ebook $7.49
ISBN 9781613900178
69,620 words
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The Velderet is the story of Kobi and Merin, two roomies on the peaceful world of Bellonia, world where “equality” rules. But they each harbor taboo fantasies of BDSM, and when their world is colonized by the warlike Kylar, who worship the gods of dominance and submission, everything changes. Originally serialized in TASTE OF LATEX magazine!
“I want to be a slave,” Kobi said, from where he lay on the living room floor with his long black hair spread out like a carpet. “The erotic plaything of a powerful, indomitable owner.” His eyes twinkled with an “aren’t I crazy?” light, or maybe that was the image of the fireplace flickering on the media wall. He sat up enough to take another swig of the wine and passed the bottle back to Merin where she sat on the couch, and lay back again, watching her reaction.
Merin sat still with shock; her fingers barely felt the wine bottle in her hand. She and Kobi had been sharing the apartment for several months, ever since the last housing lottery assigned them into this standard, two-occupant place. It was nice but not fancy, and she and Kobi got along better than well, sometimes sharing beds as well as friendship; but this was the first time they’d ever gotten drunk and bared their secrets to one another. “Say that again,” she said, almost a whisper.
“I want to be a slave!” Kobi’s voice rang off the ceiling.
A thrill ran through Merin’s blood when he said it—the taboo spoken aloud, at last, and the words stirred something in her. “Me too,” she said.
Kobi sat up, the wine forgotten. “What?”
“I said ‘me too.’ ”
Kobi was as shocked to hear her admission as she had been to hear his. “Really?” She was nodding to him—slow, serious nods. He took her hand as though he needed assurance that she was real. “I thought—I thought I was the only one.”
Merin held tight to his fingers and took a deep breath. Her mind, which minutes ago had been fuzzy and sleepy with wine, now buzzed with giddy possibilities and long-repressed memories coming to the surface. “Do you remember the stories they told us as children, about the cruelty of our ancestors towards the Gerrish, how they subjugated them and forced them to work . . .”
Kobi nodded, his eyes fever-bright. “Yes, yes, and how the mistreatment led to the destruction of the Gerrish race.” He sounded like he was quoting some long-ago educator. “That’s why we have the Age of Equality now.”
Merin curled her legs under her on the couch and went on. “Even when I was a little girl, I used to wonder what it had been like for the Gerrish, to be bought and sold, to be used . . .”
Kobi shivered. Every Bellonian child had been taught in school that the enslavement of the Gerrish was the greatest crime committed in history, and it was only in the aftermath of the Gerrish extinction by a genetic plague that Bellonians began to build the peaceful, free society that currently existed. It took hundreds of years to eliminate warring tendencies and inequality in their society. And here I am, Kobi thought, going against it. “I used to daydream about the Gerrish, too.” he said. “I used to imagine I was the servant of an ailing lord, who needed to be comforted in his final days.”
“Comforted?”
Kobi blushed at the memory and let her hand go. “In my fantasy he was dying of a rare sexual disease that required him to have sex almost constantly during all his waking hours, so he had a whole bunch of slaves who served him to ease his affliction.” He laughed out loud. “I always had a vivid imagination.”
“I guess so!” Merin let herself laugh a little, too, but she was still thinking about the ethics of their admission to one another. “But the Gerrish enslavement was a great crime,” she said.
Kobi’s eyebrows came down, as did his voice, in serious thought. “Yes. But think about it. It’s wrong to subjugate someone. But there’s no crime in wanting to be subjugated, is there?”
She pursed her lips. “There’s no law against killing yourself, either, I suppose.”
Kobi frowned. “That’s a distasteful comparison, don’t you think? Or do you think we’re self-destructive for thinking this?”
Merin touched him on the cheek. “I don’t know. Do you think the Kylar are going to destroy us the way we destroyed the Gerrish?” Since the establishment of the Kylaran embassy last year, rumors were flying thick through the streets and through the legislature where Merin worked. Contact with the Kylar and their culture had been limited thus far, so the speculation about their social practices was endless.
Kobi shook his head. “We don’t even know if the Kylar are going to colonize here or just trade with us.” Kobi felt his cheeks getting warm. “If they did colonize, though . . . you know what they say about the Kylar.”
Merin nodded her head and smiled. “So that’s what’s got you thinking about becoming a—” she rolled her tongue over the words “—love slave.”
“They say their overlords keep a dozen or more slaves to satisfy their libido! Imagine it, Merin! It could be my dream come true!”
Merin slid down to the floor to look Kobi in the eye. “If the Kylar do colonize here, it won’t be for several years. If they do, they’ll probably bring their own slaves with them. And if they wanted to take on Bellonian slaves, they won’t find anyone suitable, because we’ve been conditioned out of thinking that way.”
Kobi smiled and stroked her short curls. “Merin, don’t you see? That’s why we have a chance. You and me, we’re not like the others. We want this. When the Kylar come, we’ll be ready!”
“What do you mean, ready?”
“We’ll have to have practice. We can practice with each other!”
She laughed out loud. “Doing what?”
Kobi was shaking his hands in excitement. “Just like when we were kids, did you play at being parents, educators, legislators? Let’s pretend. Like this.” He cleared his throat and growled, “Slave! Are you ready for me? I need some service!” And he pressed her back into the floor, pinning her by the shoulders and kissing her neck.
Merin had slept with Kobi plenty of times since they had been assigned to share this apartment. They often had sex to blow off steam or relieve boredom. She’d expected they probably were going to end up in bed tonight since neither of them had plans. But she hadn’t expected anything like this. Kobi had never been so intense before, she’d never felt his yearning need like this. His long black hair fell loose like a curtain, intensifying the moment, isolating them from the cluttered media room they shared. She squirmed under him and enjoyed the buzz of sexual tension building between her legs. She said, in falsetto, like a long-ago educational depiction of a helpless Gerrish maidservant she vaguely remembered seeing, “Oh master, anything to please you. Take me!”
Kobi let her go for a moment as he began to slip out of his clothes. “Um, strip!” he commanded. He had trouble getting his waistband over his erection.
She was wet when he slipped into her, there on the floor, pressing her down with his body. But in his mind, their roles had reversed, as he fantasized again of being a slave, serving his master’s needs. Or, in this case, mistress. Then they were both lost in the mindless lust of heat and sex. It felt good.
Merin spoke first after they were done. She wasn’t sure what to say, so she settled for stating the obvious. “That was intense.”
“Yes.” He rolled onto his side and propped his head up with his elbow, his hair flowing around him.
This could be fun, she thought. “Next time, do you want me to be the one in command?”
“Yes! Sure!” He held her hand. “We can take turns.”
They lay like that for a while, among their scattered clothes at the foot of the couch. Merin’s mind was busy as she relaxed. We can’t be the only ones, either, she thought.How could we find more? “Hey, Kobi?”
“Hm?”
“When is your next session at the Velderet?”
“I’m bartending there tomorrow.”
“No, I mean, when is your next sexual encounter due?”
He blushed. “I already used one this month. So, ten days at least. What are you thinking?”
“Nothing,” she said. But she knew she’d tell him her idea as soon as she convinced herself it could work.
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