Whale of a Tale

His thoughts were interrupted by something pressing against his lips. The feeding tube, he sighed, and he resigned himself to the indignity of it. Some dim memory told him that this had happened many times before, that he was used to it, expecting it, his stomach almost growling in anticipation. The tube withdrew after a couple of minutes, and he was still waiting. For what? Something soft and firm was brushing against his lips, sliding over his tongue. There was no doubt it was a penis. Well, he should have expected it. He was expecting it. He thought dimly that this, too, had happened many times before. There was nothing he could do to resist it. Moby, it was Moby Dick. Moby was pushing against the back of his throat. Without thinking, he relaxed to let it slide through into his esophagus. Deep throating. His wife had tried that once, and managed to puke all over him. But he was doing it quite easily. He was used to it. It wasn't long before he felt Moby spouting once again.

It was time to go back to sleep, time to forget again. But something different was happening this time. He felt pain on his wrists. Hands. He and almost forgotten he had hands. He thought that, perhaps, he had lost them, hands and feet, that he was like a whale now, smooth and sleek, drifting in a soft, hazy sea. But he had feet, too. He could feel his legs being tugged. It had been so long since they had moved that the joints had almost solidified. Pain at his mouth, and the gag was gone! Almost, he could not get his jaw to close, it was so frozen in position. But, after a moment, he managed to feel teeth against teeth, he managed to swallow properly. Then, tugging against his ears, and the mask was removed! He could hear, he could see! Well, he would be able to see if he could figure out how to open his eyes. They were pasted shut with mucous. But he could hear, deep mechanical rumblings and grindings. And even with his eyelids closed, he could sense the harsh brightness around him.

"Thank you," he managed to murmur, "thank you."

That provoked a sardonic chuckle, then, a sharp cracking sound, and a burst of pain on his rump. He yelped in protest. That only provoked a second crack. "Open your eyes!"

He managed to do that, finally. Everything was a hazy blur of overwhelming light. At last, he began to make sense of it. He was in a silver room, roof, walls, floor, all of polished stainless steel. In front of him was a little man, oriental features, in the brightest white clothing he had ever seen. An angel, it had to be an angel. The angel was holding a small riding crop. Maybe it was a demon, instead.

"I am First Officer Isuku." The angel spoke, with a slight accent. "The doctor has informed me that you are well enough now to begin your training for phase two."

"My name is Mar..." He was interrupted by another lash on his buttocks.

"Your name is of no importance. In any case, we are well enough aware of it. Your tragic death has been the source of considerable inconvenience to us."

"My death?"

He was half expecting another blow for his impertinence. Instead, the little officer gave him a cruel smile. "Your death. You are a dead man, as far as the rest of world is concerned."

"A dead man."

"Yes. You are a martyr to the cause of whale preservation. A saint, almost. Your widow's poignant grief has been a source of inspiration to the world. You have also been a source of considerable expense to us."

"I'm sure my insurance would cover most of it."

"Insurance!" That provoked another slash, this time at his back. A voice behind him said something sharply in Japanese, and the officer handed over the crop. "A dead man does not have insurance."

"But I'm not dead. Why don't you just ..." He winced as the officer reached to slap his cheeks. The man behind him, though, grabbed the officer's wrists, restraining him.

"The time has passed," a voice behind him said, "when we could do that."

"How much time?" Martin was almost afraid to ask.

"Six weeks," the officer snarled.

"You can understand," the man behind him said, "why it would be awkward to suddenly reveal your existence. Questions would be raised. And, of course, the alterations in your physique ..."

"You're the one at fault, Dr. Ito. You're the one who wanted a subject for your little experiment."

"What alterations?" Marty reached down reflexively to his groin. He still had his balls, he still had his dick. Then his hands worked upward. They were cupping perky little breasts.

"Whale fat is very high in estrogen. We have been studying its effect on a human subject."

:"The doctor's idea."

"You did not discourage it. You have been having sex with him at every opportunity."

"Sex?" Martin broke in. "You've been fucking me in my sleep?"

"Of course," the officer sneered. "We are going to continue fucking you, now that we have allowed you to awaken."

"Over my dead body."

"If that is the way you prefer it." The officer was starting to take off those radiantly white clothes. "Let me explain the situation to you. You have a choice. You can be cooperative, and achieve a relative degree of freedom. Or, you will be placed in restraints. If you are cooperative, we may perhaps be able to sell you into a brothel when we return to Japan, and your existence may perhaps continue for a while longer. Who knows, you may eventually be able to return to your former life. What happens after you leave us is of no concern to us. If you do not cooperate, we will dump you into the ocean far enough off shore that your body will never be discovered."

"You have not explained the situation exactly," the doctor said. "We have kept you in a passive state, initially to facilitate your recovery, but later as an experiment."

"An experiment?"

"To determine how well we could maintain physical function in such a state of near coma. Your muscles have been stimulated electronically. We have taken steps to maintain, even improve, your cardiovascular health, and your body mass index."

"And you've been using me as a sex toy?"

"Well, yes. To a modest extent. Merely as a preliminary to phase two. We now want to document how well your body will function under normal circumstances."

"You forgot to tell him about the collar."

"A yes, the collar. We have adapted it, from the ones we use to track marine mammals. I believe, in your country, you have electric fences for dogs?"

"Yes." Martin felt his neck.

"This works on the same principle," the doctor said. "But it is much more sophisticated. Do not attempt to remove it. It has been surgically implanted. It has electrodes attached directly into your nerves. The battery recharges itself on the thermal energy of your metabolism."

"Observe." The officer went over to a set of controls and adjusted them. Martin convulsed with unbearable pain. "If you attempt to leave this room, the pain level will mount as you move away. Within ten feet, it will kill you. Do you understand? If you disobey, you will be punished. Do you understand?"

Martin nodded.

"Good. We are going to give you two weeks of rehabilitation and physical training. Then you will begin your duties."

"My duties?"

"You will be servicing the crew. During the training period, officers only."

"Servicing?" He didn't get a response. It was obvious what those services were going to be. "How many?"

"Thirty. There will be three shifts of ten, and of course you will normally be doing two at a time. Each shift will take about an hour. The rest of the day you will be expected to sleep and exercise."

"And if I refuse?"

"We will simply return you to phase one. Really, you have no choice."

There was a commotion behind him, a blast of cold air, the sound of several feet on the metal floor. Someone with a voice of authority said something in Japanese, and the doctor answered back in that language, a friendly enough response. The next exchange, though, was not so friendly. "He has not commenced his phase two training!" The doctor said it in English. Martin realized he was being warned.

The other voice roared something imperious. "The captain is saying that he will commence the training himself." The first officer was whispering this to Marty. He sounded very worried. "If you are not acceptable, we will all suffer terrible consequences." There was a pleading tone in his voice.

The captain was standing in front of him, pants pulled down, penis at best half ready. Martin considered his options. He could bite the guy's balls off. He and the doctor and the first officer would be whale bait. Or, he could play for time. He licked those balls, he kissed them, he took the little cock into his mouth and let it slide as far back is it could.

"Excellent!" He could hear the doctor's sigh of relief. "You will be most satisfactory."

* * * *

"It's so nice of you to invite me over like this." Sharon looked around the stateroom with some envy. This was the one place in the little ship she had never been -- Ben and Maria's room. Well, that wasn't quite true. She had never been into the bedroom of that little French fag who called himself a doctor, and his creepy little partner. "Wow," she added, "this is really nice."

"We've tried," Maria said. Somehow, they had overcome the sterile barren look of the rest of the ship. There were curtains over the porthole, a nice quilt covering the bed. There were paintings on the wall, religious ones, saints and the Virgin Mary. There was a bronze cross over the bedstead. On the dresser, photos of their children, both at least Sharon's age, a very pretty girl on a wedding dress, and a young man in a military uniform. Going to be an astronaut, she had heard, and he had that look to him. The bed was made, the floor was polished, nothing was out of place. On the little table to the side, three glasses of wine were waiting for them. Sharon felt as if she were about to take Communion.

Ben and Maria had kept more or less to themselves, right from the start of the journey. But that had been even more pronounced since Marty's demise, since the media frenzy that had followed it. Strange, how you could be world famous and totally isolated at the same time. Just an hour ago, Sharon and Bob had appeared on a morning news show, back in the UK, via satellite of course. Yet none of them had been in contact with a human being off the ship for over a month now.

Of course, Sharon had been in considerable contact with some of the human beings on that ship, and she had felt Maria's silent disgust at her behavior, eroding the tentative friendship that had bonded them as maidens of virtue fighting off the siege of male lust. They really had not talked for a week or so. The invitation to share an evening together had come as a very pleasant surprise.

She thought back to her exchange with that snotty little woman in London. A friend, Bob had assured her, and, he had added with a wink, a very good friend. But she had seemed as cold as ice, as ruthless as a icicle plunging into her guts. There were disturbing reports about the Whale Widow. That's what she was now, the Whale Widow, really just one word now, one that was on everyone's lips, and familiar as Madonna, or Britney, or the Octomom. Images of her were on every magazine. But now, there were rumors. The British tabloids, the National Enquirer, Globe, all of them had picked them up. Orgies on the pursuit ship! Bob had sent that one tape unedited back to London, and clips of the nasty bits had surfaced on the internet. Sharon had growled that they were all consenting adults and it was no one's fucking business. She wondered, suddenly, if Ben and Maria had seen that interchange, if that had prompted their sudden interest in her. But here was no hint of that as they ushered her into the room, sat down with her at their little table, offered her one of the glasses.

"I'm so glad you invited me," Sharon babbled, taking too deep a gulp of the wine. "Really, you are the only two people on the ship I feel comfortable with, the only ones who aren't coming on to me all the time."

That made Ben wince, and Maria blush. There was an awkward silence, a very awkward silence.

"Of course," Sharon said, "it's not that you're not both very attractive." It was true. Her own parents had imprisoned themselves in obesity, each at least a hundred pounds overweight. But Ben and Maria were both still slim and trim. Ben had his hair, more than Bob did, for that matter. Sharon had fleeting thoughts about all those commercials for Viagra, Flomax, Rogaine. "I didn't mean to imply ... oh God! Can we just start over again?"

"Ben and I both work as counselors," Maria said, with a gentle, soothing tone that was very professional. "We're pretty hard to shock or offend. Aren't we, Ben?" Ben just nodded. There was a look in his eye that hinted that he was in no need of Viagra.

"Is that why you invited me here this evening?" Sharon couldn't resist giving him her whore look back. "Because you think I need counseling?"

"You've suffered a terrible loss. You've been acting ..."

"Erratic," Ben put in. He gave her the same look her father had given her when she'd staggered back from spring break that one time, still hung over and barely able to sit on her aching butt.

"Fucking everything that moves?" Sharon tried to make it sound like a joke. "Acting like a whore? Maybe that's what I am, what I've been all along. Maybe it was a mistake getting married in the first place."

"Grief can take many forms," Maria said. "Sorrow, anger, denial, depression. People talk about phases, but you can be feeling all of them all at once. Your sexual activities," she made it sound like a disease, "may be a symptom of all of these."

"I like sex," Sharon pouted. "It passes the time. More fun that Scrabble." She absentmindedly took an S out of the box on the table and tried to fit it into one of the words on the board. "Okay, what of it? What if I've been fucking Robert, and Ian, and Reggie?"

"All at the same time?" Maria's question was so unexpected that Sharon choked on her wine. There was a look of amusement on the older woman's face.

"No," she sputtered, "not at the same time." She put down the wine glass, and stared at Maria. There was something about the way Maria stared back that was very unsettling. She'd never thought of Maria as anything other than an older woman, old and burned out, but now she realized maybe Maria wasn't burned out at all. "Why do you ask?" she ventured, at last.

"I've always fantasized about double penetration." That answer was enough to make the room seem very warm, all of a sudden. Sharon took another gulp of wine. Ben took a little sip, his face completely impassive. "I really enjoy anal sex. So does Ben. Of course, we've never really been able to do the double penetration thing properly. That would break our wedding vows."

"Of course not." Sharon relaxed again. The two of them were counselors. They were used to talking about things ordinary people would never talk about. True, in all the time they had been together on the ship, they had never talked to her this way before, but this was the first time the three of them had been in private. This was probably the way they related to their own children. God, she wished her parents could open up to her like that. It was hard to imagine that they had ever had sex.

"Tonight," Ben said it very casually, "we may make an exception."

He paused for a moment, and gave the slightest hint of a smile. Sharon said nothing. She took another gulp of wine, and gave a little nod. That was all there was to it. Maria was smiling at her now, her face gleaming in anticipation. She came over and gave Sharon a little kiss, on the forehead. Sharon reached up to touch her breasts. She had never felt another woman's chest before. Maria was not wearing a bra. She opened her blouse so that one breast was floating free -- not droopy, despite her age, small and round and firm. Sharon kissed it, she ran her tongue over the nipple, feeling it harden.

"Would you like to meet Moby?" Ben asked. He also had left his seat. Sharon thought that he was going to pull down his pants, but instead he went over to the dresser next to that brass cross and took out a purple dildo, at least eight inches long and thick to match, and a tangled strapon harness.

"Have you ever used one of these?" Maria asked. Sharon shook her head. She was staring at the size of Moby with some astonishment. "Want to try it? No need to take your clothes off." But Sharon was already stripping naked. She was too hot, in any case, and she needed air on the wetness of her pussy. She pulled off her jeans, and the room was filled with the scent of her desire.

"You really are beautiful," Maria said. Her hands, a bit rough and dry, were on Sharon's breasts, her lips, a little scaly, were sucking the right nipple.

"Why, thank you." Sharon broke away. "You know, you are the first person on this ship to say that?"

Ben had managed to untangle the harness, and he gave it to Sharon to put on. Just like panties, but it was only a few straps, leaving her completely open underneath it. She stared at herself in the mirror. Five foot four, square built, nice big boobs and a dick to match.

"You look good with a dick," Maria confirmed her opinion. "Want to try it out?"

"On you?"

"On me." Ben did have his pants off now. He was leaning over the edge of the bed.

"She's not as tall as I am. You're going to have to squat down more." Maria had retrieved a tube of jelly from the same dresser drawer. She stuck a glob up her husband's ass, rubbed some more over the dildo.

"What do I do?" Sharon was looking at the tiny puckered orifice, the immense dildo. She had tried to convince Marty to do this, with no success. She wanted to see that dildo vanish, she wanted to pound it into that flesh. But now she was having second thoughts.

"Trust me, it will slide right in. Here." Maria took the tip and aimed it. "Just give a little shove."

Sharon did shove, perhaps a bit too hard, because Ben gave a gasp, and the dildo slid all the way in at once. Damn! Now that it was gone, there was really nothing to it. She pulled it out a little, so that she could admire how his flesh was stretched around its broad purple shaft. She had watched herself being fucked, a few times, but the mirror had been too far away to see any detail. As for the rest of him, it was buried under his belly. She sighed.

"What's the matter?" Ben asked.

"Could you turn over?" She wanted to see his balls, his dick hanging out in the air while she fucked him. That was what had always fascinated her about anal sex, when she had watched clips of it, the girls with their lovely pussies hanging out, the guys with their cute little dicks. Fucked and not fucked, all at the same time. Or double fucked -- how would that feel?

"Of course." He did roll over then, pulling his legs up past his shoulders, leaving himself wide open to her. She pushed back in, all the way once again, grinding her hips against his. It felt good to fuck. Then it felt boring. Ben seemed to be enjoying it, though. He was fully erect, spouting a little at each thrust.

"Slap his balls." Maria was behind her, kissing her neck, rubbing breasts along her back, and that felt, really, really good.

"Slap, like this?" She gave a hard, open palmed slap, leaving her hand pressed against him. He spouted a little harder. Maria was kissing her lower down now, right in the spot between the back of her pussy and her asshole. She'd never realized quite how sensitive that spot was. She was pushing in to Ben, back to find Maria's waiting tongue. It was more interesting now, very interesting. So interesting she stopped thrusting completely, and just lay down on Ben's stomach, gasping. She was amazed how hard his body was. Big arms, shoulders, chest -- she had thought, somehow, that it was all soft fat. But he was rock hard, thick, solid muscle. He was probably twice as strong as poor Marty. There was not much comfort on that stomach. It was like lying on a stone bench. He wrapped his legs around her, and she sensed that he could crush her in an instant if he cared to.