Symbiota Sapiens

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"This one is an excellent candidate, I must say."

The speaker is a beautiful woman with emerald eyes and long dark hair tucked behind her ears. Her cheekbones give her a kind of exotic Eastern look, but her accent is that of a well-bred European.

She stands over me where I lie...naked? I'm only half awake but I'm aware of her eyes roving over me in a predatory fashion that sends blood straight to my groin.

Yeah, yeah, I know...wrong time for that, right? But hey, I'm not going to lie to myself...she's hot and I'm no saint. I'm feeling trapped, confused, and powerless - but at the same time there's this gorgeous, powerful-seeming woman looking over my taut body like a piece of meat. I am definitely turned on.

In truth, I would really be enjoying this if it weren't for the feeling in the pit of my stomach that what's happening - what's about to happen is a lot more than I'm ready for at the tender age of twenty-two.

I struggle to sit up.

"What-" is all I manage to get out before unseen hands push me down again and fasten straps too tight around my wrists. Another strap comes into place over my forehead and I'm completely immobile.

My eyes are still open though, and despite myself I'm drinking in the lovely face above me.

"A most beautiful boy, and intelligent too." I feel a light warm pressure as her hand touches my shoulder and slides down my arm to the crook of my elbow. "You say he is a runner?"

7

Apparently there is some reply I don't catch, but the woman looks up at someone behind my head and nods with satisfaction.

"Ah, a scholar and an athlete then...most excellent. I shall expect great things from you, young one."

The pleasant warm touch on my elbow is replaced by a sudden sharp bite of a cold needle piercing my skin.

"What is this place? What are you doing to me?" I beg.

The darkly beautiful woman leans forward to study my face before she answers, her lips curving into an ironic smile.

"You are a guest in my home, and I am giving you the cure to your disease."

"What disease?" I ask, but my vision is beginning to blur. They must have already given me something.

Soft lips trace a tingling path up my neck, over my jaw and a tongue dips quickly between my lips.

I think I hear a pleasant tinkle of laughter and the answer "Why, death of course" but by then my grip on reality is already tenuous.

Perhaps I imagined the whole thing...but I know better than that now. It did happen, and oddly enough that final promise was not so far from the truth at all.

I'm gaining on him, the hotshot freshman who's held a solid lead for the last six laps. I can hear his footsteps overlapping my own...the soft rhythmic thumping, scuffing noises of pads of rubber striking cement and pushing off, launching him another step forward.

I am just behind him, I can see the dark wedge of sweat on the back of his lycra uniform, tapering from his shoulder blades to the crack of his butt.

8

I study him carefully. His legs churn in a constant blur of movement, efficiently moving him forward at a slightly quicker tempo. He's heard my own footsteps.