by Noah Rain
I flared an elbow out, which is to say, I made Carmen think I was about to return a hook. She took the bait, and shuffled back with a quick-step. I mimicked her, tucking my elbow back in and darting backward. It only put about two feet between us, but it was enough to give me some breathing room, like taking shelter under an awning during a summer storm.
Carmen smiled again. She was enjoying this already, and, come to think of it, so was I.
The spar didn’t get as heated as I had expected it to. Not even halfway toward what mine and Scarlett’s had turned into. I don’t know if that was a result of some weird powder keg of tension that had gone off when the redhead had strolled into Jackie’ Gym, or if Carmen was just a hell of a lot more calm than she looked. Either way, my row with the Latina Vixen took on the complexion of my old sparring days.
Carmen landed a jab-jab, followed by a glancing knee to the midsection that grazed my hip bone. I returned the favor with a medium hook that caused Carmen to take a recovery step, even through her cage block. She shook her head and came on again, none the worse for wear.
Throughout the light duel, the two of us watched each other’s hips and torso’s, just as Scarlett and I had. Of course, Scarlett and I had probably allowed our gazes to wander a bit more, but Carmen and I were having too much fun to pay much attention to each other’s bodies in a more carnal sense.
That is, right up until we both switched stances and collided in an awkward tangle as we both attempted a step-in cross. I lowered my arms and attempted to back out of the exchange, but Carmen just kept the spar going, hooking her gloves around the back of my neck and pulling my head down. She sank a knee into my gut, and I wasn’t prepared. That one took some wind out of me, and Carmen seemed surprised as she let my head pull back and looked me in the eyes.
“Nothing?” she asked.
“Guess you should learn to hit harder,” I said.
That brought back a bit of that jungle cat ferocity, and Carmen let me have it. Or tried to. I wrapped her up, bear-hug-style. It wasn’t something you did in a striking spar, but then, we hadn’t really established ground rules, and since we were wearing boxing gloves and not open-finger gloves, I had assumed knees were off-limits. Carmen had bent the unspoken rules of our engagement. It only made sense for me to return the favor.
Carmen tried to wiggle out of my grasp, but I held her firm, breathing out like I was a meditation guru. She tried to escape again, but I just squeezed a little tighter, and she let out a laugh.
“Let go,” she said, realizing that I had no intention of doing that.
“You challenged me, didn’t you?” I asked.
“To a spar,” Carmen said. With her arms pressed into her sides and her gloves down at her legs, she had no leverage.
“Well,” I said. “Then we’re sparring. Go ahead, ‘best’ fighter in Silk City. Escape.”
“I could ram my forehead into your fucking nose,” Carmen said.
“I could do the same,” Konnor said. “Not saying I’d enjoy another broken nose, but I wouldn’t really feel it, after all.”
Carmen’s tight smile dropped. She tried to buck, and then she tried to sink down to her knees, but I held her firm. I didn’t squeeze her hard enough to take the breath out of her lungs, but now that I felt her up close, I was experiencing her in a whole new way. Carmen saw the look in my eyes, and rather than get angry or afraid, which would have prompted me to release her, she stopped struggling. Not completely. Not enough to give up the game. But a bit.
Her muscles relaxed ever so slightly, and I slipped my gloves off, easily tearing the Velcro straps off and letting them drop to the canvas.
Carmen leaned in, her lips brushing against mine. She planted her feet and tried to push herself off of me, and I followed her down, tripping her and boring her down to the canvas, and settling into her guard. She giggled, sounding more like Nina and Darla than the tough-talking, hard-nosed fighter she had been just moments earlier.
“Don’t you think you’re taking things a little too far?” Carmen asked, squirming under me, but not trying to escape all that hard.
“You don’t seem to mind,” I said, letting my hips press into hers. She made a satisfied sound, and wrapped her legs around me.
“I’ll need these gloves off,” she said, speaking more softly. Her bottom lip was quivering.
“You won’t need your hands,” I said.
“What?” she asked, eyes widening slightly, in playful, teasing fear.
I pressed against her harder, and brushed her ear with my teeth. “I remember what you told me last night.”
Rather than pull away, I felt Carmen pull me in. She had all her power in her hips. I doubted that I could have pulled away now if I tried.
“I haven’t put you through any of my tests,” Carmen whispered, biting at my chin. “And I don’t think Nina put every piece of you through those limit tests.”
I thought I had Carmen figured out, at least in part. She was a strong-bodied and strong-willed woman prone to domination. But deep down, Carmen wanted someone strong enough and confident enough to dominate her. That was why she had reacted so viscerally when I had revealed that my favorite position was thrusting into a face-down, ass up girl. Carmen might not be easy to picture in a position of complete and total submission, but she wanted nothing more.
To be honest, I was expecting a little more resistance out of her.
I leaned in and kissed her, tasting the salt on her lips. Her tongue was sweet, and while she shrank back at first, she leaned in hard soon after. You could always tell what kind of sex you were going to have judging by the kiss. How forcefully they pressed. How dexterous their tongue. Carmen was all hunger and passion. She wouldn’t be the most careful lover, or the most attentive, but I had no doubt that she would be the most aggressive, and every now and then, that was all I wanted.
“Ahem.”
I froze and tried to push myself up from the canvas. Carmen’s gloved hands were still over her head, but she had her strong legs wrapped around me, and she actually bit my lower lip as I tried to pull away, holding me in place.
“Carmen.”
With a frustrated groan, Carmen released my lip, and slowly unwrapped her legs. We were still clothed, but I could feel that more than sweat had wetted through my boxers. When I looked down, I saw that Carmen’s skin-tight shorts glistened, and I marveled at the beads of sweat rolling from her hip bones down toward the warm trench hidden by the material.
I looked to my left, and saw Scarlett standing with her arms crossed just outside of the ring, her expression unsurprised and unamused. She was wearing all black, but instead of her tactical, one-piece outfit, she had jeans and a tank top on. Her hair, as was usually the case, was bound back in a tail, and she was chewing a piece of gum.
I was washed in guilt that the rational part of my mind—an admittedly minor crevice—tried to explain away. Why should you care if Scarlett is jealous? That was what that little voice asked. She’s the one who brought you here against your will. She’s the one who loaned your body out to her compatriots for testing, and now, what, she’s going to be your commander in the field, leading you on missions on the wrong side of a shadow war between the Syndicates and the Guilds of Silk City?
“Hey, Scar,” Carmen said, not bothering to get up as I scrambled to do so, adjusting my gi in the process, and adjusting myself as best I could. Scarlett watched me, her expression roving and difficult to read.
“I need to talk to the new boy,” Scarlett said. “If that’s okay with you.”
“Is it really urgent?” Carmen asked. “We were in the middle of a spar.”
“Didn’t look much like a spar to me.”
“You’re one to talk,” Carmen teased. “We already know you fucked him, Scar. Fucked him well, too, judging by the way he looks at you.”
I felt my cheeks flush. Both wome
n looked at me, studying my reaction. Scarlett’s look was still clouded, complicated. Carmen’s was gleeful. She enjoyed putting me under the microscope.
“I wanted to see if I could beat Scarlett’s score,” she said.
“Her score?” I asked, finding my voice.
“Everything’s a competition with Carmen,” Scarlett said. “You’re no exception. But, joke’s on her. I don’t care if you beat my score.”
“Aren’t you curious about your score?” Carmen asked.
I was at a loss.
“Go ahead,” Carmen said. “Give Scarlett a score.”
“Like … physically?”
“No,” Carmen said. “We’re all hot as fuck. We know that. It doesn’t matter who looks best. It matters who fucks best.”
“I thought Darla was the only one who counted that as part of her job description,” I said, trying to move the subject away from me. It was strange, how I could go from being tied up and coerced into a drug-fueled orgy the night before, and now I was sweating bullets after being caught in a compromising position by a girl who wasn’t my girlfriend, and probably wasn’t even my friend.
Carmen only continued to stare at me, her chest rising and falling as she laid on her back, stomach exposed, shorts soaked through. She looked primed and ready to get down and dirty right there, whether Scarlett was present or not. She might even prefer it. I remembered her watching me with Nina and Darla the night before. She had enjoyed me, but her eyes had traced Nina’s tight little form most of all.
“Konnor,” Scarlett said, her tone direct. “I need to talk to you. In private.” She directed that at Carmen, who rolled her eyes and then rolled over onto her stomach, giving me a clear, close view of her best attribute. She pushed herself up onto her knees, and leaned back, sticking her ass in the air in an exaggerated overhead stretch. When she got up and turned around, she winked at me and gave me a playful jab on the cheek as she walked by and started untying her gloves.
I peeled the Velcro straps off of my gloves and climbed between the ropes, joining Scarlett on the mats.
“What’s up?” I asked, trying not to sound as awkward as I felt. I still felt like I was in trouble for something. Scarlett stared at me for a few moments longer, her arms crossed, then surprised me by smirking. She turned around and gestured for me to follow her with a curled finger.
I followed Scarlett out into the hallway, expecting her to turn around and launch into some kind of lecture. Instead, she cut right, taking me down another in a seemingly unending labyrinth of penthouse hallways. I was beginning to wonder if Sascha owned the whole building, and how much credit it must take to achieve something like that. Of course, the Vixens didn’t seem to operate by stealing credit, like other Syndicates, or by stealing assets. Instead, they worked in the currency of favors, which was still the oldest and most true form of trade on the planet.
We came to a steel door, which Scarlett opened, admitting us into a concrete stairwell. Scarlett went up, and I followed her. It was only a short distance. Maybe three or four flights, At the top, Scarlett pushed a smaller door open and we stepped out into the cool summer evening; apparently my escapades with Carmen had taken more time than I had thought, or I had slept later.
The rooftop was dotted with a handful of generators and innumerable chutes, vents and whirring fans. There was another doorway to our left, about the length of a basketball court across, and I knew this building was just like most of the others in Silk City—narrowest at the top.
The stars were probably out, but it was impossible to tell when you were looking at the sky over Silk City. Even before we walked over to the edge of the rooftop, I could see the pink, green and faded blue glow from the buildings below. It created a buzzing neon haze over the atmosphere that I might hate in a different mood, but tonight, either on account of being with Scarlett, or because I was out of the slums of Jaxton for the moment, it reminded me of being in a dream.
Scarlett propped one sneaker up on the raised edge of the rooftop and looked out over the Silk City evening. I stood beside her, just far enough away so as not to appear intimate, and went to speak. For the first time in a while, I found myself at a loss for words, so I, too, stared out over the city.
For a place that had come to symbolize the heights of human decadence, folly and corruption, the child in me still marveled at the sheer scope of Silk City. As I’ve mentioned, with the world being the way it is now, and with much of it being reduced to slums and suburban wastelands, it could sometimes feel like Silk City was the only place left, sitting on a glittering hill in the middle of a wide, black lake. Pretty as it was, I knew it was just a faux platinum eggshell covering a rotten, fetid core.
I grimaced, my awe and serenity souring more quickly than I’d have chosen. Scarlett looked at me, seeming to sense the change.
Her lips parted, and I found mine doing so to mirror her.
“Sorry.”
We said it at almost exactly the same time, then blinked dumbly at each other.
“What?”
Also in unison.
“Wait,” I said, holding up my hands. “Did you just say you’re sorry?”
“Well … yeah,” Scarlett said. “Wait … why are you?”
“Well,” I said, blushing as I looked from Scarlett out to the city, pretending to take a sudden interest in the makeup of Silk City’s highway system. “The Carmen thing. And. You know. The girls last night. All that—”
“Konnor,” Scarlett said. I felt her grip my upper arm through the gi. I looked at her, and found her smiling. “Sex is sex. It’s a part of what we … of what the Vixens have done. I mean, not me. But. It’s a tool, Konnor. Just like Nina’s pheromones and Carmen’s gauntlets.”
“Gauntlets?”
“You’ll see,” Scarlett said, waving my concern away. “Anyway, what I’m trying to say, is you’ve got nothing to be sorry about, Konnor. You and I. I mean, what we did. I’m not going to say it was work—”
“You just did,” I said.
Scarlett frowned, but she didn’t seem like she was angry with me. Only frustrated.
“It was,” she said before slapping a palm to her forehead. “I mean, me being there was. It was partially work and partly because I knew Vash and his gang were going to come looking for you, as soon as I found out what you’d been up to.”
“And Sascha wanted me first.”
“What?” Scarlett asked, as if she’d been slapped. “No. Konnor, Sascha didn’t’ even know about you or your … abilities until I brought you in.”
“Not sure it makes a big difference whether you or Sascha made the decision to bag me and tag me,” I said, getting uncomfortable with the recent memory all over again. How quickly one could forget he had been kidnapped when he was surrounded by beautiful, sexy super spies. Maybe Nina’s pheromones had had an effect on me after all.
“You’re not chained up anymore, are you?” Scarlett asked.
“Does that mean I’m free to go?”
Scarlett hesitated. “You really think you’ll be safe out there, Konnor?”
“I’m not too worried about Vash and his boys—”
“Vash and the fucking Shockers should be the least of your concerns at this point,” Scarlett said, her blush going crimson in a rush of anger. “Every Syndicate in Jaxton is going to be trying to put you down, especially after word gets out that you took out a whole Syndicate by yourself wearing basically nothing. No weapons. No armor. Nothing.”
“I had help on that one,” I said.
“They won’t care. And besides the Syndicates, you’ve got the Guilds to worry about.”
“The Guilds don’t know who I am—”
“Of course they know!” Scarlett shouted. I shut my mouth, and she squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed at her temples. She forced calm into her voice. “They know we’ve got you,” she said, soundin
g guilty all over again. “They probably don’t know why. We don’t tend to have leaks around these parts. As you can see, we keep our operation small and tight-knit.”
“Really tight-knit,” I joked. I didn’t know how many other Syndicates or Guilds engaged in group torture sex sessions. Not that it had felt like torture.
“They probably think you’re hired muscle,” Scarlett said, ignoring my gibe. “Which means, they think we’re about to start making moves. Open moves. Aggressive moves.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Well, yes,” Scarlett said. “People need to know we’re not all secrets and threats. They need to know we can hold our own in more than just corporate espionage. They need to know we can defend our own.”
I shook my head.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said.
“What doesn’t make sense?”
“Any of this! Look around us, Scarlett. You really believe it’s videos of Darla’s tits and Nina’s pheromones that have all the Suits and Pearls in Silk City shuddering in fear of the Vixens, waiting for you to drop a nuke of info that’s going to tank their credit ratings? If they really wanted to end you, they’d end you. I know you know your way around a fight. Carmen too. And I know Sascha’s been around the block in more ways than one. But if they wanted to wipe you out, they would.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Sascha is hiding something,” I said. “Probably a lot of somethings. And not just from the Suits. From you too.”
“Of course she’s hiding things,” Scarlett said. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“She’s already been selling secrets,” I continued. “The Vixens are nothing but a fucking reality show. A pawn for the Suits and Pearls to use against each other. You guys are just an illusory gun in a proxy war between the scum of the earth. You’re not taking the system down, you’re helping keep it afloat.”
Scarlett’s mouth worked. If she disagreed with me, she would have said so. As it was, I knew she didn’t like the way things had been going with the Vixens, with Sascha. And long before I got involved.
