Princess of the Void ch 79 - Container

Grant watches the Taiikar cityscape filter past below them. The trains catch his eye, today, labyrinthine magnetic railways burrowing through a warren of glass tunnels, and crawling funiculars puttering up great pyramidal tracks. Grant always enjoyed taking trains, the smooth chuffing motion and the speeding horizon. He wonders if he’ll ever take one again. Something in him doubts that, with his stature and station being so lofty.

He’ll never be an anonymous wanderer on this city’s crowded, colorful streets. He’ll never know what it’s like to be a normal citizen in the Empire. Small, comfortable, harmless and unharmed. He used to like that feeling. The amicable apathy of the world. The constant rhythmic ritual of meeting a person, and exchanging friendly words, and a warm parting, and of being comfortably forgotten. He will never feel that again.

He feels a pulse of loneliness so acute it shortens his breath.

His wife’s head nudges against his shoulder and her leg slips onto his. He rests his palm on her knee. He’s so large compared to her. So ungainly. Nowhere to hide anymore.

“Are you all right, dove?” she whispers.

He nods. “Just feeling out-of-place, I guess.”

She looks out the window by his side. “We’ll be home soon.”

He’s about to tell her, not like that. I’m the only Maekyonite anyone I have ever met has ever met. The only one. And I am so far from home. I’ll never be home again.

And then he meets her crimson eyes. And no, he realizes. No, she’s right.

“Yeah,” he says. “Home soon.”

***

They take a glass-walled lift down through a warty skyscraper shaped like a berry-laden branch, its precarious height dotted with pods and observatories. Grant feels an odd sense of vertigo as he watches out the window. The lift on the Pike whisks him much faster than this, of course; but he isn’t used to this vast and rolling sky in front of him. Here he is finally in spaces large enough to accommodate his size and he’s come down with this bizarre agoraphobia.

Axyna opens the door for them to her cluttered and overheated clinic. Between her black cloak and her shiny anticomped goggles she reminds Grant of an oversized beetle. “Welcome to the wishmaking workshop,” she says. “Shoes off.”

Grant bends to fit through the door and remove his boots. Sykora kicks her sandals off and strides past him. “Your time is appreciated, Specialist-Gefreiter.”

Grant casts a skeptical look around the riot of Axyna’s working space, which seems to double as her living space. Specimen jars, cluttered desktops, sheaves of notes held down by half-finished mugs of tea. A stuffed two-headed kindek glares at them from atop a spiralized bookshelf. Grant assumes the second noggin on that thing was sewn on after its taxidermy; but the uneven amber-and-blue lighting makes it hard to know for sure.

“Had to get it done before you split.” Axyna scoots a pile of dog-eared books from a reading desk onto the chair that attends it, and perches on the countertop. “I hear you’re running some kind of errand for some Marquess. And I thought—well. You know how the mountainesses are when they want something from you.” Her head bobs back and forth. “Lofty, lofty. Far to fall. I figured, why risk it? Got to grab some of your man’s miracle-spunk, make sure we have it in case he ends up fried to a crisp somewhere.”

It is a credit to Sykora’s excellent training that mention of Maekyonite miracle-spunk barely puts a chip in her polite facade.

“I’d happily take an egg or two off you as well, Majesty, if you like,” Axyna says. “Though I suppose it’s not entirely necessary. We’ve plenty of Taiikari eggs. Hell, I could lend you a few.” She snickers. “What kind of fucked-up infant would we make, eh?”

That finally cracks Sykora’s mien, releasing a stormcloud of impatience. “My husband and I are very busy individuals, Specialist-Gefreiter. Let’s be about our business and then part.”

“Our business, she says.” Axyna hops from the desk and pulls the handle on a cabinet festooned with magnet-pinned slips. “All we really need is hubby here today. You didn’t need to worry yourself. What was I gonna do, compel him?”

She pulls a silvery, bullet-shaped tube about the size of a pencil case from the cabinet and turns around. She looks at Grant and continues turning, until she has executed a full 360 degree rotation. She replaces the tube in the cabinet and pulls another one out, this one the size of a water bottle.

She underhand tosses it to him. “All right, Prince Pinky. Here’s your cum-catcher.” She pulls a staplebound magazine from the middle of a stack of periodicals and holds it out. “And here’s some porn. Off you pop, pun intended.” She points down a hallway whose pallid, sterile light contrasts with the grand wilderness of her office. “You can use the examination room. Not expecting any other clients.”

Sykora plucks Grant’s sleeve. “I trust this wench not, husband,” she says, in English. “She is loathsome.”

They’ve been learning his old language together. Their primary source is his dad’s old pulp sword-and-sorcery books, and Grant imagines their dialect sounds ridiculous, but it’s good enough, and it’s one of the few languages they can be sure no Imperial Core eavesdropper will understand.

“A wicked sorceress indeed,” he says. “Yet we have little choice.”

“Alas.”

He gives her a parting squeeze and takes his weird thermos thing and his porn into the sparse, spartan examination room. He pours some lukewarm water for himself from its gleaming, sabsum-scented sink. How long has it been since he masturbated? Nearly a decacycle. Long enough he wasn’t calling them decacycles yet. He does his best to steady himself with a sigh as he unzips his uniform pants. It’s for your family, dude. Just get it over with.

He tugs his pants around his ankles and tries to get comfortable in the reclining examination chair. Like most pieces of furniture that are not built for purpose, it creaks under his weight.

He looks askance at the rolled-up pamphlet Axyna handed him. He unfurls it and flips through.

Well-drawn renderings of Taiikari women, their proportions exaggerated even further than the already-curvaceous reality, in various states of undress and sexual congress. He snorts as he turns the pages. Dommy subtitles accompany most of them, telling him to be good for mistress.

He looks at the chrome thing in his hands. He unscrews its lid. There is a lubricated opening receptacle in a shape suggestive enough that his marching orders seem clear.

He glances back at the porno mag and sets it aside. He lays back and imagines Sykora. Her hair tickling his chest. Her breath picking up. The tightening of her grip on his shoulders. He thinks about the delight that flares in her eyes the moment she makes him lose control and seize her. The play-fighting she does to urge him into pinning her in place. The melting noises her body makes. The tight little ball she rolls up into when she’s so overwhelmed that she can barely move or think any longer, can only give herself into his keeping. He thinks about the little bulge in her stomach when he’s inside her. He thinks about that bulge staying, and growing.

He’s hard, finally. Feeling like a total fucking weirdo, he reaches for Axyna’s contraption and lowers it onto himself. It’s warm inside, and squishy, and there’s clearly some lubrication. He shuts his eyes as he moves it up and down. Maybe that’ll help.

A click slams his eyes open again. The door tilts out. He sits bolt upright, starts to shove himself back into his boxer briefs like a guilty caught adolescent.

Sykora’s big red eyes peer through the crack in the door. “Oh, hello.”

He exhales a shaky, adrenaline-venting laugh. “Hi, Batty. She’s letting you back here?”

“Letting me. Sykora scoffs. “As if she has the authority to stop me. I hope I didn’t just ruin your flow, dove.” She slips further into the room, hands behind her back, moving with an air of exaggerated innocence. “I just wondered…” She looks to the pamphlet on the counter. “The paraphernalia isn’t doing it for you, hmm?”

“Not exactly. I’m used to, uh… well I was used to video. Now I’m flat-out not used to it.”

“Video. Like live action?” Her brows rise. “How lewd. We don’t have that sort of thing in the Empire.”

“No?”

She shakes her head. “Tight pornographic guidelines. No live-action recordings or photography. Just drawn-out stuff and the occasional live competitions.”

“Live competitions?”

“I gather by the tone you didn’t have those on Maekyon.”

He shakes his head. “Have you, uh… been to any?”

“I’ve been in the audience once or twice. Handy for picking up some pointers.” She takes a step into the room. Her hip’s sinuous tilt follows the smooth sway of her tail. “But I find that my tastes are sort of… specific these days.”

He grins and sits back. “Specific, huh?”

“Mmhmm.” She climbs into his lap.

He lays a finger on her jaw and tips it upward. “Mine, too.”

“I want to help,” she murmurs, breaking away from the kiss that follows. “Can I help?”

“Did she say that’s all right? I really don’t want to do any return visits.”

“Doctor Fuckstone—is that what you called her?”

He laughs. “Fuckenstein.”

“Right. She says as long as I don’t contaminate the sample it should be fine.” She fiddles with the examination chair controls. “How do we—aha.” A whirr accompanies the downward coast of the chair until it’s at a steep recline. “Lay back, dove.” She shifts atop him. “Let me be useful for you. Pass me that, won’t you?”

She holds her hand out for the tube. He gives it over. She peers with disdain into its yonic opening.

“I really don’t understand why I can’t just do a little suck-and-spit sort of thing,” she says. “Taiikari saliva can’t possibly be hard to extract from Maekyonite semen. Seems like laziness.”

“Maybe,” he allows. “We are asking her to break the laws of nature.”

“Yes, we are, but I don’t like her. And I enjoy being unfair.” She tugs her shirt open and slips it down her shoulders. “Let’s get you something to look at, hmm?”

He tugs her closer. “Just look?”

“Or whatever you like. Just don’t distract me, dove.” She lines the container up with his cock and slides it down around him. “I’m doing medicine.”

He hisses out between his teeth as she works him.

“You always get so red when I’m on top, you know,” she coos. “It makes the extra effort worth it—oh”

The oh is because he’s sucking on her breast, now, fingers aligning with her spine as it arches in response.

“Grant,” she giggles. “I said no distractions.” The container speeds up. “Though I suppose I should let you do this while you still lack competition for them, hmm?”

A particularly firm stroke leaves him gasping.

“Maybe I have competition,” she observes, swiveling the container. “You think we should get one of these?”

“It’s a little, uh—” He cages his fluttering breath. “Little lighter than my usual cocksleeve.”

“Grant.” She lets out a scandalized laugh. “You beast. You’re talking about the mother of your children, you know.”

“My mistake. You’re very light.”

“Not for too much longer, I’m not.” She presses flush to his body, as much as she’s able. Her thighs straddling his stomach, her chest in his face. “You’re gonna find out why your wife’s so stretchy. We can handle up to five at once, you know.”

His hips roll involuntarily. His jaw clenches.

“But I like three,” she murmurs. “I think three, yes? One son, two daughters. That’s what I think. If we’re doing this for them, they should let us pick.”

His lips release their hold on her darkly blushing nipple. “Three is good.”

“I’m going to get so round.” She brushes her stomach with the hand that isn’t fucking him. “I’ll look quite ridiculous, I think. No making fun, okay?”

He blinks against the sweat as he laughs. “Never,” he says.

She passes the container from hand to tail. She crawls further onto him, straddling his chest. “Do they quicken, Maekyonite babies? Can you feel them kick?”

“Uh huh.”

“Taiikari, too.” She stands up on the chair, feet planted on either side of his waist. Her tail doesn’t let up. “You’ll be able to lay your head right here.” She lifts his face to her stomach and presses his ear to her belly button. “And listen,” she whispers. “To your children growing inside of me.”

He nods against her stomach. His jaw is clenched so tight he can barely speak.

“And I’ll be yours.” Her fingers lace through his hair. “I’ll be your prisoner again. Yours, and theirs. Forever. But I want it this time. I want it. More than I’ve ever wanted anything.”

The thwipping of her tail speeds up. His mind is dribbling out his ears.

“And we’ll take care of them. And I won’t be like my mother. You won’t be like your father. We’ll all be something new, together.” Her soft, scratchy voice pouring into his ear. “Something we make. Something you make.”

The fizzing pressure is coursing through his spine now with such force that his skull is tingling. He’s gone nonvocal; a breathless whimper is all he can manage.

“Make it in me.” Her heart is beating so fast he can feel it on the crown of his head. “Our future. Our life.”

He folds his arms around her hips and hugs her closer still. He feels the heat coming off her, the wet need under her clothes.

“Breed me.” She laces her fingers through his hair. He looks up into her eyes as they spark and flash. “Knock me up. Make me a mother. Get me pregnant. Let go.”

With a final gasp of “Sykora” into her abdomen, he lets go.

It’s not his wife he’s filling up. It’s a little coffee thermos thing given to him by a maniac. But his overheated brain can barely tell the difference anyway.

She falls back into his lap as his hips roll and buck, and she kisses his chest, and then his neck, and with every gasping pump her kiss tracks higher until she’s making out with him as he rides out the last of the shocks.

He collapses backward, bearing her down with him. With a licentious sound that draws a laugh from both of them, the container slides off him.

“Well, now.” His wife is practically purring with satisfaction. “If Axyna can’t cook something up with this much, I daresay she’s a fraud.” Her tail deposits the canister on the counter and then drapes to stroke his stomach. “My manly Maekyonite,” she whispers, and kisses him again.

Grant leans back and rests his hand on his perspiring forehead as he tries to remember how to talk.

“Take the time you need to recover.” She slips off his chest. “I’ll be—”

He pulls her into his lap and tugs her pants off.

She gasps. “Grant—”

Her panties are tiny, black, and lacy. He felt them through her tight breeches. He takes a moment to admire them—so slight and delicate that her pubic hair is visible under the sheer fabric—then strips them from her as her legs kick.

His huge palm shoves her thighs apart. She’s so wet and ready it’s as though her body is sucking his fingers in. He obliges it, and sinks knuckle-deep into her with a silky, erotic squelch.

She lets out a squeak of shock. “Here?”

He nods into the top of her head, where her horns are firm and high. “Here.”

“This isn’t—you don’t have to do this.” Her hands land on his.

“You did me, I do you.”

“Dove.” She laughs breathlessly and tries to climb out of his lap. He tugs her tail-first back in. The yelp and the full-body jerk that summons from her would have frozen him in his tracks once. But that was before he knew her. Sykora is never afraid to say their word when she needs it. Right now she needs something else.

She stammers another disbelieving laugh. “You beast.”

“Shhh.” He covers her mouth. “Hold still, okay? Good girl.”

She nips his hand. He tugs it away as she snickers. “Bad girl,” she says.

“You’re gonna pay for that.” He fans his hand across her chest. She’s been getting bitier and bitier lately, he notices. His neck tingled at the thought. You’ll have it, soon, he thinks. Her mark.

Her lips hang open, fangs glinting. Her head arcs backward, looking upside down at him, her eyes fluttering and tightening as she rides the motions of her husband’s fingers.

Let’s try something.

He waits for his moment, for her walls to thicken and bind, for her breaths to come out in those feathery squeaks. For every line of her six-pack to stand out on her gleaming stomach. It doesn’t take long. She’s been ready for this since she came in.

Right on that cliff, just before she tips over, he pops one of her horns into his mouth and closes his teeth on it. Not hard. Just a nibble. A little receipt for the one she gave him.

“GRANT,” she howls, and cums like a little blue fire hydrant.

Oh, shit. The office. He claps both his hands down on her as she wails and thrashes, and manages to get most of it on his palms.

Sykora sprawls across him, her gasping face turned and pressed against his stomach, the blushing bloom of her vulva twitching against his palm, her drool puddling on his uniform.

He releases his bearhug on her and she slides down his body a few inches, into a dripping, undignified heap in his lap. She twitches and mumbles as he rearranges her so she’s sitting halfway up. “Do you see your panties?” he asks.

She flops her hand toward his foot. Somehow her little black lacy underthings ended up draped over it.

He wiggles his toes. “How did that happen.”

She lets out a little whine as his shifting leg nudges her. He retrieves the thong and places it in her lap.

“It’s not fair,” she mumbles. “You’re too big. It’s unfair.”

He buckles his hands across her stomach as she shimmies her panties back on. “Someone told me size didn’t matter.”

“God,” she says. “Look what you did.”

“Look what you did.”

“Insufferable.” She pulls her pants up. “Though our hostess is more insufferable. Perhaps you’re off the hook.”

He finds some paper towels and does what he can for the stain his wife left on Axyna’s chair. “I hope she doesn’t get too mad.”

“She’s mad already.” Sykora climbs shakily off the seat. “I hope she knows what she’s doing.”

He grimaces as he washes his hands. “Yeah.”

She glances his way. Her tail comes up to caress his hip. “You’re frowning, dove.”

He watches the tap water go for a few seconds, then shuts it off and shrugs. “I guess… I guess I don’t want our son to be some kind of—science project, or something. After he’s born.”

An urgent tug brings him down to a kneel, and into Sykora’s embrace.

She touches his face. “We will never allow that,” she says. “Don’t worry, dove. We—”

Her voice trembles.

“We’ll keep them safe,” she whispers. “The entire Pike will. If they want our boy’s blood, if they want to run their little tests, they can come to us.” She scans the corners of the room. “I don’t care if Axyna is listening to this. I will not bring my babies here. Not when we have a whole ship for our little princelings to grow up in. To be surrounded by love. We’re going to love them so, so much. Our children.” She lets out a breathy laugh of disbelief and wipes her eyes. “Our children, Grantyde. Ours.”

Grant wills the twist in his stomach to smooth itself out. He wants so badly to believe Sykora is right. He takes a deep, fortifying breath, and rests his hands on her, and stares into her fervent, teary face, and decides he will.

“Ours,” he replies.

In the skies above Taiqan, she put aside her doubt, for him, and now it’s his turn. The Empire will not stop the woman in his arms, or separate her from what she wants. She’ll have three amazing kids, and she’ll give them amazing childhoods, and she’ll be an amazing mother. And he’ll be with her the whole way.

And all they have to do first is track down a digital nightmare in a box.