“Well sign in and let’s get the Seven Hells out of here,” he growled. “This place gives me the fucking creeps.”
Lilli couldn’t have agreed more. She went up to the viewscreen and reached out to touch it, tentatively, with one finger. The screen came to life at once, turning from blank black to stark white, like the walls. In the middle of it hovered a single name in bold black print—Lilliana Mirabella
Lilli touched her name and watched as the black letters turned suddenly blood red. She wondered if that was all she had to do. Now that the system had acknowledged her, could she just go?
“Is that it?” she asked out loud and Karn shrugged.
“Must be.”
But he was wrong.
Suddenly, a door at the far side of the room opened and a woman with dark purple hair done up into an elaborate series of curlicues came out. She was wearing a businesslike dress which barely showed her breasts and panties at all. She must be one of the lesser Mistresses, Lilli thought. The ones who didn’t have enough money to own their own buildings in downtown Opulex and so made their livings by serving others, higher in the social order, as doctors and legal Councilors and things of that nature.
Of course, any Mistress was free to use the conception center so maybe it was this woman’s turn and Lilli was intruding.
“Excuse me,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your appointment. I’ll just be going now.”
“Oh, no, my dear Ms. Lilliana.” The woman shook her head. “I’m not here for me—I’m here for you.”
“You…you are?” Lilli looked at her uncertainly. Beside her, she could feel Karn bristling protectively. “But…who are you?” she asked. “I’m afraid I can’t remember your name or where we met.”
The woman laughed briskly.
“Well of course not because we’ve never met. My name is Mistress Martinet—I’m the personal sperm consultant your mother hired to meet you here and help you through the insemination procedure.”
“You…you are? You mean you report directly to my mother?” Lilli’s heart sank down to her shoes. She’d been planning to get in and out of the conception center without anyone seeing her—let alone someone who could tell her mother if she actually had the procedure done or not. What was she going to do now?
“Of course! I’ve been waiting for you but I’m afraid…” Mistress Martinet looked at the plain black chronometer strapped to her wrist. “You’re about three and a half minutes late. Which means we have to be moving along since another Mistress has an appointment scheduled here in a little less than an hour.”
“Oh, well maybe I’d better go then—since I’m late,” Lilli said quickly. “I wouldn’t want to interfere with another Mistress’s appointment and we can always reschedule for another day.”
“Nonsense,” Mistress Martinet said sharply. “Your mother tells me that you’ve only just had your second quick-grow shot yesterday which means you should be at peak fertility now.” She tapped her chronometer again, as though for emphasis. “So we need to get your impregnated today.”
“But—” Lilli tried to protest.
“Never fear.” Mistress Martinet was already taking her by the arm. “What usually takes the longest is choosing which sperm you want to be impregnated with. But that’s where I come in—I’ve already narrowed down your choices to several candidates your mother deems appropriate. So you’ve only got to choose one and we’ll get you pregnant like that!” She snapped her fingers and smiled brightly at Lilli.
“I…I don’t even get to choose my own sperm?” Lilli asked as the other woman dragged her through the door and further into the conception center.
“Yes, of course you do—out of the three acceptable candidates your mother already approved,” Mistress Martinet said briskly.
Lilli turned her head and saw with relief that Karn was with them. Mistress Martinet noticed it too because she frowned and turned her head to look back at him.
“You’re not needed, bodyslave. I’ll take good care of your Mistress and deliver her back to you in the lobby in no time,” she told him.
Karn glared at her.
“Where my Mistress goes, I go,” he growled.
The fierce look in his mismatched eyes must have unnerved Mistress Martinet because her face went noticeably paler.
“Well…as long as you stay well back and don’t touch anything,” she said at last. “Ah—here we are!”
They had been walking down a corridor and now she opened a black door at the end of it and led Lilli into another small room. Inside were more blank walls and another black viewscreen. Mistress Martinet tapped it lightly with one long nail and it came to life.
“Now then,” she said, turning to Lilli who still felt numb. “I’ve taken the liberty of creating some models of the way your DNA would mix with the DNA from the three sperm candidates your mother has chosen. Have a look and see which one you like the most.”
She tapped the screen again and a baby’s face appeared. It had a shock of black hair and big blue eyes. Mistress Martinet tapped it again and it changed to a child of around one, then ten, then fifteen, and finally it became a young woman about Lilli’s age.
“This is what your daughter will look like if you choose Candidate number one,” she told Lilli. “As you can see, the genes are extremely dominant—it was the only way to get blue eyes when yours are brown. This child will be quite beautiful as you can see, but also strong tempered and willful—something to bear in mind if you intend to raise her yourself. However, your mother tells me that you’ll probably be engaging the services of a nannybot, so you don’t need to worry about her personality for at least twenty years, until she comes of age.”
“I don’t know that I want a nannybot,” Lilli protested. “I don’t think it’s right to give your child to someone—or something else—to raise.”
“Oh?” Mistress Martinet’s purple eyebrows rose in apparent surprise. “Well then, maybe this child will be more to your liking.”
She tapped the screen again and a new baby face appeared. This one had brown hair and the eyes were brown like Lilli’s own.
“This daughter will be much more pliant and easy to deal with. She won’t want to disobey and will be subservient to you and do what you tell her.”
Mistress Martinet tapped again as she spoke, showing the child growing up in different phases, as she had with the first image.
“However,” she continued, “Those were the same characteristics your mother chose for you, and now she tells me she rather regrets it. She told me to instruct you that you do not want a ‘spineless’ daughter—you need one with some willpower and stamina to follow you into business.”
“My…my mother said I was spineless?” Lilli felt the familiar ache in her heart.
“Oh, not in so many words, my dear,” Mistress Martinet said quickly. “She just wanted you to consider that in order to make your way in the cutthroat world of Yonnite business, one needs a little, ah, how can I put it? A little—”
“Bullshit,” Karn said harshly.
“I beg your pardon?” Mistress Martinet glared at him. “That wasn’t at all what I was going to say. And how dare you interrupt?”
“I said, this whole process of planning some kind of designer child is bullshit,” Karn growled, not backing down a bit. “How can you pick out babies so coldly like this? You ought to take what the Goddess gives you and be grateful for it.”
Lilli wondered if he felt like that because he knew himself to be incapable of fathering children. Maybe this seemed like an extravagant waste to someone who just wished they could have kids and would have been happy with any child as long as they were blessed to have one.
“If you continue to interrupt I’ll…I’ll have you thrown out,” Mistress Martinet warned him, though her face was pale when she said it.
“By who?” Karn glared at her. “I don’t see anyone else around. I’m here to protect my Mistress and I’m not going anywhere. So stop messing
with her mind.”
“I’ll just show you the last Candidate,” Mistress Martinet said, turning back to Lilli and ignoring the big Kindred, though she cast a fearful look over her shoulder from time to time to see if he was still watching. He was.
She tapped the screen a third time and yet another baby face appeared. This one had red hair and brown eyes.
“Now, this candidate will be a good mixture of tractability, beauty, and intelligence,” she told Lilli. “This is actually your mother’s first choice, though she wants you to know you can pick for yourself among the three of them.”
“I…I don’t know.” Lilli felt sick. She didn’t want to pick any of the sperm candidates to be impregnated with. She just wanted to go home and forget any of this had ever happened. But how could she? Mistress Martinet was standing right there, ready to tell her mother if she backed out of the insemination. There would be no hiding it or pretending the process hadn’t worked because her mother would know all the details already.
I think I’m actually going to have to go through with this, she thought, and felt like crying. She wasn’t ready to have a baby yet! Not all by herself! She wanted someone to help her raise it. Someone to love it and care for it—not a cold, lifeless nannybot which was only programmed to take care of it and couldn’t really have any feelings for it.
But I have Karn now, she thought, glancing at the big Kindred. Maybe he can help me raise the baby. Maybe I won’t be alone after all.
“Well, if you can’t decide, we’ll go with your mother’s choice,” Mistress Martinet said briskly. She tapped the screen again and said loudly, ‘Prepare the sperm of Candidate three for insemination.”
“What?” Lilli gasped, but the other woman already had her by the arm again and was leading her out of the room.
“Down this way,” she said to Lilli. “It won’t take but a minute and then you’ll have that cute little baby bump in less than an hour.”
“Baby bump?” Lilli’s hand stole down to her lower belly automatically and she wished again that her skirt fit better. What was wrong with it, anyway?
“Oh yes—you’ll start showing almost from the moment of conception. The quick-grow formula makes certain the baby developing inside you grows at an exponential rate.”
As Mistress Martinet spoke, she was leading Lilli into yet another room behind another black door. Only this one was much larger and had more than just blank walls and a view screen.
Forty
The room was divided into two sections by a clear plastiglass barrier. On one side of the barrier were several chairs. On the other was also a chair, but a much different kind of chair than Lilli had ever seen.
It was padded in bright red leather and it looked like it reclined but the bottom part of it appeared to be split into two long sections.
Is that where my legs go? Lilli wondered, feeling sick with dread as she remembered the tales she’ heard. Is the chair split so they can be spread apart while I get inseminated?
Opposite the padded red chair was a tall silver box with lights blinking on the front of it. What was that for?
“Now then,” Mistress Martinet said briskly. “Lilliana, let’s get you into the insemination chair so the procedure can begin.”
“No!” Karn said, frowning. He took Lilli by the arm. “Little Mistress,” he said urgently. “I need to talk to you alone.”
“What are you saying?” Mistress Martinet demanded. “We must get moving along here. I insist that you let go of Mistress Lilliana so that she can make her appointment time.”
“Fuck her appointment time,” Karn growled. He tugged urgently on Lilli’s arm. “You don’t have to do this, Lilli! Just give me a minute to talk to you about it—please.”
Lilli shook her head sadly.
“I’m sorry, Karn, but there’s nothing to talk about. She’s won…I’ll have to go through with it.” She could feel her eyes starting to sting with tears so she blinked rapidly, trying to keep them back. “It’s going to be okay,” she told the big Kindred. “I…I’ll just have to raise the baby as best I can. And maybe…maybe you can help me?”
She looked up at him hopefully.
“Baby—” Karn began but at that moment, Mistress Martinet interfered.
“I must insist that we get Mistress Lilliana into the insemination chair now. Once the sperm is thawed, it must be used immediately.”
Lilli let herself be led through a glass doorway and into the side of the room with the scary looking, red padded chair. She saw Karn start to follow her but she shook her head.
“It’s all right, Karn. It should…should be over in a minute,” she said dully.
He frowned but sank down into one of the chairs on the other side of the plastiglass barrier to wait for her.
“Very good, Mistress Lilliana,” Mistress Martinet said approvingly.
She shut the door firmly and there was a soft clicking sound, as of a lock sliding into place. Then the plastiglass around the cracks of the door sealed itself—it was almost as though the door had never been there to begin with, Lilli thought with a shiver. She was stuck in here—completely cut off.
“Now, if you’d take off your under-things please, and we’ll just get you settled…” Mistress Martinet said.
Lilli slipped out of her pink panties and sat reluctantly in the chair. She had the sudden urge to jump up from the chair and run to Karn but it was too late, the wheels had been set in motion and there was no going back now.
“What’s that silver box?” she asked, nodding at the forbidding looking rectangular monolith which now seemed to be looming over her.
“Why, that’s the insemination bot,” Mistress Martinet said brightly. “You don’t need to worry about it, Mistress Lilliana. All you have to do is hold still and let it do its job. Now let’s get started, shall we?”
She pressed a button on the back of the chair, somewhere behind Lilli’s head, and suddenly straps came out of the red padded arms and wrapped around Lilli’s wrists.
“Hey!” Lilli gasped, looking down at her immobilized arms. “That’s—”
But before she could finish, straps shot out of the lower part of the chair and immobilized her legs as well.
“Just relax,” Mistress Martinet said briskly. “You’ll make the process much more difficult if you struggle.”
“But why do I have to be strapped down?” Lilli asked in a trembling voice. She was feeling more and more unsure about this—she wished she would have gone with Karn when he said he wanted to talk to her in private.
Speaking of the big Kindred, he was out of his chair and standing on the other side of the plastiglass barrier, watching her with a worried look on his face. She tried to smile at him reassuringly but Mistress Martinet’s next words wiped the expression off her face entirely.
“You have to be strapped down so that the insemination needle doesn’t go astray,” she said.
“I’m sorry, the what?” Lilli demanded.
Just at that moment, a small door in the tall, silver insemination bot opened and a long metal arm slid out of it. At the end of the arm was a thick, bulky, phallic-shaped object, also made of metal. And on the end of that was…
“A needle!” Lilli gasped in horror as she saw the long silver needle shoot out of the end of the metallic phallus.
“Yes, the insemination needle, as I said,” Mistress Martinet said briskly.
“But…but you can’t put that thing up inside me!” Lilli gasped. “What if it stabs me?”
“Oh, it’s going to. But it won’t hurt—much—as long as you hold still,” Mistress Martinet told her. “You see, what happens is this: The insemination phallus enters you until the tip of it is pressing directly against the opening of your cervix. Then, when the bot determines that the alignment is right, the needle shoots out—as quick as a wink—and slides right into your womb. That way when the sperm you picked is deposited inside you, it has a much better chance of making you pregnant.”
“That’s
awful!” Lilli exclaimed, her gut clenching in fear. “You can’t do that to me! I’ve talked to lots of girls who got impregnated recently—none of them said anything about a needle!”
“Oh, the needle is optional,” Mistress Martinet assured her. “But your mother decided it would be best to use it to be certain you conceived. It adds a five percent chance of success to the entire procedure.”
“Only five percent?” Lilli gasped. “My mother decided it was all right to let a machine stab inside me with a needle for just an extra five percent?”
Mistress Martinet frowned.
“You’re very lucky your mother cares so much about your chances for a successful conception.”
“No!” Lilli shook her head wildly. “I don’t want this—I don’t care what you or my mother say. I don’t want this!”
She started fighting against the straps, trying to get her arms and legs loose. But it did no good at all—the straps were too strong. She could barely even twist her hands and feet at all, let alone slip them loose.
“Now, Lilliana…” Mistress Martinet frowned at her, as though she was a naughty child refusing to take her medicine. “As long as you lie still, the bot should have no trouble getting the needle in the right place. If you start shifting around, however…” She shook her head and made a tsking sound with her pursed lips. “Well, in that case, I can’t promise the needle might stab you someplace else—which would be much more painful than the regular procedure, I promise you.”
“But I don’t want to be stabbed inside with a needle!” Lilli gasped. She could feel tears stinging her eyelids and this time she couldn’t hold them back. “I agreed to be impregnated but please, don’t use the needle!”
“I’m sorry,” Mistress Martinet said coldly. “But your mother didn’t pay me to go soft the minute I saw a few tears. If you’ll just hold still, the whole thing will be over momentarily.”
She pressed another button and the bottom half of the chair split abruptly, parting Lilli’s legs though she tried desperately to keep them closed. The seat of the chair arched up, tilting her pelvis and opening her even more.
Protecting His Mistress...Book 24 in the Kindred Tales Series Page 20