by Alana Khan
We’re both sitting on the bed, our backs against the wall. She leans up, shovels most of her food onto my plate, then plays vids as if she didn’t hear me.
“You’re ignoring me?”
“Just ignoring your shit, Dax. You’ve got a lot rolling around in your head right now.” She shrugs.
I eat and inspect her face while she watches vids. I wonder what things were like between her and the other Dax, the Dax who disappeared.
“Computer, stop vids.” I wait for her to look at me. “Tell me about us.”
She steals a blanket off the foot of the bed and lugs the comfortable blue chair nearby so we’re facing each other. After dragging the blanket up to her chin, she rests her heels on the edge of the chair and takes a deep breath.
“I was kind of shitty to you for a while… for a long while, really. The good little girl in me wants to gloss over that. Who doesn’t like to portray themselves in a saintly light? But you like honesty, so honesty you shall get.”
It’s hard to imagine I did some of the things she described. Reciting the Thracian Love Poem? In front of all those gladiators? I must have endured merciless teasing for weeks afterward. I’m glad she mentioned it, though. Dear Gods, I must have loved this female with all my heart.
“But things changed a week ago. I realize I love you now. Can I show you something? Are you up for a short walk?”
I nod, wincing a bit as I rise. I don’t bother throwing on a loincloth. Certainly this won’t shock her —I can’t imagine I’ve changed that much. We amble to the females’ wing and I follow her into her room.
She opens the drawer to the shrine she told me about. “I wanted you to see it. To understand the reality of it. To know that I did what I needed to do to be open to fully give my heart to you.”
I feel weak in the knees and grab onto her shoulder. She helps me into the chair, a twin of the one she sat on a moment ago in my room.
My mind spins, throwing me a swift patchwork of pictures from my life. Young Dax, a lonely slave. Older Dax, a lonely slave who fought well enough to earn an occasional reward of an hoara with a sex worker.
Then there is a blank part of the jumble, the year I have no memory of. Now I watch the moments I’ve shared with Dahlia today. I couldn’t believe the lusty, loving looks she gave me were real. I attributed them to being the product of good acting.
But I look into her eyes right now. That look is still there. This female loves me. I may not believe it. But I want to. She said she did what was necessary to be open to love me. Maybe I need to follow her lead.
“You’re at the finish line of a race I haven’t started yet, Dahlia.
“You know what was more shocking than being told I have amnesia? You telling me I took you to the slave pens on Aeon II. The Dax sitting before you cannot imagine going there voluntarily, or allowing any living being to go with me, and I certainly can’t imagine opening myself up to have you see my weakness and humiliation.”
To add to my shame, my eyes are watering. It seems I have no control over anything right now.
“But I brought you there, of that I have no doubt. You’ve spoken the truth. There’s no way you could know about the initials unless you witnessed them.
“The other Dax, the one I can’t remember, must have loved you with all his heart. But I don’t. You understand that Dahlia?”
Her face pinches in anguish as she nods. Tears slide down her face.
I may not understand it, but my life has changed. An opportunity has dropped into my lap. I rarely allowed myself the luxury, but sometimes, late at night, I imagined a female who wasn’t paid by the hoara. I pictured a female with soft skin and softer eyes who looked at me the very way Dahlia’s looking at me right now.
I wonder what it would be like to connect with a female in that way. And I decide I’m brave enough to take the risk.
“But I could try.” I pause to make certain she heard me. “I could try to remember. No. No, that’s not right. We could start over. I waited for you to catch up to my feelings once. Now I’m asking you to wait for me.”
She slides onto my lap, sits sideways, and tucks her head under my chin. Her arms snake around my neck and she hugs me for long moments. “I’ll wait for you Dax. I’ll wait as long as you want. And…” she breathes deeply and I feel her chin quivering, “and if you decide you don’t want to catch up with me. If you don’t believe you… want me, just let me know and I won’t bother you anymore.”
I try to lift her up; I want to drag her to my room and keep her in my bed. But I’m weak as a muscillus pup and fall back hard into the chair.
“Is it too forward of me to ask you to sleep in my room?”
She laughs, the first genuine smile I’ve seen on her face since she realized I had no idea who she was. “This? You’re asking this when earlier today you ordered me to suck your cock? You’re funny, Dax. No, it’s not too forward.”
She pulls a pillowcase off a pillow, throws half the stuff in her dresser into it, then dances to the door. “Whatcha waiting for?”
Fun. Dahlia’s fun. What a revelation.
Chapter Twelve
Dahlia
We’re living together. And if I thought the old Dax was a horndog, well this Dax wants to have sex ten times more. But we’re not. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Well, who am I kidding? If I let my hormones dictate, we’d never leave the bed.
But I don’t let them dictate. I realized from the start that having sex without love with Dax would eviscerate me. If he walks away, decides he doesn’t want me, it will break me. I won’t be able to handle it. Just those few hours where I thought I’d lost him made me insane.
And trust me, he wasn’t happy about the no-sex decision. He says he still doesn’t understand it, although I’m certain he does. I offered to sleep in my room, but he asked me to stay. So there’s enough sexual tension between us to cut with a knife.
I explained the concept of dating to the big guy, which was met with a disgusted ‘harrumph’. I think the negativity was more in response to the no-sex rule than dissatisfaction with the actual dating idea.
His headache is gone, so he’s back in the ludus every day —lifting weights. Dr. Drayke forbade any sparring for another few days.
He’s in the middle of three different projects in the cargo hold at the moment and loves when I join him to help.
“I’ve only made you one pair of shoes, Dahlia? For a male who loved you, I was very lazy.”
Right now he’s designed a beautiful pair of fur and suede mukluks. When we overthrew our slave masters, there was a cornucopia of contraband in the hold including illegal, protected hides and furs.
I figure what the heck, those animals are dead already, might as well have him make me something fabulous with them.
“So Dax, these boots will be amazing when you finish. Where, exactly, do you envision me wearing them?”
“You never know Dahlia. It’s always good to be prepared.”
Kneeling, he has one knee on the floor, one foot on the floor. He looks up at me from using his awl to make holes to stitch by hand. Maybe it’s the light, or the angle of his head, but that look just melted me. It was almost as if he likes me.
“I never asked, but where did you learn how to do this?”
“Gladiators are the lowest of the low. We fend for ourselves most of the time. If we don’t learn how to sew and cook and make things, we’d never have clothes, shoes, or food. Come here, take your shoes off.”
He puts the leather sole on the floor near him and has me step on it, making certain it will fit me perfectly.
“Here.” He puts the other sole on his bent thigh where he’s squatting and motions for me to put my foot on it. His rough hands slide down my foot from toes to heel, then encircle my ankle. He caresses my calf so slowly, so tenderly it captures my full attention.
I let my eyelids flutter closed as I focus on his simple touch through my leggings. He pauses at my knee, waiting, I assume, for me to
tell him to stop. When no scold escapes my lips, his hands roam higher, up my thigh.
One hand rests on my hip, the other is half an inch from my core, which is already dripping from his proximity.
“I remember how you taste, Dahlia,” his voice rumbles with lust. In my mind I order his hand to move an inch to the left. I wait for him to cup my sex. I’m so amped up and ready to go I think I could come with the slightest pressure. But he’s waiting for me to ask, or give permission, or, God help me, beg —because I’m considering it.
Then I shake my head out of my lust-induced haze, open my eyes and lean back. That was all the message he needed to stop, chastely slide his hands back toward my feet and break the tension by saying, “Abrax Confit merits a very close second place —in taste.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think this was my Dax. The old Dax who knew me and loved me and shared his soul with me. But this is the new Dax who likes me and is making me a pair of mukluks I will never wear. This Dax didn’t recite the Thracian Love Poem to me in front of his friends, or in a dungeon full of snakes for that matter.
“How’s your other project going?” I pretend nonchalance, as if he can’t tell my pulse is pounding in my nether regions, as if he can’t smell my arousal.
“I’ve glued the remains of many wooden pallets together and planed them down. Now comes the hard part. I have to draw the design and start carving.”
“Can I see?”
“Nope.” He shakes his head. “Wouldn’t be fair. It’s a present for everyone on board. A surprise. You’ll have to be surprised along with everyone else.”
“Okay, so don’t show me, but tell me. What is it?”
“There will be a big unveiling when I’m done. It’s kind of a thank you for coming back for me on the Gaming Station and for allowing me to stay on board.”
His brown head is bent over the boot he’s sewing, so he doesn’t see me launch at him. I squat next to him, on my knees, my ass sitting on my heels. Reaching out, I grab his face and pull it toward mine.
“Don’t you dare, Dax. Just because you don’t remember how you helped in the revolt, or all you’ve done since then, don’t you dare disbelieve it really happened. You helped overthrow our masters. You fought dangerous matches to earn the credits to keep us flying. You belong here as much as anyone. You don’t have to earn your place. You’ve already earned it.”
Dax
Her eyes are sparkling. She’s passionate, passionate about me. I’ve never had anyone care before. This can’t be faked, it’s real. I want to repay her. Let her know I appreciate her feelings. The only way I know how to do that is to let my cock do the talking. And she’s told me she doesn’t want that —not from me.
It strikes me that she’s in love with two males she can never have. Larry is a million milles away. She can’t have him. She’ll never see him again. And Dax is dead. The Dax she loves is dead. He’s gone and I don’t know how to retrieve him.
I realize down to the depths of my soul that she’ll never want me like she wanted him. She’ll never love me like she loved him. I’ll always be second best. My chest feels hollow.
I want someone looking at me like this —the way she’s looking at me right now. But I want it to be genuine. With her it’s a sham. I’m just a replica of the male she really loves.
How do I tell her I want her to move back into her own cabin? She just made such a sweet, passionate speech, she’ll never understand my rejection. Bad timing.
This has to stop. She wants me to be a dead man, and the closer we become, the more this will wind up hurting us both.
I’ll wait. Now is not the time, today might not be the day. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll explain the folly of her plan and escort her back to her cabin and begin sparring in the ludus.
Free males can fight in gladiator games. I could make living arrangements, set up some matches and leave the ship so my presence doesn’t torture her. She can make a shrine to the real Dax, the one she loves. She doesn’t love me.
Dahlia
We’re eating in the dining hall. Our new ship is so much better than the one we had. Even though we repeatedly changed our call letters and re-painted our name —which costs a freaking fortune by the way —we’d been busted several times.
Thanks to Dax and a few others, we earned enough credits for this new ship. It’s not as well-armed, but it’s bigger and a lot nicer. The other ship had bad vibes. We had all been imprisoned in cells down below. There’s nothing here but a blank slate. We can create new memories.
Dax is next to me, shoveling in his food. He hasn’t said much since that sexual moment in the hold. I’m thinking maybe I want to rescind my ‘no-sex’ edict. I really like him. And, as he already so tactfully mentioned, he knows how I taste.
He gets up to leave and when I give him a questioning look he says, “Headache,” and leaves.
“Wait, I’ll go with you.” I scrape my plate and stride down the hallway after him. He’s hustling fast and staying ten steps ahead. I can see this has nothing to do with a headache.
When we’re behind our closed door I waste no time asking, “What’s this really about? Not your head, right?”
Jaw tensing, he shakes his head but says nothing.
I retrace what happened and realize this is about that sexual scene in the hold. He’s a lusty, horny guy and we’ve been sleeping in the same bed under a touch prohibition. He might have been hurrying to have a moment alone with his hand in his own bathroom.
“Dax.” I close the few steps between us and put my palm to his cheek. My sex ban seems ridiculous and instead of making things better, it’s made things worse. It wouldn’t exactly be torture to make love.
I breach the distance between us and brush his lips with mine. It’s an offer, an invitation. He can reject it if he wants.
He stands, paralyzed, his eyes focused on the corner of the ceiling; he’s obviously deep in thought.
“What do you want?” Does he sound hurt? God, I’ve messed this up.
I sink onto the edge of the bed, not certain my legs can hold me, and put my face in my hands. Good question, what do I want?
I want the old Dax, the one who looked at me like I hung the moon. The male who braved derision from his friends just to let me know he was interested.
I remember that moment in Asher’s dungeon when water was pouring into our cell. He put me on his shoulders to keep me breathing, then apologized that he couldn’t help me after he drowned. He was sad he couldn’t help me after he was dead!
And I want the look in his eyes. The one that said he cherished me.
I glance over at Dax and see he hasn’t moved a muscle. He’s simply staring at me, waiting for my answer. This male always had so much patience with me.
“If I told you I like you, and I want to fall in love with you, but we couldn’t have sex for a year, what would you say?” I ask.
It’s his time to think. He closes his eyes for a long moment, dips his head, and scrubs his face with his hand.
“I’d say I’ll wait.” His face is tight. “But I wouldn’t relish it.”
I laugh. It’s so Dax.
Then a darkly evil thought flies through my brain and lands; it won’t go away, just nags and taunts until I blurt it out.
“If I asked you to get on your knees, right there,” I point to the floor at my feet, “what would you say?”
He doesn’t hesitate, he complies, his gaze never leaving mine.
Holy mother of God, it feels like he plucked my clit.
“Why did you do that?”
“You asked me to.”
“Yeah, but why? You wouldn’t do it if Zar asked.”
“I want to please you.”
Another pull down below and my core clutches itself in a frenzy of need.
“Would you recite the Thracian Love Poem again, in front of everyone?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve mentioned it several times. It’s obv
iously important to you.”
I look into his eyes. It’s not exactly the same as it was before, but the poor guy’s only known me a handful of days. Dax is in there. This is my Dax, only a slightly different version —Dax 2.0. I love this guy!
And he’s kneeling in front of me, and my body’s humming with arousal, and I don’t want to wait another minute to feel him inside me. Well, maybe a few minutes.
“If I asked you to put your hands behind your head?”
