Taken to Lemora

by Elizabeth Stephens

  Then she and Tevbarannos disappear around the corner. I follow. I follow them out into the main hall but where they go left, I go…well, I don’t go anywhere at first. I just stare in the direction they’ve disappeared wondering what’s unnerving me more — my curiosity, my pride…or my horns. I’m touching them again. The itch has settled into that stultifying pressure that I despise more than Igmora and the sum of her unsavory parts.

  Air! Wind! Fresh air. Not this perfumed princess piss. I stomp towards the exit, past the mok-biz table, past the Oosa coupling openly on some atrociously bright green benches. I shudder and it has nothing to do with how I feel seeing them and everything to do with the strange taste of the perfume in the air, which seems to be giving me an even more severe headache. The scent makes me frown.

  I think about what Tevbarannos said about this newly discovered hoomain species. Soft, he’d called them. I wonder if he means they’re like the Oosa or the Oroshi. I doubt that, though. He also called them alluring and very few would qualify the Oosa or the Oroshi as alluring, outside of their own species. I can’t picture her, but I pity her. Based on what Tevbarannos said, she’ll go to either an Egama warrior who’s likely to break her on their first coupling or an Oosa clan who’s equally likely to suffocate her with their blubber.

  I’m still thinking about this sad female coupling with a blob or a beast when I reach the tunnel that leads to the exit and stomp down it. There are a few doors in this hall. Which did Igmora say to take? The one on the right? I can’t remember. There aren’t any beings here to ask — not that I would have asked even if there had been — so I pick the farthest door down the hall on the right and push the door open…

  My jaw unhinges, easily this time. A hinge so well oiled that air flutters in and out of my gaping maw breezily. For a moment, I forget where I am. Not where. Who. I forget who I am.

  All I know is that this is not the exit and that my horns have discovered the very definition of pain and yet, I could not care any less.

  The scent suffocates me and I inhale once, and then again for good measure and a ghastly thought occurs to me…

  I don’t…hate this.

  2

  Essmira

  My fingers are shaky and my heart is slamming against my chest. I’m sweating uncontrollably and a female never sweats.

  Females don’t sweat, or shake or slam — bannnng. That’s the sound of my hand connecting with the latch on the window frame. Females don’t slam, but I’m slamming now.

  I thought…I thought I could do this. I’ve been training for this my whole life. Igmora showed me pictures of every manner of being over the rotations and my body was prepared to accommodate them. I thought my mind was too, but it isn’t. It really isn’t.

  The Egama was so much taller than I thought he’d be. He was terrifying and worse, Igmora let him touch me despite Tyto’s protests and the Egama’s grip was rough, cruelly so. I know that Igmora isn’t my mother and I know that Tyto isn’t my father — they’ve made that exceptionally clear my entire life to this point — but I still mistakenly thought that they’d want to protect me better than this.

  Tyto especially. I haven’t forgotten what he whispered in my ear when we disembarked. He told me I shouldn’t worry. That no male here would be able to match the price Igmora wants for me. He told me that soon, I’d be back in the safety of his nest, though I didn’t understand why he used the word back considering that Igmora had never let him take me there before. I asked him and he told me that soon, what Igmora thought wouldn’t matter at all. Then, he touched my back, touched my neck in ways that Igmora discouraged — that they’d fought over…

  “Tyto, with your claws and your barbed tail, you’ll ruin the merchandise. She isn’t meant for you.”

  This time though, she was too distracted to see it, already working her schemes to give me to the one male she said she’d planned for me all along and, in her absence, Tyto let his forked tongue trace my shoulder up to my ear. He shuddered and let his wandering claws cup my rear through my dress and I let him because I thought that it would be the last time and that my new master would treat me at least decently and that he would take me away from Tyto and his frightening stare and, more importantly, away from a life of captivity.

  But then Igmora introduced the potential masters, with their wandering hands and violent eyes.

  The only other bidders that offered enough to compete with the Egama were a clan of Oosa and, seeing them in the flesh, I’m revolted by the idea of letting their slippery blue skin enter me in between my legs — perhaps even more revolted than at the thought of spending a lifetime in Tyto’s nest, though I’m not fully sure yet.

  The Oosas’ collective touch might not have been hard, but it was no less cruel than the Egama warlord’s. They touched everywhere, caring nothing for communication between us. Between themselves, the bright lights that illuminate their translucent bodies is communication enough. But my physiology doesn’t allow for that. Perhaps if there were some sort of translator…

  “Oh! What are you saying?” I whisper out loud to myself in Lemoran, the language I’ve come to speak best over the rotations. “That you’d like to bed an Oosa? Nob, you wouldn’t. They’re slimy and wet and Igmora said…” I wince dramatically, like I’ve been hit. It sort of feels like I have been.

  Igmora made promises, showing me pictures of males with warriors’ builds, bulky arms and massive legs, horns shooting up into the sky in defiance of the stars, and rough, gruff faces built to intimidate, more than charm. I’d liked the look of those males, the Lemoran ones in particular. Perhaps, only because I’d been trained to, but I can’t deny the arousal I feel at the sight of their images.

  But I was also trained to like the Egama…Niahhorru, too, and so far, my reality was all tentacles and gelatin, eyes as big as my torso, fins in alarming colors…mouths without tongues or teeth or worse, mouths with too many tongues and teeth…

  I shudder and beat my hand harder against the window. “This isn’t working.”

  I quickly turn around and find a hideous statue on top of a monstrously decorated table. The statue is of a Quadrant One prince and was cast in a most unusual and, um, flattering way. The little prince’s cock is as long as his two legs.

  “Even this prince would have been better than the males who came to view me,” I snort — an unattractive sound Igmora didn’t manage to train out of me. All she did manage to instill in me was, at the involuntary sound, an immediate sense of shame to follow it.

  I wince again and try to refocus. I lift the gold statue of the boy with limbs like mine and the same amount of eyes and teeth and ears, but skin that’s colored in gold and hair that’s every color found under this planet’s three suns. I’d have been fine with a golden rainbow for a mate so long as his voice was a little kind and his touch was a little gentle.

  “Essmira, you don’t have time for this!” I can hear footsteps in the hall — either real or imagined, they’re terrifying. The latch on the golden window won’t come loose, so I focus on the glass and crack the prince’s golden head against it. A splinter appears in the bright pink glass and then shivers outward, like a spiderweb. I thump the statue against it again. My arm is shaking. The back of my neck is covered in sweat. What will Tyto do when he finds me? Tyto with his reptilian skin and barbed tail. He’s used that tail on me more than once, against Igmora’s wishes even, and it hurt badly every time. He wants me to run, just so Igmora will give me up to him and so that he can spend his lifetime punishing me…

  “No. Don’t think like that. If…if he finds you. And he won’t. You can’t be found if you escape. I mean, when…when…” I snort again as my panic builds. My arm gets jerky but, as I bring the statue against the window pane a fourth time, it shatters.

  I return the statue to its proper place on the hideous table, then grab the ottoman beside it and drag it below the window. I lift my heavy skirt and step up onto the thing, which is a little alarming because it’s green a
nd very furry and possibly alive. It rolls beneath me and I squeal, my hands reaching out to catch hold of something to keep myself upright. The first thing in my vicinity? The jagged window. I grab onto it and pain lances my palm immediately.

  Nob. Nob nob nobnobnobnobnobnob. What have I done?

  I stare down at the blood on my hands and the cuts slashing horizontally across them. “Essmira, you have to escape now. You don’t have any other choice. If Igmora sees you like this…if Tyto sees you…” And just as the first breath of fresh air caresses my face and neck, the doorknob behind me twists and the door swings inward and open.

  I turn, jaw working, eyes growing wide and round in my face. Nob. Nobnobnobnobnobnobnobnob. “Essmira, this is it,” I snort in terror.

  But when my gaze swings around and connects with the being who just stepped into the room, my breath gathers in my stomach like a series of knots I can’t free for an entirely new reason. This being isn’t Igmora or Tyto, but one whose picture Igmora showed me often. This is the Lemoran she said would buy me.

  I exhale shakily, suddenly so relieved I could cry, and then I remember that I’m supposed to be making a good impression so that he does actually buy me. If he doesn’t, there’s a possibility I might still be sold to the Egama or the Oosa or maybe a surprise species Igmora’s prepared for me in secret and that’s even more gruesome than the ones who’ve spent the solar pawing at me.

  “Calm down, Essmira,” I whisper quietly under my breath. I pray he can’t hear it. I don’t want him to think I do this often, though I do, or that I’m crazy, which…after a lifetime in captivity, I might be.

  I stiffen and straighten and carefully fold my fingers over the fresh cuts in my hands and offer him a bow, rather than the Lemoran greeting, which would require me to show him my injured hand. He might not want me if he sees the cut on my hand. Tyto always hated the few times I got scrapes. He liked licking them clean, though.

  Hinging at the waist, I bow deeply, but when I try to step one foot in front of the other, the furry thing under my feet decides to keep rolling, this time, straight out from under me. …

  I go flying across the furry carpet, landing hard on my right shoulder. My head hits the floor, springing painlessly off of the plush blue and yellow carpet. A strangled grunt hits my ears and I groan instead of reassuring it. A female must always reassure the male, even when he is wrong. It’s very important for his pride and this fragile beast should be protected above all things. It is your duty as his pleasurer to bolster it, even at the expense of your own.

  I wonder distantly if this is what Tyto taught Igmora, what Igmora taught Tyto, or what they taught one another. She always seemed like the Alpha between the two of them and if Tyto ever frightened her, she did not let it show.

  “I’m fine, truly,” I say, but the breath has been knocked out of me and my heart is hammering in my lungs now, making my words unintelligible. Tears come to my eyes as I fight for my next breath and then gulp it in greedily, making unattractive sounds in the back of my throat.

  “Ohr! Stay where you are,” an angry voice grumbles before hands that are just as rough, just as angry as the voice they belong to, fit to my shoulders and pick me up like a grain sack.

  Dooth. That’s the sound my feet make when he sets me down and, though the room spins, I force myself to remain upright. A female must always be graceful. It helps reassure the male, providing him with essential comfort. I force a smile. A female must always smile, it…

  I open my eyes and have a tough time keeping my smile in place. This male, he is much bigger than he appeared in the holo images Igmora showed me though I doubt, looking at him now, that an image would have ever done him justice.

  He carries a history with him written in the rings of his eyes. There are so many of them. White on the outside, like mine, but then black and blue and purple and grey and orange and yellow and pink and in the very center, an iridescent green that flashes blue when the light strikes it.

  His eyes are, in a word, beautiful. Even if the rest of him is too rough to use such a descriptor.

  He has the same rough skin the Egama have, only his shoulders are blockier, almost stone-like in their roughness. His cheeks are high and his lips are full and a pale brown against his medium-brown skin. He doesn’t seem to have hair anywhere because his pate gleams bald between twin horns that loop so huge past his cheeks and then up above the top of his head that it’s a wonder he can see out of his peripheries.

  His chest is even deeper than my shoulders are wide and appears to be completely solid…as solid as stone. I have a hard time processing whether this being before me is truly made out of the same blood and bone I am or if he’s just rock all the way through. I have to fight the urge to lift a hand and touch his arm to see for myself, but then I recognize that the temperature around me has increased with his presence, so I must assume that, if he is stone, it’s at least got a pulse.

  I stay my touch and remind myself that even though males like to be touched by females, it should be on the male’s command at the time of their choosing. This is what females do. Females who don’t want to end up on their backs in pleasure houses. If I play my tokens correctly, this male could be the only male I have to pleasure.

  And it would not be a tragedy.

  So far, he has not touched me inappropriately or done me any harm. He hasn’t even shot me a lascivious leer. He’s just watching me like I’m a…like I’m any other member of the delegation outside, even though these are the Quadrants’ most esteemed leaders and traders and I’m but a thing to be traded.

  He looks at me like I’m real.

  My cheeks warm at the thought and a sudden burst of nerves wash over me. I could mess this up. He could decide not to bid and I could go home with the Egama, at best, and that’s only if he wants me now that I’ve been so foolish as to cut myself. Males like unblemished females. Your skin should and will be perfect for me. That’s what Tyto always used to tell me though, in Igmora’s presence he’d amend himself to say that I’d need to be perfect for when they sell me.

  Pushing thankfully away from thoughts of Tyto, I lift my gaze from his chest, past the worn out collar of his cream-colored tunic with the frayed olive stitching around the neck, up over his chin which is hard and smooth, his mouth, wide-set nose, back up to his eyes. My heart beats faster. His eyes are so pretty. I could pleasure this male, I think quite suddenly. My mouth opens and I realize with horror that my next words are going to be to tell him just that.

  I clamp my mouth shut and am aghast when he’s the one to speak first. It is the female’s job to speak first and smooth out the conversation. The male does not need to trouble himself with this.

  “Are you hurt?” He speaks to me in Meero, but I can tell it is not his native language. Nob, his native tongue is the same one that was bred into me from the start.

  I offer him another deferential bow before making the quick switch into Lemoran. “I am perfectly fine, thank you so much for asking. You’re very kind.”

  I stand and meet his gaze and attempt a smile. It’s strange how much more difficult this is out from in front of a mirror. I’ve practiced this smile with a thousand different subtleties — perfected it, even — but faced with his scowl, it’s a little hard to remain confident in it. I’ve practiced that smile, sure, but this is the first time it’s been tested. And I cannot afford to fail now.

  He narrows his gaze and takes a half step back. His own gaze wanders over my face, offering no critique or assessment. The other bidders were quite vocal in what they liked about me, but he is…silent. His flinty gaze passes to the window and then drops to the floor, like he’s searching for something.

  Evidently unable to find it, his mouth puckers and his forehead wrinkles and his prominent yet hairless brows scrunch together over his nose. “What did you smash the window with?”

  He cannot know that I tried to run. A female does not run. Not from Tyto. Not if she fears punishment. “I…” I swallow. A female is
always elegant. “Pardon me?”

  His scowl becomes more severe — so severe, it’s like he’s trying to squish all of the features of his face into as small an area as possible. It would be funny if his ire weren’t targeted at me because I know that if he chooses to act on it, it is my duty to accept his anger in any and all of its forms.

  “What did you use to break the window?” He says again and, when I don’t do anything but stutter foolishly, he prompts, “Was it your hand?”

  “Nob, it was the statue.” I indicate with my chin.

  He doesn’t look away from my face. “What statue?”

  “The one on the lovely little side table just to your right.”

  “I don’t see it.”

  “But you…” Never contradict the male. He is always correct. I have to fight a frown because Igmora didn’t prepare me for this. My instinct is to disagree with him, because I know he did not look, but I also know that I need to help him along and make the answer to his question quite clear.

  I swallow. “Of course. It’s just over here.”

  I walk sideways to stand beside the statue so I don’t have to remove my wrists from behind my back where they’re safely hidden away.

  His shoulders slump forward. He rubs his face and sighs, as if he’s exasperated with me. Panic surges in my lungs. I almost snort, but manage to disguise it beneath a delicate sneeze. When I look up he grunts, “We both know I don’t give an ohr about the statue. Let me see your hands, female.”

  The female must obey the male’s commands. His every command. She must be gracious and do whatever he says. But if I show him my hands, then I’ll…

  “Pagh! I don’t have all lunar!” His voice is so loud it booms through the room and through me, like I’m nothing but air.