Seeing Stars Read online

  “That’s good to know. I tried on a SkinShield once and it wasn’t a great look.”

  Paul rolled his eyes. Suka wondered if he was regretting his impulse already and decided to hold back on the airy chit-chat.

  “So the toxic cloud has dispersed then? Completely?”

  “Yes, the final check didn’t pick anything up. You’ll like the Paladians. You’ll mourn their passing, I think. Incredible that such a cultured society should be wiped out by the intergalactic equivalent of those antisocial louts down the road. Makes you wonder about the future of the universe.”

  “Yes,” said Suka soberly. “It does.”

  They had reached the Teleportation Suite and Suka was being instructed to roll up her sleeve in readiness for the oxygen patch. The little round sticker was fixed to the crook of her elbow and she rolled her sleeve back down and watched Commander Paul as he raided various cupboards for measuring and information-gathering equipment. Once his small waist pack was full and secured to his belt, he gestured Suka forward, towards the Teleport Cubicle.

  She experienced a nanosecond of hesitation. This thing was going to take her body apart, cell by cell, and reconstitute it on the planet’s surface. It was an intimidating thought. But it was that, or back to Sector III, to work in some sealed-up tax office forever more. Reconstitution it was.

  Once inside the plexiglass booth, Suka was surprised when the remote and austere Commander Paul took hold of her hand and gripped it tight to his chest, as if to squeeze out every element of doubt or fear in her mind.

  “The first time is daunting,” he said softly. “I remember it well. You’re safe with me, Ensign. Just shut your eyes and let it happen.”

  She was shaking. She hadn’t even realised it, so full of trepidation and exultation had she been. Commander Paul’s comforting grip managed to send the right signals to her body, calming the worst of the shivers, bringing her into quiescence.

  She let his warmth and stability flow into her through the pores of her skin, reassuring her until she was barely aware of anything else but the strength of his presence.

  When the switch was flicked, she kept her eyes shut and clung on tight, feeling only a cramping disturbance in her stomach and groin area and a bit of pressure at the back of the neck before finding solid ground again, and different air in her lungs.

  Her eyes flew open and she stared, laughing the slightly hysterical laugh of somebody who had just staggered off a particularly nauseating fairground ride.

  “This is real!” she blurted between manic whoops.

  “Calm down,” Paul advised her, holding her shoulders steady until she recovered her composure. “Take a deep breath. You’ll get used to it in time. Well, I hope so.”

  “Sorry,” she said, subdued. “This isn’t very professional, is it?”

  “Oh, all the ensigns do it,” Paul said with a smile, releasing her. “You should have seen Lieutenant Prentiss his first time. He threw up on my boots.”

  Suka let a shout of laughter out. Lt Prentiss was an arrogant man who hated to show any sign of human vulnerability. “I can’t wait to tell Callil!” she crowed.

  “Don’t!” said Paul firmly. “It’s our secret, Suka. It goes no further.”

  She bit her lip, chastened, and took her first really comprehensive look around. The sky was almost like an Earth sky, except that it was overlaid with a sulphurous yellow tinge that bathed the landscape in a rather bleaching, unflattering light.

  The ground they stood on was dry and patched with small areas of prickly scrub. Nothing of interest, except to their colleagues the space naturalists, but in the distance, about half a mile away, was a scene that both Suka and Paul thought very interesting indeed.

  “Is that their capital city?”

  “Sevarium,” confirmed Paul. “The walled city. I think you should see it. You would find it of particular interest.”

  “Would I?” Suka frowned. “Why do you think that?”

  Paul took her arm and began to steer her through the scrubby thorn bushes.

  “I read your dissertation,” he said softly.

  Suka stopped dead for a moment, quaking with horror. “You…did?” she said. “Why would you do that?”

  “A few nights ago, I was pondering the thorny issue of your low-level rule-breaking, trying to come up with a strategy for dealing with it that wouldn’t disturb the workings of the crew or the ship too much. I had a read of your file. The title of your dissertation piqued my…curiosity, let’s say. I couldn’t resist logging on to the Academy’s archive and taking a look.”

  It seemed she was expected to respond to this revelation in some coherent way, when gibbering was pretty much all she was capable of.

  “Ah,” she said. “Did you…like it?”

  “I found it excellent. Very well researched and eloquently argued.”

  “It was a bit controversial. My supervisor almost refused to let me do it.”

  “I don’t think she was right. I don’t think our society has taken the right path on that issue at all.”

  “You don’t think urge-repression is a good thing?” Suka’s words fell over each other in their haste to get out.

  “Not always. Not that kind of urge. Yes, to some of the more extreme ones—the harmful ones. But this was a consensual practice. It should never have been outlawed.”

  “I’m…wow. I’ve never met anyone who agreed with me. All my friends were a bit freaked out when they read it.”

  “Conditioning.” Paul shrugged. “Repression. Who knows? Your dissertation struck me for two reasons.”

  “What reasons?”

  “One, it showed that you have an original mind. You don’t accept without question—yes, I know that’s what I ask you to do, but the context is different.”

  “And the other?”

  “You wanted to write about the practice of BDSM in the first place. After the banning, its apologists and practitioners were hounded, seen almost in the same light as paedophiles. You had to be brave to take the subject on. And, to strike up that kind of courage, you had to have a personal interest. Am I right?”

  “You’ll think I’m a freak,” muttered Suka.

  “No. I promise I don’t think that. I do find it amusingly ironic that a person with such an aversion to authority…well…am I right? Or is it because you want to dominate?”

  Suka caught her breath. “No! My dissertation was about the female submissive in bygone culture. I wrote about her because I felt close to her. I’m sorry, I can’t talk about this with you. I want the ground to open up…”

  They were at the city walls now, ready to pass through its enormous gate of overarching black marble.

  “I don’t,” said Paul softly, letting his grip on her arm tighten just a notch. “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather be exploring this city with.”

  Suka looked up at him with vivid interest, searching for reflections of herself in him, for signs that she was not alone. She thought she could see them. Could she really see them? Was there really a man who…?

  No. He was her commanding officer. It would be unethical anyway.

  She turned her face away again.

  “I can’t imagine why,” she said stonily.

  “Oh, I think you can,” he said with an odd little sigh. “Come on then. Let’s see the sights of Sevarium.”

  He dropped her arm, clapped his hands together decisively and strode beneath the archway at such a pace Suka had to trot to keep step with him.

  “It’s a bit like ancient Rome,” she offered breathlessly, looking around what appeared to be a large public square, like a forum, walled on all sides by public buildings, the fourth side inset with a second black marble arch. Wide, wide stony space under an ochre sky, stretching out for a good half-mile square, was the introduction to Sevarium. The space was partitioned by the colour of the stone, like a less chequered chessboard, and Suka wondered aloud what this signified.

  “Different usages,” said Paul, though it w
asn’t clear whether this was a guess or a statement of fact. “You can see that that area with all the flags was probably a market of some kind. There’s a stage over in the far corner.”

  They walked on, through the eerily empty expanse. Paladian bones were chemically constructed to dissolve and biodegrade, something Suka knew the Earth scientists were working to incorporate into humans. It was as if nobody had ever been here, Planet Marie Celeste. She felt nervousness at the pit of her stomach that wasn’t entirely down to the bizarre atmosphere of the dead metropolis. Commander Paul read my dissertation continued to flash through her mind in bright red alarm mode every now and then. He knows what I am.

  They stopped at the top-left corner of the square, where a small platform acted as plinth to what looked like some kind of sculpture. Crafted from a smooth obsidian-like mineral, it mimicked the crude outline of a humanoid shape, dark legs travelling upwards in an inverse V to a broad flat torso, with arms raised. The only thing missing was the head—at neck height, a padded semicircular dip curtailed the body’s progress. Suka and Paul, once on the platform to examine the installation more closely, noticed thin leather straps dangled from the knees, waist and wrists of the sculpture.

  “You know what this is?” Paul turned to Suka, seemingly expecting her to supply the answer.

  “I’m…not sure,” she hedged, though actually she had seen a picture of one of these in her copy of Peoples of the Outer Reaches. That chapter had been abandoned halfway through for Suka to dive beneath the covers and think about it in exquisite detail, fingers working busily inside her slicked sex lips.

  “Yes, you are,” contradicted Paul, one hand travelling down the defenceless left arm of the headless statue. “You know exactly what this is.” He turned and grinned, challenging her. “Don’t disappoint me. You aren’t usually so coy.”

  “It’s a whipping post,” said Suka, the thought of disappointing Paul somehow unbearable.

  “That’s right. The nobility of Sevarium underwent an interesting form of training. They believed that, to demand service, you first needed to experience it. To rule, you needed to understand how it felt to be ruled. Men and women alike, it must be said. They were equal opportunities deviants.”

  Suka laughed.

  “Judging by the height of this, it was the women’s post. Tell me what you know about this aspect of Paladian society, Suka. What have you read?”

  “Once a Paladian noble reached majority, they were put into the service of a Sevarian master or mistress. It was quite a harsh regime, I think. Training lasted three or four years…I can’t exactly remember. If they didn’t please the boss, they were whipped.”

  “Good thing we don’t operate that policy on the Ulysses IV, eh?” Paul smiled. “Or is it?”

  Suka’s cheeks burned. She was uncomfortably damp between her legs at the thought of standing on the whipping platform as it was, and her trousers felt too tight all of a sudden. If Paul was going to personalise all this, she was going to end up coming then and there, right in front of him. She wondered what the Federation penalty for that was. Nothing as exciting as a whipping, obviously.

  Paul began searching the deck, looking for something he eventually found beneath a loose plank of the platform. It had an ornate, marbled handle and six stiff leather tails. A whip.

  “Ah,” said the Commander, swishing the thing through the air.

  Suka was transfixed. An actual whip. In the Commander’s hands, it looked so deadly and sexy that her knees began to feel as if they might give way. She held on to the sculpture, wrapping an arm around its waist for support.

  “Commander Paul,” she ventured faintly, pressing her body into the cool, sleek embrace of the whipping post.

  “Mm-hmm?” he replied absently, running fascinated fingers along the whip strands, curling them around and around.

  “Are we…observable? From the Ulysses?”

  He looked up sharply. “No. This is a low-risk mission. Visual satellite link has not been enabled.”

  “I see.” She fitted her chin over the padded neck rest. Exactly the right height.

  “Why?” Paul’s arch question hung in the air, seemingly laden with hope to Suka’s oversensitive ears.

  She spread her legs to fit the sculpture’s inverse V and raised her arms up, pressed in a close embrace with the whipping post. It felt too good, wickedly good. She knew she ought to take a step back, recover her wits and ignore her senses, but this was too intoxicating to resist. She was a young Paladian noblewoman, in the service of a strict lord who looked highly reminiscent of Commander Paul…and she had failed in her duties…and now the price must be paid…in front of the populace. There they would stand, all around her, munching on hot snacks from the nearby market, jostling and catcalling, remarking on her physical attributes.

  Her master would approach, whip in hand, and then…

  She flinched as something—it could only be the handle of the whip—came to rest at the small of her back.

  “Suka.” Paul’s voice, in her ear, saying her given name, was so intimate that she shivered. “I asked you a question. Why did you ask whether we could be seen?”

  She gripped the top of the model, where the hands were meant to rest, and thought that, perhaps if she wasn’t looking directly at Paul, she might be able to say this.

  “Because I can’t help thinking…this chance will never come again…”

  “You may well be right. But I’m your commanding officer. If it ever gets out that I—”

  “It won’t. It wouldn’t. Ever.”

  “And I have certain principles to which I must adhere. I can’t just go giving in to my base desires.”

  “Just this once…”

  “Especially with an ensign. It’s an abuse of power. An abuse of privilege.”

  “I want you to abuse your power. I will do anything if you’ll just abuse your power, just today, just this once, please.”

  “Then ask me for it. There must be no ambiguity at all. Tell me what you want me to do.”

  “Please whip me, Sir. Please tie me to this thing and whip me hard.”

  “All right,” he whispered, bending to strap her legs to the post. “I can do that.”

  Suka could hear the roar of the phantom crowd as her wrists and waist were firmly secured. Probably in Paladian practice her bottom would be bared, but Commander Paul did not go so far as that, leaving the thin, skintight trousers in position—not that their super-lightweight microfibres would afford much protection.

  She tried to regulate her breathing, but the sound of Paul’s boots pacing up and down the platform behind her was making her pussy convulse and her hips squirm and writhe against their bonds. Oh, please, get on with it, she pleaded silently, but at the same time, the way he drew out the anticipation was so deliciously cruel she found herself getting even hotter.

  “So then, Ensign,” he said gently, and Suka felt the faint tickle of those leather strands travelling across her bottom, making her squeak. “We have issues to address, don’t we?”

  “Yes, Sir,” she exhaled.

  “Disobedience will not be tolerated in my service. I am going to show you what your petty rebellions have earned you. I hope the lesson will be learned. Ready?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  The maddening tickles withdrew and there was a moment of pure tension before the air sang with the sound of flying leather then a starburst of heated sting lit up Suka’s behind.

  “Ahh,” she cried brokenly, finding the sensation at once better and worse than her imagination had prepared her for. She worked hard on processing and assessing it, letting the burn sink into her skin before she came to her final conclusion.

  Paul held back. “Yes?” he murmured. “More?”

  She nodded. “Please. More.”

  Then he did not hold back. The lash fell again and again on Suka’s tautly-clothed rear, opening the door of the chamber she had considered forbidden for so long, letting her sensual self out of its prison. Simu
ltaneously she blessed and cursed Paul’s strength, stamina and disciplinarian determination. He left no portion of her bottom or thighs unscathed, whipping the strands with expert precision from the crest of her buttocks to the tops of her knees, searing the tender skin until Suka feared it might crack, so tight and swollen did it feel.

  As the lash fell, so did Suka, into a maelstrom of passionate submission from which she was not sure she could ever emerge. This was life now, this was her—one helpless subject, beneath her master’s whip hand.

  It took a few moments for her to realise he had stopped. Her bottom and thighs continued to pulse with urgent heat and she had writhed herself into exhausted passivity. She wondered why her face was wet then realised she had been crying. She hung, loose and infinitely relaxed in her bonds, finally understanding the meaning of the word catharsis.

  Paul’s hand landed on her shoulder, light and reassuring.

  “Did I go too far?” he asked abruptly, beginning to untie her.

  “No,” she gasped. “No. Oh no.”

  Once untethered, she collapsed into his arms, seeking a comfort he seemed to provide instinctively, holding her close and burying his face in her hair, letting the tears flow until the sobs subsided and she lay, quiet and peaceful, in his embrace.

  “I think I got a bit carried away,” he said with a rueful little catch in his voice. “I’m sorry if I—”

  “No, you don’t have to be sorry. I know what I’ve been missing now. Something amazing. I’m so grateful to you. So grateful, and I’ll never forget it.”

  “Shh,” he soothed, tightening his hold on her. “It’s me who should be thanking you. I’m the one who should be grateful.”

  “Hmm?” She looked up at him, daring to hope this hadn’t all been a little treat for her sole benefit.

  “We’re mirror images of each other, Suka, when it comes to these practices. Do you think I didn’t enjoy that—more than I legally should? Eh?” He smiled indulgently, and a little fearfully. “What you like to receive, I like to give. Always have. Urge-repression will never change that.”