Belonger (An erotic novel): Part One (17 page)

“
Hurry!” Ione
whispered.

Mark thrashed about
and
found a thick vine, tore it forth to
swing the free end
within reach. Ione
grasped it and
their rescuer
pulled her up
in an easy
display of strength till
she stood
breathlessly at his side
.
They helped
Emma ascend
next
,
then labored
in concert
to liberate Manassa.

For a moment the four of
them regarded each other by the distant green glow of the gnome;
one satisfied man and three desperately aroused women, all confused
as to what would happen next. Emma swallowed, helplessly stirred by
the recent memory of her service to the brawny creature before her,
awed by the revelation of his beauty. He had been a skulk until
moments ago, and she knew the perilous possibility of that creature
was preserved somewhere in his psyche, but for now all she could do
was stare at the
man
.

Their new friend was as tall as Manassa and
comparably thick; his densely muscled physique verified the
colossal energy they witnessed back in the lair. His short black
hair lay in a state of easy dishevelment, framing a masculine
visage rendered exotically attractive by the intelligence glinting
in his dark eyes. His demeanor bore the imprint of their bizarre
introduction—a wary fascination and confusion that Emma guessed
would linger for a while.

Another skulk entered the peckermen lair
below them.

“
Let’s get out of here,”
Ione
ordered
.

Mark ceded leadership
of the party with a shrug
,
evidently
mystified as to
their surroundings.

Ione scrambled over to a
tangled tract adjacent to the grotto where the earth slanted up to
the cavern ceiling, forcing them to crawl. They followed this
cramped terrain for a while, moving as quietly as possible away
from the peckermen lair, and eventually
reached a gallery of passages overlooking a broad
waterway
.

“
Look!” Emma pointed
exultantly. A
line of bedboats
drifted
in the
distance—the rear part of their convoy, apparently still at
liberty.

The Lap

Shortly following their
encounter with the peckermen they were reunited with enough of the
women to feel a kind of security and purpose return.
T
he
rear
half of the convo
y
had drifted so
far
behind it missed the fracas with the skulks
completely, though it took time for Emma to make
sense of their confused reports.

It fell to her and Manassa to integrate Mark
in their wide-eyed company. They couldn’t leave him behind—not like
some ordinary skulk that would just forget about them. He
represented no physical threat to a group of their size, but Ione
made it policy to watch him at all times for any possible collusion
with other men nearby. Within that restriction Emma was free to
socialize with him and took every opportunity to do so.

They were now in a territory of waterways
close to the Lap sanctuary, recognized by their unidirectional flow
and the scarlet radiance of gnomes lighting the route. The water
was tainted by a soapy adulteration, an ominous sign, but Emma
couldn’t tell how far away the substance had been dumped, or when.
The Lap reservoir was supposedly impossible to contaminate, so the
skulks were likely blighting the currents that ranged outward from
there to the rest of the underworld. Aware of this possibility,
they had acquired fresh water where it was still plentiful.

A
s
they drew
closer
many more boats and women had been recovered
from the depths
, so
densely clustered
in places
as to
raise
truly alarming questions about their final
moments.
But from among the drowned
slippers they had failed to recover any of the doyennes, women who
could talk and think like themselves, leaders harboring a
collective lore that included secrets pertinent to their current
situation.

The women had been paired up as they were
found, which didn’t always work. But Manassa took her role as
peacekeeper seriously enough to discourage all but the boldest from
making trouble, and for the moment things were mostly under
control. The bedboats were tightly packed and readily defended by
oars, safe from the ambition of anything less than a small army of
men.

Their route took them relentlessly upstream
now, and the women were forced to row for long periods. Emma was
quickly exhausted by this activity and paired up with Mark to take
advantage of his overcompensating physicality. This he ungrudgingly
delivered, and it kept them close enough to confer out of earshot
of the nearest boats behind them. She strictly adhered to safe
topics, mostly just elaborating on things he could see for himself.
Everything said was being audited by Ione, who had lectured her
stiffly about secrecy, pointing out that he could easily be a spy
of some kind, a tool of the skulks. They were already indulging one
risk of that kind, she periodically reminded Emma with a dark
glance to Manassa. On some purely rational level they all knew it
would be safer to leave Mark behind. But they didn’t.

After a while Ione probably guessed that her
oaring was mostly a mummery of exertion, but her lover had more
critical considerations to occupy her attention and Emma suspected
she was being used as an agent in Mark’s evaluation anyway. She
would be thoroughly debriefed when they were alone at some point,
and Ione would learn or guess more by this canny triangulation than
would have been obtained by bluntly questioning their mysterious
male companion. Emma doubted they would abandon him based on that
conversation, though. Mark claimed to remember nothing before
meeting them, and it was hard to develop dark theories about a man
who had no past, especially when his future with them looked so
interesting…

They
finally reached
a
massive circular current
fed by
several sex of
fast
streams
issuing from the hidden
aquifer they sought
.
Ione and Emma both remembered the locale from the migration.
Soap was strongly concentrated in the water now, merrily wafting in
little bubbles from their churning oars.

They circled the Lap twice, and Ione halted
their flotilla at what she deemed to be the most strategic location
available; a shadowy pond lying just off the bustling waterway,
spacious enough to accommodate all the boats in one place without
any obvious logistical complications to threaten a fast departure.
Emma was soon dispatched with Manassa to settle the fleet, and they
deftly jumped from deck to deck, conveying simple instructions to
the women by a constantly reformulated theater of speech and body
language.

The darkness and distance from Ione granted a
rare opportunity to misbehave. Emma made the most of it, blatantly
ogling the big woman’s bountiful flesh, fingers and nipples
brushing her opportunistically as they navigated the cramped
bedboats till they were both laughing at her insolence.

“
So what do you really think
of Mark?” Manassa wanted to know, casually changing the mood
between them.

Emma considered. In the time they had
journeyed together his personality had emerged as intelligent and
apparently sincere. Emma could fully express herself to him, where
even the most social slippers could barely manage to converse
comprehensibly, and then only in very structured situations like
bathing or sex. Much to her frustration, there had been no further
opportunity for intimate contact with their handsome new companion;
it was impossible to be private in their current circumstances.

Manassa leered down at her, following her
subconscious trail. “You got the hots for him?” she goaded,
playfully poking Emma’s left tit.

“
Who doesn’t? Everyone’s
jealous I got to talk with him the whole way. And that he’s
on
our
boat in the
first place.”

“
Not much choice about
that,” Manassa wryly remarked, absently swatting a pertinacious
slipper off her crotch.

Emma knew this was true. Without their
protection Mark would have been mobbed by the other women, who
likely imagined themselves equally entitled to his company. In
point of fact, they were only deterred from aggressively pursuing
him because their leaders visibly refrained from doing so.

“
Still, the time we spent
jawing away is gonna count when we’re safe in the Lap,” Emma
cheerfully speculated. “He knows I accept him.”

“
No arguing there. He put a
ballsload of jizz in
your
jaw to make sure,” Manassa smirked. “Saw it
myself.”

Emma snorted indignantly and
smacked Manassa’s ass in happy retribution. Giggling together, they
made the jump to the next boat. “I’m looking forward to the total
‘Mark experience’, I have to say. First chance we have I’m gonna
get my twat
crammed
.”

They dealt with a few more slippers, then
Manassa turned serious for a moment. “How is it that you can trust
him after what you told me about skulks? And everything that’s
happened to us, just getting here?”

“
Well…” Emma trailed off,
wondering how much to disclose. “Me and Ione have memories of real
men. People like Mark. His kind
do
exist, but it’s just too confusing to remember
when and where. All mixed up in my head.”

Manassa pondered this for a while as they got
more women organized for watch details. “So we’ll really be safe in
this Lap place? There won’t be any way for skulks to get in?”

Emma realized Ione would
need to know about any further conversation on that topic. It would
be treasonous not to report Manassa’s interest in
anything
related to their
security, actually. “Don’t think so, but they’re unbelievably
cunning…” she deflected, and they moved on to the next
boat.

When Emma returned
Ione
explained
to
Mark and Manassa she
had some personal
business with her partner
.

“
Yeah? Like what?” Mark
grinned, not really expecting an answer. “Haven’t been alone in a
while, eh? Need a little release? What’s the scenario?”

“
Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Emma teased.

“
Of course,” he laughed.
“Will there be Bondage? Spanking? Toys?”

Ione stared impassively, trying to balance
the grim reality of their situation with a seething desire to get
with the naked figure lounging on the mattress in front of her.
“Everything but men. I’ll say that.”

Mark accepted this rebuke gracefully. “Fine.
Be that way. But I don’t have to bring the whole gender package. If
you just want something long and hard and mindlessly devoted to
duty…” he tantalized, penis rising suggestively.

“
Then we’ll grab an oar,”
Ione grimaced, wondering how much he suspected about their
activities.

Mark chuckled. “Alright.
Maybe another time.” He scanned the flotilla, nodding to the many
women staring hungrily in their direction. “Um, not to be dramatic,
but there
are
a
lot of slippers circling…”

Ione stolidly acknowledged this. “I trust
you’ll do nothing to provoke them?”

“
No way. Things are dicey
enough as it is without losing control of that horde,” he winced.
“But what if they rush me or something?”

Emma chewed her lip. “That’s a real risk,
Ione.”

She reconsidered the situation for a moment,
was about to suggest a compromise when it abruptly occurred to her
that Mark might be challenging their departure as an oblique gambit
to acquire more information; it was starting to look absurd that
she and Emma would invite a serious risk to their collective
security in the name of pleasure alone. She stared at him, forcing
eye contact, but couldn’t read anything sinister in his gaze.

“
Maybe he
should
come along,” Emma
recommended with a sidelong glance in her direction. “He might be
useful.”

“
Useful? Okay, now I
really
am
curious
what you’re up to,” Mark admitted.

Ione was too vexed to indulge any further
speculation. “Let’s go,” she muttered to Emma.

“
Well, be careful,” Mark
advised, waving them off with a thoughtful look. Behind him Manassa
nodded covertly, acknowledging her obligation to monitor his
activities while they were gone. Ione was grateful for her
formidable reputation among the slippers, guessing the big woman
would hold things together till they got back.

She and Emma made their way
through the society of the
camp
to a
fast
bedboat at the perimeter. Emma reassured
the
slippers on watch with
a few words,
but they stared suspiciously
as the vessel
slipped away.