Thirst

Corporal Job frowned as he watched the update on the vidscreen mounted to the wall of the general's private quarters. The news from the Kuiper asteroid belt wasn't good, as usual. The Drinkers had developed a new weapons array, as usual. Many lives had been lost in the initial assault near Neptune, as usual. But scientists were busy at work on new defense strategies, as usual. While victory was not yet assured, the inhabitants of Earth would most assuredly live to fight another day. As usual.

The girl continued to thrash on the floor on the other side of the general's desk, but the extra straps seemed to be sufficient for the time being.

"Any minute now," he said to her sheet-wrapped body. It wasn't normal for the general to run late. Precision and punctuality were core chains in every officer's genetic code, including his own. As well as less obvious DNA strands

Job granted his mind the rare privilege of wandering, and wondered if he would live long enough to be promoted to a command assignment. He could get used to this level of personal accommodations. Not to mention the fringe benefits, he noted as the girl screamed uselessly into her gag.

Not much had changed in his lifetime. Almost a century had passed since the arrival of the Drinkers. Make that "inescapable presence became known," he corrected himself, since they had been lurking around Earth for thousands of years. But most people had been blissfully ignorant until that fateful day in 2005 when the old governments confessed everything. The pyramids. Stonehenge. Crop circles. Roswell. UFOs. All true.

The feds had long known that something was out there, and that something was very interested in this particular planet. But it wasn't until their gigantic tanker parked itself over the Atlantic Ocean and started sucking that they finally understood.

He clicked the screen to "receive," then stood up and stretched. Coated in white linen from head to feet, the girl looked uncannily like the old-fashioned missile that had taken down the first tanker. It had been a day more infamous than every political assassination and terrorist attack combined; the suddenly-united militaries of the world tried to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors, but received no response except more thick cylinders snaking down from the hull of their tanker into the sea. Finally, a pilot from what used to be called China got anxious and fired a Vympel air-to-air at the huge spaceship, which promptly exploded into a billion shards of whatever had been holding it together.

Unlike the leather belts cinched tight up and down the length of her body. Why upgrade things that worked just fine? Especially when there was so much that desperately needed to be invented. Like an antidote to the global warming the Drinkers had unleashed in the 1970s. Scientists reasoned that ice was just too difficult to load.

Bored, Job picked up the girl's scancard again and stuck it into the viewslot on the general's desk. Nineteen years old; bred once; breasts too small to be a successful Milker; reassigned to the front lines as an anal Comforter; caught trying to escape the transport before it departed for Mars, which resulted in an immediate "non-essential" designation...in other words, your basic organ cow.

"Lucky you," Job deadpanned to the squirming tube of cloth-entombed flesh on the floor. "You got yourself a sugar daddy who thinks your kidneys are more useful inside you."

Officers like him and the general literally had the weight of the world on their shoulders. And they couldn't help their genetic code. In fact, biologists had drawn a direct link between military leadership and the overwhelming need to dominate sexual partners. What they used to revile as "deviant" was now a much-desired character trait. DNA research also helped identify people who were predisposed to submit to such acts, so everyone who chose that particular file in the folder went back to work smiling.

"Corporal Job, please acknowledge and reply," the wall speaker bleated as the vidscreen flashed back to life.

"Corporal Job, present," he spoke crisply to the image of a colonel he couldn't place. Must have just rotated onto the general's staff. Poor bastard was probably orchestrating recon missions around Europa, although they surmised that the Drinkers had drained whatever water had been on that particular moon of Jupiter centuries ago.

"The general wishes me to convey his regret that circumstances beyond our control will prohibit a timely arrival at his personal quarters. He also asked me to inquire of the condition of his package."

"Still wrapped, colonel," Job responded.

"Very good, Corporal Job. The general requests that you attend to any physical requirements of the contents while awaiting his arrival at 2200 hours."

Job sneaked a glance at the clock on the wall that read 1138.

"Ten-four, colonel."

"Carry on, Corporal Job. Out."

Ten fucking hours. Oh well, Job figured it could be much worse. The general lacked for nothing in terms of creature comforts. Then again, nobody really did. Nobody male, anyway.

He shuddered as he imagined what happened in the breeding centers. It had been decades since women had been given complete control of the process. Sperm was carefully harvested from superior donors, but that was as close as men got. As children, they were indoctrinated with the same fairy tales about pride and duty and necessity in the face of global adversity. Everyone has a special talent. Girls make babies. Boys died, unless they were predisposed to order men to their inevitable deaths. The prime directive, like they used to say in that old television show, the one where the aliens at least had faces.

Job had always heard the rumors about the general's collection of antique implements, the ones that got him banned from even the most lenient pleasure stations. But someone somewhere had decided that refusing his urges could lead to clouded judgment under pressure. So they set him up with a private Comforter. Even though exclusive personal relationships were rarer than an uncorked bottle of pre-synthesis wine.

He started opening cabinets at random. Some casual clothes. A collection of books on paper. Several antique riding crops, the kind military commanders used to carry even in the 20th century when horses had already begun their slow descent into extinction. Job had been taught that natural leaders had always carried the gene, even when it hadn't been socially acceptable. Not like today, where sexual cruelty was a one-way ticket to what passed for royalty in their supposedly-classless society.

Must be getting warm, Job thought when he found a neatly-organized bin of old-fashioned padlocks in the next drawer. He picked one up and admired its mechanical simplicity. Self-sealing metal was certainly more trustworthy, but there was something to be said for the old ways.

"Oh, be still," he barked at his captive, who had begun banging her heels against the floor. "Believe it or not, you've already been rescued."

Most of the women who weren't selected for breeding always seemed lost, especially once their tour of duty in the pleasure station ended. They counted the days until they were old enough to become Nurturers and finally got to raise the babies they were denied. Brainwashing was more like it. But without a family to provide context, children had to have something to believe in besides a world without deadly parasites lurking behind every cloud.

This ingrate doesn't realize the importance of her new role. Job was tempted to unwrap her head and give her a lecture about putting one's personal needs aside for the greater good, but she's probably heard it every day since she can remember. Some people just didn't get it. Even though organs were always in short supply.

One cabinet to go. Did the general keep his equipment on his transport? Job couldn't imagine such a luxury. Not when every kilo in space was monitored with ruthless efficiency. Somehow, Job couldn't imagine being able to justify a duffel filled with heavy nipple clamps like the ones he had seen next to the padlocks.

Then again, the general always seemed to get what he wanted. No, make that needed. Nobody is allowed to want anything except peace. And a decent orgasm.

The latter fueled the former. Pointless to deny the obvious. Guilt-free sex was about the only good thing that had happened during the entire fucking century.

Job smiled as the panels of the cabinet slid down to reveal a president's ransom in museum-quality leather products. Cuffs for every limb, cunning binders, an extensive collection of gags, some kind of harness that looked like it was designed for a small pony, even several corsets bristling with laces, buckles, zippers and hasps. Most men made do with the fake restraints and plastic devices provided by the pleasure stations. It was highly unusual to find someone who went to the trouble to do it right like this.

And today, he was going to have the unique opportunity to find out if such obsessions justified the effort.

Job recognized the suspension cuffs from old screengrabs of women hanging from their ankles. Just the thing to stop the girl from making such a racket with her feet. And he wasn't the least bit surprised to see a maze of solid metal tubing criss-crossing the general's ceiling.

Precision. A dedication to doing things properly. The officer's creed.

The woman kept thrashing while he unwrapped the cloth up to her knees, then joined her ankles in the cuffs with two of the general's padlocks. While he would have preferred a stout length of chain, a reinforced packing strap was probably safer as a means of support. Especially given the lift load.

Job hoisted her into the air and hooked the end of the metal-laced band to another iron bar that ran across the length of the office wall. He thought it funny that he hadn't noticed the usefulness of the general's décor. Visitors probably presumed he had trouble walking because of a combat injury. One of the lucky wounded who was allowed to continue living.

After a few minutes, her struggles subsided to a pathetic shrug. Job took his time uncoiling the rest of the sheet from around her body, confident that the security aids around her wrists and mouth were more than sufficient to keep her pacified.

He couldn't figure out why the general specifically requested her after a single session at the pleasure station. Her muscles taut from the suspension, she was suitably slim, yet childbirth had widened her hips and enlarged her breasts appreciably. Her flaming eyes telegraphed both fear and disdain...a most worthy challenge for the man charged with channeling those exact emotions into a winning strategy against a celestial cunning that valued water above any other substance in the universe.

No one was sure what the Drinkers looked like, or if their ships were even manned. Some speculated they were piloted by remote control from billions of light years away. Others thought they were a race of machines that needed water to create biological life forms to inhabit. Or maybe it was one of the old gods fulfilling an ancient prophecy. But nobody really believed in mythical deities anymore. Not when the real thing took out the entire population of Australia in 2047 to use the island as a landing platform for their tankers.

Puzzled about her anal designation at the pleasure station, Job probed for clues. Her ass was certainly perfect, but it seemed like such a waste to specialize her for such a rank desire. Anal was usually the last stop on a woman's tour of duty, given how quickly the sphincter muscles stretched following repeated encounters. After a few minutes of exploration with his fingers, it was obvious her rectum still had the tensile consistency of an automated vacuum seal.

Since her DNA didn't indicate submission as a defining trait, there must have been another reason she attracted the general's attention. Something off the grid. Something worth discovering.

Definitely not her mouth, he decided after he replaced the self-modifying synthetic between her teeth with one of the general's old-fashioned leather helmets that boasted extra straps he could buckle tight around her lips, cheeks and chin. He doubted whether she should ever be allowed to speak again, given the stream of curses she spat at him. Officers don't take well to insubordination. Unless it makes the game more entertaining.

Maybe her odd classification had something to do with her nipples. After a thorough squeezing, Job attached a pair of the general's more interesting clamps and tightened them until her knobs bulged like eyeballs on a low-gravity moon. Very nice, he noted to himself. But again, unexceptional.

Nine hours to go. While the vidscreen droned on about the importance of scanning the skies vigilantly for unusual light formations, Job lowered the girl back to the floor, then hoisted her up on the general's desk, where he added a pair of leather cuffs to her wrists.

The way she arched her back and squirmed on the smooth Corian surface made him rethink a spread-eagle position, so he dug out a special leather belt designed to cinch the waist of the wearer while providing a wealth of rings for attaching body parts with padlocks. After a few experiments, he settled on a pair of leather mittens that extended all the way to her shoulders as a replacement for the wrist cuffs. By crossing them over her torso, then connecting her wrists to the center of the belt and her fingertips to their opposite elbows, he significantly reduced her mobility. Thigh cuffs and more packing straps completed her new bondage, with her head pinned over the edge so she was forced to blindly stare at the ceiling with her legs spread painfully wide for his languid inspection.

His fingers traced the outline of her curves with a single fingernail, creating waves of goosebumps on her naked flesh. How he hated the damned timers at the pleasure stations. Mustn't be greedy, they were always told. No matter how much emotional sustenance his soul screamed for, from his first memories in the nurturing dorms to his empty bed this very morning, it was never enough.

He directed his attention to the mound of pink flesh bisecting the tops of her long legs. Body hair was a distant memory for practically everyone, except those who had a fetish for such things. Nobody would dream of denying a working man his one pleasure in life, even if it meant hormone injections for some unlucky Comforter.

Job stroked the woman's labia gently. Such a large clitoris. Rare to see one become so engorged so soon. And she's so moist, she's literally dripping.

He maneuvered a finger between her legs and brushed it gently against the swollen lump.

A stimray on its highest setting couldn't have been more effective.

He had never seen anything like it. Her vagina contracted so hard, it sucked in a huge gulp of air, then expelled it violently.

Even the most extreme sybarites didn't react to stimulation like this.

Grinning, Job stood up straight and reached over to unclamp one of her nipples, which resulted in another intense reaction below. Even more forceful, if such a thing was possible.

Apparently, it was, as the removal of the second pincer more than adequately demonstrated.

The travails of a planet under perpetual siege suddenly seemed very distant to Job as he began to search for suitable tools.

First, he added as many of the general's leather restraints as he could find, including cuffs above and below her knees, a stiff collar for her neck, a belt across the top of her chest, and more straps to hold her body flush against the mottled marbled surface of the desk.

Things are going to get a little wild, he realized as he stuffed a towel under her ass and smoothed it flat between her outstretched thighs.

The smooth leather grip of the riding crop felt almost delicate in his hand. Job could see how some men looked at these implements with the same reverence knights once accorded their swords. It made him regret not taking up fencing as a suitable diversion to while away long hours in space.

He had never been one for spanking his pleasure-station partners, although many Comforters specifically requested such treatment in their dossiers. However, he had been well-trained in the basics of a proper whipping as part of his officer's training. Start slowly on less-sensitive body parts, like breasts and thighs, he recalled. But the slightest tap anywhere sent the girl into more convulsions.

She's a veritable orgasm machine, Job marveled as he glanced the lash softly against her clitoris. Imagine a pussy like that wrapped around a man's...no, make that your dick, Corporal.

Too bad the engineers couldn't figure out how to harness power like that for the next generation of drone fighters. Even though miraculous breakthroughs had been achieved in space travel over the past 50 years, the combined might of every former corporation on Earth couldn't develop a propulsion system anywhere near what was required to get a vessel out of the solar system to chase the Drinkers back to their home planet, wherever that was.

Let's see what happens when we get rough, he thought as he cocked his wrist and let one fly directly against her pussy.

Hmm, that was worth repeating. Several times.

Job always enjoyed exploring a girl's G-spot. Not every woman had one that worked as well as the clitoris as an orgasm generator. But he had a hunch this one was going to be the exception that proved the rule.

Right again.

A fountain of involuntary urine arced onto the towel as he slipped three fingers out from between her sodden folds. It took several minutes before the shuddering paroxysms showed any signs of dissipating.

Can't beat flesh on flesh, Job remembered being taught as he resumed stroking her edges of her vagina absentmindedly. Best to let her calm down a little before trying something new, like maybe using the nipple clamps to pull apart her labia.

Women like this must be considered a menace to the status quo, Job rationalized. If a common soldier experienced someone like this, he'd never be satisfied with anything less. Which explained both her anal designation and the general's untoward interest in keeping her away from the butchers in the transplantation.

"How long have you known about this?" he asked her rhetorically, given her inability to speak, if even hear. He reckoned her sexual circuitry went supernova after giving birth, maybe when they hooked her up to a milking machine. He couldn't imagine the effects of extraction mechanics on a girl's nipples, especially ones as sensitive as hers.

Nap time, he decided as she lay panting and limp on the general's desk. Besides, he still had a good seven hours to wait. Plenty of time to search the apartment for more toys.

While pulling back piece of furniture in hopes of finding something, perhaps a hidden door leading to a secret cupboard, Job remembered reading a history book about the old continent of Africa and how some indigent tribes would perform something called "kakia," a ritual that included the painful removal of a woman's clitoris.

As if things had improved a century later, he sighed. Well, it wasn't the planet's fault that it circled the sun in a perfect orbit between the gaseous humidity of Venus and the arid plains of Mars, resulting in a surface mostly covered with what was apparently the most precious resource in the galaxy.

An unfamiliar clamor suddenly started emanating from the general's office, something digital and urgent, then a harsh light began blinking madly near the entryway. Job raced back into the room to check on his captive as metal shutters clanged down noisily across the exits and windows. He switched on the vidscreen, but it was uncharacteristically blank across all channels. Switching to the raw Internet, he typed in his level-3 password and accessed the military IP node, which was filled with frenetic commands to the orbiting defense stations. Apparently, a convoy of Drinker tankers accompanied by battleships was en route to Earth for yet another attempt to drain an ocean or two. They were nothing if not persistent.