Before I had a chance to ask, Carmen said, “Owning an Earth woman is a big status symbol. My first owners—”
Owners! Carmen as property? Reduced to chattel? I suspected that of course, but I hated to hear it. My stomach churned, and I wished for a martini to wash down the rising bile.
“—were the Wah-zhim,” she continued. “They look like pygmy elephants, only with a trunk on either end. One is a nose, the other prehensile junk—”
“Even the females?” I tried to form a mental picture.
“Yes. Imagine the possibilities.” A long-absent gleam finally sparked in Carmen’s eyes. “The Wah-zhim love to play with both ends during sex.”
“And you helped?” Jolie’s voice trembled with disgust.
“No big deal.” Carmen shrugged, still amused. “It was like being a large-animal vet. Quite fascinating. These guys were really into daisy-chain orgies. After I showed them positions from the Kama Sutra, modified of course, I about went deaf when they trumpeted with pleasure. The Wah-zhim thought they knew everything about sex until I came along.”
“Your contribution to cosmic harmony,” I added.
Carmen didn’t linger in the dining room and we followed her to yet another door, this one larger than the other and made of smoked, faceted glass. “But the Wah-zhim aren’t only about sex, they are also gifted inventors. You noticed the flying saucers?”
Jolie and I nodded.
“The Wah-zhim make those.”
“Where do the Nancharm fit in?”
“They heard about my reputation as an ‘arousal facilitator,’” Carmen made air quotes, “and were so desperate for a solution, they confiscated me. My Wah-zhim owners weren’t too happy, but what could they do? If they complained, the Nancharm would use megaton particle slammers to smash them into cytoplasm jelly.”
I couldn’t imagine the Nancharm kicking anyone’s ass. They looked harmless as Doctor Seuss characters. Then again, they had paralyzed Jolie and me and blasted us here in that flying umbrella cage.
I studied the room and keyed in on what was missing. Monitor screens. Televisions. Any kind of a computer, clock, or communication device. I was certain there was no cell phone service here; the roaming charges would be a killer.
Carmen stood with her back to the door. “The Nancharm reengineered the planet into a gigantic combination laboratory and resort. A romantic getaway to try and kindle some Nancharm whoopie. Planet Pleasure, remember? Among the men, I need to emphasize. Their women don’t have a problem. They’re the ones who brought me here.”
“In the hopes of a good boning?” I asked.
“That we all need from time to time.”
“Other than frustration, what’s the problem?”
“The problem is, no Nancharm babies. The youngest are adolescents. They are a dying species.”
“Can’t they harvest eggs and sperm?” Jolie asked. “In vitro fertilization would be an easy fix.”
“Nancharm ‘ootz’—their word for spooge—doesn’t activate until it’s been primed by an orgasm. Unless the release of ootz is accompanied by bells and whistles, their men are just shooting blanks.”
“Why don’t men,” Jolie pumped one hand, “just watch porn and beat off into a cup?”
“First of all, the Nancharm don’t have or understand porn. But more importantly, their men have lost the urge.”
“Let me get this straight.” The explanation baffled me. “The Nancharm men don’t want to get their nut off? The whole point of progress and technology is to make it easier to get some tail.”
“It’s been bred out of their genetic code. They inadvertently made themselves warrior eunuchs.”
“Can’t they reverse the process?” Jolie cinched her eyebrows. “Monkey again with their DNA and reset the chromosomes?”
“They’ve tried. Only made things worse.”
“What can you do?”
Carmen stuck out a finger. “Figure something to make the Nancharm men go boing.”
“Do they even have penises?” I asked. “Not that I’m curious.”
“Oh, Felix,” Carmen replied, “you and your hang ups.”
“And after we put lead in their pencils? Will they return us to earth?”
Carmen turned somber. “I’ve asked Moots, but she doesn’t give an answer.”
“You save them from extinction,” Jolie replied sharply, “they should at least give you a cab ride home. It’s only simple courtesy.”
“You think? My one-night stands have ended with more civility.”
“Where are the Nancharm men?” I asked.
“All over. Why do you ask?”
“Right after we landed, we stumbled across buildings with Nancharm going back-and-forth. None of them looked like soldiers. In fact, they looked like bureaucrats. And I can’t tell the men and women apart.”
“Outwardly, they appear the same.”
“That might another part of the problem,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to hit on anyone who looks like me. They might want to go for cosmetic surgery. Moots could get implants.”
Carmen rolled her eyes. She reached for the brass door handle and pushed. The door opened onto a patio cluttered with furniture. The vista overlooked the pond and trees I’d seen from above when Jolie and I flew at this place. The pond was about the size of a baseball diamond with a waterfall cascading over rocks at the far end. A horseshoe of lush trees enclosed the pond and patio. Plants of all shapes grew along the bottom of the trees and to the edge of the pond, forming a tapestry of verdant greens, decorated with swaths of flower blossoms in a rainbow of colors.
Splashing and voices drew us. We walked to the edge of the patio and looked down on marble steps that led into the pond.
Four humans—Juanita, two men, and another woman—frolicked at the water’s edge, splashing and laughing. Their sleek, handsome bodies glistened invitingly. Curiously, they wore swimsuits. Tiny swimsuits, but large enough to cover their private carnival rides.
“Your chalices?” Jolie cocked an eyebrow.
“Yes.”
I scoped out the view. “Rather nice back yard … and decorations.”
“Absolutely idyllic,” Jolie added. “Your personal Garden of Eden.”
“Don’t be too impressed,” Carmen replied. “A gilded cage is still a cage. A cage for lab rats.” She sighed. “Us.”
***
Chapter Twenty-one
Jolie studied the chalices swimming in the pond. “I could use a snack.”
“No problem,” Carmen replied. She put two fingers into her mouth, puffed her cheeks, and let loose an ear-splitting whistle.
The chalices in the water froze, turned their faces toward us, and swam to the marble steps. Carmen proceeded down the steps to the edge of the pond. Jolie and I followed.
None of the chalices acted surprised that they had guests. Maybe they were so used to being watched and probed that another pair of visitors was no big deal.
The female chalices emerged first. Water filled the cups of their bikini tops, stretching them open, and I craned my neck for a better view. Juanita’s postage-stamp yellow bikini glowed against her olive skin. The other woman, a slender blonde with a pink complexion, wore a floral print swimsuit that was equally abbreviated and revealing.
Carmen introduced Jolie and me to Juanita—Juanita Pacheco from Rivas, Nicaragua—and the other woman, Cassie Tait, from Arnhem, the Netherlands. Both women smiled politely, but their eyes expressed dampened curiosity.
The two men climbed out of the pond. Water dripped from the bulges in their banana hammocks. One of the men had a compact build, and his black hair lay in thick, shiny strands down the sides of his head. A knobby chin punctuated his square-shaped face. His name was Irsan Hirari, and he mentioned that he was from Semarang, Indonesia.
The other man—Toby Huxley, a long-limbed blond from Melbourne, Australia—replied to our introductions with a hearty, “G’day.”
All the chalices looked to be in their
mid-twenties, with radiant skin and well-toned physiques. They reminded me of Olympic athletes, the healthiest examples of humans anyone could possibly find. Even after Carmen explained that Jolie and I were also from Earth, the chalices remained reserved and cool.
I glanced at Jolie to gauge her reaction. Her gaze roved over the chalices and while her mouth held a pleasant smile, I could sense the gears and switches in her head working to figure out the deeper meaning of what was going on.
“Convenient that everyone speaks English,” she commented.
Carmen replied, “The Nancharm made that a requirement when they placed the order.”
“An order for what?” Jolie asked.
“Not what,” Carmen answered, “who. The chalices.”
My turn. “An order with who?”
“The alien gangsters,” she explained. “Clayborn’s people.” Of course, the same bunch of intergalactic criminals that had engineered Carmen’s kidnapping.
Ignoring that we were talking about them, the chalices picked up towels from a stack on the steps and began blotting themselves dry, stretching their lean legs and twisting from side to side, their muscles flexing deliciously beneath taut skin.
Toby turned away to dry the back of his legs and I noticed a thin scar that ran down his spine. The scar started from under the hair at the back of his head and continued down to his trunks. I squinted at the scar and saw four more, short parallel lines just visible at the base of his skull. The scars were precise and straight—surgical, not souvenirs from an accident. I couldn’t think of a medical reason for such incisions and when I looked to Carmen, her guarded expression told me to hold my questions for another time.
She told Toby and Cassie to gather the towels and go inside. Irsan and Juanita were instructed to lie on the table.
We climbed the steps back to the patio. Carmen asked Jolie and me to join her at the table. Irsan and Juanita stretched on top of the table and laid down on their backs, Irsan with his head in front of Jolie, Juanita rested her head in front of me.
Irsan smiled eagerly at Jolie, and then at Carmen. He presented his wrist, which she grasped in one hand the way one might a martini glass. Juanita kept her lips tight as she offered her neck. I guess she didn’t want me to feed off her but too bad. I was a vampire, she was a chalice, and them’s the rules.
Fangs extended, we vampires pressed our mouths to the inviting skin, Jolie and me to the chalice’s throats, Carmen to Irsan’s wrist. Blood spurted onto my tongue, the liquid warm and delicious, resplendent with notes of chocolate and ripe peppers—what you’d expect from a good Type O Positive. Full-bodied with no fast-food chemical aftertaste. I lapped healing enzymes and for her troubles, gave Juanita a good dose of endorphins. She gasped and released a tiny moan. I held her trim middle and appreciated her firm flesh. Mr. Happy was getting a blood rush, and I wondered if I should propose a free-for-all, in the interest of Nancharm science, of course.
Carmen cleared her throat and snagged my attention. She narrowed her eyes and shook her head.
Another time then. I relaxed my grip on Juanita and let her catch her breath. She took one of my hands and kissed it in gratitude.
She and Irsan slid off the table and left tracks from their wet bathing suits. Carmen dismissed them. Juanita departed first. Irsan stared pleasantly at me before he left her side. He didn’t go so far as wink, but I knew he had sword fighting in mind.
A vampire mentor once explained that in view of our immortality, I would eventually let go of any inhibitions I had about indulging in homosexuality. For one, he explained I was a vampire, one of the Damned, an undead bloodsucking killer, so playing catcher or pitcher with another man wouldn’t even register in my list of pervy extracurricular activities. Given that I could live forever, shagging vaginas might get a little monotonous, so why not smoke a pole on occasion?
But I had plenty of time to switch teams and I was still curious about plumbing the depths—so to speak—regarding the pleasures of female company.
I watched Juanita as she walked away and appreciated how the wet bikini clung to her curvy bottom. “I don’t understand the need for bathing suits. You said the Nancharm don’t understand modesty. Seems like the pond makes for a great opportunity to skinny dip.”
“Moots explained that they prefer to see us wear clothes,” Carmen replied. “That way, when we do ‘show-and-tell,’ it signals them we’re about to have sex.”
“I thought they’d be monitoring your brain waves or something like that.”
“They do.” Carmen pointed to ferns growing beside the patio. “These are sensors.”
I reached down and touched the leaves. They were delicate and very life-like. I broke a stem and the milky sap that oozed from it seemed authentic.
“It’s a mutant,” Carmen explained.
“Seems with all their DNA problems,” Jolie said, “the Nancharm would’ve learned their lesson about screwing around with chromosomes. Theirs and everything else’s.”
Carmen shrugged. “That’s their business. But back to the question about why the Nancharm make us wear clothes. They’re astonished how much sex we humans have on the brain.”
“They can read our minds?” I asked.
“No. They monitor brain-wave activity and chemical levels and correlate those to our behavior. To them, we’re obsessed with sex, and their instruments have a tough time distinguishing between when we’re merely fantasizing and when we’re committed to the deed. When we drop trou in one another’s company, that signals ‘Blast Off!’ and the Nancharm scramble to pay attention. I’ve seen their monitoring room. It looks like mission control at NASA.”
I imagined the scenario. Carmen and her chalices expose their junk and start playing. An alarm goes off. Nancharm men in skinny ties and nerdy glasses hustle to their desks and put on headsets. They stare at banks of monitors to study their human prisoners performing the pelvic boogie and maybe even cheer a cream pie.
“And you don’t mind the show?”
“You learn not to care. They have cameras all over.” Carmen waved a hand. “Tiny and practically invisible.”
“Next question,” Jolie said. “What’s the deal with Toby’s scars?”
Carmen replied. “Aside from being stranded billions of miles from Earth, there’s an even darker side to our cozy, little paradise. The Nancharm dig into Toby on occasion to learn how he works.”
“Works?”
“His erections.”
“What about Irsan?” Jolie continued.
“He’s the control specimen,” Carmen replied. “But my boy-toy Toby has got so many sensors and scanners implanted inside him he’s practically bionic.” She pinned me with a stare. “And I fear the Nancharm will do the same to you.”
***
Chapter Twenty-two
Carmen’s gaze turned icy cold. I was certain the climate-controlled air around the patio hadn’t dropped a degree in temperature, but my skin still goose bumped.
The Nancharm might slice me open and stuff me with wires like they’d done to Toby. I looked across the table at Carmen. “Why don’t you tell Moots that since I’m a vampire, I can’t be monkeyed with.”
“If the topic comes up, I’ll give it try,” she replied. “In the meantime, I suggest you keep your dick limp and corralled in your pants. You start sporting wood, and you could find yourself as the new Exhibit A.”
Great. I mean, really fucking great! The one bennie of this outer-space escapade was the chance to score some leg from Cassie and Juanita—Carmen and Jolie were welcome to join in—but if I did, I was sure to find myself pinned and splayed against an examination table.
“What about Jolie?” My gaze slid to her.
She fought a grin. “The issue is not with the women, which means I’m free to party.” The grin deepened. “Must suck to be you.”
“It’s the lack of suck that’s pissing me off.”
Carmen tapped my hand. “Poor Felix. But look at the bright side. Without the di
stractions, you’ll have plenty of time to figure a way home.”
The chill gave way to a warm flush of resentment. “If that means I’m getting a rain check on the sex, expect me to cash it in when we get home.”
She grasped my hand and planted it on one of her boobs. Her breast was exquisitely firm and delectable. “That’s the spirit. Set goals and think positive.”
I glanced between my legs. “You’re not helping matters.”
Her eyes twinkled. “I know, and don’t you hate me for it?”
Reluctantly, I withdrew my hand so I didn’t set off an alarm and have the Nancharm rush in with nerve connectors and laser scalpels.
Jolie chuckled, and since I didn’t see the humor in my situation, she was definitely laughing at and not with me. After a moment, she grew quiet and pensive and looked back to the building. “Why are the chalices so uptight? The arrival of friendly company should brighten their day. Plus, they seem a little slow on the uptake. Are they drugged?”
Carmen shook her head. “Actually, they’re quite sharp. Their lack of cheer is that they’re not happy to meet new prisoners. Several other chalices have cycled through this laboratory, and we’ve learned that for us, there’s only one way off D-Galtha.”
“Not alive, I take it?” I replied.
Carmen nodded.
Our prospects curdled what remained of our satisfied mood from the blood meal. We took in our surroundings and brooded. The garden, once so perfect and comforting, now seemed cartoonish and diabolical.
The blossoms around the patio began to pulse with light and go Bing! Bing! Bing!
Carmen’s eyes crinkled with displeasure. She obediently stood and faced the door. Jolie and I pushed away from the table and rose to our feet.
The door swung open. The doorframe amazingly widened and grew taller. The flower blossoms dimmed and went silent.
Rescue From Planet Pleasure Page 14