So, what happened in the end was: I got so sick of space travels. I started feeling that not even sex could fill my life with enough joy to carry on like this. Or maybe it wasn’t the actual space travels but, you know, just having to work? Or, more specifically, having to flog stuff?

‘To flog’ means ‘to sell’, by the way – I have spent enough time living in the south of England to have picked up all the slang words that you may see on the pages that follow. I have lived in quite a few places, actually. Still, I have never felt like I belong somewhere 100%. And the saddest thing is, I don’t even have a proper native tongue. But hey, I guess that also means that I’m not really limited in my choice where to settle down when the time comes. The universe is my oyster, as they say… or should start saying.

So, yes, my job. I started training for it at 20, and I’m 24 now, and I honestly don’t feel like I want to be doing this for much longer. I have a degree in applied linguistics and, well, I’m a young female from Earth, which means I am frequently asked to study this or that planet or sector, quickly pick up a bit of their language, and then go there with the rest of the crew and make a good impression, so that we can make them believe they actually want to buy our junk. That’s it. That’s what my degree is apparently good for.

But anyway, I honestly don’t want to whine. I’m not a whiner – anymore – and when I say it, I do mean it. I used to be quite normal, emotion-wise – it was only three years ago that something happened, something rather nice, I think. It was… well, I got a hug – of sorts. It was during my training year. I had a placement on a planet that didn’t have a great deal of living beings there, although we were warned there were a few specimens there that had not been properly studied yet and that we were to be extremely cautious. They seemed peaceful, but who was to say for sure?

I was in my room, about to go have a shower, and it was one of those beings that I suddenly felt behind my back. When I felt its presence, I didn’t want to run away or scream or anything like that, though – I slowly turned around, but I couldn’t see it properly, it really looked like ripples in the air. I had an almost unbearable sensation of bliss and comfort. I was as if the being was giving me a hug. It was all around me. I tried to give it a hug back, but it was more like very thick air than a proper solid body.

I stood there like this for… I don’t know, a minute? Then I realised I was having the strongest orgasm of my life. It was like a tornado had swept me off my feet, and I only noticed it in mid-air. When it finished, the being was gone, and I was so wet I felt the urgent need to take off my knickers – it almost felt like I had wee'd myself.

Of course, that fantastically strong sensation has passed, but some “leftovers” of it I feel until this day. Yep, even today. How should I describe it? It’s like there is a permanent light inside of me, and a very warm light, too. I’m mostly in such a harmony with the world that I rarely get upset or angry, or even feel the need to raise my voice. It’s like…. It’s like I feel that people give too much of a fuck about everything. And also, I’m now way less sensitive to pain than others. I mean, I still feel it, but my body has stopped seeing it as something unpleasant and simply registers the fact that it’s there. One could argue this may not be such a great thing, after all, as pain is necessary for our self-preservation, but so far this has been working out quite well for me.

Oh, and there is one more thing, and I’m not quite sure how to put it without it sounding a bit silly, so I’ll just say it: I am very, well, sexual. Since that day, I probably haven’t met a person without wondering whether I would like to have sexual relations with them or not. And the answer is, more often than not, yes. It can be pretty much anyone, of any gender, and even some other species, provided they look humanoid enough and having a shag with them is technically possible. I guess you could say that what I lack in elementary human emotions, I make up in sexuality.

I mean, I still have emotions, of course, but I guess I feel it much less than anyone else. And well, it shows, too. Some people think I’m weird because I don’t get embarrassed in certain situations or because I don’t immediately go “Awww, sooo cute!” when I see a kitten. It’s not that I don’t find them sweet, it’s just why the heck shout about it? Alright already.

So, as I already said, I got a bit tired – I mean, quite awfully exhausted – from all this travelling around, so I asked my boss for a break. I demanded deliberately outrageous two months, so when we agreed on one, I was happy. Surely enough time to think about where I was heading and where I actually wanted to be heading. So far, I had very little idea about either.

What else should I tell you… I never knew my parents, grew up in an orphanage. It wasn’t until I was 11 that I was adopted, sort of. A woman from Southern England – Rae – took care of me, gave me a home. Not that she treated me exactly as if I was her daughter, of course, but yeah, she was the closest I had to a mother.

But anyway. My holiday began in late June, when my shuttle landed in Cascais, a seaside town in Portugal where she had bought a sweet little blue house to escape the hustle and bustle of London. When I set foot on Earth for the first time in almost two years, I… well, I would love to say that I felt an extraordinary range of emotions, but it really wasn’t that big of a deal. I still remembered everything rather well, and at the first glance, not much seemed to have changed since I last was there.

I will spare you the details of two women hugging and saying banalities like “You look gorgeous!” and “I love what you’ve done with your hair!” (Well, actually, it was her who said those things, I mostly just smiled and made approving noises). Rae – now 49, but looking about 37 – had a thing for white dresses, whereas I absolutely love dressing in dark shades, so I guess it may have looked like a white Queen giving a hug to a black knight. Or perhaps I just say it because I enjoy chess and tend to see silly chess analogies in many things.

The only things on me that weren’t black were my dark blue hair and my sunshades of pretty much the same colour.

Anyway, it was when she led me into the garden that things became worth telling about.

“Who’s the young man?” I asked. I recognised Rae’s bike, but not the bloke of about the same age as me who was trying to fix it.

The young man looked up, smiled, but I could tell straight away he was of a rather shy disposition. I assumed he would take this question as a “starting shot” and introduce himself, but he innocently waited for Rae to answer for him.

“Stella, this is Arsenio. He only lives two houses away from us.”

We shook hands.

“Hiya,” he said. Hmmm, a Portuguese bloke trying to imitate an American accent. Sexy and kinda awkward at the same time.

“Hey. How is it going with the bike, are you managing?”

“Sure, almost done now.”

Alright, then.

He definitely did not strike me as a motorcycle enthusiast. More like a priest or something.

And you know what – half an hour later, when I was on the verge of a micro-orgasm while greedily pushing Rae’s expertly made Eaton Mess into my mouth, it turned out that I was right. He was not yet a priest, but that was what he was intending to become.

“It’s his parents, really.” Rae explained while pensively looking at the empty plates. “I’m not entirely sure he would want to go down this path without their constant reminders of hell and whatnot. They moved to a planet in the Phyllis’ System long ago, but they still keep calling and pestering him with their ideas about what his future should look like.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Pretty bad, yes. I mean, he always assures me that this is what he wants, but, you know, I’m not 100% convinced.”

It was at that moment that a thought came to me – well, not a thought, but a sort of a “seed of a thought”. And you know what? I knew exactly that the seed wouldn’t leave my head until it developed into a fully grown, glorious erection. Sorry, I meant to say “tree”. Fully grown, glorious tree. But anyway.

“I’m not saying he doesn’t believe in God or something, I’m fairly confident that he does. You know, once I noticed he was staring at a girl on the beach, and he noticed that I noticed. He was so embarrassed he actually suggested I punish him for this.”

“Punish how?”

“Well, you know… spank him?”

I don’t burst out laughing that easily, but this definitely seemed worth a chuckle.

“Spank – him? Are you sure this was not just a moderately elaborate plan to make you part of his, er, exotic fantasies?”

“Actually… I thought of this for a second – only for a very brief moment – but no, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. I don’t actually think he has any kind of fantasies. Also, I know for a fact his parents used to punish him every now and again, so I really had no reason to doubt him.”

“But you doubt he should be a priest.”

“As much as it pains me to say it, yes.”

“Oh, does it really pain you so much?”

We went quiet for a bit. She looked at me almost as if she knew what was going on inside me head.

“Why do I feel I know what direction your thinking process is going?”

“Mmmmmmm…” I reckoned this was neutral enough an answer. The Swiss would have been mightily proud of me.

In the end, I asked in a silly conspiratorial tone. "Do you reckon you could give me a spanking?”

Ah, yes, spankings. Do you reckon it’s only us humans that have the concept of slapping someone as a punishment? Come to think of it, it seems like a pretty logical thing to think of, no matter how many eyes or tails or stomachs you have.

The first time I was given a thrashing by another species had been almost three years ago, shortly after my encounter with the ‘orgasmic being’ – though the word “thrashing” is far too brutal to describe what happened. I don’t know why I keep invoking the Swiss into my narratives, but you could say that it was a sort of extraterrestrial Helvetii that provided me with my first ‘punishment’ outside my familiar surroundings.

The vol’overs are grey, slightly smaller than us, very quiet, with grotesquely long faces and also rather longish arms. The first time our team came over for a sightseeing tour of their planet, we caused a bit of a commotion. Heinz, our dear boss and a pestilential nuisance, had the bright idea of having our ship painted in this toxic green colour, which, it turned out, is absolutely taboo on their planet – it had something to do with the giant crab-like creature they worship zealously. You’d think anyone would have bothered warning us?

Anyway, long story short – we were in a bit of a trouble, their local authority demanded that the one responsible be punished. Heinz was too much of a chicken to assume any kind of responsibility and promised 5,000 coppers to anyone who would take the blame. The punishment process mentioned by the vol’overs sounded quite similar to a common spanking, even though it seemed a bit more elaborate than that, so I volunteered. Not (just) because of the money… I don’t know, I was just curious, I guess. And well, yeah, a part of me – the particularly horny part – simply couldn’t pass on an opportunity like that.

The vol’overs’ code demanded that at least two members of my crew were present during the punishment.

Anyways, back to my punishment. I was led into a medium-sized room with metallic walls and eight chairs – seven regular ones, for the witnesses, and one for the… prisoner? Victim? Anyway, it was for me. That chair was very similar to the kind you would find in a gynaecologist’s office. When I’m saying that, I mean that the only way to lie in it was with your legs spread at almost 90 degrees. I laid down, and they strapped my legs with belts that felt surprisingly smooth and pleasant against my skin.

I had spent some time picking what I would wear during my ‘execution’. In the end I, as always, went for black. I was considering wearing tights or stockings, but thought that tights would just be in the way and highly impractical, and stockings would look slutty and cheap, so I just put on a simple business-like skirt that ended a good deal above my knees, a jacket and white blouse. Oh, and white underwear – not too lacy, of course, but – I hoped – still sexy enough.

So, anyway – I entered the punishment room and removed my jacket, to show that I meant business. There was no furniture apart from the chairs, so I just gave it to Derek. He, Lily and five vol’overs were sitting barely six feet away from me, with Lily located right in the centre. I had told them not to worry too much about me, but my sweet Lily still looked concerned. She was wearing a rather simple and very business-like black dress – not too short, but short enough to arouse my imagination even further. Oh, and those tights on her heavenly legs!

I laid down in the ‘gynaecologist’s chair’, with my legs looking one east and one west. The moment I spread them, I carefully watched Lily and Derek. I was wondering whether their faces would change when they caught sight of what was under my skirt. Derek’s face remained unchanged, but Lily gave me a weak smile – surely, just a sign of support. After my legs (though not my arms or hands) had been strapped, one of the vol’overs produced a somewhat thick-looking belt.

Now, remember – I’m not that fussed about pain. And also, the vol’overs have a thing about pain, as their skin is extremely thin and their nerve endings are somehow overdeveloped by human standards. The slightest touch can cause them a great deal of suffering. So, when the punishment started, the ‘pain’ I felt was barely any pain at all, rather moderately intense ‘touching’

I had been wondering where they would hit me first. Well, the first hit was on my left calf. He proceeded hitting my calves with that belt of his, after which he worked his way up to the regions just above my knees. I began to feel that he was hitting me slightly more strongly now, but the sensation was still pretty insignificant. However, in order not to let him suspect anything, I started to moan to fake at least some sort of suffering.

This went on for five minutes, after which my executioner pointed at my skirt. Ah, exactly what I had been waiting for! I pulled it up as high as I could, and he seemed satisfied. Again, I looked at Lily to check out her expression. I wasn’t sure whether she had any lesbian genes in her, but at that moment it was my sincerest hope. Again, she smiled at me, and again, I wasn’t sure at all what was behind that smile.

The next slaps were on my thighs, after which he stopped for a second and looked at me, and then his eyes went down to my breasts. I wondered how much that would hurt.

I didn’t want to seem too eager to lose clothes, so I pointed at my less-than-medium-sized boobs, asking him whether I understood correctly and he wanted to have me topless. He nodded (yes, aliens nod, too), and I proceeded to unbutton my blouse. I didn’t find where to hang it, so I just dropped it on the floor. The vol’over resumed his business, working my arms and then my belly. I could guess what was coming next, and sure enough, he soon pulled down my bra.

My nipples had always had the tendency to get rather pointy, and on that occasion they gave their best performance. I wondered how those present would react if I was to start touching myself? Not that I was seriously considering it, of course – no matter how strongly I felt like it. I was dying to know what was going on in Lily’s and Derek’s heads and whether they suspected anything about just how aroused I was.

The punisher gave me about twenty slaps on my breasts, which did start to feel a bit unpleasant. I quickly took off my bra completely for my boobies to feel more free if more hits were to come, but my executioner now turned his gaze to my more intimate area. Alright, then, why not. Why not, indeed.

By that time, my crotch area felt pretty wet, and I was hoping that wetness would be visible on my knickers – that was one of the reasons I went for white. Was it wishful thinking, or was there something in Lily’s gaze that resembled… I don’t know, a kind of playfulness? Something in the corner of her mouth twitched, and the thought of that twitch nearly made me climax right there and then. She was actually enjoying watching me, wasn’t she? Derek, on the other hand, preserved his stone-like face, as if taken from some lesser known spot of Mount Rushmore.

Progressing as slow as I could, I put my thumbs through my knickers and, with my heart pounding as it had rarely pounded before, pulled them down. ‘Well, sure hope my dear Lily like landing strips!’ I thought.

I must have glittered down there, I was so wet. The hits started again, with the material of the belt falling straight on my pussy lips – and as horny as I got, I could barely feel a thing. Still, had to keep up my fake moans! I didn’t want it to end, but a minute or two later, the vol’over stopped and made a gesture ordering me to get up. I pointed at my skirt, asking if he wanted me to take it off, too, and the gesture I got in return was affirmative. Right, then.

It was at that moment that I noticed a bulge protruding out of Derek’s trousers. Well, I would have surely felt insulted if I hadn’t seen any bulges on that day! I regretted not having read up enough about vol’overs’ anatomy and whether they were capable of having such bulges, too. But even if yes, they were so bloody hairy that I might have missed it.

He led me to the wall on the opposite side of the spectators and pulled my arms up. I saw a pair of fetters coming out of the ceiling. He skilfully pulled those around my wrists and tightened the locks, after which he lifted them again a bit, so that I could barely move my arms. Not exactly comfortable, but surely it wouldn’t last long. How do you like my ass, Lil?.. I’m not even wondering about you, my sweet Derek, I know you’re half a step away from erupting.

The vol’over opened his suitcase again and put there his nice belt that had just given me so much pleasure. In return, he produced a short metal stick, about six inches long. Was he actually planning on inserting this device into my butthole?

But the torture master proceeded to extend the thing by pulling out one of the funny stick’s ends, and then again and again, and I realised that it was nothing more than a steel rod looking pretty much identical to an analogue radio antenna, like the kind we earthlings used in the 20th century.

That… may… hurt… a little… more…

It did. I wouldn’t say it ‘hurt like fuck’, but it was definitely not a sensation I would love to experience in my spare time. The first blow landed very neatly on my shoulder blades, and soon I didn’t even have to fake my moans, anymore. Surely, this was more pain than a vol’over could have handled? Was he conducting an experiment, trying to find out how much I could take? I started sweating and had to take the deepest breaths I could under the given circumstances. I wouldn’t say my horniness had gone away completely, but if things continued in this way, I could certainly forget about doing any orgasming at all.

The antenna finally left my back and resumed its business on my bottom. Alright, then, this was a bit… less bad. It also seemed like the vol’over was getting a bit tired – in spite of all their hairiness, they are anything but wild animals. I don’t want to say ‘pussies’ or something, just very delicate creatures who have merits other than physical prowess. I heard they made good cheese and were exemplary bankers!

I realised that my back was bleeding a bit. Not good, not very sexy to have bruises there if you’re a woman. Or is it? And now, I would have bruises on my ass, too.

A few minutes later, everything was finished. The creature released my hands and then stretched out his arms and looked up – a vol’over’s way of saying ‘respect’, ‘take care, ‘was nice meeting you’ or something along those lines. I wondered where I had put those knickers, not that I was too keen on putting them back on.

Derek remained seated (I wonder why…), but Lily quickly jumped up and came over to have a look at my injuries. The poor thing was probably wondering whether it was appropriate to hug me while I was still naked or whether she should wait until after I had put something on.

Lily was kind enough to locate my underwear for me. I took my knickers and gave them a quick check. There really was a tiny stain on them, but probably not big enough for anyone to notice. Call me a perv, but I was dying for Lily to know just how wet I got, so, before putting them back on, I looked at it again, then back to Lily, said ‘Oops’ and put them back on. She just gave me another one of her diplomatic smiles, and it didn’t even look like she understood what the ‘oops’ was referring to.

“D’you reckon they have a bathroom here?” I said.

“Is it urgent?” she replied, We’ll be back on the ship in less than two minutes.

“Yeah, sure… No, yeah, stupid of me.”

The promised ‘less than two minutes’ later, as soon as the bathroom door closed behind me, I sat down on the toilet and finished myself off faster than it would take you to gulp down a small glass of Baileys. But as I mentioned before, I have more than my fair share of sexual appetite and I almost immediately began to feel that I would soon need another dosage of TLC in my downstairs area. Was it a good idea to stay there and just go for another round? Lily was waiting outside, and in the end, I just flushed and hurried out.

“Oh, please don’t ask me again if I’m alright, please!” I said when I saw her face again.

“I wasn’t going to.”

“It looked like you were.”

“Well, you said you’re alright, so I believe you.”

“Alright, then.”

“Come on, let’s go.”

“I think I may need to stop by at my quarters before getting back to work.” I said.

“Oh, no no no no no – no work for you today or tomorrow. You’ve earned a little holiday, Heinz was very adamant about it. When I said ‘Let’s go’, I actually meant ‘Let’s go, I’ll walk you to your room and have a look at those bruises.’

‘No, you don’t actually have to…’ I wanted to object and then realised what an amazing opportunity it was to spend some quality time with the sweetest girl on The Savoyard.

“But, you know… you don’t have to…” I still said, but without putting much conviction into those words.

“Now, stop please. The least I can do is to make absolutely sure you’re alright.”

“Aha! I knew you would say that!”

“Well, I didn’t ask whether you’re alright, I merely used the word ‘alright’ in a sentence.

I agreed, just asking her for two more minutes for me to quickly knock on Derek’s door and thank him for being there with me.

END OF PART 1