14
I've only ever been inside one penthouse in my life, and that had been bombed and burned months before I arrived. Still, I'd seen them on TV from time to time, and this reminded me of that.
The room in front of me was a good fifty feet square with arched ceilings, dominated by a comfy-looking leather couch and glass table combo along with a pair of very plush recliners. I'm talking thick like you'd see in a cigar lounge. To my right was a breakfast bar fronting what looked like a kitchenette. Beyond that was an open door that apparently led to an office of some sort. Opposite the bar were a pair of closed doors I assumed led to sleeping quarters, and directly across from me was a window that took up the whole wall and gave me a sweeping view over the tops of most of the skyscrapers that made up the city inside the arcology.
Strolling across the room to stand in front of the window, I looked out over the city. Yimshe followed me and asked, "Satisfactory?"
"So far," I said, not looking back. There was a haze over the city, like Los Angeles back in the eighties. Yet there was no way to mistake this place for anywhere in California. It looked more than a little like the city in 5th Element, seen from just above and beyond.
"What else do you need?" she asked. "There are two separate rooms for sleeping, each of which has its own bathing and sanitary facilities. There is a soundproofed office for research and study, a kitchen facility, and you will have access to a gymnasium for whatever exercise may be needed."
"I want access to an archive that has information on everything I might find out there," I said, nodding toward the city. "Races, locations, customs, laws, everything."
"It might be arranged. At least to begin with, you'll be restricted to information that'll be valuable for you during the show, which won't take place out there. Provided you do well, access might be broadened as a reward."
I nodded, then turned from the windows toward the 'office.' The door — by the look of it all the doors in the suite — was pocket style, sliding straight into the walls. They also didn't seem to have any automatic functions, just recessed metal fingerholds to pull or push them. Given how futuristic everything else was, I thought that was a bit odd, but since it wasn't important I dismissed it. The central feature of the office was a broad monitor above a narrow desk and comfy chair centered on the wall across from me. There was a second chair/desk thing in the far corner next to a white board, which gave me a high school flashback. The space was eight by maybe twenty feet, also with high ceilings.
It suddenly struck me and I turned to look at Yimshe, who'd trailed after me, to note, "Everything here's already sized for me."
When she nodded, I asked, "How'd you do that so quickly?"
She blinked, head tilted in that canine way she had as she asked, "This is unusual? All your physical measurements were available when you were shown to the sponsors. Once we signed a contract this suite was outfitted for you. We had hours to get it done."
The way she said 'hours' made it sound like that was a long time, so I just let it go. Maybe I wasn't the only shorty out there, species-wise.
As I turned to leave the office I caught her watching me with the sort of intensity that I've always found uncomfortable. Pausing, I glanced at her and raised my eyebrows pointedly, but she either didn't understand the body language or chose to ignore it, because she neither spoke nor looked away.
The eye contact got longer and I frowned as it turned into the sort of test of wills I used to get out on the training ground. Once upon a time, I couldn't afford to lose those contests.
That time was long past.
Shaking my head, I turned away from her and crossed the room to look into the bedrooms.
Opening one door, the first thing I saw was that it was obviously not the room intended for me because Palashai was asleep on a bed sized for her, which is to say fucking huge.
It took up most of the space in the room. There was a closet, a door leading into a tiled space that had to be the bathroom, and a small nightstand next to the head of the bed.
She opened her eyes as the light from the main room fell across her, then leaned up in bed to look at me, lips parting to speak. I noted idly that if it was a boob job, it was really well done.
I closed the door again and moved to the next room, not bothering to wait for whatever she had to say. I'll pass on the awkward teen moments, thanks much.
Yimshe made a noise that sounded to me like a suppressed laugh, but that'd be between her and her mom. The next room was, by default, mine. The bed was just as big, but there was no one in it.
Otherwise, it was identical to the other bedroom, and I asked, "Where's Mauren?"
"I couldn't say," Yimshe said. "Succubi go where they want."
"Not that one," I said dryly. If she wasn't present, she was probably getting debriefed somewhere.
Stepping through, I had a look at the bathroom, which was accessible from both bedrooms. There was a very large square tub rimmed with a bench beyond a standing shower area behind a clear glass partition. That took up pretty much all the space right of the entrance. Opposite that was a sink and mirrors on all three walls, full length to the left and right. Just beyond where the mirrors stopped was the toilet, which was just next to the opening for the pocket door that let me in with no partition to hide it.
Pulling the door out of the wall, I looked for a locking mechanism but didn't find one.
A short trip to the bedroom door showed me it didn't have a lock either, though I don't know why I expected one.
Movement caught my eye and I looked up to see Palashai stepping out of the other room wearing nothing but a set of ... actually very sexy underwear. The bra and panties were white, lacy, and stood out on her black-and-tan flesh. The bra actually had no shoulder straps, which made me wonder how the hell it was holding those hefty tits of hers up. Most of her was black, with tan spots above her eyes, all along the sides of her muzzle, the insides of her erect ears, and covering both shoulders all the way down to the upper slopes of her chest. The demarcation had very sharp definition. She also had good muscle tone and a solid four-pack.
I took my time looking her up and down, mostly up. There was a serious height difference between the two women in front of me. Yimshe was only a foot or so taller than I was. Palashai was closer to four feet taller. If I looked straight at her I was staring at abs.
Not a bad view.
"Why did you shut the door?" Palashai asked, setting one hand on a cocked hip as she looked down at me with an expression I couldn't read. I mean, her face was mostly muzzle. Her golden eyes were intent and her ears were angled toward me, but I couldn't have said what she was actually thinking, and her voice didn't betray anything but curiosity.
Somehow, though, I had the impression she was offended. I also wasn't sure how I wanted to answer her question. I'd closed the door to cut off an awkward moment, because fuck awkward moments.
So, not to be ignored, the awkward moment threw some panties on and chased me out into the living room. Now what?
I decided to ignore it and asked, "What the hell are you doing in here asleep in the middle of the afternoon?"
She blinked, then said, "I wasn't asleep. I was waiting for you."
"Naked in your bed?"
"Naked in yours."
Jerking my thumb toward the empty bedroom next to me I said, "That one's mine."
"That's for Yim and I."
"Look, lady. I just had the soul sucked out of me by a succubus tail. If you want a turn, you can wait."
"This is part of your training."
"Then why isn't Yimshe doing it?" I asked, glancing toward the Dalmatian-colored woman in time to see her glancing up toward her mother, then at me, then away.
"We have our reasons," Palashai said, tilting her head a bit as her golden eyes flicked to Yim, then back to me.
I leaned against the wall next to me, folded my arms across my chest, and gazed at the two women as I gave that some thought. Then I hazarded a guess.
"You want to see how many times I can go?"
"That's one of the things we're testing, yes."
"But not everything. So ... you don't want Yimshe to do it because I fucked her up and now she's afraid of me. You still think you can handle me, so decided to go first. Maybe put me in my place?"
Palashai abruptly reached out, her strange, two-thumbed hand open to grasp at my shirt.
I caught her wrist, rolled my forearm over the top of hers to lock her elbow and spun viciously outside. I'd never tried the move on someone four feet taller than me and it didn't work out quite like I wanted. An ordinary person would have hit the floor face-first.
She just took a long step past me and flexed her arm backward, flinging me away along the wall, which I bounced off of before turning to face her, fists up as I settled into a balanced stance.
Palashai also spun around and slashed down at me. Having a practically naked, giant hardbody with huge tits attacking me was a new one, but I am nothing if not adaptable. All the range advantages were obviously hers, so I took a quick step forward into a jab that she caught squarely with her free hand.
As her fingers closed over the back of my fist and her two thumbs wrapped it up from below, I knew I wouldn't be getting that back if I yanked on it, so instead I collapsed the elbow as I slammed forward.
The move surprised her and my elbow strike caught her in the external obliques. Her whole body torqued with the impact and she bared her teeth in an obvious grimace of pain, but also caught my shoulder with the hand she had free and spun me away.
Palashai wasn't just a better fighter than Yimshe. She was a whole lot bigger and she was strong.
I almost lost my balance but caught it at the last second and got set as she came in again, teeth bared.
Instead of looking to gain distance I closed, guard up and tight. If I was going to win this one, it would be point-blank.
She came at me with a middle guard and her knee shot up at my face. She was so damn big she didn't even have to jump, and I barely avoided it to the outside and countered with a hard jab toward the same spot I'd hit earlier, this time with a closed fist. It wasn't a properly grounded strike and she swatted it away, countering with an open-handed slap toward the side of my head that I caught on my raised elbow.
Her fingers slid up and closed around my forearm, but I sacrificed it as I set myself and planted a hard knee strike on her thigh.
Palashai yelped and stumbled sideways, but didn't lose her grip on me, which she used to swing me out to full extension and toss me away.
This time I did lose my feet and bounced off the wall next to the bedrooms to land in a twisted heap.
I got my feet under me and stood, but I'd hit the wall so hard I was winded.
Apparently, she wasn't in the best shape either, because she was visibly limping and put all her weight on her undamaged leg as she growled, "I hope you can see the difference here is that I'm not trying to hurt you."
"Your mistake," I said, taking a deep breath to make sure my ribs were okay. They seemed to be. I'd hit hard, but not hard enough to damage anything.
Palashai straightened, dropping her guard, lips rippling away from her teeth in disgust as she said, "We were to test your sexual stamina, not your combat prowess."
"Shouldn't have tried to grab me," I said, though I didn't lower my guard. "And I'm not in the mood."
"A contestant has to be ready and willing to fuck at any time," Palashai snarled. "If you'd pulled a stunt like this live, you'd have been disqualified from the event."
"You didn't tell me you wanted to fuck. You tried to grab me."
"You need to understand contextual clues!" she shot back, adding, "I think you did, you just chose to ignore them in favor of violence. And you think us uncivilized?"
As she spoke, she shook out her injured leg and put her weight back on it, reminding me again that these dog people regenerated like superheroes.
"Yes, I do. I also think you wanted to dominate me using sex as an excuse. In an intimate context I'm not going to be able to just put you down either. I turned it into a fight because I'm nobody's bitch; I don't care how big you are."
She rolled her eyes and let out a gusty sigh as she looked down at me, lip curled up to show just one canine in front. She said, "No one is questioning your ability to kill, Taz. Dominant and submissive positions in sex are acts, not identities. I could take a submissive position with you or dominate. Neither would impact my pride unless I failed in the role. The point is to inflict pleasure, by whatever means is most effective."
"I'm not interested in any of that," I said, eyes narrowing.
Yimshe, who'd been watching quietly as she leaned against the wall, legs and arms folded, snapped, "We're here to train you, not satisfy you. You know how to fight, good for you."
She unfolded her arms just to clap sarcastically at me.
"But if you can't please your lover in the way they prefer you've got less than half the toolset you need to win in the games. We-" she gestured between herself and Palashai, "-aren't succubi. It doesn't matter how powerful your essence is to us. If you're bad at sex, that's a serious problem. During these games you may be called upon to fuck complete strangers. You need to be able to discover their desires, then actually satisfy them no matter what they are."
Lips twisting, I thought about that as I gazed steadily at Yimshe. I wasn't really seeing her; I was just looking at her. Just like I understood the argument she was making, but I wasn't absorbing it.
I could fight anybody. I mean anybody. I might lose, but I could do it.
The thought that those same rules might apply to sex just did not compute with me. Finding someone who wanted to play a complementary role was one of the essential preconditions for having sex in the first place. I couldn't even imagine a scenario wherein I was expected to fuck someone without knowing beforehand where I stood in relation to that person.
"I won't do it with other males," I said.
Both women blinked, exchanged glances with one another, then looked at me again as Yimshe said, "Obviously. Succubi don't permit male on male fraternization. It's wasteful, both of essence and viable gene seed."
"What about female on female?" I asked, curious.
That earned me another set of glances, then Yimshe said, "I need to remind myself that while you seem like you have it together, your memories really don't have anything to do with your present circumstances. Females fuck each other all the time. There's nothing gained or lost."
"So what happens to males who only get aroused at other males?" I asked.
"Succubi consider it a grave genetic fault in any species of livestock. They're usually put down."
"So when you say I might be called upon to fuck 'someone,' you really mean some female."
Both Yimshe and Palashai nodded, eyes widening as though it should have been obvious.
I'm living with a bunch of high-tech rednecks, I thought with more than a touch of irony. I wasn't exactly what anyone would call progressive. I asked, "So ... you two consider yourselves to be livestock?"
"That's fundamentally what we are," Palashai said, speaking up as Yimshe hesitated. "I was raised to take part in this particular show. Yimshe is a product of my egg and the seed of a male selected based on his genetic predispositions. I never met him. I was given the responsibility and privilege of training her to be my replacement, serving the same purpose I served."
"All citizens are succubi. Every other species that exists here does so only because the succubi bought and raised their gene seeds," Yimshe added. "While it is technically possible for a sentient to live an independent life, it's rare, and most who do are pitied. You might manage it if that's what you want but you'll have to earn out. Given you're an experimental gene seed, the price on your production is probably enormous."
"Do succubi get anything out of females of other species?" I asked, choosing to ignore the question of 'earning out' for the moment.
"Labor and entertainment," Palashai said. "They're also required for genetic diversity. Virtually all laborers and most engineers are female livestock. The vast majority of males are kept at private residences as fodder and rarely let out. You're actually in a very privileged position: a new, unknown gene seed prototype being showcased for prospective buyers. The better you do, the more of your kind will be bought and raised here."
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the best argument for eating a bullet that I've ever heard, I thought, staring at the two in front of me with no words to express my horror.
"I don't know what you remember of your old world, but this isn't a bad life," Palashai said.
Pointing at her I said, "You don't know what you're talking about because you have no basis for comparison, so I recommend you shut your fucking mouth."
"There are archives, histories-" Yimshe began, but I cut her off with a sharp gesture.
"And I'm sure they're completely accurate accounts, not at all altered to give you precisely the impressions you're meant to have, livestock."
She held both hands palm up toward me as she said, "Woah, I'm not trying to make you angry."
"Then you're just a fucking natural at it. Take my advice, drop this subject and never ... ever pick it up again. When it comes to what is or isn't a bad life, neither of you know a damn thing."
"And perhaps the only person in the whole world who could tell us is refusing to do so. You are such a generous soul," Palashai said dryly.
"You're fucking stupid, you know that?" I shot back.
Jerking my thumb at my face, I asked, "All you actually need to know is that I know what real life is like, so let me ask: Do I look happy to be here? Well?"
Palashai didn't answer me. Yimshe, in a subdued tone, said, "No."
"No. Why the fuck do you think that is? Do I have to spell it out, or can you guess?"
Palashai took a step toward me, obviously trying to steer my thoughts in a new direction as she said, "Because you haven't seen the rewards in store for you, rewards well within your grasp if you train in good faith with us."
They didn't get it. They couldn't get it. It didn't matter how good I was, how many women I satisfied or games I won or people I killed. At the end of the day, no matter how they dressed it up, they wanted me to be a monkey in a zoo, aping for peanuts.
Maybe if I'd been raised in a zoo I'd think that was a good deal.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose, eyes squeezed shut as I said, "You're right. I should look forward, not back. I'll train in good faith ... but I seem to recall Director Chosen saying that my physical and mental needs should be satisfied and right now I need to rest. I'm going to go into the empty room, take a shower, then go to sleep. I need to be alone for a while. Understand?"
"While I do understand, you should know that there are only five days left before opening ceremonies. We have a lot to cover in that time and eight hours left in the day. Compromise with us. Two hours for a shower and a nap, then we need to get started," Yimshe said in a gentle, coaxing tone, and Palashai nodded approvingly.
I glanced from one to the other, then nodded and turned away, sliding the door shut behind me. Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly and reorganized my thoughts as I started dropping clothes on the way to the shower.
The two women out there were just trying to do a job. They didn't know anything, and I couldn't tell them. That would just be cruel. Then again if I did tell them about my life they'd probably count their fucking blessings. What might be even worse was if they realized just how much I'd wasted.
Then they'd pity me.
As the water beat down on me I had cause to look back on my life and realize in a way I never could have before just how much freedom I'd squandered. I could have done so much more, been so much more. Now, I'd never have the chance. Now, I'd be doing everything I could to entertain literal demons for whatever bread crumbs they might decide to toss me.
I really had been reborn in hell ... a fitting punishment for my sins.
I took a deep breath as I dropped the towel and slipped under the sheets to claim my nap. Staring up at the ceiling, I resolved that if the only thing I could ever be was a performing monkey, I'd be the best monkey there ever was and get all them damn peanuts. Maybe, just maybe, my keepers would leave my cage door unlocked one day.
If that day ever came I had a list, and Director Lane was at the top.