Home | Stories | Books | News | Links | Fun Stuff | Bio | Reading | Blog

Into The Black

* * *

From space, the stars of the Milky Way resembled a swirl of diamond dust, shining hard and bright out of the endless Black. On Earth, their light would be dimmed or hidden altogether by the soupy, toxic atmosphere. At least that’s what Colt had heard from the old-timers who claimed to have been there before it became uninhabitable. He, himself had never seen the stars from any vantage point other than here on the upper level of Hell’s End, the last space station before the void.

“Daydreaming again?”

Colt turned toward the voice with a smile. “Hi, Taz. Just looking at the stars.”

“You’re always looking at the stars.” Taz sauntered over from the lift, a rare genuine smile curving his rosebud mouth and putting dimples in his round cheeks. “I doubt the view’s changed that much since yesterday.”

“It changes.” Colt swung his arm toward the far side of the huge transparent dome, where Pluto loomed gray and menacing against the abyss. “There’s a new crater today.”

“Well, there’s a shock,” Taz said dryly. “An asteroid hitting Pluto, imagine that. Call the newsfeed, we’ve got a hell of a story here.”

Colt laughed. “Were you coming to look at the stars too?”

Taz’s smile vanished, his clear blue eyes hardening into chips of ice. “I came to find you. Boss has a job for us.”

“Both of us?”

“Yeah.”

Colt felt himself tense. If Etienne L’arisian wanted them both, it wasn’t going to be pretty. It usually meant he’d have to use his size and intimidating looks to threaten someone, distracting them while Taz did the real job.

Taz’s cherubic face and slight build caused most people to underestimate or even ignore him, and he used it ruthlessly. He’d flash that deceptively sweet smile, huge blue eyes wide and vacant, and get himself instantly labeled as harmless. He’d blend into the background, striking when his prey’s attention was firmly fixed on Colt and his perceived menace.

The quarry never knew who’d robbed them blind when their back was turned, or slit their throat. Taz made sure of that. He also made sure that Colt never had to get blood on his hands. But Colt still didn’t like these jobs. It hurt him when Taz had to kill, even though his partner did it without emotion or regret.

“What do we have to do?” Colt asked, trying not to look as miserable as he felt.

“One of the dealers on the lower levels screwed the boss’s mistress out of several grams of Rapture. She paid for one hundred; the dealer only gave her ninety. Boss wants us to convince him to give us the other ten.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Colt already knew the answer. Rapture was horribly addictive and expensive, nevertheless wildly popular on the space stations orbiting the Outer Planets, where the air reeked of tight-packed humanity and despair and everyone wanted an escape, however temporary. Cheating anyone, never mind the mistress of the head of the L’arisian family, out of what they’d bought was an almost guaranteed death sentence.

Taz smiled again. This time, it was the smile that everyone who knew him had learned to fear. “If he doesn’t? We off him.”

Colt turned away, his stomach churning. He’d belonged to the L’arisian family for ten years, ever since his parents had sold him at age eleven to buy their own lives, and the lives of their first two children. In all that time, he’d killed only once, in self-defense. It had left an indelible scar on his soul.

“Hey.” Taz’s arms came around him from behind. He felt the press of Taz’s cheek between his shoulder blades. “I’ll do it, if it comes to that. You know I won’t make you.”

“I know.” Colt laid his big hands over his partner’s small ones. “It’s just, I don’t like for you to have to kill people either. It’s not right.”

Taz was silent for a moment. Colt felt the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. “It’s not a question of right or wrong. We do what the boss says, or we die. Better some fucking Rapture dealer than us, yeah?”

Colt didn’t answer. Nothing he could say would make Taz regret what he had to do to survive, just as nothing Taz could say would ever make Colt believe it wasn’t wrong.

Taz let go of Colt long enough to turn him around, then stood on tiptoe, arms raised. Colt bent and swept Taz into his arms, lifting the smaller man right off his feet. Taz tilted his head up, lips parting. Colt took the kiss Taz offered, accepting his silent comfort as the gift it was.

In all the years they’d known each other, in all the time since Taz had first come to Colt’s bed, Taz had never said ‘I love you’. But Colt knew it was true nonetheless.

“Let’s get this done,” Taz whispered against Colt’s mouth. “Then we’ll go home and fuck. You can do me tonight, okay?”

A lump rose in Colt’s throat. He could count on one hand the times that Taz had let him top in the three years they’d been lovers. Taz liked being in control in bed as much as he did in every other area of life. Colt didn’t mind. He loved the feel of Taz’s cock in him, loved being able to give himself completely to Taz.

However, the nights when Taz opened his pale, slender thighs for Colt, allowing him to take something no one else had ever taken and lived to tell about... Those nights were rare and precious. Not because Colt loved topping so much, because he really didn’t. Those nights were special because when he moved inside Taz, his lover’s cold eyes would thaw, the walls he’d built to keep the world at bay would crumble, and Colt could look right down inside to the person he’d fallen in love with all those years ago. The man who’d taken a terrified young boy under his wing, protected him and taught him how to survive in a world that had no place for mercy or tenderness or love.

Colt kept those memories close to his heart, hoarding them as greedily as the dragons he’d read about as a boy, before he was sold.