“JT?” Austin said. How many times he had said it, JT didn’t know, he was so lost in the haze. He barely felt like a physical thing anymore. “JT?”
“Yes?” JT said, nothing more than a hiss of air.
Austin whispered in his ear, “You’re worth being loved. One of these days, someone’s going to realize that, and they’re going to love you. Say it for me and I’ll let you come. Say, ‘Someone’s gonna love me. I’m worth being loved.’”
JT couldn’t say it. He didn’t believe it, and just now, he couldn’t lie.
“Say it, JT.”
“I’m worth— I’m worth— Someone’s gonna—”
Someone’s gonna love you.
Buzz was huddled in the dark near the truck’s passenger door, shaggy copper-brown hair everywhere. He looked asleep. As cars passed them and headlight glare drew across the cab, JT could see Buzz’s eyes were closed and his lips pursed as if he was dreaming of kissing. Buzz had asked for access to the truck’s network, so JT had given it to him. Buzz’s mind in the truck’s computer alongside his was even more of a presence than his physical body there in the cab. It felt as if Buzz were standing just behind him, almost touching but not. And if JT just leaned back, there Buzz would be, solid as flesh.
Somehow Buzz kept it all quiet—no SFPD pursuit or Pacifica Bureau of Investigation requests made—and they slid across the Bay Bridge with no pursuit. It was a two-hour drive up I-80 with no magway to Tahoe, where they’d rendezvous with 3djinn and hand off the data block. They’d get there just after sunrise.
Austin lounged in the truck bed in the space left by Drone Two’s absence. It had to be uncomfortable wedged in back there like that, but of course Austin didn’t look uncomfortable. He looked far more comfortable than JT, Buzz, and Victor all smashed into the cab, especially with Victor sitting in the middle.
—Hey, Buzz sent to JT. It didn’t sound like speech. It sounded like JT’s own verbalized thoughts, though with an alien quality, a tone or timbre or color that wasn’t JT’s own. The alien quality was intentional, placed there by the translation protocol so that the receiver didn’t develop paranoia.
—Hey.
—Open ports AB12 through AC12.
—You want to feel the air pressure in my tires?
—Not the truck’s ports. Yours.
—Oh. AB12 through AC12 were the ports used for simstim transmissions. JT kept those ports firewalled with exceptions only to integrate with the machines he needed. JT didn’t open them. —If you wanted to hack my mind, could you do it?
—That’s disgusting.
—But could you?
A long pause. Darkness outside, nothing to measure the time between question and answer. —Maybe. Probably, yeah. But I wouldn’t ever—
Probably, yeah. Probably, yeah, Buzz could take over JT’s mind and drop him into a hallucination so profound it would damage JT’s psyche permanently. Probably, yeah, Buzz could fry him the way that Roan had been fried. And, yes, it had probably been someone like Buzz who had killed her. Probably, yeah, Buzz could delete JT’s memories or add a few of his own and maybe JT wouldn’t even know it. Probably, yeah, Buzz could make JT think he was in love just like Austin’s glamour did.
JT added Buzz to the exception list.
At first, JT couldn’t quite tell what Buzz had sent him. A pleasant sensation, sure, but strangely disconnected from any other sense. Then the pressure grew on his lips, and something pushed past them into his mouth, warm and soft. Buzz was kissing him. Or Buzz was transmitting the sensations of being kissed directly into JT’s brain. Nothing parted JT’s lips, though he felt Buzz’s tongue. Nothing pressed his lips flat, though he felt Buzz press into him. And there was no taste at all coded into the simstim packet.
Then the sensation faded until all that was left was tingling in JT’s lips and tongue.
—Thank you for saving me, Buzz sent.
—You’re welcome. That was nice.
—Was it? I wrote that.
—You’ve been writing simstims?
—New hobby. Just messing around. You on autopilot?
—Yeah.
—Good. Lean back. ’Cause I wrote some other things too.
That consolation sex, five years ago?
JT had edited his memories same as everyone’s ever done. He’d taken safety scissors and cut out all the parts that hurt too much. (And sometimes on the reverse side of those pages had been the best parts of other memories, everything mangled now.)
Austin had whispered in his ear, “You’re worth being loved. One of these days, someone’s going to realize that, and they’re going to love you. Say it for me and I’ll let you come. Say, ‘I’m worth being loved.’” And Austin fucked him and JT vibrated beneath him, balanced on the edge of an ecstasy that felt like madness. “Say it, JT.”
“I’m worth being loved.”
JT had come forever, it felt like. Like he’d always been coming and would never stop. He whimpered and clawed at the blanket and his cock and balls pumped and throbbed. But Austin’s kisses branding his neck and shoulders, Austin’s fingers entwining in his, holding his hands so tightly, he wouldn’t allow himself to remember. And minutes later, hours later, years later, it seemed, they’d rolled apart and faced one another. They were still holding hands, and neither let go.
On the blanket between them was a white puddle the size of Lake Erie. Austin broke into a grin, like all that come had been his. “Christ, I’m amazing.” And then he grabbed JT and kissed him hard. “Someone’s gonna love you.” And maybe you’d think that Austin was teasing because that’s what Austin did, but the way Austin’s eyes had looked into JT’s, JT knew Austin wasn’t teasing. Those words might have been the most sincere words Austin had ever said to him.
Why can’t it be you? JT had thought with the force of thought that was almost but not quite speech. Why can’t you love me? Why can’t it be you? He’d untangled his fingers from Austin’s, the last time he’d ever dared to hold Austin’s hand.
The cutting-room floor of JT’s mind was littered with memories in Austin-shaped pieces.
Austin had forgotten how much he liked watching JT sweat.
North of the Sacramento sprawl, they had pulled off for a battery exchange. The unmanned, sketchy-looking cinder-block building, tucked in a clearing amid fir trees one K off the highway, was nothing much more than a restroom and shower. There was a vending machine too, but the Plexiglas front of it had been shot away and all the candy bars had been stolen. Surrounding the building were picnic tables. Behind it was a metal rack with slots for fifty or so batteries. Lights next to half of them said green; the other half said amber. Cables led from the rack to a half-acre sun farm that filled the rest of the clearing.
The exchange worked on the honor system: replace what you take. It didn’t seem like that should work to Austin. It seemed like someone should just take all the batteries the same way someone had taken all the candy bars. Austin was hungry. Someday he would find the guy who’d stolen all those candy bars.
JT’s truck ran on batteries and fuel cells, both. His drones ran on batteries and recharged from the truck. After the fight on Telegraph Hill, everything was nearly tapped out. So JT was pulling the batteries from his truck, slotting them into empty charger slots, and replacing them with fully charged ones. It wasn’t a difficult task, but the truck was high off the ground; the batteries weighed about twelve kilos apiece, and though the sun had only just risen, it was already ninety-five in the valley.
Buzz was sitting cross-legged in the truck trying to contact 3djinn. Victor—without any warning—had grotesquely popped one of the silver eyes from his head and begun polishing it with a black silk handkerchief embroidered with runes. He didn’t cover the gaping socket and no one wanted to be near him. Nebraska, invisible to everyone but Austin, was out hunting for rocks. And Austin sat on a sun-blasted picnic table and watched JT sweat.
JT was trying to straighten a bent rail in one of the slots near the grou
nd. Bending over like that stretched his jeans over the most perfect ass Austin had ever seen. JT’s chopped-up flannel shirt (way too hot for this weather here) pulled up and his jeans buckled out in a V, exposing the small of his back and the waistband of a pair of blue underwear. A bead of sweat ran down his spine to the waistband where it soaked into a spreading darker blue.
“When did you start wearing underwear?” Austin said.
“When I got tired of walking into investor meetings and having everyone stare at my junk. I don’t know how people wear them.”
Other people aren’t hung like a horse, Austin thought. JT didn’t like comments on his size.
“They’re uncomfortable as hell,” JT said. “What’s so hard about making a pair of underwear that fits orcs? It ain’t particle physics; it’s fashion. Are you staring at my ass?” JT stood, hiked up his jeans with his thumbs, and tugged his shirt down. But he kept his ass turned to Austin and only looked over his shoulder.
JT was flirting. It was practically a goddamn miracle.
“I was until you just ruined it. Bend over again.”
JT gave him a sly grin. “What if I’m done here?”
“Then show me what to break so you can fix it again.”
“Lucky you, I don’t have to pretend.” And JT bent over and went back to trying to fix the bracket. And when his jeans rode down and his shirt rode up, he didn’t try to fix that.
Through his jeans, JT’s ass was just the right combination of muscle and smoothness. Hard thighs stretched the denim tight, and arms glistened green under the sun, straining against bent steel. His lug-soled work boots ground in gravel. When JT stood and whipped off his ball cap and wiped his brow like a hero from some old simflick, Austin couldn’t help but smile. JT snorted a laugh, all bashful now. “You enjoying yourself?”
“You’re in a better mood.”
JT glanced at Buzz. “I suppose I am.”
That little glance was like a cold knife to Austin’s gut. And Austin had been stabbed in the gut plenty of times, so, yeah, it really did feel just like that. JT turned back to his repair project, though why he bothered, Austin didn’t know. He supposed it was some other part of the honor system that ran this place: you saw something broken, you fixed it.
JT said, “Why you still got that rock? It’s just junk.”
Austin looked down at his hands and, goddamn, there it was: limestone with a malachite stripe. He hadn’t even noticed he’d taken it out and been fiddling with it, rolling it over his fingers like it was part of some magic trick. “Yeah, it’s just junk.” He rolled it in his hand a bit more, drew back to fling it as far as he fucking could, then palmed it and dropped it back into his little satchel with the only other one he had left. It was stupid to throw away magic, wasn’t it?
He didn’t want to watch JT work anymore. He jumped down from the table. “I need to go find some more rocks.”
“You think they’re going to keep after us?”
“Until we get the Blue Unicorn to 3djinn, they ain’t gonna stop.”
“You ever gonna tell me what this Blue Unicorn thing is?”
“Buzz,” Austin shouted. “Buzz!” And Buzz finally came back to earth from whatever network he’d been communing with. “Get that thing ready. It’s time to see what we got,” and Austin tromped off into the woods to find Nebraska, the only bit of sanity the world had left.
“I need root access,” Buzz said.
“No,” JT said, watching Austin disappear into the woods. Austin was pissed again, JT knew it, but he couldn’t figure why. If anything, it should have been JT pissed at Austin, not the other way around. But he wasn’t pissed anymore, was he? However many lies Austin might have told, Buzz had still needed saving, Austin had been right about that. And reconnecting with Buzz, that was worth putting up with Austin, wasn’t it?
“Your truck’s system isn’t configured to handle the Blue Unicorn. If I’m going to show her to you, I need to change a few things.”
“No, it’s my truck.”
“You trusted me to send sims straight into your head, but you won’t trust me with your truck?”
He had a point, there. They’d passed a good half hour of the drive with Buzz trying to get a reaction out of JT: a barrage of virtual kisses on JT’s lips and neck, strokes along JT’s body, a tug at one nipple, and finally a tentative stroke around the head of JT’s cock that had made JT growl loud enough for Victor to give him a worried look. Buzz had snickered at that. JT had mumbled some excuse about traffic to Victor and sent to Buzz, —Give me some of those programs. We’ll see how you like it.
—Hell no. Write your own. And if you didn’t like it, you could have always closed off those ports.
—Oh yeah? And JT closed them.
Buzz had laughed aloud, which had earned his own look from Victor.
“Fine, I’ll trade you. Access for access,” JT said.
“I ain’t dumb enough to let you in my head.” Buzz had one deep dimple when he grinned broad like he was. In the morning light, his hair showed copper, the same color as his freckles. He was the cutest damn thing JT had ever seen.
“Not the access I’m thinking of.” JT put an oversized hand on the back of Buzz’s neck and steered him behind the cinder-block building where no one would see.
JT pushed Buzz against the wall of the exchange. That sweat and nervous scent on Buzz, that smell was fucking heaven. But nervous or not, Buzz didn’t flinch or pull away or whimper. He leaned his head back and exposed his neck to JT, and that earned a low growl. JT lapped the sweat from Buzz, hungrier for him than he’d ever been.
But maybe Buzz’s nerves weren’t all because of JT. “It ain’t over, is it? I mean there’s more coming, ain’t there? Maybe this ain’t a good time.”
JT sucked at the curve where Buzz’s neck met his shoulder. Buzz tasted salty, sharp, and metallic. “It’s a perfect time.”
“Last time you said that, we got shot at.”
JT ran a hand over Buzz’s crotch. Buzz was hard. JT dropped to his knees and looked up at him. Buzz looked nervously over at the tree line where Austin had gone. “What if Austin—”
“What about it?” It wouldn’t be the first time Austin had seen JT blow a guy. Austin only cared who JT fucked so far as it gave him ammunition for teasing JT later. And considering how Austin had reacted before to the idea of JT and Buzz together, he kind of hoped the elf reappeared at just the right moment. Imagine the look on Austin’s face when JT licked Buzz’s come off his tusks.
He tugged Buzz’s pants and boxers down to his knees. Buzz’s hair was copper orange just like he’d said. He was cut and his cock was pale pink, the head a shade darker. His nuts were tight and unshaven. JT turned his ball cap backward, then nuzzled at them, rubbing his face in Buzz’s crotch, inhaling Buzz’s tang deep like it was oxygen. JT tried to be careful as he could—even orcs got nervous when tusks got near their nuts—but there was bound to be a scratch or a nip no matter how careful he was. Buzz would just have to decide whether it was worth it or not, and JT was determined to make sure it was.
He liked the feeling of Buzz’s nuts on his cheek and Buzz’s smooth-as-silk cock brushing his forehead, his cheeks, his lips. He sucked at the tender inside of Buzz’s thighs: right, then left. He kissed Buzz above his thatch of orange hair. Buzz’s cock brushed along JT’s neck as he did. And then he took Buzz into his mouth in one long suck.
Orc mouths were bigger than a human’s and Buzz fit JT like he was made to be there. All the way down, JT’s nose in curly hairs, and the tip of Buzz pressed lightly against the back of JT’s throat, just enough to tickle and make him want to swallow. JT ran his tongue back and forth over the underside of Buzz. He swallowed and sucked good and hard, then pulled away until it was only Buzz’s head between JT’s lips, and then he sucked even harder. Buzz started whispering random bits of nonsense ecstasy—curses and half words and sounds that weren’t anything—and JT knew he was doing something Buzz hadn’t felt before.
> —Open up, JT, came Buzz knocking at JT’s mind. JT opened the ports like he’d done in the truck, and Buzz swept him with simulated touches, and even in the valley heat—a hundred degrees now—JT’s body went gooseflesh everywhere and he shivered. It felt like so many men—three, a dozen, he didn’t know—all stroking his body softly, along his arms, his chest, his flanks, the inside of his legs, long feather-touch strokes. He felt a hand on the back of his head, and it was a moment before he realized it was a real hand. Buzz held JT’s head lightly, rubbing his fingers against the stubbly hair.
—That’s it, JT sent to Buzz, not wanting to take Buzz out of his mouth, not even for a second. —Show me what you want. Fuck my mouth the way you want. JT put one hand on Buzz’s ass and another on the small of his back to brace himself better.
But Buzz just groaned and leaned against the wall and sent, —Just like that, JT, just like that. So JT kept it up, sucking, licking, swallowing, gliding his tongue around Buzz, until finally Buzz’s hips started to twitch forward.
Buzz’s sim strokes switched up, and JT’s nuts started to tingle. JT growled and purred at the sensation, not knowing whether it was his own or something Buzz was doing, and Buzz sighed as the vibration traveled along his cock, and his other hand tangled into JT’s thick bangs.
Pull my head down on you, JT begged without sending. Pull me down by my hair. Down by my goddamn ears. By anything. Take my mouth. Fuck me. Fuck me, Buzz. And JT sucked furiously. All of him was set on fire. His cock pinched painfully in that goddamn pair of underwear and too-tight jeans, and it wouldn’t take nothing at all to make JT explode. Just the right strong touch. And though Buzz flinched from the nick of a tusk, his hips kept twitching with need. But it wasn’t fucking, it wasn’t movement enough.
Austin would have fucked him. Austin would have used JT’s mouth until JT’s jaw hurt. Austin would have known what JT wanted and needed. And, for a moment, it nagged at him that Buzz wasn’t as rough as JT liked. But that thought never got more than half-formed.
The Glamour Thieves Page 7
