13
lotus
THEY WANTED ME to carry the gun, saying I’m the most helpless of them, but when we get to the ferry, there’s a metal detector that we have to go through, and we know we’re not going to be able to take the gun along.
It’s too bad. Having a weapon may have been helpful. But I just drop it in a trash can on the way to the metal detector, and go through without any problem.
They find the stun gun on Knight, but Arrow, who’s behind him, starts rattling off how tasers and stun guns are allowed, and that there’s no need for a permit or anything. He knows all sorts of things, like the date the law was passed and stuff.
They let Knight keep the stun gun.
We get on the ferry.
As we’re crossing the dark water, Knight tells Arrow he’s grateful for his knowledge about stun guns.
“Yeah, I don’t know how I know that,” says Arrow.
“I don’t see how useful that’s going to be against them if they find us anyway,” says Striker.
“That’s not why I want it,” says Knight.
“Why?” says Arrow.
Knight lifts it to show him. “She used this on us, you know? She ever use this on you when you had an erection?”
“Well, yeah,” says Arrow.
“Yeah,” says Striker. “But as a deterrent, so…” He shrugs. “Maybe there’s some way to use it to undo it? You think?”
“Worth a try, I think,” says Knight, shoving it back in his pocket.
I’m confused, but I don’t know if I want to ask questions about this when we’re riding the ferry across to New York City and out in the open like this. I’ll wait until later to find out what they mean by a “deterrent.”
When we get off the ferry, we discuss what we should do, and everyone thinks it’s a good idea to get as far from the station here as possible.
So, we take the subway to midtown and then we go looking around for some kind of hotel that will allow us to pay cash. The guys grumble that it would be way better if we knew someone with a credit card, and it sucks that none of us remember our identities.
We try two or three places, and then the fourth is willing to let us stay if we pay up front for three nights, so Knight counts out the cash, and I realize that two grand is really not going to go very far when we’re paying for hotels.
We do need our identities.
This hotel room is much nicer than the room we had before, but it’s not set up too much differently. There are two beds—queens this time, not doubles, and two leather chairs around a little table. These are close to the door and so is the bathroom. There’s a little closet area also, with a fold-down ironing board.
We put the do-not-disturb sign on the door and all fall back into bed.
Knight spoons me from behind, wrapping his arm around my waist, putting his nose against my neck. I’m not sure how I feel about how comfortable that feels already, how easy it is to fall asleep when I’m wrapped up in him. It’s strange and a little frightening. But it’s so good that it’s hard not to enjoy it.
This is the kind of hotel with room service, but they give us crap about trying to order it since we don’t have a credit card on file.
The next day, then, Arrow ends up leaving again to get food for us.
I take a shower, which feels like heaven on earth, but Knight gets grumpy about it, after I get out, saying that I don’t smell like him anymore, and pulling me over to sit close while he spends his time vigorously rubbing into me to get me all scented up with him again.
Striker watches this thoughtfully.
“You don’t have the urge to scent me?” I say. My hair’s still wet. I’m wrapped in a hotel towel.
“I do,” says Striker. “But it seems stronger for Knight than me. I wonder if it’s because of the knotting.”
“Definitely is,” says Knight. “And after we get the bites, it’ll be even stronger, the bond between us.”
“Bites?” I say. “Like more than one?”
“I’m pretty sure you get them from all your alphas,” says Knight. “I wish we had the internet or phones or something. I want to look this shit up. I feel like it’s a thing—bites between mates?”
“I don’t know much about that stuff,” I say. Mating is something the Polloi do, but it’s been rejected by most other modern alphas and omegas because it sounds weird and primitive.
There’s all kinds of strange stuff about mates in the Polloi, like that if an omega dies, all her alphas kill themselves. Sometimes an omega only has one alpha, but usually, she’s got at least three, apparently. These kinds of suicides are ritualistically done, and if an alpha resists, other alphas will hunt him down and stone him to death or something.
Apparently, once a mating bond has been established, anyone mated can demand that their mate have sex with them any time they like, and there’s no saying no or anything. You just have to consent.
Alphas who don’t please their omegas are often stoned to death.
The Polloi are really fond of stoning people to death, apparently. It seems really brutal.
Anyway, outside of the Polloi, in regular society, alphas and omegas are discouraged from having sexual relationships together, because supposedly, it makes both of them crazy. Better to fuck betas, to marry betas, to have babies with betas…
But I have to say that I’ve sometimes wondered about this.
Assuming that being an omega is genetic, it does seem that encouraging us to mate with betas would mean that it would dilute the genes a lot. Are they trying to breed us out?
I think that, and then I decide it’s a conspiracy theory, and it doesn’t make any sense.
Why would they do that? After all, there’s a whole economy built around catering to us. Facilities like Cedar Falls make a lot of money. They can’t want rid of us. Right?
“Well, me either,” Knight is saying. “I mean, I don’t know about mating stuff either, so that’s why I’d like to do research. Too bad that I couldn’t have told Arrow to get us a phone or something.”
“We need to be careful with money,” says Striker. “That is, unless you’ve got another storage unit somewhere with more cash in it.”
“Yeah, I definitely didn’t want to leave all of it in one place,” says Knight. “There were other hiding places. Maybe if I knot Lotus again, I’ll remember.”
“You said you had a plan for the stun gun?” says Striker.
“Not a plan, so much, no,” says Knight.
“I need to understand what that even means,” I say. “Because it sounds like you’re saying this crazy woman there would stun you every time you got an erection.”
They exchange a glance and shrug.
I feel ill. “That’s… awful. I’m sorry.” Then I furrow my brow. “I never felt anything even remotely sexual when I was there, though.”
They both cross their arms over their chest, thinking that over.
“I think they probably gave me something to suppress it,” I say thoughtfully, “like they suppressed my heats. I mean, they must have suppressed my heats, right? I sometimes would think I would feel one coming on, but I never had one.”
“No ruts for us either,” says Knight.
“Yeah, but we’re still sexually functional,” says Striker.
“I mean, are you?” says Knight, nodding at his crotch meaningfully.
“What if it was in the food?” I say. “Something that just suppressed my sexual interest. They have drugs like that. It’s a known side effect for various kinds of anti-depressants, after all.”
“You think that suppressed your heat?”
“No,” I say, “that was probably something else, but that would explain why I’m suddenly interested in sex all the time, don’t you think? Like, if I wasn’t getting that food anymore, that would be why I’m triggering you guys?”
“Maybe,” says Striker. “But it’s more than that, I think.”
“There’s something about your scents, yeah,” I say, nodding.
“It’ll be better after the bites,” says Knight, sure of this.
I don’t say anything, because I have that feeling about the biting again—the dual feeling—part of me feels really pleased and turned on by the idea of being bitten by these men, by having marks on my body to display to others which are indicative of their claim on me. Part of me feels not only sexually aroused but happy and safe at the thought of it. It seems deep-down good.
But another part of me recoils in horror, because I’m afraid I’m giving up freedom. I shouldn’t trust Knight. I don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand that. And while Striker and Arrow seem safer than he is, I really don’t know anything about who they are.
I reassure myself that Knight says he won’t do it without my consent, that he wants me to beg him for it, and I’m sure that I won’t do that, not unless I’ve resolved whatever this conflict is within me regarding all of it.
At this point, Arrow comes back with Chinese food. He’s got a lot of stuff, and there’s going to be leftovers, which is good, because then we won’t need to leave the hotel room again. There’s a mini fridge, which has some beer and small bottles of white wine and liquor in it, in addition to some sodas, which I assume would be like the room service, something they want a credit card for, but there’s room for our Chinese leftovers.
We eat and the guys pass the stun gun around and Striker probes for a little more information about what we’re doing with it.
“You said you didn’t have a plan,” says Striker to Knight, “but you’re thinking something about it.”
“Yeah,” says Knight. “Not sure what, though.”
“I don’t think being stunned is going to make us hard,” says Arrow. He’s got the thing now. It doesn’t look anything like a gun, I don’t think. I’m remembering that I thought these were called tasers. Is that wrong?
Striker snatches it from him. “No, definitely not.”
“I don’t know,” says Knight. “I was kind of thinking… maybe.”
“What?” Striker sets the thing down on the table near the two easy chairs. That’s where he and Arrow are sitting. Knight and I are perched on one of the beds. “You’re insane, because I’m not letting you do that to me.”
“I think, uh, Lotus should do it.” Knight nods at me.
“No!” I protest immediately, shaking my head.
“Look, she—Acker, I mean—she told us what to do and she hurt us, and we need a different female voice in our heads,” says Knight.
“Okay, granted,” says Striker, “but being stunned is painful, and nobody feels like sex when they’re in that kind of pain. It’s really bad. Have you forgotten how bad it is?”
“I haven’t,” says Knight, taking a bite of an egg roll and chewing. He swallows. “But we have it all associated in our heads, so if we can create that same experience—the pain, the stun gun, the female in charge, and our brains can get a different message, that this woman needs our functioning cocks, you know? Maybe it works?”
“It’s worth a try,” says Arrow.
“No, I don’t want to stun you guys,” I say.
“I don’t want to be stunned,” says Striker, making a face.
“I’ll do it,” says Arrow. “I can handle it.”
“Well, I can handle it,” says Striker, giving Arrow a withering look.
“No reason for both of us to try it if it’s no good,” says Arrow. He eyes me. “Let me tell you what to do and say, okay?”
arrow
I’M FACING THE bed in the hotel, tensed for the pain already, even though Lotus hasn’t said she’s ready to use the stun gun.
Both Striker and Knight are holding onto me. They’ll guide me safely down onto the bed after I get the electricity going through me.
Lotus is standing behind me, holding the stun gun. She’s quiet now, but she’s spent the last hour or so protesting how much she doesn’t want to do this. She says she’s worried I’ll associate her with pain or something, and I tell her that’s impossible.
I don’t know if Knight’s idea is going to work or not. I really don’t.
But more than anything, I want to know who the fuck I am. I have no memories of my life before, nothing except vague ideas, and I can hardly stand it anymore. It’s like being in a building and not knowing what it’s for. I need myself back.
So, I look over my shoulder at Lotus. “Whenever you’re ready,” I assure her.
She bites down on her bottom lip. She looks worried. “I’m never going to be ready,” she says.
“You remember what to say,” says Knight to her.
She nods.
I turn back around.
Silence.
Knight prompts Lotus.
“I don’t want to say any of this shit,” she mutters. “I don’t want to talk in that voice, like you guys are pets. I can’t believe this is what this woman did to you. I also can’t believe it fucking worked.”
I hang my head, because I feel ashamed, actually, that I could have become susceptible to Dr. Acker’s manipulation.
“Look, we’re trying to undo this manipulation,” says Knight.
“No,” she says. “You’re trying to use the manipulation. You’re not trying to dismantle it at all. And I don’t like being part of it, I have to say.”
“Please try,” I say to her, staring forward, at the framed landscape hanging above the bed. “Please?”
She sighs heavily. Then, her voice changes, and it’s horrifying, because I react immediately to it. “Good boy, Arrow,” she says. “Very good boy. You’re the best tracker, aren’t you? You’re the best at finding things. When you get a scent, you never let go of it, do you? That’s right, such a good, good boy.”
My cock stirs. I lick my lips. “D-don’t, don’t stun yet. Just keep talking like that. Maybe, um, maybe… touch my hair?”
“Oh, yeah,” says Striker. “She’d do stuff like that. Come up and run your fingers over his earlobe.”
“Okay, but she’s right,” says Knight. “That’s just using the manipulation, not dismantling it.”
Except, Lotus is behind me, her fingers soft as they trace the outline of my ear. “Such a good boy, Arrow,” she breathes in my ear.
I groan.
“Tell him it’s okay,” says Striker softly.
“It’s okay, good boy,” says Lotus. “Everything’s okay.”
And, there we go, just like that, I’m fucking hard. I let out a strangled noise.
“What?” says Lotus.
“Uh, we have lift off,” I say.
She reaches around and explores me. “Oh!” she says, quite pleased. “Hi there.” Her scent filters around from behind me, a sweet temptation, and suddenly, I’m unhinged. I turn around, shaking off Striker and Knight. I grab her, by the neck, and I propel us backward, across the room, slamming her against the wall.
Her eyes widen, and her scent changes. She’s afraid now, but that just makes my cock harder. I can’t stop. I won’t fucking stop. But I don’t like the way her eyes are all wide and accusing me so I turn her around and push her face first into the wall.
“Arrow,” she says in a high-pitched voice. “Arrow, I know you—” She breaks off because I pull her pants and underwear down, baring her body to me.
I free myself and my cock is like an arrow, like my own namesake, finding its way right home, right inside her sweet pussy, just there.
She cries out.
I cry out.
And then it’s all pouring into me at a speed that’s too fast to even handle, and I can hardly make sense of it and—
“It hurts, Arrow, it hurts,” she says.
I slam deeper into her, harder into her, as the memories of my former life explode through me.
“Stop,” she gasps. “Stop it, please, let go of—”
And then a current of awful pain rushes through me and I shriek.
She stunned me.
I go down, right on the ground, in a heap.
She runs to the other side of the hotel room, holding the stun gun with one hand. With her other hand, she’s rubbing her cheekbone and then her shoulder.
The pain is still sparking through me. I can’t move. I just lie here.
“S-sorry, Arrow,” she says. “I c-couldn’t breathe. You were pushing on me, and the wall was at my chest and—”
Striker goes to her and pulls her into his arms. “Should have stopped it.” He gazes accusatively at Knight, who hangs his head.
I collapse into the carpet, breathing hard.