The Journey of Rick Heiden - Chapters 5 and 6
I wrote this story for Nifty, a nifty site if there ever was one. Nifty needs your donations to host this work, and some works, no doubt, that are far better. If you enjoy Nifty, please, consider donating at donate.nifty.org/donate.html
This work is the sole property of the author and may not be reprinted or reused without his written permission.
All Rights Reserved © 2021, Rick Haydn Horst
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Thank you for delving into this work; I hope you enjoy it.
Please send questions, comments, or complaints to Rick.Heathen@gmail.com. I would enjoy reading what you have to say.
This novel contains 50 CHAPTERS, and every post will have 2 chapters each.
CHAPTER FIVE
At half-past five o'clock, David collected me from Maggie's flat to return to the penthouse.
He opened the car door for me. "I'm sorry, Rick," he said.
I must have looked depressed. "There's nothing to be sorry about," I said. "Maggie can't come, and that's that. I appreciate your warning me. I assumed she would join us; I should stop making assumptions."
"Please, don't do that to yourself, you couldn't know. How have you left things with her?"
"I couldn't guarantee that I would see her again. I wouldn't have wanted things to end in a rush, as I suspect they will, and neglect to tell her how much she means to me. We're good. I'm sad now, but we're good."
Staring out the window, I felt both disappointed and a bit numb. The rain had stopped, and the setting sun was coming through the breaking clouds to the west. It was beautiful. "Does Jiyu have beautiful sunsets?" I asked.
He gazed out my window. "They look more spectacular than they do here. We have clean air, and the higher oxygen level makes the sky deeper blue."
That sounded nice, and it did make me smile. We drove along Piccadilly, past Green Park near Buckingham Palace, to Haymarket, then onto the hotel just past Trafalgar Square. "What did you discover at the hospital at Queen Square?" I asked.
He glanced at me and smiled. "Figure it out, did you?"
"I knew you would follow our most obvious lead, so yes."
We turned into the parking garage.
"It seems our trouble is coming into focus, and I've learned something important."
"Okay, I'm intrigued," I said. "What is it?"
We took a parking space, and David turned in his seat toward me. "Cadmar arrived at the hospital alive, and according to the nurse on duty that day, he died after he got there. However, before he died --and here we have the stickler-- he hadn't fallen unconscious, and he talked a lot. Most of what he said made no sense, but he did say some words that they recognized, the list includes Levitt and portal."
"Oh, shit."
"I spoke to the charge nurse who worked that day, and the first thing she said to me, `Oh, you're Levitt.' And get this, they wrote everything down and gave it to the person left in charge of the whole caboodle: Katheryn Elliot."
"Well, there you go, she's the leak," I said.
"Close, but not quite. Our evidence remains circumstantial. Nothing so far indicates Katheryn hasn't leaked the information, but coincidences do happen. Still, it does put Amanda's daughter, the portal, and my involvement in a convenient little package."
We entered the lobby of the hotel. It had luxurious contemporary decor, a high ceiling, and an enormous crystal chandelier that no one in their right mind would relish the task of cleaning.
Jatin, the young night manager, greeted us and looked quite handsome in his well-fitting, azure blue suit. "Good evening, Mr. Levitt."
"Good evening, Jatin," said David, "do you have any messages for me?"
Jatin looked distressed. He came toward us so the guests speaking with the concierge a few feet away wouldn't hear. "You have no messages, but Mikesh, the day manager who just left, tells me that a man has coerced him into letting him into your room."
"Have I someone in my rooms, right now? Didn't Mikesh call the police? When had he let him in?"
"I do not understand it," he replied, "but he said if you knew his wife, you would know why he could not call the police, and he begged me not to either. According to Mikesh, he only had to let the man into the room, and then forget about him. I do not know when it occurred. Should I call the police?"
"No," said David, "I'll take care of it."
"Mr. Levitt, please, I beg you not to damage the hotel again...well, too much." Saying nothing more, he left for other duties.
"What did he mean by 'again?'" I asked.
"That's a very long and boring story." David considered what to do, and his eye stared into me. "I can't take you up there, but I must go up."
"Oh no," I said, "I won't allow anyone to treat me like a child or something delicate. If you go up, I go up. It may stun you how useful I am when someone hasn't drugged and restrained me. Besides, you don't know that it's the talking man."
"He springs to mind, though, doesn't he?" David asked.
"So, what shall we do, both go up or go out?"
"I find you wonderful and exasperating; do you know that?" He shook his head. He then motioned for us to head toward the lift. The doors opened, and we entered it alone. He retrieved the hotel room key card from his wallet. The doors closed, and it began its slow ascent to the penthouse.
"Do you have your pistol?" I asked.
"Of course," he said, pulling out the blue and black weapon I saw the previous night at the warehouse. In the light of the lift, it looked even more impressive. "You do realize this could end badly."
"He won't shoot the instant we walk in--provided he's still there. He wants something other than to kill us."
David looked at me. "You don't know that."
I shrugged. "If you say so. Do you think it sensible, brandishing technology about like that?"
"I would hardly call how I'm holding this weapon, brandishing."
I watched him consider it for a few seconds and put it away.
The lift doors opened to the vestibule with the penthouse room door. Everything looked normal. We flanked the entrance, and David put the room key into the slot. He turned the knob and flung the door open. Nothing happened. We both peered into the room, and there he sat, the bespectacled Aiden Park from the Government Office for Science.
"Come in! I waited a long time, and I'm gettin' hungry," Park said in the American voice he used for the talking man. He was sitting on the couch wearing a pair of jeans and a buttercream, button-down collar shirt, with no gun in sight.
"Nice accent you had," I said as we entered the room, "it fooled me, and grew up American."
"Thank you, that's a nice compliment," he said in his normal British voice. "I've had accents as a hobby for years. I owe it all to watching too many American films as a child. Please, sit down, Mr. Levitt, this is your home...on this planet, anyway."
"What do you want?" David asked him.
Park smiled. "Well, that's the thing. I love technology, and after hearing the two of you, I have a list. How about we start with the secret of immortality?"
David and I glanced at one another.
"Where did you hear that?" David asked him.
"Oh, you poor, naive man," Park said. "You've lived here for ten years, and you still can't think like a human. It seems you can take the man out of Jiyu, but you can't take Jiyu out of the man. They bugged you days ago. You never even suspected, did you? Catch." He tossed David a small round device. "Don't worry. I deactivated it so that we can talk in private."
"Oh no," David said, looking at the listening device, "what have I done?"
"What you've done?" asked Park. "How about what they've done. They've made you betray your people. You probably think your honor is beyond repair now. But come on and sit down!" He patted the seat next to him. "Let's talk about life."
"David, I had no idea," I said.
"I know," he said.
"Where else have they bugged besides here?" I asked.
"From what my computer easily intercepted, they bugged here, the lab, the car, and your flat." Park pushed his glasses up his nose.
"My flat too!" I said in surprise.
"Wow, you two are a pair," he said. "I can tell you are perfect for one another, especially after the video I saw last night. I must say, I'm not gay, but I saw the whole thing. It was unbelievable. David here should go into the business."
David scowled. "They installed cameras?" he asked, his voice rising.
Mr. Park pointed to three locations in the penthouse. "There, there, and over there in the bedroom."
David rushed to investigate.
"I turned them off!" shouted Park.
"So, you told the Americans about Cadmar's body and Amarae, why?" I asked him.
"No, I only told them about the scans," Park said. "Amarae hadn't arrived yet, and that man scares me, so I said nothing once he showed up. They shouldn't know about him, not from me anyhow. I feared what they might ask me to do. I just sent them a reduced-quality copy of the digital scans Katheryn gave us from the hospital. In my defense, our government hadn't made them a secret at the time, just a curiosity. And the Americans showed extreme interest, but once they found out it came from a dead body, they told me they wanted it. The next thing I knew, Katheryn informed us that we couldn't see it and that they had another group to take care of it. Since then, Katheryn has had it locked up like the Crown Jewels. I had no way to get my hands on it, and I told the Americans that, so they sent Theo.
"Could that man slap a guy, or what?" asked Park. "It even made me cringe. I'm glad David shot him. He made me do horrible things, like the abduction and the scene at the warehouse. I'm just a research scientist. He drilled me on what to say to you when you woke up, and he even made me call Amanda Newton and threaten her daughter while we waited. I disguised my voice; I hope she didn't recognize me."
"They would know you from your mobile," I said.
"I jailbroke my mobile long ago, and I hacked the SIM card. Trust me; I won't have that problem."
I stood there in dismay, shaking my head. "You tried selling the scans to the Americans? Why would you do such a stupid thing?"
"Because I've lived as a peon in Katheryn Elliot's group, funded by a council of the Government Office for Science for years. I do the work, she takes the credit for it and makes the money, but she's not just ambitious, she's downright Machiavellian, and I should know, I went to college with her. She wanted a position on the research council, but without her knowledge, I successfully argued with the right people to have her appointment halted."
"And why would you do that?" I asked. "With her gone, couldn't you end up with her former job that makes the same money?"
"If she had a position on the research council, she would have me fired because she hates me with a passion. I can't afford that. London is expensive, and I've struggled. I have difficulty paying the bills at my renovated moldy old hovel, and the Americans have money. Sure, they get it by nefarious means, but so do all the other countries of the world, and even with them, I've not seen a penny. Yes, it was stupid, but I was desperate. I want to tell you both how sorry I am for the trouble I caused you, and I wanted to thank you, David, for stopping them before they killed somebody."
"Did you have anyone else with you and Roberts?" I asked.
"No, just he and I," Park said.
"Well, David, Amanda's daughter sounds pretty safe now, you think?"
David busied himself, removing hidden cameras. "I agree," he said from the other room. "Aiden, do you know why Roberts forced you to assist him with abducting Rick? He didn't know anything."
"No, and Roberts seemed to already know about the portal. I know I hadn't told him; I never knew it existed until he mentioned it. But he doesn't know its location, and he wanted me to ask Rick about it."
"Did he ever mention me?" David asked.
"No," said Aiden, "come to think of it, the only name he ever said was Amanda Newton and her daughter's."
"Did he think I was you, David?" I asked.
"I doubt that O'Byrne would hire anyone that incompetent, but that would explain it," David said from the bedroom. "You said, he told you what to say, Aiden?" David entered the room, breaking the micro camera in his hand. "Rick, remember that odd piece of paper at the warehouse with `That can't be true. Who told you that?' written on it?"
"Yes, I do," I said. "That does fit. I presume Theo made the texts after I said the portal didn't exist?"
"Yes, that was Theo," Aiden said, adjusting his glasses.
"I looked inside his phone," said David, "he had no recent texts."
"He wouldn't use his phone. He insisted on using mine. I still have them if you want to look," he said, handing the phone to David.
"Oh, I get it," I said, "you've got stooge written all over you."
David checked the messages. "This number looks familiar. Hold on," David said. He pulled out his phone and checked the number with the video of the contacts in Theo's mobile. "Ah-ha! I knew none of the contacts on this list except O'Byrne and this one --assuming these contacts have the correct names, of course. He sent the messages to someone you may know, Rick. A man named Jackson Scott."
"I don't know a Jackson Scott," I said.
"Think Senator."
"You mean Senator Jackson Scott, the bigoted asshole?" I asked.
"The very same Senator Jackson Scott, who is also a card-carrying member of the C-Street Dominionists," David said, typing the phone number into his phone and hitting the `call' button.
"What are you doing? You're calling him?" I asked.
David merely motioned for a moment of quietness. No one answered on the other end, but it did have a generic voicemail box. David left a message in the most menacing voice I had ever heard.
"Senator Scott, this is David Levitt. What you want will remain in my possession, Theo Roberts is dead, and your patsy has told us everything. Listen, I know you're holding Pearce, and that's a mistake. We have technologies you couldn't imagine, and I'm coming for you. There's only one way I will let you avoid your due, release him unharmed and retire from the Senate, or I swear I will burn you." David rang off. "There, that ought to do something," he said in his normal voice.
"Have you put me on your shit list?" Aiden asked in apprehension.
"I have not," said David.
"Do you think the dead man had his real phone number?" I asked. "It had no personalized answer message; you may have called the guy's grandmother."
"It must be someone important," said Park, "they told me to send everything to that number."
"We shall see," said David, and turned to Aiden. "Why did you want into the penthouse so badly? And what did you threaten Mikesh with to make him let you in?"
"I wanted to dismantle the surveillance devices before you got back, as a token of my goodwill. If I waited, it would only give them more to listen to while I explained myself to you. And I hadn't threatened Mikesh, well, not really. I just said that he wouldn't want his wife to know about his affair, and he let me in, no problem."
"How did you know he was having an affair?" I asked.
"I didn't know," Park said. "Statistically, have you any idea the percentage of married men who cheat on their spouses in India? It's about seventy-five percent. If he had cheated, I figured he lived here long enough to begin thinking cheating was wrong, but probably not long enough to stop himself from doing it."
To avoid appearing amused, David closed his eyes, squeezed his mouth shut, and turned toward me. "What shall we do with him?"
"Well, from what we know," I said, "his country could consider him a traitor, and maybe he broke the confidentiality agreement. Therefore, the government could come after him one day. On the other hand, he's only guilty of being stupid and naive, thinking that the United States would pay him when they could use him, take what they wanted, and leave him to take the rap. He hasn't actually harmed anyone and trapped himself into something more than he bargained for."
"I concur. Any conclusion?" David asked.
"It's too soon, more observation is necessary."
"Good call," David said. "Aiden, when you came in here, did the cameras see you?"
"No, absolutely not. I took precautions." He picked up the ski mask from the couch to show us.
"Since Aiden neutralized the cameras and bugs," I said, "might they return to see about them?"
David shook his head. "If you planted a bug, and your target found it, would you come back to check on it, possibly letting your target know who planted it? No, as it stands now, whoever did it can blame someone else."
"Could the Americans have done it?" I asked.
"Maybe, but I think someone local did it. The Americans knew about Amanda's daughter Helen. The only person involved in some way that knew of her is Katheryn. I think everything will keep circling back to her."
David and I had gotten hungry, and despite the unusual circumstance, we invited Aiden for dinner. The hotel's room service had delicious food, and since I had a larger than usual lunch with Maggie, I shouldn't have been that hungry. However, I felt famished and ordered three dinners, but David showed no surprise. As a vegetarian, David ordered a plate full of legumes, vegetables, and fruit. Aiden, however, stunned me when he ordered a plate of the greasiest food available. We chatted during our meal.
"When did you eat last?" Aiden asked me as I sat there with three plates of food.
"Don't worry about Rick, he's fine," said David. "What degrees do you have, Aiden?"
"Oh, I have many," he said, "like my masters in telecommunications, but the important ones are my three masters in various fields of biochemistry."
"You sound smart," David said.
"I passed the Mensa International test when I was ten."
"That's impressive," I said. "Did Mensa tell you your IQ?"
He tipped his head downward. "I shouldn't say. I used to say, but after you do, people treat you differently."
I knew what getting singled out felt like, and I hadn't wanted to make him uncomfortable. "That's okay, Aiden, we don't need to know."
"Aiden, how do you eat that?" David asked in disgust, watching him shovel the contents of his plate into his mouth.
"I would say with a fork, but I know that's not what you're asking," he said and then shrugged. "You get used to it."
Aiden had some social awkwardness. Sometimes I felt that way, depending on the conversation, but I functioned better one on one. I had Maggie, and David as well, but having two people hadn't happened often. However, I had gotten the impression that Aiden had no one.
"So, do you live alone?" I asked Aiden.
"I do now. I used to have a flatmate, but he left to get married. I can't seem to replace him. And before you ask, I no longer have a girlfriend; relationships are expensive. I already have difficulty paying the mortgage."
David and I smiled.
"We're sorry," David said, "we're simply curious. I have a question. What did you think when you heard everything about Jiyu over the surveillance?"
"You mean after I stopped thinking it was bollocks? I thought it sounded like the most amazing place I'd ever heard," he said and went back to his dinner.
David and I figured Aiden wouldn't fall under any governmental wrath for the time being. He decided to go to work the next morning as usual. Just before he left, however, he told us where they held Cadmar's body. He said it should remain intact, but after some delays, the other group scheduled the dissection that week. Aiden left us the gadget he used to sweep the penthouse for bugs, and we were grateful.
Once showered for the evening, David decided to make a complete --and somewhat paranoid-- sweep of the penthouse for any cameras and bugs. David checked the bathroom while I showered. "What do you think of Aiden? Is he telling the whole truth?"
"I don't know," I said, "but what he said sounded true. Didn't it make sense to you?"
"Yes."
"Well then, what's the problem?"
"If I know you," he said, "you'll want him to come with us."
I turned off the shower. "What do you mean, `if I know you?' I watched you sit there at dinner and consider the prospect yourself." I got out and began toweling off, and I noticed he had quickly given me a look that became all too familiar. He never like it when I read him. He preferred to believe in his inscrutability. "You make a mistake if you think I would suggest bringing him as things stand."
"Oh really, and why is that?" he asked. "He told us where to find the body. He warned us about the surveillance."
I looked at him in feigned astonishment. "Which one of us wants him to come with us, me or you?"
"We both do," he said as if he'd caught me out on something --which was not the case.
"I do not deny I considered it," I said, "but despite what Aiden's done to help us, I do not feel satisfied that he's wholly trustworthy. Of all people, I should think you would be more pragmatic. Why do you want him to join us?"
"For one thing, the government is quite picky about who they hire. Aiden had to pass a stringent background check. He's well educated, and it's evident he likes to learn. He could have an IQ off the chart. I don't know much about Katheryn Elliot, but I do know he's right, she's ruthless and ambitious. Aiden doesn't seem like that. He worked under Katheryn for years and hadn't advanced in position. It took financial difficulties from the loss of his flatmate before trying something as stupid as selling secrets to the Americans. A problem, might I add, that only exists because this world uses money. None of his trouble here would stay relevant on Jiyu."
"You have the decision," I said. "I trust you will make the right one."
"Well, you sound more careful than me over it," said David. "I trust your judge of character. When you've made up your mind, you ask him."
I finished getting ready for bed and sat up against the headboard, watching David in his trunks as he continued making the sweep of the bedroom. "I couldn't much tell in your suits," I said, "but you have huge thighs. Did you get those from doing squats?"
"No, a great deal of mountain biking," he said, "but everyone on Jiyu generally exhibits a larger amount of musculature than the average human on Earth due to the higher gravity, but the foundational enhancement ensures that we keep it. It sets the protein turnover in the body to prefer protein synthesis and, therefore, an anabolic state as opposed to catabolic."
"I haven't a clue what that means," I said, "but I probably can repeat it in ten languages."
David laughed and came to bed. "It just means that over many years, I'll slowly get bigger until I have it stopped. At that point, I'll easily stay that way." He leaped onto the bed and lay beside me.
I put my hand on his thigh and squeezed it. It felt like a rock. "Does that explain why Amarae is gigantic? You won't grow into a giant, will you?"
David laughed. "No, Amarae is a special case. He's the oldest among us. Long ago, Amarae volunteered for an experimental enhancement. It worked, but a side effect made him grow. They finally stopped his growth, but now he's eight feet tall."
"He's the oldest?" I asked. "He looks younger than you. How old is he?"
"I don't know. Amarae may not know. At some point, you stop counting, or so I hear. It must be over a thousand. The archives could tell us. They go back 3100 jears."
"Jears?"
"We are a people of two worlds," he said. "Biologically, and in many ways chronologically, we still have a connection to Earth, so we differentiate between reference points with the use of years for Earth years, and jears for Jiyu years,"
"Ah...interesting." We sat there for a moment. "I'm sorry about dinner. I don't know what came over me. I never eat like that. I had three entire meals and all that Chinese food with Maggie earlier. One would think I would have indigestion."
"That's okay, you're a growing boy," David said.
I laughed. "Outwardly, maybe."
He turned over until we were face to face, "Let's stop talking."
"Okay, what shall we stop talking about? Is this where you make mad passionate love to me?"
He looked at me for a moment. "Why would I do that? That's not what you want."
"But I do want you to make love to me."
"So, you say," he said, "but it's not entirely true."
"What do you mean not entirely true? What a thing to say, of course, it's true."
"Look," said David, "you don't have to prove to me you're a good man; I know you are. So, in the day-to-day world beyond the bedroom, it's okay if you want to play the gentleman. I know how far that gets you here because I do it too. It's our public face. And don't tell me that it is you because I know better. I'm your mate. Even if no one else gets to see it, when we're alone, I want the real you that you hide beneath that gentleman facade you present to the world. Telling me you want me to make love' to you, that's just more of what you do out there. Stop it. You never have to hide from me. How many men have made love' to you?"
"Three," I said. "What's wrong with making love?"
"The people who consider sex as something dirty use that phrase," he said. "It sounds clean and socially acceptable. That isn't what you enjoy. Did you like what we did last night?"
"Yes, I did."
He nodded. "How did it compare to the others? Not asking to stroke my ego, I have a point."
"I had the best night ever," I said.
"Good. We didn't pretend to `make love' like the others you had. We merely enjoyed one another, and that's far more honest. I want you to have the ability to own what you enjoy, free of ambivalence or shame. There's nothing wrong with it; be bold and own it. So, tell me, what do you want from me?"
I smiled. "I want to explore you."
He flipped onto his back. "Explore all you like. As my mate, feel free to think of my body as your playground. It's here for you whenever you want it."
I leaned over his face with his lips close to mine. "How have I managed the good luck to have someone so thoughtful and generous as a mate?"
"Good luck is nothing more than a pleasing confluence of circumstances." He smiled. "Come...less talk, more exploration."
I kissed him, my tongue exploring his. I ran my fingers through his hair and moved to his ear. I ran my tongue around the outside of his ear and drew the lobe into my mouth and sucked on it. Before moving on, I whispered to him. "I love you." I nuzzled his neck and inhaled his scent. He smelled like everything I'd ever wanted in a man. He had strong hands, and I raised the right one to my face. He kept his nails short with just a bit of white showing. His pointer finger had a light callous. The stone-like muscles of his arms had the appearance of fullness. Since he had just showered, I smelled his armpit, it held David's masculine scent that I found so intoxicating. I felt his pecs and squeezed them. I sucked one nipple and used my fingers to play with the other. I rubbed my fingers over the tiles of his abdominals. I skipped his cock to save it for last. He had well-shaped, handsome feet, and like his fingernails, he had well-formed nails on his toes. His calves were in proportion with his thighs, and equally stone-like. I had no idea the circumference of his thighs, but they were the most impressive of his muscles. He had a lightly hairy cock, and I enjoyed feeling the big head inside of me. The tight sack caressing his nuts I couldn't get into my mouth, and I heard him moan as I gave them an appreciative tongue bath.
Gripping his cock, my fingers met, but only when I squeezed it. I licked its length, paying more attention to the big knob. I noticed he didn't leak precum. I jammed it into my face trying to swallow it. It reached the entrance of my throat and I tried to avoid my reflex. I enjoyed the sounds he made as I repeated the plunge of my mouth onto him. I didn't know if he could go more than once, but I wanted to taste his cum. He grabbed my head and pulled me down onto him, fucking my face. I knew he had gotten close when I felt the head of his cock swell in my mouth. I pulled back just so the head filled the front of my mouth, and he came across my tongue. He came and came. I swallowed all that he fed me, his cockhead plugged my mouth, so nothing escaped. I enjoyed every bit he gave me and savored its flavor knowing that I would have a lot more in the future.
David pulled me up to him and kissed me.
"Did you like it?" he asked.
"I could drink gallons of you," I said.
He smiled. "I want to fuck you for a while, and then I need to drink your cum. I know you like to hold off, but it's necessary."
With my legs on his shoulders, David drove his penis into my ass for a long while with steady, even strokes. The size of his head prevented his cock from pulling free of my gripping hole. With every pile driving plunge I could feel it stretch the walls inside me, rubbing my prostate with every pass. He picked up speed racing to his orgasm and with a final slam he bred my hole the way I wanted him to. He kissed me, and he pulled his cock from me with a careful tug.
"Hold it inside you," said David.
"I don't want it anywhere else," I said.
"Oh, don't worry, I intend to keep you full."
He kissed me and moved down my body, licking me on the way down. He licked my cock, and every time he did, it throbbed from the sensation. We both tried to make it last, but it had been a long time since I had an orgasm. He took me into his mouth, and I ran my fingers through his hair. My hands moving with the bobbing of his head. Even with the few men I had in the past, I would rarely get blown. I took a pillow and shoved it under my head so I could watch him. He had his eyes closed, enjoying having my dick in his mouth. In only a few minutes, I could hold back no longer. I came into his mouth, he sucked it down and swallowed quickly. He cleaned me of any remnants. Having just cum made it too sensitive to let him continue. He crawled to my side, pulling the cover over us. We lay intertwined falling asleep.
A few hours later that David awakened me by prodding my hole with his cock. Naturally, I let him in. Still holding the cum from the previous fucking, it kept me wet enough for easy entry. He fucked me on my side, and about twenty minutes later he added another load to my ass. He left his cock where it belonged, and we both fell happily asleep again.
CHAPTER SIX
The next morning came too early, but we had time for the first fuck of the day. He came from the bathroom to find me standing next to the bed, leaning over.
"You want more?" he said.
"I want one to start the day off right."
He stood behind me. His growing erection rubbing against my hole. "Well, I wouldn't want your engine to stall," he said. "So, I can't leave you to walk around with an empty tank." He proceeded to shove his cock into my hole. "There, doesn't that feel better?"
"Oh, yes. Fuck me." He began ramming my hole, and I slammed back onto him.
"Oh, you like it hard, don't you? You want to walk around today, knowing your mate serviced your hole this morning the way you like it, is that it?"
"Oh, fuck yes."
I loved it rough, and he reamed my hole hard and unrelenting. He gave me the kind of fuck I wanted, needed even, daily, and I knew David would take care of it. He began to speed up. Just before he reached orgasm, a knock came upon the door. His ramming my prostate caused a spontaneous orgasm, and I came all over the floor. My squeezing his cock caused him to cum, and he hammered me three final times and stopped holding his dick deep inside me.
We heard another knock.
"Bloody hell," he said.
"Do we expect anyone?"
"We expect breakfast." He gently pulled out of me and quickly donned his white cotton robe. The front bulged as he still had an erection. He answered the door while I cleaned up my mess. I still felt a little sleepy when I woke up, but after a vigorous waking from David, we enjoyed a well-earned breakfast.
That day I dressed in my navy two-piece suit and yellow tie with white polka dots. David wore an ill-fitting two-piece suit similar in color. The fit served to inform me how much he needed someone to see to such things.
David called Ms. Newton requesting to see her at her office, but that morning, she had a meeting at the Minister's Cabinet Office at Whitehall. I wished to join him, but as an official visit, he considered it inappropriate. With that understanding, I agreed to wait elsewhere.
I had never gone to the cabinet office at Whitehall, and I must say it made me nervous. We passed through the security checkpoint at Downing Street and parked behind the building reserved for deliveries. Amanda wouldn't have an office at Whitehall, so she borrowed one to use before her meeting. I sat in the outer office where the member's assistant had his desk. David had gone there many times and showed no sign of nervousness. He followed Amanda inside the borrowed office and held a small cardboard box filled with the surveillance equipment from the penthouse, to which he added the one from the Jaguar found using the device provided by Aiden.
I heard their muffled voices inside. As a matter of priority, I suspected David would first relieve Amanda's mind over her daughter. Telling her the dead man had endangered her, and due to his demise, she had nothing to fear. Then it came to the surveillance equipment, and by their muted tone, I assumed that David had not allowed Amanda to palm the responsibility for the surveillance onto the Americans, as he told me. I then heard a few minutes of low talking and a sudden thud against the wall. I couldn't imagine what was happening at that point. The voices disappeared into silence, and within a minute, a red-faced David emerged rubbing his mouth with his handkerchief. I noted the lipstick on the cloth. In agitation, he informed me he wished to leave at once. I decided not to press the issue and kept my mouth shut until we had returned to the car.
When we climbed inside, David flipped the visor down, checking his appearance in the mirror. He wiped away the lipstick remnants and mumbled to himself.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
With his face crimson to his ears, he said, "Yes, of course," in a blatant attempt to sound as amiable as possible.
"Will you tell me what happened? I would like to know."
I had already surmised most of it by the time we got back to the car. I tried to smile pleasantly and not laugh. The circumstance explained a great deal, holding his arm like a vice at the party, the caress of his cheek before exiting the vehicle. I wasn't so naive that I couldn't recognize her feelings for him--fond of him indeed. He remained flush for a good ten minutes, and he had trouble even looking at me.
"I went in," he said, "and I told her that she no longer had to fear for her daughter's safety, and she seemed grateful."
"So, she kissed you."
"Do not interrupt the flow of my narrative, please." His face continued to redden. "I laid the box in front of her and told her we found them. She did what I figured she would do and blamed the Americans. It may come as a surprise, but I decided to let her think I accepted her explanation just in case the British government did do it. Then things went wrong." He then paused to look me in the face. "I must confess to you, and it concerns me that it might make you upset. I wouldn't want you to think I've manipulated you in any way, at least not intentionally."
"Okay, let's hear it," I said.
"Have you heard of pheromones?"
"I've read an article about them once. I understood that humans don't produce those."
"Well, that's not quite true. Some humans still produce them under certain conditions, but the small quantity remains largely undetectable with modern equipment, and that leaves scientists much to debate as to what they detect. However, humans still carry the genes for them, but nature and time have either genetically switched ours off or epigenetically turned them down. The Foundational Enhancement has certain effects. I suspect a purpose by its designers, but it activates those genes that produce pheromones, and now sometimes, I appear to practically percolate with them."
"Has this caused me to feel about you as I do?"
"Maybe," he said as if I'd caught him cheating, "but evolutionarily speaking, it just does what it does."
"I'll have to think how I feel about that," I said, "but please, continue your narrative."
"It's just that not everyone responds to everyone's pheromones," he said. "Amanda has a natural response to mine. It's sort of how I got my job."
"You used this to get your job."
"Well, not willfully! One doesn't think about these things, and until now, Amanda's reaction has remained subtle. Once I realized they were affecting her, it had gone too far, and this job has provided the perfect opportunity to make a positive difference here, which I can say I accomplished for nine years. However, Amanda and I don't have the same situation as I do with you. You and I have had sex. We have physiologically coupled, and although I still produce lots of pheromones, between us, they get mitigated by hormones intended to make us feel love for one another."
I sat there, with a little smile, listening to him continue as I studied his red face. I noted the look in his eyes, the curve of his jaw, the way his mouth moved as I heard every word he said, and although I hadn't known what to think of it all, it made me want to kiss him anyway. Should I care if my attraction to David had come from chemical manipulation? We knew emotions came from chemicals created by our brains, making us feel things through receptors in our cells. Far less mystery existed there than humans liked to pretend, and love felt great, so the cause shouldn't matter. It wouldn't have to stay mysterious; we should seek to understand its complexity. But not to worry, we have always lived in the illusion of free agency, our minds couldn't have done otherwise.
I closed my eyes and shook my head. "Your surprises keep getting better and better. So, what made the difference with Amanda today?" I noticed she had grabbed him by his crooked tie.
"This has never happened before. Amanda and I have never had anything sexual between us. She's just had an unspoken attraction to me, and it created a feeling of trust in me, which I admit having used on occasion, but I've never abused. I remained abstinent till I met you, so I'm uncertain, but I suspect it's because I showered last night before bed. Since then, you and I have had sex several times, the last of which happened a few hours ago."
"Do you mean that, chemically, you smell like sex on legs?" I asked.
"I wouldn't put it that way."
"I think it's pretty fitting. You could take morning showers, you know." I could no longer resist adjusting his tie's knot. "Will you continue to have this problem, you think?"
He grasped my hand that straightened his tie and looked me in the eye. "I trust that I may rely on you in the future to help keep others off me if I do."
"Oh, you can count on it."
On the way to Facility3 in East London, I made a phone call to my parents, as I had neglected to contact them the previous weekend. They sounded pleased to hear from me. As they told me, they had "ran into a few bumps in the road," but hadn't wanted to worry me. The company that my father worked for went bankrupt, and he wouldn't receive his pension after working for them for decades. They also received a letter that week informing my mother that her supplemental insurance would not cover several of her essential medications because of their cost and forced her to switch to cheaper generics of other medicines that hadn't worked previously. My older sister was divorcing her husband, and the younger one had fallen in with the wrong crowd. My father suspected she was abusing prescription drugs. Everything seemed like the typical humdrum of American life.
They also told me that things continued to decline for the LGBT community, so I still could not return home. At that point, I told them about David, that I had chosen to make my home with him, and that I could not go backward. Until I had said that I hadn't quite realized just how accurate that felt. I had not stayed the same person who left the United States or the same person who had yet to promise himself to David Saturday night. I couldn't go backward by returning to the U.S. any more than I could revert to the man who stood with Maggie at the subway entrance at nine o'clock on Saturday morning. I told them I loved them, and that no matter what, I was fine. When the call ended, it had a finality to it.
In that moment of so much change and uncertainty, I needed to know a part of my life seemed stable and sure. "Do you love me, David?"
He looked at me with his ardent amber eyes. He squinted and asked me, "Do you seek reassurance or honesty?"
"Both," I said.
He spoke to me in a tone of seriousness and unembellished sincerity, "I love you more deeply than words can convey, but that you may know, I will devote millennia endeavoring to show you."
For a lesser man, his outrageous-sounding statement would amount to nothing more than an idle promise, but I knew David meant it.
I turned the conversation toward pressing matters. "So, will we make our move today? I've worried about Amare."
"Perhaps," he said, "this came as our first real opportunity. We didn't know the location of the body until last night, and we couldn't get into the facility until this morning. Going in during the day is bold, but that could work to our advantage. We'll have to see. As for Amare, don't worry. He has more discipline and patience than any man I've seen. I don't know what we'll face at the facility after this weekend. Amanda palmed the surveillance off on the Americans. So, if the British Government did it --and not Katheryn-- if they think we accepted their explanation, they should treat us the same."
"If they know we want Cadmar's body," I said, "how can we expect them to leave it available for us to take?"
"I have a Plan B for just such circumstances. We're nearing the facility, so if you wish to call Maggie one last time before we go in, you should do it now."
I shook my head. "She has class right now; besides, we already said our goodbyes. She has a key to my flat. I told her I didn't know when we would leave, but if I hadn't returned, she could have everything there. If she wanted to sell my possessions to help her grandmother, I gave her my blessing."
"That's kind of you," he said, handing me his phone. "If we have no other calls, we should turn these mobiles off. We wouldn't want anyone using the GPS against us."
When we reached the cul-de-sac of Facility3, the empty block of flats once again came into view to the left of us. We paused at the garage door of the brick building on the right to allow the transponder on the car to signal the door to open. Once inside, we pulled alongside the other six government-owned black Jaguars and a couple of civilian vehicles.
"Now, before we get out," said David, "I should tell you that this may not be the day. It all depends on what we find when we go in, so follow my lead."
We heard the quiet tapping echo of our footsteps in the garage. The air, slightly damp from the previous day's rain, accompanied the smell of internal combustion engines. I had a growing awareness of my heartbeat when David opened the wooden door at the far end of the room. Charles, the guard, sat at his desk in the posture he took when anyone entered. Feigning any level of calm at that point only served to heighten my anxiety, knowing the result of failing that first hurdle. Had anything changed? Would the invitation by the queen be enough? I had only those thoughts running through my mind.
"Good morning, Charles." David showed his security pass. "Are there any letters for me in the morning post?"
"Not today. Will your one in tow stay for tea?"
"Here it is," I thought.
"Yes, he has an invitation from the queen."
Next came a pause that lasted too long for my nerves, then once again, the familiar buzzer sounded, followed by a loud unlocking click of the door to allow entry. I had enormous trouble stifling a sigh of relief as I hadn't realized I was holding my breath. Once through the door, and it snapped closed behind us, David pulled me into the alcove containing the coffee and tea stand.
"Are you okay?" He held me close to him. "Your face has gone white. Breathe. Take slow deep breaths. You're okay."
My presence at Facility3 that day was many irrevocable steps outside my comfort zone, and that resulted in the first of the panic attacks I began having. David's arms felt good. We stood like that for a minute or two. It stunned me how quickly it passed, and given the earlier conversation about pheromones, I wondered later if David had induced my calmness somehow.
We made our way down the hallway, and I noted more people inside the offices that morning than Saturday. Some of them greeted us with a 'good morning', and the darkened conference room lay empty.
We stopped at the lavatories near the lift so David and I could make use of them. I saw no sense in going into it with a full bladder. Afterward, I glanced into the mirror above the white pedestal sink as I washed my hands and cooled my face with water. What I saw in the light shocked me. I lost much of my hair years ago, yet the very top of my head had a thick dark mat of five o'clock shadow. It completely covered my pate, uninterrupted back to front and side to side. I thought perhaps the lighting had played a trick on me. I quickly dried my face and hands and placed them on my head to feel it. Although I felt no more than an equivalent to a day's growth of my beard, I had not imagined it. My hair was growing.
"Oh shit. How did that happen?" I asked myself aloud. Then it struck me; David did it. What had he done to me? I met him in the hallway, at which point I grabbed him by both lapels and dragged him into the bathroom, closing the door behind me.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"What the hell have you done to me?" I asked in excitement, pointing to my head.
"My goodness, has your hair begun growing back? I hadn't quite realized that would happen so soon."
"What did you do? And don't tell me we'll have to talk about this later," I said in an agitated whisper, "because I will not go anywhere until you tell me."
"It's nothing bad, I promise you. Now you see the reason I've remained celibate since I came here. Having sex passes onto my partner, namely you, the enhancement that I received that maintains my body and allows me to live on Jiyu. It won't harm you; it's the complete opposite." He smiled and rubbed my stubbled hair. "I should think your hair growing back would please you."
"I have a reason to feel upset." I swiped his hand from my head. "Why didn't you tell me? I don't enjoy this kind of surprise. So, what else can I expect, having to shave twice a day?" I stood there for a moment and took a deep breath. "Okay...now that you've told me about it," I said, trying to relax, "I suppose I would have to receive that enhancement anyway. I just wish you had said something to prepare me."
"Yes, we would need to treat you once we arrived on Jiyu, but now you have a couple of days jump on it. I can't wait to see you with hair." David smiled. "But in all seriousness, I apologize for not having told you about it. I promise, no more surprises."
I then had a scary thought. "Could someone extract that from Cadmar's body?" I asked.
"I don't believe so," he said. "It's made up of billions of very tiny machines, once they get inside their host, they won't work inside anyone else, and we programmed them to die when the host body dies."
"What about the ones you gave me?"
"That's different; our mates need those. You have modified versions of mine. It would pass along the Foundational Enhancement, as in your case, and they help bond us to one another. However, they don't force anyone to do anything they don't want to do."
"How does it bond us?" I asked.
"They guarantee that you will affect me, the way I affect you."
"Oh, you mean that I'll produce pheromones that will affect you. I like this more by the second," I said, smiling.
"I thought you'd like that."
"So, we can presume that those in Cadmar's body will not cause us difficulty," I said, sounding less convinced after having said it. "Wait, do you mean that I have nano-machines in my body?"
"Are you familiar with nano-robotics?" he asked.
"I read science magazines," I said, "but Earth has nothing as advanced as this. Thinking about it, people would misuse it if they got that technology here."
"Oh look, you're thinking like one of us already," he said, gesturing toward the door. "Shall we?"
The lift to the underground had a smooth ride down to the maze beneath the building. The doors slid open to find Aiden Park standing right against the doors, front and center, waiting for the lift.
"Oh, you're here," he said, "I was going up to fetch more tea bags." He then whispered, "Did you come to see the body?"
David put his hand between the doors to prevent them from closing. "Indeed, provided we can exit the lift."
"Oh, sorry," Aiden said, backing away, "I just got here myself. The tea can wait. Would you like me to take you there?"
"No, I know the location, but thank you anyway." David pressed his hand into my back so I would know he meant to proceed without Aiden's assistance.
We traversed the myriad of groin-vaulted rooms, which served as junctions for barrel-vaulted corridors. There we found the occasional door and console tables that held potted plants. And despite how confusing it all seemed, we would pass people who seemed to know where they were going, so I had to ask. "This all looks the same. I see nothing labeled. How do you know where you're going?"
"Hold that thought," he said as we continued. We turned left one more time, walked to the next junction, then right, and we stopped at the second door on the left of that corridor. "It's like this on purpose, and it does have labels if you know where to look. See this?" He pointed to the pattern on the wall of the acoustic tiling, which covered every wall and ceiling. He traced his finger over the tiles. "Each one has a subtle pattern, and if you turn them in the right directions when you install them, you can make them say whatever you want."
"Oh, I see that now!" I said in surprise. "That's very clever."
"Once seen, you cannot un-see it." He opened the door.
We discovered Katheryn hard at work over her laptop in a room about 20 by 40 feet. They set up a portable autopsy table on one end of the room, with large lab tables and various pieces of equipment, including a digital scale. I also saw a long, round-topped object beneath a sheet that stood on metal legs with wheels. I noted a draping black cord plugged into an electrical outlet. I had never seen one, but I presumed I was looking at the portable body freezer.
Katheryn looked up as we entered the room, "I wondered when you would get here," she said. "Please, come into my parlor. I've been waiting for you."
David's face held no expression, and that worried me. "Yes, I thought you might," he said. "So, you and Aiden did this."
She closed her laptop. "Aiden? That ass? Why would I involve him? I know you found the surveillance equipment, but that's alright," she said, sliding the laptop into its bag. "I had plenty."
"Going somewhere?" David asked her.
"You know I am."
"You could be long gone," he said. "Why did you stay?"
"I don't know; maybe, I just wanted to see your handsome face again."
"Rick," David said, not breaking eye contact with Katheryn, "please go look beneath the sheet."
I rushed to the body freezer and lifted the sheet; with the glass top, you could see inside. "They left it plugged in," I said, "but it's empty."
"How long ago?" David asked her.
"Late Saturday afternoon," she said with a twisted smile. "I have had difficulty finding reasons to delay the autopsy with the team but needs must."
"You'll be leaving now for the United States, I take it," I said, rejoining David near the door.
"Oh Rick, your presence reminds me," she said, taking a small object from her pocket. She shouldered her laptop bag and purse, paused by David on her way out, and pressed something into his hand. It was a flash drive. "I gave them all the surveillance, but somehow, I don't think they'll appreciate this part as much as I did." She smiled, eyeing David up and down, and with that, she left.
"Shouldn't we stop her?" I asked.
"What could we do? I can't kill her," he said, "I see no imminent danger of her harming anyone."
"You could stun her."
"And then what? Should we give her to the British government, and let them know everything we don't want them to know? No, it wouldn't do any good. She's won."
I whispered into David's ear, "What about Aiden? I thought he sent the Americans the information on the body."
"They both did," he said, whispering. "They both approached the Americans, unbeknownst to one another, of course. They made Katheryn an offer too good to pass up. So, Katheryn took the deal payable upon receipt of the goods, and the Americans wouldn't lift a finger to get what they wanted. Now it makes me wonder if they created the whole abduction to keep us busy while they took the body."
"Time for Plan B?"
"It's depressing, but time for Plan B."