by Sadie Marks
He sat at the table across from her and watched her eat like she was some exotic prey. She didn't bother to try to make small talk. From experience, she knew that when he was in an intense mood, it wouldn't do any good. She concentrated on eating the meal, delicious as usual, and tried to figure out what had him in such an agitated state. Normally, it was something she'd done deliberately.
There wasn't actually a lot to do on the small vessel and riling him up had become her favorite pastime. He usually rewarded her efforts by beating her with enthusiasm and then they'd fuck like two wild animals until they were exhausted. He matched her perfectly in every need, but this time, she hadn't done a thing.
Even though he sat there, unnaturally still, as he watched her, she could sense the restless energy roiling underneath the surface. Long before she finished her meal, it had started to infect her too and she began to fidget as she picked at her food. Still hungry but struggling to swallow until she finally slammed her hand down on the table, crumpling the fragile metal spoon that had come with the dinner.
"Can you stop that? You're making my skin itch!"
He tilted his head, eyes narrowing, and for a second, she thought she'd made him angry. Then he shook his head. "Sorry. Finish eating. I'm going to get a massage and try to unwind, but I'll expect to find you in the bed when I come out." He stood suddenly and was moving toward the door as if riding that wave of suppressed energy right out of it.
"Trev?"
He stopped and turned back, silently waiting.
"Is something wrong?" It was reminding her of how stressed he'd been as he pushed her to get ready to leave, always hurrying until they were on the ship and launched. The moment they left the planet, it was like all of that anxiety had dropped away like the planet they left behind, but now it was back again.
He was silent for a second, and then he flashed her a smile that was so unexpected, she almost gaped in surprise. "Not wrong, Sam, but tomorrow is going to be a very big day for you."
She started to ask what he was talking about, but he shook his head and vanished, leaving her to eat her meal in peace and anticipate the fun she was going to have when he came out of the compact ship's shower, fresh from a sonic massage.
If he put all that energy into their play, it was going to be a memorable night.
Chapter 5
It had been a good night. One that left her sore in the best way and completely worn out afterward. The scene and the sex that followed had been so intense and consuming that she'd collapsed, still panting from their exertions, and then had fallen asleep before her heart rate had even slowed to normal.
She was understandably disoriented when he woke her a few hours later. At least it felt like it had only been a few hours. She still didn't have the hang of reading the time by the shade of light and she was groggy and unwilling to get up. She whined and pulled one of the sleek furs that covered the bed over her head in hopes that he'd go away and leave her alone. "Go 'way," she mumbled.
"Get up, Sam. Trust me, you don't want to sleep through this," he said. His voice was loud and filled with way too much excitement for whatever time of day it was.
"Yes, I do." One arm slid out from under the blankets to wave him off, but a second later, she shrieked as he grabbed her by the ankle and dragged her from the warm nest. Only some desperate maneuvering kept her from being dumped naked on the cold metal deck, and seconds later, she was being pushed into the Sadec version of an icy shower.
It woke her up instantly, and her mouth too. The room was filled with screeching and every curse she could think of, but in less than fifteen minutes, she was dressed, and her scowling form was tucked into the second seat on the bridge. She had a cup of some caffeinated beverage that the Sadecs preferred in one hand but was still no wiser about why he'd woken her.
"This better be something important, Trev, or I swear I'm going to get you back," she muttered.
Ignoring her surly mood, he turned a smile in her direction. She couldn't decipher it and she squinted at him suspiciously as she tried to figure out what was going on. "Well?"
"Didn't I teach you how to ask nicely for things you want?" he asked, leaning over and slapping her thigh.
"What I want is to be asleep, and unless you're going to let me go back to bed, you don't have anything I want," she grumbled and then sighed when he sat back and crossed his arms over his chest in a way that made it clear he had no intention of telling her the big secret until she asked.
"Fine, will you please tell me what the big emergency is?" She didn't even sound sarcastic; she was too tired to make the effort, but her tone was lethargic and bored.
He regarded her with a cool look, the narrowed eyes saying quite clearly that he was unimpressed with her efforts. "We'll work on it," he said finally. But then he was leaning forward, hands flying across the control panels with the speed of experience, and suddenly a wall full of tiny screens appeared in front of them.
She was interested now in spite of herself and sat up straight as her eyes darted to one picture and then another. "That's Earth!" She pointed an excited finger. "Those are all from Earth. What's going on?" she demanded.
"We're picking up news reports from around the globe. Here, this is your local." He swiped across the three-dimensional screen, grabbing one picture and yanking it to the center to expand it.
She had never watched much news, so she didn't recognize the man who was talking rapidly and with huge animated gestures, but she knew her city in the backdrop. Crowds milled around behind him, all of them staring up into the sky and some of them pointing. "Can you put the sound on?" Without it, she couldn't tell what was happening.
Suddenly, a voice filled the cabin and it wasn't the calm recitation of facts she would have expected from someone who reported news for a living. He was babbling, often running out of words, and shaking his head as he went silent.
"I don't know how to explain this, viewers, but those do appear to be spaceships. The studio tells me they've appeared all over the world. Individual governments are urging calm while the world council is gathering as we speak. So far, there is no sign that they're violent. I just—"
The rambling was cut off as Trev muted the sound and turned to her. "I told you things would be changing soon, Sam. Your planet is being welcomed by the rest of the universe."
She realized she was clutching the armrest of her chair with a mixture of fear and excitement and forced herself to relax her hands. "Will it—is it going to be okay? It's not an invasion, is it?"
"No." He laughed long and loud and then held out his arms. "Come sit with me?"
She did, taking the drink with her, though it had grown cold by then. Suddenly she felt very small and scared. One alien was difficult enough to adjust to, but there were so many out there. It had only been half-real to her, despite all the evidence. Even the fact that she was on a spaceship herself, sharing a bed with an alien, hadn't quite driven home to her that humans were just a tiny insignificant part of the universe.
It was humbling and frightening. "Everything is going to change now. All the vids about aliens—were they all wrong? I don't—" She stopped and took a deep breath, letting it out as she silently counted to five. It helped her get her racing thoughts in order, and he waited, holding her tight until she could speak again. "They always showed aliens attacking the planet or else as really kind, benevolent people who wanted to help. So, which are they?"
"Oh, Sam." He shook his head. "Both? Neither? You act as if 'aliens' is one culture. We're millions of different cultures. Every race is different. Some will want to help Earth. Some will want to take advantage. We're just people, you know."
His tone said she was being naïve and maybe a little silly. With the numbness of shock settling in, she didn't have the fire in her to snap at his patronizing tone. "What about your people? The Sadecs? What will they want?" she asked.
"You." His voice was soft, almost a whisper, and his arms tightened around her reflexively. "The Sadecs are sadis
ts. We're, well, most of my people are warriors. They attack and fight and take what they want, but it's different with you."
His words weren't settling her fears. Attacking and taking what they wanted? That was straight out of the scary kind of alien vids. The kind that always ended up with the planet devastated and the people enslaved by Alien overlords. She shivered, looking up at him with concern. "Are you going to try that with my planet? Were you some kind of advance scout?"
"First of all, like I said, I'm a renegade among my people. I'm no warrior. I buy and sell, sometimes trade." He shrugged, pointedly looking at the silent moving pictures on the screen instead of her. "I never fit in at home. I probably fit in on Earth better than I ever did on my own planet," he admitted. It was said so casually, but it lacked the musical lilt that his words usually had so she suspected he was trying to suppress deeper emotions behind the words.
"So, you're not helping them, but are they—"
"No, you don't need to worry about your planet. Even if my people wanted to attack, the council wouldn't let them. Your planet has been a pet of the scientists for a long time, and they're being very protective over what happens next. I'm not really in the loop, but I do know a few things. You, and people like you, Sam, are immensely valuable on my planet. They will do anything to get their hands on you, and since your planet is well-protected, I expect that means they will be looking to make a deal with your leaders."
"Wait, what do you mean, people like me?" Sam asked, squinting at him as she shifted to see his face better.
"Submissives, masochists—people who enjoy pain and get turned on by it. I told you, we call you Pain Receivers, and you're precious to my people." If his tone hadn't been so serious, she would have thought he was teasing her, but instead, she was uncertain.
"You're joking, right? Why would my kinks matter to anyone but me?" she asked.
"You know there's a reason that Sadec sounds like sadist, right? My people, most of them, are sadists. And none of them enjoy being hurt. In fact, humans are kind of unique when it comes to that."
She gaped at him, mouth working, but no sounds coming out at first. It took a sip of her drink to moisten things up enough that she could form words. "But that's ridiculous. We can't possibly be the only ones to find a little bit of pain sexy!"
"Maybe a little pain, sure. Probably a lot of races find a smack on the ass during sex exciting, but just a touch of sting. Nothing like what some of you humans can take. Each Pain Receiver is a precious commodity at home, but your planet has been off-limits—until now."
She frowned, considering this, and then with an 'a-ha!' look, she confronted him with a flaw in his logic. "If my planet has been off-limits, then how do you even know about us, or about the fact that some of us—not many, by the way—are masochists?" she demanded.
"Your planet has been a top tourist attraction ever since you sent your first rocket into space, Sam. Many off-worlders have visited in disguise. I mean, did you think I was the only one?" He gave her an amused look, chuckling.
Normally, he would have been touching her, teasing her with kisses, maybe tugging her hair. It was the first time she'd been in his lap that he'd kept his hands to himself, and she wondered about that. He was laughing and trying to sound relaxed, but he wasn't. She could feel the tenseness in his body where she was pressed against him, and she couldn't help wondering if there was more to the story. The more she thought about it, the more she knew there was more.
"No…that's not all of it," she said, sounding the words out slowly as she watched him with complete focus. Even the momentous events playing out on the screen to her right weren't enough to pull her attention. "No, you said we were precious on your planet."
And then it clicked. She gasped, "You've been abducting humans and taking them back to your world!" She threw the accusation out there with complete certainty that she was right. If he denied it, their trust would have been broken, but he didn't.
"Yes. Not many, but a few here and there. I'm not sure exactly how many. Sadecs have been visiting your planet and bringing home souvenirs for a long time, Sam."
So, that was why he was tense. That was what he was afraid was going to upset her. "So, I'm a souvenir? Just something to remind you of a fun vacation?" Her tone was dripping with sarcasm, but she wasn't entirely sure her emotions matched. Oddly, she was finding herself more amused than anything—not that she was going to let him know that.
"No, no, you're a lot more than that. I love you, Sam. And I didn't steal you. I asked you to come, and you agreed," he pointed out.
"Agreement without knowing what you're agreeing to doesn't entirely count. I thought we were going to another city, maybe another country—definitely not another planet, Trev, and you know it."
"I couldn't tell you. It was illegal. No one on your planet was allowed to know about life on other worlds until the big reveal—and that's happening today." He gestured toward the screen, and for a second, she let her eyes turn to take in what was happening. Even without the sound, she could see how excited and scared everyone was.
If not for the Sadec she was sitting on, she'd be one of those confused people down there on the ground. Instead, she was here in space, and that wasn't a bad trade. At least it hadn't been so far. She looked back at him, and one hand reached up to stroke his cheek as she thought about everything he was telling her. It was a lot to take in.
The caress seemed to relax him. His form loosened, and he leaned back in his seat to get comfortable. A hand stroked up and down her back gently. "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you," he said.
She believed him. She didn't believe he'd told her everything yet, but she'd work it out of him eventually. Her planet was safe, and she was safe with him. Those important points were enough for now. "Put the sound back on. I want to hear," she said, and then she turned until she was lying back against his chest, so she could watch the events unfolding.
She stayed there for hours, getting up only to use the facilities and grab a quick meal. She watched as the world council met the first alien to land. She watched live as her people sat down with their people and talked. There was no language barrier, and all the aliens seemed to speak perfect English, but they did so slowly, with long pauses now and then that seemed oddly familiar, until she realized that they were probably wearing translators as Trev had been.
It was satisfying to solve that mystery on her own, but she filed it away for later so she could watch as her planet was officially welcomed into the universe. Fat, salty tears rolled down her cheeks unnoticed until he wiped them away.
"Why are you crying, Sam?" he asked as he cupped her chin and turned her face toward him with a gentle hand.
"I don't know. I-it's just so big. Finding out that all of this was out here. It's a lot to take in, and I don't really understand why they waited. If you all knew we were here, then why not let us in on the big secret earlier? It would have changed everything."
She didn't mean to sound angry, but she could hear the note of resentment lurking in her tone. Mostly, she was just confused. Her planet had gone through several rough decades when people thought they weren't going to make it. Even now, the environment was only slowly beginning to recover. All of these aliens, with their advanced technology—how much difference could they have made if they'd come to help?
Trev looked uncomfortable, suddenly avoiding her eyes with a pained look. "You're really not going to be thrilled if I answer that. And while your government leaders will probably be told, I doubt it will be passed on to the rest of the world. It would be upsetting."
And of course, after he said that, she absolutely had to know, but once he'd told her, she just gaped at him. A lifetime of texties and vids about aliens encountering the Earth had prepared her for a lot of things, but finding out that her planet was a combination science experiment and reality show had never even entered her mind as a possibility.
"What?" It wasn't that she didn't understand what he'd said. She just couldn't get her brai
n to accept it.
He cleared his throat, closing his eyes for a second as he tried to find the right words to rephrase it. "The scientists had a list of requirements. They needed a planet with life that had the potential to eventually propel itself to the stars. In other words, sentient people who had the intelligence quota necessary to join us on their own when they matured. They had to be the only life in their solar system so they could be easily isolated. Earth was just randomly picked from the list."
"So, we were nothing special, just conveniently located."
"Basically, yes. There are a lot of races out there in the universe, Sam. All of them are unique and special in their own way, but no, there wasn't any particular reason for choosing your people," he admitted.
Humans being just one of the crowd would certainly burst the egos of some people back home, but it was oddly comforting to know that they weren't the best, or even in the top ten of what the universe had to offer, because honestly, her people had made a lot of mistakes. "But what was the big experiment? What was the point in isolating us?"
"I don't know all the details really, Sam. The scientists," and he said it like it was an elite group and not just a job description, "are made up of the top minds in the universe. One or two from every planet are tested, maybe one in ten years is admitted. Some of their research projects are so deep, I don't think most people could even understand the questions they are asking, let alone the answers."
She was quiet for a few minutes, nibbling on her bottom lip and occasionally flipping a glance at the screens to make sure she wasn't missing anything important. "So, they isolated us. Kept anyone from helping us, and while we fought to survive and get off planet, the rest of the universe watched us for entertainment?"
