He scratched his forehead, shielding his eyes from me.
"Hmm. Does that mean you have no feeling for me?"
No answer. He was staring at me, and I kept my eyes on his chest, wondering if his heart was pounding as strongly as mine.
I pressed him further. "Where I come from, when people have an interest in each other, they give it a try. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but at least they don't ignore their feelings."
I couldn't believe he was still silent.
"You don't want to try?"
A sigh.
Better than nothing, I supposed.
"Megan, you're a special girl, and I like you a lot. But I don't want a relationship. Let's just be friends, have sex and leave it at that."
"Is it because you think I'm not good enough for you? Because you're a Rhysh Master and I'm an inexperienced Earthling, and you think I can't give you what you need? I can, Khiru. I'm a Southie."
He propped himself up on his elbow and observed me with increased curiosity. Had I struck a chord?
"I checked my DNA results, so I know for sure," I went on. "I've also been dreaming of bondage and submission all my life. I even bought a few toys on Earth. What I could never find was a partner, so I admit I don't have any real experience, but you can teach me."
I smiled and waited for him to react. I could almost hear his brain cells hum and whir. I was hopeful until his eyes settled on an expression of sadness and resignation.
"No, I can't teach you. You don't know what you're asking for, you don't know what this is all about."
"Of course I do! I went to the Twilight, I watched scenes, I loved them. Khiru, I'm only asking you to try, nothing more."
He got off the bed and put his clothes on.
I panicked. I didn't want to lose him.
"Please, don't walk away. Don't be so stubborn, so ... arrogant! I'm not a Rhysh slave, but that doesn't mean you can treat me like this."
Angry, but mostly desperate, I went to stand between him and the door.
"Tell me why you won't try! This is bullshit. I know you're hiding something. I want to know. I..."
His cold stare froze me.
"If you want to be a submissive, I suggest you learn the rules first. Rule number one: obedience. I don't want to train you, nor start a relationship. That's final. Now, move aside."
Tears were already rolling down my cheeks when the door closed behind him.
Chapter EIGHT
Two days later, I had sex with Naari, who could hardly believe his luck. I found him in a lounge, next to the cafeteria, where those who fancied a peaceful evening came to read, watch a movie or listen to music. Thanks to individual headphones, everyone could choose his or her own entertainment without disturbing their neighbors. I personally preferred to stay in my bedroom when I wasn't in a mood to be social, but I knew Naari liked the silent company of others. When I realized I was going to spend a third sleepless night, I decided to try the surest way to calm down.
It was easy to convince him to go to his bedroom, and easier to let go under his careful ministrations. You could tell these people were blessed with proper sex education. They knew what to do, and they did it well. Like Khiru, Naari was a Northie, but quite a different kind. He was more caring, not so eager to possess and control me, but mostly attentive to pleasure me. He must have felt my distress because he only dominated me with soothing caresses, gentle penetration, and finally, the best oral sex a man had ever given me. The only time he commanded me was when I tried to return the favor.
"No," he said as he brought me back by his side and wrapped his arms around me to make sure I wouldn't go anywhere, "I don't want you to."
"Don't you like it?"
"Oh, I like it, but only under my terms."
He smiled mysteriously, but I was too tired to challenge him. I yawned and cuddled closer to him, ready to sleep.
"Seems you needed this badly," he whispered to my ears.
"You have no idea."
And with that I was gone to dreamland.
Naari and I had sex again the day after, then the next one, but I was careful not to start a relationship. I never offered my lips to his, and just to err on the safe side, I hardly saw him during daytime. We were friends sleeping with each other, nothing more. I must say, he was the best anti-stress drug I could find.
On the third night, I asked him to tie me up. He locked metallic cuffs to my wrists and stretched my arms apart to chain them to the bedposts. He proceeded with my legs in a similar way.
I was amused to see how casual they were about bondage here. No surprise, no shock, no questions asked. You didn't need to explain the rules; everyone knew them. Try to ask a one-night-stand on Earth to tie you up. Those who indulge will either turn sex into a joke ("yah, let's play porn!"), or fuck you as part of what they think is the best rape script ever, just taking their kicks and not caring if you're pleased or not. Those who don't indulge run away and spread the news like bad gossip.
With Khyrians, provided you knew your partner's preference (and if you're wrong, they'll tell you nicely), you barely needed a hint to get them going, and you knew they'd take you in the right direction.
Even when you didn't expect to take the scenic route as opposed to the highway.
Once I was helpless, Naari gave me a huge smile.
"Now I'm going to show you my idea of sexual dominance."
He went to the bathroom and returned with a jar containing a heavily scented cream. He poured some onto his hands and rubbed them together before laying them on my belly. The lotion was wonderfully warm. And oily. He began massaging it into my flesh, going from my navel to the sides of my waist, squeezing my hips gently before sliding along my thighs. He drew more heart-shaped figures until his hands were almost dry, then took more cream and started again. This time, he drew the figure in reverse, brushing the sides of my breasts and scraping the sensitive triangles under my arms. I squirmed. The second time, I groaned. The third time, he gagged me with tape.
"I'll have none of that, sweetie. You submit, I lead. There's no other option, and because you frowned…"
He tickled me until I worked up a sweat. I tried to flash signals of anger with my eyes, which only made him laugh while he continued torturing me. Contradicting my own disapproval, my vagina contracted, then opened wide, beseeching what was definitely not on the agenda for the next ten minutes.
Make that an hour. Naari emptied the jar of cream little by little, and by the time he had finished massaging it into me, I was feverish with desire. He must have spent half the time on my breasts, now shining like silver moons, a good ten minutes on my feet, and twenty on my legs, thighs and as close as he could get to my sex without touching it. Yet it was as oily as the rest of me.
When he finally took me, I expected him to accelerate the motions and be done with it. Again, he proved me wrong. I was – silently – begging to come long before he allowed me to.
"Wow, that was amazing," I said after he'd peeled off the tape and I had rested enough to recover my capacity of speech.
"I'm glad you enjoyed it," he winked. "Bondage is not necessarily about pain. Since you're only a beginner, I thought you should be aware of that. Pleasure derives from the most unexpected sensations. Like being tickled."
"I hate tickling."
"Which is why it worked!"
It had worked, yes, and I was so grateful to Naari, I leaned to kiss him. At the last second, I aimed for his cheek instead of his mouth and felt his disappointment. So much for having sex with a friend. Naari wanted more now, and his heart would probably ache as much as mine.
How could I tell him that while my body surrendered to him, my thoughts brought me back to Khiru and made terrible comparisons? Naari was probably perfect; "a dominant who would help me cook dinner," as Myhre had put it. The problem was, I needed more.
I had entered one of the most confusing times in my life. I should have seen a therapist. Instead, I started dating Vhar.
"Have sex with you?" Vhar exclaimed when I made my move after our next lesson. "Absolutely! Whenever, wherever. Say, tonight, in your bedroom?"
I laughed and agreed. Whenever, wherever, indeed. All I wanted was to forget Khiru, avoid Naari and satiate my growing physical needs.
So I had fun with Vhar. He hadn't lied about his prowess. He knew all the tricks and pushed all the right buttons, even though his inclinations didn't match mine. As a Midi, he had no real interest in topping or bottoming, although he would gladly indulge either preference to accommodate a partner. His neutrality even extended to his core sexuality; although he lusted after women, he informed me that he thought sex with men was fun. But practically everyone has a sexual kink, and in Vhar's case, it wasn't linked to gender nor power, but rather to physical locations. The weirder, the better.
In the course of two weeks, we had sex in the bedroom closet, on a table in the main kitchen (temporarily empty), in a shower cubicle in the Therms, in an elevator (a cliche, but a first for me), and, the most exciting place, in an exploration deck on top of the ship.
When Vhar told me we were going to study the influence of zero gravity on physical movements, I clenched my fists out of excitement. Sex in the air: what a thrill.
After sticking a do-not-disturb sign on the door, Vhar and I entered the airlock. He launched the separation process, and we began to strip while the solid structure containing the connecting tube and the attached deck broke loose from the spacecraft. We were free from the spinning mechanism and only linked to the Noncha by magnetic seals. None of these changes were visible, however. The only perceptible difference was that we could now fly!
Vhar opened the door to the exploration deck, and we gently drifted inside the glass-covered dome. The room was dark so the stars appeared brighter. I'd come here before, with Naari or alone, and admired the view on countless occasions, but that day, I was naked, and the odd detail revived my interest. I warmed up inside out. If Vhar didn't take care of me in the next five minutes, I would do the job myself.
"I've never quite mastered zero-gravity sex," Vhar said while he pressed panels on a side wall and pulled out straps. "But trying is always fun. Grab these to keep your balance."
I grabbed one of the loops anchored in the wall and tentatively tugged on it once to get myself moving.
Before I knew what was happening, my body darted across the enclosure like a bullet and banged painfully against the glass dome above me.
Vhar laughed. "Be careful. Your mass is phenomenal in here. You've got to make small moves."
To illustrate his warning, he gently wrapped his arms around me, and brought me down until I was parallel to the floor with my hands holding on to two straps for dear life. Once I was secured, Vhar started to rub my body as if he was trying to conjure a genie. Not daring to let go off the straps, I whimpered and writhed under his ministrations, my sex now melting with the heat and leaking in abundance. As Vhar's hands explored my bumps and creases, I breathed faster and faster. I spread my legs and squirmed like a fish trying to escape from a net.
"Damnit, Vhar," I rasped, "I can't wait. Take me."
"You're lucky I'm a nice guy," he teased before navigating his body above mine and shoving his cock carefully between my folds. With his hands grabbing my breasts (for stability and, doubtlessly, the thrill of it), he fucked me with the delicacy of a teenager entering a woman for the first time. It was excruciatingly sweet.
"Harder," I commanded him.
He pushed deeper, but only managed to send us drifting forward like a bubble. He stopped our progress with his feet and kicked us away from the wall, his cock following the motion and sliding out of me. His push had been too strong. We crashed into the dome again, with his body trapped between mine and the glass.
Panting, we took a break. My knuckles hurt from gripping the loops so tightly, and I had lost my sense of orientation. Was the dome above or below us? I felt dizzy.
"Vhar, would you finish me before I get sick, please?"
"Not the best experience, is it? Sorry, each time I try this, I fuck up."
"Well, fuck me instead!"
My desire had peaked, and yet, I was a long way from release.
Vhar brought us down again and landed on the floor. Shorter in size, I was still hanging from the wall, slightly skewed, like a human ladder. Vhar took hold of my hips, turned me around so I faced the dome and the stars, and brought me down on his erection.
"Okay, pull now," he said, his raucous voice signaling his own growing need.
Drawing on the straps, and careful not to tug too violently, I heaved myself up and down. I quickly became mesmerized by the starscape in front of me and forgot I was on a spaceship. I was flying in space, a free comet whose tail was burning dangerously.
Vhar came and glided off me. Then, still holding my hips, he flew upward, bringing me closer to the glass, closer to the stars. I felt his tongue lick his own sperm in and around my sex, but never getting rid of my own dampness. Finally, he moved his mouth to my clitoris.
I climaxed very nicely, but I'd never worked so hard for it.
After that particular experiment, I grew tired of Vhar's gymnastics. One night, longing for tender sex in bed, I dumped Vhar for Naari, but regretted it when Naari complained.
"You've been avoiding me," he said, more like a statement than a question.
We had just had sex, but it hadn't been as good as before. He hadn't tied me up, but I wished he had. I had barely come, and embers were still burning inside me. I couldn't get Khiru out of my mind, either.
When I didn't answer, he continued.
"Don't think I'm a fool, Megan. I know why you came to me. And it's okay. But stop torturing yourself. That's my job."
I declined to note his humor. Instead, I gazed at the ceiling, wondering why everything had gone so wrong lately.
"Khiru won't give you what you need."
Upon hearing the magic name, I turned to look at Naari.
"You're going to give me that speech again? That he's a Rhysh Master, he's only looking for a full-time slave, et cetera? Please spare me. I've heard it before, and don't believe a word of it."
"In which you're right. Khiru has no misplaced pride that would make him dump a girl he loves just because she's not a Rhysh slave. Who was silly enough to tell you that?"
"Myhre. You mean she was wrong?"
He sighed. "Myhre doesn't know Khiru as well as I do. And she has no particular liking for Rhysh people, either. She thinks they're too extreme and blinded by their kinks. She's wrong, of course. They take submission to its natural limits, but it doesn't govern their lives. They follow their feelings, like the rest of us."
A little voice screamed in me. I knew I was right. Khiru was attracted to me. Slave or no slave. Then why did he reject me?
"No," Naari continued, "Khiru has refused to engage in a relationship for more than ten years, and he certainly won't break his rule for you."
He stared at me and said: "Khiru was in love once."
The news had an ominous ring to it, as if it was the key to the whole imbroglio.
"Who? When?"
"Ten years ago, during our EngCamp years. We were in–"
"Hang on … 'EngCamp'?" The word was oddly familiar.
"It's a common abbreviation for Engineers Campus. A college for future pilot engineers. One of the best in this discipline. Anyway, that's where I met Khiru and his best friend, Kalhan. They were childhood friends, and they both graduated from Rhysh as Masters. They were good-looking, smart, honest and adventurous, and they had all the girls falling for them. They had a lot in common, but they also complemented each other. Khiru was quiet and serious by nature; Kalhan was boisterous and mischievous. Together, they combined intrepidity and cleverness, exuberance and tact
. A fantastic blend that made them both happy. Then they lost it all. Over a girl.
"Suri was her name," Naari continued. "Khiru met her at a family event, and like I said, he fell in love. They dated seriously, and for the first time, he wouldn't let Kalhan have sex with her – sharing girls was an old habit of theirs, often initiated by the girl herself, who was thrilled to nail those two attractive birds with one stone. In those days, Kalhan spent more time with me. It was hard for him to cope with his unexpected ouster from Khiru's private life, but I never sensed any hard feelings in him. He was happy for his friend, though he was disconcerted by his sudden commitment. He couldn't see why Suri was different. To him, she was just another young Southie experiencing serious bondage with a Rhysh Master. He never trusted her to love Khiru back. Then one day, Khiru accused Kalhan of abusing her."
"You mean topping her?"
"No, raping her. According to Khiru, Kalhan had met her in a bar where they both drank too much alcohol. He brought her back to his place, then tied her up and, well, went too far with her. Suri protested and tried to stop the scene, but Kalhan wouldn't. Once he was done with her, she ran to Khiru's flat, her face bloated with tears, and told him Kalhan had gone nonconsensual on her. The next morning, Khiru filed a complaint.
"It was a shock to everyone," Naari said after a pause. "Suri left the city and never testified officially, but as a Rhysh Master, Khiru's word was enough. Rape is a serious offence. Kalhan faced life servicing, but instead of pleading his case, he ran away and took shelter in the Free Territories. Where he must still be now, an eternal outcast."
"But you said Kalhan was a Rhysh Master, too. How could he have raped a girl?"
"That's the glitch. I never believed Khiru's story. It didn't make any sense. Kalhan was too honest to impose a scene on a nonconsenting girl, and too well-trained to misread signs of distress. Besides, Suri was young, and definitely not ready for serious commitment. The last time I heard from her, she was still flirting happily."
"Did you say all this to Khiru?"
"Not really. He was too upset when it happened, and wouldn't talk to anyone. As time passed, we became good friends, but I was never as close to him as Kalhan was. Even I couldn't reach him."
Worthy of a Master: The Tale of a Perfect Slave Page 8