Page 101 of Dirty Like Us
But Layla’s not in the Corps, so she doesn’t really understand the chain ofcommand.
“Welcome to Station Six, Cadet Marsden. You can report forclearance.”
“Thank you,Sir.”
Score directs her to the center of the Hub, where she gets into a lineup near the steps to the elevator bank. Up front, officers check the contents of each rucksack before granting the trainees access to one of the elevators. Each time an elevator fills, Lana watches it whoosh through the ceiling, lifting the trainees into the higher levels of the station, her stomach surging along withit.
Why this time? She should have been more nervous to leave Earth after Basic Training almost a year ago, to report to Station One. By now she should be used to the rigors of the Corps, the security checks, the men in uniform everywhere she looks, the intimidating air the officers don as effortlessly as their shit-kicking boots. Maybe it’s the rumors worming their way under her skin, but there seems to be a nearly palpable electricity in the air. She watches as the other trainees in line fidget and worry away at the lumps in their throats as they wait for their rucksacks to besearched.
When it’s her turn, she drops her ruck on the table and unzips it for the clearance officer.Thorough, says his badge.Master Sergeant. The highest-ranking officer she’s encountered on Sixyet.
“Swipe,” he says without looking at her, delving straight into herruck.
Lana swipes her finger over the blue light emitting from the tablet on the table. She watches Thorough dig around, counting her clothing items, toiletries and personal effects. Next to the table, a bin holds prohibited items that have already been confiscated—snack bars from the shuttle commissary, a computer tablet, a gold necklace, even a pair of high heels—but she isn’t worried. She’s memorized the trainee manual and packed exactly as allowed. Even so, it’s a little unnerving having a male officer she’s never met before counting her panties—black cotton briefs, precisely to code, and the same as everyone else’s, but still. The longer he digs in her ruck, the more on-edge Lana feels.Is there a problem? She resists the urge to ask. There are officers who bend a little and those who do not, and maybe it’s just his big hands pawing through her ruck, but this one looks like the kind you don’tpress.
Surely he didn’t get a call sign like Thorough for anythingless.
Finally he looks at her, an insinuating prickle in his gray eyes as he pulls something from her ruck. She stares at the rubber penis in his gloved hand—hot pink and unabashedlylarge.
“What the hell is this?” His lips curl in a slow, serratedsmile.
Lana’s mouth falls open long before the words come. “I… that’snotmine.” She can’t even gather the wits to addSirto the end of her protest before she’s digging in the ruck herself. Definitely her things. She checks the zipper, finds her ID number on thetag.
Thorough glances over at the tablet, reading. “Then you’re not Cadet Marsden?” He yanks another item from the depths of the ruck. A lacy bra, emerald-green.
“I am, but, thatisn’tmine.Sir!”
Thorough holds the bra in the air, letting it dangle from his gloved fist like some vermin he’s caught running wild in the Hub. Lana feels the trainees in line behind her craning their necks to gawk. She notices the other officers—Rangers—appearing out of nowhere, one to each side of Thorough’s table, observing thespectacle.
“Look!” Desperate, Lana grabs at the bra and stretches a lacy cup over her hand—enormous. “This isn’t even my size!” She expects him to glance at her chest to verify this. Hedoesn’t.
He lifts the pink dildo in his other hand instead. “No? How aboutthis?”
Even though she’s never seen the giant dildo before, Lana feels the flush of blood creeping into her face. Some of the trainees behind her snicker. Thorough gives them a cuttinglook.
“Sex toys and lingerie are a Code violation.” He tosses the prohibited items in the bin and keeps rooting through her ruck. “Take her down to the brig. Her CO can sort itout.”
Lana stiffens as one of the Rangers comes toward her. She feels the other trainees edging away, making room. “Wait, please.”Stay calm. “This stuff isn’t mine, I swear. Somebody must have packed it in my ruck by mistake—” But it’s no use; arguing is only making a scene. The Ranger’s face remains impassive as he draws Lana’s hands in front of her and slips a pair of metal cuffs on her wrists. She bites her lip, hard, her entire body flushing hot as the cuffs snapshut.
The Rangers lead her away, up the steps, past the elevators and along the raised corridor. Panic courses through her as she’s marched to the far end of theHub.
They’re really going to dothis.
Lock herup.
She feels the eyes of the officers in the corridor moving over her, several administrative types gripping tablets and gazing down their noses at her, and those below staring up through the glass. She tries to ignore the strange torment, the inconvenient and almost unbearably arousing friction as her nipples, suddenly hard, rub against her bra. She catches a flicker of red and dares a glance at Scarlet, who watches, looking puzzled, hands on herhips.
Lana tries not to wriggle in the Ranger’s grasp, her bodysuit sticking to her sudden sweat, the cuffs and the humiliation chafing equally as a nasty thought twists its way into hergut.
Is this just one of theirgames?
Her throat pulls when she swallows, suddenly dry. Has she, Lana Marsden, exemplary trainee, been designated a bad girl? The girl who tries to smuggle a dildo and lingerie onto Station Six… and now her CO gets to decide how best to punishher?
The Rangers load her into a small service elevator. As the elevator sinks below the Transport Level of the Hub into the lowest level of the station, she struggles to get agrip.
Breathe.
She’ll get a reprimand, a formal note in her file. That’s all. No one is going to punish her—not likethat. That’s all just fantasy. The oversexed imaginations of a bunch of bored and horny trainees. Her CO is most definitely not going to show up and strip her down and humiliate her further. That’sridiculous.