The Love Song of Jaxy & Meena - pt 3

Their fourth date is on the agro level. Tea among the hydroponic hedge mazes and riotous blooms. He asks her about her family back on Aodok, her funny sister who’d visit sometimes.

“Her wife is some kind of big-deal recording industry exec,” she says. “They dropped a bundle on zygomatic encoding and now they’re on their second litter.”

“What about your brother? How’s he?”

“They fired him from the drydock and he had a breakdown,” she says. “He’s in a re-ed station on Torwik.”

“Oh. Shit.”

“Yeah.” She sips her webleaf tea. “Knew he should have enlisted. He was always too independent for the private freighters. They want a guy with loose anticomps and tight pants.”

Another hug when they depart. This one lingers. She takes a deep breath against his chest. Her tail wags.

“I’m taking you to Revelry this nineday,” she says.

“I might have plans.” He tries to keep the grin out of his voice. This is a little ritual they started on date two, where he pretends like he isn’t gradually reorganizing his life around her.

“You do,” she says. “You’re going to Revelry.” Her tail wraps around his and squeezes it. “Wear that red uniform again, okay?”

“You like that one?”

Her eyes gleam as they walk to the lift together, past the puttering agrodroids and their geometric furrows. “I’m obsessed with it.”

***

“A drink, Sergeant?” Revelry’s slim, dancerly waiter tarries by their table. “I’ve got a mushroom liquor in from Agro that’d put a kink in your tail.”

Ajax is about to reply when Meena cuts him off. “None for us, thanks.”

He frowns as the waiter bows and moves on. Normally he doesn’t mind when Meena makes the choices for him on these things; he’s grown to trust her understanding of his tastes. This feels different. “I was thinking of having a drink.”

“I know. Forgive me.” Meena touches his hand. “But stay sober for me tonight, okay? All the way sober.”

His lips purse. “Why?”

“Because I’m going to ask you a question after dinner,” she says. “And I wanna know you’re sure of your answer.”

He loves the ykrute here, usually—it’s his favorite curry on the Pike. But a queer anxiety is dulling his tongue tonight. He barely tastes it. Meena is acting… off. She keeps glancing his way and giving him this uncertain little half-smile.

He’s mopping up the last of the verdant dregs in his bowl when she tips her chair back. A forward lean as she stands, and she whispers in his ear: “Come to the bathroom with me.” She must read the consternation off his face or his tightening knuckles. “We’ll be quick. I just need to tell you something in private.”

He’s in tactical mode as he departs the table with her, scanning the dark oak dining room for anyone who might be looking askance their way. Nobody does.

He steps past Meena into Revelry’s spotless tiled bathroom. Her tail snakes around the lock and engages it.

“Before I ask you anything.” She turns slowly from the frosted-glass door. “I owe you the truth about something, Jaxy.”

He blinks. “The truth? Uh. Yes.”

“The truth.” She takes a deep breath. “I was assigned to a different ZKZ.”

“You were? Which?”

“The Pyre Electric.”

“Pyre Electric?” Ajax whistles. “That’s half a counterspin around the Empire. That’s so far. They were down to sweep you that far?”

She nods. “There was no more room aboard the Pike—cutbacks on the junior crew thanks to the Princess disappearing. A mentor pulled a string or two and I landed a Specialist position on the Pyre.”

“A Specialist? Right out of apprenticeship? Shit, Meen. Why didn’t you take it?”

“Because, Jaxy,” Meena says. “The Pyre wasn’t the plan. The Pike was. The Pike’s been the plan for decacycles.”

A strange, zero-grav feeling is lodging in Ajax’s stomach. He sits on the toilet’s closed lid.

“So you know what I did?” When was the last time Meena blinked in this conversation? He’s not sure, suddenly.

“What?” he asks.

“I did everything I could to get assigned here,” Meena says. “I called in favors. I begged my teachers. Begged them for a recommend. I went down the whole outbound Pike roster and I dug into all of them. And I found out one of the girls who’d been earmarked had a Pure-Q habit, and I anonymously reported her. And that pried a new spot open on the Pike—as a junior, not a Specialist, but that was okay. And then I destroyed the girls who tried to get in front of me. I did whatever I could. I threatened, I bribed. I played people against each other and stabbed them in the back. So I could get aboard the Pike.”

“What’s so special about the Pike?”

“You, Ajax.” Her eyes flicker across his face. “You’re what’s so special about the Pike.”

His heart thumps in his ears. “What?”

“I knew you were on it, Ajax.” Meena is close to him. “I knew I’d get to see you again.”

“Meena.” The roof of his mouth is dry. “What the fuck?”

“Everyone else tolerated me. Just tolerated. They only let me in where they did because of you, Ajax. You were kind to me. And strong. And sexy.” Closer, now—close enough to feel her breath. “And I never stopped thinking about you. I’d look into the sky at night and imagine you out there somewhere. And I knew—I knew—I needed to come here. Even if you’d given yourself to someone else. I could take that pain, if it meant I could breathe the same air you were. And then I came here. And you hadn’t given yourself to anyone. And I couldn’t fucking believe it.” Her hand lands on his chest. “This treasure. You haven’t given it away yet.”

“I’ve—I’ve had girlfriends.” His heart hammers against her palm. “I’ve dated.”

“I’m not talking about girlfriends. Or dating. I’m talking about you. All of you.”

Her hand travels up. It wraps gently around his anticomps.

“I came here,” she whispers, “to claim you.”

His breathing goes shallow. A whole-body shiver flows through him. He was supposed to be claimed already. By the woman he was supposed to be wed to. The woman he was supposed to be the possession of, to obey. He fled to the furthest frontier of the Empire to escape it.

Her little fingers are undoing the strap of his anticomps. Why isn’t he stopping her? He feels like he’s in a dream. Like his body won’t respond to him. Like the logic he’s been operating on his entire life is drifting elsewhere.

The protective amber lifts away. The true colors of the world rush to replace it. He stares into her magma-red eyes, and it’s like she’s holding him at gunpoint. Like there’s a knife to his throat. She could flash him now. Flash him and take everything from him. His body, his future, his life. They’re all in Meena’s hands.

And he’s afraid. He’s more afraid than he’s ever been. His pulse is racing. But there’s something pushing through the fear. Something hungry and desperate and joyful. And when she doesn’t flash him, when she cups his face with her soft, humid hands, it blooms and sings.

“You don’t remember, do you?” She strokes his face. “You don’t remember that night by the lake.”

The night by the lake. What’s she talking about? He racks his brain. “When I gave you… a piggyback ride? Is that what you mean?”

“I mean what happened next. What you told me.” She smiles strangely. “I don’t think you remember much about me at all, Jaxy.”

“I’m, uh—”

“That’s okay. I’m glad. I left every bit of that sadsack little girl behind. But try to remember this for me, okay?”

She leans forward.

“You were gonna put me down.” Her voice is a liquid whisper. “And I said please don’t. Please, Jaxy. And you looked at me. The way you’re looking at me right now. And you ran off into the woods with me. And you carried me to the lakeside. Near the shitty little pier nobody used.”

Breath on his cheek. The skinny little teenaged girl on his back laughing in his ear, higher and prettier than he’d ever heard her laugh. The twigs cracking under his feet. The receding smell of wood smoke.

“It was the night you told me your secret,” Meena says.

***

“Wait wait I’m slipping.” Meena giggled. “Jaxy. Wait. Put me down. I’m gonna fall on my butt.”

Ajax slid to a halt on the silty leaves. They’d fled the sounds of music and conversation and the crackling of the bonfire. Now all he could hear was the lapping of the lakeside, and the billow of his own breath. He let Mousey Meena off his back (don’t call her that; she doesn’t deserve that) and squatted on the ground, looking out at the lake. No clouds that night; it was a cauldron of stars. He looked into their depths, at the firmament reflected within, and thrilled inside, at the thought he’d be up there someday. Someday soon.

“Naro shouldn’t have been giving you shit.” Meena’s voice was back to its mumbled bashfulness. “He was being such a cock.”

“A cock.” Ajax grinned as he sat on the bank. “Look at Meena. You got a Navy mouth on you already.”

“Well, the cocksleeve fits.” She crossed her arms. He chuckled. Meena’s funny, he thought. Why doesn’t she talk more?

“He is a cock,” he said. “But whatever. I don’t care about his cock opinions. Man’s just an Imperial Core burnout. Jealous I threw away what he couldn’t even get.”

“I think you’re really brave, Jaxy. Leaving home like that. I think it’s really cool.”

“Meen.” He gestured her over, a woozy come hither to the water’s edge. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Uh huh.” She sat next to him. So slight that the wind off the lake might pluck her up and blow her away.

“It wasn’t the marriage that was the problem,” he said. “I didn’t give a fuck. It wasn’t belonging to someone else. I’d have let that happen.”

“It wasn’t?”

He shook his head. “I grew up in the Core. And I pretend otherwise, but I want that. I want it. I want to be obedient. I’d be someone’s fuckin’ househusband. I would. But who it was. I mean, who was she? Some bitch I didn’t even—shouldn’ta called her that.” He burped. “I’m drunk.”

“That’s okay.”

“I want someone who has a use for me. Not for their business that involves me. Some Imperial Core magnate who’s gonna use me as fuckin’ collateral.”

She was staring at him. The distant fire’s gleam caught in her eyes. “You deserve better than that.”

“Everyone says Ajax is a masculinist. Ajax is gonna get his anticomps stapled to his face. That’s not even—like I’m just a regular dude. I want to serve. I really fucking do.” He looked at his hands, at the lines of his palms. “I wanna girl with a cute face and a fat ass who’ll run my life.” He laughed, loose and woozy. “I’m being such a cliche marine right now.”

She giggled. “No, you’re not.”

“I want to get compelled,” he said. “And get taken care of. And give someone my kids. And all that shit. I just wanna know they want me because I’m me. I’m fucking cool. I’m strong and I look good and I want to be owned. I do. Just by someone who deserves me. That’s all.”

“Who, though?”

“Hmm?”

She swallowed. “Who could ever deserve you?”

He looked at her. The little outcast. Always heads down with her. But her hair. It was nice. Fluffy, like a sheep’s. He blinked. “Your horns.”

She flinched away.

He breathed a laugh. “Your horns are out, Meen.”

“Oh. I—I uh.” A look on her face of shame and deprivation. It drilled a hole in his stomach. That wasn’t what he meant, to make her look like that. “It’s cold.” She scurried to her feet. “I’m gonna go back.”

He wanted to say wait or don’t worry or he wasn’t even sure, really, what he wanted to say. And in that indecisive moment she was gone, back into Aodok’s shaggy treeline. And he was alone.

***

“Your horns are out.” He murmurs it again. They are. But Meena doesn’t look ashamed. And she doesn’t run away. She just lets him stare at her wine-dark horns, as they rise through her locks. And she stares back.

“That was the most important night of my life, Ajax of the Black Pike,” she says. “That was the night I realized. What I was made to do.”

“Engineering?”

She shakes her head. “No. I like being a hangar tech. I’m good at it. But it’s not what I was made to do.”

“What, then?”

“Let me show you,” she whispers. Her thumb slips to the edge of his mouth. Her head tilts. Her eyes are drifting shut.

“You—wait, wait.” Ajax reaches into the confused, aroused mess the night has made of his brain and fishes something back out. “Did you get a fat ass because that’s what I said I wanted?”

“I got a fat ass because I love bread and I do a lot of lunges.” Her laugh is a quiet music-box melody. “Do you like it?”

He nods.

“Then touch it,” she says. “And kiss me.”

He does. His hands sink into the softness of her body. His lips meet hers. He tastes her sugar-fruit lip gloss.

He feels her fingers creep up his chest. They end up just below his jaw, wrapped light around his throat. His heart gallops.

When his tongue recedes, her grip’s pressure increases. Gentle but uncompromising. She is not finished with his kiss. He leans back in. Her weight shifts; she’s climbing into his lap. Her little red romper (she lives in rompers when she’s not in coveralls, he’s found) is riding up her thighs. She’s so short, but her ass is so substantial beneath his palms. His thumbs hitch into her belt loops.

Her touch slides around his neck, from throat to nape. Her fingers lace into his hair. A brief, firm tug and his head is tilted high. His jugular exposed to the little predator in his arms.

She nuzzles his neck. The light poke of her fangs. His entire body tingles.

“I wasn’t good enough for you, then. And now I am. Everything I’ve done was to be good enough. So that when I ask you, you’ll say yes.” She pulls his head gently forward again until they’re nose to nose.

“Ask me what?”

“Will you let me compel you, Ajax?”

“What—” He licks his lips. Her taste is still on them. “What are you gonna do?”

“I’m going to take you to the conjugal hab,” she says. “And I’m going to fuck you.”

“The love lockers? This late, they’re gonna be full.”

“I reserved one this morning. A room for two.” She is so small and yet somehow her shadow looms over him. Over all of him, over his future. Her horns are high and dark. “What’s your answer?”

Yes.

“Yes,” he says.

Flash. The Gods of the Firmament have a voice, and a pair of plum-colored lips. “Stand up, marine.”

Never could Ajax have conceived of such fluffy infatuation paired with such unyielding domination. It’s like he’s collided face-first with the world’s biggest pillow. The sheer force of Meena’s compulsion on him. The covetousness. He feels it close around him. Feels his body engulfed in the immobilizing comfort of it. Like she’s closed that warm, soft hand over him and he’s held tight inside her fist. He lays his head against it and lets her carry him. And he knows he’s done something irreversible. He’s trapped.

You’re trapped if you want to leave, Ajax. And you don’t. Face it. Big, strong, silent Ajax. You’ve waited your whole life for someone to do this to you.

She holds his anticomps out. Another staggering flash edits his brain. “Put these back on and follow me,” she says, and he might as well try to stop his own heart as to stop the hand that takes the anticomps and slots them back over his face. He straps his anticompel goggles on and follows the curvaceous little engineer, with an inevitability to his footfalls like lead, like destiny. There is no path to take but the one that brings him to her.

He follows her out of the bathroom.

The evening has taken shape; the conjugal habs are getting active. Meena leads him down a deceptively sterile hallway, past giddy couples on their way to and from the rooms reserved for those crewmates who are looking for a fun night with someone they haven’t registered themselves with. The Pike frowns somewhat at this behavior, urges the grounding and space-saving practice of registered cohabitation. But there’s a recognition that aboard a co-ed ZKZ, marooned in deep space, there’d be couples pairing off in the dead-end corridors without the C-habs.

Meena practically drags him into their reserved room, a little two-person berth lit in rich magenta, with a freshly laundered nest bed and a tidy, minimalist cabinet full of tools and toys that she ignores. She hits the button on the door behind them. The hum of the engines cuts off as the sound dampening field switches on.

She stands in the middle of the room. “Take your anticomps off, Jaxy.”

He slips them from his face and tosses them into the corner.

Meena spreads her arms. Her eyes flash. “Tackle me into bed and tear my clothes off.”

He lunges. He lifts the little engineer off her feet and pounces them into the springy bed behind her. Her breath comes in fast gasping stabs as he tugs the clasps and zippers off her cute little outfit. Her breasts bounce free. Her nipples are tight and dark. She kicks at him with gleefully ineffective faux-resistance. He catches one ankle and then the other and tugs her romper down her stubby legs.

He’s eye-to-bellybutton with her stomach. She’s shaved herself smooth as a statuette. Her outer lips are plump and blushing, hiding her vulva, like it’s too bashful to introduce itself. Her fingers sink little erotic grooves in them as she spreads herself open. He gazes into the blooming orchid she uncovers. His cock is painfully hard. He needs this pressure eased. He needs to quench himself inside this exquisite woman.

“Hey. Eyes up, Sergeant.”

He drags his vision across the exquisite curves of her hips and stomach and chest. Her gaze snares him.

Her eyes flash.

“Eat me out.”

Ajax takes this slow, usually. A lot of teasing and nibbling, trailing kisses. That kind of fancy shit. A lot of proven techniques. He forgets them all. He’s too desperate to taste her. He buries his face between her plump thighs and devours her like a starving animal.

Some girls throw their head back when he does this, or close their eyes. Not Meena. Meena is staring down at him, mouth open, eyes huge, like she’s trying to memorize every minuscule moment of what he’s doing.

Her hamstrings flex, and he feels that iron strength he saw in the hangar. He’s headlocked. She props herself up by her elbows. Her hips are so frenzied with their rodeo-rider thrusts he worries for the structural integrity of his nose. Her face is darkening, her brows knitting, her teeth gritting.

All right, Meen. You wanna do CQC with a marine?

He seizes her elbows and tugs. She gasps as she drops onto her back; the impact travels up her back and puts an adorable bounce into her breasts. Her legs are still ratcheted tight, but Ajax knows how to grapple. He gets back up on his knees and pushes his tongue as far as it’ll go. His tail wraps around her tummy and squishes into her fluffy body as he tugs her tightly to him. His cock nestles in the springy nimbus of her hair.

The tight tension across her face breaks into a full-throated scream of Jaaaax! and he knows without a doubt that sneaking would never have worked, not with Meena. She cums like she’s been possessed. Her pillowy breasts wobble as she thrashes in his grip like a landed fish. He grins into her twitching cunt and runs his hands along her luscious body, closing his hands around her—

Her face snaps to his. Flash. “Freeze, Jaxy.”

He goes rigid and still. His fingers twitch centimeters from those beautiful freckled tits. She unfolds her thighs from around his ears. “Strong,” she says. “You’re so strong, Jaxy.” Her foot reaches out and slides down the center of his chest, down to his cock. Her toes trace the seam on the underside of his shaft. Her fangs shine. “But your strength is mine now.”

Another flash. “On your back, marine. Hands behind your head.”

He obeys instantly, landing hard on his back, laying his head on his tightly laced fingers. Meena’s body sways with ripe, round invitation as she crawls onto him.

“That felt so good, baby. I knew it would. I knew it.” She slides his belt off. “I knew you’d be giving. You’re so kind, Jaxy. Such a good boy.” She tugs his dress pants down his legs. “It’s time someone rewarded you. It’s time you got what you’ve been searching for.”

She strokes the aching bulge that strains against his boxer briefs. She grins hungrily and tugs his waistband down.

“Ajax.” She lets out a soft gasp. Her mischievous expression melts into one of awe and infatuation. “You’re so beautiful.”

Ajax groans as she caresses him.

“I have dreamt about this cock for a third of my life.” She closes her fingers around his shaft. “And tonight it’s going inside me.”

A humming purr vibrates her against his chest as her hips trap his length between his stomach and the wet, pulsing heat between her legs. Her chest is rising and falling with her trembling breath. “This is happening,” she murmurs. Her hands rest on her cheeks. “It’s happening. It’s real.” Her hips slide forward and back. The light of the half-lit room dances across her full body. The peaks of her breasts cast shadows across her undulating torso.

A desperate whimper slips through his lips. He quivers as a bead of pre-cum drips from him.

“Ah-ah. Jaxy.” Flash. “The only place you’re allowed to cum tonight is in here.” She touches the little curve of her stomach. His brain reconfigures itself around these instructions. His need to be inside Meena is graduating to a biological imperative.

Her hand slips between her legs, down past her straddling thighs. The head of his cock is so close to her pussy that he feels her arousal dripping onto him. “You feel so good when you’re doing what you’ve been told. Don’t you, Jaxy?”

“So good,” he whimpers. “So fucking good.”

“And when you’re done for the day, when you’re dismissed, you miss it. You miss the feeling of handing your life to someone you trust.”

“I do.”

“You want to give yourself to someone who knows the value of what you’re giving. Who will honor it. You want to be someone’s priceless possession. Their treasure.”

“Yes. Yes yes yes. Please. Please.”

“Here’s what we’ll do, then.” Her horns glint. “We’re going to hew to the old ways. We’re going to do a Rite of First Claiming.”

His heart catches in his throat. The Rite of First Claiming is an ancient tradition. It’s for noblewomen in storybooks and unions of grave import. He’d think Meena was joking, but this isn’t for joking about. It’s sacred. It’s irreversible. If she’s serious, if this is the Rite, then once he cums inside her…

“You’ll belong to me, Ajax.” Her round red eyes bore unblinking into his. Her palm lingers on the head of his cock, then slides along his shaft. Her tail wraps around the base, pumping the other way. Her hips sway and rub him against her soft, glistening labia. “I’m gonna claim you. And this will be the first night of your new life.” Her tongue extends. She licks his face from chin to forehead. He feels her shudder. “Your life as my property, Ajax.”

She’s unhinged. She’s obsessed with him. She’s stalked him across the firmament. She wants to enslave him to her love. If Ajax was anything but a Taiikari man, he’d be fleeing desperately from her.

But he is what he is. And it’s not just fear his heart is pounding with.

“We can’t,” he whispers. “We’re just lowborns. I’m nobody. I’m disowned. There’s no one to give me away.”

She shakes her head. “You took your freedom from your family. You took it across the firmament. It’s yours. You can give it away.” She traces the roots of his horns. “So brave. So heavy. I’ll carry it now. Hand yourself to me, Ajax of the Black Pike. Let yourself go.”

“Yes,” he breathes. “Okay. Yes.”

“Slow down, Sergeant. I need you to be sure.” The pressure lightens as she lifts her hips away from him. “If you wanna be free, you can go. You can put your pants on and leave. I’ll transfer out. I’ll leave you alone. This is your last chance to tell me no. Because if you don’t, I’m keeping you. Forever.” She giggles. Her eyes are huge and manic. “No takesy-backsies, Jaxy.”

She sits heavily on him. The fat, cushiony globes of her ass deform against his thighs. So thick and smooth and round. He wants to cry, it feels so perfect.

“Think hard, okay?” she whispers, and he tries for her. He really does. But his mind is devouring itself with the frenzied need to shove his cock into this little maniac, to bounce her on him and to spend himself inside her until she overflows with him. Until she owns him.

“Will.” She grinds on him. “You give yourself.” His cock is shining, coated with their intermingling desire. “To me.”

“Yes,” he cries. “Yes yes yes Meena yes.” The tiny drill sergeant in him sneers at the pleading in his voice. But even that last bastion is silenced as Meena leans forward and gravity hangs her perfect tits inches from his chest.

Her eyes are huge and misty. A tear beads in one corner. “Thank you,” she breathes. She bends further. “Thank you, Jaxy.” Her breasts are so close now, their peaks pebbled and tight, their freckles standing out on her blushing chest. He’ll do anything to touch them. Anything. He watches them squish together, delirious with thirst, as she reaches forward and lays reverent hands rest on the sides of his face. “Mine.”

“Yes. I’m yours.” He wails it as her hips rock atop him. “I’m yours. I’m—oh fuck—”

A jagged gasp from him as it blocks up, as the crest is snatched away, and his orgasm’s snared in the net she’s draped over him.

“Remember the rule, Jaxy?” She beams down at him as her pelvis marks slow figure-eights up and down his cock. “You only cum inside.”

“I surrendered.” He sounds so pinched. So weak. “Meena. I’m yours. Mercy.”

“It’s your Claiming,” she whispers. “You’re trading your freedom for this, baby. I’m gonna make sure you get what you’re paying for. It’s gotta be special.”

She kisses a line up his chest.

“Poor Ajax. So backed up. You’re not gonna last that long when we get to the main event, huh?” Her hair tickles his jaw. Her horns nudge his chin. “That’s okay.”

He feels the heat coloring his cheeks. “That’s your fault,” he says.

“I know it is,” she coos. “You’re about to be mine, Jaxy. My responsibility. You’re not gonna worry about performing, or impressing me. You’re not gonna worry about anything. You’re gonna be my prize. And I’ll never put you aside.” Her swiveling halts, and then starts up again as a deep, insistent grind. “And you’ll do anything I want you to, right?”

“Anything.” His hands are gripping the back of his head so tightly he’s going to rip his hair out. “Anything.”

“You know what I want?”

Her eyes flash.

“I want you to do what you wanna do,” she says.

A guttural noise emerges from him. A sound of animal lust. He seizes her. He pulls her to the bed and rolls on top of her, puts his full weight on his sturdy little playmate. His hands land on her pillowy chest and squeeze, and the last dregs of the straitlaced sergeant fade away as her ample flesh spills out between his fingers and she writhes in exultation under his touch. She lets out a luxurious moan and his hips thrust against air and he’s finished waiting. He is ready. He stacks her up into breeding position, thighs opened wide, hips pointed skyward, and she barely has time to take a fortifying breath before he slams his cock inside her, to the hilt.

“Oh my fucking GOD,” she screams. Her hands scrabble for him. He catches them and pins her to the bed and doesn’t ease either of them in, doesn’t take his time, doesn’t think. He jackhammers himself into Meena in a primal, frenzied mating press. Like he’s claiming her, and not the other way around.

And she was right. He isn’t going to last long, not at all. He sees all the beautiful ways her squishy little body reacts to him, the rhythmic bounce of her breasts and the rippling clap of her thighs and the playful jiggle of her tummy and the craning of her neck and the thrashing of her tail as it wraps around his like a charmed snake, and he hears her high, musical moaning, and he sees his future, the nights he’ll spend engulfed in Meena’s silky pink softness, in her scent and sound, and barely a minute goes by (and that’s generous) before the first urgent tweak is tugging at his guts.

Meena’s eyes snap open; she feels it too. “Jaxy.” Her legs cross behind his back. “Are you ready to be mine, baby?”

And he is. God, he’s ready. His body is aching for it. He’s ready not to have to think anymore. To be sure and secure. To place himself in Meena’s keeping. To never have any woman again but Meena. To rebuild himself around her. To leave that empty-bed feeling in his old life, the life of terrible cold freedom she’s taking him from. To be someone new in her grip, someone loving and beloved and obedient.

It’s coming. He feels it. He’s going to lose himself to her. Hectocycles trying to avoid it. Trying to keep his freedom. The caution, the effort, the loneliness, the heartbreaking decisions. It’s all going to go away. It’s going to flood Meena’s insides, and she’s going to keep it. His pulse is hammering in his ears. His lungs are filling with their last breaths of free air. He’s trembling, he realizes. It’s so vast and close and here, here at last, and despite how much he wants it, he’s faltering. He’s afraid. Big bad Sergeant Ajax is shaking like a leaf.

“Shhh. Jaxy. It’s okay.” Meena’s fingers interlace with his. “Don’t be scared. I’ll take care of you.” Her tail wraps around the back of his neck and tugs his face back into her breasts, smothering him in plump freckled comfort. She caresses the back of his head. “Cum in me, baby. It’s time. Let go.”

A puffy, plum-colored nipple brushes against his lips. He takes it into his mouth and sucks and feels her eager shiver. The immense feeling in his chest is bursting free. Love and need and fear. The terror at all he’s about to lose, and the joy of all he’s about to gain.

“Give it to me. Give me everything.” Her tongue scrapes along his ear. “I’m gonna be so fucking good to you. I love you.” She’s flexing in time with his thrusts, urging him onward. Coaxing him into bondage in her arms. And the fear is gone, banished by the warmth of her body as she folds him against her. The sucking urge is back in the pit of his stomach. His every fiber’s desperation to belong to her.

“Compel me.” He looks up at her freckled face. “Please.”

She pulls him by the hair up from the shelter of her breasts.

Her eyes flash. “Cum, lover.”

His body obeys its new mistress.

He pours himself into her. He closes her collar around his neck. His worries, his fears, his anxiety, his freedom. With every bursting thrust he pumps all of it away, into his tiny pink captor, and listens to her singing moan as his hips grind him further into her, further into joyful subjugation. He floods Meena to the twitching brim.

She claims him.

He lies on the woman he just lost everything to, and pants air into his lungs, like a survivor washed ashore into a vast new unknown. Her musical sighs tingle the air by his ear.

“Jaxy,” she whispers. “Look.”

Her fingers frame her bubblegum pussy and spread it open. His cum drips down the cleft of Meena’s butt.

You came in her. The Rite is finished. She owns you. You just sold yourself for a creampie.

Not just a creampie, his purring submission smugly insists. He sold himself to do this every night for the rest of his life.

“It’s done.” Meena’s voice is hushed and full of awe. Her hands slide along his body, caress his face. She’s taking all of him in, like she can’t believe he’s real and hers. She pulls him back down on top of her. He feels himself melt onto her, filling every valley of her body. How long do they lie like that? He doesn’t know. Long enough for him to mold into a new shape, inextricable from hers. Her perfect fit.

You’re not supposed to fall asleep in the conjugal habs. They buzz your room if you take too long to make sure. But he’s in no hurry to get up. No urgency anymore. No need to watch the clock. Meena’s watching it. Meena will take care of it. Meena will move him when he needs to move.

And she does, eventually. She shifts beneath him and sighs as she slides off his cock. She tilts her chin up and gazes into his bleary eyes.

“Let’s get dressed, Jaxy,” she whispers. “We’ll go back to your cabin.”

She doesn’t flash him. But she doesn’t phrase it like a question either. And why should she?

He sees it now. Sees everything that he was missing, wrapped up in one little woman. He’s found his hook on the tool board. His perfect labeled place, the existence he was designed for. He’s Meena’s. He was always supposed to be Meena’s. She just lost him for a while.

But it’s okay. She’s found him again.

***

Ajax drapes little Meena across his big bed. She tunnels into his thermal blanket and peeks out from its lip and as he climbs in, it’s not such a big bed after all. He cozies up to the compact pink axle upon which his world newly turns. He nudges her with his foot. “Scoot over.”

“Nuh uh.” She starfishes in the middle of the bed. “I’m gonna sleep like this.”

Ajax picks her up and lays her on his chest. “Suit yourself.”

“Ooh, yeah.” She splays out on him. Her thigh lays across his stomach. Her freckled breasts smush against his sternum. “This suits me just fine.”

He scoffs gently, acting like he’s annoyed even though they both know he isn’t. “If I toss you off the bed in my sleep, it’s on you.” He puffs air into her face, parting the frizzy curls along her forehead.

“Is mistress okay?” She blows on him in return and he feels a lock of hair flicker out of his face. “It’s not too kinky, is it?”

“It’s the exact right amount of kinky.” His fingers slip past the lacy edge of her sleep shorts and cup the bloom of her butt where it curves from the hem. “I know we’re not in the love locker anymore,” he whispers. “But if you’re quiet, I can help get you there.”

“I already came, dude. When you ate me out. I came twice. You really don’t have to worry. I told you to cum, remember?” She nuzzles into his arms. “I’m responsible for you now.”

His hand curls around the nape of her neck. “All that you’re mine stuff. Was that just horny talk? Were you serious?”

She raises her head. Her face is grave and watchful. “How serious do you want me to be?”

He laughs. She doesn’t. She just stares at him.

“I, uh. I don’t know,” he says.

“It’s not like I can stop you,” she says. “If you weren’t serious, I mean. You’re the big dude with all the military training.” She pokes his chest. “But you do know, Jaxy. You’re ready for this. And whatever you want to give, I’ll take. I don’t care how much.”

“What if—” His leg threads up between hers and nudges her further up his body, her face closer to his. “What if I want to give you a lot?”

She caresses his face. She smiles. “Would you like that, Sergeant Ajax? Do you want it to be real?”

He nods.

“Then it is,” she whispers, and she kisses him. He gets lost in her. He lets himself drift in the comfort of her lips, her sweet breath. “Jaaaxyyy.” She sing-songs it. “I’m going to make you so fucking happy.”

He lays back. He closes his eyes. He feels warm and small and safe.

Meena runs her finger up and down the lines of his musculature. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll wake up together, and we’ll eat breakfast. And we’ll go to the registrar and register as partners. And we’ll get a cute little cabin together. One of the couples’ ones. With a great big bed and a private shower I can suck your cock in. And that’ll be where you live. You live with me from now on. Okay?”

“Okay,” he whispers.

“And I’m going to work hard,” she says. “And I’ll get promoted. I’ll make Specialist. And we’ll get a bigger cabin and more money, and we’ll get married. I’ll make you my husband. And I’ll be able to give you anything you ask me for.”

She strokes his horn.

“And one day, maybe in a few hectocycles, I’ll book us a long trip back to Aodok, and I’ll get us a breeding suite overlooking the lake. And I’ll put my scar on you, and you’ll put your babies in me. And we’ll have four kids. Two to start, and then two more when they’re old enough.”

A grateful tear drips down his cheek. She catches it with her thumb. She brings it to her lips.

“All of you, Jaxy,” she whispers. Her tongue slips out and licks his tear from her finger. “The rest of your life. Every night.”

“Yes,” he whispers.

“Good.” She rubs his ear. “You’re such a good boy, Jaxy.”

His tail wags hard enough it brushes the blanket off of him. Meena giggles and turns the rub into a scritch. A purr rumbles up from his chest. Normally he suppresses these, thinks it’s mortifying if someone gets one from him. Not now. He feels loose and light. He’s just agreed to let this woman own him and he feels freer than he has in hectocycles.

No more figuring it out for himself. No more stumbling in the dark, looking for what he’s missing. No more uncertainty. He will obey his Brigadier on the clock, and Meena off the clock. And life will be uncomplicated and beautiful.

“You can bring any of your stuff, once our quarters are reassigned,” Meena says. “I don’t mind. I’ve got, like, one duffel. This is such a cute room. Where’d you get that spear?”

“Gave it to me when I made Sergeant.” His eyes open again and he glances at it. “I’m staying a marine, Meen. Okay? You get all the rest of me, but you don’t get that. Empress first, Princess next, wherever she is. But all the rest.” He cups her butt. “The rest is for you.”

“I’ll share you.” Her sleepy laugh stirs the hairs on his chest. “During active duty, anyway. Don’t go falling into bed with them.”

He acts like he’s thinking about it. She baps his hip with her tail.

Her breathing slows, eventually, and thickens. He gives her shoulder a gentle jostle. “Meen.”

“Mhm?”

“I have trouble getting to sleep sometimes. Especially on nights before big days. Do you think, uh…”

She props herself up. “You need your mistress to take care of that?”

“Would you?”

“Of course I would, Jaxy.” Her hands thread into his. “From now on, I take care of everything.”

He kisses her forehead. Her smile stretches against his chest. She shifts and they’re eye to eye. His gold reflected in her red.

Flash. “Sleep, Ajax of the Black Pike,” his merciful mistress whispers. “Dream about me.”

The world tucks Sergeant Ajax in and turns off the light.