Time Differences Ch. 03

Part 3: The Sins of Miss Jane Halstead

The House's menagerie was a strange collection – part austere scientific collection, part carefully designed wildlife park and aquarium beyond the dreams of my era. Unfortunately, the assortment of animals that had been brought through the wormholes was small and rather random, and the House was still learning how to look after them, so a lot of the specimens were held in a sedated state while it worked out what to do.

I wasn't sure that the House didn't see us eight humans the same way... But anyhow, the dodos still boggled my mind, even if I had to admit to myself that they were especially stupid and irritating birds.

I spent a chunk of the day there, wondering about this stuff.

As the miniature spaceship skimmed past the structure of the – space station? – I sat on the floor next to the softly whimpering Miss Halstead, and tried to decide where to look.

"Okay," I said, "explain away."

"The intellects which are running the wormhole project are, in your terms, scientists," the House said. "Their first interest is in the wormholes themselves; their second is in biology. To them, you are an interesting example of your species, but they learned most of what they wanted to know while they held you sedated following your arrival. You may call me a historian; I am interested in human social activity. They give me information and objects which come through the wormholes, and have no objection to my looking after you. I assume that you may object if you believe that you are being treated as research subjects, but please try to think of yourself as valued guests."

"What's to stop you researching humans on Earth, then?"

"The answer to that involves several questions of definition. But to begin with, the Earth no longer exists."

"What?"

"It was dismantled approximately seventeen thousand years ago. The dominant culture of that era placed a high value on large-scale engineering projects, and little on sentiment."

"Shit. So they wiped out the human race?"

"No, they were more ethical than that. The planet was evacuated in an orderly fashion. Anyway, many of them were themselves human. Most of the species was in space even before then. But the last biological humans in the solar system voluntarily had themselves converted to non-biological forms approximately eleven thousand years ago."

"So... You're saying that there are no real human beings left? Except for us?"

"There may be some in other solar systems, but if so, we do not have regular contact with them. In fact, some of the intellects derived from the last organic humans still exist – but they have changed over time. You would not recognise them as human, psychologically."

I sat back, hyperventilating for a few minutes. Then the House spoke again. "We are about to return to our starting point," it announced, and I felt the floor press up against me as the craft manoeuvred.

"What do you want from us?" I asked faintly.

"At present, I simply want to talk to you," the House replied.

"Talkto us?"

"Yes. Much information about your time is lost. The wormhole experiments have given me a few artefacts and a number of brief segments of radio signals, but as human beings, you carry much more information than that. I would like you to help explain many things."

Eventually, I made my way back to the House – or rather, the place where we were being accommodated. I'd come to understand that the bland, neutral voice came from some kind of computer that might be located anywhere, and that could see and hear me anywhere I could go. I was hoping to meet some of the girls, but the one I saw first was the last one I'd have chosen.

Still, at least Clarissa wasn't looking so aggressive or angry now. I got the impression she was actually trying to look conciliatory.

She took a deep breath before she spoke to me. "Mr Evans," she said, "I must ask for your help."

"Really?" I said. "Why this sudden willingness to talk to me?"

She scowled. "You are the person here who seems to best understand how to deal with the House," she said. "Somehow, you seem to make better sense of its ... strangeness."

Well, that was true enough. The House, and the powers that lay behind it, were almost as far beyond me as they were beyond the eight Victorians – but I at least came from a time when ideas like intelligent machines and surveillance cameras and time travel had been talked about, and showed up on TV and in movies – hell, I'dseenTV and movies, unlike anyone else here. It gave me a small start.

"So what do you want from it?" I asked.

"I need to know what has happened to Miss Halstead," she said.

I grimaced. "Oh, her," I said. "I thought that you and she were best pals. You ran off to her when you wanted to make trouble for Augusta, after all."

"She is our teacher! She is responsible for us, and we owe her obedience."

"In your own time," I snapped. "This isn't your world any more, or hers. Get used to that." I began to turn away, but Clarissa reached out a hand and touched me on the arm. It was a small gesture, but I knew that, by her standards, it was desperate.

"Please, Simon," she said, "I have no idea what has befallen Miss Halstead. She has been out of her room very little since yesterday morning, and she has spoken to none of us. Now, she is locked in there. She has evidently persuaded the House that she is to receive no one."

"And you asked the House if she's okay?"

"Yes. It claims that she is well, but that she insists that it pay her no attention. I fear that she might harm herself. Even if you admit to no responsibility, can you not help out of common charity?"

I frowned at her. I didn't owe her or Miss Halstead anything. On the other hand, there were just nine of us in all this miniature world, and Clarissa was a desperate teenage girl. How much contempt did I really feel?

I sighed. "Come with me," I said.

She followed me to my room, and to give her credit, inside with only a brief pause, although we were alone. I sat on a stool, and waved her to the other one.

"House," I said, "I think that you've been deceiving the girls."

"Not intentionally," the walls said blandly.

"No, but you're a machine, and they don't really understand how machines can think. By my time, we had computers, although they were nothing like as advanced as you. Still, I have some idea how you've got to work. You can see and hear into every room here, obviously."

"Yes."

"But you don't pay attention if we ask you not to."

"Yes. I understand that my ignoring your wishes for privacy would be stressful for you."

"So you've made that a firm rule. But even so, you react immediately when we ask to speak with you, even if you're not paying attention. So you are still getting sound and pictures from every room, even if you don't pay attention to them."

"Yes."

Clarissa gasped. "So this – thismachineis spying on us all the time!" she said.

"No, really, I don't think so," I said. "It's a machine. Unlike you or me, when it says that it's not paying attention, it really doesn't pay anyattention. It just gets signals, and discards them – unless they tell it that we're asking for its attention again. Right, House?"

"Yes." It sounded bland as ever, although Clarissa was glowering furiously at the walls.

"Fine. But right now, we're worried about Miss Halstead. And when humans are sufficiently worried about each other, they can forget about privacy – just briefly. Do you understand that?"

"Yes." Still bland.

"Good. So please give us a view of Miss Halstead at the moment. Just so that we know that she's okay."

There was a pause, but only a very brief one; the House never took time to think. Then the wall that Clarissa and I were both facing transformed into a viewing screen – and Clarissa and I both gasped in surprise.

Miss Halstead's room was much like all the others in the House – nobody had any decorations or ornaments to make things different, after all, although she'd persuaded the House to change her walls to dark shades of green and brown – but it wasn't the room that was startling. Miss Halstead was lying on the bed. Her dress was bunched up around her waist, so she was naked from there on down, and both her hands were at her crotch, while her head was thrown back. It was clear that she was masturbating furiously; two fingers of her right hand were buried in her cunt, and her left hand was pressing on top of the right, rubbing hard, stimulating her clitoris. I was seeing more of her now than I'd ever seen before, of course; she was rather more full-figured all round than the teenage girls I'd so recently been enjoying, but her legs weren't bad, and sheer uninhibited lust suited her like it suits most women. Her eyes were shut, and her mouth was open; the House obligingly gave us sound; we heard her moaning "Yes!" over and over again...

"Stop!" Clarissa gasped, jumping to her feet. "House, stop it!"

The wall turned plain white again, and I stood up and turned to Clarissa. "I'm sorry that you saw that," I said, "and we need to be more careful about privacy, I guess. But anyway, we know that Miss Halstead is okay."

"No," Clarissa said, "no – you do not understand. That practise..."

I shrugged. "It's just something that some women do in private..." I said.

"I know that, Mr Evans – I know that very well. Some girls were found – from time to time – in the dormitories. And Miss Halstead would beat them for such things, Mr Evans. She told them that they were engaged in vile and unnatural behaviour, and that this was a great sin that had to be beaten out of them."

I shrugged. "Sounds like the sort of thing she'd say. But – that was back then, you know? The poor woman has been through just as much as the rest of you. And yes, she's had me shouting at her lately." I found I really did feel sorry for Miss Halstead; I knew some of what she'd been through. "You can't blame her for needing some release of tension," I said.

"So this is where we have come, is it, Mr Evans? Lost and adrift, and even Miss Halstead can engage in whatever sins she wishes?"

"She... Perhaps she sees now that it's not so terrible as she thought. Anyone can change their mind."

"Can they?" Clarissa stepped forward, so that she was staring angrily right into my face. "Nothing has any meaning for you, does it, Mr Evans? You do as you please, with no laws to restrain you."

I looked into her eyes. "There are rules," I said, "I obey them. But under the circumstances, I think that I'm entitled to take the harmless comforts that are going, and to give what comfort I can to those poor girls."

"Comfort?" she snapped. Then she grabbed my head with both hands and kissed me roughly on the mouth, bruising my lip. "Is that acomfortto you?"

"Great," I said as the miniature spacecraft slid back into the docking tunnel. "I'd be the last man on Earth, except that there's no Earth left, and all you want to do is talk. But what are you going to do with me – with all of us – while we're talking? Or when you're finished?"

"You will all be kept safe and comfortable," the House's voice said. "The longer term answers to those questions are still unresolved."

Beside me, Miss Halstead moaned softly. "I knew that we had been brought somewhere unimaginable," she whimpered, "but not – not this. What is this place?" My conversation with the House had evidently swept right over her.

"Space," I said. "We're not on Earth. I can try and explain more when I've got my head around it better myself."

"Your assistance would be appreciated in this," the House said. "The first eight humans recovered have much valuable knowledge, but lack references to help them converse with me. You are from a later era, and may have knowledge that will assist all of us."

I stepped back, pushing Clarissa away. "Live your own life," I said, "but don't assume that everyone else has your hang-ups."

"My – hang-ups?" she frowned as she tried out the words. I sighed.

"Expression from my time," I said "Sorry. Don't worry about it. All I mean is, don't assume that everyone's like you."

She sat down hard on the nearest convenient place, which happened to be the bed. "So I must live in a world of lust and lies, must I?" she said.

"Don't knock it until you've tried it," I snapped. I was getting tired of her attitudinising again. She glared at me.

"So one must commit every sin before one can judge?" she snapped back.

"Better that than refusing to live any sort of life at all."

She glared at me; people say 'If looks could kill', but I got the feeling that she really wanted hers to. Then she stood up off the bed, turned her back to me, and snarled, "Very well!"

She reached down, grabbed the hem of her dress with both hands, and yanked it off in a single quick move that must have been uncomfortable for her. She was naked underneath, of course, and I found myself looking at another attractive young body; she did have a bit of puppy fat everywhere, but that just gave her arse a nice curve.

"Oh, for God's sake," I said, "don't go playing silly games with me now."

"No, Mr Evans," she said, turning round but doing her best to preserve some kind of modesty, one arm over her breasts, the other hand shielding her crotch. "No games. You are correct. We are lost forever here, three of the other girls have sinned with you already, and Miss Halstead is no better. (Oh great, I thought,masturbation is as bad as fucking. These girls really do have problems.) "So why should I too not sin?"

I stepped forward. "I should throw you out of here right now," I said, "but you know what? I can't be bothered. We'll just have this argument every day until one of us gets bored and you've driven the other poor girls crazy by lecturing them. I don't believe that I can fuck any sense or sanity into you, but perhaps if you get laid you'll be able to relax for five minutes, and perhaps you won't be able to bring yourself to judge everybody else all the fucking time."

Her half-mad stare was fixed on my eyes, and I realised that the effect of my speech was quite likely spoiled by the fact that she'd never heard the word 'fuck' before. But anyhow, she grabbed me again, and gave me another of those hard, painful kisses. This time, I returned it, although I didn't dare probe her mouth with my tongue – she'd quite likely have bitten it off. Then I brought my arms up and broke her hold more or less by raw strength, accidentally pushing her backwards in the process. The bed was still directly behind her, so she staggered and fell back onto it, throwing her arms out to catch herself, and I had my first full sight of her naked body, with its well-rounded breasts and thick auburn bush.

She sat up and glowered at me, and I just shrugged and hauled my own robe off. Then I looked at her naked body again. Two days earlier, I might have jumped on her then and there – and confirmed her worst opinions of men. But the day before, Clarissa, Jemima, and Sarah had burned off the worst of my frustrations – the ones I'd been carefully ignoring – and now I had a better idea.

So I knelt beside the bed, pushing Clarissa's thighs further apart so I could get between them, and sank my face into her pussy.

"What – what are youdoing?" she said.

I looked up at her face. "Nothing I haven't done for Augusta," I answered. "Though for you, I'm going to take a bit longer."

"What do you intend?"

"I intend to make you beg," I said, and went back to work on her with my tongue.

She gasped and clawed weakly at my head, but I carried on, tasting the salty musk of her. I ran my tongue over her clitoris, then down to her cunt, which I probed with the tip as I gripped her hips firmly with my hands. Then I moved back up to her clitoris, working slowly up and down, left and right. I could feel it swell as I worked, and after a little while she pulled her legs further apart and gasped more deeply and rhythmically.

So I stopped and raised my head. She looked back into my eyes over the swell of her breasts, and I smiled. Then I went back to work, and she moaned softly.

So, after a moment, I stopped again.

"Please – Simon..." she sighed.

"Please what?" I asked.

"Please – continue."

"No," I said. She whimpered, and I grinned at her. "Okay, I've got a better idea. But you've got to ask me for it."

"What do you mean?"

"I could fuck you," I said. "I could have you. I could bury myself in there. You could have my cock inside you."

She moaned a little uncertainly, so I briefly ran my tongue over her clitoris one more time, then grinned at her again.

"Please," she said again.

"Please what?"

"Please – do whatever you want!"

I was torturing myself a bit too much to spin this out much longer, so I moved up her body, running my mouth over both of her large, erect nipples, and then grabbed her under the armpits and moved her further up the bed so that I could kneel on it between her thighs. Then I grasped my cock in one hand and moved it to the entrance of her cunt.

"Okay?" I asked, and she moaned again, so I kissed her as hard as she'd kissed me, paused for a moment, meeting her uncertain look, and then pushed, hard – no, I wasn't too inclined to be so careful this time. She screamed – not very loud, but it was a real scream – and grabbed at me, raking her fingernails across my back; I moaned in unsimulated pain at that and at the tightness of her. Then I raised myself above her on my hands, and she looked into my eyes with her full mad stare.

"Deflowered," I said. "Corrupted. Depraved. Fucked."

"You..." she moaned at me, making it into an insult. I realised that she literally didn't have words bad enough for what she thought of me. Anyway, I just began to thrust rhythmically. She breathed deeply in time. My back was still stinging – I suspected that she'd actually drawn blood – but that just made me thrust harder.

Suddenly, she took a very deep breath and then howled like a demon, throwing her arms around me and squeezing so hard it lifted her off the bed and pressed her breasts against me. Then she let go and collapsed back onto the bed, throwing her arms wide with a great groan.

"You know," I said, as conversationally as I could manage, "that doesn't usually happen to virgins being deflowered by men they hate."

"Damn you," she muttered.

"Let me guess," I said, "that was the first time you've felt like that."

"Don't be a fool, Mr Evans," she snapped, "who do you believe was caught and punished by Miss Halstead?"

"Oh," I said, "oh, you randy little minx!"

I found that my self-control was slipping rapidly away then, and my thrusts increased in speed; within seconds, I gave an orgasmic groan of my own, and then collapsed on top of her. By then, she was doing her best to treat me like I didn't exist – tricky under the circumstances, but she was managing.

After a moment, I levered myself up just a little and looked downwards. "By the way," I said, "you've actually got the nicest tits round here."

She glanced down, and it was clear that she'd understood what I was saying. "I know," she said.

"You do?"

"Please do not treat me like a fool, Mr Evans, even if you do use me as a... as a whore. I can look in a mirror, you know."

"That's a thought," I said. "House, please make all four walls and the ceiling into mirrors."

I was coming to like that trick; it certainly made Clarissa gasp. "There," I said, "you can see yourself very well now, I hope. Sorry if I'm getting in the way, though."

While she stared stunned at the sight of herself getting laid, I took some deep breaths. I was pleased to feel my cock growing firm again while still inside her; either the House's treatment was doing a fine job, or the sight of Clarissa's breasts was more than compensating for her attitude. I began to move against and inside her again.