Olaf pulled up a chair and sat in front of him.
“What do you want to know?”
“You, are not an alien. Those drivers and outriders, were not alien. You, me old mucker, are as human as I am. So start explaining. Now. Who the fuck are you?”
Olaf nodded and smiled. “You are both wrong and right. You are wrong in this way, we are aliens, and we are not human like you. You are both aliens and human, like us! You see, Erickson, you do not belong on this planet. We brought you here and abandoned you, fifty thousand years ago.”
Five
Stella had opened her mouth and a torrent of filth had issued forth. This time it had not amused him and he had done or said something she didn’t catch, but the door opened and four guards in black fatigues came marching in.
Stella had astonished herself by jumping to her feet and yelling, “Yeah? Yeah? You wanna do this? Come on then!”
Krave Maga is not beautiful or stylish like Tae Kwon Do. But, like Jeet Kune Do, it is fast and efficient. The guards came at her like they were going to spank her pretty as and teach her a lesson. The First one grabbed her arm. He looked surprised when it came to him with no resistance. Then he screamed as she broke his nose with her other fist, twisted and broke his wrist, and for good measure ruptured his balls with her knee. As he went down she took his gun and shot the next guy in the thigh.
The other two were backing away and Thorvall was on his feet, shouting at them. Stella’s mind was racing. Her heart was pounding. A voice in her head was telling her she was in so much trouble now. There was no way out. But another part of her was telling her that if she was going down, she was taking the whole fucking ship with her.
And once she’d made that decision, she knew exactly what to do next. She shot the two guards and turned the gun on Thorvall as four more guards burst through the door. She was just about to say, “Tell them to stand down,” when they shot a dart into her neck.
She woke up tied to what seemed to be some kind of examination table. Her arms were stretched out above her head. Her legs were splayed and the ankles strapped to the corners of the table. She was stripped naked.
Thorvall was standing next to her. He was naked too, and in her groggy state she couldn’t help thinking that he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen in her life. She suppressed these thoughts and saw him narrow his eyes at her.
She snarled, “What the fuck do you think you are doing? Let me go or I swear to God I will tear your fucking head of and shove it so far down your throat you’ll be watching TV through your fucking ass!”
His eyes widened and there was the trace of a smile on his face. “That seems like a pretty good reasons not to let you go, Stella. You are a very aggressive woman. I think you have anger issues. Did you have a complicated relationship with your daddy?” She scowled at him. He continued, “We had no idea humans were still like this. We have been working on you for a long time, you know, from afar, to make you more passive and compliant.”
She said, “What are you talking about?” and then, “What do you mean, you’ve been working on us from afar?”
He smiled and trailed his fingers over her nipples, watching them harden. She felt the warm pleasure flow through her body. It burned in her belly. If only he wasn’t so damned beautiful! “We have been feeding you technology for about five hundred years, leading you like docile sheep.”
She looked into his eyes and forced herself to ignore the pleasure. She said, “I’m going to take that arrogance of yours and shove it right up your ass.”
His smile grew deeper. His finger trailed down over her belly. The excitement in her body increased and she longed for it to continue. “I can read your thoughts, Stella, they are written all over your face. You want me. You talk a lot about shoving…”
She focused her mind, thought about ice, about snow, about her own dignity. She said, “Fuck you, Thorvall! Fuck you!” Then she was thrashing, yanking on her chains and screaming, “Let me go you fucking asshole!”
He waited for her to finish and gazed down on her body. It was beautiful, but he was surprised to discover that he found her face, with her flushed cheeks and her bright eyes more beautiful than her body. Odd, he thought, remembering her words from earlier. Did sex in fact open the doors to a deeper, more intimate understanding of people? He leaned close to her and whispered in her ear, “Before much longer, Stella, it is I who will fuck you…”
A strange fear coiled like a living thing in her belly, mixing the thrill of panic with the intense anticipation of the pleasure of feeling this extraordinary creature inside her. She did not want it, but knowing it was inevitable allowed a secret part of her to surrender to the pleasure. She fought it fiercely, but the more she fought it, the more hungrily she longed for it.
He was laughing softly, walking around her, trailing his fingers down her inside thigh. “You are helpless, Stella. There is nothing you can do. You are completely in my power. And however hard you pretend, however much you fight it…” he slid his palm up her leg until his thumb was touching her lips, “…you will enjoy it, so why not just give in, surrender…? There is a very special pleasure, I am told, in surrender…”
He stopped by her shoulder. His body was muscular, but his movements were fluid and smooth. He bent and with extreme tenderness kissed her shoulder, then her neck below her ear. She shuddered. Her feelings were as naked and defenseless as her body. He placed his lips on her ear and whispered, “What are you sensitive places, Stella? Where are you longing for me to touch, to stroke, to kiss…”
She shook her head, saying, “No!” But even in saying that one word, she knew it was an admission that he was getting to her. He ran his tongue down her throat and over her chest toward her left nipple and saw it harden. He took it in his mouth and played with it. She could not suppress the groan. Then cried out, masking her pleasure with anger. But his tongue was traveling on, over her flat belly, toward her mound.
She screamed and strained against her bonds. The tension only intensified the pleasure as he took her in his mouth and explored her with his tongue. Her body took over. She lost control and groaned again, deeply, pushing herself into his face. In perfect unison with her, he snarled and bit, pushing deeper with his tongue. She arched her body with an ecstasy so intense she felt she would lose her mind.
Then he was climbing on the table, kneeling between her legs, gazing down on her nakedness. His eyes said one thing – that he owned her. He leaned forward and gripped her wrists. He slid his hands down her arms, cupped and caressed her breasts, and took hold of her waist. Then he raised her hips and pushed inside her.
She gasped and stared up into his face. Every part of her craved him. Her loins pulsed with the pleasure of having him inside. She dilated and contracted, trying to suck him in deeper. She gritted her teeth, pulling on her bonds to free herself, to claw at him, bite him, to consume him.
With slow, irresistible power, he withdrew and pushed back inside her. Her eyes were locked onto his. She heard herself whimper. He bent down and took her mouth in his, biting her lips and sucking her tongue. He lay on top of her. She was intensely aware of his skin on hers. He held her face in his hands, first kissing her deeply, then small, rhythmic pecks on her mouth. She fought not to respond, but could not resist and sobbed as she kissed him back. His rhythm increased in power, each thrust driving home with growing urgency. He put his hand over her mouth and gripped her throat. He said, “Don’t breath...”
She held her breath. His rhythm grew faster. His face flushed and grew savage. She pulled at her bonds. He pounded inside her. His rod was like iron. Her lungs cried out. And then he was roaring. And it was as though his orgasm sparked into her like electricity and she let out a long screech through her clenched teeth. Intense waves of pleasure surged through her like a madness. They thrashed against each other, rubbing their perspiring bodies together, straining to get closer than was physically possible, kissing hungrily at each other’s mouths. A second wave of orgasm
s flooded through her and she gave a small cry.
They lay, quivering and spent. He kissed her nipples and licked the sweat from her breasts. They stayed like that for a long time, until finally he rose up on his elbows and looked down, searching her eyes.
She said, “I hope you realize just how deeply I hate you. Don’t ever turn your back on me, you son of a bitch, because it will be the last fucking thing you ever do in this world.”
He smiled, but behind the smile she could see he was surprised and a little hurt.
“I thought you enjoyed it,” he said.
She narrowed her eyes. “You stole it from me. It was mine to give, not yours to take. You will pay.”
Six
She was released from her bonds after Thorvall had left, and shown to a comfortable room with an en suite bathroom where she was able to shower and dress in jeans and a sweatshirt that were the right size for her. Closer inspection of the bedroom showed her there was a door onto the apartment where she had first met Thorvall. As she stepped through she found him there talking to a man in a uniform.
“Governor Thorvall, it was a small convoy coming down to new York from Canada. It was only three trucks. They used light weapons. No explosives.”
Thorvall was holding up his hand and shaking his head.
“Wait, Commander Vulcan. Let us be clear. Are you telling me there were three vans of cargo that were completely undefended?”
“No, Governor…”
Thorvall’s face flushed with anger. “I did not think so. Because to believe such a thing I would have to be a complete cretin! Would I not?”
“Sir, the Governor is far from…”
“Would I not?”
“Yes, Sir…”
“So when you say ‘only three vans’, what you actually mean is, three vans, six outriders on hover-bikes and two Jeeps with laser cannon. Am I correct?”
“Yes Governor…”
“And so we come to the crucial information which you were trying, subtly, deviously, to conceal from me…”
“No, Sir, I was simply…”
“Do not interrupt me! …what has happened to the laser cannon and the bikes?”
“It appears, Governor Thorvall, that they have been captured.”
“So this band that were able to take a small convoy using only light arms, are now equipped with cannon and bikes.”
“That is correct, Governor Thorvall.”
“If you ever again attempt to conceal information from me I will have you skinned alive, publicly, and fed to hungry rats.”
“Yes, Governor.”
“Go, I need to think.”
The commander left and Thorvall became suddenly aware of her standing in the doorway. She smiled. “Having a bad morning, Honey?”
He looked quizzical.
“We did not expect you do be like this.”
She laughed without much humor. “We don’t expect to be the way we are ourselves. What hope have you got?”
He narrowed his eyes. “But we created you, we trained you, we conditioned you…”
Stella sniggered and dropped into an armchair. “You know? Those were my grandmother’s last words to me before they carted her off to the insane asylum. ‘Dat ain’t de way you woz brought up!’”
He stared at her a long time. His expression was unreadable. She watched him back and after a moment said, “So you created us, huh?”
He blinked. “There was a native species here. We crossed our own genes with the native ones and created you. Your mythology is full of it.”
“The demigods.”
“Amongst many others.” He walked to the window and stared out for a long while. Then he turned to face her. “This person who has taken our cargo and our lasers…”
“You don’t know anything about him…or her?”
“No. Nothing. What do they want?”
She stared at him, wondering who this person might be, and how she could get to them. She said, “You, dead.” He frowned and she added, “What do you want?”
He shrugged. “What is ours. This planet, it’s water, other resources…above all the women.”
She made a face like, ‘are you for real?’ and said, Why? Don’t you have women where you come from?”
“Very few, and they are mainly for breading.” His face became abstracted. He said without much feeling, “They are magnificent, with broad hips and enormous physical strength. They have many sphincters and great control over the walls of their uteri. They can bring a man to orgasm within a few seconds.”
“Nice.”
“Not really. If we want sexual pleasure we must seek it elsewhere. Sexual gratification is the biggest industry in the empire. That is three hundred worlds.” He took a packet of camel from his jacket pocket. She saw it had no government warning sign on it and frowned. He pulled out a cigarette and lit up, inhaling deeply and blowing smoke at the ceiling. He went on. “We colonize a planet, seed humans, leave them to grow up for about fifty thousand years, and then return to harvest the most beautiful young women. It’s a great gig.”
“You do all this just for sex?”
“Are you so different? You build empires, slaughter, massacre, wipe out entire species, all so that small groups of you can accrue power and wealth so that you can spend it on - what, exactly?”
Stella pulled a face. “I’d never thought of it like that. Sex, huh?”
“You should read Freud. He was right. And the more you repress that sex drive, the more twisted and unpleasant you become.”
“Yeah? Seriously? You don’t repress it, and you feed each other to the rats, and enslave women just so you can fuck’em!”
He shrugged. “Basically we are nice and pretty uncomplicated. Unlike you.” He stared out of the window with narrowed eyes, like he was trying to fathom some deep problem. “We gave you religions, social ideologies, we gave you TV, microchips, computers and cell phones, we even gave you pseudo-estrogens… you were supposed to be totally passive by now.”
She nodded. “That was you, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Imagine what we could have done if you’d left us alone.”
He shrugged, “We’ll never know,” and then, as though struck by a thought, “the planet would never have heated up! That’s for sure!”
She gaped at him, “What now?”
“The big difference between you and us is that we need heat and plenty of CO2. You? You thrive in the cold with lots of oxygen. We all have reptilian DNA, but in us it is more switched on, activated. It makes us cold-blooded, in both senses of the word.”
“So you engineered climate change so you could come back?”
“It took centuries. CO2 is easy to get rid off, but so hard to produce enough to make a planet cozy.”
“You could stop global warming?”
“In about thirty minutes.”
“How?”
He sighed, “I’ll show you later. Stella, tell me, how can I catch this rebel? Will you help me?”
She gaped. “You are serious, aren’t you?”
“Of course.”
“What will you give me if I tell you?”
He looked a little surprised and thought about it. A little gleam of mischievous cunning entered his eyes. “I know what you want, my little wildcat. I’ll let you stay with me, as my personal love slave.”
She laughed, then pointed at him with a knowing smile plastered all over her face. “You!” she said, “You are good! You are good! Man, you read me like a book. OK, here’s what you do…”
Seven
“You need to see this.”
Erickson crossed the room to where Bernie was sitting at his laptop. “What?”
Bernie pointed at the screen. There was a CNN news broadcast. Dee Ross, an Olympian-friendly journalist who had been made the main anchor of CNN’s domestic news coverage since the arrival of the ships, was standing in front of the UN Building on First Avenue in New York City, while in the background a couple of shut
tles were maneuvering a large black box into position. It was a cube, about thirty foot high and totally featureless.
Dee Ross was pulling the hair from her face as a strong wind whipped in off the river.
“All traffic has been stopped on First Avenue, and the exact nature of the operation is not yet known. But Governor Thorvall has assured us that he will, shortly, be making a statement to the press. All we know so far is that this…” She gestured back at it as it settled in the broad courtyard outside the building. “This box is of major importance in the developing relationship between the Olympians and what they like to call their ‘younger brothers’, us humans!”
Erickson pulled up a chair and sat. “What the fuck…?”
Dee Ross was looking like she might be about to cream her pants with excitement as she said, “Oh, but her is Governor Thorvall himself! Governor, what an honor to welcome you onto our show,”
Thorvall’s tall, athletic form appeared on the screen in what looked like a very expensive Italian suit. He peered curiously into the camera, then grinned at Dee.
“Hi, Dee. Say, Dee Ross, doesn’t that spell dross? You should really change your name.” He waited for a beat, then burst out laughing. She laughed too, though she looked like she wanted to cry. He placed his hand gently on her shoulder and laughingly said, “No. Seriously. You should. But as to this ‘box’,” he turned and smiled into the camera, “We are aware that, since our arrival, life has changed on this planet in many ways, and not everybody is happy about it. If you are ugly, too fat, too skinny, not shapely or just plain, well, boring to look at, you haven’t got a problem. But if you are a gorgeous chick, then I am afraid we have turned your life a little upside down. Before, you would have been thinking in terms of a career in Hollywood, as a supermodel, or even just a high-class hooker -” he turned to Dee whose eyes were like dinner plates, “I’ve heard some of those babes take home five grand a night. And you don’t even need to be smart. Could be a trade up for you, Dee Ross.” He laughed again and looked back into the camera. “What we have offered you, if you are a gorgeous chick, is a life of unmitigated pleasure, with no effort or cost being required on your part. Every woman’s dream, you would think. But humans are nothing if not complicated, am I right Dross?”
To Love A Hitman Page 43