Xanadu: Red Light

Content Note:

Ingredients include mind control and a pinch of tentacles

Preamble:

This story exists within the universe of Xanadu, a shared creation of several Lit authors, and follows on from

Xanadu: The Princess and the Sexbot

. This particular story is set on the Xanadu Ring, built by some ancient alien species around the pleasure world of Xanadu. One aim is to have Xanadu authors share fragments of scenes to knit the stories together into a tapestry, and this story shares a brief scene with

Voboy

's excellent

Written on the Skin

.

Part 1: A New Life

Evlina: XXXanadu: First Visit

XXXanadu was a huge cafe/bar/restaurant/whatever. Some of the larger tables even had poles in the middle, often with a naked girl spinning erotically about it while diners chattered away around her. It was loud too, though there was plenty of space between the tables for the staff to move about.

The staff were easily identifiable, as much by their roller skates and steel chastity belts, as by the huge size of their bare breasts. "Are those natural," Evlina asked, staring enviously at the pair in front of her. She was startled to see a man stroll up behind the waitress, stroking a stubby but very erect cock, and proceed to ejaculate liberally against her bare, gorgeous cheeks.

"Oh no," the waitress answered, ignoring the incident behind her as if having a stranger's cum running down her legs was an unremarkable event - which, in this place, it might very well be. "Mine weren't much bigger than yours." She giggled suddenly. "I guess you could say they're a perk of the job." She teased her swollen nipples with her fingers. "Would you like a taste? It's a specialty of the house."

Evlina was certainly tempted, but what really had her blood racing with excitement was the thought of being a waitress herself, with huge breasts that others would lust for and a bum that would be a target for stray emissions. "Do you think I could get a job here?" she asked.

"Oh, honey," the waitress said."Any woman with tits and a cunt can get a job here. It's quitting that's hard."

"What about a woman with a cock?" Teri asked.

The waitress shrugged. "There's a semen bar called the T-Cup that's quite popular with some. You could try there."

Teri laughed. "I might."

"What's a semen bar?" Evlina asked.

"Oh, they serve a very different kind of milkshake - but stay clear of the Kapani. I hear it's a total aphro. Now, what can I get you three honeys?"

The list of cocktails was long, but one name in particular made Evlina grin. "A Screaming Orgasm for me, please."

Teri laughed. "Me too."

"Just a water for me," Bell said.

The waitress raised an eyebrow in surprise, but nodded and skated away. Evlina watched her go, admiring the woman's indifference to having her bum splashed with a stranger's cum.

Only a week had passed since gaining her freedom. Evlina still woke up every morning clutching at her neck in a panic, sure that the collar that had imprisoned her for so long within her own body would still be there. Each morning that brief moment of terror was followed by a rush of euphoria at being free from Coriwa's abuses, and a deep shame at everything he had made her do.

Somehow, what was worse was how close he had come to breaking her. He had forced her to act like a brainless slut, and had forced her to enjoy it too. With that bastard Coriwa dead now and Evlina's collar removed, her body still craved his abusive touches, and her soul yearned for the endorphin rush of sexual ecstasy.

She was grateful to have been adopted, in a way, by Bell and Teri. Sharing their bed on the long voyage from Kalmera to Xanadu had given her time to confront the horror of her time as Coriwa's sex slave. When with them, she didn't feel alone. She felt safe. Not loved, exactly, but certainly valued.

They made an interesting trio of women: a sex slave, a sexbot and a futanari princess. None of them had a home or a family to go back to. They had only each other, and the adventure of a new life in Xanadu.

The waitress returned with their drinks, placing two milky cocktails in front of Evlina and Teri, and a water in front of Bell. "Enjoy," she said warmly, and shot off again.

"To future pleasure," Evlina said, raising her glass. "To lost innocence," Teri added, and Bell finished: "To self-determination." They clinked their glasses together, and drank.

Riley: XXXanadu: Pole Dance

Everyone knew Riley. Riley was a dancer. Which she was, every other day. No one danced quite so elegantly, nor so seemingly effortlessly, as Riley on the pole. They paid her well at XXXanadu to grace their tables with her trademark fuchsia braids and sapphire stud piercings. She loved to dance. Ever since she was a child, she loved to dance, but in truth she was something else.

Riley was a living sensor, a trained eavesdropper, a subtle observer. While her body danced, her mind studied the minutiae of the people around her, attentive to any abnormalities, to potential threats, to secret signals and coded conversations. Cybernetic enhancements augmented her vision, revealing details not visible to human eyes.

Lustful diners stroked her legs and pawed her breasts and shouted lewd suggestions as she spun and posed for them, but there was no missing the blonde-haired woman who had just arrived. Her two companions were unremarkable, but the blonde had an odd way of moving, an unusually perceptive awareness of her surroundings, and a faint aura of sophisticated military tech.

No tourist, then. A spy for sure.

For a brief moment, the blonde looked straight at Riley, as if aware of Riley's interest in her. She was very pretty, but that just made her more dangerous. Spies used beauty to disarm and distract - as Riley herself knew well.

The moment passed and the blonde looked away. Riley tried to focus again on her dancing, but her curiosity had been roused. "Forgive me, sirs," she said, gliding to a perfectly balanced halt. "You'll need to find another dancer tonight."

She jumped down from the table and sashayed away, keeping the blonde woman visible always.

Bell: XXXanadu: Job Search

Well before arriving at Xanadu, Bell had reached two important conclusions. The first was that the emergency fund it had relied on to get Teri safely away from Kalmera, as well as itself and Evlina, would not stretch much beyond securing a basic level of accommodation in the Xanadu ring. The second was that the obvious way to survive on Xanadu was to embrace the local culture - which, in Xanadu's case, and particularly for attractive young people, meant selling sex.

Bell certainly had no difficulty with this concept. It had been built to fuck, after all, and despite evolving to desire more out of a relationship, fucking was fucking and the who was largely irrelevant. It was on the lookout for possibilities from the moment they arrived.

"There's an agency hiring escorts," Bell said, pointing to one of the many flyers fighting for space on the table's advertisement display.

"Rather you than me," Teri said, wrinkling her nose.

"Yes," Bell agreed. "It will provide a steady source of income for us."

Teri's eyes widened. "You're being serious?"

"Completely."

Evlina laughed. "Don't worry, Teri. I'll take care of your cock when Bell's working."

"It's not about my needs," Teri said, keeping her attention on Bell. "Well, maybe it is. I like having you all to myself."

"One of us needs to start earning money," Bell said, "and there are very few jobs on Xanadu that do not involve either selling one's own body for pleasure, or selling others'. I expect it will not be long before you put that cock of yours to productive use; and by the way Evlina keeps staring at our waitress's ass, it will not surprise me if we are staring at her ass here in the near future."

Evlina chuckled. "The sexbot has a point."

"Don't call her that," Teri murmured.

"Well, this sexbot has an ad to answer," Bell said. "You girls be careful what you drink - and no dancing on tables without a signed contract first."

Bell: The Eros Tourist Agency: Angie

Xanadu's official Tourist Agency had one principal goal: to get incoming tourists safely down onto the planet where they could spend all their money on food and drink, and on hotel accommodation, and on wholesome fun and games. The planet, after all, was famous for its warm blue seas and its golden beaches and its corals and tropical fish. If asked, the official agents for the official agency would assure their charges that there was little worth seeing in the orbital ring above. "Don't believe the rumours," they would insist. "Most of the ring is little more than a skeleton, raided over millennia by pirates and scavengers. Only ghosts and monsters live there now, save in one short stretch where the inhabitants are so desperate they promise every conceivable pleasure of the flesh, and woe betide any foolish enough to believe them..."

Inevitably, there were plenty of unofficial tourist agencies that did indeed promise every conceivable pleasure of the flesh. Some even made an honest attempt to deliver. Eros, who had placed the ad that Bell saw, seemed entirely indifferent about it. To the gullible tourists they promised everything, charged a fee to hook them up with a ringsider, and disavowed any responsibility for what happened subsequently.

The ringside Eros office was one of many clustered around XXXanadu, all of them offering a thousand erotic delights. Some promised in graphic detail a variety of alien experiences while others put the emphasis on safety and discretion. Some targetted men, and some women, and some were so alien that Bell was unable to interpret what they were offering.

The woman who 'interviewed' Bell for the job took one look at it and announced, "You'll do." Angie, her name was, and she sat behind toughened glass and could outstare the most outraged tourist without showing a trace of emotion. To Bell, she said, "Here's a map of Xanadu showing everywhere worth going, how much it's likely to cost, and the names of anyone who's had positive reviews in the past - which is not to say you should trust them. Or that you won't have to suck any cocks to get past the bouncers. One thing there's no shortage of on Xanadu is cocks to suck."

In Bell's limited experience, that much was true everywhere. "Oh," added Angie as Bell turned to go, "if you see a place that's not on the map, stay as far away as possible. I don't much care if a tourist ends up in some Pollik's harem, but if you end up getting wed or bred, then I'll have to find someone to replace you."

Bell: Solo Pleasures: Zombie Run + Gloryhole

Bell's map was a large piece of folding plastic upon which a number of different hands had sketched and re-sketched the maze of interconnecting alleyways that made up Xanadu's township. The map progressed from the Ring's spaceport at one edge, through the cluster of expensive hotels around it and into the central hub of entertainments - including, of course, XXXanadu. All of which matched well with the official maps that every tourist came equipped with.

Of course, no one who came to the Ring seeking pleasure would be satisfied with the dancing girls and skating waitresses of XXXanadu. That was just the starting point, the place to have a drink before daring to seek the illicit pleasures that one could never normally confess to desiring.

A very clear boundary was marked on the map: "Adults Only!" was printed there and underlined by hand. The official map suggested a safe and orderly zone of shops and cafés, but Bell's map was littered with warnings about places to avoid, symbols suggesting a variety of kinks, and names of people to talk to.

Close to XXXanadu was Solo Pleasures, a dimly lit bar with loud music and virtual sex games. Out of curiosity, Bell bought a token for a game. "Zombie Run's popular with the ladies," the young barman said with a less than reassuring grin.

"I'll give it a go," Bell said, and suited up. There was no subtlety about the suit's many attachments: there would be fucking involved.

Bell found itself suddenly in a dystopian cityscape that would probably have looked very realistic to a human but could not trick Bell's military grade sensors. Still, it settled in to play the game as a voiceover explained that the city was overrun with sex-crazed zombies, and if Bell didn't find a way to escape, it would be literally fucked. It was not explained that the game had a fixed duration and could not be ended prematurely.

The cityscape would anyway have been confusing for Bell to try to interpret, even without the conflicting sensor readings. It ran, and zombies chased, and almost before the game had started it was over. Bell was caught and thrown to the ground by a horde of howling zombies with rotting and stinking flesh and limbs that had been bitten and sometimes torn wholly off; and it was held down as scores of hands groped every part of it, and as hard cocks penetrated repeatedly.

"Curious game," it said once time was up. "Do women really enjoy this?"

The barman stared back at her with clear confusion. "Some do, yeah. They play it once, look like they want to throw up all over the floor, then buy another token and head straight back in."

It didn't make much sense to Bell, but humans could be very strange. "What's the 'G' for?" it asked instead, showing him the letter marked on the map.

"Oh," he said, nodding, "you're an escort." He pointed through to the back. "You'll need another token - but this one's on the house." He spun the silver disc through the air to Bell.

"Thank you," it said, and soon found itself locked in a small room with a very clear purpose. "Well, Angie did say there would be cocks to suck," Bell murmured, and it wasn't long before one thrust through the hole.

Teri: Home: Dead Cat

Xanadu thrived on its reputation of political neutrality, its planetary vistas of golden sand and windswept sea, and the eroticism of the Ring's unregulated sex industry. "Politically neutral, hah!" her mother had often sneered in response to such shameless assertions. "If you think fat Terrans can baste themselves on Xanadu beaches without Jun'Orans salivating at the chance to lure them into compromising pleasures - and vice versa, of course - then you're a fool. There are spies everywhere there, and the Xanadu Corporation happily looks the other way so long as its profits and supposed neutrality aren't threatened."

If there were spies in the shadows, and Teri didn't doubt it, she hadn't yet learned to identify them. Then again, her entire first day on the Xanadu ring had been eaten up with immigration, medical checks, and the desperate search for somewhere to live. That achieved at last, and surrounded by bars and cafes promising exotic delights, the only place they'd dared to go was that most famous of all: XXXanadu.

The town was a dizzying and deceptive place. Once out of the spaceport and away from the expensive hotels, it was a maze of criss-crossing alleyways whose tall, narrow sides were a dizzying and vibrant marketplace of sex below and cramped apartments above. Only near the edges of the Pleasure District did the true shape of the Xanadu ring reveal itself to the eye.

Teri had grown up with a grand view across mountains and green fields, a vast landscape with a distant horizon and warm sunlight. There was no horizon in the Xanadu ring, nor natural sunlight either. Some ancient, alien hand had wrapped this slender tube about the planet below, and had probably never dreamt that one day it would be famed for the thousand different ways a hundred different species could fuck there.

There was no night or day. Technically there was, if you looked out of a window, but there were no windows in the Pleasure District. There were always ships arriving at the spaceport with a fresh influx of curious and eager newcomers, and there was a constant stream of holidaymakers seduced away from the tedium of the planetary paradise. The machinery of pleasure never slept, even if those selling their bodies had to.

The lights were always bright, and the shadows were always deep, and Teri was glad of Evlina's company as they returned to the tiny room that was now home for the three of them. Immediately beneath their apartment was a shop selling souvenir sex toys. The window display had dildos, cunts and tentacles arranged in a colourful orgy of pulsing, synthetic flesh, all held together by chains and rope. It was the most hauntingly grotesque thing Teri had ever seen. "Ugh," she said as they climbed up past it.

Evlina laughed. "I wonder what it would be like to be part of that display, bound helpless and fucked for hours while people walked past."

"I'm sure they would be delighted to let you find out."

Teri gasped at the sight that greeted them. A woman - perhaps - sat slumped against their apartment door, blood pooling about her hips. She shrank away from them as they approached, but was clearly too weak to stand, let alone run. "Help me," she mewled.

"What is she?" Evlina asked, her voice full of wonder. "Human or cat?"

"Go get help," Teri ordered, and knelt beside the injured woman. Her face and features were mostly human, but her skin had a light, silver fur, and her whiskers gave her face a feline cast. But it was her tail and ears, twitching in fear and agitation, that made it hard to answer that question.

Human or not, she was bleeding from a savage gash in her side. Teri opened the apartment door and helped her inside, wrapping a clean sheet about her for warmth, pressing the wound in an effort to stem the bleeding.

"That tile," the cat-woman whispered, pointing. The apartment was floored with ceramic tiles, most of which were cracked and stained. "It's loose. Lift it." Reluctantly, Teri did as instructed, and succeeded eventually in prying it up. Underneath was a silver ring. "Give it to the bull," the cat-woman insisted. She coughed weakly, spraying blood onto Teri's shirt. "Only the bull! Promise!"

"I promise," Teri answered, but the cat-woman was swept up in a paroxysm of coughing that ended far too abruptly. "Hold on," Teri pleaded. "Help is coming."

Evlina returned quickly with the paramedics, but it was too late. The medics reacted with dull efficiency, recording the scene and taking statements, and with shocking indifference they bundled the dead woman onto a stretcher and carried her away.

"Welcome to Xanadu," Evlina said, her words without mirth.

Teri, who had already lived through too much death, nodded and forced her clenched fist to open, revealing the silver ring she had clutched throughout. She had made a promise to the dying woman, and keeping that promise was the only way to make sense of it.

Riley: The Morgue: Arrangements

Riley studied the dead cat-woman. The resemblance to Fantasia was there, but the transformation was extraordinary. It made no sense to Riley. Fantasia would never have chosen such a radical change, and certainly not without informing Riley or her superiors first. There was bitterness too in learning that Fantasia had been alive all this time, compounded by the cruelty of her being murdered on her own doorstep. "Who found her?"

The attendant shrugged. "Newcomers. Just moved into her place." His complete lack of interest in the injustice of Fantasia's fate was like another knife twisting in a fresh wound.

Riley gritted her teeth. It was pointless to expect anything from the Xanadu Corporation's tame police force. "Have her body delivered here," she said, providing the name of a docked UoI cruiser and a contact name.

"That'll cost," he said with bland indifference.

"You'll be paid," she growled, "but only if you get her there before departure." And if he didn't, the gardai would have a second murder on their hands.