Istanza

Her mind had not been on the job for the whole day. She had hoped to spend her time silently preparing her escape plan, thinking of where she should look for a pilot and where she should try to get passage to. Krakus sat on the outskirts of the colonised galaxy, a long way from the security and democracy of the central systems, an ancient settlement that had always been too far away from civilisation to prosper. Even as the central territories had expanded it had remained remote; even as new settlements had appeared in neighbouring systems so it had retained its backwater status. The whole region was a backwater, as if there was something in space itself that sucked the life out of everything good that tried to flourish.

The palace had been an ancient relic long before the Sect had moved in, barely two decades ago. A vast stone labyrinth in the mountains, some monument to a long-forgotten industrial age when people had first landed on the surface, full of hopes and aspirations and unrealised dreams of a prosperous new world.

How quickly our dreams fade, Leeann thought.

She missed Silra. The knife blade still tortured her heart every time she recalled how she had turned under the silk, refusing to make eye contact. She tried to think of something else, tried to concentrate on formulating her escape plan, but her mind would not settle. It was what she wanted more than anything else – to get off the planet, to bring the Sect to justice – but she wanted it with Silra. She needed it with Silra. Silra made it possible, Silra gave her the strength to do things that she was too weak to do alone. Silra was what she needed to beat her addiction, to lose her need to cause pain. She couldn't leave without Silra.

The punishment of the Koda came around faster than she was expecting. She felt sick as they were led into their cells, but she felt her sickness diminishing as she made her way to the rack, withdrew a flogger, a ball-gag and some shackles, felt her loud footsteps carry her into a cell, shut the door. Automatically she gripped the arms of a shivering Koda, not caring to look at which one it was, twisted and pushed until she fell to the ground, hoisted her heavily while shouting something bitter with spite from her tongue. In a daze of thundering heart and giddy head she shackled the whimpering creature's hands behind her back, hoisted them into the air with the ratchet on the wall, until the girl stood bent over, arms raised behind her, fingers outstretched and clutching at thin air as if reaching for help. At some point Leeann noticed that she must have removed the Koda's garb, for she stood naked, semi-suspended, turning on her toes to try to alleviate the force on her shoulders. If she stumbled she may dislocate them.

Leeann's thundering heart overruled her hands and threw the flogger heavily, bringing its cruel lashes onto the girl's buttocks. She cried out loudly despite the ball-gag. Leeann didn't even remember fitting it, although she must have – it had been in her hands when she left the rack, hadn't it?

She gave another strike, felt her sex sing to the rhythm of the falling lashes. Strike, strike, scream, scream, buzz, buzz, throb, throb went her clit. She let her anger out, gave a bellyful roar, brought lash after lash after lash onto the whimpering Koda's buttocks as her other hand found its way under her leather shorts, gripped her throbbing clit, massaged it, squeezed it, teased it, rubbed it. Strike, strike, scream, scream, buzz, buzz, throb, throb, rub, rub, rub, strike and rub, strike and rub, strike and rub, see her scream and whimper, see her struggle at her bonds, see her teeter on her tiptoes, trying to escape the pain and the cramps. She rubbed her clit frantically as she continued to lash the girl, until she sunk to her knees as her legs turned to jelly, an orgasm sweeping the anger from her like a cleansing wave.

She stopped, let the whip drop from her fingers, let her eyes wander away from the girl's red and swollen buttocks. She withdrew her hand from her shorts and idly wiped her fingers on her belly. She stood, shaking, swallowing her nausea like a dry mouthful. What had she done?

Silra had abandoned her, and the need had come back. The repressed urge, returning with all the force of an earthquake. Her hands shook, her legs shook. Awkwardly she released the Koda's ball-gag, let it fall to the floor. She slackened the ratchet, lowered the girl's arms, removed the shackles. In silence, apart from the thundering of her heart in her head, she collected her tools and left the cell, locked the door, deposited her things on the rack and staggered back to her room.

That had been exactly how it had happened with the girl on the ship. One minute she had been expecting to give her a talking to about sloppy work, the next she had jumped up, grabbed her by the hair, forced her face into the pillow. The girl was young and shy, too shy to cry for help before Leeann had tied her hands behind her back with her own jacket. In a feverish bloodlust she had gagged her with duct tape, across her mouth and nose, with just two tiny holes for her nostrils – big enough for her to remain conscious, but small enough that she could not draw enough breath to scream. Then she had set loose upon her body, the urge so strong and overpowering that she wasn't even sure what she was going to do until she had done it. That poor girl had tried to scream, tears had poured down her face, but nobody had come to her aid.

What had she done?

Leeann made it back to her room. The nausea had abated somewhat and her racing heart had slowed; she no longer felt at risk of vomiting or passing out, at least, but she still had to face Silra. She pushed open the door, stepped in quietly, closed it behind her.

Silra lay in the bed, facing the other way. Leeann stepped across the room, wondering how she was going to speak to her. Silra saved her the concern.

"Been thinking of you." Silra sighed tiredly, but sweetly.

"I've, um..." Leeann began, pursed her lips, then tried again. "I've been thinking about you too."

"Everywhere I go people ask me who I am, or what I am, as if it matters." Silra said, her voice forced and pained, as if she was trying not to cry. "And it hurts me. People always have to know, every time I let someone get close to me they have to know, and I can't tell them."

"You can't tell me?" Leeann said, in as honest a voice as she could muster. She meant it, but she was still drained and sickened from her experience in the cell, and needed to rest.

"Leeann, I can't tell you." Silra chimed, impatience thick in her voice.

"Sweetie, that's OK. You don't have to tell me. I was curious, but I don't have to know. I'm sorry, but I don't want you to run away from me like this. I love you."

And she had said it. She cringed almost immediately, but it had slipped out before she could stop it. She put on a smile when she saw Silra shifting on the bed, rolling over to face her.

"You love me?" Silra whispered, her eyes glistening with tears. Leeann felt hers fill to match, then overflow, tears coursing down her cheek.

"Yes." She whispered with honesty, sat down on the bedside, put her arms around Silra's body and embraced her.

"I love you too." Silra replied, breaking down into sobs.

"I know you do. Just hold me." Leeann said, then felt herself breaking down too. Sobs seemed to come from nowhere, tears of happiness and sorrow; happiness that Silra was back in her life and sorrow that the poor girl was more troubled than she thought, more damaged by her past than she had realised. She was not quite the proud, strong individual she made herself to be; there was something behind those big, intelligent eyes that was still scarred from some past event or events, and she had inadvertently dug up those scars, picked at them, and in her absence they had been bleeding all day.

"My sweet Silra." She whispered into Silra's hair, buried her face into her neck, felt the warm itch of her tears as they dripped from her face. "I really do love you."

"I know. I love you too."

"That makes me so glad. My special lady. My special girl."

She tried to dry her tears, but as she did so the memories of her actions in the cell came flooding back, and pushed her over the edge once more. She cried into Silra's neck until she thought she was done, and then she cried some more.

"Are you OK?" Silra whispered, when Leeann's sobs redoubled.

"I hurt her." She whimpered through her tears. "I couldn't stop it, I just kept on beating her and beating her while I made myself come. I couldn't stop."

"It's alright, Mistress." Silra cooed. "It wasn't you, it was me. I'm sorry. I hurt you today and you had a relapse, and I'm sorry. I have these sore nerves and sometimes I go off and hurt the people I care about. I'm sorry I did this to you today, I'm sorry I made you do that. But it's alright. Your girl is here with you. Your girl will make it alright. I'm here for you, and you'll defeat it again. With me to help you, you can do it."

"I love you, girl." Leeann sobbed once again, although her tears were slowly drying.

"I know. I love you too. My special mistress."

Leeann awoke early. She had planned to look at the computer before going to bed, but she had been tired after her ordeal, and deeply upset, and after Silra's embrace had comforted her she just wanted to sleep, so they had settled down together under the silk and she had dozed fitfully, in and out of sleep, in and out of powerful dreams. She dreamt that she was on a ship, heading away from the city, looking down on the palace as they rose over the mountains, but the ship had ceased climbing and began to descend, back into the courtyard between the palace and the Outer Court. At first she was afraid that she had been double-crossed, sold back to the Sect by the pilot, but then she had remembered something she had left behind, and had ran back into the palace to collect it.

The junior priests had paid her no attention, but she found what she was looking for in the dungeons. Koda. Naked, shackled, awaiting her whip. She whipped them and caned them, and all the while the ship was waiting in the courtyard for her, but she forgot about it. Silra was there too, whipping the Koda with her; it was erotic and powerful, Silra's crazed smile as she drew back her whip and lashed a girl to the sound of screams from all around.

Then she woke with a jump, heart racing and covered in sweat.

She stepped out onto the cold stone, crouched under the big bed and withdrew the computer, booted it and logged onto the net. The Krakus bulletin boards had changed since she had last used them, but she found her way around quick enough, got herself a mail account under an assumed name and posted a notice on a trader's board. The backwaters of the galaxy were favourite resting grounds for those that made a living from the less moral trades, a sort of exclusive underworld for pirates, smugglers, slave-traders and guns-for-hire. Regular traders worked the routes too, for there was business to be done carrying food and supplies from the safer regions, but they were a harder breed of trader – operating in pirate homeland was a risky business if one was not well known or well-endowed with defensive weaponry and nerves of steel.

Bulletin boards were a prime source of income for many freelance traders, for they could anonymously put anyone in touch with a hardy ship operator looking for a job or a mercenary looking for a contract. She would find someone here – she would probably find several, and from there she could select the most suitable. What she really needed was more than a trader: she needed a fixer. Somebody who could sort out fake identities for her and Silra, someone who could arrange transport from the palace to the city, and provide them with clothing for the journey off of Krakus.

Avenging Angel seeks experienced and trustworthy individual to arrange transport and help with border paperwork.

That should be enough. No point in giving too much away or being overly dramatic. Nobody would reply to a blatant request for criminal assistance, and promises of cash transfers or rewards would only arouse further suspicion. No point in choosing a destination just yet either – better to wait until she had a fixer, who could suggest a good place to go. She would change identities again when she reached her destination, using a new fixer – just in case the Krakus individual turned double-agent and tried to sell her back to the Sect.

Now it was just a waiting game to see what came up.

* * *

Days went past, and then weeks. Leeann checked her mailbox once every day, bumped her advert weekly. She had a few replies, but nothing promising. Junk mail offering guaranteed penis enlargement or mind-control implants proven to make the object of her desires turn week at the knees; horny losers hoping to get some action, or maybe just a reply – she regretted choosing the name Avenging Angel, and ultimately changed it for a less feminine pseudonym when she rephrased her advert two weeks later. Still nothing of interest came back.

It had been like this last time. In fact it had taken longer, as her access to a computer was much more limited back then, and she was working through a contact in the Outer Court who she could not (and did not want to) see very often; he extracted his payment from her every time they met to exchange plans or make alterations.

This way may be slow, but it was easier than dropping her shorts for some rough-cut stranger, or allowing Silra to do the same in her stead. If it sickened her to imagine going down that path again and allowing herself to be violated by a stranger, then it sickened her further to imagine a hard Outer Court man doing the same to Silra. Silra was hers and hers alone, and she was so thankful that Silra had the skills – however she had acquired them – to break into the Outer Court and take a computer without having to subject her body to that kind of treatment.

More days passed. She fell deeper in love with Silra, and Silra repaid her love in kind. She did not question Silra's past again, and they did not fall out again. Silra continued to give her strength, and the need to hurt shrank inside Leeann once more. She could call upon it, when she really needed it, in order to do what she had to do to the Koda, in order to keep up her façade as a brutal and sadistic Istanza, but she could send it back down again just as quickly, just as soon as she was finished. Danielle snuck into her dungeon from time to time, ostensibly to convey important messages from the high priests or to ask her genuine questions, but Leeann could tell that she was being watched from a safe distance. It was a worry, but it was not a worry absolute. If she had truly aroused their suspicions then they would have acted already; she would be under much closer surveillance, perhaps even supervision.

She sat on her bed one evening, having returned from her work, and flicked through junk mail. Still nothing of use.

The bed shifted behind her and she felt Silra's lips on her neck, her slender hands running down her arms, her small breasts press against her back. "Why don't you let me take a look, Mistress?" Silra purred, taking the computer from Leeann's unresisting hands.

"Have you used bulletin boards before?"

"I know about bulletin boards." Silra said flatly, dropped her seductive demeanour and took on a businesslike approach, propped the computer on her knees and began typing quickly.

"What are you doing?"

"Putting up a new ad." She replied. Leeann craned to look but Silra tilted the screen away, gave Leeann a wry smile and a kiss on the cheek. "Naughty Mistress, mustn't look. Don't worry, it's alright. I'm setting up a new mail account, then I'll put on a new ad, see if it gets any more replies."

Leeann sank back into the bed. "Alright, sweetie. I trust you."

"Aww, you don't think I'd leave without you, do you?" Silra said, looking over the top of the screen at her, creasing her face with a playful smile. "After all those wonderful things you did to me last night?"

Leeann smirked. "Yes, I thought you enjoyed that."

"What gave it away?" Silra called, her head turned back to the screen, her fingers tapping rapidly.

"Umm, probably the mess you left on my silk sheets."

"Oh. I'm sorry, Mistress." She mewed. "I couldn't help it."

"Don't be sorry. It was quite a sight, watching you wriggle like that."

Silra giggled. Leeann lay on the bed and stretched, reached up with her hand to stroke Silra's bare back softly. She remembered the days when that back was almost always covered in welts – thick purple ones, thin red ones, puffy ones that wept, deep ones that bled. Those days were gone, almost all her scars were healed. Beating was something of the past in their games, spanking only done rarely when Silra was in the mood for roleplay. Leeann could usually tell those days, for Silra mooched around like a guilty kitten, looked at her with doe-eyes, apologised over and over for being such a naughty girl when she had clearly done nothing wrong. It was perhaps the cutest thing Leeann had ever seen.

"All done now." Silra said, shutting down the computer and hiding it under the bed. "I think we'll need another battery soon."

"Where will we get one of those?"

"All the computers in the Outer Court are the same. I'll sneak the battery out with me tonight if I can, swap it with a charged one from another computer. I'll choose a computer near the charging beam, that way it'll be recharged by morning and nobody will ever know."

"Clever girl. If you're going to go out tonight then you'd best get some rest. Come on, let's snuggle up."

"Mmm, Mistress..." Leeann purred. "You know I always sleep better after a nice orgasm."

"Well in that case, help me undress and I'll see if I can help you out there. It'll have to be a quick one – it's getting late already."

Leeann awoke sometime in the black of morning. The sun had long set and the moon was new; a thick blanket of cloud must be covering all of the stars, for there was no light at all inside the room. She stretched out in the cold silk, hoping to find Silra's warm body there for comfort, but the bed was empty.

She lifted her head from the pillow, tried to look around the blackness of the room, saw nothing, then remembered that Silra was planning to fetch a fresh battery for the computer. She must have slipped out without waking her, silent as the grave. Normally even the slightest sound woke Leeann – at night the palace was deathly quiet, no movement from anywhere. The loudest sounds were the wind among the high windows, or the rolling of thunder across the mountains, but it was a still night, and there was no such noise. In the past, on rare occasions, she had been able to hear the jeering of men in the Outer Court, possibly in the tavern that Silra had spoken of, but it seemed too late for that – or too early in the morning, even – the men must be tucked away asleep by now.

She fumbled for her battery-powered watch, which she kept in a drawer in her cell. The Sect were not fond of electrical appliances of any sort, but they made special concessions where Istanza were concerned, and allowed some simple things to be brought in – torches, watches – provided they were kept in bedrooms and not paraded on the palace grounds.

It was a half past three. Very late. Or early, depending on which direction one approached it from. Silra should have left around half twelve, but she could not have been kept three hours changing a battery. Unless she had been caught.

Leeann swallowed a dryness that cloyed in her throat. She tried to swallow again, but her mouth had become too dry. What would happen to Silra if she was caught? Well, it depended on who caught her. If it was one of the men from the Outer Court then she was at his mercy: he might free her, if he was a decent man, or he might turn her over to the palace, if he valued his job. He might rape her, if he was thus inclined: everybody knew the palace was beyond the law, and what happened behind its walls never left them.