Caged Among the Stars, Chapter 2 (Patreon)

“So... What should we--”

“We don’t need to do anything.”

“What are you-- Hey, wait! Where are you going?” I call out as Cadet Zekram pushes his way past me and out of the still half-full room, ignoring all the stares that follow him.

And once he’s gone, all of those stares turn to me. I try to do the same as I follow after him, but it’s hard to ignore the weight of everyone’s eyes. I don’t even think about my friends, I just want to get out of here. It’s a little easier in the hallways, since not everyone is aware of what’s going on, but there are still plenty of weird looks as I rush past them all to try and catch up with Zekram.

I can see him just ahead of me, weaving gracefully through the bodies of our fellow cadets as he heads towards the dorms. Meanwhile, I seem to be running into and tripping over every single person in my way. Which only causes more people to watch me in annoyance, but at least I'm catching up.

“Would you slow down?!” I nearly shout when I finally manage to catch him by the arm and he stops. “We need to talk.”

“What exactly is there to talk about?” he asks in response, barely looking at me over his shoulder.

“I dunno, maybe the fact that I just became your temporary dom?” Several people around us stop and stare at my words, but I don’t really care. What the hell is wrong with this asshole?

“Yeah, the key word there is temporary.” He rolls his eyes, shakes off my hold and resumes his long strides down the hallway.

“You know I’m trying to help you, right?” I ask, once again on his tail.

“Yeah, I’m sure you’re doing all this out of the goodness of your heart,” he scoffs, shaking his head.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I call ahead, seeing him finally start to slow down.

“It means I never asked for your help!” he answers sharply, coming to a stop. When the door next to him slides open, I realize we must have reached his dorm.

“I’m sorry, were we in different rooms just now? Because there wasn’t a single other person in there willing to stand up for you,” I point out, following him into the room, the door sliding shut behind me. “I just saved your ass from getting expelled!”

It’s a standard fifth-year dorm room, about four-hundred square feet when you count the small attached bathroom with shower and toilet. A holo-project and screen sit along one wall next to a desk, with a small kitchenette in the opposite corner. A standard-issue bed sits against the wall, comfortable enough for one but I know from personal experience that you can squeeze two people on if you try. The room is pretty much exactly the same as mine, except probably a little cleaner.

“Saved me?” He finally turns around once we’re inside. “They’re still going to try and expel me in two weeks! The only thing you saved me from was another asshole dom who gets off on pushing subs around. And the only reason you did that is because you want to push me around yourself - and to make yourself look good.”

“What the fuck?” I have no idea where any of that is coming from - we’ve barely ever even spoken before now. “What are you talking about? You don’t know the first fucking thing about me, where do you get off accusing me of something like that? I stood up because I thought it was the right thing to do!”

“You’re a hero,” he patronizes, rolling his eyes again. “Look, thanks for whatever you thought you were doing, but I didn’t need your help before, and I don’t need your help now.”

“Yeah, you seem like you’re doing really great.” What fantasy world is he living in? “I don’t even know how you were able to make it this long without a dom.”

Seriously, I told you earlier, for Cabrians to stay healthy, we regularly have to exercise the dominant or submissive parts of ourselves. For someone to have gone this long hiding that part of themselves, for a sub to not have any sort of regular dom, it kind of blows my mind. I’ve literally never heard of it happening before.

“Because despite what you and your entire designation seems to think, I don’t actually need a dom.” He steps into my space, locking eyes. “I think I’ve been doing pretty fucking good on my own so far, but its like as soon as any of you assholes sees ‘sub’ next to my name, you forget that I’m kicking all of your asses in every class and training session across the board.”

“Gods, you are so fucking full of yourself!” I almost laugh in his face. “You sure about not needing a dom? Because it really seems like you could stand to have someone put you in your place.”

“Oh yeah? And let me guess, you’re just the dom to do it.” He chuckles and shakes his head. “The only reason any of you even knows that I’m a sub is because that prick Malprin couldn’t handle losing and lied about me cheating! Maybe you should get over yourself. I told you, this is temporary.”

“Temporary how?” I make a show of looking around the room. “I doubt Admiral Ranock is gonna change the rules and let you defend yourself in two weeks, and I don’t see any other doms around here willing to help you.”

“That you know of, dumbass,” he sneers back. “My older brother is a dom, and a lawyer, and as soon as you get out of my room, I’ll be giving him a call to take your place.”

“Well until he does, you’re still stuck with me as your current dom.” I poke him in the chest for emphasis. “So how about you drop the attitude and show me some fucking respect?”

He narrows his eyes, looking down at my offending finger.

“Oh, I’m so very sorry, sir, for not showing you the proper respect.” He spits out the title like it was a slur. “Please forgive me sir, is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”

“Oh my god, you are fucking impossible!” I throw my hands up in frustration. “Fine, do whatever the fuck you want, see if I fucking care!”

“Great.” he rolls his eyes again. “Now get the fuck out of my room, sir.”

Growling in irritation, I turn on my heel and leave the room, the door opening and shutting automatically. I start to stomp down the hall, wanting to get as far from the room and that prick of a sub as fast as possible. I don’t think I’ve had a conversation with anyone before that was as frustrating as that was, let alone a sub. He managed to push all of my dom buttons without giving even a snippet of submission in return.

Feeling pent up and with nothing to do about it, I decide to head to the gym to see if I can work out some of this frustrated energy. When I get there I hop on a holo-treadmill and just start running, my surroundings all melting away as the program boots up. I run across beaches, through jungles, I even try entirely different planets, but when I’m finished, the only thing that feels like it's changed is that I’m tired, sweaty, and hungry. So after a nice rejuvenating shower, I head to the cafeteria.

It’s as busy as ever, but that’s not a surprise, it is lunchtime and this is usually one of the busiest places on campus. A large center room contains a number of different serving lines, while tables and chairs for those of us eating can be found in the rooms connected on either side. One side of the cafeteria is dedicated to local cabrian food, while the other half rotates between the cuisine of some of the other planets in the Galactic Union. There’s also a few replicators set up along the back wall next to the drink fountains for any picky eaters.

I give a passing glance to today’s imported menu - looks like stuff from Cornillia and Pacheko - before deciding to stick with what I know. Sorry but “chilled yompa stew” just doesn’t sound very appealing. Interested, I grab a plate of grilled reefgar and start looking for a place to sit down.

I don't have to look long, spotting Tuck, Prim, and Gax-On already sitting with some of our other friends, Astel, Brakis, and Rev. Astel and Barkis are sister and brother from Yarlat, making them both very muscular and tall (around seven-and-a-half feet) with thick grey skin and virtually no hair whatsoever. There is not a lot of sexual dimorphism among their species, and without genetic testing it is almost impossible to know their gender until they are around five years old.

Rev is a cybekin, which means that while his body looks humanoid, it’s actually entirely inorganic. Cybekins are one of the more...unique species to join the Galactic Union. Something like thousands of years ago, their species developed a way to digitally encode someone’s consciousness into a virtual environment. While this was initially only intended to be used by the terminally ill and dying, it eventually began to expand through their population, until eventually the entire species was digital.

From what I hear, this virtual world has all of the comforts of the real world and none of the limitations. They even learned how to “reproduce” in their virtual world, someone creating an entirely new consciousness from the digital genetics of two “parents.” They use cybernetic and robotic bodies to interact with the physical world, maintaining the systems for their virtual reality and meeting face to face with non-cybekins. It's traditional for all cybekins to one day leave that environment and spend some time in the real world, which is what Rev has been doing for the past four years. From what I understand, his body has been built to resemble what his species once looked like, with light blue skin, a flared nose, and three fingered hands and feet.

“Vaiken!” Tuck calls to me when he sees me approaching. “We were just telling the others about the uh...”

“Bizarre fucking decision you made back there,” Prim finishes for him, sliding over to make space for me to sit down. “But now that you’re here, maybe you can explain just what the hell you were thinking.”

“Let me just make sure I understand,” Brakis asks in his deep, gravely voice as I take my seat. “Cadet Zekram is really a submissive, and because of that he wasn’t allowed to speak for himself at his expulsion hearing, so you agreed to be his dom and speak for him?”

“I didn’t know they were going to make me his dom,” I start to try and explain myself. “I just thought I was helping the guy out, standing up for him when no one else would. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“Are you sure that’s all you were thinking?” Astel’s question catches me off guard.

“What do you mean?” I immediately feel defensive.

“I mean, you’re a dom, he’s a sub... Are you sure the only thing you wanted to do was help him?” Her expression is as suggestive as I’ve seen on a yarlatin.

“I didn’t even know the guy was a sub until like three hours ago.” I point out, sounding maybe a little sensitive. “None of us did.”

“I’m still not sure I understand that,” Rev says next in his modulated voice. “Isn’t the whole dominant/submissive designation thing really important to your whole species? Why would he hide it for this long?”

“I wish I could tell you.” I shrug, pushing the grilled fish around my plate with my fork. “I know growing up sometimes kids would lie about their designation, but it never lasted very long. I have no idea how or even why he’s held onto it for this long.”

<Perhaps he has an aversion to public displays of submission?> Gax asks while he chews.

“As high as his sub level is, I doubt that there’s anything public he wouldn’t be into,” Tuck responds.

I don’t usually like to speculate on what a sub I’m not involved with might be into, but I know Tuck is probably right. Just looking around this room, I can see plenty of examples of the “public displays” Gax is talking about. Doms and subs eating together from the same plate - a cabrian tradition for established relationships. There are even some subs being hand-fed by their doms.

It’s not even unique to the cafeteria - it's common to see stuff like that all over the campus. Subs sitting at their doms feet during a movie night, or being made to stand or kneel in a corner of the recreation room as punishment. All extremely normal things for us cabrians, things that I’d honestly love to be able to do with a sub of my own one day. So I’m really not sure what Kaylin’s reasoning for avoiding it all is.

<Vaiken.> Gax looks at me, and then behind me. <I believe your new charge is about to join us.>

Almost on cue, the whole room around us goes quiet, several people all turning to look at the same place Gax is. When I finally turn to join them, I see Kaylin Zekram, who has just entered the room with a tray of his own food. He looks around with annoyance, no doubt seeing the way everyone has stopped to gawk and stare, and even whispering about him.

“Zekram!” Tuck shouts, making everyone at and around our table turn to watch as he waves the man over. “Over here!”

“What are you doing?” I whisper hiss to him, but before she can answer, he’s already at our table.

“You need something, Balock?” Zekram asks, using Tuck’s last name.

“Just thought you might want to sit with your new dom.” He gestures to an empty spot next to him at our table.

Zekram’s face falls for a split second before it turns icy and impassive as he turns from Tuck to meet my eyes. “I thought I made it clear that I don’t need anything from you or your friends.”

Without another word, he walks away, tray still in hand. All eyes are on him as he exits the cafeteria entirely, and it's only after he's gone that the volume level picks back up to where it was before. Only now, the scene at my table is one of the topics of discussion.

“Was that really necessary?” I wearily ask Tuck.

“What? I was trying to help!” he insists. “I thought he was looking for you. Didn’t you just say you were trying to help him?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he wants my help,” I explain, my appetite mostly gone. “I rushed out after the hearing to talk to him, and all he did was chew me out for my ‘help.’”

“But doesn’t he need your help?” Brakis points out. “They weren’t going to let him speak for himself, right?”

“I told him the same thing, and he emphasized to me that our situation was temporary,” I share the results of our after-hearing conversation. “He said he was going to contact his brother to replace me as his dom ASAP.”

“Does anyone know anything about his family?” Prim queries the table.

“It looks like his dad is a lawyer.” Rev offers, no doubt already using his internal circuitry to scan the internet for information. “A pretty high profile one, it would seem.”

“Whatever.” I shake my head, not really caring. “Whoever he gets to replace me, it can’t happen fast enough.”

<Are you regretting your act of altruism?> Gax questions me next.

“No, I just don't want to have to deal with his shitty attitude anymore,” I try and rationalize.

“Well, you better hope it happens soon,” Prim says with some concern. “Can't imagine that anything he does now is going to reflect well on you.”

“What do you mean?” I turn to her in worry. “You don’t think they'd hold anything he does against me, do you?”

“Well, you are his dom now, even if it’s only temporary.” Tuck points out. “I know they shouldn’t, but you know how older doms can get about that kind of stuff.”

“...I really hope you’re not right about that...” I grumble, even though I know she probably is.

The rest of lunch is uneventful, though I only manage to eat about half of my food before giving up. It's still our off day, so afterwards everyone makes plans to go into town and see a movie, but I politely decline. I had planned on spending the morning quietly reading, but that got screwed up by Zekram and his hearing, so I decide to make an afternoon of it instead.

It doesn't really work out as planned. I try to focus on my book, but my mind just keeps reaching back to that dick of a sub and his situation. So when I hit my second hour of reading the same two pages over and over, I say fuck it and do some research of my own on the Zekram family.

It doesn’t take me long to find what I’m looking for. Rev was right, Zekram’s father is a very high profile lawyer, with a lot of connections to Cabria’s bureaucracy. It looks like his brother is a lawyer too, just like he said. But the kinds of cases they work on... I think I might understand why the cadet has been hiding his designation.

Alias Zekram, Cadet Zekram’s father, has worked on a lot of big cases for our planet’s government in the past two decades. Almost all of of them were focused around the expanding rights of submissives - for which Alias was arguing against. It looks like he may have even had a hand in preventing a few submissive rights laws from passing.

His brother’s name gets listed in a few of these articles, so I have to assume he’s following in dad’s footsteps. Is that who Kaylin is hoping will come to save him? Does he really think someone like that is going to help him more than I can? I feel like I understand the guy even less now.

I really hope when I wake up tomorrow that this all turns out to be a bad dream.