Chapter 10

"I'm home!" Troy gasped and looked behind her just as the archway disappeared into a lush tropical rainforest.

"Do you like it?" I asked, smiling at the joy on her face when she looked upward.

She'd come from a moon in the Sarabai System, a large one about the size of Earth that circled a gas giant much like Jupiter. The planet dominated the night sky with swirls of orange, yellow, and red, casting a golden light through the canopy high above. The trees were thick and growing hundreds of feet high. The ground had been covered with a thick carpet of freshly fallen leaves so that it felt as if we were walking on foam and Troy had already removed her slippers.

"Yes, Master!" she gushed, giggling as she danced through the brush, mainly thick shrubs with orchids blooming black and red and every color in between.

"I'm glad," I said. "I'll keep this place just for you."

"What? I don't understand." She glanced at me over her shoulder and then began to call out in her native tongue.

"Troy," I said, running to catch up with her and she'd already found the edge of the room. She pressed her hands against the wall as if it were made of glass and the jungle continued on the other side of it.

"Where are my parents?" she asked in her sweet, lilting accent. "My village is just over there, on the other side of the river."

"We're still on the ship," I told her and she laughed lightly and called out again.

I watched as she followed the wall around the room and the slave I'd bought from Vonald had to be the most magnificent creature I'd ever laid eyes on. She certainly ranked among the most attractive females Tristam had encountered and if Srah seemed perfect to me, and she did, then magnificent had to be the only word for Troy. Marcia looked pretty and my mother decidedly beautiful, but my two alien slaves were beyond description. Three, if you counted Esya, but he wasn't a slave, merely my page.

Perhaps I found Troy so breathtaking precisely because she wasn't from Earth. I hadn't exactly sorted out my feelings on the subject, but sometimes I felt as if I'd never really belonged among my own kind. Marcia felt the same way and she was convinced of our destiny, that we'd always been meant just for this. To escape Earth and live among the stars with aliens and live less ordinary lives. Sometimes I believed her, but not always. Lots of times I figured we were just really lucky.

"Troy..." I caught up with her again and she'd stopped laughing. "We're not on your world. It's just a garden and up there, the sky is just a hologram."

"But my parents..."

"They're not here," I said. "We're alone. Just you and me, okay?"

"This is a trick?" She swallowed hard and blinked her large, dark eyes. "You're making fun of me now?"

"No," I sighed, stepping closer and putting my hands on her hips.

"I'm sorry." She lowered her head. "I forgot."

"You forgot what?"

"My father sold me," she said. "My brother is getting married. Sons are important. I'm happy he sold me to you."

"Would you like me to send you home?" I asked and only a human would have asked her that, and only one from my particular time and place, I suppose.

"You would return me?"

"If you want me to," I said.

"No." Troy blinked rapidly and shook her head. "I would rather die than shame my family that way."

"I didn't mean..."

"Why would you punish me like that?" she demanded as tears filled her eyes.

"I'm not..."

"Have I angered you?" she asked. "I didn't mean to. I'm sorry, Master."

Troy went to her knees, pressing her wet cheek against my tunic and I stroked her black hair, so fine that it felt like a shadow beneath my fingers. I'd only meant to make her happy and she'd gotten angry. I'd tried again and now she was crying. A part of me, Tristam, must have been amused at my frustration because I couldn't help but smile. I'd lived some fifty lifetimes, even more than that, and I still didn't understand women.

"So? How was she, my Lord?" Ransom asked. "Feisty, I'll wager. Virgins always are."

"I didn't fuck her," I told him, pulling my sword and tossing the scabbard onto a table with a clatter.

"Why not?" He drew his own sword. "You could have bought a whorehouse for the price you paid."

"Don't remind me." I chuckled and held my sword en parte, offering the black giant a bow.

"I wonder if Lady Helena has found a use for hers." Ransom grinned and held up his saber. "Whenever you're ready, my Lord."

We fought side by side for an hour, battling an endless hoard of Raltese pirates. They were only holograms, of course, and their skills were somewhat lackluster, but the point was the work. They were good exercise and that's precisely what I needed. The real workout came after a short rest, when I faced Ransom and I always looked forward to testing myself that way.

"You're getting better, my Lord," Ransom said, panting the words as he leapt away from my saber.

"I feel better," I agreed, feinting at his left thigh before turning the blade upwards.

He could be surprisingly quick for such a large man, but even so, Ransom barely parried the cut to his abdomen. My problem wasn't my considerable skill or superb technique, but rather a lack of coordination. I'd never excelled at sports or any sort of physical activity more strenuous than watching Saturday morning cartoons. Thankfully, several grueling workouts everyday for three weeks had gone a long way towards fixing that.

I wasn't nearly as proficient as I'd been in the prime of my previous life, but I'd get there eventually. For the moment it was enough that I could hold my own against Ransom for nearly twenty minutes before he slipped past my guard and gave my shoulder a cold, stinging kiss to remember him by.

"Fuck!" I winced, looking at my tunic and feeling the blood flowing inside it. "Ouch."

"Just a scratch, my Lord." Ransom took a deep breath, looking at his sword and the small red stain on the tip.

"I need more practice," I sighed. "Jericho, send the doctor in."

"You should rest once in awhile," my friend told me, cleaning his blade before sheathing it. "Take a day off. You're pushing yourself too hard."

"No." I picked up my scabbard and sheathed my saber as Dr. Esyaseyayas walked into the room, looking blue and handsome as ever. "I've got to get into shape before we go home."

"With your permission..." the doctor said, reaching for my tunic and undoing the buttons. "You could wear armor, my Lord."

"And what excuse would we have then?" I asked him with a smile, reaching up to touch his face.

"Get in shape for Mercia? Why?" Ransom asked, sitting down as Esya poured cold water from a perspiring carafe. "Who do you want to impress?"

"Nobody," I sighed, examining the doctor's lush, pink mouth with my thumb while he closed the wound to my shoulder.

"All better," he said in his sing-song voice. "Does my Lord require anything else?"

"Oh yes," I breathed, sliding my hand behind his head and pulling his mouth to mine.

Dr. Yes had to bend over, being nearly a foot taller than me, and I liked to give myself to him. The same way I'd enjoyed being used by Billy and his friends, or dominated by Mr. Moore, I liked it best when the good doctor would take advantage of my small size. I wanted him to treat me like a teenage faggot hungry for sexual attention. He'd taken some convincing though, as he came from a world called Eyas for short, the full name being much too long to pronounce, let alone remember.

Anyway, the Eyasians were never a dominant race; they'd developed a serene, pacific nature and dedicated themselves to the service of others. They made the most wonderful servants, as you can imagine, and aside from being among the finest dancers, musicians, and artists in the galaxy, they'd elevated medicine to an art form all its own. Talking Dr. Yes into having his way with me had been a challenge, but once he had a better understanding of what I desired from him...

"Turn around," he whispered, already tugging at my breeches to expose my shapely ass.

"Yessss..." I moaned, finding the table where my sword lay and the doctor pushed me over it.

He worked my pants down around my knees and I spread my legs as far as possible. I looked over my shoulder at him, drinking in his silver eyes and hair, his pale blue face turning darker with excitement as he freed his penis. This had become our daily ritual, after my evening workouts with Ransom when I'd invariably need his professional attention. Dr. Yes would take care of my wound and I'd drain his heavy balls, sometimes with my mouth and other times with my ass. We liked it both ways and I left it to his discretion.

On this particular night, he wanted to fuck me quick and deep. The alien pushed me down with his left hand, holding me by the back of my neck as he rubbed his erection between the cheeks of my ass. Dr. Yes had a huge cock too! Ten inches long and thick, hard as steel and already dripping with clear precum much like a human penis would. It was thin and watery, tasteless as well, and it made his entry much easier as I tried to relax around the discomfort of being stretched around him.

"Don't hold your breath." Ransom chuckled, sipping his water and watching us. "I've heard that only makes it worse."

"Tha-anks! Ugh!" I grunted as the doctor popped the smooth head of his prick past my sphincter. "Fuck! Me! That feels ... Ugh! Good!"

"For me as well, my Lord," Dr. Yes breathed, pausing with only an inch or two of fat cock stretching my hole.

Now that he had me firmly impaled on his prick, he reached beneath me to find my flat chest and I loved his hands. Doctor hands, so amazingly soft and gentle and he knew exactly where and how to touch me. I closed my eyes and wriggled my butt, screwing my asshole onto his erection while he pinched and pulled at my sensitive nipples. Dr. Yes didn't move his hips at all, he didn't fuck me, but let me do all the work for him. I pushed myself backwards eagerly, grinding my burning rectum on his swollen prick as he slid deeper into my gut.

"I'm still curious why you're so worried about your fencing," Ransom said, and I think he rather enjoyed idle conversation while I was busy fucking someone.

"Ummm huh!" I gasped as the doctor decided to give me a little push, taking twin handfuls of my boy tits and tugging me onto his cock.

I still had merely half of his cock inside me and my own was only semi-hard at best, small and pink and drooling precum onto my thighs as it flopped around. My balls ached, however, the sperm inside eager to escape the pressure in my ass. He eased back a fraction of an inch and pushed again, shoving my tender muscles aside as they burned in protest. It must have felt good for him though. Dr. Yes began pumping me like a bitch, fucking his cock deeper into my boy cunt while I jerked beneath him. I arched my back and rocked my hips, nodding my head as I breathed heavily through my nose.

"If I didn't know better," Ransom continued, "I'd think you were preparing for a duel."

"Give me your mouth," the doctor whispered, leaning over me as I turned my head.

His tongue pushed past my lips and I played my own against it, welcoming his passionate kiss with a soft moan. Dr. Yes wasn't completely inside me, not yet, but already I felt his cockhead massaging my prostate with electric jolts of pleasure. I shivered as he strained to get the last inch of his huge prick past my puffy anus. He pulled halfway out and thrust into me hard, his precum easing the friction and making it good for him, but my asshole throbbed as his prick tore into my bowels. The alien's silver haired scrotum and low hanging balls slapped my own and he held us like that for a moment, plainly enjoying the sensation of my hot, tight ass wrapped lovingly around his cock.

"Hmmm ... Like Nurse Seyasesa," he breathed. "Such a delight to fuck you, my Lord."

"But a duel with whom? That's the question," Ransom sighed and then chuckled. "It vexes me, my Lord. It truly does."

"Mmmph..." I couldn't answer with the doctor's long, pink tongue once again filling my mouth.

The discomfort in my ass had given way to something else entirely as he rocked himself gently in and out, fucking me with the full length of his penis. He'd pull back slowly until just the glans remained inside and then tease me with one long push, sliding his cock between the clasping walls of my rectum and deeper, bending the curving channel of my fuck hole to accommodate his steely shaft. Dr. Yes was undoubtedly the monster fuck of my young life, being mature and patient and restrained. He could fuck me for an hour if he felt like it, of that I had no doubt. The man, so typical of his altruistic race, only cared about one thing – making me feel as good as possible.

"Has someone insulted your honor, my Lord?" Ransom asked and then answered himself a moment later. "No. I would have heard about that."

"Do you want to cum?" Dr. Yes asked me, reaching down to find my penis and he wrapped his wonderfully soft fingers around the flaccid shaft.

"Yeah," I breathed, pulling at the muscles in my gut and squeezing my asshole around his cock. "Jerk me off while you fuck me ... Harder. Uh-huh. Fuck my ass ... God! Fuck me!"

"You're not planning on insulting anyone," Ransom said. "Are you? Hmmm ... It would have to be a good one, my Lord. Not many people would demand satisfaction from the Lord High Marshal, not without a very good reason."

"Ohhhh..." I sighed as my penis grew longer in the doctor's hand, thicker with my arousal and precum spilled across his fingers.

He jerked me off in time with his thrusting hips, slapping my ass with his pale blue flesh at a steady pace. Dr. Yes fucked me like a machine, turning my ass into a boy cunt for our pleasure. My bruised anus slid back and forth along his sleek shaft, so beautifully hard beneath the satin skin covering it. His natural juices oiled the tight throat of my rectum and it wasn't going to take me long to cum. He pulled on my dick faster, picking up the pace as I hunched my hips and fucked his fist; fucking his cock with my horny ass. I gasped and groaned, grinding my faggot pussy onto his dick like a whore.

"Now what could you possibly say to someone that would..."

"Having a nice workout, my Lord?" Lady Helena of Cepheus interrupted Ransom with a shake of her head. "I've been trying to reach you for twenty minutes."

"He's been indisposed," Ransom replied with a chuckle. "Have a seat, my Lady. We've been discussing his upcoming duel."

"What duel? With whom?" she asked, not sitting at all, but standing on the other side of the table so she could see my face while Dr. Yes fucked me.

"That's what he won't tell me," the black giant replied. "My Lord does enjoy his little games."

"Hmph." Helena didn't even smile, but only tilted her hips and crossed her arms over her small, enticing breasts. She wore black again, that leather catsuit that she loved to tease me with, and I'll admit that I'd grown fond of it myself.

"What are you two talking about?" I panted, trying to hold back my orgasm. "Oh! Uhhh..."

Too late. Dr. Yes had given me one last pull, sliding his wet fingers along my prick to coax the sperm from my balls. My ass spasmed around his cock and he surrendered as well, loosing a flood of thin alien cum into my ass and unlike humans, Eyasian males ejaculate their semen by the pint. It has something to do with the females of the species whose vaginas fill up like water balloons. They keep the semen inside them for hours, holding it inside a reproductive bladder like piss until they decide to use the bathroom and let it go.

It felt wonderful for me, sort of like a hot enema as I could feel my bowels expanding against the pressure. I didn't have an ass bladder, however, and as soon as the doctor pulled his cock from my rectum, his cum poured out of my gaping asshole, down my legs and mostly onto my breeches as they were stretched taut between my knees. That's the only problem with fucking blue aliens, they made a real mess of it at the end.

"Lady Preston is enroute from Windham." Helena walked with me through my apartments. "Are you alright, my Lord?"

"I'm just a little sore," I replied, moving along gingerly with my legs slightly bowed beneath the scarlet robe I'd donned. "What were you saying?"

"The Lady Preston is returning aboard a diplomatic shuttle..."

"Why would she do that?" I asked, entering the baths and finding all four of my slaves there. It had become their favorite room.

"Her last communication was vague," Helena continued. "But apparently the Marquis has made certain proposals and desires that they be delivered in person."

"Master." Srah looked up from the edge of the pool where she straddled my mother's thighs.

"Hmmm..." Bambi opened her blue eyes and smiled at me, lying on her tummy while the hermaphrodite massaged her firm, round butt.

On the opposite side, the other two were indulging in the same pleasurable exercise. Troy lay on her belly, arms crossed under her cheek, while Marcia poured oil onto her golden back. The bath itself formed a round, marble pool with steps leading into the steaming water. An ornate fountain stood at the edge opposite the archway, a nude woman pouring water from a pitcher. The walls were covered with a mosaic of small, brightly colored tiles. Flowering plants filled the humid air with their natural perfumes and soft music played from nowhere in particular.

And people wondered if I missed Earth?

"Orion!" Marcia grinned and slapped Troy's ass with her slippery hands as she started to get up.

"No..." I waved her back down. "Stay there. I just want to watch you while I soak."

She pouted playfully and reached for the oil as Esya helped me out of my robe. He'd followed us from the gymnasium, of course, and his sole job seemed to be following me around. I didn't mind because he looked so beautiful, even effeminate in his delicate face and lithe body. Only his pale blue cock and hairless scrotum offered proof that he wasn't a girl and I wondered for the hundredth time if he wouldn't give himself to me completely. I knew he would.

"Don't just stand there, Helena..." I smiled over my shoulder as I stepped into the pool. "Take off your clothes and join me."

"Lady Preston will arrive in about twelve hours, my Lord." She sat down on a marble bench and ignored my suggestion. "You may wish to consider drafting a note."

"A list of grievances against our wayward noblesse?" I sat down carefully, feeling a dull ache in my rectum, but the hot bath proved very soothing.

"The Marquis holds over six hundred systems," she reminded me. "We've indulged a policy of appeasement and it's made him greedy for more. He's been withholding resources, increasing taxes, negotiating trade agreements without consulting the Empire..."

"That does sound greedy," I said absently, finding Srah's uncircumcised penis much more interesting than the politics I already knew by heart. She slid it between the cleft of my mother's ass, dripping golden precum while she massaged the woman's shoulders. I'd given her permission to use Bambi's mouth and asshole as she desired, but the woman's fertile womb was off limits for the time being.

"He's clearly been holding back technology," Helena continued. "Lord Chasse believes the Marquis likely supported Horus in the recent coup attempt."

"He has evidence?" I asked and my own cock had grown stiff beneath the water.

They were a work of art, Srah and Bambi together; a beautiful sculpture come to life. Esya stood nearby in case I needed anything and I had half a mind to call him into the water, but I liked being alone for the moment and surrounded by temptation. Helena could have joined me though; I wouldn't have said no to that and I liked the way her red hair fell across her left shoulder and curled beneath her breasts. She'd crossed her long legs and the leather gleamed as it grew damp with sweat. The room was kept sultry and Helena's oriental face had taken on a faint emerald hue thanks to her green blood.

"No, my Lord," Helena admitted. "Nothing concrete as yet, but Horus had made it clear he supported greater autonomy for Windham."

"No. I meant the technology," I said. "Have we gotten any confirmation on these new ships Windham's building?"

"We've established a listening post near the Spencer Rift," she said. "Secretly, of course; military intelligence believes that Windham's constructed a facility beyond the Mask of Demetrios."

"If one wanted to hide a fleet, that would be a good place to do it," I sighed. "Give me a map of Windham."

Looking at the chart floating above the pool, it made sense. Windham's space occupied some six hundred systems along the outer limit of the Spinward March. The Spencer Rift yawned like a doorway, tearing a gap through a huge nebula which formed a wall along the frontier. No ship could traverse it without having her sensors fouled by the radiation and there wasn't any good reason to try. There simply wasn't anything on the other side but the vast void between the Milky Way and its nearest neighbor, the galaxy known as Andromeda, a faint spiral some two million light years distant.

"We've had confirmed reports of traffic moving through the Rift," Helena told me. "Bulk carriers, construction fleets, but no mining or survey craft."

"And the technology..."

"We believe they've made a breakthrough in graviton technology," she said. "Chasse has penetrated a number of research facilities, but none of them have been able to give us reliable data."

"Then why are we thinking gravity?"

"The Natural Sciences Lab at Klamath University has been monitoring temporal seismic activity."

"What exactly does that mean?"

"Fluctuations in space-time," Helena explained. "The university published data suggesting that they've detected artificial distortion of extragalactic origin."

"From the other side of the Rift, I suppose?"

"Yes, my Lord."

"And so we're assuming Windham's developed graviton technology based on ... What? A single paper written by some nutty professor?" I took a deep breath and physics had never been a strength of mine. Of the seven known dimensions, gravity was the simplest and therefore the most difficult for the layman to understand.

"Nutty?" Helena frowned.

"Are we too paranoid?" I wondered, not bothering to explain and she let it go with a rare smile.

"Too paranoid is an oxymoron."

"One of my many talents." I smiled back at her. "Secession is what the Marquis wants. Their loyalty to the Empire has always been questionable."

"As you say, my Lord." Helena nodded, happy that I was seeing things her way for a change. "They surrendered too quickly. I've never trusted this so-called alliance."

"Politics," I sighed and we shared a look of agreement.

Before its first contact with the Empire, the Windham system had forged a small kingdom all its own. They'd developed faster than light travel and over the previous thousand years had colonized a hundred nearby star systems, including a dozen that were inhabited with intelligent, although technically inferior humanoid races.

Talis had taken Windham and its holdings largely intact and all at once, a rare event that had occasioned much excitement at the capital. The Emperor, through the Duchess, had been inclined to be generous in light of the unexpected windfall. The ruler of Windham had been given hereditary titles and additional systems to rule as the Marquis de Windham. He and his new counts and barons had pledged their fealty to the Empire, but all the while plotting to increase their wealth and power.

Windham had the advantage of being on the frontier, at the edge of known space as the Empire continued to expand. Nearer the core, their treachery would have been snipped at the bud, but out here the influence of Windham's nobility offered too much advantage to be easily replaced. There were always other, greater problems that required the Empire's attention and so Talis had relied upon negotiation and threats, taking a long view and making her endless preparations for the inevitable.

Too soon, the inevitable stood upon our doorstep.

"Would you sell yourself to me?" I asked Esya, whispering into his ear as I held him from behind.

We were practicing our swordplay, or practicing his, at any rate. I had my left arm around his thin waist, my right hand holding his wrist as he held a foil. The instruction was merely an excuse, however, and we were dancing more than anything else. We even had music, a bright march written five thousand years before, and it offered a steady, perfect cadence to our motion.

His platinum hair seemed to flow like quicksilver around his naked shoulders and my erection pressed against the boy's ass. His own stiff penis bobbed up and down while we moved and I'd have to take him before too much longer. Esya didn't turn his head, but concentrated on the apparition before us, the hologram of a Zhouk Duelist, a professional assassin who relied upon social convention to lure his prey to an honorable death. Their tongues were said to be as sharp as their blades.

This one in particular had been dead some two hundred years, but I liked to remember him. It had been a good fight and he'd nearly had me, but in the end the tarnished repute of a certain young baroness had been repaired. I'd borne her husband no grudge for hiring the knave and returned the woman a fortnight later, only slightly worse for wear with my bastard growing in her belly.

"I'll give you a fair price," I told Esya, pulling his arm down to parry a thrust at his groin. The Zhouk had a sense of humor.

"My Lord, I'd give myself to you for the asking."

"That would be too much like stealing," I replied with a kiss on his cheek. "Five thousand?"

"My Lord!"

"Too little?" I teased him and the boy blushed, his cheeks turning violet with warmth. "Name your beneficiary."

"It's too much," he whispered as I let go of his wrist, sliding my hand along his arm.

"Not for the things I want to do to you," I sighed, holding his chest and rubbing one of Esya's dark nipples with my thumb. The lovely boy had captivated my desire and I enjoyed having a lover my own age physically; small and delicate, like a Grecian youth so often idolized back on Earth.

"I have no one else, my Lord. The Chief Steward employs me."

"Aren't you curious?"

"Yes," he said with a hard swallow and we were no longer moving; the hologram had disappeared.

"I want to turn you into a girl." I kissed his silken hair and found his neck, biting his supple flesh gently. "Mostly."

"Mostly?" Esya shivered as I kissed his shoulders.

I kissed my way down his spine, going to my knees and pushing his legs wide. I bit his right cheek, nibbling his ripe flesh while I pushed and pulled at his ass. I parted the wonderful cleavage guarding his anus and the boy looked like a girl, smelled and tasted like one. I pressed my nose to his sweet hole and his kissed his balls, extending my tongue and lapping at Esya's scrotum from behind. His cock throbbed in my hand as I reached around him blindly, stroking him off while I brought my kisses to his pink sphincter.

He bent his knees and then his waist for me, finally sinking to his hands and knees. Esya's forgotten foil clattered across the floor as I mounted him quickly. I caressed his pouting bud with my cock and pushed the blunt head into his boy pussy with one quick thrust of my hips. I felt him as hot and tight as any cunt I'd ever fucked, dry as well, but not terribly and not for long. I held the boy's slender hips and pulled him onto me with a sharp yelp. He arched his back, jerking as if he might get away, but instead he pushed himself backwards and my erection disappeared completely.

"Don't move," I breathed, stroking his back and soothing him. "Just relax, take a deep breath and tell me you want to be my slave."

"My Lord..." Esya whispered, not looking at me but dropping his head so that his hair swept the floor. "Master, I want to be your slave."

"If you want something from me," I told him. "This is the time to ask. Once I pay for you..."

"I know," he replied. "Promise me that you'll never sell me."

"That's all you want?"

"Yes, my ... Master."

"I'll set your free before I'd ever sell you," I agreed. "I promise you that, Esya."

"Thank you, Master ... Ummmm ... Ugh!" he grunted loudly as I'd pulled my penis back and then drove it into his rectum to punctuate our deal.

That's how easy it could be to buy or become a slave. He could have asked me anything, agreed to any specific length of service. It was a negotiation and if he'd said no, I wouldn't have punished him. Doubtless there are slaves in the Empire who do not wish to be, but for the vast majority it's a position they seek knowingly, or at least accept when the opportunity arises. And they were all different. Srah wanted to be a slave because it's all she knew; she couldn't imagine another existence. Troy had become a slave to help her family. Marcia because she loved me. Bambi because ... Well, as I said, not all slaves are willing and she wasn't complaining anyway. Not anymore.