by Claire Kent
“No, not with anyone. I prefer not to have sex with women. It’s just my choice. And there are some men I don’t like the looks of. I get to decide who I make myself available to, and they get to decide if they want me. Has no one ever told you how it works?”
“I-I already knew about the leisure suite. I just didn’t think… I’m a nobody.”
“Of course you’re not a nobody. You’re a Combatant, and we’re six weeks in.” She searched his face, wishing he wasn’t wearing the damned mask so she could read his expression better. “I saw you fight last night,” she added.
“Did you?”
“It was amazing.”
He appreciated her words. He was a man. Compliments like that nearly always worked.
“And it’s as simple as that?”
“Yes, it’s that simple.” She was frowning at him now and deciding she might have been wrong to offer herself to him in the first place. “There’s nothing shameful in what I do, if that’s what you’re implying. I work with my body, just like you do.”
“I… I guess it feels a little different to me, but you’re right. I’m the last person in any world who should judge anyone’s choices. It’s been a long time since I’ve been on Earth. I’m sorry.”
Cultures were different on different planets, and some of them were very old-fashioned. She’d encountered both men and women who’d wanted to shame her before, and she was glad this man wasn’t so archaic in his thinking.
He interested her, but her interest would soon fade if he was going to make her feel bad about herself.
“Are you angry with me?” the man asked after a pause.
She gave a little jerk, realizing she’d never responded to his apology. “No. No, of course not. The leisure suite is new to a lot of people. I can understand if it’s a bit confusing.”
“It’s not really—” He cut himself off, as if he’d rethought whatever he’d first intended to say.
She didn’t understand him at all, but she’d liked that he’d said sorry. “Thank you for the apology,” she said.
“Least I could do.” His eyes had drifted down again, but something changed in his posture. He took a step forward, staring down at her belly. “What happened to you?” he asked in a different tone.
She put an instinctive hand on her stomach and looked down at herself, noticing that her skin was raw and inflamed from being rubbed against the edge of the table so roughly. “Oh. It’s nothing.”
He was definitely frowning now behind the mask. “Did someone hurt you?” He reached out and took the torn fabric of her tunic in one of his hands.
His response and the sudden rough texture of his voice made her feel weird, self-conscious. “No. Of course not.”
His hand moved down to her reddened belly, and it was clear he didn’t believe her. “You’ve been injured.”
“Would you stop it? I haven’t been injured. It’s just… the price of doing business.”
His eyes flew up to her face, and she saw, even with the mask blocking his features, when he put the pieces together. “Oh.”
“Yes. Oh.”
“And you still want to… with me.”
She found it so strange and inexplicable that he couldn’t seem to say the word sex to her. She’d never met anyone like him. “Yes. If you want to.”
It was quite obvious that he did want to. Even with the distraction of his concern for her injuries, he was visibly erect beneath his trousers. All the way erect.
He was very nice-sized too.
The hand that had been touching her belly drifted upward slightly, stopping just under her breast. He was breathing faster now, and his eyes were devouring her half-naked body.
She gently moved his hand up farther until he was cupping one of her breasts. “I told you that you could touch me,” she murmured.
He shifted his hand slightly, tweaking her nipple with his palm, and she sucked in a breath as the tiny move sent a tingle of pleasure down to her pussy.
That was quite unexpected.
“Fuck, you’re so beautiful,” he said in a harsh whisper.
She felt another tingle of pleasure, and she realized it was from his words, from their obvious sincerity.
He really thought she was beautiful, and she liked that he did.
“So what are you waiting for?” she asked, trying an eyelash flutter that seemed to work on a lot of men.
He jerked his hand back like he’d been burned. “No,” he mumbled, turning his head so he wasn’t looking at her anymore. “No, I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t… like this.”
“Okay,” she murmured, surprised and disappointed but trying not to show it. She closed her tunic and picked up the stack of books she’d set down on the floor of the hallway.
No one wanted her to make a scene just because she’d been so close to scoring another victory for the day only to lose it.
It happened.
It happened a lot.
It happened to her more than to other girls.
Her body type wasn’t in style. And she was new to the suite. She didn’t have all the skills that other women did. She needed more practice.
But how was she supposed to get practice if men kept turning her down—even a man who was obviously aroused by her?
“It’s not that I don’t… don’t like you,” the man said when she’d started to turn away from him.
She paused and looked back.
“I do. You’re…. you’re perfect. But sex is… personal to me.”
She nodded, feeling a little better about the rejection. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” she said with a smile. Might as well end things on a good note. Maybe he’d change his mind later on.
“Why not?” he asked with a frown in his tone.
“Because this is my job.”
“But you’re also a person, aren’t you?”
She blinked, staring at him for a long moment, her heart doing a very strange skipping thing. “Yes,” she said at last, just a little breathless. “I am.”
“What’s your name?”
“Talia.”
“Talia,” he repeated softly. “I’m Desh.”
She nodded to acknowledge his introduction. Then she turned and walked away with her stack of books, wondering why she felt so upended by his matter-of-fact comment about her being a person.
She knew in theory that she was a person. Of course she did.
But from a very early age, she’d also known that wasn’t how men saw her.
She’d been fourteen when her breasts had really started to grow. She’d always been a pretty little girl—everyone had always told her that—but once she’d developed a figure, they’d started looking at her differently.
Her parents were dirt poor, working in the mines like everyone else on her home planet, and they’d had to use what they had available to provide for their family. She was one of those things.
When she was seventeen, they’d made plans to marry her off to the richest man in the village, a merchant in his fifties who’d been leering at her since she was fourteen.
They’d told her she was lucky that he had even noticed her, and she’d believed them. She’d wanted her own room with a nice bed and the pretty clothes he could give her.
Why on earth wouldn’t she want that?
She’d never had a boyfriend. There were few young men in the village. Many of the boys who were raised there left the planet by the time they were sixteen, in search of something better than the barren existence on such an isolated, undeveloped part of the universe. A few of them would eventually come back if they couldn’t make it in the outside world.
Her father had kept her away from even the few boys around. He’d protected her virginity as if it were a monetary treasure.
She’d grown up understanding it was.
But just before the engagement was finalized, her father had heard of a call for beautiful young women—virgins preferred—to interview for the leisure suite. He’d used every bit of their
savings to take her to the one developed planet in their solar system to be interviewed by a bored Coalition official.
The man had looked at her naked, verified she was a virgin, and sent her to meet with an older woman in a private room.
The woman had grilled her for more than two hours about everything from favorite foods to her masturbation habits. (Those questions were easy—she’d never had an orgasm until they’d given her a vibrator in the leisure suite.)
She’d done exactly as her father had said and continually lied about her age.
In that part of the universe, record keeping was sketchy, and no one bothered to double-check the year she was born.
Women were supposed to be eighteen to enter the leisure suite. Talia had done it at seventeen, and it had been the best thing she’d ever done.
Her family was taken care of for the rest of their lives, and she was able to live in comfort for the rest of hers.
And all she had to do was have sex.
It wasn’t really that different from what she’d expected when she was younger. Her body was the one thing she had of value, and so she had to use it.
She might not be great at sex yet, but she was getting better.
Eventually she would have a room of her own like Jenelle did. Privacy to read or rest or anything she wanted.
If the price she paid was bruises across the stomach from a man turning her over a table, then she wasn’t about to complain. Men were like that. They took what they wanted.
She had the sudden image of Desh touching her breast so gently. She could almost feel again the tingles of pleasure in her pussy from the featherlight brush of his palm, so unexpected, so strange.
She shook her head, telling herself not to dwell on it since it didn’t mean anything significant.
Desh had turned her down.
And if he changed his mind and took her to bed in the future, he’d end up like all the others. They looked different and acted different, but when they fucked, men were all the same.
They all took what they wanted.
It was the second thing Jenelle had told her when she’d first arrived in the leisure suite, overwhelmed and nervous and so excited about the new life she was starting here.
Don’t overthink it. Men will always be men.
Two
The following day, Talia went back to the library in the middle of the afternoon.
She didn’t need any more books, but she was about to scream from all the giggling in the common area of the suite. Occasionally she was afraid the giggles were at her expense, although she had no proof of it. Other than Jenelle, she didn’t really have any friends, and a few of the other escorts—like Breann—seemed to dislike her for reasons she didn’t understand.
She wanted to be alone for a while, somewhere other than in her sleeping pod, and the library was the only place she could do that.
It occurred to her that she might see the subcommander again. Jenelle had said his name was Marshall, when Talia had told her friend about her encounter the night before.
He’d donated to the suite this morning, so he must have enjoyed fucking her.
Maybe he would want to do it again.
When she stepped into the library, she noticed she’d left the curtains closed around her window seat the day before. She usually left them open, but she’d probably been distracted.
Since no one else ever used the library, it must have been her.
Since she already had books to read, she went to sit down at one of the archive stations and scrolled through various news outlets. She’d started to concoct a new daydream last night about a rebellion to overthrow the Coalition—and she enjoyed her daydreams more if she had real details to use in plotting them out.
There were always news accounts of a variety of minor revolts on planets throughout the Coalition, and she searched for some of them so she could learn more specifics.
All those minor revolts were doomed to fail. Everyone knew it. They were too localized, and the Coalition forces were too strong. Most revolts were wiped out almost as soon as they started.
If Talia were part of one of them, she’d suggest they try to find other groups to join forces with. Nothing could ever happen without a united front.
So she read and fantasized herself as a character in one of the stories she liked to read, doing something brave and significant, making a difference.
Changing the world.
She had a very good time for about a half hour until she heard a voice from the doorway to the library. “Well, look who it is.”
She turned toward the door to see her subcommander, Marshall, walking in with a grin on his face. “There’s my chubby girl. You were looking for me, weren’t you?”
She’d been so lost in daydreams that she’d completely forgotten about him. But he obviously liked the idea of her wanting to see him again, so she gave him a trembling smile. “I didn’t know where I could find you since you didn’t tell me your name.”
“My name is Marshall, and you can find me in the barracks wing.” He was close to her now, looming over her seat, and he frowned as he looked down at the monitor screen. “Why are you reading that rebel trash?”
She’d found a circulated pamphlet on a multiplanet revolt on a far edge of Coalition space, and she’d been reading it with interest.
Her heart jumped as she realized this might reflect very poorly on her. Escorts weren’t supposed to be interested in anything anti-Coalition.
No one was supposed to be interested in such things.
She swallowed and searched her mind for some sort of innocuous excuse. “It’s pretty bad, isn’t it? I had a… an appointment with someone who was talking about it, and I like to be informed. So I was doing a little research. The whole thing makes me kind of sick.”
Evidently, she’d played it exactly right. Marshall’s features relaxed. “If you have a partner who tries to involve you in anything like that, you should report him and refuse to see him again.”
She kept her eyes very wide, very innocent. “Do you think so? I’m so sorry if I was stupid. I’m still learning how to do things. I won’t do it again.”
Marshall smiled. “Don’t worry about it. You don’t need to be smart to be good at your job.” He lifted her to her feet and then reached down to untie her tunic, pulling the fabric back to reveal her breasts. “There’s those big tits I like so much.”
She took a deep breath, causing her breasts to rise and fall. His face flushed slightly, and she could tell he’d completely forgotten about what she’d been reading.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he continued. “I kind of like a quick fuck in the middle of the afternoon, and I know you like it too.”
She dropped her eyelashes. “I do. Do you want to go to the suite today?”
“No sense in wasting the time. The library is as good a place as any. Suck me off like you did yesterday, then I’ll do a little something for you too.”
She took off her tunic, letting him leer at her body, completely naked except for her thigh-high boots. Then she got down on her knees and freed his cock.
It was a pretty close repetition to the day before. He fucked her mouth first, and then he bent her over the same table, holding on to her ponytail as he pounded into her from behind.
Her stomach was still bruised from yesterday, so she kept trying to reposition since it really hurt to bend all the way over. After a few minutes, she figured out that if she arched her back and pushed herself up with her arms, the table hit her at a different place on her abdomen and so didn’t hurt her bruises.
She had to arch her back a lot to keep her bottom in the position Marshall wanted it, but she managed to make it seem like her repositioning was because she was feeling so good and not because she was uncomfortable.
And Marshall obviously liked that he could see her breasts shaking this way. He kept leaning over so he could see them and told her to get them “bouncing.”
“Good girl,” he grunted, s
lapping his pelvis against her ass hard and fast. “You’ve been waiting for this all day, haven’t you?”
She babbled out how good she was feeling, how much she wanted him to fuck her this way.
She straightened her arms, bracing herself so she could shake her body more vigorously, her breasts bouncing so hard they made a slapping sound against her chest. She made whimpering sounds like she was coming and then kept it up to fake a second orgasm.
She almost groaned when he still wouldn’t finish up since her thighs were tired and her back was hurting, but she bounced and jiggled and cried out loudly until he finally roared with his own climax, emptying himself into her with rough rolls of his hips.
“Oh yeah,” he gasped from behind her, pulling out of her at last. When she fell forward onto the table, he rubbed her bottom, but then he surprised her by slapping it without warning. “How many times did you come for me today?”
She turned over since she didn’t enjoy being spanked. She gave him a shy, downcast look. “Three.”
“Tomorrow I’ll get you to four.”
She made a wordless sound of approval, but she was mentally cringing. Surely he wasn’t going to trying to one-up himself every day.
These fucking sessions would end up lasting forever.
“You’re the best fuck I’ve had in a long time,” he said, reaching over to play with her ponytail.
“Thank you,” she whispered, not having to pretend to be thrilled by those words. “You’re the best I’ve ever had.”
In terms of the sex itself, she would prefer one of the old men she usually got, who didn’t have very much energy and so didn’t demand much from her. But she couldn’t ask for anything better than a subcommander of Special Forces, especially when he thought she was the best fuck he’d had recently.
She would bounce her breasts for as long as he wanted if it meant he would keep donating to the suite.
“Okay,” he said, straightening up and tucking his cock back into his trousers. “I don’t have time for anything more for you. But I like this kind of midafternoon break. We’ll definitely do it again.”
She promised to be here tomorrow and waited until he left. Then she leaned over to pick up her tunic, groaning out loud as her back stretched painfully.