Strapped to the Wall

"I'm sorry," she said, as she opened the hatch and slipped away.

* * *

Brody blinked cluelessly. He hadn't expected that to work. From the official Transect Corporation Pirate Survival Guide all the way to the shifty old people who claimed to have survived such ordeals, he had heard the same thing: pirates have no mercy.

That girl had not only shown mercy, but looked mortified, as if someone had just slapped her hand for taking a cookie-- as if she hadn't realized what she was doing.

Brody wished he had caught that girl's name. She wouldn't be hard to spot later, being the only black woman on the crew, but still, he had a sense she could be his ticket off the ship.

The door clattered, its cheap rotary latch noisily disengaging, and Brody straightened his posture. In floated Natia, the woman who had first stripped him. As she entered, her mouth was a flat line, and her eyes were wide and focused. But as soon as the door sealed behind her, a lecherous smile spread her cheeks, and her eyes went half-lidded. "Did you miss me?" she smarmed. "I'm- what the hell?" With a push, she flew up to Brody and grabbed his chastened cock. "Why the hell is this out?" She looked him in the eye with evil focus. "Who did this to you?"

He returned her gaze, not wanting to look weak. "No one."

"What do you mean, no one?"

"It slipped down." He tugged on his restraints. "And I couldn't exactly fix it myself, could I?"

"God, you're such a bitch. I'm buying a gag for you." As she said this, she undid one of his wrists.

Immediately, Brody reached down and pulled up his thong, covering up his penis. "There," he said. "It didn't kill you to do that, did it?"

Something forced his head back, and his left cheek stung. After a second of confusion, he realized that the woman had slapped him. "Shut up!" she snapped.

Brody swallowed a curse as he gently rubbed his cheek.

The woman slipped a cool, smooth black collar around his neck, clicking it shut perilously close to his skin. "This shocks you if you piss me off," she explained. "I'm guessing you don't need a demonstration."

Brody debated whether or not that was rhetorical.

"Good," she said, clipping a leash onto his collar. "Now stick close to me."

As she untied his wrists, Brody thanked his luck that he was not in gravity, which would have pulled the blood from his upraised limbs and made his fingers numb.

She undid his ankles, and an involuntary push from his leg sent him floating away from the wall. Agonizingly slowly, he drifted through the air, flipping gently end over end. As he tried in vain to stop the flipping, he didn't bother looking at Natia. He knew she would only be enjoying the show.

Too soon, a force on his collar jerked him back, and for one moment he couldn't breathe. With a firm hand, Natia gripped him by the collar and forced him to the ground.

"Done flying around?" she smarmed. "Good. Now I won't shock you for that, but next time you let yourself go, I will."

Brody swallowed.

"Now follow." She opened the hatch to the room, pulling Brody out to face the moment he had been dreading. The rest of the crew turned and looked at him, and his clothes suddenly felt like no protection at all from their stares.

A stern, bulky woman, clearly the captain, frowned at him, but whether she was displeased by his presence or by the way he had been dressed, Brody could not tell. Next to the captain, a thin, swarthy man shot Brody a contemptuous smirk.

And then there was the black woman Brody had seen before. She was of average weight for a spacefaring woman, but she looked willowy next to the healthy man and the brawny captain. The black woman stared at Brody with wide eyes and a face turned slightly away, either aloof or shy. Her eyes devoured him, but there was something else in her gaze too-- that same odd something that had stopped her from raping him in Natia's quarters.

Brody wanted to cover himself as three fresh pairs of eyes ran down his body to the bulge of his chastity cage under its hopelessly inadequate covering, but fear kept him still.

The captain stopped staring first. She gave an unimpressed nod, turned away and said, "Landing in forty minutes! Get geared up for Ariss!" She pointed at Natia. "That includes your new meat. Make him look good. He's tradable."

Brody cringed.

"Traceable?" Natia's eyes narrowed. "Our deal is that he is mine."

"Cool your pipes, of course he is. We're not going to sell him." She cracked a mean smile. "But no one's saying we can't whore him out." She pulled back into her quarters, slamming the hatch behind her.

"That wasn't in the terms," Natia grumbled as she turned away. With a few quick, angry movements, she grabbed Brody by the collar and forced him into what looked like an airlock, pulling herself in after him.

Natia did not let go of Brody's collar. He looked up at her, boiling with questions, but clearly it was the wrong time to ask.

Minutes passed, then the better part of an hour, and Brody contented himself with having time to gather his wits and come to terms with being used as a prostitute.

'I won't make it fun for them,' he promised himself. 'I'll keep a cold face all the way through. It'll be like humping a log.' The idea wasn't much comfort.

Finally, Brody felt the first beginnings of gravity, then the jostling of maneuvering jets. A docking tube gently rocked the ship as it attached.

The whole crew stepped out onto a circular platform, at least ten meters across, surrounded by a thick, many-layered transparent tube. Only the closet-sized secondary shaft that hid between two layers of wall broke the uniformity. On the outside, the harrowingly vast infinity of space opened up above him, opposed only by the glow of the grey and yellow planet below.

'A space elevator!' Brody had not expected this.

The platform plunged down at an alarming speed. The planet approached. Brody felt his sensation of weight increasing as the platform began to slow itself, and soon the haze of atmosphere swallowed the elevator shaft. In a minute, they were still again.

A door swung itself open, and warm air blasted in. The smells of pollen and lubricant slammed against Brody's nostrils. Even the sunlight seemed forceful as it streamed in. For a few seconds, he narrowed his eyes to slits. As his pupils adjusted themselves, shapes resolved from the pure white light outside.

Before them, maybe half a kilometer away, stood a city. As soon as he gained perspective, Brody revised that-- it was a town. A settlement. A cluster of buildings, all made of clean, silvery metal that glared offensively in the light, sat atop a hill of sand so white it looked like wheat flour. Brody shifted his feet worriedly, the seething-hot path punishing his bare feet.

The captain appeared behind Natia, and Sirin appeared a moment later, handing out sun-visors to the rest of the crew.

"Drink up," said the captain, raising an insulated water bottle to her lips. "This planet is dry. It'll suck the moisture right out through your skin."

Brody watched Natia produce a bottle of her own, half-drained it in one swig, then gently replaced the cap.

"I'll live," muttered Brody, eyeing the bottle hooked onto Natia's belt.

Either Natia did not hear that comment, or she did not care. She rammed a sun-visor into Brody's hands, and he slipped it on over his ears, feeling the material settle over the crown of his head, fitting neatly under his hair, which was already beginning to soak up some sweat. The lens, to his pleasant surprise, did not darken his view, but only blocked out the glare. Suddenly, the chrome buildings looked splendid, not oppressive. He looked up, and the sun appeared as a pale blue disk in the clear sky.

The elevator descended from the heavens to a flat expanse that reminded Brody of a dry lake bed with a raised path leading up to the settlement on the hill. As they made their way up, Brody's skin began to sting from the sunlight, and he bitterly regretted how little he was covered.

The settlement rested on a foundation that rose from the dunes, an artificial plain in the middle of the loose sand. It was a town designed before the builders knew what it would be built on, a practice that Brody had always seen as disrespectful to the planet somehow.

Inside the settlement, where white-draped colonists strolled through the perfectly gridded streets, Brody's heart sank as he realized how much he would stand out. Not only was his group painfully underdressed for this sun-blasted planet, but his nakedness stuck out even among the rest of his party. The colonists' skin tones, as well as their accents, were equal parts Indian and African, a rare combination. They stared at him, but ignored him.

Finally, the captain led the group through a revolving a door, into cool, conditioned air. Brody nearly had time to give a sigh of relief at being spared the heat, then caught his breath halfway out.

Everyone here stared at him, from the middle-aged woman behind the counter to the cluster of prim-looking young men inspecting a piece of machinery to the girl no older than Brody who looked up from her tablet at him. One of her eyebrows perked up.

The roof, made of neatly white-painted corrugated metal, hung a mere half-meter above Brody's head, broken every dozen meters by broad square skylights. Hulks of machinery rested on the grey concrete floor. Some were pieces of furniture with strips to attach them to the hard points of space ship interiors, but others were more complex, all the way up to the elaborate ship systems that Brody had learned about in college, but never seen in person. He took off his sun visor.

'Why am I here?' came the question to Brody's mind, but he remembered Natia's short temper and refrained from asking.

As the captain stepped up to the desk, and immediately her complexion and the storeowner's brightened.

"Arminy," said the shopkeeper, eagerly shaking the captain's hand. "So good to see you again. Still alive, are you?" She looked at Brody. "Have you got something to trade, or are you just strutting your catch?"

Brody stepped back, wanting to say something in his defense, but knowing he would only earn himself a shock from Natia, if not worse. He stood silently, trying not to let his humiliation show.

"A little bit of both," the captain answered, putting a cold, hard hand on Brody's rear. "This one fought us, you know. Could have gotten himself killed."

"Speaking of which, where are your sisters? I mean, those sisters you hired? Are they alright? Did they run off on you?"

The captain smirked. "They hadn't when I sent them to pawn off that freighter, but what does that tell us?" She squeezed Brody's butt cheek, so casually that she probably didn't realize she was still gripping him.

The shopkeeper gasped. "A whole freighter! You should have brought it here! I'd have taken it! You know I'm not picky!" She threw out her arms. "You'd be safe selling stolen goods here, you know. Look at what planet you're on!"

"I know it," said the captain. "But I have a good reason..."

A hand brushed Brody's, and he started, but it was only the black woman. As soon as he made eye contact, she put a finger to her lips. Her hand touched his, and paper crinkled in his palm.

With a furtive glance to reassure himself that Natia was still distracted, Brody opened his hand to read the note.

'Get up through the sunroof,' it said, 'then into the hangar-like building and try to blend in.'

Brody's mind buzzed. His thoughts scattered as the captain squeezed his rear. He bit his lip, and to his shame, his cock strained against its cage.

Gathering his wits, he nudged the black woman. When she looked eagerly up at him, he tapped his collar.

Her face twisted with thought, then she went up on her tiptoes and whispered in his ear, "I can take care of that. Just get out of here." He began to pull away, but was stopped by her gentle hand. "By the way, my name's Iancah." She finished with a peck on his cheek.

For a moment, Brody was stunned. The kiss dried quickly in the parched air, and no one seemed to have noticed it, but still Brody felt a rush of danger.

First, he decided, was to get out of the captain's hand. Surreptitiously, he edged forward, only to be disappointed as the captain's grip followed him, still idly fondling his flesh. When at last he exceeded her reach, he felt a sharp sting on his cheek.

"Ah!" he gasped.

The captain and the shopkeeper burst out with mean laughter. Iancah grinned and put a few fingers coyly over her mouth, and Natia glared. But mercifully, she looked away rather than make a scene.

Brody backed away from the group, slowly enough that no one would notice. His trembling nerves, combined with the gravity he was still getting used to, made it difficult to keep from ducking his head, but eventually he was behind the entire crew. With a gingerly hand, he unhooked his leash, which was only clipped on with a climbing hook anyway, and lowered it to the floor.

Turning, he broke into a light jog, not caring how his weighty cock looked as it bounced inside his tight biker shorts, and skittered behind a rack of salvaged maneuvering thrusters being examined by an oblivious customer. Brody took the moment to breathe and look around.

In the back of the shop, a stack of crates reached up almost to the ceiling, where a sunroof gave an inviting look at the sky. Padding over to it, Brody noticed a latch next to the windowpane.

'Perfect!'

Throwing caution to the wind, Brody leapt up onto the lowest crate, his muscles fighting against the gravity. On the top crate, he tried to imagine he was performing EVA repairs as his shaking hands fought with the window latch. Finally, he pushed open the window.

"Hey!" yelled a voice behind him. "Hey, hey, hey! What's he doing?"

There was no going back now. He pulled himself up.

It must have been moister inside the building, because the parched air wracked him as he climbed onto the painfully hot metal roof. Shifting his feet to keep his soles from burning, he looked around.

'Get into the hangar-like building,' the paper had said. From up here, the buildings all looked the same. Picking the blockiest one he could see, he climbed down to the ground and darted in through what he assumed was the back door.

It was as if night had fallen. Dim light glimmered from a few lights recessed into the ceiling, only to be swallowed by the black walls and carpet. Stoves, ovens and shelves of foodstuffs covered the walls, all inadequately lit. Fire belched up from a grill where a goggled cook tended to some meat, and a maglev cart loaded with dirty dishes zoomed silently past. An archaic ice-cream machine bawled as it pumped a quart of soft vanilla into a bowl.

A man shoved past him. "Watch it!"

Brody got his bearings just quickly enough to see another man barreling towards him with a steaming pan of something, and he dodged out of the way.

"Here!" another man thrust a pan of bread and candy-gel at Brody. "Table thirteen. Go."

Taking the pan, Brody stumbled for the exit to the kitchen, out of everyone's way. Through the double doors, he stepped out into a sight he should have been prepared for, but wasn't.

Soft orchestral music shifted and pulsed through the air. Electric lights glared from the walls, gleaming on anything reflective. Clusters of laughing women sat at luxuriant booths, wearing colorful dresses, shoulder-width sun hats and bulky, stylish boots. They happily dug into their meals or gawked at the staff.

All men, the staff strutted across the carpeted floor, looking spare and vulnerable in outfits uncomfortably similar to Brody's, with bare chests and backs peeking out from underneath willfully impractical shirts, and with buttless chaps or shorts that were so tight they may as well not have been there. On a raised platform between booths, a nearly naked man twisted and vaulted around a pole, cheered and jeered at by half of the house.

Now Brody understood. He had indeed found the correct building, the only place in town where his outfit would allow him to blend in. He had no idea what Iancah had planned, but for now he was happy to let her worry about that. Spotting a table numbered thirteen, he stepped up to it and hurriedly deposited the plates before a quartet of intently chattering women, guessing where each plate went.

Satisfied, he hustled back into the kitchen, where he milled about until someone held up a tray and demanded to have it delivered. He took it, got the table number, and was off. For what felt like an hour, he repeated the cycle, imitating the other boys as well as he could, terrified that he would miss a trick and expose himself, or worse, cause a spectacle. Every few tables, he would feel a sting on his butt and turn to see the diners laughing at him. Each time, he fought back an urge to stand up for himself. The other boys spoke to him only in brief chunks of sentences:

"Hey, did we get table eight?"

"Are you taking or delivering?"

"Are you new here?"

And, most commonly: "Don't drop that!"

During one trip to the kitchen, a cook handed him a tray with a single dish on it. "Where's the rest?" asked Brody. No one ever seemed to eat here in parties smaller than four.

"That's it," said the cook over his shoulder. "Table four. Go."

At table four sat a small woman who nonetheless presented a large figure with a curved yellow broad-brimmed hat and a bright, smooth dress that matched it in color. Her mouth smiled contentedly, taking in the carnival of male flesh around her, but the rest of her face hid behind a glass-studded mask. She accepted her meager dish with a silent, winning smile. As Brody turned away, he felt his hand on hers. He turned.

With her other hand, the woman handed a neat stack of money up to him.

"Oh!" Carefully, Brody took the money, which was in a denomination he did not recognize. "Thank you, ma'am." Before turning around, he had the presence of mind to add, "Enjoy your meal."

When he was two meters away, another touch arrested him. This time, it was one of the other waiters who had stopped him, a tall black boy with chin-length hair who had pushed him into line twice before. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"We're allowed to accept tips, aren't we?" said Brody.

"Dude, that wasn't a tip." He pointed back to table four, where the masked woman stood, staring intently at Brody. "That's for special service. She wants you in the back room."

"Oh." An uncomfortable puzzle piece fell into place.

"What are you waiting for? Go! Take care of her! Here, I'll take the money."

Brody suspected that the money was meant for him and not the house, but did not argue as he handed it over and turned to the masked woman, desperately hoping she would give him some hint as to where the back room was.

She did. With another devious smile, she waved him after her and strutted to an inconspicuous hallway that Brody had assumed led to the restrooms. She led him through a door that looked soundproof, then past a mauve curtain to a bed.

Brody walked up to the bed, only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder. The woman put a finger to her lips, then leaned up to his ear. "You have a friend coming," she said. Her voice was husky and deep, and lilted so badly that clearly she couldn't go much lower. "But first, you are mine." She chortled. "Kiss me. Kiss me all the way down."

She didn't wait for Brody to start. Her right hand wrapped around the back of his head, and she pulled him in. Her lips sealed against his, and to Brody's surprise, she started slowly, sucking gently against him. Relieved, he allowed her tongue to explore his mouth.

When her grip on his head relaxed, he was amazed to realize that he was not in a hurry to get this over with. Iancah had been right; it had been a long time.