Playing Their Parts: A Kindred Tales Novel

by Anderson, Evangeline

  “Believe me, getting the Live Ink was not my idea,” he said. “It was a punishment because I was too good at what I do—too good at being other people.”

  “Is that right?” Cassie frowned. “A punishment from whom?”

  “My own fucking people on Seculare Four,” The Beast snapped, looking even angrier. “They accused me of fucking around with some girl, pretending to be her husband. And a few other things too—all of it bullshit, you know?” He shrugged angrily. “So then they decided to tattoo me so everyone on my home planet would know who I was, no matter how I changed my appearance.”

  “That’s…quite a punishment,” Cassie remarked neutrally. She was pretty sure the “few other things” The Beast had been charged with were probably some form of sexual assault, considering how he treated women.

  “It’s fucking bullshit, is what it is,” The Beast repeated sullenly. “They were all just jealous that I was so good at shape-shifting—better than anyone else on Seculare Four.”

  “It does make me wonder how a society of shape-shifters gets along,” Cassie remarked. “I mean, how do you tell each other apart if everyone can change their appearance at any time?”

  “Smell, mostly,” The Beast said. “We all make pheromones that only others of our kind—other Imposters—can sense. The smell is as unique as a fingerprint or a retinal scan is to you humanoids.”

  “Really?” Cassie said. She was genuinely interested this time. “So how did you fake other people’s scents?”

  The Beast lifted his chin.

  “That’s because I’m better than the average Imposter. I can fake smells too—not just change appearance. I’m the next step up on the evolutionary ladder. But the elders of my planet treated me like fucking dirt.” He spat on the mossy carpet and Cassie sidestepped hastily.

  “So that’s how you ended up here?” she asked diplomatically.

  The Beast nodded.

  “Yeah—Gozer, I mean his Slimefullness, has been really good to me. He pays me to do what I was having to sneak around to do on Seculare Four.” He laughed, as though it was a good joke. “Imagine, getting paid to fuck!”

  So he had been sexually assaulting women on his home planet—or at the very least, impersonating their lovers and husbands in order to have sex with them, Cassie thought. Sick bastard. She did have one more question for him, however.

  “What does your real form look like?” she asked, looking up at The Beast. “Since you’re someplace safe, away from your home world, why not wear your real face and body instead of impersonating a Kindred?”

  He scowled and pointed to the large open doorway they were coming up to.

  “Here’s the Dining Hall. Anything you want to eat—there’s the buffet. I’d stay away from the Androgian food though—it’s literally made of edible rocks. It’s hard to work on such a full stomach.”

  It hadn’t escaped Cassie’s notice that he had not answered her last question but she decided to let it pass.

  “Thank you for the tour,” she said politely. “Are you staying to eat breakfast, er, First Meal?”

  The Beast shook his head.

  “Don’t have time. I’m due in The Romance Room for an early scene.”

  “The Romance Room?” Cassie shook her head. “I don’t think you showed us that.”

  “Oh, that’s because it’s one of the filming areas in the humanoid wing,” The beast told her. “It’s for softer porn—all fucking hearts and flowers and shit.” He shrugged.

  “Maybe…maybe Stone and I will see you there, then. After we eat, I mean,” Cassie said uncertainly.

  “Don’t think so. The two of you are more likely to be in The Cave,” The Beast said. “If that scrip his Slimefullness wrote for you is any indication, I mean.”

  “The Cave?” Cassie’s heart was in her throat. She wondered what kind of porn was recorded there.

  “Sure—that’s the place they film the rough stuff. I’ve got to go but it was nice talking to you, Mistress.” The Beast shot her a cocky grin. “Maybe you and I will get a chance to ‘work’ together sometime, while we’re both here.”

  At this Stone, who had been standing right beside her, suddenly pushed in front of Cassie and glared at the other male, a low growl rumbling in his throat.

  “Stone, stop—it’s okay—it’s all right!” Cassie stepped around her partner and nodded coolly at The Beast who had taken a step back.

  “Really fucking over-protective,” he muttered, looking mistrustfully at Stone, who was practically vibrating with fury.

  “My slave is just upset because as a Yonnite Mistress, I would never allow a male to, er, penetrate me under any circumstances,” Cassie told him, frowning.

  “Oh no? No penetration at all?” The Beast cocked an eyebrow at her sardonically. “Think you’d better check that script Gozer wrote for you then, Mistress. You might be in for a nasty surprise.”

  Then he winked at her and sauntered away from the Dining Hall, leaving Cassie to clutch the script in her hand and wonder what in the world it contained and what she and Stone were supposed to do to each other.

  Thirty-Six

  “Oh my God, Stone, this is awful! It starts out with me tying you up and flogging you!”

  They were sitting in the busy Dining Hall, which was crowded with all kinds of humanoids from triple-breasted females from Erotica Six to males with multiple shafts growing out of all their limbs.

  Stone ate a bite of tooka fruit and looked over his partner’s shoulder—an easy task since Cassandra was so much smaller than him. There was plenty of food to choose from, including a towering rack of tirano ribs, leesa milk pudding, and hot buttered ooloo balls but neither he nor his partner were very hungry. They had grabbed a bowl of fruit and gone to a far corner to study the script Gozeriam had written for them—which was, incidentally, titled “Forbidden One.”

  At least that fucking bastard The Beast was gone, Stone thought. Just being around the murderous asshole made him want to go into Rage—especially when he got anywhere near Cassandra or made remarks about her “juicy” ass.

  If I ever get him alone he’s going to pay, Stone promised himself. There should definitely be time to extract some justice for all the horrible things The Beast had done to helpless females on the way back to Earth.

  “Did you hear me, Stone? I said this script has me flogging you!”

  His partner’s distraught voice brought Stone out of his revenge fantasies and back to reality.

  “So?” he asked mildly.

  “So? Look at this!” Cassandra pointed at the transparent sheet with words scrolling across it. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Stone smiled at her.

  “Cassandra,” he said gently, putting one hand over her much smaller, softer one. “I am not worried in the least about you hurting me, no matter how hard you flog me.”

  She frowned.

  “Are you saying I’m not strong enough to hurt you?”

  “I’m saying you’re not big enough,” Stone said mildly. “Which is not your fault. You are a human female—it is your nature to be tiny.”

  “Tiny,” she snorted and shook her head. “That’s the last word I’d use to describe myself.”

  “Well, you are tiny to me,” Stone told her. “Now what happens next in our script?”

  “It says here, ‘the slave breaks free of his bonds,’” Cassandra murmured, reading on. “And then he…oh my!” Her eyes went wide.

  “He what?” Stone took the script from her and scanned it quickly himself. “Hmmm…” He looked up at his partner. “It seems I turn the tables on you, in a manner of speaking, Mistress.” He read the stage direction aloud, though in a low voice. “The slave ties his Mistress to the flogging frame and tells her he will show her how it feels to be helpless.”

  “What does that mean exactly?” Cassandra was nibbling her lush lower lip, which made Stone wish all over again that she would let him kiss her. Gods, how he wanted to taste her sweet mouth! Almost as muc
h as he wanted to taste her pussy.

  He tried to push the erotic thoughts aside and concentrate on the script.

  “At least we don’t have many lines to memorize,” he pointed out. “Gozeriam seems to expect us to ad-lib our own dialog.”

  “Makes you wonder what he sat up all night doing,” Cassandra muttered, scanning the running lines of print. “Probably wanking off to the idea of the body-slave turning the tables on his Mistress.”

  “Wanking off?” Stone asked, frowning.

  “You know—jerking off…stroking the snake…masturbating,” she said at last, clearly still seeing the frown on Stone’s face.

  “Oh, of course.” He nodded. “So you think that Gozeriam, uh, ‘gets off’ on writing this kind of porn?” he tapped the script again.

  “Sure seems like it,” Cassandra muttered. She frowned. “It looks like you’re going to be flogging me, too. So please go easy on me.”

  “Of course,” Stone assured her. “I would never harm you, Cassandra.” He would rather die than hurt her in any way.

  “Thank you, Stone.” His partner flashed him a smile and then read on. “Well, it seems like a pretty standard BDSM scenario so far.”

  “It’s a good thing you took those classes you told me about,” Stone pointed out. “The knowledge you learned in them should be useful in this scenario, don’t you think?”

  “Well, I…” Cassandra’s voice trailed off and her face went suddenly pale. “Oh,” she whispered. “Oh, no!”

  “What? What is wrong?” Stone looked at the script again, wanting to see what had bothered her so much.

  What he saw made his shaft harden at once.

  “Gods,” he murmured hoarsely, reading over the script rapidly. It was his greatest fantasy come true.

  But when he looked up at Cassandra, his partner looked tense and unhappy.

  “What’s wrong?” Stone asked her, squeezing her hand anxiously. “Cassandra, why do you look as though you saw a non-living entity?”

  “You mean why do I look like I saw a ghost?” She gave a jagged little laugh. “Maybe because I am not comfortable with the direction this script is heading. Look.” She pointed to the part Stone had just read. He read again, aloud. This time.

  “The slave drops to his knees before his Mistress and…” He cleared his throat. “And punishes her with his tongue.” He looked up at his partner. “This bothers you?”

  “Of course it bothers me.” She shifted in her seat anxiously. “I mean, doesn’t it bother you?”

  “Cassandra…” Stone caught her eyes with his. “I have told you how I feel about tasting a female,” he murmured. “It will be my greatest pleasure to ‘punish you’ with my tongue.”

  “Yes, but…” She bit her lip uncertainly. “I just…it’s very…very intimate, Stone.”

  “As intimate as kissing?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “I suppose in a way it is kissing,” he answered his own question. “Though I will be kissing your soft little pussy instead of your mouth.”

  “Stone!” She looked around, mortified. “What if someone hears you?”

  “Cassandra, we are in a Dining Hall filled with pornographic actors,” he said reasonably. “Do you think that anything you or I could say would shock them?”

  “I guess not.” She dropped her eyes. “I just…never dreamed you and I would be in this position, I guess.”

  “I have,” Stone admitted in a soft voice.

  “You have?” Her eyes fluttered up to his.

  “Of course, I have. How could I not dream of tasting you?” Stone asked her. “You know how beautiful and desirable I find you, Cassandra.”

  “But…but what if you find out you don’t like it after all?” she asked in a small voice. “What if you don’t like the smell or the taste or something?”

  “Your scent is incredible—so warm and feminine,” Stone told her, his voice dropping to a growl. “And as for your taste, what do you think I was doing last night in the fresher after I left you so abruptly? I was sucking the fingers I had thrust deep in your soft little pussy and jamming off.”

  A small smile curved her lips.

  “I think you mean jacking off.”

  “Whatever,” Stone told her. He lifted her chin to look into her eyes. “The point is, I love the way you taste, Cassandra. And I’m looking forward to tasting your honey straight from the source.”

  “Oh…” She dropped her eyes, her cheeks getting pink. “Stone, you shouldn’t talk like that,” she admonished softly.

  “Why not?” he asked. “How else can I reassure you, if we don’t talk frankly about what we’re about to do?”

  “I don’t know. I guess—”

  “Excuse me, but are you Mistress Cassandra?”

  The high, self-important voice came from a bird-like creature. Or at least, its head was bird-like with a sharp, curving beak and a crest of multicolored feathers rising from its forehead. The rest of it looked a bit like a short humanoid, though it did have a pair of stubby vestigial wings sticking out of its back.

  “Um, yes.” Cassandra nodded. “That’s me.”

  “Very good! I am here to guide you and your body-slave to Wardrobe. The two of you are late!” And the bird-man clicked his beak together in a sharp noise of disapproval.

  “Oh—sorry!” Cassandra hopped up from the table. “We didn’t know we were supposed to be there at a certain time.”

  “Didn’t The Beast tell you?” The bird-man rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Lazy cretin. Anyway, come on.”

  “Coming.” Cassandra nodded at Stone. “Uh, I guess we’ll have to table our discussion for later,” she said, her cheeks still pink.

  “Not for much later,” Stone pointed out, which made his partner’s cheeks get even pinker.

  “Come on,” she said shortly. And they followed the bird-man out of the Dining Hall.

  Thirty-Seven

  Wardrobe was a bustling department filled with all kinds of humanoids getting dressed in various sexy outfits. The bird-man led them to a harried woman with three heads and four arms who was already dealing with two other actors.

  “Let me see your script,” she said, before Cassie could even introduce herself.

  “All right.” She handed it over and the woman snatched it with one of her four hands while her left head scanned it rapidly. Her middle and right heads continued talking to other people.

  “Right,” the head said, after briefly reading over the script. “Let me look at you.” She scrutinized both Cassie and Stone for a moment, making them turn all the way around so she could see them from all angles. Then she gave a short nod. “Punch in code 343B,” she said to Cassie. “And for your body-slave, 697H.”

  “What? Punch what in where?” Cassie asked uncertainly. The woman’s two other heads were still talking to other actors, making it hard to hear, so she thought she might have misunderstood her.

  “I said code 343B for you and 697H for your body-slave!” the left head repeated impatiently.

  “But punch it in where?” Cassie repeated. “Look, I’m sorry but we’re new here—this is our first time doing por—, uh, acting for his Slimefullness,” she added.

  The woman’s left head sighed in a long-suffering manner.

  “Newbies, are you? Very well. Veena!” the left head shouted, so loudly that her other two heads winced and complained. The left head ignored them.

  “Yes, Wardrobe Madam?” A small, thin girl with bright green skin came rushing up anxiously.

  “These two are new,” the left head told her while one of her arms pointed at Cassie and Stone and another arm shoved the script back into Cassie’s hands. “Show them how the costume rack works, then show them to the dressing room, then take them to The Cave. You’ll need to hold their hand through the whole process because they don’t know anything.”

  Cassie was a little offended at being presented as completely ignorant, but before she could complain, the green-skinned girl had taken her by the hand and was pul
ling her across the crowded Wardrobe department.

  “Hurry!” she said to Cassie. “You mustn’t be late for your filming!”

  “Um, okay.” Cassie went with her and Stone followed them both until they reached the far end of the vast space.

  Here they found an immensely long row of plain white cabinets, stretching the length of the entire room. On each cabinet was a small keypad and, as Cassie watched, various actors went up, picked a cabinet, and punched in a code. After a moment, the cabinet door popped open and they took out a bundle of fabric from inside.

  “Now then, do you remember the codes the Wardrobe Madam gave you?” the girl asked anxiously. “I hope you do—she hates to be bothered with the same actor twice.”

  Cassie was about to say that she thought she remembered when Stone rumbled, “343B and 697H.”

  “Excellent!” the girl said brightly. “Well—you just punch those codes into any cabinet and your costumes will pop out in a moment! Go on—try it,” she urged Cassie.

  “Okay.” Cassie picked a cabinet at random—it was about as big as a kitchen cabinet back home, she thought—and punched in the first code.

  Nothing happened for a moment but then, just as she was wondering if she had done it wrong, the door popped open to show a neatly folded bundle of fabric on the bottom of the cabinet.

  Cassie took the bundle out and handed it to Stone to hold. Then she closed the cabinet and tapped in his code as well. Just as before, after a moment the cabinet popped open. But this time it had only a leather harness studded with metal inside it.

  “There must be some mistake,” Cassie said, taking it out and frowning at it as she turned it around and around. “This can’t be the only thing Stone is supposed to wear.”

  “Let me see your script,” the green girl said, taking it from her before Cassie could hand it over. She scanned it, looked Stone up and down, and then nodded. “No, this is right. The Wardrobe Madam must have decided that your body-slave’s other clothing was already acceptable so she only had you order him a chest harness to wear with it—that’s all.”