As she unchained him, Thorn still felt dazed from the incredible orgasm she’d drawn from him. His new Mistress was amazingly skilled—there was no doubt about that.
He still couldn’t believe how easily he’d submitted to her. Well—it hadn’t been easy at first of course—but after he’d made up his mind to try and be open to what she wanted from him, the whole situation seemed to become much simpler. And then when she started stroking that spot inside him…
“I said, are you all right, Thorn?” Neh’sa’s soft voice cut through the confusion in his head and he looked up to see that she was staring at him anxiously.
“Uh…yes. Thank you, Mistress. Just fine,” he muttered as she unchained his hands and ankles. She did leave the non-contact bracelets on him but Thorn hardly noticed. He felt strangely dazed—not quite himself.
Inside his head, he kept reliving the scene that had just played out between them.
I gave it up for her—gave up control, he admitted to himself. He’d been afraid if he loosed the iron grip he had on himself, even for an instant, the fire inside him might blaze up. Instead, for the first time since she’d touched him at the slave auction, he felt completely at peace—the fire banked and quiet—at least for now. Was that due to the earth-shattering orgasm she’d given him? Or was it simply the by-product of letting someone else have total control of his body for a while?
Thorn had no answers and his brain still felt fuzzy. He allowed Neh’sa to get him dressed in a long pair of black silk sleep trousers and drank the electrolyte replenishment shake she insisted he needed. Through it all, he felt like he was sleepwalking—like he wasn’t fully awake somehow. The sensation should have bothered him but for some reason it didn’t.
What’s wrong with me? he thought woozily. I’m behaving like a drunk idiot—not a member of the Espionage Corps. No one would guess I’ve been on over forty successful missions the way I’m acting.
But still the sensation persisted. He responded to Neh’sa’s questions and allowed her to lead him into her private sitting area to relax on a large, comfortable couch in front of a blue and green thistle-flame fire, but still he didn’t feel quite himself.
“Thorn,” she said to him, frowning. “Are you certain you’re all right? You’re very quiet.”
“Fine, Mistress,” he replied, making an effort to rouse himself. “I feel…fine.”
Neh’sa was still frowning. “I just—”
Just then the mechanical voice of the house information system came over the speaker in her room.
“Mistress Neh’sanna, you have an urgent call on the vid-screen.”
“A call from whom?” Neh’sa snapped. “I really don’t have time for any of Lady Wraith’neck’s nonsense. So if it’s her barrister, let her know—”
“It is from M,” the information system informed her.
Neh’sa’s face paled. “M? But why would he be calling? It’s not my night for duty.”
“I only know that he says he needs urgently to speak to you. Will you take the call?” the system inquired blandly.
Neh’sa sighed and ran a hand through her hair.
“Yes, all right. I’ll take it on the vid-screen in my bedchamber.”
“Understood,” The information system said. “Routing the call now.”
It cut out and Neh’sa jumped up, looking more agitated than Thorn had yet seen her, and went quickly into the bedchamber.
Curiosity cut through some of the strange, drugged sluggishness Thorn was feeling. He stood and made his way to the door that connected the sitting room to Neh’sa’s bedchamber.
Putting his eye to the crack in the door, just as he had earlier at her office, he saw Neh’sa—her robe now tightly and modestly belted—looking into the flat, rectangular vid-screen mounted on her wall. There was a male in his mid thirties with long black hair and pale amber eyes looking back at her.
“…really can’t come tonight,” Neh’sa was saying to him. “Can’t this wait?”
“I am afraid not, Mistress Neh’sanna.” The male frowned. “This is a grave injury—I fear without your touch I will not be able to heal it.”
Neh’sa bit her lip. “Of course I want to help but I’ve already used my touch several times today and I fear—”
“It’s a child,” the male told her. “Barely eight cycles old. Please, my Lady.”
“All right.” Neh’sa nodded. “Of course I’ll come.”
“The faster the better. I fear he’s slipping away even now.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Neh’sa promised.
The vid-screen clicked off and she ran quickly to her walk-in closet, shedding her robe along the way.
Thorn frowned at what he’d seen. Where was she going? What was all the talk of her “touch”? And who was the male who had compelled her to come to him?
This was the kind of puzzle he was normally used to solving. If his head hadn’t been so fuzzy he felt certain he would have known at once what was going on. As it was, he was barely able to make himself go back to the couch before Neh’sa emerged from the bedchamber, dressed in a somber dark-gray cloak with a hood that nearly hid her face.
“I have to go out, Thorn,” she told him. “I’m sorry—I don’t like leaving you alone on your first night with me but this is an emergency.”
“It’s all right, Mistress,” he heard himself say dully. “But…where are you going?”
“No place you need to know about,” she said briskly. “Now listen—your room is the smaller one adjoining my bedchamber. You’ll find a sleeping platform and a closet stocked with clothing in your size. Well—we’ll get it stocked tomorrow, anyway. I think it’s best you go straight to bed and get some sleep. You’ve had a very tiring day.”
Thorn frowned at her, feeling irritated.
“I’m fine, Mistress,” he growled although to be honest, he still felt off somehow. “I’ve done everything you asked. Are you really going to send me to bed early like a naughty child?”
Neh’sa looked taken aback.
“No—no of course not,” she said, frowning. “I only meant—” She shook her head. “Look, I’m sorry Thorn. You may, of course, have the run of the domicile. The only room off limits is my office. I’ll be back in a few hours—I hope.”
Then, before he could ask anymore questions, she was gone.
* * * * *
Neh’sa rode down her private lift, her mind full of questions and concerns. She hadn’t liked leaving Thorn alone after his first submission. Such things could be traumatic, after all. But when Matmon called, she had no choice – she had to go.
Her private lift took her all the way down to the bottom floor and opened onto the outside of her building rather than the inside. Neh’sa drew her cloak around her tightly, shielding her face, and walked briskly down the main street. Soon enough she turned into a small side street and then an even smaller alleyway.
A crumbling brick wall shielded the entrance to her destination. This was the main reason she chose to live in downtown Opulex – because it was so close to this place which was like an extension of her heart.
The minute she walked around the wall and rapped her knuckles on the sagging wooden door, she felt her heart left a little as it always did when she came here. The door creaked open and she was at once enveloped in controlled chaos.
The front of the building, which was an empty dream gas warehouse that had been repurposed, was like a makeshift waiting room. It was filled with long wooden benches where rows and rows of injured males sat waiting for treatment. Some of them were body-slaves and some were simply down and out males with no one to care for them. But though they had no Mistresses and no way of knowing where their next meal was going to come from half the time, they were still envied by some of the males who were owned.
“So I told her, I said to her, my Lady I can’t take no more of those pain bracelets. Not if you want me to be able to carry your fine Fruckian plates without dropping ‘em all over the place,” Neh’sa heard one male telling another as they waited for their turn to be seen. “And what does she do? She shocks me again! Now I can’t feel any of my fingers – it’s like I’m wearing gloves all the time. I’m just hoping they can help me out a little bit—I keep dropping things and my Lady is getting very angry with me.”
“Even though she’s the one as did it to you,” the other male said sympathetically. Mistresses are cruel bitches, make no mistake about that.”
“You said it brother!” The other man said. At that point both men seem to notice Neh’sa walking through the waiting area. They gave her unfriendly glances from the corners of their eyes and one of them muttered to the other, “What’s she doing here? I thought this was an all-male safe space.”
“This is the lady who pays for this place and all your treatment,” a deep male voice spoke up. “You’d best pay respect and be glad she cares for your wretched hides.” It was Matmon striding towards her and Neh’sa was concerned to see blood splattered across the front of his pale blue smock.
“Oh Matmon,” she exclaimed. “Please tell me I’m not too late! I came as quickly as I could.”
“No I think you may be just in time if we hurry,” the large male told her. “But it’s going to be touch and go. Come on!”
Neh’sa followed him through the swinging double doors that led to the back part of the clinic. Here there were several spaces devoted to triage where other med techs, mostly trained by Matmon, treated patients of all ages. But there was one thing both patients and techs all had in common – they were all male.
She had founded the clinic soon after Heloth had died in the male-uprising riots ten cycles ago. A safe space for mistreated males, of which there were many here on Yonnie Six. It was her tribute to him – a lasting legacy of their love – and Neh’sa tried to spend at least two or three evenings a week here helping Matmon out with the more difficult and dangerous injuries.
Not that she had any medical training – other than a few first-aid courses. But she had the healing touch, something that was passed from mother to daughter in her family. It was limited in her, as was her empathic ability.
Her mother had had a much greater gift – she had been able to read a whole range of emotions and heal a whole range of injuries with ease. Neh’sa could only feel pain and do her best to heal it.
Still, it was often enough, especially with Matmon, who was a skilled surgeon, at her side. Neh’sa felt very lucky that she’d been able to attract him to Yonnie Six in the first place. Her planet certainly wasn’t the most welcoming to males from other places. Or males at all for that matter.
But her head surgeon had seen the need and had been willing to come, for which Neh’sa was grateful. It was important to have a male in charge of the place because anti-female sentiment ran so high, especially in the slave classes.
Of course, Neh’sa didn’t blame the males who came to her clinic for their hatred of females. They were a repressed and subjugated sex and the majority of Mistresses on Yonnie Six had no idea of the proper treatment and care of the submissive male.
Neh’sa had been working for years to try and correct the ignorance and cruelty she saw all around her, but some days she felt like things were going backwards. Like today for instance – with Lady Wraith’neck and her huge Clopsian. What a travesty! What was she going to do about the charges the other Mistress planned to bring against her?
Before she had much time to brood on the matter, they came to the main surgical suite.
“He’s already sedated,” Matmon told her. “He got caught and dragged under the wheels of a carryall. Even if we can save him, his spinal column’s been crushed. He’ll need a permanent stimulator implanted if he’s ever going to walk again.”
“Let’s just worry about saving him first,” Neh’sa said. “And I’ll pay for the stimulator myself if you’ll put it in.”
“Of course I will my Lady.” Matmon made an abbreviated bow and then led the way into the operating suite. “Come – let us save him.”
The boy who lay on the operating table was a street urchin – he wore no collar or bracelets or marks of ownership of any kind. His little legs were twisted and mangled and there was blood so much blood… Neh’sa caught her breath at the sight of it. No matter how many awful injuries she saw, they were always worse when the victim was a child.
“I’m afraid this is going to take a while,” Matmon told her. “If you could please scrub in and stand on the left side of the table. I’ll be working on the right, if you can apply your touch while I do surgery?”
“Yes of course.” Neh’sa nodded quickly and went to the scrubbing station. She quickly scrubbed in and irradiated her hands, getting rid of all germs and bacteria, before putting on a tight fitting set of second-skin gloves and going to stand beside the tiny crumpled form on the operating table.
Matmon joined her quickly. Hooking an OPTi wire loop over one eye and choosing his instruments carefully, he looked up at Neh’sa.
“Ready?” he asked.
Neh’sa nodded wordlessly and closed her eyes doing her best to draw from the reserve of inner strength which she had already used much of today. This was going to be a long night—she just prayed to the Goddess they would be able to save this small life.