Page 86 of Trove’s Purpose

She wouldn’t touch him.

“They locked me in the basement below our house. It’s fairly common to not send younglings to community schooling on Turv, so no one questioned me never leaving. If they even knew about me. The door to the basement was always locked. But even if it wasn’t, they kept all the exits locked and the widows barred so if I managed to get out, I couldn’t escape.”

He’d tried. The first time he managed to slip from the basement he’d been so relieved, so hopeful. Just to find his way blocked by those sealed windows. He wasn’t ready for that barrier. He didn’t know how to get past them. And then they caught him and dragged him right back into the basement.

“To the rest of the world, my mother and aunt were highly respected females. They were good at their jobs. They were called brave and strong and proud – all desirable traits for my people. They didn’t waste their time chasing pleasures or willing their time away. No, they were always hard-working and serious.

“But at home, in our basement, they kept me as… as a pet,” he chuckled. Not because it was funny, not because he was amused, but because he was struggling. Because his mind was so completely destroyed from what happened, the reactions were all messed up. “They trained me from a young age to be the one who tended to their pleasure. They made me a sex toy for them to use. My cock wouldn’t work yet, but that wasn’t what they wanted. They wanted my tongue. They wanted my fingers. They wanted me to be a little machine that existed for nothing but their ecstasy, to use and throw away at their convenience.”

He held up his hand, looking at his clawless fingers. At the scars that marked the beds. “I got my scars shortly after adolescence. For my people, when we’re young, our claws are more like yours. Soft and thin. When we get our adult hormones, however, they harden and sharpen and become weapons. And when I hit that age, my fingers could suddenly be a threat to them. To their most delicate parts. So they removed them. They held me down. They ripped them out. And no one heard me scream.”

He still remembered the pain of it. The agony. Their mockery, telling him to stop complaining. To just take it. And that he should be proud. He’d be able to service them better once the claws were gone. He didn’t need them anyway. A weak, useless male like him was never going to fight. He was never going to need to struggle. They were taking care of him, because he was so weak and useless, so the claws were just a hindrance to his purpose.

The day he had been de-clawed broke something in him.

Before that, some part of him had actually been trying to please his aunt and mother. Had been trying to do what they wanted. If he made them happy, if he did as they said, then he was good, right? He was doing the right thing, wasn’t he? That’s what they said. He had to be better at giving them pleasure, because that was his only purpose.

But then they’d ripped out his claws. They’d let the skin harden and scar. They’d mocked him for being so weak and useless. And he was confused, because he’d done everything they said. He’d been whatever they wanted.

“I think I started plotting my escape then,” he said, lowering his hand down, back to staring up at the bright ceiling. “I didn’t know what I’d do. I was so weak. I was so useless. I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t survive without them. That’s what they told me so many times, over and over again, that I didn’t have a choice but to believe it.

“But they didn’t leave me in the darkness, alone, at all times. I earned prizes when I was good too. When I did a very good job, they’d get me things as well. Treats and toys. I asked for things I could build with. Toys to occupy my time. Innocent things. Simple things. Harmless things. I did my very best to make them come until their eyes crossed and they melted in my hands so they’d buy me the things I wanted. They weaponized sex against me. And I did the same thing to them.

“It took a lot of practice, a lot of trial and error, years to build that first pistol. To gather all the things I needed to make it without them noticing. And I was such a good sex toy that entire time, I became a whore so devoted to them, they’d never think to question my actions.

“The night I killed them, my aunt was using me. Or rather, at that point, I was using her. I used my mouth and fingers to melt her. To make her weak and useless. And when she was recovering, when she was lost in her sexual high, I shot her in the chest. In the head. I beat her with my pistol until she stopped bleeding, until she stopped moving.

“When I went upstairs, the windows were still blocked, but I didn’t care about escaping. Honestly, leaving that house alive was not the plan. I started the fire fully intending on it consuming all three of us. If I died by my own choice, then that was as good as escaping. It was victory for me.

“Mother was used to the screaming. She didn’t even hear it anymore. She was so focused on readying for work, on being the upstanding female the world saw, she didn’t notice anything was wrong until I was behind her. She died quicker than my aunt. A shame, really. I wanted her to suffer more. My aunt was crueler, but I hated my mother more. For allowing it. For encouraging it. For everything she had made me into. I wish I could see them die a hundred times. I still don’t think it would be enough. But it would be a start.”

It was so hard to start talking. It was so hard to keep talking. But now the difficulty was accompanied with a strange, driving force. Like a pressure was forcing them out through his throat. And while it hurt to let them out, he couldn’t hold them back.

“I didn’t try to escape the burning house. The front room collapsed, and I could just suddenly see the bright green sky. It called me out. I don’t think I’d seen it in years at that point. It hurt my eyes. It burned my skin. Maybe that was the fire, actually, now that I think about it, but it felt like the fresh air pushing the smoke away was like razors.

“But then there were people there. They saw me covered in blood. They saw me with my pistol in hand. They were demanding to know what happened. They were asking about my aunt and mother. They wanted to know what I had done to them. They were accusing me and I just… I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t defend myself. I didn’t know what to do. So, I ran. I escaped as people were trying to put out the fire, to rescue my aunt and mother. I left in the confusion.

“They were right. I was weak. But I wasn’t useless. I was good at one thing. And I found a female ship captain who was willing to trade sex for a ride. I hopped my way across the universe, staying away from the authorities. Hiding from inspections. The pirate crew that brought me to Rik-Vane were killed there and left me stranded on that place. So, I just adapted to living there. I found another powerful female to trade sex for safety. I built more weapons. I betrayed and killed her. I kept myself alive, and even now, I still sometimes wonder why I bothered.

“And then Tanin came to me one day. And he wanted my skills. But not my sexual ones. He didn’t care about that. He wanted my weapon skills. My ability to make pistols out of nothing. My ability to fight. Skills I taught myself so I wouldn’t be weak and useless. It was the first time anyone saw something worthwhile in me that wasn’t sex. I think that’s why I wanted to follow him. I didn’t believe in his plan, not initially, but I felt useful for the first time in my life. He gave me a purpose that wasn’t someone else’s pleasure, and that meant more to me than logic or reason. But then…”

He had to gather himself again. Laughing again. This time with derision at himself.

“But then I found out I can’t not have sex. I hear their screams, my aunt and mother’s, at night. I hear them during the day. I smell them. I feel them. They haunt me to this day. I have this urge, this itch, to pleasure females even now. It’s like a compulsion. An addiction. I was trained to do this and now I have to or those screams get too loud.

“At the same time though, I can’t stand a female’s touch. I hate when a female touches me. It makes my skin crawl. I have to please females, but I also can’t bear them. It’s a terrible contradiction. One that a lover couldn’t handle. How do you tell a female that you need to please her but she absolutely cannot touch you? Especially when you can’t talk. When your tongue is locked.

“Prostitutes were the only way out I could see. Females that would demand nothing from me. Ones who would do exactly as I said if I ordered them to keep their hands away. Ones who wouldn’t ask for emotional connection, who wouldn’t ask about my claws. Ones who wouldn’t wonder why my cock could not harden.”

And there it was. The last confession. The one that made him feel the most useless, the weakest, the most ridiculous.

His cock could harden. He woke with it that way sometimes. But it always went soft. It never hardened from desire. It was a useless lump of flesh between his legs.

“The prostitutes love me because I never fuck them,” he admitted. “I give them pleasure, and I pay them for it. I melt them. I use my tongue and fingers to bring them to heights that I learned to save my own life. I give them many marks of ecstasy and demand nothing in return except that they don’t put their hands on me. That’s why they call my name. I’m a vacation for them. A treat. A sex toy that they get paid to enjoy.

“But my cock doesn’t harden for them. It doesn’t react to the most beautiful females on the street, on the vids, in porn. It doesn’t react to you.”

This, somehow, was where he gained the power to look at her. This last, shameful confession, he could finally look at Chee. And he expected horror or pity or even understanding.