A Marketable Commodity

The owners of this place, Tarrant noted distantly, possessed a turn for economy when it came to their central heating system. True, the customers' clothing kept them warm enough, but the naked merchandise shivered in their chains, huddled against pillars and the cold stone floor.

Very well, admit it. He shivered in his chains, a piece of goods like any other, stripped and scrubbed and tethered to a pillar, scared fully as witless as Vila in a firefight. No, more witless by far. Vila, like it or not--and he didn't much, usually--had become accustomed to firefights, but the only time Tarrant had been stripped naked without his enthusiastic consent had been for his FSA physical, and then the consent had been grudging, but at least there. Not this time. This time, he'd struggled and fought, but in vain.

And he'd never been put up for...sale. And, face it, Tarrant-you- idiot, they're not asking two thousand credits for your piloting skills. No one was sold here for any purpose but the one.

Vila had told him not to venture into this part of old city, and almost he'd taken the advice. If had not been for Avon's satiric addition that yes, it was too wild for bright-eyed innocents from the FSA, he probably would have taken Vila's advice. And, yes, also because he'd decided, almost on a whim, to pursue a rumor of Blake he'd picked up in a tavern to another tavern, just inside the forbidden area, then another a little further on. Trying to impress Avon, he admitted to himself, to take that sneer off the arrogant face, to give him what he'd himself sought in vain on a silver platter, with a wave of his hand. Oh, it's nothing. If you know what you're doing, that is.

Stupid. So damned stupid.

Not that Avon would likely have a chance to tell him so. Those who disappeared in the Stews, Vila had told him, disappeared for good. And the Scorpio crew had a scant eight hours on newly-Federated world of Thompson's Hope before a group of government officials, including Sleer, showed up, and then Scorpio best not be in orbit. They'd be gone by now.

Stupid. Stupid and cold. Stupid and cold and helpless and damned scared.

A new group of customers breezed through the door, bringing more cold air with them. Tarrant turned his head away, staring down at the stone floor, rather that have to see people examine him as if he were a used spaceship for sale, running their hands over him as if testing metal seams for faults and splits. Too much to bear, except that he had no choice in the matter, nor even enough of his usual optimism to contemplate escape plans. Maybe later, maybe...

He felt somebody tip-tap close to him, bringing along the overwhelming scent of cheap perfume of the floral persuasion. A hand-- female or male, he didn't know--groped up his thigh and fondled his penis roughly for a moment, as if trying to elicit some exclamation of disgust or protest, but those had run out with the first five or six customers and the blows the exclamations had gotten him from the salesman/overseer.

No point in getting himself beaten to a pulp now; that would no doubt come with time. He couldn't, somehow, see himself as a docile slave, whoever his "master" or "mistress" turned out to be...face it, those who had to or wished to buy their sexual partners in a place like this probably wouldn't be the sort to inspire him to any great obedience.

And if it were a man... Tarrant swallowed hard, facing the possibility squarely. There were some things he'd refused to learn at FSA and now wished that he had.

Though he had no idea what price human flesh fetched on the open market, obviously two thousand credits was a hefty amount, because though many people stopped to look--and poke and prod and fondle--few did any more otherwise than try to haggle to price downward, saying that even for a pretty lad like him two thousand was much too much. But since the salesman didn't seem inclined to bring the price down, he supposed they thought he could fetch it eventually.

Perhaps not until tomorrow, though. Perhaps eventually, after this endless space of being cold and embarrassed and afraid, they'd shut down the showroom, and turn off the lights and leave him in blessed peace. Perhaps even with a blanket.

But not now.

He heard footsteps again as another customer approached, along with the lighter footfall that he'd learned to identify as the salesman they'd assigned to him. The customer sounded male, the steps firm, quick, with a heaviness to them that suggested boots, and the scent he caught as the customer drew closer was definitely masculine, with a spice-musk note that nagged at Tarrant's memory.

"See, just as I told you." The glib, too-friendly voice made Tarrant's teeth itch. "He's exactly the type you wanted...down to the last detail. But even prettier, don't you think? He's the best we've had for some time, a real prime article."

Firm, cool fingers touched him, but almost impersonally, tracing a line along his shoulder, as if simply following the convention of the salesroom rather than any prurient intent. "Not bad. But he's rather scrawnier than I'd envisioned. Are you sure this is the best you have?"

It took a long, stunned moment for Tarrant to register the voice: cold and aristocratic, but with a hint of a growl deep in the throat so distinctive that only one man he knew spoke in that particular way.

Tarrant turned his head, directing his gaze up for the first time: black leather boots with heavy straps, black trousers, and black leather vest emblazoned with studs. Bland patrician face, showing naught but the shopper's careful interest/disinterest on the surface, but the muscles around the jaw clenched in mixture of emotions Tarrant could imagine too well.

Avon. Oh, damn, damn.

He didn't know whether to be relieved at the imminent rescue or to want to crawl under the stone flags of the floor and never come out again.

Avon haggled with a skill and persistence that surprised Tarrant, but couldn't get the salesman to go below eighteen hundred credits.

Which didn't surprise him, considering the lack of luck other potential customers had experienced in the bargaining processes, but it did astonish him when Avon finally gave up and closed the deal.

As far as Tarrant knew, they didn't have eighteen hundred credits. Not aboard Scorpio, anyway.

Not only that, but Avon had directed Orac to run a thorough examination of the planetary banking system just after going in orbit and had decided the system had too many failsafes and boobytraps to chance setting up a false credit account for their brief visit. So what did he intend to use for money?

The answer came when Avon negligently tossed over the small silver chip that served as a bank access on Thompson's Hope. Tarrant felt more than a little nauseated. Even though it wasn't safe to set up a false account, Avon had done it nonetheless, in order to buy back his erring pilot. They'd better get out of here fast, before using the account set off any of those alarms Avon had mentioned.

Merely registering the sale seemed to cause no problem. The salesman handed back Avon's chip with a flourish, then set about unloosening the chain that encircled Tarrant's neck from the pillar. He left the part around his throat in place, but did remove the wrist shackles.. "Shall we have him taken upstairs for you while you have a drink in the lounge? Compliments of the management, of course."

For the first time, Avon's mask slipped, just slightly. "I'm afraid I hadn't intended to stay. I know it's your custom to provide a trying ground on the premises, but I'm sure he'll be more than satisfactory and..."

"But hadn't you heard?" The salesman gestured toward the viscast set running mostly unheeded in the corner. "The Stews have been cordoned off for the night. There's been a report of a breach in the computer net, and rather than take chances on security while the Commissioner's on planet, the security forces have set a curfew."

A breach in the computer net. A breach caused by Avon so that he...

"Ah." Avon's expression closed down for several seconds, then resumed its former bland facade. "Then, of course, I'm delighted to accept your hospitality."

Tarrant wondered if he should try to hang himself now, possibly with his own chain, or wait patiently for Avon to string up a rope.

The salesman tugged at the neck chain and, reluctantly, Tarrant stood, all too conscious of his nude and shivering body. Somehow it was worse being naked in front of someone he knew, and much worse being naked in front of a justifiably angry Avon. He gritted his teeth as Avon looked him up and down with unpleasant smile, waving away the salesman's repeated offer to send him on ahead to the bedchamber above. "No, I don't want a drink," he assured the man smoothly, "and I'm very eager to try out my...acquisition."

Twisting the chain around his hand, he gave it a sharp jerk, setting Tarrant staggering a few paces toward the lift before he gained his footing again. "Come along...slave."

"I don't remember buying you for your conversational skills." Avon spoke as if to a stranger and a purchased stranger at that, but caught Tarrant's gaze as he did and quickly glanced upward to indicate possible unseen listeners. Or watchers. And, true enough, they had no way of knowing about surveillance. Not something you'd generally find in a shop or a hotel, but this wasn't exactly your ordinary place of business.

So, a dozen questions shut tight behind his clenched teeth, Tarrant rode up twenty floors in silence--cold silence in more than one sense. He couldn't stop shivering, though he tried his damnest, not wanting to show further weakness in front of Avon.

Finally, the lift indicator binged and the door slid open. Promptly, Avon pushed him out into the hall with a show of roughness that wasn't all show. "Penthouse suite," Avon muttered. "Well, for eighteen hundred credits, it should be."

"Eighteen hundred credits that don't exist," Tarrant said not quite under his breath.

For that, he got a glare and another shove, this time through the door and almost, if he hadn't caught himself from the stumble, flat on his face on the plush carpeting. He grabbed onto the arm of a nearby couch and managed to straighten himself up. "Where--"

Avon jerked his head and glanced around the room. "Speak quietly, at least."

"Where's Scorpio?" he whispered.

The other man bared his teeth and Tarrant took a half a step back before catching himself and standing his ground.

"Hiding behind the outermost planet of the system," Avon hissed, "if none of the Sleer's people spotted it breaking orbit. Otherwise halfway across the galaxy with a Federation flotilla on its tail. What the hell did you think you were--?"

Tarrant caught a flicker from the edges of his vision, but before he could react to that, Avon jerked his chain sharply, causing him to stumble forward again, this time straight into the older man. Avon's arms encircled him, and he felt the touch of cold studs and warm leather at chest, stomach, and thighs, where he pressed against him. "What--?"

Avon's lips pressed against his, preventing him from speaking.

Then, from the corner of his eye, Tarrant saw the viscast screen in the corner come to full life. "Ah," said the salesman in satisfaction, "I see you're trying out the merchandise already. Good, is he?"

Unhurriedly, Avon detached his lips from Tarrant's, turning his head toward the screen. "Excellent," he drawled. "Thus far." His upraised eyebrows indicated that if the man would just go away and leave him in reasonable peace and privacy, then he could make a more thorough analysis.

"I just thought I should tell you there's a slight problem with your account. The breach in the computer net seems to have affected the banking system, for some reason..."

Oh, yes. For some reason.

"...and though it looked like your charge had gone through, we just had a query come up on the system. I'm sure it'll be cleared up by tomorrow, but...you had intended to stay until tomorrow, hadn't you?"

The man had already ascertained that a few minutes before, so it followed that someone had gotten suspicious that their well-heeled customer was not as well-heeled as he'd represented himself as being. Not a certainty, or the extremely large and well-armed guards downstairs would have already dragged Avon off for a scientific beating, possibly of a fatal nature. They didn't want to offend a monied customer, if such he was, but they didn't want him slipping out with their eighteen hundred credits worth of flesh, either.

Avon looked mildly puzzled. "I thought I'd already said so."

"Ah, so you did." The salesman's smile this time seemed a combination of unctuousness and threat. "Well, I trust you'll have a pleasant night. And if you want anything, anything at all...there's another viscast screen in the bedchamber. Just say the word 'service' and we'll be there on the instant." The screen flickered, and went to a screen depicting a popular erotic painting of about a century back.

"And no doubt, there when we don't want them, either, just to render me properly cautious of the prospect of not paying my debts." Avon stalked into the bedchamber, and Tarrant, looping the chain over one arm, followed.

The bedchamber felt a number of degrees warmer, probably because the paying customers tended to be nude here themselves. Nonetheless, Tarrant dragged the coverlet off the bed and wrapped around himself...being naked and defenseless against Avon was not a state anyone chose voluntarily.

Casting him a scowl--as if the act of covering himself were just another pointless irritation on Tarrant's part--Avon went to the large viscast screen set into the wall next to what Tarrant considered an unnecessarily large bed, with shackles set into the head and the foot.. Avon looked over the controls set into one side of the wall, then pried a panel open to look at the mechanism, with Tarrant holding his breathing and hoping that management didn't chose that moment to turn on the screen. "It appears the surveillance is active only when the screen is turned on."

"Then we can talk?"

Avon turned sharply from the controls, the anger that had temporarily faded flooding back in an instant. "If you have anything worthwhile to say, which after your latest exploit I take leave to doubt. What could possibly have possessed you, Tarrant?"

Anything but the truth, Tarrant thought. He could say anything at all but the truth. "I got a lead on a part for Scorpio." He stumbled over the words, cursing himself for the thin excuse. For the last several months, Scorpio had stayed in rare working order, needing no parts more exotic than a couple of gaskets.

"What--"

Then the screen flickered, and Avon hurriedly pushed him onto the bed, casting himself on top of him in a tangle of coverlet and chains. "Damn." But the screen flickered off again. Either someone had hit the wrong button and found their mistake before the screen came on, or management was suspicious enough to give them a very uncomfortable night.

Tarrant decided the best defense was a good offense. "What are we going to do in the morning? Assuming your false account falls apart like the house of cards it is?"

And whose fault is it I built it in the first place? Avon's return look said. "Hopefully, we're going to stall until Soolin brings Scorpio through on a high-speed run, pausing just long enough to teleport us up on the way out of the system again. I hope the lessons you gave her will allow her to accomplish that?"

Tarrant winced. It was a tricky kind of run, but Soolin had a cool head under pressure, and she hadn't finessed the lessons, as Dayna and Vila and even Avon sometimes did, wanting to get back to their own specialties and projects. If anyone besides Tarrant could do it, probably Soolin was the best candidate. "Yes, she can do it." If he spoke with a little more confidence that he felt, that was his own secret and none of Avon's business.

"Good. Then management must be convinced I'm an ordinary customer, pleased and content to enjoy my purchase until this whole unfortunate mess has been straightened out." He got up, stripping off his jacket, folding it neatly to conceal the two teleport bracelets that Tarrant spied inside, and depositing it upon a nearby chair.

"Fine. How do you intend to do th..." Tarrant stopped speaking when he noticed the expression on Avon's face. You screwed me, now I intend to do the same to you, it said plainly. Rough justice, in Avon's mind, being better than no justice at all. And not only just, but pragmatic, the best way to make Avon's cover story look halfway convincing.

You've got to be ready to face the consequences of your actions, cadet. There will be times when you won't want to do that, but you must, nonetheless. Tarrant straightened, throwing the concealing cover aside, leaving himself naked once more.. "All right." He kept his voice as steady as he could.

The expression on Avon's face changed. The sneer remained, but beside it seemed to be some other emotion that Tarrant couldn't decipher. "You're frightened." It wasn't a question, nor an accusation, nor even an expression of triumph.

Tarrant lifted his chin. "No."

Avon continued inexorably. "You've never done this before."

He couldn't prevent the flush that rose from some point mid-chest all the way to the top of his forehead...all of his skin seemed to burn hot at one swift flush. "No," he admitted.

"FSA..."

"Has a reputation for using sex as a means of setting the pecking order among the students, yes." He remembered vividly that revelation; he hadn't known it until the day he arrived, the most eager and gawky of the cadets. Eager for everything but... "I know."

"But you were strong enough to prevent being forced yourself," Avon said softly. "And chivalrous enough not to want to force anyone else. Am I correct?"

"Yes." If he didn't elaborate, maybe Avon wouldn't probe any further. It was true enough, just not the whole truth. He wished, fervently, that Avon would move away. He wished that he himself hadn't taken off his sole covering in a show of patently false bravado. He could even wish himself in the hands of another owner, just so this inquisition would stop, and that the body so close to his would not be Avon's.

But the other man moved even closer. "Tarrant," he spoke as quietly as before, but the edge had returned to his voice, "you were lying, weren't you, when you told me why you'd come to the Stews?"

In other words, If you were lying about being frightened, you were no doubt lying about that, as well. So let's find out. A different line of questioning, but no more welcome.

The lie hadn't been his best, true, but he had nothing better to offer. "No, I came after the parts, as I said." His mind went blank as he desperately tried to think of a part, any part of Scorpio that seemed likely to fail in the immediate future. It should be no difficult task, given Scorpio's age and general condition, but he felt like a schoolboy who'd forgotten how to multiply two plus two. His lips opened and then closed again...he could think of no collaborating details. All he could think of was the other man being much too close and the spice-musk-leather scent that made him much too aware of that presence, even though he kept his eyes directed firmly away.

Silence. Grating-on-the-nerves silence.

Unwillingly, Tarrant removed his gaze from the far wall at last, to look at Avon. He couldn't tell anything from Avon's expression. Not a thing. The bland expression he'd worn downstairs, in front of the salesman, was firmly back in place. He smiled, in a way that more nearly parodied emotion than expressed it, then gestured at the bed. "Well, we'll talk about that later. Right now, since management may look in any time, I think it might be a good idea to make use of the shackles they so thoughtfully provided. Don't you think?"

Tarrant opened his mouth, found that nothing came out. Then tried again. "Yes," he finally managed to say. It didn't sound anything like convincing. "Yes. Of course."

But at least Avon had put him on his back and not--

Setting his teeth and clenching his fingers to keep himself steady, he watched Avon undress as calmly as if he were preparing for his solitary bed back on Xenon Base, glancing neither at Tarrant nor the viscast screen in the process. He folded his clothes with cool precision, neatly enough to pass the most finicky inspection, then walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge, laying one hand lightly on Tarrant's thigh.

Despite himself, Tarrant flinched. Forced himself to steadiness, then flinched again when Avon moved the hand up to the curve of his hip, fingers curled around to touch his buttocks.

"Ah, I wondered. Was it near-rape, then?"

Tarrant inhaled sharply, staring at Avon. Usually, Avon carefully failed to notice anyone's reactions, and if he did, seldom cared to draw conclusions from him.

Avon shrugged slightly. "You're obviously inexperienced, yet you..." He made the small movement with his hand again and, despite all his resolution, Tarrant jerked against the chains as if to move away. "Yet there's that. Did it happen at FSA?"

"Yes." Tarrant looked away.

"How did you stop him?"

The question brought back the picture, sharp as a viscast, but more visceral. He could not only see the gray metal locker the larger upperclassman had pushed him up against, he smelled the faint damp disinfectant-and-sweat odor of the nearby showers, and could hear his own voice, amazingly calm against the babbling fear in his brain. "I told him I'd sabotage his ship, if he went ahead and raped me. I told him it'd look like he died from the kind of stupid mistake first-year cadets made on the simulator, and got thrown out of pilot school for. He knew I could do it."

"Very neat. I'm impressed."

Tarrant managed a small, shaky laugh. Avon would be impressed. He'd been appalled and relieved in the same breath, when the older boy had pulled away, cursing, and flung out of the dressing room with various threats he hadn't dared to carry out, then or ever. After that, he'd been left strictly alone and had even been able to protect a few of the others. "But how did you know I'd...?"

"Federation prison is a very...educational institution."

Startled, Tarrant forgot to avoid Avon's gaze. "Did...?"

"Oh, there was no 'near' involved. Not many Alphas had ever been incarcerated in the holding facility I graced before being transferred to the prison ship. The guards and the, shall we say, more dominant felons among the group were inclined to be interested in the rare delicacy I represented." Avon's face showed no particular expression; it was as if he were telling Tarrant about the trials and tribulations of some distant acquaintance or perhaps even a character in a viscast drama, with no connection to himself.

"But..." He could hardly imagine Avon in such a situation. And, since he'd been forced the way Tarrant had almost been, he couldn't imagine why Avon would want to repeat the experience. "If that's the case, why...?"

The hand on his hip was light, almost comforting now. "Because." Avon's hand lifted momentarily, made a helpless gesture, as if to say, how can I explain? "Because I could choose to do so."

To put aside the fear, because neither fear nor any other untameable emotion would ever be allowed admittance to Avon's life, if he could help it. Yes, Tarrant could see that. He almost wished... "And you enjoyed it, when you...did it voluntarily?"

"Eventually. With the right partner. The differences are, perhaps, not as great as you think. Not as...distressing." Avon ran his hand lightly down Tarrant's thigh. "You'll see."

You'll see. No reprieve, then. No way out. Avon and perhaps necessity decreed they go through with this, and his own honor demanded that he accept it without undue fuss. "All right," he said. Not that Avon needed an assent--and, after all, he'd given that before--but, perhaps, as Avon indicated, there was a need to at least fantasize control.

"Computer. Lights down by eighty percent," Avon said.

Abruptly, the room plunged into shadows, with only Avon's pale body clearly discernible, and all else dissolving as if into a mist. As Avon turned his head minutely, a vagrant beam of light glittered down the edge of the dark hair, as if marking a trail to the high curve of cheekbone and enigmatic gaze, half-hidden now by its veil of lashes.

Then Avon's hands curved around his bound wrists, lightly stroking a path to his elbows, only to lift and return and stroke down again, as if over the pelt of a small, domesticated animal he wished only to pet and soothe. The fingers, deft and near-weightless, traveled no further than his forearms and, despite himself, Tarrant found his muscles starting to unclench.

"What bothers you most about the prospect?" When he wanted it to, Avon's voice contained a sort of deep, resonant music, like a note too low for the ear to register, but that nonetheless could be felt shivering through every nerve. "Tell me."

Tarrant's thoughts felt like they were sliding away, slipping around the edges of his mind, lost in the room's shadows and the touch that should not cause his skin to tingle but did. Confiding in Avon generally held little appeal to Tarrant, but somehow now in this dark, surreal world the idea of reciting his fears seemed not so outrageous. After all, Avon had confided in him, far beyond what Tarrant would ever have suspected. "I'm not sure, really. Pain, perhaps." Though pain generally didn't bother him. "Lack of control?"

"But you voluntarily gave up your control to me. So in a sense you still have it, don't you?" The fingers made their way up his arms, curved over his shoulders, thumbs tracing the line of his collarbones as if drawing a map of hitherto uncharted space.

"Do I?" He stared up into Avon's face, noticing distantly how the lowered lashes cast shadows on the pale skin just over his cheekbones.

"Oh, yes." One hand slid up to the neck, curling around it lightly, thumb idly playing with the metal band of the shackle. "And as for pain, you're my only pilot, and a skilled one at that. I'd be ill advised to injure you. Anything else?"

Tarrant found himself drawing in deeper breaths, as though oxygen had become a premium. A warmth projected from everywhere Avon's hands had touched and seemingly just ahead of the path of the feather-light brush of fingers, as if he were projecting some sort of radiating field. No, I don't want to... Dredging up the most painful fear, he flung it like a gauntlet at Avon's face. "Fear of being dominated?" And, at the last, found himself pulling back in cowardice, twisting it into a question, not a statement.

"Ah." The cool fingers found the curve of his jaw, and the tender skin just beneath. "Yes, that is the crux, isn't it? I found it so, too." The fingers drifted upward, tracing the shell of his ear, first the outside, then exploring the sensitive inner hollows. "But it doesn't really apply here, does it?"

"Why..." It took a few seconds for him to find the end of his question. "...not?"

"Because." The caressing hand lifted, and Tarrant found he'd raised himself to follow it, to the far boundary of his fetters. A moment later the tormenting fingers returned, along with a warmth that ran like wildfire down the length of his body as Avon stretched out beside him, flesh pressed his side, erection prodding gently into his hip. "Because two seconds after we met we began jockeying for dominance. In a struggle that can now be measured in years, I hardly think one sexual encounter could have any significant effect on the outcome. Do you?"

Fingers teased at the corners of his lips, traced the outline, sought to find a way inside. He wanted...he didn't want...he didn't... "I suppose." He didn't know what he supposed, because then, the finger slipped inside, and his tongue wanted to stroke over the tip and around, and his mouth wanted to suck.

"You suppose?" Avon inquired softly. Then the finger withdrew, but Avon's mouth was against his, offering lips and tongue to take its place.

"Supp..."

Impatient for entry, Avon nipped at his lower lip, and Tarrant was startled to hear himself moan in reaction to the small pain, opening his mouth. But, as if intrigued with the tidbit he'd discovered, Avon nibbled at the lower lip again, more gently--sliding it between the sharp, strong teeth, pulling at it, sucking it like a bit of luscious fruit. Toying with it, with him.

Helpless, Tarrant parted his lips further, leaning up to try to capture the teasing lips.

The lips touched his, firm, warm, brushing back and forth, tantalizing but not fulfilling, tongue playing teasing games at the sensitive inner edges of his lips, but going no further. "Tarrant?" A soft voice, but with another texture behind it, silk encasing steel.

Moving his head back and forth, Tarrant tried to capture the lips. In vain. "Yes?"

"Why were you in the Stews?"

"Why wh--?" Sometime during the proceedings, his eyes had closed and now he opened them again, staring at Avon as if tracing the familiar features would somehow enable him to make sense of the conversation. Or whatever this was. Avon's gaze held his and his mind jumped track again, wanting to tell him about the darker flecks scattered in the dark eyes, leaping like sparks too hot for their parent flame. "Par--" He gasped, found oxygen, tried again. "Parts. I went for parts."

"No." Avon's head dipped, lips simultaneously warm and cool pressed against his, a clever tongue demanded entrance, sliding along his deliciously once and then again, before retreating, drawing out of range as he tried to follow. "Tell me. Tell me why."

Tarrant closed his eyes, as if shutting out temptation. "I told you."

Avon made a sound that could've been exasperation or laughter or desire. Then the warmth pressed against his side shifted and spread as Avon moved to lie on top of him, skin rasping gently against skin, an exquisite friction, until he reached his goal, chest to chest, his hips resting slightly athwart of Tarrant's, so that his erection was trapped against Tarrant's stomach, his legs draped loosely on either side of his hips. "Very comfortable. Less bony than I would've expected."

He felt...warm. In fact, burning hot wherever their bodies touched and aware, so aware, of the outline of Avon's cock pressed into the sensitive flesh just below the curve of his belly. Abruptly, he realized he, too, was erect, but touching nothing but empty air, with Avon's flesh so close he could nearly feel the warmth...nearly, but not quite.

Perhaps he moved then or made some sound, for Avon cupped his face with one hand, and said, "Shh. You'll be fine." The lips brushed along his cheekbone, searched out the hollow of his eye, traced one eyebrow. It could've been the caress of an adult bidding a child a night of sweet dreams...but it wasn't quite. The lips moved to his ear, exhaling softly as if telling him secrets, brushed along the shell, nibbled the lobe, then retreated so the teeth could bite softly, then tug at the morsel of flesh.

Tarrant turned his head, he thought so he could escape the lips and teeth, but found he'd positioned himself so Avon could reach his ear more readily, so he could run that limber tongue around the edge, probe it delicately into every crevice.

"Ahh..." He breathed like he'd been on a twenty-kilometer run, a half-remembered penance from Academy days. Not even the expensive whore his brother had rented as that most memorable-ever birthday gift had toyed with him like this, had made him feel like someone had put hot pepper under his skin, so that every pore seemed afire. "Av..."

"Tell me." Avon's tongue made another leisurely tour of the territory, then paused as if considering whether to depart or make another round. "Tell me why."

He had to stop this. Had to stop this...well, not precisely torture, but...whatever it was, it was guaranteed to drive him witless in record time. "Hull sealant. " That would work, had to work. Scorpio's hull, with its odd and slightly archaic mixture of metals, couldn't take just any sealant and there were times....were times... "I heard about some hull sealant."

Teeth nipped his earlobe sharply and he jumped, as far as the constraints of the chains and the weight of Avon's body would allow. "Planning on taking us through an asteroid field, are you?" a mocking voice whispered in his ear. "If not, I should think the hundredweight we purchased last month should be more than adequate."

"I'd forgotten...for..." He wanted to say he'd forgotten they'd bought that lot when he made the expedition into the Stews, but what he appeared to have lost was his ability to form coherent sentences.

"Try the truth. It's simpler to keep track of." He paused a moment, leaving a space for Tarrant to answer in, then continued, "But if you prefer that I continue the interrogation, very well." Avon nipped at Tarrant's ear again, but it appeared to be a form of farewell, for the lips began moving down, to the angle of his jaw and then to the neck, where he traced his tongue along the path of a tendon, then tried his teeth on the place where neck and shoulder met, as though testing a joint of meat for tenderness.

As Avon moved his lips, the rest of his body slid downward, as well, setting alight nerve endings Tarrant hadn't even thought to possess. When the curve of Avon's hip touched his cock, he instinctively thrust upward, trying to assuage the aching heat there, but was halted by the weight of Avon's body, deliberately applied. "Only when I give you leave. Remember that. Only then." He nipped Tarrant's shoulder sharply, as if for emphasis, and moved on.

Tarrant's breath became a painful knot in his throat by the time Avon reached his nipples. No, don't. But he wasn't at all sure he meant 'don't.' And protest, could he form a protest, would be in vain. Delicately, Avon lapped his tongue over the tip of his left nipple, lifting it in order to blow on the place he'd dampened, then lapped again, pointing his tongue to probe like a surgeon for every nerve ending.

"Star maps," Tarrant said desperately. "We need to add star maps of the fourth quadrant to Scorpio's navigation programming."

Avon lifted his head slightly. "As I recall, we had decided to avoid the fourth quadrant because of the concentration of Federation fleet facilities. Even our most reckless and impulsive crewmate--and if you don't recognize the description, that is indeed you--agreed that the fourth sector is too dangerous to chance."

Yes, damn it, but it's the only sector we don't have star maps for. At least he hadn't slipped up and named the wrong area, a sign of coherence that, at the moment, he found surprising but encouraging. "We might end up there accidentally, and then we'd lack the navigational referents to get us out safely." A whole sentence. It even made sense. Perhaps...

"Ah." Avon's lips twitched slightly. "I wasn't aware your sense of direction was so lacking, Captain Tarrant. Under what circumstances do you envision us wandering blindly into the fourth sector?" As he spoke, his hand slid over Tarrant's chest and he began rubbing the thus far neglected nipple with his thumb, as though idly.

"Um." With Avon doing that, he found it hard to think. But, in any circumstances, it would be difficult to explain how Scorpio could just wander into a sector hemmed on all sides by sectors solidly under Federation control, sectors that would be tricky to get through safely all on their own accounts, much less wander through on the way to somewhere else. Obtaining navigational maps of the fourth sector would indeed be a good idea, on general principles, but hardly worth the risk he'd taken in the Stews.

"I've found the advantage of the truth is that it generally doesn't require convoluted explanations." He tilted his head slightly and smiled. "Not that I'm failing to enjoy your imaginative attempts at concocting a plausible falsehood. It's quite entertaining." The dark head bent over his chest again. "Do continue. And I'll do the same."

This time, Avon abandoned subtlety for a straightforward attack on his original target, taking the nipple in his mouth and sucking hard. At the same time, he took the other nipple between his thumb and forefinger, squeezing and rolling it, at first gently, then with increasing pressure. Tarrant's back lifted off the mattress and he groaned aloud. "Avon. Please."

Avon lifted his head, smiled briefly and blindingly, switched places between hand and mouth, then continued. Tarrant tugged uselessly at the chains that bound his hands, as if frustration and desperation could somehow dissolve steel and herculaneum. The stimulation crackled like an electric charge running from chest to groin, as if his sensitized nipples were on the same circuit as his aching cock. He wanted to scream like a madman. He wanted to claw at the sheets and rip the unoffending mattress to shreds.

All he could do was writhe against the restraint of the chains and Avon's solid weight, clenching his teeth against the moans and the urge to shout, I went chasing after rumors of Blake, just like the damned fool you always said I was. Now will you stop it or finish it or do something? But after Terminal, after losing Liberator, no one referred to Blake lightly, or at all, if they could help it, for fear of raising ghosts not easily exorcised. If he could get out of this without uttering Blake's name, he would.

If...

Just at the point Tarrant thought he would start screaming, Avon raised his head again. A few centimeters of the cool veneer had rubbed away in the past few minutes. The compelling eyes looked slightly glazed and his breathing held a suggestion of harsh unevenness. "Tell me."

For almost a full minute, no sound broke the silence but their harsh breathing in counterpoint. Then again, "tell me."

Tarrant bared his teeth in something that was a mere parody of his usual disarming grin. "Trust me, Avon, you do not want to know."

Avon drew in a long, ragged breath. "That good, is it? I suspected as much." He lifted himself up slightly, his hand moving deliberately in the direction of Tarrant's now-painful erection. "Tell me."

Tarrant bared his teeth again, like a cornered animal. "No." Good thing he had abandoned the parts story. He could no longer even remember the name of their ship, much less name any of its components.

As if he'd expected the answer, Avon nodded, allowing his hand to almost idly achieve its goal, curling his finger around Tarrant's aching sex by slow degrees, the final light grasp an equal relief and further pain. With his other arm, Avon leaned down on Tarrant's hip, preventing him from thrusting up. "I told you. None of that." Avon's voice sounded hoarse, as if he'd been shouting for hours. His thumb glided up the ridge on the underside of Tarrant's penis, touching but almost not touching at all, then circled the glans once before becoming immobile.

"Oh, God, Avon!" He was reduced to calling upon a banned and nonexistent Deity who, like Avon, made no sign of answering his plea. He struggled to thrust, to breathe, to simply stay inside his own skin.

"Tell...me."

"Ah, ah....no."

Again, Avon began sliding down his body, still clasping his cock lightly in one hand. The friction of skin rubbing skin created such an intense sensation that Tarrant couldn't tell whether it constituted pleasure or pain. Avon's legs enclosed one of his and he began rubbing his penis rhythmically against the younger man's calf, making Tarrant half-mad with the thought of how good it would feel it he could do that to other man, press against him, thrust against him.

Then Avon's lips touched the tip of his cock.

Blake! I was looking for Blake, damn you, Avon. Somehow he kept his teeth shut over the words, kept them from being anything but a gurgle in his throat.

The lips opened and restless damp warmth enclosed him, feeling both better and worse than anything he'd ever experienced before. Avon's hands clasped his hips, holding him immobile, except for small, fruitless jerks against his maddening confinement. And now Avon's tongue traced the route his thumb had traveled before, up the ridge in slow strokes, circling the underside of the glans.

Tarrant found himself moaning in time with the slow thrusts of Avon's cock against his leg, the slow circling and stroking of Avon's tongue. His skin had become so sensitized that the mere touch of the silk sheets under him constituted torture and the touch of Avon's flesh above was an agony too great to be borne, too sweet to want stopped.

The warm haven retreated, leaving his cock bereft. Again, Avon raised his head. "Talk. Now."

Just barely, he managed to turn his head from side to side. No.

Avon looked at him a moment, chest heaving. "I'm going to unfasten your chains now." He spoke with obvious difficulty. "You will do whatever I request. Correct?"

Tarrant nodded. He'd already pledged his word. Besides which, at this point he possessed only enough strength of will to keep silent, with none left over to defy any other order of Avon's. If told firmly enough, he might jump over a cliff and believe that the rocks at the bottom would actually feel good against his tormented skin.

"All right." Avon sat up enough to reach the shackles at his wrists, fumbling with the mechanism that opened them, then did the same at his ankles. For a minute or so, he had no sensation at all in his hands and feet, before it came flooding back with a rippling prickle of pins and needles. Avon helped rub circulation back into the abused extremities and, oddly enough, that was almost arousing as the rest, as if his nerve endings had lost all the distinctions between which zones were erogenous and which not.

Then Avon took Tarrant's face between his hands and kissed him again, lips firm and cool against his, tongue sweet and soothing, but oh- so-elusive. He wanted, he wanted...

Drawing back slightly, Avon looked intently into his face and he could almost see his own glazed blue eyes reflected back from Avon's intense pools of brown. They were very clear now, he noted, several stages deeper than amber, like a rare, dark topaz, perfectly cut. The lips, also perfectly cut, moved. "I want you to turn over now, Tarrant. Onto your knees, but upright, back straight. Is that clear?"

As if in a dream state, Tarrant nodded. He should be terrified now, because the very thought of this had terrified him before. At least he should be a little worried. But he was too hot, too cold, too confused and tingling and wanting for fear to even find standing room, and the thought slipped through his mind, Is this what Avon intended? Sorting out Avon's motivations was too complex, though, and he let that go, simply turning over as Avon had instructed and coming up to his knees as gracefully as he could. "Like this?"

"Good enough." The mattress shifted as Avon reached to the bedside table and scooped up some sort of tube. A few moments later, Avon's fingers, bearing something moist and slick, slipped between his buttocks and a soft voice whispered in his ear, "Be grateful I warmed it. I'm not always so considerate." A finger played at the entrance of his body, then slipped inside, and Tarrant shivered sharply.

"All right?" Avon's voice had become soft again, smooth and coaxing, a seduction in itself. Like a warm pool that the unwary could drown in, wanted to drown in.

Tarrant nodded, unable to speak.

"Good. Then let's continue." Avon's teeth grazed the back of his neck lightly, making him gasp and throw his head back just as Avon slid another finger all the way in. Tarrant thrust his ass back sharply, wanting more.

"Very good." Tarrant tilted his head to follow the smoothness of Avon's voice, tried with his flesh to follow the retreating hand, feeling empty in its wake, but then Avon's body pressed up against his back, his chest slightly rough against the smooth skin and, below, his erection nudging Tarrant's buttocks. He shivered again, but from wanting, not from fear. "Steady," Avon whispered.

Avon slid one arm around his waist, as if to hold him in place, then paused. "Perhaps a slight adjustment is in order." Reaching down, he pushed Tarrant's thighs further apart, so their relative levels would be slightly adjusted. "It so happens," the low voice held half whimsy, half desire, "that I've never made love to a beanpole before."

"But," Tarrant had to work to keep his voice from cracking like a schoolboy's, "not as bony as you expected."

He felt as much as heard the low laugh in his ear. "No. But then I had dread expectations on the boniness of such a lanky form." His free hand came drifting down Tarrant's body, curling around his indeed-bony hip as if for emphasis.

Expectations? Had Avon perhaps thought of him in this light before? Had...had...

"Steady," Avon repeated in his ear, and pushed slowly forward.

Now that it came down to it, Tarrant found that he was nervous, but that the attack of nerves in no way diminished his arousal. Without thinking, he put his hand over Avon's where in lay at his waist, squeezing it as if it holding on for dear life. As if in response, Avon's other hand, still clasping his hip, tightened briefly.

"You're fine," said the voice in his ear.

And he was. The sensation felt odd and foreign, but other than a few brief seconds, not actually painful. When Avon has sheathed himself completely--Tarrant could feel the shape of Avon's pelvis against his backside--he paused, holding himself absolutely still, as if to give Tarrant time to grow accustomed to the sensation. But that this constituted an effort on Avon's part Tarrant knew from the small, involuntary twitches of Avon's hips, as he fought his body's impulse to thrust. His fingers tightened around Avon's hand again. "I'm all right. Go ahead."

But Avon didn't thrust. Instead, he began to rock gently back and forth, not so much moving in and out as coordinating their hips in a subtle dance. Warmth began to spread through Tarrant's body from where Avon's cock rubbed ever-so-slightly within him. He groaned suddenly, the sound seeming surprised even to his own ears. He'd had no idea...

"Good." Avon turned the hand on Tarrant's stomach slightly, so that their fingers tangled. Tarrant grabbed on to the new handhold, squeezing in time to Avon's movements within him, beginning to push back, to follow Avon's rhythm. The other man's body behind him seemed a solid comfort instead of a threat, holding him, steadying him, and coaxing from his own body indescribably wonderful sensations he most certainly would never have connected with Avon.

"Shall we try something a bit more vigorous?" Avon nipped at his earlobe, distracting him from any possible answer, then pulled out halfway, thrusting back in smoothly, then freezing in place.

"Ahhh." Tarrant clutched at Avon's hand and tried to thrust back, even though Avon was as fully seated as possible.

"I'll take that as a vote to continue."

Tarrant laughed shakily. "You may safely do so."

The other man's answering chuckle was hardly any steadier. "Excellent. I appreciate having my initial theories confirmed before proceeding in an experiment." He brushed his lips down the side of Tarrant's neck, bringing every nerve ending in that sensitive area to sudden, glorious life. "And if you'll return the use of my hand, I believe I can put it to a use you'll appreciate."

A bit embarrassed, Tarrant disentangled his fingers. Avon flexed his fingers, ran them briefly over the palm of Tarrant's hand, then dove downward to clasp Tarrant's eager cock in a much firmer embrace than the teasing grasp he'd used earlier.

"Ohh...ahhh." Tarrant couldn't be any more coherent than that. It felt like water in the desert, fresh oxygen after breathing from a spent tank. Only Avon's other hand, still firmly clasping his hip, kept him from thrusting gratefully into the warm, fleshy enclosure again and again. And the disinclination to lose the other stimulation of Avon's cock inside him by moving his hips away.

"I thought you might like that. Now let's..." Avon began to move, thrusting in and out as smoothly as flowing water, his hand on Tarrant's cock moving in a complimentary rhythm, so that Tarrant was caught between the blissful sensations of Avon's cock moving harder and faster inside him and the clever fingers providing a haven for Tarrant to himself thrust into. Nor were those fingers only an idle receptacle, but caressed and squeezed as if they'd been given a map beforehand of every sensitive point.

For several minutes Avon kept his other hand on Tarrant's hip to guide his rhythm, but then, apparently satisfied that this lesson had been thoroughly absorbed, his hand slid upward, first to the curve of Tarrant's belly to press him even closer to his thrusts, then to Tarrant's chest, rubbing his thumb with firm strokes over one of Tarrant's nipples, then the other.

Tarrant gasped and thrust back hard, desperate to be closer to Avon, even if that were technically impossible. The sensation had again become so intense as to be nearly painful. He wanted Avon in him harder and deeper, he wanted the hand on his cock to caress him faster and more urgently, he wanted....wanted...

The body behind him suddenly froze, thrust once more, as if involuntarily, then froze again. Avon's hand on him loosened, fingers lifting as if detach themselves.

"What--?"

Avon started to speak, choked on an indecipherable word. He stopped, cleared his throat, tried again. "Why were you in the Stews, Tarrant?"

"I--I--" Tarrant started to shake in the compass of Avon's arms. He couldn't take this, couldn't take this a second more. "Avon, please. Don't--"

The warm hand slid away from Tarrant's penis, leaving him aching in the suddenly cool air. "Tell me why you were in the Stews." He leaned heavily against Tarrant's shoulder, breath rasping in his throat. "You--you know me, Tarrant. You know I will pull out now and go immerse myself in a bath made of ice, if I must. Tell me now or I'll chain you up again and leave you like this."

Tarrant shook his head, trying to clear it. He couldn't think beyond the screaming of his body, which cared nothing about secrets or awkward explanations or names best left buried, but only wanted Avon's hand, Avon's warm chest against his back, Avon's pelvis against his ass, Avon's cock thrusting deep within him. He started to speak, but only made a low, moaning kind of gasp. He tried again. "All right. But...I...I....later."

"Ah." Avon rocked once within him, as though he couldn't help himself. "Yes, articulate explanations are difficult under the circumstances. But give me your word that you will tell me directly afterward."

Tarrant tried to laugh, but it was a poor, gasping effort. "My word as an officer and a gentleman?"

"If you like." Avon moved sharply again, then dug his fingers painfully into Tarrant's hip and became still.

"I'm no longer an officer, but I hope I'm still a gentleman. You have my word."

"Very well. I accept your word." He leaned into Tarrant again, enclosing his cock once more in his right hand. "Give me your hand." He stretched out his left hand, and Tarrant reached back to grasp it. Their fingers intertwined, and it almost seemed as if their senses merged, each of them becoming part of the other. "Now let us see if we can finally finish this."

"I'm all for that."

Avon began thrusting again, and Tarrant cried out, losing what was left of his mind. This time Avon didn't hold back, and Tarrant sensed that he had shed all calculation and, like himself, moved purely from instinct and driving need. Their dance now was a cinquepace of desperation and wanting, movements perfectly paced because they both strove after the same goal. Tarrant's free hand curled around Avon's grasp on his cock, urging him to make his stokes tighter and faster, at the same time pushing back into Avon's thrusts. "More." He threw back his head, gasping for oxygen. "Give me more."

"Yes." Though it was impossible for Avon to get closer, it seemed like he did, hips pumping faster and faster. Their fingers, still interlocked, grasped each other's so tightly it felt as though the bones must break from the strain. Suddenly, Tarrant felt teeth sink into his shoulder in a brief, hard bite that registered as unbearable pleasure rather than pain and Avon's voice in his ear cried, "Tarrant...ah, Tarrant..."

In the same moment, Avon's hand tightened around his penis and he felt a warm gush inside him. He thrust forward once more, uttered a hoarse cry that sounded like Avon's name, then fell into a tunnel that held more and more pleasure, and kept falling. Somewhere in the tunnel he felt a warm wetness bathing his thighs and stomach, and fingers disentangling and arms guiding him down to the mattress.

...And then such a sweet darkness, with the feel of thick hair soft against his cheek and damp, hot skin touching him everywhere. The voice next to his ear, like honey, murmured, "We'll talk later. Now sleep."

Later. He didn't want to think about later. Sleep....

"Ah, you're awake." Avon perched on the edge of the bed, tossed the dry towel to one side, and began wielding the damp cloth on the relevant parts of Tarrant's body, in the manner of a parent scrubbing down a child after a particularly messy picnic.

"I'm certain I could manage that myself, Avon." He massaged his neck gratefully, finding that Avon had removed the heavy shackle while he slept.

One side of Avon's mouth curled upward. "And I am certain that I will prove much more efficient at the task. You may wish to save your energy for speech." He changed the damp towel for a dry one, then glanced up from his task. "It is now time to pay the piper, Tarrant. Why were you in the Stews?"

Time to pay the piper, indeed. He could ask himself angrily why he'd ever agreed to tell Avon, but that memory reminded vivid in his mind, and he couldn't blame himself for yielding even in retrospect. Satiated as he was, his limp cock twitched infinitestimally at the mental image invoked, an involuntary movement that he rather hoped Avon failed to notice.

"You gave me your word," Avon said into the silence.

"So I did." He couldn't look at Avon as he spoke, instead choosing a spot a few centimeters left of the dark head to stare at, which happened to be the viscast screen. The damned thing hadn't flickered even once, or perhaps it had and he'd been too occupied to notice. "You..." Don't want to hear it? Avon knew that already. "I heard a rumor that Blake was here on Thompson's Hope. I decided to follow it up."

The bare bones of the truth. Perhaps Avon would not want to pick them for the last morsel of meat, but for once to leave well enough alone.

Avon moved sharply, a flow of motion aborted nearly at its birth, as if he'd been about to rise and leave the room, but kept himself in place by sheer force of will. After a moment, he folded the towel neatly, and laid it to one side, taking his time with the task. "Blake is my folly, Tarrant. It is bad enough when I stoop to lunacy, without the rest of you following in my path. You're not to endanger yourself looking for Blake."

Tarrant stared at Avon's half-averted profile, as animate as any death mask. It needed to be said, even though as of yet no one had dared utter the words. "At Terminal, Avon, you made it our folly."

The older man flung up one hand, as if to shield his face and push the accusation away, then let it drop, curled on his thigh, palm up. "So. Did you learn anything useful before you were captured by the slavers?"

"Yes and no. I ran into a contact from my smuggling days, and he sent me to a friend of his at another tavern, who put me in touch with yet someone else. The third party told me Blake had boarded the Pride of Aurora, a freighter due to lift within the next few hours for parts unknown. I'd started toward the docking area when I was...detained by the gentlemen you purchased me from. He could be anywhere...Avon?"

Avon had inhaled sharply, then gone deathly pale. "Ah...nothing." The hand on his thigh clenched. "I had thought our deaths would be linked, but apparently..." His voice trailed off and he stared at a point just past Tarrant's shoulder. "One of the Federation cruisers accompanying Commissioner Sleer destroyed a ship called the Pride of Aurora just as it cleared planet, claiming it was transporting a known terrorist. Odd." Avon stopped and drew in another breath as if he'd forgotten how to deliver oxygen to his lungs. "I'd always considered Federation propaganda to be uniformly inaccurate."

"Perhaps they lied about destroying the ship."

"No." Avon's lips twisted into something not remotely a smile. "I could see the explosion even from the planet surface. Quite...spectacular."

Silence gripped Tarrant like a stasis. What could he say? Sympathy would be both inadequate and unwelcome. As of its own volition, his hand slid across the sheets toward Avon, but he halted it sternly before it had reached its goal.

"He always was a f...." Avon made a helpless gesture and the sentence trailed into nothingness. He made another attempt. "It's not as though it mat..." That thought also died stillborn. The silence felt suffocating, as if some malign force were leeching the air from the room bit by bit.

"I wondered," Tarrant found himself pouring words into the void, heedless of what pit they might hurl him into, "whether Blake had been that partner you spoke of, who helped you get over the rapes."

Avon looked at him as blankly as if he were speaking an alien tongue. "No. Why should you think--?" Then he smiled, a bit painfully. "Ah, yes. It's a comprehensible reason as to why I should take a madman's risks in seeking him, isn't it? If we'd been lovers. But, no, I fear my relationship with Blake was never so straightforward."

He flexed the hand on his thigh, watching the fingers open and close intently. "A few months after we'd acquired Liberator, rescued Gan and Vila from Cygnus Alpha, and acquired Cally, Vila began militating for a shore leave. Blake ignored him, naturally, but then was quite surprised when I threw my support behind Vila and persuaded Gan and Cally to take our side." The fingers opened and closed again, and Avon's gaze never left them. "You see, I'd become somewhat weary of repressing a flinch every time one of my male crewmates walked up behind me. I decided it was past time to take corrective measures."

"So Blake yielded to persuasion?"

"With rather poor grace, yes. All of us were ranged against him, except Jenna, who at that point didn't much care what we did, as long as she could get some peace and quiet; she was still working on learning the ship then and our frequent and noisy arguments broke her concentration."

Tarrant grinned. He could imagine how he'd have reacted in such a situation. "That was deliberate, I would imagine."

"Oh, yes. At any rate, without even Jenna to back him, he did yield and we set a course for the nearest non-Federated world with adequate, er, recreational facilities. I took a bag of gems from the treasure room, teleported down near to what the planetary database listed as the most expensive of the brothels, and requested their most skilled male employee. When we got upstairs, I spilled the rest of the gems onto a table, and told him that would be his gratuity. All I asked was that I should be on the bottom and enjoy it."

Tarrant's mind boggled slightly at the mental picture this presented him. "And did you? Enjoy it, I mean."

Avon tossed him a sideways glance that on anyone else he'd have called sultry. "He taught me several of the techniques I used on you. What do you think?"

"I think you enjoyed it a lot."

"Why thank you." For a few seconds, Avon's grin matched Tarrant's, then it faded again. "As a matter of fact, yes, I did. I enjoyed it so much, I decided to extend my stay for several days to see if I could blot out certain...memories and reactions once and for all. I put a voice lock on Zen, so Liberator wouldn't leave without me, and took off my teleport bracelet for the duration."

"Wasn't Blake angry?."

"Furious. I told him later that--" Suddenly, Avon began laughing.

"What?" Avon's laughter had a slightly hysterical tinge, and Tarrant thought it might be coming as much from shock as from anything, but never mind. Anything was better than the inhuman mask.

"I told Blake," Avon bent over with the force of his laughter, "that I was looking for parts for Liberator. I knew there was a good reason I didn't believe you."

Tarrant almost choked. "But...but...Liberator was self- regenerating." "Yes, well. Blake did indeed point that out. I told him it was a technical matter, with the implication that it was something that a brain-wiped idiot like himself couldn't possibly be expected to understand. Then I walked off, leaving him to talk to an empty space. And, should you wonder, the answer is no, that technique will not work with me. I should, after all, be able to recognize a method I've used myself."

"Still. I'll hold it in reserve, just in case." He'd never known Avon to talk about the past; all the stories he'd heard about those early days were courtesy of Cally or Vila. He'd never known Avon to speak freely about most anything you could name, except technical matters or strategies for fighting the Federation. Tarrant wondered whether, if Avon had asked, Blake would have helped him voluntarily, without the elaborate charade, or whether Blake's had been too consumed by his fight against odds to consider Avon's problem worthy of being addressed at all.

Perhaps Tarrant's face spoke his thoughts, because Avon replied as to a question, "If I were ever sure of anything, I was always certain Blake would try to help, in his clumsy way." Avon stopped, pressed his fingers to his forehead, then went on. "But I felt he had enough of a path worn into my psyche, even then, without giving him a map and putting up signposts, as well." He bared his teeth slightly. "I don't care for people using my weaknesses to manipulate me."

"You don't?" Tarrant assumed an expression of shocked surprise. 'I must remember that. Because, of course, there's no way I would've known if you hadn't mentioned it."

Avon shook his head slightly, as if in disgust. But the acknowledgement of the jab didn't quite drag him out of the memories, and he bared his teeth in what could've been either a smile or a grimace. "To tell the truth, I never quite determined what Blake wanted of me. Only that it was always a little bit more than I felt I could reasonably give." His shoulders lifted briefly. "Now I suppose I shall never know.."

Silence fell again. Tarrant tentatively reached out to grasp Avon's arm, which was no more than Avon had done, after all, when Deeta had died. Surely that much was acceptable.

Apparently so. Avon leaned slightly into Tarrant's grasp, staring out into nothingness, his face gone again to mask-like stillness.

Several moments passed in silence. Tarrant found himself leaning toward Avon and, at the same moment, the other man turned his head, as if Tarrant had called his name. Without thinking, Tarrant leaned forward still further and brushed their lips together.

Avon drew back and lifted his eyebrow, Why?

The obvious answer wouldn't do, not for Avon, not even in his present state. He felt an almost hysterical urge to say, parts, but quashed that, as well. Tarrant kept his tone light, "You mentioned that you stayed at that brothel several days, to dispose of your qualms about making love with a man. But we've only made love the once, so surely I'm not cured yet."

Avon's face cleared. He wasn't over his shock, but he'd plainly had enough of revelations and emotions. Very little of either consisted of more than enough for Avon; Tarrant was surprised he'd revealed as much as he did. "You weren't actually raped, so the cure shouldn't take as much work," he countered. He sounded, though, like he wouldn't mind being disagreed with on this occasion.

"True," Tarrant admitted readily. "However, since we have some hours left before dawn..." and neither of us are likely to be able to sleep "...it seems to me that we might as well reinforce the positive input. Just to make sure it takes properly. Don't you think?"

Avon cupped Tarrant's face with his hands, expression caught between humor and something else Tarrant couldn't quite place. "For once, Tarrant, I must admit your arguments do have some claim to validity."

Just then, the viewscreen flickered on. Swiftly, Avon rolled them both over so that Tarrant lay pinned beneath him on the mattress, giving a passable impression of a passionate and thoroughly dominating kiss. But his eyes slitted open and his head tilted so he could just glimpse the screen from the edge of his vision, leaving Tarrant under no illusion that Avon had gotten suddenly swept away by overwhelming desire.

The owners of this place really did know how to destroy a mood.

Letting his own eyelids fall, he watched the screen through a veil of lashes. After a moment, a bland, practically unisex face appeared for a few seconds, stared as if surprised at getting the wrong channel, then an equally gender-neutral voice murmured, "Your pardon, sir" before the screen went blank again.

Waiting a score of seconds, Avon sat up and stared at the now- blank screen. "If I were a real customer, I'd be getting annoyed just about now."

Tarrant propped himself up on one elbow. "If you were a real customer..."

"...I wouldn't be getting the treatment. True. But it must be still at the suspicion stage or we'd have a number of large, unpleasant flunkies with equally large weapons crowding the room just about now. So the planetary net must still be down. Perhaps checking the local news viscast would be in order."

He leaned over gracefully to scoop the viewscreen remote off the bedside table, giving Tarrant an enchanting view in the process. He'd never considered Avon attractive in that particular way before, but he hadn't had Avon drive him half out of his mind with desire and frustration before, either, so he wasn't completely taken aback by the change in perspective.

Tarrant made room on the bank of pillows for Avon to settle in and start flicking through the viscast channels. The slavers had installed quite a variety of pornography into their house system and watching so many naked and mostly-bound bodies spin past as Avon punched through the menu at top speed made Tarrant feel slightly space-sick. Then Avon's finger froze on the control. "Ah," he said softly.

The figure on the screen was clothed--well, half-clothed, anyway-- and was no porn actress, though Tarrant felt that the word obscene certainly fit her in almost any other sense but the sexual. Commissioner Sleer. Servalan.

For a few moments, Tarrant listened to the viscast commentator's obsequious commentary on Sleer's visit and how it and the Federation annexation would bring great political advantages and prosperity--not to mention piles of dead bodies, Tarrant thought sourly--to Thompson's Hope. Then he transferred his attention to Avon, who hadn't uttered a word since that quiet ah.

Avon's face was utterly focused, utterly absorbed. He remembered Avon's expression when he'd told them, "I need to kill her myself" and this was the same or perhaps even more so. A space of time had come between Terminal and their discovery of Servalan's continued existence, but there was no cooling-off period now. A few minutes before, Avon had learned she'd killed Blake practically before his eyes and now here she was, on the same world as he. She'd made their conflict utterly personal, and Tarrant knew the dangerous combination of hatred and lust Avon felt toward Servalan, because he felt a fainter echo of it himself, on the occasions they'd been face to face. Avon was quite capable of doing something very stupid just now...even stupider than coming to his own rescue.

Time for a distraction.

"Hey," Tarrant said softly and shoved at the bare shoulder beside him.

Avon turned his head slightly, as if being roused from a trance. "What?"

"You're not paying attention." He slid his other hand across to Avon's opposite shoulder, grasping it firmly enough that his hand would not come loose at an irritated shrug. "To me." He pulled sharply, bringing the other man down onto the mattress with a startled exhalation, then rolled on top of him as Avon had Tarrant when the viewscreen had first come on, but with more serious intent. He spread his legs so that his knees were on either side of Avon's thighs, pinning him securely to the mattress.

Avon stared up at him, his expression caught somewhere between a scowl and a not-quite-pleasant smile. But his attention had been most definitely diverted from Servalan. "You like being on top, do you?"

"Oh, yes." Oh, yes, yes, yes. With Avon it was a delight and a danger and a challenge all in one, like flying a fighter that would plunge into a fiery star at the slightest wrong touch. Or respond exquisitely at the right one. Tarrant leaned down to take Avon's chiseled lower lip between his teeth, as Avon had done to him earlier, tugging on it gently, then soothing it with his tongue. Avon tasted like...well, like Avon. A spicy, sharp taste that couldn't be compared with anyone else in the universe.

He raised his head again, looking down. Avon's eyes were half- closed, his breathing quickened between parted lips and the body under Tarrant showing definite signs of enjoying the attentions being paid it. Oh, yes, I like it, Avon.. The older man had his head flung back, drawing attention to the vulnerable curve of neck and the pulse point that begged for the touch of lips and tongue. He leaned down and...

And found his position swiftly reversed, with him on his back, dangerously close to the edge of the mattress, and Avon on top, elbows planted in the hollows between Tarrant's shoulders and collarbones, not the ideal location for those sharp members. "You were saying?" He showed his teeth, like a predator about to make a hearty meal.

Grunting, Tarrant pushed up against the solid body pinning his. He perhaps had a few kilos of mass over Avon, but it wasn't such a major difference that he could overcome Avon's present advantage in the area of leverage. In response, Avon leaned down harder with his elbows, smiling at the discomfort in Tarrant's face. "I do believe..."

Then Avon turned his head. The commentator had asked Servalan a question and she made a soft, murmuring reply. The content consisted of bland political platitudes, something about her pleasure in the visit to Thompson's Hope, but the distraction was enough that Tarrant managed to hook one of his legs around Avon's, twisting so as to bring them both crashing down in a tangle on the floor. Avon, ending up on the bottom, served as a cushion to Tarrant's fall, but apparently the carpeting didn't pad the floor enough to serve a similar purpose for Avon, for he muttered a curse under his breath and attempted to roll them over again.

Right into the chair holding Avon's jacket and the two teleport bracelets. Or that had held those items, until Avon bumped into it, turning it on its elegantly-carved side, so that the next half-roll brought one of the bracelets into painful contact with Tarrant's ribs. "Ouch, Avon, you're going to break it." Whether the chair, the bracelet, or his ribs, he wasn't sure, though he tended to believe the last.

Avon had managed to get on top again, wedging Tarrant between the chair leg on one side and his own solidly-muscled thigh on the other. He panted slightly, his breathless state only partially a result of the exercise. "Perhaps your experience suggests otherwise, Tarrant, but I've found that a bed is perhaps the most comfortable venue for fucking." He paused for a moment, then his eyes darkened and the shapely lips twitched slightly. "Or being fucked."

Tarrant's mouth went dry from the implication, and his cock made a sudden leap against the warm flesh of Avon's stomach.

"You like the idea?" Avon smiled a little. He certainly had his own unique--even backward--way of getting control of a situation. The back of Avon's fingers brushed against Tarrant's cheek, setting off a warmth unrelated to mere body heat.

It was difficult to speak without any saliva in one's mouth. "I wouldn't want to...hurt you." But his whole body strained upward, it liked the idea so much. The sudden vision of his face nestled in Avon's soft hair, their bodies pressed against one another front to back, his pelvis pressed against the outline of Avon's ass, made his cock harder than that of a marble statue. Breathing suddenly became a chore.

"You won't hurt me. I have experience in this, remember?" He lifted Tarrant's hand and ran his tongue lightly over the vein in his wrist, causing the younger man to catch his breath on a harsh sob. "But I'll need some cushioning." He glanced significantly at the bed, then rose from his own padded position atop Tarrant, moving toward it.

The remote lay on the floor, dislodged from the bedside table by their wrestling match, and Avon nearly tripped over it. The viscast had changed to a different story by now, following the opening of some local civic edifice, and Avon turned off the babble of unheeded noise and motion with a touch, throwing the instrument aside. "Screen off." The light of the screen went off, but a slight shadow remained on Avon's face as he lay down.

No, you're going to forget all that. At least for tonight. My word as an officer and a gentleman. Tarrant slid onto the bed, leaning over to rest the long fingers of one hand at the point where Avon's shoulder met his neck, curving the tips of them around to the sensitive nape, moving them softly as he pulled himself down and Avon up so that their lips met. Then that sharp Avon taste again and the feeling of electric intensity flowing out of him that Tarrant had reacted to long before sex had entered the picture. Their competition melted into cooperation, as their relationship always went from one to the other, then oft-times back again.

"Avon." He didn't know, himself, whether it was a plea or a question or just a moan, but Avon responded by pulling him down until he was atop him again, now fully invited. Their skin rasped against one another's like some sort of rough silken fire, burning where it touched, and each man's cock pressed in the other's body as if seeking entrance into that hot haven of skin. Half-instinctively, Tarrant slid one hand between them and sought out one hardened nipple, then the other, rubbing then pinching them lightly.

This time, Avon groaned, throwing back his head and baring his teeth, as if pleasure were penance. When Tarrant repeated the action, harder, pulling at the stiff flesh, he gasped and opened his eyes. "Tarrant...I need..." He groaned again.

You need to forget. He'd like to make this as exquisite a torture as Avon had inflicted on him, but that's not what Avon needed now. He needed something overwhelming, something possessing. Intense and consuming, not the gourmet version.. And his own body clamored desperately to be inside Avon's, impatient of any delay. "What do I do, exactly?" he asked quietly.

Avon forced himself partway back to reality, but it was somewhere he clearly didn't want to be. "You remember how I prepared you?" His eyes drifted halfway shut.

Oh, yes, he remembered. Tarrant's body twitched forward eagerly, as if ready to jump every intervening step straight to the haven he desired, and he had to grit his teeth to force his mind back on track. "Yes, I..."

His voice died mid-sentence, but apparently it was assent enough, for Avon rolled over on his stomach, presenting a clean curve of back and buttock to Tarrant's gaze. "On the bedside table." Avon's voice was muffled in the pillow.

Tarrant grabbed the jar and straddled Avon's body, trying to still the tremor that seized him, made half of apprehension, half of anticipation. He'd heard of wanting something so badly one could taste it and now he experienced that almost literally, as if he could already savor on his lips and tongue the slight sheen of perspiration on Avon's neck-- sharp, slightly bitter, altogether Avon.

Warming the lotion between his fingers, he probed between Avon's buttocks to find the opening. After his experience at FSA, he would've never believed he'd find this erotic, whether done to him or by him, but perhaps he should not be surprised now. Since the hour they'd met over Sarran, Avon had somehow persuaded him to make exceptions to many of his own rules, though this was certainly the most pleasurable occasion he could recall.

Carefully, he slid one finger inside, and Avon shuddered, but obviously not from pain. Tarrant swallowed hard and added a second finger, trying not to think how good that tight passage would feel around his cock, trying not to think about Avon's damp skin pressed against his, trying... Ah...stop. Avon pushed his ass up against Tarrant's fingers, making his control even more tenuous. He froze for a long moment, trying to clear his mind of the red haze that possessed it.

"Now," suggested a not-quite-caustic voice from beneath him, "might be a good time to...continue." The effect Tarrant assumed Avon was after was somewhat marred by his ragged breathing.

Tarrant nodded jerkily, then realized Avon couldn't see him. "All right." Reaching for the jar again, he put a generous portion of the lubricant on himself, but carefully, knowing that he could easily accelerate matters past the point of no return with his own touch.

He lowered himself onto the other man, trying to distance himself, if only mentally, from the overwhelming physical sensations caused by the slide of Avon's flesh against his and the musky scent of skin and arousal that surrounded him. So close, so warm, so purely desirable...no.

Take it slowly, take it carefully. He wasn't absolutely sure that Avon's assurance that Tarrant wouldn't hurt him didn't translate to compared to what I'm thinking about, your clumsiness is the least of my worries, and he wanted for this to be more than a marginally pleasant distraction. Positioning his cock against his goal, he hesitated again, afraid and uncertain and eager all at once.

But Avon pushed up and back against him. "You won't hurt me," he repeated. "Now, Tarrant."

And on the now Tarrant pushed inside of him, the warmth of Avon's body enclosing and enfolding his cock in a tight, welcoming grasp. "Ah." He slid his arms around Avon's chest and held on as if for dear life. It felt almost too ecstatically good for him to endure, with the memory of how Avon had felt inside him just a few hours ago returning to add a mirror-imaged edge to his pleasure.

He turned his head slightly, opening his eyes, and only realizing with that motion he'd closed them. His cheek rested on Avon's neck and he could just glimpse the half-averted face, those impossibly long lashes resting against the sweat-dampened skin, breath coming harshly from between parted lips. "Avon? Are you...?"

"Yes." The lips parted further and Tarrant could just glimpse clenched teeth. "Just...go on."

Tarrant shuddered. He didn't know if he could retain control once he started to thrust, but... Pulling back, he carefully drove home again, gasping not only at his own body's sensation but at the feel of Avon's reaction, a shiver transmitted through his own flesh, as if they were connected in every cell, not just at back and chest, buttock and cock.

Avon pressed up against him, turning his head slightly, so that Tarrant could see the glaze that started to blur the dark eyes. "Harder, Tarrant. I told you, you won't hurt me." The body in Tarrant's arms shook again as Tarrant's cock nudged forward. "More."

Was that a good sign, one that Avon wasn't thinking about Blake or Servalan of any of the past hour's revelations? You have my word, Avon. Anything I can do to make you forget. Tarrant pulled back again and began to thrust harder, rewarded by a groan from the body beneath him. Avon's hands, braced on either side of his shoulders, clutched at the crumpled sheets and he pushed back in Tarrant's own rhythm. Ah, yes, he had it now, if only he could keep it going without exploding from what the scent and the feel and the pounding pleasure was doing to his own body.

But it was too close to a fantasy too wild for him to have conceived: the salt-bitter taste of Avon's skin under his lips and teeth, the damp, furnace-hot body pinned underneath him, the caustic voice now uttering nothing but harsh moans that seemed to beg for more. He couldn't last much longer. Desperately, he slid his hand under Avon to find his cock, stroking it as if it were a part of his own body, harder and harder. They came nearly together, Avon's contractions pushing him the last few steps toward the void.

Afterward, Tarrant came only partially to consciousness, dimly aware that minutes had passed and that he still had Avon pinned beneath him. For a few moments, he vaguely considered the merits of finding the loo and towels to clean them both up, but the energy to turn the idea into action evaded him.

Somehow, though, he managed to roll half onto his side and throw one arm over Avon's back before he slid into a satiated sleep.

Tarrant woke to the quiet murmur of the viscast. This time, though--at least from the words he caught through sleep-drenched senses--the news didn't center on the potentially dangerous subject of Sleer's visit. Opening his eyes, he found Avon sitting on the now-righted chair by the bed, fully dressed, with one of the teleport bracelets in place on his wrist, the other clasped between his fingers, as if he'd been examining it.

One glance told Tarrant that Avon was not only back in his symbolic leather armor, but had donned its psychological analogue as well. The brittle, half-mocking, half-disdainful expression Avon wore made Tarrant instinctively stiffen, scrambling for a mask of his own.

Avon glanced over as he stirred, a look daring him to come up with an opening remark that avoided inanity or vulgar double-entendre. Nothing came to mind, so Tarrant merely assayed a cautious, "good morning," and then, "Anything interesting on the viscast?"

"Only that the planetary net is close to being brought back up. Hopefully, this event will occur after Soolin brings Scorpio through and removes us from the vicinity."

He managed to make the whole affair sound like Tarrant's fault, which in a sense was true, but after last night... Tarrant bit his lip and asked, as neutrally as he could, "When is she due?"

"Anywhere from five minutes from now until noon, local time. We had to leave a fairly wide window, in case she ran into problems." Then Avon threw an extra serving of sarcasm in his voice. "Unfortunately, you've created yet another one of those for us right here."

Tarrant found one hand clenching into a fist on the crumpled sheet. "And what would that be?" His voice strayed from the baseline of neutrality he'd been aiming for.

Holding up the teleport bracelet, Avon said, "This."

The bracelet was obviously dented and just at the point where the most delicate part of the mechanism lay. Avon shook it in way of demonstration. It rattled. "You seem to have broken it."

Tarrant's lips drew back from his teeth. "So sorry to have fallen where you pushed me, Avon. Terribly clumsy of me."

"True." Avon tucked the broken bracelet into his pocket. "But it's what I've come to expect of you, after all. I'm no longer even surprised."

Well, Avon had said their relationship wouldn't change as a result of the previous night and it demonstrably had not. Avon had seen Tarrant in an intensely embarrassing situation, forced him to babble out information he'd had no intention of revealing, and maneuvered him into having sex in ways he hadn't ever expected, but otherwise nothing at all had changed between the two of them.

Fine with him. Back to business as usual, then. More than fine with him.

Tarrant smiled, not very pleasantly. "And has your superior intellect come up with a solution to this problem I caused us?" Avon could, of course, teleport up to Scorpio and come down with another bracelet, but that would mean lingering in the vicinity of Sleer's flotilla of warships, which could have fatal consequences for them all.

"Yes, though I doubt you'll particular care for..."

Avon's sardonic explanation was cut short by Vila's voice coming from the undamaged bracelet. "We're bringing Scorpio through now, Avon. Are you ready to teleport?"

"Just a moment, Vila." Avon rose, went to the bed, and held out his hand to Tarrant with a slight smirk, the expression as much as the gesture giving Tarrant a crystal-clear image of how Avon intended to get them both teleported simultaneously.

Oh, shi-- And no time to even wrap himself in a sheet. Avon would enjoy this to the hilt, no doubt, but Tarrant saw no choice in the matter.

He took Avon's hand and came off the bed into his arms, pressed as close to the other man as flesh and fabric would allow, trying to connect at every point in order to fool the teleport into thinking them to be one person. Last night, he reflected bitterly, this might have seemed a desirable position. At least, during portions of last night.

Wrapping one arm around Tarrant's waist and the arm with the bracelet around his shoulders, Avon murmured, almost into Tarrant's flesh, "Teleport...now."

The slavers' penthouse faded out and, after a split second of nothingness, Scorpio faded in. His crewmates' expressions were everything he'd expected and feared, though only a moment passed before Soolin closed her mouth and turned her attention back to her piloting duties. The other two, though, continued to gape.

Avon released Tarrant without haste, moving deliberately to the teleport control stationed manned by Vila. "Yes, it's just what you thought, Vila." His lips moved back from his teeth with the hint of a feral snarl. "You did think it was a bracelet malfunction, I assume?"

Vila nodded quickly and obediently. A slight curl at the corner of his mouth hinted he wasn't perhaps as cowed as the hasty gesture might indicate, but a glance at Avon's face apparently dissuaded him from any obvious quips.

Either satisfied at Vila's agreement or giving it up as a bad job, Avon turned to look at Tarrant, who stood more or less where Avon had left him, frozen like an animal caught in a spotlight. "You might want to put some clothing on, to avoid distressing the ladies."

Soolin looked up from the controls for an instant. "Don't worry, Tarrant, it doesn't distress me a bit."

Dayna sitting at the next station down, finally closed her mouth. "Nor me," she agreed. She continued to stare at him in fascination, as if she'd never seen a naked man before, which Tarrant supposed could be the literal truth.

"Nonetheless." Avon moved closer, as if to steer Tarrant toward the clothing lockers in the stern, murmuring in his ear. "Nor me, to be factual. But I do prefer a more private venue." Giving Tarrant a slight push in the right direction, he continued to his own station and seated himself as casually as if this had concluded a more ordinary mission.

The bastard is playing games with me.

Opening the locker and snatching up an old jumpsuit, he slammed into the Scorpio's tiny head to put it on. Fine. He'd demonstrate to Avon in detail just exactly how he liked to play games, and win them, too. He'd get Avon in that private venue, all right, then throw him onto the bed and this time he'd not lose control prematurely. He'd fuck Avon through the mattress until the bastard--

Tarrant found himself leaning against the cool metal bulkhead, his cock gone from limp to eager hardness in the time it took him to bring up the vivid mental picture. It struck him suddenly that there was indeed something to be said for sex not changing a dominance battle.

Avon was right, Tarrant thought. Nothing had changed between them on Thompson's Hope. At least...very nearly.