Chapter 2 – 47 – Undisclosed Location 2010

One of the fluorescent lights is close to going out. I wonder who replaces them. It makes a loud buzzing, occasionally tinking and flickering overhead.

My hands are folded loosely in my lap as I wait for the door to my right to open. I concentrate on keeping my heart rate steady and my breathing slow.

I’m being tested today. And I must pass.

This isn’t my first test and it won’t be my last but for some reason, it’s the one I feel the most anxiety over.

I think back to my first exam. The Tech Test. I had passed that with flying colors. No one said I’d done a good job or expressed any type of approval at how well I’d performed but I knew I’d been the best in my generation. I had finished with complete accuracy and over a half hour before any of the other initiates.

Afterwards, in the bunkhouse, Hugo had smiled at me. That’s how I knew for sure. It was small, barely a tip of his lips, but I could see it in his eyes. He was proud of me. He was pleased.

No one had failed that day. It was a good day.

Even the Survival Gauntlet hadn’t given me this much stress. The full size bed I’m perched on is covered in a thin paperlike sheet. It had crinkled loudly when I sat down. To my left there is a one way mirror. I can see my reflection out of the corner of my eye but I do not turn to stare at it. I already know who’s behind the glass.

The door to my right opens and a man steps in. He’s close to my age, maybe a few years older. Not that I know exactly how old I am. I’ve guessed my age to be between eighteen and twenty. We don’t have birthdays here. We don’t even know the dates. Forty-Two says she thinks hers is February 9th but she’s not sure of the year. I couldn’t even guess at my own. I came here too young. I don’t even remember my own name. I’m just Forty-Seven now.

The man in front of me is tall and lithe with corded muscles that I can clearly see beneath his compression shirt. He looks me in the eye briefly before nodding. I take in a deep breath and stand.

This test should be easy. The easiest. But somehow I know that it won’t be. Somehow, I know this test will take something fundamental from me. Something I’m not fully aware of now but I will be when it’s over. It doesn’t matter though because failure is not an option.

The man comes to stand before me, reaching a large hand up to my face. For a moment I freeze, startled but then relax my shoulders and tilt my face up. He will want to kiss. It’s expected.

I make sure my mouth is soft and malleable. When his lips press against mine, I sigh softly and allow him to control the pace. He takes it slow, slipping his tongue into my mouth softly, gently. My hands stroke up his chest slowly, pressing with just the right amount of pressure.

He groans and pulls back, looking down at me. He’s very convincing, with flushed cheeks and dilated eyes but there’s a false quality to his expression. It’s in the tension around his eyes, the way his shoulders are bunched.

I can’t worry about that though. We’re both being tested right now and I can only care about my performance.

My body tucks closer to his, my hands coming up to stroke his neck. He makes a humming noise before kissing me again. Soon he’s pushing me back toward the bed, our hands fumbling to remove clothing. After that it’s a blur of sensation. I try to sink into it but it’s impossible so I focus on the exterior expectation of what this should look like. He’s hard and I’m not exactly wet but I’m not dry either.

It takes a few rocking motions but then he’s pushing into me.

I’m not sure what I expected it to feel like. I can’t really feel the moment he breaks my hymen, although I thought I would. It’s a burning kind of pain but not terrible. The discomfort makes me dry up though. He doesn’t falter because of my lack of lubrication. He continues to pump into me, in steady strokes. I arch my back, moaning and grip his hips with my thighs.

A thick emotion simmers inside me, but I have no name for it.

His face is tucked over my head, the sound of our bodies slapping echoes in the cold room.

He reaches a hand between us and strokes me close to where we’re joined and I gasp. It feels good but I’m going to have to fake the next part. I can’t orgasm from this no matter how good he is. It’s the combination of knowing I’m being watched from behind the mirror and knowing that something is wrong, wrong, wrong, with what we’re doing.

I moan, not too loudly but enough that my pleasure should be evident. Straining my hip and thigh muscles, I carefully shake my legs and gasp before going slightly limp. He takes the hint and pounds even harder, once, twice, three times and a hot wetness is gushing from me.

His hips slow until he’s done. When he pulls out of me, I watch as his glistening member shines in the tungsten light, a healthy smear of blood coating the softening flesh.

Deft hands lift the provided towel on the table and he wipes himself before handing it to me. I scoot to the bottom of the bed, my feet touching the cold cement floor before I wedge the towel between my legs and flex my inner muscles, trying to depress as much of the slick fluid. The material comes away bloody.

With a soft inhalation I redress.

The door on the left side of the room opens and he steps through first. When I clear the threshold, I glance at the people in the room. Audrey stands beside the window, the small black notebook she always carries is in her left hand, a hunter green pen clutched in the other. Hugo stands beside her, his broad shoulders stiff, his eyes boring into those of the man beside me. I look away from their interaction as I do not understand it. Hugo seems almost angry. Was my performance that bad?

Audrey hums and taps the back of her pen against the notebook.

“It was sufficient. You both passed. Dismissed.”

I blink and turn to exit through the door in the back of the room as a technician moves into the room we’ve just vacated. Probably to remove the soiled paper sheet and replace it for the next initiate. I expect to feel relief now, but I don’t. I don’t know what I’m feeling.

The man splits from me at the end of the hall walking toward the guest quarters of The Center.

As a male initiate he doesn’t belong here. He’ll go back to his own training facility in the morning, now that his Pleasure Test is complete.

I pass the mess hall and training rooms, needing the familiar space of my bunk. Every step I take is measured, steady, intentional. My face is schooled into a neutral mask but on the inside something is festering. When I reach the dormroom doors I realize with a jolt what that feeling is. What I’d been feeling since he spread my legs and settled over me.

Shame.

Blinking rapidly, I move to my bunk and lay down on it, curling my shoulders and rolling so that I face the cinderblock wall. It’s dark in here, the mood somber since we’d all been tested today. There is only one initiate after me– Forty-Nine. She should be in there right now.

My fingers slip under the lip of my mattress, brushing the soft fur of my only possession. I don’t dare take it out but it’s enough to feel it there, to imagine what it looks like. Later tonight when the lights go out completely and I know no one will be looking, I’ll pull it out and rub it against my face. For now, just a brush of my fingers over it is enough to help center me.

After a few moments my mattress dips and I tense until I feel the person behind me.

“You okay?”

The question is whispered so softly, I can barely hear it, even though she’s right behind me, her chest pressed against my back. Her arm comes around my stomach, her breath floating over the back of my neck. Forty-Two.

The lie is on the tip of my tongue. To say ‘yes’, I’m fine. Because, out loud, that is the only correct answer. But just as I part my lips to whisper it, my head shakes in a jerky motion and she squeezes me tighter.

“Me neither.”

We lay like that for over an hour, my mind replaying the entire thing over and over, until I’ve convinced myself that it wasn’t anything at all. It was a test. We all did it. It’s over now. And once I’m in the field as a full operative it will be expected for me to use sex as a tool to gain information and allay suspicion from targets. This is something I will be expected to do again and again with other strangers.

My body is a tool. The strongest and most reliable tool I’ll ever have. I must keep it healthy, sharp, and ready for anything. My body is a tool. Just a tool. I have no attachment to it because one day I will leave it, like every Silver Star is prepared to do.

I am a tool. And tools do not have feelings.

“One day we’ll get out of here. One day, we’ll never have to do this shit again. We’re almost there.”

If anyone heard Forty-Two say those words, it would earn her ‘termination.’ It would earn me a week of conditioning. But I’m not upset with her saying it. After all, she’s brave enough to say these things knowing the consequences. She’s strong enough to try and picture a future that’s different from the one that we’re destined for.

When she slips out of my bed and back to her own, I miss her warmth immediately. It’s a weakness that I can’t admit. Sometimes, I am angry at Forty-Two for that. Angry, that she’s given me a soft spot that others can target, should they find out about it. Angry, that she’s shown me how nice a gentle touch can be.

Noise trickles in from the hallway and Forty-Nine walks into the bunkhouse, a blank look on her beautiful face, her ash blonde hair pulled back in a severe braid. Her tone is paler than normal, her vivid blue eyes vacant. Forty and Forty-Six follow her after a moment. Forty-Four and Forty-Five huddle together in the corner on the opposite side of the room, speaking in hushed tones. The only one we’re missing is Forty-Three.

The girls don’t speak. They go to their respective bunks and settle down. It's free time, of sorts, until we go to dinner but it has always seemed pointless to me. We’re not allowed to speak to each other unless it’s mission related. We cannot gossip, or hug, play games, or develop friendships.

I used to hate those rules but then Forty-One and Forty-Eight didn’t make it back from the Survival Gauntlet and I realized it had been a blessing. Their absence as bunkmates was jarring enough, how would I have felt if I’d developed an attachment to them?

My eyes slide over to Forty-Two before bouncing away to the far wall where I force my gaze to go unsteady.

Forty-Two and her chocolate brown hair, warm brown eyes, and golden skin. Forty-Two with her wide oval face, still heavy with baby fat and those generous lips I’m convinced are always about to smile. Forty-Two who has too much fire in her eyes, too much passion in her voice, and not enough steel in her spine.

I reach up and pull the tie from my black hair, running my fingers through the thick strands before I redo my braid in a tight plait and then settle my hands back on my lap.

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Hugo stalks into the room. He stops in the center, hands on his hips and looks around at us. In rapid fire French he orders us to line up.

We do, in descending order. He switches to German and I stiffen. He’s never happy when he speaks German.

“You have all passed your Pleasure Test. Performance was sufficient. Forty-Two and Forty-Nine will undergo extra instruction; however your presentation today was enough to move you into the next phase of training.”

I understand what he is not saying. We were good enough but we were not the best.

Right now, as Fourth Gen Silver Star initiates, we are compared to Third Gen and Fifth Gen. Sixth Gen was brought in a year ago, but those girls are young and have just gone on their Survival Gauntlet. We won’t be compared to them. But Third and Fifth are our competition, not our compatriots.

I wonder how well we did compared to Third Gen. I wonder if Fifth Gen will surpass us when their time comes to undergo the Pleasure Test.

When I glance over at Hugo, I see him staring at me. His strong face is lined with tension as his gaze bores holes in me. Does he know that Forty-Two was in my bed before this? Does he know of the weakness in my heart?

He did not offer me a smile to express his pride in passing the Pleasure Test. Not like he did when I returned from my Survival Gauntlet. Because I was the first initiate back. Because I had the best time of the previous two generations.

Does this mean my performance during the Pleasure Test was subpar? Had I failed in some critical way?

Hugo looks away then, toward Forty-Nine who stands stiff beside me. She is taller and built slimmer than I am, her willowy frame a more pleasing sight than my own. I am aware of my own shortcomings but I am also aware of my strengths. Out of my generation I am the strongest and the most determined to survive.

Switching back to French, Hugo snaps out orders for us to clean our bunkhouse again. He is unhappy with the state of the floors and our bedding. We wait to be dismissed before moving. It would be a mistake to move out of formation before that.

Once dismissed, I follow the other initiates to the utility closet but before I can grab the mop Hugo is calling me.

I turn and follow him into his private quarters. The small room attached to our bunkhouse is austere, just like everything else about the Silver Star compound.

“Shut the door.”

Hugo’s barked command doesn’t phase me. I am used to his gruff demeanor. It does not mean he is displeased, it is just his way. I turn and close the door softly before standing back at attention.

He studies me, hands braced on his hips, a frown on his face.

“Did he hurt you?”

I resist the urge to scoff. He acts like violence was done during the test. I’d survived a month in the wilderness with only my knife. Does he think I am soft?

“No. I am in optimal physical condition.”

The muscles of his jaw flex and he reaches out to me for just a moment before his hand drops back to his side. When I was younger, Hugo was the person I looked up to. He was my anchor in this place. I remember being confused and disoriented when I arrived. How I had cried at night missing the faces of two parent’s I could now not remember.

“Mon petit colibri,” he murmurs.

I flush with pleasure. It has been years since he has used the endearment but hearing it now fills me with such satisfaction. This is better than any smile. This must mean my performance tonight was good. It must mean I have made him proud.

He makes a choked sound and before I realize what’s happening his hands are touching my face, stroking my cheeks. He’s invading my space and it takes all of my training to keep from flinching back.

“Such a lovely blush you have, mon amour. So precious,” he whispers, the thickness of his French accent caresses the vowels of his words.

Hugo is so close now and my heart is hammering in my chest because he has never done anything like this. Physical touch was acceptable when I was a child but over the years has since been tapered off. I cannot remember the last time someone touched me other than Forty-Two and in those times the comfort is often brief and tinged with anxiety.

In a flash his mouth is grazing my own, his chapped lips pressing roughly against mine, his tongue forcing its way past my teeth and I make a mewling sound I’ve never made before.

Big hands stroke my neck, my arms, my ribs and then slide with surety over my ass. His large body curves around mine, his shoulder’s hunching as he crouches down to my level.

Hugo groans against my mouth, the feel of his erection presses into my belly startling me.

“Mon petit colibri,” he whispers.

My little hummingbird.

He crowds me, forcing me to take stilted steps back until I’ve bumped against the metal desk in the corner of his room. I watch as he crouches just low enough that his hands can slip beneath the hem of my dress and slide it up over my hips. Hugo’s movements are slow, his breathing ragged and harsh. He grips my thighs and lifts me up, depositing me on the cold desk. My arms hang limply at my sides, unsure of what I should do.

“Touche moi, Colibri.”

Touch me, Hummingbird.

I thread my fingers through his soft caramel colored hair. Hugo groans, his lips parting against my neck, his tongue pressing long swipes against the skin there. A molten feeling coils in my belly.

When his exploring hands reach my damp panties, he stiffens and makes a deep noise in his throat. Before I realize what’s happened he’s grabbed the gusset and yanked until the fabric pulls down over my thighs and then to the floor where he kicks them away.

“Ça aurait dû être moi,” he hisses.

It should have been me.

I’m confused but I am not allowed any time to understand because he’s touching me now, between my legs. Thick fingers stroke my clit in firm circles and that molten feeling blooms, suffusing my limbs with liquid heat. My head tips forward to rest against Hugo’s shoulder and he groans low, his fingers sinking inside me even as he keeps rubbing that

tender place that makes me feel so good and wrong and needy with his thumb.

“C'est ça. Donne-le-moi, colibri. Il ne vous a pas donné ça. C'est à moi de vous le donner,” he grunts.

That's it. Give it to me, hummingbird. He didn't give you this. It's up to me to give it to you.

His fingers curl and flex inside me and the grip I have in his hair tightens.

“Tu es proche. Je peux le sentir. Lâche-toi, ma douce fille. Ma bonne fille. Mon colibri parfait.”

You are close. I can feel it. Let go, my sweet girl. My good girl. My perfect hummingbird.

Hugo’s words trigger something inside me. A defect or a flaw that I cannot describe. They make me…desire. They make me hot and warm and reckless.

“Such a sweet, sweet little pussy, my hummingbird has.”

Those whispered words are enough to bring me to a height I have not felt before. The jarring switch from French to English enough to bring me further into the reality of the moment.

“Dis-moi colibri, dis-moi ce dont tu as besoin,” he begs.

Tell me hummingbird, tell me what you need.

Hugo’s voice is a desperate whisper.

“I– I don’t know.”

Because I don’t know what I need. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I am not prepared for this test or these feelings. While we’d been instructed that this can feel good for a woman, I had no high hopes that it would be that way for me. Even Madam Benu said some women never enjoy sexual relations and that it was pointless to think on it because sex was a tool to be used when necessary, not an activity for us to enjoy.

I have been taught how to pleasure both men and women. I have performed orally on both, but now that I am here and with Hugo, I feel so utterly unprepared. This is no faceless target. There is no way to separate myself from this.

Hugo curses low under his breath and I realize again that he is hard. His cock strains against his cargo pants, the buttons stretching the seam. He reaches a hand down between us and strokes himself over the material. I do know what I can do about this though. I can take it inside my pussy or my mouth and pleasure him. That is what this test is about, yes?

I reach for him but he grabs my wrist in a punishing grip, green eyes glittering as they study my face.

Hugo is much older than I am, in his mid to late forties I would say but he’s still a handsome man. I’ve known him since I was a small child though and this whole experience is confusing for me. While I do not consider him my father, he is something close. Not a friend but a caretaker.

“Est-ce que c'est ce que tu veux?” he asks.

Is this what you want?

I think he sounds both disappointed and excited at the same time.

I’m not sure I understand the question but I nod anyway because pleasuring him is what I have been trained to do. That is what this test is about, right?

The pained sound that whines from him is a rumble and he slips his hand away from my slick pussy and undoes the buttons on his cargo pants. I watch as he shoves the material down, his hard cock dropping down between us.

“Le lit. Tu me monteras,” he grunts, a dark thread in his tone.

The bed. You will ride me.

He lifts me from the desk, his fingertips pressing into my backside and swings us around toward the twin mattress on the other side of the room. He sits with me on his lap, the hot heat of his erection pressed flat against my pussy.

Hugo lays back, hands gripping my hips and I lean forward, bracing a hand to his chest before seeking his hard flesh with my other. Once I have him in my grip he hisses, his face contorting with more emotion than I have ever seen.

I sink down onto him, the burn from earlier is still there but it’s muted now, only a dull ache. He stretches me in a way the other man did not. It’s uncomfortable. Strange. It feels vulgar and shameful. Hugo is stretched across the bed, his feet still on the ground, knees bent, his head and shoulders propped up against the wall.

He reaches forward and strokes my breasts over my dress and then his thumb is back over my clit, rubbing circles. I feel my pussy clench of its own volition and Hugo grunts softly before he takes my hip in his other hand and begins rocking me back and forth.

Soon, I’ve learned the rhythm and I’m bouncing over him, my breaths coming in gasps, sweat trickling down my neck. Beneath me, Hugo is flushed, his eyes glassy, lips parted and he murmurs words of encouragement. Filthy words in broken French and Russian about my pussy, how tight and wet I am, and how he’s going to replace the other man’s cum with his own. How it should have been him to take the gift I had. How he was unworthy and how Hugo wants to kill him. How Hugo still wants him dead for daring to touch his hummingbird.

“That’s it. Milk my cock, mon Colibiri. Fuck.”

His finger moves faster over my clit and the intense feeling inside me builds and builds and builds. I gasp because it’s startling and frightening and I can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t go over. Hugo watches my face carefully through heavy lidded eyes.

“Tu as trompé la harpie mais je sais que tu n'as pas atteint ton apogée mon colibri. vous le ferez maintenant. Pour moi tu fleuriras.”

You fooled the Harpy but I know you did not reach your peak my hummingbird. You will do so now. For me you will bloom.

And then he does something sharp to my clit that I can’t see but I feel in my teeth and toes and suddenly I’m falling. My pussy clenches over and over in searing waves of pleasure and he grunts loudly, lewdly, before gripping my hips and ramming himself up until he’s lifting me.

I can feel the hot spurts of his orgasm. He bites his lip, staring at me until he’s done and then he leans forward, sliding his arms around me, holding me to his heaving chest.

“Mon Colibri.”

Hugo flips us so that my back is on his bed before slipping his softening cock from me. When I go to close my legs his hands press against my thighs keeping me open.

“Non, laisse-moi voir.”

No, let me see.

His thumbs stroke the soft flesh of my inner thighs, his green eyes trained on my pussy and when I’m about to ask what he wants to see, I feel the thick glide of his cum slipping from my opening.

Hugo makes a strangled noise, his eyes heating with pleasure as his cum slips out of me. I can feel it sliding down my bottom. We stay that way for a long time, his hands stroking my thighs, his eyes studying me, flickering from my face to my pussy.

“Va te laver.”

Go, wash yourself.

And then I am dismissed. I grab my panties from the floor and tuck them into the pocket of my dress and slip from his room that now smells of our joining. As I close the door, I risk one look at him and see that he’s still sitting on the edge of the bed, facing the wall as if I were still laying in front of him, his hand pressed on the mattress, his head bowed.

He told me to wash myself so I move to the showers and strip before standing under the hot spray. I can feel more of that thick liquid running down between my legs. Once I’m soaped and clean, I get a new dress from my footlocker and put it on, towel drying my hair and then braiding it back.

Forty-Two is watching me from her bunk, a frown on her face. The other initiates are milling about the room, some doing exercises, some laying in their beds.

We will go to the mess hall in an hour for dinner but until then we have personal time to relax. So I lay back on my bunk and do not think about my Pleasure Test or what Hugo did to me in his room.

I blank my mind out and close my eyes. I’ll just rest before dinner and tomorrow when I’ve woken up things will be the way they were before.