Questions (The Alien's Plaything: Chapter Five)

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Chapter Five: Questions

Kalin often found himself woken up by the Viridians preparing a fresh hell they would refer to as an ‘experiment’, but today it appeared he had been given the chance to sleep in. A panel in the wall opened and a tray slid out with another brick of food on it. It was unclear whether these had been food the Viridians could eat as well or something they’d created for him based on biological scans.

Kalin had approached the first food bricks more cautiously; but with each passing day, the likelihood of them poisoning him seemed more and more laughable. They did not need to weaken him one bit to overpower him, and even if they had managed to get a tracking device into the food that an experienced thief could not detect, he questioned the value of avoiding a meal over it.

After he finished, Zara and Zania came into the lab. Zara set herself up on the table in the centre of the lab and Zania got to working on something at the workstation. She looked at Kalin in a way that seemed somehow different. “I thought we could go through some more questions today, you might be a little more articulate if you’re not in the process of being punished for that escape.”

Kalin nodded. “So, it’s just questions today?”

Zara laughed derisively. “No, I’m still going to hurt you. Maybe not as much, but it will definitely happen. We have a certain taste for proving ourselves superior and in that sense, your oh so convenient weakness does make you a certain kind of irresistible in that sense.” She bit her lip gently and stifled a smile.

Kalin never would have imagined that seeing one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen referring to literally anything about him as ‘irresistible’ would scare him, but here he was.

“You mentioned that the other group of humans look more like us. You look so strange to us, we hadn’t even considered that we might look less strange to you. How similar do they look to us? And how many of them are there? Are there just the two types?” She absent-mindedly swung her feet as she pondered her final words.

The sight of her feet swinging back and forth, even gently, filled him with dread. She had normally done these things on purpose to mess with him, but here she just seemed to be intimidating him naturally, it came as easily to her as breathing did to Kalin. ‘Well,’ he thought, ‘as easily as it does when Zara’s not around.’

“Uh,” he started, trying desperately to find his calm again, “they’re about half the population. Ones that look like me are a fraction more than half. Then there’s also intersex people who are about one in 50. Some of those blend in with my type – males – and others with the other type – females. It’s not a physiological grouping, but there’s also nonbinary individuals. Anyone born into any of the three other groups might become that later in life. But I’m kind of getting off topic there. I just remember this from school.”

“Oh, nonbinary,” Zara replied, “so you are civilised. You allow individuals to abandon presentation in that way.”

“Wait, don’t you only have one physiological gender? Why do you call it non-BINARY? Wouldn’t that mean two?” Kalin asked.

“Oh, fascinating. The translation is connecting words. I don’t know the origin of our word, but it has nothing to do with numbers. And so you said your group was called ‘males’. They’re the group with the hilarious weakness?”

Kalin winced at the mention. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

“And does that mean I look female to you?”

“Very much so.”

“Do the types do something specific together? You mentioned that what we’ve been kicking has something to do with reproduction?”

“Yeah,” Kalin started. “not to oversimplify but our reproduction involved female humans, the ones that look more like you, creating and looking after an ‘egg’ internally and male humans, my type, create a substance that fertilises that egg. The women then carry that egg while it develops. It’s a complicated process and I really don’t feel like I’m qualified to give a full first-contact level account of what our bodies do.”

“How does the fertilisation process get the substance out? Your low pain threshold makes me think they don’t kick or punch it out of your kind.” Zara grinned, “that would probably be more fun.”

“Maybe they squeeze it out,” added Zania, without looking away from the workstation.

“No!” Kalin barked, fearful of letting the idea linger in their minds for too long. “No, there’re other processes but it’s really very personal. Do you mind if I ask how your kind reproduces if there’s only one type of you?”

“Parthenogenesis,” Zara responded. Something about the word had felt very strange to Kalin. He’d heard of the word before, but he was really feeling the discrepancy between what he knew to be a six syllable word somehow coming out of Zara’s mouth as just one.

“I guess that makes sense.”

“So,” Zara asked, intrigued, “your kind pairs up with the other humans that look sort of like us… like me. Do you experience this desire to pair… with Viridians?”

Kalin was flustered. “I… I mean… You are all very… But… I know it’s not my place… But… I mean… Every one of you… Especially you… You are… Um…”

Zara started swinging her legs again, this time fully aware of the impact the image had on him. A Viridian like Zara swinging her legs like that was no minor thing. At her size, even just swinging her legs below the knee means that the tips of her toes were more than two feet  from her knees. Even a gentle swing meant quite some speed at the end of her leg, and the mass of a Viridian leg means that this speed translated into even more momentum. The impact to anything vulnerable placed in the path of those feet, even without a concerted effort, was in a very literal sense massive. Zara grinned, seeing the fruits of her intimidation. She stood up and slowly approached the cell.

“I’m going to kick you between the legs again now,” Zara stated. It did not sound negotiable.

“Wait, no, hang on, no-no-no-no-no,” Kalin panicked, trying to back away from Zara without getting his back against the wall.

Kalin’s reflexes could do little against Zara’s speed. She flicked her front leg up, connecting her shin with his groin and he felt the hard initial impact and the radiating pain instantly. As he began to double forward, but he felt Zara’s hands close around his wrists, holding him up.

“Why?” Kalin pleaded.

Zara let out a singular chuckle as her black lips spread into a wide satisfied smile across her face. She leaned in and whispered into his ear. “I own you.” She drove her knee hard into his balls and he felt himself overwhelmed with pain all over again. He crashed to the floor like a house of cards, and she the gust of wind that had reduced him to fluttering remnants of despair.

He felt weaker than the paper that said cards would be made of, struggling to stay upright on his knees, desperately trying to hold onto the last threads of his dignity - his sanity - as she laughed, her face cold and distant, uncaring of the agony she wrought. The dispassion made it all the more humiliating.

She playfully tapped his balls with her foot, lightly enough so as not to drop him further. “Are they sore?” she mocked.

“Please stop.” he begged.

Zara got down on her knees too, still towering over the whimpering Kalin, and reached her hand between Kalin’s legs. The hand soon found a firm grip on his vulnerable area. “Come on, we’re not done. Didn’t you have something in here you wanted to give me?” she joked.

Kalin stabilised himself by grabbing Zara’s forearm. “Please!” he pleaded fruitlessly.

“Don’t you have something you want to fertilise me with in here or something?” Zara laughed as she squeezed harder. As she shifted her grip, she noticed something else there and stopped. A third thing between Kalin’s legs that felt bigger than the other two. “Is there a third one? No. Is that… Is that a part of your reproduction?”

Kalin realised, to his horror, that he had experienced arousal during all of this. He saw the playful smile leave Zara’s face. He struggled to read the next expression as she stood up, but it might have been disgust. Kalin realised too late that as Zara had stood up, his hands hadn’t immediately shielded himself. As she reached her full height, Zara flicker out her leg and connected the top of her foot between Kalin’s legs hard. The blow had perfectly caught both of his testicles and he had immediately felt waves of agony firing out throughout his body from the point of impact.

Zara raised her foot and placed it on Kalin’s back as he curled up. “Human, no Viridian will be pairing with you. We don’t need weak aliens as anything but toys. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Kalin groaned hoarsely.

As Zara left her foot on Kalin’s back for a moment, he struggled to imagine what might come next.

“What do you call them, human? I mean Kalin?”

“What?”

“The vulnerability orbs. I assume your species has a name for them,” Zara explained, “you seem constantly surprised at the amount of pain we can inflict on them so I assume the name neither references the sensitivity nor are they symbolically viewed as a weakness for some reason.”

“Uh, testicles,” he choked, “or just balls too.”

“Ok, then,” she said, satisfied. She removed her foot from his back. “I must say I think that last one was a perfect kick in the balls from that angle. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Please stop,” Kalin begged once more, almost out of habit at this point more than any expectation that Zara had any concept of mercy.

“Don’t you agree?” Zara repeated, more sternly.

“Yes!” Kalin groaned, hoping his agreement would buy him leniency.

“Ok, Zania. Your turn. Try to keep it to under an hour.”

Kalin let out a panicked whimper. Zara and Zania both let out a laugh at his reaction as the cell wall closed. He rolled urgently onto his side to see Zania and Zara both leaving. Before the door to the corridor closed, Kalin saw Zara looking back at him, giving him a little wave.