Belonger (An erotic novel): Part One (59 page)

In irritation he strode over to the kicking
flower at the edge of the field, intending to bind her legs tight,
marking her for removal from the dormitory. She would never serve
him this way again.

He grabbed her legs, which were oddly angular
in definition, not at all the sort of anatomy he favored. She was
strong—the Merkin was aggressively rebuffed the first time he tried
to lash them tight. On the second attempt one of her stockings
rolled up to reveal a hairy limb.

The Merkin recoiled in loathing, eyes round,
utterly discombobulated for a moment.

“
What?” he stuttered. For
the first time in memory the Merkin’s flowers distinctly heard his
voice. Their legs went still.

Recovering himself, he reached down and
snatched at the bow-tied knot securing the crisscrossed arrangement
of laces that bound the flower’s body into its fabric envelope stem
from the midsection down. A deep voice issued from within.

“
Unh! Let me
out!”

A moment later the doorman toppled forth.

Working

“
Where have you been?” Emma
exclaimed. She glared at Ione, arms crossed.

“
I’m sorry. Really, I am. I
should have come back sooner. I know. But it takes
forever
to cross the
whole City.”

“
It’s been
three days!
” Mark hissed,
staring balefully at Ione till she blushed.

“
I know…”

“
You’re an asshole for
scaring us like that,” Emma grated. “Do you know how worried we
were?”

“
I really am sorry. Did we
set an exact time to rendezvous?”

“
You were supposed to meet
us at the Club after your interview,” Dean reminded her. “What
happened?”

They were gathered in his salon once again,
which Emma had restlessly rearranged to a more intimate
configuration, mostly to displace her mounting fear through her
companion’s lengthening absence.

“
There’s a lot to tell,”
said Ione, plunking herself down on the longest sofa segment.
“Where’s Manassa?” she wondered, looking around.

“
She got a job at a clothing
boutique,” said Emma. “We’re supposed to meet her down there in a
little bit, actually.”

“
That might be good timing
for me. The trip to the Gnomon’s Tower from here takes you through
almost every territory of the City, and I really need a better
wardrobe. Those mannermen don’t fuck around. I saw three different
“inspections” on my way back, and the last time they had this poor
woman standing naked in the middle of a crowded street while they
decided how to garb her ‘correctly.’ Which evidently couldn’t be
done, because they hauled her away in the end.”

Emma met her dark look,
nodded faintly in understanding. She agreed that the mannermen were
almost certainly connected to the force that had raided the women
of the Lap—the men that had accosted Ione in the passage to the
surface had been formally suited. Their atrocious campaign of
acquisition would
never
be forgotten, or forgiven…

Mark landed on the couch facing Emma. “Gimme
one, will ya?” he called over to Dean, who was procuring drinks
from the bar. The drummer arrived a moment later to refresh
everyone, and Emma took a long swig of peach stillwater juice.

“
I miss
this
, have to admit,” Ione sighed
between two long draughts, visibly cheered.

Dean sat down next to Mark, kicked his long
legs up onto the low table between them, absently twirling a
drumstick in one hand. “Yeah, the Gnomon’s got no supply,” he
gibed.

“
True,” Ione admitted. “But
that might be my only complaint about his organization. Well,
besides the distance from you guys,” she hastily
amended.

“
It’s obvious how
much
that
concerns
you,” Emma grimaced.

“
It does. Anyway, I’m sure
you found things to keep your mouth busy,” Ione bantered. “Er, your
mind that is.”

“
My mouth is usually busy.
It’s cussing you out right now, asshat. And you can
mind
your manners when
referring to my intelligence,” she sputtered.

“
C’mon Emz,” Ione cajoled.
“Save your spit for the Dowser’s Club. I’m sure he doesn’t like it
dry-swallowed.”

“
It’s a hard ‘job’ alright,”
Emma conceded. “But unlike you I can handle his demands without
blowing my friends off.”

“
Which is saying something,”
Ione allowed. “His twanker’s as big as your head nowadays. As long
as you keep giving it, that is.”

They giggled at this, finally. Ione kissed
Emma and they snuggled together on the couch, hand in hand.

“
So obviously you got
hired,” Mark prompted.

“
Yep. Pretty high in the
Gnomonclature,” Ione boasted.

Emma listened while her partner proceeded to
fill them in on her adventures in the Tower. As she regaled them
with rapt illustrations of the Gnomon’s genius and efficiency Emma
became progressively more concerned by the velocity of her new
life, which seemed to have little place for friends or
recreation.

“
So you basically worked the
whole time?”

Ione shook her head. “Mostly. But this is the
best part; I got a cool apartment. Spent some time setting it up
and decorating already, getting ready for you to come join me.” She
grinned expectantly. “No more burdening Dean with our needs,” she
promised.

The blond drummer looked a little
crestfallen, and Emma sought a diplomatic angle for their own
news.

“
Uh… well, that’s the thing.
Me and Dean are looking at a larger apartment now that we have
status from the Club.”

“
Oh.”

Dean was preparing to gloat about its
spectacular location high on the Dowser’s hill, and the lavish
accommodations and features it offered, but Emma warned him to
silence with a look. Ione would see it as a threat, and he had yet
to face his first challenge from another drummer anyway, which
could potentially finish his tenure with the Dowser and their new
status with it.

“
It’s a pretty decent pad,”
she breezed. “But right now I’m more interested in your digs at the
Tower.”

“
Yeah,” Ione enthused,
glossing over Emma’s accomplishment, which had required
considerable energy and patience. Her mouth was by now quite
familiar with her employer’s giant endowment of cockflesh, and the
hard-drinking ways required by her socialite role as
well.

“
You’ve got real privacy it
sounds like,” Mark ventured.

Emma met Ione’s glance and nodded subtly in
answer to the unvoiced concern. They needed to get Mark established
in the Gnomon’s Tower as soon as it could be feasibly arranged. He
had been of inestimable help in securing status for Dean and
herself at the Club, but the cost to his own psychological welfare
had been considerable. On another level, Emma was sure the other
woman appreciated the social esteem his matchless charisma would
command in the Gnomon’s organization.

“
Yeah,” Ione belatedly
responded. “You’d love it there.”

“
But at the moment we’re
required elsewhere,” Dean reminded them, draining the last of his
stillwater. Emma could tell he was a little intimidated and
resentful of their enthusiasm for the Gnomon’s domain. She worked
for his rival now herself and wondered if she might someday feel
the same antipathy for the other judge.

Emma rose and stretched. “Let’s go see what
Manassa’s been up to.”

“
Should be interesting,”
Mark commented, padding to the bar for road refreshments. He slung
a trix of bottles into a pinstriped and padded green duffel bag.
“She has this crazy story about what it took to get
hired.”

They stepped out into the parking lot with a
wave to the doorman. Emma found herself cheered by the sun’s full
effect. The swirl of cloud at the center of the City was gathered
compactly over the forest, offering none of its customary
diffusion. The City breathed a heady report of its denizens’ myriad
activities up the hill, and the bucket clanged from its higher
vantage on the next elevation, coloring everything that transpired
for a long while after with a subliminal hum. Emma had learned that
its daytime excursions down the well supplied other clubs with
stillwater.

They sauntered over to Dean’s huge
convertible and Ione didn’t seem to notice the drummer’s quizzical
glance when she took the driver’s seat. But a moment after she
belatedly turned to address them over the partition.

“
Oh. Hey, you care if I
drive?” Emma was installed next to Dean on one of the long, plushly
upholstered couches.

“
Naw,” Dean grinned. “I’d
rather fool around with Emz.” He tickled her about the tits till
she giggled bashfully.

Ione stared at them for a moment, and Emma
knew she was evaluating how close they had become in her absence.
Neither woman was ordinarily jealous about affairs with the
alternate sex, but the political situation within their little
group was increasingly subject to the influence of the Gnomon and
Dowser, huge forces acting from afar to magnify complications of
personal loyalty.

“
Cool,” Ione shrugged
dismissively. They proceeded to outfit themselves for their
destination. Emma got herself into a gay yellow dress that matched
her hair as Dean and Mark donned slacks and long-sleeved dress
shirts. When Ione was conservatively garbed in a pleated blue skirt
and blouse she turned to activate the go gnome. “No chance of rain
at the moment. Want the top down?”

“
Definitely,” Mark decided,
and at Dean’s bottle-raised salute she pumped the hydraulic arm to
bring sun and fresh air intimately in their midst.

The convertible jumped minutely as Ione
settled her feet on the pedals, then she wheeled them nimbly out of
the parking lot and out into traffic with as much skill as Dean had
demonstrated. Emma allowed herself to relax into their little
adventure. She was looking forward to acquiring a personal wardrobe
and some jewelry to go with it.

The convertible took them around the hill and
down to the dense city streets as she jacked around with Mark and
Dean in back, drinking steadily and japing at anything conspicuous
out on the pavement. They were the object of just as much
attention, but Emma was by now totally accustomed to the way necks
swiveled in their vicinity.

“
Lookit that slipper,” Dean
guffawed as they passed a stocky brunette with an enormous bosom.
“They’re bigger than Manassa’s!”

The woman in question noticed them as they
passed and grinned flirtatiously at Mark.

“
Think she likes you,” Dean
cajoled. “Wanna invite her?” Mark demurred with a chuckle and Dean
followed with a more sober question.

“
You got the hots for
someone else? Manassa maybe? Just wondering…”

This was something Emma and Ione had
discussed many times since the two were first introduced in the
subterranean world. It seemed like a totally natural possibility,
but Mark was strangely wary around the big woman for reasons he had
never explained. Ione was of the opinion he found her genuinely
threatening in some way, and in time Emma had come to agree though
Manassa had never given any of them reason for such alarm that she
could remember.

“
Well?” Dean goaded. “We’re
goin’ to see her now.”

“
Shut up and swill your
still, drumass,” Mark irately advised, passing a new bottle from
the bag to this end.

Ione tittered from the front, flirted with
another driver long enough to steal his priority in a merge lane
and stomped on the pedals as a six-lane highway opened up before
them. The gnome delivered a correspondingly aggressive quantity of
torque to the cranks and the convertible slammed forward.

“
Whoohoo!” Emma sang, loving
the effect. She threw her head back into Dean’s armpit and downed
half a bottle of raspberry stillwater to guarantee a buzz before
they arrived.

“
Hey, let’s stop at that
music store,” Dean suggested, pointing to a building shaped like a
drum. Its parking lot was jammed and Ione shook her head after a
quick glance. “Maybe on the way back.”

“
How about that toy place?”
Emma cajoled as a huge display window cluttered with fetish gear
slid by. A greeter in skimpy green panties waved to them from the
sidewalk, ostentatiously jiggling a pair of glittering nipple
clamps. Emma had never seen the design but liked the perky dance of
their hooped geometry on the other woman’s broad bust.

“
Let’s just get where we
need to go,” Ione dissented, absorbed by the challenges of traffic.
“And I can do without the backseat driving.”

“
Sounds like
exactly
what you need,
slipperlips,” Mark smirked. Emma giggled in agreement.

“
She’s due for a loosening,”
Dean licentiously opined.

“
Shut up,” Ione ordered.
Emma could tell she was trying not to laugh.

The sun moved appreciably overhead before
they neared the metropolitan core. They were all in a loose mood by
then. In the distance a giant pyramidal building constructed from
some reddish material rose over the surrounding neighborhoods, was
shortly hidden from view by the dense vapor rising from the
forest.