Title: Off World
Author: Jonah Bergan
Publisher: Booktrope
Publishing
Cover Artist: Michelle
Fairbanks
Length: 240 Pages
Release Date: August
22, 2015
Blurb: What really brought Taine to
that backwater little world? Taine’s a hunter. He’s a red-skinned, black-eyed
Lowman by nature, and a hunter by trade. Some hunters work in flesh, others in
secrets, and some few work to set right what’s been set wrong. It’s a big
galaxy and there’s always plenty of work for a hunter like Taine, so you got to
wonder, what with all that at his feet, what really brought Taine to that
backwater little world?
Off-World is a M/M science fiction action/adventure set in F/M dominated space. The story takes place in an arm of the galaxy where slavery (sexual and otherwise) is legal and commonplace. Strictly speaking, it is not a BDSM novel in that consent is not a matter of concern for the characters, but those with an interest in BDSM should enjoy the story. Due to explicit content, Off-World is not recommended to readers under eighteen years of age.
“You his father?” Taine
asked.
“Uncle,” the man said,
glancing toward his wife. She looked away, a terse expression on her face. He
looked back at Taine, bringing his chin up defiantly. “By marriage,” he said.
“I did right by the boy.”
Taine shrugged. It made no
difference—these backwater worlds, with their backwater cultures, none of that
mattered to him. It was bad enough he had to ride in from the starport on
horseback. Bad enough he had to dress the humble part just to avoid offending
these rubes. Still, if he’d come blasting into town in his Hover, he’d have
found half the doors shut to him, and the other half damned slow to open. Taine
was a hunter, a Lowman—a red-skinned and black-eyed alien, and his kind wasn’t
welcome everywhere, no matter how much they paid for what they bought. No point
in making things worse by flaunting wealth in a place of such poverty.
Taine turned his attention
back to the human he was here to inspect. He took a quick inventory of the boy.
Pretty face, decent frame, all good starts, but the boy was un-groomed, pale
and too lean for his age. Malnourished, Taine thought. Most
likely in body and mind both. That might be correctable, might not.
Sometimes that kind of damage can’t be undone no matter how much you pay to fix
it. Still, the boy looked appealing enough despite the slight frame—long legs,
long arms and a pretty face with a halo of wild blond hair like the rays of
some golden sun. He’s young, but not under, Taine
thought. Taine checked the boy’s teeth, running his finger under the
boy’s lips and along the gums. He tugged a tooth or two—still solid.
“How old?” Taine asked.
“Nineteen now,” the boy’s
uncle said. “Twenty soon. Been here more’n half that time.”
“Lazy?”
“Hard worker,” the man
snapped. “Wouldn’t have lasted otherwise.”
“So why are you selling?”
“Hard times,” the uncle said,
“and harder coming.” This brought a scowl from the missus, but she didn’t say a
word. She’d had enough of the gambling, and the drinking, and she’d said so
often enough that the words seemed to have lost all meaning. If her husband had
saved his earnings, instead of squandering them, none of this would have been
necessary. When he said, “It’s him or me,” she didn’t argue. After all, it
wasn’t an ultimatum, it was simply true. She consoled herself by thinking about
the money. It would help them get off-world before the aftermath of the war
came upon them like some kind of tidal wave, and swept both of them away from
her. Choose one or lose both, bane or burden. It had been an easy choice, at
least until now.
Taine slipped his middle
finger deep into the boy’s mouth. The boy closed his eyes, and his face blushed
red, but he yielded, relaxing his jaw and taking the finger as though it were a
cock. Taine moved his finger in and out, fucking the boy’s face, watching him
blush and tear up. Taine had good reason for doing it, but he earned a sharp
look from the missus anyhow. She nudged her husband and glared at him.
He
scowled, and turned back toward Taine.
“You buying or not?” he
snapped.
“Maybe,” Taine said. “Hard to
tell with him all covered up.”
The uncle grunted and stepped
forward. He tugged at the waist of the home weave the boy wore. The coarse
trousers loosened and then slid down the boy’s long legs. A gentle tug and the
shirt came loose in front. The uncle slipped it over the boy’s shoulders and
let it fall the floor.
“There,” he said. “No need to
make a show of it. Buy, or get out.”
Taine felt the boy’s tongue
start moving against his finger. It surprised him, and he drew his finger back,
but the boy sucked at it, trying to keep it in him. Taine obliged the boy,
sliding it in and out a few more times and smiling as he felt the boy’s tongue
bobbing and dancing beneath his finger. The boy wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t make
eye contact either. His uncle had taught him that well enough, but the boy
doing what he was doing with his tongue spoke volumes. That’s him just
about pleading, Taine thought. What must life in this little hell
be like, for the boy to yearn for a sale off into the unknown?
Taine leaned forward, drawing
in just a taste of the boy from the air around him. He sampled the first scents
of the boy’s essence. Sweet, Taine thought. Like honey must
taste. It was a thick and golden flavor, and it made Taine smile.
That’s all he needed to know to buy any boy—that there was something either
savory or sweet in them that was still strong enough to reach the surface. The
rest would be up to the trainers—the professionals back at the Temple on
Taine’s home-world. But the boy’s dancing tongue sparked Taine’s curiosity, and
he wanted to know more.
He reached up with his free
hand, taking hold of the boy at the back of the head and began slowly moving
his finger in and out. He knew he was humiliating the boy before his family,
but Taine closed his eyes, and drove his awareness deeper. There were other
ways to open a human. Most of those were forceful, and some were downright
violent. The uncle and aunt might not understand, but for a Lowman, this was an
act of kindness. It was the gentlest way to break through to the only thing a
Lowman truly valued.
Taine pressed his awareness
into the boy, moving through the ebb and flow of the boy’s many complex
flavors. He was careful not to feed, not to take any of it in. As was so with
most humans, the boy was a stormy wash of conflict within. Taine found urges
and desires and regrets, a mind in constant turmoil, and rife with
fear—predominantly fear. Some of that fear had been earned, and some had been
instilled and it lurked in the boy, like shadows in some dark wood. Taine
pressed forward beyond all that and went deeper, reaching toward the source of
the boy. Taine found his way blocked. It was expected, a barrier—an obstacle to
turn him back. It had a scent and a flavor—something akin to the bitterness of
burned toast, but its aspect was like a sharp blade bearing a dark stain, it stabbed
at him, threatening him and warning him to turn back. Taine instinctively
flinched away from it, slipping around and behind it, evading it, and driving
himself closer to the wellspring. He found and followed the predominant
scents—that of seaweed, dark and rich, and the flavor of saltwater, and he
found himself standing on hot sand, feeling the sensations of an empty beach,
and the heat of a brilliant and golden sun. It was a rich and delicate feeling,
and a smell, and a taste—the smell and taste of sunshine. Yes, Taine
thought. That is who he is. Sunshine.
Taine slowly opened his eyes
and withdrew his finger. He wondered then, and not for the first time, why
humans waste their children so, as though darkening them would brighten the
world. Didn’t they know the world would be less hard with fewer hard people in
it? It’s not an easy thing to change, it takes some real effort, but didn’t
they know it could be changed? Didn’t they know those dark
urges could be controlled and even used?
The boy had given him nothing
but the idea of burnt toast between him and the seashore. Not much to
glean from that, Taine thought. To learn more he’d have to feed, and that
wasn’t something he’d be doing, not with an uncultivated and feral human.
Still, he was curious.
“You about done?” asked the
uncle. The aunt had turned away, and the uncle was glowering.
“Not by a long measure,”
Taine said.
The uncle shook his head and
waved Taine on. “Just get it over with,” he said.
Taine ran his hands across
the boy’s chest and down his flat stomach. The boy’s breathing quickened as
Taine fondled his cock, teasing it to life. It responded by thickening and
rising, though maybe not as fast as it should. The boy never raised his head,
never moved a muscle, he just stood there like Taine had every right to touch
and use his body. Taine gave the balls a firm squeeze, and the boy tensed,
rising on his toes a little, but he never once raised his arms, never once
tried to defend himself. Good submissive spirit, Taine
thought, that’ll be important if we’re gonna heal him up.
Taine took the boy by the
shoulders and turned him around. He meant to plunge his finger into the boy,
just to check for damages, and maybe make the boy’s cock grow up full-sized,
but the two cheeks were crossed with welts, some fresh and still white where
the switch had marked him recently. Maybe not born to it after all,
Taine thought. Maybe all that submission was just beaten into him. No
way they nurtured it, no way they cultivated it, not the way the Lowmen would
have with such a delicate specimen as this one.
Taine considered the welts
across the boy’s ass. There were older ones across his back, a few sores,
in-growns and pimples across his shoulders; nothing that couldn’t be tended to,
and probably should have been before they offered him. These people had no idea
what they were doing, but that wasn’t a surprise either, was it?
Taine would’ve slipped his
finger in right then, but by the scent of things they hadn’t cleaned him, so he
traced his fingers along the welts on the boy’s ass instead, and then looked up
at the uncle.
“Trouble maker?” Taine asked.
“No,” he said. “That’s just
from his dailies.”
Taine nodded. “So, what’s
your price?”
“Sixty,” the uncle said.
“Waste of time,” Taine said.
He snorted and turned for the door.
“Sixty’s fair,” the uncle
said, raising his chin. “More’-n-fair.”
“Yeah,” Taine said, “Not for
that.”
“Now, don’t be
disrespectful,” he said. “The boy’s family after all.”
Taine turned and looked the
man squarely in the eyes.
“I’m interested, so you name
me a real price and I’ll consider it,” Taine snapped, “but sixty is just plain
fantasy.”
The man stepped close. That
was a brave act, or maybe just a desperate one. Not many people dared approach
a Lowman hunter, not with their alien looks and their reputation for violence.
The solid black eyes and all that red flesh intimidated humans—something about
their ancient myths. Still, Taine had gone to a great deal of trouble to make
himself approachable to these backwaters, and now he wondered if maybe he’d
done that a little too well.
“Boy sucks cock good as any,”
the uncle said, keeping his voice low, as if keeping it from his wife.”He’s a
good earner, and that backside’s got years of action left to it. I wouldn’t be
selling if I didn’t need to, and I know you got your own expenses, so you
tell me what’s fair.”
“Ten,” Taine said.
The man grimaced.
“Ten and you’re lucky to get
it,” Taine said. “He’s nineteen, nearly twenty, easily a year past prime, and
by my guess, he’s spent that time squaring up plenty of your debts. You’ve done
nothing to develop him. By the time I’m done fixing what you’ve botched, I’ll
be lucky to clear a slender profit. So that’s my offer, ten, or I’ll head over
to Jenkins Creek where I hear there are a set of twins coming up prime.”
“I can’t take ten,” the man
said, shaking his head. “I gotta have fifteen, and that’s a loss for me,
Mister. I had him ten years under my roof. Fifteen don’t half
cover it, but I’m willin’ to concede some, if you are. So there we are, it’s
fifteen, or I’ll wish you a safe trip over to Jenkins Creek.”
Taine reached for the door
handle, but hesitated. He thought about Shilandra, and what he had done to her.
The memory returned, unbidden and heavy, like betrayal. He still had some of
the boy’s scent with him, so he turned and looked back. The boy was standing
there just about trembling—his head down, and face red, and his cock still
jutting up. Would she even accept this one? He thought.
The boy was as lean a colt as
Taine had ever seen, but the flavor of him showed promise. It’d take some work,
bringing this one up, but there was something alluring about him—a hint of what
might be found in him by skilled hands. He’d already found the boy’s
name: Sunshine, and that was no small thing. Making him live up to
that name, that’d be some hard work, and some expensive work as well, but if he
did, if the boy did live up to that name, he’d be valuable
well beyond his family’s reckoning of wealth, and well worth Taine’s time and
investment. She’d recognize that at least, Taine thought.She’d
see the value in him, wouldn’t she?
“I know I’m going to regret
this,” Taine muttered. “You got his papers drawn up?”
“All but the price and date,” the man said smiling.
From Chapter Two: Jenkins Creek
Set-up: Taine is
standing on the front porch, speaking with Simone, a local woman. They are in
front of her cabin, deep in the wilderness of a war-torn world and far from the
starport where Taine’s ship waits for him. Something in the woman’s bearing and
body language makes Taine suspicious, so he uses his alien senses …
Taine reached
out with his awareness, scanning the clearing as well as he was able. It was
hard to do, keeping his eyes open, and on the woman so as not to arouse her
suspicions, while at the same time focusing himself out there beyond himself.
The life force
of the plants and trees, and all the wildlife around the place was like a
brilliant blinding glow. If it were a sound he was reaching for, all that
vegetation would have been like a low constant static, punctuated by sharp
bursts from the insects and fauna living and burrowing and flying... and then
there it was, like something brilliant against a backdrop of brilliance. Taine
sensed a distinct life-form amid the glow of the wilderness. It was a human, a
male, crouching in the foliage. Taine touched upon it, gleaning from it what he
could. He was Simone’s son—her eldest boy—sent to watch the strangers, and waiting
to shoot and defend, nervously peering through the sights of what was very
likely a blaster rifle.
"We hear
a lot of things out here," Simone said. "We hear you treat ‘em right,
but we also hear that you redders eat the boys."
Taine snapped
back to himself. Her words had pulled him, but her eyes gave her away. If he
hadn't sensed the presence of the boy out there, if he didn't already feel as
though the blaster rifle was pressed right between his shoulder blades, her
eyes, her spirit would have shown him
the danger he’d found for himself. There in the deep woods of a backwater
little world, all alone and so very far from civilization, and for the first
time in a very long time, Taine felt like an alien.
"I say
it's just talk," she said, "but there are some that say otherwise. So
which is it? You made your word, now keep it."
Taine's
sidearms were in his saddlebags. He’d left them there. He’d done it on purpose.
They weren’t the right tools to open a door in these parts, or the right props
to keep one open. So he’d stowed them, and now, with a blaster rifle in nervous
hands behind him, and an accusation laid before him, he cursed himself for
being a fool.
He didn’t need
them—not for himself. He was fast, more than fast enough to get himself out of
harm's way, but Sunshine was right there, sitting on the bedroll, his arms
wrapped and tied. If they believed those rumors, and judged Taine guilty, maybe
they'd even believe they were doing the boy a favor. Maybe they'd settle down
to evening meal, thinking they'd done a good thing that day—murdering the boy
to save him from a worse fate.
"We don't
eat humans," Taine said.
"We heard
you do," Simone said. "And I can smell a lie, redder or not. I got a
bit-o-witchy about me like that. So you want to tell me again?
Jonah
Bergan is a freelance writer living in New England. His publishing credits
include a ten part serial, multiple short stories, and a collection of anecdotal
humor. He has also published MMORPG game reviews and content, hypnosis scripts,
online user manuals, and advertising texts. Please visit jonahbergan.com to
learn more about him.
|| Website & Blog || Facebook || Twitter || Google+ ||
Winner’s Prize: A Paperback copy of “Off-World”.
Runner-up’s Prize: An
e-copy of “Off-World”.
August 31:
September 1:
September 2:
September 3:
September 4:
September 7:
September 8:
September 9:
September 10:
September 11:
September 14:
September 15:
September 16:
September 17:
September 18:
September 21:
September 22:
September 23:
September 24:
September 25:
No comments:
Post a Comment