My instincts all tell me to stay where I am, but he has a kind of commanding presence when he wants to have one.
“Ava,” he says, crooking a finger at me. “Come. Here. Now.”
I get up, not entirely sure what he’s going to do to me, but knowing my best chance now is to pretend to go along with him. If he thinks I’m on board with his crazy plan, he won’t see my inevitable escape coming.
I have no idea what I am going to do with myself now. He’s right that if I went back to Earth, I would be fired instantly and then prosecuted—and then probably sent to prison. They really don’t like it when you effectively steal a shuttle and crash it on an alien planet, costing billions and billions of dollars in the process. My cargo is spread over the surface of this place along with the components of the ship.
Zed takes hold of my hand.
“How is this going to teach me to…”
The world spins. My thighs and belly meet his lap. I am momentarily confused, but that confusion is cleared up almost immediately when his palm slaps my ass. Hard.
“OW!” I exclaim and then I curse. “What the actual fuck are you doing?”
“Teaching you what your alien masters will expect you to know. Forget all your notions of freedom, human. You are to play the role of an obedient, submissive pleasure toy.” He slaps me again, his palm large and mean against my ass.
I’ve never been spanked before. I’ve never even thought about being spanked before. I really didn’t think it was an issue I’d have to contend with. It hurts a lot more than I thought it would. It hurts like absolute hell, actually. Every time his palm lands there’s a fresh blast of sensation which doesn’t stay localized to my ass but spreads throughout my body, conducted on a wave of shame.
“Stop it!”
“If I stop now, you won’t learn the lesson.”
“What’s the lesson supposed to be?” It is hard to form words. It is even harder to form sassy words, but I have to try. I don’t want him to think he’s hurting me, or that this is fucking my head up right now. I cannot get a read on this alien. He has been my savior, my betrayer, and now my tormentor.
“The lesson that you are a little human pet to be traded and used—you need to understand that to the very core. You need to be able to act from that place and show the alien masters you will be required to please…”
“Wait, what?”
“You have to please them so they will buy you. There’s no profit until money changes hands, and money doesn’t change hands for a salty, spoiled, unappealing little wretch. You will need to become an alluring, submissive female human, or at least an approximation of one.”
My ass is so hot I am almost certain it constitutes its own sun right now.
“ZED! Please!” There is real desperation in my voice. “I can’t take any more!”
“You can take a lot more than this. Your skin is barely red. There is no bruising, no welting, not even a mark. You underestimate your capacity for punishment, Ava. Your flesh is uniquely designed for pleasure, which means in turn that it is uniquely designed for pain.”
“You’re sick.”
“It’s the truth. A human being is a delicate, vulnerable creature designed to do little other than feel. Your feelings—your pleasure, your pain, your need, sometimes even your fear are gifts to a universe which sometimes forgets how to feel at all.”
I never thought I’d hear transcendent wisdom from the mouth of an alien while my ass was on fire, but here we are. What he says sounds right, somehow. It almost makes sense of why the universe bothered to make humans in the first place. We are sort of useless in most respects, unless, as some philosophers have, you consider us plastic generators.
“Will you let me up now, please?”
He smooths his palm over my hot skin. His skin is textured, and him rubbing it over my rear in its current state makes it feel like sandpaper.
“Have you learned anything?”
“I hope so.”
He squeezes my ass relatively gently. “Let’s see. Get up and show me your most appealing behavior.”
I get up, not having any clue as to how to be appealing but knowing for certain that giving him attitude is a bad idea.
“Yes. Good. Avoiding eye contact is always a good start. Even species that do not find it hostile or rude find a little demureness alluring. Most male aliens prefer to entice and seduce their way into the heart of a new purchase. Those who like a rougher touch still enjoy the prospect of…”
“Of what?”
“It wouldn’t be helpful to tell you.”
He’s lying to me by omission if not directly and probably directly as well. He’s a scammer. There’s no other way to describe him.