Jade Darcy and the Affair of Honor

He came at her, naked and erect. His body was small but solidly built, and his face was strangely hidden in shadow that obscured nothing else about him. The smell of his sweat mingled unpleasantly with the tang of her own fear. He moved with the dazzling quickness only another carc could achieve, yet his approach was strangely slowed as though viewed from a projector run at half speed. Horrified though she was, she could not take her eyes from his body -- and particularly from his large, thick penis with the blue veins in bas relief on the side.

Her first impulse was to run, her second to fight, but she could do neither. She couldn't move. She knew intellectually she was just as fast and almost as strong as he was, but her body would not obey her. Her hands were held at her side by some invisible force, her feet were pinned in place. She stood helpless, struggling against her unseen bonds and gasping from the desperation of her efforts as he drew nearer.

Though his face was still in shadow, she could see his eyes quite clearly -- darkly gleaming with both desire and triumph. His eyes took in the contours of her body, and she realized for the first time that she was naked, too, totally helpless before his lecherous advance.

At first all was darkness around her, the silent darkness of the grave. She screamed at him to stop, to leave her alone, but no sounds came from her throat -- and despite the shadow over his face she could tell he was beaming a salacious grin. His thumbs were rubbing the tips of his fingers as his large, callused hands prepared to reach out and touch her helpless body.

Then the scene shifted and she was in the ingesterie, with its dim lighting and crowds of strange beings from dozens of worlds. The noise level rocked from stillness to the deafening drone of alien speech, hundreds of simultaneous conversations, but still her screams could not be heard. Most of the beings around her were strangers, but even so she saw many familiar faces.

There was Rix in his accustomed box behind the glass wall, his multiple arms controlling the environment for his varied patrons. There was little Bab-ankh and slimy Lorpet, and so many others who were just a flicker of recognition in the back of her mind. Colonel Stavros, who'd never been within a hundred parsecs of this place, sat placidly at a nearby table, fingering his mustache and looking pointedly away.

She tried to call out, but her voice couldn't be heard above the din; she tried to reach out, but her arm would not move from its place. She could only stand there, naked and helpless, as the man with the shadowed face came toward her with lust in his eyes.

Then the man laughed, and all noise ceased. The ingesterie's patrons stopped what they were doing and riveted their attention on her. But not even the other arbiters made a move to fight off her attacker. Most of the patrons sat or stood where they were, and some even came around behind the man, ready to help him. She looked down at her own body and saw that strange arms and tentacles were now holding her in place. There was no safety, not even here. They had all betrayed her. They had all turned against her. Her anger rose against them, almost -- but not quite -- covering the fear she felt at the man's approach.

Her breathing was ragged and her heart was banging so heavily she thought it would surely burst through her chest. Her stomach was grinding away at itself until she wanted to throw up, and yet she couldn't. Somehow that would be a victory for him, another bit of herself he controlled. She couldn't allow that.

The patrons were cheering silently as the man came toward her, his penis long and stiff, looking oddly deformed and menacing. Though she whimpered and twisted, she could not escape the inevitable moment.