Owned And Owner (5 page)

One man who was still involved was not seated but was standing near the platform to my left, a lean, young-looking man with black hair and a close-cropped beard, tall even in this room full of giants. His intent light green eyes were fastened on me. Those eyes looked electric, in a motionless face, lightning behind basalt cliffs. His face was almost at the same level as mine, despite the height of the platform. Once our eyes touched he seemed to pull me into him. I was caught and snared by the male energy he focused on me. In spite of the bonds stretching me so tightly, I almost felt I would be pulled across the platform to him. His eyes held me as he signaled his bids.

Suddenly I felt the chain slacken and I was pulled away. The bidding had ended. He was gone, I couldn’t see him. Had he bought me? Who had bought me, was it him? I felt frantic, helpless, an animal owned but unsure of its owner.

Home

Garid’s
hands moved automatically on the controls of his
aircar
. He was traveling northwest over the ocean, the two huge islands that were his home region just beyond the horizon. The sun was glittering on the waves below, the afternoon sky
its
most perfect turquoise. But Garid was oblivious. It was a good thing the autopilot did most of the work of avoiding other vehicles…

His mind moved through the last few hours. He had been early for the auction, and for a while had talked to the other men who were there for the same purpose. There were a few friends among them, met through a network that was pleasant and supportive, except at times like these. He’d known that the competition would be intense, but knew he could handle it. His last few projects had put him beyond the fear of running out of money.

His friend Therin had greeted him with a wry look, which Garid understood very well. They had known they would be in contention, though of course this wouldn’t interfere with their bids.

‘I haven’t seen you on the net,’ Therin had said.

‘Busy realizing my assets.’

‘Bugger.’
Therin, a wiry young man with a mop of brown curls and a wicked eye, had sat next to Garid and flicked him a glance, both friendly and sardonic.

Garid looked away with a half smile. ‘There’s
Donshod
.’

‘Do you think he’d share her if he got her?
Unlike you?’
In their intense, sometimes obsessive conversations, Garid had expressed some ambivalence about letting anyone else use his hypothetical possession.

‘I think he’d show a new
vid
of her nightly so he could lecture us on how to use women.’

Therin snickered. ‘Do you ever wonder why he left
Algomet
7 if he had so many women there?’ Naturally the group was more off-world aware than most of
Henth’s
population.

‘Maybe we could find out. Then we could blackmail him into going back.’

‘At least back to
Algomet
8.’ This was a mining planet they had heard of for male convicts; both the men snorted at the vision of elegant
Donshod
in a prison uniform.

‘To be fair, didn’t he find that binder that makes them so small in the waist? He’s not bad at that kind of research.’

‘What, corsets? No, one of the owners has been using them on his woman for years.
Donshod
just wanted us to think he’d discovered it.’

They had discussed where to have such equipment made, talking as if both of them would be woman owners by the end of the day. But Garid was restless, and had gotten up to see if he could have a look at the real woman, not just the catalogue
holo
. Although the vendors knew of the special interest in the woman pet, they tended to be casual about displaying their actual merchandise. A few animals had been visible through the doorway into the back area, but she had not been among them. Garid paced. The beauty of the
holo
had been enough to convince him, had convincing been necessary. He forced himself to stand quietly while the dogs,
vraags
and
agexts
were auctioned. He could not make himself sit down.

At last the woman had been brought into view. The auctioneer was surprisingly salacious in his handling of her; he knew his audience, the sly bugger. She had been a small fleshy jewel of excitement up on that platform. As he piloted his
aircar
, Garid could see the rounded naked flesh, the full, firm, animal breasts,
the
swollen folds between the legs struggling to free themselves. Her face had seemed childlike in its smoothness, the fear and excitement so easy to read on it. The eyes, caught in his own, giving up so readily to him. His hands, his whole body ached to feel that soft flesh, and his groin throbbed, wanting to take possession.

But he could wait. She was safe in the crate behind him. He suppressed his urge to yell aloud, a triumphant yell only held back because control was more satisfying. Waiting was a pleasure now that there was certainty at the end of it.

He heard her from time to time, stirring in the straw. His own pet woman! He had taken the congratulations and envy of the others patiently and quietly made arrangements. The metal collar he had brought was around her neck, hung with the license and
holo
tag. Her description, holograph, hand and footprints were on file in the government’s computer, with his name entered as owner. In the auction offices she had been strapped to a table, given a last medical exam, had all her scans done and her health and (most rare for a human) contraception certificates checked. While all of this was taking place, and while she was being roughly fed, the little creature had been compliant, but her eyes had kept straying to him.

There was enough information in her file to show that she was not capable of reasonable behavior when treated reasonably. She had to be controlled, or she created havoc. He could understand his father’s fears, really. But he had no intention of allowing her any latitude.

I huddled in the crate, in deep straw, holding myself in the dimness. There were a few air holes in the top, but little light came through them. I thought about the man who’d bought me, the green-eyed man, and realized I was almost forgetting to breathe. From the platform he had looked thin, but up close I saw this was an illusion based on his height. He was lean, but incredibly tall, and his shoulders seemed to give him the breadth more of a house or an auto-harvester than a person. It was hard to believe that men, that this man, could be so large; he was on an entirely different scale than I was used to. Those huge hands could crush me. I was a young, healthy woman; I’d always been reasonably strong, at least on Raniz. Here I was a puny little bird in a snare.

I was scared. I was entranced. I was aroused. The movement of those great limbs had been clean and definite, no motion wasted. His face was unreadable. This man quietly controlled everything around him. Soon he’d be controlling me.

My excitement warred with the humiliation of knowing that I was going to have to empty my bladder like an animal in the straw. Would he beat me for it, or was that what the straw was for? Would that be better than being unable to control myself when I was brought out? Beads of sweat were forming on my forehead, and the pain was becoming intense.
If we didn’t land soon…
At last I gave up and let it go. I stayed as high as I could on my knees in the little space, in order to keep the urine from touching my skin. I was crimson with embarrassment, but stronger than embarrassment was the deep fear that I was doing something wrong, displeasing, that my owner – my owner! – would be angry with me. I shook a little, holding my face in my hands. I realized that more than anything I wanted him to be pleased with me; at least, I was hoping not to make him angry. This was a new one, after years of more or less deliberate misbehavior, directed at authority figures everywhere. Still, it was not entirely new, now that I thought of it. I remembered my childhood fears, and they were all that someone would be angry with me. That’s what I felt like now, a small child, completely dependent on the slightest whim of the very large person to whom I belonged.
Except that now the thought of obedience carried with it a complex, adult-sized burden of lust.

Garid brought the
aircar
into its port and rose from the seat, stretching. His housekeeper,
Arleben
, met him at the door with a cautious look, saying, ‘Well, sir?’

‘Yes.’
Garid’s
face was impassive.

Arleben’s
face lit up.
‘Wonderful, sir!
Is it – I mean
she
…?’

‘In the back.’
Garid finally permitted himself a quick grin at his friend and subordinate. ‘Bring the crate into the view room.’

The view room was called that not for the viewing they were about to do, but for its great windows, curtained now against the sun and the day’s heat, looking out onto the city; the house and grounds were on the side of a hill. The room had couches in deep green-blue, touches of black and rust and gray on the walls. Garid pushed back a chair or two to make room for
Arleben
and
Pav
the cook, who were carrying the crate between them.
Pav
had insisted he could carry it by himself, but
Arleben
pointed out that it was an awkward size for one man, and they couldn’t risk dropping it. So they both got to see the woman. They set the crate down gently on the floor.
Arleben
made as if to turn away, but one eye remained on the crate.
Pav
stared openly. Garid was about to dismiss them, but saw the curiosity on their faces, and decided to satisfy it.

‘Open the crate,
Arleben
.’ The housekeeper undid the latches on the side of the crate, and swung the door wide. The woman was on her knees in there, blinking in the sudden light. Garid bent a bit, clicked his tongue at her and held out one hand, and she obeyed the gesture, crawling out of the box toward his hand. He checked the lock on her collar, and tugged on the license and ownership tag. Then he straightened up and took a step back. The woman glanced up a little, but they were too far above her to see, and she looked back at the floor.

Pav
and
Arleben
stared. They looked at each
other,
eyebrows raised, then gazed again. ‘Um…’
Pav
hesitated, ‘…very pretty.’ He sniffed audibly toward the container and had a look. ‘We’ll have to wash out this crate.’

Garid could see the woman tense up. Her arms were trembling, pushing rigid against the floor. ‘Yes, all right, later,’ he said casually, and noted that she sagged a little with relief. She was moving to sit back on her heels. He nudged her sharply with his foot, under her hip, and she shifted forward quickly onto her hands and knees again. He nudged her again, hard, this time on the inside of each knee, and she obeyed, spreading her knees apart. Garid let his men have a good look, then took hold of her collar and pulled her up to stand. They stared down at her breasts for a moment. Then he sent them out.

He stood there examining his little prize,
then
walked around to savor her from all sides. He had barely touched her so far; he wanted to prolong this exquisite moment of acquaintanceship as far as possible. Her skin was pale, smooth and elastic, the curves supple and sweet. Her breasts, softly trembling as he watched, looked large against her slender ribcage. His hands almost moved of their own accord to touch and squeeze them, but he pushed back the impulse. Instead he took her by the wrists, made her raise her arms, and examined how her breasts changed their shape. Her arms in the air, she was watching his face watching her. He made her bend forward from the waist and examined the breasts, their soft weight falling like inverted teardrops. He gazed at her rounded ass from behind.
Two beautiful ovals.
Her light reddish-brown pubic hair was dark with her juices, the opening just visible, swollen and glistening. She held the position without moving, except for a trembling which communicated
itself
from her hands to her thighs and soon seemed to have all her body vibrating. He could hear her quick, uneven breathing.

Her excitement tinged the air, a tangy musk that brought back every woman he’d ever had. His own arousal was barely in check. It had been two years since his off-world trip, two years since he’d had a woman. His perverse preferences made ordinary sex, sex with a man, distasteful, and he had only given in once or twice for relief. But more than the sexual pressure, the mere physical frustration of celibacy, there had been the frustration of his need to possess, to own,
to
exert control over a small body like this. Here she was at last, and his control held, but just barely. Her female scent alone was intoxicating enough to destroy his defenses; his whole body wanted to grab her up and use her, invade her body and take over, mark her as his.

Garid straightened the woman up by the shoulders and circled around to look again at her breasts as they heaved in time with her rapid breathing. At last he reached out and stroked one of the pliant mounds, weighing it in his hand. His cock threatened to burst from the confines of his clothes. He rolled the nipple tightly between his fingers, then stroked down her belly until he held her cunt in his hand. She was breathing in gasps now. She looked up at him and they locked gazes for a long moment, their eyes bright and feverish. Her soft fur, the slippery flesh behind it, the female smell of her like a drug in the air, at last was too much, even for him. He stepped back and shed his clothes, his gaze never leaving her. Her eyes widened at the sight of his chest and shoulders, and when she saw his erect cock her mouth dropped open and she cried out, backing away a step or two. He grabbed her and smacked her ass twice, hard. She stood still, crying a little. He picked her up, lifted her to him, his mouth kissing her neck, her face, his tongue pushing into her mouth, and she responded with passionate intensity, her closed eyes spilling tears. He let himself cast aside control now; he moved in
a frenzy
, his hands everywhere, handling her roughly, trying to cram years of touching into moments. She was clutching his back and moaning continuously against his mouth, the sound rising to little whimpers as he squeezed her flesh, a sound so exciting he squeezed her harder to hear it again. The legs around his waist trembled and splayed against him. Garid would wait no longer; he found her opening with his fingers, spread her wide and lowered her onto his cock, gripping her hard and thrusting. She cried out in pain, and he felt something give way inside her. Then he was deep in that soft, tight chasm, exulting, in possession. He pushed her up against a wall and fucked her, hard, ravenous, his heat mounting with each thrust. He couldn’t hold back long; within a minute he exploded inside her, his hands gripping her breasts, his shout reverberating through both their bodies.