Blue, Part I

Michael O'Shaughnessy

Adrian LaPorte has many secrets. It's no secret that "he" is a bodiless being, inhabiting the body of a human, roaming through the galaxy, enjoying the powers of a god. What he does keep secret is that he brings his slave, Pete Ivanovich, back from the dead, whenever the games LaPorte's clients play with Pete prove fatal. So even death's no escape for Pete from his bargain to spare Earth LaPorte's depredations. But there are many kinds of depredation, and even Adrian is succumbing to one of them... his biggest secret of all.

It finally happened. In the Universe of sexually transmitted diseases Pete had been lucky so far throughout Adrian's reckless marketing of his body. Either he'd avoided exposure by chance, or his immune system had been strong enough to defeat attack.

But one morning when Adrian woke him up, he was alarmed to see Pete's eyes swollen nearly shut.

"What happened to you?" he demanded. "You look like you've been on a three-day blitz."

Pete's whole body was puffy. He took two steps and his legs folded, sprawling him on the floor.

Adrian helped him to the bed. "You're hot," he said. "You've caught something. Stay there, I'll check the local quacks and see what's going around." Already hallucinating, Pete couldn't have moved anyway.

A cold dampness on his forehead roused him.

"There's an outbreak of Limbrack on Calomoor," Adrian told him.

"What's that?" Recent Calomoor, another round of fucking Adrian's clients of whatever description.

"It's a venereal disease. Normally it's a fairly mild, though painful, inflammation of the joints. I spoke to some Calomoori doctors and they weren't happy with your symptoms."

"Me neither. Jeez, what's wrong with my legs?" He stirred, and Adrian pulled the blanket over him.

"It's not good, Pete. There's nothing we can do for you."

"What." He was fading again.

"It sounds like it'll be fatal."

But Pete was gone again, moaning in delirium.

Adrian watched him, feeling sick himself. I'll give him 24 hours... If it's no better then...

Twenty-four hours later it was clear that Pete wouldn't be getting better.

It was easy, really. A sharp knife sliced between a couple of cervical vertebrae. It was as quick as Adrian had expected. Pete didn't even feel it, unconscious in the disease. It was the mercy he had begged for so often, and been denied.

"...and soon, now, he'll be back again," Adrian thought. So what is this pain in my chest, what are these tears? He gestured, and the gold chains attached to Pete's back came loose. He flung them away and they went sailing across the room, clattering across the floor.

"I need a vacation," Adrian told Pete, over breakfast a couple of days after Pete had returned to life in Adrian's arms, once again.

Pete continued chewing his bacon and put on a polite, receptive expression.

"How do you like a beach?" Adrian asked him, "Sun, swimming, all that sort of thing?"

Pete sipped his coffee, cocked an eyebrow one way, his head the other.

"Moonlit nights, soft sand, strolling musicians..." Adrian went on.

Pete bit into his third piece of toast and looked agreeable.

"Just the thing," Adrian concluded. "Glad you agree."

Pete smiled.

"You swim like a fish!" Adrian spluttered at him. As big and strong as he was, he couldn't seem to match the ocean's rhythm, while Pete knifed through the thick green water like it was air. They climbed up onto the sandy shore and plopped, panting.

"I still don't see why you want to wear those," Pete said, indicating Adrian's racy red and white striped trunks.

"If we were both naked, no one could tell who's the slave," Adrian answered.

"Does it really matter that much to you, here? As long as I don't forget?" Pete squinted up the beach line to where a bunch of assorted non-humans were playing some kind of beach game, their shouts and laughs sounding like animal calls.

"It always matters," Adrian purred. He rolled over on his side and his eyes drooped. Pete lay back, and they both dozed.

The waves lapping at their feet woke them to a sunset of blazing red.

"Party time," Adrian said, and set off down the beach. They were invited to a beach roast for the evening. On this planet almost all the land was beach; it was dotted everywhere with atolls and was a vacation jewel in the Sector. Life here was a continuing stream of parties, vacationers drifting up and down the beaches, sleeping where they got tired, fishing and picking the abundant tropical fruits for sustenance (although Pete did see one set of aliens who were eating the sand). The cast changed as the visitors came and went but the endless casual party went on.

This island was rare in that its center instead of a pool enclosed by the atoll was a volcanic mountain that had not yet subsided, thrusting up from the sea floor. It was mostly jungle, although a few hardworking folks had established farms on the mountain's flanks, wresting cereal and vegetable crops each year from the ever-encroaching grip of the jungle.

They'd been there four days and nights. To Pete's surprise it was turning out to be a vacation for him, too. Adrian had said nothing about giving or selling him to any of the other tourists, though a couple of them had approached him.

They'd found a small inlet that was secluded from the rest of the beach, between two roots of the mountain protruding out into the surf. There each night they'd built a bonfire and cooked whatever fish they'd caught. Adrian bought a cask of beer and they sat sipping that, watching the sunsets in companionable silence.

The second night, after the sun had dipped below the horizon in a lake of fire, Pete said, "This is nice, Adrian." And Adrian had turned to him and kissed him for the first time since their arrival. It had the same strange bittersweetness that all of Adrian's words and actions had been tinged with since they got there.

"Lay down," he said softly. "I'm going to fuck you. I'm not going to let you come until the waves hit us." That was yet a couple of hours away. He was as good as his promise for once.

It was a lizard-like family roasting the island's version of a pig. Two adults, an elder, and numerous kids from diaper to teenaged status. Pete had a good time, playing with the kids, chatting with their parents. He watched Adrian with interest. Adrian seemed completely relaxed, and charming without his usual somewhat condescending mannerisms. Once Pete saw him talking with the oldest son, down by the water's edge. The boy sported a bright tattoo on one of his forelegs. He pointed up the beach and Adrian seemed to be questioning him closely.

The party wound down as the stars popped out one by one. The kids sang some songs and the elder told some spooky camp fire stories. Pete and Adrian slept by the fire like part of the family. Adrian watched the fire, listened to it popping and crackling, listened to Pete's breathing slide into the submarine cadence of sleep. Finally he slept, too.

After breakfast, and rounds of cheery good-byes, Adrian took Pete off up the beach "for a hike," he said.

Some hike. They'd walked halfway around the island before Adrian stopped at a jumble of rocks that cut down across the beach into the sea. They'd passed several more groups of vacationers, but this stretch of sand was empty.

"Stay here and build a fire, catch us some fish for lunch," he told Pete. He climbed over the boulders and disappeared on the other side.

Pete fished, and built the fire, and found some long sticks to skewer the fish on. Then he sat watching the birds along the tree line. They had the brilliant coloration like Earth's tropical birds, but when some swooped low over him on their way to the water, he saw clearly that they had fur, not feathers.

Adrian came back and they ate. He was quiet, and when they'd eaten and he had arranged himself comfortably cross-legged, he looked at Pete with a curious mixture of reluctance and suppressed excitement that made Pete's legs tingle with the beginnings of anxiety.

"I have to leave for awhile," Adrian began.

"So soon? You were just starting to relax."

"It's some business I can't put off. I'll be back. I just don't know how soon."

Pete waited.

"I've arranged to leave you here, with a chap who lives 'round the bend, there," Adrian continued, nodding at the rock jetty.

Still Pete said nothing.

"So come on, you might as well meet him."

They climbed the boulders and Pete saw that the little cove before them was a semicircle of similar boulders. The beach spread out between the two arms of stone like a patio fronting the ocean. There was a charred circle of stones off to one side, obviously a frequent cooking site. Crude wooden chairs sat in comfortable disarray near the mouth of a cave in the back wall of rock. Beyond the wall, the jungle's tallest trees nodded in the offshore breeze.

"There's no one here," Pete said, but Adrian gestured for him to follow him down to the sand. Just then someone emerged from the cave.

Pete stopped dead, teetering on a boulder. What had come out of the cave was a Snubb. Pete looked at Adrian in dismay, but Adrian strode across the sand to greet the Snubb. His heart closing itself in ice, Pete followed.

This Snubb wasn't quite as big as the one who'd abused him on Lldala's World, but looked every bit as powerful. Pete shuddered. That brown-bronze hide, the deep vertical folds running along his body and that cyclopean face... those hands... the fellow wore a rough loin cloth, hiding what Pete knew would be the worst news of all.

Adrian beckoned him forward. "This is Singahl," he told Pete. "He'll be your master while I'm gone."

Pete nodded at the monster, who gave a curt nod back. Adrian eyed his slave warily. Pete looked a little green about the gills. He pulled him away to talk in private, excusing them to Singahl.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing."

"Nonsense. You're thinking of that brute on Lldala's World? Singahl isn't like that."

"No, sir." Pete grappled with the feeling of the earth shifting underfoot. "Adrian... you're getting rid of me, aren't you?"

"Whatever gave you that idea? I told you I'll be back."

"You don't have to lie to me. You've been acting funny ever since we came here, even before. Sad like a kid who's outgrowing his teddy bear but doesn't want to throw it away, but just doesn't need it any more. Why lie? It doesn't matter." He glanced across the way at Singahl. "I figured it would happen eventually. I just never figured on a Snubb."

Adrian made a grim mouth. "I can see you've convinced yourself of this delusion. Very well, think what you like. You're his until I get back. You'll do whatever he tells you to, let him do whatever he wants. I'll be back in a month or so and his report had better be good."

"A month or so?" Pete still didn't believe him but this length of time made him think of something else. "What if he kills me? By the time you get back I'll be rotted away." He smiled without humor. "You won't have anything to resurrect."

"That's the one thing he will not do," Adrian answered. But he peered at Pete, suddenly apprehensive. Then he led him back to Singahl.

"He's yours, as arranged," he said. He took something small from the little pocket in his trunks. "Here are two mini-comms. Keep one, have him carry the other, or use them as necessary to keep track of him. Keep him chained up at night. I should warn you, he may try to kill himself. You won't let that happen, will you."

Singahl took the buttons, shaking his head.

"See you when I get back," Adrian told Pete, and he stalked away across the beach the way they'd come. Pete and Singahl watched him scramble over the jetty and vanish from their sight.

Pete turned back to Singahl. The black eye regarded him without expression. My new master. Does he even speak? He dropped to his knees, looked up at the giant. Since Singahl was a good seven and a half feet tall, he had to crane his neck. Singahl walked around him, examining him from all sides. He put a rough hand on his arm and jerked him back to his feet, pulled him up toward the cave. Now. Here it starts. He's not wasting any time.

But instead of dragging Pete into the cave, he pushed him into one of the chairs. He held out a hand to designate "stay put." Then he ducked into the cave and came out with a long thin knife. Oh God. Help me bear this...

But Singahl came behind the chair and putting one hand on the side of Pete's face he started at the other temple and began shaving Pete's head. That cold steel against his skin, his mind in a moil, Pete could hardly control his trembling. Singahl took his time, and short locks of dark brown hair scattered to the sand around their feet. He didn't nick Pete even once. When he was finished he stepped back to look at his handiwork. He still hadn't said a word.

Pete ran an exploratory hand over his naked scalp. Singahl had achieved a very close shave with that knife. The breeze felt funny on Pete's head now.

"That sunburn hurt?"

Pete jumped like he'd been shot. Singahl's voice was unexpectedly cultured. For a second Pete forgot the question in his astonishment.

"Uh, um, a little."

Singahl went back into the cave and came out carrying a stone pot. There was a yellowish substance in it that looked like beef fat. Singahl dipped in a paw and brought out a scoop of the stuff and patted it on Pete's head, down his neck, spread it over his reddened shoulders. Then he started using both hands to smooth it into his skin. The stuff wasn't fat, it had a clean floral scent that wafted briefly then went away. Pete could feel it taking the heat out of his sunburn.

Singahl took his arm again and made him stand up on the chair seat. He spread the salve over Pete's back and buttocks, down his legs and then came around front. His hands on Pete's ass had given Pete an erection against all his wishing. Singahl looked at it, then up at Pete, and he sighed. He started to raise a handful of salve to put on Pete's chest, then stopped. He made an impatient, or an angry, gesture, then looked Pete in the eyes again. With the other hand he pulled away his loin cloth.

Oh, Lord. Twelve inches long and as thick as my wrist.

"LaPorte claims you'll accommodate this, " Singahl said.

"You're the boss," Pete said. "I'll do anything I can to make you happy."

Singahl rubbed his hands together, spreading the cream around. "The question is, can you? I've found no one who could since I left my home planet."

Pete glanced down at the member in question, saw it was getting ready as they spoke of it. "We'll find out, won't we, Master?"

The Snubb reached up and resumed oiling Pete's body. He left his genitals until he'd greased him all the way down to his feet, then dipped more salve and used both hands to cover Pete's cock. His huge hands were firm, and dexterous, and Pete swayed on the chair, shaken by the tides of lust Singahl's fingers stimulated. Those hands stroked, squeezing, until Pete was only about two notches from exploding.

Singahl wrapped his arms around Pete's hips and took him off the chair and carried him to the rocky tide wall. He turned him around to lean against it, reached down and pushed his legs apart. Pete felt the big hands hook his hip bones, and Singahl's cock pressed him. Singahl paused, muttered something under his breath, and with his fingers still salve-heavy he probed Pete's rectum, pushing and stretching. It hurt and scared him, but it also pushed his arousal harder. He grunted at the fingers moving inside him, not knowing himself if it was pleasure or pain.

Singahl's other hand found Pete's cock and squeezed. At that moment he plunged himself into Pete's ass. Frozen between lust and agony, Pete stayed mute. Singahl went slowly; Pete could feel the enormous cock sliding in further, stretching, pushing, seeking.

"Body and mind," Pete thought, "the body will obey when the mind instructs--" and the feel of that hard, warm violation flooded him with a heated lust and he arched back, lending a push, returning Singahl's thrust.

Singahl cried out in surprise and pleasure. "Hold on, slave, hold on, take it in, take it in, you're almost there..." His hips worked and then he was tight inside Pete's body, shuddering in the precursors of ecstasy. Pete started moving, sliding off of and back over Singahl's cock, pleasuring him and feeling the slide, feeling the heat pounding in his blood. Their bodies undulated together, a stationary ballet of mutual pleasing, lusting, the only music the waves and their own hitching breaths.

Singahl's hands stroked Pete's arms, his ribs, his flanks, gripping sometimes hard enough to hurt, enough to remind Pete he was half his new master's size. His head down, his shoulders straining, his arms straight forward braced both their weights against the stone wall. He was thin enough that the twin tendons in the back of his neck stood out, the ribs and shoulder blades showed themselves as he labored. Singahl seemed to like the feel of Pete's bones as his hands took up the rhythm of his thrusting, squeezing with the climbing heat. Pete's cock hardened in his hand.

Pete gasped, "I'm coming, Master, I'm falling--" and they dropped to their knees together and Pete's body convulsed in climax, his cries wild and high. The next moment Singahl exploded, driving himself harder into his throbbing home, restraint forgotten.

Spent, they fell apart, sitting on the sand, recovering.

The sun was going down behind the mountain. Singahl asked, "You cook? There's meat and things in the cave. Come on, I'll show you. You can start the fire and cook our dinner. I've got some other things to do."

He led him into the cool dimness of his cave. Once past the narrow entrance the chamber opened out into a cavern, thirty feet across. Singahl had a sleeping pad with colorful blankets in one corner, a few candles on low tables and shelves.

A little natural alcove screened by a scrap of tapestry held food and condiments, and wooden bins below the shelves stored root vegetables and fruits. Iron cookware hung neatly around a fireplace; Pete examined their hangings and saw Singahl had driven thick staples right into the stone.

He started a fire, pleased when the smoke issued neatly up and out through fissures, leaving the room's air clean.

Singahl cut off hunks of salted meat for him to cook up with whatever vegetables he wanted. Pottery plates and mugs stood on shelves next to the wooden table. It was all very orderly and appealing.

Pete almost said, "This is nice," but bit it off. Singahl might consider it disrespectful.

While Pete cooked, his master disappeared through another crack between the rocks in a corner of the room. He reappeared with a long chain and leather collar, and a bag that clinked dimly as it swung. He went to an empty area near the entrance and knelt down.

Pete watched him from the corner of his eye. Singahl attached the end of the chain to another iron staple set low in the wall, using an oversize pliers to close the link. Only hands that huge could have done it. He glanced up and caught Pete watching.

"I had a pet jungle pig awhile back," he said. He poked the collar. "Kept him in here with this." He left the bag lying there and went outside until Pete called out that dinner was ready.

Singahl brought another chair in with him and placed it at the table. Pete had only set one place. He dished up a bowl of meat and vegetables and put it in front of Singahl.

"Get yourself some, boy. Eat."

When Pete didn't obey at once, he looked at him curiously. "Can't you eat this food?"

Pete's heart thumped in sludgy dread. "It's not that."

"What, then?"

"It's... are you going to hurt me tonight, Master? If that's your pleasure, I shouldn't eat. I tend to... throw up. It'd be a waste of your food."

Singahl sat back with a sigh. He gazed at Pete, wondering, finally seeing that he was afraid, and had been since LaPorte had left them. "I take it you've met other Snubbs."

"Yes, sir."

"LaPorte didn't tell you anything about me, did he?"

"No, sir, only that you're my master now."

"Well, get yourself a bowl and eat. I'm not like most of my kinsmen, I don't like inflicting pain. That's why I'm here, in self-imposed exile, you could call it." His yellow teeth gleamed. "I'm not a very good Snubb. I don't want you to be afraid of me. Unless," he amended, "you think of disobeying."

Pete got a bowl and sat down. He forked food in, barely tasting it. After a couple of bites he said, "Did I fix it right? I don't know how you like it."

"Oh, I'll eat anything. But this is fine."

He kept fresh water in a barrel at the back of the cave. They filled a pot and heated it to clean the dishes after they ate. To Pete's amazement, Singahl pitched in to help him.

It was full dark outside by the time they were done. Pete put the last fork away, and turned to see Singahl had laid down on his bed. He was naked. He nodded at Pete and smiled.

Pete went to the bed and fell on it on his knees.

"You still afraid?"

"Not as much."

"I'll show you now what pleases me."

Later: "Turn over. I want to see your face when I'm in you."

Later still: "Use your hands on yourself. Ah, yes, squeeze it ah, fuck, I can feel it inside you again; again harder -- hurt it -- harder ah -- come come -- come now!"

Afterwards Pete lay on his stomach and Singahl stroked his skin. A candle on the wall made a warm yellow bubble of light. It was quiet for a long time, then Singahl said, "I'm putting you to work tomorrow." He felt Pete tense up under his hand. "You're scared again. Why?"

"What will I be doing?"

"Nothing scary. Why in the world would you think so?"

"That's how I met the other Snubb, 'working' for Adrian."

"Bad?"

"Not as bad as some, worse than others. Snubbs aren't the worst sadists going, if that's any comfort."

"Doesn't anybody like just plain sex?"

Pete chuckled. "Yeah, there are some of those, too."

"Yet you don't have any scars." His rough hand sliding over it made Pete's skin feel like silk in contrast. "Why's that?"

Pete thought for a moment, framing his answer carefully. "Adrian's technology," he said. "Every so often he cleans the slate for more fun."

Singahl sighed. "I can't imagine who'd want to hurt you. When it's so much fun to hear and feel and see your pleasure."

"I guess that's not enough for some people."

"LaPorte? Does he hurt you?"

"Yeah."

"Do you hate him?"

"No."

Singahl sighed yet again. He ran his hand down Pete's back, explored his ass, sought the cluster between his legs. "Roll over here against me, let me play with you."

Pete complied, saying, "I don't know if I've got anything left, though."

"That's all right. I just want to play. Feel good?"

"Oh, yes."

He toyed gently between Pete's legs, giving him a hard-on but keeping the pleasure at a low, non-demanding level.

"What will I be doing, this 'work'?" Pete asked him.

"Oh. There's a farmer a couple of miles up-mountain who needs labor. I need a few zincelles, so I'm sending you up to him. Just field work. There... like that?"

Pete moaned. Singahl had his body humming drowsily in a lazy, semi-erotic state. It could trail off into sleep with no discomfort, or it could buzz to life and climb to an explosion.

"Tomorrow -- So you'll know what's going on; so you don't have to be scared; here's the plan. Crack of dawn we get up and eat, I rub you down with that ointment again -- it'll keep you from burning up out there -- and I give you a lunch and one of those mini-comms which you will give to Bola Tz Kej, the farmer. He'll let me know when you arrive. Then at the end of the day, Tz will give you your pay, and you'll come back. He'll call me when you leave. You bring your pay back to me. Then..." He smiled again, massaged Pete's genitals a little more.

"Why all this calling back and forth?"

"Because of what LaPorte said, of course. I don't want you killing yourself."

"Oh, pshaw. I'm not going to do that."

"Then why would he say that?"

"I guess he thinks I hate him enough to kill myself to get away from him."

"But you say you don't hate him at all."

"He's given me plenty of reason to. But, no, I don't." Pete shifted position a little, and felt the desire draining out of his body thinking about his answer. "I'm just... resigned."

Singahl felt it, too, and released him. "We'd better sleep. Regardless, I have to chain you. His orders, you know?"

He led Pete over to the collar chained to the wall. Like the whole cave, the floor here was fine, clean sand. Pete knelt and Singahl fastened the collar around his neck. Then he dug into the bag and pulled out handcuffs. "Arms behind," he said.

"Ah, do you have to do that?"

"If the idea is to prevent you from hurting yourself it wouldn't make much sense to leave your hands free, now would it?"

"I told you I wouldn't do that. You don't believe me?"

"I do. But I'm not going to risk LaPorte's ire by defying his direct instructions." He locked the cuffs on Pete's wrists. He ran a big hand over Pete's stubbly scalp and went off to his own bed.

Pete settled himself awkwardly down to lie on his side. The sand felt odd on his naked head. Wonder what I look like. Survivor from Auschwitz I bet. Shaved, naked, bony, hopeless.... Chained up -- even the collar's a hand-me-down from a pig. What the hell do they see here that gets them so turned on?

His master squinted across at him in the dim candlelight. He got up and tossed down a small homespun pillow. He gave Pete a little smile and went back to bed.

The pillow was better. "Thank you," Pete said, then added, "Master."