“It’s the E’lo stone of course.” Mistress Hellenix waved a hand dismissively, as though Nikki should already have known this. “It grants immediate translation and language ability at the moment of transfer.”
“You mean this purple M&M-looking thing?” Nikki held hers up and Mistress Hellenix nodded and held hers up as well.
“I assume you found yours on this beach where I have been stranded?” she asked, frowning.
“Well, yes.” Nikki nodded. “What about you? Where did you find yours?”
“I didn’t find it—I own it. I own both of them, actually, but Commander Sylvan of the Kindred told me one had been lost in the oceans of Earth. The one you found must have washed on shore and you picked it up just as I was pleasuring myself with the other.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Nikki asked. “I mean, I thought you said you were, uh—”
“Pleasuring myself,” Mistress Hellenix said breezily. “The E’lo stone vibrates so nicely—I like to use it when I take my daily rejuvenation treatment. The virgin yerba-blood is especially good at conducting vibrations.”
“What?” Nikki asked again blankly. Was she really saying she got off while she was lying in that bathtub filled with blood? How disgusting! And virgin yerbas? She had thought—hoped—that the blood came from animals. Now she wasn’t so sure. Was her evil twin a serial killer? “How many people did you kill to get that blood?” she demanded. “What kind of a person are you, anyway?”
“People? Don’t be silly. Yerbas are little fluffy yellow creatures that live on Creetson Four. You just have to bleed them before they mate or else the blood is toxic,” Mistress Hellenix sniffed. “Anyway, we were both touching the stones at the same time and you, are apparently, an exact genetic match for me. Otherwise the E’lo stones couldn’t have transported us into each other’s lives.”
“Well, let’s make them transport us back out again!” Nikki exclaimed. “I mean, you have a really nice place here, don’t get me wrong, but I’m over an hour late for work now and there’s no way my boss will believe I got transported to another planet by a purple M&M! It’s just not a credible excuse for being late.”
“It’s not that easy,” Mistress Hellenix snapped. “Or it would have already happened.”
“Well, how do we make it happen?” Nikki demanded. “It’s not just work I’m missing—I have to go to my twin’s school for their 504 Plan meeting. If I don’t, their benefits will get slashed.”
“Goddess give me strength!” Mistress Hellenix rolled her eyes. “I can see I’ll be dealing with a lot of mundane tasks while I wait for you to get to me.”
“While you wait for me to get to you? Why can’t you come to me? Or why can’t we get the stones to switch us back?” Nikki asked.
Her evil twin gave a long-suffering sigh.
“Don’t you know anything about E’lo stones at all?”
“Uh, no.” Nikki glared at her. “How would I? I’m a realtor—not an expert on weird alien rocks that whisk you halfway across the universe the minute you touch them.”
“All right, to be fair, not many are well-versed in E’lo lore,” Mistress Hellenix said grudgingly. “And to be honest, even those of us who have studied the ancient E’lo civilization and their technology still don’t know everything about them. But from what I understand, the stones can only transport those who are an exact genetic match—such as you and I must be.”
“But…how is that possible?” Nikki asked blankly. “I mean, I’m an only child. I’m pretty sure my mom would have told me if I had a twin.”
“Not twins—genetic matches,” the other woman corrected her. “Haven’t you heard it said that everyone has at least one perfect double in the universe?”
“No—no I haven’t,” Nikki said. “But I guess you must be right—we must be, uh, really close in make-up to have switched like we did.”
“Exactly. Now, to my understanding, the E’lo stones work only once. So you must come to me so that we can have our own lives back again. Oh, but not right away.” She got an annoyed look on her face. “The Banquet of Pain—I forgot all about it.”
“The Banquet of what?” Nikki was certain she’d heard her wrong.
“The Banquet of Pain—it’s a gathering of all the Mistresses on Yonnie Six who believe in the use of corporal punishment to train our slaves. I preside over it every year and I can’t back out now! You’ll just have to go in my place.”
“But…but I don’t know anything about training slaves,” Nikki protested. “I’ve never even owned any!”
“That’s too bad—you’ll just have to manage,” Mistress Hellenix said stonily. “And anyway, all you really have to do is give the opening address and then you can enjoy the rest of the banquet.”
“The opening address?” This was getting worse and worse. Nikki wasn’t one of those people who feared public speaking more than death, but she did at least like to be know a little about the topic she was speaking on and Mistress Hellenix’s lifestyle was completely foreign to her.
“Look, you’re going to love it.” The other woman waved a hand dismissively. “There will be vendors from all the training companies with examples of the latest nerve-conduction pain response devices and the food is fabulous—yoan grubs as big as your fist and rare loa fruits that will make you as horny as an ursus! I think we might even have some dream gas this year. Honestly, I’m sorry to miss it. It’s the social event of the season among the pain crowd.”
“When…when is it? Is it tonight?” Nikki asked faintly, wondering how long she had to prepare for this awful party. Nothing Mistress Hellenix was telling her about it made her think she would “love” it at all.
“Tomorrow night,” the other woman said briskly. “And you can leave to come get me as soon as it’s over. Tell my primary bodyslave, Malik, to ready the long-range cruiser—he can pilot it as well—and have him bring you here to…what is this place again? I know it’s somewhere on Earth but where?” She looked around herself disdainfully.
“You’re in the Tampa Bay area,” Nikki told her. “But why don’t we meet somewhere in the middle—wouldn’t that be faster?” Maybe it would even be fast enough so she didn’t have to attend the awful Banquet of Pain!
“It would be.” Mistress Hellenix nodded. “Do you have a long-range space cruiser here that I can use? All I saw was a rather dilapidated looking vehicle that actually had wheels on it!” She laughed as though the very idea was ridiculous. “Please don’t tell me it’s yours.”
“Actually, it is,” Nikki said a bit stiffly. “It’s a car—that’s how we get around on Earth. But what I meant was, why don’t you ask the Kindred for help to get to me? Didn’t you mention you knew one of them earlier?”
“Oh yes, Commander Sylvan—he’s actually the leader of the entire Kindred Council, I believe.” Mistress Hellenix sniffed. “Inasmuch as a male can lead anything.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Nikki asked blankly. “You don’t like him because he’s a man?”
“Well, I mean males are inherently inferior, my dear,” Mistress Hellenix said condescendingly. “Don’t you find it to be true? Our whole society on Yonnie Six is built on the principle of female superiority.”
“It is?” Nikki said, frowning.
“Of course! That is why males must be enslaved—for their own good. And to keep them contained—they can be such brutes if they aren’t properly collared.” She shook her head and made a tsking sound.
“I have to admit, I haven’t been overly enchanted with the guys in my life lately,” Nikki said, thinking of Gary’s cheating, not to mention Jude stealing his grandmother’s drugs and the twins being so embarrassed to have their mom around. “But I never thought about locking them up or putting, uh, collars on them.”
“You should consider it—you really should,” Mistress Hellenix said earnestly. “The only good male is a collared male. But we are getting far from the subject at hand and the E’lo stones may break contact at any time
.”
“They may? Can we, uh, call each other back?” Nikki looked at the glimmering purple M&M shaped stone in her palm.
“I am afraid not—if my research is correct, we have only one chance to speak and then the stones will lose their long-distance communication ability. The ancient people who developed them believed that the people the stones switched must be mostly on their own in the new life they had been given to occupy. Otherwise, it would be too easy to ‘cheat’ your way through your new existence.”
“But it won’t be a very long, uh, existence if we can get back to each other,” Nikki pointed out. “So why can’t you ask Commander Sylvan to help you get to me?”
“Because I tried to have him killed,” Mistress Hellenix said flatly. “I sent an assassin droid who looked like his mate. Or maybe it was his mate’s sister—I forget which. They’re twins and look very much alike.” She shrugged.
“You…you tried to have him killed?” Nikki shook her head. “Why would you do something like that?”
“Well, because—the Kindred were planning to prosecute me just because I was the head of the Board of Directors of BleakHouse prison,” Mistress Hellenix crossed her arms under her breasts and huffed indignantly. “They complained that I and the others on the board employed guards who needlessly killed prisoners and falsely imprisoned some males who didn’t belong there.”
“Well, did you?” Nikki demanded.
“Of course we did!” Mistress Hellenix threw up her hands. “They’re males, after all—beneath our notice. Lower than dirt. You might as well prosecute us for killing bugs! Don’t you think?” she demanded.
Nikki shook her head.
“I might not like the males in my life right now very much, but I certainly don’t hate them like that,” she protested. “Men are people too—even when they’re being assholes.”
“Oh, I don’t hate males at all—I find them immensely useful,” her evil twin replied. “They’re good for decoration and amusement and physical labor.” She was ticking the reasons off on her fingers. “Oh, and sexual pleasure, of course—can’t forget that. I really don’t sleep well at all unless I have my slave pleasure me with his tongue before bedtime.”
“Uh, right,” Nikki said blankly. “Well, I’m afraid you’re not going to get along very well on Earth. Technically males and females are supposed to be equals but we still have a big wage gap and there’s a lot of misogyny going on.”
“Ugh.” Mistress Hellenix made a disgusted face—which probably looked a lot like the one Nikki had made when she saw the box full of crawling beetles in the spa. “Well…” She sighed. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised since the Kindred are protecting this planet. It makes sense that they wouldn’t be someplace where females were dominant.”
“Actually I’ve heard that the Kindred believe in true equality for males and females,” Nikki said. How often had she wished that Gary would subscribe to such an enlightened view? Only every day of their marriage!
“Not all Kindred, my dear. Take my primary bodyslave, Malik,” Mistress Hellenix said. “Now, he is a Kindred, but he bows his head and makes obeisance to me the moment I order it.”
“Are you two in a, uh, BDSM relationship? Like you’re his dominatrix or something?” Nikki asked hesitantly. “So he likes being dominated by you?”
“I am his Mistress,” her doppelganger corrected sternly. “And of course he doesn’t like being dominated—he’s an alpha through and through. He positively despises me. But I have control of his pain collar.” She leaned closer to the mirror, as though imparting a secret. “The control word is trab if you need to take him down. And you have my full permission to give him the rod if he misbehaves in any way.”
“Um…okay.” Nikki cleared her throat. She had no idea what the other woman meant by “give him the rod” and she was afraid to ask. “He told me that the penalty for impersonating a Mistress of Yonnie Six was death and I think he already kind of suspects me. Would he really, uh…” She swallowed hard. “Will he really kill me if he finds out I’m not you?”
“Oh yes, certainly,” Mistress Hellenix said airily. “He might hate me, but he is completely loyal because he’s addicted to my body.”
“I’m sorry—he’s what?” Nikki kept hearing things that were too weird to be believed from the other woman.
“He’s addicted to me. I keep him in chastity and only let him out very rarely,” Mistress Hellenix elaborated. “I tease him and taunt him and let him lick my pussy—Kindred love that by the way—but I almost never let him come. It keeps him nicely in hand to always be in sexual need, knowing that I am the only one who can give him release.”
“That’s…wow.” Nikki had no words. It seemed that while her doppelganger looked exactly like her, the two of them couldn’t have been more different on the inside. Nikki never would have considered treating a man the way Mistress Hellenix treated Malik.
For one thing, Gary would not have been into it—he was about as vanilla as they came. Then again, maybe Malik wasn’t into it either. He was a slave, after all, with no say in his treatment. Nikki tried to imagine ordering the huge Kindred around herself and couldn’t see it. It just wasn’t her nature to act like that, she told herself.
“But we’re getting off track again,” Mistress Hellenix said, breaking into her train of thought. “You asked if Malik would do away with you if he suspects our switch? And the answer is yes—he’ll kill you in a heartbeat if he finds out you’ve taken my place.”
“That’s awful!” Nikki glanced nervously at the vast double doors of the bedroom. “Why can’t I just tell him about the E’lo stones and what happened and how we got transported into each other’s lives?”
“Because if it gets out that I’m not really there, my whole mansion will be in disarray!” Mistress Hellenix snapped sharply. “I don’t need you starting a slave revolt while I’m millions of light years away!”
“Fine—I’ll keep it a secret and I’ll come to Earth as soon as I can,” Nikki said. “But I still don’t like hiding it from Malik—he’s scary.”
“Yes, indeed—I bought him on the Blood Circuit. He never lost a fight.” Mistress Hellenix sounded proud. “I paid a pretty penny for him but he was worth every credit I spent. He’s a born killer, that one—I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near him if he ever got his pain collar off.”
Nikki took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves. It was becoming clear to her that her life depended on her acting ability and she had gotten a D minus in theater arts in high school because her teacher had said her acting was “wooden.” Great.
“All right,” she said at last, looking at the other woman. “I’ll do all this for you—I’ll impersonate you and go to your banquet and give the keynote address…”(Although what she was going to talk about, she had no idea.) “But you have to help me too.” She pointed at Mistress Hellenix. “If I’m doing your life, you have to do mine. That means going to my job and at least pretending to work and also going to my twins’ 504 Plan meeting.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Mistress Hellenix snapped, frowning. “What is a 504 Plan? And what was wrong with the five hundred and three plans before it?”
“Don’t worry about knowing what it means—just go to the school at the time of the meeting and be sure you’re in it,” Nikki instructed. “When they say they feel like it’s time to cut down or back down the services my twins are receiving, say no. Don’t let them take away anything. You have to be really forceful with them.” She paused and looked at the woman in the mirror. “But somehow I have a feeling that won’t be a problem for you.”
“Not at all.” Mistress Hellenix lifted an eyebrow. “Is there anything else you wish me to do for you while I am living this miserable existence you call your life?”
Nikki frowned but decided to let the insult pass. After all, Mistress Hellenix wasn’t wrong—her life had been pretty miserable lately.
“Let me see…you don’t have to worry about ge
tting the boys back and forth to school—they can just ride the bus.”
She didn’t like to do that because she was pretty sure some of the bad crowd Jude was hanging out with rode the bus with him, but there was nothing else she could do. Mistress Hellenix couldn’t drive her car—she would probably have to take Ubers or taxies everywhere, which was going to add up fast. But again, there was no other solution she could think of.
She had Mistress Hellenix pull out her cellphone and rapidly explained how to call an Uber and how to use the phone. Luckily, she had the addresses of her sons’ schools as well as Rosy Ray’s Realty under contacts. After some thought, she also explained how to order a pizza. She seriously doubted that her evil twin was domestic enough to make dinner. She was clearly too busy bathing in blood and sending assassin droids to kill people to learn the fine art of cooking.
Not that Nikki herself had been producing haute cuisine lately, she thought grimly—not with how crazy things had been. Well, there was one bright side to having switched places with an alien dominatrix who was her perfect double—at least she didn’t have to worry about what to make for supper tonight! And let Gary try to help the twins with their common core math homework—he was the one who was a senior-level accountant, after all. He should be able to figure it out.
Thinking of her soon-to-be ex-husband gave her a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Well, bright side number two—she wouldn’t have to deal with him for at least several days. That was good, anyway. Although she wasn’t sure what Mistress Hellenix would make of him—not that she would probably see much of him.
“You don’t need to worry too much about Gary,” she told the other woman. “He mostly just spends time in his man cave when he’s home.”
Mistress Hellenix frowned. “Who is this ‘Gary’? Is he your slave and that is why you keep him in a cave?”
“Hardly.” Nikki snorted. “He’s my husband—my, uh, mate,” she added, seeing the look of incomprehension on the other woman’s face.
Twisted: Brides of the Kindred 23 Page 5