But her privacy was not complete. Unknown to her, Malik had watched her many times as she worked here, memorizing her ever changing passwords and waiting for the right time to act. He was certain that the message alert they had heard was the invitation from the Knower on Uriel Two he had been waiting for. He had intended to accept on his Mistress’s behalf, even if she decided against the venture. That way he would have a sure way to get past the kill-field that surrounded his old home word.
He had feared he would have to escape from Mistress Hellenix’s domicile and steal a ship to get there—which carried considerable risk since the Yonnites didn’t deal lightly with escaped slaves. But now that Nicole had agreed to help him, it was going to be so much easier…he hoped.
“Nicole?” he called, once he had typed in the latest password and gotten to the ocular recognition screen. “Could you come here please? I need your ocular scan to get through to the message system.”
“Sure.” She came over and he couldn’t help thinking all over again how lovely she was. The outfit his old Mistress had picked for the banquet fit her perfectly and showed off her luscious curves to perfection. If only she could get over being embarrassed at showing her lovely body, she would be a formidable presence at the banquet tonight.
He showed her what to do and Nicole leaned over obligingly and pressed her right eye to the ocu-scan scope which had extended from the monitor on a long, flexible metal arm. After a moment the scope beeped and withdrew and the screen cleared to reveal Mistress Hellenix’s latest messages.
The first one was exactly what Malik had been hoping for. It was an invitation from the Knower, expressing interest in the item his old Mistress had alluded to earlier—the Shannom-rah.
“What’s the Shannom-rah?” Nicole asked, and he realized she was reading over his shoulder. Amazing that the E’lo stone she still carried granted her mastery not only of the Yonnite spoken language but the written form as well.
“It is a greatly compressed drive that was compiled by an ancient race, the Jai’linm,” he explained. “For many thousands of years they studied both their own people and also random strangers they happened to capture.”
“They went out and captured people to study? Ugh!” Nicole shivered. “What did they do then—probe them?”
“Probe them?” Malik wasn’t sure what she meant, exactly.
“Oh, nothing. It’s just…” Her cheeks got red. “Back on my planet, Earth—before we made contact with any alien societies, we thought we were the only ones out there. But there were a few people who would claim they had seen aliens or had been abducted by them and taken up to their flying saucers—space ships,” she clarified, clearly seeing his confusion. “Everyone else thought they were crazy but they often claimed they were, uh, probed. Anally, I mean.” Her cheeks were even redder now, though Malik still didn’t understand why.
“You mean they were given the rod?” he said flatly.
It was Nicole’s turn to look confused. “Given the rod? What does that mean? Mistress Hellenix told me I should do that to you if you, uh, got out of hand but I have no idea what she was talking about.”
Malik sighed. This was a part of his self-imposed slavery that he had learned to make peace with, but it still was in no way pleasant.
“When a Yonnite Mistress gives her male slave the rod, she straps on a phallus and takes him sexually,” he explained.
“What? You mean she rapes him?” Nicole looked horrified.
Malik nodded. “It can be rape if the slave is not willing. And of course it doesn’t really matter to his Mistress if he is willing or not—a slave has no say in such things.”
“And that…happened to you?” Nicole asked hesitantly.
Malik nodded again. “Yes. But I knew it was a possibility when I allowed myself to be bought by Mistress Hellenix after making a name for myself in the Blood Circuit. So I was, at least, prepared.”
“Oh, Malik—I’m so sorry!” Tears had sprung into her dark, lovely eyes again. “And I made such an insensitive comment about getting probed! God, that Mistress Hellenix is horrible. How could she hurt you like that?”
“Actually, she often went out of her way to make it pleasurable for me,” he said dryly. “She used a rod with a prostate stimulator to make sure I couldn’t keep from coming. The idea, I think, was to destroy my self-esteem by forcing my body to betray me. Which it did—over and over.”
He closed his eyes briefly, remembering the shameful pleasure his old Mistress had drawn from his body—her soft words in his ear, “You love it when I give you the rod, don’t you, Malik? You love to come for me, my slave.”
“Yes, Mistress,” he had groaned as his seed spurted on her command. She let him come so rarely that often, the only release he had, was when she gave him the rod. And on those occasions, she was always intrigued by the pearly, iridescent sheen of his seed, which she claimed was unique among males, though it was common to all Volt Kindred. How often had she given him the rod in front of her friends just to show it off? Too often to remember, Malik admitted to himself grimly.
“You must have hated her so much,” Nicole whispered, breaking into his memories.
“I both hated and loved her,” Malik said thoughtfully. “I desired her body while despising the person she was inside. I learned to take both pleasure and pain from her hand with an equal measure of dispassion. And every time she took me, I reminded himself of my purpose—my mission to save my home world.” He looked up at her. “For that, I would endure any degradation—any pain or pleasure—no matter how shameful.”
“Oh, Malik…” Nicole swiped at her tears. “I still don’t understand why she would do such awful things to you.”
“To subjugate my will towards hers—to break me,” Malik said honestly. “But she didn’t know that I was with her of my own volition and willing to endure whatever I had to in order to come to this moment…to get this invitation.” He tapped the screen.
“Is this your way of getting back to our, um, previous topic of conversation?” Nicole asked softly and sniffed. “You don’t have to talk about what happened if you don’t want to, you know. But I’m here if you do.”
“Thank you.” Malik smiled at her. It was the second time she had shed tears for his pain and he couldn’t help loving her for it. “But you don’t have to be worried about me, Nicole—I am well.”
“You’re amazingly brave,” she whispered. “I don’t understand how you could get over something like that without lots of therapy.”
Malik tried to explain. “What I endured at the hands of my old Mistress was the sacrifice I had to make and I made it willingly. It took me some time to work through the shame of letting myself be taken sexually but I have long since made peace with it.”
“You’re so strong,” Nicole murmured, looking at him with wide, wet eyes. “Inside and out. It’s amazing to me that you could get used to being treated like that.”
Malik shrugged. “It was simply the price I had to pay—so I paid it.”
“But isn’t it hard for you?” she asked timidly. “I mean, being close to me when I look so much like her? Don’t you…hate me? It must mess with your mind.”
“I admit it was disorienting at first but Nicole, I could never hate you.” Malik turned from the monitor and cupped her cheek. “You’re so different from her. It doesn’t matter that your outer appearance is the same as hers—you have a light inside you—a light that Mistress Hellenix never had. And it shines out—I can see it every time I look at you.”
“Oh, Malik…” she whispered and then somehow she was in his arms again and he was pulling her into his lap for more deep, searching kisses.
Gods, she was beautiful—inside and out, Malik thought as he tasted her sweet lips. If he’d had a kind Mistress, like Nicole, he wouldn’t have minded being penetrated and taken. Because with Nicole, it wouldn’t be as he had been with Hellenix, who was intent on degrading his malehood. With Nicole, he would be giving himself, the same way she
had given herself the night before and allowed him to pleasure her over and over with his tongue. It would be a mutual bond of love and respect. And when she gave herself to him…when she spread her thighs and welcomed his shaft into her warm, wet depths…
Stop! he told himself sternly. Stop it—you know you can’t make love with her that way. What if your pleasure ridge released while you were inside her? That would mean bonding sex and you absolutely cannot form a bond with her—it would be disastrous!
He forced himself to break the kiss and sit back, panting. Gods, why was he so drawn to her? Why did he have to meet the perfect female for him at just the wrong time in his life?
He had no answers—he only knew he couldn’t let himself continue this way. He had to put a little distance between them.
“Back to the Jai’linm and the Shannom-rah,” he said, forcing himself to use a dry, lecturing tone.
“The, um, alien race that abducted and studied people?” Nicole sounded like she was trying to be cool and impersonal too but her bare breasts were heaving with the panting breaths she was taking and Malik could smell her feminine desire—a scent that almost drove him crazy.
Gently, he lifted her from his lap and sat her on her feet beside him, though what he really wanted to do was crush her to him and take her to the sleeping platform to taste her and take her for hours.
“Exactly,” he said, trying to force the erotic images out of his brain. “They made perfect digital copies of each subject they studied—personality mapping, they called it. Every little tic and peccadillo—every last character trait and flaw was recorded and stored along with trillions of others like it on the Shannom-rah.”
“Okay, weird but I get it.” Nicole was sounding a little calmer now and Malik felt steadier himself as well—good. “But why does Mistress Hellenix have it and what does the Knower want with it?” she went on.
“As to why she has it—my old Mistress has long been a collector of cultural oddities and rare artifacts,” Malik told her. “And why the Knower wants it… Well, that I can’t tell you, though I think it might have something to do with the SORs its been manufacturing.”
“The Simulated Organic Replicants?” Nicole asked, frowning. “The androids?”
He nodded. “Maybe the Knower wants to study some of the personalities encrypted on the Shannom-rah in order to make more life-like SORs. It doesn’t matter though—it won’t have much time to make use of the knowledge we bring. Not if I can get to its core processor.”
“Do you think you can?” Nicole asked anxiously. “I’m committed to helping you, but it’s beginning to sound kind of dangerous, you know?”
“I know, but it should be a very simple operation,” Malik told her soothingly. “All you have to do is ask to tour the SORs manufacturing facility and I’ll do the rest.”
“All right.” She nodded. “I trust you. I probably shouldn’t agree to go on some kind of covert mission with a man I only met yesterday but somehow…” She bit her lip.
“Somehow it seems like we’ve known each other far longer than that,” Malik finished for her softly.
Nicole nodded. “Yes—exactly.”
“I feel it too,” he told her. “And I don’t think it’s just because you look like my old Mistress. I believe that the Goddess has her hand in this situation.”
“The Goddess? You mean, the Kindred deity you guys all worship?” Nicole asked.
Malik nodded. “I do. It was she who sent me on this mission in the first place and she is the one who has given me the strength to endure the long cycles as Mistress Hellenix’s slave.” He cocked an eyebrow at Nicole. “What deity do you worship?”
She looked uncomfortable. “Well, I’m kind of a lapsed Catholic but I don’t know—”
Suddenly there was another ding-ding-ding from the console and Malik looked up in surprise. Another new message had appeared and this one was from a friend of Mistress Hellenix—a female with the improbable and ridiculous name of “Mistress Jankypoo.”
Frowning, Malik opened it, but his frown only grew at what he saw.
“What does that mean?” Nicole asked, reading along with him. “Who are the Sacred Seven and why is this Mistress Jankypoo warning Mistress Hellenix about them?”
“The Sacred Seven are the ruling council of Yonnie Six,” Malik explained. “Some time ago a serious matter concerning my old Mistress was brought before them—an accusation that she had acted improperly in the way she ran BleakHall prison, a facility of which she is the head of the Board of Directors.”
“Oh wait—she told me about that!” Nicole snapped her fingers. “She said she was accused of hiring guards that roughed the prisoners up and of imprisoning innocent men. And when I asked her if she’d done it, she admitted it right away—as though she had every right to do it.”
“She’s guilty, all right,” Malik said grimly. “And it seems that the Sacred Seven agree. According to this warning, they will be sending guards to bring her in for questioning and a preliminary hearing very soon.”
A wide, panicked look came into Nicole’s dark eyes.
“But I don’t want to have to appear in court and go to jail for the awful things she did! That was not part of our agreement! Even her putting up with Gary isn’t worth me going to prison for who knows how long!”
“Don’t worry,” Malik told her soothingly. “They probably won’t act at once. We’ll be done with the mission on Uriel Two and you’ll be back to your own life before any of this can be decided.”
“So should we skip the banquet tonight?” she asked. “Just go straight to your home world with the Shannom-rah?”
Malik shook his head.
“No, that would violate your contract with the E’lo stones. Besides, as I said, I don’t think my old Mistress’s prosecution is imminent. They haven’t even sent her a formal notice yet—this is just a warning from a friend in the know.”
“Well, if you’re sure…” Nicole still looked nervous.
“Positive,” Malik said firmly. “Now come on, Mistress—we need to get the Shannom-rah from its storage case and get to the long-range cruiser. We have a banquet to attend and a world to restore before we get you home.”
Chapter Seventeen
Nikki was rather sorry to see the last of her evil twin’s opulent house. Aside from the slaves who were captive there, it was a beautiful place with lots of amazing features. She particularly wished she would have tried the long waterslide tube that ran from the upper story down to the pool below. But she had been reluctant to swim naked with all those sex-starved slaves watching her every move, and so she had refrained.
Now it was too late to wish she’d tried it after all—they were leaving in the long-range cruiser which Malik was piloting expertly while she sat in the passenger-side chair and watched as the huge mansion receded into the distance. It was already twilight and the vast building was soon lost in the velvety darkness.
“How far are we going?” she asked Malik as he manipulated the complicated-looking array of instruments.
“Not far—just to the other side of the continent,” he told her easily. “We are leaving Mistress Hellenix’s country estate and the Banquet of Pain is always held in Opulex—the capital city of Yonnie Six.”
The countryside beneath them seemed to blur with their speed and before she knew it, Nicole was seeing the spires of immensely tall sky-scrapers rising up in the viewscreen at the front of the ship.
“Wow,” she breathed, amazed at the scope of the city spread below them. “You know, I’ve been to New York once but this looks about five times as big!”
“Opulex is a very large city,” Malik agreed, nodding. “It covers the entire half of the planet’s main continent and most of the prominent Mistresses live there. There’s our destination,” he added pointing to an especially tall building with a broad, flat roof. The roof held a startling array of tropical plants in all different shades but that wasn’t what drew Nikki’s eye the most. It also had a vast shimme
ring bubble covering it. The bubble gleamed in the shining lights of the city’s nighttime glow, reflecting rainbows of dazzling colors she had no names for.
She had taken her boys to the kids’ museum often when they were younger. The museum had a giant soap bubble making room with vast hoops that made bubbles so big the boys could enclose each other in the fragile, shiny soapy surfaces just moments before they popped. They had loved it and Nikki remembered laughing and taking pictures with her phone—it was before the three of them had grown too big to be cuddled and were constantly embarrassed by her, she thought longingly.
Now she was reminded of the giant bubble makers as she looked at the rooftop bubble. Only the hoop that made such a vast bubble would have to be as big as a city block! Also, how did it not pop?
“What is that?” she asked, pointing as Malik flew closer. “That bubble thing on top of it.”
“A temporary atmosphere dome,” he said. “They must plan to have some kind of dream gas or some other air-born stimulant that they don’t want to blow away in the wind.”
“Oh, okay,” Nikki murmured. But she was secretly more worried than ever. Were she and Malik going to be drugged by whatever they were blowing through that immense bubble’s air supply? She had tried smoking pot several times in college and it made her ridiculously silly and giggly. How could she possibly give a convincing performance as Mistress Hellenix if she was stoned out of her mind?
“Don’t worry,” Malik said, as though reading her mind. “You’ll be fine. Whatever they use, it won’t be so mind-altering that you can’t function.”
“I just don’t want to forget the words to the speech,” Nikki said. She had memorized the short speech Mistress Hellenix had prepared and she didn’t intend to deviate from it a bit, but she worried about getting it right all the same.
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