Loading...is the most perfect specimen of humanity Dr. Kent has ever seen, and all she can think when she sees him is: what a waste.
She has his specs on the pad in front of her: 6’5, 190 pounds, blonde hair, blue eyes, 28 years old; section: lambda, section of origin: delta. Even that brief outline caused a commotion among the other doctors when it arrived in her inbox yesterday. But numbers on a screen are one thing, and #B34123J’s extraordinary physique right here in her exam room is another.
On one level, Dr. Kent knows she is experiencing a normal biological response, as manufactured and predictable as anything else engineered in a lab. #B34123J’s precise balance of masculine secondary sexual characteristics – firm brow, strong jaw, broad chest and shoulders – with features that incite a protective instinct – symmetric face, wide eyes, light hair – were designed by a team of scientists to produce exactly the effect they are having on her right now. Her heart is beating faster, her cheeks are flushing, and her palms are getting a little bit sweaty. She knows why it’s happening, but she has no intention of letting it influence her behavior. Again she thinks: what a waste.
Dr. Kent discreetly wipes her palms on the side of her coat and looks up from her pad. “Jake,” she murmurs. This is a nickname, noted in the file as an afterthought – #B34123J could have acquired it at any point, during training, sometime during his ten years as a delta, or hell, on the shipment over here – but it suits him. Deltas are much more likely to be given nicknames than lambdas, for obvious reasons. At the sound of his nickname, #B34123J looks up, crinkles his blue eyes at her, and smiles. “Yes?” he asks.
Dr. Kent almost drops her pad. By executive order, #B34123J is no longer a delta; he’s a lambda now, and her job is to do the intake. Kent has encountered hundreds of lambdas over the course of her career, but she’s pretty sure none of them have ever met her eyes before. Certainly, none of them have ever smiled at her – not like that, in a way guaranteed to make her stomach plummet to the floor.
“May I see your wrist?” says Dr. Kent, to cover her confusion. #B34123J – Jake – turns up his hand and reaches out so that she can scan his wristlet on her pad. Her fingertips brush against his skin, and she can feel herself tremble. He is so present. His crystal blue eyes, gazing up at hers, make her feel warm and bathed in light, as though she is the only other person on earth. She wishes she could find the scientists who originally designed him and congratulate them on a job well done…but what would they think when she told them what had become of their work of genetic art? Transferring a delta like this to lambda section is like peeling the Mona Lisa of the wall of the Louvre and using it as a placemat.
Sheep, that’s what some of her cruder colleagues call the lambdas, and the truth is that sometimes it’s hard not to think of them that way, as something less than human. They receive no training – none. All their care is outsourced entirely to their keepers; their purpose in life is to be healthy, nothing more. Most of them have shiny, baby faces, unlined with worry or thought. They can follow basic commands, and you’ll occasionally hear them murmuring to each other about very simple subjects, but basically, their brains are mush. That’s what happens to people who are offered no intellectual stimulation and have all their needs met, instantly, from the moment they’re born. The lambdas have no remarkable characteristics in and of themselves – they provide the raw genetic material used to sculpt the rest of glorious humanity. The alphas: the scientists, the betas: the engineers, the gammas: the workers, the kappas: the artists. And the deltas…the beauties.
Dr. Kent herself is has the simple good looks that result from good nutrition, proper care, and the genetic filtration of all obvious flaws. She, like everyone else in alpha section – like everyone else in the world but the deltas – has the dark hair, brown eyes, and tanned skin that result when you put the global genetic code in a blender and select for anything other than beauty. Some people claim they can detect a physical distinction among the artistic kappas (fine boned, wide-eyed) or the tough, pragmatic gammas (square shouldered, blunt featured) but Dr. Kent is pretty sure that’s an illusion. In the year 2123, the deltas’ bodies alone are aesthetic objects. Only they are designed to catch the eye.
In earlier generations, Dr. Kent knows, the preference was for deltas that flaunted their genetic engineering: silver-white hair, lavender or pitch-black eyes, seven, eight feet of height. There are still some deltas like that around, but lately, the trend has swung back towards a kind of nostalgia of difference, the recreation of genetic “types” from an earlier era. Irish red hair and freckles; tall, thin, Ethiopian blackness. Or, like Delta #B34123J, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Nordic god.
The pad finishes its scan with two muted beeps. Dr. Kent lifts the delta’s wrist and places it back by his side.
How much would Delta #B34123J go for on the open market, she wonders. Thirteen million, fifteen million? More? It’s a moot point. Deltas of this quality don’t go up for sale; they’re traded in private, in back room deals that involve more than just money, that involve careers and politics and the fate of small nations. Dr. Kent has three deltas herself, but she has never before laid eyes on one half as magnificent as this.
#B34123J – Jake – is looking at her with a gently curious expression on his face, and despite herself, she hears herself saying, “This is just going to be a quick physical, to double check your health specs and remove your block. It won’t take long.”
You don’t explain things to lambdas. It’s not forbidden, it’s just pointless. But Jake doesn’t yet have a lambda’s bland, sheeplike acceptance of what is going to happen to him. He’s bright, you can tell that just by looking. Deltas have to be smart, because it takes brainpower to do what they do: to please others, not only physically but emotionally and mentally as well. She wonders what he’s been trained for, if he’s used to women or men or both; if he’s one of those deltas with the equivalent of a graduate education, able to discuss art and politics at the most elegant of dinner tables. Regardless, she thinks, with a surprisingly sharp stab of pity, he’s going to have a rough time.
“You can take your clothes off and get up on the examining table,” she says. Jake strips himself of his white t-shirt and shorts with an animal unselfconsciousness, and she thinks she sees a flash of a proud, almost cocky look on his face as he watches her eyes travel appreciatively down his muscled torso. Was it spontaneous, that look, or just another flourish, the result of his exquisite artisanal training? Certainly, it’s a look that makes it impossible to think of anything other than sex. She clenches her fist and wonders if anyone has told him what awaits him. The thought dampens her lust enough to allow her concentrate on her job.
Her hands are are gently, almost tender, as she runs through the physical. Most of the information she needs is contained in Jakes’ wristlet. This is just to double check. The lambdas are held to stringent health standards. Dr. Kent herself probably wouldn’t pass, but an elite-level lux model delta like Jake shouldn’t have any problem. She shines a light in his blue eyes and in the hollows of his ears, palpates his throat, presses a scope to his broad chest to listen to his breath and heart. Every time one of his specs meet the requirements, she murmurs a small note of appreciation: “Yes,” “Good,” “Very good.” He’s like a sleek pet you want to stroke, to hear him purr. She knows this impulse is only another hard-wired consequence of his perfect looks, but she can’t fight it, doesn’t want to. Poor Jake.
Once she’s collected all of his specs – 98th percentile and above, no surprises there – she tells Jake to swing his feet up onto the examining table so she can remove his block. His careful obedience as he moves into position snaps at her heart. He’s trying hard to hide it, but she can tell he’s nervous, maybe even scared. Hell, if no one has told him what’s coming – if he just woke up one day and found himself transferred to lambda section – he’s probably terrified. There are a lot of rumors about what happens to lambdas.
“I’m going to remove your block now,” she says. “Do you know what that is?”
Jake nods. “Yes, Ma’am.”
Maybe he does know, but then again, he might only be trying to please her – it’s the most basic instinct for deltas – so she explains, “Right, so, the block is what keeps you sterile; prevents you from producing viable sperm. It’s a small piece of…metal…basically, located at the base of the penis. I’m going to remove it now, and you’ll feel a sharp sting, but it won’t last long. It hurts about as much a booster injection. Hold onto the handles at the edge of the table, keep as still as you can, and I won’t have to strap you in. All right?”
Jake nods again, but the relief is clear on his face. Who knows what he thought she was going to do. He takes hold of the handles and allows her to guide his feet into the stirrups. She takes out her ScalPal – which is in fact a small, highly accurate laser – and waits for it to power up. While she does, she idly takes hold of Jake’s cock and feels around the soft skin at its base for the little hard fleck of the block. There. This will be easy.
At her light touch, Jake starts to stiffen. It’s an instinctive response, but thrilling to her all the same. The ordinary model deltas, the kind she has at home, are slow to warm up, a little desensitized. It’s an inadvertent consequence of their constant, rigorous stimulation. Not a few of them need drugs to maintain the right level of arousal. Jake’s system is clean of drugs, and yet he responded instantly to a delicate touch. That is what quality means, once of the many small details that separate luxury deltas from the rest.
Unable to resist, she runs her hand along the length of his shaft just to see his full nine inches of hardness. It’s like turning the key in the ignition of an old-model Porsche and hearing the smooth, contained rumble of its engine come to life.
Maybe she shouldn’t have done that, but it’s easier to remove the block when the patient is the little bit hard anyway. She smiles at him, and he smiles warmly back. She notices he has one deep dimple in his left cheek.
“All right,” she says. “Here goes.”
The block slides out easily, leaving only a single drop of blood welling up on his skin. She takes a piece of treated gauze and presses down, resting her hand comfortingly on Jake’s knee. He is breathing hard, and a little bit of sweat has broken out on his forehead. This is fear, she realizes, not pain. All at once, Dr. Kent is overcome by a kind of righteous indignation. It’s not right, she thinks, what is happening to him.
When the specs first arrived, informing the medical bay that a reassigned delta would be coming through the lab to be transferred to lambda, there was a lot of speculation about what could have prompted such a move. Of course, it was not unheard of for people to be switched among sections early in their training – for all the care the scientists took with their genetic molding, sometimes different aptitudes did come to the fore. Kent herself had initially been assigned to beta section, engineering, before moving at age eight over to the medical division of alpha. And lambda was the most common reassignment, for those who were perfectly healthy but lacked the qualities needed for outstanding success. The rare disappointments in any section became lambdas, their genetic codes recycled back into the raw material needed to produce the next generations. But that happened most often before age six, and invariably before the end of full-time training at age eighteen; Jake had been a full-fledged delta for more than a decade.
At first, the doctors in her section had speculated he must have committed a crime: a rape, maybe, or a violent assault, and his transfer to lambda was an extra-judicial punishment arranged by his powerful owners, a more merciful end than the legally mandated punishment of death. But such deviant acts were extraordinarily rare, especially among the gentle, people-pleasing deltas. Surely, the news of such an incident would have reached them before now. And, in fact, yesterday a doctor who’d been on leave in one of the city bays came back with a different rumor.
According to him, Jake had been a single-owner delta, never sold and shared only among members of one very wealthy extended family, when one of the women decided she wanted to have his children. This happened once in a very long while – it was why the luxury deltas had removable blocks instead of permanent implants. A man or a woman from one of the elite families would get it into their heads that they wanted to reproduce with the a delta the old-fashioned way. These ‘love children’ were the preserve only of the very rich; technically illegal, they lived bizarre, decadent lives, hidden away from the system. Kent herself had never met one. Anyway, the doctor reported, this woman had decided wanted Jake’s love child, but her husband had responded with jealousy. Why a non-delta would ever be jealous of a delta, Kent couldn’t imagine – it was like being jealous of a vibrator – but that’s what had happened. Out of nothing but petty envy, the man, who was very high up in the system, had arranged for Jake to be transferred, at age 28, to lambda section.
Kent was confident that most of the lambdas she treated were happy, in the same way sheep could be said to be happy, needing nothing and being able to imagine nothing else. But for a delta like this, who had no doubt been showered since birth with love and care and personal attention, to end up as a lambda – it was hard to imagine a crueller fate.
Kent drops the gauze in the garbage. “Thank you,” she says. “You did well.”
Jake manages a half-hearted smile. Despite his fear, he seems genuinely glad to have earned her praise. He begins to swing his legs out of the stirrups, but she restrains him gently with a hand on his leg. “Sorry,” she says. “I just need to take a quick sample, to make sure the removal worked.”
Jake nods and settles himself back on the table. Kent goes to the drawer and takes out the white, plastic stimulator. It’s used for sample-taking only, the smallest one she has.
“You’ve seen one of these before?” she says, holding up the wand. She had meant the question mostly to reassure him, but to her dismay, he shakes his head no.
She knows it’s wrong to push him – it will only make him anxious – but she can’t help herself. “You’re sure? None of your owners ever used one of these on you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“How about any other type of prostate stimulation, then?”
He looks confused, so she explains, “Massage with a dildo or a plug, or even a finger?”
“No, ma’am, I don’t think so.”
“Have you ever had sex with a man?”
“No.”
“Jake, did anyone talk to you before you came here about the work you’ll be doing as a lambda?”
“No, ma’am.” Jake says. He looks away, and his brow furrows. She thinks he probably wants to ask her about the rumors he’s heard – speculation about surgery, cloning, all the bizarre stories that circulate about lambda section – but she can tell by the innocent, almost confused way he answered her earlier questions that he has no idea of the truth.
It is Dr. Kent’s professional opinion that whoever arranged for Jake’s transfer to lambda deserves to be taken out and shot, but she tries to keep her face neutral. “Well, there will be a lot that you’ll need to get used to. But nothing we do with the lambdas is dangerous. You’re going to be all right.”
His attention comes back to her. “Yes, Ma’am,” he says. She wishes she could pull him onto her lap and stroke his hair, then push him back and ride him as hard as he’s ever been ridden in his life. That’s the real distinction that marks the most luxurious deltas – you don’t want just to take pleasure from them; you want to give it to them, too. Whoever’d had him last hadn’t been very creative. Owning a delta like this and never plugging him or pegging him or sharing him with a man was like owning a Porsche and never taking it above 50 miles an hour. Kent herself would have done better, but the opportunity for that is past. What a goddamn fucking waste.
She takes a deep breath. “Okay, sweetheart,” she says, and squeezes his leg. Jake looks up, looking surprised at the endearment, but also maybe a little reassured. This is what deltas are used to, being praised and petted; Kent guesses that it is the impersonal treatment more than the physical demands that will make life in lambda section a torture for Jake. Kent places the stimulator on the table, next to the sample jar and a container of high-end lube. She says, “The standard practice is for me to strap you in, especially since this is your first time. It’s not a punishment, or because I think you’ll fight; it’s just to make it easier for you, so don’t have to worry about moving around too much. Is it all right if I do that now?”
Jake nods.
She comes to the side of the table, unhooks the leather strap hanging beneath, and unrolls it. Then she takes his hand and briefly caresses it, interlacing her fingers briefly in his before lacing the leather strap around his wrist and pulling it snug. “Is that too tight?” she asks. Jake is watching her very carefully, but he shakes his head no. She crosses to the other side of the table and repeats the procedure on his left wrist, then goes to the bottom of the table and binds his ankles to the stirrups.
From there, Kent can’t help but pause and take in the sight of this beautiful, muscled man strapped naked to her table, his knees bent and his legs splayed out, leaving him vulnerable. Kent has a kinky side and seeing Jake tied down like this is making her undeniably wet. She’s played with her deltas dozens of times in scenes that started out just like this. She wonders if Jake has ever been tied down before. He’s alert, his eyes following her every move, but doesn’t seem scared, only watchful, and he’s not struggling or pulling at the straps. That’s a good sign. Kent has known occasional lambdas who come in with an instinctive panic response to being tied down. It usually fades after a few months, but those months can be brutal. Kent has an electric prod at her belt for such occasions; there’s no point in reasoning with a lambda.
Kent goes to the top of the exam table and smooths Jake’s long blond hair where it has gotten tangled under the back of his neck, then unfolds the mouth piece built into the headrest. It’s a strip of soft leather, more like a bit than a gag and meant less to quiet the lambdas than to keep them from biting their tongues. She raises it in front of Jake, to show him. To her surprise, all the blood drains from his face and his pupils contract. He opens his mouth and lifts his tongue – he’s obviously worn one of these before – but she can sense the fear emanating off him. “You don’t like this?” she asks.
Jake bites his lip and dodges the question when he answers her, his eyes submissively downward. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“What’s wrong? Tell me the truth.”
Again, she can see him thinking hard, not sure how much to tell her.
“I…it reminds me of the punishments, that’s all. I’m sorry.” He opens his mouth obediently to take the strap. Kent looks at him, bewildered. Who would punish a delta? And by gagging him? It’s bizarre. No one punishes deltas, except for the rarest and most egregious offenses. It’s almost taboo. They’re so gentle, and all they want to do is please you. You wouldn’t punish a delta any more severely than you would punish a puppy. Maybe his previous owner was into kink and called it punishment, did it clumsily in a way that left Jake with this residue of fear? That hardly seems to jibe with the rest of what Kent knows, or thinks she knows, about his past. She wants to ask him about it, but she fears he might find such an interrogation upsetting. Maybe she can delve into that later…but not now.
“I can leave the mouth strap off, if you’d rather,” she says. He looks torn, as though he’s not sure he has the right to make this decision, so she decides for him. “I’m not going to use it right now. The sample collection won’t be that intense. Try to relax your jaw and be careful not to grind your teeth together; if it looks like you’re going to forget, I’ll remind you. Okay?” He nods vigorously and she knows she’s made the right choice.
“Okay.”
Kent raises the headrest a little so he can look at her. Then she circles around the table again, so she is standing back between his legs.
“This is important: I’m not in a hurry. You can always tell me to stop. We’ll get this done; there’s no rush. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Jake says.
“I want you to practice saying it now: ‘stop.'”
She waits, and he doesn’t say anything, so she prompts him. “Stop.”
He laughs a little and then echoes her as though it’s a game: “Stop.” The sweetness of the smile is like a knife in her heart.
“Good.” She lifts the white wand to show him. “This is a stimulator. It’s what I’m going to use to collect the sample, which I’ll catch in this jar, here. The stimulator is low-strength; it works on the vibration principle, not electroshock. It shouldn’t hurt at all, but since this is new for you, the sensation will be strange, and maybe a little uncomfortable. The more you can relax, the easier it will be; as you get used to it, it might even start to feel good. Do you have any questions?”
Jake shakes his head no. He looks nervous, but not really frightened; she thinks she is beginning to earn his trust. “I’m going to start by inserting a finger, to ease you open and figure out how best to position the stimulator. Remember, you can tell me to stop at any time. Are you ready?”
Jake nods and tilts his head back so he is looking at the ceiling. Kent rubs her hands together for warmth, runs them under the antiseptic dispenser in the corner, then applies a liberal dollop of lube to her fingers. With her unlubed hand, she gently spreads Jake’s thighs apart, then carefully coats him with the gel. He jumps a little at first, but then lets out a long breath and his whole body softens. This is one benefit of his training as a delta: he is used to being intimately touched. She spends a little more time than is strictly necessary on the outer massage, hoping to calm him, and it seems to be working. His eyes are closed, his hands limp in the straps.
“I’m going to insert my finger now,” Kent says. She positions the tip of her finger against his opening, and then with one long, smooth motion, slides it in.
He is unbelievably tight. As her finger enters him, his head jerks up and his muscles contract around her like a vise.
“I need you to relax,” she reminds him. He stares at her, his face flushed, his mouth a little bit open, and she can feel him fluttering around her finger as he fights his body’s instinct to push her out. He is trying hard, but she can see a small vein beginning to pulse at the edge of his forehead.
“Here,” she says. “Breathe with me.” She locks her eyes on his and inhales. After a beat, he follows. In, out. In, out. Slowly, his body loosens and she is able to push her finger deeper in. For Kent, meeting his eyes like this, syncing his breathing with hers as she penetrates him for the first time, is unbelievably intense. Not everybody prizes purity – it’s never had much appeal for her – but it’s not lost on her that the chance to be the one to introduce a luxury delta like Jake to this particular practice is something for which certain a subset of people would be willing to pay vasts sums of money. For the first time, she can understand why. It’s a powerful rush, and a rush of power.
Slowly, she begins probing him, curving her finger upward as she searches for the hard nub of his prostate. She can see her smallest movement reflected in how his face responds, and she finds the way his eyebrows jump in surprise when she lays her finger on the spot she’s searching for to be incredibly arousing.
She swallows, and feels another hot rush of wetness between her legs. Her own deltas will be getting a workout of their own when she is done.
She strokes the nub gently, feels it swell. He’s already hard; she could probably finish the collection with her finger easily enough, but she might as well let him start getting used to the machines. The small sample collector wand is a good way to ease him in to what will come later.
“Are you all right?” she asks.
“Yes,” he answers, and his voice, deeper and scratchier than it was before, and the way he draws the word out, sounding almost drugged, tells her it’s the truth.
“You’re doing very well,” she says, and slowly edges her finger out. It almost makes her want to laugh, the way his face transparently falls, and the way his body, so recently desperate to push her out, now contracts to try and keep her in. She wishes with all her heart that she could go on pleasuring him like this; that her only job was to explore with him, to show him what his body can do. But she has another, less pleasant, task at hand.
“So now I’m going to put the wand in,” she says, raising it to show him. “It’s not that much bigger than my finger, but it is harder and it’s shaped a little differently, so you won’t be used to it at first. I won’t turn it on until I have it placed correctly. Remember, what did I tell you to say if you need a break?”
He looks up at her and laughs again. “Stop,” he answers. “But I’m okay.”
“Good boy.”
The white wand is a little longer than the length of her hand, only as thick at its widest point as about two of her fingers. It has a t-shaped handle, and the vibrating portion is a curving slim stalk with a firm bulb at the end. She slicks it up with lube and positions it between Jake’s legs.
“I’m going to put it in now,” she says, and inserts it. Jake gasps. She’s warmed him up well, and the wand slides in easily, but now his ass is spasming hard around it. It’s a different sensation, having a foreign object inside you; much less intimate than a finger. He’s straining his neck up, trying to see what is happening, and his adam’s apple is bobbing up and down. She takes a firm hold of the handle to keep him from inadvertently pushing it out, but asks, “Are you okay? I can stop if you need me to.”
“No,” he says, breathing hard. “No, I can handle it.” She believes him, but his face is strained, and his erection has softened. He doesn’t like it, she can tell. That’s not great, but at least he’s being trooper. Hopefully, he’ll get used to it with some practice.
“Good,” she says. “You’re doing wonderfully. Next, you’ll need to relax so I can move this into position. Take as much time as you need.”
Jake nods and settles his head back so he’s staring at the ceiling. Slowly, slowly, his body relaxes. Mentally, he’s clearly still tense, but through sheer willpower, he loosens himself enough so that she can make the small movements necessary to put the wand into place. When the bulb of the wand brushes against his prostate, she can see him flinch. Kent bites her lip. She had hoped he’d be in a better place when she was ready to start the collection, more like the pleasurable haze he’d sunk into when she’d fingered him. So he doesn’t like the wands. That’s good to know in advance; she just isn’t quite sure what to do about it. Maybe there isn’t anything she can do. It’s an unpleasant thought.
“Jake,” says. “I’d like start the collection now, if you’re ready.”
“I’m ready,” he says, but it’s so obvious he isn’t that at first she can’t bring herself to press the button. The wand will allow her to do the collection regardless, of course, but she doesn’t want his first experience to be a bad one. Ceding control of one’s body to a machine is what it means to be a lambda, but that doesn’t mean he has to feel like he’s fighting it. She could finger him again, try to get him back in the right mood, but that would only be postponing the inevitable.
Reluctantly, Kent starts the wand. She has it on the lowest setting, nothing but a very gentle hum, and right before she presses the button she pulls it away from Jake’s prostate, so the stimulation won’t be so intense. Maybe he had been expecting something much worse, because some of the tension lifts from his face.
“There, that’s not so bad, is it?” she says. He shakes his head, his eyes still closed. She lets the wand do its work for a little while, occasionally sliding it lightly back and forth. She’s hoping it will relax him further, and it does, in that his body is no longer fighting the presence of the wand, but his cock is no longer hard, and his face shows no sign of arousal. He is enduring this, no more. Maybe actual pleasure was too much to hope for, but it’s disappointing, after he responded so well to her finger. It would be so much easier for him if he could open himself to the machines, learn to surrender himself to the sensation of buildup and release. Today, for this one small sample collection, it doesn’t matter as much, but knowing he had at least possessed the capacity to become aroused by the machine would have made Kent a lot more confident about his ability to handle what was coming next.
“I’m going to increase the sensation now,” Kent says. She had intended to go slowly, but her hand slips and she accidentally bumps the wand up three settings instead of the one she’d intended, and the wand comes buzzing to life. Jake’s sandy lashes fly open. His nostrils flare, the blood rushes to his face, and she can see a little flicker of pink as his tongue jumps around in his mouth. Sweat streams from his pores and paints a sheen all along his long, golden body. He starts to thrash, his muscles straining and pulling against the bonds that hold him; as he struggles, the exam table shakes and the stirrups begin to clatter. He is frantic, almost in pain, as his buttocks clench around the wand, pulling it in, nearly yanking it from her hands. Unable to stop himself, he thrusts his groin high in the air as the wand forces his cock erect. This is not pleasure; this is what it means to fight the wand, and she’s seen lambdas batter themselves bruised trying to escape the onslaught of sensation.
“Unnnnnnngh,” Jake moans through clenched teeth; it’s almost a sob, and she knows she needs to turn the stimulation down – she hasn’t even fastened the collection cap yet – but even though the last thing she wants is for him to suffer, she is transfixed by the sight of him writhing helplessly on the table in front of her, his engorged cock jumping and bobbing as his body overcomes him. It is the most erotic thing she’s ever seen.
Still writhing, Jake wrenches his head up, a little droplet of saliva dangling from the corner of his mouth, and all at once, his eyes focus. He is seeing her, and she realizes that what he must be seeing is her own overwhelming arousal at his predicament: the way her pupils have dilated, her cheeks reddened. Her crushing desire paralyzes her, and all she can do is whisper what she is thinking, a poor excuse for why she is not showing him any mercy: “You’re so beautiful.”
He holds her her gaze for a long second. She has almost summoned the willpower to turn down the dial and start again when she sees his lips melt into a small smile. His body’s agonized thrashing diminishes, his hands unclench. As she looks on, amazed, his head tilts back and he begins to grind his hips in a slow, sluttish circle. He has given himself over to it, accepted the sensation fully, and now he is almost performing his submission to lust. Was that all he needed in order to surrender – the knowledge that his torment was giving her pleasure? If so, he is the most talented, natural delta she has ever encountered, and his transfer to lambda isn’t just a waste, it’s a travesty.
“You’re doing good, so good,” she murmurs, and he smiles again. He pumps his hips in the air, his cock jerks, and she knows it won’t be long. She reaches for the collection jar and unscrews the cap, then slides it over the swollen tip of his penis, fastening it firmly. He catches his breath at her touch, his eyes open, and she drops her hand into the wetness between her own legs. She won’t have time to come herself – he’s moments away from the edge – but she wants him to know how much he has pleased her. When he sees what she’s doing, his eyes widen. “Ohhhhhh,” he whispers, and spontaneously, she pulls her fingers out of herself and reaches over and rubs them against his tongue so he can taste her. He closes his eyes, moans a little, and takes her fingers deep into his mouth to suck.
Five sweet seconds pass like that and then his body arcs up off the table, an almost rashlike flush spreads across his chest, and his breath grows even more ragged. She pulls her fingers from his mouth, a little roughly, and returns to her place between his legs, crouching down so that her eyes are at the level of his cock. She has work to do now. With one hand, she holds the specimen jar to him, keeping the seal tight, and with the other, she tilts the wand up so that it is locked firmly against his prostate.
“You’re going to come now,” she says, although of course he knows. He shudders, his eyes roll back in his head, and he lets out a cry that sounds as though all of the air is being wrung out of him: “Hngggggnnnnnggggh.” He climaxes, and a gush of white semen spatters against the collection jar. His body jerks and bumps on the table, his hands open and shut, his toes point and flex. She runs her hand up his shaft, squeezing him and milking the last of it out of him, then expertly removes the jar and caps the specimen. She slides the sample into the chemical reader that sits on the side table, and wipes him down with a damp cloth before carefully sliding the wand out of his body with a soft pop.
Jake lies limply on the exam table, his golden hair now dark with sweat. It almost looks like he has passed out, and she wonders if she should take his vitals, but as she watches, he slowly comes to. When he sees her looking down at him with concern, he smiles up at her. She can’t help but grin back, her heart thumping with affection. God, she wants to kiss him so badly, wants cover his whole body with kisses of adoration and praise.
Instead, she asks, “Would you like some water?” and when he nods, she takes some from the table and holds it to his lips. He drinks it down lustily, and when a little bit spills out of his mouth and onto his chin, she wipes it gently away with her finger. When he’s done, she returns the water to the table and kneels down to begin unfastening his bonds.
After she’s untied him, she slides next to him on the table. One of his wrists is marred by a dark red mark where he strained too hard against the strap, and she begins massaging it, pulling the blood back into his hand. He is still lying down, his face a little dazed in a pleasurable, exhausted stupor. She pushes a loose strand of sweat-dampened hair away from his face, and he nuzzles himself against her hand.
“You were so wonderful,” she says. “So brave.” He looks up at her and smiles, and she slides back so he can rest his head in her lap as she combs her fingers through his hair. They sit like that for a little while, lost in thought, when the reader beeps twice. His sample is ready. It occurs to Kent that maybe it will come back unsatisfactory, proving Jake to be unsuitable as a lambda. If so, maybe they’ll transfer him back to delta, and if his old family doesn’t want him anymore…she couldn’t afford him, not if she sold everything she owned, but still, maybe she could figure something out.
It’s nothing but a stupid daydream, but she still holds her breath anxiously as she crosses over to the reader. The results flash in red on the side of the jar: 99th percentile. Jake’s fate is sealed. He will be a lambda. Kent’s heart sinks; part of her almost wants to weep.
Trying to hide her feelings from Jake, she turns back to him. “It’s all set,” she says, her voice sounding tight and unnatural in her ears. “We’re done. You can put your clothes back on now.” He sits up, rubs his eyes sleepily, and grins. She hands him his shirt, and he pulls it over his head, then puts his feet through the legs of his white shorts.
“Is that basically what it is, being a lambda?” he asks. “That’s how they do it, with one of those?” He gestures towards the glistening white wand, sitting innocently on the table. “That’s not so bad,” he says, with a cocky, boyish grin. “I could get used to it.”
Now the tears do form in her eyes, and she turns quickly away so he can’t see them. Part of her wants to lie to him, to tell him, yes, sweet boy, that’s all you have to look forward to; the rest of your life will be nothing but pleasure. Allow him one last good night of sleep, before his work begins in earnest. But she knows she owes him the truth, although she tries to put it as gently as she can.
“Not quite,” she says. “The way they do it is…a little bit rougher than that. More intense, I guess I’d say. But if you were all right today, you’ll make it through that as well. I promise.”
“And you’ll be with me, right?” he asks. “You’ll show me what to do?”
Kent is scheduled to work a double tomorrow, on the far side of the sick bay. According to her pad, meanwhile, Jake is scheduled for his first machine shift at 8 am tomorrow, another one at noon, and a third at 6. He will be hooked up to the machines by a stranger, an aide responsible for overseeing more than a dozen other lambdas. The aide won’t have time to go slow, or to explain what’s happening to him, or to pause if Jake needs a break; before Kent will even have a chance to come over and check on him, he will have undergone the process three times. He will almost certainly be a wreck – after their first week on the job, even the lambdas who trained for it are practically drooling – and all the trust and comfort she’s tried so carefully to cultivate here will be destroyed.
No. That’s unacceptable.
Jake is waiting for her response, fear slowly spreading across his still-flushed face. Kent ignores him, goes to her pad, enters a code, and schedules him for a 5 am shift. She can’t cancel the 8 am, doesn’t have the authority, but while four shifts in one day is heavy, it’s not impossible; he’s already scheduled for another 4-day later in the week. Now, at least, she’ll be able to guide him through his first time, take care of him, comfort him a little. Despite how well he did today, she knows he will need it.
“Yes,” she says, as easily as though there has been no delay. “I’ll be there with you. I’ll come for you first thing tomorrow morning.”
He smiles happily, and she smiles too. Now that he’s standing, he towers over her. Overcome with emotion, she reaches up and strokes his face, and he leans in and kisses her. It’s brief – too brief – but it leaves her glowing.
“Yes,” she says again, and kisses him back. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”