Grown Men (6 page)

While Ox dealt with the soybeaner for the better part of six hours, Runt soldiered through his regular chores, checking in at the soy-mill occasionally. Seeing the components dismantled and laid out in rows made Runt’s gut knot and his eyes glaze over, but Ox seemed to have a handle on it with his big mitts.

Runt’s cock rolled inside his suit as it plumped and hardened.
Pheromones again
.

“Be in the orchard if you need me.”

Without waiting for Ox to open his eyes or nod, Runt spun and strode away from the hive straight for the beach, letting his stiffness lead the way toward the twin suns climbing the sky.

Once I have a wank and a wash, I can be normal again.

But even after swimming out and swiftly masturbating, Runt’s balls stayed full, hugging the base of his joint without reprieve. His nipples were stiff nubs, his mouth felt wet and sensitive, and his spongy cock dribbled tracks inside his worksuit. He did go to the orchard to collect mangos and to check for fungus. And stayed erect the entire, embarrassing time.

That evening, Ox reappeared at the habitat covered in rancid pulp and clots of soy curd, laughing at the mess.

Runt glared and held up a hand to stop him entering.

“All done, then?”

Ox nodded once.

“Well, no way all of you’ll fit in my little shower wearing that much muck.” Runt laughed to take the chill out of the air between them. The custardy glop started to drip onto the sand beside Ox’s size twenty-three boots.

“Thanks.” Runt crossed the doorway and made a joke out of it. “Oi! You go rinse off in your big bathtub so I don’t squirt in your supper.”

Drip-drip
. Ox grinned.

“The eel pups love soy. And spunk.” Runt grinned back. He pointed at the ocean. “They could use fattening up. Careful they don’t nibble your knob.”

Ox bobbed his head and peeled out of his slimy worksuit right there, then lumbered naked toward the waves.

“And mind your burns.” Runt called after him.

After supper, Runt tried to let Ox pick a holo-vid, but the big man didn’t want to choose. He shrugged and jerked his dimpled chin at Runt instead. Already, the sun had lightened the heavy stubble on his jaw.

Runt squinted at him in disbelief. “D’you not like adverts?”

Ox sat on the floor in front of the bench and thrust his fingers at Runt to make him pick.

Runt grunted and rummaged through his favorites, looking for a little mindless advertainment that even a mutant could love: some girls, some gore, a couple cool products, maybe a little adventure or a crime. Guy friendly. Nothing too sad or too sexy.

A cheeseball story where things turned out the way they ought. “When I was a kid I wanted to try my luck in showbiz. Huh? Dreaming up adverts . . . banging modded models in my mansion . . . red carpet product launches.”

His enthusiasm proved infectious. Ox snorted and crossed his arms, already amused, apparently.

“Besides, everybody knows showbiz is where the short people shine.”

Ox smiled at that, a big slice of teeth in his sunburned face.

“Hey . . .” Runt pulled up a big-budget heist-comedy advertising HardCell’s security division and theme parks.

Here we go!
This one featured a long cross-promotional car chase that always made his palms itch for a steering wheel. “You’ll love this one. Promise!”

Runt sat down on the bench and squeezed Ox’s shoulder to let him know to get comfortable.

Ox bumped a little closer so his side pressed against Runt’s calf through their clothing.

As soon as the projection started, their habitat became a theme park strip-joint full of seedy characters. One of HardCell’s A-list spokestars fuzzed into three-dimensional life where the cook-space had been. Suddenly around Runt and Ox, a ring of crooks planned a jewel robbery of a rival corporation that had it coming. A one-eyed felon nodded at Runt and “spat” at Ox’s feet.

Ox flinched, then relaxed once he tried to touch the holographic loogey and touched the bare floor. Ox’s Neanderthal forehead wrinkled as the flashy advert unfurled around them, making them part of the gang and part of the caper.

Runt smiled. It felt good to vegetate after a day of hot work. He’d grown up stealing, but nothing this plush. HardCell sure knew how to plug their brands. The locations were glamorous, the ladies seductive, and the product placement inspired.

Real entertainment
.

Ox took a while to relax, but pretty soon he was anticipating sneak attacks. He laughed with Runt and tensed with Runt, at one point pounding the bench so hard that the villains turned in surprise. He kept rubbing his sunburned back on the bench, almost like a cat marking territory. The rubbing seemed to calm him, especially with the holographic criminals clustered around them.

Definitely distracting. Runt watched him fidget, not sure what to do.

Ox apologized with a slow blink, but couldn’t get at the spot easily.

In the end, Runt gave in and started scratching Ox’s shoulder blades for him, almost absently. Each time, Ox calmed instantly, absorbed again by the action.

Fair enough
. A little scratch for blissful vegetation seemed an even swap.

In the end, the HardCell heroes cleaned out their competitors, of course, and the projection ended.

The habitat’s pearly lights faded up, and Ox insisted on the bench again, pointing Runt toward his sleep-space.

Runt felt too tired to argue. He fetched a polyblanket and left it on the hard seat.

Ox stripped down with his back turned. Squeezed on the firm plastic, he passed out almost instantly, breathing softly and smoothly.

Runt didn’t fall asleep for hours.

On day three, Runt stopped testing Ox and decided to stick with him and take his measure from up close. Overestimating his partner seemed as stupid as underestimating him.

Just what is this freak made of?

They left the habitat in the first dawn and trudged up the island’s little mountain without needing to talk.

At the work-shed, Ox used canvas scraps to fashion two saddlebags to truck seeds, and as they stepped back outside, he slung one over his shoulder.

Before the giant could squat and hoist the other, Runt scooped it up himself without even grunting. “I won’t break.”

Ox shook his head and let Runt steer him toward the right crop terrace.

Runt made sure they went side by side for some reason, not leading or straggling. They each carried eighteen kilos of new kudzu-lentil hybrid seed that had arrived with Ox. Half a meter a day it would grow. The packs felt light at first, but grew heavier under the red dwarf’s broiling light.

Runt stole glances at Ox as they climbed, making sure he didn’t slack or shorten his stride for Runt’s benefit.

How had Ox shopped for the supplies? Had he just flicked through the holographic catalog and pointed at seeds and tools and holo-porn? The worker bee-moths shipped standard with every terraformer, but cutting-edge biodesigns like the kudzu-lentils and the smart-net cost a fortune.

New farmsteads like Runt’s never got hands on the shiny toys. Seemed Ox had splurged like an A-list advertainer with an expense account.

The big man paused beside him and shifted the strap to his other shoulder. Runt did the same. Might as well be symmetrically chafed.

Some niggle in Runt’s animal brain still waited for Ox to throw his extraordinary bulk around so Runt could show off moves he’d picked up as a sub-terrain soldier or a spaceport runaway—

—Can’t fuck with this runt—

But Ox’s temper and past stayed hidden.

Upslope, the two men divided the work side by side in silence. Programming the equipment and placing the posts proved easier with Ox’s brawn and brain thrown into the mix. Setting the racks and field layout required improvisation and Runt’s ability to wedge into small spaces. After lunching, they came together to sow the rows and string high netting above them. By the time the bigger sun nudged the horizon, the designer sprouts were already poking through the wet loam.
HardCell means business!

Work. Eat. Sleep
. Runt managed to do all three seamlessly for once.

Of course, the next couple nights took some navigation.

Ox refused to share the bed and crowd Runt in the wide sleep-space. Either out of caution or diplomacy, he insisted on sleeping on the opposite side of the habitat.

In truth, Runt was relieved; proximity would have made for all kinds of unintended erections and embarrassment. He didn’t need a bloody lip or worse because this brawny bastard had a hormone spike.

Instead, as soon as they finished their evening food and entertainment, Ox curled himself onto the holo-vid bench under a spare blanket and—
click
—conked out like a cub.

The questions continued to pester Runt . . . not during the day, but lying alone in bed in the clock-lit dark, Runt pondered the giant’s buried past. His questions scrabbled inside his head like mice on wires: who was Ox? Had Ox originally intended to murder him? What had HardCell promised? Why share the farmstead with Runt at all? Why couldn’t the giant speak? How could he afford all that fancy gear? What had he fled? Who had he been?

Probably wonders the same thing about me.

While Runt stared at the blue numbers on the ceiling, he tallied the disasters that could strangle a man’s life, the advantages of starting over in a new star system, the perks of corporate citizenship or whatever the fuck might have lured Ox to this rock.

Doubt sprouts wherever you let it.

Drawing on every high budget advertainment he’d ever seen, Runt scripted freaky adventures that might drive a superhuman mutant into hiding or exile or retirement. Ox was a commercial soldier gone AWOL because of an adulterous affair with a general’s wife. Ox was a disgraced spokestar whose voice box had been cut as part of a noncompetition agreement. Ox was a cock-docker hiding from a rival sex resort fearing a hormonal jihad.

Like his dad always said, “Bullshit is fertile ground.”

No. Ox had been straight from square one. He had come looking for a fresh start, and he had more than earned one.

And then the third night, Runt heard his partner’s voice.

Runt woke in the small hours to a soft sound from the other side of the dark habitat, a low thrumming like a subsonic lullaby heard through limestone.

Is it outside?

Runt rolled on top of the throb coming through the bed and the floor. He could feel it more in his skeleton than his eardrums, the vibration nearly but not
quite
a sound. It couldn’t be a machine because the rumble had a slow melody. He tried to make his eyes and brain focus on the source.

Oh
.

Ox lay stretched out on the bench, singing under his breath, a bass rumble just above purring. It was the first vocal sound he’d made since arriving on their island. Until that moment, Runt had assumed that a brood farm had cut Ox’s voice box, or that some prison had mutilated him as a punishment. Silence was his only handicap, if it could be called so.

Runt turned the lamp on low and the deep crooning stopped.