Temptation Game Ch 02

Things changed quickly in the habitat after Natalia seized the reins, more quickly than I had assumed possible. She had the construction bots erect a wall around the residential neighborhood, and evicted me from it. I had to move into my office.

If it weren't for the Architect's requirement that all humans hold jobs in town, Natalia would probably have told the construction bots not to bother building a gate, and forbid everyone from leaving. Whenever I spotted Natalia on her commute, she seemed agitated, which given the amount of sleep she'd been getting was easy to understand. She and her crew enforced a sunset curfew on all the women, and patrolled at nights to arrest stragglers. Any measure she thought would enhance their odds of making it through the year with fewer than six defectors, her regime adopted with vigor, no matter how draconian.

But there was one woman exempt from the curfew, who I ran into by chance. I had broken into the police station after dark, through the roof-access door, to search Natalia's desk and computer for anything I could use against her--blackmail material, strategic intel, or at least interesting gossip--and while flipping through files in her desk drawer, I heard a scuffle in the dark. I flipped the light switch. In the station's one cell, alone, was In-Joo, wearing only her bra and underwear.

Natalia had left no blanket for her, nor any sheets for the cot, and in the evenings without the heat on, the station easily dropped below freezing. I could see bumps on In-Joo's skin from the cold. Why would Natalia take this risk, leaving her here alone and underdressed while everyone else slept behind the walls? My first guess was that it was a badly calculated indulgence, simple and cruel humiliation of a fallen political rival. But I didn't quite believe it. I had underestimated Natalia once already.

"Why are you here?" That was In-Joo's first question. She rapped the cell bars with her knuckles when I didn't immediately answer.

She was skeptical when I acted surprised by her presence, but eventually I convinced her I had come only to search Natalia's things and didn't know she'd be there.

"So you're against her?"

"Of course I'm against her. I want to win."

In-Joo stared into my eyes, challenging me to admit it if I were lying. I stared back, and she nodded. I'd passed her test. "Check the top-left drawer."

I thought I would find in it some compromising document for my purposes, but instead I found the cell key. She raised her eyebrows at me and pointed at the lock.

"She'll look for you," I said.

"You'll hide me."

So I hid her. I hauled a mattress up six half-flights of stairs in my building and gave her the office's third floor to herself. I could feel as I was arranging this that it was stupid not to just offer half of my own bed. Two months had passed since I arrived in the habitat. An entire sixth of my chance to win had already elapsed, and there I was tucking In-Joo in without any sense of urgency, asking if she wanted a glass of water from downstairs before she dozed off.

But I'd made a fast move earlier, in my first week, and it sparked a political revolution that robbed me of all bit the tiniest ray of hope. I thought it was time to plan slowly now.

By morning In-Joo had become comfortable, and joined me for breakfast in the lounge. When we started talking, I learned her view of the town's happenings differed from mine.

In-Joo thought Natalia's totalitarian approach doomed the town to a rebound of suppressed sexual yearning impossible to reign in or coordinate--an explosion rather than the graceful and controlled release of pressure. To avoid this rebound explosion, In-Joo wanted to arrange a system in which there was a legal outlet for sating their desires, a system that didn't endanger their victory in the habitat.

"You mean like what Minh and I did."

In-Joo sat up straighter. "What did you and Minh do?"

"She didn't get any come on her, but I can assure you she left here quite sated."

When In-Joo only stared back in confusion, I recalled it was she herself who had confidently asserted to me, in this same room over a month earlier, that Minh would never succumb to my temptations. My claim that Minh had, it challenged In-Joo's faith in victory. It was the first time I'd seen her unsure of herself. But then, finally, she said, "I don't believe you."

"I'm telling the complete truth."

In-Joo stood up, began to pace. I had not until then appreciated how tall she was, almost a foot taller than myself. "I want to hear it from her. Because if I was wrong about her, I might be wrong about this. My whole idea. It's founded on just my intuition for people, and if that's wrong, well, hmm."

"That's a risk, to invite Minh. She's... Not how you might remember from before your imprisonment."

Minh, in the time since our encounter, had fallen in with an ideologically hostile sect of Natalia's regime. She volunteered for the early morning patrol, and wore her uniform even outside of patrol hours. I visited her store shortly after the wall was erected, and she refused to respond to anything I said. Pretended I wasn't there.

"I'll write her a message," she said, "and you'll take it to Minh. She'll accept our invitation once she reads it."

I let In-Joo write a note, and fold it, and may God reward me I did not read it. I took it and delivered it to Minh at her sale counter still folded. Minh still wasn't responding to me, of course, so I tucked it into her chest pocket and winked.

Afterward, I had an errand of my own to run, to Town Hall, the same place Natalia petitioned for the bots to erect a wall around the residential neighborhood. She received a favor from the Architect, so why shouldn't I? Until I had In-Joo hiding in my house, I didn't know what to ask for, but when she doubted my story about Minh, it came to me: a scoreboard.

The clerk bot recorded my request as: _Giant number in the sky to count defectors._

"Oh, and, and, add this: lit up at night. Like neon."

The clerk bot rolled his eyes at this, but added to the note anyway.

They installed it same-day. There was no need to worry about In-Joo seeing the number in the sky, because she wouldn't go outside and avoided windows out of caution. After we had dinner, I stepped outside to admire it: a giant luminescent numeral 0 in the sky, ten times the size of the moon. What would become of Natalia's regime if that number ticked up to 1 for all to see?

Minh read the note, and to In-Joo's credit, she did accept the invitation to visit. But she didn't come alone. When Minh knocked on the office door later in the night, she had behind her four other officers of the night's watch. "Bring her out," Minh said.

"I'm afraid I don't know who you mean."

But Minh was not in the mood for games. On a gesture of her hand, the other four officers grabbed me under the armpits and by the legs and carried me inside. Minh shut the door behind us. Two of the four officers grabbed my wrists, the other two my ankles, which they taped to the arms and legs of a chair in my waiting room, using packing tape rolls they apparently kept in their bags.

Minh pulled a chair up to face me, placed a hand assertively on my thigh. She pulled two pairs of scissors from her thigh pocket and handed them to the officers at my either side.

"May we cut your clothes off?" she said.

I was not sure what benefit that would bring them, and figured it would tempt one of them defect, so I said, "Please do."

The cold metal touched my chest as the officers to Minh's right began my shirt downward from the collar. In under a minute, I was bound and naked in front of her.

"You're going to tell me where In-Joo is," Minh said. The officer to her left handed her a camera. She began to point and shoot through the viewfinder, aimed at me. "Or you will suffer."

Once I was in the predicament, I was feeling quite tired of Minh tying or taping me up. Once was more than enough, and she had a sadistic streak. They turned the AC to its lowest level. I could not help but shiver, and one of her officers held her palm just millimeters away from my cock, so that when I shivered I rubbed against it, and whenever I did she would shake her head as if embarrassed for me.

Minh had a bucket of ice water brought over, dipped her right hand in it, and then pressed it against my chest. This was just the beginning, I knew, but I wanted to hold on at least until In-Joo figured out what was going on downstairs, and made an escape.

The sounds of stomping and falling boxes upstairs meant they were already searching for her. I closed my eyes and listened, trying to picture what was happening.

Minh slapped me with the back of hand. "Look at me when I'm talking to you."

When I looked at her, she gripped my cock in her fist. The two officers started licking around my ears.

"I don't know what you want," I said.

Something heavy tipped over upstairs, like a shelf or a desk. There were rapid footsteps from maybe three people, then a deep thud and silence. Had they found In-Joo? And engaged in some kind of combat? After a moment, someone walked down the stairs and paused at the base.

I turned to look, which Minh grabbed my chin to try and prevent, but I saw: In-Joo spinning a sock full of coins, lowered into a quarter squat, ready to fight. She sprinted toward us, and in a flurry of activity that seemed to overwhelm Minh and her officers, pushed them out the front door and lowered the lock bar.

"You didn't tell them where I was," In-Joo said, pulling up the same chair Minh had been sitting in.

"I didn't."

She put her hand on my cheek, seemed concerned. "You tried to help me, gave me a chance. Let me give you one too."

She pushed her chair back and lowered onto her knees on the floor between my legs. What I felt first was her long, smooth hair brushing my thighs, then her soft lips on the tip. She gave it tiny licks, sticking her tongue just barely out of her mouth, to tease me. And then took all of me in her mouth. Her warm and wet cheeks hugged my cock, and her tongue ran up and down it. She was happy to pleasure me, eager, and her enthusiasm convinced me I deserved it. I came into her mouth in thee bursts, and after each one she swallowed and kept going, until I had nothing left.

After she untaped me and let me go upstairs do dress in new clothes that hadn't been scissored in half, I said, "Let's get you a proper room in here." On the top floor, there was a patient room near a toilet and shower with a sunlight in the ceiling, which I thought would make her fine place for her to stay. Better than my own accommodations in the office, anyway.

Now that she had defected, there was no way to undefect. I showed In-Joo, through the sunlight, the giant neon number 1 in the sky.

A low mood seemed to settle over her after I explained its meaning. "Sit down," she said. "I should explain why Natalia had me in that cell."