6. Volt #4
Being gay was one thing, hardly even worth a second thought these days, unless someone was raised in an unusually conservative home.
But dating a spark was controversial. Dating a sexbot even more so.
Volt knew what people thought about when they saw him: sex. Some were disgusted. Some were aroused. But it was hard for him to escape it.
Was Wallace regretting being seen with someone who’d been created for others’ sexual pleasure?
It was all too possible.
Wallace had moved closer to the guitarist as the crowd ebbed and flowed, but Volt hung back.
There was a moment when the performer’s eyes fell on Wallace, and Volt could see Wallace lighting up.
“I missed your world tour,” Wallace gushed, “but I got your album from the live performance. The encore was your work, wasn’t it?”
Wallace just kept nodding along as the guitarist spoke, but Volt couldn’t focus on a word the man said.
Volt wasn’t meant for this place.
He didn’t follow performers with world tours.
Or if he listened to their music while he danced, he didn’t know anything more about them.
He didn’t have a bajillion dollar suit. He didn’t know these people, dripping with diamonds, who used their riches as an opportunity to meet the performers while the plebeians shuffled through the crowded lobby below.
Volt had been so proud to show off the little pieces of his life last week. To wander through the park while Wallace picked out paintings from the street artists’ booths and to gallantly buy him delicacies from the food truck.
The Conductor’s Circle was way out of his league.
He was, in fact, the eye candy.
The accessory hanging off of Wallace’s elbow.
Even if Wallace didn’t see it that way, everyone else would.
And it would only get worse as Wallace grew naturally older while Volt stayed perpetually young.
How could Wallace want that?
In the real world, in Wallace’s world, Volt wasn’t the Daddy.
He was the sex toy.
A chime sounded, the smooth golden sound ringing out from nowhere and everywhere. From the rise in conversation and the way people glanced at the door, this was the call to move to the concert hall.
Wallace gazed around, finally finding Volt a few steps behind him. He looked him up and down, brows wrinkled and not quite frowning. Wondering if he’d made the wrong choice?
“Is everything alright with, uh, Magnolia and Angel?” Wallace asked.
Volt blinked, thrown by the non-sequitur. He was worried about Prism and Angel all the time, and Magnolia hadn’t eaten much this morning, but… that was pretty much his baseline. He was always worried.
They were both fine right now, though, as far as he knew. “Yeah,” he answered. “They’re good.”
Wallace nodded. “Shall we take our seats?”
“Sure,” Volt answered, feeling like he’d missed something. Maybe it would be easier when they were seated, without anybody looking at them. They’d be able to relax and just enjoy the music, at least he hoped, when it was just the two of them.
Wallace pulled out his phone, using it to flash his tickets at no fewer than four ushers as they made their way to their seats.
Volt had known they were in the balcony, but he hadn’t understood it would be a private box until an usher opened the door and closed it after them. Red velvet padded the four chairs and the rising walls, extending to two curtains that looked ornamental but could possibly be pulled closed.
It was a miniature theater just for them. The two chairs in the front row offered a glimpse of the boxes on either side, but the back row, resting a step higher, was fully behind the dividing walls.
They had an excellent view of the stage, its heavy curtains still closed, with all the privacy that money could buy. Yet everyone across the rows of balconies could see them.
This was where you sat when you were rich.
If you wanted to show off.
Volt wondered if Wallace was regretting that choice now.
Volt waited for Wallace to take a seat, so he would know where to go.
But Wallace didn’t sit.
Wallace didn’t look at him either.
No, that wasn’t quite true. Wallace was sneaking glances at him from the corner of his eyes.
What did that mean? One of the things that made Wallace so special was his openness. The way he showed every emotion on his face.
“Do you want to be here?” Wallace asked in a small voice.
For a moment Volt held himself stiff. “Do I want to be here?”
“Yeah,” Wallace looked around, not meeting his eyes. “I know this was my idea for a date, and I guess it isn’t your thing. So we could leave and do something else. The, um, the ballet might still have tickets?”
Volt’s gears crunched, code skipping. His chest hurt, though none of his sensors registered pain. “Of course, I want to be here.” He wasn’t sure if Wallace wanted him here.
He stepped closer, risking a hand on Wallace’s arm. Where had everything gone wrong?
“Okay.” Wallace blew out a shaky breath, then started to move away. His shoulders were hunched up to his ears.
Oh, that was definitely not okay.
Volt’s Daddy instincts were going into overdrive. His baby was hurting, and even if he’d been the cause of it by being… well, by being what he was, he still wanted to fix it.
He tightened his fingers, spinning Wallace around. “Talk to me,” he demanded.
“Okay, um, Da— Volt? I just… If you don’t want to be here, you really don’t have to. We could go back to your place? Or… to the park? Maybe you’ll like it once the music starts?” He didn’t say it with any confidence, though.
Volt hated seeing Wallace like that. So eager to please.
No, that wasn’t it. He loved how eager Wallace was to please him, usually.
What he hated was how easily Wallace was willing to give up what he enjoyed for, what, basic affection? He hated how Wallace assumed that whatever was wrong was his fault.
Almost as much as he hated to hear his full name on Wallace’s lips, when he should have heard Daddy. Or the way that Wallace’s gorgeous brown eyes were luminous and wet with unshed tears, and not in a good way.
Where had Wallace gotten the idea that he didn’t want to be here?
Volt was supposed to be taking care of his boy. Making this a perfect night.
So, even if he was just a sexbot, even if this wouldn’t work out when Wallace realized how awkward it would be to date him, he had to fix it. He could deal with his own shit later.
With the last tiny bit of his attention that he was willing to spend on the outside world, he unhooked the velvet strap holding back the heavy curtain around their box and let it fall closed. It only covered half of their space, but it would offer his baby a little bit of privacy.
And then Volt couldn’t hold back any longer.
He pressed Wallace back into the wall, needing to touch him everywhere. To feel that perfect, plush skin yield under his fingers. To taste that sweet mouth, tangling their tongues together and then sipping at those plump lips.
Wallace clutched at his shirt, yielding to him, giving up everything to his Daddy the way that it was meant to be between them.
They communicated so well like this. No room for misunderstandings.
Volt pressed his thigh between Wallace’s legs, grinding until Wallace was whimpering against him. He wanted Wallace to feel him. Wanted Wallace to know who he belonged to.
“Daddy…” Wallace pleaded, panting and needy, making Volt feel like he was on top of the world again.
He slipped a hand between them, thumbing at Wallace’s nipple and making him moan.
He wanted Wallace to come at his hand.
Wallace whimpered again, stroking his flat palms to Volt’s chest.
No, not stroking. Pushing.
Trying to push Volt away.
Volt took a stumbling step back.
Shit. He’d fucked it up. Somehow.
Because they were at an orchestra concert. Where anyone sitting at the right angle could potentially see them.
Because Volt was too much of a stupid sexbot to remember that they were only supposed to hold hands here.
He really should probably just leave. He didn’t fit in here.
“Daddy?” Wallace asked, his voice gravelly.
God, he was an exquisite mess, his pink cheeks flushed and his hair mussed by Volt’s greedy hands. He looked so damned fuckable. So sweet.
“Sorry, baby,” Volt told him. Even though he wasn’t sure what all he was apologizing for. Being himself, maybe? Being a sexbot, a slave to his programming?
“Can you at least tell me what happened?” Wallace asked.
Ugh. Volt didn’t want to tell him. There was nothing Daddy-ish about it. This wasn’t who he wanted to be.
But it was Wallace, and he wanted this to work.
God, did he want this to work.
So he screwed up his courage and said it. “I realized that my tux was the same as all the staff were wearing. People were looking at us. They knew… They thought I was…” Maybe not all of them realized he was a sexbot, but he was definitely the eye candy.
The sugar baby, not the Daddy.
Just like he’d been with his ex—if you could even call Kurt that—going out to fancy dinners that Volt couldn’t eat, then stealing away for sex in different expensive and remote locations.
Volt had ignored a lot of red flags before he’d realized that he was the showpiece. The arm candy. The sexbot who thought he’d fallen in love with his client, when he was only supposed to be some symbol of Kurt’s sexual prowess.
Even when Kurt had offered to buy out Volt’s contract—because some hidden part of Volt’s psyche must have warned him not to tell Kurt that Magnolia had dissolved it already—Kurt had laughed and suggested that he’d get to keep Volt for his personal use.
Volt had thought he was Kurt’s Dom, but it was clear where all the power was in their relationship.
Not in a healthy kink way, where the sub’s limits were always respected, but in a toxic way where Kurt had never cared about Volt’s wants or needs in the first place, showering him with gifts instead of listening to his words.
“They thought you were the waitstaff?” Wallace asked, brows furrowing with worry. He was missing the bigger picture, but maybe that was for the best.
“Yep.”
“Ah,” Wallace exhaled, like this fixed everything. “That’s why you took some of it off?”