Chapter 10 Collars and Contracts, Eve
COLLARS AND CONTRACTS, EVE
Seven days trapped on a military starship alone should have felt endless, but it hasn’t. It’s felt both scary and exciting.
The Commander has visited me at least once a day, every day, accompanying me on walks through the dark corridors while I asked him questions about what’s to come on the other side of the galaxy.
He’s patiently answered my questions, but with cryptic half-sentences and long pauses, as if clarity itself was classified.
Every time I would press him for more information, he would either change the subject or tell me simply it’s just how hierarchy works in the galaxy and I must accept it.
The Commander has reminded me more than a hundred times since I arrived on his ship, “You are no longer on Earth, Madame Eve.”
The ship’s computer, by contrast, has drown me in information—endless data streams, histories, charts, and protocol files.
I have devoured them all until my eyes blurred, but the more I studied, the more I realized how little I understand.
And I worry that when I finally step off this ship, I’ll be unprepared.
And that my failure will mean I end up a human companion, never able to return to Earth and never free again.
While on the ship, I’ve learned that the humans I met on my first day—the companions—are owned. Not mistreated, at least not in the official records, but owned all the same. When I asked the Commander to see them again, he refused and asked me, “To what end?”
I couldn’t then, and still can’t now, articulate why I wanted to see them again or what I would ask them that I didn’t already know.
And when I think about it too much, I think it must be the Devil inside of me that wants to talk to them again.
To understand more deeply, the line that separates us, between the free human and the owned human.
And while that knowledge may serve me, it might hurt them.
Because, the only thing that separates me from them is where we were born and the necklace around my neck, which is why it seems so unjustifiably cruel.
But, I try not to let myself linger on their fate.
At St. Catherine’s, I learned to survive by compartmentalizing everything and locking away the things I couldn’t change.
And that habit, for better or worse, has never left me.
I’m in no way dismissing the human companions I’ve seen here; I’m simply filing the memory away, as sharp as broken glass, until I can do something.
So I read. I walk. I ask questions that may or may not be answered.
And each night in my small bed, I imagine the Celestial Spire and tell myself that if I can learn enough now, maybe I’ll stand a chance of surviving in this alien world.
Denise survived after all. She more than survived; she thrived, didn’t she?
Between the Commander’s visits, I’ve also begun reading the Celestial Spire’s employee handbook that Cal downloaded to my e-reader.
I thought it would be schedules, uniforms, maybe even instructions on how to make alien coffee.
Instead, it reads like a manual for surviving a medieval court dressed up in corporate language.
The rules are endless. How to stand when a superior enters.
Which corridors I’m allowed to use. The exact angle of bow required depending on who’s watching.
Every detail is designed to remind me I’m not staff; I’m the property of the Sovereigns (yes, they are really referred to as ‘Sovereigns’) as long as I am under contract.
But that’s not just because I’m human, it seems that when you work for a company in the galaxy, your employers not only give you wages for work, but also provide you with housing and are responsible for your pastoral care.
One section of the handbook warns that failure to follow proper protocols will not be met with reprimands, but with “public punishments.” And my heart skips a beat as I skim the disciplinary pages hoping my version of the handbook is outdated.
In the next section about special events, a line catches my eye.
“Receptionist-class staff may be called upon for Grand Championships duties as determined by Sovereign rank.”
No explanation or context is given, just those two words: Grand Championships. I wonder if it’s like their Olympics or a famous spaceship race like our Formula One?
I close the handbook and decide to take a break. My mind is spinning with all of this new information. This isn’t just a workplace owned by Reima Two employers; it’s a whole society that expects me to behave as if I were born into their culture.
And unmistakably, it’s a matriarchy; every clause drips with maternal lineage.
After a few minutes of thinking about it, I ask the computer to explain the matriarchy and how it works.
After a few hours, I have learned that most women stay planetside, directing empires and corporations while their husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers are sent into galaxy to trade, to command ships, to wage wars, and protect their planets.
And where the hell does this leave me?
I’m not from Reima Two, nor am I an Imperial citizen.
I’m not even a man. I’m a human woman entering an alien man’s domain, (the Celestial Spire isn’t located on a planet, it’s its own gigantic space station) completely outside their hierarchy.
And with dread spreading through my entire body, I know exactly what this makes me.
It makes me fucking fresh meat. Literally.
I tighten my fingers around the necklace Clay gave me. It’s the only thing that keeps me from being invisible in this society. No, that's not right. It’s the only thing that keeps me from being a companion, owned, a sex slave.
After dinner, my display flashes with an unexpected message:
Innocent words, but nothing on this ship has been innocent so far.
The doctor proved that on my first day, when a “natural” remedy ended up with me being stripped naked and orgasming for a medical audience of two.
If that could happen in daylight, what might happen tonight with alcohol and no pretense of medicine?
Still, I accept. Six days locked in my quarters with only the Commander’s measured walks to break the silence have left me restless. And tomorrow I reach the Celestial Spire, so tonight I need some distraction, whatever it costs.
The corridor air feels cold against my skin as I follow the glowing path toward the officers’ lounge.
The Commander told me that the ship’s computer knows where I’m headed at all times, so all I need to do is follow the line on the wall with my name on it.
Technology like this is so invasive, but also so convenient at the same time.
And despite being nervous about leaving the ship tomorrow, I’m curious to see how the rest of the galaxy lives with all this technology.
Maybe that’s another reason no one ever returns to Earth.
I pause at the entrance to the officer’s lounge and see curved sofas facing a small stage bathed in blue light. Officers are waiting casually with drinks in hand. It seems innocent enough.
I walk in and immediately I’m hit with the strong scent of spice and a sweetness I can’t name. It’s not poison, but it makes me feel suddenly eager for something. I tell myself it’s just my imagination and my anxiety about tomorrow.
The Commander crosses the room with two glasses of amber liquid. When he reaches me, he hands me one and I take it.
“Is there going to be a performance?” I ask, looking at the small stage.
“Of sorts,” he says, and gestures to the seat beside him.
The music starts, and then four humans step onto the stage, their oiled bodies shimmering under the lights. Chains run from nipples to groins and serve as clothing, jewelry, and collars all at once.
They dance an erotic dance of bodies pressing together and grinding in rhythm. Hands slide over glistening flesh, tugging chains to make them arch and gasp, mimicking orgasms. They bend low, spread wide, and open their mouths to accept pantomime-come. Every motion is designed to tease.
And it’s working. I cross my legs tightly, heat building where I don’t want it.
I should look away, but I can’t. The sight of them—confident, bound, and radiant—fills me with a sexual hunger.
They are sex slaves. I should hate this, but to my shame, I continue watching, allowing my body to enjoy it.
Five years ago, I would have silently prayed for forgiveness for becoming aroused full-stop, when I used to think there might be a God. But now, the only trouble I have is that none of these people had a choice, and I’m deriving pleasure from watching their performance.
The dancers suddenly break off, and the male companion heads directly toward me.
I’m mesmerized. He’s naked but for the fine chains draped across his body, two threaded through the metal hoops in his nipples, glinting as they connect to the collar locked around his throat.
And another chain crosses low over his belly, resting just above the line of hair that trails down.
It loops delicately around the base of his large, erect cock that’s flushed dark with need.
He sinks to his knees before me, the chain tugging slightly at his cock. He doesn’t flinch. He holds still, like he wants me to look at his body.
“You may touch,” he says, the alien language sliding into my ears through the translator embedded in my necklace. “I am called Lyric.”
“Are you—” I hesitate. “Who owns you?”
He glances at the Commander, then looks back at me with a smile. “He owns me.”
The words land like a slap. After everything the Commander said about protecting me from companion status—he fucking owns one?
“You told me—”
“I told you the truth,” the Commander says. “Lyric is an asset. One I chose to protect when others would have thrown him into a brothel pit. He serves with excellence. Ask him.”
“I was top of my training class,” Lyric says proudly.