Chap 2

Like an ornamental flower blooming in the grimy dark, this unlikely pair of wayfarers were a sight to anyone's eyes.

Not only the aloof and beautiful Blondy filling the air with an unusual ambience of dignity and refinement but even the figure strolling along next to him, a swaggering slum mongrel wearing a mask of insolence and trailing a foul mood behind him.

More than the differences in their physical constitutions, onlookers were stunned into silence by the undeniable disparities in their social stations. They could only gulp and stare.

It's gotta be some sort of joke, right?

The discomfiting emotions they felt would not have been dispelled by any woman in Riki's place, no matter how attractive or talented she might be. Only a Blondy should be seen in the company of another Blondy.

This wasn't the product of resigned cynicism or some kind of darker "understanding" grasped with a wink and nod. This was an expression of the awe and envy they harbored for the Tanagura Blondies, who reigned with the scepters of perfect beauty, perfect knowledge, and perfect power in their grasp.

Hence the obvious and yawning divide between Riki and Iason. More than the distortions of a shimmering mirage, it was rather the ripples generated in the background noise as they walked along that impinged on their senses.

A cruel iceberg glimmering with a golden light. A burning, jet-black rapid. Two states of matter that under normal circumstances should never accommodate each other, let alone strike the faintest chords of sympathetic resonance.

Amidst the herds of pleasure seekers ranging through the Pleasure Quarters, the two of them alone seemingly flowed against the tide.

They turned down a side street, away from the hustle and bustle of the main thoroughfare. With that change of direction alone the darkness deepened and the passion-laden breezes stagnated. The foot traffic fell by half.

They moved further into the back alleys. The dark valleys winding through the maze of buildings grew deeper and deeper. Riki navigated the familiar alleyway with confident steps.

Not once did he glance back over his shoulder to see if Iason was still behind him. It wasn't because he was sure that Iason was still there. But because—if he dared be honest with himself—comprehending the silent Iason's true intentions taxed his normal abilities, and unlike his usual self, Riki remained unsure of the path ahead.

How do I handle this? Those were the only words clawing at the core of his brain.

Far from clumsy and ill at ease, the extravagant Blondy followed his guide closely. That hardly meant he was going to aimlessly tag after Riki as he cruised the Midas night, but at this point, for whatever reason, neither did he seem to be looking for the opportunity to leave.

Riki had no idea what the truth was, and what he was going to do next. He gritted his teeth as the thought passed through his mind. Shit, he said, audibly clucking his tongue. By this point he was finding his emotions hard to control, but he taxed all his neurons in his simmering gray matter just the same.

Yeah, he thought, finally arriving at the answer. That's the only place that'll do.

Having set his mind to the task, any hesitancy in his footsteps vanished as well. He proceeded from the back alley to a side street and the Minos Bar. The glow of the fluorescing letters flooded into the depths of the darkness.

Riki paused beneath the neon sign and stared at a drab, dirty door. Behind him, Iason remained silent, while his aura towered over Riki to an almost annoying degree. "And? What exactly do you intend to do?" he seemed to be saying.

Figuring that further hesitation would do him no good, Riki shoved the door open. The bar was dark enough that Riki dared not take another step until his eyes had adjusted. Just ahead in the blackness, Riki could make out three lights, yellow to the left, red to the right, and blue in the center.

The center point of light was blue. To the right and left were red and yellow.

Before Iason could say anything, Riki grasped his arm. With searching steps he walked in a straight line toward the blue light. Straining his eyes as they got closer to the light, the phosphorescing blue color revealed itself as a doorknob.

Riki put his hand on the doorknob and slowly turned it, feeling a faint but definitive resistance before the snap of the latch.

So the rumors he'd heard were true.

When he'd first heard them, the rumors were just the kind of bull that often came up in the course of lively conversations. Riki would only shrug and nod and otherwise demonstrate no interest or curiosity in the subject. But, holy shit, for real? Riki had never considered seeing for himself if the stories were anything more than urban folklore.

Riki released the doorknob. With a slight groan the door opened inward as if inviting them in.

Beyond the door lay more darkness. The two entered with similarly hesitant steps. The door closed behind them automatically and locked. At the same time, a faint glow rose from the floor, flashing like runway lights to urge them onward. After proceeding in this fashion for several steps they encountered a door in their path.

What, another one? Riki grumbled to himself. The routine was getting tired already. But was it even a door? There was no knob or handhold. From a glance it appeared to be nothing more than a cold wall.

Riki stood there stymied for a moment. Now what the hell are we supposed to do?

As if in answer to his silent question, the wall suddenly pulled back and fell away. Without a groan or creak, and unlike any door he'd ever seen, the wall he thought was there wasn't a second later.

Riki was left speechless. No, the flood of raw red that eclipsed his field of vision brought to mind images of fresh blood. To his own disgrace, Riki's throat clamped shut as he froze there like a statue. As his eyes gradually became accustomed to the view, he saw it was no blood tide but a thick, bright red carpet. Riki swallowed hard.

Shit. That was intimidating!

And as if to cast off the awkwardness of the moment he made a show of striding inside with great purpose, examining the interior with a sharp-eyed intensity closer to a squint. Aside from the strangely antiquated chandelier overhead the room was empty and so sparsely furnished as to appear excessively dreary and uncomfortable.

And then the chandelier inexpertly began to turn. It rotated gently, without any grating noise, accompanied by soft, harmonic tones. As it turned, swaying the resplendent chains of crystal hanging from the end of each of its twelve arms, the light falling through the crystals split into fine bands of prismatic colors.

No sooner than he'd become thoroughly entranced by the wondrous, otherworldly tints, then the music ceased, and the chandelier stopped turning.

The closest arm of the chandelier extended toward the wall. A blue beam of laser light shot out of the arm and pointed to a spot where the wall gaped open, as if it'd been peeled away.

Where the hell did it go?

Inside was a hallway wide enough for two adults to walk abreast. Identical rows of doorways lined both sides of the hallway. Some appeared to be in use, marked by lanterns of an old and familiar make. Riki pushed on a door marked by a flickering red lantern, with a look that encouraged Iason to join him.

To the dubious proposition that he should accompany Riki unseen into this unknown place, Iason didn't raise so much as an eyebrow.

Iasou's infuriating lack of expression made Riki narrow his eyes in anger. He's heard that the engineered bodies of the Tanagura elite were perfect in body as well as mind. But upon observing his cold, thoroughly emotionless countenance, quite unconsciously the suspicion bubbled up: Is this guy a machine even to his brain cells?

The sign on its facade identified Minos as a bar, but in fact it was a brothel. Having set up shop deep within the maze-like alleyways, customers were unlikely to wander in off the street. And equally unlikely that it would be listed in any tourist guide.

It was a well-established institution, known only to people in the know.

The entranceways there in the dark behind the front door indicated the "Red Zone" (to purchase the company of women), the "Yellow Zone" (to purchase the company of men), and the "Blue Zone" (bring your own).

Payment was in cash only, no plastic accepted.

The automatic door closed and locked, starting a real-time metering system. This payment system was Riki's only real reason for choosing the place. As long as a customer paid the bill, his pedigree didn't matter. Riki had heard this was the only establishment in Midas that'd open its doors to a mongrel such as himself.

In the slums where guy-on-guy sex was the norm, the opportunity to do it with an honest-to-goodness member of the opposite sex wasn't likely to just drop out of the sky.

In Ceres, women capable of giving birth were its scarcest resource. Nevertheless, though the slums never saw females exceed ten percent of the population, neither were males who got sex-change operations just as highly valued. In the eyes of the slum mongrels, once a man always a man.

While those who didn't have what it took to compete might be denigrated as losers and fools, the downtrodden never dared to piss on those who tread on them.

The world of the slums personified the primeval meaning of "the survival of the fittest." A man did what he had to do to stay alive. His personal glamour or popularity or skills at self-promotion were all beside the point, as was any presumptuous inclination to act righteously.

The prize sought by one and all was to stand before the rest of them and flaunt his power as a man. Whatever his physical shortcomings or sexual predilections—or rather, whatever his "difficulties" in bed—all that was put aside if he only demonstrated a talent to lead others.

Sharpness of mind more than made up for any handicaps, and a man's sex life was his own business. Naturally, those lacking power or smarts ended up doing the bidding of others. No matter how much they lamented the harshness of their treatment, no one had any sympathy for the underdog.

Stated in concrete terms, sexual predation and gang rape were part and parcel of everyday life, castration and dismemberment being the hardly unusual end products of the kind of gruesome abuse that went on constantly.

You watch your own back. That was the iron law of the slums.

Forfeiting the very symbol of his masculinity, stripping away that which by birthright he had earned as a male, was to make a man a virtual pariah and outcast in this warped, male-only society. Consequently, no one harbored thoughts of dropping out with the hopes of passing as a "woman."

But in Minos money was all that mattered. A man could buy a woman by the hour and enjoy all the sex he could afford. While the prospect of passing the time in that kind of dream was to a slum mongrel close to paradise, perhaps the greater joy was fulfilling the twisted and dark desires of having a representative of the scornful citizenry of Midas—man or woman—under his thumb.

Moreover, the beauty of the working girls and boys in the Minos "stable" was rumored to surpass that of competing establishments. It was also bandied about that they were all "pet" rejects. There was no way to know one way or another. These were but a sampling of the secrets feeding the popular, furtive sport of rumor mongering.

As far as Riki was concerned, he couldn't have cared less about the "truth" behind these rumors. Had the events of this night not taken him in such an unexpected direction, he likely never would have stepped through the front door of Minos.

Nor was he about to deliberately pay for sex. It wasn't that his sex drive was on the wane. In the final analysis, when it came to sex, Riki wasn't interested in anybody but Guy, his "pairing partner." That hadn't changed since he'd become the designated leader of Bison.

Before meeting Guy at Guardian, Riki had a "one and only"—a person he believed would be his until the end of the world, someone he wished to protect and could not bear to lose. But there was nobody like that now.

Which was why he would be hard-pressed to explain why things were turning out this way. He was unable to repress the feelings roiling up inside. His emotions were getting out of control, something that hadn't happened since Guardian.

Not to mention that he'd never paired up with a Tanagura Blondy. It really did strike him as a perverse joke. But as much as he wanted to laugh, he couldn't—other than permitting himself a quiver at the corners of his mouth.

After entering the room, the two of them remained silent as usual. Riki sat on the corner of the bed. At a loss at what to do with his long legs, Iason settled on the couch and leaned back, as if waiting to see what Riki was going to do first.

Riki licked his lips, ill at ease and feeling that Iason was forcing his hand with his ostentatious silence. Neither willing to make the first move, it was in that fashion that a good ten minutes passed. That proved the limit of Riki's patience. He flamboyantly stripped off his clothing and dove beneath the covers.

But Iason only shot him a cool, presumptuous glance and hardly stirred so much as an eyebrow.

All the more annoyed, Riki raised his voice, "Hey! How long are you gonna sit there? I didn't come all the way here just for fun, OK? Let's get on with it already."

"When you miss your mark, is it your practice to pick someone up and make your money that way?" His cool, resounding voice was suffused with undisguised derision. "Unfortunately, I am not so whimsical that I would choose to lay my hands on slum trash like yourself. I have better things to do with my time. This attempt to force on me such undesirable hush money is not only unwelcome, but downright embarrassing."

Riki's face flushed red. His lips quivered, feeling that his pride was being stomped on.

However the Blondy then added, "On the other hand, you perhaps have ulterior motives?"

Hearing the situation stated in such unadulterated terms, this time Riki felt the blood draining from his face. Ulterior motives? The only person acting with ulterior motives was this Blondy, the Blondy who had cut a slum mongrel a break on a "whim."

Needless to say, Riki found that hard to believe. No, rather it was the thought that he alone was in the grip of this incomprehensible and irritating ill temper that really pissed him off. Getting fucked over and—quite contrary to his nature—just taking it "like a man" pissed him off even more.

If he'd only bowed his head to the Blondy's authority in the first place, he likely wouldn't have ended up here.

Except that Riki had no idea what being an "elite" really meant to a Tanagura Blondy. He'd hardly know the difference between one of the alpha males of the privileged classes and a hole in the wall. He was a kid who didn't fear touching the hot stove because he'd never seen one before.

"Well, if you ain't hot then why'd you tag along? You wanted to chat up a slum mongrel so we could get to know each other? C'mon, let's do it! I told you, didn't I? I don't owe anything to anybody." Riki unloaded on Iason without holding back. "Starched shirts like yourself haven't got the faintest idea what it's like getting hauled off to jail by those Pleasure Quarters cops. They treat us like garbage. You screw up and get collared and they're likely to give you a face lift with their fists. They'll bone you black and blue for good measure and then toss what's left of you in the nearest dumpster."

The specific details of what he was relating might have all been exaggerated second-hand knowledge as far as Riki was concerned, but any resident of the slums knew the punishments he described were not. He didn't have a Midas ID card and there was no denying the reality that its absence alone was sufficient grounds to deny him fair treatment as a human being.

"I've seen enough to last me a lifetime. So that's why I'm saying to you: Go on. Take your best shot. Anyway, don't you elite Tanagura types walk around all day with a gold-plated billboard on your backs announcing how you're so much better than us ordinary folks?"

Barbing his words with sarcasm, Riki flashed a careless smile.

"Word is, the used-up pets that make their way to Midas, male and female alike, end up sticking their asses out for anybody." He'd heard as well that sex shops like Minos were the final stop for these pets on their way down to the bottom.

"So I guess that if you've never sampled anything but posh, well-mannered merchandise like that, then an ill-bred mongrel would be too far below you. Am I wrong?" He meant to be provocative, kicking at the blankets with his right foot. "fine with me. Run off with your tail between your legs. Nobody's looking."

He spoke with an insolence bordering on the arrogant. Rather than a broken gelding groveling before the powerful, the tremendous pride he took as a wild beast revealed itself in a particular kind of sexual energy that surpassed any competing ambitions.

For a moment it was enough to move the otherwise imperturbable Blondy. Whoa, he's a lively one, his expression seemed to say. "In short, you're saying that finding yourself in debt to a disagreeable partner, you choose to settle accounts with your body?"

"It's a win-win way to clear the debt, right?" Riki smiled with an exaggerated smugness that raised the corners of his mouth. "I figure if it's good enough for the slums, it's good enough here too. That's why I'm willing to do it with you."

Not raising his voice to Riki's transparent provocations, Iason answered in an even tone. "Don't forget. You're the one who came on to me." He spit out the words but otherwise made no expression, patiently maintaining his composure until the very end.

Which is why Riki totally misread the situation, and failed to grasp the deeper subtext beneath the surface meaning. Knowing only the suffocating stench of the slums, in this world Riki was the real idiot, and quite ignorant of that fact as well. Turning the threat aside, Riki stared him down. No one was gonna fucking out-bluff him!

But what was the lie? What was the truth? When it came to the lives of the elites in the "sacred" city of Tanagura on the planet of Amoy, a resident of the slums like Riki had no way of knowing the difference between rumor and reality.

Nevertheless, it had become an established fact in Riki's mind that the Tanagura elites took as pets humans born of flesh and blood and used them as a fashion statement to show off social status. Not to sate their own physical desires, but to watch their oversexed pets play with each other, or so he had heard.

Male or female, it made no difference. He'd also heard that the spent and discarded pets collecting downstream in the brothels were generally afflicted by nymphomania, an addicted state resulting from the chronic use of aphrodisiacs.

Of course, Riki couldn't begin to imagine how and why the pet of a Tanagura elite would get dumped in Midas, to say nothing of their eventual fate. The subject didn't interest him and he hadn't ever cared enough to find out. Riki had always believed that the humanoids couldn't be expected to understand the complexities of human physiology and human emotions.

In Iason's own sneering words, Riki was trying to force undesirable hush money on him. Yet some discernable part of Riki's desire to pay him back with his own flesh arose out of a genuine curiosity about the body of this artificial humanoid.

Commensurate with developments in brain chemistry and biology that had pushed human intelligence to the limits was the allure of the perpetually youthful body. Riki could only assume that these "Gods of Beauty"—the Blondies that engendered in others such envy and fear—should sport the same hyper-functionality as the sex androids.

The fact of the matter was, while he'd pulled Iason all the way to Minos, he still harbored some doubts. Like whether a Tanagura Bloody with such refined tastes would want to sleep with a slum mongrel in the first place. And whether he'd be satisfied even if he did get laid. Riki simply hadn't thought these things through.

But having come this far, no matter how the game turned out, there was no going home again. He was playing for keeps.

All his refined grace on display, Iason approached the defiant Riki. Yet Riki didn't check his caustic commentary. "You're certainly a fine piece of work. If you don't feel confident stripping with the lights on, feel free to turn them off."

"How about a preview to start with? Simply to confirm that the encounter won't be a waste of my time."

What's this asshole getting all high and mighty on me now for? Grousing under his breath Riki nonetheless yielded to the request. He got out of bed and leaned nonchalantly against the wall, exposing his body to full view.

Though still in the midst of his growth spurt and a bit on the gangly side, his naked form revealed the well-defined muscles of a firm yet supple body.

In addition, any description must note as well that this feral child had grown up in the slums without any kind of discipline and control. But whether Riki's body rose to standards of Iason's aesthetic sense or not—accustomed as he was to the very finest grade of pets—was a separate issue.

His cool gaze traveled across Riki's bare skin. It wasn't repulsively lurid or dank, but neither did Riki feel a throbbing heat between his thighs in response. Which might have been why, more than the assault of a visual molestation, the sensation stimulated was that of having his flanks stroked with the keen edge of a blade.

A blade fashioned from cold, smooth, hard steel. And very sharp. The thought alone brought out goose bumps on his skin. "Well, do I pass?" Insolence and defiant to the end, spoken in a tone of voice pregnant with provocative desire.

"Good proportions. Good enough for the Diaz harem's stable. Providing you could stand there and keep your mouth shut."

Riki wasn't sure why a Tanagura Blondy would be privy to information like that, but otherwise didn't let it get to him. "Same goes for you. You shut that damn mouth of yours and the headliner at the Ruska Club couldn't compete. Not to mention that if what you've got down there is any match for your face in the size and firmness department—but that's only if you have the technique and stamina to keep it up and keep 'em coming and coming."

"You seem very well informed."

"Well, without all the bullshit rumors to throw around, life in the slums would be too puking dull to stomach—"

Riki found himself in an unusually talkative mood. In response to the frigid gaze falling on him as if from a great height, he gestured defiantly, not intimidated even by the ever-present air of omnipotence in Iason's cool voice.

Despite leading boldly with his chin, Riki's performance unexpectedly faltered at times, as the Blondy debated the worth of what this mongrel was offering. It'd only be natural to look the merchandise over, feel it over, really, as Iason's roaming fingers briefly strummed the strings of Riki's senses.

He wasn't imagining things. Not the throbbing of blood in his veins he hadn't felt in the slightest the moment before. Not the fleeting tendrils of panic. He wasn't that inexperienced. He hadn't intended to play the bashful and embarrassed, put up a false front, or pretend to be more than what he was.

If anything, the disquiet in his heart was telling him: This is not how it's supposed to happen!

Riki knew where the wellsprings of a blood-roiling rapture could be found. How his sex life compared with that of other people he couldn't say, but with Guy, his pairing partner, it had never in any respect been lacking. Not to mention that he took no shame in the thought of crying out and reveling in the pleasure.

With the tip of his finger—and with a cold efficiency—Iason sought out that hidden pleasure place, still wearing what felt like a silk glove. Riki was initially indignant and offended. What, I'm gonna let this fucker treat a slum mongrel like some sort of walking germ factory?

Iason's fingers glided across his skin, gradually exhausting any excess energy Riki had to spare for his angry condemnations. It was a burning difficult to describe.

But different.

Different how?

No, not that.

Then what?

Pressing his lips together tightly, he felt a fleeting moment of confusion, not knowing what and where and how to deny the personal volition spilling out of him—

Iason softly massaged Riki's nipple with his thumb, making the boy's breath catch abruptly. Slowly, inexorably, the throbbing, tantalizing excitement—

The stroke and rhythm of the ball of his thumb pressing through his gloved hand leapt in intensity, an altogether different sensation confounding Riki's senses. Perversely aroused, his nipples grew hard and erect.

Iason's other hand loosely glided down Riki's spine, brushing against his tight buttocks and then slipping between his thighs.

Riki started.

In the same instant, the inexpressible sensations began to pulsate in his lower extremities. Suggesting a desire to mock this half-conscious reaction, Iason embraced him and pressed him against the wall, forcing apart Riki's thighs, as he parted his thighs.

From stillness to action.

At that moment an unexpected and steep change descended upon Riki, as if throwing a switch and sending a sudden rush of blood coursing from the heart.

He swallowed his voice and set his face. The chill of the wall against his back was not nearly as shocking as being unable to move, since his hands were held easily behind his back.

And then a different kind of rigor raced through his whole body. Pinned firmly between Riki's thighs, as if to confirm the ripened state of the exposed fruits, Iason's knee swayed back and forth. The unresolved, throbbing pleasure only encouraged further awareness of the increased stimulation.

Riki's loins thrust upwards as the excitement grew. The foreplay could not possibly be thought of in terms of mutual satisfaction. Loathing the one-sided nature of the frottage, he tried to shrug it off. Deliberately and surely, Iason forced a full comprehension of his tenaciousness on Riki's consciousness.

Rising up on his toes to mount Iason's knee, Riki all but wove his flesh into the fabric of the wall. Iason even clasped and raised his arms above his head, holding them to the wall.

It was an unbelievably awkward and ungainly posture. Riki hit his lip, realizing now that he was being unexpectedly docile.

Looking down at him with the cold weight of his high and mighty bearing, Iason plucked at Riki's erect left nipple with fingers that seemed entwined with the beating of his heart. The pulsations through the smooth, cool fabric raised a burning fever in his skin. He wasn't imagining things. Iason left off strumming at the nipple and gently sank his finger into Riki's flesh, toying with it.

The insides of Riki's thighs suddenly undulated like a wave in slow motion. As if to tease him, as if to string him along, he pressed down on the peak in a circular motion. That alone raced Riki's heartbeat to a brutal rate, pounding out a lascivious rhythm in his left breast.

Albeit delicately, the loving caresses seizing his heart in its talons would not stop. And now the previously overlooked right nipple hardened quick, causing Riki to spontaneously cry out.

Both nipples throbbed with a stabbing intensity. Further in and further in, the constricting waves of pleasure wound at last around his throat and engulfed his hips in a merciless fire.

"Hah—hah—hah—" Riki stifled the inarticulate groans, hardly believing he could be brought to the verge by the manipulation of his nipples alone. The uncontrollable waves of pleasure showed no signs of slowing. The ceaselessly rising currents of heat coursed up his spine.

The hard bow of his manhood, slippery-wet with the precum dribbling from the tip—

"Ahhhh—"

—in that instance, to the accompaniment of his unrestrained gasps, erupted in a single, rending burst. The rapture arced like electric sparks across the back of his eyes.

And yet it came as proof of a degree of shame he had never tasted before.

His bound arms twitched and shook, his feet couldn't find purchase against the ground. He was a disheveled, mangy mess, stretched out as if on the rack. Yet holding Riki firmly against the wall with a single hand, Iason wouldn't allow him to sink down to the floor. The humiliation burned.

He ground his molars together. Willpower strained to the breaking point and his racing heartbeat quietly faded away. He could do nothing to rid the bitter reflux of bile in his mouth. As if to break Riki's already cracked pride, Iason quipped, "Coming that fast is surely nothing to be proud of."

He had no easy excuse to offer the mortification thrust in front of his face. Hanging his head, amidst the roiling thoughts in his head he found nothing to say in return.

The blood boiling in his veins gaudily advertising his debasement, he could only bite down on his lips until the flesh trembled and turned white. "Let go."

But Iason did not relax the finger digging into Riki's wrist. Far from it. "What? Did you really intend to resolve things with such a pathetic performance?"

The softly falling voice above his head coolly skewered his reality. "You're saying you've got no use for me?" For the first time Riki knew the pain contained in words of even casual disdain.

Grabbing his raven hair and tilting his head back, Iason looked Riki straight in his coal-black eyes. "You are the one who chose to buy my silence in such an inconvenient manner. Is it too much to ask that the payment be commensurate to the cost?"

He pressed his demands as if insisting upon what was his by right.

"What are you getting at? You want a little harem-style oohing and ahhing? Not a technique we slum mongrels go for."

"Well, you do seem sufficiently sensitive enough without it. There is nothing wrong with testing those vocal chords of yours every once in a while."

"Huh. You're pretty full of yourself."

Riki stubbornly lashed out verbally, even if he knew at this point that the darts would never find their target. Iason's matter-of-fact manner of speech made it clear that all joking aside, he wasn't exaggerating. Riki had learned the hard reality of that fact through personal experience.

No, the mercilessness with which he'd proved he could walk the talk went way beyond being a smart ass. It gave Riki the shivers. He'd already begun to regret his provocative and scornful treatment of Iason.

"I am deigning to treat slum trash no different than a Tanagura pet. And you are still not happy?"—that kind condescending talk was not by itself disagreeable, and Riki had never before seen a man for whom it was such a perfect fit.

And not only that, but in a different sense it tore at the emotional boundaries between Riki's ego and id. "In that case, then how about at least taking off your clothes?"

Compared to Riki, who on top of being stark naked had been forcibly brought to an unsightly climax, Iason hadn't even bothered to remove his gloves. He tightened a cheek in a sardonic smile. "Why should disciplining an ill-bred, thick-skulled mongrel require the removal of my clothes?"

It felt like getting slapped in the face so hard, it made him rock back on heels and catch his breath.

"Do not misunderstand, mongrel. You are the prize so clumsily forced upon me in exchange for my silence. Do as I ask, then, and give cry out for me and we'll call it even. Nothing more."

Iason was brilliantly handsome and was right there in front of his face. Riki focused his two black eyes unblinkingly on that bewitching personification of beauty. What's this motherfucker—!

But despite a brain on fire, his festering, wounded pride rotting down to the roots, Riki finally grasped that he couldn't parry the lance of Iason's cool gaze in the slightest. It was a most frustrating realization. From the start they had been cast in completely different roles.

Only now did this knowledge come to him. The indomitable spirit of the king of Hot Crack couldn't mask the fact he was nothing especially compared to this Blondy elite. The world contained more kinds of people than his mind could fathom, and he now felt the truth of this like he hadn't before.

Despite harboring all the regrets in the world, his aroused and obstinate willpower remained, though he never possessed the patience to see it torn out of him, kicking and screaming, in bits and pieces. Neither had it occurred to him that Iason's sense of "whimsy" had only further solidified his hard-core, never-say-die attitude.

And perhaps having on his hands a plaything that answered back for the first time in a long time, Iason's curiosity was piqued to a degree quite unlike himself. Either way, Iason had already—half-seriously, perhaps—intended to tear at the roots of Riki's stubborn pride.

Unaware of these intentions, Riki had become ensnared in the strong and alluring web of Iason's presence. Iason had chosen this path in a similar state of ignorance, entranced by the curiosity that was Riki.

While coldly matching his intense stare, Iason slipped his finger toward Riki's shadowed groin. Not in the tantalizing manner he used before, but with bold directness—without hesitation, he brushed past Riki's limp member. With his palm and fingertips he sought by touch the two spheres. Closer to a routine manual inspection than a loving caress, the fondling left Riki discomfited.

As if seeing right to the heart of Riki's feelings, Iason smiled just to the corners of his mouth. Such a smile showed not a trace of cloying lewdness. It was an exquisite but equally frigid smile that sent a shiver up the spine.

In that moment, Riki knew that Tanagura Blondies were uncompromising tyrants with mean streaks wider than any devil's.

Awhile later, the silent room again filled with the waves of Riki's ragged breath. The atmosphere, moist and stagnant, shuddered with sweet and wistful moans. Dark and carnal desires arising from pleasures indulged in without protest coiled here and there about their extremities.

He had no idea how long it went on. Enclosed within Iason's arms, Riki suddenly called out in a voice verging on a bellow. "E—enough already!"

His breath was labored, his words filled with a strange energy. The coarseness of his voice accentuated by the sweet, throbbing numbness stabbing at his loins, filling the sounds issuing from his lips with an artless tremolo.

"I—I—am—not—a—toy!" he spat.

Then, as if his breath was catching in his throat, his lips and throat contracted.

"Gahhhhhh—"

An intense, tingling sensation strong enough to make him want to cry out or moan. Riki had never known such pleasure, burning inside his skull as if his brain stem was on fire.

If the sex he had with Guy could be said to be the very definition of "normal," then contained within the one-sided stimulation delivered by Iason was a kind of pain that felt as if his nerves had been stripped bare and mercilessly lashed. It was equally sensual and profane.

Riki clung to Iason's arms, nails digging into his flesh.

But the singing string of pleasure only tightened and would not cease. Any urge to ejaculate was thwarted by the tight vice of Iason's fingers. Riki's ready and willing member could only ooze eager drops of precum without obtaining release.

With a finger pressed up his ass, Iason had Riki at his mercy. The bud hidden between the cleft in his cheeks, that Guy always patiently unfolded with his fingers and tongue, Iason relentlessly exposed with the lubrication of his precum alone.

Deceived by the finger being forced inside himself, the stinging, biting pain, and repugnance disappeared.

"And here we find the bud of your pleasure?"

If the symbol of a man's sexual desire was his erect penis, then the root of that joy was the prostate hidden in his anus. Having it maul without restraint was far from pleasurable. This turning of a man's nature against him had become more akin to torture.

Iason, though, appeared to enjoy inflicting the paroxysms rising from Riki's throat to head, causing the gasps that shook his whole body.

There's nothing wrong with really testing those vocal chords of yours.

Riki couldn't believe those words were the simple product of Iason's superiority complex. But perhaps it reflected the disgust the elites felt, with their artificial bodies, toward the humans born of flesh and blood. To the extent that any such feelings figured in his thinking, Iason expertly and unflaggingly tortured the mongrel in his captivity to Riki.

Riki wanted to come. But he couldn't. Worse, the stimulation continued on unabated, his genitals continued to smolder. The spasms shook his feet and shot up his backbone.

Iason toyed with those basic male impulses, teasing at the man's sexual emotions until he could take no more. Cruelly not allowed to come down from that peak, Riki's voice almost broke into tears.

"Let—me—come— Please— Quit—jerking—me—off—half—way—"

If someone had been hitting him upside the head over and over, then he could grit his teeth and bear it. If he'd been mercilessly stabbed in the back, then he could at least spit out words of defiance. But the burning agony scorching his viscera had already crushed his nerves. The desire to ejaculate must necessarily triumph above all else as the most basic instinct of a male.

I have to come!

With trembling mouth, quivering fingertips, and tortured body he pled his case. Without shame or honor. Over and over.

And when he did, Iason finally freed him. Perhaps having taunted him to his own satisfaction, or having lost interest in the human toy once he had made Riki beg so beautifully.

Exactly what he'd been dying for. His pride and will tossed aside, he'd finally been granted what he begged for: release.

However, from his trembling lips poured not rapturous moans but sighs of relief. In the guts, at the core of his brain, he was overcome by a drained feeling after the frenzy was swept aside. As soon as Iason let go, he collapsed on the spot as if his very soul had been exhausted and spent.

The frosted eyes looked down at him from a commanding height. As if the thought had just occurred to him, Iason stripped off the semen-smeared glove and tossed it in the trash. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly. He took a coin from his pocket and tossed it at Riki's feet.

"And here's your change. For the hush money. You're right. Neither a borrower nor a lender be."

His chest heaving, Riki licked his lips over and over with his numb tongue. His legs quivered with small, twitching convulsions. Lacking even the energy to hide his privates, he had nothing to spare for any backtalk, either.

Even when Iason left the room without a backward glance, Riki hardly moved a muscle. Like a cowardly, beaten dog.

five minutes. Ten. Nothing passed but the futile, faded time. Riki finally grunted and sat up. His eyes fell on the coin. He didn't know what he was looking at, except that it was a gold coin with a geometrical pattern inscribing a crest or seal stamped on its surface.

He clenched his teeth and in a flash grabbed it. "What the fuck?" He shakily scrambled to his feet. "So that was a Tanagura Blondy—" Ruminating over these words, he shook his fist, tightly grasping the coin. "That asshole!"

A Tanagura Blondy and a slum mongrel—like parallel lines that were never going to cross, Riki now knew that their lives spanned a gap impossible to bridge. Having not even exchanged names, the heavy, unnatural sense of discomfort remained.

In the truest sense of the word, this was for Iason and Riki their beginning.