by Ines Johnson
"Chen will be back later."
She sprang from the wall, her finger in his face. "The two of you think you will pass me around like a harem girl?" Her nostrils flared and her pupils dilated.
"That arouses you."
She jerked back. Her jaw tensed. She holstered her finger. Her lips parted, and she took a deep breath of courage, likely to cover her arousal. "No," her voice and bravery wavered. "It doesn't."
Hsing ignored her words. They were lies. Though her lips trembled, there was steel in her eyes. He tore his gaze from her puffed up chest, down past her narrow waist to her hips. They were wide hips. Good for breeding.
"Perhaps I am wrong about you. You may be stronger than you appear." He surveyed her. "Chen did fairly well. You are strong in body and spirit. But you are out of alignment." His gaze snapped back to hers. "You do not say what you mean."
"You don't know me."
"No, you do not know you. I see and hear you very clearly. You profess anger towards Chen, but you are eager to see him again. You aim animosity towards me, but my mere presence arouses you. You stare at my body. Your eyes have slipped down to peer at my loins more than once. You would like to mate with me."
"I would not! I want to go home."
"That is not possible. You belong to me now."
"I don't belong to anybody you big, blue ape."
Now her words matched what was in her mind though her logic didn't. Eloheem were millennia evolved past common hominoidea.
"Chen brought me here under false pretense,” she said.
"He was in a hurry. Chen was sent to abduct the first female he encountered."
Shanti jerked back. Those words ignited a low, grumbling vibration within her.
"You say you want to leave," Hsing said. “But you are agitated that you were not a pre-determined selection."
"Well, then." She set her shoulders back and tilted her head high. "You can just take me home and then grab the next woman you see."
Hsing shook his head. "That is not what you want."
"Then hear me clearly. I don't want you. I don't want Chen. I don't want to be here. I want to go home."
Her arms coiled around her person. Hsing wasn't adept at reading emotions like his brother, but he saw the thoughts flitting through her head. He saw an empty domicile. He saw Shanti alone, curled in a large, cushioned seat. He saw her out of doors surrounded by other humans, but none paid her attention. In fact, a few gave her disdainful looks.
Hsing didn't see a problem with that. He was never alone, not truly. He was intrinsically connected to his brother. He didn't know any other way to be.
He couldn't understand Shanti. The thought of being alone caused a visible, physical response in her. Yet she set her jaw with rejection at his advances.
Hsing shrugged. "Your feelings are of no interest to me. I cannot trust them if you cannot see them yourself, or admit to them honestly when you do."
"You think you can read my desires, like Chen? Because he was wrong."
"I do not read desires. Chen is the empath."
"And you're what? Psychic?"
"Desires come from the heart. I can read your mind. The words you speak do not match the thoughts in your head. But I need not read your mind to see that. Your body language is very clear. You want me sexually. I am tempted to have you right now."
"I said I don't want you." Her breathing pattern went quicker, another indication she was stimulated. "What are you going to do? Force me?"
Hsing was tempted. He wanted to take that defiant mouth of hers and shut it with his own. His pulse matched the beat of hers. He felt his own breathing change.
But then, Hsing smelled fear on the woman once more. He didn't like the scent. He took a step back. "I will not have to force you."
"So what? You're going to probe me?"
"Probe?"
Her jaw clenched. Before her teeth clamped down, her pink tongue peaked out of her mouth and licked her lips.
"I get the sense you would like that, Shanti." Hsing took a step closer, but she backed into the wall, looking cornered. "I see you will be an interesting, little diversion. When I have time. I have only come to introduce myself as I tried to do before. But at the time you were being probed by my brother."
Shanti looked away. Hsing felt the heat rise to her brown face.
"My name is Hsing-I." Hsing bowed formally to the woman. "I am your eternal partner. I lay my life in your hands."
He heard her breath catch. He straightened, glancing down at this woman -his woman.
"I look forward to probing you, Shanti."
Shanti's nostrils flared. "Not going to happen."
Hsing smiled as he turned to go.
"Wait," called Shanti. "You can't keep me locked in here."
"We do not lock doors on this ship," Hsing called over his shoulder before the door opened and he stepped out. The door shut firmly behind him.
Chapter Twelve
The door closed behind the big brooding male, but the sound of his voice, the impact of his words, remained. Shanti rubbed her hands up and down her arms. Her fingerpads tripped over the goosebumps that rose. Her skin felt warm. A bead of sweat trickled down her back. She tried to press her thighs together, but the moist skin between her legs didn't allow her any traction.
He -Hsing- had said that he was her eternal partner. He'd said his life was hers. Shanti's heart pounded, but it wasn't fear pumping through her blood.
Chen had said something similar. Chen had called her his one and only love. Her heart rate went double time at those words as well.
Shanti had never dreamed of marriage. It was an outdated concept for a modern feminist. Marriage was a contract between men for the piece of chattel known as daughter, woman, wife.
Her parents had always approached each other as equals. Traditional roles didn't exist in her upbringing. Her father, the first of five siblings, had fantastic child-rearing skills, and a mean hand when it came to needle and thread. Her mother was handy with a hammer and nail and built many of the temporary homes they lived in and the furnishings within.
Shanti was neither maternal nor handy. She was an activist, emphasis on action. All her life she'd been on her own, independent, self-sufficient. She'd been perfectly content to have a revolving door of lovers. Certain she didn't need any of them to stay longer than the time it took to safely remove the condom. Though she did enjoy a few minutes of post-coital spooning. And breakfast every once in awhile was nice.
If she was honest with herself, she wanted companionship. A long term monogamous relationship would be nice -if the mood was right. And he wasn't clingy. Or a leech who wanted to lay on the couch and play video games while she worked.
Plus he had to know how to cook because she wasn't Suzy Homemaker. And it would be best if he were a vegetarian, non-smoker, spiritual but not religious man in his late-twenties or early thirties, who worked out and was well-read. Then, sure, a long term, monogamous relationship might be cool for a little while.
But eternal partner? One and only? Forever.
Shanti banged on the solid door. It didn't budge. It wasn't metal. She couldn't determine the material.
She looked down. There was no handle. How did they get in and out? Was it voice command?
"Open?" Shanti tried. "Open sesame?"
Hsing had said no door was locked. Obviously another lie. They were going to keep her and... And what? Lock her in a room and give her the greatest sex any human being had ever known?
Shanti stepped back from the door. She looked around the room. The large, plush bed dominated it. Immediately images of Chen plunged deep inside her came to mind. Then her dream of Hsing and Chen on either side of her came to mind. She felt her breathing, her pulse, quicken.
If she had come into this situation of her own free will it would be a different story. What woman didn't have a fantasy of being desired by not just one but two virile, drop dead gorgeous men? It was a repeated fantasy in Shanti's spank bank, espe
cially since she hadn't had any spanking in months. And now she had two males in pursuit of her.
But no, not in pursuit. They'd taken her. Taken her under false pretenses. Chen had come down to Earth looking for any woman. She just happened to be the first one he saw out alone at the water's edge.
She could've been anybody. She hadn't been anyone special. The words he'd said to her had all been a ploy to get her to come willingly.
Shanti was appalled at her enslavement. Still, there was a part of it that didn't feel like ownership. Their words made it seem that she owned them.
But no. Their actions told a different story. They’d taken her against her will. She had to get out of here.
Shanti placed her hand on the door and imagined it open. And just like that, it opened.
The hall was the same glowing white as the walls of the room. It stretched endlessly in both directions. Shanti Eeny-Meeny-Miney-Moe'd and went left.
She placed her hands on the walls. Just as with the doors, it didn't feel like metal. It reminded her of the texture of a tree limb, but a limb that was stripped of its bark. She felt it pulse with life beneath her hand.
Shanti stopped for a moment and leaned against the wall. A feeling of safety, of security, of home ran through her veins. She pulled her hand from the wall, or whatever it was, and kept going forward.
Down the hall she heard voices. She couldn't understand the words. It was that same lyrical language she'd heard Chen speak when they were back on Earth.
She looked left and right, but there was nowhere to hide. She couldn't make it back to the room before they came upon her. She held her position, ready to fight.
The owners of the voices came into view. Shanti recognized one of them. It was the purple man she'd seen when she was first beamed up to this ship. When his large eyes found her in the hall, he frowned. Beside him another male, whose skin was a lighter shade of purple, turned and saw Shanti. When he saw her his face lit up in a smile that reminded her of Chen.
Both men stopped walking and bowed their torsos to her. When they straightened, the dark purple male still frowned while the lighter one smiled peacefully at her. Without a word, they continued on past her.
Shanti stood still, heart still pounding with adrenalin from the encounter. She turned and looked over her shoulder. The males continued on down the hall, still chatting. Not paying her any mind. Not alarmed that she was no longer in her cage.
She breathed deep and continued on. She spied a door on the right. She placed her hand on it, imagined it open, and it obeyed her command.
Inside the room Shanti saw the darker of the brown twins, Nse, beside a dark green adult male. They were doing a series of martial arts moves, but slowly. It looked like Tai Chi, but the moves, a series of kicks and punches, looked far more advanced than anything she'd ever seen practiced out in the parks or on a Gaiam DVD.
Something urged Shanti to peer further into the room. Moving alongside the other two males, with his broad, blue, muscled chest exposed, was Hsing.
The males performed a turning move and Shanti saw Hsing's back. She watched the muscles ripple as he punched the sky. She saw his ass tighten as he delivered a slow roundhouse kick. She saw his head turn slowly, saw his eyes gleam, saw his cruel mouth tilt up in a smile.
"Not now, little one. I am busy."
Shanti blinked.
Hsing continued to move, but he stared right at her. His voice had sounded in her head. Realizing, he'd seen each and every one of her thoughts, Shanti straightened her spine. She allowed the disgust to roll back into her body and to show on her face.
She backed out of the room. Hsing didn't follow. But she felt an amused rumble of laughter sound in her head.
Shanti marched down the white hallway in the opposite direction. She'd never been attracted to arrogant men. Not only did this man take part in abducting her, now he assumed that she would drop her panties for him.
Well, hell-to-the-no! She was getting off this ship.
At the end of the hall she spied a staircase leading down. Down was closer to the Earth. Perhaps she'd find the beam of light transport thing that brought her here.
That was not what she found at the bottom of the staircase.
Shanti spied him through an arched entryway. Gone was the peaceful smile that dominated his face. His mouth was a straight line of concentration. His large eyes narrowed on the work before him.
Shanti wasn't sure how long she watched Chen work. His arms moved in the same circular motions she'd seen his brother performing moments ago. Chen's torso was also uncovered. The planes of his chest were just as muscular, only Shanti knew they were a soft place to fall, a warm and welcome place to burrow into.
Chen stood before a large pool of yellow...well, it wasn't liquid exactly. It looked like a transparent yellow cloud. She could see clear through the other side of the wisps of yellow. There was something murky in its depths. As Chen moved his arms and torso in a whip-like fashion, the yellow became clearer and clearer.
Chen's arms rose and the murky bits followed suit. The dark and murky clouds rose to the top of the yellow mist and, with a wave of his hands, evaporated. No sooner than the murky darkness clear did another pool of darkness rise from the bottom of the pool.
It brought Shanti back to her days at the Chesapeake Bay. The once crystal blue waters were now brown, filled with pollution, death, and decay. The animal life there was dwindling down to leave only scavengers. The plant life receded further back to the shoreline and away from the polluted waters. She'd spent the lasts years of her life trying to save those waters, until the very people who relied on the bay turned against her and ran her out of town.
"It is not water."
Shanti jerked out of her memories at the sound of Chen's melodic voice upon her ears. When she looked at him, his focus was still on the yellow mist. His body still moved to raise the murky darkness up and out of the mist.
"It is energy," he said. "On Earth, water is the basis of life. In the Heavens, the necessity for life to thrive is energy."
Shanti watched Chen's lips move in time to the words he spoke. It was English, not a bad movie dub.
"Now that we are a part of each other, I understand you completely." Chen's eyes flashed to Shanti's.
Shanti was caught both by the light orbs and his words. But then she shook away the lie. "You don't know anything about me."
Chen bowed his head over his work. Shanti saw the perspiration on his brow. She noticed the shake in his muscles as he strained to bring more of the murky substance to the surface.
"If you knew anything about me," she continued, "then you'd know that I have no desire to be caught or owned. My people have a bad history with slavery."
Chen's arms paused in the movement and the darkness fell. "You are not my slave, Shanti."
"No? Then let me go."
They stared at each other. A door opened. A male, a pale shade of red that was nearly pink entered. He bowed his head to Chen. Chen returned the greeting. The pink man turned and bowed his torso to Shanti. Then he took Chen's place before the pool of energy and began the same series of movements.
Chen moved towards Shanti. "Will you come with me, my only?" He held out his hand.
Shanti crossed her arms over her chest and then tucked her hands under her armpits. "I fell for that one already."
Chen's face fell. Shanti resisted the urge to place her hand on his cheek to soothe the discomfort. His gaze caught hers. He'd obviously heard her compassion. She narrowed her eyes at him and tilted her chin up in defiance of her emotions.
Chen stepped in front of her and opened the door. He turned and stood aside, waiting for her to precede him out. After a moment, Shanti went through the door.
"I am sorry that you feel deceived, Shanti."
It bristled that he called her Shanti instead of the endearment, my only. But Shanti quickly pushed those feelings aside.
"I thought you wanted me," Chen continued. "I would not have taken y
ou with me otherwise."
"That's not what your brother said. He said you were supposed to take the first woman you saw."
"True, that was Hsing's edict."
Shanti felt another pang in her chest at the confirmation that she was not his one and only choice.
"I did not follow it," Chen said. "I was determined to find a woman willing; one I wanted. I went throughout the town and felt neither inclination. Before I met you by the waters, I had been preparing to return with empty hands."
Shanti stopped walking, but she refused to turn around to him. She felt Chen behind her. The robes covering the lower half of his body brushed the hairs on her wrist. His breath tickled the hairs at the nape of her neck.
"I felt a connection to you the moment I touched you," Chen whispered.
Shanti turned to face him. "I thought I was dead when you were touching me. You may have saved my life. But this isn't the life I want. Out in space, fighting ships filled with your crazy family members. Trapped on a space ship filled with..." Shanti paused. She'd only seen men at each turn she'd made. "Are there any other women on this ship?"
"No," Chen shook his head.
Shanti's hands went to her exposed midriff. "Am I expected to service all of these men?"
"Absolutely not."
Shanti breathed a sigh of relief.
"Just myself and my brother."
Shanti fumed at the casual statement. "You made me feel like I was special." She shook her head. Those weren't the words she'd meant to say, but they were what she felt.
"You are special, precious to me."
"But you're gonna pass me back and forth with your brother."
"That is the way of our kind. We are born in pairs and we take one mate. One mate whom we will worship for all of eternity."
"Your brother doesn't even like me."
"Hsing is Yin. He expresses himself differently. Trust me, when he bonds with you, he will be your slave, just as I am."
"I don't want to be worshipped. I want to be free."
Chen's gaze turned sad, guilty even. He bypassed Shanti heading down the hall. Shanti followed. Soon they arrived at the pad where they had first come in.
