Starshine
It had been tough. No use denying it to himself. In a universe where women held all the power, for a guy to get onto a passenger starship without a ticket had been harder than he had imagined. He had felt their imperious gazes on him every time he passed one of the female security guards. But he had done it! Though if he had known how tough it was going to get, he might have stayed at home on Alteres 4. No use dreaming about that. The femme-cops there had his number. He had a sheet as long as the Chief of Police’s bullwhip.
‘May she rot in hell’ he thought, as the old whipmarks pulled taut across his shoulders.
It had seemed easy. Go down to one of the starship’s recreation areas, get one of these bimbos drunk and hide out in her cabin until Earth-dock. And it had worked like a dream. The cutey in the satin minidress met his eyes as soon as he strolled into the bar. They drank drink for drink. Though, funnily enough, it was him who began to feel woozy after that very first drink. Probably out of practice. Eventually, she helped him along to his cabin. He could not remember the walk down the passageways – that was funny too, now he thought about it.
But it was when they got there. If only he could forget all that too. The cuffs, the cane, the whip, the nipple clamps, the dildos ….
‘Stop thinking about that crap’ he told himself, ‘You made it!’
After the beating and the fucking, when she had fallen asleep, he cautiously opened his eyes from pretend slumber, and scanned the cabin. That was when he had seen it. The ship’s low-level night-time lighting just made it sparkle even more. He had stolen a lot of women’s jewellery. He knew the market. But he had never seen a piece quite like this one. Shaped like a star, it was, and encrusted in what looked like diamonds. He eased himself into a sitting position on the bed, then immediately thought better of it as the previous night’s dildos made their effect known. He stifled a groan, got up, tiptoed across the room, and grabbed the sparkler. Picking up his clothes, he eased out of the door and slunk off to find a dark corner, like a rat in a sewer.
Eventually the trip was over. Earth was in sight, and the ship was ablaze with activity. He smuggled himself into a disembarkation line and tried to look innocent. The wait seemed to take forever but, eventually, he was face to face with one of the female security staff. She eyed him stonily.
‘Anything to declare’, she asked?
‘Only my winning personality’, he smiled back at her.
Her gaze hardened.
‘OK smart Alec, into the scanner’, she said.
Shit. He had to admit, he had not thought of being scanned. But the chick in the black uniform hadn’t looked too impressed with his opening gag.
‘Typical femme cop’, he thought to himself, ‘they have no sense of humour’.
He met her gaze again, felt the old familiar chills in the pit of his stomach, and meekly stepped into the scanning suite.
Then all hell broke loose. Sirens whined, women ran everywhere, mostly towards him. He flinched, but where could he go? There was one door in and out. The female security guards burst into the scanning suite and whipped him to the ground.
The stony-faced bitch sauntered in and looked down at him.
‘You are hereby arrested for theft’, she said, holding the sparkler out for him to see.
‘No. no’, he said, ‘that is a family heirloom!’
She smiled cruelly at him.
‘Don’t you know that no man can ever possess one of these?’ she said, as she dragged him onto the passenger concourse.
He gawped.
‘Honest to God, I won that in a card game from a guy who is a real close friend!’
The stony faced bitch laughed again.
‘You’re a liar, and this is stolen’.
He felt the room swim around him.
‘But how can you possibly know’, he whimpered.
A familiar voice grated behind him.
‘Because, you stupid fuckwit, that is my Marshal’s Badge! I am a Marshall in the Women’s Interstellar Force for the Suppression of Men. No man is ever going to wear one of these.’
He spun around to see Her standing before him. She snatched the badge from his hands and pinned it to the jacket of the uniform she now wore. He eyed her in a daze, from the sharp, spike-heel boots, up her stocking-clad legs, beyond her miniskirt to the uniform jacket where the badge now glistened brightly, then, finally, his eyes met her gaze.
‘Cuff him’, she said to the women security officers who now encircled him, grinning like wolves.
‘Take him to the cells. When I am finished, he is all yours.’
As he was dragged off, he could hear the whoops of delight behind him, and the female guard on either side of him whispering awful things into his ears. Then he was thrown into the cell, the automatic door closed, and all he could hear was the frantic beat of his own heart.
