Part 8

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"I'm still in here!" John screamed hoarsely as he worked his hands in the cuffs of the chair. His hands were raw and bleeding from his attempts to free them. He cried, tears unable to come from his thirst and hunger. He sat here for days and days. The foods left on the dining table were rotting, the stench pungent with curdled sauces and spoiled meats. "Still here ..."

He leaned forward, resting his forehead on the table top as he groaned.

"Keep trying John," Harvey insisted, sitting on the table beside him. The Scorpius image sneered as he picked up a juice dripping piece of apple pie and began to eat. "Apple pie John! You can do it. Come on now, do it for apple pie."

John screamed as he raised his head from the table, wrenching and jerking at his hands until skin gave way. He heard something crack and screamed again as the chair finally fell sideways from up rooting its nails to the floor. He screamed again in pain, his pinkie finger broken.

He raised his hand, unable to believe it was actually free, much less his own hand. It was crusted with blood, fresh blood splashed over it. It throbbed and burned, looking more like he had dipped his hand into a garbage disposal and turned it on. His brows raised, his flush face drawing even more red as he laughed maniacally at his hand.

"There we go!" Harvey shouted as he jumped from the table and crouched to John's head, waving the slice of apple pie in his face. "One more old chap! Then we can have fresh, oven baked apple pie with ice cold beer. Mmm-mmm good!"

John let the side of his head hit the floor, dazed and near drunk with the starvation and efforts to free himself. "I hate you ... HAAAAAAARVEY!"

With the scream of his name John twisted and yanked at his other hand until it slipped free, skin coming away with it, but free. He forced himself up to his knees, resting his hands on the top of the table as they bled and throbbed.

He stared dully at the molded food in front of him and began to gingerly pick at pieces that at least looked like they might still be edible. He closed his eyes as he dropped something into his mouth, unable to chew it. He turned, gagging as he threw it back up.

---

Although the arns and solar cycles since sleep had last enveloped her were too many to bear to count, Chiana's eyes stared intent yet distantly from her rest under the massive leaves of the annila bush. Her stare was unbroken by the opening of the door to the carefully escape-proofed greenhouse in Larran's wing. The footfalls on the expensive paving slabs were Larran's. She felt no urge to reveal herself and no cause to try to hide.

"Mm I like a lady that's not afraid to get dirty" Larran stood facing her in his broad stance.

"You'd need one. nnn-nnone of these is.....s edible?" Chiana suppressed a moan while her gaze limply changed to the large leaves over her.

"I think a plant that isn't for consumption but exists for itself is more interesting" Larran's voice had a trace of amusement.

"Ah no you can plant anything for any reason but it always exists for itself, fekkik. Why.....why not keep your frelling plants an let....me go....."

"Oh there are so many things in our finite, bitter existences that interest me. But to have you, and have all of you until it is gone in my control...." his eyes burned with an obscene thrill of possession "is more than enough reason, and it's suiting you don't know the glory of it that I alone know."

"Mno!" she yelled from somewhere deep down inside. She gasped for breath a few moments before speaking, slurred and weak. "No glory if I just....lemme go...."

"Nothing would pleasure me less than to let the only complete specimen of you go" he told her while he plucked a leaf from a shrub and watched it quickly wither as its sap dripped out "before I see you go...."

Her eyes gazed to him, trying to focus in confusion. "Crichton then.....you let him go....when....?"

"No my hardening whiteflower, he is a part of what interests me about who you are, whether you know it or not. He will always be in my hands or not at all. What is something if it is not known to you?"

"What it was anyway...." Chiana said in a breath. "What am I.....that anyone thinks I am, I thought....thought everyone thought.....I....just a runaway trelk...."

"Did you? Hm how fitting. You are from a noble family, and it pleases me to control and destroy their retched offspring."

"Wha.....family....didn't come here for that, I know...."

"Then you believe you have no relations here. Hm?" Larran posed the thought absently.

"Mnope" Chiana grabbed a giant leaf and wiped her running nose with it while he watched somehow curious by her behavior "none I know. Or'll admit to knowing me" she cracked a laugh, rousing herself to sit up.

"Possibly true....the trelk refuse of the otherwise noble family and her lover servant.....you don't know how right you were."

Chiana's eyes fell upon him and a tear fell from her eyes. It wounded her somehow, but she knew most of what he'd just said must be more of his cruel lies exploiting her shattered memory. He knew it would be too hard for her to be sure of the truth or the lies, and both would add to her torment. Lies falling within truths, transparent to the watchful eyes, like tear drops in the rain.

There was one difference. Oshana had told her different things. Little enough of it was understandable to her. But some of it was. Oshana believed she was somebody great, even supernatural. It sort of tied in with what little she'd gleaned of her apparently long dead brother and a resistance. Oshana was fharbots, but at least Chiana believed Oshana believed in what she said. She knew Larran spoke with a malicious liar's tongue.

"I wonder what these will do to you when you begin to try eating them?" Larran wondered out loud.

"Never eat them then, fekkik." She sneered. Her eyes suddenly cut to Larran. She smiled with a wild predatory glint in her eyes. "But you....'re edible" she slid into a squat. Larran unfolded his arms in alarm. "And exist for nothing!" she shouted. In a blink of an eye she'd grabbed a stake from the ground and sent it soaring to Larran.

Larran swung back and landed in a seat on the ground, narrowly avoiding being impaled by the perfectly thrown stake. He turned to find her launching herself at him with another stake in her hands. Bolting up from the floor with the base of a pot in his hand, he swung it out, striking Chiana's chest with the pot base. When she withstood the blow, he slammed it brutally into her shoulder, her stomach and finally her head. The base fractured into pieces and Chiana fell back into a broken squat with her shoulders upon a mound of dirt. Saliva mixed with blood dripped from her mouth as she moaned.

Larran stood, shrugging his elaborate jacket back in place. He walked to a com panel. "Oshana, send some help to....escort Chiana to her room. She looks" he laughed "....lost."

---

Two Bannik servants dragged Chiana by her feet into the hallway, back into the wing where her and John's quarters were. She opened her eyes as they dropped her feet and left her, closing the door behind them.

Her body ached like she had been rolled over by a dreadnought a few dozen times. Her thinning arms trembled as she tried to pick herself up by them, giving the floor a sort of stupid look as her lips parted. She drew up on her knees, turning around on them before she used the wall to help her stand. She slid her shoulder along it as she walked, unsure of just how many days it had been now since she had seen John or her quarters. Maybe he was dead by now.

Her breath caught as someone came around the corner and into the same hall. She inched back until she realized it was John, or she thought ... she tilted her head at him as if in awe. He had lost some weight. His face had drawn a bit gaunt, shallow beneath his high cheek bones. His shirt looked almost like it was too big.

"John ..."

"Oh hey," John snorted as he rubbed his eyes with raw looking hands. "Well hallelujah, at least someone misses me. Listen Chi, I'd like to hang here and talk but I've been sitting in that chair for five solar days and I think I'm pretty frelling beat out. Just - I dunno, go play in your sauna or whatever it is you've been doing."

"Oh," she barely muttered as her head swayed. "Well, at least you got to sit down on your ass."

"For an eternity," he groaned, grabbing at his back as he moved to brush past her.

"Wait," she stepped into his path, resting her hand into his chest. She stared at her hand for a moment, as if disbelieving the actuality of touching him. She lifted her gaze up to his eyes. "John ... I - I haven't. Mmh, been - in here either ... he - he, ah ... listen, we're still in this together, aren't we? I mean, I care if - what, you sat down? Okay. Okay, so - I ..." she swallowed, shaking her head sharply as she blinked. "Rrrrrr ... Frellin run over by a-a-a-a dreadnought."

John reached to her, almost cupping his hand to the back of her head. He leaned closer, gently placing a tender kiss on her lips. Chiana closed her eyes as she felt thrills of pleasure spindle through her abdomen up into her chest. Her arms drew out as his kiss deepened, softly searching her tongue with his own. He drew back, kissing her forehead softly with a tired smile. "You and me Pip, all the way."

Chiana let out her breath, dizzy from the elation of his touch. "Whoa ..."

She stopped him again as he began to try to move past her, her hands sliding up into his shirt as she ran her cheek across his chest.

"I'm whipped," John muttered to her, taking her shoulders as she began to work at undoing his pants. "Ow!" he hissed, shaking his hands.

"So am I," she muttered back as she tried to coax him down to the floor with her. "I need ... I need, this one."

"Everything aches," he groaned as he laid down onto the cold polished stone floor with her on top of him.

"Yeah," she sighed softly into his neck, kissing it tenderly before drawing her cheekbone along his. Her hand came to his warm manhood, caressing him even though his hardness had already gotten ahead of her at coming to full attention. Grinning with a fond amusement at the still soft feel of his human manhood, she kissed along his temple to his forehead, resting hers on his. She touched along his temples, drawing her fingers through his hair as she pushed herself onto his hardness.

"Ohhhhh!" She moaned out her delight as the pleasure washed through her entire being in waves of explosions. She thrust on top of him. "Harder," she gasped with a tentative quietness as her lips drew along his. "Harder."

John drew his head back, arching his back as he folded his hands around her hips, grasping them. His knees hurt, his back ached, his hands were on fire and he was seeing stars in the back of his head from the exertion ... but he couldn't remember the last time it felt so good.

She was tight and so incredibly warm, desperately rocking on top of him with what little strength she had left. Her wetness flooded around his shaft, so hot as he glided in and out of her. He shoved, slamming her hips down on top of him at the same time, impaling her with his hard shaft again and again, pounding her into him. Chiana sucked in her breath as she raised up on him. Her back arched, her arms flying up as she let out a delighted, sweet sounding scream. He cried out in a deep roar, feeling near the verge of passing out as he climaxed into her. His shaft throbbing like the hard pounds of his heart beat, his ejaculation spilled out so hot inside her it hurt.

He let his head drop onto the hard floor, dripping in sweat as Chiana laid over him. He wrapped his arm over her, resting his hand on her back as exhausted sleep began to take him over. "Better?" he muttered.

Chiana nodded, still trying to catch her breaths as she began to doze. "Yeah ..."

---

The slightest sense and sounds alerted Chiana's attention from her prowl. The very air about her seemed to take on an uneasy electricity.

"What have we here?" Chiana snapped her gaze over her shoulder. Larran slid into the unlit room, blocking much of the light now streaming in. Larran's lopsided sneer lit his face; yet it brought no warmth, making his youthful yet sharply dark face but animate with a wild, sinister glint. "Tiring of your rooms so soon?"

"Not my rooms," Chiana cut a dark gaze up to him for a microt.

"Perhaps you are in need of something from your host?" he leered.

He would relish any response she could give. If she resented him, he would feign hurt and "scold" her in some way she didn't want to contemplate; if she pleaded from the hunger the mere implication arouses to a dizzying, acrid effect, he would be delighted at his perceived power over her life; if she plied him with pleasure, he would take his pleasure and punish her with pain of some kind. The frustration threatened to blind her with fury, but she held it in check through a feeling of need to escape with this chip.

Chiana's trained motions help her to slide the communication chip in her hand into the now generous space between her pants and abs without seeming to do anything save touch her fingers to her abs in apprehension. Yet a shift in Larran's eyes told her that he suspected her motions. His leer didn't break from her as he approached her, his steps and shadow ringing chilly in her. Chiana made to pass him for the door. In deliberate, measured moves of a predator, Larran kept to his course until she had passed him and neared the doorway. He then seized her upper arm, blocking her with his opposite hand and stepping up to press her between himself and the wall near the door.

His hand gripped the top front of her pants, throwing her alongside and away to the back of the room, leaving the front of the torn pants in his hand. The chip fell to the floor, settling near her pants with a clatter.

Larran clicked a "tisk" with his tongue. "Have you no respect for privacy? No," his eyes suddenly lit with a hot malevolence, "I think not. Perhaps you'd benefit from the loss of your own?" he smiled at the fabric in his hand and closed in on her. "I see you wear your pants lose, the easier to fall I assume," he sneered, looking along the emaciated legs. "You would add so much more interest to my décor as my little sculpture." He roughly tore at the top and undergarment until all the material lay strewn around the floor. Yet for all her fighting and seething anger, he could see that she held her focus on leaving with that chip.

What was that look she suddenly flashed, Larran wondered, watching her looking softly yet predatorily into his eyes. "But would your body's nakedness be enough?" Larran seemed to pose the thought out loud to himself. "Oshana!" he summoned, hurrying to the communication panel. "Oshana, come to room 111 immediately. Move," he commanded.

As suspected, Chiana made for the door. Larran bolted for her, reaching her in time to prevent her escape. Or so he believed. A savage fury erupted from within her, snapping an arm around the front of his neck and nearly breaking his neck in a fatal snap had he not instinctively fell back. Failing the attempt, she kicked into his stomach with a force he didn't expect from her body, yelling as he fell back into the communication panel. She sprinted from the room before he could attempt recovery. Slowly straightening, Larran smiled at his progress. Her tiny form, his decision to leave her naked and her revealing the lethal depth of her fury were remarkably satisfying to have arranged.

Yet even as the flush of satisfaction spread onto his face and turned his mouth to a braced smile, the tinge of frustration began weighting his pleasure. It began to occur to Larran that no matter his ability to strip everything from her body that could be stripped, no matter the layers of her pride that were rendered to his mercy, and no matter the facets to her nature that were revealed to him, that soul would never be laid naked nor be revealed fully for him to attempt to appraise or to any others' ability to perceive. It didn't appear to know self-limitation any more than simplification for a full comprehension by others.

Despite the nagging sense of futility, his resolve stiffened to leave her stripped of all he could.

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