by T. J. Land
The truth was that Echo had no idea himself. Unlike the rest of the crew, he had never suffered from the sensation of being trapped inside The Prayer during their four years adrift. He hated the outdoors. Spending his life within a spaceship suited him very well. That said, the captain’s welfare was always Echo’s first priority, and he knew Khurshed would be heartbroken if they voted to leave Yusra; he had begun to think of it as his home. Moreover, it had not escaped Echo’s notice that now they had wheat, he might finally be able to bake properly again.
I don’t know.
Rux rubbed his body against Echo’s left leg. “I would like to restate my earlier comment regarding your toes. They are magnificent.”
Leaning down, Echo scratched behind his ears and then went to do the dishes.
✩✩✩
As they left Moxie 2 behind, Zachery half expected to see hundreds of enemy ships rising up from the planet’s surface in hot pursuit. The first few days of their journey back home were tense and quiet. When they were in orbit around Yusra and had yet to see any indication that the enemy would be coming after them to take their grain back, the tension eased a little.
The captain said they’d have another three days to make up their minds on whether to stay or not. Zachery thought that was a good idea. His initial instinct upon learning that they were literally one planet away had been to run screaming to the other side of the universe. He remembered being ten years old, back on Mars, and listening to his mom talking about them with her friends. What did they want? No one knew. Their language was impossible to translate—even listening to it made your ears hurt, apparently. Where had they come from? Conspiracy theories abounded. What would they do next? Zachery’s mom and her friends had been convinced that any day now they’d start moving towards the inner solar system. Even when it had become clear they had no intention of doing so and were content to skulk around Pluto and harass the colonies, the thought of them had haunted Zachery’s nightmares for years.
Now that the panic was wearing off, he was having second thoughts. It helped that now he could look down on Yusra and be reminded of how pretty she was, all green and blue and white.
To his surprise, Thomas was in favour of staying.
“How come?” Zachery asked him when the two of them were down in the engine room for Thomas’s semi-regular engineering lesson. Zachery had just finished showing him one of the umpteen squillion basic maintenance tasks he had to perform, while Thomas made diligent notes. “I mean, you’re terrified of them.”
Thomas chewed the inside of his lip and said, “The thing is, it doesn’t make any difference if we leave or not. They know we’re here. If Antoine’s right and they brought us here on purpose, then they’ll just bring us back here if we try to run. Nothing we can do about it, not a damn thing. They’ve got technology we can’t even wrap our minds around. I’m terrified of them, but it’s like being terrified of black holes. They exist and there’s fuck all you can do about them. Might as well get on with life.”
“It’s bullshit,” Zachery growled. “Being their…their fucking experiment.”
“Hey, look on the bright side,” said Thomas, dropping a kiss onto Zachery’s shoulder. “They can’t be all bad. They gave us barley and wheat, even if we did have to go a long ass way to get it.”
“Yeah, well, unlike you I don’t have wet dreams about donuts.”
“You know you can make beer from barley, right?”
Zachery’s jaw dropped. “Holy shit, really?!”
A nearby com crackled to life. “This is the captain. I’d like to see Mister Halberstam in my office.”
✩✩✩
“Antoine has asked me to find out if you might be interested in sharing a drink with us,” said Khurshed, his expression blank and his voice without inflection.
A flurry of thoughts flew through Zachery’s head:
‘Us’? Antoine and the captain? In one room?
‘A drink’? We haven’t got any booze. Not yet, anyway.
Antoine asked if I ‘might be interested’? Antoine doesn’t ask politely for fucking anything.
Okay, maybe that was unfair. Antoine was bossy and demanding, not a bully. But he also wasn’t the sort of person who extended invitations by proxy. What the hell’s going on?
Despite his obvious attempts to appear as neutral as possible, Khurshed was fidgeting nervously. “I should tell you that I’m surprised he suggested it. Antoine’s a private man. You must have impressed him.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Zachery, scratching his head. “I think he… I think he’s interested in me. For some reason.”
Khurshed nodded. “And you’re ‘interested’ in him?”
“Cap, what’s this about?” Zachery sighed. “Yeah, I’ve got a crush on him. It’s not going to go anywhere. I can’t do relationships without sex; I don’t even know how that would work.”
“Speaking from experience, it can work very well. But I’m not talking about a relationship.”
Zachery listened as Khurshed explained Antoine’s idea. When he was finished, Zachery sat silently for a while before saying, “And this is something you’ve done with him before?”
“Yes. Not for a few years now, but we used to do it regularly in my twenties.”
In his twenties? Zachery’s eyes widened. When he’d learned from Thomas that Antoine was the captain’s ex, he’d assumed they’d had one of those fierce, sex-fuelled hook-ups that burned out in a week, and that Antoine had come out as asexual afterwards. It hadn’t occurred to him that the two of them might have sustained a stable relationship for any prolonged period of time. Moreover, if Khurshed had been telling the truth when he’d admitted his real age to them, then Antoine must have also used rejuvenation tech at some point. If his appearance—not a day older than thirty—was an accurate indicator of his age, then he hadn’t even been born when Khurshed was in his twenties.
“Do you like the idea, Zach? I should add that Antoine insisted I tell you not to say yes to please me.”
Zachery smirked. “He doesn’t get how you and I work, does he? Captain, it sounds like fun. Let’s try it.”
That was how, three hours later, Zachery found himself cleaning and trimming his toenails for the first time in his life. Ordinarily, he kept them in shape with his teeth. He also showered for so long Khali growled threats through the bathroom door about cutting off his nuts because it was her turn. Lastly, he went to Cecelia and begged to borrow a touch of her last precious bottle of cologne.
Khurshed was waiting for him outside Antoine’s quarters, his beard newly trimmed and his shirt and pants freshly ironed. “Zach, once again, if anything happens that makes you uncomfortable in any way, at any point, you may leave. You should leave. I’ll understand and so will he.”
Zachery gave his ass a smack. “Quit fussing, old man.”
Zachery didn’t often use the ship’s holographic scene projector. It bothered him that he could never smell his surroundings. And most of the one hundred different locations it had been programmed to display were outdoorsy stuff: beaches, fields, quiet valleys, and majestic cloudscapes. There was only one rugby stadium, and he didn’t like it. The sky was blue, not red, so he couldn’t fool himself into thinking he was back in his home town for even a minute.
Upon entering Antoine’s quarters, he was met with a location he hadn’t seen before. It was a room with no roof, only the night sky overhead, showing constellations he hadn’t known he’d missed until he saw them again. The room itself looked like a fancy hotel suite for ultra-rich people on honeymoon. There were pillars, a fireplace, paintings depicting sailing ships being tossed about on rough seas, and two chandeliers. There was a four-poster bed big enough to fit ten large men, with giant cream-coloured pillows and a wine-red duvet. There was also a grand piano, at which Antoine was seated.
“Good evening, gentlemen. Make yourselves comfortable,” said Antoine, his fingers dancing gracefully along the keyboard. He was dressed as though h
e’d recently returned from the opera: pale silk shirt, dove-grey pants, dove-grey jacket slung over the back of his chair.
Looking closely, Zachery noticed that the tune he was hearing didn’t match what Antoine’s fingers were doing. The obvious fakery of it combined with the ridiculous opulence of the setting made him grin.
No, stop that. It’s part of the game. You’ll ruin it if you start giggling like a brat.
Zachery took off his shoes and socks, tucking them out of sight and sinking his toes into the soft, spotless carpet. Khurshed copied him before crossing the floor to stand beside the piano. His posture was oddly formal, like a soldier at parade rest.
After the recording finished playing, Antoine took a sip from the champagne glass at his side and then let Khurshed have one, holding the glass up to his lips for him.
“Zachery, won’t you come and join us?” he said. It didn’t sound like a request.
Khurshed had told him what to expect in broad terms. And he already knew damn well how Antoine’s presence tended to affect him. So he wasn’t surprised by the sudden gut-punch of lust. What did take him off guard was the dark little sparkle in Antoine’s eye—amusement, he thought, and something else. It made his cheeks heat and set loose a wave of butterflies in his stomach, reminding him that when it came to Antoine his misbehaving dick was only half the problem.
“What d’you want me to do?” he asked, gruffly, remembering Khurshed’s insistence that he ask questions any time he was confused.
Antoine tipped another mouthful of champagne into Khurshed’s mouth. “It’s up to you, of course. What I’d like you to do is help me tend to our captain. You could take off his shirt, to start with.”
Zachery obeyed, noting Khurshed’s burgeoning erection and uncharacteristic silence as he did.
“Thank you, Zachery,” said Antoine, before saying something in French to the captain. Khurshed immediately went over to the fireplace and knelt down next to one of the armchairs.
In response to Zachery’s quizzical look, Antoine said, “He feels more comfortable with the French in this setting. It wasn’t an attempt to exclude you.”
“Takes more than that to hurt my feelings. I’m not a sensitive buttercup,” Zachery retorted.
“Good.” Standing up and lowering the piano lid, Antoine rubbed his hands together. “Let’s get down to business.”
He sat down in the armchair next to which Khurshed was kneeling, beckoning Zachery to take the other chair. As Zachery complied, Antoine rested one slender hand in Khurshed’s thick, dark hair, stroking it absently. “Have you ever tried anything like this before, Mister Halberstam?”
Not exactly sure what “like this” meant, he said, “Me and the cap have done a lot of stuff. Uh. He smacks my ass sometimes. One time he asked me to pull his hair. Oh, and I like getting him to dress up.”
His eyes widening, Antoine said, “As what, might I ask?”
“Let’s see, we’ve done a doctor, a pirate, a soldier, and a vampire. We tried a werewolf once but it didn’t work out. The whiskers looked dumb.”
Now it looked like Antoine was the one struggling not to giggle. “Ah…fascinating. And tell me, Mister Halberstam, have any of the costumes ever incorporated ropes?”
“Ropes? No, don’t think so. We used a blindfold once…”
Antoine reached down the side of the chair and held up what looked like about thirty feet of coiled white rope and smelled a little like hemp.
“Oh,” said Zachery stupidly.
Khurshed made a soft noise that might have been a hastily suppressed chuckle. Antoine gave one of his ears a sharp pinch, and he shut up again.
“Are you game?” Antoine asked Zachery, that same sparkle in his eye, with a conspiratorial grin to match it.
“Yeah. Oh, yeah.”
Antoine spent the next hour teaching Zachery how to use the ropes. First, he tied Khurshed’s wrists to the bed posts, then undid the knots and let Zachery try to copy him. It took Zachery several attempts to perfect his cat’s paw, during which Antoine stroked Khurshed’s hair and whispered to him in French. After that, he taught him three different ways of tying his hands together, and how to tie his arms behind his back with the ropes brushing his nipples as they went across his chest. By that point, Khurshed was fully engorged and biting his lower lip.
Then, for a grand finale, Antoine took out a thinner rope and tied it around his cock and balls.
“Fuck, look at you,” Zachery breathed, gazing down at Khurshed. He didn’t usually spend long ogling his lovers. Taking it slow wasn’t his style. He liked his sex the way he liked his rugby: fast, dirty, and if he had a tooth missing at the end of it so much the better. Doing it like this, drawing it out… Yeah, he could see the appeal. It gave him a chance to get a proper look at Khurshed’s body. He’d thought he knew it as well as his own by now; he’d spent enough time staring at his ass and muscles. Now, though, he was noticing all the things he’d missed before. Like the tiny marks on his upper ears where evidently he’d once had piercings; the pale liver spots on his shoulders and the base of his neck; the length of his eyelashes.
“He’s beautiful, isn’t he?” said Antoine. And there was something in his voice…
Zachery looked up from his attempts to replicate the masterpiece Antoine had made of Khurshed’s cock. Antoine was lying down on his side at the top of the bed, still in his dove-grey suit with his sleeves rolled up. His fingertips were moving slowly over Khurshed’s face, pressing against his lips, then his cheeks, then his chin. Khurshed was looking up at him with a shy smile that made him seem all of twenty years old.
‘The captain’s ex’. Bullshit, Zachery thought. You stupid asshole, Zachery. How did you miss it?
“How are you getting on?” Antoine asked, glancing down at Zachery’s efforts. “Oh, that’s very good. You can make them a little tighter in future, if you like. Well, now that I’ve shown you the basics, what do you want to do next?”
“I thought you were running the show. Don’t you decide what happens next?”
Antoine rolled his eyes, untying Khurshed’s cock. “Zachery, we’re both running the show. Why else would I have invited you?”
“Okay. So…”
“You have to guess what he wants. He’s not allowed to ask for anything. That’s part of the game.”
Zachery nodded, all business now. “I’m going to fuck him. I want him standing, tied to that pillar, arms above his head.”
“As you yourself said, it is what you’re ‘good for’. May I watch?”
“Whatever you want.” Zachery snuck a peak at his crotch. No tent. No wet spot. I don’t get it. How can he be enjoying this if he’s not getting off on it?
“So,” he said as they were tying Khurshed’s arms to the pillar. “This is how you two make it work? The whole ‘no sex’ thing? You find some dumb stud like me and then let him fool around with Khurshed while you watch?”
“That isn’t…” Khurshed began, before Antoine pinched his ear again, hard. He fell silent.
“No,” said Antoine. “We’ve never tried this particular experiment before. We have other ways of ‘making it work’. And please don’t demean yourself in front of the captain. It distresses him, which is hardly fair when he’s not allowed to speak.”
Zachery checked the ropes the way Antoine had shown him; not too tight, not too slack. “How long have you two been together?”
Not ‘how long were you’. He knew better now.
“Fifty-three years, on and off.”
“Yikes.” So you do use rejuvenation tech.
“We were young when we met.”
“I had it in my head that he’d had lots of boyfriends and fuck buddies before we left Earth.”
“Oh, he did. Hundreds. I just happened to be the first.”
“And the one who stuck around. Yeah, I can see that. Persistent Officer Prissyboots, always lurking in the background.”
“That makes it sound devious. It wasn’t. All of them knew ab
out me. The arrangements we came to were usually very cordial.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. But I’ve got a hunch that you are one jealous bitch. Whether you told him or not, I bet you used to dream of guillotining every last one of them.”
There was a pause. “Not every last one.”
Zachery finished applying the lube and slowly slid into Khurshed’s sweat-slick body. “Are you jealous of us? Of Thomas? Rick? Echo? Me?”
“A bit.”
“Shit. Should I be scared?”
“I’d certainly prefer it if you were. I like the thought of people living in fear of me. However, so far as your relationship with Khurshed goes… I want him to be happy. You make him happy. More often than I do, I suspect.”
Again, Khurshed began to speak: “That’s not…”
This time, it was Zachery who pinched his ear. “Mouth shut, old man. Ant, you got a gag?”
Antoine brought him a ball-gag. Zachery had never seen one before. The few times when he’d gagged Khurshed—or, on one occasion, Rick—before, it had always been to enhance the role play, and he’d used whatever clean clothing was on hand. This was the real deal; a perfect sphere of black rubber, sliding past Khurshed’s teeth and into place without a lick of fuss.
“Hey, wait a minute. He actually won’t be able to speak at all through this thing. What if…?”
“He moves his head from side to side if he wants us to stop. Don’t worry. He’s used to this.”
Antoine watched in the manner of an art connoisseur as Zachery did what he did best. Now and then, he’d make an admiring noise—not a moan, not a sigh, just a small, satisfied murmur. It made a nice accompaniment to Khurshed’s deep-throated groans being half stifled by the gag.
Being watched by Antoine was a weirdly intense experience. Even though he wasn’t touching him, and hadn’t touched him since he’d arrived, his unblinking stare made it feel as though he was as close to Zachery as Khurshed. Assailed on both sides by Khurshed’s hot, responsive body and Antoine’s scrutiny, Zachery quickly felt himself start to lose control.
Then, a moment before he started to peak, Antoine whispered right into his ear, “Stop.”