Chapter 134

Kara decided I needed an extended vacation. She didn’t come right out and say it, or say it in so many words, but she was concerned about my psychological state. Shortly after my colon reattachment the ladies noticed that my mental state was improving, so much so that they took me off my meds. And my mental state continued to improve in every way expect one: I was still seeing Dixon and Johnson. Not all the time, but often enough to worry Kara.

She brought the psychologist from Walter Reed back, and she ran several psychological tests on me, ordered blood tests and brain scans and even tried a kind of hypnosis. Her conclusion was that my mental state was improving, my depression had disappeared along with my craving for alcohol, but the sum of the physical trauma I had suffered over the years was just too much, and the presence of Dixon and Johnson reflected that. The hope was that as I continued to improve, they would go away.

Now, here’s the thing, when I don’t see them, I am very cognizant of the fact that they are a delusion, something created by my mind. But when they are there, they seem so real, so much like the Dixon and Johnson I knew, that it’s easy for me to slip into believing they are really there.

So, anyway, Kara decided I would have an extended vacation in Lucerne. So shortly before I was discharged from the hospital, she booked suites for us at the Park Hotel Vitznau on Lake Lucerne. The place was magnificent. Now, it’s interesting how the ladies interpreted rest and relaxation. For Kara, Xara, Sharon and Mona, that meant enjoying the amenities of the hotel, shopping in town, and exploring the night life. For Gloria …

Gloria. The day I was discharged from the hospital she had me get on a scale. I’d lost a lot of weight and muscle tone. So she decided right there that I was going to start getting back into shape right away.

“How long have I been working to get you up to the proper weight and fitness Joe? It’s all gone! We must fix this.”

Kara agreed with her but convinced her that I needed time to recuperate physically and mentally, so while I did spend serious time in the fitness center, under Gloria’s supervision, I was still allowed to have fun.

Oh, this was helped along by a couple of local distractions. Switzerland is famous for chocolate and fondue. Gloria had never had fondue before, and she just loved it. So she would take me on excursions to find the best chocolate shops and the best cheeses for fondue. And, of course, I had to partake. For the most part I’m okay with that, but nobody but a Supremis can eat as much chocolate as Gloria wanted to force down my throat.

Switzerland gets cold in the winter, and between my surgeries and the weight loss, I felt cold all the time. I didn’t complain about it, but the ladies picked up on it and Xara was constantly asking me if I was comfortable or needed an extra sweater. When we were out at night and she’d notice me shivering she would drop behind the group and try to warm me up from behind with her heat vision. It felt pretty good, but it was only my back that was getting warmed up, the front, not so much, but I have to admit I enjoyed the attention. And not just from her. Kara bought us tickets to the Opera. I don’t know why she thinks I’m an Opera fan, but I wasn’t going to say no to her. So we got there early, before the doors opened, and the three blondes gathered around me and used their heat vision to keep me warm.

And in bed, Kara and Sharon can do this thing with their bodies where they generate heat, above and beyond their normal body heat. It’s some kind of Orgone energy conversion thing. They said it takes very little effort on their part, but the extra heat they generated kept me toasty warm.

Kara has connections. Everywhere. We were invited to two “black tie” affairs. High society stuff. Sharon took me shopping for the appropriate attire and paid an exorbitant amount to a tailor to have it ready in time. The ladies all bought floor length gowns and Kara paid through the nose to have them tailored in time. Except for Major Moore. She had her own gown; Sharon flew back to the U.S. to retrieve it. Oh, the blondes all had gowns they could have brought from home, but they wanted new stuff.

On the night of the first event, a children’s hospital charity fundraiser, the ladies all dressed first and then the blondes fussed over me, which I welcomed because I’ve never learned how to tie a bowtie. And because the ladies were stunning. Simply stunning. Kara wore a black backless halter-neck gown with a slit that went up to her thigh. Sharon wore a red gown with what I’d call a plunging neckline, but she called it a ‘deep sweetheart neckline’. It was also backless.

Xara wore a metallic backless halter-neck gown with slits up both sides. They were all wearing heels and Xara, bless her heart, apologized for ‘towering over’ me. I told her it was alright. My God, she looked beautiful. They all looked beautiful.

Kara was able to get invitations for all of us, myself, the blondes, Gloria, Mona and even Major Moore. In her other life, as Lisa Banks, she is known, apparently in Europe as well as in the U.S., as being a generous donor to charities. So when she made it known that she would like invitations for herself, her daughter and her guests, the organizers of the event were thrilled to accommodate her.

Gloria in heels. Now that is a mind bender. I’ve seen her in heels before, but never dressed up like this. It’s hard to reconcile the sight of this beautiful woman dressed like a goddess with my experience of her as a drill sergeant like task master.  

Kara hired two cars with drivers to take us to and from the event. I rode with Xara and Mona. Kara and Gloria rode in the other car. Sharon hired her own car and driver to take her and Major Moore. Sarah. For this event, she was Sarah.

Going into it, I was nervous. Xara noticed.

“What’s wrong Joe?”

“I’ve never been to one of these things before, Xara, I think I’m in over my head.”

She smiled at me and said, “Follow my lead, or mom or Sharon’s. You’ll fit right in.”

I pointed to my face and said, “Looking like this, you don’t think people will stare?”

Xara laughed, then crossed her left leg over her right, in a manner that showed a whole lot of leg and said, “With five Supremis dressed like this, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

She wasn’t quite right about that. She spent a good part of the evening on my arm, and there were some double takes as people tried to work out in their own minds why such a beautiful woman would be with me. Everyone there seemed to know who Kara, or rather, Lisa Banks was, and she was introducing the other members of our party. Several men, rich, famous, handsome, influential, well connected, powerful, came back and tried to separate Xara from me. Some of them, I found out later, struck out with Kara first. Now, don’t get the wrong impression. Kara can be a shameless flirt when she wants to be, and she appeared to be having a great time flirting with the men, but none of them were able to close the deal. Xara shut them down right away.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you Danni?” I asked, remembering to call her Danni.

“Yes, I am!” She replied. “They think I’ll swoon over them because they have money and power. And they think my youth makes me an easy mark. And trying to woo me away, while you’re standing right next to me,” and here her voice took on an angry edge, “is insulting to both of us, but especially to you. It makes me want to throw them into the lake.”

“I thought you ladies liked the attention,” I said.

“We do, Joe. And if circumstances were different, I’d enjoy playing with a couple of them, see if I could get them into a competition for my favors. But I think I’m making it obvious,” and here she pulled me in a little closer to her, “that I’m with you.”

“Danni, if you’d rather mix with the other guests more, I don’t want to hold you back,” I said.

She turned to face me, and just for a moment I felt heat from her eyes flash across my face, and she said, “Keep talking like that Joe, and I’ll throw you in the lake!”

Sharon and Major Moore, um, I mean Sarah, were garnering a lot of attention too. If Sarah hadn’t been there, Sharon, I’m sure, would have been on the hunt. I thought about that and thought it would be fun to bring Xara in on it.

“Okay, Danni. If Sharon were here by herself, who do you think she’d take back to her room with her tonight?”

“Ooo, Joe, that’s interesting! Let’s walk around the room and see if we can figure that out.”

So we did. Xara would point out to me the men she thought would interest Sharon, and I pointed out the women I thought she’d find attractive. We came up with a list we thought we’d run by Sharon afterwards, when Sarah wasn’t there. Xara discretely took their pictures with her phone.

Gloria and Mona were unencumbered. From a distance we watched Gloria shoot down man after man. I couldn’t hear the conversations, but Xara could, and she related them to me. Gloria wasn’t rude, she just made it clear that she wasn’t interested.

Mona, on the other hand, had men feeding out of her hand. She was always surrounded by three or four, laughing at their jokes, smiling at them, letting them freshen her drinks, she appeared to be having a fairly good time. Of course, she was trained to be that way, to be able to attract and charm men. But it didn’t look to me like she was doing a job. She was having fun.

This social mixing went on for about two hours, then the evening’s hostess made an announcement and asked everyone to gather around. She thanked everyone who was there, and then started thanking the doners by name. Kara was called out first, followed by Sharon, and then forty or fifty others (I lost count). I asked Xara about the order. She said they thanked the most generous doners first. No dollar (Euro, Franc??) amounts were mentioned, but the attendees, at least the ones with money, seemed to understand the implied social status.

The party broke up at about midnight. In the morning Gloria had worked me hard in the gym, and I didn’t have all my stamina back, so I fell asleep, sitting in the car between Xara and Mona. Xara woke me up when we got back to the hotel and we met the rest of our party in the lobby. Gloria was looking at Xara, and she looked impatient. Xara wasn’t acknowledging her, so Gloria came over and got in her face.

“Did you make him eat?” She asked.

“He ate a little,” Xara answered.

I’d hardly eaten at all. I spent the night drinking a non-alcoholic punch and Perrier water.

“A little is not enough!” Gloria said. Her forcefulness surprised me. She seldom used that tone with one of the blondes.

“Joe,” Gloria said to me, “go to your room. I’ll have room service send up a steak.”

“Gloria, I’m really too tired to eat. I just want to go …”

She cut me off and said, “Do not argue with me Joe Ricci!”

My face felt warm, just briefly. It was Xara, and she wasn’t aiming at me, she was after Gloria. If Kara and Sharon hadn’t been paying attention before, they were now. They both came over and asked what the problem was.

“Joe isn’t eating enough!” Said Gloria.

“He’s still recuperating. Cut him some goddamn slack!” Said Xara. “I’m fucking sick and tired … “

“Stop!” It was Sharon. “Gloria,” she said, “enough living like a nun. I’m going to give you a gold necklace and you’re going to walk into the hotel bar and find some guy and take him to your room and fuck him! When’s the last time you got laid?”

Sarah and I were flabbergasted. Kara, Xara, and Mona were all nodding their heads in agreement with Sharon.

Gloria let out a long sigh and said, “It’s been a long time, should I go to your room with you or wait here?”

“Go to the bar,” said Sharon. “See what’s on display and available and make your selection. I’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”

Gloria walked away, head down, shoulders slouched, like she’d been somehow humbled.

“Sharon,” said Kara, “maybe you should keep an eye on things and make sure no one gets hurt.”

Sharon turned to Sarah and said, “I’m sorry Sarah. You’ll have to wait a little while for me. I’ll make it worth your while in the morning.” And with that she headed up to her room. To get a necklace I suppose.

“Um,” I said, “what just happened?”

Sarah said, “I’m with Joe. I don’t understand.”

Mona said, “Gloria has gone a long time without having sex. She had many men approach her tonight. Several of them had the potential to be adequate lovers, at least for Terrans. It raised her frustration level.”

“Yes,” said Kara. “Gloria’s sexual frustration finally caught up to her, and she was taking it out on Joseph and Xara.”

“She hasn’t had any off-world training,” said Mona. “Arions do not think of humans as suitable sex partners. Those of us who are going to live or work on human worlds are trained to get over our prejudices. She hasn’t had that training.”

“So, what,” I asked, “we aren’t good enough for her?”

“Supremis men are much better sexual partners,” Mona replied.

“We’ve been over this Joe,” Xara said.

“Why doesn’t she get some quality Messenger time?” I asked.

It was amazing, Kara, Mona and Xara all snorted at the same time, as if they’d planned it.

“That wouldn’t go over well with the Messenger,” said Kara. “We have our own prejudices.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. I shook my head and said I was heading up to my room.

“Would you like some company tonight Joseph?” asked Kara.

“Kara, I’m exhausted. I just want to get into a bed and go to sleep.” Dixon and Johnson both appeared and told me I was nuts to turn Kara away.

“I understand Joseph,” said Kara. “Let’s all meet down here at 10 for brunch.”

I went up to my room, undressed and brushed my teeth. Just as I was about to crawl into bed there was a knock on my door. I put on the robe the hotel provided, it was a really nice robe, and looked through the peep hole. It was Xara.

I opened the door and tried to tell her that I was too tired to talk, but she brushed by me and sat down on the bed and patted the spot next to her. I sat down beside her. There was nothing else to do, and Johnson and Dixon weren’t going to shut up until I did.

“Joe,” she began, “I just want to make sure we’re on the same page when it comes to Terran sex with a Supremis.”

“Same page Xara?”

“Yes. We’ve talked about it before, but I think you may have forgotten. For us, sex with another Supremis is..”

I cut her off.

“Yes, Xara, I know. Supremis need to have sex with each other.”

“Yes,” she said. “And Joe, my terms have not changed. Once we start our sexual relationship, STOP ROLLING YOUR EYES AT ME! Once we start our sexual relationship you will be the only Terran I take to my bed. And you will not have sex with any Terran women. But we will both be free to have sex with Supremis.”

I just nodded. She kissed me, said goodnight, and left the room. I got into bed and turned off the light. Then I told Dixon and Johnson to shut the fuck up so I could get some sleep. They did and I fell asleep almost instantly.

I woke the next morning at about 8am to the sound of someone knocking on my door, then the sound of a card key going into the lock, then the door unlocking and opening, and Gloria walked in.

“Why do you have a key to my room?” I asked.

She looked at me like I was nuts and said, “We all have one. Kara insisted.”

Then she walked over to my bed, handed me a gift-wrapped box, and said, “I’m sorry for being short tempered with you. This is my apology. We will not speak of it gain.”

As she turned to leave, I asked her, at Dixon’s prodding, “Did you find anyone to your liking in the bar?”

She turned and said, “I told you. We will not speak of this.” And walked out the door.

I unwrapped the box, then laid back in bed and groaned. It was a box of chocolates. Of course, this is how Gloria would apologize. I wondered how soon she would expect me to eat them all.

Chapter 135

I mentioned that we were invited to two society events. The next was being held in five days. Another fund raiser for another charity, this one to support small loans to women in third world countries so they could start businesses. There was going to be an art auction involved. At brunch, the three blondes decided all the ladies in our party needed new dresses. Apparently, it is considered gauche to show up to two events in the same month wearing the same dress??? I’m not sure of the logic. Anyway, they were all going to get new gowns, and Sharon was treating Sarah. When I asked if I’d need a new suit, they just looked at me and smiled, then Kara said no, the one I had would be fine. Different rules for men, I guess.

Xara decided that I would accompany her and help her pick out a gown. She didn’t ask me, she told me.

After that discussion, everyone turned to Gloria, and Kara asked her how her night went. She didn’t want to talk about it, so Kara, Xara and Mona turned to Sharon. Sharon looked at Gloria, who was glowering at her eggs, and said, “Let’s just say a certain gentleman is still asleep in Gloria’s bed, and when he wakes up, all but one part of him will be stiff.”

Mona and the blondes all giggled. I glanced at Gloria and decided I’d stare at my eggs too until the other ladies calmed down. Sarah decided to do the same.

After brunch I met Xara in the lobby to go dress shopping. I didn’t see any of the other ladies.

“Aren’t the other ladies going with us?” I asked.

“No,” she replied, “we’re going by ourselves. I’m sure we’ll see them in one shop or another. Are you sure you’re dressed warmly enough? On the news they said a storm was moving in.”

“I think I’ll be okay. I’m wearing …” I started.

“I can see what you’re wearing Joe,” she said. “I think you need a heavier winter coat. We’ll get you one today.”

We left the hotel with Xara’s arm in mine. We did get some looks on the street, but if it bothered Xara, she didn’t let on. Mercifully, Dixon and Johnson weren’t with us. They both grew up in warm climates and didn’t really care much for the cold.

Xara found a men’s clothing store and found four coats she liked. I tried them all on.

“Which one do you like Joe?” She asked me.

“I like the green one Xara,” I answered.

“No, I don’t think so, I think the blue one looks better on you.”

Then she bought the blue coat for me, had me put it on and paid the store manager to have someone deliver my old coat (which wasn’t all that old) to the hotel.

Then we started hitting the women’s clothing stores. There were a lot of them. They must do a great business. Xara tried on dress after dress, always asking for my opinion, and always ignoring it. Until she found the one she liked. She put it on and modeled it for me and my jaw dropped. It was a backless red gown with a plunging neckline and, like her previous dress, had slits on either side.

“You like this one?” She asked.

“Danni, you look beautiful in it.”

“I think so too. I’m getting this one.”

And it fit her perfectly, no alterations necessary.

Think we were done? Nope. Now it was time to accessorize. The right shoes, the right purse, the right jewelry. We ended up getting lunch at a little café and didn’t arrive back at the hotel until nearly sunset. I hadn’t gotten my stamina back. I was tired.

“You look tired Joe,” she said. “Why don’t you go up to your room and take a nap. I’ll come get you for supper.”

I walked into my room and there were Dixon and Johnson, and they wanted to talk about my day with Xara, and that dress she bought. I told them later. I undressed and crawled into bed and I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

An hour later there was a knock on my door, followed by Xara letting herself in.

“We’re all showing off our new dresses in Sharon’s room. Wanna come see?”

I preferred to go back to sleep, but Johnson told me it probably wouldn’t go over well with the ladies, so I got up and dressed and followed Xara down to Sharon’s room. Kara and Sarah were already there, shortly followed by Mona and Gloria.

“Who’s going first?” asked Kara.

“I will,” said Sharon. And she stripped naked and put on her new dress, heels, a necklace, earrings, and a bracelet. I never thought about this before, but the blonde’s ears couldn’t be pierced, so they had to wear clip on earrings.

She went with a black dress, showing plenty of cleavage, and like Xara, backless and two slits. This was kind of like a formula for the Supremis ladies. Show lots of skin while still in formal wear.

When she was done Mona stripped naked, put on her gown and heels and jewelry, and then Gloria, and then Xara, and finally, it was Sarah’s turn. During all this the ladies kept up a steady chatter about the dress and jewelry choices, and how good they all looked, and how they’d do their hair, and on and on. Dixon and Johnson were having a great time. I ignored them.

And then it was Sarah’s turn. The ladies were all looking expectantly at her, and she was looking at me. It took a few seconds to sink in, and then I realized what she was thinking, and told the ladies I would meet them downstairs when it was time to leave for dinner.

“Joe, don’t be rude!” said Sharon.  

“Uh, Sharon, I don’t think she wants to undress in front of me,” I said.

“Nonsense!” said Sharon.

“I’m right here Sharon,” said Sarah, “and he’s right. I’m not going to undress in front of him.”

I could see it on Sharon’s face. She was getting ready to launch into her lecture about how sexually backwards we Terrans are, and how much we could learn from the Velorians, when Kara cleared her throat and said, “Maybe Sarah can change in the bathroom.”

Sarah readily agreed. Of course, the blondes could see through the door, and I’m not sure, but I thought maybe Gloria could too??? She never liked to talk about her abilities. Anyway, they were all talking about what a good choice she had made when she came out and put on her heels and jewelry.

Waiting for Sarah, it occurred to me that the Supremis went commando. No bra or panties, they didn’t need nylon. When Sarah came out and the ladies were making adjustments I could see that she was wearing a bra.

The ladies all fussed over each other for about twenty minutes and then Kara announced that it was time to go to dinner (she had made reservations) and everyone needed to change again. So all the ladies undressed in front of me, except for Sarah, who went back into the bathroom, and then we rode the elevator downstairs to the lobby and waited for our drivers to pick us up.

At dinner I was listening to the ladies talk among themselves about their shopping, seeing the sights, and Xara mentioned that she wanted to take me up into the mountains, during the day to see the spectacular views that all the ladies, at least the flying ones, agreed were worth the trip, and then at night to see the stars above and the lights below. And in a matter of less than a minute it turned into two group trips, one that evening, as the storm that was predicted hadn’t come in yet, and then the next day. I was agreeable to all this, and as I was thinking how great a ‘vacation’ this was becoming, it occurred to me that I had forgotten the date. I didn’t know what day of the week it was, let alone the day of the month. So I asked, and Kara told me it was January 10^th.

“Really, already?” I asked, “Xara, when do your classes start?”

“The winter term started last week Joe. I’m taking a quarter off so I can spend more time with you while you recuperate.”

“Isn’t that going to set you back?” I asked.

“A little,” she said, “but not much.”

“Not much, I don’t understand that,” I said.

“Joe, a normal student load is 15 credits a quarter. Do that for three quarters a year, taking every summer off and you get 180 credits in 12 quarters, and graduate in four years.”

“Okay,” I said. “So you’re going to need an extra quarter to graduate.”

“No,” she said. “I’m taking 20 credits a quarter. I’ll only need 9 quarters to graduate. So, I’ll graduate a little later than planned, but still in less than four years.”

“20 credits a quarter is a very heavy load,” said Sarah. “Are you sure you can keep that up for three years?”

“Easily,” said Xara. “I’ve had no trouble keeping up a perfect 4.0 GPA. It’s a piece of cake.”

Sarah just stared at her, dumfounded.

“Velorians have higher IQs than Terrans, Sarah,” said Kara, “and much better memories. And Xara is part Galen on top of that. She’s been tested. She likely has the highest IQ of anyone ever born on this planet, past, present and future.”

Xara smiled.

I wondered, for the thousandth time, why a goddess like Xara would be interested in a nobody like me. An ugly nobody like me; who talks to people who aren’t there. She’s bigger, faster, stronger and smarter than me, and way more beautiful than, well, anyone. I think she must have been reading my mind, or maybe my facial expression was giving away my thoughts, because she reached over and gave my leg a gentle squeeze, smiled at me, and said, “You worry too much Joe. Just trust me.”

By the time desert came around I could tell Gloria was getting back to being herself. She ordered a chocolate something for herself and one for me and watched me until I finished it. I don’t remember what it was, but I remember that it was delicious.

After dinner we went back to the hotel and everyone went to their rooms. To change into warm clothing in the case of Sarah and myself, to change into something casual but sturdy, in the case of Gloria and Mona, and to get their flight suits in the case of the blondes.

We met at the elevators and went up to the top floor, then to the stairwell that led to the roof. Gloria easily forced the lock after disconnecting the alarm (the woman has a lot of talents), and we all went up on the roof. The blondes very quickly changed into their flight suits. Sharon picked Sarah in her arms, Xara picked me up, and Kara picked up Mona while Gloria climbed onto her back, and up we went, to the highest peak above the lake that was suitable for Terrans.

The view was magnificent. Not a cloud in the sky, we could see thousands of stars. Dixon said it reminded him of Afghanistan. Johnson and I agreed. And then there was the view below, the lights of the little towns and hamlets reflecting off the lake.

Xara nodded towards Sharon and Sarah, who were in the middle of a pretty heavy make out session and said, “Someday that will be us Joe.” She moved around behind me and put her arms around me, and suddenly she was doing that Orgone conversion thing and warming me up, and I thought, yeah, I could live with this in my life. Johnson said something crude and I would have yelled at him for it but besides Dixon, I was the only one who heard it.

We stayed there for about an hour, then flew down off the mountain back to the hotel roof. We got back into the stairwell and Gloria reconnected the alarm. There wasn’t much she could do about broken lock though, so we just headed back down. This time, I didn’t turn down Kara’s invitation and we went back to her room, after promising Gloria that I would meet her in the fitness center at 0600.

After making love I laid on my back staring at the ceiling. Kara noticed, she notices everything, and asked me what was wrong.

“Xara’s never going to give up, is she.”

“No,” said Kara, “she isn’t.”

“She’s going to win, isn’t she,” I said.

“Joseph, that’s been a forgone conclusion since the day she asked you to the prom. For a while, when she got to college, she dated other Terrans to see if what you said was right. But none she’s met can hold a candle to you Joseph.”

“It doesn’t make sense to me,” I said.

“It will,” she said.

The next morning, I was up early and met Gloria in the fitness center. She came with a notebook, which was new, and we sat down to talk before we started the workout.

“Joe, we’re going to take a new approach to your training. Your Major Moore tells me I have to share your goals with you, otherwise they are just my goals and not yours.”

And then she opened the notebook and took me through the weight, strength and stamina targets she had set for me, with dates and milestones. She also laid out the calorie goals she wanted me to meet. They looked ambitious, but doable, and I agreed to them. Then we had our training session and when we were finished, I went back to my room to shower, dress and come down to meet the ladies for breakfast. Gloria followed me, found the box of chocolates I hadn’t started eating yet, pulled out her notebook, wrote down how much I was to eat and when, tore the sheet out of the notebook and gave it to me and said, “Eat two of these before you shower.” And then she left.

After breakfast it was time to go up into the mountains again to see the view by sun light. This time Kara had our drivers take us up and we spent the morning and early afternoon exploring and stopping at various viewpoints to take pictures. We had lunch one of the many villages we pass through and then it was back to the hotel.

I don’t know what everyone else did, but Xara and I spent the afternoon exploring the town around the hotel. When you don’t limit yourself to dress shops, there is a lot to see. In the evening we took a dinner cruise on one of the many tour boats. It wasn’t formal dress; the weather was too cold for that if you wanted to go out onto the deck to enjoy the lake. Of course, that wouldn’t bother the Supremis, but most of the passengers weren’t Supremis so the ladies blended in.

Aside from my workouts with Gloria, the next couple of days were spent exploring and relaxing and just enjoying ourselves.

Chapter 136

The night before the charity event, a storm blew in and it was cold and snowy. Very cold. Very snowy. But the Swiss are used to this and as long as the plows can keep up with the weather, the roads are kept open. So we went to the event driving through a snow storm. It didn’t bother our drivers one bit.

This event was being held in a museum. A number of works of art had been donated and were going to be auctioned off, the proceeds going to the women’s charity I mentioned earlier.

As before, Kara was well known in these circles, and Sharon was getting to be known. Kara made introductions, I met a lot of people I’d never see again, and then the party split up to mingle. At one point Mona came to get Xara, Kara wanted to introduce her to someone, and for a little while Mona and I were together. There was a beautiful staircase that led to a mezzanine that looked out over the main floor, and Mona put her arm in mind and suggested we go take a look. So we climbed the stairs and moved to a point that gave us a very good view of the floor below and the various dignitaries and well-to-do as they arrived.

Everything was going well; we were enjoying each other’s company when suddenly Mona froze and stepped back. I swear, she looked like she’d seen a ghost.

“Mona, what’s wrong?”

“That man,” she whispered, “I know him. I trained with him.”

I didn’t know who she was talking about, so I turned around and looked down and near the entrance, being greeted by the evening’s host and hostess, was a tall, dark haired man.

I turned to Mona and started to open my mouth when she pulled me further back, and whispered, “Careful, he might hear you.” She was trembling.

“Mona,” I whispered, “is he an Arion Beta?”

She shook her head and mouthed the word, “Prime.”

Now it was my turn to be in shock. But I didn’t fall apart. I used my watch to signal Kara. Very shortly the watch vibrated, indicating she was listening.

I put the watch close to my mouth and whispered, “At the entrance, talking to our hosts, Mona says he’s a Prime.”

I whispered as quietly as I could. I didn’t know if Kara had heard me until I saw Sarah hurrying up the steps and pointing us to a room off the mezzanine. We got inside and she told us what Kara wanted Mona to do.

“The plan is to get him out the by the lake. Mona, you’re to go downstairs and get his attention, then start moving towards the back of the building. Make sure he sees you and follows you. Then Gloria will join you, and she’ll help you lure him out the back, by the lake. Once he is out there, away from people, Kara, Xara and Sharon will take it from there.”

“Sharon?’ I asked. “She’s supposed to be a non-combatant.”

“That’s what Kara said,” she replied, “but she didn’t think they had time to argue about it. It’s imperative that Mona and Gloria get him away from the building and away from people.”

Mona was shaking like a leaf, and the color had drained from her face. She was losing it.

“Mona,” I said, “you can do this.”

“No,” she said, “I don’t think I can. I’ve missed my status reports. He’ll know I’m missing, and he’ll kill me.”

“He doesn’t know why your missing,” I said. “And when he sees Gloria, he’ll be confused about what’s going on. He’ll want to find out.”

“And Kara will be watching,” said Sarah. “She won’t let him hurt you.”

“Mona, you’ve been trained on how to deceive men and draw them in. He’s no different than any other man. You’ve got the skills for this. You can do it.”

I had no idea if Primes were like “any other man”, but that seemed to buck Mona up, so maybe there were. She nodded and left, leaving me and Sarah to watch from above. I still had a channel open to Kara, so she had heard everything. She’ll know how frightened Mona is and, I hoped, have a contingency in place if she folds and runs. I occurred to me that I should verify that with Kara.

I stepped back and lifted my watch to my lips and whispered, “Mona’s scared, Kara. She might run.” I got two vibrations back. She heard and understood.

The plan made sense. From what little I had seen of Primes, and heard from Kara and Xara, they are in the same general power class as Protectors. If Kara was going to take him on, she had to get him away from innocent Terrans first or there could be casualties. The layout of the building would help here. It was on a large piece of property on the lake. The long axis of the building fronted a large garden and parking area, and the back was a large grass and grass/garden along the lake. With the heavy snowfall and the wind, it was very unlikely that there would be any people out there. If they could get him out of the building onto the grounds in back, they had a decent chance of keeping him away from people.

Sarah and I watched from above as Mona went down the staircase and positioned herself across the foyer from the Prime, but within his view. At one point he looked up and gave a start, he had seen her. She made a slight gesture with her head, a follow me signal, and started moving to the back. The upper level we were on extended back so we could follow from above and watch.

When Mona got about a third of the way back, she turned to see where the Prime was. At that point, Gloria stepped out of the crowd, some distance behind Mona and made sure the Prime saw her. He started to make his way through the crowd a little faster. Apparently, he was well known, because he kept getting stopped by people who wanted to shake his hand and talk to him. Sarah and I, from out vantage point, scanned the crowd to see if anyone was following the Prime or taking note of what he, Gloria, or Mona were doing. No one stood out to us.

He kept making his way closer to Mona and Gloria, and they kept making their way back towards double doors that opened to the back of the building grounds. When Mona and Gloria left the building, with the Prime still trying to get to the doors, Sarah and I came down the closest staircase to follow him from behind.

The back area was lit, and we couldn’t see anyone out there but Mona and Gloria, who were almost all the way to the lake. The Prime came out the doors and started walking quickly towards them. Just as Sarah and I came out the doors, there was a blur of motion in the air above us, coming down fast, and one of the blondes hit the Prime from behind and knocked him into the air and over and into the lake. It happened so fast, they moved so fast, that I couldn’t tell if it was one blonde or all three, but less than a second after he splashed into the water, there was another larger splash as one or more of the blondes followed him.

Mona was shaking. Gloria, on the other hand, was focused. She stripped off her clothes quickly, and amazingly without destroying them, handed them to Mona, and then took a running leap into the lake. I tried to comfort Mona by putting an arm around her. She turned into me and threw her arms around me and started sobbing into my shoulder.

“Mona … Mona …” I was trying to tell her she was squeezing me too hard but I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs to say anything. Fortunately, Sarah saw what was going on.

“Mona! Stop! You’re crushing him!”

“Oh Skietra,” said Mona, releasing me. “I’m so sorry.” And then she threw her arms around me again, but this time more gently.

“Take some deep breaths Mona,” I said. She did and that seemed to calm her down.

Something big was happening under the surface of the lake. We couldn’t see it, but large waves started hitting the lake wall. The snowfall made visibility poor, but several times geysers of water erupted from the lake, and even steam geysers. It was an anxious time for me as well as Mona, but I had a fairly good idea how this was going to end. Kara would coopt captured Betas if she could and kill them if she couldn’t. But Primes, on earth, or as she called it Terra, were to be killed. On sight if possible. No interrogation, no offer of clemency. Just death, in the most violent way possible.

I’d checked my watch when we left the building. The fight only lasted five minutes. It ended with a huge eruption of steam from the lake, and then something shot out of the water, straight up, accelerating so fast that before it disappeared, we could see a streak of light from the atmospheric friction that was generated.

We were watching it disappear when we heard Kara calling us from some bushes nearby. We went over and there were Kara, Sharon, and Gloria. Kara and Sharon were putting their clothes back on. Mona gave Gloria her clothes and she started dressing.

Xara wasn’t there, and I felt my heart leap into my throat.  “Where’s Xara? Why isn’t she here?”

Kara heard the alarm in my voice and pulled me into her arms and said, “It’s okay Joseph. Xara’s the fastest of us. She’s going to launch the Prime’s remains into the sun. She’ll be back before the auction starts.”

I just looked at her.

“She not hurt. None of us are. Only the Prime was hurt.”

Sarah asked the obvious, “What happened? We saw geysers and steam and waves. And then it was over.”

“He went down quickly,” said Sharon, “but not easily. He fought for everything he was worth.”

“Yes,” said Kara. “His people would say he had an honorable death, would you agree Gloria?”

“Yes,” answered Gloria, “they would. He fought well and admirably. That’s why I didn’t keep his testicles. They will burn in the sun with the rest of him.”

“Shit,” said Sarah, “you ripped his balls off? Way to go girlfriend!”

“Sharon, I thought you were supposed to observe only, not take part in the fight,” I said.

“That’s right,” said Kara, “scribes don’t fight. They document. Those are rules both sides have agreed on. Scribes don’t fight and the Arions don’t target them.”

“If the Arions didn’t want ME to target THEM,” Sharon said, “they shouldn’t have captured and threatened to kill me!”

Mona and Sarah said, in unison, “What!?”

“Sharon!” Said Kara, “That’s classified!”

“I know,” she replied. “Sorry Sarah, Mona, I can’t talk about it.”

“Oh come on,” said Sarah, “I’ve got to hear this story.”

“You won’t,” said Kara.

I just kept my mouth shut.

“Tell me Sharon,” asked Kara, “are you going to put your participation in your report?”

“Nope,” said Sharon, “this will all be attributed to your and Xara.”

“No mention of Gloria?” I asked.

“Better to keep my name out of it, Joe Ricci. I don’t need the glory, I’m happy to have taken part in the kill.”

After getting dressed, Kara and Sharon used their heat vision to get everyone dry, and we walked back into the building. Kara was on my arm, and as we were waiting to get into the auction room she leaned over and said, “Eat as much as you can tonight Joseph. I’m going to work you pretty hard when we get back to my room.”

Spoiler alert: She did.

Xara arrived just before the doors to the room opened.

“Did I miss anything?” She asked.

I didn’t know, I didn’t realize how much I was worried about her. When I heard her voice, and saw her, I threw my arms around her and was almost sobbing.

“Joe, Joe,” she said, “It’s alright. I’m alright. I wasn’t hurt. No one can hurt me, Joe.” And she held me in her arms and hugged me back. When I came up, I saw that people were looking at us. I didn’t care. I walked into the room with Xara, hand in hand, simply happy that she was safe.

We took our seats and waited for the auction to start. And waited. And waited. After about fifteen minutes the evenings host came up to the podium and asked if anyone had seen Mr. Levin Bucher. Someone raised their hand and when recognized, stood up and said they saw him go out the double back doors earlier. Two others corroborated this. The host asked everyone to be patient while staff went outside to look for him.

I was sitting between Kara and Xara. Kara pulled out her phone and set it on her lap and started typing away. I peeked, she was sending a text message to Crystal asking her to find out everything she could about a Mr. Levin Bucher, last seen in Switzerland.

After about another ten minutes the host went to the podium and apologized for the delay and announced that Mr. Bucher must have been called away. He had made a large donation and the plan was to recognize him right before bidding started. Everyone applauded the absent Mr. Bucher, and then the auction started.

I’m not a judge of art, at all. But I did recognize name, like Rembrandt and Hooch. Most of the other artists names were vaguely familiar to me. There were paintings, mostly paintings, but also sculptures and some very nice vases. None in our party bought anything, but Kara and Sharon did work a little game where they jumped into the bidding from time to time to keep the action going. They bid up the price of several paintings.

After the auction was over and people were leaving, Kara gathered us all together and told us to come to her room when we got back to the hotel.

It snowed all evening and into the night. But the roads were kept plowed and our driver acted like he was out for a nice drive on a sunny spring day. Didn’t bother him at all. If I had been behind the wheel my knuckles would have been white. If Xara and Mona were concerned, they didn’t show it.

When we got back to the hotel, we all met in Kara’s room. She wanted to do a debrief. So we all described the events as we saw them. Kara questioned me and Sarah about what we had seen, if there was anyone following the Prime, as she called him. She wouldn’t refer to him by name.

“Mona,” she said, “I know that this was very frightening for you. You showed a lot of courage and I’m immensely proud of you.”

Then the blondes and Gloria surrounded her and hugged her, and Sarah and I added our appreciation for her courage and the part she played. When everyone sat back down, she turned to me and Sarah and said, “Joe and Sarah calmed me down and convinced me I could do it.”

And then to me, “Joe, since I’ve met you, I’ve learned about your war record and your medals. You are so much more fragile than even me, a Beta. Why are you never afraid?”

Why was I never afraid? As I considered my answer, I noticed that everyone was looking at me.

“Mona,” I said, “In Iraq and Afghanistan I was always afraid. Fear is a good thing. It keeps you alert and on your toes. It can save your life. To do the job I had to do I had to let my fear inform my decisions, but not let it make my decisions for me. And when there are others depending on you, like the Velorians did tonight, you think about that more than your fear.”

That seemed to satisfy her.

Then Mona, Sarah and I started asking what happened in the water, and what the steam geysers were all about.

“He tried using his heat vision against us,” said Kara, “and he boiled a fair amount of water, that would account for some of the geysers.”

“Some?” Sarah asked.

“The last one was caused by an Orgone release,” said Xara. “Mom crushed his heart, killing him and releasing a lot of energy.”

“Was that before or after Gloria ripped his balls off?” Sarah asked.

“Before,” answered Gloria. “Immediately before.”

We wanted to ask more questions but was interrupted by a phone call from Crystal. Kara put it on speaker.

“Levin Bucher is an art dealer based out of Bern,” she said. “He first appears in public records two years ago. There are a number of newspaper articles that mention his presence at various events, and he is considered a generous doner to charities and someone who is willing to help new artists get established.”

She went on with some details about his business, the address, newspaper reports on some of his showings.

“Email me all addresses that you can find associated with him,” said Kara, “and any other information you can dig up.”

When she ended the call, Xara asked, “What’s the plan mom?”

Kara answered, “I’m going to go over the information Crystal sent me, then I’m going to check out his art gallery and any other addresses Crystal comes up with.”

“Can I help, mom?”

“Certainly!”

“I’ll come to,” said Sharon.

“No, you won’t!” Kara replied. “You’ve gone too far off the reservation as it is. You stay behind with Gloria and make sure the others are safe.”

“Safe from who?” I asked.

“I’m not too worried,” she answered. “But I don’t want to take any chances. If any other Arions observed us tonight and come looking for us, I want to make sure you, Mona and Sarah are protected.”

This seemed to satisfy Sharon. But not Mona.

“You think there were others?” She said, obviously distressed by the idea.

“She’s just being cautious,” said Xara. “I was watching during the drive back to the hotel. No one was following us.”

I felt fine about this, but Mona was still nervous.

“Mona,” said Gloria, “you will sleep in my room tonight.”

Mona was visibly relieved to hear that and accepted the invitation. Though it didn’t sound like an invitation to me.

Everyone got up to leave, and I was going with them when I felt a hand on my arm and Kara said, “Not so fast Joseph. You’re staying with me tonight.”

I’d forgotten. But I wasn’t going to say no to her.

Sharon told me that using their abilities, mostly their strength, in front of Terrans is a sexual turn-on for Velorian women. She also told me that combat, especially with a male Prime, has a sexual aspect to it. I’m not sure if I believe that, but she says one form of combat Protectors use is to overwhelm a Prime with pheromones and then fuck him to death. Honest to God, that’s what she said, and she said Kara’s done that. The sex act can be used to drain a male Supremis of his Orgone.

Whatever the case may be, Kara was different that night. She was more aggressive. I thought I’d seen it all, but I hadn’t. First, she put on gold. It had been a long time since she had put on gold with me. Second, she literally threw me on the bed and undressed me. She popped some buttons on my shirt. Third, there was no foreplay. She hit me with her pheromones and mounted me, then grabbed my hands and put them on her breasts.

“Squeeze my breasts. Squeeze my nipples. Harder. Harder!” That second ‘harder’ was shouted at me. I squeezed as hard as I could, and I was driven to do it by her pheromones.

“Thrust with me Joseph. Harder. Harder. Faster. Harder! Faster! Keep your rhythm! Damnit! Is that the best you can do?!”

I was going as fast and hard as I could, and she kept wanting more.

Her first orgasm came, and her vaginal muscles clutched me harder than they ever had before. Then I had my first orgasm. I started to go soft, and she shouted, “No!” Then released more pheromones and I was hard again.

Sometime later, I don’t know how much, she yanked her gold necklace off and grabbed my hands and started using them to knead her breasts. And it hurt. I tried to tell her, but she wasn’t listening to me. Her vagina clutched me harder than it had all night, her knees gripped me very tightly, and she orgasmed with a scream that I swear must have been heard all over the hotel. She kept going until I orgasmed again and then slowed her movements down and rolled off me onto her back next to me.

After a few minutes she sat up and looked at me. She picked up my hands and examined them, then she looked at my sides, where her knees and legs had been against me.

“Are you okay Joseph?”

“I don’t think anything’s broken, Kara.”

“No, but I bruised you.”

“Are you okay, Kara? I’ve never seen you like that.”

“I’m okay. I want you to get up and walk around a little, if you can, to see if I did more than bruise you.”

So I got out of bed and walked around. My hips were a little stiff, but I was okay. I turned on the light and looked in the mirror and saw the bruises; I’ve had much, much worse.

“I’m good Kara. What was that?”

“During the fight, I was trying to mount the Prime. He was holding his breath under water; my pheromones weren’t getting to him. Have we ever told you how we sometimes fight Primes?”

“Sharon has,” I answered.

“I was ready for him; I was anticipating having him from the moment you told me he was there. But he wasn’t ready for me. And Sharon, Gloria and Xara were trying to rip him apart, so I gave up and went for a more conventional kill. It left me very frustrated Joseph, and I’m afraid I took my frustration out on you.”

“You needed more than I could give you, didn’t you?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Do you still need more? I’m willing to go another round if you need it.”

She smiled at me and kissed me. “Joseph, you are a very sweet man. I’m afraid you can’t give me all that I need, but you gave me enough to get me through the night.”

“Kara?”

“Yes Joseph?”

“That was the best I can do.”

“I know Joseph, I am so sorry for using you like that. Can you forgive me?”

“I can and I do.”

She kissed me again and turned off the light and led me by the hand back to the bed. She cuddled up to me and as I fell asleep, I realized Dixon and Johnson weren’t there.

Chapter 137

“What the fuck, mom!”

The whole group was in the hotel restaurant for breakfast. Xara had just noticed my bruised hands and had done a quick examination of me, looking through my clothes.

“It’s okay, Xara,” I said. “It’s only minor bruising and it doesn’t hurt all that much.”

“No, Joe, it’s not okay,” she said.

Sarah asked, “What happened? Why are you bruised?”

Sharon leaned over and whispered something in her ear. Sarah’s eyebrows went up in surprise.

“Did you use gold? Joe, did she use gold?” Xara asked.

“Mostly.” I answered.

“Mostly? What the fuck does that mean? Did you take off the gold before you were finished?”

“Xara!” It was Sharon. “Not here. You, your mother, and I will discuss this in private. Joe, are you hurt?”

“I’m fine, really. Just a couple of bruises.”

“You don’t look ‘fine’ to me,” said Xara.

“Let it go, for now,” said Sharon. “You two have work to do this morning. Focus on the job ahead.”

She was talking about checking out the Prime’s art gallery.

We finished breakfast in silence, then Xara and Kara left. The rest of us spent the day at the hotel spa. Mona, Sarah and Sharon loved the spa. Gloria was going to have me work out but relented when Sharon told her about the bruises on the rest of my body.

At one point Sarah grabbed me by the hand and pulled me aside and asked me what had happened with Kara. I gave her a brief synopsis of how I had spent my night. Her eyes got really big when I told her about fucking Primes to death. So then she got the rest of the group together and had Sharon tell her all about it. Gloria and Mona confirmed everything Sharon said.

“Kara was fine with Joe until she took off the gold. She should never have done that in the state she was in,” said Sharon.

“I’m fine, Sharon.”

“For a Terran, you have a remarkably high tolerance for pain and abuse, Joe. Kara could have seriously injured you. Or even killed you. She and Xara and I will have a come to Skietra meeting and work things out.”

Kara and Xara were gone for about six hours. When they returned, they convened a meeting in Kara’s room.

“We found the Prime’s art gallery,” said Kara. “We observed it for several hours and identified three employees, all Betas.”

“They left the premises for lunch,” continued Xara. “We broke in and found Arion communication devices. There were no records that we could find of their activities. But we did find the payroll records, and the three Betas were the only employees of the business.

“We left the building and did a quick search of the area from the sky and located the Betas. They returned to the building and when they discovered signs that we had broken in, they locked the doors and put up the closed sign.

“We flew into the building through the roof and killed two of the Betas. We took their bodies, and the third Arion, up into the mountains.”

She stopped talking. Sharon, Gloria and Mona nodded. What did they know that we didn’t? Finally, Sarah asked, “What did you do with the third Arion?”

“I worked out my frustrations,” said Kara. “Then we burned the bodies.”

“You worked out your frustrations???” asked Sarah.

“She fucked him to death,” said Sharon.

“So you got it all … worked out of you?” I asked.

“No Joseph, not all. A Beta isn’t strong enough for that. But enough that you don’t have to worry about me.”

“I wasn’t worried about you,” I said.

“Fine!” said Xara. “Enough that I don’t have to worry about her hurting you.”

“It was her idea,” said Kara.

“Holy shit!” Said Sarah.

Sarah was good. She quickly set her shock over Velorian sexual combat practices aside and turned into Major Moore and began a detailed debrief of Kara and Xara’s attack on the art gallery, including the kind of equipment they found. She asked that the equipment be retrieved, but Kara demurred. She wanted to set up surveillance on the building and see if anyone came looking for the Arions. Major Moore agreed to facilitate that using U.S. assets. Switzerland wasn’t one of the countries that had been read in on the Arion threat.

Chapter 138

That was our last night in Switzerland. In the morning we packed up and checked out. Kara arranged for a shipping company to send our personal items back to our homes in the U.S. Sarah was the only one of us who had come to Switzerland via normal, or what the blondes would call, Terran means, so she was the only one flying back. Kara didn’t want the rest of us using commercial aviation because there was no record of us leaving the U.S. and entering the European Union. That meant Gloria, Mona and I would travel back via Air Velor: pods.

       We took a bus up into the mountains and got off at a more or less deserted stop between towns and waited for the blondes to show with the pods. Then we all climbed in, lifted off and went back to the U.S. via a suborbital trajectory. I’ll never get tired of watching the blue sky gradually turn black as the stars came out, then turning back to blue on the trip down. Or still black in this case, it was night in Bellingham.

We came through the lake entrance in the basement. I went up to my room and there were two large duffel bags on my bed. I opened them up, they were filled with cash. Lots of cash, in 5-, 10- and 20-dollar denominations.

“Hey!” I called out. “Does anyone know where this money came from?”

Sharon walked into the room. “Oh, that. I’d almost forgotten. That was Josh’s cash. There’s two hundred thousand dollars in the two bags. He doesn’t need it anymore. It’s yours.”

“What am I going to do with that much cash?”

Sharon looked at me and said, “I’m sure you’ll think of something. Just use your imagination.”

Chapter 139

Kara had spent too much time away from her company and headed back to California. Sharon went back to her company and Deb. I think she went back to Deb. Deb seemed to be a touchy subject with Sharon, so I didn’t ask. Gloria was going make me her project; she was going to get my weight, strength, and fitness up to where she thought it should be if it killed her. More likely it would kill me. Despite Kara’s assurances that she would find a new home for Mona, she hadn’t yet, so Mona was staying. And Xara, who was taking the quarter off from school, moved into my basement.

I had very mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I was worried about how it looked if the Army found out she was living with me. And that meant Major Moore too. I don’t know if Xara explained the living arrangement to her before we left Switzerland. She certainly didn’t explain it to me.

On the other hand, Gloria and Mona were there, they were both adults and could be considered chaperones. Additionally, with Kara and Sharon gone, Xara was the only source of Velorian pheromones that would stabilize my mental condition.

I had stopped worrying about Xara trying to seduce me. She had had plenty of opportunities to do so and never tried. She could be trusted. Could I be trusted? I hoped so. Johnson and Dixon were not optimistic about that.

With Xara there, the progress of my language lessons improved. She was a big help with conjugation, subject, object, noun, verb order, that kind of thing. She is a very patient teacher.

I hadn’t felt like I was pulling my weight as a liaison before, but that started to change too. Major Moore was able to quickly assign assets, thats what they are called, not spies or people, assets, to watch the art gallery in Switzerland, and she got photos and video of Arions entering the premises and removing boxes of items. How did I know they were Arions? Major Moore’s assets followed them into the countryside where they ‘disappeared’ in an open field. It’s very dramatic on the video. They are walking through the field when suddenly, they aren’t there anymore. They had come to earth in a cloaked ship. The assets took photographs of the area that showed the vegetation flattened against the ground. It dawned on me then that maybe there was more to reports of crop circles around the world than I had thought.

Whatever competition was going on between Mona and Xara for my attention ended. The two were becoming good friends, and Mona’s status was changing, she was now allowed into the basement, and joined Xara in helping me with my language lessons.

The two of them also became my workout buddies. Gloria would set the task and they would encourage me, or workout with me. So If I was lifting weights, they’d spot for me, encourage me, keep my spirits up. They would go for runs with me. That was a little … dispiriting? I don’t know, that’s not quite the right word. In the third mile of a five-mile run I’d be pushing myself, huffing and puffing, while they would be running along beside me having a conversation like they were sitting on the couch. Not breathing hard at all, not sweating. But they would also encourage me and give me updates as we ran.

“You’re doing better Joe, your heart rate is only at 80% of max.”

“Your blood pressure is really improving Joe, these workouts are doing wonders for you!”

That would be from Xara. She could hear my heartbeat and calculate its rate, and, somehow, she could read my blood pressure just looking at me.

It was during these runs that I discovered something else about Supremis abilities. They can see colors humans can’t. We’d just finished a run and I was cooling down as we walked along the lake, and Mona pointed out some birds in the vegetation and commented that on Aria the birds didn’t have that coloration.

“Where are they? I don’t see any birds.”

“Right there, Joe,” said Mona, pointing.

“I don’t see them,” I replied.

“He can’t see them,” said Xara, “his eyes can’t see those colors.”

“What do you mean, Xara?” I asked.

“Joe,” she said, “you have three kinds of color receptors, or cones, in your eyes, that are sensitive to red, blue and green light frequencies. We have 12. We can see into the ultraviolet and infrared frequencies and differentiate colors you can’t. You can’t see the birds because your eyes can’t sense the colors that are there. To us, they stand out, vividly.”

“I had no idea,” I said. “Does that ever get confusing, when dealing with us Terrans?”

“Not anymore,” she said, “but when I was little, and someone would show a picture or painting to me I’d try to have them tell me about the other colors. But they couldn’t see them. Mom would intervene.”

“Velorians and Primes have 12 kinds of cones,” said Monica. “Betas only have 8.”

It wasn’t just the workouts. Xara and Mona went with me everywhere. Grocery shopping? They went with me. Take the car to Toyota for servicing? They went with me.

I have always done my own oil changes; I didn’t take the car to the dealer for that. Changing the oil and filter usually involved a stand jack and a wrench, but not when you have superwomen around. Mona would lift the right side of the car and Xara would unscrew the plug with her fingers, and the oil filter too.

And Xara and I renewed date night, a dinner and a movie. Half the time now Mona tagged along. So instead of buying two large popcorns, and Xara ate all of hers and most of mine, I’d buy three, and the girls would each eat theirs and share most of mine.

Things changed, a little when Spring came, and Xara was back in school. She didn’t move back into a dorm, she stayed in my basement. She was taking 20 credits, which is a huge load for most people, but not for Xara. But it did mean that she had to cut down her time with me, but we still maintained date night and she still found time to help me with my language lessons.

But something else about Xara began changing. It started happening the day after Spring quarter ended. Xara was helping Gloria cook dinner. She picked up a skillet and crushed the handle. And then, the next day, she was boiling eggs with her heat vision and the entire pot of water flashed into steam. She was worried about it and decided to fly home to California to talk to her mom. Normally, when she lifted off from my back yard, she accelerated quickly straight up, but not so quickly as to cause a sonic boom. This time she lifted off, very quickly, and the sonic boom almost knocked me over.

A couple of hours later Kara contacted Gloria and said we were going to have a meeting at the cabin. Half an hour later Sharon arrived, followed by Kara, and then Xara, who hit the ground so hard she buried her legs up to the top of her calves in my backyard.

We all gathered around Kara, who said, “Xara’s father, who was part Galen, told me this might happen. He said that as Xara matured her powers might start to increase. Evidently, that is happening now. She needs to go back into training to relearn how to control her strength.”

We all said we’d help anyway we could.

Xara came to me, after extricating her legs from the hole she had just put in my yard, put her arms around me very gently, and said, “Joe, I’ll be extra careful. I won’t hurt you, please don’t be afraid of me.”

Kara said, “Joseph, until she has regained total control of herself, be afraid of her. She can kill or injure you without even being aware she is doing it.” And with that said, Xara was banished from contact with Terrans until she regained control of her abilities.

Janelle heard the emergency beacon alarm. The volume was too low for a Terran to hear, though their dogs could. Janelle went to her safe, opened it, and took out the communication device and entered the codes to unlock the messages.

The message was an emergency notification from Near Earth Command:

A Beta operating out of the North American Area of Operations has disappeared. A Prime and three Betas operating out of the European Area of Operations have also disappeared. All are presumed KIA. NEC suspects Velorian Protectors are responsible. All records and equipment assigned to these agents have been recovered. NEC orders all agents to review operational security procedures looking for exposures. NEC believes there may be as many as three Protectors operating on Terra. Take all necessary precautions. Report any suspected Velorian activity immediately. This message will self-erase.

Three Protectors! Skietra! She mentally reviewed her recent activities. The gangs were stirred up, almost panicking since discovering the bodies and her warning at the forest facility. But none of the gangs had approached her, she was sure they didn’t suspect her. She didn’t think any of her activities would have caught the attention of a Protector unless she was based in this region. And this town was considered a backwater, even by Terran standards. The Velorians wouldn’t be looking for any agents of the Empire here.

She had planned to begin a series of attacks on the gangs. She decided to put that off for a while and wait to see if any further information came from NEC. So she decided to start another project.

When her family was assigned to Hypha-Red-6, she and her father had built a playroom with a holding pen stocked with frails that she and her mother used as sex toys. She spent many hours in the playroom with her mother, enjoying the screams of frails dying while she used them for sexual release. Since coming to Terra, she had restricted her sexual activity to self-stimulation. She had refrained from using the frails, people, they were people, who worked for her or who became her patients. There was only one outcome for a Terran sexually servicing her, and that was death. She didn’t want to kill the people who had become her friends.

But the gangs now, that was different. Why kill them outright when they can be used for pleasure first? So she decided to build a playroom of her own. She’d need Miguel’s help and she’d have to keep him in the dark about its purpose else he become more afraid of her than he already was.

There were many abandoned mining and logging camps in the forest. She needed one that was isolated and secure from prying eyes, but accessible enough that she could bring her captured toys to it in a car or van. She’d also need a water source so she could clean her captives and clean the playroom after a session. So she had Miguel drive her into the forest to look for a suitable site. She only told Miguel what her needs were, not her purpose. He trusted her, she knew, but she also knew that she frightened him. She didn’t want to frighten him more.

Miguel knew the area quite well and he was able to show her two abandoned facilities that were accessible but off the beaten path and had close by streams. One of them even had a serviceable water tank above the main building on a hill. The water line from the tank to the building was in good shape, but they’d need to repair the feeder line that ran from a pool in the stream to the tank. Janelle decided that would be the first task they’d tackle.

The feeder line had a four-inch diameter. Miguel knew where to purchase the appropriate pipes but wasn’t sure about how to install them. They were heavy. Janelle assured him that if he could get the pipes loaded into a truck, she’d have no trouble unloading them. So they went back to town, and looked at the pipes, and Janelle discovered she didn’t have enough money to pay for them. In addition, Miguel said they’d need welding equipment, which was quite expensive. Janelle told him they didn’t, wait and see.

But what to do about the money? She didn’t have enough, but she knew who did. Since it was gang members she’d keep in her holding pen, it only seemed right that they should contribute to building it. She had raided one location where the gangs kept money, she needed to find another. So with Miguel’s help, she surreptitiously followed gangsters who were collecting ‘protection’ money from businesses. She found out where they took the money, where the money went after that, and finally where the money was warehoused. For this gang, it was in a well-guarded building in the forest several miles out of town. From her location on a hilltop several miles away she could see that the security around this building was very tight. Miguel told her that he had heard that the gangs started increasing security after her first attack on them.  

She could see eight guards outside the building and another five inside. There were flood lights mounted high on the building and there was a generator with a large fuel tank on one side. There were no cell towers in the area and no phone lines to the building. She did see, looking through the walls, several radio sets. They were all plugged into power outlets and there were no portable handheld units, except on the outside guards. She assumed they had short range and were used for the men at the site to keep tabs with each other.

She decided to attack at night.

The next night Miguel drove her to a point about three miles from the building. He drove off the road a short distance along a track into the forest. Janelle got out of the car, undressed, then took down a couple of trees to block the entrance to the track. She then took two large duffel bags out of the trunk and set out on foot to the warehouse.

When she arrived at the tree line, she examined the building inside and out and determined where all the guards and other personnel were. There were thirteen. She was about to begin her attack when she heard several vehicles approach. It was a shift change. Thirteen men arrived and thirteen left. She waited for the first shift to leave, then, using her heat vision, cut a hole in the wall of the generator fuel tank sparking a fire that grew very quickly. The guards saw this and there was a lot of commotion. The generator was still running, so she attacked it with her heat vision, disabling it. The entire site went dark. She saw that inside the building a couple of emergency lights came on.

She ran around the tree line to the opposite side of the building. There were no guards, they were busy with the fire on the other side of the building. There was a door there, so she ran up to it intending to break it down, but she found it was unlocked, so she opened it and walked in.

The inside crew had grabbed fire extinguishers to help fight the fire. She couldn’t believe it; the pallets of money were left unguarded. She quickly went to the first pallet and filled both duffle bags with as much cash as they would hold, then left the same way she had come in. Just as she got to the tree line, she saw the first shift of guards returning. Evidently, they had radios and had come back to help. She ran back to Miguel, moved the blocking trees out of the way, dressed and got into the car with the duffle bags. They left the area, and never saw another soul.

Janelle had mixed feelings about this. One the one hand, she had raided a gang location and got away with a large sum of money, undetected. On the other hand, she had been looking forward to slaughtering a few frails, listening to them scream and beg as they died for her entertainment.

The next day Janelle and Miguel rented a truck and purchased the pipe they needed. They also needed power tools, not everything could be handled with brute strength and heat vision, so they bought a small generator along with the tools Miguel suggested they needed.

 They drove to the site of the soon-to-be playroom and Miguel watched, awe struck, as a naked Janelle unloaded all the pipe and laid it out end to end from the top of the water tank to the stream fed pool. He was even more impressed when she used her heat vision to weld the pipe together. When the job was done, they opened the inlet valve to the tank and watched as it began filling.

When it was about half full, they went to the main building and opened a valve and had running water! They spent the rest of the afternoon identifying and sealing leaks in the pipe. Janelle did this by taking one of the extra pipes they had, tearing off a piece, wadding it up in her hands until it was hot enough to flow, then carefully spreading the molten metal over the leaks.

Juanita had packed a meal for them, and Janelle dressed and sat down on a blanket Miguel had spread out on the ground to eat with him. Miguel seemed a little nervous.

“Miguel, what is bothering you?” Janelle asked.

“Senorita Janelle,” he replied, “I do not understand, how do you work these wonders?”

Miguel had been a very loyal employee, and she liked him and his wife and children. She decided to tell him a little bit of the truth.

“Miguel, I am not from here.”

“I know senorita. You come from another country.”

“No, Miguel, not another country. I come from another planet, from a place very far away from here, with a different sun.”

Miguel considered this for a moment. After seeing what this woman can do, he thought this was as good an explanation as any.

“Senorita, why are you here?”

“Miguel, my people want to be friends with yours. We want to share our medicine and our science and technology with you. I’m here to learn about your people and determine if this is a place we can come to, to introduce ourselves to you.”

“But why senorita,” he asked, “do you come here? Why not to the capital city, or the capital city of the Americans or Russians or Chinese?”

“Ah, Miguel. If only it were so simple. There are people in the galaxy, from other planets, that are not as friendly as my people, and they oppose us spreading our science and culture to other worlds. These enemies are very powerful, and so we have to be very careful about how we approach your planet, your people, to make sure our enemies, and they are your enemies too, don’t learn of what we are doing.

“Miguel, we can cure diseases. We can end poverty. We can put an end to the gangs, but our enemies would not allow this. They would say leave the people of this world to die of their diseases, let them live in poverty, let the powerful keep their heals on the necks of the weak. Miguel, we must be very careful about how we approach your people, the people of this planet.”

“Are your people all like you, senorita? Are they all strong and can they all shoot heat from their eyes?”

“Not all are like me, no. But they all want to be your friends.”

This was a lot for Miguel to take in and process. She could see from his face that he was working very hard, trying to make sense of what she said.

“Miguel, I need you to keep my secret. Can you do that?”

“Yes, senorita, I can.”

“Very good Miguel.” And she kissed him on the cheek, then helped him fold up the blanket and drove back into town with him to return the truck.

For the next two weeks Janelle saw patients in the morning and returned to the playroom in the afternoon to work on it. When it was finished, Janelle stepped back to take it all in. She was very happy with it. She had a changing room with a shower she could use to clean up after a session. There was an outside entrance to a small room that would be her holding pen, and a door from the holding pen into the main playroom. That door had a cutout with thick metal bars so the toys waiting in the holding pen could see what she was doing to the toy she was actively playing with. She’d learned on Hypha-Red-6 that letting the frails watch her play increased their terror and made it that much more fun when she finished with one toy and began selecting the next one.

There were hoses in the holding pen and in the playroom for cleaning up and several drains in the slightly sloping floor. She put vents in the roof to aid clearing the smoke when she used her heat vision to burn the remains of her frails. She couldn’t put fans in, there was no power. But that would be okay. The building had skylights but no electric lights. The generator was noisy, she didn’t want to use that, so she bought lanterns she could use for light when she needed it.

The doors into and out of the playroom, the changing area and the holding pen could be locked using a very heavy iron bolts. Too heavy for ten frails to budge, let alone the three or four she thought she would have in the holding pen at a time.

In the playroom she mounted some iron rings in the walls with chains that she could use to mount and secure frails, and she had a chain that hung down from the ceiling that she could use to support a frail a foot or two above the floor.

“Senorita, I don’t understand what you are going to use this place for,” said Miguel.

“This is where I will take gang members, or anyone else who displeases me,” she answered.

“Will I be coming here with you, senorita?”

“You may, from time to time, to help me bring the gang members here. But you will not come inside unless I invite you to. What happens in here will be … very upsetting to you.”

Unknown to Miguel and Janelle, the gangs were always watching local businesses for unusual activity. When a building supply business sold a lot of pipe, more than usual, they took note, and four thugs were assigned to investigate it and to make sure the gang got their share of any new economic activity.

A few days after completing the new playroom, Janelle was locking up early after seeing her last patient, and as it was a nice day, she decided to walk back to her apartment rather than calling Miguel to drive her there.

She had walked only a block when a car came up beside her and stopped and four men got out and surrounded her. One of them poked the tip of a knife up against her ribs while the one in front of her told her to get into the car. There wasn’t anyone around watching, she could have easily killed them, but she decided to play along and see where this went.

Once in the backseat of the car, with one thug on either side of her and two in front, the driver pulled away from the curb and started driving, more or less aimlessly.

“Senorita,” said the thug on her left, “we noticed you spent a lot of money at the building supply store. What are you doing with all that pipe you bought.”

“I have a little construction project, out of town,” she answered. “Why do you care?”

Her voice was calm. She wasn’t demanding to be released or pleading with them not to hurt her. That should have alerted the thugs that something was amiss, and maybe would have if they were any smarter, but it didn’t.

“Senorita, if you are doing construction, you need insurance, protection to make sure nothing happens to your project. What is this project? Where is it?”

“If you must know, I’ve built myself a recreation facility, a place to bring special guests for entertainment.”

“Senorita, I ask again, where is it?”

“If you want, I can take you there now?”

She was releasing just a little bit of pheromones, just enough to keep them interested and a little distracted.

“Take us there,” he said.

“Okay,” said Janelle. And she began giving them directions. She couldn’t believe her luck. If Arion Primes pinched themselves to make sure they were awake and not dreaming, Janelle would have been pinching herself. She had thought that she’d have to hunt gang members down, incapacitate them without damaging them too much, and take them to the playroom. Instead, these dolts were going to walk into it of their own free will. And she was starting to get excited, she was becoming wet with anticipation and she had to clamp down her pheromones to keep from releasing too much.

When they got to the playroom, they all got out of the car.

“This is a recreation facility?  It doesn’t look like one I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh,” said Janelle, “don’t judge it until you see the inside.”

They approached the outer door to the holding pen. It wasn’t locked, so Janelle opened the door and ushered them in. When the last one walked in, she closed the door and bolted it. She was giddy with excitement. The four thugs were shouting at her, swearing at her, threatening her if she didn’t let them out soon.

She called out, “Be patient, you’ll get out of there very soon.”

She went to her changing room and took off her clothes and folded them neatly, then entered the playroom and bolted the door to the changing room behind her. She approached the cutout in the holding pen wall and released her pheromones. It took a moment for them to drift into the holding pen, but when they did, the men were instantly aroused.

“Take off your clothes,” she ordered. They did.

She pointed to one and said, “I’ll have you first.”

She opened the door to the holding pen and they rushed her. She easily pushed them back, grabbed her first selection and closed the door on the others. She went to the cutout and told the three men in the holding pen to watch and promised them that they would all get a turn.

The man she took out was trying very hard to throw her to the floor so he could mount her. Instead, she pushed him down onto the floor and mounted him. He was erect and she was wet. She didn’t need foreplay. She inserted him inside herself and began moving up and down, back and forth. The frail beneath her was about to orgasm when she squeezed the base of his erection tight enough that he couldn’t ejaculate, not so tight to hurt him.

“Put your hands on my breasts,” she commanded.

He did.

“Squeeze them as hard as you can.”

He did.

He was starting to moan, so she relaxed her inner muscles a bit and he ejaculated, screaming in ecstasy as he did. She released her pheromones to keep him hard.

In the playroom on Hypha-Red-6, she had built up her self-control to the point where she could orgasm three times before she killed the frail. But that had been over three years ago, and she was out of practice. As her orgasm approached, she started moving faster, pushing the frails hands into her breasts harder, and, involuntarily, bringing her knees together. She and the frail screamed at the same time, hers a scream of pleasure, his a scream of pain. And then it was over.

Janelle closed her eyes and reveled in the pleasure. When she opened them and looked down, she saw a mass of bloody meat, with a head attached. She had brought her knees together. As she looked at the mess she made, she became aware that the three remaining frails were screaming in fear. She smiled; she was getting everything she wanted.

She pulled the frails mangled penis out of her vagina and threw the body into the corner, then went to the holding pen, opened the door, released her pheromones, and asked, in a girlish voice, “Who wants to go next?”

No one volunteered, so she picked one. After another orgasm, and another crushed frail, she went to the holding pen door and opened it and took one of the thugs by the hand and dragged him, kicking and screaming, to the middle of the playroom. She left the door open, and the fourth thug tried to make a run for it, but he couldn’t get any of the doors open. When she finished with thug number 3 she cornered the 4^th thug, who offered her money if she would let him go.

“Really,” she said, “if I want your money, I’ll just take it.”

Then she forced him down onto the floor, released her pheromones right into his face, mounted him and, much to her delight, rode him to two orgasms before killing him.

Afterwards, when she was cleaning up, burning the bodies, washing down the floor of the playroom and the holding pen (one of them lost control of his bowels watching his friend being crushed to death) she thought about how easy this was, and wondered if she could come up with ways to lure thugs to her, rather than hunting them down and capturing them.

 Prior to burning the bodies and their clothing she retrieved the keys to the thug’s car. She got dressed, got into the car and drove it to the outskirts of town. She parked at the curb, turned off the car and left the keys in the ignition, and walked several blocks to a bus stop and caught a bus that would take her near to her apartment.