The Administration Series (96 page)

'Someone else coming inside me.'

He just didn't want to. Maybe all the travel had worn him out, but he'd rather spend the evening drinking alone.

Sara stood on the doorstep of Toreth's block of flats, her finger hovering over the comm screen, and had second thoughts.

Actually, they amounted to about two-hundredth thoughts. Maybe turning up unannounced hadn't been a good idea. When Toreth had left that morning, she'd decided to let him go, then changed her mind after a minute and gone after him. She hadn't found Toreth, but she had run into Andy standing by the fifth-floor lifts, staring towards the stairs and looking as though someone had punched him between the eyes. A quick recap of their conversation had convinced her that Toreth needed space.

But she couldn't leave him alone forever, and if she'd called he would have told her not to come round. He might be out anyway. She could always deliver her offering and leave. Anyway, she wasn't the one he was furious with.

Suitably reassured, she called his flat. Just when she'd decided that he wasn't going to answer, the screen lit up. He looked briefly disappointed, then questioning.

"What do you want?"

Sara lifted the bag she'd brought, and shook it so that it clinked.

Toreth smiled slightly. "Come up."

When he opened the door to the flat, she thought he looked less dangerous than he had at I&I, but more unhappy.

Sometimes Warrick irritated her intensely, because life had been so much easier before he came along. That said, she had to admit that there was more variety these days, between Toreth's regular coffee-break recountings of exotic sim fucks and his occasional panics over the whole concept of repeatedly screwing someone he also spoke to.

Anyway, Toreth had sat through enough of her broken hearts that she ought not to begrudge returning the favour. To Sara's practised eye, this latest episode looked something like a broken heart, even if she'd never seen the look on him before. Or even imagined it happening. She wondered if he'd noticed yet.

It took her a couple of hours and some carefully paced drinking to talk him round to the subject of Warrick. Luckily, he'd had a head start, so by the time he started talking she was still sober enough to listen and make the right encouraging noises. After that it took another hour to coax out the full story of the previous night. Or rather, a partial story that was good enough to be getting on with. At least it included an explanation of what had happened to his hand.

Her first thought was, good for Warrick. She wouldn't have put up with Toreth's screwing around for this long. Not that she let a hint of that show.

Instead, she said, "Do you think he really did it? It doesn't sound like him."

"Yes, he — " Toreth stopped and stared at her for a moment. "Christ. I never thought . . . no, he did it. He definitely did it."

"Weird."

"
Weird
? Is that the best you can fucking do?"

She heard the anger and resolved to ignore it. "What do you want me to say? It is weird, for him. I wonder why he did it?"

Then she shut up and watched him.

He filled his glass again. "How the hell should I know?"

Because
you're
the one screwing him, and because it's obvious to anyone with a functioning brain. It still surprised her sometimes that he could be so perceptive about everything but this. She bit her tongue and waited.

"He said — " Toreth stopped, looking down at his bandaged hand. "He said he wanted to hurt me. A revenge fuck, I suppose. Not that I care."

Sara hastily swallowed a mouthful of her drink, coughing a bit, and even he had the grace to look slightly embarrassed by how bad the lie was.

"I thought he didn't care about all that either," she said, unable to resist prodding just a little.

"He doesn't. Didn't." Toreth blinked, as though thinking too hard was pushing the world out of focus. "He wants it to stop. That's why he asked me about the . . . and told me about . . . yeah. He wants me to stop."

Halle-fucking-lujah, Sara very nearly said, but didn't. "Yeah, maybe."

He put his glass down on the arm of the sofa and ran his hand through his hair. "I could tell him I wouldn't do it any more. Fuck other people. I could tell him that."

To her amazement, she realised he was actually considering it, despite its obvious drawbacks. Specifically, that it would be a monstrously unconvincing lie. Maybe she'd overdone it with the liquid consolation, for both of them. The small living room suddenly felt hot and stuffy.

She hauled herself off the sofa and opened a window. "So, you want him back, then?" she asked as she sat down again.

"Back?" He looked baffled.

"Yeah, when you walked out you meant that as a goodbye, right? It sounded like a 'goodbye' to me. He said, 'stop screwing around', or words to that effect. And you walked. I suppose he must have known it was a risk when he did it."

Toreth closed his eyes for a moment. "Fuck," he said expressively.

"Didn't you want it to be goodbye?"

"No, I . . . " He frowned, the anger surfacing again. "Fuck knows."

"What
did
you want?"

There was a pause as he picked up his glass and downed the contents. "I wanted to kill him," he said with intense, drunken conviction. "I wanted to kill both of them. Bastards. And I wanted to make him — them — fucking suffer first. I wanted him to be sorry.
That's
what I wanted."

She wished he sounded rather less literal about it. "You aren't
going
to, are you?" she asked, almost involuntarily.

Toreth peered meditatively into his empty glass for a long moment, then shook his head. "'Course not," he said. "What do you think I am? He's a fucking corporate director."

Sara shook her head as well. "Have another drink," she suggested.

The room smelt like the interrogation rooms at I&I would if they weren't kept so religiously scrubbed and disinfected. Of blood and fear and pain. And death.

In a corner behind him, out of sight but marginally in his awareness, lay the body of Warrick's faceless revenge fuck. Very faceless, now. If Justice ever got hold of the corpse, they'd need to run a DNA check to find his name.

Not that they would find the body. And not that Toreth cared if they did.

All he cared about was Warrick.

He inspected Warrick as he hung from the chains that disappeared into the gloom above, his feet just touching the ground. He faced the rough wall, only a few inches away but too far to provide any support or rest. Cuts, weals and bruises made a patchwork of his pale skin. Rivulets of blood, dried and fresh, ran down from where the manacles had cut his wrists. His hair was matted with sweat, his head resting at an angle against his arm.

Toreth stepped up behind him and placed his hands lightly on his shoulders.

"I'm back," he said softly.

However bad the pain is, it's possible to sleep. Toreth knew this. Even chained and beaten and gagged, it's possible to sleep, if you're exhausted enough. Warrick's head jerked upright, and he moaned deep in his throat. Toreth dragged his nails down Warrick's back, bringing fresh blood welling from old welts, and a choked scream from the body under his hands, muffled by the gag. He jerked against the chains.

That should have woken him up nicely.

Carefully, Toreth loosened the gag and removed it. He wanted to hear him talk now — wanted it very much. He twined his fingers tightly in Warrick's hair, turning his head so he could see his bruised face in profile, and ran his other hand down his back again, gently, almost caressingly. This time Warrick didn't move.

Toreth put his mouth against Warrick's ear, in a cruel imitation of their game. "Say it," he whispered.

With a sharp tug, pulling hair through Toreth's fingers, Warrick turned his head away. With measured deliberation, Toreth smashed his face into the wall. That got a reaction, a gasp of pain, so he did it again. Fresh red splashes decorated the bricks.

"Say it."

Warrick spat blood, closed his eyes, and set his jaw defiantly.

Toreth didn't know from where he found the strength. Warrick had to know he wasn't going to let him go. He couldn't afford to, and he didn't want to. Warrick was going to die here. Maybe that was why he was still fighting. Because in the end it wouldn't matter what he did, except to himself.

He pressed up closer, so that Warrick could feel that he was hard, that he was going to rape him again whatever he said or didn't say. He didn't need to hear it, but, oh, he wanted to.

"Say it."

Silence. No more than he'd expected.

Letting go of his hair, he crouched down, set his hand in the small of Warrick's back and, after a moment's pause, slammed him hard against the wall. Chained as he was, Warrick had no leverage to resist him.

But he didn't fight. He hung against the wall, passive, accepting. Defying him by refusing to acknowledge the pain and denying him the reaction he wanted.

No one can resist forever.

Toreth's other hand stroked up the backs of Warrick's thighs, wandered up over his buttocks, and into the crack. Did he feel the muscles tensing, resisting him? Starting to fight back finally?

He forced his fingers inside Warrick, then his whole hand, then clenched his fist and twisted, pushing hard. Warrick hissed and struggled, only for few seconds, then stopped.

"I can kill you like this, you know," Toreth said conversationally. "Not quickly, but quite easily. Blood poisoning. Internal bleeding. I've seen people die like that — it's not pleasant."

He rested his head against Warrick's hip, the skin cool against his cheek. "Is that really how you want to die? All you have to do is say it, and it won't be like that. Say it, and then it'll all be over quickly, I promise."

Closing his eyes, Toreth turned his head. "Say it," he whispered against Warrick's soft skin. He could hear Warrick breathing, shallow and rasping. That was the only answer he gave.

Bastard.

Toreth pulled his fist out, still clenched, and the whimper of pain was a victory even if it wasn't what he really needed to hear. Standing up, he pulled Warrick away from the wall, into a parody of an embrace.

"I'm going to fuck you," he said, feeling blood slick against his chest. "I'm going to fuck you and you . . . you are going to fucking well say it. Say it now."

Warrick moved against him, before forcing himself back to stillness. He drew a breath in to speak. "Plastic duck," he whispered.

Thwarted again, Toreth laughed. "I'm not going to stop because you ask nicely. There's no safe word here. I want to hear you say it."

He wrapped both arms around Warrick's waist, holding him immobile as he thrust in as hard as he could. And even though all he wanted to do was hurt him, he had to stop to get his breath back because it felt so fucking good and he could smell Warrick's hair through the stink of blood.

Dizzy with wanting him, still, and this was all Warrick's fault. He'd started it.

"Say it."

No response. No fucking response.

He pulled out and slammed in again, harder. Again and again, and he started to lose control, losing himself in the memory of doing this before. Warrick's shoulders tensing under his hands, sharp gasps of pain and nothing more than that. No words.

Mine, you bastard. Mine. So say it.
Say it
.

A shiver wracked him, running down his back. Then another. He couldn't stop himself shaking. He clung to Warrick's shoulders, crushing him against the wall, his face against his neck. Despite the shivers, he felt hot, fever hot, and hottest of all where his cock was still buried deep inside Warrick.

"I'm sorry," Toreth whispered nonsensically. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Meaningless sounds, repeated on each heaving breath. "I'm — "

"Shh. Just . . . shh."

Warrick's voice, at last. Warrick's hands cupping his face, lifting it to look into his eyes. Then, before Toreth could focus clearly, Warrick kissed him, torn lips gentle against his own. Desperately grateful, Toreth opened his mouth, coppery blood flowing onto his tongue. It tasted sweetly familiar, but he couldn't remember why because at that moment a sound began behind him, distracting him.

Warrick must have heard it too, because he broke off the kiss. As he pulled away, Toreth tried to reach out to stop him, but the chains on his wrists held him back. Under the mask of blood Warrick's expression was cold.

"You can fuck me as often as you want," he said with icy precision. "That won't make me love you."

All Toreth could do was stare at him, as the noises in the room behind him grew louder. Someone was banging on the door. Someone had found them.

The curtains slapped against the back of the sofa, flapping in the draft from the open window. His neck ached from the cold air. Sara lay on the sofa beside him, fast asleep, with her head in his lap. At some point she had rolled over so that her mouth was pressed into his crotch.

Well, that explained a few things.

Sara muttered in her sleep, her mouth moving against his erection, accentuating the already arousing caress of warm breath through fabric. Very nice, but she wouldn't be happy to wake up and find he'd let her stay like that. Still, he couldn't resist leaving her there until he worked out what she was saying.

After listening to the disjointed fragments for a while, he realised that she was talking about m-f booking forms. He smiled faintly; he'd have to remember to tell her about that later. Sara always maintained that dreaming about work was as sad as it was possible to get. He carefully eased her head off his lap and onto the sofa.

The room felt cold, so he closed the window and found a coat with which to cover her. He didn't want her to wake up and start asking more questions. She murmured something about timetabling clashes, before she sighed and curled up.

Sad it may be, but on balance he'd rather have had her dream.