Warning: This chapter contains scenes of violence and rape.


Five: Coming Clean

The old building had good water pressure and the water heater was efficient. Kaz let the scalding water pelt him, wishing he could wash his thoughts away as easily. Riddick's questions dredged up horrors he'd spent the last two years burying. It didn't help that he was exhausted from the medical marathon that was Roy Batty; it was well over a week since he'd had more than a couple stolen hours of sleep. He was tired and vulnerable, and it triggered older memories of vulnerability.

The idea of being a woman making love to another woman was sexy. Most of Kaz's previous erotic experiences were with his own sex, and technically, if you crossed out the male-to-female patients he'd laid, he'd only slept with one natural-born girl. When he'd decided to become Kazi and pursue the girl he was attracted to, many of his regular patients were delighted to offer their expertise in passing as female.

The first couple of weeks after undergoing his own gender-bender were like being at a spa, as one of his ladies or another lavished him with facials and manicures and pampering. Being turned down by Bokelia hadn't deterred the optimistic Kaz. After all, he'd spent a good chunk of his own money on the process and suffered through the change, so he might as well explore his feminine side. Being cute and flirtatious was easy--he was just doing it in a different package this time. After two years of doing 'benders on everyone else, Kaz knew the lingo, the "bent" pronouns, the slang his clientele used--this was going to be a delightful adventure and help him relate to his patients better.

Shalimar dragged hir out on a pub-crawl from end of the Strip to the other. She disappeared with some guy around the fourth place, and Kazi figured it was time for last call--time to head home. Alone--apparently, Kaz would've stood a better chance of hooking up in this particular dive than Kazi would.

There weren't any taxis out front at the moment, so Kazi decided to walk for a block or two. Hesh'd had a couple drinks--not that hesh was drunk, no, not really...it was just so darn tricky to walk in these silly shoes. Cute though. Cute little red shoes with hir sparkly red toenails peeking out...a tight red latex skirt that squeezed hir ass and thighs like a rubber glove. The black satin halter top accentuated more cleavage than Kaz had ever expected to acquire, and showed hir abs to advantage. Okay, so the wavy blonde hair was borrowed...

Drifting down the street in a happy fog of screwdrivers and dance tunes, Kazi didn't hear or see anything until they were all around hir. Four of them, young, their faces streaked with painted tribal designs, dragging hir through into a boarded over construction site and tearing off hir pretty clothes...

Sudden violent intrusion into an intimate place...dry, tearing pain...the fear that they were going to kill or maim hir...the heart-stopping moment when one of the tribals yanked savagely at hir hair during fellatio and the whole thing came away in his hand. They'd guessed, then, what Kazi really was, and it had spurred them to even more vicious efforts.

When the construction foreman found hir shortly after dawn, Kazi was in shock, huddled naked in a corner, covered with bruises and still seeping blood and semen from both ends. The last thing the foreman wanted was an incident that might bring the police in to investigate; the financing for the project was of questionable legality. Kazi had no desire for anyone else to find out what had happened to hir. Kazi exchanged hir silence for a chunk of credits, a pair of baggy coveralls and a taxi back to the Monarch.

The tiny scrap of a purse hesh'd carried turned up near the site's fence with contents intact--the tribals had somehow overlooked it--so hesh still had the keycard to hir suite. Creeping back into the penthouse, Kazi cancelled everything hesh'd had scheduled for the next four days and tried to convince hirself that this wasn't the worst that could happen. Hesh was still alive, wasn't hesh? Not permanently damaged...at least not after doses of every anti-viral agent Kaz knew of.

Kaz moaned, hugging himself in the spray of the shower. Physically, he didn't show any signs of that night, but he hadn't had sex since, not in either body, with anyone. Resuming his gender-bending career only because he didn't know what else to do, he'd barely left the hotel since; the management of the Monarch/Las Vegas was perfectly happy to get him whatever he asked for. He longed to get off-world, away from Vegas, from Earth, away to some place where the colonists were just as eager for quiet civilization as he was.

This is going to do it. Riddick's payout is going to get me out of this cesspool for good...

Swaying with fatigue, he turned off the water. I'm only twenty-eight, he told himself. I used to be able to stay up for two or three days on no sleep at all...what happened? Wearing nothing but a towel wound around his waist, he stepped out of the shower to find Riddick standing there.

The brawny felon was nude. Kaz backed up instinctively. Riddick closed the distance, and before Kaz could protest, Riddick yanked the towel away. Kaz whimpered, but the other man surprised him. Instead of forcing himself on Kaz, Riddick began toweling his slender body dry with crisp efficiency. It felt good, and Kaz was weary enough not to demur. He scarcely noticed that he was being maneuvered away from the showers into the changing area. Riddick had one arm around him in a rough embrace. As the absorbent material buffed his damp skin, Kaz hazily snuggled against the bigger man, his initial terror giving way to enjoyment of the brisk sensation...

Until he got a look at the bench that sported a padding of clean towels. He froze, but Riddick had him face-down before he could react. "Stop!" he screamed, struggling futilely as Riddick climbed on top of him. "Don't! Don't hurt me!"

Riddick straddled his upper thighs, and Kaz was excruciatingly aware of the other man's cock against his buttocks. "Hurt you?" Riddick repeated. He leaned forward, his voice soothing. "I'm not going to hurt you, Kaz. I need you. Roy needs you. You...need to relax." His fingers dug into the muscles of Kaz's shoulders, which were hunched up defensively as a turtle's. With some vestige of self-preservation, he realized that Riddick wasn't aroused. What he was doing wasn't aimed at sex; he was patiently working knots of tension out of Kaz, his knuckles grinding into the tight muscles...

Strong hands...but surprisingly gentle. Riddick massaged his shoulders, then began to rub his right arm... Not just his biceps; the touch continued all the way down to his fingertips...and was repeated with his left arm. The hands returned to his shoulders...his back...oh God, that was wonderful...Riddick was good at this, his hands firm, not tickling as they plied his lower back... Something that had been clenched for a long time gave an audible pop, and Kaz sighed, surrendering to pleasure.

Even when the weight above him shifted and the powerful hands started kneading his buttocks, Kaz lay basking in warm bliss. The other man's caresses lingered. Caresses, yes, that was the right word...felt good as those fingers probed his muscles...not hurting him, not trying to open him...next to receive attention were his thighs...his calves...thumbs ground with knowing pressure into his tight tendons...ankles...when Riddick grasped his left foot and began to flex his toes, the sensation was so delicious that Kaz moaned happily. He summoned up a fleeting moment of coherence. "Roy..."

"What?" Riddick stopped, listening alertly.

"Don't make him wear heels. You can't run in heels."

There was a long moment of silence. "I understand." His hands returned to Kaz's insteps, and slowly worked their way back up his body, this time, smoothing a glaze of lotion on the well-scrubbed flesh. Riddick's slick hands on his ass created neither fear nor desire, merely a deeper sense of relaxation. Even though Riddick's greased cock was now semi-erect, he didn't seem inclined to use it, just let it slide back and forth, skin on skin against Kaz, random, teasing strokes. Riddick pressed down with the heels of his hands; another cluster of tension went away...all those muscles...cool lotion...sinewy fingers plying the back of his neck, dancing little circles upon his scalp...there was no tension left in him.

A blanket covered him; in the near-distance, Kaz heard the rusty creak of a shower knob and the sound of running water finished lulling him to sleep.

Blinking awake, it took Kaz a moment to remember where he was and how he'd gotten there. Wow, it's amazing how much difference a few hours of sleep can make. According to his watch, still lying on the rim of one of the sinks, he'd been out for just four hours, but Kaz had an incredible sense of well-being as he dug clean clothes out of his duffle. "What are you grinning at?" he asked his reflection as he finished shaving.

Damn, he felt good! Flashing on Riddick's massage, his cock twitched. I owe him one. But I'm not even sure if that's what he wants or not. He's got pretty-boy Roy...I'm probably not his type. But...maybe...I might not go chickenshit after all... He could broach the subject later; right now he had a patient to take care of---although if anything had gone wrong during his nap, he had no doubt Riddick would've hauled him out to the table in his birthday suit to deal with the matter.

At first glance, everything out in the gym was perfectly normal. Riddick was leaning back in his favorite chair as Kaz approached. "Feeling better?"

"Yeah, I am. Thanks." Kaz did a doubletake as he looked at the endocrine levels. "Jesus Christ!"

"I gave him the second shot when that one got down to 100."

"That's impossible!" For a minute, Kaz thought he was going to hyperventilate. "Four hours is nowhere near long enough--"

Riddick laughed. "Four hours? I got news for you, Sleeping Beauty. You were out for sixteen hours. I kept an eye on what you said to, waited 'til it hit 100 and shot him up. It's been about two, two and a half hours. If something was wrong, it would show, right?"

Scanning the monitors, Kaz admitted that everything was nominal. The empty vial was still on the work surface, and it was the right one--Riddick hadn't administered the third treatment by mistake--and the readouts didn't lie...

"Oh shit!" he said involuntarily as he dropped the empty into the waste container. There was another empty ampule in there--Kaz recognized the packaging used for rejuv serum after as many hits as he'd dispensed in the last week. "Tell me you didn't give him that."

"No." Riddick rose from the chair in a display of tigerish grace. "I didn't. I popped you in the ass while you were sleeping and you didn't even twitch."

"Me--?" Kaz stared at up him, mouth hanging open. "You gave me--?" The idea of keeping a dose of the expensive treatment for himself hadn't crossed his mind. Hocking the leftovers for his getaway, sure, but-- "Thank you." It explained the sensation of vitality he felt. And, he thought with sudden optimism, it meant Riddick probably didn't have a secret plan to double-cross him and cut his throat. The Black Market price for that stuff would make anyone think twice about throwing a dose away on someone they were going to dispose of.