The Administration Series (141 page)

"The cabinet isn't somewhere to keep things. Not even chains. I appreciate it would make the game easier for you, but — "

"Forget it. Easy doesn't matter." Toreth slid his hands down his arms, circled his wrists and squeezed gently. Then not quite so gently.

Warrick shivered — he couldn't help it. And this wasn't Fran's shop. "Please, don't," he said, which was rather like trying to put out a fire by pouring brandy over it.

"I thought you might need reminding that I don't need chains. Or anything."

He wished he knew what it was about Toreth's voice that could do this to him. It wasn't just the words, although they were exciting enough. It was something in the pitch, the timbre. Did it have the same effect on other people? With an effort, he said, "We came here to buy some curtains, so let's buy them."

Toreth let go at once. "Okay."

The easy acquiescence made him suspicious, but there was nothing he could do about it.

They shopped for a while, or rather Warrick shopped and Toreth rejected his suggestions out of hand. Eventually, somewhat to Warrick's relief, Toreth wandered away somewhere on his own.

Warrick continued browsing, almost forgetting his missing companion, until he recognised footsteps behind him.

"Yes?"

"I found something. Two somethings."

Something slipped over his shoulder and he put his hand up automatically to catch hold of it. It was a long curtain tie-back, real silk and a rich red, dark and bright at the same time, like sunlight through wine.

"Lovely colour," he said, turning it over in his hands and trying not to think of what else they could do with it.

"Yes." Toreth took back the length of silk, walked away a few paces, then stopped when Warrick failed to follow him. "Come on."

"Where?"

"To see the second thing."

All of the shop's walls were hung with curtains, in different styles and fabrics. Toreth walked along until he came to a heavy dark blue drape, then looked around. He lifted the curtain slightly and simply walked behind it, into what ought to have been solid wall. After a moment, his hand reappeared, extended palm up.

Warrick look round too, but saw no one observing them. He took Toreth's hand and allowed him to draw him forwards.

The space behind was far too small to be considered a room. More of a cupboard, or a niche, housing ducts and piping running from the floor to the ceiling. It was barely large enough for two people, leaving a little space for manoeuvring. The only light was what filtered through and round the thick concealing curtain.

Toreth still had hold of his hand. He turned them so that Warrick stood with his back to the pipes, then took his wrists and wrapped the silk rope around them. It felt quite different to leather or steel, or velvet manacle linings, or even ordinary rope. The soft length slid over his skin as Toreth carefully tied the knots, the tasselled ends stroking his palms. He closed his eyes — just for a moment — enjoying the feeling.

And then, before he could react, Toreth lifted his hands above his head and secured the ends of the rope around the largest pipe.

He tugged, not too hard because he didn't want to risk damaging the pipe. "Toreth!" he whispered.

"Yes?"

"What are —" On further consideration, the 'what' was fairly obvious. "Stop it."

"No. Not a chance." Toreth closed the few centimetres between them, hands on his body, mouth against his mouth, dizzying him. "I'm going to fuck you. Now. Right here. I know you want it."

No arguing with that. And even if he tried to deny it, his body was telling the truth. He closed his eyes again as Toreth's hand moulded around his cock, rubbing through fabric. Almost as arousing, he could feel Toreth's erection, hard against his hip as he pressed against him. Wanting and being wanted and the silk cord around his wrists . . .

"Tell me you want it," Toreth whispered against his throat. "Tell me you need it."

His lips parted, silently shaping the words. Tempting as the idea was, though — and, God,
how
tempting — he couldn't do it.

"Plastic duck."

Toreth stepped back at once. "Really?"

"Really."

Toreth sighed, reaching to untie the ropes. "Spoilsport. You're no fucking fun at all." Not entirely joking — Toreth hated to be thwarted, even as he always respected a serious no.

Once his hands were free, Warrick used them to pull Toreth close while he kissed him. "Don't sulk. Let's buy the curtains, go to your flat, and you can tie me to anything you like, for as long as you like. And do whatever you like to me."

Toreth laughed, keeping his voice low. "How
very
generous. I bet you'll hate every minute of it."

Warrick checked round the edge of the curtain to ensure that the coast was clear, and they slipped out, back into the shop.

"To return to the matter in hand," Warrick said, "the question is, what colour? And what fabric?"

"Velvet. The stuff we were looking at first. And this colour." Toreth held up the silk tie-back. "Looks good against your skin."

"Are you sure?"

"Very."

"I'll go order them."

Toreth handed the silk rope to him. "Buy this, while you're at it. And another three to go with it."

As he turned away, Toreth stopped him, lifting his hand to touch his throat where he'd kissed it only a couple of minutes earlier.

"Better make it another four."

The SimTech security guard let Toreth go up in the lift unaccompanied, which didn't always happen. Maybe, Toreth thought, his dinner jacket and glossy evening-dress shoes had added a veneer of respectability. As well as the dinner jacket he was wearing, he had another with him, picked up from Warrick's flat on his way here. Warrick had been caught in the office, working out some life-or-death technical problem, making it impossible for him to get home.

As he stepped out of the lift, Toreth checked his watch. Ten minutes early — not bad. Should put Warrick in a good mood for the evening.

The office door was ajar, so Toreth simply pushed it open. Warrick sat at his desk, intent on the left-hand screen. He didn't react to the intrusion.

"How's it going?" Toreth asked.

Warrick looked up, frowning slightly as though he'd been expecting someone else. "Fine." Then his expression cleared. "Ah, you remembered the suit. Thanks."

"Sara left me a memo." He laid it over the desk, and the shoes in the attached bag thunked against the wood. A solid, heavy and robust desk, and there had been a few times in the past when Toreth had been grateful for Warrick's taste in furniture.

"I hadn't realised it was so late." Warrick hesitated, then stood up and unzipped the front of the suit protector. "Look, I still have a couple of calls I have to make. I can do it while I change. Would you mind waiting outside?"

Toreth grinned. "Sure."

The admins were long gone, so Toreth sat in one of their chairs and put his feet up on the desk, still smiling. Maybe Warrick had calls, maybe he didn't. Either way, what Warrick had really meant was that if Toreth stayed in the room while he stripped then they'd probably end up being late. Ten minutes early wasn't
that
early.

He'd been waiting for only a couple of minutes when a woman he didn't recognise came into the office. He didn't think that he'd seen her at SimTech before. She was dark-skinned — beautiful Indian colouring, with skin like dusted chocolate — and petite. Nice, actually.

Probably expecting Warrick's admin, she stopped when she saw him there instead, so Toreth continued his inspection. Her clothes were hard to place on a brief glance — smart and not cheap, but a little too casual for general corporate standards. Maybe a SimTech programmer after all.

After a few seconds of silence they both spoke together.

"Have you — "

"Can I — "

She laughed, and he gestured graciously. "Go on, after you."

"Have you seen Doctor Warrick?" Her voice was surprisingly low for her tiny frame.

Toreth pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. "In his office."

He waited until she was level with his chair before he added, "Changing into his DJ, so you might want to wait."

She stopped and, as he'd hoped, leaned her hip against the edge of the desk. Up close, he guessed her to be in her mid-thirties. He also noticed that she was wearing a visitor's badge like his own. Good. Fucking SimTech staff required a tediously high level of discretion these days.

Toreth uncrossed his ankles, swung his feet off the desk and sat up in the chair. Was that a flicker of appraisal in her expression? Maybe even appreciation.

"You don't work here, then?" he asked.

"No. I work for a corporation called P-Leisure. Minority-market product development." She rotated her shoulders, her neck and spine popping. "Ouch. I've been in the sim with Doctor Warrick all afternoon. He was putting the sim through its paces for me, showing me some new applications."

P-Leisure. He ran his eye over her again, this time with a view not to how attractive he found her — still very, but less than ten seconds ago — but how Warrick might see her. Was this who Warrick had been expecting when Toreth opened his office door?

"Did you want to speak to him, or are you just saying goodbye?" Toreth asked.

"Actually, I've already done that. I was on my way out, but the lift won't respond to my pass." She looked at her watch. "Damn it."

"I'll call security, shall I? Get someone to escort you out."

"That would be very kind, thanks."

Toreth pressed a button on the admin's comm. They waited in silence, because Toreth couldn't think of anything more to say to her.

Or rather, he could think of plenty. Did you fuck him in there? What did you do? Did he enjoy it? Have you done it before? Will you do it again? Do you want him, outside the sim? Is that why you're here?

Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. It didn't matter what the woman looked like, or what she'd been doing at SimTech, because Warrick was so married to his precious corporation that he'd never do anything so unprofessional as letting sim-fucking bleed over into the real world.

Just like he didn't that first time, going from a guided tour of the sim to an evening with a stranger at the Renaissance Centre.

That was a stupid comparison, Toreth told himself firmly, the admonition doing nothing to quell the unease.

It didn't take the guard long to arrive. Lucky, because however pathetic it was, the urge to ask the first question was becoming unbearable.

Did you fuck him? He had bite his lip to stop himself blurting it out.

As the woman left, thanking him again, Toreth lifted his left hand in farewell. His right was clenched under the edge of the desk, tight enough that his nails dug into his palm. The bitch waved cheerfully back.

"I'll tell Warrick you were here," Toreth called.

He wouldn't, of course.

As the car started off, Warrick yawned, obviously catching himself by surprise.

"Hard day?" Toreth asked.

Still yawning, Warrick shook his head. "A long day," he said when he could. "And rather tiring, but not especially hard."

"Oh?"

"No. I spent most of the afternoon in the sim, which is always enjoyable, even if most of what I was doing was a demonstration."

Of fuck tech? "Anything interesting?"

Warrick shrugged. "An overview of the system for a new sponsor liaison. Nothing that you haven't seen, I don't think."

Not very reassuring, given what Toreth and Warrick had done together in there. He didn't like the word 'liaison' either. It reminded him of Carnac.

Warrick settled back into the comfortably upholstered seat, tilted his head back on the head rest, and closed his eyes. Toreth watched him narrowly, unable to stop himself wondering.

'He was putting the sim through its paces for me, showing me some new applications'.

He fucks in the sim all the time, Toreth told himself. It's work, that's all. It's just his fucking job. It doesn't mean anything. I handcuff people all day, but that doesn't make them regular fucks.

It didn't help much.

The car stopped to allow pedestrians to cross. A couple stood on the kerb, ignoring the people jostling past them. Mother and teenaged daughter, he guessed. The younger woman — still a girl, really — was nearly in tears, gesturing furiously as she tried to make some point. Her mother looked to be close to losing her temper, shaking her head from time to time, offering a short phrase or two that only seemed to exacerbate the confrontation. Finally, the car moved away, leaving them behind. Toreth wondered, vaguely, what they'd been arguing about.

He leaned his elbow on the windowsill and watched the world slowly passing as the car crawled through the tangle of evening traffic. The street lights were out-competed here by festive decorations. They had moved out of the university area into one of the shopping districts, and pedestrians crowded the pavement. Most of them looked preoccupied and harassed. Shopping for New Year presents, maybe; there were certainly plenty of people burdened with multiple bags.

Toreth hadn't decided what to do for New Year, and there were only a couple of weeks left before he'd have to make up his mind. Warrick had hinted obliquely that he'd be welcome at Kate's — actually, he'd told Toreth that Tarin was planning to spend New Year with his semi-estranged wife. Toreth guessed that the unrequested information was the prelude to an invitation.

He might even say yes. At least at Kate's there'd be no annoyingly fuckable random women for Warrick to take an interest in.

The real problem with the sim was lack of forensics. Warrick could've spent all afternoon screwing the Indian woman and there would be nothing to give it away — no lipstick, no stray hair, no scent on his skin. Toreth sometimes still came in the real world when fucking in the sim, but Warrick never did.

All Toreth had was the perfectly casual admission that Warrick had been in the sim today. Of course, there was no reason why it shouldn't be casual; Warrick didn't know that Toreth had met his visitor. As Warrick didn't consider what he did in the sim to be real sex, it probably wouldn't matter if Toreth had told him. There was no realistic way of assessing the threat — no concrete evidence that there was a threat at all.