by Todd Young
“You are gonna make me, aren’t you?”
“What did you tell Akam?”
“I tried not to speak to him. Well, at first I did. Then he wanted to know about the barracks, so I told him. I told him everything I could, but I didn’t tell him that.”
“He wouldn’t care, Theo.”
“You think?”
“I know he wouldn’t. But I think I should tell him.”
“Why?”
Riley shrugged.
“Can you not?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Hell. So many fucking things I wanted to ask him. I was afraid to. I didn’t understand half the fucking things he said.”
“Yeah. I’m getting the picture.”
“Are you mad at me?”
Riley shook his head, and then they turned to one another. For a moment, Riley felt as though he was looking into a darkened mirror, and he wondered if he’d ever get used to this. He could see why Akam thought it’d take Theo a couple of months, but after that, well, he’d have to move. He’d have to move a long way away. He sighed, and then smiled tentatively, and Theo mirrored this with a smile of his own. He wondered again what it’d feel like to kiss him, and glanced at his lips. It would be so easy, but thinking of it made his heart flutter. He lifted his gaze to Theo’s eyes, and their look lingered for moments.
“We better get some sleep, huh?”
Theo nodded. He smiled wanly. “Thanks, Riley. Thanks for everything.”
They settled down, and Riley remembered handshakes and wine and snow, and they talked about those things for a moment.
Then Theo said, “I’ve got no idea where Seattle is. You understand that, don’t you?”
10
Theo fell asleep soon enough. His breathing deepened, fell into a regular pattern, and he sighed. Riley lingered on, and was just drifting off when his watch rang. It was on the other side of the dresser, so he had to get up. The screen read: unknown caller, a message he’d never seen before. He frowned and clicked to answer. A ghost-like, scratchy image appeared for a second and then winked out. He stood in silence, staring at the darkened screen. It would ring again in a moment.
“I think it was a woman,” Theo said. He was lying on his side, propped on his elbow, and the comforter had peeled away, revealing his chest, tightly muscled in the darkened room.
“Yeah? Did you see it?”
Theo nodded.
Riley thought of Susen, and then of Akam. He’d caught a glimpse of a figure, but that was it. He held the watch for a moment longer, but wandered back to the bed, staring at it. He placed it on the edge of the dresser, where he could reach it, and then lifted his eyes to Theo’s.
His face was mussy with sleep.
“I was dreaming of an elephant,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Riley got back into bed.
“We were riding it, you and me. We were in a jungle somewhere, and we were brothers. You were sitting in front of me, but I had the reins. And I asked you if I could fu— … if I could stick my penis up your bottom.” He let a beat of silence pass. “You said yes.”
Riley bit back a smile.
“So can I?”
“Would you let me do that to you?”
Theo nodded enthusiastically, his head bobbing on his neck. He lifted his hand to touch Riley’s face, but Riley gripped it, and pushed it firmly back to his thigh.
“Orrrah!”
“Go to sleep.”
Theo pouted, glowering at him, and then turned over with a huff, gathering the comforter around his neck.
When Riley woke in the morning, he was lying on his side, facing the bathroom. Theo was behind him, his body pressed close. His cock was nestled against Riley’s asshole, and it was soft and warm. Riley closed his eyes, his breath hitching as he realized where he was and who was behind him. Theo had one arm draped over his hip, his fingers curled against Riley’s nipple. Riley’s cock was hard. It had lengthened out of his fly, and he was aware that it had been jerking, that he had been dreaming of sex, of something, for the past many minutes, though he couldn’t right at the moment think what it was.
Something white and hazy and warm. Summer.
He didn’t want to move. A tendril of fear began to uncoil in his chest, fear of discovery or arrest, but the sensation of Theo’s soft cock, pressed firmly against his hole, was so overwhelmingly pleasurable that he forced his fear down. He swallowed, shut his eyes a little tighter, and held still for a moment.
Theo’s knees were behind his, a bunch of his toes were curled into the instep of Riley’s right foot. He was breathing deeply and steadily, his chest rising and falling against Riley’s back.
Tentatively, Riley pushed back a little. He felt Theo’s cock and balls mush into his crack and press against his perineum. He took a sharp breath and his cock jerked.
Carefully, he lifted Theo’s hand, slipped out of bed and headed for the bathroom. He showered, and came out in a towel. Theo was still asleep, but had rolled over. Riley dressed quickly, slipping into a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt. His windbreaker was on the back of the door. It was six thirty, and he had to be at work at eight. He closed the bedroom door, fixed himself some cereal and ate it in the kitchen along with a mug of coffee. Creig’s shower was running, but he’d most likely already eaten breakfast. He’d leave as soon as he was dressed.
Riley carried a mug of coffee through to Theo. He was still asleep. Riley put the mug on the dresser and slipped back into the living room in search of his tablet. He found it on the sideboard.
“Theo,” he said, shaking him gently.
Theo woke astoundingly fast. He flipped onto his feet from a sleeping position, a staggering acrobatic maneuver that sent the comforter flying. He stood on the mattress, his hands held rigidly, poised to attack.
Riley put a hand on his throat, his heart thumping.
Theo fixed his eyes on Riley’s, then relaxed. He dropped to his knees, fell sideways onto an elbow and yawned. He stretched, dropping a hand behind his head and expanding his chest. He shook his head in a sudden flurry, slapped his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and then lifted his eyes. “You woke me up.”
“I’ve got to go to work.”
“Akam said.”
“I won’t be home till five thirty at the earliest. It’ll probably be later. Five forty-five. Maybe even six.”
Theo nodded.
“I made you a coffee.”
Theo pushed himself up. He sat against the headboard, and took the mug.
“Creig’ll go out in a minute, any minute now, but stay in here till he leaves.”
Theo took a sip of his coffee, but didn’t respond.
Riley sat on the edge of the bed and turned his tablet on. Something was bugging him. Yesterday, Akam had said that all fingerprints were identical, but surely that couldn’t be right. Surely identical twins shared identical fingerprints. Theo and he were the same in every other way.
He searched twins fingerprints identical? and scanned the results. There was something from a site called “scienceusa.” He skimmed it and learned that Akam was right. Fingerprints were laid down during gestation, and twins’ fingerprints varied due to the way they interacted with the interior of the womb.
He nodded, taking this in, and then glanced at Theo. He was sipping his coffee as though he was alone in the room. Riley turned back to the screen, frowned, and then typed in origins universe documentary. The top four or five videos all seemed to be the right type of thing. He let out a breath and turned to Theo.
“You know how to use this?”
Theo nodded.
He angled it toward him. “If you watch one of these, or a couple of them, you’ll get some answers, but …”
“I’ll work it out.”
Yeah, Riley thought, he probably would. He certainly wasn’t lacking in the smarts department. Even so, it would have to come as bit of a shock, moving from a flat earth universe to a
vastly different picture.
“You know how to use the 3TV?”
Theo nodded again.
“It’s mostly propaganda. If you watch a movie, though, or a drama …”
Theo was frowning.
“I guess you don’t know what propaganda means?”
Theo lifted his eyes. “I just woke up.” His voice was clipped, his eyes narrowed.
Riley nodded. He got up, gathered his watch and strapped it on. The apartment door slammed, Creig on his way out. He wandered toward the door and then turned. “You gonna be okay?”
“I’ll be thinking about you all day.”
Riley couldn’t help smiling, and Theo grinned, which made him feel a little better. He obviously wasn’t a morning person, but could jump straight from sleep prepared to kill, apparently.
He closed the bedroom door gently and then the apartment door behind him. There was a pool on Seventeenth Street. It wasn’t exactly mandatory to engage in daily exercise, but it was expected. You couldn’t really hold down a conversation at work if you didn’t do something, run or swim or bike. Riley had run track at college, but not because he was good at it. These days he preferred to swim.
As usual, the pool was crowded, the mutter of early morning voices echoing in the pavilion. He found a spot on the bleachers and undressed, folding his windbreaker and his jeans and his T-shirt, and then slipping his underpants inside his jeans, where they couldn’t be seen.
He’d often thought it odd that nudity was acceptable in a society in which you could barely mention sex, or acceptable only if you were swimming, whether it be a pool, the beach, a lake, or a stream. You couldn’t be naked anywhere else or you’d be arrested. But for some reason, if you were swimming, it was not only acceptable, but some sort of unwritten rule. He would have attracted some pretty odd stares if he wore something into the water, though he sometimes wished he could. No matter how skilled he was at not looking, he occasionally caught sight of a guy he liked, and then had to steel himself against an erection.
He stood on the blocks and took three deep breaths before diving in. The pool was salted so there wasn’t really any need for goggles. And he liked the ease of simply arriving, peeling his clothes off, swimming his laps and then leaving.
The water was warm, and as he slipped into it, he thought of what Theo had said about being in a tank. He pictured an upright cylinder, a room full of these cylinders, but had no idea if it had really been like that. From what Theo had said they must have taught him language before he was born, so he’d come out of that tank speaking, and aware. And he could almost see it, Theo breaking into the light and breathing his first breath, staring with those dark, mistrustful eyes at whoever was with him.
He kicked forward with his feet and fell into a regular rhythm.
Yesterday, he had been here and his life had been routine, but now here he was, twenty-four hours later, and everything was changed. Worse than anything were his feelings for Theo. He’d spent so much time looking at himself in the mirror that he didn’t know whether his reaction to Theo was genuine or not. He guessed he was likeable enough, but they were very different. And obviously, in the privacy of his room, it would be very easy to give Theo what he wanted, and he wanted to, but where would it lead?
He pushed off the end and turned back, stretching his body and feeling his spine crack. He broached the surface and pushed forward, stroking rhythmically toward the far end.
Theo would be gone in a couple of months and what if they got caught? He couldn’t end up like Akam.
[] [] []
Erran was standing at the controls of the roller door when Akam arrived. He grinned cynically, or if it wasn’t cynical it was at least the impression he gave. Akam ducked under the door and stepped into the hub, and then stood, looking out at the unit’s secret hideaway as the door clattered down behind him.
They’d had the van in here the other day. The space was part of an underground parking lot that had been sealed off at some point in the past, though how they’d done it, he didn’t know. They were sitting below a ninety-eight-story tower, but had access from the alley at the side. It was one huge room, with an oversized screen on the wall and a couple of rows of desks in front of it. It looked a little like NASA’s mission control, but was perhaps a little pathetic. Right at the moment there was a map of America on the screen, and when he first saw it he’d been impressed, but two months later the image was still the same. The screen had been installed to track their operations, and he had pictured sitting here, tracking an operative as he moved through the city. But right at the moment they didn’t have access to the CPF’s public camera network. When he first joined, he’d been told they’d have access very soon; they had access to virtually everything else. Still, it hadn’t happened yet. They were working on it.
Aside from this central room, there were four offices, two on either side of the screen. Behind the desks, facing the screen, was a large, dark area, an expanse of parking lot for thirty or forty cars, and often, when Akam was working, he turned, bothered by this empty space behind him.
Erran turned from the roller door. “July’s in her office. She wants to see you.”
Akam nodded.
“The three of us need to talk.”
Erran was six foot and broad and about as handsome as any man could hope to be. He had short, brown hair, clear hazel eyes, and a strong jaw. He liked to dress in dark green shirts, and wore a wide leather cuff on one wrist. He wasn’t often clean-shaven, but that seemed to be part of the rebel at odds with the world image he was trying to make his own. He was a few years older than Akam, maybe twenty-seven or twenty-eight.
He turned and led to the way to July’s office.
Akam had had a hell of a meeting with Emily, his probation officer, this morning. She arrived early, at seven instead of eight, and then told him he must have got the time wrong. He’d been just about to take his testosterone supplement. The tablets were in his hand. He stepped back into the kitchen, swallowed them, and then turned on her.
“Why the hell would you castrate someone and then give them this stuff?” He rattled the bottle.
She smirked. She was an overweight, middle-aged woman with a bitter face, and he tended to get angry with her. He’d been told the testosterone could make him irritable, and he was sometimes irritable, but it was mainly her.
“We wouldn’t want you walking around with breasts, now, would we? If we didn’t give you therapy, you’d look like a freak.”
“Yes, but, what’s to stop me doing what you think I did in the first place? Isn’t the whole point of what you did to stop me?”
“No, dear, of course not. If you offend again, you’ll be incarcerated indefinitely. We neutered you in order to eliminate your genes from the wider pool.”
He stared at her for a moment, trying to take this in. “What? So in the event I marry I won’t produce a breed of deviants?”
She nodded, a wintry smile forming.
He felt like hitting her.
They’d had an hour-long discussion, but throughout it he hadn’t been able to rid his mind of what she’d said. Over the course of eighteen months of “offender reprogramming” it had never once been suggested to him that they thought homosexuality was genetic, but now, with that in mind as the reason for his castration, he couldn’t help thinking how typical it was of their philosophy. They’d never stoop to torture anyone; everything they did was based on their ideal of a moral and upright society, a society in which people were barred from divorce, from any action that might injure the sanctity of the nuclear family. It didn’t seem to have occurred to them that homosexuality, if it were genetic, might be carried by the female line, like hemophilia, or a number of other conditions. But if he put this to her she’d most likely shrug and say, “We’re doing what we can.” When they’d first told him he was being castrated, it had come as a shock, precisely because it was so violent, and so unlike them. But now, finally, it made some sort of sense. It wasn’t a pun
ishment at all. He’d never been able to understand why they gave him the testosterone, as it left him with as much libido as he’d ever had. He’d wondered if there was some trick to it, or if they’d made a mistake, and on that account had been too afraid to ask.
“Akam!” July lifted her head and smiled brightly. “How did it go?”
“Fine.”
“Riley’s taken him?”
“Yes. I’m still not sure we should have involved him in—”
“Don’t start again, Akam.” Erran’s voice was a bored drawl. He stepped into the office and closed the door.
Akam eyed him. “I had to tell Riley a few things, but like you said, he’s trustworthy. He’s certainly not going to report us.”
Erran took a seat. “We’ll be keeping an eye on him anyway.”
“What?”
“We’ll be watching him. We’ve bugged his place.”
Akam turned to July and sat hesitantly as he said, “You approved this?”
She had her hands clasped in front of her, but spread them and shrugged. “I think it’s wise.”
“He’s my friend.”
“He doesn’t need to know,” Erran said.
“Who’s doing the monitoring?”
“I am.”
“Right. So you’re going to be spying on my friend? On one of my best friends?”
“I’ll be keeping us safe, Akam — us and him, and 8T3O.”
“Theo.”
“Yeah. Whatever. Theo. Give me a break, okay? I’m tired.”
“When did you plant the bugs?”
“Yesterday.”
“You didn’t even know … we didn’t even know if—”
“We took a chance, Akam.” July winced as she said it. “We assumed it’d go okay, and now you’ve told us it has.”
“Anyway, we haven’t got a signal.” Erran stretched. “Tom’s working on it.”
