Seeing Stars

by Lisabet Sarai, Justine Elyot, KS Augustin, Buffi BeCraft, Lizzie Lynn Lee, Sophie Angmering

  The menacing swish cut through the air again, and this time it ended with a flat split of sound that, for a moment, Suka did not recognise as the cane’s contact with her bottom. But in a millisecond ferocious white-hot pain streaked a line across her cheeks and she needed all her breath control, every scrap, not to scream like a banshee.

  “Ohh, ohh, one, Sir,” she whimpered, trying to escape, trying to distract him with her swinging hips, trying to do anything that might get her out of any more of those breathtaking stripes.

  “Is that painful?” he asked, with pretend sympathy. “Poor Suka. I think we’ve found the implement for her. I think we’ve found the thing that will work. I’ll take this back with me too.”

  Oh, please do!

  His words spurred her on. Cheekily, she pushed out her bum, inviting the second stroke.

  It hit the end of the butt plug, causing it to shudder inside her and increase the intensity of the vibrations. Vibrations all over her, from the sting, from the plug, from the dildo, from the clit buzzers, she was one big vibration.

  “Two, Sir.”

  He laid the third and fourth vicious cuts on the ‘sit’ spot where she would feel them for days on end. She counted them, and went further than that, thanking him as well.

  “You’re thanking me?” he said in surprise. “You’re quite a girl, Suka. Quite a girl. Thank me for this.”

  It whipped down across her lower buttocks, adding its burn to that which already licked across her punished skin.

  “Five, Sir, thank you, Sir, oh, I’m on fire!”

  “Last one. Brace yourself. It’ll be a hard one.”

  He was right. It set her leaping from one extended foot to the other, yelping and yowling, powerless to do anything to douse that evil conflagration on her bottom. The vibrators made her come again, the sixth orgasm at the sixth stroke, a fusion of passion and pleasure and pain that left her shaking and tearful.

  “You didn’t count,” chided Paul, but he seemed beyond caring, hurrying to pull out her dildo and replace it with his stiff, thick cock. His thrusts were quick and powerful, his abdomen slapping against her throbbing bottom, reawakening the sting, butting the plug, making her scream through a final climax that lasted for minutes rather than seconds, multiple melting orgasms that didn’t end until Paul had come inside her, his fingers bruising her hips, his last words a reminder that she belonged to him.

  Suka trembled through the uncuffing and removal of the toys and fell against Paul, who gathered her close, lifted her and carried her to the one comfortable-looking prop in the whole room—an old-fashioned four-poster bed. He laid her down, then took off his boots and uniform and joined her, lying propped on his side. Through half-closed eyes Suka could see him looking down at her, his expression sombre, his face streaked with sweat.

  She felt limbless, floating in the ether, everything inside her scooped out to make a hollow, weightless shell. She could feel the angry throb of the cane welts, but they seemed irrelevant somehow, and far below her surface.

  “Who won that then?” wondered Paul aloud.

  “We both did.” Suka’s voice was dreamy and faraway.

  “I didn’t go too far for you, did I? You would have said something, wouldn’t you?”

  Suka lifted a hand and put it to his cheek, barely managing to keep her arm raised, it shook so.

  “Oh God, tell me it’s okay?” Paul sounded agitated. “You’re okay, Suka? I feel guilty. I’ve taken it over the edge.”

  “No.” Suka’s languid tones seemed to soothe him a little. “It was the best thing ever. It was just incredible.”

  “Really? You aren’t just saying that because you don’t want to go back to the ship?”

  “No. Not at all. I mean it. It was. You were. Just like the old-fashioned doms I’ve read and dreamed about. Fantasy come true.”

  “That’s…good,” said Paul, but he sounded troubled.

  “Good.”

  “Listen,” he said, whispering for some reason. “What are we going to do?”

  Suka turned her head, the fractional effort it took depleting her of what little energy she still had.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you think you can forget about this? Because I don’t think I can. Pandora’s Box. Well and truly open. But a box of pleasures rather than ills. Perhaps it should be called Suka’s Box instead.”

  “You’re right. It’s too much to just leave behind here. It’s a part of us, Commander.”

  “Call me Azed.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that!” Suka’s hand flew to her mouth and she suppressed a giggle.

  “Oh, call me Master then, if that’s easier for you.”

  “In a weird way, it is. Master. I like that.”

  “It’s a part of us,” he echoed, musing. “Yes. We can’t lop it off and carry on as normal. So the question remains. What are we going to do?”

  “Sleep,” said Suka determinedly.

  “As a short-term plan, it’s a good one.” He slid an arm around her, pulling her close, cradling her head beneath his chin, and on the silent, deserted planet, they were the two lone dreamers.

  Chapter Five

  On waking, Suka almost expected everything to be different. Paul would have changed his mind, have slept off the intensity of emotion and be insisting on a swift return and a blotting out of inconvenient feelings.

  But, if anything, he seemed almost keener to retain the link than Suka was, kissing her eyelids until they opened, stroking her hair, whispering into her ear.

  “Sleepyhead. We have a decision to make.”

  She smiled into his hawkish face and impulsively pulled it down, her hand on the back of his neck, for a long, slow smooch.

  “Can’t we put it off?” she whispered, coming up for air. Her whole body ached, stung, throbbed, but somehow she was ready for him again, her juices gathering between her legs.

  “No,” he said sternly, tweaking her nose. “We can’t.”

  “So.” She sat up with a deep sigh, then changed her mind, and moved around to lie on her hip. Much less painful. “Back to the ship, I suppose.”

  “I suppose. I don’t know what I can do. I can ask to be relieved of command—”

  “No! They would refuse anyway.”

  “Well, the only other way is to synchronise leave and have at least a few weeks of the year to look forward to. But we’d have to keep it very quiet.”

  Suka gazed dejectedly at his hand, flat on the bed in front of her.

  “It’s not great. But I guess it’s the best we can hope for.”

  He bent to kiss her, sweetly, regretfully, but firmly.

  “That’s settled. That’s a plan. Come, then.”

  They dressed—Paul rapidly, Suka with a great variety of winces and sucking in of cheeks—then they left the punishment suite, passing through the darkened room in which Suka had hidden earlier. Paul shone his communicator torch through the gloom, able to look closely at the fixtures and fittings now he was not chasing his errant ensign.

  “This is the Hall of the Futures.” He spoke reverently, walking over to a computer console of some kind and running his hand over the apparatus. “Where the Paladians developed new technologies. Something they were extremely good at, by the way. This must be some kind of communications device. Shame there’s no power to watch it in action. Perhaps we could come back down with boosters.”

  “I thought the Paladians were quite isolationist.”

  “They were, to an extent. Neighbours didn’t approve of their lifestyle. Neighbours were prudes, essentially.”

  “Like our civilisation.”

  Paul turned and grinned. “Yes. Blundering along thinking they’re doing the right thing, invading people’s private space.”

  “It’s a crying shame. Do you think it’ll ever change?”

  “Probably. Not in our lifetime, though.”

  Paul was frowning over another machine, tapping at various buttons with some of his tools.

&n
bsp; “Don’t know what this is. I haven’t seen this one in the books. Must have been something new. A prototype.”

  “It’s very strange-looking,” commented Suka. “Like a lift car but with lots of extra knobs on. I think something happens to you if you step into it.”

  “Perhaps it’s a new punishment device. But it doesn’t seem to work on electricity. Is there a manual anywhere? A blueprint?”

  Paul cast around for the essential piece of information, but found none.

  “Well, we may never know. I’m going to photograph it and research it back on board ship.” He took a snap of the device, while Suka crouched down and opened a drawer in the outer wall.

  “What’s this?”

  “Perzidium. The treasure of Paladium Three. Very rare, very valuable, with magnetic and electrical properties.”

  Paul turned the bright blue shard of crystal over and over in his hand.

  “Could it be used as fuel? Could it be what makes this thing work? No! Stop! What are you doing?”

  He leapt forward just a fraction too late to prevent Suka from putting a piece of the Perzidium into a tube on the front of the capsule. A low hum pervaded the air and the periphery of the box fluoresced into life.

  Paul’s foot knocked Suka off-balance and she fell backwards into the capsule, screaming as her backside hit the floor, both from pain and from fear of whatever unknown doom she might have consigned herself to.

  “I’m disappearing!” Her foot was beginning to melt, the silver boots dripping.

  “No!” Paul, without a second thought, took a dive into the capsule with her, trying to drag her out, but already he too was beginning to degrade, his strength crucially sapped. He possessed only enough energy to hold on to Suka and watch as her blonde curls migrated, one by one, from her head.

  Suka lay on her stomach, crushed by the weight on top of her, struggling to breathe, unable to see.

  Just as it seemed inevitable that her ribs would cave in and her heart would burst, the pressure lifted and she was able to take in lungfuls of air again. The blackness turned to dark spots in front of her eyes, then brightened to a blur of colour and movement.

  “You’re okay? You’re alive?”

  She turned to the voice. Who? Where?

  A hand on her arm, then around her shoulder.

  “Christ, what have you done, Suka?”

  Yes, that’s my name! And this is Commander Paul. And…

  The memories came back all at once, winding her with their intensity and vividness.

  “We were in that place. The Hall of the Futures or whatever. Where are we now?”

  They huddled beneath a stone arch in the centre of a dusty square. Many of the ancient buildings they had seen in Sevarium towered over them, and in the distance some kind of military drill was taking place, observed and cheered on by a crowd of onlookers.

  “Can you stand?” Paul hauled her to her feet. She swayed at first, hanging on to him. He took his communicator from his belt and switched it on. “No signal,” he frowned.

  They were halfway across the square when an official-looking man in dark robes hurried over to them.

  “The Arch,” he said. “Did you come through the Arch?”

  Suka and Paul exchanged a nervous look. It would be clear to their interlocutor that they were not local. He had only to look at their attire and hairstyles.

  “I believe we did,” admitted Paul. “Though how is a question I can’t answer. My name is Commander Azed Paul, I’m the captain of—”

  “Yes, yes, never mind,” fussed the official. “I’m the keeper of the Arch. I must take you to the Minister. Come with me, please.”

  As they accompanied the keeper to the fine building that housed the government of Paladium Three, Suka noticed the event taking place was not a military drill but some kind of slave training ritual. A group of naked young men were performing a variety of lewd acts on their masters and mistresses in strict formation, to the obvious enjoyment of the crowd. Those that defaulted in any way were taken to the side, to be soundly cropped by a scary-looking official before being sent back on to the parade ground.

  “We’re still in Sevarium,” she whispered to Paul. “How is this possible? It looks interesting though.”

  He squeezed her hand, then they passed through the doors of the Ministry, away from the heat and dust and lust of the outdoor spectacle.

  The Minister sat at a vast desk made of a sparkling deep green mineral. He looked up from signing documents, obviously interested to see the keeper.

  “Varga! I had not expected to see you today. These have come from the Arch?”

  “So they say.”

  Paul took advantage of the fascinated silence to introduce himself and Suka.

  “Oh,” said the Minister. “Intergalactic anthropologists. I did wonder if we would get any.”

  “What has happened? I would like to hear your explanation.”

  “Before those disgusting Chavians destroyed our civilisation, we were working on a time-travel facility. You seem to have discovered it.”

  “Time travel! Then we are in…the past?”

  “Yes, a hundred aeons prior to our doomsday, to be precise. Or rather, ninety-eight now. Two aeons have passed.”

  “You came through the Arch as well?”

  “Yes. Myself and the majority of our best engineers had time to escape destruction before the toxic waste hit our planet’s surface. We have assimilated very well into our planet’s past, as you see. Within a few aeons, Paladium Three will be at the forefront of interstellar technologies and we will be able to alter the course of time.”

  “That’s frowned upon, as you know.”

  “Question of survival, dear fellow. Survival of the brightest. I like that take on evolution, don’t you? And besides, there’s precious little you can do about it. Now you’re here, you’re here. For good. So you can play along with us and join in the spirit of Sevarium, or you can spend the rest of your lives in incarceration. Which will you choose, I wonder?”

  “We can’t ever leave?” said Suka in a small voice.

  “Can’t have you sneaking off to Federation High Control and telling tales, can we? I know what you people are like. You don’t understand our ways. We’ve had mega-aeons of being told we’re disgusting perverts who ought to be blasted into oblivion. You can go and click your tongues and voice your distaste in splendid isolation, where we don’t have to see it. Keeper, send for the incarcerators.”

  “No!” Paul stepped forward, holding up a hand. “Listen to me. You are mistaken. Suka and I, we understand your ways. And we are in sympathy with them.”

  The Minister paused long enough for a sneer to form. “Really? You know, the phrase ‘I wasn’t born yesterday’ is truer for me than for most. I was born tomorrow. And I know you’re looking for a way out of this fix. Pretending you can live the Sevarian Way won’t work.”

  “But we can! We came here because we had a personal, illicit interest in your way of life—one we were forbidden to indulge. We even performed the bonding.”

  “Oh, come, come―”

  “I took Suka to the punishment suite and we made full use of its facilities. Suka.” Paul turned to her, exasperated by the Minister’s reluctance to believe him. “Show the Minister.”

  Her eyes widened. “Show him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Show me what?” The Minister leant forward, salaciously interested.

  “Ensign, I order you to lower your trousers and present your bare backside to the Minister.”

  The firmness of his voice was not to be brooked. Suka shuffled around, red-faced, and bent to lower her tight trousers, easing them, with some sucking in of breath and wincing, down over her bottom.

  “Oh…I…say,” breathed the Minister, sounding awed. “You didn’t lie. You have tasted our ways. And you, Commander, you like the whip hand?”

  “I do indeed. Did I say you could pull those up, Ensign?”

  Suka dropped her hands
, keeping her eyes on the ground, knowing if she raised them they would meet the gaze of the keeper by the door.

  The Minister walked around behind her, and she felt cold fingers trail along the welts. Her skin burst into goosebumps and she emitted a tiny squeak.

  “You used a cane,” he noted. “You seem to have had practice. These are expertly laid.”

  “Suka is my first submissive,” confessed Paul. “As you know, our laws forbid the expression of power exchange within a sexual relationship. This was our first opportunity. But I had practiced on…soft furnishings. In my youth.”

  The Minister laughed. “You poor, repressed people. Perhaps it is as well that you find yourself trapped here. Perhaps you can live freely and fully among us.”

  “We would be honoured.”

  “Your relationship is that of bond master and servant?” questioned the Minister. “In every respect.” His hand landed on Suka’s thigh, stiff with dried semen. “Ah, I see that it is. You use her carnally.”

  Suka shivered. Paul seemed lost for words at this blatant remark.

  “Well, that is good,” continued the Minister. “Your servant can cover herself now, if it pleases you, Commander.”

  “You may,” he said gruffly to her, and she began to hoist the trousers, with the same discomfort as lowering them had caused.

  Turning back around, she moved closer to Paul and buried her face in his arm, unable to face the Minister. Paul’s chuckle was low and affectionate and, to her relief, he pulled her closer in with a protective arm.

  “Well, I find I can’t doubt you,” said the Minister, stroking his chin. “It’s a risk, I know, but I’m inclined to offer acceptance into our civilisation. On the condition, of course, that you assimilate well and undertake to respect our culture. I will place you under observation. You, Commander Paul, will undergo a course of instruction in conduct becoming a Sevarian overlord. I think you may take to it. As for your servant, she shall be prepared for her legal bonding. For the period of one quartile, you will not meet. Keeper, send for the Overseers of the Way.”