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  After he left she retired to the bathroom and emptied her stomach into the lavatory before washing his seminal juices out of her hair. One down. Not an auspicious debut as far as she was concerned. Considering the circumstances it couldn’t have gone well, regardless.

  ***

  The dances were the sensory foreplay for the clients. Before they forked over the

  uni-creds they wanted to do window shopping first. Maximillia had never pole-danced before so she decided that a grueling campaign of practice was required to achieve her ends. An hour a day at first, then several a day. Her coordination skills were definitely lacking. She'd never been one to ever need to rely on being provocatively graceful. The goal of the majority of her youth was spent attempting to blend inconspicuously into the crowd, opting for anonymity over attention.

  Self-confident theatricality wasn't a natural attribute of hers so the pole was a daunting adversary. It showed no mercy in its unyielding rigidity; the stubborn beast offered only mute support. After the first week her fingers ached; decades of arthritic stress were compounded into mere days. Her back and legs were all wracked with crippling soreness yet even then she was required to perform. Her clients, though, favored her playing the role of the weak, limp

  play-thing. Little did they know that it wasn't a well-played act.

  The ends justified the means and the fruits of Maximillia's labor began to reveal themselves with a slow flowering. The intent of her strategy was simple: The harder she worked and the better she got, the more she’d earn and the closer to the end of her sentence at Xartha’s she’d be. It took a few weeks but she started to improve by leaps and bounds. She would stay after Xartha’s closed and practiced her dancing to an empty house. After a few months of trial and error she practically mastered the dance routines that she designed herself. Now motivated, her floor skills on the pole began to draw attention.

  Vaika didn’t allow any of the male Bruisers into the establishment and Maximillia didn’t dare perform any private lap dances for Mardo when she did go back to the compound so only the other girls knew how good a dancer she was becoming. She’d found out that Mardo had plucked a few new girls and was taking turns spearing them during her extended periods away. She was thankful, actually, because she didn’t have to get her Gatekeeper fix from him. The days of feeling pressured into sex were becoming fewer and farther between. She was still inextricably habituated to the drink, unfortunately, but since she began to work at Xartha’s she started getting her fixes from some of the older girls. She didn’t feel as obligated to Mardo and even began to attempt to wean herself from the liquid drug. It wasn’t easy. Gatekeeper was effectively parasitic. When she was really low and a client would present her a shot of the drink, she’d regretfully accept. She struggled constantly with it.

  Maximillia's father was a good man and every client she entertained was practically a spit in his face. She cried every night. She even considered running away from the compound and back home, but then realized that as far as the Tsen-Tzes thought, she was a Bruiser and if she ran out on Mardo’s debt then they’d come for her as hard as they’d come for him. If they came for her eventually her father would be put in harm’s way. She couldn’t allow that. Even if she ran out on Mardo and the Tsen-Tzes and wanted to whisk her dad away they couldn’t afford to go far and the Tsen-Tzes' reach extended far beyond Mandra Bay. They had fingers in rackets all over the planet as well as off-world. She felt trapped and rightly so. She was.

  There were nights when she had retired back to the Bruiser compound after a night’s work at Xartha’s and found a full-fledged bonfire party in effect. The booze was flowing, the music blared and much skin was proudly bared. To drown her fears, Maximillia would intentionally imbibe. Certain spirits accelerated and augmented the Gatekeeper’s effects and when taken in tandem, the results were significant. Maximillia partook on several occasions herself.

  In a particularly hazy, drunken storm of lecherous hedonism during one of those bonfire parties, she awoke from a hammered blackout to find a naked, sweaty Mardo towering over her. Completely indisposed herself, Maximillia found her ankles bobbed up near her ears and her thighs pressed against her chest as his cock stabbed into her. He was dosed up on a one-two punch of Gatekeeper and tanned rum. Unfortunately for Maximillia this was a well-known hyper-aphrodisiac which produced a combination of hallucinatory inebriation and a violently undaunted erection. He fucked her with a voracious purpose for forty-five minutes before expelling his seminal cargo into her silky sheath and collapsing into unconsciousness. Unable to have voiced her dissent through the fog-brained confusion of it all, she followed him into unconsciousness.

  Maximillia’s skills around the dancing poles at Xartha’s earned her a growing reputation amongst the lusty riffraff that frequented the joint. Her asking price for lap dances and private meetings spiked, drawing the ire of many of the other girls. A waiting list grew for those wanting to enlist her unique services. She settled into the role of unlikely cocktease. She had studied the clientele as well as the other girls. She watched them dance, noting what the men responded to and what failed to attract and implemented what she learned into her own routines.

  As her routines grew more effective, her confidence grew. She allowed a more sensual persona to bubble through to the surface and learned to enjoy the sensation of empowerment that her burgeoning sexuality engendered. She surprised herself every night that, during a routine, she’d spin around one of the dance floor poles in a flirtatious twirl, swinging her hips out and then find, upon looking over her shoulder, that most of the males in the audience had their tongues draped against their chins.

  Maximillia still saw herself as the daughter of a grease monkey who loved gadgets and never had a doll growing up. In her youth she was practically allergic to dresses and her proper femininity had left much to be desired. The idea that she could possess any genuine sexuality was a foreign concept to her. It was a strange dichotomy because she actually thoroughly enjoyed the dancing and feeling attractive, but she entertained her private clients with carefully hidden disdain and contempt. She was never even mildly attracted to any of the customers, but they paid well. She flirted with the idea of abandoning the Bruisers as soon as Mardo's debt to the Tsen-Tzes was paid and going back home. It was a feeble fantasy, but one she wasn’t willing to let go of entirely.

  Her workload started to increase as she had become an unlikely virtuoso. If Xartha’s had a marquee plastered across the facade of the joint, Maximillia’s name would be the primary feature. The waiting list for her services grew by the day as incoming businessmen and locals moved to secure their reservations.

  She’d burn through six or seven clients a day. One particularly enthusiastic kylaxian visited several times a week and dropped the most generous of tips. If you peeked into her room at a random moment you might find Maximillia on her knees working a tarian’s cock around in her mouth, pressing it against her cheek or in the face-down-ass-up position, getting drilled from behind by an anxious, clingy thoran.

  Certain clients preferred to exploit her services in unorthodox manners. One saracian in particular liked to fuck her in the parking lot alley next to the trash receptacles and near the solar cell capacitors. One of Xartha’s security mechs would stand watch to ensure Maximillia’s safety as the client bent her over a trash can and throttled her asshole until he promptly emptied his seminal sacs into her silken canal. The perverse, mute batrachian’s bulging eyes would twitch, his chest inflating and deflating as his slimy, suction cup-tipped fingers clung tightly to her hips, granting him purchase as he expelled every precious drop of his essence into her, leaving her puckered button to helplessly drool out its creamy contents.

  The seemingly endless carousel of clients reduced their faces to featureless, meaningless distractions. She offered masterfully enthusiastic performances for each of them but, inside, her face was slack and completely devoid of emotion. It was all mechanical lacking any discernible passion. The retu
rns weren’t diminishing from client to client. The returns simply weren’t there to begin with. The sexual act became less a march to orgasmic victory and more a cold, aimless trudge ending in anti-climactic disappointment.

  The customers could care less. They had their perfect little human girl to toy with, playing out their every depraved fantasy. Each one had their kinks and she began to notice the habits. One khorlathian liked to drag his noodly sex tentacles across her forehead, spilling his seed across her flawless face. For effect, she’d smile as the goo coated her skin, pursing her lips and even licking some of it up. This ensured a most generous tip.

  A thoran john she called “Thornberry” was an effete aristocrat who favored her services in the royal suite, a room furnished with high-class stylings in mind. Thornberry wouldn’t actually lay a hand on Maximillia. He’d merely sit back and watch, puffing away on a toco stick, as his hulking robotic adjunct rutted into her pink, tenderized gash with its significantly large phallus module. The robot, who she eventually dubbed “Krong", was outfitted with an immaculate nano-resin shell possessed of a smooth—and nearly seamless—set of swooping curves and sporting a faceless visage; his optics were hidden behind a semi-transparent facial screen.

  At the behest of his owner, the droid was programmed specifically to perform sexually as an organic, along with all of the earmarks of an organic’s nuanced gestures; he started out fucking slow and deep and, before long, was pumping hard and at an almost preternatural speed, uttering beastly, guttural noises that only an organic would. The mechanical phallus was even designed to ejaculate powerful jets of a sticky, milky fluid that simulated a familiar viscosity.

  Of all her johns, Maximillia resented Krong’s visits the least. She allowed herself to actually even enjoy the recreation of their limited time together. He was more a mindless dildo on legs than a perverse sack of organs, although a certain guilt would well up in her as she ruminated on the borderline zoophilic nature of their interactions, considering the ape-like quality of his mechanical physiology. Although, she always felt a tinge of sympathy for Krong, who was no more a willing participant in the twisted proceedings than she was. Willing or not, she would usually be unavailable for subsequent clients after the heated sessions with the beastly droid, her stretched and hammered pussy requiring the recovery time.

  The h’Obanza twins were tarian brothers who had connections with one of the Tsen-Tze subsidiaries. They favored kabob-ing her; one would glide his long, beige member down her throat, drawing forth a froth of slobber which would trickle from her chin as the other would needle into her rumpled asshole. They reveled in coordinating their orgasms, creaming her holes simultaneously and leaving her an leaky, gored wretch.

  Mataranza was a female saracian and regular client who was constantly trying to seduce Maximillia. Her persistent wiles weren’t sufficient to capture Maximillia’s heart, but the proper fucking she delivered—via her strap-on member—was sufficient to render the young human exhaustively thrashed.

  A particularly quirky kylaxian named Grazzle was a strange gent; he was almost hilariously loud during sex and was partial to heated, animalistic groans. In his defense, having his sizeable prong buried in her impossibly tight, drippy gash would understandably elicit those noises from any man. Maximillia would sometimes have to turn her head to mask her snickering from him. He also came more than any of her other clients, dependably leaving her bald pussy a glistening, oozing ruin. Her once passive, timid demeanor had largely melted away.

  This isn’t to say that Maximillia didn’t have her moments of weakness, when the darkness beckoned her. Vaika noticed the cut marks on Maximillia’s arms and merely bandaged them, not letting on that she knew why they were there. Her only comment was not to let the customers see them. When the mask came off, the house lights went down and she and the other girls retired back to the Bruiser compound, Maximillia would often find a quiet corner and huddle up, crying herself to sleep. Most of the time, Mardo was already passed out drunk, with one of the younger new recruits splayed out in his bed so his concern for her wasn’t as paramount. She often found herself clinging to any available toilet, emptying her stomach into it at the mere thought of her circumstances.

  At Xartha’s, painted up like a demure wisp, she’d happily take a hot, steaming load across the face or allow her diminutive holes to be deluged with alien seed. After their hasty departure, she’d purge herself, the disgust overwhelming her. After several extended stays in the bathroom, Vaika began to notice. She questioned Maximillia who blew it off as nerves. The old woman knew better. She administered a test which confirmed her latent disappointment.

  Maximillia wandered on weak legs into the Bruiser compound. Finding the strength, she stomped her way past the slack faces of the fellow miscreants, cutting a swath towards Mardo’s bed chamber. Chota stood guard by the door, but she wasn’t having it.

  “He’s busy, M,” he uttered passively.

  “Not this time, Chota," she pushed past him, shoving the door open. Mardo was laying back on the expansive couch, balls bare to the wind, a hairless petite beauty’s lips affixed to the tip of his cock. The poor girl hopped off of his meat, scurrying away as Maximillia hunted after the tubby messiah.

  “What?” Mardo muttered, confused.

  She picked up a discarded bath robe from the floor and threw it at him with beastly vigor. “I’m pregnant! I’m pregnant and it’s yours!”

  He stood up, yanking up his pants, striding at her. “Pregnant? Pregnant you stupid bitch?!”

  “Do you know what I have to do out there?!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Do you know what I have to do for you? For your problem?! Do you have any idea?”

  He was an unstoppable mass as he backhanded her, sending her toppling to the floor. The heavy blow rung her bell. She gurgled, trying to stand, her vision blurry and her brain struggling to assume control. Their exchange echoed loudly through the entire Bruiser camp. The gang members could only wander in silence, pretending they weren’t hearing what they were hearing.

  Mardo yanked her to her feet as Maximillia spun around and latched onto his face, dragging her nails across his cheek, clawing him. “I hate you! I hate you!” she bellowed.

  He swung his meaty fist up into her stomach, folding her in half and knocking the air out of her. She gasped, wincing as he smashed her head into a wall, sending her plopping into a limp heap. He reared back with his foot and kicked her in the head, sending her hair whipping up and cascading down her now bloody face.

  Chota inched his way apprehensively into the room. “Boss?” he said, trying to interject as delicately as possible. “Dom. She’s making a lot of money for him. Don’t you think maybe you should reconsider—”

  “Fuck her,” Mardo blubbered through labored breaths, looking down on the messy ball of tussled hair and loose limbs at his feet. “Fuck Dom. If this bitch is going to be making money for anyone it ought to be for me.”

  Chota winced at the sacrilegious nature of Mardo’s words. “Why don’t I take her in to see a medic?”

  “She’s been taking my loads for free and Dom gets to charge some slimy fuckin’

  pad-hoppers and pond swimmers to let them cum on her face?” Mardo protested, his chest still heaving. He delivered several more kicks to her inert, semi-conscious body, finally spitting on her. “Bitch. Oughta just take her out into the desert and bury her ass out there.”

  “Boss, we can’t do that,” Chota reminded. “Dom is expecting her to show up at the club. If we don’t get her fixed up, he’s going to come down on all of us.”

  Mardo pondered Chota’s words.

  ***

  Maximillia awoke to find her head pounding. As the world came into focus she found herself staring up at a pristine, eggshell-colored ceiling, a white sheet strung tight across her chest, keeping her bound gently to the bed beneath her. She saw the smart-glass assemblies built into the far wall and the radiant pictographic real-time data crawling along it: her vital signs, blo
od pressure, brain activity, metabolic condition. The smart-glass emitted a low, audible ping which whispered in a harmonized frequency.

  The hospital room was disturbingly serene; sterile and quiet, a heavenly scent hung in the light air. For a moment she thought herself dead.

  She felt a strange tickle on her side and reached up under her hospital gown to touch it. It was a small, cauterized incision on the right side of her hip which had already nearly healed over.

  A medroid wheeled in. “According to your stress level readings, I was led to believe you were in need of assistance.”

  She cleared her throat, still terribly weak. “I’m pregnant, and—”

  “Negative,” the medroid interrupted. “Upon your admission into emergency, your injuries left the fetus inviable and it was safely extracted.”

  Her eyes glassed over. “What? What do you mean "inviable"?”

  “The fetus’s life functions terminated in vivo and it was removed to ensure your safety.”

  Maximillia couldn’t say anything. She laid back, eyes fixed on the ceiling as tears trickled down her cheeks.

  “Your neural activity is unusually erratic, indicating possible post-traumatic stress. Would you like to talk to the on-site psychotherapist AI?”

  She shook her head, completely debilitated. “No.”

  The medroid turned to leave.

  “Wait!” she called out. The medroid spun back around. Maximillia fought through the tears and contained herself. “The sex of the fetus. What was it?”

  “It was female.”

  The words struck her dead in the chest. She couldn’t breathe. “Fe—female. My baby,” she whispered.