Guest Post: Legion and Lover (2/6)

by Seuzz

Vincent studied himself in the mirror as he slowly pushed the dreadlocks out of his face, and admired the way his bicep bulged as he did so. He had never looked -- had never been, and certainly had never felt -- so powerful. The red muscle shirt could barely contain his pectoral muscles, and he was giving himself a clear erection inside his sweatpants as he scoped himself out. He had worked around guys like this, back when he ran on the streets for Cesar's gang, but he'd never imagined he could have the same look and build as them. "Can I keep it," he murmured.

"Sure," said Tito, his immediate superior -- and who had also during the intervening months of physical preparation for this first plastic transformation become his non-romantic best friend. He slapped Vincent on the back. "DeShawn's not spoken for."

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I said. He's not a real face, not a real body. Didn't they explain that to you? Jesus, everyone thinks everything's a secret in the Company." Tito rolled his eyes. "DeShawn's a composite, so you can take him with you when you quit, if you want. You will, probably, if not DeShawn then someone else."

"No, I didn't know that."

"Oh yeah. A new look and life, compliments of the Company, assuming you make it to retirement. And as long as it's a composite, of course. We'll probably have lots of them on file for you to choose from, though, by the time you're ready to go out to pasture."

"Why a composite for this job?" Vincent asked. "Why not someone the target knows and trusts?"

"Because a composite's better in this case.  DeShawn's a composite of all the men your target has dated over the last ten months. So this Friday, if she's at her usual club, you should have no trouble picking her up and getting her to the rendezvous point. Cynthia will take it from there, of course."

Vincent cocked his head. "So she likes her men like she likes her coffee, huh? And do I gotta be 'DeShawn' or can I pick some other name?"

"You can give out any fake name you want. Do you give out your real name when picking someone up?"

"Well you know, I'm basically married, I don't -- "

"Basically married?" Tito repeated with a laugh. "Don't you read the news, you can make that kind of thing legal now, tie yourself down like the rest of us. Or is Ryan allergic to rings? Anyway," Tito continued when Vincent didn't answer, "this first job's an easy one. You just have to take this girl out to where we can wrap her in a bag and slip Cynthia into her place. You can talk to girls, can't you?"

"Sure, I'm not -- "

"Just pretend she's got a cock and likes to dress funny." Tito brushed aside the middle finger Vincent flashed him. "And we'll keep DeShawn in the files for you, at least until something you like better comes along."

* * * * *

Ryan's breathing was still coming in deep, irregular gasps, so Vincent knew he wasn't asleep. He held his own breath as he crept to the edge of speaking. Three times he opened his mouth, only to close it again. Finally, he blurted it out. "Ryan? Baby? Where do you see us in ten years?"

For a moment there was no reaction to his question from the other side of the bed. Then Vincent felt Ryan shift. "Ten years?" Ryan said, sounding shocked. "There is no future in ten years!"

Vincent lifted his head. "What? What do you mean by that?"

Ryan sat up and turned on the lamp. The hotel room was cold, so he had slipped into a t-shirt and shorts after their lengthy post-coital embrace, and he huddled with the bedspread up around him. But it didn't look like it was the chill in the room that bothered him. "There is no future in ten years," he repeated.

Vincent tried wrapping his brain around this gnomic pronouncement. "I don't understand. Are you saying the world's going to end? You think there's going to be a nuclear war or something before then?"

Ryan's eyes were unblinking, unseeing, unfocused, but his lips compressed. "There is no future in ten years," he said firmly.

"Ryan? Baby? Are you okay?" Vincent laid a gentle hand on his boyfriend. Ryan shuddered. "If you don't want to talk about it -- "

Ryan closed his eyes. "There is no -- "

"No future in ten years, you keep saying that, but -- " Vincent bit his lip. "But ten years will come and go, and I'll still be around. A new life, a new face. Maybe this one, you said you liked it. But it'll be me, you know. So will you still be with me? Ryan? Because that's all I want to -- "

Ryan turned over and pulled the covers over his head. From beneath them came an insistent but muffled exclamation.

It sounded like, "There is no future in ten years."

* * * * *

Lights -- red, green, white, blue, purple, pink, and more -- played on the darkened walls and ceiling of the office; through the same window that admitted the strobe lights thundered the music from the club below. It was much muted up here, a testament to the sound-proofers' skill, but still loud enough to testify to the deafening din on the dance floor below.

Vincent smiled. It was safe to smile, safe for a longtime associate and ally of Cesar to relax in this office.  The knowledge that he was perfectly safe helped him relax, which helped widen his smile even as Cesar slowly tapped an index card against his desktop in time to the beat from below.

Vincent wouldn't always have been safe up here in this room. Once -- and not so long ago -- he would have only seen the inside of this room if he had fatally displeased the boss. A sixteen-year-old kid, hustling on the street for men who worked for men who worked for men who worked for Cesar -- The boss would have only heard of Vincent if Vincent had screwed up something so colossal that Cesar himself would have wanted to swing the baseball bat at the back of his head.

But as a middle-aged urban businessman with federal contracts, silent partnerships with several city councilmen, and a thriving though illicit wholesale supply business that counted Cesar as a prime customer? Vincent could sit in this office and sip his Scotch and nod with benign indifference as Cesar tried to make small talk.

Behind him, the door opened, and reflected in the mirror Vincent saw one of Cesar's lieutenants nod. Cesar stood up with a grunt and went to his wall safe; Vincent turned politely away until he heard the door shut again. Cesar handed him a briefcase, and they shook hands.

The Company had a fabulously large budget, but it if it could augment its budget and cripple a few crime syndicates with some deft thievery under false pretenses, it would. When Marcus Williams woke in a few hours from an unanticipated slumber, and hurried to make the promised delivery to the club, he would be told he had already delivered the cache and been paid for it. There might be a row, but the money would be in the hands of a messenger to the Company by that point, and there would be no clue pointing to where it had gone.

Vincent had asked for this assignment as soon as he'd heard it was available, for he didn't often get to work close to home; and he had a grudge against Cesar. For five horrible years he'd scrambled for the gang, and scrambled to escape it, and scrambled out of the successive jams he'd put himself in while trying to escape. Only one good thing had come out of it: He had met Ryan.

In that very club, in fact, and when he was nearest despair: that's when they had fallen against each other. And in Ryan's smile, his laugh, his need to be loved and pampered, Vincent had found something to live for. So he had clawed himself out of Cesar's pit, and through a succession of grotty jobs and apprenticeships culminating in his position with the Company, all for the sake of having Ryan's smile waiting for him at the end of the day.

Tonight, he decided, he would treat himself to one of those smiles, even if it was a bad idea to be seen around town wearing the face and form of Marcus Williams. He'd surprise Ryan at home, and he wasn't worried about Ryan's reaction: every face he'd shown so far had elicited a squeal and a romp from his boyfriend.

But Vincent got his own surprise early when, while signaling for a cab, he noticed the cherry-colored BMW Z4 in the club parking lot.