Queen of dust, p.2
Queen of Dust, page 2
Calvy coughed. “Fine evening.”
The Balti ignored that too.
He pressed on, undeterred. “I hate to interrupt.”
“Then don’t.” Her voice was lower than he expected, slower too. The words drawn out, lazy and detached, like driftwood.
“Where are you...getting off?”
The Balti opened her eyes, grey and rimmed with kohl. Her hazy gaze slid to the silver panel of buttons. Calvy pressed the furthest one to the right, for the observation deck, and she frowned.
“And for you—”
“That’s fine.” She took a sip from a glass in her free hand.
The Balti swayed as the tram kicked back into motion, and Calvy slotted the pieces into place. She must have forgotten to push the button wherever she had gotten in and the tram had taken her the opposite way, to the back of the ship, where he had joined her.
Slanting against the car wall, her eyes drifted closed again. Calvy stood straight and tall, his shoulders as square as the jaw he’d inherited from his father, forcing his eyes to fix on an innocuous spot above him and not the continuous motion of her hand under her dress. He was tested when the dress shifted open, displaying a lovely, plump breast, exposed to the air, to him. The sound of the tram whirring through the tunnel filled his ears like static as he held, and then those grey eyes opened, narrowing in accusation and then widening with surprise. “You’re not staring.”
“No—” He shook his head against the lie. “Yes, I was. At your hair.”
The thick bob sprang away from her face, settling above her shoulders like pulled sugar, popping against the background of dull metal.
Calvy swallowed. “It’s very vivid.”
“Is it,” she replied without inflection.
“You’re a Balti.”
An explosion from the ship’s propulsion engine caused the tram to lurch from side to side, sloshing the drink over her hand.
“I know what I am.” She sent the drips to the tram floor with two sharp shakes of her wrist and looked him over again, taking in the details of his appearance. He saw the moment she formed her conclusion with a long blink and a sideways glance. Dismissing him as a witless enlisted Dern. Someone who didn’t know how to conduct himself. Calvy could represent the Third better than that.
“Pardon me. I meant—you, yourself, are striking. I studied Balti. And I’ve traveled quite extensively and never met—”
“Yes, well, that’s what a P bomb does.”
Calvy’s throat tightened. The feeling he knew best in the world washed over him. The intimate shame of his presence unrequested, unwanted. “My apologies again,” he choked out before clamping his jaw shut.
But he had the Balti’s attention now, whether he wanted it or not.
“Again? And what are these pardons for? Your rudeness or your part in the destruction of my people?”
“My part?” Calvy balked.
“You’re dressed as a Dern soldier.”
He looked down to check his structured green uniform. A foolish gesture. An unnecessary one, as if he could forget he was wearing it. So stiff and fitted compared to the loose jumpsuit he’d been allowed on Theos.
“Unless it’s a costume,” the Balti continued.
“Is yours?”
It was her turn to glance down and review her outfit. The liquor in her glass tipped, gathering close to the edge as possible without spilling over, as she used two fingers to adjust the thin fabric and recover her breast. “This? A costume? And what part would I be playing?”
“The Balti Temptress. My grandfather’s first wife was a Balti. Not a Temptress, mind.”
“It’s not for everyone.”
“Some are called?”
“Chosen.” She swallowed something back. “To inspire. To set an example of how to live pleasure to pleasure.”
“I’ve heard the stories. In private of course. The kinds of things that would burn a priest’s ears right off.”
“Your priests, perhaps—religion in Dern is awfully restrictive.”
“Everything in Dern is restrictive.” His eyes flickered to the one hand she’d casually retucked under her dress. “You’d be arrested for such a wild display.”
“Must the Dern categorize any simple pleasure as wildness?”
“What would you call it?”
“This?” She set her hand moving again, circular strokes that Calvy imagined held just the right touch of pressure. “This is serenity, this is only taboo if you’re told reward finds you once you commit to being wound with burden. A Balti creates her own reward.”
The thrill of debate quickened Calvy’s response. “Virtue isn’t about pain at all. It’s meant to bring you peace. To help you surrender your agony. To let it go.”
“To let go of control?”
“Yes.”
“So some D’Aldiern king can take it? No. I decline. I more than decline, I’d counter that instead of taking, you all might give us a break. Keep your Virtue to yourself.”
Calvy breathed into his nose and steadied his stance. “It bothers you—that the Dern are devout?”
“Hardly. It is your corrupt politicians forcing that devotion on the rest of us that bothers me.”
A long whistle escaped his lips and he turned to face the doors. If this was a Temptress’s mind slowed by drink, he didn’t want to know what she was capable of sharpened and more alert. “My grandfather used to say there’s nothing like the tongue of a Balti woman.”
This one was voicing, proudly, things he’d only heard whispered, far from Dern, in private spaces. In the back of his own mind.
Her cheek twitched. “No doubt what inspired your scholarly interest.”
“It wasn’t that.”
“Oh?”
“I didn’t believe him.”
“Why not?”
He caught her eyes in the glass, trying to ignore the unwelcome sight of his own untanned skin. “I was skeptical—that anything could be so powerful.”
She held his gaze through the reflection, the two of them a pair of would-be ghosts. Her airy tone was as dismissive as the once-over she’d given him earlier. “You don’t believe in the power of controlling a person’s satisfaction—the power of having them beg you for release?”
“Not if you’re the one on your knees.”
A sound caught in her throat. When she spoke, her disinterest sounded forced and Calvy felt a prick of satisfaction. “I shouldn’t expect a Dern to understand. Haven’t you done away with the carnal in favor of automated reproduction?”
“That seems to be what’s trending in high society, certainly.”
Her gaze settled on the left breast of his jacket. An empty space where the fabric was dotted with tiny holes, a constellation that mapped the shapes of two chevrons. The evidence of embroidered patches recently ripped from their place. He watched more conclusions form in her mind. Watched her see what he was: a demoted officer. Someone who had started at this low rank and recently returned to it. Someone who’d earned position but didn’t have connections strong enough to keep it.
She confirmed her assumption when she jabbed again. “Not yet trending in your circle?”
Calvy held his hands behind his back and widened his stance, at ease. He’d missed this—the back and forth of conversation, the spirit of interaction. A basic amenity his situation on Theos had lacked. He’d been right to get out of there, whatever the cost. It was worth it simply to find himself here. Trading words with this woman, he was starting to feel free again. Free like he hadn’t felt since he’d first enlisted. When his father couldn’t do anything to stop him. He wanted to hold on to that feeling, the memory of possibility waiting just ahead of him. “I’d offer to prove it to you, but you seem to have everything well in hand.”
The Balti laughed, her head falling back to reveal a slender neck he suddenly imagined catching in his palm.
Not that free.
“I’ve never found a Dern amusing before. Never known them to be as clever with their tongues as I am with mine.”
Calvy’s heart thumped, forcing blood that had gone thick and syrupy through his tightening veins.
She watched him through heavy lids. “It’s not my experience that a Dern knows what he’s doing. A pity for your lovers, but at least they don’t have to suffer long.”
“Maybe you can share some knowledge, help the poor people of Dern.” He smiled back at her and she frowned in response, like it displeased her that he was enjoying the exchange.
“Some things can’t be taught. And I’m not available for practice.”
“No, you look like a professional.”
Her hand fisted and her mouth opened, but she snapped it forcefully shut, letting his attempted quip spiral lower in the air between them, an obvious, embarrassing end to their sparring.
“I—” Calvy had begun, but the tram doors had hissed open again and the Balti had breezed down the hall and away from the stop.
The two men at a security desk had let her pass unbothered, but one had stepped in front of Calvy. Frustration had simmered under his skin as they scrutinized his credentials and insisted he check his sidearm. He had wanted to catch her. Wanted to apologize.
It was clear that what he wanted didn’t matter to a Balti. He was only a Dern grunt, after all. She hadn’t even looked back. He was sure she’d spend the rest of the journey avoiding him completely, looking through him like so much space dust. But the security team had let him through, the deck doors had zipped open, and Liam Pent had grinned, forcing her to meet Calvy’s searching gaze again.
Chapter Three
A black-eyed gaze set in a face that missed the sun watched Mara for an answer to Liam’s challenge. Let the grunt warm her? Not if she could help it. She would give the Dern no more amusement. He’d proven in the tram that one couldn’t expect anything from a Dern but insults—their prejudices were as deep as their pockets and the only thing they liked more than repressing themselves was forcing worse suffering on everybody else. She’d told him as much.
“Liam, please, you’re making the poor boy blush.” Mara looked the soldier over again. He was most definitely not a boy—he had a manly build, tall and athletic, albeit slim. His coiffed coal hair added to his impressive height. But he was Dern and that was enough to classify him as inexperienced, craven.
Liam lifted his chin and spun the stone in his hand, ignoring her. “Go on, Captain, that’s an order.”
The music had stopped, the duo hired to play caught up in the new entertainment. Mara took a step forward to approach Liam, but the soldier, already in her path, moved slowly towards her. She froze. The Dern, who had all but called her a damsel minutes ago, dared to act as though this was going to happen.
She looked at Liam, trying to conceal the anger that salted her blood. Though his face was formed in amusement, she could see this was more than diversion to him. It was as serious as a contract negotiation—every line was under scrutiny. He’d walk away with everything as he wanted it or smash the unsigned tablet to pieces.
Mara hadn’t simply bruised his ego this morning, she’d ignited a question in his mind. He was testing her now, seeing how she responded to the challenge—how far she’d go to please him. She’d never needed to say no to him before—she’d never wanted to. She connected with Liam, admired his strength. When she’d faced the rocky unknowable ridge of the future, he’d paved her a path. But the trip was almost over, and he’d noticed her drawing herself in. She understood completely that underneath his bravado was fear: fear that he’d been played for a fool, that she’d only been using him for a free Fold. She had to prove to him that wasn’t the case. If only coupling her with the grunt wasn’t what he wanted.
But she was no Dern, forced by Virtue to conform with regulations stipulated by uptight men in buildings that speared the sky billions of light-years away. So when the soldier reached her, the square unadorned pads of his uniform shoulders blocking Liam temporarily from view, Mara tilted her head up to meet his eyes.
“If you don’t want me to—”
“On your knees, Soldier,” she said loud enough for Liam to hear, adding more quietly, “Was this not what you had in mind in the tram?”
“I didn’t require an audience,” the soldier said in a low voice that matched her own.
“Well, you’ve got one.” A flood of unfamiliar sympathy washed through her at his lined forehead. “Look, just tell him you won’t do it. You’re Dern—this goes against everything you believe in, it offends your Virtue, what have you. He’ll understand.” Maybe if she could convince the soldier to back out Liam would relent—
The soldier shook his head. “Purity through patience, clarity through compliance, deliverance through dedication.” He recited the Three Virtues of Dern. The rules they’d made up to extend their control where it did not belong. Virtues that emphasized idleness and obedience in return for the promise of betterment. Virtues that stopped anyone from making waves.
“But if you don’t want me to. Say. Say and I won’t.” He lowered to his knees in front of her, exposing her to Liam’s scrutiny again.
Mara pushed her tongue over her dry lips, drawing the chemical perfume of her lipstick into her mouth. Her breasts, rounded from the cold, rose heavily in her lower periphery as she looked down at the soldier. Despite herself she felt anticipatory heat spread from her stomach. A low throb threatened to push thought out of her mind as her body began to take notice, take over. She’d been taught that shame and dishonesty had no place in pleasure, and she knew not to discount the telling slickness that coated her cunt. That was real. That was her body informing her: she did want the Dern soldier. She liked the way he looked down there, awaiting her command. Not that his inexperienced touch would be all that enjoyable, but she could let him give it his best attempt for a few minutes, to appease Liam. To ease the desire that was rushing in her veins.
She needed the release, the catharsis of pleasure. Craved it like she craved fresh oxygen. Maybe she could wring something from this nobody.
“Thank you for thinking of me,” she said, flicking her gaze back to Liam momentarily. And then, addressing the soldier but loud enough for Liam and the others to hear, “Is this a lesson in patience? You should know I don’t care for practicing Virtue myself. I’m not accustomed to waiting.”
A determined look hardened the soldier’s eyes. Her cunt contracted, and she felt its emptiness gnawing at her. It had to be the power, not the Dern himself, that roused her interest. Or perhaps it was all the buildup, the length of delay that had her in a state of anticipation. Mara placed a hand on the starched stiff jacket as he pushed her dress off her thighs with both hands. It was almost a shame, that the Dern soldier wouldn’t be able to—
Oh. Mara’s head fell back at the first brush of his curious tongue. She spent a long, open-mouthed moment with her neck bent, dark space filling her vision as she looked up to the deck’s triple-paned dome above her. Then she brought her chin down to see him, meeting his black eyes, reading the question dented in between his eyebrows: Okay? Mara nodded, her face flushing, words too complicated to form, and the soldier’s eyes sparkled. He took her cue to increase the pressure of his mouth, then his tongue teased into her and Mara gasped, her head dropping back again, the force causing her to lose balance. She gripped his head for stability, pushing her fingers into his hair, through the waxy crunch of the top layer, into the soft thick bristles at his scalp. The soldier’s hands moved to cup her from behind, holding her to him. As if there were anywhere else she wanted to be than here, right here under his hot mouth, wet to wet with her aching cunt.
Some internal fire burned the bottom of her feet. Her eyes locked on to him. She couldn’t look away. That strong, dark brow had unfurrowed, like he didn’t need to concentrate, like this came naturally to him. Knowing what to do for her.
That annoyed her. She lost the rhythm of pleasure for a moment. How irritating, that he didn’t have to work at it. That he looked so comfortable, so good obscured by her cunt. She pulled on his hair and his chin pushed harder against her in retaliation.
A low note throbbed through her, out of her. There, she had the beat back. The soldier’s tongue dipped into her again, drawing up over her center with a twist. Her body contracted, and she clutched him closer, urging him to do it again. He obliged, and suddenly he was taking her through the flood of release. The soldier kept his mouth hard against the bone of her pelvis as the waves of pleasure washed over her, as she rose, higher and higher. Momentum before a fall.
The force and timing of her orgasm surprised Mara and she tumbled inwards. It hadn’t taken long at all for her to come—when she’d implied the Dern were quick, she’d meant with their own pleasure. Standing on unexpectedly weak legs, she found herself wishing she’d let it go on a little longer. Drawn out the experience. No Dern had made her come like that before.
No one had made her come like that before.
It had to be the exhibition of it, or the work she’d done to prime herself on the tram, any little touch would have made her crack. There had to be something, some other reason—something besides the someone—to explain her reaction to that magic mouth.
It took longer for her to remember herself. To remember Liam. Her audience. His cock was still in the damsel’s mouth, his stone balled tight in his fist, but his full attention was on Mara, and it took her muddled brain time—too much time—to decipher the hard look in his eye.
She blinked, trying to focus. She’d done something wrong, she realized, her heart hammering. While the soldier was on his knees in front of her, she’d kept the pleasure to herself. Liam had been expecting them to share. He’d paired her with the grunt so he could watch. Her breath caught, out of rhythm. Liam had watched as she’d parted her lips for the soldier. Liam had seen that she’d forgotten he was there.
