Just One Touch (4 page)

Marcy
blinked at her, and then, mouth open, turned her attention back to
the audience, her mic back on. “Do I have any bids at one hundred
five?”

Everyone
looked amongst themselves, likely just as confused as Marcy on
whether or not Melody's bid was real.

Others
shook their heads and left, the bid way out of their price
range.

“
Going once. Going twice...” Marcy waited much longer than
required at this stage before she finally gave in. “Sold, to the
client on stage.”

Chapter Two

Dex
thought for sure that his number was up when Melody fell to her
knees in front of that huge crowd of people. With his hand on her
when she fell, it might have looked as though he'd pushed her down.
Hardly violence against a human, but it was arguable, at any rate,
and if someone had decided to argue that, it wouldn't have been
long before he'd be strapped to a table being
euthanized.

Luckily,
that hadn't been the case. Now he was being led away by handlers,
and papers were being drawn up, transferring his ownership to the
one female he'd ever looked at with real affection, rather than
contempt.

It was
easy for him to feel such things for her, considering they'd been
kids together.

Or, as
much as a semi-human could be a kid.

He'd
been fourteen when Melody's mother had purchased him, bringing him
into her house for companionship after, what he had learned, was a
bad divorce.

The age
thing sounded bad if you thought of it in human years, but, as a
stag, by the age of fourteen he'd had the body and mind of a horny
twenty-five year old, and was of legal age to be bought and sold.
Engineering stags to come of age faster meant they could be sold
quicker.

Despite
that, the older woman never had sex with him. Even though she
bought and sold stag and doe for her living, she was firmly against
any sexual activity with one who was not of age in human and stag
years. Regardless, when she discovered Dex's engineered ability,
she had no qualms about inviting him into her room.

It had
been the worst sort of hell for Dex, and probably the main reason
he had resented the woman so much. He gave her all the pleasure she
could ever desire through touch alone, and in return she refused to
have sex with him, always ordering him out when finished. Their
clothes were always firmly in place.

She
thought she was pioneering some movement for the stag age law,
meanwhile, Dex felt nothing less than tortured.

He and
the daughter of the house had seen each other, of course. Many
times. Though Dex had his own place to eat and sleep that was not
included in the family area, it was impossible for them to not come
across each other once in a while in the halls or library. The
house was of decent size, but not that big, and their rooms were
practically beside each other.

He could
still remember the confused gaze he got from her at eleven,
transforming into an angry glare by twelve when she realized what
he was, which in turn became a silent indifference at thirteen, and
by fourteen and fifteen, she became curious again, only not in the
innocent way it had been when she'd been a skinny little
kid.

He still
chuckled when he remembered the first time she'd propositioned him.
The first time he realized he was attracted to her too, was not a
memory that made him smile.

It had
been a frightening, and novel concept, at the time, considering he
was engineered to be attracted to older women, and not girls his
own age, despite how much older he looked compared to
her.

Now she
was back, in the one place he never thought he would ever see her.
In their younger years, he'd never thought she would ever stoop to
coming to an auction hall looking for a stag. She'd never seemed
the type who would ever need to purchase a stag, but with her
mother owning one when she herself was just a young girl, who
knew?

To keep
his handlers from seeing the fists he was making with his hands, he
held them together in front of him. Down, nonthreatening, easy.
Everyone he passed in the hall was still giving him that odd look,
wondering if he really did what he did on stage, or whether it was
a show to get more money out of the sale.

It was
real all right. Dex had two advantages that other stag did not. One
of them being the touch abilities he had that no other stag was
engineered to have, and the fact that no one in a lab coat had ever
been able to duplicate it.

Well,
Melody should be pleased. He'd finally used the ability she'd
always wanted him to use on her. Now he just had to see
her.

Melody
was brought to meet the manager in charge of seeing to the affairs
of the convention. Because the event was being held in the rented
space of an airport, they had to ask to use one of the empty
offices of an associate. Transferring a hundred thousand dollars
wasn't exactly something that could be done out in the open
safely.

They
were given fifteen minutes in the space, no one sat down in any of
the chairs.

When Dex
was brought in, still being held in his chains between his two
handlers, their eyes met, and Melody had to look away.

She
didn't know him anymore. She barely knew him then, and now they
were strangers to each other.

There
was some questioning as to whether or not she had the funds to make
even monthly payments on the sum she offered, but again, she pulled
up her banking information and got to work on the
transaction.

Not
cash, as preferred, but for a payment this big you couldn't expect
it.

She
transferred the full amount into the manager's account with little
fuss, and everyone stared with open mouths at her. Dex had both
brows raised only slightly as he watched the exchange.

Handing
over three months of her income for him was worth it, but from now
on she had to keep low key on the fact that she had so much to
spend.

The
manager, a blond woman, her hair pulled back into a tight bun with
sharp features, was the first to come out of her haze and offer her
hand in congratulations for the purchase, and her
thanks.

“
I'll be wanting to take him home immediately,” Melody
said.

The
manager bowed her head only slightly. “Of course. I'll have the
package delivered at your convenience.”

A slight
tinkling of chains had her looking over. She caught sight of Dex's
hands, clenched in front of himself, gripping the chains, his
shoulders tight.

“
Wear this,”

Dex stepped back, eyes wide and mouth open. She could see the
whites all around his blue pupils, and the healthy colour of his
tongue as he stared in horror at the button down shirt she held. “I
can't wear that!”

She looked down at it, and saw absolutely nothing wrong with
the blue cotton plaid shirt she'd snatched from her best friend's
brother's locker. She'd only done it because he was on the the air
ball team, and looked about the same size as Dex, and also that he
was constantly throwing his clothes around, leaving them on the
sidelines for a game and always forgetting to take them back. He
wouldn't miss it.

And it matched Dex's eyes.

“
Why not?”

“
Because,” Dex's tongue came out as he wet his lips. He looked
away from her, at her too pink walls, and threw his hand into his
hair. This was the most anxious she'd ever seen him, even in the
beginning when she started commanding him to her room.

"It's inappropriate,” he finally said.

“
You walk around all the time without a shirt on,” she said.
“Why is it bad to wear one?”

She thrust the garment at him, but he pushed her hands
back.

“
Do you know what can happen to me if I try and pass myself
off as human?”

She didn't. Nor did she care if they slapped his wrist and
called him a bad boy. She wanted him to look normal, and not like a
stag who was having sex with her mother when they thought Melody
was asleep.

Luckily she'd had a bit too much to drink again after her
time with Dex, and would be passed out until morning. Didn't mean
she slept like the dead, however.

“
Put this on, or I'll scream,” Melody threatened, holding the
shirt out to him.

For the first time since he'd come into her house, she saw
real anger in his eyes, right before his hand snatched out like a
striking snake, taking the shirt. "Fine, princess,"

She'd blushed at the familiar name he sometimes called her.
Usually it was playful, coming from him, but now it sounded more
like an insult.

He put it over his shoulders, but didn't button it up.
Probably couldn't even if he'd tried. It was too small for his
bulging muscles, and the seams stretched under the strain. Melody
had thought it would be a tight fit, but hadn't guessed it would be
that small.

“
Better?” Dex asked, sneer never leaving his face.

Melody's face was hot, and she turned around before he could
see how red it was becoming. “Much.”

She sat on her bed and faced him when she felt herself coming
back under control. She patted the spot beside her on the bed.
“Sit,”

He didn't move.

“
I gave you an order.”

“
I heard it.”

She tilted her head, searching for something on him...she
didn't know what. It was easy to forget he wasn't human in that
shirt. The collar covered the bar code on his neck. His feet were
still bare, but she doubted she'd be able to get him into socks and
running shoes.

“
You're different from other stags.”

His brow raised high at the observation. “You've been around
other stags to know?”

“
No, but all the commercials say you're supposed to be this
obedient thing that does what he's told, when he's told to do it.
You don't act like that.”

“
You're right, I'm not like other stags. And I'm not a
thing.”

Melody looked down, watching the way his fists clenched
tightly, hidden by the fact that he was holding his hands together
down in front of himself.

Smart too, she thought.

“
That won't be necessary,” Melody said to the manager. “I'll
drive him home myself.”

The
manager kept her face the same, but she did give the slightest tilt
of her head before consenting. “As you wish. He has no previous
history of violence against handlers or owners. I see no reason to
delay your journey with...details.”

“
I do have two other stag I would like to be delivered,” she
said.

“
Of course. Our transpo trucks are at your service,
madam.”

No
kidding. After the amount Melody paid, she wouldn't doubt it if the
woman in front of her would hand deliver Dex to her front door
wrapped in a pretty blue bow if Melody asked her to.

Instead
she just nodded pleasantly, shook the hands of the people in the
room, and allowed the handlers to put Dex's chains into her
hands.

They
were heavy in her fingers, and she turned her eyes up to Dex. The
air around her was humming like there was a live electrical wire in
the room. Did he feel that too?

“
Let's go,” he said, and turned around and began walking, as
though he weren't on a leash with Melody holding the other
end.

She
didn't live far, only about an hour's drive away from the
convention itself in a town house in New-New York City, renamed
thus after the great floods reshaped the island so many years
ago.

She had
to call her assistant with the news so that she could have a room
prepared for Dex's arrival.

He'd sat
next to her in the car, silent as the grave, just looking out at
the houses and trees as they passed.

Was he
angry with her? For lying and allowing her mother to sell him all
those years ago? For buying him now? For growing up to become a
handler? She wished he would say something. He'd always been
smarter than other stag, more alert of things beyond what he was
engineered for, almost human. Was it possible he'd been worked on
since he'd been away? Could somebody have gone into his head and
re-programmed him to behave more like a normal stag? Was that even
possible?

The two
homosexual males held hands as they were shown into the back of the
transpo truck, but Melody had Dex ride up front with her. He raised
his brow at the invitation, as did the pimple-faced teenager who
was helping her with the loading, but otherwise she did as she
wished.

"We'll
have no interruptions for the drive," she said, turning off her
phone.

He
didn't say anything to her for the entire trip.

Very
telling, that was.

Melody
called her assistant to prepare two rooms for when she arrived.
Stag rooms were small, about the size of a walk in closet, and
usually fit nothing more than the bed itself, a small dresser with
which to keep the few clothes a stag needed, and some sex toys to
keep them occupied when there were no humans around for
them.