Timewalker pt 2b (long)

This is really long, so if you're looking for a quick fix, read something else!

The Adventures of Béla, the Vampire Girl
Book 4: Time Walker
Part 2b
Chapter 9 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You ready?” Béla asked, calling upstairs to where Jake was.

She sighed. He always made them late to the club.

Jake appeared at the top of the stairs. “Sorry. I was talking to Frank about Jake and Tabatha.”

“They find out anything?” Béla asked.

She already knew they hadn’t. She could see it in Jake’s mind.

“No,” he said. “Frank thinks that you should go over there again…”

“No, Jake,” Béla interrupted. “I’ve been over there three times. The only stuff I picked up was some old erotic images from Tabatha. I had the Praetor make copies to analyze. I can’t tell where she… they… went. There aren’t any distinct locations. It’s like they just disappeared off the face of the earth. I told the Praetor to do whatever it could to find her.”

“Well, come on, let’s go,” Jake said, guiding her toward the door.

“I don’t feel like going now,” Béla told him.

“Béla, come on,” Jake pleaded. “You’ll feel better when the guys start paying attention to your sexy little bod. That always brings you out of a funk.”

“I like the big meetings when several clubs meet at the same time,” Béla said. “At these monthly meetings, I feel like everybody’s waiting just for me.”

“They are!” Jake laughed. “They know you’ll try anything once, and I heard a couple of them talking. Every month they try to come up with something even you’ll back out of.”

“They do, huh?” Béla asked, feeling challenged. “Well, let’s go, then, and see what they’ve cooked up for me this time.”

They usually took public transportation there, so people could see them arrive. Then afterward, if they could find some privacy, and it was pretty easy because of the private rooms available for consenting parties, Béla would teleport them home. If she was conscious, that is. Quite often, her sexual excesses at these SAM Club meetings left her mortally wounded and completely orgasmed out.

Béla was wearing a little striped job that Tanya had given her now that Tanya’s public persona, Tootsie, had unofficially suicided on that ‘skewer-bot’ last month. It was a dark blue number that was mostly, well, all right, completely transparent. It showed everything through a fine net of dark blue nylon. Béla didn’t wear anything beneath it. Her naturally hairless pussy allowed her entire body to be admired through the material without drawing special undue attention to any large, mysterious, dark areas – except her nipples, of course, and they were only visible, not admirably huge. But that didn’t stop anyone from looking.

Jake didn’t like to dress up and play the fop, like Frank did when he took Tanya, or rather, Tootsie, partying. SAM Clubs were more for the male domination and torture of females, so it was the females who were on display, from the moment they walked in. Jake liked it that way and so did Béla. There were also FEM Clubs for the female dominants, and Suicide Clubs when both partners were submissive.

The club Jake and Béla belonged to was a bondage club that hosted two sub-groups – one specialized in burning with candles and candle wax torture, and the other specialized in freaky (and sometimes fatal) body penetration. Upon entering, each couple would submit the female’s name to a lottery. The winner, or loser, depending on that month’s theme for each group, would be displayed on stage while everyone else fucked their brains out in a convention-hall-sized orgy while they watched that month’s torture theme play out on stage.

Béla had been chosen several months ago and was tied to a torture rack and splashed with hot wax. Afterward, she was left hanging on the rack for everyone’s use and was fucked several times by other club members.

Usually, there were two displays, and Béla was hoping to be chosen for one again this month. Quite often, the displays were unusually cruel, especially the ones involving unusual body penetration, which sometimes caused permanent disfigurement or even death to the lottery winner.

In cases where the volunteer display girl died, the club couldn’t be prosecuted. It was no longer illegal to kill someone if they signed a release stating their awareness of that possibility. The official Supreme Court ruling was: ‘It isn’t murder if the victim agreed to be killed for the purpose of entertainment.’

That ruling was the result of the ‘State vs. Brandy Wine Tasting Productions’ when the company’s prime underground performer and co-owner, Brandy Wine, was repeatedly raped and viciously murdered as the plot for what became her best-selling underground performance. The underground production company was able to prove that Ms. Wine, upon discovering that she only had a few months to live because of widespread, inoperable cancer, had actually written the script in which she would be strangled to death while being gang-raped. ‘I can’t think of a better way to go than being fucked to death,’ she told Spike Magazine, an underground tabloid, just before performing her final scene.

That Supreme Court ruling opened the door for hundreds of Suicide Clubs all over the country to come above ground, offering thousands of excited new members that last, extra thrill of a lifetime, with the emphasis on ‘last’.

Jake personally thought Suicide Clubs were a good idea. They reduced the total number of morons in this country every month they were in operation. As far as ‘Mental Hygiene’ went, he was surprised that Hitler never thought of it. Suicide Clubs were cleansing the human race of idiots.

But, Jake realized, Hitler would probably have made Suicide Clubs mandatory, and Jake believed Mental Hygiene should be voluntary. Of course, the problem with voluntary Mental Hygiene was that the very people who shouldn’t reproduce were the same ones who most fervently believed in their God-given right to ‘Go forth and multiply,’ which they did with great abandon, covering the planet with more morons like themselves.

Jake and Béla arrived and gave their names at the reception table. John, the receptionist, already knew Béla and knew she liked the most torturous devices the club could come up with.

“Show up at stage two if you’re not a ‘chosen’, sweetie,” he told Béla. “Whoever wins that stage will probably decline, then they’ll ask for volunteers.”

He handed her the Suicide form and she signed it without reading it. They both knew, no matter what demonic device she would be strapped, tied or lowered into tonight, Béla would most likely be game enough to try it. Stage two was the ‘unusual penetration’ stage. She smiled as she handed the form back.

John smiled, too, and took the signed liability form from her. “Thanks, sweetie. I hope you live to come back next month.”

He practically drooled on her blue mesh costume that covered, but didn’t conceal, her hard little nipples.

Jake looked through the display brochures. “Hey, they have an auction block this time.”

Jake liked the auction block. Béla brought in higher bids than almost any other girl in the club and Jake loved the fact that his dark-haired little vampire was one of the hottest girls there – it was a real ego trip!

“Yes,” John replied. “The club had decided that the ‘block’ is the best way to finance its monthly meetings. That way, the ones who use the club the most give it the most financial support.”

Jake nodded in response, then he and Béla turned toward the main entrance. As soon as they entered the converted conference room, An older lady swooped down on Béla like a vulture.

“Béla, darling!” she crooned, reminding Béla of Cruella (yes, she saw that cartoon movie a hundred years earlier, sometime back in the early ’90’s).

“Leticia, how are you?” Béla smiled back. “I saw your display last month. You were magnificent. But I’m surprised you’re walking already. That hook must have really been painful.”

“Morphine works wonders, darling,” Leticia replied. “And my body sculpturist is taking the stitches out next week, then I can display the scars.”

Leticia had more scars from burns and bodily penetrations than anyone else in the club – anyone still alive, that is. Lots of club members sought her out every month just so they could run their hands over her scars while they fucked what was left of her brains out.

“If you decide to paint designs around your scars to better display them,” Béla suggested, “I would love to do it for you. I have some great ideas. Call me, okay?”

Leticia nodded, then was practically dragged away by her husband. “Don’t talk to her! She's a bad influence! You want to live to collect your security, don’t you?”

Béla grinned and looked at her lifemate. “I guess I’m getting a bit of a reputation as a pain-crazy masochist.”

The first display was beginning. A buxom blonde girl was being led out onto stage. She was blindfolded. The blindfold was all she was wearing. She was made to lie down on her stomach while a large iron crossbar was lowered from the ceiling. Manacles were snapped around her thighs and upper arms, then attached, one at each protruding end of the cross bar.

The girl was then raised, face down, back into the air by the stage handlers, each one on a separate chain. One of the stage handlers produced a rope, about a foot long with hooks on each end, and tied the two chains together under her torso. When they let go, it was obvious that the rope stretched across the girl’s stomach was supporting her entire weight. If it broke, the chains would unravel around the pulleys and she would come crashing down.

A table was brought out with several tapered candles on it and positioned beneath the girl’s swaying body. Each candle was lit, then positioned carefully beneath some specific, tender part of the hanging girl’s anatomy. The first one went under her right breast, the next one under her left. One was placed under her pelvis. Then the remaining one was lit and placed directly beneath the rope around her waist.

“Oh my god!” Béla exclaimed, getting wet between her legs just watching. “I would love to be that girl up there!”

She watched as the girl was slowly, inch by inch, lowered toward the candles. When she cried out, the winch was stopped, then she was raised a little. The stage handlers readjusted a couple of the candle positions, then walked off, leaving her hanging there.

To the normal observer, the girl seemed to be positioned high enough over the candles to be unaffected by the tiny flames. The truth was slightly different. The candle wax was melting quickly – more quickly than the wick burned down. Each candle flame grew longer as the wax melted and exposed more wick to burn.

In moments, the girl on display was twitching and crying out as her nipples began to pop and sizzle in the heat rising from the candles. She managed to start swinging a little, relieving her tits from the scorching heat. The candles farther down the table were doing the same to her belly and pussy, but her main source of torment was her tender, scorched nipples.

Because she was swinging now, the stage handlers came out and lowered her body down closer to the tiny flames. Soon, she was swinging only inches above them, whimpering each time her breasts passed through a candle flame. She was feeling the burning on her pelvis and stomach now, and twitched each time her body hesitated in its swing over those candles, too.

The club members watching were getting aroused with the girl’s writhing and her cries. It was almost as though the tiny flames that caressed her body were raping the girl. Béla pressed her hand against Jake’s hard dick inside his jeans while she watched several club members begin fucking each other.

Then Béla had Jake’s hard cock out in her hand. She moved in front of him, standing with her back to him so she could watch the show and the orgy going on around her and the girl suffering on the stage. As she backed up against Jake, he grabbed her under her arms and lifted her up. His cock slid down her back, then disappeared into the space between her legs. Then he lowered her down until she could feel his cock pressing against her vulva.

Still being held in the air, and unable to move her arms down, Béla humped her pelvis back and forth, rubbing her cunt lips against the length of his marvelous cock. After a moment, she could feel moisture coating his smooth silky flesh. She raised her legs up behind her, almost touching his butt with her heels, and pressed her legs against Jake’s sides.

Now that she had more control over the angle of her body, she twitched her pelvis forward and was rewarded with Jake’s wonderful cock almost ‘popping’ right into her hungry, wet pussy.

The girl hanging on the stage was crying and begging to be released. The rope around her torso had finally begun to burn, causing unimaginable pain and scorching burns that would probably scar her for life.

‘God! I wish I was up there!’ Béla thought, excited by the scene and the lust radiating from the fucking couples around her.

Her pussy gushed at the thought of those wonderfully delicate tongues of flame licking at her belly, her cunt, her breasts. She came as she imagined how it would feel to be dropped onto those burning candles, bringing her torment to an abrupt end in one agonizing, scorching orgasm.

Then it happened! The rope burned through and the girl dropped, screeching, onto the burning candles. She screamed in agony and bucked furiously, trying to get away from the hot, waxy remnants of the smashed candles. Finally, she just lay there, gasping and crying.

The show now over, someone came out with a needle gun and administered something into her arm. In another moment, the girl was very relaxed, but still conscious. She was turned over and put on a litter, then carried down off the stage and onto the main floor to be displayed. Several men gathered around and began masturbating over her burnt, scorched body while she watched them worship her, drugged to the eyeballs so that she could enjoy her wounded body being displayed and fondled.

Béla noticed that the girl’s breasts were scorched and badly blistered. There was even a puncture wound where a candle had pierced into her half-cooked nipple when the girl had landed on it. Those wounds would heal, Béla realized, but her breasts would always be super-sensitive to heat after this. The worst burns were from the rope around her waist. No body sculpturist would be able to erase that scarring.

She watched as people began spraying their cum onto the girl. She felt Jake’s cock twitch. He was getting ready to come, too. He pulled out of her. She turned so she could see her husband’s face.

“Do you want to come on her, too?” she asked.

Jake shook his head. “I want to come on you!” he exclaimed, gritting his teeth in his effort to hold back. “I’ve wanted to spray cum all over that dress since the first instant I saw it on you!”

Béla grinned and dropped to her knees, arching her back to display her body through the transparent fabric. She slid forward so her knees were around his boots. She didn’t want to waste a drop falling on the floor.

“Fire away, baby!” she cried, and arched her head back.

She loved being covered in cum, especially Jake’s cum. She was disappointed that she could barely feel the cum spattering down on her through the nylon fabric. But when she looked, she could see it glistening on the material covering her breasts and belly. She smiled up at him, satisfied in her altered appearance and her wonderful new scent.

“Do you mind?” someone beside her said.

A stranger had his cock out and was playing with it. Béla looked at Jake to see what he thought. Jake grinned and nodded his head.

“Sure, go ahead,” Béla told the guy.

She felt a little guilty about stealing part of the show from the blond girl, especially after all the pain and agony the girl went through to be the star attraction. But this was an orgy, after all. In a moment, there were two more men around her, trying to masturbate on her sexy, see-through dress.

‘I didn’t know I looked this sexy,’ she whispered into Jake’s mind as he stood, watching her.

‘If you can hold that position long enough,’ Jake thought back at her, ‘I’ll come around and fuck you in your mouth.’

‘You’re ready again?’ Béla thought back, enthusiastically. ‘Great! I’m waiting, darling. Don’t hold back. Shoot gobs of it down my throat!’

Before Jake could walk around the men jacking off on his wife, someone else shoved a cock in her waiting mouth. Although Béla couldn’t see who it was, she knew it wasn’t Jake. She knew Jake’s cock, and this wasn’t it. She happily began sucking on it anyway.

‘Guess I’ll have to wait my turn,’ Jake thought, cheerfully watching his little slut wife do what she did best. He heard Béla choke as the guy shot his cum down her throat. Béla was getting better. Anymore, she only choked on cum when her head was upside down like it was now.

The guy coming in her mouth caused the other three who were jacking off to shoot their loads all over Béla’s transparent dress and on their own shoes and pants. Béla straightened up, stretching her stiff back and licking cum off her face. She looked down at her dress, pleased to discover that she was positively speckled with cum, now.

Remaining on her knees, she leaned forward and began sucking Jake’s cock. Her dress was beginning to feel cold and clammy against her body with all that cum on it. But being covered with all that cum, along with the taste of it in her mouth, was making her horny again. Now that she was sitting more upright, Jake’s cum from her earlier fucking was beginning to leak down her leg as well, making her even hornier.

Béla projected an image into Jake’s mind of how all that cum on her and running down her legs was affecting her. She felt his cock jerk in response. Then he was spewing lots of the wonderfully sticky stuff into her mouth, flooding her mouth and throat with it. She swallowed as fast as she could, but it was coming out faster than she could swallow. Despite all her efforts, some leaked out and down her chin.

Jake tucked himself back into his jeans, then reached down to help his cum-soaked wife to her feet. He held her out at arms’ length admiring the work of his fellow male humans.

“You look magnificent!” he told her, grinning brightly.

“I feel really horny!” she replied.

Jake grinned and pulled her sticky body up against his, enjoying the wetness that soaked into his shirt as he kissed her cum-covered lips.

“You are the most marvelous slut in the world,” he told her, breaking their kiss.

“I’m your slut, first,” she answered, grinning up at him. “Are you going to sell me now?”

Jake nodded and they both turned toward the auction block. Every few minutes, someone offered his wife or sexual partner to be sold to the highest bidder. The one who bought her could do anything they wanted to her for the next hour except kill or permanently maim her. When her temporary owner was through with her, she was either returned to her husband, or to the auction block to earn more credits for the club treasury.

Jake handed his wife over to the barter. The man took out a primitive clipboard and began writing on it with an actual pencil. Béla stared at it, not remembering the last time she saw a pencil – or a pen, for that matter. Everything was electronic, now.

She stood, following his instructions as the barter looked her over. “Bend over.” – “Raise your dress. Thank you.” – “Let me smell your breath.”

He frowned, then put his hand out and felt the fabric of her dress. “Hum. Alright. You’ll do nicely. Step over here, please. Have you signed your form?”

“Yes, when I came in,” Béla replied, “but that was for Stage Two.”

“Really!” the barter exclaimed, looking her over again. “I don’t know why you’d want to scar up a stunning body like yours. But, to each her own, I suppose.”

He turned away from her and stepped out on the platform.

“Our next item, lot number twenty-five,” he said into the mike. Then, to Béla, he said, “Step over on the lighted circle, dear.”

He continued into the microphone, “She is approximately twenty-two years old and a ‘B’ cup. Her body is flawlessly smooth and well toned. No tattoos or noticeable scarring. She is literally covered with cum – in her hair, her mouth, on her dress and between her legs. Raise your dress, my dear.”

Béla lifted her short skirt up around her waist and swayed her hips from side to side. The insides of her thighs and her bare pussy glistened with cum in the light she was standing on. The watching members applauded, whistled and cheered. Smiling at her new fans, she dropped her dress back down. Several men booed at her for that.

“Alright, gentlemen,” the barter said, restoring some semblance of order.

He looked around the room. Further away from the auction platform, there were people fucking each other on the floor. On the far side of the conference room, a group of men were still jacking off on the blond girl from Stage One. But several people, noticing who was on the auction platform, were coming this way, hoping to bid on the alluring, dark-haired beauty displayed there.

“The bidding will start at one hundred credits,” the barter announced. “And she won’t take her dress off for less than two thousand.”

He grinned and winked at her. No one had been auctioned for more than two thousand credits tonight.

“One hundred,” someone said. “Two hundred!” “Five!” “Seven hundred!”

The bidding went on. In a minute or so, it was at seventeen hundred credits. The next bid would break the record for this evening’s auction.

“Eighteen hundred,” Jake called out.

“You can’t bid on your own wife, sir,” the barter informed him.

“Nineteen!” someone cried out near the back.

The barter said, “We have nineteen hundred credits for this gorgeous cum-covered slut. Will anyone offer two thousand to get her out of that uncomfortably damp dress?”

“Nineteen-fifty!” someone called out.

“Nineteen-ninety-nine!” someone else yelled.

The barter looked over the crowd, then spotted who had called out that last bid. “You mind my asking, sir, why you didn’t simply bid two thousand?”

“Cause I wanna fuck her while she’s still wearin’ that dress!” he yelled back.

“Yeah!” someone else hollered.

“An’ I’ll bid nineteen ninety-nine to get her when you’re finished!” someone closer yelled.

Several others yelled, as well.

“Very well, then,” the barter announced, pleased with the action he was getting. “We will close the bidding at nineteen-hundred and ninety-nine credits. Step over to the ‘share’ bar, my dear. How many takers do we have?”

Six or seven horny men raised their hands. The barter held out his receiver. As the bidding clientele pressed their hand units, he called out numbers.

“One-sixteen is clear, forty-seven, two-nineteen, two twenty-six, one-seventeen?” he looked up. “Ah, husband and wife, I see. Yours is half-price, my dear. Any others?”

He held out his receiver. “No? Very well, then. Do you wish to bid to establish order of use?” No one seemed to want to pay more. “No? Then lot number twenty-five is sold for – eight thousand, nine hundred and ninety-five credits. The owners may pick up their merchandise at the staircase. You may step down now, my dear.”

Béla walked across the stage waving at the crowd. They cheered back at her. As she stepped down, several people greeted her.

“You’re my new masters?” she asked cheerfully.

Béla knew that for eight thousand credits, she was going to have to give a really great performance for the next hour or so. She looked forward to an evening of pure sexual excess, polishing it off (hopefully) with Jake’s big cock in her ass when they returned her well-used body to him. It looked like Stage Two was going to have to wait ’til next month.

As she was collared and led away, she waved at her husband. Since he was the one who had sold her, he wasn’t permitted to participate. But her owners were required to return her to him when they were finished using her. Jake waved back and blew her a kiss.

‘Have fun! Happy gang-bang!’

Béla was led into a lounge that was cordoned off for private use. She wondered if this horny group had any special expectations. She could see in their minds that two were simply mesmerized by her appearance. She looked so incredibly fuckable that they just had to bid on her. They all wanted to fuck her, even the girl. She wanted her husband to fuck Béla while she sat on Béla’s face, turned so she could kiss her husband while he played with her breasts.

One thing they all had in common – they wanted her to leave her cum-soaked dress on. They planned on adding a lot more.

‘Easy crowd,’ Béla thought to herself.

She would dance for them, maybe play with herself, making them good and horny (and herself, as well), then fuck their brains out.

‘Good plan!’

“Auk!” Béla gurgled as the chain on her collar was attached to a floor ring. The chain was too short to allow her to remain standing upright. She looked at the person who’d fastened her down, then dropped to her knees, knowing that was what was expected of her.

“She's a good slave,” one said, noticing the promptness of her response to being short-chained.

‘Crap! They just want blowjobs! No fun for me…’

“Why are you all covered with cum?” the one who chained her down asked.

Béla looked into his mind. His name was David. He was a dominant, like her husband, only meaner. She didn’t like the way his mind worked. He wanted her for himself and planned something so the others wouldn’t find her desirable anymore.

“Men jerked off on me, Master,” she knew how to behave as a submissive. “And then they fucked me. Master.”

“And what are you going to do for us tonight, slave?” he asked.

“I’m at your disposal, Master,” Béla said, knowing exactly where he was leading her.

She began concentrating on his dick, following his nerve strands and various vessels up into his groin, looking for something she could use to disable the bastard without being blamed for it.

“That right, little slut,” he snarled at her. “You’re at my disposal.”

He took out his cock and commanded, “Suck on that!”

The others, less forceful and somewhat fearful of him, decided to wait for their turn with her.

“Good slut!” David complemented her as she sucked him hard. Béla found was she was looking for – a tiny stone in his bladder. It was small enough so that it would pass without any notice. There were other semi-solid cells floating in his bladder, too. She collected them with her mind, adding their tiny mass to the stone. In less than a minute, she had a sizable stone that would give him excruciating pain if he followed through with his plan to ruin her for her other masters.

“You’re good for my disposal, slut!” he snarled at her. “And that’s how I’m going to use you – as a disposal unit!”

Béla pulled back as David started pissing into her mouth. He grabbed her hair as she moved sideways to get out of his way. Then he was doubled over in pain as the huge stone entered his penis and began its journey outward, blocking the flow of urine.

David was rolling on the floor, holding his dick and screaming. Béla was yanking on her chain, acting terrified and trying to get out of his way as he repeatedly tried to kick her.

“Medic!” Béla yelled at the top of her lungs.

Because of the type of club it was, there were always a dozen medics on hand. One rushed into the room almost immediately.

“What happened?” he yelled, trying to be heard over the screaming man in the middle of the floor.

“Bitch! She bit me!” he yelled.

He tried to kick her again. Béla shook her head in denial, still yanking on the chain and trying to get away from his kicking feet.

“I didn’t!” she cried. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him! He tried to piss on me! I didn’t do anything!”

The medic pulled out his needle gun, standard equipment around here, and shot David full of tranquilizers – the same stuff someone had shot the blond girl full of after her performance with the candles. After a few seconds, David lay back, much more relaxed, but still trembling and covered with sweat.

The medic pulled out a scanner and began recording David condition, starting with his dick. He didn’t need to go very far.

“He has a blockage,” the medic announced. “Looks like a kidney stone. I’m surprised something that size got that far. Usually, if it can get in to the bladder, it can get out, again. The ‘exit’ tube is much larger.”

“Is that what’s wrong with him?” Béla asked, her voice shaking as she still played the innocent victim.

“Yep,” the medic replied. He looked up at two stage handlers who had heard the man screaming and come to help. “Put him in the truck with the Olsen girl. As soon as the next performance is over, we’ll take them all in one trip.”

“The next performance?” Béla asked.

She looked into the medic’s mind. He meant Stage Two. Every month when the SAM Club met, his unit usually took one, and sometimes two, victims of self-inflicted mutilations to the hospital. This time, now that he already had two, he expected one more because of the special presentation, the reenaction of a famous Star Trek scene where the Romulan commander of the Enterprise interrogates a Klingon officer. The snuff girl who played the Klingon officer in the original Tri-d release later died from her injuries, giving the production much more notoriety.

The stage handlers carried poor David out on a floating trundle.

“We should begin our hour again,” Béla suggested to the others.

However, no one was horny now. The other two men released Béla from her obligations as an auctioned slave until the following month, or later tonight, if they ran into each other again. The man who was there with his wife invited Béla and her husband to their home for dinner and an evening of entertainment. Béla, as their slave, accepted gracefully. She didn’t mind going out for dinner. She wouldn’t be the one cleaning up afterwards. And she suspected that she was to be the entertainment.

The couple returned Béla to her husband in the waiting area. Jake stood up, noticing that Béla didn’t look much different than she had fifteen minutes ago.

“Hi, Hon,” Jake said, hugging her. “What happened to the gang bang?”

“It went bust,” she told him. “Some guy tried to ruin it for the others by pissing on me.”

“You put him in the hospital?” Jake asked, knowing how she felt about that.

Béla nodded. ‘Damned right I did!’

“These are my auction owners,” Béla said, introducing the pair behind her. “This is Nick, and this is Nova. Compton, is it?”

Nova nodded.

“In order to fulfill my obligation as an auction slave, they want to invite us for dinner,” she told him.

“Sounds like fun,” Jake said, smiling. “That way, she can spend more than the requisite hour with you.”

“Yeah,” Béla agreed. “But, with this arrangement, you get Nova.”

“You both get me,” Nova offered. “I still want to make love to you, Betty.”

“Béla,” Béla corrected her, smiling. “If you forget again, just yell, ‘Hey, slut!’ I’ll know you mean me!”

They all laughed.

People began to move toward the stage again.

“The next performance must be beginning,” Nick said.

“Oh, good,” Nova said, grinning and pushing her husband toward the stage. “It’s supposed to be really gruesome.”

“They’re hungry for some blood, aren’t they?” Jake asked.

“Yeah, so long as it’s not theirs,” Béla agreed. “You ever watch Star Trek?”

“No, not since they killed off Captain Janeway,” Jake told her. “That was about seventy, maybe eighty years ago… something like that.”

“You liked her?” Béla wanted to know.

“Not especially,” Jake admitted. “It was the way they did it. The Klingon High Command condemned her to death and had her burned at the stake for treason.”

“Ugh!” Béla said. “I’m glad they’re not reenacting that scene tonight.”

“What scene are they reenacting?” Jake asked.

“Some torture scene where some commander interrogates a Klingon,” Béla told him.

“The one where Captain Conway tortures Commander Worf’s granddaughter?” Jake asked, incredulous. “The girl who played Sharla died! For real!”

“I thought you didn’t watch Star Trek anymore,” Béla said.

They were crowding up to the front of the stage, now.

“I don’t,” Jake admitted. “But everybody saw that episode. It was on the Kelly Thompson News Hour!”

“Who?” Béla asked.

“Never mind,” Jake said. “You weren’t here, then. That was about ten years ago.”

“Sorry,” Béla apologized. “I got back as soon as I could. The Praetor held me captive inside it for most of the time I was gone.”

“Why did it do that?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Béla said. “I think it believed it was protecting me, or something. It was also using my life force for battery backup.”

The lights dimmed, then came back up.

“Uh-oh,” Nick, standing nearby, said. “Somebody chickened out.”

A man came onstage. It was the same guy who had auctioned her off, earlier.

“I’m sorry, gentlemen, and ladies,” he announced, “but the winner of our Stage Two Lottery has declined to play her role tonight. We are asking for a volunteer to take her place.”

He looked directly at Béla.

‘We want you!’

Béla laughed, hearing his thought.

‘How do you know I’ll do it?’ she dared to think into his head.

“Are you up for a real challenge?” he asked her, out loud.

People looked around to see who the announcer was talking to.

“Go for it and I’ll fuck you blind afterwards,” Jake whispered in her ear. “But you have to leave the spikes in while I do it.”

“Spikes? Christ! Do you think I’m crazy?” Béla hoarsely whispered over her shoulder.

“I know you are,” Jake told her. “Crazy about sex, crazy about being mutilated. Just be careful when they put that hook in your…”

“Mrs. Pestova,” the announcer said, interrupting their loudly whispered conversation. “Are you volunteering?”

“Um, it doesn’t involve decapitation, does it?” she asked him, feigning nervousness to cover up how horny she was right this instant.

“No, Mrs. Pestova, it doesn’t,” he promised. “Please come this way.”

The crowd broke into a smattering of cheers and applause as Béla climbed up on the stage and followed the announcer, her heels clopping loudly on the hardwood stage floor.

Jake heard Nova disgustedly complaining to her husband. “Oh, fuck! There goes next week’s dinner plans!”

“Maybe not,” Nick replied. “If she’s still alive after the performance, they’ll put her on display. She probably won’t live long anyway, so maybe they’ll let us have her after that. She still owes us an hour, and club policy insists that members are indebted for any monies earned for the club…”

Chapter 10 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Who’s next on the agenda,” the goddess Elaine asked the court assistant.

“Mr. Jake Hedron, Goddess,” the man replied.

The Golden Goddess sighed. This was his fourth petition to retrieve his wife from exile on Earth. She’d been exiled several months ago for treason against her husband’s family, causing the deaths of everyone in his family and two of Elaine’s immortal sisters.

“Show him in,” she said quietly.

She never turned anyone away, even a worthless pest like Hedron who, instead of going to university and learning a useful trade (security not being a viable trade in New Eden), spent his time sorting through and cataloging the records that the librarian Sabrina had spent half her life downloading from the last remaining Praetor.

“Thank you for seeing me, Goddess,” Jake said, as he was admitted into the temple court.

Elaine noticed that he walked crouched over, although his physical fitness was still that of a twenty-year-old human. She knew what pain caused him to walk that way, but was still unwilling to change her mind about his exiled wife. As her primary accuser, only the goddess Elaine could make the request to terminate the woman’s exile and she had no intention of doing so.

“What is it this time, Master Hedron?” Elaine asked tiredly, already knowing the answer.

She called him ‘Master’ because he was working in the records department at university. He spent most of his time trying to find a historical precedence that would free his wife, but he was also putting university’s historical records in order, so perhaps he had some use, after all.

“I’ve come across an entry that describes the beginning of the university Praetor’s usage. It seems that Béla actually destroyed the previous Praetor because of some misunderstanding of its intentions regarding her continued survival.”

Elaine frowned at the human who dared to use her dead sister’s name, but honored her decision to hear him out, despite the fact that she wanted nothing more than to teleport him onto the outer surface of the little hollow moon they occupied.

“Continue,” she commanded.

“Um, thank you, Goddess,” Jake murmured nervously. “It seems that a Praetor is capable of recharging itself using the, um, ‘souls’, if I may use that word, of the people it comes into intimate contact with.”

“Yes?” Elaine asked. “And your point, Good Sir?”

“There is a Praetor still on earth,” he said, knowing he wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. “If Tabatha could be guided so that she could find that Praetor, perhaps she could…”

“The Praetor’s location on earth is unknown,” the Golden Goddess declared, seeing where his logic was going. “It was hidden from prying minds by my deceased sister, whose ‘life force’ remains undetected, as well.”

“So Tabatha’s life is to be wasted to pay for something she didn’t know she was doing?” Jake cried out. “It was my family that died! I should have some say in what happens to her!” Elaine looked down at him in pity. It always came down to the same argument. “She's all I have left.”

“Your request is refused, whatever it would be, Master Hedron. No one knows where the Praetor on earth is, so whatever new scheme you’ve hatched to rescue your wife is, by this fact alone, thwarted,” Elaine said quietly. “Aaron, please show Master Hedron out.

“And Aaron?” The court assistant turned toward her. “No more petitioners today.”

Elaine stepped down off her seat. She wasn’t enjoying her job any more. She hadn’t enjoyed much of anything since her sister was drugged and murdered, two centuries ago.

The worst part of it, now – the part about living on, anyway – was the indeterminable waiting for a tiny ball of fire eight hundred million kilometers away to burst. No one was certain if New Eden was far enough away to be protected by Jupiter’s mass when the big event finally occurred. No one was certain that even massive Jupiter, itself, would survive the incredible assault of energy the sun would release when it went nova.

‘What if it’s all a waste,’ Elaine thought as she walked toward the goddess’ mansion.

She imagined some lizard-like child (the only alien race she’d ever met) pointing up at the night sky at the pretty new star, not realizing that the bright light that so enamoured him announced the demise of two intelligent species.

‘Is that what all our endeavors boil down to?’ she lamented. ‘A bright light in some alien child’s eye?’

She entered the mansion through the front door. That in itself was unusual, for the Golden Goddess usually flew directly to the balcony entrance of her quarters. Their quarters – she and Jacob, her life-mate.

He met her at the door, Jacob did, surprising the goddess with his infectious grin and lightening her mood, as always.

“You always know where I am, don’t you,” Elaine said, stretching up to kiss him.

It wasn’t a question as much as an acknowledgement of his devotion to her. He didn’t answer. He just kissed her.

“What do I smell?” she asked, brightening up even more.

Jacob, Elaine discovered early in their relationship, could cook. So when Chef passed away, several years after she’d officially made Jacob her lifemate, Jacob took over the cooking for everyone in the mansion.

“Come and find out,” he replied, then led her into the dining hall.

Dinner was a meat loaf made from lamb, pureed rice, mushrooms, onions and yesterday’s bread (sun dried and crumbled, then mixed in with pureed tomato) and eggs. It was lightly spiced with salt, pepper, dried garlic and ginger. Potatoes pureed with cream and chives, then spiced with pepper, paprika and garlic accompanied the lamb loaf. Everyone thought it was wonderful. Elaine thought it was another of Jacob’s wonderful sausage dishes he often served. In fact, the lamb loaf was called ‘sausage’ loaf.

Shortly after Jacob took over the cooking for the mansion, he decided to wean Elaine off sausage. To him, sausage was the most unhealthy, grease-laden non-meat that had ever been invented by mankind. After experimenting around for several years, he discovered a combination of lamb, rice and mushrooms that he could make taste just like sausage, right down to the texture. By adding a small amount of bacon fat, even Elaine couldn’t tell the difference.

So, Jacob very covertly began to replace the sausage that Elaine craved in her diet with lamb, rice and mushrooms. In less than a year, she was unknowingly weaned off sausage completely. Over the next few years, he gradually cut down on the amount of grease, also. Now, Elaine could have all the sausage dishes she desired (and he had taken the time to learn sixty different ways to prepare it for her), and she and the rest of the household were eating healthy.

In addition, to protect the recipes that he kept in his head, he asked Elaine’s sister, Dawn, to show him how to shield those images in his mind so that none of the other telepathic goddesses could raid his mind and serve his gourmet dishes in their own districts. In addition, the shield protected him from Elaine ever finding out she wasn’t eating sausage.

Jacob normally didn’t prepare desserts with starch-heavy meals like the one they’d just eaten, so, after the main course, Elaine and Jacob retired upstairs while the servants cleaned up.

“Play for me?” Elaine asked, smiling at him.

“Of course, My Queen,” Jacob grinned back at her.

He recalled when he met her. The goddess had come to him in the middle of his sleep period. They’d made love for hours and hours. Then he’d played his pipe for her. After mere minutes of pouring his heart out to her on his pipe, Elaine knew she was in love.

His current pipe was an instrument he was proud of. It was the fourth one he’d carved; each one more exquisite and intricate than the previous one as he learned more about the instrument. This one was capable of producing two tones at once from the same mouthpiece. He’d even written several compositions specifically for this instrument, although it was the only one of its kind in existence.

~~~~~

Jake Hedron had returned to university after his abrupt dismissal from the temple audience chamber. It had been more that three months now since his wife, Tabatha was taken from him and, in a trial lasting less than an hour, sentenced to exile on a barren, baked Earth. The justices had immediately surrounded her and teleported her there after stripping her of her powers. He hadn’t even been allowed to say goodbye to her.

Since that day, Jake had relentlessly spent every free moment learning as much as he could about the justice system, the powers of the goddesses, previous judgements; anything he could use in an attempt to free his wife. Today was the first time he’d tried subterfuge, attempting to create a situation where his wife would have access to a Praetor, the ultimate lawgiver in this society.

He knew that if Tabatha could access a Praetor, she could possibly convince it to retry her case, if she were even still alive, that is. Earth today was a dry, dead, radioactive wasteland with limited plant and insect life. Tabatha was fit, strong-willed and resourceful. But she was a city girl, and… Three months of scrounging for food and water? Jake doubted that even he could survive those conditions.

He spent the next six hours researching Béla’s trial where she’d murdered a landowner and taken over his estates. He didn’t find anything he could use, but now he understood why she had been given the freedom to govern herself free of any impediments.

Exhausted from his efforts, and heartsick that he may never see Tabatha again, he staggered to his cot in the dormitory. That night, for the first time, she came to him in his dreams.

He woke up. There was someone sitting on the cot, tipping the thin mattress at an odd angle. Sitting up in the darkness, he could see a silhouette. There was a female sitting on the bed with him.

“Jake?” she asked, seeming as surprised to see him as he was to see her.

“Tabatha?” he asked, incredulous. “How? When did you get back? I petitioned at the temple again today and the goddess didn’t mention your return.”

“I’m…” Tabatha began.

Then Jake was hugging her – almost crushing her against him, sobbing his relief that she still lived and she was with him, again.

“I’m still on earth, darling,” Tabatha told him when he let her breathe again. “The Praetor taught me how to dream-walk so I could visit you.”

“I’m dreaming this?” Jake asked, his elation crashing down as fast as it had risen.

“Yes,” Tabatha said quietly. “And so am I!”

She reached forward to kiss him again.

“Oh, God! I’ve missed you so!” Jake exclaimed ardently.

He pulled her down with him on the cot. She responded, kissing him warmly and wrapping her arms tightly around him. Then Jake noticed how thin she was. She was thinner now than she was immediately after she’d teleported them both into this horrid future they were trapped in.

Tabatha, her empathic abilities working now that she wasn’t in her body, noticed his worry immediately.

“There’s food and water here,” she said, hoping to ease his mind. “The sun’s really hot and it burns me every day, but I heal at night, and the sky is really beautiful. The Northern Lights cover the entire night sky and are so bright you can only see the most brilliant stars behind them.”

“You’ve found food and water?” Jake asked, “and the Praetor, too? How did you manage all that?”

Tabatha opened her mind to him, letting him see some of the less traumatic ordeals she’d gone through in the last week or so. She didn’t let him see earlier than that – she didn’t want him to know how she’d managed to survive from day to day by eating bugs and drinking mud until she’d finally found that food cache.

She let him see that, for the last hour or so before she came to visit him in his sleep, she and the Praetor had practiced her dream-walking to teleport things she needed to survive without triggering the image detector placed in her skull by the justices.

The first thing she’d dream-walked back to Béla’s ruined house was tomorrow’s menu from the food cache she’d discovered in Somerville. Then she’d searched, still dream-walking, for containers to hold water and dream-walked them to her little stream near the Washington Street Bridge. Once she had both food and water and was settled into Béla’s roofless ruins, she dream-walked to New Eden to visit Jake, feeling much happier than she believed she would ever feel again.

“So, here I am,” Tabatha cheerfully concluded her visual update.

Jake couldn’t believe how upbeat she sounded, especially since he had spent the last three months in the deepest depression imaginable.

“You are so incredible!” he exclaimed, radiating pure joy at her seeming well-being. He hugged her to him again. “But you’re so skinny! You never got a chance to fill out after you brought us here.”

“It took a long time to find food here,” Tabatha admitted. “Most of the food, even canned goods, is so irradiated by the sun that it’s spoiled. And Massachusetts is so dry, now. There used to be hundred of rivers and lakes. And millions of trees. They’re all gone – dried up. Most of the trees are gone, too. I think maybe insects ate them.”

“Insects?” Jake said, suddenly worrying again. “What kind of insects eat entire trees?”

“Oh, termites, ants,” Tabatha replied. “This planet’s been dead a long time. It probably took them a long time to eat all the trees.”

“So you’re doing all right?” Jake asked, wanting her to lie, if necessary, to ease his mind.

She could see that, too. She also saw that it embarrassed him to believe that he was that callous. She smiled at him in the darkness.

“It’s lonely,” Tabatha said, her quiet voice belying the desolate emotion behind her words. “I would have died for someone to talk to.”

She hugged him tighter, opening her mind further to let him know how wonderful she felt stretched out against him, molding her body against his from her head to her toes.

She withheld the fact that she really hadn’t missed him. She had been too busy, trying to survive in that forsaken wasteland the justices had dropped her into, to spend all her emotional energy grieving because her husband wasn’t sharing her terrible fate. Her mind simply didn’t work that way.

She was extremely glad that he wasn’t with her in this horrible, desolate place. It surprised her to realize that she could live without Jake, but she would rather be without him than have him trapped on Earth with her. But, if given a different choice, it was much more wonderful to be with him than to be alone, even if she could only be with him in her dreams.

Jake’s body responded to the pleasure she radiated though him, quickly reminding him that he hadn’t made love to her for three long, lonely months. He began caressing Tabatha’s back and shoulders and discovered she was covered with incrusted dirt.

“It helps keep the sun from burning too badly,” she explained when he asked her. “And it keeps bugs off at night when I’m sleeping.”

“Why don’t you sleep during the day?” he asked her.

“You try sleeping when the temperature is over a hundred every day,” she replied. “I’ve passed out from the heat, but that’s not sleeping. Besides, the bugs don’t come out during the day.”

“Bugs come out at night?” he asked, wondering what she meant.

Tabatha shuddered, unintentionally broadcasting images of waking up to swarms of tiny, red ants covering her body and trying to eat her alive. She could regenerate as fast as they tore their tiny chunks of flesh off her, and actually found the sensation of being eaten alive somewhat erotic, minute though their little mandibles were.

“That’s the vampire blood in you, darling,” Jake explained, smiling.

He remembered a confession she’d made to him after her first field operation at Tomlin Security. She’d hesitated and almost gotten herself killed just to see what it felt like to be blown up.

“You probably like the sun burning your skin, too,” he added, rubbing some more crumbling dirt off her arms. “In fact, I believe that you enjoy everything that’s been happening to you!”

Tabatha thought for a moment. “You’re right, I think. I never really thought about it. I really don’t mind being here. It’s lonely, and before I found the Praetor, I nearly starved to death.

“But I didn’t mind any of it!” she exclaimed, surprising herself with the realization. “I’m experiencing life at its most extreme. I’m actually happy here!”

“And you can visit me at night,” Jake added, smiling at her.

He didn’t really know if she was telling the truth, or just trying to relieve his anxiety. Perhaps it was some of each.

“But if I’m happy where I am,” teased Tabatha, “why do I need to visit you?”

She moved her hips slightly, letting his growing hard-on slip into the space between her legs, then squeezed her legs together, trapping his beautiful cock between them.

“Oh! Now I remember why…”

Jake laughed and kissed her again. She returned his kiss, gently moving her pelvis back and forth, dry-humping his hard-on. She moaned into his mouth after a few minutes of passionate kissing and rubbing. Jake noticed that his dick was moist, now. He realized she must have already had an orgasm. He found it odd that she hadn’t shared it with him.

“Sorry,” she said. “I was imagining us back home. We’ll probably never get back, will we?”

She sighed, seeming a little depressed.

Jake positioned himself so that he could shove his cock inside her. Gently, he pushed forward. Tabatha opened her eyes for a moment as she realized what he was doing, then smiled at him and closed her eyes again. She opened her mind to him, letting him know how good he felt inside, stretching her where she hadn’t been stretched for a long time.

As he pushed farther in, she moaned and gently arched her back, radiating her pleasure from the small release she’d just had. Jake realized that, physically, she was exhausted from just trying to stay alive. Any orgasms she had tonight were not going to be mindbenders, despite their long separation.

He held her tightly against him, loving how her soft and warm, but very dirty body felt against his as he moved slowly in and out of her. He raised her head and let her rest her cheek on his so she could breathe more easily. It was also easier to kiss her sexy neck in that position.

She still smelled like Tabatha, but he could detect the strong odor of stress. It was an older scent, not the one she was emitting now, but she had been stressed recently; in the past day or so, anyway.

Tabatha was responding to his movements, now, moving her pelvis toward him so that he could get deeper with each thrust. She was also getting wetter down there. What she was radiating seemed to be a nice, long, constant, low-level but very pleasant orgasm.

After a few more moments, Jake began thrusting faster, feeling his own orgasm approaching. Tabatha picked up her pace; her constant, low-level sensations quickly building up into a crescendo of explosive, orgasmic satiation. Her pussy erupted in orgasm, sending waves of ecstasy throughout her body. They radiated on out into Jake’s body as well. Jake’s cock exploded into her soaked pussy, adding his juices to hers and radiating his orgasm back through her.

They came down from their ecstatic heights slowly, holding each other tightly and just feeling each other breathe. Tabatha moaned and moved her head back to look at him. She put one hand on his cheek and smiled at him.

“I love…” she faded.

Jake cried out in anguish as his arm dropped through her fading body. His emotions crashed from complete sensual ecstasy to complete and total misery in just the few seconds it took for Tabatha to fade completely away. He cried out his misery to the empty room, twisting and turning in his sleep as the dream faded away. Then he relaxed into a deeper and more restful sleep than any he’d had since the justices had stolen her away from him.

~~~~~

Elaine lay awake in her life-mate’s arms. Jacob had played for her, then he’d shown her a new set of pipes he was making. One side of the dual-bodied pipes was much smaller than the other. When he’d shown her how it would sound, it made a high, delightful peeping sound, rather than the soft, low, melodious sound of the larger and wider pipes he’d made.

Then they had laughingly, lovingly, had sex together. Even after two hundred years, she still delighted in his company and his lovemaking. She loved his cooking and his talking as well. She’d never known anyone who wanted to talk to her, except for the Bard Geoffrey. And the great bard had been more interested in simply getting her to change her sluttish behavior than he was interested in her as a real person. Jacob had succeeded in making her a one-man woman where Jeff had failed. But, to be fair, Elaine had never loved Jeff – especially not like she loved Jacob. She’d seduced the great bard many times before she met Jacob, and Jacob already knew of her sexual reputation when he’s asked her to be his lifemate.

Tonight, as in many nights before, Elaine lay awake for hours in Jacob’s arms as he slept. Three months ago, she’d had a vision as the goddesses surrounded the little murderess, Tabatha Hedron, preparing to exile her to her home world for destroying the future of her husband’s family and causing the deaths of Béla and Beth, or rather, Lisa. Once she was exiled to earth, in the vision, she would have the opportunity to correct her mistake.

Elaine didn’t understand what the earth girl would do, especially with her powers bound by the image alarm placed in her brain. But the vision only required one thing of the Seeker as she held hands with her sister goddesses and aided in teleporting the murderess to Earth. The murderess needed to be dropped near where Béla had lived when she had been captured, drugged and killed.

Elaine passed the image of the location in her vision along to her sisters, and then they carried out the sentence. The space where the earth girl had stood was suddenly empty. A great cry of anguish echoed throughout the room from a single male throat. Elaine turned and watched as the earth girl’s lifemate dropped to his knees crying out his denial of what he just witnessed. Watching him, she felt no emotion whatsoever. She turned and left the temple.

But every time she saw Hedron now, she still heard that haunting cry. As time passed, and his arduous efforts to seek a reprieve for his exiled wife continued, her conscience bothered her more and more. Her error was in not letting them say goodbye. She and Jacob, her own lifemate, had had their single biggest quarrel ever over that very point.

“If I was him,” Jacob told her, “and it was you trapped and powerless on a dead world, I’d move heaven and hell to get you back. He’s behaving much more civilized that I would. So don’t complain to me that he ‘bothers’ you. It’s your conscience that bothers you, so take it to the justices and see if you can make amends to him!”

That was the only time they’d ever discussed it. After that, Jacob was his pleasant, normal self – perhaps putting a little more effort into pleasing her, which she liked, although it reminded her that Hedron was still missing a lifemate.

Something moved in the ethereal world her mind occupied. Someone was dreamwalking in a nearby building. She recognized the aura. Furious at the murderess’ violation of her exile, she dream-walked out of her body and relocated next to the earth girl. She was quietly sitting on Jake’s bed, seemingly unaware of where she was. Then Jake, entering her dream, sat up and they saw each other.

Elaine’s first impulse was to lash out at the errant girl and cause her to lose track of her location. That would, in effect, slap her back into her body on earth. Something made her hesitate and she listened to the lovers talk.

“The Praetor taught me how to dream-walk,” the hated earth girl was saying.

‘She found the Praetor!’ Elaine realized, astounded.

She looked into the earth girl’s mind and discovered that it had actually called out to her as soon as she was near enough to hear it as it used the last of its stored energy in an attempt to save itself.

‘Why didn’t it call out to me?’ she wondered.

Elaine had searched Béla’s house while it was still standing and not found it. She hadn’t been able to locate it anywhere – almost like it was hiding from her. And it c