Slave (17 page)

“Don’t ever cut your hair, Cat,” I said suddenly. “I want to wash it every day for the rest of my life.”

“If it brings you joy,” he said with a sly smile, “I will let it grow until it reaches the ground.”

“No,” I said. “Just until it’s down to here.” To demonstrate what I considered to be the best length, I cupped his balls in my hand. “Yes,” I went on with a firm nod.

“That would be absolutely perfect.”

Cat took my hand and moved it up to his cock. “Not here?” he inquired with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“There’s nice, too,” I conceded. “And it will pass there,” I said as I squeezed his thick penis, “before it reaches here.” Taking his nuts in my hand again, I gave them a gentle squeeze and told him to give me the soap.

“I want to wash my big slave kitten.”

Cat shook his head. “No. I will wash you first.”

“We’re not gonna fight about this, are we?” I demanded.

He smiled. “We will wash each other.”

Leading me over to where a large, flat slab of rock jutted out into the stream, he set the soap down on it and then filled the cup with water. We took turns getting each other wet and then we got into the soap. I honestly cannot say which felt better: his hands on me, or my hands on him. Either way evoked sensations within me that I hadn’t known I was capable of feeling. The tight muscles of his thighs felt hot and slick as I ran my lath-ered fingers down his legs, back up again to his groin, and then across his chest. Gripping his hard cock in my
hand, I slid back and forth on him from the root to the head and back again, delighting in the sound of his appreciative purr. The soft skin of his scrotum was velvety smooth beneath my touch, and his own fingers began to trace slippery circles around my nipples, spiraling in toward the sensitive center until he had teased them to a level of engorgement which went far beyond mere arousal.

Moaning softly, I gave in to the sensation and leaned back against the rocky ledge, spreading my arms out across it for support. “Is this what you meant when you said you would give me joy unlike any I have ever known?”

Cat shook his head. “No,” he replied. “That comes later.”

I nodded mutely. It was going to get even better, and—stupid me!—I had been resisting this. What a fool I was! What an absolute
fool
….

Taking advantage of my position against the stone, Cat moved closer, using not only his hands and fingers, but his whole body against mine, much the way he had just a few days before when we had been about to crash into this jungle planet. Even though his moves then might have been similar, the effect of his hot, soap-slick skin against my own was intensified and had me aroused nearly to the screaming point. I honestly could not imagine that I could ever experience anything to compare with what he was doing. Until he turned me around, that is.

I lay half-sprawled across the boulder with my head pillowed on my arms as Cat doused my back with a cupful of water and then leaned into me. I’d almost
forgotten just how much muscular control he had over his dick, but when it began sliding up and down between my buns and all over my ass, I remembered. As he reached around me with both arms to tantalize my nipples again, I felt that thick, soapy shaft slide between my thighs and heard myself—me, now!—begging him to keep going.

“Tonight,” he purred. “We will wait until tonight. I want you thinking about this all day. I want your desire to consume you.”

“It already is!” I gasped. “Please, Cat!”

“No,” he replied. “You would not be able to travel afterward, and we must continue on our journey. But tonight, I will give you my love, and you will know joy.”

He was either the cockiest bastard I’d ever met in my life, or the sexiest; I couldn’t decide which.

Despite such a lovely beginning, we had a really shitty day after that. As we hiked deeper and deeper into the jungle, the humidity increased by about three hundred percent, and the bugs got even worse. I didn’t know what kind of super mosquito had bitten me the night before, but it made me extremely leery of anything that hummed or buzzed or flew just a little too close for comfort, and I was wearing myself out swatting away anything that moved in my direction. To top it all off, it was hot as hell without so much as a breath of air moving, and I began to realize why there were no settlements of any kind along that road. The air itself was so thick and heavy with moisture that even walking didn’t create much of a breeze. You would have had to run to create any kind of wind at all,
which would have just sucked the life out of you that much faster.

It would have been considerate of someone to have built some kind of shelter at one of the clearings, but I suppose that would have been expecting too much. Of course, I now understood why everyone else rode horses in order to get them through this damned jungle as quickly as possible. I was beginning to believe that Cat’s insistence that he wait for nightfall to do his thing had been a big, honking mistake, too, because as hot and miserable as I was, trust me, sex was absolutely the last thing on my mind! On the other hand, slapping him silly for refusing to ride a horse was becoming an increasingly favorable option with every step I took.

Then the pack-droid broke down.

Now, I realize that, other than the fact that it could carry things and sing, I haven’t described my droid in great detail, but suffice it to say, it was essentially a big, heavy cabinet with storage compartments on three sides and ran on a caterpillar tread. On the front end it had a detachable humanoid component that could walk alone and help you carry stuff, but I didn’t know if that part was strong enough to pull the bulkier section. Of course, in this particular instance it wouldn’t have mattered if it could or not since it was the caterpillar drive that was locked up anyway. The damn thing wouldn’t budge a centimeter and since I wasn’t about to leave it behind and carry all that shit myself, I dragged out some tools and got to work.

It goes without saying that satin slippers and peachy see-through dresses are not the best attire for attempting to
repair a caterpillar drive, so I stripped them off and put on a tank top and a pair of shorts, essentially working in what was normally my underwear. Cat hadn’t mentioned it as yet, but I knew he had to be dying from the heat in the get-up he was wearing. I’d worn boots like that myself, and I’d have bet a space cruiser that his feet were swimming in puddles of sweat, but he didn’t complain about it any more than he had when the damned boots were rubbing blisters on him the day before. Must have been a slave thing, I decided, since a slave could probably complain all he wanted and no one would give a damn whether he was uncomfortable or not. Of course, considering what had happened to me the night before, he might not have wanted to expose any more skin than was absolutely necessary— though the way that shirt was clinging to him like a second skin, I had an idea that one of those nasty critters could probably bite him through it anyway.

“You really ought to take off that shirt, Cat,” I remarked. “I’ve got plenty of sunscreen and insect repellent, you know.”

He smiled seductively. “If I remove my shirt, will it increase your desire?”

“It might if I was feeling any at all right now!” I declared. “Honest to God, I don’t think I’ve ever felt less like getting nailed in my entire life!”

“Then I will take it off,” he said, chuckling softly as he stripped off the damp garment. “It is necessary for you to want to be ‘nailed.’”

“Heard that one before, have you?” I said dryly.

“That’s probably about as universally understood as

‘fuck,’ wouldn’t you say?”
“Perhaps,” he agreed. “But it is also…self-explanatory.”

“True.” I lay down on my back, scooting underneath the droid between the two sets of tread, and took a look at it. If I was lucky, it might be something simple like a loose bolt or just a little something jammed in there.

Then I saw what the problem was and immediately began cussing like an Arconian sailor—who have coined some of the more colorful expressions in the galaxy, by the way—ending up with a growled and heartfelt “—and fuck me swingin’!”

“I will try it if you like,” Cat said doubtfully, “but I believe it would be…difficult.”

“Very funny!” I snarled. “For your information, that was an expletive, not a request.”

“The problem with the machine is a bad one?” Cat ventured, leaning down to peer under the droid.

“You bet your sweet ass it is!” I said. “There’s a big, fuckin’ rock stuck up in here and it’s shifted the belt off the pulleys. This is gonna be a real bitch to fix.” And, of course, it would have to happen when I was already hot and nearly exhausted! That bug bite had taken the wind out of my sails a bit, too, and I’d already had to stop and remake my shoes twice to accommodate the swelling. The Derivian ointment was helping, of course, but it still hurt like the devil whenever I touched it. “Shit, shit, shit!”

“I will help,” Cat said simply. I thought it rather odd that he didn’t get mad about crap like this, but could get royally pissed when I fell asleep on him while he was kissing me. I suppose a blow to his vanity might have hurt more than a little bad luck, but then, his having been
a slave for a number of years, I suppose a little hard work didn’t scare him very much. Ordinarily, it didn’t bother me, either, but, like I said, I wasn’t exactly feeling a hundred percent that day.

It took us a good two hours to get the rock out. First, we tried prying it loose, and when that didn’t work, Cat had to break it apart using a hammer and chisel. This in itself would have been hard enough to do even without having to work in the hot, confined space underneath the droid, but Cat kept his cool—a lot better than I did.

Before tackling the belt and pulleys, we took a break for lunch and just sat in the middle of the road leaning up against the droid instead of looking for a spot to picnic. As you might expect, the damned droid had picked a really rotten place to break down, for not only was it in the densest stretch of jungle we’d passed through so far, but there wasn’t a creek anywhere in sight. I would have given a million credits for a swim at that point, but the way our luck was running, any creek we swam in around those parts probably would have been full of the Statzeelian equivalent of piranhas or electric eels.

I, for one, had been around enough to know that you couldn’t always trust the water, no matter how innocent it might appear, and if I hadn’t been in such bad shape that morning, I doubt that I would have taken a bath in that stream with Cat at all. I’d once had a really bad experience in a swimming hole on some planet or other—I believe it was Ractoul Zeta, if memory serves—and had nearly been nibbled to death by ducks. I know it sounds ridiculous, and they looked perfectly harmless—quite
pretty, in fact—but they were a carnivorous lot and just wouldn’t leave me alone! They chased me out of the water and I actually had to resort to spraying them with a wide stun beam to stop them. I got my revenge by cooking and eating one of them, but I don’t mind telling you I’ve been a bit leery of ducks ever since.

Despite the fact that Cat had claimed that he would eat anything I gave him—though I
had
noticed he had a bit of a sweet tooth—for once, he seemed to take exception to the food we had on hand and tossed his leftovers into the jungle instead of stowing them back in the refrigeration compartment on the droid. It could have been the heat that was affecting his appetite, because it
was
hot as hell, but I still considered it to be a bit wasteful myself. I mean, I never threw
anything
away unless it was either stinking to high heaven or sprouting a mold or fungus of some kind. However, in this particular case I didn’t see much point in picking on him about it, especially since we were only about two days away from reaching Ranata, and also because I was inclined to agree with him. Twenty-year-old Andrellian marching rations were pretty awful, but I’d gotten a really good deal on them, and they would keep you alive and on your feet—if you could chew them, that is. I decided I would make a point of stocking up for the return trip in the town before we stole Ranata back.

But to get there at all, we first had to get the droid up and running again. I had a crowbar, and we tried to lever the belt back onto the pulleys, but that sucker was built pretty tough, and it was beginning to look as though we would end up having to take the whole damn caterpillar
drive apart just to get the belt back on. We were about to give up and do just that when I remembered that I had a machete on the droid somewhere, and I thought that with Cat pulling on the belt with the crowbar and me using the blade of the machete to guide it back into place, we might just be able to do it.

It still took several tries, and we had to switch places because my arms weren’t quite long enough to reach inside the drive with the machete, but finally, with a loud snick, it popped back into place. I just stared at it in disbelief for a moment there, so I didn’t start rejoicing right away. Then I noticed that Cat was being awfully damned quiet, as well.

“Cat?” I began. “Are you….”

“Do not move or make another sound,” he said, cutting me off rather ominously.

Of course, having issued such a command, he got my curiosity fully aroused and, silly me, I stuck my head out from underneath the droid. The first thing that ran through my mind was that the next time he said something like that, I should probably listen to him, and, second, that there was no going back now, because they had seen me, too.

Cat stood, machete in hand, facing down a pack of five of the meanest, nastiest-looking beasties I’d seen since we landed. In fact, I’d have to say that these guys pretty much took the cake even when compared with some of the ornerier critters I’d seen on other worlds.

They had apparently already eaten the food Cat had thrown out and seemed to think that we either had more, or that we might make a tasty lunch, ourselves.
“Holy shit, Cat!” I exclaimed. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to feed the bears?”

I said bears, because that’s about as close as I could come to what they looked like. All the other animals I’d seen on Statzeel had seemed pretty tame to me—domesticated, even—but these things looked like a cross between a bear, a saber-toothed tiger, a wild boar, and a Drell. Shaped like bears, they had teeth and jaws like the prehistoric tiger, grunted, and had cloven feet like a boar, and I say Drell-like because they had dreadlocks all over them and were probably about as rude as Drells, too.