Shoshone Station: The Galactic Consortium season 2

Episode Three: Eggs #8

Jack followed the courtesan across a dimly lit court. Most of the businesses were closed, and those that weren't were empty, the lion's share of stations population was below, still celebrating the opening of the bottom court.

The woman's name was Chandramani, or just Mani for short. She was tall, with dark hair and a statuesque body. It wasn't her body that attracted Jack, it was the strength and grace with which she held herself. But more than that it was the hint that she could satisfy an itch that Jack hadn't scratched in a long time now, not since this whole arrival had begun.

He couldn't get back to Washington and he knew of no one locally whom he felt safe sharing this side of himself, or that he could trust with his secret.

He paused at the entrance to the courtesan's lounge. A couple of courtesans, with no clients, lounged and talked but even this place was mostly empty tonight. Perhaps later, as the party down below broke up. Perhaps some of the courtesans, like Mani, were downstairs working the crowd.

"Jack?" Mani inquired.

He licked his lips. "It's just. I'm a diplomat. It's pretty high profile. If anyone knew I came here. Especially with your surveillance system..."

"You will not speak of your job to me again, or of the surveillance system," she said. The strength of her tone alone sent shivers down his spine. She went on, her tone softer. "When someone asks information, it's private business. We will not discuss your occupation again, and the information bureau will have no cause to consider what we do public."

Jack nodded. Maybe he was coming to trust their legal system, or maybe it was wishful thinking brought on by hormones and her deep voice. It was true, their nanobot system had a huge amount of information on almost every citizen, but the information bureau guarded that information jealously, rarely sharing with security, diplomacy or anyone. "Review indicates no information to which your department has vested interest," was their stock reply to most inquiries. As Badu explained it, "the information bureau wasn't established to spy on citizens, it was established to prevent legal, or security from spying, creating a police state." It summed up the issue pretty well, the point of making it a separate department was to limit others access to the information.

Mani's quarters were on the edge of the station, with a window out into space. It was wide and spacious by the standards of the station. The room was mostly decorated in reds, with a low bed and a wall covered in various hooks and pipes that Jack could only guess at their use.

He went to the window, not looking at the room or at Mani. "I knew from a young age I was not...normal. I never was particularly attracted to girls my age. Or boys either. I wasn't interested in the normal stuff anyway, sex and whatnot."

"Normal," Mani scoffed. "Your culture seems highly invested in the notion that certain kinds of desire are normal and other kinds are not."

"Yeah, we are," Jack said. "When I was sixteen, maybe seventeen, I saw this video on the internet. A fetish video."

"The interesting thing about festishes," Mani said. "The propensity to develop fetishes over certain styles of dress, certain actions, roles or sensation. These are normal. The fetishes themselves are culturally dependent, of course." She went to one side of the room and opened a long closet.

Jack turned and his breath hitched at the sight. The entire closet was filled with an assortment of ropes, whips and paddle. Reds, pinks and blues predominant, and some of the devices were unfamiliar to Jack, but otherwise it looked strikingly similar to tools that Mistress Karalina had back in DC.

"You will show me what looks familiar and describe the uses to which they are put in your cultures practices. Tonight shall be educational for both of us, perhaps, and I will provide this non-gratis. In the future we shall have to negotiate some more formal relationship."

"Yes," Jack lipped his lips. "My last domme... I called her mistress."

"Mistress," Mani mused. "Hmm, I like that. You may use that term."

"Thank you, Mistress Mani," Jack replied moving towards the closet.

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