Jailmates

by Lesli Richardson

  Jizz.

  I actually get a little helping hand with that. As embarrassing as it is, they have this…well, insertable gizmo.

  You can guess where.

  Fortunately, thanks to my five years in the military and their doctors, and the pretty hot night with the Carmidian barmaid, I’m not squeamish about the insertion.

  Which is a good thing, because apparently that’s the orifice they’ll be using to get most of the bionanotech into my body.

  They have me sit in this thing that is sort of a reclining chair, and sort of an exam table. Not exactly uncomfortable, but it did leave me feeling kind of exposed with my knees bent and thighs spread.

  They also attach a suction device to me for the actual…collection. Again, I think you can figure out where. It also vibrates a little, a humming kind of sensation. They do set up a privacy screen for me, thank goodness. Although it would have been nice if Dr. H’looder had not tried talking to me during the process.

  At least I have a light blanket draped over me for some semblance of privacy, and for warmth. Which is a good thing, because the room is on the cool side and I am apparently going to be here for…a while.

  He wanted several samples.

  Also, because they want, eh, untainted samples without any kind of chemical alterations to get a baseline on me, I basically have to sit there for close to two hours while they literally drain me dry.

  I never thought I’d be happy to stop coming.

  I do get to drink plenty of water—stay hydrated!—throughout this process. I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to walk by lunchtime, but somehow, I make it.

  Then the fun starts again in earnest after lunch.

  Round two.

  Of…

  Well, I’ll spare you the details. But insert, attach…repeat.

  Let’s just say that by the time dinner rolls around, I don’t even want to so much as look at my own dick, much less touch it. They do give me an ointment for the chafing and sensitivity, which immediately helps and brings me a different kind of relief.

  I opt to order dinner in my room—yay, room service!—and that’s also a good thing because walking is a little…uncomfortable. Skipping dinner’s not an option, because I’m fricking starving.

  All I can say is I’m thankful they gave me a nice warm, fuzzy bathrobe to wear over my hospital gown, because I don’t want to put on pants.

  I know second thoughts are a little late at this point. I remind myself that most of what I’m going to be doing is not what I’m currently doing now. This is the start of the process, and it will get better.

  I mean, that’s what H’looder kept reminding me today.

  And there’s more in store for me after dinner.

  Not more of that, thank the freaking stars.

  H’looder has enough of that particular sample.

  After dinner, however, it’s back to the lab.

  No more touching my cock right now.

  Yay!

  Bring on…

  Gulp.

  Like I said, it’s a good thing I’m not really squeamish about my butt.

  If I was, this next part would be reeeeeeally miserable.

  Chapter Eight

  It turns out the chair device I occupied for my earlier sessions is a multi-tasker. They’ve reconfigured it so I can lie down on it, facedown, kind of like I’m bent over the side of a bed, but with my knees bent and thighs spread. I’m also hooked up to monitors for this part, including one that fits over my left thumb.

  I get another warm blanket draped over me, though, so I close my eyes and think of what kind of degree Helleia and Mom might go for in secondary.

  What kind of degree I might one day go for.

  Mohrn.

  Her—their, goddamnit—face comes to mind as I try to distract myself.

  “We’ll apply a numbing gel first,” Dr. H’looder says from somewhere behind me. “Let us know if you’re uncomfortable.”

  “I’m uncomfortable,” I snark, making the three human technicians laugh.

  It takes H’looder a moment to get the joke. “Oh. That was funny. Sorry, I did warn you I tend to get focused. Are you ready, Simon?”

  “Yeah, I’m ready.”

  I flinch when I feel fingers—gloved, I’m assuming—start probing around down there, and I feel a cool goo being applied.

  It doesn’t take long to take effect either, thank goodness.

  “Can I get some of that shit on my cock if you need to get more samples from me there?” I only half-joke.

  H’looder makes what sounds like a chuckle. “You mean when we get more samples from you there?”

  “Touché, Doc.”

  I can sort of feel pressure down there, but nothing remotely painful. I settle in and try to not listen to what the technicians and H’looder are saying unless they’re directly talking to me or asking me a question.

  “Okay, we’re going to put a dilator in,” H’looder warns me, “and we will be introducing a large bio capsule holding the first batch of bionanotech. You will likely feel pressure and fullness, and maybe even the urge like you need to use the bathroom, but don’t worry, it will pass.”

  The human techs laugh, as do I, and one of them explains the joke to a confused H’looder.

  “Eh, don’t worry?” I add.

  Now I’m regretting my large dinner. I was starving, though.

  “Yes. The feeling will only last a little while, and will go away quickly. Do not push.”

  “Um…okay? How do I hold it in, though? You kind of have me propped open down there, don’t you?”

  “You won’t need to hold it. Just don’t push.”

  Now I open my eyes and lift my head so I can look back at him. “Say what?”

  “This first round of bionanotech, one of the things they will do is slightly alter your elimination system and make it more efficient. Solid waste will be digested by them, partially for energy for them, and what waste is left over will be processed by them and expelled through the kidneys and bladder in your urine.”

  “Wait—you mean I’m not going to poop anymore?”

  “That’s a simplified way of stating it, but relatively accurately.”

  “That’s not slightly altering things. That’s altering a lot.”

  “But it is reversible.”

  “Can I ask a stupid question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why are you doing it?”

  “It will make the biological pairing process easier. It was in the information packet.”

  I would have to admit to him I still haven’t read all the way through it, and I’d rather not do that right now and receive an ass-chewing to go with this particular ass-filling.

  “This won’t hurt me, will it?”

  “Not at all. This is very specialized tech, which is why we don’t provide it for military use. And military ships frequently use human solid waste as an energy source.”

  “Okay. You’re the expert.” I start to put my head down again but then I have one more question. “I know it’s too late for this question, but you’re sure this is safe?”

  “Absolutely safe. It’s been extensively tested, and not just on humans. But it’s very expensive to implement, which is another reason we don’t license it to the military.”

  “Ah. All right.”

  Again, I won’t bore you with the deets. I’m there for about an hour, then returned to my room for the night with…

  Well, what amounts to a giant butt plug in place. It’s a little uncomfortable, but I guess they want to prevent any…leakage?

  Ugh. I don’t want to think about it. I’m told to drink a lot of water, eat if I feel like it, and to not be alarmed if the color of my pee changes to something unusual. Oh, and that I’ll probably have to pee a lot over the next day or so while my body adjusts and the bionanotech gets settled in and does its thing.

  This is apparently stage one. Tomorrow I’ll be getting several more doses administered the same way and
which will apparently be for different purposes. I’ll also receive the tracker, and language and translation augmentations before going home, because H’looder is going to send me with some programming in my com I can run at night while I’m sleeping to help me with the language assimilation. Not just the Pfahrn language, but a couple of others that I’ll be interacting with a lot with the prison staff, on Maxim Colonies’ orbital station, and even on the orbiting Pfahrn transport hub.

  I suppose a lesser man’s pride would be taking a massive hit with this, but honestly?

  I close my eyes and think about my bank account, which already has a pending payment from Maxim Colonies.

  I think about the notices from Maxim Colonies waiting for me on my com, the info about the two secondary education vouchers for Mom and Helleia.

  I think about how happy they’re going to be when they learn about that.

  No doubt there will be a little disappointment that I’ll only be visiting for twelve days, but there’s a long-term plan at play here.

  I’ve decided to…fib to them. Not lie, exactly. I’m going to say that I’ve entered a Maxim Colonies research program (not a lie), where I’ll be learning about ether-jump technology (not a lie), and will be assigned to a Pfahrn as a part-time assistant (not a lie). And that my participation in the completely safe research program allowed me to secure them secondary vouchers (not a lie) but requires a maximum five-year commitment (not a lie).

  Omissions aren’t technically lies, right? Besides, they don’t need to know about my sex life.

  The contract also specifies a privacy clause. Maxim Colonies won’t release any info about what’s going on unless I approve it first.

  In other words, my family never has to know what I did to earn all that paper.

  * * * *

  The next morning I feel like a walking zombie. I was up half the night peeing and drinking water.

  Not to mention it’s a little disconcerting when your pee starts coming out bright green for a while.

  It’s already back to yellow, albeit a much darker, brighter yellow I’m not used to by the time I make it to the lab after breakfast.

  H’looder and his team are waiting for me, question me about my night, tap into the bionanotech to get readings from me, and then we begin again.

  I’m lying there, ass up and eyes closed, when something catches my attention.

  “What was that?”

  “What was what?” H’looder asks.

  “I just felt something.”

  “Well, we are administering—”

  “No. I mean with the ship. What just happened?”

  He walks over to a control panel and checks. “Ah, we just emerged from our ether-jump. We’re about eight standard hours from Axind 5. Very perceptive, Simon. I’m glad to see the bionanotech has integrated with your neural system so quickly.”

  “That wasn’t the bionanotech. That was me being a mech-tech. I felt it, the ship.”

  “Oh? Curious.” He notes something on a tablet. “I’d like to research that.”

  “Most mech-techs worth their salt can feel stuff like that,” I tell him. “We’re used to sensing changes.”

  By lunchtime I’ve had all the bionanotech doses they’ll give me, for now, and they’ve implanted the first augmentations, as well as the tracker. After lunch I spend it sitting in the chair again, upright, this time—yes, I grow used to the damn thing in my ass—working with a tablet and one of H’looder’s techs to teach me how to access and control the augmentations for translation. It takes me a little while to get used to that, but once it finally clicks, I’m off and running with it.

  Once we’ve received notification we’re less than twelve hours from the orbital transport hub we’ll dock with during our stay here, I ask for a break so I can go to my stateroom and make a vid call home. We’re close enough now there are no delays, and it’s early evening there, so I’m not waking them up.

  I sit up in my bed, with a regular shirt on so nothing looks amiss. I’ve got the robe belted around my waist out of view of the com, though.

  Yeah, the trousers I currently own are going to be uncomfortable like this, and the techs are already working on getting me looser ones. Hell, this is before they’ve even started the process to…eh, enlarge things.

  When Mom answers, her eyes widen. “Simon?”

  I grin. “Hiya, Momster. Guess where I am?”

  “Oh, my god! Are you in orbit?”

  “Nearly.”

  Then she starts crying, I start crying, and I won’t bore you with the details. Helleia is at work, so I can’t talk to her yet. By the time I end the call nearly forty-five minutes later, I’ve put a little bit of a damper on my homecoming by revealing I’m only staying for twelve days, but at least she was doing the good kind of crying when I told her the good news about their secondary vouchers.

  And crying again, when I dropped the first deposit into our family account, which is enough to pay expenses on the apartment for more than a year.

  Sooo…yeah. She gets it. Mom is practical. She had to be, losing Dad when she had two young children to take care of.

  She’s taken damn good care of us.

  Now, it’s my turn.

  That’s why when I return to the lab once I’ve blown my nose and washed my face, I don’t care that they want me ass-up again for a while to check progress down there.

  I just think about Mom’s happy smile when I told her she and Hells can give their notice at work now and pick whatever secondary school they want.

  Chapter Nine

  I spend another night peeing, and my morning working with the translation augmentation. Meanwhile, the ship docks with the station.

  I wait to go planetside so I can time my arrival home for bright and early in the morning local time. It gives me extra time to work with the techs to help me learn how to better control my augmentations, even though it’s going to mean another day or two for me of space lag while I adjust to the planet’s day and night schedule.

  It also allows me to get the butt plug removed. I was honestly worried if my asshole would close up again, but apparently, yay, bionanotech, because I’m back to a tight pucker.

  Not that I’m going to be needing it for anything over the next few years, I guess.

  H’looder assures me the bionanotech will keep everything down there taken care of and, once I’m through this, I can have that reversed just as easily as we did it, because the bionanotech will help transition my colon through the process.

  Okay. Whatever. Honestly? I don’t want too many deets about that. Seriously. I’m not squicky, but…

  Yeah.

  I don’t need to know the deets about that process as long as it works like H’looder says it will. Hell, it could be handy, in a logistical way. I might decide to keep it after.

  I don’t have to schlepp all my stuff down to the planet, only what I’ll need for my stay. So with a duffel bag over my shoulder, and a backpack in hand, I leave H’looder’s ship and step out onto the docking station at Axind 5 for the first time in five years.

  It’s so weird being…home. Signs are all predominantly in Standard. Official coalition signs and larger advertisements are in Standard, but with translations in a couple of other languages under that.

  And I can now even read some of those other translations, thanks to the augmentations.

  When I was growing up I used to dream about going to other places and seeing more nonhuman species than I had contact with on Axind 5. I wanted to be in space. I wanted to travel.

  Now?

  Over it.

  Totally.

  If you’d told eighteen-year-old me that, I would’ve laughed in your face.

  Twenty-three-year-old me feels ancient, looking back.

  Yeah, I know there are plenty out there older than me who would still laugh at me for thinking that, too. Most people my age aren’t looking death in the face on a regular basis, though.

  Damn sure not on Axind 5.


  This beautiful little shithole planet. Stacks can go fuck himself—Axind 5 is amazing, bountiful, and peaceful.

  I make my way through the docking section to the planet-side transport area, go through Customs, and then wait for my shuttle. Another reason I waited to debark is because the shuttle that will take me the closest to the city where Mom and Helleia live isn’t leaving for another thirty minutes. That one will get me to Praun, which is the regional capital city.

  From Praun I can take a regional shuttle to Baxator, a two-hour flight.

  Then a cab home.

  Once aboard the planet-side shuttle, I buckle into my seat and stare out the viewport at the planet below. Approximately fifty percent of Axind 5 is a low-salinity ocean. There are polar ice caps north and south, and arctic regions, but most of the land mass is centered around the equatorial region.

  The first time I ever saw an ocean in person, so to speak, was when taking my first-ever shuttle up to the transport station when I left for basic. I saw it from a port much like this one as we headed up, and then again from space.

  God, that kid was just a kid back then, too. I feel like I’ve aged a lifetime since I left.

  When I start to regret locking myself into this five-year contract, I think about how happy Mom was when I told her the news about her guaranteed secondary education.

  I think about how happy Helleia is going to be to see me.

  I think about them.

  Because they’re all that matter to me.

  * * * *

  “Oh, my god! Look at you!” Mom envelops me in a hug before I’m barely through the door. “You got taller!”

  I smile. “No, you got shorter, Momster.” I did actually gain an inch from when she last saw me, around when I turned nineteen.

  “Is he here?” Helleia yells from the direction of the bathroom’s closed door.

  “You better not be futzing with your hair all morning, Hells,” I call back. “You make me late for school, I’m going to send pictures of your underwear to Dave Hinelman.” I grin at Mom, who starts laughing.

  “You little shit!” Hells shrieks before I hear her laughing.

  While we’re waiting, I drop my bags and hug Mom again, because I…