by Alana Khan
As I watch him, I catch his disgruntled expression as he notices I’m not getting busy. Before he can scold me, I cover my face with the blanket, slam my eyes shut, and slip my fingers toward my happy spot. I have a time-worn formula, too. Even with this awful situation, between my efforts and a little spit, I think I’m ready.
I peek out from the covers to see lion guy is steel hard and ready for action.
“I’m...I’m ready,” my voice is whisper-soft and shy. I slip back under the covers like a prairie dog hurrying to hide in its den.
“Turn over.” This is an order. I do as I’m told and get on all fours. This entire day, this entire process is so surreal; I’ll pretend I’m in a dream. I can’t afford to tune in to my panic right now, I just have to go through the motions and get this over with. The picture of that alien’s head exploding is a strong incentive to do what I have to do in this tiny bed.
He slips the covers up, and then I feel his weight on the bed. He gently lifts my middle a bit higher, fits himself behind me, then dispassionately slips a finger inside me. Satisfied I’m ready, he presses his cock against my entrance and waits, giving me time to adjust. He eases in gently, then pulls back, then presses in slightly more. If I’m not mistaken, he’s trying hard to give my body time to accommodate to his enormous equipment.
There’s nothing sensual here, neither of us is interested in enjoyment, but I have to give him credit; he’s trying his best not to hurt me. The way he’s managing this process, giving my body time to adapt to this invasion, seems far more considerate than I would have ever expected. When he’s finally fully seated inside me, he executes three carefully-disciplined thrusts, grunts no louder than a sigh, and completely retreats.
His mouth comes close to my ear, his chest touching my back for the first time. His warm breath fans my skin as his husky voice whispers, “I’m sorry.”
Chapter Two
Anya
I’m not sure my life could get any weirder. The entire landscape of my existence has turned upside down in the last few hours. I don’t have the heart to even think about the goal of this little exercise, which must be to impregnate me with lion sperm. I don't want to envision the half human/half lion whose cells might be multiplying in my uterus right this very moment. Despite my efforts, my mind flashes me a picture of an alien baby; a frisson of fear immediately bolts up my spine.
I’m trying desperately not to feel sorry for myself or worry about what the future holds or wonder where I am or where I’m being taken. I forbid myself to think of Mom, Dad, my two sisters, and my great friends back in Denver. I can mourn their loss later. I need to focus on this moment, right now. I need to pee, clean my leaky nether regions and get back to the corner of my cell to take just a few minutes to cry. I think I’ve earned it.
After the peeing and cleaning, but before my well-earned complete nervous breakdown, I hear a commotion coming from down the hall. It’s impossible to know what’s going on, the solid walls between cells only allow me to see the metal wall through the front bars of my cell. It sounds like the guards are taking the girls out, then bringing them back. Whatever is going on out there, and however awful it is to be in this cell, fear flares, clenching in my belly.
Lion guy is lounging on the bed, leaning against the wall again. I can tell by his blank expression that he’s completely checked out.
“What’s your name?” If I don’t distract myself, I’m going to completely lose my mind. Besides, I’m tired of thinking of him as Lion Guy.
“Zar.”
“I’m Anya, thanks for asking,” I snap, then pause, wondering if more venom is going to spew out. I’m hovering between two emotions. I’m on the cusp of unleashing a blistering tirade at him, blaming him for the fact that his sperm is trailing down my thigh at this very moment. But I know he was no more a willing participant in what just happened than I was. The other part of me just wants to collapse in a heap on the floor and go completely catatonic.
“This is the worst day of my life.” I’m standing across from him, hands fisted to keep control of my emotions, which are toggling from abject fear to roiling anger. My teeth are clenched, and every muscle in my body is tightly coiled.
I’m about to launch into an angry monologue, then stop abruptly, like the wind unfurled from my sails. It’s not his fault. He didn’t ask for this any more than I did. Look at him; he’s in his own little world, no happier than I am. My emotional rollercoaster speeds right past anger and stops at sadness.
“Don’t cry, Anya,” I whisper to myself even as hot liquid gathers behind my eyes and my chin quivers. “Shit.” I don’t want to cry. Crying feels like weakness, but I can’t control the tears that are snaking down my cheeks.
He shakes his head, bringing himself back to the present, then gives me full eye contact for the first time since we met. He stares for a long moment, then leans toward me, elbows on his thighs.
“There’s no way to make this easy for you...” His eyes search the ceiling as he appears to fish for something to say. “Being a slave is a hard life. It’s unpleasant to know you have no choices, no control over even your own body, that you must do everything the guards order. I’m sorry you had to endure…” He glances down at the bed.
“I hate to be the one to tell you that your old life, whatever it was, will never return.” He looks at me directly and adds gently, “There is no escape.”
Two tusk guys are at the cell door as if on cue. Zar is already on his knees, facing the back wall, hands on his head. Perhaps I’m crazy, but I think he’s doing that to protect me, not himself. He didn’t comply with their order to get on his knees before they threw me in his cell.
The tusk guys force me down the narrow metal-walled hall at gunpoint to an exam room that’s apparently part of the medical facility. In one simple nanosecond, every single National Enquirer story I’ve ever read about alien abductions flashes through my mind. I can’t get the words “anal probe” out of my mind; a bolt of cold fear shoots up my spine.
The room is stark, with robotic, high-tech machines attached to the wall—they look like they’re out of a sci-fi movie. The alien doctor is waiting for me. He’s not wearing a white coat, just a navy blue jumpsuit and the fakest, most smarmy smile I’ve ever encountered.
He’s way more humanoid than the tusk people. He’s human-sized, human-shaped, human in almost every way, except for the sky blue skin. Slightly handsome, his face has those sunken cheeks and sharp blue eyes that are straight out of central casting for a generic movie villain of the good-looking variety.
“Hellooo,” he says cheerily. “Now who have we here?”
I give him an icy stare. I’m not going to make this easy for him. He wants a complete chart on me? Wants my medical history? Well, they should have thought of that before they beamed me aboard.
“A first name at least,” he wheedles. “I’d hate to have to call you Patient C throughout the exam.”
Icy stare. Feet planted. Maybe it’s because we’re alone in this room with no boar people, or the fact that his collar controller is sitting on the counter a few steps away, but I’m feeling emboldened
“Well, let’s just get you up on the exam table.” He pats it twice, decisively.
Angry glare, feet still planted. I imitate Zar’s feral don’t fuck-with-me look. What do you know? It works. His shoulders sag and his eyes inspect the floor. I get the distinct impression he doesn’t want to be doing this any more than I do. His attitude is nothing like the aggressive, threatening guards.
“Look, Patient C, it is my job to ensure that intercourse and ejaculation have occurred in the proper, um, place. It will make it easier on both of us if you just,” he pats the table again, twice in quick succession, “hop up here and let me take a quick look.”
He has a speculum in hand and actually quacks it like a puppet mouth to emphasize the words, “quick look.”
“You’re a doctor? Where I come from doctors have to take an oath that says, ‘above all do no harm.’” I give
him the full force of my patented stink eye. “You went to school to be a doctor, a healer? And your mission on this ship is to look up my vajayjay to make sure the alien I’ve been forced to mate with has ejaculated in the correct hole? Really? You can go fuck yourself.”
He looks at me, stricken. “Fuck? Myself?”
He’s incredulous, obviously not understanding the idiom. I can see that I’m getting to him. Maybe there’s no way to break out and pilot an alien spacecraft back to Earth, but perhaps I can connect with this guy. Maybe trigger his guilt and garner his help.
“Seriously, you went to years of school. Even though you’re from a different culture, you had to have wanted to be a healer when you were younger, right? You’re on a slave ship. You’re double checking the culmination of enforced rape. You understand you’re actively harming sentient beings, right? How do you look yourself in the mirror?”
Oh goodness, I really think I’ve gotten to him. His plastic happy look has completely evaporated and his cheek muscle is twitching restlessly. He’s silent for a long while, his face stony. “Let’s get you up on the table now.” He’s looking over my right shoulder, avoiding my eyes.
All right. I think I’ve gone as far as I’d better go today if I want to stay alive. Perhaps, though, I’ve made him think.
I pull off my pants and hop up on the table. Although the doctor is blue and I’m on high alert, the procedure isn’t more uncomfortable than my annual exam back home. The entire assessment takes all of two minutes.
“The guards, the Urluts, will order you and your cellmate to have intercourse every day, and you will be brought to me daily confirm it. It would be much more pleasant for us both if you were to be more cooperative in the future.” He gives a slight bow. Still avoiding eye contact, he lets me pull my clothes back on, and escorts me to the door.
~.~
Surprisingly, Zar’s facial muscles slacken in relief after the Urluts unceremoniously deposit me back in the cell. He's crouched in my corner, a silent invitation for me to have the bed. I suddenly realize I haven’t slept in...I have no idea how long. But I’m tired and ravenous, as well as scared and angry and lonely for family and friends.
I see some kind of food bars on the floor of the cell. They must have tossed them in when they brought me back. I grab them, drop half in Zar’s lap, and plop on the bed.
“Are these edible?”
“They are nutritious, not delicious.”
I doubt they rhyme in his language, but they do in mine and at the moment, sleep deprived and hungry, it strikes me as utterly hilarious. I laugh for at least a minute, feeling more and more insane as the seconds tick by, but I just can’t stop giggling.
“You should eat, then sleep.” He pauses for a long time, then he asks, sincere concern radiating from his golden eyes, “What did they do to you?”
“No anal probe,” I say delightedly while waving my half-eaten bar, and then giggle some more. I can see he actually wants to know I’m okay, and my manic behavior is not reassuring him.
“Medical inspection to see we followed orders,” I add more soberly.
He nods, eyes skittering from mine. He probably suspected as much. It may be my first day in captivity, but it is certainly not his first time at the rodeo.
Zar
She wolfed down two food bars, opened the third and fell asleep with it still in her hand. I do have empathy for this female; it’s clearly been a long, grueling day for her.
I don’t want to wake her, but I can’t sit here on the floor all night. We’ve already mated, so I don’t imagine crawling into bed with her would be all that upsetting. Moving over to the bunk, I gently slide in behind her, my back scraping the wall, and loosely hang my arm over her midsection. Before I lay my head onto the mattress, I take a moment to look at her more closely.
At first, I’d found her flat face and beige flesh to be singularly unattractive. Now I see tiny variations on her skin with interesting little brown dots on her cheeks and nose. Her features seem soft and sweet, especially when she’s sleeping. Short, light brown curls halo her face. Her pink mouth looked pretty when she smiled.
I lay down, pondering why, after all the males and females I’ve been forced to couple with, I’m feeling intrigued by this female. I thought sexual attraction was yet another emotion I had forced far into the recesses of my mind and completely locked away.
I clench my jaw and turn off all thoughts and feelings. I discovered annums ago that this is the best way to tolerate my captivity.
Anya
It’s almost as if someone has called me awake from inside my head. I hear the words, “Wake up,” but I don’t hear them through my ears. My eyes pop open and the first thing I’m aware of is Zar’s warm, furred body covering my back like a second skin.
I feel like I’m being stared at, so I glance out the front of the cell to see an elf-like creature. She’s three feet tall, maybe less. Her body appears lithe and graceful. Her eyes are uptilted and a shade of jade green so luminous they look lit from within. She has elf ears like in the movies—they are oblong and point up and back. She catches me looking at her and returns my glance expectantly.
I silently wonder if she’s a prisoner or staff.
Prisoner. I hear inside my head.
You can hear my thoughts? I project the question toward her.
Yes, her voice, from inside my head, sounds as surprised as I feel.
How come you have the run of the ship?
I’m the captain’s pet. I’m so small and powerless they pay little attention. I have the captain’s protection.
I’m Anya. Nice to meet you.
Tyree.
Why did you wake me?
I just wanted to talk. I’ve never been able to have this kind of telepathy before. In the past, it’s only been if someone asked, and wanted it, like the captain. I’ve never been able to wake someone out of a sound sleep before.
This is blowing my mind, I admit.
Me too.
Tell me, is there any way off this ship? Any way to escape? I want to barrage her with more questions, but I quiet those thoughts.
I’ve been a slave for a long time. On this ship for about one of your years. I have some ideas, but I don’t think any would work.
Desperate, I pepper her with questions and learn a lot of useful information. It’s clear she isn’t any happier about being a slave than I am. She uses her budding powers of telepathy to cure the captain's anxiety and chronic insomnia. She stays in his room every night, lying on the floor at the foot of his bed, and soothes him to sleep with her abilities.
Because she has always been a model prisoner, she has the complete run of the ship. The guards treat her like she’s of no more consequence than a potted plant. The captain wants her on the bridge with him, where she calms him during the day.
Could you fly this ship? I ask boldly.
I’ve watched everything they do. I know a lot more than they suspect. But...I would never want to mislead you into thinking I could fly this ship on my own.
I’m sure she didn’t need her powers of telepathy to read my dejection.
You do want to escape? I ask.
Of course, I think we all do. If it weren’t for the collars, I think we would have fought them a long time ago.
I’m not giving up, I tell her. There’s got to be a way out of here for all of us.
The cell block door opens and Tyree scurries into the shadows as an Urlut stomps through the hallway doing a bed check.
With Tyree gone and nothing to distract me, I find my attention completely consumed by my proximity to my feline cellmate. His heavy, furred arm cradles my waist; his muscled front is plastered to my back. I don’t know what time it is, but my spidey senses indicate my bedmate has a severe case of “morning wood,” because it’s pressing insistently into the back of my thighs. He’ll need that in a few hours when we’ll be forced to “complete the act” on the Urluts’ schedule.
I drift back into an uneasy s
leep with the words “surreal,” and “lion-man,” and “breeder” swirling through my dreams.
Zar
I’m rudely ejected from deep sleep to fully awake by the Urluts’ loud commands to mate. They inform us males that yesterday’s abnormal one-day vacation from the ludus (gladiator school) is over and that we’ll be taken to the gymnasium to work out as soon as our bed duties are complete. That suits me just fine. I didn’t know what to do with myself yesterday with all that time on my hands and nothing to do. I’m used to lifting weights and sparring all day every day. It’s good that way—less time to think. And besides, I have absolutely nothing to say to this female, much less be alone with her in this cell all day.
I watch as Anya wakes with a groan, her face constricted in dismay.
I was basically born into captivity, at least as far back as I can remember. Annums ago, after many unsuccessful attempts to escape, I gave up any hope of freedom. Anya has had only one day to become accustomed to the reality of her imprisonment. I can see by her tight muscles and angry eyes she desires no part of the Urluts’ breeding program, nor does she want any part of me. I don’t blame her. Neither of us wants anyone telling us who to share intimacy with.