Outcast

OUTCAST

A sci-fi Novella

by

Marc Saville

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © Marc Saville, 2013.

Published by DJK Media

All rights reserved. You may not copy, store, distribute,

transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication

(or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital,

optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without

the prior written permission of the publisher.

Cover design by Vila Design

Photo Media by 4@Elisanth/Pond 5.com

Dotshock/Pond 5.com

Sergey Nivens/Bigstock.com

E-book formatting by Lucinda Campbell, LK Ebook Formatting

Note to Reader

This book contains strong descriptions activities performed in Bondage, Discipline and Sado-Masochism. Please do not purchase or read this book if such descriptions will offend for personal, moral, or religious reasons.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY ONE

TWENTY TWO

TWENTY THREE

TWENTY FOUR

TWENTY FIVE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Melbourne, Australia

the 275th Parallel Universe

ONE

THE thing that surprised Layla most of all was feeling sick. The kind of sick she'd felt after a night of binge drinking. Throbbing pain in the temples, leaden weight in the stomach that threatened to disgorge its contents every time she moved. Yet, she hadn't been drinking. Not seriously, anyway. A couple of vodkas and lime couldn't make her feel like this, surely? Nor had she taken any recreational drugs in the last 24 hours. No coke, speed, Ecstasy or Rapture.

As Tanya had warned: Clients want you clean. They hate it if they think you're not really there.

She had even gone to bed early so as to be bright and fresh in the morning. But the closer the time had come, the sicker she'd felt. Now, as she stood in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at her sluttish schoolgirl image with the MedScan AutoDiagnosis analysing her temperature, pulse, blood pressure and other things, she felt perilously close to throwing up. And she couldn't do that. It was her first day of work. Tanya and Higeo were already in the boudoirs and she had to be in there with them.

Layla! Tanya's voice, brittle with concern, cut through the bathroom door. "What are you doing? Come on!"

Tanya, her spiky-haired, crimson-laced elder sibling, had risen rapidly through the BDSM ranks to run her own salon at the age of 27 when most madams were in their mid-30's and early-40's.

She was now responsible for Layla's induction into the profession.

The MedScan AutoDiagnosis hadn't finished analysing Layla's condition when she pulled her finger out of the wall socket and turned to leave. There isn't time to be sick, she told herself as she left the bathroom. Besides, it was probably just nerves.

She did not see, behind her, the cool green words on the bathroom mirror change from MedScan AutoDiagnosis to the flashing red of MedScan Alert. Nor did she hear the urgent beeping of the alarm. Nor did anyone else in the two-storey apartment-salon, for it was now filled with the slow, deep pulse of Penetration by Eurhythmo2, and the action was about to begin.

THE boudoirs had originally been side-by-side bedrooms in a two-bedroom apartment until it had been expanded, with a spiral staircase, to include the apartment above which now housed their sleeping and recreational quarters.

In the bottom apartment, the front walls and doors of the former bedrooms had been removed so they were open to the passageway but still separated by the wall between. Both rooms were bathed in hard ultra-violet light. Passing the first, Layla saw that Tanya had blind-folded a middle-aged man, bound him in latex, and strung him from the ceiling by chains. She glided slowly around him, whispering taunts as she checked the tension of the chains and latex.

Tame, Layla thought even as her stomach gave a lurch. She had expected a whipping, or a slave wearing a tight rubber hood with narrow slits for nostrils and mouth, the mouth stuffed with a metal ball on a choker.

In the adjacent boudoir, a naked young man in purple wig and garish makeup was suspended horizontally from a harness attached to four steel poles. Arms and legs spread-eagled, wrists and ankles held by velvet-cuffed chains. Between his legs stood Higeo, a tall, dark-haired, black-corseted Eurasian transsexual who finished lubricating a latex-gloved hand then used three fingers and a thumb to widen the young man's anal sphincter before sliding his/her whole hand slowly and sensually into him.

Nausea rose in Layla's throat as the young man writhed and moaned for benefit of the webcams around him. Layla knew, from conversations with Tanya, that the young man was a professional slave who had been surgically enhanced for this. It was called fisting and was something a lot of online clients liked to watch. Some even wanted to try it, themselves. Layla knew she should be taking a cool, professional interest in Higeo's technique. But watching the transsexual push his/her gloved hand into the young man made her feel inexplicably ill.

Higeo looked up and, as much for the cameras as for Layla, purred: Jarrod's our favourite slave. And he just loves it. Don't you, Jarrod? Pumping his/her hand in again. "Don't you?"

Jarrod moaned and rolled his head as Layla fought to quell her nausea.

Then Higeo looked up again and smiled invitingly. Like a go?

And the hot, sour taste of bile rushed into Layla's throat, forcing her to clutch her mouth and run for the toilet.

IT didn't make any sense, she thought as another wave of vomit welled up from her stomach and splattered into the toilet bowl.

Why was she feeling like this? She had been looking forward to this day for the last couple of years. All that training, all that practice...

What is it, Sis? Tanya's voice prickled with irritation as she bustled into the bathroom, stiletto heels clacking on the white ceramic tiles.

Layla wanted to say she didn't know, to beg her sister's forgiveness. But the first glimpse of Tanya's black-and-crimson costume, nose rings and spiky hair caused another wave of vomit to well up inside her.

She had to get out. Get away from the whole scene and pull herself together. Even the slow, throbbing music seemed to be making her ill.

She sensed Tanya trying to stop her as she lurched to her feet and rushed from the bathroom. Felt Tanya behind her as she pulled herself up the stairs, grabbed a white denim jacket from behind her bedroom door and snatched her bag from the floor, and dimly heard Tanya's confused questions: 'What? Why? Tell me!' as she clattered back down the spiral staircase and hurtled past the boudoirs to the front door. Then Tanya was in front of her, blocking her exit.

Tell me, Layla! she demanded. What is it?

Layla wished she could. But as another wave of vomit threatened to rise up from her stomach, it was all she could do to gasp: I can't! I just can't!

Then she pushed Tanya aside and fled into the cold grey daylight.

THE nausea faded as she clattered down the metal stairs to the ground floor. She had no real idea where she was going, only that she had to get as far away as possible from what seemed to be making her ill - the pulsing music, the lush velvet colours, the metal ear and nose rings, the gleaming chains, and Jarrod's moaning face.

Running away are we? a husky voice called from behind and below.

Layla froze two steps from the floor. That voice. She turned and saw, at the back of the stairwell, a flame-haired vamp in white trench coat and beret. A woman she had never seen in her life before. But there was no mistaking that voice.

Peta? she ventured.

The vamp smiled a slow, sensual smile, and Layla knew for sure.

TWO

ONLY by that voice did Layla ever know it was Peta. Every time they had met since their first encounter at The Ghetto nearly three months ago, Peta had been someone different. Sometimes predominantly male, sometimes predominantly female, but always both. For Peta was a hermaphrodite, able to choose whichever sex dominated whichever guise s/he chose to wear.

As to why Peta wore guises at all, Layla had always told herself that was Peta's business. Certainly, she found it thrilling to go to a rendezvous never knowing what to expect. She could sit beside the manchick at a bar for 15 minutes, and as long as Peta didn't speak, Layla would never know it was him/her.

But part of her had begun to suspect that Peta might be a Stray, which was why, when she had turned 20 two days ago, she had told the manchick their affair was over. She couldn't risk being seen with a possible Stray any longer. It was time to get serious and assume her pre-ordained role - the Submissive-switch-Domina role she had been bred and trained for. Not just because it was expected of her, but because she wanted to. She had been genetically, emotionally, intellectually, and hormonally tweaked in such a way, she could not possibly want anything else. But right now, she was simply glad to he found someone to be with and somewhere to go.

They were standing at the door of a fourth-floor apartment to which Layla had never been before. A door-mounted scanner was checking Peta's iris pattern against the pattern it had on record.

It doesn't make any sense, Layla complained to Peta's back. "I wanted to work with her." Meaning Tanya. The nausea had passed. She felt drained, exhausted.

Amusement tinged the manchick's voice as s/he replied: Things don't always turn out the way you want.

It has to, Peta! Layla protested. What else can I do?

A soft beep and the apartment door clicked open. Peta's amusement turned to mockery as she started inside. It must be terrible to discover choice.

Come on, Peta! Layla protested, following the manchick into the daylight-washed apartment. For what Peta had said was just ridiculous. There was no choice about what anyone did for a living; it was bred into them from conception.

The manchick shrugged off the trench coat, letting it fall over the back of a low-slung sofa. Layla's breath caught in her throat as Peta turned toward her, breasts thrusting from beneath the tight blue sheath of his/her dress.

Didn't I tell you, the manchick smiled, pulling Layla close with one arm around her waist. I'd look after you if anything went wrong?

Layla wanted to say they couldn't go on seeing each other. But the curves of Peta's body in the sheer dress with its plunging neckline and lacy black hem, the bulge of the manchick's hardening penis against her pelvis stifled the words in her throat. She wanted the manchick, and wanted to pull away at the same time.

Sensing the conflict, Peta used his/her thumb to wipe the purple lipstick from Layla's mouth, and with a tantalising smile said: Go have a shower and clean up. Okay?

LAYLA couldn't understand the sense of helpless attraction and dependency she felt with Peta. The way part of her continued to feel safe with the manchick, to believe s/he could make things somehow right, even when another part of her strongly suspected that Peta was a Stray. Worse, a Renegade Stray. Why else had she felt the need to end their affair the same week she was due to start work with Tanya?

It bothered her now as she stood under the steaming jets of water in the white-tiled shower cubicle. This was the tenth apartment Peta had bought her to since they had begun seeing each other. Never twice had they been to the same one. Why would Peta need all these guises, all these apartments, if s/he was a legitimate member of society with an identity and residence of his/her own?

And yet, the irrational feeling persisted that Peta could somehow look after her, that without that sensual, mocking manchick, she would be lost. It made no sense.

PETA was arranging two lines of purple powder on a small mirror on the smoked glass coffee table when Layla came into the living room, a towel wrapped around her body and another around her still-wet hair.

The room was sparsely furnished in contemporary Euro-style - black synthi-leather sofa and two low-slung black chairs over a white shag pile carpet. A Web Vision screen took up nearly all of one wall. Techno music pulsed from hidden speakers, drowning the words of the female newsreader on the screen. The windows were opaque, admitting soft grey light from the winter sky outside, but no view of the buildings around them.

Layla knelt at the side of the coffee table and watched as Peta finished cutting the lines of powder. One for you, one for me, and we both have exactly the same, the manchick had said early in their affair. Presumably so they would both reach the same level of ecstasy at the same time. Except Layla wasn't sure Peta had been taking his/her share.

Whose place is this? she asked.

Belongs to a friend, Peta replied.

How come I never meet any of these friends of yours?

Peta gave her an amused look. I didn't think you wanted an audience, cherie. S/he picked up the short metal snorting tube, held it out.

Ready?

Layla hesitated. The powder was supposed to be an aphrodisiac called Rapture. She had been eager to try it when they first met. Now, she was no longer sure. Last time, she remembered...the trouble was, she couldn't. All that remained was a vague recollection of Peta slapping her face, pulling her clothes on, walking her, semi-conscious, out of the apartment and propping her against a wall in the cold night air.

No thanks, she said.

Peta stared at her. I beg your pardon?

Layla looked away.

Since when do you say 'no' to me? Peta's voice carried the stern tone of a school mistress.

I can't, Peta, Layla protested.

Peta continued staring at her.

Uncomfortable images flashed through Layla's mind. Neons blurring as Peta - then a cool 'guy' with blonde mullet cut - had kissed her roughly on the mouth and said: Thanks for the good time, honey. I'll give you a call, and sauntered ghost-like into the darkness of the alleyway.

How had she got home that night? Barely conscious, barely able to stand, the world blurring and