by Ruby Dixon
Zakoar snorts at my joke, and then he goes so quiet that I worry I've offended him. That I've brought up something taboo and now he feels self-conscious. Even after several days in bed together, I'm still terrified of somehow making him angry and getting sent away. It's a fear that's going to be with me for a long time, I think, because my life exists at the whims of others and I don't like it. I don't like being so damn powerless. That will change on Risda. Until then, I'll worry over everything I say.
But he rolls off of me, flipping onto his side, and props his head up with his arm. He watches me intently for a long moment, and I say nothing. It looks as if he's got a lot on his mind. He reaches out and brushes his fingertips along my cheek, then slides down to my shoulder, then my breast. His fingers trace lightly over my skin, in the valley between my tits, and eventually, he speaks. "When I was a child, I was working in a munitions factory. A lot of families sent their young off to factories to supervise the bots and to do maintenance. My family was very poor, so I was sent off-world to live at the factory and send my credits home to my family. I believe I was seven when one of the bots malfunctioned and exploded, leaving me burned over most of my body." His gaze becomes remote. "It was very painful."
I swallow hard. It's utterly awful to think of him as a small, abandoned child forced to work for a living, but I know better than anyone else that this galaxy will chew people up and spit them out. So I say nothing, because I don't want to interrupt and distract him from a story that's clearly very hard to tell.
"My family had no funds for my care, so in order to pay for my treatments, I was indentured into the military. They gave me plas-skin to cover a great deal of my wounds, and prosthetics for my hands since they were burned off." His fingers trace a gentle pattern between my breasts. "The military spends credits according to how important you and your family are. Because mine were not, I was rebuilt with cheap parts, cheap plas-skin, and no one cared. To them, people are the same as bots—you find out what's broken, patch them up, and send them back to work."
Stroking his arm, I make a noise of sympathy. "Is that how you got your jaw? And your head piece?"
"No, actually." His mouth twitches in another almost-smile. "Those came later."
I go still. "You mean you had bad shit happen to you more than once?"
Zakoar makes a hmph of amusement. "Many, many times."
"What next?"
"You truly wish to hear all of this?" He lightly skates his fingertips over my breast, and my nipple puckers in response.
I nod, staying still as he caresses me. He seems to need touch, and I'm happy to be his outlet.
He shrugs and continues. "I served in the military until I was thirty, the ugliest, most scarred keffing bastard anyone had ever seen." When I make a sound of protest, he tweaks my nipple to silence me. "You did not see me back then. Trust me when I say it was not attractive. When other males visited brothels, I studied. I rose in military ranks and learned medicine, because very few were there to heal. Most just wanted to earn glory for their families." He hmphs again. "Honor. That's what they thought they were getting."
"And did they?"
Zakoar shakes his head slowly. "The last ten years of it were in the Threshian War, and I was on the front lines as a medic, doing what had been done to me. I patched up soldiers as they came in, and sent them right back out." His mouth flattens. "The Threshians did not fight like we expected. Back then, Homeworld had guidelines for how one could honorably conduct one's self upon the field of war, and what was appropriate and what wasn't. The Threshians thought only to win, so they did whatever they thought would cripple us. I remember times that they would fly over the trenches and drop metal bombs instead of just shooting us down."
"Metal bombs?" I echo. "I don't know what that is."
"They would drop a bomb that, once it hit the ground, it would explode and fling molten metal—or other chemicals—far and wide. One splash could sear a soldier's hand off—or take a fist-sized chunk out of his abdomen. Killing a soldier takes him out neatly, of course. But with a metal bomb, you burn holes into them. You destroy them just enough that they will be a drain on their military, because wounded soldiers must be healed. So I would spend my days and nights slapping synth-skin onto the faces of men, covering holes in their gut with whatever was available, or amputating limbs that were too far gone to be salvaged and replacing them with new ones."
"That's…awful." I picture men being shredded by hot liquid metal burning holes in them and want to vomit.
"It is. War is not pleasant. It's a good way of making the enemy bleed resources, if you don't care about the consequences or how it will affect the men." Zakoar's fingers lightly move over my skin, tracing little circles over my nipple. "I spent all my time patching up good men, young men with their lives in front of them, who just wanted to bring honor to their families. Instead, they were coming back in pieces. And then, of course, the enemy started to bomb the medic centers."
I swallow hard. "You mean…you?"
He nods. "When I wasn't patching them up, I patched myself up with what was available. I lost my jaw and a large chunk of my skull in one attack, and I was the only one of my regiment that survived." His eyes meet mine and he gives me a thin smile. "My many prosthetics saved me. And just like the others, I was patched up and sent back to the front lines to work. By that time, we were running low on parts, and so we patched men together with what we had available." He touches his jaw. "I am used to being ugly, so it didn't bother me. I know others that killed themselves when they saw what they had become."
I turn and burrow against his chest, wanting to hug him. I snuggle against him instead, hoping to comfort against bad memories that I've dredged up. "I'm so sorry."
"It was in one of the last battles that I broke my back," he continues, as if he needs to get all of the story out. "We were bombed again, and I was blown into a crater. At that point, we had been at war for so long that the entire planet surface just looked like it had been hacked to pieces. I landed on rocks, and I felt my back snap."
I wince.
"I called for help, but there was no one to help. I laid in the crater for a time, waiting for someone to kill me, or to retrieve me. And then I saw shuttles landing on the far side of the valley, and I realized we were retreating, and I was going to get left behind if I did not do something. So I used my arms and I crawled."
I bury my face against his chest, breathing in his scent, the mixture of machine oil and warm skin that is somehow perfectly Zakoar. "You're very brave."
"Mm. I just like living." His hand slides down to my ass and he cups it, pulling me tight against him. "I had my back fixed—again, with sub-par equipment—and spent the next year learning how to walk again. By that time, my indenture had been completed and the war was over."
"Did you win?"
"No. Not even close." He's silent for a long moment. "I didn't know what to do with myself after that. Ended up here, opened a shop with an old friend of mine who fixed small things—data pads, vid-comm units, things like that. One day an old soldier friend of mine came through, and his hand was malfunctioning. He asked if I could do anything for it, piece of junk that it was. So I fixed it up for him, just like I did when I was in the military. Two weeks later, some of his buddies came by. Same problem. From there, my business grew."
His business. I don't know all the details, but I've heard about it in hushed terms. That he's a chop shop. That he switches out limbs for a price. That he does under-the-table alterations. All of the dreadful, frightening things I've heard rumored around the station are far less altruistic than the truth—that he's just a war-wounded man doing what he can to help others in the same situation as him. "But you kept your metal jaw and your head plate? You never wanted to change them to something else? Even though you can?"
Zakoar chuckles, the sound a little more forced than it should be. "Why, do you think I should change it out? Match up synth-skin and make myself pretty instead of a monster?"
<
br /> I pinch his side, hard. "That's not what I'm saying at all. It's just that it seems to bother you, and if you have the know-how, I thought that'd be one reason to do what you do. I personally like the way you look." I tilt my head back to stare at him, and his jaw is right there in my face, so I give it a lascivious, deliberate look. "I think it's a great jaw, personally. Very strong. Very capable of endurance. Worked just fine when you were between my thighs."
This time, his laughter isn't forced at all, and he squeezes my ass. "I thought about it," he admits. "But like I said, I've been ugly for so long that I didn't think about it too hard. And then it became what I was known for—if you wanted your prosthetics repaired under the table, you looked for the male with the metal jaw."
I slide my hand around his backside, reaching for his tail. "And this? Are all these studs repairs?"
"No. It just seemed…too normal. Didn't match the rest of me. So I studded it. Does it bother you?"
I squeeze the base, appreciating the way his breath hisses from between his teeth. "No. Quit asking if something bothers me. How many times do I have to say that none of it bothers me? That I like all of you?"
"Perhaps I ask because I don't see the same thing you do."
"Maybe you need to change that cybernetic eye out for a new one," I grumble.
He goes still and then buries his face against my shoulder. For a moment, I panic. Then, I realize…he's laughing.
And I smile.
15
TESSA
The next morning, when Zakoar tries to creep out of bed, I wake up and am brushing my teeth before he even gets out of the shower. He looks at me curiously, and I figure I should explain. "I'm going with you today. I've made up my mind."
"Is that so?"
I put the borrowed toothbrush back and nod at him. "I'll need some clothes, of course. I can't exactly show up naked. But yeah, I figured I'm useless sitting here on your couch, and if I go with you to work, I promise I'll stay out of the way."
He watches me with an unreadable look. After a moment, he simply says, "I will be busy."
"I'll give you a blow job during downtime." I flutter my lashes at him. "I just want to be near you. Watch you work. Is that so bad?"
"If you get bored," he begins, warning.
"I know. Don't come crying to you." I wave a hand in the air. "Now, do you have something I can wear or am I doing this toga-style with the bedsheet?"
Zakoar shakes his head at me, his mouth curving in that almost-smile again. "Since I don't know what a to-gah is, I will have to let you borrow some clothing. You know you grow progressively more bossy by the day?"
"You like it," I say easily.
"I think I do," he agrees.
A short time later, we're in the elevator as it races along through the station. I hold his hand in silence, watching the others in the elevator with interest. They're doing their best not to stare in our direction, and at first I think it's because I'm human (which is a novelty) and currently dressed in oversized pants and a tunic belted at my waist to keep them up. But as people nervously get on the elevator and file off again, I realize that the worried looks they're casting aren't in my direction but Zakoar's.
It makes me angry. I glare at everyone until he squeezes my hand, drawing my attention, and I see a ghost of a smile playing on his hard mouth. He's not worried about their reactions—but mine amuses him. In a way, I get it. He can be downright intimidating-looking, but they don't know just how good of a man he is. How kind he's been when he absolutely did not have to be. How he's going to take me someplace safe so I can live out the rest of my life in peace and quiet.
I wonder if he'll ever visit me when I'm there.
For some reason, I think the answer is no. He doesn't seem like the type to leave the station or his business behind, and that fills me with an odd sadness. I'll miss him, I realize. Not only are we incredibly compatible in bed, but he's…my friend. I feel like we can talk about most anything, and it's been nice to have a friend again. When I get to Risda, I'll be all alone again, and the thought is a little intimidating.
But Zakoar squeezes my hand again, distracting me. "You're frowning," he murmurs.
"Just in a glare-y mood, I guess." And I squeeze his hand back, because he doesn't need to know that his generous offer of taking me to Risda fills me with alternate amounts of joy and terror. It'll be a good thing. I know it will.
The elevator fills up, and by the time we get to the market floor of Three Nebulas Station, it's crammed with people. I'm squeezed behind Zakoar, who uses his big body and intimidating frame to keep anyone from touching me, and when the doors open, it's like a flood—everyone pours out of the elevator and into the market. The air feels different here, slightly heavy and a bit humid, and just a little bit smelly. It's noisy, too. After being in Zakoar's apartment for the last few days, the sounds of the market hit me like a brick wall. I cling to his arm, my anxiety ratcheting up a bit the moment I hear music.
It reminds me of what I've so recently been freed from, and that it's all too easy to go back to that. My breath speeds up and I panic, just a little. Zakoar tugs me closer and lets go of my hand. In the next moment, his arm is around my shoulders, and I'm tucked against his side.
Safe.
"We'll go the long way around," he tells me, and steers me in the opposite direction of the cantina so I don't have to look at it. It's an amazingly thoughtful gesture, and it just reminds me of how much I've lucked out to be with him.
Since I was never allowed to leave the cantina, I'm unfamiliar with a lot of the market. I know what everything looked like from outside my window, but beyond that, it's a blank. I'm astonished to see that it's a lot like a cross between a rummage sale and a bazaar, the large berth of the station filled with colorful tents. People hang their wares on cords and set them up on blankets, and customers mill around to look at the goods. There's a vendor hawking skewers of something that smells incredible, and even though we just ate breakfast, my stomach growls. I want to pause there to see what smells so good, but Zakoar steers me onward. I wander as he tugs me along, just a little, because I want to see everything. It's all so fascinating that this wild, crowded bazaar of shopping was only a short distance away from where I was imprisoned and I never got to see it.
Three Nebulas is built a lot like a top floating in space, and the center of the station is hollow. That means that the actual station “floors” themselves are like a big donut, and I'm not entirely surprised to see that we're cutting through the bazaar, heading toward an area that looks more familiar. Everything eventually leads back to the same place, but instead of heading toward Zakoar's shop, he pauses at a booth and nudges my hand to draw my attention. Blinking, I draw my gaze away from a nearby music instrument vendor and try to pay attention. The tent in front of us is full of silken fabrics of all kinds. A clothesline drawn across two metal poles displays several loose-fitting tunics and dresses of varying colors, and when the ooli vendor turns to us with a bright, froggy smile, I realize why we've stopped here.
Delighted, I clutch Zakoar's metallic arm and squeeze it tight, beaming up at him.
He grunts, but I can tell by the way his expression softens that he's pleased at my reaction. "Tell her what colors you like."
"Something bright, to complement her skin?" the ooli suggests, pulling out a soft-looking garment. "Here, try this sheath."
By the time we leave the booth some hours later, I have six tunic-like dresses in my arms, all of them varying shades and so delicate that they make me want to cry. They actually fit, too, the seamstress able to modify the dresses with a few tucks here and there, adjusting the flimsy material and then expertly sewing the spots needed with a hand-held needle gun. I feel like a real person, not a castoff, as my dress swirls around my ankles. My feet are still bare, but I don't care. The floors here are dusty metal, but it's not so cold that it hurts my skin, and I haven't worn shoes in so long that it'd probably feel weird to put them on. "Thank you," I tell Zak
oar for the dozenth time. "Thank you so much."
"You can't walk around naked, much as I might like the view," he grumbles. "You're mine to look at and no one else's."
Wandering around naked wouldn't bother me—I got past my shyness ages ago—but I like that he's so protective. My mood is light as air as we head toward his shop, and I deliberately avoid looking down the hall at the cantina. I don't want to see who's dancing in the window, because that means they're still trapped in that hell, working for Nhaoan. I'll have to look at some point, but I'm not ready.
Right now, I'm far too interested in seeing Zakoar's shop.
The exterior—with which I'm very familiar—is plain and unadorned, but inside, Zakoar's shop is a masterpiece of clutter. There's metal junk everywhere, on every surface and every shelf. It hangs from the ceiling and stacks up between the aisles. I've never seen so many loose parts in one place, and it's fascinating to me because I don't know what a single one does. I touch one that's vaguely star-shaped and behind it, there's another that looks a lot like a hubcap. I know from hearing Abuar complain that new parts and equipment are at a premium due to the galaxy's population outpacing the available resources, so metal is scrapped and re-used, and every machine from the food dispensers to the air recyclers all use replacement parts. Zakoar's cluttered shop must be a wonderland to those in need, and I see a slim, orange-skinned alien digging through a bin of random bits in the back of the shop.
Amidst all the clutter, there's a long, glass-encased counter at the far end of the shop, and a door behind it. The case is filled with data pads (which I recognize) and other small electronics (which I don't). Behind it is a male alien with bright blue skin and a pair of shiny chrome horns that sweep high above his head. He's mesakkah, but so different from Zakoar that he might be another species. There's no prosthetics, no metal jaw, no tattoos, no skin grafts of colors that don't quite match. It makes him look…really young. I find myself comparing the two and decide that I like Zakoar's look better. I don't mind the metal, and to me, I prefer a guy that's survived the shit the universe has thrown at him and come out stronger on the other side. It makes me feel like he can do anything, and he can protect me better than anyone else.
