Chapter 8 Bloodlines, Lorian #2
Father sighs, as if stroking Autumn relaxes him.
“Reima Two women are soft. You and Rafe should consider a proper human pet to fulfill your urges and marry a Reima Two wife for business ties only. Many men secretly do it. Who could only have sex with their wife? It’s something made up by the matriarchy to keep men down. ”
“Father, you know Rafe would never keep a human. And this isn't the Empire. Reima Two society wouldn't tolerate it.”
Father scoffs, slapping Autumn lightly between her legs.
She jumps, then smiles, like a trained reflex.
“Autumn, where is Earth?” my father asks as if he were talking to a young child.
“I don't know, Master,” she replies in slightly accented Imperial.
“And where is Autumn's home?”
“With Master,” she says without hesitation.
He rewards her with a sweet morsel from the bowl on the table, which she accepts eagerly from his fingers.
Then he looks at me as though he's proven an irrefutable point. “You see? Humans can hardly speak our language. They don’t comprehend that they’re not on Earth, likely don’t even remember Earth.
And they adore sex. That’s what really matters to humans: where their next orgasm is coming from. ”
I study Autumn as she accepts another treat from my father’s hand.
How many times have I taken her? Used her body for my pleasure while she performed the same vacant compliance she shows now?
The memories taste so sour. All those nights when Father shared her, when his officers visited and she serviced them all with the same empty smile.
I was so young then, so certain that her compliance meant she wanted it.
Now I can't help picturing the newly hired receptionist at the Spire.
Would she kneel at my feet like Autumn if I wanted her to?
The thought shouldn't make my blood stir, but it does.
I imagine training her, and it excites me.
Because she would know exactly what she's giving away by kneeling, not a vacant puppet like Autumn or the eager submissive Denise was. Someone intelligent enough to understand every degradation and every pleasure I force on her. It’s an intoxicating thought.
But it’s the wrong thought.
“It's an outdated notion,” I say, responding to my father’s comment about taking a human pet. “The IGC has made owning humans somewhat illegal.”
I watch Autumn. She remains oblivious, lost in Father's caresses. He knows exactly where to touch her after all these years, and she seems to have no interest in whether humans are free in the galaxy.
“It will be decades before that law matters. If the IGC truly cared about humanity, Gael the Returner's wife would have been released. Instead, she was stuck in limbo at the Fertility Goddess’s Temple and only became recognized as a citizen because Gael married her and forced the issue.”
“A fig leaf of compliance,” I remark. “Gael is half Imperial, and we all know his marriage to Lara was just some kind of stunt to get back at Kamos. Who knows what really happened or how Tribune Jin Kol was involved. But I heard a lot of UCs changed hands.”
“There are always credits involved.” Father says.
“I suspect Gael married the human because he didn’t want to lose his pet, and she was too valuable for the IGC to just let go.
Simple as that.” He stops stroking Autumn for a second.
“I have seen the footage from her sale at Gala. She is a prime human specimen. So Gael did what any sane man would do at the Fertility Temple—he married her.”
“I'm not so certain, Father. I doubt a man like that would keep a mindless human. Maybe Lara is more intelligent than we realize.”
“Oh, Lorian. Some humans are bright, I grant you that. But most humans are impulsive, short-sighted, and have IQs barely above animals. Which is why they make the perfect pets. Most are too wrapped up in their next meal or their next orgasm to think about tomorrow. Provide a good home and they never even require a collar.”
He flips Autumn's collar idly. “But the collar is adorable on them, and they flourish under our care, much better than on that toxic planet of theirs. If not for me, Autumn would be cowering in some Earth slum, having borne some ungrateful human man countless children, or even worse, dead. With me, she is safe, happy, well-fed, and satisfied.”
He gestures, and she stands, stepping gracefully over to me. She kneels, her upturned face brimming with a docile and eager expression. The same expression she's worn for decades.
“Stroke her, Lorian,” Father coaxes.
I stroke her hair; it’s silky and well-cared-for. Her eyes are pleading, as if hungry for any attention.
“All she wants is sexual pleasure,” Father says. “She would not object if you took her here and now.” Then to Autumn he commands, “Autumn, stand and show yourself to Lorian. Remind him of how beautiful you are.”
Autumn stands and then turns and bends over, showing me her human sex framed by curly golden fur.
I can't help myself. I slap her rounded ass and then run a finger around the entrance to her core. She's wet and ready… for anyone?
Always ready.
The realization hits me with an unexpected force; she's been trained to be ready for thirty years. Every day, every moment, available for our use. And that this may not be humans’ natural state. That they may be able to be trained out of it if they have a high enough IQ.
“She misses the days when my officers and I would share her all at once.”
Despite my growing arousal, I gently push Autumn back toward my father.
She returns to Father's arms, and he cradles her as though she's been wounded. “Maybe it is not just Rafe who's confused about humans,” he muses.
“Times are changing. Perhaps humans are evolving.”
“Not a chance,” Father says, then he sends Autumn back over to me.
She has the same expression as before, as if I hadn't just rejected her. Can't she remember what just happened? Or has her training made even her memory conditional on her master’s approval?
We hold eye contact as she puts her face against my thigh and looks up at me with anticipation. Her pink mouth is slightly ajar in a way that makes it clear what she wants.
What she's been trained to want.
I don't push her away this time, and she moves her head closer to my groin, never breaking eye contact. Her practiced submission stirs something dark in me, but what's the point of perfect submission if the mind behind it has already been hollowed out?
“You see,” my father says, “she only has one thing on her mind, filling her cunt with an Imperial cock.”
I finish my drink and then stand up to leave. “I need to eat and have a bath. Rafe will want a full debrief when he returns.”
On the balcony adjoining my chambers, I breathe in the cool night air. In the distance, Alba's city lights shine. Subconsciously, I press my fingertips to my lips, tasting the faint trace of Autumn's desire.
I'm about ready to go back and retrieve Autumn when my IC chimes with an incoming call. I know it’s Rafe before I even look at it.
“Lorian,” he says without preamble. “Tell me you didn't actually buy those disruptors.”
“Greetings to you too, dear Brother. How did it go with Nira?”
Rafe sighs. “She cried and threatened to report us to the Reima Two Board of Morality. I blamed you for everything.”
“That's fair. And yes, I got the disruptors. Don't worry; they're undetectable. We need them, Rafe. Terra Ka could pull anything at the Championships.”
Silence, then Rafe exhales sharply. “We’ll talk about them when I'm back. Everything else under control?”
I know what he's really asking: Did I tell Father about another broken engagement? “All fine. Father suggested we take a human pet.”
“And you told him it is technically illegal now if we are to believe the new law marked by Lara of Terra Ka, right?”
“Yes, but he chooses to ignore that law and believe the seventeen others that still classify humans as property.”
Rafe's tone cools further. “Our legally hired human is inbound. I will not risk any complications, Lorian. Whatever our father put into your head, forget about it.”
“Yes, yes,” I drawl. “I'd never sacrifice the Ascendant Alliance's reputation to satisfy my own curiosity.” I run a finger along the edge of the disruptor case. “Almost never.”
He mutters something dismissive about my “inquisitiveness,” and then says, “There’s someone we haven’t asked yet, Zira from House Serath.”
“And there’s a good reason, Rafe. She’s one of Reima Two’s most powerful matriarchs.”
“She’s the right age, brilliant, ruthless, and famously unmarried. She’s the kind of woman who measures power in UCs, not love. She would be…”
I cut him off. “No. Stay out of her bed, Rafe.”
“Unfortunately Lorian, her bed may be exactly where we both need to be for the future of the Ascendant Alliance. I want you to consider it.”
“I am considering it, and she’d have us both on leashes to do her bidding.”
He hesitates, then abandons what he’s going to say and instead says, “Fine. We’ll figure something out.” Then ends the call.
I stare at the lights of Alba once more, then make a reluctant decision to go back to retrieve Autumn. I hate myself, but I can’t help myself either.
She follows me to my chambers without question, her bare feet silent on the stone floors.
But tonight, for the first time in years, maybe ever, I find myself actually seeing her instead of simply using her.
This broken creature, who once had a different name, a different life, and different dreams of her own before Father molded her into the perfect pet.
I should be disturbed by these revelations, but they only make me hunger more for the challenge that awaits in the form of Eve Eden.
I imagine myself giving our clever new receptionist what Father never gave Autumn.
A choice.