The Obsidian Stairway

by Bibi Rizer

  I clear my throat, setting my data-stick on the arm of the chair. “Uh, well, what’s your name?”

  “Tully.”

  “No last name?”

  He just smiles, giving a little shake of his head. Servants rarely share their last names. No one wants their family associated with such a base profession.

  “And how old are you?”

  “Twenty-nine.”

  I stare at him, leaning forward. Maybe it’s the low light, or maybe it’s his healthy lifestyle. Or maybe he’s lying, though why he would I don’t know.

  “You look younger than that.” I don’t know to whom I’m comparing him. Weeks go by wherein I don’t even see a man.

  “I eat right.” Tully grins at me. His teeth are straight and white.

  “How long have you been…working in the Pleasures?”

  “A while.”

  An evasion. But not unexpected. And it doesn’t really matter. There are more interesting questions. “What did you do to lose your citizen status?” I don’t expect him to answer this either, but we reviewers always ask it. Goldwyn says that by asking, but then not pressing the question, giving the servant the right to not answer, we ingratiate ourselves to them, making them more likely to open up on other things. I’m not sure I believe her thesis, but I ask anyway.

  “Nothing,” Tully says.

  I lean back in the chair, feeling the softness of the cushion behind me. “You mean you’re not going to tell me?”

  “No, I mean nothing.”

  That makes me pause. Has no one asked him this question before? Has no one advised him? “You should appeal if you’re innocent. People get their status back all the time on appeal, especially men.”

  He crosses his legs, resting one elbow on his knee. “And then what?” Something about the way he trains his eyes on mine, unnerves me.

  “You m-marry,” I stutter. “Choose a harem and marry, of course. A beautiful man like you could have a hundred wives.”

  I realize what I’ve said too late, and pick up my data-stick, pretending to check the battery in an attempt to hide the redness I know is rising in my face.

  Tully remains silent as I gather what’s left of my dignity. I’m certain he knows what I’m thinking. That I would gladly share him with a hundred other women. With a thousand. Isn’t that what I’m here for anyway?

  I begin to think perhaps this isn’t a simple review, but something more like the investigative journalism I really want to do. This Tully is a mystery I mean to solve. What could be keeping him here? Maybe this man prefers men so strongly that he has refused to marry. That would make him lose his status. But why then would he be working here instead of in the Amber Columns of the Sky Level?

  Maybe he has other unacceptable inclinations. Given the proclivities in the Obsidian Stairway, they could be anything.

  Silently repeating the safe word, I clear my throat again. “Why don’t you work on the Sky Level with the other men? You could be their top attraction.”

  “I prefer this.”

  “What is this, exactly?” I wave my hand around at the wires, the workbench, the oddly unsexy atmosphere.

  “Have you patronized the Sky Level?” he asks.

  First rule of journalism. Don’t let the interviewee become the interviewer. But I always was a rule breaker. “Yes.”

  “And what did you think of the service there? Interesting?”

  “Not really.” He remains silent, as though waiting for me to say something more. “Cold. Perfunctory,” I add. “Like having a tooth pulled.”

  “There. I prefer to be interesting.”

  “So that’s your service? Being interesting?”

  “That’s part of it.” He stands, slides his stool forward, and sits back down, close enough now for me to see the color of his eyes. Not the common dark, almost black-brown, but caramel. I also notice a thin faint scar above his lip. “What about the river level? Have you partaken there?”

  I feel myself blush again, and even though I’m well aware I’m losing control of this interview, I answer. “Once. I didn’t…I don’t…”

  “You don’t go for women?”

  “No.” Why should this make me feel ashamed? Many women feel as I do. Most, some would say, if the Expiation hadn’t left things so unbalanced. “The woman, the servant, she was pretending to be a man. So it was weird. Surreal. Like a fever dream.”

  “Maybe you might like women more just as women. Have you tried Lapis Lazuli?”

  I laugh. “I can’t afford them! And I don’t think it would make a difference. I know plenty of women outside the Pleasures. Beautiful women who tell me they want to be lovers. I’ve tried it. It just doesn’t do anything for me.”

  To my surprise, Tully reaches forward and lays his hand on my cheek. “What does do something for you?” His hand is warm and smooth. As the other one joins it to brush a strand of hair from my forehead his hoodie falls open and my eyes are drawn to his hairless, muscular chest and small brown nipples. “You can touch if you want. I don’t mind.”

  I wipe one hand on my skirt and reach forward, trailing my fingers from his breastbone to his navel. Sliding my hand back up, I swirl one finger around his nipple, intrigued by its tight, insubstantial form, its lack of plumpness.

  He moves his hands to the back of my head, and slipping off his stool, kneels on the floor between my legs. Then he pulls me forward and kisses me.

  I’ve been fucked with a cock and a strap-on dildo, fingered, vibrated until my teeth rattled, even endured an interminable tongue lashing of the clitoris by my drunk and clueless dorm sister. But I’ve never been kissed. Not like this.

  It begins slowly, his lips leaving soft little impressions on mine, each one nudging me, enticing me to open to him. And when I do, his tongue enters me bit by bit, first flicking my teeth, then after what seems like an age, invading me completely, connecting us, tongues intertwined.

  I don’t know what to do with my hands. Where do hands go during kissing? How could I not know this? But he doesn’t seem to mind me resting them on his warm, smooth chest.

  It doesn’t last long enough, but I’m gasping when he pulls back and stares into me with those caramel eyes. “Did that do something for you?”

  “Ga-haah,” I say.

  Tully smiles indulgently while I regain my composure.

  “Was that it?” My voice cracks. “Was that your service?”

  “Part of it. Are you ready to try the rest?”

  My hesitance must show because he stands and pads over to the workbench, returning with two glasses of wine. “I like to keep things civilized.” He holds one of my hands as I drink with the other. The wine works so quickly that I worry for a moment that he’s drugged me. But then I remember that I hardly ever drink. One glass of wine always relaxes me.

  Tully perches on his stool, sipping wine and staring into my eyes with a gentle frown of concentration.

  “What are you thinking?” I ask.

  Before answering, he refills my glass. “I’m looking forward to seeing you come.”

  The wine has made my blush reflex even faster. Heat rushes into my face like a power surge.

  He squeezes my hand. “You’re very lovely, especially when you go all rosy like that. Why don’t you get married?” He pauses, biting his lip. “Are you married?”

  “I’m not married.” I set my wine down. Two glasses is my absolute limit. “Harem life wouldn’t be for me. Harem wives hardly see their husbands. Many live like slaves, I’ve heard. Like pampered slaves.”

  The wine has made me bold enough to ask the one last question that’s picking at me. “Did you ever work in the Amber Columns?”

  Tully tenses, a barely noticeable reaction, but enough to think I’ve touched on something.

  He sips his wine. “I don’t like to talk about that.”

  “You’re not inclined towards men?”

  “Not really, no.”

  A few seconds pass while I listen to the low buzz of the
tungsten lights and the higher pitched hum of what I assume is the machinery.

  “So your service, it’s some kind of machine, right?”

  “More or less. Are you ready to try it?” He lays a hand on top of mine. “You don’t need to be scared.”

  “I’m not scared,” I lie. “Should I undress?”

  “It’s not necessary. You can if you want to.”

  I think about that for a moment. The setting is so strange and unsexy. I can’t imagine how anyone would want to undress. There isn’t even a bed. Are we going to have sex on the floor? And when will this machine appear?

  “You have questions?” Tully says.

  “I have the feeling you’ll say I have to experience it to fully understand.”

  He smiles, leaning forward and reaching behind my chair. “I can explain it. But it’s true that your experience will be better if I don’t. Knowing too much interferes with the effect.” When he sits back, he has several wires in his hand, each terminating in a small electrode. As he speaks in a low soothing voice, he attaches the electrodes – one to each temple, one in the center of my forehead, two somewhere in my hair, and one below each ear. “I want you to know that the safe word will work, if you need it. Do you remember it?” I nod as he attaches a final electrode on the back of my neck, just below my hairline.

  “Am I having electroshock therapy?” I’m joking. I hope I’m joking.

  Tully smiles as he clips a heart rate monitor onto my index finger. “You won’t feel anything.”

  “I won’t feel anything? Doesn’t that defeat the whole point of visiting the Pleasures?”

  He laughs then, and rises from his stool, turning toward the workbench. “Oh, you’ll feel something. Just not at the point of the electrodes.” He sits on another stool, in front of a chipped cathode screen, which comes to glowing green life as he types onto a clacky keyboard. “Sit back and relax. If you lean forward like that, you’re in danger of falling out of the chair.” He spins on his stool, facing me again. He has a small handheld terminal in his hands, a thick coil of wire connecting it to the equipment on the workbench. “Ready?”

  I lean back into the chair, resting my head on the soft cushion. “Ready.”

  He turns a knob on the handset. There’s a barely perceptible increase in the background hum as Tully stands. I watch him take one graceful step toward me, two, three and then the world goes black.

  Chapter Three

  My heart beating in my ears is the only thing I have to hang onto as I slip down, deeper and deeper into darkness. It begins to feel like falling but when I open my mouth to scream, nothing happens. No sound comes out. No mouth opens. I don’t have a mouth.

  “Just try to relax,” a soothing voice says. “This part only lasts a few seconds.”

  I would take a breath if I could. Tully said the safe word would work, but I have no mouth, no voice. Do I just think it? I’m about to test that option when a pinprick of light appears in my vision. The sensation of floating follows it, and I think if I’m floating I must have a body. In the second I process that thought my body returns to me, a solid, living thing. I try to reach for the pin of light, fascinated by the shape and color of my bare arm, and as I do, I sail towards the light at a terrifying speed. I realize that my sense of direction has been wrong. I’m not floating, I’m falling. And this time when my mouth opens to scream plenty of sound comes out.

  “Byzantine!” I flip in midair and gather myself into a protective ball.

  My landing is soft and perplexing, not so much an impact as a sense of bursting forth, almost like being born, if that makes sense. Being born with the sound of a safe word alarm wailing.

  When my surroundings come into focus, the first thing I see is a security guard. It’s the blonde-haired woman who scanned me on the Sky Level. “Please confirm or retract your safe word.”

  I look around for a moment. I appear to be on a bed in one of the sky level boudoirs, a softly lit room ringed with ceiling high windows. The sky outside is silvery in the light of a full moon.

  “Retract,” I say to the security guard. The alarm ceases as she marches out, clicking the door behind her.

  I sit up and take another look around. The bed I’m on is large and plush with satin sheets and velvet coverlets in shades of turquoise and silver. For a moment, when I look down on my body, I think I’m nude, but then I realize I must have been mistaken, because I’m wearing black lingerie – a lace bra, panties and garter with sheer stockings. It’s the kind worn by the women in Lapis Lazuli – expensive, sexy but tasteful. The moment I think the word “tasteful” the color of the lingerie changes to a deep navy blue color. Then cycles through purple, a dark red and white, before settling back on navy.

  The bed is flanked by two ornate cabinets. Opening the top drawer of one I find a selection of toys – mainly vibrating ones. There is also a coil of rope, though when I reach for it, a sense of revulsion arising in me, it vanishes. In its place is a black feather.

  I let myself fall back on the bed, relaxing as I’ve been told to. The ceiling above the bed is mirrored. I can’t help laughing. My reflection in the ceiling mirrors laughs back at me, black hair spilling around my head on the satin pillows. I adjust my position to something more graceful, alluring, and for a moment I’m so taken with how lovely I look I consider slipping my hand into the lacy panties. Maybe this is the service – a narcissistic masturbation fantasy. Hardly seems worth the money just to jerk-off in a pretty bed.

  Just as this thought registers as disappointment, the door clicks open. I sit up to see Tully step in and close the door behind him.

  “It’s you.”

  “Who else would it be?” He sits on the bed next to me, shrugging off his hoodie. “You look lovely. I’ve been thinking about you all day.” Without taking his eyes off me, he opens the drawer and takes out the black feather. “What do you want me to do with this?”

  In answer, I lie back, draping my arms above my head on the plump pillows.

  Tully clambers up onto the bed and straddles me, knees on either side of my hips. I’m mesmerized by his hard belly, the two curves of his V muscles pointing tantalizingly into his jeans and the swelling bulge under his zipper.

  “Go ahead,” he whispers.

  He sighs as I reach forward and curl my fingers over the hardness, feeling his shape and size. For a dream, it feels real. He feels real. I let my hand linger there, stroking him through the denim of his jeans.

  He leans down and wisps the feather across my cleavage. With his other hand he tugs down the lace, exposing one nipple. The sudden coolness makes it stiffen almost painfully as he circles the feather around it. He repeats the action on the other breast, leaving both nipples hard and poking up above the lace. There is something about that action, of exposing my breasts with the bra still on, something coarse and uncouth that awakens me. I feel my pussy grow warm and wet in the lace panties.

  Tully flicks the feather over my lips, then leans down and kisses me, his tongue swirling over my lips and inside my mouth. I gasp when he breaks the kiss and when I try to grab his head to pull him back down I realize my hands are tied to the bed posts – one with the bra and one with the garter belt. I look back down at my body to see I’m only wearing the panties.

  “Hmm,” Tully says. “That’s interesting.” He grins above me, now holding the stockings in one hand and the feather in the other. He trails the silk stockings over my stomach and breasts. “Want a blindfold?” Before I even answer, he tucks the feather into his mouth like a long cigarette. Then he gently ties both stockings over my eyes

  Blind now, I feel the feather brush my lips again, followed by a kiss. Then Tully tickles each nipple with it, causing shivers which he quells with his lips. He repeats this action several times – feather, lips, kiss, feather, nipple, kiss until I’m writhing underneath him, wanting to beg him for something, I’m not even sure what. The instant I have the thought that if I put my desires into words it will ruin it, my vision rea
ppears. I look up to see Tully gazing down on me with an amused expression. When I try to say something, I realize why.

  The stockings are now tied over my mouth like a gag. I tense, and whimper under the gag, frantically thinking the word Byzan…

  “Tine!”

  The gag is gone. The stockings are gone. Tully sits back on my knees, a little frown on his face. “Okay?”

  I look up at the lingerie bindings on my hands and give a little tug on them. They’re secure. I’m secure enough to let them be for now, I guess. The gag was a bridge too far.

  “Sometimes our desires outstrip our courage,” Tully says, when I look back at him. His voice sounds different somehow. It’s almost out of sync with the movement of his lips. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Do you want to stop?”

  “No. Please, no.” I close my eyes, trying to calm down. When I open them, Tully is holding the feather, poised above my navel. He strokes it there, lightly, then bends down to kiss away the goose bumps. He flicks the feather on one hip, then the other, kissing both of them. The feather strokes my stomach, just above the low cut panties, and Tully brushes over the tingling with a series of soft kisses.

  He slides back and draws the feather down the silk and lace, over the mound of my sex. His knees on either side of my thighs prevent me from doing what I want: to open my legs, to spread myself wide in a shameless hungry invitation. Tully seems to know what I’m thinking. He bends down, pressing his lips on my panties and the hot sensitive nerves underneath. Then the fingers of both his hands curl over the satin as he tugs the panties off, sliding them slowly down my legs, his eyes never leaving mine. He tosses the damp satin and lace away before grabbing my knees and pushing my legs apart.

  “This is what you want?” He lies between my legs, propped up on his elbows, and plants kisses up the insides of both thighs.

  “Yes. Yes.” The ache in my sex is almost unbearable. The sight of him moving infuriatingly slowly towards my pussy and clit makes me tug at my bindings until the lace pinches painfully into my skin. “Please…”