The Mask of Omegon (Gwen Farris Book 6) (8 page)

The idea was clear in how he said
the words. The guy wasn’t asking if she thought he’d be
allowed
to go
and work. As a Baron he’d be certain to get in on the crew by asking. Even if
him being there cost the company money in the long run. What he wanted to know
was if he could, physically, pull the job off.

Gwen nodded. He seemed to be in
decent condition, actually.

“It will be hard. You’ll be bored,
sore and short on sleep at times. Still, you can do it. More to the point,
Tomas Moore can. We’ll need to hide who you are, of course.”

There was a slow nod then.

“To preserve the family name? I can
see that. Particularly if I fail miserably at it.” He sounded so earnest that
it almost hurt to listen to.

He was also wrong.

“You’d think, right? No. We have to
hide who you are so that the crew won’t freak out and try to do all the work
for you. That would be worse than not having you along. I’ll set that up. Can
you get away? You work as a legal clerk during the day?” That suddenly seemed
unlikely, but he had mentioned being a bit strange.

Tomas shook his head though.

“I… Rather invented that part.” His
voice shifted then, becoming deeper, and different. The Baron on the telestator.
“Tomas Moore? A fine fellow, or so I’ve heard! Wonderful hands on that boy.
Great for stroking…” He stopped, and sucked his lips in. Seeming mischievous.

Gwen got it for once. They’d
actually
done
that one after all. She wasn’t very good at it, but he’d
been pleased enough at her efforts, she thought. Not that there wasn’t room for
improvement there.

Then he shifted, to his boss at
work. A man that didn’t exist at all.

“Several weeks off? To go fly
around and waste his time? Certainly! We don’t really need him here anyway. Why,
have him take a few months. We’ll just send his pay envelope along each week.
Never a problem!”

Gwen nodded, then stuck her tongue
out. It didn’t really translate, but the man at least got she was responding to
him.

“Dang. You really do go all in,
don’t you? Well, do that as a loader and you’ll fit in. Then, after a run or
two, we leak to the press who you really are. How you’re helping the economy
along with your own efforts,
before
going in for special training and
military work. The trick will be getting you in someplace I can visit each
night. That means getting your own room. That or being understanding when your
roommate joins us. That sounds awkward, though.” She meant it, but had seen a
lot of porn in her life. She’d just never considered herself as being part of
that kind of thing.

Not that she really was at the
moment either. Having a boyfriend was novel
enough
for her really. She
didn’t have to load in ten other guys on top of that. Which was a relief to
know about herself. She’d always kind of figured that if she liked sex she’d go
crazy with it, seeking to do nothing else. It
was
fun and a thing she
wanted more of, but a lot of that was about the closeness to someone else. Gwen
would have been nearly as happy getting regular hugs.

Not that doing other things was bad
at all.

Tom stood up then, pacing a bit.

“Let’s try that? I’ve been a bit at
loose ends for a while. The next Omegon book won’t be going out for two months,
but the work is done on it. Things are a bit slow, socially, given the war
going on. People seem to think it a little crass to hold grand parties while
others die and suffer in camps.”

That got her to stand up, nodding.

“On that line, I’m going to go and
see about some things. Is it all right for me to come back here? I can call
first. On the telestator? I’ll need the code for that.” If she didn’t have it
in her notes.

Scrambling, Tomas moved to find a
real calling card for her. This one proclaimed him as being a Baron and
everything. Not an artist at all.

“This will do the job. I have a
secretary that will know where I am. Why would you need to contact me first?
I’m almost always here. Unless I sneak out to play in the cave. I mentioned the
part where I’m a bit strange, didn’t I?”

She snorted hard enough that it
hurt a bit.

“Um, so that if you’re doing some
other woman I won’t pop in on you suddenly? You aren’t married, so… Your
girlfriend? You don’t get a mistress until you get hitched, right? That’s a
rule. I think.”

He scratched his nose, hiding a
smile at the same time. A bit obviously, but at least he was trying.

“
That’s
a vote of
confidence, isn’t it? I barely even know any women other than you. I can assure
you they aren’t decorating my bed with any regularity. Really, it’s only been
you… And Regina. Which was a mistake. If I’d had more experience, then I
probably wouldn’t have been as entranced with her. Do you… Have many men
friends?”

“Nope.
I’m
still a virgin. I
mean, me, Gwen. Everything that I’ve ever done has been with you, except a few
kisses. That was all Duke Aubrey. We used to be engaged. That fell through when
I went missing for three years. He got married. I hear she’s nice?” From
several sources. Including Christoph.

Her boyfriend grimaced a bit at the
news.

“Um, not to be indiscreet, but…” He
blushed, a bright red color that had to mean he was close to passing out.

She didn’t get it at all.

Interestingly, the voice in her
head did.

~He wants to know if you have any
girlfriends. A bit cheeky of him, asking about that so soon. Still, there is
that wonderful comic with us in it. Really, Gwen, you should give it a try
sometime. There’s a certain naughtiness to it all. I’ll be quiet now. I hope
this doesn’t ruin my reward time? It’s a bit of a breach of the rules, but I
actually like this one. You should try to keep him. At least for a while.~

Then the voice went silent. There
were rules about Katherine not taking over, but nothing about her speaking like
that, Gwen realized. She almost never
did,
though it was obvious she was
trying to be helpful. Probably to get more rewarding pleasure. It had kind of
worked the other night, after all. She’d swallowed, which had gotten her a full
hour.

Instead of being punished for
taking over. That was probably horrible training for both of them. Gwen needed
to learn how to do things for herself. Quickly too, or her new friend would get
bored.

“I don’t have any girlfriends
either, rumors aside. Not that I couldn’t try that out. I haven’t done much,
you know? I… That’s my deep dark secret. The thing that even though I tell
people, the press has covered up for me.” She stopped as normal color tried to
return to Tom’s face.

“What’s that then?” The words were
simple enough. Plain and almost relieved. Not even asking if she used to be a
man, which would have been
her
go to question, if the roles were
reversed. Though it was clear she wasn’t one now, which might be all that
counted to him.

It was hard to know.

“I was born deformed. Crippled.
Vastly so. Enough that in my own world random people would call me names,
sometimes attacking me. I was small. Like a midget, or dwarf.” Holding a hand
out she gave an idea of her former size. “The left half of my body was shrunken
and distorted. The right half was bigger, but lumpy in places. I know that it
doesn’t seem like it now, but that shaped who and what I am. I’d never had a
kiss in my entire life, before coming here. Rarely a hug, even from my supposed
family. So everything that way is new to me. Completely. Katherine did some
freaky stuff, but that wasn’t me. Not that I blame her really. It’s fun.” She
grinned a bit then, but knew that she’d seem worried at the same time.
Admitting what she’d been born as was a risk, after all.

The man next to her just held her
then. It was a warm thing. Close and nearly caring.

“You poor thing. That must have
been
so
hard. Things can be better than that. I know they can.” There
was a kiss to go along with the words. She still wasn’t doing it right, which got
her to laugh when he pulled back.

“Like that. I don’t know how to do
anything, really. I was thinking I’d try some lessons? I have a friend that
does that kind of thing. For noble kids? I’d never considered it for myself.
That might be awkward.” Carla wasn’t bright really.

Not around either. The woman was
off, working for the Westmorlands as chance would have it. When she wasn’t
helping kids learn the ropes from a woman that didn’t work in a whore house
directly. That was considered a bit less risqué. Especially for the girls. How
that was done, Gwen didn’t really know. Carla didn’t strike her as the kind to
lean too hard on text books for instruction.

Rather than agree or disagree with
her plans, Tom just nodded.

“We have things to get to then? I
should contact my legal team. Nothing pressing should come up, but if I’m to be
gone for several months, working and training, I need to set some things in
motion. How long do I have?”

She didn’t know for certain, but
thought for a bit and guessed. Then shortened the time by a bit. Groundling had
suggested four days. That was probably the time they were actually going to be
leaving at, not when the work had to be done.

“Three days? We need to be ready
earlier, rather than later. Get as much sleep as you can now, since it can be
hard to get when loading or unloading. Working for a full day at a time isn’t
unheard of. So if you need drugs for that, to keep you alert, get them before
you leave.” It was a plan, actually.

They had things like that, which
for some reason had never been made illegal. They also had people that abused
them. They tended to be a lot cheaper than back home though, so it didn’t lead
to a lot of crime or ruined lives. Even drinking didn’t, since almost no one
ran cars. Lorries, there. Running the world off of magic saved a lot of
problems that way.

Leaning in, she hugged her new
friend again, then let go and left, teleporting away. Not to her hotel room,
which she decided to leave the next morning anyway. No, she went to Westmorland
Central. That way she could get with some people about a training program.

It was a bit late and no one she
knew well that could help her with the pleasure device was around. Not at
first. In the end she had to knock on a personal room door, to roust the one
person that she knew for certain would be able to help her. Other than Beth.
Her friend
would
have, even in the middle of the night, but she was
being given a lot of rest. Besides, she lived in a different part of the
compound. One that wasn’t actually part of the base itself, being a nice house
outside the wall. With her husband. Martin Cordell.

The ex-anti-Westmorland hate group
leader.

It was a change up, to say the
least. He was doing pretty well, Gwen had heard, since he, and James her old
driver, had gone into business together. Making a new style of running shoes.
They were already popular enough that she’d seen people wearing them on the
street. Mainly kids, but they were superior in fit and comfort to everything
else you could get on the market there.

She had a pair of her own, in
lady’s pink, for runs. Which she needed to get to soon. She’d cut back a bit on
her exercises. Doing enough to stay in shape, but not so much that she couldn’t
gain some weight. That had been surprisingly hard for her to manage however.

The door opened, with Adam
Westmorland sticking his head out. He was in a long night shirt, one that
screamed that he was in a black and white movie to her. His face didn’t look
happy to see her, at first. After a moment he shook his white haired head and
smirked.

“There was a time when a young
woman knocking at my door at this hour wouldn’t have gotten a scowl at all. Now
I just have to wonder at it happening. Is there an issue? An emergency?” He
sounded almost kind, which had to be the sleepiness talking.

The man hated her after all. For
all he was probably one of her top ten best friends in the world.

“I can’t have come just to visit?”
She hadn’t, of course. Which he knew, instinctively.

“That doesn’t seem likely. So?”

“Right. I need to have someone run
the pleasure device for me? Everyone else I know that can run it is gone. Also
I need to go over a training program. For Baron Tomas Harrison? So we need to
not use the standard protocols, but we still need something that will work.
He’s planning to enlist in the military. Strong magic user though and in decent
physical shape, which can’t hurt.” Then she shrugged, not trying to show what
it meant with a hand flip. “Also, it occurred to me that I should be helping
get POWs back. Um, prisoners of war? I can teletransport them out, if I can get
enough information on them? Names and…”

The man blinked at her, then
sneered. For once it didn’t seem to be about her at least.

“That… We have a few others that
would be best utilized doing that as well. That I never even considered it…
Gah. I’ll start that up in the morning. I have to run it past the king first,
of course, but I doubt it will be an issue. What do you have in mind for the
Baron? That might be difficult for our trainers. Addicting him to pleasure
isn’t…”