“MARY, THANK YOU.” The governor opened the door.
“It’s good to see you,” she paused.
“Laura. My first name is Laura.”
“This is quite a setup. It looks very,”
“Unused? Yes, this is the governor’s official residence. I’ve never really moved in here. My family is pretty well settled, comfortable where they are. I only use it for official business.”
“This,” Mary giggled, “is official business?”
“Absolutely. You are providing me occupational and domestic therapy. Perfectly legal and aboveboard.”
“Fucking you is above board?”
“Absolutely. Sex therapy is covered under our contract. Doesn’t that take all the fun out of it?”
“Does you husband know you’re doing this?”
“Absolutely not! He would die!”
“That’s better, then.”
“Did you bring the, thing? Oh, my god, look at that?”
“It’s designed for women. You just slip it in, and it sort of attaches, and then, here, let me help you.” Laura had dressed in pants and a loose top. Mary pulled the pants down, and opened her with a few hard wet licks. She slipped in the prosthetic penis. “You squeeze here to set it, there’s a little button you can feel under the skin. Make sure you don’t press it by accident, or it will just fall back out. How does this feel?” She stopped talking to put the artificial organ in her mouth.
“It’s amazing. I can feel your lips, your teeth, no, stop biting, that actually hurts. Oh Goddess, don’t stop, I’m coming! Damn, that was too easy. Is that it?”
“I don’t think so,” Mary said. “I think we still have that advantage over men. And, you have a permanent erection. By the way,” she added, pulling off the rest of Laura’s clothing, “you look really super.”
“Yes, even my husband noticed. We actually had sex a couple of nights ago, for the first time in years.”
“How was it?”
“He’s picked up some strange habits somewhere, probably from your students.”
“You didn’t like it?”
“Any action is better than nothing. I found a place, a clinic, they claim they can do rejuvenation. So far it seems to be working. Take your clothes off,” she added, with an air of authority. “On the floor, on your stomach. Hands behind your back, grab your legs.”
“What?” Mary said. “I’m not sure I can do that. What is this?” Laura had produced a pair of hand and foot cuffs.
“You can struggle. If you struggle, I will let you go.” But Mary let the manacles go on her. A blindfold went around her eyes. She started to struggle then. “Too late,” Laura said, “you had your chance.” There was a sound like a crank turning, and Mary felt herself being lifted up off the floor, suspended from the manacles.
“What is this? You’re hurting me.”
“A demon, a demon. A case I did years ago, that has always haunted me. I made my husband string me up like this, I made him fuck me as hard as he could. I had to know what the poor girls had gone through. It was early in our marriage, he thought it was a joke. It made me hate the man who had done it, maybe it made me somehow hate my husband. But it wasn’t what I wanted. I need to know how it felt for him. Are you scared?”
“Yes,” Mary admitted.
“Good. Don’t fight, it will only make it hurt more. Goddess, I can feel how hot you are, how moist. I’m putting the tip just against your rectum, oh, that’s so hot, you are burning, burning, I need more. I feel it parting, I feel the muscles wrapping around me. Oh, that’s nice, nice.”
“It would feel just as nice if you let me lie down on something. Maybe even nicer.”
“You’re right.” Mary felt herself be lowered to the floor, the manacles and handcuffs removed. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“No you’re not,” Mary said. “Oh, that hurt. How long did he string the girls up like that?”
“Hours. Days. If he exhausted himself, if he couldn’t fuck them any longer, he would use a broomstick. Until they passed out. Until they died.”
“That’s so horrible. And how long did you last, as the victim?”
“Twenty minutes. I couldn’t stand the pain.”
“And now?”
“I still don’t understand. Maybe, knowing what it felt like at the other end was too much. But he had been abused, as a child; that was his defense He knew what it was to suffer.”
“Many of our students have suffered some abuse before they come to us. Most of them.”
“You were raised by the Order?” Laura asked.
“Yes,” Mary nodded.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“My life at the school? Of course.”
“No. The reason you wound up there.”
“No, no. I’ve put that behind me. And you?”
“Nothing sexual, nothing that had a hint of love or life. Just discipline, punishment, rigid, stifling morality. I ran away. I took vows.”
“You were a pilgrim girl?” Mary laughed. “You? You’re not wearing the piercing.”
“No, in my job you don’t want to advertise that sort of thing.”
“Does your husband know?”
“Absolutely not. He thinks that I was a shy girl from the frontier. Look, if you want to go, I can understand. I’m so sorry.”
“No, I’ll be okay. I think I need a drink, though.”
“Sure, what do you like? Wine, beer, something hard?”
“Wine is good. Thanks.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t want to sit on any of your nice furniture. I’m wet, I’ll stain it.” Mary leaned over the cushioned arm of a sofa, elbows on the seat, cradling her glass, sipping slowly. Laura moved behind, and started to lick away the sweat on her back, slowly working downward. “What are you doing?”
“Cleaning you up.” Laura said. Her tongue worked lower, seeking heat and moisture, delicately probing.
Mary was starting to quiver. “I’m going to spill the wine.” Laura paused to save the glass, to place it safely on the floor. When she came back, it was not to lick. “You’re not as tight this time.” She had slipped into Mary so gently, so easily that there had been almost no sensation. “Hot, smooth, very pleasant, but not the same.”
“I can squeeze. Is that better?”
“Yes, I like that. Keep doing that. Is that too hard? That was nice. How did it feel?”
“It was okay. This thing does not ejaculate, and I miss that. Maybe we should have set it to be a little larger.”
“It adjusts? Oh, Goddess.”
“Right at the base, you can feel a little dial. Twist it – no get out of me first, thank you. Try the vagina this time.”
“Sure. Oh, you are so warm, so soft. I can feel a little indentation, right at the very end, and your cheeks against my thighs. Oh I like this, I like this. I’m going to have to get one of these, try it out on my husband. Okay, your turn. How do I get rid of this thing?”
“There’s a little button, right here.” Mary took possession of the device. “Oh damn,” she said, trying to anchor it, “it’s just slipping right back out. Maybe you’re not supposed to fuck this much before you use it.” The two of them started to giggle. “There,” she said, “finally. Okay then.”
“What?” Laura asked.
“What do you mean what?”
“You want something you’re afraid to ask for. Don’t be. I spent a year as a pilgrim girl. There isn’t much that can shock me.”
“I want to string you up,” Mary said.
“What?”
“Like you did me.”
“Oh Goddess, I’m not even sure I’m flexible enough to get my hands and feet together.” Laura lay down on the floor on her stomach.
“I’ll help you,” Mary said, pulling limbs into the manacles.
“Oh Goddess, I don’t bend that way any more. I was a lot younger the last time I tried this. You don’t have to jerk so much when you winch me up. Wait, don’t poke so hard, give me a chance.” After that, there was no more talking for a few minutes. It seemed to go on forever, it was not going to stop, and Laura retreated into a doze that ended when she was deposited rudely back on the floor. “Get me out of the manacles” she gasped, “oh I can’t feel anything. Can you rub my arms and legs? What’s the matter?”
Mary was sobbing.
“I liked it,” Mary sobbed, “I knew that I was hurting you, I knew I had to stop, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t stop.”
“You did stop,” Laura pointed out.
“You slipped off the hook. I pushed so hard it knocked you off the hook.”
“I don’t think I can get up,” Laura said. She had managed to sit up on the floor. “Can you get me some more wine?”
“Sure, if I can stop shaking long enough. Oh Goddess, did I hurt you? A lot?”
“I am going to be very sore. Am I bleeding?”
“A little. Here,” Mary rummaged in her bag, “here is some salve. We run into problems like this all the time. Usually, though, I’m not the one causing them. Oh, Goddess, that’s one door I didn’t want to open, one demon that I never wanted to unleash.”
“You were abused,” Laura said. Mary nodded, mutely. “You never came to terms with that.”
“I never touched my children. No, that’s not completely true. I trained them, just as I would any other student. There was never any hint of a problem. I thought I had put it behind me, and now … Turn over,” she said.
“What are you doing?” Laura gasped.
“Cleaning you up,” Mary said, pausing to talk. “Does it hurt?”
“Yes, no, you’re making me come. Damn you, damn you. No, don’t stop.”
“Wait, relax, open up, I’ve got to apply the salve.”
“Like that, with your tongue?” Laura gasped, but Mary could not answer.
“You’ll be fine in an hour or so,” Mary said, when she was free to talk again. “Give me some of that wine. Oh, that’s better. That tasted awful. Not you, the salve.”
“Talk to me,” Laura said. “Tell me what happened.”
“What happened when? A lot of things have happened to me. Tonight is going to rank right up there. You should feel honored”
“As a child. How young were you when the abuse started?”
“How young? How young? I thought nursing on my father was as natural as nursing on my mother. He would never ejaculate,” she hastened to add, “but you know that fluid men secrete when they are aroused? I thought it was like candy. It was a treat. And when I sat on his lap, as soon as I was out of diapers, I was always naked to him, he was always aroused, I would rub against him. You know even very small children can get pleasure that way. And he would let me see what he did with my mother. I wanted to try it too, with him, and with my brothers. It was a game, just a game.”
“And you enjoyed it?”
“Most of the time. He had two other daughters, and they were not treated in the same way. Nobody could touch them. They were jealous, because I was special. I was dedicated.”
“Why were you special?”
“No one ever told me. I don’t think my siblings knew, at first, but they did, later on. Everyone knew but me. When I went to school, the other children wouldn’t play with me, they wouldn’t be my friend, except sometimes the boys would fuck me. My brothers’ friends. They used to share me with their buddies.”
“You let them?”
“Of course. I was so glad that someone was paying attention to me. It was on my tenth birthday,” she added, “that I discovered why I was special. I had been raised to be sacrificed.”
“Sacrificed? Your people practice human sacrifice?”
“It’s an ancient, secret tradition, dating back before Christian times. They truly, deeply believe that they need to appease the gods, that if they fail in their duties, the world will end. They believe that they and they alone have kept things going for over five thousand years.”
“We have rumors of this.”
“Of course. On my tenth birthday, there was a great feast. At the end, I was nailed to a beam, and raped by a hundred men. That’s how they do it now. They give the child a chance to survive the ordeal.”
“And you survived. How?”
“I just relaxed and let it happen. Believe or not, the worst time was when no one was fucking me, when I was just dangling. The pain from the nails was just unbelievable. That would only last for a few seconds, though. If I had been a virgin, I never would have survived, but I was so far from that, so far. In a way, it was my family’s gift to me. They were training me to survive. Even so, after a while …”
“You just withdraw,” Laura said. “Your body gives up, your spirit surrenders.”
“And you die,” Mary whispered. “I almost did that to you, just now, didn’t I?”
“What happened next?”
“If the child survives, she is an outcast. They kept me around, in a prison cell, alone, for a while, to see if I would die for them after all. After a while they gave up on me, and they took me to the transit system and dumped me.”
“And then?”
“I saw what the big girls, the pilgrim girls, were doing. I could lift my leg, just like them. I was very popular. I liked to work. I lasted that way for about three weeks, before the transit police finally picked me up. They brought me to a school, and here I am.”
“You’re making this all up.”
“Look, look at my wrists. You can still see the scars from the nails.”
“Stigmata. Does anyone know about this?”
“Of course people know. I got counseling just like any other student. It’s the only reason I survived. It’s what made me want to become a counselor myself. But my children never knew. No one around me now knows. It’s become a secret.”
“And just now?”
“I don’t know. It frightens me. I take medication, every day. I’ve taken it since the first day I entered that school. It ties me down, it anchors me, it keeps me from drifting away. But just now, I broke anchor. I didn’t know that I could do that. Have you ever been raped?”
“Before tonight? Yes, I suppose every pilgrim girl has a story or two. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“You’re holding something back,” Mary said. “You don’t have to tell me,” she added hastily, “I have no right to pry.”
“I do not want to talk about it.”
“That’s fine, that’s fine,” Mary soothed. “I had no right to ask.”
“I took a local through the Dead Zone.”
“As a pilgrim girl? By yourself?” Mary asked, then when the other nodded, added, “In the name of the Goddess, didn’t you know better?”
“Oh, I knew, I knew, but the car was crowded when I got on. It was full of people in uniform. What danger could there be?”
“What happened?”
“Everyone got off, and it was just me and a dozen soldiers. Some pitiful little army from some pitiful little planet, mercenaries going off to fight some stupid little war. They dragged me off at the next station.”
“In the Dead Zone?”
“Yes. Those stations are empty. They are still perfectly maintained, but no one ever uses them.”
“And then?”
“They kept at it for three days, more or less. They were inventive. What’s the most men you’ve ever had sex with at one time?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever come near that original hundred.”
“No, I mean, actually at the same time.”
“Two. Maybe once or twice three.”
“Six,” Laura said. “Two in each orifice. They did it as a joke. They took pictures.”
“That’s sounds terrible,” Mary said, but in her heart she was thinking that it was not all that terrible. No pilgrimage would be complete without one or two similar incidents. “At least you walked away from it.”
“I haven’t told you the bad part,” Laura said. “No one knows about this, no one. After three days, their commander showed up.”
“Commander?”
“They didn’t arrive to fight their little war. They were considered deserters. The fact that they had been spending their time raping me did not help matters. The commander showed up with fifty men, and he arrested them.”
“And ended your ordeal.”
“No,” Laura said. “It was just beginning. He shot them, he killed them right in front of me.”
“They were deserters, rapists. They deserved to die.”
“No,” Laura whispered, “no. Before each one was shot, the commander asked me, does this man deserve to die. I couldn’t just nod, I had to say, loud and clear, yes or no.”
“And you said yes?”
“Yes, and that man died, right before my eyes.”
“Did you say no?”
“Once. They did not shoot that man, at least not in front of me.”
“You must have sent other men to their death. Isn’t it part of your job?”
“No, Goddess, no. We never take life. We preserve life, we protect life, we do not take it. What those men did, it wasn’t so bad, it would have been one of my trophies, you know what I mean.” Mary nodded. That was exactly what she had been thinking. “But now, but now.”
“You don’t know what would have happened, if the commander had not arrived. They might have killed you.”
“Might have, might have,” Laura said. She slammed her wine glass against the floor, so hard it cracked, staining the rug with dark red wine. “Anything might have happened. But what did happen … Goddess, I can still see each of their faces, as I said that they deserved to die.”
“Did they protest?”
“No, they were soldiers. They were brave. They faced their deaths calmly, bravely. All but one. He begged for mercy. I changed my mind, but it was too late, too late.”
“What happened then?”
“They took me with them. They gave me a job, a real job. Okay,” she said, seeing Mary’s skepticism, “there were a couple of guys I had to sleep with, but that wasn’t what they were paying me for, it was, like, a condition of employment. I went to school, I got married, I became very, very respectable.”
“Until tonight,” Mary giggled. “We’re making a mess. We’re ruining your nice official residence.”
“Don’t worry. It’s seen worse. Everything is designed to clean up. My predecessor had some strange tastes … I guess I’m not one to talk, am I?”
“You know what,” Mary said, “I really need to pee. Where’s the bathroom?”
“Over there. Help me up. Oh, I think I can walk after all. That salve is really something.”
“It has saved us many times.”
“Aren’t you going to take that thing, you know, off?”
“No,” Mary giggled, “it’s supposed to really turn you into a man. There’s a little catheter that fits up into the urethra. Now if I could just aim. Oh, Goddess, I am so embarrassed. There that’s better. No, let me wipe it up.”
“It’s okay, none of the men in my house can aim either. I’m used to it. I remember the first time I changed my son’s diaper, he caught me full in the face. What did it feel like, peeing?”
“It’s wild. You can actually feel the liquid going down the shaft. I wish this model could ejaculate.”
“They make ones that do?”
“Yes, but they’re not available out here. Special order, they said. Here, want to try it?”
“Are you willing to give it up?”
“I don’t know. I like being a man. Here.”
“There, see, not a drop out of place. Want it back?”
“Do you trust me with it?”
“You have to promise to make love to me very nicely.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve actually made love.”
“Me too. Why don’t we give it a try?”
