Maryam

Maryam Page 16

by Tracy St. John

  Then there had been the ill she’d done her­self, the poor choices she’d made with her own life. She could iden­tify with Kels when it came to bad de­ci­sions. Though his wrong against her had been tremen­dous, he re­gret­ted it. He was try­ing to make it right.

  She wasn’t sure if she should for­give him, but she wanted to. Maybe it was stupid of her, but she ached to make that guilty ex­pres­sion he wore go away.

  “Even when we do our best, we stum­ble,” she said.

  “In­clud­ing you? You seem to have your act to­gether. I’ve been im­pressed with your con­fi­dence and re­fusal to let the sit­u­a­tion tear you down.”

  “Hard-won strength. Un­like you, I wasn’t handed a lot. I’ve made de­ci­sions I’ve re­gret­ted with all my be­ing.”

  “What kind of re­grets?”

  “I post­poned my dreams of be­ing a doc­tor to put my hus­band through school. Then I gave up on those dreams en­tirely to give him a child. I wanted chil­dren too, don’t get me wrong—but I had planned to make some­thing of my­self be­fore then. I aban­doned my­self for the de­sires of oth­ers be­cause I thought that meant I was a good per­son.”

  “When you al­ready were a good per­son.”

  Maryam smiled at him. “We mess up when we for­get we de­serve to chase our own de­sires. Or to put those of oth­ers—or an em­pire—be­fore what’s best for our­selves. We wreck our lives when we ig­nore that tiny voice of our bet­ter na­tures be­cause it’s easy to do so. Or too hard to obey.”

  Kels set his full wa­ter bags aside and re­garded her with in­ten­sity. “Are we with­out hope then? Have we gone too far astray to re­gain the path we should have taken?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do we do? When so much has been lost, how do we pro­ceed?”

  “One step at a time, head­ing to­ward the goal we should have been reach­ing for all along. Even if it may be too late.”

  Kels con­sid­ered. “That’s all we’re en­ti­tled to, isn’t it? To try our best. Life won’t guar­an­tee our suc­cess, but we must at­tempt to live our pur­pose with all our might.”

  It was Maryam’s turn to re­gard Kels with ad­mi­ra­tion. What he said rang truer than any­thing else she’d ever heard.

  “The ef­fort is all we’re guar­an­teed. Not the re­ward. That’s pro­found, Kels.”

  “Now I have to act on it, rather than just spout­ing it.” He chuck­led, but it was a sad sound. “I swear to do all in my power to see you safely through.”

  “Thank you.”

  He picked up a small rock and tossed it into the stream. “What about you? What’s your next move to reach your goal?”

  “I’m not sure. I guess I have to think it through.” She needed to fig­ure out where to go, should she live to reach Kalquor and de­liver the baby. It wasn’t a de­ci­sion to make in haste.

  The idea she’d be stay­ing with Kels, Pana, and Der­gan for the next sev­eral months was a com­fort­able one. It set a glow of warmth through her. More than that; it gave her the sense of hope. She wasn’t sure what ex­actly it was she was hope­ful for, but she wel­comed it all the same. Pana was a won­der­ful com­pan­ion. Der­gan was prov­ing him­self to be as agree­able. And Kels…how did she feel about spend­ing all that time with the man who’d taken her from her con­tented but point­less life on the space sta­tion? Could his com­pany be as re­ward­ing as his clan­mates’?

  As amorous?

  “I feel like mak­ing the sort of de­ci­sion that’s morally am­bigu­ous. Whether it’s wrong or right, I have an urge to throw cau­tion to the wind to an­swer ques­tions I prob­a­bly shouldn’t be ask­ing.”

  Kels blinked at her. “Such as?”

  Maryam stood, lift­ing her wa­ter bags in one hand. She held the other out to Kels. “Come to the shut­tle with me. We’ll go in­side, lock the hatch, and fig­ure a few things out.”

  His pur­ple eyes widened. For sev­eral sec­onds, he re­mained where he was, crouched by the stream, star­ing up at her with in­de­ci­sion. Maryam watched him silently strug­gle be­tween his loy­alty to his friend Se­bist and what he so clearly wanted.

  He grasped her hand, heft­ing his wa­ter bags as he straight­ened to his full height. Un­cer­tainty gave way to won­der as he al­lowed her to lead him to the shut­tle.

  Chap­ter Four­teen

  For the most part, the beige in­te­rior of the shut­tle was util­i­tar­ian. It con­sisted of three dou­ble rows of bench seats, over­head stor­age bins, and a small en­closed re­stroom. The cock­pit was sep­a­rated from the cabin by a door, which Der­gan had kept open as he’d pi­loted them from the de­stroyer to the moon. The cargo space, ac­ces­si­ble from be­neath the floor of the aisle as well as from the out­side, stored sur­vival and emer­gency gear—and Briel. Maryam tried not to dwell on her late friend.

  What would Briel think of her se­duc­ing her Dramok?

  I’m not sure what to think of it my­self. Two men should be enough—why am I so de­ter­mined to have this guy too? Do I re­ally need to buy the com­plete set?

  As she’d told Kels, the urge had her ig­nor­ing bet­ter sense. As soon as the hatch closed be­hind them, she didn’t hes­i­tate to rise on her tip­toes to kiss him.

  Pana had been as­sertive. Der­gan twice so. Kels was the more ten­ta­tive of the clan, his kiss al­most shy in its soft­ness. When Maryam’s tongue danced over his lips, he shiv­ered be­fore tast­ing her in turn. The kiss grew deeper for per­haps a sec­ond be­fore he drew back. His wor­ried gaze told her he had sec­ond thoughts, though the rigid hard­ness against her stom­ach in­sisted his con­cerns were all in his head.

  “I’m not sure about this.” Even as he spoke, his arms tight­ened around her.

  “Nei­ther am I. But what do we have to lose at this point?”

  “In my case, a very dear friend.”

  Maryam stroked his hair from his brow. Prophets, the sight and feel of him was in­cred­i­ble. Yet, she wouldn’t push him into some­thing he wasn’t ready for. “If you don’t want me, say so.”

  “I’ve wanted you since the mo­ment I set eyes on you. You have no idea how badly.”

  “Then put the rest aside. I’m not con­sid­er­ing the clan you promised me to. I want you.” More than she should have.

  She kissed him again. This time he wasn’t cau­tious, crush­ing her against him­self. His mouth was firm on hers, and his tongue swept boldly, plun­der­ing her with the strength she’d en­joyed so much from Pana and Der­gan. She was de­mand­ing too, par­ry­ing his thrust­ing tongue, tak­ing the kiss she needed.

  When they broke apart, gasp­ing at the storm ris­ing within them, Kels stared at her. “What is it you’ve en­joyed most with men? Tell me what ex­cites you.”

  Maryam’s heart leapt. Kels didn’t merely want her, he wished to please her.

  At the same time, her stom­ach squirmed with em­bar­rass­ment. She couldn’t imag­ine shar­ing the thrills she’d dis­cov­ered with Kels’s clan­mates. She thought what aroused her most was rather per­verse.

  “What is it, Maryam? What did I say?” The worry had re­turned, driv­ing a crease be­tween his brows.

  “It’s not you.” She rushed to re­as­sure him, wor­ried he’d leave her beg­ging. “It’s just—I’ve dis­cov­ered drives in my­self that I never imag­ined ex­isted. It’s—well, it’s hu­mil­i­at­ing. I’m weird for what I en­joy.”

  He stud­ied her face, worry eas­ing into cu­rios­ity. “Kalquo­ri­ans are quite open­minded about what’s ac­cept­able in the name of in­ti­mate plea­sures. Per­haps Pana and Der­gan were some­what—de­mand­ing?”

  He un­der­stood, and the ca­sual way he dis­cussed the mat­ter helped Maryam re­lax. “Yes. That’s ex­actly it.”

  “Dom­i­nat­ing, right? Most Kalquo­ri­ans are. What about you? You were bold to bring me in here for the sake of shar­ing your­self. Is
that how you pre­fer to be? Or do you like sub­mit­ting too?”

  Sub­mit­ting. How a sin­gle word could si­mul­ta­ne­ously melt her in­sides and tie them into knots was a mys­tery to Maryam. Yes, that was ex­actly what she’d found arous­ing.

  “I liked how they con­trolled me. Pin­ning me down so I felt help­less. There were mo­ments I pre­tended they took me with­out my per­mis­sion. Not that I’d en­joy such a sit­u­a­tion,” she rushed to add, her face flam­ing hot.

  “Of course not. The re­al­ity of that is aw­ful. But the fan­tasy…that’s en­tirely dif­fer­ent, isn’t it? Know­ing you’re safe, but en­joy­ing the hint of dan­ger? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “How a thrill ride at an amuse­ment park feels,” she ver­i­fied, cau­tiously happy she saw no judg­ment in Kels’s ex­pres­sion.

  “Did they show you the ex­cite­ment of light pain, per­haps? The kind that turns into pas­sion?”

  “Yes.” Maryam found it dif­fi­cult to catch her breath.

  “You en­joyed it.” Not a ques­tion, but a state­ment. He knew. “Is that what you’d like more of, Maryam? Stim­u­lat­ing pain? To be re­strained?”

  “Yes.” The af­fir­ma­tion leapt from her lips be­fore she could sti­fle it.

  Kels’s slow smile threw her heart rate into over­drive. “What of sur­ren­der? Would you give your­self over to my con­trol? Do you crave for me to play mas­ter to you? Could you be a will­ing slave to my de­sires?”

  Though a small—very small—part of her clam­ored that she slow down and con­sider what he was ask­ing, Maryam was too mes­mer­ized by the prom­ise of what he of­fered. “Yes.”

  He re­leased her and walked off. Maryam stared at Kels in con­fu­sion as he sat on a bench seat. Had her an­swers dis­gusted him? If so, why was the crotch of his form­suit dis­tended, threat­en­ing to split the seam open?

  Kels pat­ted his thigh. “Lay over my legs. Pull your skirt up to your waist and pull your panties down.”

  Maryam blinked at him, ut­terly puz­zled. “What?”

  “You claimed you wished to serve me. That you en­joy some hurt. Your mas­ter has de­cided to spank you.”

  She shook her head, try­ing to un­der­stand. He spoke in her lan­guage, but it sounded for­eign all the same. “I—what?”

  “Erotic dis­ci­pline, the kind of power trans­fer shared by lovers. You need to sub­mit. I de­sire to dom­i­nate. There­fore, you prove your sur­ren­der by of­fer­ing your­self to my de­mands.”

  The mists were clear­ing, bring­ing full un­der­stand­ing of what Kels of­fered. For him, it wasn’t enough to hold her down in the pre­tense she was forced to do his bid­ding. She had to yield to him by bow­ing to his re­quest.

  A spank­ing. Which she would present her­self for, in obe­di­ence to his wishes. His hands were big, the knuck­les thick and knot­ted with strength. Would he spank her hard? Or only of­fer a few sting­ing taps?

  Why was she aroused at the idea of his palm pound­ing on her bare ass, turn­ing it red as she thrashed help­lessly? She was wet, shock­ingly so, drench­ing her panties as he sat watch­ing her with that ter­ri­ble pa­tience. A pa­tience that re­vealed he knew her de­sires all too well. A pa­tience that claimed she’d give in to them.

  She’d taken a cou­ple steps to­ward him with­out re­al­iz­ing she was do­ing so. Her fists gripped her skirt, wad­ding it as she gath­ered it up. She moved in a dream, her sur­round­ings hazy, her mind misty as she reached Kels. The sen­sa­tion of her panties slith­er­ing down her legs was slight, more an imag­in­ing than real. She bent over his legs. Set­tled her weight on them. Even the pres­sure of his thighs be­neath her stom­ach and chest was barely there as she hiked the rest of her skirt over her waist.

  “Very nice,” Kels breathed from far above. “You have a lovely ass, Maryam.”

  It seemed she should re­spond, so she said, “Thank you.”

  “Thank you, Mas­ter.”

  “Thank you, Mas­ter.” No hes­i­ta­tion. No fear of what was com­ing. Only a giddy, if trance­like, an­tic­i­pa­tion.

  He pushed her skirt even higher. “Put your hands at the small of your back. I’ll hold them there, so you don’t mis­be­have by try­ing to cover your­self.”

  Her arms drifted be­hind her. His fin­gers were warm around her wrists, pin­ning them to her spine. A snug man­a­cle to keep her in her place.

  Ex­cite­ment flared bright when he rubbed her bared but­tocks, his palm and fin­ger­tips raspy with cal­louses. It brought her part­way from the en­thrall­ment he held her with, arousal leap­ing to the fore. She moaned as he mas­saged her rear. She closed her eyes and sighed as he con­tin­ued to knead the soft flesh.

  “Such a di­vine bot­tom. Now Maryam, lis­ten closely to my in­struc­tions. Are you lis­ten­ing?”

  “Yes. I mean, yes, Mas­ter.”

  “Good. I’m cu­ri­ous as to what your bound­aries might be, but we’ll have to be care­ful since you’re preg­nant. I don’t plan to do any harm—that’s not what I en­joy any­way—but I might push you into un­com­fort­able sit­u­a­tions. When that hap­pens, you should con­sider if it’s a lit­tle dif­fi­cult, or whether you ab­so­lutely can’t han­dle it. If it’s only slightly un­pleas­ant or you’re un­easy about it, I’d like you to con­tinue. I ex­pect you to ex­plore how far you feel you should go with this new­found in­ter­est in sur­ren­der­ing. Do you un­der­stand?”

  “Yes, Mas­ter,” she sighed. He con­tin­ued to mas­sage, keep­ing her con­tent as bliss­ful arousal sim­mered. Hyp­no­tiz­ing her with his touch and gen­tle voice.

  “If you do ex­pe­ri­ence too much pain, or you find the ex­pe­ri­ence up­set­ting to a great de­gree, you must let me know. If that hap­pens, say sholt.”

  “Sholt?”

  “It’s Kalquo­rian for ‘stop’. You must say sholt, be­cause if you say ‘stop’ in your lan­guage, I might as­sume you’re en­joy­ing the fan­tasy of be­ing taken with­out per­mis­sion.”

  She liked the sound of that. She could thrash or beg him not to do some­thing with­out mean­ing it. He’d keep go­ing, know­ing she only in­dulged in the il­lu­sion.

  “I un­der­stand, Mas­ter. If I say ‘stop’ or ‘don’t’, you’ll know I don’t mean it. If I say sholt, you’ll stop.”

  “Im­me­di­ately. This is about us hav­ing fun to­gether, Maryam. Are we in agree­ment?”

  “Yes, Mas­ter. To­tal agree­ment.”

  “Very well, then.”

  He’d no sooner said that, when he left off rub­bing. His palm cracked against her ass.

  Maryam sucked in a star­tled breath. As she cried out, he popped her again. And again.

  The slaps con­tin­ued. The spank­ing wasn’t harsh, but it was re­lent­less. Her bot­tom warmed and be­came ten­der. Maryam yelped, kick­ing with each strike.

  “Stop! Stop!”

  He didn’t. Maryam wig­gled des­per­ately, un­able to break free. Kels re­strained her with no dis­cern­able ef­fort, keep­ing her in place.

  Sholt! That’s what you’re sup­posed to say, stupid. She’d for­got­ten al­ready.

  She opened her mouth to speak the word, when Kels’s voice spoke up in her mind. If it’s only slightly un­pleas­ant or you’re un­easy about it, I’d like you to con­tinue. I ex­pect you to ex­plore how far you feel you should go with this new­found in­ter­est in sur­ren­der­ing.

  It didn’t hurt out­ra­geously. Maryam re­al­ized she wasn’t sure why she was re­act­ing so strongly to it, ex­cept that it made her un­com­fort­able. Par­tic­u­larly in her head, where a tiny por­tion shouted how un­nat­u­rally she was be­hav­ing.

  As for the phys­i­cal part, the heat of the spank­ing sank into her flesh, puls­ing, reach­ing deep into her core…

  Oh.

  Though she con­tin­ued to kick and wail, Maryam sud­denly found a sen­sa­t
ion be­yond the sting­ing hurt. One that wasn’t ter­ri­ble at all. A de­li­cious, twisty feel­ing. In­tense. Riv­et­ing.

  With men­tal re­sis­tance su­per­seded by this other aware­ness, she grew more cog­nizant of her po­si­tion. She was pinned down by Kels, as she’d been trapped by Pana and Der­gan. Made help­less. Forced to en­dure what­ever was de­manded of her.

  Her throb­bing back­side dou­bled in its strength, but not in agony. No, this reached straight into her. Her wom­an­hood spasmed in rhythm with Kels’s strikes.

  It was amaz­ing. As­tound­ing. All at once, the pain en­thralled. She hoped it would never end.

  “Mas­ter! Please!” she choked. His slave, taken to task. Bad girl, naughty girl, get­ting what I de­serve.

  “Lie still. Take what you’re given.” His voice was husky, pant­ing not from ef­fort, but from ex­cite­ment.

  “Yes, Mas­ter. Any­thing.” She forced her­self to quiet un­der his dis­ci­pline. She was hy­per­aware of his pant­leg grow­ing wet un­der her mound, achingly close to her ea­ger clit. His erec­tions pok­ing her ribs. When he was done chastis­ing her, he’d as­sert his rule by fuck­ing his slave.

  He con­firmed that by end­ing the spank­ing and shov­ing two fin­gers in­side her pussy. “So wet. An­ces­tors.”

  “No, Mas­ter. Don’t. I don’t want to.” She tried to beg, but her voice was a throaty moan that left no il­lu­sion of her hunger.

  “Your pref­er­ences don’t en­ter into the pic­ture. You be­long to me. Your body is mine to use as I see fit.”

  He rose sud­denly, pick­ing her up and toss­ing her on the seat—but care­fully, she noted. She groaned when her rear touched the sur­face.

  “Does it hurt? Are you well aware of my gift of dis­ci­pline?” Kels low­ered the bench’s back to make the en­tire seat a hor­i­zon­tal sur­face, He threw open the over­head bin and reached in. He with­drew an­chor­ing cords.

 

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