Dark Planet Pt. 04

"Fine. FINE! Do whatever you want!" I screamed, almost hoping I would be overheard by the Loyalist guards. "J-just…please don't h-hurt me, okay?" I whispered, sniffling loudly.

It was almost as though Shadow had been waiting for my permission. The tentacle poking just inside me plunged deep, hit my cervix hard as I screamed from the awful, alien feel of it. Part of me realized he had the same parts as Perikos and Perikos had never waited for permission. As he withdrew almost to the hilt before slamming back inside me, ripping another scream from me, I knew Perikos didn't really feel alien to me, not anymore. Shadow, on the other hand…

He rocked me hard, back and forth against my bonds and I could feel the rope tighten and chafe at my neck and waist but Shadow slipped a tendril between the rope and my left wrist so it wouldn't tighten painfully around my break, for which I was grateful.

The penetration was deep and rough, though not particularly intimate or skillful the way I was used to. I tried to think sexy thoughts with a mind to getting myself off and sating his appetite but compared to how Perikos filled me, this was achingly shallow. I tried to concentrate on my bindings, hoping the sense of helplessness would keep my fires stoked.

I heard the briefest wooshing noise and then felt a sharp sting like a whip cracking against one naked breast. My eyes flew open in time to watch as another blow fell. I struggled to catch my breath as I felt myself clench around the tentacle hammering my pussy.

"What are you doing?" My voice was panting, breathless.

"Beating the soft parts of your body elicits your arousal. I noticed at the rally how gratified you became after several soldiers began to hit you."

Another blow snapped against my naked breast, leaving a bright red patch of skin.

"You enjoy abuse. Humans are very unusual, did you know?"

The thick tentacle slapped hard against my swollen tits and I howled, unable to silence myself. The tentacle in my pussy continued its clumsy assault and I thrashed in earnest now. It was true, what he said. I loved to be held down, overpowered. I enjoyed the feeling of something stronger than me tempering its blows, forcing me to remember how easy I was to control, how badly I needed to be.

He continued to assault my aching tits and I screamed as I came suddenly, painfully. Hardly the best orgasm, I thought vaguely, my thighs twitching as I struggled to recover, though it was certainly better than I imagined it would be.

Shadow withdrew fully from my body but I felt him close by for a moment. When he touched my face I started, tightening the rope painfully around my wrist so that I started again but all he did was brush some hair from my sweaty face.

"I will rest now and so should you. You will not see me when they return and there is little I can do to interfere so cooperate with them. You must stay strong if you are to rescue Leader."

My face felt wonderfully warm and my eyelids heavy and my eyes fluttered open and I was blinded by sunshine. It was so deliciously warm and bright and though it took a moment for my eyes to adjust, I could smell jega blossoms flowering in the trees and I felt the tickle of cool, thick grass beneath my naked skin. I even remembered I was naked; it was so easy to forget these days, especially surrounded by darkness but in the brilliant summer sun I felt shockingly exposed. My eyes adjusted to the sparkling white light and I saw that I was laying a top of gentle sloping hill. I could see knots of woodland grove stretched out in the surrounding valleys and caught the glint of Ferox 4's two suns off a nearby turquoise lake. I closed my eyes again and I could hear the buzzing of insects and the lilting chirp of birds. I felt a shadow obscure the ray of sunlight on my face and I opened my eyes, expecting to see a passing fleecy cloud darting across the suns' paths.

"Perikos!" I knew the second I saw his slick, muscular dark mass that it was him. He moved like silk, gliding over the grass towards me and wound himself around my shoulders and under my head, cradling it. Without responding he pressed the very tip of a tendril between my lips and stroked my tongue and teeth, hesitantly and with exceeding tenderness. It stole my breath away as I opened my eyes, unconsciously searching for his, for some clue to his intentions but instead I felt feather light tendrils trace over my forehead and jaw, to the tip of my nose and over my eyelids, the pressure so measured and careful.

"Hello, Jayn," he said and his music sounded like bells, violins, pipes. I couldn't describe it and I thought I would fade away or cry from the beauty of it.

"I thought you were captured! And what about the sun?" Panic suddenly stole over me. The sun! "Doesn't it hurt?"

I felt Perikos press against my back, spooning my form and I returned the pressure, pressing my weight back against him as he held me tightly. "No, it does not. It is actually very pleasant. It isn't any wonder that you long for it."

I remembered having more questions, knowing there was more that I needed to ask or wanted to say but instead I felt my entire body relax as Perikos traced gentle lines around the curves of my breasts and the swell of my ass. Several thick tentacles wrapped around my waist and between my legs -- not to penetrate or tease but to weave our forms together as closely as possible. I felt thin tendrils wind through my hair and stroke my scalp, caress just behind my ears and trace the lines of my neck and collarbone.

"I'm so happy you're okay," I murmured, my entire body suffused with pleasure. I felt oddly drunk, giddy and exhausted all at once as Perikos held me. The best of both worlds. To say nothing of the fact he'd managed to escape capture. Suddenly I remembered Shadow and then I felt achy and torn, not to mention sickeningly guilty. I couldn't stop fidgeting.

"Perikos?"

"Yes, Little Shade?" The melody was like sun-warmed honey, almost tangibly hot and sweet.

"P-Perikos…please, don't be angry. I -- I couldn't really stop it. It was Shadow! I thought I was trying to help and he…" I had to grit my teeth and close my eyes to make myself continue, "he…f-fed from me. I'm so sorry, I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn't know!" The plea in my voice was wrenching and I felt my eyes water as I blurted out my strangled, miserable confession. Wasn't there a time when I was stronger, when I wasn't always teary and helpless and confused?

Perikos was silent for a moment and then I felt a thick, smooth tendril begin to stroke my back in slow, rhythmic circles. "Thank you for telling me this, Jayn." He paused a moment, then asked, "how did it make you feel?"

I let him hold me another moment, too stunned to answer immediately. "Um…bad. It was rape."

"You took no pleasure?" His melody was not accusing but he wasn't naïve. I knew that much.

"Well…I, um…a little pleasure. Not because of Shadow, he was hopeless, because of…"

"How he treated you? That he forced you to accept it, that you were bound?"

I nodded, my face hot with shame. Was it better to be a slut for abuse or just a slut period? Sometimes I hated myself.

"Are you all right, Jayn?" His notes were very soothing, gentle. "He could have hurt you quite badly."

I did feel sore, torn, badly used and oddly unfulfilled but mostly miserably ashamed. "You're not angry?"

"You do what you must. Both you and my Second."

"I don't like him!" I blustered. I wanted to explain, I needed him to understand. "I mean, I don't hate him anymore. He cares about you, wants to protect you and he could be making my life entirely miserable but instead he's just…using whatever's available…" I grimaced as I danced around the subject of what started out as rape. "I miss you," I said finally.

I felt that thin tendril near my lips dip back inside, stroke and tease at the tip of my tongue and draw lazy circles over my parted lips.

"I love you," I said, before I realized it. I felt ridiculous immediately and suddenly wanted to run and hide again. Hell forbid I ever have another moment with Perikos were I don't want to run away and hide.

Perikos was silent and I felt something closing in. "What exactly does that mean?"

"Nothing, nothing. Nevermind." My voice sounded strange, tense and falsely hearty. If only he would drop it we could move past this unfortunate moment and I wouldn't have to feel so horribly dizzy and queasy.

"Please explain your emotion to me. I know you feel lust for me -- you still emit a great deal of arousal. As for fear, you only seem to be afraid to discuss the gravity of my capture or else when you reveal something embarrassingly personal, as I expect you have just done."

"I…er…" Oh god. Abort, abort.

"Is your admission a proposal that we mate formally?"

Little dots danced in front of my vision and I knew I couldn't endure this conversation much longer. I'd rather be interrogated by Loyalist guards. "N-no, of course not, don't be silly," I groaned, my voice hardly more than a whisper.

"As I'm certain you understand, we cannot mate on any planets I have known of, at least not legally. I know of no planets that legally sanction of a mixed species-union wherein one or more members does not belong to the Union or lives outside Union law."

"No, I mean, yes! You've got the wrong...er, no one was talking about that…" I heard myself mumble. I tried to roll away, to hide my face. Perikos let me roll onto my stomach before winding around my neck and shoulders and stroking my hair.

"Why are you so embarrassed, Little Shade? Is it bad to love?"

"N-no. It's just," I searched for something to say that didn't make me sound pathetic, needy desperate and doomed, "very human. I just feel weak."

Perikos stroked the side of my face again, brushed my ear. "Love is human? To admit it embarrasses you and makes you feel weak? What does it feel like?"

At least that I could answer that truthfully. "Very good and very bad at the same time. It feels so good that it hurts and then you feel good again."

He began to rub my back and shoulders again. "I make you feel that way?" His music was clipped, unpleasantly surprised. "What have I done to make you feel bad?"

What indeed. "Nothing!" I nearly shouted it and then hid my face again. "I just like you very much and so it's embarrassing to talk about. You know…in case you don't like me as much…"

There was on odd sound, like breaking crystal. "Love can be measured with affection then? Oh, Little Shade. Do you know how I feel about you? Have you any idea?"

I reached up then to touch him, to stroke his black, tightly coiled skin. I had never really thought about how he must feel when I touched him. Every millimeter of skin, every cell, every nerve was hypersensitive, capable of registering the slightest movements, changes in pitch and temperature. I ran my left hand over one thin tendril, admiring its power and control, its musculature and the silkiness of its form.

"Honestly? I'm helpful enough, for a human. I'm breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus a midnight snack. I don't know about how you guys process anything that could be considered…affection." I almost said 'love' again but I managed to stop myself. No reason to make myself look like an idiot twice in such quick succession.

"I regret not assuring you of the esteem I hold you in outside of your role as my helpmate with my army. I am distraught, you see, as I have failed to lead them. They are dead."

Something, maybe his somber tune or the injection of the harsh reality of our situation brought the bright Ferox sunlight crashing down around us and instead of lounging together on the warm summer grass we were plunged into darkness. I could smell the wet concrete and bodily fluids and I saw the bars of my cell at Kragosa blocked our escape. I pulled Perikos closer to me and I felt his hold on me tighten.

"Be brave, Jayn. Do not linger here. The heat and light of your home planet is infinitely preferable to the inside of this prison. I cannot always comfort you."

"Why?" My voice rang out, loud and frightened against the stone and metal that surrounded me. "We're together, nothing can happen to us!"

Perikos brushed my cheeks with an inky black tendril. "You know that is not true. We are not together physically. This is your dream."

I stared hard at the floor, willing it to form to my will. Just a dream. Not really the floor drenched in sweat, blood and piss. And yet even at Kragosa, we were together. Even at Kragosa I could help. "You seem so real," I said, stupidly. My voice sounded hollow, numb.

"I am," Perikos replied and then he paused a moment. "I hear something. Voices. They must be near you for I am in isolation."

"I don't hear anything…" I began.

"I will see you -- " though exactly when Perikos would see me I didn't find out because I was wrenched out of deep sleep with the heavy blow to the right side of my face. I coughed and spat blood but ran my tongue over my teeth and none felt loose.

In spite of the brightness of the sunlight in my dream, my waking vision adjusted immediately to complete darkness. I could make out a different quality of darkness immediately in front of me -- it was denser, colder and the air around them felt off. I recognized them by feel, by instinct. The interrogators from before.

"Human!" One of them barked at me. I recognized him by song as the one who broke my wrist. I felt disoriented. What about Perikos? It seemed so real…

My hesitation earned me another slug to the mouth and I gasped but managed not to scream. "I'm awake," I croaked, trying to arrange my thoughts. Shadow said to cooperate, to give them a reason to keep me alive. Of course he would say that if he was the traitor and had been playing me the whole time but I couldn't let myself think like that right now. Either way, he had a point. Broken legs and internal bleeding were not going to help me save Perikos.

"Did you help The Traitor escape from Kragosa?" Maybe it was just me but his voice was deafening, stabbing at my throbbing head as it bounced off the cavern walls.

I took a deep breath and hoped my answer wouldn't get me killed. "Y-yes. He said he would help me escape from the prison if I helped him."

"What crime were you convicted of that you were sentenced to Kragosa?"

It was a fair question but I wasn't sure if it was better to lie and say I killed sixty men barehanded and so I wasn't to be trifled with, or else tell the truth. Then I remembered how good I was not getting caught in lies.

"I…wasn't supposed to be there. I was sent there by mistake. I'm just a debtor. Humans aren't supposed to end up at Kragosa at all and if any do it's off the books or a conspiracy or something. The warden didn't care though. He thought it was funny." I remembered Brogn then and I was definitely simplifying it on the retelling. Once Brogn realized he could have sex with something, whoever that poor thing was could kiss its peaceful purgatory at Kragosa goodbye. Luckily it took him a while with me. And then I met Perikos. The alien song suddenly brought me back to the present.

"So tell me, Human, you are not susceptible to Light?" He asked but I could tell by his inflections he already knew the answer. Maybe he just wanted another excuse to hit me.

"Light is f-fine. It does not hurt," I answered. Best not to offer anything extra.

"And what of Heat?"

"Heat is painful. It causes b-burns and can kill…humans," I answered carefully.

"So humans do not normally experience darkness?" The other spoke now, his tone more subdued than before. That was unusual.

"I -- that is, humans -- am very helpless in darkness. Humans use light to…um, measure space and distance and escape danger and in darkness we can't do that, so…" I trailed off, unable to think of anything else to say. You can untie me, I may as well have told them. I am no threat.

"Are you mature?" asked the leader after another moment of silence. "Are you male or female?"

"I'm mature. Female," I answered, knowing full well that this was the wrong answer to be giving.

There was another moment of silence. Then, "female!" the other one exclaimed, his song both bitter and incredulous. "It cannot reproduce though! Can it?"

"Undoubtedly it can," replied the leader, his tone cold. "You must mean to ask whether it is genetically compatible with our kind and I very much doubt it is. We share very little."

"Why select a female then? And form a bond? Perhaps he knows something you do not!" the other cried, and for my own sake I hoped he was very wrong. Never mind about not wanting to have any human children, I was certainly determined never to have alien babies, not even Perikos'.

"It's impossible," I whispered from amidst their bickering. "Union research has so far concluded humans are genetically incompatible with everything besides other humans."

"Inconclusive!" Shouted the other again and I cringed. What the fuck, did he want me to get pregnant with alien offspring?

"I don't want children. Even if it were possible, I would stop it," I assured them. My instincts told me I was on the right track, since keeping me around to see if inter-special breeding was viable didn't strike me as being a high priority.

The leader's melody was deep, suspicious. "Every female exists to produce offspring. Do you deny it?"

Yes. "No. I'm just weird I guess."

"Are you infertile?"

I had no idea. "I don't think so. I just don't want children and I would not couple with anyone who wanted any."

There was another uncomfortable silence. I could only hope that the leader's instinct to disbelieve me was fighting his certain knowledge that I was telling the truth.

"Then what did he want it for?" asked the other, and I was sure that by "it" he meant me. I was about to open my mouth to offer that tidbit when the leader spoke again.

"As I told you, we have our sources. We can confirm that after we debrief our informant further. Human! Open you orifice!"

There was only one orifice I could or would willingly open and it didn't occur to me to disobey. Something cool that tasted like dirt brushed the length of my tongue and I struggled not to gag.

"It is damp and so you are not likely to die before tomorrow," he said, though how exactly he worked that out I did not know. As though he read my mind, he replied, "the Traitor told us to ensure you had access to water, otherwise you would perish. Obviously there is none here but there seems to be no urgency. Tell us something helpful and we may bring you some tomorrow."

Something helpful? My mind was shutting down, awash with awful, gut-churning terror. There were only two possibilities -- either Shadow really had allied himself with the Loyalists and told them I needed water to live, in which case I would certainly die here, or they really did have Perikos captive and were probably torturing him at this very moment. Fucking hell, what was I supposed to do? My every thought ground to a halt.

"Nothing to say then? No matter, just don not expect any water tomorrow," the leader said and he and the other turned and left the cavern and I was left to wallow in the hopelessness of it all.

Three more days came and went. They came every day (or was it night?) and questioned me. I was forced to admit my role but was relieved that I could tell them nothing about Perikos' military plans and they didn't harm me for not knowing. Shadow always came shortly after they left. He fed me food and water, checked my wrist and ear, both of which throbbed relentlessly, and otherwise made awkward company.