TOWN MOUSE / COUNTRY MOUSE
by
NOVA
Then again, I'm merely a political criminal, not a veteran recidivist, which means I can't match Vila's intimate understanding of the finer points of Federation law. So, when I announced four days later that we were heading for Freedom City, I was more than a little surprised to hear him say, 'No, we're not, Blake. We're going to Del-10 for a week.'
Even more surprisingly, in a rare moment of unanimity, the others all backed him up. Jenna turned out to be an equally accomplished cell block lawyer, with a free trader's creative interpretation of contract law. When I reminded Vila that I'd laughed at his suggestion, proving that I'd regarded it as a joke, Cally launched into an impassioned disquisition on the oppressive nature of cross-class and interspecies humour, illustrated with disturbingly personal examples drawn from the last eighteen months on Liberator. Avon, naturally, then chose to make one of his random declarations of faith in democratic decision-making processes and Orac clinched the deal by locating so many precedents that, in the end, it seemed quicker to go to Del-10 than to read the transcripts.
The art of leadership includes knowing when to yield gracefully, so I volunteered for teleport duty, intending to retreat to my cabin and study ex-cybersurgeon Docholli's dossier, as soon as I'd dispatched my crew. Vila arrived first, wearing his coat of many pockets: I checked that he was carrying enough money for bail and set him down in the tourist area of the capital city, Tenton. Jenna prowled in soon after, toting the **Sex and Shopping Guide to the Galaxy**, and gave me the coordinates for the Club Zed Mall. Cally appeared in Auronar hiking gear, which has even more pockets than a thief's coat and a rather abrasive camouflage pattern that caused Avon to wince visibly as he came strolling down the corridor, dressed in skintight black leather. He perched on a corner of the teleport desk and leafed idly through my papers, while I sent Cally off to one of Del-10's mountain resorts.
'All work and no play?' he murmured, pushing the dossier aside. 'Surely the revolution can spare you for one evening, Blake. Allow me to show you the sights of Tenton, such as they are.'
While I was still determined to learn everything about Docholli, Avon's offer was oddly tempting. I grew up on Woodstock, where all men are considered brothers - unless they're women and sisters, that is - and I'd spent the past year and a half trying to identify signs of brotherliness in Avon, without any apparent success. If I rejected this invitation, I'd probably never get another one, which in itself was enough to make me accept on the spot.
I helped Avon link Orac to the controls and we teleported down into a narrow street, garish with neon light and shadowed by ramshackle buildings that leaned together so conspiratorially that they blocked out the sky.
'Are you sure we're in the right place?' I asked uneasily. 'It doesn't look like the images of Tenton that Zen showed us.'
'Every city has its underside,' Avon informed me. 'This is the Salemite quarter, Blake.'
Oh, hell. I'd forgotten that Avon came from Salem-6. I've never been there myself but it's impossible to avoid hearing about the planet. Salemites fascinate the rest of us, because they're walking contradictions. The most ferociously moral society in the galaxy ... famous for its bizarre sex scandals, inventively twisted pornography and a general reputation for sexual perversity. If there's a galactic opposite to Woodstock, Salem-6 would be it. I had a disconcerting premonition that Avon's idea of evening entertainment wasn't going to coincide with mine.
Sure enough, an hour later I was seated in a crowded cafe, watching androgynous black-clad Salemites flourish thin cigarettes, trade sexual innuendos in rapid-fire Salem argot, blow smoke and kisses across the table and twine together on the dance floor with a calculated effrontery that only just fell short of fucking. I have nothing against androgyny but on Woodstock we consider it a challenge to socially imposed sex roles, whereas I got the distinct impression that the Salemites did it to annoy. Refusing to take their bait, I fixed my eyes firmly on the only unequivocally gendered person at our table. Within seconds she was fixing her eyes equally firmly on me and running the tip of a studded tongue across scarlet lips, flagrantly enough to captured Avon's roving attention.
'Lucen admires you, Blake,' he said, without troubling to lower his voice. 'I won't be offended if you choose to leave at this point.'
'No, thanks,' I said, a little too hastily. 'I'd rather stay with you.'
'Very well,' Avon said equably. 'We shall have to find something better suited to your tastes.'
He rose to his feet, nodded dismissively to the group and led me out of the cafe. We walked the streets of the Salemite quarter, steering round the men and women who lurked in shadowy doorways. Then we headed down a flight of stairs, apparently at random, and plunged into a narrow bar, where Avon greeted the Salemite behind the counter like - no, not like a brother, more like a favoured pimp. He ushered us to a table beside the stage and we sat and watched the show.
Women alone. Men alone. Women with men. Women with women. Men with men. Stripping. Dancing. On chairs. Off chairs. Ugly. Pretty. Plain.
They all looked miserable to me.
'What do you think of her?' Avon asked, time after time, in the detached tones of an academic examiner. 'What do you think of him?'
'Very nice,' I answered, time after time.
I was trying to be polite but my underlying lack of enthusiasm must have shown through, because after a while Avon said, 'Yes, perhaps this is too blatant. Let's see how you react to something a little subtler.'
More streets, more stairs, leading down to a dark room lined with transparent columns, inside which bodies twirled lethargically like pallid tropical fish. Avon scanned the line-up, nodded and tossed a handful of coins at the doorkeeper, who dragged two chairs across to the column that Avon had indicated. I stared blankly, feeling separated from the boy inside the tube by more than a sheet of plass. He was spreading his legs wide, spinning slowly on the floor. I could see everything, including the rash on his thighs, the bruises on his shins, the shadow at his groin where the shaven pubic hair was growing back. It wasn't in the slightest degree sexy. In fact, it struck me as nightmarish.
Half a metre away, a match rasped and a small flame flared, pushing back the darkness. I turned to say: can we go? and froze in mid-movement, rendered absolutely still by what I saw. At first I thought it was a trick of the light and then I thought Avon was pulling my leg.
But no, that wasn't what he was pulling.
The fishtank glow from the column illuminated a triangle of pale skin. Avon's trousers were open, his cock was in his hand and he was jerkng off. His back arched slightly, thrusting out his pelvis, and his fist moved in small rapid movements. He had a cigarette in his mouth, tilted at the angle of his erection. Eyelashes blinking lazily to keep out the sting of smoke. Eyes fixed on the boy in the tube, calmly assessing the performance.
Where everything else had failed, that did it. I slumped forward until my forehead pressed against the plass and gazed blindly at the boy, seeing nothing, completely absorbed by the rustle of skin on skin. It was over in a minute. I heard Avon yank up his trousers, the credits in his pockets bouncing and settling with an innocent ching.
'Come on, Blake,' he said, tossing the cigarette aside. 'You're a difficult man to please.'
I stalled, hoping that Avon would go past, so I could follow behind him. But when I turned, I realised my stir of lust had already been discovered. I could see Avon's surprise, revealed by the bar of light that fell across us both. I could see the curl of comprehension on Avon's lips.
Outside, we didn't speak.
Outside, I was chilled to the bone.
I thought he would send me back to the Liberator after that but there was one more stop. An underground toilet this time.
'I'll wait out here,' I protested.
Avon said nothing. He just pushed the door, then pushed me and we walked into the dimness of a room where all but one of the lights had been shattered. There were other men inside. There were smells. There were noises. There was a murmur, a fleeting meeting of eyes. A few seconds later I was trapped in a cubicle, with Avon at my side.
'What's going on?' I demanded, not really wanting to know.
'Shut up,' he said. 'Turn around.'
I didn't want to obey his orders but I did it, anyway. I had a sudden clear vision of myself doing everything I thought I didn't want to do. I knew that, right then, after the evening's preparation, I would do anything Avon asked: anything at all: and the realisation overwhelmed me, even more powerfully than the darkness and the stench and the secrecy.
'Avon ...' I pleaded, in a last ditch attempt to salvage the situation.
'Shut up,' he said again.
Avon was undoing my fly. I was letting him. Avon was wrenching down my trousers with a tug that brought my cock surging back to full-blooded attention. My forehead lolled weakly against the cold tiles of the wall. I was afraid I was going to throw up. As it turned out, that might have been a better option but at the time I was relieved when Avon focused me with a sardonic whisper.
'In there.'
He was right behind me - almost on my back, but not quite. I heard his words, perfectly clearly, but I didn't understand. He shifted me sideways, letting the light fall on a hole in the wall, and pointed.
'There, Blake,' he said.
I understood then, although it was nothing I'd ever envisaged myself doing. Still, I'd already gone too far to back out now. Shaking uncontrollably, I manoeuvred my shaft into the hole. Straight away a mouth closed round my cockhead and sucked me down the warm, wet slide of someone's throat. (Whose? No, don't ask. Don't even imagine.)
Behind me, Avon was so very close. I could feel his hands through the fabric of my trousers, pushing them away, baring my arse. I could feel Avon kneading my buttocks and gathering up my balls with eloquent familiarity. I only lasted for thirty seconds before I groaned and spurted my sperm into the mouth next door. With exquisite understanding, the mouth kept on sucking just long enough to make it utterly
utterly
***
I don't remember how I got back to the Liberator. But I remember, all too vividly, the way I spent the next forty eight hours. One minute, making speeches to an invisible audience, denouncing Avon's Salemite decadence. Next minute, accusing myself of sinking even lower than him. Feeling corrupted, feeling naive, feeling as though I'd give five years of my life to live those last five minutes over again. Analysing every second of the evening and inventing a dozen different endings. Dozing fitfully, then waking with an urgent erection and the imprint of Avon's hand on my balls. Leafing through Docholli's dossier, realising that I hadn't taken in a single word and hurling the papers onto the floor. Finally admitting that, for the first time in years, I couldn't think about revenge or justice or freedom, fighting the Federation or planning the revolution or, indeed, about anything but Avon.
And then, having accepted the truth, I stretched out on the bed and applied my undivided mind to the task of working out precisely what I wanted from him.