Citizen

The cake they’d prepared for his employee of the year celebration was perfect for Rob’s palate—light, airy, and semi-sweet—so naturally, he took only one slice. He ate it in small bites as his supervisor read off a list of his achievements: flawless attendance, 92.5% productivity, and a 45% increase in work satisfaction metrics as calculated by the smiling facial recognition device that sat at his desk. They pointed out how he excelled at his work and he should be proud.

He assured them, quietly, that he indeed felt overwhelming pride in his work.

Rob worked in the Vikander Building, an old stalwart of the golden age that still had kindly elevator operators wearing white gloves. As Rob entered the elevator, the operator greeted him by name.

“Evening, Mr. Robert. Heading out for the day?”

“I am, Sammy. How about you? Here for much longer?” Rob replied.

Sammy grinned. His white teeth glittered in the soft light reflected from the gold-plated fixtures lining the wall. Rob smiled back politely, the elevator descended. When they reached the ground floor, Rob said, “Smooth as ever, Sammy.”

In reply, Sammy tipped the brim of his cap. “Pleasant and safe evening, Mr. Robert.”

“Always,” Rob said as he walked away.

On the street there was the typical downtown bustle: busy, but controlled. Business people hurried around, parents with well-behaved children walked side by side. Even the chill in the air seemed manageable. Rob headed south from the Vikander past a roughly man-sized tower of cameras pointing in every direction sitting at the center of the square out in front of the building. Beneath it read: super omnia securitatis.

Rob had to break into a jog and even so just barely caught the burnished chrome streetcar waiting down the street before it buzzed to life again and headed off.

He took a seat beside a woman who gave him a reserved half-smile, which he returned before looking away. As he sat with his hands in his lap, Rob heard the two people sitting in the seats in front of him talking.

“And you’ve heard about the murder?”

“A murder? Here?”

“Yes. They say the head was nearly removed from the body…”

“But that’s obscene! Absurd! Who could kill someone and not imagined they’d be caught? This is the safest city in the world.” A pause. “But you say the head was cut off?”

“Very nearly. Apparently the whole scene was grisly. The body was dragged…”

“Oh, oh—” said one of them. “But what about the cameras? They didn’t see? How could they miss it?”

Rob stopped listening after that. He looked out the window of the trolley and watched as they moved from the arches and chevrons of the sleek, gilded downtown to the luxuriant-by-proxy semi-sprawl of stacked stucco facades that lined the streets of the outer neighborhoods like closed faces. The two passengers in front of him got off the streetcar, still loudly whispering about the outrageous violence until they were out of earshot.

After turning down a long hill, Rob’s apartment complex appeared: sprawling, complicated geometries of glass and sand-colored stone; it dominated an entire city block and more.

The inside of the structure offered little more clarity. Despite having been a resident for nearly five years, Rob still found himself occasionally turned around in the orgy of mezzanines, sub-floors, courtyards, and byways—a flow more complex than the human heart. And tucked into the corners of almost every wall were the ubiquitous cameras preserving security and order.

Rob made his way to his apartment door where he pressed his thumb into a recessed silver disk and after a momentary sensation of heat, heard the lock click open. He pushed into the apartment filled with the deliciously savory smell of spices and roasted food.

Adam greeted him with a kiss to the cheek and a hug. Underneath his thin sweater, Rob could feel the shape of his partner's muscular body.

“How was work?” Adam asked, leading Rob to a table already set.

As they ate, Rob told Adam about how he’d been awarded employee of the year. Adam shared in the happy news, even opened a special bottle of wine of which they each had a glass before clearing the table and retiring to the bedroom.

The two of them undressed in the dim room and Rob put his hands all over Adam’s athletic frame; their apartment complex offered a suite of exercise equipment and Adam made frequent use of them because he worked on the opposite end of the city and liked the convenience of exercising near home. Rob didn’t rush as he ran his fingers across the peaks and valleys of Adam’s chest and rigid abdominal muscles. His boyfriend flexed and preened with an amorous grin.

Adam started to fall to his knees, but Rob stopped him and descended himself. He made short work of Adam’s belt and fly, freeing his thick cock, and then Rob made short work of that, too.

Adam put his hands on Rob’s head and made a strangled groan as he came. Rob diligently swallowed the mouthful and more of briny cum and let Adam thrust in and out of his mouth, riding the last of the orgasmic high until he was wrung out.

“Now you,” Adam said. He started to sink to his knees again, but Rob put a firm hand on his thigh and shook his head.

“I’m tired. Tomorrow?”

After a moment of confusion or something like it, Adam nodded, and pulled Rob into a hug and a kiss. He contented himself with one squeeze of the solid bulge in Rob’s pants.

“Tomorrow,” Adam agreed.

Adam got ready for bed and Rob changed out of the collared shirt he wore to work and into a hooded sweatshirt. It bore the faded logo of the vocational training program Rob had attended before entering the workforce: a determined angel with a hammer in one hand and a scale in the other. Rob left the bedroom he shared with his boyfriend and went out to the spacious living room so he could exit onto the balcony. It was a short walkway shared by several units. No one else was out, which was typical. Rob kept later hours than most.

He pulled out a cigarette and quickly lit it. He took a few drags of it before hearing a clicking sound. Rob looked over to see a smooth metallic orb with a single camera lens of an eye hovering on thin wings and moving hummingbird quick. The orb repeated its clicking sound, and produced from beneath itself a slip of paper. Rob walked up to the surveillance device and took it.

The slip read: CITIZEN ROBERT M. CRAFT. YOU ARE IN VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 15.B OF THE CITIZEN’S REGULATION ON PUBLIC CIVILITY. YOU ARE TO PAY THE FINE BELOW OR RISK CENSURE.

Once the paper was retrieved, the surveillance orb played a chime concluding the end of their business and flew off, presumably to catch someone else doing something that they shouldn’t. Rob looked at the amount on the paper. It was slightly more than last time. He finished his cigarette before heading back inside.

When Rob popped his head into the bedroom and waved the small paper bearing the fine, Adam was brushing his teeth. Rob's partner looked at it and rolled his eyes, waving Rob off to deal with the ticket on his own.

Rob put on his shoes and went back out into the world.

He made his way down the street and on every other corner there were newspaper stands with headlines blaring talk of murder and criminal mischief in the Safest City. Elsewhere there were enormous posters bearing slogans reminding citizens to be WARY & WATCHFUL lest the city slink into the same morass of violence and vice as neighboring territories.

After about a mile of walking, Rob reached the brightly lit processing center which was little more than a wall of screens and open metal tabs hungry to devour the tickets of the citizenry. Rob pushed his ticket into a tab and it disappeared. He paid the amount that came up on the screens—slightly more than the one on the ticket itself—and received a date-stamped confirmation. Rob pocketed the slip and turned the corner instead of returning the way he came.

He stopped at an automat. It was mostly empty aside from a young couple sitting across from each other hand-in-hand, speaking in low tones while their coffees steamed. Rob looked up and down at the rows of food and drink behind glass. He settled on a slice of moist-looking chocolate cake and slipped a coin into the device. The glass lid however didn’t slide open. In fact, nothing happened at all for a very long time. Eventually there was a rhythmic set of clicks and a paper was produced.

It read: THIS MACHINE IS OUT OF ORDER. APOLOGIES. FOR A FULL REFUND, PLEASE TAKE THIS RECEIPT TO THE ADDRESS LISTED BELOW.

Rob palmed the paper and left the couple alone to their moon-eyed conversation.

The secondary location was a dim storefront with shaded windows. However, despite this overture to privacy, there were several cameras visible in the narrow shop. Rob walked up to the counter and placed his receipt.

The man behind the desk was a little older than Rob himself. He had strands of the gray shooting through his chestnut brown hair and beard. He didn’t have the chiseled physique that Adam did, but he was no stranger to lifting heavy things. He looked up at Rob from the book he was reading, which naturally had the logo of Certified Content in the upper right corner.

Rob placed his receipt on the counter between them.

“A malfunction?” the clerk asked.

“Yes. The automat on 18th.”

“You’re entitled to a refund.”

“I was hoping for store credit,” Rob replied.

“Store credit,” the clerk repeated.

The clerk set his book down. “Then would you like to see what items you can exchange your store credit for in the back?”

“Yes. Thank you. I would.”

The clerk stood and reached over to a break in the counter to lift it and allow Rob to come around it. From there they went through the door into a small backroom with a number objects on various shelves cataloged and tagged with prices. And no cameras. Not in the corners or on the shelves or drilled into the walls.

Once the door clicked shut behind them, the clerk’s demeanor changed. “Take off your clothes. We don’t have long.”

Rob took off his sweater and quietly stepped out of his pants. The clerk did the same and they both took an evaluative moment to look each other over before coming together. They kissed deeply, both their tongues searching each other's mouths, while the clerk played with Rob’s intensely stiff cock.

“Nice piece,” the clerk said breathily.

Rob didn’t answer, instead he reached behind the clerk and grabbed a handful of his ass. The clerk grunted and his dick bobbed. He even let Rob play with his hole, prying into it with a finger while they pressed against each other, both of their dicks leaving slimy trails on the skin of their stomachs.

The clerk reached over to one shelf and retrieved a small bottle which he uncapped and lifted to Rob’s nose.

Rob took a long inhale and sighed out a long breath.

“Fuck,” Rob said. His cock jumped, and the clerk took a few chemically enhanced breaths of his own before putting the bottle away and falling to his knees to see to Rob’s cock.

The clerk seemed an experienced cock sucker. He wasn’t shy about taking Rob’s length in his hands and his mouth. Rob was content to let him do whatever he wanted. While the clerk deep-throated his meat, Rob reached back up to the shelf and retrieved the little bottle to take another whiff of the fluid inside. His shivered and passed it to the cocksucker who took a few deep whiffs of his own, barely breaking his stride.

Rob swayed on his feet while the clerk worked the length of his shaft, paying special attention to the head. Rob made a noise that sounded almost like words, cleared his throat, tried again.

“I’m going to cum.”

The cocksucker continued to suck Rob off, harder now in fact. Rob squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered as his load was sucked out of him and swallowed by the clerk. The man on his knees continued to suck at Rob’s still hard cock until Rob backed away.

“Sensitive after, eh?” The clerk said as he got to his feet. He was stroking his dick, eyeing Rob dangerously. “All right then. What now? You wanna suck me?”

“I want you to cum on my face,” Rob said.

The clerk’s grin widened. “Get down on your knees. I’m gonna shoot soon.”

Rob did as he was told. His gray-blue eyes looked up at the clerk whose hand was a blur on his own cock.

“Pretty boy like you out at night looking for trouble. No one waiting for you at home, pretty boy?”

Rob stared at the clerk without blinking. “No. No one. Cum on my face. Hurry.”

The clerk took a step toward him and the only warning that he was ready to explode came as a single grunt. It began as a dribble and turned into a set of hard, explosives shots that coated Rob’s face and shoulder, then went even further to land on the pile of Rob’s clothes a few feet away. Rob rubbed his half-hard cock and licked his lips. He closed his eyes and massaged the cum into his skin.

“Liked that, eh?” The clerk stroked Rob’s hair.

Rob nodded and slowly opened his eyes. “Yes. Thank you.”

“No problem. Now you have to go.”

Rob nodded and began to get dressed.

The walk home was quieter. Rob walked by the same slogans promoting the benefits of a watchful society and heard the occasional buzzing of the hovering orbs taking pictures of him and the handful of other people shuffling down the street in the dark.

At his apartment, Rob placed his finger back onto the metal plate and was granted access to his living space. He went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and wiped at his face with a warm, wet rag. After that he climbed into bed beside Adam, who stirred as his weight shifted the mattress.

“Did you get the ticket taken care of?” Adam asked.

“I did.”

“Good. Those tickets get more and more expensive…”

“I know.”

A pause. Rob scooted across the bed and pressed his body against Adam’s. His boyfriend made the softest of groans.

“It’s a terrible habit you know. The smoking,” Adam said.

“I know.”