Someone was following her. Velusia clutched her Louis Vitton purse tightly to her chest and hastened down the deserted street toward her Mercedes. Her designer heels clicked against the pavement like the second hand of a clock. Her tight Mancino suit’s knee length skirt wouldn’t allow her to break into a full run, but she could definitely hurry. She glanced over her shoulder but saw nothing and no one in the midnight darkened street that would be giving her these heebie jeebies.
She simply had to stop working this late. She put in the long hours at the firm to prove herself, the lone female in the corporate law offices of Bonehan & Floyd. In fact, Velusia intended for it to be Bonehan, Floyd and Sanchez some day--some day soon. It was part of her ten year plan, and she was in year five. Velusia was nothing if not organized and on time.
Her silver z200 sat glistening under the street lamp like a giant cat. She sighed with relief. Her shoulders relaxed and she reached up and teased free her long, dark hair, releasing it from its tight, professional bun. It fell in sensual waves halfway down her back, and she shook her head so the night air could reach her aching scalp.
Velusia could taste the iron tang of coming rain when she licked her full lips. It would storm tonight, but she’d be tucked safely away in her pricey downtown condo, watching the lightning branch across the Phoenix skyline like gigantic trees of fire.
As she reached her car, she became aware of a humming sound that surrounded her, echoing up and down the one way street off the blank, glass windows of the buildings in the office district. Puzzled, she glanced at the street light, which flickered wildly. Great, the light was about to go out or explode, one.
She unlocked the door, slid into the butter soft luxury of leather seats. Closed the door. The light steadied, but the humming increased, even through the expensive, soundproofed walls of her vehicle. In addition, the light grew brighter and brighter until she had to hold her hand over her dark eyes to shade them from the glare.
What was going on? Surely this wasn’t a malfunctioning street light!
The glow coalesced into a nearly solid bar of light in the middle of the street. Wind whipped up, blowing papers and leaves in a mad dance around the illumination. She watched, amazed, as the figures of three men in silver jumpsuits stepped out of the glow and approached her car.
Panicked, she popped the automatic locks and fumbled for her keys. A pale hand landed on the driver’s side window and she screamed.
The door was wrenched off its hinges and thrown to the black, dusty pavement. A very tall, muscular man with silver eyes and tight, blonde curls motioned her to get out of the car. If she refused, would he throw her against the pavement as well? Unwilling to test that, she complied, her knees practically knocking together with fear. She wished she’d let Mr. Bonehan talk her into buying that gun now! Where were the cops? Where was anybody besides these three strange men?
“What do you want?” She held out her purse. “Take it. I have three hundred dollars cash and credit cards galore, mi amigos.”
The man, his aquiline profile etched against the bright column of light in the street, frowned. He opened his palm and glanced at it, seeming to read something.
“Come with us and you not harm,” he intoned. His raspy voice sent a frisson of fear up her spine.
She retracted the purse and held it bundled in her arms. If she could hit the speed dial for 9-1-1 on her cellphone.... She let her hand slide across the Vitton bag, feeling through the fabric for the outline of her phone. Ah!
“Please,” said the man. The other two behind him, both equally as tall and blonde, started forward, but he waved them back. They stopped on either side of the light column like doormen.
Maybe that’s what they were.
“Who are you?” she asked. “What are you?”
He watched her without answering, as if inspecting a creature in a zoo he’d never seen before. She lifted a hand to brush back her hair; his eyes followed her gesture. She licked her lips nervously; his eyes followed that movement, too--and he echoed it.
Did he taste the coming rain--or was he interested in tasting something else?
Anxiety made sweat bead on Velusia’s upper lip. She resisted the urge to lick it again, since the man was staring at her so oddly.
“Who are you? What do you want?” she repeated. “Voy a casa. I have to go home now.” She started on the other end of her purse, feeling her way across it.
He looked at his hand again. Did he have a cheat sheet of the English language cribbed there?
“We come in peace,” he answered her.
“Is this a joke?” Was that her phone? Yes! Luckily she hadn’t yet upgraded to a flip phone. She let her sensitive fingertips test the buttons, seeking out the rows. If she held down the number nine for five seconds, it would ring 9-1-1.
Got it.
One of the doormen spoke in a musical voice, sharply. The other men glared at her and the first man held up his palm. A glow not unlike the column emanated from it and hit her purse. Inside, she heard a pop as her cellphone exploded. With a little scream, she dropped her bag.
“Do not,” he said. “You not harm. Please come.”
He gestured at the light.
How the hell had he done that? Por Dios, what was going on?
“I’m not going anywhere.” Velusia backed toward her car. The keys were still in the ignition. “I’ll scream if you come any closer. There are security guards in every one of these buildings, compañeros. Back off.”
“Do not,” he repeated. A frown wrinkled his perfect brow, and he reached out that strange, deadly hand to her.
She jumped into the car. He darted forward, grabbed her arm.
“Don’t touch me with that thing!” She socked the large man in the gut, but his rock-hard belly hurt her knuckles more than she hurt him.
He did utter a surprised “Oof!” but he didn’t lose his grip. The other two men barked questions in that strange language she’d never heard.
Velusia grabbed her attacker’s shoulders and threw her weight back into the carseat, pulling the surprised man nearly on top of her--until his square chin met the low roof of her Mercedes.
This time his grunt of pain was genuine instead of mere surprise. He lost his grip and she clambered to the passenger’s side of the car.
One of the other men was already lurking there like an angry statue, arms crossed over his massive chest. He had to be at least seven feet tall. The pale glow from the column glinted on his silver jumpsuit and in his eyes.
She darted for the key in the ignition, tried to crank it. The first man took his hand off his bleeding chin, directed his palm at the hood of her car, and with a staccato “Ping!” she knew her motor had just been incapacitated.
Velusia felt fear wash through her limbs as harsh as a gin without tonic. Fear battled with adrenalin as her mind scrambled for a way to escape, a way to claw her way to safety, just as she’d clawed her way out of the barrio to rise to prominence in a high-powered law firm. She wasn’t a quitter; she was a fighter. A luchador.
To that end, she raised both stiletto heeled feet and began raining blows upon the man outside her ripped off door.
She struck once, twice, him grabbing for her slim, dangerous legs and howling out to his comrades. A hand pushed underneath her skirt, attempting a secure grip in the fabric. She squirmed, tried to claw at his silver eyes with her manicured red nails.
“Don’t touch me!” she cried out. “Ayúdeme! Police! Rape!” Her skirt rode up around her hips, ripping apart with a terrible sound.
The man’s fumbling, grasping hand landed on her privates, burned through her silken panties. He pressed his weight onto her pelvis and stilled the twisting of her hips. His erection prodded her front while, in parallel, the emergency brake dug into her back.
This was it. The reason she’d run from the barrio, and now it had found her, even with all her achievements, all her plans and sueños. She fought him but he trapped her wrists and climbed on top of her, pressing her upper body into the passenger’s seat. A knee parted her bare thighs, the silver cloth of his jumpsuit sliding like thick silk against her flesh.
She bucked helplessly and tried to scream so loud it would hurt his eardrums. He transferred her wrists into one strong hand and pressed a long finger against her lips, stilling her screams.
She would not cry. Ningunos rasgones. “Shh,” he whispered. Silver eyes bore into hers, trapped her. His finger rubbed her mouth softly, almost reverently. Though he was obviously aroused, he didn’t grind himself into her.
“Please,” she begged. Did she have a chance of getting out of this unharmed? “Don’t do this.”
His silver eyes darkened to pewter, and he leaned forward until his face was close enough for the blood from his chin to drip and pool in the hollow of her neck. It tickled. Again he licked his lips.
No. She twisted away. If he tried to kiss her, she’d gnaw off his tongue. Were his friends going to watch or go next? Was the light a spotlight, so their gang would know they’d caught a live one, a rich senorita who deserved to be taught a lesson simply for having a womb? She smelled something like cloves and mint on his breath, a spice in the air she didn’t recognize.
What would he taste like, with breath that sweet?
“Shh,” he said again, and crooned something in the unknown language that danced across her skin like lightning. His penis, hard in the silky jumpsuit, nudged against her core and to her extreme humiliation she felt herself moisten for him.
Holding her gaze, he leaned over her and unlocked the passenger door.
Then he retreated, eyes wicked, fingering a scratch on his face beneath his right eye. His chin and his erection, he ignored.
Why did he stop? She could feel what he’d wanted between her thighs. Read it in his darkening gaze.
When he made no move to resume the encounter, Velusia’s heart stopped, then started again, a flatline of relief. She drew her legs up, hid her near-nudity with her ripped skirt as best she could. Surely they’d take her money now and leave her alone in her battered car, with her battered heart.
He uttered something brief, laughed harshly. The giant beside the car opened the passenger door. She felt a huge hand clasp her skull, the palm heat up in an oddly comforting fashion.
That was the last thing Velusia Maria Sanchez remembered for a very, very long time.
# # #
“The Earthling female was very uncooperative.” M’ddor Thedeus, Khan’s chosen and succorer of women, crossed his arms and glared at his lord and commander. “None of the others you listed gave us such trouble during the capture. Most passed out when we emerged from the transfer beam.”
Khan B’lal settled back into his seat and waved a royal, negligent hand. “I’m sure she’ll be worth the trouble. She rounds out my collection perfectly. Didn’t you say she was, what, one of their lawyers?”
“As ordered. She’s also Mexican-American, third generation,” M’ddor added. He caressed the claw mark she’d given him in the struggle to kidnap her from Earth; he’d refused to let Jjana heal it, as a reminder not to allow himself to be blinded by the purity and striking appearance of the Earthling breeders. “No commingling of the bloodlines, according to our DNA scans. Also single, no children, no pets, no immediate family dependent upon her. And as you can see, very beautiful.”
“A bit thin, but that hair is magnificent.” B’lal cocked his head to one side. “Perhaps I should have the keepers hasten her acclimation. I find myself interested in the services she’d provide.”
M’ddor tightened his lips to hide his grin. Unless he’d been mistaken, the Earthling had been ready to remove his tongue as part of her servicing. In fact, he’d been surprised to keep his finger intact when he brushed it against her plush, soft lips.
He found himself fighting arousal at the memory. He stared at B’lal’s gloved hand, a hand that, when uncovered, could destroy a human with a single thought, which is what made him Khan and M’ddor a chosen. That definitely dampened his fire.
“She is a good specimen,” he finally said to his Khan. “She should produce many daughters for our race.”
“I love this little planet. So many flavors of humanity. The extent to which our kin evolved on this world is truly remarkable. I regret the ladies’ spirits are so recalcitrant, but that will mend in time.” The Khan adjusted his protective silver gloves, stretching the fabric more comfortably between his fingers. He pressed a switch on the console beside his chair; it brought up the viewing screen that surveyed the most recent acquisitions from Earth until they could be fully acclimated like the others.
The Mexican-American woman lay slumped on the pillows in her small, sumptuous cage, not yet awoken from the glowstun Jjana had pacified her with after M’ddor’s nigh-intimate encounter between her thighs. He nearly hardened again at the thought, at the sight of her, but it would be foolish to reveal his unpermitted lust in B’lal’s presence. The harem keepers had dressed her in red zhilk top and pantaloons to complement her dusky coloring, so unlike the pale Khandish.
Around her, in their own cages, the other unhappy additions to the Khan’s harem, more used to the shipboard routine, took advantage of the daily lull in their training and testing to sleep, read, meditate, cry, stare at datascreens, or whatever the unfortunate women did when not preparing for their glorious futures.
Earth had only been discovered recently by an explorer ship in the employ of the Khan B’lal. Instead of alerting the Khanduit proper, the alliance of galactic races of humanoid DNA that inhabited this sector of the galaxy, the Khan had chosen to take inventory of the new solar system personally--due to the fine specimen of womanhood the explorers presented him with as proof. The Khandish were the most powerful branch of the ‘Duit, ruled by Khan B’lal of the Iron Fist; lesser branches had their own Khans but not the power and influence of the Khandish. What could they do against a fist like B’lals? The man could do as he wished.
Even now, after several months of picking and gleaning, the Khan had not yet chosen to share the vital discovery, a planet teeming with differently evolved humans of all shapes and sizes, not to mention the other genetic diversity on the small, gemlike planet, blue and glistening in the light of its strong yellow sun.
A find indeed.
This last woman, this lawyer, completed the kaleidoscope of appearance, size and occupation the Khan thought would most enhance his royal harem, which, with the addition of the exotic Earthlings, numbered over a thousand. Obviously the Khan did not receive service from all his women, though such was his right as Khan, but the more women one controlled in this galaxy, the more powerful one’s fist.
For various reasons, Khandi women of all strains rarely conceived females, so the men of the Khanduit outnumbered the women fifty to one. More in some segments, in some lines. In actuality, as the sperm of the men cemented the gender of an embryo, it was the men’s “fault” for not creating more XY sperm, but regardless, additional females were valuable and desirous. Artificial wombs had been mastered long ago, but they could not take the place of the divine power of the female body to create and incubate the eggs of life.
The Khan had a separate ship engaged in the task of collecting Earthling males to research just what it was about them that created prolific XY sperm, but as yet no answer had been located. The Earthling males were just as recalcitrant as the females, though easier to bring to their necessary conclusions in order to conduct the research. To his dismay and that of his harem masters, the Khan had found that the Earthling females’ bodies were difficult to bring to orgasm; their bodies and states of mind seemed to be deeply entwined. Ever diligent, the harem masters were working on that problem, as was the Khan and a few of his chosen. The psychic power contained in the orgasms of females increased the vitality of a Khannish male, the range of his fist, even as it made the woman happy and receptive.
What a heinous task, M’ddor thought with a dry grin. Learning to please these Earthling females.
He shifted his gaze from the six gilded cages to the front viewscreen, that of Earth. This planet, this find--M’ddor wondered if the Khan would ever reveal it to the ‘Duit or just siphon off the technologically inferior humans to increase and continue his reign and power.
However, when the rest of the Khanduit got a look at females like this lawyer, or the ebony black doctor they’d taken from the other side of the planet, or the delicate, cream colored dancer with the perfect bowl of black hair they’d taken from China.... There would be no concealing the discovery.
The Khanduit would rage through the galaxy until it found this fertile planet and suck it dry of women, of variety, of greenery, of anything worthwhile, until Earth was nothing but a dry husk of spacedust. Unless Khan B’lal could stop them.
Had his lord considered this? Or was his selfishness with the planet just that--motivated by his own desires? B’lal oftentimes didn’t confide his plans in his chosen until the time, as he called it, was ripe.
M’ddor watched the woman he’d just captured as her small breasts rose and fell beneath the red zhilk. Ripe as she was, she had no idea. Earth had no idea.
He just had to trust that the Khan had some idea of how badly this could go wrong.
***
© 2005 Jody Wallace