Vol 4. Suggestion - Chap 5
Chap 5
The western reaches of Ceres.
The faint rays of sun peeked through cracks in the overhanging clouds, bathing Guardian in a pure, white light. The ragged and poisoned air of the Colony did not reach past the nondescript walls that circled the institution. Here was the single lotus rising out of the muck of Ceres. Innocent. Proud. Brilliant.
But thoroughly repulsive to those who knew the true character of Ceres's most sacred ground.
Kirie arrived at Guardian that day in his shining, spotless air car. It wasn't the first time he'd come back to the foster center. Indeed, he'd been back a number of times over the past two months. The security guard at the front gate knew him on sight, and Kirie even stopped to chat with him for a few minutes.
But that didn't mean he could simply cut through the red tape required to obtain a visitor's pass. Not even a graduate of Guardian gut past the gate without an appointment. Nobody just popped in to say hello.
"Educating a Child's Mind and Soul." That was the foster center's motto. Kirie had left its precincts for the slums five years ago. Two months ago, the truth about the place started to sink in.
He was dumbfounded.
Simply dropping by on a whim to poke around his old haunts required doing things by the book and going through channels and setting up a formal meeting. Unaware of that, Kirie had been turned away at the front door. He gave the guard a surprised look.
"I came all the way here. Just a quick look around—"
"No."
"C'mon, cut me a little slack—"
"No."
"Then how about you give Sister Anna a call for me—"
"No!"
No matter how humbly he begged, or how high and mighty he protested, the security guard denied him. "Just following regulations," the guard curtly insisted over and over again. Eventually, Kirie reluctantly withdrew, the unexpected reality forcing itself upon him.
Geez, who the hell do you think you are? he'd thought at the time, unconsciously furrowing his brow. He wanted to show off to his once helpful block mother and sister what a man he'd become in the past five years. His spirits flagged somewhat.
No, hardly flagged. What's a fucking slum foster center acting all high and mighty about?
His buoyant mood was dashed with a bucket of cold water. And it pissed him off. But he wouldn't give up.
Shit, I'm getting in no matter what. If "regulations" were all the man knew, then Kirie would follow the damned regulations. I'm getting myself an appointment.
First off, he got himself a smartphone and went to the Guardian site on the net and filled out all the forms for an official appointment. Of course he had to give a reason for the appointment, and his personal ID number was indispensable. But he was also obligated to provide certified proof of adult status.
What the hell is that?
That was when Kirie remembered the card he'd been issued when he left Guardian. The foster center's "Certificate of Adult Status." In short, it attested to the fact that he'd completed Guardian's required education courses, was thirteen years old, and had become an "adult in good standing."
Living in the slums, the card wasn't particularly good for anything. The Guardian graduates were all issued ID cards upon entering the Colony, and most kids ended up discarding the mostly pointless certificate. The smarter ones stored it away to gather dust for the rest of their lives.
The usefulness of the ID was limited to the environs of Ceres. Ceres had been wiped off the official maps of Midas. It existed only as a kind of autonomous ghost town.
Tanagura did not recognize its existence, which was why it did not issue the residents a regulation ID.
As far as kids like Kirie were concerned, once they'd been processed and presented with their official "Certificate of Adult Status," as long as they had an ID card, they naively assumed that additional proof of their existence was unnecessary.
But not playing by the rules wouldn't work. His application would end up in the circular file. The rules were the rules, and there was no bending them to serve his purposes.
Damn it all! What a pain in the ass!
Kirie ended up turning his apartment upside down in order to find his Certificate. He was determined to find the thing, whether it existed or not.
When the application was finally processed, notification arrived via email accompanied by an acceptance number. That alone wasn't enough for him to gain entry. A so-called "reconfirmation" of the application took another two days.
Moreover, the meeting wouldn't be at his convenience—it would be whenever Guardian decided it would be. No questions asked.
Geez, what a runaround. This isn't fucking Palace Tower. What's with all the checking and double-checking? Makes no fucking sense.
It was no surprise that Kirie was so put out. It was almost as if Guardian was saying: Once we call you an adult and kick you out of the house, there's no coming home again.
Most people wouldn't go to this much trouble, and jump through this many hoops, without a compelling reason. This certainly wasn't the kind of thing Kirie did just to blow off a few hours.
That was probably the aim of the foster center all along. The stifling reality of the slums was something that Guardian insistently hid from the eyes of its youthful charges, but only for a time. When they turned thirteen and became "adults," the truth was laid out before them, and all their dreams turned to dust. Only then would they realize how pointless it was to slave away.
They quickly grew accustomed to disappointment and resignation. Whatever knowledge had been stuffed into their brains in Guardian would prove useless in the outside world. Guardian was a gilded cage while the slums were a borderless landfill. An oppressive, choking landscape with no place to run. It took no more than a day or two for them to figure that out.
There was no way Guardian could open its doors again to a bunch of guys who'd had their fill of that reality and wanted to come back to the garden and waste away the empty hours.
It all made perfect sense. Those who ran Guardian wanted to keep any bad influences away from their children. That was their fundamental mission in life. Otherwise, their whole identity as a foster center would be shaken.
Guardian was a garden paradise, a terrarium shut away from the world. Kirie knew that now as he'd never known it before. Though he showed up at that designated date and time, he wasn't whisked inside as expected. The fences and gates circling Guardian were there for a reason, and security was extraordinarily tight. Double- and triple-checks were routine. The reason for all these measures was posted everywhere: "To prevent entry of unauthorized persons."
But the way Kirie read it, it really meant: We haven't got the time to mess with some slum anarchists who want to put our foster kids in their crosshairs.
It was a royal pain in the ass doing everything by the book, day after day. But a nut job anarchist from the slums had to be the least of their concerns. The kiddie porn syndicates expressly kept their distance from the slum mongrels as well.
Even so, those kinds of outlets were common in Midas. Legal and underground, high-grade or the leftovers for the bottom feeders.
Child abuse was a serious crime in any star system. In Midas, however, it didn't lurk in the shadows. It paraded around in the open. A regulated enterprise. It was a widely known "secret" that the vast majority of the tourist trade consisted of those seeking to sate that particular predilection. If "unauthorized intruders" were allowed inside, the penniless and cornered residents of the slums would doubtlessly come begging.
Consequently, Kirie figured that as far as he was concerned, having taken the time to come this far, they might as well give him the damned pass. He couldn't come to any other conclusion.
The more he thought about it, the more pissed off he became. If they've got that kind of money to spend protecting a bunch of kids, you'd think they could spare a few pennies for a decent rec center.
He resolved himself then and there: he was doing what it took to get out of the slums. That was his pressing dream. But with no connections and without a regulation ID, even if he left the slums, there'd be no place for him in Midas.
It was so plain, so sickeningly obvious. Midas was one big pleasure palace. There he could eat, play, and shop until he was dead on his feet, sleep it off, and start all over again. But only if he had money and an ID.
There was nowhere in that Midas where a slum mongrel could sneak in and find a place to settle down for the long haul. Kirie could cuss and swear and snarl, but for the time being, the slums were the only place he could call home.
Home for Kirie was crowded with stallions as useful to their species as geldings. With youthfulness to spare and violence in their bones, they wasted away their days gangbanging and the nights banging each other.
Guardian provided a wide variety of diversions and amusements to keep the children from becoming bored and restless. But there was nothing like that in the slums.
It didn't have to be pretty. It didn't have to be grand. Something like a Guardian playground for adults would have made all the difference. The raw reality was that a fun night in the slums was playing chicken with a patched-together jet bike.
Or cruising Midas for thrills and profit. But even there, the challenge came down to nothing more than swiping cash cards. Do it badly enough and the cops would beat a kid within an inch of his life. No small threat. The Midas cops and the Vigilante Corps had more respect for livestock than for slum mongrels.
Put in those terms, Kirie was furious with the paltry reach of their lives. What the hell do those Guardian assholes think they're up to?
For the time being, Ceres was an autonomously governed district. So it had a political structure where the big shots and fat cats could relax. But in fact, the administrators of Guardian sat at the top of a slag heap. And everybody in the slums knew it.
But the Kuger family kept Guardian and their little Eden under lock and key with themselves shut up in it. They never showed their faces in the slums. And yet, no one thought that was strange for a "public" corporation. Though, until very recently, neither had Kirie. It was just another bit of slum common sense.
Once Kirie had graduated from the foster center, he hadn't had the luxury of ruminating about his life there. It was enough for him to stay with the flow while keeping his head above water. One day after the next.
Nevertheless, Guardian's uniqueness, its special place in the greater society, was imprinted on his mind. The one spot of holy ground in Ceres that was off limits.
The Kuger family had taken upon itself the duty of protecting the precious female assets of Ceres, and to raise their children. And if they chose to cloister themselves within Guardian's sacred walls, that was certainly their prerogative. Who were the rest of them to argue?
That was what Kirie had thought too. But now things were different. Meeting face-to-face with one of the elites from the Tanagura aristocracy changed him somehow. Struck a spark. Aroused a new hunger in his gut.
Starved for information, he became aware of the reality of the slums. He learned how Midas worked. His eyes were drawn to what he hadn't seen before—or, rather, what he hadn't looked for.
He began to pay close attention to those things that in the midst of the daily boredoms, he would have previously batted aside lazily without a second thought. He keenly felt that nothing would happen if he just waited.
In the process, Kirie looked at Guardian with new eyes as well. He hadn't shown the slightest interest before. But now his curiosity was above the norm. And the reason had a lot to do with his repeated visits to Guardian, and all the loathsome, annoying paperwork. The last of which included some final papers he needed to sign before getting past the front gate:
1. Unscheduled contact with the children outside the interview room is prohibited.
2. Your visitor's name tag must be worn at all times.
3. You must vacate the premises at the appointed time.
The security guard signaled an all-clear, and Kirie was finally allowed to enter the facilities.
I feel like I've been through the wringer.
But Kirie suppressed the grating initation in his heart. He nodded politely to the guard, who had by now become a familiar face. "Thank you for all your kind attention," he said.
The man had been the bane of his existence and a ridiculous waste of his time, but Kirie had to jump through those hoops to get inside. That was what the hoops were there for. Kirie planned on making a number of return visits. And though the man was a flunky security guard, leaving a good impression went a long way. It was all part of his calculations.
Perhaps because the afternoon classes had begun, he didn't see any children anywhere. The grounds of the center were completely silent. Rather than continuing down the hallway, with accustomed steps, Kirie cut across the inner courtyard. That was the shortest route to the assigned meeting place.
That was when his raised eyes unexpectedly caught a glimpse of the angel—the symbol of Guardian—adorning the old-fashioned clock.
Huh. I'm ten minutes late. Well, he knew he wasn't going to arrive on time. Wouldn't hurt 'em to cool their heels for a while. A little taste of what they keep putting me through.
If he was going to be late, he was going to be late. Hurrying wouldn't change that. He slowed to a more leisurely gait. Arriving after a fashion at the Number Three rec mom, Kirie opened the door without bothering to knock. A storm of noise and sound suddenly assaulted his ears.
Toward the front of the large room filled with virtual reality gaming equipment, unabated by even the soundproofing walls, Manon was firing off a laser gun.
Ah, our Little Lord Fauntleroy is in a rotten mood.
Kirie had never beheld such an easy-to-understand kid in his life. And at the opposite end of the spectrum, his mind conldn't help flashing back to the toughest bunch of customers he'd ever had to deal with.
Kirie's lips bent into something of a smirk. The Jeeks incident had elevated that bunch to the talk of the slums. Everywhere he went nowadays, that name was spoken. Jeeks's so-called Hyper Kids had put on a tough face and loosed a reign of terror in the slums, making themselves a real problem.
The gang that took care of them would be the heroes of the hour.
There were those who welcomed these developments, and those who did not. Unrestrained envy and inflated jealousies. The slums reacted in every way a man could imagine.
The resurrection of Bison is around the corner, said the relentless rumors.
And yet Kirie was hardly mentioned. Delivering that tear gas bomb to the Jeeks safe house was Kirie's doing. And tipping over that domino marked the beginning of the end for Jeeks.
But nobody had bothered to thank him. Far from it. He'd been informed in no uncertain terms that if he wanted to keep his limbs intact, he'd never show his face around again.
Riki had torn him down badly. The exhilaration from taking down Riki's wingman still hadn't sunk in. In fact, the victory tasted sour in his mouth. The bitterness throbbed painfully in his heart.
But Kirie harbored no regrets. He didn't need any warm camaraderie. Give him another similar chance to sell out a friend and he'd do it in a heartbeat.
It's all the same to me. Who's gonna be the last man standing, huh? You'll eat those words. And to get that done, Kirie had plans at Guardian.
Manon aimed at his targets with a practiced and sure hand. He was as good at the game as a player could get. For a kid's first-person-shooter video game, that is. It could hardly be a satisfactory achievement for the twenty-year-old Manon. And perhaps his own realization of this was the source of his irritation. Or maybe it was the product of some other problem. Manon grumbled to himself in self-disgust and bashed the gun against the floor.
Deliberately needling him, Kirie said in an unflattering tone of voice with thick sarcasm, "As skilled as I expected. Awful damned frustrating when they don't fight back. Makes you want to take it out on somebody, eh, Manon?"
Manon jerked around, furrowing his brow. "Don't go addressing me so casually."
Hey, hey. Your beef ain't with me.
As well as completely missing the sarcasm, Manon's sense of pride, as always, rose to the fore. It was another thing about him that never changed.
Kirie and Manon had once been block mates. For three years they lived in the same block of dorms, sleeping and eating together. Nevertheless, the three years in age separating them created a distance that Kirie could not surmount easily.
Add to that the fact that Manon was the boss' son and he always had his own clique surrounding him. Guys like Kirie were never more than block mates, always just hovering at the edges of Manon's vision.
The first time Manon bothered to say hello, Kirie introduced himself and referred to their shared history together. Manon hadn't reacted in the slightest. He didn't remember a thing about Kirie.
Kirie didn't take it personally. Thinking back on when he was a clueless kid himself, it was all the same. The only thing important to him was his relationship with Manon from that point forward.
"If you're still looking to get your hands on a free-entry pass," Manon shot back in his high-handed manner, radiating his intolerable sense of privilege, "then you'd better learn to call me Master Manon."
A free-entry ID pass, eh? Well, if he really could pull strings in that department—
It seemed to Kirie that about all Manon could do at this juncture was wave to him from the other side of the gate. Right now, the only one of them with any personal experience as to how Guardian security treated visitors was Kirie. Not Manon.
"Hey, you listening to me?"
Since their days in Guardian, there was no doubt that the passing years had only exacerbated Manon's pride.
"I do beg your pardon," Kirie said, with an exaggerated shrug of resignation. Still, he couldn't suppress the thin smile that rose to his lips.
There was an overarching self-confidence embodied in the arrogance that made Kirie Kirie. Even now, he made no attempt to hide it. If necessary, he would. But over these past two months, Manon had become accustomed enough to his presence that he didn't bother.
Manon indignantly nodded in turn.
Kirie approached him with deliberate reserve. Though Manon's eyes briefly narrowed in frustrated irritation, Kirie maintained an impassive front.
Yeah, let's see you hold on and beg for it. The world wasn't custom-made for you, poor little rich boy.
Nothing was guaranteed to turn out the way Manon wanted. He was too young, too inexperienced, and without real connections. He could whine about it as much as he wanted, but in the end, it added up to nothing but excuses.
This past year, Kirie had learned that lesson until it hurt. Results were what mattered, not the details. The ends, not the means. Losing was nothing. Winning was everything. If he wanted to count himself among the winners, he had to reach out and grab that brass ring himself. No matter the price. No matter the sacrifice.
Kirie didn't doubt. He didn't hesitate. He was committed. No matter where the fault lay—no matter where the good or evil resided—his truth was the only truth that counted. And that Kirie was the one who got under Manon's skin and inflamed his passions.
Annoyed, Manon drew his lips into a tight line. He quickly approached Kirie, then grabbed him and yanked him closer. Kirie stumbled forward. Manon caught him as if waiting for him.
"What are you dawdling around for? Don't make me wait!"
"It's all that runaround and paperwork. That's why the sooner I get that free-entry pass, the better."
Kirie smiled thinly out of the corners of his mouth, while teasingly entwining the gaze of his mismatched eyes with those of Manon's. He knew well that his curious eyes turned on many men in the slums. Glistening eyes glancing up from beneath his brow, wet and enticing.
That alone was enough to make men fall for him. Only Riki and Guy had resisted his charms. Those two were a maddening, infuriating, everlasting breed apart. Although their reactions were strange as well.
He'd made a play for Guy and Guy hadn't fallen for him. In frustration, Kirie called him impotent. Guy knocked him down hard. I'm not into pissy little kids just out of their diapers. It was like getting hit in the gut so hard he couldn't even breathe.
The one blot on his record he couldn't wipe clean.
Kirie batted the memory away as soon as it rose up in his thoughts. Wrapping his arms around Manon's back, he thrust his hips forward. He didn't sell himself cheap. But when he threw himself into a part, he played it to the hilt. That was his policy.
Their eyes and noses a hair's breadth apart, Manon's throat trembled slightly.
"With that pass in hand, I'll fly here in a jiffy. Right into your—"
Manon smothered the rest of the sentence with a kiss. Unrelenting, hungry, and fierce. Kirie parted his lips slightly in response. Their tongues entwined. Tangling together so Kirie could not flee. Sucking all the harder to keep him close. Thick, clumsy, persistent kisses. And all the time, Manon's hands traveled over Kirie's torso restlessly, glued against him. More than words, the touch of their bodies communicated to Kirie Manon's desire for this long-awaited tryst.
Hands stroking Kirie's back, grabbing at his tight ass. Too impatient to bother with the fly, Manon groped and grabbed between Kirie's thighs. A fervent desire revealed itself in the heat of each clinging kiss.
Kirie gasped between ragged breaths, "That's a hell of an appetite you've got there. Not the kind of thing to be putting on public display."
With a start, Manon's eyes darted frantically around the room, as if searching for spies. Kirie permitted himself a private smile. Manon must have been going crazy all week. It was only their first date of the week, and Manon was already pumped and ready.
It was a mistake to claim that the heavy security kept the captive princess safe and secure in her tower. Inside Guardian's gilded birdcage, the heir to the Kuger throne—the little prince, so clueless and vain—anxiously awaited Kirie to be allowed in.
Their individual senses of purpose differed as widely as their accumulated experiences. Kirie was always the one who took the initiative. Though this fact never penetrated Manon's thick skull.
Manon grabbed Kirie by the arm and dragged him into a nearby room. His lusts ignited by their kisses, Manon didn't have the perseverance to go all the way back to his rooms.
Kirie didn't bother protesting that it was a nap room for tired children. Playing any harder-to-get at this point would only put Manon in a bad mood.
"Hurry up and take off your clothes," Manon barked hoarsely.
Kirie quickly removed his top and undershirt. And then he changed pace, slowly pulling down his zipper. He wasn't so much playing the cock tease as he was deliberately inflaming Manon's desires.
Having stripped himself bare, Kirie smiled magnificently. It was more than enough to thrust Marion's already out-of-control cock skyward.
"C'mere," said Kirie.
Manon seized him, hisnostrils flaring. His face buried against Manon's shoulder, Kirie smiled coldlyto himself. Piece of cake. With every passing day, thescion of Guardian was falling into his grasp. That smile rose from his absoluteconfidence.
On the application form, Kirie had listed his reason for visiting Guardian: I want to give a little back to the institution that did so much for me.
Anybody who knew Kirie wouldn't have believed their eyes reading that, "Whose chain does he think he's yanking here?" they would have wanted to know.
But Kirie was serious. He'd pour his money into whatever pockets it look to accomplish his goals. He'd tone down the ostentation and arrogance, and make himself out to be as normal as possible. And deliver saccharine lines like that with a straight face.
Nobody would have believed it unless they saw it for themselves.
Kirie had been coming and going from Guardian for two months now, bearing comics and toys that were rare for the guarded children.
Having grown up there, Kirie knew what was in poor supply at the foster center and what the children wished for. What the adults pressed on them and what they actually wanted were rarely the same. But with time, the children learned not to demand that which they could not have.
Everything was divvied up equally among them. Both material things and displays of affection. So the children were keenly aware that there was never enough.
Non-material goods couldn't just be dropped off in good-will packages. So Kirie found a way to convert what he'd wanted then into concrete form and present it to them now. The block mothers and sisters were uniformly impressed. As Kirie expected they would be. Nothing like this had happened since the beginnings of Guardian. Guardian graduates simply did not return once they'd left the nest. They certainly did not come bearing gifts.
Nevertheless, while delighting that Kirie had grown up in every way they could have wished for, the women and girls did not press their inquiries too far. They themselves had never set foot outside Guardian's Edenic gardens, and were unaware of what kind of life awaited their charges in Ceres.
They passed the time there all smiles and warmth, getting by with a tacit understanding: Keeping your council to yourself gives you less to mourn. That was an unwritten law.
Kirie visited as often as he could, approximately once a week. The paperwork remained as onerous as ever. But during that time, he shrewdly never let his smile waver, and played the role of generous big brother perfectly.
Of course he was never allowed direct contact with the children. Yet during his friendly chats with the sisters during the afternoon teas, there were always children lurking in the background, curious about what was going on.
I must appear as some strange creature to them. Kirie couldn't help flashing a wry smile. He knew very well that the children weren't the only ones looking on with wide eyes.
The young man who stayed behind despite reaching adulthood at the age of thirteen—the one being held in reserve—who would, before long, take the weight of the institutional bloodline upon his shoulders—
Kirie could definitely not make the first move in his direction. Whenever their eyes met, he would only nod silently in reply. Unless the other party approached him first, the effort would have no meaning. That was his whole operating strategy.
Come—come here—come to me, Kirie prayed, feigning ignorance of the storm stirring around him. He knew at a glance that he sat at the eye of a storm, the focus of everyone's attention.
In any case, Kirie was a resident of the landfill that was the Ceres slums. From the point of view of those sealed inside the garden, he became the focus of their disdain, sympathy, and throbbing curiosity.
Come—quickly—and fall into my arms, He broadcast these silent petitions into the ether.
And when, according to plan, Manon did call to him in his haughty voice, Kirie congratulated himself: I did it! It was enough to make him raise his arms to the heavens in triumph.
After that, every time Kirie visited Guardian, he did not let pass any opportunity to nonchalantly press forward his advantage with Manon.
At first, they only talked. He didn't force Manon's hand. He kept things on an even keel. Kirie had been out of Guardian for five years. His wiles and iron will alone had kept him from being eaten up by the slums. Getting the older, prouder, and utterly clueless Manon to eat out of his hand was far easier.
He tickled Manon's self-esteem with flattering words. Ingratiated himself without fawning. Casually provoked him again and again. And conquered him in short order.
Unlike the slums, where guy-on-guy was par for the course, the men who ruled Ceres had easy access to women. At least that was what Kirie had believed. But Manon—who should have had his pick of the litter—was left to fume and rage: "Women who can have children are the assets of Ceres. I can't just sleep around with whoever I want."
For the one bloodline in Ceres allowed to take a childbearing wife, there were unwritten rules that could not be violated. They couldn't fuck whatever fancied the eye with the same enviable abandon of the mongrels in the slums.
Far from it. The men of this family must follow the letter of the law and deport themselves as gentlemen. In front of the block mothers and sisters as well.
There was no playing the field. No cutting loose. No fooling around. No unseemly behavior. No sexual harassment of any sort. Knowing all that, Kirie looked at Manon with sympathetic eyes.
Life in the birdecge was not the same as that of the stagnant, suffocating slums. But in its own way, it was just as oppressive. The slums offered no chance of sexual union with a live, human woman. But same-sex romps were there for the having. At least in that department, the slum mongrels could be called the more privileged of the two.
The sexual impulse was still there, but had to be controlled. Manon showed absolutely no inclination to reveal how he dealt with this dilemma. But he did not appear to get turned off when Kirie came onto him. Seeing the temptation take hold, Kirie had no problem guessing where things were going.
Consequently, having done it once, Manon only wanted more. He had partners with whom to sate his compelling sexual drives, but he did not appear to possess the kind of experience worth boasting about. For Manon, the unreserved nature of male companionship and Kirie's skilled ministrations were enough.
Kirie set Manon in his sights for no reason except that he was the rightful successor to the Kuger family name. There could be no downside to getting involved with the man who would someday become top dog in Ceres as the head of Guardian.
Skimming a profit off his fellow slum mongrels wouldn't be enough. After that business with the Tanagura Blondy and Guy, Kirie now craved more, sweeter dealings. Having tapped—at least in his own mind—into such a powerful pipeline, he couldn't go back.
But as soon as the deal was done with Guy, the connection with Iason ceased.
That prize of ten thousand kario had proved not so much a retainer as a termination-of-services fee. That realization hit Kirie like a two-by-four to the back of the head. There was no way for Kirie to reach out to Iason on his own. His "sure thing" evaporated before his eyes.
With this loss, his brain locked up. He felt like he'd lost his bearings while at sea, and didn't know which way to turn. As he racked his gray matter and thought things through, "Guardian" was the one word that kept coming back.
It wasn't like Kirie could lay claim to the kind of heavy-duty street cred that Riki once had. And he didn't have the connections in the big-time black market syndicates to vouch for him.
Even if he got lucky enough to grab onto somebody's coattails, the best he could manage at this point was some gofer position way down at the bottom of the organizational chart. There was no way he was settling for piss work like that. No way he'd end up somebody else's bitch on anybody's terms but his own.
Though Kirie had that extremely generous fee of ten thousand kario, without a proper ID card, it wasn't enough to propel him into the true ranks of the nouveau riche.
But either way, face cards or junk, the more he held, the better. And better to risk his bankroll on Guardian, where he held a home field advantage, than in Midas.
The typically off-putting way Manon flaunted his sense of privilege wouldn't put Kirie off his game. Cotnpared to the Bison bad boys, Kirie knew exactly how to push Manon's buttons. For all Manon's overarching pride, he was profoundly naïve.
Manon was, if anything, Kirie's sexual slave.
Sex being the first step to true bonding, a single, delicious piece of information gleaned from the pillow talk was icing on the cake. It guaranteed to keep on paying dividends.
Which was why Kirie wasn't interested in bouts of hot and heavy sex accompanied by sounds no more articulate than grunting and heavy breathing.
Rather, he preferred sex that took things slowly, that brought things to a boil, all the while exchanging sweet whispers. Tending to each other with ceaseless, tender caresses. Drawing every private thought from Manon's mouth. At first, Manon stubbornly kept his thoughts to himself. But in the face of the mounting pleasure, his will steadily eroded away.
Kirie's efforts had thus far been rewarded with a rough understanding of Guardian's organizational chart. The place of social status and rank within the bloodline grew clear. Which management positions had become hereditary. Who in which branch of the family got along with whom. Who harbored grudges against whom.
Even the block mothers and sisters divided up into factions. And so on and so forth.
An unexpected name spilled from Manon's lips. Kirie's antenna suddenly shot up. "Who? Who's that?"
"Who's what?"
"That guy you were just mumbling about."
Manon drew his eyebrows together in contemplation, recalling who he'd been going on about. "You mean, Katze?"
"Yes, him. Who's that again?"
"Somebody that's got nothing to do with you."
Maybe so, but Kirie still wanted to know. Katze. The Scarface. A big man in the black market. Kirie had never actually seen the man in person. But there was no way he wouldn't know the name. He'd heard plenty about Katze trawling for information in Midas. Somehow, Katze was tied up with Riki. Katze had caught wind of Riki's talents in the slums and brought him up to the major league.
Quickly, Riki had elevated from a mongrel courier to a teamster in the interstellar transport business. A real rags-to-riches success story. As much fact as fiction. But the word was that with Katze throwing his considerable weight behind him, the moniker "Dark Riki" came well-earned.
When Kirie had first heard the rumors, he'd believed that in the final analysis, there were only two kinds of human beings: the lucky ones and the unlucky ones.
The lucky ones sucked the life out of those around them and only grew stronger. The unlucky ones were condemned to lose everything and spend the remainder of their days slinking in the lower depths. From the moment of birth, the slum mongrels bore the burden of the unlucky ones. Good for nothing but compost rotting at the bottom of a landfill.
Nobody could do what Riki did.
Or, rather, nobody could but Riki.
Except that Kirie never imagined he'd hear the name Katze tumbling out of Manon's mouth. That same god of luck that had once smiled upon Riki. So his surprise was all the greater.
Perhaps this was no accident. No, this was his chance to be one of the lucky ones. The curiosity made him raise his head, with the lingering hope that this Katze was one and the same person. His interest was inexhaustible on this subject.
"C'mon, who is it?"
Manon sniffed with obvious discontent. "Hey, don't stop."
He was complaining that Kirie—having focused all his attention on Katze—had interrupted their lovemaking. Kirie calmly disregarded the complaint.
"Who is this guy?"
"Nothing. Just some bastard with a big attitude who doesn't know his place. He'll be kissing my ass before long."
Manon's tone sharpened to a point. He really had it in for this guy. This peaked Kirie's curiosity all the more. Manon was by and large indifferent to everything except that which affected him personally. But this business with Katze had him showing his true colors. Something about Katze had definitely offended him.
"Hmm. Looks like you really can't stand the man." Kirie said, goading Manon deliberately, "He wouldn't be a more handsome, higher-ranked person than you, would he?"
The bundle of pride and conceit and arrogance that was Manon—the one true heir to the fortunes of the Kuger clan—could not keep quiet when his place in the universe was questioned.
"Yeah, who does that fucking defective think he is?"
Defective. That word alone sent Kirie's heart racing. "A defective—huh. Somebody with a spotted past, perhaps? Or some missing parts?"
"Got a scar a mile long on his face."
Bingo! Kirie all but shrieked to himself. Then this was definitely Scarface Katze they were talking about. The questions bubbled inside him. What was the connection between this Guardian scion and a black market boss?
Or maybe Manon had no clue about the magnitude of Katze's reputation in that other, darker world. The thought suddenly came to him. Only in ignorance would Manon have so casually bandied Katze's name about.
So Katze is dealing with the Kuger clan? Up close but under the table?
A smooth operator weaseled his way into the graces of the high and mighty under false pretenses and made easy pickings of them—that was a story everybody knew. Kirie didn't know whether or not he could get a foothold in the high society the Kuger clan occupied. But the fact was, for the time being, nobody questioned their top-dog status in Ceres.
Then a market operator could play his cards right and start meddling in Guardian's business?
While it wasn't totally unbelievable, the actual possibilities seemed thin. How would anybody ever pull that off in the festering landfill of the slums? Nobody in the market would be that foolhardy to try. Besides, if anything that delicious existed in Ceres, Ceres would have long ago ceased being the dump it was.
So what were the real reasons hiding in the shadows? He could ponder such questions later. Right now, Kirie wasn't focused on the black market in general. But on Katze alone.
Judging from Manon's tone of voice, he'd met Katze in the flesh. When? Where? Under what pretenses? Asking himself those questions, Kirie's pulse pounded and his brain buzzed. Scarface Katze, once known to him only in whispers and rumors, had suddenly become flesh and bone. He felt a thrill up his spine.
"So—tell me—what do you have against this guy, anyway?" Kirie asked in a low voice, pulling Manon's body over his own like a quilt. "What kind of guy is this Katze?"
"Nothing to do with you," Manon said with a sour, dismissive air.
My, my, Manon. We are in a bad mood, now, aren't we?
Kirie was probably getting a bit too excited at the mention of Katze's name. Showing undue interest in another guy while in bed with Manon no doubt stung Manon's towering pride. Not to mention that there was plainly some history between them.
Meaning that if he didn't change his approach to the subject, Manon was only going to get more pissed off and closed-mouthed.
"Hey, hey, don't let it get you down—" Kirie entwined his legs with Manon's and took a firm, kneading grip of his limp member. "But it seems to me you really have a beef with the guy. Got under your skin, huh?"
Kirie kissed him lightly, as if to make the hurt go away. When he did, Manon wrapped his arms around Kirie's back and turned him over and kissed him hungrily, plying their tongues together. Lusting after more intense stimulation, he pressed and rubbed his midsection against Kirie's.
For a short while, Kirie let Manon indulge himself in the foreplay. But at this rate, the important matter of Katze was going by the wayside, and he couldn't abide that. He twisted his body, pinning Manon again.
Their lips parted with a loud, lewd, wet sound, leaving Manon panting. Kirie licked Manon's left nipple, snapping playfully at the hard, excited bud. Manon's rod stiffened and lengthened in Kirie's hand, and his hips began to undulate as the sweet gasps escaped his mouth.
A little too soon. He comes after I find out what I need to know about Katze.
Kirie's fingers tightened around the base of Manon's cock, making the man glare at him with resentful eyes.
"Don't look at me like that," Kirie said with a slight smile, and kissed his mouth.
His tongue trailed tip Manon's throat. From the nape of his neck to the lobe of his ear. Lapping like at cat's tongue across smooth skin. A shiver ran down Manon's arms from the tips of his shoulders, his sensitive areas. His vulnerable zones. His weaknesses. Kirie had learned them all.
"C'mon, Manon," Kirie whispered, nipping at the earlobe. "Tell me. What do you and Katze have to do with each other?"
"N-none—of—your—business—!" Coming to the end of the sentence, Manon's voice grew hoarse and shrill.
"It's OK. You can tell me. I want to know everything about you. I'm all ears. Night and day." As Kirie spoke, his fingers played across Manon's taut, wet rod.
"S-stop—" But there was oddly little force behind the command.
As the flushed and flustered Manon reveled in pleasures he'd never known before, Kirie couldn't help laughing to himself. Simply stroking Manon with the pads of his fingers quickly brought the young man's breath to a standstill. Applying the tip of his tongue to the erect tip aroused shameful cries.
When it came to extracting information from Manon, playing with him down there always did the trick. With lingers and tongue. Nuzzling and stroking and playing him like a fine-tuned instrument, Manon couldn't hold out for long.
His proud and haughty mouth was incapable of straight dealing. But his hard and throbbing member always bowed to the demands of pleasure. Kirie rubbed his fingers into him just right. "Ahhh—" Manon moaned, his voiee rising sharply. Wanton lust spilled from his mouth and from the honeyed mouth of his erection.
Massaging him as the drips and drops of precum wet Kirie's fingers proved an unbearable enough stimulation that Manon's balls suddenly constricted and lifted up. Kirie trailed his fingers down Manon's shaft, dug in his nails, and exposed the flesh hidden beneath the pouch. A sharp cry erupted from Manon's mouth.
"You're getting awfully ripe and red down here." The swollen tissues lifted slightly and trembled as Kirie applied his touch.
Manon's throat bent like a bow. "Ahhh"
"Please, won't you tell me?" Kirie whispered, his fingers rubbing mercilessly against the exposed flesh.
"Hahhh—"
Twice shallowly, and a third time. The fourth time, pushing deeper.
"Yahhh—"
Spasms rippled along the arc of Manon's throat as he shrieked. But no sideways motion of his head got Kirie to stop. Instead, at that moment, the deeply penetrating sensations wiped Manon's brain clean of any thoughts at all.
Manon's steadfast refusal to share his knowledge was ticking Kirie off. Manon's providing a hard nut to crack today. A hand job was usually enough to make him spill. So we're talking about some truly scandalous information, then? That thought brought an indulgent smile to Kirie's lips.
Honey oozed thickly from Manon's shuddering and swollen tip. With the trunk steeled in Kirie's grasp, the heat suffusing Manon's body had no place to go. Damn. I've painted myself into a corner here. Should I let you come, then?
There was so much he wanted to know. In which case, it'd probably be best to get him off at least once. After all, this was Manon's once-a-week round of sex. But Kirie rebelled at letting the unusually stubborn Manon so easily get what he wanted.
Kirie sank his fingertips into Manon's quivering flesh, gently probing the nerves. The stimulation set Manon's hips into motion, drawing sweet coos from his throat. Their bodies rubbed hard against each other, as if to squeegee off the persistent, clinging heat.
"Ahhh—Hahhh—" Manon howled as the paroxysms coursed up his sides. Drawing some small satisfaction from that hoarse, pulsating voice, Kirie released his grip. Instantly, a shiver shot through Manon's limbs, yanking his sinews tight. The white semen sprayed out of him.
"Hey, wow," Kirie needled him in a calmly bemused voice. "Man, you really must have been bottling it up."
Manon's shoulders heaving, feebly gasping for breath, he couldn't answer. More than being coaxed and aroused and driven to ejaculation, the orgasm arising from intense stimulation had spent his reserves. He collapsed like that first marathon runner, half-dead, struggling for air.
Huh. Well, before Manon gets pissed at me, let's hurry up and give it another try.
He didn't think he'd taken things too far this time. But he could expect Manon to quickly revert to his old, bitter self, once he came down from his orgasm. Before that happened, Kirie needed to extract whatever information from him he could.
Kirie retrieved a small tube front his pack. He grabbed a leg of the still-heaving Manon and flipped him over. Seizing his buttocks with both hands, he opened up the crevice between them. Manon's secret bud, that Kirie's normally diligent lovemaking would rarely arouse, was already moist from the preceding trickles of precum.
The little bastard's sticky all the way down here. I really outdid myself this time.
"I don't like it there," and "Stop it," Manon said with his lips. But Kirie knew otherwise. He knew perfectly well that the sensations he exposed and dragged out of Manon were more than enough to make him writhe with pleasure. That being the case, should he proceed this time unhindered to turn Manon into a pile of soggy pudding?
For reasons Kirie didn't totally understand himself, when he looked at Manon, Kirie really wanted to hurt the boy. Usually, he'd prostitute himself piece by piece if that was what it took to extract information from him. Kiss his ass and lick his feet. He'd stop at nothing. And yet, now and then, the unstoppable urges would bubble up from the core of his brain. To torment him and abuse him. Make him grovel. Fuck him over properly.
Careful, man. The little prince is my meal ticket. Treat him with kid gloves.
These thoughts dancing through his mind, Kirie opened the tube and smeared his hand with lubrication. And then slowly pushed his finger between Manon's cheeks.
Manon's buttocks twitched and quivered.
"That's OK, that's OK. No worries. Just a little love jelly. I brought a super special flavor for you today. Right off the shelves in Midas."
Perhaps reassured, Manon unclenched his muscles and relaxed.
"Got to loosen thing up here, you know. It's only once a week. You don't perhaps do a little playing down here yourself while you're jacking off?"
"No—no—way—"
"Like I thought. It doesn't really hit the spot, does it? You can't really get yourself off like that, can you?"
"I—I—"
"You like me playing with you and sucking you off, don't you? And I know you like getting all big and hard inside my mouth. Hell, you get so big it makes my jaw hurt. And like we were just doing, stroking your hot tip, making you come so last." The frank lines weren't exactly pillow talk, but Kirie used them as he squeezed out a good half of the contents of the tube and amply applied it with his finger. "But this—penetrating you right here—you like this more than anything else. Right?"
The nail struck squarely on the head, Manon could only clench his teeth and hold his tongue. There was no way he could deny the truth at this juncture. He was too aware of his hopeless addiction to Kirie's sexual prowess. The week that elapsed between Kirie's visits to Guardian passed so slowly. His body smoldered and burned in growing anticipation.
"Getting back to our recent conversation—"
Kirie daubed up the jelly he was slathering on Manon's tightened bud and raked his fingers across the man's balls. That alone sent a shiver through Manon's hindquarters. The jelly penetrating his inner walls melted away his resistance, burning and throbbing as it stimulated the tender flesh.
Kirie traced the outlines of Manon's most private place with his slippery finger. "This Katze fellow—who is he?"
"I—said—not—your—"
"Oh, don't tell me." Kirie said, toying with him. "He's not sticking it in here too?"
Kirie knew better than anyone that Manon had been a virgin in that area.
"Idiot. I'll tell you. He's furn—" He caught himself at the last moment and hastily clamped his mouth shut.
"Huh. Well, I suppose you have a very good reason for not telling me. Right?" he said, at the same time twisting his finger only slightly into the crevice that so greedily pulsated at his touch.
"Ahhh—"
Manon moaned, despite all his attempts at self-control.
"Cough it up, Manon." He wrenched the shallowly buried finger inside him. "He an old lover of yours?"
His finger stroked the burning, enchanted flesh.
"Hahhh—"
Guttural moans of pleasure erupted from Manon's mouth.
"Is that what he is to you?" Kirie whispered closely. He buried the finger down to the knuckle.
"Ahhh—hahhh—"
Manon's thighs spasmed and elevated. Kirie clamped one hand around Manon's midsection and twisted and turned the finger of the other.
And then stopped. "Tell me. Or it stops here." Manon's buttocks trembled. "You don't want slow and easy, do you? You want me to jam it inside, don't you?"
As he teased Manon verbally, Kirie provided the physical proof, thrusting in and abrading him slowly, making Manon's lips tremble. "How long are you going to hold out on me?"
It couldn't be long now. Not with that fast-acting aphrodisiac mixed in with the lubricant. The thickly applied jelly soaked in and set to work. Manon would be throbbing inside so badly he couldn't stand it.
"Confess."
Smiling to himself, Kirie leisurely plunged down to the nub of Manon's pleasure center. "Ah. Here it is. Your favorite spot." Probing further, Kirie nudged it once.
Manon squealed. His back bent. He pushed his hips into the air, a new charge of life suffusing his just-spent member.
"You want me to play with you here, don't you?"
Manon's face was dark with excited blood. His clenched mouth burbled with a barely contained frenzy.
"I'm the only one, right? I'm the only one who knows your favorite places. I'm the only one who fucks you just the way you like it. What do you say, Manon?"
"D-don't—s-stop—"
"You're saying that you please don't want me to stop?"
"Please. I'm begging you." His mouth crooked from the strain. His voice drenched in desire pushed to the edge of endurance.
This was their once-a-week tryst. The weekly fast left Manon so starved that the thought of leaving things half-undone, his hody aching for more, drove him mad.
Kirie permitted himself a satisfied smile. "Tell me and you'll get what you want. What's your business with Katze?"
A quiver ran down Manon's throat. He roared once in animalistic frustration. Then licked his lips and added in a low voice, "The bastard comes here to buy furniture for Eos—"
Manon's reason and self-constraint crumbled in the face of such enchanting, lascivious temptations. He revealed what should never be known outside the precincts of Guardian.
Coaxing him with sweet words. Playing with his private places. Slowly torturing him. And then denying him. Burning his parched body until it uncontrollably danced and twitched and spasmed. Intoxicated with the drug that was Kirie, Manon suffered every symptom of an addict's withdrawal.
"Eos furniture?" Kirie hadn't heard those words before. Urging Manon on, Kirie probed the muscled flesh of his aroused partner. "What's that?"
Manon's torso jerked and convulsed, and Kirie buried the finger deeper.
"C'mon, tell me."
Kirie dexterously corkscrewed his finger, and Katze's story rushed out of Manon like air from a hot bellows.
The Manon who looked down on people as his natural right—who presumed to do it his way no matter who he slept with—that Manon had disappeared. All it took was Kirie—his junior, no less—fingering his ass to turn Manon into a sex-crazed fool.
Up until then, though Manon had allowed himself to be fellated, he'd never taken anybody inside him. He stood to inherit the crown of the Kuger clan. And people like him didn't do things like that. Giving it to somebody else was pleasurable enough, but it didn't excite him nearly as much.
But Kirie going down on him lent a whole new meaning to the term. A feeling so overwhelming, it felt as if his loins were melting. Shivers shooting up his spine as Kirie lapped at his balls like a dog. The unbearably pleasant convulsions dancing across his inner thighs as Kirie playfully nipped at him with his teeth.
He loved the way Kirie massaged him so intensely there, manhandling him and sucking on his cock. The pins and needles paraded along his spine. It felt so good he almost couldn't stand it. Every stimulation to the tip of his cock left him all the more delirious.
Manon preferred fellatio even to mounting Kirie and coming inside him. He'd spread his legs, bare his groin, and let Kirie massage his package and slobber all over him. Giving him head and plying him with his tongue until he came. Kirie never protested, sucking on him until he was dry.
The pleasure was like nothing he could achieve jacking off by himself.
And then, achieving release and half-pacified, Kirie would spread Manon's cheeks and start toying with the small bud between. Enraptured by the bliss—the sensations provoked as he swallowed up Kirie's digits enough to curl his body—in time, penetrated and caressed by Kirie's finger and cock, the pleasure of coupling with Kirie had swept him away.
Now, tortured by Kirie's finger devoured to the knuckle, imagining something bigger and harder than his finger—Kirie's cock penetrating him—the painful longing throbbing in his groin even reached out to stab at the tip of his cock.
Kirie asked. And Manon answered, the hoarse words falling from his benumbed mouth.
As a reward, Kirie added a second finger to the one already inside him, digging and rubbing at the tender flesh, causing Manon to again elevate his hips in response to the unbearable sensations, Kirie held him tight.
The tingling numbness plunged down to the core of his brain. Manon lost all track of what his mouth was saying. Kirie was so surprised by the truths that quavering voice told him that he was momentarily rendered speechless.
That's—that's what's really going on here? And yet in that moment he couldn't help smiling to himself. So Scarface Katze himself is the Tanagura rep? A giant scandal was waiting, no doubt about it.
His shining face revealed not a trace of the kid who'd once picked at Bison's table scraps. All that remained were the hard and brazen eyes of personal ambition.
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