ALIEN STORY–8
Written by Juxian Tang
It was so strange to wake up in the room with somebody else. Iver was breathing almost noiselessly – and still I felt him at once. I glanced at him – his eyes were shut with flickering eyelids. This way – covered with the blanket – he practically looked simply as if he was sick: his face was only a little bruised and of wax transparence. His thin fingers were clenched protectively on the blanket under his chin.
I shifted and he stared at me at once – with his eyes so huge and dark that it made his face seem weird. I thought that now I almost didn’t see the real brown color of his irises – so much black they were.
I felt tired. I was getting tired more and more – as if I didn’t have these hours of sleep.
“Well, Iver,” slowly I seesawed my feet over the floor and stood up. “What shall I do to you now? Shall I let you stay in here? Or take you back to your apartments?”
He watched me carefully as I approached him.
“Whatever you want, sir… Darren…” his new manner calling me “sir” – it made me sick. He didn’t move when my toes pressed into his side.
“Yeah?” I looked down at him. “Really? Is it all the same for you? Dumb pussy! Is it all the same if you are here with me and nobody can touch you – unless I allow him to, of course – or if I leave you alone in the storage hold – it will be just to write “fair game” on your stupid forehead. I won’t be surprised if Hurluck already winces in impatience on the threshold waiting for you to be dismissed.”
His face was colorless. When he parted his lips to speak I interrupted him.
“I see. Your sloppy hole misses Hurluck, huh?”
“No,” there was not much life in his voice. “No, sir. Please, let me stay here.”
Locking my eyes with his I kneeled down. He stood my gaze. He knew I wanted it – and he was learning quickly.
“So, you prefer to be with me?” I put my palm across his face limply. He was not so feverish today.
“Yes, Darren,” he said hastily, trying to cover with swiftness the lack of emotions. “I like to be here,” he added softly.
I bet you do – I didn’t say it. I said:
“Feel a little better today?”
“Yes, Darren,” he repeated.
Then the blanket slid down from his chest. And when I saw it, everything was back. Not at all he looked as an ill man any more! I looked at him – feeling absolutely dizzy – and still unable to tear my eyes off of him. It was the point – I didn’t want to look at him – and I couldn’t stop.
He noticed my glare and instinctively tried to cover himself back. Too late. I yanked the blanket aside. Iver lay on his back and on his side partly, with his knees raised up and his arms crossed on his chest. And under my stare he slowly uncovered himself, stretching flat and spreading his hands on his sides. He was completely motionless – the only thing I saw was the slightest vibration on his tensed muscles. His toes were stretched down unconsciously.
“Oh, Iver,” I muttered wearily, searching his body with my eyes. “You are ugly. You are so ugly. Do you know it?”
“Yes,” he whispered back. “I know.”
“This is ugly,” I pointed to his trickling nipple. “And this is ugly,” now his bruises were of dark purple color. “And this makes me throw up,” I touched his swollen testicles making him shiver.
The sensation of his smooth skin pulsing under my fingers was so dazzling. I didn’t want to feel it any more.
“Flip over to your stomach,” I ordered.
I saw Iver's face quivering. If he was pale before it – now he looked ghostly. He moved his lips – as if he was going to speak to me. And then there were two flows of tears running freely from his eyes. He didn’t even make a sob – just started crying like this – silently.
It was so bad. So bad – almost unbearable. I moved fleetly. The back of my hand landed on his cheek with a loud slap. I saw him flinching. He looked frightened – and guilty – and he still cried. I slapped him again, causing a little blood on his lips.
“What, you filthy shit? What happened? Do you dare to disobey me?”
“Darren…” he started. I slapped his lips – as parents punish their children for speaking foul language. I didn’t want to hear my name from this whore’s mouth. I didn’t want to hear anything.
I backhanded him again and again, changing my hand when is was getting tired. His lips were bleeding copiously now. He moaned a couple of times – very shortly. The most time his head just tossed from side to side with my blows.
I stopped because my hands were hurt, not because he was passing out. His face was bright pink and so very hot when I gripped his cheek-bones. His agate eyes, still wet, looked at me mesmerizing quietly.
I squeezed his face like in pliers, closing my own face to him.
“You know what I’ll do with such a nasty bitch as you?” I asked. His lashes fluttered – no answer. “You are of no use – but I can take you to the crew quarters again, for the morning fuck of my friends.”
I didn’t wait for reaction. I flung him around on his belly, yanking him by his face and his shoulder. I felt my fingers getting wet – he had scratches on his shoulders and they bleed when I touched them.
I took the rope and twisted it around his wrists. There were the whole raw stripes there, left from the previous fastening. I wondered if the rope would sting in them.
Another bit of rope I used to tie his ankles. I spoke again:
“I have some business right now, you brothel litter. And the thing is that I want to watch while my friends will fuck you. I want to watch every their mighty thrust into your greedy hole. I’ll be back – and then we shall go.”
He lay face down, as I made him, without motion. I grasped his hair and pulled his head back almost as far as it went without breaking his neck.
“I’ll be soon, shitty cunt,” I whispered into his ear.
It was about half past eleven when I entered Neaf’s cabin. He was sitting in his arm-chair with an album of 3-D landscapes on his lap. Darloc was quite a grim planet – as far as I remembered – but – as far as I remembered again – Neaf was one of very few Darloxians who liked to surround himself with colorful things. Almost every inch of the walls in his room was covered with pictures. From here and there my own face looked at me on different stages of my life.
There were some other photos of me, taken nine years ago, which I knew Neaf had – but they were nowhere on the walls and he didn’t show them to anyone; only once he had shown them to me.
“Well, your notion about “in the morning” is quite original,” putting the album aside he looked at me; his long slit mouth was half-crooked sarcastically.
For a moment I felt a little uneasy; walking along the corridor I had thought about how I would meet him – and now I just swallowed hurriedly and said:
“Stormy night, you see.”
He smiled back. I sat down on my own chair here and set my boots on the table. I saw him pulling the album carefully farther from my soles.
“I supposed Wagr should participate in our conversation,” he stated.
“Okay…” I thought a little. “Why not?”
I watched him when he pressed the button and called.
“I bet they were speaking Darloxian,” he complained to me softly. “Never speak English when I am away – and even if I am here they try.”
I giggled. It was no more than a minute passed until we heard slapping steps in the corridor. Wagr’s tentacle reached from behind when I still didn’t see him and put a cup on the table in front of me.
“Hi Chthri,” he patted my shoulder. “It’s for you.”
“Rather nice,” I agreed.
“So,” Neaf was concentrated again. “What’s the matter?”
“It blew up,” I said.
They listened to me quietly while I told them everything. At last Neaf broke in.
“I’ve caught a transfer today,” he explained. “Transtellar Company sucked. Their shares dropped twice. And they are going to be prosecuted for not providing the safety of the flight and choosing wrong policy of negotiations.”
“And SSC?”
“Superstellar Company increased their sales for 30 per cent.”
“Rejoicing?”
“No,” Neaf shook his head. “Tomorrow is the day of mourning in the Empire.”
I pressed my lips tight. Wagr slowly swung his head from side to side:
“The humans. We, people of Darloc, never do anything like that.”
Oh, sure, suddenly I thought at myself grimly, you don’t. You don’t at all.
“And what do they say about Darren Grey?”
“The award is 5 000 credits either for alive or for dead,” Neaf winked to me. Not very jovially.
“I go up,” I noticed. “Last time it was only 1 500.”
“Last time there were no fifteen corpses dispelled.”
“Fourteen,” I corrected him mechanically.
“Fifteen, they said.”
Maybe, they were right.
“Well,” Wagr interfered. “And what’s now? It is dangerous for you to appear in the borders of the Empire, right, Chthri-Darren?”
“At least until something else happens, enough outrageous to wash my face out of everybody’s mind,” I answered. But will it? Fuckin’ SSC. They owed me. They owed me too much. Fourteen people to write on my account. Well, it was not that I kept accounts. And it could be said disputable if these fourteen were really mine. But it was not me to dispute here. Because I killed them – word perfect. The same as I was killing Iver now.
“And even then,” Neaf added. “You will hardly be able to try another hijack.”
“Why?” Wagr looked flabbergasted.
“Because,” I spoke easily, “do you know what they will do if Darren Grey captures another launch of hostages? They will send Alfa to annihilate the space sector all over – and a couple of others in immediate proximity. Why to bother about the negotiations if Darren Grey doesn’t fulfill his part anyway? Why to try to release the hostages if they are doomed?”
“Hmm,” Wagr said.
“Well, enough of it,” giving me a sidelong look Neaf changed the topic. Delicate as always. “The autodoc. We have it – and I took off from the “mailbox station” the message from the outsiders. They can be contacted for twenty more hours.”
“They are contented with the price?” Wagr quickly became optimistic.
“Yes,” Neaf said.
“Yes,” I agreed coldly. “If the autodoc is in order.”
“You are true, brother,” Neaf spread his tentacles – as if telling the inevitable. “We didn’t discuss with them taking a tampered thing. For the outsiders to get a surgeon-programmer is even more complicated than for us.”
The outsiders. The mutants, some called them. They were not a race. They were the trash of almost every existing race of the Interstellar Empire. At least, where there were the quotas for deviations implemented. And those who were beyond the quotas didn’t have any chances. No medical help. No surgical corrections. Except one – that deprived them the possibility to reproduce. As if it could stop the increase of their numbers.
I didn’t like the outsiders. Well, nobody liked them. And there was no “non-deviated” species they liked either.
I felt bad. The conversation – though I knew how important it was – I hardly stood it. I wanted to leave. To go back to my room, lock the door again and not to see anyone.
And, maybe, to have my dose. I must not do it, I knew. It was too soon. I knew I should keep myself away.
Besides, there was Iver in my room. The thought about seeing him again was suddenly intolerable. I didn’t want him any more. Not in any way. I just didn’t. I wanted to be alone.
I shuddered coming round. Neaf and Wagr both looked at me, repeating for whatever time:
“We have to check it before contacting…”
“All right,” I said quietly. “We will.”
“I wonder,” Neaf looked at me, “if you have the same idea as I do.”
“What idea?” Wagr darted his eyes from me to Neaf and back. I waved my hand a little.
“And what another idea can we have?”
Neaf was settling back in his arm-chair. His tentacles flew in the air in front of his face – as if veiling it.
“I thought you could have wanted to save this particular human.”
I clasped my hands under my chin.
“There is nothing left to save in this particular human,” I said.
“I believe it was what Chthri-Darren took it for,” Wagr added. “Right, Chthri?”
“Smart you are,” absent-mindedly I stroked his tentacle.
“And if it dies?” Neaf asked.
“Then the autodoc is tampered,” I replied.
“I hope it works,’ Wagr pressed his tentacles together in a copy of praying gesture. “A couple of thousand credits would serve us right.”
I felt so sick that I had to swallow quickly. I didn’t know if I wanted the autodoc to work. That was the point. I didn’t know.
“And we have to do it soonest,” Neaf added efficiently. “If we are going to contact the outsiders until they are in reach.”
“Right,” Wagr stood up. “I’ll see the thing to be prepared.”
It was not better when he left. I thought it would – but it was not. I felt Neaf’s limbs winding round my ankles in firm tender grips.
“All is going well, my Darren,” he whispered. “Don’t fret your mind. We will get out of it, believe me.”
“Sure,” I cut him short, yanking my legs down. He made a sharp hiss – I hurt his tentacles slightly. And I hurt myself.
“You’ll bring the human,” in business-like voice said Neaf.
Whether he dies or lives, I thought going along the corridor. No matter. Whether he dies or lives.
It was when I was very close when I noticed the door of my room opened. My heart sank while my steps became faster. I knew what I would see.
Iver had left.
The End of Part 8
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