Bliss

by Lisa Henry

  But better that than wander around in a state of half-panic, wondering when the guy would attack, right? If he didn’t know better, Rory would have thought he couldn’t flatten a butterfly. He looked way too meek to hurt anyone.

  Well, Rory knew better all right. And had the busted nose to prove it.

  He sighed. “Listen, I don’t know what shit you spun your lawyers, but I’m from the outside too. We’re both Tophet boys, even. I know what it’s like there. If you’re prepared to give this an honest go, we don’t need to tiptoe around each other, okay?”

  Tate looked up, confusion written over his face. A tiny worried crease appeared at the top of his nose. “Please, sir, I want to do well. I want to be a better person. I want to repay my debt.”

  Yeah, right. That’s what everyone said. After they got caught.

  Wait, did Tate just call him “sir”?

  He sighed. “Rory. Just call me Rory. We’re living together so we might as well do it on a first-name basis.”

  Tate nodded quickly. “Yes, s— Rory.”

  “Okay, good,” Rory said, and Tate visibly relaxed. “Right, well, I’m going to heat up some leftover takeout for dinner. Do you want some?”

  “I’ll do that,” Tate said. “Please, let me.”

  “I’ll do it myself,” Rory said. “Just . . . just settle in, okay?”

  Tate nodded again. “Yes, Rory.”

  Tate wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do to “settle in.” He didn’t have any personal items to set up, didn’t have any clothes beyond a series of plain gray scrubs that they’d given him at the induction center. At least they weren’t prison uniforms. He put them in the dresser anyway and then sat on the end of the narrow bed.

  He could hear his new master—Rory, the man wanted to be called Rory—muddling around in the kitchen.

  Rory made him uneasy. He wasn’t like the doctor, or the guards, or even his lawyer. He didn’t ask questions. Didn’t give orders. Didn’t really show Tate his place at all. It left him unsettled, unanchored, and a little nauseated. He seemed nice enough, but nice wasn’t what Tate needed right now. He needed directions and orders, and for the man to put him in his place, where he belonged. He wanted to be back with the doctor. The doctor who’d made him do such terrible, wonderful things, and then praised him for them.

  Tate curled his hands into fists and squeezed his eyes shut.

  His head hurt. A weird, crawling feeling at the back of his skull that he wasn’t sure how to fix.

  “Now, if your head hurts, it’s because you’re not doing something right. You’re thinking the wrong things or you’re doing the wrong thing or there’s something you ought to be doing that you’re not.”

  If he could do something, that might make it better, but he was “settling in.”

  He stood up again, opened the dresser, and pulled all his shirts out. He shook them, refolded them, and put them back again. For a moment, the tension in his head eased, but then it was back, as bad as before.

  Guilt bit at him.

  How could he have hurt that man? Rory, his master.

  And now he was sitting here, letting the man cook for him?

  He felt ill. His stomach roiled and his joints ached, and oh God, he needed to do something. Because the longer he stayed in this room, the longer he did nothing to appease the guilt gnawing at his gut, the more and more unsettled he felt. Chills shuddered through him until his teeth chattered. He wrapped his arms around himself and clambered to his feet. The kitchen. He could clean the kitchen.

  He felt better now that he had a plan. Felt less . . . scattered, on edge. The prickling need faded, like a hunger slowly easing under the promise to feed it. The discomfort was good. It would remind him to work hard, to do the right thing. To serve and to repay.

  He left his room.

  In the kitchen, Rory had made a mess. Noodles and sauce were splattered all over the countertop, trailing from the now-empty takeout containers to the microwave. Rory was leaning against the counter, watching the timer.

  “I can clean,” Tate said nervously.

  “Shit!” Rory started. Color rose in his cheeks. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

  “I can clean,” he repeated.

  Rory opened his mouth, then closed it again. He stared at Tate for a moment. “Look,” he began at last. The timer on the microwave beeped. Rory sighed. “Just come and eat something, okay? Do you like chow mein?”

  “I like . . .”

  I like whatever you want me to like.

  Fuck.

  Help me, please.

  The words were trapped inside Tate’s head. He wanted to say them, wanted to push them out, but God, they’d hurt. They’d rip his head apart. He didn’t want them in there at all, but speaking them wouldn’t make it better. He wanted them to go away. He wanted them to have never existed in the first place. He wanted to be helpful, useful, to be happy.

  “I like chow mein.”

  Rory took the takeout container out of the microwave. He set it on the counter while he got a couple of plates from the cupboard. Split the food evenly between both.

  Tate worriedly watched him.

  He doesn’t like you.

  How could he? Tate had hurt him. Busted his nose and gave him those bruises and hurt him. Earning his master’s praise would be harder than earning the doctor’s or the guards’. Tate had never injured them. They only knew how bad he was from reading his reports. They’d never seen it, never felt it.

  Rory slid a plate toward him, along with a fork. “Eat.” He sighed and touched the purpled bridge of his nose. “Please. And stop staring at me like that. You’re freaking me out.”

  Oh God.

  “I’m sorry!” Tate said, his voice rising in desperation. He immediately averted his eyes. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I won’t look at you anymore.”

  “And stop fucking apologizing!”

  Tate froze, hunching over. Nausea rose in him.

  “Look. Just—” Rory made a sound of frustration. “I’m just going to come out and say it: I’m uncomfortable with this whole arrangement. Because you hit me, remember? Remember that?”

  “Yes,” Tate managed, fighting the urge to be sick. He blinked away hot tears. “I remember.”

  “I’m going to do my best to make this work, but I’m not naive.” Rory’s voice was calmer. “Like I said, I’m from the outside too.”

  The outside. Tophet. Tate could remember it . . . but he couldn’t. He could picture it, but he couldn’t feel it. As though every image he held of the place was as impersonal as if he were watching a documentary or reading a newspaper article. The slum housing he lived in. His clothes shoved in a box in the moldy cupboard. The bathroom down the hall where all the taps leaked. The water stain on the wall that grew every month. The syringes in the hallway.

  “You think you can look after Emmy? Here?”

  “I can do a better fucking job than you!”

  He could, too. He had, when he’d needed to. When Paula was so fucked up, either high or coming down, that someone had to.

  “You think you’re better than me?”

  He’d laughed at that. Laughed. Of course he was better than her.

  But now, with those words skittering around the edges of his consciousness, Tate didn’t understand it. He knew those people were in his memory, but he couldn’t feel them. Just words, recalled at random, with no context. The only thing that mattered was here, now, the man standing right in front of him.

  “I don’t think you’re naive,” he said, softly. “I just want . . .”

  I want you to give me orders. Make this pain and confusion stop.

  Rory watched him sternly, but there was a little bit of softness in him too. Between his eyebrows maybe, where the angry curve smoothed into something sympathetic. “So just cut the bullshit, okay? If you do that, then maybe we can actually make this work.”

  “I want it to work,” he said. “I do. I want to work
for you. I want you to be happy with me.”

  No, not wanted. Needed. But Rory didn’t understand that.

  Tell him. Tell him what they fucking did.

  Pain bit at him; the words wouldn’t come. Tate dropped his gaze again, his heart beating fast.

  “Okay,” Rory said, quiet, still a little wary. “So let’s eat our dinner and try to figure out how we do this, yeah?”

  “Yes.” Tate sighed with relief. At last, a direction he could follow.

  They ate in the open-plan living room, at the small table there. Tate wasn’t hungry, but he ate because Rory had told him to, and tried to remember everything he’d learned at the facility. About being on his best behavior. About being invisible until he was needed. About being quiet and neat and clean. About anticipating his master’s needs. About obeying commands. And especially about how those were the only things that could make him happy.

  “Can you cook?” Rory asked him.

  “I . . .” He hesitated. He didn’t want to lie to his master. “Some things, I can. Easy things. But I will learn the rest.”

  Rory wrinkled his nose. “What about gardening?”

  “I’ve never done it,” he said.

  Rory almost smiled at that. “Me neither. Never thought I’d have a garden.”

  Tate didn’t, either. Everything was pavement back in Tophet. And that was if you were lucky enough to live in a place with a yard instead of in the overcrowded apartment blocks.

  Nothing green or growing. The idea of being allowed to tend a garden was intoxicating. Not just because he would be serving Rory but because a garden was a luxury, a reward all its own. An undeserved reward. “Maybe,” Tate began hesitantly, “maybe there are books about how to do it?”

  This time Rory did smile; the question pleased him. “I’ll see what I can find on my way home from work tomorrow.”

  Tate sighed, hoping he’d found his footing at last. “Thank you.”

  They ate in silence for a while, and the strange not-hunger crept up on Tate again. He was itching to clean the mess in the kitchen. Itching to keep busy, to find a way to earn Rory’s praise.

  Rory stirred his fork around his bowl. “So, I’m just gonna clear the air here, and I’m only going to ask you once. Why’d you hit me?”

  Tate could hardly breathe. His hands shook, his fork rattling against his bowl. His face burned, but he forced himself to meet Rory’s gaze. He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to fall to his knees, to beg Rory for forgiveness, except—“And stop fucking apologizing!”—except how could he apologize if Rory didn’t want to hear it?

  Pain stabbed through his skull. Nausea rose in his stomach, and Tate struggled to keep his composure, to answer. “I . . . I don’t know. I wanted to get away.”

  Rory didn’t look angry. “Well, that didn’t work, did it?”

  “No,” he said, the sudden pain fading away again into nothing, his stomach slowly settling. “I’m glad it didn’t.”

  Rory rolled his eyes. “Of course you are!”

  I can’t tell the truth. I can’t tell you why I want so bad to tell you lies to make you happy. I can’t tell you. I’m trapped and I’m falling to pieces and I want to tell you the truth but the truth is ugly and I want to tell you a lie because the lie is pretty but I don’t want to tell you a lie because even the pretty lies don’t make you happy and I need you to be happy but the truth is, the truth, the truth—

  The chip.

  The chip wants to make me forget the truth. Never tell you the truth. Never make you unhappy. Never break its control. I have to lie.

  Help me.

  Help me.

  Help me.

  “Help—” he choked out as stabbing, searing pain shot through his head like electricity, frying every nerve and cell until he fell forward onto the table and sobbed. “I want to . . . I want to help.”

  The sudden scrape of chair legs on the floor as Rory stood. He was pale and drawn, standing there at Tate’s side, listing and lurching like he wanted to comfort him but also wanted to storm away. He was conflicted. Genuinely conflicted, not controlled, not trapped like Tate. “Are you . . . are you okay?” he finally asked.

  Tate straightened. “I just want to help.”

  Rory shook his head. “Fine. Help, then. Clean the kitchen up, and make me a lunch to take to work tomorrow. Make sure there’s coffee waiting for me in the morning. I-I’m going to bed. I have a long day tomorrow, and I’ve lost my appetite.”

  No. Please don’t leave me alone with this pain.

  But Rory was already gone.

  Tate sucked in a deep breath and sat there resting his aching head in his hands. When the pain had eased enough, he climbed to his shaking legs and carried both unfinished bowls into the kitchen. He made Rory’s lunch. He cleaned. Watched himself as though from a distance. Watched his hands, swiping the sponge over and over the counter. Stood there and did it for hours because he didn’t know what else to do.

  The house was quiet and dark before Tate had finished, before he was too weary to continue. He returned to his room and lay there in the darkness, consumed with misery.

  i, Rory,” Aaron said, scrubbing his fingers through his hair. Not that it helped any; he looked like a wreck, from the off-kilter tie to his bloodshot eyes. “I got hardly any sleep last night. I went out with some friends from school to catch up, and all of a sudden it was 3 a.m. Do I look that terrible?”

  A little bit, yeah, but Rory didn’t say so. Didn’t have any room to talk, really. He hadn’t slept either, but he didn’t even have a fun story to fall back on.

  “You look fine,” he said and hoped Aaron would extend him the same courtesy.

  Aaron barked out a laugh. “Thanks for lying.”

  Lying.

  His gut lurched, thinking of last night. That awkward dinner with Tate. Tate, who was so repentant and sweet and full of bullshit. Rory had read his criminal record. Tate had once served time in Tophet for theft and assault, and when he’d been arrested in Beulah, they’d found him with a bag of stolen property and a fake passport. He was only repentant because he’d been caught, and that was what irked Rory the most. Tate Patterson thought he could play the system in Beulah, where they really did believe all that rubbish about society being to blame. Well, Rory had grown up in the same society Tate had, and he’d never stolen anything. He’d never hurt anyone.

  “Do you want coffee?” Aaron asked. “I’m going to get coffee.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “And then I need your help to track down some info for Mr. Lowell’s speech, if you’ve got time.”

  “No problem!”

  Rory watched him go and slumped down further into his seat.

  He was too exhausted to even sit up straight. He’d spent last night tossing and turning because all he could think about was that there was someone sharing his house with him. Someone he didn’t trust, didn’t like, and who, for all Rory knew, was creeping into the kitchen to grab a knife and finish the job once and for all. Because nobody was that fucking contrite. Someone needed to tell Tate Patterson that he was overacting with his big fucking eyes and his hangdog expression.

  “Lying fucking asshole,” he muttered.

  “Problem, Rory?”

  Rory’s head snapped up. Shit. “I’m sorry, Mr. Lowell, I, um . . .”

  “Didn’t see me standing right here?” Lowell smiled. He grabbed the chair from Aaron’s desk, turned it around, and sat down. He rested his arms on the back. “Something wrong?”

  Rory sighed. He felt bad admitting to it, but nothing about Lowell so far had suggested he’d be anything but sympathetic. “I know it will probably sound pathetic, but I’m just . . . I’m having a hard time warming up to . . . my rezzy.”

  “Ahh,” Lowell said with a nod. “I should have known. Not that there’s anything wrong with you, mind. I don’t look down at you at all. But I do understand. It must be a hard adjustment for someone who hasn’t grown up with our customs. If you’d been here since childhood l
ike I have, you’d know how completely safe you are. We wouldn’t place a rezzy with you if we thought there was any risk to your safety or well-being.”

  “It’s not that,” Rory said, although it sort of was. “I mean, okay, fine. The guy who dropped him off said he was chipped to suppress violent urges, and I believe that. I trust the system, I do. But he just acts so weird. It makes me uncomfortable.”

  “How so?” Lowell asked.

  He sighed. “I don’t even know how to explain it. The constant apologizing. When he first arrived, he got down on his knees.”

  Lowell laughed.

  Rory raised his eyebrows. “Sir?”

  “Well, he’s playing you,” Lowell said. “Playing us, I should say. We look like a soft touch from the outside. He probably thinks he’s going to get some sponsor who’ll fall for his sob story and let him off without washing the dishes or something.”

  Rory relaxed. “That’s what I thought! But I haven’t let him off anything. And I think I may be harder on him if he keeps trying to trick me. Eventually he’ll figure out his plan is backfiring.”

  “That’s the ticket!” Lowell said. “These are just growing pains. I promise. Soon, you two will figure out a balance, and it will feel as natural as breathing. You might even become friends.” He laughed again, but this time probably at the face Rory was pulling. “Well, maybe not friends, but you’ll find your footing in a day or two, and it will be smooth sailing from there.”

  He couldn’t help but smile at the man’s confidence. “I hope so.”

  “Have a little faith,” Lowell said.

  Rory’s smile grew. “Well, that’s the problem with faith, sir. Some of us are just more comfortable with doubt.”

  Lowell laughed. “Don’t get too comfortable with it. The system works, you’ll see!” He turned in his seat as Aaron came back into the office. “Aaron, I hope one of those coffees is for me.”

  Aaron grinned. “Of course, sir.”

  “Good lad,” Lowell said. “Now, I want you to help Rory out today. No crawling off to the records room to sleep off your hangover, hmm?”

  “Sir, I would never!”

  Lowell laughed. “I’m just teasing you. I was an intern once upon a time myself. I know you kids have to let steam off sometimes.” He sipped his coffee. “Let’s just pretend your hard-ass boss isn’t here, and tell us what hijinks you got up to last night.”