wishes? Besides,” Gourmanian added pragmatically, unfastening Tilrey’s tunic at the collar, “this is how I got Vanya to give up his opposition to the right to Soldrid at last month’s vote. One meeting with you was enough of an incentive.”
“But I thought Besha made him change his mind,” Tilrey said, surprised. “That’s what Verán thinks, anyway.”
“Let Visha think his favorite did all the work.” Gourmanian rolled his eyes. “Let’s not speak of Besha. He nauseates me. Bedroom?”
Because it was late, they dispensed with the usual games that Gourmanian favored. Tilrey was first relieved and then sorry. He would have welcomed a sound spanking right now—a punishment for the guilty pleasure he had taken in saying no to Saldegren. A reminder of the all-important boundaries on his life.
He sucked the Councillor’s cock to hardness, then rocked back with his knees splayed wide and stared up at the canopy while Gourmanian fucked him. It hurt a bit, and it took a while. But it was reassuring to be used in the way he was supposed to be, by the right person. This was what he had needed: to be put back in his place.
With Bror, it would be different—it had to be! But he couldn’t think about that right now.
When they were done, Gourmanian rested his head on Tilrey’s chest, eyelids drooping with satisfaction. “Stroke my hair, love. Yes, yes, good lad. Poor Vanya,” he added in a murmur. “I can’t blame him, considering what he’s missing.”
“Too bad for Vanya he’s not one of the new Councillors-elect.” The words popped out of Tilrey before he could stop them. They sounded far too sharp, so sharp he wanted to bite his tongue.
“Oh, you know about the party?” Gourmanian spoke sleepily, seeming neither surprised nor concerned. “I know it’s hard for you, my sweet boy, getting passed around. Verán doesn’t see what a sensitive instrument you are, how strongly you respond to the slightest pleasant or unpleasant change. That’s exactly what makes you so precious.”
Tilrey blinked hard, still stroking Gourmanian’s hair as if the motion might wipe out the anger roiling inside him. “If he doesn’t think I’m valuable, why bother with any of this?”
“Oh, Visha knows how valuable you are,” the Councillor said. “He just doesn’t understand why. Most kettle boys are either pathetic little toadies like Ansha, dead-eyed addicts like Lus, or bruisers like Bror—basically just drivers who know how to suck cock.”
Tilrey winced inwardly at this description. “Bror is kind,” he said—then went silent, realizing Bror might have his own reasons for wanting Upstarts to think he didn’t have much going on upstairs.
“He’s a good lad, and he’s good at what he does. It’s just not to my taste.” Gourmanian nuzzled his way to Tilrey’s right nipple and flicked it with his tongue. “But no matter what anyone does to Bror, he’s always himself. You’re different—vibrating and transforming with every change in the weather. Stiff and cold one second, gorgeously submissive the next.” An appreciative purr. “Malsha understood your potential, I think.”
He did. All too well. “And that’s why you want to see me hurt?” Tilrey asked, keeping his voice soft and unthreatening. “To make me ‘vibrate’?”
The Councillor pressed tighter to Tilrey, wrapping his arms around him. “Oh, you’re making us sound terrible! You do have a talent for reproach. I promise you nothing so bad will happen on Election Night. And when I see you afterward, I’ll get on my knees and suck that beautiful cock myself, to make it up to you. How’s that?”
Tilrey didn’t want apologies or make-up gifts. He wanted what Lus had: insensibility. To be so numb, so seemingly inhuman, that they would find no more pleasure in hurting him.
But he didn’t want to be numb with Bror—he wanted to feel every single second of their stolen time together. Was it possible to have it both ways? To turn his feelings off and then on again?
“That sounds nice, Fir. Thank you,” he said politely, and fell asleep wondering.