Mother
by Labingi
It soaked him, as it always did, dissolving and caving him in. Katze turned his ringer off, checked the lock on his office door, and slumped, mouth slanting down like a child's. He hated this, hated himself like this.
He hated how it came without warning or reason. Nothing had triggered his recollections: no glimpse of a chessboard or a Blondie dressed like Iason, no echo of that voice.
Two years gone by, and it still just came—between accepting a consignment and calling the buyer. Iason filled up the cracks in his day like water in cheap plaster. Iason had been like that: inundating everything. Until he'd boiled away.
Imagine the boiling of the ice man.
Ice that pressed, glacial, on every obstruction in its path.
He'd lounged like that, Iason, in the dining room on his videophone to his buyers: "Of course, if you want to renegotiate...." Yes, that voice, the invisible ice...
Katze hated himself like this. So he straightened up and started on the afternoon's calls: "You wanted to renegotiate the third shipment, Mr. Smitt?"
"You look like a mongrel."
Startled out of his bordom, Guy glanced up.
Katze leaned on the bar, lit a cigarette, handed Guy another.
Guy lit up with his crap Ceres lighter. "So?"
Katze shrugged. "Your choice." He eyed the dinner crowd, which had thinned considerably in the time Guy had been waiting.
"If I had the key code, I could just go wait at your place."
"Yep, you certainly could." Which meant, of course, that Katze had no intention of giving it to him.
"So, boss, are you ever not late?"
"Everywhere but here."
Guy smiled just a little. "Why here?"
Katze cracked a smile too.
Because everywhere else is work, Guy thought for him. But this—
"Holy fuck, she's still there."
Guy followed Katze's eyes to an ordinary-looking woman, typical Midas tourist, except sitting at her table was a kid. Not a brothel kid, but school-kid kid. They were pouring over a computer screen together.
Katze took a drag. "Hell of a place to do homework."
"They here long?"
"A couple hours, since I went to my office."
"Big deal?"
In answer, Katze turned to Guy. "Ready to take off?"
"Half an hour ago."
Not quite side by side, they made for Katze's car.
"It's just about perfection," Katze assured him.
Guy peered over his shoulder at the frying fish. "Seriously? You add that salad stuff to mudfish? Even those fruity things?"
"They're crancots, Guy. Yeah, slap the fish on the bread like the slums, but get the salad from a good, mid-weight Mistral restaurant. Then, just put it on top and heat it."
"The dressing is pink."
"No one's forcing it down your throat."
Dripping pink mudfish didn't inspire confidence. But it tasted fine... great, as Katze's cooking usually did. "Not bad." Guy took his plate and beer to the table. He smirked as Katze joined him. "It's like a Blondie-style sandwich. Hard to imagine a Blondie wolfing down a sandwich." He knew he didn't sound funny, but it amused him all the same.
Katze leaned back and lit his dinner cigarette. "That's the one good thing about Ceres cooking: everything's on bread: simple, portable... and some third item, you know, to flesh things out."
Guy smiled because Katze mellow made him happy.
Katze gave a little laugh. "You know, my first day of service, Iason gave me a recipe card. He said, 'Learn the first fifth of each meal type by the end of the week.'" He beamed as if his story was fantastic.
Guy felt himself instantly shuttered, a broken window seeping cold. "That's... amazing."
Katze's smile slipped. "You're not getting it. That was how he did things: with this systematic precision. That's how he worked Tanagura."
Guy slugged his beer. "He beat Riki up with systematic precision?"
Katze's eyes bored into him. "Let it go," he said at last.
"Sure, I'll just let it go."
They finished eating in silence.
As Katze fed the dishes into the redistributor, Guy, feeling guilty, hugged him from behind. "I'll let it go, okay? Let's just forget about him." He kissed Katze's neck.
Katze swiveled in his arms and brushed his lips lightly. "I got some inventories to catalog. You can amuse yourself for an hour, right?"
"Sure." Guy sighed and ambled over to the vid screen.
"And don't play anything loud and obnoxious."
"Yeah, boss. Sure, boss." Guy plonked himself on the floor and flipped through the menus.
Guy watched the news a lot at Katze's. It consisted of two types of stories: the local, which were plainly bogus, and the international, which he couldn't make head or tail of. But he felt like watching them made him smarter, a little less of a mismatch.
"Okay. I guess that'll do it for tonight."
"Thank Jupiter." Guy rolled up off the floor and peeled off his clothes. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Katze undressing, but he didn't look. He never looked; well, of course, he did but only a glance here and there. He didn't want to make Katze uncomfortable.
Katze slipped into bed, and Guy followed, reaching for him. Warm lips, warm skin, so out of step with his eyes.
"Hang on. Let me know lower the lights."
Guy released him long enough for Katze to dial the lights to amber, then went back to kissing him: his ear, his throat, the scar on his face. Katze let himself be kissed, nestling close and purring in that way Guy loved. Guy knew Katze wasn't that crazy about the sex—or not most of the time—but he could fold contently into Guy's touch, so they usually touched a long time.
It built up that delicious throbbing so slow and deep in Guy, that sense of missing a part of himself (that part that Riki—)
Let it go.
He leaned over Katze and kissed his mouth. "Will you do it to me?"
"Why not?" Katze gave him a little shove and reached into his bedside drawer for the dildo.
It surprised Guy how much he'd come to like it that way, feeling Katze behind him, inside him—not really Katze but close enough. The thighs were real against Guy's thighs, the hand that reached around his hip to stroke him. Guy braced himself on one elbow, his free hand on Katze's fingers on his cock. He liked moving with those slender fingers. The two of them became like layers of each other, over and under, in and through.
Truth be told, Katze had been pretty bad at it at first. It had been a long time since sex had hurt Guy that much. But he learned fast, even if his grip slipped sometimes and gouged Guy a little. He worked in Guy slow, steady, quiet as the beating of a sleeping heart. Except tonight—he worked Guy harder.
Guy grunted as a pang flashed through his abdomen. "Damn, hold off a little."
"It's the system, Guy," came Katze's voice with eerie calm, scarcely breathless. "No, wait. You fight the system, don't you?"
Jibberish, but it didn't matter. Guy moaned as his body closed tight around Katze, tight around itself, his nose tingling, ears, spine—that flowing ache of the thrusts inside him.
He came with a shudder flickering from his thighs all the way to his scalp and collapsed in a heap on his elbows and knees. "That was—for fuck's sake—" Guy gasped as Katze pulled out painfully fast—and left him hollowed like bowl scrubbed clean: calm, complete, and scarcely minding the stinging of his grazed flesh.
He flopped over on his back and wriggled, trying to get comfortable. "Okay, that was a little rough," he laughed. "Not that I'm complaining. Just...." Then he glanced at Katze's face.
It was his business face: porcelain, android.
"What's your problem?"
"Nothing." Katze reached for the night shirt and shorts he kept by the bed. He didn't like to sleep naked.
"Come on. Don't do this." How many times had Riki said, "It's nothing. Forget it. I'm fine." And Guy had let it drop. He'd be damned if he made that mistake again.
"I have to get up early; I don't have time for one of your scenes. So go to sleep or go home." Katze turned away from him and settled on his pillow.
Guy felt his skin shrinking, tightening and trapping him; he squeezed Katze's arm. "Hey. What scene? I just want to know what's up. Did I do something? 'Cause I can't think of anything I did."
A noise like a laugh from Katze. "Did he do something."
"What did I do?"
Katze turned on him. "Well, let's rack our brains now. What could the dear little angel have done?"
"Oh. That." Anger clamped Guy's throat. He groped for his clothes and started dressing. The months went by; the years went by... I could spend the rest of my life with him—he'd keep throwing it back in my face. "You could let it rest once in a while, you know." He yanked on his shirt.
"Yeah, why not, it's all water under the bridge." Katze sat up, his arms loosely holding his knees. "It's not like it was such a big deal, right?"
"I didn't say that. I'd never say that." Guy retrieved his coat from his dinner chair. "But sooner or later, you'd better fucking well get over it."
Katze got up and grabbed a coat of his own. The autumn cold was creeping through the climate control. "You over Riki?"
Guy pulled on his shoes. "I'll never be over Riki."
Katze closed on him like a kid spoiling for a fight. "Come off it. You hated Riki."
"You don't know the first thing about—!"
"Oh no, I know," Katze cut him off. "In the end, you did. You don't do that to someone otherwise. You just couldn't let it be, couldn't bear to let them be. So you killed them."
"Stop it."
"Truth stings, Guy."
"What the fuck is your problem?"
"You!" Katze barked. "Always you, you bastard. You. You. Killed them."
"I know I did!" Guy shouted.
But Katze plowed on like a steamroller. "You killed them. You killed him!"
Guy gaped. He'd never heard Katze... screech before. It was almost—could nearly have been—funny; he was scarier quieter.
Except he had such a desperate-child look. Desperate, wanting... Did he miss Riki that much? No, not Riki.
Iason, of course.
The room around Guy went dizzy and gray. "All hells, Katze, what did you see in him? That fucking android-hearted sadist! He treated you like shit enough. You fucking nothing. Fucking furniture. If he kicked out your teeth, you'd come crawling for more just because it meant he noticed you. You treat me like shit, like it pisses you off to have someone who actually wants you. 'Cause I want you, stupid, refuse-to-get-your-balls-replaced... coward... weirdo. I hated Riki? Yeah. Yeah, maybe I hated Riki, maybe I did it 'cause I hated him for wanting the fucking fuck face. Just like you hated him 'cause the fuck face wanted him. You're even worse than a weirdo. You're... you're a hypocrite weirdo!" Guy deflated into his chair.
Katze towered over him, his glare piercing Guy's head. Suddenly, he laughed. "I'm a hypocrite weirdo."
A sad smile tugged Guy's mouth. "Well, you are."
"Well, you've got balls talking to your boss that way anyway."
"Nah. Just stupid."
"Good assessment." Katze pulled his pants on over his shorts and sat at the table opposite Guy.
"Crank up the heat?" said Guy after a moment.
"I'm going to put on tea too. The insulation's crap in this apartment. I ought to complain."
"Why don't you?"
Katze shrugged. "Busy with the business."
Guy sat in a stupor till Katze set his tea in front of him.
When he roused himself enough to glance up, Katze's face was soft and far away. He was like that: on and off, sun and ice, and you never knew which he'd throw at you.
Guy warmed his hands on his teacup. "I don't know what I can do... about that day. I don't even know what I'd want to do, but I know I can't change what I've done." They'd been over it and over it, and the months went by. Seemed like nothing changed. Maybe nothing would. Time to pack it in? "So if you can't live with it...." He couldn't finish the sentence.
Katze got up, got a cigarette, managed to pull back his chair, sit down, and light it simultaneously, like a dancer. He yawned, took a drag. "When I was kid—like five or something—you know what I wanted to be?"
"What?"
"A computer teacher."
"Yeah, figures; you like computers."
"A teacher, Guy. In Guardian. I wanted to be just like the mother who taught my computer class. And I knew I'd never be a mother, of course. But it didn't click that that meant I couldn't do what she did. Every day, I copied every move she made. I—" He tapped his cigarette in the ashtray.
Guy grasped after the meaning of this story. "So you hadn't realized yet that the slum's a dead end. I guess most five years old don't."
"Yeah well, I never made it to the slums, did I? When I was twelve, Iason bought me, and...." He smoked thoughtfully. "I don't know if you can get what that was like."
"'Cause I'm such a big dope."
"'Cause you've lived your whole life in Ceres. See, you don't hardly see anyone as Furniture. I mean, you see people in crowds, in markets, when you're stationed by the door of the party, keeping an eye on your Pet. You see guests; you see Pets. But they all just come and go. Like vids. Like holo-games or something. Really—I mean every day, day to day—it's just... it was just the Pet and Iason. And the Pet was insipid."
"So you're saying—what—Iason was your only friend?"
Katze gave a short laugh.
Guy thought of Riki back in Guardian, how most of his friends had died as kids and Guy had been the one left standing. "That's a lame reason to love someone. Just because he's all you got."
After a bit, Guy woke up to the profoundness of the silence. He glanced up to Katze stubbing out his cigarette like he was squashing a roach. "You know, you're right," Katze said. "On that note, I think you'd better go home." He gave up torturing his cigarette and leaned back, eying Guy coolly. "Put a cap on the lameness."
The lance struck home. Just like Riki. Guy nodded and stood. "Yeah, I guess you're right."
He propelled himself to the door, opened it. A blast of night air struck him. He braved it, closed the door behind him, all the time hoping Katze would call him back.
He didn't, frigid bastard.
Guy pulled his coat around him and set his feet toward Ceres. The wind stung his eyes, and by and by he realized it wasn't the wind. He thanked Jupiter it was night and drizzling so no one would see.
Why did it always end up like this, with Guy on his own in the night? What the fuck was wrong with Guy? Okay, he had his scary side. He scared himself shitless when he thought about Riki, and it amazed him sometimes to remember it was him, it was run-of-the-mill old Guy, who'd blown up Dana Bahn. Okay, so sure Katze had trouble with that. (Damn, his hands were freezing.) Okay, that was only fair, but still something here wasn't.
Because Guy wasn't really such a bad man, was he? What hadn't he done for Riki in all their years together? When hadn't he been there? Or when had he imposed when he wasn't wanted? He'd given Riki all he was. He'd pulled his weight in Bison. He'd stood by his friends. He'd always been nice to this casual fucks. He'd been a decent man, year after year, even with his guts in knots.
And damn if he didn't twist himself up for Katze too: with the waiting and waiting and cold shoulder and waiting. He put up with one tenth as much sex as he needed—and weird sex with a man who was damn near impossible to get off. And the waiting. And the snide remarks.
Who else on this planet would give what Guy gave?
Yet somehow he always lost to Iason. Somehow it was better to torture people and lock them up and make them slaves and buy and sell and kidnap and scar and break them. Dammit, the fucking Blondie was dead, and he still came out the winner.
There had to be a reason.
Maybe I really am that low, even lower than him. Maybe I'm nothing but a stupid, nobody mongrel with no talent for anything but once in my life destroying the lives of the only two men I've ever loved.
Katze sat at his table and lit another cigarette. I'm going to be tired at work in the morning.
He was suddenly acutely aware of the stillness, a silence radiating out from himself. The smoke that curled around him was the only living thing.
You're a moron, he told himself. He'd thrown out a man who cared for him to sulk over a corpse who never had. What kind of moron did that?
Of course, there was nothing new about their fighting, him and Guy. They fought and got back together. But there wasn't much to put back together in the face of the "lameness" of two lonely people coupling because they had no one else.
He intimately understood Guy's hatred for Iason. But that couldn't stop how Katze felt. Love wasn't amenable to reason. It drew the eyes like the sun.
He wished he could see Iason. But it wouldn't have helped. When Iason was alive, when Katze had seen him, he'd only wished he could talk to him. When they'd talked, he'd only wished he could say something real.
Something like: I admire your face so much. When I was a kid, I would look in the mirror and try to master your expression, but no one can wear it but you.
Or: Do you know you do this thing, sometimes when I bring up Riki, you hitch a little, you look away, and your heart is so clear to me. Do you have any idea how clear you are to me?
He missed the talks they'd had about managing the Market. When Katze had been new and every once in a while—extremely rarely—he'd come up against wall he couldn't drill through, Iason would bring him in and say simply, "Go here and here, and say this to that agent." And the wall would vanish.
I could never be as smart as you. But I'm not as stupid as you thought I was. We could have talked; we should have talked; I should have taught you what I knew.
Impossible, of course.
You asked the impossible, Iason. You only wanted rebels but wouldn't tolerate rebellion.
It had not been lost on Katze that the one single day he'd won Iason's attention was the day Iason confronted him with his crime, the day he had made it emphatically clear that any further infraction would mean death or worse. All those years after, Katze labored to please him. Everything Iason demanded he delivered—and for that reason, Iason never looked at him again.
That was just how it went with Iason, who probably never thought twice about it. But Katze had had lots of time to think.
It doesn't matter how hard you try. It.... The thought trailed off. He laid his head in his hand. It just doesn't matter.
The door buzzer sounded.
Katze went through the usual reactions: a shock of fear, steeling himself, reasonable apprehension, a quick mental check of his safety precautions. All that took a couple seconds. Then came actual thought: it must be Guy.
Probably. Who else would it be? He hoped it was Guy and feared it wouldn't be—not entirely because the alternative might be an assassin.
He got up and checked the ID. Guy.
Relieved, he opened the door to the stabbing night and fixed Guy with his unamused look.
Guy glanced around, muddled. "I don't want to go home."
Something warmed just a little in Katze. He stepped back from the door and let Guy come through.
Guy was shivering. "It's really cold out there."
"Any port in a storm, huh?" Katze immediately regretted saying it.
"That's not why—"
"Yeah, I know."
He watched Guy standing there, chaffing his hands, stuck in the only place he had to go. Needing to be seen by someone.
Katze cleared his throat. "I get why you did it."
Guy looked up at him sharply. "Why I...? Came back, you mean?"
"No."
Guy stared at him so long and befuddled that Katze finally looked away. "Well, I won't send you back out there again tonight anyway. Must be well below freezing by—"
Before he could finish, Guy scooped him up into a hug. Katze's body automatically clenched, then relaxed gradually. For a long time they stood there with nothing to say.
We should say something. But that, too, was impossible. The ice was in the way, and Iason couldn't teach him how to melt it without boiling. You taught what you could, Iason.
But I can't be you, thank Jupiter. Not a boiler, me, you see.
Katze pulled back from Guy. "It's nice you came back."
Guy shrugged.
"You know I don't mean it—some of those things."
Guy was watching his feet. "Yeah, you do, but that's okay; I don't mind."
For reasons he couldn't quite put in words, Katze reached out to stroke Guy's chin and cheek. "I guess maybe it's just there are other things too. That balance, you know? Like maybe some moments you hated Riki; I don't know. But I know you didn't really hate him. Of course, I know that." Katze dropped his hand because it felt silly now.
Guy studied him.
"I want to say—so you know I know... you work hard at this. Being here. And that.... that's nice."
Guy gave him a wry little smile. "So do I ever get the key code?"
Katze hesitated. "Conceivably. Only so you don't freeze on the doorstep." He threw an arm around Guy's shoulder and led him to the bed.
The End