by Lee Savino
I know I’m being brainwashed by Frllil’s training, but I can’t seem to stop it. Self-awareness will only get you so far.
So as the pod opens, and a cool computer voice instructs me to stand and exit, I’m a hot mess. Nervous, distracted and frustrated with the never-ending loop of arousal.
Not to mention excited because, for the first time in days—maybe even weeks, I’ve kind of lost track—I might finally find completion. According to Frllil, the High Commander is the only one who can give me the climax I’m so desperate for, and that’s who I’m here to meet. There’s some tiny bit of self-preservation in me telling me to run, to look for an escape… but it’s miniscule compared to the part of me practically sobbing for completion.
As I step away from the Jabolian capsule, onto the vast platform in front of the Tsenturion ship, my legs shaking with both nerves and need, I catch sight of my reflection in the silvery pod. The new and improved Dawn Cahill looks stunningly beautiful. In the past few cycles, I’ve been groomed, plucked and prodded until every inch of me is perfect. My blonde hair is a shining cape that hangs past my shoulders, and my skin looks like it’s glowing next to the golden color of the filmy robe I was dressed in. Even my hazel eyes seem larger, brighter.
The door on the side of the Tsenturion ship opens and out marches rows of soldiers in two straight lines. They’re intimidating as hell—their suits molded to their powerful forms, shining silver in the sunlight. Their shoulders are as broad as a doorway, and they’re all at least half a foot taller than me. As I wait to see Gavrill in the flesh, my body quivers like its been trained to do. Just seeing his soldiers has my pussy creaming and nipples puckering under the thin robe.
My mouth is dry. Fear? Anticipation? Excitement? An unholy combination of all three?
In a murmur beside me, the Jabolian capsule orders me to walk between the two lines of soldiers and present myself to my master.
My pussy clenches at the word ‘master’ without any prompting from the damn belt. I’m the kinky version of Pavlov’s dog, but knowing that doesn’t help me.
My filmy robes dance around my legs as I move forward, feeling almost like I’m sleep-walking. This whole situation is surreal. I don’t look left or right but keep my eyes on the dark entrance to the ship. I’m afraid if I look directly at a soldier I’ll faint dead away. I would never have considered myself the fainting type, but I know that looking at them will be too much for me. Make it too real, too soon.
The movies Frllil showed me explained why there were no Tsenturion women. Long ago, a thousand years as Earth would calculate it, an enemy race called the Vgothas were persecuting the Jabols. Decimating them, determined to wipe them from existence. No one knew precisely why. They’d come out of nowhere and begun hunting Jabols like it was sport.
The peaceful scientist race, desperate to survive, created an alliance with the Tsenturions. While the Tsenturions weren’t as technologically advanced as the Jabols, they had military might that the Jabols could never hope to achieve. It was a good alliance… but as soon as the Vgothas realized they were outmatched by the Tsenturions, they’d done something no one could have expected. Something so heinous, so brutal, it defied imagination.
They’d targeted Tsentur, the entire planet, and blown it up during a Tsenturion mating festival, a week dedicated to their future as a species. It was utterly horrific, and I hadn’t been able to keep from feeling sorry for the Tsenturions. The few hundred remaining soldiers were alone in the universe now—no families, no mates, no home. They were even more alone than I was.
That didn’t make any of what was happening to me less anxiety-inducing.
I swallow hard. The commander is waiting for me, his warriors on either side—none of them have even seen a woman compatible with their species in in over a thousand years. That’s why the Jabols changed their alliance slightly and began looking for Tributes instead of giving the Tsenturions more technology.
That’s why Frllil searched for, and found, me.
I might be projecting when I think I see hope in all of their nearly-blank expressions, but it would make sense. The air seems to be hanging heavy with expectation. I’ve been over this so many times with Frllil that it seems almost like deja vu to actually be doing it, like I’ve already done it a million times before… like this is the moment my entire life has been moving towards. It’s like the book I was reading when I was taken, although that seems very long ago and very far away.
My present is my overwhelming need to orgasm and the knowledge that I will finally—finally—get satisfaction draws me onwards. To the ship, to my future… to him.
The words from my book—the manual—flit through my mind.
The Tribute takes her first step out of the Jabolian capsule onto the Tsenturion deck.
Lines of soldiers in full battle dress line her route to the bridge. They stand at attention to honor their High Commander as he accepts the human female as his Tribute and bride.
It’s just like the stories on the mysterious e-reader I read over and over in my attic bedroom... and now I’m here, living them in real life, about to meet my new alien ‘master.’ My legs wobble a little as I step forward and start climbing the ramp to the Tsenturion ship.
I’m halfway up when he appears. Gavrill, Tsenturion High Commander, the leader of an entire alien race. The male I’ve been trained to respond to and the sight of him in the flesh takes my breath away in an automatic response. My legs tremble and my knees go weak. I’m on the verge of orgasm just from seeing him. My breath is coming more shallowly and more rapidly, making me feel almost light-headed. I can feel my clit actually swelling against the unmoving trainer. It would take the lightest touch, the brush of a feather to make me actually come.
His armored suit shimmers in the light, a gun-metal grey. I try to remember what that color means. Not happy, but not sad or angry either. I get close enough to see the set of his jaw under the helmet, the obsidian eyes. He looks stern, expectant. A Commander, through and through.
There are others standing around him, but I barely see them, because my eyes are locked on him. It’s like the entire world has narrowed to one small point, and he stands at the center of it. The closer I walk to him, the faster my breathing accelerates, the higher my pleasure rises, yearning for the peak that has been denied me for so long. It’s like nothing else in the universe exists except for the two of us.
When I finally reach the top of the ramp, I feel like I can’t breathe. He’s so close to me, a head taller, larger than life and it’s like my entire body is aflame, pulsing and throbbing. Frllil had told me not to look him in the eyes, but I can’t look away. His gaze is almost hypnotic, drawing me closer to him, step by step… and closer to orgasm the same way.
He does not look displeased as his gaze sweeps over me, from the top of my head down to the bottom of my feet and back up.
When he speaks, his voice is deep but strong, ringing out loudly enough for everyone assembled to hear.
“I, High Commander Gavrill, accept my Tribute.”
The receiving deck rings with the gathered Tsenturions’ shouted salute. Beneath my robes, the trainer comes to life. It turns off almost immediately, as if the nanotech is smart enough to realize I’m already too close… but it’s too late.
A faint sense of triumph is threaded through the crashing waves of ecstasy that roll through me. Fuck you, Jabol technology. I’m drowning in my orgasm and nothing can stop it. Nothing except the blackness that rises up over me from the very intensity of my climax, and even as my rapture is rising, I am falling.
The last sensation I feel before everything goes dark is strong arms folding around me, and my utter erotic bliss is complete.
3
Gavrill
Alarm surges through me as my Tribute shakes and begins to collapse, her eyes rolling upwards before they close.
She’s beautiful. So different from a Tsenturion female and yet so similar. Her hair is like a galass plant, bright and soft,
waving gently in the wind as I catch her up in my arms and hold her against my chest.
“Dismissed!” I bellow to the assembled warriors. Many wear startled expressions on their faces, their suits reflecting worry, but I cannot take the time to address that now. I turn to Medik, feeling helpless.
“What’s wrong with her? What happened?”
He’s already stepping forward, scanner in hand, and he runs it over her body, ignoring my questions. Impatience seethes, but I relax slightly as he looks at the output of the scan and his tension releases. He would not have such a reaction if something were seriously wrong.
A small smile plays on his face, something that makes me stare for a moment. He hasn’t smiled since our planet, and his mate and family, were lost.
“She is fine. A simple loss of consciousness as a result of overwhelming sensations.”
“The Tribute is weak,” Bogdan mutters. He’s at my back, hovering in the door as if he can’t stand to be near her, but I hadn’t missed the way he moved when she fell, just as ready to catch her as I had been. His retreat had been just as swift. Which was just as well. After all, she is my Tribute.
The amount of possessiveness and protectiveness I feel is a little startling, and definitely unexpected. But I am used to being a protector, and she is very small. Her skin is soft, completely vulnerable unlike my own. The nanotech of her training belt protects those areas, but its influence is limited.
“She is actually quite resilient,” Medik corrects. “Dense bone structure, decent musculature, healthy tissue…”
He holds the scanner over her leg, and her foot twitches. I hold her a little tighter.
My body is primed to her already, my seela writhing and my cock pulsing with anxiousness to be buried inside her softness. I stroke her hip as Medik continues to examine the readout. Then he presses the scanner to her knee, releasing a small injection of nanos into her. I recognize the process, which he uses on minor injuries not needing much intervention.
“Some scar tissue,” he mutters to himself. “The Jabol made enhancements to her physiology but missed this. An old injury…”
“Is that why she fell?” I ask.
“No, no,” Medik doesn’t look up from his scanner as he taps the screen, directing the nanos working on her. “She ah… was overwhelmed with pleasure.” His lips twitch, almost smiling. “Her body’s responses overrode the trainer… that or Frllil was overly industrious with using it to prime her for you.”
“When will she regain consciousness?”
“Any minute now. I have her in stasis sleep while the nano repairs her knee injury. She will awaken as soon as it is done. When that happens, you should be with her alone.” Medik turns to face me, an almost fatherly look on his weathered face. Our nanosuits preserve all of our organs, including our skin, so that we do not age but by the time Jabols gave Medik nanotechnology, he was already old. In many ways, he has become a kind of patriarchal mentor for the rest of us, as we are without our fathers. “After all, you will need to seal the bond between you in order for this mating to be successful. That is done best alone. If you are pleased with her as your Tribute that is.”
“I am satisfied,” I say carefully. My words match the steady grey of my suit.
The doctor snorts. He is more expressive than the rest of the Tsenturion legion combined. Before the destruction of Tsentur, he had been retired from the fleet for many, many years, and he still retains many of the habits from civilian life. We all rather enjoy it; a taste of the life we never got to lead.
Except, perhaps now we’ll have a chance to. I look down at the female in my arms. The compatible female. A miracle, even if she is soft, defenseless, and a different species.
“You do not believe me?” I ask. The doctor is the only one who would dare challenge me.
“I think being calm is just a sign you have no idea what you’re in for.”
Instead of being insulted, I am curious. “How would you be feeling?”
“Excited. Nervous.” The doctor rattles off emotions I have not felt—have not allowed myself to feel—for a millennium. “I remember when I met my Sulli.” His smile warms his suit to a glittering blush—a color no Tsenturion soldier would ever allow. Not until they had retired and had a family of their own. “She was the most beautiful creature in the Nine Galaxies. In her presence, I could not even speak.”
“A rare event,” Bogdan says under his breath. Both of us ignore him.
“If you could not speak, how did you win her bond?” I ask curiously. When our world was destroyed, I had not yet felt an interest in attending the mating festival and so had never given the process much thought. I’d assumed that I had years before I needed to consider how to win a mate, and after Tsentur was gone there had seemed no point, especially as the years had stretched on without the Jabols finding any compatible females.
Now that I had a female of my own, real and in the flesh, I couldn’t help but wonder how others had proceeded when they’d bonded. Their experience would be different, because Dawn is a Tribute and not a Tsenturion, but perhaps some of the general ideas would be similar. I had read the books on the courtship rituals of my Tribute’s race and found them to be titillating. Certainly, the differences from my own culture had not seemed too great from what I remembered… but it had been a very long time and my knowledge had never been complete.
Medik’s smile grew nostalgic, his gaze unfocusing as if he saw something very far away. The glittering blush of his armor dimmed, the hue deepening. “I gave a lecture at a medical clinic near her home. She was in the audience, in the back. She chose to approach me. That’s the thing about bonding. Both partners can choose. They are equal.”
Bogdan snorts. “Not anymore. This Tribute is nothing like us. No Tsenturion woman would have been weak enough to faint from mere pleasure.”
He was not wrong. But I was not displeased either. We were similar enough. Frllil had started her training and I would complete it, and then she would be a perfect companion for me. My Tribute.
“You should write a manual,” I tell Medik.
“Perhaps I will.” His suit dulls further, turning blue-grey as his grief for his lost mate and family return. Sometimes I think he wishes he had been on-planet when it was destroyed, where he should have been—where he would have been if our usual physician had not been killed in action. Medik had agreed to one expedition with us, while a replacement completed training, and instead had ended up with us for a lifetime.
He returns his attention to his scanner.
“The repair to her knee is complete, she should wake any moment.” He glances at Bogdan, who is staring at my Tribute again. I repress the urge to growl, unsure of why I don’t like him looking at her. He does not appear hostile… although perhaps if he was I would not mind so much. As derogatory as he has been about my Tribute, I cannot help but remember that he had been about to retire and claim his own mate when we lost our people.
But he cannot have her. She is mine.
“I will take her to my quarters,” I say, holding her a little tighter. “To complete the bonding. Bogdan, you have the bridge. Get us back to the nebula. We will pick up the Vgotha’s trail.”
He nods, and I swiftly turn and walk back into the ship as she makes a small noise. I pick up my pace, nodding to my soldiers as I pass by them. They watch me go with varying expressions of worry and hope, although they seem reassured that there is nothing wrong with my Tribute when they see I am focused on my path but unconcerned—and since Medik is no longer by my side, they know she is well enough.
She shifts slightly in my arms as I enter my quarters and I look down to see her eyelashes fluttering. Anticipation rises in me, my cock swelling with interest as my excitement begins to grow again. Bogdan is right, she is not Tsenturion, but my body responds to her regardless.
Opening her robe, I look her over with interest. Her skin is slightly patched, slightly darker on her limbs, face and belly in comparison to the light cream of her b
reasts. Pink nipples harden on her chest under my gaze. Her coloring is interesting and not unattractive.
I stroke my fingers over the trainer belt and sensing my intentions it retreats into a thin band about her hips, uncovering her lower body completely. There too she is lighter. It is as if her body coloring is arranged to attract the most attention to those parts of her which can bring her the most pleasure. I decide I like it.
Pulling her legs open, I inspect her more closely, intrigued by the pink of her inner folds, which is darker than the pink of her nipples. All the color variation on her body fascinates me. The pink is shiny because she is wet; a sign of arousal according to the texts of her people. There is a small bud at the apex of her folds. I cannot tell if it is swollen or not, it looks very innocuous and unimportant, but according to the texts the Jabol provided, it is one of the keys to her pleasure. I take careful note of all of her parts, including the darker, wrinkled entrance to her body that is below her puffy pink lips. The texts indicate that it can be used for enjoyment or punishment, although she may initially be resistant to the idea, even for pleasure. The area was taboo in their culture, although that apparently contributed to the appeal.
Tsenturion rituals demand that we claim our mates in every way possible, so in that manner it seems we are alike. Although I say we will bond, I do not know if we will be able to complete it fully, the way Tsenturion couples do so that they may completely share their lives and emotions with each other. It seems unlikely. Even knowing this, there is a part of me which yearns to see my claiming mark on her skin, announcing to the universe that she is mine irrevocably.
I am determined to be a good mate, so I will bring her great pleasure and she will pleasure me, and we shall lead the way for the future of the Tsenturions. Although bringing more Tributes through an unstable wormhole is a risk, it may be one we have to take if we are to survive as a race.