Experiment

by Simcoe, Marina

  A slight tendril of pleasure fluttered through me, curling warm, low in my belly. Tairan circled his thumb, pressing it harder, making the pleasure grow and ebb in waves with every move.

  My hips jerked, my thighs trembled, and I moaned, writhing under him, fisting my hands in his braids.

  He removed his hand at that moment, and I felt something significantly thicker than a finger press against my opening.

  There was definitely nothing flaccid about his penis this time. Hard and strong, Tairan slid inside me in several deliciously slow, shallow thrusts, replacing with sweet pleasure the achy pressure that had been building in me.

  With a long exhale, I circled my legs around him, linking my feet together behind his back. He eased his hand between us again, pressing his thumb to where I wanted it most, then slowly began to move.

  His thrusts remained unhurried, deep and powerful at the same time. Slowly, gradually, the waves of heat that flowed through me grew until they began to crest, taking me higher and higher.

  The swells collided, crashing inside me. My legs tensed, locking him with me, as I rode the shudders of my orgasm.

  Removing his hand from between us, he propped himself against the bed with both arms. In just a few determined thrusts, he pumped his release into me.

  My eyes closed, I stretched under him, crossing my arms above my head, the post-orgasmic glow settling over me with a languid flow of warmth rolling through my veins.

  I opened my eyes, unable to keep a smile off my face.

  Tairan remained completely still over me, his arms straight, his eyes met mine.

  I couldn’t read his expression. His eyebrows furrowed, but he didn’t seem to be angry, just pensive. Unsure what to do, I kept staring back at him, the smile stubbornly refusing to leave my face.

  Although the silence was beginning to grow uncomfortably long, I wasn’t sure what to say to break it.

  What was the appropriate thing to say after something like that?

  It was nice? Nicer than I had expected? Thank you for making me come, after all?

  What he just did to me wasn’t simply sex for science. It felt like lovemaking, although neither of us was anywhere near being in love.

  ‘I’m glad it turned out to be you,’ rushed through my mind—the only thing I actually wanted to tell him, but the moment was lost. Breaking our eye contact, he slipped out of me and moved to the side.

  Sliding his hand down my leg, he circled my ankle with his fingers and lifted it up, making me bend my knee.

  “You have to stay like this for a little while now,” he said unexpectedly, lifting my other leg, knee to my chest, too.

  “What? Why?” I kept smiling, sure he was joking, despite his serious expression.

  “Ricread’s instructions,” he replied gloomily. “He believes this position may increase the chance of conception.”

  “He said nothing is expected to happen during this phase,” I reminded. “Besides, I got a feeling you weren’t into this . . . um, experiment that much. Definitely not at the level Ricread was.”

  His jaw flexed.

  “No one could ever match Ricread’s zeal.”

  “Well, then. Who cares about his instructions?” I made a move to straighten my legs, but Tairan held his hand over both of my ankles, keeping them in place.

  Before I could ask him any more questions, he slid his hand to one of my shoes. Turning it side to side, slightly, he found the buckle and figured out how to open it.

  “These must be painful to walk in,” he muttered under his breath, closely examining the strappy stiletto after he took it off.

  “They are.”

  “Why wear them then?” He tossed the sandal to the floor and removed the other one, massaging my feet afterwards.

  “Vanity?” I shrugged. “They add some height.” There was no need to remind him that I had no say in choosing my attire today. Besides, being on the shorter side of average, I often wore high heels by choice, too.

  Carefully sliding his hands under my back, he tugged my garter belt down and over my hips, taking the ruined underwear with it. Without unclipping the stockings, he rolled them off my legs, making sure I pressed my knees back to my chest right after again.

  “What is the purpose of this contraption?” he asked with a genuine confusion on his face.

  “Garter belt and stockings? There is no real purpose to either nowadays, just aesthetics. The look of it, I guess. Most men find them sexy.”

  Holding up the bunched-up nylon tangled with straps and ribbons, Tairan regarded it for a few more seconds then tossed it on the floor next to the diamond-encrusted shoes.

  “Is there a shower here?” I asked, feeling uncomfortable, lying on my back like this, hugging my legs to my chest.

  “You can’t have a shower yet,” he said firmly, shaking his head. “It’s in the instructions.”

  “What instructions?” I snapped, extreme tiredness making me sleepy and irritable at the same time. “Why do you care about them? What are you getting for participating in this?”

  There were so many more questions I could ask, had he given me any sign right now that he would actually answer.

  Something warm flickered through Tairan’s expression, struggling to break through, but then the serious frown returned, settling firmly over his face.

  “What am I getting out of it?” He rose from the bed. “The pleasure of your company, of course.” Said in a cool, detached voice, it was hardly a compliment.

  “The shower is right here.” He touched the wall to the right, which dissolved into an arched opening to another lit room. “You are allowed to take one after the tests tomorrow morning.”

  He entered the bathroom.

  “Wait a minute!” Taken aback by his suddenly chilly behaviour, I jumped off the bed the moment the wall solidified behind him—Ricread’s instructions be damned—and slammed my fist into the closed-off opening.

  The wall remained solid.

  “Fuck it,” I muttered under my breath, no longer sure who or what I was angry with, Tairan, Ricread, the wall, or this whole situation I found myself in.

  Rummaging through the skirts of my discarded dress, I found the nail file I’d hidden there earlier and tucked it into the narrow gap between the bed and the floor. Despite still feeling irritated, I was extremely glad I didn’t end up needing to use it as a weapon to defend myself tonight, but who knew what tomorrow would bring.

  Right now, only one thing was certain—I was deadly tired. Shuffling back to the bed, I lifted the thin, black blanket. There didn’t seem to be any other bedding than that, just a plush mattress with a raised headrest instead of pillows.

  Yawning, I climbed under the blanket, which turned out to be warmer than could have been expected, and curled into a ball.

  As I made myself comfortable, my forearm brushed by my nipple, still warm and sensitive, reminding me of the sensation of Tairan’s mouth on my breast.

  My mind then went back to my walking down the aisle in the church just a few hours earlier, when I was shaking to the core with horror and trepidation.

  Tonight could have gone so, so much worse.

  Chapter 6

  LIGHT FILTERED THROUGH my closed eyelids. The noise of someone bustling about startled me awake. It took me a few moments to remember where I was—no longer in my bed, under my grandma’s quilt, but at the Kealan lab, on the South Pole of all places.

  I rubbed the remnants of sleep out of my eyes and made an attempt to open them. Blinking, I sat up in bed, pressing the cover to my naked chest. Pearls and crystals rained from my messy hair to the mattress. My scalp itched from the crusted hairspray.

  A group of Kealans had invaded the bedroom. None of them wore goggles or cloaks, and I identified some as females by the shape of their bodies. Most of the group were dressed in tight, grey bodysuits, identical to that worn by Tairan. Although, the uniforms of four of the men were black.

  “Who are you all?” I mumbled, scratching my he
ad, which still felt foggy inside from sleep. “What is going on?”

  “The tests,” the reply came from Tairan in the bed next to me. I had fallen asleep before he came out of the shower, but he must have stayed with me for the rest of the night.

  I noticed iridescent swirls of make-up mixed with the black streaks of mascara on the heels of my hands, which I had rubbed my eyes with.

  Great, I must be looking like a raccoon.

  I groaned inside.

  “I really, really need a shower,” I told the female attendant who approached me.

  “After the tests are done.” She gently pushed me back to the mattress. “Lie down, please.”

  Several automated equipment racks rolled in, and the Kealans arranged them in positions around the bed.

  A tall, narrow, white box was placed at the foot of the bed, then a chrome arm extended from it, spreading a grey, plastic divider between Tairan and me.

  “Will this hurt?” I asked with apprehension, sweeping the faces of the Kealans crowding me with my gaze.

  “Not if you co-operate,” a man at the entrance replied, and I recognized Ricread’s voice, snapping my attention to him.

  While the technicians readied the equipment, I studied him. Ricread wore no cloak or goggles this time. He appeared older than the other Kealans, his braids duller than Tairan’s glossy white, as if time had rubbed the shine out of his hair, giving it a greyish tinge. He took a few steps closer, and I spotted a web of fine lines crisscrossing his face.

  The woman at my side tugged at the blanket I clutched to my chest.

  “No.” I tightened my grip.

  “If you fight, it will take longer,” Ricread observed calmly. “With a higher chance of it being painful.”

  “Painful?” I gasped, clinging to the blanket like a life raft.

  “Just relax,” the female assistant cooed, patting my shoulder. “My name is Zavis, and I promise to be very careful.” She tugged at the blanket again.

  ‘The sooner it starts, the sooner it ends.’ I recalled Tairan’s words. But Ricread was hovering over me, his stare making my skin crawl. A number of his assistants, male and female, gathered around, staring, too.

  What was I to do? Say ‘I don’t want this?’ Again? It hadn’t helped me avoid things before. No one would listen now either, I was sure of it.

  A muffled groan reached me from behind the grey partition.

  “Tairan?” I turned my head to the sound but couldn’t see a thing through the plastic-like material. “What’s happening?” I demanded from Ricread.

  Without replying, he gestured to the men in black uniforms, and two of them moved on me.

  Another groan came from behind the divider, a little louder this time, and definitely filled with pain, which tugged at my compassion, even making me forget about my own situation for a moment.

  “What on earth are you doing to him?” I raised my voice. Zavis stood aside, as the two men pressed on my shoulders, prying the blanket out of my hands.

  “No!” I screamed as they forced my hands up, over my head and pressed them into the headrest.

  I frantically kicked my feet just before someone got hold of my ankles, pushing my heels into the mattress.

  “Hold still,” came Ricread’s cool voice. “Or I’ll have no choice but to strap you in restraints next time.”

  “It’ll be fine.” Zavis climbed on the bed between my spread legs, and I felt her warm palm on my belly. “This won’t be any worse than the routine exam in your doctor’s office,” she assured me, patting my leg. The men who held my ankles, shoved them up the bed, bending my knees. “Just hold still now.”

  This was nothing like my doctor’s exam—no one had ever held me down in the medical office. Neither were there this many people, staring at my naked body.

  Unable to deal with the crowd around me, I closed my eyes, shutting them all out. Panting heavily, I struggled to get air in and out of my lungs, the weight of several men holding me down seemed to compress my insides and even my awareness.

  My mind floated on the fringes of consciousness, leaving me only half-aware of something sticky being glued to my skin in several places and something cool and hard probing between my legs.

  “Her heart rate is elevated,” I heard Zavis’ concerned voice, as the probing continued.

  No kidding!

  I felt like screaming. One didn’t need to be a scientist or use a bunch of sophisticated equipment to figure out that their treatment of me would stress me the hell out.

  “Keep going,” was Ricread’s cool reply. “I need a complete set of data for today.”

  The tests continued for what felt like forever, until finally they let go of my arms and legs.

  I opened my eyes, watching with relief as the rest of the team move away from me. Zavis stood at my bed. A milky-white screen extended from the black armlet on her left forearm, and she poked at it with the fingers of her right hand.

  Feeling hollow, as if drained from the inside, I didn’t even care about covering myself with the blanket right away, focusing on getting my breathing back under control first.

  The grey partition rolled back into the tall, box-shaped robot at the foot of the bed, revealing a gurney-like board hovering on Tairan’s side. He was no longer in bed with me but strapped to the gurney now. Avoiding my eyes, he rolled his head away, but I caught the expressions of suffering and utter exhaustion on his face.

  “What did you do to him?” I rose on my elbows, glaring at the Kealan standing by the gurney.

  Ignoring my question, he silently punched in something into a panel on the side of the frame, sending the gurney into motion.

  “Where are you taking him?”

  The Kealan finally met my eyes. “You’ll see him tonight.”

  His voice sounded familiar, although I couldn’t place it right away.

  “We’re done, Valran,” Ricread called firmly on his way to the exit. “Let’s go.”

  The man broke eye contact and followed the gurney, which was taking Tairan out of the room. The rest of them exited too, leaving me completely alone.

  “Good morning,” the voice came from next to the bed unexpectedly, making me jump.

  “What the hell?” My nerves were still on edge from the events of this morning.

  “Sorry if I startled you,” the same voice said soothingly, and I realized it was coming from the grey cylinder by the bed. About thirty centimetres wide by a metre tall, it could have been easily mistaken for a nightstand or a side table.

  “What are you?” I stared at it, getting hold of the blanket again.

  “GRAN-1421-B. A special edition of robotized personal assistant.” The top panel of the cylinder tilted up, displaying two pale-white lights in the upper part of the circle. A line of small blue lights flickered and curved in sync with the words the thing spoke, giving it the appearance of a smiley face, with white eyes and blue mouth—a little goofy in its simplicity.

  “G, R, A, N, one . . . what?”

  “GRAN-1421-B,” the robot supplied helpfully in its soothing, androgynous voice. “I have been assigned to help you navigate your new environment.”

  “Can you help me make sense of what just happened?”

  “Certainly. If you are referring to the tests being performed this morning, they were to confirm that copulation between you and the male subject had occurred, as well as to collect data to monitor the response of your organism to his genetic material and to identify the areas where intervention may be required.”

  “What kind of intervention?”

  “This will be determined by the professor and the medical team. I have no access to the details.”

  I placed my hand on my belly as my stomach churned. For what it was worth, there was no soreness from the tests, just the lingering memory of their invasive touching.

  “What did they do to Tairan then?”

  “I do not have the information on the procedures performed on the male subject.”

 
; “Can you get that information?”

  “Sorry.” The blue smile shone brighter. “You do not have the necessary clearance for this request.”

  “I believe Tairan has been hurt. He also happens to be the only person who’s shown me any understanding in this place. You see, I don’t want him to suffer.”

  “I see.” The robot’s ‘expression’ didn’t change and its voice remained cheerful.

  “Do you now?”

  “Absolutely. The level of sensitivity of my optical sensors is twice as high as that of humans.”

  “I was talking about a different kind of sensitivity here, Gran.” I waved him off, getting out of bed. “One that obviously couldn’t be programmed into a robot.” I sighed. “Never mind, we’re not speaking the same language.”

  “I have the basic database to speak any known language on Earth and advanced artificial intelligence software with expanded vocabulary for Kealan and English,” the robot hummed, whizzing softly after me as I headed to the wall, behind which Tairan had mentioned the shower was located.

  “Can you tell me then, how to open doors here?” I patted the wall where I thought Tairan had, but without any result.

  “Certainly. To open an entrance in a wall, you need to approach it within the distance of approximately twenty to forty centimetres, position yourself under the marker indicating the entrance then place the pads of your right-hand fingers on the section approximately at your eye level.”

  “A marker?”

  “The break in the light on the ceiling indicates a passage had been programmed into the wall.”

  I glanced up to the ceiling, spotting the line of white light running along where it met the wall. The line broke with a gap of a few centimetres about two steps to the left of me.

  “This sounds tricky,” I muttered under my breath, remembering how smoothly the doors opened for others.

  I shifted to move under the gap and pressed at the wall at my eye level.

  The dark surface seemed to waver and thin, then melted away as if absorbed into the sides, forming an arched doorway.

  “Hmm, it worked,” I said, stepping into the lit room on the other side.