Catastrophe Jones

Chuck Wendig is at it again. 2 random subgenres, mashed up. I got ‘Technothriller’ and ‘BDSM Erotica’ and 1500 words.

I did 1500 words, exactly — Enjoy.

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“Where… how do you want me to start?” Denan asked, looking around, familiarizing himself with the sterile, medicinal feel. He hadn’t been back here in months.

“Remove your clothes,” Halsi said, his tone blank.

That’s not how this used to go. Before, Halsi tore his clothes and shocked him to within an inch of his life before demanding to be sucked off. “All of them?” Denan wondered, pulling his Tshirt off over his head.

Halsi looked unimpressed. “I am… quite certain you understand the difference between ‘remove your clothes’ and ‘remove some of your clothes,’ yes?”

The pale of Denan’s skin broke out in gooseflesh; he shivered, even though it wasn’t cold — Halsi’s quiet voice was gentle, but something behind his eyes was not.

“Sorry.” Denan blushed, and immediately shucked out of his jeans and boots. Naked, he stood on the cool tile, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“Fold your clothing. Place it nearly in the chair,” Halsi said.

Denan did was he was told, grateful for the instruction.

Halsi gestured for Denan to get onto the table; he strapped the young man in with both strength and haste, then closed his eyes, and the briefest of frowns furrowed his brow. His eyelids fluttered, and his fingers twitched.

Denan could feel the room grow warmer, the lighting grow dimmer, the low hum of music grow louder. In awe, he breathed, “Did you get a Neurolink?” Neurolinks — the mark of the indescribably wealthy.

Halsi nodded briefly, and Denan beamed. Halsi had been his client for years; but when Denan had taken on a new client, for some extra money, Halsi had been furious. He stopped asking for Denan entirely and Denan had assumed Halsi would never be back, so he moved on. Work was work, and rent had to be paid somehow. The banking system hadn’t given a shit if you were down on your luck before it had gone paperless and people-less, and it didn’t give a shit now. If Halsi was showing off his Neurolink, it meant one thing: Denan was back in his good graces, and all would be well again. Techs used them for work, but rich people, like Halsi, used them for fun, pleasure, and profit.

Denan snapped back to the here and now, as Halsi silently commanded the room to obey his whims; the lights shifted color, until the area looked like a darkroom, lit in cavernous red, and the temperature rose, until Denan felt himself on the brink of breaking into a sweat. The music–or maybe it was just ambient sound–grew even louder, until Denan could feel it in the frame that held him, a slow rushing, a pulsing, rhythmic and familiar.

Denan trembled as the table swung into an upright position, making him stand spread eagled, and he bit back a low moan as quickly as it began. His breathing grew ragged, and he felt the faint strain on his wrists of the bonds holding him up, nearly on tiptoe against the foot plates.

Halsi’s command of the space grew more effortless; Denan watched the walls of the room flicker to life with a shifting study in tonal reds. The sound in the room rose again, immersing him. He had a momentary thought — it’s a heartbeat. I’m listening to a heartbeat — and then it was stolen by the sight of Halsi disrobing. He’d never been allowed to see Halsi naked before.

Denan’s eyes opened wide; he felt his cock stiffen as he took in the sight of the man’s body. From head to toe, he was every inch an Adonis, well-muscled and lithe, with clear, dark skin and large, dark eyes. His finely sculpted features would’ve been beautiful, if Halsi ever smiled, instead they rendered him powerful and commanding in their stark perfection, and the beauty was a great and terrible thing, a divinity wrapped in human form.

Halsi glanced down at Denan’s erection and nodded, as if to acknowledge it as acceptable; Denan felt his cheeks flush with heat. The blush of his skin only intensified as Halsi stepped closer, moving to step up onto the footplate of the table-turned-St.-Andrew’s-cross.

Denan felt Halsi lean against him, and his eyes widened further as he felt Halsi’s hard cock press against him. He uttered a low cry of frustration and need; the dark-eyed man splayed himself out against Denan, on the rack, feet alongside feet, hands going around Denan’s wrists.

The table tipped then, to put Denan on his back, and he felt Halsi’s weight bear down on him, the heat of the man’s body pressed to his. Between them, tight against his belly, Denan felt the heavy jut of Halsi’s cock slide against the rigid heat of his own.

He focused on looking at Halsi, and noticed the flickering light within Halsi’s left eye. Lines in scarlet scrolled there, looking at first like blood.

Then, Denan could make out a command prompt.

“You’re one of–” he began to say, and Halsi leaned in and put his lips against Denan’s, kissing him savagely. He tasted of ozone and copper, like blood and circuits, and Denan might’ve screamed, but for the sudden jolt of electricity that moved through him. His muscles tensed and trembled, and Halsi’s tongue ran over his teeth as his hands tightened around Denan’s wrist.

Denan’s back arched, as if to throw Halsi off, but Halsi simply bore down against Denan’s hips, grinding against the other man. Denan realized now that Halsi had no breath, no pulse. He’s a synth, he thought. How did I not notice? He moaned against Halsi’s teeth and tongue, half in fear, half still aroused, feeling his cock throb between them. He could no more have stopped Halsi’s movement than he could stop his own desire. His muscles trembled, twitched from the aftershocks of the electrostim.

He could still taste ozone, see stars.

Halsi pulled back, and Denan felt the Xframe shorten, to make his knees bend. The way Halsi had clung to Denan allowed him to be drawn closer, knees sliding beneath Denan’s, bringing his hips up against the backs of Denan’s thighs. Halsi reached down with one hand and curled his fingers around Denan’s cock, squeezing it, stroking it slowly. The other hand slid beneath, and Denan tensed as he felt Halsi guide himself in. Denan squirmed under Halsi’s touch, the pressure of being entered. He panted, lifting his hips, and struggled to receive, arching himself right off the Xframe — the room shifted, the walls glowed black-red, and Denan felt a wondrous, awful thought well up from somewhere within him — it’s a womb. I’m in a womb — as he was slowly, excruciatingly filled.

He stared up at Halsi, hips twitching, and watched the synth’s hand stroke his cock faster and faster, as the pulse of the room’s walls grew faster and faster. His eyes widened as Halsi’s skin fluttered. As an infinity of reflective scales shifted, flipped, tumbling to resettle, and suddenly, Halsi was Denan. He watched himself, his own hand around his cock, and it was like being fucked by a mirror, except for how his reflection kept receiving and transmitting commands that scrolled past, over his left eye. Halsi rolled his hips the way Denan did, when he was close. Denan moaned, as Halsi did, when Denan serviced him. “I love you,” Halsi-as-Denan said, but his face wore no emotion. “I love you.”

Denan arched his back again, and bared his throat as he came, shocked by the suddenness of it. Halsi’s fist worked up and down his cock; Denan rode the feeling of it, his hips jerking as he spilled, hot and wet, over Halsi’s fingers.

The ecstasy of it was shattering. Denan was only dimly aware of the feel of Halsi’s own climax; the synth’s cock filled him in a sudden, jerking rush, scalding and deep.

Denan’s whole world turned red. He lay beneath the image of himself, watching the commands scroll, as Halsi’s outer shell reprogrammed itself to return to default. In only moments, Halsi was Halsi again, and Denan felt a splitting, tearing agony behind his eyes. The taste of ozone filled his mouth; his left eye watered, and he shook, violently, as Halsi withdrew, pulling out of Denan, leaving him empty.

His vision burned, and the red walls closed in on him; everything was suffocating. He watched his skin shimmer, harden, fractal into shivering scales, tumbling over and over themselves to resettle.

The Xframe righted itself, and Denan slumped in it, gasping. He struggled for another breath. When it did not come, he thrashed in his bonds — one last violent spasm, and then fell still.

Halsi watched, silent.

The red walls pulsed, slowed.

Stopped.

Denan twitched, muscle groups shuddering in brief myoclonus, and he lifted his head. As the room’s walls faded further, the red darkening to black, Halsi looked into Denan’s face, searching.

At last, he saw what he was looking for — a flicker of red, in Denan’s left eye.

A command prompt.