Chapter 26

Flotsam

Chapter 26: Into The Dragon's Den

I lean against the carved stone pillar and use my veil to wipe sweat off my face. It’s too fucking hot and too fucking humid and my enormously full belly feels like a built in water heater and never fucking mind that I’ve snuck into a gala to steal from an alien crimelord! I try and take a deep calming breath before I freak out, but only manage a shallow little gasp before my diaphragm bottoms out on my inflated womb. Fuck! This is so stupid! Why did I agree to this?! I tilt my head back and rest a hand on the hard bulge of my expanded belly and feel something inside me move. Fucking fuck!

Okay Halley, okay. Calm down before you fuck this up…

I close my eyes and count instead of breath. One two three four five six seven… I feel the magic thievery ring on my hand pulse, slow and steady, like a sleeping heartbeat. I focus on that, slow my head count to match it, try and force my heart to catch the rhythm. Eight, nine, ten. Eleven. Twelve. Okay. You’re okay. 

I open my eyes and look to see if anyone is watching me freak out. I’m off in a corner, behind a decorative pillar near one of the big tropical planters that line the atrium. The planter is filled with lush short trees, broad leaf jungle plants, expansive alien flowers, and a worrying number of free-range snakes. I watch a huge red and gold serpent lunge and swallow a hapless lizard and shiver. Not exactly a subtle metaphor, but at least it wasn’t a pregnant rat. I glance around and there’s no one here but me, my womb passengers, and the pet wildlife.

I peak around the pillar and scan the rest of the atrium. The space is big like a church, or, well, exactly like a throne room, with a high angled ceiling that lets light stream in from some kind of skylight at the apex of the Pyramid. There is a raised dais on one end of the room with a fancy vacant chair and an enormous tapestry made of shed reptile skins and feathers. Gathered on the wide obsidian ballroom floor is a crowd of sapients, a motley collection of mingling interstellar politicians and criminals. I spot Embassy in a tense discussion with a large Reptilian, an elderly female showing the faded scales of advanced age. A younger female with breeding plumage listens carefully, while two of my fellow veiled Naiadine Consulates stand attentively nearby. A human slave, a hot girl wearing only a tiny linen skirt and jewelry struts by carrying a chilled platter of raw meat morsels. She has a wide Egyptian-looking collar of jet black and jade scales above her naked breasts and an armlet locked around her arm shaped like a steel serpent with glowing LED eyes. A party of beautiful elves dressed in living botanical costumes and gossamer hold court in one corner of the room, while tiny pixie-like creatures flit between them like fireflies. Resplendent but disreputable Blue merchants mingle with Reptilian males and scaly human agents. A statuesque human woman wearing a black dress with Tron-like glowing seams looks bored while a sweaty little man in a shabby tweed suit pontificates. Reptilian House Matrons in color-coded formal robes stand with their matching entourages, studiously separated and on guard, here but not to party. Walking mechanical fishbowls lumber around carrying what look like mermaids. A few of the aquariums are sealed reinforced spheres with humanoid fish women, blue and green and scaled, with long fishy tails instead of legs. They have elaborate gills at their throats and fins and tentacles instead of hair and black sharky eyes. Other fishbowls are open at the top, glass bathtubs holding classical mermaids with voluptuous human bodies above the waist and brilliantly scaled tails from the hips down. The rival Aquarian delegation I assume. I notice two humans who look uncannily like Karl Sagan and his wife dressed in brilliant white jumpsuits. They smile in my direction and simultaneously raise their hands in greeting and I squeak and slip back behind the pillar. 

 

I do another ten count and then waddle along the planter, pretending to enjoy the tropical plants but really looking for guards. I see them everywhere: lean Reptilian males dressed in smart black leather uniforms armed with steel bucklers and ceremonial knives and prominent sidearm blasters. They are posted around the room, watchfully flanking major entrances and in corners, distributed to quickly intervene anywhere and control traffic. Or do a Red Wedding. A few elevated male Reptilians in dressier uniforms circulate through the crowd, mingling, and I spot that vicious little red-scaled male from the Arena in discussion with a Naiadine Consulate and an Aquarian mermaid. So lots of security and lots of weapons. Great!

I stop behind another pillar and think. How do I even do this? I hold up my hand and look at my magic thievery ring for answers, but it just continues to pulse slow and steady. The Memory Crystal must be here somewhere, the ring didn’t start nudging me until I was through security and inside the Pyramid. But where in the building is it? Up or down or other? I close my eyes and rub my hand across the expanse of my alien baby bump, subtly trying to scan the room with the magic ring. I focus on the sensations from the ring and feel the pulse rate stay the same, nothing to indicate a hotter direction. I reach down with my ring hand to adjust my sarong for the hundredth time, try to somehow get it to stay over my generous hips but below the bulge of my belly. The ring doesn’t speed up at all moving down either, so probably the crystal isn’t below me? I reach up and pretend to fiddle with my veil and yes! The ring is a tiny bit faster! I think? I go up on my tip toes and do a big reaching stretch and it’s subtle, but the ring is definitely quicker the higher up it goes! I guess Gan Ceann is right and the memory crystal is being kept upstairs. Upstairs in the Serpent’s private apartments. Jesus! Fuck! Damn. Okay. Now I just have to figure out how to sneak up there…

“Consulate!”

“Ah!” I nearly jump out of my swimsuit!

“Stop skulking, you look suspicious.” It’s Embassy, Halley-15, and she looks serious. “We require a private conference, follow me please. Now.”

“Yes Embassy?” I fall into step behind her, waddling in her wake. What did I do wrong? Is she about to warn me that the jig is already up? Our flip-flops slap loudly as we puff our way across the floor. Another slave girl wearing a collar of onyx and lapis lazuli scales approaches us with a tray of fermented fruit and salamander roe, but swerves off when she sees Embassy’s scowl. Embassy steers us across the atrium, past groups of politely chatting sapients, and towards a doorway, but stops short, and I almost bump into her. There is a mermaid in a robot fishbowl blocking our way. “Representative Delphi,” Embassy says warmly.

The mermaid bites her plump lip and perches on the rim of her giant tumbler, her bountiful breasts pressed against the glass. “Embassy!” Delphi says playfully, her voice musical.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Embassy replies, running a hand through her hair and actually smiling a little. 

“The work never finishes,” The mermaid songfully sighs, using a webbed hand to push her wet teal hair behind finned ears. “These Reptilian Matrons are, I must aver, swimming us both through a lightless-maze-cavern in these negotiations. I grow so weary fighting against their current.” Her long sinuous teal and pink tail twists beautifully, shimmering a little. 

“As do I,” Embassy grins, a real one too, nothing politic or predatory about it. “They really act like Sssnickssskill-5 was their homeworld, instead of a half-frozen water moon…”

Delphi rolls her eyes, “And the Reptiles can hardly even swim!”

Embassy giggles and then blushes a little, tries to compose her face, “Your masters could always pull out of the deal…”

Delphi laughs musically with a hint of echo location, “Oh, how I yearn for them to forfeit! But alas, the Hallowed-Deep-Ones know only hunger and patience.” She smiles and uncoils, lifting herself up and over the lip of the fishbowl, her heavy tits hanging magnificently. “Would that our Lords and your Patrons could learn to school! We could divide the waters of Sssnickssskill-5! The abyssal-darkness-depths for my Masters and the sunkissed-bright-shallows for yours, divided by the frigid-cold-thermocline.” She pouts and shakes her head, “We could stop swimming at crosscurrents and root ourselves to a united position, and certainly receive a more favorable deal.”

Embassy smiles ruefully, “Is this an official offer?”

Delphi leans even further out of her bowl and smiles impishly. “No, this is my unofficial hope for alliance. Professional…” She licks her lips and touches Embassy on the nose with a wet finger, “Personal…”

Embassy blushes, “Oh.”

Delphi slides back into her mechanical aquarium and rests comfortably on her tail like a stool, “Perhaps we can float together some-tide to discuss a closer relationship…”

Embassy touches her huge belly and squirms a bit, “I’d like that…”

“Then I shall be in touch,” Delphi sings as her fishbowl starts to crawl. Embassy looks after her, watching her plush but fishy ass be carried away. Embassy sighs and then glares at me, “Not a word.” 

And then she’s waddling again, “Follow.” I lumber along behind her with all the grace of a living mechanical fishbowl until we leave the main atrium and enter a small private meeting chamber. Embassy seals the door behind us and unties her sarong, exposing her swollen pussy. She steps close to me, or as close as our hugely pregnant bellies allow, and yanks my sarong off too. I feel a humid breeze on my own suddenly naked cunt. “What the fuck?”

Embassy leans in, presses her cheek to my veiled face, and quietly whispers, “We need to get my Patrons out of you before your little adventure…” 

“What?” I whisper. Embassy steps behind me, grasps my shoulders, and firmly guides me to a conference table. She pushes me over and yanks my hips so I’m bent with the weight of my bloated belly hanging below me and my feet apart. I feel Embassy’s even larger pregnant abdomen, taut and hard and warm, press against my soft ass. “Shit,” Embassy says, “Bend your knees.” Which I do, still a bit confused, and then I feel Embassy grind her crotch against me and something inside my core swells and opens with a sudden sharp pressure. “Oh!” Embassy wraps her arms around me, humps tighter to me, “Push,” she gasps, “Don’t fight it.” And the pressure starts to flow down, into my pussy, stretching me like being fucked in reverse. I moan and Embassy caresses my dangling tits, “Go with it, mmmm… Like before…” The hot wet heat pushes further and recedes, further and recedes, the tidal action of fluid looking for a crack. I suck at the labia on my face and squirm in anticipation, feel my pussy get wet and engorge. The pressure inside pushes harder, gets closer, but doesn’t quite escape. Embassy pants in my ear and her hand strokes my belly, reaches lower, gently touches my bare crotch. “Yes….” I whisper, “Please…” Embassy nips my ear and her fingers touch my slick bulging labia, slide tantalizingly forward, and brush the pulsing aching tightness of my clit. I moan and Embassy clutches me tighter, presses her hips to mine, starts to rub my cunt. “Ahhh….” I groan as I feel the hot pressure inside squirm and writhe and flow outward, stretching me open. I squat a little lower and bear down, push like giving birth, as hard as I can, and I feel the thing inside me squeeze and slide, open me wide and crown, and then force itself out of me. “Aggggnnnhhh!” Something like an orgasm ripples through me and my knees go weak. Embassy holds me up and keeps rubbing my clit. My pussymouth is wet and dribbling down my chin, filling my veil with cunt smell. I look down and see a tendril of fluid reaching out from my crotch like a tentacle, like a cock, and feel the bizarre sensation of something rooted in my pussy wave in the air. “Oh fuck!” Embassy presses herself against me with a new urgency, a hunger, and I feel her abandon me, sense her caress the Naiad and guide it to her pussy. She moans and humps at me as the fluid alien forces itself into her, connecting our cunts by an animate river. We both whimper, voices the same, and the Naiad starts to pump itself between us. Embassy moans as the Naiad flows through us, a pulsing hot mass that gushes out of my womb and sprays itself into her cunt. Embassy clutches my breasts and wails, and I see stars and orgasm and shiver in her arms. The intense flow inside me tapers off, shrinks to a tickle, leaks out of me in a final dribble, and I’m left panting and maybe a little lighter. “Th-there…” Embassy gasps, standing unsteadily on rubbery legs, “All done.”

I wheeze a lungful of air, my face burning from sex, my cunt aching and mouthpussy huge and wet and hungry. I look down and see my belly is still round and pregnant, smaller now, maybe six months instead of nine. Oh fuck, do we have to do that again? “Is there more?” I pant.

Embassy’s face is red and she's wiping sweat from her brow. Her belly is somehow even larger than before. “No,” she puffs, stroking her huge bulge, “All the Naiad who needed to change wombs made the trip.”

I stroke my own belly, still so round and hard, but definitely more manageable. “Then um, why am I still a maternity wear model?”

“It’s just retained water,” Embassy says quietly while retying her sarong. “We loaded you up with extra fluid so you’d still look right running empty.” She fixes her swimsuit and wipes her sex sticky fingers on her skirt with a frown, “Your body will absorb and clear it over the next few days.”

“Okay.” I guess.

Embassy looks at me, smiles, shakes her head and starts to waddle away, “Stay out of trouble, Consulate.”

“Right.” I take a deep breath and try to ignore the delicious throb of my pussy. A girl could get used to this Consulate gig, although that’s not why I’m here. I reach under my veil, wipe pussy drool off my face, and tie my sarong back around my waist, a job made a little easier by my more modest baby-free bump. “Okay,” I look around the privacy room and see I’m still alone. I reach out with my fist and point the magic thievery ring upwards and yep, the Memory Crystal is definitely above me. I just need to figure out how to get there…

I try to look calm and casual and waddle back into the atrium. I study the crowd and see the illicit schmoozing is still going strong. A beautiful human woman with feathers for hair and artfully grown splashes of silver scales talks quietly with a Blue Deviant wrapped in metal bands stamped with lizard hide etchings. Aggronotham the Strongest, the famed Orkonian gladiator, guzzles from two tiny champaign flutes surrounded by a pack of admiring Reptilian males. A large alien I don’t recognize in a heavy environment suit clomps glumly through the gathering like the Michellin Man wearing a welding helmet. The Dragon’s throne is still vacant and there is no sign of the Serpent. I look up above and remember there’s a public balcony on the second level. Somehow I need to get up there…

“A great many pardons, but do you have desire to try a sweet morsel?” It’s another slavegirl holding a tray of what look like hard fruit balls on a string like anal beads. This slave has pale bluish skin and indigo nipples on her large breasts and wears a wide collar with golden scale highlights. “Excuse me,” I say, trying for a receptionistic helpful timidity, “My Patrons wish to view the party from the balcony. Can you direct me to the way up?” I stroke my round belly lovingly and the slavegirl blinks her kohl stained eyes and shakes her head, making the gold beads in her hair click. “The lift is to be found yonder,” she says with a chittering accent and gracefully points towards a doorway hidden between two jungle planters. I grab one of her canapés and waddle in the direction of the doorway. “Thank you.”

I roll like a ship through the crowd, careful to avoid anyone preggo-shaped or floating in a robot fishbowl, and almost barge into a sapient. I give a little shriek and wobble, wrong-footed by my weird center of gravity, but just manage to catch myself from flopping over, and find myself looking down at the red-scaled male lieutenant of the Serpent. “I’m very sorry!” I gasp. The male Reptilian tilts his head and studies me intensely, his long forked tongue flicking in and out. “You ssshould be more careful,” The male hisses calmly, still staring at me, yellow slit eyes calculating. “Of course,” I murmur, “Excuse me.” The red darts aside with a sinuous grace, “Be ssssafe.” I quickly waddle away, glancing back to see the red male watching me, hands resting on his pair of ceremonial daggers. Fuck! I hastily stumble through the gala to the lift doorway and step into what I think is going to be an elevator. I’m breathing heavily and can feel a trickle of sweat down my back and I’m crushing the canapé anal beads in my fist. Fuck, that felt too close! I take a shuddering breath and peek out the doorway to see if I was followed, and the coast is clear, no sign of that terrifying little red fucker. Okay. I look for a control panel to activate the lift, eager to get some more distance, but see only smooth surfaces. How does thing even work? Shit. “Where is the up bu…Ah!!!” I’m suddenly lifted by an invisible force, flung steadily upward, carried off the ground and swiftly to the second level. I awkwardly fall off the immaterial platform onto the public balcony and stumble to a stop. “Jesus Christ…”

I stand up and straighten my sarong and swimsuit and then glance around to see if anyone is watching. The balcony is about ten feet wide and wraps around the entire second level of the Pyramid overlooking the atrium. Lush tropical plants hang down from planters attached to the balcony barrier and climbing flower vines cling to the surrounding walls. It makes the space feel like an intimate garden, a place for secrets. My quick scan shows that there are only a few sapients on the balcony, mostly standing in pairs or trios, heads tilted together in secretive conference. None of them seem interested in me, beyond maybe a quick glance to make sure I’m not spying on them. I waddle to an empty space and post up on the glass barrier and look down at the atrium below. The hanging plants obscure my view a bit, but I can still make out the ebb and flow of the crowd: the way Naiad consulates and Aquarian mermaids gravitate to the Reptilian House entourages, the way merchant Blues and humans peel off with the elevated male reptilians or scaled humans of the Serpent’s household, the steady circulation of Dragon guards. I take a deep breath and try to relax, force myself to look at ease, like I’m supposed to be up here taking a look. Like it’s official business. Diplomatic reconnaissance. I open my sticky hand and remember the fruit ball anal beads, now just a little mangled. Why not? I reach under my veil and using both hands, push the hard, marble sized fruit beads into my wet mouthpussy. One, two, three, four, five. I gasp and close my eyes, savouring the feeling of the hard spheres inside my oral vagina as I bear down on them with my facial kegels and suck, slowly pulling the serving string free and swallowing the canapé down my cunt. I shiver in pleasure and enjoy the bright sweet tartness of the fruit when it reaches my gizzard. Ohhhh! Fuck! Thank you, I’ll have another. I open my eyes and sigh and then drop the serving string into a planter. Okay, back on task. 

I focus on the steady heart beat of my magic thievery ring and it’s definitely faster now that I’m on the second level. Okay, good, one step closer to the objective. I suck my slick labia lips together thoughtfully, is the Memory Crystal upstairs in the Serpents quarters or somewhere on this level in one of the Lieutenant's Suites? I shouldn’t make assumptions, because I’m already strange enough without being an ass too. I reach up with my ring hand and wave, like I’m trying to get someone’s attention maybe. The ring’s tattletale pulse picks up its pace like it’s seen something exciting. Okay, still above. Dragon’s suite it is. A sleek young female Reptilian on the far balcony scowls at me, and I stop waving and try to look bashful with body language. I’d mouth an apology but I’m wearing a veil and also don’t have a mouth. The female shows me her fangs and then turns her back to me, huddling closer with her co-conspirators. Jesus, no more waving. I blush, bad idea. I rub my round belly and take a second to calm down, you’re still okay Halley. You just need to sneak into the inner sanctum of a crimelord. No big deal! Fuck! No, calm. Calm. Okay? Calm. But how the fuck do I get up to the Dragon’s quarters? I think about the Pyramid floor plan that Gan Ceann showed me, and look down over the balcony to orient myself. The front entrance is there, and the throne is over there, so the lift to the third level should be in that corner… and bingo, there’s a door just in the right spot.

I gather myself and try to casually waddle to the Dragon’s door, careful not to crowd the other balcony sapients along the way. I weave past a cyborg Reptilian whose body is mostly prosthetic and a human woman whose head seems to be replaced by a cyberpunk helmet, I beg apology to a gaggle of pompous looking Blue merchants in brightly patterned robes, and I bashfully trundle past the female Reptilian that I’d accidentally waved at, who looks up and hisses at me as I pass. I don’t notice any guards or anyone watching me, but the skin on my back prickles and my heart is beating too fast. I finally arrive near the door, an imposing gold barrier covered with hieroglyphics of snakes that remains stubbornly closed and certainly locked. I guess it’s time to try out my new walking-through-walls ability. I glance around to see if anyone is looking and raise my ring hand… and how does this even work? Do I just walk through the door? Do I have to will it? Open sesame? Abracadabra! I take a deep breath and… shit! Fuck! The door is opening! There is suddenly a tall woman in the doorway, a human woman with a domino mask of midnight scales on her face and a golden scale medallion at her throat. I whirl away and make a beeline for the railing, trying to look casual, like I was going this way all along and not suspiciously casing the doorway. Fuck fuck fuck! I grab the railing tightly and try to relax as I hear the tread of heavy boots and the rattle of snakes. Oh fuck! That’s the Lieutenant from Halley-18’s story! Krait! Fuck! I stare down into the atrium and hold my breath, pray she didn’t notice me. Fuck! This is so bad! The sound of footfalls and rattles pauses for a moment, and oh fuck me I’m going to die! But then resumes and moves smoothly away. I steal a glance and see the back of Krait, her blue scaled shoulders and arms and a thin sinuous lizard tail that hangs out of her tight leather pants. Oh thank Jesus! That was too fucking close! I almost whimper in relief.

Alright Halley, stop dicking around and just do this! I wait for Krait to take the lift down to the atrium, and then check for guards or watchers. I don’t see anyone, so I take a deep fortifying breath and walk purposefully towards the Dragon’s door. I raise my magic ring so it’s leading the way, close my eyes, and try to visualize phasing through the door like a ghost. “Please work…” Suddenly a flash of icy warmth engulfs my leading hand and arm and body. I feel like I’m outside myself, outside the universe, like I’ve become a living frequency that’s harmonizing with the matter around me, but only for the briefest clarion moment. I gasp and open my eyes and I’m standing inside the lift on the other side of the door. I clutch my body and shiver, make sure I’m still real. “Fuck.” 

But holy shit! It actually worked and I’m inside the lift! Which probably isn’t a safe place to hang around. “Up?” And I’m aloft, firmly raised by another invisible platform of force, and carried up to the third level. Expecting it this time, I step easily onto a landing. The magic ring on my hand pulses faster, excited now, like a hunting dog on a leash. I must be close. I’m in a kind of vestibule, a hallway lined with decorative vases painted with brilliant scales, that is fortunately unoccupied. The corridor only goes in one direction so I start to creep down the hallway, suddenly feeling incredibly pregnant and awkward and huge. My heart is hammering and I can taste the tang of adrenaline in the back of my vagina-throat. I waddle so carefully but one of my Naiadine flip-flops slaps the floor. I freeze! Stand still and listen. Sweat trickles down my back. I don’t hear anything, so I awkwardly slip the sandals off my feet and blush. Real secret agent right here. I start to move again, quieter, but more quickly, eager to get out of this hallway. I reach a junction where the corridor meets a second hallway and stop. I carefully peer around the corner and see the new hallway is thankfully empty too. Which way do I go? But fuck! I hear a noise up ahead! Something moving! Sapients speaking! I feel a surge of panic and dive down the new hallway, press my back to the wall, stand perfectly still! Except fuck, this is stupid! I’m a pregnant woman in a swimsuit hiding like a fucking cartoon! My round belly is bulging halfway across the corridor! What the fuck am I doing!? My heart is racing and I could puke and I can feel a classic Halley-style panic attack brewing! Not now! Ugh, fuck, keep it together! I suck in a deep breath and listen: the muffled noise doesn’t stop but doesn’t seem to be coming any closer either. Shaking, I peel myself off the wall and take a peek, and I’m still alone in the hallways. Which, hallelujah! But also it’s only a matter of time before that changes. I am way too exposed here, I need to get out of the corridors. I do a sweep with my magic ring and it pulses faster in the direction of the new hallway, so I sneak in that direction, holding the ring aloft. With every step the ring gets faster, hammering my finger with a rhythm as rapid as my terrified heart. I have to be close! This hallway is lined with sealed doors, polished gold and decorated with snaky symbols, and the ring vibrates faster, pulling me past door after door, until suddenly it physically jerks my hand to the left, aiming me straight at another sealed door, this one inlaid with wooden carvings of serpents. I check the hallway, raise my ring, and walk through the door. I experience another moment of cosmic dissolution, an infinite instant of both being and not being. Halley Uncertainty. And then immediately…

….I’m standing in a room being stared at by a dozen sapients! Fuck!

“Holy shit! Did you just walk *through* that door?!” Says a perfectly familiar voice.

“What? I want to see!” Complains another. “I hate being pointed this way…”

I freeze and hyperventilate, look around the room frantically. Oh my fucking god! There are so many people here! Except… What the fuck? Why are they all so still? So quiet? Something isn’t right…. 

“Sorry Miss, are you supposed to be here?” Asks the first voice and I look at her and it’s me, it’s another Halley. But she’s connected to a chair? Her mirror familiar face smiles at me with curiosity and her beautifully styled dark hair cascades in loose curls over her bare shoulders, her creamy too-wide shoulders that extend and flare up to become the top of a wingback armchair! An armchair covered in soft pale skin sporting the odd mole and freckle and downy hair. A living armchair made out of Halley! Fuck! “Jesus Christ…”

“Chair, who is it?” The other voice asks.

“I’m not sure…” Halley-Chair leans her head forward and squints and I continue to stare. Her round armless shoulders form the cup of a backrest which contains six wide, slightly flattened breasts with pert nipples, like cushions with decorative buttons, as if her torso had been sculpted for comfort. The seat of the chair is round and soft, constructed from Halley’s lower back and expanded ass cheeks, posed as if kneeling away from me doggy-style. Her elongated asscrack faces forward and her bare pussy is obscenely exposed on the front of the chair, as if begging to be filled. The front panel of the seat is made of her fused truncated thighs cut off at the knee. I realize that Halley’s waist must be horribly twisted, her back broken to exploit her tits and ass simultaneously. Halley’s flesh upholstery is cradled or maybe built into a heavy frame of beautiful dark wood that makes up the simple armrests and legs of the otherwise living chair. The chair that is Halley. An immobilized furniture Halley kept here in the private apartments of the Serpent like property. “This is fucking insane!!”

“Halley?” Asks the other voice. “Is it you? It’s me Zeph!” I look down at the other speaker and it’s a woman Shaped into a matching footstool. The woman-turned-stool is positioned as if she were on her hands and knees, except her biceps and thighs transition into a stout wooden frame that holds her in place. The woman’s long naked back is a footrest of silky, inky black skin conveniently placed for the tootsies of Halley-Chair’s occupant. Zeph is facing away from me, so that her shapely ass and pussy are aimed right at me and I can only see the electric blue up-do braids on the back of her head. I circle Zeph to see her face and notice she has six large tits hanging from her torso, each pierced and hung with an electric blue tassel that nearly brushes the floor. When I waddle into view Zeph grins up at me with startlingly white teeth and bright blue eyes that faintly glow. It dawns on me that I’ve heard of Zeph before, Zephryne, the vanished lover of Sister Teuthida. Zeph chews a plump black lip and frowns, “You’ve just got to be a Halley, I’d know that voice anywhere.”

“You would, wouldn’t you?” I sigh and pull the veil off my head. “Guilty as charged.”

Halley-Chair gasps and Zeph’s eyes go wide in shock. “Your face,” Halley-Chair says, “and you’re pregnant!”

“Long story,” I blush and stroke my bulging belly, “and don’t worry I’m not the mother.”

Halley-Chair blinks her eyes in confusion and Zeph looks a little disappointed, “You’re not my Halley are you?” She looks up at Halley-Chair apologetically, “My *old* Halley.”

I shake my head, “No, I’m Halley-24. I have met your Halley though…” and hated everything about the experience.

Zeph brightens, “Oh moons! Is she well?”

“She’s…” an asshole-faced member of a perverted cult dedicated to an imprisoned cosmic horror… “found her place and a new family.”

Zeph twinkles, “That’s wonderful.”

“She, um, thinks you’re dead?”

Zeph frowns and shakes her head, “Not dead, just Indentured until I settle my debt to the Syndicate.” She smiles ruefully like we’re both in on a joke, “Thought I’d end up doing my time in a Breakyard, but I found myself diverted to our Mistress’ personal collection.”

I frown at Zephryne the living stool and Halley the living chair and then take in the rest of the room. There is a woman-turned-reading-lamp standing near Halley-Chair, balanced en pointe on one artfully elongated leg, her other leg tucked up like a ballet dancer. Her pink lampshade looks like a little skirt, or maybe a dress since her upper body has been squeezed down to a head and neck that grow straight from her hips. The lamp-girl has turquoise lizard scale highlights on her cheeks and thighs and a crest of pink feathers sprouting from her head like a showgirl. She stares at me mutely with slit reptilian eyes. Past the lamp-girl is a beautiful wooden bookshelf and an ornate fireplace with another woman-turned-light-fixture placed on the mantel. This woman’s face is young and pretty, and she has short chestnut hair styled in a tight bun. She’s wearing a silvery art deco tiara that sprouts six long candelbra tines, currently unlit. Her head seems disembodied, or at least sprouting directly from the fireplace mantel itself with her body hidden away inside the wall. On either side of her placidly smiling head are two perfectly manicured hands growing out of the wall, each clutching an unlit Statue of Liberty torch. Past the candelabra-girl, the opposite wall is exquisitely wood paneled and hung with a half dozen living taxidermy-style human heads each sprouting some sort of antlers or horns, like living hunting trophies mounted to the wall. Wide eyes stare at me, but mouths remain firmly closed. “What the fuck is this place?” 

“We’re in our Mistress’ Private Study,” Halley-Chair says. “I’m Halley-20, and you know Zephryne.” She nods her head at the lamp-girl, “Lamp is a former Lieutenant of our Mistress who unwisely tried to assassinate her.” Halley points her nose at the pretty head on the fireplace mantel, “Candelabra is the daughter of a Port Official who got into some trouble with the Syndicate and so she’s here as a kind of guest…” The face on the mantel blushes and glances away.

“She means hostage,” Zeph winks. “Have to keep the Port folks compliant, right?”

“Right.”

“Want to see something cool?” Zeph asks and before I can answer, “Lights on!”

I nearly jump out of my swimsuit as the room suddenly flares brighter! I blink my eyes at the sudden light and see that Candelabra now has holographic flames dancing from her crown and torches. Her eyes are wide open and her nostrils are flared and her mouth stretches open into a huge O of pleasure. I see that Lamp is glowing now too, with bright light streaming out from under her lampshade-dress, highlighting her shapely legs. Lamp’s face is tilted back and her eyes are squeezed shut and she’s silently panting. “Why do they look so…”

“Aroused? Because they only light up if they’re turned on!”

Halley-Chair blushes, “They have remote sex toys embedded in their pussies that help get them all revved up and glowing…” 

Candelabra’s bites her lip and her head shudders as she orgasms, her lights momentarily flashing. “This whole thing seems…” sadistic and super kinky. “Kind of cruel.”

“It is,” Halley-Chair shakes her head, “but it’s kind of an old Reptilian tradition. Powerful Matrons Shape some of their human slaves into living furniture as a kind of flex. Like, they’re so wealthy and powerful that they can waste slaves as inert objects.”

“They say that every piece of furniture in the Reptilian Empress’ apartment was a human slave,” Zeph adds. 

“Our Mistress keeps us here to show off to her peers.”

“And threaten her subordinates.” Zeph says, giving a playful nod at Lamp who is silently screaming in ecstasy. 

“Okay…” Jesus Fucking Christ! I have to get out of here! But… “Halley, why are you here?”

Halley-Chair blushes a little and licks her lips, “Take a seat and I’ll tell you my story.”

I look around the room and focus on the taxidermy heads mournfully watching me. There is the head of a dainty woman with her chestnut hair elaborately braided with green and gold ribbon and deer antlers growing from her scalp. On her right is the head of a strong-chinned woman with undercut black hair and the big pointed prongs of longhorn cattle. She has a wide gauge nose-ring and a cowbell hung from her neck. Near her is the head of an angular woman with dark curly hair and big earrings and a pair of tall twisted horns, as if from a Kudu. Below her is the mounted head of a small woman with backswept horns, ridged and kinked, like an impala or springbok. She has short cropped silver hair and black tattoos around her eyes and nose to make her face look narrower. Around the corner is the head of a pale woman covered in dark freckles with a tangled mane of red hair and big curled rams horns. Finally, hung in a place of prominence is the mounted head of a stunningly beautiful woman with high cheekbones, red painted lips, artfully sculpted brunette hair, soulful smokey eyes, and a pair of truly enormous moose antlers. Run! She mouths silently, staring eyes wild. A shiver passes down my spine. Fuck! I need to get out of her! “I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m kind of in a hurry…”

“Oh please sit!” Halley-Chair pouts, “I’m very comfortable!”

“I’m sure…” Okay, focus on the mission Halley! You have to find the damn Memory Crystal and get the fuck out here before Halley-Chair gets herself a matching loveseat. I pucker my pussy-mouth and focus on my magic ring of thievery which is convulsing on my finger like a terrified animal. I have to be so close to the Crystal! I force myself to ignore the living furniture and scan the rest of the room. All I see is a rug, some plain wooden tables, and the books on the shelf. No black crystal cubes and nothing that looks like a secret treasure trove of blackmail. The Memory Crystal must be hidden, fuck! I close my eyes and stretch out my magic ring, turn a slow circle, try to get a read on where to look. Except, fuck I must be too close! The ring is vibrating too quickly! I can’t tell the difference in direction! This isn’t going to work! “Fuck!”

“What are you doing?” Zeph asks, and it occurs to me that maybe the furniture can help me.

“Okay, so, I’m really not supposed to be here.”

“Duh.”

I blush and adjust the shoulder strap of my bathing suit, “Yeah, right. I’m here looking for something, a Memory Crystal: it’s kind of a black cube about this big.” I hold my hands out. “I can tell it’s super close, but I need help finding it. I’m not going to steal it or anything, I just need to touch it and copy some information from it. Do you know where it is?”

“I don’t know if we should help you,” Zeph says quietly and Halley-Chair nods. “I think we would get in trouble…”

I nod too, but look imploringly at Halley-Chair, “Halley, it’s important. The Memory Crystal is the flight recorder from the spaceship that abducted us from Earth. It’s supposed to contain information on who ordered Halley-Prime’s abduction and why we were kidnapped.” Halley-Chair frowns in thought. “Don’t you want to know why we’re here? Why we exist? Why you’re a chair and I’m standing here pregnant and wearing a bathing suit with a cunt on my face?”

Halley-Chair looks uncertain, “I do but… you need to make it worth it for me.”

“Sure? Anything.”

“Sit on me, just long enough to hear my story.”

“Use me too!” Zeph squeaks up at me.

“Yeah! Sit on me and use Footrest and I promise to tell you where the Memory Crystal is hidden.” 

Fuck, I don’t have time for this. “Okay, but only the short version. I’m really in a hurry.”

“Sure! Sure! Just sit!”

I begrudgingly waddle over to Halley-Chair and Zeph-Stool, and carefully sidle between them. I can feel the heat of their bare immobilized bodies on my legs and this is so weird, but it’s not like I really have any other options. I gently lower myself into Halley’s seat, perching lightly on the edge with my legs spread a bit by my baby bump, and try to ignore that it’s her naked back and ass I’m resting on. “Yesss,” Halley hisses from the top of the chair, “Now lean back and put your feet up….” My skin crawls, but I do as she asks, sliding myself further into her seat, feeling her warm plush flesh cushion me pertly, until my back is almost touching her backrest. “Aaalllllll the way b-back,” Halley gasps above me and I slowly lean back until I’m resting against her modified torso. I feel Halley-chair gasp and breath deeply, the soft flesh of her six tits deform against me like pillows, her nipples becoming hard enough to poke me through the thin fabric of my swimsuit. “Yessssssss….” Halley moans. 

“Me! Put your feet on me!” Zeph begs urgently, and Halley-Chair whines “Yes use Zeph t-t-tooo!” I put my bare feet up on Zeph-Stool’s naked back and feel her whole body quiver. “Ohhhhh…” Zeph says with her eyes squeezed shut in pleasure. I grasp the hard wooden armrests tightly and try to ignore just how warm Halley-Chair is, how weirdly intimate and comfortable her embrace is. “Why are you a chair,” I say to move this along.

“Mmmm…” Halley-Chair purrs, “I’m Halley-20, so I ahhh-ha-ppeared and fu-freaked out at Clementine, Oh!” I feel her weird chair body writhe in pleasure. “Then I, ohhh, I lived with Hank until I, oh god, ffffucked Freya-ahhhHHHH!!” Halley-Chair twitches and I can suddenly smell her cunt. Did she just come? Fuck! “I kinda ran away then,” Halley-Chair pants breathlessly, “and tried to, oh, mmmake my own way.” Zeph gasps and her body bucks under my feet as much as her wooden frame allows. “But everything was sooooh scary here! I juh-just waaaAhhhnted to, mmmm, g-go home!”

“To Earth?” I ask trying to ignore Halley as she makes a deep groaning sound and flexes through another orgasm. 

“Yes!” Halley-Chair jubilantly moans. “Yes!”

“And how would you plan to do that?” 

“By paying for it,” Halley-Chair whines. “Someone paid to ha-haaave us tay-ken from Earth.” She gasps and Zeph bites her lip and squirms. “I just needed to-ooooh pay someone to tay-ake me back.” 

“That must cost a fortune.” Why are Halley and Zeph going full orgasm-mode here? Fuck they are making so much noise!

“A gigantic fortune!” Zeph almost screams as she comes again.

“Which is what gah-got me in tah-trouble…” Halley-Chair slurs through chattering teeth. 

“You cut a deal with the Syndicate somehow?”

“Worse!” Halley-Chair whines, her backrest cheat heaving, “I took up gah-gambling…”

“What?”

“Casinos….” Halley-Chair gasps before pausing to groan and shudder. “I went to casinos… and had a run of go-oood luck… built up a bah-bank big enough to… ahhh… get myself into trouble…”

“And how does that land you here?”

Halley-Chair whimpers and pants, so Zeph chimes in, “She got herself into a private game… lied about how much she could stake… and got in way over her head…” Zeph groans and twists under my feet, “So she took an indenture contract… to pay it off…”

“And you’re fulfilling that contract as a chair?”

“YESSSSSS!!!” Halley-Chair screams, writhing hard enough to make the chair scoot a little.

I immediately stand up and squirm away from the furniture-girls. What the fuck was that about!? “Why are you both so fucking horny!?”

“We love… to be used…” Halley-Chair gasps, her face flush and eyes dreamy.

“When they… Shaped us,” Zeph pants, body drooping on its frame, “They made being sat on feel pleasurable… sooo pleasurable...” She shivers.

“Fuck. How?”

“The Serpents Shaper… she’s not as powerful as Clem… but better trained, an expert…” Halley-Chair reclines her backrest and tips her head back. “Anatomy… nerve endings… neurotransmitters…” 

“And we got Psychic conditioning…” Zeph mumbles, “Hours of programming to make us docile… make us happier… make us crave this… make us need this…”

I absolutely need to get the fuck out of here! “Okay, I listened to your story. Where is the Memory Crystal? You need to tell me.”

Halley-Chair lifts her backrest up slowly, bites her lip, stares at me from the wide shoulders of her immobile armchair body. “Okay,” she says finally, “the bookshelf is a secret door to a hidden room. What you’re looking for must be there.” She shakes her head, “The door is locked though.”

“Leave that to me,” I say as I waddle over to the bookshelf and point at it. Halley-Chair nods so I raise my ring of thievery at the bookshelf, “Abracadabra!” I walk at the door and will myself to pass through, a magic trick for my furniture audience. My hand erupts in frigid fire and I become liminal and abstracted, instantaneously infinity, until I emerge inside a cozy dim little room. It’s not much larger than a big closet with a sharply sloping roof that must be the angled Pyramid wall. The floor is covered in big bright cushions, piled like a pillowed harem nest, and the air is uncomfortably dry and warm from a pair of powerful heat lamps. There is a wide desk-like surface in front of a bare wall, probably a deactivated holographic workstation, and simple metal shelves on either side. I look the shelves over and find a strange collection of artifacts. There are small lock boxes and stacked hardcopy documents and strange alien contraptions that I can’t identify. There are enough Keybands to open a store, luxury models and cheapo bands and ruggedized tactical straps, stuffed into boxes or loose. There are weapons. Firearms and sci-fi ray guns and things that look like autonomous missiles or combat drones. A glowing Morningstar. Six identical heavy steel knuckles. Dozens of Reptilian ceremonial daggers. There are macabre jars filled with a pickled Blue fingertip, human ears, a strange eyeball, a misshapen fetus, an inhuman heart. There are tiny baggies of hair. Vials containing blood or drugs or healing elixirs. A fossilized extraterrestrial skull. A duffle bag full of preserved rations and a folded up armoured spacesuit. What cannot be, but must be, a vintage snoopy PEZ dispenser in battered condition. Crystals, so many crystals, pink ones and blue ones and jagged ones and clear ones and a glowing perfect sphere and there! The Memory Crystal! A black smoked-glass cube the size of a heart, sitting on a middle shelf, plain as a day. Holy fuck, I actually found it! The plan worked! Fuck yeah! “Come to Halley,” I say, feeling the glow of triumph inside as I waddle over to it. My magic ring is shaking so hard it hurts, vibrating like it’s trying to pulverize my finger bones. “Chill out,” I say as I raise the ring up and gently touch it to the crystal. There is a tiny spark and the ring stops dead, instantly inert, maybe sated by finding it’s prey. Mission accomplished! Yes!!

*Clunk*

I freeze, heart suddenly pounding in my chest. What the fuck was that? 

I hear a swish and turn and see a bright, widening line of light. Oh fuck! Oh fuck! Oh fuck! The door! I need to hide! Fuck! My heart starts to race and I feel my chest constrict. I study the room: desk and packed selves and cushions! Nothing to get behind or under. No second exit! Trapped! I’m trapped! I’m hyperventilating and my hands are shaking! The cushions! What if I wiggled in there? Played pillow! Like another piece of living furniture, Halley Shaped down to an upholstered horny torso. Fuck, just like Halley-18 in her Sexbox bordello! Maybe I should go for a weapon? Defend myself? Fight! Except there’s no fucking time! My stomach lurches and my ribs hurt and oh my God I’m going to throw up! I feel dizzy! I’m panicking! This is a panic attack! My eyes are blurry with tears and I’m gasping for breath and I can’t move and I feel light headed! Fuck! Fuck! Help! Fuck!! Help! Jesus! Fuck! Don’t faint! Don’t faint! My vision starts to get dark and woozy….

“A Ssspy,” Hisses a calm voice. “How AmuSSssing.”

…and down I go.

Lights out.

***

Chapter 27