Spiked
Page 14
This was why Bailey caught the local commuter train; because after eight or ten or twelve hours in a sterile operating suite, perched on a stool and encased in latex, he craved dirt and music and human contact. The other train, so white and tidy, would have squeaky clean vinyl seats, and every person on that train would be listening to the music playing on their wires, locked in their own bubbles of perfect aural input.
The train jolted and swayed, reorganizing the passengers, and Bailey closed his eyes and leaned his head against the filthy window. Inside his eyelids, the image of the inserter and the alabaster skin of the patient's face persisted.
They arrived at another train station, more passengers embarking, so Bailey was squashed between two bodies, smelling of sweat, garlic and turmeric. Someone nearby had taken flare, the ketone-sting of their skin giving the drug away.
The train jolted into movement, and Bailey let his memory linger over the image of the scalpel sliding into the woman's skin, cutting through her flesh so carefully.
The man pressing against Bailey's back swayed closer as the train worked its way around a curve in the track, and he leaned forward a little, so his mouth was close to Bailey's ear.
The rattle of the train and the boom of the music almost masked his voice as he said, “You smell hot."
Another sway, and the man's interest pressed against Bailey. “So do you,” Bailey said, breathing in skin and incense, the smell mixing with the images in his brain. “Going far?"
"End of the line,” the man said.
Bailey could feel the man's hand working rapidly, moving the loose cotton of Bailey's tunic, and it all jumbled up inside Bailey's head, combining with the rattling train and the cold glass of the window.
Bailey didn't want to come, he had plans for the night, but feeling the man's fluid soaking through the open weave of his trousers and wetting his leg was delicious.
After the sterility of the day and work, it made Bailey feel alive.
The walk from the train station, up the long hill in the oppressive heat, was enough to bring Bailey back to the real world. The street was busy, people were emerging from their homes now darkness had fallen, and kids ran in front of Bailey in the pale yellow light spilling from the houses, calling his name.
Bailey lived in the top half of an old house, in a jumble of rooms. He could have lived in SirenCare housing, somewhere up the coast, like most of his fellow workers, but life in a cardboard box where the company could watch his every move did not appeal.
Instead, Bailey dragged each window open, to let the day's heat out, then took a beer from his fridge and climbed the last few steps, up to his roof.
Cooler air blew in, up the harbor from the coast, across the rolling suburbs that seethed with life, to Bailey's tiled roof, where he sat and waited. Bats swooped around him, chasing insects, and currawongs shrieked in the darkness.
The city was patchily lit; the streets below Bailey were lined with the pale blue glow of solar-lights, but closer into the city patches of hot, white light showed where secure corporate-owned suburbs had a generator running.
The beer was cold and good, the bottle chilled when Bailey pressed it against his forehead. Some days, he missed air-conditioning. The solar panels beside Bailey on the roof ran his fridge and the solar distiller purified his water, but he'd have to live somewhere else to get a grid connection.
The stranger's come had dried completely, and Bailey picked idly at the patch on his trousers. He might not have air-conditioning, but there were damned good reasons he lived outside the reach of SirenCare.
He was tempted to head out into the dark city immediately, to where the bars were just opening, but he really needed to sleep first.
Besides, if he partied later then headed directly to SirenCare, he could shower the night off at the company's expense, not his own.
In his bedroom Bailey dumped his clothes on the floor and lifted his mosquito netting aside. Every window was still wide open, and the breeze had picked up enough that the air in the building moved a little, cool salty air replacing the heat of the day. Outside, down the street at Bailey's local bar, music played, rolling into Bailey's house through the darkness.
Bailey settled the mosquito nets around himself and closed his eyes. The music and the frustrated mosquitoes lulled him to sleep, and anticipation of later pleasures made him dream.
* * * *
The front bar at the Gazza was jumping, with the punters downing middies and picking fights, so Quint made his way carefully through the chaos, stacking empty glasses, making sure no fucker with a wild elbow tipped the tray of glasses over.
The generator in the basement of the bar stuttered, so the lights in the bar paled, then the carbie backfired loudly and the lights were back.
Back behind the bar, Quint transferred his load of glasses to the bench and began to wash them in the beer soup in the sink. One sink of water a night, that was all he was allowed.
Frood, working the bar, shouted, “Quint! Faster with the glasses, we've got paying customers dying of thirst here."
"Hang on,” Quint said, grabbing a couple of glasses from the draining board beside the sink and dumping them beside Frood.
The punter who was dying of thirst nodded his thanks to Quint, and handed a coin over the bar. Quint knew the regulars, and the irregulars, and there was no way this particular bloke had been in the bar before. Quint had a thing about smooth-skinned, shaven-headed hunks, and he wouldn't forget that face. Corporate-suits didn't walk into the bar every day.
The hunk lifted his gaze from the metal in Quint's lips and met his stare.
"Bloody hell,” Frood said, and he shoved the glass at Quint. “I'm going to the bog."
Quint pulled a middy of beer for the hunk, tipping the glass sideways to stop the head from foaming.
"There you go,” he said, holding the glass out.
The punter took the beer, and leaned forward, over the bar. “Hey,” he said, his eyes smiling at Quint.
Quint leaned forward, too, smiling against the weight of the bars through his lip. “Hey, yourself."
The punter's gaze slid down the open neck of Quint's shirt, and Quint heard his breath hitch over the background roar of the bar. “Nice sternal mod,” the stranger said. “Very hot. You got other mods?"
Quint nodded. “If I show you, the boss will throw me out."
"Later?” the punter asked, and he sounded as horny as Quint felt. The metal through Quint's sack lifted and settled a little, as the blood flow changed, reminding Quint how good it could be.
"I'm not a pro,” Quint said. “It would have to be on my terms."
The punter ran a fingertip down the ridge of steel under the skin of Quint's chest, pressing the metal against his sternum. “Your terms."
Frood slammed back into the bar, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Work,” he said to Quint. “Generator's about to run dry, so get down there and refill it, or you'll have to explain to the punters why they have to drink warm beer in the dark while you fiddle around with fuel by candlelight."
Quint paused only to nod to the punter, and then he took off down the stairs, to the cellar, just as the lights in the pub flickered again and began to fade.
The punter was waiting out by the front of the pub, leaning against its rusting façade, when Quint pushed the last of the mess out the front door with his broom.
"You waited?” Quint asked, propping the broom inside the pub door.
"Went and got something to eat,” the punter said. “I'm Bailey."
"Quint. Hang on.” Quint leaned his head back inside the pub and called out, “I'm off now!"
"See you tonight!” Frood called back.
Quint was sticky with sweat and beer, and he smelled of generator fuel, too. “I need a dip. You wanna walk down to the harbor?"
The pair of them walked through the gloom, past empty food stalls and closed up houses, through the relative cool of the late night. Few other people were around; between three and five
in the morning was just about the only time that everyone slept. Quint liked the empty, dark streets, where only possums scurrying across the paving disturbed the quiet.
Possums, or rats.
He led Bailey through the maze of laneways, down to what used to be the freeway, where starving horses grazed on dry grass growing through the shattered bitumen in the dark. They went through a secret gap in the chain link fence, into a secure neighborhood.
If Bailey, who was obviously a corporate type who lived in a secure neighborhood himself, had any opinions about the laws they were breaking, he kept them to himself. Quint liked Bailey.
A dog barked in the night, the ultimate status symbol. Only a very rich, very well-guarded person would own a dog.
"Run,” Quint whispered, as they turned around the corner of an apartment block, and the pair of them bolted across the open ground, artificial turf crinkling under their feet, Bailey's sandals made from recycled tires slapping on the plastic grass.
Gum trees loomed up, casting deep shadows, and Quint could hear the slopping of water on the sand.
Bailey was laughing breathlessly beside Quint, and his hands found Quint in the darkness. “Are you crazy?” Bailey asked, his voice very close to Quint. “Running through Rose Bay?"
"Fuck Rose Bay,” Quint said, then Bailey's mouth was over his, tongue licking the bars, then settling over Quint's lips.
Quint wound his arms around Bailey's neck, rubbing his body against Bailey's crisp, clean clothing, feeling it crackle and crinkle, his hands on Bailey's scalp, his tongue inside Bailey's mouth.
No metal, no implants, but Bailey's hands were doing a good job of finding Quint's, pushing under his shirt at the back, fingers rubbing over the ridges of scar, tracing the pattern.
Quint ground his groin against Bailey, rubbing his cock to hardness against Bailey's hipbone, feeling the metal rings through his sack catching and untangling. Quint shoved a hand between their bodies, grabbing Bailey's cock through his clothes.
Quint's hand squeezed the hard length of Bailey's cock, and they both moaned. “Fuck me,” Bailey said, his lips sliding across Quint's ear, teeth clinking on the hoops and spacers and catching the skin.
Bailey's hand inside Quint's jeans found his cock, fingertips touching the beads under the skin, using just the right pressure, so the balls of silicone dug into Quint's cock.
"Yeah,” Quint said, shoving his hands inside Bailey's loose trousers and grabbing the cheeks of his arse, relishing the feel of the flesh, the way it moved as he touched it, the fine hair across the skin.
Quint let go of Bailey's arse cheeks and pushed Bailey's trousers down, so they fluttered around his ankles.
"Got any lube?” Quint asked, his fingers squeezing Bailey's balls, working the sensitive flesh so that Bailey gasped.
"Don't need it,” Bailey said.
"Turn around.” Quint could feel he was grinning. If Bailey was into a dry fuck, Quint could work with that.
The first touch of his fingers against Bailey's arse, probing and pushing, proved Bailey must be sweating, because he was damp and slick. Bailey moaned, and Quint closed his eyes, breathing in the living scent of the gum trees and Bailey's skin.
His fingers slid in smoothly, and Quint rested his forehead against Bailey's neck and let his fingers explore the smooth flesh, slipping and twisting so that Bailey groaned.
When Quint lifted his head and opened his eyes, his fingers guiding his cock into the slippery heat, he could see Bailey's fingers in the gloom, digging into the bark of the tree.
Things moved in the darkness, mosquitoes buzzed, a possum rustled the leaves of the tree, and Quint pushed his cock into Bailey slowly, one row of beads at a time.
It hurt, but it always did at the beginning. Bailey whimpered, so it might have been hurting him, too.
Whimpers turned Quint on.
He shifted his weight, flexing his knees a little, settling his cock deeper, then pulled back slowly, making sure Bailey could feel all seventeen beads in Quint's cock, one bead at a time.
The final bead eased out, leaving the head of Quint's cock still inside Bailey, then Quint pushed back in hard, not giving Bailey a chance to count. Bailey was slick and easy to fuck, letting go so that Quint's cock glided sweetly into him.
Bailey must have been really worked up, because before Quint had even developed a real sweat, Bailey was rocking back, slamming himself against each thrust of Quint's cock.
Bailey shouted, his body clamping down on Quint's cock, the stupid dog yammering away nearby. Fluid leaked across Quint's balls and thighs, slippery and impossible, and it wasn't his own because that was on its way, burning inside him, tighter and harder, until he sunk his teeth into Bailey's shoulder, jabbed into him hard as he could, pumping come into him.
"Bloody dog,” Bailey said. “We should get the fuck out of here, before security work out where they left the keys to the patrol tank."
Quint slid out, his cock softening and dripping.
"Sweet rain,” Quint said. “How the fuck are you modded?"
Bailey dragged his trousers up and slapped Quint's shoulder. “Come on,” Bailey said. “Show some of the survival spirit you illegals are supposed to be well endowed with."
Quint did up his jeans, and the two of them took off across the plastic grass, toward the harbor, just as lights came on in the nearest house and a siren began to wail.
The harbor shore, rocks and piles of desiccated seaweed, was through the trees and another chain link fence, but the loose panel Quint had been shown the week before hadn't been repaired.
They slipped through the gap, and Quint pulled the chain link panel back into place, just as floodlights came on near the shore, in the park.
Quint laughed. “Fuckers, hope they can pay for all that power."
"I'm sure the happy ratepayers can afford it,” Bailey said. “So, is there anywhere here without a sewage outlet, or do we have to swim in privileged citizen shit?"
"Over the rocks,” Quint said.
They clambered along the shore line, away from the floodlit park and the distant rumble of the security vehicle, over tumbled rocks and the partly submerged hulks of houses, then down to a cove.
The foam on the shore glowed faintly, but that didn't seem to be dissuading Bailey from swimming, since he'd pulled his tunic over his head.
Quint dumped his own clothes on the rocks, and then waded out into the cove, glad his sandals were robust enough to protect his feet from anything lurking in the mud. Beside him, naked in the faint light coming from the silvering eastern skyline, Bailey was gorgeous and sleek, his skin unmarked and smooth.
The water wasn't cold, just cool, much better to swim in when it couldn't be seen. Quint waded out to his waist in the water and fell forward, letting the water splash over his face and soak into his hair, washing away the dirt of the past few days.
He rolled over and floated on his back, bobbing in the salt. “So, you gonna tell me about the weird-arsed mod of yours?"
Bailey swam beside him, and pre-dawn seagulls swooped overhead. “It's just a lube pack, nothing fancy."
"Nothing fancy?” Quint asked. “I might have been fucking a girl, if it wasn't so fucking tight, and if you hadn't shot all over that tree, too."
Bailey chuckled. “Don't confuse complexity of concept with complexity of execution. It's just a mod, like your horns."
Bailey's wet fingers found Quint's brow horns, shaping around the prominent bumps, the touch soothing. Bailey knew how to touch.
"Feels good,” Quint said.
"They're crap work,” Bailey said. “Whoever did them shouldn't have."
"What!” Quint said, his eyes jerking open again. “Don't fuck with my mods!"
"No disrespect to you,” Bailey said, taking his hand away. “Your cock is a tasty piece of work, really well done. I like your sternal ridge, too, it's just the right length, so you don't get bone erosion. The horns are poor work."
"You a doctor?” Quint asked, putt
ing his feet down into the inky mud and standing up so he could face Bailey. “And what is wrong with the horns?"
"Not a doc,” Bailey said. “And they're too hard, so you're going to get skin breakthrough. Teflon is no good for horns, and not even silicone is soft enough. The best horns are done with growth cultures, so your own bone thickens and shapes."
The sky was pale pink in the east, and Quint could see Bailey clearly. He looked concerned, not critical. Quint knew all about critical.
"You're talking about stuff that the street can't offer, along with your wetarse."
Bailey nodded. “Wetarse?” he said, laughing. “Never had it called that before. The technical name is Auerbachian tubuloalveolar implant. I need to head to work. Do you know a way back into the city that doesn't involve two fences and being arrested?"
Quint grinned at the corporate slave. “Sucker,” he said. “I'll show you how to get back to the city."
The scramble up the cliff face was hard work, and by the time he got to the top, Quint needed another swim. Bailey lifted himself over the crumbling sandstone lip of the cliff and stood up, wiping dirt from his hands onto his clothes.
"For a corporate slave who has to go to work, you're mighty relaxed about breaking in and out of a secure suburb, and leaving a load on a tree,” Quint observed, pointing up the hill, through Double Bay.
Double Bay wasn't a secure suburb, not since the gas leak at the primary school a few years ago, and Quint was glad. Between the fucking, the running and the swimming, he was weary.
"Most corporate slaves,” Bailey said, “they're worried about what the company might think, and whether they'll get fired and lose their water and power allowances. Not me."
Chickens scratched across the paving, and a woman opened the window of her shanty and waved to them.
"You're either the CEO, or irreplaceable,” Quint said.
"Yep,” Bailey said. “And you're either actually a resident of Rose Bay or fucking crazy, to have pulled that stunt with the fences."
A bike with a cart whizzed past them, electric motor hissing, cans of water on the cart clattering.
In the growing daylight, Bailey looked tired and salt-encrusted, his clothes stained and damp, but his eyes were laughing at Quint.