40
When the door opened I glanced up, then blinked as I saw Director Chosen step through out of that yellow-and-brown hell she called liminal space. The door stayed open as she silently tossed a bracer to me.
I caught it, put it on, and followed her back out into that strange, endless world of meaningless walls and musty carpet. The buzzing of poorly connected fluorescents assaulted my ears, and I could only wrinkle my nose at the smell.
"Division Four has sold the rights to your music to Liminal Science at great cost. I've also gotten your value on the market frozen. Provided your music is as profitable as anticipated, you should be able to earn out within a few years if that is truly your wish."
"Straight to the point, huh?"
"This private time with you is very expensive."
Turning from the disturbing vision ahead of me, I looked at her and said, "Where's my copy of the contract?"
"You should know by now your signature has no validity of any kind in our legal system. Providing you a contract would be a gesture of meaningless deception, so I brought nothing."
"Then how do you expect me to work, knowing I may get nothing in return for my effort?"
"You'd have preferred a lie?"
I thought about that, then frowned and said, "Okay, fair. That still doesn't give me any motive to work for you beyond this SDM shit I'm already involved in."
Director Chosen spread her hands and said, "Taz, you're livestock. I can say anything I like to you, make any promise, and no one will hold me to any of it. I've wracked my brain but I can't think of any way to get you to trust me. If you have ideas, I'd be open to hearing them."
"How did my music get into the hands of another team, and why didn't you warn me?"
"Behind-the-scenes action is half of the nature of Sex, Death, and Money. This particular event is often used to launch the careers of promising starlets, and the music they perform is more often than not provided by writers from outside the show. Typically, they have what they need memorized before the season begins, but in this case another corporation paid to have your work stolen and performed so as to cripple your chances at success. I knew what happened as soon as the instrumentals for Miriam started to play, but that was still far too late to give you any warning ... not that you needed any."
"Do you know who it was?" I asked.
"Even if I did, the answer wouldn't do you any good. As it happens, I have no idea. It could be someone who has it out for Division Four, but it could just as easily be the executives of SDM proper. You're making waves, and not the good kind. The idea that you might win terrifies a lot of people who can read between the lines. A race like yours poses an existential threat to our way of life, but your abilities are also a powerful incentive to bring more people like you in. Ten of you could shift the balance of power."
Holding up a single finger, I said, "One of me can do that."
Her wings flared a bit, then subsided as her tail flicked and she nodded once. She said, "Yes, I believe that's true. Were you not in so public a venue, someone would almost certainly have terminated you by now."
I looked at Chosen, and she gazed back. The buzzing of the lights was the only sound as I struggled to think of some way to bridge the gap between us.
Unfortunately, I only had one idea.
Chosen was wearing a sexy black pencil skirt so tight that it rippled all the way to where it stopped at mid-thigh, revealing a lot of toned crimson leg. Above a solid leather belt was a filmy, pleated white shirt — long-sleeved — that she hadn't bothered to button past her belly, revealing the inner curves of an impressive chest and the black undercarriage of the bra holding her cleavage together. Her wavy, blue-black hair hung forward over her left shoulder, and the golden eyes and hartebeest horns did nothing to detract from her smartly sexual allure.
Or maybe they did, and I'd just spent long enough in this alien world to not be bothered by the details. I mean, one of my allies was a balloon shark for crying out loud.
At eight feet tall she was imposing, but when I stepped up to her she didn't hide the way her breath quickened. Her wings flared again and stayed out, cocked as though ready to fly away as her tail writhed half around her leg in a display of nerves she either couldn't or chose not to hide.
As I took this in, something in the back of my mind clicked, and I raised a hand, palm toward me, and crooked my finger.
To my vague surprise, she bent forward, cocked at the hip, and I gently laid my hand on the side of her neck and asked, "Do you think I should be terminated?"
She was definitely breathing harder now, her eyes wide as she looked into mine and said, "Of course not," with admirable calm despite all the body language I was reading.
"You're very trusting," I murmured, lifting my other hand to cup her cheek, locking her head in place as I stared into her eyes.
"There's a bomb-"
"I don't care if I live or die. You do. Right now, your life is literally in the palm of my hand. How does that make you feel?"
Her lips trembled, but she didn't answer me. I don't know if she could. Without letting her go, I slowly, deliberately looked down toward her tail.
It was visibly swollen and there was a delicate sheen on the tip, which was parted, pointed my way, and showing delicate, glistening inner folds.
Just as slowly, I lifted my eyes to hers again and raised an eyebrow as I said, "I think ... there might be a way for us to trust one another."
"O- ooh?" she said, the slight tremble in her voice revealing her increasing lust.
"Mmhm."
I lowered my hand from her cheek to her shirt, caught the first button that was actually done, then flicked them open one by one, my eyes never leaving hers.
Her lips were parted and I could feel her breath on my cheek. She seemed frozen, mesmerized by what was happening to her.
Once her shirt was open to the belt, I slid both hands into the collar at her neck, slid the shirt over her shoulders, then jerked it down to her elbows.
The fabric went no farther, obviously being held by where her wings protruded from her middle back, and it was loose enough that it wasn't a real restraint, but I noted that she kept her arms tight to her sides when I let them go and said, "Get on your knees, Director."
Hiding my surprise as she did it, I watched impassively as she looked up at me and asked, "What do you want?"
"I've been told my essence is strong," I said. "Is it true?"
"Ah ... according to the medical reports, yes?"
"Then I'm going to stand here, and you're going to taste it for yourself."
"I could take that any time I wanted," she said, ending breathlessly when I wrapped my hand around one of her twisting horns.
I softly asked, "Is that how it feels right now?"
As I spoke, I caught her other horn, staring down at her as I said, "I remember the last time I had a succubus by the horns ... do you?"
"Oh my fuck," she breathed, shuddering, and I heard a muffled thump that made me glance down. Her tail had hit the musty carpet and by the new stain there it had obviously ejaculated. This succubus was hardcore into danger, and I was pretty sure she'd just had an orgasm.
"Open my pants, take my cock out, and suck like your life depends on it, Director Chosen ... because it does," I murmured.
She shivered, but did as I bade, and to my own vague surprise I was as hard as rock as she took me out. Her lips were pillowy soft as she set them against the underside, kissing me with a curious delicacy before a serpentine tongue slid out, wrapped under my glans, and pulled me smoothly past those lips into a wet heat that got a low growl of pleasure out of me.
"Mmm, time is money, Director," I said, smiling grimly down at her. "The longer you take, the more you pay for the privilege."
Her eyes rolled back and drifted closed as she took me to the root with practiced ease, then began fucking me with her mouth. I've had a blow job or three in my life, but even Mauren had never done it this way. Drool was leaking from the corners of her mouth and her tongue had a good portion of me wrapped up. She was twisting me a bit as she slobbered and kissed the root again and again with a desperate sort of edge to her. I glanced down at her tail and saw the puddle in front of it was even bigger now. I said, "Give me your tail."
She started to pull off me but with one hand on a horn I pulled her down to the root again. Her eyes shot open and met mine as I said, "That wasn't a request."
With a muffled moan, her tail lifted shakily off the floor and I got the distinct impression she was having real trouble controlling it. So much the better. I held my hand out, palm flat, and kept her pinned to me as I watched. She did too, her eyes desperate as she flexed and writhed against me until finally, with a wet slap, her tail landed on my outstretched palm.
I eased my hold, and she started face-fucking herself again as I cradled her swollen tail in my palm. It was too big to really fit, but she kept it balanced there, its wet end drooling all over my wrist. Twisting my hand a bit, I put a thumb at the swollen, open petals near the tip of her spade and pushed it in.
Her tail had amazing internal dexterity, grasping and suckling on my thumb with almost the same intensity that Chosen was using on my cock.
Speaking of which, I was getting close. In just a few minutes, she had me on the verge and clearly knew it. The way she was sucking me changed. Deeper, slower draws, running the head of my cock across her palate, using the tip of her tongue to tease the slit.
"Finish me ... or I will finish you," I said quietly, and she groaned around my cock, sucked hard, and the spade of her tail abruptly sealed around my thumb and inflated. I could feel the fluids rushing around my digit and was impressed by how sensual it felt. It was alien, yet intensely erotic. She was cumming hard, and in the next instant, so was I.
My neck tightened until it made me shudder as my cock leapt against the roof of her mouth. She sucked so hard I wasn't sure if I was cumming into her or if she was sucking the cum out of me. Either way, she didn't spill a drop of mine, though at last the seal around my thumb seemed to burst as a flood of warm, almost hot fluid drenched my arm and side.
It wasn't until I began to come down from the high that I noticed both her hands were busy between her legs, and her pencil skirt was rucked up around her hips. Not only was she fucking my cock with her mouth and my thumb with her tail, she was frantically masturbating with both hands, and the shit-brown carpet of the liminal world had yet another dark stain on it from her effort.
I have to admit, it was really hot.
Once my orgasm was finished I pulled my hand away from her tail, slid both under her armpits, and hoisted her easily back to her feet. Remembering something I'd read about the way these sorts of control scenarios went, I carefully, gently pulled her shirt back up over her shoulders.
She stood in front of me, shivering, as I buttoned the buttons I'd loosed, then straightened her collar before stepping away from her. Chosen seemed like she was in a trance as she slowly, reluctantly pulled her skirt back down into place.
That done, I said, "I have something you personally want ... and you have something I want. Give me what I desire, and you can have more of it."
"You'll ... you'll make the music?" she asked, with each word seeming to regain more of her earlier presence.
I nodded gravely and said, "For now, we have a deal."
"I'll honor it ... in my own self-interest," she said, looking at me with a sort of quiet conviction.
Finding no fault in her apparent sincerity, I said, "Then we're done for now. I look forward to hearing from you again ... Director."