There are those who might complain about the Laodike. She was not the fastest of space-bearing vessels — she was quite old, in fact. Once a pleasure cruiser for some of the most renowned womyn of her age, she was now mine. And I was not one to complain. I loved Laodike. When I walked through her cavernous halls, I felt myself the surveyor of my own kingdom.

She was large, yes — too large for my modest retinue — and her lights were dim, and she often creaked and moaned. But she was mine, my reward, my personal property. She was the place I trained my slaves, the place the Maiden was kept. I loved her.

“Slavebreaker Aceline is dead.”

“So I heard.” I lay in my cot, trimming my nails. "And what does that have to do with me, Slavebreaker Gisal?"

Gisal smiled, her mouth especially red in the wavering hologram. At this hour, she was prepared for rest: a silk robe draped across her soft skin, lounged in bed with a concubine silently attending to her. "Did you hear how she died?"

"It was not in the report, no." My bedding was trim and sparse, my nightclothes a simple white gown. I had no interest in speaking to Gisal, but it was bad form to refuse a call from a sister, especially one of such similar rank as myself. But if Gisal was only interested in idle gossip, perhaps I ought to make an excuse…

"It wouldn't have been. I heard…" Ah, she was leaning in.“...it was one of her slaves.”

I must've made some sort of reaction, despite my best efforts — a roll of the eyes, perhaps — because Gisal hid a giggle behind her hand. "Oh, yes! She did not let this one cook for long enough. So impatient was she, Aceline released it from the Maiden before the process had fully set. Everything was fine until one day she turned her back, it grabbed her ray-gun and—" She mimed shooting her head.

"What a ridiculous rumor," I said. "If you release a slave prematurely, it would simply be brain-dead. Not a lunatic."

"It was entirely conscious, old programming and all." Gisal was smug. "Only pretending. Biding its time," she said. "How do you know what a poorly programmed slave will do? No one has been so stupid. Before Slavebreaker Aceline, that is– may she rest with the angels.”

"May she rest with the angels," I said, by a murmuring habit. Then, "I do not feel so bad. She only deserves such a fate for doing her duty so poorly."

"Slavebreaker Winter, are you truly so cold as your name suggests?" She mocked me. She always mocked me.

"We are given only the most sacred duty to pass along the Highmothers' wisdom," said I, "and she treated it carelessly."

Gisal mocked me again, echoing an old rhyme, though I hardly heard it. She changed her tune, speaking of silly things. She was having an elaborate gown designed for the upcoming eclipse ball on Juno. She wanted to show her devotion to her home planet, she said.

I nodded along. Gisal was concerned with image, with silly frivolities and the sensual fruits of power. I was distracted. I felt it, the crook between my brain and my skull. The Maiden was calling me to release my lamb.

I stood in the chamber in my ceremonial armor. At last, the moment I had been dreaming of was upon me. My heart raced and my thoughts were frantic, despite all my training. When the Maiden split open and I first glimpsed my new slave and all her — well, not glory — I nearly laughed.

Blindfolded. Her own drool glimmered down her chin and onto her naked chest. Her muscled arms bound to her sides. Her legs split so that the Maidenshand could penetrate— withdrawing now, her state of blissful transformation over forever.

It was said that, to a slave, pleasure becomes internalized. It is constant. The joy of service to the Highmothers so powerful that it supersedes all thoughts but that which their Slavebreaker commands. 

I could never know for certain.

What I knew was only what I could see: that the rebel scum was freed from her bondage yet remained blank and still. That she was naked before me. That her breasts, which she once tried so hard to hide in her self-hating shame, now rose and fell with her shallow breaths, nipples still hard from her processing. 

To love is to listen...To love is to obey...

With heavy clunks, the final bindings receded. The mantra slowed to a halt, and all that was left in the chamber was piercing silence. The four gazes of the Highmothers regarded us from above. My temple pulsed with concentric rings, bearing out in the psychic space, calling to its new charge.

Eleno moved. Her skin tanned from the light of savage suns. Scarred from countless battles. I saw now the ravages of her mutilation. She told me of it once, mockingly. How she pierced herself with the essence of Man and how it altered her forever. There was dark hair across her chest and stomach, down the inside of her thighs, like waves across her freckled arms.

I raised my hand. "There is no reason to fear. You are under the Highmothers' wings. Your mind has been broken, but your life has just begun. I am your handler, your Slavebreaker. You exist only in my stead.

"All that I am," I said, "you are."

She knelt before me, and I knew utter bliss.

With considerable restraint, I brought the slave to my chambers. I wanted to explore the depth of Eleno's utter ruin without delay. I had waited for far too long already. My mind danced with visions of forcing her to the cold chamber floor, molesting her under the watchful eyes of the Highmothers. But such a thing was not proper. There was nothing special about this slave — not anymore.

I was not like Gisal. I had, in all my years as Slavebreaker, never taken a concubine. They had been offered to me, yes. I had even indulged a sister's possession once or twice, for purely political motives. There was nothing about the class of concubine, with their forever-shaved skin and liquid doe eyes, that appealed to me. Why would I waste my gifts commanding a vacuous piece of meat?

It set me apart even from my fellow Slavebreakers. They spread rumors about me. They called me frigid, a liar. The phrase, spoken with tongues dripping with malice. "Slavebreaker Winter saves herself for the angels."

It was then that I realized I had little clue how to conduct myself in these matters.

I sat upon my cot in my ceremonial armor, and she stood as she ought: straight-backed and blank-eyed, awaiting my commands. Laodike groaned as she flew, and the sound of it bent the silence. I took a moment to drink in the sight of Jag Eleno, enslaved. I saw that cunt of hers with my own two eyes. I could still recall the feel of it against my palm.

"Do you remember," I said, "when you left me to die in that jungle?"

I let her silence hang for a luxurious amount of time — a little humor, for myself and myself alone.

"No. Of course not." I straightened up. I visualized it, stronger than I'd commanded any Labryade before her. She came at once to undress me: her hands under the crook of my elbow to undo the latches of my armor.

It was on the planet of Gilmyn — a lush environment with abundant natural resources, but too harsh for womyn to prosper. Across its surface there existed only remotely piloted equipment for siphoning and drilling, sowing and reaping. The only life that touched the place was the occasional party of researchers, carefully documenting the potential uses of the indigenous flora and fauna. Until the rebels made their base on the surface.

I was sent to cull them, and of course Jag Eleno was there.

"I confronted you, and you fled up that cliff." I crept up behind my slave, shed of armor in only my loose magenta tunic. I laced a hand across her jaw. "We battled. Oh, what a battle it was! And when I lay there, seemingly defeated…"

At the moment of her greatest triumph, Eleno had simply stopped. She stood above me, one hand on her ray-gun… and the other reaching out. "Come on," she said. "Enough of this."

"You sounded so very exasperated…" I toyed with her nipple. "So unhappy that I would not accept your pathetic rebel ideology."

Well, it wasn't quite like that. More like —

"Just come with me," Eleno said. "This isn't a trick. If you come with me, you’ll be better off. I'll make sure of it. I promise. 

"I have an escape pod. If you leave now, you'll be pronounced dead — leave a little blood, if we want to make it convincing— and we'll have plenty of time for you to adjust. I swear no harm will come to you. If anyone gives you a hard time, I'll kill them." She shook her head. "I know how you feel… I think, if I hadn't figured it out, I would have been just like you. Just a… ball of hatred. You construct the facade so well it becomes  you.

"But I did change. Don't you see? It's all made up. You don't need to be what they tell you to be. You don't need to be… this."

She gestured to me, lying bleeding at the edge of that sheer drop. I was shaking. "Fuck you."

Eleno stood her ground. "Don't have a compelling argument, huh?"

"Do not pretend that you know the interior of my soul," said I. "You and I have nothing in common. I am the finest of my stock, and you are a traitor. You failed to be a womyn, and so you mutilated yourself. You make us all suffer for your own incompetence — you destroy the world rather than change for the better. It's pathetic."

"If my very existence ruins your world," Eleno said, "then good riddance!"

As I mused my reminiscences, my slave stood in perfect stillness. I draped kisses across her nape. I thought about the future. Later… later, I would have her shaved.  Let the other Labryades do it: pin her down and raze away every bit of it until she could not hide her womyness if she tried. A little farce with all my puppets, indoctrinating their new sister.

I murmured in her ear. "You pushed me off that cliff, Eleno. You left me to die. Is that what a man would have done?"

Wounded in the depths of untamed jungle. I laid there, certain of the end. My arm was twisted and broken beneath me. Still, I scrambled for my dagger. Like all true womyn, I did not fear the end. Death would only grant me my just reward. I had served the Highmothers to the end — and I would've served more if it wasn't for that damned Jag Eleno.

"But I did not die." Through the fabric of my tunic it pulsed, a heartbeat in tune with mine. "I simply made a friend."

It had come from out of the brush — a slimy touch against my legs, an inducement that was at once pain and deep exhilarant joy. Delirious pleasure tingled my every limb, drowning out the pain. I could not slash it away. I could not kick, and my screams would find no ears. I was deep in the shadows, and even a miraculous ship passing could not spot me. 

So, I stayed. And I let the alien's induced arousal wash over me until my nausea faded. My wounds began to knit together. Jade slime crawled its way between my legs. I gasped, and the breath renewed us.

“How well, I wonder,” said I, “can you take its length?”

Eleno gave no reply– for she had no thoughts, no words. Only utter blank submission to my will. I slid the turgid parasite into her waiting cunt.

The thing bulged against her walls. Its innards which now laced my labia pulsed in pleasure and excitement. The parasite resembled a phallus in shape and size — but it was an ocean green, its texture slick and shining.

When I first realized the form my savior took, I had been mortified. I waved away my inexplicable survival to my peers with a somehow less far-fetched tale. I hid the injuries that I still sustained to ensure that no one but my own Labryades could undress me. And once returned to Laodike, I experimented.

Of course I first tried to cut it off. I grit my teeth against the pain and made a mess of the bath to no avail. It had conformed to me. Its tendrils crawled up my vaginal cavity and connected to my veins. I could feel what it felt. Like some sort of spoiled pet, it enjoyed the stroke of my hand against it.

There were many things I could have tried: fire, acid. Surgery performed by my Labryades in secret. I could have gone to the High Priestesses, if my shame would have allowed it. But the thought was mortifying. What would they do if I came, begging for them to cut it off? What would they think of me for hiding in the first place? I had allowed a creature that mirrors our greatest enemy into our sacred cavern.

I could not. And in the end I grew used to it. I was no broodmother – I had no use for my womb. Why not have this parasite fill the barren space? It had saved my life. In return, it was not much to allow it to feed off me and enjoy my caresses. 

This, however, was the first time I had used it on a Labryade — the only slave that deserved such treatment.

And she was enjoying it, the whore. I raped her with glee, with rough hands digging against her chest, pumping in and out of her hairy cunt. Her slick was mingling with the parasite’s down the inside of her thighs.

"This is how it feels…" I said, between thrusts, "to be one of us. How could you deny yourself such pleasure?"

A hand between her legs. Her clit was unnaturally large and stiff. How it must've felt with the Maidenshand pleasuring her —a machine designed to coax a normal womyn’s clit to pure, stinging pleasure! Her self-mutilation had made her all the more susceptible to our teachings.

How long did she last? Oh, when did she first fall? Could I have felt it, had I concentrated on my implant? The stubborn, misguided mind suddenly spiraling into endless darkness. Would I have felt my stomach drop? The pleasure of obedient orgasm?

My breath hitched. Eleno clenched around me. I wrenched my thoughts where I wanted: Eleno opening up as the alien’s black seed flooded her. Eleno letting her worst enemy breed her not with sophisticated instruments, but bluntly and fleshily. Like a dog. Eleno, overturned, her hair falling into her eyes, her breasts round and hanging beneath her malformed torso. I willed it. And so it was.

White and warm was my vision. It was as things often are in dreams — so very obvious to me. I was surrounded by the most beautiful womyn ever birthed. In a void of cloud they stood watching me, every crook of flesh perfectly shaped for pleasure on the eyes. I knew at once. At last, I had died and been granted a thousand angels.

I opened my arms. My hair, thick and heavy, always envied by my sisters, silked down my naked body. The first angel came to me. Her skin was like down, her hair ringlets of gold wire. I grasped her against me and she, with an eternal smile, rubbed her pussy against mine.

The afterlife in the Highmothers' domain was simple. I would make love to each one of these angels, and with each act another layer of sin would be stripped from my earthly skin. By the end, I would be nothing but light and devotion — and I would become as these angels, and continue to guide others to the same state of ultimate, feminine perfection.

The process had begun, and I could not help but weep. On and on they touched me, and I them, in every way our feminine bodies were meant to touch. Each and every one was so beautiful they stole the breath from my throat — until the need for air removed itself. I suppose that was a sin, too.

Before long, I did not even open my eyes to glimpse my next partner. I could not fathom them. They burned my eyes. My hips bucked against their forms — their bones hollow like birds, their throats too thin to form words. Who would need to speak in a perfect world? We would all know one another as intimately as I knew my slaves.

Yet I wished I had them, the words. The angels did not seem to understand… what I wanted… how I withdrew when their delicate fingers reached between my legs. Love had stripped that part of me bare, had reduced it to a rosy pink slit from which all our futures came. The angels wished to lick me there with playful, happy strokes. I was still weeping.

Every angel I fucked became worse. Their skin was like brimstone. Their caresses the cut of a knife. The smell fetid, the taste sour. It was not them that was so terrible. It was something inside of me, a sin baked too deep to reach. 

The bizarre logic of the moment was bidding me to search for someone. It was someone that, in the moment, was so obvious I did not need a name to pass my mind. Despite the pain, I forced my eyes open to search the faces that surrounded me. It was a face I would know, without question or compromise.

But I woke, and the knowledge went with me. The only thing I knew was my slave lapping at the base of the parasite.

My sore body sank into the covers, and I sighed with relief that the nightmare had passed. I stroked her hair with a rough touch. The room was thick with my musk. Through the dream, with Eleno so close, my arousal must have bled to the implant.

"Stop," I commanded.

But my mind was too scattered to muster the energy. She went on rotely up the length of the parasite.

"You're better than the angels, with that tongue of yours…" I stared up at the ceiling.

For a long time I laid in bed, my eyes still stinging with phantom tears. Eleno's wet sucking was the only thing to be heard. Her head dipped, and the parasite's tip bloomed… a slit peeled apart, and black cum dribbled from the tip. Eleno's teeth blackened with the stuff.

I sighed into the empty night. "I'll need to prepare for the ball…"