Chapter 1: Crystal

-- Earth time: 2095--

I was sitting on the balcony overlooking my domain.

As cities went, it wasn’t huge, I had about two hundred and fifty thousand subjects this time around. This wasn’t my first visit on this planet. The ancient city made new, could easily support twice that number, but the people who lived here were long-lived and slow breeders. I’ve been stuck in Opal City for close on thirty years this time.

I had first come to this planet a thousand years before in its history. I’ve spent some time on each of the other continents. However, to my frustration and ire, my city is the only shielded city that has ever admitted me.

I had obtained my first magical item when I was sixteen, but I didn’t know that it was magical at the time. ‘A nutty Aunt’, as I thought of the woman had given it to me. The woman, calling herself Auntie Adina, had turned up out of the blue on the first of September 2052. My mother couldn’t even remember if she was or wasn’t related to us.

I’d not been real happy when the stupid bitch pushed the stud through my ear without even warning me. It had friggin hurt. If it weren’t for the fact, that it had held a beautiful pink topaz, I’d have hit the stupid bitch for using the method of insertion that she had. I sure told her of my opinion at the time.

My so called Aunt had tutted at me and warned me that I needed to learn better self-control or I could end up in a lot of trouble later in life. She hadn’t stayed long, thank goodness. She was a terrible embarrassment. I had to laugh her off to my friends. Why on Earth did she have to wear a weird hippy style dress and beads?

I didn’t understand until much later some of the power in the ear stud. I believe that the first time that it helped me was later that night when my stepfather, Brian, came to give me his present. I still shudder at the memories of him.

For some reason, that night I confronted him. I’d not done that in a long while. I was amazed when he had backed out of my room. He never entered it or touched me again while I lived under his roof.

I had seen fear in his eyes for the first time that night.

I found my thoughts regressing to when Brian first came into my life.

My mother, Sue Walsh, had met Brian who was from Melbourne on one of her flights as an Airline Hostess when I had been around two years of age. Mum had been looking for a rich hubby and had found one. However, Brian had turned out to be an arsehole.

We had moved to Melbourne and at first, the bloke seemed okay. While I’d been in nappies and then at primary school, he had pretty much ignored me. I had my own section of the mansion and a live-in nanny.

Brian and mum spent a lot of time entertaining and tripping off all over the world. So I didn’t see a lot of them in my formative years. The name of the nanny seemed to change about every year or so, and while I learnt to manipulate them, after about the fourth one, I stopped bothering to get close to them.

My two constants in my childhood had been Dingo my Alsatian dog and Gilly the grounds keeper. I had spent a lot of time outside with them. My mum mostly only paid me attention when Brian wasn’t around. He often went on short business trips without her, but he took her with him on the longer ones.

When I was thirteen, things changed. I was tall for my age, very slim and had constantly been told that I was beautiful. You get told something enough, and you believe it too. My mother had inadvertently brought me to Brian’s attention. She wanted to send me to a prestigious boarding school to complete my years of high school.

Brian suddenly started paying more attention to me over those holidays. At first, I had liked being noticed. He started including me in their adult company, and he took me clothes shopping. He insisted I dress more like a young lady than as a teenage girl, and he bought me expensive little gifts.

It would have been all right except for the touching, and I had to kiss his lips to say thank you. I was also flattered by the attention he was lavishing on me, so I played the game to get what I wanted until the first night he visited me in my room.

Mum had started letting herself go a bit around this time, and I soon realised that mum didn’t like Brian’s sudden interest in me. I think she suspected what he was doing, but she never said anything to him or me in my hearing.

They started having, even more, fights than they’d had in the past. Sometimes they would even end up physical, and I often worried about Brian’s temper, it was one of the reasons I didn’t say anything.

I had noticed that if he hit mum, it seemed to excite him and the fights always ended up in the in the bedroom. Mum always ended up with a little gift the next day and a more loving Brian for a few days. Mum even started spending more time on getting back into shape, to please Brian. Despite her efforts to distract him, it hadn’t stopped Brian visiting me.

However, Mum did get her way, and I found myself packed off to a posh girl’s only boarding school. I’m still in two minds if this made things better or worse for me. I suppose you have to look at things in context.

The first year had been the pits as far as being at an all girl’s schools go, but boarding school had also become my haven. I soon learned to be the Top Bitch, was the only way to survive. My step-father’s money helped me a lot, as I had the best of everything and made bloody sure I did.

I quickly learned to perfect my skills in how to lie, buy and or connive my way out of shitty tasks. All those different nannies had come in handy for something. I learnt the power of rumours and innuendoes to control those around me and to make sure I stayed the Top Bitch.

By the end of that first year, the other girls had learned not to mess with me. I always seemed to be nice to everyone, but you didn’t want to be on my shit list. I’d used my brains, charms and looks to get my own way. To survive, I perfect those assets.

Oddly, the one thing I didn’t have to pretend to be good at was school work. I’d always had a brilliant memory. The fact I pulled top grades made me popular with the teachers, and I was always sweet and nice to them. It had its benefits.

My formidable memory helped me to keep my lies straight. I always made sure there was enough truth in any lie that people believed my version of the truth. The two people I couldn’t lie to were Gilly and myself. Gilly always saw through my lies, he was my rock.

Gilly was a bit of a crusty old bugger, but I did love him. He was always there for me and didn’t take my shit. He was the one person I didn’t have to pretend to be something I wasn’t with. When I was stressed, I always felt better just by being with him. I could tell him almost anything, except about Brian.

At the school, I’d participated in sports. I was athletic enough with my lithe frame to do well here too. I’d been the lead in the school plays since my first year, and I could play any instrument I put my hands on. I loved to escape my shitty life by getting into the characters of the plays and my music.

Brian, however, still scared the hell out of me. After my first holiday at home, I couldn’t wait to get back to school. The holidays that followed didn’t get any better as I got older. I’d find any excuse or excursion so I didn’t have to go home.

When I turned fourteen, Brian had threatened to pull me out of school. He wanted greater access to me now I was starting to develop into a woman, but thankfully, mum sided with me that I had to stay at the school.

Mum had used the argument of how it would look to his friends. That they would all think I’d been expelled, or worse that he had money difficulties. I had made sure that I was friends with several daughters of his business partners and he had to agree to leave me at school. I didn’t have to remind him that it was good for his business for us girls to be friends.

During the months that I was at school, I had begun to suspect Brian had been turning his interest in teenage girls elsewhere since I wasn’t home. Some of the arguments he and Sue had when I was home, that were almost a nightly ritual, reinforced this belief. He still made use of me when I was home.

He’d tell me I was his favourite girl and that he loved me before he fucked me. I’d been racking my brains how to stop him, but he was careful. I’d even tried recording him abusing me, but he always turned off everything electronic or electrical in my room before he did. He always made the room as dark as possible.

If he found anything recording him, he smacked me around and then used me hard. The arsehole always took me shopping the next day and brought me something expensive to apologise for the bruises. I’d always pick the most expensive useless thing he’d let me have in retribution. Then I hid his gifts unless he asked about them.

He’d find any excuse to have me travel with him alone like dropping me off or picking me up from my friend’s places or my music lessons. He’d stop somewhere secluded and make me suck him off or worse. At first, he didn’t seem to care that I didn’t have any tits as long as I had a hole for him to stick his cock in.

If we were at a holiday destination, he’d find some way of getting me alone. I hated the yacht the most. Mum suffered sea-sickness, and she couldn’t abide being on it. The fact that others were on the yacht didn’t stop Brian because our cabins were not with the others.

He only hit me where my one-piece swimming suit covered the bruises, so I was never allowed to own a bikini. I also had to pretend that we were the best of friends in public. Sometimes his touching me just made me want to puke.

When I finally started to develop some tits at fifteen, Brian liked to suck on them and then he would grumble they were slow to grow. It didn’t stop him fucking me. He liked doggy style the best, and at least I didn’t have to look at him while he used me.

I hated sucking him off the most, even though I’d had learned to be good at it so that I got him off quickly. Fortunately, he didn’t have a lot of staying power, and he didn’t recover too fast either.

When he had first started abusing me, I had threatened to tell on him, but he had laughed at me and said I’d only tell once. He told me in his coldest voice that dead little girls can’t tell tales. He had chilled me to the bone, and I knew he was serious.

I’d tried again when I fourteen to make him stop. This time, he had asked me if I knew why my mother got sick so often when I was home. He had threatened that mum would get a lot sicker if I didn’t cooperate. I had begun to suspect that he was drugging my mother at night so he could stay with me for longer. His words confirmed my fears.

I hated him petting and hugging me when his friends were around. He would kiss my cheeks and pat my arse. He’d tell his friends that I was a wonderful loving daughter and I had to hug him and pretend that I was. I was learning to be a fucking good actress.

The day I had gotten the ear stud from my Aunt was the turning point. When he had tried groping me that night, I found myself struggling for the first time in a very long time. I think the fact that I was seriously pissed at Brian was why I did it.

I had planned for two of my girlfriends to stay over after the party. Brian, however, had sent them home. Mum had gone down with one of her migraines and Brian said she needed peace and quiet. The fact you could play loud music on my side of the mansion without hearing it in theirs told me why he sent them home.

He tried kissing me, and wishing me a happy birthday as he groped my tits. I was so mad at him that I slammed him in the nose with the heel of my hand. As he groaned and grabbed his nose, I then screamed at him that I wouldn’t be used anymore and I wished that his cock would shrivel up at the sight of me.

I then grabbed his limp cock. I squeezed it hard and told him I’d rip it off if he ever tried to fuck with me again. He tried to swing a hand at me, but I ducked and pulled down on his cock harder as I squeezed. He had screamed and tried to yank himself out of my grip.

I let him go and screamed at him that he ever tried to get me to suck him again; I’d bite off his cock and then shove it down his throat. He stepped back from me further and gagged. He made choking sounds as he backed to the door as if I really was jamming his cock down his throat. For good measure, I also warned him before he left that my mother had better not get sick again or he just might find himself very ill.

For the next year and half of school, I only went home for a week at Easter, one in September for my birthday and one at Christmas. Brian had let me go on any holiday I had asked to go on and to stay with my friends.

When I was home, if he got too close to me he started to gag and choke. If he stayed at least 3m from me, he was okay. He’d send me venomous looks when this happened, but I’d just ask my mother how she felt. Her health seemed to improve when I was home, and I got to spend some quality time with her. I loved my mum, and I would like to believe that she tried to protect me by sending me away.

When I finished high school, Brian had even agreed to pay for my University degree, and he brought me the newest linger (a type of flying car) on the market when I asked for a car. I think he was surprised when I wanted to go to Brisbane to study. However, the relief in his eyes that I was moving out was there for me to see.

He was just as happy to see the back of me. He even purchased a flat near the University for me and had my trust fund pay into an account for me, so I had money. When I left, he told me that my mother would come to visit me.

I knew the bastard was washing his hands of me.

I had tried to turn my life around in Brisbane.

However, I found after a while I slipped back into my bad habits. My ability to manipulate people had only improved over time and had become second nature to me. Men, in particular, were fair game. I had learned that I could use sex or the promise of it to get what I wanted.

Upon reflection, studying Psychology had probably not been a good idea at the time as this only gave me new and better ways to manipulate people. I was mad at the world and men in particular. I had no compunction using the skills I had learned to manipulate them.

It wasn’t long before I earned a reputation for being a tease. However, those few who actually did get to have sex with me all agreed it was worth the angst and the wait. Brian had taught me well how to please a man.

I had found once my periods started at seventeen I only had one about every three months and I got little warning signs when I was ovulating. I was always careful over those days and despite feeling horny, I didn’t engage in sexual intercourse. I didn’t want kids in any way shape or form.

The one guy who truly interested me at college had never approached me. Michael Conner was an enigma to me. He was doing a double degree majoring in Metallurgy and Mechanical Engineering. I’d learned that he wanted to design new metals for spacecraft. He had been there a year longer than I had. He had come to my attention in the library early in my second year.

I didn’t get to share a course with him until we both did Economics in our last year of study. We were doing it in the third term that went over Christmas. It was the last unit I had to do to finish. Like Michael, I had used the third terms to get through my degree quicker than the average four years. I had found I could do extra units or subjects if you like, each term, as I seemed to breeze through them with little difficulty.