Cold-Blooded: A DC Universe Fanfiction (#Wattys2015)

Chapter 5: Slade: Intimacies

A/N: This chapter assumes you know what two happily consenting adults might get up to in a hotel room without going into specific details.

Sometime the next day:

Slade Wilson got out of the taxi in front of the Imperial Hotel, glancing up at the winter sky as he hefted his overnight bag. Yukie had suggested the rendezvous, so she also chose the place. Rm. 1625 Imperial, she had texted, and here he was.

On the face of it, their liaison was exactly what all men supposedly want and women supposedly do not—no-strings-attached sex without demands—outside of the bedroom, that was. Yet he—his divorced wife dead, his surviving children estranged, the closest thing he had to a friend dead also—had nothing else in his life approaching a relationship. He might not even have permitted himself that, once the initial attraction was sated, but she did fill a deeper need than just the physical. They had been seeing each other for more than two years now.

Entering the cool modern lobby, he ignored the doorman and maitre d'hôtel, heading directly for the elevator. Yukie met him at the door in a long white robe. "Shower first?" she suggested, smiling. She was not seductive in any conventional way, and definitely did not fit any of the fetishized images Western men had of Asian women—she was too strange for that, too individual. Yet she held definite attractions for him, not least of which was his eventual plan for her. It was a shame about her weakness to heat, but as he had no intention of taking her out in the field, it didn't matter.

"Certainly," he replied. Two adults who knew each other well, and knew what to do for each other— after the shower, and what went on in there, and then in the bedroom, (enhanced strength and stamina came with distinct advantages, especially when a man was over fifty),Yukie laughed, low and throaty, and they rolled apart. Their exertions had brought a rose-pink flush to her face and other places which was very becoming.

"So," he said, reaching for the whiskey she had thoughtfully placed on the bedside table, and pouring each of them a splash, "what is that Freeze has going in Japan?"

"Nothing," she said, taking the glass from his hand. "The terms of our bargain were fulfilled as of yesterday afternoon. Nora Fries is alive, awake, and cured, and I have been compensated."

"Is she, now? I didn't know that was the deal between you." He propped himself up on one elbow. "What did you get, after twelve years?"

"That is between him and me," she answered. "But the end is an amiable one. I am not running off immediately. That would be irresponsible and rude. I do not believe Doctor Fries truly understands how much I took on over the years, so I shall stay long enough to put all in order and leave detailed notes."

"I imagine he is ecstatic," Slade commented.

"Would not anyone be, to see the work of thirty years come to fruition?" she countered.

"An answer that isn't an answer—how like you. Is he going to have anything to live on now? For that matter, are you?"

"Now that is a matter of public record and I do not mind talking about it. There will be income from various patents, of which my share is twenty percent. Most of them will mean little to you as they are only one step in a manufacturing process, but the most profitable is Sensorskin.®"

"Sensorskin®?" He sat up, the better to stare at her. "You mean the stuff they make those sex suits out of? Victor Fries, the man who spent over thirty years in faithful chastity to a cryocorpse invented the way to have sex without bodily contact? That casts a whole new light upon his character."

About four years earlier, the Itachi Corporation, well known manufacturer of erotic devices, had debuted an entirely new product line, garments (and other things) made of materials coated with a pseudofluid called Sensorskin® which both transmitted and received tactile sensations—in other words, the sense of touch, excluding the sensation of temperature. Ranging from the minimalist glove and swimsuit sets all the way up to full-body suits with all the accessories including virtual reality visors and priced accordingly, the suits had suddenly made it possible to have remote sex without touching, without meeting face-to-face, without even knowing the gender of the other party, and most especially, without risk of pregnancy or disease.