The Alien's Captive

by Ava Sinclair

  “I did not mean to offend,” the matron said. “I was merely suggesting that the task could be given to another.”

  He took Phaedra’s arm. “Your work, I could not do. But training and discipline? Those things are my forte. My pet will kneel more readily and prettily than any other, and learn to do so in shorter time.”

  The matron nodded, and Bron turned to take his leave. Beside him, Phaedra walked briskly, but he could feel the tension in her body.

  “You need to eat,” he said. “The nutrition injections they gave you when you arrived unconscious have likely worn off.” They were in one of the glass pods now. It dropped, zoomed left, and sped up as it headed to the general’s private apartments.

  “I’m not hungry.” Her voice was sullen.

  “It does not matter,” he said. “You’re small. And I am demanding. Once training starts, you will need your strength.”

  He noted she did not respond, but merely looked out through the glass at the passing lights as Trao X39’s rail system zipped through the glittering city. Enclosed rails connected the complexes, allowing visitors to move between them. Domes containing lush vegetation could be seen in the distance, their interiors lit by artificial sunlight.

  “How long do nights last here?” she asked.

  “In your time?” he replied, making note of her dismissiveness in changing the subject. “A year. We are now two Earth months into this night.”

  The pod was slowing. A wall before it opened and shut when it passed through. The military compound housing the elite officers of the Iron Guard and their families was expansive, albeit less elaborate than the senatorial quarters.

  When the pod stopped it was before a looming façade of silver gray stone mined from the planet’s quarries.

  “This is my home,” Bron told her. “Now it is yours, too. I’ve prepared chambers for you, and an attendant for when I am not in residence. All your needs will be met here.”

  She didn’t answer.

  He tipped her chin up until she was forced to look at him. “Your sullenness is a form of defiance,” he remarked. “Do not make the mistake of thinking I don’t notice, or that I will excuse it.”

  Bron was glad to walk through the doors of his great hall that had belonged to his father and his father before him. His was a political dynasty, and his home reflected his upbringing: a massive mural depicting the battle between Trao X39 and the Krillinians. Bron’s hand automatically moved to the breastplate that hid the scar on his chest as he remembered the day GilAman had saved his life after he’d been hit with the blade made of Krillinian steel, the only substance capable of penetrating Traoian armor. Bron had fought injured to still win the battle. But the corruption within his own government now left him wondering what he’d been fighting for, and facing a political battle he’d never counted on.

  “General, good welcome.” His genderless servant, Jollin, walked over and beside him he heard Phaedra gasp. It was understandable, as she’d never seen an Areptoid before.

  “It’s good to be home, Jollin.”

  “And you’ve acquired a pet. How nice.” Jollin’s eyes blinked, first the nictitating membranes, and then the scaled eye covering, and he cocked his head as he studied his master’s newest acquisition. “She is so lovely.”

  “And she is hungry, although she denies it. Can you please use the new conversion program to fashion something she’ll enjoy? The menu boards have a wide variety of information on Earth food.” He turned to Phaedra. “What do you like to eat? In my reading, I understand some things called ‘hamburger’ and ‘pizza’ are common there?”

  “I told you. I’m not hungry.”

  “Make her both.” Bron replied, and Jollin bowed before turning to walk away.

  “Come with me.” He waited until the servant was out of hearing range before taking Phaedra into a side room where he sometimes received guests. Here there was a low seating platform. Phaedra was still wooden in her posture, her body tense and resistant as he led her to it. He knew all the signs of passive resistance—had seen it in recruits who felt too helpless to fight back conventionally and hoped that just shutting down would earn them a ticket home. They did not know that the cure for this was the kind of sudden and swift discipline necessary to jar them from their cocoons. It was a lesson that Phaedra was about to learn as Bron sat down and pulled what looked like a piece of string from a pouch at his side.

  “No!” She did seem to know when she went over his lap that she was about to be punished. Panic gave a brief burst of strength, and she struggled against him. But there was no hope of escaping a large, muscular captor with superhuman strength. He easily restrained her, and Phaedra wailed in frustration as he raised the shift, baring her bottom.

  She looked back, and he could see the reality of her predicament in her frightened face as she realized he was going to spank her. Bron knew how innocuous the implement must look to her; he also knew as soon as she felt it, she’d realize the effectiveness of the tool designed to bring near agony to the nerves of her soft, female flesh.

  The impossibly painful burn of the flexible, string-like metal designed to sting without leaving marks would be more than she could bear. When the first blow fell, she screamed from surprise at the sudden searing pain that had been compared to branding. Since there were no welts, Bron was careful to make a mental note of where the loop fell; this was an expert’s implement, and used incorrectly could lead to the miscreant’s passing out from the pain. His goal was to take her nearly to the limit of her endurance, to make her sob and wail and submit.

  She bucked on his lap, her hips bouncing up and down, jiggling her firm bottom cheeks. Bron remembered the feel of that springy flesh between his teeth, the taste of her essence as he’d sucked it off his finger. A lesser man would have fucked her right away, as punishment. But he would teach her to crave his touch, not fear it. When he took her publicly at the assembly, her reactions would be genuine, not rehearsed, her excitement real and not faked.

  “Ow! Ow! Ow!” She was wailing the word over and over, and when he finally put the loop aside, Phaedra was rocking back and forth on his lap, her breathing ragged and shallow. Bron turned her over in his lap, pulled her to sitting despite her howl of resistance and barked an order for her to face him that was so fierce that she stopped crying.

  “You will not hide from me,” he said. “Not even in your own mind. Understand?”

  And he could tell by the look of fear in her eyes that he’d gotten her attention.

  “Answer me!” he repeated. “Do you understand?”

  She nodded, her hiccoughing breaths making it impossible to answer.

  “Now. We are going to go to the dining hall. Jollin has had the kitchen prepare sustenance. If you do not eat, nutrition will be injected into your bottom. GilAman has told me I’ve only to call and he will be here for the procedure.”

  He tipped Phaedra off his lap, feeling a little sorry for her as she stood there sniffling, her small hands cupping her impossibly sore bottom cheeks. He longed to tell her that things would get better, but resisted the urge. Only she could make it better through her obedience. That was the first lesson. Everything she did had consequences with him, her master.

  “Would you like to speak?”

  Now she raised her large, tear-filled eyes to his. “What does it matter?” she asked miserably. “I have no control over anything.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “How does it feel?” Phaedra asked, and he was surprised to hear the barb, the taunt, in her tone. “How does it feel to steal and completely subjugate someone smaller and more helpless than yourself? Does it feel good? Do you feel proud?”

  He considered not answering, but it was a pertinent question, one he’d already asked himself.

  “It feels necessary,” he said quietly. “We all have our place in the order of things.”

  Dinner was served in the dining hall, and the Earth food that looked so curious to him obviously sparked the appetite
Phaedra had denied having. He did not tell her that the food itself was not composed of the ingredients from Earth, but was their own specially balanced pet diet formulated from Traoian ingredients and transformed to look like Earth food. Inside were supplements designed to prevent pregnancy, to keep her weight perfectly balanced no matter how much she ate, to keep her hair shiny, to nourish her entirely.

  “I’m tired,” she said after she’d eaten. She said nothing more, and Bron noted that she didn’t meet his eyes. It was not from defiance, though; he could tell she meant what she said.

  “I’ll take you to your chamber.”

  He’d had the room prepared especially for her, and when they entered, the general took note of Phaedra’s reaction. She obviously was not expecting the surroundings to reflect the finest Earth furnishings. He’d been advised that to assimilate his new pet into her lifestyle, all vestiges of her home planet should become a distant memory. But this is where he departed from the hard line. This was a female, and he knew females—regardless of species—were comforted by the familiar. The chamber he’d chosen for her was in the top tower of his hall overlooking a vast stretch of glittering sand and a mountain range beyond. The window above could be opened to allow in moonlight, or closed and lit with the soft glow of wall sconces in whatever color she chose. The bed was heavy and ornate, draped in fine fabrics. There was a matching bureau with a model of the solar system in a transparent case on top. There were shelves with models of Earth creatures for her to hold. There were books in her language on Trao X39, on its history and flora and fauna should she want to learn. He did not believe in keeping his pet ignorant. If she was intelligent—and he believed Phaedra was—he wanted her to learn all that she could.

  A wall panel hid a closet that would soon hold clothing designed just for her by Matron Sharad. A bath chamber held a smaller pool similar to the one in the matron’s chambers, and Bron had already arranged for two Areptoid attendants to dress and groom his pet each morning.

  “Will this suffice?” he asked. He’d been watching as she walked around the room, her reticence replaced with the curiosity he found so appealing. She’d stopped at the bookshelf, and had taken down a model of an Earth horse before replacing it with a sad look and reaching for a book on Traoian creatures.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s fine.” She paused. “Thank you.”

  He walked over and picked up a shift that was lying on the bed. “Do you need help dressing for the night?”

  “No.”

  She was running her finger down the spine of the book.

  “Ours is a rich history,” he said. “We are a proud race, the Traoians. A scholarly race. But also a fierce race. We dominate this system.” He took the book from her, took her hand and led her to the bureau, pointing to the case holding the model of swirling star systems and planets.

  “We are here,” he said, pointing to an orange ball being slowly circled by three moons. Our nexus star is here. On your planet, it is called a sun.” He pointed to the other side of the planet where a large star could be seen at the edge of the system.

  “Where is my home?” she asked. “In relation to this?”

  “Outside of our system, far away. There are doorways that allow us to travel to your planet, but you are behind us in years.”

  “Wormholes,” she said, looking up.

  When he raised a quizzical brow, she glanced back at the display. “It’s what we call them on Earth. Wormholes. So I’m not only away from home, but trapped in the future?”

  “It seems,” he said.

  “And other races are coming to our planet, taking our women, breeding us, making pets of us…” She looked up at him. “If you are from the future, what becomes of us?”

  “Enough.” He pushed a button and the display went dark. His pet needed to sleep, and that would not happen if he told her that her planet, in his time, was no longer inhabitable.

  Chapter Seven

  “Again.” Bron was sitting on a high chair just above where Phaedra was once again forcing herself down onto the polished floor. To his right was a holoscreen showing the nine required pet postures. Phaedra had mastered two—the basic kneel and the supplicant—but was having trouble with the first of three presentations.

  From the short conversation that Phaedra had with Matron Sharad, she’d expected this sort of training. What she’d not expected was the audience. Bron had informed her that once she’d mastered her postures, she’d be presented in a very public and televised assembly. But the training itself was done in a sort of arena that reminded Phaedra of a medical theater, where the elite males came to catch glimpses of the newest Earth Pets.

  “Again.”

  “I can’t.” The position required Phaedra to sink to her knees and arch her back, thrusting her ochre-tipped breasts with their jeweled nipples forward. But try as she might, she could not get the correct angle to her back to signal the success tone that filled the chamber when she got a position right.

  She stood, without his permission. “I tried,” she said. “I can’t do it.”

  There was a murmur from above.

  “You will try again,” he said. “Or you’ll get the loop.”

  She flushed, her face warm from strain and humiliation as she dropped back into position, guided by the disembodied voice of the on-screen instructor to retry the position. “Shins pressed into the mat, back arched slightly back, palms forward, chest out, out, out. Bend, bend, bend.”

  Phaedra knew why she was having difficulty. It wasn’t physical. It was mental. The garment she was dressed in consisted of little more than a short, sheer skirt and a harness that crisscrossed under her breasts, lifting them obscenely upward. To tilt her chest toward the man who called himself her master in such a lascivious fashion went against everything she believed. But the thought of public punishment, of having her bottom stung by that horrible implement as these strangers watched? That was worse.

  The tone sounded and Bron rose from his chair to the sound of smattering applause from the audience.

  “Open your mouth, pet,” he said, and Phaedra obeyed, trying not to show the resentment she felt as Bron popped a small sweet treat onto her tongue. It immediately melted into the most delightful flavor reminiscent of ripe summer fruit and butter and cream. But beyond that, it gave her a temporary sense of well-being.

  “You please me,” he said, and the shadow of a smile crossed his face.

  “Three out of nine? At this rate, she’ll be ready for next year’s assembly…” A reedy voice caught her attention and Phaedra, still kneeling, turned to see a tall, elegant Traoian male in sapphire robes walking in leading a cat-eyed brunette on a golden leash. The woman was wearing what looked like a breastplate, but with holes that exposed her breasts. The breastplate was short, ending at the middle of her ribcage. From there, the garment was looked like a golden waterfall that fell to mid-thigh. The sandals the brunette wore were laced to the top of her calves by golden straps. Phaedra couldn’t help but to stare.

  The man jerked the leash attached to a thin gold collar, pulling the slave to him.

  “First presentation,” he said, and the brunette dropped, beautifully arching her back and presenting her nipples. Her master reached out and pinched both so hard that Phaedra gasped. But the slave only moaned with pleasure.

  “Very good, Dakara. Stand.”

  She rose, and now she too was staring at Phaedra with something between condescension and hatred.

  “Senator Primus,” Bron said. “I wasn’t expecting you to be back from your campaign to Sector 3.”

  “I’m sure you were hoping I’d miss the embarrassment of this display. My Dakara mastered all the positions in the first day.” He reached out and ran a hand down her hair, as one might pet an animal. “Your little flame-haired pet is unusual and comely, that I will concede. But I must ask, General Bron—was she injured during transport? There must be some explanation for her obvious learning disability?” Beside him, the brunette smirked. />
  Phaedra found herself riled by this insult to her intelligence. “Not all of us were born simple beasts. For some, it takes longer for us to lose our identity and bow to simple males.” The words were out of Phaedra’s mouth before she could stop them, and the shocked silence of the others had Phaedra quickly realizing her mistake.

  “Well…” Senator Primus smiled broadly. “She’s surely eloquent, and bold enough to dishonor you, General Bron. Tell me, do you plan to give her a platform at the assembly? Perhaps have her emasculate you publicly by speaking in your stead? She certainly is good at it.” He chuckled. “My, oh, my. And you’re the man seeking to convince this district of your strong ‘leadership’ skills? Well, let’s just say I have my doubts.” He looked down at Phaedra. “It was nice to see you, little human. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say I look forward to the outcome of this battle of wills. It will be interesting to see which one emerges as master, and which as pet. Come along, Dakara.”

  She’d humiliated him.

  That much was apparent even before Phaedra looked into the disapproving eyes of General Bron. And it gave her mixed feelings. On one hand, she’d been dehumanized and humiliated since her arrival. On the other hand, what happened left her unsettled. Senator Primus had clearly baited her. If she’d trusted her instincts, she’d have ignored his barbs and remained silent. What had she done?

  “I’m taking you home.” The statement was delivered coolly.

  “I can try again. With the positions, I mean.” Phaedra felt a sudden sense of dread and put aside her pride to try to repair the damage. “I can go onto the next position.”

  “No.” Bron took her arm. “I clearly need to conduct some sessions privately. Senator Primus is correct. You are overly proud, Phaedra.”

  “Are you going to beat me?” Her voice was shaking.

  “No. What I have in store is something much more effective.”

  She felt sick as the pod sped back to this compound. The loop had been terrible, but obviously General Bron didn’t think it was enough.