“God. Fucking. Dammit!” I screech. And then I cough because screeching requires a lot of breath, and breathing in a lot while your face is very close to the ground is not a terribly bright idea.

You know how they say that teachers make the worst students, right?

What ‘they’ mean by that is usually that teachers are an obnoxious bunch of know-it-alls who are entirely unable to learn anything new from anyone else because they can’t get over their egos, which are inflated to massive proportions by years and years of professionally being right all the time.

Personally, for me, that’s complete bullshit.

I – aka Teacher – am a bad student solely because my current student-turned-teacher seems to think that sitting on me counts as an educational method.

“Get off of me, you big, fat, ugly toad!” I spit like an angry cat.

No reaction. Dammit.

Change of tactics. Maybe sympathy will help?

“You’re huuurting me!” I sniffle a bit for extra effect.

A couple of quick notes on this scene.

One: The guy who is sitting on me is not fat. He’s just close to seven feet tall and made of heavy muscle. And the planet he’s from, they make muscle extra heavy, apparently.

Two: He’s not hurting me (much). I’m the one hurting myself with my wriggling and trying to reach back to hit or scratch him with my unimpressive fingernails. I am very aware that he could very easily hurt me - and even more aware that he never would. (Much.) (Unless it was fun.) (And, let’s face it – it sometimes is.)

Three: He’s not ugly, damn him. I mean, he’s not “pretty” by human standards. He’s got a short Mohawk made of quasi-sentient non-hair hair, dark amber lizard eyes, pointy teeth, a long, snake-y tail, truly freaky feet, and his bronze-gray skin is peppered with several scraggly scars and lumps of bone sticking out in odd places. He’s not exactly GQ material.

But he’s not ugly to me.

The very opposite, actually. Damn him.

And four: I’m only calling him ‘toad’ because the name I’ve been calling him by for a couple of weeks literally means ‘Your Highness’ in his language and I haven’t yet forgiven him for leaving me in the dark about that.

He doesn’t rise to the sniffly bait whatsoever, sadly doesn’t respond to his brand-new name either, and leaves me to wriggle and try to get out from under him for another couple of minutes until my already relatively feeble strength is finally drained and my nose is so full of dust that I have a sneezing fit.

“What have you learnt, Teacher?” Rune asks me from above as I wipe my nose with the back of my hand.

(Classy, Ree.)

(Can’t help it. I don’t have a tissue in my pocket right now.)

Because I don’t have pockets on me right now, because – did I mention that we are both stark naked? Cause we are. Yeah, our teacher-student relationship was very questionable even before Rune took a seat on my bare ass and called it a lesson.

(Of all the things he could do to my ass, sitting on it is what he chose. What a waste.)

I sigh at that thought.

Anyway. Where was I? Ah yes. What did I learn?

Well, I did not learn how to wrestle or grapple, which was my original idea. Both of my alien companions are really good at their Dryth-style Krav Maga and ever since our vessel was infiltrated by other aliens who wanted to abduct Rune, I have felt the urgent need to get a refresher on my self-defense skills.

Or should I just call it a ‘fresher’, seeing that my skills equal zero so far? I mean, I can sucker punch a bitch along with the best of them, but that’s basically it.

In any case, I have learnt not to ask a Dryth to teach me wrestling because he’ll just sit on me for an hour and then ask me dumb questions.

“’Don’t get sat on by someone who is heavier than you’?” I grump at him in answer to his original question.

“Yes,” he agrees. He’s infuriatingly immune to sarcasm. I’m starting to think that all aliens are because sarcasm is an exclusively human invention. “What else?”

I sigh. “’Keep a weapon at hand so you can stick the guy who sits on you with the pointy end.’”

“Yes,” he agrees again. “What else?”

I mope, all out of ideas, and say several words that are startlingly creative but also quite impolite to the extent of casting me and my upbringing in a bad light and therefore shan’t be repeated.

He relents and gets up. I think I can hear my hips and organs creak when his weight lifts off them and I give a groan of painful relief as I lie there like the useless pancake that I am.

“What else have you learned, Teacher?” he probes.

“That I’m a weak ass human. Uuugh gaawd,” I wheeze-groan and start to slowly, gingerly pull my knees and elbows underneath me so I can get up.

Before I succeed, however, his weight swiftly returns again, and I’m squashed flat into the ground. Again.

“Nooohooo!” I howl and thump the dirt with my fists because I can’t reach Rune to thump him properly. “Fuuuck youuu!”

“Humans are weak in combat. Your bodies are delicate,” Rune agrees to my earlier answer, ignoring my protests and my potty mouth.

If he wasn’t being absolutely infuriating right now, he might have earned brownie points for calling me ‘delicate’. My brain is selective like that.

“But your mind is a strong weapon,” he continues, “when it is not blunted.”

That’s his way of telling me that I’m being a massive idiot. So diplomatic.

“You are in a bind. Which ways do you have out of it?” he asks once my storm of curses has abated. Not because I’ve run out of curses or anger, just out of air. Lying on your stomach is work, even without added Dryth weight on top of you, and also, oww, my boobs.

“None. That’s what makes it a fucking bind,” I snap over my shoulder.

“This moment is not the last,” he says – or rather my translator interprets his words as such. I’m pretty sure that he makes more immediate sense in his own language. “It is not my intention to kill you, or else you would long be dead. Therefore, you need to ease out of the bind and furthermore plan for the next moment. Strategize for a desirable outcome.”

I go still and breathe deep, avoiding snorting space dust this time. “Okay. Alright. My Teacher,” I bite and I swear I can feel his amusement. Dick. “How do I ease out of that bind and successfully strategize for a desirable outcome, then? Enlighten me.”

“I am sitting on you,” he informs me helpfully because, gee, I hadn’t fucking noticed! “What is my intention?”

I roll my eyes. “To humiliate me?”

“Yes,” he agrees.

Yeah, so much for diplomacy. No wonder they coupd’etat’ed your butt off the Dryth throne, pal. You’re actually obnoxious when you have the upper hand.

“What else?”

“Hmm,” I go and tap my lower lip with a finger theatrically. “Maybe you like my ass a lot and thought it would be very comfortable to sit on?” I crane my neck and wish I had enough leeway to wriggle my backside enticingly. Hell, I wish he wasn’t sitting on me so I could do anything enticingly. Being sat on and sweaty with exertion and anger and caked with dirt is so not sexy.

“Yes,” he agrees yet again, easily.

Not a day goes by when he doesn’t let me know exactly how much he likes my ass – that’s why he’s my favorite. (Fifty percent of the time anyway.)

“What else?”

I think for a second. “Sitting on me is the easiest way for you to subdue me without harming me much,” I conclude.

“Yes.” There is a note of eager pride in his voice, like his dumb student has finally struck oil. Or maybe I’m just imagining it. “If I meant to abduct you and did not have drugs or restraints at hand, this would be the most effortless way to do so while not damaging you.”

I shudder just a little, but not from being sweaty and naked. Abduction is a topic that hits too close to home in too many ways now, and even though I make light of being a wimpy human from Planet Pudding, doesn’t mean I enjoy being categorically both helpless and useless.

“So basically, I should let myself be subdued and give the fat toad who’s sitting on me what he wants,” I conclude. “He wouldn’t get up until then anyway.”

“Yes, and no,” Rune replies.

“I should act like I’m subdued,” I amend. “And then, when he finally gets up…”

Rune gets up again and I lie there for a full second before I realize my earlier mistake. I immediately roll to the side (super elegantly, I assure you, a true paragon of athleticism) and struggle to get up right away, foregoing the lying and whining this time around. My limbs are sore, and my joints feel all squishy - probably from being squished for so long by an eleventy-hundred-pound alien.

Still, I manage to get up on my feet even if my stance is wobbly.

“A real threat will not allow you as generous a chance,” Rune lectures. “But there may be a moment, a short blink. Become ready for that moment.”

It is somewhat disheartening that the best defense and only hope Rune thinks I might have in a one-on-one situation is basically that my attacker
a) doesn’t want to or miraculously doesn’t have the means to kill me straight away,
b) forgot to bring zip ties or chloroform, and
c) is stupid enough to buy my ruse and give me a full minute to get up and run.

My overall success and survival would then depend on
d) my would-be-captor being slower than me.

In short, according to Rune, my survival depends on a series of fortunate and highly unlikely events.

In shorter, I am fucked. Not in the good way.

I guess my best shot is to
e) stick to Rune and Bane and really, really hope they’re never too busy taking care of themselves to also look out for me?

(And that they’ll remain interested in looking out for you.)

(Fat chance, eh. Nobody has ever remained particularly interested in you for any amou-)

I bite the inside lining of my cheek, hard. Shut up.

I make a show of wiping my grimy body down as much as I can and sigh. “Alright. Got it, Mr Miyagi.”

“What is the first lesson you learnt?” Rune asks and takes a step towards me that’s so alarmingly casual I take one step back and one to the side so fast it must look like I’m doing the 190bpm version of the Cha Cha Slide (sliiide to the right!), almost stumbling over my own feet in the process (cha-cha, real smooth). Out of reflex, I even lift my fists – as if boxing him would yield any type of result other than me shattering a wrist or five.

“Don’t give the big, bad alien a chance to sit on you,” I reiterate with narrowed eyes. “Don’t come any closer right now,” I tell him warily and slide backwards to create more space between us.

“And what if I do?” he challenges as his pupils dilate, swallowing up the dark orange of his irises, and his chin dips.

Hoo boy. That’s a very good combination of words.

Just like that, the air is sizzling, my pulse ratchets up a notch, and there’s a twinge in my nethers that is very familiar now but also still exciting every single time.

Whichever godly entity there is to thank for giving me companions who are as horny as me and who get horny as quickly as I do – thank you. Sincerely. You’re a bomb ass matchmaker.

Rune observes my hardening nipples with obvious interest. Between his thighs, his impressive penis uncurls a little from its relaxed ramshorn shape and starts glistening as it coats itself with lube.

Seriously, matchmaking fairy godmother, you did good.

“What if you come closer?” I ask rhetorically. “Well. I dunno? Uhm. I… might… run away!?” I suggest, but then I’m already running before I finish the word ‘away’, trying to stifle the crazy cackle that threatens to spill out of my mouth.

I know it’s futile. He’ll catch me in less than ten seconds, and it’ll only take that long because he enjoys watching me jiggle a little while. It does give me a moment to think about my next actions, though.

So when I feel his hand wrap around my arm, I whip and twist myself around and, with a little war cry, launch myself at his back and cling to him like a spider monkey. My arms wrap around his neck, my legs around his rock-hard middle.

“Didn’t expect that, did you, dastardly alien!” I crow with glee and go for the gold. The gold being his ear.

Ever since I saw the effect that my other alien, Bane, had when he bit and nibbled the shell of Rune’s ear, I have turned into a true ear fetishist.

Or maybe it’s not the ear itself that turns me on like crazy but the sounds that come out of Rune’s mouth and the way his entire body shudders and goes soft when I suck his earlobe.

Rune gives a panting groan and his knees buckle.

Yeah. That. Fuck yes.

One of his hands comes around and supports my ass to hold me tight even as he sinks to the ground, breathing heavily and purring like a race car engine.

A pleasant frisson skitters through me. Ugh, I fucking love this part right here.

“Are you ready for your lesson now?” I whisper the question into his ear and feel his eager assent in my head like a glowing live ember, throwing sparks. That’s his gift, his telepathy, going wild. Normally, I can’t tell whether he’s even in my head or not. Only in moments like this, when he lets me take control, I feel the shape and heat of his feelings, right there. Underneath and in between my own, in the negative space there.

I instruct him to sit down and lean back even as I also sit and then lean into some tree trunk myself. There’s something poking my left ass cheek and I should be worried about creepy crawlies climbing into my crack, but it’ll all have to wait. I’ve got important stuff to do.

As Rune gingerly reclines against me, I re-wrap my limbs around him and latch on to his ear again, decidedly going for the one that was badly injured in the fight he had with his almost-abductors. Those assholes mangled the little shell badly, ripping a part of it off and leaving a notch in it, marking him like a damn neutered tomcat. Rune has let me know that the sensitivity in it has increased and that every little touch is now almost painfully intense.

Perhaps Rune is a bit of a masochist. He turns his head, clearly offering himself to me, and clutches my right knee for support as I slide my tongue into and around the shell of his ear and nip him with soft lips and careful teeth.

Not too soft. Never too soft or too careful.

My hands come up to play with his other ear and the strip of non-hair across his scalp respectively, and his groaning increases in volume. I know and feel, rather than see, that he has shut his eyes and is giving himself over to me.

“Oh, what a good student you are,” I croon and nibble the skin behind his ear with my teeth. “So compliant.”

Something wet and slick taps my shin and I look down over and past Rune’s shoulder to see his erection nudging my leg.

“…and eager.”

I don’t think I will ever get over the fascination of alien cock. Dryth cock, in particular. Not only because it’s visually and tactually pleasing (to me anyway).

You know the ancient proverb, ‘An erection says more than a thousand words’? No? Well, now you do.

You see, much more so than my boys’ usually impassive faces, their cocks are indicators of moods and feelings. Their bodies’ reactions to me are immediate, undiluted, and unapologetically obvious… and therefore just fucking fun, to be honest.

In a moment of curiosity, I decide to half-unwrap my legs from Rune’s lower torso, only to capture and sandwich his twitching member between the soles of my feet.

I have never given any guy a footjob before – which is curious, really, seeing that I worked as a prostitute in a space port brothel for three years and have participated in just about absolutely every sexual practice I could think of – and several I couldn’t on account of Earthians not having the required body parts for them. But hey – I’ve seen it done in Japanese porn a couple of times, so I’m basically a pro at this. (Even though the absence of pixel censoring is startling.)

Judging by the way Rune groans and purrs, I’m doing just fine. His hand comes up and encircles both of my feet, pressing them closer together and increasing the friction against his cock. His organ bulges and pulses against the sensitive skin along the arches of my feet, almost giving me a reflexology massage in return.

I nibble, nip, lick and suck his ear and the area around it, gently stroke his other ear with the pads of my fingers and dig my fingernails into the spongy growth on his skull while allowing him to rub vigorously against my feet. His lubrication is flowing from the glands along his shaft, slicking our skin, and the slimy feeling of it between my toes makes me shiver. It’s not disgusting – nothing my Dryth do ever is – but it’s definitely new.

The sticky, slick sounds make my nipples prick.

Even though I’m still dusty and sweaty from my earlier quasi-training, Rune’s reactions are making me feel all kinds of sexy. I rub my front against his back just a bit, enjoying how his smooth skin and the interesting bumps of his skeleton and musculature tingle against my breasts and how the stuttering, roiling vibration of his purr tickles in my tummy. Both of my alien lovers are tactile wonderlands, so very touchable, always slick, always warm, and though their bodies are not soft, I could spend all day just pressing up against them. In fact, I may have spent days doing just that quite recently.

“Ree,” Rune hisses my name, and then gives a little warbling cry that shoots straight between my legs. “Yl’ree.” My Teacher.

So sweet and sexy. Feeling incredibly hot and turned on by his reaction, I whisper his name – his title – into his ear in return.

Increasing the intensity of my ministrations and wriggling my feet and toes against him, I drive Rune slowly but steadily to his climax. I watch in awe and fascination as his agile, bizarrely pretty cock darkens with a purple hue, bulges outward and then spurts and drips warm milky liquid over my feet and his hands, over my legs and his belly. It gives me a pleasantly funny feeling in my stomach.

For a long, sweet moment, Rune relaxes against me, and I cradle his head to my chest and sink back, not giving a damn that the tree behind me is uncomfortable as heck, or that Rune’s weight is going to be a bit much for my delicate ribcage in a minute.

Dryth don’t relax easily. It’s not in their nature, but they can and do learn if one is patient with them. Rune is a model student in this regard.

“This is a much better way to teach something than sitting on one’s student, don’t you agree?” I ask him primly as I comb my fingernails through his space mohawk.

“You can sit on me always,” Rune offers magnanimously. I snort a laugh and tisk.

Thus, I sit, breathe and enjoy my post-coital bliss with an allegedly violent and bloodthirsty, purely barbaric alien.

My life is so weird and wonderful, like a half-nonsensical dream. I would pinch myself, but I don’t have any hands free right now. Too busy hugging my lover.

(It’s too wonderful, if you’re honest, Val.)

I grit my teeth but inevitably, with the next breath out, the erotic glee in my gut turns sour and niggling anxiety starts rising.

The anxiety has been with me ever since that day (or night?) The Others entered this ship. Finding one of them dead in the corridor and thinking he was one of mine for a second, I felt my entire heart collapse under the weight of the feelings I realized I had unintentionally, unwittingly developed for my boys.

I guess I read too many shitty romance novels while on Earth because ever since that particular epiphany, I’ve been waiting for the inevitable other shoe to drop – in the form of me being ejected from their lives.

To be fair, they told me (once, in Dryth fashion) that I wasn’t going anywhere, but they also probably didn’t realize that I was seriously serious with them, so I can’t help but believe that my days and nights are, in fact, numbered.

Because that’s the plot, isn’t it? Guy (or, in my case, plural “guys”) and girl fool around. Girl gets capital-F Feelings. Guy peaces out. The fiction part is the bit between that and the happily-ever-after with the 2.4 kids and the Golden Retriever.

I’m waiting for the third act where Rune, with his telepathy, catches on to the tune to which my hormones are conga-dancing in my brain. He and Bane will inevitably decide that that’s way too much work, because…

Well. I am fairly certain that Dryth don’t actually feel love, as such. Not like humans anyway. Maybe not at all?

Attachment, possibly, maybe?

Like wild bears and orcas and wolves sometimes get attached to humans – right before they eat their faces.

I mean, no. My two Dryth would never harm me (much. Unless I ask them to). That, I trust a hundred percent. I can’t even say why, but I know in my heart that they care about my physical wellbeing.

But love is an unwieldy, uncomfortable, unbearably annoying emotion to be subjected to when you don’t feel the same in return. I can’t imagine how much worse it is when you’re stuck on a spaceship with your doting admirer, and you can’t possibly feel the same for them.

They’d be perfectly justified to pull away from me. To cast me aside and find someone less… clingy and complicated.

And wh-

And if that happens, I’m sure having my face eaten by a bear would be somewhat less painful.

Apropos pulling away – Bane has made himself very scarce these last couple of… hours?

Days?

I frown. When have I last seen him?

Was it actually when he left me his latest spike (which, as if noticing that I’m thinking about it, starts its pumping motion inside of me that makes me all shivery)?

I open my mouth to ask Rune about it, but then decide to try something else.

There’s another source of anxiety, slightly smaller than the other but a lot more insidious, mostly because Rune has been so very much unforthcoming about it.

His Princess Leia thing. Telepathy. Telekinesis. Hypnosis. Remote mind-and-body control.

Potentially, he manipulated my thoughts and feelings. Potentially, he coerced me into doing things and made me believe they were my idea. Potentially, he’s been reading my mind.

For a little while after finding out about his gift, I seriously couldn’t bring myself to worry about any of that. I was too glad that everyone was alive and whole (minus a bit of cartilage, plus a couple of new scars) after the ship was boarded and that our lives could and would go on.

If I could actively question the thoughts and feelings I had, it couldn’t be all that critical, right? I figured that it made no difference in the end whether my thoughts and feelings were entirely genuine, or Rune had somehow helped them along, so long as everything felt real.

Well, that period had passed and now I do worry again. Probably because my silly, love-struck heart wants confirmation of something, even if it’s just its own love-struck silliness. Something to hold on to. Something truly, actually, really, authentically… real.

So I decide to make an experiment out of it, close my eyes and think Bane’s name, as ‘loudly’ as I can, trying to conjure up his image in my mind as I do. The brass-yellow eyes, his broad shoulders and chest, the chiseled arms, the way his skin gleams when wet, like polished fine leather.

For a second, nothing happens, and I feel super foolish. If Bane actually came around the corner right this second, he might think I’m constipated or something.

But then I notice that Rune has gone tense in my arms and that his head is swiveling around just a bit, like he’s looking around for something. Or someone.

So there’s the answer I never wanted. I deflate.

“You heard that, didn’t you?” I ask quietly.

Rune says nothing. He gets up, leaving my arms feeling very empty and cold, and then rips a bit of fluffy greenery from a low-hanging branch with which he can clean his plentiful excretions from his stomach and now-flaccid cock, discards the leaves and then bends down to offer me a hand up.

I hesitate only a second before taking it with a sigh and letting myself get hauled onto my feet.

Rune chooses another bushel of green and kneels down in front of me to wipe the tops of my feet and toes clean as well. I hop around on one foot, holding on to his shoulder and feeling a little dumb and embarrassed. This is probably what it feels like to have your shoelaces done up by someone else when you’re a grown-up.

I don’t bother to protest, though. I know Rune wouldn’t be deterred anyway. Also, it’s kinda sweet, in a Dryth-y way.

Eventually, I’m all clean (or as clean as one gets when one is wiped down with leaves from a space tree) and Rune stands tall before me, looking at me with his sunset eyes.

Thinking everything and saying nothing. Typical.

“So you can read my mind,” I state more than ask and try to make sense of what I’m feeling. Am I disappointed? Maybe. Scared? Not of him anyway. Angry? A little, but maybe that’s just my factory setting. Worried? A lot. About what? Not sure, exactly, which is part of the problem.

He inclines his head slightly. “I hear the words you do not voice.”

That… wasn’t exactly convincing and also not really my question. Do I detect some Dryth-y evasion?

I lift an eyebrow and prompt the “But…?” that he was clearly not saying.

His tail comes up and slitheringly wraps around his waist as he contemplates his answer and I have the sudden hunch that this is the Dryth equivalent of crossing one’s arms – or hugging oneself.

Is he… Is he embarrassed? I blink. I’ve never seen either of them embarrassed before. I didn’t think they had it in them.

Oh my god, am I rubbing off on them? (In the figurative sense as well as the literal?)

“You have many,” he eventually answers. “Very many. All at once.”

I narrow my eyes. “Very many…?” I trail off. Very many what?

“Unvoiced words.”

This statement takes a moment to percolate.

(I think he’s saying that you’re thinking a lot, Val.)

“Oh.” I gape. “I—…uhm … Huh!” Well, then!

I feel like growing a couple of inches and preening. No one has ever accused me of being excessively intellectual before, but boy, I could get used to this!

I have a vision of calling my old high school teachers just to let them know they were totally wrong about me, that Rune – the King of the Universe (or close to it anyways) – basically just called me brainy, and that they all can kiss my sophisticated ass.

“And your thoughts are in Ain-g’lish,” Rune adds, mangling the word ‘English’ only slightly. “I cannot comprehend them well if they are not voiced and picked up by the translator.”

I stare at him. My mouth might or might not have been open. The words that aren’t coming out of it are “Are”, and “You”, and “Fuckingkiddingme”.

This entire time I have been worrying my tits off about this shit, watching and censoring my thoughts (occasionally, every time I thought of it anyway) and obsessing over what and what not to ponder in his presence and he isn’t able to understand me because his brain doesn’t do English.

Wow. Just. Wow.

I seriously need to have a talk with my aliens about what constitutes vital information and that they might want to share it with me sometime.

(Wait, my thoughts are in English?)

(What else would they be in? French? You know, like, three words and one phrase in French. ‘Croissant’, ‘baguette’, ‘ratatouille’ and ‘voulez-vouz coucher avec moi ce soir’.)

(But… But I thought people think in pictures? Or colors. Or feelings?)

(You’re neither four years old, nor do you have synesthesia.)

(… fair point. Or should I say…touché? Ha. Four words and a phrase.)

Rune just looks at me as if to say ‘Yep, that’s exactly what I was talking about’ and pouts just a little.

I notice mostly because his mouth is right there and the sight of it blows all my complicated thoughts about this new development away for a second.

Ughh. So pouty.

Kissable.

His eyes flare up, and he takes a step towards me. His tail quickly unravels again from his waist, reaches out and slings itself around my middle to pull me closer like a lasso.

“I know ‘kiss’,” he informs me, half-swallowing the vowel with his Drythish accent. “You have this thought quite frequently. There is no equivalent in the Dryth tongue for it.”

“Oh, I’m sure there’s no equivalent to the Dryth tongue anywhere,” I babble stupidly and allow him to pull me flush against him and up onto my tippytoes.

Both of my boys are late bloomers when it comes to kissing, but damn, they have taken to it like fish to water. In fact, being the perfectionists they are, they have long since surpassed me in this discipline, I reckon.

I open my mouth wide and feel my lips stretch when Rune’s tongue slide past them.

Okay, some of their excellence is probably due to their superior equipment. I tilt my head and open wider and willingly as Rune’s long, thick, frills-and-steel-wrapped-in-velvet tongue breaches my lips and then rhythmically, pulsingly drives into my god, oh, my god. So good. You are so fucking good at this. Rune. Rune. Rune. Yes.

It’s not even funny anymore how much just kissing revs me up and strikes me dumb. Maybe there’s something in Dryth saliva or something or, like, you know, whatever.

He snogs the brains out of me for a couple of minutes and in the end, I’m almost convinced that I can speak French after all. Bon Dieu de merde. Incroyable. My knees wobble. Literally. I cling to Rune’s elbows for a bit for support.

Before he can lay me down on the forest floor again and stuff his re-energized cock next to the one Bane left inside of me, however, my brain throws up a little flag and I halt him in his tracks.

“Wait. Hold on. Wait just a second.” I push myself away, which is a not-so-clever idea because it means putting my hands on his torso.

(Damn, he is so fine.)

(Focus, Valerie. Bane.)

(Yes, yes, Bane is fine, too. Yes.)

(No.)

(What?)

(Bane, Val!)

(Bane.)

(Bane?)

“Wh--Where is Bane?” I manage to ask and finally detach my tingly fingers from Rune. “When I thought of him just now, you reacted quite strongly. What’s going on?”

Rune steps back from me and re-wraps his tail around himself. This time, it looks a little defiant. Petulant, even.

Oh, something is surely cooking – has been for a couple of days maybe, and I have been too distracted (by Rune, mostly) to pick up on it.

To be fair, right after the previous time Bane staked me, we had a very special encounter that has rocked my dear General a bit (even though he would never admit it). I reasoned that Bane felt a little tender and that that might be why he kept out of my way this time while he waited for his organ to fully grow back and for his male pride to recover.

But there is more to it, clearly.

“Rune?” I prompt, crossing my arms and stopping just short of tapping my foot. “What’s going on? Where is he?”

Rune finally relents. “He has gone in order to get supplies.”

My eyebrows go up. All the way up. Up to the ceiling. “He is doing what now?”

***

So, apparently, my devious little students fucked me extra hard last time to distract me from the fact that we were entering the atmosphere of a medium-sized planet called KV4022, located just a couple of light years south of Mayall II in the Andromeda Galaxy, and pulling to a halt several miles outside of a mercantile outpost called Tulun D’tel where our ship has been idling ever since.

I would be angry but complaining would be kind of hypocritical since I was the one who demanded they fuck me even harder, and who then promptly fell asleep and awoke feeling wonderfully refreshed afterwards, not even a little bit suspicious. I really should work on my situational awareness and ask more pointed questions.

I mean, I wouldn’t get any answers out of them but at least I’d have the right to be peeved about being kept in the dark about basically everything.

Including the tiny fact that one of the two people who make up my entire universe has gone off for a shopping spree all by himself.

“How long has he been gone?” I ask Rune, not taking my eyes off those Tulun D’tel buildings in the hazy distance as if I could pull Bane back towards me that way.

“Two axial rotations of this planet,” he answers, and when I throw him a narrow-eyed look, he explains, “That equals twenty-three hours of your home planet.”

Almost a whole day, then. He must have left right after he staked me. I gnaw my lip. I have a small, bad feeling growing in my guts. “When did he say he would be back?”

Rune doesn’t answer. The small, bad feeling grows into a bigger, worse one.

“Rune?” I press my hand hard onto my stomach. “When was he supposed to be back?”

“The latest estimated return was three Earth hours ago.”

I breathe in and out very slowly. Now that I know we’re on a planet with oxygen and that the vents have been opened to allow said oxygen to flow in, I can actually taste the subtle difference in the air. There’s a slightly drier feel to it in my nose, and it has a… greenish-blue tang to it, for want of a better description. I’m guessing that’s the flavor of the moss I’m looking at, which is also greenish-blue.

Judging by the view, I have from the screens on the bridge, KV4022 is a planet surrounded by at least five different moons but no proper sun – or maybe one of those moons is a sun, just very far away – and thus half-shrouded in misty darkness. It is flat as a board as far as my eye can see, sandy and gravelly, with that moss as the only visible, patchy vegetation. Some miles in the distance, a cluster of oddly shaped skyscrapers abruptly reaches towards the dusky sky. Tulun D’tel, underneath the dome of smog that all cities on all planets in all galaxies everywhere have in common (so long as they have atmospheres anyway).

I stare out at that endless field of moss and at the outpost glittering in the distance.

(He’s Bane. He’s fine.)

I know that. Theoretically, I know that with absolute certainty. Bane is scary and clever and competent and strong as heck. He surely went in armored and armed – hell, he’s a weapon himself. He’s a strong, independent Dryth who don’t need no help with bloody shopping.

Seriously, worrying about him is silly. Me worrying about him, doubly so. It’s like a guppy worrying about a 20-foot-long great white shark.

But still.

He should have been back three hours ago.

“What is he getting?” I ask, fidgeting, trying to distract myself.

“Essentials,” Rune answers after a seemingly interminable long pause. “Food. Seeds. Filters. Fuel. Cleaning supplies.”

The ship I’ve been calling home for a couple of weeks is basically like one of those self-sustaining ecosystems in a big, bulbous bottle your biology teacher was so excited to show you back in fifth grade. The plants create oxygen, which the passengers and the working parts of the ship use, creating carbon dioxide and making light and exuding warmth which keeps the plants alive, which also filter the water, and on and on it goes.

Except that, apparently, it’s not a perfect cycle. Not anymore.

Not since Valerie Greene showed up with her wasteful, inefficient organism, breathing with her big lungs and eating the original residents out of house and home with her big stomach that requires so many ingredients and preparation to make the meal nutritionally valuable for her, not to mention her picky fucking palate that craves diversity.

Aforementioned stomach cramps with worry and guilt.

I have thrown out perfectly good food just to teach the two some manners (and avoid bloodshed, but potato-potahto). Fuck me, that was so petty and irresponsible of me. I bite my lower lip to actually keep from crying. I suddenly feel so bad about myself, and I turn away from Rune so he doesn’t see. I’m a messy crier, and even the pre-cry stage isn’t a pretty sight. I get blotchy and wrinkly and my face swells up. If you watch a romantic movie with me, you’ll never know if I’m just emotionally touched by Leo drifting into the icy depths, or if I’m going into anaphylactic shock.

Turning to the side, I notice that there are lots of blinking little lights strewn across the wide dashboard in front of me. Looking at it for a bit I realize that it’s actually a semi-holographic map, with rectangular lumps that look just like skyscrapers. That must be Tulun D’tel, then?

“What are those?” I manage to ask without a hiccup through a tear-tightened throat and point at the shiny dots. Street lamps?

There is a pause.

“Observation drones within the settlement,” Rune says, sounding very reluctant to tell me, and I take a moment to understand the implication.

I look at him, surprised. “Drones? As in, like, cameras?”

He nods imperceptibly.

“And… can we access camera footage of the city from here? Live footage?”

Silence.

Just before I can threaten to start pressing random buttons and find out myself, he nods again. I frown a little at his recalcitrance but decide to let it go. Right now, something else is more important.

“So maybe we can find Bane!” I enthuse, desperate for some positivity. “Pull up the footage of, like, the main road and we’ll go from there.”

If Dryth were the type to sigh long-sufferingly and shoot down suggestions, Rune would probably have done just that. Luckily, Dryth are conditioned to honor an idea and cruelly let it die on its own terms when it turns out to be bad. Hence, Rune commands the computer to pull up the live feed from the main camera and put it onto the main screens.

The stream starts out grainy. I squint at it for full five seconds before I realize that it’s not grain – it’s people.

Aliens, in a bazaar-type market. Hundreds and hundreds of them, of every shape, color, race and size, hustling and bustling around in front of the fisheye lens, on foot, on feet, on hands and feet, on wings, on wheels of several types, carrying and pulling and hoisting wares – some of them alive – and slaves – some of them dead – around between them, left to right, front to back. The footage is visual only, but I can almost hear the clang and clamor of the scene, smell the mixture of odors created in such a crowd and feel the warm, humid stench of it against the skin of my face.

I’ve been alone with my two guys – not counting that unfortunate incident with the seven other Dryth in between, that is – and floating around this uninhabited corner of the universe on this relatively spacious ship for… weeks, or months? I have lost track of time... so just seeing that much life all at once is a mild shock to my system.

It also immediately becomes clear that my idea of finding Bane on camera was a relatively stupid one. Bane is tall and would stand out in any crowd (to me, anyway), but this crowd is so very large and chaotic. It would be like finding a needle in a needle-stack, except the needles are in a big vat that’s constantly being stirred. And this is only one camera on one street of Tulun D’tel which, I now realize, must be sprawling.

Just before I turn back to Rune and ask him to switch the camera – just for the hell of it, really, not because I really think there’s any chance of spotting Bane – my eyes snag on a figure in the video. I do an actual double-take and my mouth falls open.

“That’s…”

The figure walks along with a sort of rolled-up carpet on his shoulder, coming into and going out of focus within a beat and then vanishing back into the crowd.

“... a human,” I finish.


***TBC soon***