"Glad you showed," Zsadist said.
Qhuinn's voice was deep as he replied, a totally different cadence from before. "I wanted to come even though I can't work out."
"Good call. You can chill over there."
As Qhuinn went to the sidelines he met Blay's eyes and they both smiled real slow. Then they looked at John.
Using American Sign Language, Qhuinn's hands spelled out, After class we go to Blay's. Have a shitload to tell both of you.
As John nodded, Z's voice cracked through the gym. "Kibitzing break's over, ladies. Don't make me lap your asses, because I will."
John faced his little partner and settled into his ready position.
Even though one of the trainees had died from the change, John couldn't wait for his to hit. Sure, he was pants-down terrified, but better to be dead than stuck in the world as a sexless scrap of flesh at the mercy of others.
He was beyond ready to be male.
He had family business to take care of with the lessers.
Two hours later, V was as satisfied as he ever got. Not surprisingly, the female was in no shape to dematerialize home, so he put her in a robe, hypnotized her into a stupor, and took her down in the building's freight elevator. Fritz was waiting at the curb with the car, and the elderly doggen didn't ask any questions after her address was given.
As always, that butler was a godsend.
Alone again in the penthouse, V poured himself some Goose and sat down on the bed. The rack was covered with hardened wax, blood, her arousal, and the results of his orgasms. It had been a messy session. But the acceptable ones always were.
He took a long pull from his glass. In the dense silence, in the aftermath of his perversions, in the cold slap of his zero reality, a cascade of sensual images came to him. What he'd seen weeks ago and now remembered had been caught by mistake, but he'd macked the scene like a pickpocket anyway, stashing it in his frontal lobe even though it didn't belong to him.
Weeks ago he'd seen Butch and Marissa… laying together. It had been when the cop was at Havers's clinic on quarantine. A video camera was set up in the corner of the hospital room, and V had caught the two of them on a computer monitor: she dressed in a vibrant peach gown, he in a hospital John. They'd had been kissing long and hot, their bodies straining for sex.
V had watched with his heart in his throat as Butch had rolled over and mounted her, his John breaking open to reveal his shoulders and his back and his hips. While he'd started in with a rhythm, his spine had flexed and released as her hands slid onto his ass and her nails dug in.
It had been beautiful, the two of them together. Nothing like the sex with hard edges V had had all his life. There had been love and intimacy and… kindness.#p#分页标题#e#
Vishous let his body fall loose and slap back onto the mattress, his glass tipping until it almost spilled as he lay out. God, he wondered what it would be like to have that sort of sex. Would he even like it? Maybe it would get claustrophobic. He wasn't sure he'd be into someone with their hands all over him, and he couldn't imagine being fully naked.
Except then he thought of Butch and decided it probably just depended on who you were with.
V covered his face with his good hand, wishing like hell his feelings would go away. He hated himself for these thoughts, for this attachment, for his useless pining, and the familiar litany of shame brought on a whitewash of fatigue. As bone-deep exhaustion Tom Sawyer'ed him from head to foot, he fought the wave, knowing it was dangerous.
This time he didn't win. Didn't even get a vote. His eyes slammed shut even as fear licked up his spine and left his skin in a quilt of goose bumps.
Oh… shit. He was falling asleep…
Panicked, he tried to open his lids, but it was too late. They had become masonry walls. The vortex had him and he was being sucked down no matter how much he tried to pull himself free.
His grip loosened on the glass in his hand and he dimly heard the thing hit the floor and splinter. His last thought was that he was just like that tumbler of vodka, shattering and spilling, unable to hold himself inside anymore.
* * *
Chapter Three
A couple of blocks to the west, Phury picked up his martini and eased back into a leather banquette at ZeroSum. He and Butch had been pretty quiet since landing at the club about a half hour ago, the two of them just doing the people-watching thing from the Brotherhood's table.
God knew there was plenty to see around here.
On the other side of a waterfall wall, the club's dance floor was tweaking with techno music as humans rode waves of Ecstasy and coke and did dirty deeds in designer clothes. The Brotherhood never hung on the general-pop side, though. Their little slice of real estate was in the VIP section, a table all the way in the back next to the fire escape. The club was a good spot to R & R. People left them alone, the booze was top-drawer, and it was smack-dab in downtown, where the Brotherhood did most of their hunting.