The Iron Maiden by Piers Anthony Page B

whipped out a patch and slapped it on her glove, but the seal was not complete; she was still losing air faster than her tank could replace it. She tried to hurry back to the ship, but the thinning air got to her, and she passed out. The last thing she was aware of was being picked up by her buddy. He flung her over his shoulder and charged back.
    When she recovered, she was in the spare bedchamber, her suit was off and she was breathing from an oxygen mask. Bruiser was staring down at her. “Kid, I didn't know,” he was saying. “The captain was busy, so I just got to work to get you breathing again. If I'd a known, I'd've covered for you, buddy style.”
    That was when she realized that in his haste to get her out of the suit for resuscitation, he had dislodged her shirt and chest binding. Her breasts were showing, and they were no longer token.
    Captain Brinker appeared. She appraised the situation in an instant. “Damn! Now I'll have to share her.”
    Spirit was still woozy, with a headache. But she knew what was required. "I guess you will, sir.
    Make--make Bruiser the first. I owe him." Then she passed out again.
    The captain compromised by setting up a weekly raffle. Sancho would remain officially male, but the winner of the raffle would have him as a woman for one hour alone. The rest of the time Sancho still belonged to the captain. Anyone caught referring to Sancho as female would be eliminated from the raffle. The first winner was declared to be Bruiser. No one argued with that; he had earned it by saving her, and by revealing her, however inadvertently. For regular sex there was the whore they had installed; this was special sex, higher class. Not only did they know and respect Spirit as a good worker with uncanny aim with a laser, she was considerably cleaner and prettier than the whore, apart from her scars.
    Privately the captain was grim. “Damned bad break! A splinter!”
    “I'm not sure I could have hidden much longer,” Spirit said. She was now thirteen, and her breasts were almost full.
    “Maybe not,” Brinker agreed. “Can you handle it?”
    “I think so. If there's no violence.”
    “We'll post rules of the game: no violence, no perversions, just the straight goods. For perversions, they can continue to use the feelies.” Then she paused, thinking of a better variant. “Make it your choice. He gets the hour, you choose the type and position. I don't want you spoiled for my own pleasure.”
    “Yes,” Spirit agreed.
    “But you will have to perform. Some of those brutes are so horny they'll do it six times in that hour. You can't tell them no.”
    “I'll find six positions,” Spirit agreed with a wan smile. “I'd better practice them now.”
    Brinker described a considerable assortment of what should be acceptable positions. She knew about sex, and must have had experience; she just didn't care for it. They were all variants of what were called the front and back positions, augmented by oral sex, which was also of two kinds: male mouth or female mouth. “You've got to do it, because they think you've been doing it all along.”
    Spirit agreed. She had of course seen much more in the feelie chip sequences, but this time it was personal. She rehearsed exactly how it and other sexual exploits were done. It didn't look great to her, but surely wasn't as bad as eating human flesh had been. She was ready; she would surely improve with practice.
    The hour came. She entered the bedroom chamber that she and Hope had first used. This time she really was taking his place--but now she was far better prepared for it, in flesh and mind. She didn't expect it to be bad, because she had control, and she knew all the men of the ship, whose attitudes had changed significantly since they learned her gender. There would be no rape and no sex with strangers; in fact there would be nothing she did not choose, so long as she did choose often enough.
    Bruiser was there. He was standing, and clothed. “Kid,”