Guest Post: Legion and Lover (1/6)

by Seuzz

"Turn," said the technician, and pressed her fingertip against Vincent's chin. He shifted his head fractionally to the right. "Look up. You don't have to open your eyes," she added in an amused tone.

"Thanks," Vincent murmured. "I wasn't planning to."

"Does the mirror bother you?"

"No. The face does."

He thought she'd say It's a nice face, but instead she said, "We can cover it."

"The face?"

"No, the mirror, smartass. It's for your benefit, not mine. I can see you just fine."

Vincent smiled faintly, though it probably wasn't visible through his thick beard. Then the smile turned into a snarl of pain as a sheet of fire engulfed his scalp. "Just so you know," he told her in a tight voice, "the nerves weren't dead. Only mostly dead."

"Sorry." She rubbed her hand -- encased in a latex glove -- over the smooth dome where, only moments before, Vincent had sported a close-cropped afro. "Want some cream on it?"

"Just give it a minute and I'm sure the anesthetic will kick in. It didn't hurt, I just felt it come off," he lied as his scalp screamed.

"How do you feel from the neck down?"

Vincent blinked behind his lids. "I'm trying to shrug my shoulders. See anything?"

"Nope. So let's take care of the rest of you before we start working on your face."

Vincent felt it only as a jostling: the hydraulic chair being lifted off its pedestal and shifted onto a mobile platform. He cracked his eyelids open enough to watch as he was pushed into the Primary Reconstitution Room. Then he closed them again and let the tension drain from his face. He had been very nervous -- even a little frightened -- the first time they had numbed him from the neck down. But that was seven years ago, and he had lost track of the number of times since that he had been touched by injection needles and sculpting pens. It must be in the dozens. But nowadays the procedure now relaxed him.

It took two burly nurses to shift him into the reconstitution pod. On the outside it looked like an old-fashioned steam bath chamber: a steel box that completely enclosed the body from the neck down. Inside, it was a complicated mechanism of sacks, sleeves, sculpting chambers, and tubes. Vincent closed his eyes and tried not to pay attention as they packed him in. They started by enclosing his waist and crotch inside a constricting envelope that squeezed even more tightly after it had been pumped full of a kind of gel. They fitted his legs and feet into close-fitting sleeves that -- if hadn't been numbed all over -- would have felt like they were cutting off his circulation. His arms went into similar sleeves, and his entire torso was closed up inside a tight fitting tank containing gelatinous balloons that inflated once some switches were activated. Tubes and electrodes were connected, and a battery of cross-checks performed to ensure that everything was connected to what it was supposed to connect to, and that each bit of machinery was performing as designed.

Then they closed the shell around him. "Would you like a hot towel for your face?" the technician asked.

"Please," Vincent said. "I might take a nap."

"Yes, you've got the time. I'll let you rest an hour before coming back to numb your face. How's your scalp?"

"Good enough." But the pain sharpened again after the technician wrapped his head in a rough towel of nearly scalding heat.

But once he had adjusted to it, Vincent relaxed again. If he didn't fall asleep exactly, he fell into a reverie where dreams and memories slid into and out of each other ...

* * * * *

"Oh, sweet!" Ryan exclaimed, and clapped his hands on the hood of the car. His breath came in short gasps. "You know what this is? Of course you do, oh my God, it's a --! A -- !" He gulped.

"A brand new BMW Z4?" Vincent grinned. "Yeah, sorry, but that's exactly what it is."

Ryan turned wondering, shining eyes on him. "And it's for me? Oh, baby, what did I do to deserve it?"

Vincent let his eyes fall. There were a lot of things he could have said in reply. You deserve it for being with me. For being you. For being the best half of us.

All of which were true, he thought, but he went with a more scrupulously accurate answer. "It's a consolation gift. And something to remember me by."

"What do you mean?" Ryan remained bent over the car, half embracing it, but shot Vincent a sharp glance.

"On account of my transfer into Plastics. I told you, it means  I'm not going to be around a lot."

Vincent lowered his eyes again as Ryan remained bent over the hood of the car. "Plastics," Ryan said in a lazy and impudent tone. "Plastics," he said again, as though tasting the word in his mouth. He straightened, and a smile crept up the side of his face. "But aren't you going to be around? Because you know, lover, the way you explained it to me last week -- " He slid his hands into his back pockets and swayed slowly over to Vincent. "The way you explained it to me, I thought a transfer into Plastics meant I'd be seeing a lot of new guys in my life." He bit down on his thumbnail and grinned up at Vincent from under his floppy, chestnut-colored bangs. "In fact, I thought it was a promise. You promised me a lot of new guys."

"You'll get them," said Vincent, a little hastily. "Lots of them. Just not every night. Only every couple of weeks. For a weekend here and there." He knew he was starting to gabble in a guilty way. "If I can manage it." And though both the autumn sun and autumn air were cool, Vincent began to blush under the mischievous grin of his boyfriend.

They were standing in the driveway of a small brick house in a leafy, suburban neighborhood. The new sports coupe was, perhaps, a little out of place on a street that had several decades of wear on it; but it was no more out of place than Vincent and Ryan themselves were. The former a respectable, middle-class African-American in his button-down shirt and dress slacks; Ryan looking a little more bohemian in his sweatshirt, faded jeans and bare feet. And no one who knew them would have been surprised to see Ryan put his arms around Vincent and snuggle into his chest. "And while you're out pretending to be other people, I'm supposed to drive around and think of you?" he asked.

"You better only think of me," Vincent growled. "I'll be thinking only of you. And I'm going to be picturing you curled up quietly at home and not driving around picking up  -- " He cut himself off before the spasm of jealousy he felt could fully uncoil.

But Ryan had to turn the half-confession into a tease. "How'm I supposed to cover the mortgage payments while you're gone if I can't go out and sell my body?"

Vincent tensed, then forced himself to relax. "The Company'll be direct depositing my monthly checks. You've got my PIN, so it's not like you're going to have to get a job."

"I better not." Ryan pulled Vincent toward the door to the house. "I've already got the best job in the world. Letting you take care of me." He continued to tug Vincent, all the way inside the house and toward the bedroom. "Let's make a mess."

Afterwards, naked, dark skin against light, they held each other and let their breath mingle. "You know," Vincent said, and kissed Ryan on the nose. "Being a Plastic Man, doing the jobs the Company puts me on -- I'm going to have to be inside some relationships with other people. It'll just be pretend, though."

"For sure?" Ryan said, teasingly. "You didn't ask for the transfer so you could have an excuse to fuck -- ?" He jumped and laughed as Vincent smacked him on the side of the ass. "It is for me, right? The pain and bother of sleeping with other -- "

"It's all for you, babe, and the sleeping around isn't the point. Most of it's going to be ordinary espionage work, just from a perch where people won't be expecting to find an agent." He didn't add that he'd accepted the dangerous transfer because it included a lucrative boost in pay that he could shower on his boyfriend.

"But the sleeping around is a bonus?"

"Stop it. I'm serious. I don't want you to be jealous. And you know, just by the law of averages," Vincent added, "a lot of those faces I'll be wearing, most them, they'll belong to guys that are straight. So -- "

"So I don't have to worry," Ryan finished for him. He giggled. "Is it going to be hard for you, kissing a girl?"

"Horrible." He kissed Ryan all over his mouth. "Because none of them. Can possibly. Be as delicious. As you," he said between each kiss.

"But you will bring them home to me, won't you?" Ryan said. "Your faces. After each ... mission?"

"Assignment."

"After each assignment?" He hugged Vincent tightly. "Because that's the main reason I'm letting you take that transfer. For the chance to have new lovers in my bed. And all of them you."