Doctor Who: Panic Moon Ch. 25

Each block was a new symphony of sensations, a roaring, chaotic morass of licking and kissing and cumming and... other things, that Sally didn't have a name for. Most likely alien things; these were the ones that turned her muscles to jelly and made her feel like she would keel over. But she never did, because everything she felt was disconnected from her physicality; she would experience a level of clit-numbing pleasure that she had never felt before, that only grazed her, without ever sinking in. Unbidden, her arousal rose... but there was no hope of release here, she knew.

Having sex without being touched, it turned out, was nothing much like having sex at all.

The deeper they ventured into the district, the more vivid and complex the feelings became. If Lysithea and Dulcimer knew why that was, or what they were walking into, they kept it to themselves, their expressions only showing how deeply they had immersed themselves in the connection they had made with the city. Even if they cared at all about Sally or Lorna's opinions on all this, there would simply be no way to dissuade them from staying here; they were having too much fun, that was obvious.

Lorna got the feeling that something was coming, the further they got into the district. Though as a rule she avoided places like this, even during her shore leave, she was familiar enough with how they operated. Her fellow soldiers talked, after all; she recalled their leave on Lyria, watching the backs of the rest of her squad as they disappeared into the red light district there. The stuff they had talked about afterward had been... intriguing, in a dark kind of way. There were places like that on every planet, filled with sex and danger in equal measure. And she was heading right into the heart of it now, connected through her skin and her nerves and her mind to every throbbing, pulsing part of it.

And the worst part was that the city's prurient fingers could reach right into her core with such ease... This wasn't the kind of thing she thought could even touch her, let alone caress. But she was so wet, swollen and aching between her legs in a way that was so different to the enforced, unwanted pleasure that her kidnappers had given her by their own hands. This was pleasure without a close source, a multitude of experiences burning through her moment by moment; it was hard enough to simply get a lock on each one, let alone concentrate. She was assaulted by it all, barely able to register one blow of sensation before the next was hitting her unawares.

The streets were well maintained and orderly, such a contrast to the way Lorna and Sally felt inside. All around them were people, traversing the streets with a uniform kind of directness and alacrity, trying to get from one establishment to the next in the shortest amount of time, all in an attempt to maximize their time within the warm, possibly sticky, confines of Selestene's red light district. Even with the attention of all around on other things, the girls couldn't help but feel exposed, watched on all sides by ranks of eyes, judged in the extreme.

Could they see the trembling of Sally's thighs as she walked? Did they notice the blush in Lorna's cheeks? What did they see, in that case? Just two more women in the district, in transit between carnal acts? Or did the collars around their necks color the perceptions of the people around them? Did they see slaves? Or something more... prurient?

Why did that even matter, when the ghosts of a thousand fuckings wafted through them moment to moment?

Even with all of that, the two captives were unprepared for experiencing what was going on in the next building. It hit them in a wave, large and solid, like a brick wall sweeping through them. Sally's walking pace skipped a step, and she staggered to a stop, a gasp tearing its way out of her throat as her entire body lit up. This time, it wasn't just sex. Oh, there was sex present, in the same way that drowning contains the basic elements of swimming. There was an orgasm... but it wasn't wanted.

There was sexual pleasure, far and away the most intense the four of them had experienced today. But it was threaded with something else, impurities in the sensation that made the eyes water and the limbs shake. Something that encouraged flight, gave the girls in collars a desperate need to run, even more so than usual. Though her legs near buckled and her cheeks flushed a deep crimson, Sally's heart thudded in her chest as, past the sheer, inescapable ecstasy of her second-hand climax, she felt the purest essence of despair.

Certain knowledge filled her: this was what it meant to be a slave here in the future.

If that had been the end of it, if that single sensation was all that had occurred, it would have been bad enough. But they weren't just near to one slave, forced into their service. No, as it turned out, there were many. One of the nearby buildings must have been committed to that purpose; men and women and humans and aliens, all captured and forced into service, all being used against their will in an outer space whorehouse.

And all being forced to enjoy it...

The cacophony was stunning, almost blinding, and it caused Sally to rock back on her heels as if she had been physically struck. Lorna stumbled too, although she was more capable of catching herself, and even the pair of aliens had stopped walking to investigate further. The focus of their telepathy moved over the source of the disturbance, and Sally collapsed.

It was all too much. Simply having the storming, agonized pleasure as an ambient pressure had driven her to distraction, but when Lysithea and Dulcimer had focused in, every sobbing, bucking orgasm had become sharper and more defined. A succession of tongues and fingers and toys and... other body parts ran over their skin with ghostly precision, bringing off countless unconnected bodies. As the connection stuck, focused in like a rifle scope, it got stronger, more vivid; voices began to bubble up through the skin of the world around them, cold and taunting or frightened and despairing. Either the tormentors or the tormented, it was sometimes hard to tell. The words were indistinct, given the sheer number of them happening at once. It soon became deafening.

But then came the visions, and all else became so much sensory chaff, compared to their complete, overwhelming stress. A multitude of other worlds tore their way into the girls' sight, as if the ground beneath her trembling, kneeling form had opened up and revealed... the kind of sexual hell they couldn't even name.

Bodies struggling, so many they actually blurred into one another, hundreds- thousands- of bucking, sweating forms of all shapes and sizes, restrained in more ways than Sally could conceive of, tormented by...

Oh god...

Figures, some concealed in shadow, some dreadfully exposed, all undeniably awful, twisted and monstrous within the perceptions of their captives, all tongues and fingers and whips and machines- both familiar and alien, working to torment the nerves of the throng of slaves, burning in climax for their cruel masters. The soul of Selestene's slave culture, laid bare for Sally and Lorna to see. The city, forced into orgasm and injected directly into their veins.

Convulsing, dripping, aching, powerful... Climax to the point of catatonia, raping their senses...

And then it stopped.

How long had it lasted? Sally gasped for breath, heart slamming painfully hard in her chest, entire body shaking like a leaf. She became vaguely aware of Lorna in the same position, folded in on herself with prayers like shattered glass bursting from her lips. But Lysithea and Dulcimer had barely moved, stuck just slightly out of the position she had last seen them in, like the world had skipped a frame of animation. She found herself thankful that there was nobody else on the street, but the evidence she had could only lead her to conclude that it had only been a moment or two since the world had turned upside down on her. How could that be?

It had felt like an eternity, trapped, connected to the beating heart of Selestene's criminal underbelly, chained to... whatever that was. The aliens seemed unconcerned, but to even touch that madness had affected the captives deeply. Was that what awaited the two of them, on this "vacation?"

'Sorry about that,' Lysithea did look somewhat concerned, to her credit. 'You see something out the corner of your eye, you look... it's the same thing with telepathy. It can get a bit overwhelming to newbies. You two alright?'

'This city...' Lorna panted, still recovering. Her voice was filled with mounting disgust, 'It has a fleshworks.'

Sally stared. Of course, she had no way of knowing what the word meant, but the utter contempt with which Lorna had spat it out left her with no doubt that it was bad news. And frankly, after having spent any amount of time wired up to it, she was inclined to agree; that was a place of suffering, and there was no way anything good could ever come out of it.

Even so... Sally could feel the wetness seeping into her underwear. Unsettling though her most recent experience might have been, she no longer felt pent up, her frustration had vanished; as those other poor souls had suffered, she came. And it was easy to see that Lorna had too.

What did that say about the two of them?

'Yes, I suppose it does,' Dulcimer sent, more curious about the prospect than anything else. With her telepathic prowess and general psychic constitution, she supposed she must be the preferred kind of customer at such a place. The thought intrigued, 'I suspect it would be for select clients, though. I wonder if Sander knows about it.'

Looking over, Sally could see that the very idea filled Lorna with dread. Though she had no idea of what a fleshworks entailed, the simple fact of Lorna's reaction led Sally to follow; if Sander knew about it, was that why he planned to come here in the first place?

'Oh, don't give us that look,' Lysithea broke into their stunned reverie. 'Sander's probably not that cruel. Without reason, anyway.'

Lorna found herself wondering what kind of a reason Sander would even need. After all, his run in with the Doctor had apparently been reason enough to excise a group of people from the fabric of time itself, many of them having very little to do with the Doctor in the first place. And before that, thirteen years of planning for it, not to mention the development and construction of the kind of machines that could turn society on its head if they were ever made generally available. Sander struck her as the kind of person who didn't need much of a reason to do anything.

Or rather, the kind of person who stuck with one reason for everything, no matter how extreme everything became.

Regardless, one thing had been proven; this place was not one to be trifled with. And, by extension, their captors were not to be trifled with while they were here. One wrong move, one irritation too many on their nerves, and any one of their fellow hostages could end up... well, possibly anywhere.

'Perhaps we might have... overdone things somewhat,' Dulcimer sent. Part of the trick, when communicating telepathically, was in all the things one didn't say; white lies were exceedingly hard to tell when you were communicating directly, mind to mind. Dulcimer was better at it than most, but the thoughtful pause in her sentence still throbbed with indistinct, unsaid words, most of them far stronger than what she had actually said, 'They aren't used to being linked up like this.'

'Oh come on,' Lysithea grinned. 'You think I don't know how to modulate that on newbies? Remember, I worked for Nirvana for the longest time, every day I saw newcomers to all this. If I really wanted to overdo it, I'd do this...'

And with that, she reached out, milky white palms brushing Sally and Lorna's foreheads-

And the world changed.

Reality melted like wax, colors running together as depth and distance fell away, slipping into nothingness. But it was replaced a second later, a completely different setting blooming around the girls, bursting to life. It was distinct, but hardly better; a dimly lit room with featureless walls and... chains.

Yes, the chains rather set the context.

Immediately, Sally knew that something was wrong. She was moving without physically beginning the action, squirming and struggling against the bonds anchoring her to the ceiling without ever consciously doing so. Of course, she quickly joined her independent body, struggling with panicked strength against her sudden bondage. The feeling was odd; even united in the same purpose, her body didn't move in quite the same way as she was attempting...

'Sally?' It was Lorna's voice, but somehow distant. It echoed, yet it seemed to contain no physical position at all. Faraway and close, all at the same time. The sound climbed her spine, even as it arched to gain additional leverage against her bonds, 'Sally, can you hear me?'

Sally's mouth wouldn't open, but at that point eyes that wouldn't obey her were looking down, far enough for her to see the truth; this was not her body. It was naked, and she could feel the cool air on its skin, but the contours were all wrong. Sally was not herself, and she hazarded a guess that she was sharing this form with Lorna, somehow.

Whatever that alien had done, she had a lot of explaining to do...

Of course, even knowing what she did now, Sally had no idea how she could respond to Lorna's questioning. Really, she couldn't even ascertain the extent to which she and the Gamma girl were inhabiting this new body; were they simply hitchhiking in their host's sensory experiences, or did it go deeper?

Could their host be aware of their presence?

Any hope of keeping those questions stable and viable in her mind- or what passed for it in this telepathically transcendent state- vanished, as in the physical room their host occupied, another figure loomed out of the shadows that welled deeply in the corners of the room. Sally could feel the fear her body experienced at the mere sight of him, and she could see why; the figure was not human.

However it did seem to be... wearing a rough approximation of humanity. It had limbs, and a face, and hair and teeth and everything that a human being should have, only every individual part seemed to be just that: parts. The individual features didn't unite into a whole; the eyes didn't even blink together. And it seemed to take a lot of concentration for the creature to move its parts even with that level of synchronicity.

And when it spoke...

'You continue to disappoint me,' It said, in a voice like a thunderstorm, one that certainly didn't befit the feminine form it inhabited. Sally's second-hand fear only increased, and she found herself backing away from the figure, as much as her bonds would allow. It wasn't nearly far enough.

'I do not take to disappointment well, especially from my purchases, girl,' It continued levelly. That rumbling, terrifying voice betrayed no sense of emotion- Sally wasn't even sure that it could- but the whip coiled around its hand certainly did. She shrank away, as that very same whip uncoiled pointedly, 'I bought you from a company that doesn't accept refunds, girl. So the task falls to me to mold you into what I require... or break you in the process.'

It moved closer, and for the first time Sally could see the hollow aspect of its eyes, and she knew, immediately; this body had nothing truly in it. Whatever intelligence was guiding it might as well be on the other side of the world, because it was certainly not here with them; those eyes were nothing more than cameras. From what Sally could tell- and this was difficult, given her own general lack of physical form- Lorna was less surprised, though no less disturbed. It seemed the Gamma girl had a better idea of what was going on, but... could she ask? Should she, or would that just be another distraction, right now?

'And believe me,' It continued, glassy eyes staring. 'I am fine with breaking you.'

One lifeless arm raised, and Sally's shared body reared back, unable to escape the scything reach of the whip. It laid a line of pain down her chest, from shoulder to ribcage, across the left breast. The sensation was all too real, radiating out across her skin; her mouth opened in a high, wailing scream, Lorna's voice joining with Sally's inside the host's head. True fear filled Sally's- somewhat insubstantial, at the moment- mind, as the consequences of being here, in this moment, experiencing this. Worse, it was all so uncertain.

The outer limits of this experience were completely unknown; what would happen to her and Lorna in the end? What happens to them if they stay, and watch this unknown unfortunate break? To what extent did the injuries this sadly nameless slave reflect upon the hitchhikers in her head? The very thought sickened Sally to her core.

The whip came down, time and again, running new tracks of pain across vulnerable flesh, each one dragging Sally down, mooring her in the sensations of the body, a cage of skin and bones she ached to escape. The creature cloaked in human form gave no quarter, seemingly unaware of mercy, it brought a cruel accuracy to its strikes, but, as things wore on, the feeling began to change...

Sally felt it first, barely believing what she was experiencing; a gentle warmth began to radiate out from the core of her being, dripping wetness following from her most vulnerable parts. To her host, the moment had taken on a sick sort of eroticism, violence transmuted into something arcane and sexual. Escape, the only way she knew how...

There was a fleeting moment of empathy, through the fear, the near bone chilling panic; Sally had only just got here, but the body she was in, this anonymous girl... she had been through this all alone. Hell, for all Sally knew, the slave's weird arousal wasn't an escape for her at all; perhaps she had just been trained to associate pain with pleasure. Perhaps this was all engineered, and her agency had well and truly vanished however long ago...

Before anything further could happen, the world snapped away from her, as if she had been ripped away from it by a hook in her spine. Seconds ticked by, and Sally was subject to an incredible, dizzying sense of disconnect, as though the universe was free-floating and unfettered, and she was experiencing it with nothing between her and it, no skin to separate her from reality.

It took her a moment to realize that the hands she stared at when she looked down were her own.

Across the way, Lorna was having the same kind of issue, her body shaking and twitching in ways that couldn't possibly have been intentional. But there was fear in those eyes, when they finally chanced to connect with Sally's own gaze. They quavered in between reality and dreams for a second more, before settling more fully into their flesh, returning to the bodies that had borne them their entire lives.

'Lysithea!' Dulsie sent, telepathy crackling with surprised anger. 'We were just talking about limits!'

'I missed,' The Trine-form stepped away, the fingers of both hands tapping an agitated rhythm in the palms of her hands. 'Or aimed wrong. Or something. I didn't mean to send them where I did...'

'What did you do?' Dulcimer's awareness swung around to the two captives, as she checked them for any negative symptoms of their time out in the collective unconscious. 'I couldn't see it, obviously. Where did they go?'

'Somewhere... bad,' Lysithea's features arranged themselves into a rare frown, eyes betraying her inner disturbance. 'Not long enough to cause any damage, but... Maybe we need to be more careful in this city than we have been.'