a sequel to The Slavers
to all the EMCA readers and writers . . . thank you
"The most violent appetites in all creatures are lust and hunger; the first is a perpetual call upon them . . . the latter to preserve themselves."
- Joseph Addison, The Spectator, 1711
The Clients did not rule the universe.
Of course, realistically, no one can. No mere government bound by the pressing demands of politics and economy could ever hope to achieve the size or level of organization necessary to undertake such an overwhelming responsibility. Space is just too big. The number of habitable worlds is simply too great. And even were these obstacles somehow miraculously removed, the actual dynamics of rule - of giving and receiving orders on a galactic scale - would still be too vast for the notion ever to be taken seriously. No, the Clients did not - could not - rule.
They did, however, oversee a great many, many worlds, doing so with a touch so light, so ephemeral, that the majority of those under their notice had no idea they existed whatsoever.
That was fine. That was perfectly all right.
That was, in fact, for most of the Clients at least, precisely the point.
Who were the Clients? They were large, in every sense of the word. Physically, they were of a size comparable to the largest of Earth's dinosaurs, though, being alien, they resembled these extinct terrestrial creatures in no other way. Mentally, too, the Clients were large. Their minds worked on several planes at once, each plane perfectly synchronized with one another and each capable of comprehending minutiae of incredible complexity. Their brains were multi-lobed. They could carry on hundreds of different thoughts and activities simultaneously. Their sensory apparatus was equally immense. The Clients could discern both the highest and lowest of electromagnetic frequencies. They could taste colors, hear the music of the spheres, and enjoy subtle sensations derived from phenomena so rare that only a handful of species could prove they existed in the first place. The Clients could also - and frequently did - monitor the thought emissions of millions upon millions of sentient beings at once, reading their subjects' minds at the electrochemical-neurological level, surfing the emotional and physical highs and lows of entire planets as others might scan through the contents of electronic entertainment channels.
Individual minds rarely caught a Client's full attention. Taken as a whole, though, the Clients were often captivated by the pleasures or agonies of entire nations . . . of tribes, generations, and even whole civilizations. The typical Client observed the follies of other races as a person of Earth might watch a row of television screens, viewing hundreds of programs at once. A human mind would find such a conglomeration of signals, symbols, and images meaningless. For the Clients, however, the combination of body politic passions formed patterns and created a synthesis which was both beautiful and exhilarating. Put in simple terms, the Clients appreciated forests while ignoring individual trees. It was somewhat hard for them to acknowledge individual trees even existed sometimes, though with effort they could make the attempt.
Lest one gain a mistaken impression of the Clients at this point, perhaps perceiving them as semi-divine Spielburgian or angelic figures, filled with ethereal knowledge gained from lives spent in philosophical pursuits and a contemplation of the higher dimensions of the universe, it should be noted that the activity these very alien aliens observed most with their highly evolved senses was - bluntly - sex. The Clients spent the majority of their time watching others have sex.
The Clients, one must understand, found the sex act pleasurable, as many other sentient races did as well. They enjoyed both the physical and emotional complexities involved in sex. Benefiting from their heightened perceptions, in fact, which had been great even before technological and biological enhancement, the Clients could discern nuances, deeper meanings in the sex act, that those actually involved in the process rarely if ever perceived themselves, preoccupied as they so typically are.
Scale was also a consideration in their preoccupation. A single Client could use its godlike senses to experience - on a personal, highly involved level - every touch, every climax, every feeling of pleasure as it occurred over an entire world's population. Every sigh was theirs. Every orgasm. Every midnight exhalation. It was, to say the least, an infinitely intoxicating experience, and one that lesser evolved species could only dream about.
What made this all-knowing, omnipotent sex even more compelling was the Clients' own basic asexuality. As a race, the Clients were utterly without gender. They reproduced through a process involving cellular budding, and even then but rarely. They had no real equivalent to the sex act anywhere within their morphology. As such, when the aliens experienced sex vicariously through scanning the minds of others, multiplied hundreds of millions of times typically, it should come as no great surprise that they would find it all the more an attraction. The Clients experienced sex in a way no sexual creature could. They could study it as the true outsiders they were, yet simultaneously feel it from the inner perspective as well. Taken altogether, then, the Clients were, quite simply, the universe's greatest voyeurs . . . and the reason so many of their worlds remained unaware of their existence was pure and unadorned voyeurism.
It took the enjoyment out of the experience if the subjects knew they were being observed.
Therefore, with the help of a few select Agencies and Partnerships whose members were drawn from the sexual species, the Clients maintained Property Worlds whose sole purpose - from a Client's perspective, anyway - was to provide them sexual pleasure. For their part, the vast majority of these worlds remained blissfully unaware of their true role in the galactic scheme of things. Most had been seeded tens of thousands of years before and evolved independently with every understanding that they were each alone in the cosmos. Only a handful of natives were allowed in on the great secret. These individuals were paid off in the only commodities really valuable over interstellar distances - information and services. In return, they were given the responsibility of ensuring that their homes stayed interesting - i.e., enjoyable - in the perceptions of their respective Clients. Usually, this caretaking involved simple matters: stopping global natural disasters, preventing genocidal atomic wars, protecting themselves from extraterrestrial menaces, and so on . . . tasks rendered simple because of the Client tools provided them.
These tools were each carefully designed to be as impervious to duplication as possible, thus keeping their ultimate control in the hands, so to speak, of the Clients, and thus a control over the Property Worlds as well. They were simple to use and easy to carry, and they made even impossible tasks child's play. As a result, these Agents spent most of their time in pursuits little different from those of the populations around them, such as, for instance, one example among many, the running of a Chicago law firm with connections all around the globe . . . and beyond.
Secrecy above all was paramount. Usually.
There were exceptions. Some Clients actually did like knowing their subjects knew about them - it lent a certain zest to the experiences - and so beside the numerous Property Worlds there were also Colony Worlds where species from all over the universe could gather together, live, and conduct their own alien affairs, all the while mating as often as possible for the vicarious benefit of their omnipathic landlords. Similarly, different Clients had different tastes in sex. Some enjoyed only the human act. Others preferred Decapod dance-exchanges or the organ-melting self-cannibalism of the Crystal Emitters. Clients differed in preferences within species, too.
The Clients did not discriminate. They recognized all fetishes, all techniques, and there was only one they universally abhorred. They were the very definition of liberality.
As such, permitted like almost everything else was, there was an interstellar slave trade.
Quite an extensive slave trade, actually. While many Clients favored consensual pleasures, a sizable number did not, preferring instead the power of domination or the ecstatic thrill of submission, or both, simultaneously, and, as always, multiplied over as huge a population as possible. These Clients permitted, and, on occasion, sponsored, organizations that traveled from world to world abducting members of their own (and, very rarely, other) species into sexual servitude, often reprogramming these abductees with mind-altering technologies.
The slavers had Bases and traded with the Colony Worlds on a frequent basis. They preyed on the Property Worlds, though under close supervision and strict licensing so as not to disturb the sexual harmonies of interest to other Clients. An individual caught by these slavers was usually so tiny a point of interest as to be practically invisible and thus easily ignored. So long as the abductions did not get out of hand, the practice was indulged in by all the other Clients.
Needless to say, once caught, it was a given that escape of any kind was impossible.
Everything had to be perfect.
Tiffany, sitting in the backseat of her service's limousine, checking her makeup for what seemed like the hundredth time that evening, wasn't entirely sure why it all had to be perfect. It just had to be. Seeing a slight tremble in her lips, the blonde slowly counted to ten and managed to regain a measure of control over herself. Why am I so nervous? she thought. Her stomach felt queasy. Her teeth were chattering in spite of the car's heater. It's just a date. Just one more client, like any of the hundreds of men I've done . . done . . . . Tiffany blinked, and another sickening wave of vertigo swept through her. When it passed, and she found herself looking in her compact again (appearance is everything), Tiffany thought her lipstick needed some slight maintenance.
It was a good thing she checked. Her appearance, after all, was everything.
She reached into her small purse for the little plastic tube, and as she did she tried to recapture the thought she had just had. It wouldn't come. It must not have been very important.
She was finishing the reapplication when the limo (No, it's a taxi) pulled up in front of the hotel.
"Okay, lady, we're here," her driver (No, it's Malcolm!) said. "That'll be . . ah, $24.65."
Tiffany blinked. Why am I so nervous? she thought. It's just a date. Just one more . . . but a wave of dizziness eclipsed the errant thought before it could begin. Her vision blurred.
Bad girl, someone said from somewhere, from the back of her mind. You're a bad, bad girl.
Tiffany released a low moan. She must do better! Everything had to be perfect!
"You okay back there?" The taxi driver looked at her in blurry-eyed concern.
"Yes . . . thank you, Malcolm," she heard herself say to the driver. He grunted something back.
Something strange happened to her perspective as she spoke. For a moment, the inside of the limo/taxi(?) seemed to split in two, as if she were watching a weird TV episode that showed the same actor (Tiffany) doing two different things at the same time. One Tiffany (Is that me?) reached into her purse and handed the short, smelly driver a ten and a twenty dollar bill, telling him to keep the change. In the other scene, the one that somehow felt more real, more there than that first, more hallucinatory vision, Malcolm, her escort service's exclusive chauffeur, got out of the limousine, walked around the back of the car and over to her side, and gallantly opened the door for her. He was so considerate. He drove all the girls who worked for . . for . . . .
For what? She blinked.
Escort service! Yes, Tiffany worked for an escort service!
Absurdly, Tiffany felt a surge of pride for remembering this plain and obvious fact. Of course she worked for an escort service! Of course she did, because Tiffany was just a . . a . . . .
The well-dressed blonde fought a terrible vertigo.
No, I'm not, I'm not, she thought. I'm not that kind of girl. I'm not a . . a . . . .
She felt her hand grip the car door release and cause it to open.
"Hey lady! You all right back there?"
Another person's voice came out of her mouth. It wasn't like her speaking at all.
"Yes, thank you, Malcolm. I'm fine." The world blurred, and she was back again in the limo.
The driver looked at her funny as she got out. "Malcolm? I ain't named no Malcolm, lady."
"I don't know how long this trick'll take," she said, ignoring him. "Two hours, maybe. You can wait here, if you like."
Malcolm was so considerate. He was always around to take care of the girls. Some of them sometimes gave him free rides, but not Tiffany, though, even though she really liked him a lot.
Generally, she really liked all men, but she gave nobody free rides. It was unprofessional.
Malcolm (No, he's just a taxi driver, dammit!) didn't say anything. He just eyed her as she stepped out beneath the vast hotel entranceway. A light precipitation, more a thick rain than a real snow, fell outside. She closed the limo (taxi) door behind her and took a few steps toward the lobby. Malcolm, her considerate driver, got back in the limo and waited. Her smelly taxi driver, on the other hand, sped off rapidly twirling a finger obscenely toward his forehead.
Tiffany's two conflicting scenes of the world slowly merged back into one. This was a comfort.
She found herself standing beneath the vast hotel awning, not at all sure about what to do next.
She waited expectantly.
You are at the Carstairs Regency Hotel in Chicago, a voice spoke inside her head, finally.
"I'm at the Carstairs Regency Hotel in Chicago," Tiffany whispered, looking up at the sign. Sure enough, the usually meaningless scrawls that swam before her eyes and said nothing resolved themselves into legible words: 'Carstairs Regency.' She had made it there on her own.
Tiffany felt a surge of pride.
Your client is in room 467, the voice again spoke. He called the service specifically asking for you.
"My client is in room 467," she whispered, blinked, then strode sexily forward, deliberately putting a sensual sway in her walk. She opened the glass and metallic doors and went in.
A tall, dark-haired man with a touch of silver at his temples was sitting in a lounge area and reading a newspaper. He looked up as Tiffany passed, resumed his reading, then looked up again more sharply as his eyes acknowledged the sight. Tiffany winked and rolled her tongue lewdly as she walked by, enjoying the certain knowledge that the man was wondering what she would be like in bed. She felt his gaze on her ass and legs and felt warmed by it. She was such a whore! It took all her might not to start giggling. She was (No, this is wrong!) certain all the other well-dressed men and elegant women she saw watching her, knowing how low Tiffany was, how utterly cheap (This so wrong!), were wondering who she had come there to service.
Her lips were so red. Her fishnet hose was so silky fine. Her black minidress was so tight.
What else could she be but a whore?
Tiffany giggled. On her way to the elevators she passed a lifesize poster display of Carmel & Creeme, the teen pop duo who were performing tomorrow night at Soldier Field. She stopped for a moment and gazed blankly at the smiling spandex-clad pair. After a few heartbeats, the blonde rapidly blinked three or four times in quick succession, reoriented herself, then moved on.
She made her way slowly to the center elevator, hips rolling seductively.
Casually, her head not paying attention to what her hands were doing, Tiffany reached down to her purse and removed a small safety pin. As she pushed the call button with one hand, the other flicked open the safety. She ran the ball of her thumb over the sharp metal, hesitated a moment, then stuck it in sharply. The girl winced at the unexpected pain, blinked, and put a hand abruptly to the wall to keep her balance as another vicious wave of vertigo almost swept her off her feet.
When it passed, she blinked again, confused. She stared up at the elevator lights.
Elevator? What was she doing in front of an elevator? In the Carstairs Regency Hotel?
Tiffany's confidence faded as she almost physically felt the hand guiding her (controlling me?) withdraw. What am I doing here? She couldn't remember. She . . she couldn't remember anything! What's my name? she thought. Tif . . Tiff . . . Tiffany? That didn't sound right.
You are at the Carstairs Regency Hotel in Chicago, the voice inside her head spoke. Your client is in room 467. You are a whore. He called the service specifically asking for a whore.
"No," she whispered. "That's not true. That's not true. I'm not a whore. I'm not."
Her stomach did flipflops. Tiffany (NO! I'm not Tiffany!) grit her teeth and endured.
You are at the Carstairs Regency Hotel in Chicago. Your client . . . NO! Stop it! Stop it!
The attractive blonde in the revealing minidress and fishnet hose shook like an epileptic. Then, abruptly, like a whip crack across the back, the sensation as vivid as memory could make it, Tiffany straightened up, tossed the safety pin into the closest ashtray, and went in calmly when the elevator doors finally opened. Unashamed, she felt an accustomed liquid warmth build between her thighs, and she was glad that she had worn her best black wonderbra and matching silk panties before leaving the service. The bands at the tops of her nylons, held in place by the stays of her exquisite garter belt, felt snug and comfortable. She was such a cheap thing, but she hoped the client liked the effort she had gone to anyway. He was all that mattered.
In fact, Tiffany wanted nothing more but to be the most delightful plaything this john had ever had! "Everything has to be perfect," she said aloud in the empty elevator and waited until she got to the correct floor. There was a mirror behind her, and she looked at herself in it.
I'm a whore. I'm a blonde whore. I'm a blonde whore wearing fishnet stockings and high heels.
Little electric thrills passed through Tiffany's stomach each time she repeated the mantra. The elevator doors opened, and, blinking, she pivoted neatly and seductively and went out into the hall. She looked around eagerly for her room assignment. The walls on this floor were a pale green and inlaid with exquisite patterns. Potted plants and mirrors were spaced every couple of yards. She stopped at one of the glasses and took a final moment to preen in front of it, just to make sure one last time. "Everything has to be perfect," she said, smiled, and ran her hands in her long blonde hair. She looked lovely, absolutely scrumptious. Her dress was perfect. Her bosom, pushed up because of the bra, was full and inviting. Her legs promised every delight.
I'm perfect, she thought. The perfect prostitute. The perfect call girl. The perfect . . . .
She frowned again. That wasn't right. Something still wasn't right.
Tiffany leaned forward and stared at the eyes reflecting back at her from the glass. Something was wrong. Something wasn't perfect. Her eyes did not match her face and golden locks.
Her eyes definitely did not match that heavily made-up, showgirl-like face.
The vertigo inevitably rose, but Tiffany fought it, struggling to remember who she was, why she was there. She couldn't . . she couldn't remember! Even her name, Tiffany, sounded false to her.
It wasn't a real name. It was a label, a price tag. Nothing was real about her anymore.
The blonde seemed to recall another name, another face, a place where she had worked in an office. She sighed, despair filling her. It was all so fragmented, her memories such a collection of disparate images. Nothing seemed to connect anymore. One moment she was a whore. The next she was an . . an accountant? A secretary? No, neither of those felt quite right.
She remembered another time . . . a time when she had been a Barbary slave girl. Another image of herself flared brightly, a crystalline memory of herself in a scanty French maid's uniform.
These awful visions of herself, collared slave and nyloned maid, felt more real than anything else in her head, and the blonde moaned awfully, throat choking, eyes closing on tears.
When she opened them again, Tiffany shrugged, took out her makeup kit, and did some needed maintenance to her face. Everything had to be perfect. Her client was expecting the best.
No. More than that.
He deserved the best.
Looking around, she eventually found the room. Timidly, breathing shallowly, warmth tickling the inside of her thighs with passionate fingers, Tiffany knocked and waited. It didn't take long for a response. The door opened, and a large, broad-shouldered man in gray invited her in.
"Mr. Smith?" Tiffany asked, a luscious smile lighting her lips. She all but practically swooned when he nodded. He was the most virile, attractive man she had ever seen! My God, she thought, Tiffany would do him for free! The flaming in her pussy went up a fiery notch.
Not speaking, the john in the gray suit beckoned Tiffany into the bedroom. He sat on the bed, hands held primly to his knees, and motioned for her to stand in front of him. Tiffany did so, knees feeling weak, so overcome was she with the man's utterly beautiful, wondrous charms. He looked about fifty, with light red hair that was only now beginning to come in thin. His fingers, Tiffany found herself drawn to her client's handsome fingers, were blunt and stubby, a lifetime of work on the farm shown in their rough texture. He was so incredibly good looking!
He gazed at her, scrutinizing her up and down. Tiffany did her best not to tremble, but it was hard for a girl not to tremble a little when being stared at by the stern eyes of her Master.
The blonde blinked. Master? The word had just popped into her mind.
It felt very . . . very natural, though, she found.
She would have spent more time exploring the word, that delicious word, and its implications, but then the john spoke finally. He spoke a word, and it filled Tiffany with a terrible joy.
The new word: "Strip."
Heart pounding, willing herself to be calm, collected, so she could do it right, Tiffany put her hands to the back of her neck and unfastened the clip there. The top of her dress began to part, but she held it up with her arms, which she crossed enticingly across her bosom. She lowered them only gradually, wriggling her hips, bending her knees down at the same time, taking her time, knowing the key to any successful strip was the slow building of expectation. The sheer fabric fell around her shoulders. She stretched then, smiled like a cat, and pulled the sparkling cloth down an inch at a time, revealing cautiously the creamy swell of her breasts, then her flat, taut tummy, and, only after many turns and spins, her black-clad thighs and long, long legs.
The client's (My Master's) breath quickened. Tiffany stepped out of the pile at her feet. He nodded again, and Tiffany felt excited. She hoped she was doing well on her test.
Blink. Test? What test?
An annoying, painfully persistent resistance tried to surface, and the blonde stumbled slightly as she kicked her dress away. Ignoring it as best she could, Tiffany raised her hands to the back of her neck again, trembling, lifting her satin-covered breasts to her owner's (the john's) eyes.
She tilted her thighs towards him. She swayed to inaudible music, remembering long lessons in front of a mirror, watching herself disrobe, wanting to be perfect, needing to be perfect, to be absolutely servile. The client nodded again, and Tiffany unhooked the fastening. Her bra dangled for a moment, and then, with a practiced sweep of her arms, she cast it across the room.
Her exquisite orbs hung free and passionately. Her nipples throbbed with untold desire. Her legs, clad in silken finery, longed to wrap themselves around her john's (Master's) body. At his silent direction, Tiffany went down on her knees before him, looking up at him, wanting him.
Her muscles twitched spasmodically. Her body needed his. She needed her Master's prick so badly inside her. His eyes roamed over her lowly frame, his stare blazing into her with unholy fire. God, but she wanted him! Please, please, she begged silently. Her own eyes pleaded.
Tiffany didn't care if she was or wasn't a callgirl. She just wanted him, wanted him so much!
Please, oh please, she begged inside.
Abruptly, sighing deeply and resignedly, the man pulled a small, silvery device from his jacket pocket. It was about the size of a tea saucer, flat and octagonal. One side of it glowed softly.
The john looked at the opalescent side briefly, then expertly tapped at it with blunt fingers.
As he did so, the floor, the bed, the hotel room, then Tiffany's entire world, spun like an evilly spinning top, and through the resulting vertigo the blonde girl suddenly realized something.
Realized, in fact, everything.
Oh my God, my name isn't Tiffany. It's . . it's . . (forbidden knowledge). I'm not a prostitute!
No. No, not a prostitute. Not that.
Tiffany's eyes narrowed. She remembered.
As if a door had opened in the back of her mind, the prostitute/Barbary slave girl/French maid/slave remembered it all . . . or, at least, as much as the Chief Slaver ever allowed her. Tiffany. Tiffany, for instance. It really wasn't her name . . . but he, the Chief Slaver, her Master, her (no . . NO!) beloved Master, wouldn't let her remember what that was.
Tiffany looked up at him in total surprise . . . and, dammit still, continued overwhelming sexual need and desire. God, she hated him! God, she loved him . . needed him.
She remembered.
She remembered the House.
She remembered her test.
She remembered everything, including what she had become. What they had turned her into.
What they were turning her into.
Tiffany looked up at the Slaver in surprise . . and hatred . . and desire.
"You're fighting the programs, Tiffany," he said, almost kindly. He stood, and Tiffany lowered her face to his feet automatically, hating herself for it, yet loving him desperately. He patted her on the back of her head, and, programmed so, she purred like a cat. Oh God, but she loved him!
He bent low and examined her hand. "And look, you've injured yourself. Here, see what you've done." His tone made Tiffany feel incredibly guilty. She had damaged her Master's property!
This is not right, a part of her thought. This is just so not right! But it was her life now. She was (forbidden knowledge). They had taken her in the night. They had (forbidden knowledge).
"We'll work on it later, if we have time," her Master said. "Tomorrow's a busy day. I have an appointment in the morning." He petted her again, and she closed her eyes, resignedly.
"We need to get some sleep, don't we, dear?"
"Yes," she whispered, head down.
She felt fingers under her chin. The Slaver lifted her face up to the overwhelming majesty of his own. "Yes, what?" he asked her, and she shuddered, remembering their long lessons together.
"Yes . . Master," she whispered. A single tear flowed down one pretty cheek.
He nodded. He walked over to the desk and picked up another futuristic device lying unnoticed on top. This one was larger than Tiffany's controller, larger, and shaped like a flattened, silver football. The Chief Slaver fiddled with its controls, then aimed it neutrally at the floor.
"We'll work on it later," the Slaver repeated. "Improve your reflexes, your conditioning more. Perhaps a new program will work better, eh? Something that gives you less initiative?"
"Whatever Master wants," Tiffany said, grinding her teeth in shame. "I live only to please you."
He nodded. "Let's go." He lifted the projector.
There was a flash of incandescently bright light, and when it was gone, so were they.
LoeserTech, a company which derived a certain ironic pleasure from its industry-wide nickname of "Loser Tech," had, despite that dubious moniker, achieved for itself a comfortable niche in the competitive field of entertainment electronics. The company's products were almost exclusively supplementals to existing computer games . . . add-ons, in other words, devices which boosted performance or otherwise allowed players to do things with their games never initially envisioned by their creators, like, for instance, actually winning them.
The licensing fees LoeserTech paid for the privilege of building on other people's work were exorbitant. Despite this, what the company produced tended to sell well and earned for its stockholders a reasonable, if modest, profit. Thus, a mere four years after its founding in a hacker's backroom study, LoeserTech had more than enough capital to purchase its own building and set up in-house production. In the years since, company personnel, including its founder, who was now luxuriating in a warm and tropical clime, had changed many times. The building itself, though, remained essentially as it had been constructed - low-key and out-of-the-way.
The LoeserTech building sat on its own acreage of land in semi-rural Oregon. Nowhere near the coast but much further inland, near Baker, Haines, and a small town rather incongruously named Walden, the countryside surrounding the place was pristine and adjoined the Malheur National Forest. Low hills and green fields dominated. The building proper was a two-story structure and surrounded by a stone fence selected more for its rustic appearance than for its ability to keep people and animals out. More than one LoeserTech employee gazing out a window had seen a deer grazing nearby. Security was handled mostly through electronics, concentrated especially in vital areas like R&D. Only two security guards were needed to roam the halls at night.
Darren Straughan lighted the coffee lounge briefly with his flashlight.
Seeing nothing other than chairs, tables, and a few suggestive posters of famous game heroines, the watchman closed and locked the door behind him. He crossed the dark room humming tunelessly. He drew a security key from the small box near the door on the other side of the room and checked his watch. He was right on time, as usual. He inserted the key into the lock on his belt, heard it click, then went out into the main hall adjoining the lobby. He jiggled the lock on the door behind him. He always jiggled. Better safe than sorry was his motto, most of the time.
The guard let out a brief yawn and smiled. This was the best time on his shift. He had let the cleaning staff out just over an hour ago, and he had just finished his second rotation around the building. He could replace Max at the front desk and put up his feet for a few hours . . . if the younger man was there. Darren hadn't complained about his partner's occasional nighttime rendezvous, not after receiving a few bucks from the new guy to look the other way, but it still worried Darren a lot, though. He had regretted making the deal almost from the start. He was a family man. He needed this job, and he definitely didn't need the aggravation of a new partner using their shift to try out excerpts from the Penthouse forum page.
Darren had made his displeasure known the last time he caught Max with a girl, a little slut who looked as if she might still have been in high school. He broke the two of them up and made his partner promise never to bring anyone else . . . and Max had kept that promise for nearly four weeks so far. Why was it, then, Darren still felt anxious whenever he was out on patrol?
Darren yawned again and closed his eyes, walking on automatic. He had been a guard at LoeserTech ever since the building had opened. The place was out in the boondocks, and it was a long drive in every evening from Baker, but the scenery was nice, and, aside from having to break in a new partner every seven or eight months or so, it had become Darren's dream job. It was very quiet. Nothing ever happened on his shift. Actually, he hardly ever even saw anyone who worked for the company during the day. Dr. Brafford was the only one who worked nights, like this night, but even he stayed pretty much to himself in his lab. Darren and whomever his current partner was usually had the place all to themselves. Most, he had found, just could not take the quiet and long hours for very long. It got to them. Darren, though, liked the time alone.
For the first year he had continued going to college, but after a while he had just quit, not seeing the point anymore. He had everything he needed. His wife was working steady, they had put money down on a new house, and the kid was actually turning out all right. What did he need college for? Still, Nancy was always getting on him to go back, and maybe he would, some day.
You should have been a doctor, his mother was always telling him too. Or a lawyer. You could go back to school and become a lawyer. Darren smiled. He could visualize the two of them conspiring while he was out, hatching out ways to get him to go back to academia. He turned the corner to the lobby, still humming. He liked that they cared so much, but, really, he . . . .
Darren paused, mid-step, mid-thought.
Then, harshly whispering, he muttered, "You son of a bitch."
The security desk in the middle of the lobby was empty. Moonlight streamed in through the clear glass windows making up the first-floor front of the building. Max was nowhere to be seen.
"Shit," Darren said, slightly louder, and stalked over to the abandoned desk.
I knew this was going to happen. I knew . . I knew it . . I knew it.
In his experience, the newbies either could not take the quiet and long, empty hours . . . or they tried to take advantage of them. I swear to God, Darren thought, if I catch him with a girl, I'm gonna kill him. The first time he had just warned him. The second time he had threatened him.
This time . . . . Shit, if Max gets me fired, I really will kill him.
Darren's eyes raked the empty hallway side to side. This was as flagrant a violation of security as the watchman could think of. He briefly thought about calling his partner on the handheld radios they both carried and telling him to haul his ass back and fast, but he dismissed the notion almost immediately, not wanting to risk Brafford or anyone else hearing.
Okay, Darren thought. Okay. Where would I go for a nighttime romp?
He slammed his flashlight hard against the desk. Someplace nearby, he hoped, and, Christ! not near the production areas, shit, there are automatic sensors there and everything!
Darren was so furious he almost didn't hear the footsteps behind him. He whirled about on his heels, expecting to see his erstwhile partner, or some teenybopper, and he opened his mouth to curse. And then he stopped. Stopped cold.
For a long moment, the security guard stared. There was no helping it. His eyes widened, bulging. His mouth went dry. His hand, still clenched around the flashlight, opened, and the tool rolled across the surface of the desk and fell to the floor with a loud bang, unheard.
Darren felt his face grow red.
A naked woman walked toward him from the tech wing, smiling. Almost naked: she was wearing black high-heeled shoes, "fm" pumps which made her long and velvety smooth legs seem even longer and more beautiful than they already were. Their tapping across the tile floor was what had alerted him. The woman halted and posed before him, her smile widening.
Darren blinked several times. The woman's thigh-length hair fluttered around a shapely waist. She sighed and lifted her breasts, drawing in her stomach and straightening her back all in one easy motion the sight of which sent electric thrills coursing through Darren's body. Her figure was perfect. Her breasts were high and firmly rounded. The nipples poked out like little fingers, hard, bobbing up and down with her heated breath. The fleshy lips of her naked, hairless pussy pulsed visibly with red-hot blood, framed between dancer's legs. One lithe arm stretched out toward her observer. The other remained snug behind her back.
She turned slightly, and for a brief moment the sinuous lines of the intruder's trim and saucy backside were tantalizingly glimpsed. Yet, despite her overwhelming beauty, the thing which drew most of Darren's attention was her skin, which was the color of iridescent jade.
Quite simply, the intruder was green . . . emerald green, from delicate hand to petite foot.
Even in the dim light of an empty lobby in the middle of the night there was no mistaking that eerie, unnatural color. The woman was green.
My God, Darren thought, thunderstruck, mouth hanging open. The woman said something to him then, still smiling, her words unfathomable.
"Akito keno karalti?" She tilted her head to one side coquettishly. "Akito dunugu momikki?"
Darren shoot his head, eyes never drifting from her. My God, he thought again. My God.
At first, in some distant part of his mind, the security guard thought Max and his latest conquest might have been playing with paints, been involved in some kind of sex game. He had heard of such things, though he had never dared suggest any to Nancy, not with her conservatism. But as the woman came closer repeating her question ("Akito keno karalti?"), Darren saw clearly that that wasn't it. This woman wasn't wearing paint, latex, or anything else for that matter. She was simply green . . . naturally green . . . perfectly green, like an alien from a cheap scifi flick.
Darren's erection came on so strong he grunted, half in pain, half pleasure. A red cloud slipped past his vision for a second, the haze of which did incredible things to this strange female's already outerworldly appearance. His teeth clenched. He raised one of his hands - he wasn't sure which - and saw it was trembling. He was suddenly soaking - drowning - in perspiration.
"Who . . who are you?" he whispered, then couldn't help but moan, sure as he was and mortally afraid of coming in his pants like some overeager teenager. God, what kind of perfume . . ?
She stopped in front of him, within grasping distance, in fact, and Darren's arms at once ached to pull her in closer. She was just slightly shorter than he was. She looked up into his face, and for the first time Darren took a close look at the woman's eyes. He shivered in mixed fear and delight. They were solid . . . a fiery blue-green, but totally fiery blue-green, without irises, pupils, or whites. The intruder's eyes were as blank as the eyes of a statue or a mannequin.
For all that, though, Darren knew she was seeing him. He could see it in her face, in her seductive grin. Her hair was bluish-green as well and appeared like glimmering silk. Darren longed to plunge his hands through it. His whole body was shaking. He had never felt like this before in his life. He felt that if she so much as touched him, he would go up in a burst of flame.
"Momikki," she said softly, her voice as pretty and doll-like as a little girl's. It was a statement.
Darren was about to say something back - he wasn't quite sure what - but before he could the woman pressed herself against him. The weight of her exquisite bosom pushed hard against the security guard's chest. Her thighs caressed his rail-hard but clothbound penis. Darren moaned again, shuddering all over. Unbidden, his arms reached around and pulled the greenish goddess against him tight. Her skin felt even more unearthly than it looked. Touching her was like touching satin or warm silk, yet at the same time it felt as if she were charged with static electricity. She moaned herself once, softly, in obvious, needy desire, and raised her luscious lips up to Darren's own. One arm wrapped around the back of his neck like a vise.
Their lips met. Her tongue snaked out delicately and tickled Darren's. His temperature went through the roof. Her breath was sweet and flowery, like a rare wine, and, totally overcome with sensation, he seized her, his hands first pressing down against her waist, then lifting to cup her preternaturally fine ass. Her breasts were firm. He could feel her rock-hard nipples pressing into him. From somewhere far away he thought he heard footsteps again, but he paid them no mind.
Darren's whole being was caught up with just one naked desire. He had to have this woman. He had to. If she didn't let him, he would take her by force. He had no choice in the matter.
A new and even harder railspike bulged beneath his damp underwear.
The woman's one hand continued to hold the back of Darren's head. Unnoticed, her other hand, the one holding a short metal tube, slowly crept around to Darren's neck. She pressed the tube against the security guard's bare flesh. He heard a low hissing noise, yet felt no pain. Instead, an even stronger rush of passion passed through his blood. Unbidden, Darren broke their kiss and tilted his head back up at the ceiling. His eyes bulged unblinkingly. His mouth fell open like a fish's gasping for breath. He felt as if she had just injected him with a stream of molten lava.
His nerves were on fire. Not with pain. Pleasure . . . waves and waves of molten pleasure.
Nancy, Darren thought, and then a red-hot cloud burned through him. Over the green woman's head, he saw his partner Max approaching. He was following in their footsteps, his shirt torn asunder, his uniform trousers ripped away. Max shuffled rather than walked, almost as if he were drunk. He was grinning like a fool. His eyes burned bright and green . . . absolutely blue-green, Darren saw. Max's eyes had no pupils. They had only a deep, deep mindless color.
Then his lover's other hand drew Darren's face back down to her own, resuming their kiss.
Fire pulsed through his veins, and he forgot everything - Max, LoeserTech, his job, his wife - and gave himself up totally to the hot, naked, impassioned flesh beneath his own. The woman licked at the security guard's face. Her teeth momentarily, daintily, tugged on Darren's lips as she drew back and down, pulling away his uniform shirt, her lips floating across his bare and hairy chest.
Darren felt her lips against his stomach. Then . . . even lower.
Darren looked down. He felt his pants being pulled to his knees. He saw the green woman kneeling before him, opening her mouth. Then he was lost in overwhelming sensations.
Esther was a light sleeper. This peculiarity in her nature was a long-standing one, and it had over the years cost her both in terms of relationships as well as in hours lost resting. When she first moved out on her own, she had had a tendency to jump at almost every little sound she heard during the night. Even the faintest noises - a faucet running in the apartment above, say, or a cricket chirping softly outside - were sometimes enough to disturb her. Later, after Bobby left, the habit had come back. On each occasion, though, her nervousness about being alone in her own place had soon disappeared. She really didn't consider herself the nervous type. Live with it, Esther told herself, and she did. As such, she wasn't immediately frightened anymore when she heard a strange noise in the night, nor did she even grow overly concerned about it.
All it did was wake her up.
Wharazzat? she blearily thought, eyes blinking open in the dark. A heavy red fog settled beneath her eyelids, and the young woman winced in anticipation of hearing her alarm clock. It took her a moment to remember she was on vacation, that in a few short hours she would be in sunny, balmy Bermuda, hundreds of miles away from her chummy but tiresome coworkers and the endless amounts of paperwork she was responsible for. She hadn't set her alarm. Esther's face fell back toward her pillow, and she snuggled warmly beneath the comforter. She didn't even have to get up early. She was already packed, and the plane, part of a package tourist deal she had arranged, wasn't due to leave until late that afternoon. She could sleep for hours if she wanted. She settled back, arms and legs stretching out luxuriously.
She heard the funny noise again. She couldn't really identify it.
What was that? Esther sat up and peered into the darkness of her empty bedroom. She made out the dusky outlines of her dresser, the closet, and her nightstand like ebony ghosts materializing out of the gloom. She turned and looked at the illuminated face of her alarm. It read 3:30 a.m.
Everything in her apartment sat perfectly still.
Esther twisted off her side and lay with her head flat against her pillow, staring straight up at her darkened ceiling. It was probably her good-for-nothing-upstairs neighbor again, drunk and yelling at his wife, no doubt, though God only knew what they were doing up at three o'clock in the morning. It wouldn't have been the first time they had woken her up. Her ears strained to pick out another sound, all but daring them to make her call the super, but she heard nothing.
Esther lay there for a minute thinking about tomorrow, planning her trip. Two whole weeks, short a few hours in a plane. What could be better? Finally, feeling thirsty, she got out of bed and made her way across the dim room with the practiced ease of the hundredth time. She often got up in the middle of the night to get a sip from a soda in the refrigerator. It had disturbed the hell out of her boyfriend. Why don't you keep a glass next to you on the nightstand? Bobby had asked her, and Esther had told him calmly she didn't like doing that because bugs got into it.
Besides, it's never cold enough, she had added. She didn't miss Bobby. He had turned into a real asshole the last few weeks they had been together.
Esther went into the kitchen and opened her little refrigerator. An already open can of Pepsi sat on the first shelf, and she picked it up and let the acidy drink boil painfully in her mouth for a second before swallowing. She took another sip for good measure, put the can back, and turned around, letting the door close on its own. She looked up, sleepily, and a gloved hand slapped across her lower face to stifle the inevitable yell. The sudden action so surprised Esther that for almost ten seconds she didn't fully realize what was happening. Her first thoughts, in fact, concerned what an ass Bobby was making of himself by doing this. Then realization hit, and raw panic gave the young brunet a strength belying her short frame.
The man holding Esther grunted with effort to keep his grip on her. She heard a harsh whisper in a foreign language to the second man she saw coming up to her side. Her legs fluttered across the linoleum floor. She tried to catch her balance so she could kick one of the men, but the one holding her was also lifting her, holding her just barely above the floor tiles.
Esther felt her arms seized. She felt a moist, cold metallic touch to her shoulder.
Immediately she stopped fighting. She couldn't help it. The strength left her limbs instantly, and Esther slumped like a loose doll in the hands of her two captors. Sudden, naked fear, a fear such as she had never before experienced, overwhelmed the young beautiful woman. She was paralyzed! She couldn't move! Her brain told her arms and legs to run, but nothing happened.
Delicately, almost solicitously, the intruders gently lowered Esther to the floor of her kitchen.
What are they doing? I can't see them! Even Esther's eyes refused to budge from the fixed look of shock now trapped inside them. Jesus, they're going to rape me! They're going to rape me!
She heard the men whisper to one another. The language was not English. It sounded German, maybe, or Dutch. They sounded very calm, though, whatever they were speaking. If they had been surprised by finding the woman they were after awake and not in bed, they were not badly put off by it. One of them left, and Esther heard the front door to her apartment open and close.
Esther struggled with all her might, with the might of the bloody adrenaline pumping through her veins, but her body absolutely refused to listen to her commands. She absolutely could not move. She heard her refrigerator door open, and she saw the light flicker across the dark floor. She heard rummaging sounds, then a mild chuckle of disgust. The door closed again.
I can't move! What have they done to me? I can't move at all!
The second intruder came back. Esther felt a hand in her hair, and a moment later her face was lifted to an upright position. One of the men squatted in front of her holding something. He wore a tight black shirt and dark jeans. He was bald and very muscular. The thing he held was a band of metal shaped a little like a tiara. It gleamed silvery white even in the low light. A solid silvery disk was set in front. The man reached up and fitted the band on Esther's head so that it rested just over her ears. The disk settled directly over her forehead. He said something then to his partner in their funny language. Esther wished she understood what they were saying.
Coldly, she began to speculate on the idea that she was being kidnapped, that a simple assault wasn't the only thing on these pervs' minds. Again, Esther struggled to free herself from her total immobility, and again she failed utterly. The connection between her mind and body seemed to have been completely broken. She wondered if it was permanent, and had she been capable of it, she would have trembled in absolute horror of what a life like that would be like.
The man behind her reached under her t-shirt and fondled her. His fingers trailed over her right nipple, and Esther began screaming futilely inside her head. A rush of heat rose up from between her legs, and she felt her nipples tighten uncontrollably. Her tormentor said something, and the man squatting in front laughed goatishly. Esther had never felt so ashamed in her life.
Her assailant let go of her tit and withdrew his hand. A second later a thick rubbery mask was fitted around her face, and a plug - a gag - of similar material was being forced through her mouth. Esther choked but could do nothing to prevent the thick ball from stretching her jaw open and pushing her tongue back. Cords wrapped around her cheeks and were fastened in back tightly. The man in front took her arms and used plastic cables first to tie her wrists together, then her ankles. His hands took the opportunity to roam over her smooth legs, but all Esther could do was stare helplessly. Finally, the first man took hold of her by the gag - there was a ring set in front - and pulled Esther's face closer so that she was looking him right in the eyes.
"Listen," he said to her. His accent was Germanic, clipped and very European. "I want you to think about purple elephants. Purple elephants. Do you understand? Purple elephants."
What the fuck are you talking about? Esther wanted to shout. Purple elephants? Then she felt that cold, moist, and metallic touch again on the back of her neck. Suddenly she could move.
Esther kicked and bucked, or tried to anyway, but she was too tightly bound, and the two men easily held on to her. Muffled screams sounded around the rubber gag in her mouth. The man in back held her steady while his partner reached over and touched the metal disk over Esther's forehead. She heard a hum emanate from the device, and it vibrated slightly against her skin. A peculiar wave of sensation passed through Esther's body, an almost inexpressible electric current that made her skin break out in goosepimples all over. She stopped fighting the men at once.
The sensation passed quickly, but following it came the weirdest sense of deja vu, which made no sense whatsoever since Esther couldn't remember any incident in her life anything even remotely like the assault she was suffering through now. Then even that sensation passed, and for a timeless moment Esther drifted, either not knowing or not caring where she was or what was happening to her. It wasn't a new sensation per se; it was an absence of feeling rather, an absence of thought and consciousness, like the haze from an extremely powerful narcotic.
Then, abruptly, she was back, and the man was lifting the metal band from her forehead.
Esther tried to kick at him again, but the man behind her let go of her head, and she fell back roughly and had no leverage. The two men stood while Esther struggled beneath them like a turtle trapped upside down. Hot air rushed back and forth through her nostrils. Fear and anger consumed her, but neither was powerful enough to give her the strength to break her bonds. The men looked down at her amusedly as she squirmed at their feet. The one man held the silver band loosely in his palm. The other reached down to unhook a larger tool from his belt.
Esther stopped, suddenly more afraid than she had been just moments earlier. The thing the second man held now looked like some strange species of weapon. It was shaped like a flattened, metallic football, but it had a gun's grip and gun's trigger, and suddenly he was pointing it directly at her face!
Oh God, no! she pleaded, and she closed her eyes in terror.
The room became very still.
An incredibly bright flash of light shined through Esther's eyelids for a split second, and she felt another electric tingle through her body, only this time it seemed as if it were picking her up somehow, lifting her even though she felt no real sense of motion. Then, right in the middle of the nova-white explosion of brightness, the floor beneath Esther melted away, or felt like it, disappearing in a flash, and she was falling, falling through a sudden darkness made deeper by the abrupt ceasing of that great illumination. The floor disappeared, and she fell forever.
She landed somewhere soft, and everything - everything - went black.
The scientist stared blankly at the screen in front of him.
Slowly, eyes never wavering, his right hand crawled toward the tray next to his desk. It fumbled about for a bit, then finally latched hold of the treasure it had been seeking.
Dr. Brafford brought the Twinkie to his mouth and chewed.
"Dammit," he muttered through frosting-laden teeth. At his direction, the animated figure on the screen landed a massive circle kick to the armor-plated demontroll she had been fighting . . . a maneuver which all but decapitated the drooling beast, yet for some reason still didn't look right.
Brafford sighed in disgust. He tapped in another line of code, hit the reset key, and tried again.
"Shit," he whispered, seeing the results on the screen to his right. No matter what he tried, the timing sequence was off. The game's higher levels were easier to reach now, but the action always seemed forced. The heroine always looked as if she had had strings attached to her arms and legs. It just wasn't sexy! The young computer specialist cursed again, louder, then spun his chair around to the work station behind him and began going through the notes on his deskpad.
He had to find a way past this problem. The company was on deadline, but producing a unit that turned a world-famous action star into a stick figure was worse than useless.
Maybe if he inserted a series of breaks here, eliminated these dead-codes there . . . ? His scowl deepened. He was so lost in thought, in fact, he almost didn't hear the door to his lab open.
Brafford looked up, irritated. This was exactly why he preferred to work nights, so he wouldn't have to deal with people interrupting him on deadlines. Then he saw . . . and he gasped.
The Twinkie fell out of his hand.
The company's two night guards, each half-dressed, each with glazed over, green-within-green eyes, stumbled into the room. Both had silly, dreamy expressions on their faces, as if they had each received a hit from a tranquilizer dart. One of them, the older one, Darren, Brafford thought his name was, carried a large brown bag that looked like an oversized purse. The guard was giggling in a way that chilled the scientist right down to the bone.
Then all he saw was the girl, and immediately Brafford's temperature rose to white-hot levels.
She was the most gorgeous creature who had ever lived! Gorgeous . . . and green!
Brafford's skin felt flush, and he stood up in awe. The woman's strange eyes met his, and her huge nipples stiffened perceptibly.
She likes me! the scientist thought, giddy. Oh . . oh Wow!
He felt dizzy.
The beautiful intruder held a silvery-plastic tool in her emerald hands, a weird something that looked more grown than constructed. It was all curves and bumps, much like the intruder herself. It made a whirring sound, and the woman waved it about as she would a Geiger counter. It seemed to draw her to a bank of expensive computer chips and other electronics on a nearby stack of shelves. She turned and looked at Brafford again then, but this time the feeling he got while under the scrutiny of her alien perception felt anything but erotic.
It dawned on Brafford that maybe he was in a little trouble here.
"Ediyetr nangark, pal momikki," she said, blank eyes straying to the two guards. She pointed at Brafford. Nothing happened. The guards stared back at her in obvious longing, but clearly they did not understand what she had just said. The woman sighed.
"Sonarg. Ediyetr nangark pal."
This time she made a hugging gesture with her arms, then pointed at Brafford again. She held up a short metal cylinder and made another gesture, this time at her neck. "Dunugu momikki, pal!"
This time the guards understood. So did Brafford. The scientist tried to run, but the two security men grabbed him and brought him back before he could escape.
He struggled for the first few minutes, but these efforts stopped upon his injection. After that, he instead began mewling plaintively, rather needfully. The emerald intruder saw to his, and her, needs. After a while, however, in a willful effort at self-control, she resumed her search of the lab with her scanning device. Minutes later she began loading expensive chips into her bag.
The three men, each now blessed with green-within-green eyes, stared at her longingly.
When she was done, using slow words and lots of gestures, the intruder got Darren to drive them all away in his car. The direction they headed in was nowhere near that of his home in Baker.