Protecting His Mistress - Evangeline Anderson Page 0,77

show you the last Candidate,” Mistress Martinet said, turning back to Lilli and ignoring the big Kindred, though she cast a fearful look over her shoulder from time to time to see if he was still watching. He was.

She tapped the screen a third time and yet another baby face appeared. This one had red hair and brown eyes.

“Now, this candidate will be a good mixture of tractability, beauty, and intelligence,” she told Lilli. “This is actually your mother’s first choice, though she wants you to know you can pick for yourself among the three of them.”

“I…I don’t know.” Lilli felt sick. She didn’t want to pick any of the sperm candidates to be impregnated with. She just wanted to go home and forget any of this had ever happened. But how could she? Mistress Martinet was standing right there, ready to tell her mother if she backed out of the insemination. There would be no hiding it or pretending the process hadn’t worked because her mother would know all the details already.

I think I’m actually going to have to go through with this, she thought, and felt like crying. She wasn’t ready to have a baby yet! Not all by herself! She wanted someone to help her raise it. Someone to love it and care for it—not a cold, lifeless nannybot which was only programmed to take care of it and couldn’t really have any feelings for it.

But I have Karn now, she thought, glancing at the big Kindred. Maybe he can help me raise the baby. Maybe I won’t be alone after all.

“Well, if you can’t decide, we’ll go with your mother’s choice,” Mistress Martinet said briskly. She tapped the screen again and said loudly, ‘Prepare the sperm of Candidate three for insemination.”

“What?” Lilli gasped, but the other woman already had her by the arm again and was leading her out of the room.

“Down this way,” she said to Lilli. “It won’t take but a minute and then you’ll have that cute little baby bump in less than an hour.”

“Baby bump?” Lilli’s hand stole down to her lower belly automatically and she wished again that her skirt fit better. What was wrong with it, anyway?

“Oh yes—you’ll start showing almost from the moment of conception. The quick-grow formula makes certain the baby developing inside you grows at an exponential rate.”

As Mistress Martinet spoke, she was leading Lilli into yet another room behind another black door. Only this one was much larger and had more than just blank walls and a view screen.

Forty

The room was divided into two sections by a clear plastiglass barrier. On one side of the barrier were several chairs. On the other was also a chair, but a much different kind of chair than Lilli had ever seen.

It was padded in bright red leather and it looked like it reclined but the bottom part of it appeared to be split into two long sections.

Is that where my legs go? Lilli wondered, feeling sick with dread as she remembered the tales she’ heard. Is the chair split so they can be spread apart while I get inseminated?

Opposite the padded red chair was a tall silver box with lights blinking on the front of it. What was that for?

“Now then,” Mistress Martinet said briskly. “Lilliana, let’s get you into the insemination chair so the procedure can begin.”

“No!” Karn said, frowning. He took Lilli by the arm. “Little Mistress,” he said urgently. “I need to talk to you alone.”

“What are you saying?” Mistress Martinet demanded. “We must get moving along here. I insist that you let go of Mistress Lilliana so that she can make her appointment time.”

“Fuck her appointment time,” Karn growled. He tugged urgently on Lilli’s arm. “You don’t have to do this, Lilli! Just give me a minute to talk to you about it—please.”

Lilli shook her head sadly.

“I’m sorry, Karn, but there’s nothing to talk about. She’s won…I’ll have to go through with it.” She could feel her eyes starting to sting with tears so she blinked rapidly, trying to keep them back. “It’s going to be okay,” she told the big Kindred. “I…I’ll just have to raise the baby as best I can. And maybe…maybe you can help me?”

She looked up at him hopefully.

“Baby—” Karn began but at that moment, Mistress Martinet interfered.

“I must insist that we get Mistress Lilliana into the insemination chair now. Once the sperm is thawed, it must be used immediately.”

Lilli let herself be led through a glass doorway and into