by Sadie Marks
She scowled and one eyebrow went up. "You should thank the crew for helping. You really are a lot of work, Silla. Constantly acting up so I'll punish you." He shook his head, but the words sounded like bragging to her.
"I will not!"
He was still smiling, but his voice turned harder, "You will. Unless you want me to pick one of them for you to go with right now. Any of them would be happy to use your gift as a Pain Receiver."
She gaped at him and swallowed hard. No, she wasn't ready for that yet. She knew there'd be sharing but…not yet. She cleared her throat and avoided looking at the eager audience as she faced them and tried to force the words out. Most of them were no doubt hoping he'd follow through. She felt like a fancy dessert and each of them wanted a bite out of her.
"Thank you." That she managed to get both words out in a strong voice pleased her.
The patronizing "good girl" from her Master didn't.
Chapter 8
She got used to her new life quickly, but then she'd always been able to adapt to new situations with a versatility that often surprised people around her. Her current situation was beyond anything she'd ever imagined, but she learned to live with it, and she didn't hate it. There was actually a lot to love about living with the Sadecs. They were complex people in some ways, but in others, they were brutally simple.
She'd been taken to see the doctors in her first days on ship. The Sadecs called them clinicians, but she knew a doctor when she saw one. Though they found her to be healthy, her immune system was improved, and they said they'd made some internal changes to some genes that they thought might be problematic. She wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but it didn't seem like something to complain about, so she accepted it on the condition that it didn't change her appearance.
She was still determined not to accept the reward the other humans would be offered, though she'd begun to think that maybe there was some deeper reason there. It was true she'd always been mostly satisfied with her looks, and what she didn't like wasn't a big enough deal to bother correcting. But as the weeks passed, she realized there was more to it than that. She literally had nothing left of her old life but herself.
She'd left her home; her whole planet was probably a billion kilometers away, and now she was somewhere deep in space. What friends she'd had, not many since she tended to keep people at a distance, were back there. She'd fallen in love with an alien and then lost him too. And after all of that, she'd even given up her name. All she had left now was the face and body she saw in the reflecting panels. If she gave those up to look like some gorgeous model type, then there would be nothing to remind her of Samantha Durand, human female of the planet Earth. No, she'd stay exactly as she was, and maybe if she saw herself looking back from the reflection every day, it would help her remember not to let the aliens turn her into a groveling submissive. Fighting them and her body both made it hard sometimes.
Especially when they looked at her with those hungry stares as she passed. They wanted her, all of them. When she walked down the corridor, their eyes followed her with an intensity that made her wary of breaking any of the rules she'd been given—and there were many. Some were specifically from her Master and those she broke when she chose, but the ship's rules were something else.
Most of them involved where she could go on the ship and what she could do. For her safety and the safety of the ship had been the reasoning, and it seemed logical. She only went out of bounds once. Just one time—and it was an experience she would never forget. Her ass still clenched when she thought about the punishment. She'd been there nearly a year at that point and was still one of the few humans on the ship. Negotiations for volunteers were going slowly, or so she assumed. It wasn't like they told her much, even though she still worked with the general. The punishment had come from Tal'aav because it had been her bad luck that he'd been the one to stumble over her when she'd crept into a forbidden zone, to explore out of boredom. She'd seen everything else by then, and the off-limits area called to her curiosity. She thought she was being sneaky enough to avoid detection. It wasn't easy when people were always watching her, and it wasn't like she could pass for one of them, but then she'd come around a corner and practically walked into him.
He caught her by the arm. "You're not supposed to be here, girl!" The voice snapped with surprise and annoyance.
"Really? Oh, uh, I must have gotten turned around. I was just looking for—"
He cut her off, "Looking for trouble, and you found it."
He released her arm, but his eyes kept her pinned in place with a grim look as he reached down and unbuckled the wide leather belt at his waist. He'd strapped her right there in the corridor, and there had been nothing sexy about the way he'd blistered her ass and thighs with the leather.
Stripping her bare in front of the slowly gathering warriors had been more embarrassing than she'd expected, considering how often she'd been mostly naked in clubs. But it was different somehow when it was punishment. She'd managed to hold back the tears, refusing to let them see her cry, but she couldn't hold back the pleading for him to stop as he brought the belt across her ass with all his strength ten times.
Only ten.
A couple of years before, she'd been at a play party on her birthday and had been spanked by every person in the room. One spank for every year of her life, and at the time, that had been twenty-seven. Altogether, the total had been nearly five hundred swats and they'd come via hand, paddle, strap, cane, and other things she probably couldn't even remember. But that five hundred hadn't been as hard to take as the ten he'd just given her.
No warm-up. No time to accommodate the sudden burst of pain from each stroke before the next was landing. No break to see if she was okay. The difference between a human scene and a Sadec punishment had never been so clear to her. She'd thought, as a masochist, she could take anything and enjoy it, but nothing about what he did was enjoyable on any level.
When he was done, Kri't was summoned to retrieve her, and she felt every inch the naughty schoolchild when he arrived to find her naked with a bright red ass. He had looked at her with such disappointment as he was lectured for her behavior. He took it as a Sadec did, stoically and without emotion, merely nodding and accepting the harsh reaming the general gave him, without arguing.
Despite that, he'd been surprisingly gentle with her after he escorted her back to their quarters. He'd pushed her face down across the bed and had examined her skin with great interest. Some kind of pungent herbal cream appeared from somewhere, and he rubbed it into every inch of the red, welted skin with a tender touch that soothed the ferocious burn enough that she was eased into sleep.
When she woke up, he was gone, back to his interrupted work shift. She used the privacy to check her backside in the reflecting panel. She was prepared for the worst. She'd played hard many times, and even the most vivid bruises and welts didn't scare her—in fact, she liked visible marks of her play afterward. Straps tended to leave wide welts and bruises that would last for a while, but what she saw in the panel shocked her.
Nothing. There was nothing but rosy pink skin. No black and blue marks, no blisters, just healthy pink cheeks that looked like they'd received nothing more than a quick hand spanking warm-up. She could still feel the dull throbbing just under the skin, and when she probed the flesh carefully, it felt like she'd had a severe strapping, but there were no visible signs of it. She stared for the longest time trying to understand how that was possible. Eventually, she realized it had to be the ointment he'd rubbed in before her nap.
The Sadecs were far advanced in technology, and that included their medical skills so she shouldn't have been too surprised. Earth had suffered some major setbacks and was only just in the past few years starting to move forward again in medical research, under very strict guidelines, so they weren't even close to matching the abilities of the Sadec clinicians. Some of those medical advances were on the list of rewards to be offered to the Earth, though; Silla had made
sure of it.
What she couldn't figure out was why they'd bothered to punish her so hard, only to heal it right away after. What the general had said about them being careful with Pain Receivers was true. They often went out of their way to make sure she was healthy, and she'd seen the clinicians over minor things so many times, she'd given up arguing with them, but she couldn't picture them doing it just to be nice. That conflicted with their sadism too much.
Her Master, no longer new, but still surprising when he chose to be, couldn't be put into a definable category. He wasn't kind. He wasn't cruel. He was just her Master, and that meant he could be either, depending on his mood. She pushed him hard some days, even though she knew that he liked it when she disobeyed.
Maybe he even preferred it, she wasn't entirely sure, but if she thought she'd be expected to be a well-behaved subby girl, well, she'd been wrong. It was such an odd kind of slavery and looked nothing like the consensual Master/slave relationships she'd seen on Earth. The life suited her.
There was no expectation that she would fawn over him or answer his demands with meekness. Her sassiness and sarcasm seemed to amuse him, and it was clear from that first meeting that he enjoyed punishing her. He could play with her any time he wanted. There was no need to wait for misbehavior and plenty of times, he didn't bother.
But there seemed to be a particular thrill to causing her pain when she'd really done something to deserve it. The difference, she learned, was that he took more care in her pleasure when she was good. She never left a fun scene feeling unsatisfied—but oh, the punishment episodes were filled with frustration and denial. He loved to keep her on the edge and watch her body writhe as she begged him to fuck her.
And then, sometimes, he would give her what she asked for but make sure it didn't satisfy her. It seemed unfair that the Sadecs were not only mentally sadistic, but that nature had given them biological tools that were the perfect kind of torture for a girl like her. Kri't found the ability to deny her orgasms a useful tool for keeping her in line.
It was incredibly frustrating that the masochistic side of her could even enjoy that on occasion. It was such a huge turn on, knowing that he could control her body even to the extent of keeping her from that basic primal pleasure. She tried not to push him to punish her like that very often because it stopped being arousing after a few hours, and then it was just miserable.
Not that she could ever predict how he would punish her, of course. He knew humans far better than she knew Sadecs, so he was able to pull out typical human variants that she'd experienced or seen, but sometimes he surprised her with Sadec inventions that she couldn't have expected. This time, that surprise just happened to be pleasant—at least in a way. She was almost disappointed not to see the ravaged landscape of a thoroughly strapped butt.
But her assumption that it was out of kindness that he'd healed her was wrong. Throughout the long cycle, she began to realize that the sting wasn't dying down, wasn't fading the way it normally did. There was no numbness either, which could happen from a hard strapping. There was just a continuous burning that never stopped. She enjoyed it at first, but it intensified when she tried to sit down, and that was less pleasant.
The ball dropped when Kri't returned from his duty shift with a few nasty surprises.
His eyes went to her immediately when he entered, and he slowly shook his head. "Well, you're in deep trouble now, Silla. I warned you that the ship's rules weren't like mine."
Well, he had, but she'd warned him she wasn't a fan of rules, so they were even there. "I was just exploring the ship. If I'm stuck living here, I deserve to see the whole thing," she said.
"That's not all you're going to be exploring." He approached her, hand going directly to her hair as it often did. He used it like a leash to yank her up against his chest so he could stare down at her anxious expression.
For a second, she thought she saw a flash of sympathy, but then it was gone. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, tomorrow you will be on display in the dining hall for a half-cycle. My general wants everyone to get a taste of you. He thinks letting the crew participate in your punishment will ease some of the anticipation that's been building since Earth was finally opened."
"I…what does that mean? Get a taste of me? On display? I don't understand. I was already punished; you saw…" she trailed off, feeling uneasy.
"Did you think that was going to be all the punishment you received? I would have punished you myself tomorrow, but he's decided to resurrect an old custom from our home instead."
She couldn't read his expression at all. There was a fluttering in her stomach, and her throat worked as she swallowed hard. She didn't know what was happening, but she could tell it was going to be intense.
"You see, little slave, on our planet, even seeing a Pain Receiver was a thrill most never got to experience. Watching one being punished isn't quite as good as punishing one yourself, but it was still an exciting treat for the population, and really, you humans are too fragile to be punished the way Sadecs are when we commit crimes. So, humans who broke the law were put on public display, and random members of the crowd were allowed to participate in the punishment."
Her eyes went wide and round, and her mouth dropped open. She had no words available to express what she felt about that, and her body's reaction was predictable and unhelpful. The pulsing beat centered low in her body didn't make it easy to think, either.
And her sudden excitement had to be obvious, because he laughed, and his hand went between her thighs to find her soaked already. "Excited? That's my girl. You might actually enjoy a lot of it. I know the crew will anyway. And besides, you're the one who made him think of it. Remember the punishment you earned in the hall, and the way I let some of them participate? It soothed some of the tension that's been running through the ship. Maybe a larger sample of your…" He paused and leered at her. "…charms will boost morale."
No wonder Tal'aav hadn't mentioned anything about display when they'd hashed through the care and keeping of human pets. It would have come to him eventually anyway, she was sure, and she knew herself well enough to know that if he'd suggested it, she might have broken a rule sooner. She had an uncontrollable need to push the boundaries sometimes, and living with the sadist aliens had only made her a little bit more cautious. It wasn't that she wasn't scared—she was. It was just that the idea of merciless punishment like that was incredibly arousing.
Probably better kept to fantasy than reality, though, and now that she was facing it, she wasn't sure how much she'd enjoy it. Right then, with her backside still stinging and throbbing from the general's strap, she was mostly considering that the whole event would be like that—hard, fast, and merciless.
"Did you do something to make me heal faster?"
"Yes, the clinicians provide a cream to heal you, fragile little thing." He tugged her hair, looking amused.
"Why bother if I'm still being punished?" There was a whine in her tone that she detested. It made her sound petulant, so she quickly rolled her eyes and continued with some attitude. "I mean, what's the point in bothering? You've never done it before."
"It heals any skin and muscle damage, not that there would be much over a small punishment like that." He ignored her outraged look at the description of what she'd felt, as 'small'. "But it also stimulates your nerve endings. You'll feel the punishment longer and more intensely, and tomorrow, it will add to the lesson." He smiled, just flashing the tips of his sharp canines. It wasn't a comforting smile.
She frowned as she put two and two together. "How…long does it take to wear off?" she asked in a small, hesitant voice.
"A few days. It should make tomorrow even more fun."
Her eyes narrowed as she glared at him. "That doesn't sound like much fun to me." But part of her thought it did. She remembered back on Earth how hard it had been to get any of the Doms to push her limits, and she realized she was getting now what she'd always claimed to want. Maybe she was about to
regret that.
"Not for you, but for us? Oh, yes. You'll be so tender and sensitive that even the slightest pinch will make you yelp. And the effects are cumulative, so by the end of the shift, you'll have learned a lesson even if you do manage to enjoy most of it."
He had an intense look on his face that she suddenly realized was hunger, for her, and she realized the way she was trembling in his arms was arousing him. She wasn't surprised when he tossed her over his shoulder and carried her off to bed. What did surprise her was that he was generous with her pleasure, as if she wasn't in trouble at all. He brought her to climax over and over until she thought she'd fly into a million pieces if she had another.
She was deeply sated as she curled up on her side, with her back to him, and fell asleep almost immediately. There was no cuddling with Kri't. She'd never been a cuddler with anyone but Trev, and honestly, while she enjoyed most of her new life, she had no intention of taking down her walls again. Not ever.
Kri't either respected her emotional distance, or else he had his own reasons for being pleased about it. Either way, she was back to the person she'd been before Trev had stormed in and turned her life upside-down. She played, and played hard, with less of the frustrations she'd had on Earth. Sadecs never needed to be encouraged to go harder.
It wasn't a bad life, not really. She enjoyed the sex and the inventive ways the aliens found to bring her to the edge of her pain threshold. Living on a spaceship the size of a city was never boring, either. It was just that, sometimes, she thought about Trev and a feeling of melancholia would sweep over her. For a couple of days, she'd be prickly and snappish, and then she'd push it away and go on with her life because what other option did she have, really?
Chapter 9