The Administration Series (106 page)
"Oh, fuck, no. Gee was fine. Didn't even sack him. It's hard enough to find people to work in those places without giving them the boot over a little thing like that."
A little thing like that. Sara simply stared, all attempts at a sensible reaction abandoned.
Toreth shook his head. "Funny how it's all so clear. I haven't seen him since that last day at the RC, and he was pretty fucking pissed off, I can tell you. Dragged me into his office, and — " He shrugged. "I broke his cane. And maybe his jaw; I didn't hang around to find out for sure. If I did, he never told anyone because nothing happened about it. Although he wrote to me later."
"What?"
"Gee wrote to me, after I left the RC. Pen and ink. He's got the most amazing handwriting, all loops. He knew my address, of course, from my file."
Could this, actually, get any stranger? "What did he
say
?"
Toreth shrugged. "No idea. Didn't open them."
Apparently, it could. "Toreth — "
"Couldn't really see the point, since I was never going to see him again."
"Toreth — "
It must have been her tone of voice that made Toreth lean back, instantly wary. "What?"
"I — " Sara stopped, considering. There was nothing she could say that Toreth would want to hear. Pity or sympathy would only anger him, questions about how he'd felt back then would do the same. Anything that tied what had been done to him to the present, and especially to his kinky thing with Warrick would meet with . . . what? Blank incomprehension, at best. It wasn't a path she had any business following, either. They were his issues, and his relationship, and if she tried to say something, she'd be doing it for herself, not for him.
"Have you ever told Warrick about him?" she asked.
Now Toreth stared. "Jesus, no, of course not. You know what he's like about that kind of thing — I&I sets him off badly enough and that's all legal. He'd blow a fuse, and then he'd go on and on about it. I don't need that kind of hassle."
Well, there was one sign of a basic grounding in reality, even if some of the reasoning was rather skewed. "Of course not, no, you're quite right."
"Anyway, I haven't thought about Gee in years. Weird, meeting him like that. He hasn't changed that much, except for being older. Still wearing the same fucking shoes, too. All that time I spent staring at them." There was an uncharacteristically uncomfortable silence, then Toreth drained his glass and said, "Do you want some wine? There's nothing important on this afternoon, is there?"
"No. I mean, no, there's nothing on. Red, please."
"I'll give them a kick about the food, as well. It ought to be here by now." Toreth rose, but didn't leave right away. He stood, staring at the door, lips pursed. Then he shook his head, and set off for the bar.
Watching him cross the room had temporarily lost its appeal, so Sara went to the ladies instead, in search of some soap and very hot water. She could still feel the print on her hand where Evans had shaken it.
While Toreth talked on the comm he kept an eye on Warrick, who lay beside him on the bed. He looked composed on the surface, if flushed and slightly bitten, but Toreth knew him well enough to see the irritation beneath. Warrick was pissed off because the call was from I&I. Toreth's job had intruded into Warrick's flat. Worse, it had done so right in the middle of a nice Saturday post-gym fuck.
Saturday routine, interrupted.
Especially annoying when Toreth had made a special point of wrapping things up yesterday to spend a whole day with Warrick. Trust some selfish bastard to want to confess today. He felt tempted to tell Parsons, or even a pool interrogator on duty, to handle the interrogation for him, but the case was too important not to be personally present.
"I'll be three-quarters of an hour," he told the detention officer, regretting it even as he said it. There was no point delaying, though. If he and Warrick fucked now the summons would loom over the whole thing and spoil it.
He finished the call. Warrick rolled over onto his back and pillowed his head on Toreth's stomach.
"You have to go?" Warrick asked.
"Yeah. Work."
Toreth didn't move, though. He lay watching the clock, determined to wring every second out of it. Sometimes he really felt like resigning, and then . . . Unfortunately, there was never an 'and then' that he could come up with. I&I had always been his life. I&I and now Warrick, and he hated it when the two got in each other's way.
"Sorry about this," he said. "I can't guarantee when I'll be finished, either. We can pick it up tomorrow, if you like."
Warrick sighed. "Much as I'd love to, I'm afraid I can't tomorrow. I've arranged to see Dilly."
Clearly, Toreth wasn't invited. A shame in a way, because he always liked to see her, even though she didn't like to see him. "Can't you cancel?"
"No, it's too late. We have plans. And we're both so busy that if we don't make plans and stick to them, then we never get together."
In a general sense he knew Warrick did lots of things without him. Work, family, friends. But he rarely considered them in any depth, or in a way that made them feel real. The idea made him mildly curious (and maybe a touch jealous). "Where are you going?"
"Out for brunch. Then there's a lunchtime concert and afterwards we're probably going shopping. I'm making dinner for some of her university people in the evening."
"Shopping for what?"
"Supposedly furniture. She's finally decided she hates the things in the flat too much to live with them, now she's going to be on Earth for a while. But I expect we'll end up with the usual things."
As if he ought to know what they were. "The usual things?"
"She buys clothes to wear twice and leave behind next time she goes off world. I buy things for the kitchen." After a moment he added, "You'd find it very boring."
"Oh, I don't know."
"What,
shopping
?"
"I could give it a go." For one thing, watching Dillian trying on clothes wouldn't rate very high on his hardship scale.
Warrick twisted round to look at him. "That wasn't a serious suggestion, was it?"
"Yeah, why not?" He ran a finger along the line of Warrick's jaw, enjoying the slight roughness. "We'd have to go to the right kind of shops, that's all." An idea was forming. Even without Dillian, it could still be fun.
There was a short silence. "Toreth, if this is leading where I think it's leading, I'm not sure — "
"I am." He hadn't been, but Warrick's voice held that particular touch of real reluctance that made it irresistible.
"Not in public."
So that was the problem. "It wouldn't be in public, it'd be in a shop."
"Not with other people there, then. I wouldn't be able to . . . get into the mood."
"Yes, you would. Think about it." He twined his fingers through Warrick's hair. "Think about racks and shelves and drawers of gear. All the fuck toys you can imagine. It'll be so much better than virtual shopping. You'll be able to touch things, see how they feel. Try them, maybe. Choose exactly what you want; pick exactly what you want me to do to you. I'll buy it for you — whatever you want. And then we can get it wrapped and bring it straight home. No waiting. It can be a birthday present."
"It's not my birthday, and I don't want to do it."
Toreth couldn't recall a prisoner who'd ever made a less convincing denial. "Call it an early New Year present, then. Come on, you love the idea."
"No, I don't," Warrick said, despite some fairly solid evidence to the contrary.
He laughed. "I'll sort something out."
After that, getting up and going to work didn't seem so bad.
The reason Warrick hadn't protested more when it was first mentioned, weeks ago, was that he was fairly sure 'I'll sort something out' had meant it would never happen. After a while, when Toreth had failed to raise the idea again, he'd decided that he'd been right.
So when Toreth had left a message one Friday, saying he'd be round to collect him on Saturday afternoon, Warrick hadn't connected it with the previous conversation. It was a little odd that Toreth didn't say why, but not strange enough to merit serious thought.
The first twinge of concern came when Toreth was not merely on time, but ten minutes early. The concern grew when he wasn't even upset that Warrick wasn't ready. He merely waited in the hallway, whistling in the particularly irritating way that meant he was in a tremendously good mood.
"Where are we going?" Warrick asked as the taxi set off.
"It's a surprise."
That
was
worrying, and for some reason shopping was the first idea that came into his head.
"I said I didn't want to do that."
He knew he'd guessed right when Toreth smiled and looked out of the window, without saying a word.
He'd said he didn't want to, and he'd meant it. The fact that Toreth could turn him on by talking about the idea didn't mean a thing. When he used the right tone of voice, content wasn't very important.
What he did with Toreth was private. A few people knew, mostly people who'd noticed bruises and been concerned to one degree or another. Beyond that, at work, there were rumours and stories that he occasionally caught the tail end of. Inevitable, he supposed. And Sara had to know, of course. She went to Toreth's flat, for one thing, and the chains on the wall were hardly subtle. In fact, he didn't mind her knowing. He had at first, but he'd grown used to the idea, because she so obviously didn't care.
What they
did
, though, the process, the detail, the mechanics — they were secrets. His feelings about it were another level of secret again. Nobody needed to know about it and he certainly wasn't voluntarily putting himself on display.
Toreth loved it, of course. Making him react in public, setting up situations where he could turn him on, leaving him desperate and
wanting
. Watching him struggling through social events, sometimes having trouble remembering his own name. Warrick let him do it, because God, it was good in the end. From time to time Toreth went too far, and they'd argue and then, of course, the fuck afterwards was even better. Hopeless situation, really.
As hopeless as this one.
He was mildly surprised when the taxi stopped on the edge of one of the more upmarket shopping complexes. He'd been expecting somewhere seedy, somewhere dark and dangerous.
"Here we are," Toreth said.
Toreth opened the door of the taxi and waited for him, not saying anything else. This was, Warrick realised with surprise, a chance for him to back out, although it wasn't spelled out as such. He could tell the taxi to go home and Toreth wouldn't mention the thing again.
Warrick didn't, though. He climbed out, watched as the taxi pulled away, and then followed Toreth into the building.
He didn't want to disappoint Toreth, or reject the care and planning, which were gifts in themselves. And, yes, he could feel the first faint stirring of excitement at the idea of what might be ahead of him. What harm could it do to satisfy his curiosity about what Toreth had arranged? He could always change his mind later.
The shop was tucked in a quiet corner of the ground floor of the complex, away from the bright shop fronts. There wasn't even a sign, only a numbered door with a security scan, which opened for Toreth's ID. Beyond was a small, square room with a desk, half a dozen low upholstered seats and two doors leading from it. The walls and ceiling were painted a rich dark blue, with silver flecks on the upper half, suggesting stars.
The woman at the desk put down a hand screen as they entered, then stood up and came out from behind the desk. Her short hair was dyed black, with a green-blue sheen to it like a beetle's wing case. Short, plump and dressed in multilayered blue and silver that matched the walls, she seemed an unlikely person to be working in . . . whatever this place was.
She looked between them, assessingly, then turned to Toreth with a warm, welcoming smile. "Welcome to the Shop. Can I help you?"
"My name's Val Toreth."
"Oh, yes, of course. You called last week and spoke to Shel — I should have recognised the picture from the credit check. I'm Fran."
Toreth nodded.
"This is your first time here, isn't it? I can run through how it all works here, or downstairs, as you prefer."
"We'll go down."
"Fine. Let me just lock the door." She reached over the desk briefly. "We're a bit short-staffed today. There. Follow me."
"Wait." Toreth turned to him. "Shut your eyes."
Game voice. He hadn't meant to play in public, he thought, as his eyes closed obediently. Toreth led him across the room and he heard the door open.
"Steps down."
Toreth held his arm tightly as they descended, fingers digging into his biceps. The last noise of the city above faded out. Putting out his free hand, he touched a brick wall — painted, but he didn't open his eyes to see what colour.
