When Warrick took the first mouthful of meat, he closed his eyes, chewing carefully and thoroughly before swallowing. Opening his eyes, he saw Toreth watching him. He smiled, unperturbed to find himself observed.
"It is good?" Toreth enquired.
"Quite excellent. Would you like to try some?"
Without waiting for a reply, he cut off a thin slice, picked it up with his fingers, dipped it into the Bearnaise sauce and offered it across the table.
Toreth hesitated for a fraction of a second, wondering, 'mouth or fingers?', then took it in his mouth. Slick fingers brushed his lips and he caught a fingertip with his tongue before the brief contact withdrew. Warrick licked his finger and thumb, and then wiped them on the napkin. Toreth just about remembered to chew. The virtually raw flesh tasted sweet and salty.
"It is good?" Warrick asked, exactly matching Toreth's earlier tone.
"Yes, ah, excellent."
Warrick nodded, and returned his attention to his plate.
That certainly settled Toreth's lingering doubts about what Warrick wanted, in general terms. All he had to do now was convince him that he would be safe.
Warrick decided against dessert, and Toreth didn't like sweet things anyway. They settled for after-dinner drinks and coffees. As the waiter delivered the drinks, Warrick's napkin slipped from his lap. There was a tiny confusion as he bent down, and the waiter did the same. That was all it took for Toreth to reach across the table and drip a single drop from a vial into Warrick's glass.
It was nothing very exotic. A little something to combine with the alcohol, which was a drug in any case, and spread a little happiness. An extra cushion of relaxation and acceptance. It was cheating, as Toreth readily acknowledged, but then Warrick himself had hardly played fair in the sim.
The bill came to a respectable total. Accounts would give him hell about this. Toreth gave his room number and the waiter withdrew. Time to go for the question they had been hedging round all evening.
"Would you like to come up to my room?" Toreth asked.
Warrick laughed incredulously. "Excuse me for asking a rather obvious question, but do you think I'm insane?"
Slightly taken aback by the directness of the answer, Toreth shook his head.
"Ah, stupid, then. Neither of which, I'm afraid, is true." Warrick eyed him assessingly. "You are, what, half a head taller than me? And a good few kilos heavier, all of which is muscle."
Toreth recognised the flattery slipped so casually into the conversation again, but, buoyed by half a bottle of wine plus extras, he enjoyed it anyway.
"So insanity or stupidity would be required for me to place myself in a situation alone with you." Warrick took another sip of his drink, savoured the flavour for a moment. "And in any case, I don't sleep with torturers, Administration-approved or not."
Toreth blinked. Pretty fucking comprehensive putdown.
Warrick tipped his head back and drained the last drops from his glass. "At least, I try not to make a habit of it."
Or not so comprehensive. Testing his reactions again, probably. Toreth said evenly, "I wasn't planning to hurt you."
That got a sharp glance and Toreth had a sudden impulse to add, 'unless you'd like me to'. However, that would have been too much. Instead, he spread his hands. "It would be stupid of
me
to even think about it, wouldn't it? You know who I am."
A meditative pause, pretending to come up with an idea he must have had long before. "I'll tell you what," Warrick said slowly. "If you do something for me, I shall reconsider the proposal."
Reconsider, not agree to. "What?"
"Tell me what you felt in the sim."
"I already did."
"You know what I mean."
Toreth thought about it. What would Warrick want to hear? What would make him agree? What would he know to be a lie? He looked round the restaurant. "Here?"
"We could adjourn to the bar, if you would prefer. There are some quiet corners."
They strolled to the bar, Warrick keeping a clear distance between them, and settled into an alcove, taking separate armchairs rather than one of the small sofas.
Warrick crossed his legs, rested his elbows on the arms of the chair.
"Well?"
"I enjoyed it." Start with honesty, but not too much. See where this was going. Somewhere interesting, he was sure — Warrick had clearly put a lot of thought into the question.
"And?"
"And I enjoyed it. That's it. What else do you want to hear? A minute-by-minute account?"
"Maybe. But you're lying, anyway. If that was all there was to it, you wouldn't have wanted to call it rape, or felt there was a need — and I quote — 'to pay me back'." Warrick checked his watch. "Well, it's been a nice evening, but . . . ."
He started to stand up. Toreth knew this wasn't a bluff. "All right."
Warrick scrutinised him, then sank back into the deep leather chair.
Toreth kept his words low. "You know what I felt. Code word or not, you trapped me and you humiliated me." He shied away from the vivid memory of his own pleading voice from the sim. "You took away my control and you made me beg you to fuck me."
Warrick's eyes were locked with his, flickering heat, and his lips had parted a fraction. That's what he wants, Toreth realised triumphantly. He wants what he did to me, or something very close to that. Now, how could he make Warrick ask for it?
"You did exactly what you meant to," he continued. "It was the whole point of inviting me — you said as much in the message. You know it worked. Why ask?"
Warrick ignored the question and pulled himself back together. "So why invite me here?"
"Because, like you said, I was angry enough to want some kind of payback for it."
"And now?"
It was like talking his way through a minefield. "Now I'm not so sure."
"Mm. 'Not sure'." Warrick shook his head. "That doesn't strike me as a sound basis for spending time alone with you."
"All right. I'll tell you how you can help me make up my mind."
"Well?" Warrick was all attention now.
He wants it, Toreth thought. Really wants it. All Toreth needed to do was ease the way to surrender, and give Warrick an illusion of safety he could believe in.
"Apologise to me," Toreth said.
Warrick stared at him, licked his lips once. "What?"
"Apologise to me. It's not that difficult, is it?"
Warrick shook his head, but apparently it was. "I'm sorry," he said at length. Toreth started to speak but Warrick held his hand up. "I am sorry. 'Familiarity breeds contempt', I think the saying is. Sometimes we forget that just because the sim is physically safe, it doesn't mean that it can't hurt. I went too far. If I distressed you, I apologise."
Toreth thought it was the most beautifully unapologetic apology he had ever heard. "Apology accepted. Now . . ." he said, pulling the pause out, " . . . what can I do in return?"
Silence, and Toreth smiled. His catch was hooked, and only barely still resisting the pull to the net. "Very well, in that case let
me
guess. Something like the sim, but not quite. Changing places. Losing control for a little while. And some danger — just enough to give it an edge." His smile slipped into something almost predatory. "A different kind of game."
Warrick stared at him, as if hypnotised, then nodded slowly. "That's . . . a good guess."
"I read people for a living," Toreth said casually, and relished the delightful contradiction of the grimace of distaste on Warrick's mouth and the sharpening of desire in his eyes.
God, he loved being right.
Hypnotised was how Warrick felt, walking through the hotel corridors past people who had no idea of where they were going or what they were about to do. Not surprising, since neither did he, and for some reason that didn't make him as wary as he knew it ought. A feeling of unreality smothered the apprehension. Toreth walked beside him, humming out of key, not looking at him.
They reached room 212, and stopped outside.
Toreth swiped the keycard and held the door open, waiting for Warrick to go through first. Dimmed lights came up automatically as he stepped inside and the door closed behind them with a decisive click.
An ordinary hotel room with the usual layout and fittings, details he didn't seem to be able to focus on. He still felt caught in a dream, senses dulled except for a sharp awareness of scents. He caught the smell of shampoo and aftershave, reinforced as Toreth walked past him to lean on the back of an armchair. Warrick waited, seconds passing in building anticipation.
"Strip," Toreth ordered.
Warrick did so, silently, shivering in the warm air.
Toreth watched, making no move to undress.
"Mmm." He walked round behind Warrick and moved to stand pressed up against him. Warrick felt fabric touching him from shoulder to ankle, and he wanted it to be skin. Toreth bent down and Warrick felt his lips right against his ear. "Pick a word," he murmured.
Warrick blanked completely for a moment, and then said, "Plastic duck."
Toreth laughed, and he felt it all down the length of his body. "All right. 'Plastic duck' it is."
Toreth moved back, walking round to stand in front of Warrick.
"Close your eyes."
"Why?"
Too fast for Warrick to react, Toreth slapped him across the face, rocking his head back and bringing a heat to his cheek that set off an echoing flash of warmth in his stomach.
"Close your eyes," Toreth repeated calmly.
Warrick obeyed. The handprint still glowed on his skin, each finger distinct. He felt himself hardening, the tell-tale response out of his control.
"You liked that?" Toreth started to move round him again, touching, rough and gentle, pain and pleasure, oddly impersonal and intensely arousing. "What else do you like, I wonder? Do you want me to fuck you? Not that I care whether you want it — I'm going to do it anyway. You were right to think twice about coming up here with me. Still think you made the right choice?"
Every so often, the touching stopped, and Warrick heard him undressing. However, it never stopped for long, and the words not at all. By the time Toreth stepped away, Warrick had lost all sense of place or time. There was only himself, in the dark, breathing fast and shallow as his heart raced to keep up.
"Give me your hands."
Instant obedience this time, and Toreth took Warrick's wrists in his hands, squeezing tightly to complete the circle.
"You can open your eyes."
When he did so, the first things he saw were his own hands, trapped by Toreth's, and he found he couldn't look away. The single point of contact between them captured his whole attention — everything else seemed distant and insubstantial. His pulse tripped against Toreth's fingers, blood humming with alcohol and desire and . . . something else? Had Toreth slipped something into his drink after all? Did it matter, now?
Then Toreth spoke and the thought was lost. "No handcuffs, I'm afraid," he said. "If you'd let me know what you liked, I'd have brought something from work."
Warrick felt a fleeting rush of the real apprehension he'd experienced earlier in the evening. Then Toreth smiled. "But I don't need chains, anyway. Not for you." With that, Toreth pulled him forwards and wrestled him down onto the bed.
Warrick fought back, for real at first because of the surprise. However, Toreth had professional experience of restraining the unwilling, so Warrick's resistance posed him no problem at all.
They finished up with Warrick pinned face-up underneath, struggles limited to fruitless writhing which felt so good it quickly began to take the edge off the fantasy of force.
"I don't need chains," Toreth repeated, "because you'll do what you're told anyway, won't you?"
Warrick nodded, too breathless to speak.
"Good." Then Toreth kissed him full on the mouth, not kindly, and in fact hard enough to bruise. Real bruises, Warrick thought distractedly. Something people would see at SimTech tomorrow. The idea of tomorrow, of sitting in his office with this as a memory to relive, was almost as exciting as the hard body on top of him.
Toreth knelt up, straddling Warrick's thighs. "Turn over, then keep still." He lifted his hand again when Warrick hesitated. "Do it."
The threat was thrill enough and Warrick turned obediently, shivering at the rubbing of skin against skin where their thighs touched.
Toreth planted his knee firmly in the small of Warrick's back. It pressed him down into the bed as Toreth leaned over, knocking things over on the bedside table and swearing under his breath. Warrick felt a fleeting hint of annoyance at the brief interruption. In the sim, he could think anything he wanted directly to hand. In fact, in the sim, they wouldn't need lubricant at all. This was why the real world had lost —
The shock of the cold gel made him squirm away, even though he didn't want to. Toreth lay down again, half on him and half on the bed but still pinning him tight. His fingers tangled in Warrick's hair, pulled his head round. "Keep still, or I'll break your fucking neck," Toreth whispered right in his ear.
Warrick did, clenching his hands on the sheet because, depending on how caught up in the fantasy Toreth had become, this might hurt.
In fact, it was just a finger, and a not ungentle finger at that. That might have broken the spell except for the low stream of words hot against his ear, whispered threats and promises that squirmed down his spine. Two fingers, working into him harder, a little uncomfortable because he was out of practice at this in the real world — years out of practice.
It was the discomfort, undeniably actual, that tore away the last of the cocooning sense of unreality, twisting his nerves to a higher pitch of arousal. He was really here, really alone with this dangerous, desirable man who knew how to hurt, how to kill, how to take whatever he wanted without hesitation or compassion. Now he was wriggling, wanting more, forgetting to fight.
Then the fingers were gone and the rough voice said, "I want to hear you ask for it."
Oh, God, yes. Warrick shook his head, as best he could.