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LENGTH: Mid Novel, almost Full Novel
SENSUALITY: Spicy

Cover art (c) Eliza Black May 2003
ISBN 1-58608-417-8
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Rating: Contains explicit sex.

"Four Hearts! Kaitlyn O'Connor has written an intense, futuristic romance that freely roams off the pages into your mind. Her imagery is so crisp, so clear, so convincing that you feel you have been to Orleans. The Claiming is an excellent read for any speculative fiction fans with a taste for not-so-sappy stories of love." The Romance Studio

"Four Hearts! If you love futuristic stories with vivid descriptions then pick up this one soon." The Romance Studio

THE CLAIMING

By

Kaitlyn O’Connor

© copyright May 2003 by Kaitlyn O’Connor

Cover Art by Eliza Black

ISBN 1-58608-417-8

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA

www.newconceptspublishing.com

Chapter One

Earth, 2152

Carter City

“You must know hiding is useless. I can find you anywhere on the planet with your IT. Why do you persist in putting me to the effort of locating you every time we have a new customer for you?”

Jana opened her eyes and tried to peer past the beam of light shining directly on her face. She could see nothing beyond the dazzling light, however. Not that she needed to know who had found her. She recognized Marty’s voice.

She was curious, though, to know just how peeved he was. Angry enough to beat her? Or just enough to slap her around a little?

The worst of it was, either way, she probably wouldn’t find out until after she’d serviced the customer—he wouldn’t want her marred in any way—which meant she’d have to wait in dread—as if the other wasn’t bad enough.

Regardless, she had no choice but to face his wrath. He was standing in front of the only way in or out of the container she’d wedged herself into, hopeful that the lead lining would prevent him from picking up the signals from the Identification Transmitter surgically implanted in every slave’s spine.

Reluctantly, Jana began the painful process of wriggling out of her hiding place. She was stiff from having hidden for so long and, despite her diminutive size, it had taken a great deal of effort to squeeze into the container to begin with. She had been petrified with fear once she had wedged herself inside, wondering if she would be able to get out again—assuming her ruse worked and allowed her a chance to escape the city—but her fear of being caught had outweighed her fear of dying a horrible death stuck inside the small container—just barely.

She was sweating with effort by the time she managed to wiggle part of the way out. Instead of helping her exit, however, her sweat dampened skin seemed to cling to the lining of the container, making egress even more difficult.

Impatiently, Marty grasped her beneath her arms and yanked her out before she’d managed to wriggle her hips free, chafing her hips and the tops of her thighs.

He set her on her feet and looked her over angrily. “Just look at you! You’re a total wreck—and the customer due in little more than an hour! And you’ve marred your flesh, as well, damn it!”

Jana longed for the nerve to inform him that she wouldn’t have been marred if he hadn’t jerked her out, scraping her hips on the rough sides of the container. However, she had better sense than to provoke him. It was obvious from his manner that she was already facing a sound beating once the customer had departed.

She dreaded it, but in some ways it was a strange sort of blessing.

She was so very fair that it took little to bruise her. Since customers were inclined to be turned off by a battered courtesan, and since Jana pretty regularly managed to provoke Marty’s wrath, she was rarely available to his customers.

In truth, Jana had deliberately provoked Marty on more than one occasion, when a particularly nasty individual had requested her services, but that had not been her intention this time. She had thought she had finally stumbled onto a way to escape the life she hated and find a better one for herself.

So much for that.

Grasping her by her arm, Marty began rushing Jana along through the ancient, abandoned warehouse that stood just beyond the outskirts of the city.

At five foot nothing, Jana’s legs were considerably shorter than Marty’s, however, and she stumbled repeatedly, unable to keep step with him. Each time she stumbled, he jerked her upright once more.

“If you don’t stop dragging your feet, I swear I’ll beat you now!” Marty snapped angrily after the third such incident. “You’re so banged up already, it can hardly matter!”

“You’re moving too fast,” Jana complained. “I’m trying to keep up.”

“Watch your tongue! They don’t need you to talk, you know!”

“They want me to scream, though,” Jana muttered. She thought for several moments that Marty would lose his precarious hold on his temper at her comment, but apparently he realized she was right. She was expensive, delicate equipment and if he wanted to get some use out of her he would have to control his temper.

He scooped her into his arms and began to run with her, leaping over the debris that littered the floor and had tripped Jana up repeatedly. When they left the building, Jana could see that the sun was indeed very low on the horizon—she hadn’t missed her appointment, unfortunately, but she would be hard put now to prepare herself for it.

Marty’s craft, a sleek black cruiser, was parked just beyond the old loading docks of the warehouse. He leapt from the dock onto the ground, which was choked with weeds, and strode quickly toward the craft. The doors, keyed to his RIT—retina identification transmitter—opened automatically as they approached.

Tossing her into the passenger compartment, Marty dove into the pilot’s seat, the doors slammed shut and the cruiser shot from the ground and into the air at a dizzying velocity.

Jana landed on the passenger bench and bounced, ending up in a tangle on the floor of the cruiser. She could almost hear Marty grinding his teeth.

“Do I hear bruising? I better not hear bruising back there!”

Jana grunted, scrambled back onto the seat and fastened her belt. “No. I’m fine. Really.”

Setting the cruiser on computer control, Marty swiveled his seat to face her, inspecting her carefully.

Jana placed her scraped palms over her scraped knees and offered him a tremulous smile. “I’m fine. See?”

He glared at her. “You are NOT fine! What, by all the saints, was in that damned container you climbed into?”

Jana shrugged. “I’m not sure. Dye maybe?”

“Oh my God! Tell me you have not dyed your ass that putrid shade of yellow I see on your elbow! Let me see. I have to know the worst!”

Reluctantly, Jana unfastened her seat belt and turned, lifting the skirt she wore.

Marty screamed. “It’s yellow! It’s ruined! We’ll never get it off in time. How could you do this to me!”

Jana bit her lip. “Maybe it’s just paint,” she suggested hopefully.

“Sit down!”

Obligingly, Jana sat and fastened her seat belt again.

Marty swiveled his seat around once more. “Computer. Analyze the warm body in the passenger seat.”

The screen between the two front seats of the vehicle came to life. “Analyzing.”

After a moment, the computer began quoting. “Carbon based life form—female—weight 100 pounds—length--”

“Stupid! I know it’s a god damned woman! I need to know what that is on her ass … computer, the foreign substance, please ... and don’t tell me about her clothing!”

“Dye … composition--”

Marty cut into the dialogue again. “That’s enough! Find me something to remove it--something that won’t mar the subject, please. It’s no good to me if it takes the hide with it! And, when you get it, program it into the Virgin Suite. I want it ready when we get there—ten minutes.”

The computer screen went blank.

Jana swallowed with some difficulty, but otherwise looked the picture of calm, her legs crossed casually, her hands resting in her lap. Inside, however, her emotions rolled.

There seemed little doubt she had really done it this time. As many times as she had crossed Marty in the year since he’d purchased her for his House of a Thousand Courtesans, she had never seen him quite this angry.

“A glass of bourbon,” Marty said.

With the faint whir of gears turning, a slot opened in the console and a glass tumbler with a finger of whiskey appeared.

Marty lifted the glass with hands that shook, took a sip. After a few moments, he spoke again, this time to Jana. “As badly as I hate to do it—because it’ll mean damn near six months of down time, I think I’m just going to have to send you in for re-conditioning.”

“Re-conditioning?” Jana echoed faintly.

Marty swiveled his seat again, facing her, studying her.

She was at once sheer perfection and an absolute disaster. Despite the fact that he had been both genetically oriented, and conditioned, to have no interest in the female of the species, he had thought the moment he saw her that she was the most beautiful piece of work the geneticists at Bondage Inc. had ever turned out.

She was actually quite sturdy, but had the appearance of being as fragile as a flower blossom. She was tiny enough to make even the smallest man, or the weakest, feel extremely manly around her. Her coloring was delicate, her skin practically flawless, her hair a glorious mass of gold. She had an almost child-like air--probably because she had huge blue eyes that made her appear guileless—while possessing at the same time the body of a goddess--and to top that off, she had been endowed with the latest development, the virgin gene—making her, all in all, the most expensive courtesan he’d ever purchased.

He had been certain she was worth it.

Until he discovered her flaws.

She was surprisingly resistant to conditioning. She faked stupid quite well, in fact he thought it entirely possible that she was intelligent and still lacking a great deal of common sense … but, be that as it may, she simply would not settle into the role she’d been designed for.

Truth be told, he sincerely doubted that re-conditioning would help matters—re-conditioning was generally more intense, but conditioning obviously had had little effect the first time around—at the moment, though, he was at his wit’s end and could think of nothing else to try. She had barely earned her price back in the time he’d had her—when he’d expected to double or triple his money in very short order. He could count the number of customers she’d serviced on one hand, for god’s sake!

And it only took a matter of days for her hymen to heal intact … She should have been ready to work again within a week at most, should be servicing no less than fifty two customers a year, which, at the going rate, would have earned him….

“I expect that’s what I need,” Jana said, breaking into his thoughts.

He lifted his brows.

“You said you thought you might send me back for re-conditioning.”

Marty’s eyes narrowed. “On the other hand, you barely earn your keep. I’m not sure you’re worth the cost.”

Jana felt the blood leave her face. Marty had beat her, many times, but he’d never before suggested she was of little use to him. This was bad, very bad. “I could try harder,” she said hopefully.

“You could. But the question is, would you?”

***

Jana was used to fear. She had lived with it throughout her adult life … for a full year, in fact, since she’d reached the maturity for release and been sold to Marty.

Fear did not begin to describe her current state, however. She could scarcely put two thoughts together and make any sense of them.

Upon their return, Marty had taken her straight to her suite, calling for handlers as he marched her up the stairs and down the long corridor to the suite at the end, the Virgin Suite—her quarters.

Once there, her clothing had been taken from her and the dye removed from her buttocks, the bottoms of her feet, her elbows. Marty had gone over her with a magnifying glass after the first round of treatment, discovered several areas that still retained faint discoloration and ordered her treated again. When he was satisfied at last, she had been whisked into a bath, soaked, scrubbed, then soaked again, and finally removed. There followed a session with oils, which were worked into her skin thoroughly before she was powdered to soak up the residue and then buffed from end to end to make certain her skin was soft, sleek, and smooth as a baby’s.

Marty had examined her again once the handlers had finished.

The beginnings of bruising were unmistakable.

He screamed, cursed, the servants fell over themselves, scattering like rats before a flood.

Jana could not run—there was no where to retreat to—and neither was she able to think for several moments. “We could dim the lights,” she finally said.

“NO!” Marty screamed. “No, no and no! You are not a slut! You are a virgin! We must have innocence!”

Jana feared for several moments that she would cry. Tears welled in her eyes, but she managed to blink them back before they could further infuriate Marty. “We could do ‘the sleeping child’,” she suggested a little desperately.

Marty glared at her, but after a few moments his anger seemed to dissipate somewhat. “He specifically said he wanted a young virgin,” he said slowly, thoughtfully.

“But I would be … am! We could tell him it’s a new fantasy game … turn the white lights out, put a hint of blue … just enough for him to see, but not enough to see the … uh….” She shouldn’t have reminded him of the bruises. She saw that right away. After a moment, however, he seemed to dismiss it.

“Let’s try that, shall we?” He snapped his fingers. “Computer, dim the lights. Now, a faint blue glow.” The computer complied and Marty approached her, leaning close and studying her. After a moment, he stood up once more, smiling. “Yes. By God, in this lightening he wouldn’t know if you were forty! It’ll do…. If I can convince him to play.”

Jana smiled back at him, swallowing her fear with an effort. “You can. I know you can. And he’ll enjoy it! The last time I did this the customer thoroughly enjoyed it, don’t you remember?”

Marty frowned and Jana wished she’d refrained from babbling. Now she’d reminded him of that unpleasant episode. Not that the customer had been dissatisfied. He’d been so satisfied he’d come back for a repeat performance the very next week, but Jana, in the meanwhile, had tried to escape and had sprained her ankle in the process. She had not been in any condition to entertain and the customer had gone away angry, and had not come back.

After several unnerving moments, Marty had decided he didn’t have time to further discuss Jana’s transgressions. He had gone away and left her alone. The servants had returned, dressed her in a child’s night gown, and placed her in her bed.

Jana was so tense, and so frightened, she didn’t know how she could’ve fallen asleep. She decided she must have, however, for one moment she was lying in her bed in frightened anticipation, the next a man was standing directly beside the bed.

She almost jumped out of her skin when she realized she hadn’t even heard him come in, hadn’t been aware of him at all until he was standing over her. It took a tremendous effort of will to remain perfectly still and pretend to be sleeping.

“I know you are not asleep,” he said quietly. There was amusement in his voice.

Jana didn’t know whether that was her cue to ‘wake up’, or if he was testing her.

She decided he must be testing her.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and very gently lifted the hair that had fallen across her face, smoothing it over her shoulder. Leaning toward her, he whispered in her ear. The warmth of his breath sent a pleasant little shiver through her. “I must tell you I find the little ‘fantasy’ your master cooked up repugnant in the extreme.”

Jana cracked an eye open and looked up at him warily. “You do?” she whispered doubtfully.

“Indeed. Sit up, if you please. I’d like to have a look at you.”

Jana sat up, clutching the sheets to her chest, more from a case of nerves than because she felt any modesty, but then that was part of the conditioning that helped to promote the image of ‘the virgin’. Behaving as one unused to being intimate with men was nine tenths of the facade according to her instructors, and it wasn’t sufficient to act. One must ‘be’ the part.

He tucked a hand under her chin and tipped her face up, studying her, frowning.

“Do I displease you?” she asked, uneasily aware that if he refused her, Marty was bound to be even angrier.

He caressed her cheek with a long finger. “A difficult question. It’s far too dark in here to really see you,” he muttered with a mixture of amusement and irritation. “Are you a child?”

Jana thought about it for a moment, trying to decide what answer he wanted.

It was almost as if he read her mind. “The truth, if you please.”

Truth? She had been genetically engineered—accelerated growth had produced maturity within a half a decade. She was the virgin model, designed to appear as if she had just crested puberty, and she would look pretty much the same for the next twenty years. She decided, however, that the ‘truth’ he was seeking must be around the chronological age of an adult. “Eighteen.”

His hand dropped to his lap. “Little more than a child, in truth.”

Jana frowned in confusion. “You wanted someone more experienced?”

He sighed, ran his fingers through his hair irritably. “Splitting hairs.”

Jana tilted her head uncomprehendingly.

“I requested a virgin solely because I wanted someone a … little fresher. I’m afraid I’m a bit too fastidious…. In truth, I don’t make a practice of frequenting this sort of establishment. I just felt the need to work off a little frustration. I’ve come a very long way, only to discover the person I sought has traveled off planet and not expected to return for a month or more.”

Jana’s eyes widened, a shaft of fear going through her. Despite the fact that he’d startled her, she hadn’t thought he was the type to look for someone to take out their frustrations on. He’d seemed so … in control of himself.

Apparently, despite the deep shadows, he saw, or sensed, her fear. He placed a finger on her lips, gently. “Shhh. I didn’t mean that the way you obviously took it.”

Jana wasn’t sure she believed his reassurance, but she was sure she had to do something to please him or she would be in deeper trouble than before. “Would you like me to do something else?” she ventured.

“Turn on the lights?”

Jana bit her lip. “I can’t. Marty set it so it would only respond to his voice, because … because.”

“He beat you and he didn’t want me to see the bruises?”

He sounded truly angry. Jana was tempted to tell him that was exactly the case… After all, Marty had beat her before, even if not this time—yet. “No … well, yes.”

“Yes, he beat you?”

Jana shook her head. “No. But I did get bruised. And I thought if the lights were dim then you wouldn’t be able to see that I looked … that I didn’t look very appealing just now.”

He studied her for a long moment and finally reached for the sheets, tugging them gently from her hands. The night gown she wore came only to the tops of her thighs. She wore nothing beneath it.

He reached for the hem of the garment, lifting it off over her head. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders.

He studied her a long moment and finally stood. Jana thought for several nerve wracking moments that he intended to leave, but, to her relief, he began to remove his clothing. She wondered if she should help him, but finally decided that that would appear too practiced—or did he want practiced? No. He’d specifically said he didn’t want anyone with too much experience.

She was fairly certain that she should not watch him, either, but found that she was intrigued. In truth, she was not as experienced as she should have been, given her position. The men who had come to her before were either very young and inexperienced themselves--looking for someone who would not make them feel inadequate and inexperienced—or very old—seeking their lost youth, or in search of a peculiar thrill.

Despite the fact that he obviously felt that he was too old for her, and the deep shadows which prevented her from seeing him particularly well, Jana was certain the man was not so very many years her biological senior—mid to late twenties, or perhaps early thirties.

He was—quite large, she saw when he had discarded his clothing. Uneasiness displaced her curiosity. She knew what that meant—this would be particularly unpleasant for her.

She stiffened when he climbed into bed beside her and reached for her.

He noticed immediately. “I won’t hurt you.”

She knew better, but forced herself to relax as he settled beside her, pulling her against him. She had been designed for a man’s pleasure—not her own. She wasn’t even certain she possessed whatever it was that made sex pleasurable for a woman, but she suspected she did not, for she had never found the act more than tolerable and, most of the time, it was a good deal less than that. Considering his endowment, it was a foregone conclusion that this was going to be very difficult for her, whatever he might think, whatever his intentions.

Regardless, she forced herself to take a deep, calming breath and relax trustingly against him. Reaching for his hand, she placed it upon her breast, bracing herself for the assault that generally came next.

He chuckled.

Startled, Jana looked up, trying to gauge his mood.

He lifted his hand from her breast and cupped her cheek. “You really are not very experienced, are you?”

Instead of answering, because she wasn’t certain what answer would please him most, she smiled.

“I suppose kissing is not allowed?” he asked pensively.

Jana stiffened in surprise, not certain how to answer. In fact, she had been told never to kiss a patron. It was considered far too intimate. It not only suggested emotional intimacy, it could actually lead to it and that was forbidden.

Not that she could see why. The few times she had been kissed had been most unpleasant. The men had either tried to throttle her by shoving their tongue down her throat or nearly drowned her with saliva. One had sucked her tongue into his mouth so hard he had seemed bent on uprooting it. She had not liked it at all.

On the other hand, she had been instructed never to deny her patrons anything they specifically requested. “Do you want to kiss me?”

He answered by lowering his mouth to hers, just touching his lips lightly to hers.

Jana felt her heart clutch in her chest. Her lips tingled at the feather light touch. A strange weakness swept through her. She sucked in her breath in surprise, tasted him.

He brushed his lips teasingly across hers once more, as if he was testing his welcome. The sensations he’d created before became more pronounced. A strange sort of warmth settled in the pit of her stomach and glowed, sending warmth throughout her body.

Jana felt herself relaxing against him, welcoming the sensations.

When he settled his mouth firmly over hers an odd sort of eagerness seemed to grip her. Her heart leapt, began to thrum more rapidly. It was strangely like fear—her accelerated heart rhythm, the weakness that crept through her limbs—except pleasant.

She moved her mouth experimentally against his, wanting more, not quite certain how to encourage him, but it seemed her reaction had been the signal he’d been waiting for. He kissed her deeply then, and Jana felt her awareness of everything else vanish.

She was disappointed when he ended the kiss, but in a moment she felt the touch of his lips on her throat, and then lower. She held her breath as his mouth settled over one peaked nipple—waiting with a mixture of anticipation and fear.

To her surprise, the moment his mouth closed over her distended flesh, ripples of pleasure echoed through her. The sense of pleasurable anticipation grew inside her, climbing a little higher with each nibbling kiss he placed upon her body. She felt dizzy, disoriented, unable to think, but that inability to do so seemed to focus her whole being on feeling the sensations more acutely.

When at last he moved over her and pushed her legs apart, she found that she welcomed it. She sensed that this time the joining of bodies would bring pleasure she had never known.

She supposed it was that certainty that made the pain all the more stunning when he plunged deeply inside her. She couldn’t prevent the cry of pain that scraped past her throat.

She bit her lip when he stopped abruptly, pulled away from her slightly to stare down at her in surprise.

She could tell nothing about his expression, for the shadows lay deeply on his face, but she sensed that he had not intended to cause her pain and did not welcome it.

“I’ve hurt you.”

She shook her head, though she found she couldn’t speak.

“Don’t lie.”

She felt a lump of misery settle in her chest. It had truly felt wonderful right up to the moment of joining. “It didn’t hurt much,” she lied, “truly it didn’t.”

He didn’t believe her. She could tell he didn’t. After a moment, she felt him gathering himself to withdraw. Panic seized her. She clutched his shoulders, moving against him.

He groaned, as if in agony. Heartened, she pulled at him, urging him to lower himself against her once more. When he didn’t, she rose up, kissed the corner of his mouth. As if he’d been restraining himself only with an effort, and her kiss had opened a dam of barely controlled emotions, he kissed her hungrily then, began to move inside her, faster and faster.

When he found his release and collapsed against her, a tide of both relief and, strangely, gladness, filled Jana. For the first time in her life, and despite the fact that she’d ultimately received little pleasure in the act, she had found pleasure in having given it.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured finally.

She had been stroking his back, but she paused, surprised. “Why?”

“It wasn’t my intention to hurt you.”

“I know,” she said, and found that his remorse was comforting.

Finally, he rose and dressed. He didn’t look at her again, which she discovered was oddly hurtful.

A tap came at the door as he moved toward it. He paused, looked back at her questioningly. “You were expecting someone else?”

His voice was chilly. Jana sat up. “No.”

At the sound of their voices, the door opened and a man stuck his head inside. “Uh … sorry.” The stranger looked from the patron to Jana. Jana could tell nothing about him, for the light was behind him, throwing him into deep shadow, but she sensed from his voice that the stranger was younger than the patron. He seemed unable to speak for several moments, as if the light had dazzled him. But then the light was in Jana’s face, not his. After several moments ticked by, he seemed to shake himself from his distraction. “We’ll miss our ship if we don’t go now.”

The patron nodded, paused, almost as if he would turn to look back, and finally strode from the room without having done so.