by Yoon Ha Lee
“I’m going to let you meditate on that second bit some other time. In the meantime, let’s get out of here.”
Meng swallowed. “They’ll shoot us down the moment we get clear of the doors, you know.”
“Just go, Meng. I’ve got friends. Or did you think I teleported onto this station?”
“At this point I wouldn’t put anything past you. Okay, you’re webbed in, I’m webbed in, here goes nothing.”
The maneuver drive grumbled as the Moonsweet Blossom blasted its way out of the bay. No one attempted to close the first set of doors on them. Jedao wondered if the priest was still scrabbling after her hairpins, or if it had to do with the more pragmatic desire to avoid costly repairs to the station.
The Moonsweet Blossom had few armaments, mostly intended for dealing with high-velocity debris, which was more of a danger than pirates if one kept to the better-policed trade routes. They wouldn’t do any good against Du Station’s defenses. As signals, on the other hand—
Using the lasers, Jedao flashed, HERE WE COME in the merchanter signal code. With any luck, Haval was paying attention.
AT THIS POINT, several things happened.
Haval kicked Teshet in the shin to get him to stop watching a mildly pornographic and not very well-acted drama about a famous courtesan from 192 years ago. (“It’s historical, so it’s educational!” he protested. “One, we’ve got our signal, and two, I wish you would take care of your urgent needs in your own quarters,” Haval said.)
Carp 1 through Carp 4 and 7 through 10 launched all their shuttles. Said shuttles were, as Jedao had instructed, full of variable-coefficient lubricant programmed to its liquid form. The shuttles flew toward Du Station, then opened their holds and burned their retro thrusters for all they were worth. The lubricant, carried forward by momentum, continued toward Du Station’s turret levels.
Du Station recognized an attack when it saw one, but its defenses consisted of a combination of high-powered lasers, which could only vaporize small portions of the lubricant and were useless for altering the momentum of quantities of the stuff, and railguns, whose projectiles punched through the mass without effect. Once the lubricant had clogged up the defensive emplacements, Carp 1 transmitted an encrypted radio signal that caused the lubricant to harden in place.
The Moonsweet Blossom linked up with Haval’s merchant troop. At this point, the Blossom only contained two people, trivial compared to the amount of mass it had been designed to haul. The merchant troop, of course, had just divested itself of its cargo. The nine heptarchate vessels proceeded to hightail it out of there at highly non-freighter accelerations.
JEDAO AND MENG swept the Moonsweet Blossom for bugs and other unwelcome devices, an exhausting but necessary task. Then, at what Jedao judged to be a safe distance from Du Station, he ordered Meng to slave it to Carp 1.
The Carp 1 and Moonsweet Blossom matched velocities, and Jedao and Meng made the crossing to the former. There was a bad moment when Jedao thought Meng was going to unhook their tether and drift off into the smothering dark rather than face their fate. But whatever temptations where running through their head, Meng resisted them.
Haval and Teshet greeted them on the Blossom. After Jedao and Meng had shed the suits and checked them for needed repairs, Haval ushered them all into the business office. “I didn’t expect you to spring the trademoth as well as our Shuos friend,” Haval said.
Meng wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“What about the rest of the crew?” Teshet said.
“They didn’t make it,” Jedao said, and sneezed. He explained about Meng’s extracurricular activities over the past thirteen years. Then he sneezed again.
Haval grumbled under her breath. “Whatever the hell you did on Du, Sren, did it involve duels?”
“‘Sren’?” Meng said.
“You don’t think I came into the Gwa Reality under my own”—sneeze—“name, did you?” Jedao said. “Anyway, there might have been an incident...”
Meng groaned. “Just how good is your Tlen Gwa?”
“Sort of not, apparently,” Jedao said. “I really need to have a word with whoever wrote the Tlen Gwa course. I thought I was all right with languages at the basic phrase level, but was the proofreader asleep the day they approved it?”
Meng had the grace to look embarrassed. “I may have hacked it.”
“You what?”
“If I’d realized you’d be using it, I wouldn’t have bothered. Botching the language doesn’t seem to have slowed you down any.”
Wordlessly, Teshet handed Jedao a handkerchief, and Jedao promptly sneezed into it. Maybe he’d be able to give his mother a gift of a petri dish with a lovely culture of Gwa-an germs after all. He’d have to ask the medic about it later.
Teshet then produced a set of restraints from his pockets and gestured at Meng. Meng sighed deeply and submitted to being trussed up.
“Don’t look so disappointed,” Teshet said into Jedao’s ear. “I’ve another set just for you.” Then he and Meng marched off to the brig.
Haval cleared her throat. “Off to the medic with you,” she said to Jedao. “We’d better figure out why your vaccinations aren’t working and if everyone’s going to need to be quarantined.”
“Not arguing,” Jedao said meekly.
SOME DAYS LATER, Jedao was rewatching one of Teshet’s pornography dramas in bed. At least, he thought it was pornography. The costuming made it difficult to tell, and the dialogue had made more sense when he was still running a fever.
The medic had kept him in isolation until they declared him no longer contagious. Whether due to this precaution or pure luck, no one else came down with the duel. They’d given him a clean bill of health this morning, but Haval had insisted that he rest a little longer.
The door opened. Jedao looked up in surprise.
Teshet entered with a fresh supply of handkerchiefs. “Well, Jedao, we’ll re-enter heptarchate space in two days, high calendar. Any particular orders you want me to relay to Haval?” He obligingly handed over a slate so Jedao could look over Haval’s painstaking, not to say excruciatingly detailed, reports on their current status.
“Haval’s doing a fine job,” Jedao said, glad that his voice no longer came out as a croak. “I won’t get in her way.” He returned the slate to Teshet.
“Sounds good.” Teshet turned his back and departed. Jedao admired the view, wishing in spite of himself that the other man would linger.
Teshet returned half an hour later with two clear vials full of unidentified substances. “First or second?” he said, holding them up to the light one by one.
“I’m sorry,” Jedao said, “first or second what?”
“You look like you need cheering up,” Teshet said hopefully. “You want on top, you want me on top? I’m flexible.”
Jedao blinked, trying to parse this. “On top of wh—?” Oh. “What’s in those vials?”
“You have your choice of variable-coefficient lubricant or goose fat,” Teshet said. “Assuming you were telling the truth when you said it was goose fat. And don’t yell at Haval for letting me into your refrigerator, I did it all on my own. I admit I can’t tell the difference. As Haval will attest, I’m a dreadful cook, so I didn’t want to fry up some scallion pancakes just to taste the goose fat.”
Jedao’s mouth went dry, which had less to do with Teshet’s eccentric choice of lubricants than the fact that he had sat down on the edge of Jedao’s bed. “You don’t have anything more, ah, conventional?” He realized that was a mistake as soon as the words left his mouth; he’d essentially accepted Teshet’s proposition.
For the first time, Jedao glimpsed uncertainty in Teshet’s eyes. “We don’t have a lot of time before we’re back to heptarchate space and you have to go back to being a commander and I have to go back to being responsible,” he said softly. “Or as responsible as I ever get, anyway. Want to make the most of it? Because I get the impression that you don’t allow yourself much of a personal life.�
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“Use the goose fat,” Jedao said, because as much as he liked Teshet, he did not relish the thought of being cemented to Teshet.
It would distract Teshet from continuing to analyze his psyche, and yes, the man was damnably attractive. What the hell, with any luck his mother was never, ever, ever hearing of this. (He could imagine the conversation now: “Garach Jedao Shkan, are you meaning to tell me you finally found a nice young man and you’re still not planning on settling down and providing me more grandchildren?” And then she would send him more goose fat.)
Teshet brightened. “You won’t regret this,” he purred, and proceeded to help Jedao undress.
Author’s Note
This story is a ridiculous caper, and was written to stand alone because Jonathan Strahan at Tor.com had asked me if I was interested in submitting something. What you may not be able to discern from the text is that it was screamingly difficult to write. My family ribs me all the time because I have... developed a reputation for writing depressing genocide stories. “Ridiculous caper” is not a skill set I’ve been working on. In fact, the entire first draft, which featured a secret weapon and Jedao challenging a Kel to a duel, was so riddled with plot holes that I discarded it and started over.
What enabled me to finish this story was writing chunks in locked Dreamwidth blog posts while my friends cheerleaded, and promising myself a white chocolate Kit-Kat, the unicorn of Kit-Kats, as a reward if I finished the draft. It didn’t have to be a good draft, just a complete one. My rough drafts are frequently atrocious, and I hate the process of generating words, but I like doing revisions.
I would like you to know that one of my beta readers suggested “A Sticky Situation” as an alternate title and I rejected it on the grounds that it was too much innuendo even for me.
Gloves
THE SECOND THING that Brigadier General Shuos Jedao did when the mechanics signed off on the repairs to his command moth was look up the address of one of the space station’s brothels. (The first thing was to draft a letter to his mother. His mother had Mysterious Ways of Knowing if he shirked his filial duty.) He’d considered doing something sensible with his money instead, like gambling, but the gambling houses wouldn’t let him in these days.
The last time he’d attempted to gamble at this station, during a previous visit, he’d put on a tasteful amount of makeup and changed into civilian clothing respectable enough to announce that he had money, but not so ostentatious that some thief would try to pick his pocket. Sometimes, when he got bored, he did dress like a fop and let them get close enough that their terrible life choices dawned on them. After all, how else was he supposed to stay in practice with some of those armlocks?
Unfortunately, when he arrived, the house manager, a leggy Shuos woman with hair swept up in fantastic coils, stopped him at the door. “Hello, Jedao,” she said without warmth. “Sorry, you’re not allowed in here.”
“I play by the rules,” Jedao protested.
“Don’t care,” she said. “That’s even worse than when you clean us out, because we can’t even nail you for cheating. Do you have nothing better to do than bully honest, hard-working foxes? Can’t you go wallop some heretics instead?”
Jedao looked wistfully over her shoulder at a table where several people were playing jeng-zai, then went away.
The brothel was much more reasonable, possibly because he didn’t cause them to lose money. The receptionist took down Jedao’s name, contact information, and preferences. Then they offered him a discount if he booked an “overnight experience” rather than by the hour. Discount my ass, Jedao thought; but he was running out of fun things to blow his money on during leave. He collected firearms, for instance, but he couldn’t haul his collection everywhere. In real life, he had to leave most of them in storage. So what the hell, “overnight experience” it was.
He showed up seven minutes before the appointment, dressed in uniform. This brothel catered to soldiers anyway. He’d stuck with medium formal on the grounds that he didn’t want to get his full formal uniform messed up.
“Shuos Jedao?” said the receptionist, quite properly addressing him as a client rather than an officer. “Kio is waiting for you. Up the stairs, second room on the left.”
“Thank you,” Jedao said. There was never a good reason to antagonize the staff at a brothel. He and Ruo had done it a couple of times as cadets, and learned that annoyed prostitutes had a habit of “spilling” highly staining substances on uniforms. He headed up the stairs as instructed.
The upper floor smelled of perfume, some kind of aquatic. He could distinguish different explosives by smell, but perfume notes? Forget it. (His brother and sister had always found this very amusing.) The second room on the left was obscured by a dazzling curtain composed of strands of faceted glass beads in pale blue. Reflected glints formed a mosaic of light across the floor and walls. He rapped politely on the doorframe. The curtain swayed, and the glints of light wavered and rippled.
“Welcome,” a tenor said from within.
Jedao’s pulse quickened. He pulled the strands aside and entered to a clattering of beads.
Kio stood at the far end of the room, next to the head of the bed. He was tall, clean shaven, hair cut short: all in accordance with Kel regulations. His clothes, too, imitated the black-and-gold Kel uniform, although they were of silk and clung appealingly to his long limbs. The gold braid was further embellished with amber beads that caught the light as he moved. Golden chains descended from his epaulets to the buttons of his shirt, and jingled faintly as he began to make an almost-salute, open hand rather than fist to his left shoulder.
“Don’t,” Jedao said.
Kio froze. “Did I misunderstand your preferences, sir?”
“No,” Jedao said. “It’s something I prefer to keep out of the house’s records.” Just so his meaning was clear, he pulled out his wallet and retrieved a token of very large denomination in the local currency. He left it on the table next to the door.
“Something could be arranged, sir.”
Next: “Stop calling me ‘sir,’” Jedao said. “It’s not—it’s not necessary.”
Kio’s wariness, if anything, increased. Jedao sighed inwardly. Although various laws and customs protected prostitutes, the fact of the matter was that laws and customs were cold comfort when dealing with belligerent trained killers. While Jedao was not belligerent, he couldn’t deny being a trained killer. Even if he employed swarms of warmoths these days instead of a sniper rifle or his hands, Kio would be aware of his reputation.
Jedao crossed the distance to Kio in slow strides, to make himself as little threatening as possible. He knelt before the other man. His hands were damp inside the regulation half-gloves. “Use me.”
He thought he was going to have to repeat himself when Kio let out a long, shaky breath and nodded. Kio’s own hands were sheathed in full black gloves. Technically illegal, but Jedao had no intention of reporting him or the house to the Kel. As a point of fact, he’d chosen this house because of its willingness to indulge this particular taste.
For a moment, Jedao wasn’t certain this was going to work out. It sometimes didn’t. Prostitutes, and lovers for that matter, usually assumed he wanted to give orders in bed. As if, after spending all day giving orders, he wanted to do it while fucking, too.
Then Kio reached down and grabbed Jedao’s right hand, and placed it over his groin. “You know how to use your mouth, fledge? Show me.” His voice was harsh.
Jedao groaned in the back of his throat at the address. “Sir,” he breathed. He hadn’t received permission to unglove, so he didn’t. Instead, he hooked his thumbs into Kio’s waistband, then unbuttoned his fly and drew out the other man’s cock. Not hard, not yet. He could do something about that.
He teased the head of Kio’s cock with his tongue, then took the whole thing into his mouth and sucked greedily. Kio was unnervingly silent. Jedao was determined to please him, though. He used his tongue to caress Kio’s cock until
he became hard and his shaft pushed into Jedao’s throat. Erect, Kio was quite large, and Jedao’s throat ached, but he didn’t dare pull back.
Jedao himself was already uncomfortably erect. Although he was tempted to reach down and jerk himself off, or rearrange himself, he didn’t have permission to do that either. He meant to be very literal about his orders. He longed to reach up and cradle Kio’s balls in his hand, but even that hadn’t been mentioned. Use your mouth.
Kio had noticed Jedao’s arousal. “You like this, don’t you, fledge?”
It was difficult to answer around a mouthful of cock, so Jedao confined himself to a nod. Kio shoved him away, not gently, and withdrew. Jedao glanced at Kio’s saliva-slick length before casting his eyes down, wondering what he’d done wrong. He had wanted to make Kio come, even if he didn’t dare hope—yet—that he’d be permitted the same.
Jedao raised his head and looked at Kio’s face when the silence started to worry him.
Kio’s expression was thoughtful. He grasped Jedao’s hand again. This time, he pressed his own palm against it, as if making a comparison. He smiled, eyes glinting with mischief.
“Sir?” Jedao said, very softly.
“Give me your gloves,” Kio said. And when Jedao hesitated: “Now.”
Jedao had expected this moment to arrive, just not so early in the encounter. A thrill went down his spine as he ungloved. He’d always felt more vulnerable with naked hands. It was a common Kel foible—except, of course, he wasn’t Kel.
Kio folded the half-gloves neatly and set them on the edge of the bed. Next he removed his own gloves. Jedao’s breath caught at the sight of Kio’s long hands and their calluses. (Jedao didn’t allow himself to think about the source of the calluses: probably from playing a musical instrument, not from familiarity with firearms.) Then Kio did something unexpected: he held the full black gloves out to Jedao.