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Days in Eos Tower apartments were habitual, marked by precise and punctual steps, especially with regard to pet care. Everything, from waking up to lunchtime, from bathing to walking, had to take place at the same time in predefined ways. The conductor was the furniture, who masterfully made sure that everything ran smoothly and without any unforeseen events.
This rule applied to all the apartments of Jupiter's sons but there was one - the most luxurious and sophisticated of the apex level - where, since Lord Iason Mink acquired a mongrel pet from slums, it was difficult to maintain etiquette.
The furniture Daryl did everything he could to preserve appearances and his Master's good name, trying within his means to run the house as if everything was normal. Pet Riki was unpredictable and disinclined to rules but over time he had learned to accept some repetitiveness, such as the morning routine.
Every day at nine o’clock, Daryl opened the window of the pet’s room and left him a suit of clean clothes folded on the chair. Riki would take a shower, get dressed, and go to the living room to have a cup of coffee and smoke his first cigarette of the day.
One morning, however, Riki came out of the bathroom and found nothing to wear, so he left the room with only a towel wrapped around his hips. "Hey, am I supposed to walk around naked today? What's that perverted asshole up to?"
"I beg your forgiveness, Master Riki," the mortified furniture replied. "It was my forgetfulness. I'll bring your clothes right away."
There was bad blood between them. It was inevitable, Daryl represented everything Riki despised most: servility and conformity to the system. He was a damned perfectionist, ready to bow to the ground and lick the floor trampled by fucking androids. Moreover, he had witnessed almost all of his humiliations. The hatred Riki felt for Daryl was second only to the one he felt for the Blondie.
"Be quick then!"
As promised, Daryl joined the mongrel in the pet room a few minutes later. To make up for the mistake, he handed him the key to the closet, which was normally precluded to him because a pet should not be able to choose what to wear. As he was leaving the room, however, he suffered a loss of balance that forced him to lean against the doorframe to keep from falling.
"What the fuck is wrong with you this morning? Are you drunk?"
Riki approached him. Upon noticing that he had a pale spring covered with sweat droplets and watery eyes, he instinctively touched his forehead.
"Shit, you're hot!"
"That’s nothing!"
The eunuch regained his balance and backed away quickly. Something was not quite right, so Riki took his time getting dressed and reached him in the kitchen.
"Did you hear what I said? You have a fever!"
Daryl was preparing breakfast as if everything was normal. "I'm fine. Please go wait for me in the living room, I'll bring you your coffee in a little while."
"Don't be stupid! I'm not going to stand idly and let someone sick serve me!”
Pretending not to hear, the young man poured the drink into a cup and placed it on a tray along with the cookies, but his legs gave out again. Riki caught him before he hit the ground.
"Damn, you're more stubborn than a child! Take something and go to sleep! This kind of spaceship won't collapse if you're not here for a few days. I'm sure Iason can afford a replacement. In fact, tell me how to get in touch with him and I'll tell him you're sick!"
"No!" The eunuch exclaimed with panic.
"No? Why?"
"Master Riki, don't tell Lord Mink anything about my state of health. I’m not allowed to get sick."
"What?"
"In Eos, furnitures that fall ill are disposed of and replaced. It would be a waste to keep a sickly one."
"You're not sickly at all! You just caught a virus!"
"That's even worse because if word got out that I brought a virus to Eos, I would be considered a danger to the whole tower. Please, Master Riki, stay away from me. I don't want to infect you!"
Riki was certainly not afraid of flu but one thing was certain: Daryl had a horse fever and couldn’t work in that state. It was already a miracle that he could keep himself standing.
"Did you take anything to bring your fever down?"
"Yes, but the medication didn’t work. Don't worry about me, I’ll be able to carry out my duties as usual."
Not even Daryl believed his own words. Riki slapped a hand on his hot forehead again.
"Isn't there any Speedy?"
"Any ... Speedy? What is that?"
"Some shit we take in Ceres when we are sick. In the slums, staying in bed is a luxury we can't afford. It's a chemical bomb that makes you good as new in 24 hours, assuming it doesn’t kill you first."
"Kill you first?"
"Sometimes Speedy makes victims but it's more the cases that end well. Do you have any or not?"
"I'm afraid not, Master Riki, I've never heard of it."
The mongrel grabbed the furniture by his wrist, forced him to sit on a chair, and started rummaging through the shelves. The euphoric shout that came a few minutes later made the poor numbed eunuch jump.
"Found it!" Riki was showing victoriously, like a trophy, the jar with dishwasher detergent powder.
"Is that medicine? Are you sure?"
"Oh yes, I would recognize Speedy’s smell from a mile away. This stuff in Ceres is worth gold. To get a single ounce of it, you have to suck it off the dealer for at least an hour!"
Daryl was not very convinced. "So ... Am I supposed to ingest it?"
"Yeah. You have to take a lukewarm bath to bring the temperature down a little, take a spoonful of it dissolved in water, and go to sleep. When you wake up, you'll be fine."
The grey-eyed young man swallowed worriedly. "I'll ingest the medicine and take a bath but I can't go to sleep. I have many chores to attend to."
Riki shrugged. "As you wish. Let's go to the bathroom."
Daryl's fever had gotten so bad that Riki had to hold him up to his room. He had never entered it in the nearly three years he had been living in Eos. It was a sad and bare room with a tiny bathroom attached.
"I said you need a soaking bath but there’s hardly a shower here that looks like a dead coffin!"
"It’s the only bathroom I’m allowed to use," the eunuch muttered uncomfortably.
'That bloody bastard! With all the empty rooms in this palace, why didn't he give him a decent one?' Riki thought. It was yet another reason to be angry at Iason and the damned android society. "You'll use mine. Iason will never find out unless one of us goes and tells him."
The pet-room bathroom had a large, comfortable tub. As it filled with water, Riki reached for the zipper of Daryl's uniform, but the latter suddenly retreated backward, crashing into the sink.
"What the shit is wrong with you now?"
"What ... what are you doing, Master Riki?"
"What do you think? I'm undressing you, of course. I'm also helping you take the bath. How the hell do you think you can do it alone!"
"Please, get out! I'll do it myself!"
Riki was practical, didn’t like childish tantrums, and didn’t have much patience. "What's your problem? Do you think I've never seen a naked man? What are you afraid of? You see me naked practically every day!"
Daryl was so weak that he couldn’t put up the slightest resistance, so Riki grabbed the zipper of his uniform again and pulled it down to his navel, but Daryl's pleading voice stopped his hand.
"That's enough. I couldn't bear for you to see... For you to know..."
Riki didn’t understand it at all, but the sight of Iason's stoic, unimpeachable servant so miserable, caused him to feel some sort of pity.
"All right, I'll look away. But now let me finish undressing you."
"Will you really do it?"
"Bison's word. I doubt you know what that means but you'll never get a firmer promise than this."
"Thank you..."
Riki finished removing Daryl's clothes without ever looking directly between his legs and helped him into the tub.
"I’ll be back for you in fifteen minutes. Try not to drown."
Left alone, his whole body submerged in water and only his head floating, Daryl’s vision blurred. He looked up at the ceiling, where neon lights seemed to move like dancing stars, and tried to remember another time in his life when he had felt so relaxed. He couldn’t find one. Guardian's days seemed so far away, almost as if they had belonged to someone else.
Strange thoughts took shape in his mind in the throes of feverish delusions.
What if he had never been a Ceres child raised in an orphanage? What if he had never played kick a ball with his mongrel peers? What if he had never been a complete male?
Perhaps, he had been built in Jupiter Tower’s laboratories specifically to serve Elites. Perhaps, he and the other eunuchs were implanted with memories not their own so that they wouldn’t go mad.
That was plausible. Then again, Tanagura technology was so advanced that they can create Chimeras and pets. Why not their servants?
Still, Daryl had tangible proof that his previous existence was not a mirage. It was Riki.
He remembered him. He had recognized him from the first day Iason had brought him to Eos.
Riki was real, not a dream that someone might have instilled in his mind with a chemical reaction or an electromagnetic pulse. Thanks to him, Daryl had taken off his blinders and learned to see his condition objectively.
He admired Riki, which is why he could not allow him to find out what he had become. Because Riki would despise him even more for this.
The flickering movements of the lights gave rise to images that in Daryl's confused mind - or perhaps it was lucid for the first time? - became clouds and fairy landscapes.
'Is that the mirror of the afterlife? It doesn't look bad at all.’
He suddenly realized that elimination, the bogeyman and certain fate of all those like him, was actually liberation. The only way to escape Eos’ chains and reach a better world. In the realm beyond the mirror, he would be free, complete, and happy.
The desire to cross the threshold became so intense that everything around him turned blinding white, but a hand shook his shoulder, bringing him back to reality.
“Get out! The fifteen minutes are up. I won't look at you, take it easy."
The tamed mongrel clung to the one that still retained some of his wild side intact and got out of the tub. He let him wrap a robe around his body, carry him into his room and sit him on the bed.
Riki handed him a glass. "Drink it all at once. It sucks, you'd better hold your nose."
Daryl swallowed the bitter, slightly effervescent liquid.
Riki slipped the bathrobe off his body. "Don’t worry, I'm not looking at you. It's better if you sleep naked."
"I can't slee..." Daryl's words hung in suspense as he fell sprawling.
Riki knew that chemical filth would keep him in a coma for at least the next twenty hours. He kept his promise not to look and covered him with the sheet.
Back in the living room, he rubbed his hands together and looked around. "Yay, the house is all mine! What the hell is Daryl doing all day?"
***
Iason returned home just in time for dinner. Normally, in the apartments of the Elites, the furniture goes to greet the Master, takes his cloak and overcoat, and offers him an indoor robe. But this time, it was Riki who appeared before him. He wore shiny pet clothes and a collar with a leash around his neck.
"Will you take me out to eat tonight?"
"Do you want to dine out?" That request was very strange. Riki hated being shown around.
"Yeah. Daryl said I had to ask you."
"Very well," Lord Mink agreed. "I'll go change my clothes."
"I'd like to leave right away if you don't mind," the mongrel insisted, surprising Iason more and more. "I'm sick of being cooped up in here."
The Blondie urgently needed to have a serious talk with his servant. Daryl hadn’t sent him his usual daily e-mail, hadn’t told him that Riki was so eager to go out, and hadn’t come to greet him. All unforgivable acts. But the sight of his mongrel pet so brightly dressed asking him to take him out to dinner on a leash was just too tempting to ignore. Daryl’s matter could wait.
"Very well. Let's go."
***
Upon their return, Riki's mood was somber. The evening had been horrible, with all those stuffed Elites looking at him like sharks.
Iason annoyingly pressed Daryl's call button - although it was late, he was not allowed to go to sleep before his Master - but Riki stood in front of him.
"Let's go to bed!” He said aloud. “I want to... I mean… you understand it, right?" To make his intentions clearer, he pulled down his satin shorts and began stroking his erection underneath.
"It almost seems you are beginning to behave like a pet," the Blondie commented smugly, slipping the silk glove from his left hand.
***
After his second orgasm, before he was no longer able to speak, Riki took advantage of a quiet moment between de sheets to voice the last of his Good Samaritan missions for the day.
"Regarding Daryl... I kept him busy all day. I think he fell behind with his work but I don't want him to have a problem with that…"
The Blondie only paused his hands for a moment to listen to him before he resumed touching, kissing, and caressing.
***
Daryl couldn’t believe he had gotten away with only a reprimand. When he had woken up in sweat that morning and seen the clock, he thought he was going to be whipped to a pulp for disappearing all the previous day and not finishing any of his commitments. But he was fine and the fever was gone.
Instead of waking Riki up at 9am, as usual, he let him sleep late. In addition to a change of comfortable clothes, he left him a tube of anal healing ointment on display in the bathroom cabinet.
When the mongrel finally reached the living room and sat down at the table, Daryl walked over to him and made a bow. "I don't know how to thank you for yesterday. You helped me a lot. You had no reason to do it."
The mongrel snorted. "Don't get any ideas, we're not friends or anything like that. Forget what happened yesterday."
But the furniture didn’t move from his position. "I will know how to reciprocate, that's a promise."
"Sure," the other replied sarcastically. "I bet you'll find a way to make me escape from Eos, right? Now bring me breakfast."
The furniture's eyes took on a gleam of courage and awareness - now he knew exactly what he had to do - but he immediately returned to the usual, subdued Daryl, or so it seemed from the outside.
"I'll be right there with your coffee, Master Riki," he declared, heading for the kitchen.