by Claudia Rose
De Vos assumed a military air and answered her in a monotone, all signs of humor erased from his face.
“Dr. Jewel, I am Convict 65124 Brandt De Vos, scheduled for termination by brain cauterization and organ harvesting for the brutal murder of New Washington’s Chief Sociologist Ernst Schtum.”
Helena felt as if her heart had stopped. She couldn’t breathe. Everything fell into place. She knew now why he was so familiar. This was the man who had disemboweled her predecessor. What was he doing here with her? Was this some elaborate plot so he could murder her also?
Brandt De Vos leaned gently towards her and spoke again, in a soft musical rumble.
“So you see Helena, why life’s delicious ironies have such great appeal. I knew you the instant I set eyes on you, and therefore quite naturally assumed you’d arranged this on purpose to make my final moments as unpleasant as possible. If you are speaking the truth, then it was Fate playing a hand, or, if you prefer, it was Lady Luck and the bitch goddess Chance bringing us together. Don’t you appreciate the irony? Of all the women who might have won me tonight, I’ve gone to the only one in all of New Washington to whom I’m already shackled by life and death.”
In panic at what De Vos might be planning to do to her, Helena edged her hand towards the button on the bracelet. However his eyes caught her movement. He sat back slowly and calmly.
“There’s no need for that, Helena. I’m not a compulsive killer of Chief Sociologists. Schtum just happened to be a special case.” He paused, and then with a mischievous smile, his eyes lingering appreciatively on her naked breasts, he continued. “Face it, the man possessed none of your evident and admirable qualities.”
Embarrassed, she instinctively folded her arms over her breasts, much to De Vos’s obvious delight. Chuckling to himself, he resumed staring at the passing skyline.
Helena sat in silence, seething at having been bested by him. For a long time her finger hovered perilously close to the stun button on the bracelet.
Chapter Seven
They entered the apartment to find Nigel sitting reading, his back to her. Without turning round, he called over his shoulder.
“Back are we? All in one piece? I assume you are now a devotee of the cage-fights.”
Helena was in no mood for Nigel, so she said nothing. The full import of what had happened was sinking in—she, the city’s Chief Sociologist, was saddled with her predecessor’s murderer for a week. What was going to happen if that one got out?
Irritated at being ignored, Nigel got up to press his attack. The words died on his tongue as he spied the towering figure of a man standing in the shadows behind her.
“What the hell…?”
Helena smiled unkindly at his surprise. Being conciliatory was the last thing on her mind.
“Nigel, I’d like you to meet Brandt De Vos. I won him for a week at tonight’s cage-fight. If he seems familiar, you’re right. Brandt’s infamous for having murdered your previous boss.”
Nigel’s reaction to De Vos’s presence was much more extreme than Helena had expected. He paled, looking stunned. For a long moment he stood gaping, while Helena smiled and De Vos stared impassively.
“What’s the matter Nigel? Cat got your tongue?”
Her taunt finally produced a reaction.
“Are you mad, you stupid bitch? What do you mean bringing a psychopath into our apartment? You’re sick!”
Helena was taken aback at the speed with which Nigel lost control. He turned an angry red, and without warning took two hurried steps and struck her across the face. She fell to the floor, stunned. Nigel froze, as shocked as she was. He stared with terror at De Vos, clearly expecting the huge man to attack.
De Vos didn’t move, and his expression didn’t change. He continued to watch impassively.
Realizing De Vos mightn’t be such a danger, and Helena wasn’t protected as he had thought, Nigel laughed wildly, and advanced on her with more deliberation, intent on kicking her where she had fallen.
“De Vos, stop him!” commanded Helena urgently.
De Vos looked at her but made no move to help.
“I’m ordering you,” she shouted at the huge man, while scrabbling across the floor to avoid Nigel’s swinging foot. “Stop him or I’ll jolt you!”
Still he made no move. Nigel cackled hysterically as he cornered Helena against the far wall and kicked her viciously in the ribs.
“Brandt, I’m sorry. Please help me. Please!”
De Vos crossed the room in three strides. He shot out one huge arm and picked Nigel up by the throat. The smaller man dangled in mid-air, choking and gasping, his hands clawing ineffectually at De Vos’s huge wrist, his face turning a dangerous shade of red.
Much as Helena relished the sight of Nigel getting some of his own medicine, she didn’t want him dying in her new apartment.
“That’s enough Brandt. Put him down.”
De Vos opened his fist and Nigel fell heavily to the floor where he lay motionless, making strange, inarticulate little noises.
Helena stood over him.
“I think we’ve reached a parting of the ways Nigel,” she panted, nursing her ribs and fingering the bruise on her face. “You can leave now, and I’ll have your things forwarded on when you find a new place to live. Get out before I have De Vos throw you off the building.”
Terrified, Nigel began crawling towards the door. As he crossed the threshold, Helena had one final word.
“Don’t get any silly ideas about trying to hurt me, Nigel. I have many happy memories of our times together, some of which I’ve preserved, including a few d-vids of those little games you like to play. Remember them? The ones where you dress up as a dominatrix and strut around with false tits and a plug up your ass?
Her ex-roommate was still looking at her, aghast with horror, when the door slammed in his face.
“You two appear to have problems,” observed De Vos, dead pan. “You need to work on your communication.”
“Shut up,” Helena snapped. “You’re my biggest problem. Not only that, you stink! The shower’s through there. Please go and wash thoroughly. I may have to put up with you for a week, but I’m not putting up with that smell.”
Grinning, De Vos headed for the bathroom.
Chapter Eight
Helena slumped against her front door. What the hell had happened? A simple evening of research and her life was turned on its head. The places where Nigel had struck her throbbed painfully.
She walked slowly through to her dressing room, shrugging out of her clothing as she went, intent on surveying the damage to her body. As she walked past the bathroom, she heard the sound of the shower being turned on.
Now where the hell was the hovercam? Nigel had hidden it again so he could spy on her. She located the hand control and flicked the viewer on, knowing the image on the screen would give her some idea of where the camera had been concealed.
She was startled, and then intrigued, to find she was looking into the shower. She could see the jets of water and, to the very left of the screen, a man’s arm reaching for the controls to adjust the spray. A little guiltily, Helena rotated the lens until it was centered on the shower.
There was Brandt De Vos, completely naked, standing in the midst of a dozen jets of water turned to maximum pressure. Helena took a deep, quavering breath. He was an amazing sight. His back was to her, and he stood with his arms raised towards the ceiling, allowing the jets to blast every inch of his skin. Helena knew maximum pressure was hard to the point of painful, but De Vos didn’t seem to care. He was luxuriating in the sensation.
After a time he began to soap himself. The hard, sculpted muscles of his body, glistening from the spray of the shower, made it appear as if he had been oiled. Helena’s eyes followed the lines of his huge back where it tapered to a slim waist and a firm, muscled butt. The water cascaded down the channels made by De Vos’s muscles, collected at the crevice between his buttocks, then streamed on down his legs.
Still washin
g, De Vos turned so he was facing the camera. He scrubbed vigorously at his hair and face, under his arms, and down his torso. Helena found she could hardly breathe; she’d never before been so affected by masculine beauty. His skin was so smooth and the flesh beneath it so elastic. How magnificently muscled he was!
Oblivious to the fact he was being closely scrutinized, De Vos continued soaping himself. His hands followed the ridged plain of his belly down to his groin, and Helena’s eyes followed as well.
Without conscious volition she hit the zoom button. Brandt’s magnified penis filled her viewer screen, almost as large as she was. A stream of water cascaded off the tip.
While Helena studied her prize’s genitals up close, his hand came into view, casually soaping them. For a brief moment she resisted the desire welling in her at this new temptation. But who turned down chocolate when it was offered?
The sight of Brandt washing between his legs, his cock and balls slipping and sliding in and out of his soapy grasp, had her clutching at her pussy.
Hot water. Smooth soap. Slipperiness and moisture. His big hand on his own bare skin. Little wonder Brandt was developing an erection. In moments his cock was rigid. The washing changed to a slow deliberate caress.
Warmth and wetness flooded Helena’s pussy. So this is what voyeurs do, she thought, with a surprised smile. How erotic it is to observe another person in a moment of unguarded privacy and intimacy.
Her free hand caressed her body. Her breasts craved a masculine caress. Her nipples needed a man’s touch. She sighed. Her own touch would have to do. She squeezed the base of one nipple, and gasped at its hardness and sensitivity. Her other hand rubbed between her legs.
Brandt’s leisurely masturbation transfixed her. She matched his pressure and rhythm, achieving a soft, undemanding, sensual stimulation of nerves and flesh. His cock continued to enlarge, appearing to fill more and more of the screen. As it grew, the tempo of his strokes increased.
Why is he doing this now? Perhaps it’s a release of tension after his brush with violent death. Or perhaps I make him horny. Is he picturing my body as he rubs his cock? Is he imagining me in the shower touching him? Perhaps he’s fantasizing about licking my pussy, before he slips that hard cock inside me and we fuck.
De Vos was right when he commented on life’s ironies. Who would have thought she, Dr. Helena Jewel, New Washington’s Chief Sociologist, would be standing in her closet masturbating while spying on a handsome and frightening convict who, less than two hours earlier, had taken another’s life?
The image of the huge erect cock filling the screen of her viewer seared itself into her vision. The closer she got to coming, the louder her pulse pounded in her ears and the more her pussy throbbed with desire. As she climaxed, Helena leaned heavily against the screen, flattening her breasts against the plasglass. Her tightly clenched thighs imprisoned the hand that moved urgently against her clitoris. She moaned a high-pitched sound, while her body shuddered and writhed against the enormous image of Brandt’s cock.
Strangely, he didn’t carry his act to what would have seemed to be its logical conclusion. After another minute or two he stopped masturbating and resumed washing. When a shaking Helena zoomed the camera back to full view, he was soaping his legs as if nothing untoward had occurred. His erection was already subsiding.
She turned the camera off and went to find a robe.
Shortly after, she heard the water stop running and a few minutes later De Vos emerged, a towel wrapped around his waist.
Helena regarded him coolly. He returned her look with an equally distant stare.
“You can sleep in Nigel’s old room,” she told him curtly. “It’s through there. See if he has any clothes that fit you. If not there’s a console in the room you can use to requisition as many garments as you want. You can also order any food you need from the kitchen.”
De Vos nodded but said nothing. The towel he was wearing was ridiculously small. If he turned just a fraction to the left, his cock would be visible and…
With an effort of will she snapped her attention back to his face. He seemed to be smirking at her. She had the uncomfortable feeling he was aware of what she’d been thinking.
“I’m taking a shower and then going to bed,” Helena continued. “There’s a proximity alarm in my room that will tell me if you enter. Give me any reason to distrust you and I’ll stun you in a millisecond.”
De Vos smiled wryly, turned on his heel, and without a word headed for Nigel’s room. He’d missed a spot with his towel, she noticed, and a few drops of water glistened like tiny diamonds in the sexy hollow in the small of his back.
The shower did nothing to calm her. She’d never met a man like Brandt De Vos. He seemed like a stereotypical muscle-bound meathead. Until he talked…or laughed…or masturbated in her shower…
“Oh God!” Helena groaned in the darkness.
The announcer had called him a “fuck-toy”. She wouldn’t fuck him…would she? It’s not right, fucking the murderer of your predecessor. It’s…what was the word…unethical…that’s it, unethical.
But Brandt had such a lovely cock.
A new thought came to her. What if he tried to fuck her? Should she resist? Could she resist? Suddenly she regretted the lack of a proximity alarm.
Perhaps she’d get one tomorrow.
Chapter Nine
Her dream that night was a familiar one.
It was the day her parents had died. She was at home, alone in her room. A seventeen-year-old looking in despair at the disfigured body they had bequeathed her. Her left side looked perfectly normal. The flesh down her right side was scarred in a regular pattern of silvery diamond-shaped scales that, she thought, left her looking reptilian. Intellectually she knew she couldn’t blame her parents for having got caught out in a gamma ray storm. At only one month in the womb she’d paid the price for their misfortune by suffering the stigma of mutation. This body would never give her the life she craved, and her parents couldn’t afford to have it repaired in any meaningful way short of selling everything they had and condemning them all to a life of poverty. So she’d never had a normal life—no dates, no friends and no opportunities. Even though she’d been the top student at her building’s school, she’d still missed the prom.
None of the people she admired and wished to emulate had bodies like hers. Her parents had failed her. They should have protected her from the radiation storm. She hated them unreasonably for not doing so. Then she heard them calling to her and knocking on her door.
“Helena, we’re leaving now. The show starts in twenty minutes. Do you want to come or not?”
She didn’t answer them. She just waited until she heard them give up in frustration and head out the door.
That was where the eye of the dream left her, standing in despair in her room, staring at the naked body she hated so much. It caught up with her parents, and watched them climb into their auto jet and ease to the edge of the platform in preparation for joining the traffic. They’d still been sitting there when the out-of-control sky bus careened into them, shattering them into pieces. Unusually, there was no explosion.
By the time Helena opened the apartment door to see what all the commotion was about, New Washington traffic robots were laying out the damaged corpses of her parents for transportation. For some reason they were both semi-naked. From six feet away the lifeless eyes of her mutilated mother stared accusingly up at her. The right side of her mother’s body was terribly injured.
“Mommy,” she sobbed. “I love you, don’t leave me.” She recognized her mother’s corpse as an older version of her own body, the body she had been lamenting in private only seconds earlier. Suddenly her mother vanished; only her father was still there, his head almost completely severed. Then his eyes swiveled towards her, but instead of making eye contact with her they fastened on something behind her. She felt a shiver of dread crawl up her spine; she was too frightened to turn around.
“You did this,” sa
id a deathly voice behind her. Icy fingers clutched her shoulders. “You betrayed us, after all we did for you. How could you prefer Nigel? We never treated you like he does. He’s a sad excuse for a human being. But he’s right. You are grotesque. You deserve him Helena. You deserve him…”
Helena’s screaming woke her. She was clutching desperately at her own shoulders. It was a dream; there was no one about, certainly not her unusual roommate.
Shaking she reached into a drawer beside her bed and pulled out a small hypodermic. The sedative didn’t give sleep, but it granted a few blessed hours of oblivion.
Chapter Ten
Helena smelled synth-ham before she was half-way down the hall. Brandt was cooking? Her stomach rumbled as she peeked around the corner. There he was, sitting at the table, absorbing the news off the cube as he polished off the remains of a substantial breakfast. The scene was disturbingly domestic
He glanced up when Helena entered and smiled politely, but said nothing. She made no reply either, uncertain what to say.
He was wearing one of Nigel’s silk robes, and it was more than a little small. It strained around his biceps, barely covered his huge tanned chest and fell open below the waist, exposing most of his thighs.
From where Helena stood at the counter she could almost see…all the way up his…inner thigh…to where his…
“Ow! Shit!” Hot coffee poured over her hand and across the counter top. Desperately she dabbed at it with a cloth, but the pool became a waterfall and began dripping on the floor.
“Can I help?” asked De Vos, glancing innocently up from the news cube.
“I can clean up my own mess,” she snapped, squatting down to wipe up the drips. This put her at eye level with his groin. She forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand, eyes straight ahead.
“I am your prize. I assume they intended me to make myself useful.”
She looked up into disingenuous green eyes.
