16
Yimshe watched quietly as her mother worked with Taz and marveled at how she seemed so confident, so self-assured. Taz never even tried to test his bonds, and when he woke up there was no trace of fear in him. She couldn't smell even a hint of it, and it shamed her because if she put herself in his position she would have been afraid.
Afraid and aroused.
There wasn't even a hint of that in Taz. His position clearly did nothing for him, and though she hadn't said anything about it when talking to him, Palashai knew that now. It was part of the test: what kind of kinks does this male have? Is he a submissive, does he like being bound?
No. If he had been, they'd have been able to smell it on him.
In the long term that was good. It was easier to make a champion out of a male with an iron will and a strong desire to win. Submissives generally had to be manipulated into victory. They required outside motivations, outside assistance. Taz would work for it because that's what he wanted for himself. Well and good.
But he still had to be able to submit. He still had to learn discernment. Guile. He would also have to perform ... even if he had no desire.
All this passed through Yimshe's mind as she listened to her mother confirm Taz's suspicion, then turn toward her.
Blue eyes met gold. Yimshe straightened, lifted her muzzle, and took a deep breath. Palashai set a hand on her shoulder and leaned in to murmur, "Remember, he would rather be where you are, you would rather be where he is. Empathy, sympathy, but don't forget your place."
"I don't know how you do this," Yimshe whispered.
"To submit is to seek and show pleasure. To dominate is to provide and control it. Either way, pleasure is the point and purpose. Find what he likes, get him to ask for it. Don't posture; you don't have the experience for that. Keep it simple but make, him, ask."
"Not beg?"
Palashai grinned and held up two fingers where Taz couldn't see the gesture. Yimshe understood.
Begging came later.
"How do I start?" Yimshe asked.
"With touch. If you talk, he'll disarm you. Say nothing. All you have to do is arouse him and make him ask for more. That's all."
"What if I fail?" Yimshe asked.
Palashai hesitated, glanced back at Taz, then away again as she said, "I don't think you will. He likes us."
Then she stepped aside, and Yimshe had nothing between her and Taz but space.
As she closed the distance she looked him over. His face was flat, but covered with a thick coat of hair from his nose down, hiding his neck and cheeks. The hair on his head had a different consistency. If allowed to grow long, it would be smooth. What was on his face looked bristly by contrast.
He also had hair elsewhere on his body, but it was sparse and likely vestigial. His skin had a single, pale color to it. His hands in particular were strange. Rather than claws, he had simple flat formations that looked too thin to do any damage or really much of anything at all. Perhaps they too were vestigial.
His body was otherwise well-made, almost as though it were a baseline for the ideal biped. The absolute minimum required with everything unnecessary stripped away.
With one exception.
His eyes were a swirl of green and gold. They locked on her as she stopped next to him, looked him over, then reached out to set a hand on his chest.
He was a foot shorter than she was. Packwren grew throughout their lives, but despite her own youth — just barely to be considered an adult — he was physically smaller.
He was also more compact. His muscle was two-and-a-half times denser than hers and as he'd already demonstrated, he had speed to go with that power. He was heavier than she was, though not by much.
"Wait too long and you'll talk yourself out of it," he said.
She blinked, realized she'd frozen, and felt the heat rush into her ears. He obviously noticed, because she saw his eyes flick up, then back down to hers. She could tell he was amused.
Mindful that she shouldn't speak, Yimshe began searching him as she settled on the bed, her hip against his. His eyes flicked down, watching as she moved her hands over his skin. His chest was hairy. She knew the succubi would clean all of that up before they showed him live, but she found that she liked it. It was obvious from the small movements he made that he could feel each individual hair when it moved. His nipples were small, an obvious and common consequence of sexual dimorphism in the womb. Yet they remained sensitive, and tightened when she brushed her fingertips across them.
She spent some time there, in no rush. Her mother had tried to drill the game into her from an early age, teaching her both sides, but Yimshe had no talent for the top, nor any desire. She wanted to writhe and squirm and plead for her pleasure, and it was from that experience, that vision, that she worked now. Taz had sensitive nipples, and Yim took the time to find out how sensitive. She used the pads of her fingers, the tips of her claws. She used her breath, her tongue, her teeth ... all the while looking at his face, watching him, learning his signs.
His breathing deepened and eventually his head dropped back, but he didn't speak. She hoped it was a good sign, but she couldn't be sure. She'd read the psychological report on this male. It was thin, but it did say that he was a man of few words. If he didn't have something specific to say, he didn't say anything at all.
She wanted to ask, but suppressed the urge. Asking wasn't her job.
It was his.
She slid fully onto the bed, covering his legs with her body, careful not to twist his feet or hurt him on accident as she slowly, deliberately lowered her search.
* * *
I don't know the first thing about sexual games.
All I know is that Tab D goes into Slot P. There's some extra technical details for fun but that's it, that's what I know, and that's all I ever needed. Well, at least, no one I ever had sex with complained, or if they did it wasn't to me.
Now, I made a career of being in over my head, but there's a trick to that. Keep your head down, eyes up, ears open, and file the man in the dossier six feet underground.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Most military men these days get medals. They get COLA and leave, Space-A flights and the promise of a good retirement at forty so they can go get another job working for boat money, drinking green label and telling stories about what they did and saw when they were in.
The problem with wet work is plausible deniability, which means if you get caught, you're on your own. There are no medals. No lawyers. No trials. Not for the men in the dossiers ... and not for you. I never met a man in my line of work who made it to retirement. I heard about them, but I never met one.
In that world one mistake is all it takes, and everybody makes mistakes.
Everybody.
I was in over my head again. How in over my head? Arms, legs, and neck restrained, an alien playing with my nipples. That's how much. As I stared up at the ceiling, I searched all my memories for something that might help me, but the only thing I knew that came close was torture ... and she hadn't asked me any questions.
Then she started to go south, and I got worried. I didn't know the rules of the game. I had not the first clue how to play this. All I knew was that if you're immobilized with a seven-foot tall alien hovering over your crotch, you're in big, big, trouble.
Palashai had told me this was training. I had to be submissive. I knew of BDSM, but it never interested me. When your day job includes the kind of torture that gets answers out of men who'd rather die than talk, rope and riding crops don't seem like a fun way to spend a holiday.
It was obvious from context that Palashai considered me a top. She thought being a bottom would be hard for me. Because I'm in the habit of letting people believe whatever they want I never corrected her, but the truth was I had no idea about any of it. Top, bottom, port, starboard, I had no clue.
All the evidence I was getting seemed to indicate I was about to get a blowjob, so I just relaxed and let Yimshe do ... whatever she wanted. She'd spent a long time on my nipples. It was hard not to squirm after a while because they were way more sensitive than I ever remember them being.
Then again, the last time I had cause to wonder at the sensitivity of my nipples was when my brother gave me a purple nurple back in grade school.
When her breath flowed over the bare spot where I'd had hair this morning it ... did something to me. I felt a twitch, then a bit more, and rolled my eyes. I had absolutely no control over this situation, but Palashai seemed to think I did. Use my big brain? Okay ... nope, nothing. The only control I had was theoretical. I could use that consent phrase at any time to stop this ... in theory.
Claw tips traced my thighs. Not fingers, claws. She could kill me. One poke, my femoral artery would give her a facial, and I'd be dead inside ten minutes. Not the worst way to go actually, but not something I wanted at just that moment. My legs tensed, then I forced them to relax.
Why hadn't she said anything? Wasn't there supposed to be theater in this? No witty banter, no high heel grinding my nuts to make me beg?
I never had cause until that moment to wish I was more of a pervert. Then I might know what the hell was going on.
My heart rate was up. I felt another breath on my cock and shut my eyes as a searing hot tongue ran up my inner thigh. She was teasing me. It was obvious.
It was also working.
I didn't know why it was working, but it was.
My fists tightened, then relaxed. I had to focus on remaining relaxed. Every part of me wanted to tense. When I loosened my hands, my teeth started grinding. I forced my jaw open and my legs were straining. I settled those ... and my fists were clenched again. It was like sitting in a dentist's chair getting drilled ... except my dick was rock hard.
That tongue hit me again and it was far more intense than it should have been. She was licking my inner thigh ... and my cock twitched. My pulse kept going up. I was breathing hard. I was confused.
Why wasn't she touching my cock?
Why was she going through all this trouble to arouse me and then ... nothing?
* * *
Yimshe had a hard time staying silent. She wanted to ask him what to do. What he liked. How he liked it. Only one thing kept her on course.
His penis was absolutely rigid.
She wanted to touch it, but a glance back at Pala got her a subtle double blink. No. Pala knew how to play this game, and she said no moving on. So Yim didn't. Yet, she was fascinated. She played her hands all around it, brushing her fingertips over the hard ridges of his abdominal muscle. She bathed his inner thighs with her tongue, but the only thing to touch his cock was the heat of her breath.
Yet, with only that, it strained and pulsed. She could smell his arousal along with his confusion. He was bewildered and a little afraid. The scent cues were all so familiar. It was something she'd noticed long ago; even across species, pheromonal cues were quite similar.
She felt a curious sort of satisfaction arise in her as she played her hands with as much delicacy as she could over his flesh. His taste was powerfully masculine and pleased her, but what pleased her even more was his increasingly obvious distress.
Yim was familiar with that distress. She loved it. By now she would be begging her tormentor for more but as yet, Taz remained silent.
His silence couldn't hide his desire. He was naked, bound, and powerfully erect. He wanted more. It was in every line of his body, every muscular spasm. He was sensitive and increasingly desperate.
Her satisfaction deepened as she felt a flicker of understanding. This was the pleasure to be had on top. To know and exercise control over the sensations and release of another. Taz was completely dependent upon her for satisfaction. He couldn't get it himself; he had to get it from her. She controlled his pleasure ... and making him want it was making her wet.
She imagined his plea, imagined running her tongue up the length of him. She pictured his frustrated desire as she cradled his testicular sack ... and it was something she ardently wished for, because even that would be just a tease. He would ask again for more, and she would give it.
If only he asked.
Her own fear of him bled away as she let her claws drift over his hips. His sensitivity was heightened. He was aroused and in her power. He wanted her, it only remained for him to say the words.
When they came, her ears perked.
"What ... do you want from me?"
It was an oddly vulnerable question, but not the one she was looking for. Rather, it revealed with the force of revelation that Taz legitimately had no idea what was going on. He didn't know what was expected of him.
All she'd done with all her teasing was force him to admit his ignorance ... but he wasn't asking for more.
As she considered how or even whether to answer, Yimshe decided to reward him just a little. Her tongue swirled over his sack, wrapping it all the way around as her eyes flicked up the length of his body.
He wasn't looking at her, but he groaned audibly — the first such sound he'd made — and his whole body flexed against the restraints.
She decided not to answer him. He had tricked and humiliated her in a way that damaged her credibility as a trainer. If he couldn't figure this out for himself, his suffering would go some small way toward repaying that debt.
Besides, she was beginning to truly enjoy herself. Playing his body as though it were an instrument was intoxicating in a way. It was different from her usual hedonistic desire. It was ... more complex, not as sensational, but still very erotic.
Now that she'd begun, she kept toying with his sack. It was very soft, and since they'd removed all the hair on his sex organs it was as smooth as silk, and very warm.
"This is ... verging on torture now ... you know? If you aren't going to tell me what you want ... I'm going to put a stop to this."
Yimshe considered her options, though she never let up on her play. After a few seconds, she lifted her head enough to meet his eye as she said, "I don't believe you."
"I ref-"
"Stop!"
He didn't finish, and the two stared at one another. Yimshe glanced back at Palashai but got no help. Her mother had her arms folded and was quietly watching, though Yimshe could smell that she was aroused.
Turning her eyes on Taz again, she said, "I don't believe you don't know what I want."
"This isn't like any sex I've ever had, Yim. I don't know what you want. My best guess is that you're tormenting me until I give up, and I'm at my limit. I see no reason to suffer any further."
Yimshe looked down at the rigid cock laying on his belly and ran the backside of her finger up its length as she said, "You call this suffering?"
"If left unattended, yes. In my language it's called blue balls, and it's quite painful."
"You have a disorder that will injure you if you don't orgasm within a time limit?" she asked.
His eyes flickered around, then focused on her as he said, "Not ... quite. But if you get me this hard and I don't get off at some point, that causes pain I'd rather not deal with."
"When did I ever give you the impression you couldn't get off?" she asked.
"If you don't tell me the rules of this game, then I will quit," he said through gritted teeth, obviously frustrated. "I can't do anything but quit, so start talking or I exercise that option. I'm tired of this."
A glance down proved it. His erection was at half-mast and fading. He'd completely killed the mood. Yimshe shook her head wonderingly as she settled onto her hip next to him, gazing at him absently as she thought about what to say.
"Relax. You don't have to say it. I'm not about to force myself on you," she said, more stalling for time than anything as she ordered things in her mind.
"That is quite possibly the dumbest thing I have heard anyone say since I woke up in this fucked-up place," he snarled, his body going rigid as he pulled his bonds to their extremes before relaxing all at once. "You already forced yourself on me."
"Pala proved you can stop either of us anytime you want. This wasn't force and don't pretend you can't tell the difference," Yimshe said. "I find it very hard to believe that you don't know what you're doing during sex play. I've looked at the records of you feeding Mauren. You were completely dominant."
"How?"
"You always gripped her horns, controlled her head whenever she was on you."
"If she bit me I wanted to be able to snap her neck before bleeding out. The rest of it was just hate sex."
"Hate sex?"
"I hate Mauren. I let her do that because if I don't she dies."
"If you hate her, why not let her die, or kill her directly?"
"She's useful. If that changes then believe me I will."
"So you're just using her?"
He blinked, giving her an expression she had trouble reading. His voice was incredulous as he said, "Using her? I can't use anybody. YOU people are using me. This is all just business."
She glanced down at his naked body, then back up into his eyes, one ear twitching questioningly sideways. He shrugged and said, "Stupid business, as far as I'm concerned."
"These are skills you need to learn."
"If that's true you need to actually fucking teach, not treat my ballsack like a stress toy."
"You didn't like it?"
"I ... can't say that."
"Why did you stop me then?"
"Because it felt like you were only doing it to frustrate me."
"What if I wasn't?" she asked, running a claw down his chest, watching absently as she stirred the hair that trailed down his abdomen as though on a path to his cock. "Don't snap at me. Think. What if I wasn't only doing it to frustrate you?"
She glanced back up to look him in the eye. He was silent, his eyes unfocused. She could only assume he was thinking it over.
Eventually, voice rife with hesitation, he said, "When I torture someone I want something, usually information. Sometimes, though, I need an admission, or confession. I can only assume you're looking for one of those."
His eyes shifted to her, looking for something in her gaze. Yimshe glanced quickly away from him, looking to Palashai with wide eyes.
The expression on her mother's face said, 'Handle it,' so she looked back down at Taz, though the fear that had receded while she played with him was back in full force. She said, "You ... torture people?"
He seemed to completely ignore her question as he glanced away. His voice was musing as he said, "You never asked me any questions I could answer to make it stop, so you weren't looking for information. A confession then ... but you hadn't asked ..."
Taz trailed off and his eyes locked on hers, which widened slightly. She managed to suppress her desire to pull her hand off his stomach, where it rested. He said, "You wanted me to admit I liked it?"
"That's enough," Palashai said, her voice quiet, but full of authority. "I've seen enough. He's physically capable, but emotionally stunted. Free him; continuing would do more harm than good. Meet me in the office, we'll discuss what to do from here."
With that, Palashai opened the door and stepped out of the room.
Yimshe looked after her a moment as she gathered her thoughts. She felt very small in that moment. Taz didn't want her at all. If he had, he would have been able to make the connection. To him, everything had been a purely sensory experience. There was no emotional element, no sympathy or empathy.
He wasn't dominant or submissive. He just had animal drive paired with a need for control.
It was disheartening in the extreme.
Yimshe activated her sub-dermal key and waved her hand over his restraints, which disengaged. Taz immediately whipped a hand up and caught her throat. His fingers dug cruelly in from both sides and she gagged as he brought her down until they were nose to nose. He then leaned up, and his grip on her throat forced her to bend cruelly backward. She raised her hands in immediate surrender, but if he noticed he gave no sign. His eyes were alien, but the way his lips were curled was an obvious display of naked savagery. He hissed, "You taught me something, now I'll teach you something. If you ever do anything like this again you better sleep somewhere I can't get to you, for the rest of your life. Lesson over. Do you understand me?"
She gave a long affirmative blink even as darkness closed in from the sides and what little she could still see started going gray.
Then he let her go.
She jerked reflexively away, fell off the bed, and skidded away on her butt until her back hit the wall.
He was standing next to the bed, and the way his eyes blazed as he looked down on her was as dire a threat as she'd ever seen. Despite the murder in his eyes, his voice was quiet and reasonable as he said, "I'll learn your games, but from now on you will clearly explain your lessons. I won't warn you again."
He pointed toward the open door as he said, "Get out."
Yimshe spun up on one hand as she whirled for the door, catching the metal dimple on her way out to slam it closed behind her.
Mauren, the succubus wrangler assigned to Taz, blinked in surprise as she looked down on Yimshe from only a few feet away. It was obvious she saw the trainer's distress, because she glanced past her toward the door as she said, "I take it the dom/sub lesson didn't go well?"
Yimshe shook her head, eyes wide as she took calming breaths to slow the mad hammering of her heart.
"Did he finish?" Mauren asked.
Again, Yimshe shook her head, then said, "Wrangler, if you go in there right now for a meal you might not come out again."
"What did you incompetent packies do?!" Mauren asked in exasperation, rounding on Palashai. "How hard is it to make a male beg? It's fucking simplicity itself!"
Yimshe growled, and when Mauren's golden eyes darted from her mother to her she did something she'd been taught never to do, and didn't look away. She glared at the succubus for a long second before she said without looking at her mother, "Never mind. You go right in. As a succubus, I'm sure you'll be fine."
Mauren's tail whipped and her wings flared as she stepped up to glare down at Yimshe from less than a foot away. She very deliberately took hold of Yimshe's chin and tilted it up and to one side. The forced movement made her bruised throat ache, and she knew the damage was still visible. Then Mauren let Yimshe go and turned toward Palashai as she said, "School your child. She obviously does not know how to address her betters."
Palashai spoke in an even tone as she said, "We are his trainers. You are obviously his toy. I've been around the games long enough to know when someone has fallen from grace, and you have tumbled far, Miss Mauren, to be subject to the whim of unproven livestock. If you ever condescend to my daughter again, I'll let her beat you like the forsaken corpo slut that you are."
"Succubi rise and fall, then rise again. By the end of the week I'll be on retainer for Liminal Science," Mauren spat. "With this little show of incompetence I can easily get you both replaced, then I'll have the pleasure of watching while the flesh is flayed off your bones in one fucking piece!"
Yimshe knew she'd made a mistake. She knew her mother had stepped in to redirect Mauren's anger so as to spare her daughter.
She also knew Mauren could very well deliver on her dire promise.
For one moment of satisfaction, Palashai would pay with her life. It might not be today, or even this year, but even if Director Chosen blocked Mauren's revenge for now Yimshe knew succubi delighted in scheming, and had long memories.
Taz's door slid open, and three sets of eyes turned to him.
He was still completely naked, but with the hair covering half his face Yimshe couldn't really tell what his thoughts were. He seemed completely calm, though the residue of his strong emotion was still wafting off him.
He glanced at Palashai, then at Yimshe, then finally settled his attention on Mauren as he said, "Did you want to feed? These two left me frustrated."
"I will happily fix that to our mutual benefit," Mauren purred. Taz stepped aside and offered a hand across his body, indicating she precede him.
Once Mauren was past he glanced to Yimshe, then Palashai, holding her gaze for a long second before turning to close the door behind him.
From the other side of that door Yimshe heard a piercing shriek, a grinding crack, then deep, ominous silence.
A moment later the door slid aside and Taz dragged Mauren's body out by one horn. He met their eyes again as he pulled the corpse to a seated position, set his hands on the horns, and the muscle all across his body bulged. There was a rending crack as one of Mauren's horns tore free.
Taz laid the body down, turned it, and put his foot on the head as he wrenched the other horn loose with a sickening crunch. That done, a spiraling ivory succubus horn dripping blood in each hand, he locked eyes with Yimshe and said, "Don't forget my lesson, Yim. I don't offer make-up classes. And you!"
His eyes found Palashai, glaring as he pointed a bloody horn her way and said, "You remember this. I just saved your life."
"I won't forget," Palashai said quietly, cupping her elbows with her palms. Her voice was even, and Yimshe was amazed that even now there was no fear in her scent.
Taz met Palashai's gaze a moment longer before turning to walk away. Instead of his fingers, he used one of the horns he had in hand on the door catch to slide it deliberately closed behind him.
He left the mutilated corpse behind, its broken skull dripping gore.
Yimshe slowly looked down at the body on the floor next to her. It was belly down, but Mauren's sightless eyes were open toward the ceiling. She had seen killings and dead bodies before, but never a succubus.
What was worse, she knew Taz would suffer no consequences. She could hear the summary newscast as though it were already playing: 'A succubus wrangler stepped into confinement with a poorly trained new livestock specimen against advice and was killed. As a unique specimen still undergoing trials he is too valuable to be put down, but the sponsor, Liminal Science, has pledged that additional training will be applied. For more on this particular specimen tune in to the season opener in six days, a week-long event that promises to be ...'
Her will faltered, her knees sagged. Pala caught her before she fell and turned her into a comforting embrace, holding her where she couldn't see the body. Yimshe shivered, and asked, "Why did he do that?"
Palashai drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly and said, "He was looking for an excuse. She gave him one and he took it, that's all."
"She didn't do anything to him."
For a time Yimshe didn't hear anything but the slow, steady beat of Palashai's heart. At last, her mother said, "She threatened his trainers."
Yimshe leaned away and looked up at her mother. The much larger woman's ears were forward and attentive. She had an expectant look that Yimshe knew well. She was to think about what had happened and draw a conclusion.
She did so, and after a moment blinked as she said, "You provoked Mauren on purpose, knowing Taz would do what he did!"
Palashai gave her a lazy affirmative blink. That was exactly what she'd done.
"How could you possibly predict he'd do something so extreme?"
Her mother turned her and guided her into the office on the far side of the suite, sliding the door closed behind the two of them. She then leaned against it to keep it from being unexpectedly opened as Yimshe took the lone seat in front of the monitor.
Palashai considered her for a moment, then said, "To be an effective trainer you have to learn about your trainee. Don't just read his files, watch and listen to him yourself. Taz is a killer. His default response to any problem is to turn the source of that problem into a corpse. He likes us and hated Mauren. I knew that if I goaded her into threatening us, he would deal with her in his preferred fashion."
"That's the second time you've said he likes us. How do you know that?" Yimshe asked. "He hasn't given us any cues."
"He sabotaged the showing to get us as his trainers," Palashai said.
"He just wanted to get under Director Chosen."
"He wanted that because he trusted my word when I gave it to him. Does he strike you as a trusting sort?"
Yimshe paused, then blinked twice and looked away. Palashai showed her teeth and said, "See? It's all there. What you as a trainer need to do is properly assemble the pieces. To be a good trainer, you must know your trainee."
"Do you know why he likes us?" Yimshe asked, head tilting curiously.
Palashai shrugged and showed her empty hands as she said, "No. I have no idea."