"Good news"

As the door swung shut behind me, I patted at my pants pocket
to make sure I had my keys. I realized they weren't there just as
the door clicked shut.
"You idiot," I grumbled to myself. I wasn't too concerned;
I'd done this several times before, and the apartment manager
always just gave me the master key so I could let myself back in.
I went down to the mail boxes and extracted the thick wad of
bills, magazines, and product literature which clogged my box.
Another normal day's mail. I got caught up in flipping through the
stack, and forgot all about forgetting my keys. I went back up the
stairs to my door before remembering.
I dropped my mail on the floor and went back downstairs.
There was a note on the manager's door saying he'd be back in
about half an hour. Didn't say half an hour from when, though.

Press [ENTER] to continue; N for nonstop; or K for main menu:
Well, I wasn't going to give up. I'd left the patio door
open. True, I lived on the third floor, but it looked like an
easier climb than some of the rocks I'd been on.
I went outside, and around back to where the patio decks were
stacked up. Surveying the wall of the building as though it was a
cliff, I selected a route and began my ascent.
I would have made it, too, if it hadn't been for a weak bit
of trim on the second floor. It began to make alarming cracking
sounds, and I grabbed for the adjacent patio railing just as it
gave way. I swung for a moment before letting go, falling to the
ground below.
I rolled as I hit, and came to rest in a sitting position,
looking up at the building. My downstairs neighbor was leaning
against the railing from which I'd just fallen. He was looking at
me with a mixture of curiosity, concern and amusement on his
face.
I admit, I'd been looking for an excuse to introduce myself.
He was a second-generation recom, one of the sons and daughters of
the brave military pilots who'd saved civilization during the Last
War. I suppose we all idolized them for their strength, speed, and
intelligence. I remember reading about the War all through school.
The books said that recoms had been created to fly the turn-of-
the-century jets when they got too hot for human pilots. The fact
that recoms had originally been slaves, pressed into service
against their will, just reinforced the civics-class lessons on
how corrupt the old regime had been.
It also made it all the more remarkable that those same
recoms had fought so fiercely in defense of this country. They'd
earned their freedom, and their children grew up proud and
independent.
Somehow I'd hoped for a more dignified way to meet him.
"Ah, hi," I essayed, waving at the broken trim strip. "Just
checking for termites."Š "Find any?"
"I forgot to check."
He laughed, giving me a look at his sharp white teeth. "Looks
okay to me," he replied, after making a show of studying the
broken section.
"Great," I said. "Sorry about that. I locked myself out, and
I didn't want to wait for the manager to get back."
"Come on up, then, I'll let you in," he chirruped. Without
waiting for a response, he leaped up onto his railing, then spun
around and jumped up and backwards, away from the building. He
jackknifed on the way up, reaching forward to grab the railing on
my patio, and vaulted over to land out of sight.
I was impressed, no less so because he was a recom. Reading
about them in a book was one thing, but seeing is believing.
I got to my feet quickly, and ran up the stairs. My door was
already open. I picked up my mail, and went inside. He was looking
at the bookshelves in the living room.
I stuck out my hand and introduced myself. "Thanks. My name
is Mac... Mac Gentry."
"Call me Tell," he replied. His grip was warm and firm, and I
held on just a little longer than necessary, but I didn't think he
noticed.
I went over to drop the mail on the small desk in the corner
by the kitchen door. "Can I get you a drink?" I asked.
"Got any beer?"
"Sure do," I said, moving into the kitchen. I came back out
with two bottles. He was looking over my library again. I handed
him his beer, and sat on the back of the couch.
"Porto Alegre?" he asked, reading the label.
"Yeah, it's Brazilian. I got it a couple weeks ago when I was
down there."
"Business trip? You're an engineer, right?"
"Uh-huh. Rio Supercomputers. I work for Rio N.A. in Long
Beach."
"I could tell from your books here. What do you work on?"
"Product acceptance, compatibility, that sort of thing.
Mostly on the F/X series."
He looked kind of thoughtful, then ran a long fingernail
along the line of books dealing with optical computers and
communications. "Have you worked with that Devtech fiber optic
network?"
My pained expression was all the answer he needed. As he
laughed, I shook my head sorrowfully. "Please don't remind me.
That's all I've worked on for two years, trying to fix Devnet.
Devtech has no idea what they're doing, and it seems like I spend
half my time telling my management that we're wasting our time
helping them. Every time I give a presentation to the networking
group in Japan or the corporate people in Brazil, they tell me
to just keep trying." I sighed. "At least it pays well."
"I hope you like to travel."
"Sure, but with all the money they've spent on semi-ballistic
tickets on the LA-Rio and LA-Tokyo runs, they could have bought me
one of the darn rockets by now."
He'd been nodding. "You're right about Devtech. The guys
working on that really don't have a clue. We've been hearing about Šall the problems."
I raised an eyebrow. "What's this 'we' stuff?"
"I'm a systems engineer at Devtech," he said, with a smile.
I grimaced again. "Uh, sorry, no offense."
"Hey, no fur off my nose. I work with NCT 'frames. Devnet
handles those okay. It's just those F/X monsters which are too
fast for it. I worked with Rio Series F machines in school,
they're good units."
"Too good for Devnet, that's for sure. I just wish I could
get Devtech to face facts. Rio isn't going to develop any new
hardware. All we have now is XNA, which isn't very efficient, but
it works okay. Devnet would be a big improvement, if Devtech would
develop a new interface, but they don't want to admit they can't
handle the speed with the stuff they use everywhere else."
"That's the problem, all right." He turned back to the
shelves again, studying titles. It gave me a chance to look at
him. I couldn't figure the genetic mix, but then, you never really
could. They were all different. Some looked more like felines, or
canines, or whatever, but most of them were pretty generic. His
fur was a glossy dark brown, lighter in front, maybe a little
shorter than usual.
He was about my height, but his legs were longer than mine.
His tail dropped almost all the way to the floor, and swept back
and forth hypnotically. He wasn't wearing much, just a pair of
jogging shorts like some I had, except his had a cutout in the
back for his tail, closed at the top with a magnetic clasp. He
filled them well; I could see muscles flexing through the sheer
fabric.
All in all, he was very attractive. I was afraid that my
feelings would start to show if I just sat there looking, so I
picked a new subject.
"Tell's an unusual name. What's it from?"
He looked at me, flashing another quick smile. "It's short
for Teller, from Edward Teller, the physicist. My parents say I
was conceived in Teller GEO. That's one of the command and control
stations for the UN's space-based interceptor platforms."
"What were your parents doing? Besides the obvious," I added,
blushing.
"They were UNSF military pilots. Still are."
That made them the best of the best; of the three thousand
recoms in the old US Navy and Air Force, only about two hundred
were asked to stay on with the United Nations peacekeeping forces.
"Neat. What do they fly?"
"Noood to me."
"Looks good to me, too." I rubbed my right shoulder; my arm
was stiff from making notes. He reached over from where he was
sitting, and pushed my hand away. He took over, smoothing the
tension away.
"Not used to writing so much, huh? I guess I monopolized the
keyboard."
I rolled my head around. "Oh, that's nice. No, that's okay,
I've been meaning to get a second workstation in here anyway."
He came and stood behind me, massaging my neck expertly. It
felt great. As his hands moved down my back, I leaned forward,
resting my forehead on folded arms.Š I suppose I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I
remember is being shaken gently.
"Come on, sleepy, time to go to bed." I lifted my head,
blinking, then got up. He led me into the bedroom, and sat me down
on the edge of the bed without turning the light on.
"Thanks," I mumbled sleepily. "Come by tomorrow, we'll work
up a presentation."
He yawned conspicuously. "Well, I'm pretty tired. Mind if I
sleep here?"
I thought about it for a moment, then started to get up. "You
mean, on the couch? Um, okay... let me get you some sheets."
He pushed me back down, and sat beside me. "No, I mean right
here."
He was sitting close enough that I could smell him... and
suddenly I understood. If I could smell him, then he could smell
me a hundred times as well. He turned me on, and he knew it. Did
he really feel the same way about me?
I looked at him, and in his eyes, I saw what I was looking
for. Happily, I fell backwards, pulling him down on top of me.
"Okay," I said, huskily. I hugged him tightly, and he squeezed
back.
He seemed to be shivering, but his fur was warm and dry. I
stroked his back gently.
"Hey, what's the matter?"
"Nothing, really. I'm just so happy..."
"Me too, Tell." I continued to stroke him, and he calmed
down. I moved my hand to his side, where our bodies met, and he
rolled slightly to let my hand move between us. I began to rub at
the fabric of his jogging shorts. I admit, I was curious. I'd
never seen a nude recom of either sex. I had no idea what was
under there.
"Mmm..." he sighed. "I thought you were tired?"
"I'm never that tired," I said, as I released the tab over
his tail, and slipped his shorts down off his hips. His penis was
sheathed, covered in soft fur, like his scrotum. Once freed, his
erection grew quickly. He wasn't very large, which struck me as
unfair; presumably the designers could have given recoms just
about any size penis, but I guess they had other things to
consider. Large genitals would just get in the way of a G-suit.
I grasped him, fingers sliding on his moist shaft, and he
began to moan, moving his hips back and forth. His eyes were
closed, his mouth was open, and his tail was thrashing from side
to side. He was breathing rapidly, and it looked like he was
already ready to come.
"Tell, are you...?"
"Yes," he said, urgently.
I rolled him over on his back, and leaned over, taking him
into my mouth. He gasped, and suddenly my mouth was filled with
his semen. He pressed gently on the back of my head, and I moved
my hand to his balls, squeezing lightly. His cock slid deeper into
my mouth, and he cried out. His body shook for a few seconds, and
then he subsided.
His penis slid back into its sheath quickly. I stroked his
sheath, smoothing the ruffled fur, kissed it gently, and then
straightened up, lying alongside him, resting a hand on his chest, Šmy other arm under his neck. We snuggled close, looking deep into
each other's eyes.
"Thank you," he said softly. "I've never done this before.
With anyone," he added, even more quietly.
I was taken aback. He'd been so, well, forward... but what
could I say? "Tell, I wouldn't have asked for this. At least, not
so soon." I grinned. "But I'm glad I didn't have to. I think
things are going to work out fine."
"I'm sure they are," he replied. "But there's something we
need to get straight."
"Uh, what?" I asked, afraid of some misunderstanding.
In response, he dropped his hand to my crotch, and squeezed.
"This," he said, mouth open in a silent laugh.
I gave a startled "yip!"-- just in the spirit of things, you
know-- and grabbed him right back. We wrestled around on the bed
for a few minutes, my clothes just sort of falling off my body.
Soon our movements became more rhythmic, more deliberate. He was
inexperienced, sure, but he wanted to please me, and he seemed to
know what to do.
He made me hard with his hands, and wet with his tongue. Then
he rolled away from me, onto his stomach, and moved his tail to
the side. He looked back over his shoulder. "Mount me," he said,
almost moaning.
"Yes..." I answered, so full of love for him I could hardly
speak. I moved over him, wet his anus with my saliva, and pressed
the tip of my penis against him. "Relax," I crooned, stroking the
fur on his back, squeezing him around the base of his tail.
He opened himself to me, and I slid inside slowly. His ass
was tight and hot, and we both made little whimpering sounds as we
began to move together.
"You okay?" I asked.
"Oh, yes, Mac," he breathed. "Don't hold back."
He was so strong. I could see the muscles moving under his
fur, and feel them under my hands. He was clutching the bedspread
as tightly as I clutched his hips. Although we strained against
each other, there was something light and effortless to our
coupling, a sense of perfect freedom and mutual joy.
As I watched him, I thought about how lucky we were to have
each other, and that familiar and pleasant pressure began to rise
within my crotch. He matched the increasing tempo of my thrusts,
lifting his head, making the most marvelous purring sound. I
wondered if it was deliberate.
As my climax approached, I leaned forward, nuzzling the back
of his neck, resting against him. My arms went around his chest,
and I hugged him as I came.
"Ohhh," I cried, and I held the full length of my penis
inside him. He pushed back against me until I was done, then
together we toppled over onto our sides, my arms still wrapped
around him.
"I love you, Tell," I said.
"I love you too, Mac... oh!" My hand, moving slowly down his
belly, had encountered the tip of his penis, again erect.
"Gently, Tell... don't rush it, make it last," I whispered
into his ear. I brushed it was, an out-of-place wet sensation on my thigh. Then the
character of Tell's movements began to change, becoming more Šrhythmic. He was hard, pressing himself between my legs, making a
growling sound... and then I felt his teeth on the back of my
neck.
"Ooh, Tell, is this how recoms do it?" I asked, half-joking.
He didn't answer; he just growled louder, but I could tell
somehow that he wasn't being entirely serious. With an exaggerated
roughness, he grabbed my hips and lifted me into the air.
I moaned loudly for effect, and then again, softly, as I felt
his penis sliding up towards my ass. Then he paused.
"Come on," I urged.
"Uh, be right with you," he said, and leaned back to see what
he was doing. Maybe it distracted him not to have a tail to aim
for; I don't know.
He got himself positioned, and leaned forward again, his
chest warm and soft against my back. Smoothly, he pushed his glans
into me. He gasped, gripped me tightly, and thrust firmly,
entering me completely.
Without pausing, he began thrusting himself against me, very
quickly, very hard. After maybe a dozen strokes, he cried out, bit
my neck again, and came.
I reached back between my legs to squeeze his balls, and he
made a high-pitched little sound and collapsed against me. I don't
know if he passed out, or what, but it was a few minutes before he
moved again. I just lay there quietly, enjoying the feel of him
inside of me and on top of me, until his penis withdrew and
resheathed itself.
Finally he stirred, moving to rest beside me. I turned to
look at him.
"That was nice."
"Mmm-hmm," he agreed. "Thanks."
"Anytime, lover. Better yet, all the time."
He smiled, and we held each other until we fell asleep.

It's a good thing Tell set his alarm clock, because I'd
totally forgotten about going to work in the morning. As it was, I
had to hurry to be on time. We kissed quickly, and I ran upstairs
to get dressed.
I did remember the card with the presentation, though, and
after the regular Monday morning staff meeting, I took the group
manager aside and told him our idea. He was very receptive, I
suppose because the Devnet problem was as much his problem as
mine. He got me an appointment with the Director of Product
Planning for early that afternoon.
I had some appointments and phone calls to return to people
in our US networking department and at Devtech, but I put those on
hold, and took an informal poll among my coworkers as to the
prospects for the kind of solution we were planning to offer.
All of them had worked on the problem at one time or another,
and after two years, most of them were willing to listen to
anything. The technical comments were in line with my own
observations, which was reassuring, and nobody brought up any new
problems.
The afternoon meeting went very well. The director liked the
video, and told me to send it down to his boss, the Senior
Director of R&D, in Rio. Brazil had already gone home, but Japan Šwas just about to arrive on Tuesday morning, so I stayed late to
talk with Dr. Nagura, the Director of Networking Systems out
there. I'd been out to see him just a few weeks before. We had a
good professional relationship, but that was about all. He was a
very quiet man, and he commanded a great deal of respect, probably
more than company policy required. While he never got excited
about anything, he did pay close attention to the presentation,
and asked all the right questions.
He brought up one subject which I hadn't given enough thought
to.
"And, what if your design is a success?"
"Sir?"
"What will you do then?"
"Well... I just assumed that Rio would buy it, and I'd come
back to work. Or maybe it would be better if Devtech built it into
their equipment."
"No. You build it. Don't sell the design. Sell a product."
I started to object, but the look on his face made me stop
and think. Yes, it would make more sense. If we could buy
Devtech's hardware, at the wafer level or as finished boards, we
could build it into a plug-and-play system for the F/X.
He continued. "And when you speak with Cruz, tell him you
want to use the company's engineering facilities in Brazil. Ask
him to set a fair price, but do not give him any control over your
new company."
That was another good idea. "Yes, sir. I will do that." I
paused. "I think you are helping me more than you need to."
"No, Mr. Gentry. We needed someone to do this. And there may
be more opportunities for you in the future."
"Thank you. I will think about this." We cleared, and I sat
there thinking about it for a while. Whenever I talked with him, I
ended up talking like him. It was pretty strange.
All in all, it was a very busy day and a very promising
start. When I got home, I went straight up to Tell's apartment.
Rather than knocking, I tried the door; it was open, and I went
right in. He was standing in the kitchen, cooking something. I
tossed my mail on his coffee table, sat down on the couch, and
kicked my feet up.
"Hi, dear. I'm home," I called.
He ran over and sat down on my lap, put his arms around my
neck, and gave me a big kiss. "Hi," he said. "You could make a
habit of that. If you want," he added, shyly.
"I want," I sighed. We held each other for a while. My
curiosity eventually overcame my reluctance to disturb the moment.
"Tell? How'd it go today?"
He slid off my lap onto the couch beside me. "Pretty good. My
boss doesn't want me to quit, but he did go with me to see the
Vice President of Engineering. The VP wasn't exactly thrilled to
for me on the
Brazilian national airline. When they started boarding, we went on
into the plane, and took our seats. Since first-class seats had
windows-- expensive on a trans-atmospheric vehicle-- my preference
was for the third-row left window seat; this was the first row
with paired seating, and usually I wanted the adjacent seat so I
could set down my Dynabook without having to drop the tray table. ŠNow, of course, I had something much nicer to put there.
The stewardess came forward and took our drink orders. They
had Porto Alegre beer, of course, and we each got a glass of that.
We sat together, talking, while the coach-class passengers boarded
through the mid-cabin hatch. Presently, they finished boarding,
and I realized we were still alone in the first-class cabin. As we
started taxiing out, the screen on the forward bulkhead began
showing the standard wildly optimistic emergency procedures
briefing, and the stewardess came forward to get our glasses.
"Will you be needing anything else before we land?" she
asked.
"No, thank you," I answered.
She checked to see that our seatbelts were buckled, then went
aft, and closed the door.
I turned towards Tell, and raised the armrest between us. We
each put an arm around the other, and leaned together. I licked at
his ear as I unbuckled our belts.
"You know, she won't be back in here until we get there."
"No, she won't, will she?" he said, wriggling in
anticipation.
I released the clasp on his pants, and started unbuttoning
his shirt. "Do you suppose we can amuse ourselves?"
He was already breathing hard. "Yes."
As we reached the end of the runway, the PA asked us to
prepare for acceleration. By the time we started rolling, Tell was
fully erect, pink and glistening. I bent down and took him in my
mouth, cupping his testicles in one hand, the other against the
small of his back. He came just as we lifted off, his cries of
pleasure drowned out by the howling of the powerful scramjets.
I straightened up with some effort, against the gradually
increasing acceleration which pushed me down and backwards. The
forward screen displayed a G-meter in a corner of the view from
the forward camera. It read 1.5G, and it was definitely going up.
I knew from experience that it would peak at about 2.5G about ten
minutes into the flight.
Tell leaned against me, eyes half-closed, smiling. I put an
arm around him and held him for a while, stroking his belly with
my other hand as his tail flicked back and forth across my legs.
Eventually, the acceleration made it uncomfortable to be
turned sideways like that, so I released Tell and sat back in my
seat. I figured he'd do the same... but instead, I felt his hands
at my waist, releasing my own penis, which was already swollen and
throbbing.
I watched with some disbelief as he levered himself up out of
his seat, and turned to kneel before me. The G-meter was at 1.9
and still climbing. Against that force, Tell slowly leaned forward
to lick me, his rough tongue making me twitch.
I couldn't even bend my head down to watch him without
straining, so I just relaxed, and let my head go back against the
seat. Tell's mouth enveloped me, and he began to move his head up
and down slowly, pressing with his hands against the seat behind
me. It felt just incredible. I gripped his shoulders, and started
making thrusting motions with my hips, but as the meter approached
2.5G, I couldn't move much.
My pleasure peaked with the pressure of acceleration, and as Šthe engines spooled down to about half a G, I cried out and shot
my load into his throat. The rapid loss of weight brought me
forward in my seat. I curled over Tell's head, crossing my arms
over his shoulders.
After a long moment, I shuddered and leaned back. Breathing
hard, trying to catch my breath, I welcomed Tell into my arms as
he sat back down.
"Oh, wow," I said, panting. "That was more than I expected."
"Did you enjoy it?" he asked.
"Of course! Wasn't it obvious?" I grinned.
He smiled back, smacking his lips loudly. "Yeah, but I wanted
to hear you say it."
"I loved it, Tell. I love you."
"Same here, Mac."
Some of the longer flights-- New York to Perth, or the
occasional flight from L.A. to Madagascar-- remained at low gee
long enough for the stewardesses to hand out quick drink orders,
but this one basically just went up and right back down again. The
stewardesses were around to handle minor emergencies, but I knew
we wouldn't be bothered unless we called for help.
It took us a few minutes to get our pants on, and we had a
couple more minutes to enjoy the views through the forward camera,
as displayed on the screen, and the windows in the cabin. We were
up high enough to see stars and the curvature of the Earth, and we
could see bits of Central and South America.
The acceleration warning sounded again, and we had to
sit down and prepare for the descent. The forces this time were
more down and forward, so we both fastened our belts and just
enjoyed the ride.
We ended up making some wide sweeping turns as we approached
the runway at Rio, probably to avoid some weather. It gave us a
better look at the northwest part of Brazil, which was nice.
The landing was perfect, and as we taxiied in to the gate,
our stewardess opened the door and stuck her head inside.
"How was the flight?"
"Very nice, thanks," Tell replied, smiling politely.
Although it was mid-morning when we left L.A., it was already
evening in Rio de Janeiro. Rio SC maintained a bloc of apartments
near their headquarters and engineering facility in Soleri II, and
some of the apartments were set up like hotel rooms for visitors.
We got our keys from the security guard downstairs, and we went on
up. The company had arranged for two apartments, but I don't think
it ever occurred to us to use them both.
I got the same unit almost every time I was in Brazil, so it
was practically like a home away from home. I showed Tell where
everything was. There was a note on the phone from Francis Cruz;
he offered to take us out to dinner at ten. It wasn't quite eight
yet, so we decided to go walk around for a while.
Soleri II is the smallest arcology in Brazil, but even so,
it's plenty big enough to get lost in. 70 levels, each about 500
meters in diameter: over 10 million square meters of floor space.
Fifty thousand spacious apartments and hundreds of businesses, all
within a few minutes walking or elevator-riding distance of each
other.
Tell had never been inside an arcology; there weren't many of Šthem in the United States, and he hadn't been abroad much. It was
fun to play tour guide.
The neatest part of the building was the mall, a half-
kilometer of three levels of shops, restaurants, and open park-
like spaces. We started north from the south end, and began
picking up hangers-on almost immediately. By the time we reached
the central plaza, there must have been twenty people following
us. Well, following Tell, anyway.
"I love a parade," I said, sarcastically.
"Aww, it's okay," he said. "They're just curious."
As we walked, I nly hard question came from Francis Cruz.
"When can you deliver a finished product?"
"Thirteen weeks." I said it firmly. Tell and I had talked it
over, and we were sure we could do it in eight weeks. I put in a
fudge factor on general principles. Either they'd buy it, or they
wouldn't-- but with two years of almost no progress, I was sure
three months would be acceptable. Evidently it was, since nobody
voiced any objections.
After the question and answer period, the managing partners
and the others excused themselves, and left. That's another thing
I liked about Rio's management style; they were leaving the
decision up to Francis Cruz, since it was his department.
He decided quickly. "I think it looks like something we can
support," Cruz said. "When do you want to get started?"
I answered for both of us. "Two weeks should be enough. Tell
is going to arrange to get the technical specs from Devtech. We
also need to clear things up at our current jobs, and take care of
the paperwork for the new business."
"I'll have the legal department in the Los Angeles office
take care of that for you, if you'd prefer."
"Oh, absolutely. I don't know much about it."
"Fortunately, it should be simple enough. The United States
is part of the American Common Market, so there won't be any
import/export problems."
"Good. Should we say two weeks from next Monday?"
"Fine."
We all stood and shook hands, and it was done. Although the
business side of the visit was over, there was still some
technical work to do. I spent the rest of the day with people
from the design engineering department, scheduling access to their
design support systems and production equipment. Tell went off
with the company's programming gurus to get the kernel interface
design rules and talk about the code he'd be adding.
These were just design overviews, and by the end of the day,
there wasn't much more for us to do. Tell came over to engineering
just as I was finishing up, and we left.
Since we didn't need to stay another day, I'd picked up
tickets for the late SB flight that evening, but I didn't want to
leave Brazil without celebrating a little.
On an earlier visit, one of the network engineers had taken
me to a small but excellent specialty restaurant in a suburban
area near the city. I'd asked him if it was still open. He said it
was, and gave me the phone number and directions for the metro.
It was the sort of place where I knew Tell and I could both
enjoy the food. We got there early, since we had to get back to Šthe arcology and pack before our flight.
A waitress took our drink orders-- Porto Alegre, of course--
and I told Tell I'd already ordered dinner.
"What're we getting?"
"They have great steaks here, so that's what."
"Oh, okay," he said, without much enthusiasm. "Anything
else?"
"Just the normal stuff. You can grab something back at the
apartment if you need to."
The food arrived promptly, and I watched as Tell took his
first bite. He started chewing, then stopped, and started again.
His eyes widened, and he had to swallow before he could speak.
"Hey! This is steak!"
"Right. It's a steak house. I ordered steak."
"It's _real_ steak!"
"Now do you think you'll still be hungry later?" I asked,
grinning.
"No! I didn't know they had this here," he said, as he
started eating again. I wasn't sure if he'd keep using his knife
and fork; it looked like he could save time if he just used his
hands and teeth.
"Well, they never did outlaw meat sales here, you know, just
cattle ranching. The ranchers just started growing beef without
leather around it, that's all."
"Mmm-hmm," he mumbled.
I wasn't wild about real steak myself; it was terribly
expensive, and I thought the synthesized stuff was basically just
as good. Tell certainly liked it, though.
He finished the first steak in almost no time, and called the
waitress over to order another. They had it waiting already, since
I'd told them who my guest would be.
That one lasted a little longer, but still he wanted another.
The waitress said they'd have to cook it, and could he wait ten
minutes? He said he could, but I wasn't sure.
I ended up feeding him bits of mine while he waited, since I
just couldn't resist the way he looked at it. I used my fingers,
and I was glad we had a semi-private booth; he sucked the meat and
juices off my fingers in a way which was purely sexual.
By my count, he had about three pounds of steak in him when
we left.
"Better than bugs and worms and stuff, huh?" I asked, as we
rode back to the hotel on the metro.
"You bet!" he exclaimed, licking his lips. "It's still not my
favorite form of protein, though."
"You letch," I chided, patting his leg. "You'll have to wait
for that, we've got to get to the airport."
"I hope we're alone in first class again."
"Me too."
And we were.