Q&A Ch. 02

What are you doing to me, she wanted to ask. She wouldn't, though. She knew they were setting her up. Taunting her to ask that exact question. It would come out weak. It would come out frightened. She couldn't.

What do you want me for? She could not bring herself to ask that either. Deep inside Satin knew, just knew, it would be something so obscene that even knowing it would rob her of the last of her courage. And they wanted her to ask.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the redhead girl from yesterday joined them. She was the one that had taken away the Aryan girl called Anna.

"Mind if I join in," Red was saying. Satin stared at her face to stop her eyes slipping down to the tomato sauce spattered knife on Red's tray. The sound of someone else entering the Mess behind her provided the opportunity. She pretended to twist to look, slipping her left hand across the table. "Why is Anna with Quill now," Satin asked as her fingers curled around the knife handle. Probably someone in the room had already seen her, but if she moved smooth enough they might stop to think. That would be all the time she needed. Turning back, she drove the knifepoint on a painfully slow line towards Toys' stomach.

"Hey!" Red protested. She was a bit too late. Toys shrieked as the knifepoint entered her. A dozen hands wrestled Satin to her back on the floor. It didn't matter now. Toys had stumbled to her feet, touching the large red streak on her bare midriff and looking confused. Finally she grinned shakily.

"You all right, Toys," asked Quill, who had in fact entered together with Anna.

"Ketchup!" said Toys, with a nervous laugh. "Just a scratch. I think I am going to bruise though. Ha-happens when someone tries to push a bread knife into you."

"You still want the job? No shattered illusions?"

"No, no I still want it.." Toys straddled the spread-eagled, convulsing Satin on the floor. More quietly she told Satin "I think someone just lost her hands-free privileges though."

"I think you could do with a break," Quill said firmly, "And they're missing you down in engineering, Toys."

Toys looked like she would argue for a second then acquiesced. "I think I will take that suggestion. After breakfast. Ok?"

"Ok. But don't waste time getting below. I'm not changing sleeping arrangements on you or anything. That's the real job."

Toys grinned and nodded, looking relieved.

Quill moved off to begin her own breakfast. Anna sat with her. She wasn't muttering today. Satin saw her put a finger to a stud on her slaver collar, and whisper something to Quill. Satin guessed she used the collar to paralyze her vocal cords while she was eating, and to give herself a little peace and quiet also, no doubt.

"Pay attention!" Toys demanded. Springing up off Satin she sat down on the bench, crossed her legs and held out her hands like a little girl expecting a present. The other crew-girls prepared it for her. They forced Satin's arms behind her back, fused them there, and lifted her up onto Toys lap. Her legs they wrapped around around Toys' waist, ankles fused where they crossed.

"You going to be good?"

"That depends on what you enjoy," Satin said. She shoved her knee into Toys' bruised side as hard as her awkward position could allow. It wasn't Toys that screamed though. Satin had forgotten the cursed pleasure device.

When she recovered, she found her head practically bumping on the floor. A line of drool ran down her upside down face and into her ear. Two crew-girls had grabbed her before she had hit the ground and bashed her own head in. Her legs were still bound around Toys waist and the merest attempt to rise sent shudders up the taut muscles of her stomach.

Toys smirked down at her. "I would say we both enjoyed that. What else have you got?"

But Satin didn't have anything else. She did not resist as the two girls righted her once more. Even so, spasms shot up and down her limbs from involuntary tension. She still had not put food or liquids into her belly. Her mouth was very dry.

Toys pulled the tar-baby mask down over Satin's eyes, dropping her into a warm blackness. The material did not stretch but rather reformed into a new preset design. Cool air on her lips and now warm breath on her breasts proved the tar baby did not hide all of her.

"Open your mouth, Satin baby."

Did they really expect her to fall for that? Then again they could hurt her anyway. Any time they chose. If she refused now they could torture her with thirst and pretend they were giving her choice. Satin was tired of this game. She opened her mouth, waiting for some vileness.

Cool peach flesh slipped onto her tongue. She found herself swallowing greedily and licking her lips for the last bit of moisture. Toys took obvious pleasure in feeding Satin like a baby. Satin had expected some form of punishment. Instead Toys was doting on her like a proud mother. From what Quill had said, Satin was in fact Toys' baby, her personal project.

Satin crushed each grape as Toys dropped them into her open mouth, easing her parched throat. She sucked on the dripping peach slices as Toys held them to her lips. Toys took care of the juices that ran down Satin's face and throat and breast with her own mouth.

Satin still hadn't found the chance to just sit and think, and figure things out. She appreciated the break. There was something wrong with the way Toys seemed to know her. All the crew put on this fake air of familiarity, beneath it Satin knew they hated her, but with Toys it was different. Satin could not quite put her finger on it. Toys KNEW her. Satin wasn't afraid that they had got inside her head. Not really. Satin had a phenomenal resistance to psyker intrusion even if she were not bound in a tar baby designed to contain a psyker. It was natural. Only one psyker had ever gotten into Satin's head; a powerful one and she had been powerless. He had paid for that. Somewhere he was still paying for that.

"Hey Satin, you ok?" Distantly Satin heard Toys speaking to her, felt her breath on her lips. Something wet touched her lips and she tried to swallow it automatically but it slipped away with muscular strength. Toys was kissing her. Before Satin had thought to resist, the kiss was over.

Strangers' hands lifted Satin from Toys' lap. Her eyes were still covered. "Play nice Satin," Toys' sorrowful voice came to her as they took Satin away from her. Satin found herself wishing she could stay with Toys, even after all the indignities. Better the devil you know, perhaps. No it was more than that. She was afraid.

"How about we work off some of this sweeties' aggression, girls," she heard someone say when they were all squeezed into the lift, to the immediate agreement of everyone present except Satin. It was Red speaking, Red whose knife she had grabbed to attack Toys. Satin had a feeling this was going to be a very long day.

***

Satin could not guess how many hours later it was that Red asked her if she wanted to be returned to Toys now; if she would be good. Trembling with fatigue and panting too heavily to speak, Satin nodded her desperation, shaking free a bead of sweat that had trickled from her brow to the tip of her nose.

They tried to inspire her to walk but she just did not have the strength left in her legs, even in the weak 3/4 gravity. Next thing she knew Red had hefted Satin over her shoulder and was carrying her towards the turbolift. Satin was grateful for the chance to rest. So tired was she that she did not even react when the lift plummeted, taking her towards the distant engines. The first glimmers of unease did not appear until the lift doors slid open onto her own personal nightmare.

Toys was working on a padded iron frame, suspended above the pool. It was set in a complicated gimbol and currently at an angle of about 45 degrees. Satin paled as she recognized it; the highest technological achievement of any starfaring race, and a moral quandary that had only the one inevitable conclusion.

Perfect, transcendent pain.

It was the Displacer Rack. What else could it be, suspended above the warp pool like that.

Empty.

Where was the Displacer psyker that powered it? Even psykers, surely, weren't mad enough to let a Displacer wander free.

For a moment Satin was certain it had all been a trick She wasn't here to meet Toys; they were going to strap her into that thing. It all made sense. The ambush. The tar-baby. Meant for binding psykers. Of course they would suspect her of being an immature Displacer, if that traitor Anna had given them access to Reich Databases.

Satin's eyes were locked to the rack. She could not move, could not blink, yet still she saw the transformation, the face of the wolf imposed over Red's, leering at her. That glistening muzzle, hair like an aura of black tendrils, the eyes were always human, twisted with insane predatory glee as they bore into her mind. Satin could not turn her head but she could scream.

Toy's face spun around with shock at the sound. She cursed when she saw them. Leaping from the rack to the pool side Toys strode towards Satin, frowning with concentration as she adjusted the settings on her charge pistol. She leveled the pistol at Satin's chest and pulled the trigger. Actinic energy engulfed Satin and for just a second it hurt very much.

***

Satin woke on her side, in the dark, back on Toy's bunk, still bound in the tar-baby and sobbing with relief that she was not elsewhere. Someone was pressed up against her back and there were arms around her. Satin knew it was Toys, from the scent of her and the shape she impressed on Satin's back.

"I thought you were going to bolt me into that thing," Satin said. No response from Toys.

"I know you must already have displaced, getting me away from the Reich ships, but I just wasn't thinking clearly… but also your Displacer could have been damaged…"

Silence.

"I'm not a Displacer!" Satin said. "I know why you might think that, if you read my file. But I am not." Toys still hadn't said anything. It was beginning to unnerve Satin.

"Displacers aren't just psykers," Satin explained. "They leave something behind when they displace. They are soulless. Things. Animals. Eruptions on the face of.. Unh!"

"Shut up now," Toys told her mildly as she pushed her finger once more into the metal orifice at the base of Satin's delta. She rolled Satin onto her stomach and slid herself onto Satin's back, keeping the finger there. No matter how Satin bucked and cried out, Toys' weight always pressed her back down onto her circling and probing finger. This time Toys didn't stop even once Satin was too weak to struggle. No more talk that night.

Even paralyzed with exhaustion, as she was, Satin drifted in and out of sleep. The night passed in many waking snapshots. Shiplife that never ceased fastwarding around her. It was early morning, by standard ship time, that Satin found herself wide awake and the comforting weight of Toys' body missing from her back.

Anna, the Aryan toy girl, had been working at the cabin's sole desk, using the desk lamp so as not to disturb the off shift crew. She muttered as she worked, third person as usual, about all the things she would prefer to be doing. It got to be almost relaxing after a while, listening to it, like rain when you are sleeping. Satin wasn't sleeping though. She had been watching Anna through slit eyes for some time.

Apparently Anna was studying up to be an engineer, or in any case to gain the competency that would stop her being confined to quarters (anybodies quarters) during any shipwide operation. She had been doing this bookwork every free period for months, Satin suspected. Anna didn't get many free periods; that was clear.

"How's it going, Anna." Toys voice.

"Soon. I'll be sitting," replied Anna, by an act of great concentration. "Toys," she continued after a second. Momentarily Toys moved into view, presenting her naked back to Satin, and much more to Anna, to Satin's distant annoyance.

"She's a killer. Kill you in a second," Anna said. Went to kiss Toys stomach but Toys pushed her back.

"Satin is a killer. Satin plus tar-baby wouldn't hurt a fly."

"How can you. Love her?"

"Anna. She's not psychopathic. She feels. She's vulnerable. She howls like a howler monkey if you touch her in just the right spot. And she's all mine. Captain gave her to me. I'm the one that's got to know what's right for her. She sure doesn't. Isn't that enough?"

"You forget what she is, then she'll kill you."

"Not so far. So far I've been the murderer. Every fucking time."

"Toys!" Satin jumped at Anna's shout. Emitted an involuntary gasp as the device reacted.

The two crew-girls heard that gasp and turned towards her as one; Toys had a beatific smile on her face as she twisted to look over her shoulder. Anna did not have such a smile.

Enemy, Satin thought.

Toys strolled to her side. "Been awake long, Satin?" She wanted to know how much Satin had heard. Right then Satin didn't care what Toys had meant by her words. Didn't care if Toys were going to bind her to an altar and sacrifice her to some perverse psyker god; didn't even mind if Satin wasn't her first. That girl was all Satin had.

"Had a bad dream," Satin said. Her voice was raspy. Toys held her head up and fed her some water from a squeeze-bottle. Some of it went down the wrong way and she coughed. That of course set the device off, powerfully. At the end of it Satin was struggling not to whimper out of shame, which would only prolong the attack, and Toys was holding Satin to her chest.

"Please, take it out. Just for a while," Satin begged.

For a while Toys seemed to consider it as Satin pleaded with her eyes. Please say yes. Please don't ask anything of me in return. I can't surrender anything but I need this.

"Alright Satin, for just a little while."

It felt so good coming out, even though the muscles of Satin's vagina did not seem to want to release it, and struggled to swallow the device back inside her. There was a void inside her that required the pleasure-on-demand that that infernal device had fed her. She wanted to squeeze her thighs together to crush that void but they had bound her legs straddling the narrow bunk again, the situation she had first woken to. She found herself thinking of Toys tar-black tongue, exploring her that time.

As if Toys had read her mind, Satin felt a palm laid upon her there. Toys smiled down on her as fingers slid into Satin's cleft, spreading her lips and massaging the tension from her. It felt so gentle, so natural compared to the devices' neural stimulation. Satin felt no need to protest when Toys began kissing her face and breast. She was slipping into sleep again and nothing in all her memory had ever felt as right as this.

***

Gently, quietly, Satin eased her head of Toy's stomach. Toys was sleeping like a baby. She didn't stir. Twisting snakelike in the tight slick material that bound her arms to her sides and her legs together, Satin rolled herself to kneeling. She surveyed Toys naked form for a moment. Beautiful. Perfect.

Moving with infinite care, Satin extended herself to the limits of her balance. She could only place her head a few handspans past her knees without tipping forwards, and burying her face into Toy's chest. That would ruin everything. Not quite far enough. Or was it? Extending her tongue, she laid a delicate trail of saliva over Toys' soft nipple. Gently, gently, she began to blow.

A delicate speckle of goose-bumps formed upon Toys areola. Her breathing changed slightly. Then the skin puckered more deeply. Her nipple jutted upward, rigid as a thumb and she sighed. Eyes flickered under lids. A slight curve of her lips told Satin her dreams had taken a turn for the pleasant.

This was the crucial moment. The odds of Satin's escape plan surviving the next three seconds were about fifty-fifty.

She threw herself forwards, over Toys' chest and shoulder, ramming her own forehead into the soft foam of the bunk, forming an arch over Toys' face.

She didn't touch Toys. Her breasts, unnaturally firm in the skin-molding material of the tar-baby hung just centimeters from Toys' cheek. Toys did not wake.

Forcing her breath to calm, Satin lowered her trembling belly. She could not see past' Toys sleeping face but she felt the instant Toys erect nipple brushed the sensitive material upon her stomach.

Frowning in concentration, Satin swayed the way she had practiced, tracing in exact mirror image the sigil Toys had traced that morning, or was it the previous, on Satin's back. Satin suspected only Toys' touch would do it. Would Toys' firm nipple work as well as Toys finger had then?

In total silence, the tar baby reformed and her arms were free. She did not know the sigil that would free her completely, and movement in the tar-baby now felt like pushing through treacle, but some things you cannot change, like nature.

***

Moving silently through the darkened corridors, she killed in slow motion. She had found a knife at some point and that was much quicker than suffocation, easier than that blood-slicked garrote wire she had regretfully abandoned. Maybe soon she would find a gun.

As if on queue, another crew-girl wandered into her web, this one bearing a pistol in a holster at her side. This one moving warily. Satin hadn't heard any alarm. Satin had cut the alarm.

The killing had gotten easier. The first had been horrid. Now Satin had begun to doubt her luck and so this one went bad. She lost her knife so she had to do it the hard way. The slow way.

"Don't," The girl managed to choke, her face inches from Satin's. It was Toys.

How could this be? Surely she had killed Toys first. Yes, she had. And the second victim, it had been dark, but now Satin came to think of it, that had been Toys too. They all had.

Satin keep squeezing and squeezing but Toys kept struggling and wouldn't die. Satin heard herself whimper with frustration as her fingers lost strength. She could not keep her hands firm around that slick sinuous throat. Sweat made Toys slippery as an eel between Satin's gloss black legs.

"Please Toys please," Satin heard herself begging. "Let me do it quick. It's for your own good. I don't like this. I don't." But already she was on the verge of coming.

***

Satin woke in a cold sweat. The entire dream must have only lasted a split second, for otherwise she would have woken grunting and slippery. Sometimes her dreams were like that, hours or days in an instant. Some nightmares, as far as she could tell, she never woke from at all. Insanity became history.

This had not been one of those dreams. Toys still lay beside her unharmed and Satin was still a prisoner. Satin found herself to be crying with relief and shame. For a while she just lay there, afraid to sleep.

***

"Toys!" Satin hissed.

Toys didn't wake. Her head was slumped on Satin's chest, cheek pushed up and a little bit of drool poised on one corner of her lip. Beautiful. And her hair was a mess too: a thatch of brown hanging over her face, teasing a nostril as she breathed.

"Toys! Oh!"

Damn that contraption. They had returned it while she slept. It took a few seconds to get herself back under control. Her bucking stomach woke Toys though, barely. Toys raised her head groggily.

"Toys. You're the nice one aren't you. The one I am meant to trust. You're what's really meant to hold me here. Not these, these toys you made."

Toys grinned sleepily. "You got me. Is it working?"

"You're the one I have to kill."

Toys sighed, and then crawled further up Satin's chest to examine her face. "You've been crying." She touched the moisture at the corners of Satin's eyes. Tasted it. "You are frightened!"

Satin's face twisted in a snarl. "I'll slit your throat! Oh! Oh!" Pleasure jolted into her cunt once, twice.