by Alana Khan
While Brin waits for the contract to be completed, she gets assistance to open the glass dome, dons white gloves, and pages through the Meris. She brought the translation tablet from the ship and scans not only the illustrations, but appears to be reading some of the text.
Members of the society busily cover the clean banquet tables with the ‘novelties’ Mistress Han promised. I spent a few days in the pleasure dens of planet Numa, and I’ve never seen half the sex toys they’re piling onto linen cloths.
The females’ serious voices have transformed into girlish titters, then they order their barely clad slaves to rub their bodies with fragrant oils. Luckily Brin seems oblivious to all the activity as she completes the transaction.
“So I’m the owner of the Meris?”
“Yes. Congratulations,” Mistress Han says.
“This contract is legal and binding?”
“Of course. Money has changed hands; the contract is in full force.”
“May I have your attention?” Brin asks, her voice confident. When the room doesn’t quiet immediately, she asks again, “May I have your attention?”
When all eyes are upon her, she throws her shoulders back, lifts her chin, and says, “The Meris is a beautiful book. It depicts sex with sensuality and beauty. Did you look at the figures closely? Did you notice not only the positions and activities but the look on their faces? They all had one thing in common—they were all enjoying themselves.
“Please indulge me. Please freeze. For one moment don’t move a muscle.”
Surprisingly, everyone complies.
“Females, look over at the males in the room. Observe sharply. Look at their faces. Do you see joy? Do you see the type of excited anticipation you’re experiencing? I don’t. I see resignation. A few are expressing dread.
“No one wants to be a slave. No one wants to be forced into intimacy.”
Her voice is high now, vibrating. Her tender emotions are peeking through her strong facade. Blotches of crimson paint her high cheekbones.
“I know you’re going to have your orgy today despite my words, but I hope you remember what I said. I hope every time you glance up in passion, you notice your bed partner’s not enjoying himself as much as you are. I pity you. None of you know the joy of sharing sex with someone who loves you with all their heart.
“I’ve never experienced that, either, but I’ll tell you one thing. I will have that before I die. I will know the bliss of sharing my bed with someone who loves me and wants to be with me and who pleases me because they want to and not because it’s an order. I won’t settle for less.” She pauses for a modicum, then, “Thantose?”
I startle, I didn’t expect to be included in her speech.
“I free you. Right here and now. Please help me transport the Meris to the ship where I will draw up the manumission papers immediately.”
I bow my head, acting the slave, then stand straight and tall. “Yes, Brin.”
“Look at their eyes,” she calls as we grab the ends of the hover-dolly holding the book. “Look at their eyes when you’re in the throes of passion—then reconsider. I looked it up. Ivid owned no slaves. She didn’t want to subjugate them, she loved males. You do her memory a dishonor.”
I admired Brin before, but at this moment, I decide she’s magnificent.
Brin
We scurry up the steps and out the door. I’m waiting for a raging mob of women to charge from behind and stone us. Heresy. I’m certain that’s what they’re all thinking. How dare I challenge the status quo?
We’d hoped to win the auction and planned ahead. A rented hover-van awaits us right outside the steps. Once we stow the Meris in the storage compartment of the van, I take a deep breath and try to settle down.
I feel like my body’s on fire. No, that’s not it. I feel like I’m fully alive for the first time in years. Look what I just did! I faced all those bitches and won the auction and most importantly, I called them out on their shit.
I can’t stop slavery single-handedly, but by God I made them hear me.
“Brin, you were impressive.” Thantose grins at me. “You told them off. Your words were perfect. I’m so proud of you.”
He leans to kiss me, then detours at the last moment and presses his lips to my forehead.
An urge comes straight out of nowhere and barrels over me. I want to suck T’s cock. No, I need to suck his cock.
He just gave me extreme pleasure, the likes of which I’ve never known before. I was a slave. My desires and needs were nonexistent—not just to the males who used me, but even to myself.
For a male to pleasure me like that, and for me to leave him unfulfilled feels . . . horrible. There’s a part of me that’s feeling actual physical pain with the need to please him.
“Thantose, let me ease you,” I whisper as I close the opaque window between us and the driver and then reach under T’s loincloth.
He grabs my hand and tells me, “No.” His tone is firm.
My desperate urge ramps up from beyond compelling to desperate. I feel like I’ll die if I don’t pull his cock into my mouth and take care of him sexually right this moment.
“Please, Thantose.”
“No, Brin.” He shakes his head as his eyes roam over my face. It’s as if he’s trying to read my mind.
I’ll make it easy for him, my motives aren’t a secret. “Let me make you feel good, Thantose. Let me suck your cock. Let me do whatever you want, or let you do it to me.” Even to my own ears, my tone isn’t aroused, it’s strained, pitiful.
He grabs my wrists, pulls me onto his lap and hugs me so tight I wonder if he’s restraining me to keep my hands and mouth off him.
“Brin. Stop. Something’s happening. A switch flipped in your brain. Take a breath.”
I breathe deeply and struggle to capture my own thoughts and slow them down.
“I don’t know if humans have it, but there’s a place on the Primian body where if you tap it, the knee jerks. You can try not to move your leg, but the reflex is more powerful than the mind. You developed a lot of reflexes over the last ten annums, Brin.
“We were both flying high from your gutsy performance telling off those Meris females, and something happened in your brain. Some reflex that took something honest and good and real, and made it vulgar and insincere.
“What just happened in our private room at the society was . . . amazing. At least it was for me, maybe it was for you. It makes me want . . . it makes me want more. With you, Brin. But we can’t have something intimate and authentic if I don’t know if your behavior is real or a reflex. If you really want to touch me or if it’s a vestigial compulsion left over from your old life.
“Take a breath, slow your thoughts.”
I do. In fact, I take many. In through my nose, out through my mouth, slow and deep, just like my therapist taught me.
“Is that what you want? Right this minima? Do you want to suck my cock in this limo?”
I contemplate his question for so long I wonder if we’ll arrive at the Jewel before I figure out the answer.
Finally, I get clarity. “No, Thantose, I don’t.”
“What do you want?”
“That’s an even harder question,” I answer, but I think for a while and then say, “I wanted to please you. No. That’s not true. I was desperate to please you. It felt like if I didn’t do it I would literally die.”
“Do you feel that way now?”
“No.”
“Great. Because I’m Thantose.” He kisses my forehead. His voice lowers and he says, “You’ve started calling me ‘T’ and for some reason I like that a lot.” He kisses the top of my head and tells me, “I’m not your abuser. What happened in that curtained room tonight changed everything. We let our passions dictate and our bodies spoke to each other, and we started something. Something wonderful. Does it feel that way to you?”
I nod.
“Crossing those boundaries allowed us to get the Meris, and more importantly made us
aware of our feelings for each other, and that’s a good thing.
“But what happened in this limo hurts my heart, Brin. Because when we finally do more than what we did tonight, it’s going to be amazing, incendiary. It will set the sheets on fire. But it won’t be soon because when I make love with you, Brin, there will be only two people in our bed—Thantose and Brin. And it will be because you want to be with me, not because you feel a desperate need.”
I have the urge to hide from his gaze, but I don’t. He sees me. He knows who I am. He just witnessed how fucked up I am, and he wants to try to work this through anyway.
My speech to the Meris Society rings in my ears. I said I want love. I said I want someone to be with me because they want to, and I meant it. There’s only one way for that to happen. I need to bury my past and become the woman I want to be.
~.~
“I feel like I ran a marathon,” I tell Thantose after we stow the Meris in the Jewel’s tiny hold. “I’m exhausted and exhilarated at the same time.”
“It’s late,” he says. “If things were different, we’d probably both hit our bunks. But those females were furious. You might have been too busy reciting your impassioned speech to notice, but some of them looked like they could kill you. I wouldn’t be surprised if the local badges come knocking at our door.
“I’m going to leave atmo as soon as the Viragon authorities give permission. We need to bounce. Why don’t you get some sleep?”
“My body’s buzzing with excitement. It will take hours to calm down. I’ll stay on the bridge with you if that’s okay. I’ll let your mom know we won the auction.”
“We didn’t win anything, BB. You did.”
“BB?”
“Whoops.” His fingers are flying on his computer as he sits in the wide, padded captain’s chair. “Uh . . .” He enters a few more notations then looks at me. “All the females on the ship refer to you as BB for beautiful Brin. I guess it rubbed off on me.” He looks sheepish.
My stomach squeezes so hard it hurts as my eyes flare open. “You’ve all been . . .” my voice lowers to a whisper, “you’ve all been making fun of me the last five months?” Hot tears gather behind my eyes. How humiliating.
“No. No, Brin. No one makes fun of you. They all tell me you’re the most beautiful female they know. Lexa said you’re ‘movie star beautiful’. They’re not mocking you. They’re serious.”
“Bullshit.” In the back of my mind I hear Amrus calling me hinzeer—piggy.
He stares at me—guileless. Thantose is imperfect, he captains a pirate ship for goodness sakes, but I’ve never known him to lie.
“Really?”
He nods. “Yeah. It’s how everyone thinks and talks about you, so somehow it got shortened to BB. Everyone likes you, Brin. Even Lexa. She told me she wrote you a long comm apologizing for her behavior. She’s grown a lot since she and Sextus fell in love. She said she feels awful for diagnosing you with the Stockholm thing.”
“She did send an email. I thought maybe you forced her to do it.”
He shakes his head. “No. When we get back to Primus I’d like you to speak with her in person. She’s changed a lot. She’s actually . . . likable now.”
“That’s quite a metamorphosis.”
“You are BB, Brin. You’re beautiful Brin, but now I’d like to change the meaning. It should be Bold Brin or Brave Brin or Fabulous Brin.” His happy smile shows lots of white teeth.
“Fabulous doesn’t start with a ‘b’.”
He shrugs. “It does in Primian.”
“Ballsy. How about Ballsy Brin?” I ask.
“Did that translate correctly? Testicles? Is there something you need to confess? I didn’t notice any earlier tonight.” He waggles an eyebrow.
“It means gutsy and strong.”
“Ballsy it is.” He nods his head with finality.
“TT and BB,” I giggle.
He touches his ear comm and says. “Just got permission to lift off.”
“When do we reach Primus?” I’m already sad that we only have a few days left together.
“Not going to Primus. Seat belt. We’re hitting hyperspace in a few modicums.” He’s so freaking handsome when he’s all business. His hands are so competent, his jaw is firm. He looks smart and focused.
One minute ago I felt so hurt thinking people had been making fun of me, yet arousal flies through my body, pooling between my legs. It’s going to be a long trip.
I’m pressed into the first mate’s seat by the g-force, then cabin pressure returns to normal.
“Where are we going?”
“Planet Kallion.” He stands, still in his green loincloth.
“Why aren’t we returning to Primus? Your mom will want her book.”
“I’d . . .” He stalks to the little cot that serves to divide the bridge from the galley, turns his back, removes his loincloth, and pulls on black pants. “I’d like to show you Kallion.”
He strides toward me, then abruptly stops. Closing his eyes he gives his head a vigorous twist from side to side; the cracking sound reverberates through the bridge.
After returning to the galley, he grabs a chair, pulls it to face me, and straddles it. The Thantose I knew from before was happy and carefree and sarcastic. The Thantose who’s facing me now is serious. I swallow, wondering what’s coming next.
“Everything changed tonight. Would you agree?”
“Yes.” My world has turned upside down exactly four times in the last three hours. First was the most intimate, connected, divine sexual experience of my life. Second was my powerful speech to the Meris society. Third was my crazy ‘reflexive’ behavior. Fourth was Thantose’s admission that he wants to try to work on a relationship with me.
“We have a lot of chemistry,” he says.
“Amen,” I interrupt. I don’t think he was waiting for a response. He chuckles.
“Right. And we have a lot of drack to work out.”
“Amen to that, too.”
He smiles indulgently at me, like a proud parent. “Are you joking with me, Brin? I like that.”
He takes a breath and every muscle in his huge frame seems to relax. “I don’t think we can work things out with an audience. Especially if my ahma is anywhere in the mix. My family owns a cabin on Kallion. We don’t have anywhere we need to be for days.
“I want to take you there and let this . . . thing that’s growing between us play out. What do you say?”
I want to fly into his arms, but he’s straddling a chair with his hands on the straight chair’s high back. Caramel-brown eyes look straight into my soul, waiting for my answer.
“Of course I want to give us a try. I mean really, T, what other male would wiggle around in that fucking loincloth to get their mom a porno book?
“You’re terrific and sexy and the times you’ve touched me have been the most sensuous moments I’ve ever shared. What happened tonight, in our little private oasis . . . I’ll tell you some day what that meant to me. But not now.”
“Kallion is widely considered the most beautiful planet in the galaxy,” he explains. “It’s lovely there. So you’ll go with me? We’ll get to know each other there? No ahma, no fancy psychological diagnosis, no Meris society hanging over our head. Just TT and BB and the amazing waterfall an hoara’s walk away.”
I nod happily. “Yes.”
“You divulged a lot tonight,” he says. “Let me tell you a little secret. Even though you never enumerated all the sexy things you wanted to do in those private comms? My imagination filled in a lot of blanks alone in my bed late at night.
“I want to do those things with you. Do you feel embarrassed that you shared all that with me? Then I’ll share this with you, Brin. I’ve stroked myself every night with the activities I envisioned, of sharing those delights with you.
“But you won’t like this next part, Brin, and neither will I. We’re not going to do those things. Not for a while. Despite what we shared a few houras ago, I don’t thin
k it’s wise to go forward right now.
“We need to get to know each other better. You may have improved since we rescued you, but you’re still a sensitive person with a lot of history behind you. If we do those things—what we’re both so eager to perform in bed together—and for some reason things between us don’t work, I don’t want your heart to break. I don’t want either of our hearts to break. We need to wait.”