Worthy of a Master: The Tale of a Perfect Slave

by Chelsea Shepard

  I put back the corset on the rack, but not without a slight pang of remorse.

  "If you must," she sighed before picking up another item. "What about this dress, then?"

  She was holding a red mini-dress cut in a shiny material that looked like thin leather and was as soft as silk (was it the same fabric as the cuff Khiru had used on me in the cave?). Even on a beach, this would hardly be appropriate. And we were on a spaceship.

  "I don't wear red."

  "Then this one?"

  "It's a veil! You can see through it!"

  "My, you're hard to please. Okay, this one is perfect. It's black, it will cover your breasts but reveal your neck, and it goes down to your ankles. Anything wrong?"

  "Yes. There's no backside, and everyone will see my ass!"

  "That'll be sexy."

  "That'll be suicide."

  "Try it on."

  After two hours of arguing, I gave up. I chose the long black dress, a blue mini-dress in the weird leather/silk fabric, a white bustier exposing my breasts more than the corset would have, and a couple of skirts that would have been indecent if my short size hadn't made them look longer (Myhre wanted to trim them, but I refused). That was my evening wear.

  For the days, I picked out comfortable T-shirts, shorts and leggings in every possible color. I had already decided that my days would extend until bedtime.

  We fought some more over underwear. First, Khyrian women didn't wear any bra, and no, they wouldn't build them just for me. And second, their favorite panties were reduced to a bare minimum strap of fabric.

  When I picked up ten tiny white pieces made out of smooth, cotton-like material, Myhre added ten others in black, red and purple lace, and another series in the same flashy colors, only this time in silky leather.

  "What is it with you and leather?" I asked, slightly tense but secretly excited.

  "Ah, it's amazing, isn't it? It's lilk, a synthetic material. It looks and smells like leather, but is as soft and supple as silk. I love it."

  Her technical explanation didn't answer my question, and what she added next troubled me even more.

  "Of course we use real leather, too. But only for special wear."

  "Oh, I take it these" – I showed my recent acquisitions – "aren't special?"

  She laughed; I shrugged.

  Myhre reminded me to show my badge to the shop assistant, who passed it under an invisible ray and handed it back to me with a knowing smile. Myhre was already waiting outside the store, and I followed her to the Therms.

  When we entered the aqua-thermal center, I stopped to take in the amazing view. Behind the pools, a wide mediaframe took up the whole length of the wall, and thousands of stars reflected in the dark blue water. On such a large scale, I detected slowly moving patterns showing the progress of the spaceship. It was breathtaking.

  Once I was able to take my eyes off the sky, I looked down at the facilities.

  In addition to a swimming pool, the Therms offered hot bubble baths, a solarium with armchairs and tables, and, more intriguing to me, a floating basin. In this basin, Myhre explained, the saline density of water was so high you could sit and float. Just like the Dead Sea on Earth, I thought.

  On the side, there were showers and massage benches. Plants and flowers everywhere added colorful touches to the otherwise blue environment.

  At this time of the day – morning for the Blue Team, late evening for the Green Team – the center was practically empty. People were either working or sleeping. Only three swimmers were taking long strides in the pool.

  Watching them reminded me of a detail.

  "Myhre, we forgot to get me a bathing suit!"

  This time, she didn't laugh, but looked at me with an air of sad incomprehension. Then she undressed and dived into the water. I blushed, and followed suit.

  I left my clothes on the armchair closest to the pool and immediately immersed my naked body out of sight. I relaxed while I was swimming, but got nervous again when Myhre waved for me to join her in a hot bath. Sitting on the side of the puddle, unembarrassed about her small breasts being exposed, she was chatting with one of the swimmers. When he waved at me, I recognized Vhar, my young teacher.

  I swam a while longer until I could no longer avoid the inevitable. I stepped out, conscious of my nudity, even more conscious of Vhar's gaze on my breasts, my hips, my sex. I stumbled into the Jacuzzi and sat next to Myhre, albeit on a lower level, deeper in the water.

  "Megan," she scolded, "don't be silly. Being naked is perfectly natural. You'll have a hard time living with us if you don't accept it."

  I grumbled what hopefully sounded like an apology and gingerly moved one step up. I scanned the pools surreptitiously and was almost relieved to see nobody cared about yet another naked person in the Therms. Then my eyes caught the captivating stare of an older woman enjoying a back massage a few steps away from us. I resisted the temptation of covering my breasts, clearly the object of her attention, and looked away in the hope that she would do likewise.

  More people were entering the thermal center. One by one, they undressed as naturally as if they were in their private bedrooms and continued chatting with friends while slipping out of their underwear. Men and women mingled happily without the slightest discomfort. I was the only one staring at their bodies, and I made an effort to be casual about it.

  Khyrians were close cousins to Earthlings, but a few physical peculiarities, in addition to their would-be ears, established them as a different race. For starters, none of them had pubic hair, not even the slightest shade of gray. Women had tiny breasts and hardly any waist, which would have made them look androgynous if most of them hadn't been wearing long hair. As to men, they had no visible testicles, their glands remaining inside their bodies.

  As I watched those alien naked bodies around the pools, I caught yet another stare of the woman on the massage bench. She was conversing with a friend, and I could have bet they were talking about me. I smiled, and they looked away, but not before I spotted a strange mixture of envy and sadness in their eyes.

  When my mind finally disconnected from my body and I regained a semblance of serenity, Vhar's resonating voice brought me back into the heart of the matter:

  "Do all Earth women have sex hair like you?"

  Chapter FIVE

  In our journey to Khyra, the first two months and the last two were critical. When the ship woke up from its two-year nap circling Earth, it was susceptible to glitches, and the crew maintained a constant watch on engines and navigation devices. Officers, engineers, pilots and technicians were particularly busy.

  Unfortunately, Khiru was busier than us all. As a member of the Officer Corps, he had to work overtime, both in the Blue and Green Teams, to set the vessel on the right path to their home planet. I only saw him occasionally, always at dinner and always with too many people around. He was nothing but courteous, but each word, each look rekindled the fire in me. However, his continuous state of alert made it clear this wasn't a proper time for flirting. I stifled my disappointment by hoping for better days once he wasn't so necessary on the bridge.

  Although Khiru was constantly in the background of my mind as a distant but nonetheless real promise for the future, many distractions conspired to keep me nicely entertained. I needed to learn everything from a new language to intriguing sexual customs, and, with so many goals to reach in the shortest possible time, I was almost relieved to postpone a new relationship with a man.

  My daily schedule quickly fell into a routine. I dedicated mornings to my lessons with Vhar. I had lunch with Myhre and Jova, and sometimes Naari when he could afford a break. Like Myhre, Naari was a geologist, but he was also an extra-vehicular pilot. In addition to the proper handling of his team's Earth samples, he was required for supervising any maneuvers outside the spacecraft. During those weeks, he barely had enough time to eat and rest.

  In the afternoon, I studied in the park or in my bedroom until Myhre would come to divert me. We ha
d dinner together, and ended the day in a lounge or on Skeda.

  For a month, I was very dependent on my friends because few other people spoke my language. I would have loved to explore the Noncha on my own, but this kind of adventure was daunting when I couldn't even read signs or understand announcements. I was also dying to use the Data Access Terminal, or DAT, available in my bedroom, but again, learning Khyrian was a prerequisite.

  While the crew was preparing the Noncha to set sail for Khyra, I studied their language with a vengeance. My dedication paid off. I could read after two weeks, understand plain conversations after four, and speak almost fluently after seven. Every night, I forced myself to study a hundred words and assimilated new expressions from every conversation I listened to. When I was finally able to eavesdrop on other people's chats, many concepts made little sense. It was one thing to learn words, another what they referred to. Khyra was a giant puzzle I was patiently sorting out.

  One of its trickier pieces was the omnipresence of sex. Despite Nur's warnings, I reacted strongly to the scenes I witnessed practically every day, especially when most of them took place where and when I least expected them.

  I'd walk down a hallway and come across two men, one of them naked, harnessed and walking on all fours. Or I'd enter an elevator and come face to face with a woman tied to a hand railing and gagged. The first time it happened, I remained glued to the floor until the door shut and the elevator left without me. I was so embarrassed, I walked to the opposite end of the corridor to take another one.

  My most memorable experience was when I absentmindedly picked up a fruit on a table set in the middle of the cafeteria and heard a moan under the careful assemblage. I was so stunned to see naked flesh under there – male or female, I couldn't tell – that I dropped my fruit back on the mountain it came from, and the heap collapsed. A roar of laughter ensued around me, and I quickly returned to my table, fruitless, while two men in a state of high hilarity reassembled the elaborate setting on their victim.

  When my face spontaneously expressed shock or dismay, those happy sufferers winked at me to show that they enjoyed their predicaments. They didn't need to comfort me; I knew about these games. Actually, many of them reminded me of novels I'd drooled over back on Earth. What was once a fantasy in my head was now a vision in front of me. But it was a shock to see it for real and, worse, to think that one day I might be one of these consenting victims. It would take time before I became as jaded as the Khyrians.

  At the end of the first month, Myhre helped me add a few more pieces to Khyra's puzzle.

  She joined me in Vazgor Park, my favorite place on the Noncha where I spent hours studying or just resting. It was quieter than the pool and as propitious for relaxation.

  Named after one of their war heroes, Vazgor Park occupied one fourth of Skeda. The hall that contained it was carpeted with grass and flowers, and dotted with small trees and bushes. Its walls had disappeared behind digital trompe-l'oeil that extended the view beyond the limit of the eye. The light was as diffused as a late-summer day. Only one detail troubled me: the ceiling was a fake sky, complete with thin clouds, but instead of blue, the color was a faded mint green. Although my brain knew it was an accurate representation of the Khyrian sky, which I had seen on many mediaframes, my senses perceived it as a malfunction. I kept waiting for someone to fix it. Since no one did, I avoided looking up.

  On one side of the park stood the greenhouse where a staff of space farmers grew fruits, vegetables and grains. I'd visited it several times to learn the names and tastes of Khyrian foodstuffs.

  But Vazgor Park also fascinated me because it was the door to the best-kept secret on the ship. On the side opposite to the greenhouse, a large tree akin to a weeping willow concealed the entrance to a place I wasn't allowed to visit, a place called the Twilight. Every day, around the time when dusk settled for one of the teams, I saw people walk under its foliage and disappear. Because most of them were dressed extravagantly, if not provocatively, I had concluded that the Twilight was an erotic playground of some kind; and because Myhre refused to take me there, I reckoned the scenes it hosted were of the extreme variety.

  On Earth, I would never have visited a sex club. Here, I was increasingly curious to find out how those smart and sane space travelers let their wildest instincts loose.

  However, Myhre was probably right when she argued I wasn't ready yet. Casual submission scenes in the cafeteria still troubled me, and I had no doubt the mysterious realm behind Vazgor Park would lead me on much more hazardous grounds. Besides, I was hoping Khiru would be my guide in the Twilight, as it would make the adventure even more thrilling. But my bewitching engineer had not even once set foot on the grass since I'd established my observation post.

  The secret of the weeping willow would have to wait; I had other, more essential questions to address first and, for these, Myhre made a better interlocutor anyway.

  "Myhre," I said as she sat on the grass beside me, "there's something I don't understand. Your civilization is smart, advanced, extremely friendly and open-minded. Then why do you treat women the way Earthlings do?"

  "What do you mean?"

  She was genuinely confused.

  "As a minority. On the ship, there are five men for one woman. Not a bad proportion for my species, but for yours ... I'd hoped that women would be equal to men in a superior society. And it's not only about numbers. I've also noticed that in sex scenes, women are always submitting."

  "Men submit, too."

  "Yes, but I've never seen women dominate."

  "That's only because there are fewer women, and the odds of finding a female Northie are lower, especially here on the spacecraft. But trust me, Khyrian women can be dominant, too. I'm one of them," she grinned.

  "You are what? A 'Northie'?"

  "First things, first. You asked about the number of women, and it's about time I told you since, obviously, no one else did. It's a sensitive subject, even to this day.

  "Centuries ago," she continued, "genetic science progressed so much that playing with genes and DNA became as easy as creating new vegetable hybrids. In the first phase, scientists eradicated diseases and malformations. In the second, they controlled contraception. Women who didn't want children underwent a simple treatment and became sterile. The reverse treatment was just as easy. In those prewar days, overpopulation was a serious problem, and many couples decided, or were convinced, not to have descendants.

  "Two generations were enough to cut our world population by two. Then, by four. Life-quality standards improved, wealth was restored, at least in those regions that could afford or allowed genetic therapy. Other regions became poorer and poorer, and war was inevitable."

  Naari hadn't given me the full picture when he'd introduced Khyra. Was he afraid I wouldn't follow them if I knew they could be as reckless as Earthlings were?

  "That's when genetic control got completely out of hand," Myhre continued. "Gene specialists started to mess up with gender. For military reasons, boys were preferred to girls, and as long as there were enough mothers to provide soldiers, the Khyrian genome was altered so that the odds of having a boy were two to one.

  "After decades of terrible fights that decimated two-thirds of Khyra's population, with a higher proportion in the nongenetic regions, the Gene Alliance won the war and imposed its rules on the losers. Those who had refused gene therapy underwent sterility treatment more as a reprisal than out of necessity. Overpopulation was no longer an issue.

  "Nor was there any need for more males. One hundred and fifty years after their first manipulation, scientists went back to their labs to re-engineer our genes back to normal, but they failed. Our DNA structure was so messed up that every attempt to repair it created more trouble. New diseases appeared, malformations increased, female hormones became tainted, and sterility grew to be critical. In the meantime, the proportion of boys to girls had increased to three to one, and nobody could stop the process."

  I scanned the park
and counted the males. I suddenly resented their number as a threat, like an expanding race of predators jeopardizing the survival of another species. Except that male Khyrians were also the victims of their own growth. As to women, I now understood why they had lost their feminine attributes and why they looked at mine with envy.

  How far had they let this madness go?

  "Eventually, the new diseases were mastered, but boys were six times more numerous than girls; and one woman out of three was hopelessly sterile. The Global Council, Khyra's main authority, issued a complete ban on genetic manipulations. Instead, they promoted work on new fertilization programs.

  "The Gene Law came into force four generations ago and is still in effect. We are so wary of genetic science, we don't even touch animal DNA."

  "And have you managed to solve your sterility problem?" I asked when Myhre finally paused.

  "We have various hormonal schemes and extra-uterus conception. Thanks to them, we restored fertility for half the couples."

  "It must be tough for those who try to get pregnant." Then another question came to mind, that one dictated by sheer personal interest.

  "By the way, do you still use contraception? I mean, with your nonchalant attitude toward sex, you're susceptible to … accidents, aren't you?" And I didn't bring any birth-control pills on board, I wanted to add.

  "On Khyra, no baby is unwanted," Myhre lectured. "But I see your point, and yes, men use natural means such as early withdrawal or semenbags. But chemical contraception is strictly forbidden. In certain cases, like here on the ship, men can also be temporarily sterilized."

  That was all the answer I needed. Somewhat ashamed by my selfish concerns, I tried to be more supportive.

  "Fertility for half the couples is not bad at all," I said.

  "It would be sufficient if the number of women equaled the number of men, which is not the case. There are still four men to every woman. The percentage has been stable for fifty years, but we can't improve it. The problem is, with less and less women and so many sterile couples–"