Dee opened her eyes to find Christophe seated on the edge of her sleeping platform. He was watching her, and looked as though he had been for hours.
"What time is it?" she asked softly, not moving, wondering how much of the day she'd missed. Her stomach felt empty.
"Nearly light."
There was a second of silence.
"Light?" she repeated dumbly. "What light? Daylight?"
"Yes. Dawn. Sunrise," he said, as though he wasn't sure she was quite awake.
"But how can it be morning?" She frowned. "It was morning when I — " Christophe's gaze shifted away from her suddenly. "…when I fell asleep," she finished awkwardly.
Mack.
There was another silence as she remembered what she'd allowed — what she'd wallowed in — and was surprised. Pain and degradation. She'd had no idea they could be so… satisfying.
Christophe, of course, would never understand. He was too young, too innocent.
Still looking away, he said, "You have slept a full day."
That jump-started her brain.
" A day?" She sat up and the fur coverlet fell away from her. "But how?" She couldn't have slept for twenty-four hours. She'd never done it in her life. "Christophe?"
His eyes met hers for a second before they skidded away to her shoulder, then slowly, fearfully, down towards the breasts that were now exposed. She followed his gaze and winced at the cut. Her nipples were red, but not as painful as she would have expected.
She looked back at Christophe, and found his doe eyes exploring her upper body. The fire had bathed her in its glow but she was too far away to feel its warmth. Cool pre-dawn air stole over her and her nipples hardened, aching. Christophe was mesmerised.
She, in turn watched him, thinking. Then she asked, "Was I drugged? Is that why I slept so long?"
"Yes," he whispered, watching the rise and fall of her chest.
"And you tended me?"
"Yes." His breathing was becoming deeper, slower. His voice huskier.
Dee could smell eucalyptus. Christophe must have applied a salve to the cut on her chest and her tender nipples. Had he touched her elsewhere while he'd had the opportunity?
She smiled at the thought, imagining her body in sleep, warm, pliant, moving only with her breaths. She imagined Christophe's tentative hand sliding under the hide, its soft fur caressing the back of those slender fingers as they explored her ribs, the slight mound of her belly, then lower to her own downy pelt. Had he touched her there? Had he fearfully taken the only opportunity he thought he'd be allowed?
Dee wanted to open her legs to him now, wanted to let him have total access to her body to see, touch, taste what he wanted. And she wanted to taste him again. Wanted that achingly sweet kiss.
Would it be allowed? "Am I yours today, Christophe?"
His attention never wavered from her breasts. "Pietre hasn't decided yet."
Pietre? "Who?"
Christophe stared for a moment longer, then his gaze flew to hers in confusion. "I mean… Peter. He hasn't… We haven't…"
"Heard yet," she finished for him, seeing fear invade his eyes, feeling it give her a kick. Power. She forgot her promise to Xavion and asked, "So, how does he tell you? Does he come here himself or is there some kind of radio set-up?"
Christophe slipped off the platform and started backing away. "I have duties and- "
"I want it to be you, Christophe."
That stopped him.
"I want you and I to make love. Here. Now." Dee slid off the platform and stood naked before him. The adrenalin was pumping. She wanted Christophe. To hell with Pietre and his games.
"Xavion — "
"Isn't here." She looked around, then advanced on him slowly. "There's no-one here but us. We can do what we want."
"I can't." He was backing up again, shaking his head, but his eyes were all over her body.
"Then I'll have to take you by force."
His startled gaze met hers a second before his back connected with the wall, and she was right there with him, her hands on his chest, her body not quite touching his, their breaths mingling, lips close. She had him, exactly as she had the first time. Only now she was going to finish it.
"I must obey Peter," he whispered, but it was a last ditch effort. His eyes were closing, his lips parting for the kiss they both knew she would take.
She wanted to crush him against the wall, to plundering his mouth and ravage the malleable body beneath her hands, to have him.
But she didn't.
Her hands paused on their journey to his hair, and tremblingly explored the fine bones of his shoulders. "I won't be rough with you, Christophe," she promised them both.
"Please, don't talk about…"
Her fingers tightened before she could stop them. "Mack?"
"Yes."
She felt him shudder and tried to imagine how his desire must be conflicting with horror at what she'd done. She could scarcely believe it herself, but then, that had been another Wendee. Not the gentle, patient Wendee that was intent on seducing Christophe.
Her fingers relaxed and she took a deep breath, filling her senses with the mysterious scent he exuded, his breath, his skin, his hair — the essence of Christophe that was so unlike any other male she'd ever met. It was a boy-smell, fresh and warm, yet with the distinctive undertone of arousal. Infinitely aphrodisiac.
She might look into those vulnerable eyes and think she could resist him, but not if he was close enough to scent.
"I can't think of another man when I'm with you, Christophe," she told him honestly. "You're so beautiful, so graceful." She admired the muscles of his arms, tracing them down to his slender wrists and trembling fingers. "There will be nothing crude between us. It will be like a dance," she whispered, feeling the tenderness flowing from her fingertips.
He made a noise like a strangled sob, but her hands were sliding up into his hair, tilting his unresisting head down to meet hers. "A beautiful, erotic ballet," she promised, and took his lips, tasting again the trembling innocence that had so captivated her the first time, luring her to forget her desire for his body and simply drown in the sweetness of his kiss — the way she had to tease his tongue out, drawing it into her mouth where his moan of desire vibrated against their lips.
It was so tenuous, so exquisite that time began to lose its meaning. Again she imagined herself kissing him for hours, the pleasure building inside her like the voluptuously furry petals of an unopened orchid rubbing against each other as they waited to burst open and fill the air with their heady perfume.
It was enchanting, and she wallowed in its purity for an endless time. Longer than was safe. She'd been torn away from him the first time. What if it happened again? They could yet be interrupted. Should she quicken her seduction?
Christophe moaned softly against her lips, lost in his own world of pleasure. He seemed perfectly content to follow her lead. But was this all she wanted?
Abruptly, she deepened the kiss, crushing her body against his, the pain from her breasts being lost amid a swirl of pleasure as the weight of his arousal jerked against her belly. A soft groan came from somewhere deep in his chest and his hands rose to touch her. She pushed them back.
"I'm doing this," she said, and kissed him again, her fingers struggling with the thin leather straps of his loin-cloth. Then it was loose and she stripped it away.
"Xavion will punish me," he breathed.
She felt a moment of hesitation, a moment where she should have thought only of Christophe. But it was too late, her need was too strong. She kissed him harder to obliterate the memory of his punishment — those horrified eyes sucking at her soul in the moment of his orgasm — and how she'd fed on it, how it excited her even now.
Wrenching her lips away, she stared into those eyes, needing that intensity. And it was there.
He lay unresisting against the wall, panting, his pupils hugely dilated, liquid with helpless desire. And with the desire was torment — the sure knowledge that in pleasure, she would also bring him pain.
"You're right. Xavion will find us," she said, suddenly realising it was what she wanted — Christophe punished. But why?
For a sexual thrill?
Her fingers bit into his shoulders again, wanting to push herself away, to protect him. Yet equally wanting to take him with all the violence surging around inside her. Pain, pleasure, it was all jumbled up in her mind.
Christophe waited, quiescent under her hands, a sacrificial lamb. His trust pricked at her conscience and that incited her to further cruelty.
"You'll be punished again," she taunted. "Worse than last time."
He held her gaze. "I know."
They stared at each other.
Dee trembled with the fierceness of her warring emotions. Take him. Do it now, screamed the voice inside her mind. But from somewhere she found the strength to push herself out to arms length. "I can't let — "
Her words were cut off as Christophe lunged forward and grabbed her, his lips mashing against hers with such unexpected ardour, such naive desperation that she was shocked into immobility.
She remained still as his hands explored her breasts in tentative caresses that carefully avoided her raw nipples, and the contrast between his gentle touching and the brutal possession of her mouth was unutterably sensual.
By relinquishing her control to Christophe, she was surprised to discover in her passivity a sexual excitement equal to that generated by her previous aggression. In the most primitive of rituals, Christophe was taking and she was giving, nurturing him with her femininity.
He was no longer a young and vulnerable lover. He was a man. A man who wanted her.
Her eyes were closed when he broke away from the kiss.
"I don't know… if I can do this," he panted against her forehead.
"I can," she whispered, and began working her way blindly down his body, guided only by her hands and her mouth. The time for internalising was over. All that mattered now was Christophe's desire and her ability to satisfy it.
A few feet away in the shadows, Xavion stood, listening to the voice from his ear-comm.
…there must be no actual penetration…
Xavion frowned. Pietre was determined to direct his pet technician's interaction with Wendee along a difficult path, despite the boy's obvious emotional instability. Christophe was rapidly becoming a security risk. And security was Xavion's prime directive, above the demands of 'the game'.
Wendee, too, was more complex and dangerous than he'd anticipated. She hadn't been subdued by the amount of violence Pietre would allow. And neither it appeared, could she be controlled by emotion. She'd wasted no time zeroing in on the boy's pathetic infatuation and appeared to be satisfying her own desires at his expense. Just as Pietre had predicted.
… and then give her to Josh for the rest of the day. Is that understood?
Xavion dragged his gaze from the sight of Wendee licking Christophe's belly, to signal acknowledgment to the hidden camera on the wall opposite him. "Understood," he mouthed, knowing the infra-red filter would relay his actions clearly despite the darkness of his position.
Christophe moaned softly and Xavion glanced back to find her taking the boy's penis into her mouth. "Please… Wendee…" he choked. Xavion simply stared, surprised by the depth of feeling their stolen moment evoked in him.
Pietre, too, would be watching this and Xavion wondered if he would be experiencing the same stirring in his loins. Would he too imagine that soft mouth closing over him, those lips massaging his sensitive flesh with such succulent abandon?
Xavion's loin-cloth tightened and he reached down to adjust it, easing the pressure on his erection.
Pietre had given him no directive against this sort of sexual activity, only penetration. He could let them continue until the boy reached orgasm. Or he could stop them.
While he considered which action to take, Xavion observed the boy's response to her, his trembling as she ran her hands over his legs, over his hips and behind to cup his buttocks — her mouth constantly moving, her dark hair brushing his thighs.
Xavion felt himself grow painfully hard, remembering the way she'd sucked that mango, the juice trailing down her chest like fragrant orange semen.
Christophe was moaning, his eyes closed, lost in the ecstatic world of near-orgasm while Wendee cleverly prolonged the moment. Soon, Xavion knew, she would taste the boy's essence, as exotic and ambrosial as the sticky fluid he himself had licked from her chest.
All Christophe's dreams were about to come true…
Xavion's glanced away, towards the fire.
…or were they?
Was this what the boy wanted? The anonymous pleasure of a warm mouth? Wendee's mouth, as opposed to Josh's. No. Xavion suspected the boy had quite different emotional needs.
It was possible that Christophe would never be satisfied until he'd possessed her, until he'd lain between her thighs with the heart of his masculinity inside her and proven himself a man to her as the others had.
What if Pietre knew that, and his reason for denying Christophe the act of penetration was part of a plan, rather than a whim.
That would explain why Pietre had been annoyed at the twins for taking her while Christophe hadn't been present. He would have known it would torture the boy every time one of the others had her. Perhaps Pietre wanted him jealous. And letting him have her to himself for a whole day only to be frustrated by her lack of consciousness was refining torture into the realms of an art form.
To thwart the boy's desire so persistently was to risk it becoming an obsession.
Unless that was Pietre's intent?
Xavion glanced back at the camera.
Or Belle's…
His stomach churned at the thought. Was her subtle input involved in the scripting of this fantasy? His heart beat faster, his mouth going dry. If Belle was interested, there was a chance she might participate herself. She might even…
Xavion's eyes glazed as the incident he'd witnessed two months earlier came back to him full-blown, the entire episode retained in his memory with the vividness of an experience of intense shock — the apparent slowing of time, the minutiae of detail, the precision of each breath and movement — exactly as he imagined the last few seconds of life to be like.
Or the shattering beginning of a new one?
The day itself, however, had started ordinarily enough. The island's defence grid had alerted them to a ship inside their territorial waters and Xavion had taken the twins out to investigate. After establishing it to be nothing more sinister than an off-course fishing vessel, they'd laid explosives and were preparing to dispose of the crew when they were interrupted.
A small video camera attached to Xavion's chest recorded their actions, routinely transmitting the film into the security files for later reference. That day, however, on a whim, Pietre had re-routed the transmission to his control room and was viewing it live. He contacted Xavion and ordered one of the vessel's crew brought in.
Obediently, Xavion cut out the chosen one, an ugly lump of a man blubbering in an Irish brogue, whom he secured on the launch while the twins dispatched his crew-mates. Once ashore, Xavion followed his instructions, ensuring the terrified prisoner was cleansed before delivering him naked to a room in Pietre's underground castle Xavion had never entered before — a child's room.
As ordered, he'd waited with the victim in the centre of the room. For an hour. Then, when the repetition of the fisherman's pathetic prayers had all but worn Xavion's patience to its limit, she had appeared.
Both captor and captive had stood transfixed, watching the shy young girl approach. A dainty tinkling Xavion had recognised as Tchaikovsky's 'Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy' played faintly in the background, and in the air there drifted a powdery scent he could only describe as pink.
With an artifice Xavion could hardly believe possible, Belle had transformed herself from an adult woman into a pre-pubescent angel, complete with blonde curls, huge blue eyes and a teddy clutched under her arm.
It had definitely been Belle. Xavion had guarded her often enough on outings to the mainland to be sure of that, but the disguise had been so perfect, her size so precise for the play that the fisherman had thought himself confronted by a ten year old girl.
Her breasts had been strapped and hidden beneath a demure gingham frock, her nails were short and free of colour, and on her small feet she wore black, patent-leather shoes that made no sound as she approached. To Xavion, for that brief moment, she ceased being a woman, and became a child.
Which made his next reaction to her all the more inexplicable. A outflowing of emotion, like a blow to the head, dazed him, and his hold on the fisherman's arm slackened.
Part of him wanted step between them, to protect her, to kill anyone that so much as breathed on a single perfect curl. And yet with that was an equally fierce, almost blinding desire to take her himself, sexually, violently.
Gritting his teeth, he called on every discipline of his training to remain still — to obey his orders.
At a gesture from Belle, he released her victim's arm and stepped back a pace as she led the embarrassed fisherman to the small, lace-clad bed, seating him on its edge.
His hands still covered his genitals but with some coaxing and fluttering of eyelashes she managed to push them aside and crawl onto his lap. There, she rested her bright blonde curls on his chest and rocked back and forth, clutching the teddy.
Xavion watched, totally absorbed, as the coarse fisherman wrapped his arms gently around Belle and began rocking in her rhythm, his cheek against her silky hair, tears slipping out from under his closed eyelids.
The tender scene went on for some minutes before Xavion noticed Belle's comfort rocking had slowed to a tight grind, her tiny bottom massaging her victim's penis, with predictable results.
The fisherman's eyes opened, clouded with a combination of guilt and surprise.
Again Xavion felt the alien emotion surge inside himself. His hands balled into fists at his sides to keep them from the fisherman's throat as Belle slid off his lap and turned to stare at the intrusion to their paternal intimacy.
Eyes wide with wonder, she stretched out a tiny hand, only to pause it near the narrow sausage of flesh, as though unsure of its purpose. Then she touched it, grasping it as a child would, smiling at his gasped breath. Giggling, she twisted it gently, and pumped it up and down a few times. Not many before it spurted over her arm and dress.
Pulling back, she glanced at him in consternation before touching the sticky liquid on her bodice, rubbing the texture between her small fingers then raising them to her lips.
" No," he gasped, but she was already licking those fingers, laughing, and before he had the chance to stop her, bending down to lick the top of his flaccid penis. "Mary, mother of Jesus," the fisherman groaned, but she was all dancing fingers, small quick tongue and girlish giggles, pushing him backwards onto the bed and straddling his legs with her thin shanks as she licked up the spilt fluid.
"Stop. You have to stop. You're just a wee girl," he pleaded, but he made no move against her. He just lay there, one arm thrown over his eyes, pleading softly to himself. "A wee bit of a girl. You've got to stop."
But she didn't stop and as Xavion watched, the fisherman achieved another reluctant erection. Belle paused when she had him hard again and reached under the edge of the bed, withdrawing a small pistol. She leant over and pressed it into his hand.
Xavion was galvanised into action then, stepping quickly to her side, but she held out a hand to stop him and by accident or design, it landed against the erection straining the front of his stiff, duty uniform.
He froze, his hand over his own gun as she raised her haunches and somehow managed to engulf her victim's penis inside herself. She appeared too small, and Xavion was sure his eyes were as wide as those of the fisherman who'd dropped his arm to stare at her.
"Just like Mummies and Daddies," she whispered in a voice so pure, so innocent, Xavion would have sworn it could only have passed the lips of a real child.
The fisherman tightened his grip on the small pistol, prompting Xavion to withdraw his Luger, but Belle's small hand, still covering his erection, pressed warningly against him.
Was the pistol not loaded? That must be it. Xavion slid his gun back into it's holster and watched as her widely spread hips rose and fell — the monstrous vision of a child fucking a man.
It burned Xavion, as did her tiny hand pressing against his erection with each rhythmic movement. He ached to plunge it into her, knowing she was too small even for the fisherman's pathetic worm. It would tear her apart, and yet he wanted to so desperately that his reason was clouded, his duty completely forgotten. His free hand came up to cover hers, grinding it against his pants.
The fisherman, sobbing, raised the tiny pistol to his mouth.
"Am I a good little girl?" she asked earnestly, "Will you be my Daddy?"
His eyes closed, squeezing fat tears out from under their lids as his hips bucked upwards, then lay still. Belle, having clung on with her knees, now watched the gun in his mouth with such avid absorption that she appeared unaware of Xavion continuing to manipulate her hand against his straining erection.
"Daddy?" she whispered, the child-voice still pure despite the tension in her body and the fever in her eyes. "Will I suck it again?"
The ugly face contorted and there was a last sob choked on the barrel of the gun before it exploded, the splatter of blood and brains echoing Xavion's own explosion as he spurted against Belle's tiny palm.
Then the room was still.
Xavion's heard his harsh breathing and felt the spread of warm stickiness at his abdomen, but his mind was slow to clear through the pleasure haze — to recall his duty.
Belle.
By the time he had, she'd already wrenched her hand away from his pants, thrown the blonde wig carelessly over the missing skull of the fisherman and was striding towards the door.
Xavion watched, shell-shocked despite his own corpse littered past, as she loosened the band securing her shoulder-length hair and shook it free. It had been dyed jet-black and as Xavion watched, the dark strands lifted and swirled around the shoulders of her pretty child's frock. It looked incongruous, like a veil of mourning on an angel.
Xavion knew he should move, should say something — make some explanation for his unacceptable conduct. But he was trapped in a place he'd never been before — a place where emotions dictated actions and unquestioning obedience no longer existed.
At the door she stopped and turned back, but still Xavion couldn't mobilise himself to speak. The outcome of her 'game' had been so unexpected. So perverse. So… erotic.
She pinned him with narrowed steely eyes that were far removed from the flutter of Wedgwood blue that had entrapped the fisherman.
"Clean it up, " she said, and the shock of hearing her normal, husky contralto helped draw Xavion out of his preoccupation.
"Immediately," he said, and glanced across at the corpse to be disposed of.
"Wait."
He looked back to find her gazing at the stained front of his trousers.
"Strip."
Sick tension gripped his stomach — fascination and the fear. Unbuckling his holster and dropping it onto the bed beside the hapless fisherman's feet, he'd quickly divested himself of his clothing to stand naked before her for the first time.
"Interesting."
Adrenalin coursed through him, making him tremble under her curious gaze. Would she touch him? Would she kill him?
"But too big," she said, gesturing at the turgid erection that swayed almost level with her eyes, an achingly distant ten feet away.
Xavion wanted to stride over and -
"Still… Get rid of this mess and ready yourself," she instructed. "I may decide to call for you."
He took a deep breath and bowed, the blood rushing to his head, dizzying him further. "At your command," he'd said, and wasn't surprised to find her gone when he'd lifted his head.
In a daze of pounding lust he'd delegated the clean up and prepared himself for her summons. But the call had never come — not that day, nor in the subsequent two months.
He'd told himself it was of no consequence, that his duty was to Pietre, but Belle haunted him. No amount of sexual activity could obliterate the memory of her depravity. And even Wendee, voracious temptress that she was, couldn't distract him entirely.
At every order, every message, his muscles tensed with expectation. But to no avail.
New orders. Pietre's voice.
Xavion touched his ear-comm and glanced obediently at the camera, registering the fact that the boy was panting loudly. He was close. If Xavion were to stop them, now was the time.
Take Christophe with you when you deliver her to Josh. Stay and watch them. Remember the boy must not be allowed to have her.
Was that Belle's voice he'd heard in the background? He gritted his teeth.
A loud groan of satisfaction from Christophe echoed around the cavern, and Xavion was finally able to tear his gaze from the camera.
It was time to implement Pietre's orders.
He stepped out of the shadows, preparing to use his power over Wendee and the boy, but even as he did he admitted to himself that Belle had a power over him he had no way of controlling.
If Pietre were to discover that, Xavion's life would be forfeit. All he could hope was that Belle chose to 'play' with him first.