Grown Men

clippers, Runt ran them over his head haphazardly. He felt with his hands for any patches he might have missed and quickly buzzed his thick hair down to dark stubble.
    The glossy clippings covered the floor: dark seal brown even without being wet. Even two suns never managed to lighten his hair.
    Better.
    He looked at the ceiling and jets overhead snicked on; the hot cascade pelted his scalp and shoulders.
    He pumped a dollop of antibacterial lotion and lathered himself, trying to keep from getting distracted.
    Get it over with and get on with the damn day.
    He pumped his shaft quickly, rushing himself to orgasm with mechanical urgency. After about forty-five seconds of tugging, his muscles bunched, his balls tightened, and semen drooled out of him in thick blobs.
    The climax felt more like blowing his nose than satisfaction. Nothing at all like the patient, perfect polish Ox had given himself last night.
    His cock stayed stiff. Runt licked his lips.
    Trying to stifle his unrelenting hormones, he made himself catalog the kill-kit in his mind, the blades and poisons HardCell had sent to retire some other employee. Nothing sexy there.
    Ox hadn’t used it, but someone else could, some idiot with the wrong idea. Dispatch might send an assassin in the next crate or any after to finish the job. Or Ox might change his mind at any minute.
    Doubt sprouts.
    Runt spat at the drain. As his ma used to say, “A man is just a life support system for assumptions.” And Runt knew he made the same mistakes as any man . . . Had done, except when his parents had died and he’d taken to the spaceport streets. In a crowd of villains, preconceptions were blood in the water. Assumptions cost too much. Better to keep your eyes open and your heart shut.
    Runt had been battling this planetoid alone, and bad habits had sprung up like weeds; he’d let himself stand still and soften up before Ox came. As dumb as the greenest spaceport tourist, ripe for the pluck.
    Except . . . No matter how many weapons Ox owned or retirements he’d executed, he’d demolished every one of Runt’s assumptions before they’d turned him into a stupid fossil on this rock at the ass end of the universe.
    The water stopped falling. Steam rolled in the small space.
    When did I get so stupid?
    As soon as the door swooshed open, Runt caught a whiff of sweet pepper and protein. Ox pointed him to his seat, his deep-set eyes flickering in confusion at something.
    What—?
    Runt sat down, only then realizing he was still naked. He had forgotten his worksuit. His months of starvation had changed how he treated hot food, no two ways. “Gonna wind up a better cook than me, huh?”
    Ox’s bronze face pinked and wrinkled at the compliment; he shook his head.
    They ate in satisfied silence. Ox tugged at his sleep shorts awkwardly and dipped his head to steal a surreptitious sniff at his pits.
    “C’mon! You don’t smell. Sheesh.”
    Ox finished and sat fidgeting, his plate still half full. No surprise there, he had to eat three times what Runt could.
    “Not like I smell so pretty after I’ve showered.” Runt snorted and mock-gagged.
    Ox scooped up another bite of scramble.
    Standing up, Runt returned his dirty dishes to the cabinet. As soon as he’d sealed it, the cleaners thwicked on and he could hear the hot solvent sterilizing them for later.
    Ox wolfed his breakfast.
    Runt knew he didn’t like to miss swimming under the red dwarf. He noticed that the giant’s hair had bleached almost gold in patches from working outdoors, though his chest and pubes stayed brownish.
    Probably getting hot .
    Runt went to fetch the clippers and stood in the wash-space doorway. “Oi, big boy!”
    Ox turned, chewing, his face open. He nodded, once. His pulse throbbed in his stubbled throat.
    “Wanna hack a couple centimeters off? Cool off some?” He pointed at Ox’s sun-streaked hair. “It’s getting too long to scratch properly.”
    Ox swallowed a mouthful of spicy soy and stood.
    Runt laughed and waved a hand to keep him seated. “Finish your feed. I just thought—”
    But Ox just wiped his hands on his bare thighs and lumbered to the auto-privy. As he passed Runt in the door, he patted Runt’s fresh dark stubble in approval and winked.
    High praise!
    Runt shook his head, chuckling.
    The shower space was snug for two naked full-grown men, so Ox knelt, his face as high as Runt’s chest and not far from it.
    Runt carded the sandy strands with his stubby, calloused