Part Nine: Conclusion
…I was left both hanging in my bonds, and dripping and drooling all over the deck by the time the nine Begorians were finally done with me; it was truthfully an experience like no other. This also left a biological sample of each of them filling me, and obviously overfilling me as well, not to mention the unique feeling of something hot being forcefully delivered time and again deep within my depths…
I'd had relations with the crew of the Fortunate obviously, but nine of the massive Begorians in their rotating parade of sex, each leaving something significant behind, feeding my modified body with their hot protein-rich essence, was truly indescribable; mere words didn't do it proper justice. And the lingering smell in that compartment; my female body's natural smells of sexual desire and exertion, mixed in with the pungent Begorian male version of that, in addition to their spilled manly essence… just wow! There was nothing in my own formerly pathetic masculine existence that could compare, it wasn't even close. What my best friend and wife did together in my own bed to ensure their physical compatibility, on my very last night on-planet - while I listened like a naive dolt from the next room over - came close maybe, for them of course!
So with nothing but free time in a silent compartment to ponder my long-term future, I once again realized that a return to that faux-masculinity of mine, the one where I'd also surely lose my lovely wife shortly after I stepped back on planet again, was unfathomable. Culturally, such forced marital dissolutions were especially embarrassing for the husband, confirming to all that he wasn't a man worth the wait, and therefore not worthy of his waiting wife…
Back in the here and now though I had more immediate needs, at the very least I wanted to properly bathe, left with now cool and sticky Begorian goo running down both my legs - and elsewhere too - as the playful devils had spun me inverted within my frame time and again, just to toy with me a bit. It was actually productive though, as not only did their bodily juices achieve deeper gravity-aided internal penetration like this - not to mention their excess emissions running all over my upper body and between my spread butt cheeks too - but the blood-rush to my brain from hanging inverted revived me a bit when my coherency started to drift on them. Hanging-inverted human choking oral sex with a Begorian is likely something few human women can claim to have attempted, let alone survived!
In other words, Rok's rather creatively designed multi-positional breeding mount may well have even taken my potential overuse into account, as well as the more practical and mechanistic elements of successfully breeding a woman of any species on her wedding night. His design for a rotatable framework with which to firmly bind me within was therefore pure genius, if viewed in light of that singular purpose alone. He was therefore a teen well beyond his human-years equivalent, but I had no idea yet if he was unique among Begorians in general, or just representative of the culture he belonged to.
In any event, Captain Farok eventually came down and took in the "well-used" sight of me critically, the biological mess pooling on the decking under me, and my general "bounced hard off of the padded walls of the zero G chamber" hair-disheveled appearance. He asked me if I had fun first, and then if his men had behaved themselves as well, but his tone told me he already knew the answer to both questions. I dreamily answer him, but I'm truthfully only half into it, feeling like one usually does after gorging oneself on a holiday feast; so in all reality if I was just a tiny bit more comfortable while hanging in my bonds I'd likely be sleeping.
Anyway, I can't imagine the master of even this humble cargo ship wants to be number ten in any line - most especially the one for this messy and well used cum-smelling faux-bride - and apparently neither can he. But, to get a response from me anyway he runs his fingers from my elbows to my feet, slowly, all as I come fully alive from the sensations and try to twist away from his assaulting fingers in hyper-animated fashion.
"Rok told me you were ticklish," the smiling Farok confessed.
His second tickle assault had me both rattling my bonds, and hysterically laughing while trying to get away from his fingers, which was straight up impossible while still firmly attached to my display frame. I could hardly catch my breath, but with the air that I did have I pleaded for him to stop, offering anything under the many suns in the known galaxy.
"I see they whipped you a bit too," Farok tells me, this a statement of fact and no question. I'm still trying to catch my breath from nearly laughing myself stupid, but the sharp direction change of his observation tells me he wants me to say something. Was he a little bit pissed off that they had, running the unnecessary risk of damaging the proverbial merchandise and incurring a fine, as if my rented and desirable body wasn't enough for their pent-up carnal passions all on its own?
"I begged them to, it was truly magnificent, but I also wanted the whole experience, the whole Begorian perspective."
He still thinks I'm covering for his men for some reason, so the tickle assault continues, I may be laughing on the outside, but this is turning into straight up bound torture for me.
"Tell me the truth Barbie, or I'll be forced to punish you."
"Promise?" I ask through my hysterical laughter…
What kind of man must it take to command a group of men like this? I wonder. Strong, confident, trustworthy, the "I've got your back" mentality that comes from years of service together. But what of young Rok then, he's nearly in awe of his captain, not wishing to displease him in the least, nor obviously the very experienced chief engineer either?
Anyway, I'm eventually detached from my hanging mount by Farok himself, and then stiffly walked by a single finger in the loop of my collar into his private quarters, and then playfully tossed into his private shower by that same collar; the controls very high on the wall and reminding me of who they were initially designed for. My arms, legs, and throat ache, as do some other well used parts of me a bit lower, but all things considered this is to be expected. These were nice accommodations for such a spartan ship, dare I say incongruent with the other apparent lacking amenities on this particular vessel; maybe even nicer than my own captain's private quarters back aboard the much newer and larger Fortunate. I also find familiar feminine human things waiting for me in there, like floral scented bar soap, proper shampoo, a mechanical toothbrush, and endless, endless hot water. This has been provided for me specifically - via smuggling operations no doubt - it has to have been, and the forethought that had gone into that simple kindness…
Barbarians my ass, these are some of the most thoughtful beings that I've ever encountered.
I don't actually realize how much all that back to back rough sex took out of me until I luxuriate under the stream of hot water for a bit, scrubbing the parts clean that obviously need it. Everything aches and my arms and legs feel like rubber, and even after a wonderful hot shower I feel no more than half awake when I emerge into the captain's dark cabin, but he deserves his special time too, anything else seeming most ungrateful. He sees in my face what I don't want to say out loud though; "I'll do anything he desires, but despite my best efforts, it simply won't be my best."
"My first duty is to my crew, and our ship's guests too obviously; you're exhausted, and right now you need rest more than I need you," Farok tells me.
"Not very much like my own captain at all" I realize still again.
I crawl into his massive bed and he attaches a long lead to my collar, anchoring me to the structure of his big bed itself with some kind of lock, so I have maybe enough slack to get back into his private facilities, but not go much further. I'm asleep before he even leaves his quarters, and I apparently sleep for countless hours too. I don't know the actual ship's time, but time in space is duty related, and therefore ship to ship anyway. So without any proper command of their written language - to read the clock that must be somewhere in this cabin - and only learning a few words of their spoken language so far, the uncalculated hours drift by…
These men were renting a human plaything though, at considerable cost, one who finds herself sleeping for hours on end; I wonder if they ultimately feel shortchanged, or maybe wish a refund of sorts?
If not actually chained to the captain's bed though I'd eventually be out in the corridors, nakedly searching for things of bartering use for my own ship as I'd been directed to do by my own first officer Mr. Cook, but they've obviously anticipated this. They're preventing my free travel within their ship, to come and go as I please; so a bit different than onboard the Fortunate in this way as well, except of course for when I was suspended and incarcerated in the Fortunate's brig of course. Another shower, and now I'm getting hungry again, not for actual food though, as what the crew had biologically given me in both ends has apparently been organically turned into nutrients for this modified body of mine. It's an extraordinary bodily enhancement if viewed dispassionately, I could literally fornicate for my very survival, directly, if enough horny humanoid men were available to feed me this unique protein-rich diet.
So, what I actually find myself hungry for instead is another man - well on this ship a Begorian man anyway - as my body's programmed to desire still more of what I just had maybe twelve to eighteen standard hours ago; by my crude estimation anyway. I showered a third time out of pure boredom, this time my fingers even trying - unsuccessfully - to self-stimulate this magnificent female body of mine under that stream of hot water. I think to curse the doctor for my lack of ability to self-entertain, if for nothing else but to preserve my sanity in situations such as this.
Then I have an epiphany, wondering if Captain Farok has a hidden camera or two in here - or even just motion sensors - perhaps just waiting for me to be rested enough to properly entertain him. To test this theory I dry myself off and do some stretching exercises, and then kneel by the closed entry door like a pet anxiously awaiting her master's return, taking the extra step of wrapping the slack of my lead twice around my crossed ankles, and then twice around my wrists behind my back in an imperfect self-bondage, the clank of my lead on my cuffs and my breathing the only sounds in the quiet cabin. In this way I've somewhat properly presented myself for whatever he wishes, but if only in possession of a proper mechanical lock I'd buckle all four appendages together behind me myself, tossing the key from my reach. So in my mind an even more proper and helpless gift for the generous master of this ship; the same one that rented me from my shipmates for his pleasure…
Eventually a single knock on the door precedes it sliding open, but I'm left looking up at the smiling chief engineer, and not Captain Farok.
"Disappointed?" he asks, reading the nuances of my human face in a way I just didn't expect.
"No sir, not at all," I tell him, "it's just that the captain hasn't… well, you know…"
"Typical Farok, everybody else first, unless it's something dangerous. That makes this an especially wonderful and precious gift then," the engineer tells me cryptically, but he again reads my face well when I look up at him, obviously confused.
"It's soon a rather bittersweet anniversary of sorts for me, one that I don't care to explain at the moment, but no matter that, the good captain has given you to me as a private and personal gift of sorts, to both ease my mind and distractedly entertain me during this rather challenging time. You must be willing first though Barbie, I'll not take something not offered first. If you don't care to entertain this old Begorian still again, for any reason at all, I'll stretch the truth and tell Farok that I decided I wasn't in the mood myself, that I wished to be alone; save you a potential punishment maybe."
Certainly not a barbarian, just a lonely older Begorian with a broken heart, I think still again, that spark of humanity, that connection, there again too. There is something special about this particular Begorian man, something unseen that links us; it's just a feeling, but I'm learning to heed these types of feelings now…
"'Punished?' Oh my that does sound like fun. Do you think you could get me to scream 'uncle' for you?" I ask with unhidden enthusiasm. If a distraction from this thing, whatever it is, is what this nice Begorian needs, what his captain specifically thinks he needs as well, I know how to be that distraction; I was literally designed for such, the perfect marriage of form and function.
"Uncle?" he asks, and his old face wrinkles with some confusion of his own. This man as well has a good working command of my language - the language of both navigation and most off-world trade - but this unique use of a word that he thought he maybe knew the definition of has challenged this.
"Yes, in my culture and language 'uncle' is defined as one of your parent's brothers, or even the husband of your aunt, but in this context it doesn't mean that at all, it just means 'you win' or 'please stop' I suppose."
"Strange, that is," this technical man opines, but in his world words also have specific technical meanings, where to be honest this particular ancient meaning and its etymology are a bit vague, even to me.
"So submission, acknowledging one's superiority over another to make some action stop?"
"Yes, I suppose so" I tell the chief engineer, whom I still don't have a proper name for. He's older to be sure, but there's also a sharpness to his mind that's to be appreciated. I at one time had such aspirations myself, learning a valuable skill aboard the fortunate on my first cruise with her skilled crew, so as to perhaps provide for my wife back on planet in a more significant material way; but not any longer…
"We don't really have a word for that in my language Barbie, so I think we'll have to use yours.
"So, are you to accept this humble gift from your captain and crew?"
"That all depends; are you a willing gift Barbie?"
I tell him that I am, but also that my willingness isn't specifically required from my perspective, and in my mind I hope that leads to him making use of my bonds in some creative way as well, because that faux "force me" thing really does something magical for me. It absolves me from any guilt that I may feel at some later date for doing the things that I wanted to do anyway; but try explaining that to somebody else.
Perhaps I've given something away in my eyes though, because he looks down at me like he's studying some defective bit of machinery, eventually asking what I haven't told him yet, clearly seeing in my eyes a hidden "something." This is a perceptive man, and the only thing that makes sense for one as submissive as I is to tell him what I haven't said yet.
"Do all Begorian brides find the breeding mount ceremony a hardship sir?" I ask reasonably.
"No, I should think not," he tells me with a smile, suggesting a fondly remembered event, all as his eyes focus elsewhere…
"I myself sir would call it a good start, and you do have that word we spoke about as well."
"'Uncle?' Okay then Barbie, we will have our naughty fun, and I will be properly distracted as both the good captain and you apparently wish, right up until you say uncle, or even that other word-sound that I also know about."
In my mind I wonder what if he can't get me to scream uncle for him? It's a personal challenge to myself, exhaust and distract this rather wonderful Begorian engineer with what I was uniquely created for, wear him out and distract him like only a willing woman can…
In my mind this man is Sir to me, for some reason I can't mentally assign a given name to him, it's an odd bit of prescience really. Anyway, Sir introduces several little antique padlocks to me with actual skeleton keys to unlock them, holding them aloft for my visual inspection. I've heard of such things, read about them in some very, very old pirate-adventure novels too, but to actually hold something ancient like this - that still actually works - is a rare treat short of an interactive museum. Old, and certainly low tech in this modern world of ours, but there's also a simplistic elegance to devices like this that reminds me of the ancient chain hoist from the ship's repair shop, and Rok's use of it with me. Low tech maybe, but as long as there were hands to move the mechanical parts it would always work, even in a full-ship's drifting-in-space power loss.
They're tiny in Sir's large hands, reminding me of his overall size and mass, and even his manly mass as well. My own wife back on planet would be terrified at the prospect of intimately entertaining such a man as he, where I and this magnificently modified body of mine are hungry to do so. It's not quite a sisterly comradery between my very distant wife and I that I'm suddenly feeling here, but I'm certainly left feeling something much less than what any normal person would view as properly husbandly. Sir hands me one of the locks, and while still kneeling before his towering self, in his captain's private quarters, I unfold myself from my imperfect self-bondage, fumbling with, but eventually attaching the rings on my left ankle and wrist cuffs with a single lock. I repeat the process with my right side cuffs as Sir watches, all but licking his lips with anticipation.
…The short story is that Sir then carried me to his private quarters cuffed up as I was by my own hands; and on his big bed, and in his private shower, and then even sprawled out on a small end table, we did everything that old Begorian could dream of doing with a willing human partner. I literally wore him out to the point that I thought I might actually kill him with sex; which might have been his end-game goal anyway for all I knew. I was the ultimate human distraction for him, to ease his pain, and in my mind that was a higher lofty purpose to my existence.
Truthfully it was quite good for me too…
Laying in bed with him - while wrapped around his older and wrinkled tired body - after he had nothing further to physically offer me, he softly shares his sad tale on his post orgasmic low, that he has nobody at home any longer to one day retire with; so while his long career of shipping and smuggling has left him with the financial security of a small nation's monarch, his personal future still looks bleak. It's only material wealth, and while wonderful to have in excess of one's actual needs; what good was it really if you didn't have internal peace, and somebody special to share it with? I pondered in my mind.
He didn't share what happened to the one-time love of his life back on their homeworld, and I didn't ask out of sensitivity, but I have the implied feeling that she got tired of waiting, and that she was still living, but also living and happy with somebody else now. I can obviously sympathize and relate, but in my particular case my wife wasn't exactly going behind my back to trade-up while I was away, in fact it seems that both of them got off on my knowing exactly how things would go during my long absence. There were precursor events before that too though, the pool party that had me serving like a maid while my wife made the rounds sticks in my mind as one of those…
"Did they wish to drive me insane back then; was that their actual game?" I ask myself in a painful burst of clarity.
Overall I was just so naive back then, innocent really in the ways of the universe… So, the short story is that I obviously have something in common with this old Begorian, it's like one half of my already-written future laid out for me to see. He has wealth but no personal future; where I really have neither at this early stage of my own "career." I also have a wife yet to go home to, but not really…
It's maybe a bit depressing to think about, you obviously don't get do-overs in life, so I can't exactly go back in time to reclaim my rather lovely wife from my opportunistic "best friend" and send him packing… before of course the two had manipulated things to ensure they were physically compatible; all while I could hear that happening through the thin wall of the guest bedroom in real-time. I suppose they could have put on a more obvious show, and made me watch from the foot of "their" bed instead! I thought darkly. But she's happy now, the other half of my empathetic female brain argues, and from a woman's point of view I now know what that level of physical satisfaction feels like intimately, how we crave and hunger for it. Duty to your commitments vs duty to what your body craves, what it knows it needs instinctually; how does one live with such internal conflict? I wonder.
Making babies vs making love vs raw fucking? There's a few dark thoughts. Do I arrive back home to a sated and sexually content wife, or to one with a one-ish year old child that belongs to my best friend; one that can't biologically be mine?
Back in the here and now Captain Farok never got to personally sample my charms on that first visit with his crew - there's to be a second - the crew of the Xlant returning me in "well-worn" condition after the agreed upon time - along with their generous payment of Begorian whiskey, but also while still wearing their special metallic cuffs and collar - to the Fortunate via the small delivery pod; which this time was a bit less frightening. Things went back to "normal" on the Fortunate after that though - as odd as that must sound - with my services shared between the crew as our ship made its way about the galaxy. This "busyness" was a blessing though, as I had little time to dwell on my own bleak future, and other men making babies with my own wife.
Leaving the cuffs on me was no simple oversight though, as not only did the crew of the Fortunate make use of this convenient always-there restraint system, but this guaranteed a second necessary visit with the crew of the Xlant to eventually get them removed; as they had the only safe method for doing so with this particular alloy inside their antique fabricator machine. It was a rather secret Begorian-specific alloy, the metallic elements for such only found on their homeworld; and one other place in the known universe, I was to learn.
I did find the time to check on my male body in the recovery chamber a few times, and true to his word the good doctor had not only added a good fifty pounds of muscle mass to this growing foreign-looking dormant male body I was looking down at, but he had added a seriously manly male appendage as well. Such was in proper bodily proportions with what that muscular body looked like now anyway, but also easily twice what that skinny male body had to offer the day before I boarded the Fortunate.
It was a magnificent looking male body, something I might even hunger for myself in a very strangely narcissistic way. Women on many worlds would turn to stare as he walked by, something to give the wife of such a man something to fear from her friends… but with all that being said, it also wasn't a body that I could identify with any longer. Simply put, the male-me was long dead, no matter how delicious that other body looked just laying there, waiting for me to re-animate and reclaim it.
I kept these thoughts to myself as I served the crew with a growing passion that's hard to fake, asking for rough things, and even rougher things after that from the men that I had discovered specifically liked such things. Men have all kinds of different experiences, tastes, and therefore kinks, and I was up for all of it; pretty much without limit. I was a submissive camelion, I hungered for what they hungered for, I was the perfect, pliable, sexual partner.
The Begorians had at the same time taught me womanly confidence; if I could handle nearly a dozen of them, simultaneously, I could handle anything! I even kept my promise to the cargo man I had interrupted while stroking himself off to his sailor torture porn starring yours-truly in holographic form, willingly taking "her" place and strung up in the cargo office for his very-real whip. I even goaded him into laying it on harshly, whipping me raw, it was a Begorian-level intense experience, despite his much more human-sized endowments.
…Then suddenly everything changes in an instant! The captain comes on the ship wide com system; there has been an engineering casualty aboard the Xlant, and we're to make our best possible speed to their present location to render life-saving assistance. We'd do this for any ship in distress, but we also obviously have a special relationship with the crew of the Xlant, and of course her captain. Not five seconds later the Fortunate banks a hard uncoordinated turn to starboard, one that had things not tied down sliding about in my personal cabin. This was still a G controlled event, but the system sometimes struggles to maintain a natural-feeling gravity when the ship is operated well outside its normal flight parameters.
Then the ship goes to full-flank power, something I've never experienced before. I exit my chambers to see if I can be of any assistance, fearing the worst for the Xlant and her crew. Generally speaking the engineers aboard the Fortunate look like they have an easy job, everything is casual, no problems on this relatively new ship; in other words "an idle mind is the devil's workshop" kind of free time to dream up all kinds of naughty things. But not now, the entire team is in the engineering spaces, and the ship itself is shaking and vibrating like I've never felt before. I am the least experienced crewmember on this voyage, and most of that time has been spent sexually serving the crew in one way or the other, so I actually know little about the technical workings of the ship itself; but even with this obvious technical ignorance I catch myself wondering if the ship will survive how hard it's being driven…
In engineering I see the turmoil, and I feel that too with my woman's intuition in full focus. This is what I am now, the men of the Fortunate have their jobs, and mine at the moment is to stay out of the way, or perhaps assist. I see the main engines' power settings on the engineering board, fluctuating between one hundred eight and one ten percent, with all the other relative indicators in, or very near the red-zone, and this perhaps explains why the ship feels like it's slowly coming apart. Eight to ten percent past its brand new, unloaded "sea-trials" best open-space velocity, but I assume the captain and crew know what this ship can really do. The safety systems for both overspeed and overpower are likely turned off, so the ship itself can't complain, only follow her human orders. With nothing else productive to do I take light meals to all the men, so they don't have to leave their stations, and a visit with the good doctor to do the same has him reviewing his materials on Begorian physiology and trauma.
… On station hours later - with a miraculously unbroken rescue ship - we find the Xlant drifting in open space, the navigational lights are on though, implying that there is life support and living souls yet aboard her. A full-crew recovery operation would bring me to tears, so thankfully this isn't one of those. This is a direct open-space docking with a drifting ship though, not something ordinarily practiced for even in the simulations. Anyway, with a bit of roughness and chasing we find the Fortunate directly docked to the much smaller Xlant, and the doctor and some of our own engineers rush aboard her to assist, finding the ship's main power off-line after the main power coupling had ruptured under full-load open-space cruising, unfortunately while one of the engineers was in close proximity to it doing "under-power" adjustments. This I have since learned was something risky that was done to shave time for smuggling operations off of their ship's more official travel logs. Older ships required these kinds of periodic "tweaks" to maintain peak speed and efficiency, and the Xlant was surely old.
I obviously know these Begorian men personally, intimately as it turns out, and as the crew of the Xlant was small, I can easily deduce who's missing, but the condition of the somehow still living body of the chief engineer is unrecognizable when I first see it. It's in temporary medical stasis, but there are limits on this crude "field" method of preserving short-term life, applied by men who were only casually trained in what in another time would be considered "battlefield first-aid." They've done well with what they had to work with, but this likely only prolongs that which is medically inevitable, saving the brain with blood flow and oxygen at the cost of the other organs. The Fortunate has a real university-trained doctor among her crew though, and the new recovery chamber system too, but within that is another body; not to mention that the chief engineer's body is specifically unknown to the device. There was therefore no existing "blueprint" for reconstructing the chief engineer's horrifically damaged body, and no time for such either, even under more ideal conditions.
Back aboard the Fortunate - with our own engineering crew working alongside Rok aboard the Xlant to sort things out, with spares from our own supplies - the medical compartment is cramped; I'm there at my captain's request, the doctor obviously, both ship's captains as well, along with the horrifically injured chief engineer's body from the Xlant, a man I obviously share something with. The faces look grim, and Captain Farok looks briefly into the recovery chamber to find my now bearded and medically enhanced male body just laying there - nearly complete but also inert - and no doubt a thousand questions go through his head as both captains share a look. The good doctor examines the body of the chief engineer with his scanning tools, personally, trusting this to no machine, and he looks up after less than two minutes, shaking his head slowly side to side while looking over at both senior men. I'm almost in tears, this is like the worst feeling in the world, especially for a woman who is both empathetic and still relatively new to these raging feminine emotions. I know this man, we shared a closeness, an intimacy… and I also know that crying will help nothing.
"Nothing?" Captain Farok asks somberly.
"You men did well for him to make it even this long, he feels no pain in his present condition, but his body was destroyed from the massive energy burst, it's simply damaged beyond repair" the doctor explains, telling them that necrosis of the internal organs has already started. He obviously wishes it was different, but wishes and hard "life and death" reality are obviously two different things. Death is lower on the body, but slowly creeping upwards, and his remaining time is measured in hours…
"The chamber?"
"If such happened to you Farok, with your body's patterns stored in the database, we 'might' be able to do something, maybe, but even at this late stage of trauma success would still be unlikely; like five percent at best. Simply put, he needs a new body like right now, and far too many hours have already passed since the accident. His mind however is apparently undamaged… I just wish there were some other way."
"Give him that body," I heard said in that little cramped compartment, shocked to hear those words coming from my own feminine lips though. As confirmation that I had said them, however, I see my own right hand pointing at the occupied reclamation chamber, as all three men stare at me.
"Not possible," the doctor reflexively replies, "the owner of that body needs it back, ethically this is a no-can-do." These words under slightly different circumstances would be straight-up amusing, as both the good doctor and crew had and have engaged in much that wasn't strictly "ethical" aboard the Fortunate.
Both captains share a long look, and then my captain asks the doctor if this is medically possible, as in "is" this actually possible, before addressing the "should" we do this thing question. His words seem scripted to me, but it's just a feeling - my woman's intuition - that I really should learn to pay a bit more attention to.
"Unknown as there are a host of variables to consider, but in either event it would be a one-way trip for all involved," the doctor tells his captain cryptically. Does that body in the chamber look enough like this feminine one of mine that Farok knows what was already done, or was he just perceptive enough to know the Fortunate's crew had done something a bit sketchy; and was this therefore the real reason that Farok didn't "partake" himself, when he easily could have aboard the Xlant? I wonder.
"I don't want that body back, I'll keep this one!" I tell all three ranking men; sharing the secret that may or may not be a secret, twice over. The chief engineer can have that former life of mine, and the needy wife that goes along with it, and I'll do whatever I have to with this one going forward, I think in my mind. It's terrifying, but I strangely feel at rest too, as if this was my natural destiny, the true purpose for my existence.
There's no time for a lengthy debate on the subject, but the captain and the doctor take me from the compartment anyway to ask privately if this is something I'm actually willing to do. The consequences are explained in rather cold terms; it could go wonderfully and we could still lose the Xlant's chief engineer anyway, we could even lose both bodies, leaving me "stuck" in this magnificent female one. Insanity is also a distinct possibility here, caused by the direct mixing of two different biological conscious entities from two different cultures, all within one foreign body with horrific trauma involved. In other words, the doctor is "down-selling" this for both myself, and our captain; the one that could either stop this cold, or give the order to proceed. I'm still a five on the Brinkman passive/submissive scale though, and that means I really only have one choice myself; give the gift of life to another, even at the potential cost of my own.
Mr. Johnson, our own chief engineer, was due to leave our ship's service, and if this crazy and desperate plan actually works, this also could eventually provide a skilled and experienced engineer with a much younger body to replace him, in the form of my own enhanced male body animated by his skilled mind, an obvious advantage as "he" - or I suppose "it" - was already an official member of the Fortunate's crew. The fabricated female me, Barbie, not so much so though; I'd officially become a true "un-person," an illegally fabricated biologically entity truly not welcome in any modern culture; but those oddly enough are both captains' problems, and not necessarily my own. Our ship obviously can't return from it's mission with one extra "human" aboard, not without exposing the entire crew - myself included - to criminal liability, not to mention what would one pragmatically do with that extra human, with no provable lineage, once of course back on our homeworld at the conclusion to this mission.
Jail or outright disposal would be the two most likely scenarios, this embarrassing problem that I might become conveniently swept under the proverbial rug in either event. A third option I suppose might be the crew tossing me naked out into open space at some point before we achieved orbit, it would be a cruel, but also mercifully quick end, the vacuum of space heartless in what it can do to the unprotected human body, in just a few fractions of a second I'm told. Strangely enough I passively look forward to learning my ultimate fate here, I realize.
"We have to tell her" the doctor tells his captain courageously, and the men share a long look. It's not a one hundred percent friendly look either, and I pick up on the conflict here with a skill that I just hadn't acquired back when I was a man.
"Very well then," the captain relents…
"Barbie, we truly had no way to know that this accident might happen, but once it did we were hoping that there would be something remaining of the very valuable and skilled engineer. It's frankly the reason why you're here with us in sick-bay; to see the need first hand and perhaps offer to help. Experience like his takes a literal lifetime to achieve, and opportunistically speaking…"
I uncharacteristically interrupt my captain in mid sentence, I don't want him to have to explain himself further to me, it's a "lessessing of the man" from my humble point of view; and I attempt to explain such to him. My message for both men is unambiguous though, "give that body to the one who needs and deserves it more than I do, and do it quickly before fate makes this impossible…"
"Make it so" my captain orders after a long pause to no doubt hear if I'll utter a certain word-sound, the decision made, perhaps even the one he was willing to make without my cooperation; if necessary. That of course means that my willing offer and gift doesn't really alter the trajectory of events here, just the internal guilt for those remaining after the fact. What else would a truly passive soul do though, other than absolving others, forgiving what was to be done, as opposed to that which was already done after the fact?
…The closing ceremony and space interment for the chief engineer's body, with both crews in respectful attendance, had been a bittersweet affair to watch, it wrapped up in the Begorian banner and jettisoned in dignified fashion towards the closest star; both the end, and obviously a strange new beginning too. This was of course after our ship's doctor and both captains certified their versions of the incident in a field report; one crewman lost to the vacuum of space in an unfortunate accident, never to return. It was also a bit like attending my own service to be honest, even though the medical procedure had been a full success. The physical evidence was gone, conveniently burned to a crisp by the star, and both the humans and Begorians involved in this incident were taking this secret to the grave; less all of them end up in jail forever. I was the proverbial "loose end" in all this, but I had also long since accepted that those above me would do as they will, and I as well would do as they will too. It's a liberating passive way to live, although obviously not for everybody, and certainly not a skill associated with any form of leadership either.
The chief engineer obviously spent some time with me while he was recovering and adapting to his new human form - he had a million questions on being a human man, although truthfully I wasn't the best human to answer them - and he obviously wished to thank me in some monetary way for this gift of mine. He was wealthy from a lifetime of labors with little to spend them on, but I had no need for money, nor any legitimate identity to openly bank said funds under. It wasn't only a new life I had offered, a proverbial do-over, but a new pretty young human wife as well; if he actually wanted to keep her. Objectively she was a good looking woman, and as his memories were also mine now in this odd mixing of our two lives, he knows literally everything about me, really us, at least before my stunning female transformation at the doctor's hands.
Junior college, my best friend cuckolding me in such a humiliating way that I couldn't help but to notice, and even the dismissive way others treated me while in my pretty wife's company; I had obviously married up, perhaps foolishly though. At first he thought she was a pretty monster, and maybe I was a fool to select her in the first place, but I explained that she wasn't that at all, she was just a woman that needed more than I could provide, both materially and otherwise. There were good memories in that head of mine too though, and he had those as well, the proverbial courting good times early on.
In payment for this gifted new life I only asked for two things; for him to try her out for a bit before passing judgment, and for him to settle up in some creative way with my former best friend, but not in a way to injure him or anything like that. I reminded him that these people had a relationship with what I was to them, what they accurately deduced that I was as well, so it wasn't fair to convict them without a fair trial based on this alone; or so I had argued.
"So, you want me to reclaim your wife?" this man - that I still can't call by my own given name for very obvious reasons - asks. It's part of the gift though, and to do anything else would likely cause suspicion anyway.
"How to explain this to such a dominant, experienced and 'worldly' man though?" I wonder, Explain that such thoughts back in my "pretend masculine days" caused me arousal, even while others were hitting-on and arousing my very pretty wife, at the very same time? I realized he likely wouldn't get it no matter how I tried to explain it. Then of course I remind myself that he as well has these memories to select from, if of course he chooses.
"No longer MY wife, she's yours now," I tell this man, reminding him that this is a new beginning for both of us. This is a limited form of self-preservation for me though, as I have no former life to go back to, and not to sound too cliche or anything, but both forward and away were my only options now…
…So the time has almost come, it's towards the very tail end of our assignment, and at this point if the crew wants to use me for anything, it's for straight up physical relief; their thoughts obviously back home now with their loved ones. The Fortunate must return to port with its collected legitimate cargo, and at the same time the crew gets to return home again to their families for a bit. It's what I was at one time dreading, but not any longer as another has that duty now. It's maybe me by appearance - well enhanced appearance - and there is still some echo of me within that body of his to draw upon, but at the same time his dominant character is now fully in charge of that organic entity; conceptually it's enough to drive even a sane woman madd. He has my pre-conversion memories complete; and as he's tried to explain it's almost like a database that he can access, remembered faces, names, and even dates and events, essentially my former life there like a reference book, but also overwritten by his dominant character and confidence, almost like a new "upgraded" program overwriting an old one…
I've been told that I'm to be transferred to the Xlant via pod to have my metallic cuffs and collar finally removed; my Begorian hosts intentionally left them on me to ensure I'd be making another "serving" visit with their crew. But the unfortunate accident had obviously squashed that plan, and asking for such during that horrific event, and even the following engineer's memorial service, seemed quite self-serving…
There are food supplies and a survival pack already inside the pod I'm to be loaded into - so it will be cramped in there - but I'm also a five on the passive/submissive scale, so don't ask the obvious questions. Truthfully the crew has been just a bit odd with me over the last few days specifically, distant really; although I attribute this to both the oddness of this entire experience with the Xlant's chief engineer, and of course going home again. Anyway, I've been ordered to report to the cargo office barefoot and nude, but they like me nude, and with this magnificent body of mine I don't necessarily mind it myself. The few men I passed on the way struggled to make eye contact with me - and we had shared so much together too - it's just more oddness aboard the ship lately, unsettling really…
The Xlant was obviously repaired and long since back under way, with Rok taking on the chief engineer's former duties, in addition to his own. I at the same time assume their delivery schedule was ruined by the accident and all that followed, so finding the time even for this, for me, must have been costly. The antique fabricator aboard the Xlant is the only safe way to deconstruct this unique alloy, and therefore remove these cuffs and collar that I've become accustomed to, so this visit is necessary for my freedom at least, although I don't know if the prevailing mood aboard the Xlant will lead to the fun and games of last time either. I kind of assume not, but culturally these Begorian's are a bit different, and dare I say a bit more pragmatic, as opposed to my own culture.
My male self - who I still can't manage to address by my own given name - comes down to cargo to do the send-off deed himself, and he has a special little traveling gift for me, three of the little antique locks, and the single key to unlock them on a special chain to go around my neck. I passively allow my wrists and ankles to be attached to each other - in perhaps the oddest "self-bondage" experience ever - only for him to lock my ankles together, and my wrists likewise behind my back. The last lock goes into the ring at my neck and attaches to nothing as I stand before him, which is also odd, but makes it about impossible to lose it.
"Thank you, for everything" this masculine man tells me formally, in a voice that obviously sounds familiar. Coming from him though there's a power to it like I never had, and his tone as well has a finality to it, dismissal one could even say, and that intuition that I have is whispering in my ear that this "tone" is also odd under the implied circumstances. It's just one more odd thing in a string of many though, and there is no "how-to" guide for all of this, it's virgin territory for all involved, and I now understand the doctor's warning about madness and insanity.
"Oh, by the way, there's a privnote loaded, for your eyes only once underway… bon-voyage!" he then offers cheerfully while moving this awkward process along, our brief mono-directional conversation terminated by his desires alone. It's a manly way to have the last word with an underling, and especially odd because I was watching this passive body of mine - his body now - being anything but passive. He effortlessly picks me up as I feel his physical strength too now, and loads me inside the cramped pod, and then he straps me down firmly like human cargo and seals the chamber with his, that is "my" own hands. I feel that familiar ear-pop of the chamber pressurizing, and our eyes meet for a long second through the thick glass window built into the door; he's there, and I'm here, it's a profound feeling. Too late to cry "uncle" now, I realize. There's certainly a "something" to this new look of his, but it will take a few more minutes for that something to become apparent; other than to say that if there was some ongoing internal conflict within the two "hims" within that one body, it appears settled now.
…Privnotes are one-time "eyes-only" messages, convenient these days in this society of ours, and also familiar to smugglers too obviously. I expected some sassy video form of these at least from my wife back home, maybe just to privately gloat at how wonderful her life had become without me in it, but then again maybe there were some sent, but "my" masculine eyes hadn't released their security encryptions, as they were closed and inside the reclamation chamber for a good part of the entire voyage. That means if there were any of these types of risque messages waiting, for me, they were likely viewed instead by the muscular and confident man that had just loaded me like inconvenient cargo for yet another trip to the Xlant.
I would become a human sex-toy once again for his former shipmates, and he'd soon enough have the opportunity to "reclaim" my human wife, make her into something similar for himself, and of course that wonderful enhanced body of his; the same one I selflessly gifted to him in his very last hour of need. The irony might actually be amusing under different circumstances. I'd be getting roughly fucked, and she'd be getting made love to… maybe.
"Why didn't he wish to visit with his shipmates for one last time himself?" I then asked myself logically, my mind an electrical storm of apparently disjointed thoughts; so it's not just him apparently that's having trouble with all this lately.
"What if they kept me for themselves, and never returned me to the Fortunate at all?" I wondered next, in that case this might truly be "goodbye," and may explain the odd feelings of detachment I was feeling here. These were my shipmates for the best part of the last two years though, I both served and entertained them selflessly, like no other ever would, but these last few days I feel like "persona-non- grata" aboard my own ship, an inconvenient reminder of their own debauchery and sexual excess.
"If the Begorians actually kept me though - or purchased me outright maybe - what then would the Xlant's captain and crew eventually do with me, when they had to return home themselves? Sell me off to another ship full of horny men, toss me into an open airlock?"
…With no further time for random wild thoughts and self-pity the pod is loaded and launched, and the launch is a hard one, which I find curious. I've done a few so far, and this one was different and more violent than those others. There's a slow rotation to the pod this time, and this allows me to see the unfamiliar planet we're orbiting, while also not seeing the familiar Xlant though. For a moment I don't believe my own eyes, thinking the Xlant is just over the crown of the earthly body before me in her own orbit, but when I feel the braking thrusters fire hard on the pod, decelerating it for ballistic reentry, I start to put the puzzle pieces together.
Then I see the main engines come alive on the Fortunate, and I realize that this is a one-way trip, perhaps the one-way trip the doctor had alluded to earlier. I'm to be marooned upon this unknown planet; that was perhaps the actual plan all along. The fact that the engineer - in my gifted body - did this to me himself perhaps gives the others a clear conscience, or at the very least absolves them of some legal liability, if such actions were ever discovered by the authorities, as in a strange sort of way it could be argued that I did this to myself!
It could have been worse though, I realize, I could have been loaded into a depressurized pod, or one designated to burn itself up on reentry, where this way there was at least the illusion of possible survival…
I feel betrayed, used, but intellectually I refuse to believe that, there just must be some other explanation…
The privnote, I remind myself, looking for and finding the tiny screen in the cramped pod, moving my right eye to the precise focal location and willing myself not to blink, all to unlock the message that I hope explains this apparent betrayal. Click, pop, and then the message starts playing, my own masculine voice doing the talking though. It's a very odd thing to listen to what sounds like your own voice telling you something you don't already know, so more potential madness for myself here:
"Thank you again for this once in a lifetime gift, I do hope that I didn't forget to say that during our last interaction, anything else would be most rude and uncultured. Our time in this format must be brief, so please excuse the ramblings of an old Begorian. Anyway, before you is a primitive undeveloped planetary body, its name and location are not to be shared with you at this point though, sufficient for you to know that you won't be alone there. I obviously understand your unique needs, and rest assured that there are humanoid beings there for you to interact with, so you won't be going hungry."
"I know you Barbie, like no other man in this entire universe possibly could, and I know this is what you need in the short term, total service and submission, while at the same time comfortable in the knowledge that things will be much more properly handled back at home; my home now. I'll not make the same mistakes twice, neither yours nor my own, I promise you that. At the same time none of us involved in this little adventure can afford to have you freely wandering about the universe, and we most certainly can't have you anyplace where your genetic signature could potentially be decoded; your lineage and my own sufficiently muddled so as to cause a problem should that occur. Simply put, there can only be one of us living in modern society, and I've decided - for us - that it will be me. I like this potential future you've offered me, and the rather desirable little wife that comes along with it too."
"The little monsters I'm sending you off towards don't especially like humans either, they won't harm you though as they'll realize that you're Begorian property, and with that collar on you, specifically an owned Begorian slave on loan to them. I've had interactions with these little monsters before, and I've also let them know that I have this special gift coming their way. Nobody would ever look for a missing human man, even one so cleverly disguised as you are, amongst a remote tribe of human-loathing little monsters, so for a bit you'll be safe there; it's an irony that things should work like this, but the universe is full of such ironies."
"Fear not, I have long term plans for your service, but first I must establish a proper relationship with my new wife. Have fun with your new little masters, they're most energetic, and if things go well I may be able to collect you in a few years; and if not try to enjoy the rest of your life as much as I'll surely be enjoying mine, with or without that new human wife of mine…"
I focused on the little area and willed myself not to blink again, as surely there must be more, but the sounds of a controlled ballistic reentry were all that I heard. For most this would be the ultimate cruelty - exiled and marooned on a remote world - but for myself in my present condition it's both freedom, and an adventure. The former chief engineer was right about me obviously, but the rambling delivery of his recorded words has also left me in fear of his sanity; as in what happens if he loses his mind completely? The antique locks and key make sense in this low technology world as well, and it's also clear that I'm being delivered as a slave would, bound and helpless…
The end…
Or is it?