Born to Please [Pleasure Vessels 1] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (11 page)

“If you say so,” Payne replied. Doubt saturated his thoughts, and he hoped it didn’t translate into his voice.

Alec didn’t respond. Instead, he knocked twice on the heavy door. They both stood back and waited.

Payne was so nervous he held his breath. The door swung open without drama to reveal a tall, thin woman whose hair at one time may have been the same shade of platinum blonde her son’s was. Her eyes were a lovely shade of light brown that seemed to glow with warmth.

“Welcome home, my son,” the Vessel said. “And I’m so happy to finally meet you, Payne. I’ve been reading about you since you were a child. How are you finding this wonderful son of mine?”

“He’s been a kind Master, ma’am,” Payne said, unsure of how to address her. Technically she was another Vessel, but she was also Alec’s mother.

She laughed at his words, which caused Payne to shift uncomfortably. She winked at him. “Master indeed. My son is no more Master than his father is. Though I wager, if he’s anything like his father, he rates a nine on a scale of ten as a lover.”

Alec’s blue eyes went wide. “Mother!” Alec exclaimed. “I’m not supposed to hear shit like that. God!”

“Oh hush,” she admonished, clearly not concerned with her son’s embarrassment. “You are an adult, and he is a Pleasure Vessel. Leave us alone, Alecander. Go play with your father for a while. I’ll entertain your Payne.” She turned her pretty brown eyes to him, and he nearly laughed. He liked her. “Good to know you have a bit of spirit in you. Come in and leave the humans to their play.” She took Payne by his arm and pulled him from the surprised arms of her son. Without effort, she shut the door in Alec’s face.

Payne was immediately encased in a room of warmth. She turned them from the door and into the room, revealing a space built for comfort. Lounge chairs were scattered about the surprisingly large space intermingled with plush couches. The walls were lined with bookshelves that stretched from floor to ceiling, and at the center of the room sat a small tea table that had a white porcelain tea set on it along with a rather large leather-bound book.

“I’ve never seen so many printed books,” Payne exclaimed in amazement. “The library at the Facility never had printed books. Too expensive. All the books we had were accessed through our PDA devices.”

Alec’s mother nodded. “Yes. That’s how I remember my time there. A lot of people are following that example and getting rid of the paper versions. The EPA even tried to ban the use of print books a few years ago. Now they’re all printed on recyclable material that the company will pick up if the book becomes damaged and replace it. David, that’s Alec’s father’s first name, and I just couldn’t give up our books. There is something to be said about literature that has a sensory aspect. The smell of a new book as opposed to an old one, or a leather-bound as opposed to a cardboard one, even the weight in your palm, gives the book a uniqueness. Do you read much?”

“I don’t usually read a lot for pleasure. At the Facility I read a lot on advertisement and finance. Guess I know why now, with Alec being in advertising. I was also schooled on rhetoric and a lot of philosophy dealing with communications.”

“How about fiction?” Mrs. Kane asked, her brow drawing down to frown at Payne’s words.

“No, ma’am. Fiction was discouraged. The Facility was so centered on our education, pleasure reading was seen as a way to distract from that.”

Her face broke out into a grin. “Then I have just the thing for you. A romance novel that David gave to me when we first lived together.” She crossed the room with firm, purposeful strides and took a book off the shelf that was almost at the top. “Here you go. Since Alec is always busy, you might as well have a little something to read.”

Payne took the novel from her with a smile and glimpsed at the cover. He blanched and turned twelve shades of scarlet. A tall burly man stood on the cover, shirtless, with a willowy, blonde-haired woman, also half-clothed, in apparent ecstasy in his arms. The title blazed in gold on the cover.
To Love a Vessel, an anthology of stories about Vessels and the men and women who love them
.

“I–I am very well educated in
that,
ma’am,” he stuttered.
God, Alec’s mom is downright scandalous
!

Alec’s mother burst out laughing at his horrified expression. “It isn’t a book on sex, Payne. It’s a collection of stories about different Vessels who fall in love with their Masters. It’s a lovely collection really. The writer is a male Vessel commissioned for a wife and husband pair in Connecticut, I believe. Why don’t you sit with me and have some coffee?” She motioned to the table, and they both walked over to it before sitting in opposite chairs.

“You are not what I expected, ma’am,” Payne said, sipping at the bitter liquid before making a face and setting it back down as delicately as he could. She laughed at him again.

“Please call me Amber. This ‘ma’am’ business is silly. We’re practically in-laws now.” She continued to laugh softly, the sound delicate and feminine. Where her husband was cold and laughed seldom, Amber was light and laughter. It was an interesting juxtaposition. “And I hope I am not what you expected. I bet you expected a sour-faced crone who was the obedient Vessel.”

Payne blushed. “Something like that.”

She continued to smile. “You’ve got to get out the mindset that the propaganda of the Trainers is truth. They give you generalities about the expectations of Vessels. But what they don’t tell you is that every pairing is different and every one is a unique relationship experience. Has my son said he loves you yet?”

Payne looked down at the book in his lap and wondered why he felt compelled to answer her prying questions.
She’s his mother, and whether he says so or not, she has influence
. He sighed. “No.”

“And how do you feel about him?”

Payne considered his own feelings for a second. “I care for him. He’s kind to me and patient with my adjustment. He gives me everything I could ever want and treats me like an equal. He values me. But, I was made for him. So I don’t know what is me and what is my training.”

“Just because you were predisposed to like him doesn’t mean you would love him,” Amber admonished. “Haven’t you heard that strange inner voice in the back of your mind that looks at him and tells you that he is yours absolutely?”

“How did you know about that?” he asked, shocked. He thought it was strange but hadn’t mentioned anything because he didn’t want his love to think he was defective.

Her brown eyes sparkled with mirth. “Because when a Vessel bonds to their owner, when they imprint, the new voice arises. It happens to all Vessels who mate with their owners. Not even a personality alignment guarantees an imprinting. It’s relatively rare.”

“Huh. Any idea why?”

She shrugged delicately. “No idea. We’re not scientists, so I couldn’t tell you. I’m sure there is a reason, but I don’t know it.”

Payne grew quiet as he looked inward and considered her words. This was a lot of information to process. If they weren’t just programmed to love someone, then what he felt for Alec was one hundred percent real. His heart pounded with the words that echoed with the beat of his heart.
I love him
.

She took a long sip from her cup and regarded him knowingly. “Ah, so now you see what you’ve been lying to yourself about for the past few days. Instant affection and almost instantaneous love is something we’re taught can’t be real. But it is. Whatever is inside us is never wrong, Payne. What you feel for him won’t go away now or a hundred years from now.”

“What about them? Do they love us just as fast?” Payne asked. The idea of it being one-sided, that Alec wouldn’t love him in return, was horrifying.

“I think they struggle with it more than we do just because they don’t have that reassurance in their heads. But I believe they fall just as fast for us as we do for them, yes.” She poured herself another cup of coffee. “I’m not saying the road ahead is easy, but I’m saying it can be rewarding. My son is a wonderful man, and I hope you two are happy together.”

“Me, too,” Payne murmured, stirring his coffee cup with no intention of drinking it. He hoped that they would have something more than sex between them, more than courtesy. He wanted them to love like Amber described. He just had to convince Alec that his moody, stubborn, sometimes surly Vessel was worth it.

“You seem to be very affectionate with your Vessel already,” Father said, sitting in his high wing-backed chair in front of his study’s fireplace. It was the same spot he was usually in when Alec had lived at home. Father had been at the labs more often than not when he was growing up but on the rare occasion that he was in, this was his domain.

“I like him. He likes me. We want to have a relationship,” Alec said.
Why do I always feel like I have to defend my relationship with you
?

His father practically rolled his eyes. “A Vessel has to prove their loyalty before you give them your heart, Alec. Please don’t get too attached until you know if he’ll stick. You’re rushing into this as per usual.”

Alec frowned. “Um, you commissioned him for me, Dad. He was literally born for me, and it seems to be working out really, really well to be honest.” He hated admitting that his father had known better than he had about what would make him happy, but Payne was everything he had ever hoped for in a partner.

“This is the honeymoon stage, boy. Don’t get carried away with it. Sometimes Vessels just don’t work out as they’re supposed to,” Father said, beckoning him over. “Go to my desk and get the file out of the top drawer.”

Alec nodded and did as he was bid. “You and Mom are not the best example of how Vessels and owners don’t work out. You guys have been in love for how long?”

“She wasn’t the first Vessel I had, son,” Father said. A bomb exploding or spontaneous combustion would’ve been less shocking.

“What?” Alec asked, his steps faltering.

He waved Alec closer, looking impatient. “Your mother was my second. My first Vessel matched fourteen of my twenty-seven point criteria. We only need ten for it to be considered a viable union, so I brought her home and we stayed together for six months before I figured out it wouldn’t work out. Even with the personality alignment, she wasn’t happy with me. Vessels are strange creatures, son. Sometimes not even my fail-proof measures stack up to full capability.”

“Well, Payne isn’t like that.” Alec paused. “Why didn’t I know this?”

His father shrugged. “Because there was never a reason to tell you about her. Your mother and I have been together, happily, for almost thirty years now, and it never came up. It wasn’t her fault I sent her back to the Facility for a new placement. It’s the nature of a Vessel. It’s the shifter bit of them.”

“The what bit?” Alec asked. He frowned.

His father rolled his eyes, his annoyance level clearly rising. He hated repeating himself more than anything else. “The shifter part. Have you never read your full mockup of their DNA patterns?”

“Why would I ever read all that?” Alec asked dryly. “For Christ’s sake, Dad, I’m not a masochist. The book of Vessels that outlines their construction, education, and birth process is over four hundred pages long.”

Father shoved himself to his feet. “I can’t help it if you paper-pushing types don’t read what I send you. Hold on. I’ll get it. I can’t say it better than I wrote it.” He went over to his wall of books. The man was obsessed with hardcopies of everything. He pulled the massive tome from the wall and put it on his desk, flipping through the pages like he’d done it a thousand times. He probably had.

“Here,” he said about midway through the book. “Come read. It’ll save me some time and effort re-educating you on what you should already know.”

Alec sighed and pushed himself to his feet. His father couldn’t just tell him about it. Nope. Instead he had to sit him down like a schoolkid and give him reading material. He turned the book toward him as he sat down in his father’s desk chair. He spent the next several moments reading.

“You spliced their DNA with the DNA of ‘animorphical hybridized Homo sapiens.’ What the hell does that mean?” Alec asked when he finished.

His father took his time opening a chocolate bar wrapped in aluminum foil before answering. “It means that my team of researchers and myself tracked down and obtained pure strands of shape-shifter DNA in order to use it as a base for a Vessel. Vessels mate the same way that shifters do for that reason. We disabled their ability to physically transform from one form to another, though. It was determined to be too messy and dangerous for the owner. If a Vessel imprints on the owner, then the owner gets a ready-made mate with a bond that is almost impossible to break. The personality alignment guides the Vessel’s internal instincts toward mating with his or her chosen owner, but it’s not an exact science.”

“Shifters haven’t been around for almost a thousand years, Dad,” Alec reminded, frowning. This sounded like some Frankenstein-type science out of a fiction novel. “They were subsequently bred out by the turn of the century. Mating with humans and mixing their bloodlines eventually caused the gene that enabled them to morph into another form to disappear from the gene pool. There are only traces of that heritage left.”

“Ah, but the remote populations in South America and parts of Russia remained intact,” Father said, a bemused look on his face. “It took a little convincing, but we managed to make them all right with giving us some blood and tissue samples to work with. As soon as I was able to replicate the genes, Vessels were a done deal. The science is fascinating.”