Gage sat back in his chair and focused on keeping his expression vacant as Iona showed him the pictures of the men she was scouting.
The first one was Dante. Gage had met him a few times in casual settings. He was fine… sort of. If Iona found herself sold to him, she would have to explore the underbelly of all that. If Iona could convince Dante to buy her, Gage would say that she was as good as sold if she wanted to be. On the other hand, once Dante had gone to bed with her, she would not be able to convince him to marry her. No matter how it was sliced, marriage with a guy like Dante would not be something Iona wanted.
What could Gage say that would send her back to the helocarrier showroom?
The second guy was Sherman Wilson. Gage didn’t know him personally, but Sherman was a very common person of interest once someone started talking about the super-rich. His foibles were well known, but from experience, Gage knew that Sherman was probably being protected by the media. It didn’t do any media conglomerates any favors to piss off the head of underwater ranching on Europa just to get the scoop on his son’s sexual deviance. After all, everyone had a little sexual deviance and people who lived in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
If Iona chose him, Gage thought the contract offered to her had very little chance of protecting her. But, it might not matter much depending on the role she was given in the house. They might pay her an obscene amount of money to be a dog watcher. Who knew?
The last man, Benediction, worried Gage more than the others. He was on the list of people Gage was waiting to die. The silver lining there was that he thought Benediction was unlikely to offer Iona a contract.
If Gage’s predictions of the future went as he had foreseen, the three months would end in tears. He needed to make a backup plan to run alongside Iona’s plans. It wouldn’t be too difficult. If she wanted a trap door at the end, he’d make her one.
To distract him from his backup plans, Iona had begun explaining her plan to get the notice of each of the men. He listened and offered his input, but she already had every last detail nailed down, especially for her plans on Callisto. She had had a ton of time to plan her moves there.
***
Gage stuck a swab down Iona’s throat. “If you test negative after this test, we can head back down to the surface.”
“Great,” she coughed, clearing her throat. “So you’re going to sign the contract?”
He hadn’t signed it yet.
“Does it need another layer of revisions?” she asked, her nervousness on her face, in her voice, and in her eyes.
“Maybe,” he said. “I’m curious about a few things.”
“Like what?”
“Did you really think you could keep a clear head about your manhunting if you were fooling around with me?” he asked smoothly as he screwed the top on the test tube. He inserted it into a transportable lab and the centrifuge clicked on inside.
She exhaled heavily. “I don’t know. I have never seen you wear a shackle around your wrist like the ones the other models wear.”
“Why would I need to wear a shackle? I live inside a prison. No one can come in except Sleeping Beauty models. There’s no need for a wrist monitor. Not only that, but my contract with Sleeping Beauty Inc. is too long to wear the same piece of technology forever.”
She nodded. “If I touched you right now, without a signed contract, would you get shocked?”
“No.”
She put out her hand as if to touch him.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Gage backed away, out of her reach. That had been quick. He had never thought of anything like that. “There are cameras everywhere.”
She dropped her hand. “Oh. I see. They will turn them off after you sign the contract.”
He glanced at her. Her honey-colored eyes were looking downward like she was left deflated by the interchange.
“Do you think you can tell me what you really want out of your contract with me?” he asked gently, hoping his gentleness would help her to confide in him.
“Well, I…” She hesitated. “Have you ever had a real relationship with anyone?”
“Yes.”
“A romantic relationship where you went to bed with them because you wanted to and not because you had to?” she reiterated.
“No,” he replied shortly.
“Neither have I,” she said the words like they were easier to say because he had said them first. “Can you tell me about the first time you were sold?” she asked softly.
“No,” he said briefly. Before approaching her as she sat on the examination table. He put his hands on her hands in her lap. “I think I understand now. You want to experiment with a real relationship. I can see why you want that. The truth is that you can’t have a real relationship any more than I can.”
Iona tried to talk, but Gage silenced her with a look.
“The reasons may be different but the outcome is the same,” he said firmly. “I’ve made up my mind. I’ll be your friend through this, but I can’t be more than that. You’re paying me and I’m taking the money to do what you want. I will make one more change to the contract and then I will sign it.”
Her eyes shot up to meet his. “I was getting worried you weren’t going to sign it at all.”
“I needed to understand what was going on. I think I get it. You see me as a friend and you want someone to help you navigate this next stage of your career. You said as much before, that you need a friend. I’ll be there for you, but it would be best if you forgot about love. I’m a model as much as you are, and nothing is stupider than a model falling in love with their master.”
Iona’s expression went steely when Gage said that. Sleeping Beauty Inc. said a lot of things to their models when they trained them. Some models got more training than others, but Iona had been trained by some of the best models in the industry. Gage knew the propaganda that had been fed to her.
“Don’t fall in love,” one poster said.
“If you fall in love, fall in love with everybody,” the one next to it said.
“There’s no right way to do this,” the last one said.
Gage turned to check on the throat swab. “Looks like you’re healthy. Is there anything further you want to do before we head back down to Callisto?”
“Wait,” Iona said, hopping off the exam table. “What do you want to change in the contract?”
“I’m going to add a clause that states that I have no obligation to answer any questions about my past in addition to removing any sexual obligation. If I share anything with you, you’ll know it’s because I want to and not because you’re forcing me. I think that will help both of us feel more comfortable.”
Gage watched as Iona agreed, a pleasant warmth covering her features. It seemed she agreed with that.
Like most models, she didn’t know what a real relationship looked like. He had been there too, when he had been a slave for so long, living for another person’s desires. That was a life flipped on its head. Everything was fine if your master was fine, not if you were fine. Asking for one thing for yourself was asking too much unless you had an obvious injury like a cut. Even then, you were often asked to forget about yourself and improvise.
It isn’t about you.
Nothing is about you.
The world of Sleeping Beauty Inc. allowed for women and sometimes men to live the life of royalty. It was a mistake to think of royalty as a life of privilege. It was in some ways, but it was also a life of profound duty. There were pretty clothes and many fine occasions. You looked the part, but you didn’t belong to yourself. Sleeping Beauty Inc. offered that life in the most literal way possible except you didn’t have subjects, you had masters who you had to satisfy.
Everything was okay as long as you could satisfy them.
Gage had done what he could to make the contract as friendly and conducive to a real relationship as possible, but it wasn’t enough. The automated contracts created by Sleeping Beauty Inc. made it very clear who was the master and who was the slave. There was no such thing as a friendship contract. Iona would be his master once he signed the document. Was it so strange that Iona wanted to flip the tables and be the master herself for a change? He wished she hadn’t chosen him.
Gage was still unhappy about signing the contract when he did so. He traced his finger on the screen in the shape of his double g signature and for a moment he thought about all the people he was waiting to die.
If things went on as they had been, it would be a very long time before all those people were dead and he was free. Suddenly, he had the horrid idea that one of them was asleep in cryostasis at that very moment and he wasn’t asleep matching their speed through time. The idea gave him shivers. He had to see them all dead if he was ever going to find peace.
He regretted signing the contract immediately.