The Administration Series (157 page)

He turned away from the window, killing the thought deliberately.

Trapped, he had no choice but to wait until Warrick returned, carrying the gold-wrapped box. His cheek was coming up beautifully. Dillian would have a field day if she saw that, and God only knew what Carnac would think.

Warrick closed the shutters, sinking the room into twilight.

"Here you are." Warrick sat beside him and offered the box. "Go on."

With a sigh, Toreth took it and opened it — a data disk. "What is it?"

"Put it on and find out."

With the disk playing, the screen stayed black at first. Toreth settled back on the sofa, and Warrick edged along, closer but not touching.

"What is it?" Toreth asked again.

"Wait."

Slowly, the darkness faded — not disappearing, but seeming to shift into the background and edges. There were suggestions of walls and floor, everything shadowy and indistinct, except for the man in the centre of the screen.

Warrick, dressed in a loose, dark shirt and trousers, his feet bare.

And then Toreth knew exactly what it was.

On the screen, Warrick stripped slowly, not making the amateur's usual mistake of looking at the camera. Of course, with the sim there was no camera to tempt him.

"That is the sim, isn't it?" Toreth asked as Warrick's shirt came off.

Warrick paused the recording and nodded, a little rueful. "That obvious, is it?"

"Well, how old's the body?"

"Thirty . . . no, all right. Twenty-seven."

A touch of smug satisfaction lightened Toreth's mood. "You know, I've got the same waist size I had when I was twenty-seven."

"It's from the first truly high-res bioscanning system we bought. I was the guinea pig — I remember lying in it for the test scans while Lew calibrated the system. Motionless for four hours." Warrick contemplated the screen, tapping the remote against his unbruised cheek. "I had to process the file quite extensively to pull it up to the current standards, but it wasn't as bad technically as I thought it might be. The low lighting helps — I don't know how it would look in a high-illumination setting."

Toreth couldn't help smiling. "Very fucking seductive."

Warrick blinked, then grinned. "Sorry, no, it isn't really, is it? Not unless you're turned on by real-time spline reticulation."

"And are you?" Toreth reached out and found the back of Warrick's neck, massaging gently.

"Mmh." Warrick's head went back and he sighed. "Sometimes. If they're topologically interesting splines."

"Put it back on." Toreth released him. "And come over here."

Warrick obeyed both commands, moving up to sit against Toreth, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh, as the figure on the screen came back to life, dropping his shirt and then slipping off his trousers.

Now he was clad the only in the briefest of black silk briefs, which for the moment remained in place. Warrick lifted his head slightly, half smile curving his mouth, and started to touch himself through the thin silk.

Toreth surprised himself with a gasp — he hadn't even realised he'd been holding his breath. Not wanting to look away and miss a second of it, he groped left, sliding his hand up Warrick's thigh. Warrick's hand came down on top of his, holding him still.

Watch, was the clear message.

Okay, fair enough — it was Warrick's present.

There was, however, a problem. Either it was going to be just Warrick, which would be nice but not that novel, since he'd seen Warrick bringing himself off plenty of times, or . . . or there was going to be someone else. The idea bothered him. It would be better, as porn, but it would be unbearable to see Warrick with anyone else.

Maybe he should ask what was going to happen next. Maybe he should just enjoy it and not worry. It wasn't as if Warrick didn't know him and what he liked and didn't like — far too well, indeed.

Well enough to know how to distract him from recent events. How long since he'd thought about the tub? He ought to be going over it, replaying the panic, working himself up to a good long night of bad dreams.

Toreth shook his head sharply and concentrated on the screen.

It took him a while to notice the figures. To begin with he thought they were a part of the background, until the forms became solid enough to distinguish from the darkness. They weren't so much people as living shadows, featureless, androgynous, with a peculiar fluid grace. A dozen of them crouched or leaned against dimly visible walls, standing out only when they moved. They stayed back on the fringes, but as Warrick's eyes drifted closed they began to circle closer.

"Are those Yeses?" Toreth asked, whispering without meaning to.

"An unofficial outing, although we're restarting the programme at the end of the year. Now, shh."

The restlessly prowling group inched closer. Toreth was torn between wanting to see what they were going to do and wanting Warrick to get on with it. As if he'd heard the thought, the figure on the screen eased the briefs down, exposing the tip of his cock, sighing as he touched bare flesh at last. Toreth was mildly embarrassed to find his mouth was actually watering.

Finally, one shadow, bolder than the rest, came up behind him and slid its arms around Warrick's chest, smoky and semi-translucent, and he seemed to notice them for the first time. Too late, evidently, because as his head turned and his eyes opened, the rest closed round him in a rush. A swirl of darkness, glimpses of pale skin, the view finally clearing to reveal Warrick struggling futilely in their grasp.

Darkness slid from their hands, binding his eyes and mouth, curling round his wrists and ankles to form manacles, around his throat to collar him. Shadowy chains with floating, tattered ends still managed to hold him, legs apart, arms up and out. With their prisoner bound, the figures drew back, leaving him twisting in the chains, breathing harshly past the black gag.

A small, slender shadow knelt in front of him, and Warrick jerked in the chains as it touched him, pulling down the briefs. A few minutes of stroking and he was hard again; a few more and he was twisting in the chains, thrusting forwards. Then Warrick stiffened, his cry muffled by the gag as he came, and a second later a dark blur rippled over his body, seeming to originate from the shadowy hands on him.

He was still hard — sim magic — and the shadow kneeling before him didn't stop its attentions. Four more shadows detached themselves from the silently watching pack and flowed forwards, hands reaching for Warrick. Slowly, with inexorable strength, they pushed him to his knees.

Androgeny seemed to be optional for the whatever-the-hell-they-weres, because the figure behind Warrick was now most definitely male. Rip of silk, unexpectedly loud, as the shadow tore away the briefs. It knelt behind Warrick and placed its hand on his back with an oddly precise gesture. He stopped struggling at once, staying in place, trembling, as the rest of the figures drew away.

Warrick hissed, his back arching, as the shadow thrust into him hard. Protest or pleasure, Toreth couldn't tell. Probably pleasure to some degree, because he was still hard. The first shadow returned, lying on its side in front of him and swallowing his cock easily. The shadow behind him shifted, leaning in, fucking him harder, and Warrick bucked in the chains, moaning through the gag.

It took another few minutes before Toreth noticed that Warrick's body was becoming translucent — at first, he thought he was imagining it, but then Warrick shuddered, coming again, his head lifting. The darkness rippled over him once more, and when it was gone, Toreth could see the faint outline of the cock still thrusting deep inside him. The gag, too, was visible through his cheek, a thick tongue of black holding his jaws apart.

One of the shadows moved forwards and took hold of Warrick's head. Toreth barely noticed that its foot slid into the body of the shadow on the floor as it came closer still.

"Jesus fucking Christ." It took Toreth a moment to realise that he was the one who'd spoken. Warrick shifted on the sofa beside him, but didn't say anything.

The gag stayed in place — the shadow simply thrust through it into Warrick's mouth, the shape of its cock dimly visible as Warrick's throat spasmed. Acting, Toreth thought vaguely, because Warrick never choked in the sim. Not even underwater, when —

Easy to dismiss the thought, to focus his mind on the picture in front of him. God, he was hard — almost reaching the point of discomfort. Toreth shifted on the sofa, pressing down on his cock with the flat of his hand through the towelling robe.

"Want some help with that?" Warrick murmured.

"I wouldn't say no."

Warrick slid off the sofa, moving to kneel between his legs. Even as Toreth opened them wider, inviting, he couldn't help saying, "You'll miss the end."

Warrick smiled, hands sliding slowly towards their goal. "I've seen it before."

"You've seen that before too — mmh."

Warrick's fingers closed round his cock, and he groaned, sinking back into the deep sofa.

On the screen, Warrick echoed the moan, hands clutching convulsively at the shadow chains as another orgasm shook him.

Fuck, Toreth thought, he must've had fun making this. And then, briefly, what a weird bloody present to give someone.

However, coherent thought was becoming difficult as Warrick's head dipped in his lap, breathing out over him, licking, breathing again, hot and cool at once.

"Please." Toreth lifted his hands to push Warrick down, changed his mind, and laced them behind his own neck instead, arching his back against the sofa and lifting his hips.

"Please."

Mouth sliding down over his cock, and he was shuddering too, eyes locked to the screen, enchanted by the combination of the muffled gasps from the recording and the real counterpoint from his lap. Too good to last for long, and no reason to try to delay it.

"Ah, Jesus,
fuck
." He arched up again, eyelids closing as he came, Warrick's throat squeezing deliciously around him as he swallowed.

Afterwards, Toreth lay back, panting, watching the screen with rather less concentration than before. Warrick shifted round on the floor to rest his back against the sofa.

The scene had changed while his attention was elsewhere. The figures had drawn back, leaving Warrick alone in the centre of the screen, as smoky and translucent as any of them. The chains dissolved, removing the last thing that differentiated the shadow that had been Warrick from the rest. Toreth tracked him by eye for a few seconds before he was lost in the restless crowd, and a moment after that the figures dissipated, spreading darkness over the screen.

Warrick rested one hand on Toreth's thigh and picked up the remote with the other, switching off the screen.

"Not too arty?" he asked.

"Arty?"

"The present. For porn, I mean." Warrick looked round. "I have a broad understanding of the principles, obviously, but it's not my field and I've never tried to make anything before. I know it's rather short. I'm afraid I became a little caught up with the effects. The shadowing was — "

Just like Warrick to start a fucking inquest. Toreth leaned forwards and shut him up with a kiss. "It was fantastic. Just what I've always wanted. Do I get to keep it?"

"It wouldn't be much of a present if you didn't. I'd rather you didn't show it to anyone else, of course." Warrick raised a finger in warning. "And if I ever happen to flick on the screen and see it commercially available . . . "

Toreth grinned. "No fucking chance."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Warrick leaning against his leg, an enjoyable weight and warmth. In the post-orgasm glow, even the silence of the island didn't seem so bad.

Eventually, Warrick levered himself to his feet with a grimace. "Are you hungry? We can eat outside before it gets too cool."

When Toreth followed him into the kitchen, Warrick already had the fridge open and was taking out cartons. Cold air from the fridge made Toreth belt up his robe. Then he stood and watched as Warrick laid out the food — ready-prepared salads and snacks, all delicious-looking.

"I asked them to leave one meal for us," Warrick said. "I'll cook tomorrow. It's possible to have full service with this place — there is a cottage at the back for a couple of staff. However, I thought a little privacy would be pleasant."

So that was who the wall was designed to keep out. Thinking about that brought back the memory of the pool.

"What was the present for?" Toreth asked, hoping to distract himself.

"For?"

"I mean, what occasion?"

"Ah. Nothing in particular. I had intended to give it to you for your birthday, but it took rather less time than I expected to finish it. Then I thought that now would be as good a time as any."

Feeling guilty for something? He squelched the thought.

"Bring the bottle and glasses." Warrick picked up the tray and started for the door to the courtyard. Then he paused. "Or would you rather — "

"I'll be fine," Toreth snapped.

Warrick raised his eyebrows. "Very well."

He wasn't fine. They sat at the table and ate, and the gentle bubbling of the water grated on his nerves like broken glass. He pressed on stubbornly, not tasting the food, barely aware of the conversation.

No. This wouldn't ruin the weekend. Bad enough that Warrick had seen it happen — no need to compound the embarrassment with a further display of nerves.

By the time they'd finished eating, dusk had fallen. It was only when he looked up that he realised low lights had come up around the courtyard.

"Fancy another dip?" Toreth asked as he pushed his plate away.

"I'm not sure if . . . " Warrick hesitated, obviously not wanting to mention the earlier incident. "I remember that when we were kids, Jen used to threaten us with the direst consequences for swimming after meals," he finished lightly.

Toreth stood up before he let Warrick talk him out of it. "Well, I'm going in."

The touch of the water on his foot almost caused him to lose his balance and his dinner, but he fought the feeling down and lowered himself into the tub.