by Alana Khan
“Please…” She takes a deep breath and something seems to shift inside her. She swallows and shakes her head as if she just came to a momentous decision. “You look terrific, by the way. Mahvelous,” she says as if it’s a joke. “Do you really need to be any younger?” Good job, Dahlia. Don’t give him the satisfaction of pleading.
“Are you flirting with me? In front of the male you love? Watch out, I might take you up on your offer.”
Dahlia
I grind my teeth. The thought of sleeping with such evil makes me shiver. I return to what I’d been doing, which was counting in my head. Perhaps I’m a bit OCD, but it helps ground me in reality, helps the time pass, and keeps my mind off my bursting bladder.
I’ve done a thousand Kegels since I’ve been up here on this chair. If I live through this, I should be a great sex partner.
“You’re doing better than I thought, Dahlia,” Ashhole calls to me. “I just changed the rules. One more glass of water.”
If he means to demoralize me, he’s doing a great job. If he can change that rule, he can extend the time. He’s fucking with my head, making me wonder if I should just let go now since the task is impossible.
But I drink the last glass of water and count and do Kegels and at some point the dam bursts. Asher laughs and claps his hands the same moment I hear Dax bite out a long, low moan.
I have no idea how long this can go on before Dax dies, or maybe he’ll just pass out. I don’t want to watch, but I can’t pull my eyes away. He’s tearing at the collar, but we both know that won’t help.
The seconds turn into minutes, and Dax’s eyes roll back in his head. I don’t want to give the asshole the satisfaction of begging, but I do. Maybe he’ll get his terror fix and let the ordeal stop.
A bell dings and the torture ceases. I’m lowered from my chair, the bottom of my dress red and dripping urine. Asher throws water in Dax’s face and the henchmen yank him to his feet. We’re walked back to our room.
I wonder if the guards took pity on Dax, because the two closest to him each have a hand under his armpit and are half carrying him. They drag him into the room and toss him on the bed —thankfully he doesn’t have to walk a step.
I take the galaxy’s quickest shower, leaving the dreaded dress in a sopping crimson heap on the shower floor. I climb into bed and snuggle close to Dax but don’t touch him. His muscles are quivering, and I’m afraid touching him will only hurt him more. He hasn’t made a sound since before the ‘flood’.
“Dax? Love? Can I get you something? Water?” After the word is out of my mouth, I realize the irony.
“Touch me, Dahl. Stay close. I’ll be fine in a minima.”
This I can do. I realize he’s sticky from sweating through the pain, so I grab a cool washcloth and gently wipe him down.
“Feels good. Sip of water?”
I help him drink. He’s as weak as a kitten.
After I set the glass down, he grabs my hand and kisses my palm. “You’re a good female.”
Even now, when he’s completely spent, his muscles still trembling in pain, he’s trying to ensure I’m okay. If we ever get out of here, somehow I’ll make this up to him.
“Well done, you two. I’ve got to give you credit —you’re still alive. I can be a male of my word. This was the last of the preliminary fun. Dax, you’ve earned a place at the Septus games. If you prevail, I’ll let you both live and I’ll even contact your shipmates to pick you up. If you lose...well, it’s thumbs down for you both. The games are in four days’ time.”
Chapter Ten
Dax
I haven’t given myself a moment’s rest since what Dahlia calls ‘the Great Flood’. Asher has given me twenty-four-hoara access to his gymnasium. I’ve tried to keep in peak condition so I can win.
It took two days after the torture to feel half alive again. Asher gleefully informed us I withstood nine minimas at the collar strength of five. “Better than I’ve ever witnessed!” he said.
His torment is working —he looks to be in his mid-twenties.
Dahlia and I said our goodbyes to each other a few moments ago. I reassured her I’ll see her after my match. She acted as if she believed me. We both know that not only could I die in my contest, but my failure will sentence her to death as well.
The media are here, delighting in our dramatic fall from grace.
“Was it worth it Dahlia?” one of them calls. “Was sex with that big gladiator beast worth your current imprisonment?”
She’s dressed in a filmy white dress designed to photograph well. She’s wearing an older model pain/kill collar. It’s larger than more recent versions and makes a more striking picture around her delicate neck.
Asher has to be getting a percentage of the box office. He orchestrated our fake deaths and since he entered me in this deathmatch, he’s been releasing stories about our resurrection at his sainted hands. He’s billing himself as Asher the Tenth, the original male’s son.
He’s right about one thing. The masses don’t question any of it.
We’re on the Guerra Gladiator Gaming station. I’ve heard it’s the plushest, fanciest hotel in all the galaxy. Where they drag me, into the bowels of the station near the arena, is a stinking drackhole like all gladiator holding cells.
The Septus games are a seven-day orgy of food, sex, and death. The richest beings in all the galaxy travel to this event. Attendees include kings, presidents, award-winning actors, and premier athletes.
More business deals, fornication, and wife swapping occur during these days than the rest of the annum combined. The games are just a backdrop for decadence and debauchery.
Tonight’s card will have four Cestus matches to warm up the spectators, then three matches to the death. I’ve been in deathmatches before. It’s bone-chilling to walk into a fight knowing only one of you will walk away. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a dracking liar.
But now that I have Dahlia, I have so much more to live for. And when I think that Asher has every intention of following through with his promise to kill her if I lose, it makes my heart seize in my chest.
When he was dracking with us over the last few days, it was always Dahlia’s actions that determined if I was punished or not. I knew how much pressure that put on her, but now I’m experiencing it firsthand.
My opponent is Crassus, also a premier fighter. Asher didn’t allow me to watch vids of his previous fights, but I saw the male fight live once. I was next on the docket and watching through the doorway during his match.
He’s a powerful copper-hued humanoid with natural protective plating covering his chest, upper back, and arms. They look like the same material as animal horn. It will be harder to penetrate than skin.
Muscular and powerful, he practically shakes the ground when he walks. One swipe with his arm could bring a male to his knees. I’ve heard his race described as ‘fighting machines’. I’ve never seen one smile.
Retiarii like myself are paired with murmillos like Rinn on Aeon II or secutors, which is what Crassus is. Secutors are equipped similarly to murmillos. Their swords are the same, their shields are round instead of rectangular. They also wear helmets that cover not only the back of the head, but the face.
I prefer to fight secutors over murmillos for one reason —the helmet. You’d think their additional protection would put them at a distinct advantage, considering I have no shield or covering of any type. But the helmet is a liability. It’s hot, constricted, and the eyeholes obliterate their peripheral vision.
I can win this match.
Dahlia
My shit detector is on overload. Being anywhere near Asher is always nerve-wracking. I never know when he’ll pull some stunt to scare me or threaten my life. But today is the worst yet because he’s brought me to his private suite here on the gaming station.
The rooms are palatial. There’s a huge living area complete with dining room and a private kitchen although I doubt any cooking will happen here. Why would it? He can ha
ve the finest buffet delivered any time of the day or night with the snap of his fingers.
His eight well-armed bodyguards are bunking in two rooms off the living area.
He’s ensconced me in an opulent bedroom right next to his. I’d have to be blind not to notice there’s an adjoining door between our rooms. The first thing I try to do is lock it from my side, which earns me a one-second shock to my collar.
Holy fuck, that burns every nerve and synapse in my body like the fires of Hell. I have a new appreciation for what Dax endured.
“You’re my property, Dahlia. You have no freedoms. None. You will do what I tell you to do when I tell you. That door shall remain unlocked.”
I’d wondered about this from the beginning. In fact, it surprised me that out of all the evil perpetrated by this male, he hadn’t already resorted to sexual behavior, especially in front of Dax.
I thought I’d hated before. Chrissy Andrews in junior high mercilessly teased me about my hair for two years. Every night, after I said my prayers, I tried to keep my thoughts from straying to various ways that she might die. I failed miserably at keeping those thoughts at bay. I did, however, collect a veritable bible of ways to kill a junior high school girl. Not that I’m proud of it.
Yeah, I thought I’d hated before, but how can you really experience hate until you’ve met a true villain? I’m standing stock still calculating whether his unwanted sexual advances would be better or worse than the snake pit when I mentally slap myself. I’m powerless over what this madman does. I only have power over my own brain. I will live through whatever he throws at me. I refuse to even consider what might happen if Dax loses his match —I won’t live through that.
~.~
Dressed for Dax’s fight, I’m wearing a diaphanous dress that shows most of my breasts and sweeps down to my ankles.
Asher summoned a hairdresser to arrange my hair in curls adorned with what I can only assume are gold, diamonds, and rubies. She applied makeup, painting my lips into a perpetual pout.
I’m wearing diamond and ruby earrings and golden bracelets on both wrists and one upper arm.
I’m kneeling at Asher’s feet under threat of punishment.
“Look at me,” he orders.
When I do, I get a swift flash of Dax in this position and how seductive I found it. It’s certainly not sexual being on the receiving end, especially with Ashhole leering down at me.
Now that he’s forty or fifty years younger than when I met him, he’s handsome, except for the sickly green skin.
I always wished that life was like a Disney movie where the villains looked villainous or ugly or warty or in some way showed on the outside the rotten shit that festered in the cesspool that was their soul.
In real life, we have to learn how to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. Although it wasn’t hard with Ashhole.
He shows me my new pain/kill collar. It’s huge and covered with sparkling diamonds or a facsimile thereof. As he removes the old and snaps on the new he says, “This should keep your lover preoccupied during his match. I assume it would be too much to ask for you to look up at me adoringly from time to time.” He laughs and attaches a sparkling leash to the collar to complete my stylish ensemble.
“So,” I ask boldly as I stand up, “what’s the youngest you’ve ever shrunk yourself down to?”
“I think I’m there now. I haven’t looked this young for maybe a thousand years. All thanks to you and Dax.” He attempts a smile, or an imitation of one, but it only results in him looking awkward and uncomfortable.
“There’s a short window every eighty years during which my special gland’s rejuvenating powers work. Once I ingest a drop of the two donors’ blood, I can only feed off of the two of you. I’ve never found such an obliging pair. You exceeded expectations. Tomorrow my gland will return to its normal functioning and will no longer be able to rejuvenate me.”
He glances into a mirror on the wall over my right shoulder and admires himself, wiping a stray hair off his forehead.
“We’ll be arriving fashionably late. You won’t have to sit through too many boring deathmatches, just a few, so your terror can amp up as you worry about your lover’s fate… and your own.
“I’m a male of my word, Dahlia. I’ll release you both if he wins and kill you if he loses. Too bad I won’t be able to slaughter him personally, but he’ll already be dead. You know I won’t hesitate to murder you, perhaps slowly. It’s in my nature.” He shrugs and tosses me a devilish smile.
“However…,” his eyes dip to my décolletage, “I’m prepared to make you a deal. If you agree right this moment to stay with me, provide me with any… services I require, I will let you live. Until I tire of you, then I will release you and provide a stipend each annum to allow you to live comfortably.”
“No.” I didn’t need to give this much thought.
“I’ll allow you two minimas to reconsider. I’ll tell you a little secret,” he lowers his voice conspiratorially and assumes an impish expression that comes across as strained posturing. “Your lover isn’t going to win.”
“You don’t know that.” Why I stoop low enough to jump to his bait is beyond me.
“Oh, but I do. Did you forget the little lecture I gave you a few days ago? A cabal of powerful people? Playing with the downtrodden’s lives? License to do whatever the drack I want? Don’t you remember what happened on Aeon II? I killed you and Dax in front of 80,000 people and walked away. How hard do you think it was to rig this fight? It didn’t even cost me anything. All the parties involved will bet on his opponent and make some credits off the deal.”
My heart hurts like his hand is squeezing it. I can’t breathe for a long moment. He tampered with the fight. Dax is a dead male walking. Which means my hours are numbered too.
“So? Certain death or be my bed slave? I have to warn you, though, I like it rough.” He reaches under the gauzy fabric that pretends to cover my breasts and pinches a nipple hard enough to wrench a squeak of pain from my lips. “A little anal, some face dracking, a few requests for you to satisfy my friends under the table at our monthly klempto games. With the promise you get to retire when I grow weary of you.”
He spears me with an innocent gaze, sincerely waiting for my answer.
Pictures of what he described flash through my mind. I can’t sell my soul. That life would kill me and would be more painful than death.
“No,” I say with finality.
“I can’t say I’m surprised.” He rubs his hands together vigorously. “Tonight should be fun. Death in the sands all the while I can play out fantasies of how I’ll torture you before I kill you. I haven’t had this much fun in ages.”
He pulls on my leash harder than is necessary and drags me into the living area. His eight bodyguards flank us, and we’re off through ostentatious hallways lined with vids of the most beautiful places in the galaxy. The place is deserted. Everyone must already be in the arena.
The station is built in stacked, round decks which all circle the main attraction —the arena. Each room has a view of the action, but Dax told me the stands will be packed because the excitement of watching the matches live is unparalleled. People feed off the salacious nature of the event, the screams of terror, and the blood. I’m sure Ashhole bought the best seats in the house.
If I thought the coliseum on Aeon II was surreal, then I have no words to describe how bizarre it is to see the juxtaposition of opulence and blood-frenzy that greets me when we walk through the massive crystalline doors.
Aliens of every description are gussied up in their fanciest clothes clutching champagne flutes and tasting exquisite-looking canapés. All the while they’re screaming at the gladiators in the arena below. “Kill him!” “Idiot, how could you miss?” “You deserve to die after a drack-up like that!”
Schooling my features into a mask of calm nonchalance, I tell myself, “I am a leaf on the wind. I’m not really here. This is all a dream… a nightmare.
I
’m two Dahlias, one who is settled at Asher’s feet on the thickly carpeted floor, the other whose brain is operating like the galaxy’s fastest computer. I’ve skipped the ‘oh woe is me’ thoughts about my rapidly impending death and jump right into calculating a way to avoid the promised torture. After the last few days, I can’t handle any more of what he’ll dish out.
If I’m a very bad slave in public, I wonder if he’ll kill me right here. What if I stand up, scream at Asher, and punch or slap him? I can try to run. It will humiliate him and he’ll have to slay me then and there without having time to torture me.