Authors: Tracy St. John
Her pulse thudded, its reverberations seeming to center in her sex. She was aware of her secret folds flooding with erotic invitation. For a few liberating seconds, she didn’t care. All that mattered was the warm mouth carefully plundering hers and the delectable thrills it spawned.
Simdow pulled back just enough to whisper against her lips. “Trust us, Katherine.” He released her chin. An instant later, a soft touch drifted over the cleft of her womanhood.
She inhaled sharply as her insides liquefied and a stab of pure want ruptured her every thought. Her legs jerked apart. Simdow’s fingertips stroked the exposed petals, and Katherine’s body arched in a paroxysm of feeling.
“That’s it. I’m only touching you a little. No one’s harming my lovely little girl. Let it happen, my love. Let the sensations take you.”
His fingers continued to explore, tracing every fold and nook of her. Katherine’s insides felt as if they must boil over in a frenzy of molten excitement. She’d never known anything like this enchanting mania of bliss, this constant commotion that excited and bespelled all at once. The enthrallment only increased as Miv’s mouth closed over one breast, gently drawing on her flesh. His tongue brushed the tip of her mound with care, and the sensation slivered straight down to where Simdow’s hand investigated. The Nobek sucked delicately as he plucked the other nipple, sending shards of quaking elation through her body.
Simdow kissed her again. His and Miv’s touches grew in strength, demanding and receiving greater reactions from Katherine. Her sex seethed with excitement, growing hotter until she thought she must burst into flame. Just when she felt sure she couldn’t possibly receive more pleasure from their caresses, her body found a new level of trembling nirvana. She moaned a helpless plea in Simdow’s mouth, but she didn’t know what she begged for.
And still the uproar of her senses only increased. Simdow’s kisses were achingly deep, as if he fed on her very soul. Miv’s hands and mouth teased her breasts until every nuanced touch brought a cataclysm of sparkling delight. Her nipples jutted taut and swollen, responding to even the slightest whisper of breath.
Meanwhile, the fingers at her sex continued their dancing play, bringing stomach-convulsing pleasure that billowed her gut tight. Katherine knew agonized ecstasy, a feeling of such torment she might cry but for the physical joy that made her move harder against Simdow’s touch. She felt maddened and elated all at once. She thought if he stopped touching her, she would scream with mingled relief and horror.
“Now, my little lovely,” Simdow whispered. “Now, for your pleasure.”
His fingertips seized the bud at the start of her sex, a bit of flesh usually no more than a tiny nub but now engorged and flushed. He rubbed.
A flare of the purest rapture seared through Katherine. She would have screamed, but she couldn’t draw breath. It was too much, too big, swallowing her in a blare of white apocalyptic explosion. She shoved at Simdow’s hand, trying to push him away before she detonated.
Miv grabbed her hands, pinning them over her head. Katherine had an instant of seeing the two men staring down at her, their faces filling her vision as Simdow continued the friction on that small bit of her that summoned ecstasy too huge for her entire body.
Then all was a blinding flash as her body reached heaven. A burning, heaving, glorious chaos took her over, blasting her into a paradise of sensation. It rolled through her like thunder, like the mighty voice of God, setting her flying again and again. Each time she thought,
it’s going to stop, it’s nearly over
, it seized her once more, casting her to the heights.
How long the grand destruction lasted, Katherine couldn’t tell. By slow degrees, she became aware of the sleeping surface beneath her, of the room surrounding her, and of the men next to her. They held her quaking body close so that she didn’t shake apart. Katherine clung to them both, positive that she must shatter without them to keep her in one piece.
Once he saw she had returned to them, Simdow teased, “That wasn’t so bad, now was it?”
Katherine could only stare. He and Miv grinned at her stunned silence.
She had known magnificence that she hadn’t believed existed on this side of the mortal coil. All from the touch of these men’s mouths and hands. It forced her to wonder, if this was what happened when there was only stroking fingers, what was the actual act of sex like?
After Katherine returned to her senses, the men helped her put her gown back on. They’d no sooner gotten her clothed once more when Vadef entered the room. He smiled and bowed to her before turning to Simdow and muttering in their language. The Dramok nodded and turned to Katherine.
He said, “Why don’t we get you out of here for an hour or so? How would you like to eat in the ship’s dining room?”
Katherine’s state of mind remained bemused from the pleasure they’d given her. She felt floaty and strange. And adventurous. Seeing another part of the ship fit her mood perfectly.
She told the men, “Thank you. I’d like that.”
Vadef looked her over and frowned a little. “I would like to find something pretty for you to wear. You look like you’re drowning in that thing.”
Simdow patted his Imdiko’s shoulder while looking warmly at Katherine. “One of these days. Perhaps on our way back to Kalquor we can find something nicer. Later, we’ll take you to a Joshadan dressmaker for something really special.”
A little of the floating sensation receded. Katherine asked, “When are we going to your home planet?”
“That depends on how long it takes to decode Earth’s security grid.”
Miv added, “Or if the weapons commander can drag the information out of General Hamilton.”
A disturbing thought bumped Katherine down even closer to resuming reality. “Is the general being tortured?”
Now she received Simdow’s comforting touch. “Physically, he is not being harmed. However, he is enduring pain inflictors. While they do no bodily damage, they do deliver extreme pain. Their use is considered barbaric by some standards.”
Miv scowled and folded his arms over his chest. “If it ends the war and all the killing, I’m for it.”
“The Nobek attitude,” Vadef sighed, rolling his eyes dramatically.
The other two chuckled. Katherine wasn’t sure discussion of a man’s torment warranted laughter, but they had said General Hamilton wasn’t being injured. She’d met the grandfather of one of the older aspirants, Cassidy Hamilton. He was a severe man who treated Cassidy like a thoughtless automaton, someone to push around at his whim. Katherine knew Cassidy to be extremely intelligent. Hamilton had once ordered Katherine that his granddaughter was to have no reading material beyond that of the bible. Seeing the vast intellect of the young woman wasting away in the mundane convent had been hard to watch.
Katherine did not like Cassidy’s guardian. She found it more difficult that she should feel sorry for his plight as a prisoner of the Kalquorians. Still, knowing he was in pain gave her the strength to offer a silent prayer for his soul.
Simdow’s clan led her out into the hall, her second trip of the day. Despite looking forward to seeing more of the ship, the dining room wasn’t far from their quarters. In less than a minute, Katherine stepped into the spyship’s dining room.
Like the living quarters, soft light emitted from the ceiling and walls. Low tables dotted the solid-surface floor. Thick tan floor cushions surrounded the tables, looking soft and comfortable.
Two of the food-laden tables were occupied. Katherine’s eyes widened to see twenty-year-old aspirant Mary Anderson seated among three Kalquorians. Redheaded Tina also sat at a table some distance away. She too was in the midst of three alien men, the same men who had taken her crying from the convent’s dining room.
The two young women stared back at Katherine with expressions of dawning horror. Mary, her dark hair artfully arranged in coiled braids, cried out in obvious terror.
“Sister! Sister, I didn’t mean to! They made me! Please tell me I’m not going to prison—”
She broke off, struggling to rise even as the men she sat with gently pulled her back down to the cushion she shared with them. One man smiled apologetically at Simdow.
“She always gets upset when she sees one of her own. I hope she isn’t frightening your Matara, Commander.”
Mary fought them, her gaze never leaving Katherine’s face. “Let me go! She could tell on me, get me in trouble, they’ll torture and kill me—”
A second man, his face gentle with compassion, locked his arm around Mary’s waist and forced her to sit. “Hush, my sweet one. Hush.”
Simdow smiled tightly at the man who had spoken to him. “Don’t apologize for your little one. This has been hard on all of them.”
The men with Mary bowed their heads in gratitude. Vadef ushered Katherine past the still-whimpering Mary. As the nun continued on with Simdow’s clan, she heard Mary whisper, “Promise me again. Promise I won’t go back to Earth.”
Katherine drew near Tina’s table. The redhead didn’t cry or scream like Mary. She wouldn’t even acknowledge Katherine’s presence, keeping her eyes down at the table in front of her as the nun passed by. The clan that had taken her nodded to Simdow’s group before returning their worried attention to Tina.
Simdow, who walked in the lead, stopped a few tables down. “We’ll sit here where we can have our privacy and they can have theirs.”
Katherine was grateful that Mary’s back was turned to their table. She didn’t want to see the fear in the aspirant’s eyes anymore. She sank down to the softness of the seating cushion. Simdow sat on her left and Vadef to her right. Miv sat on the other side of Vadef, folding his long legs easily.
Vadef looked at her, his expression concerned. “You are all right?”
Katherine swallowed. “I’ll be fine. I wish I could comfort Mary. Somehow I think nothing I could say would make things right though.”
Simdow pursed his lips and looked at the back of Mary’s head. “She seems desperately afraid, but not of her clan.”
Katherine nodded, blinking back the tears that stung her eyes. All the quiet bliss following her sexual awakening had disappeared. “Mary’s older sister was sent to prison and executed for sexual misconduct. She’s terrified of ending up the same.”
Vadef’s face paled. “Poor girl. She’s with a good clan, though. They will make her happiness their greatest priority.”
Two Kalquorians came out of a doorway at the end of the room, laden with trays. They set them down on the table Katherine’s group clustered around, sending delicious aromas wafting over her. The men bowed and retreated back to the room they’d come from.
Katherine’s appetite woke with the arrival of food. Knowing she could eat with no ill effects only made her hunger more intense. She recognized none of the alien morsels before her, cut into bite-sized chunks. It smelled wonderful, though.
Simdow plucked a golden tidbit from the offering of eight different dishes and brought it to her mouth. It looked like the pilchok she’d had before. She arched an eyebrow at him as he fed her.
“I know, being treated like this is still odd for you.” He chuckled.
Katherine chewed what was indeed pilchok. They’d told her this was a type of poultry, but it tasted like sweet pastry. It was like eating dessert before dinner. The flaky texture was wonderful. “Why is it you feed women? We’re perfectly capable of feeding ourselves,” she said.
Miv reached around Vadef to offer her a ball of green herb-like sprouts. “It allows us to demonstrate our respect and to show you how we will provide everything you need for a happy life.”
Katherine chewed the food he gave her, noting its buttery, slightly salty lettuce flavor. She couldn’t help but snicker at these three behemoths feeding her like devoted servants. However, she kept the flash of amusement quiet so as to not call attention to herself. She didn’t want Tina to take any noises the wrong way. Nor did she want Mary newly upset. A quick look at the pair of women showed they too ate from their clans’ fingers. Katherine’s smile grew and she shook her head. They were prisoners, and yet their captors waited on them.
Simdow grinned back. “I like seeing your smile. I hope to see more of it.”
“Keep acting silly then.”
Perhaps it was the stress of the situation and her confusion at everything that had happened. Katherine realized she was on the brink of outright laughter. Hysteria beckoned. Who would have dreamed an invasion of the enemy would result in being brought intense pleasure and being fed by adoring men?
It didn’t help that the men with her were chuckling as well, as if appreciating the bizarreness of it all.
Two figures appeared in the doorway that led out to the hall. Katherine started to see Cassidy Hamilton walk into the dining room with Dr. Degorsk.
General Hamilton’s granddaughter’s gaze moved from Mary to Tina. Both cringed from her hectic stare. Then Cassidy looked at Katherine, who’d been in the process of accepting some food from Vadef. The voluptuous platinum-blond aspirant’s expression registered shock and a moment of revulsion. Degorsk tugged Cassidy to another table, breaking the moment.
Katherine pushed Vadef’s hovering hand away. Shame enveloped her and she huddled, wishing she could shrink beneath the table, away from everyone’s gaze. Cassidy had always looked at her with adoration. She had often sought Katherine out when her spirits were at her lowest, needing the quiet faith of God’s love more than many of the girls.
The look Cassidy had just given her was one worthy of Mother Superior. Katherine had been judged and found wanting by a mere aspirant. She felt small, as if she’d done something to let Cassidy down.
Simdow leaned close. “Katherine? What’s wrong?”
“I wish we hadn’t come in here,” Katherine whispered.
Simdow glanced towards Cassidy and Degorsk. The pair seemed to be locked in a tense conversation. He returned his attention to Katherine.