Mistakes Ch. 01

Authors Note: Just to say that this is a softcore story, and mostly focused on my sadgirls, but I hope that's still interesting <3

CW for emotional labour and sex work/escorting in a vulnerable situation

---

Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Letting her know where she lived was a mistake, it'd made fixing the doorbell an operational cost. But Maretta's life had been astro-mined out by those mistakes and there wasn't anywhere to go if she didn't keep digging from time to time.

Beo had become all of those mistakes of late.

Ding ding ding- jweep. She let the door slide open remotely and stayed clear of the path her smuggler-pirate-rebel-something -- you ask only as much as excites them -- would carve as she fell through the open doorway. Beo was furious, just not at Maretta. Not yet.

"Ooh, what is it darling?" she preened, cocking her brow and pretending a dead-eyed stare. "Something got my princess stressing?" Suddenly Beo's own glare was gutting her, probably what you'd see when she was killing you. Maretta was relieved as she cast it down-

"Fucking stressed!? You think I ever come here to talk about that shit?" She tripped back on to her pull-out bed, startled, but before Beo could flick back to see she'd already paved her feelings over with a sweetened smile. Princess wasn't the right choice for today.

"Of course not, dear, I'm here for you to relieve all that." Maretta leant forward, deliberately pressing awkwardly pushed-up tits even tighter, and set out her dictate, "Now, come here."

Beo seemed big as she shrugged off the bomber-style undercoat of a voidsuit, and boots with cleats that had definitely been used to break bones, settling into silks she'd gifted that Maretta had used to disguise worn-out springs. Those were probably the most expensive thing in this rented box -- except for her.

She traced Beo's arm down to her hand, tickling scars while silently counting new ones. "Give it to me." Using it to pull up her dress's hem before abandoning it, "Now, squeeze."

Beo's attempt to follow her simple instruction was pitiful, barely pawing an inch at the carefully-cultivated squish. So Maretta gave her a dismissing look of disappointment. And Beo looked... fuck, she looked embarrassed? Maretta was losing her. She needed to psych herself into the prey she could tempt Beo to hunt.

Does she think she's fucking better than this, than me?

"What are you doing? Do I look like a stress ball to you?" It was bratty, disbelieving but not cruel, and Beo sparked with curiosity -- That's right, I know what you like -- before hastily pushing out a scowl and squeaking at her. "No."

"Hands. Both of them." It took all Maretta's strength just to limply drag them to her chest. She paused for Beo to act, who just sat there clueless, so had to make a show of it; jutting out her chest and pulling tits free. Tilting her head at Beo like an impatient puppy.

And when Beo did finally cup them, frustrated but averting it from Maretta's gaze, she got tsked out. "Took you long enough. Squeeze, harder."

That got Beo to snap back, she couldn't reconcile needing permission with refusing to ever take orders, so she let the whore feel that tension in her tits. "You think you can tell me--"

"Yes." Cutting her off. "Because you have no idea what you want, only that I do. That I know what's best for you. That's why you're hEERRe--" Beo made her hurt this time.

"Hands off." Maretta cut. Beo 'obeyed', but she got a boorish sneer of displeasure for it.

Yeah, now she was mad at her.

Maretta laid herself back and patted silks for Beo to follow. At last, she gestured to her throat. "Don't want me to tell you what to do? Squeeze, and harder you pirate bitch."

Finally. There was Beo beaming with a devious glee, leaping up to straddle and throttle her. That excited force made Maretta sputter, before she felt the pressure ease to something that had been measured and negotiated. Then came Beo's other hand, gracing Maretta's cheeks and melting away her arrogant, wax persona with its sweetness.

"You are what's best for me. But first, you need to be begging and squealing for it." Beo struck along each degradation with a slap, before pulling in close to burning cheeks.

Her whore was insensate, bucking weakly -- so desperate at her closeness -- in search of a kiss. But Beo forced her back down, laughing. "Oh no no." she teased. "You've got a fucking fee to earn before you get any of that."

Maretta could only smoulder and burn in her grasp.

She was going to keep making these mistakes.

---

A lot of things- No, scratch that, most things hurt right now. The whore was exhausted, and ruined, and was letting her arm drape uncomfortably over the side while she groaned deep into polystyrene-stuffed pillows.

Messed the fuck up. Yeah, that's how Maretta felt.

But one thing felt nice. Beo was sitting next to her, fingers deep in overdyed black curls, gently twirling away. She was humming too -- a tune too pleasant for the woman supposed to have scuttled defenceless Rev-State couriers just for weapons calibration.

It was a mistake to hear that. Digging.

Maretta turned over, and winced at the indignantly lit room. Fuck, why did Beo do that? She knows I don't like it. It let you immediately see why Maretta insisted on the fairy lights.

Plastic vines and half-empty bookshelves alone couldn't hide the mould, and not her landlord nor the port authority gave a fuck to fix it.

Third-class. Minimum-rate. Rathole.

Close enough to the station's equally-uncared-for reactor core that she was probably a little irradiated. Smashed-up alarms her testament to how frustratingly pointless it was to care.

"Ugh, why you gotta expose me like this?" Beo was startled out of her besotment -- the thing Maretta could tell was going to be the topic de jour -- and hastily went to pull a pink, fluffy blanket over her.

"Nooo. No. The lights, Beo."

That got her up, to go flick them off. The woman who was supposed to just crush gore under her feet now stepping around her mess like a sheepish toddler. Propping back up a button-eyed teddy that fun had knocked down, patting it on the head.

It was another mistake to see that. Digging.

And then Beo was kneeling next to her. She eased off the ruined dress around Maretta's neck, the one she'd used like a leash, that Maretta hadn't yet remembered was there on account of not feeling shit right now.

She remembered the first dress Beo had given her.

---

It'd been an ancient, pre-colonial ball gown. One shoulder dressed by a bouquet of black velvet roses, the other utterly bare and a cut in the dress's side so deep Maretta needed tape to keep her stuff in place.

Nothing she'd ever owned had been a tenth so enrapturing as that dress. The phantasmal scent of a garden she was imagining in her cheaply-hawked perfume.

And then, petal-by-petal, the pirate bitch had plucked every one of those roses free.

Not the first time Maretta had cried with a client, but the first time she hadn't meant to.

How many weeks of sessions was that thing worth, and she just--

Beo stayed after. Maretta had tried to hide the tears and Beo had stayed for three hours consoling and trying to apologise about it. She must've lost more on docking overstay fees than she'd lost on Maretta.

Some whore she could do better than.

And the worst part is it made her come back, with a dress deliberately not-so-fancy. Both to be disposable and not upsetting.

It was Beo's thing, Maretta guessed. She had a dozen spare now, another operational cost.

There were gifts as well, lots of dresses not meant for that. Maretta tried to explain to her that it wasn't the point, it was just because she grew up--

She was crying, again.

She didn't know what any of it meant to her, or the pirate, so they stayed stuffed away. Plans she had to ditch fell apart because it would have meant leaving those things behind.

Maretta let it happen. Let this pirate be mean to her, then nice to her, then herself to her.

A mistake.

Other clients were nice to her too -- you worked to make sure of that -- but Maretta loved when it was Beo. She loved--

She made a mistake.

Digging. Deeper and deeper. But it felt good. And it paid better.

And it let her make the worst mistake.

Could I get you on retainer? You know, like a barrister. There wasn't a court on the station, only police who treated beating third-class residents as on-the-job therapy.

Beo had spent months trying to convince her. And Maretta turned her down playfully first, then firmly, then angrily. But weeks after Beo finally stopped, Maretta needed to dig.

She paid for everything -- there were standing charges, variable hourly rates dependent on activity, and expenses forms -- because it had to be several times what Maretta could earn otherwise to be worth it, because it was a bad fucking idea.

Messed with clients she'd spent years cultivating and some of them definitely remembered that part. And yeah, Beo promised to keep her safe but she wasn't always here.

Hell, she mostly wasn't.

Beo fucking anyone up would just make them come back worse and more dangerous when she was gone. There was a reason everyone Maretta knew left when they made it.

But Maretta did it. She dug.

And now she was stuck.

---

"Why do you keep me like this?" Beo twisted to look at her and cringed, unsure at the meaning. Maretta was still surfacing out of her own head. "On retainer. I mean." Asking questions was a--

"You're a good kid Mari."

Beo was probably younger than her. She just felt older because of the battle-damage.

"You deserve better than this. You don't have to wait for some pass to a better block I-"

Maretta didn't believe her and, "You're not blackmailing the port authority just so I have a better room. I can wait."

Her tone was unsure, exposed. But it seemed to have cowed Beo like a sheep, and that made Maretta stupid like one.

"What if it's because you're embarrassed of me?" What if you're not that sheep, but a wolf in one's clothes. Maretta should've stopped there.

"It's not selfish, it's not possessive. I think. You won't let anyone see you, but fucking someone has to -- and it's me."

Beo eyed her in a way she hadn't seen before, couldn't tell what in the dim light.

Mistake. Stupid. Dangerous. Fucking dangerous. And a mistake.

No one was supposed to see Beo. No one else did, so what would that mean for her? What happened when this was over? If Beo was really the woman she was supposed to be.

Beo had leant closer. She could see the look in her eyes now.

"I want you to come with me." -- "What?"

"Come with me on the ship. It's-- It's why I'm fucking angry okay. That thing we've been building towards?" Don't ask about it. "It's happening."

Beo-- Is this what Beo wanted to say? Topic de jour.

"I'll be gone for too long -- I don't know how to keep you safe. I don't know if this place will be safe." What did that mean? "And... I need you to be safe Mari. Please."

Please. What the fuck did that mean?

Maretta pulled herself up against the wall, crunching against flaking, floral wallpaper. "Do you want me to be your--"

Beo panicked. She never-- "No no no. You'll have your own quarters, a-and I'll double every rate at minimum. And it doesn't have to be any more frequent than it is now."

One question had just made too many others. How long would it be? What do I do if I want to leave? Am I allowed to leave? Where would I even go? Will I just be stuck again?

Maretta tried to make it one again, too short for Beo to cut her off.

"Do you want me?"

She'd dug. Down the path you really should never go. You weren't going to find--

"Yes. I want you."

Fuck.

---

On the ship, Beo wasn't Beo. She was the Captain.

She was the ship.

It didn't matter she mostly carried cargo, or operated engineering bays for Void Superiority Fighters and Mechanised Cavalry. She was fucking mean.

And Maretta wasn't supposed to be Mari around her.

But the crew was nice. They didn't ask why she was there, because if Beo was the woman she was supposed to be then you didn't ask that question.

They didn't make that mistake, and Maretta didn't ask much back. They weren't pirates? That was a lie, because Rev-Statist didn't have time to hunt pirates. They were something else.

Something organised.

She found out quickly Beo hadn't made expenses forms for her, she had them standard. Pirates didn't have expense forms. Maybe pirates could have mech bays, but what was in them didn't look like factionalist-terrorist scrap trophied about on the news-at-10.

Upcycled engineering platforms with twin-linked LRM banks and polyceramic reactive thermoplating. Whatever those words meant. Older-than-overthrown-Empire but bleeding edge, every surface woven with delicate geometrisms of a won't-make-us-dead-yet culture.

Appropriations made to fight wars, not raids. No, not pirates.

Piloted by the sweetest, most courageous kids she'd ever seen. One that helped Mari dye her hair a different colour each week and knew how to make her meds.

She hoped there'd never be a day they wouldn't come back. She hadn't yet been brave enough to ask for their name.

It made her feel older, perfunctory even. Made her own quarters last a week, because she wasn't used to being alone anymore. She was used to being Mari.

So there was a corner in the Beo's quarters -- fucking underselling term, it was better than the station's high-rates, it had its own kitchen -- and now it was dressed up in those plastic vines, and Mari's other kitschy crap. And Beo's gifts in the wardrobe, and on her.

And Beo -- she wasn't quite so rough. Usually. Being around for more than just fuck-based therapy was slowly convincing Mari she wasn't the wolf she'd worried about. Just a sheep with get-to-fuck horns. Did ewes have horns?

There wasn't anywhere else to dig now.

But it felt like surface. Maretta -- Mari hoped she was right.

Whatever surface was because Mari didn't know what real atmosphere was like. Beo said she'd take her to one when this thing was over, one with real plants as well. No plastic.

And ewes, with or without the horns.

She hoped she was right.