The Pawn, page 17
“We should check on the ‘team of housemaids’ thing,” Remy said quietly to Dar. “That’d be a good solution.”
“Yeah,” Dar said, but the look he exchanged with Remy made it crystal clear that they both judged the odds to be about the same: there was no chance of a rescue from the housemaids. “Adam, do you want to contact HQ, or should I?”
“You do it,” Challoner said. “I’m busy thinking of other ways to get those transmitters in place.”
“Think fast,” Dar said under his breath, and he reached for Challoner’s comm.
Remy watched as Dar sent the message across the ocean, and he watched as Challoner searched the night for answers. And Remy started the process within himself, started rebuilding the walls that he’d allowed to come too far down. If HQ thought the transmitter idea would work, that meant Remy was going back to Baryman, going back to whoring. He needed to be ready.
CHALLONER spent quite a while on the comm. A couple times, he had voice calls, but they were in some language Remy didn’t know. French, he was pretty sure, but that basic identification pretty well exhausted his understanding. He was too restless to stay in the office, so he wandered back to the kitchen and put the food away the best he could. Then he remembered that Carralina couldn’t see. He tried to remember how many of her tools he’d moved, and from where, but it was no use. He hadn’t really been paying much attention to what he’d been doing.
He hadn’t known that he was getting comfortable. He hadn’t realized that he was starting to unwind, beginning to get used to the idea of starting a new life, a life where his body wouldn’t be used for the enjoyment of anyone with enough money to rent him.
“They won’t know.” He said it out loud, and then looked around self-consciously. Challoner didn’t have any pets, he realized. No living creature in the kitchen to hear him. He raised his voice. “They won’t know.” That made it better. He’d be doing the same things he used to do, but with a different, deeper purpose. They’d still think they were using him, but he’d actually be using them. He could do it.
He returned to the office, stood in the doorway, and watched as Dar and Challoner turned to look at him. Dar looked guilty; Challoner, defiant.
“They like the idea,” Dar said. “A lot.” He waited for Remy to ask, but he didn’t have to.
“But there’s no team of housemaids,” Remy said with a smile. He walked into the room and kept his voice light. “It’s fine. I can do it. I’ve been doing it for most of my life. A little longer is no big deal.”
“No,” Challoner said. He sounded like he was ready to fight, but also like he already knew he was going to lose. “I promised you.”
“I release you from the promise. I appreciate the thought, but things have changed.” Remy crossed over to one of the big wing chairs and sat down; he didn’t want to be on the couch, didn’t want to take the chance that Challoner would sit beside him. “How long am I here for? Just tonight?”
“That was the original plan,” Challoner said. “But, no, Remy….”
“Challoner, don’t drag it out. This is what needs to be done, and we all know it.” Remy knew his voice sounded brittle and tried to modulate it when he said, “So, what do I need to know? How big are these transmitters? Is there going to be a problem hiding them?”
Dar seemed to be waiting for more from Challoner, but finally he crossed to the big desk and picked up something that looked like a fine wire, about the length of Remy’s baby finger, with a black orb, smaller than a pea, on one end. “This big. And they won’t be active until the preset time, so security scanners won’t pick up on them.”
“Okay.” It was good to focus on the logistics. “Can that wire be bent?”
“It should be straight when it’s in place—that’s the antennae that will get our activation signal. But you can wrap it around when it’s just being transported.”
Remy reached out and took the transmitter from Dar. It was strange to think that something so small could be so powerful. “I could wrap it up and put it in a pill casing,” he said. “Nobody’s going to question a whore with a pocket full of pills.”
The mention of drugs seemed to be the last straw for Challoner. He moved abruptly, jerkily, picking up speed as he headed for the door. He stopped short when Dar growled, “Adam.” Challoner turned slowly. “Don’t walk away, Adam,” Dar said. He held his gaze steady until Challoner turned around a little further and looked at Remy.
He came a few steps closer and crouched down in front of the chair before reaching for both of Remy’s hands. “Please don’t do this,” he said softly.
Remy felt like he’d been kicked in the gut, and he had some fairly recent memories to verify that the sensation was accurate. He could have stood up to yelling, he was pretty sure, but this was something else entirely. “I have to,” he said. “It might work. And….” He was going to say that it didn’t matter. He thought he’d tell Challoner that it wasn’t a big deal, that whoring wasn’t that bad and he was fine about going back to it. But he couldn’t say it. With Challoner looking at him like that, he couldn’t lie. So he said, “I can do it. I can get through it.”
Challoner raised his hand and brushed the back of his fingers against Remy’s cheek. “I want to protect you. I want you to be safe.”
“Too late,” Remy said with what he hoped was a brave smile. He had the feeling it probably looked pretty gruesome, and he let his face relax. “You woke me up; I can’t go back to sleep now. I tried, with the pills, but… it didn’t work. And the thing is, Challoner… I don’t want it to work. I want to be awake. Alive.”
Remy had never been kissed by anyone that he cared about, and when Challoner brought their lips together, he could feel the difference. Not in his lips, but in his gut. Challoner pulled away after a too short moment, and Remy wanted to lean after him. They stayed there, frozen, and finally Challoner sighed. “Sometimes I wish I’d kicked you out of that damned hotel room.”
“Sometimes I wish the same thing.”
Challoner nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
“But you didn’t. So here we are. And we’ve got a job to do.” He tried to shake the heavy emotions off, turned to Dar and asked, “Are the rest of the transmitters here?” He looked at Challoner to ask, “And do you have any big pills we could steal the casings from?”
“The transmitters are on the way,” Dar said. He seemed relieved to be back to talking about business. “I can make an order for pills, as well. Is there a specific kind that would be good? Something that wouldn’t catch anyone’s attention?”
Remy thought back to Sasha’s pill cases. “There’s something that’s big, and dark purple. Almost opaque. I don’t know what those are, but I know that some of the whores use them. I’ve seen them around. People wouldn’t ask questions if they saw me with them, and that transmitter would fit in them, for sure.”
“Big, dark purple, used by whores. Okay, I’ll see what I can come up with.” Dar looked regretfully in Adam's direction before adding, "And can you give us an idea of the timeline? Like… if you were going to plant thirty transmitters…." Another uncomfortable look toward Adam before Dar said, "How long do you think it will take for you to get into that many bedrooms?"
Yeah, this wasn't anything Challoner wanted to hear, but Remy could see why Dar wanted to know. "It's hard to be sure. I don't set my own schedule, or choose my own clients. And not all of them want me in their homes. I'd say… I don't know, no more than one or two a day."
Challoner wouldn't even look in his direction, but Dar nodded. "Okay. We can work with that estimate." He took Challoner’s comm over to the desk and started working.
It was a bit awkward, being left there with Challoner, but Remy tried to get past it. He had no confidence in the plan, really, and even if he managed to get the transmitters planted, there was no reason to believe he’d make it out alive once the virus was activated. So this might be one of his last times to see Challoner. He remembered the suicide pill idea, and decided to ask Dar about it when they had a little more privacy. There was no point looking for trouble; Challoner already looked about as miserable as a man could look.
“You woke me up,” Remy said quietly. The words from earlier were still bouncing in his brain, and he was pretty sure they made sense. “Being asleep was easier. But it was no way to live, not really. I… yeah, sometimes I wish you’d kicked me out of the hotel room. But mostly, I’m glad you didn’t. Really glad.”
Challoner managed a smile. “I’m mostly glad too. But I’ll be a hell of a lot happier about it all when you’re out of this mess and back here where you’re safe.”
“Yeah, that’ll be nice,” Remy agreed. “I’ll be happier then too.” Challoner lived in a fantasy world, but from what Remy had seen of his life on the farm, reality wasn’t too far away from a fairy tale, not out there. So if Challoner wanted to imagine a happily ever after, Remy wasn’t going to stop him. But this time Remy was going to be more careful. This time, he wasn’t going to let himself believe in Challoner’s dream.
Chapter 16
“YOU should go to bed,” Challoner said. “You’re tired.”
He was right. The pills and transmitters had arrived and been combined, Dar had gone down to sleep in the cottage, and Remy had stayed awake, sitting in the big wing chair and watching Challoner work at his desk. “You should come with me,” he said.
Challoner’s smile seemed rusty. “That’s all I’m getting? Used to be, you’d put a little effort into the seduction, Remy.”
“I didn’t mean you should sleep with me. I just meant you should go to bed. You’re tired too.”
Challoner nodded slowly. “Yeah. I am.” He looked at the desk he was sitting behind, then back at Remy. “I feel like I should be doing something. Doing more. I’m sending you back into that hell, so I should be doing… I don’t know. Something.”
“Have you actually got anything to do?”
“Little stuff. Nothing important. Nothing interesting enough to let me forget that you’ve got another nine hours here, and then you’re gone.”
Remy pretended that he hadn’t noticed the silent gone for good in Challoner’s words. It was reassuring, actually, to learn that Challoner wasn’t quite as naïve as he seemed. He knew Remy wasn’t likely to come back from this, even if he’d decided not to admit it out loud. “So maybe you should come with me. Nine hours. That’s it. How do you want to spend that time?”
Challoner stood up slowly and walked across the room toward Remy. He stood in front of him and Remy rose to meet him. Challoner took both of Remy’s hands in his. “I don’t know which is harder,” Challoner said. “Letting you go back there, or keeping myself from taking advantage of you before you do.”
“‘Taking advantage’ of me? Are you serious, Challoner?” Remy wasn’t sure whether to be amused or disgusted. “Do you know how many men I’ve had sex with? ’Cause I don’t. But it’s a big, big number. There’s no ‘advantage’ to be taken. It’s long since gone.”
“Just because other people have done it doesn’t mean that it’d be right for me to do it.” The man sounded dead serious.
Remy let himself snort, just a little. “Yeah, okay.” There really wasn’t anything new to say, or anything more to add, and Remy knew he should leave it. Besides, he’d found a way to contribute now, a way to use his one skill that didn’t involve getting Challoner out of his tastefully expensive clothes. “That’ll keep me nice and fresh for the other clients, I guess. I wonder who’ll be the first one, when I’m back? It’s been a while… but I’m sure I haven’t gotten too out of practice. Maybe it’ll be Hesterman, if he hasn’t come back to his senses yet. We can do the whole ‘I love you so much, sweetheart’ thing. And maybe he’ll take the ‘public fucking’ kink a little further. That could actually be a bit awkward, if the goal of all this is to get into his bedroom. But I could manage it, probably. First round in public, but he’s usually up for at least two….”
“What are you doing, Remy?” Challoner’s voice was tight.
It wasn’t like Remy had an actual plan. “Just talking. Making conversation. Not much else to do, really, since we’ve done all we can with the transmitters and you don’t want to do anything fun.”
“For fuck’s sake! You still think I don’t want to? You think I haven’t spent the last few weeks imagining you spread out over every surface in this goddamned house, thinking of how good it would feel to just pin you to a mattress and keep you there for days?” He shook his head and his voice lost some of its anger. “I can barely think when you’re around. And then you go away, and I can’t think then, either, because all I want is to get you back.” He stood up and walked to where Remy was sitting. “Jesus, Remy. I gave it serious consideration, when I first thought about buying your contract. I mean, the first idea was just trying to get you out of a bad situation. But then I thought about just doing it for real. Everyone else seems to be fine with the idea, and you don’t seem to see anything wrong with it. I could buy you, and keep you like a slave, and fuck you ’til you couldn’t walk the next day whether you wanted me to or not, and that would be fine with you and fine with everybody else too. Maybe I’m the crazy one, thinking there’s something wrong with that.”
He crouched and found Remy’s hands again, that newly familiar, firm grip that he seemed to think conveyed some deeper meaning. “You know what made me realize what a sick idea that was? It was the date on the contract.” He shook his head and tightened his grip. “You signed it when you were nine years old. Your signature… it was little-kid writing. And now I know that it wasn’t even your real name. You were just writing a couple words they told you to write. You were a child, and you didn’t know what it meant, and if this society thinks that it’s okay to enforce contracts like that, then obviously I can’t trust the judgment of this society about what’s morally okay. And the thing is, Remy….” He paused, and Remy could tell that he was building up to say something Remy wasn’t going to like. “The thing is, if you think it’s okay to enforce that contract, if you think that you’re not being treated wrongly, then I feel like I can’t really trust your judgment about what’s morally okay, either. Not in this case. Not… I know it sounds ridiculous, but not about yourself. I know you feel for other people, but when you talk about fighting back, about being part of this thing, it’s always about them. It’s never about you.”
“Other people have it worse than me,” Remy said quietly.
“Maybe they do. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have it pretty damn bad.”
Challoner had his usual sincere expression on, and Remy really didn’t want to look at his face anymore. He stood abruptly, making Challoner rock back on his heels to get out of the way. “So I’m the poor, stupid whore who doesn’t even have the brains to know what he wants. I get it. Yeah, I wouldn’t want to sleep with someone that stupid, either.”
“Oh, give me a break, Remy! Did you hear the first part of what I said? The part where I told you just how much I want you?” Challoner straightened and looked Remy in the eye, and there was a strength in his gaze that Remy wasn’t used to seeing. “You say I see you as a stupid whore? I don’t, at all. But I think you see me as a stupid, naïve rich guy who’s never seen anything ugly and never had to make a hard decision. You think I’m floating on some innocent cloud of ‘let’s all be nice to each other,’ and I promise you, that’s not where I am. This isn’t some fuzzy theory I’m playing with, this is the fucking core of my beliefs. People shouldn’t be bought and sold—if someone chooses to be a prostitute, that’s one thing, but you never chose, Remy, and you know that. Children should be cherished, not abused. And people who take advantage of a system that allows those things? Those people are complicit in the abuse, and I will not be one of those people, no matter how tempted I might be.”
“And no matter what I want.”
“What you want?” Challoner looked at Remy closely. “Do you actually want me? Because I know what it feels like, what it looks like, when somebody wants to have sex with me. All the little sneaked looks, the way they want to touch me all the time, the way their breathing changes when I get close. And I’m not getting any of that from you, Remy. All I’m getting from you is… professionalism. I think you want to do your job, and yeah, maybe you want to make me happy. But can you look me in the eyes and say that I turn you on?”
“You’re very handsome. You’re fit. You… you seem to have excellent technique, from what I’ve been allowed to experience. Why wouldn’t I want you?”
“Remy, look at me.” Challoner waited, and smiled ruefully when Remy finally complied. “Do you have any reason to believe that if we had sex, you’d actually enjoy it? I mean, beyond simple physical responses.”
“‘Beyond simple physical responses’? I don’t know what that means.”
“Like, friction would make you hard, and enough of it would make you come. That sort of thing. Beyond that, would you enjoy it?”
Remy was at a total loss. “Enjoy what, beyond that? Like… well, yeah. I’d enjoy making you feel good, making you come. Is that what you mean?”
“No, not about me. Or… okay, yeah, maybe a bit about me, because that’s the idea, right, that you want to do this with one person, not just with any anonymous client. So, what part of me would you really like to touch?”
“What part of you?” Remy was bewildered, and starting to feel as if this was another test he was destined to fail. He knew there wouldn’t be a punishment, not of the usual sort, but he still felt his stomach churning with anxiety. “All of you! Your cock. Wherever you want. But, yeah, your cock, or your ass, or… wherever you want. All of you.” Surely one of those answers was close to whatever the hell Challoner was looking for.
