Freedom for Tara

Chapter 7 – The Pleasure Thief

Once the Marroon got a look at my lab, it was all I could do to slow her down enough not to completely disorder what had taken me the better part of a day to catalog. She was so excited she was shaking. Benie, who had taken a moment to throw on her clothes, watched the naked female as she drooled over the table of wares like a child paws Halloween candy after a long night of trick-or-treating. I had to show her where I put a few things since not everything would fit on the table. When I saw her start to pick items up, I stopped her.

“Hold on…”

“Huh? What? Why? I think I can make some great stuff with these!” She held up a pair of brass rings.

I grinned. “And I want you to, but not those exact ones. You need to make another set from the replicator.”

“Aww… That’ll take forever.”

I laughed, thinking that the woman sounded like a little child.

“Not really. Check the book. I believe that came from a Fretah napkin holder…”

“A what?” asked Benie from the door.

“Well, that’s what it looked like anyway. Tell you what, Makiela, you give me your requests, and I’ll go get them. Just leave the table as-is for reference, okay?”

The woman sighed, but nodded. Then, taking my pencil, she turned my order pad back to its original use, though I doubt that anyone back on Earth ever requested four helpings of Remigon Sea Squid in a light Brilly sauce.

It was many hours later before I convinced Makiela to call it quits, and by the end of our first session I was about ready to forget the whole thing and stick with my forks. The problem was that no matter how good an engineer the Marroon was, we still only had a limited number of different resources to pull from, and altering things took time. She was smart enough to realize that her first task was to make herself some basic tools, but once she had those, it was going to take more than general tinkering to give us a lethal weapon. But with only the items on the table to work with, it was like trying to put together an American car with European car parts. A three-quarter inch steel ring is NOT a seven-eighths inch ring no matter how hard you wanted it to be, and without more substantial tools, we were going to have to live with the materials on hand, mostly unmodified.

Still, I was quite impressed at the female’s first efforts, which turned out to be a form of crossbow. It was probably more like a dart gun, but I hardly cared. Throwing a Kamba stick might work for me, but I seriously doubted that any of the others was going to be able to make one stick in anything, and even my own unpracticed skill was iffy at best. The gun-like crossbow, was much simplier, at least in theory. We had to add some fins to the Kamba sticks, and even then it was only really effective to about a dozen meters, but within that range, all you had to do was point and release the little catch at the back. The dart had about the same push as a 25 lb. bow, which certainly wouldn’t bring down an Ox, but was better than nothing and hopefully still out of range or whatever we were up against.

Benie finally had to drag Makiela away to rest, and even then she was muttering about modifications and armor and a half dozen other things she wanted to put together. When they were gone, I went next door to my room and flopped into my own bed, falling almost immediately into a fitful sleep.

When an alarm klaxon rang, it tore me out of a rather erotic dream involving Makali and some light bondage. As my brain struggled to push up out of sleep, I found myself tangled in the bedding and understood at once how my dream had been shaped. The fact that it had been another female teasing me was a little troubling, but that too could be explained given my encounter with Benie and Makiela. I scrambled out of my room and nearly ran over Zeb, who had a panicked look in her eyes.

“We came into orbit a few minutes ago,” said the younger Fretah. “It’s another game!”

I frowned. “Has it really been three days already?”

“Almost four. You’ve been… distracted.”

“Damn…”

The second klaxon sounded and I looked at my feet. No circle. Zeb on the other hand wasn’t so lucky. She just looked up at me, her mouth open.

“Shit… Oh, Zeb. Come on, we need to find Benie!” I grabbed her by the hand and ran with her toward the glowing arch that had appeared in the central courtyard. As expected, the Fretah was helping another two encircled contenders, calming them. When she saw Zeb, and the neon blue circle following her on the ground, she looked briefly as though someone had kicked her in the gut.

“Get her through, but hold her back as long as possible,” I said to the long-eared woman. “I’ll be right back!”

Zeb protested slightly, but let go of my hand as I rushed back to my “lab”. There, I grabbed a handful of Kamba sticks, another handful of darts, the crossbow thing, and a half dozen bits of garbage that had been brushed into the corner. With the whole mess bundled into my skirt, which I pulled up to make a sack of sorts, I hurried back to the arch. Zeb was still there, alone with Benie, who looked slightly panicked herself.

“Here,” I said, handing her the items save for the garbage. “Take these through and pass them out. It may not help, but it certainly can’t hurt!”

“I’m really going in again, aren’t I,” asked Zeb, looking terrified.

“You’ll do fine… just…” I didn’t have the words.

“Do what you would do?” She answered.

I nodded. “Something like that. Go!”

She smiled at me once, then without a pause, turned and walked through the arch.

I watched the space where she had just been for a moment or two, then cursed. I grabbed some of the garbage and moved carefully closer to the glowing neon bridge.

“What are you doing,” asked Benie.

“Another test.” I threw the bits of trash at the portal and was surprised to see that they disappeared. But had they really? Or did they just bounce off the boundary and fall to the ground under the fog? I waved my hand to fan away the curtain of mist as best I could. I still couldn’t tell.

“Tara? What is it?”

“I want to know if there’s a restriction on going through. I need to know the rules,” I answered, fanning the mist more aggressively.

“What does throwing debris at the portal tell you about… hey, be careful!”

I was still waving my hand when I turned to reply. As a result, my fingers brushed the surface of the portal. It was as though someone had simply grabbed my hand from the other side and yanked. I fell forward, rolling. When I completed my tumble, I was kneeling and staring at a jungle clearing, bits of garbage at my feet.

“Well, I guess that answers that question,” I said aloud. A moment later there was a squeal and Zeb was helping me up.

“Tara, what are you doing here?!” Said Zeb, her voice rising in pitch like a little girl.

I brushed myself off. “Testing a theory. Looks like I was right… unfortunately.”

“A theory?”

“Yeah, I wanted to know if the Var-Lish portals were restrictive. They’re not. Anyone can go through when they appear, not just those chosen for the games.”

The other two “chosen” were staring at me like I was insane. They were Hennet’dea and Hennet’ro, Barlos twins. For most of us they just went by Dae and Ro, and were known to our rogue pack as skilled storytellers. The Barlos were especially adept at such things due to their telepathic link. It wasn’t uncommon for one to tell the story while the other did perfectly timed sound effects, dance, even song. To hear them sing a perfectly synced duet would make most Earth equivalent singers weep with envy. There was no such thing as “off key” in a Barlos duet. However, their presence did add a bit of complication to the game I had inadvertently decided to partake in. Either they would both make it through the other portal, or neither would. Still, that suited me fine since I wanted to take it a step further anyway.

“Uh… so what’s your plan,” I asked the others.

“Plan?” responded Dae, surprised.

“We have no plan,” finished Ro.

I was shocked, especially considering how the news of our last game had buzzed around the group. “Okay. Look, you can’t simply go running across this field. Just because we don’t see our foes doesn’t mean they aren’t there. It’s a sure bet that they are there, and using stealth or camouflage or the trees or whatever, waiting for us to do something stupid!”

The three of them just stared at me.

I sighed, frustrated that in four days, nobody had even bothered to think about how they might be able to plan ahead a little and formulate some basic procedures.

“You want me to lead you?” I asked finally, feeling somewhat defeated.

All three Galactics nodded, Zeb actually smiling.

“Fine. But you have to do as I say, without question. We may not have time to argue about it as a committee, understand?”

Again, nodding all around.

“You do all realize you’re putting your complete trust in the most inexperienced member, yes?… okay. Let’s see…”

At that moment, the portal behind us vanished. Across the clearing, the exit portal appeared. The whole distance couldn’t have been more than 200 meters, and I fought hard against the urge to just make a dash for it. There was no way the Var-Lish were going to let us off that easy.

I took a good look at the jungle on either side. I could see the sparkling Var-Lish force shield arcing down to form a dome around the game area and noticed that the dense trees wouldn’t provide a whole lot of cover for us while at the same time making our passage nearly impossible. Both sides were choked with vines and roots that would take nothing short of machete to clear.

“As lame as it sounds, I still think the center is our best bet. We’re acting blind until we know what we’re dealing with.”

Dae groaned.

“Yeah, well, at least this time we’ll be armed. Hand me that stuff, Zeb…”

The Fretah had completely forgotten the armload of goods I had piled on her right before she had gone through the portal. She handed things back to me and I immediately started passing them out to everyone. When I set the crossbow in Ro’s hands she looked as though I had just given her a dead animal.

“What do I do with this?!” Her face was a mask of terror.

“Uh… It’s easy. You just point…THIS… end at your target, and then flip this catch. To reload, you pull back the wire and put in another dart. Here…” I handed her the full set.

“Why don’t YOU use the weapon?!”

I smiled and held up a Kamba stick. “Because I can throw these and you can’t. This way, we are both armed with weapons we can use at a distance.”

Ro still looked worried, but nodded at my logic. Personally, I had no idea the thing would even work, but it felt better knowing that I wasn’t the only one who could fight back if necessary. I gave a couple of Kamba sticks to Zeb and Dae to use if things got up-close and personal.

“Okay, let’s go. I tried running last match, so let’s just move nice and slow this time around.”

No one disagreed, and we started across the field a step at a time. At first, we were single file, but when Ro poked me in the back with the crossbow, I realized that they were bunching up behind me in fear.

“Hey, relax… spread out a bit.”

“I’m scared,” said Dae.

I nodded. “You have good reason, but stay focused. An attack could come from anywhere at this…”

I was interrupted by a loud, low hissing sound from somewhere behind us. Zeb yelped and we all spun around. There was nothing there, of course, and I squinted, thinking. Then the noise repeated.

“That’s below us,” I said, more to myself than the others. To my left, I saw Dae’s eyes grow wide and I could hear her breathing hard.

There was another weird hiss, this time much closer. The noise was such that you could actually feel it in the ground below our feet. It was enough to make you want to jump out of your shoes, and when Dae yelped and started to to run, it was all I could do to keep from dashing after her.

“NO! WAIT,” I yelled. Zeb who had taken off after the others, slowed and looked back to me, but the two Barlos twins were terror-stricken. Before they had gone ten paces, Dae suddenly screamed and disappeared downward through a layer of dry leaves and sticks. Her sister, being telepathically linked to her, was able to snatch her hand as she fell into the wide hole, but not enough to hold on. Instead of falling directly into the tunnel-like opening, she was able to turn the woman around and slow her fall so that she ended up holding for dear life to a slight outcropping of rock that protruded from the side. We rushed to the edge of the pit, and found her to be just out of reach. But that’s not at all what was bothering me.

Up close, I could now see that the hole Dae had fallen into was an obvious trap. The top had been carefully concealed with a thin layer of debris resting on a mesh of fine webs such that anyone crossing it would fall through into a deep tunnel criss-crossed with more web-like structures. I could just make out openings at random points down the shaft and it occurred to me that we were probably standing above a whole network of tunnels and pits. The strands were finest at the top, thickening quickly as they went down, and Dae had actually tangled herself in a good number of them just dropping through the first ten feet or so. I could see that she was having trouble moving her legs, which were wrapped in the sticky mass.

“Hold on and try to be still Dae,” I yelled down to her. Standing, I looked to the jungle.

“Here,” I said, handing my Kamba sticks to the Fretah so that my hands would be free. “I’m going to go see if I can find a vine long enough to reach her.” The girl nodded, looking scared out of her mind. “Don’t worry, Zeb, I’ll be right back.”

“B-b-but… The portal,” she answered nervously.

I put a hand on her shoulder and spoke loud enough that Ro could hear me, “We’re NOT leaving anyone behind, understand?”

The long-eared girl smiled slightly. “Okay.”

In hind-sight, what I did next was painfully stupid, but at the time, I was blinded by my need to help Dae and prove myself as a leader. The Var-Lish portal had certainly seemed to be at one side of the clearing when we first arrived, but only because the one direction we couldn’t see was directly behind us. Had we looked, we would have seen that the portal wasn’t placed at an edge of the clearing, but almost dead center in the middle.

I only noticed this as I turned and headed to the nearest patch of jungle at a run in search of a vine. I was just beginning to think something was wrong when my next step went whoosh! and I was suddenly falling into darkness. Unlike Dae, I was not near a wall. In fact, by the time I stopped falling, I was hanging suspended face-down in the middle of a mass of twisted and collapsed web strands some twenty-five feet into what looked like an old dry well. I wasn’t in danger of falling any deeper, but I was so hopelessly tangled in the sticky ropes that I could barely even reach my hands to clear my face, and even then the action further restricted me as more and more of the web stuck together.

“This is not good…” I said to myself in the dim light from above. I thought of yelling for help, but I doubted the others would hear me, and even if they did, Ro certainly wasn’t about to leave her sister. Zeb might be able to help me, but I had no idea how. Then I heard a noise that caused my stomach to clench in fear. It was a whispered version of the deep hissing we had heard before. I say whispered because it was only a fraction of the volume used previously, which unfortunately meant it was close. Very close. I turned my head, stretching the sticky webs matted into my hair so I could see… and instantly wished I hadn’t.

Spiders are pretty much universally hated by most humans, or at least Terrans. Sure, there are a few weirdos and scientists who will let them crawl on their bare skin and even call them ‘cute’, but I was not one of those few. I was one of those girls who would shriek and jump up on a chair should the smallest of arachnids cross my kitchen floor. I kept a can of pesticide in every room in my house ‘just in case’. So you can imagine my horror upon seeing something that was about the size of a large dog slowly emerging from a side tunnel just above me. Its body was long and somewhat flat, with a paddle-like tail and large, ink black eyes. It had too many legs than I cared to count at that moment, but it was more than an average house spider, though visually they looked to be about the same in construction, only four feet long.

I screamed. It was one of those uncontrollable shaking blasts that left your own ears ringing and went on and on until you literally ran out of air, at which time you took a good four seconds to suck in more oxygen for another run. I had finished with my first, and was well on to starting a second when something in my head went ‘click’ and I stopped cold. I can only attribute it to whatever it was that Benie had done to me when I first arrived to give me the Galactic language, but suddenly I wasn’t as terrified of the alien creature. Perhaps, in passing to me the ability to accept new forms of humanoids, she had given me a general sense of acceptance to all new life forms? Whatever, but the majority of my fear quite abruptly dissipated. I was certainly still scared out of my mind, but not by the ‘buggy-ness’ of the spider creature. Without that, I could think again.

The spider thing watched me struggle for a few moments, probably confirming that I was indeed quite thoroughly stuck, and then moved up quickly and vomited on my hands. At least, that’s what it felt like. In reality, the ‘mouth’ end of the creature leaned over and seemed to spit out a collection of thick webs that were still warm when they were wound around my limbs and stretched out to meet with other points on the overall web. I was momentarily transfixed by the face of my attacker, which looked like a dark blue collection of glistening fingers that were constantly in motion. Then it spun around and was working on my legs in a similar manner.

“Shit… shit!” I cursed, as I tried to think of a way to save myself. It wasn’t looking good. I didn’t even have a Kamba stick, having foolishly given them both to Zeb. Hell, at that moment, I’d have been more than happy with my fork!

Spidy was doing something new that caught my attention and made me even more nervous, if that were possible. I noticed that it was spreading the warm web-goo around more than just my ankles, and when I strained my neck in order to see what it was up to, I was shocked to see that it was absorbing or eating much of the web I had fallen into, while at the same time casting out new strands to hold me more completely. But the part that really made my heart go boom was when I realized I was being repositioned.

Not that there was anything I could do about it, the slow tension of the webs was impossible to resist. The simple leverage of a hundred tiny strands would beat my monkey muscles easily. What surprised me was that I hadn’t even noticed it until I was almost spread out in an X, with my body nearly horizontal. It was the thousands of independent bits of force masking that my limbs were moving at all. Finally, things started to stabilize when I was in what I would call a ‘parachute drop’ position. I had never jumped out of a plane, but in all the videos I had seen of people who do, they fall through the sky with their arms and legs out, knees bent. That was me, only I wasn’t falling.

My spider friend had more plans for me, and when I felt its weight slightly bouncing me as it loomed above my back, its pointy appendages plucking at my garments, well, I was almost ready to scream again.

“Oh man… this is not happening…” I stammered when one of its limbs caught on the fabric and yanked upward sharply. The soft gray fabric tore easily and I swallowed hard. It felt like a dozen other spiky legs were suddenly snagging into my top, and within sixty seconds, the garment was in pieces, most of which my spider was extracting from the web and dropping down into the darkness below. I wasn’t surprised when it started on my skirt.

All in all, it couldn’t have been more than two minutes more before I was completely naked. I struggled a bit, but the webs were doing a bang up job of keeping me immobile. I was just starting to wonder what the next phase in my demise was going to be when I felt the creature settling itself down along my back, literally laying its length on top of mine while its twig-like limbs reached around my nude body and hugged me from my neck to my pelvis.

“Oh god, shit! HELP!” I was desperate as I heard the hissing, clacking blue fingers of the creature’s mouth directly behind my ears. Two shorter limbs, which I had first taken for mandibles on its face, reached out and firmly gripped the sides of my head, holding me still and staring downward.

“Ahhhnn! What are you do…”

SNICK!

There was a sharp pain just below the base of my skull as two needle-like points punctured my skin to either side of my spinal column and I yelped. What felt like long hot wires pressed deeper and deeper into my flesh until I thought they must surely be digging into my brain. Then suddenly, before I had even taken in the breath to scream, the pain was gone. Replacing it was a warm euphoria washing down my body from my head. I made a single deep gasp, before my eyes started to lose focus and my muscles turned to putty. When the liquid warmth reached my pelvis, I trembled slightly in deeply sexual pleasure, the toxins that I knew I had just been injected with bringing me right to the brink of orgasm in seconds.

I hung there, limp and utterly helpless both physically and now mentally. The venom its fangs were pumping into my brain, left me in a state of befuddled arousal. I could still feel everything, and I was aware of my situation and the danger I was in, but my muscles were nearly useless, and I was flushed with an internal heat that I knew was my own libido being forced to full flame by the alien cocktail that was spreading through my blood.

I struggled to stay as conscious as possible, wondering what else was in store for me from the creature when I began to feel a buzzing sensation at the base of my back. It was a soft vibration which was slowly growing in intensity. At first, I thought that perhaps it was an artifact of the poison, but after twenty seconds or so I changed my mind. Whatever it was, it was coming from the organism wrapped around me. A few moments later I started to feel the paddle-like tail of the spider bend under me. As it did so, I was instantly certain where the vibrations were originating from.

My mouth opened in shock as the soft, slick flesh slowly curled between my spread thighs from behind, the vibrations increasing by an order of magnitude throughout my pelvic region. The underside of the tail must have been covered in tiny wriggling nubs and fingers, because I also felt a thousand squirming digits sliding between my buttocks as the powerful vibrating mass slowly conformed to my curves and gradually settled over my sex and Mons around front.

By that time, however, I was shaking into my first orgasm. The feel of the warm buzzing tendrils descending over the folds of my flower was enough to put me on the edge, but when that living vibrator engulfed my clitoris, it was all I could do to keep breathing.

“Ughnn! Ughnmm… AHHHH!” I cried out as a massive wave of pleasure shot up from my loins and rippled through my whole body, which jerked and spasmed uncontrollably in the ecstasy. I strained against my bonds as my hips rolled and shook until all at once things changed again. I felt the clicking blue fingers at the back of my head, and there was an odd rushing in my ears. Then, in the span of a few rapid heartbeats the pleasure I was feeling literally drained away, leaving me feeling frightened, sore, and shockingly alert.

“What the hell?!” I exclaimed, confused and more than a little angry at having been deprived of at least enjoying the orgasm that had been forced on me. “You fucking bast… ughnnn…”

A new flood of hot venom rushed into my brain and quickly spread through my body, instantly forcing me back into a relaxed stupor. The vibrations from the tail of the creature had never stopped, but when the pleasure vanished I was momentarily able to ignore the sensual touch. Now, however, I was drowned once again in my own lust. The flattened end of the organism shifted and cupped me from just below my belly button, over the rise of my Mons, down through the folds of my sex, and even against my anus as the whole creature gently squeezed my apex again and again with the fleshy paddle. The anemone-like stubby tentacles stroked me, gliding with the slow undulations as though coated in warm oil. I could feel them moving in an organized way, pushing against my lower lips and gradually opening me, bit by tiny bit. All the while, the coursing vibration teased and stimulated me in ways that threatened to drive me insane with arousal.

“Ughnnn… mmmm… ughnn! ughnn!” I panted, my pleasure quickly rising toward orgasm again. “Ughnnn… no…. UGHNN! UGHNN! OH GOD…. AH! AH! UGHNNNN!”

Had my head not been firmly in the grasp of the alien creature, I would have tossed it back in wonderful shock. As it was, I could do little more than shudder helplessly as I was pushed hard over the edge. For several seconds the massive pulse of ecstasy flushed all other thoughts from my mind, but then, as quickly as it had come, I heard the rush in my ears and the bliss was seemingly siphoned away.

“NOOO!” I wailed, tears coming to my eyes. “Let me come, damn you!!” As before, I was painfully alert and fully aware of the spider-like organism that was latched to my body. I could still feel its constantly moving mouth at the back of my head, and the needle sharp fangs that were shoved up into my brain stem. I also knew that at any moment, those terrible syringes could release another dose of toxin and plunge me back into a helpless lethargy.

“Help… Zeb… anyone,” I called weakly, staring into the webbed darkness below me while I pulled and twisted to try and break free of the trap. “Please don’t leave me like thi… ughmmmm…. nooo…”

My struggling body slowly relaxed again into the floating bed of spider silk, and my eyes glazed over as I fought against the poison that was once again radiating down to my toes. The euphoria also brought back the erotic torture between my legs, turning the annoying buzz sexual yet again. My breath came in sharp little gasps as my slick center was teased all over again, and this time, I could feel that the constantly clenching tail had successfully used its multitude of nub-like tentacles to draw open my flower, pulling back my swollen petals and exposing the creamy flesh within. With each rolling undulation of the spider’s flat abdomen, more and more of those slippery thrumming tendrils were pressed right into my open sex as the creature’s touch conformed to fill the newly exposed cavity.

“Ugh! Ugh! Ughnnnn…” I moaned, unable to resist the growing arousal that was building in me afresh. The little tongues were gradually worked into me until they were lapping just inside the edges of my tunnel, causing me to grind my hips in both a conscious effort to escape the overwhelming pleasure, but also unconsciously to increase that stimulation and give myself release. I fought and shuddered and whimpered for what seemed like an eternity, growing more and more frustrated, the thought of escape slowly replaced by an ever increasing need to achieve orgasm until I finally realized that something strange was happening. When I noticed a very subtly rushing in my ears, I suddenly understood what it was and nearly lost it.

The last two times I had come, the alien spider had somehow quickly drained away my pleasure. This time, it was taking it more slowly, BEFORE I could reach my moment. It was almost as though it no longer wanted me to have an orgasm, even though the constant, blatant motion of its tail, and the vibrator like stimulation it produced was more than enough to do the job. In fact, it seemed all the more eager to drive me crazy. The rolling undulation of the creature’s abdomen was more energetic than ever, and I was literally dripping with my own slick juices I was so aroused. But it was obvious after several more minutes of the mind-numbing torture that I was not going to be allowed to peak.

Sobbing, I was a slave to my own passions, no longer able to resist in the slightest, but still reacting purely out of instinct. My venom-bedazzled brain was only partially aware of anything outside of the pleasure, which just seemed to go on and on without pause or end, so I was actually surprised when it suddenly increased.

“UGHNN! Oh….. mmmmmm…. p-p-please no…. ughnnn,” I begged, when I felt something hard slide over my perineum and dip slightly into my open sex. But my attacker paid me no heed and moved at its own glacial pace. Now, with each clenching undulation of its fleshy paddle, something very phallic was ever so slowly penetrating me. The organism’s vibrations seemed to originate in this previously ensheathed appendage, for I could feel my whole pelvis humming as the shaft was gradually pushed into me a centimeter at a time.

At first I gasped and struggled, knowing that I was now officially in very serious trouble. I had no idea what the ultimate purpose of the giant arachnid might be, but I sincerely doubted that it was going to fuck me purely for the fun of it.

“Ahhh…ughnnn! Oh g-g-god! Ummmm… no… no… ughnn…”

With my body drugged and sedated by the poison, I could hardly do more than squirm and twist within my webbed hammock and was powerless to stop the shaft’s progress as it inched deeper and deeper inside me. It didn’t help that my own struggles only increased my stimulation, and it didn’t take long before my hips were seduced into aiding the spider’s phallus in its quest to drive me to erotic insanity. For although intercourse surely spelled my end, I was betrayed by my now desperate need for orgasm. I couldn’t stop my own pelvis from rocking back and forth against the hard intruder as I literally wept for release. But every time I came close, I could feel the creature pull me back down, taking away just enough pleasure to keep me from relief.

“AHHHHH!” I screamed in frustration and terror. I couldn’t stop my slow rape, and I couldn’t force myself over the edge. The buzzing phallus was now deep within me, literally pressed against my cervix and stimulating my whole lower abdomen with its coursing vibrations. My hips thrust and shook in random and frantic spasms and my heart rate was dangerously high.

Then, oddly, things started to change again once more. But it wasn’t the creature changing this time, it was me. My rocking pelvis began to slow and become more regular, my breathing deepened and slowed as well. I didn’t understand it at first, because the pleasure had not lessened in the slightest, but somehow my body was falling into sync with the gentle undulations of the spider’s tail. Over the course of several minutes, I gradually settled into the much more sedate rhythm. My breathing, even my heart rate all subsided and I found that my will to resist was quietly fading.

Between the vibrations that now seemed to fill my entire body, the undulating movement of the spider creature, and finally the pulsing ebb and rise of pleasure as the organism kept me right on the brink of ecstasy, it was as though I were hypnotized. My whole being was conforming to the will of the alien lover and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it. Before long I was once again hanging limp in the webs, my hips continuing the deep, methodical rhythm that pistoned the creature’s phallus slowly within my tunnel. My eyes were glazed over with bliss, half-lidded and lax, and I was gradually lost to the world. I knew that I would never break free on my own, neither from the physical webs that held me bound and open, nor from the mental webs of pleasure that were even now being spun around my psyche. With every beat of my hips, I further locked in my own fate and wrapped up a little bit more of my will. I knew my body would go on slowly humping the alien until I finally expired from exhaustion, all the while feeding my pleasure but never, ever reaching that moment of orgasm I wanted so badly. Hell had found me on an alien world a billion light years from my home.

How long I hung there in erotic agony I cannot say. To me, there was only the slow pumping rhythm of my torture. Time was lost beyond the constant clock-like intercourse as the buzzing phallus eased ever in and out of my quivering depths, broken only by the occasional drip of my own slick honey mingled with that of the creature’s as it ran down my thighs to my knees and then down into the darkness.

The next thing I remember was instant white hot ecstasy. It was like a bomb of pleasure had gone off in my head and all my pent up need for release was sated in one single brilliant moment of pure joy. My eyes snapped wide open and I gasped, the sound coming from my throat more of a guttural moan than an actual cry of passion. My entire body jerked once, and then was limp again as I dropped instantly into unconsciousness.

“…I’ll be right back with the clean water,” said a voice nearby. There were gentle hands resting softly on the base of my neck. Their touch was oddly warm, but comforting.

“And let Benie know that she’s coming awake.”

The second voice I recognized at once.

“Zeb?!” My own speech seemed loud in my ears. The hands on my neck spread out to my shoulders and pressed down a bit more insistently.

“Shhh,” she admonished. “Stay still. Don’t try to move or it could really hurt.”

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw that I was laying face-down on some bedding in what looked like one of the prison rooms.

“Where…?”

“You’re safe. We made it through the portal,” she answered my unspoken question and I remembered that the Fretah were mildly telepathic. “You are resting in my room and having a healing session. It’s very important that you try to remain as still as possible for a while. Can you do that?”

“But… yes,” I said finally. “Can I talk?”

The girl was quiet for a moment. “It’s best if you don’t, but I know you won’t be satisfied until you have asked your questions. Try to frame them in your mind before asking them and I may be able to save you the trouble.”

“But there’s so much I want…”

“Please, Tara,” entreated the other. “Your wounds are very dangerous right now. I can help you, but only if you stay still.”

“Okay, I’ll try…”

I closed my eyes and tried to think about the words, but the moment I did, I started to recall visions of my spider lover. Behind me I heard Zeb gasp.

“Sorry…” I whispered and continued to frame my question with my eyes open.

“Yes,” she said at once. “We all made it out… even Dae. It was pretty close, but we left no one behind.”

I sighed and relaxed a bit. Then, after a moment I pictured more words in my head.

“You’re very good at projecting,” said the long-eared girl. “And no, I don’t think there will be any permanent damage. I’m working on the punctures at the base of your skull, which were quite deep. That’s where the Regileek Spider inserted its fangs. I had Wema check you for fractures. In the dark, Arnisha can look through flesh. She said she didn’t see any brain damage either, so you should heal just fine.” There was a slight pause. “Oh, well, I heal by basically telling your body to concentrate all its resources on one recuperative task. It’s a method that works well for simple cuts and wounds, but is more dangerous on larger injuries or damage in multiple places. Healing can be increased almost ten fold, but at the risk of problems occurring elsewhere. I need to be very careful of infections. Even the smallest cut or scratch could fester when I direct your body’s defenses away to work someplace else.”

I carefully pictured the words for my next question.

“No, no one else was attacked by a spider. We got Dae out before she was too tangled in the webs and I guess the things are too afraid to attack a victim that can fight back. Tara, I…” she started and paused, obviously trying to get her emotions under control. “When I first found you in that pit, I… I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I didn’t know what to do!” … “No, it’s not okay… I didn’t even know you were missing for almost ten minutes! I didn’t see you fall, and I thought you were in the jungle finding a vine. Then when you didn’t come back, I went looking for you. By the stars, that creature…”

I struggled to keep the images and feelings out of my head, but it was impossible. Apparently Zeb caught them too, because she suddenly stopped her massage and just started sobbing. I tried to send her soothing thoughts.

“Oh, Tara… what that hideous beast was doing to you… what it was forcing you to experience… Nusho says that they are known as Regileek Pleasure Thieves because of the way that they harvest endorphins from their victims. They feed off the population of pre-sentient humanoids that live all over the planet, trapping them and stimulating them as they did you…”

I pictured another question.

“Nusho explained to me that it let you reach orgasm the first two times in order to gauge exactly what level of endorphins would put you over the edge. Once it knew that, it could keep you excited nearly indefinitely siphoning off what it needed to replenish its venom supply. If you were incapable of generating any more, it would have injected you with a different poison that would er… liquefy your insides so that it could feed off of you. It can take days to reach that point though.”

I shivered at the thought of being trapped in that hell for days on end. The motion instantly caused a wave of pain to radiate out from my neck and shoulders.

“Ouch! Sorry… I need to be careful what I tell you…” said the Fretah, literally feeling my pain.

“No!” I answered aloud. “I need to hear it, please…”

“Okay, okay… shhh. Just stop moving, alright?”

I sighed and tried to relax.

“What happened next? Well, I was really in a pickle at that point,” continued the girl, sounding more like her younger self. “I knew you were in terrible trouble, but I also knew that I couldn’t get you out by myself. Ro wasn’t about to leave Dae, even if it meant your life… Please don’t be mad at them… It would be like you leaving an arm to go help someone else. Anyway, the only other option was to follow your original plan and get a vine to rescue Dae, which is exactly what I did. It took a bit to find and then cut one loose, then I had to carefully make my way back without stepping into another of those pits. Once we had Dae back up top, they wanted to go through the portal, but I wouldn’t let them. I reminded them of what you said… about not leaving anyone behind.”

I heard the young woman sniff and realized that she was crying. In my mind, I pictured a single word. The Fretah suddenly started sobbing. I had envisioned, “SUSAN.”

“You had to leave Sue behind, didn’t you?” I asked aloud.

“Y-y-yes…” she cried, and I felt her warm tears drip to my bare back. “I… I couldn’t do that again, not after what you had said.”

I sighed. “Oh Zeb, I’m so sorry.”

The girl quietly sobbed for a few minutes more, then wiped her face. “It’s okay. Your words actually gave me the courage I needed. And I really needed a lot, because the next thing I asked the Barlos to do was lower me over the edge with an extra vine.”

“Oh my god!” I was shocked.

“Shhh. It was the only way. I’m little, so lifting me back up would be easy enough for them, but they would never be able to pull us both up. But if I could cut you mostly out of the web, I figured that all of us together could break you free and get you to the surface. And of course, there was still the problem of the spider.”

I framed a few more words in my mind, trying to stay quiet.

“I suppose it was brave, but pretty risky too. I almost tangled myself in the webs a couple of times, and the only way I knew of to deal with the spider was to shoot it with that bow thing that Makiela gave you… Yeah, yeah,” she replied when my eyes widened. “But it DID work, perfectly! In fact, if it had worked any better I might have speared you as well. But, as it was, the Pleasure Thief screeched something terrible and then released you, running to the nearest side tunnel with a dart stuck in its back. Then it was just a matter of tying a vine around you and cutting away most of the webs. That took a bit… Those things are tough! By the time we were all topside again, there were only twenty minutes left before the exit portal would close. We dragged you along as we moved a step at a time to avoid any other pits, and the rest is happily history. By morning you should be well enough to walk.”

There were tears in my eyes as I quietly voiced my next words.

“Thank you, Zeb. Thank you for not leaving me.”

The Fretah was sniffing again. She didn’t need to say anything more, and I didn’t need to be a telepath to know how she felt. In silence she continued the light touch on my neck, instructing my body to heal itself.