Kal Qor has worn many hats in the century or so that he has been in the Xx Banned Regions. When he arrived, the Regions were a scary place. It was like an interstellar colonial-era Australia; the location where civilized peoples discarded their criminals and deviants. There was no safe zone and in order to live in the regions, an individual had to arrive with shelter or construct it from whatever materials they could scavenge in the area. There were a considerable number of shelterless inhabitants of the regions then, and Solse would eventually see many of them sleeping, or dead, in old and dirty spacesuits on the rocks of varying sizes that floated the Regions. Larger rocks were dominated by criminal organizations who managed to build larger structures and created make-shift communities that were largely lawless.
Kal was deserted in the Regions by a trading vessel and was left with whatever he could fit into a single bag he carried on his back. His bag was filled with food; he was sure that he would die of starvation because there is no naturally occurring food source in the Regions and inhabitants would barter for provisions from smugglers who frequented the area from many planets in the nearby Soulaxar galaxy. He should have starved because First Captain Pen Nuren, leader of the Wiis Defense Ministry and mother of Kal’s children, hated him and ordered that he be left in a remote spot away from others. But Kal had packed enough to carefully leap with the help of the boosters of his suit to an area where he found people. This was better than dying of starvation, but that is a subjective assessment. Would you rather provide sexual gratification to men and women who are alien to you for years in order to eat, or die of starvation? For Kal, it was an easy choice; he had to live because the punishment of the banned regions was only a punishment for the weak, or those with too much decency to exploit others for their own comfort. It was a paradise for the vicious and ruled by the cruelest among them. He could leave like some people managed, hide away things of value to the smugglers to trade for a ride away from the regions and back to any civilization that would allow him to exist without disturbance. But Kal vowed that he wouldn’t leave the Banned Regions until he made it a liveable place where the unjustly banished wouldn’t become the victims of the truly evil.
Kal learned the power structures that existed in the Regions and he navigated them. As a Rhasdwiis male, Kal had learned to ingratiate himself with aggressive personalities, and his relationship with the First Captain in his youth gave him access to many beings of planets around the universe. Kal used his sexuality, the masculine mystique, on beings of any sex interested in sexual gratification to gain the trust of those in power and he learned what made them strong, what made them feared or respected, what led to loyalty or betrayal. He learned to leverage the knowledge to make deals on behalf of everyone, not just for his own benefit, and he managed to carve out sections of the Regions where those without violent tendencies could make a life and provide repair services that proved beneficial to various spacecrafts that found their way to the area.
It was Kal’s association with a mysterious man that helped him to formalize the Safe Zone.
Rumors of a man who largely dictated the goings-on in the Regions precede Kal’s arrival there. As he satisfied his way up the power structures that exist in the regions, he heard stories about a man who refused a name, and many called X, Blank, or Nothing.
“You are good,” a smuggler from Hafjeran who eventually settled in the Regions said to Kal as he was securing the Safe Zone and only offering himself in exchange for promises of peace. “I was told to look out for Kal Qor. You do things no Hafjeran woman ever would. Is that why you’re here?”
Kal smiled. He was happy that his reputation had spread, it only made everyone more curious to meet him and he was confident that he wouldn’t be killed when he approached the strongholds of dangerous people within the Regions, not before he had a chance to speak to whomever was in charge. Once he met the one in charge, Kal knew that he could use his charm to keep himself alive.
“I am a servant unlike any other,” Kal said. “And word is, you are an inhabitant of the Regions who is like few others. You choose to live here.”
The man smiled and Kal could see the corners of his mouth that were less rigid than the tip of his beak, curl up slyly.
“Were you a sex worker on Wiis?” The man asked. “Is that why you were banished here?”
“I have never been a sex worker, not that I wouldn’t be very successful at it.”
The man laughs, “Your former owner would disagree. Said you earned him a lot of provisions, food and ship parts. Are you ashamed? There is no reason to lie here. Lies are hard when the truth travels so fast.”
This time, Kal laughed. “Truth? Whose truth? And no, I am not ashamed that I survived impossible circumstance. And I gave myself to individuals as appreciation for their generosity, not the other way around. I am proud to stand before you today and to offer you the very services you seem to know so much about.”
The man looked at him curiously.
“Are you familiar with the planet Hafjeran? You know the Hafjeris frown on same sex and interspecies relations. It is a sign that one has no control over their desires to be so desperate for sexual gratification that they could not find a Hajferis of the opposite sex.”
The man paused. Kal smiled at him.
“The Hafjeris are like everyone else,” Kal said. “We espouse the virtues that make us look honorable and morally superior to the worst example we use as uncivilized, but we live practical lives and make choices depending on our situation. That’s not compromise either, that’s the definition of relativity. We are slave to the conditions around us.”
“Do you really believe that?” The man asked. “Is that how you maintain your sense of honor in this place where everyone knows you as the best whore around?”
Kal smiled more brightly, chucking to himself. “There is honor in everything. Why this long interrogation? Are you interested? I am told that you have seen Blank, you have talked to him. And if he is the man everything thinks he is, then he is just the man to make the Safe Zone permanent. I assume he has no objections to it, I haven’t been forced to stop.”
The man seemed to be really considering Kal who stood before him in the tightest spacesuit that seemed to be painted on up to his neck and down to the tips of his toes. His body looked muscular, but soft, like he was a human-sized pillow that would be comfortable to snuggle up next to on a bed, or soft to squeeze. The Hafjeris man was taller than Kal, and he wore fairly traditional attire for his species, shorts that covered his thighs down to just below the knee and a fitted shirt with sleeves that covered his arms to his wrists that was made of bullet and proton proof material that allowed him to spread his almost black wings from the back. He had light feathers on his face and his skin was very white, but he was a handsome Hafjeris man with an impressive wingspan that he seemed to wield with no strain. One of his legs was outstretched as he sat before Kal inside the largest domed community that was around then. The man sat on a large rock structure and Kal looked down at his foot that he saw as an indication of the man’s desire to touch him.
“I can give you information about Blank,” the Hafjeran man said after a long silence as he looked Kal up and down. “My family will not be happy, but I will deal with it. But Kal, what I want from you is much more than a single sexual encounter. I can easily take a single encounter, but forcing it isn’t good. Until my family marries me off, it would be convenient to have someone I could trust to be discreet. I am here unless I’m out scavenging or I have to be back on Hafjeran, and our women are too proud to be paid for without other commitments.”
“Have you ever been with a Rhasdwiis?” Kal asked and took a step closer.
“I have,” the man said more quietly than he had been talking and he looked around to be sure no one was approaching the deserted area where they met in secret. “You all are my favorite, the men. Your women are worse than our men.” He paused for a moment to look around again and then he leaned toward Kal. “I don’t think that makes me a homosexual, does it?”
“Gender is only helpful for creating children,” Kal says. “It’s worthless for everything else. If you enjoy someone’s company and pleasuring one another is a consensual part of that company, then what does gender matter?”
“I’m not attracted to other Hafjeris males, for sure,” the man continued, mostly ignoring Kal’s words. “But you, I’ll give you Blank if you will be with me when I’m here. But there can’t be anyone else and I’ll give you everything you need that I can give you. Deal?”
Kal smiled and sat on the man’s lap. He stroked the feathers on his wings with a hand and felt the man vibrating with excitement underneath him. Kal kissed the man’s beak.
“It’s a deal Yiel Dharle. So how do I speak with Blank?”
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