Tales of the Shareem, Volume 1 Read online

  These ladies have no idea, she thought, glancing at their closed eyes, bowed heads, and furrowed brows. They had not read Lady Ursula’s diary. They’d never seen a Shareem male.

  Magnificently tall, broad of shoulder, strong, sexual. He embodied everything forbidden in the Way of the Star. Everything shunned by modern philosophy.

  Bor Narga was a highly advanced civilization. In a time when people could manipulate genetics and produce children outside a woman’s body, coupling was unnecessary. Sex had been deemed animalistic. Thinking humans did not need it.

  Sex, in fact, took away from the better things in life. One needed a clear head to meditate, study, and write. Sexual appetites pulled a woman down.

  A woman could still marry and have children, of course. She would seek a man who wanted a marriage of minds, and then they’d donate their DNA to the Ministry of Families to create a pleasing child.

  A woman did not need carnality.

  Or Shareem.

  Talan had been perfectly happy to follow her path. She liked the Way and the friends she’d made in it. Until she’d found the diary.

  Lady Ursula d’Mato of the Way of the Star had spent one sinful week twenty years ago with a Shareem called Brandt. He’d taught her many, many things, and she’d written all about them in her diary. The descriptions had been earthy and detailed.

  Lady Ursula had started her week with mild curiosity and had finished it never wanting it to stop. The diary had broken off after she’d left for her last encounter with Brandt. There were no further entries, no more records of Lady Ursula after that.

  Talan had asked her foster mother, Lady Petronella, if she knew what had become of the woman, but Lady Pet didn’t know. She hadn’t known Lady Ursula very well and had assumed the woman had moved off planet.

  The diary had given Talan strange dreams. She’d dream of a Shareem doing the things Lady Ursula described.

  He’d strip the coverings off the bed, Talan’s night clothes from her body. He’d lick the inside of her arm, then the soft flesh of her thighs. He’d touch her with fingers sensuous and slow. Talan would wake up with her own fingers pressing against her opening, her hands wet.

  She’d wanted to see a real Shareem, just to look at one. And so when she’d spotted the Shareem—Rees—she’d felt compelled to follow him.

  Talan had thought a Shareem would be different. More alien. More bizarre than the normal human male, certainly.

  But he’d been so real. He’d smelled real, looked real, and felt real.

  Talan’s reaction when he’d looked at her had completely unnerved her. He’d suggested so casually, in carnal words, that she’d followed him because she wanted her first sexual encounter.

  Her nipples had tightened, and a dart like pain had stabbed between her legs. A Shareem could trick a woman with his touch and his voice, she’d read, but this one hadn’t needed to try very hard.

  When he’d asked Talan to come for a swim, she’d had to stop herself from flinging off her clothes and her feet from running out into the ocean.

  She’d imagined the cool water caressing her naked skin, imagined him smiling a Shareem smile at her, imagined him reaching for her. The feeling called lust had woken up and waved for her attention.

  Her reaction made her realize she’d given up carnality so easily because she’d never felt it before. Easy to give up sweets when you’ve never tasted any.

  Talan had been a voyeur to Lady Ursula’s one forbidden week. She’d wanted to see more.

  And now, she wanted to experience what Lady Ursula had.

  She peeped from the corners of her eyes to the ladies around her. They had no idea what she was thinking, they couldn’t know she was growing wet just remembering the Shareem and his smile.

  The Shareem’s touch had softened her mind, opened it.

  There in that lecture room, while her beloved teacher began the chant about giving up bodily pleasure, Talan made her decision.

  *** *** ***

  “Lady Pet,” Talan said that night at home.

  Lady Petronella d’Naris set her silver fork on the china plate, brought all the way from Earth. Lady Petronella always insisted on the best.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “I met a Shareem.”

  Lady Pet’s crystal wineglass froze halfway to her mouth. “You did?”

  “Yes. Two weeks ago.”

  Lady Pet raised her brows and set down the wineglass. “Talan, you naughty girl, you never told me. Did you like him?” She waved her hand. “What am I saying, of course you did. No one is dissatisfied with a Shareem.”

  Talan’s face grew hot. “I didn’t mean I had sex with him,” she said quickly. “I met him. I talked to him.”

  “Talked? Talan, you don’t talk to a Shareem. That’s not what they’re for.”

  “I did.”

  Lady Pet sighed. “You are the oddest girl I ever raised.”

  “I’m the only girl you ever raised,” Talan pointed out.

  “I know that. And I’ve failed utterly. Else you’d not have fallen into this odd philosophy twaddle, and think you are supposed to talk to a Shareem.” She chuckled. “Ladies didn’t think that way in my day. We liked men. What is the world coming to?” Her eyes widened. “You didn’t try to preach your no-appetite philosophy to a Shareem, did you? I hope he didn’t know you were my foster daughter.”

  “No.” Talan turned her wineglass uneasily. She had confided her encounter to no one, not even Lady Pet, who had embarrassingly rabid appetites for a Bor Nargan woman and didn’t mind talking about sex, at least not to her closest friends.

  “I did not really know what to say to him,” Talan said. “I just babbled.”

  “Well, never mind what you said. What did he say?”

  “I don’t really remember. But at the time, I was riveted. Does that make sense?”

  “Of course. They can charm you just by saying hello. That’s how they were programmed.” Lady Pet licked her lips. “How delicious.”

  “I’m researching them,” Talan said.

  “Researching? Talan, you are strange.”

  Talan had loaded the Shareem’s DNA into her computer. The monitor had obligingly shown her pretty helixes, color-enhanced by the program.

  Rees’s DNA had not looked any different from a human’s. Talan had compared it to her own and to that of one of Lady Pet’s male servants. They’d all looked remarkably the same.

  “They are as human as we are,” she said.

  “Well, I know that.” Lady Pet picked up her wineglass again. “They have their DNA manipulated, but it’s not completely different. People who say they aren’t human tell you that because they’re afraid of Shareem. And sex.”

  “I want to meet one.”

  “You just said you did.”

  “I didn’t mean like that.” Talan flushed, unable to continue.

  Lady Pet smiled. “Ah, good. I’m proud of you, Talan.”

  Talan blinked. “Proud? Why?”

  “For not being narrow-minded. I suppose you would like this Shareem you’ve already met?”

  “His name is Rees.”

  Lady Pet picked up her fork. “Would you like me to find him for you?”

  “Yes,” Talan said, her throat dry.

  “Excellent. Anything to keep you from bleating about how women don’t need to have sex.” She started eating again.

  Talan didn’t rise to the bait in one of Lady Pet’s favorite debates. She drank her wine, feeling flushed and uncomfortable.

  If anyone could find a specific Shareem in a teeming city of millions, it was Lady Pet. She’d bring Rees home for Talan and gloat about it.

  Talan believed in her Way, and she wanted to follow it. But she wanted to know, just briefly, like Lady Ursula, what it was she’d give up.

  A small dose of carnality, and then nothing, forever.

  She shivered. She didn’t know why. But in Rees’s eyes, there had been something.

  Dangerous.

&nbs
p; Nonsense, she thought. He would be here, in her home, and Shareem had to obey. With Lady Pet and servants nearby, how dangerous could he be?

  But something still made her uneasy. Maybe it was the way he smiled, the way he said her name. The way he used words like fuck without shame, the way he’d invited her to swim.

  Talan had a feeling she would either regret her choice, or treasure the memory for the rest of her life.

  Probably both.

  *** *** ***

  “So what have you got for me?” Rio asked.

  Rio, a level-three Shareem most at home in black leather, stood six feet seven and had black hair and Shareem-blue eyes.

  “I’m working on it,” Rees said.

  They were in the bazaar. Acrid scents of spices and incense floated to them on the artificial breeze. One stall held a jumble of computer and robot parts sold by a man who insisted they’d work with a little fix-up.

  The stalls opened from each vendor’s caravan. They were collapsible, so that when the inevitable sandstorm blew through, the vendors could quickly slide everything back into the caravan, don their breath masks, and huddle inside to wait out the storm.

  Everyone carried a breath mask, fully charged. To get caught in a sandstorm without one meant death.

  “I want off this rock,” Rio said under his breath.

  Rees gave him a look, but no one had heard.

  Rio’s problem was simple. Shareem were not allowed off Bor Narga, and Rio wanted to go.

  Most Shareem came to Rees with their problems. He was not their leader by any means, but he knew people who knew people. And he could get people to do things for him.

  “I know,” Rees said. “But it’s not easy.”

  “I know it’s not easy,” Rio growled. “I never said it was easy.”

  “So shut up and let me work on it.”

  Rio gave him a look, but shut his mouth, thank the gods. The last thing Rees needed was for them both to be arrested for even talking about leaving the planet.

  Women gave them sidelong looks as they passed. Rio grinned back at them. Rio’s motto was, Have whip, will use it. Anytime, anywhere. Just ask me.

  These ladies looked like they wanted to ask him.

  “Come with me,” Rio suggested to Rees. He was still talking about blasting out of Bor Narga.

  Rees considered digitals he’d seen of cool green worlds, long sandy beaches, and mountains reaching to the sky. Bor Narga was dry and empty. It had rugged mountains and sand-filled seas. Not much else.

  “No,” Rees said. “I like it here.”

  Rio gave him a look. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

  He wouldn’t understand. I met a girl.

  And what a girl. Rees kept dreaming about her. Long red hair on his pillow, blue eyes heavy with desire. Lips soft on his flesh. Her pretty voice saying his name. Saying thank you.

  Rees’s dreams were all mixed up. Level-one, level-two, and level-three pleasure fantasies swirled through him one after another.

  He wanted to rip off her clothes and fuck her until she screamed. He wanted to slide oil slowly over her body, listen to her soft voice telling him how much she liked it. Then he wanted to tie her to the bed and spank her sweet ass until it was red.

  He’d wake up hard and hot and have to spend the rest of the night in his old-fashioned water shower with the temperature set to freezing.

  Rees wasn’t getting much sleep these days.

  “So when will you be done working on it?” Rio asked, impatient.

  Rees pulled his attention back to the problem at hand. “I’m talking to a pilot this afternoon. I’ll tell you tonight.”

  “Meet up at Judith’s place?”

  Judith ran a bar down in Pas City, the heart of the old town. “Yeah. Works for me.”

  “Hope you have good news for me, boy-o,” Rio growled. “Or I’ll have to find a beautiful woman to take it out on.”

  “And you’ll hate every minute of that.”

  Rio laughed. All women within earshot of that Shareem-enhanced laughter turned and locked their gazes on Rio.

  “Watch it,” Rees said. “You’ll be accused of starting a riot.”

  Rio’s laughter died. “That’s why I want out of here,” he said. “I want to find a place where seventeen women can follow me home without me being accused of disturbing the peace. At least, not until after I get home. Then I’ll disturb it plenty.”

  “Your ego is planet-sized,” Rees remarked.

  “Yep. Just like my cock.”

  “I’ve seen your cock. Don’t brag.”

  “Hey, boy-o. Every time you’ve seen my cock, it was going into a woman screaming for it.”

  “Or screaming for you to stop.”

  Rio laughed again. He never stayed down for long. “They never want me to stop. See you tonight then.” He studied Rees’s face. “And get some sleep. You look awful.”

  Rio walked away, whistling. Shareem couldn’t stay depressed, so went the theory. They could not be deeply hurt, or grieve, or love. In theory.

  Rees knew that despite Rio’s hot and cold moods, he really did want off Bor Narga. He wanted to go someplace he could be human. Somewhere no one had ever heard of Shareem.

  Rio was Rees’s best friend, and he’d do what it took to help him.

  Rees turned down an alley, heading toward a dock where an unscrupulous woman pilot he knew might be bribed to smuggle out a Shareem. But would she stay bribed and not sell Rio out to the first patrol skimmer that happened by? That’s what he needed to find out.

  Rees looked behind him and spied a litter—an upper-class means of transport that floated on an anti-grav hover—surrounded by four burly men. They seemed to be following him.

  Unusual. Most upper-class women who wanted to sample the forbidden delights of the Shareem sent for them or smuggled themselves to them. They didn’t announce themselves by taking litters into the back streets.

  But an upper-class woman had followed him to a rather seedy holo-block just a few weeks ago.

  Rees’s heart beat faster. Talan. He stopped and politely let the litter catch up to him.

  One of the bodyguards, a man who looked like he didn’t bother with intelligence, said, “You Rees?”

  Generally, Rees would ask who wanted to know. But his whole body knew that Talan waited in that litter.

  Any minute, she’d pop her head out between the sun-blocking curtains and ask in her sweet voice if he’d come in and screw her for three days without stopping. Wouldn’t she?

  “Yeah, I’m Rees,” he said.

  The bodyguard gestured to the litter. “Get in.”

  Rees wasn’t stupid. Not usually. But his mind was filled with images of Talan—never ending, cock-throbbing images. She was in there. He could smell her.

  He lifted the sun curtain. The litter was empty.

  Rees took a step back. He opened his mouth to say Fuck off, but he never got there.

  A stun rod bit through his tunic. Black crackles of lightning danced in front of Rees’s vision, and he crashed against the bodyguard. A black hood went over his head and cold metal locked his wrists.

  The bodyguard shoved Rees into the litter. He only got the Fff . . . out of his mouth before he lost consciousness altogether.

  *** *** ***

  “What did you do?”

  Talan stared in horror at the bound and hooded Rees stretched out on Lady Pet’s cool, tiled entrance hall.

  Behind her, a fountain trickled, belying the heat and dust of the outer world. On the stairs beyond that, Lady Pet watched.

  “He didn’t want to come,” the bodyguard said defensively.

  Talan swung around and glared at Lady Pet.

  “It’s no use looking at me,” her foster mother said. “It took me forever to find him, and I told them under no circumstances was he to get away. I suppose they took me literally.”

  Talan made an exasperated noise and hurried down the stairs to the recumbent figure. He was still out. Talan ge
ntly loosened the black silk hood and drew it off over his head.

  Dust creased Rees’s face. His eyes were closed, dark blond lashes against his skin. His mouth was a pale line above a square jaw, and Talan fought an irresistible urge to kiss it.

  “Rees,” she whispered, and touched his cheek.

  Rees made a faint moan, then he opened his eyes.

  “Rees, it’s me. Remember me? From the holo-block?”

  Rees blinked a few times then focused on her. “Talan.”

  His voice was as smooth and seductive as she remembered. The two syllables of her name had never sounded so enticing.

  Rees had blue eyes. Shareem-blue, Lady Ursula’s diary called it.

  The irises were larger than a normal humans’ and flecked with black. When a Shareem was aroused, the irises expanded. They could fill almost their entire eyes with mesmerizing blue.

  Rees’s eyes drew her gaze, now, as they had in the holo-block. They said, you’re beautiful.

  His hands were still bound. “This could be fun if all these people weren’t here,” he murmured to her.

  “I’m sorry,” Talan said. “They had no right to do that to you.”

  Rees looked surprised. Lady Pet said, “You don’t apologize to Shareem, Talan. You want one, he comes. That’s what they have to do.”

  “I can at least be polite,” Talan said.

  Rees looked surprised again, then his lips twitched.

  “Rees, would you like to be a guest in my house?” Talan asked him.

  “He doesn’t have a choice, Talan,” Lady Pet said.

  Rees gazed up at the vaulted ceiling, the paintings around the skylights, at the marble stairs Lady Pet stood on. He looked back at Talan, the blue in his eyes deepening.

  “I have a choice,” he said. “I’ll stay.”

  Chapter Three

  In the year 3509, the company called DNAmo invented the men called Shareem.

  They were taller than conventional men, strong, blue-eyed, long-cocked, firm-assed. They knew how to bring a woman to ecstasy and exactly how to keep her there.

  The Shareem were DNAmo’s biggest success, but they were also its downfall.

  The Shareem were trained in every sexual art. They were offered in one of three levels—pure sensual pleasure, games and wicked fun, or the ultimate Dom.