John looked like a quarterback in the huddle as he kneeled to examine Trev, the rest of the crew standing and leaning and waiting. “He’s alive. Not sure how exactly, considering the toxic levels of purification he’s inhaled. Hynerian physiology still eludes me,” said John as he looked over his shoulder directly at Kyra. “All I’m saying is, if he were Kulmykian, he’d be dead.”“What the heck did you just say? And what the heck is that?” asked Rog, pointing to the posy.With a gloved hand, John held the flower upside down as one might hold a rabid bat. “This is a thorn flower, native to Kulmyk. They’re quite rare. First time I’ve ever seen one outside of a book.”“What exactly is a thorn flower?” asked Von. “And how and why does Trev have one?”“I was about to explain the former. Someone else is going to have to shed some light on the latter.”“Sorry to interrupt. Carry on.”“Thorn flowers, when bled from the stem, or torso as it is called, exude a crimson sap that, upon contact with air, evaporates into a plume of rose colored mist. If used in the right way, which is to say inhaled in the proper dose, the user experiences clarity of thought, a purification, so to speak.”“Explain what you mean by purification?” asked Kyra.Before John could answer, Mairi blurted out, “It was suppose to bring clarity of thought, a cleansing she said, of all the abuse he suffered at the hands of Sal.”Everyone turned toward Mairi. Kyra spoke: “Go on.”“Trev got himself in over his head with the wrong crowd back on Kulmyk. What was suppose to teach him a lesson got out of hand and he was sexually and psychologically abused to within an inch of his life by a woman named Sal, who worked for Lil’ Twilight. Lil’ was horrified. BC, her boss, wanted Trev dead, something to do with the credit chip they had stolen from him, you know, the one John gave each of us. Lil’ intervened with the muscle, bought them off, or so she said. Still, they beat him to a pulp and left him to die, although they did knock on my door before leaving.”No one moved. No one said anything. Mairi took a breath and continued.“Anyway, before we left, I had a visit, from Lil’. She asked about Trev, said she was sorry about what happened, that he didn’t deserve it, and then gave me a box. Said, I should give this to Trev, that there would be instructions inside. She wanted me to make sure he understood it came from her.”“So you knew?” queried Rog. “You knew.”“Frail you.”“Rog, that’s enough,” said Kyra.“She knows more that she’s telling.““This is neither the time nor the place. Mairi, please continue.”“So I gave the box to Trev, told him it was from Lil’, that it might help, if he needed help.Several blank stares appeared like judges."What? I didn’t know.”“I believe you Mairi,” said Em, breaking the awkward silence with a tone of voice best described as clean. “Trev shared the same story with me. He told me about the flower and asked what I thought. I told him I thought it was a crutch, that he didn’t need it, but at no time did I know, nor did Trev imply, that using the flower could be dangerous in any way. I had the impression when he left that he wasn’t going to use it.”Mairi glowered at Rog. He made faces back.“Okay,” said Kyra, “let’s get him into sickbay.”“Ms Kyra,” commed Goldie.“What is it Goldie?”“We have an incoming message. Says his name is Tom.”Rog looked at John. “I thought you said we were stealth?”“Thought we were.”“Well, obviously we’re not?”“You think?”“John, join me on the bridge,” commanded Kyra. “Rog, get Trev to sickbay.” Looking at John she said, “This is not good is it?”John sighed. “Hard to say. Does kinda change our plans though.”Kyra put her hand on John’s shoulder as they quickly walked to the bridge. “I never expected that plan to survive first contact. Was a nice thought. Do me a favor.”“What’s that?”“Keep an eye on Rog. He’s been acting very strange lately and I’m not sure why. We’re going to need him and need him focused.”“I think I know why,” said John.“Well? You gonna share?”“It appears Yul may no longer be in remission.”“You’re shiotting me?”“I was just examining her when we got the call about Trev, so I can’t be certain, but Rog seemed quite agitated during the exam.”“This is good news.”John stopped in the corridor. “Come again?”“The law of averages. The way I see it, we’re due for a stroke of luck. I mean, what else could go wrong?”
The rain came. It would not stop. Trev pointed the pistol at Sal's head. She didn't move. Without blinking, he pointed the pistol at his head. He pulled the trigger. Voices rang. Boots chattered. Sal stared. Trev was gone.
The badious leather table supported Trev’s torso, his feet and hands secure in their respective stirrups, his eyes fixed at a forty-five degree angle to the floor. Between torso and stirrups were smaller accoutrements to support the legs without hinder. Designed to allow access to those parts deemed necessary while fully supporting the client at hand, the table was the instrument most requested within the house. Trev was not given that option.
Sal slowly turned a smallish luteous
wheel under the table and Trev heard a series of audible clicks, what sounded like the screech and clap of a metal ratchet. Each sharp click matched the throbbing in his chest as he realized his legs were slowly being spread. Exposed and hanging, fearful and wanting, mind racing, heart pounding. “Keep breathing my delicious,” said Sal as her hands took the measure of tightness firm. “First time, I see.” If Trev could have turned his head he would have seen her creamy smile, rich as lust, brimming with purposeful anticipation.Trev tried to speak, his lips moved but no words came forth. She had placed a small round silver device, no larger than a dime and somewhat cool to the touch, on the back of his neck that held the vocal cords at bay. As her fingers begin to probe, his fear of the unknown, a fear tinged with lustful expectation, gave way to a flood of emotion too complex, too muddled, to convoluted for this drugged mind to sort. Yes and no, right and wrong, shame and lust wrestled such that where one was the other soon took its place. “Relax my pretty. I don’t want to hurt you, but I can, and I will.” Trev tried to speak again—nothing moved but the bulging veins on the side of his neck. Sal moved to the head of the table, allowing her nails to lightly trace a path from tumid tautness, over the roundness of hill and the curve of valley to the device. Circling the metal with her finger she said, “You’ll speak when I’m ready to hear you call my name and beg for more or is that curse my birth, defame my mother and pray for mercy. Besides, the room is sound proof, Lil’ has turned off your comm and no one knows you're here. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but I have a very strong feeling that you didn’t tell anyone you were coming here.” Sal’s nails bit into the back of his neck drawing forth a small crimson worm that fell with gravity to the cold cobbled floor below. “Now shut the frail up and do what I say.”Trev closed his eyes as if shutting out the world would make it go away. “I don’t often get this privileged. Give yourself to me, and, well, we may have a mutual experience. Resist,” Sal hesitated, “well, let’s just say I’d rather see you walk out of here. But make no mistake; don’t much matter to me either way.”Categories: Story, Trev, Sal
Sal held her grip, neither firm nor slack but just held it as one would hold a beating heart, listening to life throb, luxuriating in dominion as queen to slave . Leaning forward, naked curve on naked curve she bit Trev’s lobe, her long black hair falling as curtains on either side of his auditory orifices. “Breathe. Just breathe.”Trev sunk deeper into intoxicated clarity, a sensual landscape beyond the vial, beyond letters and art, beyond words or even images; bound not of leather and steel but of essences of body and mind unspeakable. “Better,” whispered Sal, an aroma of lust on her long tongue as permissive hands and fingers began again to move with intent of pure unadulterated presentness. Categories: Story, Trev, Sal
Trev, prone, naked and secured by ankle and wrist, swallowed the fifth sip, with a little help from Lil’s firm hand fisting his hair. Sal moved to his prostrated rear and slapped her tight and taut boy like a farmer slapping a side of beef. His flesh was warm, unlike her own species; and he had an instrument, full and ripe, alien and exotic, that seems to pulse and throb and hang with a certain sense of living heft as if his heart were in his arse rather than his chest. Mairi sat with the quiet patience of a weary cat in a sunny window, content to let Yul sleep as long as she liked. The operation, the doctors had said, somewhat nervously, had gone better than expected. More tests would be run later, they said. So she sat and rubbed her head but succor eluded the feeling of being sunburned from the inside of her skull. Dr. X promised she would heal, fully. She still thought he was a complete bastard.John played the signal again. Rog listened. John looked. Rog listened some more with the look of a school boy trying to convince his teacher he knew the answer when he really didn’t. John played it again. Rog, blessing his own hide, yelped for effect, and did a little dance; his eyes shown with recognition fueled by hope. John just shook his head.Ariel crawled into Cait’s lap, the soft light of a reading lamp holding the pair in the warm repose of mother and child. Cait held back a sigh as Ariel nestled in tight to her chest, pushing her little head and primrose hair into the twin softness of living pillows. Turning the page, she read slowly, trying to lose herself in the story, trying to crowd out the anger in her heart until she heard her daughter sigh and she realized she had not turned the page for quite some time.+My dear friend, we meet again.+Kyra opened her eyes as one to light after many days in a cave. There was a voice, but no one was there. She looked for Em and Von but they were not there either. The room was white and rather bright, the edges fuzzy and from somewhere in her heart, she would later swear, was a taste of things past and a remembrance of things to be.“Kieran? Is that you?”Categories: Story, Kyra, Trev, Mairi, Yul, John Discovery, Rog, Lil’ Twilight, Ariel, Cait, Sal
“Who is it Sal?” asked Lil’“Says his name is Trev,” shrugged Sal, Lil’s frontdesk bulldog. Sal had more than eighty years in the industry and normally wouldn’t have given Trev’s request the time of day, but there was just something about the look on his face that made her pause. He looked familiar, but then, after awhile, all the clients looked about the same in the dim light. Still, wasn’t often she felt the need to stare a little longer than necessary.“Trev? I don’t know a Trev.”“Well, says he knows you. Called for you by name.”Lil’ laughed. “Come here Sal. You know my name isn’t exactly private. What’s up? Why are you bringing this to my attention? Come on?”Sal grinned. “You know—““You want a favor, don’t you?”“Now, I didn’t say that.”“I can see it in your eye Sal. You want to take some privileges with this one. Maybe slip in after he is secured and blinded. Come on, just say it.”Sal smiled. She saw every client they serviced. And she had access, at least with most, to the view whenever she wanted. But to participate, well, that was a different matter altogether. “Okay, I wouldn’t throw him to the moon for eating crackers, and it has been awhile, but—““I knew it. Show our friend back. I’ll see what I can do.” Lil’ looked in the mirror, straightened her hair and noticed Sal was still there. “Why are you just standing there? Move. I wanna meet your little friend. Who knows, I might be interested in this one myself.”Lil’ moved to the front of her desk, her trademark destearian glass jacket, riding just to the top of her hourglass hips, clinking as if in tune. She crossed one long leg over the other, parted her lips just enough to catch the eye and ran her fingers through her primrose hair. Not often had Sal ever made such a request. Got to keep the hired help happy, she thought.Trev walked in with Sal in tow. Lil’ looked up. “Damn, it’s you! I knew you’d be back. Hey Sal, this is Trevor.”“Really?” Lil’ ignored her. “Come on in Trev. Please have a seat.” As he started to walk she added, “Oh Sal, that will be all.”Lil’ moved to the sofa beside Trev, her light blue glass jacket revealing more than the eye could see but less than the imagination would admit. Her skin, natural or not Trev could not tell, shimmered porcelain white in the bluish reflections of the waves below, just a hint of gold dust on each cheek rising to either side of her perfectly shaped crimson lips. “I was wondering when you might return? Few can resist the waters for long, especially after their first indoctrination.” Trev had spent the better part of a week working up the nerve to come back only to see it all washed away in the melodious tone of Lil’s voice, like warm honey on a summer day he would later describe it. Sitting next to Lil’, alone, in the dim light, her perfume neither too strong nor too light, a hint of smile on golden cheeks, well, it was just all too much. He looked straight ahead and his brain was telling him he was looking at her autumn eyes, which seemed to smolder in hints of deep browns with flecks of subdued oranges, but where his eyes were pointed and what he saw were two different things, and he wondered if she knew--didn’t take long.“You happy to see me or did you just forget how to blink?”Categories: Story, Trev, Lil’ Twilight, Sal
John looked like a quarterback in the huddle as he kneeled to examine Trev, the rest of the crew standing and leaning and waiting. “He’s alive. Not sure how exactly, considering the toxic levels of purification he’s inhaled. Hynerian physiology still eludes me,” said John as he looked over his shoulder directly at Kyra. “All I’m saying is, if he were Kulmykian, he’d be dead.”
