by Poppy Rhys
She felt dirty walking through the narrow passageways in between the multicolored shacks, and poorly built homes. Fin couldn’t imagine how people ended up here, in such destitute states they had to resort to living in nothing much more than a raised hole in the ground.
She’d never seen slums like this before.
Even the ‘slums’ on Dor Nye were clean, and had proper housing, they were just smaller buildings on modest pieces of land that didn’t usually pass from generation to generation like a proper residence did.
They were meant for that small group of individuals who didn’t have any more family left, or people from other planets that immigrated to Dor Nye. But even that was usually temporary, as she knew a few families in her home territory of Dranza that were immigrants, and now held sizeable land with a beautiful, respectable residence.
They stopped at a yellow stone dwelling, its blue, splintering planter boxes on the two small windows overflowing with pink flowers which gave off a fresh fragrance that seemed out of place in the grimy community.
She watched as Hunter’s knuckles rapped softly on the red painted door, followed by the sound of a series of locks and small chains popping and squealing from the other side.
The door slowly creaked open, the hinges whining with each inch until the face of an old Rishin woman appeared.
Rishin’s were the dominate species of Vishik. Her apricot colored skin looked weathered, the fine wrinkles around her mouth and tired gray eyes proof she wasn’t a young lady anymore. White hair was swept back into a single braid that dangled over her shoulder and curled at the fringe.
“Hunter,” she gasped, opening the door further and tugging her purple cloth robe tighter around her petite body.
She quickly wrapped her arms around the Yarian, standing on her tip toes to do so even though he hunched down to embrace her.
“You’re free,” she sighed, a hint of bewilderment in her tone.
“Almost,” he replied in Lotyne, which startled Fin.
It surprised her earlier that he knew English, and even more so that he knew Lotyne too. She wondered if he spoke Za, the third official trade language.
“Come in, come in,” the old woman said, scurrying back inside.
Finley passed the threshold first, Hunter’s hand pressing into her back before he followed, closing the door behind him and resetting the sequence of locks.
Warm, golden light emitted from a small lamp and cast a glow through the modest living area, tossing shadows in the corners of the low ceiling.
The tall bookshelf across the room immediately drew her attention, the spines different shapes and sizes with no real sense of arrangement. A dead bug lay belly up atop scattered papers on the surface of a thin table, mimicking the shelf’s disorganization as its peeling paint dusted the rug laden floor below with chips of cyan.
Warm vanilla and cinnamon washed away the foul odors of outside, the pleasant scent giving a false sense of security and almost making her forget where she truly was.
“This is Finley,” Hunter told the lady, gesturing to her. “Finley, this is Senna. She has been a good friend since I was taken to Carnal Bazaar.”
Senna gave Fin a once over, a puzzled lift to her sleek gray eyebrow.
“Why aren’t you alone?” Senna asked the alien. “Where did you find her?”
Fin’s implant quickly adopted the tones to mimic Senna’s voice and translate her Lotyne words into English. She still found it strange, watching the lips of people move differently than what she heard, like watching a dubbed vid.
“She’s a customer.”
Fin felt her face catch fire when Senna did a double-take, a mixture of what looked to be surprise and loathing morphing her features.
“It’s not my finest moment, okay?” Fin said defensively, smoothing her damp dress, like that would help. “I was dragged into it.”
A doubtful glance from both of them.
Fin squinted, figuring she wouldn’t believe it either if the roles were reversed. Now she was the pervert.
Thanks Paola. Cow.
Senna’s eyes drifted downward, taking in the hem of Fin’s damp gown and her filthy slippers and said, “You must be uncomfortable. Let me wash your shoes, and I’ll get you something dry to put on.”
Old Rishin’s, hospitable bunch.
Slowly, she slipped her reddened feet out of her soiled flats and handed them to the woman.
“Please, sit, sit,” she told them both as she disappeared down a very narrow hallway.
Fin crossed her arms over her chest, fingertips rubbing her elbow as she stayed planted where she stood. There was a very small, threadbare two seater couch with a knitted blanket tossed over the back, and a wooden rocking chair in the corner, both facing a low laying coffee table with knickknacks littering its surface, but she didn’t want to dampen the furniture.
An awkward handful of seconds passed with Hunter watching her as he stood there in nothing but his already dry loincloth that hung down betwixt his muscular legs in front and back.
Hostility. Desire.
God, even then, she wanted him to do the finger thing again, and watch while he got himself off. Maybe she really was a pervert.
Her eyes rolled around the room, trying to look at anything other than the Yarian.
Senna returned with a sleeveless cotton sleep gown, and quickly deposited it into her arms. “You are taller than me,” she said, sizing Fin up, “so it may be shorter than it’s intended to be, but it’s dry.”
“Thank you,” Fin nodded her head, gripping the white fabric.
“You’re welcome,” Senna smiled, ushering her to a curtained doorway. “You can get dressed in my room.”
Her eyes scanned the small enclosure landing on a neatly made single sized bed, shelves loaded down with more books, figurines, and vases with dried flowers.
She exhaled, twisting the leafed ring upon her finger as everything was beginning to catch up with her.
Dana crossed her mind again, and her eyes lit up, hands flying to the hidden pocket of her dress. When she found only a hairband, she pulled on the fabric, double checking with her eyes.
She’d specifically put her comm in her pocket before entering Carnal Bazaar. The only reason it wouldn’t be there is if someone took it or it fell out.
She searched her mind, trying to pinpoint where it could’ve fallen. It could’ve dropped when she fell in front of the officer, or it could’ve slipped when Hunter threw her over his shoulder.
Barbarian.
Finley rubbed a palm over the tight skin of her forehead. Maybe Senna had a comm she could use. If she could just call her parents, her dads would know what to do.
Peeling the gown from her body, she slipped her arms through the thin sleep gown. The fabric was soft, old, and comfortable as it swooped down to her knees. She felt a little exposed without anything on underneath, her underwear lost back in Hunter’s cage at that wicked place.
“Did you have difficulty finding the hidden entrance I told you about?” Fin heard Senna ask.
“No, I found it easily,” Hunter responded.
“What will you do now? You know you can stay with me as long as you like.” The tone of Senna’s voice sounded motherly.
“It is too dangerous,” he told her lowly.
Finley cleared her throat, exiting the curtain with her wet dress gripped within her hands. They both turned as she reentered the front room. Hunter’s eyes raked over her, making her feel extremely bare while Senna smiled, lifting the garment from her.
“I will wash this, and the shoes,” she patted her arm. “You’ll have them back in the morning.”
“That’s kind of you.”
Wait.
“The morning?” Her confused gaze darted between the Yarian and the old Rishin. “I need to get on a shuttle tonight.”
“Relax, little human,” Hunter scowled, like she was an impatient youngling. “Tomorrow, once this dies down, you can hop your shuttle to wherever you
r puny heart desires.”
Finley gritted her teeth together. What an asshole!
“You must be exhausted,” Senna interrupted her stare down with the alien. “Follow me and I’ll show you where you can rest.”
“Is there any way I could make a call?” she asked, breaking her gaze with Hunter. “I really need to call my family.”
And then a transport.
“My comm is charging, but you can call in the morning, after a good night’s rest.”
Dammit, so close.
Finley exhaled, nodded, and followed the woman down the hall.
She had never spent the night in an unfamiliar place before, outside of a hotel. Growing up, she normally hosted the sleepovers among her friends, and she was sore to admit she felt vulnerable just thinking about sleeping somewhere among strangers.
One of which had been all up in her private business. Was the big green jerk really a stranger though? Did finger fucking count him as an acquaintance?
Nah, but maybe ejaculating on her leg did. Thankfully the rain had washed that filthy evidence away.
She shivered, her abdomen tightening.
Fin pinched herself, her brain clearing.
“I don’t have many guests,” Senna confessed, holding back the curtains of another doorway at the end of the passage. “It’s not much, but you’ll be safe here.”
Finley’s eyes roved over the room that looked more like a dark closet with a cot.
Three shelves lined with linens hung above the bed, and a round, frosted glass window sat near the ceiling on the wall directly across from where she stood, the only decorations. Anything more and no one would fit inside.
A lone bulb dangled from the ceiling, the exposed electrical cord strung into a corner, down to the floor, and out of sight.
She stepped into the room, the pathway beside the cot barely enough space to walk.
“If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Thanks,” she dipped her head and gingerly sat down on the flat mattress.
For a few minutes, she stared at the patched wall in front of her, a slight daze gripping at her mind before she stood and clenched the string to turn off the light.
One night, some sleep, and she would call a transport in the morning. Dana could manage without her, right? Hopefully Paola got her best friend to safety. They might even be off Vishik by now.
Fin hoped.
She lay above the covers, her head resting upon the thin pillow as she turned her back to the aisle. Her eyelids grew heavy, but sleep kept evading her. Instead, she listened to the muffled voices of Senna and Hunter for what felt like a long stretch of time.
Finley wondered how he knew the old woman. Maybe it was the place they kept the sex workers when they weren’t, well, working. But what business would Senna have there?
The curtains swished, and while she couldn’t see him, she felt Hunter’s presence just as she had in the cell.
Her heart fluttered nervously in her chest when she felt him lay at her back on the edge of the cot. He didn’t touch her, barely, but she was all too aware he was there.
Finley’s eyes scanned the wall she faced, even though she couldn’t actually see anything with how dark it was. It was just her breathing, and his, and after a few minutes she couldn’t take it anymore.
“How do you know English?” she whispered, feeling him shift slightly.
“I learned many languages after five terms of being around many species, though I knew Lotyne before my capture.”
After a few more thoughtful moments passed, he added, “I liked to keep my mind busy so there was more to my day than simply eating, sleeping, and fucking.”
That word hung in the air between them, and she felt her thumb twisting her favorite ring upon her index finger. She was glad it was dark so he couldn’t see the flush she felt heat her face and reach her hairline.
Vivid images of his cock, his hard body, they flashed over her wide eyes. His groan thrummed her ears like a ghostly tune.
Pinch.
“How do you know Senna?” Finley inquired when she found her voice again.
“She works for Xeno.”
She startled. “What?”
“A nurse,” he reassured. “To repair the damage inflicted by some clients.”
The words of the announcer floated back to her, asking her not to scar Hunter’s face or cock, that they were harder to repair. She grimaced, because she was now considered a client as well. The shame she felt about that was embarrassing.
“How did you end up working for Xeno?” She asked curiously, clearing her throat and swallowing.
“Wrong place, wrong time,” he said simply. “Vishik can be dangerous, depending on who you deal with.”
She wondered what he’d been doing that would put him in that position.
“Why did you agree to work for him? I mean, he wouldn’t have use for you if you refused to… to perform.”
“I fought initially,” he sighed, and Fin suddenly felt like she was intruding, that her curiosity was dredging up things he didn’t want to talk about, but he surprised her by continuing. “When I broke an attendants arm for using the prod on me, they gave me the serum.”
Fin’s eyes darted back and forth in the dark as she listened. “What did the serum do?”
He cleared his throat and shifted again, causing the cot to wiggle beneath them.
“Make me perform,” he breathed. “It felt like mishk, only worse. Much worse. Unnatural. Though at the time, I had nothing to compare it to as I had never experienced mishk since I had never lain with a female.”
“You were a virgin?” she blurted. For some reason that surprised her.
“Shocked, little human?” He made a sound with his throat. “My people stay chaste until they choose their Mi’Ska, and the males only experience mishk after the first joining.”
It was her turn to shift uncomfortably before he went on.
“They put me in a cell with my first client after that,” he said, a cold, detached feeling to his deep voice, “a Fumio female. A furred race. Big, very aggressive, and they like using their claws.”
Her forehead wrinkled in the dark as her lips pressed together, unsure if she wanted to hear more, but before she could tell him he didn’t need to tell her, he spoke up again.
“My hand wasn’t enough, and after many failed efforts… She patiently waited until I realized this.”
Finley’s throat worked as she swallowed repeatedly. She wasn’t sure how she felt about hearing all of this. When she felt his finger trail the back of her shoulder, she flinched, nearly jumping out of her skin.
“She tore up my back, and I allowed it to happen, because I was too consumed with fucking her in hopes of finding a satisfying release.”
Fin heard a rumble in his chest. That groan, like the one from the cell while he was touching her.
“Fuck, I’ll never forget it,” he whispered hoarsely, shifting at her back until she felt his hot breath fanning the hair at the back of her head. “Turns me on, even now, little human.”
A sharp, almost painful whirl of arousal shot through her sex, causing her thighs to instinctively tighten.
“You could see the bone of my shoulder from the damage her claws inflicted, so I was told. That is when I first met Senna. She repaired me.”
Silence stretched between them, as she wasn’t sure what to say, how to respond.
Finley didn’t think he would want pity, and that’s exactly what she felt. That, and the burning need to grab his hand and shove it between her legs.
Pinch. Pinch!
Fin opted to lie still, closing her eyes and praying she could eventually fall asleep.
****
Why was he telling her these things? It was as if he had no control over his mouth. Even then, at that moment, he wanted to tell her more.
He wanted to do more too. His fingers itched to delve back into her tight, warm cunt. Nothing sounded more pleasing at that moment than
turning her onto her belly and ramming her from behind.
Leeshi, he was a mess.
And she, a human. So little, so easy to break. Puny.
It didn’t escape his notice that she stood up for him at Carnal Bazaar. Not that he cared, but most clients would’ve laughed, or asked to handle the prod themselves.
He hated that fucking prod.
It surprised him though. She surprised him.
Not often did that happen anymore. Seeing the bottom of the barrel in Carnal Bazaar, the base needs of others, nothing really shocked him any longer.
He found it pleasant.
That alone vexed him.
In the midst of the mishk fever, he grabbed at her through the bars because she was female. Nothing more, nothing less.
A receptacle, a warm body to slake his lust upon. In return, he would make her feel good too.
But once again, he was surprised that he wanted to touch her, pleasure her body, see her reaction.
It made him hard, even now, thinking of her glorious orgasm. No human had ever picked him before, though he’d seen plenty visit the place.
He really was at his lowest, slumming it with a human, lusting after her smooth, tight body.
Ugh.
He should’ve left her there to be arrested. Now he would have another body to worry about.
Again, not that he cared what happened to her, but now he had to keep a watchful eye to make sure she didn’t lead Xeno back to Senna.
That wouldn’t do.
The humans deep breathing signified her slumber, and still his cock was hard.
Hunter refused to spend in his hand like some adolescent. He suppressed an annoyed growl, willing the thing to behave and lie down.
The only good thing of today was the fact that he was free.
It stunned him.
Five grueling terms of debasing himself, of others debasing him… over. Just like that. Unreal, it seemed. As if any moment now, he would wake with the nest of dead grass below him that’d served as his bed for so long, in cell number nine.
The cold, cement jail, neighbors to his left, neighbors to his right, neither of which he could see due to the solid walls. Only those that occupied the cells across the single hall were visible to him, through the iron bars.