Chapter Text
“You look tired,” said Kinni. “Had a good time with V1KTU$?”
“I actually just woke up from a nap, but yeah,” I replied, smirking.
Kinni chuckled. “He's been strutting around looking smug… which is not at all out of the ordinary for him. But I assume this time, it has something to do with you?”
“That it does, and rightfully so,” I said.
“What did he do?” asked Kinni. “I know you two are a bit private about your sex life, but I am so curious right now.”
I chuckled. “I showed him one of my favorite toys. He knew how to use it, and did so with great enthusiasm and competence. Did you suggest his latest download? It was… a good choice.”
Kinni shook his head. “That one was Leetah's suggestion, actually!”
“Well, I'm glad you've all teamed up to make sure I get fucked right,” I said flatly. I paused. “Genuinely, though. But it's still funny.”
“It's not much, but it's honest work!” said Kinni, flexing proudly. “Honestly, though, give V1KTU$ credit where credit is due. A robot can download every pack of sexual techniques they can get their hands on, and still be absolute trash in bed because they don't actually care about their partner or said partner's pleasure. You can't download being a thoughtful partner. Giving a shit is not something you can just install.”
“That's good to know,” I said, nodding appreciatively. “I… admit that I was a little concerned about that. Both from the standpoint of how genuine his interest and care is, and from concern about whether he is artificially changing his personality irreparably.”
“Nah, that's all him! There are viruses that can change a synthetic's personality… but let's just say it's not for the better,” said Kinni grimly. “I'll admit I'm, uhh, surprised to see him set aside his pride in any way. For anyone or anything. Ever. I'm glad he's good to you and enthusiastic about pleasing you, though. When he wants to do something, he takes it very seriously and works hard to achieve it, and I could see that being the case for a relationship.”
“He's comfortable being vulnerable with me, and that probably counts for something,” I said, shrugging.
Kinni nodded knowingly. “Yeah, I suppose that could do it!” He paused. “Aside from the sex, how is your relationship going? I see you two sitting around together working on different things, and you look happy, but yanno.”
“It's going really well. He's a great partner, and I like to think I'm also doing right by him,” I said. I raised an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”
“Just checking in to make sure things are, yanno, balanced and healthy,” said Kinni, shrugging.
“They are,” I said flatly. “Is this some kind of jealousy thing? I thought you said you were gonna be normal about this.”
Kinni put his hands up defensively. “No! No. I just heard something that worried me a little, that's all.”
I sighed. “Okay. Who's talking shit about us? Surely Leetah has better things to do with her time.”
There was a brief silence.
“AG told me the real reason you're here,” said Kinni, his tone suddenly serious.
My heart sunk, but I steeled myself. “Oh. I. Uhh.” I paused briefly before continuing. “Can you tell me exactly what he said about me? Word for word, if you can. I'm no stranger to lying by omission… but he seems to be a professional on the subject.”
“He said you're paid to be here,” said Kinni. “Just mentioned it offhand, like it was trivial. I pressed him for more information, and he said you're a professional groupie.” He paused and looked away, then looked at me again, his expression uneasy. “Why didn't you tell us? Or even just me. You know I wouldn't have judged you for that, right? But now that you're actually dating someone… well. I don't know if you've disclosed it to V1KTU$, but he would probably want to know.”
I sighed angrily. “That motherfu- ahem. He made it sound a lot worse than it is. Okay, I'll take this from the top.”
“Please do,” said Kinni, eyeing me suspiciously.
“Professional groupie is my literal job title, but I first showed up here as just a normal groupie. I was just some guy who was interested in you,” I explained. “After we hooked up and I disappeared for a few days, AG reached out to me and asked me to come in and talk. When I got here, he offered me the job. I didn't even have to fuck anybody, he just wanted me to hang out with you guys.”
“Oh! Ohhh,” murmured Kinni. “But you could have at least told us, right?”
I shook my head. “I'm getting to that. The contract was mostly normal, but there were parts that were… strange.”
-
Not all that long ago…
-
“I'm not even allowed to tell them my name?!” I asked incredulously. “I understand not telling them about this being a job, and maybe some of this other stuff, but my name?”
“No, that's not what it says. It says you're only allowed to tell them those things if at least one of them directly asks you about it,” said AI-Gent casually. “I'm sure that won't take long anyway, so don't worry about it. Just follow the rules, okay?”
I narrowed my eyes. “If it won't take long anyway, why bother?”
AI-Gent grinned widely, his bared teeth less than reassuring. “Let's call it an experiment.”
“I have… reservations about being experimented on,” I said uneasily.
“Tch. You're overreacting,” said AI-Gent, rolling his eyes.
“This is weird. This contract is weird,” I said flatly.
AI-Gent's predatory grin twisted to a scowl. “Look. Do you want the job or not? If you think you'll ever have an opportunity like this again, you're deluding yourself.”
“It sounds fun, but it's not like I'm looking for my big break or any nonsense like that,” I said, attempting to shrug, forgetting the Butthole. “I was on the fence about coming back at all. I'm not interested in being a star. As of now, I just do this for fun. You're overestimating how much I care about this.”
AI-Gent gestured towards the contract, and some numbers shifted drastically. He folded his hands and grinned. “How about now?”
I gawked at the adjusted salary. “Uhhh… y-yeah, I guess so.”
“That's what I thought,” said AI-Gent smugly. “Now. Do we have a deal?”
I thought for a moment, and against my better judgment, nodded. “We do.”
-
“Before you judge me for that, I'm not sharing exact numbers, but it went from having something to put in savings to being able to fund the rest of my transition out of pocket while having a lot left over,” I said, shrugging awkwardly.
Kinni burst out laughing.
“Er. What? What's so funny?” I asked, looking around as if the joke might be something external to the conversation.
“Rupert. Buddy. We all sold out to be here, I'd be a hypocrite if that offended me,” said Kinni, smirking playfully. “So, you're just some guy who got roped into a weird contract. Great. Good to have you here. I'm glad you're getting properly compensated for putting up with our antics.”
“Oh! Th-thank you,” I stammered. “I'm having a good time. As far as I'm concerned, I'm being paid an exorbitant amount of money to take a break from my day job and hang out with friends, with some relatively minor stipulations. And it now includes spending time with my boyfriend… including having sex. Which is not a contractual obligation, but still allowed and encouraged. Fucking while on the clock is, uhh, a new one for me, but honestly kinda hot.”
“That's the spirit!” said Kinni cheerfully.
“I didn't understand the reason for the stipulations about sharing my name and such, at the time… But I think I get it now,” I said. “It was an exercise in making sure I was put in my place. Making sure I knew I wasn't important enough to be curious about.”
“Aw, Rupert… maybe at first it was like that,” conceded Kinni. “But after a while I thought you must have told me your name at some point, and I just forgot. And the longer you were here, the weirder it would have been to ask, yanno?” He paused. “I'm sorry though, I should have asked. Yeesh… I probably should have asked way back, before we fucked, but I guess I just… didn't. I'm sorry, dude, that can't feel good.”
“It really doesn't. I could go into a whole trauma dump about it, but I don't feel like doing that right now,” I said, gritting my teeth. “Suffice it to say, though… No. No, it doesn't feel good.” I paused. “For the record, I don't blame you, or any of the other Contenders. It's normal for a person to introduce themself, with or without explicit prompting. No… the blame falls squarely on AG for his little experiment. It was cruel, and I didn't realize until this conversation what he was trying to do. He… was bullying me. When he did my background check, he dug deep enough to find out what would really hurt me.”
“And what would that be?” asked Kinni. “Er. If you don't mind me asking, of course.”
“To be disregarded, to be ignored. Met with disinterest, considered extraneous,” I said, fists clenched. “To your credit, I've had a lot of really good conversations with you, as well as the others, and overall I feel appreciated here. But omitting some of the most fundamental questions, especially my name… that digs into the back of my mind, like a splinter in my neck I wasn't allowed to remove until someone noticed it. But it's not your job to notice it. You didn't know you were expected to look for it.”
“Well, I'm sorry for my part in that,” said Kinni. “Do you… want a hug?”
“A gentle one? Sure. I'm not really a hugger, but since it's you, yeah,” I said, moving closer.
Kinni picked me up and pulled me in for a hug, necessarily tight because of his bulging muscles, but still gentle. “We really like you here, dude,” he whispered. “You're important to us. You're important to me, and don't you forget that.” He released me from the hug and gently set me down. “Before you were, uh, secretly hired on, I was really bummed that you left. I guess that's why AG bothered to contact you. I definitely mentioned it to him, but I didn't go into detail, and I certainly wasn't expecting him to actually do anything about it. I should probably know better by now, though.”
“Didn't go into detail? There was detail that could have been gone into?” I asked incredulously.
“Well, yeah,” said Kinni, shrugging awkwardly. “You know, when you first showed up here, you were obviously terrified. Which is why I, uh, did not immediately invite you into bed.”
I winced. “Was it really that obvious?”
Kinni gave me a flat look. “Dude. You were shaking like a leaf. I thought you were going to fall over out of sheer anxiety. I wasn't kidding about the stray cat thing, you looked like you were about to bolt into the bushes if I tried to touch you.”
“Oh whoops, I guess I was,” I said sheepishly.
Kinni chuckled. “Yeah. But despite that, you stuck around to talk. That first day, it was pretty basic surface level conversation, but it was nice to talk to someone who cared about how my day was going. Still, when you left, I didn't think you were coming back.”
“But I did,” I observed.
“You did!” agreed Kinni. “I was surprised, but pleasantly so. And then you kept coming back. We talked more, you looked less nervous. I enjoyed your company, you were really sweet and friendly. And I could tell you were interested, but I didn't wanna scare you off by making a move. I was surprised when you did, because you were clearly still really nervous.”
“My horniness overrode my anxiety,” I admitted. “Maybe that sounds bad, but that's the norm for sex for me, especially when it's for the first time with someone. I have to want it more than I'm afraid of it. Most of the time, it's not worth the stress. When we had sex, I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't need a break and an ice pack to squeeze before we got to the actual sex.”
“You were shaking the entire time, but you were also very genuinely enthusiastic, so I wasn't too worried about it,” said Kinni. “It was clearly an act of bravery for you, but one you seemed to be enjoying, and I wasn't gonna stop you as long as you were still enjoying it. I was thrilled to finally be in bed with you, but I was fully prepared to stop if you wanted me to… or if I thought I should stop, regardless of what you actually said.” He paused. “Of course, we did stop. But I wasn't expecting an injury to be the deciding factor. Maybe I should have, you were really tense. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20… I felt so bad when I hurt you. Shit, dude, I wanted to cry with you. But, yanno, I didn't wanna make your injury about me.”
There was a brief silence.
“I'm sorry I accused you of lying,” I said quietly. “I just. It's hard to believe when people are genuinely interested in me… and it was easier to deny it and be angry about it than to feel complicated about it.”
“Hey, no sweat. I understand,” said Kinni. “This is none of my business, but are you more comfortable with V1KTU$? I mean specifically in bed, you do seem pretty at ease with him otherwise.”
I paused, then nodded. “Yeah. It, uhh, helped that early on he was pretty passive in bed at first. But I've gotten more comfortable with him as he's gotten more comfortable with sex in general. Miraculously, I haven't really gotten triggered during sex with him yet, but I'm sure it'll happen soon enough. He knows it's likely and what to do when it happens, though.”
Kinni nodded approvingly. “I'm glad you two have each other. That little bot absolutely adores you, and it's really cute to see.”
“And I adore him!” I said, grinning. “It's been about as anxiety-inducing as any other relationship I've had, but he seems to be an actually-decent guy, which is nice. And we've established fully reciprocated attraction and said our first I love yous, so that's a couple of really scary things already out of the way, and I'm starting to let my guard down a bit.” I paused. “Er, sorry if that's, like, rubbing it in or…”
Kinni chuckled. “Rupert. I asked. And when I agreed to be normal about what went down, I meant it. I'm not stewing in jealousy, I just wanna see that you're doing better now. And it seems like you are. Good!”
“I appreciate the concern,” I said, my tone fully genuine. “So far, it's going well.”
“I'm glad to hear that,” said Kinni firmly.
–
“You're here a lot,” observed Leetah.
“I am,” I agreed.
Leetah rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Do you, like. Have a job, or…”
I nodded. “I have two jobs. I work at a grocery store on the other side of town.”
“And the other one is…?” asked Leetah.
“This,” I said matter-of-factly.
Leetah raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean this? Your job as a spy?”
I chuckled. “Not anything quite that exciting. I'm a professional groupie.”
Leetah's eyes widened. “Hold up. You're a sex worker? AG hired a sex worker? For us? Dude. That's crazy.”
“Err, not exactly,” I said, shaking my head. “I originally showed up as a groupie, but like, as a hobby. And then I stopped coming… but AG called me in and hired me on.”
“But you are actually fucking V1KTU$, right?” asked Leetah.
I shrugged. “Yeah. The sex part is optional, but allowed. It is on the clock, though, so I guess I am being paid for it. So I suppose it is technically sex work, but that's not why I'm sleeping with him.”
“Does V1KTU$ know you're being paid to be his boyfriend?” asked Leetah, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, when you say it like that, it sounds bad,” I huffed, putting my hands on my hips.
“Yeah, kinda does,” agreed Leetah flatly. “My lips are sealed, but you should tell him.”
“I-I will, I just need to figure out how to phrase it,” I murmured. “I'm not being paid to be his boyfriend, I'm getting paid for being his boyfriend. Though really I'm being paid just to hang out with you guys, but it's my call what that actually consists of. And this is what I've chosen to do with my time here.” I paused. “Ultimately… my presence here is funded, so I can afford to take a break from my grocery store job and be here as much as possible.”
“And how much is AG actually paying you to do this?” asked Leetah, putting her hands on her hips.
“I'm not gonna say, but it's more than I was making at the grocery store, for sure,” I replied.
Leetah leaned in a bit. “When you were a kid… was this what you thought you'd be doing at this age?”
“Nah, but I think I would have thought it was cool,” I said, shrugging. “And if you count when I was a teenager, I was a horny little shit and spent a decent amount of time fantasizing about doing shit like this, so I think I would have approved. Why do you ask? Are you trying to make me feel bad about this job? Good luck with that.”
“Did you start T as a teen, then?” asked Leetah, ignoring my question.
I chuckled. “Nah, I had no such excuse. That was estrogen puberty making me into a horny mess. I didn't start T until I was almost 22. When did you start E?”
Leetah flinched and drew away abruptly. “I have no idea what you're talking about,” she said coldly, eyeing me like I'd suddenly sprouted claws.
“Easy there,” I said, smiling slightly. “It's not hard to find out about, with a little digging… there were a lot of eyes on you, growing up. You were very young when you started living as female. It must've been rough, dealing with your transition on top of everything else you had going on.”
“What do you want?” growled Leetah, her tail twitching in agitation.
“I want to have a fucking normal conversation,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “But this feels like an interrogation. If you wanna keep asking personal questions, share something sensitive yourself. If not… kindly extract your head from my butthole.”
Leetah narrowed her eyes and said nothing.
My eyebrows went up. “Oh! You mean like blackmail. Hah. No, I don't want anything from you. I'm not in the habit of outing people, for any reason. That was a real question, by the way, not a gotcha. I know you're not open about it, but it's common knowledge in the trans community, and we're proud of you. Quietly.”
“Tch. Not that I'm saying anything you just said about me is true, but what are you gonna do if I just so happen to let slip your current profession in a casual conversation with V1KTU$?” asked Leetah, raising an eyebrow.
“I'll explain my job to him, that's what I'll do. That's already the plan,” I said firmly. “If I was dead set on keeping it a secret, do you think I would just casually tell you, of all people? With your fondness for gossip? You asked a question I was willing to answer. Did you think my name was a secret, too? It wasn't. I could have told you either of those things if you had just asked, that's in my contract. You and the other Contenders were just comically incurious about me.”
“You want me to believe you wouldn't try to retaliate? Not even a little?” asked Leetah, raising an eyebrow.
I shrugged. “Whether you believe me or not doesn't particularly matter to me, but I'm telling the truth. Kinni already knows about my job, for the record. And if you're dead set on telling V1KTU$, be my guest. I'm not going to deny it, and you'll just look mean for making a big deal of it. I'm not going to out you as trans, but if you want to out yourself as mean-spirited, that's your prerogative.” I paused. “What do you want? Are you trying to provoke me into outing you? What's the end game here? Are you really just that bored?”
“Mmm… I'm gonna blame this one on boredom,” said Leetah casually. “You're not as much fun to mess with as I'd like, but I respect the pushback.”
I grinned. “As a lifelong freak, I've invested a lot of time and energy into not being fun to mess with, so I'll take that as a glowing compliment.”
“Honestly, what also takes the fun out of it is knowing that you're paid to interact with me,” said Leetah flatly. “I'm not one to get a kick out of shooting fish in a barrel.”
“It's explicitly spelled out in my contract that I don't have to tolerate harassment from the Contenders. If I didn't like you, I wouldn't subject myself to your presence so often,” I said, smirking. “If I thought you were inherently malicious, I'd avoid you like the plague. Your good sportsmanship is also appreciated. I'm not going to just sit there and take it when you push too far, though.”
“I wouldn't have it any other way,” said Leetah, grinning.
“Consider this an open invitation to discuss trans stuff with me… as long as you're respectful about it,” I added.
“I don't think I will, but good to know,” said Leetah, eyeing me suspiciously.
V1KTU$ ran over. “Hey, Rupert!”
“Hey, V1KTU$!” I replied. “Can we talk about something?”
“Oh! I was just going to request sexual contact, but we can do that, too!” said V1KTU$.
Leetah guffawed. “Nice one!”
V1KTU$ grinned awkwardly. “Ah, yes! An intentional joke. That is what that was. Thanks, Leetah.” He turned to me again. “Shall we?”
“We shall,” I said, nodding.