Fierce Enchantments

by Janine Ashbless

  She’d been ordered to don only those clothes and put her hair up in a plait that morning, after her daily medical. She remembered the doctor turning to Lieutenant Vanderhuys with Peyton’s vaginal juices still glistening on her latexed fingers.

  “Hormonal levels are optimal, Lieutenant,” she’d said. “All bio-signs excellent. I’d say she’s ready to go.”

  “Good,” said Vanderhuys. “They’ve been waiting.”

  That was it, after a decade’s training in military tactics and communications. Hour after hour spent on the combat simulation games, co-ordinating a virtual five-man squad in conditions ranging from trench warfare to infiltration of a Spider hive. Physical fitness training. Psionic exercises—she’d excelled at Precog. And in her downtime: the fuck-machine, pushing her body to the limits and honing her orgasmic responses. Ten years of training and pills and injections and tests, changing her from a normal human girl to a woman with a specific and extraordinary talent. All for this day.

  Peyton had been feeling pleasantly horny this morning when she awoke, but she didn’t now. She just felt dizzy with anxiety. Following at the lieutenant’s heels down the drafty corridors of the Base, she felt as if everyone they passed was staring at her—wearing only her underwear, and pale with anticipation. They all knew what was going to happen to her, didn’t they? Today she was finally going to be imprinted on a marine squad of her own. Today she was going to qualify as a Pslider.

  Vanderhuys stopped outside a broad door with an “L” engraved on the metal, along with some sort of bird with its wings spread. “Here,” she said, with a cold little smile. “Unit L for Lammergeier. They’re good men. Three years combat experience, on average. This is the first downtime they’ve had in four months. They’ll be very pleased to see you.”

  Peyton felt as if there were no bones in her legs. She wobbled suddenly, staggering a little.

  “Something wrong, Corporal?”

  “No, Lieutenant.” Peyton bit her lip. She’d been given a rank, but it was courtesy only: her background wasn’t strictly military. She’d been raised and trained in the confines of an EFORCE school. “I’m … nervous,” she confessed.

  “Nervous?” The lieutenant’s eyes widened. “You think this is hard, what’s expected of you?”

  She nodded, relieved to be understood.

  “Hard?” Vanderhuys moved in closer, her eyes narrowing to slits. “Have you been listening to dissident propaganda or something? Fuck that shit, Corporal. If you had a cock you’d be out there in some Kazakhstani shitehole fighting Spiders right now. An eighty percent chance of injury in your first tour: seventeen percent chance of coming home in a plastic bag. Whereas these—” she grabbed both of Peyton’s nipples between thumbs and forefingers, pinching them tight and tugging them through the cloth—“These afford you the remarkable privilege of serving your species in relative safety. You’ve only got a twenty percent chance of injury or death in your first tour of duty. It is a privilege, corporal. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Peyton gasped, feeling the pain of her trapped nipples like a red flame in her flesh.

  “So are you ready, Corporal?”

  “Yes—Oh!”

  Vanderhuys gave them one last twist and let go. “About turn.”

  Peyton swayed on her feet, but turned to face the door. Her nipples burned as the pain receded, the twin points swelling angrily now and poking up through the cloth of her top. Vanderhuys put a leather-gloved hand on her ass.

  “You lubed up?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Tears prickled behind her eyes, but she blinked them back. They’d pumped so much antiseptic grease into her that she’d felt it ooze out of her clench as she walked.

  “You’d better be.” Vanderhuys flicked her ID over the sensor by the door. The red light turned green and the metal plate slid back. “Report to me tomorrow, 08:00, Corporal.”

  Peyton stepped into the room as a fug of warm air rolled over her. She was looking down the length of a small barracks chamber. She counted five men in regulation khaki T-shirts and shorts, some sitting, some sprawled out on the beds. They all looked up and stared at her. The musk of smoke and male bodies took her breath away.

  One of the men rose slowly to his feet. He was twice her size, easily, and looked as if he were made of bronze that had been beaten until it cracked into scars. He removed the cigarette dangling from his mouth and sucked his lips.

  She’d never been allowed to smoke. It was a privilege accorded only to combat personnel.

  “Sergeant Jomoa,” she said weakly, drawing herself up straight. The door hissed shut behind her. “Corporal Peyton reporting for duty.”

  ♦♦♦

  The drop-capsule falls like a lead coffin, all exterior power off so as to maximize the time they’ll have undetected by Spiders. When the ’chute canopy opens, the sudden deceleration smacks Peyton forward and back in her harness so hard that she squeals in pain. The men, used to this and better braced, laugh out loud.

  “Thought you liked it rough, Peyton?”

  “You should be used to being banged around by now!”

  But the moment they touch dirt, all levity stops. Orders are snapped, weapons are hoisted, vizors are dropped to mask faces. The rear doors yield with a metallic groan.

  “Deploy,” says the sergeant. “Now.” Then they’re gone, out into the yellow dust, and Peyton is alone. Except that they are still with her where it really matters: inside her head. And there she can feel everything: the constriction of their plasteel armor, the trickle of sweat inside a helmet, the race of adrenaline. She’s with them—and before them—and around them. She’s their comms link and their surveillance camera.

  It’s a rescue mission. Not one to rescue people, of course—even if the population of this city hadn’t been wiped out months back, there isn’t enough room in their capsule for more than a handful of extra human bodies. But there’s something that HQ wants picking up—a sealed capsule from a lab on the third basement level. Peyton doesn’t know what’s in it and nor, she suspects, does the sergeant. But it’s something worth risking the lives of a squad of marines for.

  ♦♦♦

  “Corporal Peyton?” The big man stubbed out his cigarette on the top of a metal locker. “Welcome to Lammergeier Squad.”

  There were noises from the others—jeers and whistles. “Take a look at that!”

  “They sent us a brunette. Fuck, man—I wanted a blonde this time.”

  “Think the paperwork got mixed up?”

  “Shuddup, Rialto. You’ll make the ’ickle girl cry.”

  “Huh. Bet she’ll be crying before we’ve finished with her.”

  She didn’t look at them. She didn’t dare. She kept her eyes fixed on the sergeant, and when he beckoned her forward she obeyed. He pulled a hard chair out into the center aisle between the beds and sat upon it, which put his eye-level just—only just—below hers, and then he looked her up and down thoroughly.

  “So. You’re pretty,” he announced. “Looks like we got lucky, boys.”

  “I’m ready to get lucky!” laughed one of the men, swaggering in from the side with his hand already rummaging vigorously down his shorts. Peyton glanced sideways at him just as he popped his cock out. The tip looked ruddy and glistening. She shied away, her cheeks filling with blood.

  “Stow that, Hayes,” the sergeant grunted.

  “Sarge!” he complained.

  “You’ll get some, don’t worry. All in good time.” His gaze flicked back to Peyton, weighing her up. “You never seen a man’s dick, Corporal?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said huskily.

  “Of course?” His eyebrows shot up. “Lots of them, then?”

  “Well … pictures. Vids.”

  He grinned, and there was laughter all round. It wasn’t very kind laughter. She wavered, heavy-limbed with dread. S
he’d been brought up by women, among women. Men were all in the military. There was precious little opportunity to meet any man who wasn’t crippled, aged or an officer, even if she had been allowed to socialize freely; even if potential Psliders weren’t kept confined in their training schools, their lives regulated around the clock. These men felt almost as alien to her as the Spiders. Their bulkiness, their rowdiness, their loud voices … even the smell of them was unfamiliar. It made her hair prickle and her palms sweat.

  “Vids, huh?” The sergeant patted his thigh and she stepped in closer. “You like watching them?”

  Watching them was a compulsory part of her training. Why then, did she squirm inwardly as she answered him? “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “Well, that’s something. Let me see those tits, Corporal.”

  So, this is it.

  She pulled up her gray cotton top, so that her breasts jutted out from beneath. Her aching nipples were hard as bullets now, and aimed right at his head. She saw him lick his lips, and for a moment he seemed lost for words.

  “Fuckin’ A,” said one of the others happily. They were all on their feet, all watching. She felt the flush steal down from her cheeks over her breastbone. Her tits quivered with every breath.

  “I want me some of that!”

  “Fuck yeah. It’s been … too long.”

  “Come on, Sarge!”

  “Shush.” Sergeant Jomoa put his warm and callused hand between her knees and drew it up the inside of her thigh, all the way to her cotton panties. Gently, he pressed the edge of that hand up against the cloth. “So you never been fucked?”

  “I … uh.” The gentle rubbing of his fingers along her shielded pussy seemed to rob her of words. The cloth was moist with sweat and lube and anticipation, and clung to her as he pressed it in. “I’ve trained on the machines … Sergeant.”

  “Oh?”

  She cleared her throat. “You know.”

  “Yeah, I know. We’ve got our own machines.” His fingers slid under the fabric of her panties and found her wetness as he added, with a hint of bitterness, “We’re not permitted any real women other than our squad Pslider.”

  “Uh,” she whimpered, his slick touch on her clit making her squirm. “I excelled on the machines, Sergeant. Extra credit.”

  “That’s good.” He withdrew his hand, an appraising glint in his dark eyes, and sat back in the chair, spreading his thighs. The fabric of his shorts was stretched tight, the fly already gaping to reveal a great curved mass of flesh rising beneath. “So show me. Show me how you earned that extra credit, Corporal.”

  Pleasing him was her only way forward. She dropped to her knees and, fumbling a little with the unfamiliar clothes, freed his cock from its constraints. But all her hours of diligent study hadn’t prepared her for this, though she’d worked her way through every color and size of dildo presented as an option. The real thing wasn’t just big; it was hairy—nested in thick curls, hairy around the balls, hairs even growing up the shaft from the root, like outriders for an army. And it was hot, and a little sticky, and it had a taste totally unlike the plastic and disinfectant she was used to, and it moved—responding to her touch like a live thing, which she supposed it was, in a way—twitching and swelling and stiffening. Making her mouth wet, she engulfed it, and the sergeant put both hands on her head and pushed deep into her. She felt his bulk nudge the back of her throat and she heard the rumbling sigh of his satisfaction.

  “Not bad, Corporal,” he said, as her head rose and fell in his lap, and she licked and sucked with each stroke. His deep voice had dropped to a huskier note. Then his fingers tightened in her hair. “But if you want to graduate with honors, you need to do this …” he added, pushing her down hard on his erect cock, shoving right into her throat.

  She opened up to him. That was something she had practiced. She let him do the work and slide her up and down, fucking her throat. His cock was so thick that she knew her jaw would be aching before he was done, but that was a pain she could cope with. Her head whirled with the scent and the taste and the heat of him—so much so that she hardly noticed her panties being pulled down to half-mast behind her or the stiff dick slapping against her splayed bottom. The voices above her were made indistinct by the sergeant’s palms over her ears. Not until her ass-cheeks were parted by rough hands and that dick bounced into the cleft between, rubbing up eagerly against her, did she whimper anxiously.

  But the sergeant noticed. He stopped her mid-stroke, allowing her to draw breath through her nose. “You ruining my fine view, Hayes?” he asked.

  “I couldn’t help it, Sarge. She was winking at me—look!”

  Hayes demonstrated by poking the whorl of her butt-hole with his fingertip. Her ass was well-lubed and exceptionally well-trained, and that digit sank into her without resistance. The sensation—that electric ripple of invasion—was in no way diminished though, and Peyton uttered a muffled squeal around the thick length of NCO rod in her mouth.

  “I think she likes it, Sarge,” said Hayes, circling his finger in her anus and making her wriggle.

  “You’re no gentleman, soldier,” the sergeant growled. “You haven’t even been introduced and you’re up her ass.” He sat up, pushing Peyton off his cock. She gasped for breath. “Line up, you dirty horndogs, and stand to attention.”

  Peyton heard the men hurrying round behind her, but her concentration wasn’t allowed to stray that way; the sergeant reached down between his spread thighs, grabbed both her nipples in a firm pinch and rolled them until she squeaked. “You got fine titties, Corporal,” he murmured. “You like it when I do that?”

  “Yes, Sarge,” she said helplessly, her eyes fluttering half-closed.

  “Good girl.” He used her captured nipples to draw her to her feet, and then he turned her, settling his heavy grip on the back of her head instead, pulling her hair tight. “Meet your squad, Corporal Peyton.”

  They stood in a line, hands by their sides, and they were all naked now. Naked and muscled and hairy and tattooed, in that way that no blandly pornographic video or aseptic sex machine had been able to prepare her for. Each of the four men had one of those lammergeier vultures emblazoned across his chest, and their limbs and torsos were canvasses of complex inscriptions and pictures. None of them had a body as big as the sergeant’s, but still they towered over her. Some smirked, some frowned, but all watched with eyes dark with lust.

  “These are your privates, Corporal,” rumbled the sergeant jovially, pushing her forward to face them. “I’m glad to see these unruly motherfuckers are saluting you.”

  They were all erect. Four cocks—varying in angle and size, certainly, but all thick and hard and pointing at her with frightening intent. Four pairs of balls bunched high under those lolling, twitching shafts. While another cock, the biggest one of all as befit its bearer’s mass, pressed up against her back.

  “You’ve met Hayes,” said the sergeant.

  Hayes grinned. He had the exaggerated biceps and bulging pecs of a soldier who spent his boring hours off-duty in the Base gym, and his cock had the same twisted sense of humor he did, swaggering with a cheeky curve off to the right.

  “Now get down and salute that flagpole, Corporal,” the man behind her said, pushing her to her knees. He kept hold of her head as she tipped her mouth over the swollen cock-tip and swallowed the length in as deep as she could take it.

  “Fuck yeah!” Hayes groaned, arching his back. “Oh fuck yeah girl! Oh, you do that!” He tasted salty. Peyton’s mouth made undignified slurping noises as she sucked, bobbing up and down on his cock. But as soon as Hayes’ meaty thighs went taut enough to tremble, the sergeant wrenched her off, trailing strings of spit.

  “Shit!” the marine complained.

  “This,” he said, pulling her to her feet and ignoring the bereft and swaying Hayes, “is Eriksen.”

  Eriksen was sandy-blond and had full,
pouty lips that exaggerated the sullen look in his pale eyes. Maybe, she thought, he didn’t like what he saw of her. Certainly his cock was only semi-hard as she fell to her knees before him; but then it stiffened up and filled out, as if making up for lost time, as she sucked on it. His balls were hairless, like those of the shaved actors in the vids, and he didn’t move at all in response to her ministrations, or make any sound.

  Rialto was just the opposite: darkly hairy all over, even up to his throat, so that his tattoos looked blurred. Scars cut through the fuzz of his closely-cropped scalp like paths through a scrub-belt. His eyes and lashes were so dark they looked like they’d been outlined in kohl, and would have seemed feminine if it were not for the craggy face they were set in. His cock was stubby but thick, a knobbled club of a phallus. “Uh,” he grunted, working his hips in a steady rhythm as she sucked him: “Uh. Uh. Uh.”

  “God, I’ve missed that,” said Hayes sarcastically, from down the line. “The sound of Rialto getting his rocks off … You wait till he comes, girl—he roars like bear.”

  “You fucked many bears, Hayes?” asked Rialto, through clenched teeth. “I thought it was usually sheep.”

  “Shit—would you make a noise like a sheep, dude? That’d really turn me on.”

  “Shut the fuck up, you two,” the sergeant growled. He prized Peyton, open-jawed, from Rialto’s glistening cock, and swung her up to face the last man in line. “Brannon,” he announced.

  Brannon sort of scared her. He didn’t frown like Eriksen, or smirk like Hayes and Rialto. He stared at her, his face completely blank and only the jut of his engorged cock and the sweep of his eyes across her breasts betraying his interest. He didn’t look into her face at all. As the sergeant brought her within arm’s length, he reached out without warning and grabbed her breasts, lifting and squeezing them together, thumbing her nipples roughly.