BATTER 46

There is an aggressive beauty that only a living animal can possess. The savage yet elegant predators—creatures that have now been hunted to extinction or entirely wiped out—were being reconstructed within his physique. His frame, which hinted at a formidable density, was twisted in places with a history of repeated destruction and regeneration upon closer inspection. It was a catalogue raisonné of gunshot wounds, stabs, burns, and lacerations; a map of damage and scars that was, simultaneously, a sexually magnetic body.

Baron tossed his crumpled shirt under the bed and asked, “So… you’re saying you’ve never done this before?”

“If I were to answer from a conservative perspective that presupposes penetration, then yes, that is correct.”

As he spoke, Bijou’s hand came up to rest over the long, old suture mark on Baron’s abdomen. Baron took the hand that was tracing the slightly blanched, sunken scar and moved it up to rest on his own chest. His pectoral muscles, not yet tensed, were what one might call plush—or perhaps soft. Baron’s eyes curved slightly as he recalled past lovers who had enjoyed touching his well-forged chest.

“Is that so? I don’t usually do virgins. They tend to be too high-maintenance.”

“I see. I shall take that into account.”

Bijou nodded. Baron wasn’t sure exactly how he intended to take that into account, but he covered the back of the boy’s hand with his own and slowly rubbed it against his chest. Following the moving fingertips, the chest muscles dipped elastically. Bijou tried to grip a handful of the skin where sweat was beginning to bead. The flesh, holding a hint of moisture, clung seamlessly to the hollow of his palm. Bijou spoke in a low voice.

“Your body is softer than it looks.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“I expect the application of that statement varies depending on where one places value.”

The kid loved to give ambiguous answers. Perhaps it was because he felt he had to choose words that wouldn’t offend anyone? But Baron didn’t have a strong enough stomach to have sex with a nice, polite doll. He asked back, “And what do you think about it?”

At this, Bijou couldn’t answer immediately and just blinked for a moment. With every opening and closing of his transparent eyelids, the shape of the light lingering in his pupils seemed to shift slightly. Having finished his deliberation, the boy cautiously parted his lips.

“I… think I like it.”

Slender fingers broke free from Baron’s grip and softly swept down the center of his chest. Lingering between the deep, soft cleft, the fingers searched for a warm resonance as they felt his upper body. After meticulously caressing the animalistic body, Bijou finally placed his hand stillly over the pulsing heart. A gaze of clear blue slowly climbed the lines of the body and came to a halt in front of Baron’s eyes.

“Because the people held in your arms will remember the softness.”

Fingers tipped with pale pink nails curled slowly, as if trying to grasp something. The faint strength applied by the tips of his nails couldn’t leave even the slightest mark. Nevertheless, Baron Lin thought that it felt as if the boy were trying to seize his heart.

A snickering sound of breath escaping slipped through Baron’s curled lips. He then interlaced his fingers with the hand resting on his heart and lowered his head. His lips touched the inside of the white neck. He didn’t lick; he simply pressed and rubbed with his lips firmly, as if tickling him. Bijou, who hadn’t been making much noise, let out a slender laugh and his shoulders trembled. It was a thin laugh, like the sigh of a bird.

Baron let out a languid sigh and buried his head deeper. Following the line of the throat down, he found the sharply protruding collarbones. As he kissed the perfectly symmetrical bones and gave them a light lick, the boy laughed weakly again. Dazed, loosened eyes looked down at Baron.

“It tickles…”

“You’ll get used to it.”

A tongue, peeking out from beneath his front teeth, rubbed the flat expanse below the collarbone. He could vaguely feel the shape of the bones aligned beneath the thin, fatless skin. His remaining hand hiked up Bijou’s top. Once he had folded the hem of the garment several times and hooked it over the chest, a pale and balanced torso, as if sculpted from plaster, was revealed.

By the canons of an unvarying principle of beauty, a layer of infinitely white skin was draped over a frame forged lean and long. It was a sophisticated beauty that seemed more suited for a museum’s ivory wall than the messy surface of a bedsheet. However, the ribcage, rising and falling rhythmically, looked like the body of a living, breathing thing.

Baron scanned the lines leading down to the flat, pearly belly and the narrow hips with a meticulous gaze, as if tasting with his eyes.

In a body so sparse of pigment, even the color of the nipples was pale. Baron took a light grey-red protrusion into his lips. It was smaller than an unripe bean. He circled and moistened the surrounding areola before flicking Bijou’s nipple with the tip of his wet tongue.

“Mm, that tickles…”

A sound like a sleepy whimper slipped from Bijou’s lips. Baron felt the white body trapped in his arms pull taut. From the long, slender neck—reminiscent of a water bird—to the pigeon-like tops of his feet, he was drawn tight like a single bowstring, trembling minutely.

Baron pinned Bijou against the mattress and swallowed the area of his chest as if taking a sudden bite. Faint teeth marks left a hazy indentation, and Bijou let out an ambiguous breath that was somewhere between a sigh and a laugh.

“Woah, ugh, mm…”

Keeping the tender skin wrapped in his teeth, Baron persistently licked and sucked the nipple in his mouth. Simultaneously, one hand passed over the hollow navel to grope between Bijou’s legs. As he swept up the contours of the lower body, which were becoming more prominent than usual, the boy’s shoulders shook silently. Spitting out the nipple he had been sucking on, Baron left a series of light kisses nearby and asked, “Does it still just tickle?”

“I’m still… not quite sure.”

A rosy glow was beginning to grace the cheeks of the cautiously answering Bijou. Baron simply gave a short, low laugh and began in earnest to pull down the boy’s trousers. As if his intent to learn the ‘new method’ was genuine, Bijou slightly lifted his hips to make it easier to strip the pants.

Baron pulled down the underwear and the pants caught on his fingers at the same time. The boy’s bare skin was exposed all the way down to his knees where the clothing bunched. The S2—2, designed to fulfill the role of an exemplary lover if necessary, had a purpose that could be guessed even by the form of his external genitalia.

Baron gave a wicked grin and cupped the slightly swollen mechanical member. Even as the quantified stimulus data passing through the pressure sensors at the body’s extremities was being analyzed into a new form, a low voice was breathed in like a whisper.

“You really don’t know?”

“Ah, ah…!”

As Baron slightly squeezed the shaft—which was much thicker than expected—with his palm, Bijou let out a short groan. Immediately after, Bijou flushed like a boy who had committed a shameful deed and brought his spread legs together. Even considering the years since his manufacture, it had been nearly thirty years, yet his attitude was absurdly innocent.

So, even a tin angel is an angel after all, is that it? A sense of sacrilege he didn’t usually possess tickled Baron’s waist. Using his fingers curled in a circle, he quickly stroked from the rounded glans down to the base. As the speed of that simple gesture increased, the heat generated by the machine became apparent.

“Mm, ugh, nng…”

“Is tickling all it is? Or is there… something else? You’re smart; think about it carefully.”

He whispered against the earlobe that was reddening along with the rising heat. A voice laced with laughter in every syllable seductively disrupted, or perhaps reset, the circuits. The naive machine was learning a new ‘feeling’ firsthand, based on intention, context, and sensory stimulation. Bijou looked at Baron with eyes that were wetter than usual.

“It is not yet clear, but…”

“Not yet clear?”

The tone of the question was quite tender. To this, Bijou squeezed his knees even tighter together, mulling over his trembling lips.

“It seems to be a stimulus that could be interpreted… in a positive direction…”

“Ahaha.”