13
I snuck a glance past Master Evan’s shoulder to see Master Damien standing several feet away looking annoyed. Everyone else also looked a little put out. I walked toward them with my head down and thought about what to do. They didn’t like it when I acted scared, so I had to act apologetic without being wimpy.
I remembered what Master Damien had told me. They wanted me to touch them without fear. It was decided, I would do what they wanted.
I looked up into Master Damien’s eyes as I approached him and put my arms lightly around his waist.
“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you, Master Damien,” I said leaving my face tilted to his.
I prayed he wouldn’t strike me or push me away.
The men from before were still standing around and they commented as I touched Master Damien. I just left my eyes on him. He kept his arms folded across his chest as he leaned down.
“Apologize to my brothers, just as you have to me,” he said and returned to his former position.
I apologized to Master Bane and Master Kein the same way. I approach Master Christof, slower. There was no way not to do this now. I slowly wound my arms around his waist and looked into his brilliant purple eyes; they looked wild.
“I’m sorry, Master Christof,” I said quietly and stepped back.
He had looked like he wanted to hit me.
Master Evan was right in front of me when I turned away from Master Christof. “You didn’t apologize to me, Ciara, and I had to go get you,” he smirked.
I put my arms around his waist and looked up to find his face inches from mine again.
“Why do you put your arms around us?” Evan asked.
“You don’t like me to use words from my first language,” I stuttered slightly unnerved at how close his face was.
“Just this word, then,” he said considering, “tell us what it is.”
“It is a hug, Master Evan, it is a sign of affection,” I told him.
He didn’t move or say anything, so I apologized like I had to his brothers. I tried to move away but he stopped me and grinned wickedly.
“You should kiss me to prove you’re sorry,” he said with authority pulling me closer.
“Brother…” I heard Master Christof say and I could hear the warning in his voice.
I had to get on my toes to reach Master Evan’s mouth. His lips were full and perfect for kissing, so I did. Master Evan’s blue eyes looked a little surprised when our lips touched. I loved the look of shock when I ran my tongue over his bottom lip, he wasn’t the only one that could taste.
I felt Master Damien pressing up against my back as he wove his fingers into my hair and pulled my head back slightly. “We were going to play a game of chuke, Ciara. You will come and watch us. That is, if you are done apologizing to my brother.”
“Yes, Master Damien,” I said smiling.
The look on Master Evan’s face was priceless. Women must not kiss them I surmised.
The men walked me out of the courtyard and into a vegetated area. It resembled grass, but was lighter in color. They left me kneeling in a small tent with several other slaves. I was told to stay on my pad in the grass.
The men all stripped, leaving their clothes in piles. The only thing they wore out onto the field was a small cup over their privates. Oddly, I didn’t see anything holding the cup on, it just stayed there. The twenty or so men already on the field cheered their arrival.
“Hello again, cousin,” came cheerfully from my left.
I grinned, glad to see a familiar face. “Hello Fuji, it’s nice to see you again.”
“Cousin, you can talk with us, but keep your eyes on your Warriors,” the warning came from my right.
I readjusted my gaze to see Master Bane looking over at me. He went back to the game a moment later.
Furtively, I took in my surroundings. I could make out tall walls on every side of us. We were in a field, but still inside their compound.
“Caution, cousin,” a voice hissed from my left, “you cannot run from this place.”
“They watch us,” another voice whispered, “if you keep looking around, they will come over here.”
“They like us to watch,” Fuji instructed. “When your men make a point you should cheer with them.”
I couldn’t run inside a walled compound. Since I was on an alien planet, running at all was seeming like a foolish thought. Instead I concentrated on what Fuji had said.
“How do I know when they make a point?” I asked watching the confusing display in front of me.
It looked like there were multiple balls in play and the men were running all over the place.
“Just cheer when your men cheer,” was the answer from farther right, “I’ve been watching this game for ages and I still don’t understand it.”
All the women in the tent laughed at that. Suddenly, Fuji rose up and jumped around, when she was done she knelt back down. Some men on the field had also been cheering.
I saw a ball pass to Master Evan and he threw it in the air shouting. The rest of my men also made a lot of noise. I’d played drums in the marching band, so I’d cheered in many football games. I hooted and hollered like back then.
“Perfect,” the voice from my right said, “they loved that! I’m Rose by the way.”
“Rose?” I asked questioningly, “Didn’t they re name you?”
“Yes, they asked for the name of the most beautiful thing on my home planet and that was the first thing that came to mind. I was so scared, it’s a wonder I didn’t end up with some horrible name. What did they call you?” she asked.
“It used to be Rachel, but I guess it’s Ciara now,” I answered her relaxing.
“Oh,” Rose sighed, “whatever you do, don’t say that again. They get really angry if you talk about your home planet.”
“Yes, thank you,” I answered staring blankly ahead.
Survival may be more difficult than I thought.
The conversation was pleasant with my new counterparts. I didn’t look over so I only knew Rose, Tamia, and Shi by the sounds of their voices. Out of the five of us only Rose and I were from Earth.
I learned being from Earth had protected me from being sold onto a planet where slaves were worked to death. That didn’t take long for a human. Earthlings were too frail for most other planets. Our needs for oxygen and water made us difficult to keep.
Planets like Pateria would pay huge prices for us. We were everything they wanted in a sex slave. Weak, intelligent, mostly hairless, and with compatible sex organs.
The men hadn’t been lying about me never going home. The dimensional portals the slavers used had trouble operating on earth, something to do with the atmosphere. It was getting harder and harder to acquire an earthling.
Pateria had developed a similar shield against the portals. At one point, before the shield, the slavers had tried to steal slaves back. Rose shuddered when she talked about it. The Warriors were fearless and deadly. The slavers that came had been massacred.
As we talked, I watched the game and dutifully cheered when it seemed appropriate. All the screaming was making me thirsty. I was relieved when I saw Master Evan come striding toward me with a jug.
He made an impressive site. His broad shoulders and narrow hips covered in flexing muscle. His skin was glistening with sweat in the falling light. Master Evan was the kind of guy I would have had wet dreams about. Back home a man like him never would have looked at me twice.
He fed me a long drink of the cool liquid while grinning down at me. I nearly choked when I got a good look at his mouth. His teeth had grown into long deadly looking sabers. He noticed me staring and set the jug on the ground.
Crouching in front of me he continued to grin. His mouth looked wicked and I couldn’t stop gaping at it.
“Do I frighten you, Ciara?” he asked teasingly running a finger down my arm.
I lied, “No, Master Evan,” as my breath caught in my throat.
He brought his face to within an inch of mine. “Will you kiss me now, human?”
I caught the dare in his eyes and just couldn’t back down. I placed my lips against his and closed my eyes. He didn’t attack me, so I continued to kiss him.
I forgot about my new friends sitting less than a foot away and got bolder. I slipped my tongue between his lips and touched those evil looking teeth. Master Evan didn’t move so I continued to explore his mouth and brushed his tongue with mine.
I pulled back to look at him and he was absolutely shocked. Master Damien was behind him a second later asking if he was planning to come back to the game or not. Still looking unnerved Master Evan followed him back to the field, throwing glances over his shoulder the whole way.
“Oh,” laughed Rose heartily, “you’ll do just fine here, Ciara.”
“I swear to you he grew a mouthful of fangs, I swear it!” I muttered back to her still surprised by Master Evan’s appearance.
“That is what happens when they get excited. They have a secondary set of teeth that grow,” Fuji answered happily. “Didn’t they have sex with you today?” she asked curiously.
I wasn’t really comfortable discussing that with four new friends and they thought that was hilarious. “If you haven’t noticed they aren’t really inhibited here, they are only wearing the cups to keep themselves protected,” said Rose.
“Yes,” I finally answered embarrassed, “but I wasn’t looking at their mouths then. They had me on my hands and knees facing away from them.”
“Oh, that’s rich!” laughed Rose. “I had forgotten about how paranoid they are at first. They think you’re going to bite them. They act like your nails are daggers. It gets old really fast. Just when you think you’ve got them cured, they go to a coupling and come back twice as crazy.”
All the women were chuckling at the inside joke. “What’s a coupling?” I asked trying to understand.
“This is going to sound odder than anything else you’ve heard today, so be prepared. The women native to this planet are… there isn’t even a word bad enough to describe them. They stand about nine feet tall and are covered in thick hair. Those fangs you saw on your Master are nothing compared to what the women carry and the women’s don’t retract. They also have vicious claws. To top it all off they can fly. They have these awesome leathery wings. The women here terrify the men.”
I sat watching the game stunned. Master Damien’s earlier comment made complete sense now. He didn’t mean I shouldn’t be afraid of them. His comment was that they could enjoy me without being afraid of me.
When I didn’t say anything Rose continued to talk. “The men here take turns with the women. Your Masters will leave you for several day cycles to go service the native women. All the men have to go at some point, there is a schedule. Sometimes the men here are kidnapped and held by gangs of women.”
“The Warriors protect the village we are in from other villages, but also from women seeking to take men. When a man gets taken the Warriors go look for them in the mountains. When they find them, they always come back skittish,” Rose finished and then rose to cheer her Warriors.