“What’s the meaning of this?”
He cringed at the sharp tone of her voice. “Of what?”
“This mess.” She spun toward him, pinching her nose. “Did you have a party to celebrate Beth’s death then let everything rot?”
“No!” Celebrate her death? Beth was his life. He still didn’t know how to go on without her.
“Then what happened? How can you live in this filth?”
She set her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows, tapping her toe.
Just the way his wife used to.
“I....” A lump formed in his throat. “It’s been hard these last two weeks. I’ve had a lot to deal with.”
“I suppose you have.” Her pursed lips offered little sympathy. “But Beth would not accept excuses. She would punish you if she saw this mess.”
Punish. It seemed so long ago she’d last used the paddle on him. Perhaps he’d let their home become a mess, to give her a reason to come back to him. “Yes, she would.”
“Then I will have to do it.”
Blood rushed to his groin. His cock rose in anticipation. He didn’t know what Bryn had in mind, but with Beth, pleasure always followed the sting of her punishments. “If you must.”
She set her carry-on bag on the floor. Squatting, she reached inside and drew out a paddle longer than any Beth had ever used on him. Though wooden paddles did not come cheap, his wife owned one the size of a hairbrush. Her clone held one much bigger. At least sixteen inches long, and clear plastic riddled with holes to make the punishment sting more.
Bryn yanked on the elastic holding her hair up. Her caramel-colored locks fell past her shoulders. She unbuttoned her uniform to reveal a generous amount of cleavage and resembled a dominatrix of times past.
When she slapped the paddle across her palm, he groaned.
“You will clean up first.” She inspected the small living room and kitchen. “One swat for every ten minutes it takes you to make it shine.”
Ten minutes? His ass tingled. It would take at least an hour. Though likely much longer. “That’s not fair. The mess didn’t happen in a day.”
“Then you’d better get started.” She tapped the paddle to his ass. “I’m timing you.”
Great! He wouldn’t sleep on his back that night, lucky if he slept at all.
Beginning in the living room, he picked up all the garbage and dirty dishes. By the time he’d finished, the floors sparkled and the rotten smell was replaced by lemony freshness. Almost two hours had passed. Ten swats.
“Much better.” Bryn nodded. “Now it’s time for your punishment, to remind you to clean up after yourself.”
He stripped and stood naked, hands behind his back and legs apart. He kept his gaze fixed on the floor lest more slaps be added to his high number.
“Over my lap.”
Darryl groaned at the sudden change in her tone, from stern to sultry. What would she do to him after his spanking? He kneeled and lay over her lap, sure to touch the tip of his cock to her thigh. Yes, he deserved the punishment, but he craved so much more.
Bryn caressed the cheeks of his ass, her palms delicate, like Beth’s. He’d never expected her to cause him any pain. Heck, he wouldn’t have guessed her in the military when they’d first met. But she’d surprised him in many ways and made her expectations clear.
“Your ass is round and firm. It will glow nicely by the time I’m done.”
Not the first time he’d heard the words. He yearned for her to stop playing with him and spank already.
Bryn reached between his legs. When she grabbed his shaft, he sucked in a breath and released it with a groan.
“Interesting. I’ve never met a guy so turned on by impending pain.” She squeezed before releasing him. “Let’s get started.”
He braced for the first spank. No matter how often Beth had punished him, the first swat came as a surprise. With a different paddle, Bryn could inflict even more pain.
The plastic struck, setting his ass on fire. He shot forward with a yelp, unsure he’d get through all ten.
“I expect you to count.” Bryn caressed his stinging skin, her touch absorbing some of the hurt.
“One.” Darryl closed his eyes, waiting for the next.
Smack!
Another cry. “Two.” His ass burned as if he sat on hot coals.
The next three followed in quick succession, the pain blinding. He’d barely caught his breath in between. Had he counted? But Bryn hadn’t scolded him.
The paddle clanked on the table, and she grabbed his cock. “Not so excited anymore. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.”
“I’ve learned my lesson.” He rocked into her fist. The sting disappeared as desire surged.
Bryn let go. “I don’t think you have. You just want what Beth gave you after. Not this time.”
His muscles jerked with number six. All lust for the woman vanished. She wasn’t his wife. Just a clone who wanted to punish him. He tried to roll away, but she gripped his side.
“If you leave, I’ll add more.”
“Then get them over with.”
The next came so hard and fast, tears formed in the corners of his eyes. “Seven.” He didn’t want the woman there. She had no right to take Beth’s place.
“Eight, nine, ten.” She tapped out the last three. “I’m done.”
Darryl tensed, sure she baited him.
She stroked his back and his ass, soothing the burn. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t pretend to be her. Not with you.” Gone was the confidence and command in her voice.
He slid from her lap and kneeled in front of her. “You don’t have to be Beth. I don’t expect you to.”
She shook her head and glanced toward the windows. “No, I mean pretending to be Bryn, to be a clone.”
He gripped the sides of her chair, shock rolling through him. “Beth?”
Chewing her bottom lip, she nodded.
Darryl stood and pulled her into his arms. Doubt crept in and he set her back on her feet. “But you deployed.”
“No. Bryn went in my place.” She clasped his hands. “I knew it was a suicide mission. She did, too.”
“And you sent her?” Clone or not, she shouldn’t have been sent to die.
“She kind of volunteered.” Beth rubbed the side of her neck. “I didn’t stand a chance when she tied me up and cut me so it would look like she’d removed my portal.”
“What about hers? Didn’t anyone notice?” He loved having his wife back, but didn’t want anyone to learn her identity and take her away.
“They didn’t even look.” A tear slipped down her cheek. “She arranged everything, even for my clone to be released to you after my death. Said she was created to take my place in dangerous situations and must fulfill her purpose.”
“And yet you came in here and spanked me?” Why hadn’t she told him?
The sorrow gone, his strict military wife returned. “You deserved it. Bryn would have done the same thing. She’s the one who taught me about spanking. Someone fed her that programming.”
“I think you deserve a spanking for letting me believe you’d died.” He cringed as soon as the words left his mouth, expecting Beth to demand punishment for his outburst. Instead, she smiled and cupped his testicles.
“Maybe. But we have some reuniting to do.”
He scooped her into his arms and headed to their room. His wife was home. For good.
Author Bio
Jessica E. Subject is the author of contemporary and science fiction romance, ranging from sweet to erotica. In her stories, you could meet clones, or a sexy alien or two. You may even be transported to another planet for a romantic rendezvous. And if you’re looking for something really steamy, check out her erotica stories written as Paisley Brown.
When Jessica isn't reading, writing, or doing dreaded housework, she likes to get out and walk. Fast. But she just may slow down if there is a waterfal
l nearby.
Jessica lives in Ontario, Canada with her husband and two energetic children. And she loves to hear from her readers. You can find her at jessicasubject.com and on twitter @jsubject.
Oh, What the Hell…
By
Maren Smith
“I thought they’d never leave,” Vek clicked, his stunted mandibles clacking once in a show of good-natured irritation.
“Give a Twahian an inch and they’ll talk your ear off,” May agreed, but she’d gotten what she’d wanted from them, so she couldn’t help being happy. She flicked a suddenly shy glance at Vek. One would think after sixteen months together on what could only be termed as a very, very, very remote waystation on the outskirts of the Far Reaches, they would have been beyond shy glances by now. But with the arrival and departure of the Twahian merchant traders, it seemed the shy glances were only growing more frequent.
She looked at Vek, burning with that slow flush of heat that always seemed to accompany her thoughts of him these days. Sixteen months penned in together on a drifting sardine can could do that to two people. Even two people as different as humans and the mantis-like Klik’vok. She could still remember her first ungracious thought when she’d stepped off the transport and met the, dare she say, man destined to be her only companion for the next two years: ‘Oh ick—he’s a bug!’ Somewhere along the way, thoughts like that had become, ‘That bug is so frickin’ hot!’
Antennae flicking, Vek fastidiously cleaned both eyes, his normally brown chitin flushed in multi-bright shades of yellow, blue and green as he sidled closer.
“I witnessed you bought packages.”
“I saw you got a few too.”
“I made good trades.” Vek puffed a little. The Klik’vok were almost as proud of their bartering abilities as they were their good grooming habits. “Perhaps after dinner, we could reveal to one another our purchases?”
Oh yeah, she had fallen for Vek, all right. May had no idea when it had happened. She didn’t even know for sure how it had happened, but somewhere between ick and frick, sixteen months’ worth of late night grooming sessions with Vek carefully chewing his way through her ‘spines’—You have such long, soft spines, he liked to say—and those early morning moments when she would instruct him on the life-sustaining necessity of replicating good coffee, she had lost her heart to a bug.
Klik’vok mated for life; Vek had told her that once.
Sometimes humans did too, she had replied. These days, it was all she could do just to make it through a day without thinking about Vek and mating in the same moment. She didn’t even know whether he had the right equipment to pull off the kind of gymnastics that would be required for such to happen with a human. But she knew he had a genital slit somewhere beneath all those flashy, shiny, sparkly accessories that Klik’vok liked to wear instead of clothes, so that might he possessed a Tab A with which to ravish her Slot B. But even if he didn’t, May had lost the ability to see her future self anywhere without Vek somewhere in close proximity.
Christmas dinners in the Jennings’ household back in Paint Lick, Alabama were about to get very exciting.
Having already accepted Vek’s invitation to attend his own family’s zef’kit’t (whatever that was), May was already bracing to be the only soft, small, pink-skinned creature there…apart from the cuttlepict, the traditional centerpiece of most Klik-vok meals and which would, Vek had assured her, be served quite dead.
May knew she was crazy to want this, but a woman’s heart was a fickle thing and although it had taken the better part of sixteen months, May’s heart had made its choice. She liked Vek.
She loved Vek. He was soft spoken, kind, smart, funny, gentle and for all his incredible size, he could squeeze all his multi-segmented parts into places too small even for her to reach. For some reason, she found that incredibly sexy. Particularly when she started thinking about what big things he might have to squeeze into little ol’ her.
“We have work to do,” May said, not just ready now, but eager to get back to the packages in her room. “Dinner at twenty ohns?”
She started to withdraw, but stopped when Vek touched her shoulder.
“Wait.” He bent slightly towards her, bringing his strange, triangular face down to her level. May actually had a stomach clenching moment of naked excitement and stark panic when Vek parted his stunted mandibles and then, ever so gently, pressed his hard, flat, slit of a mouth to hers. He held himself still, frozen for just a moment, apart from the rapid tap-tap-tapping of his scenting antennae as they played through her hair. When he withdrew, his colors were drastically brighter, the normally dull brown of his carapace seeming almost black now while shades of gold, green, blue, even purple (and she’d never seen that before) colored his shell.
“Was that correct?” he asked, clicking an extra time in his uncertainty. “For a kiss?”
May melted. “Yes, you did that exactly right.”
Vek drew himself proudly upright. “Twenty ohns,” he said, and then he left her there, only glancing back once just before he disappeared down the distant corridor toward the service end of the station. If Klik’vok could smile, she thought Vek probably would be.
The package she had bought from the Twahian merchants was waiting on her bed exactly as she’d left it when she returned to her quarters. Sitting on the edge of her bunk, May held it in her lap for the longest time while she willed for her nervous stomach to settle. She wanted to do this, she absolutely did. May drew a calming breath, thinking about Vek, about tonight, about finally shedding those last few reservations and simply letting herself go where her heart most wanted her to.
Vek had kissed her. Every inch of May thrilled in the reliving of that moment and in thoughts of what that might mean for tonight when she, at very long last, revealed to him the depth of her feelings. Her hands crinkled the gossamer wrapping around her package before, with a deep and steadying breath, May opened it.
The lingerie hailed from the Belliore quadrant and was quite subdued as far as lingerie went. It was also made for someone with four breasts and a tail, but it was beautiful anyway, lacy in places and sparkly in others that were sure to catch Vek’s attention. With some creative pinning, she managed to make that creation of crimson and black fit in all the right places. Tonight, if everything went well, she and Vek were going to take their relationship to the next level. To an intimate level, even if that intimacy meant only that creatures as different as they would have to find contentment simply in holding one another.
The wait for the dinner hour was the longest of May’s life, but when she finally did make her way to the Dispensary, she found Vek already waiting for her there with a semi-romantic meal spread out on a table set for one. Kellian chocolate-filled bajoree fruit; Caspian mushrooms packed with ege meat, stuffing and roe; oysters, a human aphrodisiac; Klik-vok nia’gi, another aphrodisiac which she only recognized because she’d looked them up while researching how to prepare for this moment—all of these and more were spaced in little dishes around Vek’s chair.
Apparently, Vek had been researching too.
He stood at the head of the table, draped in a shimmering green and blue robe. His colors were very bright, a sure sign of internal excitement. “Would you like to see what I’ve bought?” he asked, fingering the edge of his robe.
“You’re wearing it?”
He clicked, a chortling sound.
“I’m wearing mine too.” May couldn’t stop herself from edging closer. She struck her best provocative pose—something she had practiced in the mirror for hours and which Vek probably wouldn’t even recognize because she was soft and squishy and he…well, he was a bug.
Right now, he was a bug in a robe, quivering with excitement and vibrant in color, no doubt thinking seductive thoughts.
“We will disrobe together,” he said.
“On three,” May added, and shivered all over again because the anticipation was damn near killing her. She had to
clear her throat before she could make herself heard. “One,” she whispered, feeling the tendrils of excitement spiral through every part of her. “Two.” She felt all over again the kiss he’d pressed to her lips, only now she could feel it in other places too. “Two and a half…” She wished she’d worn a robe too. It would be much quicker to get out of than her standard-issue coversuit.
“Three!” Vek said excitedly and grabbed his robe.
May dropped her gaze to the floor grates as she shucked out of her pants and then whipped her top off over her head. She struck another pose and then found just enough bravery to risk looking up.
She almost burst out laughing, but quickly clapped a hand over her mouth to keep it back. Vek had bought lingerie too. It was the same multi-colored shimmering cloth that his robe was made out of. The corset-style bra was strung across his utterly flat chitin chest and the panties, made to fit something with only two legs and a humanoid butt, were hooked over his front-most legs and stretched across his reproductive flap, while clutched in the right of those hands, he held an antiquated hairbrush. Made of real wood, and that couldn’t have been cheap.
“A hairbrush?” she laughed.
Vek held it up for her to see, cocking his head and offering a suggestive trill. “Human foreplay is very strange, but I have researched the matter extensively and do believe I can deliver the proper stimulation to bring you to a bright pink, mateable state.”
May didn’t know whether to laugh or be concerned. On the one hand, what the hell kind of research was he reading? On the other, he looked absolutely ridiculous, but to have tried at all when it was obvious he had no clue what he was doing was extremely touching.
Lowering the hairbrush, Vek looked her up and down, and then worriedly clasped his first set of hands. “Have I assumed incorrectly, May? You…you are wearing female under clothing.”
The urge to laugh slowly drizzled out of May as she realized what Vek was really asking. “A-are you…female, Vek?”
