The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The Slavers in Pursuit

Chapter Four

Miyal materialized in the middle of a grassy field nowhere near as green as she was.

Moving hastily, though not recklessly, knowing she either had some time or none whatsoever, the resequenced Molosian picked herself up and began going through her kit. She found a vial of anti-aphrodisiac and injected herself, relishing the cold feeling it sent through her. Otherwise, she would be spending all her time thinking about how delicious those male hands had felt on her, how helpless they had made her feel, how… how thrall-like, and submissive, and… .

“No, not now,” she whispered, found another similar vial, and gave herself a double shot.

She would be running out soon. What would she do then? Shaking her head, determined to think about it later, Miyal dug through the kit again and found a cord with which she could wrap the imager around her neck. It felt rather loose, she thought. It should be tighter, as tight, say, as a collar would be. Collars were good for thralls like… . Miyal pounded the dirt in disgust.

She had to get a hold of herself before they did.

She had studiously avoided using her projector. She knew how easily chronal frequencies could be traced by those with the right equipment. She had sent the trackerthralls as far away as she possibly could with the Client device. In theory, she could have sent them to this planet’s moon—the silvery device had more than enough capability—but built-in safety features prevented actions like that. Even teleporting the thralls straight up wouldn’t have worked. Projectors would only send living things places where they could survive on their own, where the conditions on arrival wouldn’t automatically kill them.

Too bad. She would have loved putting Nagh into orbit.

Miyal was gambling her pursuers would follow the longest trail, not the shorter one she had just taken. She was barely five… miles? jarrns? Her Brafford-English couldn’t make the translation yet. Anyway, she wasn’t all that far from her previous location. She examined her projector’s touch-sensitive display and quickly input alternate programming. Then she tossed it away into the long grass. She was loathe to get rid of it—how would she ever be able to leave this rock now?—but if she didn’t, Nagh and his men would be appearing by her side at any moment.

The projector gleamed for a minute under the Californian sun, warm even in winter. Then, in a burst of color and noise, the Client-built device vanished, projecting itself randomly in the first of what was going to be a series of small and long teleports crisscrossing this ugly little planet. The interference those multiple jaunts would produce would cover her first stop. Or, at least, Miyal hoped they would.

Breathing heavily, passionately, she wondered what to do next.

No pursuers materialized next to her. That was a good thing. Probably. Rix Nagh had looked so handsome in his uniform, though, and she was so needy, so thrall-like, maybe it would be better if she just… . No, she steeled herself.

I can’t think like that. I can’t! I won’t!

After struggling a moment, the green thrall gathered her things in her bag and walked away.

* * *

Despite the decadence of a musical era in which even nineteen-year-old girls were called “divas,” and bubblegum-pop singers like Britney, Christina, and Jessica were all but deified by their adoring fans, the singing career of Carmel and Creeme was nonetheless worthy of no small amount of respect.

Not since the Spice Girls had a musical group had such an effect on the female prepubescent audience. The singers—Carmel, aka Lexie Rowson, a twenty-four year old African-American from Los Angeles, and Creeme, real name Jami Forero, a twenty-two year old white chick from Pasadena—were simultaneously, and at times paradoxically, hailed as the greatest female musical duo of all time; lauded as an inspiration for racial relations in the U.S.; condemned by the black establishment for selling out to the whites; called the worst and most slutty performers on stage since the 1970s punk group Bitchslap; praised for their encouraging “girl power” message to young teens; reproached by white conservatives for hiring too many black backup singers; and awarded the dubious honor of being the two girls most American males between the ages of 16 and 24 wanted to be in bed with at the same time.

It was in the last consideration that the appeal of this artistic partnership was best seen. More than once in interviews had Carmel admitted that she and her partner’s singing voices were not all that strong, or even, for that matter, talented. It was sex appeal alone that won their audiences. It was the sexy marketing package, from their risqué videos to the line of outerwear bras and panties that were becoming all the rage in outraged homes across the nation. The duo’s audience attraction stemmed from the pairing of Carmel’s deliberately urban black, “tough girl” persona with Creeme’s equally premeditated milky-white, “girly girl” theme. Carmel wore the leather and rubber. Creeme wore the lace and satin frills. Carmel played the aggressive; Creeme played the submissive. Their song lyrics and album titles (We Melt in Your Mouth, Peep Show, and Working the Streets) emphasized sex to ridiculous, satiric levels… and yet it worked. Spectacularly well did it work. What should have been seen as satire instead became trend-setting. What was nearly softcore porn was turned mainstream in their hands. When criticized for the inappropriate image she might be selling to young girls, singer Creeme was heard to respond, “Inappropriate, hell! I’m selling power! Sex is power, honey!”

The tabloid headline read “Creeme Admits to Selling Sex!” A lawsuit was settled out of court.

Sex appeal, singing talent, or a combination of both, the duo reached stratospheric levels of success. Put together by producers working for the same music label—neither Lexie Rowson nor Jami Forero did well as solo acts—Carmel and Creeme put their first album We Melt in Your Mouth out in late 2001 and stayed on the Billboard Top Ten for more than a year after. The album was certified 8x platinum by the RIAA in 2002. It went on to generate five Top 10 Mainstream Airplay singles: “Lover,” “Dance For My Love,” “Get At It,” “The One and Only,” and “Jumpin’ Through Hoops.” “Dance For My Love” was number one on the charts for seven weeks straight. Videos for all five songs became mainstays on MTV and MTV2 in 2001 and 2002; the video for “Jumpin’ Through Hoops,” which featured Carmel and Creeme in their trademark spandex tops and revealingly-cut bottoms literally jumping through hoops for the boytoy actors they had hired, won the MTV Video Music Awards for Best Dance, Best Direction, and Best Special Effects, not to mention unofficially “Most Slutty” video of the year. The duo lost out in the Grammys, but it didn’t hurt their careers. Their second album Peep Show in 2003 produced the top-rated singles “Cum On Up” and “There’s A Boy I Know” and went on to sell 9 million copies worldwide. The images of the two girls—a buxom, sexy Carmel in skin-tight latex and a leather vest, and the platinum-blond, sensuous Creeme in frilly lace and garters, emphasizing the “sugar and spice” or “bad girl/good girl” pairing that was their trademark—were seen on newsstands, magazine covers, and television commercials all over the planet. Even the rampant rumors of the pair’s possible lesbianism did nothing to stall Carmel and Creeme’s momentum. If anything, the idea of the two of them together in the same bed—as their video “Cum On Up” showed, which could only be played in the wee hours of the night—probably encouraged sales. The duo didn’t advertise their true sexuality, but their mutual list of boyfriends—a long list of boyfriends including famous movie actors, athletes, and rock stars—hinted where their real interests lay.

Carmel and Creeme’s current concert tour was hitting every major city in the United States. Advance sales in Chicago were expected to fill Soldier Field to capacity. When that concert date finally arrived, it was no exaggeration to say the entire city was waiting for their performance.

The disappointment, therefore, citywide, and, later, nationwide, the next day was palpable.

* * *

The manager for the world’s most temperamental duo winced. The action saved his eyes from the water splashed in his face. It did nothing to dull the shrillness of the voice yelling at him.

“Spearpoint!” the one half of his meal ticket shrieked. “Spearpoint Water! Not this generic crap!”

Lexie Rowson stood in the doorway to her hotel room waving a water-bottle around wildly. Water flew everywhere. The manager tried to move forward and take the argument out of the hallway, but Lexie steadfastly refused to budge. Helplessly, the manager turned his head to his left.

At the end of the hall the two DJs from the Chicago radio station were sheepishly looking at the wall, at their feet, at the three burly bodyguards standing by the door, up to the ceiling, anywhere, that is, other than at him and Rowson.

“Lexie, please,” he said. “The people from the radio station are here. The interview, you remember? We had an interview… .” She didn’t let him finish.

“I don’t give a fuck about any goddamn interview!” the highly strung singer screamed. “I want whoever put this shit in my room fired! Do you understand me, Phil? Fired! I drink only Spearpoint Water. Spear… Point… Water!”

She emphasized each syllable with a wave of her hand, which caused even more water to spray out. It spilled over everything except Lexie. A second later she slammed the door in her manager’s face.

He closed his eyes wearily.

He could kill her. No jury would convict him. He could kill her and Jami and bury them both under the mountain of all their CDs. Better yet, he could kill the roadie who had put the generic water bottles in Lexie’s room in the first place. I should have been a NASCAR driver, he thought. Growing up he had always loved racing. Instead, I go into music. He scowled. The duo’s previous manager had had the same difficulties with them. The only success Guy Shetley had in his career was his decision to bring Carmel and Creeme together. He was the one who first had the notion of teaming the two mostly awful singers together after watching their videos. As soon as Lexie and Jami hit it big, though, they dropped Guy like a hot potato. He threatened to sue them. What happened instead was he fell into an alcoholic spiral and after a long illness died six months ago. Neither of the girls had sent so much as a condolence card. The manager opened his eyes finally. Despite his feelings, he had a job to do.

Putting a smile on his face, he left the closed door and approached the DJs, already spinning a tale in his mind to clear up this embarrassment. It wasn’t the first time he had had to do it.

Meanwhile, inside the luxury hotel suite, Lexie Rowson, the Carmel of Carmel and Creeme, went to an end table and opened another bottle of water from the package sitting there. She took a long sip.

“What was all that?” she heard her partner say from the bedroom. “I heard shouting.”

“Nothin’,” Lexie called, taking another plug of water. Using her mouth always made her thirsty. “Just a little employee relations.” The shapely and exceptionally well tone singer walked into the bedroom.

She saw Jami posing in front of a mirror in one of their stage costumes. The petite blonde was wearing an ivory-tinted, semi-transparent body stocking, the effect of which made the pale singer’s skin fairly shimmer, rendering her more naked than naked. A white-satin corset and pair of short, short hotpants protected her vanity, barely. Her dancer’s legs and gorgeous arms glittered, shining as if coated in plastic, her every feminine curve highlighted in flattering delineation. She stood with her hands—covered in long, white opera gloves—on her hips, stretching one glowing leg toward the mirror. Thigh-high boots and a short, almost pageboy cut emphasized the expensive and exquisite elegance of the outfit.

She looked at Lexie over one shoulder. “Have you seen that white-lace choker I like? The one with the ivory cameo? I couldn’t find it anywhere.”

“Maybe if you looked in your own closet for once,” Lexie said. She sat and reclined on the large bed. She noticed one of her own costumes had been laid out.

“Why are we dressing up? Is it for the interview?”

“What interview?” Jami continued looking through shelf drawers. She was bent over and had automatically adjusted her posture so that her pretty little satin-covered ass was high and in the air. She had done it so many times in their act it had become second-nature. Lexie hardly noticed anymore.

“It’s not important. It’s just somethin’ Phil arranged. He can handle it.” Suddenly exasperated, she got up and went to the closet herself. “Here, here,” she said, rummaging through drawers.

“Here’s your collar.” She held up the delicate lace dainty.

“Cool, thanks.” Jami—Creeme—took it and wrapped it around her bare, ivory-shaded throat.

“You want something with color, though,” Lexie said, going back to the closet. “You want a contrast.”

She found a ruby-studded dog collar. The rubies were fake, but they were shiny and as red as a blood sacrifice. “Try this instead.”

Jami held up the new collar to her neck and turned her head from side to side. After a moment she frowned. “I don’t like it,” she said. “It’s too bright.”

“Then pick your own damn clothes,” Lexie said and went back to the bed. “Why are you getting into costume? The concert’s not until tonight.”

Jami hadn’t turned from the mirror. She was still admiring herself.

“I called up one of the dancers. Doug, I think. He’s comin’ up in a few minutes.” Finally, the vain singer turned around. “I want to try out that new dance routine. You know, the ‘loser in the chair’?”

“Ohh,” Lexie said, slowly, thoughtfully. She nodded, grinning. “Okay, I’m up for that.”

“Doug will be too, if we do it right,” Jami said, a mischievous look on her elfin face.

“No chance of that not happenin’,” Lexie said. She stood and dropped the silk Asian green robe she had had on. She was nude underneath. Quickly, expertly, she put on the costume Jami had laid out. It didn’t take long; there wasn’t much to it, just a bikini-like top and bottom and a pair open-palmed forearm pieces. Like her partner’s ensemble, the outfit hid nothing of Carmel’s beautiful physique. Unlike Creeme’s soft and silky attire, though, the bronzed leather material of which hers was made projected nothing but hardness. The short but sharp spikes adorning the costume only made it more so.

The costume made Lexie look like a female gladiator of Rome. All she was missing was the spear and capture-net. These would, of course, be ready for her on stage.

“Where’s my tiara?” Lexie asked. The gladiatrix costume also had a gold head piece. Jami said she hadn’t seen it. The two of them were looking for it when they heard a knock at the suite door.

“That’s Doug,” Jami said. She quickly ran her hands over her sleek, satin-covered body.

“I’ll be right there,” Lexie replied. “I have to put my boots on first.”

“I’ll get him ready.” The small singer went to the suite door and opened it without bothering to check.

“Hi, Doug,” she said, upon seeing the nervous twenty-something in the hall. He was already sweating. “Come on in. Have a drink.” She went to the table as he came in and tossed him a water bottle.

“Hello, Ms. Forero,” Doug said, biting his lips. One of the roadies had approached him half an hour ago and told him to dress for a private rehearsal in Carmel’s suite. If he hadn’t been bound by contract, he would have begged off. As it was, he didn’t have a choice. He stood self-consciously by the door, still embarrassed by the tight flimsiness of his costume despite the weeks spent already on the road.

Dancers for Carmel and Creeme alternated between being “hard” and “soft” dancers. The choice depended on whichever singer they were backing on any particular night. “Hard” dancers wore metal ribbons and black spandex short shorts to make the boys look like pain and bondage freaks. “Soft” dancers, on the other hand, wore girly ruffles lacy frills, also cut in just the right places for maximum exposure within the limits of local decency laws. Douglas, as instructed, had on his “soft” costume.

Given a choice, the dancer wasn’t sure which he hated more.

“So, Doug,” Carmel said, standing in front of the young and handsome man dressed in white lace and satin. The singer lifted her arms up above her head and twisted her hips around seductively. “Do you wanna help us with a little project we got goin’?” The mocking little girl tone of her voice was irritating.

“Sure,” Douglas said tonelessly. What else am I going to say, you bitch? he thought. “What do you want me to do?” He hated this. He didn’t hate being in a room with a beautiful, half-dressed woman. Generally speaking, he kind of liked that. He just hated being in a room with this particular beautiful, half-dressed woman. He felt nervous and ill at ease, jumpier now than when he had first auditioned to be one of Carmel and Creeme’s “toy boys,” as they were usually called. If he had only known then what he knew now, he would have auditioned for that job with Madonna’s show.

“Well, then,” Creeme said, prancing up to Douglas like a pixie and putting her gloved hands on his broad, muscular chest. She batted her eyelids at him. “Why don’t you take a seat and relax.”

“O—kay,” the dancer said, moving to the soft chair Carmel indicated. He still wasn’t sure what was going to happen, only that he wouldn’t like it. None of the dancers he had talked to had liked it when they were called up to one or the other of the singers’ rooms. The girls, as everyone who worked closely with them knew, were all promise and no delivery. They were teases of the very worst sort.

Look, but don’t dare touch. They were fanatics on the subject. Carmel and Creeme loved tormenting their crew, parading past them in their skintight costumes and semi-nude outfits, but if someone even so much as whistled at either of them, pow! there went their career, forever. In three years the two of them had blackballed a half dozen dancers and other employees who had worked for them and then got on their bad side. One was even in jail, charged with lewdness in public after exposing himself to the two lying sluts. Doug knew Brad, knew that the charge laid against him was bogus. Brad was as gay as a San Francisco parade. He’d have had as much interest in exposing himself to those two girls as he would have had exposing himself to a sack of oatmeal. Nevertheless, Doug said nothing at the trial, nor had anybody else who worked for the duo. Everyone was too afraid. Afraid of two little girls.

The public had bought their act completely. The public loved them. Even when they said they hated them, they loved them. Only a handful of people knew how cutthroat they really were. If either of them so much as raised her voice, their bodyguards would come in and break every bone in his body, and then whatever was left would be turned over to the police. So Doug resolved to say and do nothing while he was there. Short of quitting his highly paid, lucrative job, that was the only thing he could do.

“Umm, what do I have to do, exactly, miss?” he asked. He sat down. Creeme moved behind him and bent over so she could whisper in his ear.

“Just relax. We want to try out a new routine. We want to see how hot it is.” She giggled.

Douglas sipped his drink as calmly as he could. His hand shook, though, and he spilled a little. Creeme noticed and grinned at him, her expression impish. She put on a CD of one of their tracks. Douglas recognized the back beat from the duo’s third album. The song was the one entitled “Loser.”

He sweated. He squirmed. He crossed his legs several times.

But he did and said absolutely nothing.

The noise from the CD, the hum of the room’s refrigerator, the scent of the dancer’s own aftershave, all of these sensory images faded into the background as Carmel righteously stalked into the room with her own abbreviated costume on. Douglas’ breath quickened as the cold, luscious sight of her.

Without any further word from either singer, the show started.

And as everyone downstairs had said he would, Douglas hated every moment of it.

That wasn’t to say the “performance” wasn’t well done. No, it was quite well done. That wasn’t to say either that it wasn’t erotic. No, it was quite erotic, very deliberately erotic, and just barely within the limits of the law. No, Douglas hated it from the first beat because all it was was a taunt.

As was customary, the black singer took the initiative. Grasping her partner by the arm—Creeme released a deliberately cute and thoroughly artificial gasp at the contact—Carmel flipped the little blonde around and entwined her thighs with hers. Without actually touching then, the two girls began running their hands and mouths over one another while dancing practically in Douglas’ lap. They twirled about, their legs spread and intertwined within inches of his face. Carmel even bent her partner over and proceeded to mock spank her, again within inches of his face. Creeme moaned and gesticulated wildly.

Douglas sweated and squirmed as the lyrics for “Loser” blasted in his ears.

“Oh, he ain’t nothin’ but a loser He’s a fooser (Douglas still had no idea what that meant.) He’s such a wimp, he’s nothin’ but a blimp And limp, limp, limp!”

Carmel lowered her head to Creeme’s satin-covered breast and pretended to lick at it. She stroked the girl’s flanks, then rose and pulled the blonde’s face towards her. Their open mouths again came within a half-inch of one another. Douglas wasn’t sure, but for a moment he thought he saw their tongues gently touch. Then the two of them parted, each stroking her own thighs and breasts while twirling around his chair, lifting their boobs and asses to his face. They ran their hands over his body but never so much as grazed him. Douglas felt himself losing control. Forgetting his drink, his hands clutched at the bottom of his chair. Otherwise, he would have clutched himself. His penis throbbed painfully.

Sitting like this was like receiving a lap dance in an adult bar, only he didn’t dare do anything to relieve the pressure he felt. He imagined what it would be like for the guy on stage, and he prayed it wouldn’t be him. Between gyrations, the singers’ mouths moved silently, noiselessly mouthing the words to their song. They didn’t bother actually singing, though. Their show was entirely lip-synched.

The performance lasted only five minutes. To Douglas, it felt like five hours.

Despite his intense arousal, Doug did absolutely nothing about it. He knew the rules, as all the male dancers did Lexie and Jami hired for their act. The music came to a rapid close.

“He’s a loser!”

When the girls were done, they laughed at him. Their voices were shrill and girlish.

Douglas groaned.

“Ohh, lookie,” Creeme said after a minute, bending over to gaze into Doug’s wet eyes. “He looks a little frustrated, doesn’t he?”

Without waiting for an answer, already bored, the singer spun abruptly and whipped her tail in the male dancer’s face before strutting back to the other room and her mirror.

“Yeah, the audience’ll eat it up,” Carmel said. She picked up a fresh water bottle and drank. “So how about it, Doug? What’d you think? Did that get you hard?”

All Douglas could do was groan.

After a moment she sneered. “Get out. Tell everyone we’ll be late. Let ‘em stall.”

Without saying a word, Douglas jumped up, went to the door, and left. He heard Carmel laugh sharply in the moment before the door slammed shut again. The bodyguards watched him sympathetically as he sped down the hall and to the elevator. All the dancer wanted was a shower and maybe a few minutes alone in a bathroom with a lubricant. He cursed the girls under his breath as he ran.

So caught in his own world was he, he didn’t notice passing the blond woman in the low-cut dress by the entrance to the stairway. Tiffany watched the handsome young man enter the elevator and leave.

Damn, he’s hot, she thought. In more ways than one. She knew arousal when she saw it. Living with her own continuous carnal desire had made her sensitive to the desires of others. Too sensitive. The slave clutched the doorway with one hand and clenched her eyes shut, fruitlessly trying to will away the sudden slave need welling up from her pussy. In her other hand she held a small, shiny strip of metal.

Only a few more hours. Then two more slaves would be registered in the House’s books.

The thought appalled Tiffany. For the moment anyway, she was allowed to remember her conversation with her Master. “You’re going to help me with Carmel and Creeme,” he had said to her after they left the Firm. The Chief Slaver had paused a moment later, smiling when he saw the dismay on Tiffany’s face.

“Why… why me, Master?” she had whined, unconsciously falling to her knees before him. “Why are you always doing this to me? Taking me with you, making me do… do… .”

He had cupped her tear-laden cheeks.

“Because you’re my Tiffany, darling. And because you’re fighting the plug inside your head. I think it’ll do you good to enslave someone. It may break down some of your inhibitions.”

“You bastard,” Tiffany said to him then, and he had looked at her in surprise. “You soulless bastard!”

“Bad girl,” he told her. “You’re a bad, bad girl.” It was a code word for her obedience.

Tiffany had rocked back on her heels as waves of vertigo, dismay, and emotional pain swept through her. You’re a bad, bad girl. You’re a bad, bad girl. The words echoed through her mind for hours.

Now, steeling herself, helpless to fight her anxious need to be a good girl again, Tiffany shook her hair about delicately and ran her hands over her hips. She had to seduce at least one of the bodyguards and get him alone, if only for a minute. She didn’t anticipate any difficulty. She was an expert now in seduction. Praying God to forgive her, she sashayed forward to carry out the first of her orders.

* * *

Eric was about midway on his drive home when he saw the woman standing by the side of the road. She was not the typical hitchhiker. For one thing, she looked like she was in her sixties, around his own age. Hitchhiking was a job for the young. Second, even from a distance Eric could see she was wearing way too much make-up. She was trying too hard to cover up some imperfection. Finally, there was her hairdo and the dress she wore. The woman looked as if she had stepped out of a timewarp. The floral print was a brilliant neon green. It looked like something the Beaver’s mom would be wearing. And her hair reminded Eric of that movie he had seen on cable, the one about the funny invasion from Mars. One of the Martians in disguise had had the same upswept style, as if she were concealing a bowling ball on top of her head.

The woman looked as out of place on the side of a highway in California as a Californian surfer would be holding a surfboard and thumbing a ride through the Bible Belt.

She was carrying the largest brown purse Eric had ever seen.

He pulled the car over and slowed. The poor lady probably had had car trouble and was trying to get to a phone to call her husband. The Beaver’s Dad, Eric thought and repressed a grin.

The woman stood for a moment as if she didn’t understand what to do next. Eric picked up hitchhikers a lot; he had seen this reaction before. The hitchhikers couldn’t believe someone had actually stopped for them. It was a bad habit, Eric knew, and his sons were always telling him to stop, he could get hurt, but once upon a time he had thumbed his way from Texas to California during the sixties when he was short of cash. He still held a certain sympathy for his fellow thumbers. Over the years he must have picked up a hundred or more hitchhikers. He had never had trouble with any of them.

“Hi there!” Eric said, rolling down his passenger-side window. “Need a ride?”

The woman shifted her huge purse. After a second she leaned down.

She said nothing for a long moment, then, haltingly, “Yes. I need a ride. Can you provide me a ride?”

“Sure! Hope on in.” Eric put the car in park. “Do you need a hand with that?” he asked, motioning toward the woman’s purse. He flipped on the air conditioner without noticing, even though it was the middle of January. He suddenly felt very warm.

The woman shook her head and opened the car door. “No. I am fine. Will you drive now?”

“Yeah,” Eric said, then sighed. He ran a hand over his face, which all at once had broken out in a sweat.

He shifted uncomfortably. He became aware that he was sporting a semi-hard for some reason. God only knew the woman getting in his car was unattractive… but all of a sudden… strangely, Eric had a vision of the two of them going back to his place and… and… .

“Whoa, there,” he muttered and wiped his face again. He hadn’t felt like this in years, certainly not since his wife had passed away. He was only now starting to date again. The woman closed the door behind her. The inside of the car became stuffy. Eric noticed his hands were shaking.

He turned to looked at his passenger. At close sight, he reconsidered, she didn’t look all that bad. There was something about her green dress… about the green of her appearance in general.

It was a beautiful green. An incredibly lovely, desirable green.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s come over me.”

Eric’s pants grew even more uncomfortable. His semi-hard suddenly became very hard. His passenger couldn’t help but notice. He was mortally embarrassed.

“God… Jesus, lady… I’m sorry… I… I…” Eric groaned in equal parts dismay and longing.

The woman smiled at him. “I understand. Understanding, will you drive now?”

“Uh… uh, yeah, sure.” Eric jerkily put the car in drive. “Where… where are you goin’?”

The woman placed a hand on Eric’s shoulder. It seemed to burn through his shirt.

“Your lodgings will do for now, I perceive.” And she smiled at him.

* * *

The hunting party had taken rooms on the top floor of the Carstairs Regency, but none of them liked it very much. For one thing, they were very high up in the atmosphere. None of them had ever been in a building so tall before. None of them had ever been so high in the air outside of a flying craft before. It felt like they were in a flying craft.

Secondly, the urban sprawl of Chicago itself was upsetting. Cities on Molos were rare since the Great Liberation—only tenants lived in them, in any case—and they were much more compact. The skyline of Chicago, on the other hand, stretched as far as any of them could see. It was ugly. It was noisy even through the glass. Rix Nagh would have much preferred a suite near the bottom floor. He would have preferred not having to take rooms at all, but he wasn’t the one making the decisions anymore. The fact of the matter was, Nagh considered himself lucky to be alive. He kept his eyes neutrally on the floor as his Mistress looked out upon that ugly view of the city. Her pet lounged at her feet next to the window. The leash she held jingled faintly as the hulking beast shifted position slightly.

Without turning around, she said, “Rationalize to my person anew why I shouldn’t have you dissected and your components fed to Ealic, here.” The thin silvery chain rattled again.

Behind Nagh, the two other Procurers in the room gulped nervously. Their leader’s “pet” was a thickly muscled, gray-skinned, and utterly sexually dependent killing machine, a combat-thrall specially designed for the tenant wars. Its retractable claws and teeth could tear through meat and bone as though they were candy. Its wired-in, instinctual needs to serve and protect—and, in this case, kill for—its owner were as strong as any Kedian thrall’s. Stronger perhaps.

Ealic growled. It could smell their fear. Its senses were as sharp as any trackerthrall’s.

“The thrall is…” Nagh began, then hesitated, trying to think of a way to be diplomatic. If he said the wrong thing, he would be killed instantly, and then he would never have his revenge.

He was already a walking dead man, he knew. He had known from the beginning this expedition was to be his last, that he would never be leaving this world.

“The thrall is astute,” he began again. “Insidious. She sent the trackerthralls a distance. By the time we reclaimed them, she had discerned a method to obscure her chronal frequency signature.”

Nagh’s mistress turned around to face him.

“The thrall is a thrall. It is abject and pliant. For you to be ineffective in procuring her is a further insult to me.” She raised her chin. “I have not misremembered your treachery. You still hold cherished feelings for this abomination.”

The Procurer shook his head. “Negative. I plead you, I…”

“Enough!” she shouted. Ealic pounced forward, eyeing Nagh like a choice cut of slarn-steak.

“M’lady,” Nagh’s first lieutenant said, bravely coming to stand next to his captain. “Procurer Nagh is essential for this mission. It was only fortune that our trackers snared the thrall’s odor at the circuitry complex. Nagh led them. Without his aid, we would not have found her so soon.”

“Or forfeited her again,” their leader said. Still, she gave a faint tug on Ealic’s chain, and it halted. “Be still,” she told the resequenced creature. Nagh had heard a rumor the thrall was a former rebel leader procured in an arcology skirmish. If so, he doubted many of its fellow tenants would recognize it now.

Sweat stung Nagh’s eyes, and it was by will alone he managed to keep himself on his feet. Ealic’s claws popped in and out of its hands reflexively.

“You have yet to provide me a motive to grant any of you continued respiration.”

This is the moment, Nagh thought. He had known it was coming. His passing had been preordained the moment his green-skinned thrall had escaped Molos. No one was to blame for that, either, only himself. He had been careless. Worse, he had been criminal.

His obsession for Miyal had brought shame to his entire lodging.

Bear your demise proudly, Rix. He resolved to look the combat-thrall in its optical orbs as it ate him.

A chirping noise from the back of the room interrupted the Procurer’s meditations. Ealic tried to lunge, but it was held back again. “Well?” their mistress asked impatiently. “Utterance!”

Nagh’s other subordinate quickly examined the Client-built scanner that had activated.

“A further projection effect, clearer than the ones heretofore. It might be a separate device. It might not, but it’s too adjacent to the original coordinates to be solely coincidence.” He looked at their leader. “I have a clear frequency lock, m’lady.” Nagh closed his eyes and hoped.

Revenge. All I beseech is revenge, he thought. His Mistress slowly pet her genetically-altered killing machine.

“All right, Captain Nagh,” she said finally. “Fortune grants you a concluding chance to redeem your privilege. Get your team fitted.” The sigh of relief in the room was audible.

She pulled Ealic back. Nagh could sense the beast’s disappointment.

“I won’t displease you again, m’lady,” he said, falling to one knee before her.

“Understanding,” she said, turning back to her view. “Discern you best not. Ealic starves.”

Feeling a lump in his throat, the Procurer nodded, got up, and joined his men.

* * *

In her own language, Miyal would have called the place she was at now a “lasper materhiz.” In her Brafford-English, it was an “individual tenant dwelling,” or, using the Californian vernacular, a “house.” It had not taken a great deal of persuasion to convince the elderly consumables processor, or “sales representative,” to take her back to his “house.”

These Californians had virtually no resistance to her thrallbody’s pheromone discharges. A Molosian male would have been aroused, but he wouldn’t have been rendered quite so tractable, so needfully obedient. Later, upon injecting him with thrallextract, the sales representative had proven even more malleable. Unfortunately, he lived alone.

Miyal hoped he was still healthy enough to fuck her the way she needed to be fucked.

“Deeper, thrall!” she hissed at him, staring up into her new possession’s now equally thrallblank eyes. “Harder! Harder!”

The Eric grunted and squeezed at Miyal’s plump breasts, his fingers tightening around her rock-hard nipples while stabbing earnestly into her, filling her constantly aching void with his manhood. Her legs were wrapped his waist. Her hands clutched the back of his head and pulled him closer. In-between seething commands, Miyal ravished her thrall’s face with kisses, plunging her tongue into the Eric’s mouth and over his delicious, male-scented face.

Electric thrills rocketed her body. She needed him… needed the hot, thick maleness of him, of any man, inside her yearning, throbbing thrallish cunt.

She had had no idea it could be like this. The thralldesires filling her were like nothing she had ever known. And the ecstasy, ah! the ecstasy of her super-sensitive, erotically-charged flesh!

“Yes,” she screamed. “By the Divine, Yes!”

Miyal moaned her thrall’s name into his chest and licked at the white hairs that grew there. She squirmed beneath him, desperately trying to make contact with his skin, to touch him all over, everywhere, at once. She bit at the slave. She clawed. His maleness tasted so good. He was so dreadfully delicious. The way he fit inside her was perfect… perfect!

She luxuriated in him, lavished him, enjoyed the feel, taste, and power of his cock inside her thrallbody.

Ah, had she but known before! She could understand Kana’s weakness better now. Thrallsex—not using a thrall but being a thrall, being used like a thrall—was a pleasure beyond words! If only her former rival were there now, that both could then satisfy her desires. The pity of it was that it was becoming harder and harder to achieve such satisfaction.

Miyal could sense, with the hyperacute sensitivity of the femthrall she had become, biologically imprinted as she had been with a deep, deep awareness of her femininity, what was coming in her latest thrall. She could feel the way her thrall’s penis pulsed inside her body. She could feel its rhythms with her biotrained abdominal muscles. She squeezed with her hips, with her constantly craving, needy sex, urging him on, begging him—yes, Miyal was begging her thrall!—to keep going. She needed him. Needed him! But the Eric was old, at least forty or fifty cycles old, and without any form of cellular rejuvenation whatsoever. She knew the Californian medical sciences were primitive, but this was absurd. The thrall on top of Miyal finally gave one great decisive moan and shuddered.

His sperm rocketed inside her. A wave of crashing, glorious pleasure passed through Miyal’s thrallflesh. It was the programmed response, not of her head but of her flesh, her thrallflesh. Then, disappointingly, the Eric collapsed on top of her.

Again.

It was the fifth time that hour alone. A miserable demonstration.

“No,” Miyal groaned, this time in anger and not passion. “You thrall! Get it up! Be erect! I command you. Ediyetr!”

The Eric tried to get up—his skin had gone red all over, and he was breathing much too heavily—but he failed in the attempt and began crying and sobbing terribly. Miyal slammed her head back against the thrall’s bed in frustration.

How was she ever going to satisfy her enhanced lusts with this pathetic specimen? The thrall had taken a native Californian aphrodisiac—“Vi-agh-ra,” he had called it—and, of course, there was thrallextract boiling in his veins, a derivative of the same chemicals her own resequenced body produced on its own now, but there was only so much sex a single, unmodified Earth male thrall could deliver, it seemed.

More and more, Miyal missed the pleasures of her homeworld.

And without a projector, she might be exiled from there forever. “Curse you!” she screamed at her thrall. She struck him with her open hand. “At least lick! and be quick about it!”

“Yes, mistress,” the Eric muttered and bent his heavily perspiring face to Miyal’s crotch.

Her thralldesires were growing, she realized sickly, feeling her new possession’s tongue lap and probe at her. They were expanding exponentially just as they were designed to. It was yet another fail-safe of the Kedian biomodel, an improvement over their competitors which made Eastern Corporate thralls the best on Molos. It was their secret association with the Clients, and the universe of technologies that association provided, which put Kedia on top. The other thrall enterprises had no idea their wares were marketed to offworlders. The corporates of Molos had no idea that other worlds even existed. It was the same among all the Property Worlds, Miyal had found. One Agency would secretly be in charge and reap the benefits of Client patronage while working to ensure their own Client’s pleasures went uninterrupted. The advantages gained were enormous. Even under these unfortunate circumstances, they had worked in Miyal’s favor. They had given her an option, after all, an escape from Molos, that no other thrall on her world knew about.

She had to find a way to reverse her DNA resequencing. She had to! If she didn’t, the need of her thrallbody to submit—to be ruthlessly and deliciously dominated—would drive her insane.

Or into the arms of a master, she realized. It was only a matter of time. Pleasure thralls like her—No! Like the thrallbody I’m trapped in!—were biologically conditioned to seek out total domination. They physically needed to be dominated… to be used, constantly, over and over. Without such utter domination, a thrall grew increasingly desperate. Even lacking any psychological conditioning, Kedian thralls never ran away and never fought back against their owners. They loved being owned too much… needed to be owned in a way rival thrall enterprises had never been able to imprint in their own products. Miyal knew she did not have long to go before the inevitable. But it was so hard to think without being fucked properly first!

Miyal’s Eric continued to work at her. She let herself stop worrying for a little while. She twisted and squirmed beneath his attentive mouth, untrained though it was. Her hands gripped his silvery-white hair, and she moaned. She thought about faces from the past.

Kana had looked so delightful upon delivery. “I exist wholly to convey you pleasure, ma’am,” she had whispered, her meek, blue-within-blue eyes downcast, their shade precisely matching the hues of her newly dyed and resequenced thrallflesh. “I am so regretful for having displeasured you in the past.”

Oh, the fun she had had with her former rival and childhood friend!

She, at least, had proven to possess a trained mouth, and a trained tongue.

Miyal remembered others. Preum Siam. Arid Verndo. Even Rix Nagh, her captain of security.

The memory of Nagh seemed so much more attractive now than it had before. Weeks ago she had hardly ever noticed him. Now, the image of his impeccable masculinity seemed all but on fire in her mind.

Miyal dreamed about Rix Nagh servicing her. As she did, she fell into a thralldaze, her body producing chemicals to partially shut down her higher consciousness. This was a Kedian feature that rendered their thralls docile whenever they weren’t being used. They became much less active. It saved on the upkeep. This hypnotic state and Miyal’s equally thrallish and growing need to submit to a master warred for some time inside her, preventing the green-hued beauty from achieving anything like a complete rest, or a fully satisfying fuck, for that matter. The hours drifted by fitfully.

So preoccupied was Miyal in her aching misery that she almost failed to notice the door to the room open. It wasn’t the sound ultimately that woke her, either. It was the smell of men.

Molosian men.

Miyal opened her eyes. Standing over her—towering over her so manfully—was one of her former colleagues from Kedia, the Procurer Wahinan Met. At first she thought it was a dream. Then Met spoke, and she knew she was in serious trouble.

“Greetings, thrall. You’ve dispensed us a lengthy pursuit.” He laughed.

“No,” Miyal murmured at first, then recognition hit, and the remnants of her thralldaze vanished in an instant. “Negative!” she screamed and tried to fling herself up.

The bathroom was to her right. She might make it!

Met reached down, pulled the still grasping and licking Eric-thrall away, and easily caught hold of the fleeing slave.

His strength was enormous. He pulled Miyal to her feet, one hand each gripping an upper arm. His touch felt wonderful, but nonetheless Miyal struggled to free herself. Three other Molosian Procurers stood in the room with them. One of them—Miyal recognized Met’s partner, Kal Skil—grabbed her Eric and shot him pointblank with anesthesia darts. The tranquilized thrall fell over like a slab of beef.

Miyal tried to kick Met, and, grinning, the Procurer let go with one hand, reached down between Miyal’s legs, and began to fondle her vigorously. Her urge to fight or flee passed immediately.

“Oh… ohhhh!” she moaned and trembled all over.

“Does the thrall not fathom her status?” Met asked her, in Molosian. “Sadness. But readily corrected.” Roughly, he spun and tossed Miyal in the direction of Skil, who grabbed her.

She was being held by men… real men! It was just like in her dream.

Miyal’s thralloils soaked the Procurer’s gloved hand when he too reached between her thighs. He spoke to her harshly, like a Master. “Thrall-whore! You actually sought flight!”

Skil handed her off to another Procurer, then suddenly wheeled about and slapped Miyal across the face. The cruel blow drove her to the floor.

“Mercy,” she begged, unable to get up, the fact of being on her knees before men—real men, Molosian men—filling her with joyful, fiery sensations. This was proper. This was what she was made for… had been remade for.

No, I must fight this, she resisted, struggling against her biology. This is the resequencing. This is only the resequencing. “I am Miyal Cate… I am Processor Miyal Cate. You dare not do this.”

Wahinan Met laughed. “The thrall fathoms not! She fails to comprehend the situation.”

The Procurer stepped forward and picked Miyal up. One hand held the back of her neck while the other gripped her high, rounded breasts. Unconsciously, she leaned inward to give him greater purchase. He played with her brutally, and she moaned in mixed ecstasy/agony.

“You are only a thrall, property fem,” he told her. “Less than a tenant cow fairly… and now you are departing for home.” He unhitched a Client-made projector from his belt.

“Negative,” she pleaded, willing her eyes to stay open despite the bliss of being manhandled. “This was performed to me unjustly. I am fairly a Processor by right, a Constituent fairly.” Her hands stroked the width of the Procurer’s broad chest, though, an insatiate motion which detracted from her protest.

Wahinan Met looked at her strangely.

“The thrall absolutely fathoms not,” he said slowly, wonderingly. “How farcical this is.” He let go of Miyal’s tits and lifted her chin up. His touch sent fiery bolts of passion shooting through her skin.

“Nagh’s censure will be cruel, I warrant, for such inventive use of recollection data.”

Nagh! Anger surged through Miyal to compete with her thrallish desires. Rix Nagh! So he was the boil who dared do this to her! But what use was this knowledge when she was going to be put in her proper place? Miyal felt an urge to run, another to fight, but the most compelling emotion she had was for total surrender. She wanted to serve these men so badly!

Her loins ached as they had never ached before. Her need had become overwhelming.

I can still get out, she thought. There must be a way. There must. There must!

And, as luck would have it… .

Kal Skil was walking toward the two of them when for the second time that day Miyal saw a room she was in fill with projection effect. For a moment, she thought Met had triggered his projector, and she was on her way back to Molos, or to the relay here on Earth which would send her to Molos. Instead, she heard multiple popping sounds, and from out of the tachyon-accelerated glare she saw Nagh—the boil Nagh whom she was going to destroy!—appear again with his Procurer team and their trackerthralls. It was a repeat of what had happened at the hospitality complex, only this time she was already captured. What is this? she thought. What is this?

Kal Skil yelled out an alarm and brought up his tranquilizer gun. Wahinan Met spun on his heels, carrying Miyal with him. Captain Nagh and his men fired a stream of tiny anesthetic slivers across the room. He and the other two armed men with him had learned from their earlier mistake. They materialized firing, setting forth a stream of microscopic projectiles to blanket the area.

The barrage hit Met and the others’ syncloth body armor, a material as thin as regular cloth but more than durable enough to withstand crystallized anesthesia. Screaming hoarsely, the team-in-waiting discharged their own weapons.

The trackerthralls, naked as all thralls should be, went down immediately. Nagh and his men charged their assailants, still firing. The bedroom walls were peppered with tiny holes. The air was still partially filled with the incoming projection effect.

Miyal didn’t know what was going on. It was all she could do to move at all, to not just submit as the rightfully seized property she had been turned into. As Met began his spin, she grabbed his syncloth uniform with both hands and added her strength to the motion, turning him entirely around again. For less than a second Miyal’s naked backside flashed Nagh and his men. Then, unbalanced, surprised, Procurer Captain Met was spun in just the right direction to shield Miyal from the storm of microscopic bullets. Or, at least, the worst of it. Miyal’s left leg and left arm went icy cold for a split instant, then turned completely numb. Some of the darts hit Met’s unprotected scalp. The look on his face as the thrall Miyal pulled him towards herself and the bathroom behind her was spellbinding. His heavy, numb body threatened to fall on top of her. Instead, screaming, crying, Miyal kicked out at the floor with her one good leg and leaned back, using their combined momentum to get her through the open doorway. Met’s body acted as the perfect shield.

The back of his seven-foot frame was pelted with nearly invisible darts.

The Procurers in Eric’s bedroom kept on firing, mostly at random now. The room was small, especially for six large Molosian men, plus two unconscious trackerthralls, all of them averaging seven feet tall. The bed in the center didn’t help the logistics either, nor the unconscious Eric. Despite the body armor, bodies began to fall. Miyal tried to slam the bathroom door shut but couldn’t with Captain Met in the way. Her sedated arm and leg hung off her lovely body like rotten tree limbs.

Reaching out with her right hand, she grabbed the projector Met was still carrying, the one he had been about to use earlier. Checking behind her to make sure her kit was within range—she had previously used the bathroom—she one-handedly began fiddling with the controls.

Outside, Kal Skil launched himself at Rix Nagh. “Dirty, disgusting father-fornicator!” he yelled, driving his fist into the other’s face. He fired his tranquilizer gun at him at the same time.

Nagh fired back, literally and figuratively. “Hulking wreck of a tenantborn!”

Microscopic crystals of frozen anesthesia lodged in each other’s exposed skin. Both keeled over as the light from Met’s projector flared from the open bathroom.

Miyal, her kit, and Captain Met were gone.

Again.