Beth's Stable

by Amanda Milo

  “What?” he asks, catching me.

  I shrug—the human way—and he watches this too. “If you screwed around and made me late, I’d leave you.”

  Ekan grins. “I’ll make sure to screw around with you so we’d be late together, and I would never leave you.”

  “My parents used to forget me when I was a little kid.” Yep—I’m wondering why the hell I’m telling him this. I’m also frantically trying without success to get myself to stop. “They’d be shopping at the store, playing on their phones or whatever, and they’d check out and head home. They got me a cellphone when I was four so that I could contact them whenever I realized I’d been left behind.”

  Vomiting this up for storytime has me feeling crummy. I don’t tell anyone this. Ever. It’s trivial; everyone’s childhood is screwed up in some way. Mine may have been smattered with some neglect, but it wasn’t anything as bad as what it could have been. Suck it up, buttercup.

  Ekan’s expression has hardened as he gazes down at me. The backs of his fingers brush down my cheek.

  I want to pull away—but the emotion in his eyes keeps me still. Watching Ekan—such a bright, zany star—turn muted makes my heart sink a little.

  “Narra,” Ekan starts, before the thick muscles at his throat flex with a rough swallow, “You’ll never be left behind again.”

  I change the subject. “You’ve got people who want you back, right? Surely, someone knows that they’re missing their Ekan?” I imagine someone holding an Ekan-sized collar and wondering which direction their insane pet took off to. It spurs another question: “Is your ship full of aliens like you, or are they like your friend with the horse?” I can’t imagine more than one Ekan. I can picture some super-tired, well-meaning alien family that’s spent years trying desperately to herd and pen this guy up. He’s just a bit of destruction on wheels and I’m sure it’s a full time job.

  And because he’s been nice these past few minutes, fun and endearing, I’m feeling a little obligated to make sure he gets back home safe. Preferably before he drags me into more trouble.

  An alien steps out in front of us. “Ekan?”

  Ekan, who’d just started to walk backwards in front of me (with the intent to do what, who knows) sends a lazy look over his shoulder—then he does a double take, his whole body going on alert. In a move so fast I don’t see it coming, he snatches me close. My food-stuffed-toy-cone starts to topple to the ground.

  Ekan doesn’t even fumble for it. He just reaches out.

  And it lands, cone-handle side down, in his hand.

  The luck!

  Unreal.

  In my ear, he breathes, “THIS IS OUR MARK! Finish your food quickly. I have to sell you to him, I have to.”

  I tip my head back and let the sunshine hit my face as I start shaking my head at the sky. I should have gotten him back to his cage sooner. Is he like this all the time? Manic, attracted to danger, and willing to sell his own damn grandmother? How his shipmates or family or whatever haven’t shoved him in a kitchen freezer and left him there to tone down a little, I’m not sure. I mean yeah, he’s fun, but he’s also a huge pain in the ass. Who keeps up with him 24/7?

  Maybe no one, and that’s how I got lucky and ended up with him.

  “Beth?” Ekan hisses, nudging me at my hip. “Are you ignoring me, narra?”

  “Yes, yes, I am. I have officially had it with your level of wacky. I’m done.”

  He takes me by the shoulders, and I’m ready for him to spin me—he’s lucky this isn’t my first trimester anymore, or he’d probably be wearing all the sweetness I’ve been eating. “Nooo, you can’t be done, not yet—we’re having too much fun!”

  “YOU are having too much fun,” I tell him. “Can’t we try selling you this time? Maybe that will be more fun for me.”

  He seems to think about this for all of half a second. “Deal.” He grins. “I’ve never been sold before.” He bounces on his feet a little. “This is fun.”

  I poke the middle of my top lip with my tongue. “Yeah. It’s wild, isn’t it. We should try this four more times to you, see how you like it then.”

  He closes his hands over mine, and I know what he wants: couples’ clapping. “YES! LETS.”

  I’m afraid he’s actually serious. “Ekan? Focus. Remember about takeoff? Getting back to your ship?”

  Ekan’s smile falters and he looks around us like he’s an unlucky man who’s been caught in a responsibility rainstorm. You can practically see it pouring down on him, the poor dear. “That’s right. Curses.”

  The alien who’s been waiting behind Ekan loses his patience. He gets right up in our space. He’s got a wide, flat nose, and tusks that jut up from under his lips. His eyes are all for me when he asks, “Is she what I think she is?” He looks me up and down in a way that’s not quite as rude as some of the others have stared at me. His gaze is far more appreciative than predatory, anyway. “And are you selling her?”

  Ekan gestures at himself. “Would you buy me?”

  The other alien makes a face. “Not in hells. Why?”

  Ekan sighs and half-rolls his shoulders for me. “Sorry, Beth. I would like to try again if the chance arises.”

  “I really appreciate you giving it your all,” I reply unenthusiastically. “Maybe better luck next time.”

  But it’s as if I’ve shared a megawatt smile with him instead, because he’s re-infused with Ekan-ness. “Yes, we’ll try again!”

  NO. NO, No, No, NO—HOW did he even come to that conclusion?

  Maybe he can read the murder on my face, because his eyes flash happily before he turns to the other alien. “As a matter of fact, I am selling this rare beauty,” Ekan confirms. “What would you offer for the pleasure of owning such an exquisite creature?”

  I preen a tiny bit at these last two words. I’m ashamed of myself.

  Obviously I don’t know this next alien from Adam, but as he banters a little with Ekan, he seems like the nicest potential buyer we’ve met so far. I almost don’t want to screw him over, but it’s not like I get a choice. Besides, to let him keep me means he’ll think he has a right to do things to me—whatever he wants to do to me, and I’m not down with that, so unfortunately, Ekan will get his way. I’m going to try my best to get out of whatever the new alien devises to put me into. I check for my hair pin—which I’ve only had to use once in these failed sales, but didn’t really need, because Ekan got impatient and shot down a door. He wasn’t impatient in the angry or worried sense; he was thrilled with ‘how much fun we were having.’

  Yeah, he’s a nut.

  The aliens do the price haggling—which is only a little insulting this time when the guy lowballs and Ekan palms my butt under my skirt like he’s mulling ‘I’m not sure if I want to part with this ass for so little...’—because without further prompting, the other guy raises his offer considerably.

  Ekan takes the payment, and guides my arm into the keeping of the tusk-mouthed alien, who, up close, smells like boiled peas.

  My stomach chooses now to get sensitive, and heaves.

  The alien looks down at me in dismay as I try to control my reaction.

  “Look, I hate to rush you along,” Ekan says to my new, hopefully only temporary (God please, please, please make him temporary!) owner, “But I need to be getting back before our takeoff, and I want to see where you’ll be keeping my favorite princess. She needs somewhere nice—soft, if you’ve got it to spare. She’s got a bellyful of eggs and her back is hurting,” he half-lies as he starts rubbing my lower back where, yes, it feels really good because in reality it DOES hurt. But a belly full of eggs, really?

  “Misfortunate thing,” the tusked guy says, tugging me away from Ekan’s touch and looking at me like he feels for my plight. As he should. I’ve spent the day being kept by Ekan. Anyone in my position deserves major pampering. “I’ve got a nice cot for you. If we move the men around, we might be able to upgrade you to a room with a cubby.”

  ...Move the men
around? Cot? Upgrade to a cubby?

  I step away from him and send Ekan a panicked, imploring look.

  “The best you’ve got for her is a cot?” Ekan asks, and to me, it doesn't look like he’s feigning his disdain. He reaches out and catches me by my other arm.

  “That’s probably more than my lifegiver got,” the alien answers good naturedly. He gives the arm he’s latched onto a little yank, pulling me just a hair closer to him, and a skosh further away from where I’d rather be.

  “And your kind wonders why you can’t keep females for long,” Ekan grouses in exasperation. He gestures to my stomach. “This female’s condition is delicate.”

  Overcome with curiosity, I pipe up and ask Ekan, “How does your kind give birth?” I wrap my hand around his wrist so we’re double-joined since he’s still clutching my arm, and ignore the part about the way the tusk-guy’s kind keeps women. I gather it’s not good. Ekan better get me out of here fast or else.

  Ekan seems amused by my question, giving my arm a squeeze. “Biirth?” he draws out the pronunciation like the word is alien to him. “Narra, I was spawned.”

  I scoff. “That explains so much.”

  The tusked alien starts walking us towards his ship, holding onto me who’s holding tight to Ekan, escorting us to where I’m to be kept. “This is unusual,” he says conversationally.

  Ekan grumbles. “After the last time I sold you something pretty, I’m taking no chances that it will be mistreated.”

  “That was a pleasure droid, not a woman.”

  While I’m using a mental ice scraper on my heart before it freezes and stops altogether at the alien’s words, Ekan is looking like he’s no longer in a joking mood at all. “Yes and after that, I wouldn’t trust your crew with an onion. Lead me to her new quarters.”

  Absurdly, I think, aliens have onions? How about that.

  There’s no more talking as the alien does exactly as Ekan directed. And when Ekan sees that my new digs are basically one step up from being a prison cell, he comes to a hard stop.

  This halts me right outside the doorway, because he’s still got ahold of one half of me. There, we examine the bars on the door, and the magnetic lock strip, and my worst fears are confirmed. Maybe Ekan’s too. A hair pin to get out of this situation is laughable; this is no regular bedroom with a flimsy tumbler door lock.

  My new owner does not look pleased at the way I’m still clinging to Ekan—and the way Ekan’s not letting go of me either—but before he can address it, a man swings down from a recessed bed in the wall of the creepy room. “Is that a live female?” he asks in shock.

  I recoil. Mostly due to the alien’s emphasis on the qualifier, live. I yank Ekan down to my mouth’s level and hiss into his ear, “Oh look, my comfy cot comes with a creepy cellmate! Get me out of this or I will haunt you when I’m dead!”

  Ekan pulls up and gives me an odd look. Of everything I said, he proves he’s got a skewed focus. “He’s not your mate-anything.” To the aliens, he gives them a grudging sort of nod. “You’ve upgraded to a holding cell?”

  I look around us. This is an upgrade? What did this dump look like before?

  “Kept losing things,” my new owner says, almost pointedly. “So we’ve made some changes so it’s harder for new things to get lost.”

  Ekan’s gaze snags on the panel next to the barred door, the one with an alarming number of glossy, hi-tech looking buttons that definitely, definitely do not appear like they’re as simple to operate as a pick and tumbler mechanism.

  Crap.

  I can't even LOOK at Ekan or I’m afraid I’ll burst into tears. Stupid hormones, always wigging out when you’re being sold to a new, scarier alien.

  “Nebulas born and ended!” Ekan exclaims like a madman, stepping forward to peer at the ceiling before hauling me backwards, the surprise change of the move allowing him to pull me right out of my new owner’s grasp. “Is this ceiling leaking? What do you have this under? The septic tank?”

  My buyer reaches for me, motioning for Ekan to let me go. “Eh, I believe that’s what’s above this.”

  My cellmate scratches his armpit. “Smells like it, I can tell you that much.”

  Ekan edges me to the side, and my buyer straightens, dropping his arm, and starts to sound a little impatient. “What of it?”

  Ekan takes a step back, towing me with him. “I was unaware of the conditions I was selling this Gryfala into, and I always reserve the right to renege—I’m calling on my right, right now. This is how you’d treat a princess? Shame on you!” He gives a decisive shake of his head. “Sale’s off.” Ekan uses his grip to guide me further behind him.

  I want to sag against his back in relief.

  The alien in front of us makes that desire die a quick death, makes my spine snap straight. “No welching, Ekan. I say sale’s still on. Just because you don’t approve of the way we treat our new acquisitions doesn’t give you the right to take my newest one away.” Fear makes my eyes feel too wide, and I can’t miss the alien’s hard smile directed at me—and Ekan. “Hand her over.”

  Instead, Ekan rolls his shoulders. “Let us leave unobstructed, and I may think about refunding your credits.”

  I poke Ekan in the back. Don’t antagonize them!

  Ekan reaches back and pats what he can easily reach—my stomach. To the room, he adds, “But if you don’t want to do this the easy way, I have a few toys I’ve wanted to test out. Let me know what you decide.”

  Two aliens appear behind us—that’d be facing me—blocking our escape. One of them mutters to the other, “Aww, hells. Don’t shoot if you can help it. This one’s a luck source.”

  The other one whispers. “Teveking Na’riths.”

  They both eye me speculatively.

  I circle Ekan, ending up glued to his hip so that my back is to the doorway and wall, and not an alien. Ekan acknowledges their appearance with a measured glare over his shoulder, then he slowly turns narrowed eyes to his opponent.

  “Like I said,” my new, reluctant-to-part-with-me owner, grates, “That female belongs to me now. Show yourself out, or we’ll escort you—but Ekan, consider this done.” His lips curl up over his jutting tusks. “No need for the killing look. You had to lose your game someday—how’s it feel to realize you’re too cocky?”

  With me resting against him, I feel Ekan do the opposite of what I expect him to do: he relaxes. “Too cocky?” I can hear his smirk, and his short laugh is smug. “You only think that because you’ve never seen me naked.” He hits a button on his belt.

  And all the men with weapons squeal, shriek, and scream as everything metal in the vicinity starts to smoke and melt—the bars on the door, the legs to the cot, the aliens’ guns—everything turns into shiny metallic liquid so it looks like the T-1000 model Terminator has exploded everywhere and is racing for the drains in the floor.

  ...There are drains on the floor? I eye them, super disturbed. Seems a little sinister. Then again, this is a cell. Evidently a smelly one located under a septic tank.

  I shudder against Ekan and fit myself under his arm and against his ribs. Gah, this place is giving me the willies.

  My tusked-owner’s hand falls away from me, and he collapses to the floor, groaning.

  Ekan folds himself almost in half to get a better look at the toy on his belt as he gasp-whoops, “That was MAGNIFICENT!” He straightens and almost absently remarks, “Prow complained that it didn’t perform.” He roll-shrugs. “I didn’t seem to have any trouble getting it turned on.”

  I step around him, breathing fast. “Now’s not the time to brag about your tool. Can we get out of here?”

  “Give a man a moment to bask, narra.”

  Footsteps start clattering down the stairs, and Ekan doesn’t hesitate—he barely stops chuckling from his little quip—he shoots them.

  His smile mostly disappears as he snaps into a serious mode, quickly cutting the men around us a cursory glance. A couple of them are still making terrible moaning
noises.

  “What did the weapon do to them?” I ask, my stomach pitching, maybe in reaction to the sounds.

  “These are Phytors. They ingest a large amount of heavy metals in their diet. So when my tool,” he gives me a meaningful smirk, “heated the metals around us to the boiling points, their insides turned into a mess. It’s anybeing’s guess on what sort of condition they’ll be in after this, but if any of them survive, we’ll likely resell them to an outfit who employs Phytors to act as living accumulators for metal-contaminated sites.”

  There’s that word ‘living’ getting thrown around again. My teeth clench at how indifferent and dismissive these aliens treat sentient beings.

  Ekan reaches for my hand and holds it in a gallant fashion. “I hate to disappoint you, but I’ve decided against selling you for the rest of this rotation.”

  “Are you trying to be funny?” I stare up at him. I want to blast at him for all the unnecessary risk he took with me, with my baby—but more thudding on the stairs alerts us to the presence of additional crew.

  Ekan sighs, takes a round disk out of his pocket, and tells me, “Cover your ears.”

  Terrified, I do what he says—and when he hits a button, all the men—the ones around us, and the ones on the stairs—stop moving, going completely motionless.

  Ekan gestures that I can take my hands away from my ears, which, by the way, doesn’t seem like a very fool-proof method of ear protection against whatever instrument of destruction that he’s wielding. “They’re dead?” I ask in horror.

  Ekan makes a face. “Would you rather I’d tickled them to the floor? We’ve made enemies, narra. We can’t have them gunning for us.”

  “We? WE? You! It’s your fault we’re even here!”

  He takes my hand again, his eyes scanning my face. “Kayzeh, don’t upset yourself. If you panic prettily every time I kill someone, it’s going to make me a lot harder.”

  I blink up at him. “You mean it’s going to make your life harder?”

  He rolls his shoulders. “Probably that too.” He looks around, and pulls a face. “This is probably not the best time to tell you. I’d rather wait til you’re in a more receptive state, but when you get upset, my cock starts imagining all the ways we can soothe you.”