Senescence | Chapter 5: Through the Skin

My eyes opened. I was in a dimly-lit room; a hab, likely. I could feel my limbs tethered to each corner of a bed. A glass wall stood to the right of the bed I was on. Outside, a massive expanse. An Affini ship. Space whizzed past its outer dome in a blur. I saw Aph sitting on a chair from the corner of my eye, watching me. Surveilling me. Keeping me pinned down with its eyes.

It had taken me onto the ship, I surmised. Knocked me out. Forced me to leave when I didn't want to. Was it ever really my friend? Had it been planning this all along? It probably just wanted to use me. Of course. This was my fault. I trusted it just like I trusted them. It's always my fault. Pathetic.

Where was I? My head spun, pulsing and throbbing against my skull. I felt myself suspended in thick air that electrified my entire being and seeped into my head. Trying to recollect what had happened felt like trudging through a dense marsh that filled my mind with static. An admonishing wave of dizziness shook the air and sent me lurching. I begged my body to get up and look around, but my limbs lay still and ignored my desperate tugs.

I could vaguely feel that my body was resting on... something. Something soft. I could barely make my surroundings out to be a dark room, which somehow fit within my peripheral vision in its entirety. I couldn't move my eyes, yet the spot my eyes were looking at refused to come into focus. The more I tried to get my bearings, the blurrier my vision got. Blurrier and blurrier, until I felt the suffocating fog around me rise above my head.

"Shiki."

I sat up. The vines tying my wrists and ankles to the bed had enough slack now to allow me some degree of movement. I could escape. I could try. Aph had risen from its seat and stood looming over my bound body. I was helpless. I was ripe for the taking. I was vulnerable. Maybe I wanted this. That's the only reason I allowed this to happen after all. I needed this to happen. Maybe I just needed to lie here and take it. It would all end soon enough.

"Are you ready to talk?" It sounded hurt. By me, probably.

"Go fuck yourself."

Its face contorted and cast a smile on my face. Fucker. I tried to kick it, but the vines grew taut again. I snapped back sprawled onto the bed, freedom revoked. I didn't bother struggling, didn't bother tugging at my restraints. I wasn't going to entertain it with the sight of me writhing defencelessly. It was probably hoping I would.

"Shiki..."

I could hear a pair of voices speaking to me through the viscous air clouding my ears. The words were barely comprehensible, though I could tell one of them was mine. The other felt familiar; vivid, brilliantly-lit scenes flashed in front of me like a diorama. Aph? What was- Oh. The scene from earlier this morning played out before me, recounted to me as though someone was walking me through it blow by blow.

A surge of pain pushed the haze back for a moment. The feeling it left in my head was recognisable. I was just lucid enough to remember the last time I had felt it just as strong. It was the first time they had forced themselves onto me. I resisted at first, but after a while, I began to zone out and stopped processing what was happening to me. Since then, each moment I shared with them was more of the same. Each memory buried somewhere deep inside me and occasionally resurfacing from time to time through thoughts I don't remember thinking.

Recollections of the sensation I had felt then began to trickle into me. I remembered feeling myself lose control of my body and slip into a cocoon of darkness. I remembered the way the unspeakable events that followed were projected onto a silken screen at the front of my mind. I remembered turning my gaze when I watched them mount me. Just like it was going to do to me now.

A sharp sting rang out through my neck. I couldn't see anything. A heavy mess of vines pressed my body into the bed and covered my eyes and lips. Sharp vines withdrew themselves from my neck. Ow. I tried to sit up again, but the vines wrapped around my head and held it down firmly. I felt the bitter haze around begin to dissipate further, a torrid buzz taking its place.

I wrenched my body in an effort to get Aph off of me. I felt the buzz work its way through my body, perfusing my muscles, nerves, and fascia with a soft tingle. Why couldn't I move again? The stale air that clouded my brain soon turned into the sensuous smell of periwinkle, calming my thoughts and staying my mind from all its darkest corners.

"Shiki. Nod if you're okay."

I tried to grunt a response through the vines covering my mouth, but found my lingual faculties much too uncoordinated. Resigned, I nodded obediently to the best of my dwindling ability. The tingle across my body soon burgeoned into a libidinous burn. Every inch of skin in contact with each of its vines shot lecherous amounts of oxytocin and pure bliss into me.

"Sorry, Shiki. I needed to calm you down. I... don't want you to suffer more than you have to."

Aph released its vines from my eyes and mouth, sliding off of my body but leaving its vines around my arms and legs. Prurient breaths left my mouth through gasps and moans that masked my desperate pleas for Aph to stay on the bed with me. More. I needed more. An unchaste haze of thoughts and desires rattled violently inside my head, bringing about a hedonic tranquility I had never felt before.

"Appie... stay...hnn"

My desperate noises and whining coalesced into a pathetic plea. A single vine snuck under my shirt and wrapped itself tight around my waist. For each little hair on my torso it caressed, a gossamer thread of inhibition wound against my brain snapped with a cathartic burst of exhilarating relief. Every turn and every movement it made against my skin erupted in a billion different kinds of pleasure even my dreams couldn't dream about.

As its tendril snaked around my waist, the vines around my wrists and ankles slowly began to coil further up my limbs. Its vines looped around me once. I tugged against my restraints tighter, muscles twitching and quivering with torturous pleasure. Twice. My back arched without thinking, my hands gripping Aph's vines and wrenching it further. Thrice.

Everything shook. Everything transfigured into perfect, pure, pulsating bliss. Unholy sounds left my lips, with even the texture of my tongue on the roof of my mouth filling my head with white-hot titillations. My muscles spasmed unceasingly, convulsing my body with only my bondage keeping me on the bed. Everything was painted in a brilliant, euphoric hue.

"...You know I hate that name..."

"Appie..."

"Silly girl."