Sarah Finds Her Pioneer

This is an excerpt from A Queen From Eden, the latest novel in my erotic science fiction series.

*

"May I join you?"

The voice startled her out of a light slumber. She had come to this party over Oscar's protests. She had come in spite of the tabloid pages screaming about what had happened in the morning, some calling for her abdication, others proclaiming her a living saint. She had come in spite of the fact that she could barely walk, barely see, barely speak, so thick had the fog of fatigue grown, too thick for even the pins to penetrate. She had come because she needed to mingle. And now, no one would talk to her. After a few polite greetings, they had all drifted away. They were afraid of her, afraid to be seen with her. No one wanted an image of themselves chatting with the mad queen to be the next source of tabloid gossip.

"Sure," Sarah said. Too many drinks had slurred her speech. "There's plenty of room." Who was this man? He was a giant, strongly built, middle aged, grey hair and a hint of flab betraying his beauty. Powerful, cruel, attractive.

"You're not eating," he pointed out.

"I can't eat," she sighed. "It's useless. I just lose it later in the evening."

"Maybe," he said, "you need some semen. To help with your digestion."

"Some what?" She must have misheard.

"Some semen," he repeated, then added, with a little smirk, "I would be glad to assist you."

"You impudent ..." she hissed, and she tried to slap him. Even woozy, even a little drunk, she was still an assassin, one of the best. There was no way he should have been able to block her. But he caught her wrist, almost casually. Almost as quickly, three men had moved in behind him. Her men, her guards, ready to kill him at a hint from her. But he let go of her wrist, and she let her hand drop to the table that held her empty glasses.

"Is there a problem, my lady?" one of them asked, too casually.

"No," she said. "No problem. Not yet. The next time," she added, "stay further away."

"Yes, my lady." The guards retreated.

"A wise move," the man said.

"You could have killed them all," she answered. "They were in too close. They are far enough away now. They have their weapons trained on you."

"My lady, do you think I would travel without my own protection?" The man smiled again, but there was little humour in that smile. It was a grimace of ultimate power and arrogance, a smile that could overwhelm. He was trying to defeat her, just with the force of his will. I am the Goddess, she thought, I am the very Hand of Death, the destroyer of worlds. No mortal can withstand me. No one can see me as I truly am, and keep their sanity. And she smiled back at him, blazing with the full force of her true nature. He did not finch, his smile did not waver.

"Who are you?" she asked, abashed.

"You do not remember me? I certainly remember you. You are by far the most beautiful woman I have ever ..." he paused, searching for a word.

"Fucked?" she suggested.

"My lady, I was hoping to use a more delicate term," he smiled again in mock apology. "Making love did not exactly describe the situation. Having sex seemed too cold blooded, too clinical."

"Never mind," she said. "You were a client?" "One of your very first." He smiled again, but this time it was a soft, genuine smile. Goddess, she thought dizzily, I could love this man. Maybe I am falling in love already.

"You were much younger," he added, "and your hair was purple."

"Purple!" she gasped. "You're the pioneer!"

Goddess! She barely remembered his face. She hadn't been paying attention to his face. "You lost your accent?"

"Come with me," he said, his voice lilting now "be wife. Make babies." Yes, it was him! "The offer still stands," he added, reverting to his normal cadence.

"I'm still married," she answered, desperately twirling her wedding band.

"No you're not. You're just fooling yourself." He took her other hand, grasped it, not hard, but hard enough to keep her fingers still. "Your marriage was over before he went away. You know it. You just won't admit it to yourself."

"Who are you, to tell me that? How would you have any fucking idea what my marriage was like?"

"I'm someone who has loved you, ever since I," he paused, "met you. I'm someone who vowed to discover who you were, who promised to return to claim you."

"I am a queen," she said, "I rule this world."

"I rule a thousand worlds," he replied. She looked doubtful. "In the next galaxy," he added. "It's all mine now." A war, a big war, she thought to herself.

"An entire galaxy?"

"Most of it. Except for the transit stations. It's not that many people," he admitted, "a few people spread out over a lot of worlds. But they are all mine now. Sarah, sweet Sarah, your little commonwealth will never amount to anything. You're just fooling yourself there, too. You're sacrificing yourself, you're wasting your life, for things that are futile. Come with me, marry me. Together, we can build an empire that will last forever."

Yes, she thought, yes. This was what she needed. This was her destiny. But a doubt disturbed her. "You're a mortal," she said. "You can fix that!" he said too eagerly. "Let me become your eternal king!" They were talking too loudly. The guests around them were beginning to notice, to strain to hear what they were saying to each other.

"I can't do that!" she whispered. But then she wondered, could Jake do it? Did she have the power after all? "You can," he assured her. "You have the power in you still." Still? How did he even know that she had ever had it?

"You must remove the suppressor," he added.

"I cannot," she blurted, then caught herself. Not many people knew that Noah held the key. If this man thought she could remove it at will, let it stay that way. "I have made my vows," she added lamely.

"Vows," he snorted, "are made to be broken."

He wants my power, she thought, he wants immortality. He's dangerous, dangerous! But she could not tear herself away from that smile.

"I will offer you," she said, "one evening. Two, perhaps, if you please me." The smile grew crueller, bristling at her challenge. "But," she added, "there is something you must do in return."

"Improve your digestion?" he suggested.

"There is a woman, a dear friend of mine, who has vanished."

"Sister Mary," he said, without hesitation.

"I believe," she said, trying to remain calm, trying not to tremble, "that she may be found within your galaxy."

"If it is so," he said, quite solemnly, "I will restore her to you."

"Good. Now, signal to your guards to back off, no matter what happens. I don't want any blood spilled. Arrest this man!" she yelled. As he grimaced in surprise, her own guards overwhelmed him and dragged him out of the room.

"What was that all about?" Oscar came rushing over to her. "Do you know who that was?"

"No," Sarah said. She realized she had never learned the man's name. "He was drunk and obnoxious, that's all I know about him."

"That was Luther, Emperor Luther, as he likes to style himself. He's been making quite a name for himself."

"Really?" Sarah tried to project profound lack of interest. "Emperor Luther. What is he, one of those professional wrestlers? He's got the build for it."

"No, my lady, he claims to have a huge empire, a real empire, over in the next galaxy. Of course, how big can it really be? We estimate that the total human population in that galaxy is less that two hundred million. No more than one of your provinces."

"Spread out, though," she mused.

"Most likely," he shrugged.

"Well," Sarah said, trying to keep her tone even, "we'll let him cool off tonight. Maybe in the morning he'll have better manners."

******

"THIS," LUTHER SNAPPED, "is not what you promised me. This was not our bargain."

"Yes it is," Sarah answered. "Why do you think I am here?" She wrinkled her nose. The guards, had, perhaps, been too enthusiastic in their preparations. The room reeked of sweat and blood. "Did they harm you?"

"No," he admitted, "they were very polite." The blood, she realized, was on his wrists and ankles. He had been trying to free himself. The chain was long enough that he could reach the cot, the little sink and toilet, but not quite to the door where she was standing.

"You tried to escape," she said. "How foolish."

"I lost my temper," he admitted. "I was so enraged that you had deceived me." He was, as she had ordered, naked. More hairy than she remembered, not as blonde, thicker in the middle, but still magnificent.

"Deceived you? Not at all. I promised you a night with me. I never specified the details." She slipped off her robe and sandals. "Really, how did you think it was going to happen? I can't invite you into my hotel room. It would be all over the tabloids. Here," she smiled a chilling smile, "no one will be bothering us."

"Where are we?" he asked. He had been hooded almost immediately after his arrest, drugged into a stupor. He had awaked to find himself stripped off all his possessions, shackled in this windowless little cell. Never again, he had thought, never again! The horror came back to him in a rush, and he had tried to break free, not even beginning to think, until pain and fatigue had forced him into submission.

"Somewhere. We are in part of my private space, my secret space."

"I take it," he said, "we are no longer in Toronto?"

"That would be a good guess."

"You used a wormhole." She shrugged in reply . "Isn't that illegal, on this precious little planet?"

Another shrug. "It is forbidden," she said. "The secret police have their own private network."

"This is all illegal," he said. "You have no right to arrest me, no right to hold me."

"Don't talk to me about law," she shrugged again. "I'm a lawyer, remember? I passed the bar exam, first try."

"What about your precious constitution?" He was boring in on her now. Shackled, he was still attacking her. She should have gagged him, blindfolded him, left everything a fantasy. Now she was standing here shivering, trying to match wits. She already knew she was stupid, she didn't need another evening of humiliation.

"This isn't like you," he was taunting. "Doesn't this go against everything you're preaching, everything you believe in?"

"Isn't it odd?" she sighed. She sat down on the cot, within his reach, and he sat down beside her. "I've grown better, and at the same time I grown worse. Both at the same time, like a tree spreading out."

"How much worse?" he asked. Goddess! This was something she had never talked about, not to Oscar, not to Susan, certainly not to her children. The only person she could ever have talked to was gone, missing. And now this man, this possibly very evil man, was coaxing it out of her.

"You're a king," she said. "You know how it is."

"Yes," he said, "I know."

"There are things you have to do, decisions you have to make ..." she paused, unable to continue.

"It changes you," he said.

"I killed two men," she said, "when I was very young. I didn't have to kill them. It haunted me, sometimes it still haunts me. But now," she paused again.

"It gets easier," he said, and she nodded, mutely. "After a while," he said, "they lose their faces, you don't remember each one, you forget that each of them had a reason to live, people who loved them." She was starting to cry now. She wasn't going to cry in front of this stranger. She had come here to intimidate him, to force him to yield to her. "It's natural," he said. "It's part of being who you are, what you are."

"No," she said, "it's worse than that, much worse. Are you cold?"

"I've been very cold for a very long time."

"Let me see if I can do something about it." She went over to her robe and took her phone out of the pocket, spoke into it briefly. "Well, fuck you too!" she snapped. "Those fucking assholes!" she grumbled, draping the robe over her shoulders as she sat down on the bed.

"What did they say?"

"They told me it would be nice and warm once we got going. The nerve! The fucking nerve!" But she was laughing as she said it.

"They can talk to you that way?"

"The guards," she said, "have a special relationship. I wouldn't be queen, without the support of the secret police."

"They selected you?" he asked.

"Not exactly. But they supported the decision. They swore loyalty to me. They report to me and me alone. I wouldn't last a week without them."

"I thought you had a constitutional government now. A sign of weakness."

"I still control my guards." She smiled, a smile that few ever witnessed.

"You know who Stalin is?" he asked. She nodded. "He came from my part of Earth. He used to have his guards find little girls, kidnap them, bring them to him for the night."

"You think that I'm doing that?" she flared. "That I do this all the time? I've never done this before, never." He didn't say anything, but she could tell he did not believe her.

"You've been in this cell before," he said.

"No," she said, then added, "not this particular one." She took a deep breath. My God, he thought, in a sudden panic, she is going to tell me something that no one can know. I am never going to leave this little cell alive. "There are men," she said, "who want to kill me. Almost everyone loves me, but there are a few who hate me so much that they risk everything to kill me."

"Women, too?" he asked.

"So far, no women."

"How many?"

"Enough," she said. "At least one a week. Sometimes a couple in one day." He looked startled. "They come from all over," she added, "from all over the galaxy. Sometimes, they are captured alive, and they come down here."

"They go on trial?"

"No," she said. "If they can convince the guards that they are innocent, that they were arrested by mistake, they go free. The memory of their time with us is removed. It's easier that way, for everyone. The others ..." she shrugged.

"You execute them?"

"Eventually." The way she said it made the room seem even chillier. There was a long, uncomfortable pause. "After a while," she said, "I got curious. I wanted to know why people hated me." Another pause. "I wanted to know," she added, "if they were seeing through my veneer, if I wasn't fooling them, if they recognized how evil, how unworthy I was."

"And?"

"I came down to watch an interrogation. You have to understand, all the time I was working, I was the one who was bound, spanked, raped, humiliated. I was always the victim." The expert at being hurt, her son had said. "I never thought, I never dreamed ..."

"You enjoyed it," Luther said, "and you hated yourself for enjoying it."

"H'raak used to rape his prisoners," Sarah said. "He was an evil, evil man, not even a man, a monster." Like his son, my son, my beloved little birdbrain, she thought, and she began to cry. Goddess, what was she doing here? What had happened to her, to bring her to this place?

"His guards kept up the tradition?" Luther suggested.

"These men were going to die anyway," she said. "Why not? Why not?"

"You let it happen."

"I watched it happen."

"You wanted to join in," he said, and she did slap him, this time. Not too hard, bur hard enough to point out that he could no longer block her. "Pretty difficult for a woman," he added. "Catherine the Great, you've heard of her? One of my favourites. She used to look for nice looking guards. Or horses."

Improbably, her phone rang. "In your dreams," she said, more amused that annoyed. "Yeah, fuck you too."

"Who was that?"

"One of the guards. He thought that was a great idea."

Luther squirmed in his chains. "We're being watched?"

"Of course we're being watched. You think I'm crazy enough to come in here alone with you, with no one watching? Does that bother you?" It certainly didn't bother her. She had always worked with a monitor. She would have been terrified to think that she didn't have that safety net. "It's a lot more comfortable for me that way," she added. Except, of course, when a son has been looking at recordings that never should have been made public, when a son questions all of your sexual activities. She saw how he was wilting. "Are you scared?" she taunted. "If you wish it, I can leave, and you can spend the rest of the night wishing you could reach your dick."

"It's okay," he said.

"Good," she said. "Let's get started." She fumbled in the pocket of her robe, and brought out the device. His eyes widened in sudden alarm.

"Boje Moi," he said, "what is that thing?"

"A toy my husband got for me," Sarah said. "It's more that just a dildo. It's a prosthetic penis. You can actually feel what it's feeling. Well, you couldn't, you don't have the right plumbing on the other end. But I can." She stood up and slipped it into place.

"You raped them?" he said. "You raped those men?"

"No," she said. "Never, never. But ..."

"You brought me here, you tied me up," he stopped, snorting with laughter. "This is some sick fantasy for you! There's no reason we had to do this. We could have gone back to my hotel, to your hotel. We could have had a nice, civilized evening, made love like human beings."

"Made love," she snapped. "No! Never! Maybe we could have fucked nicely."

"You idiot! You sick idiot! You expect me to turn over and let you stick that into my butt?"

"No," she said. She pressed a few buttons on her phone, and the chain that held him began to retract into the ceiling. The restraints were beginning to tighten, to lift him up off the floor.

"Okay," he said, "I get the point. I'll cooperate."

She let chain go slack, and he stretched out on his stomach. She knelt behind him, and tried to enter him, but his buttocks were clenched tight. "Come on," she said, "I know you're very strong. What I want to know is how brave you are."

"Brave?" he said. "Brave enough to fight?"

"Brave enough to yield," she said. "If you want me, you are going to have to surrender."

"Fuck you!" he muttered, but he relaxed, and she slipped into him without resistance.

"Damn!" she muttered.

"What's the matter?" he said. "Not what you expected?"

"No," she said, "it feels wonderful. It's too easy, that's all. You're supposed to be screaming. In my fantasy, you're supposed to be screaming. You've done this before," she added.

"No," he said. She could feel him tensing. If it had been real flesh inside of him, it would have been squeezed right out. "Never. Well, some medical tests, but never for pleasure."

"No lies," she said. "You like it. I'll bet you went for a lot of those tests." She pressed up against him, feeling the hard little spot within him, letting it slide across the tip of the artificial penis. "Oh," she said, "a little large for a man your age. We're going to have to give you a thorough examination."

"You're good," he admitted. "You're very good."

"I haven't done this for a long time," she said. "My husband used to like it." Used to, used to. Her husband was history, very ancient history. Noah had been big, but not this big, strong, but not this strong. She rubbed her breasts on that strong, broad back and Luther began to tremble. She kissed his neck, and the shivers turned into one long spasm. She came then. It felt different, this way, so much sensation transferred out to her artificial maleness. It tingled, it glowed, but the final orgasm was centered back where it has always been. It had been a while, she realized, quite a while, since she had even had a hint of desire. This had been building in her, somewhere, silently, secretly. Now, at last, it was rushing through her body. She felt as if she was pouring fire into him, flooding him with her desire. Of course, the artificial organ could not ejaculate, but she could sense fluid pouring through it. Goddess! She was peeing into his butt! No, she realized, it was like that one time with Paula. It had never happened again, she had almost forgotten that it could happen.